Sealing Salientia - Chapter 38: Home - Author: PenSmoke

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.

Previously on Sealing Salientia: While there were some signs of panic on Jiraiya's face, they disappeared a moment after Tsunade's statement. The anxious look was replaced by a combination of relief and annoyance. "By Log, he has to get into trouble everywhere doesn't he?"

Konoha
Wednesday, October 14th, Year 71

"Naruto."

His groggy mind didn't want to process that his name was being called.

"Naruto!"

The stimuli of the voice calling out was an annoyance, one he did not feel like dealing with. Mentally, he ignored the call and tried to resume his slumber.

"NARUTO!"

This time, the voice was accompanied by a slap on the face, as the calloused palm of his father figure contacted his cheek. Unable to hide a reaction from such a rude awakening, Naruto opened his eyes and clutched at his reddened face. He looked up angrily at the eyes of his father figure, which contained a mix of annoyance and concern.

"There you are. Time to wake up sleepyhead."

Naruto contemplated trying to slap him back. While the idea had merit, he knew that he would only land the blow if Jiraiya let him. That defeated the point of even trying. It didn't relieve any anger if they were just letting you do it. He relaxed his tensed arm, giving up on the thought. Instead, he turned his point of focus trying to think back to what had happened. He had been walking around the entrance of the Senju clan compound when he had… He couldn't remember much outside of some flowers.

He decided to speak up. "What happened?"

"You fell victim to the garden trap. The Senju compound has quite a few defenses on it, one of which simply knocks you out and lets them come and collect you at their convenience. Be thankful you walked into that one, several of the others are much less forgiving." Jiraiya spoke as the man let him go. Thankfully, even though he was still a couple feet in the air when Jiraiya released him, his muscles still worked normally, and he quickly landed in a ninja pose to distribute his weight and cushion the landing.

Tsunade's voice entered his line of thought, "I guess if you'll be living here, I'll have to teach you all about them. Here. Poke your finger on this." She offered an outstretched vine that had a couple of sharp thorns on it. Naruto shot a quick look to Jiraiya, who nodded. He obliged, burying the thorn into his thumb deep enough to draw blood. Doing his best to mask the grimace of pain, he removed his digit shortly after. The puncture wound was already practically healed over by the time he even looked at it. He noticed the odd looks given to him by both Tsunade and the other boy present, who looked familiar. After a second, he recognized the chunin instructor from his throwing lessons a couple of days ago.

Ignoring the looks, he quickly turned his hand over so that the puncture wond was facing downwards and out of their line of sight. "What did you have me do that for?"

Tsunade offered a different vine over to Iruka, who proceed to pierce his thumb as well. She gestured to the surrounding area, which had dozens of vines hanging over the inside of a several foot high white perimeter wall. The vines hung haphazardly in a tangle of green and brown across every square inch of the wall. The ones that had just pricked and drawn blood glowed lightly red, before forming a small capsule-like sac on the woody growth.

"These vines were created by my grandfather, the First Hokage. They are linked to our sentry systems. If you aren't marked as a known friendly by the vines, you will be targeted as you attempt to enter. Think of it as me signing you in as guests to the compound. Welcome to your new home, Naruto. And Iruka, welcome to your new classroom."

Naruto shrugged. That made sense. If this was the house of a Hokage, it would likely have a lot of secrets and would need to be protected. He looked around to see what his new house was like. It was a rather traditional house, nothing overtly fancy. The exterior was mostly made of wooden logs and slats, shaped in a loosely rectangular fashion for the walls, and a curved, slanted roof. There was an expansive garden area, with dozens of lush plants and trees, bathing everything in a scent of nature, which was a welcome relief.

A simple wooden door slid open to reveal the inside. Multiple plush couches lined the inside of a general living space, with several smaller rooms lying offset of the main room. Rich wooden tones lined the décor of the room, and the scent was as if he was back in the deep woods of mount Myoboku, without the notes of bugs and swamp. He could see a large kitchen at the rear of the living space, and a set of stairs that seemed to spiral in both directions at the same time, made out of what looked to be a singular tree root, grown in place.

Tsunade led the way inside, followed by the rest of the party shortly thereafter. The buxom blonde pointed to one of the doors. "Jiraiya, that'll be your sleeping area." She pointed to the one next to it "Naruto, that can be yours." Naruto noted at least 4 rooms like the ones indicated that appeared to be bedrooms, to which he was excited. He usually slept in a shared space with either Jiraiya or the toads. His own space was a concept he was only just starting to conceive of after being in Konoha, and he was looking forward to exploring it further.

He excitedly rushed over to the room and threw open the sliding door. The interior of the room was small and plain, with nothing in there for furnishing at all currently. Obviously, it hadn't been set-up for company, but that was perfectly fine with Naruto. He slid a finger down one of the sealing scrolls that he quickly had yanked from a backpack, and out popped his camping gear. He tossed a sleeping bag in the middle of the room, arranging it so that his head was close to an exterior window, and placed his pack in the position of a pillow. It was just like sleeping outside, with which he was quite familiar.

He could faintly hear Tsunade talking to Iruka about a medical lab, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was too busy putting his sealing scrolls on a shelving structure on the wall, arranging them how he wanted. He reached deep into a pocket on the backpack and pulled out a small stuffed frog plushie. It had been bright orange once upon a time, though it was now faded with use. One of his most closely guarded treasures, Jiraiya had bought the small plush toy for him one night years ago at a festival they encountered while traveling. Jiraiya had told him that he had held onto it for several days straight, refusing to let go. Gently placing the figure on the highest spot he could reach within the room, he patted his 'Gama-chan' on the head, assured it had the best view.

After spending a few minutes pulling out things, he became aware of a snuffling sound. A soft brush on the back of his ankle startled him and he spun around and looked down to find something unexpected. A small pig, wearing a pearl necklace and a jacket, was poking around his feet, sniffing loudly. A soft 'oink' noise rose up from the creature and the snuffling continued. Naruto looked around confusedly to find a dark-haired woman standing in the doorway chuckling softly. He straightened up his back and quickly introduced himself.

"Hello miss. I'm Naruto. Who are you?"

The woman laughed lightly. "Oh yes, Naruto. I've heard all about you from Lady Tsunade. You're all she has spoken about today. You made quite the impression on her, I guess. It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Shizune. And that is Tonton."

Naruto smiled brightly. "Hi Shizune! Hi Tonton!" He stooped down to try and pet the pig, who scurried away, oinking at him. "It's very nice to meet you. Do you live here too?"

Shizune knelt down and snapped her fingers, causing Tonton to stop oinking and bounded up into her arms. She stood back up with the slightly offended looking pig carefully held in place, likely to prevent it from jumping out. "Yes, I live here with Lady Tsunade. I hear that you're going to be moving in with us."

Naruto beamed at this. "Yeah! Pops and I are going to be living here for a while. At least, that's what he told me. This place is pretty cool. I love that it smells like the woods!"

The dark-haired woman motioned for the white-haired child to come join her in the living room. Naruto followed her out from his room, just in time to see Tsunade and Iruka walk down the stairs, and hear the closing of Jiraiya going into his own bedroom area. They each took a seat on a separate couch.

"Tell me a little about yourself, Naruto. I'd like to get to know you if we're going to be living together."

With that, Naruto burst off into a long discussion of everything that he could think of telling her. From living and training on Mount Myoboku, talking about seals, his new found love of ramen, his developing rivalry with Sasuke, and everything else that he could think of that wasn't a secret. Shizune paid attention and smiled the entire time, just listening to him speak.

After he ran out of things to say, which had probably taken several minutes, he noticed that every other adult was back in the room, just listening to him go on and on. He quieted down quickly, face turning a lovely shade of pink.

Tsunade spoke up "Well, Naruto, I'd like to give you a tour of your new living space, if you're quite finished talking the ears off of Shizune." Naruto's face turned much redder as he heard quiet chuckles from Jiraiya and Iruka. The snow topped child quickly rose from the couch and ran over to Tsunade to follow her as she showed him where everything was.

A quick tour of the house revealed it to be fairly expansive, far more so than he would have guessed by looking at it from the outside. Upstairs was a storage area, which he was told he could use under supervision. Downstairs was a training area, though much smaller than the Academy's. He was told that he could use this area any time he felt like, so long as he cleaned up after himself.

It also contained several dangers that he would not have thought of. There was an area in the basement with a giant steel door which was marked Medical Lab. He was instructed to never go in there unless accompanied by Tsunade herself. A small greenhouse outside was marked with the symbol of a skull and two crossed bones, and he was warned about the medicinal plants in there. Several of which were toxic to even just handle, and many lethal if eaten or used incorrectly. He was advised that Shizune or Tsunade were to be present if he wanted to enter there. Finally, they arrived back at the living area where Shizune, Iruka and Jiraiya was chatting.

Tsunade's voice rang out. "Iruka, I expect you to be here at 8 am sharp on weekends, starting next Saturday. I'll have a training regimen fully drawn up for you personally, and we'll be ready to go by then."

Iruka quickly stood up, "Yes, Tsunade-sama. I look forward to training under you." He bowed deeply, and then took it as his cue to leave. He addressed the remaining occupants in the room. "Jiraiya-sama and Shizune, it was nice to meet you. Naruto, good to see you again. I look forward to seeing you all in the future." After a quick wave and an exit, he left.

Jiraiya quickly excused himself as well. "It's been a long week already and it isn't even close to over yet. I'm going to hit the hay early, so help me Log." Tsunade and Shizune both nodded and the toad sage quickly disappeared into his room. Naruto knew that from personal experience that the man would be asleep within seconds if he wanted to be, so there was little point in trying to go talk to him now.

"Naruto, would you like to go to bed as well? You have studies at the Academy in the morning, do you not?" Shizune soft-spoken voice reminded him of his own duties that awaited him.

He quickly thought of all the things that he had already wanted to start on, from stringing seal activations together, to spending time with Kurama to learn more about energy and chakra, to practicing his meditation to be able to stay aware of his surroundings, and the studies that he needed to do for class. There was such a long list that he figured he might as well get started on them.

"That sounds great. Good night! It was nice to meet you Shizune. You too Lady Tsunade." He stood up, walking quickly over towards the door Jiraiya had disappeared through less than a minute ago. "Night to you too, ya grumpy old man." A grumbling sound suspiciously close to a curse word answered him.

He smiled and waved at the two women before opening and closing his door. While he wasn't intent on going to sleep just yet, he figured there was no better time to start on his various projects than the present.

AN: That feels so much better. Still a bit shorter than my previous normal length, but there is a bit of a time skip before the next scene, and I didn't want to combine the events across two different time spans into a single chapter if it didn't need to happen. Naruto is settling into his place in Konoha. New events are unfolding and setting up for the future.

Thank you to everyone still reading this!

Constructive criticism welcome, please let me know what you think!