Naruto woke up groggily. Something soft was covering him and he felt warm and comfortable, except for the bandages he could feel around his head, pressing two plushy things against his ears.
His eyes were caked with nightly mucus and the blond took a second to clear them before he blinked.
He was in a hospital room, that much he could tell by the white walls and the heavy smell of medication floating in the air. Naruto hummed, the sound echoing strangely in his skull and barely reaching his ears. He then smacked his dry lips open and close; his tongue felt bloated like a slug had decided his mouth would be a fine home and died once settled. His throat was raspy and itchy, begging for water.
He swivelled his head left and right and offered a quick prayer when he saw a large glass full of water with a straw. With trembling hands that weighed as much as lead, he carefully took the glass and rose it to his face.
After a second of hesitation, he took a sniff, closing his eyes to focus on any possible shifty smell. Naruto detected nothing and shrugged. He wasn't good enough with poison to detect one that didn't have any odour and right now, he was pretty certain that he would die of thirst sooner than from poisoning
Taking the straw between his lips, it took three strong suction to be done with it and Naruto sighed his satisfaction.
"Ah, Uzumaki-san, you're awake," someone said in a muffled voice.
The blond tensed minutely and turned his head to see a nurse in the uniform of the Senju Military Hospital. He relaxed.
"I can't hear you well," Naruto said, for some reason feeling like an idiot as soon as he said it.
The nurse gave him a practised smile. "Yes, your ear-drums were ruptured. They… Are fine now," she explained with slight hesitation. The blond could hear the unsaid "somehow" and guess the woman's unease. "But we put some protection around your ears to avoid any complication, just in case." She smiled again.
Naruto breathed in deeply and forced a smile on his own. "Thank you," he said, bowing his head slightly.
"You're welcome. Do you feel strong enough to see someone?"
Just as she said that, Naruto's stomach rumbled like a hungry animal, which caused the blond's face to colour a remarkable shade of red. "If it's not too much to ask, I'd like something to eat. But sure, I can see people. I feel… Fine. A bit tired but fine," he informed the nurse, who nodded.
"Good." She turned towards the door. "Please come in Hokage-sama," she invited with a deep bow.
Naruto's eyes brightened as his surrogate grandfather entered his room and his fake smile was replaced by a genuine one. "Hello, Jiji!" He exclaimed, probably too loudly given the old man's wince.
"Hello, Naruto-kun." He answered the blond with a smile before he turned towards the nurse. "Would you be so kind as to procure this young shinobi a meal? He is coming back from a strenuous mission where he saved three comrades and I bet he is famished."
The nurse's eyes widened and she stole a glance at Naruto before she bowed once again. The Hokage had phrased as a question but it was out of politeness. "Of course Hokage-sama." She disappeared, closing the door behind her.
The Hokage neared the bed and took a seat on the only chair available. Naruto's smile dimmed a bit.
"That was nice of you, Jiji."
"What was my boy?"
Naruto gestured towards the door. "What you said." He explained to the Hokage who looked at him in fault puzzlement. "About me saving Team Gai…"
The blond's eyes widened in alarm and he jumped upright, the covers of his bed already half-way on the ground. "Team Gai! How are they?! Are they-"
The Hokage's hand fell on the boy's shoulder and gently, but firmly, pushed him back in the bed. "Calm yourself, my boy, they are fine. You were found by Team Asuma yesterday in the late morning as they were en-route for a routine patrol of our south sector. They immediately called for help and you are in this hospital since yesterday evening."
Naruto groaned. Team Asuma meant Ino. The blond hoped the Yamanaka wouldn't be insufferable about finding Naruto unconscious in the woods. His Jiji mussed his blond hair and gave him a thin smile.
"Team Gai is fine, nothing more than chakra exhaustion and a few bad cuts. They were all seen too and I think they are all up and fed and young Rock Lee is quite energetic already, much to his doctor's distress."
Naruto chuckled; he could see the green-clad genin trying to do push-ups against the nurses' recommendation.
"I've already heard their report, now I'd like to hear yours Naruto-kun, if you feel up for it."
Naruto's gaze unfocused for a second before he breathed in deeply and nodded. "Yeah. Sure."
For at least an hour, interrupted by the nurse coming back with a generously garnished tray for Naruto to enjoy and a genuine smile, the blond told the tale of his first C-rank mission to the Hokage. When he was done, the blond felt exhausted, as if he had lived through everything he had just endured once again, yet it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders.
"How do you feel?" His grandfather asked cautiously. "About your first life taken?"
Naruto kept silent for a while, his mind churning to put words on his feelings.
"I dunno really," he shrugged. "I don't feel guilty. At least I don't think so. It was him or us and I'm glad it was him." The blond shrugged again. "That's what they teach at the Academy ya know?" He took a deep mock voice and pushed his lips in a pout. "By killing the opposition, you protect yourself, your comrades and most importantly, the mission. You accomplish your duty." He recited. "But there is this… I don't know. I feel gross? Yeah…" Naruto muttered, unsure, his eyes prickling and misty. "Yeah, I feel gross. It feels gross."
He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and breathed deeply. "I wanted to… To kill the shit out of him you know? Like… He was gonna kill us and then I felt fear but then…" The blond's voice died. "Then I felt anger. The kind I never felt before, not even against the meanest villagers." Naruto shook his head and spoke lowly. "That wasn't anger that was fury. Cold." He muttered. "And I killed him, the sack of shit."
He was startled by the Hokage's sigh and looked up to see his surrogate grandfather look at him with sympathy in his eyes.
"It is…" The Hokage hesitated before his gaze firmed up. "It is good that you don't feel guilty. Killing is what a shinobi does, it is what a soldier does. Duty is the frame through which we judge the morality of our action and by saving your and your comrades' life, you did nothing but your duty." The old man nodded, more to himself than to Naruto as if satisfied with he had just said. "However," he continued. "I'm relieved you find it gross. Some feel pleasure at taking the life of another and those are the people we need to be wary about. For more often than not, they deem duty to be far too restrictive."
The old man squeezed the blond's shoulder. "And don't feel bad about wanting to kill this guy so badly. You were angry and worried for your comrades. I know I felt that same fury numerous times in the battlefield in the past when one of my teammates was in danger."
Naruto nodded, swallowed and exhaled a long sigh. "Okay." He smiled as his surrogate grandfather. "Thanks, Jiji. I feel better."
"You're welcome my boy," answered the Kage with a warm smile and a pat on the blond's head. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to my duties. You should be released tomorrow morning, according to the doctors. Ibiki is waiting for you eagerly."
For some reason, that piece of news made Naruto go pale and the blond boy swallowed nervously. "Sure, haha, I can't wait."
"Good. See you next-"
"Wait, Jiji!"
"Mh?"
"Can I know… What are you planning to do about the situation Jiji?"
The Kage's smile fell and his lips thinned to a fine line. He seemed to consider how to answer for a while before he looked back at Naruto and sighed.
"I know you won't like what I'll be telling you but we need to act extremely carefully. There was an enemy shinobi deep within the Land of Fire hailing from an unknown village, one of the Daimyo's governor is corrupted and we have possibly a spy in our ranks. I will, however, act as fast as I reasonably can. That I promise you." The Hokage explained solemnly before he gave Naruto a slight tilt of his head and closed the room's door.
Naruto could only stare at the door, the Hokage's words, or rather those he had not said, looping in his head. He felt guilt gnaw at his inside and offered a quick prayer to whatever gods were possibly listening.
He hoped Shinji and his family would be okay.
Before the day's end, he received the visit of Team Gai, who brought him a basket full of fruits and their thanks. Lee spoke of Naruto's youthful actions against the enemy, Tenten kissed him on the cheek and Neji nodded.
The Hyuuga nodded his acknowledgement. Naruto nodded back, gave Lee totally over-the-top and fictional details on how he had actually defeated bat-guy and blushed at Tenten's present, much to the girl's amusement.
Naruto almost asked them to stay longer when they departed and felt their absence keenly as guilt started gnawing again on his entrails.
He had a fitful night.
"Hokage-sama told me you had your first kill?"
"Hello Ibiki-sensei, I'm happy to see you too."
"Brat. How do you feel?"
Naruto sighed but offered a smile at the gruff-looking man nonetheless. "I'm fine." He said. "Really I am!" He insisted before the doubtful look Ibiki was giving him. "It's not an experience I'd like to reiterate immediately, as I'm sure it's bad for my heart, but it's okay. I'm okay."
"Good." Ibiki smiled. "I'm proud of you, student of mine." Naruto perked up at that. "You accomplished your mission and kept your comrades safe. You acted as well as you could, given your experience. Overall, from the crossed reports, it was a satisfying performance." The blond positively beamed. "Which means we can get to second gear."
Naruto paled. Ibiki grinned dangerously.
The days that followed saw Ibiki up his game once again in a renewed attempt to drive his genin mad. When the T&I wasn't mentally torturing his apprentice, Naruto was left to his own device with the same objective still: beating the obstacle course record time. This time, however, Ibiki additionally tasked the blond to come up with new chakra control exercises, telling him that discovering clever ways to use one's chakra could sometimes lead to developing jutsu or smart uses.
And indeed, by the end of the week after his return, Naruto discovered how to silence his steps using a little stream of chakra radiating from all over his body. In between two uneventful C-ranked missions, the blond explored his newfound ability. Combining the technique with the tree- and water-walking exercise proved an excellent way to work on his control over his chakra. For another week and through a fourth C-rank, the blond struggled to manage the two different flows of chakra until he achieved a level he deemed satisfactory.
His improved control allowed him, after a fifth C-rank patrol in the company of Team Kurenai - and as payment for the trashing he had inflicted to her team almost a month ago - to trap Ibiki in a genjutsu one fine morning. For all of one second, the jounin stood frozen in place. Just enough time for a pellet containing orange paint to explode right upon him. When Ibiki broke out of the illusion, the jounin complimented his apprentice for a job well done then decided it was time to drill the blond in the benefits of retreating before an overwhelming opponent.
Naruto finished the chase with his head half-shaved as punishment for not fleeing fast enough.
Naruto was currently sitting in front of a shogi board. Across him was Shikamaru, whose face was marred by a preoccupied frown.
Normally, Naruto should have been training with the Hokage today but seeing as the old man was too busy, he had asked Asuma to take care of Naruto after giving a scroll to the boy. The blond was happy to be able to spend time with his almost-uncle, especially given that he needed more pointers on how to better transform his base chakra into wind chakra.
And especially, especially given that the scroll the Hokage had left him with was about the clone jutsu.
The clone jutsu. The very jutsu Naruto couldn't, for the life of him, do. The jutsu Naruto had failed for his graduation, which had, in turn, kickstarted the Forbidden Scroll incident. That jutsu.
Well, the Hokage wanted him to be able to do it. For what reasons, Naruto didn't know because all the scroll said was that mastering the simple clone jutsu would have interesting implications. The blond was sure he would have been more motivated if the "interesting implications" had been stated in the letter but no: his Jiji had simply signed the scroll with a smiling face that was sticking out their tongue.
So here he was, reading the scroll with one distracted eye, playing shogi with the other all the while trying to focus his chakra along the blade of a kunai.
Nature transformation of base chakra was a mysterious exercise and it seemed the wind transformation was especially difficult. Asuma-Oji had told him to mould his chakra in two opposite streams and grind them together to obtain a thin, flowing, cutting strand.
Ah, so the clone jutsu was about a thin, light-reflective chakra construct. Apparently, the most basic version acted as a mirror, mimicking the original's movements to a tee but there was a way to implement a more independent behaviour when casting the technique. Naruto wondered why his clones tended to act like a crumpled, sick version of himself.
Oh, so Shikamaru was going for that kind of strategy. Of course, trust a Nara to think that far ahead. The blond observed the board for a few seconds before he shrugged. It was time to reverse the steam and the flow of this game. He looked up, scratching his chin… And winked imperceptibly. The clone in the tree behind Shikamaru winked back and ran through hand signs. Time to fuck with the Nara.
Nature transformation couldn't be confused with shape transformation. For example, if Naruto separated his chakra in two parts, pooled each in one hand, and ground them against one another, it wouldn't produce wind chakra. That would be a silly shape transformation exercise that would give a thin strand of normal chakra but not wind chakra.
No, nature transformation was subtler. Chakra itself had to be "taught" to behave a certain way.
Naruto eyed the scroll anew. Weird, those explanations seemed much clearer than anything he had received in the Academy. Slowly, to show Shikamaru he wasn't going to attack him, the blond ran through the necessary hand signs, trying to figure out how the sequence was affecting his chakra.
Hand sign theory and jutsu crafting was one hellish field of the ninja arts and even something as supposedly simple as the clone jutsu, with its three-hand-signs sequence, was incomprehensible for Naruto.
The genjutsu was in place. The Nara would make silly mistakes now, confusing his pawns and moving them badly. It would turn in an easy win, one Shikamaru wouldn't understand. Naruto squashed the guilt he felt rising in his guts. Nowhere in the rules was it explicitly stated that casting a genjutsu on your opponent was forbidden. And Naruto was a ninja: unsaid rules were just an invitation to take advantage of a situation.
An hour later, Naruto won the game of shogi, much to Shikamaru's frustration who accused him of cheating. The blond smugly asked the Nara to prove it, his tone an admission of his guilt more than anything he could have said. Shikamaru, however, was incapable to demonstrate the truth of his claim and challenge Naruto to a new match, determination burning bright in his eyes.
Naruto obliged with a smile. The Nara was too much fun to annoy.
The dark-haired boy was also the only one in their age-group who was bright enough to see through his mind-games, apart from Shino. But Shino wasn't as fun to tease because he was always cool.
Naruto hoped he would go on a mission with Team Kurenai again sometime soon. The Aburame wouldn't keep his facade for long. The bond smiled and divided his attention once again between his multiple tasks. There was work to be done.
AN: Return to Konoha and transition before the next mission. If I don't publish on Sunday, it just means I was playing video games.
Feel free to leave your thoughts.