Naruto knew he was giving the impression that he wasn't feeling anything but it wasn't true. He was only doing his best to not break down like Konohamaru, who was crying his heart out in his arms. His jaw was hurting from clenching it shut, his throat was tight from repressed cries and his chest fell like someone had gouged it open.
Completely out of whack would have been a more accurate description of his feelings but he just couldn't show it. It was unbecoming of a shinobi so he endured and concealed. He hugged Konohamaru, who didn't have such restraint, didn't need to in fact, as the boy wasn't wearing a headband yet. He hugged the young Sarutobi strongly, painfully, silently praying the boy to repress his tears, to hide his pain because the further it went, the more Naruto had the impression he was being torn apart.
But Konohamaru didn't hear the blond's silent plea and continued to soak his parade uniform with salty tears and shake within his arms.
The cemetery of Konoha was packed full of people. Shinobi obviously had the honour of being on the first rows. As a genin, Naruto shouldn't have been so close to the coffin but both Asuma and Konohamaru had invited him. A number of civilians had sneered when the blond had been all but escorted next to the casket where Hiruzen lay.
The boy had been startled to see the entire population of ninja glaring murder at the non-combatants, daring to just open their mouth and add a few corpses to the count. That had momentarily warmed Naruto's heart before the situation caught up to him again.
His grandfather was dead.
It was too big, too confusing.
He knew how it was supposed to work; Hiruzen was alive in the heart of all those gathered here today, the body given to the earth was a mere memento while the old man's soul was enjoying a well-deserved rest in the Pure Lands before the wheel of Samsara would turn and reincarnate him in his next life, free from the burden of his memory.
He knew it was supposed to be an almost joyous event, that the old man had died defending Konoha and that it was a noble death.
Naruto still felt like someone was cutting him open. He still felt like curling in a ball because standing hurt, moving hurt, thinking hurt, remembering hurt. Whoever pretended the pain of losing someone wasn't of the physical kind was lying and at this instant, Naruto would have vomited the very concept of a noble death if his stomach had been holding anything more than a glass of water.
His grandfather had been killed. Being killed was sad. Being killed was painful. Being killed was torture for those left behind. Being killed was not noble.
Naruto knew. That it was hypocritical of him to even think that, that he would have been killed if it meant the boy he held in his arms or Anko or Ibiki were safe, that he would have been glad to inflict to them the same pain he was feeling now if it meant they get to live. Naruto knew. He felt sick. He hugged Konohamaru even closer because, in the turmoil, the young Sarutobi was his only anchor.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi was a great Hokage but more than that, he was an excellent man," an old shinobi was saying, his face covered by a half-mask of black porcelain, his voice carrying well over the entire cemetery. "He was an excellent father, brother and friend and he was that to us all. Some would say he was so because he believed in the Will of Fire of our founders but Hiruzen was greater even than that."
The man breathed deeply. "Hiruzen loved us all and it is from this love that his Will of Fire was born. He was never duty-bound to love us, rather his love bound him to his duty. Time and again, he led this village to victory because it meant the safety and the prosperity of those he held dear. Tired and burdened, he led us all again when Yondaime fell, the fire of his love still burning strong in spite of his old age."
The speaker coughed. "Many disappointed him. Many trampled the philosophy he lived and breathed by" and as he was saying that, the man's tone became tainted by regret. "Still, he loved us."
The old man smiled crookedly. "Hiruzen loved corny sayings." He chuckled; it sounded both bitter and fond to Naruto's ears. "As a long-time friend of his, I can testify and so can Homura and Koharu behind me." Behind the speaker, two old ninjas, a shinobi and a kunoichi, nodded with fleeting smiles. "So as corny as it might sound, I believe the best thing we can do for Hiruzen today is to uphold what he lived for. He loved us, made it his Will of Fire. Let us love each other and make it our Will of Fire."
The assembled people inclined their head.
"Konoha stands today like it did yesterday thanks to the love we bear for those we hold dear. For this village to stand tomorrow, it must still be so! Like Hiruzen, we must fight to victory for it means the safety and prosperity of the people we love. Like Hiruzen, let our love bound us to our duty. Like that, we honour our brother, our friend, our father. Like that, we honour our own life. Like that, the Will of Fire is eternal and burns brightly."
Startling the two boys, the assembled jounins - and the chuunins behind them - all spoke solemnly. Their sheer numbers turned each individual vow into a roar, a promise of strength and retribution.
"And consume those who threaten the Great Three!"
Naruto repeated the saying in a silent whisper, tasted it, rolled it around his tongue and nodded.
On a signal the blond did not perceive, Asuma and another man, who resembled him closely, came to get Konohamaru. Both Sarutobi - the one Naruto didn't know was clearly Asuma's older brother and probably the boy's father - nodded their thanks for accompanying the young heir before they guided him to the casket.
Konohamaru wasn't openly crying anymore, apparently beyond tired and shaken by sobs regularly. The boy looked for a second at the pale visage of his grandfather before he buried his face into his father's belly.
"May the Pure Lands bring you rest," Asuma said before he chuckled. "I hope you find mom and that she won't give you too much grief." The man coughed, probably to ease the pitch of his voice to a more normal tone. "You were a good father and I'll miss you, dad. Hajime?"
The older Sarutobi smiled. "Yeah, what Asuma said. I'll miss you too." He turned towards his brother. "Let's go?"
Asuma nodded once and both men ran through hand signs before they exhaled fire. The flames immediately embraced the casket and licked the wood placed below it and soon, the earthly envelope of Hiruzen Sarutobi burned. Rising with the crackling embers, a voice sang an old hymn. From the corner of his eyes, Naruto could see it was an old woman, older even than his surrogate grandfather had been and wearing the insignia of the Sarutobi clan.
The blond truly felt numb as the fire reduced his oldest and first family to ashes, his pain flattened by an immense sensation of emptiness.
As the people walked in front of the pyre, Naruto thought he was trapped in a sphere of water: every gesture, every condolence was distant, deformed. Suddenly, it all felt meaningless: if it was such a happy event, why were there so many people saying they were sorry? How long would these same people remember and honour Hiruzen Sarutobi? How many had truly known the old man?
What did Naruto ignore? A disgusting sensation nearly overwhelmed him as the boy bitterly thought about everything his grandfather had hidden from him.
Someone embraced him - Sakura, he thought he recognized distantly. Someone gave him a grave nod - Sasuke, maybe. People passed by the pyre, a few giving him some measure of attention he could not answer to.
Finally, after what seemed like several hours and probably was in truth, the funeral ended. Operating fully on autopilot, Naruto got back to his flat only to find the place in ruin.
"Right," thought the boy. The place had been obliterated by Suna's bijuu.
He motioned to turn back but his knees failed him. Suddenly feeling as if something were choking him, a wave welled from deep inside him and became an overwhelming torrent that crashed against his emotional locks.
Again and again, Naruto pushed it back and tried to get up. A shinobi had to endure, a shinobi had to conceal: the blond desperately screamed the creed to keep himself straight. Again and again, it came back up, each time a bit stronger.
The walls broke down and Naruto was submerged in a kind of pain he simply could not contain. Hiruzen Sarutobi was gone forever. He would never see his grandfather again, never get to train with the old man, never eat, never speak, never be with him again.
He couldn't even picture it fully, the irreversibility of the situation was something his brain couldn't quite process. The sensation of loss was just here, hurting him. His face crumpled. A sob racked across his body, shaking it like a leaf. Tears spilt over his cheeks, blinding him. The boy wanted to scream but it was reduced to a pitiful moan, a miserable lament.
Naruto curled on the ground and cried. At some point, someone - he couldn't even see whom - took him in their arms. Naruto simply latched onto them and buried his face in their vest. He cried and cried until he was so exhausted from crying, he couldn't even shed another tear anymore.
So he fell asleep.
Danzo looked at the papers in front of him. He knew every single shinobi and clan heads in the room were thinking the same as him.
They had no good candidate to select as their next Hokage.
Kakashi Hatake was decently powerful but nowhere near the level he should be to become the leader of a hidden village like Konoha. He certainly had a reputation outside of it - the man with a thousand jutsu - and he could probably command some respect from his fellow Kage but it wasn't enough. In addition, he had made a bad name for himself inside Konoha: the always-late jounin who read porn in public.
Being a Hokage wasn't only about scaring people shitless. A leader had to be charismatic and Kakashi definitely wasn't charismatic. His "cool" act might have worked on pre-teen females with haywire hormones but anyone right in the head could see through it.
Gai Maito was a no go. He was a loon. A very, very powerful loon but a loon nonetheless. Konoha would never be taken seriously with such a man as their Hokage and the population did not know Gai apart from the fact he was a green-clad clown. No, Gai was an excellent jounin and a great teacher but he wasn't fit to be a leader.
None of the clan heads could pretend to the throne for various reasons, the main one being that they were decent fighters but certainly not Kage-level.
Danzo sighed. He was no good either. As much ambition as he had, he knew it was too late for him for the red hat. He was unknown. That would scare the other Kage absolutely white, which could prove to be an advantage in a situation where Konoha needed to appear menacing.
It wouldn't go so well with the population. In any other circumstance, he would have told the population to go screw themselves elsewhere to see if he were there but he couldn't quite do that this time. Konoha needed to appear menacing and united. The ninja could not be seen blatantly expressing their concerns about an unknown man donning the white robes of the Hokage.
Danzo did not like it but Jiraiya seemed to be their best bet. His renown as one of the Densetsu no Sannin had crossed many frontiers and the white-haired man was respected.
There was that one problem about him writing porn, however. A Kage was allowed not to be perfect but they were supposed to not be perfect in private. Hiruzen had been a closet pervert and that was a secret Danzo would take with him to his tomb. A Kage had to be dignified, inspire respect both within the corps and outside.
Danzo sighed again. Hiruzen had once again made things more complicated than they had any right to be by not grooming an heir with the right timing. With resignation, he folded his choice neatly in four and crumpled the rest before throwing them away in a bin and walking to the ballot box.
Solemnly, he dropped his folded paper in the box. "I, Danzo Shimura, head of the Shimura clan, have voted. I swear that whatever the result might be, my loyalty and duty will go to the elected."
The formula was a ritual of a sort, imagined by Nidaime, to prevent any potential scission between two closely tied candidates. The Senju had probably never imagined one second that a Hokage would ever be selected again by vote but he was a man who enjoyed taking his precautions.
Silently, Danzo returned to his seat and watched distractedly as the various people assembled went to vote.
"There is another one."
Danzo frowned and looked to his right, at the empty seat normally occupied by the Hokage.
"She left the village," muttered the old shinobi tiredly. "How could she accept? How could we?"
"Don't you think it is time she comes back?"
"Why do I always have to clean your mess, Hiruzen?" Danzo mumbled, shutting his one functional eyelid closed and pressing his right palm against it.
"I used to clean up yours."
Danzo groaned. Kami above he truly lacked sleep. Nonchalantly, the old man squashed the lone tear that had escaped him and breathed deeply.
Jiraiya would be elected, he knew that. Then the man would try to shift his new responsibility to another, would very soon see no one was fit and then would go after her on his own. Danzo did not need to move. He just had to keep Konoha standing in the meantime.
Naruto woke up to the smell of dango and green tea. That made him smile, momentarily. Then he remembered that his grandfather was dead. The blond breathed in and out, deeply, to fight against the tears coming up once more. After a few seconds and seemingly having won that particular fight, Naruto got up from the comfortable bed he was laying in. He focused intently on it, to avoid thinking about the turmoil in his stomach. It was definitely not his bed. Some people had all the luck; to have such a fluffy, warm and bouncy bed, what an awesome thing it had to be.
Then, reality struck him hard. It actually was his bed but at Ibiki-sensei's place. As Naruto's master, the man was sheltering him for the time being. All that because of the attack, the attack where so many had been lost. The attack where-
The boy deeply breathed again, in and out. Happy thoughts, he admonished himself silently, happy thoughts.
The tinkling sound of tablewares colliding softly each other came to his ears and his stomach growled. Seeing as he was dressed, the boy shrugged, opened the door of his temporary room and walked to the kitchen, where Ibiki was apparently feeding Anko.
The sight tore a smile from Naruto's lips.
"Hello, Naruto," greeted Ibiki, throwing the boy a look Naruto had never received and that made him feel better somehow. "Sit down, there is enough for you too."
"Dhose har' ma dango!" Anko protested immediately with fire in her eyes and food filling her mouth.
Naruto carefully flickered to the table and, faster than Anko could react, stole three dango from her plate before he flickered back. With a smirk, he dropped the dango one by one in his mouth.
"Hm! Those were the best!"
Anko pounced. "Give them back! Give them back my precious!" She then proceeded to tickle Naruto into submission.
Unfortunately for her, harsh shinobi training had made the boy immune.
"You're wasting time, Anko. I trained him," drawled Ibiki as he enjoyed Anko's absence around the table to take a dumpling. "Plus, I paid for those dango so if I say my student can eat some, then he can."
The purple-haired women pouted.
"I'll leave the mitarashi to you," Naruto promised with a straight face.
"Hahaha," deadpanned Anko. "It's the first time ever someone has made this joke."
Naruto stuck his tongue at her. "I wasn't trying to be funny, I was simply saying you'll get the mitarashi. Everything else is for me because Ibiki-sensei is generous like that and he likes me more than you."
"Now don't push it Naruto." Ibiki interrupted between another dumpling and a sip of tea.
"Mooh, sensei, so mean." The blond whined, looking up like some sort of kicked puppy.
"Come to the table and eat!" The man exclaimed impatiently.
Naruto smiled at Anko, who answered in kind. They both rose and took their respective seat in the slightly cramped kitchen, around the overburdened table almost bending under the amount of dango.
Suddenly, Ibiki presented a closed take-out box Naruto immediately recognized. He knew they had been fine and all but the little shop had been one of the countless victims of the Ichibi.
"They have opened again already!?" He exclaimed in a strangled cry.
"Not exactly," corrected Ibiki. "I asked them, as a favour. They cooked it especially for you." He explained with a small smile.
Naruto opened the box with almost trembling fingers and the aroma of ramen wafted up to his nose. The blond took a deep breath, savouring the smell.
"Does it mean I can keep-"
Anko did not end her sentence when she saw the tears streaming on the blond boy's face.
"Hey, what's wrong?" The woman asked gently.
He was never going to eat ramen with the Old Man again. He was never going to eat with the Old Man, period. Naruto swallowed his sobs and pressed his palms against his eyes. For a minute, he took shuddering breaths after shuddering breaths to try and calm himself. When he finally answered, his voice was wobbly and broken, pitched higher than it should be.
"Jiji, he… He used to-" The boy breathed deeply. "Kami, I'm sorry, it's just-"
"Hey, hey, hey," Anko whispered, taking one of Naruto's hands in one of hers and squeezing. "It's normal."
Ibiki sighed. "It hurts. Like a bitch. We all know the feeling. He was important to all of us too."
Naruto clenched his teeth to repress another sob. "Ninja endure." He forced through his tightened throat. "They conceal, you taught me that, sensei. I'm-"
"Certainly not weak," interrupted Ibiki before he nodded. "And you took to the lesson better than I could have ever hoped. But remember one thing."
"What is it?" The blond breathed out.
"We can conceal our emotions, sure, but we cannot not feel them." Ibiki placed his hand on the young teenager's shoulder. "A ninja, ultimately, is just another human."
Naruto allowed the tear to fall as Anko hugged him and Ibiki gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. His grandfather was forever gone but he wasn't alone; with a little help, he would endure.
AN: I ain't dead. I just had a truckload (lit.) of stuff to move and (fig.) then do and then, when I finally came back to this chapter, I faced one the greatest question of this fanfic, the same Danzo faced here.
Who the fuck do I make Hokage!? I mean, realistically speaking, no one fits the bill. So I went for Jiraiya. Will he succeed in dumping the hat on her? I have no clue. And I'm the author. Fly you fools!