AN: I had fun writing that. I'm happy with it.
I hope you enjoy. Keep in mind that any thought of a character you see as "negative" might be just because they are depressed. When you're down, everything is grey at best, even what you succeded at.
Sakura Haruno, the one genin of team seven left in Konoha, stared at the sky as she leaned against one of the training posts in exercise ground number three. Both her teammates had left, one on a training trip with one of the Densetsu no Sannin and the other she did not want to think about too much. Yet her train of thoughts did not leave her with much of a choice.
It hurt, her chest felt torn, ripped apart, clawed open but she could not do anything about it. She had offered her love to the Uchiha and she had been refused. She had offered him her loyalty and she had been rebuked. She had then made Naruto promise to bring him back and she had been disappointed. In the wake of the failed retrieval mission, she was left with the pieces of her heart to gather and too many questions.
Why had Sasuke thanked her? Why had he refused she follow him? Why couldn't she have found the courage to pursue?
Did she think so little of her blond teammate?
She wanted to think that the Uchiha had acknowledged her feelings, that he had been afraid for her, and that maybe it meant one day he could love her in return, once all this bloody affair was said and done. As for why she had not pursued, she had simply trusted Naruto to succeed with his mission, to achieve the impossible like the boy had a knack for doing.
One part of her brain, however, kept whispering that he was a traitor, that he had joined Orochimaru of all people, Konoha's foremost missing-nin. This corner of her mind would murmur day and night that Sasuke had simply told her there was no place for anything but revenge in his heart, that she could not follow because she was weak, and the fact she had not been part of the retrieval mission was ample proof of that.
The worse was probably how she had considered Naruto, or rather, how she had not considered him at all. Those who break the rules were trash and those who abandon their teammates were worse than trash. Sasuke and she had betrayed the one thing their sensei had taught them, only Naruto upholding the man's teaching. Her duty as a ninja, her allegiance to Konoha, but most importantly her loyalty to her teammate had seemed so insignificant during those few seconds when Love had won over Reason.
Yet she loved Sasuke; she loved him so much. She needed to love him, needed to believe it was real and inexhaustible like the love of fairy tales because this love was everything she had, everything she was. Sakura had built so much of herself around it that it terrified her that some part of her thought as she did. After all, who would Sakura Haruno be if she stopped loving Sasuke Uchiha?
No one, that was what.
However, she was not sure she liked the cowardly, useless, and traitorous Sakura Haruno who was so madly in love with the Uchiha heir. The sight of Neji, Chouji, Kiba carried bleeding and listless through the village's gates still gave her nightmares. The thought she had been ready to betray made her shudder. The broken smile of Naruto as he promised her to bring their teammate back, Naruto who loved them both - Sasuke like a brother but her so much more than a sister - was haunting her.
Sakura felt a sob escape her and cried in the palm of her hands as she searched for, and could not find, neither who she was nor who she wanted to be.
Naruto stood alone outside of the house the Fuuma clan had allocated to Jiraiya and him. The Toad Sage was discussing with the village leader important stuff concerning Konoha and whatever treaty there was between the clan and the village.
The boy did not begrudge the man the time away from him. It was important Konoha business, after all, something about shipments of refined iron ore to aliment the village's forges. It was a breath of fresh air for Naruto too: he had worked hard for the past week but kept failing and while Jiraiya had never mocked him and had always a sympathetic smile for him, his gaze did feel… judgmental at time.
This was the reason why the blond was once again trying his damndest to produce a Rasengan with one hand only. His eyes were narrowed in focus on the mark Jiraiya had placed in the palm of his right hand. Naruto blinked to avoid a bead of sweat from falling in his eyes. Withdrawing within himself, the blond reached for his chakra.
To use the life energy coursing along a ninja's coils was an exercise impossible to describe to those who were not initiated. It required as much mental concentration as it was taxing physically. His Jiji used to compare it to calligraphy, each stroke needing to be both powerful yet precise to form the kanji, leaving the exact amount of ink needed on the paper. Any smear, any smudge, any tremor from the hand, any inattention from the mind and that was as much chakra wasted.
Naruto did not know the first thing about calligraphy. For him, moulding chakra felt like a battle. An uphill crusade he was fighting against himself. The boy followed the technique taught in the Academy to gather chakra. He first focused on a mental point between his eyes and inhaled deeply. A small flame of power ignited in his forehead, his spiritual energy burning brightly.
As oxygen rushed to his lungs, he willed his focus to move down with the air he was gulping down, imagining the point to swirl around in his hara counterclockwise.
The little fire was drowned by the sea of Naruto's immensely vast and dense physical power.
As he exhaled, Naruto released the built-up chakra in the palm of his hand, trying his best to keep it swirling within the confines of a ball-sized sphere. His mind was stretched between two opposites, keeping the boundary calm and steady conflicting directly with the spiralling flux he had to maintain inside. Sweat dampened his brow and his hand shook under the pressure. His back was tense and perspiration was rolling in-between his shoulder blades. Naruto gritted his teeth in furious concentration.
The tip of his nose felt itchy.
With a violent gust of wind, the Rasengan exploded, scorching Naruto's hand badly and rocking the boy backwards. With a pained yell, the blond sprawled on the ground. Mumbling all kind of curse, Naruto slowly sat on his bottom and sighed.
Why was he incapable of doing this stupid jutsu one-handed? Why did he feel like fighting a war against himself each time he was moulding chakra? With a cry of frustration, the boy lay back down and allowed his breathing to calm down. His hand was hurting - like it had been squashed under a rock and grilled over a fire - and bleeding.
He did not feel like trying again anyway. He was sore, exhausted, and mad. This jutsu was stupid, his chakra was stupid, and he was stupid. With forces like that working against him, it was no wonder he could not make it.
He furrowed his brows and shook his head with a groan. He could not think like that. Hard work was his middle name, or he was not Naruto Uzumaki anymore. Propping himself up, he looked at his maimed hand and grimaced. If Tsunade-baachan could see him right now, she would bonk him on the head for hurting himself like that while training.
Steadying his trembling right with his left hand and winced; it was starting to hurt badly. Once again, he focused on the point between his eyes and breathed in, plunging his spiritual force in the ocean of his physical might.
He was all brawn and no brain; stupid him, no wonder the flame was so dim. Chakra erupted violently from his right hand and with a cry, Naruto knocked himself down. Glaring at his lame hand, he gnawed his teeth to suppress a yell. The Yondaime was a genius and Jiraiya was one of the Legendary Three Ninjas, how was he supposed to get this dumb jutsu down? He was the dead-last, there was no way he would manage it! Even his master knew it; the boy had noted how Jiraiya would look at him and see someone else, someone more talented.
Naruto closed his injured hand in a tight fist and squeezed hard, blood seeping in-between his fingers. The pain made him scream and he felt a weight momentarily lifted from his chest when he hollered it to the world.
"Hello, are you alright?"
The unknown voice, young and girly, made Naruto whirl with a yelp, his right hand already grasping a kunai fished from his pouch. He yelped again at the pain that flared in his hand as he gripped the weapon and relaxed reflexively, dropping the knife.
In front of him was a girl around his age with chocolate brown eyes wide open, a fleeting, gentle smile on her lips, and carrot coloured hair flowing out from under a blue beanie. The boy eyed her warily and sighed.
"Yeah, yeah I'm alright," answered the boy.
The girl eyed his hand and the smile she had on her lips slipped to a downward curl. "Are you sure?" She asked again, pointing toward the boy's obvious wound with worry clear in her brown orbs.
Naruto squeezed his hand hard and pushed it inside his pocket. Who was this girl? Why did she care about him anyway? He was not asking for anyone's pity. The blond frowned - snarled even.
"I'm fine," he said dismissively. "What's it to you anyway? I have work to do, I can't talk."
The girl's worried expression morphed into a sneer. "Well, sorry to show concern, mister super-rude. You can keep your broken hand, see if I care!" The Fuuma girl spat before stomping away.
Naruto was stuck in indecision for a second and decided to stick out his tongue and blow a raspberry to the retreating back of the girl. He was not "mister super-rude", she was interrupting his training, 'ttebayo!
His training he was failing so miserably at anyhow. Naruto grimaced and felt his insides twist and turn in a way he found particularly awful. The boy forced a snarl on his face and gritted his teeth. Pulling his hand from his pocket, he observed it and sighed. It was looking more like hacked meat from the market than like a properly functioning hand. Dragging his feet inside the house, he took the first aid kit Jiraiya had insisted he pack before leaving Konoha.
With a groan, he quickly realized he had no idea what to use or even do. There were some creams and balms but each description was written in super complicated words he did not know. Groaning, he decided to try and bandage his wound, only to realize he had to do it with one hand and his teeth.
He was so stupid. Idiot Naruto, why had he been so mean to the friendly girl? Maybe she could have helped him. He sighed at the result of his best effort to bandage himself and banged his head against the wall.
Jiraiya was not pleased. No, maybe he actually was. Okay, Jiraiya truthfully was not sure. The Fuuma clan leader had accepted the renewal of the long-standing contract they had with Konoha. The Fuuma clan was one of the primary extractors of ore in the Land of Fire and Konoha did rely heavily on them to forge their arsenal.
The problem was that they had been approached by a third party trying to convince them to stop selling their metal to the Leaf Village and given the description Hanzaki had given him of the envoys, it screamed of Orochimaru.
The Fuuma clan had refused given Sound also wanted access to the treasure kept in the Temple of the Dragon.
However, it still meant that, in a bit less than a year, the Fuuma clan would expect their loyalty to be compensated by a raise from Konoha's payment, given how much Oto had offered them. It was annoying, as it would make a dent in the village's treasury that the village simply had to pay. Outsourcing ore production to a company outside of Fire Country was not reasonable as it could be easily sabotaged by another foreign power. Every major ninja village knew the danger of being short on steel to forge.
However, it was also an opportunity to trace Orochimaru's network and destroy some of the traitorous man's operation, maybe even locate the base where he was keeping his last prize. Kami knew his old teammate was an evasive man and any hint on his activities was good to take even if they often led to abandoned hideouts.
Jiraiya was musing about all that when he entered the home the Fuuma had given them, only to see Naruto glaring at his right hand like it was some kind of untamed animal. The Toad Sage immediately noticed it was badly bandaged and bleeding through the gaze.
"What did you do to yourself Naruto?" The man questioned.
The blond looked at him with eyes that held of so many emotions Jiraiya was not sure he could decipher them all. In fewer words, the boy felt like shit. The large white-haired man chuckled.
"Let me see that," said Jiraiya with a patient tone.
Wordlessly but with a grimace affixed to his face, Naruto presented his hand to his teacher. The Toad Sage removed the useless bandage and sighed.
"You're going too hard, Naruto," remarked the man. "You won't get the Rasengan tomorrow, especially if you reduced yourself to minced meat while trying."
The blond grumbled something about the overall stupidity of things and pouted. Jiraiya smiled lightly.
Ah, adolescence, what a magnificent stage of life it was!
"Look," he said to the mute boy, "why don't you try to work on your other jutsus? Any good ninja can do a Kawarimi without hand sign, same for the Henge."
Naruto looked up. "Without hand sign?" He asked sceptically.
Jiraiya nodded sagely. "Yup, yup. It requires good chakra control to reduce the hand signs necessary for a jutsu. If you are good enough, you can remove them entirely. So, why don't you try your hand," the man chuckled, "at that."
The blond deadpanned. "Oh, oh, oh. I'm so amused."
Jiraiya cocked one of his brows and pressed firmly on the boy's wounded hand that he was rubbing with a balm.
"Ow ow ow, you're hilarious, sensei! Hilarious!" Naruto squirmed.
The Toad Sage relaxed the pressure and massaged the harmed flesh delicately. "I'm serious Naruto. Rasengan is a very difficult jutsu. It is the peak of shape manipulation. Once you can do it, everything else becomes easier, so don't expect to master it right now. You have two years and a half with me, boy."
Naruto looked at his sensei intently for a second before he averted his gaze and sighed. Mumbling something in his breath again, the boy scratched his head.
"I'm sorry, what?" Jiraiya asked, genuinely having not heard what the boy had whispered.
Naruto heated up and his face took a crimson hue but he breathed in deeply and armed himself with as much courage as he could as he repeated it louder.
"I… I just… I just wanted to make you proud," he stuttered. "You look at me like you expect better and I just-" The boy's voice died before he could say everything.
Jiraiya sighed and circled an arm around the boy's shoulders. Naruto acted tough, spoke loudly, and grinned a lot but he was nothing but goo on the inside. Emotionally starved, fragile, and gooey. The man smiled sadly to himself at the image, the guilt weighing on him like a hammer. The white-haired sage took a deep breath.
"I do expect things from you, Naruto."
The boy seemed to wilt in his embrace like a flower dying in fast-forward.
"I expect them because I believe… no, because I know you will do them. I expect you to master the Rasengan because I'm certain you can do it," continued the man, and he immediately felt Naruto perking up from under his one-armed hug. "It's true that…" Jiraiya stopped and sighed, apparently hesitating.
"What is it, sensei?"
"I told you I trained the Yondaime, right?"
The boy nodded and lowered his gaze. He was right after all; Jiraiya did compare with someone infinitely more talented than he was.
"Minato had very good chakra control and a few advantages in the knowledge department," began Jiraiya. When he heard the heart-wrenching sigh Naruto let out, the sage shook the boy slightly. "However, he was totally girly!" He exclaimed suddenly with a laugh. "You're way ahead when it comes to physical strength!"
Apparently, it was not the thing to say, as Naruto hung his head low, a black cloud raining over it as he muttered something about all brawn and no brain.
"Don't beat yourself up, Naruto. Everyone has their strength and weaknesses. You'll be a better taijutsu user than the Yondaime ever was and you got a working Rasengan in a month, boy. You'll get it down, I know you will. Know what? I know you'll make it better!"
"You sure?" Naruto asked in a small voice where hope pierced nonetheless.
"Absolutely, positively, completely, entirely-"
"Okay, okay, I get it!" Naruto interrupted with a huff but he was smiling broadly and chuckling.
Jiraiya smiled back.
"Thanks, sensei," said the boy. "Chakra control is hard." He added thoughtfully.
The sage nodded. "That it is. There is a reason Tsunade is famous for having perfect dominion over her chakra. However, I can let you in on a little secret."
Naruto perked up. "Really? What is it?"
"Even for her, it was atrociously difficult. Tsunade is three-quarter Senju and a quarter Uzumaki. Even young, she had lots of chakra. It was only because she dreamed of becoming a medic that she got it perfectly leashed."
The blond nodded before he frowned. "Why did she want to become a healer?"
Jiraiya's face darkened for a second but Naruto missed that. The white-haired man shook his head. "That's a story for her to tell. I don't know the specifics."
"Oh, okay."
Silence settled around them and Naruto leaned into the hug for a minute before he disentangled himself from the sage's embrace and scratched the back of his head.
"Hm, say, sensei?"
"Yeah?"
"How do you… How do I… Hm, apologize to a girl I've been rude to?"
Jiraiya's eyebrow shot up in his hairline before it came down and wiggled a little dance. "Oh oh oh, little Naruto found a girl?"
The blond flushed red and flailed around for a second before he got up and screamed. "It's not like that Pervy-sage! Be serious, please!"
The man rose his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, what is it?"
Naruto breathed in and out to calm himself and remove the blush from his face. "Well, I was practising and I hurt myself, and there was this girl who was nice but because I was frustrated I was… I behaved like…"
"An ass," guessed Jiraiya.
Naruto nodded.
"Well, allow Jiraiya-sama, the gentleman hermit, to help you solve your problems with the fairer sex, young disciple." The man said as he took his chin in his right hand and stroke an exaggerated thoughtful pose. Naruto rolled his eyes at the antics of the "Gallant Jiraiya" but waited.
"If you want to do it real classy, you can gift her something."
The boy hummed. That made sense but then what? He would have said ramen first but something was telling it was not such a good choice. Although, maybe the girl liked it, perchance? Maybe she liked eating, so he could offer to pay for lunch? Yes, he could pay for some ramen. Mhm, ramen…
"Oy, Naruto, focus will you!"
The boy startled. "Sorry Pervy-sage, what did you say?"
"I asked what she looked like."
Naruto shrugged. Honestly, if it was not Sakura-chan, he did not really pay attention to girls. "She had orange hair. And brown eyes."
"Orange hair?"
"Yeah, kinda like carrot, you see?"
Jiraiya smiled. There were not many people with orange hair in the Fuuma clan. In fact, at all time, there were only two at most. Suddenly, the blond's eyes widened and his right fist impacted his left palm. Naruto grimaced but ginned excitedly anyway.
"I know, I know," he said, fishing for the pendant Tsunade had given him. "I can give her that. Girls like this kind of thing, right?"
Jiraiya frowned and slowly shook his head. "I'm not sure it's a good idea Naruto."
The boy deflated like a pierced balloon. "Why?"
The Toad Sage anchored his eyes to Naruto's, his dark orbs peering into blue ones. "Well, this pendant represents your promise to Tsunade, right? It's the sign you'll become Hokage someday."
Jiraiya silently swore when Naruto wilted and sat back down, a defeated look on his face. The boy was eyeing the pendant in his head, his eyes heavy with nostalgia, almost longing but for what, the sage could not guess.
"It's been a while I haven't thought about it," whispered the boy gently, feeling the strangely warm sensation of the little green gemstone under his fingers.
The Toad Sage chose to say nothing, waiting on his student to elaborate if he wanted. A minute stretched into two before the blond slightly shook his head. His gaze was lost in the shimmers of the stone but his eyes were not seeing them.
"I'm not sure," whispered the blond eventually.
Jiraiya waited but it became clear soon that the boy would not say more. With one hand, he closed Naruto's around the necklace, while he squeezed the boy's shoulder. He knew Naruto confronting himself would bring some things to light that would change his godson but Jiraiya was committed now. Naruto deserved to become a strong man and not stay a desperate child forever.
"It's okay not to be. Take time to think. Now how about we think about your girl problem?"
An hour later, Naruto was walking through the village, his head darting to and fro as he searched for the orange-headed girl. Jiraiya had been no help whatsoever in finding a present to properly apologize to the girl but at least, his ridiculous and over-the-top propositions had brought back a smile on Naruto's face.
Pervy-sage; truly it was a title fit for the older man.
The blond explored the little village, curiosity guiding his step as much as purpose. The place was totally different than Konoha. Firstly, his home town was many times larger. To this day, Naruto was not sure why exactly everyone insisted Konoha was a village. Secondly, the Fuuma lived with the forest, not simply in it. There were traces of such a lifestyle in Konoha still but they were all drowned in the modernity of newer buildings. The Nara clan, for example, lived deep in a wooden portion of Konoha in a manner that was reminiscent of the Fuuma way. Thirdly, people of the Fuuma clan looked much more serious than anyone in Konoha. They all wore shades of green and brown; nowhere could the bright colours the Konohan affectioned be seen. Not to say that they were unfriendly. They would nod at Naruto for a terse greeting and go do their business. The boy was not offended, he understood those were their customs.
If he had to be honest, it felt pretty nice. Nicer than Konoha to say the least, where people would go out of their way to avoid him and refused to look at him. Naruto shook his head. He did not want to dwell on that for now; he had someone to apologize to.
It took Naruto another twenty minutes before he finally found the person he was looking for. He was ready to call after her but stopped when he saw what she was doing. The carrot-haired girl held a yumi bow and had an arrow at the ready, a look of complete focus on her face. He decided to observe quietly and searched for the target. His eyes widened when he saw the mannequin the girl was targeting.
It was very, very far away.
With a deep breath, the archer positioned the bow horizontally above her head before she righted it vertically, drawing it in the same motion until the feathers of the arrow came under her ear, against her cheek. Naruto heard her exhale and suddenly, she appeared completely motionless for a single second.
Without warning, the blond was startled by an angry whistle followed, a second after, by the impact of the arrow piercing the mannequin's head at least eighty paces away. He stared at the arrow then at the girl.
"Amazing!" The blond exclaimed, startling the carrot-haired girl. "You're super good!"
The girl blushed slightly at the compliment before recognition flashed in her eyes and she blushed from anger. She huffed and crossed her arms, still holding her bow. "Oh, it's mister super-rude. What do you want?"
Naruto was stopped in his tracks by the girl's tone and remembered sheepishly what he had come here for originally. The boy scratched the back of his head and breathed deeply before he bowed.
"I'm really sorry!" He exclaimed, folded horizontally at the waist at a perfect ninety-degree angle. "I was frustrated by my training not going well and I was rude to you. I have no excuse and I apologize deeply." The blond said. "It was most un-youthful," he felt compelled to add after a second, he did not know why.
The girl observed him quizzically in stunned silence before she giggled. Naruto peered up from his bow to see she was holding a hand over her mouth. That made him frown and he straightened up.
"Oy, I'm serious you know?"
The girl nodded with a smile. "No, no, it's just I've never had anyone bow to me like that. That deeply I mean." She smirked. "I'll forgive you if you bow to me again."
Naruto glared, not certain she was serious or not but not daring to say anything. He had been rude first after all. With a sigh, he bowed again and heard the girl barely holding her laughter.
"Apologies accepted, stranger," she said mirthfully.
The blond stood proud again and watched the girl with mildly annoyed eyes.
"What's your name? Mine is Sasame." The girl said, offering her hand.
Naruto shook it hesitantly. "Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki."
Sasame smiled. "Peace?"
Naruto returned her grin. "Peace," he nodded approvingly. "So… you're training with a bow."
"Yup."
"Is it hard?" The boy questioned, genuinely curious about the practice as it was not something seen in Konoha.
Sasame nodded proudly. "It's a lot of hard work to get everything right." She eyed the bow in her hands and seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before she looked at the boy. "Wanna try?"
"Sure!" Naruto exclaimed with enthusiasm.
As it turned out, shooting a bow was indeed complicated. It required a certain kind of leashed strength yet a relaxed grip, a precise motion before perfect stillness, an acute eye and good balance as well as patience. Naruto's injured hand, albeit already getting better, did not help the boy achieving any feat of archery.
An hour later, the boy was sweaty and his left eye was twitching from being closed too long to aim. His arms were hurting, the motions necessary to draw a bow not what he was accustomed to.
"That's hard," commented the boy as he and Sasame were walking toward the mannequin to retrieve the arrows. "You're really strong," he added with warmth and admiration.
The carrot-haired girl blushed. "Well, you didn't do too badly considering it was your first time."
Naruto watched her excitedly. "Really? You think so?"
Sasame nodded. "Yes."
The blond beamed at her in thanks. "Thanks, Sasame-chan!"
He did not notice the girl choking on her saliva as he skipped ahead of her and began pulling the arrows off the target. The two teens practised for another half an hour, Naruto making absolutely no progress in his endeavour and ultimately choosing to observe the girl he was with. Sasame's form progressively got worse and worse under the attentive blue eyes that were anchored to her, despite the enthusiastic exclamations of the boy. The girl was flushing red when she decided she had enough. Barely able to look at Naruto straight, she gathered her arrow and removed the string from her bow.
"I'm done for today." She announced. "I'll go bath."
"Say, say, Sasame-chan, how about we get something to eat? You choose, my treat!"
The girl once again nearly choked and milled around for a second. "Hm, I… Huh… are you sure?"
Naruto nodded with a broad smile. "You didn't have to teach me how to use the boy, I want to thank you."
Sasame, for a second, had the distinct impression someone was trying to cook an egg on her face. She inhaled deeply and nodded. "S-sure, Naruto. Meet me here in half an hour."
"Sure! See you later Sasame-chan."
Thirty-five minutes later exactly, a freshly showered Naruto - even he knew when he smelled bad - was waiting for the girl grumbling things about perverted teachers. He had been allowed to go only after being relentlessly teased by his master to whom he had had to explain where and how exactly he was intending to spend his evening.
The blond boy had protested vigorously that it was definitely not like that, to which the Toad Sage had chuckled with a knowing look on his face and had insisted Naruto wear something else than his orange ensemble.
When Naruto had told him he did not have anything else, the Toad Sage had smiled broadly and then proceeded to wrestle the boy inside a dark blue kimono with an orange spiral in the back and closed by an orange obi.
The boy shuffled from feet to feet inside the unfamiliar attire. He was quite uncomfortable, the sleeves were too long, and it felt so girly, and…
And it was bullshit because it was probably the most comfortable thing he had ever worn in his life. He was not going to admit to that to his teacher anytime soon though. And it still felt girly. He was musing about all that with a frown on his face when the rustle of clothes came to his ears. He turned with a smile and a greeting that got stuck in his throat.
Sasame had her hair tied in a simple bun kept in place by an expensive-looking comb decorated with nacre, two long bangs framing her face. She was dressed in a kimono, except hers was soft green with white blossoming flowers decorating the bottom and her sleeves. A black obi held the robe closed. Naruto swallowed, hard. He was not sure why, though.
"Hey, Sasame-chan!" He exclaimed with an uncomfortably dry mouth.
"Hey, Naruto-san," answered the girl in a more subdued tone.
The boy could not keep his eyes from roaming over the girl's form and Sasame flushed. She coughed lightly and Naruto's face heated up. Dammit, his Super-pervert of a teacher had to make everything so awkward, calling it a romantic evening and forcing Naruto into a fancy kimono! He liked Sakura-chan anyways! Sasame-chan did look cute though and she had those pretty orange hair and those shining brown eyes...
The boy mentally screamed and shook his head, intent on taking back control over the situation.
"Let's go, Sasame-chan, you choose!" He said with a shaky grin.
The girl smiled; it was a discreet upturning of her lips and nodded firmly before walking ahead. Naruto simply followed suit. As she led them to a simple looking restaurant, the two walked in silence, the boy racking his brain to find a subject they could discuss. Eventually, he decided to ask her a bit more about her archery skills. Sasame was eager to answer any questions he had.
They promptly arrived and got seated without questions. Naruto noticed that Sasame seemed to get a lot of respect, the hosts bowing deeper to her than to him. When they got the menu, the boy was silently happy to see he had largely enough in his trusty wallet, Gama-chan, to afford anything here. One order later and the two resumed their discussion, the subject slowly shifting from archery to a whole lot of different topics.
Sasame had ninja training but she had a special role in the Fuuma clan. People born with orange hair were born once in a generation in the village and they were marked with special chakra. As such, they were trained in the clan's secret ways - the girl apologized but refused to say more, which Naruto understood - and were tasked with serving the Temple of the Dragon within the Fuuma territory.
"You really have a dragon!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly, remembering the impressive paintings inside the Great Hall.
Sasame giggled. "I don't know actually, I'm still a trainee, I've never been inside the temple proper.
Their food arrived, momentarily interrupting the girl. After a short "itadakimasu", the boy decided to plunge - literally - in his dish and inhale as much food as he could at once. It was really good food.
Sasame frowned ever so slightly but resumed her tale." According to our legends, the first of our clan tore the tooth of Koutatsu*-sama out of his mouth to forge the Great Cleaver following his instruction and since then, it is our tradition to forge all kind of weapons."
Naruto looked ready to explode, his mouth stuffed with brown rice. "That's so cool, 'ttebayo!" He whisper-shouted, positively vibrating. "What does that got to do with your hair though?"
The girl smiled her small smile. "Well, we call it the Mark of Fire," Sasame explained proudly, apparently happy to have a virgin ear to regal with her clan stories. "Those who have it can enter the temple and serve Koutatsu-sama."
Naruto was awestruck before a thought suddenly occurred to him that made him flush red to the root of his hair. He swallowed what he had in his mouth with a loud gulp. "S-so… are you actually, like... a princess?" The boy asked, suddenly self-conscious of his relatively poor table manners.
Sasame lost her smile and looked down before a huge sigh escaped her lips. She stayed silent for a few seconds that seemed to stretch to infinity. "Yeah… I suppose I'm, kinda," she said sadly.
"Sasame-chan?"
The girl looked up at the worried boy. "You're not gonna be my friend now that you know, right," she remarked in a despondent voice.
"Wha?" Naruto asked, truly not understanding the sudden mood shift.
Sasame shook her head. "Everyone here, they treat me… they respect me but they don't…" The girl teared up. "The other girls my age, they don't really want to be friends with me, they say they can't, so I thought-"
"I'm your friend, Sasame-chan, believe it!" Naruto exclaimed in a whisper-shout that was much more shout than a whisper if the turning heads were any indications.
"Really?"
"Really, really! I won't even bow to you anymore, t'was a one time deal!" Naruto said, nodding and arm crossed in front of him. "And I'll hang out with you for as long as I'm here. I know! You can teach me archery!"
The girl could only give a teary, albeit thankful, smile to the blond boy.
"I'm sorry for my table manner, though," remarked Naruto, scratching the back of his head. "They suck bad."
Sasame giggled and proceeded to show the boy how to maintain etiquette in the presence of nobility. He was informed that "suck" was not a word to use in good company either. The rest of the evening disappeared somewhere before the two teens could realize it and soon, Naruto was "escorting" Sasame home, something his pervert of a teacher had insisted he did. The boy thought it was kind of weird, given Sasame had ninja training, could probably kick ass, and they were in the middle of her village but he was not good with all the subtleties of a date.
The boy nearly choked on his saliva and flushed at the thought that it had really been like a date after Jiraiya had explained the commonly understood meaning of the word.
Naruto had never known before tonight that what he called a "date" was not what the rest of the world called a "date". For the blond, it simply meant a friendly excursion between a boy and a girl. He still felt sheepish at the fact he had not known that it was used to describe a romantic outing.
No wonder Sakura-chan had kept hitting him for asking over and over if she wanted to go with him on one. He had only wanted to become friend with her during their time at the Academy, he had never meant to pester her like that.
Then he had made it some sort of challenge, part of his stupid rivalry with Sasuke to get her to accompany him, another part of his desperate fight for attention. It had not been genuine anymore, not entirely. He did not feel like he deserved most of her hits on the head but considering he partly wanted to use Sakura for an ego boost, some were not entirely lost.
He liked Sakura-chan but truthfully, he did not know how he liked her.
"Naruto-kun?"
The blond startled and sheepishly scratched the back of his head. Thinking of a girl while escorting another somehow had to be bad manners. "Sorry, Sasame-chan, I was kinda thinking."
The girl giggled. "I saw that. I was telling you we are here."
"Really?" The boy looked around and saw they were standing in front of a large house with an imposing door. "You… you open that alone?"
Sasame giggled again. "No silly, I take the side entrance. So," the girl looked down. "See you tomorrow?" She asked hopefully as her eyes glanced up.
Naruto smiled widely. "Sure! I can't wait to shoot the bow again!"
Sasame smiled and breathed deeply before she pecked the boy on his cheek and ran away with her face as red as her hair.
The blond stood there for a full minute, stunned. Slowly, his hand rose to his cheek where Sasame had barely pressed her lips. A large, stupid, goofy grin blossomed on his face and stretched his whisker marks. Naruto got home while smiling dumbly, not even caring about Jiraiya's knowing grin and wiggling eyebrows.
His teacher was a Super-pervert but he was of good council. The blond flopped on his bed and fell asleep with a happy sigh.
The next day, the Toad Sage informed his student that they would stay in the Fuuma village for a while and that he had his benediction to hang out with whoever he wanted and encouraged the boy to learn archery. He simply warned the blond that new skills were only good to develop if the intent was to become a master.
In other words, if Naruto was only going to flirt with the girl, they might as well depart now. It was either all or nothing.
The boy sputtered and protested until he was short of breath and ran away, calling his sensei a pervert and swearing he would become awesome with a bow. Dattebayo.
Jiraiya chuckled as he saw Naruto depart and turned his thoughts back to the deal Hanzaki and he had passed yesterday. The Toad Sage was hoping for Naruto to learn archery; the Fuumas were not only smith masters after all and their sharpshooters were extremely skilled. Learning kyuujutsu would be a good way to get the boy's mind off the drab routine they had already fallen into and maybe remove a few blocks on their path by teaching his student several things.
Given the boy had already found his teacher, Hanzaki had decided to say nothing and only asked for Jiraiya to stay in Mori no Goren for a few days.
The Fuuma leader was expecting an attack of some kind after he had refused Sound a first time and the Toad Sage honestly agreed with the man. One did not refuse Orochimaru without consequences.
Jiraiya cut his thumb and weaved through hand signs as his chakra rushed at his command. Slamming his bloodied palm on the ground, two little green toad wearing brown and maroon clothes appeared in front of him.
"Gamako, Gamashou, how are you?"
The one dressed in brown croaked. "We're fine Jiraiya. Have somethin' for us?"
"I need you to keep watch over the area for me," explained the Toad Sage before he grimaced. "For something like a week if that is okay with you."
The maroon clothed toad shrugged. "Sure. I didn't have anythin' planned. Did ya?"
"Ya know I didn't you oaf. What are we expectin' exactly?"
"Snakes," Jiraiya answered tersely.
The two toads nodded with a grim face and suddenly, faded into nothing. The sage grinned. "Eh, toads are the best."
The second meeting between Naruto and Sasame was awkward at first, both teens incapable of looking the other in the eyes for a reason they could not fathom. It lasted for about a minute before Naruto took the girl's by the hand and asked her to keep teaching him more archery.
"Then we do what you want," offered the blond, to which Sasame promptly agreed.
Now that his injured right hand was healed properly, the boy made slow but steady progress under the guidance of Sasame. The morning was spent shooting and ended with half an hour of meditation, which Naruto weathered as patiently as he could. After a bath, the two teens met once again for lunch and Sasame took it upon herself to show the boy around. They kept at it until the girl excused herself, telling Naruto she had lessons to receive, but not before setting a time for a meeting later in the day.
The boy did not mind and happily promised Sasame he would be there in the evening and they each went their separate way.
When Naruto reached the house, it was nearly three in the afternoon already. Jiraiya was nowhere to be seen but there was a rolled scroll on the table with Naruto's name on it so the boy decided to see what was inside.
He unfurled the parchment to see a set of instructions illustrated by funny doodles on the Kawarimi and Henge jutsus and how to reduce the number of hand seals necessary to perform them. Naruto read the directives and was soon grateful for the small illustrations. His lacking vocabulary was still embarrassing and the way some things were worded did not entirely make sense or seemed uselessly complicated to him but the drawings were a big help in clearing things up.
The blond was beginning to understand why people were often insistent on using precise words with a precise meaning behind them. The simple, "dumbed down" - even he could admit they were just that - explanations he favoured were emptied from a lot of details and clues about how to make the technique better, provided one had the necessary knowledge to piece everything together.
Naruto could do, he could follow instructions just well but he realized he was incapable to truly make anything his as of now. The one exception was his Sexu Jutsu but even then, it was just an unconventional Henge.
Hence, the boy forced himself to carefully read the scroll. He soon summoned a clone as a sounding board of sort to make sure he was understanding everything.
After half an hour of reading and exchanging with his replica, Naruto was realizing Kawarimi was a complex technique. The theory behind one of the simplest supplementary jutsu was easy. A ninja prepared a decoy in advance, simply sealing it on his person. The five hand seals, tiger, boar, ox, dog, and snake in that order, combined to unseal the decoy, catapult the ninja out of harm's way, and ensure the substitution was as seamless as could be.
However, there were a hundred of variations possible and those made the technique truly interesting. One could henge the decoy into themselves, giving the enemy the impression they had successfully killed them. One could leave a henge'd decoy behind and rush the enemy. One could booby trap the decoy. Naruto's prankster brain worked a mile a minute as he envisioned all the use such a simple jutsu could have.
Could decoys be shadow clones? Could he simply catapult himself without leaving a decoy behind? Suddenly eager to try his hand at jutsu modification, Naruto stepped outside.
Evening came sooner than the boy expected and his clone had to remind him he was supposed to meet with Sasame. Followed a battle about whether or not Naruto was supposed to dress up again, a battle that ended with the boy decked once more in his blue kimono.
Naruto was not sure if it was a win or a loss, however. Shrugging the impossible question for later, the boy walked through the village to Sasame's house, where the girl was waiting for him. She was wearing a different, cream-coloured dress, with a pheasant embroidered on it.
"Hi, Sasame-chan."
The carrot-haired girl offered him her small smile. "Hey, Naruto. Where should we go tonight?"
The boy took his chin in his hand and mulled over the question. He did not know the village nearly enough to know any good place. He did know what he wanted to eat though. Scratching the back of his head, the blond chuckled shyly. "Hm, would you mind ramen?"
"Ramen? Sure, follow me, I know the place to go!"
"Yes! Ramen!" Naruto exclaimed, eagerly walking after the girl.
The restaurant was a simple stand that was reminiscent of Ichiraku's Ramen in Konoha, Naruto's one and only place to hang out. It was home to the two people who had always treated the boy normally.
The blond could not avoid drawing comparisons between the "Steaming Noodle" and Ichiraku's. The stools were slightly less comfortable, the smell of the broth less appetizing, the girl behind the counter had nothing on Ayame, and the cook did not look remotely as trustworthy as Teuchi. Naruto had no doubt those were all very objective assessments, obviously.
The teen ordered quickly and discussing once more, Sasame seeking to satiate her inextinguishable curiosity towards Konoha. The girl had stars in her eyes as Naruto did his best to describe his hometown. The two bowls of ramen interrupted them for a second and they dug in, the blond taking greater care than usual to not eat disgustingly.
Naruto had never inhaled ramen so slowly and so cleanly.
"Do you have family, Sasame? I mean, I don't know, a singling?" The boy asked at one point.
The girl's bright mood fell and Naruto fidgeted in his seat for a second before he took her head into his and smiled at her.
"Sorry, didn't mean-"
"No, it's okay. It's just…" The girl took a deep breath and squashed a tear with her free hand. "It's fresh. His name was Arashi. He wasn't my brother exactly, more like a cousin but… I loved him like my older brother."
Silence fell upon the two teens and Naruto squeezed Sasame's hand in a way he hoped would comfort her. The boy himself, as an orphan, as someone despised by his village, had no blood relative to lose. He had found people, however, who accepted him and the thought of them dying was terrifying.
The death of the Third Hokage, an old man he had come to see as a grandfather of sort and dared to call "Jiji", was a wound that still hurt. Naruto knew it forever would.
"What happened. He… He and his companions got ambushed. We don't really know by whom. They did not come back so we waited and waited and…" Sasame's breath shuddered. "We sent another scouting party and they found traces of a battle and their clan insignias. No one of us would abandon that, ever, except if they were dead."
Naruto nodded and gave her hand another squeeze. "I'm sorry."
The girl blinked a few time to stifle her tears and shook her head. "It's okay," she protested in a broken pitch, her throat tight and her voice hoarse. "It's n-not y-your fault."
"Oh man, Sasame-chan, don't cry please," pleaded the boy as he flailed uselessly for a few seconds, not knowing what to do before he engulfed the girl in a hug.
If it worked on him, it would work on Sasame.
The girl cried harder and Naruto mentally kicked himself in the butt before he hugged her tighter. Getting up from his stool, the boy decided it was better if he did the "escorting" earlier tonight. As gently as he knew how to be, Naruto guided Sasame back to her home. When they reached the grand house, the girl was silently sniffling in his chest but he was relieved that she had stopped crying outright.
"You're home Sasame," said the blond gently.
The girl mumbled something and snuggled tighter against him and he felt himself flush red as an unknown, pleasant warmth spread in his body. He hugged her tighter in response. They stood like that for a minute before the girl disentangled herself. Her cheeks were blushing a nice crimson and she was looking down, unable to meet Naruto's eyes.
"Thanks," she whispered.
The boy chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "Hehehe, I did nothing but you're welcome."
Silence fell once again upon the couple before Naruto broke it. "So mhm, see you tomorrow."
Sasame nodded, still refusing to meet his gaze. "Y-yeah."
Naruto beamed. "Cool! Goodnight then, Sasame-chan."
The girl took a deep breath and before the boy could react, she once again kissed him. On his lips this time.
She fled, leaving a frozen Naruto behind.
It was nice. That was all the boy could think about. He could go for seconds, actually. It might be better than ramen. "Impossible!" One minuscule part of his brain screamed. "Shut up, you stupid idiot!" The rest retorted. Yeah, it was definitely nice, much better than ramen even. The sensation was already disappearing, leaving only an unforgettable imprint in the boy's memory.
Hot yet cool, soft, and impossibly sweet.
Naruto did not even know how he had reached his bed but the fact was that he did. Not bothering to remove the kimono, he distractedly loosened the obi and plopped face first on his bed to try and hide the giant grin he was sporting.
He was woken by a powerful shake and Jiraiya's voice ringing in his ears. Naruto grumbled and fought to open his eyes. He was getting better but would never be a morning person.
"I need you awake, boy, quick!" The Toad Sage an undercurrent of urgency that immediately helped Naruto start his brain.
"Wha? What is it?"
"Your girl is missing," explained the white-haired man.
"Sasame? What happened?"
"She's been abducted," Jiraiya said grimly.
Naruto felt his eyes widen for a second before he narrowed them forcefully and gritted his teeth in a snarl. "What? Who?"
The Toad Sage's glance was more meaningful than a hundred words.
AN: *"Koutestu" means steel. "Tatsu" is another way to pronounce dragon. "Koutatsu" is my attempt at a play on word. Or is that a play on kanji?
Gamako and Gamachou are two toads whose suffixes are in fact prefixes but because I'm an author, I can cheat. Both "Ko" and "Chou" mean "small".
It was kind of a long chapter but I feel like it was necessary. If I want you to remotely care about Sasame, I need to introduce the girl, am I right?
Before you go crazy (against or for) no, it's not that. Naruto is just discovering the world beyond Konoha and realizes that there is more than his "Sakura-chan".
Speaking of Sakura, I do wish to try and write in a more convincing way than cannon. Her completely unrealistic crush weighed her down like a chain. The problem is, she is her crush. Even her loyalty, her new resolve to protect her teammate after the Forest of Death, her duty as a ninja: all of that meant nothing before of her crush. So you can bet I'm getting rid of it in a fire.
As you saw, I came with an explanation for the Kawarimi. It is not teleportation (otherwise Sasuke got ripped off with his Rinnegan) but indeed a high-speed movement. Now I just need to ask you all a question: do you remember anyone in the manga performing the Kawarimi/Shunshin while in midair? If yes, that is embarrassing because I'm not sure if I should keep it. It breaks physic a little too much for my taste and it has quite dangerous implications.
Leave a review if you feel so inclined, I eat them.