Elsewhere, in the library, Naruto chuckled as his shadow clone was destroyed and its memories came rushing back. Not for the first time did the blonde marvel at the genius that was Tobirama Senju. The Shadow Clone just was a creation of pure, unadulterated intelligence. He wondered how the Nidaime had even come up with such an idea.
Not to mention how he even went about going to create such a complicated, yet devastatingly simple jutsu consisting of only one handsign. As much as he researched the four previous leaders, the Nidaime was quickly becoming his favourite Hokage. But he didn't have much time in the day to spend on his interest in learning about them.
Naruto's early rising at nearly five in the morning had had one benefit of increasing his stamina and endurance since he had to very nearly drag himself to team training or missions after training with Guy. The downside however, was that his body was in a perpetually shattered state, he was always tired and always aching terribly.
Even now, as he sat in a secluded corner of the library, behind a veritable mountain of scrolls, he was nursing his aching muscles. Sure, he might be growing faster or stronger, not that he had checked much, but being constantly tired was quite troublesome.
Not once did the blonde complain about the gruelling pace that Guy and Lee set, nor the absolutely insane number of laps they made him run. For Lee always did a lot more than him. If it was going to make him stronger, he would go through much worse than that.
Naruto had however, stopped wasting much of his time by going to D-Rank missions himself. What was the point of wasting an average of three to four hours per chore, when he could be researching or training by himself?
He had already wasted too much of his time in the academy. Not for the first time, did he wonder how much time he would be saving now had he just stayed awake in Iruka's classes. Not only that, but he had wasted nine years of his life trying to get the ignorant villagers to accept him. And now, he was doing the same with his team.
What an idiot he had been, he scoffed mentally. Why would he ever have wanted their acceptance when it was beyond clear that they would never come around? But enough was enough. No longer would he waste more of his time trying to get his teammates, or the villagers to like him. He no longer cared if they did or not.
So, what if he didn't have any friends. Surely, he can't be the only person in the country or even the village to have no friends. Sure, the loneliness at times got suffocating and crippling, but it wasn't the end of the world. Did he even need friends at this point? No longer would he try to get girls like Sakura or even Hinata to like him.
If they didn't think he was good enough to be their friend, or in Hinata's case, strong enough then so be it. He wouldn't be deliberately rude to her. Neither would he go out of his way to put himself out there. Not just for Hinata. But for anyone else who was superficial enough to look only at the surface and judge him unworthy.
Examining his recent memories, Naruto realised that he had had long way to go to project complete indifference. Even though he had come to the decision a week ago when the Hokage had given him the deadline, he was having difficulty in maintaining his indifference.
He probably should not have baited Sasuke with his inability to produce Shadow Clones, or taunted Sakura about her chest, but his teammates hypocrisy was getting on his nerves. Why should he waste his time putting in effort for this illusion of teamwork, for the team clearly had none?
However, there was a pang of hurt in his stomach as he had decided that. Like he had lost a part of something which confused Naruto more than anything.
True he had tried to understand his teammates when the cell had been formed. He really did. It wasn't his fault that they just wouldn't give him a chance. Okay, it might have been a little bit his fault that Sakura was so hostile towards him. Pestering her about dates was probably not the best way to go about being accepted and liked by her. Neither was his stubborn denial to accept her refusals.
He supposed that was another thing he had to work on. He needed to learn how to take refusals amicably. It would have annoyed him to no end after all, if some girl had constantly pestered him about dating her.
He did regret losing his patience, not because he may hurt his teammates feelings, but because it was what he had indirectly learnt from Danzo and from Tobirama's book. The old man was as patient as a mountain. Clearly, his patience needed more work. Perhaps… perhaps meditation would work. He had heard the old man Hokage mention it once or twice.
He was just glad that now he had a way of doing multiple things at once, an unexpected benefit of the Shadow Clones he had discovered. It was exactly one week ago, the morning after his meal with the Hokage that he had found a scroll on his bed waiting for him. True, he may have made the old man the promise to give it his all, but he had no idea where to start.
The scroll, had the same handwriting as the scroll with the chakra control exercises, had only three things written on it. 'Chakra Theory', 'Jutsu Theory' and 'Hand seals'. And so, after every morning training session, he and several of his clones had spent countless hours studying up on the three basic yet frustratingly complex topics from every scroll they could gather.
'Ugh', Naruto crossed out another diagram he had drawn, trying to understand how the chakra was being rotated in the body for the transformation jutsu.
'It's no use', one clone on his left said, putting his paper to the side and taking up a fresh one.
'It's the Boar seal that's the problem', Naruto replied to his clone.
Granted, he knew next to nothing about experimenting but he had created a basic experiment methodology to understand the basis of the transformation as he was deconstructing it. As of yet, it hadn't yielded any sufficient results in the sense of actually allowing him to do the damn jutsu.
Naruto had however, gained a much greater understanding of what seals actually do to the chakra in his body. In that, the 'hand seals' topic and chakra theory go hand in hand. It was just a bummer that he had to spend a lot of time redoing the basics, when he should have been ideally using all this time to work on the physical training.
Learning a jutsu from the Hokage was a great incentive, however. And if he had to lessen the amount, he trained physically for the next three weeks, then so be it. But he would be damned if he allowed these pathetically simple jutsu to beat him.
He was under no delusion to think that he could beat anyone with his current taijutsu form – which he was beginning to suspect was designed by Mizuiki-teme to try to get him killed. But why then, hadn't Kakashi said a damn thing to him when they had sparred.
'How's it going?' Naruto asked to the clone on his left, who sat with a scroll of his own, making notes from several other scrolls on taijutsu.
'I have narrowed down to six styles that might be suitable', he replied, unrolling the scroll in his hand, and read it, eyes narrowed.
'Good', Naruto smirked, making a cross seal again. Now at least he was getting somewhere.
'You go and join the team again and get the payment,' he told the newest clone as the rest focused on their research. Why in the world he had not thought about coming to the library before. Again, his stupidity knew no bounds even a month ago.
An hour later, Naruto was sat on the ground, meditating and centring his chakra just like he had been training to for the last two weeks. This time, he wasn't only working on increasing his sensory range, but also the accuracy of it. The epilogue of Tobirama's book, no doubt added by Danzo, had recounted the last moment the Nidaime spent with his team.
During the Second Shinobi War, team Tobirama were being pursued by Kumo ninja. Tobirama had sensed that they were surrounded by no less than twenty ninjas from the Kinkaku Force. That was the technique Naruto was working on, by first centring his chakra in his stomach, then channelling into his finger and pushing it in the ground, increasing the radius of the circle.
Almost immediately, his senses sharpened greatly. It was like a sixth sense where he was hyperaware of the amount of people surrounding him. Instead of trying to focus on every single one, Naruto focused on the distance at which he could sense them.
Twenty… no thirty in the library, with ten on his floor alone. He was aware of the sweat rolling down his neck when he immediately sensed the very familiar chakra signatures coming his way. Crap!
Naruto's eyes snapped open, and it seems that his clones had sensed them too, for without his ordering them to, they hurriedly started gathering scrolls and upon scrolls and taking them back to their shelves.
'Hurry the fuck up', Naruto growled, 'They're nearly at the door.'
'Why don't you help as well', grumbled a clone, throwing him an annoyed look.
Naruto however, was busy sealing the multitude of his written notes in a storage scroll he had bought. No way was he going to allow them see what taijutsu styles he was working on.
'Three, two, one', Naruto whispered to himself and soon enough, just as reached one, the door to the library opened and he sensed the three of them step onto the floor. It may be because of his increased chakra control, or his weird sensory ability, but for the first time he was able to sense just how much chakra his sensei has.
It clearly dwarfed all of the others there were in the library currently. It seemed different than before. Like it was being held back, somehow. Like he was masking his chakra. Not at the level of Danzo, clearly since Naruto could barely sense the old creep even when sitting right opposite him.
It wasn't the three that annoyed him however. His sudden drop in mood was the result of sensing someone else. There, hiding behind the fourth shelf on the other end of the floor. What in the world was she doing here? And why the fuck hadn't he sensed her before? Could she have been masking her chakra like baka-Kakashi as well? Or was he just too distracted?
Granted, he was busy in his studies but that was no reason to miss that Hinata Hyuga was also on this floor. What if it had been an enemy. An assassin.
'What?! Are you seeing what I'm seeing?' Sakura called out, pointing to him. 'Naruto-baka is actually in the library.'
'Hn', came Sasuke's classic reply with his eyes narrowed at Naruto.
How the hell did they even find him? He was positive none of his teammates had an ability similar to his.
'Yo', Naruto waved an unenthusiastic hand towards them as his team neared his table, not looking forward to this conversation. Kakashi's face was normal as always, but he got the distinct feeling that the jounin wasn't only annoyed, but he was actually angry.
'Would you mind explaining why you are here, Naruto', Kakashi said seriously, in no mood for his student's antics. What the blonde had pulled was enough for an official reprimand and after everything that had happened on the river cleaning mission, Kakashi had more than a half a mind to go through with it.
Naruto for his part refused to be cowed by the hypocritical jonin and waved his hand over the two scrolls on his table, without saying a word.
'I require an answer Naruto!' Kakashi said sternly. 'Sending a shadow clone to do your mission instead of your actual self is highly irresponsible.'
'Yes! Idiot!' Sakura almost yelled before remembering that she was in a library. However, it was Kakashi's serious face that stopped her. They hadn't seen their usually laid back and lazy sensei angry before but clearly it was wise not getting in his way when he was pissed off.
Naruto merely raised an eyebrow at the man, 'Did the mission fail?'
'That's not the point and you know it', Kakashi was getting really tired of Naruto's attitude. 'In a mission, you can't do that. Especially without informing your teammates. Any number of things can go wrong.'
'Really?' Naruto wasn't having it, no matter what his useless sensei said. 'And what can go wrong in a D-rank mission?'
Kakashi narrowed his lone eye, barely holding back the anger he was feeling at the blonde. Not only was the blonde refusing to listen to him, but he was undermining him in front of the other genin.
'I'm afraid I'm going to have to lodge an official complaint Naruto', silver haired jounin said annoyedly, brooking no arguments.
This caught the blonde off guard. Fuck! He hadn't expected that Kakashi would go this far. Look underneath the underneath, he reminded himself. Kakashi could be bluffing to make him falter, apologise to the other two or some such bullshit. What the hell was he going to do?
Maybe it was his inexperience at examining conflicts or maybe it was his ego, but he found himself saying, 'Go for it. Tell the old man what bad boy I am.'
It clearly came as a shock to both the sensei and the other two, just as much as Naruto himself was shocked by his clearly irritable answer. After a few moments of tense silence where Naruto refused to break eye contact, he realised that he had actually meant it.
'What the –', Sakura jaws dropped, flustered at the amount of disrespect Naruto was showing to their sensei. Never before had they seen him act in such a way.
'Che, don't be an idiot dobe!' Sasuke response further surprised Naruto. Did the teme actually care what happened to him? But too little too late, Naruto mused. He had already decided he wasn't going to be worrying about what they think of him anymore.
Kakashi's eye widened for a few tense moments, as he looked at the genin. How had things gone so wrong?
'Very well then, Naruto', Kakashi said to Naruto. 'You leave me no choice. You do realise that this can result in the Hokage pulling you off of Team 7.'
Naruto narrowed his eyes at the lazy sensei, his anger getting the better of him, 'Yeh, I do. Not like this team is any good anyway.'
'And whose fault is that Naruto-baka!' Sakura fumed, unable to believe that the boy who had always looked at their sensei like an idol was being this hard-headed. 'Just apologise and get this over with. And we can get back to…'
However, Naruto didn't let her finish. Why the fuck would he apologise, and for what?
'Apologise? What for?' Naruto snapped, ignoring the 'Shhhh' of the chunin librarian.
'Besides, this way you guys might even get someone who may actually pose a challenge to the precious Uchiha. Maybe Hinata. Hell, you can ask her right now. She's standing there right now. Either way, I'll be free of this pathetic team!'
He hadn't really meant it, to be honest. But he was too pissed off to think straight right now. At least, in Team 7 he had some semblance of acceptance.
He thought he heard an 'eep' from where the girl was standing followed the sound of several scrolls falling to the floor.
'Pathetic?!' Sakura yelled. 'Who are you calling pathetic you dobe!' She was ignored by both Kakashi and Naruto.
'Are you sure you want to do this Naruto', Kakashi looked at his stubborn genin, unable to believe that the boy was letting his ego take this further than it needed to go. Perhaps he had inherited more of his mother than Kakashi first believed. 'You're not going to be able to find any other team I assure you. And you're training will stop.'
Naruto felt his eyes starting to get wet, but he rallied. He would not back down! If his sensei can talk about getting rid of him so easily, then perhaps it was better he was off the team anyway.
One look at Sasuke showed the teme's feigned disinterest, 'Yes, I am!'
'Naruto!' Sakura clenched her fists, a sickeningly sweet smile on her face as she stepped closer to him, 'Don't take this any further than it needs to go!'
Naruto narrowed his eyes at her and growled, 'I didn't do anything wrong and….'
'Enough of this pissing contest Naruto-baka!' Sakura yelled, momentarily surprising the other members of team 7, hearing her curse for the first time. 'Just apologise and end this!'
'Oh, shut it, flatty!' Naruto snapped back. 'What does it matter to you anyway!'
'Ugh', Sasuke groaned in annoyance. The dobe just had to go there! Already they had endured the girl grumbling about Naruto insulting her chest on the way here.
He heard the sharp gasp from the pink haired teammate. 'NARUTO!' she yelled, intent of bashing his brains out, for this time and the last, making him see sense. But she hadn't expected what happened next.
Naruto had gotten really tired of Sakura treating him like her own, personal punching bag. It wasn't that her punch was too slow, but that he had gotten a little faster. He saw it coming as soon as she moved her arm. Moving to the right at the same time as he snapped his hand rightwards.
Crack!
There were a few sharp gasps in the room that Naruto didn't pay attention to.
Sakura's face whipped to the right, her eyes wide and shocked, in disbelief. As were the others who knew of Naruto's massive crush on the pinky.
None of them were able to able to believe that Naruto had just backhand slapped his own teammate and crush. Or rather, former crush.
It wasn't Kakashi's stern, 'Naruto, enough!' that surprised him. It was Sasuke standing in front of a shocked Sakura, who was still holding the left side of her face.
'What? You can give it but you can't take it?' Naruto narrowed his eyes at the girl, squashing down at the immense amount of guilt clawing its way up his chest at the sight of Sakura's tears.
A memory flashed by in his head. One of a much younger Sakura in the playground being bullied by some kids making fun of her forehead and pink hair, her green eyes filled with unshed tears. Until Naruto got there that is.
Shaking his head, he was brought back to the present by Kakashi's stern admonition and demands to apologise to the girl.
Naruto's head whipped to the left, his focus elsewhere, paying no attention to his sensei. He vaguely registered a wide eyed Hinata staring at them from where she had decided to come out of hiding, her hand clutching the jacket in front of her chest.
What was that?!
This much larger chakra signature making its way to the Hokage tower! That made sense that he was able to sense it, since the library was right next to the Hokage tower. Who the hell was that? It was safe to say he had never felt a chakra signature like the one he was currently feeling. It was much greater than he had felt of the ninja in the village, save the Hokage.
Naruto closed his eyes, stretching out his senses as far as they can get and tried to eliminate the ones in the library and only focus on the ones he wanted. The one with the weird, strong signature wasn't alone. It was with ten others, roughly of the same unremarkable size, though he got the feeling that they had some training in chakra. There were two others, genin rank, he would say.
Was it an infiltration? An invasion? Surely, they couldn't have just waltzed right in without someone noticing.
His eyes snapped open by Kakashi's voice, 'Oh yeh, I'm sorry', Naruto said half-heartedly turning around to gather his things, having already decided to get out of here so he could investigate this new development.
Before Kakashi or Sakura could respond however, they were surprised yet again by an ANBU suddenly appearing in front of them.
'Kakashi-san', she greeted the jonin.
Naruto nearly jumped a foot in the air, as he whirled around, look at the ANBU. Where the hell did she come from? He hadn't even sensed a smidgen of anything from her. Was he just so distracted today that first he didn't sense Hinata and now this person?
'Neko', Kakashi greeted her, almost casually. So, he knew her?
Even in his annoyed state, Naruto marvelled at the sensei's ability to just turn emotional states in an instant, or make it seem like he had. Not two seconds ago, he was annoyed. Now he seems as if talking about the weather.
It seemed as if he wasn't the only one who had missed her approach. Sasuke's annoyed face – well, narrowing of his left eye – told him he hadn't either. That made Naruto feel a little better honestly. At least, there was one thing the teme was good for.
'The Hokage has summoned team 7 and 8', she said in a no-nonsense fashion so unlike his sensei. Naruto was beginning to like her, even if he didn't like the way her masked face lingered on his for a little while longer than the rest. Did the old man want them for another mission? Or was it to hunt down these infiltrators?
That explains the inclusion of team eight. They were training to be trackers after all.
He turned to where he had seen Hinata, seeing the girl watching the scene with wide, pale lavender eyes. 'Might as well go together, Hinata.'
There was a slight 'eep' from the girl, a nod and she hurried to join them. While he was annoyed by the girl, it had bene two weeks since he had returned from Wave and his annoyance had died down to a mere inconvenience.
But as he had told Danzo, he wouldn't want to tip off the enemy by being uncivil and openly hostile, even if Hinata wasn't technically his enemy. He would be civil to the girl, but nothing more. But why was she so red?
'Are you okay, Hinata?' he asked the girl, who whipped her head towards him, lavender eyes wide as if she couldn't believe he had just spoken to her.
'W…what do you mean, N…Naruto-kun?' she asked, tapping her fingers together, already having turned her face towards her own feet. If this kept up, and she didn't look where she was going, she was bound to bump into a pole or something.
'You're a little red', he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
'Y…yes, I'm fine', the girl replied, though she looked a little down.
Oh well, not his problem. He turned to study the ANBU woman who was leading them. Like all her comrades, she wore a grey flak jacket, metal arm guards and gloves.
She also carried a standard katana on her back, though in a different position he had seen others wear theirs. Instead of going from her left shoulder blade diagonally down, it went from the right. That suggested that she was perhaps a kenjutsu specialist, or maybe she had her own personalised style. Though her long purple hair covered most of the sword.
Naruto scoffed mentally. Why use a mask when she can just be identified by her hair alone. Anyone who knows this woman personally would be able to tell. He vaguely recognised the purple hair. But in his memory, the ANBU woman who had sometimes guarded him had shorter purple hair. Had she grown it out perhaps?
But it was the walk which transfixed him the most. It was measured, calculated steps, leaving no openings waist down. She walked with a deadly grace that he had seen very few others do.
And considering he had been chased by quite a few ANBU in his pranking past, he had a few of them to compare her to. As the group left the library building, Naruto didn't see the woman hidden behind the fuinjutsu bookshelf on the jounin floor watching him like a snake does its prey.
Hinata for her part was more shocked than anything. It had been a week since her father had dropped the veritable bomb of her betrothal on her. It had been a week since she had shouted at her father, and her clan elders. It had been a week since she had been punished. Her father's Jyuken was as fast as it was painful.
It had been a week, and still she hadn't come any closer to accepting the fact that she may very well may not be a ninja in six months' time. That she may already be the property of someone else. How could her father do this to her? Did he hate her so much? Did he hate her mother so much for leaving him?
She knew, even if Hiashi hadn't said it, that she reminded him of her. Didn't he use to love her? Why then sentence her daughter to such a fate? Her heart was in tatters, and the only thought she had was perhaps…. Just maybe… there was a chance.
She hadn't even told Kurenai-sensei yet. She knew how angry her sensei would get and that wouldn't help things much. She already had an idea that her sensei didn't much like her father.
The only one she had wanted to see was Naruto-kun. That perhaps he would understand. They had talked two weeks ago before she screwed it up. Perhaps he would agree to be friends again.
However, she hadn't seen him since her father's ultimatum and it was only by chance that she had spotted him today, walking into the library. Or more like, stumbling into it.
Her first thought was to rush towards him, offer him any assistance she could. He was clearly injured. His muscles could barely hold his weight. Just what kind of training was Naruto-kun doing to be unable to walk properly.
Just one look from her Byakugan had shown her what she had suspected earlier. He was wearing a lot of weights, strapped to him under his jumper. But what was he doing in a library? The Naruto she knew hated any and everything that had anything to do with books. He much preferred action.
Hinata didn't think she would be caught. Besides she was going to research some ingredients for a new salve she wanted to make. To take her mind off of… everything really. How long had he known she was there?
Oh no! Did he think she was spying on him again? He was clearly in a very bad mood. She had clearly chosen a very bad time to sate her curiosity.
Hinata had felt Sakura-san was very harsh every time she hit Naruto-kun so hard. Clearly something had changed between them. Naruto-kun had had a crush on the beautiful pink haired kunoichi for four years now and he had never retaliated to her punches even once, as unfair and painful they looked. So why now? Not that she thought he was wrong to do.
She might be a pitiful Hyuga, but she was a Hyuga nonetheless. And it was clear to her that Naruto was hurting. He was feeling guilty at hitting Sakura-san back. Even if he was trying to keep a straight face, she could tell. She could always read him. Even when he put up a ridiculously large grin for show, she could tell. It was his big, cerulean eyes. They were by far the most expressive she had seen.
Now, she walked beside him just like she had always wished. But it wasn't the same. He wasn't even aware of her. Or he was purposefully ignoring her.
Her heart was breaking inside at the loss of friendship as she cursed her stupidity. Why in the world had she been so stupid? Couldn't she do anything right? Her father was right. She was a failure. She was worthless.
She always had been worthless, right. Wasn't that why he was getting rid of her by marrying her to a civilian lord.
Just when she was spiralling down in her self-pity, as if summoned by her will to survive, a memory came bursting forth.
A much younger Naruto thrown out of a shop, his eyes full of hurt and tears as the awful shopkeeper threw a mask at him. 'Take this demon freak!'
'I was just… just looking at it', the boy mumbled, looking at the cracked mask in his hands, his tears spilling onto the painted porcelain.
'Get lost, freak', the shop keeper yelled. 'And don't enter my shop again.'
Naruto staggered up, 'I'll be Hokage someday! Then you'll have to respect me! Believe it!'
YES! I will prevail! I will not fail. She still had a chance to make her father change his mind. He had said that she will be taken off the roster if she failed the chunin exam in six months. And she had given him her word that she will pass it. That she will be a chunin in six months or she will die trying!
And she never goes back on her word. It was her nindo, her ninja way.
I will make Naruto-kun proud. Hinata motivated herself, taking a surreptitious look at the boy beside her but his focus was on the ANBU lady. More on a specific part of the woman than the whole person.
A blush crept up her cheeks as she watched Naruto-kun look at the lady's behind. Granted, it was quite shapely but she hadn't thought Naruto-kun was that sort of boy. But then again, from his comment to Sakura-san, it was safe to say he didn't like small chests. Did he like shapely butts too? She didn't think he was so superficial.
Hinata, as subtly as she could, felt her own behind. Granted, she was still a developing thirteen-year-old girl but she thought it was alright. Maybe… maybe Naruto-kun will like hers too…
Her eyes widened as she realised the direction her thoughts had taken. And then darkness consumed her, vaguely registering Naruto's shocked voice calling her name.