Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Glee. So another time skip in this chapter, it takes place approximately six to four months before they graduate. This chapter is split into four parts each one done from the perspective of Quinn, Ino, Sakura, and finally Naruto. It goes a bit into the training they've been doing since last chapter as well as their motivations, but it doesn't cover everything that has happened. Think of this as a bit of a snapshot chapter. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy.
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xXx-Chapter 10-xXx
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She could feel the fire burning and coursing through her. The inferno that was building up inside of her was incredible, the raw power that she could wield if she could just harness it would be unimaginable. But that was the problem, of all the elements fire was the hardest to control. Sarutobi-sensei had told her that what she was attempting to do was all but impossible. She didn't care, now that she had started this she knew it was the right course.
Quinn had hit a bit of a wall in her training and so she needed to do something that would help her break through and keep progressing. She had spent weeks and weeks going over the theoretical aspects of this with the Third. Scrolls filled to the brim with instruction and diagrams, notes detailing every little thing that she would have to get right in order for this to work and she had memorized them all.
She steadies her breathing as she stands on top of the river, the water boiling and steaming around her as she concentrates. She was stripped down to a pair of net shorts and her wrappings, any more clothing was currently too difficult for her to keep from bursting into flames. She knows that Sarutobi-sensei is standing nearby, watching her, completely focused and ready to intervene if necessary. If she wasn't careful, the amount of fire-natured chakra that she was channeling could get away from her and consume her. Thus the whole practicing while standing on a river with someone standing by to suppress and seal her chakra away if it got out of hand… thing.
She would probably have made more progress if she could practice this more often but the Third was adamant, and she had to grudgingly agree, that what she was attempting was so far advanced and so dangerous that he was the only one who could help her… or you know stop her from blowing a good couple of acres of Konoha into oblivion. So the only time she got to truly practice was when she met with him on Sunday afternoons.
She was sweating profusely as she continued to focus and mold her chakra within her, converting more and more of it into pure fire-nature chakra. She could feel herself brimming with energy, but it was getting harder and harder to control. Earth could be molded, Lightning could be guided, Water could be shaped, Wind could be directed, but Fire… Fire was a completely different beast. One that couldn't be fully tamed and that was what she was trying to do.
Quinn flinches in pain as she can feel her skin start to burn and ache with the pressure, she had finally reached her threshold point, the point where exactly half of her chakra has been converted into fire chakra. From here it got tricky, because once she tipped the balance in favor of fire she began to lose control of it and her own chakra then wanted to burn her alive. No… if she could just keep focused, reign it in and remember the meditations, remember how it felt last time where it had gone wrong and just avoid that.
She was close, she could feel it, she was getting there… and then it was gone. She felt the fiery chakra begins to rage against her, furious and free and determined to break loose of the tentative control that she had. Suddenly there was a pain in her stomach as she felt the Third Hokage slam a seal onto her and her access to her chakra was cut off and down she went into the water. Damn it, she was so close to, she could feel it. She takes a moment to allow herself to cool down underneath the surface of the water before she swims to the top.
When she breaks the surface she can see Sarutobi-sensei standing above her a look of concern on his face. "Are you okay?" He asks as he lifts her out of the water and removes the seal he had placed on her.
"Yeah… I was so close that time, damn it..." She says, feeling exhausted as the Third helps to steady her.
"Are you sure that you wish to continue on with this, there are easier ways, safer ways to achieve what you are trying to do."
Quinn shakes her head. "No, they're similar but they won't do what I'm trying to achieve." She had come up with this idea one night while watching a movie with her friends. It was a ninja hero movie that had reminded her of something that she had seen back in her old world while she was dating Sam. She was basically trying to become that flaming torch guy from the fabulous or fanatic four movie that they had watched together.
The basic premise was she was trying to convert her entire chakra supply into fire chakra. So she spent a good month researching chakra natures and specifically the fire nature and then she presented her notes to Sarutobi-sensei. He had then gone over them carefully and he agreed that if you were in fact able to do this there were quite a few benefits that you could get from it.
One being that you could potentially perform any fire jutsu without the use of hand seals and you could perform higher level jutsu with less chakra drain because the chakra was already converted. Also the energy that the fire chakra would be sending through you would also be akin to the output of opening at least three of the chakra gates thus increasing your strength and speed by at least that much, without the nasty side effect of you know… death by chakra exhaustion. It would also make you near impossible to fight in hand to hand combat, the heat that would be radiating from your body would scorch anyone who got too close and any strike from you would be like getting hit with a white hot iron. All of this was possible if she could successfully convert her chakra reserves completely into its fire nature form.
However, doing so definitely had risks, not the least of which was that if she lost control of the technique for even a moment she basically turned into a giant bomb that would take out, well… there was a reason they were out here in the boonies. But assuming she didn't blow up there were other side effects to consider as well. The fire was hurting her, chakra coils weren't meant to house and direct natured chakra, at least not in the quantities that she was attempting to do it at and so she was running the risk of literally frying her chakra system. It had taken weeks and weeks of meditation and preparation to get her system and body ready to handle this kind of energy and even then she had to go slowly, just a little bit at a time.
Her first full attempt to do this had resulted in her spending three days in the hospital with second degree burns all over her body. Lucky for her Konoha had the best medical corp. in all of the elemental nation so she was perfectly fine now, but at the time it hadn't been fun. She had never seen her parents or sister as angry or as scared as they were when they came rushing into her hospital room, having been informed of her condition.
She was getting closer though, she could feel it. She could reach her threshold point now with no problem. The threshold point being that exact moment when half of her chakra was unrefined Yin and Yang energy, your standard chakra, and the other half had been completely converted. She could even fight at that stage, even if it was only for a few minutes, and it made her fire jutsu stronger and easier to use too, but that wasn't the end goal. She didn't want just a partial conversion, she wanted complete and total conversion. But once she pushed past that threshold point she just couldn't maintain control of the technique.
Saurtobi-sensei huffs in frustration. "I'll admit that you've given me pause to think that this is actually possible, a total chakra conversion, but I don't think that you're quite ready yet. You have plenty of time Rin, there is no need to rush." He finishes kindly.
Quinn shakes her head. "That's where you're wrong. I only have four months until graduation, and we meet only once a week which is the only time I'm allowed to practice this, so that gives me essentially sixteen days to complete this technique. Once I'm a full-fledged genin I won't have as much time to train and practice because I'll have duties that I'll need to perform that will take up more of my time. No, I have to complete do this now."
Sarutobi-sensei smiles at her. "You do realize that active duty ninja train as well right? It's not all just mission after mission, especially not in times of peace like this. You'll have plenty of time to learn how to do this."
"Maybe, but a lot of that time is going to be spent doing team training and it's like you said you're the only one that can really help me accomplish this… besides I'm not ready to quit just yet. Let's give it one more try."
"No, I think that's enough for today, your body needs to recover."
Quinn sighs, she could hear the finality in his voice and knew that it would do her no good to argue. "Yes sensei…"
Sarutobi-sensei laughs, "Oh-ho, you are coming along so well that I sometimes forget that you are still only twelve years old. Trust an old man on this, you have plenty of time so no pouting."
"What!? I wasn't pouting!"
But Sarutobi-sensei pays her no mind, and just continues to chuckle as he leads the two of them out of the training grounds and back towards the village.
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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Ino sat as still as a statue in the middle of the darkened and silent room, a single candle off in the corner acting as their only light. Her eyes are closed as she falls deeper and deeper into her meditative state. Anything that could prove a distraction to her had been removed. She needed total focus as she continued removing all excess thoughts from her mind, focusing on herself and who she was. Strengthening her sense of identity as her father sits across from her watching her carefully. No one was to disturb them, once the door to this room was shut, they didn't exist.
Ino Yamanaka, she repeats her name over and over again in her mind.
Ino Yamanaka.
Ino Yamanaka.
I.
Am.
Ino.
Yamanaka.
Her eyes snap open as she stares at her father, her own eyes locking onto his. Her hands shoot up in the necessary seal that would help guide her spirit to its target. "Mind Transfer Jutsu!" She calls out.
Her father brings his own hands up in a seal that matches hers. "Mind Receiver Jutsu." He says simultaneously, this technique was used to help open the user's mind up to people they were teaching and make them slightly easier to possess with the Mind Transfer Jutsu to.
For a moment the world stretches around her like she's being sucked through a long tube and then suddenly her perspective shifts and Ino watches as her physical body slumps over. This was one of the things that made their clan techniques so dangerous to use. You sent your consciousness over into another person and your body lay helpless, and once you were inside your targets mind there were other dangers. Like, if you didn't have a complete and perfect sense of who you were then your own mind would be ripped to shreds by the other person's and your consciousness would be absorbed and lost inside of them. The person you were disappeared and all that was left of you was your body, an empty husk. There were more, extremely advanced techniques that allowed a skilled practitioner of their arts to slowly piece a person's mind back together, but doing so was difficult and could take months or even years.
It was a year and a half's worth of preparation that had finally lead up to this moment. With the Mind Transfer Jutsu you were either successful on your first attempt or you were a vegetable. Months and months of meditation, of journal keeping, studying the human mind, of letting her father into her mind and helping her organize it, of looking inside herself and facing her inner demons had led to this moment. Right here, right now, where she would finally be able to attempt the first technique of the Yamanaka clan. The Mind Transfer Jutsu. It was the basis for every other technique that her clan had created and once you learned and mastered it, the others came easy.
"Now Ino, I want you to focus." Ino can hear her father's voice echo around her. "Concentrate and focus, you have successfully entered my mind but you're nowhere near through yet. Have you established your anchor?"
"Yes," She answers with her father's mouth and voice. "It's pictured clearly in my mind and I can feel it linked to my body. I can feel it calling to me, pulling me towards it so that it can take me back to my body." You never told anyone what your anchor was, otherwise they could reverse the jutsu and follow you back to your mind.
"Good, no matter what you are doing never lose sight of that anchor, if you do you will be trapped inside your targets mind and you might never be able to escape. If you ever feel your connection to your anchor slipping cut the technique off immediately."
"I understand."
"Good, now take a moment to center yourself and imagine yourself with your own body. Picture it, every detail there is about you, imagine a perfect image of your body and then I want you to step inside of it."
"Okay." She answers as she does just that. She slowly constructs her body inside of her father's mind down to the very last detail, from the slight sheen of her hair due to that new shampoo she was using to the fact that she had let Rin paint her toenails pink the other night. Nothing was forgotten or over looked and when she was finished, she found herself standing inside of a black circle that was acting as a barrier to the raging hurricane of her father's mind which swirled around her. "Done." She calls out
"Good, now that you have established your avatar you have complete control, any movement you make, my body will make as well. That circle you are standing on is your barrier, never move beyond it. As long as you are completely inside the barrier you are in control, if the barrier breaks or is breached then the other person is back in control. Go ahead and move around a bit, get used to the feeling of control."
Ino does as asked and stands up inside of her father's body, she raises and lowers his arms and legs, getting a feel for how to make someone move. She even walks around the room. It was a little clumsy but that would go away with time and practice.
Suddenly her father's avatar is standing next to her inside the barrier. "Very good Ino, I'm impressed. Now, take a deep breath and close your eyes. When you do, you'll feel a slight tap to your forehead. Then you'll feel a tug at your naval pulling you towards your anchor, go with it, and when you open your eyes you'll be back inside your own body."
Ino does as she's told and for a second she feels like she being stretched like a rubber band and when she opens her eyes she's lying on the floor and looking up at the beaming face of her father. "Ino, congratulations you have just successfully completed your first use of the Mind Transfer Jutsu. I am so very proud of you."
"Thanks daddy, that was… intense." She says with a slightly breathless tone as her world spins around her.
"Yeah, but you'll get used to it, now how are you feeling?"
"I'm okay I guess, I have a bit of a headache though." She says as she tries to sit up.
"No, don't sit up, you're mind and your body are getting re-oriented. Give it a minute, and as for the headache, that was because I ended the technique instead of you. As you learn to cut the technique off on your own and as you learn to utilize it to its fullest potential you won't get that anymore and the time it takes for your mind and body to reconnect will be shorter."
"Can we do it again?" She asks.
"No, you need to recover and refocus yourself. Meditate before you go to bed tonight and right when you wake up tomorrow. We'll pick it up again after I get back from work tomorrow."
"Yeah, okay." Ino says, it was probably a good idea to wait anyways, she was feeling a little off right now.
"Ino, I want you to know how incredibly proud of you I am, you've picked up on this so fast."
Ino rolls her eyes, "Daddy, it's taken me a year and a half to get here."
"I know, it took me two. The amount of preparation needed for this techniques is incredible, but you'll find that now that you've reached this part, you're progress is going to sky rocket."
"Really?"
"Yes, I knew that these techniques would suit you. You're coming along so fast and I couldn't be more proud of you even if they named you the Godaime tomorrow."
Ino giggles at that and starts to sit up, her head is still spinning and her body sways unevenly so her father helps her. "I don't think Naruto would forgive me if they did that. I'm glad though, it's been tough but… I think this is exactly what I needed. Thanks for training me."
"The pleasure has been all mine princess. Now, let's go see what your mother has cooking for us, I'm starving." He says helping her to stand up, steadying her as she wobbles a bit.
"Wow… that took a lot more out of me than I thought."
"Transferring minds is rough on the body, but you'll grow more and more accustomed to it and then eventually you won't even notice it anymore, but the first couple of transfers can be a little rough. Actually I'm surprised you haven't… there you go." Her father says sympathetically as he rubs her back. She's bent over and throwing up, the act of standing and trying to walk having caused a vicious attack of nausea.
"This… *gack*… this is awful." She moans.
"Now you see why I wanted you to wait before trying it again."
Ino just moans in response before retching again."
"Maybe just some broth for you tonight." Her father suggests.
"Maybe you're right…"
"And just think, you get to do this again tomorrow." He says with a laugh.
"Oh gods…"
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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Sakura let out a grunt as she pushed the bar bell up again, feeling the strain of it. She was keeping a mental count and had upped her weights today by another five pounds. It didn't seem like much but considering what she was already lifting it added up quickly. Sweat was pouring off of her body, she probably smelled a bit, and she was going to be aching in the morning and yet, she couldn't be happier.
Ever since she had started training in Taijutsu it was as if something had clicked for her. She was finally becoming the Kunoichi she always dreamed she would be. She was fit and muscular without being beefy, this was due to a chakra control technique that Guy-sensei had showed her. It basically worked like this, you channeled the chakra to the muscles in the area you were working on but you didn't use it to strengthen yourself, instead you basically covered it in a thin layer of chakra. Doing this gave you all of the density and strength gain that the exercising gave you but it prevented you from bulking up, that way you could get as strong as you wanted but didn't have to lose the flexibility that a more lithe frame gave you.
Guy-sensei was certainly… eccentric is the word she believed the Hokage had used when he had described him, Sakura was more apt to use words like insane and fanatical, but the Hokage had also been correct, the man was genius when it came to Taijutsu and he had been more than happy to pass on his "Hip and youthful" tips to her. And over the course of the last year and a half that she had gotten to know him she had come to have a great deal of respect for him.
She was actually a little disappointed that he had already taken on a genin team six months ago because she would have loved to have had him as her jōnin sensei, although she could understand why he couldn't. Her senpai Lee was on his team and while she believed in him and Guy-sensei believed in him, his chakra coil disorder meant that not a lot of ninja would give him a chance seeing that he would never be able to form ninjutsu or genjutsu. Lee was another interesting character that she had grown quite fond of as well, occasionally working out together and sparring together. Like herself, Lee saw beyond Guy-sensei's eccentricities and realized what a truly powerful shinobi he was.
Now she wasn't exactly rushing to wear green spandex and cut her hair into a bowl cut anytime soon like Lee had, but she appreciated and loved the enthusiasm that both of them brought to the table. It was nice to see people outside her immediate group of friends who were just as determined to improve themselves as they were. Her only issue with Lee was that he had a bit of a crush on her.
He was a sweet guy and she felt honored to count him as a friend but her heart firmly belonged to another. He swore that he would win her love but she wished that he wouldn't try, she didn't want to hurt him. She knew how she felt for this other person and it wasn't going to change. They were who she was training for, who she was getting stronger for. She had to get stronger if she wanted to reach a place where she could call herself their equal and then finally tell them how she felt.
Sakura finishes her set and places the bar on its rest before sitting up. She was currently in the basement of their house, her parents had been really supportive of her new found resolve and had converted the room into a gym for her. Her mother especially had been thrilled, both of her parents were Ninja's and while her father was happy to let her be his little girl for as long as she liked, her mother was grateful that she was taking her training more seriously and was especially glad that she was taking up Taijutsu as well which was her forte. Often helping her daughter out with her technique and forms whenever Guy-sensei was unavailable.
Sakura moves from her weight set and heads over to the training dummy that had been set up, where she once again goes into the now familiar kata's. Practicing her stances and posture, getting into a comfortable rhythm of strikes and counter strikes. Her body moving with perfect precision and control. Her muscles flexing powerfully under her skin. She was a beast, as Guy-sensei had affectionately called her.
A year and a half ago she would have been horrified by the comparison, but now it made her smile. Because she really was a bit of a beast. Her hair was long and messy, pulled back into a loose ponytail. She had calluses on her knuckles from learning and perfecting how to throw a punch. She had the strongest body in her class, training herself to the limit in search of physical perfection. She had also grown taller as well, shooting up by a couple of inches and actually making her the tallest person in class.
Her body was filling out now too, which pleased her to no end. She was gaining a figure and while she wasn't as stacked as say Hinata was, or even Ino and Rin, she certainly wasn't a little girl anymore either, another pleasant side effect of changing her eating habits to something much healthier than what it had been. With Guy-sensei's help as well as her mother's she had learned how to eat much healthier than what she used to in order to keep up with the demands of her body, and so the junk food she used to enjoy snacking on was all but gone. She missed it sometimes, just eating whatever it was she wanted, but she wouldn't trade what she had gained by giving them up for anything. She was a well-oiled machine and she was going to keep that way. Though being friends with Naruto with his ramen addiction certainly made it difficult at times.
She had worked hard to get where she was, to reach a point where when it came to Taijutsu at least, she was the best in her class. Her chakra reserves were still small in comparison to some of her other classmates, but they had grown quite a bit from when she had started and she still had her perfect control to make up for it. No, for the first time in her life, Sakura had confidence in herself and had a faith in her abilities that she had never had before. She was going to be the greatest Taijutsu master this village had ever seen.
"Sakura, it's time for dinner." She hears her father call out, and she has to suppress a wince. Her father meant well but not only couldn't he cook to save his life but the concept of a healthy balanced meal seemed lost on him.
"Ah… I think I'll just stick with a protein shake tonight." She calls out.
She can hear him come down the stairs. "Nonsense, I made Yakitori, you'll love it!" He says beaming.
Okay, she can concede that that wasn't too bad, it would be pretty difficult for him to screw that up. "Sure, sounds good." She says with a smile. "Let me just wash up okay?"
"No worries I'll keep your plate warm."
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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Naruto smiled as he walked behind his three friends, they were on their way to the academy for another day of training. Only four months left until graduation, four months and they would all be full-fledged ninja. It had been an interesting ride so far and he felt like he had learned and grown so much since that first day all those years ago when he went to see if Rin would play with him.
He hadn't caught up to them yet, but he was improving and growing. He wasn't the dead last that everyone always said he would be and more importantly than that, he had people who cared about him. Who saw him and didn't ignore him or look at him with disgust or hate in their eyes. He was Naruto Uzumaki and not only did they acknowledge him, they liked him, they believed in him and encouraged him.
They didn't make fun of his dreams or aspirations, they encouraged him to pursue them. Helping him along the way, teaching him and guiding him when he needed it and stepping back and letting him learn on his own when he needed that too. They were his precious people. Sure when he was goofing off they might call him on it, but then again there were times when they joined him as well. He wasn't there yet, he knew he had a long road ahead of him and a lot of work to do but he wanted to be strong like them and he wanted to be able to protect them as well. More than anything else he wanted to create a world where they could live in peace.
When he had first said he wanted to be Hokage he could see the skepticism in their eyes, it was a lofty goal and he wasn't exactly a model student of the shinobi arts at the time. He was much better now but back then when he had first said it to them he could admit that he was kind of a brat. He goofed off and never really studied, more interested in playing games or pranks. But that didn't matter, it was his dream and he was going to do it and he was going to get everyone in the village to recognize him.
Looking back he felt kind of bad for Rin in the early days of their friendship. They were polar opposites of each other and he knew that he could be a little trying at times. But she was patient with him and stood by him even when maybe it would have been easier for her not to. One thing he knew that had really irked her about him was his work ethic, or lack of. Because she was a hard worker and she valued that in other people as well. She had no problem spending hours or even days going over something with you until you got it down, but you had better be putting in one hundred percent. However, back then he… well he didn't want to admit it but he was lazy.
He wanted his abilities to just come to him and if something wasn't interesting to him then he couldn't be bothered to learn it. He thought it was a waste of his time. He wanted to do the cool flashy jutsus, the kind that you saw in the ninja movies, or heard about in legends and stories, he didn't care about the basics. Did the Hokage need to know how to make a camp fire or sharpen a kunai, no, or how to do the horse stance correctly, no way, he had kickass jutsu that could destroy a mountain at his disposal. Get him some of that, you know.
He could remember the day that all changed for him clearly, when he finally got his butt into gear and started taking his training seriously. They had been seven years old at the time and had only been hanging out together for a couple of months. It was a fairly short time together but he already considered her his best friend by that point.
"Naruto would you please settle down, I'm trying to read." Rin asks him politely for what felt like the billionth time that hour, looking up from her scroll and arching her brow at him. They were at her house right now studying for an upcoming exam. Well they were supposed to be studying, he was having trouble wanting to concentrate.
Naruto whines at her, "Oh, C'mon Rin this is soooooo boring, let's go do something else okay? Let's go play ninja!" He asks her hopefully.
Rin sighs, "Naruto we have a test on this tomorrow and you've already failed your last two. We can play tomorrow after the test."
"No, because you'll want to review what was on it." He whines.
Rin rolls her eyes, "Yes, but that won't take all day."
"But this is boring!"
Rin looks at him and takes a breath deep calming breath. "I'll admit it's not the most exciting thing ever but it's important, plus if you fail this test Suzumi-sensei will drop you from her class."
Naruto huffs petulantly, "So!? What do I care about some dumb flowers or some lame tea ceremony etiquette or any of that type of junk, who needs it?" He asks puffing his cheeks petulantly.
"It's to help us train for infiltration and assassination missions. And those dumb flowers that you don't care to learn about are used in a variety of codes all of the time as well as being used in various poisons, toxins, balms, and solutions. The flower arrangements that they teach us are a way to help us remember what plants work together to create a poison and which ones are used to make antidotes. And that etiquette that you seem to think is so lame is how you will pass yourself off as a servant or a noble to get closer to your target, whether it's a rescue mission or an assassination mission or just information gathering. This "junk" is important, so you need to learn it." She scolds him lightly.
Naruto scowls at that, she was the only person, besides Iruka-sensei, who ever seemed to scold him and if he wasn't so frustrated right now he would also note she was the only one who ever seemed to praise him as well. "Well so what?" He snaps at her, "When I'm Hokage I won't need to know any of this anyway, the Hokage doesn't have to go on some wimpy infiltration missions so there!"
"And how the hell do you expect to make it to the level of Hokage if you can't even be bothered to learn something as basic as this!?" She snaps at him, and Naruto is startled by it, it was the first time she had ever yelled at him.
"You go on and on about wanting to be the Hokage, fine, great, good for you, you have a goal, congratulations! Just one question, how do you expect to get there by sitting on your ass and whining all of the time!?" She jumps up to her feet glaring at him.
"You don't study, you don't train seriously, and yet you want to make it to the highest possible position that a ninja can ever hold? The title of Hokage is only passed onto one person and that person is the strongest in the village, how, how do you expect to earn that title when you're at the very bottom of the class and you refuse to change!?"
Naruto can feel the tears prickling at his eyes, but he holds them back jumping to his feet and he starts yelling too. "That won't matter, I'll become Hokage no matter what, I don't care what anyone says I'll do it! Everyone is holding me back, but I don't care, just watch me!"
Rin scoffs and shakes her head, "Holding you back? Who exactly is holding you back, you get the exact same training as everyone else?"
"Well it's boring, I don't care about that stuff I want to learn how to do cool things, but they won't help me because they hate me!"
"They don't help you because you just don't pay attention and when you do ask for help it's always for something that you aren't ready for yet. You remember the chakra strings, you asked me to teach you how to do it but you weren't willing to do what I said."
"That's because all you had me doing was the leaf sticking exercise which is boring and useless. How was it supposed to help me learn?"
"It builds a foundation, if you want to learn the "cool" jutsu then you have to build a foundation to work off of, you can't just dive right in you have to start simple and work your way up. But you don't want to do that, you're lazy and it's obvious you don't actually have any interest in being a ninja and for the life of me I can't figure out why you even want to be Hokage in the first place? You aren't willing to work for it."
"I do too want to be a ninja, it means everything to me! Being a ninja means that everyone has to recognize you as someone important and the Hokage is the most important ninja there is, and one day that will be me! And then everyone will have to look at me and respect me!" Naruto screams at her, furious that his supposed best friend would question his dream.
"Then you should find a new dream and quit being a ninja." Rin says softly, looking down.
Naruto felt like all of the air had just been sucked out of him, his best friend had just told him to quit. "What…?" He stutters. "How… how can you say that… you're supposed to be my friend?"
When Rin looks at him he can see there are tears welling up in her eyes. "If all you want is attention there are better and safer ways to get it. You like ramen right, learn everything there is to know about ramen and become a world class celebrity ramen chef. Cook for celebrities and daimyos and lords, open up a chain of restaurants that cover all the Elemental Nations. Or you could open up a store that provides for its community, start a charity and feed and clothe the homeless. Become a pillar of the community. You're cute, become an actor and star in movies and plays. All of these things could get you all of the recognition that you could ever want and you wouldn't have to be in this stupid… horrible life."
The tears were falling down Rin's face now and he felt bad that she was crying but he was confused as well. "What are you talking about Rin, being a ninja is the coolest thing ever?"
Rin laughs, but it's a harsh humorless laugh. "No, it really isn't. Do you have any idea how horrifying it is that at seven years old we're training to be killers, that we're learning how to plan and detect assassinations, that we're being taught to handle weapons and poisons. That within only five short years from now we may be called upon to kill someone just because they ticked off the wrong person."
"What… no, ninja's are heroes… we, they stop the bad guys." Naruto stutters out confused, he had never seen anyone have this kind of negative take on being a ninja before.
"No, we stop whoever is paying us tells us to stop. We're being trained to fight, to kill, and to die for this village… you're goddamn children! Do you have any idea how fucking messed up this is!?" Rin screams, her face red from the crying and anger. "If you want to be acknowledged, loved, there are so many different and better ways to go about it, ways that would keep you safe and keep you from ever having to kill, why this!? Why be a ninja!?"
Rin falls to her knees and pounds the ground, not looking up at him, but he is able to see her tears hit the floor. "Why would anyone choose this life, why? You don't have to look very hard, ask anyone, how many people have they lost, have died doing this. How many children have been asked to kill and die for some bullshit cause that someone else says is important. I would never be a ninja, not in a million billion years, not if I had a choice."
"Then why are you training to be one so hard then, if you hate it so much then why?" Naruto asks, confused and upset, along with a bunch of other emotions swirling around inside of him that he wasn't quite mature enough to understand yet.
When Rin looks up at him it was with a look of hopelessness that hit him hard. It was a look that he knew all too well from the mirror. It was the look of someone who felt alone with no one to comfort them, who had nothing and wanted nothing more than to quit, but couldn't for some reason or another, because something inside wouldn't let them. "I'm doing this because I have people that I need to protect and this is the only way I know how to do it. First it was just Ino, but now there's you and Sakura as well. I have to protect you because you don't know any better, because you all think this life we're choosing is something glamorous and wonderful and it's not. It's full of death and destruction where good people and children and whole families are treated as nothing more than tools to kill and then discarded when they lose their usefulness."
"Don't believe me, look it up, see how many people have died in the service of this fucking village and see just how young some of them are. I hate it, I hate this world. My mother, my father, my sister, you, all of you think that it's so fantastic but it isn't. It's scary and its horrible and I wish it were different but I'm stuck here and the only thing that keeps me going is that there are people here who I love more than my own life and so I have to stay and I have to fight for them. I have to be strong enough to protect you all, I've lost everything once and I can't do it again, I won't, I'm not strong enough. I don't matter but all of you do and if I can ever get even one of you to change your mind, to pick a different path than this, then I'll count this life of mine a success. I dream of a world without ninjas."
That phrase had stuck with him ever since. "I dream of a world without ninjas." It was so strange to him, all his life he had heard about how awesome ninjas were and how they were heroes, and they were, but there was more to it than that. That night he had done it, he looked up the names of all the shinobi who had died in the line of duty and he had felt sick. There were so many of them. And that was just this village, there were other ninja villages as well, the shinobi world was full of people who were fighting and dying for their villages and what they believed in.
All of them probably had families and friends that missed them and they all probably had hopes and dreams just like he did, that were cut short. How many of them had been like him and just didn't know, didn't realize how scary the life of a ninja could be. Or worse, how many of them were like Rin and knew exactly what they were getting into but felt like they had no other choice.
The next day after their… fight, talk, he wasn't quite sure what to call it, Rin had tried to apologize to him, saying she was out of line, but he had stopped her right there. Because she had been right, he wasn't taking his training seriously and he could get himself or someone else killed. And so from that point forward he put everything he had into getting stronger, into being the best.
It was slow going and he was nowhere near as strong as he wanted to be but he would do it. He would reach his dream of becoming Hokage, but he had a new reason for it other than gaining the recognition of those around him. One that he wouldn't share with anyone. It was to fulfill a promise that he made to himself for his friend. The Hokage was the strongest ninja in the village, he would achieve that title and he would protect everyone, and he would create a world where ninja were no longer needed, and he would do it because he never wanted to see Rin cry like that again, because he didn't want anyone to cry like that. Rin had decided that he was important enough to her that she would protect him like she was trying to protect her sister and her family, even though she hated it, even though she wanted to do literally anything else.
She said that no one in their right minds would ever choose to be a ninja, so he would create a world where she felt like she no longer had to be. Where she and everyone else could retire and pursue a life of peace. He had friends who were important to him, who believed in him even if they didn't know his full intentions, and so he would create a world where not only they, but everyone could live in peace. He would create this world for them, believe it.
"Hey, you're looking a little lost in thought there, anything you want share?" Rin asks with a smile, having fallen back to walk beside him.
Naruto grins at her, "Nope, just ready and excited to get today started, that's all. I'm going to train like nobody's business, believe it!" He says giving her a thumbs up.
"Good, we can't have our future Hokage slacking off now, can we?" She ruffles his hair affectionately.
"Definitely!"
