Chapter 21
"Aren't you going to get up, kid?"
Naruto breathed out heavily and shook his head impetuously, jilting the water around his face back and forth. It was already past his ears.
Kurama sighed and put his head back in his palms. "And here, I thought you were going to 'never give up'."
"Oh, could you… shut up?" Naruto pushed his head up and got into a sitting position. "Are you only able to make vaguely threatening and just plain mean things come out of your mouth? Is sarcasm your default?"
"Are empty words yours?"
Naruto's face scrunched up in frustration. "I didn't give up. I never did. I fought until the end. And here we are."
Kurama glanced around the mindscape. The water was rising. Slowly, but it was. "This is the end?"
Throwing up his hands in defeat, Naruto shrugged and flopped back to the watery ground. "Looks that way to me. 'Not giving up' isn't going to do me much good. Your chakra is being taken. We're both going to die here, not that you care."
Kurama's eyes narrowed. "And what's that supposed to mean, little boy?"
"Okay, first of all," Naruto said, raising a finger. "Don't call me boy. Not a boy. Second of all, you once tried to kill yourself just to spite me. Given your track record, I'm pretty confident in saying you don't really care about your life."
Kurama's nose curled and he stood up, baring his fangs at the gate. "Don't presume to speak for me, child. And yes, I am going to call you a child, because you are one. What, did you think that just because you put your little prick in a willing hole meant you were a man? A fully grown adult? Don't make me laugh. You've still the mentality of a child."
"If I've got the mentality of a child, then you have a mentality of a toddler. It's always vitriol and temper tantrums with you."
The corners of Kurama's lips curled. "Vitriol? That's a big one. Did your wife from sand teach it to you?"
Naruto shook his head as he stood up; it was no longer comfortable to lay in the rising water. "Hey, that's a good question. I have one for you. Why are you such an asshole all the time?"
"Because I have reason to be. Ever think about that?"
"Yeah, well I've got reason to be an asshole too! Ever think about that? But I try my best not be one! I try my best to talk to people and understand them because I know what it's like when people don't do that for me! Being alone is the worst feeling in the world, and this is coming from a guy who had someone's hand in their chest! It sucks! IT REALLY FUCKING SUCKS!" Naruto shouted the last part out, his facing getting red from the heat of the moment. He looked up at the giant red fox. Kurama was staring at him, eyes shifted all over his comparatively smaller frame. The fox was trying to figure out what to say next, Naruto could tell. Probably something snarky and mean.
Naruto took a couple of breaths to calm himself. "Why are you like this anyway, huh? Did someone hurt you? Did someone betray you? You got captured; that's obvious. But who did it? And why?"
Kurama shook his head and turned away. "You don't care what happened to me. There's not even a morsel of sincerity in your words."
"You don't get to decide if I'm sincere or not, you big lug of spite," Naruto said, his brow set forward. He pointed at his chest with his thumb. "You know my story already. You've been with me since I was born, after all. But I don't know anything about you. Just that you're big. And you're mean. You want to kill me sometimes and let me live other times. And also someone hurt you; or else you wouldn't be like this."
Kurama's hackles rose. What did that kid know about him? Huh? Nothing! That's what. That child thought sugared words and friendly smiles solved all the problems in the world and they don't. Not even a little bit! He didn't understand anything!
The fox turned around, snout set in a mighty course of invective at the miniscule child… but he wasn't where he'd been standing.
He was gone.
Kurama's eyes narrowed. Had he gained consciousness? That shouldn't be possible. Kurama could still feel the drain on his chakra.
And then he felt something on his wrist. He looked down and saw that the kid had entered his cage and hugged his little body around his appendage. "Just because you've been sad doesn't mean you can't be happy. Just because someone hurt you doesn't mean everyone will," the kid said, burying his face into his fur.
Kurama let a few ragged breaths escape his lips. He could squash the kid and that would be it. Granted, they were both going to die in a little bit, so it didn't really matter. But…
Well, it's not like he had to kill him.
Kurama let one last large breath out and curled up in a ball. "It all started with the sage..."
00000000
Naruto opened his eyes. The ceiling was white and the walls were too. The room he was in was sparse. Only a wood dresser that clashed with the room color and a mirror at the opposite wall of the bed made up the furniture. And the only source of light was a window above him, spilling golden rays of sun in the room. He sat up and looked to his side at the shock of platinum blonde hair peeking over the covers.
Yugito shuffled in the sheets and stretched her back out as she sat up, pulling her arms back as she did so with a massive yawn belting from her lips. She wasn't wearing any clothes. "Morning. How'd you sleep?"
Naruto couldn't speak. The last thing he remembered was being pulled into blackness after listening to Kurama's story. "Am I dead?"
She smirked a little bit. She looked almost… playful. "Do you feel dead?"
He looked down at his hands, fingers splayed, and made a fist a few times. "I don't know. I've never been dead, so I don't know how it would feel. Though…" he looked up at her. Usually, her features had a certain edge to them. A rigidity that bespoke of someone who had faced hardship and had hardened as a result. But now, her face looked softer. A lackadaisical smile. Drooping eyes. A jaunty air. "I think I might be in heaven."
And then her brow fell slightly into sadness. There was regret in her eyes. "Sorry, not even close," she said as she shucked the sheets off her body and stood up, going to the dresser and putting her clothes on. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was… talking to Kurama-"
"Kurama? He lets you call him that?"
Naruto blinked. "Yeah, we're… getting to be on better terms. Anyway, I was talking to him when my vision went black, then I woke up here."
"Are you feeling okay?"
Naruto blinked a few more times. "Yeah, a bit…" he paused to yawn widely, "Groggy mostly."
His eyes went wide as saucers. He turned to Yugito, fear at his throat. "Is everyone okay?!" he almost shouted.
One of her eyebrows went up. "Do you really think I would be here, lounging about at noon with no clothes on if anybody were seriously hurt?" She flattened out the last article of clothing and went to the mirror next, already getting started on putting her hair into a braid.
"Well, then, what happened?" he pressed.
"Missions success," she said. "Well, that's the short story anyway. Bee's back. He'll be fine, mostly. There might be permanent damage, but nothing he can't muscle through."
"But…" he put a hand to his face, trying to remember the last thing outside the mindscape during the mission. "We left Temari and the rest of the kage to that Madara guy and then…" he blinked a couple times. "And then I got knocked out immediately."
Yugito nodded as she turned around, flipping her braid behind her back and doing a pose. "That's right. How do I look?"
She was wearing a lavender sundress over baggy shorts that cut off just above the knees. Her braid was also a bit less tight with some strands falling out to frame her face.
He didn't comment on her dress. He looked down and to the side, his expression turning sour. "And then… you saved the day, I'm guessing."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "And I thought I looked pretty good. Anyway, no, it was a group effort."
His jaw clenched. "A group effort that I didn't help in."
"Are you going to start yelling?" she asked, her brows knitting together out of concern.
Naruto's jaw unclenched and he fell backwards onto the bed. "No…" he said in a sigh. It was like there was a heavy weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He wanted to cry. He couldn't remember the last time he wanted to cry. Because.
Because…
Because he felt so damn pathetic. Kurama's previous words were starting to sound truer and truer by the second. All he was, was empty words. No matter how much stronger or how much more he trained, he never progressed in any way. It was like he was on a treadmill while everyone was racing ahead. And no matter how hard he ran, he was always in the same place saying the same thing.
But he couldn't cry. Not while Yugito was there. He didn't want to worry her.
The bed shifted as Yugito sat down next to him. Her fingernails brushed against his cheek. "It's okay to cry you know."
His lips were pressed in a thin line to keep them from trembling. "Huh?"
She pushed herself back until she was leaning against the headboard. "You heard me."
He pushed his hands against his eyes. He could feel water on them. "I wasn't…" he started, wiping the fluid away.
"Yes," she interrupted. "You were. Don't try to hide it. I can see it a mile away."
He curled up a little bit and turned away from her, deigning to remain silent.
Yugito had a wistful smile on her face. "Oh, how the tables turn," she said. "Looks like I'm the one comforting you for a change."
When he didn't respond, she sighed and turned her gaze up to the ceiling. "I don't remember how many times I've cried myself to sleep staring up at that ceiling. I've always had to be the strongest, show the greatest example, and never fail. And… I often fell short of those ideals, as you can imagine. And when I did that… I felt so pathetic. I put all my worth into how strong I was and then when my strength wasn't good enough, neither was I. In retrospect, it was quite silly. But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt." She looked down at him, wallowing in despair, and smiled. It felt good to know that even he showed weakness sometimes.
"Do you think I went on to save the day unabated by anything in my path?" she continued on.
"That…" Naruto's voice cracked. "That's how it sounds."
"Well, it's not," she said gravely. "After you got knocked out, I got furious and nearly lost myself to my rage. And then I, myself, got knocked out, perhaps just as badly."
Naruto turned his head slightly so that he could make eye contact with her. "But…"
She nodded and cupped one his cheeks with her hand. "But how did we make it out? Everyone got put under and it's only through the grace of a psychopath's whimsy that we're all still alive. Matatabi, Chomei, Kurama, and Gyuuki all almost got taken away from us. By all rights, we should have failed."
Naruto sat up. His eyes were red. "Then… wait, I'm confused."
She smiled a little bit more. "It makes sense that you are. By all rights, we should have all died in that cave. We didn't though. Did you know that it's possible to hold mastery over the tailed beast's power?"
He blinked at the seeming non-sequitur. "Uh, no."
"Well, it's true. It latches onto hatred and other negative feelings and runs wild from there. So, if you don't have those, then it can't do anything to you. I've never been able to master that. It didn't matter how much I tried or how much counsel Bee gave me. I never succeeded in doing it. To me, it was all futile. And… while I was dying with Matatabi in my mindscape, I had this realization. It was why I loved you. What I realized what attracted me to you in the first place was, yes, because you were a Jinchuuriki and went through all what I did and yadayadayada. But what made me fall in love with you, really fall, was because you were happy. Happy through all the things that happened to you. And I didn't like how I never got to be that way. And then there was this thought. This thought that it was okay for me to be me. All the good and the bad and the in between was all that I was. I can't push away my weaknesses and pretend they don't exist. If I did that, I would be pushing away a part of myself. And after that… my darkness went away. And I could use Matatabi's chakra without fear. So I did. I grabbed everyone and got the fuck out before anyone could catch me. Not the most elegant of ways to get a mission success, I know. But I got there."
Naruto sat up next to her and wiped his dried face. "But I couldn't save you. Or anyone else."
She turned to him and grabbed his hands in hers. Her eyes were intense and unflinching. Her jaw set and her face uncomfortably close. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that. You did save me. Maybe not by rescuing me from a fire-breathing dragon, but you did. It doesn't matter where we go from here or what changes between us. You. Saved. Me. And I won't ever forget that."
"Then why do I feel so weak?"
She let go of his hands and stood up from the bed. "If you don't feel strong now, you never will. Strength isn't how hard you can hit someone. I know. For all my life, that's what I thought strength was. It's not even close. Strength is knowing what to say to someone who's lost everything. Strength is comforting someone on the precipice of something dangerous. Strength is never giving up. To me, you're the strongest person I know. So get up. We need to get to the hospital."
Naruto looked at her, a small smile coming to his face. "You're pretty strong too, you know that?"
She shrugged with a cocky grin. "I do, but please tell me more. The thing I need most right now is a bigger head."
He got up, realizing he was naked himself, and covered his extremities with the sheet. "Where are my clothes?" he asked. "And why was I naked?"
"I'm not going to sleep next to someone covered in dirt and grime. So I cleaned you up before getting you to bed."
He blinked. "Okay, so where did you put my clothes… and are you saying that you gave me a sponge bath?"
She threw him a small scroll from a pocket in her shorts. "There are your clothes. And yes, I did. I have to say, the way Temari talked about it gave the impression it was two feet long and as wide as a thigh. That impression was very off."
Naruto pressed his lips together. "I'm a grower," he said, face getting flushed.
"I hope you are," she said, turning around so he could get dressed.
"It doesn't really matter if you see me changing," he muttered as he unsealed and climbed back into his clothes.
"It's for your sake; not mine."
He frowned. He didn't like not being in charge of the situation.
"You can turn around now," he said.
When she did turn around, he made sure to drink up her entire form with his eyes. "You actually do really nice, by the way," he said.
She smiled again, but this time it was genuine. "Thanks. Now come on, we don't have all day."
Yugito walked to the door, but Naruto was quick to catch up and grab her hand, halting her. "Or… we could fulfil our little wager we made yesterday."
Her brow scrunched up. "You were out cold yesterday."
He shrugged. "Two days ago then? Maybe three? At night… before we fell asleep next to each other…"
Her eyes narrowed, then widened. Her face flushed a little bit and she looked away. "We can do that later. Besides, I should talk to Temari and Fu fi-"
She was interrupted by Naruto's hand cupping her cheek and turning her head so that it was facing his. "They'll be fine with it," he said in a low voice. "Two to three is a lot easier than one to two. And besides, I love you. And you love me."
She tried to look to the side, but his other hand looped around her waist and pulled her closer. She didn't pull back. She looked as deeply into his eyes as she could, then she closed them and pushed her head forward, lips parted, looking for something good.
And he was all too happy to oblige.
00000000
"You look like pressed shit."
"I am so glad to see that you haven't expanded your lexicon in the slightest since we last saw each other."
Kurotsuchi grinned at Mei as she cut up fruit to be eaten. "So tell me, how badly did you all get your asses beat?"
Mei let out a long breath of air, breaking eye contact with the cocky girl. "It was bad, I'll admit." Her voice was scratchy and light, like she had something her throat that she couldn't cough out. The worst show of outward damage on her body was a black eye swollen shut and a general air of weakness. Madara hadn't done too much damage past breaking a few bones. The worst thing he broke was everyone's pride and moral.
"And it was the five of you? Strongest people in the elemental nations?"
Mei nodded slowly. "We gave him a run for his money, granted, but it wasn't even a contest in the end."
"Well… shit," Kurotsuchi muttered. She'd started off trying to grill the older woman, but now she felt unsettled. If she was telling the truth, then they were in for a wild ride. A dangerous wild ride.
God, what had her grandfather gotten her into?
"You feeling better?" Mei asked.
Kurotsuchi's brows furrowed slightly. She was almost expecting a biting comeback or remark to come with it. Their conversations usually comprised of her grilling Mei about her shortcomings and Mei in return lecturing her about her caustic attitude and personality. A show of genuine concern was somewhat new.
She set down the peeled apple and put her hands on her knees. "I'm… fine. 100%. Ready and fit to… do whatever needs to be done next."
Mei pushed herself up a little bit so she was sitting. "Good. Because we're going to need all the help we can get if we want to win this."
Kurotsuchi looked behind her, to the ceiling, to the walls or floor. It was hard to maintain eye contact with the woman. "Guess it feels good that the peace treaty is starting to justify itself. Guess we're just lucky that we fell into the thing that's going to save us."
"Hopefully save us," Mei corrected her.
"Hopefully."
There was a silence between them. She didn't know how it got so somber, but it did.
"How do you feel about Naruto?" Mei asked suddenly.
Kurotsuchi's eyes widened at the suddenness of her question. She wanted to evade it, but she had a feeling that the woman wasn't going to relent in in her line of thought. "I… I like him. I really do. I'm not sure if it's love or something else. But I like being with him."
Mei smiled a little bit. "That's a good feeling. Hold on to it. You might miss it when it's gone."
The finality of that statement shook Kurotsuchi a little bit in an unexpected way. There was no uncertainty about it. Eventually her feelings for him were going to change for either the better or the worse. The in-between phase she was in was untenable at best and she knew it somewhere deep down, but had never truly realized it. "Yeah…" she said slowly. "I might."
Kurotsuchi shook her head and took a deep breath. She didn't like the air that the room was getting. "Anyway, how do you feel about him?"
Mei's smile turned impish. "He's good… for his age. Good attitude. Good personality. Good body. Seems to have matured past what a normal 17 year old should be, which is regrettable in some ways and desirable in others… but in the end, he's too young for me. I'll check back in when he's 20."
Kurotsuchi's lips curled upwards. "Oh? Because I'm pretty sure Yugito said something pretty similar at some point…"
Mei shrugged. "The future's uncertain. If there's anything these past months have told me, it's that. But the chances of that happening are slim."
Before Kurotsuchi could speak again, the door opened and a nurse walked in, head turned away addressing someone else. "She's right in here," the woman said, an arm pointing in to the room.
Naruto and Yugito entered slowly at first, like they were afraid of waking her up, and their faces summarily lit up at seeing Mei and Kurotsuchi. "Mei," Naruto spoke her name like he was sighing from relief and exclaiming from excitement at the same time.
Her face lifted in brevity. "Still alive, somehow."
He walked over to her quickly and came to a sudden stop by her bed, face at war with itself.
He wanted to give her a hug, but he didn't know if it was going to hurt her.
Mei couldn't help but chuckle in mirth. "Come here you little guy," Mei said, outstretching her arms.
Naruto dove down and hugged her to his chest, doing his best not to make her uncomfortable. Yugito stood next to Kurotsuchi with one hand on her hip, a half smile on her lips as she looked at them. "You feeling better?" she asked.
Kurotsuchi was starting to feel a sense of deja vu. "I am," she said measuredly. "What about you? I heard some pretty crazy things about you. And… you also feel a bit…"
"Different?" Yugito proffered.
Kurotsuchi nodded lightly.
Yugito took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let the breath out slowly. "I am different. At least a little bit, I'd hope."
Mei laughed in a lecherous tone, marking the end of hers and Naruto's hug. "Ho ho ho, different eh? Moving that fast, are you?"
Yugito crossed her arms over her chest, one eyebrow cocked. "And if we were?"
"Which we're not," Naruto said definitively.
"Killjoy/Killjoy," Mei and Yugito said at once. There was a beat while everyone processed the sheer coincidence of that moment before the three women broke into laughter at Naruto's expense.
Naruto sighed a little bit. Maybe having a harem wasn't going to be all it was cracked up to be.
00000000
Sakura wiped her brow and sat down in a cheap plastic chair. She'd been standing on a linoleum floor for the past four hours hunched over Jiraiya's shoulder doing her best to sew his arm back on. As it would happen, his was the worst injury of everyone's, which was good considering she had been expecting some fatalities with them. What wasn't good was that his arm wasn't taking a hold again.
It took six hours for Yugito to run from the Akatsuki hide-out to the village hidden in clouds and had grabbed his arm as an afterthought on the way out. How he even survived the trip, Sakura didn't know. What she did know was that as soon as she was oriented enough, she had been doing catch-up work on healing everyone's injuries considering hidden cloud's… lack of significant medical chakra techniques… to put it lightly.
In truth, she was the best medic-nin in the village by a country mile. And that made her indispensable.
And that made attaching Jiraiya's arm very difficult. Chakra techniques were all well and good, but they only sped up and helped the body to heal itself. And his body didn't want its arm back. It was looking to be a lost cause. She didn't know much about Jiraiya, but considering the way he fought the man with copious piercings, she could tell he relied extensively on ninjutsu. There was the possibility of using one-handed sealing, but that didn't shake the fact that without that arm, hidden leaf's military capabilities had taken a huge loss.
And they needed all the military capabilities they had at the moment.
So in thought she was, she didn't notice when Fu sat opposite her. "You don't look too good," the girl said.
Sakura snapped back into attention, blinking her heavy, bagged eyes. "Yeah, well… yeah."
Fu laughed a little bit, though it had a twinge of concern tinting it. Like she had just watched a toddler fall over. "Maybe you should go take a rest?"
"You…" Sakura blinked a little bit and shook her head. "No, nevermind. Anyway, I'm a medic-nin. Long hours aren't something new to me."
"Long hours after being tossed through the grinder is, I'm guessing."
Sakura rubbed her eyes. "What about you? You almost got your tailed beast ripped out of you. You should be knocking on death's door, like Bee was."
She shrugged. "I've got a good constitution."
"That's one word for it," Sakura murmured. "And, to answer your question: No, I cannot. I'm the most accomplished medic-nin here. I rest, people die."
Fu clicked her tongue. "Sounds like a shit life."
Sakura looked away. "It isn't for everyone. But then again, you're a Jinchuuriki. Yours wasn't all sugar and roses."
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. "It wasn't the best. But if it happened any other way, I wouldn't be here where I am."
Sakura's eyebrows rose. "And that's a good thing?"
Fu looked her in the eye. Any pretense of a lackadaisical attitude was gone. Her face was genuine. And it was genuinely happy. "Of course it is."
"Because of Naruto?"
Fu tilted her head a little bit to the side. "Yeah… that's part of it. But now I have so many friends. I'm not alone with Chomei anymore. That's not to say Chomei isn't good company, but it's hard to have a birthday party with two people. Three if Shibuki comes."
Sakura's jaw set in a line and she looked down. A lonely birthday party sounded like the most crushing thing to her. And both Naruto and Sasuke have had their fair share of them.
"That's it!"
Sakura looked back up to Fu. She'd drowsed off for a couple of seconds. "Huh?"
"A party! That's what we need."
Sakura slowly blinked. "Huh?"
Fu stood up with her arms crossed over her chest belting out a laugh of defiance. "No more lonely birthdays! And for all the birthdays up 'til this point, we have to make up for lost time. We're throwing a party to end all parties! And everyone's invited."
"You sure that won't be awkward?" Sakura asked.
Fu looked down, not breaking her stance. "How so?"
"You know… You and Temari and Naruto… and with how Kurotsuchi and Yugito feel about him…"
Fu tilted her head. "What are you talking about?"
Oh, she didn't know. And it was so obvious. Well, it wasn't as if she could pick up on social ques all too well considering her background.
Sakura thought for a moment about withholding the information so she could work it out with the parties involved. That thought was stricken down as soon as she realized who she was dealing with and just how unrelenting a person she could be.
"They like him," Sakura blurted out plainly. "In a romantic way."
"Oh," Fu said, closing her eyes and smiling in an eerily similar way to how Naruto did it. "I thought you were going to say something like 'they hate him' or something. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing if that were the case. They all got off on pretty bad footing with each other, after all."
Sakura's eyebrows rose. "You'd be okay with that?"
Fu looked to the side awkwardly. "I mean… I am the second addition. Not much room to complain from where I am."
"Of course there is," Sakura said. "If you're not okay with it, then that should factor in."
"I-I know," Fu said quickly. "I am okay with it. I like those two. They're good people. Maybe if it were someone random, someone I didn't know... But I'm okay with them. I'm just saying it'd be a bit hypocritical if I objected to that."
"And I'm just saying that the fact that your relationship is hierarchal isn't healthy."
Fu's eyebrows drooped a little bit. That line had annoyed her a bit. "It's not hierarchal. We're equal. All of us. But all of our situations are a little bit different. If I'm upset with him, I'm going to bring it up to him. I'm blunt like that. Kinda like how I'm going to say that I don't appreciate you trying to poke holes in our relationship."
"I'm not poking holes in anything," Sakura said, showing her palms. "But if there are holes, I'm not going to pretend they aren't there."
The pink-haired girl stood up and straightened her clothes out. She stunk. She needed new clothes. She needed a good meal and some sleep. And she needed to find a way to coax Jiraiya's arm back into place.
"Listen," she said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're in a harem now. You were before, but that was political. Now, you are romantically involved with someone who has another lover of whom you have some relation with. Normal rules don't apply, so I can't give you much advice. Hell, I don't even have a well of personal experience to draw upon, so that's out too. What I can say is that there's a reason those types of situations usually dissolve; there has to be, otherwise people would do it a lot more often. Hopefully, you don't find out what the reason is."
Sakura turned to leave the room, but not before turning around, putting on as kind a face as she could muster given her exhaustion. "I want you to be happy," she said. "You and Naruto and Temari. I don't want you to split apart because, right now, you all seem content with your situations. But seeming content and being content are two radically different things. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to others. Hopefully it'll all work out. I need to go put an arm back in place."
And then she left, leaving the room empty with Fu biting her cheek and her arms crossed over her chest.
00000000
The door cracked open, stopping the conversation between Temari and her nurse. Naruto's head poked in the opening followed closely by Yugito's atop his. "Hey," he said. "Didn't want to wake you…"
Temari cracked a half-smile. God, she loved him. She looked up to the nurse. "Is that it?"
The woman nodded. "Rest for a week or two and you'll be back up in no time."
Naruto and Yugito opened the door fully to let the woman out and stepped in after her. "Doing okay?" Yugito asked.
"Thanks to you," she said sincerely, propping herself out of the bed. Naruto rushed to help her up, which she took graciously, using his shoulder to lean on. "All I heard was that you saved all of us, so I thought you'd be in the worst state. I'm glad you're not."
Yugito grinned a little bit, obviously very pleased with herself. "I'm just glad no one's dead."
"Yeah, that's what's hard to believe. All of us got thrashed by that monster and we all made it out okay."
"Relatively, but yes."
Temari gradually let go of Naruto and walked around on her own. She seemed wobbly and he was always there in case she fell over, but she never did. Temari eyed Yugito up and down, noting her change of garb and markedly different attitude. "Are you… alright?"
Yugito bit the side of her cheek and looked to the side a little bit. "Uhm… Naruto… can we have the room?"
His brow knit in concern for a moment or two before her intent dawned on him. Temari was witness to their interaction and reacted by saying "Oh," and nodding a little bit. "I think I've got an idea what's happening."
Temari stared at Yugito's face, trying to discern the woman's intention.
She was nice, but in the deep-down kind of way. Earnest and hardworking with seeming no ill-intent. Somewhat dry and cold, but not unjust in her actions. A stand-up and good person.
And she was playing with her hair, refusing to meet eyes with her. Temari smiled a bit. "So you finally told him, huh?"
Yugito's eyes widened in shock. "What- you knew?"
"Of course I knew. You were very obvious."
Yugito looked taken-aback. "How so?"
"You stared at him a lot. Hung on his every word. Looked at his ass every now and then."
Yugito's cheeks flared up in indignation and embarrassment while Naruto was doing his best to hold in laughter. Maybe a harem was all it was cracked up to be.
"We'll all sit down and talk with Fu," Temari said. "I'm tentatively okay, but I want to get to know you better before I share a bed with you, which I think is reasonable. Everyone okay with that?"
The two nodded, Yugito adding under her breath, "You really like take-charge women, don't you?"
"I am a kage for a reason," Temari said dryly.
Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "And my tastes range widely."
"As evidenced," Yugito said, smiling a bit.
Temari smiled too. "I think I like this new Yugito."
Yugito smiled back, just as brightly. "I do too."
00000000
It was the last door Naruto had to open. And he had to open it alone. His jaw was set and his gaze turned downwards. Taking a deep breath, he plastered a smile on his face and opened the door. "Heya, you old pervert. Up yet?"
The man sitting in the hospital bed was still towering despite what most would be enfeebled by. There were dark bags under his eyes and his face looked gaunt, but he still had the energy to smile back at his apprentice. "Heya kid, I'm up and raring to go."
Naruto's heart sunk a little bit when he saw Jiraiya's lack of a right arm. Its inexistence struck him. He didn't look whole without it. Which would normally go without saying, but it made him look eerie. And Naruto couldn't help but feel at least in part responsible for it.
The sun was setting and the window out to the village got a perfect view of it just starting to dip below the clouds. "Is everyone alright?" Jiraiya asked. He didn't sound worried, which made Naruto think he already knew the answer to the question.
"You got the worst of it," Naruto said. "And you're still smiling through it, somehow."
He shrugged. "Can't let the youngsters show me up. I've got a reputation to uphold."
In the end, Sakura wasn't able to reattach his limb no matter how hard she tried. She kept at it until she nearly collapsed from exhaustion.
Naruto's smile began to vanish. "Are you okay?" he asked. He couldn't act like there wasn't anything wrong anymore.
Jiraiya's face turned slightly somber as he looked at the void where his right arm used to be. "I'm old, kid. Not as old as the Third when he kicked the bucket, but I'm old enough that an early retirement would suit me well." He looked back up to Naruto, his face deadly serious. "There is one more thing I need to teach you as your master. After that, you're on your own."
Naruto waited a beat or two for him to continue. When he didn't, Naruto leaned in a little bit. "And that thing is…?"
Jiraiya leaned back, a lecherous grin on his face. "I'll tell you, but first you gotta tell me how your first threesome went."
Naruto's face went into his hand. "I would throw something at you if you weren't in a hospital bed right now."
"I see you aren't denying you've had one. How was it? Great right? Honestly, threesomes don't work well with me. Too many things to focus on. That, or you're just there while they're having fun. No, it's gotta be mano a mano for me."
"I should have expected this," Naruto murmured.
"I appreciate a woman with giant knockers, but I have had quite a few sessions with women with more… lithe frames. They're always fun. Not much to grab on to, if you get my dri-" Jiraiya's mouth clacked shut when he got domed in the head with a scroll, courtesy of one Naruto Uzumaki.
"You get one," the younger lad said.
Jiraiya couldn't help but to chuckle like an idiot. "What did I do wrong this time? We're both men now. We should be able to talk about this candidly."
Naruto's eyes went half-lidded. "Just because I've had sex doesn't mean I'm a man."
Jiraiya shut his mouth for a second or two to think about what to say next. "Yeah, well… you realizing that put's you somewhere along the road."
Naruto sat down in a chair next to the bed with a prolonged sigh. He was tired. Physically and emotionally. When was he ever not emotionally tired?
"Someone sounds like they need a break," Jiraiya remarked casually.
Naruto looked at Jiraiya, unable to believe what he was hearing. "We almost all died, if you haven't noticed. You lost an arm. We can't 'break'."
The man tilted his head. "That's what I'm doing. I've earned a day or two. So have you. You're going to burn yourself out. Spend some time alone. Spend some time with your two lovelies. And come back when you're all done."
Naruto blinked. "Like, right now?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Jiraiya sighed, closing his eyes. "Besides, I need rest. Now beat it kid. We can talk about what I'm going to teach you later."
Naruto was about to follow up with more lines of questioning, but Jiraiya's sudden, deep snoring stopped him. It wasn't faked snoring either, he could tell. The old man was out like a light. He shook his head at the familial old man. "Yeah, get some sleep you old fart."
He stood up and made to leave the room, but not without one more parting glance.
00000000
The sun had set and he could go back to Yugito's apartment, a temporary domicile which she so graciously extended to him for the night. Afterwards, they would be staying at a home allocated to them by the kage. But he wasn't making his way to her.
Not yet.
The village hidden in clouds didn't exactly have the most thriving of night life's, but there was a ramen stand with its lights still on a distance away from the hospital that he felt drawn to.
He flipped through the small curtains and sat down, immediately taken back to when he was a kid, slurping down ramen on a pitch black night just so he wouldn't have to eat alone again. The man behind the counter was towering and had a pleasant face. There was only one other person at the stand, preoccupied with their own dish.
"What'll it be?" he asked in a deep baritone.
Naruto took a few seconds to answer. "Does… Kumo have any specialties?"
It was at this time that the man noticed his forehead protector and the leaf engraved in it. His face lit up and he grabbed the counter, leaning in. "You're a Konoha nin, right? Are you with the party that saved Bee?"
Naruto felt a smile coming up on his face. "Yeah, that was us. Group effort though. All the nations came together for that one."
The man stood back, obviously pleased with this information. "Anything you want, on the house. It's the least I could do for a person who helped save the hero of Kumo."
The man turned around and got to preparing the dish. "You're from Konoha, so that means lot's of ground animals right? Beef, chicken, pork? Well, you haven't had ramen until you-" the man paused to grunt as he hefted up an egg that looked like it was bigger than a baby "Have had fried pigraptor egg."
"Pigraptor?"
The man chuckled, pleased at being able to show off his village's specialties. "If you think the egg's big, the bird'll have you shitting your pants. Well, maybe not your pants. You kicked the ass of whoever took Bee, after all."
Naruto's face fell a little bit. "Yeah, well… group effort."
The man continued to talk on and on about the world in a way Naruto hadn't felt. Trade was booming and so was business. People were getting along better at the borders. Fights still broke out every now and then, but they were punished on both sides severely. It was becoming safer.
"You hear about the minor village conference in the land of iron?" the man asked.
Naruto's eyebrows scrunched. "I feel like I've heard of that before."
"The way I hear it, it's going to be a big shit storm."
"How so?"
"Everyone wants a piece of the pie. And if they can't have that, they want a piece of the person who took a piece of the pie. Too many egos. Too many blood feuds."
The bowl was set in front of Naruto. Everything in it was obscured by a giant fried egg. The man looked on proudly. "There were a lot of egos with the big villages, you know," Naruto said, breaking apart his chopsticks.
The man considered it. "Yeah, but that's different. Like… I don't know. It's not the same."
"How astute," the person next to Naruto said. They were obscured by a cloak, but the voice was obviously feminine. And also not a way of speaking he had ever heard before.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the man said, nodding with his words. "I get it, geopolitical genius, I am not. Mark my words, it's going to be bad."
"Duly marked," the woman said.
Naruto looked at the cloaked individual. "Kurotsuchi?" he asked.
"Godfuckit," she said, wrenching her hood off her head. "Knew I shouldn't've said anything."
Naruto pushed his chopsticks into the fried egg, spilling egg yolk into the noodles below. "Did you want alone time or something?"
She shook her head, twirling the scant remainder of her meal with her chopsticks. "No, I thought you did."
"Mm?" he hummed, biting into his food.
"You've got a lot on your shoulders. Or at least, you seem to put a lot on there. You're stressed out and sometimes people need alone time."
"Sho why were you here?" he asked between bites.
"Coincidence. I saw a ramen stand. Was a little bit reminded of how we acted back in hidden leaf. Little things."
"Why'd you stay?"
She looked at him, concern in her eyes. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
He swallowed his noodles and wiped his mouth, unsure of how to respond to that. A show of genuine concern was rare for the girl with raven hair. She got up from her seat, walked over, and enveloped him in a hug from the back. "I'm terrible with advice. So just… make it out, okay?"
She left the stand, leaving Naruto alone with his ramen and the company of a stranger.
00000000
When he opened the door to Yugito's apartment and saw her blonde hair peeking over the covers, he smiled, feeling pricks of water at the edges of his eyes.
It was a good feeling.