Rated M for Depiction of violent scenes and suicidal tendencies.
"Words"- Quotes or speech.
'Words' - Thoughts.
Words- Kyuubi's voice.
Disclaimer- I Do Not own Naruto, because if I did I would be able to die in peace. Everything you read from now on may not be canon. Credit goes to Mashahi Kishimoto for his amazing manga.
Please review the story if you have the time, because your feedback helps me improve my story line somewhat. It's fine if you have something negative to say about the story, since I am really bad at writing and am bound to make mistakes. Flame me if you want, but do it so I could identify my mistakes.
Startailsbomber: Thanks again for your compliments, and for reviewing the story. U Da Real MVP. I fixed the mistake, so now I hope the future readers will find it easier to read. Thanks again for your input.
Beta117: Thanks for reviewing. Yup, true, I didn't put much thought behind the title, lol.
Draven32: Thanks for your compliment. And yeah, I feel you on a spiritual level, I also like those kinds of stories about Naruto, which is the reason I wrote this fanfic. I hope you will keep reading my future updates on this story! Thanks again!
Macca123: True, I hated how Kishimoto gave Sasuke everything. But the part about Naruto becoming best from worst, well its the cliche for main character. And I called it masterpiece cause its been a part of my childhood and will always be my favorite, even though there are many flaws.
I would really appreciate if you guys leave a review or feedback on my writing.
And the updates from now on might be less frequent since school is starting, but I will keep it up to date. And sorry if you felt the amount of fluff in the story was too much. From next chapter it will go back to angst, so just wanted to create a difference in the two chapters.
Hope you guys like the story!
Chapter 3: I Owe You Everything.
Naruto was skipping down the streets like a little girl. The glares that were usually filled with intense desire to inflict pain upon the boy had now turned into a disgusted one to see the boy so happy. One would skip through the streets, with their gender being male, only when their marriage proposal to their dream girl was accepted. Well Naruto's case wasn't too far off, since with the friendship with Ino, he now had his first female company of his age. The humming and singing of the boy made many street walkers nearby burn with jealousy thinking what amazing piece of diamond he must have found lying in a pit of coal that made him so happy.
Flashback
"Will you be my friend?"
Ninjas are supposed to be adept at deception. But the star shaped pupils of Naruto would give away to even the dumbest of ninjas the knowledge that Naruto was flying in the sky in joy at the moment. "Yes, yes, yes." He meant to say it once, but the pent up excitement which was not fully released by his dazzling star shaped pupils, forced him to repeat the same thing thrice and nod at a speed of 5 nods per second. He clenched his fist and raised it to the sky, "I made it, I made my first friend!" He stood there for a while thinking about all the days he counted to gain a friend, and now what victory speech he should be delivering at his resounding success. He was brought out of his thoughts as he saw the amused expression on Ino's face. He stopped his celebrations, to rub the back of his head while smiling sheepishly. One word to describe the situation, Awkward, for Naruto at least since he probably made the weirdest first impression about himself to his first friend.
To break the awkward silence, Ino spoke up, "That was some performance you delivered there. I will see you tomorrow at 4:00 then." She started walking away, and snuck a glance at him before stepping outside the park's gate. "Don't be late or else I will tell everyone how pompous your celebration was." The glint of evil in her eyes proved that she meant every word. One didn't need to know about the stars to prophecize that she was going to become the Queen of Gossip in Konoha. Even though Naruto didn't care much about what others what thought about him, he decided it was better for his celebration to stay hidden, considering his reputation as the future Hokage might be on the line.
Ino soon went home holding hands with a blonde haired man who was standing outside the park. Naruto didn't feel the similar pang of jealousy in his heart that he always felt while watching children walking home with their parents. It was because he was giggling like a schoolgirl in happiness, oh boy, watching Rose from Titanic giggling in happiness while dancing with Jack wasn't a good influence for him.
Flashback end
Naruto made it back home without even bothering to notice a single glare or whisper or the amazing puns delivered by the Furball since he was too occupied in thoughts of a platinum haired blonde girl. He chugged down the bowls of instant ramen, yes he chugged them down, not gulping or eating them. It was the secret to his sonic speed at finishing ramen. He didn't chew them, he chugged them down, the liquid broth would blast his mouth to give him pleasure unmatched in his experience and to ordinary people who chewed the food would be left stunned, since not even the Sharingan was capable of detecting his movements when he was eating ramen.
He lied down in his bed since he was hoping to dream about a certain girl before he went off shopping with his old man in the morning. The chilly wind rushing in through the multiple broken spots in the window didn't bother him much. He slept through the night with the widest and stupidest smile he could muster.
The next morning he woke up and quickly ate the date expired breakfast he had lying around his fridge. His tenant helped him survive countless potential episodes of dysentery. Not that he wanted to rely on his luck to eat rotten food. No, even he hated the taste of rotten food. It was just that he was never sold fresh food by any of the shop owners.
Naruto finished his breakfast, although really slowly since he didn't want the taste of rotten food to blast his mouth like his sacred ramen is allowed to. After the breakfast, he took a shower. It was really rare for him to take showers, especially early in the morning, but today his Jiji was about to take him shopping, so he had to make himself presentable. He put on his shorts and a white T-shirt that had the Uzumaki swirl in the back. He started skipping through the streets just like last time, and the glares directed at him were rudely ignored. He reached the Hokage tower by 7:45 and barged in through the Hokage's door.
"Ohayo Hokage-jiji!"
It was clear to the Hokage that Naruto was more than excited, as he saw the wide smile on his face. The Hokage knowing Naruto knew early when he was acting and when he wasn't. He was quite sure that the excitement in his eyes at the moment was definitely true. Added with the fact that he arrived 15 minutes early, even though he has a habit of showing up late to everything.
"Ohayo Naruto-kun. You seem really happy today." He knew there was more to it than just their shopping trip today that made him so happy. He squinted his eyes as if he was reading Naruto's movements and expressions with his non-existent sharingan. The Hokage had to know a bit of face reading to hold a bit of knowledge of what his Interrogation department was capable of. He immediately deduced from Naruto's face, the reason why he was so happy. Well it would have been a lot harder had Naruto been wearing his invisible mask of happiness. But without it, the Hokage easily read his face. "So it's a girl isn't it?"
Naruto stood there, dumbstruck, his jaws hanging inches above the floor, his eyes big round as egg yolks. The Hokage couldn't but chuckle at his reaction, and the four laughs that came from the walls let him know that the Anbus found it amusing too. After having minutes to recover from the shock, Naruto tried to act as if he didn't just stand in the room with his jaws on the floor for a good minute. "How did you do that Jiji? And yes, I was about to tell you, I made my first friend! And guess what? She is really pretty too!"
The man was happy to see his surrogate grandson so happy. He was happy that he finally found a friend. And when Naruto had said that the girl was pretty, the old man had one thought in his mind, 'Boy, you work fast.' You can't keep a regular Icha Icha reader from imagining about a potential romantic relationship no matter how remote the chances are.
"Alright Naruto-kun, since you came early, why not get started on the shopping trip." The nod was enough for a reply from Naruto.
They started heading through the busy streets of Konoha in their pursuit of scrolls and clothings which were meant as a part of a surprise gift for Naruto. But the bigger surprise was still waiting for Naruto.
The first stop was the library. Naruto nervously entered the library to see the earlier librarian replaced as stated by the Hokage before. They walked in, Naruto amazed at how amazing the library looked. He only had a few books with him, but in the library there were thousands. He could stay there forever and learn about things even though he hated reading. They went to the shinobi section. Even though Naruto wasn't a shinobi, the Hokage had the authority to let him enter the section, and since there weren't many people around, he wouldn't have to deal with civilian council bullshit.
Naruto picked up a book on chakra control exercises and chakra molding. The Hokage was amazed to see his choice, because it would nearly be impossible for a kid like Naruto to identify the excess chakra in his system and decide to do chakra control exercises. Unknown to him was that Naruto had a thousand years of experience stored in the fellow furball to make a few decisions for him. He then went on to choose a Taijutsu scroll when the Hokage stopped him.
"Naruto-kun, you needn't choose that one. I have something waiting for you."
"Oh." Naruto was deeply engaged in thinking what might be waiting for him, to even give a proper reply.
"By the way, I think you would like this book on Chakra detection, it would refine your detection skills to a next level." Naruto's super amazed star shaped eyes have away the fact that he was already imagining how he was going to be the strongest Shinobi with his detection skills.
The next stop was the clothing store from where he bought a pair of shorts and white T-shirts, and the Hokage gifted him some gravity seals, which according to the Hokage, would help him train in the future.. He then went to a bookstore to buy a book on history of shinobi. And finally he ended up in the Hokage's office. With a wave of the Hokage's hand, Naruto felt four well hidden members leave the room. The hokage was once again impressed to see Naruto being able to easily follow the Anbu's movements.
The hokage raised his fingers to form a hand seal that sealed sound, light and any information from leaving the room. Naruto saw the Hokage's face and knew already that he meant business.
"This scroll here is the Tai-jutsu style that the yondaime Hokage used and tweaked to allow another Kunoichi with reactions as extreme as yours to use the style effectively. Considering your flexibility, reactions in combat and your agility this would be the perfect style for you."
This time Naruto smiled, but with his mask in place. The Hokage wasn't able to see through his fake display of excitement, as he said, "Why am I receiving the 4th and that Kunoichi's Tai-Jutsu style anyway?"
"It's because you rightfully deserve it. I am sorry I can not go into any further details about this."
Naruto nodded understandingly. 'So what the fourth left me a scroll? I still have to deal with hell myself.' He wasn't ready to forgive the fourth until he finds out why he was chosen for the burden. But he was still happy that he was at least left with a medium of self-defense. The Hokage's Taijutsu style was nothing to be taken lightly.
After hours of shopping he was mentally tired, not physically with his insane stamina. But he had to clean up and get ready for the most exciting thing in his life till now. The excitement he felt while being chased by countless Anbus after his pranks were nothing compared to what he was feeling at the moment. He had 2 hours to get rested, 3 more hours to eat lunch, read some of those books and then make himself presentable in front of his first friend.
After hours of criticising his own sense of style and dealing with smart puns of the furball, he finally settled on wearing his shorts and white T-shirt. It was looking bad, he was picking up the girly habits from movies he saw, and indecisiveness in his choice of clothing was one of this habits that he picked up.
He combed his spiky hair, which did nothing but spike up the hair just like before. Soon enough he was doing his victory pose in front of the mirror, ignoring all the jabs that the furball made at his gender ambiguity.
He was skipping down the streets again, it was almost getting to the point of an eyesore to even those few that didn't hate him. He reached the playground at 3:45, once again early, due to his excitement and fear of what the future gossip Queen might do to his reputation as the future Hokage. Looking around for a while he found himself staring at the girl he was just thinking about.
"Hi Ino-san!" He completely ignored the pink haired girl that was with her.
"Hi Naruto!" She saw that her friend was looking at him with disgust.
"Oi, forehead, what's that look about?" She then snuck a glance at Naruto to see him looking down avoiding the gaze from Sakura. "And Naruto, this is my friend forehead, you can call her Sakura."
"Hello Sakura-san." Naruto was growing more and more nervous. Then Sakura just snickered at him.
"Ino-pig so this is the new friend you were talking about? I don't wanna play with him. My mom told me not to play with him, he is bad news."
Naruto slumped his shoulders in defeat, he just probably lost his new friend. But then he heard a large shout from Ino, "SHUT UP Forehead!" Ino was royally pissed. "My mom said that too, but does it matter? He didn't do anything bad to us. And he doesn't have any friends, so I am playing with him whether you join or not."
Sakura felt insulted that she wasn't treated as a royalty, and instead Naruto was preferred to be a better company than her to Ino. She left the park, making the ground shake with each of her steps.
Ino looked at Naruto and saw him looked down. "Oi, now what's up with you?"
Guilt was clearly plastered across his face, "I am sorry, I just made you lose your friend."
"You don't need to worry about that, it wasn't your fault. Even though she has a large brain in her large forehead, she is just stupid to hate someone without a reason."
Naruto was chuckled at the joke while the fox in him was rolling on the floor while laughing. "I think I like this girl. She got some funny jokes." Then Kurama heard Naruto growl to him. "Oh, I see, is someone jealous cause I said I like the girl?" Naruto just grumbled in annoyance as he opened his eyes to let the sunlight enter his eyes. The world was shaking, the trees and ground were suddenly flying up to the sky and down to ground. After regaining a bit of more of his senses he realized Ino was shaking him by his shoulders, until she stopped to see him open his eyes. She sighed in relief. "Oi, what were you dreaming about?"
"Oh, no I wasn't dreaming, I just have a habit of zoning out sometimes." She nodded understandingly.
"Alright then let's go play hide and seek!"
"Alright." She was about to run off to hide in safety when he said, "Thanks for playing with me!"
After 2 hours of constantly playing Hide and Seek she realized something. No one could beat Naruto at the game. Naruto's sensitive smell, hearing and vision, that even amazed the Hokage, clearly showed why Naruto was the boss at Hide&Seek. While Ino was pouting like a baby after conceding all the defeats, Naruto had his mouth opened to the widest possible smile possible. To most people it would seem weird, but to Ino it was a proof that he valued their friendship.
"Thanks again! I really enjoyed playing with you!"
"Well I had fun too. But how did you always find me so easily?"
"Well you do smell pretty nice, I could smell the lavender scent on you no matter where you went."
Ino blushed a little at the compliment. Then it was time for her to be surprised again, the boy could smell her perfume from over hundreds of meters. He was definitely special. But it didn't matter much, because tomorrow the game wasn't going to be one that favors him or his smelling. Yes, tomorrow it will be a change of game to Tag.
The next day started with Naruto humming to himself, while ignoring all the insults he heard from the Fox.
"Oi brat, I have been trying to talk to you for the last few hours, so would ya listen up? And please stop the humming and skipping for fuck's sake."
"Oi, fox, why are trying to curse in front of this innocent boy? You are tainting me with your rudeness. And also I would not like my soft teddy bear to curse."
The fox was about to lash out of his cage to beat the crap out of the boy, when he realized his fatal mistake, he formed a mental link with the boy, so the boy was out of his arm's reach.
"Fuck YOU and YOUR tiny BRAIN!"
"There you go again, cursing out loud. And it must be a great honor for you to be fooled by a tiny brain."
The fox growled. His jailor has surely learned to use his brain, and his insults are also getting smarter by the day. The only thing left to have the perfect host, was to have him get stronger, and of course to have him stop skipping and humming on the streets. He knew just what to do.
"I will get you back on this someday. But for now, we have to start your training. You are going to use gravity seals and circle the village. I remember the Hokage bought you a few of those seals. Now put those on."
"Yo Furball, so is this gravity seal too heavy? I mean is it easy to handle?"
"No of course, it is not heavy at all. It just increases the force of gravity felt throughout the organs in your body that circulates chakra. So basically your whole body will feel the pull of gravity. Go ahead and try it, form a cross with the fingers of both of your hands. Imagine chakra flowing in a circle throughout the body and then bursting into the seal. I hope you remember the chakra molding lessons we did ,right?" Naruto was grateful to have a thousand years of experience teaching him thoroughly on his training. But he failed miserably to notice the glint of evil and mischief in Kurama's eyes, since he was talking through the link.
Naruto activated the seal and was happy to see the seal glow up. THUD. The next thing he saw was the green floor, that was tightly held against his forehead by force of gravity. And the next thing he heard was the fox rolling and laughing. "Huh, serves you right! Think you can fool a thousand years of experience? Now get your ass off the ground and start running 20 laps around the village, or else I might just circulate some blood into your penis and make it cramp and stick out when you go in front of Ino."
It was a training routine, that would make even Maito Gai's fountain of youth run dry at that. Naruto paled considerably, which one was worse? Running 20 laps, or Ino telling everyone that he has a stick dick? Not that he knew the reason why he had the stick dick every morning, but he knew it would be embarrassing either way. He did what he had to do to save his reputation as the future Hokage, RUN. He got off and started to take small steps while breathing heavily. He hated life and of course the fox, cause now he couldn't skip through the town anymore, instead he had to drag his feet on the ground. And his panting breath didn't allow him the chance to Hum either. It was hell.
Naruto made it, he finished 20 laps by 2 and was about to release the seal and go home, when he realized he didn't know how to release the seal. OH SHIT. The fox heard his thoughts loud and clear, and he had a face splitting grin which Naruto couldn't notice, but was sure would happen.
"Almighty, Kyuubi, the destroyer of all humans, the symbol of strength. Shall thou be kind enough to allow this meager existence the knowledge on how to release the seal?"
Kurama was clearly amused. This was interesting. The boy was showing him respect. But as much as he wanted to be kind-hearted, he couldn't forget all the time he was called Furball. Well that doesn't bother much, since his only wish is to make his host stronger, not just get revenge.
"I am impressed, I will let you know how to release the seal" Naruto was jumping in joy. The gravity of the seals couldn't stop him from jumping, until he heard three more words. "After a month."
'Jumping off of a cliff isn't too bad either.'
2 hours later
Naruto was standing in the park,waiting for Ino. She showed up as expected. Today, she had a look that said she was going to make his life hell.
"Hello Ino-san!"
"Hello Naruto!"
"So today are we playing Hide&Seek again? I remember you were pretty good at it." Naruto was amused to see Ino making the pouting face. But then she gave a mischievous grin. Naruto was paling already, knowing whatever she had in mind wasn't going to be too nice for him.
"Tag is the game for today." Oh no, any other day Naruto would've obliterated her in tag, but today with the seals he would die. "And the loser by the end would have to bring a flower that the other one would like." Her mother owned a flower shop, so she would have no problem whatsoever, getting a flower for Naruto, but she knew Naruto was going to lose badly in terms of choosing a good flower. Something fun is sure to happen.
"So who's It?"
Naruto got nothing in reply as he saw Ino running out to the Horizon. Didn't matter if she was a girl or not. Naruto was gonna win any game. Gravity seals, he couldn't give a shit about.
After 1 hour of running he realized, he needed to give a shit about gravity seals, cause he was clearly losing her trail, even though he was clearly getting faster at his movements with the seal on. Also Ino was fast as hell. She was pretty thin, but her muscles weren't unused at all. They were pretty developed to allow her fast movements. Naruto was panting heavily, but the Future Hokage can not lose.
Ino was standing a few meters ahead of Naruto. "So you are pretty slow I see. You are sure you don't want me to slow down for you." Naruto was done taking insults. Alright time to speed up, he took off the sweater that Kurama made him wear to make him sweat more. He took a long breath to cool off. Ino on the other hand was blushing to see the toned body Naruto had, which was sweating profusely to reveal parts of his skin through the drenched white T-shirt. Well a girl of 8 years was mature enough to recognize an attractive guy, and right now Naruto was on the top of her list. While Ino was admiring his body, she noticed that he had a few tattoos across his body which looked like flowers. Those were gravity seals! Inoichi Yamanka, her father taught her a little about them, and she remembered clearly that those were meant for training.
"Oi, Naruto, is that a gravity seal?"
"Oh this? Yes."
"Did you run after me all this time with that on?"
"Yes."
"Are you stupid? Why don't you take them off?"
"Well I could be training and playing at the same time. And I kinda don't know how to take the seal off." Ino giggled at his stupidity. Ino knew this was the opportunity. She started to run again, because Naruto might get faster the longer he stays with the seal. But then again there was the function in gravity which increased the gravity multiplying factor up by a level the longer the user got used to it. But she didn't want to risk him getting near her before the gravity level increased. She ran off, and saw Naruto follow and to her amusement, Naruto fell face first on to the ground. She could swear she heard him saying something like Screw you Furball or something.
After another hour of chasing around, Naruto fell again on the ground, to get used to the increased gravity. He was panting heavily knowing he lost. He saw Ino sitting down right next to his ground-ridden body.
"So I guess you owe me a flower that I might like."
"Oh, huff, huff, I, huff, will get it tomorrow."
"Alright thanks, so sweet of you." Naruto rolled his eyes, he has already gone through hell with Furball's jokes and now Ino's innocent and sweet tone added to his sufferings. "Alright then, I will see you tomorrow. Take some rest here and then go home, and one thing, your whisker marks look pretty cute, you know?" She giggled to see Naruto's face turn a bit red. Maybe he was never complimented by a girl before.
Naruto watched as Ino walked out of the park with her father, and then he fell asleep in peace. He woke up after evening to find out all the fatigue in his body gone, and his arms and legs feeling much stronger and lighter. The Gravity seal was working really well. Whenever he moved with the excessive gravity, many of his muscle cells that were overused, were later repaired and reformed to allow more cells to grow, and he knew Kurama was doing a good job to keep his body fit. All he needed now was his body to be filled with bowls after bowls of Ramen from Ichiraku.
The night went off without any event of note, just his regular night of freezing in cold from the broken windows, and the heater that blew cold air, and the blankets that were torn in almost every possible place. But then again, the peaceful smile on his face was something he recently mustered, that shielded him from all of his problems. He scratched his whisker marks, and it tickled like hell. Even though his whisker marks allowed most people to easily target him on his birthday, it was something that was cute according to Ino, so he was happy it was there. His thoughts just like the two other nights, ended with Ino coming to his dreams. Ino was holding two bowl of ramen in her hands. " Naruto-kun, would you eat this ramen? I made it just for you." She said shyly. Naruto didn't notice the drool running down his face, but he knew he looked as if he was about to submit to this. He steeled himself upright.
"Oi Furball, what do you take me for? Ino-chan bringing me the food of the Gods, and then also calling me Naruto-kun? It's too good to be true."
Kurama appeared in a cage nearby, with pride in his face, "Good job brat. You saw through the genjutsu pretty well, otherwise you would have had to eat an explo-" He couldn't finish his sentence as he heard a BOOM. He facepalmed himself, he was about to praise Naruto for seeing through the deception, but right now Naruto was on the floor with a Kunai in his mouth and ash on his face, since he jumped to dive his face into the explosive kunai disguised as Ramen. "Fuck my life please. Why did the fourth have to be so cruel to seal me in you?" Kurama wiped off a few drops of non-existent tears from his face, after reminiscing the good days he spent in other Intelligent hosts he had been sealed in.
" Oi, you gotta teach me that jutsu! No one can ever resist diving into Ramen, and I could get anyone with it!" He had stars in his eyes, wondering how many S-class shinobis he would defeat with this Jutsu.
"Screw this. Well brat, I don't think there's anyone as dumb as you in the shinobi world to fall for that-" he stopped as he saw a rabbit near him, and immediately used his huge jaws to crush through the rabbit's skin, only to realize that the rabbit was a projection, and a few of his teeths were now broken from tooth to tooth collision.
"Oh, look who was talking." The amused grin on Naruto's face meant that he was, well, amused.
"When the hell did you learn to do that Gen-jutsu?"
"I never learned to do the Genjutsu, if I knew I wouldn't be asking you for help, DUH."
"Well then how did you do it?" The fox knew, he already looked stupid to Naruto.
"This is my mindscape remember?" Then it clicked in the fox's head, that Naruto could imagine whatever he wanted, and it would become real in the mindscape.
"Well then, I must say you did a good job. And I can not teach you genjutsu because you have really bad chakra control, you barely managed to mold chakra so far, and your chakra reserves are too high to be controlled for genjutsu. But for now let's continue the Taijutsu training you were doing with my chakra formed body."
"Well, I was wondering, does doing Taijutsu help my body in anyway. I mean, I am training in mind, so I am not gonna get stronger."
"You are correct. But training in mindscape, you will train 10 to 20 times more, since your imagination works faster than reality. You are going to get battle experience from here, you are going to be able to refine your reactions, techniques and body movements in here. And the gravity seals, are already making your body stronger in the real world. So, if you keep practicing here, you will get stronger than even many academy graduates, by the time you get to the academy."
"That's good to hear. I'm so excited, let's start with the torture session already." The sarcasm in his voice only added to the fox's enthusiasm.
8 o'clock in the morning
"Alright Fuzzytails, what do you want me to do now?"
"I really like the new name you got for me. So why don't you do 40 laps today? Oh, finish it fast, or else not only will you have not time to pick flowers for Ino, but you will also have to show off your stick dick to your friend."
"Thanks for motivating me. I hope to please your demands your highness."
"You are a really nice servant." The fox said while laughing, ignoring all the things Naruto was muttering under his breath.
Later that day
"Yo brat, get up from the ground. You only got less than 45 minutes to eat and clean up and then pick a flower."
Naruto got up, and he started moving at such insane speed, it seemed as if he had opened all 8 of his inner gates. Within 15 minutes he was done taking shower, and cleaning up. He picked up the bowl of ramen that was boiling during that time period, and chugged it down. He just had to bring the flowers now. He knew which flower he was going to choose.
He was up in the mountains. He looked for those flowers, purple, pink, grows in bunches and has a great smell. Naruto was a plant and flower addict, he knew meaning of different plants and flowers and even tried to grow many in his apartments. He would have opened a shop like the Yamanaka flower shop, had it not been for the villagers stoning and breaking every single one of his flower pots every year.
After minutes of smelling for the flower, he found it. The flower was really special to him, because he read that the flower symbolizes love and someone who holds others together with love. The flower bunched together represented a family, which loved each of its members. Whenever he would go to hide in the mountains, he would pick one those flowers. He picked a bunch of those flowers and got off again.
15 minutes later he reached the ground, but weirdly enough he couldn't smell the usual lavender scent he could smell on Ino. He was just 5 minutes late, so there was no way her scent was going to be erased so fast. He focused on his hearings and nowhere could he hear her gossiping. He was getting a bit anxious. Maybe she was playing a prank, right? She wouldn't leave him after just playing for two days. He wanted to play more. He had to give her the flower, he had to tell her the stories of how he was going to be Hokage. He didn't want to think of any negative thoughts, but after years of experiencing hell, the only thing he could think of was that she left him. Well to most people, not playing for one day may seem really normal, but for Naruto, these were the very first times he enjoyed life, and he couldn't but think that her absence was to avoid him.
He began running off outside the park, going to everyplace he could think of Ino being at. She could be at her home, with her friends or anything. He just needed to be sure that she wasn't in the park for no reason. He went to Yamanaka clan compound, to the academy, to the civilian roads, but no sign of her. He wanted to ask her mother, but her mother just shut the shop's door at his face. But then he found Inoichi, who told him that Ino left a long time ago. DONE. Naruto started sweating, he began panicking thinking someone might have hurt her because of him. That's what happened to Ichiraku's old man, who was often insulted for feeding the demon. Before Inoichi could tell him anything to calm him down, he was gone in a blink. He kept running and running all around the city. Inoichi on the other hand formed a search party too. But he couldn't make the search party too big, since they didn't know if she was attacked or anything. He only asked his team mates to come along. Chouja, even though immersed in eating food, responded to his plea for help. And Shikaku, even though the situation was Troublesome, came forward to help his teammates. The three spread out in three different directions after instructing their children to come forward to help.
After minutes of running, Naruto caught a smell. He had followed all the tracks that smelled of Ino, which emerged from her house. This was the 6th track he was following. It went near the third training ground. It had the strongest trace of her scent. But what was more alarming was the fact that he could smell blood, and more than three other men. Naruto's lack of knowledge in human sexual relationship, allowed him the peace of not thinking it was a case of forced sex.
Naruto managed to locate their exact location, and he jumped near the spot. He was horrified to see three men surrounding her. And what made him more anxious was Ino's current state. She had blood leaking out, and bruises. Thankfully, she was not hurt anywhere else, as she licked the blood trickling down her lips, and the bruise from a few slaps were easy to remove with medical care. The defiant look in her eyes showed she strictly protested whatever the three men wanted. The three men, according to Naruto's deduction, were genins, aged near 15.
"Oi, Yamanaka brat, I'm telling you, we are not gonna do anything else to you, if you stop hanging out with that demon." Naruto knew it all happened because of him. He shouldn't have played with her. He just put her at risk for his own satisfaction.
"Screw you, and your tiny brains. I don't think he did anything to be called a demon."
"Alright I've had enough, you know how much I would like to have fun with you and teach you some manners." He was about to move it to touch her body, before he heard the leaves rustle. The boy who was the closest to touching Ino fell down on the floor. All three of them turned back to look at the Silhouette of the blonde boy, who seemed like the demon they described him to be. Red eyes, black aura emanating from the body. Naruto at the moment wanted to kill them, he would have done so at the very first second, had they not been a Konoha ninja. But all the years of hatred towards the villagers that was bottled in him, broke through. Ino and his Hokage-Jiji's companion kept him from reminiscing the memories from his birthday. But someone now dared to hurt his friend, they weren't happy with just torturing him. His killing intent spiked earlier to get the three genins to drop down to their knees. But Naruto didn't know how to control his Killing intent to overpower his enemies. So he would have to fight hand on hand.
"Kurama, release my seal right now." The fox knew not to argue with the boy. To be honest he wanted to see those genins ripped apart, since they were about to hurt Naruto's first friend.
"Form the Rat seal and say 'Release' while sending a burst of chakra to mess up the smooth flow of chakra in the seal."
Naruto did as he was told, and he felt the overwhelming change. He tried moving his body, which seemed to have gained new lightness and speed. He then looked up to the 3 genins, who were trembling in fear. One of them tried to throw a kunai at him, he dodged it with his fast reactions, and with insane speed he reached behind the genin that threw him a kunai. The genin barely managed to follow his movements, and saw him appear behind him and was about to punch him in the face. The genin brought up his arms to stop the punch. Naruto's new Tai-jutsu style allowed for a lot of feints and false movements to read and counteract opponents' movements. Naruto's punch to his face was a feint, as he brought his knee up to strike the genin in the stomach. The other two saw the first genin fall to the ground.
One of the two came out to strike him with a kunai, but failed miserably, as Naruto dodged the first attack, making the genin lose balance and tumble forward, and then Naruto raised his leg higher than the tumbling body of the genin, and then he brought his leg down fast enough to make the ground shake from the collision of the ground and the genin, who now had a broken rib. The other genin now was standing next to Ino, with a Kunai trembling in his hand right next to Ino's throat.
"GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES! Put your hands up behind your head." As soon as he did, the Genin threw the Kunai at his stomach. The Genin hated the Kyuubi with all his might for killing his father, but he didn't want to be jailed at this age for murder. So he aimed only to disable the demon boy. Naruto fell limp on to the ground from the hit. Ino's eyes went wide, "NARUTO!" The tears from her eyes broke out without any stopping. Then the genin turned towards her, " See? This is what happens when a civilian tries to go against a ninja. Remember Yamanaka, if I ever see you walk around with that dem-" he couldn't finish since he was on the ground, with his head in a headlock.
"What did you think? I took more Kunai hits in a day than the amount of people you might ever hit with your Kunai. A small blow doesn't even sting." Then he took a look at Ino, who was now shouting for Naruto to 'Kick his Ass' in joy. But he took a closer look and saw the blood leaking from her lips, and the bruise marks from the slaps. "So you were the one who hurt Ino-san right?"
The genin didn't need to answer as he heard his elbow snap. "Now try laying even a finger on Ino-san, and next time you won't leave alive."
The genin fell unconscious. "Oi Anbu san, stop following me and take those three idiots to the hospital already." Soon an Anbu with a Boar mask came into clearing, and took those three, one of which was carried by his solid clone, and left for the hospital.
Ino on the other hand was amazed at how skilled Naruto was at both detection and Tai-jutsu. "Naruto, that was awesome! You really kicked their asses."
She expected him to yell in joy at his victory, but he saw tears in his eyes. " I am sorry, I am so sorry. All of this happened to you because of me."
"No, you didn't beat me up , they were the ones that beat me up."
"But, if I hadn't been your friend, then they wouldn't have done that."
"No Baka. They beat me because I didn't want to listen to them, I wanted to be friends with you whether they like it or not. Besides you saved me, like in those films, you know?"
She was stunned to see him hug her tightly before crying out loud. "Thank you so much. You don't know how much it means to me. When I couldn't find you, I thought you didn't want to be friends with me anymore. I couldn't even think of losing my first friend. You don't know how happy it made me that you still want to be my friend."
"Yup, no way I'm losing you, you are not like that Sakura Forehead girl, you actually seem to care about me." Then she remembered something, "NARUTO! You were hit by a Kunai, we need to go to the hospital."
Naruto seemed reluctant to let go off the hug. "It's alright, I heal quicker than most people, part of the reason they call me demon. So I don't even have to go to the hospital for minor cuts like this." She was impressed with his capabilities, but was sad that the villagers called him demon.
At this moment they were lying on the ground hugging each other. "So, Naruto, you really like to hug me don't you?" She had the perfect gossip material for the future, if she ever finds out about Naruto's friends or family in the future.
"Yup, I never hugged anyone in my life, so hugging my first friend makes me really happy. I kinda like it a lot." Ino was happy that she made him so happy, but sad at the fact that Naruto didn't even have someone to hug before. She wouldn't have many of his friends and family members to gossip to. Wait, his family members, she didn't know about them, even though Naruto knew everything her friends knew about Inoichi Yamanaka and Inoka Yamanaka. She even told Naruto about her uncle Yoshinoki Yamanaka who was killed on the day of Kyuubi's attack. "So what about your family? You never told me about them."
"I don't have a family, I grew up in a orphanage before they threw me out. Even in the orphanage I never made any friends. That's why I was so happy when you wanted to be my friend."
If Ino was the Hokage, the orphanage would have been obliterated by now for throwing out Naruto. But she decided to lighten the mood a bit now. "Alright, now that I am your first friend, you have to listen to what I say." A nod from Naruto's head allowed her to make her demand. "Alright, I will call you Naruto-Kun from now on, and you will call me Ino-chan."
"Really? You mean how the couples sometimes call each other in the movies?" Ino blushed at the thought.
"Well, yeah pretty close, as close friends."
"Oh YEAH! By the way Ino-chan, I got these flowers for you!" He took out the branch of bush clover he plucked from the mountains. "Remember? We made the challenge."
"Really! Are these Bush Clovers? I really like them, my dad used to tell me our clan members should be like this flower, so I really like these flowers. How did you know I would like them?"
"Well, I didn't know if you would like them or not. It's just that you are a lot like the flower. I read about them, that the flower symbolizes love and care for others and family. You are caring and really nice to others from what I know. And also the pink of the flower matches your lips and the color of your cheeks." Naruto brought his head a little back from the hug to take a deep look at her face. " Well, maybe not now, your cheeks right now are really red."
"Thanks. By the way, I wanted to ask, how do you know all those ass-kicking moves?"
Naruto took a breath, "The future of this village rests in the hands of the Hokage, and since I am going to be the future Hokage, I had to learn to fight. I am training to be the best when I go to the academy next year!"
"Really! You wanna be the future Hokage? Well, I'll help you then, I want to be the strongest Kunoichi to protect the village. I will also go into the academy next year, so I will get to see you there everyday!"
"Yay!"
"Yay!"
…
…
After 5 more minutes of lying in each other's arms while hugging in the slowly blowing breeze, the sun started to set in the horizon with a crimson glow.
"I guess it's time to go, I think I might have worried your dad a little."
"I think too. Oh, by the way, don't you ever dare to think that I will leave this friendship, ever!" The stars glowing in her eyes, with the cheesy line, made it arguably the cheesiest scene in the fanfic so far.
"Yup."
They let go off their hugs, and got up as if they had a nice bonding time. Had they been adults, their minds would have been swarmed by contents of Icha Icha paradise by now. But their innocence made this contact seem to be an ever-lasting memory of their friendship.
They got up and went off towards the Yamanka clan's compound. He saw her mom staring at him in shock to see him with Ino. He wasn't bothered much by her glare. Then something happened that widened her eyes. Ino went back to Naruto and hugged him, before going back to the door. Her mom was glaring daggers at Naruto.
"I owe for saving me today Naruto!"
He saw the door close with a thud, as the last person entering through the door was the mom. However Naruto was glad again, that Kurama kept him alive through all his suicide attempts, so that he got to experience this day.
'Ino-chan, you think owe me for saving you? You saved me from loneliness from all these years. You made me the happiest I have ever felt. I Owe You Everything.'
