Still don't own Naruto…
By the way, how is everyone finding this? I'm kinda busy at the moment with the whole uni thing so please do leave your thoughts they're very much appreciated.
Chapter 2: The Direction
Feelings started to assault his consciousness. Why do things always intrude into his peaceful bliss?
Slowly he starts to feel a dull throbbing throughout his entire body. This could be seen as a good thing, Kakashi-sensei always used to say look underneath the underneath, this meant he was alive and could actually use his body. Kakashi-sensei said this, at least when he wasn't obsessing about Sasuke or trying to break up the fights between me and Sasuke... To be honest it was also the one-sided fights with Sakura-chan that he also had to break up.
Starting to gain his bearings about him a faint beeping started to contrast between the faint chattering in the background. Slowly starting to stir voices became starkly louder than the average background chatter.
"Quick go get Shizune-senpai, she'll want to be here when he wakes up…" a voice frantically shouted.
Having used up a considerable portion of his very limited energy trying to sit up Naruto decided to rest until the familiar name showed up to explain what the hell was going on. Not even daring to open his eyes, Naruto decided to take stock of the situation. Normally his choice of action would be to destroy everything insight and to keep on attacking and destroying until he saw a friendly.
This being said he hadn't felt so tired in so long that he didn't know how to act. Actually he had never in his life felt, he was so tired that the waiting game was the only thing that he had to go by. Originally this would have aggravated Naruto as he wasn't particularly good at the waiting game but something had changed.
Straining his hearing and his sense of smell he tried to get a grasp of both the presences around him but also the location of where he was lying. Faint smells of antiseptic, the very distinct sound of heart monitors.
'Crap, I'm in a hospital.' Naruto thought.
Deciding that drawing on his somewhat limited mental functions could be beneficial, he tried. Although normally ideas wouldn't have come so quickly but this was neither here nor there.
First up was the possibility of a genjutsu; he wasn't practiced in the art but it was a failsafe plan to prevent such a thing from happening. As the entity known to him as 'Shizune' entered the room, Naruto flared his chakra to where average genjutsu wouldn't have survived. Admittedly he far surpassed this limit, ultimately it was irrelevant. The evidence was minimal, following this logic Naruto opened his eyes.
"Hey Shizune-neechan!" Naruto practically yelled.
Normally this would strike a person as uncouth but Shizune took it within here stride.
"Naruto-kun how are you feeling?" the kindly nurse asked.
"Ahhh you know me Shizune-neechan, I have a hole in my chest one day; the next I'm up and about doing D-ranks." Naruto gushed along with his million-watt smile.
This took Shizune aback. Naruto didn't realise quite how long he had been out of it. Normally his statement would be correct but the fact that he had been in a coma for two weeks was worrisome. It was damn right terrifying.
"Naruto-kun what was the last thing you remembered?" Shizune questioned with a mixture between standard procedure and genuine worry. It was difficult to keep the concern out of her voice but with the years of medical practice she managed it relatively easily.
From that question on, Naruto recalled all of the events that happened to him, carefully omitting the parts with the Fourth Hokage until Tsunade-bachaan arrived. Although not entirely sure how his head was being quite so logical or effective, Naruto decided to trust his brain and enjoy the calm that he was experiencing after the incident.
Having concluded his brief 'interrogation', although it was hardly worth being described as such, Naruto was allowed to go back to sleep.
Now Naruto was normally a very deep sleeper, his dreams were abnormally dulled. This went along with all of his general sense of being as if all his body decided to be sluggish all at once. This did not correlate to his head however; thoughts came along with such clarity that it was genuinely alarming. What had changed?
Shortly after this his dream dive-bombed into a pretty intense Sakura-ramen dream as he so frequently dreamed of. All these abnormally mature thoughts fell away.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Waking up this time was a much easier and more leisurely affair. Actually able to open his eyes easily, Naruto took stock of his surroundings. He was in a fairly standard hospital room, nothing really stood out apart from a particularly large vase of lavenders and a much smaller more modest vase of cherry blossoms. Although the irony of these gifts wasn't lost on him, the sentiment was absolutely appreciated.
Looking out of the window of his room, Naruto searched inwards. Something was wrong and he'd be damned if he didn't try to work out what was wrong. Honestly it was probably the fox being an asshole but he needed to be sure; things were strange as hell as it was he didn't need the furball messing things up.
A quick feel of his chakra, something was definitely off. It felt smoother, freer; as if a polluted pipe was shutoff for the first time. The stream of energy was uninterrupted, it flowed effortlessly and with an efficiency that was never seen before. Deciding that first hand evidence was needed he formed a rasengan. Although instead of needing a clone the mesmerising sphere appeared out of thin air on top of his right hand.
An awestruck Naruto with a rasengan was the first thing that Sakura saw as she entered the room. Initially Sakura was overcome with joy, he was ok, and he was going to be back to his normal self. Then she saw what he was playing with and immediately went to reprimand him. "NARUTO-BAKA!"
Naruto rubbed the slowly growing lump on his head. "Sakura-chan" he whined "What'd you do that for, I made it for the first time without a clone and this is how you congratulate me…."
"You're an idiot, you're not supposed to perform any strenuous exercise, that includes jutsu." Sakura chided. "And anyway I'm surprised you're so chipper even after you had the Kyuubi extracted. I mean medically speaking I'm surprised you have enough chakra to…."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DON'T HAVE THE KYUUBI?!" Naruto shouted.
Sakura balked.
Why the hell was she the one to blab about the SS-ranked secret? She was the one to reprimand the person who does this (Naruto) not her, damn log what the hell had she done. Deciding to run damage control she started.
"Haha Naruto got you, I mean last time I saw you, the Kyuubi was pretty much out. I was just making a joke, lighten up ok?!" she blurted out.
"But Sakura-chan, I feel weird, it's like I actually feel like me. Almost like when Ero-sennin got rid of Orochi-teme's seal and I could use my chakra again. I can't explain it, but for once things feel easy…" Naruto paused. He attempted to try and reason it out, unfortunately he was interrupted by an imposing Senju looming over him.
"I see you've woken up brat" Tsunade started, "Now I know you want to get out and start training but I have to tell you…."
"Like Hell I am! What the hell is going on?! Normally people are bashing me over the head and telling me to shut the hell up but I'm being civil. And then I want to try out using the rasengan one-handed, maybe I can use two at the same time….." Naruto started.
Unbeknownst to him Sakura and Tsunade started to talk about the blond in front of them. "How the hell are we going to tell him?! We just going to start with, hey so Naruto the thing that defined you was stolen from the people we were trying to protect you from?!" Sakura started. Nearly in the state that Tsunade was in, Sakura was practically hyperventilating when Naruto finally finished his rant.
"… and for the love of the log, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" Naruto finally shouted.
*SLAP*
"Ok brat if I'm going to explain this you're going to shut the hell up." Tsunade stared.
Naruto calmed down and stared Tsunade in the eyes, pretty much begging for her to explain.
"So this is how it is, someone took you away when you were Kyuubi-ing and now you are just Naruto. This means you aren't a Jinchuriki. You are just the average Genin with the chakra reserves of a Kage. Ok?" Tsunade explained
Absolutely dumbfounded Naruto just stared. 'Was this real…'
'He'd already dispelled whatever genjutsu was going on….'
'Were they right…?'
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tsunade was in a serious debate. Not with anyone particularly important more along the lines of an internal debate. Her angel was saying tell him everything. Give him everything. He honestly more than deserved it, with the whole keeping the most destructive demon away. The recent saving of the village entered into the debate, although it depended how one looked at it.
The devil persistently countered with but what about Iwa as well as Kumo?!
This continued until the Hokage decided 'Fuck it' and left to go get a drink. Leaving the sensible side of Tsunade with the massive pile of turd in front of her.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Now brat listen up, I'm only going to say it once…." Tsunade started. "I would have wanted to have Jiraiya hear to help but…."
Both people in the room looked downtrodden, one because they lost their mentor; The other having lost one of the few pillars of stability left in her life. Although the loss hurt both found a minutia of comfort knowing that the other felt a loss similar to their own. One father figure lost. One soul mate lost. Two pieces of the soul lost because of a cruel system that was in dire need of change.
Blinking away the tears Tsunade called upon her diplomatic persona to carryon. "Brat you are the last living legacy of any Hokage apart from Konohamaru-kun. You, Naruto Uzumaki, should be more appropriately called Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze. Son of the Fourth Hokage and last known scion of the Uzumaki clan…"
As Tsunade finished the monologue that contained the ex-container's prestige and the utter let down of those around him; Naruto nearly, literally exploded. Normally the short temper displayed would have been a problem. A colossal, furry, nine-tailed problem; but fortunately it wasn't. On the other hand, the newly ex-Jinchuriki didn't realise the importance of chakra. Why would he?
The entirety of his life he had been told to learn how to control the veritable torrent of chakra he had been bestowed with. Now though…
Within less than a minute of recklessness, he had used the entirety of his source and proceeded to pass out.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"This could have gone a lot better huh?" Tsunade started.
Honestly how the hell should she have handled it? This way at least it happened in a controlled environment with friends and pseudo-family to aid him. The situation sucked she eventually landed upon. Tsunade was honestly thinking incredibly hard. Normally, her knee jerk reaction would have been to just pull the Band-Aid off immediately and be done with it. Truthfully though it was her quasi-son that was making things difficult. How in the hell, was she meant to be both the executioner and the mourner in the same instance?
Looking into those cerulean pools of honesty and perceptiveness, it was nigh impossible to distance oneself from this. She was meant to fill her role of Hokage. Do the best for your village, treat your subordinates well and finally be yourself. Leadership isn't a universal trait. It is trained; it is learned and finally and most importantly it is personal. Now personally she wanted to delegate this job to the person furthest away from her station, but dammit Naruto deserved better.
Honestly he deserved much more than she could give him, unfortunately instead of giving she could only afford to take from him. The village couldn't afford to stop using him now, probably not even after the foreseeable future. They would need him….
They would always need him….
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Author's Notes:
Okay so I'm honestly sorry for the ridiculously long gap. Life kinda got in the way and I really do want to make it through this story. Any constructive or helpful feedback is welcome, this can be done in either a review or a PM but please do it no matter what.
Anywho,
Hasta Lluego
DrunkScientist
