Naruto X
AN: Okay so my pacing miiiight be off. This particular chapter? Was supposed to be the Naruto vs Maverick Naruto fight. But things never really work out how I plan, funny how that works. So yeah we're ahead of schedule.
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So as Naruto lay there, his teammates slowly started to wake up and when they glanced over the blonde looked them dead in the eye. "Done feeling me up yet or you got other plans now?" he asked and Sasuke immediately withdrew his hand as if he'd been burnt while Sakura just rolled her eyes and sat up.
Naruto stood and went to the kitchen and began the process of making breakfast for his teammates. Sakura had taken dibs on the first shower and Sasuke went about cleaning the place up. He had idly mused that for the first time in a long time, he didn't have nightmares or nostalgia about his clan or Itachi.
Then again, he wasn't at his clan house when he slept and that might have had something to do with it. He briefly entertained the thought of moving out but where would he go? While he was sure Naruto would have him, he didn't want to burden the blonde. Although he did admit being nearby would be a boon, he wondered if there were any spare rooms in this place.
They heard the water shut off in the bathroom and a few minutes later Sakura came out wearing an outfit that looked identical to her other one, but the dark blue vest she usually wore was replaced with a black one.
She plopped down on the couch while Sasuke was, to her surprise, sweeping and she just shrugged and leaned back on the couch. Sasuke chose that moment to speak up. "Oi Naruto. Who owns this building?" he asked "Me." Was the answer that caught Sasuke and Sakura off guard.
"You own it?" they repeated which made the blonde nod, not that they saw it. "Not many people were thrilled with sharing a residence with the fox container. Even the original owner abandoned the place and since I was living here, I got the deed." He explained while his two teammates looked at each other in shock before rushing to the kitchen.
"Then why leave it like this? If you own the building, couldn't you change it around or something?" Sakura asked and he merely shrugged. "Thought never really crossed my mind." He said
"Why?" Sasuke asked and Naruto pointed at himself. "I don't eat or sleep (kinda), what would I want with a luxurious looking house?" he asked and the girl just sighed as Sasuke shook his head.
"But if you were trying to impress someone or just had more room for people in general, that would be a good thing." She said and he seemed to think on that for a moment. "Huh. Never thought about other people actually coming over before." He said as he glanced around his place.
He seemed lost in thought for a moment before turning back towards his teammates. "How'd you two like to enter the construction business?"
It was a beautiful day in Konoha, people were out and about like normal and the streets were littered with people going about their business. However, the district Naruto lived at was suddenly evacuated as explosions were heard and large noises were coming from Naruto's apartment.
When a squad of ninja had shown up to investigate, they were surprised upon entering the building to find it was being renovated and before any of them could ask questions, a few of them immediately got dragged into the work.
It wasn't until the initial shock wore off that they realized they'd been suckered into helping with whatever was going on. Soon thirty minutes had passed and when that squad hadn't reported back, more ninja were sent and they too got pulled into the renovation project until finally a squad of ANBU had shown up and were smart enough to not jump directly into the building and get themselves pulled into working.
When they gave the report back at the hokages office, Tsunade just burst into laughter and dismissed them. The other ninja who got suckered into working finally had enough and dropped whatever they were doing and left.
Team 7 hadn't even noticed and when the ninja returned with their report, they hadn't even stepped fully inside the hokages office before the woman burst into renewed laughter, crying and slapping her hand on her desk. At their confused glance, she wiped one of her eyes and was chuckling. "And they call ME the legendary sucker." She said which made the group of ninja blush or huff in annoyance before turning and leaving, causing her to burst out laughing once more.
Team 7 worked long into the night, woke up early and continued the next day. In fact, the entire week they'd been MIA and when Kakashi had shown up, he quickly got suckered into helping.
Gai and his team were walking by and when they went in to investigate, they saw team 7 tearing this building apart. "Ah, Kakashi. Doing some renovation I see." Gai said, Kakashi said nothing for a bit until he finally turned to the man. "Sorry, you say something?"
Gai's eyes were immediately aflame. "KAKASHI! AGAIN WITH THE HIP YOUNG ATTITUDE! WELL I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT TEAM IS MORE YOUTHFUL!" he cried and just like that, team 9 was drafted into the "youth competition".
Unfortunately for team 9, they didn't WANT to do this project unlike team 7 who was invested into completing it and when night fell, they wanted to quit and go home much to their sensei's chagrin.
"You may have won today, but tomorrow we'll be back and we'll be even more youthful than before!" he announced as team 9 left. He was largely ignored, not out of rudeness but because team 7 was focused. Even Kakashi had stuck around that night longer than usual before excusing himself and vanishing.
Not that the kids noticed, they were too busy working. The next day however, they finally finished tearing down the interior and pooled their funds to buy materials. They had gone to various places to find what would work best for them and had even gone to the command center and had confused X with their ramblings until Alia took over and began to help the kids.
While they weren't finding anything better or cheaper in X's world, they did manage to get blueprints made and X, Zero and Axl along with a couple other reploids and construction bots were made to go help them.
X was confused, Zero was regretting not taking a mission today and Axl was complaining about having to do this boring work, but thanks to all the extra help production has boosted faster ever. Those construction bots certainly knew their stuff and the renovated apartment was halfway rebuilt in just a matter of hours.
By the end of the next day the house was completely assembled, and that's what it was now. A four story house with roof access, it was much more roomy and cleaner looking than before. Then a small fight happened. They were arguing about what to paint the walls but the boys were fighting a losing battle because Sakura was making a very compelling argument that the carpet, ceiling and furniture NEEDED to match the theme of whatever they decided to paint.
The construction bots took this as a sign to take a break and X, Zero and Axl had wisely chosen not to get involved with this argument. The boys tried to argue back that it didn't matter what they painted and that was when hell broke loose as Sakura suddenly shifted to her other personality.
"Now you listen to me you fucktards! You two don't even know the first fucking thing about decorating a god damn house, and you made that painfully fucking obvious when you suggested putting the old furniture back inside!
We are going to decide on a theme, we are going to select the proper colors to match that theme, and we're GOING to buy PROPER FUCKING FURNITURE FOR THE GOD DAMN HOUSE WHETHER I HAVE TO DO IT MYSELF AND USE YOUR SORRY ASSES AS PACK MULES TO CARRY THE SHIT!" she ranted.
Sasuke was fully hidden behind Naruto after that rant and had slightly peeked out to see if Sakura had still personality shifted. "O-Okay Sakura, you win! You decide EVERYTHING from now on!" Naruto stuttered out and just like a switch had been flipped, her hair color and eyes returned to normal and she was smiling. "Good." She said before practically skipping out the door.
The construction bots and the hunters peeked out from behind walls and doors they quickly hid behind once Sakura had flipped out and made a note to never argue with the girl.
And it was much later that they were glad Naruto had said those words. When they finally decided on just a simple home type theme, they went out to find paint and much to the boys surprise AND annoyance, they discovered that there was more to colors that met the eye.
To the two of them, colors didn't vary much. Green was green, but apparently it was much more than that. There was green, then there was light green, bright green, dark green, lime, moss…there was no end!
Then they went back to the command center and went to town with Alia and they found out there was an entire SYSTEM called RGB that let you design your own colors! They were just simply overwhelmed and Naruto was doing quick reading on art books and painting to get a better idea of this particular subject and Sasuke was doing his best to go through the book that let you see exactly how a particular color looked, but unless there was a huge difference in the hue, he was lost because most of it looked exactly the same to him.
Once the paint was selected, they had gone back and went to work. Taping certain areas they didn't want paint to get on, putting plastic up over the floor, windows and stools that they still had in the room with them.
Once the painting had finished, Sakura immediately took them out to buy furnishings since the paint would take a couple days to dry. Naruto suggested using his abilities to help it along but Sakura immediately denied him saying that if he messed up with the drying, the paint would bubble or split.
Naruto scratched his head, this was certainly a confusing line of work. Sakura had dragged both boys off to various stores for furniture, carpeting, tile, wall panels, curtains, towels and the like.
Honestly, both boys were mentally exhausted at this point and just getting more and more tired as the day dragged on. The girl was going all out at this point. A light blue for the bathroom, beige in the living room, red trimming for that, white for this, black was a must for this room.
By the end of the day, both of the boys were ready to faint, and they weren't even done! Not wanting to get stunk out by paint fumes, they went to the command center and stayed the night there. Sakura's parents really didn't approve of her new lifestyle and didn't like Naruto for a reason they could all guess and Sasuke wasn't the only one uncomfortable being at his clan compound.
So the next day the chaos had continued as the shopping went on. While it was mainly smaller things, there was a large amount of said things and Naruto was starting to get a bit worried about how much this was all costing.
The next day had come too soon for both boys opinion. The paint had dried and the furniture Sakura had ordered also arrived, so both boys were put on ultimate mover duty as they began to haul everything in and Sakura was making them move it around constantly with a critical eye.
Once the furniture was placed, they went to the process of decorating. Zero and Axl had shown up later on and to the surprise of the ninja, had managed to purchase new appliances for them.
It was actually a funny story, Zero was trying to pick a fridge he actually thought looked good while Axl remembered scary Sakura and was trying to find something that matched her color schemes.
It had taken some time, but both hunters eventually reached a compromise and found something that worked great, but now the issue was hooking everything up in the house, something the hunters weren't used to doing.
So while Zero and Axl bumbled around in the kitchen, Sakura was having Sasuke install the new toilet and Naruto was still dragging in furniture. Things seemed fine for an hour until finally a buzzing noise was heard as the lights dimmed and flickered before Zero walked out of the kitchen, his ponytail turned into a giant fuzzy ball while Axl was laughing uncontrollably.
There was a snapping noise, some cursing and finally what sounded like water coming from the bathroom and as Naruto was carrying something in, the stairs beneath him groaned before giving out. Sakura just facepalmed.
-Two hours later-
"Jeez, what happened here? Amateur hour?" one of the construction bots asked as they went about the process of fixing everything that had gone wrong. Sasuke was mopping up the water, Naruto was sitting on the floor in the living room, Zero had finally stopped twitching while Axl giggled and Sakura just sighed.
Once the repairs were finished and everything was properly assembled, she immediately booted Naruto and Sasuke out of the house while Ino and Kin suddenly came over. When they asked as to why, Sakura told them she didn't trust them to decorate their house.
That word made Naruto and Sasuke blink and look at each other in confusion. When had Naruto's apartment turned into THEIR house? Ignoring that, the two went for a walk and went to a random food bar. The owners gave Naruto a raised eyebrow look at him walking in with Sasuke and decided to be on the safe side and tried to take Naruto's order, who just waved them off by saying he was just killing time and paying for whatever Sasuke got.
The raven haired boy shrugged at that, while he hadn't given Sakura ALL of his money, he was still tight on funds, unless he decided to dip into the clan funds which he never usually touched.
Naruto on the other hand had surprised him. The boy had hundreds of thousands just stashed away, finding out the Hokage had given him an allowance and since the original tenants moved out, Naruto never had to pay rent and so all of his money went on ramen.
Then there was the payment he got from missions, coupled with the hokage still giving him money, it just built up and because Naruto didn't even buy ramen anymore, what little bit that was being spent was also accumulating.
Needless to say the blonde was pretty rich and still had cash to spare after the shopping spree. Thinking on that, Sasuke took Naruto to a bank and had him set up accounts. Naruto was confused, he knew the bank was useful for storing his money, but he once more insisted he had no idea what to do with his money and Sasuke said "Maybe Sakura will want to redecorate." He said which made the blondes eyes widen in shock. "Ah hell no."
After that, they set up a direct deposit for him at the hokages office, what unsettled both boys however was the way Tsunade was grinning at them, particularly Naruto, almost as if she KNEW something they didn't.
Ignoring that, they were once more on the road and figuring enough time had passed, made their way back to the house. The first thing that set both boys on edge was the idle chatter, which could mean two things, they weren't done or they were finished but visiting.
But that's where it got weird, they heard more voices inside than just Sakura, Ino and Kin but one of the voices sounded distressed. They heard "No! Stop it!" and in a flash they had nearly kicked the door down and Naruto had his buster at the ready while Sasuke was getting ready to charge.
And the scene that greeted the two boys was Sakura and Ino forcing Kin into a maid outfit while Tayuya stood on the side already wearing one but looking annoyed with the entire situation and the purple haired woman from the exams was also here, but in her regular outfit. All the girls immediately stopped and looked up towards the noise.
You could have heard a pin drop in that house as Sasuke tried to wrap his mind around what he was seeing and Naruto just had a blank expression on his face. He held up his hand, put it down held it back up and opened his mouth to speak once more, but lowered his hand, grabbed Sasuke and walked back out.
"I should have listened to Shikamaru." He mumbled as he made his way towards the Nara's house. Once they had arrived, they quickly explained the situation to Shikamaru who only shook his head.
"It's too late Naruto. It's all over." He said but the blonde shook his head. "What do you mean it's over? What even happened?!" he asked and the Nara boy sighed. "You left your swag unchecked and now the girls are all over you. Controlling you. Judging your every move." he said and Sasuke could only nod in agreement.
"But Sasuke got out!" he said and the Nara nodded. "It was unintentional but yes he did." The blonde grumbled in frustration. "But HOW did he get out? I need to follow what he did!" he said and the Nara boy sighed once more.
"Naruto, there's only two things you can do." He said and Naruto looked excited. "Well what are they? I'll do anything!" he said.
"First is the method Sasuke used, put yourself near someone with a higher swag level and keep them exposed for an extended period of time, then let nature take its course." He said and Sasuke glared at the boy who shrugged. "Am I wrong? Your remaining fanbase left you for Naruto and he's picked up extras. So that's one course of action." He said and Naruto looked slightly worried. "But what's the second method?" he asked.
The Nara boy sat upright at this and his expression went from the usual bored to dead serious. "You need to choose one of them and cut the rest off immediately at the bud before this goes beyond uncontrollable levels. You must choose one and protect that one for the rest of your life and remain in total devotion. The others will be angry, upset and start to do unreasonable acts to try and stay in your graces or to get you to notice them, but you need to remain devoted and make it clear you have no intention to do anything with them, which will make your chosen one a target." He said.
Naruto and Sasuke stared at Shikamaru with wide eyes as he continued. "Jealousy is a terrible thing. They'll start small with snide remarks or looks. Then it evolves to high tension and strained mannerisms which will eventually explode into openly insulting one another in a subtle way until finally one of them snaps and all hell breaks loose.
The girls will fight, friendships will end, you need to go through the hassle of getting the parents approval and if you EVER screw up even once, the chosen one will hate you too and the others will move in like roaches and devour you."
"WHAT?! But that's absolutely crazy! Isn't there another way? Can't I choose none of the above?" at this Shikamaru slammed his hands on the ground. "I tried to warn you but you didn't listen, you chose this path Naruto and now you get to live with it."
Naruto looked absolutely horrified and Sasuke just put a hand on the boys shoulder. "I'm sorry for your burden." he said and Naruto shook his head. "No way, I refuse! There's got to be another path I can take!" he said as he turned and ran out of the house.
Sasuke quickly followed after and the Nara shook his head. They ran to Kiba's house and when the Inuzuka heard their story, he was staring at Naruto like he was an idiot. "You want to run away from THAT?" he asked and Naruto nodded.
"And you decided to come to me for help why?" Kiba asked. "Well you're the leading expert on making women hate you."
Sasuke and Naruto landed in a heap as the door slammed behind them. Naruto stood up and dusted himself off. "I personally think it's too aggressive but I'll give it a try." he said and Sasuke spoke up. "I think we made Kiba mad instead of getting advice there, but if you went this route, you'd just piss off the girls, not make them less interested in you." he said and Naruto sighed.
"I can't think of anyone else to ask for help. Neji's a jerk, Lee's weird, Chouji might not be any help." he said and Sasuke snapped his fingers. "What about X?" he asked and Naruto looked at Sasuke like he'd won a lottery.
-Command center-
X, Zero and Axl stared at the boys with blank stares. "What?" Naruto asked and X rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Well Naruto, with androids, its way more complicated." he said and the boy tilted his head. "How so?"
Zero coughed uncomfortably as he shifted in his seat. "Well it's not like we can reproduce for starters." and Axl just frowned. "You're jumping the gun here Zero, besides, I don't think you're the best one to talk to about this matter." he said.
"And why do you think that?" Zero asked as the younger hunter cleared his throat. "Well no offense but haven't all of your love interests died?" he said and the red hunter just growled.
"Besides, I don't think they are at that stage of a relationship. I mean, Naruto hasn't even gone on a date with any of them." Axl said and Sasuke nodded. "That's right. As long as you avoid the 'first date' then there shouldn't be a problem, right?" he asked and the three hunters nodded. "Hey yeah, that makes perfect sense. If he doesn't let things progress, then things CAN'T go any further!" Zero said as he brought his fist down into an open palm.
"But won't the girls try and make things progress? You forget that this is a two way street. They can try and make Naruto progress without him knowing it." X said and Axl gave a nod. "True, but he's not alone. As long as Sasuke or any other person hangs around or even if another girl should come along for the ride, the date can be ruined and progress can be halted." he said.
The five shared a nod and adjourned the meeting, feeling as though they had discovered the secret and had a master plan involved. As they were leaving however, Alia tapped Naruto on the shoulder and gestured for him to follow her.
Once the two were alone, she turned and looked at Naruto. "So I hear you're having girl troubles." she started but Naruto shrugged. "I dunno, I'm hoping I have it figured out at this point." he said and she just sighed.
"Naruto, don't listen to those three stooges. They don't know anything about women." she said and the boy looked confused, just when things were starting to look up! "I can tell you're not ready for a relationship so listen to me. There's no method to any of it, just follow what your heart tells you." she said and he looked at her with a blank face.
She giggled and patted him on the head. "Trust me and you'll see. Matters like this are never easy and there's no instructions to follow other than what your heart tells you." She said before she sent him on his way.
Sasuke glanced over once he made his way back. "You ready?" he asked and the blonde nodded. "Yeah, I think I am." he said before they went back to Konoha.
-The house-
When Naruto and Sasuke finally returned that evening, he was a bit shocked to find that most of the girls were still here while Tayuya and Kin were still in their outfits. They looked up once the boys walked in and with a push and nudge from Sakura and Ino at the ex sound nin, they slowly got up and stood in front of Naruto.
The boy would be shaking and sweaty if he could while Tayuya looked annoyed and Kin looked ready to die from embarrassment. Suddenly, Kin bowed and said "P-P-Please let me stay here! I promise to take care of the house in exchange!"
Tayuya just rolled her eyes before Ino grabbed her head and made her bow down as well. "What the f-" she was trying to stand back up but Ino wouldn't let her. With a growl, she stopped struggling. "What she said…whatever." Tayuya mumbled out.
Naruto had to take a second to go over this new information, the uneasiness from before gone and in its place, just confusion. Sasuke too looked taken aback by this, this wasn't at all what he had expected.
"Uh…sure I guess?" Naruto answered dumbly and both the girls eyes widened before Kin was bowing repeatedly. "Thank you!" she shouted while Tayuya actually looked slightly embarrassed. "Yeah…thanks…I guess." She said.
Sakura stepped forward at this point and shook her head. "Kin has nowhere to stay, none of the hotels will have her and Tayuya is still under house arrest and hilariously enough under your protection. So even if you said no, she'd still be staying here." She said and the blonde just sighed.
"All that over nothing…" he mumbled and Sasuke just nodded while the girls looked at him in confusion. "What?" Ino asked and Naruto just shook his head. "Nothing." The girls shared a confused glance.
"Anyways, make yourselves at home if you already haven't." Naruto said, making the girls nod. He then looked over at Sakura. "So what was Anko doing here?" he asked making the pink haired girl raise an eyebrow.
"She was escorting Tayuya at the time, you didn't think they would let her just wander around unsupervised did you?" the pink haired girl asked. "Fair point." Naruto said.
"So where on earth did you guys vanish off to when you burst in the first time?" Ino asked, making both boys share a look before shrugging. "Went to see Shikamaru and Kiba. Then went to see X afterwards." They answered, making Ino narrow her eyes. Something seemed off and she was going to have to talk to Shika later.
Sakura looked confused, Shikamaru and X she could see, but Kiba? Naruto and Sasuke stopped talking to him since the academy and she knew they also weren't on the best terms with Kiba since calling Naruto a traitor.
Mentally she shrugged, whatever they did, it was their business, not hers. But a glance over at Ino told her that the blonde was suspicious and she would most likely start digging. She shook her head, there was no stopping Ino if there was some kind of gossip.
Meanwhile, Sasuke and Naruto had moved to sitting on one of the couches and were talking amongst themselves. "You know, I'm amazed all these other girls are here." Naruto said, and Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate." he said and Naruto turned towards the others.
"Well just think about it. Sakura beat the crap out of Ino. Sakura actually killed Kin. Tayuya captured my other body but is still released into my custody. I'm just legitimately amazed that they're all here and not fighting one another." Naruto said and the Uchiha shrugged.
"It's a mindset. Sakura has established herself as the dominant female by defeating two of them and Tayuya is under your protection, so she won't do anything to her as long as that remains or the redhead tries anything." He explained and Naruto gave a nod, that made a lot of sense actually.
"Besides, would you even WANT to pick a fight with Sakura at this point anyways?" the Uchiha asked and Naruto immediately shook his head. Sasuke then had a thought. "Imagine if there were an enemy exactly like Sakura, same strength, same styles, same everything and you had to fight her." Sasuke said, and Naruto just shrugged.
"Then I'd fight her. What's your point here?" he said and Sasuke shrugged back. "Well you know you could easily defeat her but you still wouldn't want to fight her, the question however is why you wouldn't want to, taking away all emotional attachment." He said and Naruto just nodded. "Well that's easy, she scares me."
"But why does she scare you? She can't do anything to you." he said and Naruto could only stare forward in thought before he turned back to Sasuke. "Who said fear has to be rational?"
"Fair enough." Sasuke said as he slid down a bit on the couch and put his feet up on the ottoman. It was a couple hours later when Ino finally departed and when Sakura went to check on the boys, she saw Naruto reading and Sasuke was passed out on the couch.
Sighing and shaking her head, she left them there and went to her own room. Naruto slowly turned the page on his book. 'I wonder how they'll react once I tell them I actually have a clan house?'