Okay so this chapter isn't as long as I wanted it to be, but I thought I should at the least update something before I left on March Break ...and I haven't managed to pull myself away from playing Naruto Ultimate Clash of Ninja 2, or the Legend of Zelda: Windwaker and Four Swords...or from watchin FFVII: Advent Children over and over again...sooooooooo...uhhhhhhhh...LOOK A DIVERSION!!!
Naruto sat up suddenly. He looked outside his window. It was the middle of the night…Sleepily he wondered as to why he was up at this hour…He had woken up with a jolt…Something had scared him…maybe it had been a nightmare. A sudden pain in his gut made him think otherwise. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to eat all that ramen in one go…Climbing out of bed, he headed towards the bathroom when a series of stomach-wrenching pains sent him crashing to the floor.
This hurt too much to be just a simple case of indigestion!! Something must have been wrong with that weird purple plant by the road…he bet it had been an eggplant. He hated eggplants. They always made him sick…He'd rather go for a month without ramen before eating an eggplant.
Struggling to his feet despite the pain, the six-year old continued to make slow progress towards the bathroom. Next time, he promised himself, next time, I'll read the labels…next time I'll listen to Iruka-sensei about best-before-dates…he thought resolutely through the pain.
The next round of pains was so intense that it once again sent Naruto to the ground, this time screaming, with tears coursing down his face.
I'm NOT gonna cry! I am NOT gonna cry, dattebayo!! I promised myself I wasn't going to cry anymore!!!!
He tried to force his screams back down his throat, but his six-year old mouth refused to obey that particular order from his conscious mind. After about five solid minutes of intense screaming, Naruto thankfully, fell unconscious.
8.8.8
Iruka and Kakashi both looked down at the sedated boy's face. On Iruka, an expression of extreme worry and concern was written all over his face, and Kakashi... who knew with that mask of his; but his eyes showed concern for the little boy.
"Does anyone have an idea as to what could be causing this?" asked Iruka timidly. He didn't feel exactly comfortable addressing Hatake Kakashi, Konoha's Copy Ninja so informally, but this was concerning Naruto, and Iruka just couldn't stand on ceremony when Naruto was concerned.
Kakashi shrugged.
"I'm not sure, but I think that Naruto's excessive rate of growth might have something to do with it…"
Iruka nodded silently, returning his gaze to Naruto's face. It was true. The boy who had once been the incurable dead last idiot of the class was now fighting for seventh place with Aburame Shino. Despite Naruto's impressive practical abilities, he lacked intellectual brains, but he was improving.
"Naruto created five hundred Kage Bunshins in class…" Kakashi said suddenly.
Iruka's head whipped up in shock. Kakashi's expression was blank however, and seemed to merely be assessing Iruka's reaction.
"H-how? But that's a forbidden technique!" Iruka managed to sputter.
"It's forbidden, but everyone knows how to do it, so he could have learned it from almost anyone…"
"Where does he get the chakra to make five hundred bunshins??"
"That's what I was wondering…I have a feeling that that little stunt resulted in this… He used up all of his own chakra, and…"
"He pulled a bit on the Kyuubi's..." finished Iruka. "But I don't get it. That seal was supposed to mix the two's chakra, and protect Naruto…Why would something like…"
"He's six years old Iruka…You can't expect perfect symbiosis to happen overnight…It'll be years before that happens…"
"Should we tell him?" the Chuunin asked quietly.
"…That's for Hokage-sama to decide…" answered Kakashi just as quietly.
All the while, Naruto slept on…
8.8.8
"WHAT?!?! You were in the hospital?!?" Sasuke said shocked.
Naruto grinned weakly, scratching at the goggles that he had recently taken to wearing on his forehead.
"Yeah…I think I ate something weird…Probably an eggplant…or maybe because that ramen had expired last week…Sasuke, what does 'expired' mean anyway? Iruka-sensei keeps telling me to read the 'best-before-dates' but I don't know what those dates mean…"
"Expired means it's rotten, and you can't eat it anymore…Where did you get those goggles?" asked Sasuke, poking the green eyewear tentatively. Seeing something on the blonde boy's forehead made him look a bit older, in Sasuke's view, mainly because it reminded him of the older Naruto.
"OH! Iruka-sensei gave them to me in the hospital! He said they'd help me read the expiry dates and maybe get me a better mark in class too! He said that if I get an 'A' on the next written test, he'd take me out for ramen! I'm gonna get the best mark in the class dattebayo!!"
Sasuke had to smile. Sakura always got perfect on every test. If Naruto did get a perfect score, he'd have to share the 'best mark' title with Sakura. Anyway, so long as Naruto got over a 'C' Iruka-sensei would take him to Ichiraku Ramen, despite him not getting the hoped-for mark.
"What are you smiling about Sasuke?" asked Naruto.
Sasuke grinned.
"I learned another fire-technique, wanna see?"
Naruto pulled a face.
"I stink at those…"
"It's okay. It took me a month of practice and 'second degree' burns to get this one done...my mom's forbidden me to use this one…" he added softly.
"Okay, but I want you to see my new jutsu…" Naruto said grudgingly.
He probably doesn't have one…he's just going to make it up on the spot…thought Sasuke, as they moved away from their practice log. To do this, Sasuke really had gotten second-degree burns from practice. He hadn't realized that as a six-year old, his small muscle control might not be as good as it had been, and he'd almost burned himself to a crisp. He had been lucky that Kakashi had been nearby…
Performing a rather slow set of hand-seals, Sasuke drew a deep breath.
"Katon: HOUSENKA NO JUTSU!!!"
Multiple gouts of hot flame burst from Sasuke's mouth to slam into the log, setting it aflame. Naruto watched him squinting. Sasuke wasn't sure whether or not he was impressed or not. Only when the flames died down, did Naruto speak.
"You burned the log down…" Naruto said disapprovingly.
Sasuke nodded silently. Yep, he had definitely burned the log down. All that was left was a lump of charcoal…
"Fuzzy Eyebrows is going to be mad…"
"Who's Fuzzy Eyebrows?"
Naruto shrugged.
"Some older guy who comes every once in a while and beats up that log…he's weird…" he said.
Fuzzy eyebrows punching a log? Has to be Lee…
Who?
You'll see him soon…
"Mmmmm…" nodded Sasuke, biting his lip, "I guess we should apologize…"
"Yeah…We've been hitting it a lot…I don't think he appreciates that…"
"Where did you learn a big word like 'appreciate'?" Sasuke asked his friend.
"Iruka-sensei said it a lot…after the ummm…incident…"
"Ah…"
It made sense. Iruka had lectured them for an hour for what they had done to Kakashi. Technically they had done all that to a bunshin, and it didn't really count as the man himself, but grown ups could be stupid sometimes…
It's the thought that counts…the older mentality chuckled, it works with compliments too.
"So where would fuzzy eyebrows be?"
"I dunno…should we wait for him?"
Sasuke adamantly shook his head.
"No way!!! If we stick around too long, then those stupid girls are going to find this place, and then what are we going to do for a practice area?" he said.
He had never truly realized how scary fan-girls were…From his older self's memories, things had always been like that…just that he hadn't paid any attention to it at all, and never noticed.
"Uhhhhhh….you've got a point dattebayo…" agreed Naruto. Despite his infatuation with Sakura, Naruto too had learned the terrors of being chased by those girls. He had never known how loud a girl could scream: 'Kakkoii!!!'
"Well anyway…where should we go? We've been here too long," asked Sasuke.
An awkward silence filled the air between them. Neither boy knew what to do…
Ahem…might I put in a suggestion? Said the older Sasuke with a small, feigned cough. Recently his younger self had been ignoring him a lot…Maybe it had been because of his entire recollection of the multiple times Itachi had shown him the massacre of the Uchiha clan…It was a total of…four, if he remembered correctly. Well, anyway since then, Sasuke's stubborn six-year-old mentality was giving him a cold shoulder.
What? asked the little kid suspiciously.
I'd go to the village gates.
Why?
Come on, I'm you! Would it kill you to trust me a bit here? It's not like I'm trying to force feed you red beans or spinach!!!! Snapped Sasuke irritably. JUST GO TO THE DAMNED GATE!!! FUZZY BROWS IS PROBABLY THERE, AS IS GAARA, TEMARI, KANKURO, AND THE KAZEKAGE AS WELL AS HALF OF KONOHA'S GREATEST JOUNIN!!! NOW GO!!!
Sasuke began to regret yelling at his younger self, now seeing as his child mentality had retreated to a corner whimpering in fear. Sighing inwardly, he decided to talk to Naruto.
"Hey, let's go to the Village Gates!" he said.
Naruto looked at him funny.
"Are you okay Sasuke?"
"Of course I am, why would I not be?"
"You sound funny dattebayo…"
How had he forgotten that? 16-year-old Sasuke was far more used to speaking in an adult like manner…as in an almost dead monotone, with a hint of disdain imbedded beneath multiple layers of feigned emotion, with underlying bits of genuine feeling somewhere in there. Hearing such a complex voice coming from a six-year-old would undoubtedly be either exceptionally creepy or just plain weird.
"I…I think I hear the girls…" whispered Sasuke loudly. Naruto nodded in response. Of course Sasuke would start sounding strange if he thought a girl was nearby. Sasuke's fan-girls were really scary. Even though Sakura was one of them, and Naruto liked Sakura, people like Ino were really, really, really, really scary dattebayo!!! They couldn't train by the river bank anymore ever since Sakura told everyone where it was. The two of them had had to run across to the other side and hide in the forest for an hour before they could go home.
"Let's go to the Gate..." said Sasuke again, "they'd never look for us there!"
Naruto nodded.
"Yeah!! Uhhh…why?" he didn't see how going to the Gate would help anything.
"There's something happening there today…there's supposed to be just a bunch of old people talking. We'll be fine! They think we're too cool to be hanging out with old people!"
"Okay! Let's GO!!"
8.8.8
Heh, heh, heh…he had done a good job sneaking in here. This way, with no one officially knowing he was here, there wouldn't be any teary-eyed Chuunin's running around for his autograph…and Ebisu and Kakashi wouldn't be pressuring him to finish the next book. He needed to research!! There was no way Icha-Icha Violence would possibly be completed without his research!!!
How long has it been since I've been here? he thought as he walked through the streets of Konoha. It had been six years…six years since Uzumaki Arashi, his goofy little Genin had died…Funny how time flies…That goofy little blonde boy grew up to be a big responsible insanely powerful Hokage. The strongest to have ever lived! It hadn't been fair for him to have gone that way. He had had such a life ahead of him…Come to think of it; maybe he should visit the monument, since Arashi didn't have a tomb. Sarutobi-sensei had never said what happened to the Fourth's body, and hadn't mentioned it. Not that Jiraiya had ever asked. He hadn't wanted to stick around after the funeral. It was always too depressing.
Ahhhhhhh, well anyway there were more important things to be done…right now there was some research to be done…eh heh…
As a side note, the entire Fourth Hokage being called Uzumaki Arashi and being Naruto's dad...I'm not sure if its official yet, but its all over the internet, and...Arashi's a cool name...because...like...it means storm...well depending on how you write it, it means storm...but anyhoo...yeah...I have yet to drag in all the emo people into the story, but I guarantee Ero-sennin (Jiraiya) will get his just desserts for being such a perv...and Gaara will be appearing sometime later in this story...can't guarantee next chapter, but He will be there...