Twin2: Okay, guys, I got lots of reviews about this, so I'll tell you again: I was overseas. I was literally back in my home country for six hours before I started working on this. Also, temper is nasty. GET OUT! (throws something at younger brother, who makes a run for it)
Twin1: Right then, while my sister murders my brother, she also got a lot of reviews asking why Naruto put up with the hospital for so long. Thing is it wasn't actually that long, only three or four days – it's broken up quite rapidly. Really. It wasn't long at all; he's just falling asleep intermittently. Have you ever been on those drugs? You're lucky if you can remember what month it is.
Twin2: (bending coat hanger back into a slightly less mangled shape) Also, a note for Anonymous-is-a-pretty-bad-name: it wasn't fainting that was the problem, it was not vomiting all over the keyboard. Not to mention all my original edits were destroyed when my computer decided it hated me following the six-week absence. Three and a half hissy fits later, and not all of them were the computer, I'm still not happy with this. But Twin1 is blackmailing me.
(And if anyone's rolling their eyes at the 'jetlag', I just typed 'sixteen' instead of 'fifteen' in the chapter title.)
LAST EDITED: Half an hour after posting, due to jet lag. I apologise to those of you who read the first version and were confused. Or amused.
Fifteen: Not
I had avoided being slipped any more of the sleepy-drugs, so I was now reasonably certain it was day five of the hospital stay. Not for sure – I caught sleep in, like, two-hour snatches as different drugs cycled through, which was really annoying, thinking back on it. Now, though, whatever painkiller I was on was mild enough for my head to be aching faintly, which was about as clear-headed as I was going to get.
It was still fairly early in the morning, something like six – about three-quarters of the hospital was still asleep. I leaned down and touched my toes, smiling when none of my muscles really protested at the movement and shifting slightly to stretch my legs against the wall. It was about time, I mused; being unable to move without pain had been very annoying. Was that normal, for other ninja, after a big fight?
Che. Sucks to be them.
I laced my fingers and pulled my arms slowly up behind my back, being careful not to push too much farther than the first strains of muscle – pull too hard at this one and you could actually snap the tendons. With Kyuubi out of commission I would prefer not to risk it.
But a couple of flips should be okay, as long as I didn't knock over the drip. Which meant I was going to knock it over for certain. So I was just going to have to try not to.
I spread my feet a little, lowering my centre of balance, and without warning flipped perfectly backwards, landing squarely on my feet with my hands out only a little for my balance. I beamed. Perfect.
Okay, and one-two-three –
Flip-flip-flip one-two-three all in a row, feet pounding into the floor at even, measured intervals. Three perfect flips, no pauses, no touching the ground with my hands. Good. I hadn't slipped up too far in my hospital stay, then, although my arm was now stinging thanks to the twisted tubes – stupid drip. I hated the damn thing, but the doctors freaked every time I went to yank it out, so I left it alone, if only to shut them up.
"Uzu – Naruto, what do you think you're doing?" Yori shouted, sounding horrified. I scowled. Hadn't she gone to talk to the doctor? Damn – I had been preoccupied, not noticing her come up like that.
"I'm just practising my flips, checking my muscles still respond okay," I told her, stretching my shoulders again and leaning sideways, one arm over my head as I stretched out the triceps and rib muscles. Ooh, ouch, that hurt. Found a bruise. How did I get that one? …Oh yeah, walked into the doorknob yesterday.
"Naruto, you need to rest," the nurse insisted, coming forwards. I snorted.
"I've been lying around for long enough. I need to get back into training, or I'll have no chance in the third exam," I explained breezily.
"Naruto, I think that fighting in the third exam might be a bad idea," Yori said.
I snorted. "That's what everyone keeps saying to me. But you just wait and see! I'm gonna do great! I'm not about to give up just now!"
"Speaking of which, Naruto," said the doctor, whose name I still couldn't remember. "I've been meaning to talk to you about this. I really don't think you should fight in the third exam."
I sighed with a fierce scowl, but he continued without seeming to notice that I was disagreeing.
"As a matter of fact, Naruto, I think this is starting to get all too dangerous. I think that participating in the third exam would be too much for you, especially with your new injury. And it's so much bigger than that. You ought to quit being a ninja before you get yourself killed."
That stopped my grumbling, rebellious thoughts cold.
Quit being a ninja?
Give up entirely?
Stop trying to learn techniques, stop learning to fight?
Being a ninja was my life.
Did he even realise what he was asking me?
Stop fighting?
Give up?
Stop living?
I refocused on his words – "there are other things that you could do instead –" but I wasn't cold anymore. I was hot with anger.
How dare he?
Say that I shouldn't be a ninja anymore?
Didn't I have a say in this?
Wasn't this my life he was playing with?
"You –" I choked out, finding it difficult to speak through the intense heat in my chest and throat. "You –" I couldn't even get a coherent sentence together in my head, let alone get it in the air. The doctor had paused in his speech, my strangled sputtering apparently getting his attention as I struggled to get something, anything together.
"You cannot be fucking serious," I finally gasped out.
The doctor got the wrong impression. "Oh no, I'm perfectly serious, Naruto-san," he said, sounding disgustingly happy with what he was saying. "You can easily find another job, a less dangerous one, in which your disability won't hamper you as much. You could even return to a civilian school or something similar if you wanted."
I let out a strangled sound that was meant to be a curse and shook my head violently. I couldn't imagine – did he know what this meant to me? Did he know what he was trying to do?
Not being a ninja…
I think it would just kill me.
I stopped trying to put a full sentence together, just letting out an anguished cry and yanking out my drip needle, making the doctor yelp, before I whipped around and sprinted unerringly for the window. (By the way, don't try this at home, unless you're a ninja.) I'd left it open earlier for some air that didn't reek of antiseptic, so it was easy to just vault over the sill and let the chakra in my feet catch hold of the brick. I shot towards the ground with gravity helping probably more than it should have, more thankful than ever for Kakashi teaching us tree-walking – or wall-walking – in Wave Country.
I blocked out the frantic shouting from behind me as I landed neatly upright, and ignored the fact that I was probably going to get in trouble later as I bolted across the open field. I was instinctively heading for the cool weight at the edge of my senses that was a forest and within seconds was darting between the trees, glad I'd had the sense to insistently change into my own clothing before I'd done anything this morning.
I was furious, as angry as I could ever remember being. How dare he? How dare they? They couldn't just – just say that I couldn't do this any more! Couldn't be a ninja! I had worked so damn hard for this, and they thought they could just take it away? My left hand skimmed a tree, the sharp pain of the bark cutting the back of my hand coming through to my raging mind and making me slow down, remembering to make a group of shadow clones to get my bearings. Better they walked into trees than me – the yelps and puffs were enough for me to figure out hazards.
I was still shaking with anger.
How dare they?
I slowed down and stopped, clenching my fists and just letting my clones smash through the forest and get dispelled one by one to build up a map. How dare they… they didn't know how long I had worked, how many times I fought with my own chakra to get it under control, how long I spent trying and trying to recall colours I hadn't seen in years to get the henge right, how long it took me to be able to relocate myself with kawarimi.
I sighed harshly, irritated, as a clone fell in a lake with a 'splash'. Stupid clone. Stupid doctors. Stupid… aaaaarrrgghh!
Another one fell in, and I growled, baring my teeth furiously. Stupid, stupid clones!
"Well, we're copies of you, so what does that say about you?" one of the clones said rudely from nearby. I threw a kunai at it, the sound of yet another dispelling clone more satisfying than it should have been, and I grinned, before scowling as another clone fell in the water and drowned. Stupid things. Were they trying to walk on the surface of the water or something?
I paused in my raging, focusing on that thought. Back in Wave, Zabuza had walked on water. It hadn't been interesting enough at the time to focus on, what with imminent death and everything, but now that I thought about it, I realised Kakashi had done the same thing at one point, and remembered their chakra flow half-focused to their feet, although they hadn't seemed to be noticing it.
A shinobi skill, like tree climbing, like Kakashi-sensei had taught us in Wave? Was it something like that – maybe the next level up? I frowned – sticking to the water sounded like a bad idea to me. But hey, if Sensei could do it, it was worth a shot.
I sent a clone to test the water depth, not wanting to drown ('cos I can't swim very well) if I slipped up the first few hundred times. Ha. 'If', I say. Ha ha. If.
Anyway, moving on; it took a few minutes to find a spot where the water didn't randomly drop twenty feet without warning; it was deeper than I would have liked, even right at the bank it was maybe up to my waist, but it would do. I dispelled all the clones, needing to work this out on my own – plus, some of them had started squabbling – and tried to think for a few seconds, imagining what had made it work for Sensei and sword-dude.
Then I gave up thinking and just channelled some chakra to my feet, stepping into the water.
SPLASH!
Well, that didn't work. And the water was cold!
I waded out crossly, immediately walking out again, with exactly the same result.
Four more times I tried the exact same thing, focusing my chakra and trying to stick to the surface of the water, but it just wasn't working. It wasn't even a matter of me using too much chakra; it just wasn't working.
Okay, so sticking wasn't the answer. I'd thought it sounded stupid in the first place.
Maybe the opposite? Float instead of stick?
I shrugged, my mind completely occupied with the new problem as opposed to the one waiting at the hospital. I was soaking wet already. One more try wouldn't hurt.
I put my hands together, folding the ring and pinkie finger of my left hand over my right ones and keeping the pointer and middle straight in the ram seal, focusing a swirling burst of chakra to my feet, forcing it to spread and hover instead of try to stick.
Carefully, I put one foot on the surface of the water, and began to lean on it, pushing my weight down against it and waiting for water to splash against my foot.
The chakra held.
I grinned, instantly cheered up by the fact that this was working. I focused chakra to my other foot, to step out fully, and the chakra in the first foot wavered slightly, making it fall through into the water. I yelped as I toppled forwards, ending up nearly neck-deep as I sat on the lakebed.
Great. This could be harder than I thought.
At least a quarter of an hour later I was still having no luck, and was wet head to toe to boot. Grumbling, I dragged my water-logged self out of the water and sat on the bank to a) dry off and b) think over this problem. Water isn't a solid surface, 'specially not running water like Kakashi-sensei and Zabuza were standing on. You can't just shove out a solid wave of chakra and hope it's okay – it's more complex than that, I thought. The water changes every second, with every breath of wind, every slight current of the water, with ripples and waves and the rush of water as it's pulled downstream. You'd have to adjust the chakra output, every second, to get it right.
Don't get me wrong – I'm no genius. This was what I'd worked out in the last twenty minutes while getting myself soaked experimenting. It wasn't like I could see what I was doing – but every time I felt a breeze, I fell in. The one time I felt a fish come close, I fell in. This did not take a genius of either Sasuke or Sakura's calibre to figure out.
I sighed, leaning back and tilting my head to the sky, frowning contemplatively. This wasn't easy. It was obviously going to be more trouble than I anticipated, but still… walking on water! Mastering a skill like that would be so cool!
I grinned and clambered to my feet, focusing my chakra for another go and stepping out onto the lake, promptly falling in and cursing at the coldness. My chakra was seriously not cooperating, and it was making this very difficult.
Splash, curse.
Splash, curse.
Splash, curse.
Splash, curse curse curse.
I really wasn't getting anywhere with this, except steadily wetter, colder and more frustrated. But I kept trying, with varying results, for at least twenty minutes.
Splash, curse.
"AAAARGH! WHY WON'T THIS WORK!" I finally hollered, staggering out of the water and shaking myself off furiously. This had ceased to be amusing! Every time I thought I'd got it, my chakra would shift! Or the ripples in the water would become too violent for me to compensate in time! WHAT THE FUCK?
Odd giggling drew my fury away from my chakra's random flares and onto the vague chakra essence I sensed at the edge of the lake. "What the hell are you laughing at, you old geezer!" I bellowed in his direction, lashing out at the water with the flat of one palm.
The giggling stopped abruptly as I started to haul myself out of the water again, still cursing violently under my breath, and I turned my head suspiciously to the chakra essence. It was shadowed, like Orochi-freak's, but the shadow was fainter, harder to focus on, wavering like it wasn't quite there – this was very good chakra shielding. Obviously someone who was used to hiding, not like the snake-guy, who was clearly a showoff. Bastard.
I decided to ignore it, seeing as he hadn't tried to kill me yet, and instead glared at the water. This was so damn hard! My chakra was flaring and flickering uncontrollably, and it was driving me nuts!
I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Getting worked up was not going to help me here. I waited until the heat had faded from my head and my heart rate was quieter before focusing my chakra again, holding onto it with an iron grip as I stepped out, instantly altering the output of that foot as the water started to shift. My foot went two inches into the water, but that was all. I pulled the other foot out, slowly, carefully maintaining my balance and the chakra flow, and then I was standing sort-of on top of the water.
I could hardly believe it, and sure enough, just a few seconds later my chakra wavered the wrong way, my control slipped, the water splashed, and the air was filled with cursing once again.
"Hey, brat, you're disturbing the peace!"
I spat out a mouthful of water. "What peace? I've been cursing my ass off for the last hour!"
"Just shut up already, before you scare off the skinnydippers!"
"The… what?" For a few seconds I was confused before I remembered Kiba's definition of the word, when I burst out, "Why would you care?"
"I'm watching them! It's great research!"
"Why would you want to watch naked ladies swimming?" I asked blankly, totally confused. Sheesh, and I thought Gai was weird! "That makes no sense!"
"No sense? Kid, you have been horrifically deprived!"
Okay, this was starting to annoy me now. The guy made less sense the longer he went on, and I wasn't getting any further with my water walking. What a pain. Grumbling under my breath, I pulled myself upright, dripping water, and dragged myself out of the lake again, mumbling obscenities that would have made some of the coarser jounin blush. "What the hell is wrong?" I muttered, shaking my hands in a feeble attempt to dry them. "Why won't this work, dammit?"
"What, not interested in the delights of the elusive female?" the man asked, his voice a little louder – he must have turned towards me, because his chakra hadn't moved.
"No," I said blankly, slumping flat on my back on the bank with my feet in the water. "Why would I be?" My bandages were soaking wet – they had been splashed numerous times. They are going to be a pain later, aren't they?
For several seconds there was silence, and I began to ignore him, instead turning back to the issue of my chakra. If it wasn't for the fact it had been bothering me since the fox got sealed, I'd just think this was a bad day, but unfortunately, it wasn't. The fox had something to do with this.
"What're you doing anyway, brat?"
I considered whether or not to answer him, before deciding that with ninja chakra, this guy might know what I was doing wrong. And even though he smelt weirdly of flowery soap, his chakra felt like someone born and raised in Konoha, even with a curious waver at the edges that felt unfamiliar. I didn't feel like I couldn't trust him. Even… the opposite.
"I'm trying to do water walking, but I can't get it right," I explained. "Gah, this is such a pain…"
"Hmph." The chakra had shifted closer to me. "What'd your sensei tell you?"
"Huh? He didn't say anything – I haven't even seen him for two days," I said, confused.
"What, so he just sent you out here and said 'walk on water'?"
"No! Sensei's lazy, but he's not that bad! No, he did it while we were in Wave Country a few weeks ago, and I figured it would be a useful skill, if I could get it to work," I explained, sitting up and turning my head to him again.
There was another short pause, before the man said abruptly, "Channel some chakra. Don't get up, just focus."
I shrugged slowly, putting my hands back into the ram seal and tugging at my chakra, which swirled against my grip, then ebbed into it and began to spiral through my coils, making my skin tingle faintly as it brushed the surface.
"Now wha–"
I was cut off by a sudden blow to the stomach and doubled over, gasping for air, and suddenly there was a flare of incredible power, the feeling of something being loosed, flashing through my coils, heating them from the inside out.
Long time, no annoy, brat.
Hey, Kyuubi, I thought, sprawling out on the sand again.
Honestly, I can't get to you for a week, and this is the condition you're in? the fox grumbled, prodding at torn muscles and cuts with his chakra to reboot the healing process. SHI – what in the nine layers of hell did you do to your head? Sheesh, if you weren't already blind, this gash would have done it, you clumsy son of a badger… che, how much blood are you missing? Are you completely incapable of the basics of first aid? I'm a soul-sucking demon and even I know better than what's here!
I ignored the fox doing emergency repairs and instead yelled, "What the hell was that?"
"Just something to loosen you up," he said, a smirk in his voice. "Try it again."
Scowling, I stood up, focusing my chakra and stepping out onto the water. The cloud of chakra wavered, then held.
I blinked, stepping out fully. Warm energy burbled through my system, but it wasn't the stubborn, vicious resistance it had been since the fox was sealed. It shifted easily with every nudge of my willpower, and as I took several experimental steps on the water, nothing slipped. I didn't fall. My chakra was under perfect control.
I spun around to face the chakra source still standing on the shore. "How did you know that would work?" I demanded. He released that double-up seal, so he knows at least a little sealing… a pity I don't know the complexity of the seal, or I'd have a better judge of his ability.
"Trick of the trade, kiddo," was the easy reply, and I blinked. He knows sealing quite well, then. He's good… really good. Someone of his level, maybe I've heard of him…? I can't remember any sealing masters from Konoha since the Yondaime, and he's kind of dead…
"Who are you?" I asked.
The guy did this funny shuffling motion, then a hop, then something that I had no idea what he was doing. All the whilst shouting a list of titles - something about Toad Sannin, and Grand Seal Master, but then I guessed that one already.
There was a long silence as he waited for my reaction.
"Great. My seal problem was solved by a lunatic. I wish Sasuke was here; at least then he'd be able to tell me what the crazy man looks like."
"I am right here, you know," the man, Jiraiya, said, sounding faintly amused. "Who's Sasuke?"
I turned my whole body in his direction, still moving warily on the water, and shifted a bit closer before replying, "My teammate, and my best friend. If he was here I'd teach him how to do this, but…" I scowled and cut myself off, feeling a little disconcerted.
"But what?" Jiraiya pressed.
I shrugged uncomfortably, still walking a circle on the top of the water and marvelling at the fact that I had yet to fall in. "He and Kakashi-sensei are out training. He has to learn a new technique for the third stage of the Chuunin Exams, so he hasn't been able to visit me in the hospital since the second stage finished. It's been really boring without him, it's kinda why I'm out here in the first place."
"Hmm…" For a moment he said nothing, and I sped up how fast I moved on the water, forcing myself to react quicker to alter the chakra, even darting abruptly from side to side to make it harder, my senses and mind adjusting rapidly to keep up. "So you're supposed to be in the hospital, then?" He sounded highly amused, and I snorted slightly myself, but the mirth died at his next question: "Why'd you come out here?"
I scowled, slowing in my movements, and pointedly turned my head away from him. "I told you, I was bored." My voice was sullen and flat, and I could feel my control starting to waver in the face of my suppressed anger, and I walked off the water stiffly before I could lose it altogether and get wet again. "I hate sitting still for too long. And the hospital fumes were making me feel sick."
"Well, I think it might be time you went back," he said calmly, not seeming to notice my fury – or if he did, he was ignoring it. "They're probably getting worried about you. The doctors are kind of finicky about people escaping from the hospital."
"Che," I grumbled, but I knew I'd have to go back eventually. "Fine."
True to the guy's assumption, there were people rushing everywhere, obviously in various states of alarm, and I raised an eyebrow, half-amused by the panic I had caused.
"NARUTO, where the hell have you been?" Natsu screeched, suddenly grabbing my shoulder, making me flinch. I hadn't noticed her creeping up on me. "Everyone has been so worried! Thank you for bringing him back, Jiraiya-sama. Naruto, your sensei is in a panic! Why on earth did you bolt off like that?"
I stiffened and scowled, literally feeling myself shutting down, but Natsu didn't seem to notice as she dragged me back to my room. "And you're soaking wet! We'll have to change those bandages straight away – were you swimming? Or did you just fall in the water? Whatever the case, there's pond water in your eyes – that's going to need to be cleaned, very well, now sit down and wait for the doctor!"
Said doctor appeared nearly instantly, and I ignored the lecture on not running off and scaring people like that while Natsu covered me with several blankets and towelled me off, turning my head away from both of them and scowling. Then suddenly my expression brightened, and I sprang to my feet, yanking off the remaining bandaging and sending the bedding flying and springing for the door, howling, "SASUKE!"
I jerked the door open, pulled my friend inside, and then slammed it again, grinning like a maniac. "Sasuke, it's about time you visited! I've been so damn bored! How's your training going? Is Kakashi-sensei actually teaching you anything useful? What's your new technique like? Can you do it right yet?"
"Naruto, calm down," Sasuke sighed, patting the top of my head condescendingly, but I was so pleased to see him that I ignored the patronising gesture and just beamed at him. "Hey, your eyes have healed! When did that happen?"
"Huh?" I put a hand to my face, ignoring the doctor's indignant splutters, prodding cautiously at the area that had been an open and rather painful wound, feeling only a rough line of scar tissue. "Hey cool! That musta happened this afternoon when –" I cut myself off.
"When you escaped from the hospital and scared the crap out of everyone," Sasuke completed. He tugged lightly on my hair, a silent Tell me what you did later, and I made a face at him.
"Uzumaki, please sit!" said man insisted. "You need to calm down!"
"What the hell is with you people and calming me down?" I screeched at the top of my lungs. I wasn't about to be nice and polite and cooperative, oh hell no. "I am calm, dammit! Do I need to be any calmer? Am I s'posed to be unconscious or something! Sheesh!"
Sasuke waited until I'd finished shouting, then said, "Feel better now?" I glared at him, but I nodded anyway. "Good. I heard you've been giving the doctors a bit of trouble? Something about locking yourself in the bathroom…?"
"They were bugging me!" I whined. "Seriously, how many times do I have to tell them what this object is or where this recording was taken or how many steps there are around the room or where the bathroom is or how many chairs are in the reception area?" My voice rose in a furious screech at the end of that speech, and I had to pause to gasp for air.
"But seriously, Naruto, three times?" Sasuke sat down on my bed, trying and failing to keep the laughter out of his voice.
"I lost my temper three times," I said sulkily, pouting at him. "You try getting poked and prodded and stared and scolded and 'Naruto can you walk in a straight line' for five days and see how long it takes you to snap! I think I did pretty damn well, thank you!"
A sharp knock at the door pulled us from our verbal spar, and as I glanced at the door I sensed Jiraiya and Kakashi-sensei coming in, sensing them feeling more solemn than before – what now? More bad news? Or were they going to try to talk me out of being a ninja as well?
"Naruto, I need to get back to training Sasuke, so I'm afraid he's coming with me again," said Kakashi pleasantly, and I sighed, sitting down heavily on my bed and smiling sadly at Sasuke in farewell. "We'll visit again soon, don't worry."
"See ya, dobe," my friend said teasingly, and I stuck out my tongue at him.
"Yeah, yeah, don't kill yourself training, teme," I replied, half-smiling.
I felt them go, tipping my head as the door closed behind them, and the doctor moved forward again to inspect the once-gash over my eyes. His hands were shaking slightly. "Incredible…" he whispered. "This… just isn't possible! This was – this was recent, a dangerous wound, and now – it's nothing more than scar tissue! This is amazing! How could this have happened?"
I made a face, wondering how to answer this. If the doctor actually didn't know about Kyuubi, I didn't want to tell him, and if he did… I didn't want him suddenly spouting some crap about the demon 'possessing my body' or some such babble if I reminded him.
It turned out to be Jiraiya who saved my butt. "It's the brat's kekkei genkai – advanced healing. Something funny was done to his system and it took a while to kick in, but once it gets going, it's very effective."
Healing kekkei genkai? I thought that was just you.
It is just me, you moron – he's lying. We need to do something about this 'lying does not exist' thing you've got going on.
I do not! Who was it who knew Kabuto wasn't to be trusted? Huh?
…
Hah! Told you so!
…I have suddenly been reminded of why I hate humans.
"…by tomorrow morning he'll probably be ready to be released," Jiraiya was saying. "By then his kekkei genkai will have finished replacing the blood he lost and you can see how much damage was actually done."
I blinked. Was Jiraiya actually trying to get me out of the hospital? I could hug him!
…But I wouldn't, 'cos he was loony.
"As a matter of fact you could probably check him over now."
The doctor immediately moved in on me, gently prodding at the scar and asking me, "Does this hurt at all? Can you feel my fingers? Tell me if it hurts or you feel a tingling anywhere you shouldn't."
"No. Yes. No. No tingling. No. No, it doesn't hurt, dammit!"
"Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up? Can you see me, tell me what colour shirt I'm wearing?"
I hesitated. It stung to admit this. It actually hurt having to say this aloud.
"No. I can't see anything."
Straight away the poking got worse. "That's very strange indeed – this line, it scarred quite cleanly – but the eyes, there's no scar at all, it's like they were never touched in the first place! But if his vision is still gone – was something damaged internally? Maybe we should take a scan –"
Jiraiya cleared his throat. "That shouldn't be necessary. You remember what I said about his bloodline limit? It being forcibly activated and deactivated like it was may have disallowed some of its usual thoroughness, and some internal damage may not have been properly fully repaired."
Here was where I started to lose his train of babbling. Just because I'd been in the hospital nearly a week didn't mean I spoke the language. The rest of it went something like this:
"Because his kekkei genkai was repressed, blah blah blah scar tissue … never been needed blah blah blah bloodline blah blah blah blah blah. His eyes didn't scar blah blah blah blah… blah blah blah poison blah blah blah healing blah blah repressed blah blah. Blah blah blah scars blah blah blah poison blah remnants blah blah blah further damage. Blah blah kekkei genkai blah natural reaction blah blah delicate area. His body is blah blah blah, is tuned to that happening, so with it blah blah like it was he may blah blah blah blah blah." There was something about genetic code in there, too, but it made absolutely zero sense to me.
Uh, fox, should I be understanding this? I asked worriedly.
No! He's making it up! Che, honestly. What actually happened is that, yes, because you were the complete and utter idiot that you are and got me sealed off, my chakra couldn't heal your worthless mouthful of hide. The venom had nothing to do with your eyes – it was busy eating away at your blood's oxygen saturation until your fever knocked it out of commission. Heh heh.
I had a fever?
Not one that you noticed, spawn. And that blather about scars is all lies, too. If it wasn't for my help you'd be covered in them, brat, so be very, very grateful, and I might not eat you when I get out of here. Forget that dragonesque crap about starting at the toes and working your way up – I'm going straight for the heart!
When he started on like that there was no talking to him, so I tuned out the beginnings of his rant and tuned back in the (hopefully) end of Jiraiya's.
"…there are certain things that, once damaged sufficiently, cannot be repaired, even with a kekkei genkai like Naruto's. Its repression during the exam probably only compounded the problem," Jiraiya finished explaining.
My eyes were still blinded from when I was four, and you couldn't fix that, even now, I thought, with a faint mental sigh.
Nope. Sorry, brat, but you're out of your infernal luck there. The poison did too good a job. I was vaguely startled that Kyuubi broke from his monologue on the best ways to eat humans to say that, however sarcastically.
What followed was a long and complicated series of people all looking over me, trying to find something wrong and bickering amongst themselves over why I'd randomly healed, but my eyes remained damaged (despite an apparent abundance of evidence to the contrary). It was all very boring.
A good three or four hours after I'd been returned to the hospital, when I was beginning to give up hope on ever being released from this crazy OCD place, I glanced up from where I was sitting cross-legged on my bed. There was a platoon of doctors outside, still arguing, and I suspected it was going to get ugly sooner or later, but those nutjobs weren't my problem. No, I was interested in the stolid chakra source meandering down my corridor.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei!" I said eagerly as he let himself in, the babble from outside briefly rising in intensity as the door opened. "Did you come to get me out of here? Pleeeeaaaaase say yes."
I think I unnerved him a bit. There was a second or two of silence before he answered me, saying, "Hello, Naruto. How're you doing today?"
"Boooored!" I answered instantly, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. "The doctors have all gone crazy again! Even worse than when you picked up Sasuke – where'd he go, anyway? – and I really want to get out of here! I hate hospitals, Sensei!"
Kakashi chuckled softly; I pouted at him. "I don't think the doctors would appreciate it much if I stole you. They tend to be, ah, fussy about that, as I'm sure you've noticed…"
"Pleeeaase, sensei?" I begged, tilting my brows into the puppy-dog eyes. "I'm really really bored in here! I'll love you forever! I'm not hurt anymore so please, can I go home?"
Kakashi chuckled again. "I'll see what I can do, Naruto," he said, ruffling my hair reassuringly before he vanished again.
I sighed forlornly, flopping back on my bed so that my bare feet touched the wall above the cold metal frame of the head of the bed. These people had no respect for an active mind, I grumbled silently, glaring at the ceiling. How anyone could expect me to sit still and be quiet and just listen to music or walk tamely around my room under orders was beyond me. Hadn't I been labelled 'hyperactive' by just about every person who met me?
I tapped the wall with one foot, getting a faint but distinct echo as the sound vibrated across the surface. I hit it again, twice with the ball of my foot and then once more sharply with my heel, making a staccato pattern of sound. I smirked.
Is there anyone close enough for me to annoy with this?
I had made up an interesting little pattern by the time Sensei got back, kicking out at the wall rhythmically. The doctors had been entrenched in doctor-jargon for far too long for me to be interested in them – there was only so long I could sit and strain my ears to listen and try to decipher their strange language. The kicking-the-wall thing might be childish, but it certainly made me feel better.
"Ah, Naruto, I don't think the doctors will appreciate it if you kick out their wall," Kakashi informed me sternly.
"Tough," I grumbled, although I did stop and swing my legs over the bed towards him, feeling hopeful. "Didja manage to get me out of here?"
He shifted position slightly. "Well, I did manage to convince them that it might not be a bad idea to let me borrow you for a couple of hours," he admitted.
"YES!" I sprang off the bed in an instant, suddenly feeling jittery and full of energy as all the bounce I hadn't been allowed to work off over the last week bubbled to the surface. "I love you, sensei! Thank you! Yes!"
If I had to guess at the half-second of silence, Kakashi was rolling his eyes. "Come with me," he said lightly.
I followed him happily, not particularly minding his gentle hand on my shoulder steering me out of the complex. Anything was better than the hospital.
Kakashi eventually let me go in one of the training grounds – I'm not sure which one. "Okay, kiddo," he said brightly. "If you're so sure that you're fully healed, let's see what you can do. You still want to fight in the Chuunin Exam? Prove to me that you're not going to get yourself killed." He swiped his hand close to my face, and I twitched back.
My eyes automatically followed the trail of his fingers before I could stop them, and he asked, "Naruto, can you see my hand?"
For several seconds I didn't answer, not quite wanting to say it aloud. Then, quietly, "…No."
"How are you following it, then?"
"…I can hear the air moving, and I track it."
"Can you read this out to me, please?"
I frowned warningly as I gingerly took hold of the book. "This had better not be your porn novel again, Sensei…" But a quick skim later, I figured out it was actually about fishing, of all things, and read the extract without any problem. "You are so weird, Sensei… but this is better than the porn, so I won't complain. Not loudly, anyway."
"Can you form the twelve zodiac handseals for me?"
This was the kind of thing I could handle. Snake, rat, ram, monkey, ox, horse, dragon, dog, boar, bird, rabbit, tiger. Easy.
"Can you show me a henge?"
I flinched, then transformed into Iruka.
"…Hm. Picture perfect. You have a good memory, Naruto."
I grinned a little, then changed into Sasuke, complete with bored expression.
Kakashi chuckled a little. "Kawarimi?"
"…Only if I know where the thing I'm swapping with is." Then, just to tease him, I switched positions with him, laughing a little when he yelped. "And if I take it by surprise!" I grinned. It felt good to show off one of the few skills I was good at.
"What about bunshin?"
I smiled innocently. "What about Kage Bunshin?" A dozen of me flared into existence around us, and Kakashi muffled a snort. "Whaaat? I can't do bunshin! Sasuke says I just fry them…"
"I'll have a word to Iruka about that. Walk up a tree."
"Huh?" I frowned, but walked to the nearest tree that I remembered brushing against as we came out here and walked up its trunk with no trouble at all – the water walking I'd done yesterday had helped already, strangely enough. "Kakashi-sensei, I did this with my eyes closed when I first learnt this, so I dunno what you're proving. Teachers are weird."
"Aren't we just? Come down from there and throw a kunai at the tree; aim for the middle."
That wasn't hard – I had the tree pinpointed on my internal map now, so it was no problem at all. "Hm…" Kakashi seemed to be thinking, and I waited until he spoke up again. "Follow the kunai I throw and try to hit the same spots I do."
Another easy exercise – this one was one of the earliest ones I had ever worked on, once I could hold a kunai right. I threw swiftly in the instant Kakashi's weapon was sinking into the wood and there were either echoing clangs as they hit his kunai or the softer thuds when they missed and hit the wood nearby, my aim not being quite perfect. But I never missed the actual tree.
"…So? How was that?" I asked when he stopped throwing.
"That was good, Naruto. Let's take a break now, ok?"
"What, are you tired already?" I teased him, but wandered to the shade of one of the trees and leaned against it, slinging my arm over a low branch and staring blindly up at a sky I couldn't see. I wasn't even breathing harder – this was little more than a warm-up for me. Kakashi-sensei's life signs were all perfectly normal, so I knew this was easy for him, too. (If it wasn't, I'd be petitioning for a new teacher. Geez.)
I took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing. Kakashi was checking me, seeing how well I could operate. He wasn't trying to talk me out of being a ninja, had even stopped trying to talk me out of the third exam – he'd probably do that later, I admitted thoughtfully, but really, this hadn't turned out half as bad as I'd thought it would. Once I got out, the very second I got out of the hospital… things started looking up.
After a long, peaceful silence, I spoke up, nervously. "Ne… sensei?"
"Yes, Naruto?" he replied.
"Could… would you…" This was difficult to word right. What if he said no? "Would you… mind if I… touched your face?"
He was probably frowning a little. "What for?"
This could be interesting to try and sell. "Well…" I fidgeted a little, tipping my head away as if to avoid his eyes. "I can't… really… when I touch things, I… know what they look like. But things from before… I don't really remember. The visual stuff… I guess it didn't really take. But I can't really remember what you look like, and… well, I guess I don't like that."
I stayed quiet for a few seconds in the face of his silence, then ducked my head sheepishly. "Sorry, sensei – it's ok, I was just–"
"It's fine, Naruto," Kakashi-sensei interrupted, moving closer to me and either kneeling or sitting on the grass in front of me. "I was just a little surprised, that's all." He gently touched one of my hands, then lifted it to the side of his face.
His skin was faintly warm under my fingers, and for a second I held still, memorising his skin texture, before I let my hands skim over his face, a little shyly. True to Sasuke's word, Sensei wore his hitai-ate over his left eye, the cold metal making my fingers tingle. His nose was perfectly straight – never been broken – and I locked his features into my memory as a map of touch that counted as pictures now.
Kakashi-sensei was wearing a mask, I now knew, cotton from the feel of it. Sasuke had told me it was navy blue… "Hey sensei, this feels kind of thick. Are you wearing two masks?"
"You are one weird kid," Kakashi said lightly.
I stuck out my tongue and gingerly patted at his hair – Geez, Sasuke was right – to finish my mental image. I dropped my hand away from my teacher's face and smiled. "Thanks, Sensei!"
"So you remember me now?" Kakashi-sensei teased, and I pouted playfully at him.
"You're easy to forget," I said loftily. Kakashi-sensei laughed and his clothes rustled as he spun and settled himself on the ground next to me, instead of in front of me. He leant back against the tree as well and there was a moment of expectant silence.
Eventually Kakashi spoke up. "You climbed that tree perfectly, earlier. But how did you know it was there?"
I blinked in confusion, then figured out what he wanted. "I remembered it from when we walked in – I brushed against it, so I knew where it was."
"You remembered it? Well enough to climb it, and hit it dead centre with a projectile?"
"Yeah," I said, a little uncomfortably. "But, Sensei, that's normal stuff for ninja. S'not that hard…"
"Hmm… Would you, say, be able to throw kunai at the spots we were aiming for before?" my teacher asked calmly, and I shrugged, then threw several kunai in response.
There were three clangs, making me raise my eyebrows, impressed with my own accuracy, and the rest of them hit wood. "Hey, that was pretty good," I remarked. "I think they were all fairly close, and three hit dead on."
"How do you know that?" Kakashi asked, and I blinked at him.
"Uhh… Sensei, I – I don't understand, I just heard it. I heard three kunai hit three of the ones in the tree and the others hit the tree fairly close. Heck, one of them brushed up against another as it went in!"
"Yes, I know. How did you hear that?"
There was a long pause as I contemplated this.
"Sensei. As far as I'm aware, sound is made of lots of vibrations that travel through the air. A tiny drum in your ear – which makes no sense, by the way – picks up the vibrations and sends them to your brain, where the brain works out what you're hearing. I hear the sounds of the kunai hitting the tree, or each other, and my brain translates that into 'direct hit' or 'sort-of miss'."
"Hmm…"
"Sensei, it's normal. Get over it. Please. You're starting to scare me."
He chuckled slightly. "I'm sorry, Naruto. But you said you tracked my hand by hearing? How can you do that? Human ears aren't that sensitive."
"Most of them aren't, but remember sensei, I'm weird," I pointed out to him. "And, only part of it is hearing. I can feel the air moving too, when you're that close."
"Ah, of course." He sounded calm and pleased. "Alright, kiddo, up you get. Time for round two."
There was a tangible shift in the air as I guessed Sensei was actively trying to forget every single time one of the doctors had told him not to push me, and I felt him smile at me. "Okay, Naruto, we're going to have a spar. Kunai, shuriken and other such tools allowed, but no lethal force, alright?"
I nodded to show that I understood him, and slid into an attack stance, breathing deeply and forcing the sound of my own heartbeat to the edge of my awareness: I didn't need to be distracted here. I waited for Kakashi-sensei to make the first move as I mentally took stock of the few supplies the doctors had either failed to confiscate or that I had stolen back.
Sensei started it off with a simple swipe that was easy to dodge, and my counter was blocked almost nonchalantly by my teacher. I scrambled away from several counter-punches, about half of them clipping my shoulders and the last one barely skimming my chest, but I'd skipped backwards just in time. My legs were nearly jerked out from under me by an unexpected blow to the ankle, and I flipped backwards and away, using the move I'd been practising before the Chuunin Exams had started. I nearly got it, too, only stumbling a little on impact instead of almost cracking my skull open.
I took a steadying breath, refusing to let myself get annoyed by my inability to land a blow. Kakashi-sensei was faster than me, and plenty stronger, and I was willing to say he was smarter, too. But that didn't mean I was going down without a fight.
I started off round two, going for a quick series of punches intended to distract my sensei and kicking viciously from below, aiming for ankles and shins (I would have gone for the somewhat-delicate knee, but couldn't reach without unbalancing myself, which was a no-no) and not letting up until I failed to block one of his counters. The strength behind the blow sent me rolling over the ground – I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, barely sparing time to cough for breath. Sensei was just closing in on me again when I suddenly sneezed, loudly, and he paused for a half-second, one that let me get my bearings enough to parry a couple of his punches without hurting myself.
He backed off briefly and I took advantage of the respite, considering going for one of my tags or maybe a kunai – I knew he was easily fast enough to stop me from doing that if I tried – but I still had to try – or this was so over. Kakashi-sensei wasn't even breathing hard, I thought with annoyance, although his heartbeat, faint by distance, was just a fraction faster than before. Ha.
"Come on, Naruto, you can do better than this!" Sensei scoffed as he came in close again, and I took a risk and made a snatch for my kunai pouch – he didn't try to stop me and I blocked his knife with my own, feeling a tingle of relief that I'd managed to grab it after all. This fight was much more difficult than any I'd faced with my team before – except for maybe the Forest Of Death. Here I had a vague idea of terrain, wasn't tree-climbing, and wasn't under attack by a crazed lunatic with a sword and more dirt clones than you could poke a stick at; but I also didn't have Sasuke at my back, warning me of things to watch out for, didn't have Sakura as our backup on the sidelines – I was almost surprised that I'd come to rely on the fangirl kunoichi – and my confidence had taken a bit of a pounding by everyone insisting I couldn't be a ninja anymore.
So it stung, a lot, when Sensei shouted at me, "Come on, Naruto! Has losing your eyesight made you a weakling?"
My mouth tightened and I shifted my hands into the cross-seal, forcing chakra through my fingers and barely mouthing the words 'Kage Bunshin' before finding myself surrounded by a mass of clones. Not as many as I'd made in that fight with Kiba in the prelims, but that one was an accident!
We converged on my teacher with a roar, a couple of clones getting in actual hits before being dispelled, but even the great Kakashi-sensei could suffocate under the dogpile of doom, and as such had the smarts to kawarimi out. Unfortunately for him, me and my clones all tracked him, and some of them even got off a volley or two of shuriken before being speared by Sensei's kunai. Ooh, that one must have hurt…
I heard a faint rustle of clothing – Sensei muttered something and his chakra flared – I thought I heard 'Doton' and it felt like that too – then it split off and he was underground and he was standing and watching me from the trees – shadow clone –
He had never used this jutsu with me around before, and it was weird. I felt faint vibrations from the ground underneath me through my shoes and I could hear him moving – how the hell does that jutsu work? – and I put my hand to the ground with a frown. I had three clones keeping an eye on Kakashi's kage bunshin and a fourth shadowing it, just in case, and to warn me if it made a move at any point.
The vibrations made a little more sense to my sensitive fingers, and I pinpointed my sensei with something approaching ease, his extremely muffled life signs supporting my guess. Me and my clones all skipped back, away from Kakashi-sensei's line of attack, and my mind spun through several jumbled methods, trying to figure out how to catch him off guard.
He changed direction suddenly, headed straight for a patch of clones, and with yelps we all dove aside, backing away from the underground ninja warily. Then, for no reason, he turned and went in another direction, away from any or all of us, and I frowned, trying to think why – I followed at a safe distance, wondering suspiciously what he was playing at – batty sensei, I swear –
This little game of follow-the-underground-leader continued for about five minutes, with Kakashi-sensei moving all around our training area and me and a selection of clones trailing him suspiciously, scrambling back whenever he turned on us and hoping to somehow get lucky. How the hell do you attack someone who's underground, anyway?
Then suddenly, he burst from the ground about ten metres in front of me – I let out a yell and sprang backwards, holding up a kunai to defend as four clones who'd rushed at him were dispelled –
"Hold up, Naruto. Time out."
I slowly lowered my kunai, raising an eyebrow at my teacher. "Did you just call time out?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes. Yes I did."
I shook my head at him but didn't argue, taking several deep breaths and trying to cool the adrenaline in my blood a little – the energy high was making me dizzy. Kakashi-sensei released his clone, the chakra signature flashing out of existence, and with barely a pause he turned back to me. "Naruto, how were you tracking me down there?"
I shrugged, considering putting my kunai away and deciding to hold onto it. "I heard you."
"You heard me? How?"
Now I groaned, turning my head to him in exasperation. "Sensei, we've been through this…"
He chuckled a bit at that, and I glared. "Sorry, Naruto, but I need to know how you were tracking me, what you were listening for and so on."
"Oh." I thought on it for a few seconds, then explained, "Well, I heard you moving… and, well, felt, too, I could feel the vibrations and I could tell where you were, but – I wasn't sure, that's not exactly a precise way of searching – I listened for your heartbeat and breathing."
I'm fairly sure Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that, and I could easily imagine his touch-map face shifting in my mind. "You can hear my heartbeat? Even underground?"
"Well, it was kind of muffled, but it was still there, y'know? And your breathing was louder – I'd know your breathing pattern anywhere, Sensei, and I could follow that, 'cos…" I frowned and bit my lip. How'd I hear it… "When you get closer it gets a bit louder, and more underneath me when you're using that jutsu. When you're further off it's fainter, and more like you're just lying on the ground as opposed to buried alive. Which is really creepy, by the way."
For a few moments my teacher was silent, just long enough for me to start getting bored and consider the merits of juggling the kunai I was carrying, before he said cheerfully, "Alright, Naruto, I think that's enough for today. Let's head back."
"Aw, man, already?" I complained instantly, not ready to go back to overpowering cleanliness, boredom, and continuous poking. "But Kakashi-sensei…"
"Come on, Naruto, you don't want to hurt yourself this early. It'll give the doctors more excuses…"
"Sensei, I'm fine. We were only working for, like, half an hour."
"It's been nearly an hour and a quarter. It's time to go in."
I groaned as Sensei steered me back towards the hospital, wriggling and complaining and trying to talk my way out of it the whole time. Man, what did I have to do to escape permanently, kill someone? Or maybe maul a few and leave their body parts on the reception desk as proof of checkout?
…And if Kyuubi was leaking that much, I was really tired.