Well, it's done. Damn took near half a year, but I'm finished. It's a bit short too, clocking in at just over a thousand, but it's more filler than anything else. I have to get out of my writing slump. The chapter was also a bit forced.

I'm looking to start re-editting the earlier chapters. I don't exactly have a beta, see. But oh well.

Title - A Couple Millimetres
Chapter - Six; Goodbye
Word Count w/o AN - 1018
Word count with AN - 1270
Summary - We take the time to honour the bestest Chuunin ever.

The bastard was late again.

Naruto was currently going through all the ways he was going to kill Kakashi in his head. And they were all painful.

Sakura was snoozing away under a tree, and Sasuke was sitting on a nearby rock, seemingly composed. Only the constant twitching of his left eye gave him away.

Exactly three hours after the designated meeting time, Kakashi-sensei materialized into existence in front of them. He raised up his hand in a friendly greeting. "Yo!"

"Don't you "yo" me! You're three fucking hours late! What the hell were you doing?"

Kakashi once again scratched the back of his head with a sheepish expression. "Ah, sorry about that. I got lost on the road of life, you see."

Naruto spoke up. "No, I really don't."

"Moving on, there will be no missions today."

"What?! Why not?"

Naruto had been so excited for his first mission. He had been dreaming about the action and the glory all of last night.

"All missions have been cancelled for Umino Iruka's funeral later today. Since he was your sensei in the Academy, I expect you guys to attend."

The usually boisterous blonde was strangely quiet and looked down off to the side. Sakura looked down as well, and Sasuke just adverted his eyes.

"Dismissed."

A depressed Naruto walked along the dirt path. He kicked a rock as he went. He had four free hours to kill before Iruka-sensei's memorial service. What to do, what to do. Ninja registration wasn't until four, two full hours after the funeral.

'When in doubt, train.'

He returned home and promptly yanked himself back into the confines of his mind. "So, what've you got for me today, fox?"

Kyuubi stared down at him. "First of all, I have to talk to you about how the schedule is going to be now that you're back in the village. One of the most prominent problems is time, of course. What we've seen is that your teacher is at least two hours late every day. We'll use one and a half of those hours, which gives us a bit more than four hours."

Naruto nodded mutely, wondering if he could use the last half hour to maim Kakashi.

The fox snorted. "The last half hour you shall be sleeping."

Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"While working out here, your body will be physically unmoving. To others, it will appear as if you were already asleep. Your body will be fully rested – however, you will probably expending a good amount of your chakra here, and the best way to restore chakra is to sleep," the demon quickly continued.

Naruto lowered the eyebrow. "Now that you've finished boring me to death, can we start training?"

The Kyuubi rolled his eyes. "We're going to continue with the Katon jutsus – you picked up on the Gokakyuu pretty quickly. This next jutsu…"

Naruto was uncharacteristically quiet as he stood among the crowd of mostly ninjas. The few scattered whispers were dispersed when the Hokage cleared his throat.

"Thank you all. Today, we are here to pay our respects to a loyal, valiant, honourable man. He may have only attained the rank of Chuunin, but he wore his hitai-ate proudly as a member of Konohagakure. He was all we could have asked for in a ninja – skilled, trustworthy, reliable, faithful. He was a shinobi, a teacher, a mentor, but most of all, a friend. May he rest in peace."

There was a moment of silence as the gathered bowed their heads in respect. As they lifted, some closer friends of the deceased came up to speak. Four people later, the Fire Shadow shocked half the people with his next invitation.

"Finally, before we say farewell, I would like to hear from one more person. A young aspiring ninja, one of Iruka-kun's finest students. I would like to call up….Uzumaki Naruto."

This was greeted by silence, before the riot at last began to start up.

"The demon? You've got to be kidding me!"

"He killed Umino's parents!"

"You can't be serious!"

"Just….what the hell?!"

Sarutobi had enough. " SILENCE! We will let him speak. Naruto is perhaps one of closest people to Iruka. We shall hear what he has to say."

Slowly, amid jeers and taunts, the blonde boy made his way up to the stand. He seemed strangely solemn and silent compared to the rest of the ninja populace. That illusion shattered when he slammed his hand on the stand.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! I don't give a crap the you all freakin' hate me! Do you think that I give a shit that you think I'm a damned demon? No, I do not! Iruka-sensei was a hundred times the ninja all of you are combined! Quit your fucking whining so I can honour the best person I've ever known in my life!"

He stopped to take a breath. "You idiots all think that I have no right to be up here. Well, screw you. Iruka-sensei was a ninja? A teacher? Sure, he was all that, but he was a shitload more! He was the closest thing to family I've ever had, and why? 'cause you guys are fucking blind. He wasn't. Iruka-sensei had his parents killed by the fox, and he still stopped to see who I was, what I was like. He was a friend, a brother, a ninja, but most importantly, he was a person. He had his faults and flaws, but he was way better than you assholes!"

Naruto turned to the casket. "I bet you're rolling in your grave, eh, Iruka-sensei? Would've given me this lame lecture about mannerisms at a funeral or whatnot, you would've. But hey, don't you worry, I'm gonna become Hokage for you. And Hokages don't need no freaking manners!"

And with that, he plopped off the stage and snarled at anyone who dared look at him funny. He turned back and said, "Well, I'll see you around, old man Hokage. I'll be saying you later too, Iruka-sensei. And the rest of you, you guys can kiss my fucking ass."

He started walking away and didn't turn back.

Also, I'm sorry to disappoint a good half of you people (if I have any readers left at all,) but I had a long talk with a good friend of mine, and we decided in the end not to do a harem. I've yet to read a harem story that ends realistically, and since this is actually my first attempt at a multi-chaptered story, and romance, we just think that it'll be easier to stick to the more common pairings.

Plus, romance is probably going to be a minimal point in the story anyways.

Once again, I apologize to all those who were hoping for a harem-story or a less common pairing, but until I know that I can actually write romance...

Maybe I might do one in the future. Thanks, guys.