The Wind Walker

2do Wind: Squall

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." -Jalal-Uddin Rumi-

The crowd was still roaring even when Naruto was climbing up the stairs that reached the participants' balcony. It had been a spectacular match, and was totally unexpected. Nobody, bar Iruka who was dancing in glee at his winnings, had guessed that the dead last of the academy had defeated a ninja of a prominent clan. Many speculated that it was all a fluke or it was the work of a certain Fox, though that was the generalized opinion of the civilians that were present. The shinobi, in the other hand, despite their indifference toward the blond genin, could not help but to be impressed by said genin's performance. This was not the useless annoying prankster that had been the bane of their existence for so long. This was a dedicate soldier at the service of their village.

Naruto of course, was ignorant of the reactions that he had caused among the audience, thinking in the flavor of the Ramen of Victory when all of this was done for, and he could celebrate his promotion to chuunin. When the blond reached the balcony, he was received with mixed reactions. Everybody was focused on him, like he was a creature that came down from the starts; ridiculously, right?

Surprisingly, Shikamaru was the one that approached him first, with a puzzled, calculating glint in his eyes.

"Naruto, what the heck was that all about? How did YOU beat Neji?" His tone was bored, and if sounded like he was just asking for politeness sake, but Naruto knew better.

"Why, Shikamaru, did my badassery baffle your mind? Just don't think about, don't try to understand it, because if you do, your head will blow off at my sheer awesomeness?" said Naruto boasting without restraint while his chest puffed out in pride.

Shikamaru just murmured a 'troublesome' while giving up in trying to dig for some information and returned to lay back against a coulomb in a corner where he could see the clouds above the arena. The others just rolled their eyes at his antics while Shino seemed to look his way for a couple of seconds longer than the rest, it was difficult to say with those shades of his, before turning his gaze back to the stadium. It was Sabaku no Gaara, his fellow jinchuuriki, who stood there, facing him from a few steps afar, with his creeping calmed face on him while he was releasing increasing amounts of KI against the blond.

"Gaara," said Naruto, becoming the center of attention again, "we gonna finish our conversation IN the matches; wait only then." Naruto said the last part with his usual 'foxy' grin on his face, but his tone was dead serious.

Both Temari and Kankuroo thought that the blond had dig his own tomb, and that he was a few steps far from the gates to hell. It was comprehensible them that, instead of witnessing a carnage like they expected to, the older Sabaku siblings were in shock when their little, psychopath brother nodded in acceptances before calming down his KI. For some reason, this unforeseen turn of events scared them more than the open killer that Gaara was. After waiting enough time to determine that they weren't under some sort of genjutsu, both Sunanin relaxed, removing their hands from their weapons of choice.

That settled, Naruto, seemly oblivious to his surroundings, started to talk to Shikamaru about his awesomeness.

Nobody would know, only later, that this new Naruto was the byproduct of a series of eye-opener facts that crushed the blonde genin one after another during the month of preparation that that the Chuunin Exams participants were given.

(A MONTH AGO)

"Fucking Kakashi- hypocrite- sensei!" Thought Naruto bitterly while thinking his recent conversation with his 'sensei' in the hospital, where the Cyclops had told him, not exactly on those terms, that he passed Naruto over another sensei so he could train Sasuke. "Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke. Why everything goes to him? Isn't my hard work worth something? Aren't Sakura-chan and I important also…?" "Sakura-chan! She too was left with the short stick this time. I need to find her and let her see how much spoiled Sasuke is by sensei. Maybe she would accept to train with me."

Awed by his own intelligence, the blonde genin went to search his pinkett crush while grinning like a fool at the prospect of training seasons with Sakura-chan.

"I'm sorry Naruto, but I don't have the time for this."

"But Sakura-chan, at least heard me out."

An annoyed sigh. "Okay, what do you want? And I swear to Kami that if this is one of your attempts to ask out in a date I will castrate you… with a spoon."

A shiver went through Naruto's spine while he covered protectively his family jewels. It seemed that his teammate wasn't in a good mood; he didn't know that she was actually passing through the monthly period and it had her more… irritated than usual.

"It is not like that Sakura-chan." Her raised eyebrow clearly said how much she believed his statement. "It is that Kakashi-sensei disappeared to train Sasuke-teme somewhere, and had forgotten about us. Do you want to train with me?"

If Sakura had been in a calmer mood, she would have acknowledged the truth in Naruto's words, but at the moment, she was highly emotional unstable and, when she heard him insulting, as usual, her dear Sasuke-kun, blinding rage took control of her and her mouth, yelling things that, under normal circumstances, she would have kept quiet.

"First of all, Naruto, don't ever, NEVER, insult Sasuke-kun in my presence. Second, stop being such a nuisance. You have asked me to go out or train with you like hundreds of times and every single of those times I had told you the same answer. I'm not interested in you any way, shape or form. I don't like you, I don't want to be with you or go out with you. You are a dobe, and you will ever be a dobe if you cannot understand a simple answer like that. Maybe Kakashi-sensei don't want to train you because you are useless and a waste of time if you cannot act more up to your rank. You are not a kid anymore, grow up, be more like, like Sasuke-kun." At some point, Sakura didn't seem to notice, she started to yell while stabbing with her finger Naruto's chest.

Each stab was like a kunai slicing his heart, and somehow he found himself in the floor facing the calm blue sky above him. He felt numb, or to be more precisely, he didn't knew what to feel. So he did what he always did ever since he could remember.

Picking himself from the floor, Naruto shook the dust from his jumpsuit and then faced Sakura, who became quiet all of a sudden, with his usual foxy grin.

"You are right Sakura, I'm sorry for bother you. I will be training in one of the grounds, seeya later." And with that, Naruto walked off until he was out of sight.

Sakura, calmer, realized that maybe she had said things that she shouldn't. Making a mental note to apologize to Naruto later, the girl continued her way to Ino's house.

It would be a couple of days later, while looking for Naruto to apologize, without success, that she noticed that he didn't add '-chan' when he said goodbye after her tongue lashing.

"Am I wrong? Have I been mistaken all this time?" Life had been a harsh experience, to put it lightly, to Naruto. He had undergone through a lot of challenges and adversities that would had crushed a lesser men. But Naruto felt, KNEW, that, deep down, if he give up, if he surrender, he would not be able to stand up ever again. And so he did the best of hi could, as many times as it was needed, until things started to go better, if a little. Did it made a difference in the end?

Distracted by his depressing thoughts, the blond didn't notice where he was going, and thus, he ended bumping into someone.

"I'm sorry sir, I wasn't paying attention." Said Naruto quickly, before looking the annoyed expression of a ninja, or what it seemed annoyance. To tell the truth, Naruto could not be sure because the man had bandages around midway his face like Kakashi's face mask, which brought in to mind the face of the eyebrowless freak, Zabusa. The man had long spiky and smooth black hair and brown, pale eyes. He had a green chuunin best but a mesh shirt could be seen under it; camouflage pants and a pair of fingerless gloves completed his pro's look alongside his muscular arms. And his eyebrows were raised in wonder. "Etto… I would be in my way." And with that, Naruto run out of sight before the chuunin decided to ask for some form of compensation.

The chuunin himself had been distracted about some things that needed to be done in his house when the resident jinchuuriki bumped into him. At first he hadn't recognized him, but it clicked seconds later. He could see in his eyes that the kid was troubled by something, and it was unpleasant, and then it shifted to remorse when he notice carelessness, and then to wariness. The chuunin wasn't even trying to read him, the kid was way too expressive.

"So, that's Uzumaki Naruto… He has the same complexion as you…Kushina. This was the first time that I had seen him face to face, and yet I could recognize you in him." Thought the man, sadly, not that it shown through his mask. "That kid is way too open for his own good. Maybe I should check on him…" And like that, the chuunin begin to track down the orange clad genin.

It took him more time that he thought it would. After 45 minutes, the chuunin found Naruto hitting a training post with a kunai in random patterns. It didn't resemble any training method that he knew of, but, then again, there were many things that he didn't know. After watching the kid battering the poor training post for more than 20 minutes without stop, the chuunin learnt many things from the blonde genin, no words were needed, and he now knew that he was only hitting the wood thing as much as he could as best as he could, and hoping for the best.

"That is a interesting way to do wood carving." Said the chuunin, after silently shunshin behind Naruto, who jumped in total surprise. "Yo, koso!"

"EEPP! YOU! Don't do that!"

"What, did I scare you?"

"I'm too awesome to be scare by the likes of you. I was just… surprised."

"That's too bad, koso; in our line of work, surprise can kill easier than a kunai would."

"I got it, ousan, what do you want? I told you sorry already forpumpingg on you, I was distracted."

"Well, I'm kind of bore at the moment. Do you want to have a light spar with me? I think it can help you in your training and me, it would help as a warming up. Not a bad deal, ne?, koso."

Naruto's eye twitched in annoyance. This old man was pissing him off quite fast.

"Alright! I will kick you ass and made you recognize how much of a badass I'm."

"Yeah, yeah. Prove it, koso… By the way, the name's Ushio Benkei, what's yours?"

"Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage-ttebayo!"

"Yep. He's definitely your son, Kushina."

Naruto was sweating profusely on the floor, unable to move. His muscles were sore and his breathing was hard and pronounced. Standing next to him, Ushio Benkei was looking at him with a blank expression.

"Holy crap!" thought Naruto. "First I tried to summon 20 clones or so and, instead, I summon like a hundred, and, never minding that, this crappy ousan destroyed them in less of the half of a second with only a kunai and taijutsu… and made it look way too easy. Is this a chuunin? How big is the gap between our ranks?"

"You know, when you summoned so many shadow clones I was expecting something more… well, I was expecting something more, especially from the future Hokage."

"SHUT UP, OUSSAN! I WILL NEVER GIVE UP! I WILL SHOW HOW AWESOME I'M- DATTEBAYO!"

"And yet, you only made yourself look like a fool." Benkei answered him with a flat tone.

Naruto's eyebrow would have twitched if it wasn't that the genin was way too exhausted to move; a first for him.

"Tell me, koso," said Benkei after few moments of silence, "why are you training so hard? Why alone?"

"Because I need to beat Neji-teme in the Chuunin Exams' Finals!"

"Wait! Are you telling me that YOU are participating in the chuunin exams?!" asked a visibly surprised chuunin. "You are not putting my leg in this one, are you?" Somehow, his incredulity wasn't noticed much by Naruto who was mentally ranting about this old fart disclaiming his accomplishments. "Who is your sensei, and why he is not with you?"

"Kakashi-sensei disappeared with the teme to train him!"

"Your jounin is Hatake Kakashi?! Holy… And who is this teme that is more important to him that his own student?"

"Uchiha Sasuke, my other teammate."

"That… made a lot of sense, I guess." Replied Benkei reluctantly; he didn't seem too happy with it either.

"What?! You too also think that the teme is better than me and thus need the training more than I do?" the bitterness in Naruto's voice was obvious to anyone in hearing range, and yet, it seemed that it was aimed to himself more than the fact that his sensei favored his teammate above him. This, more than anything, highlighted what kind of personality the genin had.

"And yet, is not surprising, considering that he is your son, Kushina." "I didn't say that, koso, so stop putting words in my mouth that aren't mine."

"Sorry, oussan."

"Still, this situation…" but whatever he was about to say was cut short by a coughing fit that Naruto associated with the sickly looking chuunin in the preliminaries in the Forest of Death. "I'm sorry koso, we need to cut this meeting short because I have an appointment in the hospital."

"It is okay old man, thanks for the spar."

"It was fun, alright? But koso, you need to improve your chakra control, aside from your taijutsu. I assume that you know of the three climbing exercise." Naruto nodded. "Well, try it again, it doesn't matter if you had mastered it yet, there is always room for improvement. Take it as a friendly advice." And with that the man disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"Man… when I will learn something as cool as that." Murmured Naruto before standing up and launching himself toward a tree to climb it as he did in Wave… just to fell flat after climbing a couple of steps.

"Okay, this will be tougher than I thought."

"I am going to be frank with you, Benkei-san, it had gotten worst." Said the iryuo-nin, Dr. Natsume Gekka.

He was a veteran of the last Shinobi War and a medic-nin of the highest caliber. Having retired of the ninja forces after the War where he lost his family, the old man had been dedicating the rest of his days to heal others. Benkei was one of his old and frequent patients that he was in charge of.

"How much time do I have left?" asked Benkei while put his vest back on.

"Tops? I'll say five to eight weeks."

"Nothing can be done?"

"The only one that may have a chance to give you more time would be Tsunade-sama, but she is not here, and even she would be hard pressed to do something about. I'm sorry Benkei-san."

"Thank you doc. I… need to think about a couple of things. I may not come back for a while."

"I understand. I advice you… I advise you to use what time you have left to put in order your things."

Benkei nodded, before stepping out of the doctor's private office.

The doctor sighed before returning to the documents in front of him. It was always hard to tell a patient about his or her terminal condition.

Ushio Benkei was lost in thought. Mindlessly, he wandered through the village without a destination in mind. He neither registered being hungry nor tired from his aimlessly walk, only emotionally numb, while his mind fought, without success, to stay black, to not think about anything. It was a battle that he was losing.

"It seems,musume, that I will see you again soon. I wonder if I will go wherever you are." His melancholic thoughts took impulse in a different location. "Ne, Kushina-chan, what you would have done in my place? Probably you would have shred it off before stuffing yourself with ramen." That last thought made him laugh. "Kushina-chan, I don't know what to do." The face of certain blonde genin lying on the ground flashed through his mind. "I met your son, Kushina; acts like you. Is that your answer? Then… Then, now I know what I can do."

The sky was dyed in orange colors, announcing the approaching dusk.

"KUSO!" yelled a frustrated Naruto after falling to climb a tree with chakra for the hundredth time. He had spent all day trying to climb the tree and had failed time and time again. He felt how his chakra was fluctuating way to chaotic, like it was attacking itself inside him, and was out of his control. "Dammed, why I can't do this?"

"Because you are trying too hard." Said a voice behind him, that startled him in surprise.

"Oussan! What are you doing here?"

"Well, I wanted to check on you and see how you were doing. Had you been trying to the Tree Climbing Exercise since I left?" Naruto nodded. "And yet, you hadn't progress at all, even when you said that you knew this stuff, koso."

"Tell me, koso, do you want me to train you up to readiness for the Chuunin Exams?"

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And cut!

I short chapter after so long without publishing anything, I know, but one that I wanted to do nonetheless. I will spend next, and possible the one after it, chapter to cover what happened during that month between the preliminaries and finals, and how this knew Naruto came around.

Some of you may point out that this Naruto is too childish for his own good, well, if think so then you are correct. I tried to portraying that way because he IS a kid and a brat at this point in cannon. Admit it, he hadn't too much of emotional grow for something until Jiraiya came into the picture later on.

Also, about Sakura's behavior. I am not justifying her attitude, because she is truly a bratty girl, but, can you blame her? Her claims were valid, even if the way that she delivered them wasn't, so, yeah. Thought, she would know in the future how much she screw up with a nice guy because of her pettiness.

And, about Naruto's abysmal chakra control here. Remember that he never made it to the meeting with Ebisu and, as a result, he never met Jiraiya, who was supposed to fix his seal over the screw over that Orochipepe gave him. Still, this will become a mayor issue for a while… one that I will exploit shamelessly.

And, about Benkei… Yep, he is an OC that I based on a pic that I found in google, and I posted in my profile, so go an check it.

R&R