Disclaimer: I don't own anything in Naruto.
AN: So far, I doubt there will be any pairings in this story...but well, we'll see how it goes. I aim to explore a very different Naruto - one who has been tempered by countless years. Essentially, a cool, calm and collected all-round BAMF. Enjoy and please leave feedback.
The sandaime hokage returned the greetings of the hospital staff he met on his way to his destination. It had been two months since that horrible day he had found Naruto bleeding to death from an attempted suicide. Even now, knowing that the child had survived, the memory still caused his breath to hitch in his chest and his body to tense.
He finally arrived at the door to the private room that contained the comatose blue eyed child. Though undetectable to almost everyone else, he easily made out the two Anbu guards that were stationed outside the room. He opened the door, preparing to go in, and froze in his steps. The Anbu Inu was at his side in an instant checking to see what had startled the Professor. The sight before him caused his throat to close off and his body to tense.
During the two months his body was in a coma, Naruto had been busy. As soon as his senses informed him that he was alone in the hospital room – save for the two Anbu outside the door – he got to work. The first thing he did was weave a smooth layer of chakra just underneath his skin, making sure not to let the untrained chakra of his new body surge in anyway and alert the Anbu outside. While it was a relatively easy thing for him to pull off he knew that for anyone else, save maybe Senju Tsunade, it would be practically impossible to accomplish.
The purpose of the layer of chakra was to serve as a shield – a force field if you will – to keep anyone outside from sensing what was happening inside it. With that done, and while maintaining a firm hold on the chakra layer, the real work began.
Softly, deftly, he siphoned off a tiny amount of the Kyuubi's youki and began work at the bones. With a skill born of numerous lives spent as a doctor, scientist, apprentice of Tsunade and even a few times as the second coming of the Snake Sannin – yup, those were dark times indeed – he coaxed the bones of his body to adapt as he wanted. Over the period of two weeks, every single one of his bones became incredibly dense, strong, flexible and almost unbreakable. True, it wasn't anything like a Kaguya, but it was sure as hell damn close. A side effect of this procedure was an increase in height, putting him at above average for his age group.
The next step was to craft muscles to handle the increased body weight. Over the next three weeks he meticulously broke down and rebuilt every single muscle in his body. While he was at it he also burnt away a lot of the baby fat in his body and improved his nerves and reaction times. Then he improved on the efficiency of his body's internal organs – strengthening his heart, lungs, kidneys and other organs to function at way above peak efficiency even by ninja standards. Lung capacity increased exponentially, as well as metabolism and energy output.
Five weeks after the start of his coma, his physical attributes were way beyond what any of his peers could achieve even while boosting themselves with chakra. Without the use of chakra, he would still be the fastest and strongest – the best – of any ninja in his generation; and these were basically his base stats. They would undoubtedly improve as he trained himself further.
Next, he tackled his brain – after all, it wouldn't do if the brain was not on par with the consciousness using it. Knowing that this was the most delicate operation yet, he took his time. With the most miniscule amount of youki he could get away with, he set about modifying the brain's neural pathways and augmenting various synapses enabling his brain to process things at a significantly improved rate. In addition to the brain, he didn't forget to take care of his senses.
Of course, he wasn't doing anything as outrageous as giving himself a doujutsu – though after having gone down the same path as Orochimaru many times before he knew all their structures inside out.
However, what he did do was tremendously improve and fine tune all his senses to the point where the level of perception of his eyes coupled with the processing power of his new brain ensured that a single glance was all he would need to completely understand and perfectly recall anything he saw. Simply focusing his hearing – without chakra augmentation – could allow him listen into a conversation hundreds of yards away. His already astounding sense of smell improved so much that a simple sniff could reveal so detailed a story, it would seem as though he was there when it unfolded. His senses were so acute that he was even capable of detecting temperature and barometric changes.
At this point it was the start of the seventh week and he was almost done. The final task left was the improvement of his chakra system. Luckily enough, during the entire process of improving his new body, the act of moving Kyuubi's youki through the body resulted in some strengthening and widening of the chakra pathways in his body.
Nevertheless, it was a fairly straightforward procedure, comparatively. He simply had to circulate as much chakra as his pathways could handle, then gradually increase the amount – much like training a muscle. If he slipped up and circulated more than the chakra pathways could safely handle, slim as the possibility of that happening was, he could easily heal it one of two ways: Using a tiny amount of Kyuubi's youki or activating the famed Uzumaki healing factor. On the note of the healing factor, centuries ago – and many lives previously – he had discovered that the healing factor could in fact be controlled. In particular, it turned up in varying strengths in different members of the Uzumaki clan, but without a doubt, the expression of the healing factor was the strongest ever in Uzumaki Naruto. This super factor arose as a result of being conceived by the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi thus requiring that he, as a child, be able to adapt to survive the miniscule amounts of toxic youki he got frequently exposed to during the course of his growth in the womb.
Naruto kept up the strengthening and widening of his chakra pathways for days on end. He also induced his body to grow a few extra tenketsus in key locations to further improve his body's chakra control. By the time he was done, it was the end of the seventh week and his body was as close as could possibly be to being the perfect killing machine.
He looked upon all that he had wrought, and he saw it was good and on the eighth week, he rested.
After eight weeks of being in a coma and the subsequent body modifications Naruto had performed, he decided it was finally time to wake up and face this new world. His timing was in fact impeccable because the Academy would be resuming in one month, giving him more than enough time to settle in and fully integrate himself into his situation before having to interact with people he had grown up with for years. Regardless of how morbid the thought, he acknowledged that little Naruto's successful attempt at suicide would provide a plausible excuse for any changes in behaviour that might otherwise have alarmed the people who knew him.
He opened his eyes and immediately had to fight to suppress the downright shiver inducing vulpine grin that threatened to appear on his face. From the very first moment his eyes had opened his brain had begun rapidly processing everything in his wider than average field of vision. He focused on the dust motes floating in the air, backlit by the fluorescent bulb, and in the time between heart beats he determined reasonably accurate estimates of each individual particle's velocity and thus subsequent path of motion. Passing his hands over the sheet on his body – noticing with a deep sense of accomplishment that his motion was smooth and unhindered by the fact he had been bedridden for two months – he was able to feel out the individual threads that made up the weave of the sheet. He could easily smell passed the lingering scent of antiseptic to the blood that had been spilt on the floor about three months before from a female diabetic patient – the slight smell-taste of sugar in the blood gave it away.
He sat up as his acute hearing picked up the heartbeats of three people outside the door. Focusing in on them he picked up the scent of dogs, ozone, metal and blood – Inu; metal, blood, slight antiseptic, and sword oil – Neko probably; and finally, tobacco smoke, ink and the slight decay brought on by age – the old man no doubt. Quickly composing his face into a calm and serene look he turned his head so that he was gazing out of the window in his room to a spectacular view of the village with the Hokage Monument as a backdrop. He heard the sound of flesh gripping metal as the hokage took hold of the door handle. Then the sound of metal sliding on metal followed as the handle was depressed. Finally, the hinges gave a near silent squeak as the door was opened. Even with his eyes on the view outside, he easily picked up the moment when the hokage noticed he was conscious – by the slight hitch in his breathing as well as the flutter of chakra resulting from being so surprised.
Inu stared at the child sitting up in the hospital bed whose gaze seemed to be fixed on the view outside. Privately he allowed himself to breathe an internal sigh of relief – unnoticeably of course; he had a reputation to preserve after all. Finally, he could allow himself to relax from the high strung state he had been in for the past two months. The record high of A-rank missions he had completed – a stunning seventeen if he recalled, no wait, ah yes, one of those was a mislabelled S-rank – had left the hokage staring at him in slight concern whenever he reported in. As he turned to return to his post in order to grant the hokage a private moment with Naruto, he silently vowed that when the time came, he would fulfil his duty to his sensei's son as he should have a decade ago.
Sarutobi felt as though the world had just decided to take a break from resting on his shoulders. Seeing that little blond haired child sitting up brought tremendous relief that he was not even aware he desperately needed. However, quick on the heels of the relief was stomach churning apprehension – he had long since accepted that Naruto had attempted suicide and that he would have to address just why he felt that was the only way out for him. He walked into the room, making sure not to walk silently as all ninja worth their salt unconsciously did. He even closed the door slightly harder than he usually did all in an effort not to startle the poor child, completely unaware that said child was bursting his gut trying not to erupt into belly aching laughter.
The sandaime decided to start off the inevitable conversation,
"Hello Naruto-kun, it warms this old man's heart to find you awake again," he began gently.
When Naruto turned and locked gazes with him he unconsciously stilled as that piercing blue gaze caused flashbacks of another blond haired man's calm and confident soul searing blue eyes. With a start he realised that something about the boy was different. Not just the aura about the child – for gone was the usual childlike, sunny and impatient disposition that used to cling to him and in its place was a more tempered and calm aura – but his looks as well. Indeed, unless his aging eyes were deceiving him, Naruto's face was more defined now; having lost most of its baby fat, and what little he could see of his body suggested he was taller and fitter than before his coma. In a quicksilver flash of intuition he concluded that the doctors must have noticed that a steady diet of ramen had done no good for him and added some extra nutrients to the IV drip administered to him. It was a reasonable deduction and even half-true, for when Naruto was improving his body, he did obtain the needed nutrients and other important proteins from the IV drip. His contemplation of the changed child only lasted a moment and he continued his journey to the bedside seat.
Naruto followed him with his eerily focused gaze and when the old man had sit down, he opened his mouth and spoke in a smooth and even tone,
"Jiji"
The sandaime was startled once again in such a short time. Anytime Naruto had ended up in the hospital he was always noticeably more exuberant than he was at the moment whenever he got a visit from him. Then he reminded himself that he could hardly expect the child to remain unchanged by the ordeal he had gone through.
Naruto who had easily followed the old man's train of thought – for he was never guarded around him, except when he asked about his parents or the reason for why he was treated as he was – had to stop himself from reacting noticeably as his theory was proven correct and any change in his behaviour was put down to surviving his attempted suicide. Since he wanted to get over and done with the real reason that the hokage was here, he said,
"How long has it been since…How long have I been…asleep?"
Sarutobi noticed the change in Naruto's intended sentence – as he was meant to – and replied,
"You have been here for eight weeks now Naruto-kun. Naruto-kun, can you…tell me what happened? Did someone say something to you that made you sad? Did…did someone do something bad to you?"
It was that last question that got a reaction out of him. Naruto blinked in carefully muted surprise at that. He wondered idly if this Naruto had suffered physical violence on his person, or maybe other forms of physical abuse. He immediately dismissed such dangerous thoughts from his mind.
On the outside however, he merely shook his head and having already decided on how he should play this, he stated in the same calm and even tone he had been using,
"Jiji I was…sigh…I was just tired."
His short statement achieved its objective by leaving its meaning open to interpretation; essentially making the old man come up with an excuse for him without any effort on his part. And indeed, the hokage did draw his own conclusions, believing that Naruto meant that the various actions and words of the vengeful and misled villagers towards him had finally gotten too much for him to bear. And really, who could blame the child? It was a testament to his tenacity that he had lasted as long as he had, and the hokage liked to believe that it was a measure of Naruto's inherent goodness that he did not immediately turn to revenge as his way out.
The hokage never suspected a thing, for how could he? Simple and transparent Naruto had never been capable of deception when it mattered. The old man sighed and said,
"I understand Naruto and I just want to say that I am always here for you…always."
When he saw the child nod with emotion – gratitude – finally showing in his eyes, he allowed himself to fully relax and accept that Naruto was here, alive and well. He then said,
"Well, the doctors have said that once you wake up, all that remains is a quick check-up and then you're free to go. While you were here I took the liberty of getting your apartment fixed up and now that I see you have outgrown your clothes I can have some brought for you before you have to leave the hospital."
Naruto smiled at him – not his usual goofy and too wide smile, but a more subdued and real one – and said,
"Thanks Jiji. I can't wait to leave here," and wrinkling his nose, he said "it stinks."
Sarutobi allowed himself to chuckle at the Naruto-ish complaint, somehow knowing that such manifestations of the bright and happy child he once knew would be rare occurrences from now on. He knew – in the depth of his too old bones – that Konoha had lost something that day two months ago, something that they would never ever get back.
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