Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
- Old proverb
Part One: How It All Began
Chapter Four: The Demon of the Leaf
"…It's only when you have someone precious that you become stronger."
Naruto pondered Haku's words. "Yeah," he said softly. "I know what you mean."
Haku smiled at him. "Then you will become stronger." The brown-haired boy stood up. "And we'll meet again."
"Stop him," Kurama growled.
Naruto nodded to himself, got on his feet, and blocked the other boy's path.
Haku looked at him with a puzzled frown on his face.
"I'm sorry," Naruto said. "But I can't let you return to Zabuza."
Haku nearly lost his grip on his herb-filled wicker basket. "…How...?"
Naruto gave him a mirthless smile. "A mask and a change of clothes can't hide someone from me."
Haku's eyes widened in understanding. "You're a sensory type ninja."
The blond boy simple nodded in agreement.
"I should have realized it," Haku mumbled to himself. "How else could you have maneuvered through Zabuza-sama's Hidden Mist jutsu so easily?"
"I'm really sorry, Haku," Naruto said once again.
The older boy let the wicker basket fall to the ground and assumed a combat stance. "So am I, Naruto."
-XOXO-
Sasuke was walking towards the clearing Kakashi had picked out for their training, lost in his thoughts.
What was Naruto's sensory power? It wasn't like anything Sasuke had ever heard before.
Naruto had refused to teach it to Sakura, claiming that it wasn't something that could be taught, so it had to be some kind of kekkei genkai. Or he could have been lying again. That was also a possibility. But if he wasn't lying…. That would change everything.
Kekkei genkai didn't suddenly appear out of the blue, just like they could never be completely eradicated from a clan's bloodline. The clan itself might dissolve, its name might fade from history, the survivors might be taken in by other clans, their kekkei genkai might skip a few generations, but someday it would reappear in some lucky ninja whose whole life would change as a result. If Naruto's power really was a bloodline limit, it would mean that his shinobi heritage could be traced as far back as Sasuke's.
This was an unsettling thought, for more than one reasons.
It meant that Naruto wasn't some nameless orphan, but was descended from an old and most likely very powerful clan. It also meant that Naruto's clan was extinct, or nearly so, since their name and power had been forgotten; somehow, Sasuke doubted that the people of the Leaf would sneer at Naruto if they'd known that he was the last of his clan… That he was just like Sasuke.
It meant that he wasn't alone.
The realization made his stop dead in his tracks. He wasn't alone. There was someone else like him. He and Naruto had more in common that just being orphans.
He was abruptly yanked out of his musings by something that missed his right eye by mere centimeters. He blinked and looked behind him; that something had collided with a tree, leaving a misty white patch on the bark. Ninja senses now coming to full alert, his head snapped to the front again.
Two ninja were fighting each other in the clearing, their movements so fast that all Sasuke could see were faint blurs. One blur was orange and yellow –Naruto, no doubt; he didn't know of anyone else with such an odd taste for colors– while the other was pink and brown.
Sasuke blinked again. Pink?
…On second thought, he did know of another person whose hair color and taste in clothes made the word 'camouflage' sound like an abstract concept. Why did both his teammates have to be walking menageries?
He jumped to the side, dodging another projectile – an ice shard, of all things! 'Ice? At this time of year?'
Getting just the tiniest bit worried, Sasuke picked up the pace.
As soon as he reached the clearing, he felt his jaw drop slightly. For some not immediately discernible reason, Naruto was fighting with a brown-haired girl; she was wearing a pink flowery kimono and her beautiful face was twisted in a grimace of intense concentration.
"…What's going on here?" Had he missed something while he'd been sleeping?
"Sasuke!" Naruto cursed and dodged an ice projectile the girl had launched at him. "Help me take him down!"
Sasuke blinked at his blond-haired teammate. "Him?"
"Haku!" Naruto pointed at the pretty brown-haired girl. "He's Zabuza's assistant!"
'She's a guy?' Sasuke thought dumbly, so shocked by the revelation that the rest of Naruto's words didn't immediately register with him. "He is Zabuza's assistant?"
"Yes, you dumbass!" Naruto jumped to a low-hanging tree branch, threw a couple of kunai at the older boy, and immediately jumped to another branch a couple of meters higher; Haku's ice shards left white marks on the spots they collided on the tree bark. "Now help me restrain him!"
Sasuke had a million questions he wanted to ask right now. How did Naruto know that Haku was Zabuza's assistant? How had the two of them met here? Why was Haku dressed like a girl?
'Never mind about all that,' he thought as he dodged another ice shard. There would be time for questions later.
Now, it was time to fight.
-XOXO-
'Life is so unfair,' Sakura thought sullenly as she stole yet another glance at Haku. Even while bound, covered with bruises, and wearing a kimono with a pink floral pattern, the rogue ninja was still a wonder to look at. He was pulling off the roughed-up-but-still-gorgeous-captive look much better than she ever could.
The thought was enough to make her contemplate wearing a face-covering mask for the rest of her life.
"…And when Sasuke forced him out of his mirrors with a Fireball, I jumped in and knocked him out!" Naruto concluded his account of the battle that had taken place less than two hours ago.
"Good job, both of you," Kakashi said, looking between Naruto and Sasuke.
Naruto grinned brightly at their sensei. Even Sasuke offered Kakashi a small smile – barely more than a curving of the lips, but still a smile.
Kakashi focused his attention back to the bound Haku. "Now then, what are we going to do with you?"
Haku returned Kakashi's scrutinizing look with an impassive one of his own.
"You're not going to kill him, are you, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, sounding surprisingly worried about the fate of a boy who was their enemy.
"Don't worry, Naruto," Kakashi assured his blond-haired student; a small smile made his eye narrow and his mask twitch.
Sakura felt a shiver of fear running down her spine. She didn't like that look; she didn't like it one bit.
-XOXO-
The Hokage looked up from the report of Team Seven's latest mission and studied the team's jounin sensei. "I was under the impression that your mission was to ensure Tazuna-san's safety during his journey to the Wave, Kakashi."
"So was I, Hokage-sama." Kakashi couldn't fully suppress a grimace of annoyance. "Unfortunately, things got a lot more complicated than that."
"They always do." The Hokage sighed and glanced at the scroll again. "Capturing Zabuza's assistant and using him as bait was a very bold move."
-X-
"You can't use Haku like that, Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura yelled indignantly.
"I'm glad you feel this way, Sakura," Kakashi replied, offering her a small smile even as he was trying to work out the details of how they were going to inform Zabuza that they had taken his little assistant captive. "Unfortunately, we're out of options here."
"Can't we just storm Zabuza's hideout?" Naruto suggested; from the look on his face, he was no keener than Sakura on this idea.
"We could, if he told us where it was," Kakashi said, nodding towards Haku.
Haku just stared at them impassively; he didn't seem the least bit inclined to offer that piece of information to the members of Team Seven.
"I could just scan the island…"
"The Wave country is too large for one person to scan on his own, Naruto," Kakashi said, exasperated. "Besides, I can't have you running off on your own; what's going to happen if you run into Gato's thugs, or worse, Zabuza himself?"
Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "I can handle myself, sensei."
"I know," Kakashi assured the boy. "But we're doing this my way."
-X-
"I'm glad you think so, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said evenly.
He was quite pleased with himself. All things considered, the situation in the Wave could have turned out a lot worse than it had.
"Although I'm still a little unclear on how you managed to convince Zabuza to back down," the Hokage added.
"I gave Zabuza an ultimatum: surrender, or the boy dies." Kakashi lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. "He didn't try to call my bluff."
Kakashi didn't even blink as the lie left his lips.
-X-
"Go ahead," Zabuza said, his voice cold and uncaring. "Kill him."
"What do you mean, 'kill him'?" Naruto yelled, sounding horrified. "He's your partner!"
"He's a tool, nothing more." Zabuza's eyes lingered on Haku's dejected form for barely a second. "A tool that has failed to fulfill its purpose."
"How can you say that?" Naruto took an involuntary step forward; from the way he was clenching his fists, Kakashi realized that he was mere seconds away from charging at the rogue ninja in an effort to pound some sense into him.
Kakashi could hardly blame the boy; he himself was getting disconcerted by Zabuza's callousness.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension in his muscles; it looked like a fight was inevitable after all. From the corner of his eye, he could see Sasuke drawing a kunai; it seemed that the Uchiha had reached the same conclusion. Thankfully, he wouldn't have to worry about Sakura this time; she was back in the village, guarding Tazuna and his family in case Gato tried to send more thugs after them.
Naruto blinked; when he opened his eyes again, they had turned into a deep crimson with vertical slits instead of pupils. Even though Kakashi had seen the boy using the Fox's chakra many times in the past, he still hadn't gotten used to how fast his facial features changed. "Bullshit."
Zabuza narrowed his eyes at the blond boy. "What did you say, brat?"
"I said, 'bullshit'," Naruto repeated, enunciating the word. "You're afraid for Haku."
Sasuke let out a disbelieving scoff at that. Kakashi couldn't say he was any more convinced of that than his Uchiha student, but he nevertheless remained silent; he had seen first-hand the depth of Naruto's perception.
"You're afraid that Kakashi-sensei is really going to kill him if you don't surrender." Naruto tilted his head to the side and studied the rogue Mist ninja. "And you're afraid that if that happens, you won't be able to avenge him because you're not strong enough to beat the infamous Copy Ninja in a fight."
"You have a big mouth," Zabuza growled; the knuckles of his right hand turned white as he tightened his grip on his sword.
"Haku's afraid for you, too," Naruto said, ignoring the rogue ninja's non-verbal threat. "He doesn't want you to die."
"I'm not the one who's going to die here," Zabuza growled low in his throat; the sword wavered fractionally, but Kakashi couldn't tell whether the hand holding it was trembling in excitement at the prospect of battle or from uncertainty for the battle's outcome.
"You're wrong," Naruto said with such conviction that Kakashi abandoned a lifetime's worth of ninja training to openly gawk at him. "We cannot lose to you."
Kakashi's eye narrowed as he studied Naruto's face. There was something… off… about the boy's choice of words.
"Is that so?" Zabuza scoffed.
"You fight not for a cause, but for the sheer love of battle," Naruto said. "And while there is a certain joy to be taken in testing your skills, it leaves you at a disadvantage compared to us."
Sasuke was also staring at Naruto now, evidently trying to understand how his teammate had suddenly developed such an extensive vocabulary.
'The vocabulary,' Kakashi realized. Naruto never talked like this; he sounded less like a twelve-year-old boy and more like an old man right now. And that 'us'… Was Naruto referring to the three members of Team Seven present on the bridge, or to himself and the Fox?
Kakashi wasn't certain he wanted to know the answer to that.
"And why is that?" Zabuza sneered at the blond boy.
"Because for you, defeat is merely proof of your skills being inferior to your opponent's," Naruto explained. "For us, however, defeat may result in the death of a person we hold precious."
Haku nodded slightly at the blond boy's words; his eyes were brimming with unshed tears.
"Therefore, we always fight to win," Naruto continued. "Not because we crave victory for its own sake, but because defeat carries an unthinkable price."
The gentle whistle of the morning breeze was the only response to Naruto's words, as even Zabuza seemed to have been rendered speechless.
"Surrender, Zabuza." Kakashi's voice made Sasuke, who was still studying Naruto's face, jump in surprise, and Zabuza twitch as he tightened his slackened grip on his sword.
Zabuza's eyes darted to Haku once again. "Or you'll kill the boy?"
"No," Kakashi shook his head. "No matter what happens here today, Haku goes free."
Haku's eyes widened at that, while Naruto gave him a brief but genuine smile.
Kakashi returned the boy's smile, never taking his eyes off Zabuza. "There are two ways this can end," he began. "You drop your sword, and everyone walks away from this. Or you attack us, and I kill you before you put so much as a scratch on my students."
-X-
The Hokage furrowed his brow in puzzlement. "I have heard many things about the Demon of the Mist, but nothing indicating he was the kind of person willing to listen to reason."
"He knew enough about the Copy Ninja to take me seriously." That much, at least, was true.
-X-
Zabuza's sword fell to the cement surface of the bridge with a loud clang.
"No, Zabuza-sama!" Haku mumbled behind the cloth covering his mouth.
"Quiet, Haku. Didn't you hear what the talkative brat said?" Zabuza's voice was resigned and quiet. "I can't win here." The masked rogue ninja locked eyes with his assistant. "And since I'm going to lose no matter what, I might as well save what's precious to me."
Haku's eyes widened in shock; the tears he had been holding back were now flowing freely down his face.
Zabuza turned his gaze to Kakashi. "Let him go."
Kakashi drew a kunai; with one swift slash, Haku's wrists were freed. "I'm a man of my word, Zabuza."
Haku rubbed his wrists, trying to alleviate the angry red marks the rope had left on them; Zabuza's eyes lingered for a moment on the boy's injuries, but he simply nodded at Kakashi.
A slow clap made everyone turn their attention to somewhere behind Zabuza.
A mob of people had appeared out of the mist. The leader of the mob, a short, portly man wearing a pair of glasses and a tacky suit, was the one doing the clapping. The others were standing slightly behind him, looking like hired muscle – the suicidally overconfident kind that believed they could defeat a ninja just because they had numbers on their side. The majority of them were holding wicked-looking weapons, brandishing them menacingly. All of them were either smirking or sneering at the assembled ninja – and, in most cases, both smirking and sneering.
They were a nasty-looking bunch of thugs. Kakashi might even have been worried by their sudden appearance, if he had been in the middle of a fight with Zabuza.
"Look at the infamous Demon of the Mist, everyone!" the mob leader sneered. "So frightened for his little pet that he gives up."
"Get lost, Gato," Zabuza growled. "You're done here."
So this was Gato, the man who was holding the Wave Country in a chokehold. Kakashi had been itching for an opportunity to come face-to-face with him.
"Done?" Gato asked incredulously. "You think I'm done because one hired killer grew a conscience?"
"No." Zabuza's mask twitched as he smirked at the obnoxious man. "You're done because he," at this, he pointed at Kakashi, "never abandoned his."
Kakashi gave Gato his coldest look, the one that was equal parts disdain and disgust; this was one of the few times he didn't have to feign either of those in order to intimidate an enemy.
Gato returned the look for a few moments, before focusing his attention on the boys.
Sasuke glared back defiantly at the mob leader, while Haku fell in a combat crouch. Naruto, however, took a step back; his eyes were wide, and there were beads of sweat on his face.
Kakashi had never seen the boy looking so afraid. "Naruto?"
"They want to kill everyone here," Naruto whispered; Kakashi noticed that his hands had begun shaking.
Zabuza looked between the blond boy and the thugs. His eyes widened fractionally, but his features immediately fell back into his usual scowl.
Naruto's whisper caught Gato's attention. The hateful little man – who wasn't long for this world, if Kakashi had anything to say about it – studied the blond boy's face. "We're not going to kill everyone," he corrected the boy. "You're coming with us."
For once, Naruto didn't have a snappy retort ready; he simply stared at Gato, frozen like a rabbit facing a predator.
Kakashi tightened his grip on the kunai he was still holding; that was going to happen only over his dead body, and these clowns didn't look capable of sending him to an early grave.
Sasuke seemed, once again, to be sharing Kakashi's thoughts. The young Uchiha moved protectively in front of his teammate; his eyes were red, with two black comma-like marks on the irises.
The silver-haired jounin blinked at his student; he was half-expecting Sasuke to activate his Sharingan today due to finding himself in a life-or-death situation, but not like this. Not while defending Naruto. It reminded him of… Of an old friend, long gone.
He hoped that Sasuke wouldn't share that friend's fate.
"Someone like you will be very useful to me," Gato added.
"Kakashi," Zabuza growled. "I'm going to pick up my sword again."
Kakashi glanced at the rogue Mist ninja from the corner of his eye, not turning his attention away from Gato and his thugs for even a split second.
"Don't worry," the Mist ninja scoffed. "I'm not going to use it on you." He bent down, never taking his eyes off the mercenary rabble and their leader, and grasped the hilt of his massive sword again. "You might want to sit this one out, though."
Kakashi nodded and placed one hand protectively on Naruto's shoulder.
The boy looked up at him; to Kakashi's relief, he seemed to have collected his wits again. "Kakashi-sensei?"
"It's okay," Kakashi assured not just Naruto, but also Haku. "He knows what he's doing."
As Gato's third-rate thugs were about to find out, if there was one thing that Momochi Zabuza, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, known as 'the Demon of the Mist', knew how to do, it was killing people.
The smartest ones – just two people, Kakashi noted – dropped their weapons and ran when Zabuza eviscerated the most idiotic one – the guy who had taken a step forward and raised the improvised mace he had been holding, effectively volunteering himself to be the Demon of the Mist's first kill of the day. After a couple more of them met the same fate, two whole rows in the back of the mob – some ten or twelve people; Kakashi couldn't say for sure what with how fast they were running away from the rogue Mist ninja – lost their nerve. By the time Zabuza had carved his way to Gato, the mob boss had lost his smug grin and his air of superiority, along with most of his men.
"Wait!" The blood from the last man standing between Gato and the Swordsman splattered him across the face. "I can pay you! Whatever you want–!"
Zabuza separated Gato's head from his body before the bespectacled man could finish his sentence.
"This isn't about money." Zabuza turned around and started walking towards Kakashi and the three children, taking care to step over or around the bodies of his slain foes.
Sasuke reflexively raised his kunai in a defensive position; he was watching Zabuza closely, as if he were expecting the rogue ninja to snap and attack them as well. Haku, however, relaxed his posture; for him, this battle was over. And Naruto seemed to be torn between the two; he was staring apprehensively at Zabuza, but he didn't make any move to defend himself from a possible attack.
"That," Zabuza said, flicking some drops of blood from his sword, "was fun."
-X-
"Gato's death marks a new beginning for the people of the Wave Country," the Hokage remarked.
"I hope so, Hokage-sama," Kakashi replied. "They've been through a lot."
And they weren't the only ones Gato had managed to hurt.
-X-
"You killed them," Naruto accused the rogue Mist ninja.
"Yes," Zabuza said.
"That was horrible." Naruto shook his head violently; for a moment, he looked like he was going to be sick. "One moment their chakra was burning brightly–"
"–And the next it wasn't." Zabuza narrowed his eyes at the blond. "Was this your first battle?"
"They didn't have to die!"
"That's a 'yes', then." Zabuza looked at Sasuke. "What about you, Uchiha?"
"I've seen people die before," Sasuke replied in a voice barely above a whisper; he too seemed to be shaken by the carnage they had just witnessed.
"I spared you," Naruto hissed at the masked rogue ninja; Kakashi quirked an eyebrow at the boy's certainty that he was the one who had saved Zabuza's life. "Why did they have to die?"
"Because it was either them or us," Zabuza replied bluntly.
"That's your reason?" Naruto asked incredulously.
"That," the rogue ninja said, "and that they were in my way." He gave Naruto a shrewd look, studying the boy's red eyes. "Have you noticed that you aren't shaking in fear anymore?"
The blond boy gaped at Zabuza and looked at his now steady hands; so did Sasuke and Haku.
"Yeah," Zabuza drawled. "You're welcome."
'He's figured out Naruto's sensory abilities,' the masked jounin realized. Not all of them, of course, but enough to understand what the boy was capable of.
"They didn't have to die!" Naruto insisted. "I could have stopped them without killing them."
"Uh-huh," Zabuza said. "And would your precious people," he nodded towards Sasuke and Kakashi, "have lived to see that?"
Naruto opened his mouth to respond but closed it again, looked despondent.
"Didn't think so."
"So that's your answer?" Naruto asked. "Kill before you're killed?"
"It's worked out so far," Zabuza said rather defensively.
Naruto shook his head again. "There's got to be another way."
"Maybe," Zabuza agreed. "But until you find it, you'll be a sitting duck to people like me."
-X-
The old man nodded in understanding. "How did the people of the Wave react when Zabuza offered to live there?"
"They reacted… poorly, Hokage-sama." This was, perhaps, one of the greatest understatements ever spoken, right next to 'the Yellow Flash was just a ninja'.
The Yellow Flash was a legend.
-X-
"Look, Kakashi-san." Tazuna glanced worriedly at the scowling, masked rogue ninja who had nearly killed him barely a week ago, failed to fully suppress a shiver, and determinedly fixed his gaze on Kakashi's much less menacing masked visage. "I'm grateful to you for all that you've done for us, but this is going too far."
"But if he really wants to atone for everything he's done…" Sakura began uncertainly.
"Can't he atone somewhere else?" the old man mumbled.
Tazuna squawked as Zabuza shot him a cold look.
"He has a point, you know," Kakashi cheerfully told the rogue ninja. "You were under Gato's payroll."
Zabuza redirected his glare from the old man to Kakashi.
"Haku and Zabuza want to start over," Naruto said. "I thought you'd be glad to help them, Tazuna-san."
Kakashi almost breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the boy's informal speech pattern return; the sight of the boy's bright blue eyes also helped. He knew that Kurama had done more to help Naruto than any human, himself included, but he was uncomfortable seeing the effect the boy's familiarity with the centuries-old Fox Demon had on him.
"Well, yeah, but…" Tazuna looked at Zabuza, who scowled in return. The old man then looked at Haku, a much less threatening presence; the brown-haired boy offered the bridge builder a reserved but hopeful smile. "Oh, alright. They can stay. But if they cause any more trouble…"
"What are you going to do about it, old man?" Zabuza scoffed; Kakashi could swear that the rogue ninja was secretly enjoying himself.
Tazuna grimaced and glanced briefly at Kakashi.
"He's going to tell me about it," the Copy Ninja said, trying to put the old man at ease; he was certain that neither Haku nor Zabuza would waste the opportunity at a fresh start that had so unexpectedly been offered to them. "And I'm going to come back and have a chat with you."
"We'll behave ourselves, Kakashi-san," Haku promised him.
"Speak for yourself, Haku," Zabuza grunted and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Are we going to have a problem?" Kakashi asked.
"Depends on what passes for fun around here," Zabuza muttered to himself.
Kakashi just shook his head in exasperation.
-X-
"An unexpected outcome," the Hokage said. "Then again, nothing about this mission went according to expectations."
Kakashi nodded in wholehearted agreement.
The Hokage stamped the report scroll with the Mission Complete seal, rolled it up, and placed it on the side of his desk. Then, he presented Kakashi with three small, official-looking pieces of paper.
Kakashi took the offered papers and skimmed through them. "Chuunin exams?"
"They are starting in a couple of weeks," the Hokage reminded him. "I believe your students are ready to participate."
Kakashi didn't quite share the old man's optimism, but he nevertheless folded the papers and placed them in one of his vest's pockets. If the mission to the Wave Country was a wake-up call, then the chuunin exams would be a bucket of cold water thrown at the three brats who hadn't yet grasped what being part of a team meant.
"I'll pass them along to the brats," Kakashi said.
"Don't let them hear you calling them that," the old man chuckled. "And wish them good luck."
Kakashi bowed his head in farewell and exited the Hokage's office.
-X-
"Kakashi."
The silver-haired ninja turned around and quirked a questioning eyebrow at the rogue Mist ninja.
"Just wanted to say goodbye," Zabuza growled, looking like he would rather be chopping up trees with his sword than be there talking to him.
"Thank you," Kakashi said lightly.
Zabuza awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Take care of that student of yours."
"Which one of them?"
"The blond-haired brat," Zabuza growled.
Kakashi's eyebrow climbed even higher. "Naruto?"
Zabuza nodded. "I know a target when I see one."
The rogue ninja's words rang a warning bell inside Kakashi's head. "What do you mean by 'target'?"
"He's got a gift," Zabuza said simply. "Don't know what it is, and I don't want to know." The masked man scowled. "Half the people in the Mist would kill to have someone like him on their side."
"And what about the other half?" Kakashi asked, trying his best to hide his growing concern.
"The other half would rather kill him than let him serve one of their rivals." Zabuza looked around them at the newly-inaugurated bridge that connected the Land of Waves to the mainland. "Just look after him. I owe the brat that much," the masked ninja growled under his breath.
"I'll keep him safe," Kakashi promised, to himself more than to Zabuza.
-X-
Kakashi sighed and adjusted his hitai-ate as he exited the Hokage Tower and squinted at the sun.
Zabuza was a hunted man who had embraced paranoia and distrust as a way of life, something that had let him stay ahead of the Mist's hunter-nin for years. And before he became a rogue ninja, he was one of the Mist's top ANBU assassins. He knew what a target looked like.
'I hope Sakura and Sasuke won't start blabbing about Naruto's sensory abilities to everyone they know.'
Sasuke would almost certainly keep quiet. Sakura, however…
-XOXO-
"Hi, Asuma-sensei!" Naruto said in a voice that was somewhat louder than necessary.
Asuma lowered his gaze from a cloud that had caught his interest. "Hello, Naruto. What brings you here?"
"Training," the blond boy said simply.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at Naruto's reply, but didn't give any other indication that he was paying attention to the conversation. Chouji, who was sitting next to him, raised a hand in greeting at their former classmate; Naruto returned the gesture with a minute smile on his lips. Ino, who was sitting a few meters away from the two boys, peered at the blond from over the top of the magazine she had been reading for the last half-hour.
Asuma's training regime wasn't anywhere near as exhaustive as Kiba was claiming Kurenai-sensei's was.
"I see." Asuma blew out a small cloud of cigarette smoke. "Have you mastered the Great Breakthrough yet?"
"Uh-huh!"
One of Asuma's brows rose a fraction. "Show me."
Naruto turned towards the small thicket of trees, formed a series of hand seals, took a deep breath, and blew.
The trees shook from the force of Naruto's Wind jutsu.
"Whoa!" Chouji said; judging by Ino's look of slack-jawed amazement, she too was impressed by the demonstration.
"Not bad," Asuma said appraisingly.
Naruto grinned at the bearded jounin. "Can you teach me another jutsu, Asuma-sensei?"
"I could," Asuma replied.
Naruto fidgeted impatiently, waiting for Asuma to continue talking. "Will you teach me another jutsu?"
Asuma smirked at the blond-haired boy. "How about we play this on Shogi, Naruto?"
The blond went still. "Shogi?"
"Yes," Asuma drawled. "If you win, I'll teach you for free. If you lose, however, you'll have to pay for Team Ten's next meal at BBQ."
Shikamaru winced; he did not want to be in Naruto's shoes if the blond lost this bet. Chouji's appetite was enough to drive even a high-ranking jounin like Asuma to bankruptcy.
A lazy grin spread on Naruto's face. "You're on, Asuma-sensei!"
"Just a moment," Asuma said when Naruto began reaching into his back pouch to retrieve something. "You aren't going to be playing against me; you'll be playing against Shikamaru."
Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at his sensei; what was Asuma doing?
"Why?" Naruto asked, glancing at the Nara.
"Because I don't feel like lifting my hands to move the pieces." Asuma's cigarette bobbed up and down as the man grinned at the blond-haired boy.
Naruto shrugged in response. "Okay."
Before Shikamaru could work up the energy to protest about this troublesome chore, Naruto had already set up a Shogi board between then with a speed that implied this was a task he did quite often. The blond then sat across from him, looking at him expectantly; so were Chouji and Ino, Shikamaru noted.
'Dammit, Asuma-sensei,' the lazy Nara grumbled inwardly before moving a pawn forward.
Nearly half an hour later, Naruto was staring at the board in disbelief, while Shikamaru was examining the blond boy with a similar expression on his face. Naruto was really good at Shogi. 'He's better than Asuma.'
Naruto lifted his gaze from the board to the Nara. "You're amazing! When did you learn to play?"
"Couple of weeks ago," Shikamaru replied.
"You're kidding me."
Shikamaru shrugged. "Asuma-sensei insisted on teaching me."
Naruto shook his head in amazement. "That's really cool. I've been playing since I was six, but I couldn't even capture your generals."
"Who have you been playing with?" Shikamaru hadn't seen Naruto hanging out with anyone before Kakashi had taken him as an apprentice.
"A friend."
Shikamaru narrowed his eyes fractionally; yeah, that wasn't evasive at all. It only served to make him even more curious about Naruto's 'friend'.
"Anyway," Naruto said hastily, "I did as you asked, Asuma-sensei."
"Not quite yet," Asuma corrected him. "You owe Team Ten a meal at BBQ."
"Now?"
"Meal first, then the jutsu," the bearded jounin said lightly.
Naruto groaned and ran a hand through his hair.
"It'll be worth the wait, Naruto," Asuma cajoled the blond boy. "I'm going to teach you how to channel you Wind chakra into a chakra blade."
That managed to perk the blond-haired boy back up. "Really?"
Asuma nodded.
"You're the best, Asuma-sensei!" Naruto's cheerful expression faded as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. It turned into an outright frown when he saw the contents of said wallet and glanced at Chouji. "I'll have to pick up some money from home, first."
"We'll be waiting for you at BBQ," Asuma told him.
"See you later, then!" Naruto said and dashed off towards his apartment complex.
"Why did you set up Naruto to lose, Asuma-sensei?" Shikamaru asked when the blond was out of their sight.
"Let's just say that we had a score to settle," Asuma smirked, letting out a huge puff of smoke. "What's your assessment of Naruto?"
"We're not supposed to be talking about our fellow ninja behind their backs," Chouji said.
"We aren't gossiping, Chouji," Asuma said. "I'm just asking you what you think of him as a fellow ninja and potential teammate, once the lot of you get promoted to the rank of chuunin."
"He seems nice," Chouji said quietly.
"He's hiding something," Ino said; the magazine was rolled up next to her, forgotten.
Asuma raised an intrigued eyebrow. "What makes you think that, Ino?"
"You saw the way he evaded Shikamaru's question about who taught him Shogi." Ino furrowed her brow as she pondered the matter further. "He said that this person is a friend of his, which would mean that he or she is from the Leaf, but he refused to reveal their name.
"It's a harmless question, but he treated the answer like it was a clan secret."
"Inoichi will be glad to know you've been paying attention to some of his lessons," Asuma teased the blond-haired girl.
"I pay attention to everything my dad tells me," Ino sniffed indignantly.
"Of course you do," Asuma said. "And what do you think, Shikamaru?"
"I think," Shikamaru began, "that whatever the answer is, he's not going to reveal it to us so easily."
"No, I don't think he will, either," Asuma agreed. "Do you think it's an answer worth finding?"
"Finding it how?" Ino asked. "And why?"
"You were right; you did listen to Inoichi's lessons," the bearded jounin chuckled softly. "Let me rephrase my question.
"The name of the person who I believe taught Naruto Shogi isn't spoken in the Leaf." Asuma looked at each of them in turn. "Do you care about Naruto's safety enough to find out whether this person is genuinely his friend or they're just manipulating him?"
"Why would someone be manipulating Naruto?" Ino asked with a puzzled frown on her face. "And why would their name be a secret?"
"These are also excellent questions." Asuma drew a deep breath out of his cigarette. "The three of you should get going. Naruto will have gotten to BBQ by now; it'd be rude to keep him waiting. Especially since he's the one paying for the meal."
"Aren't you coming with us, Asuma-sensei?" Chouji asked.
"Nah. I'm afraid that crafty brat will find a way to put the tab on me." The jounin smiled at them. "You kids enjoy yourselves."
The three genin stood up and started walking towards BBQ, their favorite restaurant in the Leaf.
"What was that all about?" Ino asked after they'd put some distance between themselves and their sensei.
"I think he was trying to tell us something," Shikamaru said, his mind already lost in this puzzle.
"Then why couldn't he just say it?" Ino asked irritably.
Shikamaru shrugged in response; he couldn't make heads or tails out of Asuma's words.
Yet.
-XOXO-
"You know."
Asuma adjusted his gaze from the sky to the tree branch Kakashi was perched on. He didn't ask what his fellow jounin was talking about. "Yeah."
"How?" Kakashi demanded, unable to keep the urgency out of his voice.
"A file in Dad's office." Asuma gave him a meaningful look. "A file that bore Danzou's signature."
Kakashi felt all the color draining from his face. "Danzou knows, too?"
Asuma nodded.
A foul oath left Kakashi's lips.
"Yeah, that about sums up my reaction as well," the bearded jounin said in a vain effort to lighten the mood.
"How the hell did they find out?" He had taken every precaution. He had lied his ass off at every turn. How could they have possibly found out…?
"Sensory abilities are like a cough; they can't remain hidden for long." Asuma's face became deadly serious all of a sudden. "They're planning to send him to the ANBU."
"What?!"
"Can't say I don't understand their reasoning," Asuma said. "Someone with Naruto's abilities will be invaluable to the Black Ops division."
"They can't assign him to the ANBU!" Kakashi was still waking up at nights from nightmares of his ANBU days. He had only managed to remain more-or-less sane by detaching himself from his actions. Naruto, however, didn't have that luxury. "He can sense every negative emotion around him, for fu–"
"Lower your voice, Kakashi," Asuma said sternly. "You don't want anyone to hear you. And I don't want Dad to know I'm snooping around in his office when he isn't looking."
Kakashi took a few deep breaths; he nodded at Asuma when he felt calm enough to resume their conversation.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" the bearded jounin inquired in a non-hostile way.
"I was looking for Naruto." Kakashi absently patted his vest pocket. "I wanted to give him his Chuunin Exams application."
"Ah, so your team is going to participate as well?" Asuma asked. "That's going to liven up the competition. Did you know that Kurenai's team is also participating in the Exams?"
"No," Kakashi said, making a mental note to congratulate Hinata later.
"Well, now you know," Asuma said in an awkward attempt to keep the conversation going, before sighing in defeat. "Look, don't be so worried about Naruto; he'll be fine."
Kakashi gave his fellow jounin a furious look. "Did nothing I just said get through you thick skull–"
"Take it easy, Kakashi; you're going to give yourself apoplexy."
Kakashi closed his mouth, but kept glaring at Asuma.
"They can recommend him as an ANBU candidate, but he doesn't have to accept the assignment," Asuma continued. "ANBU don't accept unwilling candidates, remember? It's bad for discipline and unit cohesion."
Kakashi stared unblinkingly at Asuma for several moments; he felt like a two-ton weight had been lifted from him chest. "…Naruto can refuse the assignment."
"He can refuse the assignment," Asuma echoed, nodding in agreement.
Kakashi sighed and slumped his back against the tree trunk. "Thank the kami."
"Dad was right, you know," Asuma chuckled. "You're really letting your fondness for your students cloud your judgment."
Kakashi snapped a twig and threw it at the bearded jounin.
-XOXO-
Naruto shook his empty wallet once again. "Look at my Froggy."
"It doesn't look that bad, Naruto-kun," Hinata said, lying through her teeth in an effort to cheer her best friend up.
Naruto turned the wallet upside down and gave it a half-heart shake; the dejected look on his face was almost comical. "It was as fat as Chouji this morning."
"You shouldn't call Chouji-kun by the f-word," she gently reminded him.
"I still can't believe he ate all those platters of barbequed pork by himself," Naruto wailed, still mourning the loss of nearly all his saved-up money. "Where does he put all that food?!"
"Chouji-kun's clan uses jutsu that rely on the manipulation of calories," she started explaining, but stopped herself when she noticed that he was barely paying attention to her.
"And Ino!" Naruto exclaimed. "She kept talking to me so I didn't notice how much Chouji was eating! And Shikamaru kept staring at me, like he was trying to hypnotize me or something." He cradled his empty wallet in his palms. "Their teamwork turned my fat Froggy into a flat pancake."
"I don't think that they were planning to trick you into buying them more food, Naruto-kun." Hinata was starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that she was talking to a brick wall.
Naruto sighed and mumbled something that sounded like: 'My poor Froggy…'
"Naruto-kun," Hinata said firmly; she refused to be ignored any longer.
That managed to get his attention.
"It's just money," she said. "And you spent it on a meal with friends."
Naruto blinked at her. "Friends," he repeated slowly.
"Isn't that what Ino-san, Shikamaru-kun, and Chouji-kun are to you?"
"I… guess," he said quietly. "I don't know. I've never asked them."
"You don't need to ask people if they're your friends," Hinata said. "You just know it."
Naruto considered her words. "Huh."
"What does 'huh' mean?" Kiba yelled at him from the other side of the clearing Team Eight was lounging in while waiting for their sensei. "Listen to what Hinata's telling you, you idiot!"
"Kiba," Shino interjected. "We promised that we wouldn't eavesdrop on Hinata and Naruto's conversation."
"I didn't promise anything," Kiba countered. "And I wasn't eavesdropping. It's not my fault my ears are as sensitive as a dog's."
"Can you still be friends with someone if they're annoying you all the time?" Naruto asked Hinata, pointedly ignoring the Inuzuka.
"I guess so," she replied; she was torn between giggling at her teammate's indignant sputtering and being mortified that he and Shino had apparently decided to give her and Naruto some privacy. Her admiration for Naruto wasn't that obvious.
…Right?
"I apologize on Kiba's behalf," Shino said in his impassive monotone voice. "I'll try to keep him out of your hair from now on."
"Get your bugs off me, Shino!" Kiba yelled as he jumped to his feet in order to dodge a swarm of insects that had just flown out of the Aburame's sleeves.
"We promised we wouldn't eavesdrop," Shino repeated, unfazed by the Inuzuka's protests and curses.
"Get them off me!" Kiba yelled; he kept running his hands through his hair, trying in vain to dislodge Shino's bugs from there. "Shino!"
"You know," Naruto said between chuckles, "they're both completely crazy, but in a good way."
"Speak for yourself, Uzumaki!" Kiba yelled as he dove to the side, making the swarm of insects miss him by a hair's breadth.
"Thank you, Naruto," Shino replied in utter seriousness.
This time, Hinata couldn't fully suppress a giggle.
-XOXO-
Thankfully, a string of D-rank missions had managed to refill Naruto's wallet by the time the Chuunin Exams started. Which was good, because he'd need the money in order to celebrate his and Hinata's upcoming promotions to the rank of chuunin.
At least, that had been the plan.
He wasn't so certain now that he had the First Stage's test sheet in front of him.
'How are we supposed to know all this stuff?' he screamed at the Fox while tearing at his hair with both hands.
"You might have known a couple of the answers if you had tried reading something other than the Academy's curriculum," Kurama said in an I-told-you-so voice.
'Can't you help me with this?' He was so desperate to pass this test that he would willingly sit through another of Kurama's multi-hour lectures on the benefits of opening a dictionary.
"No," Kurama said sternly. "I already helped you talk down Zabuza,' the Fox reminded him.
Naruto grimaced; yeah, he still owed Kurama for that. If the Fox hadn't helped him put his thoughts into words like he had, then Zabuza would have probably gotten himself killed while trying to kill Kakashi – and there was no guarantee that Kakashi would have gotten out of that fight unhurt.
"This is your test, not mine. If you can't pass it on your own, then you aren't worthy of becoming a chuunin. Besides,' the Fox added, "the scarred jounin has already told you how to pass this test. Use your brain, Naruto; I know you have one."
'Right…' Use his brain. How hard could it be?
…Pretty damn hard, considering that he was on the verge of panicking here!
Naruto took a deep breath. What had Ibiki said?
They had ten questions to answer – although only nine had been revealed to them so far. They were starting with a total of ten points. Each correct answer was worth one point, but one point would be deducted from them every time they were caught cheating. If the sum of their points reached zero, then they'd fail the test.
…Wait. They already had ten points to begin with. And points would be deducted only if they were caught cheating. If they didn't try to cheat, then there was no way for them to lose points and they'd keep their 'perfect ten' score. So, he could ace this test by doing absolutely nothing.
Naruto placed his pencil back on the desk and laced his fingers together.
"Well done, kit," Kurama said. "Although I believe that Ibiki is trying to determine whether you genin are skilled enough to cheat without getting caught."
Naruto gave a mental shrug in response. 'Then he should have been more careful with his instructions.'
"Indeed,' Kurama chuckled.
Naruto sat back in his chair; if this was what the Chuunin Exams were like, then they had nothing to worry about.
-XOXO-
Sakura jerked awake and tightened her grip on her kunai before it could slip out of her hand. She frantically scanned her surroundings for any sign of danger, trying to shake off her sleepiness before it overcame her again. She was so tired. Maybe if she closed her eyes for one second they'd stop stinging so much…
'No! Wake up!'
She shook her head and pinched herself in the arm, but all that accomplished was adding an aching forearm to her list of injuries. Still, despite her cuts and bruises, she had come out of their encounter with the creepy Grass ninja unhurt; it was Sasuke and Naruto that the snake woman had been after, not her.
Sakura looked at her still unconscious teammates. She placed her hand on Sasuke's forehead; his breathing was more labored than it had been a few hours ago and he was still burning with fever, she noted. She moved her hand to Naruto's forehead; his skin was colder than normal, and each of his breaths seemed to require more effort than the last. 'What did the snake woman do to them?'
Sakura had seen what the snake woman had done, of course – she wasn't blind. But she still didn't understand any of it.
How could a single strike on Naruto's belly incapacitate him to the point where his body was beginning to shut down like that? Did it had something to do with that strange geometric drawing tattooed around his belly button? And then there was the tattoo the snake woman had placed on Sasuke's neck; it had caused him to scream in agony until he passed out from the pain. What was it? And why had she marked him with it?
Now both boys were unconscious – or dying – leaving it all up to her.
She had to save them.
A bitter half-chuckle, half-sob escaped her. It was all up to her… The weakest member of Team Seven. 'Please, wake up, Sasuke-kun… Naruto…'
"Why am I always asking them to save me?"
The rustling of leaves from somewhere behind her forcibly dragged her back to reality; someone was coming.
...She wasn't ready!
Turning around, she saw that it was the three Sound ninja; they didn't look like they would leave if she told them that Team Seven's scroll had been destroyed.
Sakura gripped the kunai tighter and readied herself to fight.
-XOXO-
One glance at the clearing Chouji was pointing out to them was… It wasn't enough to deduce everything, but it was more than enough to clue Shikamaru in on the important bits.
Naruto and Sasuke were down for the count, either sleeping or too badly wounded to get up and fight; Shikamaru was betting on the latter, which was troublesome enough in and of itself. Sakura was in over her head; if her bruised and swollen face was any indication, she had already tried and failed to fight off the three Sound ninja. The green-clad Leaf genin – whose outfit was making the laidback Nara seriously consider embracing Ino's fashion consciousness – wasn't faring any better than Sakura. 'He's about to get his ass handed to him.'
Team Ten could help – or they could remain hidden in the huge tree they were perched on and hope that the Sound ninja wouldn't look up when they were done with Team Seven and Green Boy.
"What do you want to do, Ino?"
Ino turned to face him. "Me?"
Shikamaru nodded slightly; he had the feeling that he was going to regret his next words. "We aren't supposed to be helping the other teams during the Chuunin Exams, but you and Sakura used to be friends." He looked back at the clearing; Green Boy was holding his head, looking as if he was in great pain. "What do you want to do?"
Chouji remained silent; he was also looking at Ino, waiting for her answer.
Ino also turned her gaze back to the clearing, just in time to see Bandaged Sound Guy punching Green Boy; Green Boy tried to get up again, but his hands didn't seem able to support his weight.
"Ino?" Shikamaru's voice was colored with a rarely-heard urgency; he didn't like the way things were unfolding. Those Sound ninja didn't seem to be the no-grudges-held type.
Ino muttered a curse under her breath. "We're helping them."
"I don't know about this…" Chouji said.
Shikamaru simply smirked at his blonde-haired teammate and grabbed Chouji's scarf.
Team Ten wasn't the strongest, but they did know how to make an entrance. Even if one of them had to literally be dragged into the fray.
The three Sound ninja blinked at Team Ten; they weren't looking terribly impressed by their new opponents.
"Who're you clowns?" the Sound ninja with the unbandaged face – Shikamaru decided to call him Attitude Guy – sneered at them.
Ino pointed at Bandaged Sound Guy with her index finger, ignoring Attitude Guy. "Leave them alone!"
"Or what?" the girl with the absurdly long hair scoffed. "What are a bimbo, a moron, and a fatass going to do?"
Shikamaru winced at the Sound Girl's poor choice of words. Ino, however, merely smirked and glanced at Chouji. The Akimichi's eyes were narrowed and his nostrils were flaring; Shikamaru half-expected to see flames shooting out of them.
With a smirk nearly identical to Ino's, Shikamaru let go of Chouji's scarf.
"I'M NOT FAT! I'M JUST BIG BONED! HUMAN BOULDER!" Chouji roared and charged towards the stupefied Sound ninja.
The three Sound genin scattered to avoid the rolling sphere Chouji had turned into. Sound Girl jumped a few meters to her left, placing herself right in front of Ino's Mind Transfer jutsu, while Bandaged Sound Guy's leap placed him less than one meter away from Shikamaru's already extended Shadow Paralysis jutsu.
Shikamaru smirk widened when his shadow merged with Bandaged Sound Guy's, locking him in place; a small thud accompanied Ino's collapse into a heap on the ground as her consciousness left her body and took over Sound Girl's. 'Just like practice.'
Chouji was already in the middle of a U-turn, aiming for Attitude Guy, the last of the three Sound genin who could still move freely. Before he could complete the turn, however, Attitude Guy found himself incapacitated by a different opponent.
Sasuke had finally decided to wake up. And if the dark chakra swirling around him was any indication, he wasn't in a good mood.
Shikamaru eyed his former classmate warily; that chakra was not only unnatural, but also seriously creepy. 'What's wrong with him?'
"Sakura." There was something off with Sasuke's voice; Shikamaru couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it was making his hair stand on end. "Who hurt you?"
"Planning to avenge your girlfriend?" Attitude Guy – Suicidal Attitude Guy, the ponytailed Nara corrected himself – sneered.
The only warning any of them got was the narrowing of the Uchiha's eyes. Before Shikamaru could blink, Suicidal Attitude Guy screamed in pain as the now-covered-in-swirling-black-tattoos Sasuke wrenched his arms behind his back and pulled them, placing his foot on the Sound ninja's back for leverage. With a sickening crunch, Attitude Guy's arm bent in a way they weren't supposed to be bending.
The nasty smirk on Sasuke's face widened; he kept pulling at Attitude Guy's arms. For a moment, Shikamaru was certain that the Uchiha was planning to tear them off.
"SASUKE-KUN!" Sakura rushed to the black-haired Uchiha and bound him in a tight embrace. "STOP IT!"
Sasuke didn't try to fight her off; after a few moments, the black markings all over his body started receding, as if the pink-haired girl's voice and embrace had the power to drive back this… whatever it was… that had taken over him.
"Leave," Sasuke commanded the three Sound ninja, levelling a look as cold as ice at them. "Now."
Attitude Guy tried to say something – 'Some people never learn,' Shikamaru thought ruefully – but he was interrupted by a shushing motion from Bandaged Guy. Moving slowly in order to avoid reawakening whatever dark force was within the Uchiha, he reached into his back pouch, took out a scroll, and placed it carefully on the ground in front of him.
"This is for our lives," Bandaged Guy, who must have been the leader of the Sound ninja squad, told Sasuke. "Let's go," he added to his teammates.
Sound Girl and Attitude Guy threw one last sullen look at Team Seven, but they followed their leader out of the clearing.
"Good riddance," Ino mumbled under her breath.
"What's going on?" someone asked, sounding like he was still trying to shake off his sleepiness.
Shikamaru almost sighed in relief when he recognized Naruto's voice. He would know how to keep the obviously-not-quite-sound-minded Sasuke in check.
"What are all of you doing here?" the blond asked, rubbing his eyes and looking from the members of Team Ten to Team Guy to Sakura and Sasuke – Shikamaru noticed that she still hadn't let go of her black-haired teammate – before his eyes widened as he examined Sakura's raggedly cut hair and bruised face. "What happened to you, Sakura?"
"It's nothing," Sakura replied; she tried to smile but abandoned the effort with a grimace of pain. "S-some people attacked us while you and Sasuke were unconscious, but Lee-kun, Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji helped me fight them off." She pointed at the scroll Bandaged Sound Guy had placed on the ground. "They offered us their scroll so that we'd let them leave."
Naruto gave a derisive snort and looked questioningly at Sasuke.
"They were the Sound ninja we met during the first stage of the Exams," the Uchiha said, extricating himself from Sakura's grip. "Do you remember their chakra?"
"The ones who attacked that creepy Kabuto guy, right?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke nodded in agreement.
"Yeah," Naruto smirked, "I remember them."
"There's no need to hunt them down!" Sakura pleaded, looking between her teammates.
Naruto gave her an incredulous look. "They hurt you."
Sasuke nodded again. "Where are they? They can't have gone far."
Shikamaru stared at the blond-haired boy; so, he noticed, did Ino and Neji. 'Is Naruto a sensory type ninja?'
Naruto closed his eyes, effectively answering Shikamaru's unspoken question. After a few moments, he frowned and clasped his hands in the Tiger seal. Naruto's grimace after a few more seconds told the ponytailed Nara that whatever he was trying to do wasn't working.
"What the hell…" Naruto opened his eyes and looked at his clasped hands. "Kurama…?" he mumbled in an undertone.
"Who's Kurama?" Ino asked almost inaudibly, taking the question out of everyone's mouths, if their puzzled frowns were any indication.
Naruto ignored the question and lifted his jacket and shirt, exposing his belly and part of an intricate tattoo. The black ink formed patterns that were simple yet strangely elegant; it looked like a master artisan's doodle of a much more complex composition and, for some reason Shikamaru couldn't accurately explain, it made him seriously uncomfortable. 'This is no ordinary tattoo…' the boy realized.
"…What the…?" Naruto gaped at the geometric drawing and lightly touched a part that looked like a stylized flame with his fingertips. "This wasn't here before."
"The Grass ninja put it there when she knocked you out," Sakura informed her blond-haired teammate.
Naruto just stared at her, aghast.
"What's wrong?" Sasuke asked in a way that wasn't exactly friendly, but wasn't completely hostile, either.
"I can't feel–" Naruto's eyes widened for a second and he let go of his jacket, covering up the tattoo once again. "I can't use my sensory abilities."
"What do you mean you 'can't' use them?" Sasuke asked incredulously.
"I don't know!" Naruto yelled in response. "I just can't! It's like a barrier has been placed between me and–" He clamped his mouth shut, cutting himself off before he could finish whatever he had been about to say.
Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow at the blond-haired boy. 'A barrier placed between him and what?' he wondered inwardly. 'And who or what is Kurama?' Suddenly, Asuma's suspicions that somebody might be trying to manipulate Naruto didn't seem all that outrageous.
Naruto formed a quick sequence of hand seals; a clone materialized next to him with a small puff of smoke. "I can't even control my own chakra properly!"
'His own chakra?'
"Sorry, boss," the clone said to Naruto before vanishing in another puff of smoke, stunning almost everyone present; since when did illusionary clones talk?
"Something is indeed obstructing the flow of your chakra," Neji said; the veins around his white eyes were bulging, a clear sign that he was using his Byakugan.
"Can you tell what it is, Neji?" Naruto asked the ponytailed Hyuuga. "Is there a way to remove it?"
"Not that I can see," Neji replied with a light frown on his face. "I have never seen anything like this before."
From his tone, Shikamaru couldn't tell whether the Hyuuga was talking about the flame parts that had been added recently or about the tattoo as a whole. Probably a little of both, he mused.
"In conjunction with the strange markings on your skin," Neji added, looking at Sasuke and earning himself a cold look in response, "I believe that both of you were very lucky."
"Lucky?" the members of Team Seven asked in unison; Naruto and Sakura sounded incredulous, while Sasuke posed the question in a tone that implied that Neji was an idiot.
Neji was unaffected by their incredulity. "Someone capable of corrupting your chakra," he looked at Sasuke, "and blocking yours," this was addressed towards Naruto, "would be fully capable of killing all of you."
All three members of Team Seven seemed to be shaken by Neji's words – possibly because they had been spoken in a calm, non-pretentious way that let them know he was being serious.
"Wait a sec…" Naruto focused his gaze on Sasuke. "What's this about the snake lady 'corrupting' your chakra?"
"It's nothing," Sasuke said coldly.
"It didn't sound like nothing," Naruto countered.
Sasuke turned around and headed towards the hollow tree he and Naruto had been recovering in before the Sound ninjas' attack. "It can wait until we're out of this place."
Sakura glanced worriedly from Sasuke's back to Naruto's face; her hands were twisting the fabric of her long red shirt so tightly that wrinkles were starting to form.
"Yeah, I guess," Naruto conceded after a few moments. He turned to look at the members of Team Ten and Team Guy – the silent observers to Team Seven's inner conflict. "Thanks for your help."
"You are most welcome, Naruto-kun!" Green Boy – or rather, Lee, as Sakura had called him, replied with an enthusiasm that was at odds with his bruises.
"Yeah," Ino said with an air of casual smugness that, as far as Shikamaru had observed, only she could muster, "you're welcome." She turned her gaze towards Sasuke, who seemed to be looking for something inside the tree trunk – or, most likely, was using this as an excuse to avoid talking to them further. "We'll rescue you anytime."
Naruto gave an awkward laugh at that, while Shikamaru and the girl whose brown hair was tied in twin buns on the top of her head rolled their eyes at Ino. Neji and Chouji's expressions didn't change, although Shikamaru suspected that Ino's flirting had simply flown over the latter's head. Sakura, however, bristled at Ino's audacity to flirt with the person who was, as far as the pink-haired girl was concerned, her future boyfriend.
Thankfully, if twin-bun-girl was any indication, not all girls their age were as crazy as these two.
"So, what are you guys planning to do now?" Naruto asked, trying to bring the conversation back to normal ground – assuming, of course, that everything that had been discussed before could be described as such.
Shikamaru, for one, didn't find anything that had happened in this clearing was even remotely 'normal'.
"We're going back to the Chuunin Exams," Neji said impassively. "We've already delayed long enough trying to find Lee."
Lee gave both his teammates a formal bow. "I apologize. I promise I will do five hundred squats as punishment when we finish this test."
"This isn't necessary, Lee," twin-bun-girl said sheepishly.
"IT IS, TENTEN!" Lee exclaimed; the sudden increase in his voice's volume made the others in the clearing jump in surprise. Naruto even covered his ears, as if they'd been hurt by the green-clad boy's outburst. "I HAVE LET YOU, AND NEJI, AND GUY-SENSEI DOWN WITH MY FAILURE–"
"We should go, Lee," Neji interjected, mercifully cutting off his teammate before he could launch into a speech of some kind – Shikamaru didn't really want to find out what kind.
"Bye!" Tenten said, waving goodbye at everyone present before following Neji, who had already jumped to a nearby tree.
"Goodbye, everyone!" Lee turned to face Sakura. "Goodbye, Sakura-san!"
"Goodbye, Lee-kun." Sakura offered him a small but warm smile. "Thanks for helping me."
Lee responded by giving her the brightest, toothiest smile Shikamaru had ever seen. "I will train even harder, so that next time I will succeed!"
Ino shook her head as Lee followed his teammates and giggled at her rival. "He's so in love with you!"
"He is not!" Sakura protested.
"Yeah, yeah." Ino retrieved a water canteen and a handkerchief from her belt pouch and motioned for Sakura to follow her. "Let's get you cleaned up."
"Girls," Chouji mumbled when the two girls were out of earshot. "One moment they hate each other, the next they're acting like they've been best friends for years."
"Sakura and Ino never hated each other," Naruto said matter-of-factly, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
"Uh…" Chouji glanced at Shikamaru briefly, before looking back at Naruto. "They've been hating each other since the Academy?"
"Nah," Naruto said. "That wasn't hatred; not even close to it."
Shikamaru and Chouji exchanged another look; Chouji just raised his shoulders and shook his head slightly, as if to say that he had no idea from where their blond-haired former classmate was getting his delusions.
But Naruto wasn't an idiot; antisocial, yes, but definitely not stupid. "What was it, then, if not hatred?"
"I don't know." Naruto idly scratched the markings on his cheek. "What do you call it when two people insult each other but are also worried about how the other is doing?"
"Friendship?" Shikamaru suggested. How on earth did Naruto know that Ino was worried about Sakura's wellbeing? Even he, who had practically grown up with Ino, had needed some time to see behind his childhood friend's façade of indifference.
"That's not a very nice kind of friendship," Chouji observed.
"Guess not," Naruto agreed with a small sigh.
"How long are you going to stay here?" Sasuke asked; he had apparently grown tired of hiding inside the hollow tree trunk.
"Until Ino's done fixing Sakura's hair." In response to the other boys' blank looks, Shikamaru simply pointed to where the two girls were sitting; Ino was using a kunai to trim Sakura's hair into something resembling an actual haircut.
Sasuke shook his head and trudged off to where the scroll the Sound ninja had offered him was. Without a word, he picked it up and studied it. "Earth."
"Shame we lost our Heaven scroll," Naruto said.
"How did you lose it?" Chouji asked.
"The snake lady ate it," Naruto said simply.
Shikamaru and Chouji exchanged yet another look.
"What kind of freak did you guys run into?" Shikamaru asked, even though he wasn't sure whether he wanted to know the answer to that.
"I have no idea," Naruto replied; Sasuke just shrugged in a would-be casual way and placed the scroll in his back pouch.
-XOXO-
"That was weird," "That was more than a little weird," Tenten said after the members of Team Guy had distanced themselves from Team Seven by a little more than two kilometers.
"What was weird, Tenten?" Lee asked, sounding puzzled.
"Well..." Tenten hesitated for a moment. "Everything." She gave Lee a sideways glance. "You're telling me that nothing we just saw struck you as odd?"
Lee furrowed his brow in thought. "Sasuke-kun's behavior was very strange."
'That,' Neji thought, 'is putting it mildly.' From what he had observed from his vantage point, Sasuke's chakra had almost been overwhelmed by another, darker chakra when those swirling black markings had manifested on his skin. It was fortunate that the process had been halted by Sakura's intervention; he was leery of what a fully possessed, out-of-control Sasuke would have been capable.
"Yeah," Tenten said, shuddering; the trembling of her limbs would have been unnoticeable to everyone else, but not to someone as adept with the Byakugan as Hyuuga Neji was. "He almost tore that guy's arms off."
"I am certain that he wouldn't have done it," Lee said; nevertheless, there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.
"Really?" Tenten asked, frowning. "Because I'm pretty sure he was going to kill the guy if Sakura hadn't stopped him." She glanced at Neji. "You saw it too, didn't you, Neji?"
"I saw it," Neji said calmly.
"There you go," Tenten told Lee.
Lee's brows knit even tighter as his frown deepened, uniting in a thick dark line over his eyes. It would have been a terrifying image, if the person scowling so fiercely was anyone other than the unbearably overenthusiastic and almost hopelessly naïve Rock Lee.
"I hope Naruto's seal doesn't turn him into a rage monster as well..." Tenten mumbled.
Neji missed the tree branch he had been aiming at; fortunately, he managed to gain footing on another branch a few meters below it, thus avoiding a painful reintroduction with solid ground.
"Neji?" both Lee and Tenten asked; they had stopped running and were looking at him with nearly identical frowns of concern.
Neji didn't try to reassure them that he was fine; they could see it. Besides, he had greater concerns than that at the moment. "What seal?"
"The one on his belly," Tenten explained. "He showed it to us. It sort of looks like a particularly complex storage seal I saw in the library once. ...Are you alright, Neji?"
The quick answer to that would be 'no'. A more comprehensive response would involve inquiries about the nature of the seal in question, its function, and, most importantly, why the hell hadn't he noticed it before? He had known Naruto for years. He had studied his chakra several times to make sure that he wasn't a threat to Hinata's safety, as most of the Hyuuga clan feared.
It was an odd thing, resenting his cousin for holding a position she didn't deserve within their family while he, who was better than her at everything, was destined to be serving her for the entirety of his life, and yet not being able to forget the promise he had made to his father to protect her. His service to the Main Branch of the Hyuuga clan had been made unquestionable ever since he had been branded with the Caged Bird seal. And he hated them. For taking the freedom to choose his own destiny away from him. For condemning his father to death 'for the good of the clan'. And yet, despite everything, he couldn't bring himself to truly hate Hinata or Hanabi.
Such an odd thing. Why couldn't he hate them? Why was he concerned about Hinata's safety? Why did he care whether she associated herself with the 'Demon Child'?
'The Demon Child,' Neji scoffed inwardly. Uzumaki Naruto was obnoxious, rude, and there was a peculiar red tinge to his yellow-colored chakra at times, but...
Neji's eyes widened in shock. The red tint to Naruto's chakra… Every time he had noticed it, it seemed to be originating from his belly. From the place the seal was.
"Neji?" Tenten asked again, more urgently this time.
Hinata couldn't have missed it. She was the least of the Hyuuga, an inadequate heiress to the clan, but even she couldn't have missed something so obvious. Therefore, she must have been associating with Naruto all those years despite this knowledge.
But why? Why would she defy the clan's Elders by befriending someone they considered an outcast despite knowing that he was dangerous?
"Are you still with us, Neji?"
Neji blinked and focused his gaze on his teammates. "We should keep moving."
"Yeah," Tenten said uncertainly. "If you're sure…"
"I'm fine, Tenten," he assured her. She had a reason to look so worried, he reminded himself; he had been acting strangely. "I just realized I have a question I wish to pose on Hinata-sama."
"That's… good," Tenten said.
"Of course it is good, Tenten!" Lee piped in. "It is always good when cousins talk to each other!"
'Perhaps,' Neji thought to himself. It would all depend on Hinata's answer.
-XOXO-
After washing his hands and face at the nearby stream and eating a couple of the fish he and Naruto had managed to catch and cook, Sasuke was feeling ready to address their greatest obstacle in the completion of the second stage of the Chuunin Exams. Namely, that in addition to all of them being physically and mentally exhausted, they were also walking blindly in a forest filled with ninja squads lurking in wait for victims.
"Have your sensory abilities returned?" he asked Naruto.
"No."
"Sensory abilities don't just come and go," Sasuke remarked.
Naruto kept staring sullenly at his half-eaten fish.
"You can still use chakra; that means you can also sense chakra."
"I already told you, I can't!" Naruto half-shouted in response.
"Why?" Sasuke asked harshly, feeling his anger rising; he'd had enough of Naruto lying to him.
Sakura was looking anxiously between the two of them, but Sasuke just ignored her; if she had something to add, she should speak up, not cower in a corner.
"What's so different about your sensory abilities?"
"They aren't my sensory abilities!"
Sasuke blinked at his blond-haired teammate. "What?"
"They aren't mine," Naruto repeated. "They're Kurama's."
That would have been an answer, if it hadn't raised half a dozen more questions. "Who is Kurama?"
"You know him as the Nine-Tailed Fox," Naruto said quietly.
The Nine-Tailed… "What are you talking about?"
Instead of an explanation, Naruto simply lifted his jacket and T-shirt again, showing them his now-clear belly. He held one hand in half the Ram seal and, after a few moments, the ink drawing reappeared there.
Sasuke activated the Sharingan and studied the geometric drawing, doing his best to ignore the stinging pain behind his left collarbone.
Each line was woven with chakra. The external spiked circle was somehow linked to Naruto's chakra network, which seemed to be flowing in an erratic manner. The central spiral, however, was linked to something else – something that seemed to have been temporarily silenced. It was as if a barrier had been placed between the external and internal circles, severing the connection between them. Sasuke blinked at the ink drawing and relaxed his gaze, a trick his older brother had taught him a long time ago.
The chaotic lines of the drawing resolved into more easily recognizable shapes: a spiral drawn inside a rhombus with prongs extending from the center of each side. And between the two of them was a pentagon. To the Sharingan, the pentagon's presence was an anomaly, like a sour note in the midst of a symphony. It disrupted the symmetry of the drawing, making it unstable.
"What is that?" Sakura asked.
"Kurama's prison," Naruto explained. "Dad sealed him inside me when I was a baby."
"Your dad…" Sakura gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Sasuke would like to say that he took the news in stride, but his slack jaw said otherwise.
"Yeah, well…" Naruto shrugged and averted his eyes. "It's really hard to kill a Demon, so Dad had no other choice. And besides, Kurama's not that bad; he's just a little grumpy."
"Just a little 'grumpy'?" Sakura repeated in a voice that was barely half an octave below a shriek.
"Yeah. I mean," Naruto added, "who wouldn't be grumpy if they were called 'it' and 'monster' all the time?"
That… was a valid point, Sasuke had to admit.
"Oh," Sakura said, sounding crestfallen – and thankfully, back in a normal tone. "So, are you and the–…Kurama… Are the two of you friends, then?"
Naruto nodded in agreement. "We are."
"And you talk to each other," Sakura stated more than asked.
"Yeah." Naruto frowned. "But I can't hear him right now." He placed a hand over the drawing on his belly – not a drawing, but some kind of fuuinjutsu, Sasuke belatedly realized. "It's those flame marks, I'm sure of it!"
"I don't see any way to remove them," Sasuke said, echoing what the long-haired Hyuuga had told them earlier. To his Sharingan, the flame markings were as out of place in that seal as a cat would be in the Inuzuka clan's kennels, but he couldn't discern a way to remove them.
Naruto let out a heavy sigh and covered his belly with his jacket once again. "I hope that Kakashi-sensei'll know what to do."
Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan. "We won't get to see Kakashi until we get that second scroll," he reminded his blond-haired teammate. "Which brings us back to my original question: is there any way you can sense chakra now?"
"No," Naruto said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."
That was far from ideal, but it couldn't be helped. "We'll just have to scout the forest the hard way."
"Yeah," Naruto said, smiling faintly at him – something he had never done before, Sasuke noted.
"Get some rest," the black-haired Uchiha told his teammates. "We'll have to start moving in a few hours."
"Yes, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said.
"Who made you the leader?" Naruto asked mockingly.
"I did."
"I didn't agree to this."
"Nobody asked you."
"I'll remember you said that when you're leading us into a trap," Naruto said.
Sasuke huffed in annoyance, but didn't respond. Without Naruto's sensory abilities to warn them about approaching threats, especially in a place like the Forest of Death, leading his teammates into a trap wasn't an unlikely scenario – far from it, in fact.
"When I'm saving your skin, I'll be reminding you that I was against it," Naruto added. "I'll be telling you: I told you so, you dumbass."
"Shut up," Sasuke huffed. "Loser."
Naruto gave him another wan smile and went back to eating his by now surely cold fish.
Sasuke couldn't say he understood most of his classmates. On the contrary, sometimes he was completely baffled by them. They lived such comfortable, carefree lives that he barely had anything in common with them anymore, other than the hitai-ate they were all wearing. But he understood Naruto – or, at least, he understood the important parts.
Naruto was also an orphan but, unlike him, he never had a family to begin with. Worse, he couldn't even reveal his parents' names to anyone out of fear of what the Fourth's enemies would do to him if they ever found out about him. Moreover, he had been isolated his entire life just because he possessed a power no-one else had; Tailed Beast or kekkei genkai, it made little difference in the end. Sasuke understood now the reason behind all the cold looks and muttered insults Naruto had been subjected to for as long as the two boys had known each other, and perhaps for even longer than that. People were afraid of Naruto – afraid of what he could do to them.
Sasuke didn't know whether he could – or should – call Naruto his friend. No friend of his would be safe as long as Itachi was still alive. What he did know was that the next time someone insulted Naruto, he wouldn't be watching silently from the sidelines.
-XOXO-
The fish was cold and half-burned on one side, but that was the least on Naruto's problems right now. Being unable to access Kurama's chakra, he was feeling vulnerable. An army of hostile ninja could be lurking in the trees around them and he wouldn't know until it'd be too late.
He was also feeling… lonely.
Ever since he could remember, Kurama had been with him. The voice in his head that kept telling him to study his ninjutsu, eat all his food, wash the dishes afterwards… He had often wished that Kurama would go in a year-long sleep just so that he might finally have a moment of peace and quiet. Now that his wish had sort-of come true, he wanted his friend back.
He missed the grumpy old Fox.
Naruto delved into his mindscape and, just like he had done half a dozen times since they'd set up camp, he tried to find his way to Kurama's prison, only to be stopped by some kind of barrier that seemed to be made of solid, opaque air. He exited his mindscape and lightly massaged his forehead; even something as trivial as walking around his mind was making his head hurt. Just what was that flame seal?
'I hope Kakashi-sensei can find a way to remove it.' He didn't like this silence.
Omake: The Demon of the Wave
A loud crash, followed by a number of crude words strung together in a sequence that didn't make a whole lot of sense, made Haku look up from the patch of dirt he was trying to turn into a garden.
"Zabuza-sama," he scolded the man to whom he had dedicated his entire existence, "please don't use such language in front of the children."
The profanities came to an abrupt halt as Zabuza was reminded that they had company that afternoon in the run-down house the people of the Wave had offered them.
Inari and his two friends were staring at Zabuza with their mouths slightly ajar.
"You'd better forget you heard any of that," Zabuza growled at the three children. "I don't need any more trouble with your parents."
The children nodded at him.
"Damn brat…" Zabuza grumbled under his breath as he picked up the ax he had thrown on the ground in his fit of anger. "Talking me into staying here…" He raised the ax over his head and brought it down on a block of wood they were planning to turn into a stool. "I'm a ninja, not a damned carpenter!"
Zabuza placed another block of wood on the on the cutting board and repeated the process, grumbling under his breath all the while.
Inari leaned over the dirt patch where he and the other children were helping Haku with his gardening. "Haku-san," the boy whispered hesitantly, "what's a 'pillow-biter'?"
Haku nearly dropped the trowel he was holding.
"Didn't I just tell you to forget all those words?" Zabuza roared at the boy.
"But it's the only one I've never heard before," Inari said, pouting.
Both Haku and Zabuza gaped at the nine-year-old.
"And here I thought this place would be boring as fuck," Zabuza chuckled.
Author's Notes
I'm really sorry for the delay in updating this story. I kind of wrote myself in a corner with the previous chapter. The Wave arc has been so overdone in fiction that I couldn't find a way to make this one interesting (both to read and to write).
I guess it's my fault. I followed the draft up to the previous chapter, but I failed to consider my little inner rebellion at the thought of rewriting an arc that has been written to death. Don't get me wrong, some people reimagined it pretty well. But I just couldn't write what everyone else has already written.
Frankly, it's embarrassing that it took me so long to think of a different approach to this part of the story. As soon as I started writing the scene, though, the words started flowing so fast. I finished half the chapter in a few days.
Anyway, on to the actual notes:
-X-
Why an omake? I don't know. I was in the mood for writing comedy.
If you didn't get the joke...: People as foul-mouthed as Zabuza can't be all that dull.
-X-
Mission to the Wave: I simply couldn't write it the old-fashioned way. I tried, and all I got was a blank page with a blinking cursor. For weeks. It was extremely frustrating.
I hope you enjoyed the narration through Kakashi's flashbacks.
-X-
Zabuza and Haku: Personally, I like this resolution to their story arc. I also hope I portrayed them accurately: Zabuza, the hardened killer with the soft center he hides from everyone, and Haku, the kind-hearted boy who doesn't really want to kill anyone but will if Zabuza commands him to.
-X-
Zabuza guessing the nature of Naruto's sensory abilities: Zabuza has been around. He's seen all sorts of things. And he didn't stay alive for that long by being dimwitted.
As for him warning Kakashi: He did it out of gratitude to Naruto. He's never going to admit it, but he appreciates the chance at a fresh start he and Haku were given.
-X-
Naruto freezing up in front of Gato's thugs: That's the result of his inability to fully control his sensory abilities. He suddenly found himself faced by forty-odd bloodthirsty thugs who wanted to kill everyone on the bridge and the people in the Wave.
He'll grow out of it, eventually, but for now it's one of his weaknesses.
-x-
No Inari: That's the downside of the narration being from Kakashi's POV.
-X-
Asuma knowing about Kurama: He doesn't know yet, but he assumes that the Fox is the one who's been teaching Naruto all those things the boy had no way of learning on his own.
How did Asuma come to that conclusion: It's been a little understated in canon, since we get so few moments focusing on Team Ten before Asuma's death, but he's implied to be a very clever and observant man. He deduced that Shikamaru wasn't an idiot, but simply too lazy for his own good, and found a way to trick the boy into confirming his suspicions. Furthermore, he was one of the Fire Daimyo's twelve elite bodyguards. That alone hints at Asuma being far more than meets the eye.
As for the laid-back attitude: That much was shown in canon. Team Seven was dysfunctional from the start, and Team Eight was out of focus for a large part of the story, but Team Ten is explicitly shown as not working their butts off in training. They don't rely on brute force to win, but on their brains.
-X-
Tenten being called twin-bun-girl: Sadly, Shikamaru can't really appreciate 'buns' yet – and wouldn't be interested in Tenten's even if he could. So, it's an unfortunate choice of words on his part.
As for me: I know what I wrote. 99% of the time, the words are chosen on purpose. (The 1% is because English isn't my native language. I don't know every colloquialism and I still make mistakes.)
-X-
The 'particularly complex storage seal' Tenten mentions: Yes, that's an Uzumaki seal. Tenten, who uses seals to store and carry her arsenal of weapons, has studied a bit of fuuinjutsu. Not enough to reproduce the Uzumaki seal that managed to survive the Whirlpool's destruction because it had been noted down in one of the Leaf's texts, but enough to recognize the Uzumaki clan's distinctive fuuinjutsu style.
And since Naruto's Eight Trigrams seal is based on a preexisting Uzumaki seal... I'm sure you can connect the dots and see how she recognized it for what it was.
-X-
Naruto revealing Kurama's existence to Sasuke and Sakura so easily: 'Easily' is a relative term, since it took the mission to the Wave country and facing Orochimaru for him to tell them about Kurama, but it's still less time than it took him to tell Kakashi and Hinata about the Fox.
The reason for this is pretty simple: At this point in time, Naruto is on friendly terms with Kakashi, Hinata, Iruka, and the Ichirakus. Not to mention his budding friendship with the members of Teams Eight and Ten. He has people he can rely on. He isn't alone any more. As a result, he doesn't care if Sasuke or Sakura reject him out of fear of the Kyuubi.
-X-
Sasuke and Naruto: There was never a solid depiction of their friendship. Naruto insists throughout canon that the two of them are best friends, but Sasuke admits it only after they've tried to kill each other one time too many.
I hope this chapter sets the base of the friendship and mutual respect between them.
-X-
Sakura's reaction to Kurama: I'm leaving it for next chapter. Let's just say that she needs some time to get over the initial shock.
Thank you for reading! Please review and share your thoughts.
