Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, go figure.
Posted: 1/13/09
Chapter Title: Feels Like The First Time by Foreigner
"Why the hell is everyone acting like we've got the plague?"
Naruto hated the man already. It hadn't taken him more than ten minutes to insult the boy's height, his red-tinted glasses, and worst of all, his super snazzy orange rope belt.
"It's not every day that they get to see a shameless pervert and a stumbling drunk at the same time, I guess." Naruto knew the real reason for the scathing glares, but he was in a foul mood as it was and found himself all too happy to take any opportunity he could find to reciprocate against their newly acquired "client" for his earlier insults. When he had begged the old man for a better mission than babysitting some spoiled brat, he hadn't expected to be stuck with this.
Really, what was the difference?
Kakashi gave him a warning glance as they continued down the street. The jounin had made it perfectly clear that he didn't approve of Naruto's new colorful accessory – though the rest of the boy's attire was better than the alternative, he supposed. Still, the Hokage had given the blonde permission to wear the thing during ninja duties and that was that.
"Maybe they're just violently allergic to annoying midgets? God knows the sight of you makes even me ill, and I have an eight year old grandson."
Naruto grit his teeth. "I so hope you die."
"What would happen, exactly – and I'm talking theoretically here, of course – if our client were to be accidentally stabbed in the face by a poorly thrown kunai during a mission, sensei?"
Kakashi's visible eye found Naruto's frowning face, which was currently trained on the loud drunk walking slowly on the road ahead of him. "Well, we wouldn't be paid for the mission, for starters."
Naruto gave a tight nod, his eyes still locked on the back of the drunk's head. That was fairly obvious.
"We'd have a demerit put in our mission file for failing to complete our assignment."
Another nod. That was also obvious.
"We may be subject to disciplinary action, demotion, or even dismissal from the ninja forces."
Naruto kept walking, but took on a thoughtful expression.
"And our reputation within the village would likely fall, along with the village's prestige as a whole were our mission significant enough."
The blonde snorted at that, then seemed to come to a decision. He ran ahead of the group and down the dirt road nearly thirty feet, finally turning around to face the rest of their small procession. He never gave the small puddle in the road a second glance. "Hey bastard, up for a game of catch?"
Sasuke's brows furrowed in confusion as Naruto withdrew a kunai from within his loose gi and flipped it casually in his hand.
The old man – Tazuna – shuffled a bit closer to Kakashi and away from the dark-haired Uchiha, mumbling all the while about unhinged midget ninja brats.
The jounin could only sigh. "That's enough of that, I think." The main group had just passed the conspicuous puddle without incident – which only meant that the ninja lurking within was smart enough not to waste the element of surprise on a genin.
Naruto had stopped walking to allow the rest of the group to catch up to him, but was still a good twenty feet up the road from his teammates and client – Kakashi taking up the rear of the procession.
At first the blonde thought that his new creepy eyes were making him see things – well, other things – but after only a moment he realized that there were indeed two armored and raggedly-clothed ninja rising out of the ground just behind his oblivious sensei – a wicked-looking, bladed chain strung between their equally wicked-looking clawed gauntlets.
"Behind you, sensei!"
At first it seemed that his warning had come too late, but Naruto found himself silently thanking the Kyuubi for the changes it had wrought in him as he saw the telltale white aura jump to life around his teacher.
The man had managed a replacement before the chain had snagged him.
Had Naruto not seen this, he might have frozen in horror as both Sakura and Tazuna had done. Instead, his mind demanded a quick response to the appearance of the hostile targets. He pulled out a brace of three kunai from within his gi and jumped as high as he could into the air, releasing the projectiles towards the two men as they charged Tazuna down. The kunai whizzed over the heads of his teammates and towards the attacking ninja, who dodged easily by jumping apart – their sinister chain swinging like some sick jump rope of death between them.
Naruto landed and ran towards his team as quickly as possible in case they needed more help before Kakashi decided to put in an appearance, but found that his assistance wasn't required.
Sasuke had managed to pin the enemy ninja's long chain to a tree, which held them up until they thought to abandon it. In that time, Sakura had regained her senses – sort of –and jumped in front of Tazuna to act as a poor man's meat shield.
Luckily, their wayward jounin jumped into action before her claw-stopping effectiveness was put to the test and caught both hostile men in headlocks – which actually caused Naruto to wince, given that the one heading towards Sasuke was dragged a good fifteen feet by his neck to where his partner was caught while trying to eviscerate their team's kunoichi.
And that was it, really.
The whole exchange had lasted about seven seconds.
Naruto found himself a bit stunned by this revelation. Had he actually been in the thick of the combat, he may have experienced things differently. As removed as he was, however, it all seemed so fast.
Those ninja had been defeated so simply – in the blink of an eye, really.
He would later learn that they were notable chuunin missing ninja from Kiri.
To the famous Hatake Kakashi though, they were nobodies.
"You appear to be Sharingan Kakashi. Sorry, but the old man is mine."
"Surround and protect Tazuna. Don't enter the fight. That's the teamwork here."
They were in Wave Country now, facing down another rogue Kiri ninja. Naruto would say that it was exhilarating if it didn't mean he had a damn good chance of dying.
Then again, where was the fun without a little risk?
He watched closely as Kakashi grabbed his forehead protector and slid it up to rest properly across his brow. Naruto gave an internal cheer to find an even creepier eye than his resting there – a red eye, with what looked like three oddly-shaped black marks spaced evenly around a normal pupil in its center.
Now that looked a bit more like an infection.
"So, what's a Sharingan?"
"Sharingan…" Sasuke seemed to have lost his normally aloof and stoic demeanor as shock and confusion took hold. "It is said that some have the ability in their eyes to read and defeat all types of gen, tai, and ninjutsu. The Sharingan is one of the types of pupil that gives you this power."
Now he had Naruto's attention. Though he certainly wasn't able to defeat all types of ninja abilities – as he was reminded daily in his taijutsu spars against Kakashi – it did give a bit of an explanation as to why his eyes had gone all funny one night, causing him to see all sorts of shapes and colors whenever a ninjutsu went off nearby.
Apparently this Sharingan had the ability to copy a ninjutsu just by seeing it once. It reminded Naruto of what he'd done when learning the Grand Fireball. But he hadn't really copied it.
Hell no.
He'd learned it… just really, really fast. After all, he did have to pay close attention to everything, right?
Sasuke was still eyeing Kakashi mistrustfully, though Naruto had no idea why. Their sensei was apparently a major bad ass according to this missing nin, but the revelation shouldn't really have elicited that sort of response from the Uchiha.
He'd have to ask about it later – if he survived this, that is.
The missing nin – Momochi Zabuza – had jumped onto the lake beside the road that their party had been following and took an odd stance – his right hand forming half a seal in front of him and his left pointing strait into the air above him – index and middle fingers extended towards the heavens.
Naruto watched carefully for what he knew would happen next, and sure enough Zabuza's body was engulfed in a layer of deep blue that seemed to flow slowly around his form. Water.
Mist rose from the lake and the area was blanketed in a vapor too thick for their eyes to penetrate.
Kakashi offered reassuring words.
Zabuza offered to kill them eight different ways.
Naruto thought he may have seen a few flashes of deep blue from within the fog, but couldn't be sure. He was more concerned with the massive killing intent being leveled on him by the master assassin from the Mist village. It was more intense than anything he'd ever felt before, but he could bare it.
After all, he had experience with this sort of thing. His two teammates, however, were shaking in their sandals. Feeling Sasuke withering beside him gave him a grim sense of pleasure that he had to forcefully push aside. Now wasn't the time to be gloating.
And then the man was among them.
Naruto didn't have time to properly process all that went on. Kakashi and Zabuza seemed to be in a race to see who could slaughter the most water clones in the least amount of time – clones that Naruto had no idea had even been made until they were ripped apart by flashing kunai and the enormous blade wielded by the Kiri ninja.
He was truly helpless, and it made him sick. It was something he meant to correct as soon as possible.
But now Kakashi was caught in a jutsu Naruto had barely noticed the bandaged assassin perform, and another of the shirtless man's water clones had risen from the lake to finish them off.
"Run away! This fight was over the moment I was caught. Take Tazuna and leave. His clones can't maintain themselves far from the original."
"And how will you get away, sensei?" Naruto didn't like the idea of them striking off on their own with the old drunk in tow. He didn't want Kakashi to die here, and he needed assurances that that wouldn't be the jounin's fate if they left him. He also didn't like the idea of being on the run from this sociopath with just his genin teammates to lean on.
"I'll think of something. Just go!"
Naruto didn't even realize that he had been attacked until he found himself lying on his back, ten feet from where he'd been standing. His chest ached in pain from the man's kick. Thankfully, even the rogue ninja wasn't willing to hit a man wearing glasses in the face.
"Dammit, that hurt." Naruto rolled over and slowly stood as he assessed the damage. It actually wasn't that bad. He spared a glance to his two teammates to find Sakura shaking like a leaf, while Sasuke threw worried glances between Kakashi, the water clone, and Naruto in indecision.
It was up to him, then.
"You little brats think that you're ninja? Once you make your way into my Bingo Book, then you can have the title. Until then, you're just pretenders."
Naruto frowned deeply at the assassin's words. A pretender? He really was a pretender, wasn't he? Up until a month ago he'd been shaving his life away trying to please everyone around him. He hardly knew himself anymore, and was just now beginning to find that person once again.
Or maybe he'd never known him.
Well fuck Momochi Zabuza and fuck every other person who wanted him to be something other than what he was. He wasn't going to pretend anymore.
Naruto narrowed his eyes at the tall water clone as determination settled over him. "You can thank me later, Sasuke."
The clone's eyes widened as the boy flashed through a short series of hand seals before exhaling deeply. It didn't even have time to comprehend its destruction before flame engulfed it and it disappeared in a burst of hot steam.
The two immobile jounin watched on in mounting horror as the enormous fireball continued to race towards them – flames licking up angry spray from the lake's surface as it came.
"What the…"
"Fuck."
"Oh, you're awake, sensei."
Kakashi groaned and tried to sit up, but found himself too weak to move. "Naruto? Where are we?"
The blonde sat on the floor next to Kakashi, who was laid out on a soft futon. "After you passed out, we dragged your heavy ass to the old drunk's place. You've been unconscious for a few hours."
The jounin groaned again. "I should beat the tar out of you for that stunt you pulled. Never, never do that again."
"Hey, it worked, didn't it? At least you had a nice water shield, right?"
Kakashi sighed. "He dropped his water prison right before your jutsu hit us. I only had an instant to get under the water."
"What, I can't have a little faith in my teacher? It's not like I had much choice, either." Naruto's face split into a mischievous grin. "But did you see the look on his face?" He put a hand to his chin in thought. "Actually, both of you looked damn funny when you got out of the water."
"Right." That was enough of that. On to more important issues. "Where are Sasuke and Sakura?"
"I think Sakura is downstairs with Tsunami. The bastard went somewhere to brood, most likely."
Kakashi's visible eye found Naruto's. "Could you go get them please? There's something we need to discuss."
Naruto nodded. "Yeah, but could I ask you a question about your eye thingy?"
The man lifted an eyebrow at that. "My Sharingan?"
"Yeah, that. How'd you get it?"
Naruto was excited to finally get some answers. If his eyes were anything like this Sharingan, then maybe Kakashi could teach him how to use them. Or why he got them, exactly. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure that Kyuubi had been involved at all – the old man had only assumed as such. If this was something unrelated, then Naruto wanted to know about it, and quickly.
Kakashi grew silent and stared up at the ceiling quietly, his unfocused eyes recalling painful memories. Just as Naruto began to grow impatient, he spoke. "I lost my left eye in the Third Great War. The Sharingan I have was transplanted into me as a replacement."
"But who's Sharingan was it? How did they get it?"
The older man blinked as he was torn from his reminiscing. "It's a bloodline limit of the Uchiha clan. It manifests itself in certain members when they unlock its powers."
"So your eye belonged to an Uchiha?" Naruto blinked as realization hit him. "Does that mean that Sasuke is going to get the Sharingan?"
"Well, not every Uchiha develops the Sharingan, but I'd say there's a decent chance of it."
That answered the first question. These special eyes were apparently inherited through blood.
"Are there any other special eyes besides the Sharingan?" Naruto was incredibly hopeful. If he had a bloodline limit, then he would have an advantage over almost every other ninja he would come across.
Then another realization hit him.
If an eye technique like his was inherited, did that mean there was a whole clan somewhere with the same ability? Could he have a family eagerly awaiting his return? Naruto had never given his origins much thought, but couldn't help but envy his peers for the care and support their families gave them. He could definitely see himself having something like that.
"Well, there's the Byakugan of the Hyuuga clan. I'm sure you've seen them around Konoha before."
Come to think of it, hadn't Teuchi told him that the Hyuuga clan had those eerie white eyes? "Any more?"
Kakashi shook his head. "No. Those are the only two you'll find in the ninja world – as far as I know."
Naruto nodded slowly. What did that mean? That he didn't have an eye technique? Then how could he explain their change in appearance or the ability to see something – chakra, he supposed, since it happened right before someone used a ninjutsu – that no one else could?
"Um, so how do you use your Sharingan? What does it do, exactly?"
The older jounin turned his head to look at Naruto closely. This conversation was slowly but surely leading to topics that quite frankly worried the man. "Why the sudden interest, Naruto?" Ninja had been attempting to learn the secrets of – or outright steal, in some cases – the doujutsu of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans for as long as they'd possessed them. Though it seemed incredibly unlikely, Kakashi couldn't help but wonder if the village pariah was thinking along similar lines. If the boy had a doujutsu of his own then that would be one thing, but Kakashi had known Naruto's parents and – as far as he was aware – neither had had a drop of Uchiha or Hyuuga blood in their veins.
It was troubling.
Naruto considered taking off his glasses and showing the man exactly what he was dealing with, but Kakashi had just outright told him that there were no doujutsu like his in the world. He'd only known the man for a little over a month, and though the jounin seemed to be an alright guy – though aloof – the blonde wasn't yet comfortable enough to divulge something so personal to him yet. Maybe the old man, but not Kakashi.
What would happen if the man thought that the Kyuubi was doing something to him? He couldn't risk it. He knew he'd been pushing his luck around his sensei, and didn't want to do anything to set him off.
After all, if Naruto were in Kakashi's place, he'd probably kill his charge before letting the demon escape to run free once again.
And wasn't that a pleasant thought?
"I was just curious, sensei. I've never seen something as cool as that before. Are their other, uh, bloodline limits besides the Sharingan and the… the other one?"
Kakashi seemed satisfied with that response for now. "Those are the only two in Konoha these days, but there are certainly others throughout the ninja world."
The jounin seemed keen on ending the conversation there, but Naruto still hadn't gotten an answer about how the Sharingan worked. He'd give it just one more try. "So your Sharingan, is it on all the time?"
Kakashi appraised him for moment before answering. Maybe he could nip any unsavory thoughts of organ trafficking in the bud. "Mine is, though it really shouldn't be. Since I have no Uchiha blood in me, my Sharingan doesn't work quite right. A true-blooded Uchiha can turn his bloodline limit off and on at will just by channeling chakra to his eyes, but I have to keep it covered or it will constantly leech my chakra. It's very inefficient in a non-Uchiha, and it's the reason why I collapsed after fighting Zabuza. If I use the Sharingan's power too long, it exhausts my chakra reserves. Sometimes I think it's more of a hindrance than a help, really."
Naruto nodded slowly. That had been enlightening. Apparently a bloodline limit like the Sharingan worked by channeling chakra to the eyes to activate it. But he wasn't channeling chakra to his eyes, was he? He still saw things though, right? On top of that, his eyes were always strange looking, just like Kakashi's Sharingan eye. Did that mean his eyes were always active?
There was only one real way to find out. Naruto concentrated on his chakra flow. He couldn't make a seal in front of Kakashi in order to help the process along without the man getting suspicious, but maybe he could do it without that assistance. He closed his eyes in concentration behind his tinted lenses and pushed his chakra to the mercury orbs.
It was a strange sensation at first – feeling chakra run so strongly through his eyes – but after a moment he thought it might have worked. And sure enough, when he opened his eyes he found that Kakashi – and the whole world for that matter – did look differently. Instead of the normal sight of his sensei, Naruto found that the man's entire body had taken on a pale white glow – not unlike the bright aura that he exuded before using a jutsu, but much less intense. On top of that, all of the ambient light in the room had gone dark – as though the only thing that provided light was the strange glow emanating from his sensei. He was seeing the world in black and… colors, he supposed.
Naruto felt exhilaration rush through him. He did have a special eye technique. He must have. Looking down at himself, he found the golden yellow light of his own aura dancing through his body. Once again, it was much less bright than he remembered seeing when experimenting with his clones, but the color was the same.
He supposed that this proved that each person had a unique aura – or something like that.
"…get Sasuke and Sakura up here. We still have an important discussion ahead of us."
Naruto was shaken out of his musings at the sound of Kakashi's voice. He allowed the chakra flowing to his eyes to die down and found that his vision returned to normal. He actually could control the usage of his eyes, it seemed. "Right, let me go grab them, sensei."
The blonde jumped to his feet and rushed out of the room. Instead of racing downstairs to find his absent teammates though, he took an early turn into an upstairs bedroom and threw the door shut behind him, taking time to lock it securely. He wanted to see what his new eyes looked like.
Quickly he created a clone, which stared him in the face intently. He then focused once more, sending his chakra flowing up to his eyes. The clone nodded in approval and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Naruto blinked as he received the clone's observations. His eyes hadn't spun or changed color. They hadn't bulged out or altered their design. Instead, the small pupil that rested at the center of his mercury pools had simply expanded to fill in the smallest ring in each eye with inky blackness.
At least it was something.
"Chakra is a combination of body energy – which is produced by every cell in the human body – and spiritual energy – which we gain through knowledge and experience."
"Very good, Sakura. So what I want the three of you to do is mold chakra to your feet and use it to stick to the trunk of the tree as you run up. Not only is this a useful skill for a ninja to possess, but it's also excellent chakra control and stamina conditioning." Kakashi hung impossibly from the bottom of a thick tree branch twenty feet above the genin's heads, supported only by the soles of his sandals.
Well, not really.
Naruto could see the white aura that his teacher possessed soaking into the wood of the branch and keeping him secured to it. He found that being able to see the aura at work sure as hell beat shitty lectures. The blonde still paid close attention to Sakura's regurgitation of the academy lesson though. He wanted to make sure he knew what he was seeing, after all.
The obvious answer would have been plain old chakra, but Naruto wasn't so sure about that. Chakra didn't really explain the different intents he saw when a ninjutsu was used. He'd managed to bug Kakashi a little more about the Sharingan – on the pretense that as members of the same team they should be aware of one another's capabilities, hypocritical as that was – and found that the Sharingan could indeed see chakra in a ninja's body – but only in a general way. He could measure chakra reserves with it and tell when his opponent was nearly spent, but that was about it. When Naruto pressed on about how it copied, Kakashi told him that it could mimic hand seals and the molding of chakra quite easily, but could never truly predict or explain just what jutsu it might be aping.
That's where the ninja's own smarts and experience came in.
To Naruto, it seemed that his eyes did something fundamentally different than Kakashi's Sharingan did. It was like he could see the intention of the technique, but not the actual application.
But if he wasn't seeing the chakra outright, then what was he seeing?
His curiosity had forced him to pay attention to Sakura's lecture today, and as a result, he thought that he might have actually stumbled upon the answer.
Spiritual energy.
It was the energy created by the mind to form and guide the chakra into whatever technique was to be used. It would certainly explain why he could tell what each technique he saw was trying to accomplish and how it was focused.
It also explained why the auras of the people around him were so dim when they weren't actually using ninjutsu. Though all humans produced chakra naturally to sustain their bodies, this was done subconsciously and therefore didn't contain much of a mental element to it. Ninja produced much more chakra than untrained civilians, so their spiritual auras were visible even when they were not using their chakra intentionally. When Naruto turned his gaze on Tazuna, Tsunami, or the little mouse the drunk had called his grandson, however, he could barely make out any aura at all.
It seemed like the best explanation. For now at least.
It also seemed that – despite Kakashi's words on the matter – Naruto did indeed have an eye technique – one that was possibly unknown in the ninja world.
That was sort of cool.
"Use these kunai to mark how far you get up the tree on each attempt. I don't expect you to get this right away, so you might want to use a running start to give you a little boost at the beginning." Kakashi watched impassively as his three students removed the sharp implements from the soft ground before them and spread out to pick their trees. He was interested to see how well each of them would do with this assignment.
Naruto moved over to his own tree, but paused before starting. He'd been having some success lately by watching others, so why not see how his teammates were faring before he made a fool out of himself?
Sasuke was the first to attempt it. Naruto looked on – his eyes powered up and watching intently – as the Uchiha dashed towards the tree and up its side. He made it about five paces up before Naruto saw a surge of his energy saturate the bark.
The bark blew away from the tree where the dark haired boy had stepped and – after a well-executed flip – Sasuke landed gracefully on the forest floor.
It occurred to Naruto that perhaps pumping so much energy into the wood had a detrimental effect. After all, the poor tree could probably only take so much foreign chakra being stuffed into it before something had to give.
Sakura was next to go. She formed a hand seal and forced her energy to her feet as Naruto watched on. Her aura was a pleasant teal – the same color as her eyes, now that he thought about it. Unlike Sasuke, Sakura made it all the way up to the lowest-hanging branch of the tree, where she stopped and sat – her legs dangling over the side – to smile down at them.
"How was that, sensei?" She was rewarded by Kakashi's happy eye angled up at her.
"Nice job, Sakura! You seem like a natural!" Naruto was honestly impressed. He wondered how she had gotten such good chakra control, considering that he rarely recalled seeing her train and didn't think that studying from a book counted as a control exercise.
She gave him a small smile before turning to Sasuke, who was staring at his tree with a quiet intensity. "What did you think, Sasuke? I did well, right?"
The boy didn't even spare her a glance, though he did grunt – or something of that nature.
"Well, were you going to give it a try, Naruto, or just stand around all morning?"
Naruto turned to see Kakashi staring at him expectantly. "I just wanted to see what it was supposed to look like before I busted my ass falling out of a tree. Give me a second."
The blonde was pretty sure as to what needed to happen here. Like Sakura and Kakashi, he needed to infuse the wood with a small bit of his chakra in order to make him stick. Use too much, and the wood would break apart as it had with Sasuke. Use too little, and he wouldn't stick at all. That part was fairly obvious.
He walked up to his tree and placed his right foot on the bark's surface, perpendicular to the ground.
"You might want to take a running start, Naruto."
The blond shook his head. "I want to see if I can at least stick to it first." Concentrating on his feet and the idea of "stickiness," Naruto sent his chakra into the tree until it seemed he had found the right amount from his observations of Sakura and Kakashi. Carefully, he tried to pull his foot away from the bark without lessening the chakra flow, only to find that it was firmly stuck.
Naruto grinned.
He slowly lifted his left foot from the ground and placed it on the tree above his right foot, making sure to focus chakra to both feet in order to maintain the adhesion. Then he lessened the chakra to his right foot and felt it come loose. Again, he put his free foot further up the tree and repeated the process.
It was slow going, but after about two minutes of constantly increasing his speed he'd managed to reach the same level as Sakura. He carefully spun on his heel – still sticking to the bark – and found himself facing down to the forest below him where Kakashi and Sasuke were staring up at him in shock.
Sasuke looked away immediately, his gaze focused once again on his own tree. A moment later and he had rushed at it again, this time making it six steps up. Naruto watched him frown and continue on, desperate to reach his two teammates.
Kakashi had an intense look in his eye as he appraised the blonde. "That was quite unexpected, Naruto. Well done."
Naruto scowled. "And why the hell wouldn't I be able to do this when Sakura could, huh?"
"Well, you have a good deal more chakra than Sakura does, so normally it should be harder for you to control it. Sakura has a relatively small reserve at the moment, so she'll naturally be working on her stamina instead of control."
"Oh." Maybe he had gotten upset over nothing, but it really pissed him off when people thought so little of him, no matter how deserving he was of his reputation.
Kakashi seemed to become lost in his thoughts for a moment, before finally speaking again. "I wasn't really expecting even one of you to get this so quickly, but here's what we'll do. Sakura, I want you to protect Tazuna at the bridge for the next few days. While you're there I'd like you to continue this exercise in order to increase your reserves a bit."
Sakura nodded, happy to earn some praise from her teacher – a man who so far hadn't been overly wowed by her textbook knowledge.
"Sasuke, you can stay here and work on completing this exercise. Remember to keep marking your progress with the kunai I gave you, and turn in before you burn out your chakra. We don't need you passing out in the forest here or hurting yourself."
The Uchiha barely gave a nod of assent as he continued to mercilessly pound up the tree.
"Naruto, I want you to come with me for a bit. We can work on your taijutsu or your clone tactics."
"Oh! Can we do the Body Flicker? I can do the wall walking thing now, right?"
Kakashi actually seemed to consider it. "Why don't we decide what to do when we find a new training ground? Alright kids, I'll see you at Tazuna's home for dinner tonight. Come on, Naruto."
Neither the jinchuuriki nor the jounin noticed the scowl that pulled at Sasuke's face as they left.
Kakashi had made Naruto run up and down a tree at full speed for nearly ten minutes to make sure that he really did have the skill mastered. It was rather unbelievable that a boy with so much chakra could have brought it under control so quickly, but the results were telling.
Perhaps some of the genius in Naruto's blood was beginning to show through? As a matter of fact – with that thought at the forefront of his mind – the jounin didn't really have any business doubting the small boy's abilities or potential.
"I know that you want to learn some new techniques, Naruto, but your taijutsu really sucks. It's not much good to be able to make a dozen clones if none of them are any good in a fight?"
Naruto was about to argue, but the jounin raised a hand to cut him off.
"I know that it isn't your fault. You probably didn't receive much attention-" Naruto snorted "-or proper instruction in the academy, so we have that to rectify. I also want you to put what you've learned today to use to help you increase your speed and power by flowing chakra through your body appropriately while fighting. This is the fundamental skill of high level taijutsu."
The blonde nodded. "Are we going to be able to work on the Body Flicker though? I know that I need to learn water walking first, but there's plenty of water here, right? Oh! And that earth jutsu you used against Sasuke back during the bell test! You told me you'd show it to me sometime. Well, how about now?"
Kakashi sighed. At least his student was eager to learn. Asuma had gone on and on about how difficult it was to motivate his team at times, what with both the Nara and Akimichi boy on it. "I really don't think you'll have much success with it Naruto, and before you even begin to learn that jutsu you'll have to master the Subterranean Voyage technique just to move underground. I know how exciting learning new techniques can be, believe me, but you'll benefit more by focusing on your weaknesses right now than using energy trying to expand your repertoire. You were lucky at the lake that Zabuza didn't expect that jutsu from you, otherwise he'd never have given you the time to use it."
He had a point. Naruto hadn't been able to do anything when the water clone had first attacked him. But still… "Could you tell one of my clones about the earth jutsu while I train? I'll remember it then, right?"
The older man gave up. "Alright. I'll explain it to you, but I can't show you in my current condition. I suppose you can work on it a bit with your clones while you spar with them. On that note, you can probably do the same with learning the water walking technique. You already have the basics from wall walking, so you should be able to figure it out – though it is a bit more difficult." He stopped his musings and focused intently on Naruto. "Listen, Naruto. I won't be able to sit around with you to help all week. I need to recover as quickly as possible, so it will mostly be up to you to improve. I want you to work hard, because Zabuza isn't going to give us a second chance to screw up the next time we see him. I don't think he was too happy about that Grand Fireball, either."
Naruto nodded eagerly. "I understand, sensei. I won't let you down."
"Good. Now make a few clones and send one over to see me about the Subterranean Voyage jutsu. After I finish with that, I'm going to give some pointers to Sasuke and take a nap. I'll see you at dinner tonight."
The boy formed a cross seal in front of him, and a moment later twenty-five Naruto's stood in the wooded clearing.
Kakashi placed his palm to his forehead and gave a long-suffering sigh. "And Naruto, please don't push yourself too hard. I don't need you collapsing, either."
"You don't have to worry about me, sensei."
The jounin turned and began to limp away to one side of the clearing on his crutches before he was stopped by Naruto's call. "Do you think my clones could figure out the water walking thing on their own? I'll learn whatever they find out, right?"
Kakashi blinked. "I suppose they could, yes. But if they make any progress, make sure that you can actually do it on your own, as well. You wouldn't want to learn that you were mistaken about your skills in the middle of a fight."
"Sure thing, sensei."
The injured man shook his head in amusement. He didn't know if any of Naruto's current schemes would pan out for him – in fact he thought that they probably wouldn't – but this was the same boy who had stolen the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing and learned the restricted Mass Shadow Clone jutsu in only a few hours.
Truly, he was intrigued to see how far this boy would go.
Now he just had to go make sure that Sasuke was making some progress and dealing with his apparent lack of success. Luckily he knew just how to deal with his type. The boy was frighteningly similar to himself, after all.
"You do realize that we're only here because your drunk-off-his-ass grandpa paid us to be, right?"
"Naruto! Leave him alone."
The blonde turned to his pink-haired teammate with an eyebrow raised. "What? I just don't think it makes much sense for a kid to be trying to talk the only four people standing between his family and a psychotic butcher into running out of town. Do you want to die, kid?"
When the old drunk had told Naruto he had an eight-year-old grandson, the boy had expected someone akin to Konohamaru running around driving him nuts. This kid was possibly the most depressing person that Naruto had ever met, and he didn't want any part of the boy's pessimism or his sob story. Sure, the boy had had a rough life since Gatou showed up, but it was nothing compared to the nearly thirteen years of misery, solitude, and hatred that Naruto had lived through.
At least this brat had a mother and grandfather who cared about him – loved him even. Naruto had just managed to pass that number of individuals who gave even two shits about his life.
You didn't see him bitching and moaning to every person he saw.
"You can't beat Gatou. You'll only die."
"What a nice thing to say right in front of your grandfather, kid. You realize that he's trying to fight Gatou too, right? That's the whole point of his bridge. He's working out there every day trying to help the people of this country, and has to come home to this? I have no idea why he even keeps it up."
The small boy – Inari – stared at Naruto, then at his grandpa, then at his mother. Then he fled up the stairs. The adults at the table looked uncomfortable, Sakura looked angry, and Sasuke, as usual, was indifferent to everything not involving himself or his "ambition." Naruto wondered if he had even paid attention to the exchange.
"Naruto!"
"I don't want to hear it, Sakura. I don't have to sit here and listen to that boy tell me that I'm destined for failure. Sorry, it's just not in the job description, and unlike back home, I don't have to sit here and take it." He got up and left. Maybe the cool evening breeze and pearly moonlight would calm him a bit. Thankfully he could still see through the darkness, given that his glasses were only meant to dim the glare of the daytime sun and not block out the light.
He sat on the roof of Tazuna's home, watching the moon reflect off of the surf and listening to the gentle lapping of the waves against the wooden pylons that held the structure above the murky water. It was so different from Konoha – all that water stretching out ahead of him, reaching out to places unknown.
He liked it.
Despite all of the danger and anxiety this mission had brought, Naruto couldn't help but enjoy his time away from the village. There were no disapproving stares or rude gestures. No mothers herding their children away from the "demon brat" or shopkeepers trying to scalp him.
He could be a different person here. Not the one they thought he was, but the one he wanted to be.
The sound of light footsteps reeled back his wandering thoughts.
"You didn't have to do that, Naruto."
He was surprised to find his pink haired teammate standing next to him. He didn't respond right away, and was even more taken aback when she sat next to him on the roof, overlooking the surf below.
"You didn't need to say those things."
He turned back to look out over the glistening water. "No, I didn't. But I wanted to. That brat… he doesn't have any respect for what his grandfather's trying to do. Every day he spits in the face of the man who loves him the most with thoughts like that."
"He's only a kid."
"So what? We're only kids too. I still know better."
Sakura didn't respond for a time. They must have sat there for a good ten minutes, just taking in the calming sounds of the waves below them, when she again broke the silence. "What happened to you, Naruto? You used to be so…"
The blonde practically snarled. "So what? So stupid? So annoying? So useless? I'm tired of people looking at me like I'm something ugly that got on their shoe!"
"So happy."
Naruto stiffened. He hadn't been expecting that. Had he really been happy? "No."
Sakura turned to him in confusion. "No?"
"I wasn't happy."
"But…"
"I pretended to be, but I wasn't. I thought that if maybe I could be more cheerful – more pleasant to be around – that people would like me more. It sort of backfired though, I guess."
"You mean that all that was a lie? You acted like a moron just so that people would like you?"
Naruto shook his head. "Not at first. When I was little it was actually fun. Acting like a fool was an easy way to get out of the things I didn't want to do. It helped me cover up all of my failings. Pretty soon, no one had any real expectations of me aside from being a nuisance, I guess. It was better than the alternative though." If he'd actually succeeded, then maybe things would have been even worse. No one had wanted him to succeed, after all.
"Then why are you acting like this now, all of a sudden?"
He shrugged. "I just stopped caring what everyone thought of me. My life hasn't been great so far, despite all my trying, so I think I'll just do whatever I feel like from now on. Even after all that work, I never even earned a single real friend. Now I have Ino, I guess, but I only see her a few times a week what with missions and all, and that's if I'm lucky. My life's a real mess."
Sakura sat and took it all in. She was shocked, to be sure. How could the loud, annoying idiot that had followed her around like a lost puppy have been so unhappy? Did she really know anything about her teammate at all? Did she know anything about either of them for that matter? "So all that chasing me around and asking me on dates? That was all a lie?"
Naruto gave her a small smile. "Not all of it was fake. I mostly chose you because you were the smartest girl in our class, plenty popular, and even a bit cute, I suppose. I figured that I could get myself a bit of attention if I hung around you – even if it was only the bad kind."
Sakura gave a faint blush at his compliments, though it was barely visible in the moonlight. "That's nice of you to say, but I don't really think of myself as anyone special. Book smarts were about the only thing I could really stand out in at the academy since there were so many kids from ninja clans in our class. It's not as if someone from a civilian family like me could get top marks in weapons or taijutsu. When those two missing ninja attacked, I didn't know what to do. I froze up. I mean, did you see Sasuke? He was amazing!"
Naruto rolled his eyes, though Sakura couldn't see it.
"And even you were quick enough to throw some kunai to slow them down."
"That was instinct, more than anything. If I had been as close as you were, I might have frozen up as well."
Sakura nodded. "But then when we fought Zabuza, you saved sensei with Sasuke's fire technique. It was pretty amazing, actually." The pink haired girl's eyes went out of focus, as if she were looking at something that Naruto couldn't see. "I thought we were done for."
Naruto gave a light chuckle. "Yeah, I'll bet everyone's happy that Sasuke taught me that jutsu now. See? That's why we should be helping each other out, but the bastard still won't talk to me other than to throw insults. It's like he doesn't want our help. I just don't understand him."
Sakura's mouth drew itself into a thin line at Naruto's mention of Sasuke. "I wish you wouldn't call him that. He's just…"
"He's an elitist prick, Sakura. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. Did you see the look on his face the other day when you made it up the tree before him?"
Sakura gave Naruto a look that bled anticipation and hope. "He resented you for it, Sakura. He doesn't want to be shown up by anyone, even his teammates. Maybe he's just so used to being the best that he can't stand the idea of someone coming close to him."
"Sasuke is complicated, Naruto. I wouldn't expect you to understand. And he's just so cool."
"You mean cold, Sakura. You heard him – the guy doesn't like a single thing except planning murder. I just don't think you really know a thing about him. You and everyone else might get off on his looks and whatnot, but you don't really know him as a person, and I don't think you'd want to."
The pink haired girl gave Naruto a scathing look. "And you do know him? Who are you to talk?"
The boy shook his head. "No, I don't know him. And frankly, I don't think I want to. If I have to waste half the time and energy I wasted trying to get your attention, or you've wasted trying to get his, then his friendship isn't worth it."
Sakura sighed. "I just wish we all could get along better. We must have the worst teamwork of any squad in Konoha."
She had a point. "Look, I'll do my best to get along, but if he wants to work with me he's going to have to put some effort into it too." He paused for a moment and listened to the waves break below them before continuing quietly. "Maybe we should all just start over."
"Maybe you're right."
Kakashi had said to leave the faux hunter nin to Sasuke, so Naruto had. Looking on, he couldn't help but be impressed at Sasuke's skill. The Uchiha had only finished mastering the tree climbing exercise the previous afternoon, and already he could use the skills he'd learned to fight at incredible speed and power – an ability that it had taken Naruto nearly the entire week to get used to.
No wonder they called Sasuke a genius.
"Watch out!" Sakura was clutching a kunai close to her chest as she worriedly watched Sasuke and the other ninja fly across the concrete construction at the edge of Zabuza's mist cloud.
The first memorable event of the encounter occurred when Naruto witnessed the small hunter ninja use one hand to form seals and summon a jutsu unlike any other that Naruto had yet seen.
Naruto could hardly believe his eyes – which he now kept active at almost all times when a ninjutsu might be used nearby – when the small Kiri ninja's arctic blue aura took on the flowing aspect of water and a quickly swirling, shifting aspect that he could only assume was wind.
It had never occurred to Naruto that using two elements at once was even possible.
Sasuke managed to jump out of the way of the rain of ice needles at incredible speed – which Naruto somewhat sourly realized was an unrefined version of the Body Flicker jutsu he had been toiling over for the last few days. The Uchiha had just come up with that trick on the fly, too.
But Naruto learned something new. Apparently when two elements were mixed, they formed a new element instead of manifesting individually. He'd never heard of that before.
The mist was slowly spreading, which worried Naruto even more. He couldn't see shit in this mess, and would soon lose track of Sasuke as well as Kakashi. Sakura was glancing around nervously next to him, while Tazuna did the same from behind the two young ninja.
The mist, Naruto found, was inundated with Zabuza's murky blue energy, which only succeeded in blocking the blonde's eyesight even further.
The hunter nin finally tired of being thwarted by Sasuke at every turn, so he flashed through yet another set of seals that Naruto couldn't make out from his distance. Again, the flows and gusts of water and wind whipped around the small figure before tall, thin sheets of ice rose from the wet surface of the bridge to form a dome around Sasuke.
Now that couldn't be good.
And now the mist was beginning to cover even Sakura and Naruto's position at the side of the enormous bridge.
He was tired of sitting still, and unlike Sakura – who was tasked with protecting Tazuna – and Sasuke – who's job it was to defeat the hunter ninja – Naruto wasn't under any explicit orders.
So he decided to go find Sasuke.
"Stay here and take care of the drunk, Sakura. I'll go give Sasuke a hand." He could tell by her face that she was torn between being left alone to guard their client and letting Naruto go check on her crush. He was right though, and she knew it as well as he.
Sasuke needed some help.
"Be careful."
Naruto gave a warm smile that lifted her spirits even through the oppressive mist and dire circumstances. "No worries. I'm sure Sasuke has that guy on the ropes by now."
Then he was gone.
Sasuke was having problems.
The ice-wielding ninja had trapped him within a massive prison of frozen mirrors, and did not seem keen on letting him leave. To top it all off, the hunter nin was able to use his mirrors to move at incredibly speed across the space, peppering the Uchiha with stinging senbon needles at every opportunity.
It was a bit humiliating.
His Grand Fireball technique had had no effect on the ice mirrors, and Sasuke had to berate himself when a small part of his mind wondered if Naruto's would have fared any better.
No. Definitely not.
He was in trouble, but he was surviving. He was starting to see the missing ninja's attack patterns and movements. The boy must have been running low on chakra if he was slowing down like that.
It was a waiting game, then.
The scrapes and cuts hurt, but he could still function after pulling the needles out as gently and swiftly as possible. Being stabbed so many times was beginning to make him light-headed, but he fought that feeling down – he was an Uchiha elite for God's sake, what were a few senbon to him?
He could see the attacks clearly by now, which meant that his opponent was in some serious trouble. But he was also tiring. He couldn't take much more of this, and though he could see the attacks coming now, he couldn't always dodge them completely.
He was able to defend his vital points, however, and that was what mattered.
Sasuke was seeking a new strategy – a way to draw the hunter nin to him so that he could finish him off – when he found himself faced with yet another problem.
That being that the ground had just fallen out from underneath him.
"You look like a bloody pincushion, Sasuke. What did you let him do to you?"
"What the hell, moron! I had him right where I wanted him."
"Sure, sure. You look like you're about ready to pass out. Now come on."
Naruto dragged Sasuke down the tunnel he had made in the concrete bridge. It had been difficult, but he had managed the Subterranean Voyage technique two days ago. The trick had been in figuring out that he had to will the earth to change density before he tried to move it aside with his chakra. It was more difficult in the solid concrete of the bridge – especially since he had to bend and move the rebar supports as well – but he had managed it.
"So do you have an actual plan, or are you just doing something stupid again?"
"Stupid? Are you saying that you wanted to stay in that little funhouse of horrors? Because I can put you right back, you know." Naruto climbed out of his original hole just within sight of the edge of the dome – a distance of about ten feet through the thick fog.
Sasuke emerged right behind him, and pulled a few senbon from his forearms. Better they hit there than in his neck or chest. "I can't see anything out here."
Naruto nodded as he looked around. "You ain't kidding. This is a mess." He turned to look at Sasuke, but froze when he took in his face. "Hey, you've got some Sharingan going there, bastard."
The Uchiha blinked. "Really?" Upon seeing Naruto nod, his face twisted into what could only be described as a look of pure ecstasy. It was a little creepy on the boy's pale face. It only stayed for a moment, however, before slipping away as quickly as it had come. "Wait, this is bad."
It was Naruto's turn to look confused. "Uh, how's that?"
"I thought that the hunter nin was slowing down from chakra exhaustion, but really it was just me being able to pick up on his faster speed. It means that this guy is still dangerous."
"Damn." Naruto wracked his brain for anything that might work here. He was confident that he and Sasuke could win against the lone ninja if they could just see. "Wait. Let me try something."
The blonde had no idea if this would work, but it was his best shot. He concentrated on the image of Zabuza standing on the surface of the lake when they had first fought him after reaching Wave. Silently and with his eyes screwed shut in concentration, Naruto held his right hand in a seal in front of his chest while extending his left arm above his head, his index and middle fingers pointing skyward.
"What do you think you're doing, moron?"
Naruto opened one eye to glare at his partner, but shut it just as quickly. "I'm getting rid of this fucking mist. Now shut up while I work."
Normally, he'd never expect this to work. This jutsu only had two seals though, so maybe he could fudge it. He focused on the churning waters below the bridge – on the waves lapping against the shore beside Tazuna's home. Then he thought of the mist that surrounded him – the feel on his skin, the smell of it in his nose, how it hid his enemies from his sight.
How he wanted it to settle back down – to return to the ground as still pools of water.
Then he pushed his chakra into the air around him. He had to overpower Zabuza's chakra, so he had to be forceful. But he also needed control. Most of all, he had to believe it would work.
And it did.
Naruto could feel the mist receding from around him – could feel as the moisture soaked into his dark clothes. He opened his eyes and found that nearly the entire dome of ice was visible now, but Kakashi and Zabuza were still obscured. So he kept it up.
"Whatever you're doing, moron, it's working."
Naruto grinned at the rare praise. Then something bit his neck.
"Fuck."
The last things he remembered before hitting the ground and passing out were the experiences of four clones that he'd left at Tazuna's home to try to perfect the Body Flicker. They had knocked out and tied up two samurai who had tried to kidnap Tsunami.
Then his vision darkened into nothingness.
Naruto woke to find a tearful Sakura sitting over him.
"What happened?" His voice sounded a bit strange to his ears, but that could have been because Sakura had just pulled two senbon out of his throat.
"Oh my God! You're alive!"
He was honestly surprised when he felt himself wrapped in a warm embrace and a mop of pink hair pressed into his face. "I'm alright, Sakura. He just knocked me out."
"That's what you get for not paying attention, moron."
Naruto glared at the smirking Uchiha standing over him. "Yeah, thanks for looking out for me back there. Fucking asshole." Naruto sighed and slowly sat up. "So what happened?"
"The hunter nin saw Kakashi about to kill Zabuza after he knocked you out and used his ice mirror to jump in the way of Kakashi's technique. He's dead." Sasuke sounded rather dispassionate as he spoke of the young ninja's demise. "Zabuza's dead too, he killed that Gatou character and a whole bunch of mercenaries that showed up. Then Kakashi and I chased the rest off."
"Uh, how long was I out for?" He'd missed a lot of action.
"About ten minutes."
Yeah. Wow.
They'd been busy.
It took nearly a month to complete the bridge and repair all of the damage done to it in the battle, but by the time it was christened it seemed that everyone but Naruto was ready to return to Konoha.
Naruto found that he actually preferred the company of Tazuna and his family to that of the villagers back home, which in truth wasn't saying an awful lot for the man. At least he'd get to catch up with Ino and the rest of his classmates.
Kakashi had drilled them hard daily in an attempt to get their skills up, and Naruto and Sasuke at least were seeing some real improvement. It was hard for Sakura though. Despite graduating the academy with excellent grades, she lagged far behind her teammates in ninja abilities. Much of her time was spent building her stamina by doing drills while Naruto and Sasuke sparred.
Things were tense between the two. Naruto just didn't have the inclination to try to break though Sasuke's prickly demeanor. The most interaction the two boys got was in beating the hell out of each other in "training" matches – which usually ended with Sasuke as the victor. Naruto told himself that it was thanks to the Uchiha's Sharingan, but deep down knew that Sasuke was probably the better fighter – bloodline or no.
Nerves were certainly beginning to fray by the time Konoha's massive gates came back into view.
Naruto was truly shocked when he caught a glimpse of the ethereal dome that surrounded the village of his youth. He had taken to randomly activating his eyes in case there was anything nearby to pick up on, but he had never expected to see something like this.
It made a lot more sense now as to why ninja didn't simply climb over the wall on their way to do missions outside of the city. The front gate was the only place that Naruto could see that the dome didn't cover.
The best part of it, though, was that Sasuke had been flicking his doujutsu on and off much like Naruto had the entire trip home. And he'd just turned his off after only a few seconds of glancing around.
The bastard's Sharingan couldn't see it.
How about that?