Chapter 5
Naruto opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the bright light that met them almost immediately. He tried to look around and was surprised when he found he couldn't turn his head. Looking up, he had to smile. Hinata had apparently awakened before him, and she was now sitting with his head in her lap and playing with his hair.
Naruto reached up and stroked her cheek when he saw she was smiling down at him. The secret couple shared a smile, then Naruto sat up. Turning and throwing his legs off the couch, Naruto smiled at Hinata again, resting a hand on her knee gently for a second. "Good morning, beautiful," he commented. Hinata blushed, causing the blond to chuckle.
"Glad to see you took my advice, Naruto," a voice said from the door to the Hokage's office. Naruto and Hinata both turned and found the owner of the voice, Tsunade, standing there grinning at them. "And don't worry, Hinata, all I told him was you liked him and he'd be well-served by getting to know you," she added when Hinata's face took on a scandalized look.
Hinata gave a small smile. "Thank you, Lady Hokage," she commented. When Naruto and Tsunade both turned confused looks on her, she explained, "I would likely have never been brave enough to tell you how I felt myself, Naruto, so I'm glad someone did so for me."
Tsunade smiled at the dark-haired heiress. "Not a problem, Hinata, I'm just glad you didn't take it as me butting into your personal business," she said, her eyes showing her relief was genuine.
Hinata reached over and put an arm around Naruto. "It got me what I've always wanted, Lady Tsunade, so there's no way I could ever be mad at you for whatever you did," she said, a bright smile on her face.
Naruto shifted Hinata slightly around so that the two were next to one another, each with an arm around the other, and smiled at Tsunade. "Yeah, Grandma, you really did us both a big favor, telling me that," he said.
Beginning with Hinata's move and continuing through Naruto's reaction and comment, Tsunade's eyes had been growing wider and her jaw dropping further. By now, her jaw was resting on her desk, and her eyes looked ready to jump out of her head. Then, moments later, she was with the young couple, hugging them both as she lifted them from the couch. Naruto and Hinata were both shocked to hear the Hokage squeal like a little girl.
Tsunade suddenly realized what she was doing and gently set the young couple down. Clearing her throat, she commented, "That never happened." Naruto snorted, and Hinata giggled slightly at her antics, then Tsunade remembered something else. "Oh, I have some things to tell you both. You might want to sit down," she said. As she spoke, she made her way to her desk and took her own advice, sitting on the edge of her desk and looking at the two. They sat on the couch, worried looks decorating their faces. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Naruto pondered a moment, then related his fight with Sasuke, in all its gory detail, to Tsunade. She nodded when he stopped at his own loss of consciousness. "Well, after that, Sasuke moved to kill you, Naruto," she said. Naruto looked shocked, but he didn't deny it; no matter how much he wanted to call Tsunade a liar, he believed her. The Hokage continued, "You are only alive now because your friend, Gaara, stepped in at that point and saved you. As you might or might not guess, he did so by killing Sasuke."
Now Naruto looked stunned. Eventually, he just nodded, forcing his own feelings down. "How did Sakura take it?" he asked, guessing that they were being told like this because the others knew already. Tsunade related how the rest of the Konoha Eleven had taken the news of the Uchiha's death.
Naruto let that sink in for a minute, then, surprising everyone, even himself seemingly, he pulled Hinata to himself and held her. Hinata, though surprised, wrapped her arms around him. It took a moment for Hinata to realize why Naruto had grabbed her like that, but then she heard it: Naruto was sobbing into her shoulder, where he had buried his face when he pulled her to him. Hinata made slight comforting sounds to the sobbing blond and just held him as he let out all of his pain. As she listened to him sobbing, Hinata thought about how she would react if something happened to Neji, and she realized she couldn't blame Naruto in the slightest; he had just lost his brother, so really, he had every reason to cry, no matter how un-ninja-like it was.
It took Naruto about ten minutes to sob out all his frustrations and pains about Sasuke, but once he was done, he pulled back from Hinata and turned to Tsunade with dry eyes and a forced smile. "Is there anything else you need to tell us, Grandma?" he asked. Tsunade nodded. "Okay, what is it?"
"Naruto, I'm sorry for hiding this from you for so long, but I promised I wouldn't tell you this until you had your first girlfriend," she began. Naruto looked confused, then smiled at Hinata. Hinata felt her heart melt as she realized, despite his pain, the smile Naruto was giving her was real, not forced. In his mind, Naruto was thanking Hinata for whatever Tsunade was about to tell him; it was essentially only because of her that he was about to learn it. "I'm your godmother," Tsunade finished.
Naruto turned to Tsunade, a look of shock on his face. "So, that means...you know who my parents were?" he asked, his voice hopeful. Tsunade nodded. "Please, Grandma Tsunade, you have to tell me who they were!"
Tsunade sighed. "All right, I'll tell you, but both of you, this is an S-class secret, it does not leave this room, are we clear?" Both Naruto and Hinata nodded. "Your father was Minato Namikaze, also known as the Yellow Flash, our own Fourth Hokage," she said, figuring to get the bigger shock over with first. Naruto just chuckled at that, surprising both Tsunade and Hinata. "And your mother," Tsunade continued after a moment when it was clear Naruto wasn't going to say anything else, "was Kushina Uzumaki. Your mother was basically a princess in the Land of Whirlpools."
Ironically, that caused Naruto's jaw to drop. After a moment, he regained his composure. Tsunade looked at him curiously. "I wasn't surprised when you told me the Fourth was my father," he began, "because if you ever look at a picture of him and one of me, it's glaringly obvious. I had no idea who my mother was, though. I mean, I was sure she was awesome; she had to be to have me, but I had no idea she was a princess!"
Tsunade chuckled. "Well, she wasn't a princess, really, just the closest thing the Land of Whirlpools had to one." She thought a moment. "Kind of like Hinata here is the closest thing Konoha has to a princess, now that I think about it," she finished.
Naruto chuckled. "Fitting, isn't it?" he said. Tsunade and Hinata both looked at him, confused; he was surprising both of them time and time again today. "I'm pretty much a prince, since my father was the Fourth and you're my godmother," he explained. "So it's only fitting I would end up with Konoha's own princess." The two kunoichi thought about this for a moment, then Hinata blushed furiously, and Tsunade burst into laughter. Naruto just smiled at both of them and held Hinata closer to himself.
xxxxxx
Neji sighed as he looked at the village through his active Byakugan. "When did the entire village go insane?" he asked himself. In the distance somewhere, he could hear Lee and Tenten laughing. Tenten had clearly not lost Lee. "Like that would ever happen," Neji thought ruefully. Somehow, he suspected that the next time he saw those two, they would be a couple. He knew for a fact Tenten had been crushing on Lee for a long time, since they were first made a team almost, and it seemed that now, with Lee disillusioned about Sakura, she had her chance. If Neji knew anything about his female teammate, he knew she wasn't the type to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Turning slightly, Neji expanded his Byakugan's range in one direction and saw Naruto's pink-haired teammate stepping out of her home. Thinking back to the scene in the Hokage's office, Neji sighed; he realized, as did almost everyone, that Sakura had almost no chance of getting with anyone after the stunt she pulled. "But you know all about being in the darkness, don't you, Neji?" he thought to himself. "And you know all about needing forgiveness and a second chance." With that thought, Neji leapt down from the tree branch where he'd been perched, thinking.
Sakura wasn't really paying any attention where she was going, she just needed to get out of her house for a while. Her room no longer made her think of Sasuke at every moment, but being there still made her antsy. So now she found herself simply walking, no particular goal in mind. "Will Naruto ever forgive me?" she asked herself. "Will anyone?" She sighed deeply. "I really don't deserve to be forgiven, do I? I mean, it's my fault Naruto was out there, trying to get Sasuke back, it's my fault he got hurt, and then what do I do? I try to hit him!" She growled quietly at herself. "Damn it, Sakura, you're an idiot!"
Between being wrapped up in her thoughts and not paying attention to where she was going to begin with, Sakura never saw the body that suddenly appeared in front of her. She didn't see it, that is, until she had literally run into it. When she felt her forward momentum suddenly stop, Sakura expected to find herself sitting on the ground. Instead, she found herself caught by strong arms holding her on her feet. Looking up slightly, she was surprised to find Neji looking down at her. It was him she had bumped into and his arms that now held her up.
Jumping back away from Neji, Sakura was surprised to find herself wishing she hadn't; his arms around her and his chest against her had felt nice. "Oh, Neji," she said, her voice dull. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." She watched curiously as Neji turned toward her. She was surprised to find his Byakugan was active. As he looked at her, he deactivated it.
"No problem," he said, his voice soft. "If anyone understands forgiveness, it's me." Sakura somehow got the feeling he wasn't just talking about their collision a moment ago. She looked at him curiously, and Neji responded by looking into her eyes and nodding slightly. Something told her Neji had intended to tell her this from the start, though why he would cause a collision just to tell her that, she had no idea. Sakura was surprised to see a slight smile tugging at the corners of Neji's lips. She looked into his eyes and saw...not pity, was that sympathy? "I'll see you around, okay?" he said, and then he was gone.
"Well, that was...odd," Sakura said to no one in particular. She couldn't deny, though, that she felt somewhat better, despite how odd that little event was.
xxxxxx
Kabuto sighed, his annoyance clear. This was not how he wanted to spend his day. He had to tell his master that his intended vessel was...no longer available. Entering the room, he found the pale-skinned man he had come to serve, worship even, sitting in his usual spot. Kabuto chuckled as he had to remind himself that the seat wasn't a throne, just his master's preferred place to be. "Lord Orochimaru," he said, his silky smooth voice quivering slightly.
"Ah, Kabuto," the pale man responded. His eyes opened, and Kabuto got a slight thrill at the sight of the snake-like eyes. The rage and hate in those eyes sometimes scared Kabuto, but they always left him excited in more ways than he would ever care to admit. "You have news of our Sasuke for me? Have you heard from him, perhaps?" Kabuto shivered slightly at the hiss at the end of his master's last word. Orochimaru must have noticed that Kabuto was nervous. "What is it, Kabuto? Is there trouble?"
"I'm afraid so, Lord Orochimaru," he said back after a moment. He took a deep breath. This was not going to go well. "I haven't heard from Sasuke, but I have heard word of him." Kabuto stopped. Orochimaru made an impatient gesture for Kabuto to continue, which he did after a moment, but not before setting his body to healing every inch of itself in anticipation of what Orochimaru would do to him when this news was relayed. "It seems that his ambush of the Sand delegation failed."
"Failed? That's not like our Sasuke at all. Pray tell me, Kabuto, exactly how did his ambush fail?" Orochimaru said, his eyes taking on a dark visage as he stared at Kabuto. Kabuto gulped; this was going to be worse than he thought.
"During his ambush, he got into a fight with Naruto Uzumaki," Kabuto began. He then told Orochimaru what little he knew of the fight itself, which amounted to the fact that Sasuke had somehow lost his arm, Kabuto hadn't been able to figure out how. "Afterward, when Sasuke was moving toward the boy to kill him...a boy, Gaara, from the Sand Village, stopped Sasuke and...killed him." Kabuto's last two words seemed to echo over and over in the stillness that followed them. It was ominous.
"WHAT?" Orochimaru roared. Moving quickly, he grabbed Kabuto's throat and lifted him off the ground. Glaring into his subordinate's eyes, he snarled, "You mean to tell me that some meaningless Sand Village brat has robbed me of my new vessel?"
Kabuto gasped for breath. "Yes, Lord Orochimaru, I'm afraid that seems to be the case," he answered, his voice strangled. Orochimaru roared in rage and threw the younger man. Kabuto slammed into the wall of the snake summoner's lab and kept going. After a few minutes, he found himself slammed into a tree outside the building. He had gone through probably thirty walls in between. Despite the pain he was in, Kabuto couldn't help being impressed with his lord's strength. Extracting himself from the tree, he was inordinately glad he'd begun to heal himself before he told Lord Orochimaru about Sasuke.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, was in a rage. He was all over the Sound Village, seemingly everywhere at once, taking out his anger on anything, or anyone, in his path. Kabuto simply stayed out of his way and tried to make sure none of their experiments were damaged beyond repair. He was frustrated when the snake summoner destroyed everything they had on the one Biju who did not currently have a jinchuriki, the three-tailed turtle. "Oh well," Kabuto thought. "We'll just have to start over on that subject, I guess." Even as he thought this, he knew somehow that they would likely never find that one boy again...what was his name? Dukimaru? Zukomaru? Damn it! Oh well, they'd find another way. There was always more than one way to get anything worth doing done. Still, this would probably set their progress back by a year or more.
Kabuto sighed and continued to follow his raging master. At least his anger wasn't aimed at Kabuto himself...at the moment, anyway.
xxxxxx
Naruto sighed and sat down heavily. It was nearing sunset, and he and Hinata were at the training ground now, where Naruto found himself sitting beside the post Kakashi-sensei had tied him to when he, Sasuke, and Sakura had failed so badly at the bell test. He sighed again at the thought of his best friend. Hinata sat down beside him and rested a hand on his leg gently. "I'm here for you, Naruto," she said quietly. "You don't have to hide your pain with me. Let it out."
Naruto smiled at the girl and put an arm around her shoulders. Pulling her toward him, she somehow ended up sitting on his lap, not that either of them was complaining. Naruto smiled. "I'm just so frustrated, you know? I mean, I promised Sakura on my life that I'd bring Sasuke back...and I still failed!" he said. Hinata just wrapped her arms around her boyfriend's chest and laid her head on his shoulder. Naruto smiled slightly. "Why are you so forgiving of me, Hinata?"
"You're not perfect, Naruto," she said back. "If you were, you would have known what would happen and you wouldn't have made that promise to Sakura to begin with. But you are still you, Kyubi or no, and there's no way I'm going to let a mistake you made in your past drive us apart." She giggled slightly at her confidence in saying that, then added, "And I'm not going to let your depression do it, either."
Naruto smiled at her and put both arms around her. Then he sighed again. "Why did Sasuke have to leave?" he asked no one. Hinata just listened, knowing that's all he needed. "Why did he have to go and hurt Sakura like that? Why did he have to go and try to get power from that snake? Weren't we good enough for him? Why couldn't we save him?" At that, Naruto burst into tears and, holding Hinata close, sobbed onto her shoulder. Hinata, glad he wasn't hiding his pain from her anymore, just held him close and rubbed his back gently. She didn't shush him, she didn't try to calm him down, she just held him and let him cry.
It took Naruto a solid ten minutes to cry himself out, but he eventually did. Pulling back from his girlfriend, he gave her a small smile through his tears. "Thank you, Hinata," he said. "This is the first time anyone's been here for me like this. Thank you so much." That said, he hugged her tight a moment, then, pulling back, looked into her eyes a moment then suddenly kissed her. Hinata, though surprised, wasn't about to object and kissed him back.
It wasn't a passionate kiss, but neither was it a simple peck. The kiss lasted a long time, the two simply reveling in the comfort each gained from the other and in how safe and accepted they felt together. After a few minutes, the kiss ended, and the two simply held one another close, Naruto occasionally sobbing, Hinata comforting him when needed. It took a while, but eventually the young couple found themselves laying on the ground, Hinata on top of Naruto. It didn't take long after that before both young ninja were asleep, the moon just starting to rise over them.
xxxxxx
Guren looked at the young man who was standing before her. "Is this true?" she asked. The boy nodded. "So, Lord Orochimaru's chosen vessel died, and now he's in a rage. That's interesting. That's very interesting indeed." Chuckling, she turned to her second-in-command. "Get ready. We have an invasion to plan. We will avenge Lord Orochimaru's loss!" The man nodded, bowed, and scurried away. "And just maybe, once Lord Orochimaru sees my worth, he'll decide to make me his next vessel." Giggling like a schoolgirl at the thought, Guren sat at her desk and began to plan her invasion; it was crucial that everything happen according to plan if they were going to take on the Leaf Village...
xxxxxx
"You all right, Lee?" Tenten asked as the two sat down in the small restaurant where the two had decided to eat dinner after their merry chase all over Konoha. As Lee had sat down, Tenten had noticed his head had fallen lower than normal and he seemed depressed, which had elicited her question.
Lee raised his head slowly and looked at Tenten, his eyes dull, his normal smile obviously forced. "I will be fine, Tenten, it just seems that my fires of youth are burning duller than usual at the moment," he said, his normally loud and exuberant voice replaced by a quiet, subdued one.
Tenten sighed. "You're thinking about Sakura huh?" she asked. Lee nodded. "You can do so much better than her, Lee. You're an awesome guy, and any girl who can't see that isn't worth your time." Lee looked up in surprise at her words. Tenten just smiled.
After a moment, Lee looked away, a slight blush on his cheeks, then looked back and spoke again. "Tenten, you say I can do better, but I know the truth of the matter. I know I'm too loud and not subtle enough for any girl out there to really want to be with me. I know that. And now, when my fires of youth are so dull, I find I must be even less desirable than usual," he said, then sighed again.
Tenten surprised Lee then by reaching over and laying her hand on his. Lee looked up at her, surprise obvious on his face, his eyes questioning. Tenten stroked his hand gently a moment, then said, "Well, if you find yourself undesirable with your flames of youth burning so dully, perhaps I can help you to rekindle them."
Lee was surprised to hear such words from his long-time teammate, but he smiled. Turning his hand over and grasping the one stroking it, he smiled at Tenten. "Perhaps you can at that, Tenten. I find I'm feeling better just being with you like this," he said, his voice still quiet, but less depressed than before. Tenten smiled at his words. She would have said something, but their waiter chose that moment to appear to take their orders. After the two had ordered, they sat patiently, hands entwined, as they waited for their meals to be brought to them. Somehow, neither felt the need to speak; their linked hands said everything that needed to be said.
xxxxxx
Choji looked at Ino as the two sat down together; they were at their team's old training ground. They had spent the last hour or so sparring, which really amounted to Choji defending himself from Ino's enraged attacks as she let off steam about everything that was going on lately. She finally seemed to have calmed down. "You okay, Ino?" he asked her.
Ino sighed and flipped her blond hair out of her face. "Yeah, I'll be fine, Choji," she told him, forcing a smile for her old friend. "Why did you do this?" Choji looked confused. "Why did you come out here with me and let me do all this?"
Choji sighed. "What are friends for?" he asked back. Ino looked up at him, the look on her face clearly saying she knew that wasn't the whole story. "All right, fine, the fact is, I'd rather you attack me like this than anyone else. I can take it, and I know you don't mean any harm, but someone else might actually hold it against you."
Ino chuckled ruefully. "You didn't do anything to deserve this, though, Cho," she said. Choji smiled at her use of his nickname. "I'm just annoyed at everyone else."
Choji smiled at his old friend. "I know, Ino, and I know you're not doing this to me because you're mad at me. It's fine, really."
Ino reached over and took Choji's hand in hers, causing the heavy-set youth to get chills up and down his spine. "Thanks, Choji, you're the best friend a girl could ever ask for," she told him, smiling.
Choji gently brought Ino's hand to his lips and kissed it. "My pleasure, Ino," he told her. Ino was surprised to find herself blushing at Choji's simple gesture. In retrospect, Ino would point to that moment as the first time that she really saw Choji as a man she would be willing and happy to spend her life with rather than just an old friend and teammate. At that moment, though, she was just enjoying the attention being ravished on her by the heavy-set boy. Choji released her hand then, and the two rose and made their way out of the training ground and toward their homes.
xxxxxx
Gaara smiled down at his apprentice as she opened her eyes. She blinked and looked around, confused. "Where am I?" Matsuri asked right away, sitting up quickly, a look of fear on her face. Then she looked at Gaara. "And who are you?"
OMAKE!
Guren walked along the hallways of the hideout where she'd lived the last few months. Today for some reason, she was feeling particularly good, and it was giving her a slight jump to her step. It even made her feel like...singing! She decided to give it a try and hope her second-in-command would join in.
It's a beautiful day, she began. As she hoped, her inferior joined her.
It's a rather nice day, he sang.
A day for a glorious invasion!
We're just planning, to be perfectly clear.
Planning for a glorious invasion!
Assuming nothing happens that we don't really know.
That nothing unexpected interferes with the show.
At this point, the two sang together. And that's why everything, every last little thing, every single tiny microscopic little thing, must go...
Their voices separated again. According to plan.
The Leaf we'll destroy.
According to plan.
Our people we'll aid.
(Both.): Elevate to the ranks of the Great Nations!
We'll have a Kage.
He'll lead us all.
To join the nobles at the capitol.
To meet up with our daimyo.
(Both): We'll be there, we'll be seen, having tea with the queen.
We'll forget everything, that we've ever ever been! Guren smiled at her second-in-command, pleased with the man's performance.
Unknown to Guren, Orochimaru and Kabuto were, at that exact moment, singing a song of a different type.
It's a terrible day.
Now don't be that way.
It's a terrible day for our village!
It's a sad, sad state of affairs we're in.
That could be the end of our village!
How could our leader have come to this?
(Both): To need to find a body among the lower ranks.
They're so common.
So weak.
Oh, it couldn't be worse.
Couldn't be worse? I'm afraid I disagree. They could be high-ranking shinobi stuck in decaying bodies, with just one chance at life, just like you, my lord!
Oh, dear.
(Both): And that's why everything, every last little thing, every single tiny microscopic little thing must go...
According to plan.
A body we'll find.
According to plan.
Our village led.
From the verge of destruction.
To the noble realm.
Of our birthright.
(Both): And who would have guessed in a million years, that our fodder with the rank.
That leads to our having much shame.
Would provide our ticket to a rightful place.
Leadership is a joint effort, a little tit-for-tat. You'd think years of experience might have taught us that.
Everything must be perfect.
Everything must be perfect.
(Both): Everything must be perfect, perfect.
At that moment, Guren, her second-in-command, Orochimaru, and Kabuto entered an eerie sync and finished the final line of the song together. And that's why everything, every last little thing, every single tiny microscopic little thing must go...ACCORDING TO PLAN!
Author Note: Yeah, I know the omake was a bit random, but it's my first try at one, and my first try at a parody song too, so cut me some slack. Outside that, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and I hope the omake at least made you chuckle. Also, kudos to anyone who recognizes what I'm parodying there.