"The cycle of hatred will always be here, never ending, always repeating. The only way for it to stop is for humans to change their very nature, and no amount of pain will do that." ~Naruto
"Jiji, I demand that you give us a more interesting mission, something engaging, something challenging!" Naruto said, hitting the Hokage's desk as he puffed away on his pipe until Naruto snatched it from his mouth, throwing it out the open window. The Third Hokage leapt from his seat to the window, making a grab from the falling pipe. When he missed, a solitary tear rolled down his cheek, dripping to the ground below.
"Puffy-chan." Sarutobi said sadly as he tried to hide the tears as he retook his seat. Glaring at Naruto, the blonde's two teammates were gazing at him in awe and shock that he could get away with disrespecting the Hokage of the village so easily. Kakashi probably would've ordered Naruto to apologize, had he not had his head buried in the Icha Icha book in front of his face, he wasn't even aware that Naruto had practically assaulted the Hokage.
"Fine, you want a more interesting mission, I order you to recapture Tora!" The Hokage said smugly, pointing a finger at Naruto who deadpanned back. Hinata and Sasuke hung their heads down at having to recapture the elusive ninja cat Tora who had apparently escaped once again. Mentally, Sasuke was cursing Naruto for his disrespect.
Meanwhile, Hinata was imagining herself and Naruto alone in the forest, Naruto covered in cuts while Hinata smeared her special healing cream on his body to help it heal. Slowly, Naruto removed his shirt to allow her access and then-. Hinata's face went boiling red and she fainted, luckily Naruto noticed just in time to keep her from hitting the desk as he laid her on the couch to the side of the office.
"Umm, how about no." Naruto retorted as he glared Sarutobi down. Mentally, Sasuke was cursing the blonde even louder, while cursing himself to a much lesser degree for allowing the blonde to keep digging the hole deeper.
"You would dare say no to your Hokage?" The Third demanded as he raised himself to his full height before something crashed through his open window, landing squarely on his desk as it turned the organized surface into a warlike battlefield. Naruto reached forwards, grabbing the object, pulling something free from it as he handed the Third's pipe back to him, then handing over Tora.
"I swapped that smelly stuff in your pipe for some catnip. Once you lit it up, I knew it was only a matter of time before Tora smelled it and came running. Mission pay please." Naruto said, holding his hand out as Sarutobi looked incredulously at the blonde. Behind Naruto, Sasuke was in a similar state, and Kakashi just gave a perverted giggle as he was still ignoring the situation.
"Now then, I believe I was trying to convince you that we're ready for a C-rank mission." Naruto said, his carefree face losing the jovialness as he expressed through his body and eyes that he had the utmost confidence that his team could do this. Behind him, Sasuke nodded mutely, still in shock over Naruto's confidence and trickery. Mentally, Sasuke was still cursing the blonde for outsmarting even the Hokage.
"Fine, Kakashi, do you believe your team is ready for a C-rank mission?" The Hokage asked; steepling his fingers in front of his face to hide his grim expression, and masked smile at Naruto's grit. If the boy ever made Hokage, he'd need that to stand up to the Civilian Council, Kami knows Sarutobi never did.
"Yes, yes, just perfect." Kakashi mumbled out, giggling away as Sarutobi sighed, and Naruto frowned while Sasuke grinned at the prospect of going on a C-rank mission. Bandit attacks were not unusual on C-ranks, and Sasuke wanted to not only prove himself superior to the blonde, but also to test himself to see how far he'd came since that night.
"*sigh* Fine, send in the client, Misumi." The Hokage said loudly as the secretary 'hai'd and the door to the office opened to reveal and older man who had a small backpack on his back, and a hat to cover his head in the sun. Naruto took one whiff of the man and cringed, covering his nose as the man smelt like a walking bar. This image was helped by the bottle of in the man's hand that undoubtedly held sake.
"Huh? This is all my money is worth? A giggling Cyclops, an emo, a light-hearted girl, and a flaky blonde. I think I'd do better with that team of dogs I saw walking around the streets." The man complained, until Naruto glared at him and mumbled something under his breath, and snapped his fingers as the man yelped and dropped the bottle of sake.
Only Naruto knowing what was about to happen allowed him to catch the bottle as he held it back up to the man. "Something the matter, drunkard?" Naruto asked innocently while thinking of an idea for an attack. The drunk hesitantly took the bottle back, thanking the blonde for saving his sake.
"Team 7, this is Tazuna, a bridge builder from Nami no Kuni. He's requested a team to guard him while he finishes a bridge." The Hokage said; handing the scroll to Naruto as Kakashi looked preoccupied. Honestly, Naruto considered setting fire to the book to garner his attention, but he doubted that would help the situation. So instead, Naruto just 'accidentally' dropped some of the still smoking cat nip on the book as Tora leapt from the desk on to Kakashi who yelped as the cat began viciously mauling his book.
"Now then, Sensei, if you're done reading your smut, can we get on with the mission?" Naruto asked and Kakashi sighed, giving up on saving his book as all that remained were shreds of paper that better resembled confetti than the book it used to be. Grimly nodding his hand, Naruto turned back to the Hokage.
"Bye, Jiji, see you in a few weeks. I promise we'll do our best." Naruto assured the Hokage, and beside him, Sasuke nodded as well as did Hinata as she awoke from her dream-state.
"Okay team, meet at the gate in one hour." Kakashi said, vanishing in a Shushin. Turning to his two team mates, Naruto stuck his hand out, the other two copying him as they tossed their hands into the air before turning to leave and get ready for their mission.
As they left, no one noticed that Sarutobi pulled out a scroll, sealed with the symbol of an Anbu Communiqué. Dear Hokage, target has been sighted on the bordering shoreline with Mizu. After a short engagement, the target escaped and is currently headed towards Nami. We are in pursuit, but chances are low that we'll catch the target. Advise Hokage to stop any Genin or Chunin teams from entering the area. Sarutobi sighed as he read the message.
It had been sent a month previously from a small team of Anbu patrolling the borders of Hi no Kuni. He sent up a silent prayer to the former Hokages to watch over the team that just left his office. The 'target' mentioned in the message was an A-rank Nuke-nin for a reason, but hopefully, she had already moved on. Since he hadn't received a second message though, so chances were that she had eliminated the Anbu team in pursuit, and he had no way of knowing her whereabouts.
"Oh Minato, what would you do in my position. I can't baby Naruto forever, but that doesn't mean I want to send him to something he's not ready for yet. You were always the rational one, Kushina would've probably beat us both and then followed Naruto." The Third said as he steepled his fingers before moving on to the next message as he had to hurry to finish all the dreaded paperwork.
(24 Hours Later)
"Why, why, why did I do that!?" Naruto cried as he punched the tree in front of him. It would've hurt except his hand would heal up quickly, and the tree seemed to be losing whatever battle the two were having.
"Naruto-kun…" Naruto heard his crush mumble as she looked through the small grove of trees for him. Sighing, he reigned in his anger as he unclenched his fists, but one could still see that he was conflicted by the way his eyes darted around, trying to avoid Hinata's gaze.
"I'm over here… Hinata-chan." Naruto said, and due to his shifting eyes, he didn't see how Hinata blushed at the friendly address. But she forced her blush down as she placed a hand on Naruto shoulder, drawing his gaze to her as she saw the singular tear that trailed down his face. It seemed like such a foreign image, Naruto her hero and crush upset and depressed. Before she thought, she placed her other hand on his other shoulder as she pulled him closer, wrapping her hands around him as she hugged him, Naruto blushing intensely at the physical contact as he slowly brought his hands up as well, embracing the equally blushing bluenette.
"What's th-the matter?" Hinata mumbled lowly, but due to her close proximity, Naruto still heard as her breath tickled his ear and he gave an involuntary shiver before they separated, looking into each other's eyes. Unnoticed to either one, their faces slowly got closer before a bird cried out; startling both into separating with blushes bright enough to light up the pitch blackness of night.
"It's my fault. If I hadn't said what I did, Sasuke…" Naruto trailed off before starting again, trying to get a better grasp of his emotions. "I made a promise that I wouldn't let my teammates get hurt on my watch, and rather than protect you, I'm the one responsible for hurting Sasuke. I hate this feeling, of knowing that I hurt someone precious to me, I never want to feel this again, never want to see my precious people hurt because of me." Naruto said; the image of Sasuke's prone body, his arm bent at a strange angle, one that it certainly shouldn't be able to bend at.
"Naruto-kun…" Hinata trailed off, adding the honorific under her breath as Naruto didn't hear due to his inner turmoil. "Tell me, go through it with me again, and show me what you did wrong." Hinata insisted, a rare side of her showing as she became determined to make Naruto believe that he was innocent, that what happened to Sasuke wasn't his fault.
"Hinata, I-I can't." Naruto said, only for Hinata to grab him, forcing him to look her dead in the eye. What he saw surprised him, rather than look at him accusingly, she looked at him in the way that one would view a child accused of breaking something. She was fully convinced of his innocence, and even if he did do it, she forgave him.
"No, you will do it, because if you are to blame, then this is your punishment, and if you didn't then you have nothing to fear. I don't blame you, Kakashi-sensei doesn't blame you, Sasuke probably blames you, but he can go screw himself and his over inflated ego!" Hinata said, and then blushed heavily as she realized what she'd said about her injured teammate.
Naruto really was breaking down her walls.
"Okay, as you know, it started when we walked passed that puddle…"
A/N: Hey guys, I'm glad to be back behind the keyboard. I'm sorry if this chapter isn't as good as the others, I really had a hard time writing this arc, and deciding how I wanted it to go down. I've rewrote this chapter three times already, before this came out. So I finally just decided on this course of action: I'm just going to skip the Wave Arc altogether and jump straight into the Chunnin Exams Arc, hope you guys don't mind. I'll still review it in flashbacks when the need arises, but I'm just having a block trying to write it, and I know how to write the Chunnin Arc, so umm, yeah. And I'm really glad you guys kept with it this long so I'm going to come out and say this now, I try not to bash but if I do in fact bash someone you like, forgive me. Now what I wanted to say is… you guys really wanted me to burn Kakashi's porn book. What next, you want me to burn off Lee and Gai's eyebrows? Have a good day.