Naruto sat in front of a campfire, currently drying off, next to him lay a young redhead he recognised as the girl in the group that kidnapped Sasuke. Why was he in this position well it all started…
Flashback no Jutsu
It had only been an hour since Naruto had left and he had already run into trouble, three ANBU wearing masks that all had the kanji for "Ne" written on them.
"Uzumaki Naruto by order of Danzō-sama you are to come with us," the first of the nin stated as he prepared to subdue the target if it chose to defy him.
"As in the same Danzō who got me banished, yeah right!" the blonde shouted at the leader of the group.
"Very well then," the nin stated before covering the distance between the two too quickly for Naruto to see, before kneeing the teen in the gut. The man was about to place a restraining seal on the jinchūriki when he was caught off guard by it disappearing in a puff of smoke.
"Shit it was a Kage Bunshin, find the target immediately!" the leader of the group shouted at his subordinates who quickly took to the trees in search of their prey.
- (elsewhere)
"Huh?" the young blonde thought as he suddenly remembered the conversation his clone had with the ANBU, "Wait a minute, WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T KAKASHI-SENSEI TELL ME ABOUT THAT! OR THAT DAMN ERO-SENNIN!" were the only thoughts going through his mind at this time, resulting in him not noticing the ROOT ANBU that was currently pursuing him.
The ANBU quickly used the blondes distraction to land a solid blow to the boys head, resulting in him being knocked out of his musings as he fell out of the tree tops and into the forest below, quickly followed by the ROOT ninja.
The young jinchūriki was quick to recover from the blow, and quickly used his favourite jutsu, "Tajū Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" before the ANBU could react the forest was blanketed with the Naruto copies. Of course to a highly trained ninja this didn't mean much, quality over quantity as they say.
True to form the ANBU quickly cut through the clones, with every strike hitting one clone into several others, causing many to disperse at the same time. Eventually there was only one left, who gave a battle cry before charging the nin.
Each punch was blocked, each kick redirected, no matter what he tried Naruto just couldn't keep up with the ROOT ninja, of course that didn't mean he would just give up, or he wasn't Uzumaki Naruto.
After several minutes of fighting the two ended up dangerously close to a cliff and the ANBU gave one of his usual hits designed to disable the blonde without killing him. Unfortunately there just so happened to be a large stone that Naruto tripped on.
The ANBU could only say one thing when it happened "oh shit!", after tripping on the stone the blonde couldn't regain his balance quick enough to NOT fall off the cliff and into the river below, where he was swept off to Kami knows where.
When Naruto hit the water, the impact caused him to black out, and now he wakes up only to find himself on a riverbank, soaking wet and cold.
He quickly checked his supplies to make sure he still had everything, and he did (thank Kami for shinobi backpacks, highly durable, waterproof and airtight, perfect for the shinobi on a mission), with that done, he decided to find somewhere to set up camp.
He soon found a clearing, well a large number of fallen trees, probably sliced down if his analysis of the damage was correct. He continued to walk slowly when he heard laboured breathing, he followed the sound until he found the redhead girl who helped kidnap his brother laying there underneath a large tree trunk.
Looking on Naruto was having an internal struggle, he should help her, but she took the most precious thing he had away, but she was doing it on orders, but she followed the bastard who gave those orders.
In the end, he simply couldn't bring himself to leave someone who needs help, and after removing the tree that was crushing her (Kage bunshin is so useful at times) carried her to a secluded area where he used what little medical knowledge he had to try and fix her injuries, while a kage bunshin set up the camp.
Flashback kai
So here he was, keeping what was once his enemy alive purely because he was too soft to just leave her to die.
He had placed several kage bunshin around the area so that he would know if one of those ROOT bastards showed up, so he wasn't too worried.
"Uhh, fuck, that fuckin' Suna bitch, I can't believe she fuckin' took the whole fuckin forest down to get me, damn bitch!" the redhead started off drowsily before her voice raised in volume to a shout.
"You like to say fuck don't you," Naruto stated before she realised what her situation was.
"Huh? Wait you're… FUCK! I CAN'T FUCKIN BELIEVE I GOT FUCKIN CAUGHT! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK," she would of continued some more, if Naruto didn't cover her mouth with his hand.
"Will you please shut up, I've got a fuckin private army after me and I really don't want you to give me away with your shouting," the young blonde hissed to the girl he found.
When she heard this she realised something about the boy in front of her, quickly removing his hand from her mouth she asked her question "where the fuck is your fuckin hitae-ate?"
When she said this he visibly cringed and she instantly had a good idea of what happened, "You got banished didn't you," at the cringe that followed that sentence she knew she was right.
"So what the fuck where you fuckin banished for?" she asked ever so eloquently.
"I don't know, I was just told that a bastard named Danzō managed to trick the daimyo into signing my banishment orders and now he has his damn ROOT ANBU chasing me," the blonde explained to the girl next to him.
"Wait did you say Danzō as in Shimura Danzō?" the redhead asked suddenly.
"Huh? Yeah that's him, the old warhawk on the council, do you know him?" Naruto responded to her question.
"Not personally but I overheard hebi-teme talking about his arm and mokuton cells, oh he also said something about stealing sharingan too," she told him.
"So Danzō has access to both kekkei genkai that can control the Kyūbi, so that means…" the blonde concluded as his eyes widened with realisation.
"You were banished to get you out of the Hokages protection so he could release the Kyūbi," the teenage girl finished for him.
"Yeah… HOLD ON YOU KNOW!" Naruto shouted at the still prone girl.
"No duh, Hebi-teme might have been an arrogant motherfucker but he did at least brief his tools on what they might face," and with that said there was a few minutes of silence between the two.
"So Tayuya right?" the blonde asked cautiously.
"That's right shithead," was her ever so eloquent response.
"Why do you keep calling hebi-teme, well, hebi-teme?" he asked her with curiosity lacing his voice.
"Why? Because that creeps a fuckin paedophile, treats his ninja like shit, experiments on some of them and then there's this damn seal he places on some of us," when she said that last part she showed him the curse seal on the back of her neck.
"Huh? I thought you liked the seal?"
"Sure, this fuckin seal gives a major boost in strength, but it also fucks me up if hebi-teme wants it too, so I just gotta hope that he thinks I'm dead," Tayuya claimed.
"Why? Don't you want to go home?"
"Pfft what fuckin home? If ya mean that fuckin Oto then you need to have your fuckin head checked. Hebi-teme would fuckin kill me if I went back to that shithole, plus this is my one fuckin chance to escape that bastard."
"Sorry, I guess I just thought that all shinobi love their village like I did," the blue eyed teen said sadly.
"Pfft not like you fuckin knew what Oto was like, you'd get fuckin raped if ya didn't protect yourself from the shitheads," Tayuya informed him.
"Sorry."
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You're saying sorry to every fuckin thing I say!" the now angry redhead practically shouted at him.
"Look, I'm just apologizing if I brought up any bad memories okay!" now this was definitely unusual to Tayuya, no-one ever thought about her feelings before, yet right here in front of her was this teenage boy, who was once her enemy, actually thinking about her feelings when she was the one at his mercy, it didn't make any sense to her.
"Why do you care?"
"I don't know, I just do," now that wasn't the reply she was expecting, "but then again he isn't from Oto" she reminded herself.
"Anyway, I've got several kage bunshin to keep watch so I'm going to sleep now," Naruto told her before making his way to a spare sleeping bag he brought just in case anything happened to the first.
- (daimyo's palace)
"I'm sorry Tsunade-chan but until you can give me physical evidence that Uzumaki is NOT a traitor then I will not lift the banishment orders, Danzō-kun's argument was much better than yours," the daimyo told the godaime hokage sitting across from him.
"Then why didn't Danzō need proof!" the blonde woman shouted out.
"Danzō gave enough circumstantial evidence to accuse the boy of treachery, it was purely because of his lack of proof that Uzumaki was banished instead of executed."
"Don't you know anything about Danzō? He is a warhawk, he's been wanting to turn Naruto into a weapon for years now! The only reason he hasn't is because my sensei wouldn't allow it! And now you've just gone and taken away the only protection Naruto has, Danzō will do everything he can to capture him!" Tsunade claimed to the daimyo.
"These are serious accusations you are making, do you have any evidence to support your claims?"
"Danzō is a ninja on par with my former sensei! Of course he won't leave any evidence of his activities!"
"Then I think you should get back to running your village Tsunade-chan."
"Dammit," was the only word to come out of the sannin's mouth as she was escorted off the premises.
- (next day near the Hi no Kuni/ Kaze no Kuni border)
"Alright, just a little further and we'll hit Suna, are you alright?" the blonde teen said to the redhead currently clinging to his back.
"Other than having my fuckin legs broken, praying that motherfucking Hebi-teme doesn't find me and being stuck with a shithead like you, I'm just fuckin peachy," was the sarcastic response from Tayuya.
"Geez, you don't need to be so mean about it."
"And you don't have to be such a whiney bitch about it shithead!"
"Do you want me to leave you here?!"
"Fuck no!"
"Then shut up!"
"…"
As Naruto continued to walk towards the border, Tayuya noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Slowly reaching down for her flute, she began to panic when she realised that it wasn't there.
"Oi shithead, where the fuck is my flute!" she practically shouted in his ear.
"Huh, you mean this thing," and with that the blonde pulled out a couple of snapped and crushed tubes with holes in them, in other words, a flute that was broken beyond repair.
"Oh shit," were the only words to come out of her mouth when she saw what was left of her weapon.
"What's wrong? Was your flute expensive or something?"
"No, it was my medium for casting genjutsu and controlling my summons," the redhead explained to him.
"Hold on, are you telling me that you can fight as long as you have a flute?"
"Yeah, but without my flute OR my legs, I'm screwed in a fight."
"Okay, so why tell me now instead of earlier?"
"GOTCHA!" came the cry of a ROOT nin as he jumped out of the foliage ready to grab the blonde.
"THAT!" pointed out the redhead.
He couldn't escape in time, this ninja would get him, he was going to be taken to that bastard Danzō, and there was nothing to save him.
"Sabaku Kyū!" and with that sentence the ROOT ninja was swept away in a river of sand before being encased, "Sabaku Sōsō" and with that call the ROOT nin was no more.
"GAARA!" was the first word out of Naruto's mouth as he looked around for his saviour, who he found walking out of the tree line flanked by his siblings.
"Uzumaki," was Gaara's response to the blondes greeting.