Disclaimer: All your ninja are belong to Kishimoto
A/N: This is a bit shorter than usual, but I tend to make interludes only as long as they need to be. The next chapter is the return to Konoha! :D
There's a title doodle and commenter gift art in my profile!
Interlude: I Wanted a Kitty!
"Well, Kiddo, what do you want for your ninth birthday?" Tsunade asked her son one night as they were sitting on the couch in the living room. He had worn himself out with dodging practice, and she'd made him heal his own bruises since he'd been slacking off on practicing that particular jutsu. Though his interest in medical jutsu had increased since his rescue, and he didn't complain about it nearly as much as he had in the past, he still favored the more flashy things. Bruises evidentially didn't fall into that category for him.
Naruto had his eyes closed and his head cradled on his mother's knee, nearly asleep. She let herself revel in the quiet family moment for a while. He was growing up and wasn't so keen on maternal affection anymore – not like when he'd been younger, anyway. The sound of leaves rustling caught her attention and a thin tendril of ivy snaked out of one of the armholes in his shirt to stroke through his hair. "I want a kitty." He murmured sleepily. Naru-chan frequently asked for a pet, but she'd never relented. They already had TonTon, and they moved around so much that it wasn't really practical. Besides…
"You already have a pet. You don't need another one." She grinned.
Naruto opened his eyes and scowled up at his mother. He didn't see what was so funny about this situation. He did, sort of have a pet – though there was sometimes a question of who belonged to who; the problem was that he'd always thought it would be something cuddly, like a kitten, or cool, like a frog – at least something in the animal category! TonTon didn't count because she was really 'Zune's, and more a member of the family than an animal. TonTon certainly got more new clothing than HE did, and in his mind, that made her more like a sister that didn't talk much. The family's pig wasn't what Tsunade had been referring to, anyway. "Ivy doesn't count!" he protested.
In the days that followed his little cave adventure, he'd found himself an unwilling companion; unwilling on his end, anyway - because the creature definitely wasn't cool OR cuddly! He didn't know how it was surviving, because he certainly wasn't feeding or watering the damn thing (except when he showered because sometimes it wouldn't leave him alone even THEN), but Ivy the plant didn't seem at all neglected – it rarely even rooted itself in soil! In fact, she was getting bigger and stronger all the time, and seemed to be able to change her thickness and length to some extent. She could pick up PEOPLE now, if she wanted, and she sometimes DID, which caused him no end of trouble. Sure, it got him through crowds easier, but the displaced person always thought HE'd done it. He'd been smacked upside the head by more old women's purses in the past few months than he cared to remember. It wasn't fair!
Ever since he'd opened the package Nina had given him, Ivy had made herself the bane of his existence. She curled around his arm under his clothes when he was awake and wrapped herself around his waist or wrist when he was sleeping. It was THOROUGHLY annoying. It was one thing to wake up tangled in the sheets. It was entirely another to wake up hog-tied by an affectionate plant. The only time he could be rid of her presence was when he was in a situation that was uncomfortable for her; he could sometimes persuade her to plant herself for a while, but she always came back!
She also had a complete mind of her own, and he hadn't made any progress with his bloodline ability, so she did whatever she pleased. At least with a dog or a cat you could play with them and teach them tricks, but Ivy never listened to anything he said. That was probably because he always told her to let go and go bother someone else, but the fact remained that he seemed to be stuck with the most stubborn and strong willed plant in existence! The only good things he could come up with about Ivy, were that she seemed to like to torment Ero-jiji, and she could help him reach things on high shelves – if she felt like it, of course, because she certainly wouldn't do it when he asked.
She did seem to do an okay job of keeping other vines away from him though – he hadn't been trailed by poison ivy in weeks. It was just a shame she hadn't been around to dissuade it earlier, before he had to develop a tolerance to the itchy chemical in the plant!
"I think Ivy does count." Tsunade grinned, "You carry her around with you everywhere, and you feed her, so she's yours. Besides, she was a gift."
"I'm so going to chew Nina out in my next letter! This is just not cool, and what do you mean, 'I feed her?' I never feed her!" His scowl grew and he rolled off the couch to sit petulantly on the floor, his arms crossed, and his cheeks puffed out. Ivy twitched and withdrew from his hair at the movement, as if he needed ANOTHER reminder of her presence!
"You mean, you haven't figured it out yet, brat?" Tsunade grinned, and crossed her legs now that they were free of his weight. "She's feeding off whatever it is in your chakra that makes plants like you. You don't think normal vines can deflect weapons thrown at you, or catch you when you slip out of trees, and get longer or shorter on a whim do you?"
Naruto's eyes got huge, "She's EATING me?" He started frantically trying to shuck off his shirt and remove the plant for the billionth time. That was just GROSS.
Tsunade busted out laughing, "She's no more eating you than your jutsu do. You haven't even noticed a drain on your chakra levels, have you? I think she's just absorbing what you naturally put off."
"How do you know?" He frowned, still seeming a bit squicked, but he let his clothes settle back into their usual places.
"Well, plants don't bother you as much when you are lower on chakra, do they? And you DID manage to detach her that once, when the pervert taught you that Kage Bunshin jutsu, and you overdid it."
"Yeah, but she came right back!" He protested.
"So did your chakra!" She pointed out. "Suck it up. She could be useful someday, and she's protective of you – she might even eventually develop other useful properties because she's growing on your weird chakra instead of normal nutrients in the soil and sunlight. I like her."
Naruto reluctantly lowered his shirt, looking petulant, "easy for you to say! You don't have a plant wrapped around you all the time!"
"True, but I also have to watch my own back from sneak attacks." She grinned and pointed behind him where Jiraiya had been creeping up on the kid. The large man was completely wrapped in vines from ankle to nose.
"Holy--!" Naruto gasped, "now that you mention it, I do feel a weird chakra drain when she does something like this – I guess I just thought it was the seal acting up!" He reached up and brushed back his bangs, briefly showing the still relatively new blue diamond inked on his forehead. "I guess it could be kind of cool."
Jiraiya didn't look liked he agreed with the sentiment. He finally managed to free an arm and used it to pull the leafy appendage away from his mouth so he could speak, "Okay, brat. Call off your goon. I'm sorry for sneaking up on you!"
"You're just sorry because Ivy caught you!" Naruto grinned, "-and you know she never does anything I say. You'll just have to stay that way until she decides to let you go!"
"Yeah, well – What kind of dumb name is 'Ivy' anyway!" Jiraiya growled, "Couldn't you have been more creative than that?"
"Says the man that named my son after a ramen topping." Tsunade quipped, enjoying the show.
"Shut up!" Both boys shouted. She couldn't keep in a laugh.
"I still want a kitty." Naruto muttered.
†
You know, that ivy could be really useful if he's ever able to control it at all." The Toad Sage frowned later that night as he, Shizune, and Tsunade sat around the kitchen table with drinks. He absently rubbed at a vine burn on his arm. "It's not like an ultimate defense or anything, 'cause it's still just a plant, but it doesn't sleep, and it's damn good at binding things – with his Mokuton able to heal damage done to it, it would be awesome in combat situations."
Shizune nodded, "I've been saying that all along. He protests a lot, but I think he actually likes her quite a bit, now that he's gotten used to her."
"I have to agree. He's just at that stage where he doesn't want to be babied anymore, and Ivy's pretty affectionate." Tsunade quipped.
"Speaking of that – don't you think it's weird? I mean, it was one thing when your yard had dandelion problems, and it was kind of strange, but no big deal when bushes slowed him down a bit more than most people. Ivy seems sentient!" Jiraiya frowned and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the table.
Tsunade made a disgusted face and knocked them back down, nearly sending her former teammate tumbling to the floor when he became unbalanced. "I have some theories, actually. No one's ever been able to explain Mokuton's ability to effect Bijuu AND plants. On the surface, they have little to nothing in common. It seems really strange."
Shizune nodded. Tsunade had a lot of crackpot theories, including being convinced that all non-shinobi medics were amateurs because they willingly called what they did "practices". Her mentor was under the impression that you should never work on someone when you still needed practice and was utterly appalled that anyone would seek medical attention from someone who so openly admitted that their techniques still needed work! Come to think of it, she might have a point with that one…anyway!—"What's your theory, Tsunade-sama?"
"Well, I'm sure you are all aware of the Naruto-effect." The blonde healer continued. The other two adults nodded their heads, "It's just impossible to say 'no' to him sometimes, and it's not just plants that naturally seem inclined to like him, is it?"
Jiraiya scratched at the back of his head and frowned, "I always wondered about that, but then what's that got to do with Bijuu and plants?"
"I'm getting to that!" She growled, "Despite what some freakish outliers—" here she gave the Toad Sennin a significant look, "would make us believe, people are natural things, just like animals or plants or Bijuu – they are just less effected by their natural instincts or biological imperatives than say, an ivy vine."
"Wait – so you're saying that Naruto has a subtle effect on all living things, not just plants, but that the more evolved they are, the less it influences them?" Shizune asked.
Jiraiya blinked, trying to follow the logic, "Okay, so say I buy that, animals don't automatically like him – though they don't shy away from him either, and your theory doesn't explain Bijuu. I thought you were going to explain how Bijuu and plants were related."
Tsunade rolled her eyes at her teammate's thick-headedness. "With animals, I think their instinctive reaction to the Kyuubi inside of Naruto mitigates the effect somewhat. When he gets older and can completely suppress it, they may be more affected – or his absorbing of the Kyuubi's chakra may give him a smell or something they don't like that cancels the effect. I don't know for sure, but what I DO know, is that above all, the Bijuu are considered forces of nature. The strongest forces of nature – its embodiment."
Shizune and Jiraiya looked at her in stunned amazement for a moment, "Damn…so you think Mokuton effects nature on a basic level, so plants and Bijuu, being the closest things to whatever 'nature' actually tangibly, is, can't resist the user's will or are just drawn to them?" He asked.
Tsunade nodded smugly, "Yes. Humans and animals have minds to overcome their basic instincts to certain extents. Plants don't."
"—but Bijuu have minds too!" Shizune hated to shoot down what seemed like a well thought out theory, but that was a pretty obvious hole in the hypothesis.
"Well, that's why it's still a theory, but I think I have an explanation for that too. I think the Bijuu just take on the traits of what creates them which SEEMS to give them personalities, but that they actually have to follow the same sorts of rules of all natural things. After all, Ivy seems very much like she's got a mind of her own, doesn't she, but in fact, she's just reacting to Naruto's chakra and maybe the chakra of the other people around him. Surviving like that for long enough – like the thousands of years Bijuu have been around, might be enough to create a sort of mind – different than a person's, but thinking and remembering all the same. You have to remember, they don't have physical bodies, so they definitely don't have 'brains' in the technical sense."
"I don't know about any of that; I'm still floored by the fact that Naruto's plant has a personality to begin with!" Jiraiya griped.
"You're just pissed because she doesn't like you." Tsunade refilled her sake saucer while her teammate scowled at her and her apprentice lapsed into thoughtful silence.
"I don't see why you both insist on referring to it as a 'she.' Personality or not, a plant is a plant." He pulled out a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. They always ended up playing at some point and he felt it was past time to lighten the mood a little – enough serious talk for one night.
Tsunade scoffed, "you say that, but it's painfully obvious that Ivy is a woman." Shizune nodded in agreement.
"I don't see why! You women just think you have to humanize everything! Plants are genderless! They reproduce with SEEDS."
"It's easy to determine that she's a girl, Jiraiya-sama, if you just think about it." Shizune giggled.
"HA! Why? I bet you don't have one good reason!" He pointed accusingly at her.
Tsunade joined her apprentice in giggles, "She instinctively dislikes you, Jiraiya! She's got to be a girl!"
His jaw dropped, "The ladies LOVE me! They swarm me all the time!"
"They swarm you to try to be the first to kick you in the junk." She reminded him.
He just growled, "Just because YOU'VE always been freakishly immune to my charms—" his speech was cut off by his face meeting the tabletop after Tsunade's open hand met the back of his head.
"I'm 'freakishly immune to your charms' too." Shizune pointed out helpfully.
He picked himself up and rubbed at his aching head. "You guys are mean."
†
In the bedroom down the hall, an ivy vine tenderly stroked the hair of a sleeping little boy who sighed comfortably and snuggled further into his blankets.
†
A/N: I think I may have found a technical beta willing to put up with the strange way I write things! I should be finding out tonight. :) Hopefully those of you who have complained about the quality of writing will find the story more enjoyable from this point onward! I'm always looking to improve. :D
Winner of the 200th commenter prize is JayJay94!
Also, to clear up any confusion, because I have a feeling there IS some, I'm decidedly female. ;) Don't let my lack of romanticism and love of explosions fool you - 100 percent girl here.
This chapter has title art AND I've posted the 100th commenter prize in my profile! Super Saiyan 2 Gohan's requested prize turned out pretty cute, so check it out!