Another note, I noticed most of you don't want Naruto to spend so much time in his mindscape, I wasn't planning on having him spend a lot of time there after this. Also, many of you want someone to see the curse seal. I'll see what I can do with that.
And just a note, I will make it when two people with the curse seal come into contact, there will be a reaction from the seals.
Also, the reason why Naruto was eager to show Kakashi his shoulder was because he was nervous and he wanted to get it over with. Anyway, on with the story.
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Naruto plopped down on the ground, panting. He had been training hard since that morning, needing something to do to keep his mind off things. Even with Kyuubi's help he could still feel the mutterings of the curse mark at the back of his consciousness. As long as he didn't get angry or sad he should be fine. It was those emotions that brought his barriers down. He sighed and decided it'd be nice to take a dunk in the stream. It was a pretty hot day. He got up and went to the stream and stripped, leaving him in an orange pair of shorts. He stuck his foot in the stream. "Brrr..." He got in anyway. "Ah, feels good..." He dunked his head in and then came up and shook it.
'That feels better.' He sat there for a minute before he heard a rustling noise, startled, he turned around. 'Who...?' He noticed a familiar pink haired kunonichi. "Oi, Sakura-chan, what are you doing here?"
Sakura started. She had walked down to the stream to take a dip herself as the day had been kind of hot, but now that Naruto was here...it'd be weird. "Naruto. What are you doing here?"
Naruto answered "Just cooling off. I've been training."
Sakura asked "Training? Why? This is supposed to be a break."
Naruto said "To keep myself occupied."
Sakura shook her head.
Naruto had been watching her. He realized since she wasn't carrying anything, the only reason she would have gone to the stream was probably because she wanted to take a swim too and he realized that as much as he'd like to see Sakura in a swimsuit, he was sure she wouldn't want him too. He smiled and got out. "Ah, I was going to go get some lunch anyway. See you later, Sakura-chan."
Sakura paused, wondering why Naruto didn't ask her to go out with him or to join him. He seemed sad for a minute "Naruto?"
"Hai?" Naruto turned half back around.
"Are you okay?"
Naruto gave a little laugh "I'm fine, Sakura-chan. Just a little hungry and I think maybe I trained to hard." He rubbed the back of his head and grinned at her then walked off.
Something still bothered Sakura a little, but she pushed it to the back of her mind and got into the water with a happy sigh. It sure was a hot day.
Naruto pressed down the depression that wanted to rise at knowing that Sakura would never really like him. He sighed. Maybe some Ichiraku's would cheer him up. He walked to the bar, doing his best to ignore the glares from the villagers that he recieved. It was harder than usual with a little voice in the back of his mind constantly telling him to take revenge. He approached the bar in relief and went in "Hello, Ichiraku-san..." It was then he noticed that Sasuke was there. His eyebrow twitched in annoyance. Were they following him around or something?
Sasuke saw Naruto come in the bar. He had been wanting to talk to him since they had finished the second part of the exam. "D..Naruto"
Naruto stiffened a bit at Sasuke calling him by his name. He never did that. What did he want? He must want something if he's being nice. He responded like he would have if they were talking normally "Teme?"
Sasuke growled a little, but he said "I want to talk to you about the forest of death."
Naruto scowled. He said "About what? It wasn't a fun time. I'd prefer not to go over it."
Sasuke was a little worried by Naruto's behavior. He had never seen him scowl before. He still needed to know, though. He asked "What happened when we got seperated?"
Naruto thought back to meeting the snake sannin and the fight with the snakes. He remembered the pain of getting the seal and the kyuubi leaking out. He said "I fought that ugly missing nin Orochimaru. I fought him as hard as I could. After he thought he had beaten me, he left. That's it." Naruto had gotten his ramen. He ate it quickly.
Even Sasuke could tell that wasn't it. He asked "How did you fight him? The intent..."
Naruto answered, with his head turned away "I've dealt with a lot of killer intent. I'm used to it." He got up and left, leaving Sasuke to wonder what he meant.
Sasuke sat and looked at Naruto's empty bowls and the vouchers under them. What had he meant when he said that? He's dealt with a lot of killer intent? From where? Naruto hadn't been on any more missions than he had. He frowned. What was Naruto hiding?
Meanwhile, a woman named Anko was walking through the center of town when suddenly she felt a twinge from her mark. She looked around and noticed that a young blonde that she thought she recognized had just passed by her. Weird. Why would the mark react to him? She walked up to him and grabbed his shoulder to spin him around.
Naruto felt someone take his shoulder, he didn't feel killer intent, though, so he allowed it. It didn't mean he had to be happy about it, though. "What?" He looked at her for a few seconds "Oh, you're that crazy lady from the chunnin exams. What do you want?"
Anko said "That's no way to adress your superiors kid. How are you out here? Did you give up?"
"I finished yesterday."
Anko looked at the boy in surprise. Finish in the first day? That wasn't possible! Was it? She saw him go in, though. She grinned "Wow, you must have had an easy time then."
Naruto thought 'I'm not giving you any information you can use against me, crazy lady.' He said "Must have."
Anko didn't like the answer. She said "Care to tell me about it?"
Naruto smiled sweetly and said "I already told Hokage-sama. You should talk to him if you want to know. I get tired of telling the story. So many people want to know it."
Anko's neck began to throb and she put her hand on it. To her confusion the boy did as well and then his eyes widened and he put his hand down, he still had a slight grimace on his face.
Naruto noticed the pain receded and thanked Kyuubi.
Kyuubi thought 'Kit, she's going to go to the Hokage. Look at her neck. She's got one too.'
Naruto looked. 'Great...what am I supposed to do?'
'The oblivion technique.'
'What if she's on a mission or something? And it's not like she's going to sit there and let me do it.'
'Distract her.'
'How?'
'Do you remember her being distracted by anything?'
Naruto thought. The only thing he could come up with was what she had been eating. Dango...He said "Anko-san, I saw you eating Dango earlier and I was wondering what the best kind was."
Anko got stars in her eyes thinking about dango.
Naruto sweatdropped. This was going to be easier than he thought. They went into a sweetshop and Naruto waited for the right moment, which happened to be when Anko was waving some dango in front of his face. He performed the justsu using handsigns faster than he ever had before. He sat the dazed Anko down in a booth and said to the owner which was looking at him, altough he didn't seem to have seen the justsu "Heh, excuse her. She gets so excited about dango. I think she spaced out. Is it ok if she sits here for a bit until she snaps out of it. I've got to run."
"Sure. You're not going to stick around?" Naruto wondered at this man being nice to him. He must be new in town.
He said "Nah, we're going to meet up again later."
"Hey, who's paying?"
"She is." With that Naruto turned and walked out of the door. He thought 'Suits her right for being annoying.' He sighed. He hoped he could get through the rest of today and tomorrow without any more close calls.
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So, what do you think guys, except for the fact that I need to get a better word processor that makes better dividers? I know it's short, but I hope it was a good chapter. R and R. Jiao.