Chapter Five
On their travels Naruto, Suzume, and Nobuo got to meet a variety of different characters. Each had their own stories and reasons for being the people they were. There were a couple of contract killers, single mothers, elders without homes, and men who lost everything from stupid mistakes. Each story held a message, a life message that the three teens thought over. Than on a warm night with cicadas buzzing outside the torn down cabin, Nobuo came up with a seemingly ridiculous idea.
"I've got it!" He exclaimed in happiness, smiling happily. He couldn't help but feel proud about thinking of this idea.
"What is it, Nobuo?" Suzume inquired, intrigued at his sudden excitement so late in the night. She shook Naruto awake, waking him up in the middle of a snore.
"Alright, remember all those people that we talked to over the past few days?"
"Yeah."
A twinkle in his eyes worried the two listeners. "How about… We make our own clan or better yet, our own village!"
Naruto stared at him with sleepy eyes, covering his mouth with his hands as a yawn came out. Suzume on the other hand understood every word the blue head said and squealed. Jumping up and down now, "You're brilliant Nobuo! That is the smartest idea you've ever come up with! I knew you weren't that big of an idiot."
"Yeah, I know ri- Hey!" He stopped momentarily but let the insult slide and celebrated alongside his friend. There were enough people suffering out there hoping for a second chance that it would be easy to find people who were willing to take the idea into consideration. All they needed was a land for them and things would work out just fine afterward.
"I think I know the best place." Naruto chimed in, now fully conscious of the party for two happening in front of him. He explained his past then, of his father and mother, and especially about the Land of Whirlpool. Sure it was destroyed but not the land itself. Plus it was a safe location with a naturally flowing river, abundant trees, and animals still present even though the rest of the inhabitants of the island itself moved away. "There could be some structures left that we could build off of from. Start things up from the old stuff left over. A way of recycling what my ancestors left behind in the destruction."
Nobuo and Suzume exchanged looks. "See, even Naruto can be smart like you sometimes, Nobuo."
"Hey!"
Making their rounds to the previous people they each encountered, it was simple to convince them to give the idea of starting the Land of Whirpool up once again. The ironic thing about this is that some of the people are descendants of those last people who managed to escape the massacre of the country. This meant that at least some of the old bloodlines of the Whirlpool would return home once again to their rightful land. A total of 26 people including Suzume, Nobuo, and Naruto were braving the whirlpools to establish a new home. Some of the people had boats capable of handling the amount of passengers, so they chose to brave the power of the pools. Thanks to Nobuo's talent with water ninjutsu, all three boats managed to escape the treacherous pass to land on the beach shore of the land of Whirlpool.
Seeing the ruins of his mother's home, Naruto felt a little sad at seeing what had happened to the home she loved so dearly. Crumbled mounds of what had once been buildings scattered across the land showed how horrible the battle had been. He knelt to the ground and put his hand to the soft dirt. "I'm home."
Everyone saw the touching moment and stayed hushed, even the children, as they watched the exchange between the boy who would become their leader and the land they would call home.
Suzume felt compelled to interrupt Naruto with his reunion, "Naruto, we need to find everyone shelter. We don't know what the nights are like out here, being surrounded by rapidly moving water. Plus, there is one woman currently pregnant. We can't risk her health or the health of her child."
Naruto understood. "Alright, maybe we can find some materials to make a temporary cabin or something. Maybe use a tarp as a roof for now until tomorrow."
Hearing the conversation, Nobuo called out to all the men asking for help building the shelter. Suzume took charge of the elderly, children, and women. She found them a shaded area beneath a large tree standing in the middle of the dirt area. "Everyone who isn't helping Nobuo, please follow me and find some nice place to sit under the tree over there." She pointed with a finger and led them all. The children laughed and giggled past her, running to the tree as concerned mothers scolded their children. The elders were slowly walking behind the group, enjoying the fresh ocean air that gave this island a beautiful trait.
"This place is wonderful. I could imagine myself dying peacefully here." An older gentleman looked around at the tranquil nature. Time had been kind to the island.
As the sun began to set in the distant horizon, Naruto, Nobuo, and the rest of the men had finished building the temporary buildings out of trees they cut down. The trees had been on the outskirts of the dirt clearing so they only cut them down to expand the open space a bit more.
The building in the center belonged to the woman and children, the left to the men, and right to the elderly. Naruto, Suzume, and Nobuo chose to stay outside incase of any animal attacks or possible human inhabitants present on the island. All of the citizens objected, saying that the duty should be shared but were denied when the children started to doze off.
Staring up at the sky the night stars seemed to shine even brighter than before. "Is it because we're in a place where there aren't so many people here to pollute the air around here that we can see so clearly?" Suzume questioned.
"Maybe, or maybe because of how things are going to be different and the stars are as excited as we are tonight." Nobuo imagined the stars cheering them on from up in the sky.
Naruto laughed at the idea. "Yeah, maybe that's why."
A flap of the flap door being lifted and set down jolted the three into attention. From out of the shadows came a little boy, barely six who had lost both his parents a couple of months ago to thieves. He had been taken in by his kind aunt who already had three children of her own with a husband having to work all hours of the day and night to support the family.
Rubbing his eyes and sucking his thumb, the little boy named Kioshi walked up to Suzume and snuggled up to her, sitting in her lap. Naruto and Nobuo couldn't help but snicker at the cuteness and innocence. Kioshi was quiet and reserved even for a six year old but when it came to Suzume, he was as bold as any other kid.
"Seems like someone has an admirer, don't you think Naruto?" Nobuo teased.
Naruto rubbed his chin, "I would most definitely agree with you, Nobuo. I hear wedding bells in the future."
Suzume gave both of them a sneer. "First off, he is not an admirer; he just has a good taste in people and chose me over you two. Second, I would not marry someone ten years younger than me, thank you very much. He is more of a younger brother than anything." She moved some of his swirly black hair out of the boys face. Kioshi continued to suck his thumb while sleeping but still looked so cute. "Do you guys think this will all work out though?"
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.
Nobuo stuck out his legs. "Don't underestimate my plan, this will work out. Anyways we can't afford for all of this to fail. We have people now who are counting on us to make this work. They bet their lives and their futures for this."
Naruto agreed wholeheartedly with Nobuo. "We have everything we need here. If we all work together and keep thinking positive, nothing can go wrong."
"For their sake, I want this to work." She looked down at the little angel sleeping in her lap and gently kissed his forehead. "Especially for all these kids, they deserve so much better than what their families was put in before."
Kioshi murmured something but it was muffled by the thumb still stuck in his mouth. Suzume tried to remove the thumb and when she did, all the sleeping Kioshi did was put it back. She tried again and again to keep his thumb away from his mouth but even if Kioshi was awake or not, the thumb still ended up back in his mouth.
Nobuo could only laugh at the scene. "Give up, Suzume, he's not going to stop. That kid's just too attached to that thumb of his that even if it's you, he won't stop." Getting a dirty look, he backed off, raising his hands up in surrender.
Naruto smiled. This is what having friends should be like, care free and able to joke about even the most ridiculous situations. He hoped that days like this would continue on, no worries or dangers that could threaten the lives of the people who had started to engrave themselves deep in his heart.
The men set off to build more suitable homes for the people, one for each family or person present. The old buildings that they had built last night would be torn down and the materials used to build them reused. Suzume stayed to help organize how the beginning part of the village would be designed. Taking into consideration the river not far from their location, they planned it into the formation. Meanwhile, Nobuo went to entertain the children and assist the elders. Naruto chose to help gather food from nearby, letting the woman gather fruits while he hunted down game.
This progressed on for the rest of the day. Thankfully before the night set in, the houses were made and each family were able to have more privacy and space now. They were all set up in square like arrangement surrounding the outskirts of the clearing. They would set up the headquarters in the center like any other village would be.
The trio spent the latter of the night after having sorted everyone out, to come up with some ideas concerning the structure of the village. Since none of them knew how the previous Uzu no Kuni worked, they could only come up with assumptions.
"We of course need a leader, different divisions, and we definitely need to build more buildings."
"Businesses are important and parks for the kids."
"Adding in an academy is a must do too. We need to be able to defend our village. It can't be just the three of us being the only ones able to use jutsus."
"But we also need to find people who can teach those kids though."
"And find some way to get other necessary materials from outside the country. But we can't just suddenly come out saying that we reformed Uzu no Kuni like it doesn't mean anything."
They found it hard to be able to come up with all these things right out of nowhere. Naruto knew that they needed more help but there was no one that he could call on for help. Unless…
"I've got it!" He couldn't help but feel stupid for not having though of this before. The others looked at him to explain for him what he meant. "I have a really good friend of mine; pretty high ranking that could help us with this little trouble."
"Who is this person you're talking about? Do we know him?" Suzume asked puzzled at who this powerful person could be. If he turns out to be as powerful as Naruto than they could have some advantage when trying to find some allies.
A dangerous gleam shined in his bright blue eyes, "Oh no, this is going to be a lot more dangerous than I thought."
With a proud look, with one side of his mouth quirked up in a half smile, Naruto nodded slowly. "We're taking a road trip to the Sand Village and paying a special visit to my friend, Gaara."
"Gaara! The Kazekage of the Sand?!"
"I wouldn't be talking about anyone else that powerful now would I?"
Back in Konoha
"What do you mean the trail to find Naruto Uzumaki has gone cold?"
"We apologize, Homura-sama, but none of we Anbu have reported seeing Naruto since a few days ago according to some of the people that had previously seen him. It's as if he has vanished into thin air. " Shikaku bowed his head. "The Anbu are still searching for any signs of him and those who have been sent out on their respective missions have been ordered to keep an eye out for him as well. So far there have been no new reports of him."
Koharu sighed and folded her hands into each other. "I never realized how hard it would be to find one simple boy like him. I assumed he would be reckless enough to expose himself so that we can capture him and deliver to him, the proper punishment."
Shikaku remained quiet. Where exactly is Naruto then? He couldn't have died so easily and staying out of the line of sight seemed like something he could never accomplish what with his track record of pranks. The shinobi had even asked his son whether or not he had any clue on the location of Naruto. The two had been close prior to Naruto's trial.
Sighing, the two elders dismissed Shikaku as they continued to discuss alternate plans for locating the fox child.
Standing just outside the doorway was Kakashi, looking the same as ever except for the redness of his eye that gave away the sleepless nights he spent going out searching for his lost student. He looked up, expecting some sort of news that could help him locate Naruto but soon fell again on disappointment. Looking crestfallen, he walked down the hallway outside into the sunshine, blocking the light with his book. He saw Sai and Sakura walking towards him, questions swirling in their eyes.
"I'm sorry you two, but there hasn't been any more news of him. He's completely disappeared." Kakashi hated to tell them this news every day just as much as he hated it himself. There were heavy weights of regret and guilt weighing down on their shoulders and it felt like to them, that they would never be lifted until the moment they could apologize to Naruto for their cruel behavior weeks ago.