Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Chapter 11
"A Samurai?" The bandit leader sneered "You're a long way from Iron aren't you"
The Samurai shrugged "I had business a little farther south of here and was on my way back when I came across you attacking these young children, and I just had to help" he said calmly in a way that reminded the two members of team or Kakashi nonchalant form of speech.
"Well I don't care who you are, you're dead!" the bandit ran at the Samurai with his sword ready, he jabbed it forward as he went straight towards the warrior…
Only for the Samurai to step to the left as the attack went right passed him, and sticking out his foot he caused the man to trip resulting in his face meeting the dirt.
"Careful, we don't want you to get hurt now"
The bandit got back up and readied his sword again. This time he ran forward and tried a slashing attack, however the Samurai leapt up over the attack and used the bandits back as a spring board, causing the bandit to go rolling. The bandit began to get up again only for the samurai to seemingly teleport over the distance before hitting him with his staff, dropping the man.
"Is everyone okay?" the man asked and that was the last thing Naruto saw before passing out. When he woke up again they were in a different clearing and it was night. He heard a crunching noise and looked over and saw the Samurai and Shikamaru playing a game of Shogi. Shikamaru noticed him first.
"Hey Sakura, Naruto's awake" a minute later and Sakura was over him performing some medical ninjutsu on him to check his vitals.
"I'm okay Sakura, it doesn't hurt too bad" he told her before turning to their guest "Who's this guy?" he said pointing at the Samurai.
"I'm called Okami by my fellow Samurai" Okami said as a response.
"And what are you doing here" Naruto asked
"If you must know I was tasked with transporting a trade document between my nation and one that is south of here. My mission is done so I was on my way back, why? What are you doing here?"
At his question everyone tensed up
The Samurai rolled his eyes before sighing "You ninja and your secrets, it's like your secrets have secrets." He got up and walked over to the fire where he stirred something in a pot.
"What happened to the guys who attacked us?" Naruto asked as he tried to sit up only for Sakura to make him lie back down.
"He and Neji took them to a nearby village where they were imprisoned." Shikamaru said before getting up "I'm going to keep an eye on this Okami guy, he appears to be an ally but you can never be too careful." Shikamaru stood and went to stand by the fire as well.
There was silence for a moment between the two teammates
"Do you have a death wish or something?" Sakura asked him.
"No but-"
"No 'buts', you would be dead if Okami hadn't saved you, what were you thinking!" she said
"We had to do something there was too many of them!" Naruto whispered back.
"Your injured Naruto, if you so much as get hit too hard in the chest your lung could be destroyed again and I don't have the ability to save you. We were lucky this time because the damage wasn't bad but what about next time? Do you know how badly that would hurt everyone if you died? How it would hurt me!?" She said and Naruto looked up at her and saw that tears were starting to come down her face.
He had made her cry, that was something he had never wanted to do.
"I'm sorry Sakura, I guess I just wanted to prove that I wasn't useless and I could still help on missions. I'll be more careful from now on; you won't have to worry about me Sakura"
Sakura didn't say anything except nod as she began to dig into her backpack. Naruto felt bad about upsetting Sakura and he'll admit that he hadn't been thinking things through completely when he had used the technique Kakashi and Gai had taught him, and maybe it hadn't been needed.
Then again there was that Samurai Okami to think about. He may not have been the best student in the academy but even he remembered that the Samurai from the Land of Iron had once gone two war with a few of the Great Shinobi Nations, there was no clear victors in the war and eventually the war ended in a peace agreement, one of the agreements was that ninja were forbidden from entering Iron unless given permission.
The reason he even remembered this was because he had a hard time believing that anyone could fight evenly with a ninja.
But he had to admit that the food he was cooking smelled terrific.
The Next Day
They were already on their way when the sun rose the next morning.
Since Naruto had been injured again he couldn't move as fast as originally planned, add that into that Sakura telling Naruto to avoid combat completely, even light sparring.
Okami had decided to travel with them to the Land of Wind border.
Apparently he was a high ranking Samurai officer similar to a ninja Jounin and as part of the treaty with the 5 ninja nations of Fire, Wind, Earth, Water, and Lightning he couldn't enter their nations without express permission by those nations. So once they got across the border they would have to cross the desert to get to Suna on their own.
Naruto had opened his mouth to boast that they could do it when a glare from Sakura made him go quiet.
While everyone was busy doing various tasks to secure their camp for the night it left Okami and Naruto alone. Okami was once again cooking some kind of stew for dinner, and Naruto noticed that the Samurai was a very quiet person.
Finally Okami spoke
"So, mind telling me what happened to your chest?"
This question threw Naruto through a loop
"How did you know?"
Okami just raised an eyebrow.
"It's not like you or your teammates are hiding it, and the way your girlfriend worries over you says that she's worried about something happening again"
"She's not my girlfriend" Naruto said while Okami muttered a 'whatever' "And I don't see why you want to know"
Okami took a sip of some water he had "Maybe because I think we may be alike"
"How do you think that?" Naruto had never talked about his injuries with a stranger before and he avoided talking about it even with the people he was closest to.
"My guess is that you were injured, possibly by someone as close to you as family, and most people told you to just give up and live a safe life but you decided to give it your all to accomplish your goal. Am I right?"
Naruto said nothing but Okami continued talking.
"When I was a boy my family clan and the clan that was beside us were close allies and the leader of the neighboring clan was one of my fathers closest friends, he was like an uncle to me. Then when the former Samurai leader was forced to retire from age there was two people to take his place. My family sided with the now leader Mifune while our neighbors supported the other candidate. When Mifune won some of the opposing clans tried to overthrow him, it failed. But our once close allies attacked our village and my arm was hit with a poisoned spear during the attack and even though they said I would survive they said I would never be able to use my arm again. But I continued to train and improve myself until I got to the point where you can no longer tell I was injured in the first place."
After this Okami became quiet again.
"Does it still hurt?" Naruto asked
"Yep, usually once a day for up to an hour, but I'm used to it so I look at it as more of an annoyance now"
There was silence between the two once again for a while until Naruto spoke again.
"Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I had stopped trying to be a ninja, I tried to help out back there but I ended up causing more problems than I solved"
"Sometimes things will come against you and it'll seem impossible to overcome them but usually once you get past it and you look back it doesn't look as frightening anymore."
Neji then popped up with the others following him soon.
"Stews done" Okami said almost as if the serious topic he and Naruto had been discussing had just evaporated "Come and get it or go hungry, it's your choice"
The Leaf ninja didn't fully trust the Samurai yet but he had yet to do or say anything to make them uneasy or suspicious.
But Naruto was feeling a bit more optimistic, Okami had once been in a similar situation as he was and had overcome it, so then he could too.
The next day
"I thought I had escaped this!" Naruto complained from where he sat in a meditative position.
He sat with his jacket off and his right arm in a make shift sling where he had hurt his arm again, Sakura said he should only need to wear it for a day or two.
"You need to shut up" Okami told him "The main advantage that us Samurai had during our war with the ninja was that where you trained in stealth we trained in awareness, being able to detect things which normal humans cannot. Such as the number of insects in you immediate surroundings, the moment before your enemy attacks, and where ninja are hiding and you can't learn to do this if you are talking" he said sending the boy a sideways glare from where he stood leaning on a nearby tree
"Look, that sounds really awesome and all but can't I learn to do it some other way?" Naruto said
"No" Okami said "You need to focus on your senses, sharpen and hone them, then reach out and sense everything going on around you"
Naruto closed his eyes and began to try and focus on what was around him.
Then he felt Okami's staff hit him in the head
"What did you do that for!?" Naruto asked
"I said you needed to focus on all of your senses, including sight and get them to work together perfectly"
Naruto sighed at having to hold still and do something so boring.
Okay, so I just decided to do this chapter and show some back story on Okami as well as him training Naruto a little. I'm thinking about them running into some trouble next chapter, I don't know maybe.
If any of you are fans of martial arts or comics then you may know what a proximity sense is, Daredevil is one of the most well known characters with it. I plan on that being something that the Samurai have managed to keep out of ninja hands so far and helping them to detect threats and ninja that are hiding.
So what do you think about Okami?
Onto Reviews!
Thedarkpokemaster: Morality is going to be a part of the story because both Sasuke and Naruto have views that are contradictory.
Wolfcoyote: hope you liked this chapter!
TimothyB: I had a bit of writers block on this chapter but finally finished, sorry for the wait.
Geraze90: Naruto will learn some Samurai techniques and he will improve in fuiinjutsu as well. As for the hiraishin? That might come in later chapters. Sakura will be learning new things as previously mentioned she has been training in kenjutsu and genjutsu as well. As for the wood style idea I don't think I'll go that route with Sakura as I just don't feel like putting that in this story.
Thank you all for reading, please review and have a nice day!
