When Naruto finally caught up with his team, Kakashi told Team 7 that they were given the rest of the day off so they could rest up for their mission before poofing away.
Naruto sighed and turned to his team. 'I wonder...' He smiled a crooked smile before asking as cheerily as he could, "I'm going to the lake in the forest, you guys wanna come?" Sasuke made no expression, even when Sakura came from behind and tried to hug him. He simply did what Naruto had named the "shudder shuffle": he shuddered then quickly moved, scuffing his feet on the ground.
"Hn," Sasuke grunted after a moment of silence.
"I'll go if Sasuke goes!" Sakura chimed, causing Sasuke to inch away even more.
"Hn" Sasuke grunted again. Naruto smiled. 'Maybe I'll get my happy friends back sooner than I thought,' Naruto thought as he began to leave his teammates, hoping they were following.
They soon came to the lake after walking in silence the whole time, Naruto thinking about the great friendship he had shared with Sasuke, after he gave up the whole 'my whole clan is dead I must be an avenger' thing.
Sasuke, however, was thinking differently. 'He invited me along. That can only mean he wants to fight. Perhaps he's going to tell me how to get that strange chakra he's been giving off lately. Or maybe it's a trap?...' and so on.
Sakura was just happy to be near Sasuke and blushed every time she looked at him. 'Hope she snaps out of that quickly...' Naruto thought, glancing back.
Yes, poor Sakura had to abandon her feelings for Sasuke when he ran away to join Sound, turning her affections to the person who always let her have his shoulder to cry on. She agreed to go out with him after about six months, and after a very, VERY extreme makeover. Naruto chuckled, remembering how he had helped "tame the green beast of Konoha."
Poor Lee. His forehead was red for three days. Thankfully they used permanent hair remover so his eyebrows won't grow back. Hell, even Sasuke had eventually found someone to love, even though he was the last one to get married. They had had to be the scariest couple in Konoha.
Flashback
"Come on, Sasuke! You're supposed to dance!" Naruto whined. The rookie 9 plus Neji's team were all in a night club. Sasuke was brought along, told they were going to a party, but in reality, everyone was setting him up.
"Yeah, Sasuke, let loose for once in your life," Hinata egged on. Naruto had been married to Hinata for about a year at that point.
"I don't dance! That's the point I'm trying to make!" Sasuke said. Over the years Sasuke had given up on his revenge and become more open to the people he was close to. Naruto rolled his eyes and saw Sakura signaling to him.
Sakura had brought Indigo with her to set Sasuke up with her. Indigo was a ninja from the hidden mist who moved to Konoha in hopes of becoming one of the best medic-nins. Problem was, she had a personality like a brick.
Naruto grabbed Sasuke's shoulders, as did Sakura to Indigo. They both pushed them over to the stools, where they now sat side by side. Sakura looked Indigo in the eyes and said "Fine, if you're not going to dance just sit here!" Naruto did the same to Sasuke.
"Hn!" Sasuke and Indigo whined in unison. "Hnnn?" they asked at the same time as they turned to each other. "Grrrrrr!" they growled angrily at each "Hnn?" they both looked surprised. "Hnnnn!" they seemed to say flirtingly. "You're hot" they both said, causing the other to blink.
"Wanna go train?" Indigo asked, almost excited.
"Do I ever!" Sasuke said almost happily. And with that, they both walked out of the club, leaving a creeped-out Sakura, Hinata, and Naruto with their eyes twitching.
"That was creepy." The three said at the same time.
"We have created a relationship bound by one word." Sakura said.
"I pity their children," Naruto said, causing his two friends to shudder at the thought.
"They will be able to freeze lava by glaring at it..." Hinata said.
"Scratch my last comment... I pity their children's classmates!" Naruto said. The three glanced nervously at each other before being pulled back to the dance floor.
End Flashback
Naruto had been lost in his memories and began laughing out loud. When he snapped out of his thoughts he was ankle deep in water. Sakura and Sasuke gave him a weird look as Naruto smiled nervously. "Sorry, just lost in my memories."
"Are we going to fight?" Sasuke asked, changing the subject. Naruto blinked
"Umm, no."
"Then why am I here?" Sasuke asked.
"So we can bond, and become closer friends, and have better teamwork?" Naruto offered
"I don't need any of that. All I need is power." Sasuke said coldly. Naruto sighed as he walked out of the water and grabbed two rocks and a small vine.
"You say you want power, yet true power comes from friendship and teamwork," Naruto started. "Wow this seems like deja-vu." Sakura blinked. 'He's being philosophical again. He seems totally different ever since he graduated.'
"Alone you can only do so much," Naruto said as he dropped one of the stones he picked up. It fell, moving the sand out and making a small hole. He then carefully picked up the stone and tied it together with the other stone he had. "But if you have someone to back you up..." Naruto dropped the two stones tied together a little bit away from the first crater. They fell, making a bigger hole then the single stone. "You can do a lot more." Naruto pointed to the holes in the sand. Sasuke had no facial expression. "There's nothing wrong in asking for help to achieve your goals," Naruto said hoping to get through his thick layer of angst.
"You never had a family! What would you know!" Sasuke growled.
"A lot more then you give me credit for," Naruto said calmly. "Yep, definitely deja-vu." 'Yeah, but hopefully it will have the same outcome.' This caught Sasuke's attention.
"You know that I can't beat you in a sparring match, right?" Naruto asked. This caused Sasuke to look Naruto in the eye and nod. "But if I team up with Sakura, I bet we could beat you," Naruto said, stressing the "we".
"You're on!" Sasuke shouted as he jumped back. Naruto turned to Sakura.
"We'll attack from opposite sides, you distract him while I go in to hold him down," Naruto whispered to her.
"I can't hurt Sasuke!" Sakura shouted, causing Naruto to roll his eyes.
"If you beat him he'll probably pay more attention to you..." Naruto coaxed.
'Beat him into submission? Hmm, never thought of that...' "HELL YEAH! SASUKE WILL HAVE TO NOTICE ME!" "Alright, I'll do it," Sakura said after a moment alone with herself. Naruto nodded.
"I'll leave you with a clone so he won't notice me as easily," Naruto said as he quickly made a clone then jumped off.
Sasuke was too infuriated to take notice of this as Sakura and the clone charged. Sasuke dodged and blocked, but he found it rather difficult to get any punches in. He threw a punch at Sakura, who dodged and retaliated with a punch of her own. It hit and was probably going to leave a nice purple bruise under his eye.
Before he knew it, he was on the ground with Naruto standing on his back holding a kunai to his neck. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but one thing for certain, he had lost a match. To the dead-last and a fan girl no less.
"Case in point," Naruto said, letting Sasuke up. Sasuke grumbled incoherently under his breath. "Anyway, do you see what I'm trying to tell you? Now I'm going to do what I came here in the first place for," Naruto said as he took off his jacket.
"It doesn't matter. No one will ever change the fact that I'm an avenger!" Sasuke half shouted. Naruto shrugged.
He went over to place his things on a large rock. Sakura blushed a bit when Naruto came back over wearing nothing but his green boxers. He went into the lake and started to swim. It was a salt water lake that was connected to a river from the wave country's oceans.
Sasuke was still angry but it was slowly subsiding. Sakura was happy Sasuke wasn't moving away from her.
"You coming in?" Naruto yelled from the middle of the lake. Sakura took a few steps and sat on a rock, letting her feet get wet. Sasuke just stood there, lost in his thoughts of destruction.
"Well, that went well," Naruto said to himself before diving to find what he was looking for. At the bottom he found what he wanted: some very shiny shells and quite a few oysters. He grabbed as many as he could carry then started to surface. Once his head broke into the air, he swam back to shore where a curious Sakura was sitting.
"Shells and clams, dobe?" Sasuke asked, coming back to reality.
"What are they for?" Sakura asked, picking up a silvery blue shell.
"Hinata, I'm giving her a gift" Naruto said as he grabbed a stick.
"Oh yeah, what girl wouldn't want clams," Sasuke said looking at the oyster.
"First of all, they're oysters, and second, it's the inside that counts," Naruto said as he popped open an oyster, revealing a pearl. Sakura instantly went into girly mode.
"Aww, that's sooooo sweet!" she said, imagining Sasuke giving her a pearl necklace, pearl earrings, etcetera.
"Why don't you just buy one?" Sasuke asked, calmly forgetting the earlier events.
"I don't have enough money, so I'll do the next best thing."
"Pfft. Who needs love," Sasuke said, more to himself then his team.
Naruto sighed at the comment before turning to see a square "rock." Naruto looked at his teammates and jabbed a thumb at the "rock." Sakura giggled, still lost in thought, and Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"Well, whatever, I'm leaving," Sasuke said and began to walk off.
"Sasuke wait for me! Will you maybe do something with me?" Sakura screamed as she ran after Sasuke.
"Hey! Don't leave me all alone with the totally unsuspicious square rock with eye holes!" Naruto yelled sarcastically. He turned to the "rock" and sighed.
"And you would be?" Naruto asked. 'As if I didn't already know.'
"You're very good to have noticed me. Just what I expected from you, boss!" And with that the "rock"... blew up.
Konohamaru started to cough and hack from inhaling the smoke. "I /cough/ want you to /cough/ teach me how to do what you did to /cough/ the Hokage and Iruka!" the kid whined.
"On one condition," Naruto said, closing an eye.
"Ok, what!" Konohamaru asked eagerly.
"Help me open these oysters to get the pearls," Naruto said happily. The kid blinked; he was expecting something hard to prove he could do it.
After collecting the things he needed and putting the pearls and shells in an inside pocket, he began the long process to train Konohamaru to do the sexy no jutsu. It took a few hours for him to get it right. Naruto grinned in remembrance. He may have been 23 but, thanks to that jutsu, infiltration missions were a breeze. Thank the heavens for perverted men.
After he perfected the jutsu and a few lectures from Naruto on why he wanted to be the Hokage, Ebisu showed up.
"Ah, there you are young master!" he said, jumping down from a tree.
"You must come back with me imminently to continue your training!" Konohamaru then transformed into his version of the sexy no jutsu. Ebisu got a small nose bleed, blinked, and then went on to grab Konohamaru. Naruto made about 30 clones and transformed them all: the poor man flew back with a massive nose bleed.
"WOW THAT WAS AMAZING BOSS!" the kid yelled as Naruto walked over to where Ebisu flew.
"That was disgraceful," the fox said as he examined the unconscious man. 'Hey, don't wanna change history too much. I just wanna help the good get here faster...' Naruto thought to Kyuubi.
Naruto soon left the lake and went home to make the necklaces for Hinata. It was dark when he had finished and set out to find her. It didn't take long for him to find her. She was in a training ground beating up a stump.
"Hey Hinata!" he called, causing her to jump.
"Oh! H-hello Naruto," she replied, blushing.
"I got a surprise for you!" Naruto said happily. Hinata's whole face went red.
"W-what is it?" Hinata asked excitedly, though it sounded more nervous.
Naruto then brought out a small thing wrapped up in tissue. Hinata took it and gasped aloud when she saw it. "I'm going on a long mission, now you'll have a part of me with you. I hope you like it. I made it my self so it's like I put my heart and soul into it." Naruto said, smiling.
Naruto had strung the pearls in between the pieces of multi colored shells. At the front there were three aqua pieces of shell. Needless to say, her voice abandoned her. She put it on and turned bright red as she did so.
"T-t-thank y-you," was all she managed to stammer out.
"Glad you like it," Naruto said. "Let's do something when I get back, kay?" Hinata nodded and Naruto turned to leave, but then turned back to face Hinata.
Hinata blushed even more at this. "Almost forgot..." he said as he moved in closer. Hinata felt her face burn up as he moved closer and closer. A new type of tomato was formed as she felt what she had always dreamt about feeling one day. Naruto had kissed her. It was on the cheek, but that's all the proof she needed. Finally she knew, he liked her too.
Naruto then turned to leave, grinning like a madman. He was still smiling when he got home. Hinata, however, stood dazed for a bit before fainting, still bright red.
As soon as Naruto got home he began to pack. Colorful language filled the air since Naruto was slowly realizing he didn't have half of what he wanted. He simply packed everything that was required with a few snacks, along with a few other things that he thought might be useful. As soon as he was packed he went into the happy bliss known as sleep.
He woke up the next morning greeting the sun's rays. Grumbling, knowing the fact that he wouldn't be able to get any more sleep, he sat up. "Damn sun... it won this round..." he said through a yawn. He stripped off his pajamas, took a shower (bashing into a wall on the way), got dressed, and ate breakfast; making sure everything was good to go, he left.
He dropped his key off to Iruka by slipping it through the mail slot before rushing off to the village gate to meet his team. He only had to wait 20 minutes for his team to arrive, then only another ten for Kakashi to come with Tazuna. Once they were all there, they went over some things before leaving.
The beginning of the trip turned out to be boring. Naruto was going over what had happened last time on the mission. He had to smile at how naive he had been. He began to meditate while still walking, a trick he had learned from Lee. Lee had also taught him how to sleep while running, a trick which he was thankful for when traveling extremely far distances in short periods of time.
However, it didn't last long: he soon herd a rustle in the bushes. He smirked, remembering the demon brothers of the mist. He opened his eyes and spotted the puddle in the middle of the road. An idea pooled into his head. "You guys go on a bit! I gotta take a leak," Naruto said to his team.
"Idiot, don't tell us this!" Sakura yelled as she went to punch him on the head.
Naruto was about to dodge but then stopped himself. Sakura stomped away happily, seeing the bump she had inflicted. Naruto grinned evilly at the puddle and took his leak. Kakashi was watching Naruto from behind him, feeling sorry for the guys who he knew were hiding in there. 'Oh well, can't be helped,' he thought.
The demon brothers were beyond pissed. They were going to take out the jounin first, but the kid just changed their minds. They'd KILL this brat first. When Naruto started to walk away, the demon brother who was in the puddle came up and out, eye twitching with a deranged look on his face.
"I'll kill you for doing that brat!" he yelled as his brother jumped down out of the tree. Naruto put on his innocent face then looked back at Kakashi.
"There was a guy in the puddle?" he asked, innocent face on. When Kakashi nodded, his team all made disgusted faces.
Naruto looked as if to say 'their fault, not mine'. He was about to turn back around to fight them when he felt the cold metal wrap around his body. Kakashi had never been so worried in all his life. He was worried for his student. Annoying though he may be, he'd never hear the end of it if he got killed.
Kakashi was about to run when the brothers pulled tight the chains. The metal bit into Naruto's flesh, blood slipped down them and onto the ground. The two pulled tighter and tighter until the chains were no longer visible, being deeply embedded in flesh.
When Naruto slumped over the two dropped him, completely mangled. "NARUTO!" Kakashi screamed.
"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
"Idiot!" Sasuke said loudly and angrily, but his voice held a hint of remorse.
"Poor kid!" Tazuna gasped.
Kakashi closed his eyes then hung his head, knowing he had lost one of his first students.