CH 12
C-Class Mission: Land of Waves III
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
The idea of taking over Gato's empire appealed to the time-traveler in the sense that it would occupy his time and mind. It would also ensure that his organizational didn't go down the toilette until the day he became the Hokage of Konoha. Not only that, but he'd learn a lot more in dealing with underworld figures and that would in turn teach him to deal with the moron Danzo and his poor attempts to take over Konoha in conjunction with Otogakure and Orochimaru.
'How to go about that,' Naruto wondered. 'I wonder if Sasuke would know because he's technically the Head of his Clan, so he has to be learning something about that...But I don't remember him doing anything of that nature in the past either.'
(...A regent or proxy...) The fox said.
(...Zabuza can be my proxy and he can have Haku come to Konoha for any instruction to the running of organization...) Naruto thought about it. (...Anyone that Zabuza can trust to run the company without gouging the people in the area would be the best. I already have several doing the things I need and I bet that there are few more 'missing-nin' that'd be willing to hide in retirement instead of battling for a town or village that they don't believe in or that don't believe in them...)
(...Exactly, but be careful Gaki...) The fox told him. (...You should be present for some of those contract dealings and trust your gut in the matter of who runs what...)
(...I know, I've done what I could so far. It'll take a few more years to get people to live properly again, but I know that some will continue to live in the shadows and their vices will control them...) Naruto said.
He'd seen a few Shinobi fall into the path of drugs, drink and debt. It wasn't pretty. The ones that were security risks, as Hokage, he had to call for the Hunters to take care of the issue, in the same sense that Haku was supposed to have done with Zabuza.
"Okay," Naruto said, coming to a decision. 'Now is the time for me to make special paper with binding Seals to prevent Gato from ever attempting to reclaim his position or his companies. I know that Kakashi-sensei is going to want to stay until the bridge is completely built so we have weeks to take over the last of the coastal companies, but to get that fat lump to sign over everything to me...I'm going to need some specialized paper for the markers to be turned over to me.'
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
The following morning Kakashi-sensei announced that in order to be ready for Zabuza and his apprentice, they were going to begin training.
"Training in what, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura asked.
"Chakra control," the man said with a grin. He carefully watched the exchange between the two boys. Sasuke looked at the blond with a raised eyebrow and the other boy only responded with a shrug.
It was the pink haired Kunoichi that asked the question, "How are we going to do that?"
Kakashi was still watching the boys as he said, "We climb trees."
Naruto grinned at the black haired boy, who scowled and then asked his sensei, "Can you teach us something else?"
"Hm," the man said. "I might, if you can prove to me that you know how to climb trees. I believe that someone was supposed to have taught you 'catchra control'. If you're ready, we'll go now." He moved slowly as he had no choice, but to use a pair of crutches to support himself because he was still slowly recovering from his chakra exhaustion. He took them to a clearing in a nearby forest and said, "Well?"
Naruto shrugged and walked up the tree. Sasuke did the same on the tree next to the blond boy. They both reached a halfway point, walked over the branch, took a step to turn upside down and then they looked at their sensei. The man had watched them with a surprised look on his face based on his wide-eyed look and the O behind the gray mask.
"That's how were you were able to sit on the ceiling of the classroom," Sakura shrieked at the blond. "You cheated."
Naruto huffed and said, "What part of me being a Genin for two years escaped your notice Sakura. Of course I'd already learned 'chakra control'. We basically need it before even attempting the Chunin exams, which you already know I've attended once."
Sakura gulped and then asked, "How did you learn, Sasuke?"
"I asked Naruto to teach me," the dark haired boy told her. The two boys walked down the trunk of the trees, when he continued. "You should have also noticed that when Naruto attacked Zabuza after he released Kakashi-sensei, he was walking on the water like they were."
"What, why," Sakura said. "How?"
"It's chakra control," Sasuke told her. She only snorted like she didn't believe it.
"Oi Sakura," Naruto called from a short distance away. "As soon as you've the water walking down, I'll show you how to skate without ice." He was on top of a small stream sliding on the surface and jumping over the rocks in it. The flow of the water didn't affect him because of the way he was using his chakra.
Sasuke ran up to him and said, "Spar!"
"Bring it," Naruto stood in position waiting for the other boy to land and attack him. They did a few Katas separately and then brought them together in a repeated sequence until they were going all out at a speed that the poor girl knew she had no hope of achieving unless she seriously changed the way she trained.
"Well it looks like I have some catching up to do," she said with a scowl. She was angry and turned that anger onto her sensei. "Teach me now!"
Kakashi-sensei's attention was brought back to the waiting girl and he said, "Very well. Take a kunai to mark your progress. Focus the chakra at your feet, maintain and control it so that you have the right amount in order to do what you want."
It didn't take the girl long to understand the concept and climb the tree. She came back down and noticed that the boys stopped their sparring from time to time to do stretching exercises or to consult a scroll that one or the other would pull out. They'd go through more moves and then begin their spar again with the new moves being added to the forms they've been practicing. The speed at which they did their spar annoyed her because it was so fast that everything they did was blurry.
Kakashi had been watching them and was itching to lift his Hitai-ate in order to see and learn those moves. Unfortunately, if he did that he'd be stuck with a longer recovery time. He then turned to look at the face of his third student and noticed that there was a fairly ugly look of jealousy on the young girl's face. "Keep practicing until you run out of chakra," the man told her. "You need to know your limits before we can move onto something new. After which, you'll tell me what you train in, how long you train or study, from there we'll come up with a schedule for you to follow."
"What about them," she asked, before turning to climb the tree in front of her.
"I'd have to see what they're doing first," the man told her. "I don't know what each of you does after I dismiss you, but I've unfortunately assumed that you all continued to train in the standard forms, as well as any you've learnt to prefer. I was mistaken, as it looks like the boys have moved up quite a few levels beyond the standard Academy forms you were taught and they look to be at least low-level Chunin in Taijutsu."
"But the Academy taught us what we needed to know," Sakura said walking back down the tree.
"No," Kakashi-sensei told her. "The Academy is a place to gauge a person's determination in following the Shinobi path, but it does not allow for much more than base E-Level and very few D-Level learning in all things. Those that make or pass the Genin secondary test are those that will go further as Ninjas. They'll be of use to the Hokage as Shinobi warriors. Once you're Chunin, secondary or tertiary training can be obtained in specific fields, like administration or medicine. Sometimes Chunin are known as the secondary defence of a village, but in no way are they even close to the low standard coming out from the Academy. Other Ninja levels, such as; ANBU, Hunters, Jounin or other specialists are the primary forces that help the Hokage do what he needs to do in order to maintain peace."
"The Academy never explained any of this," Sakura said.
"The Academy is young," Kakashi-sensei told her. "It was born in a time of peace. The Hokage and the Village are still trying to learn how to live in such times. So far it will only ever teach the basics and the only way to change what the Academy teaches will depend on what the community wants and doesn't want to see."
"No children fighting," Sakura said. "There'd probably be fewer now that would graduate early, like so many we've heard about. If they did, they'd probably have to be monitored, much earlier to prevent something like what happened to the Uchiha Clan, huh?" She was watched the two boys move away from the river, but it looked like they were hunting something in the forest. "Should they be going deeper in there?"
Kakashi-sensei didn't say anything, but he summoned a small pug dog, pointed in the direction that the other two were traveling and said, "Stay with the boys until the sun begins to set and then get them back to our client's house."
"All right," the dog said and walked off.
The Jounin turned to the girl and said, "You're not done, continue your climbing until I'm certain that you've exhausted most of your chakra."
"Yes sensei," she said and walked up the tree one more time.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
"Oi you two," the pug called to the two boys he could see were talking, as they leaned to look at something close to the ground.
"Yes Pakkun," Naruto answered absentmindedly. "The root of this plant is good for a food supplement, but that one over there, may look similar, but it's bad. We can gather some of the good ones for Tsunami-san when we begin to head back."
"How did you learn this," Sasuke asked.
"Trial and error," Naruto said. "We also had a lot of D-Class missions that involved weeding and taking care of some greenhouses for clients. I asked the clients questions, those that didn't mind them answered them. I remembered what some of them told me and wrote most of it down after the mission."
"Interesting," Sasuke said. "Now what was the tree you were looking for?"
"A cherry birch," (...i...) Naruto said. "There should be a few around here, plus I really need these plants, if you see them let me know, but don't touch them they're venomous." He handed the boy a scroll with a piece of coal.
"What's this for," Sasuke asked.
"To make notes of where you find the plants," Naruto said and he showed his teammate that the scroll was made for making notes, without destroying the original contents. "The information is Sealed in the scroll. There are protective layers over the information that allow for notes to be taken and retained for a short bit of time. It's like the waterproof maps we had at the Academy."
"All right," Sasuke said, pulling out a compass. "We'll meet in a couple hours to see if we've found anything?"
"Good idea," Naruto said. "Pakkun, did you want to rest here? We could use you as a location to come back to."
"I'll follow the Uchiha," Pakkun said. "I don't like the smell of cherry birch and neither does Kakashi, so make sure you wash before we meet."
"Two hours then," Naruto said and turned west. Sasuke and the pug dog turned east to search for the plants that the blond needed for some purpose he hadn't explained yet.
A couple of hours later Sasuke had found three of the five plants that Naruto had been looking for. He'd made the notes on the scroll. He didn't mind that the dog had followed him, because the dog talked and answered whatever questions the dark haired boy had about animal summons.
They met a sawdust covered Naruto and gaped. The blond looked at the dog and said, "Sorry Pakkun. I needed to cut one of the trees and break it down."
"What did you use," Sasuke asked, as he handed the boy the scroll with the notes he'd made.
"Wind Style: Axe Takedown," Naruto said in an exhausted tone. "It's one of the E-Levels that I've been able to understand quickly. It forms a single axe out of Wind. The rest is simple chakra control and knowing how to use an axe to chop wood."
He demonstrated using a 'sucker' sapling that was growing too near another tree and taking the nutrients that the tree needed to continue its growth. A couple of base hand signals and an axe of green elemental wind appeared in front of the blond's outstretched hand. A quick flick of the hand and the axe aimed for the base of the sapling. One slice, the little thing fell down and the axe disappeared.
"I had to call it forth more than once," Naruto explain. "I'm just glad that I had enough empty scrolls to store the wood of the tree in it."
"You took the whole tree," Sasuke asked. "What on Earth for?"
"Hi...mi...stu..." Naruto smiled with a wink and put a finger in front of his mouth, as though to say quiet, but actually meant 'it's a secret'.
Sasuke huffed and then followed the boy in collecting the herbs that he'd found. He kept well away when he noticed that the blond was using thick gloves, cover pots and a special snipping tool per family of plant. He was curious, but kept his distance until they returned to collect the tubers that they'd found for their client's daughter.
"You boy's need to return to the client's house," Pakkun said. He herded them, as best he could, but in the end they arrived in time to have a meal and then go to sleep. Their sensei dispelled the dog summon.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
That same night Naruto sent out five Kage Bushin to seek out some empty barn, farm or warehouse, general a place that he could use to manufacture the needed paper and ink in order to build the contract paper he needed. The paper he knew how to make had changed and increased with his knowledge of the Fujin Seals and Fujin Watermarks. The Seals will bind the man or men to the conditions of the contracts and confine them or destroy them for failure.
'Not that I'd tell anyone about that, unless they've proven their loyalty,' Naruto thought with a fox-like grin.
It wasn't long after some internal planning that he felt the first of his Bushin come in. It confirmed that there was an empty farmhouse and field to the north that looked to have been unattended for many years. However there looked to be footsteps in the area of it that looked fairly recent.
The second found an abandoned warehouse in the next town over, about two hours away from there, as the ninja flits through trees. 'Too close to here,' Naruto thought. 'But that might be an ideal town to settle a few of the missing-nins to monitor this area and prevent another person like Gato from trying to take advantage of the people.'
The third came back with two warehouses in the larger port town, nearly six hours away, but close to where his clan's old village was founded. It was called Uzushiogakure or Village Hidden Among Whirlpools. 'This looks like an ideal place to relocate the Headquarters,' he thought. 'It might also just be the best place for me to re-create the village and keep it hidden until it can stand on its own feet again. I might just go be first Uzukage there after I retire from being Hokage of Konoha.'
The forth came back without much information other that the suspicion that the suspended structure in the nearby forest was the hideout that belonged to Zabuza. It was there that it noted the watchers of the missing-nin, 'A bunch of summons,' the blond thought. 'Well there's no way that I can approach the man, but maybe there'll be a way to speak to Haku about it.'
The fifth one died when it crossed paths with another ninja. Only this time it was another missing-nin of a very unfriendly nature. This clone had chosen to disguise itself, as most of them did when they were scouting among other people because it was stupid to do otherwise. The blond was able to get a good look at who Gato was and the men he chose to surround himself with.
Naruto formed two more clones and sent them out to see if the two warehouses of the that port town were available for purchase of for claiming, depending on the name needed to possess them. They were probably the only option he had in order to get the paper he needed to transfer ownership made. The plus side about that town was that the clones could purchase better law books and books about writing laws, which would help the blond in forming new legal and 'binding' documents.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Three days later Team Seven were training in other formations of Taijutsu and what Kakashi-sensei could teach them of Kenjutsu, the technique of the sword. He knew quite a bit because he'd possessed his father's elemental Tanto blade for many years until it broke during a particularly nasty mission.
He also helped to improve the way the punched things in order to get more effective results from the brass knuckles that they'd 'borrowed' from Sasuke's scroll of weapons. He looked at the marks that Naruto had made on the pair that the black haired boy had used against Zabuza's clones.
"Don't use them too often with elements," Kakashi-sensei told them. "It was a good idea, but these weren't made to hold an elemental force in them and are likely to crumble or wear down faster because of it."
"I suspected that already," Sasuke told the Jounin. "I just figured that they could be used on this journey and that I'd be able to purchase something that will hold an element once I get back to Konoha. Unless you know of a larger town nearby that can supply us with better equipment."
"Nope," Kakashi-sensei told him. "We're here to do our mission and then we return once the mission is complete. We do not look for other places to shop around for supplies. Now, time to continue with training."
Naruto only shook his head at the black haired boy and signed, 'Don't worry about me, my supplies are coming soon.'
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Naruto had sent out Kage clones with enough chakra in order for them to carry out specific tasks. Namely making the paper that he wanted. Getting the contracts all drawn up and hunting down some low rank missing-nins that just could be swayed into moving, enforcing and aiding some of his newer businesses to change their practices.
Gato couldn't truly maintain his focus in the Land of Waves because some strange and new company, which had the logo of a fox, had bought many of his businesses out over the past two years. They weren't the big businesses, but he felt that something fishy was happening somewhere else. However this had been going on for quite some time. It was just noticeable now, as some of the loan sharks that he owed money too were slowly selling his markers to someone unknown entity.
The short greedy, pompous, ass stopped by to taunt he favourite toys, a couple of missing-nin from Mist, living in some kind of conical tree house. "So you two have the nerve to show up here," the man sneered. "How long do you think that you can keep this up? I hired you to do one job, not lounge on your keesters."
He had two bodyguards with him of a samurai nature. They were large and carried swords at their hips, but these two were mean and mercenary. The type that Gato loved to boss around because he was the one with the funds and money paid for a lot of things. He was short in stature, so bossing taller man usually made his day.
This time he walked up to the bed where Zabuza was laying in and was about to touch the missing nin, when Haku grabbed the shipping magnate's left arm and broke it. "Don't defile Lord Zabuza with your filth."
There was a snick, sound which indicated that swords were about to be drawn. In a moments decision, the thoughts going through Haku's head was, 'I knew they were going to do that.'
In a quick step, chakra enforced, he moved too fast for the guards to see, pulled their swords and held them up against their necks. He told them in a voice of ice, "You don't want to do that when I'm angry."
The old man moved away and said, "Th…There had better be no more mistakes. I'm going… I..If you fail again, don't think that you can come back here."
Gato and his group left the area quickly and paid no attention to the local wildlife that watched him walk away with their beady eyes. A small squirrel of tan brown colour, chittered at the noise the men were making and then it hopped to the window to chitter at the ones inside the building.
The one on the bed said, "Haku…There was no need for you to…"
"I know," the pretty looking boy replied. "But it's too soon to finish off Gato. If we cause a commotion where we are we might find ourselves on the run from them again." He looked at the squirrel on the window ledge in confusion, as it suddenly threw a nut at him.
Zabuza turned in the direction of the boy's gaze and noted that the eyes on the animal flashed in human blue. A blink later they were back to small beads of black and the animal poofed out of existence when a Shuriken cut of its head.
"Let me see that nut," Zabuza said. Haku put it on bed and turned it around when asked. The missing nin chuckled and then said, "Use one of your senbon to crack it open. Do it gently."
Haku frowned, but did as asked. Once the nut was open, he gasped when he saw a tiny scroll growing in size. He backed away, never having seen that message delivery technique before.
For some reason, this struck the Demon of the Mist as funny, "Heh, come back a read it. I have a feeling that a choice has just been dropped into our laps, literally."
Haku approached it and did a few tests to make sure that there was no trap attached to the paper. He unrolled it and read it out loud, knowing that no one was watching them at the moment. "Greetings Dead Men. Want to change your fate, agree to a meeting. I'll name the town when the apprentice fetches some healing herbs for the rogue. PS: I'm going Gato."
"It's signed Blondie," Haku finished.
"The blond kid," Zabuza said. "I knew that there was something different about him."
"What do you want to do?"
"You'll agree to the meeting," the Mist Rogue said. "I think that there's something interesting in the works here. Gato was quite sweaty and not quite so confident here, as he normally was."
"The contract we have is specific though," Haku said. "The head of the Bridge Builder for free passage."
"We're ninja," Zabuza said. "There are always ways to get around a contract that badly written in the first place. That man has no honour, but that kid is different. I can feel it, so I want to know what he has to say."
"As you wish," Haku said with a smile, pleased to be doing something for his Master.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Clones, clones everywhere and not one of them ever hesitated to do what they need to do in order to change things in the Land of Waves. Bit by bit, ever since the old man, came back into the past the lives of some people in this water filled land have changed for the better. Those that used to have it so good through dirty deeds found that they're lives were the ones falling into the crapper.
Naruto hadn't been elected Hokage for nothing. He may have been kind like Sarutobi, but he was also ruthless when things needed to be done, he barely ever hesitated to give the killing order. He had fought in wars and maintained peace for decades before that last war that sent him back to change a few things. Still it was good to know where the money was buried in order to make use of in this timeline.
This time as soon as his clones came in with after successfully having purchased of several banks, the warehouses seen and a few more bits of land. The blond boy knew that a couple of clones were traveling in his direction and that they were under cover. They carried all papers of ownership, where the owner is Kitsune Company Limited.
'Now's the time to make the paper,' Naruto thought. 'I'll have to use that abandoned farmstead nearby, but now that I own that property, it should be fine.'
He created about fifty clones to convert the barn and install the papermaking items needed to make the special Fuuinjitsu paper he needed in order to create a few bonding contracts and blank summoning scrolls. 'Why not make more just in case they're needed,' he thought. 'I hope that I don't regret this.'
Every time twenty-five popped back, he'd make another twenty-five to take their place.
Kakashi-sensei suspected that the boy was using his chakra much more than the others, but didn't say anything about it. He was curious, but felt that the boy couldn't be doing anything wrong, although his nin-dog had reported to him about the plants and tree that the boys had been looking for on the day that he'd trained Sakura in controlling her chakra.
Sasuke was sort of aware that Naruto had been sending out clones into the night, but he didn't question the boy. He figured that he'd tell them in time. That was something he'd learnt from having been taught chakra control and from the physical training he now continued to do. He did know that the blond was using them to learn most of the base spell for his elements. He was doing the same.
Naruto's clones were not the only reason his chakra reserves were depleting quite so fast. He was using them to learn a few elemental spells. This was what he told Sasuke. He'd taught the black haired boy how to make Kage Bushin and then said, "You can use them to improve your learning, but since you might have less chakra than me, promise you won't make more than two or three."
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Naruto was lying in the clearing waiting for his encounter to happen with Haku, but he fell asleep. The encounter was pretty much the same. The boy, Haku, wore something that looked like a dress. The blond sighed, knowing that the other was just looking at him, rather than waking him up like he'd done in the past.
He sat up and looked around. "Hey," the blond said. "You know…you're prettier than a girl. Anyway…" This was fallowed by him standing up, yawning and stretching, "Tell your precious person to meet me in the next town over, house with red roof."
"Why do you fight," Haku asked.
"To protect my people," Naruto said sitting back down to look at the boy's downcast eyes. "You?"
"I have someone precious…" Haku looked up and noted that the boy wasn't quite so young looking around the eyes. "You know…"
Naruto shrugged. "What I know and how people react or act to what I know are different things. I may have a strong idea of what'll happen. I also have a strong idea on how to prevent from happening, depending on the conditions of you employment to Gato."
Haku swallowed.
Zabuza had told him that he could tell the blond whatever he wanted in relation to how they were associated with Gato. 'Who knows…' the missing nin had said. 'Maybe Blondie can think up a plan to prevent the future that he told me about.'
"We were to bring Gato the head of the Bridge Builder," Haku said. "We were to prevent the bridge from being finished."
Naruto paused and then grinned. "Okay," he said. "I'll see if I can talk them out of finishing it too soon and that'll fulfill that. So how good is he or you at Henge?"
"What," Haku said.
"Hm," Naruto said. "Think about it and we'll discuss this at our next meeting. Let me help you gather some of these for you."
"Thank you," the boy said. "Why would you help us?"
"Allies come in many forms you know," the blond said. "If I can prevent needless deaths, then I'll allies I can trust…" He looked at the other boy and qualified that with, "For a while at least…right?"
"Heh," the dark haired girly looking chuckled. "Well we are ninjas."
"True," Naruto said. "I'm also looking for a teacher, know of anyone who's a Master in Kenjutsu."
Haku looked up shocked and then he couldn't help, but genuinely smile in response to the impish grin that he was receiving. He stood up, brushed the grass off of his clothes and said, "I'll be seeing."
"You betcha," Naruto said with a wave.
Sasuke walked into the clearing as a person was leaving and he thought, 'Was Naruto talking to that girl?'
"Neh, Sasuke," Naruto said calling the other boy's attention. "Prettier than Sakura or no?"
"Definitely," Sasuke answered honestly. "Prettier any of the girls in Konoha."
"I thought so too," Naruto then told him. "But that's a boy by the way."
"Damn," Sasuke said and then he turned back to the blond. "I take it that you're rested now."
"Yep," the blond answered and called forth two Kage Bushin. The Uchiha did the same and listened as Naruto showed him how to get each bushin to learn a different element scroll, instead of all learning the one scroll. "The Bushin are you and all you have to do is give them a different scroll to study to learn twice the amount that you'd normally learn."
"Is there a downside to that," Sasuke asked.
"Of course," Naruto said. "When they dispel you get all the information downloaded at the same time and if you're not ready for it, it be jumbled and harder to put in order when you meditate. So only dispel one at a time and process what they've learned before letting the other one go. It won't matter if they didn't succeed on the first try because whatever they've figured will make it that much easier for you in the future."
"I get it," Sasuke said. "Is that how you learn things?"
"Only some things," Naruto said. "I do physically train because my body has to be able to keep up with the things that I know."
"That I can understand," Sasuke said, feeling the weights on his wrists. "How long have you been using weights?"
"A long time," Naruto said. "You can't get a clone to do that for you either. So they're the best for book learning, elements and other spell type Jutsus. My body has to learn the Taijutsu and other physical techniques."
"I see," Sasuke said. "All right." He turned to one of his clones and handed three E-Level lightning scrolls and then three D-Level lightning scrolls to his other clone. "Lightning is stronger than water, so learn these." The clones nodded and stepped to the other side of the clearing to study the scrolls and the practice.
Naruto had done the same with the four D-Level water spells. "Water cancels water, so let's see what we can do," he told one of the clones. "You take these wind ones."
The blond then turned to his black haired rival and teammate. "Spar?"
Sasuke shook he head. "Taijutsu practice in kickboxing and boxing."
"Good idea," Naruto said. He pulled out another scroll, same as the Uchiha. They talked through some of the positions and then practiced them before sparring full out.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Both boys had arrived at the Bridge Builder's house leaning one another. They were nearly completely exhausted. This had shocked Sakura, their sensei and their hosts. They both collapsed on at the table, laying on it with a satisfied smile of well-earned exhaustion.
Naruto smelled the wet salt water associated with tears. He glanced around and thought, 'Ah. Time for that speech, I wonder, if I should…well the kid rouse up the sleepy village.'
"What wrong," he asked the boy. (…ii…)
"Why," the kid sniffled. "Why are you pushing yourself so much? No matter how hard you work or train, you'll never be a match for Gato's thugs. They're much stronger than you. You can act all tough and cool, but guys like that are too strong and they will always destroy those that are weaker."
"Shut up," Naruto said. "I'm not you, so I'm not going to die because some thug can't take me on by himself."
"Just watching you pisses me off. You go runnin' your mouth off when you don't know a thing about this town or land," Inari shouted. The tears were really flowing now. "You don't know a thing about me. I see you laughing and having fun, you don't know what it's like to suffer or feel lonely or anything about my life."
It was almost like the rest of the people in the room heard an audible snap.
"So," Naruto said in a very harsh, serious tone. "So you think…it's all right to star in this sad soap opera and that everyone around has to pity you and agree that everything is hopeless because you say it is? It takes a really big man to sit around and cry all day. You're just a whining brat and cry-baby!"
Sakura said yelled, "NARUTO YOU WENT TO FAR." She only got 'Hmph' in response.
The look on the blond's face had shocked the boy out of his tears, but not quite out of his current mind-set that everyone loses to those that are stronger. The boy gulped loudly and watched the blond leave the room with a stubborn set to his shoulders and his hand were in his pockets.
Later, Inari was sitting at the water's edge. It was a dock that nearly surrounded the boy's house. "May I join you," the Jounin sensei asked and sat down when the boy didn't say a word. "You know Naruto's kind of a brat too, but he's not that bad. He wasn't trying to be mean or hateful, he just doesn't know how to properly express what he's saying sometimes."
Kakashi-sensei looked at the boy, who seemed to be thinking about it. "Tazuna-san told us about what happened to your father… Naruto…well he never knew his father. In fact he doesn't even know who his parents were. He doesn't have anyone and he didn't have any friends either."
"Re..really," Inari said.
"Yes," Kakashi-sensei said. "In all the time that I've known him, he's never once cried or use his own loneliness or whatever troubles he has as an excuse to sulk or be a coward. He's always trying his hardest and that's why HE is the more experienced Genin on my team, despite the way he acts. He worked so that he graduated two years before his teammates in there."
"Does that mean that he had other teammates," the boy asked.
"He did," Kakashi-sensei said. "He had another teacher too. When push to shove he saved his old teammates and then had to placed with new people. He basically had to start all over learning to trust them and gaining their trust in return. He's still trying to prove himself to us."
"Including you?" Inari looked at the one-eyed man. "Why did he have to prove himself to you?"
"I didn't know him," the Jounin confessed. "I knew what everyone knew about him and believed him to be as he always was. This mission is changing a lot of that. He only ever wanted someone to see and acknowledge him, that's his dream and that's why it seems like he risks a lot. I also guess that's why he doesn't cry…I think maybe he got tired of crying."
"He does understand you and more importantly, I believe he knows what it means to be strong. He knows the costs and knows it's worth it, just like your father, Kaiza, did," Kakashi said. "That's probably why he can't leave you alone. You've managed to get under his skin."
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
TBC…
(…i…) Cherry Birch – completely made up, as I do not know if something like this exists or not.
(…ii…) See volume 3 – conversation mostly re-interpreted or near copied to push this story forward.