Authors Notes:
Yes, I am still alive.
I've recently been laid up after surgery and so I decided to try and work on this unfinished chapter. I hope everyone who has been asking me for new chapters enjoys it as it has been so long overdue. I am also working on some notes for the next chapter as well.
As always...i don't own Naruto or any of it's characters.
enjoy
Puppets of the Leaf
Chapter 17
By Riotv2
Naruto and Shikamaru arrived at the academy at the time that had been appointed to them.
Naruto had on his new vest, and had filled it's pockets with the storage scrolls for his puppets. Across his back, as if it were a sword, he had the long thin scroll of his giant fox-like puppet, which he hadn't yet gotten around to working on following his fight with Gara.
The Chunin at the front desk of the administration office, who had a large number of bandages on him, nodded to them then let Izumo and Kotetsu know of their arrival.
The two Chunin greeted them with a lighthearted smile and indicated for them to follow.
"Today we're just going to have you follow us around on our assigned tasks, and go over some of the things you'll need to know, feel free to ask any questions-"
"When's lunch?"
"-you may have." Izumo shook his head at the blonds interruption.
For most of the morning, the four of them wandered around the village, checking that various repairs were going smoothly, mostly to the outer wall and the other village defenses, and making notes of the progress being made.
Of course...Naruto was bored. "Man...is this all Chunin do?"
Kotetsu looked up from his clipboard. "Not at all...after you two have been fully indoctrinated as Chunin, which we can't do until the new Hokage has arrived, you'll be assigned a specific role within the village, depending on your individual skill-set."
"Hai, Kotetsu and I are administrative Chunin. We mostly assist the Hokage...and the council...with internal village matters, such as the Chunin Exam, and coordinate the Chunin ranks with the other shinobi in the village." Izumo continued.
"Others, like Umino Iruka, took a role at the academy teaching the students, after being promoted."
"Some work almost exclusively within the village, but all of us are capable and sometimes required in case of emergency to take missions. Though I suspect that you, Naruto will most likely be spending most of your time doing missions. Your puppets give you a unique and versatile skillset to work within, from information gathering, to combat and assassination, though those mostly go to Jonin or ANBU."
"You, Shikamaru, with your skills and analitical mind will likely be preforming a mix of both internal and external duties."
That gave them a lot to think about and Naruto was kept busy thinking about all the different challenging missions they'd be going on. He wondered if he and Shikamaru would be working together a lot...which brought to mind thoughts of Team 7. He hadn't seen his two teammates since the funeral, and he wondered if Kakashi had told them about his promotion yet. Sasuke was going to be pissed.
…...
Once they had finished with checking on their repairs, and arrived at the Hokage's office to submit their report to the council, Izumo led the group around the back of the building.
"Now...you may have noticed that during your team practices or whatever you happened to be doing, your Jonin-sensei might have, occasionally, left all of a sudden and with little to no explanation?" They nodded, it had always aggravated Naruto when his teacher had done that.
"That is because we have a system within the village, to summon either specific individuals or a small group of ninja to the Hokage's office at a moments notice."
"*yawn* You mean the messenger birds?"
The two older ninja looked back at the lazy Nara and smiled. "Exactly. As you probably know we use birds to send messages to other villages, or even teams in the field. But we also have three very specific birds that are used only within the village."
Naruto looked mildly interested, and now saw that they were being led towards a tall tower, out of the top of which a large bird flew off in a direction carrying a message on it's back.
They climbed a tall flight of stairs and came into a large circular room, containing a skinny, almost sickly looking Chunin, who was currently feeding several large birds.
"These are our messengers..." Naruto was amazed at the sheer size of them. All around the room, hawks, falcons, even a few large eagles, filled the walls and perches. Most had hoods on, covering their eyes, but a few watched them with a curious gaze.
On one wall, he noticed, three particular birds were kept away from the others. And there was a covered cage not far from them.
Kotetsu approached the three. "These are the ones we told you about. From time to time, it may become nessisary to summon someone to the Hokage's Office, each bird is trained to locate and circle above a certain individual, or even a small group of people, then return. That is the signal to report in immediately."
Both Naruto and Shikamaru nodded in understanding.
"This, is Kota..." Izumo, who had put on a large leather glove, allowed the one on his left, a light tan colored, almost white, hawk to hop onto his outstretched arm and gave it a piece of raw meat.
"If you ever see him circling you, and believe me he'll let you know if you don't see him, then you must drop what ever you are doing and report in at the Kage Tower at once...No Exception!"
Naruto looked over at the other two birds. "What about those two?"
"The brown one is used to summon Jonin, while the dark spotted one calls on the ANBU, but they're usually around anyway."
Shikamaru looked at Kota closely. "How do they know who is who?"
"A small memory jutsu. It imprints your picture into their minds, and when shown a picture of you, which we have here," he said indicating a large locked chest, "they go find you."
Naruto's gaze settled on the covered cage, which rattled a bit as he approached curiously, while Shikamaru continued to ask questions.
Slowly he drew aside the edge of the fabric cover, and met the gaze of a white eye.
"Whoa!" he leapt back in shock, as the cage started to shake violently, several shrieking cries coming from within.
"CAREFUL!" the skinny Chunin, who tended the birds, caught the blonds arm roughly.
"W...What..."
The Chunin shook his head in annoyance. He had a scar running from the bottom of his left eye and a hooked almost avian nose.
"He doesn't like most people."
The man lifted one side of the cover to reveal another hawk, slightly bigger than the others, with feathers and beak the darkest shade of black that Naruto had ever seen. It's head scanned the room around them, and it seemed to settle it's gaze directly on Naruto. It's eyes, as he had seen were both white, though not like the Hyuga. He could clearly see the birds pupils, though they were cloudy, to the point of having no color at all.
"What's wrong with his eyes?" Naruto took a step toward him, and the bird began to beat it's wings against the sides of it's cage and shriek at him.
"Easy now, Burakku...easy...When he was young, just starting to fly, he got out of his cage..." The man looked directly at the boy, then the others seeming to weigh something in his mind.
It was the night the Nine Tailed Demon attacked the village..." Naruto's gaze snapped to meet his.
"The Demon's presence in the village seemed to drive the birds into a frenzy, and they had to be locked up. This one got out and flew off... right towards the the demon... anyway he caught a face full of the monsters chakra, it damaged his eyes and cost the poor bird his sight."
Naruto absently placed a hand over his stomach, right where the seal was, and sent a small amount of anger, which he hoped he could feel, into it.
'...you just ruin the lives of everyone you come across...don't you...'
Naruto half-expected a response, but there was nothing, not even the small tingle he had come to associate with the demon's laughter.
As the four Chunin left the messenger tower, they were discussing where to go for lunch, mostly at Naruto's insistence, and had to move aside as another random Chunin sped passed them into the tower they had just left.
They just stood there for a moment, and were about to continue on their way, when a shriek from above caused them to look up.
Three birds had flown out of the building. One, a light tan one, circled them twice before taking off in another direction.
"Uhh...was that..." Naruto began.
"Kota...let's go!" Izumo nodded to his partner and the two ran towards the Hokage's Office, with Naruto and Shikamaru following not far behind.
…...
After the last of the summoned ninja had arrived to the front of the Kage's tower, the aging council members, still filling in until Jiraya returns with the new Hokage, begins the explanation for the summons.
"Two hours ago, one of our patrols was found dead in the forest one mile to the north of the village..." Homura let that sink in before allowing Koharu to pick up where he left off.
"...Though we do not have any definative evidence to suggest who was behind it, what we do know is that it is likely a small force that has penetrated our borders..."
This news sent small murmurs through all the gathered Chunin and Jonin.
"Their objectives are unkown, however we have also learned that there was a mass prison break at the High-security detention facility, located in the western mountain range. Forty-Eight prisoners have not been accounted for."
"Whether or not this was their actual goal or it is simply a diversion, is irrelavent at this point. As of now the Village has been placed on high alert. Once you have your assignments, those of you who will remain within the village will report to Ibiki, who will oversee the defense of the village itself. That is all."
Izumo and Kotetsu waved Naruto and Shikamaru over to follow them, and handed them a small envelope. "Ok, it looks like you two will be getting your first field experience as Chunin."
"You have been assigned to a patrol in the Southern Forest, along with a third team member, someone with more experience, who is somewhat familiar with your abilities, so be sure to follow his orders."
"Inside that envelope you'll find the information on the escapees. Should you encounter them, you are authorized to engage and capture if possible, and terminate if neccisary. However, if you locate any prisoners of rank A or above, you are to evade and report their location to ANBU immediately. Questions?" "Hai," Naruto spoke up. "Who are we working with?"
"Me..." Both of them looked back as a hand fell on both of their shoulders.
"I...Iruka-Sensei?!" Naruto exclaimed.
The young academy teacher smiled at his two former students.
"Hai, Izumo thought it best if you worked with someone who was at least familiar with you. I agreed, besides I'm looking forward to really seeing how you've both grown.
...
Three pairs of feet, lightly touched down on a thick branch before taking off again. All three individuals, dressed in matching blue-grey prison uniforms, had their attention focused around them as they moved out of the area at the fastest pace possible.
"Man, where the hell are we going?!" The first called out to his companions.
All three had been captured during the failed invasion of the village, and after a lengthy interrogation, it had been determined that Orochimaru hadn't entrusted any of his 'grunts' with any useful information. They and others like them had been sent to the prison soon afterwards.
"Back to the Sound Village, where do you think?!" Answered the one in the middle while twirling the kunai he had taken from the guard he killed on his way out.
The third escapee looked terrified at the idea. "Are you kidding?! Orochimaru-sama will kill us for being captured. He'll feed us to his snakes as punishment!"
The one in the middle growled in annoyance. The man was right after all.
"Fine! Then what do you suggest we do?" This gained him a shrug from the scared nine on his right and silence from his left.
Turning to face his now quiet comrade, he now realized that the man was not speaking because he was no longer there.
With a curse he began looking around for enemies and after jumping off his next branch, he happened to look straight down at a cloaked figure, who was looking back up at him with his mouth seemingly agape.
He was about to toss his knife at the man when a spray of senbon shot out of the mans mouth and caught them both at once.
Both men were pierced in a multitude of places and, out of surprise and pain, missed their landing on the next branch. They hit the ground driving several senbon deeper into their rapidly numbing bodies.
The cloaked figure approached them where they lay alongside a blonde haired young man.
As the leafs nin came up to them, he smirked. "You guys seem a bit lost...the prison is back that way..." he pointed back the way they had come, barely suppressing his laugh.
"Actually ... it's in that direction..." mumbled a dark haired teenager, indicating the path leading off the the right of the group.
Shikamaru walked lazily out of the brush with his hands in his pockets alongside a prisoner who had assumed the same posture as the young Nara.
As they stood over the other two, the shadow user reached out and brought the edge of his hand down into the base of the prisoners neck, the man fell limp even as he made a chop at the empty air next to him and then slumped to the ground as the shadow technique was released.
"Well i can certainly see why you two were promoted so soon." remarked Iruka as he joined them in the clearing. He had been looking over a scroll and making a note of the men's id's. "This makes seven recaptured prisoners plus that Nuke-nin from Iwa... we can check for a bounty on him when we get back..." The academy teacher chuckled to himself. "you both have grown so much since the academy...I'm very proud of you both."
Even the Nara had to smile at that, though it was only a small one...any more would have been far too much trouble.
"Where to now?" asked the blond member of the group as he watched Iruka set off a red flare that would signal the retrieval team to come collect their latest catch, within moments two ANBU arrived on scene and vanished with the three prisoners, after handing Iruka an updated estimate of the prisoners still at large.
The scarred Chunin looked it over and added a few notes of his own, then nodded.
"This makes roughly 80% of the escapees recaptured or otherwise accounted for. HQ wants us to move around to the eastern side of the village, it seems that a few prisoners have managed to slip through there."
With a nod all three leapt off into the trees.
...
Sasuke could feel his teeth grinding in anger. He nearly had that last prisoner, and had, loudly, blamed Sakura for getting in his way. The girl was now sulking behind their sensei as they made their way along their patrol route.
Kakashi, for his part, was walking along scanning the trees around them for movement. his orange book was, surprisingly, hidden away in his hip pouch. With there being an unknown enemy presence in the area and with his team a man down...he felt he should save the reading for later.
He was proud of Naruto, however looking at Sasuke, he thought the blonds promotion might be the last straw for the Uchiha, though the boy had taken the news of Naruto becoming a Chunin pretty well. There was no cursing or yelling or tantrums of the like.
Sasuke had simply nodded, and gone off to train.
Sakura had wondered what would become of their team without him. To which Kakashi explained that they would still work with him for the more difficult missions however more likely than not they would mix and match with Shikamaru's team since he had also been promoted.
As they continued along with their current mission, Kakashi thought he caught some movement off to their left. He tried to focus in on it, when he sensed more to their right.
'...we're surrounded on both sides ...' He thought to himself.
From the corner of his eye he saw Sasuke take notice of the possible ambush as well, and even Sakura seemed to know something was up, if not what specifically.
Making a note to himself to work with her more on her awareness, Kakashi prepared to move against their company, when a head of blonde hair came walking out of the trees and waved to them.
"Oi...you guys almost let these two go...you must be losing your touch..." he teased while his white clad puppet followed him out, a struggling prisoner wrapped up in each arm.
Kakashi could see Sasuke visibly restraining himself at the comment, something he probably wouldn't have done before Kakashi had chewed him out over the incident with Sakura less than an hour ago.
Waving off the new Chunin's joking, he watched as Iruka and Shikamaru entered the clearing from the other side.
Sakura approached Naruto to congratulate him on his promotion, and Iruka set off another flare to alert the ANBU.
Once the two had been collected, the now larger group continued on together, with Naruto talking animatedly about the things he had been doing so far, and about some of his more impressive captures of the day.
Sasuke was walking just in front of them with Kakashi, while Iruka brought up the rear with Shikamaru.
"So..." Sakura asked when Naruto stopped talking long enough, "...does this mean that you're not a part of team 7 anymore?"
At this Naruto began to wave his hands around in a frantic manor.
"No way of course I am, Sakura-chan!"
Kakashi tilted his head back so he could interject. "Actually, with Naruto being a Chunin now, our team will have a wider variety of missions assigned to us. Although we may not always be working with him, as he will have other duties to preform aside from missions, when we do, it will likely be on C rank missions and above. Otherwise we'll likely work with someone from Shikamaru's Team."
At the mention of the young shadow user, Sakura, who'd actually forgotten all about him, turned to walk closer to him so she could ask about how Ino was doing.
*thud*
All conversation stopped however when the sound of a body hitting the ground sounded from behind them.
All eyes turned to see Iruka picking himself up off the ground with a sheepish look on his face.
"Iruka-sensei...are you ok?"
The scarred nin looked sheepishly away as he dusted himself off an continued at a quickened pace. "Hai, hai sorry I must've tripped."
Naruto had to visibly keep from laughing at his former instructor, while the group continued to walk along with Iruka now walking right behind Kakashi.
Naruto and Sakura went back to their conversation with Shikamaru, who rather than join in was looking at Iruka inquisitively. As if something was off and he couldn't quite place what it was .
After a few minutes of walking, Iruka, who had been staring at the rather large sword Kakashi was carrying on his back, smirked evilly to himself as his hand began twitch forward. Then in a blur of motion, his hand shot out and wrapped around the grip of the heavy blade.
With a twisting motion, he had the sword free of its holder and was bringing it around and down into Kakashi's shoulder.
The blade stopped a hair's breath from it's target.
The Jounin turned his one visible eye first to the blade, then to Iruka himself. "Iruka...may I help you with something?"
Shikamaru grunted with exertion as he held the hand seal for his signature move.
"...man...this thing...is heavy...so ...troublesome..."
Iruka has a look of anger on his face as he too was struggling with the weight of the sword, which Kakashi then took from him and stuck it into the ground next to them.
"I...Iruka-sensei...what's going on?" Naruto stammered out in shock that his own teacher would try something like that.
Kakashi took a step right up to him, raising his headband while he did so he allowed the Sharringan to swirl as it gazed into the captured man's eyes.
With the power of the Uchiha bloodline, he could see that he was not looking an imposter or clone, however the man's chakra was decidedly different from Iruka's. almost like there was a second chakra in his body with him.
"Who are you?" he said evenly.
'Iruka' smirked, as a hand shot out of his stomach and into Kakashi's, followed by and arm, shoulder and a grinning head with nearly white gray hair and blueish lips. The body which seemed to materialize out of the Academy Instructor then disappeared into the Jounin before he could react.
Shikamaru let his Shadow Bind go and Iruka, unconscious now, fell to the ground.
Everyone took a few steps back from their sensei, with Iruka being moved back by Naruto, each of them ready to act if necessary.
"Sensei?" Sakura asked. "...are you alright?"
Kakashi looked at his hands, flexing them experimentally. He felt...normal.
He knew that this mysterious assassin was inside of him, however he couldn't detect him, even his chakra was normal to his Sharringan, unlike when he was in control of Iruka.
"Hai...I'm still me...but don't let me near any of you. He might try to take control of me like he did Iruka."
"Who is he? One of the prisoners?" Shikamaru asked while moving of to the side in position to catch anyone who moved in his shadow.
"No..he's one of Orochimaru's men. He was involved in the attack on the Third, and helped the snake escape afterward." Kakashi focused his full attention on his own body, looking for any indication of the sound nin trying something.
"Oro...Orochimaru..." Sakura was shaking "... the one from the Forest of Death?"
Kakashi nodded.
Sasuke absently placed a hand over his shoulder where the curse seal lay.
Kakashi's hand began to inch closer to his kunai pouch and the Jounin had to force it away. "He's trying to get control..."
The hand began to tremble with the effort of both minds vying for control. The shaking spread and and Kakashi fought both hands apart and away from his weapons.
Naruto looked down at Iruka who had a large bruise on the back of his neck.
"He must have knocked out Iruka-sensei first, that was how he had full control, if you can fight back it's harder for him."
Sasuke stepped up next to them. "If this is how he fights, he must be pretty weak physically. An assassin like that shouldn't be too difficult to kill...even for Sakura."
"Well that explains why he tried to kill Kakashi-sensei first. eliminate the biggest threat and use our former teachers body to go after the rest, or at worst use him as a hostage." Naruto replied, cutting off Sakura's comeback to Sasuke's comment.
"Shikamaru, can you use your shadow to help Kakashi-sensei take the strain off?"
The other Chunin sighed loudly, but formed a seal and joined his shadow with Kakashi's and the shaking visibly stopped.
Kakashi nodded. "Thanks for that... I think we may have him trapped for now. He can't jump to any of you if you keep your distance and if he leaves me he'll be open to an attack.
Sakura and Sasuke take Iruka back to the village. Naruto, signal for the ANBU, when they arrive, we'll have them seal my body with him inside and then have the T & I division take care of him."
"Not a chance..." to everyone's shock a head grew out of Kakashi's shoulder and smiled at them. "...Who has who trapped?"
Two arms grew out his chest, one taking hold of Zabuzas Sword and the other forming a seal.
"Shit! Shikamaru!..."
"There's no resistance...My Shadow is holding Kakashi-sensei..." His eyes widened and he quickly dropped his shadow when he hit on the answer. "He has no shadow if he's inside someone."
Kakashi recognized the seal and grabbed onto his arm only for his hands to meld into the arm.
"...Kirigakure No Jutsu..." A thick mist seemed to materialize out of nowhere, obscuring their vision, and Kakashi heard his blade being pulled out of the ground.
"He's taken my sword!" the Jounin leaped away from where he stood in time to feel a rush of air as the massive blade just missed him.
Shikamaru watched the area looking for any movement. "He must not be able to carry weapons himself because he can't make them merge with his enemies."
Naruto was begining to have flashbacks of their mission to Wave Country. Once again he found himself facing an enemy stalking them through the mist with a giant sword.
Only this time, the sword wasn't his. He would be able to use it effectively and Naruto was no longer the raw Genin fresh from the Academy.
"Everyone, stay where you are and kill anything that approaches you." Naruto crossed his fingers and a dozen clones popped into existence.
The clones all began to move through the mist, fanning out into a search pattern. A pop to his left indicated one of them had been destroyed and then another to his left. Their memories indicating that they had been killed by Kunai.
Behind him another met it's end, his head being twisted violently around with angry red eyes being the last thing it saw.
'What he hell Teme!'
Slightly beyond where Sasuke stood another clone was cut in half by something big.
'Bingo!'
"Sasuke! to your right!"
A long jet of flame lanced out into the white mist, burning most of it away with it's heat. The fire moved in a shallow arc, covering a small area.
"EEAAGH!"
There was a high pitched shriek of pain and a heavy metallic thud, then the mist died off and the fire burned out.
Sasuke stood with a triumphant smirk on is face as the area before him had been cleared of all vegetation, incinerated by the intense flame.
Kakashi walked over to a large black smudge and picked up Kubikiri-Hocho from where Sakon had dropped it and looked it over. It was charred and covered in soot. It would need new wrappings on the handle but otherwise was unharmed.
"...ahh..."
All eyes turned to where Sakura was laying not far from the fire damage and curled into a ball, shaking.
"SAKURA!"
Naruto rushed over to her. Her left side was charred and her clothes singed. The skin on her leg was badly burned and the damage seemed to go right up to her neck, with her left arm taking the worst of the damage since it had protected her face.
"Try not to move too much..." Kakashi placed a hand on her unburned shoulder to help steady her, as he too looked over her injuries.
"She was caught in Sasuke's Jutsu..."
The comment nearly set Naruto off. He wanted to turn and rip their raven haired teammate apart for what his careless actions.
Kakashi had begun to use a low power medical jutsu to begin treating her burns, while Shikamaru was examining the place where their enemy had apparently been.
"There is no body...yet the flames weren't hot enough to completely destroy the remains..."
He followed the scorch trail left by the technique. The ground was blackened and burned in a shallow arc originating from where Sasuke had stood. To the right side of the arc was a larger patch of burns indicating where their target had stood.
Crouching down to examine that spot more closely, he found tracks leading away from the site of the fire... and right towards where Kakashi was currently treating Sakura.
"Sensei! He's in Sakura!"
A mere moments hesitation saw Kakashi only narrowly avoid an arm which had shot out of the Pink haired girls side. The arm retracted and a face began to melt our of the side of Sakuras head in a disturbingly macabre display.
Kakashi looked closer at her injuries and saw that her clothes were hardly singed at all, certainly not badly enough to account for the severity of her injuries. "You transferred your burns to her when you joined with her?!"
The Sound Elite laughed ruefully at the surrounding group. "That's right...the longer i'm in here the more of my own injuries get transferred to her... now why don't you all be good little leaf nins and back away slowly before I decide to kill this girl from the inside out!"
Shikamaru paused before shaking his head. "Not possible...if you could do that then you would have done it to Kakashi-Sensei when you had the chance. Now you're just stalling for time. You're trapped in an injured host and none of us will get close enough for you to try and jump bodies again."
Sakon gritted his teeth as he watched Naruto point a flare gun into the air and fire off a signal to the local ANBU. The Nara was right of course.
Without his twin, who had been killed during the invasion of the Leaf Village, he could no longer use the Curse Seal given to them by Orochimaru, and his combat capabilities had been drastically reduced. Taking this recon mission had been the only way he cold prove to his team that he was still of value. But now he was trapped and out of options, that is until a groan and the sound of shuffling feet alerted him to the fact that Iruka was now coming up behind him.
Before anyone could shout a warning, Sakon had materialized out of Sakura and was rushing headlong at the groggy Chunin Instructor.
Kakashi attempted to head him off, however it was too late. Sakon took a running leap and...collided with Iruka in a rolling tangle of limbs.
Sakon had a moment of confused shock when his intended target was enveloped in smoke to reveal a very skimpily dressed Kunoichi. Realization hit him that this was not a living person, but some kind of artificial doll and so he couldn't fuse his cells with it.
With a flick of Naruto's wrist, her limbs came to life and wrapped themselves around him effectively pinning his arms to his sides as he began to struggle. That is until the sizzling of the exploding tag attached to the Kunai that had just lodged into her shoulder convinced him of his own looming death.
The weapon exploded, not only ending the life of the captured Sound Nin but destroying the puppet which held him as well.
Her head landed at the feet of her creator, burned nearly beyond recognition, and he looked over at Sasuke who had thrown the explosive at them to begin with.
"Sasuke! He was already caught!" Naruto yelled at the boy. "What the hell were you thinking?!"
He ran over to Sakura who had been closest to the blast. She had been peppered by shrapnel and although none of them had caused new injuries, her burns hadn't reacted well the the heat wave given off by the blast.
Kakashi stepped close to the Uchiha and looked down at him sternly. "That is the second time you have endangered a teammate today...it will NOT happen again...do I make myself clear?"
Sasuke reacted to his tone as if he had just been struck, and lowered his eyes to the ground.
Two ANBU landed in the clearing and Kakashi walked towards them to relate the events that had just transpired.
Meanwhile the real Iruka had been shocked awake by the explosion and now knelt next to Naruto , helping him with getting Sakura ready to move.
Not long after a medical team arrived on the scene and removed the injured Kunoichi to the hospital.
The ANBU had relayed new orders for all teams to return to the village for debriefing, Kakashi took Sasuke by the shoulder and with a parting wave to the others disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
The sun was now setting and Naruto, along with Shikamaru and Iruka, had just gathered the last remains of Narutos puppet.
"Any chance of rebuilding it?" Iruka asked him as he looked over a charred hand, minus two fingers.
Naruto took the hand and after a moments thought, shook his head. "Nah...I'd have to rebuild her from scratch...I don't think it would be worth it. I have a few other ideas in mind that I'm going to be starting on as soon as I have the time."
He sealed the remains away into a storage scroll and the three of them made their way through the trees towards the main gate of the village.
"You both did really well today. I couldn't be more proud of how you've both grown since you were in mt class." Iruka beamed with pride at them once they had checked in at the main gate.
"You should both go home and get some rest. Tomorrow you'll both be called to the Kage's office for debriefing. I'm sure they'll want to know about that Ninja from Oto."
A short time later, found Naruto entering the Kage's mansion and tossing his Chunin vest onto his bed. He still felt strange staying there, even if it was to help keep an eye on Konohamaru.
He was determined to find a new place to live as soon as possible.
Naruto stored his gear away and grabbed a towel before heading towards the bath. On the way, he stopped at the entrance to the dojo and took a look around at the dozen or so sets of armor that lined the walls.
In the center of the wall opposite him, sat the battle attire of the Third Hokage. Naruto had never seen the old man wearing anything other than his white Kage robes, but as he stared at the black attire with the white armor plates and helmet, Naruto could almost feel his surrogate Grandfather in the room with him.
On either side of the Thirds armor sat nearly identical sets of armor in shades of red and blue.
Asuma-Sensei had explained to him that those had once belonged to the First and Second Hokage, who were the Third's teachers.
Naruto smiled slightly at the room. It was incredibly inspiring to be surrounded by all this history and strength.
With a loud yawn, the blond shut the door to the Dojo and proceeded to the baths before passing out in his bed.
