I was pretty happy with how many reviews I got last chapter, though more is always better than less, and with all the people happy to see another chapter. Sorry for the delay, but I got a lot of new ideas I needed to incorporate thanks to Narukami97, big shout out to him, btw. A lot of ideas were tossed back and forth that helped me flesh out the story more. And to those of you that left a good review for me, check your inbox as that's how I reply to them. XD I don't do Q&A in the author notes...unless I have to.
I apologize for how long it took me to write this chapter. I had some real life issues including losing my mother back in June which destroyed my desire to write.
Also, I've had many readers leave a review about how much they hate that Orochimaru will be making psychic ninja...thing is, that's not going to happen. I'll be explaining the truth of the crystals in this chapter, but they don't react to everyone the same way.
As always, I own nothing but what I create.
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Naruto scratched at the bandages he had wrapped around his arms and one that was on his cheek, glaring up at Anko as he did. She in turn just ignored her irritated apprentice, and strolled down the road back towards Konoha without a care in the world.
"You know, I may heal fast, but that still hurts," Naruto grumbled as he tried to ignore the itching sensation of his wounds healing. She had gone easy on him, only cutting him a few times to make her point.
"That will teach you not to tease people that can put you in the hospital, brat," Anko said with a casual shrug.
"Fine, I'll keep that in mind," Naruto said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. "So, what is the jutsu you are gonna teach me? Is it a fireball jutsu? Something I can use to blow stuff up?" he asked excitedly, his mind already reaching out to try and find the answers.
"Easy there, short stuff," Anko said, causing him to pause and focus on her fully. "Now, why would I bother teaching you a fireball jutsu? Do I look like an Uchiha? Go bug Shisui for something like that. Besides, that isn't what you need to learn right now. You have a glaring weak point that I need to help you overcome."
Naruto tilted his head as he thought about what she was saying before an image appeared in his mind of him using his bow to attack people at range and a few enemy shinobi sneaking up on him to cut him down in melee range.
"If you're talking about how limited I am at taijutsu, you don't need to worry! I got that covered," he told her with a grin.
"Oh really?" Anko paused for a heartbeat before lashing out with her hand, a kunai appearing out of thin air, and she added another cut to his cheek before wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling him close to her with the blade resting on his throat. "You want to say that again, Whiskers?"
A soft gulp came from the short blonde boy as he felt the edge of the kunai dig into his skin, causing a thin line of blood to fall down his throat. "Well...maybe...I could use a little help with that," Naruto muttered as his bravado fled him. A soft laugh was his only reply as Anko let him go and sheathed the kunai up the sleeve of her coat.
"Now that we're on the same page, brat, it's time to teach you something that will turn you into a monster that most people won't even think about fighting," Anko told him, a fire in her eyes as she looked down at him letting him know that he was in for a lot of pain.
Still rubbing his neck where the cut had already healed itself, Naruto gave her a shrewd look. Sometimes she wanted him to figure things out, other times she didn't want him poking around in her mind...and she was getting better at pushing him out of her head when she focused.
"Ok, so this one jutsu is gonna do that for me?" Naruto asked in disbelief. "Bullshit."
Anko just grinned at him and then disappeared in a puff of white smoke while another Anko came out from the treeline. "You need to pay more attention to your surroundings, gaki. You should have known there were two of me here, but you didn't."
Naruto looked quickly between where one version of his sensei had just vanished and then to the other version and then back several times as he tried to process what had happened.
"Ok, so it wasn't a bunshin, she was able to grab and hurt me, but she was able to be two places at the same time and both of them feel real to my mind...what the hell is going on?" Naruto thought frantically. He turned to the remaining Anko and narrowed his eyes, forcing through her mental defenses to determine if she was real or not. "Maybe this one is a clone...no, that's a normal mind, sort of."
There was a slight glitch in his mental scan of her, something out of the ordinary and he was almost too focused on that slight difference that he nearly was caught off guard by a kunai being thrown at him from behind.
Whirling in place, Naruto grabbed the kunai out of the air and held it in a reverse grip as yet another Anko came out of the shadows. He looked up in time to see the second Anko vanish in a puff of smoke like the first one did.
"You starting to get the picture, gaki?" The smugness in her voice grated on Naruto's nerves, but she had shown her point very clearly in her own way.
"What sort of jutsu is this? It's definitely not a genjutsu, and those were no normal bunshin as they could interact with the world around them and they had real minds as well..." he said slowly as he tried to figure it out.
"Very good, Whiskers," was a more than slightly condescending response, causing him to grit his teeth. "You're right, of course. Those were no normal bunshin. They were kage bunshin."
"Shadow Clones?"
"Exactly! While a normal bunshin is only good for one thing, causing a distraction, these are so much more useful and versatile. They are fully solid and have their own chakra pathways, so they can do pretty much everything you can do," Anko beamed with a sadistic grin as she remembered some of things she had done using shadow clones.
Naruto ran back his encounter with her clones in his mind, going over everything he had seen and felt. The kunai had been real enough to cut him, and she had obviously pulled it out of a hidden sheath and returned it there afterwards...so it wasn't like it had been created out of thin air or chakra...
"That's it! If they are like a regular bunshin, then they are created out of chakra, only solid and able to use what's on them...which is made from chakra as well," Naruto thought and possibilities came to his mind, but also brought up a very strong point.
"What's the catch then?" Naruto asked cautiously. "If this is such an amazing jutsu, why don't we learn it in the Academy?"
An amused look from his sensei told him she was proud that he had bothered to ask instead of trying anyway and learning the downsides later. "Well, depending on who you ask, this is either a B-Ranked ninjutsu or a kinjutsu that should only be taught to those that need to know it. In other words, way beyond anything an academy maggot needs to know."
Anko leaned against a nearby tree and shot an amused look at Naruto. "The 'catch', as you put it, is that if you don't have enough chakra to pull this jutsu off...you die. Game over, life over, gone. It will suck you dry of chakra until there's nothing left," she had a slightly maniacal look to her face as she seemed to loom over him despite being a good twenty feet away from him and leaning against a tree. "But I don't think you need to worry about that, now do you?"
Naruto gulped and felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck, causing the still healing cut to sting. Did he have enough chakra? Probably, he'd never had any problems with that in the past; but still, the thought was scary. But he held his head up and looked at his sensei. "Let's get started."
Anko pushed off the tree and motioned for him to follow her. "The jutsu is deceptively simple. It's a single hand sign, but what I think you'll have trouble with is the chakra control needed to make the clone properly. So, we have two days, three if we go slow, to learn this jutsu before we get back to Konoha," she told him as walked.
"You want to me 'cheat' or figure it out on my own?" Naruto asked curiously as he caught up to her in a hurry.
Anko rubbed her chin in thought. She shrugged and looked down at Naruto. "Tell you what, I'll be nice for once and I'll let you see me make a clone. After that it's up to you to figure it out. It's a good opportunity to see if your gifts can help you learn jutsu faster than normal," she said casually, but Naruto could see real interest in her eyes. If he could pick up jutsus just from seeing someone do them and reading their mind...the Uchiha would go crazy over their monopoly being broken.
Naruto turned all his focus onto his sensei as she made a single cross shaped hand sign with the index and middle fingers of her hands, essentially making intersecting half ram handsigns. He could both feel and 'see' how she was focusing her chakra, seeing how she focused on the jutsu in her mind and controlled the chakra to make a single clone of herself. It was so different from the standard bunshin jutsu that he had struggled with in the Academy. That one was like trying to fill a thimble with a hose and not let it overflow. With this version, she was simply splitting her chakra in half and then forming it into a solid clone of herself.
Time seemed to slow as he watched the clone appear in a burst of smoke before taking a pose in front of him, her arms crossing her chest and an arrogant smirk on her face. "So, what do you think?" she asked as she playfully ruffled his hair.
Naruto let his focus fade and everything went back to normal as he did. "I see what you meant about the dangers of the jutsu. It took half your chakra for a single clone and most genin wouldn't be able to live on only half of their chakra."
"Actually, what it does is divide your chakra evenly through all the clones you make," Anko explained to him seriously. "So for one clone, it's half your chakra, for two clones it's a third, and so on. Most Jonin aren't able to make more than four or so at a time, especially as you don't get all the chakra back after the clones dispel. Some is always lost in the process."
She poked Naruto in the side of the head as they walked. "So keep that in mind, alright brat? You have more chakra than most, definitely enough to make at least one clone, but you don't have unlimited chakra!"
Naruto grumbled and rubbed his head where she had poked him. "I might not, but I do have a certain fuzzy tenant that does," he told her crossly.
Anko actually stopped in her tracks as she considered that. But she shook her head and continued on. "I'd rather you not open that can of worms, brat. Not unless you have to, and I'm talking about life and death. Relying on the power of someone else...that's something that my bastard of a sensei would do. He finds powers and people with techniques that he likes, and then takes what he can before throwing them away. I want you to be able to stand on your own and face the world with abilities and skills that you earned, not took."
Nodding silently at her instructions, as well as the mild reprimand, Naruto started going over the technique in his mind as they walked. He could still feel the way that Anko had directed her chakra to form the clone, but getting his own to do the same was proving difficult.
The rest of the day was spent in silence as Naruto started to work on controlling his chakra, silently thanking Inoichi for all the chakra control exercises he had taught him over the years to help him control himself better. The next morning had them back on the road and that was when he started to actually experiment with the jutsu to figure it out.
Bang "Ow! Damnit!" KABOOM "Shit, fuck, sage damn it all!" Fizzle "Oh come on!"
"Having performance issues, gaki?" Anko asked with a laugh as she looked back to her frazzled and singed apprentice.
Naruto shot her a heated glare. "It's so your fault that I even know what that means," he muttered as he kicked a rock out of his path sullenly.
"Nope, you are NOT going to pin that shit on me!" Anko shot back at him, her grin growing. "You were already learning about that way before you met me."
The expression on Naruto's face made her laugh as he couldn't deny what she said, and it pissed him off. "I'll get this down! Believe it!" Naruto shouted at her as he pumped his fist in the air.
"That...was lame," Anko breathed out before rubbing her forehead to prevent a migraine. She decided then and there to keep Naruto as far away from Guy as possible.
"I thought it was cool," Naruto grumbled before raising his hands back into the sign for the jutsu.
"Keep telling yourself that...maybe some day it'll come true," Anko sneered back at him, causing him to lose concentration on the jutsu, which proceeded to explode in his face and sent him tumbling to the ground. "Come on! I want to get home before next year."
A shuffle in the darkness. A glimmer of light on metal. A soft and steady tapping sound of a cane on stone. It had been long enough since Danzo had given that crystal to Orochimaru for him to run his tests on it and now the old war hawk had returned to get the snake's answer to his proposal. But the blasted missing-nin was testing his patience now by keeping the old man waiting for so long. Danzo slowly paced back and forth in the ruins of the village where Orochimaru had told him to meet at.
The village was one of many causalities in the last war, abandoned and destroyed in the fighting with Iwa. Now it was used as a refuge for those that worked outside the system: bandits, missing-nin, traitors, and refugees.
"Danzo-sama, how much longer will you wait on that scum?" one of the faceless Root shinobi said emotionlessly as he watched his master pace back and forth. The other five Root turned to look at Danzo to hear his response and orders.
Danzo gave the blank masked shinobi a stern look, causing the one that spoke up to bow his head in apology. "We will wait another ten minutes. If Orochimaru is unable to keep to such a simple agreement-"
"Kukukuku...my apologies, dear friend," came the silky voice of the man in question. "That little gift you gave me has fascinated me like nothing else I have ever encountered before and I lost track of time." Orochimaru seemed to be enjoying himself as he rose out of the ground nearby. "Come. I have much to show you and to discuss."
Orochimaru turned and strode away, not bothering to see if they were in fact following him as he knew they would. Danzo glared at the back of the insufferable man as he and his six Root Ninja followed after the Sannin. After being led around the ruins of the village, Orochimaru used a doton jutsu to reveal a hidden passage that led down into the earth. The small group passed through a confusing mess of tunnels, though all the shinobi that they saw seemed to have no trouble navigating the maze that lay under the village.
After several minutes of walking, Orochimaru led the group into a well supplied laboratory that was of decent size, giving them all plenty of room to spread out and look around. The lab was sectioned off in several areas, with various cages and even cells along the back wall, with some sophisticated machinery and other odds and ends scattered around the room on various tables. The small group was led over to a computer that was attached to a box that contained the small crystal that Danzo had given Orochimaru.
"Now, the story you told me about this made me quite curious, as I'm sure you planned. To that end, I dedicated an entire day to testing the crystal and trying to discover its secrets," the smile on Orochimaru's face was...disturbing to Danzo, but he refrained from saying anything and letting the much younger man explain. "This crystal is unlike anything I have ever seen before except in regards to one of my more talented kunoichi named Guren. She has an extremely powerful kekkei genkai that allows her to create extremely durable crystal constructs."
"When my shinobi were removing the crystals, they indeed found them to be very difficult to damage," Danzo confirmed to Orochimaru.
"I was able to chip off a small portion of the crystal to test and what I found only made me more curious," Orochimaru told them as he motioned to the case containing the crystal in question. "The lattices of the crystal are perfect, with no flaws to be found. Such a thing is extremely rare in nature, as you may know. But when I ran some other tests...what I found was astounding! These crystals give off a type of energy I have never before seen or even heard of."
Danzo looked more closely at the monitor that displayed information that he couldn't make heads or tails of. "Is that energy dangerous?" he asked as he started to wonder if perhaps they had stumbled on a potential new weapon to be used.
"On its own, no. But if it can be harnessed...even my initial experiments have produced some rather fascinating results. How certain are you that these crystals are responsible for the changes in Uzumaki?"
Danzo huffed and turned to look at the other man. "I am reasonably certain, as I had several of my Root in the Hokage's ANBU detail. They were present when he was discussing the changes in the demon brat and his theories and reported back to me. Why?"
Orochimaru didn't reply right away and instead walked over to a cage that was covered by a thick sheet, though there were some unsettling growls coming from inside. "I imagine that unless old Sarutobi has found them, then they are still there." Orochimaru laughed as there was silence from Danzo before reaching out to grab the sheet covering the cage and pulling it away dramatically.
Danzo narrowed his eye as he got a good look at the occupants of the cage. There were a half dozen creatures inside that looked like rats, but only just barely. They were the size of a small dog now, their tails had spikes running down the length, and their muscles were bulging as they scurried around the cage, growling and biting at each other with giant, razor sharp fangs that dripped with a green goo. What fur they had left on their bodies was matted and, as he watched, was also falling out. Soon they would be completely hairless, though it looked almost like they had developed...scales.
"What are these...creatures?"
Orochimaru smirked and handed the old man a clipboard with sheets of paper that contained the various notes he had already taken on his newest experiment. "They began as simple common rats. I shaved off slivers of the crystal and implanted them into the bodies of these rats to see how they would react before trying with humans. As you'll see from my notes, the crystal first seemed to enhance their bodies, causing them to triple in size in only a single day. I believe that their smaller body size caused whatever changes to occur far faster than they would in a human body."
Danzo nodded absently as he read the notes. In only three days, common household rats had become creatures that would strike fear into the hearts of men and could theoretically kill a man, a far change from what they began as.
"I see you did some additional adjustments to them as well," he said calmly as he read.
"Indeed I did! I added some snake blood and venom to each of the rats in this batch to see what would happen, and whatever energy is being emitted by that crystal, even just a sliver of it, adapted and amplified the effects of the blood and venom into their bodies. They now secrete a very potent neurotoxin that, if left untreated, is lethal on its own and they have gained scales as well as a slightly elongated body. They also seem to have developed something of a hive mentality as they work together to reach their goals, come," Orochimaru said excitedly as he walked over to a monitor and pulled up a video file.
Danzo watched in fascination as a civilian man was thrown into a bare room and the door sealed behind him. As the man tried frantically to find an exit, six small openings appeared at the bottom of the walls and these new creatures were let into the room. Once they spotted the man, who was screaming in terror at the sight of them, they all leapt as one, each taking a different limb on his body to pull him to the ground where they converged and started tearing chunks of flesh from his body. Within seconds the man's screams had stopped, though he continued to twitch for several more seconds before the only movements from him were caused by the viscous attacks of the beasts as they slowly tore him to pieces and consumed his flesh.
"I've decided to call these new creatures 'swarmers' considering their preferred attack method of swarming their victims, overwhelming them with multiple attacks to different parts of the body. With their venom, all they need is one to succeed to take down nearly any foe," Orochimaru was particularly smug about his latest success.
"But...how? They are completely different from what happened to Uzumaki. Is there any sign of any sort of mental abilities in them?"
"None, beyond their hive mind," Orochimaru said bluntly. "I have a theory based on this and my other experiments with the crystal you provided me."
Orochimaru smirked as he purposely paused and examined the case containing the crystal, knowing that someone like Danzo had little patience and wanted to force him to wait for him to continue. As he turned back to the man, his smirk grew to a sinister smile at the frustration in Danzo's bandaged face.
"Well? Get on with it!" Danzo snapped as his limited patience reached its end.
"Well, if you insist," was Orochimaru's smug response as he played with a kunai. "You see, I have another experiment running as a control exercise. There are two sets of six other rats, one set was left completely alone, while the other is being exposed to just the energy from the crystal." The Sannin motioned to a cage that was almost hidden beneath the case containing the crystal.
Danzo leaned down to get a better view and saw what looked like normal rats that were far larger than normal and seemed to have a sheen of intelligence to their beady eyes. The changes in their bodies wasn't as pronounced as the first group, but still significant.
"As you see, these rats are enhanced as well, but not to the same level. The control group are completely unchanged. I believe that these crystals are emitting a sort of adaptive mutagenic energy that takes the most powerful attributes of the exposed person's body and enhances it," Orochimaru explained to his ally as the old man used his cane to straighten back up. "Strong becomes stronger, fast becomes faster, tough becomes unbreakable."
"That doesn't explain what happened to Uzumaki. He didn't become faster or stronger, he gained psychic abilities. How do you explain that?" Danzo challenged him on that point.
Orochimaru frowned as he considered that, conceding in his mind that Danzo had a point. After a few minutes, he grinned and looked back at the other man with a relaxed air about him. "Simple. What is the main weakness of a Jinchuriki? Their minds. The constant battle with the demon sealed inside their body means that part of their mind and focus, even subconsciously, is constantly being used which limits their mental potential. As I said, I believe that the energy emitted is adaptive, so it could also find where someone is weak and make them stronger as well. Something I will need to test further."
A low growl and a glare was what he got from Danzo with his blasé attitude. "Don't give me such a sour look, old man. What you have given me is well worth the cost of funding and supplying your twisted schemes to regain your power back in Konoha. I won't even require that you donate some of your Uchiha recruits to my experiments. Though, naturally, should any of them die in our service, I will not hesitate to harvest their eyes."
"Naturally." Danzo replied easily, not caring in the slightest about those that had followed him out of Konoha.
"But I will need more of these fascinating crystals. Just imagine what I could do with them! An entire army of mutated creatures that I can unleash upon any that dare to challenge me," said Orochimaru with a crazed gleam in his eyes as he imagined that very situation, an army of swarmers and other possible creations tearing enemy shinobi to pieces before their horrified eyes and routing them without a single one of them even getting close to him. "I'll need to find a way to control them before that will become a reality, but I am confident that I will succeed."
Danzo narrowed his eyes at the traitorous ex-Konoha shinobi. "As long as you can control those beasts, then we have an accord. Shall we negotiate the terms of our...alliance?" he asked with a sneer, sickened at the thought of allying himself with this monster, but it was for the greater good of Konoha.
"Very well. Let us discuss terms over some sake to celebrate this initial success," Orochimaru replied with a wide smile, an eager and evil gleam to his eyes. He led the small group out of the room and somewhere nicer to negotiate.
Naruto sighed as he looked out over the village from his spot sitting on top of the Hokage Monument. His return to the village had been without fanfare, but his mind was stuck on the night before they had gotten back to the village. It had been a few days, but it kept coming back to him.
-Flashback-
The rest of the day passed quickly until nightfall when they stopped for the evening. When Anko told him they were stopping, Naruto just shrugged and made the now familiar handsign and three clones popped into existence and moved about setting up camp.
"Well, well, look who finally learned the jutsu," Anko remarked as she watched the clones move about with purpose. "Took you long enough."
"Actually, I figured it out after a few hours. The rest of the time was just me experimenting and messing around, even left a few behind as we walked. Fooled you." Naruto shot her a smug grin.
Anko looked at him in surprise, not having noticed that he was doing that. She had figured that he was simply having trouble with the jutsu, which would have actually been reassuring to her. Instead, the damn brat had figured it out far faster than she had thought and had decided to mess around. It actually made her slightly relieved that the kid still acted his age, though she knew that it wouldn't last. It never did.
"How did you do?" she asked curiously.
Naruto just grinned and about twenty clones came out of the trees before dispelling at the same time. However, as they dispelled, Naruto nearly fell to the ground in pain and clutched his head.
"Yeah, I was gonna warn you about that," Anko said idly as she watched him with her arms crossed under her bust. "But I figured it would be more amusing to see you figure it out on your own."
"What the hell was that?" Naruto asked as the pain quickly started to fade, leaving only a dull headache behind.
"This jutsu was designed to be a scouting and recon jutsu, gaki. What does that tell you?"
Naruto struggled to push past his headache and consider her words. As he did, he caught flashes in his mind of experiences that he didn't remember actually doing. Tree hopping through the forest, playing tag with himself and other copies, throwing kunai around for fun...
That's when it hit him what she was talking about. "The clones wouldn't be much use as scouts, beyond setting off traps, unless there was someway for the creator to know what they saw. So they somehow send back what they saw as they dispel...right?"
"So there are brains behind those golden locks," Anko teased him as she went about setting her tent up for the night. "You got it, gaki. When you create a clone, a connection is formed between it and you. When it dispels, any remaining chakra is sent back through that connection and with that chakra, all of that clone's experiences and any knowledge it gained since you created it."
Naruto watched as his clones finished setting up came, and with enough focus, he could vaguely feel the connection she was talking about. "So that's why you said this jutsu will make me into a monster."
Curious to see what he was thinking, and wishing she could read minds like he could, Anko turned to look at him. "Tell me what you're thinking, gaki. Let's see just how psychic you really are."
Grinning back at her as the headache faded away as well, Naruto buffed his fingers on his jacket. "Well, I can obviously make way more than anyone else ever has been able to, and you said that they send back any knowledge and experience they get. So if I make a bunch of clones to train for me, then when they dispelled I get that experience while I do other things like missions or more personal training. I figure that as they are just chakra constructs, any physical training would be pointless."
A slow clap followed his explanation and he took a low bow. He came up grinning at the soft, almost suppressed feeling of pride coming from Anko, as well as the exasperated thoughts going through her mind.
"Should have known you'd figure it out. You know, when you aren't acting like an idiot, you're quite smart," she told him, causing his grin to be replaced with a frown as he glared at his sensei. "Relax, you need those brain cells. You got it pretty much right, but one thing you didn't guess was that the clones also send back the mental strain of whatever they were doing. Even if that is simply them staying awake. So keep that in mind when you dispel them. Too much, as you learned, is very painful and will make you pass out, which means that the remaining clones will dispel automatically and you'll lose the benefit of their knowledge."
"Wait, what do you mean they will automatically dispel?"
Anko sighed and pulled out some food supplies to start on her dinner. "Simple. That connection between you and them, that takes an active mind to maintain. The barest minimum, granted, but without an active mind to guide them, they will dispel."
Naruto blinked as he took that in. If he really wanted to make the most of this jutsu, he'd have to come up with a way around that. He could only imagine how tough it would be to make them able to survive him falling asleep or getting knocked unconscious. He proceeded to make his dinner in silent thought, mentally drained from both the mission and learning the jutsu.
After they finished eating, Anko turned to Naruto with an unusually serious expression. "Naruto," she said softly but firmly, instantly getting his attention as she usually called him 'brat' or 'gaki'...among other things. "When we get back to Konoha tomorrow, the first thing we will do is debrief the Hokage on the details of the mission, and after that...you're going to be placed on stand down for a week."
"What?! Why?" Naruto exclaimed in surprise, his mental exhaustion preventing him from getting that from her mind. He didn't want to admit it, but his head felt like it was filled with gravel.
Anko gave him a serious look which instantly quieted him down. "Naruto, you just killed nineteen men. Any mission that has that sort of body count requires the shinobi involved to be placed on stand down for observation and counseling," she told him with a shake of her head. "Even I'll be stood down for a day or two, though that's mainly because I made the decision to have you do everything and didn't help you."
Naruto grimaced at the news that he'd require counseling. "I'm fine, really!"
"Then why are you still so tense? Hmm? After two days of practicing that jutsu, you should be dead tired and barely able to stand, yet there you sit, tense as a coiled spring," she countered back to him.
Naruto tried to hold her gaze, but in the end he had to look away as he knew she was right. The last two days hadn't been easy for him to deal with. His dreams the previous night were filled with blood and death, which made sleeping very difficult. "I'm fine," he muttered stubbornly.
"Then you'll have no trouble dealing with talking to Inoichi and getting signed off on," Anko said with a small grin, knowing she had him beat. "He's trained for counseling, though he doesn't do it often, and I know you trust him, so I want you to go talk to him when we get back. I don't care if it's for ten minutes or a few days, you are gonna talk to him about the mission. Got it, gaki?"
Naruto glared back at his sensei obstinately, not wanting to give in. He was a shinobi now, not some kid that needed someone to hold his hand and tell him everything was alright...because everything wasn't alright. He was a killer, a murderer...a monster. Just as the villagers had always said he was. But that was something he had to deal with, no one could help him with that.
"I'm not hearing 'Yes, sensei' from you, gaki," Anko growled as she slapped him upside the head. "This is an order from both me and, once we get back, the Hokage, and you will follow it."
Naruto growled back at her before sighing and looking away. "Fine."
"I know better than to accept that from you. I want your word, Naruto," Anko told him firmly, having been told by Shisui about how seriously Naruto took promises.
Gritting his teeth slightly, Naruto finally gave in. "Fine, I promise that I'll talk to Inoichi-san about what happened during the mission. Happy?" he snapped at her, his internal conflict causing him to be harsher than he normally would.
"Happier," Anko admitted to him with a nod. "Trust me, gaki, I know how you feel. And talking about it might not help, but it very well may. The only way to find out is to try it." She reached over an ruffled his hair, getting an annoyed grunt from the boy. "I'm heading to sleep, don't stay up too late."
Naruto grumbled as he watched Anko slip into her tent before looking at where his remaining clones where just lounging off to the side. They all had cards in their hands and colored stones in the middle of their rough circle.
"What are you lot doing over there?" he asked curiously.
"Playing poker, boss! Want to join?" one of the clones replied with a grin.
Naruto chuckled and jogged over to them. "Sounds fun, deal me in!"
-End Flashback-
Naruto knew he was procrastinating. It had been several days since they had returned, and just as Anko had told him, he had been placed on stand down and ordered to speak with Inoichi. But he kept finding excuses not to go see the man, and he also knew that part of it was that he didn't want to risk running into Ino.
Naruto frowned and lay on his back to stare at the sky. "Just what I would need is Ino finding out how many people I killed and spreading it around the village to make the villagers hate me even more. They'd only see it as proof that I am what they think I am."
Another sigh escaped from the young blonde ninja as he stared at the clouds. He knew he was being a coward, but for once he was having trouble pushing past his own self doubts and fears. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he never noticed that someone else had just sat down next to him.
"H-hello, Naruto-kun," Hinata said to him softly, cursing herself for her stammer. She had been working so hard while Naruto had been away to try and get past that.
"Hinata-chan! How long have you been here?"
"I o-only just g-got here a few minutes ago," she replied with a soft blush. "You...you seemed distracted."
"Sorry, Hinata-chan. I've been...thinking about the mission I went on," Naruto told her as he shifted his gaze from the clouds to her.
"Did...did you fail?"
"Nah, it was a complete success. Heck, I didn't even get a scratch on me...except for the ones that Anko-sensei gave me afterwards," he muttered sheepishly. "It's just...real life missions are a lot different than what they tell us at the academy."
Hinata fidgeted as she held herself back from reaching out and doing something that would make her faint. Then again, even just having him looking at her made her swoon a little. "W-what happened?"
Naruto couldn't suppress a soft groan, but then he sat up to look at her as an idea popped into his head. He softly reached out with his mind to sense her thoughts, but only the surface ones as he didn't want to invade her privacy. She was too nice for him to feel comfortable doing that to her.
"Hey, Hinata-chan, let me ask you something. Say you were sent on a mission to take out a bandit camp, but got separated from your team. What would you do?"
Hinata could see that this was an important question to Naruto so she gave it some thought before answering. "W-well, I g-guess I'd see if I could f-find my team first."
"And if you couldn't find them? What then?" he pressed her gently.
"W-well, I'd go on with th-the mission, and m-maybe find them along the way."
"I see," Naruto said with a smile, admiring her courage. He knew how gentle she was, and to be willing to go on alone said volumes about her inner strength. "What if you never found them and you had a time limit on the mission?"
Hinata gathered her courage and looked at him in the eyes, pale lavender meeting bright blue. "N-Naruto-kun, what is th-this about?"
"Just...I don't know," he told her with a deflating sigh. "Anko-sensei had me do the mission alone and...I killed a lot of people. I guess I just want to know...am I still a good person?"
Hinata gave him a look of surprise and she couldn't help herself from reaching out and gripping his hand with hers. "Of c-course you're a good person," she told him, barely keeping herself from fainting as she stared him in the eyes, noticing that they seemed to glow with an inner light. She took a deep breath, trying to speak without her constant stammer. "You are an amazing person, and you did what you had to do. Were they bad people?"
"Most of them, yeah," Naruto replied, thinking about how they had been so proud of being bandits except for the one he let live.
"Then you did the right thing, and that's all that matters," Hinata told him softly, squeezing his hand with a small smile.
Naruto grinned back at her, somehow feeling so much better just from their little chat. Knowing that at least one person didn't think that he was a monster for what he did helped more than he had imagined it would, and made him realize that maybe talking to Inoichi would help just as much...though he refused to admit to Anko that she had been right.
"Thank you, Hinata-chan. You are amazing," Naruto told her before leaning in and giving her a soft peck on her cheek in a spur of the moment decision.
"Eep!" Hinata squeaked as her face instantly turned bright red and she lost the battle to stay conscious before it even began.
As she slumped against him, Naruto let out a loud laugh before picking her up gently in his arms and he carried her back towards the Hyuga compound, a lighter bounce in his step.
Wow, this chapter took me way too long to finish. Writer's block is a real pain, especially compounded by personal tragedy. But I'm not giving up on my stories, and new chapters will come out when I can write them up, even if it takes a year to do so.
I never really liked how they set Orochimaru up as a super villain of the story, but then make him barely a footnote in the overall scheme of things. He's such a mad genius that there is so much potential, so expect him to stick around for a while to make life interesting for our hero.
Next few chapters will have some time skips, fair warning, and some drama to mix with the action of his missions away from the village. As always, please review as that is the fuel that keeps the motor of inspiration running.