Chapter 30
“those fuckers”, Mito, the adult says as she was sprawled over a beach chair and enjoying a nice cocktail while sunbathing in the Senju compound, “remember me to punch Tobirama in the dick when I meet him again in the Pure Lands”.
“dully noted”, Naruto says, looking at the woman wearing an Uzumaki pock a dot themed bikini, “also, why are you here?”.
“can’t an old lady come visit her favorite grandson in law?”, Mito asks, with a smirk, raising her shades to look at Naruto.
“first, I’m your only grandson in law and second, why are you here?”, Naruto retorts, “I tough your retirement plans involved travelling around the elemental nations”.
“bah! Where else would I get such a nice cocktails?”, Mito says, with cheerful tone, “but in all seriousness, I can’t believe those old coots pulled the CRA on you”.
“considering you are the oldest of the coots, it means something that you don’t have a stick up your ass”, Naruto retorts, turning his eye back to his book.
“ha-ha”, Mito let’s out the unamused fake laugh, “keep joking boy, I might pull some strings and hook you up with an Uzumaki”.
“no, thank you, I’m already dealing with one ill-tempered woman, and that’s one too many in my books”, Naruto says, earning a back of the head slap from Tsunade.
“would you like to rephrase that brat?!”, she says, coming from behind him.
“see what I mean?”, Naruto says pointing to his lovely wife.
“hey you know what they say about ill-tempered woman”, Mito says, wiggling her eyebrows.
“that you have to be crazy to be with one?”, Naruto quips back.
“that too, but changing subjects, when I can expect some great-grandbabies to spoil?”, Mito asks.
“nowhere in the near future, you can be sure of that”, Tsunade says, sitting next to Naruto, “I’m in no rush to have kids”.
“oh, come Tsuna, I just want to pinch some baby cheeks before I kick the bucket”, Mito whines in mock sadness.
“granny, you are nowhere close to dying”, Naruto says, “also, cut the act, I know you didn’t came here to emulate my dear wife and drink my whole cabinet in one sitting”.
“well, you selection of booze is the main reason I’m here, but there’s also a matter of politics”, Mito says, turning her indigo eyes to Naruto and assuming an air of seriousness, “word of what aether can do reached the wrong ears and the higher ups are trying to weasel their way into marrying us”.
“pray tell, Lady Uzumaki… how?”, Naruto asks, also assuming an air of seriousness, “and why you? Wouldn’t be wise to try and hitch me up with the Mito that is actually my age?”.
“simple, they’ll use Konoha’s debt as a bargain chip as for why they want me instead of the youngling. Bragging rights, plain and simple”, Mito says.
“and you are on board with it?”, Tsunade asks.
“not in the slightest”, Mito says with a grunt, “but the matter is far removed from my hands and on the brighter side, if we do get married, I get a ‘get out of a political marriage’ pass”.
“so, you do want to pull a Tsunade”, Naruto says.
“wait, that’s what they are calling it?”, Tsunade asks, surprised.
“yep, funny how hundreds of thousands of women did the same thing before you, but they named it after you”, Naruto says with a chuckle.
“that’s not funny in the slightest”, Tsunade says, “and I don’t know how I feel about you banging my grandma”.
“who said I will?”, Naruto asks.
“who said you won’t?”, Mito retorts, “don’t you know that by the law of the Land of Fire if no heir are produced out of a clan marriage the council of elders can nullify the marriage?”.
“that’s the steamiest load of bullshit I ever heard”, Naruto says with an disapproving face.
“kid, bloodlines dictate a good chunk of how powerful a clan is, military wise at least and a hidden village is a the same time the sharpest sword and a money sink for the Daimyo”, Mito explains, “they want to get their money worth and for that the village needs to keep turning on great soldiers and to accomplish that, the clans need to keep making stronger babies”.
“still bullshit”, Tsunade quips back.
Naruto wasn’t any stranger to the need of nations to preserve great assets or rather Izuku wasn’t in his previous life, he was high elf a dying race with great power that mostly rested in their blood, but that didn’t meant he was ok with it.
“I agree with Tsunade, this is bullshit”, Naruto says, going back to his book.
They leave politics at that, although Mito stuck like a tick to the Senju household to enjoy the amenities, like the sauna, an actual sauna where she could be butt naked without the worry of a certain pervert peeping on her.
Running after him to deliver a rightful ass whooping was in a great cardio, but she really hated to cut her sweating session short because of that.
The next day, team eleven was waiting for Tsunade at a training grounds, she had informed them that she would be a little late since she had to a few things to do.
“ok, Sakura what’s in your head?”, Naruto asks, noticing the distant look n Sakura’s face.
“nothing I’m fine”, Sakura answers, prompting Naruto to raise his eyebrow.
“you are a horrible liar”, Mito says, pocking Sakura’s face, “we have to fix that, but grumpy is right, something’s bothering you”.
For a second, Sakura squirm under the gaze of her teammates.
“ok, fine, something is bothering me”, Sakura says with a sigh, “it’s just that, after that whole thing with Sasuke… I’ve been thinking and I’m really confused about something”.
“huh, I’m no guru, but if there’s something that my nearly three thousand years of life tough me is that after the crush fog is gone, some ghosts come out to play”, Naruto says earning a look from his team mates.
“you are the same age as me”, Sakura says with a confused look.
“no, this body is the same age as you, the soul on the other hand…”, Naruto says raising his hand. Which immediately proceeds to have its flesh melt into a putrid black good and fall of the bone, “see, if my body and soul were equal in level my flesh wouldn’t be falling off my bones”.
“oh fuck!!”, Mito exclaims while wildly gagging, “that’s vile!!”.
“and absolutely unimportant”, Naruto says as new flesh grows where the old one had fallen off, “I’m not the focus here, the focus is whatever if bothering our bubblegum friend”.
“I’d rather focus in what hell was that!”, Sakura says, looking in horror at the puddle of black goo on the ground.
“and I’d rather get back to the main topic of this conversation”, Naruto says, whole heartedly ignoring his teammates horrified expressions, “so, what came crawling out of the fog after it was gone?”.
“I was just thinking and… I just miss Ino”, Sakura says, looking down a little sad, “she was my friend, she was my first friend my best friend and for the longest time… my only friend”.
“oh, the tale as old as time. A friendship ruined because of a crush”, Naruto says, as he materializes his smoking pipe and starts smoking, “and guess that now the crush fog is gone you miss her don’t you?”.
“yes!”, Sakura exclaims.
“the best I can’t tell you is to put on your big girl pants and go talk to her”, Naruto says.
“but what if…”, Sakura says nervously.
“what if, what could happen, what if… if you focus too much on what ifs and what could be, you’ll lose focus of what can be”, Naruto says, blowing a smoke ring, “Sakura, there’s no easy way to fix things, but that implies that there’s a way to fix things and all you have to do is give the first step”.
“but, what if she doesn’t want to fix things?”, Sakura asks, curling herself into a ball.
“you are right, she may not, but you’ll never know unless you try”, Naruto says, as Sakura raises her green eyes to look at him, “and if try is the only thing you can do, then you try your best”.
“thanks”, Sakura says, giving Naruto a quick hug.
“you’re welcome”, Naruto says, “now, I hope my dear wife didn’t simply ditched us to go drink”.
“shut up brat!”, comes Tsunade angry voice as she finally arrives at the meeting point, “I’ve had to attend an emergency meeting of the council regarding the upcoming chuunin exams, speaking of which, I signed you up, we’ll be doing some extra tough training starting tomorrow, so you can have today off”.
“you could have told me this morning”, Naruto says, getting up.
“oh hell nah, I don’t bring work home”, Tsunade says, “besides, we were busy this morning”.
“you tell me that”, Naruto chuckles.
“could you guys not flex the fact you have an active sex life”, Mito says with a grunt, “not everybody here is lucky enough to have one”.
“that sounds like an skill issue to me”, Naruto quips back.
“oh fuck off!”, Mito says.
The next day, team eleven was at the Senju compound, going through doing some light cardio before starting the hellish training.
“oh, is that a hickey or are my eyes deceiving me?”, Naruto asks with a teasing tone.
“did you not see she was practically jumping when she got here?”, Mito says, with an equally teasing tone, “and look how she’s glowing”.
“you two are the worse”, Sakura says, noticing that Naruto was…, “why are you a skeleton?!”.
“eh, the old flesh was rotting anyway, so I took a good acid bath to get rid of it”, Naruto says, shrugging, “now I’m just waiting for the new one to grow back. But enough about me, so I take things with Ino had gone better than expected right?”.
“well…”, Sakura says with a rosy tone on her cheeks, “we talked”.
“and then you fucked”, Mito says with a knowing smile.
“do you have to be so crude?!”, Sakura screeches trying to punch Mito.
“Sakura, you stink of a good lay”, Naruto says, smirking, or at least Sakura felt like he was smirking, “so I take you guys jumped from just friends to what? Girlfriends?”.
“not exactly…”, Sakura awkwardly.
“friends with benefits then”, Mito adds.
“I don’t know, it’s just that… it was o out of the blue that we don’t know where this is going you know?”, Sakura says.
“oh, sure, sure that’s fair”, Naruto says, “go as easy as you two can and figure things out, also if want some pointer all you have to do is ask”.
“Naruto!!”, Sakura screeches while blushing.
“hey, you think Tsunade is with me just to get out of being bothered to get married?”, Naruto chuckles, “believe me, she would have plucked my head off long ago if it wasn’t for the fact I know how to use my tongue”.
If Sakura’s expression was anything to go by, she was actually giving some serious toughs.
“but that comes later, right now, you focus on figuring out where you and Ino want things to go… then you go down on each other”, Naruto says, earning a punch to the arm.
“pervert!”, Sakura says beet red in the face.
“who isn’t?”, Mito asks.
“alright brats, we two weeks until the chuunin exams, I have no intention of going easy on any of you”, Tsunade says, marching into the training grounds and cracking her knuckles, “so, any last words before we start?”.
“I have something better”, Naruto says, pulling three strange looking necklaces, a bag of senzu beans and a crate of small bottles, “shameless cheating!”.
“what are those?”, Sakura asks, while taking a necklace.
“and what are in the bottles?”, Mito asks, itching with curiosity.
The necklace was simple string of braided leather with a small oval green stone tied to it.
“good question, this is a progress boost amulet”, Naruto says giving a necklace to Mito, “to put in simple, they make this two weeks of training be worth a year. And those are stamina boot potions, one bottle of those will give us 36 hours of energy, granted after those 36 hours are over, we are going to pass out for twelve hours straight but on the brighter side, those will be the best twelve hours of sleep of our lives”.
“oh fuck yeah!!”, Mito says putting on her necklace and reaching for a bottle of potion, “let’s fucking go!!”.
“brat, give one of those bottles”, Tsunade asks, taking the thing into her hands, “now, I took the liberty to call your parents, and inform tem you would be staying here to train for the exams, so without further ado, let’s do it!!”.
Ina cheer of sorts, the three down the potions and as soon as the surge of energy kicks in, they start training.