Precious...
“Oyaji.”
Nara Shikaku grunted and sipped his tea. Shikamaru stared at him, waiting for his old man to look up.
“Shikamaru.”
Sighing, Shikamaru poured himself a cup of tea. “Naruto went on his first C-Rank mission."
“Did he,” his father said, lighting a cigarette.
“Not in the house!" a voice shouted from the kitchen.
Grumbling, Shikaku stood up and went outside, Shikamaru following at a similarly lazy pace.
"It's his first time leaving the village," Shikamaru explained. He felt the addition was unnecessary, but it emphasized the point he was making.
"His jounin sensei is Kakashi," Shikaku said.
Shikamaru sighed. "Naruto doesn't like his team."
Shikaku looked at Shikamaru, who felt like one of Shino's insects being inspected.
"What has you so worried?"
Shikamaru scoffed. He wasn't worried. His concerns were entirely valid. "The client looked nervous."
Shikaku kept watching him. "Are you sure that has nothing to do with being a civilian in a ninja village?"
Shikamaru frowned. "His apprehension increased when he saw the team assigned."
"Which could be explained by them being newly promoted genin."
Shikaku sipped his tea again, taking his time. Setting it down, he said, "Shikamaru, if you want more information on where they are going, speak with Inoichi. I doubt it will ease your worries. Waiting for people to come back is part of our duty. I worry when you go on missions. I worry when your mother goes on missions."
"Kaa-chan doesn't go on missions," Shikamaru said dismissively. "And Asuma-sensei has us doing D-ranks in the village."
Shikaku cleared his throat. "I misspoke."
Shikamaru snapped his head up, suspicious, but his father had the typical bored Nara look about him.
"Nevertheless," Shikaku said, "it's natural to worry. You've been worrying about Naruto for half of your life."
"I have not," Shikamaru protested, blushing. He stood up, abandoning the conversation. "I'm going to ask Inoichi-ji."
Shikamaru strolled away from his house, hands in his pockets, meandering towards the Yamanaka flower shop. He was headed there anyway to pick up Ino for team training.
The flower shop wasn't open at such an early hour, so he headed around the side where a staircase led up to their apartment.
Ino opened the door when he knocked.
"You're early," she said, looking him over. "Run out of food at your house?"
"If I did I would have gone to Choji's," he said, walking inside.
"Is that Shikamaru I hear?" someone called.
“Unfortunately,” Ino grumbled, following him into the kitchen.
Inoichi was furiously stirring something on the stove, so Shikamaru sat down and slumped over the table to wait.
“What brings you over so early?” Inoichi asked, setting bowls of rice out. There was a third one for Shikamaru, and his stomach rumbled to life at the sight. His extremely valid concerns regarding Naruto’s mission had diminished his appetite, but he knew from the years he had spent plying Naruto with food that it was foolish for a shinobi to turn down a free meal.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a pair of chopsticks Ino practically stabbed into his hand.
“Are we training early today?” she asked, passing over a bowl of miso that made his mouth water. It wasn't as good as his mother's, but it was damn close. Ino’s own mother was on another business trip. Spring was one of the busiest seasons for the flower shop, and the woman was mercenary when it came to negotiating supplier contracts.
Shikamaru shrugged, smiling faintly as a plate of grilled fish slid over to him. It gave him the perfect opportunity to mine for information without Ino catching on.
“Does Konoha get most of our fish from the Naka River?” he asked, eyes not leaving his food.
“That's mackerel," Inoichi said. "We won't be seeing trout for another month or so."
Shikamaru nodded, eating a piece of his fish. He wasn't lying when he said he preferred to eat at Choji's house, both because he liked the food and because he didn't want to intrude on Ino and her father, but Inoichi was an excellent cook. Ino was too, when she wasn't doing some stupid diet with Sakura and pretending the other girl had no influence on her.
"So it's imported?" Shikamaru asked. "What's our main supply route? Out of Land of Waves?"
A troubled expression crossed Inoichi's face, and Shikamaru was immediately on alert. Ino noticed it too, and started to pay more attention.
"Usually," Inoichi said, face clearing, "but there's been rumors of a conflict in Wave. Some small-time crime boss."
Shikamaru's heart began to race, but he kept steadily eating his food. Naruto could easily handle some civilian thugs, any genin could. Hell, even an Academy kid could. But crime boss implied an organization, an organization implied money, and money implied hiring ronin, or nukenin to protect your property. The client's shifty behavior made perfect sense now. The question was, what could Shikamaru do about it?
"Why are you so interested in fish?" Ino asked, a calculating look in her eyes.
Shikamaru said something about supply lines and strategy that sounded good enough to keep her off his back, but Inoichi was watching him carefully, just like Shikaku had.
"I heard Naruto got his first C-rank," Inoichi said casually.
"What?" Ino cried, nearly upsetting her food. "Already? Shikamaru! We need to go to Asuma-sensei now! Sakura cannot complete her first C-rank before me!"
Ino grabbed him and hauled him out of the kitchen. Shikamaru gave Inoichi a doleful look, then his half eaten food, but it was too late and Ino already had him out the door.
“Here’s the deal,” Kakashi said, looking over the three of them. He had found crutches somewhere and was walking around with them. “The rank of this mission has gone up. I would say it’s B, or even A-rank. Momochi Zabuza is one of Kiri's seven swordsmen. He’s former ANBU and currently a nukenin who attempted a coup d’état. He has an ally of unknown affiliation and power.”
“So we’re leaving?” Naruto asked, drawing dirty looks from both of his teammates. While Naruto wouldn’t turn his nose up at the money from an A-rank mission, he doubted Tazuna could afford it, and he had just seen Kakashi fight Zabuza to a standstill. Their sensei was out of practice.
“No,” Kakashi said. “You’ll be training. One of you will guard Tazuna and the bridge, rotating out after four hours.”
“What kind of training?” Sasuke asked.
“You’ll be walking up trees,” Kakashi replied. “Sakura, you’ll continue with water walking. You’ll move onto that when you stop falling off of trees, Sasuke.”
Sasuke gave him a dirty look, but didn’t argue.
“What about me?” Naruto asked.
“You’ll be learning a new jutsu.”
Naruto bounced up and down, smiling, thrilled by the news.
Kurama, the shitty old fox that lived in his stomach, was somewhat proficient in fuinjutsu, if only because Naruto’s mother had been. It didn’t do him much good, trapped in a seal himself, but it was something he could help Naruto with. Being made out of chakra, he didn’t use ninjutsu so much as manifest it in a way Naruto couldn’t unless he wanted to be possessed by him. It wasn’t something Kurama had paid attention to his previous jinchuuriki doing—Mito didn’t do anything at all, she just sat around very martyr-like—since it was by and large useless to him.
The decade he had spent with Uzumaki Kushina, he had focused entirely on seals. There had been little else for Kurama to do, and honestly the bijuu had lived for hundreds of years in a temple doing nothing much. Naruto thought being sealed in a kunoichi was an exciting change of pace, but what did he know?
The Scroll of Seals wasn’t the wealth of information Naruto had hoped for. It had the seal on his stomach in it, which was thoughtful. But most of it was shadow clones, mass shadow clones, exploding shadow clones, exploding reanimated corpses. There were a few massive water releases that took a chakra tank to perform, and while Naruto could theoretically do them, it was pointless against ninja from the Land of Water.
Much of what else he had stolen was locked up by blood seals, and his blood simply didn’t work. In short, he didn’t have much of a jutsu repertoire. He wanted to learn kenjutsu like his mother, too. He didn’t know where to start with that at all. He doubted anyone would sell him a sword in Konoha; the shinobi store owners were better at seeing through a henge, and they had a monopoly on weapons.
Naruto's thoughts had strayed to slashing through enemies with blades of wind when a leaf was shoved into his face.
"I didn't bring any chakra paper, so we're doing this the old fashioned way," Kakashi said, practically cramming the leaf into Naruto's mouth. He took it, curious where this was going.
"What do I do with this?" Naruto asked, turning it over.
"Weren't you listening?" Sakura said, exasperated. "Sensei wants us to put chakra in our leaves and, I quote, make something happen."
So Naruto did just that. His leaf exploded.
"Did I do it right?" he asked, looking around at the startled faces.
"Less chakra than that," Kakashi said. "Get another leaf. Sakura, you try."
Naruto stared at Sakura's leaf intently. After a moment, it crumbled into dust. It was very anticlimactic.
"Well done," Kakashi said, clapping politely. "Your affinity is earth. Sasuke, keep trying. Naruto, take some leaves and accompany Tazuna to the bridge. Try not to blow anything up."
Naruto kicked his legs off the side of the partially built bridge, twirling a leaf between his fingers. So far he had only got his leaves to split in half, which was far less exciting than exploding them. Maybe his natural affinity was explosives. Or cutting things.
He had offered to help with the bridge labor, but other than hauling materials there was little he was skilled enough to do. He had helped Tazuna talk a man out of quitting, pointing out that four ninjas had been hired to defend the laborers. He spent some time putting down seals on the abutments and deck of the bridge so it would be less easily blown up by some asshole with explosive tags.
Naruto checked the position of the sun. It had been longer than four hours, and neither Sasuke nor Sakura had arrived to relieve him. He was bored out of his mind. Kakashi was laid up in bed, having exhausted himself walking for too long, and Naruto didn't want to leave Tazuna undefended. So he made a shadow clone and sent it off to get one of his teammates, which startled the shit out of the people on the bridge. The people of Wave had seen little ninjutsu, having no ninja and no money to hire any. He had a vague hope that the small display of ninja power would inspire more confidence in his team.
When Sakura finally showed up, nearly six hours had passed.
"Is Sasuke only doing two?" Naruto asked.
Sakura blushed faintly. "I told him we could split so he would have more time to train."
"I didn't agree to that," Naruto said. "If you want to take his shift, go ahead, but I'm not going to cover for him."
“Fine,” she snapped, glaring at him.
“Great, I’ll let Kakashi-sensei know.”
Naruto left Sakura fuming on the bridge.
Back at Tazuna’s house he encountered a rather dismal atmosphere. Tazuna’s daughter, Tsunami, listlessly drifted around the house. She couldn’t find a job and mainly spent her time caring for her family. The kid, Inari, was holed up in his room, crying. Kakashi was in a spare room, reading Icha Icha Violence.
“Sakura says she’s taking Sasuke’s shifts on the bridge,” Naruto said, dumping himself on the floor. “I made some leaves split in half. One of the workers wanted to quit, but I helped talk him out of it. I placed seals around the bridge to protect it from sabotage. Nothing else happened.”
Kakashi nodded solemnly. “You have a wind affinity.”
“Makes sense. What about the other things?”
Kakashi sighed noisily. “Sakura can make that decision if she wants. I’m concerned we haven’t seen any activity from Zabuza or Gato, or Zabuza’s comrade.”
Naruto toyed with the storage scroll in his pocket. “They might come for the sword. Could we barter with him? It’s famous, yeah?”
“It is,” Kakashi said. “I’m not sure which one it is, but any of the seven are priceless. The question is which does Zabuza value more? Money from Gato or his sword?”
“Why not take out Gato?” Naruto asked. “He has to have a base somewhere on the island to operate from. Our mission is to protect Tazuna, yeah? As long as Gato is around, there’s always going to be a threat against him.”
Kakashi closed his book, meeting Naruto’s eyes. “Taking down a crime syndicate is beyond the mission parameters, and beyond what a genin team is capable of. We’d have to gather far more intelligence on Gato, his operations, any forces he has, any other ninja he may have hired. Between the Demon Brothers and Zabuza, he’s likely spent a good deal of money, but there are plenty of other nukenin looking for work. You’re talking about a long term solution, when our mission is only for the duration of the bridge’s construction.”
“Sensei,” Naruto said, frustrated, “the problems in Wave will still be here when we leave.”
“And? You’re suggesting we interfere with another nation’s internal structure. Wave relies on their shipping industry, which Gato controls. If we eliminate him, who will fill that position? If Gato is bribing the Wave daimyou to look the other way, what happens when the daimyou loses that source of income? Wave has long had trade agreements with Fire, and if some ninja decide to run around acting like proto-revolutionaries that places those in jeopardy."
Kakashi leaned forward, looking Naruto in the eyes. "We've stepped into a complex economic and political system. If we compromise it and Wave suffers, any mission requests to Konoha will be sent to Kirigakure instead. There are ramifications beyond the impact on our client that we can neither predict nor control. We're ninja, Naruto. We do the job that we're paid for. That's it."
Naruto crossed his arms, frustrated. “So what the hell do we do with the sword?”
"This is a stupid idea," Naruto grumbled, struggling to lift the sword that weighed almost as much as he did. Sakura was on bridge duty, and Sasuke was trying to run up trees.
"My arms are like noodles," he complained, dropping the tip of Kubikiribocho to rest in the dirt. "Soggy noodles. Like I put the water in then forgot about my ramen for an hour."
"Naruto," Sasuke said warningly.
Naruto looked over to Sasuke. He was covered in dirt, twigs, and leaves, kneeling on the ground with a kunai clenched in his trembling hand.
Naruto sighed, sealing away the oversized sword that painted a giant target on his back. "You need to focus your chakra and go slower. Take one step at a time."
Sasuke glared at the ground, not responding.
"Fine," Naruto said, "don't listen to me, or Sakura, or Kakashi-sensei. We'll be busy practicing our new techniques and you can keep falling off trees."
Naruto stomped away. He didn't know how to work with Sasuke, or anyone who didn't want to work with him. Either his teammates thought he was a useless idiot, or they were angry when he showed any competence. Sasuke was a loner, and Sakura was only interested in working with Sasuke. Naruto knew they could be a good team, could balance each other's weaknesses and strengths. He couldn't help but feel the clash of personalities got in the way. It was childish, especially when they needed to depend on one another.
He dropped to the ground in the middle of a pretty meadow. Herbs and spring flowers were starting to bloom, stretching their leaves towards the scant sunlight. He was surprised to see it hadn't been picked over yet. Many people in the Land of Waves had turned to foraging their food. Birds and squirrels were a rare sight, finding their way into dinner pots more often than not. Sakura had escorted Tazuna to the market and reported a number of vagrants and homeless children, as well as a lack of food available for purchase.
Naruto crossed his legs, breathing slowly. The seal on his stomach regulated Kurama's chakra through his chakra pathways, mixing with Naruto's own so thoroughly he couldn't hope to separate one from the other. If he drew on it too much, it was like mixing fire with water, like a volcano spewing molten lava across a stream. Kurama's chakra was overwhelming, even with the bijuu helping to mitigate it.
Kurama was a creature of fire and wind. The elements came as naturally as breathing to him, if indeed he needed to breathe at all.
Naruto took another breath, gathering chakra in his lungs. They throbbed with the effort, but he held his breath, concentrating. The conversion was simple, the wind was already inside of his lungs.
Inu, uma, tori.
The hand signs guided his chakra. All Naruto had to do was breathe.
It tore out of him, trees swaying as wind ripped through leaves and branches. A rare bird was startled into flight, desperately fleeing the blast of air that upset its perch. The jutsu slowed, then stopped, the hush of the forest reasserting itself.
Naruto fell back, newly frustrated. Control was always the issue. When he had first tried the tree walking exercise he had been blasted halfway across the training ground.
Not one to give up, he sat up and tried again.
Someone's here.
Naruto didn't move, kept his eyes closed, his face slack with the vulnerability of sleep.
They have no negative intentions, Kurama said. Even from within his seal, Kurama could sense the emotions of others. Before Kurama had first reached out to him, Naruto ascribed this to having a bad feeling about someone. About a lot of people, given the villages' animosity towards him. Most people didn't take it too far, simply avoiding him, gossiping about him, ostracizing him. A few businesses refused to serve him, enough that he needed to master a version of henge that enabled him to shop in peace.
Naruto didn't stay still, no one acted so rigid while asleep, but he didn't react when he heard light footsteps approach him. The person knelt down beside him, hesitated, a hand reaching for Naruto’s neck, instead shaking his shoulder.
He groaned and sat up, blinking in confusion at the pretty teenager looking curiously at him.
“You’ll catch a cold sleeping in a place like this,” they said, sitting back and smiling kindly.
“Who are you?” he yawned, stretching.
Naruto proceeded to have one of the strangest mornings. The person—he wasn’t sure of their gender, but they were rather feminine—was out early collecting medicinal herbs. He helped picked plants while they talked. Naruto had no good excuse for falling asleep in the middle of a forest, it was categorically stupid even with Kurama to keep a lookout for anyone seeking to do harm, so he claimed to have fallen asleep meditating. It was close enough to the truth.
“Is there…somebody precious to you?”
Naruto gave them an incredulous look. “Uh, me?”
The teenager looked up, surprised. "Just you? No one else?"
Naruto shook his head. "Of course there's other people I care about. But how can I help them if I don't take care of myself first? I'm an orphan, so I didn't have anyone to raise me. I made friends in school who made sure I got enough food and proper clothing. That’s what friends do, right? Look after each other."
The teenager dropped another plant in their basket then stood, a thoughtful expression on their face. “Perhaps.”
They smiled again. “I hope we can meet again.”
As they walked off, Naruto asked, “What’s your name? I’m Naruto!”
They looked over their shoulder. “Haku.”
Well, that didn’t clarify the gender issue.
“It was nice to meet you, Naruto.”
“Nice meeting you too!”
Tora showed up during dinner. She brushed up against Naruto, purring.
“Did you find them?” he asked quietly.
“Meow.”
He gave her a piece of fish, which she dragged off to eat elsewhere.
“What was that about?” Tazuna asked, watching the cat jump out of a window with her spoils.
“Nothing,” Naruto said, signing awkwardly to Kakashi. “Tora found Zabuza.”
Kakashi didn’t respond, just focused on somehow eating his food through his mask. It had to be some kind of jutsu, maybe substitution?
Sasuke and Sakura stumbled through the door, Sakura supporting most of Sasuke’s weight. They dropped into their seats, Sasuke slumping over the table.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi said, “starting tomorrow you’ll also help guard Tazuna.”
“The bridge is almost complete,” Tazuna said, looking worn out himself. Naruto hadn't met many old people. Most ninja didn’t live to old age, and from what Naruto had seen many civilians tended to work their entire lives. Compared to the rest of the village, Tazuna’s family was somewhat well off. He had the skills and experience to travel for work, rather than compete in the meager local economy. Tazuna would likely work until his body failed him.
“Don’t over do it,” his daughter, Tsunami, said.
Naruto noticed the kid, Inari, glaring at Sasuke. Then he started to cry.
“Why are you trying so hard?” Inari demanded. “What’s the point? Gato’s men are too strong for you!”
Naruto looked at his two teammates, who were as taken aback as he was.
“We’re ninja,” Naruto said slowly. “We were paid to do this. It doesn’t matter who’s stronger, we’re still going to fight if we have to.”
“It’s not just about money,” Sakura said, shooting him a look. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Because we were paid to,” Naruto emphasized. “You’re just fooling yourself if you think we’re here because we’re good people.”
“Shinobi don’t work for money alone,” Kakashi cut in. “We don’t abandon our duties.”
Because we’d lose clients, Naruto thought, but he kept his mouth shut.
“It doesn’t matter!” Inari shouted. “You’ll just end up getting killed!”
“So?” Naruto asked, looking at him. “My parents died protecting our village. That’s part of being a ninja, putting your life on the line.”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything about us! You don’t know anything at all!”
“I know that crying doesn’t solve anything.”
“Naruto!”
“What?” he asked Sakura. “It’s true.”
Inari slammed his hands on the table, then fled the room.
Naruto got up too, not wanting to deal with the recriminating looks. He’d rather practice deer kata.
Naruto crouched in the shadow of the mill next to Tazuna’s home. The others had escorted the bridgemaker to continue his work, while Naruto, a cat, and an unhappy deer sulking in the nearby trees kept an eye on his family. The house was built on pillars over the water, making it slightly defensible against people who couldn’t walk across water.
“Meow,” Tora said quietly.
“I see them too.”
Two men with swords were walking towards the house. Naruto hadn’t been able to gather much information about Gato, but from what he heard in town, ninja rarely came to the Land of Waves. The men were likely bandits, or some ninja academy dropouts.
Making his decision, Naruto wove his fingers together, forming the sign for snake.
The bridge connecting Tazuna’s home to the land exploded, just where the two men passed. The explosion threw both in the air, and Naruto tracked their trajectories, throwing kunai with more explosive tags attached. They must have had some ninja training, because one of them, the shirtless one, managed to get his sword out to block. The tag went off, blowing part of the man’s head off. The other fell into the water, a kunai embedded in his throat. Naruto frowned at the damage he had caused, and at where Inari was peeking out from the front door.
Naruto jumped down to join him, and the boy jerked back. “Your grandfather can rebuild that,” Naruto said, feeling a little bad about the property damage. “Go back inside with your mom. I’ll keep a lookout.”
Inari kept staring at the damage, the pieces of wood floating in the water, the two bodies that were bobbing up to join the flotsam. Naruto gently pushed him back inside, ignoring how Inari stiffened at the contact, and closed the door. He noticed Tora had slunk inside after the kid, which was fine. Tora could be the final line of defense. The deer pawed the dirt in agitation, but moved further back into the trees.
“They must be making their move,” Naruto said to himself, wondering what he should do. Making a decision, he left a shadow clone to watch over the house, then headed for the bridge.