twenty
Sasuke flung the blanket off him and stomped to the front door, vowing to murder the asshole who dared knock incessantly at his door at this goddamn time of the morning. He’d had never had visitors and didn’t want to start now.
He’d already had a shit week. D-ranks were every bit as awful as Naruto had always said they were and after the blond’s blow-up at Kakashi, he’d been nowhere to be found, so Sasuke had been forced to suffer the team on his own. He had not liked it. He would never admit it aloud but training was better with Naruto there. If Sasuke was going to choose anyone in this village to get stuck with, it was Naruto so the fact the blond had ghosted them all had put Sasuke in a foul mood.
He swung the door open with growl, only to see the bane of his life standing there. Naruto raised an eyebrow.
“Dramatic much?”
Sasuke slammed the door in his stupid face. The knocking started back up again and Sasuke stood in the darkness of his apartment, debating the merits of murdering his teammate. The moron ignored him all week and then turned up at his apartment in the middle of the damn night and called him dramatic?
“C’mon Sasuke! Let me in!”
Sasuke turned and dragged the door back open against his better judgement. Naruto barged in before he had the chance to speak, apparently unwilling to risk Sasuke slamming the door on him again.
“What the fuck dobe?”
It was then he noticed the packed duffle bag that Naruto had dumped on the ground. He met Naruto’s eyes and hoped the blond could read the murder in his eyes.
“Just hear me out!” Naruto threw up his hands. “Let me crash here for a couple days!”
“And why the fuck would I do that?”
“How much do you want the katon jutsu I promised? The super high-level forbidden ones that I may or may not have tracked down after Kakashi told me ‘no’ that one time?”
Sasuke glared at him. He hated that Naruto knew him a little too well. The idiot wouldn’t even use the jutsu himself so why would he go looking for them?
“I want all of them.”
Naruto grinned back at him and Sasuke just continued glaring.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Naruto dumped his bag on the couch and proceeded to melt into Sasuke’s couch. He was immune to Sasuke’s glares so he kicked the dobe for good measure.
“C’mon Sasuke, it’s the middle of the night!” Naruto groaned, flopping his head back. “Can’t we do this in the morning?”
Sasuke was this close to throwing him out the window.
“You’re the one who turned up at my apartment in the middle of the fucking night dobe, so you will answer or you will be sleeping in the Forest of Death.”
It wasn’t like Sasuke would be getting back to sleep any time soon. One blue eye opened and glared back at him. With a huff, Naruto straightened up and propped his chin on his hand while Sasuke crossed his arms, glaring expectantly.
“My landlady kicked me out,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I’m me,” Naruto spat bitterly. “What other reason does she need?”
Sasuke frowned. He’d never understood what the villagers had against Naruto. He was an asshole and Sasuke frequently wished to smash his face into a tree but he wasn’t a bad person. As much as he annoyed Sasuke, he was also the only one Sasuke could trust to be straight with him and see him not for his Uchiha status, but as Sasuke. Naruto was an asshole but Sasuke liked that about him, not that he’d ever tell the dumbass. He always met Sasuke blow-for-blow and never took it easy on him.
He’d never seen anything that justified Naruto’s treatment by the village. Naruto also went out of his way to avoid any and all villagers so he wasn’t sure what they had against him.
“That’s shit,” he replied, not sure what else there was to say.
Naruto huffed a laugh, staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
Alarm bells started ringing in Sasuke’s head and he leaned forward abruptly.
“What?”
Naruto looked at him and laughed.
“I’m not going to off myself,” he chuckled although the sound was hollow. “That would mean Konoha wins and I would burn down the village before I let them win.”
Sasuke leaned back slowly. He was more than familiar with Naruto’s sentiments about Konoha but he’d never heard the blond sound so serious about it before.
“Would you hold it against me if I left?”
Sasuke blinked.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“I’m leaving,” Naruto announced, as if he was talking about the forecast. “Not tonight, but soon.”
Sasuke wished he could be more surprised by the sentiment but it made a lot of sense. Naruto wasn’t happy here and his response to conflict with people was to run. The fight with Kakashi might have pushed him too far.
“Okay.”
Naruto narrowed his eyes.
“Nothing to say?”
“What is there to say?” Sasuke shrugged, dumping himself into one of his armchairs. “You’re the most stubborn mule I know so if you’ve decided to go, you’ll go.”
“You get why, right?”
Sasuke shrugged again.
“Would you ever leave?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re not going to beat Itachi by staying in the village.”
Sasuke’s snapped towards his teammate, a snarl in his throat. What the fuck did he know about Itachi? Itachi had been ANBU; he’d gotten strong in the village, so why wouldn’t Sasuke? Naruto put his hands up in a placating gesture.
“I’m not saying you can’t kill him, I’m just asking if you’re sure you’re going to get strong enough here, with Team Seven?” he continued, dropping his hands. “Itachi was ANBU sure, but the village is holding you back to the same level as your peers, not your actual abilities. They did it with me too. You weren’t allowed to graduate early, right?”
Sasuke was about to snap something back but he stopped, considering. Kakashi-sensei had been better with training since the fight with Naruto but it was still nowhere near what Sasuke wanted. He trained until he bled when he came home at night and if it wasn’t for Naruto bribing him with powerful jutsu in the academy he would be severely lacking in those too.
“Kakashi-sensei has been better about training recently. How would leaving the village benefit me?”
Naruto grinned, light entering his eyes for the first time since he’d barged his way into Sasuke’s apartment.
“It’s a big world out there, Sasuke. I’ve seen it on C-ranks. We could do whatever we wanted out there and no one would be able to hold us back. We’d have to disguise ourselves for a while but we could collect bounties or something.”
Sasuke…didn’t know. Naruto had made some good points but he didn’t know if leaving the village would make him any stronger. Here he had teachers and access to jutsu but outside the village, he would have nothing.
“Look, I just wanted to mention it,” Naruto looked away. “You’re way better than this village, Sasuke. You don’t owe them anything.”
That…was the closest Naruto had ever come to a real compliment; although considering how he felt about Konoha, it wasn’t exactly a high bar.
“I’m not going anywhere…for now,” he answered. “When are you planning on leaving?”
“Our first C-rank,” Naruto replied immediately. He must have been thinking about this for a while. “We always leave the village for that one and there has got to be some chance to ditch Kakashi.”
“What about Gai?”
“He has his own team to worry about now,” Naruto scowled and Sasuke rolled his eyes at the jealous ass. “You’re not going to tell anyone?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
A brief pause.
“Thanks, Sasuke.”
“Go the fuck to sleep, dobe. You’re coming to team training tomorrow.”
“But…”
Sasuke abandoned him, walking back into his bedroom and slamming the door. The dobe had so many issues he could probably put a Yamanaka into a damn coma. He was paranoid, antagonistic, chaotic, smug and responded with any emotional confrontation with instant, irrational anger and then proceeded to avoid the person like the plague. He was one dysfunctional bastard and he was the only person in the village that Sasuke genuinely liked. If the sandal was on the other foot, Sasuke realised that he would go to Naruto too. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Naruto was a good person to have in his corner anyway. He was strong, clever and fought dirty; he’d never seen anything come between Naruto and his goals before. He pushed Sasuke to be better and go further. He didn’t know how things would change when the dobe left but as the sunrise began touch his window, he decided that it was a problem for the future. He could probably still get a couple of hours if he fell asleep now.
Kakashi looked down from the trees, something loosening in his chest at the sight of three genin waiting for him. He hadn’t tracked Naruto down during the week he was missing, having known the blond long enough to know that that would only push him further away. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Did he appear and act as if it had never happened? Did he take Naruto aside and apologise? That wouldn’t work; Naruto didn’t believe in words. Kakashi could tell Naruto that things were going to change until he was blue in the face but none of it mattered unless he actually showed his student that he had heard and acknowledged what he’d said.
He popped onto the training ground, waving a hand.
“Yo!”
“Are you on time?” Sakura frowned at him. “Are you sick or something?”
“We have a lot of training to do so I wanted to get a jumpstart on it,” Kakashi replied cheerfully, desperately ignoring the venomous aura from Naruto. “Sakura, I’ve increased your physical fitness menu so go get started on that.”
Sakura just looked at him warily for a long moment, before moving slowly to follow his instructions. He was still half an hour late, should she really be so suspicious?
“Sasuke, I got those weights so you can continue working on your speed. Your elemental affinity is raiton so we should take advantage of that.”
He handed over the scroll to his student, catching the looks that he was sending to Naruto. He couldn’t decipher them but Sasuke soon abandoned them both to go work on his own fitness course. Kakashi looked at his final student but Naruto wouldn’t meet his eyes, just staring angrily at the ground. This was Kakashi’s fault. He’d failed his student and lost his trust.
“We’re stepping up your bloodline limit training.”
Naruto still didn’t look at him.
“I spoke to Gai about an appropriate menu for you.” There was a twitch at the mention of the other jounin. “Your taijutsu is easily high chunin level and your ninjutsu could blow most chunin out of the water with your reserves alone. You’ve managed to keep up with the speed of your bloodline limit recently so now we need to grow both together.”
There was nothing he could say to fix what he broke but he would show Naruto that he had listened.
“Your teammates won’t be able to keep up with you so we’ll work on it separately for now,” he continued. “It might be good for you to spar with Sasuke occasionally since he is also training his body for speed but we can see how it goes.”
Naruto shoved his hands into his pockets but he nodded in acknowledgement. That was more than Kakashi was expecting to get out of him at this stage.
“Do you have anything you want to work on?” he asked directly.
The kid shrugged and Kakashi accepted that was as much as Naruto would give him right now. That was okay; Kakashi fully intended to fix things. He may never be able to regain that trust but he could at least do right by his student starting now.
Shikamaru sighed at the sight of Team Seven approaching. They were an half an hour late which Asuma-sensei hadn’t been bothered about in the slightest so Shikamaru was forced to listen to Ino whine about waiting around and the audacity of Sakura on making her wait. Chouji was on his last bag of snacks and starting to look worried.
Something had happened with the Yamanaka recently and she had yelled at them during training a lot louder than usual. He’d seen her training much harder than before and she only mentioned Sasuke a couple of times a day; it was a massive difference from the ten times an hour they’d had before. He had no idea what inspired this change in his female teammate other than the fact it had involved Sakura in some way. He was still under the impression that they were bitter rivals over their ‘precious Sasuke-kun’ and Ino hadn’t told them otherwise. It was damn troublesome; she’d nagged too much before she’d gotten the whole training thing in her head.
He didn’t know how this was going to go. He hadn’t seen Sasuke or Sakura since graduation and he didn’t know about their third teammate. It was someone from the genin forces who’d graduated a while ago and Shikamaru wondered how they were faring with Sakura. Unlike Ino, she had the object of her obsession well within reach. Sasuke wasn’t any easier to work with, preferring to work solo as much as he could physically get away with, so Shikamaru wasn’t sure how their team dynamic was going to be.
While he was glad they’d finally turned up and Ino would finally stop whining, he was sure this mission would be a drag. He wasn’t sold on Ino but her alone was way better than whatever baggage Team Seven was going to drag in with them.
“You’re early, Kakashi,” Asuma-sensei called out, causing his team’s heads to snap to him in disbelief. “I told you the meeting time only an hour earlier than the real time.”
“Mah, Asuma, I have to keep you on your toes,” the other jounin-sensei called back.
He was pretty tall, with spiky gravity-defying silver hair and his face mostly hidden by a slanted hitai-ate and a black facemask that covered from the bridge of his nose to beneath his chunin vest. He was slouched over and everything about him screamed ‘relaxed’. His genin trailed behind him. Sasuke looked exactly the same as he had in the academy, scowl and all. Sakura had changed a little; she wore her long pink hair up into a high bun and wore a practical red battle dress with black leggings beneath. It had dirt smudged on it which was something Shikamaru didn’t think he’d ever see on Sakura. She’d been insane about looking her best for ‘Sasuke-kun’.
The third genin was the one who caught his attention. He recognised him. It had been a few years but it was definitely the boy from the Nara forest back then. He’d had a D-rank to round up the deer for their vet check-ups and struggled with the last few fawns. He hadn’t changed much; still in black shinobi trousers tied with bandages at the bottom, his black sandals and sleeveless black shirt. The bandages were a shade of orange which was new. Black fingerless gloves and black bracers to his elbow covered his thin, defined arms and he was wearing his loose sleeveless orange hoodie this time. He was shorter than both Sakura and Sasuke and had recently shaved down the sides of his head, leaving the blond spikes a bit longer on the top. He also had two swords strapped to his back that he didn’t have before. Why was he with them? He’d told Shikamaru he was an apprentice which meant he didn’t have a team.
“Forehead!” Ino yelled out, pointing accusingly at Sakura.
“Hi Ino-pig,” Sakura waved back calmly and Shikamaru blinked. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. What had that jounin-sensei done to her?
“Right,” Asuma-sensei lit up another cigarette. “We should head out to the farm. There’s a lot to do and we have until sunset.”
Shikamaru remained lying on the grass, shifting his gaze back to the lovely clouds floating by. He didn’t like D-ranks and he especially didn’t like ones that involved a lot of manual labour like this one. It wasn’t often that it took more than one genin team to get a D-rank done but the ones involving the farms were infamous for it. They were just too damn big. It was such a drag.
“Change of plans,” Kakashi announced brightly. “I’ll take Sakura, Sasuke and your cute little genin for this mission and you work with Naruto on his fūton techniques. He needs some help applying it to his kunai and you’re the best in Konoha.”
“I’m the only one in Konoha, you mean,” Asuma blew out a puff of smoke.
“Hey, why does he get to skip the stupid mission?” Ino snapped, crossing her arms and staring furiously at the blond genin.
Naruto, Shikamaru remembered, glared back at Ino and his blue eyes were just as hostile and grumpy as they had been back in the forest. He couldn’t imagine the guy ever smiling.
“Naruto has been a genin for a few years now and D-ranks are a waste of his time. He’s done enough of them,” Kakashi answered, seemingly unphased by Ino’s response. “Hayate’s working with him on his kenjutsu but he needs more control over his fūton which is more your territory.”
Naruto looked just as surprised as Asuma-sensei about this turn of events. Wary blue eyes turned to Asuma-sensei.
“I mean, if you’re happy with that,” Asuma-sensei shrugged, letting out another puff of smoke. “Kakashi is more than capable of overseeing the D-rank on his own.”
Naruto didn’t look convinced.
“This is such a drag,” Shikamaru sighed. He didn’t want to pick up the slack of losing a person.
Naruto’s gaze turned to him and there was a spark of recognition although the blond kept quiet.
“Come now children,” Kakashi began waving his arms and Shikamaru reluctantly stood, shoving his hands into his pocket. “We have a lot to do and we’re running late.”
“That was your fault, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura spoke up.
“Let’s go,” Kakashi ignored her, pulling out an orange book from a pouch and immediately sticking his nose into it. “No time to waste.”
Sakura rolled her eyes and Sasuke stomped ahead, his mood by some miracle being even worse than usual. Shikamaru fell into step beside Chouji as Ino bounded forward to start harassing Sakura. He looked back to see Naruto and Asuma-sensei staring at each other although he couldn’t read their expressions from here.
Whatever, it wasn’t any of his business and he had enough to think about with this stupid D-rank. What he wouldn’t give to just ditch them and go stare at the clouds somewhere but then Ino and his mother would be on his case and one was bad enough. Being a shinobi was so damn troublesome.
Lee bounced along the road, his beloved teammates not far behind him. It was such a beautiful day for training! He was so blessed to have been placed on a team with Gai-sensei! He felt like a completely different person than he had been only a year ago and it was all due to his sensei and Power of Youth! He was determined to make his teacher proud and show him that Lee could uphold the legacy of Youth.
He was lucky to have his teammates too. Tenten was much more confident than she had been when they were first assigned to a team together and while Neji had not gotten any friendlier, he worked hard and met Lee with the same intensity and determination that Lee did. It truly felt like they were becoming rivals like Gai-sensei and his rival and Lee was over the moon. He would have to continue to work hard and show that the power of taijutsu was more than enough to compete with any opponent Lee faced.
“Gai-sensei said he would be running late, Lee,” Tenten called out from behind him. “There’s no reason to rush.”
“We must get there early so we can appropriately warm up!” he called back, turning so he was walking backwards.
Neji remained silent. Lee had noticed that he had been unhappier recently but he could not think of a cause to his teammate’s suffering. Neji was so strong and Lee was honoured to be his rival but there was a weight on Neji’s shoulders that he refused to talk about. It was not Lee’s place to ask about it but he could at least be there for his rival if he ever wished to share the burden.
“Is someone already there?”
He turned to look into the training ground and grinned as he watched Naruto swing a sword, the metal cutting through the rock in front of him like it was butter. He had seen the pair of swords strapped to Naruto’s back but he had not seen them in use before. He had not appeared to notice their arrival and Lee resisted the urge to call out, knowing the blond would stop the moment he did.
Naruto was someone he looked up to a lot. He was the first to inspire Lee, long before he was assigned to Gai-sensei. He told Lee that he should never give up! If he cannot use chakra, then he should work hard and find alternative ways of fighting! He had not expressed it in those exact words but Lee understood the feeling behind them. Naruto was the hardest work that Lee had ever had the privilege to work with, even beyond himself and his teammates. Lee could only aspire to work as hard and become as strong as Naruto. The match from when they first formed their team was still fresh in his mind and he knew he still had a long way to go before he could properly challenge Gai-sensei’s first student.
Naruto was not the friendliest shinobi but Lee did not see that a as a negative. Naruto preferred to show his strength through his actions rather than his words and that only made Lee admire him more. Naruto was not a man of wasted words. He was a pillar of strength and Lee would win him over one day with his own strength. He just had to keep working hard until the day he could meet the genin on equal footing. Naruto’s dismissal of him did hurt sometimes but Lee knew that Naruto’s trust was not easily won. He was willing to work hard and prove himself worthy with the Power of Youth!
“How can a sword cut through rock like that?” he asked Tenten, assuming that she would know. “Would it not break?”
“Fūton,” breathed Tenten, her brown eyes sparkling. “Those with an affinity can apply to the edge of blades to make them sharper but it’s not common in Konoha. My family’s shop has only made chakra-conducting blades for one jounin before.”
Lee turned back but he couldn’t see anything special on the blade. Naruto was incredible! He could have just focused on kenjutsu but he pushed himself a step further just like he did every time.
“Naruto is truly in the Springtime of his Youth!” Lee grinned as Naruto’s head snapped towards them.
“What are you doing here?” he growled, sheathing the sword as they approached.
“Gai-sensei told us to meet him here for training,” Tenten explained, her eyes still on the blade that was now being slung across Naruto’s back. “Where did you get those?”
“I stole them.”
Lee could not tell if he was serious or not; the blond’s face was blank and his response was completely deadpan. Tenten did not appear to know how to respond to that either.
“You should not expect a civil response from him,” Neji spoke up for the first time. “He cannot get past his own pettiness to attempt a normal conversation.”
Naruto scoffed.
“Rich coming from you,” he sneered. “You can’t go a fucking sentence without putting someone down for your own ego.”
Tension bubbled between them and Lee was not sure what the right approach was. It was evident that something had transpired between the two when Lee and Tenten had not been present but Lee could not think of anything that could cause this level of animosity between two comrades.
“Do you wish to join us in training today, Naruto-kun?” Lee tried. He did not expect the blond to agree but he knew he could never give up on trying to reach out to the blond. “Gai-sensei will be along shortly and he would be thrilled to see you.”
“I would rather die.”
“Such commitment!” Lee grinned, deciding that he would only try and take the positives out of this, just like Gai-sensei did. “I will have to keep working hard for your acknowledgement then!”
Naruto stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head.
“Whatever, knock-off.”
He turned on his heel and stalked out of the training ground. Lee grinned. Naruto’s temper had not sparked and he had not threatened Lee even once! That was progress! He was still not willing to engage with them and he and Neji appeared to be on terrible terms but he could feel like he was one step closer to his goal of taking on equal footing with Naruto and winning his trust. One day he would be able to count the blond among his friends and together they could blossom into their Springtime of Youth!