Shifting Sands
It had been five months since I left my box. The tests ended early today. The Hokage told me it was only 2:00. We usually ended around 5:00 and I usually spent the rest of the day at the library. Sometimes Shisui would visit me and teach me things. But he said he was busy so that was rare. It didn’t matter that it was rare, because he spent time with a monster. He would always say it was basic human decency, but I was a monster, and human decency was meant for humans, not monsters.
However, today it was 2:00 and the Hokage told me to do something fun. I didn't know what could be considered fun other than reading. So I asked and Jiji said to go play with children my age.
I was used to watching them from my box. But I never thought I would leave my box so I hadn’t considered talking to them. And humans tended to ignore me, so the odds were not favorable. However, the Hokage told me to do it.
The park had children so I went there. They were like a hoard, covering the entire expanse of the park, there were some parents sitting on the benches, but not many. I walked to the slide first because there was a line of kids that looked like they were my age.
But no one talked to me and I wasn’t sure what to say either, so I waited quietly. I went down the slide just as quietly. I didn’t see the appeal.
Watching people was easier than interacting with them. And I wished that I could stay away, observing but not engaging. Things were less complicated if I didn’t get involved, people became predictable and their intrapersonal conversations made more sense.
I walked to the swings, at least I wouldn’t have to talk then. But I tripped over something.
I looked behind me to see a foot sticking out of a bush. Then a head popped out as well. The brown-haired boy looked over at me.
“Eh?,” Then he laughed, “Sorry, you really scared me there! I thought you caught me.”
It sounded serious, “Is someone looking for you?”
“Yeah, Shikamaru. He’s it.”
I tried to think back on what I saw in my box, to remember if this was normal behavior for human children. Most likely a game of hide and seek.
“Sorry, I could have gotten you caught.”
The boy waved his hand, “Naw, they never find me, winning is getting boring,” he looked at me for a second, “Do you want to join?”
If I joined I would be playing as the Hokage told me. I nodded.
“Cool, the name’s Kiba.”
“Naruto.”
He nodded and grabbed my hand. Even his hand was a lot bigger than mine.
“Shikamaru!” He yelled with his hand around his mouth, “Shik-”
“What are you doing idiot, you’re supposed to be hiding,” the black-haired boy, Shikamaru I assume, rolled his eyes before he looked at me, “Who’s this.”
“Naruto, he’s going to join our game.”
Shikamaru nodded while seemingly scanning my body, “I guess we better restart the game, what a drag.”
Kiba turned to me again, “Don’t worry about him, he’s just lazy.”
Shikamaru mumbled quietly, “Whatever, I guess I’ll be it again.”
Kiba huffed and multiple people popped out from the tree line that circled the park, “It’s not fun when you’re it.”
Shikamaru scoffed, “You do it then.”
“Naw,” Kiba shrugged.
“Then don’t complain,” Shikamaru appeared uninterested. As if he didn’t want to be participating at all. I wondered if he and Kiba were friends, if they were, their friendship was nothing like what Shisui showed me.
Kiba deflated, groaning out a “Fine.”
One of the other boys, I assumed they were playing too, yelled out “begin,” and Shikamaru closed his eyes with resignation.
I stepped onto the bark of a nearby tree, chakra hoisting my body to stand perpendicular to the tree trunk. Once securely in the treetops, I sat down. Shikamaru wandered around, directionless. And yet, without much effort, he found the closest pair of kids. Passionlessly intelligent.
Shikamaru jabbed Kiba after finding him hiding near the slide.
Kiba rubbed his rib cage, “What the heck dude?”
It was hard to imagine they were friends.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, “Tell your new friend to come out.”
“You mean I didn’t win?” Kiba scrunched up his face. I thought he didn’t like winning.
“Naruto,” Shikamaru ignored Kiba.
I jumped down carefully. My hair tended to get caught on twigs and branches. The leaves were unavoidable.
Kiba folded his arms over his chest, “You only won because you’re so small.”
I was unsure of how to respond. He was right, it was probably one of the reasons I wasn’t caught. But Shikamaru started speaking.
“Congratulations,” he drawled, “Do you want to be it?”
It seemed unappealing, the children were all quite loud. And Shikamaru, the only one with silent footsteps, had a recognizably earthy smell. Almost like a meadow after a storm.
“No.”
Shikamaru scratched his neck lazily, “what a drag. You,” he pointed at one of the other kids, “You want to be it?”
It was a question, but it didn’t sound like one. I suppose it didn’t matter because the kid nodded.
The next two rounds I made sure they caught me in the middle, perfectly average. It seemed like it made Kiba happier, even though he said it was boring.
Shisui told me making people happy was nice.
It got dark quickly and all the kids went home.
I wasn’t sure how long I was supposed to have fun so I stayed a bit longer. Even though none of the other kids talked to me, I sat in the sand pit. The sand stayed warm even as the air cooled. The trees polarized the light and only streaks hit my legs but it felt nice against the chilly air.
There was some yelling behind me. I decided to continue moving my hands through the grains of sand. It was soothing. But there was a harsh kick on my back. It hurt. I had forgotten what that felt like. I forgot what it felt like for the matron to beat me.
“Hey, we were talking to you.”
I turned around to see four boys, probably two years older than me. I had never seen them before.
“Ew, why do you look like that?”
The boy kicked me again but this time I fell backward. I wanted to leave, so I tried to stand up.
“Do you even have any emotions? It’s creepy.”
I’m not sure. Do I?
Another one of the boys pushed me back to the ground. I really wanted to leave, so I tried to get up faster.
“Ugly freak,” a different boy kicked me, but I managed to stay up and started running.
“It’s the hair,” he grabbed my hair. It hurt a lot. I tried to grab my hair to make the pulling stop, but he pulled harder.
The other boys snickered, “It’s so long.”
“What are you? A girl?” another boy pulled my hair in a different direction. I really wanted to leave. But they just kept pulling. They kept yelling but my head hurt a lot. I couldn’t hear anything, I only felt the throbbing of my head. I really wanted to leave.
I really wanted to leave.
I really wanted to leave.
But they were pulling so hard. I closed my eyes. Chakra bubbled under my skin like ribbons swirling throughout my body. I just really want to leave.
My chakra was warm. It didn’t hurt. It made me feel safe. The red chakra, the Kyubi chakra was the warmest.
I grabbed it. The chakra covered my body, I could feel the warm tingling, but it was hot, much hotter than before.
The pulling stopped. I opened my eyes, my body was covered in red chakra but it receded quickly. I looked behind me and the boys pulling my hair were crying and holding their hands as if they were burned. Probably because they were burned.
But it didn’t matter. I could leave. So I did. I ran. I ran as fast as I could.
I ran into my house but I didn’t stop, I couldn’t stop until I got to the bathroom. I threw up. But I still felt sick.
Looking into my reflection made me sick. I had scissors in the bathroom. They were for cutting nails, but it didn’t matter, they were sharp. So I cut my hair. It reached down to my knees, they were right, it was ugly. So I cut it.
I heard my front door open. Someone was calling my name. But it didn’t matter. It was ugly, and I was going to cut it off. Even as the person calling my name became frantic. The bathroom door opened
“Naru- Naruto…” I could see Shisui’s reflection in the mirror. He took his mask off. It was hanging loosely from his hand.
“What are you doing…?”
“I’m cutting my hair.”
He took the scissors out of my hands. I only finished cutting half my hair. It looked even worse than before. The hair I managed to cut reached my shoulder.
Shisui took my hand and walked me to the kitchen and pushed me to sit in the chair. My shoulders hurt from where the other kid pushed me. I winced. Shisui moved around my house for a minute before coming back, a regular pair of scissors in hand with a brush and a small trash can.
“What happened?”
“I wanted to cut my hair.”
Shisui paused and craned my neck to the side. I felt more than saw the slowly forming yellow bruise where my neck met my shoulder.
“Did someone hurt you?”
I nodded. Shisui said lying was bad, even if humans do it all the time.
“Who?” he was more forceful this time.
“People on the playground.”
I heard the small snipping sounds of the scissors behind my head. With every snip, my head felt lighter.
“They said I was ugly…”
“You’re the cutest kid I’ve ever seen,” Shisui held out a hand to me, “You want to see?”
He took me back into the bathroom. My hair was no longer on the floor.
“See? Doesn’t matter what length it is, you have beautiful hair.”
I looked in the mirror. My hair was now chin-length, curling at the ends.
And my eyes started watering, I don’t know why but I couldn’t help it. But Shisui didn’t scold or hit me. And I knew he wouldn't. Shisui wouldn't do that.
But I was so used to it.
He hugged me, and it made my skin burn.
“You said you’d cook for me the next time I came back right? Are you still up to it?”
I really wanted to. I really wanted to make him happy.
---
When Naruto met Tsunade at her residency, Jiraiya was already there, an unexpected occasion no doubt.
The sage grinned, waved excitedly at Naruto who bowed his head in greeting.
“Hey kiddo, how’s-”
“You cut your hair,” Tsunade shouted, eyes wide in surprise.
Jiraiya nodded, “I knew something looked different,” he whispered.
Tsunade turned to Jiraiya, “Shut it,” then back to Naruto, “What happened? Are you ok? It looks good by the way.”
Naruto clasped a cold hand to his heating cheek, “Thank you. I didn’t want it long anymore.”
Tsunade was unconvinced, “Ok… anyway!” Tsunade handed him a folder, his medical history, “I got last week’s samples back, so now, I can confirm that your chakra system is ready to intake medical chakra.”
“Thank you for your guidance,” Naruto gripped the folder harder.
“Yeah well that was basically the last step,” Tsunade smiled softly, petting Naruto’s hair, “You’re fully cleared, you can live your life the way you want now.”
Somehow that didn’t make Naruto happy, it sounded like a goodbye.
Jiraiya gave Naruto a rough pat on the back, “Don’t worry, we’ll stick around. Can’t get rid of us that easily.”
Was Jiraiya a mind reader?
“Are you done too?” Naruto’s face didn’t change but his knuckles were turning white.
“Well, I finished all the tests I needed to do a while ago,” Jiraiya rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. All he had to do really was see how Naruto’s chakra interacted with the seal in different amounts, “Unless you contacted Kyubi?” Naruto shook his head, “Or any other developments?”
“Yes,” One of Naruto’s hands subconsciously lifted to play with his hair, “The red chakra covered my body.”
Jiraiya’s eyes widened, “By itself?” it was the closest someone could come to shouting without shouting.
“No. I did it by accident.”
Jiraiya relaxed just a smidge, “I may not be the best person to say this, but that was reckless-”
“I am,” Tsunade cut in, throwing a worried glance between her teammate and the blond, “What happened? I know you’re more responsible than that.”
Naruto didn’t say anything, just stared at the folder in his hands. After a moment he opened his mouth. But Jiraiya spoke, “It doesn’t matter. Are you ok?”
Naruto nodded.
“Ok good,” Jiraiya held up a hand to Tsunade preemptively, “can you try to repeat what you did?”
Naruto closed his eyes while Tsunade argued with Jiraiya and the red chakra cloak flickered on and off, finally stabilizing for a few seconds before disappearing entirely.
Jiraiya nodded, thoroughly impressed. The malicious chakra that came with a loss of control wasn’t there. That meant Naruto had full control of that chakra, “Usually it takes years of training with biju chakra to do that, but I guess, with your situation it shouldn’t be entirely surprising.”
The potency of that chakra was unparalleled. Tsunade was temporarily pacified but kept a watchful eye on the situation.
“Try doing something,” Jiraiya pushed, “normal chakra.”
Naruto obeyed, doing the first thing that came to mind, a single hand sign, and the grass bled red.
“Genjutsu?” Tsunade raised an eyebrow.
Naruto nodded, “I read about it,” and then asked Shishui about it because the book was about the history of the Uchiha clan but Shisui liked to stay secret so Naruto said nothing.
“Well," Jiraiya bobbed his head appreciatively, “No matter,” he formed his hands into a seal, “kai,’ and it took more chakra than it should have to break out considering Naruto was not even an academy student.
“Not bad kid,” Tsunade ruffled the silky blond locks.
“Try it with the Kyubi chakra,” Jiraiya took a step away from the burning heat the red cloak emitted.
Same Jutsu but this time Jiraiya had to focus and get help from Tsunade and her amazing chakra control to make the grass green again.
“You keep surprising us,” Jiraiya smiled fondly. But Naruto still couldn’t carve out the pit in his stomach.
---
Hiruzen opened what he hoped would be the last file on Naruto.
Tsunade and Jiraiya were standing on the other side of his desk.
“You probably have figured out most of the report already,” The blonde kunoichi started, “But I’ll give you a brief summary. His chakra has adapted to have healing properties. Jiraiya trained with him to use the Kyubi chakra and his own chakra separately. He can completely cloak himself in chakra, Kyubi, or otherwise, probably because of how distributed his chakra is around his body. I researched the effects but I’ll discuss those later.”
Tsunade flipped through pages, identical to the ones the Hokage was holding, “The defect, unsurprisingly, is that he doesn’t have a lot of chakra that he can channel from one place. It's a very potent chakra, especially the closer it is to his body, but it seems like he will not be able to perform most ninjutsu.”
Jiraiya interjected, “But he can still transfer chakra into other objects. He is proficient in seals and can make chakra strings-”
“Right,” Tsunade interrupted Jiraiya this time, glaring at him while doing so, “he can do Iryo Jutsu but just barely because of the amount of chakra it requires. He has the chakra control for it. So I taught him how to mix medicine,” Tsunade rambled, “Actually his chakra is still blue but it has stronger medicinal properties than even my chakra-”
“You were supposed to be studying him, not training him,” Hiruzen raised his hand to stop the barrage of information.
“But sensei-” Tsunade tried to argue but Jiraiya cut her off.
“He’s a curious kid,” Tsunade jabbed her elbow in his rib cage but Jiraiya kept talking, “He asks a lot of questions, so we told him what he wanted to know, nothing more and nothing less. He’s just a fast learner."
Hiruzen sighed and massaged his temples, but let out a small relieved smile, “talented kid huh. We’ve got a genius on our hands.”
Tsunade smirked, ready to praise the cute blond until Jiraiya interrupted her again, and she was going to snap at him for real this time until she heard what he said.
“Talents’ got nothing todo with it,” Jiraiya shook his head and folded his arms over his chest in a grand gesture, “The kid just works harder than anyone else.”
Tsunade couldn’t stop the fond smile on her face despite how much she wanted to punch Jiraiya in the face.
Hiruzen nodded laughing slightly, “I’m not surprised to hear that from you,” He faced Tsunade, “You mentioned the chakra cloak?”
“Right,” Tsunade looked at Jiraiya, daring him to talk but he just put his hands up in surrender, “When he used his own chakra, the cloak glows blue and it’s kind of like a barrier and heals faster than normal. The purple one lets him use jutsu to some extent, but because of the yin chakra, it’s mostly genjutsu and the like. Actually, he’s really good at genjutsu even though Jiraiya and I haven’t taught him anything-”
Hiruzen coughed into his hand, not needing a gushing Tsunade in his office.
“Right, the red cloak is basically a biju cloak, it burns anything it touches.”
“Is that dangerous? What about the Kyubi?”
“Ahem,” Jiraiya coughed, smirking at Tsunade, “this is my area of expertise, so I can say that there is no problem there. Usually it would mean the Kyubi has taken over but in this case, because the mind seal is fully intact, there is no influence when using it’s chakra. Oh,” Jiraiya hit his palm against his hand, “And the body seal, there’s no real problem there either, it probably just weakened as a result of the chakra influx, making Naruto’s body more compatible and similar to the Kyubi’s.”
Hiruzen looked horrified.
“It’s not bad or anything,” Jiraya waved his hands, “just sharper senses and chakra sensing. If anything, it just brought out his Uzumaki traits more”
Hiruzen shook his head, “as long as he’s safe.”
“Actually,” Tsunade said carefully, “It’s our recommendation Naruto becomes a ninja.”
“Why?” Hiruzen’s eyes were wide and he looked truly stupefied, “is that even safe… He’s so small.”
“Well, it’s true that the muscle atrophy will probably never fully heal, especially in his arms. He won’t be able to become that strong,” this time it was Jiraiya’s turn to elbow Tsunade, “But he is very quick on his feet. As a medic, dodging is the most important skill and he’s good at that. And he has a bunch of other skills. He’s interested in it and it would be a shame to not use that… and you know he has the best chance of being accepted by other shinobi.”
“Ok, ok, fine, I’ll ask Naruto, but I’m not forcing him into anything, you understand?”
The duo nodded.
“And I swear if he gets hurt,”
“Hai Sensei, don’t worry we’ll stick around for a bit longer to help the kid out,” Jiraiya soothed, “But you know we have to get back to work soon, it’s been months already.”
Hiruzen nodded slowly, “You’re dismissed.”
---
The Hokage called me to his office again even though my tests were technically finished. I should, therefore, be of no use to him, but he was still nice to me.
“Jiji?”
The Hokage smiled and waved to me, “Come sit.”
“Now Naruto, I have an important question but don’t feel pressured. Would you like to become a shinobi?”
A shinobi… I had never thought about it. It felt unreal, like a legend. Even as I learned about them from Tsunade and Jiraiya. But Tsunade was a ninja, so was Jiraiya and Shisui and the Hokage. And they were all the nicest people I knew. Maybe being a ninja made people nicer or maybe nice people became ninja.
I wanted to be nice.
So I answered yes like I always did.
“Are you sure?”
What else could I? Being a shinobi looked like it made money. Tsunade had a really big house. I like to cook but I doubt I could attract customers. Gardening didn’t seem very profitable either.
“Yes.”
The Hokage sighed and I’m not sure if it was in worry or relief, “Ok, I’ll sign you up immediately. Sorry for the late notice, but it starts next month.”
“It’s ok. I don’t have plans.”
“I know, that’s not… nevermind,” he smiled warmly… Jiji had a really kind smile, “Just do your best ok? And come to me if you need anything, right Naruto?”
“Yes, Jiji.”