Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Mended Hearts ❯ Patience ( Chapter 1 )

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I wish I did, but I don't.

 

Summary: AU Naruto hides many secrets from Konohagakure no Sato. As time continues, Naruto's precious people learn the hard way that many secrets are best left untouched, and that Naruto is not at all what they believed.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Chapter 1: Patience~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Naruto sat on the Hokage Monument, tucked into the crevice between the Sandaime and the Yondaime, hidden in the shadows of his surrogate grandfather and long deceased father, forever immortalized in the mountainside. He could see the scaffolding beside the Yondaime, abandoned for the night as the workers who were carving Tsunade's head into the mountain were at home safe and warm in their beds. He tilted his head back, and breathed deeply as he studied the night sky. His eyes snapped open, and he threw himself off the monument. For one exhilarating minute, he allowed himself to freefall before he pushed chakra out of the soles of his feet, slowing his fall and cushioning his landing. He gracefully straightened, adjusted his mask, and walked away, vanishing into the darkness.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

The mission was a simple class C, one that was a low C mission. The employer was a fairly well to do merchant who disliked traveling alone and simply wanted some company on his way home. They weren't supposed to run into anything worse than bandits or thieves.

 

But of course, Team 7 never had things go their way in terms missions. Either the class D missions were the lowest in the barrel, or the class C missions were, by some strange quirk of fate, relabeled either class B or class A when they returned to Konoha. But it didn't always mean their luck was that bad. Sometimes the class D missions, while mind numbingly boring, were somewhat entertaining and useful. Sometimes the Class C missions stayed Class C missions. Past experience told them that the mission was most likely going to be relabeled as a higher ranked mission, and they would be paid accordingly.

 

Of course, they never expected to be attacked by Youkai.

 

Team 7 had been separated and were quickly running out of both weapons and chakra, and the exhausted ninja were barely managing to stay on their feet.

Naruto ducked under the youkai's claws with a strange, feline grace, and stabbed his kunai into its side, twisting it and yanking it out in a gush of dark blood. The youkai screamed at the pain and lashed out with a viscous kick that caught the blonde in the stomach as he leapt back, lessening the impact. He hit the ground with his hands and swiftly kicked his feet up, catching the youkai in the chin, sending it reeling backwards as he swept the feet of another youkai out from under it. He was on it in seconds, severing the head from its neck with a firm swipe of his kunai while forming a Rasengan in his free hand. He turned and slammed it into the chest of another youkai that had been attempting to sneak up on him. He did not stop to survey his handiwork, but moved on to slash the throat of another Youkai.

 

His eyes widened as dozens of Youkai surrounded him and leapt into the air. Naruto gathered his chakra into his body, compressing it into a small ball before releasing it with explosive results. The youkai were flung away from him as he rose from his crouching position on the ground. In a blink, he was passing through the hordes of youkai, his kunai flashing, as the blood of the youkai gushed from the wounds.

 

Naruto channeled chakra into his legs and leapt into the air, expelling chakra from various tenketsu points to give the illusion of floating. He flung a barrage of shuriken and kunai into the crowd with devastating accuracy as each kunai and shuriken found their marks in the chests, necks, or forehead of the youkai. He expelled chakra from the tenketsu points on his shoulder blades and flipped as he descended to land in a crouch. For a brief moment after his landing, the Youkai stood still before falling, one after the other in a spray of blood as the kunai and shuriken were ruthlessly yanked out of them via chakra enhanced nin-wire. The weapons moved and slashed through the youkai in front of him, dropping them one after the other in a spray of blood. He stood up slowly as the weapons dropped to the floor, breathing softly.

 

Silently, quickly, he tugged the wires, bringing the weapons toward him, and he cleaned them efficiently with several fistfuls of grass and leaves. Naruto slipped the shuriken and the kunai back into his kunai and shuriken holster before leaving, following the faint traces of his chakra from the battle.

 

He broke through the foliage to see Kakashi and Sasuke collapse from exhaustion while the Sakura struggled valiantly to guard the fallen figures of her comrades. The client crouched fearfully behind the kunoichi, unaware of the wolf-youkai approaching him from behind, canines bared and claws unsheathed. Naruto made a mad dash toward them, intent on getting in between the client and the demon.

 

Kakashi blearily saw a flash of gold and felt hot blood splatter on his face before drifting off into the warm embrace of darkness.

 

Naruto pulled the nin-wire from his hair, quickly sending it through the chest of the demon, and slashing it to the right. The wire, made razor sharp with speed, cut through the demons easily. With a practiced flip of his wrist, he made the wire rip send several youkai stumbling backward, hissing in pain as he inflicted shallow wounds. Swiftly, he sent out several clones with nin wire to destroy the rest of the youkai. He smiled with morbid satisfaction as the wire decapitated the youkai in several large geysers of blood. Naruto looked up and cold blue eyes meet startled green eyes.

 

“Na-Naru-Naruto…” Sakura stuttered, her eyes wide in fear and shock.

 

“We'll have to get Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei away from this area. Once we find a place to camp, we'll set up several traps. I doubt we'll run into anymore Youkai in this area, but its better to be overly cautious than too be the youkai's next meal,” Naruto said grabbing one of Kakashi's arms and slinging it over his shoulders. “Can you grab Sasuke over there?”

 

“Um, yeah,” Sakura said nervously, going over to Sasuke and slinging his arms over her shoulders and straightening. Whatever had happened to the carefree Naruto she knew, and how did he become so mature and knowledgeable about the youkai?

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Kakashi woke to the feeling of warmth and the sound of fire and the smell of cooking meat. He opened his eyes and sat up, and Sakura turned around. Green eyes brightened to see him.

 

“Kakashi-sensei! You're awake!”

 

“Late to arrive for missions, late for training, late to hand in mission reports, and late to rise, eh, sensei?” Naruto said dryly, walking into view. The blond was carrying a stack of wood in his arms, and his jacket and pants were covered in dried blood. His cerulean eyes were calm and cool, showing no emotion, and his movements were tense and wary.

 

“Naruto?” Kakashi said, eying the blood on the blonde's clothes, “Are you alright?”

 

“I'm fine,” Naruto said cheerfully, “I just got dog piled by a little over twenty youkai.”

 

“Just got dog piled by twenty youkai!?” Kakashi said incredulously, “And you're still alive?!”

 

Naruto hummed briefly as he knelt and stoked the fire after setting down the wood and checked the rabbit and the fish. “You're forgetting what I am, Kakashi-sensei,” his voice was dull and bitter. “Or have you forgotten what lies behind the seal on my body?”

 

Naruto… Kakashi watched his student sadly. Is this how you truly feel? I thought you knew better than to think of yourself and the Kyuubi as one and the same…

 

“I haven't forgotten,” Kakashi said softly, “But you are not it! You are you and what is inside the seal is itself. You are Uzumaki Naruto, no more, no less.”

 

Naruto simply took the meat off the fire and said, “The food is ready. Someone wake the Uchiha.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Naruto was well aware of Kakashi's eye on him as he lay down in his sleeping bag. The jounin was getting suspicious of him…

 

And for good reason.

 

Naruto knew that he had been getting lax with his identity lately, and it had been pure luck that prevented his identity as a Hunter from getting out. It was a problem he intended to rectify at the first possible opportunity.

 

The blonde closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift, lingering between sleep and waking, his senses on total alert. He highly doubted that the Youkai would return tonight, but he knew from past experience that it was sometimes better to err on the side of caution.

 

When he felt the air cool considerably and the soft touch of mist on his skin, signaling the dawn, he sat up and tossed some wood onto the fire before vanishing in the direction of the river, thin tendrils of mist swirling around him. He could hear the almost inaudible rustle of leaves and cloth, the gentle scraping of sandals on bark, noises that were normally hidden from human hears by the sound of their own breathing and heart beat as well as the sounds of the environment around them. To Naruto, however, the sounds were perfectly audible to his advanced senses, but he said nothing.

 

Kakashi's curiosity was justifiable, Naruto knew, and no genin should be able to tell if their jounin sensei was watching them unless the jounin wanted them to know they were being watched.

 

Naruto arrived at the banks of the river and carefully stripped off the jacket of his bright orange jumpsuit, revealing the loose black t-shirt he normally wore under the jacket

 

He smiled slightly as he pulled a bit of nin-wire from his hair, anticipating Kakashi's reaction. Naruto rolled his eyes in amusement at the shocked exclamation Kakashi couldn't muffle and stood silently at the bank of the river. He watched calmly as the light of the rising sun painted the horizon and watched the swirling currents carry leaves and twigs downstream. Suddenly, he flicked his wrist, and the nin-wire plunged into the water. Another twist brought the wire sharply out of the water, carrying two large freshwater tuna with it. A sharp arm movement sent the tuna flying only to land, flapping wildly on the bank as the nin-wire was pulled from the fish. He flicked his wrist once more, and the wire shot into the river again, reemerging again with three large tuna, he turned, swiping outward with his arm, sending the three fishes flapping onto the bank with their fellows.

 

Naruto stretched and groaned softly in satisfaction as he heard several joints creak and pop into place. He spread out his jacket on the floor and placed the tuna into it and picked it up and carried it back to the camp. Once there, he proceeded to scale and gut the fishes before setting them to cook. That done, he left to collect firewood.

 

Kakashi dropped from the tree he was in after Naruto left the camp and frowned.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Three days later, Team 7 dropped the client off at his home and the week long journey back to Konoha went off without a hitch. One inside the village, Kakashi dismissed his team disappeared in a puff of smoke. Naruto groaned mentally when he felt his Hunter emblem on his arm warm with summoning, and he called out his goodbyes to Sakura and Sasuke as he ran off.

 

Naruto leapt across the rooftops until he reached his apartment, and slipped through a conveniently open window. He sighed and dropped his travel pack onto the floor and vanished into the restroom. After a quick shower, he put his Hunter uniform consisting of a formfitting black tank top and a pair of black pants (which was made of a slightly stretchy material so it would not hinder his movements) which clung lightly to his hips, thighs, and calves before being tucked into the blue wrappings which rose to mid-calf on his shinobe sandals. The belt around his waist was hung with his shinobe pouch and a set of kunai and shuriken holsters, and his katana was hung on the belt, the sheath buckled around his leg a little above the knees, and his kunai and shuriken holsters were strapped to his legs. He settled his two kodachi into their harness on his back and placed his chakrams in their place underneath the kodachi. He pulled on his gloves, arm protectors and his mask and vanished in a puff of smoke.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Kakashi had just entered the reception hall when a shinobe appeared in a puff of smoke. He recognized the lithe form immediately.

 

“Ah, Zeiguwa-sama,” he said, “Good afternoon.”

 

Zeiguwa simply inclined his head toward Kakashi before he swept past the jounin and into the Hokage's office.

 

Naruto nodded wordlessly in acknowledgement of the Hokage. Tsunade's bright eyes were dark and serious, her features set firmly in a frown.

 

“Zeiguwa,” Tsunade's voice was tired, “ANBU squad 5 and 3 discovered the body of Kou no Tori fifty six kilometers outside the village. What troubles me is that the body of Kou no Tori seemed to have been there for a week or so already, and I saw her only yesterday. Take squads 5 with you. Find out how much she knows, and then dispose of her. You leave immediately.”

 

“Hai.” Naruto vanished out the window.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

 

 

CSA Version 7 Mended Hearts What Are You Hiding?