The grin never slipped from his face, "Yes, she's pretty raw. But that's the beauty of it. If there is one thing that I know from personal experience, it's that a blank slate is probably the best thing for a ninja to be when they go into any kind of training. Give her some time and teach her right, she'll be just fine. And did I mention the chakra control?"
"Who is it brat?" Tsunade was interested in the program, and if Naruto had an idea of just who could be receptive to the training, why wouldn't she listen to him, "Is she one of the genin in your class?"
Naruto nodded, "Yeah, my teammate that didn't end up ditching the village, Sakura Haruno. Check her out, see if she's what you're looking for, and if she is get in touch with her."
Tsunade looked at him as he stood to make his way to the window once more, "What are you going to go do brat?"
Naruto yawned as he turned to face her, "I'm tired. I need some sleep and some time off. Give me at least a week and then give me a new assignment, the cracked bones really do suck for someone who runs around all day."
A smile came onto Tsunade's face, "I put you on medical leave for a bit anyway after you got back. I'll call you when I think you're ready again. You're getting at least a week off. Get some rest. But stop in later this week, I have something for you to do."
Naruto gave her a weak salute and jumped out of her window to exit.
XxX
Naruto arrived at his home that night as the stress of the last few days finally caught up with him. He gave a grunt of acknowledgement to Kankuro who was eating one of his cup ramen and watching his TV. The puppeteer almost choked on his food as he saw Naruto heading back to his bedroom and rushed to stop him.
As he stood in front of Naruto he could feel the killing intent radiating off of the haggard blonde, "You better have a damn good reason for blocking my way or my foot will have a damn good reason for sticking itself up your ass."
Kankuro pointed back towards his room, "I told you Temari took your bed. Well she's in there right now sleeping. If you value your testicles kid I wouldn't go in there."
Naruto looked at Kankuro, then to the room, then back to Kankuro who was shaking his head. He shrugged and moved Kankuro aside, "I'll take my chances. I'll be damned if I'm sleeping on the floor in my own damn house." Kankuro went wide-eyed as he watched Naruto enter the room and shut the door before running back to the couch, planning to feign ignorance when the fireworks went off.
Naruto took a look around his room to find it far less cluttered, "Well, she picked my crap up while I was gone I suppose."
Turning his attention to his bed he found his fellow blonde from Suna sleeping soundly on his bed, 'How can she sleep so well on my piece of crap mattress? I thought she would have been spoiled by their expensive, comfortable beds at home.'
As he edged closer to the bed Naruto's thoughts were telling him that it would be a damn shame to potentially disrupt the sleep of this girl. Temari looked way too peaceful for him to normally awaken. Too bad he was too tired to pay attention to his logical thoughts.
Naruto edged her to one side of his bed, which she actually did in her sleep quite easily, she must have been a pretty heavy sleeper. He took off his shirt and slid in next to her, turning away and quickly fell victim to the comfort of sleep.
(3 hours later)
A cold feeling was placed against his face, forcing Naruto to open his eyes and deal with the nuisance. As his eyes cracked open he saw Temari's metal fan placed against his cheek. Figuring that she wouldn't hit him while he was asleep he quickly shut his eyes and slowed his breathing. Naruto snapped his eyes open when she shook his face with the fan. "You're awake! That's good, did you have a nice nap?" He could tell that the fake sweet voice meant that he was screwed, so there was no reason for him to not be a smart-ass at this point. What else could she do after this? Not beat him?
Naruto sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking at her with a dull face, "It was alright. But it wasn't meant to be a nap. It was meant to be a twelve to twenty-four hour hibernation of sorts. Thanks for that. You woke me up…" He checked his clock, "…Nineteen hours early, great."
Temari had a scowl on her face, "I woke up looking at your bare back! What the hell are you doing here?"
Continuing to poke the bear he raised an eyebrow, "I live here. Didn't you know that when you got here?"
Temari pushed him back down on the bed with her fan, "I meant what are you doing in the bed you ass."
Naruto couldn't prevent the smirk from going on his face before he responded, "This is my bedroom. As you can see there's only one bed, mine, and you were kind of in it, so I figured, hey! Roomates!"
Temari began to unfold her fan with an angry look on her face, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't blow you from here to the Hokage Tower?"
Naruto rolled over on the bed and shut his eyes, "I'll give you two; because I just came from there, and because I haven't gotten a non-drug induced sleep in over three days. Now if you're going to use that thing to beat my ass, go ahead, because I'm too tired to care, just don't fuck up my bedspread."
Temari dropped her fan, "Where will I sleep then? And how did you get here without me noticing?"
Naruto cracked an eye, "Where were you sleeping before you knew I was here?" He then pointed at himself, "And, ninja. It's kind of in my job description to be able to sneak up on people."
Silence reigned over the room as Temari thought of something else to say until shallow breathing let her know Naruto had fallen back asleep. With a sweat-drop on her head Temari left the room shaking her head.
XxX
The next day Naruto awoke a strange sound. Not so much strange as it was utterly terrifying.
"NARUTO-KUN, YOSH! YOU MUST JOIN US ON OUR YOUTHFUL MORNING EXCERSICES!"
"YES NARUTO-KUN! YOU MUST TRAIN WITH US TO KEEP UP YOUR YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE DURING YOUR TIME OFF!"
Naruto woke up, stirring Temari from her own sleep while the voices outside kept yelling, "Naruto, what the hell is that?"
Naruto groaned/growled as he sat up, scratching his hair, "Temari-chan go back to sleep. I'll deal with this myself. This is a local problem…"
Temari did as instructed while Naruto stomped to his front door finding Gaara silently watching TV and Kankuro mashing one of Naruto's couch pillows over his head, "Naruto, get those idiots to shut the hell up before I slit my wrists to make the voices stop."
Naruto looked at Gaara who didn't seem to be affected at all. Gaara felt Naruto's eyes on him and turned to face him, "I have plugged my ears with sand to block out the noise. Otherwise I would have killed them by now."
Naruto nodded in understanding and headed to the door where Gai and Lee were outside still shouting about Naruto's 'flames of youth'. Naruto opened the door and inhaled sharply, "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
Gai and Lee stopped at the sound of Naruto shouting at them. The boy was radiating killing intent with bags under his eyes, "I am on leave damn it… This is the first decent sleep that I've had in days… I have no problems training with you both, however I will train with you at an hour that is populated by creatures that are not nocturnal. Now beat it! I'll see you later!"
"YOSH NARUTO-KUN YOU ARE-!"
Naruto turned and blasted them both with murderous intent, "Get away from my apartment building or I will get Gaara to kill both of you! He's in here I swear to Kami! I'm tired and delusional!"
With one last shout about Naruto's youth, both Lee and Gai decided to go off for a few hundred laps around Konoha to wait for Naruto to wake up. Naruto shut his door with a sigh, "Well at least I know what I'm doing today…"
Kankuro sighed in relief, "So now that you're up, what are you going to do?" Naruto rubbed his head on his way back to the room, "What else? Finish sleeping with your sister. She's very clingy in her sleep, it's awesome." Walking away with a thumbs up, Naruto ignored the look on Kankuro's face.
XxX
Later that day Naruto made his way towards the field that he knew Lee and Gai were using. How did he know where they were? Well all he had to do was run around town and listen for faint, or not so faint, smatterings of shouts for youth, or for repeated yells of 'Lee' or 'Gai-sensei'… It didn't take long.
Naruto arrived in an open field to find the all of Team Gai amassed together, "Oh for fuck's sake…" Just to arrive smack-dab in the middle of one of Gai and Lee's genjutsu moments. As the waves crashed in the sun-setting background Naruto walked over to Neji and Tenten who were stuck staring at the genjutsu.
Tenten shook her head while Lee and Gai got their bro-hug on, "It's like this every day… They seriously can't keep this up every single day. It's a phase… It'll end eventually. Right?"
Neji had his Byakugan on as he tried looking away, but couldn't bring himself to do so, "I can't see through it… What is this? … Oh, Naruto's here."
They both turned to find Naruto trying to avert his eyes from Gai and Lee, "So what got them started with that crap today?"
Tenten smiled at him, "Oh, it was about how they got the 'youthful' Naruto to agree to train with them today." "Well they were shouting down my door at 4 a.m. so I just wanted them to leave." Naruto picked up some rocks on the genjutsu beach and skipped them across the water, "That's impressive."
The sound of the stones hitting the water snapped Lee and Gai out of their moment, "Ah, Naruto-kun, it is good of you to show up."
The boy in question shrugged, "I didn't have anything else to do today so why not?" He looked around blankly, "So why am I here? I can't even spar with anyone, I'm on medical leave."
Tenten walked up to him, "Medical leave? What's wrong with you? You look fine."
Naruto grinned foxily at her, "I cracked every single bone in my body on the last mission! It's great. I'm in excruciating pain just from getting here!"
Neji activated his Byakugan to look at Naruto and nodded in confirmation, "Yes it's true. Naruto has small cracks on the majority of his skeletal frame, some areas lack damage, but the most used areas of the human body still have some going through them, like his arms and legs."
Naruto cut in, "Which is why it hurts like a bitch to walk. I'm not fighting any of you today."
Neji let his Byakugan fade out, "Why does your face not register the pain that you should be in then?"
Naruto looked at Neji lazily, "Never let 'em see you sweat." Tenten noticed something strange about Naruto, "Naruto, where is your sword? I see your sheath on your back but not the sword. Did you lose it?" Her eyes had a dangerous glint in them as she stared him down.
Neji backed away while Naruto turned to answer, "Yes, but it wasn't my fault. I lost it fighting the strongest of those guys that took Sasuke." He was then forced to dodge as Tenten threw projectile weapons at him, "Hey! I'm hurt here!"
Tenten held up a fist full of shuriken, "You lost that sword! All of that crap you were saying about me being a user of many weapons and a master of none. Even I know that you should never lose one of your close-range weapons!"
Naruto grabbed Neji and hid behind him, "Hey! I know exactly where it is. It'll just take a few hours to get out there. You can all come with me, Gai-sensei can consider it a field trip or something." He turned to Gai, "Do ninja have field trips?"
Gai's teeth shined as he smiled at Naruto, "A most wonderful idea Naruto-kun! The forest of bone is something that many of the Konoha jounin have heard about but none have seen! What a youthful idea! I will get permission to take you all out that far, for I would be happy to accompany you with my team to retrieve your blade!"
XxX
Gai got them out of the village and headed off in the direction of Naruto's battle with Kimimaro. Throughout the trip Lee, Neji, and Naruto told them the stories of their battles during the mission. Lee told Naruto how he wished he could have tested himself against Kimimaro the way he did and that it would have been better for everyone if Naruto had gone after Sasuke and left him.
Naruto almost fell from the trees they were jumping through in laughter. After he calmed down all of Team Gai asked him what was so funny. Naruto replied with, "You'll see."
Upon arrival Tenten tried to push through the last of the brush to reach the clearing Naruto told them the fight took place in when he grabbed her around the waist. Tenten blushed heavily, "W-What are you doing Naruto?"
Naruto smiled at her, "Watch your step." Naruto then pushed through the foliage to reveal the massive barren crater that he had caused during the duel with Kimimaro. Naruto helped Tenten slide into the pit while the men all jumped down themselves.
Tenten got Naruto to let her go when they landed, blush still intact on her face, "I could have gotten down here myself."
Naruto looked at her with a grin, "I know, but I'm a chivalrous bastard sometimes." He looked around and shook his head, "I thought it was bigger during the fight… maybe it was just the smoke playing tricks on me." He looked back at Lee, "Still think it would have been better to stay behind?"
They all marveled at the sight of all the wreckage until Naruto pointed ahead at the jagged wall of white, "And that's where my sword is." Their jaws dropped as they got closer to the results of Kimimaro's Sawarabi no Mai. The sheer scale of the jutsu was impressive until Naruto spoke, "Yeah, it surprised the hell out of me when I first saw it. It all sprouted up in like one second, I thought I was dead. I had to Kawarimi with the sword to escape. I'm glad I could see it from the top of the spikes."
They all looked up where Kimimaro's body was still sticking out of one of the spikes. They looked down at Naruto with respect as he started squeezing through the tightly packed bones to reach the area where he dropped his weapon. After a few minutes a loud curse rang out. Followed shortly by Naruto emerging from the bones with the pieces of his broken sword, "Oh man… I have to get it fixed now… Poor sword, you were so great."
Naruto put the broken pieces of his sword into his sheath and started to exit the area to return to Konoha, "Well this was one way to spend the day eh?" He jumped out of the crater and began making his way back towards Konoha.
Neji watched as he left and spoke to Gai, "Gai-sensei, if Naruto was able to do this to the landscape, how strong is he?"
Gai patted Neji on the shoulder, "That's not what you should be asking. Remember why he was in the hospital. After knowing that it happened here and after seeing what the results of such power was capable of, do you really want to find out?"
Lee spoke up at this point, "And if he is anything like myself or Gai-sensei he will not allow this to be his limit either. And that is what is truly scary."
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