AN:
I will do a double release, if we hit 60 power stones.
..
A minute later, they must have come to a decision for he heard Kakashi's heavier footsteps begin to walk away. There was a pause, and then the door slid open: It was Mayu.
...
Naruto quickly closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
He didn't know what to make of his female teammate; though they'd been together for months now, she'd been avoiding him the whole time. In fact, ever since the mission with the bandits, she'd made an even more apparent effort to avoid talking to him. He didn't know what she was doing in his room, and he certainly didn't want to talk to her.
He heard Mayu's footsteps pad over to where he was lying down. There was a soft thunk as she set down what sounded like a small table – his dinner, perhaps.
Ah, Naruto thought. So that's why she was here.
But while he'd expected her to get up and leave right away, for some reason, she sat there in silence.
Too wary to fall asleep, Naruto waited, forcing his breathing to stay steady. It was only after some time had passed that at long last, he heard the sound of rustling fabric.
Suddenly, he felt a warm pair of hands wrap around his own. He tensed – and she squeezed.
"I'm sorry. I forgive you," Mayu whispered into the darkness. Then she got up and left the room, sliding the door closed behind her.
As soon as her footsteps had faded away, Naruto opened his eyes. He stared at his hand for a long time.
...
The next day, Naruto was feeling much better, and when the medic removed his bandages, saw that he was almost completely healed. When he saw how there was barely a scratch left on his chest, he inadvertently let out a sound of disbelief.
Judging from how painful it had felt, he had thought the cut had been much deeper. He supposed that the shock and chaos of the moment had skewed his judgment, and Naruto felt a little silly for having delayed their return trip for so long over nothing. But just before they left the village the following day to begin going back to Konoha, the young boy he had saved came up to him.
"Thank you," said the boy – Taki, he had said was his name, looking up at Naruto. He had changed out of his blue yukata into black mourning robes. His face was downcast and his eyes were red – he was probably still reeling from the shock of losing his sister – but he was much calmer now. "Thank you," he repeated, and a single tear came leaking out of his eye. It slid down his round cheek.
Naruto nodded, but he didn't respond. There was a strange feeling welling up in his chest that he held back, because he knew this was just another part of being a ninja. If he wanted to grow stronger, he would have to get used to it.
But after a moment, he allowed himself to pat Taki on the head. It was something he had seen others do before, and he thought it might comfort the boy. For some reason however, Taki only began to cry harder.
By the time they finally left through the gates of the village however, the tears had dried, and Taki waved goodbye to Naruto, sniffling.
As they began to walk back to Konoha, Rai demanded to see Naruto's wound. When he lifted up his shirt to reveal his mostly-healed chest, Rai let out a snort, before slapping him hard on the back.
And so, without major incident and only a few days behind schedule, Team 7 finally returned home.
Despite everything that had happened to them, not much had changed in Konoha. The village people continued to go to the market in the mornings, and children still fought over who got to ride the swing in the playground.
Naruto was still the village pariah. As he grew older, he'd finally realized that the reason people avoided him could not simply be because of his appearance as he'd once feared. But the fact of the matter was, if he entered a store without using a henge, he still got charged double the ordinary price. If he strolled normally through the streets of the marketplace, people began to group together in clumps as they noticed his red hair and whisker marks. And if children got too close to him, their parents would drag them away, scolding them.
At one point, in a spark of inspiration, Naruto had wondered if perhaps his features really were a signature mark of an unpopular clan. But despite his best efforts, he'd found nothing about an Uzumaki clan in the Archives, and so, could only conjecture as to why he'd been singled out from such a young age. Having gotten used to the isolation long ago, it did not bother him as much as it might once have. To him, it had simply become an unquestionable law of his world.
And yet, despite everything that had stayed the same, he found that some things were not exactly the same.
Kakashi had begun to regularly drop by his apartment, even on days when they didn't have a mission. Sometimes, they would pick up where they had left off in previous discussions of chakra application. Other times, the jōnin would take him to the training field and teach him some new kenjutsu or ninjutsu moves. After Naruto kept asking him about the lightning-release technique he had used on Hidan, he even promised to start Naruto on learning a second nature affinity.
It wasn't just his team leader. Occasionally, Rai would bang loudly on his door, demanding to spar with him. It seemed that Rai couldn't get over the fact that Hidan had knocked him unconscious so quickly, and was determined to get better. And in return for some taijutsu tips from Naruto, Rai would help Naruto with target practice, teaching him how to fasten letter bombs to kunai in discrete ways that the opponent wouldn't notice.
Even Mayu sometimes joined in, though she never looked for Naruto by herself. She was always with either Rai or Kakashi – but she had begun to talk to him more and more with increasing bravado. Naruto wondered if it had something to do with the night back when he was healing, and she had whispered those words to him. Thinking back on what she had said, he had tried to figure out if he had ever wronged the girl, but couldn't think of anything. It was puzzling; he had a feeling that Mayu knew he had heard her words, and yet he couldn't bring himself to ask her.
Still, nowadays as he trained with his team, Naruto felt light in a way that he'd never felt outside of the Archives. Out in the training field, none of the other villagers were there; it was just them, the four members of Team Kakashi.
After a long hard day, they sometimes all went to Ramen Ichiraku for bowls of Konoha's finest ramen. The first time they went, Naruto had only stared in awe as Rai and Mayu squabbled over a piece of pork in one of their bowls.
"You said I could have it!" said Mayu with an uncharacteristically ferocious glint in her eyes.
"That was before I realized it was the last one!" said Rai, holding it out of the shorter girl's reach with his chopsticks held high over his head. Then, making sure she could see, he popped the strip of meat into his mouth.
With a cry of fury, Mayu threw her chopsticks, like shuriken, at him. Skillfully, Rai batted aside the chopsticks with his own – but then froze, as the ricocheting sticks of wood knocked over Kakashi's bowl. They looked on in horror as it crashed into the ground, its noodle contents pouring out over the ground.
Taking one look at the frozen smile on Kakashi's face, Rai jumped out of his seat and began to beg for forgiveness.
"Why does this always happen when you're around?" the owner asked Naruto, the edges of his mouth twitching. And for the second time, Naruto found himself apologizing to him.
And so, the months and seasons passed. Naruto's 11th birthday came and went with little fanfare, though to the entire team's shock, Mayu baked him a birthday cake. It was his first time eating cake, and while it was actually too sweet for his tastes, he found himself finishing his portion to the very last bite.
Best of all, however, was Kakashi's gift of a new tantō. Unlike the older one he'd been using, it was made of a special metal that would allow Naruto to channel his chakra into it. He made sure to polish it after every use.
...
Team Kakashi continued to go on missions, though nothing quite as eventful as the one in Yugakure occurred. With Mayu's new willingness to work with Naruto, their teamwork grew leaps and bounds and their missions became even easier to complete.
That wasn't to say that their team was perfect: Though both Rai and Mayu were willing to go along with Naruto's direction, Rai sometimes lose focus, inadvertently deviating from the plan, and Mayu had a tendency to freeze up when anything unexpected happened.
But while Naruto may have once considered them to be in his way, now, he found himself thinking during his free time of how to help them improve.
It was some time into the new year, at the end of a particularly fruitful training session, when Kakashi told them that the Chūnin exams would soon be taking place in Sunagakure, the hidden village in the Land of Wind.
Hearing this, Naruto looked at his teammates, and they nodded back at him. He looked back at their sensei: Team Kakashi was going to be there, and if he had his way, they would all be passing.
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