In which Naruto learns healing, Sasuke has Jiraiya inflicted upon him, and Sakura gets more dangerous.
“Myouboku Mountain’s Monk of the Toad Spirits… also known as the Toad Sage…. is here!” A long white tail of hair flounced and wood geta managed to hit the dust with a firm clack.
“You’re what,” Sasuke said, very flatly. It wasn’t even a question. There was no possible question in the world to which that was the answer.
The larger ninja world starts talking about Akatsuki, and what to do about them. Naruto is hustled off to the Island Turtle with his team, where he meets B and reaches a certain cooperation with the Nine-tails.
Warning: Features a brief section of suicidal thoughts.
Kakashi slid past the Hokage’s door rather warily and waved a handful of message-paper strips at her. “Latest batch from the relays; Shizune asked me to bring them up with me.” He swapped himself reflexively with the coat hanger as a cup went hurtling past where his head would have been and smashed into shrapnel against the wall. “I can see why she did,” he added.
Naruto is figuring out how to work with the Nine-tails, but Akatsuki is getting bolder. Shikamaru brings them word of the attack on Fire Country and when the new Akatsuki team finds the Island Turtle Jiraiya is the next to pay for facing them.
Naruto sighed. “Nine-tails keeps glaring at you; it’s distracting. Though it is kind of funny when you both get pissy about my technique and he gets all pained about having to agree with an Uchiha,” he added reflectively.
Naruto and his yearmates face Nagato, who seems unbeatable until Naruto negotiates again with the Nine-tails and releases part of his seal.
“Whatever peace you may have made with your beast does not change the actions of your village,” the man said in a weirdly classroom-lecture kind of tone. “They sacrificed a newborn to make a weapon of the land’s spirit and further sacrificed your life every day after that to their own fears. Is that not so?”
In the aftermath of the attack, Naruto talks with the Nine-tails, Sasuke frets over Jiraiya, and Jiraiya has to deal with Nagato and Konan (kleenex advisory).
Naruto scowled, folding his arms stubbornly. “It’s not right! It’s not right to keep your chakra unbalanced like that! I don’t care how important it was to stop you then, it isn’t right!” He set his jaw. “I’ll convince her.”
After a moment, the fox snorted and settled back down beside him. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”
Naruto grinned a little and leaned against his shoulder, ignoring the growl he got for that. “Good. You’re learning.”
Sasuke attends his first Council, called to deal with Danzou’s actions, while Naruto and Sakura figure out how to heal the Nine-tails. That second turns out to have risks none of them quite realized before-hand.
Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed being here, his first Council as the acknowledged head of Uchiha. But he didn’t want to be here today, looking at that smug bastard Danzou across the table. He wanted to be with his team, helping Sakura and Naruto research what it was already self-evident would be a dangerous procedure. And making sure no one made another try at Naruto.
If there was one thing he’d learned as a child, though, it was his duty as a son of Uchiha, so here he was. Not killing Danzou even a little, either; he hoped everyone appreciated his restraint.
Kakashi takes Sai under his wing and Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura help Sai start to find his emotional feet. Just in time for Madara to make his move on Konoha.
“Shinobi are the weapons of their villages. Their nations. Their employers. True enough. But a shinobi without the will to evaluate orders, and even modify them if field conditions demand it, is a blade without a sheath. And members of ANBU are ground to a sharper edge than any others. That’s what you’ve been waving around your own village, Danzou.”
The shinobi world starts to settle down again and reach for new equilibrium, and our heroes all get on with their lives.
“What’s so surprising?” Jiraiya asked, brows arched. “You’re the student of my student. That makes you my grand-student, so it’s part of my job to look out for you.” While Kakashi was blinking at this line of logic, he rubbed his chin. “Hmm. You’re also Sasuke’s teacher, so you’re my teacher-in-law also. Two significant bonds! I don’t see what you’re startled by.”
Hinata has long been inspired by Naruto, and watching his determination helps her find her own. Seeking a way to help her clan and herself, she turns to Hyuuga’s history and finds old strength and new thoughts there, courage and hope. In the end, she even finds her way back to an older love.
When Hinata was fourteen, she gathered all her courage in her hands and walked into the training hall while Neji-niisan was working, and asked to train with him. Quietly, face shadowed by the wooden slats of the window, he agreed.
That was the year she began to wonder whether she could change fate, too.
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