Naruto swore, the last kuni having drawn blood from his left cheek. He raised a –slightly clawed- hand to inspect the damage- no time! His opponent dove again, favouring Taijutsu and slashing wildly with the bloodied kuni.
Not good! Is it that obvious I'm no good at Taijutsu? I need to get some distance.
The enemy ninja darted left, skirting the mountainous statue which vacated the left side of The Valley of the End, her legs powering her way towards the boy. Naruto flinched, and then swore as the reaction messed up his hand- signs. The fist connected with his face and he span away, leaving trails of saliva on the air. He crumpled against the tree (or what had remained of it) that had broken his fall. Splinters showered into his eyes as he squinted past the slick blood running down his brow.
One more hit like that...and it's the end for me. Good thing Yamato's been teaching me to supress the Nine tail's charkra, otherwise there'd be no Valley of the End ...nor half of the Fire Country
The enemy ninja was a missing-nin from Wave Country, and had abandoned her village some three years earlier, not without lifting two or three of the most secret scrolls with her- it was all in his A- rank mission brief.
However, a missing-nin can never be too careful. Naruto’s opponent was no exception, with three of her allies keeping both Kakashi and Sakura occupied some three miles back into the forest. Naruto was alone with the formidable ‘Phantom’ Ashki. He didn’t stand a chance, and he knew it. How worried must his teammates be? After all, this was only supposed to be a scouting, information retrieval mission. The fact that it was A-ranked meant there was a high risk of detection.
And guess what? Boy, were we detected...and trapped...for that matter...damn...
Ashki stood, some twenty metres from the Leaf Ninja, her tall frame lazily slumped in a subconscious act of confidence. She brought the kuni to her lips, the blood dying her lips a vivid ruby colour.
“Tastes like strawberries,” she teased through a hiss, her pupil-less eyes taking in the form of the young Leaf Ninja, now slowly taking to his feet again, the dangerous flash of scarlet in his eyes, but something else- fear?
The missing-nin took slow, deliberate steps towards the younger ninja. The kuni was replaced with ten of her most deadly throwing needles, their steel teeth seeming to grin at the teenage victim. “Time to play, boy,”
Life is short as a Shinobi. Yeah, Ok, sure. We all knew-know that. That message has been drilled into Leaf Ninjas since our Academy days, podgy six year olds waddling their way home with the fresh knowledge that tomorrow they might die. It’s something we accept, a way of life. It’s an expectation.
You see, it’s the drive that keeps us going- the urge to become a bigger, stronger person. Protect the village. Protect the family, the friends, the lovers and the memories. In Konohoa we call it the ‘Will of Fire’. You do this, become this stronger better person and you are less likely to die. As a medic-nin I witnessed, and understood, that a majority of our mission casualties are composed of Genin and Chuunin. They’re not yet strong enough, they haven’t the Will of Fire. Like I said, life is short: kid’s die on missions- it’s an occupational hazard.
Perhaps I would have been able to cope if he’d died- Naruto, I mean. At least I would have had something- anything, really to hold onto, to grieve. I’d have been able to mourn his corpse, hold onto his (although cold and lifeless) hand, confess my regrets one last time to the only team-mate I had left, the one that had kept me strong for so many years.
He’ll never know, I kept thinking. He’ll never know how good he has been to me, as the regret came again in a great wash of remorse. For that one frozen second as I surveyed the scene (-scarlet splattered dirt, the age-old canyon fuelling the roaring waters impassively-) I think my heart might have stopped. A thought right then: He’s dead, taken by the river...my Naruto. After all, if he was no-one else’s, I made him my own. The earth met my knees and I stared, long hard at the dirt floor, almost accusing the very earth for taking my Naruto. I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye- how quick I was to picture such morbid scenes!- the slow procession of black-clad shinobi, much like Sarutobi’s funeral had been. Except this time it wasn’t raining, the sun was high, as bright as ever, spreading its rays onto the wet faces below. The grave itself- swimming in daffodils, sunflowers and cowslips his younger (followers? Admirers?) from the Academy had gathered, the white stone bearing the legend: “Konohoa’s Number One Unpredictable Ninja.”
Kakashi came behind me, surveying the scene soberly with both eyes and breaking my desperate train of thought. I turned my sore eyes to him, not realising that I had taken my nails to my face in my almost suicidal thoughts.
“No body,”he had stated clearly, thinking this might have brought me round.“It’s possible he’s still out there and alive.”Slowly I shook my head from side to side. No matter what he told me then, I’d already realised my situation: I’d been left with nothing. Sasuke had long since vanished, and now Naruto, too.
Life is short, and right there I came to the conclusion that the purest people lived the shortest of them all.
We didn’t hold a funeral for Naruto. It wouldn’t be right seeing as he wasn’t technically alive or dead- he was somewhere in-between, where his state of life or death mattered solely on opinion. Besides, there was no body, so a memorial service was held a week after his disappearance just in the entrance to the graveyard- halfway between the marked graves and the KIA monument. It was fitting somehow, seeing as my pupil was neither. Naruto- how many times had I scolded you for playing for attention? And now everyone was paying attention, or rather paying their respects to your monument. The statue itself had been carved from rock taken from the Hokage Mountainside, shaped by the Kazekage himself into an intricate oak tree, symbolic of the leaf village and the shelter it gives to young shinobi. A shrine of shrine of flowers (Sakura had requested the visitors bring yellow) and cards and scrolls full of thoughts and prayers rooted the statue into place. On that day, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had counted over fifty people paying their respects- for such a short life to live, Naruto certainly had pressed his influence onto a lot of different lives.
He really was the sunshine of so many people, some of which were taking this sudden darkness with distress. Konohamaru was affected worse, spare for my only remaining student. He’d lost his idol, his rival and perhaps most devastating, his ‘older brother’.
However, if you’d take a moment to look from your classroom window, or take a slightly different route in Konohoa, you’d see a circle of perfect saffron, a sun and a golden hope directly between the graveyard and the KIA monument. Naruto might have been gone, but his personality certainly had been kept alive by his friends.
Don’t get me wrong,- I didn’t think for a minute that Naruto had truly died- a conviction I often shared with Sakura, but with no result. In fact, I had worked with Lady-Tsunade to put together an elite tracker ninja team. Myself, along with my team of nin-dogs, Kiba and Akamaru, Yamato, a specialised Medic-nin (I would have requested Sakura, had she not been in such a distracted depression over Naruto’s ‘death) and two high ranking ANBU made ‘Team Naruto’. In a way, this might have been my own answer to memorialising my lost pupil, but at least this might yield better results than bitter tears or sunflowers.
In all honesty, I was worried sick. This whole process- loss, mourning and learning to adjust without a certain golden-haired ninja was taking its toll on me. I had to deal with a lot of new arrangements, mainly the memorial outside Konohoa graveyard, the total disbanding of Team Kakashi (I took Sakura on as my full-time apprentice), and the Formation of Team Naruto. When the silver-haired copy ninja came to me, proposing devising a team specifically to search for Naruto- or at least evidence of his death- I eventually begrudged him, although doubtfully and sceptically at first.
After making this decision, and thinking more on it, I called Jiraiya to my office. I asked him to join Team Naruto, as his information retrieval would be invaluable to the team. The Sannin had sobered greatly since the death of his second pupil- the one that was most likely to succeed the first, the Yondaime.
“Tsunade, I have no intention of joining Team Naruto.” He held up a hand to stem my protests, “That is something I believe Kakashi has to do for himself. Perhaps he has lost one team-mate too many.” I knew he was referring to Obito and Rin. “As for myself, I intend to gather information by myself. It’s the way I work best. Besides, it’s something I, too have to do,”That night, Jiraiya left konohoa two days after Team Naruto had been dispatched.
We’d been travelling for two days to reach the Valley of the End. Fitting, somehow. Yes, I believed Naruto to be dead- how else could his sudden disappearance be explained? However, I had been called for to search for my friend and I was going to honour my commitment.
Looking back now, we were lucky it hadn’t rained since Naruto was counted among the missing. On the day of his memorial the skies had been overcast, a thick sort of light grey. The air had been warm- a sign of low laying clouds. Anyone with basic weather lore knew that rain was likely. However, rain was the one thing that would wash away and trace of the blonde’s (last?) movements. But it hadn’t rained. The skies had cleared and Team Naruto had been dispatched on its A-rank mission.
Spirits were low.
By the second day, we arrived at the valley. Some things had changed, we heard from Kakashi. I noticed that the blood-splatters had faded, although the scent still hung loosely in the air. I focused- there was confusion-a mixture of scents that suggested wild animals had also been attracted by the reek of fresh blood. Had a bear or wild boar taken Naruto while he laid bleeding or dying? I shared my theory with the team leader, Kakashi.
“No, the only blood markings are closer to the valley cliff and the very edge of the forest. If he had been taken any deeper into the trees, there would be more of a trail,” He had explained.
I had thought that this was mainly hopeful thinking, but I kept my thoughts to myself. The medic-nin took a sample of the blood and began comparing the results to that on a pre-made card.
“It’s his,”
he noted duly, as we all knew he would. I saw Kakashi stiffen slightly. Had he been expecting otherwise? That the blood was Ashki’s (who had also been deemed missing) and that Naruto had fought bravely, defeated the missing-nin and had crawled into the forest in search for someone to heal his serious yet non-lethal wounds? I suspected Kakashi harboured this suspicion close to his heart. One blood sample would not change that.
I drank slowly, possibly for the first time in my life. I sipped slowly, letting the sake slow my spinning thoughts. I finished the last of the alcohol and replaced the pen in my hand to finish the report to Tsunade.
...that the Akatuki have been active in this past week, dispatching members to the rain country. It is a fact now that they possess the demons from one to eight tails. With Naruto, their control would be complete. I harbour suspicions that they have heard of Naruto’s ‘disappearance’ (which is to be expected) and that they are hunting for him/ his body with the intention of retrieving the Kyuubi from it. This must be thwarted at all costs. I have one more lead to follow up before I return to Konohoa. I will send my last report once I have finished at the soonest possible chance.
-Jiraiya-
At that point in my life, I had never felt wearier. Even after Arashi’s defeat, the legendary Yondaime, my beloved student, I had never felt as depressed as I did with Naruto’s. Perhaps it was the fact Naruto was barely seventeen. Maybe I was growing sentimental as an old man. Or perhaps it was the fact that although Arashi hadn't in fact died, his legacy, along with his bloodline, had ended with Naruto. Kakashi had told me once that he believed Naruto had what it took to surpass the Fourth.
“It’s the law of the land that the next generation must be greater than the previous,”I had replied.
“In this case, the law is applied literally,” Kakashi’s one visible eye had widened slightly, betraying the fact I had confirmed his suspicion of Naruto’s heritage.
Later that night I found myself waiting, concealed in shadows and my chakra hidden, so as to not leave a single trace. The Akatsuki would pass through the city, my sources were of the most reliable kind.
As expected, I witnessed one Akatsuki member flitter across the tiled roofs of the city street, stopping only once to expect his surroundings and plan his next move, his crouching silhouette cut out against the pale, pregnant moon. And then he was gone. I’d lowered my heart rate, my nervousness creasing. I look a small disk from a device fitted onto my armguard- a recording of what I had witnessed.
Once back at my chosen Inn, I had a Courier Ninja deliver both the report and the recording to Tsunade with the upmost urgency. I returned to my room, andI fell heavily against one wall, my eyelids heavy with thought and plots. I fell asleep there, moving only one to retrieve a scrap of paper to write two words, ringing them in thick black ink.
Bloodline Limit??
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