Title: Take Me With

Fandom: Naruto

Chapter: 10

Characters: Naruto, Kabuto

Word Count:

Warnings: nothing

AN: So. Last chapter right? What is going to happen?

Well. Since it is November 1st, on November 15, I will be posting some previews! Previews of what? Stories I'm currently working on actually. To be precise: Obscurity (Harry Potter), Never a Spare (Harry Potter), a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Batman crossover plot rewrite, my longer Avengers/Bleach story, and one other that I haven't decided on.

For those stories with chapters, I will be randomly choosing the chapter with a number generator. For those stories like my Avengers/Bleach, I will generate a number between 1 and 10 and figure out how many pages I'm posting while also figuring out which pages I'm posting.

I am not doing this on Adultfanfiction and MAY not do it on fanfiction dot net beyond the two Harry Potters. So we'll see. If you want to watch this happen, drop by on my AO3 (Strailo is my name) and check it out.

When will I post during November: 8, 15, 22, 29 alternating stories. Thank you.

It took Kakashi a week to hunt him down and stare at him after he had returned. A week where he and Kabuto had gone on three days, fucked most nights, and continued to work like the well trained team that they were. Karin had complained about disgustingly cute domestic lovers before dragging Sasuke off to go to a meeting and then dinner.

Naruto looked at Kakashi as he stuck the mail that he had in his box into the various delivery tubes. "Yes?" he drawled.

"You never wrote that you had a thing for your teammate," he drawled in return. Naruto blushed.

"I didn't." Naruto paused. Tapped one finger on the side of a tube. "Not really. Not until he was gone for a year. A puppy crush I thought," he admitted. He twisted the top shut and shoved the tube into the right pipe, pressing the button to send it off. "But then he left and it was like something was missing."

"So when he came back with us…" Kakashi trailed off. He smiled at the soft smile on his younger brother's lips.

"Even though I wasn't happy with seeing Minato-san, I couldn't deny that I was so excited to see Kabuto." Naruto sighed and turned to Kakashi. "Don't you have someone that you miss?" he asked.

Kakashi tilted his head, thought of the lovers that he had had in his life, and the one that was still out there, missing and hurting, but considered dead. "Yeah, but he's not ready to be seen by others right now. He knows where I am now."

"Oh?" Naruto asked, continuing to fit letters and package notes into tubes and sending them off. He wasn't going to deal with pissy scientists, researchers or medical personnel. Everyone had new students and apprentices and he had learned long ago to just send the letters to them via tubes. Them coming to get their packages allowed them to get away for a few minutes. Which meant that Kakashi could find him easily enough.

"He's considered dead by Konoha," Kakashi stated.

"He…Is it…?" Naruto asked, not wanting to say the words. Kakashi smiled and nodded. "Huh. Wonder how that happened."

"Someone found his ass, saved it somehow. Then tried to use him. He apparently didn't have it in him to hate someone until that moment. Killed them, went into hiding and finished healing. Last I heard, he was in Ame, helping them fix a few things," Kakashi hummed. "I get the occasional summons checking up on me."

Naruto smiled. "I wondered why I saw a small cat slinking around outside of your quarters. We don't have many cats running around the compound." Kakashi smirked and shrugged. "Your nindogs are good with them?" he asked.

"They're good now," Kakashi said, shrugging as Naruto continued to do his work, emptying the first box. Naruto then picked up one box, Kakashi grabbing the other and moving to the next hall that lead to research labs for the medical part of the compound. "How is your relationship going though? You've been together for, what, a month now?" he asked.

Naruto smiled. "Yep. We got together like the first week the group was here to talk about the treaty," he replied, putting his box down and starting to go through the letters and package notes. "I wasn't expecting it to happen so fast, but it works for us. I do think that we were working our way to that before he left."

"But because he left it shoved you towards it fully, right?" Kakashi guessed, Naruto nodding. He emptied the various letters in the tubes that were waiting for him and dropped them into a bag that he pulled from the box. The bag was then dropped into another box with three other bags that waited to be picked up later that night. Kakashi smiled. "I take it that you're happy here."

"I hate to say it…but Konohagakure was never truly my home," Naruto said, looking at him with a sad look on his face. "Outside of you, Iruka-kun, and a few others, I never felt welcomed. My mother was a dual citizen and was welcomed because she had power. I was a born dual citizen and they all expected me to be just like my father. I could never be myself." He sighed. "It wore at me more than what I had thought it had. When we got here, I threw myself into helping to set up things with Orochimaru-san, learning and training as we went. I think I've learned more here then I did at the Academy. Hell, Kabuto and I both went back to the academy for a year when we got it set up."

"Does it go more in depth with things?" Kakashi asked, wanting to send the information to Iruka when he could.

Naruto chuckled. "It focuses on the physical part. We start at age six, and the first year is spent learning how to eat, spar, train, and work with weaponry. Second year, we start to learn more and more skills. Weapons, fighting, kata's. Third and fourth is honing those skills and figuring out what we would like to possibly focus on in the future. That is if we wish to focus on something." Naruto smiled. "It took us a while to get that figured out but so far, it's provided us with quite a few genin who are battle ready, more than what Kohona has," he said. "It takes the jounin less time to get them to a point where all he has to do really is teach them new skills, drill them in old skills, and make sure that they don't slip into bad habits."

Kakashi hummed. "What about team set ups?" he asked.

"Three man teams like everyone else. Sometimes a genin has a master who they spend time with, but they still work with their team," Naruto said. "The teams are put together based on skills, what they are weak in and how they work together. During the last year, there are tester missions. They happen twice a week and for a day. It gives the students some extra cash, and valuable training. I believe those tester missions are your D-Ranks," he teased.

Kakashi pouted. "So they do glorified chores to test their teamwork, their thinking skills, and who would work best in what teams?" he asked.

"Yep. Konoha should adopt this strategy. Be surprised at how many more teams will end up staying together and pass into chunins faster," Naruto drawled. "I'm not saying that they should all be war time ready, but when they step outside of the village for the first time, they should be ready to kill to protect themselves, their clients, and their teammates." He looked at Kakashi. "Sasuke told me about your first C-Rank. An escort mission here is a D-rank. We have higher standards and it means that we lose less people when they're attacked."

Kakashi blew out a slow breath. "Yeah, you're right. I'll write to Iruka-san. I believe that he was talking with Kabuto about the schooling here, but he couldn't tell him much."

"That's because Kabuto didn't deal with the academy very much. He was working with Tsunade-san to set up the medical part of the village. I helped to set up the academy. Actually, do you want to see how we do the testing? The newest class is about to do their final tests to find out who has to take remedial testing, and who becomes a full genin," Naruto said.

"What do remedial testing mean?" Kakashi asked as Naruto picked up his empty boxes, Kakashi picking up the last full one.

"It means they are on a genin team, do their normal training during the first half of the day, but also go to the academy for half days to focus on what they need to get up to snuff in," Naruto said, smirking. "Nothing bad. Come on. I'm almost done." Kakashi groaned and followed his little brother. He had a feeling that life from that day on would be…interesting.