Wow it's been awhile. I haven't had much motivation for much anything recently lol. I didn't really edit this chapter much from what I originally wrote so it's still kinda shitty but oh well. I'm making Naruto's personality jump around a lot, which is kinda what I'm going for but at the same time I don't think I'm doing it right. I want to show that he's beginning to be a little more open, but also aggressive due to the demon thing.

Also Inari is a fucking drama queen lmao just randomly bursting into tears over people he doesn't know. I understand he's a kid but still it's funny to me. It's either the next real chapter or the one after where I finally branch almost completely away from canon so I don't have to worry about if I'm following the scene correctly :') btw the next chapter should be out this week and the following update will be a little flashback (this is more of a maybe though bc I might branch off from canon sooner instead)

Lastly, thank you all for continuing to follow and like this story! I'm really surprised at how many people have commented on and followed.

(*To the person talking about the opening: I can understand that bc I've read plenty of Naruto stories that do the same as I am with the beginning. I wanted to show the changes I made to the storyline, but honestly reading over this after a few months I agree with you lol. It was annoying to incorporate the canon dialogue and I never want to do it again (I had netflix on and would pause every couple of second to note what went on and it was way too much work for a stupid fanfiction story \: ). For rn, I'm going to leave the story as is, though I do plan on rewriting the past chapters as well as this one soon. For future stories though I don't think I'll do what I did in this one. Thank you very much for the criticism!(: )

It had been quite a few hours since Naruto and the others had reached Tazuna's house. Kakashi had yet to wake, and Naruto was getting worried. The older man had been laid in a futon in the upstairs guest room, and after a quick check up only seemed to be suffering from chakra exhaustion and a few cuts and bruises. Still, Naruto knew that chakra exhaustion could be seriously damaging, and they didn't have a real medic nin with them, and there wasn't one in the village. So to take his mind off of his sensei's condition, Naruto decided to help around the cabin as much as he could.

The blonde boy had just finished wiping down the tables when he heard voices upstairs. His teammates, who were also cleaning the house, seemed to hear the voices as well.

Naruto followed the other two as Sakura headed the walk upstairs. He tried to look calm, but truthfully he had been on edge ever since the first assassination attempt, and seeing his sensei almost die definitely exacerbated those feelings. Kyuubi had tried to calm him down but nothing could get rid of the lingering anxiety except seeing his sensei awake and doing well.

Naruto didn't have many people in his life and he wasn't willing to lose the few he did have.

Tsunami was in Kakashi's room chatting with him when they reached the room. Naruto felt relief fill him as he saw his sensei, looking much better than he had when they had first laid him on the futon.

"Ah, sensei! Your Sharingan is impressive, but if it puts that much of a strain on your body, it may not be worth it," Sakura said as she knelt down next to the man.

"S-sorry," Kakashi replied, looking almost ashamed. Almost.

"But you know…we probably don't need to worry for a while," Tazuna spoke up.

"But what about that boy in the mask?" Sakura mumbled, looking confused.

Naruto was also curious about the boy. He and the unknown ninja appeared to be close in age, yet their skill level was so far apart.

"He was the Mist's version of ANBU, a Hunter nin," Kakashi then went on to explain how the Hunter nin forces worked and how they were the ones to dispose of bodies to keep the secrets of their village. "But what did that masked nin do with Zabuza's body?"

"He ran off with it…" Naruto murmured, coming to realize what Kakashi was implying. "So Zabuza is still alive."

"That's correct," Kakashi said.

"What?!" Sakura and Tazuna screeched, hurting Naruto's sensitive ears.

I think they've managed to best that Lee kid in volume, the nine tailed fox grumbled, having been abruptly awakened from its nap.

"But sensei, we watched him die! You even checked!" Sakura argued, looking panicked. Naruto honestly couldn't fault her because he didn't want to face Zabuza again either. That man was terrifying.

Though he was filled with even more anxiety at the thought of Zabuza being alive and well, he couldn't help but be slightly pleased. Zabuza had been his "prey" during that fight, and watching someone else take the kill had pissed him off. These contradicting feelings would give him a headache if thought about them too much, so he focused on Kakashi's voice instead.

"It's true that I checked him, but he was probably just in a state of near-death. The senbon the Hunter nin used has a low chance of killing unless it hits a vital spot. That boy wasn't aiming to kill Zabuza, but to save him," Kakashi explained.

"Sensei, what sort of preparations should we make?" Sakura asked. She, Naruto, and Sasuke looked expectantly at the silver haired man.

"I'm going to assign you all training," Kakashi replied.

"Huh? Even with training we won't get that strong in so little time! That ninja even had you hard pressed for a win, sensei!" Sakura shouted, her body trembling slightly.

"Sakura, who was it that saved me? All of you are growing quickly – especially you, Naruto," Kakashi seemed to smiled underneath his mask.

Naruto's inconspicuously puffed out his chest, glad that his sensei had praised him. He had felt left out during the Demon Brothers' (Kyuubi scoffed) attack, even though he knew it was his own fault.

"It's not like it matters," a new, younger voice came from behind him. Naruto flinched; he had been so proud of Kakashi's words that he neglected to pay attention to his surroundings and didn't notice the child walk up to him.

The boy was in green overalls with a yellowish undershirt. His short black hair was messy, partly covered by a blue and white hat, and he had a bitter look on his face.

"Hey, Inari! Where've you been?" Tazuna called out, grinning cheerfully at the young boy.

"Welcome back, Grandpa," the boy ran up to the old man crouching on the floor and threw his arms around his neck, completely ignoring the ninjas in the room.

"Inari, what kind of greeting is that?" Tsunami scolded, hands on her hips.

"Haha, it's alright, it's alright," Tazuna chuckled, petting his grandson's head.

Naruto watched as Inari stared down his team and then stood to face his mother.

"Mom, these guys will die…" the boy said, pointing toward the group.

Naruto visibly twitched. None of his team would die. He'd make sure of it. The blonde boy settled for merely glaring at the child.

"There are no such thing as heroes," Inari continued. "If you don't want to die, you'd better hurry up and go home…"

"Inari! Where are you going?" Tazuna asked as the young boy walked to the door.

"I'm going to look at the sea…" he muttered and then left.

"Sorry about that," Tazuna apologized, looking a bit embarrassed.

As Naruto left the room to once again help with the house chores, he heard quiet sobbing coming from down the hall.

"Training begins now," Kakashi said, leading Naruto and his team to a heavily forested area near Tazuna's house, his crutches moving smoothly. "I assume you all know what chakra is."

"Yes, sir," the team chorused.

"Good. Now the technique you will be learning is tree climbing," Kakashi continued, walking closer to one of the trees.

"Tree climbing?" Sakura questioned.

"That's right," Kakashi said, and instead of explaining, the man formed a hand sign and hobbled over on his crutches to the nearest tree and began to walk up.

Kakashi's feet stuck to the tree, keeping him attached as he continued to walk. The masked man didn't stop until he was hanging upside down on one of the lower branches. Naruto watched the man intently, half worried his sensei would fall and the other half extremely impressed.

"Sensei, how were you able to do that?" the blonde spoke up, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Sakura nodding in agreement.

"The point of this exercise is to build the required amount of chakra to the required spot, in this case your feet. However, the bottom of the foot is the hardest to gather chakra. In theory, if you master this technique, you should be able to master any jutsu. That's only in theory, though," Kakashi answered, tossing the three Genin kunai. "Use those to mark your progress on the tree. You three aren't skilled enough to just start walking, so use the momentum from running toward the tree."

Naruto picked up the kunai thrown to him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sasuke and Sakura do the same. The blonde signed and then attempted to focus all of his chakra to the bottoms of his feet. Having only been doing teamwork building exercises, his chakra control hadn't improved much from his academy days. Kyuubi had attempted to help him, but not much progress had been made yet.

Once the boy felt he had gathered enough chakra, he ran toward the tree nearest to him. He managed to place one foot on the tree before slipping off. He twisted his body quickly to break his fall and avoid his head slamming into the ground. He looked up to see Sasuke take about ten steps before the wood began to crumble underneath his feet.

Try using more chakra.

"Hey, this is pretty easy!" Naruto heard Sakura say before he could follow Kyuubi's advice.

He glanced up at the tree to his right and saw the pinkette sitting on one of the higher branches. He felt a little irritated that such a boy crazy girl could easily perform the technique while he was stuck trying not to slam into the ground again. He knew, though, that while she was way too into Sasuke, she was also a good and intelligent student.

Naruto stood and once again ran at the tree.

Hours had passed, and Naruto was quickly growing frustrated at his lack of improvement. While Sasuke could run about thirty feet up the tree, the blonde had only reached seven feet. Sakura had already run up and down her tree several times and was now resting at the base.

The boy heard Kyuubi hum before saying, normally I wouldn't trust the bitch with anything, but why don't you try asking her for advice?

Naruto hesitated. While he and Sakura were definitely getting along much better than before, would she really help him?

He walked over to where the girl was sitting and crouched down.

"Uh, hey, Sakura. Do you think you could lend me a hand? I can't seem to get the hang of this technique," the blonde asked, embarrassed that he had to ask for help.

The pink haired girl looked surprised, but then smiled at him. "Sure, Naruto. So this is what I do…"

It was dark by the time Naruto finally decided to call it a day. He was steadily catching up with Sasuke, who had also trained until night fell. Since Sakura had easily mastered the exercise, Kakashi had told her to go and guard Tazuna.

Now Naruto and Sasuke were walking back toward Tazuna's house, heavily bruised and covered in dirt. They supported one another as they slowly made their way through the forest, each one with an arm around the other's neck.

When they reached the house, Naruto could smell food. His mouth watered slightly and he eagerly opened the door. Inside, Sakura and Tsunami were setting the table while Tazuna, Kakashi, and Inari were sitting. Naruto gently brought Sasuke inside and set him on one of the chairs before moving to help Tsunami.

"Wait, Naruto," Sakura said. "You've just finished training. Rest for a little."

Naruto and Sakura had bonded a little while the latter was teaching the blonde how to better control his chakra. Naruto found that they actually had a lot more in common that both of them thought: plant care, cooking, books, etc.

The boy smiled, thanking Sakura and then taking a seat. He stayed quiet, enjoying the sounds of the girls working and Tazuna and Kakashi chatting. It was peaceful. Until Naruto heard Sakura ask about a picture.

Naruto notice Inari tense and Tazuna was silent for a moment before he said, "That man was once the Hero of the Wave. He –"

The blonde watched as Inari suddenly rose from his chair and walked out of the room. Tsunami went after him, but stopped briefly in the doorway.

"Father, I told you not to talk about that man in front of Inari!" she scolded before following the little boy.

The room was quiet until Tazuna once again spoke up. He explained how the man had once been a father figure to Inari. He said how Inari used to look up to the man, as did most of the village. The man had been brave and performed dangerous tasks that no one thought possible until he accomplished them. Then, Tazuna said, Gato arrived. The business man wasn't found of the village hero, and executed him publicly. Inari present for the execution.

Naruto ate and then left the house to immerse himself in his training.

The half-demon woke when he felt ice cold hands near his throat. Startled, he quickly sat up and his hand went for his weapon pouch on his right leg.

"Ah, I'm sorry to have surprised you," a gentle voice said. "You were passed out on the ground and I was worried that you'd catch a cold."

Naruto looked up at the person kneeling beside him. They were gorgeous. They had long dark brown hair and a slim body. Their lips were a healthy pink and their face was smooth. Their eyes, however, scared Naruto. He was used to seeing disgusted gazes directed at him, and even the occasional affectionate glance, but this person's eyes were completely blank even though a smile was pulling at their lips.

"W-who are you? What are you doing here?" the boy asked quietly, trying to subtly move away from the stranger. He felt a familiar cold air surrounding him, but couldn't place where he'd felt it before. Kyuubi seemed to still be asleep, and he decided not to bother the fox.

"I'm just searching for some herbs," they answered, and Naruto noticed how they avoided answering the first question.

Naruto stayed quiet for a moment. This person was really making him uncomfortable. He wanted to leave.

"What are you doing out here?" the strange person asked before he could come up with an excuse to leave.

"Training…" he answered, watching as the other began to pick the plants nearby.

The person's face mimicked being surprised, but their eyes stayed as blank as ever. "Could it be that…you're a ninja?"

Naruto nodded.

"You seem pretty strong, so why are you training?" the stranger asked. Naruto finally saw emotion flicker in their eyes.

"I'm not strong," he said. "I'm training to become strong."

"Is that for yourself, or for someone else?"

Naruto paused. In truth, he was probably doing it more for himself. If he was strong, he could keep his precious people alive and thus save himself from the pain of losing them. If he was strong, he could hold back the weird urges he'd been having as of late and save himself from the pain of his few friends leaving him. He was really selfish, and he knew it.

"I'd like to say it's for my friends, but it's to protect myself," Naruto murmured, deciding to be honest.

This time the stranger's face morphed into true surprise before quickly being schooled back to a calm façade.

"Do you have someone that's precious to you?" the person asked.

"I do," Naruto replied. His team, although sort of dysfunctional, was important to him. Iruka and the Sandaime were also precious to him. As was Kyuubi. Kyuubi was probably the most important to him. He didn't know what he'd do without the tailed fox.

The stranger smiled, and the light reached their eyes. "That's good. When a person has something they want to protect…that's when they can truly become strong."

Naruto was silent. Suddenly, the stranger stood.

"I feel that you'll become strong, Uzumaki Naruto. I hope that we meet again," the stranger smiled at him again before beginning to walk away.

Naruto felt the cold air leave with the person. Just as he was about to let his muscles relax, the person stopped and called over their shoulder.

"Oh, and by the way, I'm a guy,"

Naruto won't deny that he was stunned, as the man was definitely one of the prettiest people he had ever met – Naruto froze. Wait, how did he know my name?

"Hey, idiot," Naruto heard Sasuke call. He watched as the dark haired boy passed the beautiful man.

Naruto twitched slightly at the insult but didn't reply.

"Did you forget about mealtime?" Sasuke continued, staring down at him condescendingly.

"I fell asleep," Naruto answered.

Neither of them said anything for a while until Sasuke said he was going to train. Naruto decided to do the same.

An hour and a half later, Naruto was resting on one of the higher branches of his tree. He heard the voices of his sensei and Sakura approaching, and he looked down.

"Naruto never came back last night, and now Sasuke-kun hasn't come back from his walk…" she said, a worried look on her face.

Naruto called out to her, feeling bad that he'd made her worry. When she saw him, she visibly looked relieved.

"Sasuke is here, too," the blonde added, pointing to the tree beside him where Sasuke was hanging upside down on a branch.

"Ah, Sasuke-kun, so cool!" she shouted, immediately going into fan-girl mode. However, she turned back to Naruto real quick. "Also, good job, Naruto!"

Naruto let a small smile form on his face. He really felt that he and Sakura were becoming fast friends, now that they had gotten over their initial irritation of each other. Even Kyuubi had begun to view the girl as tolerable.

The blonde carefully jumped down and chatted with her for a while as she both obsessed over Sasuke and grilled Naruto on the techniques she taught him. Soon, she and Kakashi left and Naruto and Sasuke once again trained non-stop.

Night had fallen, and Naruto was perched at the very top of his tree. He could now do the exercise with little to almost no concentration.

"Shall we head back?" he heard Sasuke say, and turned to see a smug smirk on the other's face.

"Yeah," he agreed, and couldn't help the small upturn of his lips.

They were less exhausted than they had been the previous night, and were able to walk separately to the house. Naruto was eager to reach Tazuna's and eat, as he'd neglected to eat all day, save for some rice balls Sakura had brought for both him and Sasuke around lunch time.

He opened the door to Sakura and Tsunami laying out plates of food, and he quickly went to take his seat.

"What took you guys so long?" Sakura questioned, sitting down in a chair between Kakashi and Naruto. Sasuke always sat beside Inari, so her only hope of sitting near him was to sit directly in front of him.

"We climbed to the top," Naruto answered, a hint of pride in his voice.

"Good, good. Naruto, Sasuke. Starting tomorrow, you two will also guard Tazuna," Kakashi said, appearing to smile underneath his mask. Sakura congratulated both of them after he spoke.

Naruto smiled, and with that they began to eat. Afterwards, Tazuna cleared his throat.

"You know, I've been wanting to ask you all this for a long time, but why did you continue with the mission even though I lied?" the man asked.

Kakashi answered for the group. "To see what is right and not to do it speaks of an absence of courage. It's a teaching of the late Hokage."

The room was quiet for a while, everyone enjoying the silence. Except Inari. Naruto saw the boy look at him, and watched as tears began to form in the child's eyes. Naruto was confused. He hadn't done or said anything to the boy, so why was he crying?

"Why…?" Inari whispered, tears streaming down his face.

Naruto frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Why do you desperately work so hard until you're bruised and exhausted?! No matter how much you train, you'll never beat Gato's men!" the boy suddenly shouted. "No matter how much of an effort you put out, the weak always lose…"

Naruto didn't reply, choosing instead to ignore the boy. He wasn't exactly sure of how to reply. He had grown up without any family, aside from the Sandaime. He didn't interact much with others until he entered the academy.

Inari seemed to take his silence as an insult.

"I'm sick of looking at you! You know nothing of this land and yet here you are, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. I'm not like you, who's carefree and hasn't ever known pain!" he screamed, slamming his hands down on the table.

This struck a nerve in Naruto, and he glared at the boy. "I don't know pain, huh? I think you should shut your fucking mouth. You know nothing about me or my team," the half demon snarled, immediately standing up and leaving the room.

He climbed to the roof of the house, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He may have never watched a family member die, but he knew pain. He knew Sasuke also knew pain. Even Sakura, who he had seen bullied by the other girls in the academy to the point where she had to start seeing a therapist, knew pain. And Kakashi…Naruto knew that no one who made Jounin went without seeing a comrade die.

Naruto laid back on the roof and stared up at the sky, counting the stars he could see to take his mind off of his current irritation. He was beginning to calm down when he heard sobbing as well as his sensei's voice asking if he could join the crying boy.

Naruto felt his heart warm as his sensei praised him. He never knew that the man paid that much attention to what was outside of shinobi battles and his books.

The blonde closed his eyes and listened to the world around him as the conversation below slowed to a halt.