Sorry for the long delay, And since only one person asked for 'no SasuHina'... I won't do any (that one person was the majority anyway :P). Also, I'd like you guys to suggest titles for this story. If I do get suggestions, I'll choose the one I appreciate the most and give credit as due. The title would then be announced in chapter 6, and changed for chapter 7.
Chapter 5
Once again, dawn shone upon the peaceful city that was Konoha, everyone who was awake this early in the morning were doing their usual taks without bothering another person. Skies still dark, with the dim light of the sun starting to show itself. Among these early people, were Naruto and Shizune, walking next to each other happily, along with Tonton, who was oinking silently. Sasuke was at the training grounds, and as it implied, was training. Hinata was trying to build her courage for Naruto, she still hadn't given up on him. Well, she had, but she at least wanted to be close friends. Rock Lee was doing his daily loads-of-laps jogging around Konoha and that was about it, everyone else was either sleeping or busy in their houses for whatever reasons.
Shizune looked at Naruto from the corner of her eyes, he had seemingly gotten even more mature, and apparently happier now that he knew what love was. She was still wondering one thing though, did he really feel that towards her? But she knew it wouldn't take long untill she found out, so she just let it slide and kept looking at him, eyes scanning his clothes, at chest height.
"Why are you staring at me like that, Shizu-chan?" pouted Naruto, his head still tilted towards the sky: the way he had been since they began walking.
"How..How'd you know?" she answered, in a surprised voice.
"I also know you're blushing now, Shizune!" said the boy, still not looking.
She was, indeed, blushing. "Naruto, answer me!"
"Senses, I guess."
"This.. this is truely amazing" she said, now forcing herself to look straight ahead.
The boy just grinned, forcing his hand into Shizune's free one, interlacing their fingers. They walked in silence except for the occasional oinks from Tonton. The couple was headed to the Konoha forest, happily staring at each other every so often. Shizune was looking around the place, not that she hadn't been there before, but it was still a very, very beautiful place. As she was contemplating the huge trees and small furry animals trying to hide in them, she had stopped without noticing, although it didn't take long before Naruto pulled her out of it, literally, that was.
The blond boy pulled his partner's hand along with him, whispering something almost inaudible into her ear.
"I have to show you something, Shizu-chan!"
She just nodded afirmatively, not sure of what it was.
They made their way trough the forest, hopping from branch to branch, at a speed a normal human could never even come close to reproducing. It was this way for almost an hour. Naruto was dashing ahead, followed by the black haired girl and her pig, towards a place only him knew.
- - -
Hokage's office, 9:00:00AM
"Hokage-sama!"
The young-looking old woman slowly raised her head from her desk, drool visible on the papers she was working on.
5 minutes later
"Hai? What is it? Quickly, I have work to do." Tsunade said, apparently angered from being woken up.
"A...Akatsuki! They have sent a message for you, mentioning it was capital importance, and if you didn't read it and do as it said, Konoha would be... D...des..destroyed!" said the chuunin standing before her, a letter at hands.
The woman took it, before opening it up and reading.
Hello, Konoha's Hokage, whatever your name is. We have seen Naruto, we have seen him merge with the Kyuubi.
What? Since when has that boy merged with the demon? Oh damn, where is he now?, she had to talk to him right away, but first, the letter.
We expect you to deliver him to us, along with whomever he judges qualified to go along with. We actually have a plan, which consists mainly of Naruto, it is not meant to rule over anything, nor to destroy Konoha. Actually, Akatsuki has changed now, since Orochimaru tried to take over us, we have vowed to destroy him. No, that doesn't mean we will ally with Konoha, we would like to borrow Naruto's power for this effect, though, so if you want to keep Konoha alive, send us Naruto, along with anyone he wants to go along with. This mission is A-rank, maybe S, depending on what goes on, and he will be paid triple, if not quadruple the worth of it. You have seven days to let us know your answer, past that delay, we will consider it a no, and therefore destroy the leaf village.
-Itachi, Kisame, and all the other Akatsuki members you do not know of.
Oh. Now this didn't look good. Naruto was called off work for yet 2 months and what, 27 days?
Tsunade was massaging her temples with her index fingers, trying her best to figure out a way to solve this immediate problem.
First of all, where's that little kid... Naruto, don't have me worry like that, geez!
Then, what will I do about that?
"Kakashi," she called.
The man magically poofed in front of her desk, his copy of Icha-Icha Paradisu at hand.
"Find Naruto back, you could employ Neji's Byakugan in that case, but I rather you not, although, do as you wish, this is a very urgent matter." she finished.
The half-masked man let a grin form under his mask, before poofing again, as magically as before, leading him out of the office.
- - -
Naruto and Shizune were laying down next to each other, hand in hand, the other one laid above them, in an almost symmetrical manner, staring at the morning sky, on the edge of a beautiful lake, reflecting the still dark blue sky in the small waves caused by the slowly blowing wind.
"Naruto, this is wonderful, you know?" she let out dreamily, her head tilted to look at him in the eyes.
"Really?" he teased.
"Of course! Baka!"
He smiled slightly, being with her made him feel happy, sad, angry, confused and complete, all at once. And from the explaination she had given him on what love was, this was exactly the same same same feeling. He now felt a need for her, a need to be in her arms, to hold her close to him, and to never leave her alone, it was frightening but beautiful at the same time, it was every immaginable opposites at the same time, that, to him, was love.
He crawled closer to her, scared of being rejected, unsure of himself as this was his first relationship ever. However, he was relieved when she just turned on her side to face him completely, gripping him in a warm embrace which he had never felt before.
"Shizune..." he said, totally speechless.
She didn't answer, her lips opened slightly, slowly moving towards the younger boy's lips, which were open as well, though in confusion. When they were just half an inch from their first kiss, a dreadful thing happened. Kakashi's head popped up from a bush, looking at them with a seemingly plain expression. Besides him was Neji, who looked rather displeased by the sight.
"Oi, you two, rent a room next time." the masked jounin said.
Naruto looked quite angry, "Hey! That's my secret place!" he said, with a slight blush when he realized what this implied.
"OoooOoOoooOo" was curious Kakashi's answer.
"And what have you been doing here?"
Shizune blushed madly, leading Kakashi to believe... things.
"matte yo, don't tell me you've..." Kakashi trailed off, suggesting a freak smirk under his mask.
It didn't last long though, because when Shizune knocked him, he seemed to have totally lost consciousness. Neji sweat dropped, knowing it was now his duty to explain what in the seven layers of hell was going on. He took a calm breath, before speaking up.
"Naruto, you are requested for a mission by the Hokage, I do not know the details, Kakashi did, so now please, let's make this short and head back to town."
The blond boy frowned, the took Shizune up, bridal style, for show off, or to be romantic? He didn't know, and it didn't matter.
"Ladies should not walk all the time." he said, as he grinned, causing her to blush.
Neji took Kakashi on his back, and so the made their way to the Hokage's office, once again.
- - -
Hokage's Office, 11:30:56AM.
"Hokage-sama!" said the same chuunin as earlier.
No reply.
"Ho-ka-ge-sa-ma!" he yelled, causing him to suddenly fly trough the ceiling and up into the sky, to the point where he became a shining star.
Another guard, chuunin as well, apparently came out of nowhere, to take the place of the now disappeared one. The said guard walked up to the desk of the now awake Tsunade.
"Naruto is here." he said, before walking away, happy he wasn't the one to have to wake her up this time.
"Ah, Naruto, you have a miss--"
"Baa-chan! I'm on a break!" he said, himself flying straight into the wall, although being caught by Shizune.
Tsunade took the letter and handed it to Naruto, which read it. The boy suddenly yelled something the whole village could have heard.
"NANI?"
"Yes, Naruto," said the Hokage, "You have to."
"Okay, I will, if Shizune comes with me, maybe Rock Lee as well, and..." he hesitated, "Sasuke-teme."
The blond woman sighed, nodding and then telling him to go pack his things.
"We will have you depart in three weeks, as of now, enjoy your vacations while you still can."
Naruto sweat dropped at that sentence, along with Shizune.
"You are to tell Lee and Sasuke that they are forced to come along with you, if we want Konoha to live."
Naruto suddenly didn't feel like bringing them along anymore, but he had to, leaving alone with a girl would only get him more trouble, as he figured Kakashi now knew there was something between them.
The rest of the day was quite boring, Naruto had told Sasuke, which agreed, as long as he could train with him, then, Lee had gladly agreed, saying this was an opportunity to rivalize him. To summarize, convincing them to come along hadn't been as hard as he thought it would be. Now was the time where he was going to go to his... wait, he didn't have a home anymore, and hadn't asked Shizune if he could stay at hers. Of course, that one night, but that didn't mean he would be allowed to stay again. Ah well, better not worry about that. He thought, trying to be cheerful about everything, although failing miserably. He walked slowly, almost reluctantly, but still, he had to...no, forget that. He turned around, his courage crumbling to nothingness. Jumping from roof top to roof top, untill he was at the edge of the city. He had chosen to sleep outside, away from all his troubles. As he laid down, trying to find a comfortable position in which he could fall alseep, in his world of dreams and perfection. Anyway, that was untill he heard a noise, nothing close, and not the usual things he could hear daily with his ehanced hearing, no, it was the sound of Hinata's voice, talking to someone, apparently the person she was talking to was quite strong, from their chakra signature, but that was besides the point, what she was saying was what had drawn his attention.
"I...I just w-want to be friends with Na...Naruto-kun" she said.
"Well, you shouldn't be afraid to talk to him, he's a really good person, and if you don't act shy, he'll actually talk." that was... Sasuke? Helping someone? Ah well, everyone changes eventually.
"I..I know... I-I'll try..."
"Don't worry, Hinata."
The voices disapeared. It was a mere moment before every single thing the blond boy had said came rushing back to his head. He had been so cold, to her, who was just trying to become friends with him, maybe more, judging from the way she reacted when he said he loved Shizune. Naruto felt soiled, he felt guilty of making other people afraid. Never in his life had it been that way, it was usually the opposite, people would be mean and cold to him, and he know all too well how it must feel for Hinata being rejected by the one she cherished. At least she still wanted to be friends, she had not attempted anything silly or given up hope on ever talking to him. That was better than nothing, there was still a way for him to be forgiven, and he had to, he definately had to cheer her up, be her friend. Yeah, he had.. to... Naruto had already fallen asleep, being as tired as the young boy was.
Night, sleep, a moment where soul detatches from the body, roaming freely. Soul, an entity in which humans believe, debated either it is real or just a belief, it is said to be the main element of consciousness in a human being. It is also known that, souls detatching from the body in the sleep leads to a world, or rather dimension, as believed, where you can do anything you please, from flying trough the blue sky, to living thousand millions of miles below earth level. Sky, also known as freedom, a unique way to be free, free from gravity and restraints of the ground. Freedom, the essence, next to money, most sought after by Man, the reason science exists. Money, powering science, corrupting even the wisest, purest soul the world has ever bore, leading to killing and all those things. Killing, bringing one's death, either by killing one's self or by killing another. Death, the ultimate end, freedom, prison, no matter how you see it, that is where everything ends, where everything goes, where everything existant is vowed to meet all together. Loneliness, death causes it, it hurts, it rapes your inner self, confuses your senses and makes you feel guilty, or raging. Rage blinds the judgment, blinds the line of thought, drives one to do foolish things.
Naruto broke out in sweat, waking up faster than ever, what kind of freak dream was that? Since when had he thought so hard, now this was really getting to him. He looked around nervously, still replaying the whole scan he had done in his sleep. Honestly, to him, it looked more like a deep reflection, so unlike him, was that Kyuubi affecting his mind? Since when had the fox felt all of that, being tormented that much was unbelievable to Naruto, even in his worst moments, he had never seen that far, he had never bothered reflecting on a past happy moment to the point where he would turn it down into another reason to feel hated.
It was now quite early in the morning, he guessed, and it was getting lighter, the sun was slowly awakening upon the landscape. Apparently, Shizune hadn't come after him, or if she had, hadn't found him. He stood up, well, at least, he tried to. Naruto was held in place by something he hadn't noticed earlier. Indeed, Shizune had followed him, and she had found him, and was now holding his arm tightly, hugging it against her chest. Naruto, of course, blushed furiously, and after a moment's hesitation, sat next to her half-awake form.
"Na...ru...to...ku...n" she mumbled sleepily.
He blushed. "What?"
"Let's sleep...a... more...I'm tired." came her quick reply, as she pulled on his arm tighter, forcing him to hug her.
He nodded positively, and laid his head against her shoulder, in a semi-sitting position, this being the first time they slept trough the morning, untill the afternoon, happy in each other's embrace.
Awwwww kawaii :D, naw seriously, I know it's getting more and more fluffy, though I have some kind of plot going on. I need you guys to tell me if there should or shouldn't be lemons in this fiction. Also, a few notes now.
I feel my writting's (not grammar, well maybe) been getting bad lately, either because I'm trying to force it.. or because I'm not in the mood, tell me, and since this is the fifth chapter, I don't really mind flames anymore.
Yet another thing. This will become fully ShizuNaru at some point later, Not spoiling anything, but I can tell you there's going to be a slight NaruHina thing in Shizune's back for a little while.
Also, as a last note before I wish you all a merry X-mas and a happy mew yeer :D, I have never made a general plot for this story, it's all like: -sits, thinks for a few seconds- -looks at keyboard, puts some random music- -writes- so, if sometimes I contradict myself in two chapters (maybe because of the time delay between writting each) tell me and I'll correct it! Wew! End of noties, Baibai evwy wone.