Chapter Three: Spirit of Fire

Still reeling from a pounding headache, Naruto's crystal-blue eyes fluttered open when the sunlight from the new day poured warmth over his face. The bewhiskered genin stirred from his slumber, never realizing that he fell fast asleep from the mental exhaustion brought upon by the new information bestowed to him last night.

He held his head in his hands, attempting to make some sense of it all.

The young kid had a mother…and a father who loved him—powerful shinobi, at that, in their lifetimes, hidden in plain sight without him being any wiser to piecing things together. One of them, long since shuffled off the mortal coil, cradled him as he drifted off to the sandman's embrace.

The preteen felt like an idiot; the clues and breadcrumbs were right there, all along, with regard to his father. Most notably, the blond hair and blue eyes shared between them definitely called that matter into question, now that the boy had more time for introspection. Moreover, why did no one ever mention anything about a previous host of the monster fox? How come no one said a thing about his mother?

As his vagrant thoughts drifted to that particular topic, Naruto still wondered as to how come a spirit was able to touch a living soul. Said ghost behind him kept him supported, her ethereal arms still tightly wrapped around him. "Mom…"

"Morning, sweetie!" she boisterously shouted, almost to the point of making him deaf with her nonsense.

Naruto groaned, rubbing his right ear in the process. "…You were with me the whole night?" he all but rasped out.

Kushina beamed like she hit the lottery. "I told you I wasn't going away any time soon, Naruto."

"That's fine and all," he began, clearing his throat, "but wouldn't it be…you know…kind of odd that I'm talking to myself, since no one sees you and all that?" He still was not used to this, as evidenced by the look of uncertainty that danced across his childish features. "They'd probably check me into the psych ward at the hospital…quick, fast and in a hurry."

His mother placed a finger to her chin in thought, allowing her child to squirm into a more comfortable position on the bed. "…I don't know," she owlishly blinked, "but we'll burn that bridge when we cross it!"

His erratic, shifting thoughts screeched to a grinding halt when a few raps on his apartment door alerted him that he had company. Stifling a yawn, the bewhiskered genin shuffled off his bed, popping a few bones in his back to relieve a bit of tension, and slowly ambled to the entrance. Without warning, as he touched the doorknob, a tickle hit his nose, prompting him to sneeze out a green flame again. He coughed and gagged on the gas that followed, almost like he inhaled tobacco for the first time.

Not like he tried it, or anything, but he heard horror stories about first-time smokers.

His spiritual birthmother hummed from behind him, still resting on his bed. "…You should get that checked out."

"Ugh…" His shoulders and face drooped, not really in a joking mood.

"Are you okay in there, Naruto?" the guest questioned through the threshold. Due to the nature of the hoarse style of speech, it was obviously an old man, which meant only one person could fit that bill.

Surprised to have held to his word, the blue-eyed ninja opened the door to see the imposing figure of the Sandaime Hokage, hands clasped behind his back, as per his standard posture while standing. "Hello, my boy," he uttered with sincere kindness, like a grandparent to his grandchild in all but blood.

Naruto's eyes quickly cut over to his mom, who now glared daggers and frothed at the mouth at the very sight of the decrepit geezer, and turned them back to the guest of his quaint abode, set up with reliable amenities.

He heard his village's leader—hopefully, that job would be his in the future—clear out some phlegm from his nasal airways. "Mind if I come in, Naruto?" he prompted.

"Oh, sorry, Jijii," he apologized, allowing a wide berth for his grandfather-like figure to enter. "I…was kind of distracted."

"No need to say sorry on my behalf," he tenderly allayed as he took a seat by a seemingly frail chair at the kitchen table. "I was just stopping by, as promised."

"You ungrateful, old man, how dare you get all chummy after what you did!" Naruto heard his mother shout, drowning out his own thoughts.

"Say, Hokage-jii…"

"Hm?"

"…What do you know about my parents?"

"…" With his mouth hardening into a thin line, Hiruzen decided to skirt about the issue with carefully measured words. "At times, my boy, there comes a high price with information; something most people aren't willing to afford."

The Red-Hot Bloody Habanero gnashed together her teeth. "You bastard! How can you live with yourself by spouting such…drivel?" Soon after, a flood tide of expletives bombarded her son's hearing to the point of him almost letting loose a violent outburst of frustration.

"So," the blond tactlessly supplied, "you do know about Uzumaki Kushina, then." He phrased it to sound like a question, even though it lacked the tone. "Redhead? Loudmouth? Does that ring any bells to you, Old Man?"

"…" Again, Naruto was met with silence from the vaunted Professor. 'How did he discover this?'

"And if there were only three ninja in that same clearing the night I had that bastard fox sealed inside of me," the blue-eyed genin continued, trying to make some sense of his predicament through the rushing tidal wave of information Kushina kept spouting, "then why the hell did you blab about my container status and put up that stupid law?"

"I—" Apparently, the boy was on a roll, since the Hokage could not get in a word, edgewise.

"Why didn't you swear those ninja to keep it a secret?" By now, the young child's voice started to waver and crack, his face assuming the look of a thermometer steadily increasing due to the rising heat in the atmosphere. "I could've had a better childhood! A chance for a better life! And yet you wanted to let the chips fall in place, hoping that things would improve, but they didn't! They just!" he punctuated. "Got! Worse!"

The Sarutobi clan head felt a bit surprised—and rather unnerved—that Naruto now knew, even though his stoic façade maintained neutrality, despite the warring emotions waging within him. "On the contrary, Naruto," he countered as he prepared his defense, "Danzō, my political rival, somehow caught wind of the sealing, in spite of my best efforts to keep it a well-guarded secret, and leaked it out as public knowledge. That wasn't my doing."

Celeste-blue eyes steadily grew colder as he remained standing. "Well, what did you do for damage control, huh?" he bellowed. "Enact a decree that almost everyone and their mother broke in the village, indirectly or not?"

The conical hat perched atop the Fire Shadow's head sunk a bit lower, swallowing the bitter pill that he was just as guilty for leaving matters to go idle. "I realize now that I have failed you—no, you and your family, I should say." Then again, he did let the boy get away with a lot of stuff, even though it nagged at the patience of his citizens.

"Jijii," Naruto's voice grew hoarse and strained, "I looked up to you, and you hold back something important to me…for what? To protect me? I'm not some kid, anymore, Gramps! I don't need to have my hand held!"

"You still are!" the aged veteran roared, his nerves frayed and shorted out. "You're twelve, for gods' sake! Grow up!" Gnarled digits slammed down hard on the wood, causing the younger of the two to balk back and visibly flinch at that. He never was aware of the fact that even the Hokage had a breaking point.

"You damn monkey, no one shouts at my son and gets away with it!" Kushina hotly contested from her position on the bed, feeling somewhat helpless to do anything…again. "Biwako-baasan would be rolling in her grave if she saw you bullying children! She would be ashamed at how far you fell!"

Hiruzen's right hand got propped up by the table as he started massaging his forehead and temple. "I'm sorry for snapping," he wearily intoned, "but you must know that, as Hokage, there comes a great risk to manage the status quo." He saw the questioning look his proxy grandson sent his way. "I mean, the way things are," he clarified. "There were some instances where…I was forced to turn the other cheek and look the other way…" The sagacious Sandaime Hokage let loose a tired sigh. "I'm old, my boy. I was reluctant to take back the mantle, since someone had to not only do it, but to also handle day-to-day affairs." His dark eyes shifted away from indifferent, sapphire ones. It certainly did not feel the same, now that the shoe was on the other foot. "I hope that, one day, you can forgive me for what I've done. The gods know I'll be paying for my sins in the next life."

'I feel that Biwako-chan would be livid by how I ran things, if she were still here with me.'

It still did not settle well with the jinchūriki, however. Still exhausted from the ordeals last night that turned his world upside-down, he felt numb and detached, even though he tried to come to grips with it. "…Give me some time, old man," the orange-clad shinobi murmured after an uncharacteristic silence. "It's a lot to take in." He glanced up at the ceiling of his flat. 'Not like Kaa-chan made it any better…' His languid gaze mutely turned to see that his mother looked like a steamed tomato…or a chili pepper, ready to waylay into the wizened Fire Shadow if she were alive and whole again. 'I guess I now know where I got my temper…' He sat down on the couch and sighed as his body weight made a groove in the cushion.

"At any rate, Naruto," the Sarutobi clan head chimed in, "I wasn't here to talk to you about your heritage and inheritance. Rather, I came to tell you, personally, that I have a job for you."

The blond-haired kid's ears perked up a bit. "A job? You mean…a mission?"

"Oh, something like that," he responded with a tantalizing undertone. "Now," he quickly added, cutting off the exuberant, spunky boy's whoop, "before you get all riled up and ready to go, I want you to know that you have the option to take it, or turn it down. It's all up to you to choose."

If it entailed mission pay, then he was fair game. "I don't care what it's about, but I'll gladly take it!"

"All right, my boy, consider it done. For the next three months, you are to train at the Fire Temple, located in the heart of the Fire Country, in order to get a better sense of what you are currently experiencing. From a brief understanding, I feel that your…new power needs a fresh set of eyes…and a keener perspective."

The ramen-loving ninja's eyes brightened and shone with the intensity of an afternoon sky devoid of clouds. "…Are you okay with sending just me, Jijii?"

"Oh, I have someone who can guide you there and stay with you for the time being. He knows the lay of the land better than any ninja under my roster."

"Who?" Naruto hastily demanded.

The God of Shinobi wagged his finger as if chiding a child—which he was. "You'll find out at the mission briefing later on today, my boy."

The scion of the Yellow Flash pouted. "Aw…No fair, Jijii!"

Hiruzen simply laughed mirthfully.

"Wait…" Naruto paused. "If you're here, then what about all that paperwork that you got back in your office?"

Shifty, dark eyes roamed around the apartment, almost as if he conspired to pull off a trick of his own. "…I got it covered."

XXXXXXXXXX

The shadow clone left behind could do nothing but grumble about his plight. Growing tired of the tedium that paperwork held over it, the Sarutobi duplicate summoned a copy of its own, feeling itself to be in a productive, procrastinating mood. Said doppelganger slowly blinked, wondering about its purpose.

It did not have to wait long, however. "I'm tired of this shit," the first replica bit out. "You do the rest."

"But…" the second clone stammered out, "this was your job."

"I know," the initial duplicate dully remarked. "I'm going to get to the backlogged medical leaves. Anything to break up the monotony."

XXXXXXXXXX

After his brief trip to the Hokage Tower, the blond shinobi-in-training checked his supplies right before heading out for good. Before he left, the old man recommended that he pack enough to hold him over for a several-month stay.

"Don't forget to pack enough clean underwear!" he heard his hazy spirit for a mother delightfully chime from the corner of his apartment.

His cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he distractedly turned away from the mission briefing scroll he received at the Hokage Tower. "Mom!"

She childishly giggled at her son's expense.

XXXXXXXXXX

Naruto jogged at a steady pace to the West Gate, one of the four checkpoints around Konoha proper that provided the least amount of traffic during the daytime hours. As he stared at an odd angle skyward, the orange-clad kid realized that he had a few minutes to spare. 'It's almost close to two in the afternoon…'

The sound of a rustling rucksack caused the bewhiskered genin to look down at the only person standing near the exit. The buff man had a grisly beard that framed his face, and per his modus operandi, he had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Eh? Asuma-sensei!"

Brown eyes lit up in realization as the seasoned jōnin turned at a profile. "Oh, hey, Naruto!" he exclaimed. "Ready to go, I take it?"

"…You're my guardian?" the younger of the two confusedly asked.

"…Didn't you read the entire mission scroll?" Asuma countered.

Damn his mom for distracting him. "…I didn't have time. I got kind of sidetracked."

"Well, we got a few minutes, so go ahead and skim the mission outline before we head off." The chain-smoking shinobi whipped off his backpack and sat down by the guard duty desk.

Doing as he was instructed to do, cobalt eyes critically scanned the parchment from his knapsack and perused its contents.

He felt a lingering presence over his shoulder, urging him to not roll his eyes.

Kushina hummed, intentionally annoying her son. "It's an extended C-rank training mission, with matching pay." She pursed her lips. "Pretty nice…"

"Do you mind, Mom?" he harshly whispered under his breath.

"Hey, don't mind me!" she defended, holding up her hands like she prepared to stop something. "I'm just here, remember?"

Grumbling in a low tone, Naruto turned to his quasi-bodyguard for the duration of the assignment. "Say, Asuma-sensei…"

"Yes?" The dark-toned ex-Guardian Ninja responded, eyebrows lifting up a marginal amount from his spot, map securely grasped in his hands.

"Any reason why this is marked as a C-rank? It's just training."

The brown-eyed ninja rubbed a finger under his nose. "Anything that entails going beyond Konoha's borders, but within the Land of Fire's jurisdiction, merits a minimum rank of C, alongside escort missions between territories. For example, your botched mission to Wave, while marked as C, sharply shifted into parameters along the lines of a B-ranked mission."

The genin before him gaped like a fish. "You found out about that?"

The elite ninja snorted and shrugged. "Word gets around fast if the missions aren't classified or if they don't breach security issues. Besides," he flippantly added, "we always cross-check and examine our cells from time to time among my fellow peers."

"A dick-measuring contest for bragging rights, basically," Kushina glibly retorted, blowing a loose strand of her red hair from her face. "Jōnin teachers do that all the time."

Asuma's mouth then edged into a thin line, unaware of the blond's stink eye to his current annoyance. "That reminds me, Naruto, that this training mission of yours is necessary. Given the nature of your pretty terrible performance," the young ninja-in-training winced at that, "I feel that this will definitely get you in line and set your priorities in order, and not just to help you iron out whatever's bothering you."

Naruto looked down on the ground and found a peculiar-looking rock to be rather interesting. "…I messed up big time, didn't I?"

"It's all right, Naruto," Asuma allayed. "The circumstances behind your first out-of-village assignment were…problematic, to say the least, but you and your team managed to come out of the ordeal with your body intact in a stroke of dumb luck…"

'You just don't know how lucky, kid,' he mentally added as an afterthought. From what he gathered, things could have taken an extremely nasty turn for the worst, if conditions and logistics matched theirs again.

"Oh…" The greenhorn genin still appeared a bit crestfallen.

The cigarette connoisseur thought he heard a grunt off to the side, away from Naruto, but paid no heed to it. Maybe he should lay off the strange herbs his dad inhaled in his pipe-smoking binges. That or it could have been his imagination…or a whisper in the wind. "Then again, if, by chance, some other team around your age tried to do what you all did, then it would have been tantamount to a suicide mission…" He paused to amend and rescind on that statement. "Well, with the exception of a squad that graduated last year, I think."

"But…what about Sakura-chan and Sasuke? What will they do while I'm gone?" He wondered just what happened to a cell of two genin and a jōnin instructor.

"For now, worry about yourself," Asuma declared as he righted himself into a standing position. "Your teammates will still be in one piece by the time you get back, which is ultimately up to you," he pointed at him, blue eyes shining with bewilderment from the gesture, "by the way." He then stared at the sun's position in the sky. "I think you're all caught up enough, so let's head out."

"So…" Naruto started, walking by Asuma's right side, sandals lightly tapping against the coarse sand lining the way leading out of the hidden village, "how are we going to get there, and how long is the trip?"

"About two days, give or take, if we stick to the main roads," he truthfully answered while stretching his legs for the long walk. "This trip doesn't have a set deadline, so we'll take our time getting there." Quickly glancing around to see that everything was in order, he ambled over to the checkpoint desk to check out, as what most ninja did, in order for the secretaries to keep track over which shinobi were out on missions and which were available for standby.

"So, we're roughing it in the wilds for a while." Sapphire eyes dimmed a bit, feeling the urge to sigh in an exaggerated fashion as he flashed his registration card to the desk clerks.

"Hey, camping out for a bit is fun," the son of the Hokage rebutted, mimicking his temporary charge. "Plus, if you have any questions, then feel free to ask them. I'll try to answer them as best as I can."

"…Okay," Naruto conceded.

With a grunt, the chain-smoking jōnin hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders. "Well, then, let's go!" he boomed with a beaming grin.

XXXXXXXXXX

Haruno Sakura met at the bridge near one of Konoha's many riverbanks, the designated meeting spot for Team Seven. However, to her, something seemed…off. She could not put a finger on the feeling. Trying to shake it off, she impatiently tapped her foot on the wooden planks as she waited, listening to the quiet stream running underneath the bridge.

Several minutes later, the lone wolf of the squad strolled up, hands jammed into his high-collared blue shirt, facial features impassive and brooding, like always.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun!" the green-eyed bookworm cooed as she waved.

"Hn…" He easily dismissed her by walking past her to rest on the railing of the bridge.

Their jōnin instructor, surprisingly enough, quickly appeared in a flash of white smoke two minutes later on the high end of the bridge. Gravity-defying silver hair lightly swayed in the wafting, afternoon breeze as he gave his two remaining charges a lazy, casual wave. "Yo!" he greeted. "Glad to see you here."

"Sensei," green eyes looked curious, "where's Naruto?"

"…He's going away for a while," Kakashi bluntly answered, leaving it at that. The Hokage was succinct and brief with him to keep the location to where his sensei's legacy was going a well-kept secret, stamped with the seal that indicated confidentiality between the clients and patrons.

"Good," came the knee-jerk response from the kunoichi of the group, "because I don't have to deal with that idiot for a while. Isn't that right, Sasuke-kun?" Per her normal mode of operations, she batted her eyelashes to the brunet heartthrob, to no effect.

The Uchiha scion, on the other hand, felt that their teacher withheld a crucial point in all that. He then crossed his arms over his chest. "If that dead-last is getting specialized training, then I want to use the time to train for myself while he's gone." Just as he sprang from the railing to trudge elsewhere, Kakashi cleared his throat, all but forcing Sasuke to stop in his tracks.

"Well, I wouldn't say that, just yet, Sasuke," he said with a hint of mirth coating his words, irritating eye-smile lodged in place. "I wasn't finished."

"Wait…" Uneasiness crept along Sakura's innards, "there's more to this than you're letting on, Sensei."

"How very astute of you," the older ninja ambiguously chirped. "That also means you two are involved in this little situation, too."

"How so?" Sasuke wondered aloud, turning on his heels.

"Since we're short one genin of a full cell, that means we're on a short break from missions…as this team."

"You're not making any sense, Kakashi-sensei!" the wiz-kid of Team Seven frustratingly growled.

"Look underneath the underneath," he cryptically remarked. "I gave you the clues. No need spoon-feeding you."

"…" The only male remaining was not amused, as noted by the darkening scowl etched onto his face.

Sakura simply shrugged her shoulders, still coming up with nothing.

'…Did they really learn nothing from their mission to the Wave Country?' the ashen-haired assassin mulled over in defeat. "It means that you are going to get split up, as noted in our recent edict by Hokage-sama." For emphasis, he procured the rolled-up parchment and shook it. "In the meantime, Sakura, you are to report to Yūhi Kurenai, jōnin-sensei of Team Eight, for team training assignments." The languid eye of the Copy Ninja then landed on the callous brunet. "That means Sasuke and I are going to take in my colleague's team, Squad Ten, under my wing, so do play nice."

"So…does that imply that Asuma-sensei is out of the village with Naruto, then?" the rosette-haired kunoichi reasoned, hazarding a guess to piece things together.

"Maybe," her mentor calmly conceded without giving much of an answer. "Some important business matters came up where they require his assistance, so my fellow peer decided to check them out, which just so happens to match up with Naruto's sudden disappearance."

"…That doesn't give us any reason as to why the idiot dead-last is accompanying him," Sasuke countered, still on guard. He would play this little game his so-called teacher threw at him.

"Well," Kakashi began, drumming up a half-truth, "I never alluded to that statement."

"You're lying, Sensei!" Sakura interrupted.

The Copy Ninja sighed away his troubles. "Regarding Naruto's absence, it's on a basis of 'need to know,' and quite frankly, I feel that you don't need to know. At least, for right now, that is." The Sandaime felt the need to go by the book on this ordeal. To keep some pressure off the boy's back, he could focus all that time to improve his shortcomings within the allotted time. Then again, it all fell to the blue-eyed, hyperactive shinobi to get stronger on the pace he set for himself, since Kakashi did not have a clue on what areas in which he needed work; rather, he felt somewhat inept on where to start. "Once we deem that you have learned enough from us, for the time being, we will then exchange one for the other. In a sense, you two will still train with me, so think of it like a little one-on-one time with your instructor, but with another team incorporated into it."

Jade eyes glazed over as she took in what her mentor relayed. "…Why didn't you just say that all you're doing is absorbing Team Ten into Team Seven, leaving me to be fed to the wolves?"

"Now, now, Sakura," he met her disbelief with assurance, "don't think of it like that. I'm sure you can learn a thing or two from Kurenai. Besides, the Hokage feels that our little kiddies should become accustomed to working with each other, thus promoting what we know best: the teamwork dynamic…" The son of the White Fang trailed off, vigilantly looking around for a possible sneak-attack from his self-proclaimed rival, an equally eccentric ninja just like him.

No sign of Konoha's Noble Green Beast, Maito Gai, at the mere utterance of the word 'dynamic?' Good. It must have been one of Hatake Kakashi's luckiest days. "Anyway, you are to meet your temporary sensei at the udon shop in the merchants' quarters in about an hour."

She took that cue as an informal dismissal. With a downtrodden look on her face, Sakura slumped off, already pining for her crush—her Sasuke-kun. "…Okay," she reluctantly murmured before turning to the direction of her house.

The senior veteran cast his one-eyed gaze to his remaining charge. 'Maybe this might open his eyes and open him up to his other comrades…' he hopefully wished. It still was an uphill battle with the last of the Uchiha clan. 'And if I somehow screw up Asuma's teamwork that he set out for his team in the process, then I'm going to wear Gai's jumpsuit for a week.' How did his colleague manage to get that to fly by his dad, even though the conditions stood in a questionable position?

Another thought for later, perhaps…

"That means you and I are meeting up with Asuma's cell at the barbecue shop…" he glanced up at the sky to tell the time, "right about…now…" Just like that, the Copy Ninja vanished in a plume of smoke.

Sasuke, left alone on the bridge, owlishly blinked before shrugging. "…Whatever," he bit out into a huff while walking off to catch up.

XXXXXXXXXX

Around the evening hours leading into the night, Sarutobi Asuma scouted around a few choice clearings to camp out until the morning.

"Hm…This looks about right," he whispered in garbled tones; more to himself than his traveling companion.

Naruto, on the other hand, took the trip in stride for the time being. "We're stopping here for the night?" His cerulean eyes blurred around the copious cover provided by the trees within the glade.

His transient guardian nodded. "Yep. It's best to gather enough resources before the light of day fades into the night."

Off a pace away, the blond shinobi heard a lilting hum from his spiritual shadow. "Hm…poetic…just like how he used to woo me when he was a kid." That caused the boy, who was about to search for necessities, to stumble over what his mom said as he caught himself before the ground did it for him.

"Naruto, go ahead and pitch the tents," the bearded jōnin commanded, seemingly oblivious to his charge's plight. I think Nature's calling me."

For the second time in two days, the son of the Red-Hot Bloody Habanero stood at a loss for words. "Um…yeah. Sure."

Soon after, Asuma left the clearing, departing from the boy's company for a brief moment.

In the meantime, the exuberant kid summoned about ten Kage Bunshin to gather firewood and stones, among other purposes.

"Be sure to dig a hole deep enough so I can get started on this stone fire pit," the authentic Uzumaki directed, pointing to a soft spot in the ground and quickly recalling some of the survival exercises during his time in the Academy.

He was stirred from his directives with a low whistle.

"Ten shadow clones and not even winded?" Kushina rhetorically asked, dark-green eyes alight with wonder. "That's pretty good!"

"…You," he rounded on a duplicate that quizzically stared at him, "stay alert and keep watch." With a slight bob of its head, the blue-eyed replica jumped on a low-hanging branch, propelling itself even higher into the canopy. Then, a flat look came to his face when he set his sights on his mother. "Why do you keep bothering me when I least expect it?"

She shrugged her shoulders, goofy grin that, upon closer look, seemed hauntingly familiar to her son. "Keeping you on your toes!" she boomed.

"…So," he began, feeling a bit uncomfortable by bringing up the topic, "Asuma-sensei tried to hit on you?" In fact, he felt a tad grossed out from even broaching the subject.

The redhead snorted. "Oh, I was much older than him, anyway," she noted with a playful tone, waving it off all the same. However, beneath the surface, she felt the subtle cold shoulder from her son. It was to be expected, since he had trust issues, given the nature of how he had been neglected. 'I'll wait for him to come around, but if he keeps closing me off, then I'll say something…'

Her thoughts halted when she and her son heard a disturbance in the thick underbrush, indicating that the chain-smoking ninja had finished his business.

"…I think Asuma-sensei's on his way back," Naruto observed.

"No worries!" she chimed in, keeping that forlorn feeling out of her tone of voice. "There's still something I need to look into. I'll be right back, my son…"

To the kid's astonishment, the energy given off by his dead mother quickly petered out, leaving him all to his lonesome until his part-time mentor returned moments later, stretching out his arms in an exaggerated fashion high above his head.

"Ah…" the son of the current Hokage airily yawned in relief, "much better, now…" Brown eyes lit with intrigue as he stared around the clearing. "Oh, and I see you got most of everything put together! Nice job, Naruto!"

"Thanks," he sheepishly uttered, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand as a goofy grin displayed upon his features. He scanned the area, not really paying much attention to the setup his clones had done before banishing themselves. Their tents were pitched roughly two-and-a-half meters equidistant to the stone fire pit, which, together, formed a small triangle if one were to take a snapshot of the campsite from an aerial view.

Along the lines of that pit that could contain a fire, Naruto had nothing to spark it. "Um…Asuma-sensei, can you spare a light? I can't find any of my matches."

"Hm…" the robust man quietly hummed. "I think it's about time you kids should start learning utility jutsu to make packing not only light, but it also aids in convenience."

"Utility jutsu?" The confused pre-teen threw a puzzled look in Asuma's direction. "What are they?"

"Utility techniques can be used in the event that you can't pack for a highly sensitive mission," he helpfully explained. "In order to function better in the wilderness, you can learn these skills to help you thrive better, alongside your survival lessons."

"Oh…" Still, ever the clueless ninja, he wished that his proxy sensei would just get to the point. "So, mind if you show me some examples?"

With a quick nod, Asuma casually approached the bundle of twigs pitched like their tents in the center of the stone pit, deftly channeling his life force through his weaving hand seals, landing on the Seal of the Tiger—hands clenched together with thumbs, index and middle fingers touching while stretched out. "Just watch and learn, Naruto."

"…Just wondering," the boy hazarded, briefly interrupting the demonstration as he distracted his temporary teacher, "and sorry for breaking your focus, but how come we can't try to use two sticks and rub 'em together?" Blue eyes glimmered with confusion as his head turned to the side. "Wouldn't that be the easier way? Seems kind of lazy if we waste chakra like that, you know?"

"Well…there's that, too," he reasoned, "but I just want to show you this as a demonstration."

"…Oh, okay." True to form, Naruto's mouth formed a loose O-ring. His eyes then grew to the size of saucers when a steady stream of fire poured from the chain-smoker's maw. "Ooh! Cool! I wanna know that! Teach me! Teach me!"

Asuma always appreciated the newfound exuberance in his part-time ward en route to the Fire Temple.

XXXXXXXXXX

Haku, the lone boy hopping around the treetops, struggled to breathe as he darted with a celerity he had no idea he possessed, wheezing and panting along the way with the mammoth broadsword tightly clung in his grip.

He understood what his master wanted of him before casting him aside: Zabuza did not want the Hidden Mist to collect his tools in order to utilize them for ill will. With regard to the old regime, there was no love lost between his late mentor and the governing faction that he deserted…

Well, from what Haku gleaned from Zabuza's mutterings from time to time, anyway…

Either way, he stayed in that compromised area for far too long, and he had to keep moving, no matter what would happen. He pumped as much energy as possible into his legs before he reached a seemingly safe location away from their clash with Kiri's forces.

Much to the ice-conjuring ninja's surprise, and when he thought it was secure to be some four kilometers away, an elderly man with a strange eye-patch slowly walked out from behind one of the many trees dotting the forested area. He walked like a shinobi with purpose and clear intentions…and gazed in his general direction, which caused the last heir of the Yuki clan to duck behind a wide-enough tree.

"I know you're around here!" he heard the man belt out with a gravelly, stern tone. "Come from behind that tree, so I can see you!"

The young brunet stood flummoxed and horrified. 'How did he—?'

Before his thought processes fully registered, the strange ninja—who had the Hidden Mist's insignia chiseled cleanly across his hitai-ate—closed the distance with an unnatural speed and stood face-to-face with him, cutting off any potential avenues of escape.

"What's your name, son?" the blue-haired man inquired with a hint of wariness.

Panicking, and ignoring the question, Haku's eyes zipped around to find a way out of this predicament, since he had no idea if this shinobi had malicious intent or not. Acting on the instinct equivalent to a cornered animal, the brown-eyed Hyōton wielder ran into the man, not considering how dangerous it was to come that close to an enemy and not get injured, pushed him aside, and kept going, doing his best to shake him, with the horse-cleaving sword rattling in place on his back at the current moment.

'I have to get away!'

No matter where he turned or fled from the hunter-ninja, somehow, the man had a strange power that knew where he placed himself. Had Haku thought rationally, the older shinobi would have done away with him already if he was tasked to eliminate him.

Despite his last-ditch efforts to shake him, and clearly outpaced, outmatched, and outlasted, the fourteen-year-old apprentice of the late Momochi Zabuza held his head in shame and leaned against the cool bark in the misty grove as the other shinobi ambled over at a sedate pace, not appearing the slightest bit winded.

Intrigued, the man asked again, "What's your name, boy?"

"…" Once more, the last of the Yuki clan kept his silence, not revealing a shred of information.

"…I'm Ao," the man muttered, obviously gauging him with a critical analysis as he hummed in the process. "Hm…Seems to me that you're running away from something." A ghost of a nod pointed to what he carried. "Kind of hard to do with that sword on your back…"

'Pupils contracted, heavy sweating…an adrenaline rush brought upon by…what, I wonder?' Ao surmised as he took in the young boy's shaken resolve and determination. He looked upset, too. 'Could he be a corpse-robber?' Ao mentally shook his head, quickly dismissing that thought. 'No, that can't be right. I see only a lost soul that needs guidance, and I don't need this special eye to tell me that…'

"I'm here to help…" Taking a cautious step forward, Ao swiftly retracted his foot when a crystalline mirror erupted out of nowhere between the boy and him. Had he reacted slower, his toes could have been sliced off due to the sharp edges.

"Stay away!" The raw emotion was felt and heard behind the mirror of ice as the kid bolted off, yet again, deeper into the woods.

'Huh…he's one of the Yuki clan,' the elder shinobi concluded, 'and rumors did say Zabuza had an accomplice. Could this be him?' Not even considering the idea of losing him, especially with whose forces roamed around the contested region; Ao launched himself into some awaiting tree branches to hasten his search time. 'At least I found him before his set of cronies intercepted and killed him, now that Zabuza bit it…'

He let loose a very shaky sigh. 'A shame, too. We could've used him to end this civil war…'

He thumbed around his chest region to press a button to activate his transmitter radio system. "All units, new objective," he enunciated. "Dark-haired male with brown eyes running around with the sword that Zabuza wielded. Be advised that he's a bloodline carrier. Do not kill. I repeat, do not kill!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Walking down a quiet path alongside his travel guide, Naruto strained his face in concentration as he ran through the hand seal sequence to the technique Asuma had tried to teach him. For the past hour or so en route to their destination, progress proved minimal, at best, but that never deterred the attention-starved ninja.

"This isn't working, Asuma-sensei!" the blond growled out as he slid his fingers from the Seal of the Rat into the Seal of the Tiger, trying his best to grasp the molding of the chakra into an elemental form. So far, nothing happened. "How long will it be until I get this down?"

"It takes time, Naruto," the chain-smoking jōnin allayed. "It doesn't happen overnight."

"It did when I learned how to make Shadow Clones," he countered with a small murmur.

By the younger ninja's surprise that his voice was heard, his temporary mentor hand then asked him, "How long?" Now, Asuma's curiosity slowly started to get the better of him.

Blue eyes looked up at dark ones. "…About a couple of hours?" The orange-clad genin shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I didn't have a clock or a watch around me."

"Hm…" That led the cigarette connoisseur to rub his beard in contemplation. From what limited intelligence he had pertaining to Uzumaki Naruto's graduation to genin (or rather, what was leaked out to the public with formerly classified documents that were redacted before release to protect still-confidential material), he guessed that the blond beside him had an extremely short learning curve, especially when under emotional duress and on an adrenaline high.

'He has the true indicators of a quick-witted genius when in a combat-type setting,' he inwardly mused. 'And to think that I was one of the ones that wrote him off as a bumbling idiot who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag…'

Then again, from reports that were on file in the Ninja Academy, Naruto could have learned to apply himself a little bit more, when taking into account his attendance records and periods of truancy. A bit rough around the edges, sure, but with the proper guidance, and with the power of the Kyūbi sealed in his gut, the boy would have broken any limitation known to man. 'Perhaps, the monks can supply us with neutral feedback when he starts their rigorous training procedures…'

He ventured too far into his inner thoughts, until Naruto shook him from his trance. "Are you all right, Asuma-sensei?"

"…Just thinking," was all he managed to say as the large, iron gates jumped into his view several meters in the distance. "Ah, here we are!"

Cobalt eyes fixedly stared straight ahead and noticed the decorative artwork all around the big walls surrounding the sprawling monastery. "Whoa! Is that the Fire Temple?"

He missed Asuma's nod in the affirmative. "Indeed so. I used to train here about a decade ago…"

Through the jōnin's in-depth discourse about the Fire Temple, Naruto felt a tug on his consciousness on top of a soothing sensation emanating from the two, golden statues flanking the brass-colored double doors under the arch with the name of the monastery in archaic calligraphy. To him, Nature seemed to overwhelm the fibers of his being. 'This is getting super weird…'

He mentally grimaced when that old drunk's quirk about anything 'super' fluttered through his brain. 'For my sanity…'

A rhythmic, low, and humming chant caught his attention…and he assumed that the sound—and the strange auras—poured off in waves from the figures flanking either side of the doors. The robed statue on the left looked like a winged man with an exaggeratingly huge nose, and the sculpture on the right that mirrored the posture of the one on the left had what appeared to be a mask of an angry god on its face. 'Is that energy coming from both of those statues?' he asked himself. 'This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder…'

Suddenly, the exuded power immediately ceased due to something his part-time instructor did without his awareness and the sturdy, fortified doors cracked open, allowing them safe entry into the pristine wonders of the immaculate monastery.

Naruto let loose a relieved sigh when they were greeted by three old men that walked with purpose toward their soon-to-be houseguests. "I guess it's time for my training!" he uttered in open excitement.

The smile on his face could have lit one thousand nights, if it ever happened.

A/N: Greetings, once again. I apologize on my behalf for falling short of consistency compared to the last year of updating. Some things in RL got in the way (and I won't elaborate on them), so, on that note, I'm sorry for not keeping up with frequent installments. Believe me in when I relay to you that I will see to it that my works will be completed.

I apologize (after the fact) that there really wasn't any progression for this chapter, either, but do expect things to pick up in the next installment, seeing that this update posed merely as a bridge connector into what lies ahead.

However, on that note, please know this, ladies and gentlemen: Due to personal matters beyond my control, and until TFD is slapped with a "Complete" tag on it, both this story and Limit Breaker (once I upload its Chapter Four) will be on temporary hiatus. I feel now that I have stretched myself a little too thin with bouncing around among three incomplete works. Please, don't be mad or flip a table. I have weighed this on my mind ever since real life came knocking on my doorstep. [This bolded print will be eliminated once I pick back up on both side-projects.]

At any rate, some notes of acknowledgement are in order to the usual suspects that are my go-to pre-readers for this installment: EliadS and Arashi the Solar Phoenix.

Well, it's Q&A time again!

Q: Will Sora, a Shippūden-exclusive character, make his appearance in this fic?

A: To be perfectly honest with my audience, I'm still on the fence regarding his inclusion. If my Muse dictates as such, then so shall he be written in. If not, then, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Q: Why was it that I knocked off Zabuza and didn't allow him to live?

A: To be frank and brutally honest, for this continuum, just like with TFD (since these stories run parallel to one another), I don't really need him. On the other hand, I will try my best to keep him alive in my Limit Breaker series, since I do require his…hand in certain matters. Anyhow, the Demon's death is meant as a jump-start for Haku's character growth and development. Don't look any deeper than necessary for my motives.

Next time, Chapter Four: Ignition, where our little rookies undergo trials to have them rethink their worldviews – from at home and abroad.

Until next time, enjoy your day (or night, depending on your time zone), ladies and gentlemen, and show me some love with a review, while you're down this far on the page. =)

Later!

No Kanji Guide this time around…sadly…