Acceptance Chapter 5: Acceptance Part II, a naruto fanfic

Acceptance: A Naruto Story

Chapter 5: Acceptance

By: T.E. Rose

Disclaimer: I do not now nor will I ever own Naruto or any of its characters, much to my great displeasure.

Publish date: September 30, 2011

A/N: Well here it is, finally. I hope that it's not too disappointing considering the exceptionally long wait that I made you all suffer through. A wait for which I cannot apologize enough. However once will have to suffice, so here it is…

...I am most terribly sorry for the tardiness of this piece...

There now that that is out of the way we can move on to more important matters. First off I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review, be it with compliments or criticism. They have meant a great deal to me and have kept me working on this piece when I had initially been content to leave it simply as a One-shot, but was persuaded to add more to it by your responses.

Which is exactly what lead to the current extended wait. I had no idea where it was that I was going to take this story or for that matter what I was going to write. As for this segment in particular I had no Idea what it was I wanted to write. If they were older, If they had children, if Naruto was deceased or some other circumstance as this is a sort of epilogue. Finally after some mental deliberation I have decided on what you find below.

I hope this, being the final installment, is to your liking. Now please, if you would be so kind, read and review.

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I walk through the storms darkness and down a path unknown to my feet. Towards a place where the clouds have parted and the sun's light may warm me.

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Ino stretched beneath her dark purple down comforter luxuriating in the warm embrace of both it and her very comfortable bed. Smiling as she recalled the very pleasant dream she had just been having before she had woken. Glancing over towards the lone window in her room, one she had become accustomed to peering out at night, she watched the dust particles that danced in the narrow stream of sunlight that pierced through the narrow gap between the two pieces of deep purple linen.

As she did this though the smile she had awoken with faded, turning instead into a slight frown. This frown however was brought on not by some stray thought concerning her now deceased sensei, as it had been in recent weeks, but rather by the frustrating disappearance of a certain blond haired blue eyed boy.

Naruto had, the day following the night of her having given him a kiss, vanished from Konoha altogether it seemed. She had even gone so far as to seek out several of their mutual friends, over the course of the past week, none of whom could recall seeing the boisterous blond at all. A fact that had, to an extent, disturbed, given all of the secrets and information that she was now privy to. Surely if he had truly gone missing Lady Tsunade would have raised an alarm. Which meant that someone knew where the boy was. Someone whom she would have to find and compel to share.

With a frustrated huff Ino climbed from her bed, regretfully untangling herself from her bed clothes and set about getting ready to once more venture out into the world, one she had become increasing dissatisfied with. She had an early shift at the hospital, one she was now taking more and more regularly.

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Naruto sat down hard on the ground his legs and arms heavy with fatigue, sweat streaming down his face and his shirt clinging to his skin.

He was not sitting up for long before he found himself lying flat on his back no longer able to hold himself up. Staring up through the narrow gaps in the leafy canopy overhead that blanketed the forest floor in dappled shadows he watched as clouds drifted by far overhead. Unlike Shikamaru however he took little pleasure from the activity.

Perhaps it was because he had never been one to sit still for more than twenty seconds at a time if it could be helped. Or, more likely, it was the fact that he could not make heads not tails of what he was to do concerning Ino.

True she was gorgeous, smart, fun and funny but he was Naruto Uzumaki, the pariah of Konohagakure no Sato. He had no desire for the stigma associated with him to be at all transferred in any way, no matter how small, to either Ino or the Yamanaka family as a whole. They did not deserve to be treated as he was by the uninformed masses. His was a treatment that he would wish to foist upon no one. Something he was sure would happen if he were to openly engage in a romantic relationship with Ino.

In fact he was quite sure that the reason no on suspected one at the present, not that there was but their relationship from an outside perspective could have been easily misconstrued, was because they had aside from one lunch only spent much time together at night, when their was no one around the avenues of Konoha vacant. Again, he was quite, a situation that from an outside perspective could be easily misconstrued had anyone been privy to it.

He was quite glad he'd not had occasion or need to speak to Ino's father since any of his late night excursions with his daughter. He was quite certain that it would not be a pleasant conversation. In fact it would in all likelihood be the exact opposite of pleasant. The fact that that man was an interrogation specialist was hovering ever at the forefront of Naruto's mind.

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With a sigh Ino went about her rounds, she was now picking up a weekly shift at the hospital in the Intensive Care Unit. She had quickly asserted herself as one of the more skilled part time practitioner's. Her skill was now second only to her once best friend, then rival and now once more friend, Sakura, as far as people in their age group went. Several of the senior members of the medical staff had tried to convince her that she should make the hospital her profession, rather than fieldwork.

She had however little desire to work in the sterile environment or under the humming fluorescent lights more than she already was. She very much preferred doing missions, plus she felt that it was where her newly acquired talents belonged. Healing those whose injuries in the field could quickly turn fatal before they could manage to return to Konoha and receive medical attention.

In fact it was her firm belief that the Hokage should make the learning of medical techniques an optional course, like cryptography or economics, at the academy for the students there. They already taught basic anatomy and physiology would it really be such a burden to arrange another class for those students who were interested in the prospect of learning healing techniques?

Putting that thought aside Ino instead set about the arduous task of completing her paperwork so that she might go to lunch. After which she was resolved to finally figure out where it was that Naruto had sequestered himself.

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Naruto stripped off his shirt and shed his pants before jumping into the basin at the base of the waterfall he stank quite badly somewhere between an old shoe and Jiraiya after a bender.

Floating on top of the foaming water Naruto relaxed for the first time in more than a week. He had not even been home. He had made habit over the past few days of training until he passed out, waking up and doing it again. All the while studiously avoiding his personal problems, a solution he found infinitely more elegant than dealing with them.

Submerging himself beneath the surface of the cool water once more he closed his eyes before breaking the surface.

The second his head pierced the surface once more after its submersion he found it struck, rather sharply, by a stick the length of his forearm and weighing some three pounds.

"Oi!" grumbled Naruto indignantly. Rubbing the spot which even now was throbbing dully Naruto set his feet down on the bottom of the pool while peering around to see who it was that had thrown the offending object which even now floated mocking on top of the water not a foot from him having been pushed back due to the waves emanating from the crash of water descending violently into the pool from the falls.

Within moments of beginning his search his eyes lighted on the one person he had been avoiding. She looked incredibly annoyed. If the arched eyebrow, tapping foot, crossed arms and fearsome scowl that currently marred her delicate features were any indication.

'Shit...' Naruto chuckled uncomfortably, his trademark grin stretching over his whisker marked visage while his hand, that had been rubbing the sore spot on the top of his head, now moved to the back of his head which he began rubbing in his usual sheepish manner.

He watched with more than some apprehension as Ino stomped over to the edge of the pool and toes planted at the edge of the water and waging an admonishing finger at him. "No!" she growled out at him through clenched teeth.

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Ino stomped over to the edge of the pool her toes tickled by the water as it lapped the edges of the basin. She had upon entering the clearing been momentarily struck by it.

Her transfixion had nothing to do with the fact that the boy she had, over the past few weeks, began to gradually develop feelings of a rather intense nature for was floating on top of the water in nothing but his boxer shorts. Boxer shorts that given there damp nature clung to him in a way that left very little to the imagination, and it most certainly had nothing to do with the light blush than now dusted her cheeks. Nope, nothing at all. Nothing what so ever. Okay. Perhaps a very little. If she were being honest with herself...

She watched as he put his feet down on the pools sandy bottom and rubbed his head with his trademark grin spreading across his face. She waved an admonishing finger back and forth at the blond as he made to look adorable. A turn of events she was sure would make it nearly impossible for her to continue to be vexed with him, "No!" she ground out through clenched teeth.

"No! No! No! It will not do, don't you dare look adorable when I am here to be cross with you." Ino admonished eyes narrowed dangerously as she loomed ominously over him, only to pout cutely when he merely continued to look a combination of embarrassed and sheepish.

"Oh very well. I can see you can't help it." Withdrawing her finger she instead folded her arms across herself contenting herself with merely glaring down at her fellow blond.

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Naruto did not know what to say to Ino at first, everything that he had planned on saying to her upon seeing her again had momentarily become stuck in his throat and would not be dislodged. He did not have it in himself to do what he felt, what he knew, must be done.

He looked up at the highly agitated girl who standing on the bank loomed over him ominously, her foot tapping a steady cadence in the shallow line of water that lapped the shore. Clearly, waiting for him to say something.

Finally tired of waiting she broke the extremely tense silence that had settled over them. "Well?" snapped Ino waspishly, an eyebrow arching quizzically in a manner that had Naruto flashing back to the nights when she would look down at him from her window.

Naruto's hand dropped from the back of his head to trail in the water as he continued to stare up at the blue-eyed beauty that he had developed significant feelings for over the past fortnight.

"What do you want from me Ino?" Naruto asked, his entire manner shifting from embarrassed and confused to depressed and pleading. Desperate.

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Ino noticed the drastic shift in her fellow blond's demeanor and did not know what to say in response to him and suddenly felt very awkward. She had caught up in her own passions, neglected to think of Naruto's. "Forgive me. Please. I… I just… I just thought that… but no… Your affections are directed towards Sakura. As they always have been." Spoke the pale haired girl, her voice cracking slightly at the end, before she turned on her heal and fled from the clearing. Leaving behind a stunned Naruto standing alone in the waist deep water.

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Naruto was stunned; well perhaps flabbergasted was a more accurate description of what he was. He did know one thing though if he went after her then he would admit his feelings for her, something he wanted to do more than anything, but was afraid of the backlash it would cause and so had refrained from doing the one thing in world he was sure would make him happier than anyone one had ever been or had a right to be.

If he let her go, it would be the single hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Far harder than living alone, in a vast sea of people who want nothing more than to ignore your very presence. Far harder than being the shame and guilt of his best friend, brother in all but blood, turning traitor and failing to stop him. Far harder, then bearing the weight of the death of a most beloved and respected shinobi, sensei and father. Yes, far harder…

In the span of a brief few moments he made a decision that would alter his course as a maelstrom will alter that of a ship.

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Cloud cover blinded the moon and a chill autumn breeze passed through the vacant thoroughfares of Konoha unimpeded by the usual bustle of the hidden village and yet it did not affect him as he stood there numb and unfeeling staring up at her window. She smiled down at him, a warm tender smile finding its way to her features.

He stood there for a long time staring up at her and she down at him. Her hands reached for either side of the window and he knew she was about to draw her curtains shut, seeing this prompted him to do the thing he had, only a few hours ago told her for the first time.

"I love you." His voice was little more than a whisper as it was carried away on the wind but even though she did not hear him she had understood and had mouthed the same to him despite the fact that he could not hear her before drawing the curtains closed.

Heart light and enormously happy Naruto put his hands in his pockets and began the trek home. For once the weight of the world seemed to have settled on someone else, because for tonight at least it most certainly was not on his shoulders.

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I walk through the storms darkness and down a path unknown to my feet. Towards a place where the clouds have parted and the sun's light may warm me.