Danzo was furious. “We should destroy her! No, not just her, we should kill the other two as well!”
“I fail to see how killing Naruto and Hinata would accomplish anything,” one of the other jonin put in.
Large scale jonin meetings were rare, but some situations were dire enough to demand them. The kyuubi having an independent body and genin inventing an entirely new form of jutsu, these things qualify. Nearly every jonin other than ANBU were in attendance.
“How many times does the fox need to warrant these meetings before we decide to end it for good?” Danzo argued back. There were murmurs of agreement.
“As many as it takes for Naruto’s activities to prove to be a threat,” the Nara clan head said reasonably. No surprise; Nara clan was always pretty good at cutting through emotion and perception to get at logic and fact.
“He gave the kyuubi an independent body, completely violating the purpose of jinchuriki. How is that not a threat?”
“Completely?” another jonin asked. “That’s a bit of an overstatement. By all indications the girl Kitsune is only a fragment of the kyuubi’s power. Isn’t it the goal of jinchuriki to use their power for the good of the village?” There were murmurs of agreement, largely from the same murmurers. Indecision seemed the rule of the day.
“Are we certain that she is loyal, though?” asked one of Danzo’s supporters.
“She is loyal to Naruto,” Inoichi Yamanaka said. “I personally scanned both her and Naruto and the memories of her creation. Both believe that their lives are tied together; if Naruto dies, Kitsune will cease to exist.”
“What of the kyuubi?”
“I only got a vague sense of it, but it seemed to calm when Kitsune was near Naruto. I believe her siphoning power from the kyuubi lessens the beast’s fury at its imprisonment. We’ll need a sealing master to examine Naruto to be sure of anything else.”
“We will send word to Jiraya at the first opportunity,” Sarutobi rumbled. It was the first thing he said; the best way to manage a disagreement among jonin was let them all talk and then make a final decision before it escalated. “Until we have more information about his seal, I see no reason to eclipse Naruto’s movements. We will, of course, keep him under surveillance to ensure that we can deal with anything the fox may try.”
No one seemed too pleased with the arrangement. “What of the girl?” Danzo asked.
“What about her?” Hiashi Hyuuga grumbled.
“She has undoubtedly been corrupted by the kyuubi,” Danzo insisted. “She can’t possibly continue as the heir-”
“That,” Hiashi said sharply, “is a matter internal to my clan.”
Danzo grimaced. He could feel the new devices slipping through his fingers. “But surely she must be watched as well,” he tried, sounding reasonable.
“Of course,” Hiashi said with equal reason. “I intend to watch her very closely.”
“In the meantime,” Sarutobi continued, “we’re announcing genin teams tomorrow. The list?”
A nameless chunin shuffled some papers. “Team seven, Kakashi. Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Hanou, Naruto Uzumaki. Team eight…” he continued down the familiar list.
“Hinata is much more confidant around Naruto,” Kurenai spoke up. “I believe it is a mistake to separate them.”
“You are suggesting we trade?” Kakashi asked mildly. “Sasuke and Naruto were paired as the rookie of the year and the dead last.”
“Is he still the dead last?” the Nara head asked. “The Yondaime made himself a legend with his Hiraishin technique. If Uzumaki can achieve similar results…”
“A fair point,” Kakashi said, glad that such a troublesome genin would be someone else’s headache. After all, who else could teach Sasuke about the Sharingan? “Then who is dead last now?”
“Probably Shikamaru, if you go by academy records,” Nara said with a quiet laugh. “But as I have reported, when motivated his performance improves greatly.”
“And we want to recreate your own successful team if possible,” Asuma added. “What about the two boys assigned to team eight?”
“The Aburame technique is similar to these devices,” a jonin no one had noticed before said. “We understand using chakra to command an allied intelligence directly.”
“Aburame-san? When did you get here?”
The insect specialist went to a corner and brooded.
“Er, right. Any genin we team up with Hinata and Naruto must be exceptionally youthful to be able to catch up with them!” Might Guy declared.
As usual, the taijutsu specialist was as correct as he was annoying. “Then we should team them up with…”
Naruto stood near the top of a pole near the center of Konoha and looked around. “Hard to believe nothing’s changed.”
Hinata nodded. “I’m sort of glad, though. They need to get used to the new us…that will be hard enough. They don’t have to deal with the idea that we were dead or something, too.”
“So what do we do now?”
Hinata sighed. “I need to get back to the Hyuuga. The elders will want to question me about my juuken. And probably berate me.”
[Do not let them, hime.]
Naruto smirked. “I’d listen to Renard. You did what you had to and are an awesome kunoichi.”
Hinata blushed heavily and grabbed the pole to steady herself. She’d stopped fainting around Naruto, but she was still one of the shyest girls Naruto had ever met. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Excuse me,” came a new voice.
Naruto and Hinata looked down to see an ANBU with his feet firmly planted on the pole, standing as easily as if on flat ground. “Hey, that’s kinda cool,” Naruto said. “How do you do that?”
The ANBU sweatdropped. “That was supposed to be my line.”
Naruto blinked and realized that his feet were firmly planted on an orange mandala of solid chakra that was floating in midair. “Oh. Right. Um, it’s easier than hovering?”
“That is a really scary answer,” the ANBU replied.
The halfdozen others hidden around nearby buildings nodded in agreement. Then they ducked into hiding as Kitsune flew overhead to land on Naruto’s mandala. The foxgirl had no wings or whirlwind or anything else the ANBU could think of to explain her casual defiance of gravity. Or anything that suggested she understood how few ninja could successfully pull off a genuine flying jutsu.
“Naruto!” she snarled, glaring doom at the named genin.
Naruto flinched and seriously considered activating his barrier jacket. “Yes?”
“You didn’t tell me you didn’t clean your room this morning!”
The ANBU stared speechless as the girl they were told was the kyuubi worried at Naruto like an angry mother hen.
“But I did clean my room! After all, we knew the warp was going to reverse and I couldn’t leave it a mess!”
“Not that room! Or that this morning!”
Naruto bapped his fist in his palm. “Oh! You mean my apartment! …oh. Um…”
“Don’t um me! How could you be that big a slob?”
“I was twelve!”
“There are two kinds of food in your apartment. Food that is spoiled, and food that is ramen. Do you know how long it took to clean that crap out?”
“You threw out my ramen!?”
Hinata giggled softly, causing the Uzumaki twins to look at her balefully. “It’s good to see you settling down, Kitsune,” she said happily.
Some days, not even the Hokage could get a break. “Hokage-sama! There is a visitor for you!”
“Unless he has tea strong enough to melt steel, it can wait,” Sarutobi growled.
“Would you like sugar and cream?” came an unfamiliar voice.
The Sandaime looked up to see an unfamiliar green haired woman in a blue outfit. Wait, “You were the one in my crystal ball,” he realized dully. “Why are you carrying a tea tray?”
“Captain Lindy Harlaown, TSAB flagship Arthra. We have some things we should talk about.” She smiled cheerfully. “And you’re not the first leader I’ve had to convince not to see us as a threat. The tea is my own blend, screened by your staff, and everything else they provided themselves. I convinced them that after everything you’ve been through today, you could use something soothing.”
Sarutobi decided he liked this woman.
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(Posted Sat, 09 Jul 2011 22:58)
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