"Politics," said Naruto.
"I don't get it," said Sakura.
Naruto sighed. "Look. Those three missing-nin? Their original village wanted them back for interrogation and started raising a stink. So I got a mock-trial and a black mark on my record for failing to take them in a non-fatal manner when it was possible for me to have done it that way."
Sasuke snorted.
"Politics don't always have to make sense," pointed out Naruto.
Sasuke frowned but inclined his head, acknowledging the point.
"There's other reasons," said Naruto. "And, if I avoid killing anyone unnecessarily for awhile, they'll clear my record after a year or so."
"'Other reasons'? Such as?" pressed Sakura. Something, other than age, was seriously off about Naruto.
"Classified," said Naruto, finishing his tea and putting the bottle away.
"So what now?" asked Sakura, deciding she'd ask Kakashi-sensei later and see if she could get more information that way.
"- so we'll be on patrol and occasionally working with other genin teams," said Kakashi. With a flick of his wrist he unrolled a map. "Naruto? Can you go turn in the mission briefing?"
"Sir," said Naruto, vanishing as soon as he'd gotten the scroll.
"You indicated you wanted to talk to me, Sakura?" asked Kakashi.
"Neither I nor Sasuke have these 'black marks' right, Kakashi-sensei?" asked the pink-haired girl.
"No," said Kakashi. "Is that all you're worried about?"
"No," said Sakura. "If that's really Naruto..."
"It is," said Kakashi.
"Why does he have this thing? He killed enemy nin who were in our village," said Sakura. "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Politics," said Kakashi.
"A little more detail would be nice, Kakashi-sensei," said Sakura drily.
"Hmmm," hmmmed Kakashi. "Okay." Sakura didn't notice Sasuke paying attention, which was Sasuke's intention as his experience taught him that when one of his fangirls was paying attention to him - their brains shut down and you couldn't get anything useful out of them.
"According to what I've read and confirmed, Naruto spent close to three years in a world where the old stories about vampires and zombies and such things were real," said Kakashi. "Humanity didn't do well in that world. Naruto had to grow up, grow up fast, and take everything dead serious because if he didn't - more people died. He apparently saw a lot of death and was operating under high stress for a considerable time. He's a little... fragile right now."
"Naruto - fragile?" asked Sakura, who was having trouble with a lot of this pertaining to Naruto Uzumaki.
"Well, yes," said Kakashi. "You may have noticed that a lot of the special jonin and above ranks develop a few odd habits. That's because of the stress of some missions and the constant kill-or-be-killed that one gets in the field for extended periods. Naruto, right now, needs to depressurize and get used to working with people again."
"Naruto," said Sakura. "Working with people."
"Right," said Kakashi. "So we'll be working occasionally with other teams while we're on this extended mission. Sasuke, you've got some experience with insanely traumatic events so I can count on you to not overly antagonize a potentially kill-crazy team-mate, right?"
"Hn," indicated Sasuke, looking more thoughtful than brooding as he contemplated that.
"And Sakura, you've gotten excellent test scores in the Academy," said Kakashi, not mentioning that most of those tests had a practical value of zero in the field. "So I can count on you doing the intelligent thing and NOT pushing Naruto to where he might kill you. Right?"
"Oh come on, Kakashi-sensei," said Sakura. "This is NARUTO. How dangerous could he really be?"
Kakashi and Sasuke stared at Sakura for a few moments.
Sasuke broke that silence first. "Reality filter?"
"Possibly," acknowledged Kakashi. "Well, this might be a bit trickier than originally planned."
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(Posted Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:31)
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