The cat shrugged. "I thought I'd try contacting you in a dream. I could have just teleported you to a distant world and put on the guise of a giant Ningauble Of The Seven Eyes but that seemed overdone. So, do you have a wish?"
Fuu shrugged. "I wish I had a friend."
"A friend?" asked Toltiir. "That's all?"
"A GOOD friend," said Fuu, eyeing the cat which seemed to stretch in ways her eyes didn't really want to track. "Someone who isn't going to hate me or look at me like a monster because of Chomei. Someone who can understand me. At least somewhat."
"Okay, I can do that," mused Toltiir, thinking he could do that and Fuu wasn't that much older than Naruto.
"How about a boyfriend?" asked Fuu, thinking this was a dream anyway. Might as well ask for the moon while she was at it.
"I can put that down as a possibility," admitted Toltiir. "But people and the local gods get really bent out of shape when someone else's mind gets influenced by such things. Which always strikes me as a bit silly as very tiny influences in neurochemicals from a number of causes already form outside influences in those things."
"Humans have something called hypocrisy. I'm well acquainted with it. So you can't do someone else's feelings because of that?" asked Fuu. "What about mine?"
Toltiir blinked, then regarded the girl with the mint-green hair with more curiosity. "You?"
"Hey, if I did that 'love at first sight' with a guy I actually had a chance with, isn't that better than most people get?" asked Fuu. "I mean, this would actually mean I have a chance."
Toltiir blinked, considered, then nodded. "Yeah. I suppose so. Huh. Okay. Though I'll have to manipulate circumstances otherwise you two won't meet until after your death."
"Well, that'd screw up just about any relationship," pointed out Fuu. "It would certainly cut into my enjoyment of it."
"Okay," said Toltiir, putting things in motion. "That was unusual at least."
"You know, you shouldn't do this, Uzumaki."
Naruto nearly dropped the bowl of ramen, then slowly turned and just as slowly looked up into the mask of the ANBU. "Uhm."
The ANBU merely continued to look back at him. Any expression was completely hidden by the mask.
"I just have some ramen for Ramen," said Naruto.
"Do NOT go into the Forest of Death. Do NOT let anything OUT of the Forest of Death."
Naruto nodded, then turned and walked closer to the gate, setting the bowl carefully down near a slightly bent area where the gate met the fence.
A paw reached out from the foliage and drew the bowl in.
Naruto frowned, apparently thinking of something. "Why couldn't I tell you were there?"
"Ninja secret," said the ANBU, vanishing in a swirl of leaves.
"URP!" said something in the bushes on the other side of the fence.
"I gotta learn how to do that," vowed Naruto. "The Getaway Jutsu. Or Exit Stage Right No Jutsu? Whatever they call that. Imagine how fast I could get ramen then!"
Naruto had just disappeared down the trail when the ANBU reappeared. She glanced at the still-moving bush. "I have the distinct feeling that somehow this is going to come around and bite someone in the butt down the road. I just hope it isn't me. What do you think?"
The creature made a rough coughing noise before moving off.
The ANBU nodded. If it HAD replied then she was going to put in for some serious time off.
After she'd shunshined away again, the bushes moved again and green eyes considered what he'd seen.
"One year results," said Inoichi Yamanaka, setting a file down on the desk.
"Must you?" asked his Hokage, eyeing the paperwork.
"You just want the summary?" asked Inoichi.
"Please," said the Hokage.
"After Orochimaru left those insect eggs in the Forest Of Doom, we've recovered twenty of them before they hatched. Ten more after they hatched and the creatures were in the larval form. Two adults. We also found seventeen corpses of those creatures that had been ripped apart by a wild animal."
"Ramen?" asked the Hokage.
"Most likely," said Inoichi.
"Continue," said the Hokage.
"Most psychological damage from that night was dealt with within a few weeks at most. Longterm effects of a more unusual nature have continued," said Inoichi. "Classified as D-Rank secrets right now due to limiting attention to those individuals."
"I had a talk to Naruto about trying not to show off his new talent as a sensory ninja," said the Hokage. "I don't think it'll be a problem when he's awake."
Tenten shouted out and waved at the blond kid, who waved back. Didn't see him that often but she remembered the seven year old from that one night.
So she'd kept an eye out, watched not only him but the people around him, and came to a few conclusions. Whether they were right or not, she didn't know. Just a few words overheard, the glares and shunning sent his way, and she'd put together something to explain it.
The boy's parents were dead but had done something very bad. Uzumaki was a name out of the vanished Whirlpool Hidden Village, which had apparently been targetted by THREE of the other villages joining forces to destroy it. Fuuinjutsu apparently had more uses than storage seals and explosive tags.
Tenten's hobby was investigation and so she had done so. Uzumaki led her to that village, but also to rumors that the attack on Whirlpool had been intended to keep them from researching something big.
So - whatever it had been had been big enough and nasty enough for just the rumor to cause an alliance to destroy Whirlpool. Uzumaki was a family name from Whirlpool and connected to fuuinjutsu as well.
The conclusion was obvious. Most of the adults blamed Naruto's parents for whatever had destroyed Whirlpool. Some sort of forbidden research that had terrified even the battle-hardened shinobi of those villages.
So, she couldn't do much herself as an eight year old Academy student. She could however keep an eye out for anything that might benefit someone she owed a debt to. And if she ever figured out what that research had been about - she'd decide then.
It might be really scary.
Time passed, even for shinobi.
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(Posted Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:58)
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