Sage

Ch.4

"-ruto... Naruto... Naruto!" The voice seemed to echo in his head like he was underwater.

"Wuh?" The blonde wearily blinked his eyes open, wincing as he managed to stare directly into a ceiling light. His eyes clenched shut as it felt like he was being repeatedly smacked over the head, no wait...

"Ah! What was that for old man!?" The blonde glared angrily at the wizened monk who only offered an innocence smile in return, shakujou returning to its place behind him.

"Good you're up Naruto-kun, we were beginning to worry." Naruto merely glared at Chukaku, rubbing his head as he mumbled a few choice curses under his breath.

"You got a funny way of showing it master." His eyes not even opening for a second the older monk began reached around his back for the staff again.

"What was that my boy?" The blonde immediately had his hands up in front of him, an strained grin in his face as he attempted to placate the irritated monk.

"Nothing! Nothing master." Chukaku just continued to smile but with a sigh of relief Naruto noted the staff had once again disappeared to that null space that Chukaku seemed to be able to draw upon at will.

"Good, my ears aren't what they used to be so I had to be sure." Naruto felt a large drop of sweat gather by his brow before he suddenly looked around, a more intent look on his features.

"Sora! How is he?" He noticed he was back in his room, the blinds closed for all the good they did at keeping out the irritating rays of light from the early morning.

"Oh don't worry about that, Sora's fine. In fact he woke up a few hours before you did, I believe he's out training right now." Naruto blinked in surprise at that, he didn't know what was going on with Sora but it seemed serious, just how long had the two been out? As if sensing Naruto's thoughts exactly Chukaku gave a small chuckle as he gestured towards the wall clock, proudly displaying that it was around midday. "Don't worry boy, you were only out for the night, both you boys didn't have a scratch on you after a few hours." Again Naruto blinked in surprise, he was no medic but he was sure wounds like they had weren't supposed to heal that quickly.

"Wait, training?" Chukaku just hummed out a yes as he bobbed his head once in the affirmative as the blonde took the opportunity to pull himself up into a seiza position. "Shouldn't he be resting or something?" The older monk merely gave a knowing smile as he looked out the window, listening out for the usual sounds of the bird song as well as the rhythmic tapping of the Shishi-odoshi.

"He was rather insistent. I believe he had some issues to work out and nothing beats some hardy exercise to clear one's head." Naruto frowned at the word 'issues', usually Sora would come to him if he had problems and vice-versa; they were supposed to be friends. Speaking of which, Naruto suddenly had a thought as he remembered back on his strange encounter with the Kyuubi, it felt far too real to be a dream but he didn't know what to make of it.

"Umm Master?" Chukaku only raised a brow as a single eye glanced in his direction but Naruto had known him long enough to know that meant he was listening. "I had a strange dream while I was unconscious, there was this strange place full of corridors and pipes that I was wandering through and then there was this giant room with a huge cage." At the mention of a cave Naruto suddenly found himself at the full attention of the head monk.

"And did you see what was behind the cage?" Naruto blinked in surprise; it almost looked like Chukaku was taking what Naruto said seriously.

"Yeah, at first it was just some big eyes and teeth but when I left I caught a glimpse of it; it was a massive orange fox that called itself the Kyuubi." Naruto was shocked to see Chukaku's eyes open in surprise; he had never seen the head monk's eyes open before.