Kusari no Naruto

Fourteenth Link

Things remained awkward between Naruto and Haku in the days following her first night in the apartment. True to his word, Naruto did get Haku a futon to sleep on. It mostly remained unused. The girl continued her nightly 'assassinations' of Naruto, which mostly just boiled down to her walking into his room silently, staring at him for a few minutes, Naruto growing agitated at her indecisiveness and eventually, him throwing her out. Sometimes she held an improvised weapon, other times she made one from ice when she thought he wasn't looking.

One time though, the night before Naruto's squad was supposed to return to the village, she simply walked into his room completely unarmed. Naruto could see her in the periphery of his vision, it was damn near impossible for him to sleep with someone else in the room and he had Nezumi to thank for that. She had this strange look on her face, her hands clenching and unclenched before finally, she just left. Not a word was spoken of it the next morning and things only seemed to become even frostier between them; they rarely spoke anymore, save for the occasional acknowledgement or half-hearted grunt.

It didn't help that Naruto's mood was souring tremendously as the week wound down. As he was looking after someone in the village through their parole he couldn't just up and abandon them without good reason. In essence, he was unable to take a mission that would pull him away from the village, or even have the potential to, for more than a day. This meant the high-level missions, the danger and fights that Naruto practically survived on, were wrenched away from him. It was an unforeseen consequence of his spur-of-the-moment decision and it made him more irritable than usual.

Even Anko seemed to sense the shift in his demeanour. She appeared to be avoiding him recently; that, or she was on a mission. Personally, he believed the latter to be more likely. If Anko had a shred of tact in her body, it certainly wasn't anywhere she could use it. Hell, he figured she would jump on his back even if he was swathed in the Kyuubi's Chakra and murdering civilians left and right, because to her it would be amusing. In a way, her lack of presence only served to highlight the change in his routine; a routine that was carefully planned to stop him going on a rampage out of frustration and boredom.

So a new routine was established for the blond sociopath. He would wake up, throw his clock across the room and descend into his workout routine. He would run to the Hokage as early as possible to make sure he got the most strenuous mission available that he could accept, and walk away disappointed when it was nothing even remotely challenging. He would complete whatever it was quickly, return, and hope there was something better that had just come in, only to find there wasn't; there never was. He usually had the evenings off then, so Haku would follow him around as he did his shopping or afternoon training like some lost puppy. Then he'd come home, flop into bed and wait for Haku's inevitable visit that night.

It was enough to say that by the time Monday rolled around again, the frustration was evident in the way he trained with his squad. It had been nearly a month since he had seen them last and yet he treated them more like enemies than comrades of years. He flew through the training in a bloodlust, blacking in and out constantly due to the Kyuubi's influence overwhelming him. Saru suggested that Naruto's frustration was only allowing the Kyuubi more influence over his mind. Naruto disregarded it, using the anger as fuel to suppress the beast inside him, wrenching away its Chakra and bending it to his will.

By the end, his body was beaten, sore and aching, but he felt as though a house had been lifted off his back. Having an opportunity to vent away all that frustration that had built up recently was indescribable, and Haku was even surprised to see a small smile on his face as he cooked dinner that night.

However, while Naruto went home satisfied, happy in the knowledge that these stress relieving sessions would become a weekly affair, his squadmates were far more troubled.