Kakanaru: The pain behind Naruto's mask

12

Walking up to Inari's room, I knocked. "What do you want?" I heard tears in his voice. "It's Naruto, may I come in?" I heard a small voice say, "I don't care." Opening the door, I walked over and sat by Inari. "I heard about your father," I said, "now will you let me tell you the story of those on my team?" Inari looked skeptical that it would make a difference, but he nodded anyway. "Sasuke is 12 years old, the same as me, and a few years back his entire clan was slaughtered by his older brother." Inari's eyes went wide. "Kakashi, our sensei, lost his comrades. And 12 years ago his sensei and his sensei's wife, my parents, were killed. Until just recently I have never smiled, and was abused and neglected most of my life. Sakura is from a civilian family, so her chakra isn't much, and as a result, despite her intelligence, she struggles to not be seen as the weak link. I know you think there are no heroes, but I think my comrades are heroes just for making it through another day. I can understand wanting to cry. But you have a choice. You can keep crying, saying your too weak to do anything, or you can decide to stop crying and be strong. And when you feel like you just aren't strong enough, don't hesitate to rely on the people who care about you. Gato is strong because he has money to hire strong people. Take that away and no one is left but a weak little man. You have people beside you, without having money like Gato, and you can become strong, whereas he will always be weak." I left him with those words.
We had a week before Zabuza was supposed to recover, so we continued training. Sasuke climbing trees, and Sakura started learning water walking. I went off on my own, about a mile away from the others, and started doing my own training. First, I worked on increasing my chakra reserves even further. I sat on the ground cross legged, and forced my chakra out of every chakra point. This would leave me exhausted, but thanks to the recovery gift Kurama gave me my chakra would be restored in less than 10 minutes. By forcing out all of my chakra repeatedly, my chakra reserves would have to adapt to my body's need for chakra, as a result expanding. Second, I created several seals that could store chakra natures. This way, even someone who hasn't developed a chakra nature, or someone who has a different chakra nature, can use them until the chakra in the seal runs out. Third, I worked on combining my wind and fire natures into the Rasengan that Jeraiya taught me. It took most of the night, but I finally completed it. Exhausted, I fell asleep right then and there.
It felt like I'd just closed my eyes when I was shaken awake. "You shouldn't sleep out here, you'll catch cold." A guy with long hair and a feminine face spoke. "Sorry," I said sheepishly. "I was training, but I guess I went too far." I usually overdid it a bit. And with Kurama back at the apartment, there was no one to stop me from going overboard. "Why do you train so hard?" The boy said. I noticed he had a basket of herbs in his hand. Something seemed familiar about him, so I sent out a wave of chakra to analyze his chakra signature. "Well, Hunter nin, I train because there are people I want to protect." The Hunter seemed mildly surprised. "You knew?" I nodded. I asked, "What's your name?" After a pause he answered me. "Haku." "Well, Haku, if you want to help Zabuza, burning lavender acts as a muscle relaxant. Oregano being served with his meals should provide necessary nutrients." I walked away before he asked me how I knew that.
Arriving back at the house, I was reluctant to enter. Steeling my nerves, I opened the door. "WHERE WERE YOU? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED WE WERE? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?" Sakura screeched. The last question I assumed was because of the scorch marks on my outfit. "In answer to the first question, I fell asleep in the forest. In answer to the second question, I doubt you were worried at all, Sakura. In answer to the third question, I was training." Sasuke asked a question next. "What kind of training leaves you burned like that?" I looked at him. "I was learning a new spin on an old jutsu." I wasn't going to tell him any more than that. "I only got about ten minutes of sleep, so I'm going to go to bed now. Wake me up when it's time to go." With that I went to the bedroom and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.