A Thousand Years

The Discovery

"Your movements are too slow, the enemy would have struck you down by now." Nina, observing Naruto's speed.

He was learning techniques to boost his speed and was just getting the hang of it. She had reasoned that Minato would have liked his son to be as quick as he was and planned to eventually teach him the Flying Raijin, something she learned from Tobirama and had seen Minato perform once before.

"Got it!" Naruto narrowed his eyes in concentration, hands flying through the correct seals. "Renovation jutsu!" His body instantly became lighter and he ran towards a large tree. He was able to run up the tree at a considerable speed and landed on a low branch, staring at Nina hopefully.

"Better. That's enough for today, go home." She dismissed, turning and disappearing behind a line of trees.

Naruto smiled proudly and jumped off the branch, heading home as well.

Nina lay flat on her bed, eyes closed, her mind wandered.

She thought about when the next Hokage would come into power, it had been well over a month since Hiruzen had passed, she had even went to see his grave after the funeral. She spoke with him for a bit, something she tended to do when visiting lost friends. Though she knew there was no need to make peace with anything, though she wished that she could have told him the truth about herself, he deserved to know.

A chuckle escaped her lips. He must have believed that she was old and close to death, given that she was an adult when he was a child.

If only that were true.

She thought about how Kushina was still adamant about keeping Naruto away from his training, and though she hadn't spoken to her in person, people around the village seem to think that it was only a matter of time before she would snap.

She thought about how Naruto was greatly improving. In the last six months, he's gone from barely being able to identify his own chakra to perfectly executing a wide variety of jutsus. She certainly swa great things for him in the future.

Nina was content with thinking about these things. All she needed to do was not think about the problem at hand, all she needed to do was hold off on taking action.

But she couldn't.

That humanoid creature, that boy from the pit, and him...

What was really going on?

"Sensei! Did you hear? The academy students are graduating today!" Naruto exclaimed after training one day.

Nina turned her attention to him.

"Is that so? I suppose that means your Uchiha friend is finishing his basic training, yes?" She recalled the young boy from that day Naruto had spoken to him.

"Yea! And since the graduation is in a few hours, I was wondering if you could come with me!" He asked.

She gave him a puzzled look.

"Why would that be necessary?" She questioned.

Naruto stared at the ground, twiddling his thumbs.

"Well... you know... I kinda told Sasuke that I would be there and since he still doesn't believe I have a sensei I said you would be coming along..." He mumbled quickly.

"Naruto." She began.

"I know! It's wrong to make promises I can't guarantee but could you pleeeease come to the ceremony?" He squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his hands in front of him.

Nina sighed heavily.

"Never again do I wish to be involved in anything like this, understood?"

Naruto smiled and nodded furiously.