Homecoming

Part Ten
Animosity

"Naruto-sensei!" Kenji caught up with Naruto's fast pacing. Naruto lowered his eyes to the boy, before throwing a glance at the other two team members, who were ambling side by side in silence behind.

"We've been walking for a long time! When are we going to arrive already?" the boy asked.

"We've only been walking for 20 minutes…" Naruto said. "But I don't think it's very far, considering the evil postmenopausal hag is visiting Hokage every friggin day…"

Kenji blinked at him. "Post what?"

"Uh, never mind!" Naruto laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.

"When are we going to have a REAL mission? Some cool one?" Kenji asked with a frown.

"You're rookies, so you get the crappiest D missions, when you'll be ready you'll get a cool one, maybe even C ranked." He threw another look behind him at the two sulking children and returned his stare to Kenji. "How can they walk for twenty minutes without saying a word?" he asked in a whisper.

"Beats me!" Kenji shrugged. "Ryoichi didn't even curse me once. That is odd," he chirped.

"They must be so thrilled about this mission," Naruto chuckled.

"Oh, yeah… we're so thrilled…" Hikari muttered.

"Hmmph." Ryoichi shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head. "At least it's only a little painting job… we'll finish in ten minutes, go home and then I don't have to see you idiots until tomorrow."

"Well, smartie, I live in the same house – and don't call me an idiot you bastard!" Kenji glowered at him.

"Hey, what's that?" Hikari asked and pointed, before Kenji had a chance to start a fight with his brother.

They all stopped walking, looking at the huge wall that spread a few feet in front of them, blocking the entire view of the forest. Naruto urged them to follow him, until they stood in front of the gate.

Naruto whistled as he glanced up, assessing the height of the wall. The width wasn't visible.

"What does it say? I can't read with all the junk around…" Kenji said as his eyes skimmed over all the symbols and kanji scribbled on the gate, spreading onto the graffiti-covered walls.

Ryoichi took a step back. "Don't tell me…"

Naruto scratched his head and looked up at the wall again, trying to see the end of it.

"Well, I should have known the fire country's lord and his wife would live in a mansion. …does it say 'old hag' in this one?" Naruto traced one of the slogans with his fingers.

Ryoichi dropped his backpack to the ground in a loud thud, making Naruto turn around and look at him.

"I absolutely refuse to do it," he said quietly.

"What?" Kenji blinked and looked back and forth between his brother and the wall. "Is the mission to paint *this* wall?"

"Gee, how did you manage to figure that out?" Hikari asked idly.

Naruto sighed. "I know this isn't an ideal mission, but it's a mission nonetheless."

"I refuse to do it. I don't care how much they're paying the village-"

"Probably not a lot…" Naruto muttered under his breath.

"I absolutely refuse to do this mission. I don't want-"

"There's no I in team," Naruto interrupted in a low voice.

Ryoichi narrowed his eyes and looked at the blond Jounin. Naruto didn't lower his eyes and for a moment they were having a glaring contest.

"Well," Hikari stepped in. "Technically, the two of us refusing the mission making it a 'we'… I'm pretty sure Kenji doesn't want this mission either." Both Hikari and Ryoichi looked at Kenji.

Kenji swallowed and looked at his comrades, then at his teacher. "Well…" he hesitated.

"You can't refuse a mission. Especially not when it's for the Fire Country's lord, I'm sorry. I don't like it either, but that's what we have to do, and we'll do it." He looked behind him at the gate. "The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll finish."

"It's gonna take days, if not weeks," Hikari commented.

"No, the two other rookie teams are working on this as well…" Naruto hummed. "Probably on the other side."

Ryoichi and Hikari exchanged looks. Hikari shrugged and Ryoichi nodded in response. "We don't want to do it."

***

"Oh, it's about time you've showed up!" a short, fat woman, dressed in flamboyant clothing and gaudy jewelry welcomed them. "The other two teams have already started working! I'm going to have to deduct from your payment for this tardiness!" she waved her index finger. Her green, beady eyes reminded Naruto of slime.

'Damn old hag,' he mouthed inaudibly and sighed. "I'm very sorry, ma'am."

The lord's wife gave out a haughty huff and scanned Naruto and his team. "Cute children." She tapped her finger over her chin. "But are they capable of this job? They seem weak…"

"Hey, who-" Kenji was quickly hushed by Naruto, who grabbed him and covered his mouth.

Naruto smiled tightly at the woman. "They're energetic, don't worry."

"That was rude, I'm going to tell Tsunade-san how inappropriately her ninjas are behaving. I demanded qualified ninjas for this job."

"I assure you, they are," Naruto absently clutched Kenji's mouth tighter until the boy started squirming under his hold.

"What's your name, little one?" the woman looked at Ryoichi. The boy continued to glare at her stoically. "You know it's polite to reply when someone asks you a question."

"Uh, they've.. uh, they can't speak right now." Naruto released Kenji and scratched his head.

"How come?"

"Well, uh, they've temporarily lost the ability to speak."

"Is it going to hurt their productivity?"

"No, of course not." Naruto put his hand on Kenji's head. "They're good ninjas."

"Well, I guess not talking during work will be even more efficient."

"Ah, there's no danger there," Naruto faked a polite smile at her. "I guess, we should get started."

"Yes, well, all the paint buckets and everything you need are on the location. I expect you to do a thorough job and leave the walls clean of this vandalism."

"We're going to do our best!" Naruto promised and nudged Kenji to walk out of the room. "Come on, Ryoichi, Hikari."

Before he left, he faced the lord's wife again. "I assume we'll be receiving accommodations and proper meals during our stay, ma'am?"

"You assume wrong. Your village is not far, you'll arrive here every day until you finish your job, and bring food with you. I'm not paying to feed you."

"Stingy…" Naruto hissed under his breath.

"I don't like that expression of yours, get to work now." She waved her fingers at him.

***

Naruto's eyes followed his three students as they assumed their position in front of the dreadfully vast wall. As he suspected, Kenji was the first to "attack" the wall. He picked up his dripping brush and started painting the wall energetically in circles while his comrades looked at him in a raised eyebrow.

Hikari sighed and then picked up her own paintbrush and started moving it gracefully up and down the wall she was facing. She wasn't doing it as fast and forceful as Kenji, but her strokes were precise and covered the graffiti more efficiently than the boy's attempts.

Naruto turned to look at Ryoichi. The young boy stopped looking at his brother and started assessing the height of the wall, before dropping his stare to the paint bucket. After a long moment, he picked up the brush and turned his head to glower at Naruto before joining his teammates and painting the wall.

Naruto smirked to himself and opened up a cup ramen. He sat down under a tree and took out his chopsticks, as he watched the children painting.

Ryoichi continued to sulk and paint, paint and sulk, slowly making his way to Hikari's part of the wall, until their shoulders touched.

"Hikari," he whispered without slowing his brush strokes.

"Hm?" she looked at him.

"About time that genjutsu wore off…" he grumbled. "I'm so going to report him."

"I don't think anyone would care about what we have to say," she said with a shrug.

"I'll talk to my father. If this idiot doesn’t get us a C-rank mission soon, we can get him replaced. My father has power, and yours too."

"Yes, but…" Hikari hesitated.

"If we turn against him together, they'll relieve him from post…" he glanced briefly at Kenji who seemed indulged in his work. "I don't want Kenji with me on the team, but I guess he could help us get rid of that Naruto. He will only listen to you though."

Hikari rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. "Well… I know Naruto-sensei is a clumsy idiot… but my father said he's all right…"

"Your father knows him?" Ryoichi raised his eyebrow in surprise.

"Well, he didn't really care to explain… and I didn't really care to listen…" Hikari shrugged again. "But he said Naruto-sensei is all right… stupid, impatient and impulsive-"

"See? We don't need such a teacher," Ryoichi hissed, interrupting her.

"But he said he's incredibly strong…"

"Him?" Ryoichi snorted. "I don't think so… my father doesn't even want to hear his name."

"Ryo-kun… do you really want to do such a thing?" Hikari asked.

Before Ryoichi had a chance to respond, Kenji slammed into him, knocking him to the ground, while trying to follow a big, bold graffiti message.

"You idiot! What the hell are you doing?!" Ryoichi yelled, jumping to his feet.

"Sorry, sorry, you were in the way…" Kenji mumbled in embarrassment.

"You can't even paint the stupid wall right?! You're so useless, Kenji!" Ryoichi continued yelling at him. "Look at the wall! Does it look painted?!"

"Shut up! Like you're doing any better!" Kenji yelled back at him. "You haven't painted even half of what I have!"

"Well, stupid…" Ryoichi snarled. "Look at my part and yours… at least I won't have to go over it again!"

"Hey, aren't we chatty today?" Naruto stood between the two boys.

"Mou…" Hikari huffed and continued painting the wall.

"I guess you need more challenge," Naruto said looking between the two boys who were glaring at each other. "I wasn't planning on teaching you this thing so early, but I guess we could give it a try."

"I don't want to study any of your stupid things!" Ryoichi blurted in anger.

"Shut up, asshole!" Kenji yelled at him. "Don't insult Naruto-sensei!"

"That's okay, Kenji." Naruto put his hand on Kenji's shoulder. "He just needs to calm down."

"I don't want to learn your stupid skills." Ryoichi threw down his brush.

"Fine, then continue doing what you were doing. Hikari, come over here." Naruto pushed Kenji aside and looked at the blonde girl. She gave Ryoichi a worried glance, before walking over to Naruto.

"We're going to try and paint the wall from top to bottom," Naruto explained.

"That's the challenge?" Hikari asked. "It's rather tiresome… we have to get the ladders from-"

"Without ladders," Naruto intoned.

Ryoichi, who continued painting the wall, released an audible huff as he glanced at his sensei and comrades.

"Huh?" both students asked in confusion.

"With a method of chakra control. Like I said, I was going to teach it to you later, but we can do it now. The first time I used it, my own sensei taught us to walk on trees. You're going to walk on the wall, instead."

"Walk on the wall?" Kenji asked skeptically.

"Hmmph," Ryoichi sneered.

"You can listen too," Naruto told the boy as he started explaining to the children the basic rules of the chakra control method.

"I'll show you how it's done." Naruto smiled and looked up at the wall.

Kenji and Hikari gaped as they watched Naruto walking up on the wall, as if he was a pedestrian taking a stroll in the park. Even Ryoichi looked in surprise as Naruto continued to walk up the wall.

"Wow… cool!" Kenji whispered. "No hands…"

"If I go higher I won't be able to talk to you," Naruto said as he turned around to face the children. "This is what you have to do. From experience, I don't think you'd be able to just walk in your first time, so you're gonna have to run. And instead of marking with a kunai, you will use your paintbrush." He started walking down until he reached the ground. "Well, go ahead, try it."

"Looks easy," Kenji said as he faced the wall, clutching his hand around his brush. "I'll master it in no time!"

"Try your best." Naruto smiled. He picked a paintbrush and walked over to Ryoichi, painting the wall next to him.

"Ow, shit!" Kenji yelped as his feet cracked the wall and he fell down, landing on his butt.

"If you're going to fall, at least land on your feet," Hikari said from above and all three males looked up at her in amazement.

"Is this a girl thing?" Naruto wondered aloud, causing Ryoichi to look up at him.

"I can do it!" Kenji jumped back on his feet and tried again.

***

Naruto continued painting peacefully, occasionally looking at the kids' progress. Hikari was the first to reach the top. She knew to control her chakra amazingly well and painted over the slogans that flaunted too high from the ground to reach without a ladder.

Kenji however forgot about the painting mission and diverted all his energy to reach the top of the wall, which he continued to fail miserably. Naruto could see he was using too much chakra, making the wall crack under his feet.

'Same as Sasuke…' His mind flashed back to his tree climbing competition with Sasuke, at least seventeen years before.

Ryoichi continued to paint and watch his brother's attempts. Naruto could tell the child was burning to try it out as well and only his pride kept him down on the ground.

"Your brother is pretty good," Naruto said without looking down at Ryoichi.

"Hmmph, I don't know. Doesn't look that brilliant to me," Ryoichi muttered. "All he does is exercising his landings."

"Well, at least he's trying, more than I can say for you."

"I don't care… it's stupid…" Ryoichi said, but not so decisively.

'Stupid pride. I just need one more push…' Naruto smirked and looked at the boy.

"Well, I'm sure even if you've tried, your brother would still be better than you," he drawled.

"There's no way." Ryoichi furrowed his brow. "He'll never be better than me in anything."

"Well, can you prove it?" Naruto raised his eyebrow.

"I'll prove it!" Ryoichi grabbed tight his brush and took a step away from the wall.

***

"All right, that's enough for today!" Naruto shouted at the direction of the two boys.

"They won't listen to you now," Hikari said and put her brush in the bucket and closed the lid.

Naruto stepped over and grabbed both boys by the collars when they landed on the ground. "I said that's enough."

"We haven't reached the top yet!" Kenji protest and Ryoichi silently agreed.

"Well, the sun is going to set soon and we need to go back to the village. I won't leave you alone here with monsters like the lord's wife around."

"We haven't finished painting!" Kenji tried another tactic.

"Regrettably, we have to come here every day until we finish, so you'll have time to practice," Naruto sighed. "Besides, you need to eat well and rest to gather your chakra. It won't get you to the top if you drain yourself and die."

***

Naruto sighed as he walked out of the administrative building. The children long gone to their homes, he planned to shower, grab a cup ramen and go to sleep early.

"Unfortunately, things don't go as I plan…" he mumbled as he looked at the silhouette of the man in front of him.

"Are you going to stalk me every evening now?" he asked dryly as his eyes traveled over Sasuke's torso and broad shoulders, until he met his dark eyes.

Sasuke contemplated his response for a moment, before deciding to go straight to the point.

"Get the children a C-rank mission," he said quietly.

Naruto was surprised for a moment, then a devilish grin spread on his lips. "Is this a PTA meeting then?"

Sasuke furrowed his brow and stepped closer. "I guess you could say that."

Naruto stopped grinning and folded his arms, fixating his stare on Sasuke's feline mask that rested between the dark locks. "Well, it's not your call, Sasuke."

"They are ready for a C-rank mission." Sasuke repeated.

"I don't think they are. They've only graduated not long ago, and to tell you the truth, their teamwork performance is-"

"They're my sons, I think I know what they're capable of more than you." Sasuke cut him out.

"Well…" Naruto narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to Sasuke. "When they're outside of your house they're not your sons – they're MY SOLDIERS!" He raised his voice.

"Yeah, I've heard about you, sensei." Sasuke wasn't fazed.

"I don't know how you can be so sure they're so ready anyway." Naruto ignored him. "Kenji told me you're only training his brother."

"You think you know them?" Sasuke asked quietly. "You know these kids only for a couple of weeks. You don't know them half as well as you think you do."

"I think I do know them well. Maybe even better than you. It's not like you spend so much time around them at home. You're a busy, well-respected Anbu captain after all, aren't you?"

"Don't talk to me like you know what I've been through!" Sasuke snarled and grabbed Naruto by his vest.

"What? That Sakura-chan died and you've joined the Anbu to stay away from home? Or did you join it before she died? So you could spend as much time as possible away from her?" Naruto hissed.

"Shut up…" Sasuke hissed and swelled his nostrils in anger. "You have no right to talk about her… you left!" He shook Naruto slightly.

The blond brushed Sasuke's hands away and glowered at him.

"What? You're not going to blame me?" Sasuke asked roughly. "Or is it that you still look at me and hate yourself?"

Naruto gnarled at his ex-lover dangerously.

"Would it make you happy if I died? Would it make you feel better about yourself if you killed me?" Sasuke continued. "If that's the case, then take out your kunai and kill me."

Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"Do it!" Sasuke urged him, raising his voice.

Naruto drew out a kunai and grabbed Sasuke, pressing the kunai against his throat.

Sasuke smirked, looking down at Naruto and feeling the kunai cutting him slightly as the blond pressed it harder to his Adam’s apple.

"Do you want to die, Sasuke?" Naruto asked quietly. "Do you want me to kill you?"

"If that would make you feel better…" Sasuke said without flinching at the pain. "I promised you before I will let you be the one to kill me."

"You selfish bastard…" Naruto hissed. "You're willing to condemn your sons to the same lonely hell your brother put you through." He moved away, releasing Sasuke.

Sasuke wiped the blood from his throat and held his hand over his wound as he looked at Naruto sullenly.

Naruto shook his head and put the kunai back in his shuriken holster.

"Tell me, Sasuke…" he met Sasuke's eyes again. "After you killed your brother, did it make you feel better about yourself? Did it make you happy?"

Sasuke gaped a little, still staring at Naruto. The blond Jounin turned his back and walked away.

***

Naruto sighed as he ran up the stairs to his apartment. As he reached his floor level he slowed down his pacing. Iruka was perched on his doormat, his legs crossed, leaning against the door.

"Iruka-sensei… what are you doing here?" Naruto asked in surprise.

The Chuunin got up and brushed his pants. "I'm supposed to pick you up, remember?"

"Pick me up?" Naruto blinked in confusion and took his keychain out of his pocket.

"Dinner at Konohamau's? he invited us yesterday." Iruka followed Naruto into the apartment.

"Oh, I forgot about that!" Naruto smacked his forehead. "So many things happened today it completely slipped my mind!"

"I see." Iruka eyes him suspiciously. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, yeah. Nothing to worry about… except I almost murdered the Fire Country Lord's wife…" Naruto chuckled.

"I thought you've promised Hokage-sama not to clash with her," Iruka said in all seriousness.

"I was joking, Iruka-sensei…" Naruto flashed him a broad smile and rubbed the back of his head.

"Okay, good." Iruka laughed briefly in relief. "so let’s go."

"Um, do you think Konohamaru would mind if I skipped? I'm tired and I need a shower."

"Konohamaru is really expecting you," Iruka pointed. "And he told me to bring you over. So why don't you take a shower and freshen up? I'll wait."

"Okay… thanks." Naruto nodded and walked away to his bedroom.


TBC