Restless

First: more spoilers. Some things will be based on what happened in the manga, but others will strictly be from my imagination. If you don't know which is which, then I'm not going to tell you (unless you ask really nicely), and you can still be surprised when you finally read the manga or watch the anime.

Second: Sorry I haven’t been updating as frequently. I had a story stuck in my head that just wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s called “Nameless Desires.” Feel free to check it out.

Third: Thank you all for your input on the two smut chapters. :-) It really made my day!

Enjoy!


Restless


Chapter 16: Restless Waiting

"Naruto, wake-up," Sakura said, shaking Naruto gently. "Naruto!" Sakura said, concernedly when Naruto didn't even move. Naruto heard her voice, but it sounded like she was talking to him from far away. He was also vaguely away that her "gentle" shaking had turned quite violent as she tried to force him awake, though his body was too tired to really care.

"Is he usually this heavy of a sleeper?" Sai asked, poking Naruto with a stick. Naruto felt something jab him in his side, but he still didn't stir, feeling like he was having an out of body experience; though being continuously jabbed in the side was getting rather annoying.

"Sai, stop that!" Sakura chided, swiping the stick from his hand. Sai wisely backed away from her as she looked ready to swing the stick and break it over his head. That would definitely hurt with her strength. "I'm really concerned about him! He's not even moving. He’s usually a very restless sleeper, and he hasn't been moving around at all!" Sakura said, rather frantically.

'I'm fine,' Naruto tried saying so she'd leave him be, but found that his lips were too heavy to form words.

"Naruto, ramen!" Sakura said excitedly. 'Ramen?!' Naruto thought, half excitedly, but his body was still too tired to move, so he just lied there, motionless.

"There's no ramen around here, Sakura," Sai said, confused.

"Something's really wrong with him!" Sakura said, half-hysterically. "He always wakes up when I mention ramen," Sakura muttered, reaching down while pouring chakra into her hands as she placed them delicately on his head as she began to give him a medical examination.

Somewhere in the back of Naruto's mind, he knew exactly why he was so exhausted. He had used the Kyuubi's power to an extremity yesterday, and then he had gone and done a lot of, er, exercising, last night with Sasuke. His body was healing itself, but he hadn't given himself enough time to sleep. As he became more away of his surroundings, noting the positioning of the sun through his barely slitted eyes, he realized that he had probably only fallen asleep an hour ago.

He needed at least five good hours of sleep for him to go through effective self-healing from the Kyuubi. Well, at least that was what Ero-Sennin had told him. Naruto was never really good at all that medical mumbo-jumbo nonsense. But as Sakura's hands began to gently roam from his head to his neck, and then to his shoulders, he knew that he needed to wake himself up before she got any lower. He really couldn't have her realizing which body parts of his he had been over-exerting. That would raise too many awkward questions. Very awkward questions.

Wrenching himself out of his semi-comatose state, Naruto waved Sakura's hand away from going any lower during her examination.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Naruto grumbled as he sat up, rubbing at his eyes sleepily. "Just slept lousy." The look on Sakura's face was enough for Naruto to feel guilty about not telling her the entire truth, but he really had slept lousy.

"Are you well enough to travel?" Yamato asked as he approached Naruto's bedroll, having decided it would be best for his usual teammate to try and wake him up. He had seen what had happened when Sai woke up Sasuke who had blown up his entire room, so Yamato was a little wary about trying to wake up any of the other members of the former Team 7. Naruto's stomach gave an extremely large growl.

"Heheheh," Naruto laughed embarrassed, rubbing the back of his head. "I'll be fine after I have some decent breakfast!" Yamato nodded, not pushing the subject as Naruto rolled out of his bedroll. Sai seemed to believe Naruto as well, and went back to finishing the drawing he was doing. Sakura was another matter.

"Naruto, you are NOT well. You didn't even stir when I mentioned ramen," Sakura said accusingly.

"Awww, come-on Saaaaaakura-chaaaaaan. I'm not that dumb. I know there's no ramen around here right now. I already finished my instant packs," Naruto said as he finished rolling up his bedroll.

"Well, I guess I can eat this all by myself then," Sakura said, as she pulled out a block of instant ramen, and then nodded her head back to where she was boiling water, grinning widely.

"S-Sakura!" Naruto said. "You brought RAMEN along?" Any sleepiness he had felt was long gone.

"Tsunade suggested I bring it, just in case you needed some cheering up," Sakura smiled, giving him a "V" for Victory sign. "So, do you want some?" Sakura asked.

"You bet, dattebayo!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sasuke was leaning rather uncomfortably against a tree. Normally his nonchalant pose of "I don't care and you can't make me," was very comfortable. Except that there was a certain part of his body that was sore in a way that it had never been before.

In as such, Sasuke was therefore brooding, in pain, and just a tad bit cranky. Not that that was anything overly unusual, but usually his brooding did not bring anyone else such joy like it currently did for his only company.

"Shut-up," Sasuke hissed to Dokueki.

"I haven't said a word," Dokueki snickered to herself.

"Yes, but your thoughts are so obvious it sounds like you're talking," Sasuke brooded.

"Well, it'ssss rather obvioussss you're in pain when you keep squirming like that," Dokueki hissed in laughter.

"I am not squirming," Sasuke said, livid.

"Sorry," Dokueki said, though she did not sound sorry at all. Sasuke ignored her. She slithered around his feet trying to stay warm, muttering to herself.

"What now?" Sasuke said as his usual coolness came back to him.

"You're feet are cold, and so am I," Dokueki pouted.

"That's your problem, not mine," Sasuke said, wondering if there was ever a time that Dokueki wasn't cold.

"Yessss, but you can be so warm when you want to be!" Dokueki whined longingly as she began to snake up Sasuke's leg, then his stomach to finally entwine around his left arm. "So cold."

"It is not cold."

"Compared to what you were last night, you are very cold now Sasuke."

"If I had it my way, you wouldn't have been there at all last night."

"It'ssss not my fault. Besidessss, I wanted to know how, interesting, thingssss would be between you and your friend. It was sure nice to meet him," Dokueki smirked as well as a snake could.

"Yes, well now that you've thoroughly gotten to see just how exciting I can be, will you please get off my back about it."

"But I can't help it! I've never seen you look so heated or so exotic or so-" Sasuke clamped a hand over Dokueki's mouth before she could finish her thoughts.

"Just drop it. We have another two days before Orochimaru meets us back here at this rendezvous point, and if you bug me any more, I'll send you back," Sasuke threatened. Dokueki looked murderous, but she held her tongue. As a summons, Sasuke could send her back to her summons realm as he pleased, and he knew that she much preferred staying away from the large snake realm, something about it being too cold for her liking. Sasuke released the grip that he had on her snout.

"You're no fun. I should have stayed with Naruto-kun," Dokueki muttered, though she couldn't stop the smirk from spreading on her face. "Besidessss the fact that you're squirming now, how did it it feel to have Naru-"

"If you finish that thought you're dead," Sasuke threatened.

"Geeze, no sense of humor at all. And what happened with sending me back?" Sasuke's death glare finally made her stay silent.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Tsunade looked morosely at the group in front of her. Naruto definitely seemed to be exhausted, but he did not seem to be nearly as miserable as she had thought he would be after failing to retrieve Sasuke yet again. He seemed quite cheerful, smiling widely. However, Tsunade did note that Sakura kept on shooting worried glances to her bright teammate.

"At least we have some new information about Orochimaru, and you have all returned safely," Tsunade mused out loud. "Sai and Yamato, you are dismissed. Sakura, Naruto - a word with you both."

Sakura and Naruto looked at each other, wondering what she wanted to speak to them about.

"I am sure that you are both extremely disappointed that we were unable to obtain Sasuke, but I am sure you realize that there is only so much time and effort Konoha can spend trying to make Sasuke return. In the meantime, I think that the both of you should take a break from long missions," Tsunade explained gently. Sakura was about to protest that it was in Konoha's best interest to locate Sasuke, but Naruto spoke up first.

"That's a good idea. If Sasuke is not ready to come back yet, it will be a waste of time to try and go after him right now." Both Sakura and Tsunade looked at Naruto aghast, not believing that Naruto would ever give up his chase of Sasuke, nor miss any opportunity to try and return him to Konoha. "Besides," Naruto continued, "I need to train, train, train in order to become even more powerful so that way I can kick that teme's ass and knock some sense back into his pale little head!"

Tsunade and Sakura breathed a mental sigh of relief, glad that Naruto hadn't been deterred.

"Alright, then you will start your training after Kakashi is well. From what he told me, he has some excellent ideas on how he wants to spend your training," Tsunade explained, and Naruto's grin widened.

"I'm ready when he is!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"You really need to stop over exerting yourself, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto chided, as Kakashi met Naruto in a training area on the outskirts of Konoha.

"Hello to you too," Kakashi said, smiling fondly. Naruto looked over Kakashi's shoulder to see that Yamato was following behind him.

"Hello Yamato-taichou," Naruto greeted, smiling. "I didn't know you were going to be here too."

"Yes, well the training that we will be doing today is a little special. In fact, only you can do this type of training," Kakashi said, smiling beneath his mask.

"Really?" Naruto asked, excitedly.

"Yes," Kakashi went on to explain that Naruto could only do this particular type of training because he 1) could us kage bunshin no jutsu, and 2) had massive amounts of chakra.

"Excellent!" Naruto cheered, excitedly.

"I'm not sure if you have ever noticed this or not, but kage bunshin no jutsu are not only useful as a decoy, but they are also good for obtaining new information. Even if a bunshin were to go thousands of miles away from you, as soon as he disappears, whatever new information he learns will come back to you. For instance, if you were to go into a fortress, but did not know where the traps were, you could have several kage bunshins find all the traps so that you would not get killed. Which means that you can learn new techniques at a much faster rate. You see, the technique that I want you to try and create would probably normally take years and years to master. But by using a large number of bunshin, you can figure it out in a few months. Since you’re the only one who seems to have such a massive amount of chakra, you’re the only one who can fully pull of this type of training. Understand?"

"Yep! Alright, time to train, tra-"

"Not quite Naruto. First, you need to take a test," Kakashi said as he and Yamato exchanged knowing looks.

"A-a test?" Naruto asked hesitantly, his grin faltering.

"Yes, a paper test," Kakashi said, his smirk growing wider.

"Kakashi-sensei, you know I'm no good at paper tests. Why-" Naruto stopped mid-thought as he saw Kakashi pull out a small piece of paper. Naruto just looked at Kakashi confused. All it was, was literally a small piece of paper. There was nothing written on it at all.

"This is a special kind of test. It tests what type of chakra element user you are," Kakashi explained.

"Element?" Naruto asked confused.

"Naruto, do you remember when you asked me to teach you the chidori? The reason that I taught that technique to Sasuke was because he can use lightening element chakra. Actually, he can use two different types of elements. He uses fire and lightening. Some others may only use one. The other three elements include, wind, water, and earth. That is not to say that people who are not strong in those areas cannot use other elements. It just means that one or two elements happen to be easier for a shinobi to use. What you are going to do is to pour some of your chakra into this piece of paper. When you pour your chakra into it, it will either crumple if you are a lightening user, tear if you are a wind user, burn if you're a fire user, etc. So therefore, depending on how your chakra affects the paper will determine what element or elements you are strong in and will better help you to develop your new technique."

Kakashi handed Naruto the piece of paper. Naruto concentrated, and poured some chakra into it. Yamato smiled, not overly surprised to see what happened to the piece of paper. It had torn in half.

"It appears that you're a wind user. It's the strongest battle type element," Yamato said, smiling. Naruto smiled too, feeling elated to know that his type was best for battle.

"In order to start on a new technique with elemental jutsu, you have to be able to use your wind chakra to cut something, say a leaf. For a normal shinobi, this type of training would take about six months-"

"Six months?" Naruto interrupted Kakashi with his surprise.

"Yes, but hopefully by using tajuu kage bunshin no jutsu, you will be able to cut that time down significantly," Kakashi finished explaining.

After Kakashi finished explaining the details of what Naruto was to do in order to train by using kage bunshin no jutsu, Kakashi sat off to the side with Yamato who was there to help Kakashi if Naruto began to leak out the Kyuubi's chakra.

"Yamato-san," Kakashi murmured, watching amused as Naruto after Naruto compared notes with his fellow clone neighbor, some of them complaining about how "the me over there got a smaller leaf to use to cut" or "why is the me over there doing better?" Yamato turned to look at Kakashi.

"Yes?"

"While you were gone, there were some upsets within the council. Some of them do not think that Naruto should be going away from Konoha because he is the Nine-Tails. Surprisingly though, a few of the council members have begun to change their minds about how they view Naruto. Either way, it is becoming more and more clear that the council is becoming either very protective of Naruto, or hold him in contempt. Tsunade has managed to talk to them into letting him roam free, but there are other negative aspects that will influence Naruto due to some of the council members’ dislike of Naruto. I am sure at some point during your trip, Naruto must have mentioned his desire to become Hokage?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes, I think he did mention that," Yamato replied, looking at Kakashi curiously. Yamato had been in the ANBU for several years now, and he had only taken on Kakashi's team when Kakashi had fallen victim to bed-rest. However, he had heard many stories about Kakashi - the Copy-Nin was legendary after all. He was therefore quite intrigued at where Kakashi was going with this train of thought.

"At the current point in time, Naruto does not have a chance to become Hokage. It has nothing at all to do with his abilities, but rather with some of the people's mistrust and fear of the Kyuubi within him. Naruto has won over many people onto his side with his natural ability to connect with people. Still, he has not been able to win over everyone. Politics can be extremely tiring on someone as open hearted as Naruto. He is not the kind to develop backstabbing plans in order to get what he wants. He's the kind that wants to be everyone's friend," Kakashi explained as he watched the mass of Narutos in front of him, watching as some of the Narutos were trying to help out some of their fellow clones who were not doing as well.

Yamato looked at Naruto and his clones as well, wondering why Kakashi was telling him all this. He had a feeling that Kakashi was not talking to him about it in order to get it off his chest. He had a feeling that the older shinobi was going to request something from him.

"I have a feeling you have some sort of plan to help him?" Yamato said, turning his head to look at Kakashi. Kakashi nodded.

"Naruto may have his faults, but I think if he were given the opportunity, he would become the best Kage any of the Hidden Shinobi Village ever had," Kakashi paused as he changed the subject slightly. “You're familiar with the daimyo, I presume?"

"Naturally. The daimyo is one of the key players in the political aspects of Konoha. But if you think you can get him to help you, you'll have to go through his son and his son's wife. I'm sure you remember his son's wife, right? That really heavy-set lady that always requests for her poor cat to be found? The one that every genin team has probably chased around Konoha?" Yamato said. Kakashi chuckled.

"Yes, I'm well aware that the daimyo's oldest son and his daughter-in-law are quite frequently asking Konoha to retrieve the cat, but they’re not who I’m interested in. Are you at all familiar with Kyohaku, the daimyo’s eldest daughter?"

"Kyohaku," Yamato pondered allowed, "I think I remember hearing something about her being the favorite child of the daimyo, and that he always insists that she should marry, but other than that, I don't recall anything of great importance about her." Yamato was still clearly confused on what this had to do with Naruto. Kakashi saw Yamato's confusion.

"You're probably wondering what this all has to do with Naruto becoming Hokage, and my desire to help him, aren't you?"

"I am. It's not uncommon for a teacher to want to help his student or students succeed, but there is something about the way you're saying this that makes it sound like you have some ulterior motive going on."

"Perhaps, just slightly," Kakashi murmured his exposed eye roaming around the Narutos, trying to find the one that he believed was the "real" one. "I do have a bit of a personal interest. You see, Kyohaku and my father were, shall we say, involved before he met my mother. Long story short, I am not my father's first son," Kakashi said. Yamato's eyes widened slightly.

"You don't intend to use this against the daimyo's daughter as black-mail do you?" Yamato asked surprised, shocked at what he thought Kakashi was implying. Kakashi chuckled lightly.

"You're misunderstanding me. I believe this piece of information will help Naruto, Konoha, and even Kyohaku. That is where you come in," Kakashi said. "I need you to take some information to the council members - and to Kyohaku herself."

"I don't suppose you're going to get right to the point and stop hinting around the edges of what you want me to do and what this information you want me to tell the council happens to be, are you?" Yamato asked, slightly exasperated.

"ANBU members have access to the internal and sealed records. As the temporary ANBU looking after Naruto, you're allowed to dig into his records in order to get a better understanding of your mission. You are also allowed to request a blood sample be taken. In other words, I want you to take a sample of Naruto's blood and test and see if Kyohaku is Naruto's grandmother. If so, I want you to tell the council," Kakashi finished explaining.

"Wait just a minute. You just implied that your father and Kyohaku had a love child, a son did you say? And now you're implying that this love child is Naruto's father? So in other words, you believe Naruto to be your nephew?" Yamato said, trying to register this bizarre information.

"Yes."

"I see. As his fellow teammate, and former ANBU, you could always check the records, but of course if you were the one to present this information about Naruto, the council would frown on your actions as an act of nepotism. They would not be happy to have a meddling uncle in the way, which is why it has to come from someone else," Yamato said, sighing.

"Exactly," Kakashi said.

Kakashi and Yamato stayed silent as they watched Naruto and his clones try to pour chakra into the leaves, trying to manipulate his wind chakra so that he could cut through the leaf. As soon as he mastered this technique, then he would be able to start mastering his ability to incorporate his elemental chakra into his attacks.

"Considering the fact that Naruto is an orphan, I'm assuming that your brother is dead?" Yamato asked quietly.

"Yes," Kakashi murmured softly.

"I'm sorry for your loss. I don't suppose that Naruto knows that you're his uncle, does he?" Yamato asked. Kakashi shook his head.

"I don't even know that Naruto actually knows who his own father is. If he did, I think he would tell people,” Kakashi sighed. “All I have so far are guesses and suspicions. You see, I didn't find out that I even had a half brother until around the time I became Team 7's sensei, and I had only started to suspect that Naruto was my brother's son a few months before Naruto left with his training with Jiraiya-sama. I really want to tell him, but there is still the slightest possibility that my hunch is wrong. I don't want to tell him something like that and then have it turn out to be untrue. He has wanted a family for so long. I can’t bare to give him that hope and then take it away," Kakashi felt slightly guilty talking to Yamato about this before Naruto, but he didn't want to tell Naruto something that wasn't one hundred percent true. Kakashi continued explaining.

"If we can prove that Naruto is a blood relative of the daimyo, the council will have to think twice before upsetting the local daimyo. The daimyo would be more than happy to see his great grandson as the highest-ranking shinobi in Konoha, and will therefore support Naruto. The council can’t afford offending the daimyo's family be denying one of their family members a chance to become Hokage without politically and economically hurting Konoha - and their own fat bank accounts. This will give Naruto the political edge he needs in order to truly become Hokage," Kakashi explained.

"Why did you come to me? You could have had someone else do it - Jiraiya-sama, or even Hokage-sama seem to have an extra interest in Naruto, and both of them could have easy access to his files," Yamato said, logically. Kakashi scratched the back of his head, nervously.

"Well, you see, the thing is, you'll also have to talk to Kyohaku about this, otherwise it will be impossible to get her blood sample in order to compare it with Naruto's. Knowing Jiraiya, I have a feeling he might get sidetracked with Kyohaku. Apparently she's quite the beauty despite being in her late fifties or early sixties. I really don’t want him to offend her. And Tsunade has already made attempts to help Naruto, but there's only so much that she can do on her own. That's why-"

"-you need an 'outsider' to come forward with the information, which is where I come in," Yamato finished for him.

"You also happen to be personally familiar with what Naruto is capable of when he wants to get people onto his side. I read your report about your last mission, and you seemed most impressed when he was able to influence Sai," Kakashi explained. Yamato didn't respond, but instead continued to watch Naruto train.

Kakashi turned his one eye to look at Yamato, smiling gently beneath his mask. 'In other words, I think that Naruto has influenced you too.' Kakashi's musing turned darker. He wanted to ask Naruto what had happened between him and Sasuke on the last mission. The mission details had been sketchy. Also, as far as he knew, Kakashi was the only one who knew how intimate the two shinobi had once been with each other, and was thus was even more greatly disturbed to have read that Sasuke had apparently tried to kill Naruto again, though Kakashi was clearly unaware of the true situation that was going on between the two.

If Kakashi ever got the opportunity, he would make sure that Sasuke never got the chance to even think about trying to kill Naruto. Sasuke may have been his former pupil, but Naruto was his nephew. He would do anything to protect him. Anything.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


As usual, being reunited with Orochimaru was never a pleasant experience for Sasuke. However, as he lay on his bed in his new hideout (after Orochimaru had jokingly asked him not to blow this new room to smithereens), he felt as though he had overlooked something in his plan. He was getting much closer to his goal. He would kill Orochimaru, and then he would be able to round up a team of people – Naruto included - into a fighting force that would be able to finally defeat Itachi.

But why did he as though someone else wanted him dead all of a sudden? And why did this new feeling make him feel as though he had overlooked something very important, something that may be the difference between life and death?


Next Chapter: Restless Problems


:-) Hmmm...what is Kakashi plotting to do to Sasuke if he sees him next? Something that neither Naruto nor Sasuke will like, I can tell you that much. Please review and let me know what you thought. Hate it? Love it? Confused? Let me know! ~ Jelp