What Matters Most
Chapter Two: Show Me Yours!
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Sorry, Sakura-chan. I was just trying to cheer you up,” Naruto laughed nervously while scratching the back of his head. After dealing him a brand new bump to the top of his head, the kunoichi seemed to have calmed down a bit. Now she sat facing front again, her hands folded neatly into her lap and her eyes focused on nothing in particular. The implication that something had clearly been bothering her had caused the girl’s body to visibly stiffen. Naruto had noticed the change in her demeanor since the moment they had entered the shop, and he had a feeling he knew why.
“Sakura-chan…”
The pinkette shrugged her shoulders once and heaved a sigh, slowly coming out of her starey-eyed trance as if Naruto’s voice had been the sound that brought her back to reality. She offered him a side glance and with that, a small smile. Her round green eyes were lined with a subtle hint of sadness that he was all too familiar with. It was very clear to him now what she had been thinking about.
However, it appeared as though Sakura had reached some sort of internal resolve. The smile on her face was now a genuinely happy one, and the sadness in her eyes had been subdued by a peaceful gleam. Naruto had to lean forward and crane his neck in order to confirm what he was seeing. He found himself disappointed when it suddenly vanished before he could take it all in.
Sakura was now leaning over the counter, a stoic expression on her face as she had begun to dig around in her ladybug wallet for the proper money to pay for her meal. Before the blond could argue, she had already slapped down double the amount required, and was getting up to leave.
Naruto abandoned the menu in his hands and hopped off the barstool to chase after her.
“H-hey, Sakura-chan. Where ya goin’?” he called out to her hastily, as he caught up to her within a matter of seconds. The kunoichi squeezed her eyes shut against the assaulting rays of sunlight, and brought a hand to her mouth in order to stifle a yawn.
“I was just going to take a walk around,” she replied casually, dropping her hand to her side. A small grin that brightened her face and alleviated the nin’s abounding worry traced up on her perfect pink lips. “I figure I won’t have much time to do it later, since Tsunade-sama will want me back on hospital duty. Then, I’m sure Ino will come and drag me off somewhere as soon as my shift is over once she finds out that I’m home. Anyway…” Sakura tossed him a curious glance while gripping the hem of her skirt. “What about you?”
“Ah…” the blond scratched at his cheek with one finger, wrecking his brain for a swift response. Knowing Jiraiya and his recent claim to be, “
running on creative vapors” earlier that morning, Naruto had the sinking feeling that his sensei would be off perving it up around the village for the remainder of the day. That left out any serious means of training. Maybe he’d go and find his old team leader or something.
Where was
that masked pervert, anyway… “Eh, I’ve got nothing,” Naruto admitted finally. If anything, he would probably go home and check on his house and his plant, Mrs. Ukki. Mrs. Ukki had been transplanted to a small garden he’d created before leaving on his four-year journey. Ino, the specialist of all things flower-related had agreed to look after the small patch of foliage while he was away. With the expanse of nearly have a decade having gone by, he was a little anxious to see how his creation had been fairing; or, if Ino had managed to tell everyone in the village about his secretly green thumb.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret or anything…it was just that—
“Great. Why don’t you come with me, then?” the questioning tone of Sakura’s voice shattered the remains of Naruto’s previous thoughts. Having been so submersed in his own inner ramblings, he’d failed to notice where their route was taking them. The solid ground beneath their sandaled feet was beginning to transcend into gravel, and the area that surrounded the winding path ahead was covered in a blanket of lush green grass. The sun, seemingly moments ago having been high in the sky, was hanging lazily just above the glowing horizon. Bold streaks of oranges and pinks bled into the remains of a light blue expanse, and a soft golden light glowed gently on the underside of the feathering clouds.
Ahead of them, the trees began to thin out, fully revealing the breath-taking view for them to see. Naruto continued his lazy saunter, the muffled crackle of his feet dragging over the crushed rocks being the only sound to rival the soothing silence. His eyes began to close against the comforting light, the warmth of it beginning to ease his tired lids when abruptly, he felt the front of his body collide into something solid and grounded.
The blonde’s eyes fluttered open in a split second, anticipating the sound of feminine laughter or a groan of embarrassment, as he was momentarily convinced that he’d walked into a wall. He was surprised, however, if not a little alarmed and concerned, when he realized that Sakura was standing in front of him. Her back was to him and her head was slightly inclined to the sky. A light breeze picked up and traversed between them, the ends of her light pink hair fanning away to reveal the nape of her slender neck. It took all that he had to resist reaching out and tracing a single finger from there, down to the start of the zipper on her dress.
Zipping it down...and underneath that, was—
Sakura turned around and grabbed the tops of his shoulders, the familiar gleam of happiness in her eyes seemingly enhanced by the bright glowing sky behind him. The innocent expression on her face dissolved his most recent thoughts, and Naruto let free a slow breath of air he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding.
“Show me yours!”
The color in Naruto’s face suddenly had a hard time deciding on whether to stay or leave.
“Wh-what?”
“Your skills!” Sakura laughed, doing her impression of a playful punch in the arm. Naruto wasn’t sure if he should feel grateful that she hadn’t caught onto his reaction to the subtle suggestiveness behind her proposal, or worried about the small, cracking sound his shoulder had made upon the impact of her fist.
He decided neither one was really relevant at this time.
It was then that he noticed what was laid out before them. Sakura’s hand was outstretched pointedly at the stretch of land marked
Training Ground Seven. Three familiar stumps of wood, now covered in vines poked up from the grass in the distance; an immense wave of nostalgia captivated all of his sense for a long minute. Realizing what it meant, and what the scenery had caused him to remember, the nin declined his head to measure the amount of discomfort in Sakura’s expression. He was strangely relieved when he found none.
“The old training field,” the kunoichi sighed, the tone of her voice a little more pleasant than he had been expecting it to be. She brought both hands to rest on her hips, surveying the area with a startling sense of wisdom in her eyes. Naruto felt himself beginning to smile, amazed with himself at the way her unpredictable behavior still seemed to reel him in, and the way that her reactions were still able to catch him off guard.
The fading light of sunset stretched out weakly to cast against her back, leaving her front veiled in an elegant shadow. Sakura turned to him again, clasping a hand around his wrist and tugging him forward. The pleasant feel of her warm fingers touching his skin had effectively scattered his uncertain thoughts, granting her the easy task of leading him up the small hill and into the center of the grassy field. Momentarily lost, Naruto looked around once Sakura had let him go. Seeing all but one of the familiar tree stumps laced in flower-adorned vines upon closer inspection hit him again with a stronger wave of remembrance, but the sound of Sakura slipping on her combat gloves and adjusting the velcro quickly caused him to snap back into attention.
A yard away from him, the kunoichi was lowering herself into an offensive crouch, her fist firmly planted onto the ground and her green orbs set on him straight ahead. Even from the considerable distance between them, he could see the clear determination in her eyes. The amount of concentration in them almost threw him for a loop; he had to remind himself that he was not about to face an enemy.
After observing her from across the field another moment longer, Naruto finally lowered himself into a ready stance of his own. Upon training his eyes to her face again, he nearly swore he’d seen a hint of a smirk twitch up on the corners of the pinkette’s lips.
“Ready?” she called out.
“Whenever you are,” he spoke loud enough for her to hear.
The two shinobi kicked off simultaneously, from a distance neither one being more than a shadow darting artfully against a bright stretch of tea-colored sky.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“You had better be kidding me,”
“Now, why would I do that?”
The sound snap of a pair of chopsticks caused Jiraiya to stiffen with discomfort on his side of the booth. The intention behind his tone had been nothing short of outright honesty, but the woman seething in the seat across from him was absolutely livid.
“You are kidding with me, Jiraiya tell me you are joking!” the blond shot up from her seat, grabbing the man by the collar while ignoring the sudden lack of background noise around them. The white haired sage forced his eyes to look only into the ones belonging to his former team mate. Looking anywhere else was nothing short of a sign that deemed blatant ignorance, thus the result of that being thrown into the nearest ungrounded object. He waited for the moment for her whiskey colored eyes to soften, and her grip to loosen with a sigh.
Upon being released, Jiraiya settled back into his seat, while Tsunade slumped down into hers, the two of them ignoring the sudden outbreak of resumed chatter without batting so much as an eyelash.
Seeing the worn look on the Godaime’s face after informing her about the youngest Uchiha’s beginning movements nearly inspired him to call for another round of drinks, but Jiraiya quickly thought better of it.
Her nails were tapping without rhythm against the wooden table now, the way her face was pinched in a near-pained expression clearly telling him that she was having a hard time processing every last detail of recently acquired information. To her knowledge, Jiraiya had not spoken a word of his encounter with Itachi, or the Akatsuki’s commencement of hunting Jinchuuriki to his apprentice.
And with that especially crucial last bit of information…
Tsunade lowered her voice. “So, you are telling me that Naruto is unaware of all of these things? That you’ve been able to travel to several different countries without so much as peep from him regarding Sasuke or the Akatsuki?”
The toad sage studied the woman’s expression, weighting her words carefully as to try and conjure up an acceptable response. Let it be known that his apprentice was far from being a raving idiot. Being caught by the boy sneaking out of several inns with a telescope in hand on a number of occasions, Jiraiya had learned that lesson well. The art of deception was one of the few techniques that the young man had yet to completely conquer though, and it was with this well-tuned shinobi instrument that the sennin was able to deflect his apprentice’s inquires based on certain topics.
That, and Naruto was also a little frighteningly easily distracted by the small, but effective diversion called ramen.
“If I had told him while we were out, what do you think he would have done?” Jiraiya asked seriously, tilting their empty glasses on the table onto their sides. He then turned them upside down completely, and watched a drop of moisture slide down from the inside of the first.
“He would have taken off—and you would be there to stop him,” the Hokage didn’t skip a beat, anticipating an interjection from Jiraiya. His mouth went slack and his expression fell, having lost his place in where he saw a point to argue. Another drop of moisture rolled down from the inside of the glass. He frowned, but otherwise just ignored it.
What he couldn’t understand was Tsunade’s argument. If anything, he was sure that she would have agreed with his decision. There was an advantage to having Naruto back safe and sound inside the village, where the news could be relayed to him and his desire to immediately pursue would be extinguished hopefully by the Hokage, or better yet, the council themselves. It was what he had been hoping for, but apparently Tsunade’s intentions for the situation would have been different; his only question was what those would be. She answered him before he could ask.
“The shock of the news is sure to be devastating…even with the confines of the village, it’s certain that we will have a hard time persuading him to wait…” Tsunade laced her fingers beneath her chin, propping her elbows up on the table. Her amber eyes were narrowed and unclouded. Jiraiya, while listening to her speak, was impressed to see how easily she’d managed to sober without suffering any physical repercussions.
“And if I cannot manage to pacify him, then I will be forced to involve the council for more…permanent means of confinement. Surely, you understand where I am coming from, don’t you Jiraiya?”
The sage nodded once; he did. He also knew the like factor of which his apprentice would appreciate such a treatment; zero.
The Hokage let out a drawn out sigh, dropping her hands onto the table with enough unintentional force that it caused the downturned glasses to jump. “Very well, then,” she said, getting to her feet. She stuffed her hands into her robe pockets, appearing to be fishing for something. “I need to write up a brief report regarding my return. I also need to kick Kakashi out of my office. Kami knows what kind of shape it’s in right now,” she sniffed, and then added as an afterthought, “not to say that it previously looked any better.”
Jiraiya nodded once again, getting to his feet as well. He stretched slightly, while listening to her next words.
“I’m leaving it up to you to say what you have to say to Naruto. After a separate mission briefing, I will send him your way.”
“I understand,” the sage replied, though not bothering to question why she wished to see them apart. He simply offered her a wary smile, to which she responded in likeness, though the practical meaning behind the gesture did not touch her eyes. Ending their meeting with no other need for words, the Godaime turned away from the table and made her way out of the bar, blonde twin tails fluttering out behind her.
Heaving a sigh, Jiraiya collapsed back into the booth and stared down at the small slip of paper sitting on the table in front of him. He smirked, and then shook his head in what should not have been disbelief.
Tsunade had left him with the bill again.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Above…left. Right…Sakura quickly shifted her eyes in all directions, concentrating on the shift in the area around her. The air was thick with a near-tangible tension, and the atmosphere around her appeared to be unnaturally quiet and slow-paced. Tentatively, she waved a hand in front of her face, checking for some kind of landscape-manipulating jutsu. Shortly after doing so, she immediately laughed a little to herself.
Yeah, right Sakura snorted, shaking her head.. Surely, that was giving Naruto a little too much credit. A small tremor in the ground directly below her feet caused the kunoichi to take a cautious step back. Wasting no time, she clenched her hands into two green chakra- laden fists, and slammed them down into the earth.
“Then,
below!”
A reverse rain of rock, accompanied by a large spray of dirt and grass blasted from the ground, as Sakura took a chakra-enhanced leap into the air in order to avoid the shower of debris. Wiping the sweat from her brow in the same instant, she was sure she’d seen a flash of orange and black escape from the newly formed crater. A triumphant smirk curled up on the corners of her lips at the small victory, but she forbid herself from becoming further distracted. The atmosphere around her appeared to settle unnaturally again, as she crouched down in the crook of a thick branch behind the foliage of a tree, and this time after a closer observation, Sakura realized what was wrong.
The wind was gone.
The kunoichi waited for the moment when she would feel the breeze, keeping her guard up and holding onto her breath for one long minute. She was troubled when the air around her remained still.
A genjustu falsely affecting the elements? “Can’t be…” she decided, shifting her weight between the branches. Readying herself to leap off and inspect the crater down below, she suddenly stilled at the hushing sound on the all leaves in the trees surrounding her.
A firm pair of hands pushed against her back, and with a surprised cry, the kunoichi scrambled around in the air below her. Upon sticking a graceful landing in the cushiony green grass, she strained her ears at the sound of masculine laughter.
Turning around to her former height, she saw nothing there.
“Damnit,” she cursed to herself. Turning around to face the sedgy clearing, Sakura was only granted a brief second to leap away, before a series of sharp projectiles came flying at her. She jumped back to the height of her tree, eyes widening and body falling backward off the edge of the branch after seeing the familiar seals written on the tags attached to them. Just barely they missed her, instead hitting the tree with a sound thud and then exploding.
Safe on her feet once more, the kunoichi reached down to retrieve the short-bladed sword tied at her waist near her apron, pulling it free from its sheath in time to deflect another round of kunai. Once the barrage had ceased its assault, she returned the kodachi to its place.
Tentatively, she stood to full height and cautiously surveyed the seemingly vacant landscape. A tormenting breeze rolled over the clearing, causing the tall grass to sway under its ministration.
A single leaf floated down from the tree above her, lazily tumbling into her open palm. Curiously, she turned it upside down between her fingers to see where it split clean down the middle.
…And now she had an idea of what she was dealing with.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naruto barreled into the woods again in a quick orange blur, swiftly dodging the mighty fists of his powerful opponent. Leaning against the trunk of a wide tree, he trained himself to catch his breath, head tilted back to stare up into the sky. After his heart had begun to beat normally inside his chest, he could only let out a low chuckle; to think that Sakura had been pulling her punches on him up until now. With the brute force that she was currently using to blast holes into the ground, he realized that there had been plenty of times where she could have easily cracked his skull right open. The thought caused him to shudder mildly, though he figured the chill on the wind might have also had something to do with it. Realizing how good it felt against the exposed back of his neck, he pulled the zipper down on his jacket and tossed it somewhere behind him. He nearly sighed out loud as a second
woosh of air came about, seizing gentle assault on his skin through the snug mesh shirt.
The sun had long since abandoned the sky, taking with it its last remains of light. A darkening blue blended in with the vanilla hue in the upper atmosphere, a sprinkle of stars dusting beneath the deepening, periwinkle layer. He wasn’t exactly aware of the time, but if he had to make a rough estimate, it’d been about two hours since they’d been in non-stop combat. Sakura was relentless, swinging her fists and her legs down on the terrain, shattering whatever piece of earth he happened to be walking on. She was wild, and he barely understood the strategy behind her seemingly impulsive attacks. A few times, she’d come flying out of the trees, her fists clenched in front of her and laced with the same lethal chakra that she used for healing purposes. Naruto had narrowly avoided getting some sort of critical injury on nearly every occasion, hurdling back into the bushes and gasping for air all in the same moment.
Of course, she would never know just what she was doing to him, let alone catch a glimpse of him; she couldn’t even see him.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Civilian Village: (Past time) Naruto flopped down onto the squeaky inn bed and sprawled out with an irritated sigh. Once again, he’d been abandoned by his own sensei turned guardian for a perverted night on the town. “Dumb perverted sage,” the blond scowled, tossing a lumpy pillow at the closed door of the room. It was a crappy hostel just like the last few, with the same peeling wallpaper and the same squeaky beds. Fisting his hands into his sunny hair, he rolled over and punched the edge of the bed, causing a spring to break through the mattress. He stared at it distrustfully at first, before grabbing the other lonely pillow behind him and placing it neatly over hole. There; no harm done. Rolling his eyes back in his head, a gesture of unadulterated boredom, the genin caught a brief glimpse of the time. His blue orbs fluttered open in disbelief, taking a double take at the numbers on the digital clock. Nine thirty?! I don’t believe this…
It was obviously way past Naruto’s bedtime, but the heck if he was going to just sit around and waste another entire day away, having gone untrained for the third time this week. When confronted Jiraiya on the first about his lack of tutoring, the old man had told him to continue practicing what he had been taught during the previous week. The Rasengan, hardly anywhere near the point of completion, was in dire need of improvement. He’d been working on it for the past month, though! Wasn’t there anything else
he could do…? Something else he could try? Naruto sat up so suddenly from the bed, he nearly gave himself a head rush. Sliding off the edge of the mattress, he jumped down onto the carpeted floor and silently made his way to the door. The lock was placed on the very top of the door, making it rather hard for him to reach. Desperately, the boy stood on his tip toes, swiping his hand back and forth in attempts to push back the latch. One…no! Two…almost! Three! “Got it!” he cried, pulling the chain away with his fingers in the process. He then twisted the smaller lock on the knob, gave the handle a turn and then pulled open the door. Their room was on the second floor of the building, but what did that matter to a ninja? Excited about his new found freedom, the blond hopped up onto the balcony railing, blatantly ignoring the stairs sprung into the air to stick a safe landing on one of the nearby roofs. Had he been a little older, Naruto would have appreciated the scenery around him a little bit more. The way the night sky spanned out before him with a perfect view of the twinkling village below…but he would see many more starry nights and villages like this later on in his journey. Right now, the orange clad nin had more productive
things to do with his time; like messing around with this awesome jutsu and eventually surpassing his totally warped sensei, of course. Then he’d become Hokage. Finding a comfortable spot along the large stretch of flat roof, the genin plopped down and crossed his legs. He placed one hand out in front of him, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly as he attempted to concentrate. The familiar flow of chakra began to course through his palm… but his concentration suddenly dissipated at the sound a bird squawking loudly as it flew overhead. “Hey!” Naruto’s eyes popped open, his head inclining to the sky. “Idiot! Idiot!”
“Urrghh!” he stood up and began angrily shaking his fist at the feathered creature. “I’ll show you who’s an idiot! No freakin’ birds allowed in my
village when I become Hokage
!” Clearly lost on all sense of reality or at least, for the moment, the blond stared on at the sky, watching the bird’s wings arch out to sail on the wind beneath them. For a moment, he entertained the idea of what it would be like to fly. He could go anywhere, right? Nothing on land would be able to pull him down! Well…nothing that wasn’t a sharp or pointy projectile…and other birds…and planes. The idea of it began to seem silly to him, so Naruto sat himself back down on the roof again, this time allowing his feet to dangle over the edge. He looked down upon the village, wondering just where his sensei might be among all of those little buildings. Probably a bar or something…
he thought with disdain. He folded his arms behind his head. It wasn’t really any of his business, but it seemed to him that Jiraiya would develop an excuse for every nearby town they’d happen upon, usually reeling Naruto in with the idea of a comfortable bed to sleep in that night, though that, as it turned out, was never the case. “Idiot! Idiot!”
The genin frowned and sat up again, this time seeing an entire flock of birds flying over his head. They dipped down below near the roof, feet stuck out as if making preparations to land but instead they pulled themselves back up and took to the sky again. They cawed out as they disappeared into the darkness, leaving the atmosphere once again silent. Naruto rolled his eyes and brought his hand out again at a second attempt to analyze the jutsu. It wouldn’t be so bad if he knew a better way to do the Rasengan right about now… In all of his previous training exercises, he’d at least had some kind of object to work with. Working with the bare elements of the jutsu basically left him back to square one, and as far as he knew he didn’t have the correct amount of chakra control to pull it off without a shadow clone in the mix. Naruto reminded himself that he was not actually trying to execute the technique, but instead pull it apart. The first step was to rotate an amount of chakra into his palm in multiple directions, and with that, a denser amount. Memorizing this, he closed his eyes again as a light breeze picked up and caused the sunny spikes of hair atop his head to sway back and forth. It’s kind of like that…
he thought off-handedly, imagining what the wind was doing to his hair right now; making it move in all directions rapidly, and with more force the faster it went. An immense amount of pressure in the blonde’s hand caused him to open his eyes a little. A transparent, yarn-like ball of air streams had taken form there in the center of his palm. Bewildered, he tried to close his fingers around the orbicular object, only to feel the force of its currents pressing against them with the same amount of pressure. What was it? It only took him a moment to realize that he had captured an actual amount of wind in with his chakra. But…how did that happen? This was great and all, but Naruto wasn’t exactly sure what to do now. The orb appeared to be dense like the Rasengan, but only to a certain point. Upon experimenting with it a little more thoroughly, he found that it was just what he’d assumed it was; a compressed sphere of air. Not only that, but unlike the Rasengan, he could actually move this…whatever it was, freely from one hand to another. Through many trial and errors, Naruto discovered what was possible and what was impossible. For instance, throwing the ball of air would result in putting a large hole into whatever it was aimed at. In his case, it was the chimney centered on the roof of one of the inns…yikes. He hoped he wasn’t found out about that. For the next few days, Naruto continued to study his new found ability on the roof. He would return there during the afternoon and remain there a good part of his night, only returning in time before his sensei came back muttering happily about his success on his research.
It was at the end of the week that Naruto returned to the roof of the inn for the last time. Jiraiya had mentioned before he left that they would be leaving upon his return, and so before heading up to resume his training, he made sure that all his things were packed. Apparently someone had discovered the large hole blown into the side of the chimney, because it was now patched up nicely with a shiny bit of duck tape. Ignoring the lack of creativity in the town’s reconstruction work, the blond made his way over to the edge of the roof, where he began working on forming a sphere of air into his hand. It materialized much easier than it had the last several times, and possibly a bit larger than he remembered it had been the first time. He tossed it around a little, careful not to do it haphazardly, as there was no need to go about putting more holes into a town that was too lazy to properly fix them. A few more hours had gone by, and Naruto was sat in a criss-cross position, pouring a good amount of concentration into forming the air sphere in his hands into something larger. Maybe if he kept at it, he could eventually create the Rasengan like this! A fleeting thought told him that was highly and unlikely, and that he was obviously missing a step but that was just fine. What he had discovered just might have been something twice as great… “CAW! CAW!” Flinging his arms into the air and releasing the technique, Naruto let out a startled scream. His head jerked up to the sky, brows pinching in anger at the sight of two birds flying directly over the roof. Their raven colored wings glistened against the golden light of the horizon, and then, just like the other day, they dipped down in a false preparation to land and took to the sky before their feet could touch the ground. “Idiot! Idiot!”
That was about it.
“C’mere, you rats with wings! I’m gonna show you who the idiots are!” the blond yelled out, standing up suddenly. Without thinking, he stood onto his tiptoes and reached out desperately to take a swat at the taunting creature. The bird arched its wings gracefully as it turned on its side, and then circled around his head, leaving the boy momentarily confused before it took off completely and flew into the sunset. With his hand outstretched past the edge of the roof, Naruto stumbled to regain his composure. Kicking back with one foot to bring his balance to the safer side only caused an entire shift in the upper half of his body, and before his mind could register the fatal mistake of his movement, he was slipping off the ledge, both legs flying out awkwardly in front of him. Naruto was thoroughly convinced that he was now seeing his life flashing before him. Colors flew around in every inch of his vision, all one overwhelming blur in his wide blue eyes. A terrified scream came out of his mouth, though it was barely audible over the roar of the racing wind against his ears. Overcome by the immense rush of adrenaline and the anger that still lingered in his system, all acquired ninja skills were lost on Naruto in that moment…save for one. Reaching his arms out to the ground as he was now flying head first towards his fatal destination, the genin conjured up the largest spherical compression of air he had created yet, and aimed it at the ground several feet down. It met with its target within less than a few seconds, and just before he could perform a face plant, he swiftly twisted his body upward so that he would instead land on his feet. Bracing himself, Naruto prepared for a crash landing that never came. Instead, he felt his body fly upward, the air beneath his feet flinging him straight into the sky like a bird without wings. Holding it to the balls of his shoes with a trained amount of chakra, he made another safe landing on the roof, and then without hesitation kicked off again while letting out an excited cry. It was then in that moment, that Naruto had first begun to appreciate the scenery around him. Every early star in the sky appeared reachable, and the higher he jumped to see over the horizon, the more intense the lasting glow of the sun and the colors that bled behind the clouds became. His only regret was that it was only visible for a briefest of moments, before gravity would pull him back down to earth for another jump. This was better than any chakra enhanced jumps he could perform. No form of teleportation could rival his new found ability, because it was his and his alone
. Not a soul would learn of the specifics, he told himself while finally planting himself back down on the ground. A near sense of vertigo overwhelmed him as he looked down at the ground and back up again, but went away within in the next second with the cool breeze that sailed through his hair. Wearing a secretive grin, Naruto tilted his face to the sky and folded his arms behind his head, as he watched the birds soar off into the light this time, without a sound. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Quickly summoning an amount of air to his feet, Naruto kicked off from the ground and into the forest as his tree was suddenly knocked to the ground. He chuckled to himself, a small thrill of seeing Sakura furiously tearing down an entire training field just to get to him, at the small price of probably losing one of his favorite jackets.
Ah, well. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty more.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
TBC A/N: Due to future events in the story, Naruto would not have had time to discover his wind element. Therefore, I have made it so he has already discovered it in advance.
