AFTER DARK | naruto

8 | my beloved teammate(s)

"Today is the day, I'm gonna graduate, believe it!" Naruto cheered, throwing his arms up. Finally, the day of his next graduation came. He began to get antsy, with those finals approaching.

Another clone jutsu, no doubt. Truth be told, he hadn't practiced it whatsoever. He gained more of an interest in Fuinjutsu, thanks to what you had told him about the Uzumaki clan. But he wasn't having much luck with that, either.

"I'm sure you will." You nodded in agreement to his claim, "You've got this." The two of you were standing outside of your apartment complex—you had woken up early that morning, both to make sure he himself made it on time, as well as to encourage him the way he had you when you first entered the academy.

You really did hope he would graduate - and that he would join a team so that he could possibly come along on missions with you. Maybe if he was assigned Kakashi, that would be more common but... Who knew if Naruto had it in him to pass whatever test Kakashi had prepared. "I'm off now, when you see me again, this'll be replaced by a ninja headband." He grinned, referring to the goggles on his forehead before he turned around - running off with a loud goodbye.

You watched him as he walked off before you walked back up into your apartment. Guy and Lee had gone on a two-man mission together, so you had the day off. One part of you thought you of using the free time to train, but you did that every day - besides, you constantly had your weights on, so that could be considered training. Though, the last time you had laid in your bed staring at your wall for fun was when you were only seven years old. When you let your sorrows completely consume you - now it was a bit of a blur, but you never wanted to feel that way again.

You slowly sat back up, glancing around your room. The only thing you had that served as decoration was a picture of you and your team the first time you had met. That was almost a year ago. Actually. Tomorrow marked the one-year anniversary of the four of you becoming an actual team. That realization had you jumping out of bed and walking along the streets, you were running low on money, but there had to be something you could do to celebrate. Rent wasn't due for another two weeks, if you picked up some solos D rank missions, you could afford to buy your teammates something and pay rent - though you'd have to go without eating for a little bit... It didn't matter, you had plenty of matches to make a quick snack.

Though you came to the quick realization that there wasn't much you could afford. Due to the defeat, you faced—you found yourself lying your head down on a table under the shade - you had splurged the last of your budget on a snack. It was double the defeat, but the food just looked too tempting.

"I think my house is haunted... I mean, every time I'm trying to sleep, the door to the bathroom in my room creaks open..." You couldn't help but listen in.

"And I always hear whispering, I think they've threatened to kill me...!" They wailed.

"That's so scary...!" Their friend responded in a shrill voice. "It's unfortunate what happened to the [Lastname] clan, they took care of cases like these with their Kekkei Genkai." And with that, you lifted your head to look up at them. But it wasn't long until you turned your back to them, a casual display of the crest you had on the back of your shirt.

The ploy worked, you had completely caught their attention. And with a little display of the Poltigan in your eyes, they were throwing you whatever money they had to hire you to exorcise the ghost they had roaming their house. It was an easy task, it happened to be the girl's late boyfriend - the door was flimsy and him phasing through it made it wobble slightly. The mistake of 'I'll kill you' was a mistranslation of 'An Eel for Yuu.' Because apparently, Yuu was your client, and her favorite food was Eel.