Naruto Hatake

Jiraiya's Mission

new chapter :))

If there was one thing that Naruto hated about being in the hospital it was how boring it was, no wait, second thing. The first thing was that they didn't serve ramen that was the worst thing. He was still being held for the injuries and chakra exhaustion from the Sound/Sand invasion, although personally he felt fine. At least his dad managed to get him a replacement mask; it felt weird not having one.

Plus he got a feeling the nurses were giggling at how 'cute' the whisker marks on his face were. He felt a bit embarrassed about that, only Hinata could say that to him. He sighed as she went back to staring at the ceiling. Hinata wouldn't come in with his daily ramen that he asked to bring for another few hours. He loved that she came every day and that she brought ramen with her as well. It was the most he had to look forward to, sure his dad visited, Anko, Gai, his friends and others but Hinata made him feel a lot better.

But there was one thing that was nagging him and that was Gaara. He had been placed here under guard while he healed up with his brother and sister. When Gaara was ready to be released they would let the Suna team go. After it was known that Orochimaru killed Suna's Kage and impersonated him, Suna was pretty outraged that they had been played for fools. It helped to solidify their alliance again, although there were still some hard feelings on both sides, as Kakashi had told Naruto. But it looked like Suna was an ally again with stronger ties, nothing like a mutual enemy to bring people together.

But Naruto really wanted to talk with Gaara, this was the first time that Naruto had met someone like himself. He had only learned of the truth this year, about the demon inside of him, about him being adopted and who his birth parents had been. That was still something to get used to, they might have given birth to him, but Kakashi would always be his dad. He had been there for him growing up, teaching him, helping him, and playing with him as a kid and all sorts of things.

But Gaara was different, the boy seemed to be filled with so much anger and hate and Naruto wanted to know why. He also wanted to show that there was more to life, Naruto might have been luckier than Gaara but he refused to believe that Gaara was lost to his darkness. Naruto wanted to help because if things had only been a bit different, he could have ended up just like Gaara. Helping Gaara was just something Naruto felt he had to, because if anyone was going to help a jinchuriki then it should be another jinchuriki.

'Well if I stay here then I might miss the chance to really talk with him,' Naruto thought to himself. The room was empty and he had an idea where Gaara's room might be. He grinned under his mask as he slipped out of bed. He quietly opened the window and looked outside. He didn't think that there would be anyone watching the hospital but you could never know. With what happened there might be some patrols out and seeing someone on the side of a building in the dead of night was suspicious no matter how you looked at it.

Well it wasn't like he didn't have any experience with this, he was the one that painted the Hokage mountain without anyone seeing him until the morning. With a quick scan he was already out the window and using chakra to stick to the side of the wall he starting looking through all the windows. He started with his floor and so far there wasn't any sign of Gaara. There were plenty of others though. He moved to the next floor, it wasn't until he got to the fifth room that he saw Gaara in his bed looking up at the ceiling.

'Man, doesn't this guy ever sleep? Might explain why his eyes are so dark around the skin.' He mused as he figured he might as well go in.

Gaara had was used to staying up, it helped to prevent the voice in his head. Although for the moment the demon within was a bit more silent than usual. It might be due to the fact that he was totally drained after that fight. His demon was most likely 'sleeping it off' and would return eventually. But he had another reason for keeping awake. That fight with the boy, Naruto, he kept going through it in his mind. He had thought the boy had shown his true self in their fight, having drawing on his true power of the demon.