A Growing Affection

Chapter 3: His Greatest Treasure

Will update special birthday book after school.

Naruto swung his feet out of bed with a yawn. He stumbled across his small apartment, and pulled open the refrigerator. The teen ninja withdrew a carton of milk, opened it, and sniffed carefully. To his surprise the contents still smelled fresh. Uzumaki to a swig, and took out two slices of bread. He dropped them into the toaster and then finished off the milk.

After Naruto finished showering and getting dressed, he walked purposefully over to the wardrobe and threw the doors open. Inside were all the tools of a shinobi. Posts held stacks of shuriken and kunai, and Naruto noticed he was running low on the latter. Hanging in the back were a single tonfa, jian, and nunchacku, the weapons he had trained with but never bothered to master, along with his backpack. Crumpled in the bottom was a stealth uniform, and on top of it were strewn rope, claws, and other random essentials.

"Hmm, the only thing scheduled for today is the debriefing on the bandit mission from last week, with Sakura, Sai, and Kakashi-sensei after lunch," he noted aloud, while considering what he might need.

Naruto reached in and took the first of his treasures from its place of honor. He placed the Konoha Headband against his brow, and knotted it into place. With the replacement on, he touched the broken pieces of the original Iruka had given him. He opened the barely hidden compartment he had added to the door, and removed the amulet of the First Hokage. Smiling fondly, he looped the jewel around his neck. Next the ninja slipped two kunai into his leg pouch, and a third into the holster under his jacket between his shoulder blades. He also moved a dozen shuriken to the various concealed pockets sewn into his clothing.

Finally Naruto took out the small wooden box, which housed the greatest of his treasures. Though he did not intend to take it with him today, he looked at it every morning when he was in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. As he opened it, the Genin's face twisted in shock, and he dropped the empty box.

"Oh, man. What happened?" Naruto said to himself, looking around the studio flat, "WHERE IS IT? SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"

Instantly there were 10 Narutos, who proceeded to tear the room apart.

"Not here."

"Maybe there?"

CRASH!

"Transform!" One of the clones turned into a rat and crawled under the bed.

"Not here."

"Come on."

After every square inch of the room had been examined twice, all of the duplicated youths stopped moving.

"It's not here," one of them said. Three others turned to glare at him, and he added, "I'm just saying."

"I didn't take it on the mission," another spiky haired teen remembered, "But I have been carrying it around the village more lately. Maybe I dropped it or something."

"Right," Naruto scooped the wooden case from the floor as he moved to the door, and looked back at himselves, "I'm going to search the village. You guys clean up here."

"Hey, why do we get maid duty?"

"Because you are the clones."

"Oh yeah, prove it!"

"We don't have time for this," he showed the empty box to them for emphasis, "It's missing."

The copies all blanched, and the original rushed out the door.

'Where have I been?' Naruto thought to himself as he jumped from the balcony, 'Ichiraku Ramen, of course. Old Man Teuchi would have noticed if I dropped something.'