Hand Signs [A Deaf Naruto Fanfiction]

Chapter 6: Team Seven

This is the chapter I've been waiting to write for a while and it came together super quickly. Also, it was written in the AC so I had a nice time! For those of you that don't follow my KakaNaru story, I've been dying in the humidity without AC for the past week. So last night I was able to get a lot done because I wasn't dying of heat the whole time.

Real quick, some of the biggest changes are happening now. Obviously with Naruto over his crush on Sakura the whole thing with the transformation and all that won't happen so with the exception of a time skip and brief description of missions we're pretty much going to be jumping into the Wave Mission (not today but likely the week after next). So we're back to our regularly scheduled time skips pretty soon. Sort of. The Wave Mission will probably be a couple chapters and then the Chunin Exams follow closely after (I promise that won't be nearly as dragged out as it was in the Anime).

Be ready guys.

It's gonna be great. Maybe.

Anyway...

Onto the chapter!

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Chapter Six: Team Seven

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When Shikamaru saw Naruto for the first time after spending hours looking for him he was tempted to give him a nice, strong hit on the top of his head. But that would be more troublesome than just lecturing him, he definitely would've deserved it though. If he gave the boy a quick squeeze too it was only because he wasn't thinking properly through his immense relief at seeing Naruto okay.

After lecturing him, in sign language, of course, (and definitely not hugging him afterwards) he dragged the blond to meet with Shino and Choji.

If Shikamaru thought that Naruto looked surprised to know that he had been worried about him then he looked downright astonished to learn that Choji and Shino had been worried too. While it was definitely harder for them to actually look for him (not their fault, Shikamaru was just gifted with a lazy clan that didn't care much for parties) they did their best. Naruto was apologetic but too excited to actually express it properly--something all three boys found odd since Naruto had failed and was extremely upset the day before (hence the worry amongst the three of them, obviously).

Choji also hugged Naruto (but he'd always been the more tactile of the two of them so really it wasn't that surprising) and Shino had settled for patting the boy's fluffy blond locks (also unsurprising since he was even more unsociable than Shikamaru). Naruto's stiffness during all three instances of affection was telling as well. They knew he was an orphan, touch starved, but it never really hit Shikamaru that this was what that was like. Shino, Choji and himself made a silent agreement to get Naruto used to affectionate touch (even if showing those kinds of emotions was troublesome).

When they finally got around to asking why he was so excited the answer they got had been the absolute last thing any of them (even a genius of Shikamaru's caliber) had been expecting.

Naruto signed quickly but continued to talk as though he wasn't (Shikamaru hoped Naruto would trust them enough to actually tell them about his disability soon).

"When I was sitting on the swing Mizuki, the guy that was helping out with the exams, came up to me. He was glaring at me every time he saw me before so I thought it was weird that he was suddenly being nice. He told me about this secret graduation test which was just a ruse to get his hands on the scroll of sealing."

Shikamaru's head would've been spinning already if he were anyone else.

"I was told to go along with it--so I did. Then Iruka-sensei found me and yelled at me for taking it but then Mizuki threw a bunch of kunai at me. Iruka-sensei protected me and one hit him in the thigh. Then Mizuki threw a huge shuriken at me and Iruka-sensei protected me again and got hit in the back. Before Iruka-sensei found me I was reading through the scroll and one of the techniques on it was the one I suck at, of course. I practiced it a lot before he found me, actually..." Naruto trailed off briefly as he added to his story before shaking his head and continuing on. "Anyway, while I was hiding Mizuki was going to kill Iruka-sensei with another ginormous shuriken but I kicked him out of the way and it went flying into the trees. Then I used the technique I learned from the scroll and kicked his ass! Then Iruka-sensei graduated me!"