Never Again: A Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 4: Steam

Team 7 along with an old man were walking down a long dirt path, heading to Water Country. Their mission was quite simple on paper: Defend and escort Tazuna the Bridge Builder to The Land of Waves and protect him from bandits and such while he finished building the bridge.

Naruto knew that the mission was going to be a lot more difficult soon, with the threat of the Demon Brothers as well as Zabuza and Haku, it would definitely be a tough fight and a difficult mission, but he was stronger than he was before, and he made it out alive and okay the last time. 

Though, he did secretly want to change things. A few things were on his list: 

1. Save Zabuza and Haku. They weren't truly bad people, they just were hired and had to do their jobs, it wasn't their fault they had to fight for a living. 

2. Train with Obito on mastering the Rasengan. Sure, he could use it, but it took about five seconds to form it with two clones assisting him with it, so he wanted it to be able to create one instantaneously without any help from the clones, but it would take a long time in order to do that. 

3. Try to deepen his bonds with his teammates. He would admit that it was his fault they were distant, he was distant as a whole, it was just hard. He had lost Kakashi and Sasuke to this time change, making them lost to him twice now, with Sakura remaining the same, but not the same Sakura. 

This Sakura was more determined and focused rather than idolizing Sasuke because Sasuke didn't exist, Sayuri did. 

Sayuri. . . 

His thoughts were conflicted about the girl. Sure, she was his teammate, but every time he saw her he can't help but get angry. She had taken the place of Sasuke in his eyes, somewhere deep inside him, no matter how dumb it was, he reasoned that she was the reason Sasuke wasn't alive, that is was somehow her fault that he wasn't alive anymore.

He knew it wasn't right, but that's just what he thought sometimes. 

And Obito. . .

"Hey Naruto," The Uchiha sensei called out to the blonde, breaking the boy's train of thought. "You okay?" Naruto glanced back at his team, having taken lead, hence being in front of the group. 

"I'm fine," He replied easily, lying through his teeth. "Just thinking of the possibilities of the world." Not so much as a lie, but definitely a hidden truth. 

"Quite endless my boy," Tazuna stated. "Especially for you ninja type and your magic voodoo stuff."

"Magic voodoo?" Obito stated comically. "We use chakra, magic doesn't exist." Tazuna shook his head.

"Brats like you are the reason why this world sucks," He said as he took a swig of his drink. "Magic does exist, it might not be what you guys use but it's definitely here." 

"I've lived for twenty-eight years," Obito began as he narrowed his eyes at the old man. "And I've never seen magic." Tazuna waved him off. 

"Maybe our magician is home, I'll show ya when we get to Wave." Obito ignored the statement, chalking it up to civilian illusionment. Naruto's eyes widened as he saw a puddle in the middle of the pathway, knowing what, or rather, who was in that genjutsu. 

Obito noticed Naruto tense up and felt a small frown appear on his face. How he had immediately known of the genjutsu in the middle of the road? This was supposed to be the dead last of his class, yet, he's shown the most strength on the team despite Sayuri graduating as the Rookie of the Year. 

That brought up more questions too. Like, how did he know the Rasengan? Or the fact that his father was Minato Namikaze? Or the name of his Mangekyou's ability? He knew far too much for Obito's liking.