Painfully Aware with So Much to Learn

Chapter Twenty-five: Plans and Hands

Previously:

"I would never disobey my king."

Now:

The minuite those words were spoken, I felt indescribably warm chakra cover me like a blanket. It was more controlled than last time, I could tell, the orange was softer and there were no mixed signals on how warm it was. It was gone in an instant and I felt a shiver down my spine. 'Has the world always been this cold? Troublesome..." I thought as I looked at my wounds only to see that not even scars were left. "That kyuubi of yours really is something." I said before I could stop myself.

"Heh, yeah." Naruto chuckled awkwardly. "I'm happy he taught me how to do that without relying on him." He gave a smirk that made me feel a certain way.

"So now all we need is Choji and Ino and we can head out." I said, shaking off the feeling. "How about we plan at the old playground?"

"Of course, that's no problem." He said quickly, so I headed out to my former teammates houses.

Choji was first, and he was on board, Choji's always had complete faith in me and it always made me feel like I belonged. Ino after that who had taken a C-rank to figure out she could lean on me, but she agreed. I think she might know about Kurenai, but I won't jump the gun just yet.

Once we had made our way to the old playground I saw Naruto sitting on a swing and zoning out staring at the ground. Ino took the lead in getting his attention, tapping him lightly on his now barely covered shoulder. His eyes snapped up and then we all went to the middle of the playground to strategize.

Once we had reached the gate, we were stopped. "Leaving the village without an official mission is illegal, and without a jonin no less." We heard a bored and muffled voice say.

We all looked at each other and nodded in agreement, we knew what we were doing but we were still going to do it. The now revealed Kakashi sighed. "This isn't something you're going back on, is it?" He more stated than asked. We all nodded.

Kakashi pulled out a paper and handed it to Naruto. "There's an official mission to kill those akatsuki members, Naruto's the leader from here." He stated before disappearing into thin air.

We all looked to Naruto, because we never heard he was promoted past genin, let alone jonin. Naruto sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Well I guess you guys wouldn't know." He said with a bit of an awkward chuckle. "I'm not a jonin but if my senjutsu mastery is approved by the Hokage, I'm kind of like a replacement." He said, a light blush tinting his cheeks from the attention.

I was a bit surprised, senjutsu is one of the most rare and hard to learn jutsus, how could I not.

"Can I see?" Choji's voice broke through the tension. Naruto looked surprised for a second and then nodded, closing his eyes as small flowers began to bloom at his feet. When he opened his eyes they were a vibrant blood orange with slit puples, eyeshadow appeared from thin air and made his eyes stand out even more. It was safe to say he looked beautiful and it seemed all three of us were staring because he looked away an blushed a little.

"You have got to teach me how to do that!" Ino spoke, moving the party along so she could talk with Naruto. "I've never seen such perfect smokey eyes, and you got them instantly! Not to mention your chakra tripled. Where do I get this witchcraft?? If I were to-" I tuned out her fangirling after that, only glancing over occasionally to make sure she didn't do anything.

Eventually the group was starting to feel their lack of sleep but Naruto quickly used those magic orange hands of his on all three of us, at the expense of himself, but I offered to carry him while he rested. Ino once again fangirled, this time at how cute Naruto looked snuggled into my jacket, but I shouldn't be one to talk because I was fangirling as well, just in my head.

I was happy that Ino was trying to keep her spirits up, but I knew Asuma's death was eating her up inside as well. I pushed forward as we started tree-hopping.
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I'm really sorry I'm dragging this out and this is another short chapter but I wanted to give Sakura some plot development, I'll make the next chapter long to make up for it.
                                                    ~Gracie