Fuinjutsu Chapter 8 part 3/3
0101010101
Village of Stone; Shopping district; The Incredible and Amazing Inu’s Seal-shop; Approximately three months after infiltrating Iwa; 10:34 GMT.
Hari stared pensively at the bottle of liquor positioned innocently in front of her on the counter in Naruto’s shop.
“Ne, Inu?”
“Hmm?” Naruto responded with a vague hum as he looked over the sealing scroll in his hands. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth in what could be called a cute fashion as he scrutinized the characters on the scroll for any mistakes.
“How come you can manage to work with seals when you’re as sloshed as you often are?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the half-empty bottle.
Naruto chuckled light-heartedly as he stretched over to pick up the bottle and take a hearty swig out of it. Contrary to what she’d done in the past, she did nothing to stop him now, having learnt through trial and error that ultimately nothing would be able to keep Naruto from drinking while he worked.
“’S a secret,” he slurred happily as he felt the fire from the liquid burn down his throat.
“Aw… c’mon! I’ve told you plenty of my secrets in the month we’ve known each other,” she complained loudly as she suddenly snagged the bottle away from Naruto’s mouth in a fit of childish frustration.
At the unexpected loss of his alcohol, Naruto began to cough violently when he swallowed the liquid he’d had in his mouth wrong.
When he finally caught his breath again, Naruto glared blearily up at the kunoichi before he deftly rolled the scroll closed with a sharp snap.
He staggered to his feet and turned around to place the scroll in a shelf behind him that was reserved for scrolls he had for sale. He’d added a whole lot of shelves in the actual shop that contained all the seals he’d finished and that were up for sale to the public. The scrolls kept in the shop-proper were the less dangerous ones and even the worst seal-grafters knew how to make them so he wouldn’t loose any of his secrets if they were stolen.
Not that anyone would dare stealing from him. He was far too popular in the shinobi-circles to be stolen from. The shinobi treasured his cervices and did their best to make sure that he had everything he could ask for, both when it came to supplies and when it concerned security.
The more dangerous seals were still locked up in the workroom just in case though.
“Secrets?” Naruto taunted as he turned back to regard the grey-haired kunoichi with a lopsided smirk. “Those weren’t secrets. They were only titbits about your personality that I need to know in order to graft a seal you ordered,” he said.
Hari pouted cutely, but she didn’t give up. “So? It’s still valid information about me that an enemy might misuse against me.”
Naruto snorted as he walked unsteadily towards her. When he deemed himself close enough, he flung himself over the desk in order to attempt to capture his bottle again. Unfortunately, he seemingly misjudged the distance and as a result he fell completely over the desk and landed in the lap of a now brightly blushing kunoichi. The stool she was perched on began to tip over and Naruto cried out in dismay when he saw that his bottle was about to meet the very hard and unforgiving floor. He flung himself towards the bottle again and barely managed to catch it. His sudden movement had only worsened the precarious balance of the stool though and the both of them crashed to the floor, Naruto cushioned with his face between Hari’s legs.
“Now this seems familiar,” he crowed out in delight.
Hari’s blush worsened, but Naruto wasn’t yet certain if it was out of anger or out of embarrassment.
“You-!”
The rising voice of the beauty underneath him, quickly tipped him off to anger being the concern he had to deal with at the moment. Quickly too, preferably… if he wanted to keep his balls.
The woman took things like this far too seriously according to Naruto’s opinion and sensibility and he’d made it his mission to loosen her up before he had to leave the village in an unknown amount of time.
“Just wait a second!” he cut her off before she could really get going.
In surprise at his audacity, she actually stilled as he took his time to tip the bottle and drain the rest of the contents.
“Now,” he said as he saw that she was about to explode in anger. He burped right after just because he could and then he continued with the conversation they’d had before his little flight across the counter. “I don’t really think the enemy will be able to use the fact that you love telling old legends against you in a battle.”
Hari’s brows furrowed as her thoughts were derailed at the sudden change in subject. She was so flummoxed that she even forgot the scandalous position they found themselves in.
“No, but they will exploit the fact that I’m aggressive and quick to anger.” She argued reasonably.
Naruto lifted one of the hands he’d had on her hips to negligently flip it in disregard. “Pish-posh! You are aware of that weakness and so you’re unlikely to fall for any attempts to rile you up in a serious battle”
Hari sighed, “And what about the fact that I have an affinity for the earth element? My enemies would love to know that.”
“Nearly all the nin in Iwa have an affinity for earth,” Naruto argued right back.
Hari’s brows furrowed further as she tried to think of another argument. She had just opened her mouth to retaliate when the bell to the door jingled, signalling that someone were entering the store.
The young daughter of the Tsuchikage suddenly remembered the position she was in with the notorious lecherous seal-grafter and as a result she froze.
Naruto - possessing no shame at all - craned his face up from its position in between the girl’s crotch to wave merrily at the new arrival.
“Hi, can I help you with anything?”
Hari began to tremble in anger underneath Naruto’s form and the newly arrived jounin immediately picked up on the building killing-intent in the air. He wisely decided to retreat and come back later, provided the shop-owner was still alive when he returned. “Uh… no that’s fine,” he excused himself as he began to back out the door. “I must have taken a wrong turn…” he trailed off with a high-pitched squeak and hightailed it out the door when the killer-intent began to manifest visually.
Naruto pouted as the doorbell jingled when the door shut.
“Do you have to scare away all of my customers?” he asked in a childish voice as he complained at her hostile behaviour.
The shop began to tremble.
“It’s not only your ability to graft seals under the influence,” Hari started when the commotion they’d been causing had finally died down - with a lot of painful squeals from Naruto.
“Oh?” Naruto prodded nonchalantly as he rubbed a fading bruise on the back of his head. In a really detached way - totally not apprehensive, really - Naruto wondered where she was headed with the current conversation.
“No,” Hari continued, completely oblivious to Naruto’s rising tension and worry. “It’s the way you don’t even seem affected by the killer-intent I throw out too. There’re so many things about you that I just can’t explain…” she trailed off as she pondered the man that had been on her mind far too often lately.
“Oh, that!” Naruto tried to seem totally carefree and unaffected as he rummaged around in the drawer of his counter for a new bottle of booze. “It’s because of my bastard of a father,” he started to explain energetically as he opened his new prize with a small pop of displaced air. “Well… he wasn’t really my father, but my sister’s uncle’s mother’s son, who lived with us for a period of time when I liked to go out fishing with my-“
He cut off abruptly as Hari grabbed his chin in a firm grip. She turned his head to face her and when she had his complete attention, she spoke levelly, “Quit shitting me! Can’t you just tell me the truth for once?”
Naruto blinked in apprehension and no little amount of fear at being found out as he stuttered a reply, “I-“
She cut him off before he could really get started. “Look, I know you’re only acting carefree most of the time and I don’t really care about that, but I worry about you.”
Naruto blinked, completely bewildered at the turn of events.
“Huh?”
She ignored him completely as she continued to forge on. “All this drinking... and you not being affected by my killer-intent… something terrible obviously happened to you when you were younger and I… I just… It’s the only explanation for how reckless and fearless you are.
“You’ve obviously experienced something so terrible that you’re running from it even now. What with the drinking and all…
“And you don’t care about my killing intent because you’re challenging death everyday with the stunts you pull. I mean honestly! Grafting seals under the influence? You’ve got to have a death-wish! You-“
Naruto’s thoughts were racing as he kept her from talking anymore with the hand he’d placed over her mouth. She’d stopped rambling, but she was still looking intently at him, attempting to peel back all the layers and all the shields he’d placed around his identity and heart.
“You’re worried about me?” it seemed as good a question to ask as anything else when he finally got his mouth to work correctly.
She kept his gaze as she nodded severely at him.
Fuck! Naruto’s thoughts screamed. Ero-sennin warned you. He warned you something like this would happen. Though, to be completely honest, the old man had probably thought Naruto would be the one to grow attached, not Hari.
Fuck!
Naruto tore himself out of the kunoichi’s grip as he stumbled backwards frantically. He could not let this happen. He could not let her grow too attached, because if she did, it would be doubly as hard for him to continue deceiving and using her. He’d never liked the betraying part of the shinobi-occupation and if she cared about him… If she started to genuinely care then there was no way he could stay unaffected.
He should break all connections to her right now. He should tell her something awful that would make her hate him. He should…
…But he couldn’t.
There was a war going on and all that he loved about and in Konoha was at risk. He was shinobi, a jounin of Konohagakure - though he was currently the only one who knew that - and he had a responsibility to his nation.
Complete the mission.
That was what they’d learned. It was what had been drilled into him since his academy days.
Protect your comrades and complete the mission. All else was secondary.
“Inu?” Hari’s questioning voice broke through his muddled and panicked thoughts and he focused agitated eyes on her.
The young kunoichi raised her hands in a universally known sign of showing that she was unarmed and bore no ill intensions. “Inu, listen! I-“
When she took a step towards him, he scrambled backwards until he was stopped by the solidity of the wall. She stopped advancing.
Hari dropped her hands to her side with a sad expression flittering over her face as she regarded his posture and his body language. It was obvious that he didn’t want her anywhere near her at the moment as Naruto had decided to play on her previous misconceptions concerning his past in an attempt to buy time to get his own thought straightened out.
Sighing in defeat, Hari turned towards the door. “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” she said, “It was too soon and I don’t know you well enough yet. I’ll just…” she gestured weakly to the door and when Naruto didn’t say anything, she sighed heavily again.
“I’m leaving for a mission along the border,” she said as she stopped with her hand on the door handle. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’ll probably be gone for at least a week.”
She turned to give him a lasting once over. “I just wanted you to know… I’ll come back when I’ve completed the mission and I won’t mention anything about your past again so don’t worry. I hope… I hope that’s okay with you?”
Not one to miss such an obvious need for some reassurance, Naruto gave a slight nod as he forced himself to smile a grimace at her. “That’s fine. I overreacted and I still have to graft that contract you commissioned from me.”
Relieved at his positive reply, she smiled brightly before she let herself out the door.
Naruto sank to the floor with a tired sigh when she’d finally left. He kept his eyes pensively on the door until the jounin from earlier finally returned to do some business. He took one look at Naruto before he attempted to break the stillness in the shop with some humour, “She really let you have it this time, huh?”
Naruto chuckled weakly as he pushed himself to his feet with the smallest of staggers.
“Yeah,” he said with a wider grin, “she really dislikes it when I drink at work.”
The jounin nodded sagely, far too aware of how uncomfortable all the shinobi were of the seal-grafter’s drink- and work-ethics. He couldn’t quite hide the wince that escaped when the enigmatic seal-grafter immediately went for the bottle of liquor that lay discarded on the floor of the shop.
0101010101
Village of Stone; Shopping district; The Incredible and Amazing Inu’s Seal-shop; Four months after infiltrating Iwa; 23:00 GMT.
“And does she suspect anything?”
Naruto shook his head negatively to Jiraiya’s question.
He’d been in Iwa for four months now and it had been one month since the disastrous scene with the Tsuchikage’s daughter.
They’re dealings had been strained after she’d returned from her mission by the border, but they’d slowly managed to get back to a somewhat carefree friendship again. Ultimately, Naruto had resolved that he would stick to fulfilling his mission, but he’d do his best to make sure that the relationship he had with the young Iwa-nin didn’t develop into anything more than what was considered platonic.
“No, she hasn’t mentioned anything after she came back, but from what I gathered she only thought I’d had a bad experience in my youth. She doesn’t suspect me of being unaffected by her killer-intent as a result of being a trained shinobi.”
Jiraiya nodded as he gruffly answered, “Well, that’s something I guess. Do you believe others may see through your cover?”
Naruto shook his head, “No, she’s the only one I’ve been spending a significant amount of time with. As such, she’s the only one close enough to suspect anything and what she suspects is completely off so…”
Jiraiya nodded in relief, “Nothing to worry about.”
Silence settled over the workroom as they both took their time to gather their thoughts.
“The Hokage has a new objective to add to your mission,” the white-haired sannin finally said, obviously reluctantly to bring up the subject.
Naruto’s eyebrows rose incredulously as he mentally began to doubt the Sandaime’s remaining sanity. He already had enough on his agenda to worry about, he really didn’t need more.
“Oh? And what might that order be?” he asked in a carefully nonchalant voice as he gave the toad summoner a sidelong look.
“He wants you to infiltrate the Tsuchikage’s office and search for any pertinent information concerning the war. The work you’re doing with his daughter is much appreciated and he wants you to continue, but it’s also taking too long. We’re in desperate need of new information about the enemy’s plans.”
Naruto choked in shock.
It was official: the Sandaime had gone off the deep end.
0101010101