literature

Kitsune no Yomeiri Chapter 2

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The kitsune were known for their many tricks and illusions. So it was no great feat for Naruto to cast a glamour upon himself so he could travel to Konoha unimpeded. His short and spiky hair became long, and the color went from that of sunshine to the pale red of early sunset. Beautiful blue eyes faded to a drab gray, and the markings on his cheeks that proclaimed his birthright disappeared altogether. His royal robes were traded for a light, yet formal kimono of lavender silk that complemented his hair and eyes, pale red kitsune prancing across the hem and cuffs. The obi was of glittery silver, and it hid a few things he could defend himself with. When going to a shinobi village in disguise, it was best not to use any chakra.

Naruto was currently dining at a rest stop in a quaint forest town, a small plate of dango sitting on his lap. All morning he’d wondered what he would do if it turned out the Uchiha really had forgotten him, and all he had come up with was a massive case of confusion and anxiety. His father, always a comforting voice in the back of his mind, suggested merely entering Konoha without incident before confronting the problem that was his betrothed.

And again, he came up with nothing. It seemed Oto had made many an enemy since its attack on the kitsune village, and Konoha wasn’t lightly letting strangers into its gates. And he couldn’t come up with a likely excuse that would have them believe he wasn’t a Sound spy. As Naruto tried to come up with something once more, a loud and drunken laugh shattered the relative calm of the afternoon.

‘Who the hell is making all that racket?’

“… And I’m currently on my way back to Konoha to finish my latest book. Konoha is home to one of my most inspiring friends.”

At the mention of the very town he sought entry to, Naruto casually picked up his dango and set it beside him on the bench he occupied, surreptitiously turning his body so he could observe the speaker. His gray eye settled on an elderly gentleman with long, white hair, in attire that suggested shinobi. The he saw one of the man’s hands come up and rub a thigh belonging to a young woman who was sitting on the bench across from him.

‘Okay, I take back the gentleman comment. He’s nothing but a pervert. I guess I better go save those girls…’

“Excuse me, sir, did I understand correctly that you are traveling to Konoha?”

Suspicious eyes turned his way, and then whipped back to the girls who’d started blushing and giggling when Naruto had stepped up. Then those eyes glared at him. Naruto’s grin turned to a coy smile, his eyes closing helplessly, as if to apologize for taking the girls’ attention away from the older man. But one of his eyebrows was slightly tweaked in annoyance, if one cared to look closely.

“And what if you did, brat?”

‘Brat? Why I ought to…’

“Pardon my rudeness for interrupting your conversation with these lovely young ladies,” more giggling, more glaring, more helpless smiling, “But I am in desperate need of a guide to that very village, and I’d be more than willing to pay for your services.”

Naruto saw the women looking at the old man out of the corner of his eye, and he also saw a slight twitch to the other’s brow. It seemed someone didn’t want to look roguish in front of the fairer sex, the ‘brat’ comment aside, and Naruto smirked in victory in his mind.

“Well, I certainly can’t turn down a person in need.”

“I am in your debt, …?”

“Jiraiya. And you are?”

“You may call me Kazahaya.”

“Hn, well then, Kazahaya-kun, I was planning on getting to the next town by dark, so we’d better get going now, since I now have a tag-along that will slow me down.”

‘An insult poorly disguised as factual observation… This pervert better be glad he’s useful to me.’

Naruto watched impatiently as Jiraiya said his goodbyes to the two ladies he’d been hitting on. Naruto was half afraid it’d be too dark to leave by the time the old man was through, but Jiraiya soon walked away from them and started toward the road. For the next hour, Naruto trailed silently after the man, watching the way he walked and held himself.

‘His back is tense, as if he’s ready to run away at any time.’

‘He might just be considering it. He has no obligation to you, and he may just abandon you on the road.’

‘Well, while that will be a disappointment, it wouldn’t change much if he did. He’s just a way to get into the village without a hassle. Then again, he’s obviously a ninja, so he may just be on guard against attack.’

“So why are you headed to Konoha, Kazahaya-kun?”

Naruto was snapped out of his inner conversation by the older man’s question. He figured he’d stick as close to the truth as he could so he didn’t get the old man in trouble should something go wrong. “I just wanted to visit an old friend, whom I haven’t seen in a while.”

“I see. What a coincidence. I’m on my way to see an old friend, too.”

“So I heard. Tell me, what kind of writer are you?”

“I write a series of books focused on the trials and tribulations of young people whose only desire is to love and be loved!”

“They sound interesting. What is the name of this series?”

Icha Icha Paradise! It is a household name!”

“Tch, it’s a book, not an appliance.”

“Regardless, they are bestsellers all over the world!”

They passed the rest of the day’s journey in companionable conversation, and Naruto learned that Jiraiya was a renowned sannin that could summon toads. When this information brought along the fact that Jiraiya traveled the countries alone doing research for his novels, he took to calling the older man ‘sennin,’ laughing heartily every time the man took offense. He told Jiraiya as little as possible about himself, and whether or not the sannin noticed, he never called him on it.

When evening fell, they found themselves at the next town, and Naruto gladly treated the old man to a night in the bathhouse. And when morning dawned, it found the two on the road once again, happily exchanging insults and stories. However, despite the friendly company, the closer Naruto got to Konoha, the more anxious he became.

Yes, his goal was to find Sasuke and make him his, but he had lived in Konoha for six years before the kitsune had taken him back. How had it changed? Would he be plagued with memories that he’d rather forget? His father had destroyed a good bit of the village twenty-one years ago, and even though the Sandaime had spared him, most of the villagers had still despised him.

All too soon, the gates of Konohagakure loomed before them, and the vague echoes of Naruto’s adamant declaration, made so many days ago on the tail of his coronation, seemed to grow even quieter in his mind.

“Something wrong, Kaza-kun?”

“Nothing is wrong; I just don’t remember these gates being so large.”

And then he was through them. No Leaf shinobi appeared from nowhere and seized him; no jutsu was triggered to stop him in his tracks. But Jiraiya did inform him that they had to go tell the Hokage he was here so he wouldn’t be apprehended as a spy, as Naruto had suspected would happen. As he walked beside the sannin toward what he remembered vaguely as ‘Hokage Tower,’ Naruto was met with strange and very open looks, some even verging on lustful, and it unnerved him just a little bit.

‘Maybe I should have made my glamour uglier.’

He heard a small chuckle in his head and smiled. His father was a comforting and supportive presence at the back of his mind, and Naruto had never felt like the orphan he was because of it. Though, his father wasn’t technically dead…

“Right this way, Kaza-kun. But let me warn you: Tsunade is one feisty Hokage, so just let me do all the talking.”

Ten minutes later, Jiraiya was evicted from the office of the Hokage, and Naruto was left alone to deal with one very agitated, very strong, and very ample-breasted woman. She turned the vestiges of her glare on him, and Naruto fought the strong urge to run.

“I am Tsunade, Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure. Would you mind telling me why you were in the company of that,” she waved her hand in the general direction Jiraiya had left, “sad excuse for a man?”

Naruto tried to fight back a grin, but it was taking no quarter and broke out across his face. “I needed a guide here, and I happened to run across him on his way here.”

“And what is your purpose here? Jiraiya trusts you, so please, just inform me for priority’s sake, and I’ll let you go.”

“I’m here to visit an old friend, and perhaps retrieve something I left behind long ago.”

“You’ve lived here before?”

It saddened Naruto that the Sandaime, who had done so much for him as a child, was dead, for what else could have happened to the old man when Naruto could not sense his chakra signature, but it meant that the Godaime would have no inkling of who he could possibly be.

“Yes, when I was a small boy.”

Tsunade nodded, almost to herself, and told him he could leave. When he opened the door leading out to the hallway, he saw Jiraiya waiting for him.

“I thought you might need to know of a good place to stay.”

“I thank you, Jiraiya.” Naruto gave a small bow.

“But since you don’t have any belongings, I figured you’d be in no rush to find a room, and I felt a familiar chakra signature or two over at the training fields. Care to join me?”

“I can think of no other way to spend some time until dinner.” They exited Hokage Tower, and Jiraiya steered them toward their destination.

“Just why don’t you have any belongings?”

Everything Naruto needed was hidden securely in his obi, and his kimono was charmed so it would never get dirty. But how was he to explain that? “I didn’t plan on staying too long.”

“I see.”

They came upon the training fields where two blurs were currently sparring. Standing at the outskirts of the battle area were a few other shinobi, two of which Naruto recognized immediately.

‘Sakura and Ino…’

He recalled his childhood when he and Sasuke were together, and there they were, always trying to get between him and the Uchiha. He’d always gotten a weird feeling whenever they’d tried to get Sasuke’s attention, and it was only after one and a half decades of not forgetting about the Uchiha that he’d realized it had been jealousy.

He chuckled softly to himself at the memory of the two kunoichi’s antics and nearly got pegged by a projectile flung from the center of the fighting blurs. Naruto looked down where the thing had landed and gazed questioningly at a book bound in an orange jacket. Flipping it over with his foot, he read Icha Icha Paradise on the cover and, with a fair amount of surprise, bent over to pick it up.

‘This is one of Jiraiya’s books.’

Oblivious to the fight going on before him, and the odd and questioning looks he was receiving from one pale-eyed shinobi, Naruto opened the book to a dog-eared page and began to read. As his eyes skimmed the sentences before him, they became wider and wider as his cheeks became redder with each word he read.

‘This… this is… he’s… such a… ero-sennin!’

“Ah, thank you, young man, for picking up my book. It seems I made Sasuke a little upset.”

Naruto looked up from the embarrassing print in his hand into the masked face of a Leaf nin. The man’s hitai-ate was tilted to cover his left eye, and his right was squinted just a bit, probably from a smile under the mask. Then Naruto’s brain registered what the man had said. His eyes widened just a bit, and he peered around the taller man’s shoulder.

There, just a little ways from him, was Uchiha Sasuke, his old friend and only love, sweat dripping from his face, gorgeous bangs sticking to his skin. His form-fitting black pants and shirt defined every toned muscle in the Uchiha’s body, and those black eyes blazed with fire even from the distance between them. Naruto’s heart began to race at the sight of him, and he had to fight the urge to run to the other man and hug him ferociously.

Naruto hardly saw Jiraiya walk up to Sasuke and pat him on the shoulder, so focused was he on his old friend. But then Jiraiya spoke, and Naruto felt pain as never before blossom in his heart.

“So, Uchiha, I heard about your wedding in a few days! It’s a good thing I stopped by, ne?”

And when Sakura walked up and took Sasuke’s arm, planting a small kiss on his cheek, Naruto felt his heart stop in his chest, and the little orange book fell from his lifeless fingers.


TBC
okay, here's chapter 2: foxes love to hide

just know, the story in its entirety is on AFF.net. i'm just putting this up here for posterity.

same tags apply
© 2007 - 2024 shigo
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