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"I'm too busy to entertain you right now, Naruto.” Kakashi cleared his throat. “You're not allowed back into mission rotation until the Medical Corps has grafted your new arm, and you can prove to me that you can use it." The Rokudaime Hokage dropped his shoulders and sighed. He's been seeing too much of his student-turned-hero since they returned from the village just a few days before. Naruto, on the other hand, seems not to think so, and he's been lingering around the Hokage's office for hours each day.
Naruto gave a bit of dirt on the floor a weak kick. "Come ON, Kakashi-sensei. I'm not some scrawny little kid anymore, ya know. I can fight and go on missions just like everyone else!"
"You can't form hand signs for ninjutsu and your taijutsu is at a severe disadvantage. Even if you could fight well with one arm, you're still clumsy and unbalanced." Kakashi nodded towards the remnants of a potted plant that once sat near the entrance of his office, its vase shattered and soil scattered across the floor, the handiwork of Naruto as he stumbled in this afternoon.
“Big deal, I can just use my Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to make up for my taijutstu, and the Rasengan doesn’t take any hand signs in the first place! I can do this, I’ve really thought this through!”
The Hokage just blinked.
“Okay, Naruto. If you’re so confident in your clones, why don’t you show them to me right now? At least a couple dozen, I think, should suffice.”
It was Naruto’s turn to stare at his sensei like he had dropped his marbles. Kakashi-Hokage-Teacher knows better than anybody how his shadow clones worked. Well, except maybe anybody he’s used them against. Maybe one-too-many “Dynamic Entry”’s from his eternal rival had finally knocked him off his rocker. Naruto shook his head and brought his hands together to form the familiar seal…
Until his fingers were met with his bandaged stump of an arm. With a sigh, Naruto’s shoulders slumped.
“Go home, Naruto. Get some rest, go see your friends. Take this as a blessing.” Kakashi returned to the paperwork in front of him and dismissed Naruto with a wave of his hand. Once the door finally closed behind his former student, a slouched figure stepped out from his usual spot resting on the wall.
“He should consider himself lucky. He’s one of the only people in the village who has the chance to relax.” Shikamaru brought his hand up behind his neck and grumbled softly. “But leave it to Naruto to have a problem with that.”
“You know as well as I do how much trouble he has sitting still.” Kakashi shuffled a stack of papers around on his desk and looked up at his assistant. “Find out how many chunin remain in the village and report back to me with a list. I have a feeling if somebody doesn’t keep an eye on him, Naruto’s gonna find some trouble to get into.”
With a nod, Shikamaru made his way out of the office, leaving the Rokudaime to his work.
xxxx
Naruto sat at his kitchen table with a cup on instant ramen and a boiling kettle of water sat out in front of him with a look of pure concentration on his face. Somehow, he thought, he was going to get the paper cup open and fill it to where it needed to be to prepare his favorite meal.
But opening a sealed lid with one hand is no easy feat for anybody, not even the number one most unpredictable, hyperactive knuckle-headed ninja of Konoha. Determined, Naruto picked his cup of ramen up, bringing it to his face and sticking the pull tab off the side of its paper lid between his teeth.
“Alrighf. I gof thith.” Naruto was just about to pull when a knock at the door made him jump.
xxxx
Hinata’s heart pounded in her chest like a drum. She knew this was just supposed to be another mission- something her and her team had done thousands of times by now in their career as shinobi. “But this is Naruto-kun.” She thought to herself as she made her way down the small walkway towards Naruto’s apartment. “What kind of mission is keeping an eye on Naruto-kun?” She exhaled slowly, willing some stress to leave her thoughts with her breath. From what Kiba had told her, Naruto was in bad shape after his final clash with Sasuke. What kind of trouble Hokage-sama thought Naruto could get into, especially in his alleged shape, she couldn’t guess. “Naruto-kun has always been unpredictable.” Despite her anxious tension, she let a small smile fall on her lips as she remembered his old nickname. Stepping up to Naruto's door, she straightened her shoulders and inhaled quickly. She clenched her fist, the skin of her knuckles drawing tight as she brought her hand up to the door. Releasing her breath, she knocked.
Before she could bring her hand back down to her side, there was a loud crash behind the door, followed by a loud yelp. Hinata flinched, and had to fight back the urge to rush inside and make sure everything was okay. Despite her feelings, she knew that barging in would be impolite.
After a moment, the door creaked open slightly, revealing a dripping wet, red-faced Naruto, who was slumping over himself as his skin seemed to steam.
"Huh? Hey, Hinata? What’s up?" Naruto perked up a bit when he met her eyes.
"G-good afternoon, Naruto-kun." She gave him a small bow. “Hokage-sama has assigned me to assist you with anything you might need while you recuperate from your injuries.”
Naruto pulled the door the rest of the way open and brought his hand up to the back of his neck. "What? What injuries? I'm fine, at least I feel fine. Except for this bad boy, I'm great!" He waved his bandaged stump of a right arm around at his side with a wide, goofy grin. "See? I'm great for the most pa-hey, Hinata! What happened to your head?! You getting sick or something?"
The color dropped from Hinata's face as she stared at the bandages taking the place of where Naruto's arm should be. As her mind raced, Naruto's voice cut in, breaking her panicked thoughts.
"Hey, don't worry about it. It only hurts a little, and Granny Tsunade says I'll have a new one in a week." Naruto laid his existing hand over Hinata's shoulder. "It's all good, ya know? It's a small price to pay."
"What… what happened?" Hinata shook her head, banishing the last of her alarm from her thoughts. “Kiba-kun said you were heavily injured, but I never thought…”
“You wanna get some lunch? I can tell you all about it there.” Naruto grinned. “My treat?”
Before Hinata could respond, Naruto took her hand in his and pulled her back down the halls of the apartment building. Hinata couldn’t help but notice how perfectly his hand fit into hers.
xxxx
“For a while, I didn’t know what to expect. Every time I thought I had an edge, at least with a bunch of clones and Kurama, he kept countering with something just as big and powerful.” Naruto picked up a french fry and swirled it around in the air, brandishing it around like a kunai. “I don’t know how long we fought, it could have been hours. But eventually it all came down to one last Rasengan, and that’s what happened to my arm.”
Hinata stared in awe. To hear of such an intense battle between two of the strongest shinobi on the planet so nonchalant, in a diner over hamburgers was a completely new concept to her, nonetheless the way Naruto said it so matter-of-fact, like he was telling a story from years before rather than a few days ago.
“What about Sasuke?”
Naruto’s gaze hardened. “I don’t know, he says he’s not gonna take a new arm from the Med Corps. He had some really fucked up idea of how things would be when he killed me and the tailed beasts, I guess he's still brooding over that." Naruto shook his head. "Man, I've never had a milkshake from a place like this before. Do you want one?"
Hinata shook her head politely. Despite her curiosity, she didn't blame Naruto for changing the subject. As Naruto flagged down a waiter, she studied the way his body moved. Despite being beaten like an unwanted stepchild a few days prior, he moved with surprising ease, with no tension at all around where the majority of the damage was done: his right "arm". Even without the physical damage, he seemed to move more fluently as well, as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Hinata smiled.
"Good." She thought.
"And two straws, please!" Naruto gave Hinata a small nudge with the side of his hand when he noticed she wasn't paying attention. "In case you want to try it." He grinned, his shining smile sending a wave of content through Hinata's body. She imagined what lunch with Naruto everyday would be like.
"Naruto-kun?"
"Hmm? What's up?"
"Why did you decide to come here today?"
"What do you mean? Do you not like it? We can go somewhere else if you wa-"
"No, no! I do like it! I just, um, I was just curious. When you asked me to lunch, I assumed we'd be going to Ichiraku."
"Oh, heh. Yeah, I wish." Naruto nodded towards his right and wiggled his stumped arm. "I can't hold chopsticks very well with my left hand, so I'm kinda limited to finger foods for the time-being." He chuckled. "Next time, though, that's the first thing I'm doing. Teuchi-jii-san is gonna get sick of looking at me by the time I'm done with him!.
Hinata stifled a giggle and reached for her drink. Leave it to Naruto to plan out his next trip to Ichiraku while having a meal somewhere else. As Naruto launched back into his tale of he and Sasuke's recent fight, Hinata listened intently while the sky outside turned a fiery orange as the afternoon turned to a chilly October evening. Once they had finally finished their meal, the owner of the diner came and shook their hands, a little awkwardly for Naruto, who could only do so improperly.
"Thanks, Denny-san!" Naruto waved to the older man as they exited through the main doors. Taking a glance at the skyline, he sighed happily. "Thanks for coming with me, Hinata. It's no ramen, but hanging out with you today sure beat the hell out of sitting by myself all day." He gave her one of his wicked grins, and she had to resist the urge to hide her face as she felt a blush creep up her face.
"Thank you for inviting me, Naruto-kun." Hinata gave him a small smile. "After all, I was assigned to assist you while you are injured."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other this week, huh?" This time it was Naruto's turn to blush. "I'll take it easy on you, I promise."
"Oh, Naruto-kun." Hinata giggled. Seeing Naruto blush for once was a sight to behold. After a moment, she held out her hand. "Can I walk you home?"
"Heh, ya know, I was gonna ask you the same question." Naruto took her hand and nodded. "But you may." He squeezed around her fingers gently as they made their way down the familiar road.
xxxx
"Naruto, I swear if you don't quit squirming I'm gonna kill you." Sakura gave him a rough shake as he recoiled away from the pasty white arm she had presented to him. Despite the ensemble of medic-nin and curious nurses gathered behind the examination window of the large operating room, it was just Naruto and Sakura at the surgery table. Apparently grafting a new arm onto somebody really draws a crowd.
"Alright, sorry. It just still hurts when it touches anything." Naruto sighed. He knew this wasn't going to be easy.
"That's a good thing. If the stump completely healed while we made the arm, we wouldn't be able to graft it on. Now sit still, I have to graft the bone first, then connect all of your nerves, tendons and arteries." Sakura gave him an encouraging smile. "It's gonna hurt like hell."
Naruto gritted his teeth and nodded. "Let's get it over with, then."
xxxx
After several painstakingly brutal hours in surgery, being transferred to a regular exam room was like a breath of fresh air for Naruto. Even though the pain eased away with each passing second, it was still one of the most intense pains he'd ever experience. Sakura explained on the way in that they mostly just needed to test his reflexes and make sure he can channel chakra through the new limb through hand signs, and then he'd be good to go. After the reflex tests were concluded, Naruto pointed his palm towards the ceiling.
"Alright! This one's the real deal!" Naruto barred his teeth and let his chakra spike, the air around him swirling and gusting as his favorite technique manifested in the palm of his hand, the blue chakra spheres low glow reflecting in the cheerful shine of his eyes.
"That's enough, Naruto! You did what you needed to, everything seems to be working properly. I'm gonna set you up with monthly check-ups at first to make sure your body doesn't reject the foreign cells, but once we know that's not the case we can switch to annual check-ups just to keep an eye on things." Sakura gave him a warm smile.
"Er, okay, thanks." Naruto nodded and scratched the back of his neck, his face contorted in perplexion. "So that means I gotta come back when, exactly..?"
"Idiot… I'll summon for you to come to the hospital when you're supposed to, alright?"
"Okay, thanks Sakura-chan!" Naruto bowed slightly and looked at his freshly-bandaged right arm. "Now I'm gonna go test this thing out!" Naruto went for the door but was interrupted by Sakura's fist.
"YOU GIANT IDIOT! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK ITS OKAY TO SAY THOSE KINDS OF THINGS, HUH? I DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GO DO WITH YOUR NEW HAND!"
Naruto held his aching head in his hands as he doubled over on the cold linoleum floor. It took him a moment to finally understand what Sakura thought he was talking about.
"What the hell does that mean? I haven't had Ichira- you know what, forget it! I have something I gotta do!" Naruto stumbled to his feet and rushed out of the exam room, making his way out of the hospital as quickly as he could.
xxxx
As Naruto stood outside the Hyuuga compound gates he started to feel antsy. The last week spending so much time with Hinata had been a lot of fun, even if they mostly just wandered around the village looking for something interesting to do. Still, spending his newfound free time with her made the anguish of being village deadweight while he waited for his new arm to be ready little more than an afterthought. He had even gotten used to the way some of the villagers would look at them as they made their way through shops and busy streets hand in hand, though they never failed to put a deep blush on Hinata. He chuckled out to himself, remembered how much she looked like she would faint the first time somebody they knew called out to them while they were browsing through a stall full of magazines and newspapers.
Suddenly a tap on his shoulder broke him out of his reverie. He turned and met her eyes as a broad smile grew over his face.
"Good morning, Naruto-kun." Hinata gave him a wide smile of her own. "I didn't expect to see you this morning."
"Yeah, I just got my new arm put on!" Naruto held up his bandaged hand and wiggled his fingers in front of his face. "I thought I'd go test it out, and I thought the only person I wanted to do that with was you. You wanna go get some ramen?"
"Hmmmmm…" Hinata tapped on her lip with her finger, feigning uncertainty. "I'm not sure. Now that I've become familiar with it, I think I prefer diner food over noodles and broth." Hinata couldn't help but giggle as Naruto's jaw dropped. Before he could start his protests, she grabbed him by the hand and interlocked their fingers. "I'd love to have ramen with you, Naruto-kun." She smiled as a faint blush crept up her neck.
"Heh, sweet." Naruto felt his own skin turn red as she took the lead towards Ichiraku.
This time it was his turn to notice just how right her hand felt in his.