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Kabuto was never one for crowds or noise, yet here he was, trying to navigate a noisy crowd. He glanced at the note from Anko, careful not to drop it. This was the address, he crumpled it and shoved it back in his pocket. Usually she made an effort to pick quiet places, well, quiet by her standard he supposed.
This place wouldn’t be quiet by anyone’s standard. The chatter was so loud and mixed; it would be impossible to get anything distinct from any one conversation without joining their table. Making it worse, the louder one table got, the louder they all got. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, he’d spent plenty of time in noisier, seedier bars, but Kabuto couldn’t claim to feel comfortable.
The third time he felt eyes on his back, Kabuto paused, prepared to see nothing when he checked, yet again. This time, he caught an entire table openly glaring at him. Kabuto took their measure, and was certain he could best any of them. They had the overconfidence of rookies. Even their jonin teacher, a woman with a large scar from her shoulder to her bicep, didn’t give Kabuto the impression that her skill matched her bravado.
Still, they didn’t look away when he acknowledged them with a wave. Definitely overconfident. Every one of them, except the jonin, had shiny new chunin vests and the metal of their headbands was unblemished. A boy with bright eyes and unwashed hair leaned over the table to whisper something that had the jonin nod, gripping the knife meant for her dinner like a weapon.
Kabuto smiled at them, a warm, pleasant, smile he was sure boiled their blood nicely. Did they think they were intimidating? He restrained his laughter.
He almost wanted to see what they wanted to try. All this glaring must have a purpose, right? Maybe they thought they could take him, this had Kabuto snickering, the sound lost to his own ears in the buzz of conversations.
He restrained himself. Starting a fight in the middle of a restaurant was bound to earn him Lady Tsunade’s ire. Seeing as he still hadn’t been cleared to go back on missions, it’d be best not to test his limits. Plus Anko would enjoy it far too much.
Kabuto stepped back into the crowd, letting himself vanish among the bodies. He barely made it two steps before nearly catching a slap. He stepped out of the way, not getting so much as an apology, and all his positive feelings vanished.
He tried to agree every time Anko asked him to dinner, she had good taste in eateries that weren’t expensive. She could be decent company too, rarely forcing him to carry the conversation. However, he felt his opinion of her decreasing the longer he couldn’t find her.
Where was shee? Kabuto reconsidered whether he should keep looking. The note said she had something important to tell him. Considering the state of this place, would he even be able to hear her? Maybe he should ditch her, Naruto and Sakura would be expecting him soon anyway.
The thought of how Anko would react to being stood up had him keep looking. If it got too late he’d have an excuse. Kabuto wasn’t paying attention and got an elbow to the stomach when a man at the end of his booth swung his arm out suddenly.
“Ah, sorry ma–.” The man paused upon seeing Kabuto’s face. A jonin, Kabuto recognized, from the Yamanaka clan.
“Apologies.” Kabuto stepped away too quickly for the guy to decide if he wanted a fight or not.
At last, Kabuto spotted her. Anko sat near a window, far from the bar, swirling a small cup as she gazed outside. Her hair was down, maybe he’d overlooked her? Kabuto was pretty sure he’d passed by that spot.
There was something else too though, her expression. Kabuto was surprised to see how melancholic she looked. He hesitated, should he prepare for bad news? As he approached she perked up though, so he decided it couldn’t be serious.
“Interesting place,” Kabuto said, taking a seat opposite her.
“Isn’t it? You can sit anywhere and get involved with a good conversation,” Anko said, looking back outside. That wasn’t her usual energy.
From some of the looks he’d gotten Kabuto was pretty sure if he sat at a random table and tried to join in a conversation he’d get punched. “A popular place, I’m sure. Especially among shinobi.”
“Indeed,” Anko said, relaxing as she looked him over. “How’s life been? Back on missions yet?”
Kabuto laughed humorlessly. “No, not quite yet. Kakashi is still running some paperwork.”
He was pretty sure Kakashi was waiting to hear whether he and Naruto were mentally fit for missions. It was taking longer than Kabuto would’ve expected, but he appreciated the break. It gave him time to finish his report on Sasori and Deidara. Much of the team’s time was spent with Kakashi trying to drill combat skills into everyone’s skulls with varying degrees of success.
“I bet. Any mission that brings you in contact with a foreign nation is bound to be a nightmare paperwork wise,” Anko said. She grinned and leaned her chin on the bottom of her palm. “Never mind another nation’s Kage.”
“That’s true,” Kabuto said, pleased the lie went unquestioned. “What about you? I hear a chunin exam is coming up. Are you prepared?”
“Not this year. I’m taking both exams off. What about you?”
“Much the same, I imagine,” Kabuto said. He saw no benefit to seeking promotion right now. “Are the exams changing then? Under Lady Tsunade?”
“Yeah, she said the Forest of Death and the scrolls were stale. I’ll need time to think of something else. I’ve got a few ideas, but I have to scout out some locations.”
“Let me know if I can be of assistance.”
“No way no how. Not until you’ve been promoted. I see you trying to cheat,” Anko said, Kabuto crossed his arms, trying to find words of refutation she’d believe.
Anko leaned close, holding a hand up. “Between us? I doubt I’d have time anyway. I’ve got a big mission coming up.”
“Oh?”
Anko winked. “Top secret stuff.”
“I’m sure I’ll hear about it soon enough,” Kabuto said, letting his eyes travel to her drink. Anko always got loose-lipped with alcohol.
“This is tea, sorry,” Anko said, snickering at him. “You’ll hear about it though. Especially if it goes well.”
“I’ll anticipate good news then,” Kabuto said. He was curious now, mainly due to the secrecy.
“Hm, I don’t think this mission…well…I’ll tell you soon enough,” Anko took a long sip. “I let it get cold…”
“Oh?”
“Anyway, you going to order?”
“Not today,” Kabuto said, holding up a hand in surrender. “Naruto and Sakura wanted me to come over for dinner. It would be rude if I come and don’t eat anything.”
“Oh? But it’s ok to be rude to me?”
“I told you I might not eat,” Kabuto said. “Or were you not listening? I had a feeling…”
“This place has some of the best barbecue in town though,” Anko said, as though that should sway him. Kabuto crossed his arms, unmoved. Anko sighed loudly. “Well, I guess I’ll have to drag you back later.”
“Am I here so you don’t have to eat alone?”
“What? No, I could get plenty of people to eat with me if I wanted,” Anko said. Kabuto covered his mouth to stop himself from laughing.
“Oh? Popular, are you? Is that why–” Kabuto started.
“Finish that thought and you can explain why you’re in the hospital to Lady Tsunade,” Anko said.
Kabuto didn’t test her, though he still smiled to show how seriously he took the threat. Anko scoffed at him. “If not bragging about your high security mission, then why did you bring me here?”
“Oh?” Anko asked, her expression turning devious. “So you don’t know? I assumed Kakashi reminded you.”
Remind him? Kabuto didn’t think it was an anniversary of anything he had to worry about. Orochimaru’s attack had been in early summer, and he’d been assigned to team seven in early autumn, it was winter now. What else could Kakashi want to remind him of?
Anko slid a small, lightly decorated toward him. “Happy birthday Kabuto.”
Kabuto did the mental math, but it was his birthday. His mouth went dry. He’d let the days blur together. The mission to get Sasuke back was coming up, training with Kakashi, and trying to finish his report so the Sasori stuff could be behind him more than occupied him.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Kabuto said, having not expected it at all.
“Oh please, I didn’t go out of my way,” Anko said. “Open it and I’ll explain.”
Kabuto eyed the bag, trying to decode what that meant. “Are you sure?”
“Do you not want it?” Anko asked, waving the bag in his face. “At least look at it first.”
“If you say so,” Kabuto said, taking it with both hands.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting. A large part of him was prepared for her to have stuffed a live snake in the bag. He pulled bits of colorful paper from the bag cautiously, looking for scales. How he’d explain a new pet to Kakashi–.
No. He’d have to release it. Poor thing would get eaten by one of Kakashi’s dogs if Kabuto tried to bring it back with him. Thankfully he wasn’t seeing any movement…yet.
Kabuto reached the end of the paper and to his relief, there was no snake. There was a cardboard box, no symbols, nothing to clue him in on where it came from. Anko watched, a devious smile on her lips, chin on her knuckles.
He pulled the box out carefully, taking the top off. Inside was a bed of soft, white fabric and a beautiful scalpel. Kabuto took it carefully, rolling the handle over his palm with his thumb. The blade was designed to look like the flared hood of a cobra, small scales detailed into the metal, a small, hissing head opposite the blade, as though preparing to strike.
“It’s beautiful,” Kabuto said.
“Don’t I know it?” Anko grinned at him, evidently he was giving her the right reaction.
“I can’t–.”
“You said I shouldn’t have gotten you anything. Well, I didn’t, technically.” Anko waited on his reaction, evidently enjoying watching him trying to piece together how she stumbled on the scalpel.
“You see, a genin got injured a couple exams ago,” Anko interrupted. “Got her leg bitten off so she left the shinobi. So, I set her up with a blacksmith who owed me a favor. It gave her something to do, something to hit. I think she needed it.”
Anko shook her head, waving. “Anyway, I go to her for all my custom pieces now. She gives me fair discounts for helping her out. I was having her make something and there was a bit of metal leftover.”
“Oh…”
“She said she’d find a use, but since part of my bill went to the materials I had priority if I wanted something extra. Kakashi said you use these.”
Anko nodded at the scalpel. “Now, I was told it could be used for things like cooking or inanimate things like plants, but since the snake’s face is coming out opposite the blade, it can’t do anything that might move or get caught. I’m sure you can find a use though.”
Kabuto placed it back in the box. “I don’t feel I can accept this. It looks expensive.”
“Oh please, I already paid full price for this beauty,” Anko said, showing him a kunai engraved with cobras, hoods extended, wrapping around each other on the face. “I can’t even use it for battle. I saw some bandits using one with a similar design and couldn’t help myself. Your little thing was just an extra.”
“Are you certain?”
“Well if you want to pay me back…I’m sure I could borrow you for a few missions. There've been a couple kids thinking it'd be funny to break into the Forest of Death and I’d love help chasing them off.”
“It would be a problem if the animals in there figured out there’s food on the other side of the fence,” Kabuto said, smiling and running his thumb along the blade. “I want to collect some plants from out there anyway.”
“Oh? Nothing illegal.”
Kabuto rolled his eyes, placing the scalpel back in its box. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Kabuto stood. “I should probably get going, Naruto and Sakura will be waiting, I probably shouldn’t keep them.”
“I’ll be in touch with Kakashi. We’ll have a proper dinner here soon,” Anko said, waving. “It was good seeing you.”
On his way to Naruto’s place, Kabuto bought a bag of candies and some tea. It would be rude to show up without food. They could share the tea over dinner, and as for the leftovers, Sakura would take the candies, and Naruto could keep the tea.
Anko may have known it was his birthday, but he has a feeling Naruto and Sakura wouldn't. Sakura hadn’t done anything last year. No, in all likelihood, Naruto and Sakura wanted to talk about the upcoming mission.
He knocked, and the door was thrown open so fast he almost knocked on Naruto’s forehead. Thankfully Naruto didn’t seem to notice. Kabuto was dragged inside, and could smell soup. Ramen, he figured.
The floor was still cluttered, but it seemed Naruto held to his word. He’d made an effort to clean. The weird dummy he’d drawn on to look like Kakashi was still hanging in the corner, delightfully. Sakura sat at the table, looking up at him expectantly.
“Happy birthday,” Both said in time.
Kabuto froze, trying to decide what he was supposed to do with his expression. How had everyone else known? “Thank you.”
“Oi, come on. Sakura worked hard on this,” Naruto said, smacking him on the back. “What? Were you expecting something fancier? None of us are doing missions right now…”
Kabuto winced, he was pretty sure that was the best he had. “Ah, no. I wasn’t expecting this. I’ll try again. Thank you?”
“Both of us got you something, but we should eat first,” Sakura said, pulling Naruto into a headlock to stop him from saying anything.
“Ok! Ok! Ok! I get it! Sakura!” Naruto said, clawing at her arm.
“Do you?” Sakura asked, walking Naruto to the pot of ramen on the stove.
Kabuto followed slowly. Sakura released Naruto to grab a bowl and a large spoon. Naruto rubbed his neck, giving her a look.
Kabuto had yet to find a place for himself in these interactions. He wasn’t sure he wanted one either, or if it was expected of him. He preferred watching it when the pair interacted. They were always amusing.
“I brought tea, I’ll put some on,” Kabuto said. The stove at Naruto’s apartment wasn’t terribly different from his old one.
“Green tea? That’s the kind my parents get,” Sakura said, nodding. “It’s good. Did you know we’d be having ramen?”
“I could guess.”
Naruto crossed his arms.“Hey!”
“Anyway, where did you two learn when my birthday was?” Kabuto asked, pushing Naruto to the side lightly. He lost the battle, Naruto balanced his chin on Kabuto’s shoulder to watch him prepare their tea.
“I asked Lady Tsunade when you left for a year. You never brought it up during our training,” Sakura said.
“Ah,” Kabuto said. “This shouldn’t take too long.”
“We should let the ramen cool first anyway,” Sakura said. “If you didn’t think we were here for your birthday, what did you think we were doing?”
“Talking about the mission with Sasuke.” This answer got a long pause from both of them.
“Well, we need to be allowed back on missions first,” Naruto grumbled. “But after that…”
No one spoke again until the tea was ready. Kabuto expected the pair to have more to say on the subject, but both looked lost in thought. Maybe it was best for him to avoid the topic of Sasuke for the time being. Sakura putting together bowls of ramen for all of them.
“Thanks,” Kabuto said, accepting his.
“What did you mean by not having a birthday every year anyway,” Naruto asked, taking a seat next to him at the table.
Kabuto wasn’t sure how to explain leap years. “It’s complicated.”
“You love saying that.”
“Well,” Sakura took a seat opposite them. “Have you considered that everything might be complicated to try and explain to you?”
“Sakura! Come on,” Naruto said. He brightened considerably after a bite of the ramen.
Sakura leaned against her hand. “Oh? You were saying?”
“This is good!” Naruto hummed joyfully as he started properly on his ramen.
The ramen was good. It wasn’t his favorite food, but Kabuto wasn’t sure either of them knew what he enjoyed. He went out to get ramen with them from time to time. Maybe it was something they could cook easily and agree he liked. He was full after one bowl, though Naruto went back for another. He ate both bowls before Sakura had even finished one.
“So,” Sakura said. “Naruto, you go first.”
“You two didn’t need to get me anything,” Kabuto said. “I know we’re all a bit stagnant, money wise, at the moment, since we’re not getting missions.”
“It’s fine,” Naruto said. “Mine wasn’t expensive at all!”
He handed Kabuto a coupon to Ichiraku ramen with a proud smile. Kabuto took it carefully, looking at the big letters and childish drawing of a bowl of ramen. Out of the corner of his eye, Kabuto saw Sakura crossing her arms.
“If you weren’t going to take it seriously why’d you bother?” She asked.
“What? Listen, if he doesn’t want it he can always give it to me.”
“So thoughtless, I bet you were hoping he’d give it back and you could keep it,” Sakura said. “Naruto…”
“Yeah! I, uh, figured we’d go together. You know! As a team! Since we haven’t seen each other in two years,” Naruto said far too quickly, eyeing Sakura rather than Kabuto.
Sakura buried her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry about him. Naruto, come on! You know that’s not better, right? Asking him to treat you to ramen?”
“I don’t mind,” Kabuto said. He wasn’t sure he’d use it, but the thought that Naruto didn’t mind seeing him outside missions put him at ease. When they got Sasuke back, Kabuto wouldn’t be shoved to the side.
No, if he let himself start thinking that way it would consume him entirely. “It’s interesting.”
“Well, anyway,” Sakura said, clearly not believing him. She handed him a small box. “Mine wasn’t expensive either.”
It was wrapped beautifully. Kabuto looked away. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” She said.
“You didn’t–.”
“Come on,” Naruto said. Sakura punched his arm lightly.
Kabuto took it in both hands, careful of the wrapping paper. He wondered if Sakura picked it herself or if it was something she already had lying around. He opened it carefully, trying not to disturb the wrapping paper as much as possible. It was impossible though, the paper tore far too easily.
In fear of Naruto yanking it out of his hands out of impatience, Kabuto gave in and tore it open, leaving a small wooden box with a hinge. The box was engraved with the different suits of playing cards on the sides, but was otherwise blank. Kabuto smiled as he pulled the deck of playing cards from the box, admiring the art on the king of diamonds.
“Thank you,” he said, watching Sakura brighten. Kabuto pulled the bag of candies from his hip pouch. “I didn’t wrap them, but I brought these as a snack. Maybe we can have a little fun though.”
It took an hour, but he taught both of them a card game. They managed a couple full games before Kabuto brought in the gambling aspect. Rather than money, he decided they’d gamble using the different candies. This caused another roadblock as Naruto and Sakura took to arguing briefly over the value of the different flavors.
Kabuto got up once most of the candies’ values were decided to make more tea. Naruto and Sakura fought over whether one candy, a green, sour one, had less value than a sweeter, red one. Kabuto didn’t like either so he was neutral.
Sakura won the argument, but she lost early on in the game. Naruto had a natural instinct for gambling while Kabuto had years of experience. They were evenly matched in this regard. It was made all the more fun by Naruto’s complete abandonment of all conventional tricks and strategies. It forced Kabuto to abandon his own tricks and think on the fly.
“You two have been trading that one piece back and forth for twenty minutes,” Sakura said. “Do either of you even want it?”
“Not really.”
“Not at all.”
Sakura’s face fell. “Then why are you even passing it around?”
“We’re fighting over who has to keep it,” Naruto said, leaning an arm over the back of the chair.
“Well I can solve that.” Sakura picked up the candy and ate it.
Naruto nearly fell out of his chair. “Huh? Sakura, we were using that!”
Sakura smiled. “I like those.”
“So that’s why you wanted the sour ones to be worth more,” Kabuto said. He adjusted his glasses. “You know, if you wanted to win them you should have agreed with Naruto to have them be worth less.”
“Well I didn’t come in trying to lose.”
Kabuto covered his smirk with his hand. “Regardless, you seem to have a talent for losing all your candies.”
“How about we play a new game?” Naruto asked, holding Sakura back.
Kabuto gathered the cards, organizing the deck. “You got something in mind?”
“We could, uh,” Naruto looked around like he were lost. “We could…”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, is that supposed to be Kakashi,” Sakura asked, pointing out the stuffed dummy.
“What? Oh! Yeah,” Naruto said, getting up. “We could throw things at Kakashi!”
Sakura looked at Kabuto, who shrugged. Naruto looked between them. “What? We don’t have to use real shuriken.”
“Well,” Kabuto said, taking a card. He held it between his middle finger and thumb, curled back, before flicking his wrist, sending the king of diamonds into Kakashi’s forehead.
No one said anything. It wasn’t a bad, tense sort of silence. He took this to mean he could keep going. Kabuto threw the next card over his shoulder, embedding it in Kakashi’s neck. Naruto spun around to him, wide eyed.
“Show me how to do that?”
“What?” Kabuto laughed. Was it that interesting a skill? “Sure. As long as there’s something in it for me, of course.”
Naruto tugged one of the cards free, though it took an effort. “I’ll catch Tora for you next time.”
“Deal,” Kabuto said.
The next half hour was spent trying to show Naruto how to hold the card properly. Sakura watched and occasionally ate the green candies. Naruto still wasn’t quite grasping the way Kabuto was trying to get him to hold the card though. Eventually, Kabuto thought of a faster way.
He planted a hand atop Naruto’s head. “You learn better by doing, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Hold still then.” Kabuto sent a jolt of electric chakra through Naruto who yelped and moved immediately.
“What did you do?”
Right, that must feel odd. “So the way muscle works, basically, is electrical signals from your brain go to your muscles to tell them how to move. To make it really simple, I’m going to tell your body how to move.”
It was how he could control dead bodies, though it was harder when the person was living. The signals they sent could override the ones Kabuto was trying to use. A remarkably useless ability in most situations.
“Oh, so I have to let you then?” Naruto said.
“Yeah, I’ll only be moving your hand to the correct position,” Kabuto said.
Naruto nodded, slowly. He slowly pumped more electric chakra through Naruto. His grip adjusted, fingers moving to the correct position. Kabuto had to drop the technique when he heard a candy hit the floor behind them. Sakura was watching, mouth slightly open, candy rolling between her feet.
“Sakura?” Naruto dropped the card, going to her side.
“I’m fine,” She said, picking up the candy. Her smile didn’t reach her wide eyes. “Really. Kabuto, if you don’t mind, please don’t do that again.”
He nodded, knowing what she must be thinking of. It wasn’t the same as puppet mastery, but he could see how it might look that way. They’d had enough arguments about that, and he wasn't in the mood for another one. Instead, he collected the cards, shuffling them back into the deck while Naruto and Sakura talked in low voices.
Naruto said something that made her laugh. Kabuto stayed back, getting a feeling this wasn’t his place. It was one of the times he was meant to observe. He slid the cards back into their box. He glanced outside to see it’d grown dark.
“I think I have to start home,” Sakura said, eyeing the window too. “My parents will be worried if I don’t show up soon.”
“Aw, are you sure?” Naruto asked. “I could walk you?”
“Ha, no,” Sakura said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, right, if you say so…”
Sakura brightened, offering him a real smile. “Thank you for having me though. It was a lot of fun. Sorry if I spoiled the mood.”
“No! You were fine, and uh. Yeah,” Naruto looked between the two of them, an almost desperate smile on his lips. “We should do this again sometime. We can play more card games.”
“I know a couple more,” Kabuto said.
“Sounds good,” Sakura said. “See you both tomorrow.”
“See you.”
“Have a good walk!”
Sakura closed the door behind her. Kabuto looked at the wooden box the cards came in and sighed. He tucked it into his pack, trying to decide what he’d do with it. Staying with Kakashi made any kind of storage inconvenient.
“She didn’t take that well.”
Naruto looked at him. “Ah, yeah. I think it’ll be fine. She’s quick to move on from that kind of thing.”
“You both are,” Kabuto said. “It's still a surprise to me that you two accepted me into the team at all.”
“Hm? You’ve been alright!”
“Especially you, Naruto. After we fought. It’s still a surprise to me that you were so willing to hear me out.”
Naruto shifted awkwardly. “Well, we fought, that was that. After, I mean, you didn’t do much else.”
He’d helped kill the Hokake, but he kept quiet. This didn’t seem like the time for a fight. Naruto nor Sakura ever brought up his involvement in Hiruzen’s death. Maybe Kakashi asked them to keep quiet, but he’d rather not bring it up just to start a fight.
Besides, he wanted to hear what Naruto would say. If he kept quiet, forced Naruto to say everything on his mind. Naruto ran a hand over the back of his head. He looked around the room.
“I’m not great with words. It seemed like it’d been resolved though. Gaara was like that too, he tried to hurt Sakura and Sasuke. He even tried to destroy the village. Or well, he agreed to. We saw each other after Sasuke left.”
Kabuto sat down, he hadn’t heard this. “They were involved?”
“Yeah, Gaara helped move Choji with his sand. It was risky to move him because he was so hurt but the sand was able to keep him in place so nothing tore or broke. I think that’s what the doctor said anyway. Temari found Shikamaru, and Kankuro helped Kiba,” Naruto said. Kabuto nodded.
He’d never gotten the full story of what happened with the Sound Four. It made him curious, but he didn’t love the idea of it getting out that he was asking. At this point though? He didn’t think it really mattered what happened to the four. He wasn’t close enough to any of them to mourn. No tragedy in it for him.
“So you and Gaara talked after.”
“Yeah, he came up to my room alone. He told me a lot of things, mostly that I’d helped him. I mean, I guess maybe he thought I’d have something to say still? He didn’t apologize, but I think he wanted to know if I wanted one.”
“You seem to be on better terms now.”
“We are,” Naruto said. “We write, I’ve gotten letters from the others too, the other jinchuriki.”
“Good to hear, will you be able to work out something for the Akatsuki? It’d be a shame to keep losing them.”
“Maybe? I don’t know. Well, anyway. I thought about it, what Gaara said, and how it related to you when I talked to Sakura about not keeping more secrets. We talked about you a lot before we decided to go see you, since we knew you were around, in the village not the hospital. I was mad. I thought you knew about the Sound guys, but also, because if you were there…with Orochimaru.”
What went unsaid was that if he’d been there he’d have helped take Sasuke from them. Though, Kabuto didn’t know how much effort it would’ve been. Sasuke, from all reports, seemed to have left of his own free will. Something Naruto and Sakura needed to correct, they needed to be the better option for him.
Naruto frowned. “Lets not… anyway. Once you agreed to help us, I decided I’d punched you and that would be the end of it if you didn’t try anything again.”
“Well.” Kabuto adjusted his glasses. “I don’t plan on trying anything again. I’m content here.”
“Good,” Naruto said. He sat down as well, taking a gulp from the last of his cold tea.
“I should be on my way as well,” Kabuto said, getting to his feet. “Kakashi might lock me out.”
“He’d do that?”
“Perhaps.”
“Can you stay a bit longer?” Naruto asked. “I want to show you something.”
Kabuto shrugged. “Sure.”
He led Kabuto out to the balcony where there were two long tables covered with potted plants. A few of them were familiar, the sorts of things Kabuto would expect to find in Konoha’s forests. Others, like a series of cacti, looked distinctly foreign.
“I got it all set up again! Gaara sent me those,” Naruto said. “The jinchuriki of the seven tails, Fu, sent me this one.”
It was a large plant with rounded leaves and thin, but tough, stems. “Takigakure.”
“I thought you’d know,” Naruto said, grinning. “You didn’t know that mushroom awhile back though.”
“Mushrooms are harder to identify than ferns,” Kabuto said, looking over the plants, careful not to touch them. “You’ve got quite the collection going here.”
Naruto smiled. “Yep. One of the jinchuriki of Iwagakure is going to try to send a plant too, Yugito. She wants me to send her some kind of snack in exchange though. I’m still trying to decide on that…”
“I’ve never met Yugito, nor Bee,” Kabuto said. “So if you’re asking me for help, I’m afraid you won’t get it.”
“No, nothing like that. I want to figure it out.”
“It’s interesting to hear how quickly this is becoming a social club. I thought you’d all be talking about how to defeat the Akatsuki.”
“We are!” Naruto looked away, expression pensive. “I feel like a few of them are pretty happy to have someone like them to talk to.”
“Probably,” Kabuto said.
He strode to the end of the balcony and sat. His legs dangled over the edge. All around him, the energy of the village was electric. People on the streets under them making their way between bars, lights of nearby apartments shifting as their occupants move about, the distant forest had a cloud of birds moving between above the trees. Kabuto had no sense of smell, but he had a feeling the whole village smelled like wet wood.
Kabuto adjusted his glasses and leaned back. Above them the stars were difficult to see. All the light, he knew. The orphanage wasn’t particularly close to the village but even there, the light from the village often made them hard to see. It was why he and Urushi could only look at them truly when they went camping. Naruto took a seat next to him.
“Your chakra feels weird.”
“Thank you?”
“What does it feel like to heal people? For you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“For me it’s like, the area is burning, not enough to hurt, but hot. Gaara told me the one tail doesn’t heal him at all, so it might be something only mine does.”
“If there’s too much chakra going into the heal it can create a burning sensation,” Kabuto said. “When I was beginning, mother had me heal small animals. The skin would begin burning if I didn’t balance my chakra properly.”
“Oh? Do you think it might be that there’s a lot of chakra doing it?”
Kabuto held out a hand. “I can show you the burning sensation I’m referring to.”
Naruto eyed the hand warily. “What’re you trying to do?”
“If we both do the hand signs I can pull from your chakra a bit. You wouldn’t normally be able to do a healing technique on your own, you don’t have the chakra control. I can though. So I can show you what it feels like.”
Naruto raised his hand warily. Kabuto performed the hand seals for mystical palms slowly, to ensure Naruto could keep up. The buzz began as light blue chakra encased their palms, pressed flat against each other.
Naruto has a lot of chakra, but Kabuto was so used to the technique that it wasn’t difficult to balance. Still, the flood of it caught him by surprise, almost overwhelmed his chakra. Kabuto kept his eyes shut, trying to focus. Slowly, bit by bit, the glow off their palms dimmed to something manageable.
Kabuto paid more attention than usual to how the technique felt. Warm, he supposed, was the first word that came to mind. It had to be or most people would flinch away and the mystical palms required contact.
However, Kabuto wanted to talk to Kakashi about that. He recalled how much longer he was able to make his chakra scalpels when he thought Sakura had succumbed to poison. Perhaps, with a little practice…but he’d need Kakashi’s permission to experiment, maybe Lady Tsunade’s too.
Slowly, Kabuto poured more chakra into the technique. It became uncomfortably hot. Then like he was holding his hand near boiling water. Kabuto was about to call off the experiment for fear of actually causing harm when Naruto nodded rapidly.
“There! That’s it.”
“Wow, your healing is uncomfortable.” Kabuto ended the technique. “It’s a small wonder you put up with it.”
“I’m used to it,” Naruto said, flexing his fingers. “Can we do more combined techniques like that?”
Kabuto shivered. “Not in a fight no.”
“Well, we have. When your water and Itachi’s fire combined. They were absorbed into the rasengan. Could we do that with an actual technique?”
Kabuto hesitated, recalling the burns Naruto sustained after. Then he remembered the healing, erasing the burns in moments after, before Kabuto even needed to step in. “Maybe? If we’re doing actual techniques, there’s the balancing of the chakra to worry about. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we don’t want it to explode on us.”
“No, but I mean, we can do the chakra balancing.”
“I can. Naruto, let me try to explain. If I were to use a water style technique, your rasengan would have to absorb the water from that technique and the chakra. You'd need to balance the chakra both from the rasengan and from my technique. You can’t even use the rasengan without a clone.”
“Right…”
“Kakashi hasn’t even taught you any elemental ninjutsu yet,” Kabuto said. “Nor Sakura, I think.”
Naruto grinned mischievously. “Maybe we should get him on that.”
“Oh? Lord Jiraiya should have gotten on that. Honestly. You and Sakura should have known a few techniques a year ago.”
Naruto slouched. “We were trying to figure out about the nine tails.”
“Which failed. You’re no better with it as far as I know.”
“Right.”
Kabuto clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get there.”
Naruto smiled. “Yeah, probably.”
Kabuto stood, stretching. “I’m going to get going. It would be annoying if Kakashi locked me out and I had to get in through a window.”
“Alright, it was nice seeing you,” Naruto said. “Tomorrow, we’ll get Kakashi to start working with us. If he won’t take us on missions, it’d only be right!”
“Naruto?” Kabuto hesitated. Naruto hummed for him to keep going. He didn't. “Hm, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”