Naruto Repurposed

Chapter 8

The Return to Konoha

The next day when he woke up in the room at Tazuna's house that he shared with Kakashi and Sasuke, Naruto stayed in bed for some time going over the memories of his clones from the long night before. Glad for the talk he had with Kakashi that helped settle his worrying mind over the lives he had taken the day before, and filled with a different type of purpose he never had before. He wanted to help and be with Haku, something about her beauty and kindness that drew him in, and he continued to think of the plan his clone implanted in his mind after leaving Zabuza's base and dispelling.

Knowing that he could and would never go missing nin, as he loved Konoha, Kakashi, Jiji, his teammates, his classmates, Iruka, and the Ichiraku's too much to ever abandon them, he instead thought about other possible ways to help and get more time with Haku. His clone's plan to create a blood clone to send with the missing nin pair was seemingly a good one, but he was unsure how truly versatile the blood clone could be. Could it behave just like him in every sense, could it train and grow stronger, age, survive long term away from him, have genuine feelings, and was it fair to Haku to only get a cloned version of him.

As he thought about all these things and wrestled with what he wanted to do, he was called by Kakashi to come and join everyone for breakfast, as he had let the blond sleep in long enough after the late night. Breakfast that morning was a lively affair, as Kakashi had already filled in Tazuna, Tsunami, and a stunned Inari that they had successfully killed Gato last night, and bought off the missing nin that was contracted to kill the bridge builder. With the threat to him gone, they would stay on through the completion of the bridge, and would be helping them out even further by re-distributing some of the wealth they confiscated from the short businessman that had been crippling the economy of Wave for too long.

Tazuna was practically in tears as he was told everything, and realized truly how much this small team of ninja had done not only for him and his family, but for all the people of Wave, and was beyond grateful. Tsunami too was beyond relieved that the threat to her father and village was over and done with, just like that and couldn't be happier or prouder of the group of ninjas that arrived from Konoha. Inari was simply confused, and couldn't believe how anybody could stand up to and even defeat Gato, let alone a group of kids not much older than him, and made him decide that it was time to stop whining and start standing up for himself and others.

Sakura was also very relieved to have finished with the mission, and also still terrified to close her eyes, as she spent most of the long and uncomfortable night tossing and turning over her role in the death of several of Gato's mercenaries. She just wasn't completely ready to deal with the realities of being a ninja, and not for the first time, wondered what exactly she was doing and if she really wanted to do this the rest of her probably short life. Even being on a team with her crush, Sasuke, couldn't completely convince her that it was worth it all the time, as being teammates hadn't really seemed to bring any of them all that much closer together.

Although, she would agree that her opinion of Naruto really had changed and had even grown fond of the loud and brash blond, though he rarely acted like that when they were spending time together on missions. She had seen him grow into a strong ninja, surprisingly as good as Sasuke in most ways, though she would never say he was actually better than the "Greatest Man in the World" in her eyes. She just wasn't sure what to think about her own ninja career, but could at least feel relieved that the immediate threat was past and she would have some time to reflect on what she wanted.

Sasuke was somewhat upset that they weren't going to be fighting strong ninjas, even though he was really pleased to get the chance at some real fighting experience in killing many of Gato's thugs. He was hoping to be challenged and prove his superiority over others, and show himself that he was well on his way to avenging his Clan and going after his traitorish brother. He was also thinking about the other day, and fighting the large amount of Naruto clones, and how helpful that was to be able to completely cut loose with no worries of injuring his opponent and wondered if he would be able to convince the blond to do it again.