AND BACK AGAIN [ NARUTO ]

[ 26 ] mendokusai

previously. . .

"Exactly!" Naruto held up a finger. "Now, about finding him."

Tsunade shook her head. "Yes?"

Naruto grinned.

"I request the assistance of Nara Shikamaru."

///\

"Sarutobi-sama will see you now."

Naruto scowled, jumping up from his spot against the hospital floor. "He better! That geezer, making me wait. I don't have all day, you know!"

The nurse pasted on a smile as she led him to the Third Hokage's hospital room. It was secluded from the rest of the rooms, Naruto noticed. He assumed it was for a couple of reasons--the old man's safety as well as his quick recovery.

Hiruzen was no doubt enjoying this. He always did love avoiding work, whether it be by faking sleep or making a mess for someone else to clean up. Naruto decided it was for the best that he retired. Even if he could go on as Hokage, it was hightime someone took the hat.

The nurse, a slim brunette with the palest skin Naruto had ever seen, opened the door for him and stepped away to allow him entrance alone. The first thing he saw when he walked through the entryway was the old Third Hokage, reclined in a stark white hospital bed.

He looked just as Naruto remembered him, and for a moment the blond didn't move from his spot in the doorway. It was surreal to see the man--at one time the only man in the village that would spare him a conversation and even a glance--alive, breathing and sipping from a teacup as he often had done. Suddenly Naruto was four years old again, wondering why he was the only kid with no parents, the only one who lived alone. He was a freshly graduated genin, smiling for his picture while the Old Man shook his head.

Then he was standing at Sarutobi Hiruzen's grave with clenched fists, watching Konohamaru cry for his grandfather and promising himself that no one would have to die like that as long as he was around.

"My," Hiruzen said, setting down his teacup with the tenderness of an elderly hand, "how you've grown."

Naruto flinched. "You're really alive."

"Was I not supposed to be?" Hiruzen chuckled. "Did you expect to walk in here and find me a corpse? You haven't changed a bit then, I suppose."

And just like that, Naruto's awe dissipated.

"I've changed a lot," he muttered. "And what's so wrong with how I was before, huh?"

Hiruzen didn't respond. He pat the end of his bed instead, inviting Naruto to take a seat before him.

And Naruto hesitated. He hesitated because you weren't supposed to be so casual with the head of Konohagakure and all he could remember in that moment was years of standing before that boring wooden desk and staring at the shell of what a man had once been. Not family, not a companion, but a man of power who had lived far too long and seen far too much.

"Sit," Hiruzen said. "There's a lot we must talk about, yes?"

Naruto met his eyes. They were soft and crinkled around the edges. Spots from age littered the man's face just how they always had, but now he was free of a burden he'd carried for so long.

"It's about time you gave up the hat to someone else," Naruto grumbled, plopping down beside the man who could've been his grandfather.

"Ah, yes," Hiruzen said, but he didn't seem focused on his words. He watched Naruto steadily, the way he was stiff with caution, like a tight coil ready to spring, the overwhelming presence that radiated from the boy.