21 Ch 19. Coming back, catching up.

Izana spent the rest of his day with Sasuke and Mikoto. Izana heard from Mikoto that Itachi had become an Anbu and worked directly underneath the Hokage. Izana was very happy for Itachi for being given such an important position.

Sasuke couldn't stop but talk about how fun the academy was and couldn't wait to learn more jutsu. He also talked about a boy that he thought was strange, as he was often seen running through the streets being chased by the village people. His more detailed explanation would be, yellow-haired kid with whiskers.

Izana had already expected who that might be. After the description Sasuke gave, Izana burst out in laughter. Seems like Naruto got back at those that despise him. That's it, he decided he would see Naruto next thing tomorrow. He needed to see how Naruto was doing, maybe help a bit if he got into trouble.

Sasuke was still excitedly telling Izana about the academy and his class when Itachi walked in. He seemed exhausted but still managed to smile when he saw Izana. Izana waved at Itachi and patted the ground beside him.

Itachi didn't really care where he sat anyway and sat down beside Izana as they both listened to Sasuke's little tale. Mikoto came back with a few rice balls as a snack and started to make dinner. The sky was already darkening after all, it wouldn't be long before Fugaku returned and they could eat.

When Fugaku came back, equally exhausted as Itachi, he too smiled when he saw Izana again. He greeted Izana by ruffling Izana's head like he used to do so many years ago and sat down besides Mikoto.

The evening was spent leisurely as everyone talked about what they had done in the last three years and what kind of developments had happened in the village.

Izana mostly talked about how he had learned to collect information in one of the enemy villages. He had been surprised that there were more informants in the other villages than he had expected. There were a lot of safe houses, as well as undercover agents that would help them out if they got into trouble. He didn't tell what kind of information they had been gathering, as Jiraiya had forbidden him to speak about it. Izana vaguely mentioned it wasn't really important and instead asked uncle Fugaku what interesting things had happened in the village.

So far, it was mostly about Orochimaru's defection, though Sasuke interrupted them when he told Izana about a strange technique the yellow haired kid had come up with. That kid, most likely being Naruto, would do a certain transformation technique that would let the male teachers suffer from major blood loss.

When asked what that technique looked like to cause such effects, Sasuke just tilted his head in confusion and responded with, "Don't know. It's a lot like the transformation jutsu, just a bit different."

Izana could imagine what the teacher would be like. There would surely be more than one victim of said technique, which would surely become a Naruto trademark jutsu. For now, he needed to catch up with Naruto as well.

Izana also needed to talk with his aunt and uncle about the bad feeling inside the Uchiha residence, but that could wait until tomorrow or the day after. For now, he really wanted to get some sleep.

Izana spread out his futon near the porch, as he looked up at the starry sky. When he started to get drowsy and was about to sleep, another person crept in his futon. When Izana looked who it was, he spotted two black eyes looking at him. Sasuke even had brought his own pillow as he sheepishly smiled and just fell asleep right away. Izana sighed as he too fell asleep.

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The next day, Izana woke up when it was just about to become noon. He had slept in a lot, now that he was back on familiar ground. Sasuke was already at the academy and Itachi was already gone on presumably another mission. Uncle Fugaku wasn't anywhere to be found either as only Mikoto was in the living room. She was folding the laundry, multiple stacks for all of them spread across the table.

She smiled at Izana and the both shared a pleasant time together, making some breakfast for Izana and some tea to accompany it.

Mikoto happily watched Izana eat and waved at him when he left the residence towards Naruto's apartment. Though Naruto was at the academy right now, Izana still had to see if he took good care of himself in these three years.

When he entered the apartment, what greeted Izana was a moldy smell and the sour smell of overdue milk. The laudry was spread across the apartment in a half folded state, which showed Naruto at least tried to clean up a bit. The sink was filled with empty ramen cups and filthy dishes while some on the side had been cleaned and dried. Izana shook his head in exasperation as he for the nth time made a dozen clones and started to clean Naruto's apartment again. It was truly like he had never been away at all. Fortunately aunt Mikoto had managed to teach Naruto a little bit.

By the time he was done and the laundry was spread out to dry, the sun was already high in the sky. It wouldn't be long before Naruto would be done at the academy, so Izana spent the remaining time walking across Konoha.

It wasn't long before Izana could hear a commotion down the street. Interested what might have happened, Izana came to take a look and quickly regretted it. The commotion was near the hot spring and there was currently an angry mob of women in front of it pointing at a yellow haired kid.

Naruto just smiled mischievous with his arms behind his head.

"How dare you get inside the woman section! Despicable brat!" The woman in front yelled.

"I was only doing research for my jutsu." Naruto responded.

The women seemed even angrier with Naruto's response. They all began to curse at him, while Naruto just stuck out his tongue and ran away.

The women went back inside, while the men from the village began to chase him.

"Come back here you little demon!" one of them yelled.

Naruto ignored them as he just ran through the streets. Izana followed them from a distance, keeping a close eye on Naruto.

While Naruto was being chased, he somehow managed to grab a few buckets of paint and threw it at his chasers, while also splattering it all across the houses and shops around the men.

The inhabitant cursed a loud as they really wanted to complain to someone. This happened so often that they didn't even know how to respond to it anymore.

The people went back inside and the chasers soon lost sight of Naruto.

When they all disappeared, Naruto made a triumphant pose as he jumped down from one of the trees.

"Hoh, you seem to amuse yourself a lot, Naruto." Naruto heard a voice behind him and before he could respond, he was hit on the head.

Naruto held his head firmly as he looked angrily at his assailant.

The anger vanished when he saw Izana.

"Izana! You're back!" Naruto happily said, earning him another hit on the head.

"I saw your little debacle on near the women's baths." Izana said, while Naruto didn't seem to care about it much.

"I was doing research for my new technique. Look, isn't it awesome?" Before Izana could stop him, Naruto made the kata and transformed into a naked women right in front of Izana.

Izana buried his head in his hands as he couldn't bare to look at this perverted brat in front of him. He knew he was partly responsible, but he didn't know Naruto would take it this far.

Why had the women be naked? No wonder the villagers were angry!

"Well Naruto. You've really improved. Just... keep that to yourself. You are already disliked enough. This isn't the way to get some recognition. It might be fun for now, but everything comes to an end some day. Why don't we hang out together, just the two of us?"

Naruto had already transformed back and was jumping in excitement around Izana.

"Really? It's been so long since you were back. You need to tell me what happened when you were away."

Naruto had ditched the paint at some point, sitting down and waiting for Izana to talk about his journey.

"Before we do that, let's clean up a bit. Just to let you learn the pain of cleaning up after you make a mess of things." Naruto immediately stopped smiling, frowning and slumping down, but he didn't reject the notion. He knew there was no changing Izana's mind, so all he could do was give up and get it over with as fast as possible. No matter how much he wanted to avoid the mess he made, he wanted to hear about life outside of the village.

Like so, Naruto and Izana were both cleaning up after them. With Naruto already being dislike by the villagers, they made sure they kept out of their sights. If Naruto was spotted by them, he would surely get an earful. Something that definitely would help Naruto stop his antics. Oh no, that would only aggravate him to do it even more, just to get seen, to get acknowledged. Even if it was in a bad light. It couldn't get any worse than it already was anyway. If only they knew how bad it could become.

Having cleaned up properly behind them, they decided to go to Ichiraku ramen, sharing their past years over a cup of piping hot ramen.