Chapter 11 Recovery

-Naruto's Room-

He was bored, that pretty summed up Naruto's feelings for the moment. He was sitting in this hospital with bandages over his chest just staring at the plain white ceiling, the walls or the empty beds. He was glad that they let him keep his mask at least, but he really wanted something to do but he could barely walk. Some doctor called it chakra exhaustion and when he explained it Naruto didn't get a lot of it until his dad had summed it up as that he just used too much chakra and doing that leaves you weak.

Why couldn't the doctor just explain things simply like that instead of using long winded words?

He had asked his dad that and he just shrugged and said it was most likely how doctors made themselves feel smart and important. Naruto smiled at the memory, but that had been hours ago and now he just wanted someone to talk to. He wouldn't have minded if someone else was in the same room as him but he had the room all to himself.

So he just sat there looking out the window trying to keep himself busy.

He lost track of time when he heard his door open and he looked and his day suddenly got a lot better. There was Hinata with what looked like some flowers for him with Sakura, Ino, Choji, Shikamaru and even Neji. The four that hadn't seen him before had wide eyes at the sight of him in the bed, until that moment they had a few doubts just how serious the injuries were but there were the bandages over his chest where Hinata had told them where he had been stabbed.

"Thank god you guys came I was going out of my mind here alone," Naruto smiled behind his mask.

They came forward as Hinata blushed as she laid the flowers next to his table, "T-t-these a-are for you Naruto-Kun."

"Hey thanks Hinata-chan, so how are you doing?" He asked seeing the bruise on her face, she saw what he was looking at and turned her face to hide it. She told him that she was fine and she was touched that despite his injuries he was more worried about her.

Sakura stepped forward a little worried about him, "Does it...you know hurt?"

"What this? Naw, it's just a scratch."

"A scratch?" Ino nearly yelled out, "You took a kunai to the chest you should be dead! You have any idea how lucky you were, what were you thinking?"

Naruto cringed a bit, Ino kind of reminded her of Anko when she was pissed. "What was I supposed to do? That guy was trying to take Hinata and I had to do something!"

"Personally I think that's pretty cool," Choji smiled while opening a bag of chips, he took one out and thought about something, "Here want the first one?"

"You bet, the food here sucks!" Naruto took it glad that his arms could work enough for him to feed himself. It was going to the bathroom that was the real embarrassing thing that he would never ever in his life tell anyone about. He brought it up to his face and then noticed the looks he was getting, they were all waiting to see him without the mask.

Naruto just about to reach for it when his eyes grew wide as pointed out the window. "Oh my god someone just jumped off the building!"

Everyone looked to the window and when they heard the crunch they turned to see Naruto munching on the chip with his mask on. Everyone sweat dropped at that feeling like an idiot falling for that, Neji had only cast a quick glance since he had already seen Naruto without the mask and had to smirk at Naruto. Ino had this eye twitch thing going on and made a resolve to one day see the boy without that mask on no matter how long it took her.

"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he pulled out something from his backpack. "Well if you're bored you wanna play a game of shogi?"

"Is that like Go? My dad taught me that and we play it at times, well that and a few card games." Naruto asked as Shikamaru explained the game as he set up the pieces. The others began asking all kinds of questions about what happened and Naruto loving the spot light couldn't help but brag a bit on his exploit. Hinata had guessed at a few things but when Naruto started to exaggerate she felt a sweat drop forming. Shikamaru was focused on the game, Naruto wasn't that good since he started but he seemed to be learning, plus he figured that when Naruto adding in giant fire ball justus he was laying it on a bit thick.

Ino wasn't sure what to believe, but she had to admit he told a nice story and he had rescued Hinata and taken a serious wound. Neji was only a bit interested in the fact that the ending seemed totally made up, he figured that Naruto either wanted a more exciting ending or he wasn't sure how it ended. For Choji and Sakura they were wide eyed and hung on every word.

"Wow that's pretty cool, that all happened?" Choji said finding out that he had just finished his first bag of chips and started looking for his back-up supply.

"Oh yeah it's all true," Naruto lied.

"You must be really strong then," Sakura said wondering just how strong Naruto was.

"Where the hell is he?" came a very loud woman's voice, everyone looked curious at the door while Naruto suddenly felt very afraid. He knew that voice and the tone like the back of his hand. The door was slammed opened and there stood Anko in her usual clothing looking livid. The kids stared at the strange lady as she marched right up to Naruto.

"H-hey Aunty Anko, how are you doing?"

She pointed a finger right at him, "Don't you 'Aunty' me you brat! I come back from a nice easy going mission and you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to relax, go to the hot springs, eat some dango but what do I hear? I hear about you and what you did and that you were in the hospital! What the hell were you thinking!?"

As Anko continued her rant on him the other kids looked on not sure how to handle this, most just decided to just let the woman rant on seeing that she was kind of scary. Hinata however stepped up to Anko while she was threatening him with something that involved snakes, pointed objects and blunt force trauma. "P-p-please don't be m-mad at him, Naruto-kun was only saving me."

Anko took her eyes off Naruto to look at the young seeing her pleading expression, it didn't help that Hinata had this ability to just look cute and helpless at times making people take it easy on her, the small bruise on her face didn't hurt either. Anko just gave a disgruntled sigh she knew that Naruto did the right thing but she wasn't going to tell him that, it would give him a swelled head and he needed to be more careful in the future.

"It's okay Hinata-chan that's just her way of showing that she cares-OW!" Naruto began rubbing the top of his head where Anko had hit him although she had a satisfied smirk on her face doing it.

A chuckling was heard and everyone turned to the window to see a man with very big silver hair, a vest only seen on chunins and above in dark clothing with a mask and one eye hidden. "Now Anko you shouldn't go and hurt someone already in the hospital."

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed with earned him another smack to the head. He turned to the guy in the window, "Dad, make her stop!"

At that everyone who didn't know who Naruto's father was turned to look at the man who seemed to carry himself in a lazy manner that would make any Nara proud. The kids looked at the tall man who smiled under his mask and if it wasn't for the mask they wouldn't see any resemblance. Many of the kids figured that Naruto got his looks from his mother than his dad since they didn't know he was adopted at this point, but later when they would find out would make a lot more sense.

"I don't know I think Anko does make a point, after all I can't smack you around unless it's in training, since that would be child abuse on my part so I never will hit my children...so I think I'll let Anko handle that," Kakashi smirked at Naruto's horrified face as he quickly looked to Anko who was cracking her knuckles.

Then Kakashi turned to the other kids in the room, "Ah Hinata nice to see you again and I see Naruto has made some new friends." The man seemed friendly enough so the kids started to introduce themselves to him. Kakashi was glad that Naruto had found some new friends after the events of last night he knew that things for Naruto might never be the same, so having friends he could count on would be a big help to him later on.

Neji when no one was looking decided to take a peek behind the mask with his Byakugan, but there was something odd about the mask, there were thin layers of chakra moving around the mask. He blinked and realized that the man actually had fibbers that drained a very small amount of chakra. It didn't do anything noticeable but the thin mess protected his face from even his abilities. 'Just how paranoid is he about people seeing his face?' he wondered as Naruto's father talked with the kids.

Little did he know that it was an old technique that Kakashi's father had greeted, apparently in his youth the White Fang had lots of women trying to see his face too, and this had been developed when a bunch of Hyuga women saw through the mask and it led to all sorts of problems for him so he developed the technique. Kakashi learned it well and was going to teach Naruto when he started on his chakra training.

"So you're really Naruto's father?" Ino asked at the tall man and then looked to Naruto, "then how come he's so short?"

"Hey! I'm not short I just haven't finished growing up!"

"Just face it you're short 'chibi'," Anko smirked as Naruto glared at her for that

"But at any rate Naruto you should take this chance to rest up because after last night you're going to need it," Kakashi said to him getting a bit more serious.

Ever the master of words Naruto said the only thing he could at that moment, "Huh?"

"I think I'll step up your training, and to make sure you don't slack off..." Kakashi grinned as he turned to Anko. "I'm sure that Gai would love to help you train on days that I'm gone and I'm also sure that Anko here wouldn't mind some time with you as well."

"Oh this is going to be fun," Anko laughed in a sadistic way as the smile on her face made the kids take a few steps back.

'What the hell kind of family does Naruto belong to?' Ino wondered looking at the strange man that was Naruto's father and the crazy looking woman that was his aunt. She had no idea who this Gai was but he was in this family she had a feeling he would be a weird one too. She looked at Naruto and he had gone very pale and looked like he had wished that he had died last night.

Which was exactly what Naruto was thinking, his dad was tough on him with his training and knowing how insane his uncle trained made Naruto get a seeking feeling in his stomach, but it was the training that he would get with Anko that's what really scared him. She knew how she could get and the fact that his dad was letting her loose on him gave him shivers down his spine. 'Oh man...just one more year, then dad will let me join...that is IF I survive...'

Suddenly Naruto figured that either he would be in great shape for the academy...or he wouldn't live to see that day.

-Later-

After that day Sakura and Ino were walking home, Ino was talking but Sakura kept thinking back to Naruto and what he had done. She never would have done something as scary as that and she wondered if she would ever be strong like that? She remembered how she was before Ino became her friend, she was so lonely all the time, no one would play with her and they all made fun of her large forehead. She tried to hide it with her hair but it didn't work.

One day while she was being bullied Ino had come in and chased them off, that had been the best day of her life when Ino became her friend. She still wore the red ribbon on her head that Ino had given them, after that day she felt stronger and more out going thanks to Ino. It was odd how Naruto had come into her life the same way as Ino had, he had fought those bullies and Ino helped a bit as well. She looked at her best friend and saw how she was into her story.

'I want to be more like her, stronger and more sure. Like how Naruto is.'

'Yeah he seems nice too.' Inner Sakura said to her. Ever since she could remember Sakura had this little self of her inside of her head. She never told anyone since people would just think she was weird and ugly. But Inner Sakura had always been with her helping her through her lonely times and as a voice to talk to. She wasn't sure if it was just her mind that made her, some weird blood limit, or she suffered from multiple personalities but Inner Sakura was there to stay.

'Yeah he is...but I wonder what's under that mask?"

'I wonder if he's really cute?' Inner Sakura started to draw up possible pictures of Naruto without the mask.

Sakura blushed a bit at that and went back to her original line of thoughts. 'I need to be stronger but how?'

'Well maybe we could train with Naruto? Plus didn't Hinata say she is already training? We don't train yet and I bet they'll be way stronger than us by the time we get the academy.'

Sakura nodded to herself and then she focused on Ino, "Hey Ino...do you train with your family?"

"Huh?" Ino was surprised by the turn of conversation, "Well...no not really. My daddy gave me a few lessons in hand to hand but nothing much why?"

"Well Naruto and Hinata train but when we get to the academy we'll be behind them...and...and I want to be stronger like Naruto. He stood up for Hinata and save her and nearly died. My dad retired and is doing administration work at the Hokage tower now but he could train me if I asked."

Ino was starting to wonder herself, she did want to be a strong ninja one day to make her dad proud. Maybe it couldn't hurt but she stopped and pointed, "Hey look! It's Sasuke-kun!"

Sakura turned to look to see the handsome young Uchiha walking with his mother, both girls giggled seeing the boy. Ino like all girls had a crush on the mysterious boy, he was so dark and had this lone wolf thing to him. Didn't hurt that he was cute too, although Sakura did agree with the looks she mainly went on with the other girls because she wanted to fit in.

'Shannaro! Hey what if we're in a class with Sasuke and Naruto? Wouldn't that be great!' Inner Sakura started to hug two little dolls that looked like chibi versions of Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura just sweat dropped and decided to ignore her inner self for the next few hours.

-Hokage Tower-

The past couple of weeks had been almost peaceful for the Hokage, he had visited Naruto a few times since he was and out of the hospital. And by the looks of it Kakashi was putting his son through the ringer. He knew that Kakashi was just worried about his son and wanted him to be prepared for the future, he also knew that Kakashi was blaming himself for Naruto nearly dying. Although the old man did admit he had never seen Kakashi this motivated since before he had a personality change after the deaths of his genin team. He was actually focused in his training with Naruto, and got help from unlikely sources.

Gai of course wanted to give Naruto weights although the amount he wanted to give him was insane, so Kakashi cut the original weight in half just so his son could walk. Another surprised was that Anko herself was training him a few times, although Naruto said they were more like torture sessions. He nearly laughed when he used his crystal ball to look in on when Anko wanted to make sure the boy would be able to dodge attacks in the future. So she spent hours throwing all kinds of weapons at him making sure his body knew how to dodge.

Anko had to be pulled off the interrogation of the Cloud ninja in the hospital as well, although she was a special jonin that helped Ibiki out with getting information out of prisoners, she had nearly killed the man at one point. Actually she managed to stop his heart for a full minute before starting it again. So far they managed to get out the real purpose for his visit to their village and to think that the Cloud Village would stoop so low. And here he was waiting for the official envoy for their prisoner as well.

A messenger told him that the envoy was here and he told him to bring them in. He sat up straight putting on his best 'Hokage' face. He saw three people walk in, a slim little girl that looked to be of jonin rank, with a tall red haired man with spiky hair with a large clever on his back. The man in front wore black with gold and carried with him a short sword at his hilt.

"Hokage-sama, I am Kojiro Miki. I understand you have one of our ninjas here," the man even though gave him the proper respect in what he said but not how he said it.

The Hokage would just let him go for now, the last thing he needed was to get into a war with Cloud. But he also wouldn't let this man walk all over to him, so he just smiled at him although the smile never reached his eyes. "Well I'm glad that you arrived here very fast, especially since we received word that you were coming before we even sent word to you."

The other two members of the team stiffened a bit but he noticed the leader only nodded his head, "Well in the ninja world many things are possible."

"Yes and I hope you remember that for later," smirked seeing his slightly confused expression. "But at any rate you're ninja is in a lot of trouble. He has confessed to trying to kidnap a child of the Hyuga clan not to mention we do have a witness to this as he was gravely wounded in stopping him."

"I would like to see Akira myself to ascertain that he has given this...of his own free will," Kojiro said to him and the Hokage didn't see any reason not to. So with a group of ANBU with them they found themselves in the secure area of the hospital. There were a couple of guards on the door and they let the group into the room.

Kojiro looked at Akira there on the bed, he had bandages over half his face and all over his body. His limbs were in casts and he had an IV in his arm. Kojiro turned to the Hokage anger on his face, "Is this how you interrogate a member of our village? What have you done to him?"

"Actually nothing much, he game in like this after the fight," Sarutobi told him honestly. Many of the injuries were from the battle a few from Anko but thankfully Ibiki had pulled her away from doing anything that would show. And the fact that Ibiki liked to use mental torture to get people to break down. He wasn't sure what he used, but long ago he stopped asking Ibiki those types of questions because he liked to sleep at night.

"Are you saying one ninja did this?" Kojiro asked dangerously.

"No I'm not," he couldn't wait for the punch line to this, "It was actually a young boy that hasn't even entered the academy."

Kojiro looked at the Hokage like he had lost his mind that a lie like that would actually work on him. He knew that Akira was no pushover, sure he wasn't the best but he had been picked for this mission for his skills. The fact that a child did this was laughable and was about to let this Hokage know what he really thought about him and his weak village when a voice called out weakly.

"Not a boy..." Akira said weakly.

Kojiro cast the Hokage a glance as he walked over to his fellow ninja and leaned down, "Who did this to you Akira so we can have revenge for this disgrace."

Akira looked at him with his single eye and there was something that he had not seen in Akira's eye before and that was fear, not just fear but actual terror. "It looked like a boy but it wasn't a boy...The Leaf village has a demon that wears the mask of a child. It wasn't human...the chakra...it was faster than I was...it was so fast..."

Kojiro stood up and wasn't sure what to think for the moment, it was obvious that his mind wasn't in the right place since he was speaking nonsense. He would be taken back where he could be healed and they would be able to get to the truth of the matter. This embarrassment would be remembered by the Cloud and as soon as they found something to blame then they would claim the right of revenge on that person. He only hoped that they could place it on the Hyuga clan since it was taking one of them that caused this.

Everyone knew that the Hokage was weak and strived for peaceful relations. Such a nature was looked as foolish among the Cloud ninja, in their village you used your strength to overpower your enemies and bend them to your will. The Hokage would not risk war and would do anything to protect his people from it. The last Great Ninja War must have taken its toll on the man that was known as 'The Professor', to turn someone of his skills in battle to seek peaceful alternatives.

"You will make arrangements for Akira to be moved and we will take him with us, he is one of ours and for this he will be dealt with by our own people."

The Hokage would have laughed at his face then he knew that Akira would most likely get a slap on the wrist for just failing. But he knew that if he protested it would only lead to much trouble. "Fine but let me tell you something...If he ever appears in the Country of Fire again, he will be killed on sight no matter what. Even if he is delivering a diplomatic message he will not be spared and he will go into our bingo books with that kill on sight order. He is no longer welcomed in this country or this village."

The Hokage stared into the young man's eyes with hardened eyes of a veteran and of a man that was more powerful then the young man could ever hope to become. Kojiro nodded his head to that, the old man knew how to play the game he had removed an enemy without actually killing him and yet gave them what they wanted. Although he was sure that they came out the victor in this little 'game' that was politics since as soon as Akira confirmed the identity of the one that got in the way of the plans to take a blood limit for their own, they would deal with that person.

After all the word of one man or woman against Akira could be contested, and they were certain that the Hokage would send to them that person out as a sacrificial lamb if it saved the village. But the thought of a child doing this was impossible there was no way any Konoha child was that strong, after all the Leaf Village were known lack the bloodlust or real warriors unlike them or say the Rock Village.

What he didn't know was that Sarutobi knew that Akira would never change his story and that the Cloud would never believe the story of a 'Demon Child', so he knew that Naruto was safe at least for now. He made plans to get rid of him although he knew that the Hyuga Clan would have liked to have had him killed for this crime, this was the best solution. If this ninja ever entered his lands again he would be killed, so the Hyuga's honor would be satisfied.

As he watched them take the man away he only hoped that the Cloud would be too busy and frustrated with Akira's answers to let the matter drop. Although he could expect more Cloud spies in his territory and maybe his own village for the next few months as they tried to get more information, which meant ANBU would be busy for a bit as well.

'Sometimes I wish you were still here Minato, they wouldn't have dared to try something like this if you were still alive.' The old man decided to go for a walk today, he needed to clear his head and to find some way to distress after this kind of day. A nice walk in the park would help and if luck would have it he would see Naruto playing with his new friends as well. Now for the first time all day he had a real smile on his face, if there was one thing Naruto was good for besides making life less boring, was to cheer people up.

Next Up Chapter 12: Path to Darkness