Sharingan No Naruto

Chapter 14: Interlude

"So you're telling me a legendary Sannin asked you to go on a mission with him to look for another legendary Sannin?" Lee looked incredulous in his hospital bed at his dear and youthful friend with a mix of wonder and realization in his eyes, he has after all spent enough time with Naruto to know he's fairly special. "Yosh Naruto-kun! Even in these dire times your flames of youth burn brightly!"

Naruto laughed at his bushy-browed friend's boisterous attitude and stared in admiration at the way he went on in life despite his current condition, he had been informed of Lee's depression episodes of course, he knew there was more to it than just the facade he put on, but the fact that he even tried to be happy was truly praise worth it.

He wished he was at least a little like him.

"Ero-sennin says this Sannin lady is the best medic alive, I'm going to bring her back and have her look at you, I promise and I never go back on my word!" He just hoped she would deliver, in all honesty Naruto was starting to fear Jiraiya simply oversold the Slug Sannin's abilities to make him more interested in the mission.

"You must have her look at Neji as well, Naruto-kun, even if there's nothing that can be done for me I'm sure she can help Neji." Lee was just so selfless it almost made him sad, but he wasn't wrong.

Neji's situation could only be described as complicated.

Naruto hated his guts, well, he liked to say he hated him but it wasn't hate that he felt for him; he just made his blood boil. It all changed when the chunin exams started, for some reason the young Uzumaki became interested in him and managed to extort his whole life story out of Hinata, he learned all the things Neji had gone through and even though he wouldn't say his actions were justified he could at least say he understood why he did the things he did.

The curse mark.

The Hyuga prodigy caught the attention of the treacherous Sannin and received his... gift. Now he was fully unresponsive. The doctors couldn't give Hiashi a straight answer. Apparently Neji went to sleep after his match with Hinata and never woke up, they had some theories of course, the most likely to be true, his brain suffered a lot of strain when both of the marks in his body came into conflict and the damage was so severe it simply became too much to handle so he fell into a coma.

Some sort of self-recovery mode, at least that's what Doctor Teruya called it.

"I'm going to ask her about that too, don't worry about it," Naruto looked out the window of the room and saw Jiraiya there signaling it was time for them to leave. "I have to go now Lee, I'll be back in 2 weeks tops."

He jumped out of the window shortly after and joined the white haired man as they both walked through the streets of the village on their way to the main gate. It was impressive how well they did in the invasion if you stop to think about it. They had been lucky to find out the truth about the situation in time to prepare for the attack.

The village had lost many brave shinobi and it would take them some time to recuperate but the sacrifices had not been in vane, civilian casualties were few and the village itself didn't need much fixing, they lost some important buildings during the attack, the shinobi academy still in reconstruction being the prime example, but they still managed to come out on top against adversity.

They always did.

Naruto kept on walking along his newest master and godfather, oblivious to the looks of wonder and curiosity he got from the village, he had discarded using his Konoha hitai-ate in the same way Kakashi did, every person in Konoha knew of his sharingan by now and even though no one except for a handful of people knew of the events that led to him having one, his actions during the invasion had been proof enough of his character for the villagers who no longer thought ill of him.