Naruto Repurposed

Chapter 7

"No, thank you," she responded kindly, giving the blonde a smile that made the dopey grin on his face grow even more, "I must get back soon."

"Do you live around here?" asked Naruto, finally finding his voice after learning the beautiful girl might be soon leaving.

"I am visiting a friend," she replied calmly, not in the least seemingly bothered by the attention. "Can I ask you a question? ...um."

"I'm Naruto," he responded in the trailed off silence, "and, of course ...you can ask me anything."

"Why did you become a ninja?" came her soft voice, seemingly curious about the boy in front of her.

"To protect my precious people," answered Naruto honestly, after a short moment of thought.

"Then, that is why you are so strong," she continued quietly, but Naruto easily heard her and blushed to the roots of his hair at the genuine compliment from such a pretty girl. "Precious people are worth protecting with everything you have."

"Um ...yeah," grinned Naruto sheepishly, again running his hand in the back of his hair in nervousness, not used to receiving compliments.

"Goodbye Naruto," waved the pretty Haku, "I hope to see you again."

"Me too," replied Naruto instantly as he watched the most beautiful girl he could ever remember seeing walk out of the clearing, "...bye Haku."

It took a few minutes after Haku left, for Naruto's brain to reboot and remember where he was, and that he fell asleep outside all night, and really needed to check in with Kakashi, and review the jumble of memories from the night. Rushing back to Tazuna's house, he was lucky it was just past dawn, and everyone was probably still asleep or just getting up and getting their day started. He waved at Tsunami as he passed through the house and headed upstairs to the room he shared with Sasuke and Kakashi, eager to check in and make sure he wasn't in too much trouble.

Luckily, Kakashi wasn't worried in the least, and simply reminded him that he could always use his clones to send messages to his team to let them know where he was, even if it was just to continue training or that you would be late. Naruto thought it somewhat ridiculous for Kakashi of all people to lecture someone on being late to anything, and thought of using one of his sensei's usual excuses but didn't want to press his luck. He promised to do better, before asking what the plan for today was, excited that maybe they were going to enact his plan to get rid of Gato and pay off Zabuza.

Kakashi then told Naruto and Sasuke, who was just getting up, that they were going to scout out Gato's later this afternoon after Tazuna's work day, and hopefully end the largest threat to their mission tonight. He then left to get Sakura up, and make sure she was also aware of their day's plan while the boys finished getting ready for breakfast. During breakfast, Kakashi told his team they would not be practicing too hard today, as they would need to be on top of their game this evening when they went forward with their plan.

Since they were planning to go after Gato later that day, Kakashi had the whole team on bridge guarding duty after making sure that Naruto's clones had the house and surrounding areas covered until they were ready to go. Naruto was relatively quiet most of the morning as he went through the countless memories of his thousands of clones that had expired over the night, most having just exhausted themselves continuing sealing chain training. There were also several memories of his clones that were still exploring the Ruins of Uzushiogakure, having actually found a small repository of scrolls, deep underground beneath a crumpled old structure.