The Waterfall could be heard long before the village came into sight. The traveling merchant was smiling tiredly, as he made his way through the dense forest with his young companion by his side.
"Ah hello Akaru. It has been a while." The two guards at the village's gates greeted them as they stopped their cart in front of them.
"Hi guys. Yeah, I have been busy, but I haven't forgotten about Shibuki's order." The man replied, a smile on his lips as he passed them his documents.
"How long have you been on the road?"
"Almost two months now. We came straight from Suna, I just didn't feel like going to Konoha this time of year." The merchant replied, as the blonde next to him, felt a pang of guilt in his chest at having caused the man to lose some of his income. Naruto knew that Akaru didn't like Konoha around the October festivities, since most of the townsfolk were super invested in the 'fox' hunts that they would start at that time. Most of the time no actual foxes were hunted though. It still was his fault that Akaru didn't get the business he usually got in Konoha, which is why he felt guilty about it, although the merchant had promised him that it was no big deal and that he could easily forgo that money.
The guards had meanwhile looked over all the documents and had handed them back to Akaru. They shared a laugh with the man and waved them through, when Naruto felt something coming up behind them. He didn't have time to turn around as he felt the chakra signature approach extremely fast. He quickly pulled Akaru to the side as a blur of green and white sped past them through the gate and into the village. The guards laughed again, at the pair's faces.
"Don't worry about that, she wouldn't have hit you. That was Fuu, she just came back from a mission." The older guard explained, as Akaru put his documents away, before anything unexpected happened again.
"That was a quick reflex there kid, where did you learn that?" The second guard asked, his eyes narrowing as he tried to assess the blonde boy in front of him. Akaru was about to speak up, but Naruto beat him to the punch.
"I learned it in Konoha. I actually went to the shinobi academy there. But I left the village so now I travel with Akaru." He summarized his story, obviously excluding the not so nice bits about him being banished and all.
"Don't be so suspicious, man. If he is with Akaru, then it's fine." The older guard stated, laughing, playfully hitting his partner over the head.
"Don't worry about him, you are free to enter. Welcome to Takigakure." He continued looking at Akaru and Naruto.
The pair smiled at them, before Akaru lifted the handles of his cart again and pulled towards the village's merchant square, while Naruto pushed from behind.
"Ah Akaru, how have you been?" The village leader greeted the pair as they were led into his office by his secretary. Behind the merchant, Naruto carried the box of herbs that the young man had ordered into the room. Looking around he immediately noticed the two shinobi standing in the corners behind their village's leader, as well as the girl next to the kage. The two shinobi didn't seem special, but when his eyes landed on the green hair of the girl, Kurama immediately spoke up in his mind.
"That is the jinchuuriki of the seven tails." He exclaimed, causing Naruto to look at the girl in greater detail. The green hair was kept at shoulder length, her orange eyes looking straight at Naruto, she wore a sleeveless top, her arms were covered in mesh protectors that had cloth covers, on her right arm she also wore her village's emblem, she also wore a skirt under which was pair of mesh pants that reached her knees as well as a pouch strapped to her left hip, the sandals on her feet were the only part of her outfit that wasn't light green as they were pure white. Her skin was darker than normal
"I think Chomei is telling her about me." Kurama's voice echoed through Naruto's head, as he realized he had been staring at the girl for a few seconds, with her returning the stare.
Quickly focusing his eyes back to the important action, he listened with half an ear to the conversation of the village leader with Akaru.
"Why did you tell me about her?" He asked Kurama in his thoughts, as the two older men were talking about the availability of certain plants.
"I thought you should know. And I mean, it wouldn't hurt to make a few friends that are closer to you in age. The only people you talk to are at least three times as old as you are." Kurama answered, making Naruto almost roll his eyes.
"Besides, you know how hard the life of a jinchuuriki is. I'm sure she doesn't have it much easier than you had." The overgrown fox continued.
Naruto remembered how he was always alone back in Konoha and almost missed Akaru calling out to him to bring the box forward.
Quickly placing the box on the desk between the two older men, he stepped back again, as they went through the different herbs in the box.
"I'll see if I can talk to her if we meet again." Naruto replied to the bijuu, as Akaru took the scroll the village leader presented him and bowed slightly.
"Ok, we will be going then. We still have to set up our stall for tomorrow." The merchant exclaimed, bowing again before he turned around and walked out of the door, Naruto following him of course.
When they stepped outside, Naruto was surprised to realize that the sound of the waterfall had suddenly returned, creating a sort of background buzz as the pair walked through the streets of Takigakure.
Walking through the streets towards the merchant square, he saw some buildings with seals on them, some had them incorporated into some decorative symbols, some had them plainly over their front door.
"These are silencing seals, to block out the waterfall, aren't they?" Naruto asked Kurama in his mind.
"Yeah, they are. Although I have no idea how they blocked out the waterfall specifically, since I don't think that they would want to block out everything from the outside." Kurama admitted, as Naruto looked at the seals. He noticed that the outer sealing array was almost always the same design. with the same kanji, while the inner circles were wildly different from each other.
The merchants greeted them with friendly smiles as they started to put Akaru's stall together. It didn't take them long to finish, so they put the rest of the herbs into the back and went to the hotel, talking about random stuff.
Akaru gave Naruto the key to his room and smiled as he disappeared into the corridor leading to his own. The young blonde walked towards the staircase, leading to the second floor, where his room was located. Quickly finding the right door he used the key and threw his few belongings in the chair that was standing next to his bed. Lying down on the bed, Naruto wondered what he wanted to do for the rest of the evening, since the merchant had said that he would only need him in the morning to help with the customers.
"Well, you could go and train a bit." Kurama suggested in his mind, seeing as the boy had not been able to hone his skills properly whilst always on the move.
"Yeah, that sounds good." Naruto replied, getting up and ready.
"What do you suggest, I do?" He asked the fox, as he changed out of his civilian work clothes and into his shinobi pants and shirt.
"Well, I guess you could just do a few cardio exercises while a few clones do target practice. Then we'll take it from there." The bijuu responded, earning a nod from Naruto as he walked out of the hotel.
The training ground had to have some kind of reinforcing seals in place, the way Naruto's clones were blowing it up and everytime the dirt ground persisted through the blast. It really was a blessing that Naruto could create almost as many shadow clones as he wanted. That way his copies could be more radical in trying out different techniques to master the technique Kurama was teaching him.
A loud explosion signaled that another of his clones had pushed too much chakra into his hands. Looking up from the scroll he was reading, Naruto smiled to himself seeing his clones produce fireball after fireball, trying to reduce the chakra consumption.
"You are being watched." Kurama stated in his mind, as Naruto's eyes went back to the scroll about seals he had purchased in some shinobi store at the market.
"I imagined. After all, we are blasting through loads of chakra." Naruto stated, smiling as he sent out five more clones, watching them join the others to replace the ones that had been destroyed. The blonde was glad that he had spent almost the whole trip with Akaru doing chakra exercises to build up his reserves.
"I guess we should say hello to our visitors." Naruto closed the scroll, sealing it away into a storage seal he had sown into his pocket. Slowly standing up, he looked around, smiling as his eyes glided over the trees. He couldn't see any signs to where the watchers were and trying to detect them was useless, since he wasn't a sensor by nature and hadn't enough time to train his abilities so that he would be able to find their chakra signatures.
"The signature is on your 5. There seems to be only one." Kurama said, chuckling a bit. Continuing his turn Naruto's grin grew wider, as his eyes passed their location. Sending a wink in their direction, Naruto chuckled as he turned away. A simple hand wave and his clones disappeared in clouds of smoke. The blonde grimaced as all of their memories flooded into his brain. He had not thought about that.
The action seemed to have the desired effect on the person watching as the leaves rustled a bit more and Naruto could see a shadow jumping through the branches as he turned.
"It's you." He was surprised to see the green haired girl from the village leader's office.
"Who are you?" She asked, getting straight to the point, her left hand never leaving the pouch on her hip.
"I am Naruto. Who are you?" Naruto replied.
"Why am I being told to be careful with you?" Fuu ignored his question completely.
"Fuu, I am guessing we both know that." The boy answered, earning a shocked look from her orange eyes.
"How do you know my name?" She asked, her posture getting ever more defensive.
"You almost ran me and my traveling companion over, when we arrived in the village earlier today. The guard told us your name." Naruto explained. Fuu relaxed a bit, at his words.
"So, again, why am I being told to be careful with you?" Naruto couldn't help but laugh at that.
"I guess Choumei didn't tell you. I am nine. It is a pleasure to meet you seven." Naruto grinned, bowing slightly. A second laugh escaped his lips as he saw the shocked expression on Fuu's face. A few moments passed, before Fuu jumped away, drawing a kunai.
"Whoa, calm down. I won't hurt you." Naruto put his hands up, not wanting to fight with another Jinchuuriki.
"Why are you here?" Her eyes had narrowed, the kunai positioned defensively between her and the blonde.
"Because I am traveling with a merchant and his route brought him here." Naruto explained, his hands still raised a bit.
"The Kyuubi is property of Konoha. Everyone knows that." The green haired girl shot back.
"I am no property of anyone!" Naruto chose to ignore Kurama's shout.
"We were banished." He simply stated, lowering his hands and sitting down. This caused Fuu to relax a bit again, lowering the kunai but still watching his every move. Naruto could see the tension in every one of her muscles.
"Why?"
After Naruto finished telling the story about his banishment, he was surprised how easy he found it to trust this girl he had just met. He chalked it up to her being a Jinchuuriki just like him and smiled at her.
"Wow, that sounds awful. I am sorry you had to go through that." Fuu stated, sitting down in front of him.
"It's alright. I am still alive and feeling better than I have for a long time." The blonde laughed it off.
"I guess I owe you an apology." The girl muttered, twirling the kunai in her hands.
"Don't worry about it. I get it. We have to be on guard always. Even in our own village." Naruto smiled sadly, he still felt the knives running over his skin from time to time.
The sad smile on Fuu's lips told him that she had had comparable experiences, although he didn't know to which extent.
"Sorry for disturbing your training." She said after a while, where both of them had stayed silent.
"It's alright, making new friends is more important than training." Naruto exclaimed, laughing at the again shocked look on Fuu's face.