Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ What Naruto Wants ❯ Tough Love ( Chapter 7 )

Be happy. I really, really want to start a One Piece fickie, but I know I should finish this one (and my others) first. Heh, as you might have guessed, I love to start things, but I hate to finish them. I really have no clue as to how I'm going to end this fic. I'll love you forever if you can give me any good suggestions. I hope I don't just end up continuing until my fingers don't work anymore…

As you know, Naruto isn't mine. If it was mine… well, the characters would probably act a lot more like they think in this fic. Now wouldn't that be scary?

.Chapter 7……

The blonde ninja had never in his life been so happy to see Jiraiya. At the man's question, Tsunade dropped Naruto to the ground and glared at her former team mate.

"Why don't you just ask the little brat himself?" She replied, raising an eyebrow angrily.

Jiraiya glanced over at Naruto. The boy was sitting on the ground with an Oh-my-gawd-I-could-have-died-just-now look on his face. Looking back at Tsunade, he decided it would be in his best interest to do as she said.

"Hey, Naruto…"

Naruto looked at Jiraiya, then at Tsunade, and back to Jiraiya.

"What the hell did you do?" /It must've been pretty bad…/

Normally, Naruto would have said something along the lines of 'I didn't do anything', or 'She just came at me for no reason', but he knew that would only cause the easily angered woman to beat the crap out of him. As stupid as he could be sometimes, he knew better than to piss Tsunade off twice in five minutes.

"I… called her… a homicidal bitch," He said quietly, studying Tsunade from the corner of his eye.

Jiraiya looked as though he wanted to laugh. /Dumbass! You should have known better than to say something like that!/ "Well, then you should have seen it coming! Now go away. We were in the middle of something when you showed up."

Naruto suddenly remembered why he came. "Hey, I can't just leave!" He quickly stood up. "I have something really important to tell you guys!"

"Well, out with it, kid!" Jiraiya commanded. "We were in the middle of something really important before you interrupted us!" /You're lucky I'm in a good mood, otherwise I'd take Tsunade's side./

"Well, can we go inside first? I can't talk about it out here."

At the question, Tsunade sighed. "Fine, let's go in. I'll give you five minutes to cry about your stupid little problem, and then you leave." She turned to Naruto. "Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just hurry this up." Jiraiya interrupted. /I have better things I could be doing./

"You shut your mouth!" Tsunade said angrily as she kicked the white-haired man inside. /I swear, I'll kill you someday…/

…

"So… What you're saying is that you can read minds…?" Jiraiya asked doubtfully. /Who's he trying to fool?/

"I'm not trying to fool anyone!" Naruto said angrily. "How many times am I going to have to tell you?"

"Eh…?" Pausing for a moment, the Ero-sennin studied Naruto. "I… didn't say that part out loud… did I?"

Naruto sighed loudly. /How stupid is he??/

"I've heard of similar things happening before…" Tsunade began, speaking for the first time since Naruto had begun his explanation.

"You have?" Jiraiya and Naruto asked in unison.

"I remember reading it in a book once. Well, it wasn't exactly the same thing as what's happened here, but…"

"But what"

"I think I might know a way to return you to normal, Naruto."

"Really??"

"Well, Im not certain yet, but if I look into it I might be able to do it."

Naruto hadn't been this happy since the day he had received his forehead protector. /I can be normal again!! I won't ever have to know what all these perverts are thinking about ever again!!/

"But…"

"Huh?"

"Are you sure you really want to give something like this up?"

"Why would I want to be like this? Do you have any idea the kind of things I've seen??" Naruto got a distant look in his eyes. "It's horrible… just horrible."

"…" The two sannin observed the boy in silence for a moment. /What on earth happened to him?/

"So… horrible…!"

Clearing his throat, Jiraiya leaned in close to the boy. "Hey, Naruto… You know, a talent like yours could be really helpful…" /Just think of how much easier it would make girl-chasing! If you know exactly what they want, women would flock to you!/

Jiraiya's thoughts were interrupted by Tsunade's fist.

"Owowowow~!!" Jiraiya whimpered as he held his swollen cheek. "I didn't even say anything bad!" /You nearly broke my jaw, you bitch!/

"But you were thinking about bad things, you pervert," Tsunade turned to Naruto. "Wasn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Naruto, you traitor!!" /How could you do this to me…?/

Tsunade continued the conversation as she ground Jiraiya's face into the carpet. "There are a lot of uses for you new talent, you know…"

"Maybe… but it's not worth it. It's not worth knowing what everyone's thinking…" Suddenly, Naruto realized something. "Wait… why haven't you been thinking?"

The Fifth grinned. "I've been thinking. I'm just a lot better at hiding it than idiots like him." She punctuated her sentence with a twist of her foot into her ex-teammates face.

"…"

"So, are you absolutely sure you want to try and get rid of this ability? If you learn how to master it, you could become a master shinobi. Just think of how useful that talent could be to a ninja; no, to this entire village."

"I…"

Jiraiya's grunts of pain filled the room. /It hurts…/

"Well, you don't have to decide now," Tsunade kicked Jiraiya aside. "I still have to do some research to see if I'll even be able to do anything about all of this. I'll contact you once I've looked into it a bit."

"But…"

Tsunade gently lead Naruto outside. "Just sleep on it, okay?" She smiled reassuringly and shut the door in his face.

/That hag is confusing…/ Naruto headed back toward his apartment. /But I guess I'll just take her advice and think about all this. It won't be that bad staying like this for a little while longer…/

……

And so ends another sadly short chapter. I couldn't really get into this one since it's so… I don't know… necessary. I knew I had to write this to make the plot continue. Hopefully the next chapter will be more fun. Actually, I'm almost certain it will be. As I'm sure I've told you a thousand times; I love suggestions. Just plain reviews are just spiffy, but a good suggestion can go a long way, you know? Anyway… I love you, so don't kill me for always taking so long! Plus, if I die, who will finish this? Hmmm…??