Naruto : Uchiha : Chapter 24
"Aww come to mama…" she cooed and scooped her up in her arms, hugging her for dear life which the cub loved if her purrs were any indication.
"Kiara come and have some lunch…" Naruto's voice rang in the kitchen and she slicked her way out of Tsunade's arms expertly who tried to keep her in her arms, but ended up falling off the couch face first...again.
...
She grumbled incoherent curses at the feline, rubbing her aching nose with an annoyed expression on her face seeing her lap up whatever he gave her to eat quite happily from her bowl.
Half an hour later, Tsunade was lying there lazily hearing the crickets in his large gardens and Naruto sat on the porch with the cub lying on her back and her legs high up in the air.
"Where does it all go you glutton? You don't even grow up neither are you fat or chubby, you're still so small…" Naruto asked the cub while tickling her stomach to get muffled mewls from her. Her paws tried to pry him off but to no avail and Tsunade smiled. Kiara had become a part of their group too over time.
"Oi! Where are you guys?" a familiar voice called out surprising them quite a lot.
"We're in here, come on up back…" Tsunade called out and sure enough both saw Sakumo come around with his hands behind his back and a wide grin on his face. Tsunade laid on her elbow, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"I thought you were going to buy your sword smart ass…" she pointed out wisely, getting an eye twitch from the boy at her name calling but he gulped it down for now and grinned.
His hands were put out in front to show them a beautifully crafted katana unsheathed with a completely white blade and a black sheathe to go along with it in his other hand.
"Tou-san gave me the family sword when I got home, I ran straight from home knowing you two would be here. Isn't it cool?" he asked with a cheeky smile, getting nods from the other two who were looking marvelously at the beautifully crafted sword.
"It's called the White Light Chakra Sabre by the way, it's been passed down withing my family for generations now." he explained to add a bit more fascination to it and got dumb nods from his star struck friends while Tsunade ran her finger on the blade in amazement.
"Sugoi, you got such a cool sword…" Tsunade whispered making him puff his chest out proudly.
"…idiots have all the luck in the world." she continued making him deflate and cry anime tears at her words. Naruto laughed and all three enjoyed their free day happily to enjoy their friend's happiness together, playing around the house some card games, Tsunade's choice by the way, of which she won none of them as always.
...
A week later, some unknown clearings on the borders of the village…
Naruto walked past the trees covering the forest like clearing, while taking in the beautiful sights to his heart's content. This part of the forest, he had never been in before and he was sure no one else had either, seeing the non trampled grass growing all around the area.
He looked up and smiled at seeing the sun rays coming past the leaves of the trees and illuminating the beautiful clearing with it's sheen.
His feet took small and careful steps, to avoid any dangerous insects or snakes going around on the ground.
He loved doing this, to see the places in the village no one else ever ventured into. It was a loss in his mind of their own accord to not explore the place they lived and breathed in down to it's very core.
Finally, he walked into a small clearing in between the thick forestry of the seemingly lost to time area of the village. He looked on amazed at the large and thick tree in the middle of said clearing as if it were the whole nerve center of the village.
He walked closer to the tree, which was of the size of a small house in itself and touched it's large bark with his small hand. He could feel the synergy of life it breathed and the small pulses the tree was letting out each passing second as if it were alive and breathing.
He walked around it, looking up and down the tree and wondering whether to climb said tree or not when he stopped abruptly as his eyes caught on to something strange.
His baby blue eyes narrowed on a particular part of the tree covered with wild vines and he flicked out a kunai from his holster, carving the weeds out and brushing it clean with his palm to read a small thing inscribed onto it by human hands.
Konohagakure no sato
It read and he started hacking away the vines cleanly by channeling wind chakra through it and finally cleared away the small portion of the bark he wanted to see so much right now.
...
Today we stand here, asking ourselves the same question every shinobi has probably asked himself at one point in his life.
What is a shinobi? Why do we kill others as a way of living, mindlessly staining the ground scarlet?
My friend asked me this today too, after our small truce of peace marking the stop of centuries of conflict between our clans. So I answered him today, and we decided to carve this out for life here as a sign for the future generations to remember the horrors we went through and the time when we stopped to think of the past that lay behind us.
A shinobi is one who endures no matter the obstacles, that is what we could say in a sentence.
Why do we kill then? Why destroy life?
To protect life, life must be taken. That is the very law of nature. The cycle goes on and on, but what differentiates us from animals is that we have the sense, the sense to feel others pain and bask in it to share his sufferings.
That is what me and my friend dreamed of years ago, a place where everyone will understand each others sufferings and pain, and grieve together. A place where children will grow up peacefully, shielded from the violence outside the confines of that peaceful wall covering them.
We dreamed of a village. A village where children, adults and the elderly would come together and form bonds. Where children won't be thrust out to kill before they knew how to hold a brush and could enjoy the taste of sake before they died.
And today the two of us are content that this dream has come true. For today, this place marks the beginning of the peace we dreamed of achieving one day and shake hands to form a village where everyone can be happy.
Today, here with a shake of our hands we unite the two great clans of the Senju and of the Uchiha to form Konohagakure no sato.
-Hashirama Senju & Madara Uchiha, Year 1197 Warring Clans Era.
...
Naruto's eyes widened and he re-read the whole thing again before brushing the inscription with his palm.
"Jiji…" he whispered to himself, realizing what the Shodai Hokage and his grandfather had went out to achieve together. No one had come to this place since then if he could guess right, and it was seemingly forgotten.
He read the thing again and again, not getting enough of the beautiful words inscribed on the tree. The handwriting was mixed of two people, one of Hashirama Senju and the other of Madara Uchiha.
The year was the last year of the warring clans before shinobi villages rose up from everywhere to achieve what the two formidable clan leaders had once sought to achieve and had it in their palms at that time, seemingly bringing an end to the clan wars and halting the mindless bloodshed then and there.
His senses tingled suddenly, his eyes snapping back and glancing dangerously to the side. He flicked his kunai into a tree, making the birds fly up from it and he stood up, looking around the clearing furiously.
"Who's there?" he called out, getting nothing but silence in return and clenched his fist tightly.
"I know you're there, so no point hiding yourself anymore…" he called out yet again and this time a reply did come back.
"You're good for a child your age, to be able to sense my presence at so young an age you are the grandson of that man. Basking in the writings of his lost dreams…." the childish voice cackled a blood chilling laugh, making him flick out kunais in each of his palms and stand in his defensive kata, crossing the kunais in front of him defensively.
"What do you want?" he asked in a guarded tone, knowing he was all on his own in this abandoned part of the forest.
"Nothing…" the voice echoed from everywhere and his eyes roamed around to gauge his opponent's location. His untrained senses not quite able to pinpoint whoever it was that was hiding here.
"…but everything…" the voice said in a cold voice making him stiffen when he saw a strange hooded figure with a straw cloak sitting on a tree and launched his kunai at it. The figure caught it in his finger by it's hole and shook his finger in a 'not so good' fashion.
"Your potential lays hidden…" he whispered suggestively, confusing the blonde boy with his words. Naruto could feel a foreboding feeling in the back of his mind at seeing the figure who was hiding his appearance expertly in the shadow of the tree so he could not see him.
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