Koyuki stepped forward, her hands clasped in front of her. The necklace that she practically lived in for the last decade was held between her palms.
She held it out, inserting the small gem on the end into a towering machine. It clicked in. Immediately, a hum began that shook the snow under her feet. The country's new daimyo nearly slipped, but Naruto was there to reinforce her with an arm over her shoulder.
"Careful! Can't have the daimyo gettin' injured on the job," he said.
Koyuki smiled at him, though her eyes quickly went forward again, watching as the machine shook and trembled.
It was roughly built like a cube, with immense vents on either side like gills, and pipes that dove beneath the snow the way the roots of a stately tree might. If Naruto jumped with all his might, he'd only barely land on the top. Unless Kyu was helping of course.
He couldn't see much happening, but Koyuki started to laugh.
It was only the two of them there, which might be why she felt free enough to step forward and twirl, dancing around. Naruto jumped forward, doing a spin of his own.
"Why are we dancing?" he asked.
"Is that what you call that flailing?" Koyukie asked, amused.
She suddenly seized his shoulders, stopping him with a smile bright enough to melt snow. "Heat, Naruto, heat! Can't you feel it?"
Now that she mentioned it, he was a little warm. In the Land of Snow, a little warm was a big deal. The machine kept humming, along with clanking noises from the inside, and the heat kept increasing. The snowbank against its sides was melting in front of their eyes and starting to recede.
"When I was a girl, my father would tell me stories," Koyuki said. "When people first came here, so long ago that chakra had never been seen, this place was a paradise. The trees were always full of fruit, animals made it their home, and the days were warm! Since I was born, even our summers sting the skin. But my father believed in the days of the past. He was the reason we developed trains and air ships, always investing in any technology his subjects could dream of. One day, he believed that our people's genius would bring back what we lost."
"Like melting the snow away."
Koyuki laughed. She let go of Naruto, twirling away, and ran her fingers through the melting snow. She even scooped some up and tossed it back, directly into Naruto's face. Now, her smile looked impish.
"It's on!" Naruto said.
They went back and forth, pelting each other with mushy snow until their jackets were waterlogged. Then they shed them, collapsing on the ground, because they didn't need them anymore! This close to the machine, it felt like a pleasant spring day in Fire Country.
Koyuki rolled onto her hip, her body tucked against Naruto's side while they caught their breath. "I won."
"Home field advantage!" he insisted.
She smiled, but gradually that smile melted away, same as the snow.
"It will take time for the country to thaw," she said. "Even if everything goes perfectly, we'll need at least a year. It might not be the most pleasant place for now, but one day, I promise it will be beautiful! You could have that house you're always talking about, big enough for everyone you've met on your travels.! I would make sure it was just as you've dreamed it! So please… stay."
When Naruto didn't answer immediately, Koyuki's expression started to freeze over.
"I see. Are you sick of me? It's fine if you are—"
"No!" Naruto sat up. "It's…" He sighed. "There are reasons I shouldn't settle down yet. Especially not here, close to someone I care about."
"Reasons?"
Naruto met her eyes. "Have you ever seen black cloaks with red clouds on them?"
"No. Should I have?"
"I hope not," Naruto said. "If you ever do, don't get involved with them. Do everything possible to get away. And if you hear the name Akatsuki, in any context, I want you to run as fast as you can, like your life depends on it."
O-O-O
Filming had already drawn to a close. The night prior had been the crew dinner and celebration, which doubled as a wake for those who'd lost their lives. Koyuki gave a speech that moved men to tears. Although Makino still insisted he'd just spilled water on his face.
Early the following morning, Kakashi's team would take a boat, then a train back to Fire Country. Naruto and Hinata would be getting a ride to the mainland on the Royal Airship. Koyuki insisted on sending them off herself.
But that was still hours away. Garbed in gloves, boots, and a warm cloak, Naruto ventured outside, feeling the icy air embrace him. He strolled the grounds of the palace. Just like Koyuki said, the generator-induced spring was nothing but a future prospect in most of the country.
He walked down a path from the front gate. If he continued straight, he'd reach the snow-logged capital with its shoveled streets.
Instead, he hung a right. His feet climbed the piled powder and didn't sink at all, chakra control letting him step firmly on the un-solid ground. He approached the forest, where only the massive height of the trunks let their branches clear the snow.
Before he'd gone far, he met them. They, too, weren't sinking into the snow. All three of them were facing Naruto before he came into view. Neji's Byakugan was likely to blame for that.
Naruto stretched, cracking his back. "I noticed you guys slip away. So, what's the gameplan here?"
Lee jumped forward. There was a rosiness in his cheeks that was either inebriation or frostbite.
"Our match will be… legendary!" Lee hiccupped. "Come, Naruto! I will prove myself by facing you, a truly worthy opponent!"
There was an explosion of air around him. Tenten, who was closest, stepped to the side and shielded her face. Snow started to blow around Lee's body, and Naruto watched with interest as a massive surge of chakra engulfed him.
Until Lee fell forward, face down in the snow. In the awkward silence that followed you could hear him snoring.
"He… got drunk," Tenten said.
"Ah," Naruto said.
They all looked at Lee, Naruto wondering if they should move him, before a collective decision was made to just move on.
"What about you two?" Naruto said. "Are you here to challenge me? It'd look really good on your resume! I'm almost as wanted as that bum Itachi!"
"Bum?" Tenten muttered. She looked to the side, at Neji, noting the murderous look he wore. Eventually, she faced toward Naruto.
"I don't want to fight!" she said. "I don't think it would be right. Catching you isn't our mission. Even if we could, when you helped us… I couldn't face myself!"
"The village doesn't care about our pride," Neji said.
Curiously, his voice didn't sound accusing. He wasn't insulting Tenten, but rather making a comment. She bit her lip.
"Still. Who knows what the future will be like, but I'm not doing it without an order," Tenten said.
"And you?" Naruto asked.
Neji stared at him. They say eyes are windows for the soul, but if that's the case then the Byakugan's pupilless shape were the perfect shutters.
"Everything I live for labels you as my enemy," Neji said. "You're the antithesis to every lesson I've learned, both those taught and those observed. You are wrong in every sense of the word I'm capable of thinking of. Yet, you live with your head held high."
Naruto was silent, waiting for Neji to go on.
The Hyuuga fell into a 'ready' stance, his open palms spaced perfectly for Gentle Fist.
"Widen my range of vision," Neji said.
Naruto grinned, bending his knees and dropping into a slight squat. Neji kicked off the snow, flying toward him. The ten meters between them were gone in an instant. Neji covered the first third in just a second, and Naruto covered the other portion in half that time.
Neji struck first. He hit Naruto in five places within the same breath: knuckle, forearm, elbow, shoulder, chest—
Orange chakra flared through Naruto's system. He howled, exertion mixing with pain as his Tenketsu were forcibly reopened. Naruto cocked his arm and swung the fist that Neji had disabled. The Hyuuga had no defense.
Naruto's fist caught his cheek. Neji was driven backwards off his feet. His body buried into the snow with an explosion of powder, raining it down on the surrounding area. Stray flakes drifted down, giving a faint white dusting to Neji's form as he lay in the snow crater. The left side of his face was swelling as he looked up, his Byakugan fading.
Naruto knelt at the edge of the hole, looking down in silence, before standing up and walking away. Behind him, he heard a voice. Neji was laughing.
"I can see the stars!" Neji said.
Tenten would get him and Lee inside before they caught frostbite. For now, Naruto continued his walk.
He wound deeper into the forest, moving between the trunks until they blocked sight of the castle he'd left. Only then, far away from anything important, did he stop.
"You didn't have to walk so far," Kakashi said.
The man appeared seemingly from nowhere, sitting on a mighty pine branch that jutted out horizontally, just high enough for Kakashi's legs to not touch the snow.
"Better safe than sorry," Naruto said. "I didn't want anyone to get mixed up in it."
"Mixed up in what?" Kakashi asked.
Naruto looked at him. Kakashi was still looking at his book, but Naruto never made the mistake of thinking that's where his attention rested. Kakashi's muscles were tensed the perfect amount to spring into motion, should he have to. He always looked like that.
"The man's a killer," Kyu said approvingly. That was about the highest compliment she ever gave to humans.
"It's nothing," Naruto said. "Is that the book we just filmed?"
"No. This is Icha Icha, Bountiful Booty. It's three books later than the Princess Gale crossover, and its set with pirates off the shore of Water Country—"
"Uh-huh," Naruto said.
"I wasn't finished explaining it."
"Uh-huh," Naruto said.
Kakashi looked up at him. Next, the Konoha Jounin did something that truly surprised Naruto. He snapped his book shut.
"Sit," Kakashi invited.
Slowly, Naruto approached him. He hopped on the branch beside Kakashi, putting his hands on the bark next to his hips.
"What's it like?" Kakashi asked.
"Hm?"
"Life as a missing-nin. I'll bet you've seen places."
"More than you, even." Naruto chuckled. "Plus, I don't have to kill someone whenever I visit a new country. It's great!"
"I don't always kill people on my missions," Kakashi said. "Sometimes, I'm there to trick them into killing each other."
"You sound a little bitter."
"Don't give me too much credit." Kakashi stroked the cover of his treasured book with his thumb. "Gennin sometimes think going rogue will let them do whatever they want. When you get older, you learn almost no shinobi are doing what they want. It's all about who's paying."
"We've all gotta eat," Naruto hummed.
"Good jobs always go to the villages. There's three reasons someone would hire a nukenin— they're poor, don't have time to get a real village, or they're asking something so troublesome they don't want it traced back to them. I hear you're poor."
Naruto groaned. "I'm known for that now?"
"There's a reason you're The Clown."
Naruto couldn't tell if Kakashi was smirking under his mask. It seemed like he really might be, and that made Naruto want to give him the Neji Treatment.
Naruto leaned forward, kicking his legs in the air, swinging them fast enough that the wind off his toes disturbed the snow.
"When someone doesn't want a job to trace back to them, they're usually asking for something nasty," he said. "I got one of those recently. They wanted me to kill the Tsuchikage's granddaughter just because of who she was. Every once and a while someone's got a good reason and I'll take the job." He crossed his arms. "But people don't come to me all that often because they know I'm picky. Other nukenin just ask 'How hard' while I'm asking 'Why?'"
Kakashi was listening. This was the longest Naruto had seen him go without looking at his book. Even when under attack by enemy shinobi, Kakashi had gone right back to reading when his enemy was dead. Not now, though.
"I take some of the poor jobs," Naruto said. "Not as many as you'd think. People imagine that just because a client is poor, they'll ask something wholesome, like saving their farm from bandits. You'd be shocked how many farmers will dump their life savings on an assassination job for the guy next door, just so they can take his fields."
"I wouldn't be," Kakashi said.
Naruto looked over for a second, followed by a chuckle. "Yeah, I guess you'd know. Forgot who I was talking to for a second!" He leaned back, tilting his head up. "It's the people in a hurry who I work for the most. Like this job! If Koyuki's co-star hadn't dropped out late, she never would've gone to a Nest to find a replacement." Naruto grinned. "I'm a good last resort."
"Is it the life you dreamed of?" Kakashi asked.
"Not even close. But only because I'm not there yet." Naruto waggled his finger like a teacher, despite Kakashi being double his age. "My travels are just steps on the path to where I'm really going. You might've heard, but I'm going to have mansions. Plural, because I'll own multiple. And not even Konoha will dare to touch them."
For a second, Naruto's eyes turned vulpine. His eyes flashed bright orange in the otherwise dark night. Kakashi didn't even twitch.
"Will I be invited?" he asked.
Naruto blinked, his eyes back to blue. "The Copy-Nin wants to come for a visit?"
"Why not? I could be your librarian."
"Hell no! You'd fill the whole library with porn!"
"It's art," Kakashi said. "So, can I come or not?"
"...You can visit," Naruto said. "Since you're being nice and letting us go."
"I'm glad," Kakashi said. He leaned back, looking up the same way as Naruto. "I'm not just being generous. Even if we all came at you, I don't know that we'd win."
Noticeably, he didn't say that they'd definitely lose, either.
Naruto snorted.
"There's more to Lee and we both know it. Plus, Neji's not a pushover. He's just had bad matchups. And if you really wanted my head, your team aren't the ones I'd be dealing with."
Naruto dug into his pocket. He pulled out a scroll, letting it roll out and reading it aloud.
"Mission running smoothly. Client has hired useful missing-nin. Daimyo's forces are testing our defenses. Threat level: moderate. Proceeding as planned."
Naruto tossed the scroll to the side, where it landed in Kakashi's lap, splayed across his Icha Icha book. Kakashi looked down at it.
"I thought that Doto intercepted this one."
"I was just playing it safe," Naruto said. "Couldn't have ANBU breathing down our necks on the way out. That would've been rough on Hinata."
"Mm," Kakashi said. He picked the scroll up, rolled it back into its original shape, and set it aside. "Do you remember Konoha?"
"Not fondly," Naruto said in a dull voice.
"Fair enough."
Kakashi swayed his long legs. Eventually, he leaned his weight forward, dropping off of the branch and landing smoothly on the snow. He turned back to Naruto. "Konoha remembers you."
"I'm sure they do," Naruto snorted. "It's not on my list of vacation destinations."
"Maybe not," Kakashi said. "But if you do come, for any reason, know that you won't be alone. We owe you that much."
Kakashi disappeared in a Shunshin that left behind fresh teardrop-shaped leaves, thousands of miles from the nearest place they'd grow. Naruto stared at the spots of green against the creamy snow.
"Fucking Konoha-nin," he said. "Always such showoffs."
"As if you're in a place to talk. Need I remind you of our last visit to the Land of Valleys? Or that farce of a duel with the Sand Brat?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a showoff too," Naruto said. "Where do you think I get it from? Besides, Kyu, you're just testy because there wasn't any blood."
"Precisely. It was an utterly dull evening."
"I don't know," Naruto said. "I'm pretty satisfied with it."
He gazed up at the expanse of the night sky, speckled with a thousand different glittering dots. Here, so far north, it was like the spread went on forever— nothing to block it and no buildings to hem it in.
"I can see the stars," he said.