Naruto: Cautious Ninja

"He… He really wants me to go with him?" Tayuya thought, feeling excitement quickly well up inside her. "He… wants me to be with him." Staring at Naruto silently for what felt like an eternity, the visibly cheerful girl brought her hands to her lips and attempted to hold back an exclamation of glee. Failing in that effort but managing to hold back tears with a quick shake of her head, she then grabbed the straps of her backpack and literally sprinted the distance between her and Naruto.

For the longest time Tayuya remembered being by herself. An orphan who ran away, lived on the streets, surviving anyway she could. People kept their distance from her because of that. But this boy, this… stranger from a far off village who knew very little about the world and nothing about her, approached her without hesitation, saved her, protected her, gave her food when she was hungry, and made her smile. He dragged her out of her damnation, a world she once thought was going to suffocate her and keep her miserable forever, and pulled her back into a place where there was hope.

After all that, Tayuya realized that it wasn't just a world of possibilities that she was brought back into, but she was brought into it by a person whom she realized right then and there that she wanted to stay with forever.

He was the first to acknowledge her and recognize her existence, and there was no chance in hell she was going to let this amazing person go.

She left the junction in her dust, immediately deciding on the path she wanted to take. "Thank you, Naruto-kun!" Tayuya thought joyfully as she hopped to a stop and smiled warmly at the blonde, her cheeks showing color and life that previously did not. "If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to stick with you, shithead."

Naruto chuckled and raised a hand into the air for a high five, "Same here, Tayuya-chan."

Two names they scorned and loved, from two people who couldn't stay a part. With smiles on their faces and fires in their hearts, they sealed their friendship with a clap when their hands met in the air above. The bird on Naruto's head chirped happily when she saw the final mark made and the pair came to stand side by side.

With Naruto leading on and the redhead right beside him, Tayuya couldn't help but simply gaze across at the boy admirably and smile, her heart pounding against her chest.

Though she didn't want to admit it and it wasn't clear whether she saw it, but there was some truth in what the jinchuriki said to her…

You couldn't stop thinking about the one you like…

Four days later…

The Third sat at his desk with his well recognized stoic expression in play and finger tapping a monotonous rhythm against the surface of the desk in front of him, as he glared across at the persons he was currently in conference with. The cause of his current state of part displeasure and part interest stood nervously in front of him alongside the package he'd also conveniently brought along with him following his near two week disappearance from the village, and had just finished wrapping things up in order to come to an understanding with his Hokage.

After having almost every able bodied Jonin and Chunin on the hunt for him the entire time he was 'missing', you could say that Hiruzen Sarutobi was less than jubilant when the boy finally rocked up at the front gate after twelve days of futile searching. All questions regarding his absence were quickly answered upon having the boy dragged up to his office and stood right in the middle of the highest authority's place of work.

Naruto chuckled and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly while gesturing towards the equally nervous red head also standing in the presence of the village leader. "And that's that, oji-san."

"So summing up everything you've told me, after getting knocked out during a training run you somehow wound up inside of a traveling merchant's wagon making a shipment for the Land of the Great River, where you just so happen to end up after a three day journey you slept through, and then found yourself in the middle of an annexation of a country being led by the industrial giant Gato. During which time you spent in said country, you then end up rescuing this young girl from a mob of common ruffians, defeated an entire army of mercenaries, destroyed the dam cutting off all water and power supplies from the region's villages, and single-handedly defeated the assassin Crow, a B-Rank criminal known for murdering a feudal lord and his entire family, in a single day, before making your way back home with the abovementioned damsel in tow. Is this correct?" Hiruzen asked.

"That's… pretty much it, oji-san," Naruto chuckled. Now that he heard the whole thing from the old man himself, he couldn't help but find the entire thing a little bit farfetched despite having lived it.

Was his life a work of fiction or something? It was plausible....