"No," Naruto told himself, his eyes wide in the gloom.
He turned over on the futon, facing away from the wall, but the dark wooden ceiling offered no more comfort. Sleep escaped him. It was useless to try and sleep every time Kaiza's story returned to his mind, every time he remembered the empty look on Inari's face.
A soft snore came from the other side of the room. It was Kiba. Even in his sleep, he seemed restless. Beside him, Akamaru whimpered in his dreams, his paws twitching as if running from something. Naruto propped himself up on an elbow, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, which was barely broken by the reddish glow of the dying embers.
His teammates were scattered around the room, each an unmoving lump under a blanket. Sakura slept near the fire, her face finally free from the tension that had gripped her all day. For the first time in a long time, she didn't look worried. She just looked… tired.
Sasuke, as always, had chosen the farthest corner, almost invisible in the darkness. Naruto didn't need to see him clearly to know that, even unconscious, his body would be tense, ready to react. Shino was an impenetrable silhouette, so still he could have been mistaken for a piece of furniture if not for the slight movement of his chest. And Hinata… she was nearby. Her breathing was deep and calm, the only point of stillness in the tense room. The image of her hug, its unexpected warmth, sent a strange pang through his chest.
No, he definitely wasn't going to be able to sleep.
He got up with a care that would have stunned anyone who only knew his loud side. His bare feet made no sound on the wooden floor as he moved between the sleeping bodies. He slid the main door open and stepped out onto the porch.
The cold night air hit him immediately. The storm had passed, and a nearly full moon hung in the clear sky, bathing the clearing in a ghostly white light. The drops of water clinging to the leaves of the nearby trees reflected the light.
That's when he saw her.
Sitting on the edge of the porch, her knees hugged to her chest, was Kurenai. The moonlight outlined her figure, giving her long, dark hair a silver sheen. She wasn't wearing her Jōnin vest, just a simple black shirt that made her look smaller, less imposing. Her gaze was fixed on the dark line of the trees.
Naruto paused in the doorway, hesitant. This wasn't the Kurenai-sensei he knew, the confident, calm commander with a maternal smile. The woman sitting there looked as if she was crushed by a heavy burden. He recognized that kind of loneliness. He knew it very well.
He approached without a sound and sat beside her, leaving a respectful distance between them. He said nothing. He simply stared into the same darkness she did, listening to the rhythmic drip of water from the eaves of the roof.
She flinched slightly when she sensed him beside her but didn't turn immediately.
"You can't sleep either, huh?" she said, her voice a bit hoarse. It wasn't a scolding, just a tired observation.
"No," he replied softly. "Too many things spinning around up here."
She let out a short laugh, devoid of any joy. "Yeah. I know the feeling."
Silence settled between them again, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was a shared silence. Naruto, for once in his life, felt no need to fill it with words. He just waited. The sounds of crickets and dripping water were the only things speaking.
"Is everyone okay?" Kurenai finally asked, her eyes still on the forest. "Is Kiba asleep?"
Naruto almost smiled. "His snores can be heard all over the house. Akamaru's having nightmares, but… yeah, they're asleep."
"Good."
Another minute passed. Naruto could feel the tension radiating from her.
"Are you okay, Sensei?" he dared to ask.
Kurenai sighed, a long, shaky sound. The question seemed to release all the pressure she'd been holding in.
"No, Naruto. I'm not," she confessed, and the words seemed to pain her as they came out. "I'm thinking I made a terrible mistake."
Naruto looked at her profile. The moonlight accentuated the shadows under her eyes.
"What mistake?" he asked, with genuine curiosity.
"Bringing you all here," she said, her voice a bitter whisper. "I convinced Kakashi to continue with the mission. He said it was beyond our rank, and he was right. But I insisted. I talked about the experience, the challenge…" She broke off, swallowing hard. "I was an idiot. Arrogant. And now… now Kiba is humiliated, Shino had to watch his partner paralyzed with fear, and Hinata…" Her voice cracked for a moment. "That girl has fought so hard to find her courage, and I brought her to a place where people like Gato crush the brave just for fun."
The guilt in her voice was plain. Naruto listened in silence, absorbing every word. He saw the image of Kiba, his face pale and his eyes wide from the poison. He saw Sakura, trembling on the riverbank.
"This isn't a training exercise, Naruto," Kurenai continued, almost as if to convince herself. "This is a war zone. And I brought six kids into a war zone. If something happens to you… if one of you ends up like that man, Kaiza… it will be my responsibility."
Naruto looked down at his own hands, resting on his knees. He didn't know what to say to fix it. There were no magic words. But silence didn't feel right either.
"I don't think it's your fault," he said finally, his voice surprisingly firm.
Kurenai turned to look at him for the first time, an expression of disbelief on her face. "How can you say that? I'm the Jōnin in command, along with Kakashi. Your well-being is my top priority."
"I know," Naruto nodded. "And that's why it's not your fault. A bad commander wouldn't be out here, unable to sleep with worry. A bad commander would be snoring louder than Kiba, dreaming about the mission's pay."
The simplicity of his logic seemed to disarm her.
"You're here because you care," he continued, looking her in the eyes. "Because you're thinking about us before the mission or the client. That doesn't make you a bad commander. It makes you a good person. And the kind of sensei anyone would want to have."
The words, so direct and without any artifice, affected her more than any elaborate speech could have. They came from the boy many in the village still saw as a problem, as the fox's container. But in that moment, under the moon of the Land of Waves, he was just a genin who saw things with a surprising clarity.
"A bad commander wouldn't doubt himself," Naruto added, almost as if thinking aloud. "He'd just order us forward, no matter the cost. And if one of us fell, he'd write a report and ask for a replacement. You… you feel the weight of every one of us. That's what makes you different."
Kurenai held her breath. A small, genuine smile, the first in what felt like days, formed on her lips. It was a fragile smile, but it was real.
"Thank you, Naruto," she whispered.
"Besides…" he said, his tone suddenly changing. It grew sharper. Concern gave way to strategy. "That guy who attacked us at the river… He was testing us, right? Analyzing our skills."
Kurenai nodded, intrigued by the shift. "Yes, it seems so. He wanted to know what he was up against."
"Exactly," Naruto said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "But think about it, Sensei. He had plenty of chances to finish us. When Kiba was trapped in the puddle, when Sakura was alone on the bank with me… He could have killed us. But he didn't."
"He was toying with us," Kurenai replied, repeating the thought that had been tormenting her.
"Or maybe he couldn't?" Naruto countered, and his blue eyes shone with a new intensity. "Think about it. Why would a super-powerful ninja bother with water traps and poison needles? Why would he hide in the mist?"
He posed the question to the air but didn't wait for an answer.
"Because he's not as strong as he wants us to think!" he exclaimed in a passionate whisper. "If he could really take on you and Kakashi-sensei in a straight fight, he would have done it already. He would have shown up in the middle of the river and cut us all in half. But he didn't! He attacked us from a distance, with tricks. He threw a few needles at us and then left. That's not what an invincible guy does."
Naruto's logic was so raw, so direct, that Kurenai felt a new perspective cutting through her fear and guilt. She had been seeing the enemy as an insurmountable threat. Naruto, on the other hand, saw him as a cheating bully who was afraid of getting his face smashed in a fair fight.
"It means he has a weak spot," Naruto concluded, his voice now filled with a contagious conviction. "It means he's afraid. And if he's afraid, we can beat him."
Suddenly, the enemy no longer seemed invincible. He seemed like a simple obstacle. A dangerous one, yes, but a beatable one.
"You might… you might be right," Kurenai admitted, and a new determination, that of the commander she was, could be heard in her voice.
Naruto felt the change in her. He felt his words had hit their mark, that he had given her back a piece of the hope the mission had stolen. And in that moment of connection, the plan that had been forming in his mind took full shape.
He turned on the porch to face her, his expression completely serious in the moonlight. The earlier lightness was gone.
"Kurenai-sensei," he said, and his tone made her give him her full attention. "I have a plan. Something that could give us the edge we need."
Kurenai watched him, captivated by the sudden gravity in his voice. This wasn't the Naruto who yelled about ramen and becoming Hokage. This was another Naruto, one she had seen in brief flashes during the battle at the river.
"I can't explain exactly how it works," he continued, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "It's… a jutsu. A very special and very secret one. No one else knows it. But I think… no, I know it can change things. It would give our team something that guy won't expect. Something not even Kakashi-sensei could predict."
He paused, his blue gaze locked on hers, intense and filled with a seriousness she had never seen in him before.
"But for it to work, I need your help," he said. "I need something from you. Something very important."
"What is it, Naruto?" she asked, already caught up in his momentum.
"I need you to convince Kakashi-sensei," he said, the words spilling out in a rush. "Tomorrow morning, when he and Sasuke go to protect Tazuna at the bridge, I need you to convince him to let me train with Sakura-chan. Alone with you and Hinata. No supervision. No questions. The others will stay with Tazuna's family. It would just be you, Hinata, Sakura, and me."
The request hung in the night's silence, heavy with seriousness. It was insane. It broke every ninja protocol. A Jōnin momentarily abandoning the client's family in the middle of a lethal A-rank mission. It was blatant insubordination. Unthinkable.
Kurenai stared at him, searching his face for any hint of a joke. She found none.
"Naruto, that's…" she began, but didn't know how to finish. "Impossible. Kakashi would never authorize it. I would never authorize it. It's too dangerous."
"It'll be more dangerous if we don't," he insisted, his voice thick with urgency. "Sakura is scared. We all are. But she… she thinks she's a burden. I know she does. But she's not! She has incredible chakra control, better than mine and probably better than Sasuke's! She just needs the right tool. I can give it to her."
Seeing the doubt and conflict on her sensei's face, Naruto did the only thing he could think of. With a boldness that surprised even himself, he reached out and took her hand. His hand was small and rough with training calluses, but surprisingly warm in the night's chill.
"I know it's a lot to ask," he said, his voice now a plea. "I know I sound crazy. And I know you have no reason to believe me. I'm the dead last, the clown, the one who always screws things up."
He looked up, and in his eyes, Kurenai didn't see the academy idiot or the troublesome jinchūriki. She saw a young leader overcoming his own insecurity, asking her to trust him blindly.
"But I'm asking you to do it anyway," he concluded, his grip firm but not aggressive. "Please. Will you trust me, Sensei?"