"Ha! Danger, shithead?" Tayuya cackled while giving him her own devious grin. "I am the danger! I'll follow you wherever you go… every step of the way."
"Well then Ms Danger, you're going to have to tread real carefully from now on. The road I walk might get a little bit bumpy along the-OOF!" Before he could finish, Naruto was unexpectedly interrupted by something small and fast moving head butting him in the gut. He nearly fell back onto the stairs he and Tayuya were just about to step off, but was able to keep his balance and glare down at the culprit. "Damn it! What the hell?"
It felt like a cannonball had tried to take him out, but was actually just a kid wearing a helmet who had accidentally ran into the jinchuriki while attempting to charge up the stairs. He ended up bowling himself over as a result. Now the boy was sitting up on the ground and looking around in a bit of a daze, wondering what kind of wall had stopped him.
"Wh-What? What happened?"
"You got knocked on your ass, runt. That's what happened," Tayuya said with a chuckle, looking down at the confused kid with an amused smirk, "Watch where you're going next time, otherwise you might run into an actual wall."
As well as the helmet, the strange boy was also wearing a yellow shirt with the Konoha symbol on it, a long blue scarf, and grey shorts. His bewildered gaze eventually fell onto the pair standing in front of him, to which the adolescent then jabbed a finger up at Naruto accusingly, "You! YOU!"
"YES! ME!" Naruto shouted back, looking around at the odd looks he was getting from nearby shinobi wandering the tower's ground floor before glancing at Tayuya. "WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?!" The redhead winced at the volume in his voice and picked at her ear. "Oh… sorry."
"Assassin! Agent of the Hokage! His most trusted guard!" the little boy yelled again and leapt to his feet, taking a superior stand against the pair of now even more confused looking Genin. It was kind of hard to be intimidating when you were about half the height of the people you were threatening. "Gramps knew that I was coming for him and sent two of his top agents to stop me! Well! You may have successfully blocked my path, but know that I will not be deterred so easily!" The boy then pulled out a shuriken from his pocket and held it at them as if brandishing a knife. "Now let me through or I will cut you down like the-"
"Oh please!" Naruto rolled his eyes and snatched the metal star out of the boy's hand. He then tossed it out the nearest window and began walking away, quickly followed by a thoroughly amused Tayuya. "And here I thought I was full of it."
"You are full of it, Naruto-kun. That's why everybody loves you so much," his red haired friend laughed, walking on even as they were being stared after by their flabbergasted 'attacker'.
"I am quite the charmer, aren't I?"
"Yes. And that, right there, proves my point," Tayuya replied, jabbing him in the shoulder blade, "Hotshot."
"HEY!" the boy shouted, stopping the pair in their tracks and catching Naruto's attention. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
"No." Tayuya replied flatly. "Should we?"
"I'm the Hokage's grandson!" the boy pointed at them. "Apologize to me!"
Blinking in surprise at the revelation of his identity, both Naruto and Tayuya looked at each other before glancing back at the kid.
So… this runt with the cheap headgear and missing a tooth was the great village leader's honorable grandson, the one they'd heard tossed about on several occasions. Sure they'd picked up that the Third had relatives hiding inside of the village somewhere, but the pair had not seen any of them, so placing a face to a face and a name to a name wouldn't have struck with them without the relative actually identifying themselves.
This didn't make them shoddy detectives. Oh no. It just meant that they were a bit outside of the loop or didn't care that much.
Naruto smiled. "No can do."
The boy's jaw dropped, "What?!"
"If you want an apology from me, you'll have to earn it," Naruto simply said and, with a wave over his shoulder, began to head off with Tayuya in tow. "From the way you were just shouting at us and acting so rudely, I just don't feel like giving you one right now."
The pair soon left the tower, leaving a stunned Konohamaru behind. He stared after the pair for several moments, just wondering what the hell just went on between him and them.
Did they just shrug him off after knocking him over?
Nobody did that, not even the ninja instructed to look after him. Every person he'd run into in the village always addressed him with respect and whenever he had an accident, there was always someone there to help him and ask if he was okay. After having this happen to him over a thousand times already with people also apologizing for causing him some small form of grief, it was kind of a new experience for him that someone would just walk into him, knock him over, and not even bother addressing him with any kind of esteem whatsoever.
Replaying the scene in his head several more times, Konohamaru then frowned and, with his mind made up, ran after them. "No one treats me like that! Those two aren't getting off that easily!"
He wanted to find out who they were and make them pay for looking down on him.
OOO
"How else are you going to improve your Jet Hand ability, shithead? Make it more powerful?" Tayuya asked her companion as they strolled down the street towards their favorite ramen shop for a celebratory meal.
Naruto scratched his chin in thought and looked over at her. "I've considered it, but being the strongest shinobi isn't just about coming up with the biggest landscape reducing fart that can be seen for miles around. No. Real shinobi use attacks with more subtlety to them."
The musician giggled at that response. "Funny, I never pegged you for the subtle type."
"Have you seen my journal? Or better yet, have you seen my pinup wall?" She probably has, considering they've been sharing the same room for the past two years. "Every single one of the pranks I've executed inside of this village has been done through careful planning and near perfect stealth. You can't get any more subtle than that."
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