"Wooaaah!" Almost as fast as the training dummy was blasted away, Naruto was sent flying back in the opposite direction. However he came to a much quicker stop, embedded in a wall a few feet away. "Urrrgghhh!" Like a marionette with its strings cut he flopped to the ground, leaving a surprisingly accurate imprint of his body in the wooden wall. A few seconds of silence passed before Sora burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, even Chiriku had to stifle a few chuckles before walking over and helping his student up from the ground.
"I'm impressed Naruto, you finally managed to direct the force of the technique, although you might need to work on counteracting that force on yourself." Naruto just nodded limply, his eyes looking slightly distant as he gazed up at the three sets of his sempai looking down at him. Soon after Sora came over and gave Naruto a shoulder to lean on, but not before he finished his laughing fit. Even so, while he found his friend's misfortune as funny as any good friend would, he had to be impressed by the sheer power behind the attack; he certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it.
"Alright Chiriku-sempai, I'll help Naruto to his room. We were going to have another spar but I don't think he's in that condition right now." Chiriku just nodded once before turning and retiring to his own quarters, even as the evening bell began to toll around the temple. Sora hefted Naruto up so that his arm was slung around his friend's shoulders and began walking in the direction of the living quarters.
"You're always doing this you know." His only response from the blonde was a groan and a small chuckle which made the monk-in-training smile. "You're always trying to do the impossible." Again he didn't get much of a response from his injured friend. "Even so, you'll go ahead and try it over and over again until you get it right won't you." He looked down and found Naruto grinning weakly up at him, a knowing glint in his squinted eyes.
"And then you'll try and one-up me." Sora chuckled at that but didn't deny Naruto's statement.
"What can I say? You're a bad influence on me. And stop doing that, you look like Master Chukaku when you narrow your eyes." Naruto just nodded wearily before allowing his head to droop again. By now they had reached Naruto's room and with a bit of manoeuvring on Sora's part he managed to slide open the fusuma and lie Naruto down on his futon. "Get some rest and we'll see tomorrow how the score turns out." He looked around when he got no reply but saw that Naruto was already asleep. Sora just chuckled as he slipped out of the room quietly; his friend was a real idiot sometimes.
"Sora, this is Naruto, he'll be staying at the temple with us for the foreseeable future and I want you to show him around the temple." Blonde hair peeked out nervously from behind Chukaku's robes catching the young trainee monk's attention.
"Umm Ohayo, I'm Naruto." The blue-haired youth just stared at the boy for a few moments before tentatively holding out his own hand as they shook. It was an obviously awkward scene, neither child having had good experiences with people their own age, or in Sora's case, no experience period.
"Good, I know you two will become the best of friends, now I have some paperwork to do so run along." With that the elderly monk turned on a heel and calmly trotted away from the scene.
"So uh, what's it like being a monk?" Sora just blinked at the whiskered boy before looking away at a wall.
"I uhh don't really know, I've always lived here so I don't know much else but it's uhh... nice?" Naruto nodded at that with a small smile as his posture became less tensed.
"So what do you do for fun?" Sora blinked again, finding this very different to talking with the monks who were always very reserved and self-assured.
"Well we have breakfast in the morning followed by meditation and training, then lunch then..." Naruto waved his hands in front of him, cutting the boy off.
"No no I mean like for fun! In your spare time and stuff! When you're not training or anything!" Sora frowned as he looked at Naruto, this was a surreal experience for the boy, that was for sure.
"Well the library is always available for recreational reading." Naruto blinked once before hanging his head down, a metaphorical cloud suddenly appearing over his head.
"That sounds so booooring!" Sora suddenly gained a tick mark over his eye as he slammed Naruto over the head with his covered arm, his eye twitching in irritation.
"The monk's pursuit of enlightenment is not boring! It's a spiritual journey into ones soul and as such-" Sora trailed off as he saw Naruto miming along to his words with his hand with a decidedly unimpressed look on his face.
"Like I said, boring." The blonde flopped to the ground, adopting an incredibly poor attempt at a meditative pose. "I mean what's the big deal with sitting like this anyway?" Sora's eye began to twitch again, suddenly regretting getting lumped with this obvious idiot. Suddenly though a superior smirk appeared over his face as he too got onto the floor, adopting the correct pose for meditation with his palms facing up, his hands in loose fists and his knuckles touching.
"Well Chiriku-sempai says that it takes the utmost skill an concentration to properly meditate, obviously such things are beyond you." At that Naruto looked up in annoyance, his own tick developing over one eye.
"Oh yeah? I bet it's not so hard, I could meditate way better than you could." He looked over the position Sora was in and quickly adjusted his own posture to match. If Sora hadn't been so annoyed with the blonde he might have been impressed at Naruto's first attempt. Instead he simply raised a haughty eyebrow in mild contempt.
"Amateur." When he didn't get any response he looked up to see Naruto's head turned away, his eyes closed in a mockery of meditation. It was obviously an exaggerated way of ignoring Sora. The blonde quickly found a fist buried in his skull and an angry Sora above him.
"Hey! Don't ignore me!"From a nearby window Chukaku watched the whole scene with his mouth hidden by his sleeve. A mild chuckle escaped his lips as he observed the two boys interaction. He knew it was a good idea to introduce the two, for the other monk's amusement if nothing else.
Chukaku looked up from his desk with a fond, nostalgic smile as he thought back on the last year since Naruto had joined the temple. It was quickly marred with a frown however as he once again picked up the piece of paper he had been reading. He sighed as he placed it to one side, quickly drafting up the same response he had written every time he received a letter like this. Finishing with a flurry as he signed his name he sealed it into an envelope ready to give to the passing mail-nin the next morning.