After that the gifts were more mundane things like tools, clothes, money or even food in Choji’s case. Naruto didn’t have a gift for me but that was mostly because I had told him not to get one. Unlike everyone else that was more or less financially stable my friend was still quite in the lurch in this regard. Between rent, food, utilities and ninja supplies Narutos budget was extremely tight with him barely being able to save a few ryo every month at most. Expecting him to get me a birthday gift was just needlessly harsh and so I flat out told him not to worry about it.-
Unlike if someone else were to tell him something like that where he would likely ignore it Naruto tended to listen to me since I knew what I was talking about most of the time. If I said he just didn’t need to bring a gift but simply be there then that’s what he’d do. Naturally he’d also not expect a gift on his upcoming birthday but there had literally not been a single year since we met that I haven’t gotten him something.-
Unlike my birthday where there was always a party he had always kept his birthday celebration more quiet and low key. Not for a lack of me trying otherwise mind you but it simply never went well due to the negative reputation he had attached to his name in the village. I couldn’t do anything about that however as prejudice was not so easy to get rid of once it had taken root so deeply. Not impossible mind you just that Naruto himself needed to fix his reputation with his actions and no one else could do it for him.-
That didn’t mean that I treated those who mistreated him positively either and my memory was long. This meant that if I happen to get such a person in the hospital for treatment I might “forget” to numb an area or directly fix the issue in the most painful but efficient way. For example a store owner who always overcharged Naruto hatefully came in with a dislocated shoulder after falling and I directly pulled and popped it back into place before leaving him to yell in pain. I had been written up a few times because of this but since I did in fact still “help” the patient none of it stuck.-
That didn’t mean that the head of the hospital and Hokage hadn’t given me a stern talking to about it that I promptly ignored. I lived by simple rules and one of those was that you didn’t mess with my people or you’d eventually find out that I was not the forgiving or forgetting sort. Depending on the situation I may not be able to do anything to you directly or even at that exact moment but at some point I’d act and you’d not enjoy it at all.-
Anyways we ate and socialized a bit before the party finally came to an end and I had another month before I had to deal with anything similar again. I was admittedly rather eager to get home after the party cleanup was done because of my sensei’s gift. I knew that whatever came out of that egg was going to be powerful but exactly what was within the egg was beyond me. Judging from the shape of the egg I was certain that it was some sort of bird. But that didn’t exactly narrow things at all since with the entire thing being covered in gold and jewels I couldn’t identify the species based on appearances.-
Even then this was a chakra beast egg so there was no telling how that affected the design the egg naturally had. When I got back to my home in the forest of death I drew the curtains and cleared a small area on the floor of everything before nervously taking the egg out of the scroll my sensei gave me. To my surprise there was no gold or jewels on the shell which told me that she had likely taken them as her own “payment” for undoing the seal. The egg itself was a vibrant blue with brown spots on it.-
At the top of the egg was the release point for the seal that my sensei told me about and I placed my finger on it and injected a small amount of chakra which caused the seal keeping the egg in stasis to vanish with a hum.
“Chee Chee!”
Immediately sounds of the creature within stirring awake and becoming active sounded out as the egg began to wobble slightly.
‘She wasn’t joking when she said it was ready to hatch.’ I thought slightly surprised.
I watched as the egg shell began to crack and bulge slightly as the creature within forced itself out of the egg. Soon enough a flake of the shell dropped off and I could see the wet tan colored body wiggling within the shell. Seeing as the creature needed no help really I just watched as it broke apart it’s calcium cage and revealed itself to the world. I had no idea what I was looking at to be honest with you. The chick had long gangly legs and a semi-long beak and neck but otherwise looked like a chicken chick as far as I knew.-
I wasn’t surprised to see that the little thing had it’s eyes sealed shut as most if not all birds as far as I knew started out like that but it would soon open the things.
“Chee! Chee!”
The small creature chirped loudly until I carefully wrapped it in a loose warm towel in my lap. I watched it for two hours and by the end of that time the chick had it’s eyes open and was looking around curiously while it’s wet feathers had fluffed up and dried. It honestly looked like a tan cotton ball with a long neck and legs attached, adorable.-
What you couldn’t see however was the massive inferno of dense chakra within the chick that approached even my own reserves. Even worse was that the chick was just blatantly releasing it’s chakra which caused the very air around us to feel heavy and howl from the pressure being exerted. There was a reason why powerful shinobi rarely flared their chakras or let them run wild after all. In this case I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the sensor ninja in the village were going nuts from this things chakra.-
Helplessly I had to flare my own chakra before repeatedly containing it again before the small bird started imitating me. It wasn’t so surprising really since as far as it was concerned I was it’s parent and so imitating me was the natural thing to do. In the morning I was called into the Hokages office to explain what happened and I introduced the little one to the Hokage with an amused look as the old man looked at the adorable fluffball in my vest breast pocket in horror.