Chapter 58 - Weight of Burden (1/2)

Shy.

'She truly is a very quiet child, she is starkly different than Naruto was...' Ryuko thought as she looked at the child, just quietly smiling and eating the sliced apple, her favorite food apparently. As much as Ryuko didn't like the fact that she had a Quirk-wielding Shark behind her, the beast had apparently been trained by Naruto himself into not attaching those he deems friendly. The Shark just circled around Eri on the couch, which was even creepier since the Shark had bear arms and legs, the Shark's Go-To use for it's Quirk.

When did it even get bear DNA?

What was Naruto feeding this bear?

”... Where did Naruto go?” Eri asked quietly as she glanced up at the pretty woman watching over her. Eri looked at the woman's arms, and then at her own unbandaged arms and the scars on them. She saw that the woman's skin was completely flawless, with the exception of a single scar that was bȧrėly visible on her shoulder, peeking out from her clothes just bȧrėly.

Ryuko couldn't answer that question.

”He didn't tell me-”

”I'm back!” Naruto shouted out as he came back into the room. Gaara had opened the door for him, before Naruto walked into the room and the door was closed behind him. ”Let me tell you, I would have been back two hours ago, but there was this incident... the Volcano Thieves broke out of jail... it was a thing.” Naruto explained as he raised a shopping back that was slightly black, where it had almost gotten melted. The heat had turned the plastic bags black in some spots, but the items inside her unscathed, which was all that really mattered.

Eri got off of the couch and walked over to Naruto, before she reached up and grabbed onto his pants.

Ryuko smiled.

'He's like her safety blanket... they've been together for not even a full week, and he might as well be her father... I should give my father a call.' Ryuko made a mental note to herself that she needed to call her parents soon. It had been awhile, close to 3 months, since she had contacted either of them. ”So, where did you go?” Ryuko questioned him as Naruto sat down, with Eri sitting down again, on the couch.

Naruto pulled some children's clothes out of the bag, and gave it to Eri.

”These are for you, my hoodies are just no good. Look, I even got you a ribbon for your horn-” Naruto showed off the bright orange, he couldn't resist the color, ribbon as he showed it off to her. He reached down and started to tie it into a bow, right around her horn so that only a small amount of her horn was visible. She didn't really like her horn, so Naruto figured that she might come to accept it if he made it cuter. Naruto showed her a pair of dark blue pants, and he had gotten her a short sleeved white and pink stripped T-shirt. ”-also, to answer your question, I went to finish filing the paperwork to add Eri to my family registry. You're now officially Eri Namikaze.” Naruto explained as he helped Eri get changed into her new clothes. He nodded at Ryuko, who blinked in a little confusion.

”You're last name is Uzumaki... why not let her have that one?”

'He doesn't want anyone knowing I'm related to-' Eri started to think, before Naruto started to answer Ryuko.

”Well duh...” Naruto could see that his reason wasn't as obvious when he was given confused looks. ”To protect her from my Mom's bad reputation, among pro heroes, the name Uzumaki is kind of a target that says 'I have a dangerous Quirk, fear me'... and I want you to avoid being looked at by people the way I was.” Naruto explained as he rubbed the top of Eri's head. He wanted to make her childhood as good as he could make it. He knew he wasn't going to be the perfect guardian, but he wanted to do as good of a job raising her as he could. If he could make her into a decent ȧduŀt, then he would have done his job properly.

Eri silenced her dark mental thoughts, she should have known he was doing it to help her.

”Tomorrow, you will be ending your internship... though... with your rise in popularity, you might be pressured to graduate early.” Ryuko was honest when she thought that she kind of wanted Naruto to skip ahead and graduate.

Naruto laughed.

”Nope, the me a few weeks ago might have liked that, but right now U.A. is the safest place for Eri. I've already talked with Nezu, and he agreed to let Eri have her own room in the female dorm rooms... provided that I pay rent to the school for her.” Naruto had already been able to secure Eri her own room. Sure, since she wasn't a student he needed to pay for her to stay there, but she couldn't just stay in his room. In three years time, she would grow bigger and require her own space. Recovery Girl had promised that while he was at classes, that Eri was perfectly fine to stay with her and receive a basic education from the elderly woman.

Eri needed to learn, so while Naruto was learning the ins and outs of hero work, Eri would be with Recovery Girl learning her basic education, that way when the time came, she would be able to attend school like a normal girl. Once Naruto was a well known enough hero, that nobody in their right minds would even try and mess with her, for fear of incurring his wrath.

”My scars...”