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Naruto fanfic: A future without you chapter 28
Im very excited, because this here is the last chapter before the group reaches their destination: Uzushiogakure, previous village of the Uzumaki clan and Naruto's ancestral home. From what we saw in the chapters where Kushina and Naruto talk, Uzushio had some strange architecture. The rubble looked like collapsed buildings to me:
Obviously, I have come up with a few ideas as to what they will find there. Here are some hints: 1) all the trees will be very interesting, not just the Sacred Tree. 2)There will be a gorge, which will cause problems. 3) Obviously, there are quite a few traps and barriers in place to keep outsiders away from the village. 4)the wildlife will be... well, something else.
Please enjoy this weeks chapter!
Naruto fanfic chapter 28
SASUKE'S POV
FLASHBACK STARTS HERE
"I want the four of you to deal with something for me." Tsunade said with her fingers laced together and her chin resting on them.
Naruto had his arms crossed behind his head confidently, and he was smiling, but the bandages wrapped around his face spoke for themselves. The wounds had yet to heal, and it had been over a week since he'd received them, but he absolutely refused to say how he'd gotten them, or from who.
Hinata meanwhile stood as far from him as possible, looking like a victim, as per usual. Her eyes watched the ground, and she didn't look to have slept well.
Sakura stood tall, proud, and strong, like the soldier she was. If not for the gleam of worry in her eyes, she would have been fine.
Sasuke was a better actor than her. His face, eyes, and body language all said the same thing they always did: bored, calm, ready. But inside he was a roiling, compact ball of nerves. Naruto hadn't been himself lately. He wouldn't even look at Sakura, and when he did look at Sasuke there was an invisible wall between them, as if something had changed in him, and he couldn't talk to Sasuke about it as he had done in numerous other situations.
Sakura was hurting over being ignored by him, though she had insisted a thousand times to Sasuke and Ino and many others that it wasn't love. Not the romantic sort anyway. And thst she would be fine as soon as Naruto returned to normal. He was so strong, she said, he always bounces back from these things, she said.
Hinata was hurting worse than she was, as Naruto was ignoring her more than most people.
Shikamaru had sought him out, and had fared better than Sasuke. He had succeeded in getting something out of him, which he had reported to Sasuke.
"'Im so stupid.'" Shikamaru had said. "'Neji is wrong.' That's all he would say to me."
"Neji is wrong" was definitely a strong clue as to what had happened to Naruto. But wrong about what? Shikamaru, Neji, and Sasuke had put there heads together, trying to determine what it meant, but had come up blank.
"Just give him time." Neji had said. "Time heals all wounds."
Sasuke had waited, and plenty of time had passed. But neither Naruto's heart nor his face had healed. And though he hadn't admitted it to Neji, he WAS wrong about time healing all wounds. Time doesn't heal anything. People are easily swept along in the current of time, and people tend to leave their problems behind them, but that doesn't mean they heal. They are just... Eclipsed. Not forgotten, not healed. Just... Obscured.
Unless you had seen your family be slaughtered. Then the current had to be especially strong. And Naruto and Sakura were.
So to see them hurting like this was unnatural to him. And he didn't know what to do about it.
"Naruto, you'll be team captain on this mission." Tsunade ordered, making everyone's eyes widen.
Sasuke couldn't help but glare daggers at her. What was she doing? She wasn't stupid! She had to know this was a bad idea--
"Gotcha!" Naruto gave her a thumbs up and a wide grin while chucking at Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata. "Ha! You guys have to do what I tell you to!"
Sasuke ignored him and locked eyes with the hokage.
"Tsunade--" he began, planking to tell her off.
"What's the mission lady Tsunade?" Sakura asked, cutting him off.
"Sakura--" Sasuke began.
"Your mission is to hunt the ex-Akatsuki members causing trouble near the border of the land of fire." She explained pointing to a spot on the map. "They've been bouncing back between us and the hidden mist, killing off jounin and teams of genin as well as ordinary travelers mercilessly. Since the five great nations are allies now, we've been sending team after team from each village to deal with them, but have had no luck in killing or even injuring them. They're being a hindrance to our work, the requests sent to each village, and we can't finish any mission with them in our way."
The four ninja now stood completely alert, their individual issues forgotten. This was a national incident, and if they completed the mission, then the other villages would be grateful.
Sasuke understood Tsunade now. This was perfect. These people were the type Naruto hated the most, so there was no way he would let himself be distracted now. His wounds would heal and he would be back to his old self.
"Yosh!" Naruto declared, tightening his headband. "We're all over this granny! We'll have it taken care of in no time!"
Tsunade smiled. "I hope so. Come back alive, everyone."
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
NARUTO'S POV [THE SHIP-DAYTIME]
"I'm telling you to take your medicine!"
"And I'm telling you to back off!"
"Pinhead!"
"Pink-head!"
"You two should come up with better insults," Sasuke advised, "this argument is already boring."
"Shut up!" Sakura and Naruto ordered.
Kiba tossed a piece of meat in the air, which Akamaru happily left to catch in his mouth. Hinata sat on the edge of the ship with her back to the ocean, watching Naruto with a soft smile.she looked very pretty, wind in her hair, silhouetted by sunshine, but he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Namely, an irritating, bossy, medical ninja from Konoha who only Sasuke could control, and barely at that.
"Yuuki said you needed to take at least one cup of this red-leaf tea a day!" Sakura barked, holding the flask out to him. She'd placed a bendy straw in it for some reason, which was so cool he almost wanted to take the flask from her.
But not really.
"And I said I don't need it anymore!" Naruto argued. "There's no way I'm taking that medicine! Never! You can't make me, and you won't!"
"Just take it!"
"I said no!"
"Can I say something?" Sasuke asked, raising his hand loosely.
"No!" Sakura and Naruto yelled, and he returned to quietly staring off into the distance.
Sakura sighed angrily. "What is your issue?! Just take it! It's good for you, and it's on Yuuki's orders. Would you still be doing this if URI had ordered it!"
"Yes!" Naruto yelled defiantly.
Sakura shoved the cup into his face.
"Just drink it!"
Naruto clenched his fists, and felt his eyes burn as Kyuubi chakra flooded them, making them turn red complete with slit pupils. He raised his hand, as if to slap her, which made Sasuke shoot to his feet, but instead, he slapped the cup out of her hand, and it shattered against the wooden deck.
"Stop ordering me around!" He yelled, making Sakura take a step back. "Who do you think you are?! You're not my sister, or my mother, or YUUKI, so back off!"
There was an air of awkward silence, in which Naruto could feel three pairs of eyes on his back, all a little shocked, though Sasuke seemed to sigh knowingly, as though he had seen this coming. Sakura glared at him, as if he had stepped over some invisible line, as if he had nerve to treat her this way, and she opened her mouth to yell at him, but froze before blinking furiously. She looked away, and turned, stomping off.
Naruto bit the inside of his cheek, staring after her, and watching Sasuke follow her quietly.
He listened to the ocean for a second, remembering how Sakura's eyes had had the smallest of tears in them before she ran off, and felt guilty. Seeing Hinata cry had felt much worse, yes, but he usually didn't make girls cry, or be so aggressive with them...
"What the heck?" Kiba asked.
"Look, I know, OKAY?" Naruto admitted, sawing at the inside of his cheek with his teeth.
"No, not you," Kiba pointed to the shattered cup, "that!"
Naruto noticed Hinata gasp just as he turned, freezing at the sight.
The red-leaf tea had spilled everywhere when the cup shattered, particularly on one area of the deck. Sections of the wood had rotted instantly, turning to mold and then black splinters that fell away in certain sections to create a symbol on the deck that he hadn't noticed before, since it had been invisible.
It was a power seal, placed over a ripple seal, and a reverse/containment seal. With a very complex formula such as this, there were only a handful of people who could have cast it, including Naruto himself.
"What is this...?" He asked angrily, but of course Hinata and Kiba couldn't answer him.
Except for the three of them, there was no one else on deck at the moment. And Sakura and Sasuke didn't seem to be coming back soon...
He knelt next to the seal, lighting up his fingertips with the symbols for different hand signs and placing his hands over the seal, stretching his fingers.
The different seals all lit up, and began to spin like stacked gears before Naruto revealed his two seal stones: one given by Uri, the other by Yuuki. Throwing them into the center, he ordered the stone mentally to absorb them. They were sucked into the stones instantly, and the rest of the wood from the sealing area crumbled away, and Naruto had to lash out to grab both seal stones. The new whole revealed the cargo hold, which seemed to be packed with all kinds of crates and boxes...
"What's going on here...?" Hinata asked, sounding upset.
"Hey! That was sealing jutsu, wasn't it!?" Kiba asked, also upset. "Looked pretty complex too! Why was that here?"
Naruto's eyes flitted this way and that, "I don't know."
"But--!"
Naruto threw one arm out, motioning him to be quiet.
He flooded his eyes with Kyuubi chakra again, turning them red. Foxes were generally very intelligent, with excellent senses of hearing and eyesight. So with perfect teamwork, there wasn't anything Naruto and Kurama couldn't see or hear.
Naruto's eyes peeked through holes and cracks in the crates, while his ears listened for anything muffled or frightened. Kiba seemed to catch on and flooded his nose with chakra, while Akamaru poked his head through the whole and sniffed the air. Hinata activated her byakugan and scanned the area as well.
All three flinched at once. Kiba and Akamaru must have smelled the blood, because Naruto could hear it dripping, and Hinata probably saw the heat signature of whoever's blood it was.
Hinata was the first to try jumping in, but Naruto grabbed her wrist.
"Let me go first." He insisted. "There might be more hidden seals."
Her eyes darted back and forth, between him and the cargo hold. Seeming to understand, she stepped out of the way.
"Where are they?" He asked her, and she pointed.
"East, the back wall, three feet." She directed.
He nodded, jumping in and landing in one of the narrow pathways between the walls and towers of boxes. Hinata followed after him, but there was no third THUD.
"Are you coming?" He asked Kiba, who shook his head.
"Nah, Akamaru can't fit down there." He replied. "Besides, someone's gotta warn the other two. You guys go ahead."
"Okay." Hinata said nodding and turning to look at Naruto. "Let's go."
"Right." He said with a nod.
They tread quietly, navigating through the labyrinth of boxes and stopping several times so Naruto could feel the boxes and pat the ground, searching for any trace of a seal or trap. As they got closer, Hinata became more and more quiet, even holding her breath at one point.
"What's wrong?" He asked her as they got close.
"I--I think I know who it is..." She said, biting her thumb.
"What?!" He whispered, shooting to his feet. If she knew him/her, then this might be a national incident.
"Wait!" She called to him as he advanced to the back wall and began moving boxes. "He's very difficult! We need to go get Sasuke, he can--"
Naruto froze as he came face to face with a glass jar filled with what could have been ordinary water, if not for the fact that it glowed and had an eternal imprisonment seal on the underside of the lid.
He picked it up, feeling a weird chakra. Hostile, eccentric, mischievous, and a little playful. Shaking it, he noticed another seal. A sleeping paralysis one.
"Yep. Not a normal jar of water." He thought aloud. "No way."
"This doesn't explain the blood--" Hinata began when they both heard a groan of pain followed by the clatter and tumble of more boxes falling over. Leaning against the back wall was a big guy holding a kunai, who had apparently sliced his leg open in an attempt to cut off a section of skin that held another sleeping paralysis seal. He was barely conscious, too.
Naruto crouched in front of him, giving Hinata a look of curiosity. She nodded, seeming more nervous about the jar than big guy.
He reached down, placing the jar on the floor and letting his fingers hover over the seal before doing a few hand signs and ramming his fingertips into the seal.
As soon as it dissipated, the big guy shot to his feet, slashing at the air wildly with the kunai tight in his grip before toppling over. Naruto caught him, immediately gasping.
"What's wrong?" Hinata asked.
Naruto grimaced as he fought to keep from dropping big guy.
"HEAVY! So... HEAVY!" He explained, earning a look of sympathy from Hinata before she gave the jar another look of unease.
He managed to move big guy in one arm and raised his newly freed arm. Lighting up one finger with blue chakra, he quickly drew a weight compact seal on the big guys back and felt him become light as a feather.
"Phew! Much better!" He exclaimed, revealing three tails (minus the razor sharp edge he used for battle) and wrapping them around big guy's torso, right leg, and left arm.
"Okay! Let's get back!" Naruto said, reaching down to pick up the jar.
Hinata nodded, and led the way out.
Naruto hopped onto the deck, lifting big guy into the air as he turned around and gave Hinata a hand getting out.
"That's our special cargo." The captain said, making Naruto whirl to see him gathered there with his entire crew, who were all wearing headbands now, complete with a slash through the symbol.
Sasuke, Sakura, Kiba, and Akamaru were trapped in another eternal imprisonment seal drawn on the deck of the ship, looking angry but otherwise unharmed.
"Still think this was a good idea?" Sasuke questioned.
Naruto laughed nervously. "Um... Don't worry, I can get you guys out of that no problem!"
"Over my dead body." The captain laughed, taking a long drag out of his pipe. "The sole surviving Uchiha, the student of the fifth hokage, and the heir to the Inuzuka clan of Konoha? They'll earn me quite a sum."
Naruto hugged the jar, closing his eyes to do a quick scan. Hmmm.... Apparently he couldn't just smash it. There was another seal, a black hole seal, hidden within the layer of glass. Smashing it would kill them all. There was a thin chance that the black hole seal was linked to a location instead of into nothingness, but he doubted it.
Snapping his eyes open, he flashed bright red eyes complete with slit pupils and a look of calmness and properly channeled rage that made most of the crew step back in fear.
"Who are you guys?" He asked. "Human traffickers? Pirates?"
The captain laughed. "We're rogue ninja who support the arena."
"Hmm..." Naruto handed the jar to Hinata and reached around his head to pinch the hood of his jacket. "I guess, that means you're bad guys."
He reached around with his other hand and tossed his hood over his head with a flick of both wrists.
NARUTOS POV
FLASHBACK STARTS HERE
"A split personality?" Naruto asked as Uri cryptically wrapped gauze around Naruto's bleeding ankle.
"Not quite." Uri replied. "Split personality's are unstable, impossible to control. You're doomed the moment you develop one. What you have is something different, and useful."
"Useful?" Naruto asked with a wince as his ankle throbbed painfully.
"Yes." Uri cut the gauze, pressing the sticky end over the bandaged wound. "I've studied it before in the libraries of Uzushio. When Jinchuuriki are in perfect balance with their biju, their chakra resonate together at a 100% rate or higher, meaning attacks powerful enough to slice through mountains, block any attack, and speed faster than light, among other things. It was just a theory of the rikudou senin before, but you seemed to have proven it."
"Cool! So I can do those things?!" Naruto asked, excited.
"Yes. You were doing them just now." Uri told him, earning a look of amazement from Naruto.
"But be careful. Anything faster than light, and you'll travel back in time. Or burn yourself to smithereens. One or the other."
"Travel through time?" Naruto asked, now confused.
"That's what 'faster than light' means. If anything traveled faster than light, it would become a time machine, or burn up." Uri warned. "And there's more danger than that. This has never been accomplished by any jinchuuriki before you, so we can't say how this will effect the seal and your mental state. Don't use it too often."
"But what exactly is it?" Naruto asked as Uri helped him to his feet.
"As far as I can tell, your resonating chakras are causing your minds to overlap each other. The formula of your seal that keeps the Kyuubi inside of you dictates that your will will always overlap the Kyuubi's. However your combined wills have created something new. Neither just you or just the Kyuubi will be in charge of your body, but both of you at once. A combination of your wills, and your chakras. It's like a second person, but also not."
"You've confused me, Uri!" Naruto complained. "Just give me a simple yes or no. When me and Kurama are linked the way you described just now, will I hurt anybody I care about?"
"No. As a fully matured jinchuuriki you are capable of distinguishing between friend and foe, no matter what biju form you use." Uri seemed to pause to think. "But it wouldn't hurt to use a power control formula seal."
Naruto nodded. A power control formula seal was designed to activate a specific ability of the one who cast it, like an on/off switch. It activated under specific conditions.
"But where should I place it?" He asked Uri, who hummed thoughtfully.
"A jacket hood would be best, I suppose." He answered. “You can easily pull it on or off, just like a light switch.”
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
NARUTO’S POV
As soon as he felt the seal hit the back of his head, his eyes widened. His chakra flowed much more easily; Kurama’s prescence was so much more noticeable too. Like he was standing beside him. His temperature rose a little, and his vision was a lot more acute; there was nothing he didn’t notice. His ears could hear the wind, the bird wings flapping overhead, the fly 20km away, Hinata’s heartbeat.
He jumped when he felt his own heart pound harder than before, and hunched over to grip it before calming down with a deep breath. This slowed his heart and helped him concentrate.
“Naruto-kun?” Hinata called out to him carefully, as if she were unsure whether or not to interrupt.
He smiled at her to let her know he was fine. This was much better than before, when he had been unable to control himself while feeling all this new found energy run through his body without restraint and had ended up slicing his ankle open.
“Let’s control ourselves this time, kid.” Kurama decided, his voice so loud and clear instead of the usual muffled echo, it really was like he was standing beside him.
Breathing deeply, he raised one arm, flexing his fingers so his palm faced Sasuke and the others. Control… Control, control, control…
Time seemed to freeze, and he began to move, taking wide, quick leaps to the others who were trapped in the eternal imprisonment seal. Lighting up his hands and feet with purple chakra*, and slapping the deck without creating any noise, he dispelled another sealing jutsu, placed there to trap him, and continued to so with the other forty or so hidden sealing jutsu. He noticed all of them had a specific formula and were designed specifically for the kyuubi jinchuuriki. They were absolutely everywhere anyone could think to step, including where the rogue ninja were standing, and excluding the area of space occupied by the eternal imprisonment seal that his friends were trapped in and a small region surroundign the hole in the deck. He removed each and every trap in a hurry and quickly did the same with the eternal imprisonment seal before returning to his place in front of Hinata.
This is what it looked like to everyone else: one second, he had raised his arm. A split second later, red chakra “puffed” out of his body like curled clouds of smoke, and the others were free.
“What the--?!” The captain exclaimed, with Naruto cutting him off with a sudden kick to the throat from behind that sent him flying to the far side of the deck. He then proceeded, and took out the rest of the crew with a series of hand chops to the throat and punches to the stomach.
He skidded to a stop outside the group before they all hit the ground, unconscious, putting an end to the speed. Pressing his fingertips over his core, he curled his fingers like he was trying to pull something out and instantly hit the ground, feeling a burning, aching, horrible pain covering his skin in patches.
“Ungh…!” He gripped his elbows, the areas where it was particularly bad, and carefully set the big guy down on the deck so he could dissipate the kyuubis tails. The captain remained passed out on the other side of the deck.
“Naruto!” Sakura was the first to snap out of the daze of awe that had captured his teammates and ran to him, sitting on her knees as she pulled one of his arms free to move the sleeve back carefully. She gasped at the horrible burns that hissed and smoked when exposed to the moist air.
“What was that?” Kiba asked in a demanding tone while Hinata joined Sakura at Naruto’s side and carefully placed her hand over his burnt cheek. “What happened?”
Sasuke was holding the jar of water now, and he shook it nonchalantly.
“He moved too quickly.” He guessed, placing the jar down and approaching the big guy. “Burned himself. This is a surprise, though. I wasn't expecting to find Juugo and Suigetsu here.”
Kiba shuddered out of what seemed like disgust, as Naruto shuddered in pain.
“That freak with the butchering-people-to-death fetish?” Kiba asked. “Where do you see him?”
Sasuke pointed at the jar, his sharingan activated. “In there. That’s definitely his chakra, and he's very agitated. Where did you find him?”
He was talking to Naruto, who was still curled over in pain and shaking but managed to look up at him and grin.
“Under the deck… In the cargo hold…”
They all lurched as the ship shook, turning 90 degrees.
Sasuke ran to the edge and looked over, gasping before running back to help Naruto up.
“Lets hope you were right with those coordinates.” He said. “Because we’ve entered the whirlpool. Its pulling us in.”
“What do we do now?” Sakura asked, slightly panicked.
“Kiba! Bring Suigetsu and Juugo over here now.” Sasuke ordered. “Naruto on your feet. Can you still...?”
He nodded slowly. He had plenty of chakra left.
Sasuke helped him over to the group of collapsed rogue nin while Kiba half-draged, half carried the big guy (apparently Juugo) over. Sakura helped him by getting Suigetsu. The lurching ship picked up speed, and Naruto was quick with the hand signs, casting a strong barrier jutsu over the group as the ship was swallowed up by the whirlpool.
*About the cpurple chakra thing, in case you didnt realize it on your own: red chakra (Kurama's) plus blue chakra (Naruto's)= Purple chakra (perfect balance of both chakras and both wills).
Im very excited, because this here is the last chapter before the group reaches their destination: Uzushiogakure, previous village of the Uzumaki clan and Naruto's ancestral home. From what we saw in the chapters where Kushina and Naruto talk, Uzushio had some strange architecture. The rubble looked like collapsed buildings to me:
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Please enjoy this weeks chapter!
Naruto fanfic chapter 28
SASUKE'S POV
FLASHBACK STARTS HERE
"I want the four of you to deal with something for me." Tsunade said with her fingers laced together and her chin resting on them.
Naruto had his arms crossed behind his head confidently, and he was smiling, but the bandages wrapped around his face spoke for themselves. The wounds had yet to heal, and it had been over a week since he'd received them, but he absolutely refused to say how he'd gotten them, or from who.
Hinata meanwhile stood as far from him as possible, looking like a victim, as per usual. Her eyes watched the ground, and she didn't look to have slept well.
Sakura stood tall, proud, and strong, like the soldier she was. If not for the gleam of worry in her eyes, she would have been fine.
Sasuke was a better actor than her. His face, eyes, and body language all said the same thing they always did: bored, calm, ready. But inside he was a roiling, compact ball of nerves. Naruto hadn't been himself lately. He wouldn't even look at Sakura, and when he did look at Sasuke there was an invisible wall between them, as if something had changed in him, and he couldn't talk to Sasuke about it as he had done in numerous other situations.
Sakura was hurting over being ignored by him, though she had insisted a thousand times to Sasuke and Ino and many others that it wasn't love. Not the romantic sort anyway. And thst she would be fine as soon as Naruto returned to normal. He was so strong, she said, he always bounces back from these things, she said.
Hinata was hurting worse than she was, as Naruto was ignoring her more than most people.
Shikamaru had sought him out, and had fared better than Sasuke. He had succeeded in getting something out of him, which he had reported to Sasuke.
"'Im so stupid.'" Shikamaru had said. "'Neji is wrong.' That's all he would say to me."
"Neji is wrong" was definitely a strong clue as to what had happened to Naruto. But wrong about what? Shikamaru, Neji, and Sasuke had put there heads together, trying to determine what it meant, but had come up blank.
"Just give him time." Neji had said. "Time heals all wounds."
Sasuke had waited, and plenty of time had passed. But neither Naruto's heart nor his face had healed. And though he hadn't admitted it to Neji, he WAS wrong about time healing all wounds. Time doesn't heal anything. People are easily swept along in the current of time, and people tend to leave their problems behind them, but that doesn't mean they heal. They are just... Eclipsed. Not forgotten, not healed. Just... Obscured.
Unless you had seen your family be slaughtered. Then the current had to be especially strong. And Naruto and Sakura were.
So to see them hurting like this was unnatural to him. And he didn't know what to do about it.
"Naruto, you'll be team captain on this mission." Tsunade ordered, making everyone's eyes widen.
Sasuke couldn't help but glare daggers at her. What was she doing? She wasn't stupid! She had to know this was a bad idea--
"Gotcha!" Naruto gave her a thumbs up and a wide grin while chucking at Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata. "Ha! You guys have to do what I tell you to!"
Sasuke ignored him and locked eyes with the hokage.
"Tsunade--" he began, planking to tell her off.
"What's the mission lady Tsunade?" Sakura asked, cutting him off.
"Sakura--" Sasuke began.
"Your mission is to hunt the ex-Akatsuki members causing trouble near the border of the land of fire." She explained pointing to a spot on the map. "They've been bouncing back between us and the hidden mist, killing off jounin and teams of genin as well as ordinary travelers mercilessly. Since the five great nations are allies now, we've been sending team after team from each village to deal with them, but have had no luck in killing or even injuring them. They're being a hindrance to our work, the requests sent to each village, and we can't finish any mission with them in our way."
The four ninja now stood completely alert, their individual issues forgotten. This was a national incident, and if they completed the mission, then the other villages would be grateful.
Sasuke understood Tsunade now. This was perfect. These people were the type Naruto hated the most, so there was no way he would let himself be distracted now. His wounds would heal and he would be back to his old self.
"Yosh!" Naruto declared, tightening his headband. "We're all over this granny! We'll have it taken care of in no time!"
Tsunade smiled. "I hope so. Come back alive, everyone."
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
NARUTO'S POV [THE SHIP-DAYTIME]
"I'm telling you to take your medicine!"
"And I'm telling you to back off!"
"Pinhead!"
"Pink-head!"
"You two should come up with better insults," Sasuke advised, "this argument is already boring."
"Shut up!" Sakura and Naruto ordered.
Kiba tossed a piece of meat in the air, which Akamaru happily left to catch in his mouth. Hinata sat on the edge of the ship with her back to the ocean, watching Naruto with a soft smile.she looked very pretty, wind in her hair, silhouetted by sunshine, but he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Namely, an irritating, bossy, medical ninja from Konoha who only Sasuke could control, and barely at that.
"Yuuki said you needed to take at least one cup of this red-leaf tea a day!" Sakura barked, holding the flask out to him. She'd placed a bendy straw in it for some reason, which was so cool he almost wanted to take the flask from her.
But not really.
"And I said I don't need it anymore!" Naruto argued. "There's no way I'm taking that medicine! Never! You can't make me, and you won't!"
"Just take it!"
"I said no!"
"Can I say something?" Sasuke asked, raising his hand loosely.
"No!" Sakura and Naruto yelled, and he returned to quietly staring off into the distance.
Sakura sighed angrily. "What is your issue?! Just take it! It's good for you, and it's on Yuuki's orders. Would you still be doing this if URI had ordered it!"
"Yes!" Naruto yelled defiantly.
Sakura shoved the cup into his face.
"Just drink it!"
Naruto clenched his fists, and felt his eyes burn as Kyuubi chakra flooded them, making them turn red complete with slit pupils. He raised his hand, as if to slap her, which made Sasuke shoot to his feet, but instead, he slapped the cup out of her hand, and it shattered against the wooden deck.
"Stop ordering me around!" He yelled, making Sakura take a step back. "Who do you think you are?! You're not my sister, or my mother, or YUUKI, so back off!"
There was an air of awkward silence, in which Naruto could feel three pairs of eyes on his back, all a little shocked, though Sasuke seemed to sigh knowingly, as though he had seen this coming. Sakura glared at him, as if he had stepped over some invisible line, as if he had nerve to treat her this way, and she opened her mouth to yell at him, but froze before blinking furiously. She looked away, and turned, stomping off.
Naruto bit the inside of his cheek, staring after her, and watching Sasuke follow her quietly.
He listened to the ocean for a second, remembering how Sakura's eyes had had the smallest of tears in them before she ran off, and felt guilty. Seeing Hinata cry had felt much worse, yes, but he usually didn't make girls cry, or be so aggressive with them...
"What the heck?" Kiba asked.
"Look, I know, OKAY?" Naruto admitted, sawing at the inside of his cheek with his teeth.
"No, not you," Kiba pointed to the shattered cup, "that!"
Naruto noticed Hinata gasp just as he turned, freezing at the sight.
The red-leaf tea had spilled everywhere when the cup shattered, particularly on one area of the deck. Sections of the wood had rotted instantly, turning to mold and then black splinters that fell away in certain sections to create a symbol on the deck that he hadn't noticed before, since it had been invisible.
It was a power seal, placed over a ripple seal, and a reverse/containment seal. With a very complex formula such as this, there were only a handful of people who could have cast it, including Naruto himself.
"What is this...?" He asked angrily, but of course Hinata and Kiba couldn't answer him.
Except for the three of them, there was no one else on deck at the moment. And Sakura and Sasuke didn't seem to be coming back soon...
He knelt next to the seal, lighting up his fingertips with the symbols for different hand signs and placing his hands over the seal, stretching his fingers.
The different seals all lit up, and began to spin like stacked gears before Naruto revealed his two seal stones: one given by Uri, the other by Yuuki. Throwing them into the center, he ordered the stone mentally to absorb them. They were sucked into the stones instantly, and the rest of the wood from the sealing area crumbled away, and Naruto had to lash out to grab both seal stones. The new whole revealed the cargo hold, which seemed to be packed with all kinds of crates and boxes...
"What's going on here...?" Hinata asked, sounding upset.
"Hey! That was sealing jutsu, wasn't it!?" Kiba asked, also upset. "Looked pretty complex too! Why was that here?"
Naruto's eyes flitted this way and that, "I don't know."
"But--!"
Naruto threw one arm out, motioning him to be quiet.
He flooded his eyes with Kyuubi chakra again, turning them red. Foxes were generally very intelligent, with excellent senses of hearing and eyesight. So with perfect teamwork, there wasn't anything Naruto and Kurama couldn't see or hear.
Naruto's eyes peeked through holes and cracks in the crates, while his ears listened for anything muffled or frightened. Kiba seemed to catch on and flooded his nose with chakra, while Akamaru poked his head through the whole and sniffed the air. Hinata activated her byakugan and scanned the area as well.
All three flinched at once. Kiba and Akamaru must have smelled the blood, because Naruto could hear it dripping, and Hinata probably saw the heat signature of whoever's blood it was.
Hinata was the first to try jumping in, but Naruto grabbed her wrist.
"Let me go first." He insisted. "There might be more hidden seals."
Her eyes darted back and forth, between him and the cargo hold. Seeming to understand, she stepped out of the way.
"Where are they?" He asked her, and she pointed.
"East, the back wall, three feet." She directed.
He nodded, jumping in and landing in one of the narrow pathways between the walls and towers of boxes. Hinata followed after him, but there was no third THUD.
"Are you coming?" He asked Kiba, who shook his head.
"Nah, Akamaru can't fit down there." He replied. "Besides, someone's gotta warn the other two. You guys go ahead."
"Okay." Hinata said nodding and turning to look at Naruto. "Let's go."
"Right." He said with a nod.
They tread quietly, navigating through the labyrinth of boxes and stopping several times so Naruto could feel the boxes and pat the ground, searching for any trace of a seal or trap. As they got closer, Hinata became more and more quiet, even holding her breath at one point.
"What's wrong?" He asked her as they got close.
"I--I think I know who it is..." She said, biting her thumb.
"What?!" He whispered, shooting to his feet. If she knew him/her, then this might be a national incident.
"Wait!" She called to him as he advanced to the back wall and began moving boxes. "He's very difficult! We need to go get Sasuke, he can--"
Naruto froze as he came face to face with a glass jar filled with what could have been ordinary water, if not for the fact that it glowed and had an eternal imprisonment seal on the underside of the lid.
He picked it up, feeling a weird chakra. Hostile, eccentric, mischievous, and a little playful. Shaking it, he noticed another seal. A sleeping paralysis one.
"Yep. Not a normal jar of water." He thought aloud. "No way."
"This doesn't explain the blood--" Hinata began when they both heard a groan of pain followed by the clatter and tumble of more boxes falling over. Leaning against the back wall was a big guy holding a kunai, who had apparently sliced his leg open in an attempt to cut off a section of skin that held another sleeping paralysis seal. He was barely conscious, too.
Naruto crouched in front of him, giving Hinata a look of curiosity. She nodded, seeming more nervous about the jar than big guy.
He reached down, placing the jar on the floor and letting his fingers hover over the seal before doing a few hand signs and ramming his fingertips into the seal.
As soon as it dissipated, the big guy shot to his feet, slashing at the air wildly with the kunai tight in his grip before toppling over. Naruto caught him, immediately gasping.
"What's wrong?" Hinata asked.
Naruto grimaced as he fought to keep from dropping big guy.
"HEAVY! So... HEAVY!" He explained, earning a look of sympathy from Hinata before she gave the jar another look of unease.
He managed to move big guy in one arm and raised his newly freed arm. Lighting up one finger with blue chakra, he quickly drew a weight compact seal on the big guys back and felt him become light as a feather.
"Phew! Much better!" He exclaimed, revealing three tails (minus the razor sharp edge he used for battle) and wrapping them around big guy's torso, right leg, and left arm.
"Okay! Let's get back!" Naruto said, reaching down to pick up the jar.
Hinata nodded, and led the way out.
Naruto hopped onto the deck, lifting big guy into the air as he turned around and gave Hinata a hand getting out.
"That's our special cargo." The captain said, making Naruto whirl to see him gathered there with his entire crew, who were all wearing headbands now, complete with a slash through the symbol.
Sasuke, Sakura, Kiba, and Akamaru were trapped in another eternal imprisonment seal drawn on the deck of the ship, looking angry but otherwise unharmed.
"Still think this was a good idea?" Sasuke questioned.
Naruto laughed nervously. "Um... Don't worry, I can get you guys out of that no problem!"
"Over my dead body." The captain laughed, taking a long drag out of his pipe. "The sole surviving Uchiha, the student of the fifth hokage, and the heir to the Inuzuka clan of Konoha? They'll earn me quite a sum."
Naruto hugged the jar, closing his eyes to do a quick scan. Hmmm.... Apparently he couldn't just smash it. There was another seal, a black hole seal, hidden within the layer of glass. Smashing it would kill them all. There was a thin chance that the black hole seal was linked to a location instead of into nothingness, but he doubted it.
Snapping his eyes open, he flashed bright red eyes complete with slit pupils and a look of calmness and properly channeled rage that made most of the crew step back in fear.
"Who are you guys?" He asked. "Human traffickers? Pirates?"
The captain laughed. "We're rogue ninja who support the arena."
"Hmm..." Naruto handed the jar to Hinata and reached around his head to pinch the hood of his jacket. "I guess, that means you're bad guys."
He reached around with his other hand and tossed his hood over his head with a flick of both wrists.
NARUTOS POV
FLASHBACK STARTS HERE
"A split personality?" Naruto asked as Uri cryptically wrapped gauze around Naruto's bleeding ankle.
"Not quite." Uri replied. "Split personality's are unstable, impossible to control. You're doomed the moment you develop one. What you have is something different, and useful."
"Useful?" Naruto asked with a wince as his ankle throbbed painfully.
"Yes." Uri cut the gauze, pressing the sticky end over the bandaged wound. "I've studied it before in the libraries of Uzushio. When Jinchuuriki are in perfect balance with their biju, their chakra resonate together at a 100% rate or higher, meaning attacks powerful enough to slice through mountains, block any attack, and speed faster than light, among other things. It was just a theory of the rikudou senin before, but you seemed to have proven it."
"Cool! So I can do those things?!" Naruto asked, excited.
"Yes. You were doing them just now." Uri told him, earning a look of amazement from Naruto.
"But be careful. Anything faster than light, and you'll travel back in time. Or burn yourself to smithereens. One or the other."
"Travel through time?" Naruto asked, now confused.
"That's what 'faster than light' means. If anything traveled faster than light, it would become a time machine, or burn up." Uri warned. "And there's more danger than that. This has never been accomplished by any jinchuuriki before you, so we can't say how this will effect the seal and your mental state. Don't use it too often."
"But what exactly is it?" Naruto asked as Uri helped him to his feet.
"As far as I can tell, your resonating chakras are causing your minds to overlap each other. The formula of your seal that keeps the Kyuubi inside of you dictates that your will will always overlap the Kyuubi's. However your combined wills have created something new. Neither just you or just the Kyuubi will be in charge of your body, but both of you at once. A combination of your wills, and your chakras. It's like a second person, but also not."
"You've confused me, Uri!" Naruto complained. "Just give me a simple yes or no. When me and Kurama are linked the way you described just now, will I hurt anybody I care about?"
"No. As a fully matured jinchuuriki you are capable of distinguishing between friend and foe, no matter what biju form you use." Uri seemed to pause to think. "But it wouldn't hurt to use a power control formula seal."
Naruto nodded. A power control formula seal was designed to activate a specific ability of the one who cast it, like an on/off switch. It activated under specific conditions.
"But where should I place it?" He asked Uri, who hummed thoughtfully.
"A jacket hood would be best, I suppose." He answered. “You can easily pull it on or off, just like a light switch.”
FLASHBACK ENDS HERE
NARUTO’S POV
As soon as he felt the seal hit the back of his head, his eyes widened. His chakra flowed much more easily; Kurama’s prescence was so much more noticeable too. Like he was standing beside him. His temperature rose a little, and his vision was a lot more acute; there was nothing he didn’t notice. His ears could hear the wind, the bird wings flapping overhead, the fly 20km away, Hinata’s heartbeat.
He jumped when he felt his own heart pound harder than before, and hunched over to grip it before calming down with a deep breath. This slowed his heart and helped him concentrate.
“Naruto-kun?” Hinata called out to him carefully, as if she were unsure whether or not to interrupt.
He smiled at her to let her know he was fine. This was much better than before, when he had been unable to control himself while feeling all this new found energy run through his body without restraint and had ended up slicing his ankle open.
“Let’s control ourselves this time, kid.” Kurama decided, his voice so loud and clear instead of the usual muffled echo, it really was like he was standing beside him.
Breathing deeply, he raised one arm, flexing his fingers so his palm faced Sasuke and the others. Control… Control, control, control…
Time seemed to freeze, and he began to move, taking wide, quick leaps to the others who were trapped in the eternal imprisonment seal. Lighting up his hands and feet with purple chakra*, and slapping the deck without creating any noise, he dispelled another sealing jutsu, placed there to trap him, and continued to so with the other forty or so hidden sealing jutsu. He noticed all of them had a specific formula and were designed specifically for the kyuubi jinchuuriki. They were absolutely everywhere anyone could think to step, including where the rogue ninja were standing, and excluding the area of space occupied by the eternal imprisonment seal that his friends were trapped in and a small region surroundign the hole in the deck. He removed each and every trap in a hurry and quickly did the same with the eternal imprisonment seal before returning to his place in front of Hinata.
This is what it looked like to everyone else: one second, he had raised his arm. A split second later, red chakra “puffed” out of his body like curled clouds of smoke, and the others were free.
“What the--?!” The captain exclaimed, with Naruto cutting him off with a sudden kick to the throat from behind that sent him flying to the far side of the deck. He then proceeded, and took out the rest of the crew with a series of hand chops to the throat and punches to the stomach.
He skidded to a stop outside the group before they all hit the ground, unconscious, putting an end to the speed. Pressing his fingertips over his core, he curled his fingers like he was trying to pull something out and instantly hit the ground, feeling a burning, aching, horrible pain covering his skin in patches.
“Ungh…!” He gripped his elbows, the areas where it was particularly bad, and carefully set the big guy down on the deck so he could dissipate the kyuubis tails. The captain remained passed out on the other side of the deck.
“Naruto!” Sakura was the first to snap out of the daze of awe that had captured his teammates and ran to him, sitting on her knees as she pulled one of his arms free to move the sleeve back carefully. She gasped at the horrible burns that hissed and smoked when exposed to the moist air.
“What was that?” Kiba asked in a demanding tone while Hinata joined Sakura at Naruto’s side and carefully placed her hand over his burnt cheek. “What happened?”
Sasuke was holding the jar of water now, and he shook it nonchalantly.
“He moved too quickly.” He guessed, placing the jar down and approaching the big guy. “Burned himself. This is a surprise, though. I wasn't expecting to find Juugo and Suigetsu here.”
Kiba shuddered out of what seemed like disgust, as Naruto shuddered in pain.
“That freak with the butchering-people-to-death fetish?” Kiba asked. “Where do you see him?”
Sasuke pointed at the jar, his sharingan activated. “In there. That’s definitely his chakra, and he's very agitated. Where did you find him?”
He was talking to Naruto, who was still curled over in pain and shaking but managed to look up at him and grin.
“Under the deck… In the cargo hold…”
They all lurched as the ship shook, turning 90 degrees.
Sasuke ran to the edge and looked over, gasping before running back to help Naruto up.
“Lets hope you were right with those coordinates.” He said. “Because we’ve entered the whirlpool. Its pulling us in.”
“What do we do now?” Sakura asked, slightly panicked.
“Kiba! Bring Suigetsu and Juugo over here now.” Sasuke ordered. “Naruto on your feet. Can you still...?”
He nodded slowly. He had plenty of chakra left.
Sasuke helped him over to the group of collapsed rogue nin while Kiba half-draged, half carried the big guy (apparently Juugo) over. Sakura helped him by getting Suigetsu. The lurching ship picked up speed, and Naruto was quick with the hand signs, casting a strong barrier jutsu over the group as the ship was swallowed up by the whirlpool.
*About the cpurple chakra thing, in case you didnt realize it on your own: red chakra (Kurama's) plus blue chakra (Naruto's)= Purple chakra (perfect balance of both chakras and both wills).
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flowers
onto the next!