Advent of the Spiraling Ninja Revision: Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Tsunade’s Return and Konoha Revisited
Author’s Notes: Revised as of 1/6/15
Beta: Bluemew22
“The person you are retrieving is Tsunade Senju,” Sarutobi told Anko and Hinata, who had both been summoned to his office. “She was one of my students, the legendary Slug Princess, one of the Sannin…and hopefully the next Hokage.”
As the two women were stunned with what they were just informed of, he took a deep breath and smiled. “As for who you are escorting, he’s standing behind you.” Out from the shadows stepped a legendary, super-pervert. “I want you two to meet Jiraiya the Toad Sage, also one of the Sannin, one of my students, and… Naruto’s godfather.”
Things were quiet until sound of Anko’s kunai hitting the floor rang throughout the room.
“What? Toad got your tongues?” Jiraiya chuckled. Normally women didn’t respond to his identity with silence… normally there was hitting, screaming, and death threats.
“I am surprised that you didn’t do your… introduction, Jiraiya.” Sarutobi noted humorously. “Normally you wouldn’t pass up the chance.”
The hermit sage sighed. “Not until I find the brat,” he said somberly. Hinata’s ears twitched when she figured he was talking about Naruto. “But before that, we need to go get Tsunade before she gets too far away from my sources.”
“Indeed…” Sarutobi sighed, before looking at the two who were starting to regain their cognitive abilities. “Anyway, as I have said, this is a C-ranked escort mission. The two of you will be escorting Jiraiya to a neighboring village where Tsunade is supposedly… indulging in her habits.”
Jiraiya nodded. “The location isn’t far. It’s about three days to get there, about ten more to convince Tsunade to return, and then five to get back if we have to drag her. The girl can train along the way for the Chuunin Exams.”
Anko shook her head. “Wait… why does one of the Sannin need anyone… let alone only us?”
“We’re trying to keep the fact that Tsunade and I are going to be here a secret for a few reasons. I’ve heard about your skills,” he nodded to Anko, “and I could use an extra set of eyes,” he nodded to Hinata.
Someplace near Suna
Naruto and Kushina had begun the final leg of their training in Suna.
After agreeing to Chiyo’s request, she took them to a private stretch of rocky outcropping that held a small oasis and was away from the village’s routes, so they that they wouldn’t be seen during their training. Kushina and Chiyo realized that Gaara wouldn’t likely just sit still while they tampered with his seal, and quickly assumed it would lead to a fight. Fighting a Jinchuuriki, especially one who isn’t exactly sane, tended to rate pretty high on the scale of suicidal actions.
Chiyo fighting Gaara would be out of the question. While she was skilled, she was a puppeteer, meaning she normally controlled her puppets from a safe distance and hidden, while they dealt with the threat. However, Gaara’s sand and automatic defenses weren’t to be underestimated, and at her age it would have been impossible to avoid completely.
Kushina was also out of the question. She could tie him down, but unlike the fox, he had that sand shield which moved regardless of the boy’s will and would lash out at her before she could apply the seal. Also, considering his unstable nature, he may go full Tailed-Beast form, which would be as bad as the attack on the night Naruto was born, and she needed to conserve her chakra to hold him down.
As much as Kushina hated to say it, she knew that her son was the only one who could fight him. When one Jinchuuriki goes berserk, either a Kage or another Jinchuuriki was sent to stop them.
Naruto had taken a few days of counseling from his mother to get over the fact that he saw someone die like that. After that, he pretty much agreed wholeheartedly once Chiyo explained the type of life Gaara had. Naruto pretty much guessed that’s exactly how he would have turned out if Sarutobi, Iruka, Teuchi, and Ayame weren’t there.
But all parties pretty much agreed that Naruto was in no condition to even hope of going against Gaara in his current state. He wasn’t fast enough. He wasn’t proficient enough in using his element. He couldn’t beat Gaara as he was.
To that end, Chiyo had called in a favor to a young girl she knew that was proficient in using the wind element…
“OW!” the young Jinchuuriki cried. He and about thirty clones had just gotten the crap kicked out of them by said girl with a single attack that knocked them into the rocky wall a few dozen meters away.
“Chisaki,” Chiyo called. “Try not to give the original one brain damage. Trying to explain the basics to him is hard enough already as is… ”
“I’m trying not to Chiyo-baa-sama, but he’s not using the Wind Scythe Jutsu properly,” the older teen responded. “And I’m not even using the larger fans like Temari-chan.”
Aiding him in his training was an older teenage girl with pink hair that reminded Naruto of Sakura’s. She didn’t wear as much make-up, dressed in a black-sleeveless shirt that pressed against her well-endowed assets, and a red skirt that went to her knees, with tights underneath and combat sandals.
In her hands were two War Fans, which were small and made of iron, for durability, and had sharp tips for hand-to-hand combat. She demonstrated by pounding about fifty of his clones in combat as a warm up and finishing the remaining fifty with a Wind Scythe Jutsu. She could also use chakra flow with wind chakra to extend the cutting range from the tips.
In order for Naruto to gain more experience in using wind techniques, they felt it was best to let him experience it first-hand… by beating it into him. While they weren’t going to teach him something like the Wind Style: Wind Dragon Bullet yet, since he really didn’t have the control for it, they needed to teach him how to use the air around him as a weapon.
Normally they use fans to create gusts and then use normal chakra to shape the wind at lower levels without any hand seals, only using wind chakra to add cutting properties to it. However, Naruto practically destroyed the fans they gave him to practice with by trying to use chakra flow, and they weren’t made for someone with his lack of control and large amounts. The gales he created didn’t so much as lack force as they did direction and concentration, allowing Chisaki’s attacks to pierce them easily.
Luckily, that’s where Gen’s new, custom weapons came in.
Naruto’s weapon was a small chakra conducting blade with the Uzushio symbol on the slightly wide mouth of the blade, and nine red stripes along the length of the black blade, which was about a foot, while the hilt was about six inches. It was similar to the ones mass produced in Konoha, but aesthetics aside, this one would split from one thick blade into nine thin blades in a fan pattern and then shape the chakra flowing through it into the fan itself.
Kushina’s weapon was basically two, orange-colored, three-inch thick disks, about a foot in diameter each, held together by a small cylinder in the center that could detach them with a twist… in other words a big yoyo, with the symbol of Uzushio on it. When chakra was infused, it created a circular chakra blade from the space between the disks and rotated, creating a saw that could cut through solid matter with ease, and when a chakra chain was attached it became a flail-like weapon that could attack as far as she could extend the chains. If water chakra was infused, it could wash away other sources of chakra, like the kind being used to maintain a jutsu.
Both of the weapons had seals from Kushina designed to maintain the flow of chakra and redirect them, allowing them to withstand even Naruto’s poor control and channel their respective elements better. Gen’s creations were named by their owners: The “Nine-Tailed Fan” and the “Whirlpool Yo-Yo,” both designed personally for the two of them.
“We at least want him able to do the Wind Scythe Jutsu, the Sand Storm Jutsu, and the Wind Style: Cross Gales Jutsu by the time the Chuunin Exams start,” Chisaki added. “Shadow clones or not, it’ll take him some time to get used to controlling the air using fans since he’s use to getting up close, and unless someone like that girl from Nadeshiko Village pops up, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got.”
“Naru,” Kushina called out to him while he was shaking his head to stop the spinning. “I want you to make two hundred more clones. Half on the Chakra Chain Jutsu, the other half wall climbing the rocks.”
“Add some more for me to beat on—I mean teach,” Chisaki corrected herself. It has been awhile since I’ve tried a few of my other techniques…
“Don’t forget some more chakra control exercises,” Chiyo mentioned. “Have about five of your clones watch him so he doesn’t slack off. The rest need to be divided into using Chakra Threads, studying the finer details of puppeteer arts, and your own chakra control exercises. ”
“Right,” she nodded, before looking back over to him. “Make it five hundred!”
The boy silently swore.
Outside Konoha
“J-Jiraiya-sama,” Hinata addressed the Toad Sage, before dodging a kunai from Anko for stuttering. “How are you… Naruto-kun’s godfather? I thought he was an orphan?”
Jiraiya looked at her somberly and sighed. “I knew his parents… they were good people, but after they died it was decided to keep them a secret for his own safety. They had a lot of enemies.”
“Then, did you know about the abuse?” Anko said in an emotionless voice.
He glared at her, but shook off his rage. “I didn’t, and when I learned he was missing and what had happened, I was going to kill every single one of them until sensei calmed me down,” Jiraiya said, leaking killing intent that made the two nearly fall of the tree branch they had just hopped on.
“Truthfully, I should have been watching over him, but my writing career aside, I was working on tracking down a snake you should be familiar with…” Anko got the message. “If I had known, I would have fed them to the mountain toad and took Naruto along with me instead of allowing that to happen.”
Minato and Kushina would be ashamed of me… Jiraiya thought silently. “My spy network is spread thin tracking down the snake and a group he was associated with consisting of several dangerous people. I wanted to use them to find Naruto, but in the process I learned the snake had something planned soon, but I’m not sure what, and I don’t want to take him on alone if I could help it.”
“That’s where the other Sannin comes in,” Anko figured. If one Sannin was planning something, then having two to face him would be a smart idea.
Jiraiya nodded. “Sensei is getting along in years and Tsunade is the only one capable of replacing him at the moment.”
Anko tilted her head. “What about you?”
“Hehehe…” Jiraiya chuckled. “Surely you know of my reputation and what I do for a living aside from being a shinobi. If I take the hat, there’ll be a riot.”
“Reputation?” Hinata wondered aloud.
Anko sighed. “He’s known as one of the biggest perverts—”
“Super-Pervert,” Jiraiya corrected without shame.
“—super perverts in the 5 nations and writes those orange books that Kakashi reads.”
“… I see…” Hinata said softy, losing a healthy amount of respect for the man. She had by chance had her bloodline activated and skimmed a few sentences while near Kakashi.
She then attempted to use her “Scarlet Gentle Fist” on it and reduce to ashes before Kakashi dodged.
“Relax, I won’t bother with writing the next one until I find Naruto,” his eyes narrowed. “Once Tsunade takes the hat, I’ll go out and personally search for him. Once I do find him, I’ll take him with me and train him.”
Hinata was somewhat relieved a legendary shinobi would go so far for Naruto, but there was something else on her mind. “… will you bring him back to the village?”
Jiraiya stopped in his tracks. “… I don’t know. He’s technically safer in the village for a few reason—” he raised his hand to stop their complaints, “—even with the abuse, there are far worse people who are going to come after him because of the fox. But I’m afraid of leaving him there because I’ve seen how Jinchuuriki eventually react to the abuse.”
“There are others?” Hinata asked.
“The Kyuubi is the strongest of all the known chakra demons, including the nine various Tailed-Beasts, the Bijuu.” Jiraiya started moving again with the girls in tow. “Normally their identities are kept a secret from other villages, but during a previous war, someone I knew met one who was treated somewhat decently in Kumo and had the Eight-Tailed Ox, the Hachibi. I also heard rumors about the Two-Tailed Cat, the Nibi.”
“There are nine?” Anko stared. “And two of them are in Kumo!”
“The kidnapping attempts on various Konoha members aside,” he sympathetically nodded to Hinata, “they have the best reputation for treating Jinchuuriki as equals.”
Hinata was silent. The village that tried to kidnap her when she was younger actually treated people like Naruto better than her own village. That was very disappointing.
“Anyway,” Jiraiya continued, bring them back on topic. “Not only do Jinchuuriki have high chakra reserves, but some have bloodline abilities and all of them can go through a transformation. The first stage is when they gain a cloak of chakra and the closer the number of tails to the total they manifest, the stronger they get but they become more hostile and irrational.”
“You said first stage…” Anko whispered. “There’s more?”
“There’s the second stage, where the body is altered to become more like the beast and far more powerful than their cloaks alone, partial transformations where they change a part of their body into the beast’s, and finally they go full Bijuu. A Kage-level shinobi alone can probably fight up to a certain point, but it’s a long shot regardless—and you do not want to be on the receiving end of a Tailed-Beast Ball. Those things can level mountains and force you to redraw a map… ”
“And people actually antagonize them?” Anko said in shock. “Dumbasses! All of them! The boy should’ve killed a few them to get the message across.”
“If he did that, the council would’ve had Naruto killed and I would’ve killed them, leading to another S-rank missing-nin from Konoha. The only reason most Jinchuuriki don’t go rogue or become missing-nin like Naruto is because they’re normally related to someone in a high position to the village, like a Kage. That way they’ll be loyal and hopefully not be treated in an abusive manner. If they do lash out or get too violent to control, the beast is ripped out of them and placed into a new container, killing the current host.”
Jiraiya’s face hardened. “By the way, this information is S-ranked. Talking about it lightly will get you executed. The only reason I’m telling you this is because I’ve heard how the little fallen princess here defended Naruto, and that’s something I am grateful for.”
Both women nodded.
“Now, let’s get back to finding Tsunade before she hightails it because she starts to win at gambling.”
“How is that a bad thing?” Anko asked.
“If I’m a Super-Pervert, she’s the Legendary Sucker, because she never wins unless something bad is going to happen, and me dragging her back qualifies as bad for her.”
The Village Housing Tsunade – 3 days later
“Tsunade-sama, this is the fourth time you’ve won the jackpot!” said a woman with shoulder length black hair and bangs, wearing a long dark blue kimono. Next to her was a woman that looked her age with blonde hair and wearing a green jacket that has the symbol for “Gamble” on it.
“… Fu—” the blonde woman was about to swear, knowing that it was time to leave, when a certain super-pervert grabbed her shoulder.
“Been awhile princess,” Jiraiya smiled, Anko and Hinata behind him. “You too, Shizune-chan.”
“Jiraiya-sama!” Shizune took a step back.
“DAMMIT!” Tsunade swore. “I knew I should’ve left after the first jackpot!”
The Next Day
Hinata was in a trance, as she focused her bloodline on the target in front of, a dead tree on the outskirts of the village.
“8 Trigrams 32 Palms!” Infusing her strikes with her fire chakra, the blasts of chakra became scarlet colored and penetrated the wood. The wood darkened substantially, radiating outward from every point hit.
She relaxed from her stance once she saw Jiraiya coming from behind her.
“Yo!” the Toad Sage called out, looking at the blacked tree. “That’s impressive. A Gentle Fist strike infused with fire chakra. I’ve wondered why I never seen a Hyuuga using elemental chakra in their strikes, but I’ve heard your clan’s traditions were so strict that it wasn’t allowed.”
“Y-yes,” she stuttered, and a kunai came from the village, hit the tree when she ducked, and it collapsed on itself. Jiraiya just looked in the direction it flew from and saw the purple-haired kunoichi saying something. “Sorry, if I start stuttering she throws things at me. It’s just that being around someone as renowned as yourself.”
“You’ll get used to it…” he sat on a rock and looked at her peacefully. “Can you do me a favor?”
“If it is within my abilities, I’ll be happy to,” she answered.
“Tell me about my godson.”
A Few Days Later
“Damn it, Jiraiya!” Tsunade swore, as she sat in a small drinking booth, having a few shots. “I keep telling you, I don’t want to go back to Konoha! There’s nothing but bad memories there.”
“I know princess, I know…” Jiraiya sighed, taking a swig of his own drink. “But after all this time, I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t necessary.”
“What could be so bad that the almighty, legendary Super-Pervert, Sannin, and Toad Sage needed to come and ask me to return to Konoha?”
“The snake,” Jiraiya said somberly. “He’s planning something and he’s got something to do with that new village, Oto. The team they sent for the Chuunin Exams were all killed in the Forest of Death, but one of the genin from Konoha was marked with a seal, the last Uchiha.”
“You know more about seals than me,” she spat. “Why do you need me?”
“We know how he feels about the village, and sensei is getting along in years. If he was going to do something, the easiest time would be during the finals in a few days.”
“And what about after?” she said. “I’m not stupid. I know that if I come back I’ll have to take the hat from sensei.”
“My godson went missing,” he said quietly, watching Tsunade’s eyes go wide briefly. “One of your distant relatives and heir to his legacy went missing six months ago.” Jiraiya told her what he learned of what Naruto went through.
Tsunade snorted. “That’s less of a reason for me to go back, if they’re willing to treat him like that, then there’s really no hope for the village now. The brat’s better on the run than in a place like that.”
“Not all of them are like that,” Jiraiya tried to argue. “The girl I bought with me, she doing her best and pushing herself to get stronger because she couldn’t do anything before. Sensei, and a few others were hit the hardest and they just need to know he’s safe. I’m sure we can’t change the mind of those who are in our age range since they’re too set in their ways, but we can at least set the ground work for his generation to accept him.”
“Please,” she shook her head. “You’re probably just going to go back to writing that smut once I’m stuck there.”
Jiraiya got out of the booth and kneeled in front of her on the dirty ground. “Please, Tsunade. I want to at least make sure sensei and Konoha are safe before I go find my godson, and I need your help. I’ll pay off all of your debts and give up writing until I can find the boy, it’s the least I can do for his boy.”
She closed her eyes, as a single tear fell out. “You know… I’m not capable of combat anymore… Just being there brings me pain… Please Jiraiya, don’t make me go back… ”
“Just being there alone will bring morale up and security,” he pleaded. “With your and Shizune-chan’s expertise you can raise the level of quality in the medic-nins. We’ve both lost people we cared about because of circumstance beyond our control, your loved ones and my students who were like children to me, and I know it hurts, but please… ”
She silently cried as she recalled the memories of her brother and lover. The moment of silence between them was interrupted when a kunai planted itself where Jiraiya’s head was not a second ago since he moved to avoid it. He grabbed the kunai to toss it into the air before the explosive tag went off and lit the night sky.
Tsunade had grabbed the stool Jiraiya was sitting on before he kneeled and tossed it in the direction the kunai came from, breaking it as it hit a tree and causing the tree to fall down and reveal a shinobi with an Iwa forehead protector. “Even if his head is on the ground and not with the purple haired-woman, and she’s crying drunk without that other girl, they are Sannin,” the shinobi muttered.
“Let me guess…” Jiraiya rolled his eyes. “Anti-Sannin faction from Iwa?”
“Well…” he pointed to his scratched out forehead protector, indicating he was a missing-nin. “Not officially of course.” Several more shinobi stepped from out of the shadows.
One… five… seventeen of them… Jiraiya and Tsunade counted the number of hostile presences they felt. It was followed by the sound of screaming from civilians and yells from bandits, as the buildings in flames begun to light up the horizon. They must’ve drawn in bandits to deal with Anko and Shizune…
“Every time you show up Jiraiya, things go straight to hell!” Tsunade whined. She was sure Shizune was around the area the bandits were since she sent her off so that she wouldn’t try to convince her to go back to Konoha.
“Not now princess,” Jiraiya bit his thumb and flipped through the boar, dog, bird, monkey, and ram seals. “Summoning!”
A giant toad from Mount Myouboku named Gamariki joined the battlefield. “Gamariki, use Water Gun in the sky and make it rain to put out the fires!” The toad did just that, and it began to rain over the land.
“Get them!” the cannon fodder yelled, resulting in a clash between the two Sannin and a random assortment of Iwa runaways.
Jiraiya formed a spiraling sphere of chakra in each hand and drove them into the chest of two of men before they even knew what hit them. The spheres grinded away at their flesh and twisted it, as they pushed past the skin and into the muscles, tearing them, and then the vital organs, killing them. “Twin Rasengan!”
Another tried to stab him in the back, but he twisted, bringing his leg with him, and snapped the man’s neck with a crunch from the impact. When two more ran over their fallen ally to get to him, he charged. Behind him was the sound of shattering earth, as Tsunade had just caved in the chest of the second one who attacked her, bringing the kill count to five.
The one-sided slaughter continued, until one maimed body was knocked into the air by an earth jutsu. The body flew over lifeless over Tsunade, leaving her covered in the dripping blood. She reached up to touch her face, before looking at her hand and seeing them dyed red, before she fell to her knees.
“Fuck!” Jiraiya swore, planting his foot into another shinobi’s chest and crushing his ribcage. The fractured ribs pierced his heart and lungs, killing him. Her fear of blood… if they see her like that… I’ve gotten out of shape to have to struggle against a few mid-level jounins…
Closing in to the Sannin were Hinata and Anko. Shizune was busy treating the civilians who were injured, so she stayed behind. They had just taken care of the bandits. Some died relative quickly from a Gentle Fist to the heart, others died painfully from Anko’s snake venom or Shizune’s poisoned senbon. It wasn’t her first time killing, that was on a mission with Kurenai and she had received counseling for it and accepted it somewhat as a part of the career she was in.
Hinata saw Tsunade crouched on the ground shaking while her bloodline was active… and saw a shinobi underground poised to strike her with a kunai.
“Tsunade-sama!” Hinata cried, as she dived towards the blood-stained woman. The kunai breached the ground and plunged itself into the stomach of the young kunoichi, who recoiled in pain before Anko’s snakes bit the hand that stabbed her, causing it to contort violently before it finally went limp.
“Hinata!” Anko yelled, as she turned over the girl to see her coughing blood and in pain, her complexion fading faster than the small wound would indicate. She was wearing her chainmail, so it didn’t go too far in, but from her reaction… “She’s been poisoned.”
She looked at Tsunade. “Help her!”
Tsunade didn’t move, still shaking in place out of fear.
Anko raised her hand and brought it across the woman’s face. “Listen here! That girl just saved you! She’s been poisoned and your assistant isn’t nearby! You are the only one here who can do something about it!”
“But… I…” Tsunade mumbled weakly, staring at the dying girl.
“Snap out of it!” Anko yelled as she shook her. “Look at her dammit! Are you just going to let her suffer because of a little blood?”
Tsunade’s eyes met the girl’s. “She has someone she wants to meet again, but she can’t do that if she’s six-feet under! If you’re supposed to be the best medic-nin, then fucking prove it now!”
Tsunade’s wobbling hands hovered over the girl, glowing translucent blue color. Heart rate accelerated, as well as damage to the stomach, liver, heart, and these symptoms… “I-it’s poison from a type of lizard that’s native to the Land of Earth. Get her inside the building and go get me the things I’m about to tell you so I can perform the Poison Extraction…” she continued.
Jiraiya looked at the scene from the distance as he stood on top of his summons, having just killed the last attacker, happy to see that Tsunade was getting back to her old self. The girl would survive and become stronger for it.
Land of Wind
“Wind Scythe!” Chisaki and Naruto cried, releasing fierce gales that tore into each other, seeking to decimate the opposing shinobi. As Chisaki’s broke through, Naruto made a clone and they channeled wind chakra into their Nine-Tailed Fans.
“Wind Style: Cross Gales!” Naruto and his clone yelled, both swinging down their fan. The released diagonal blades of wind crossed and sliced through the gale that the older teen had summoned. It barreled towards her, while she channeled wind chakra into her fans.
“Wind Style: Cast Net!” the dual fangs were diced in a checkered pattern and Naruto’s senses were telling him to dodged, so he jumped as the portion of the wall behind him had been hit, leaving gouges that looked like a net had been cast.
Naruto threw two kunai that she deflected to the side with her fan and finished setting the field for her next attack. The clear sky had grown dark and cloudy, concentrated above the boy.
“Wind Style: Great Task of the Dragon!” Chisaki announced, pointing her fan towards the brat. The storm clouds parted and a howling twister descended onto the boy, drawing up sand and carving out a mark in the land. By the time the twisted died, the boy was half-buried in the sand.
It’s over… Chisaki sighed… then the body disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Shadow Clone!”
The two kunai that she had deflected popped and became two Narutos that each kicked her arms upwards, disarming her of the War Fans she held onto. Not missing a beat, she placed a kunai in the clones’ chests and looked over to see the chuckling original.
“Not so hot without out those babies now, are you?” Naruto snickered… only to see her performing the tiger and rabbit hand seals. “Oh come on, you have more jutsu?”
“My name means ‘a thousand blossoms‘, so I went out of my way to learn this technique,” she gloated, finishing the dragon seal. “Wind Style: Scattering Flower Dance!”
Another twister of wind and petals was born from beneath Chisaki’s feet, and it spiraled around her and then flew like a snake towards Naruto. On impact, it pushed him into the rocky wall and then firmly embedded him into before dying out.
“I will admit, using substitution with a shadow clone was brilliant,” Kushina said, sitting next to Chiyo after finishing their portion of their own training. “His father would be proud of his progress.”
“Indeed,” Chiyo agreed. “Had he not simply gloated upon disarming Chisaki, he may have beaten her… maybe… We’ll head back to Suna tonight and get ready for the trip to Konoha.”
Konoha Main Gate – A Few Days Later
“Man,” Chisaki moaned. “That line was long as hell to get in here.”
“It can’t be helped,” Chiyo said. “During the Chuunin Exams, there are a large number of people of interest coming to watch the potential of the various villages’ genin.”
Naruto and Kushina just stared at Konoha as a whole. It had been so long since either one had been there—well, about half a year for one, over twelve years for the other.
Before they crossed the Land of Rivers, Chiyo told them to change their appearance once more, since there might be some fallout from what they planned to do. This wasn’t exactly authorized by the Kazekage and this way they would be able to escape if things went to hell.
Speaking of the man who turned his child into an unstable weapon and traumatized him, Chiyo had Chisaki use her summoning, coyotes, to track the man as he left Suna. Before they got to gate, the summonings said that the man’s scent had changed to snakes and blood midway through the trip. Chiyo was tempted to brush it off since her only goal was to help Gaara, but to be safe she told her to have them inspect the area the scent changed at.
“We’ll split up now and contact each other once the finals have begun,” Chiyo said, as she and Chisaki began to leave the mother and son.
“… did you hear?” one of the gate keepers whispered to the other. Naruto’s enhanced hearing picked up on it with relative ease. “Jiraiya-sama is back in town.”
Curious, Naruto whispered who he was to his mother. Her response was to smile sweetly while extruding killing intent, causing him to sweatdrop. “He’s someone I’m going to hurt for neglecting his duties.”
The pair proceeded on Naruto’s insistence to go eat at Ichiraku. He hadn’t had some of that ramen in six months and was tempted to sneak into the village at one point just to have another bowl, missing-nin status be damned. Kushina herself was partial to salt ramen.
As they were passing the main street, they saw a young boy arguing with an adult with shades, before transforming into a nude woman cloaked in smoke, causing the man to bleed from the nose excessively. Naruto almost broke down laughing, and when his mother asked what was so funny, he told her that he had taught Konohamaru that technique…
She decked him in the head, leaving him twitching headfirst into the ground. “… Should’ve seen that coming… ”
After he pulled himself up, they had to talk about their plans until the exams. Kushina wanted to get in contact with Jiraiya and Sarutobi to scold them, although Naruto insisted that she at least show the old man some mercy since he was doing something at least, and then do like she promised and show those academy instructors who taught him incorrectly the error of their ways. Naruto said just to not hurt Iruka.
Right outside Naruto’s favorite eating place, some idiot commented that the “demon” not being around makes the food taste better. Kushina created some chakra threads—since her chains were too big—and manipulated his hand into knocking a certain purple-haired special jounin’s dango from her grip. The slaughter was somewhat pleasing to her ears.
“Hey, I want some ramen!” Naruto said loudly, causing his mother to deck him again for being rude. “I mean, can I please have some ramen?”
“Hm,” the owner, Teuchi mumbled. For a second, he thought Naruto had just burst it. “Ah, welcome! What’ll you be having?”
“Give me one of everything and keep it coming!” Naruto said.
His mother sighed. “Naru—” Teuchi almost dropped his ladle. “We are on a budget, so no more than ten bowls. I’ll have a few bowls of Salt Ramen myself.”
“C-Coming up!” the man said. That was so much that he thought he was feeding Naruto again. After the two tore through a good deal more than what they ordered and he was out of supplies for the day, they paid him with some of the money they earned from Suna. “Wow, you guys reminded me of a good customer I had… he was a good kid… ”
Naruto stopped mid-bite of his last bowl. “His name was Naruto, a blonde kid with a good heart. His disappearance hurt a lot of people.”
“R-really…? ” Naruto asked.
Teuchi smiled. “You look a lot like him if weren’t for your hair color and missing the facial markings.”
He went on about how Hinata had been exiled from her clan for supporting him, Iruka’s showing little to no passion for teaching, his daughter rarely smiling anymore, and Konohamaru training hard so when he graduated he could go search for him, to the point his grandfather found him passed out on the training field and ordered Ebisu to make sure he doesn’t go overboard again. The Hokage himself was running himself ragged trying guess where Naruto was as well.
Naruto… was actually crying at that point. His mother excused them and left after thanking them in order to get him to a hotel. Once they were in the room and she placed a few privacy seals, he broke down seeing how much of an impact he had on their lives and made them miserable. Kushina told him to stay here while she finished her business and write them each a letter and she would make sure that they get delivered tonight.
Once she left the hotel, she went into an alley and made thirty shadow clones and had them transform into several different people. “Find Jiraiya! I don’t care if you have to check every single hot spring, bathhouse, and dirty magazine section of every store.”
She then left to go buy her materials for the puppet and kick some members of the “people who screwed over my son” list’s asses. There was a reason she was known as the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero…
With Naruto
Naruto has just finished writing the letters his mother told him to towards the various people he hurt by running away, and walked out of the hotel to get some fresh air. As he was walking absent mindedly, he was knocked over by someone and his Nine-Tailed Fan toppled onto the ground.
“Ah, sorry!” a young girl’s voice called out to him, as she extended her hand for him to grab. Naruto grabbed it and pulled himself up. “I didn’t see you there.”
“No harm done…” he replied with a smile and took a good look at the girl. She had brown eyes, wore a pink sleeveless blouse and dark green pants, with buns in her hair.
The girl looked on the ground and saw the Nine-Tailed Fan in its blade form, picking it up. She recognized the underlying seals on the weapon, the craftsmanship of the blade, and the overall quality of it, with stars in her eyes. “Is this magnificent, beautiful weapon yours?”
“Y-yeah…” he stuttered slightly, having seen that look in some of Sasuke’s more rabid fangirls.
“The seals on it are… unique. I haven’t seen any like it before,” she turned the blade over. “Who made it?”
“A friend made the blade itself, the seals were the work of my mother, although I understand how they work for the most part…” she looked at him with hungry eyes and grabbed him.
“Come with me!” she said, before dragging him off to her home, a weapons shop, and past her confused father into her room. Once the girl calmed down, he explained that even if he tried to explain the seals it wouldn’t do any good since it was above her skill level since his mother was on a different level than most seal masters.
Instead, he pulled put the decorative kunai that his mother made in Suna. He could explain to her the three layers applied to the kunai managed the chakra stored inside. She paid attention and understood relatively quickly, much more quickly than he did. After four hours alone she managed to make an array on her own based off the first layer with Naruto looking over it, correcting a few mistakes he himself made at first.
It was simple overall, all it would do is release the chakra inside the object it was stored in, causing it to become a shrapnel bomb. Embedded on a kunai and set to trigger after a time delay, it would explode after the opponent thought it was another plain kunai and not expecting it. It would be fairly effective.
After she made a dozen or so, she dragged Naruto off to a training ground to test them.
“It works!” she squeaked, seeing the tree filled with dozens of deadly shards after the initial rupturing. If she altered the kunai’s shape and composition, possibly some type of element… “Endless possibilities!”
I think I’ve created a monster… Naruto sweat-dropped. Then his skin crawled as he felt a surge of killing intent aimed at him. “Tenten-chan, isn’t your father going to be worried since it’s getting late and you ran off so suddenly… with a boy?”
“Maybe…? ” She thought about it for a bit. “Yeah, I should go… ”
She gave him four of her maiming-capable weapons as thanks and ran off. Once she was a good distance out of sight, Naruto sighed and called out to seemingly empty space. “I know you’re there. You can come out now.”
From the shadows emerged a boy with distinctive red hair and a gourd on his back.
With Kushina
Kushina rubbed her fist as tenderly as she could. To her surprise, Jiraiya was near the Hokage Monument, staring at her husband’s face on the mountain alone. When she saw an opening she shot a bunch of chakra chains from underneath him and binded him.
She knew his reactions were better than that and it was probably a combination of seeing her technique after all these years and the moment of silent reflection while looking at Minato’s face, that left such a huge gap in his defenses. Either way, it did not stop her from smashing him in the face while wearing a fox mask she procured for both her son and herself. She then left the unconscious man a letter telling him to meet with her at a certain location tonight with Sarutobi.
As Kushina had just bought as much of the supplies as she could, noting that several places required a certain level of clearance to get the rest, she just received the memories of her shadow clone that was tailing her son, being dragged off by a girl. While cute, seeing him being pulled around like that reminded her of a few past memories with Minato, he shouldn’t be wandering off all of a sudden.
He didn’t leave for a few hours and the girl was positively glowing while dragging him out to one of the training grounds. She would have to go check up on them… If she has a grandchild… there would be no mercy.
“The bun-haired girl said which training ground again?” she asked herself.
The Hokage’s Office
Sarutobi was a busy Hokage at this time of the year, and while having shadow clones helped, this year there seemed to be a bunch of people attacking various staff members of the Academy and adding to his paperwork. He noted that these were all people who part of Naruto’s lack of progress at the Academy after he had them checked by Inoichi shortly after the boy fled, for not helping Iruka in defending him. He was content to simply call it karma and sweep it under the rug, but Tsunade pointed out that whoever could do it must’ve been a shinobi because they weren’t caught after running away… like they vanished.
“What happened to you?” Tsunade and Sarutobi asked when they saw Jiraiya nursing a swollen eye as he walked in.
He walked up to the walls and placed a seal slip he found in the letter envelope and activated it. “I think I may have found Naruto.”
The clones all stopped and the original and Tsunade looked at him expectantly. He handed them the letter. “This was left after I was hit while… distracted.”
They opened it.
Toad Sage,
Come to the location where the orange fox was born tonight. Bring Sarutobi with you, but use the seal I included to make sure you aren’t overheard in his office. The fourth had always thought that it might have been bugged. Come alone, no ANBU, or you will not see your godson again.
From, The Red Hot-Blooded Habanero.
P.S. Sarutobi must’ve received reports of several people who hindered the fox’s growth being punished. It was me.
“It… can’t be…” Sarutobi’s pipe fell from his mouth.
“I thought so too,” Jiraiya said, before placing a single strand of red hair in front of them. “I’m going. This is the best lead we’ve had, and if it is her… I owe her an apology… ”
Back to Naruto
“… Who are you?” the boy droned. “Mother is telling me you have one inside of you. That you are similar to me.”
“I’m Naruto Uzumaki,” he said, deactivating his seal and reverting to normal for a moment. “And the one talking to you inside your head isn’t your mother, but the One-Tailed Raccoon Dog, Ichibi, Gaara of the Desert.”
“Mother is calling for your blood…” the cork on his gourd popped out. “She says she’ll be happy once I give it to her… ”
“Gaara, I don’t want to fight with you if I can help it.” Naruto said. “I know about your past and I want to help you.”
“Enough!” Gaara said in the same monotone voice, “I shall kill you… your blood shall sate my sand!”
Sand lashed out at Naruto like a large hand that was going to catch and crush him. Naruto’s hand was already on the Nine-Tailed Fan when a blue arc cut through the sand, clumps of it falling to the ground soaked and wet. They both looked behind Naruto and saw his mother there, her disguise off after making sure no one was there, with her Whirlpool Yo-Yo.
“… You are?” Gaara asked.
“I am Naruto’s mother,” Kushina spoke up. She wanted to try her luck at sealing the boy’s mind from the Ichibi, but between the shadow clones, that attack just now, her upcoming meeting, and the fact that she hadn’t had Naruto refill her reserves in about three days since they were with Chiyo and only lightly traveling, she wasn’t willing to risk it. “If we fight here, it’ll draw a commotion and likely cancel the Chuunin Exams.”
“Gaara,” Naruto tried to reach him again. “Listen to me, I know what you went through, about your uncle, and I want to help you. We want to help you.”
“How can you understand my pain, when you have someone watching over you like a mother hen?” Gaara pointed out, as he withdrew the sand.
“I wasn’t there for the majority of his life and we’ve only just started making up for lost time,” Kushina told him. “He can understand what you went through. The life of a Jinchuuriki is never a happy one. But like I said, now isn’t the time for this.”
“… I will kill you both,” he said, unfazed. “However, the mission comes first… Naruto Uzumaki. Tomorrow, after I fulfill my mission, I will come for you two. Only then will mother be happy…” he mumbled, turning into sand.
“I won’t run, Gaara.” Naruto told him. “But before you go killing anyone else, come after me first! I’ll take everything you’ve got and more!”
“So be it…” the boy disappeared once the sand was blown away by the wind.
Kushina was proud of her son’s declaration. Still, she should make sure that Naruto had a few backup plans in order to win… But there was still the matter that actually bought her here…
“So, Naruto…” Kushina smiled sweetly at her son while her hair split into nine portions. “Care to tell me why you were coming out of a young woman’s home and why she was blushing like that?”
Naruto began sweating profusely. “I can explain!”
Late that Night
Sarutobi and Jiraiya had arrived at the meeting place in secrecy, along with Tsunade, who felt it was a trap. A large number of chains popped out of the ground, surrounding the trio in a barrier that expanded outward for a few hundred feet.
Tsunade swore. “It’s a trap after all!”
“No,” Sarutobi said. “There was only one person we knew who could do this.”
From behind a tree, a figure appeared wearing a short-sleeved mesh shirt under a light-blue kimono-like blouse with a white spiraling wave pattern at the bottom and a black obi. She had a dark skirt and wore a fox mask, her red hair reached down her back.
“Kushina…” Sarutobi and Jiraiya said, recognizing the hair.
She reached up and pulled the mask off, revealing a very spiteful glare. “You two have a hell of a lot to explain,” she directed toward the two men.
“How…?” Tsunade stepped up. “You were supposed to be dead.”
“Tsunade… I didn’t know you were in the village,” she walked up to the woman. “The night I was giving birth, a masked man appeared,” she looked over to Sarutobi sympathetically. Angry or not, he deserved her sympathy. “He killed Biwako, Toji, the ANBU, and was the reason for the attack of the Kyuubi.”
“WHAT!” Sarutobi said in shock. He knew his wife was killed, but not how. “Who—”
Before he could ask, Tsunade spoke up. “You didn’t answer my question. How do we know you aren’t an enemy who’s masquerading as a dead kunoichi to cause problems? Where’s the brat?”
Their suspicion was warranted. With the information they had about Orochimaru flying around, it could be him with some trick. She was waiting for any sign of deception, after which she would smash the imposter.
Kushina sighed. “When Minato and I died, we sealed a portion of our chakra into Naruto’s seal, in case it was about to break. After Naruto escaped the village, the fox told him how to bring me back since he needed to be trained and protected from the man I just mentioned, since he would eventually come back after it. This body is a special puppet that anchors me to this plane, and Naruto is in the village for now, under a certain seal to prevent anyone from recognizing him.”
“Then, Minato—” Jiraiya mumbled.
“His portion is still inside our son, and I plan to bring him back, but the two of us did die.” Kushina stared at the man with a murderous glare. “He would be disappointed in you for not watching over him! My son had to raise himself for five years and was tortured all his life! Where the hell were you!?”
Jiraiya had nothing to say.
Tsunade snapped Kushina’s attention back to her by tapping her foot on the ground. “He was busy,” she said, which was true since spy networks don’t set themselves up, meeting the woman’s glare with her own.
Kushina was pissed, seeing as the woman casually dismissed the abuse of one of her own distant relatives and promptly slapped her, getting one back in response. Kushina tied her down with chains from her body and her hair split in nine sections. Tsunade smirked.
“It’s her,” she said.
Kushina stopped to think about what happened. “Testing me or not, do not shrug off what my son went through!”
“The boy isn’t dead and the pervert is still alive. When they meet you can let him beat the hell out him, but right now we need to know everything that happened,” Tsunade countered. “Sensei at least deserves some closure for that night.”
Kushina let her down and told them about the man with the Sharingan, who killed everyone and ripped the fox out of her and controlled it. She explained that she only survived because the Uzumaki have strong vitality and why they sealed the fox into Naruto. When she pointed out how Sarutobi should investigate the Uchiha clan, he told her about the massacre.
“Mikoto’s boy did that!” she couldn’t believe it. Jiraiya told them about the mysterious group hunting the Jinchuuriki and how he discovered that Itachi was a part of them. That bought up a potential link between the two.
When the discussions were over, she gave them the letters to give to Naruto’s friends, along with a contact scroll like Gen and Kurogane had, and turned to leave, when Jiraiya spoke up. “When will Naruto return to the village?”
She glared at him before putting the mask on. “This village will kill him before Akatsuki.”
“If you won’t let him return, at least let me teach him for a few years so that he’ll be strong enough to survive! Minato would’ve wanted him to learn the Rasengan.”
“Minato would’ve wanted you to watch over him so it never came to this!”
“Kushina,” Sarutobi said. “You make a valid point, but if Akatsuki is as dangerous as Jiraiya has said, he’ll need more than you alone to protect him. Even if you succeed in bringing back Minato, if that man and Akatsuki are connected…”
“He’ll have a village… a home that will watch over him…” she told them, thinking about the resurrected Uzushio. “As for the training, I’ll consent to it since Minato would want him to learn it, but not right now. If I were to hand him over to you now, he’d be imprisoned or have the fox ripped out of him. But know this Jiraiya! I will never trust you as much as I did before, at least Sarutobi tried to help.”
The man shed a single tear.
She raised her left hand and the barrier began to fade. “Also, one of my contacts told me that the Kazekage smelled different on his trip here… like snakes and blood. I thought it was something you should know since the Kages share the box during the exams, and if something happened to you Naruto would cry again.”
All three of their eyes opened wide at the news. Kushina vanished in a puff of smoke, revealing she was a shadow clone, just in case things didn’t go as smoothly.
“Snakes and blood…” Sarutobi mumbled.
“You think…? ” Tsunade said what they we all thinking.
“Even if he did kill and replace the Kazekage, we can’t do anything about it until he reveals himself,” Jiraiya spoke up. While heartbroken over Kushina’s words, which he admitted were right, Orochimaru was someone who took priority. He could drink until he was too numb to feel anything later or train until he felt better… he needed to get better at using sage mode anyway.
“If we did it could lead to another war,” Sarutobi said sadly. “No one knows you’re back yet, right Tsunade?”
“No, I came in under a Transformation with the Hyuuga girl and her jounin. Jiraiya is the one who slipped up.”
“In that case we still have the element of surprise,” Jiraiya nodded. “Tsunade, will hide until the finals are underway and only reveal herself if the snake moves. I’ll stay with sensei, since too many ANBU will give something away, but a former student is acceptable. We’ll double the ANBU inside the arena and tell all the shinobi to be on guard in case something happens with Suna.”
Land of Wind
Buzzards were flying in a circle around a few carcasses, as coyotes led a group of men to the location from Suna. As they crossed the last leg, they looked down in shock at the revelation that the carcasses belonged to humans. One elder man ventured down to confirm what they feared the most.
The other member of the Honorable Siblings, Chiyo’s brother, stood over the remains of the Kazekage and his guards…
“We must send word to my sister… ”
Canon Jutsu:
Wind Scythe – A C-rank offensive that creates a gale using a fan and creates countless invisible blades.
Sand Storm – A defensive technique that acts like a sandblaster in areas with loose dirt and sand.
Wind Style: Cast Net – An Offensive Mid-range technique that create narrow currents of air to form a large net that can slice through an opponent.
Wind Style: Great Task of the Dragon – An all range, offensive of defensive technique with a delayed reaction that alters the weather conditions to create storm clouds to drop a highly concentrated tornado on a target.
Wind Style: Scattering Flower Dance – An offensive technique that creates a twister that can be controlled and has flower petals mixed into the twister.
Poison Extraction – B-rank supplementary technique used with medicinal fluid as a medium to extract poison from a patient.
Summoning – A C-rank space-time ninjutsu that transports animal or people across long distances easily. (Boar-Dog-Bird-Monkey-Ram)
Twin Rasengan – Creates two Rasengans for use at once.
Non-Canon Jutsu:
Wind Style: Cross Gales –An Offensive technique that creates two diagonal gales of razor sharp wind to slice through an object or enemy in an X-shape.
Advent of the Spiraling Ninja: Hinata
Hinata: The Fallen Princess
Author’s Notes: Revised as of 1/2/15
Beta: Bluemew22
After I was attacked and Naruto-kun left, Iruka-sensei applied first aid and took me to the hospital. It had been a full day since then, and my father had not even visited me once. In his stead, Hokage-sama himself came and told me about Naruto-kun being something called a “Jinchuuriki” and how he was housing the chakra demon that attacked the village long ago.
He said he explained it to everyone who was there and told them not to let it ruined their opinions about him, and then he thanked me for protecting Naruto-kun and personally escorted me home when I was discharged from the hospital.
My father would not speak to me nor see me, only having someone relate a message that I was to report to my assigned team the next day.
The Next Day – Training Ground 18
“Okay then,” a masked jounin named Kakashi-sensei said, while reading an orange covered book. “Since the teams are here and we’ve all introduced each other. We’ll take a few minutes before we begin your warm ups for this joint-exercise.”
Three teams had gathered, including the one I was on. Under Kakashi-sensei were Sasuke-san, Sakura-san, and a rather pale boy named Sai-san. Asuma-sensei had Ino-san, Chouji-san, and Shikamaru-san. Kurenai-sensei was teaching Kiba-kun, Shino-kun, and I.
We began routine exercise and tactical maneuvers to come and understand our allies’ capabilities. Unfortunately, due to clashing personalities, Kurenai-sensei had to restrain Kiba-kun from attempting to maim Sai-san, while Asuma-sensei and Kakashi-sensei had to try to pull Sakura-san and Ino-san off each other’s hair. Sasuke-san just muttered something inappropriate about his teammates, when Kakashi-sensei shook his head.
“It’s a shame Naruto-kun couldn’t have been on the team,” he sighed. “He would’ve at least made things more balanced. Not that you aren’t alright, Sai-kun, I just wasn’t expecting you…and your odd nicknames… ”
The pale boy only smiled.
“I don’t see why,” Sakura-san said. “Like he could do anything other than play pranks and other stupid stuff. I don’t see how he even became a genin since he didn’t pass the final exam.”
I felt a bit angry. Considering how Naruto-kun fawned over her all the time to the point I was a bit jealous, and now she was insulting him. I had to say something. “T-they w-wouldn’t have g-given N-naruto-kun his f-f-forehead protector if he w-wasn’t ready, Sakura-san… ”
“That’s right,” Kakashi-sensei nodded. “I even have a feeling that he and Sasuke-kun could have been rivals… as long as it didn’t go too far… ”
“Please,” she rolled her eyes, finally free of Ino-san. “He got the lowest scores in the history of the Academy and they probably had to give him some kind of remedial class, while Sasuke-kun is the genin of the year.”
Despite my facial expression not changing, I actually was starting to harbor intent to harm her. Still, I had to keep calm, so I took a deep breath. “N-naruto-kun tried v-v-very hard and w-wasn’t nearly as i-i-ignorant as you think.”
“Uh, Sakura-chan…” Kakashi-sensei started in a slightly worried tone, a few drops of sweat on his forehead.
“No offense, but you’re the only one who thinks that, and everyone knows that it was because you had a crush on the de—” the pink-haired harlot never finished her sentence.
Instead she was on the ground, clutching her stomach from where my Gentle Fist strike had disrupted her chakra flow. Everyone looked at me with their eyes wide and in disbelief.
“Naruto-kun was always nice to you no matter how much you kept abusing him! If you tried that on anyone else they would’ve fought back! You have no idea the kind of things he went through while you were too busy taking care of your stupid hair and fawning over Sasuke-san, and you have the nerve to call him that!”
I didn’t stutter that time. My anger overtook my confidence issues.
Kurenai-sensei appeared behind me and held me out of fear that I was going to hit her again with another strike. I can honestly say the thought crossed my mind, and I was struggling to get another shot in. “Hinata, calm down…” she whispered in my ear.
“Ugh…” the shrew moaned. “How are you any better? You said you know what the idiot went through, then why didn’t you do something before then?”
“Okay,” Kakashi-sensei closed his book. “Hinata-chan, I’m assuming you didn’t do anything permanent to my student, right?” I nodded my head. “Then I’ll leave your punishment to Kurenai, as for you Sakura, well…I can’t say she’s wrong.”
Now they were looking at him.
“If you must know, the only reason you passed the test was because I tied Sasuke-kun up for arrogantly trying to attack without a plan and you would jump through fire for him. Sai-kun was the only one who used his head and thought things through, but he followed my instructions too thoroughly and left himself very little breathing room. I intended to train all of you to address your shortcomings, but…” he trailed off.
Kurenai-sensei spoke up now. “While I will have to inform her family of this, we shouldn’t have to say that the Hokage told all of you that the child was not the chakra demon, but the one imprisoning it. Considering you were about to say demon instead of Jinchuuriki, I’m assuming you heard from some of the more… outspoken village members. Despite the time all of you genin spent with the boy in the Academy, and the most he did was a few pranks, you should know better.”
“I couldn’t have put it as elegantly that,” Kakashi-sensei nodded. “I should remind you all that my sensei lost his life to save this village by making Naruto a Jinchuuriki. His final wish was that Naruto could grow up without being feared because of it, so the Hokage made the law that those who revealed it to your generation were punished with death.”
Asuma-sensei said his piece as well. “Instead, they made the boy’s life a living hell considering the information the Hokage and Inoichi-san retrieved from the ones who attacked him. Apparently they were repeat offenders since before he entered the Academy, and sick enough to the point where after he endured everything and went on with his life, they decided to actually kill him in broad daylight since he became a shinobi. The fact that we’ve uncovered that a great portion of the village’s adults were torturing and abusing a child is bad enough.”
Kakashi-sensei looked down at Sakura-san. “But for someone who would’ve been his ally and age to treat him like that because of what their parents, and other adults, told them is even worse. To call the boy a demon is the same as insulting my own sensei. Once you are fit enough to train, you will be doing three times as much as everyone for the next month. As for the rest of you, this is your only warning, understood?”
I shivered, as I felt what could only be described as killing intent radiating from Kakashi-sensei. All of the genin, including myself nodded in agreement.
That Night – Inside The Hyuuga Council Room
“Hinata Hyuuga,” my father said in an authoritative tone. “Do you know why we’ve convened this meeting?”
“B-because of m-my actions t-t-today, at the joint training e-exercise?”
“According to Kurenai-san, you lashed out after being told of certain set of words,” he followed up. “Despite you not having enough self-control to not attack the girl, I see you had enough restraint to do no permanent harm.”
“Because she merely told you that the demon had taken hold, you attacked her,” a man roughly my father’s age pointed out. “We’ve heard about what happened, the demon became aggressive and attacked.”
“Naruto-kun did it to save me!” I snapped at the man, my heart skipping a beat. It was safe to say he didn’t expect it since he nearly fell back out of his chair. “He even told Iruka-sensei to take care of me before he left!”
My father looked at me sternly. “Then it is because of you that the boy’s identity was exposed. Taking out your aggression on others because of your short comings is beneath you as a Hyuuga.”
I felt my lips trembling, so I bit them before shaking my head and looking back at my father. “I-I will not d-deny that it was b-b-because of me that h-he was exposed, which is why I t-t-took steps to ensure that his name was not slandered by t-t-that… that pink-haired fangirl.”
“The men who attacked were all chuunin, even if intoxicated,” my father glared at me with expectant eyes. “Why did you even interfere instead of allowing for the ANBU to arrive?”
“N-n-naruto-kun would h-h-have died. O-out of all the teachers at the Academy, only Iruka-sensei w-w-was actually t-trying to protect him. N-no one else w-was willing t-to even t-t-try.”
“The demon had long since possessed the boy,” one of the elder women spat. “He ceased to be human the moment it took hold of him. It is but a demon that should’ve been hunted down like the fox it is!”
“He is not the demon,” I said, glaring at the woman. “As Hokage-sama said when he personally visited me, he’s the one who prevented it from escaping until now. I’ve seen what he’s gone through every day and if Naruto-kun was the demon you claimed him to be, the number of casualties in this village would have sky-rocketed, and he would have been justified in doing so!”
“Still your tongue child,” the woman bit back. “Heiress or not, you are a member of the Hyuuga clan and expected to behave as such. Your foolish, one-sided affections for the demon aside. If necessary, we shall place the seal on you and remove you from the main family.”
The next few sentences left my mouth before I could think things through. “Then do it! Everyone is always saying I’m not suited and that I’m a failure not worthy of the title of heiress anyway, but don’t you dare call him a demon!”
Everyone’s mouth dropped once the words came out of my mouth. Including my father’s.
“Y-you—” the woman was choking on her words in anger, instinctively activating her Byakugan.
“Enough!” my father said sternly. He stood and nodded to two members of the branch family acting as guards. “Escort her to her room.”
As they led me out, I heard the council explode before the doors shut.
Morning
In the early morning, I awoke to a light knock on my door and my father came into the room with a stoic face that showed no emotion, but seemingly had bags under his eyes. “Hinata, you have said things that have angered many people and you have left me no choice… ”
He motioned for two of the branch family women to come into my room. “Hinata Hyuuga, you are officially exiled from the Hyuuga Clan. These two will help you pack your things and will provide you with storage scrolls to place your personal belongings in.”
Father left after that, never once looking back.
In shock, I could barely function. The two women, whose names were Miyako-san and Marumi-san, watched over me when I was younger. They helped me pack my things with somber looks on their faces and escorted me beyond the compound walls.
I don’t remember much after that, except that I was walking through the village without anything in mind…
“Hey, brat—” when a purple-haired woman, wearing a full-mesh body suit, orange mini-skirt, and tan overcoat called from behind me, her face was peeking over the side of the numerous grocery bags in her hands that went up to her head, two of which were about to fall over. “—a little help here!”
“S-sure,” I said, grabbing some of the bags. They were heavier than I expected and I almost fell over. “U-um, w-w-what is this e-exactly… um… ”
“The name’s Anko, kid. I’m a 21 year old special jounin, and what you’re holding is a week’s supply of beer until I can go to my usual bar again. Honestly, you stick a kunai in a guy’s hand for grabbing your ass and they…” she trailed off.
With nothing else to do and nowhere to go, I followed Anko-san without putting much thought into it. The bags were so heavy though, I had to stop occasionally to readjust them. Anko-san rolled her eyes.
“Relax, we’re at my apartment now,” she told me. We walked up a flight of stairs and entered a modest-sized room. “Place the bags on the table.”
I complied, carefully maneuvering around the cans of alcohol and articles of clothing that littered the floor, before placing the bags on the table and sighed. Anko-san crept up behind me and placed something cold on my cheek, causing me to shriek.
“Heheh… calm down girl, it’s a gift,” she handed me one of the alcoholic beverages. “You’re a genin, right? You can drink once you reach that rank, our lives to simply too short for anyone to complain about it.”
“T-t-thank y-you…” I told her and bowed. She sat at the table and leaned back in her chair, stretching, before popping open one of the cans.
“So you’re Hiashi’s oldest girl? I heard you tore you clan’s council a new one last night,” she chuckled. “They did something rash in retaliation, right?”
“H-h-how d-did y-y-you k-know?” I stuttered more than usual.
“One of the council members got drunk and loose-lipped, being a lightweight and all, at the bar that I got kicked out of last night. He then muttered something about your father leaving the compound alone, probably to fume… then he got handsy, I got stabby, and here we are.”
“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry!”
“Don’t be, you were defending that boy who went missing, right?” I looked at her in shock. “It isn’t the most well-kept secret that you stalked the boy. I’ve gotta give you props for defending your man.”
“H-he’s n-n-not m-m-my…” I couldn’t finish saying it. “D-despite how I f-f-feel about h-him, it’s j-j-just one-sided… b-b-but how they t-t-treated him…” I trailed off.
“I know where you’re both coming from. There was someone I admired to the point of basically being a fangirl, and I’m not exactly the most well-liked person in the village. I suffered a bit of went he went through… until I introduced many of them to the sharp end of a kunai and my babies’ fangs. They got the message eventually.”
“B-but N-naruto-kun would n-never do t-t-that,” I said. She just chuckled and proceeded to drink her entire can in a few seconds.
“That’s why they got away with it…” she sighed.”The details are still coming in, but members of the interrogation unit have been running ragged lately hauling in people who did something to the kid. We interrogate one person, they gave up two, we interrogate those two, and they gave up six more. It just built up to the point where it was clear the boy was hated by so damn many people we couldn’t arrest them all, so most got off with fines and a few who beat on the boy were sent to Ibiki and me for a good, long session… in the end, only a handful were punished like they should’ve been.”
“… Is there still no sign of him?” I asked without stuttering this time.
“No. All shinobi who were actively searching for him were rounded up the day after he snapped and said they lost his trail. There were too many scents and even though they were informed he could use shadow clones, they didn’t know he could make that many…although I suspect a couple of pricks enjoyed stabbing the pseudo-copies of the boy.”
She closed her eyes. “Honestly, he probably won’t be coming back here. There’s a small chance he might, but if he does it won’t be under good conditions given what we’ve learned he’s went through. Either he’ll be dragged back screaming and tagged by ANBU, a corpse, or go on a killing-spree.”
“If only…” tears began falling from my eyes.”If I had done something… ”
“Everyone turned a blind-eye or were stretched too thin to help like the old man and Iruka.”
“But I couldn’t do anything in the past and now he’s gone…” I held my hands over my eyes and cried. “I was too weak and scared to help him… ”
“The past is the past. We all make mistakes. The only thing you can do is learn from them and go forward. But for your own sake you need to address one of your biggest problems.”
“W-w-what is t-t-that?” I asked.
“You’re obsessed with him,” she pointed to me. “You’re placing the boy on a pedestal and dancing around it. Not once did I hear the words that you wanted to be stronger. Instead, it was all about being too weak to help him. How can you help someone else if you can’t help yourself?”
I honestly wanted to say something, but I couldn’t deny her words. “Listen, you’re mad and feeling guilty about what happened to the kid. It’s alright to be concerned about things, but if you go too far and keep obsessing about him, you’ll be no better than a fangirl who would slit her own throat the moment he died because you didn’t train enough to defend him.”
There was a knock on the door and Anko-san walked over to answer it. Someone in a mask handed her a message and vanished with a regular body flicker jutsu. She quickly skimmed the letter.
“Ah,” she crushed the can in her hand and sighed before burning the letter. “I just received a summons to the Hokage’s office. I hope it’s not about last night… You can stay here as long as you like. I don’t have company over often.”
And with that she was gone.
Despite Anko-san’s generous offer, I left a few minutes later. There was some place I wanted to go, in order to think about what to do. Eventually I came to a certain training ground.
It was the training ground that Naruto came to in order to practice in secret before he became a genin. He worked so hard here to be accepted, hoping to become the Hokage. While I just watched him from the shadows, never saying or doing anything…
“How are you any better? You said you know what the idiot went through, then why didn’t you do something before then?”
Sakura-san had a point. I really wasn’t any better than she was then. She worships the ground Sasuke-san walked on, and I was doing the same for Naruto-kun. If the roles were reversed, we would have swapped places.
I was just as shallow as she was. I was always told by the elders not to interact with Naruto-kun. I was too shy to say anything to him or speak up about the attacks, and in the end…
“Then it is because of you that the boy’s identity was exposed. Taking out your aggression on others because of your short comings is beneath you as a Hyuuga.”
Father had a point as well. Hyuuga or not, I shouldn’t have attacked her. But whenever someone calls him a demon, I just snap. They just say those things without knowing what he’s been through…
“You’re obsessed with him. You’re placing the boy on a pedestal and dancing around it. Not once did I hear the words that you wanted to be stronger. Instead, it was all about being too weak to help him. How can you help someone else if you can’t help yourself?”
… I… didn’t even try to get stronger. I was only focusing on being weaker… All those hours I watched him train, I could’ve been working alongside him… and because of that, he accessed the Kyuubi’s power when I got hurt…
I stayed there and cried for the rest of the day.
That Night
I heard a twig snap and promptly activated my bloodline… it was all that saved me from getting a kunai in the back of my head.
“Come out!” I yelled, pulling out a kunai, and two masked shinobi appeared. Focusing my sight on penetrating their masks, it revealed two faces that I had known all my life. My kunai fell from my slacked grip, and my eyes went wide. Burning streams of tears rolled off my cheeks, as I fell to my knees.
“Miyako-san… Marumi-san… why?” I asked.
Neither one responded with words. Instead, they both let a single tear fall from their eyes before Marumi-san took out another kunai and threw it at me. It felt like time had slowed down.
“Don’t just sit there!” a familiar voice cried, as another kunai intercepted the one in front of me and sent them both tumbling to the ground. Landing in crouch, the special jounin wearing a tan overcoat was in front of me. “Freeze up and you’ll die!”
The two women I knew since childhood split up and started throwing kunai and shuriken at me. Still in shock, I couldn’t move. So Anko-san grabbed me, and tossed me behind a tree, before pulling out eight kunai, a finger in each ring on the pommel and threw them in spread pattern to intercept the incoming ones.
They both then rushed in towards her.
“Gentle Fist isn’t very effective in mid-ranged combat, is it?” she smirked, making the snake, ram, boar, horse, monkey, and tiger hand seals, before cupping one of her hands near her mouth. “Fire Style: Great Fireball!”
A scorching ball of flames, as tall as she was and three times as wide, flew towards Marumi-san, forcing her stop her charge and dodge once the flames spread out in an explosion on impact with the ground. Miyako-san, however, closed the distance between them.
“You are in range of my divination,” Miyako-san muttered, while in the position for the 8 trigrams 32 palms. Anko-san smiled, having finished the snake and tiger hand seals.
“Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!” six snakes slipped out of her coat sleeves, and intertwined around Miyako-san before she screamed in pain. They had bitten her multiple times, and must’ve been poisonous since she fell to the ground twitching and whimpering.
Marumi-san then slipped around her while she was distracted and went towards me with a kunai in hand. As she was within range, a shadow burst out the grass, revealing a thirteen-foot snake that coiled around her arm and then her torso, before revealing its fangs and plunging them into her.
She shared the same fate as Miyako-san.
Anko-san was strong. In less than two minutes, she took down two Hyuuga members, and didn’t even look like she was tired. She looked over and waved to me.
“Honestly, I was looking for you for the last few hours,” she said, before addressing the two women on the ground. “Hey, you two. Why did you try and off the brat here?”
“We’re sorry, Hinata-sama…” the Marumi-san cried. “W-we never wanted to do this, but the seal and… the councilwoman…” she trailed off and went silent. Miyako-san had long since gone still.
“Marumi-san!” I cried, unable to do anything for her.
“Relax, the poison won’t kill them for another dozen or so minutes,” Anko-san told me. “They’ll be fine after I slip them the antidote and drop them off at the hospital, but they attacked you while under the Hokage’s protection… ordered or not they have a date with Inoichi and Ibiki tonight.”
“Protection? But—” I started to try and defend my assailants, but Anko-san shook her head and crouched next to the women, injecting them with the anti-venom, before summoning a larger snake and placing them on it. She then tossed me a key.
“Go to my place and get some rest,” she said, before slithering off toward the hospital.
I picked up the key and cried. “Marumi-san… Miyako-san… ”
The Next Day
When I woke up, I was in Anko-san’s bed, having fallen asleep waiting for her to return. The sound of running water on wet skin caught my ears, only to be followed up by the turning of the knob and sliding of the shower curtains. Then out stepped my savior from last night.
“Morning sunshine,” Anko-san said with a smile, while wearing only a towel around her waist after stepping out of the shower. I felt a wave of heat gather in my cheeks and I turned my head from her bared chest.
She chuckled, “Oh come on, it’s not like you don’t have the same thing growing there… you might get even bigger than me in a couple of years…”
“A-anko-san… w-what h-h-happened with t-t-them?” I asked.
She sighed and sat down next to me. “Well, to start with, they did attack you and under mandate they had to be taken care of. After Inoichi confirmed they weren’t lying, the old man sent ANBU to bring the main family member who ordered the hit to Ibiki for interrogation and I went with them.”
Anko-san then smiled quite savagely. “First, I watched as your father’s eyes twitch with anger I hadn’t seen in someone so stoic in ages. My guess is that he had to restrain himself to save face, being a Hyuuga and their leader, y’know… then the bitch resisted and I showed everyone why you don’t screw with me.”
She swung her legs up and down. “As for those two women that attacked you, they were sent to a detention center.”
My heart dropped when I heard they’d still get punished. Anko-san then leapt on top of me and I squeaked. Her pure white skin was laid bare to me, the only marring being the marking on her neck. She stared me in the eyes, intensifying the heat in my face.
“Cheer up,” she whispered. “The story is that they were placed in maximum security awaiting execution, but place is a political prison for people in high places. Their chakra will be sealed, but it’s more of a stay in a fancy hotel room that they can’t leave out of. It was done so that people get the message about touching you.
“Their immediate family will have full visitation rights, as well as anyone they list. The Hokage’s laws must be followed, but he knows how things work and how the branch family is treated, so he did it to protect them. He’ll pardon them for their crimes against you in about two years at your prolonged request. So long as everyone involved keeps their mouth shut, we all win and there was only one body.”
Without thinking, I buried my head into her chest and hugged her. “Thank you, Anko-san!”
“W-whoah, easy there!” she stuttered. “If you want to thank someone, thank both the old man with the big hat and your old man.”
Anko-san freed herself and went over to her jacket to pull out two letters, one from my father and one from Hokage-sama. She handed me them and I decided to open the one from Hokage-sama first:
Hinata Hyuuga,
When your father informed me of your actions yesterday with the council I was shocked. I had thought that you were so reserved, but to be so supportive and protective of Naruto literally bought me to tears. The fact that you know how much he suffered and felt genuine affection for him filled this old heart with warmth and I immediately signed the emancipation and protection contracts, freeing you from any retribution from your clan.
However, just as they circumvented the laws around Naruto, many will do the same to you. Keep your head held high and move forward, and you shall continue to have my support. I will not fail you like I did to protect Naruto.
Your father entrusted me with a fairly large amount of texts on your clan’s techniques and deposited a healthy sum of money into your account for you to live on. I’ve heard about your living situation and will arrange something as soon as possible, but in the meantime Anko has offered her home to you…
Just try not to let her corrupt you too much. We can’t have two of her running around.
I am working on finding the boy and when I do find any trace of him, I shall let you know.
Burn this letter after reading it,
Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Unable to believe what Hokage-sama wrote, I opened the one from my father:
Hinata,
While it pains me that you must suffer, you know how our family operates. I’ll admit that I have not been an adequate father and that, along with our family practices, have driven you away. I was only concerned with training the heiress to lead the family on, and for that I shunned you for your sister.
That was why I made arrangements with the Hokage the night of your outburst, to protect you from enemies like the councilwoman, but there are those that will bend and try to break that law, just like the ones who exposed Naruto’s identity and attacked him. So become strong enough to survive anything.
I’ll admit, even though I knew the boy’s true identity, I let my opinion become stained by others and cannot take back what I’ve said and done.
You are free of the clan’s name now and no longer bound by our limits and traditions. I have sent Hokage-sama instructions for all of our clan techniques should you choose to learn them, but go and do whatever makes you happy.
We will not contact each other again unless absolutely necessary. Do not seek out anymore support from the Hyuuga. Burn this letter after reading it, but know this:
You were, and always will be, my little sunshine,
Your father.
I read them over and over, until I burned them into my memory. And then I handed them to Anko-san and watched her incinerate them, before I broke down crying for the final time.
Anko-san simply held me.
Three Months Later
“Alright, Hinata-san! Your flames of youth are burning brightly,” the young man in the um… interesting, green jumpsuit told me, as I ran behind him at a somewhat slower pace around the training ground.
“Lee-kun,” I huffed out, my chest burning while I pushed onwards. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to be running around after you got hurt on your mission?”
“Gai-sensei told me that as long as I do not do more than a hundred laps around the training ground, he would not be mad,” he turned his head and smirked. “You have improved greatly.”
Lee-kun wasn’t moving nearly as fast as he could, even with his weights on. That is to say, he’s faster than anyone else that’s a genin. Less than three months ago, after Anko-sensei took me in and finished training with me until I was covered in cuts from her kunai for the first time, she said “Your stamina sucks to hell and back,” and licked my blood off it.
After applying my medicinal cream to the wounds, she recommended that I joined Lee-kun and Gai-sensei. Gai-sensei was quite sympathetic once he heard why I was exiled from my clan, and even offered me one of his um… tasteful jumpsuits. I couldn’t turn it down since he was so… youthful… and took it with me to Anko-sensei’s place…
She said she would refuse to feed such a thing to even Manda if she could and burned it.
Anko-sensei was like a big sister who tormented me, but had the best intentions at heart. She complimented me when I did something right and pointed out my mistakes and how to correct them. Her apartment wasn’t really big enough for most of my things, so they stayed in the storage scrolls and I slept with her on the bed, although she turned a lot and said scary things in her sleep.
I hadn’t had contact with anyone in the Hyuuga clan since then. Kurenai-sensei offered to go and talk to them, but I told her it was fine. She did turn a bit pale when I said I was staying with Anko-sensei. I didn’t know that the two of them shared an occasional drink, until Anko-sensei dragged me with her one night. Since I wouldn’t drink, she made me “the person who drags her back home when plastered.”
It was apparently a real position at the bar she frequented.
While intoxicated, she said many things that I don’t think I should have heard or known about. She also mentioned something about conquests and going for Iruka-sensei, but at that point Kurenai-sensei was covering my ears. Then I had to drag her home after she passed out.
“Lee!” another… youthful voice called from above, only for Gai-sensei to drop from the sky like a rock. “It is wonderful that you are sharing your flames of youth with Hinata, but alas we must convene early to discuss certain things with my eternal rival. He has been boastful since his student gained his bloodline ability when they drove off that missing-nin from Kiri… although they mentioned something about the tycoon who they thought hired him being frozen and shattered… ”
“Yes, Gai-sensei! I will…” Lee-kun began one of their discussions on tasks and punishments as I drifted off.
It had been three months since Naruto-kun had left and the Chuunin Exams were coming up in a few more months. Kurenai-sensei said that she wanted us to give it a try to test us and that she’d be proud no matter what. Anko-sensei, on the other hand, threatened me to make it to the finals and make her look good under the threat of spending two weeks in the Forest of Death… again.
“Gai-sensei!”
“Lee!”
“Gai-sensei!”
“Lee!”
I closed my eyes at that point, not willing to see that scene again… I still wasn’t sure how they created that genjutsu. Despite their odd habits they were very nice and skilled people. Under training with Anko-sensei, along with my time with my team, and the morning work outs with Lee-kun and Gai-sensei, I was starting to feel better.
My hair had grown about an inch longer, but it was slightly messy. I had changed my coat to a black colored version, and switched to orange undershirts with a chainmail shirt above it. I wore black pants, with both a kunai and shuriken holster on each leg, a pouch around my waist, and black combat sandals as well. My forehead protector was still around my neck, but with an orange colored band instead of black.
People around the village had begun calling me the “Fallen Princess” of the Hyuuga clan after word of my exile got out. It was somewhat annoying, and some people thought to make fun of me because of it. I followed Anko-sensei’s advice about kunai and near-head shots.
It stopped soon enough.
Anko-sensei also took steps to help with my stuttering.
Flashback
“Okay, for every time I hear you stuttering, I will throw a kunai at you! It doesn’t matter when—the village, the room, the bed if you keep calling for him in your sleep—you will get a kunai flying towards you!”
Flashback End
She wasn’t lying.
I’m pretty sure that my skill in avoiding projectiles was high-chuunin at this point. Anko-sensei and Tenten-san, one of Lee-kun’s teammates, tended to throw a lot of them and rarely missed… she even mentioned begging Hokage-sama to teach her the Shadow Clone jutsu so she could increase the number thrown at once during my training.
Thankfully, he refused… for the moment. I had a feeling she was wearing him down.
Anko-sensei had said that Hyuuga rely on close-combat more than anything, with only one or two mid-ranged techniques. As a result, we would be disadvantaged when fighting enemies who’ve had previous experience with our techniques or relied on long to mid-ranged combat. So she started with teaching me tactics to deal with opponents like that and, since I was no longer was bound by the Hyuuga laws, how to use elemental manipulation and mold fire chakra.
Flashback
“Okay, my little mini-Anko in training, name the five basic elements.”
“Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, and Lightning,” I answered.
“Perfect,” she smirked. “Now, explain what chakra flow is?”
“The use of chakra streaming through an object,” I answered.
“Correct. Lightning chakra can pierce through most objects if focused through chakra flow, but it can also paralyze and mess with things that use electrical energy. Wind chakra is basically use for wind techniques, but using chakra flow it can increase cutting power. Earth chakra can be used to strengthen or alter solid things through chakra flow and other basic earth techniques. My personal favorite is fire chakra though.”
Anko-sensei made a few seals and breathed out a stream of flames. “Fire burns, and if living things gets burned beyond a certain point, they die. Fire chakra is closer to a poison, in that its nature is to consume whatever it touches.”
“What about water chakra?” I asked.
Anko-sensei shook her head. “Water chakra can be used to create or manipulate water, but by changing things on a chemical level, it can create oil or other liquids. But what makes water chakra a pain is that it can dissolve or wash away at other types of chakra. There’s a reason why hunter-nin from Kiri aren’t to be taken lightly, it’s because they’ve mastered techniques designed to do just that.”
“Are you going to teach me how to use fire chakra someday if I have an affinity?” I asked.
“Someday?” she chuckled. “Affinity or not, you will be able to use at least one fire jutsu perfectly for attacking and learn a second one for tactical uses… in three months. Under penalty of a rain of kunai from me… and that girl who likes shiny weapons even more than me… there will be no mercy.”
I shivered at the thought.
Flashback End
Focusing the little fire chakra I could generate at the moment, I released a burst from the tips of my fingers into a practice log. The chakra invaded the log and it slowly began turning black, radiating from the point of the strike, as the fire chakra ate away at the log at the microscopic level. It took five minutes total, but the log collapsed onto itself, leaving only a pile of charcoaled wood.
It works against things without chakra easy enough, but against a shinobi it won’t do much damage before it gets pushed away until I can generate more…
I’ve also mastered the tree climbing and water walking exercises. She had me practice a lot in the Forest of Death, where making a slip up would be painful, on those two alone until I passed out, to increase my chakra reserves and control. She also combined it with trying to hit me with every sharp object she could get her hands on and the occasional non-venomous snake.
By the time the Chuunin Exams come around, I should have a good chance to become a chuunin despite it being my first time. Anko-sensei’s threats aside, I wanted to become stronger so I never had to say I was too weak again…
Chuunin – Exams, Outside the Forest of Death
The time for the second portion of the Chuunin exams was about to begin. I looked over to Anko-sensei, who was giving one of her speeches that terrified the general populace. When Kiba-kun said this portion would be easy, she nicked him with a kunai and licked his blood, promptly terrifying him and Akamaru-kun.
And then that genin from Kusa handed the kunai back to her with an extremely long tongue that reminded me of a snake…
While Kurenai-sensei told my team I was staying with Anko-sensei, I’ve kept most of my progress a secret from even her. I wanted to surprise them, or at least save them for the finals. No longer was I the weak heiress of the Hyuuga clan who was surpassed by her sister.
Instead, I was an apprentice of the woman known as the Snake Mistress of Konoha.
Anko-sensei walked up to me and smiled. “You’d better get there faster than anyone else considering how much you’ve trained here. I was a chuunin at 12 and I expect great things from my apprentice. Make me look good okay, brat?”
I smiled and nodded.
Inside the Forest of Death – Near the Tower
After half a day of waiting to get the proper scroll, Kiba-kun, Shino-kun, and I could finally see the clearing to the tower roughly thirty meters away. It was unfortunate for that other team their leader made some perverted comments and gestures at me. His tenketsu will be closed from my 8 Trigrams 32 Palms for quite some time.
“Heh, I knew this would be easy!” Kiba-kun gloated.
“Only because Hinata-san seems to have an excellent grasp of the terrain,” Shino-kun corrected him and looked over to me. “I take it you’ve been here with your new… roommate?”
I chuckled nervously.
“Man, that lady was scary and she smelled like snakes…” Kiba-kun shivered. “But she was hot! I tell you, if I could room with her I’d—” his puberty-inspired comment was cut off when I threw a kunai in his direction…
Not to hit him of course, but to knock the one that came flying from the clearing ahead off target. I had thought it might have been Anko-sensei, but once we broke through the tree line, we saw Gai-sensei’s team.
My cousin, Neji-nii-san, was standing in front of Tenten-san and Lee-kun. “It has been some time, Hinata-sama,” he emphasized the last part.
“Neji-nii-san,” I stepped forward and activated my bloodline. “You… have both your scrolls already… so why did you throw that kunai?”
A smile that held anything but kindness etched itself across my cousin’s face. “There’s nothing wrong with attacking opponents as long as we’re in the forest.”
“You bastard!” Kiba-kun growled. I placed my arm in front of him to stop him from doing something rash.
“You’ve been waiting here for us to pass for some time now, haven’t you?” Shino-kun said, shifting his shades.
“I must admit, this is most un-youthful,” Lee-kun added.
“We have to enter the tower as a team,” Tenten-san said. “But I’m not attacking them for no reason.”
Neji-nii-san activated his Byakugan, showing that he had every intention of fighting regardless of who stood in his way. I stepped in front of Kiba-kun and tossed my scrolls carefully to Shino-kun.
“Give your scrolls to your teammate,” I told my cousin. “Since you are going to fight no matter what, we’ll keep it between us. No one else interferes.”
Shino-kun and Neji-nii-san both raised an eyebrow at me, while the other three were gasping, followed by each—in different tones and manners of speaking—said that it wasn’t my smartest idea.
“You’ve seemed to have gained some confidence now that you don’t have to live up to the clan standards. It seems I must remind you that Fate has already determined which of us will prevail,” he slipped into a Gentle Fist stance.
Without turning around, I called out to everyone else. “All of you stay behind me at a good distance.” They looked at me oddly, but complied and stayed in the tree branches behind me. I then focused on my opponent.
“Neji-nii-san…” I paused. “No, Neji-san. I am no longer a member of the Hyuuga main branch, neither am I a failure. If you truly wish to face me, then do it with pride as a person and not Fate’s Bitch!”
My use of inappropriate language caught everyone off guard. Anko-sensei told me it was a tactic that was great for getting the drop on people who knew my normal nature. Next, I followed up by imitating her tactic of pulling out eight kunai, a finger in each ring on the pommel and threw them at my cousin.
He weaved through them and closed in on me. I leapt back, blazing through the rat, tiger, dog, ox, rabbit, and tiger seals, before I took a deep breath and tilted my head back. “Fire Style: Phoenix Flower!”
I cupped my hand near my mouth and breathed out eight small fireballs. He stopped his advance after a few smashed into the ground along the path to my cousin, but he didn’t put much effort in dodging the last two. He only looked at me with amused eyes.
“Using such a fire jutsu?” he smirked. “You truly aren’t fit to be a Hyuuga… and your aiming needs work,” he added, noting that I had set a few patches of grass, at points at various distances between us on fire.
I feigned a look of anger on my face and pulled a kunai out of my pouch, throwing it at him. He tilted his head to avoid it as it passed, only then noticing a wire wrapped around the ring at the pommel due to a glint from the sun. I tugged the finger the wire was wrapped around and it jerked back, nicking him on the neck.
“… Is that all?” he smirked again. “You get taken in by a special jounin and the best you could do after getting thrown out of the main branch was miss with a fire jutsu and nick me with a wired-kunai. Failure.”
Kiba-kun yelled something inappropriate at my cousin, but I simply started to make hand signs. “First, Neji-san, the Phoenix Flower jutsu can be moved using chakra control, which I am not incompetent in,” I said, finishing the snake, ram, and monkey hand signs, before stopping on the tiger seal.
“Second, Anko-sensei taught me how to deal with arrogant boys,” I breathed in and exhaled a wave of flammable gas. “Fire Style: Mist Blaze Dance!”
His arrogance dissipated once the realization hit him and the gas met the flames, igniting a scorching wave that would swallow him. I took precautions to ensure he would survive, of course. With his speed, he could easily dive into the moat around the tower, and the flames would be short-lived since I used a different type of gas than what Anko-sensei used.
Instead of running, his eyes squinted in determination.
“8 Trigrams Rotation!” he said, as he spun around and released chakra from all his tenketsu. I knew he was gifted, but this was simply extraordinary since he must’ve reproduced it from sight alone. The rotating shield of chakra interwove with the flames and created a blazing, spiraling sphere that almost entranced me at the center of the wave… which also hit the tower behind him.
… Maybe we should have moved the fight further back. Oops.
Once the flames died down, my cousin stopped spinning and took a step forward… and his knees buckled under him and he hit the dirt. A smile graced my lips. “It’s over.”
“H-how?” he squeezed out. I tugged on the kunai that I nicked him with one more time and caught it to show him. It had a thin layer of purple coating. “Poison?”
“Anko-sensei is a special jounin in the interrogation and torture department. Of course she would teach me how to use poisons. You sped up the poison in your system when you performed Rotation.”
He struggled to get up. “Using poisons now too? You’re a failure to both the main house and the Hyuuga name. You can’t beat me! It is Fate!”
I couldn’t help but sigh and walked up to him, crouching to meet him at eye-level. “Neji-san… you are truly gifted. To have learned Rotation on your own, you must’ve sweated blood and tears. I’ll acknowledge that as a Hyuuga, you are my superior.”
I held the poisoned kunai at his throat. “But right now you are the one who is lying in the dirt. Fate may have stated that Neji Hyuuga of the Branch Family would defeat Hinata Hyuuga of the Main Family… but the woman before you is Hinata the Fallen Princess, proud apprentice of Anko Mitarashi, special jounin and the Snake Mistress of Konoha!”
I stabbed the kunai into the ground next to him. “If you want to be Neji-nii-san then get that through your head. But if you want to be Fate’s Bitch, keep your head on the ground!”
He didn’t mutter a single word after that. Our teams walked up slowly, staring at me like a stranger. I walked up to Tenten-san and gave her a vial of antidote. “Give him this and he’ll be back on his feet in three hours. It was just a paralysis poison.”
I nodded towards the tower and Shino-kun and Kiba-kun followed me there.
“Damn,” Kiba-kun said. “When did you learn all that? That was pretty cool…”
“I concur,” Shino-kun muttered. “It seems you’ve improved a great deal in both ninjutsu and tactics… although your language seems somewhat out of character.”
I smiled and they flinched. Anko-sensei must have been rubbing off on me more than I thought. I was almost tempted to lick Neji-nii-san’s blood off the kunai.
Now, how do I explain the damage to the tower to those ANBU coming out…
Last day at the tower in forest of death
The fifth day passed.
Although I thought I might have been in trouble for scorching the tower, they seemed to simply shrug it off after I said Anko-sensei taught the tactic to me. “She’s done worse when drunk…” one of the ANBU trailed off.
We were quite surprised when we opened the scrolls and Kurenai-sensei was summoned. She was stunned at how fast we arrived, although the Suna team got here even faster. I expected Anko-sensei to be slightly upset about that, but ANBU said she was resting after a minor incident.
Kurenai-sensei was also shocked when Kiba-kun decided to brag about how “Badass” I was and the fight with Neji-nii-san. “I’m going to have to tell Anko to go easy… we don’t need two of her in the village just yet.”
Of all the teams that had entered, only a few remained: Gai-sensei’s team, Kakashi-sensei’s team, Asuma-sensei’s team, the Suna team with the boy who had the gourd on his back, and our team. The teams from Ame, Kusa, Sound, and one of the Suna teams were missing.
“Since there are an adequate number of teams that have passed, we will move into the third stage in one month’s time instead of a preliminary match,” Hokage-sama said, before we randomly drew match ups for the upcoming exam.
A few minutes later, they were displayed on the screen: Sai vs. Shino, Ino vs. Shikamaru, Choujivs. Kiba, Hinata vs. Sakura, Gaara vs. Sasuke, Temari vs. Rock Lee, Tenten vs. Kankuro, and Neji would skip a round.
I looked over to Sakura-san and smiled when she noticed me. Her hair looked as though it was cut during the exams. “Sakura-san?”
“Y-yes…? ” she edged away from me. It seemed like she heard of my short fight. “W-what is it?”
I bowed to her. “I’m sorry for attacking you a few months ago. You were wrong to call Naruto-kun that name, but I shouldn’t have attacked you.”
She blinked a few times. “O… kay?” she chuckled nervously. “It was my fault, no real harm done… ”
“But I’m not going easy on you,” I added, taking small joy in watching her sweat.
2 days after the second exam
“Hey old man,” Anko-sensei addressed Hokage-sama, who just sighed. “You ready to teach me how to do the Shadow Clone jutsu?”
“I told you, I wouldn’t teach you unless I felt it was necessary…” he said, before mumbling something about how much having an army of her would add to his paperwork.
“It would’ve helped when I had to sign all the forms for the damage she did to the tower,” she turned to me and smirked. “Heard you kicked your cousin’s ass. Hope it dislodged the stick stuck in there.”
“Shadow clones for paperwork… “Hokage-sama slapped his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that after all this time!”
Anko-sensei laughed out loud, while I couldn’t help but giggle. I could’ve sworn that I heard someone else chuckle too.
“Leaving aside how much time I spend on paperwork being drastically reduced, I’m assigning you two on a C-ranked escort mission. We’ve found the location of a person of interest and I’m assigning you two to escort someone to retrieve her.”
“Oh?” Anko-sensei bought out a kunai and licked it. “Who are we bringing in for me to play with, and who’s the person we’re escorting?”
Hokage-sama sweat-dropped and chuckled nervously, “The person you are retrieving is Tsunade Senju, one of my students, the legendary Slug Princess, one of the Sannin…and hopefully the next Hokage.”
My eyes uncontrollably went wide, as did Anko-sensei’s. It was reasonable given who we were being assigned to retrieve. Hokage-sama took a deep breath and smiled. “As for who you are escorting, he’s standing behind you.”
We both turned to see an older man with white hair, a forehead protector that read “Oil” and a… unique outfit, step out from the shadows. Hokage-sama smiled. “I want you two to meet Jiraiya the Toad Sage, also one of the Sannin, one of my students, and… Naruto’s godfather.”
We were both paralyzed.
Only the sound of Anko-sensei’s kunai hitting the floor was heard.
Canon Jutsu:
8 Trigrams Rotation – Expels chakra from all tenketsu and the user spins around to gain an absolute defense.
Hidden Shadow Snake Hands – A combination summoning and space-time jutsu that shoots snakes from the user’s sleeves.
Fire Style: Phoenix Flower – Creates small fire balls that can be controlled with chakra, but short range. It can be used to set up the field for her Mist Blaze Technique.
Fire Style: Mist Blaze Dance – Creates a stream of flammable gas in the lungs, which is breathed out. On contact with flames, it ignites.
Fire Style: Great Fireball – Creates a moderate sized fire ball, size changes based on chakra put into it.
Notes:
I’ve pointed out several of Hinata’s flaws and I’m trying to address them so she isn’t a Naruto fangirl nor some weakling. Her world centers around Naruto, which is no better than Sakura’s obsession over Sasuke. If the manga wasn’t starring Naruto as the main character, it would be the seen as just as bad.
The reason I had Anko take care of her was because she has a neutral opinion on the matter, but could sympathize with both of them. She doesn’t hate him and knows how dangerous obsession is. Sasuke goes to Orochimaru because of his obsession with his brother and Orochimaru did horrible things because of his obsession with immortality.
Though I wonder if I’m having Hinata act a little too much Anko…
As for the second exam, they skipped the fight because not enough teams passed to warrant it. Sasuke did get marked and he, and Sai, killed the Sound team in self-defense. Some other things did happen, but like I said, not all of the genin get focus in this story right now, if at all, and this chapter is from Hinata’s point of view, and what she doesn’t know the reader doesn’t know.
And yes, Gato was killed by Haku after Sakura met with him (No, Haku is not a girl in this fic) in the forest while he was gathering herbs and made a side comment that Sai said people like Gato would kill rather than pay. So, Haku spied on him and overheard him saying he would, and the rest is history. Expect to Naruto and Co. to run into Haku and Zabuza after the invasion, and a few other arcs, in Kiri.
Hinata wouldn’t win in a close-range fight with Neji and they knew it. His arrogance caused him to underestimate Hinata like in canon and came back with a vengeance.
Next chapter is Tsunade retrieval arc and the end of Naruto’s training in Suna.
Advent of the Spiraling Ninja: Chapter 2
Chapter 2: The Old Puppeteer
Author’s Notes: Revised as of 1/4/15
Beta: Bluemew22
With the Uzumaki
“Moooom…” Naruto whined.
“We’re tired…” another Naruto said.
“… We’ve been at this all week…” the third Naruto said.
“Again,” Kushina told them.
The Narutos all sighed in defeat and sat down on the ground, closing their eyes and concentrating. Kushina had begun teaching them how to use her Chakra Chain jutsu. It required no hand seals, but it required so much concentration that even with two hundred clones working on learning how to generate the proper amount of yang chakra for the jutsu, it still wasn’t solid enough. He needed to focus on mixing a large amount of his physical energy into a small amount of spiritual energy, without it completely overtaking it.
Once ten minutes passed, they placed their hands on one of Kushina’s affinity testing seals, which she managed to make along the way. She had over five hundred of her multi-purposed, newly christened “Affinity Breakdown Seals” ready for the market, and she finally managed to create chakra chains away from her body.
Once again, you’ve gotta love shadow clones.
The top ten that got the closest to the proper yang chakra composition were then dispelled and the process was repeated, until the original was the only one left. He’d then try on his own, rest for some time, and then repeat the process. This way, he crammed at least a few months’ worth of training in a day.
There were about twenty more clones doing various chakra exercises, including some from the medic-nin book she got. Since medics needed absolute and precise chakra control, those exercises were the best for him to gain better chakra control. In addition, yang chakra was used in healing as well, similar to how yin was used in genjutsu. It had a slightly higher concentration of physical to spiritual, but nowhere near as much used in her chains.
Still, she had about five shadow clones working alongside them since she would probably need to learn medical techniques in case of an emergency. Just because Naruto could heal himself faster now didn’t mean he could heal anyone else.
There were a few more clones working on their katas, but there were less than three hundred clones total in use. Rather than just letting Naruto make nearly a thousand of them, Kushina didn’t want to have Naruto running low on chakra too soon, since converting regular chakra to any element was draining, and because they were still close to enemy territory.
They’d been doing the same thing over and over for the last week as they slowly made their way towards Suna, avoiding the shinobi paths on her map. At this point they were past the Land of Fire and into the Land of Rivers, which was situated right between the Land of Fire and Land of Wind.
Since she didn’t want to risk being discovered by rotten luck, Kushina had applied the seal to herself, turning her eyes a light shade of purple and her hair black, wrapped into a single ponytail. She also altered Naruto’s new one to have black hair and purple eyes as well, so they matched… the first one he made didn’t agree with the fox’s chakra, as she learned when she slightly altered the seal on his stomach to give Naruto a better sense of hearing and smell.
They also had to use different names when in the presence of others, for obvious reasons… neither one of them wanted to put too much effort into it though, so they just settled on “Shina” and “Naru” to get it out of the way.
I wonder if I could get someone in Suna to personally supervise him in using his wind chakra, Kushina thought to herself. Suna’s shinobi population wasn’t all that high, but they had the greatest number of wind users.
The main problem for this portion of their journey was going to find someone to teach them about puppetry. Only shinobi native to the village could learn it, and according to the Unofficial Bingo Book, the only other major puppet master outside the village was Sasori of the Red Sands. If they entered into the village as shinobi without any real reason, they’d be subjected to interrogation.
“Hm?” Kushina eyes narrowed, as memories from one of her clones that were patrolling the area just returned to her. “Naruto, wrap it up. We have guests.”
A short distance away
A well-toned, middle-aged man, dressed in a simple white T-shirt and black pants, with a jacket around his waist, was moving through the forests as fast as he could. He was currently running from three missing-nins from Ame, two males and one female, that were clearly playing with him.
One of the men had only a single eye exposed, the other hidden from sight by his hair, and he had a mask over his mouth and a bandana. The other was muscular, with chin-length gray hair, arm warmers to go with a sleeveless shirt, and a teal mark across his face. The last was a young woman with short light-brown hair, wearing pink tube top that was barely covered up by a light green shirt.
The older man was out of breath when he reached the edge of a river. “Honestly, kids these days acting worse than bandits.”
“Well, you could’ve just given us your gear old man…” the girl said. “Oh well.”
“Chakra Chain: Emergence,” a voice echoed through the forest. A dozen small explosions occurred at the same time around the helpless man, as ghostly, translucent chains erupted from the ground beneath him.
“Chakra Chain: Barrier,” the same mysterious voice said. The twelve chains arched and formed a dome around the man, and the gaps between the chains were filled by a shimmering force.
“The gentleman has a point,” the mysterious voice came from the river this time. Kushina slowly rose from the river using the Hiding in the Water jutsu she learned from one of the scrolls in Uzushio, with her arms crossed and dressed in her combat outfit, with a matching backpack on spaghetti strings. “You three could stand to do better than that.”
A rain of shuriken poured down at the missing-nins, who jumped back at the last second, leaving a good sized spot with shuriken popping up like weeds. Landing in a crouch next to his mother was Naruto, dressed in his combat clothes as well.
“So, time to go from practice to practical application.” Naruto grinned. He only had his mother to spar with up until now and wanted to try what he learned against an enemy.
“Naru, remember these three will actually be trying to kill us. Don’t take them lightly.”
“Yes ma’am!” he said, before flicking his hands and causing shuriken to appear between his fingers. He threw them at the masked one who dodged with ease. “Come at me bro!”
That little—” Kirisame muttered before going after him.
“I feel bad for that kid,” the kunoichi muttered to Kushina. “That guy is a sadist. Your kid is gonna be in pieces.”
“My child can take care of himself…” I hope, she thought secretly. Naruto had yet to face a situation where he’d need to kill or be killed. She wasn’t sure he was mentally prepared for dealing with his first kill, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that in this battle. “Let’s get started.”
With Naruto & Kirisame
Naruto placed the palm of his hand in front of his mouth and inhaled. Releasing trace amounts of wind chakra from his body and merging it with the surroundings, the air he inhaled became concentrated and flowed towards his mouth before stopping at the palm and spinning in place. Once he exhaled the spiraling sphere flew towards the Ame-nin who jumped up and avoided the attack, leaving it to crash into tree that was behind him and leaving a moderate sized crater in the wood.
Naruto inhaled and exhaled rapidly, repeatedly firing the jutsu over and over, only to have the enemy avoid it with ease. It’s not bad offensive-wise for a low-ranked jutsu, but the time between shots is too long and the strength is dependent on the amount inhaled…
Naruto flicked his wrist and sent chakra into the seal on the palm of his right glove. A Kunai popped out and he held it in a reverse grip before charging the man.
“Let’s see what you got kid!” The Ame-nin formed the Rat-Dog-Ox seals and water gathered in his hands. “Water Style: Water Whip!”
He lashed out at the boy, before taking a wide swing that Naruto ducked under. He twisted his hand brought it down, causing the whip to twist and catch the boy’s leg. “Get over here!”
He pulled the whip in and pulled out a kunai, plunging it deep into the boy’s waist. Naruto gasped in pain… before popping in a plume of smoke. “What the hell?”
“It’s called a shadow clone,” the young boy’s voice came from behind him.
Kirisame exposed eye went wide and he pivoted on his rear leg, swinging the whip horizontally. Naruto ducked under it and edged left, swinging his reverse-gripped kunai at an inside arc to graze Kirisame’s shoulder, before placing his foot behind the taller shinobi’s and kicking it from under him.
Kirisame flipped backwards and landed… only to find himself flying. A concussive force of condensed chakra ruptured the moment it hit him. He went head first into the tree and stopped moving.
“My taijutsu isn’t going to be very effective damage-wise until I grow a bit more, but at least the Wind Style: Air Bullet worked.” Naruto smirked and made three shadow clones to haul his unconscious prize back to the others.
With Kushina, Hisame, and Murasame
Unlike Naruto, Kushina was an experienced kunoichi who fought in a war. Seeing that her enemies were getting ready to start making hand seals, she brushed her fingers against the storage seals on the blouse’s sleeves and threw the kunai that appeared in a spread fashion. The goal wasn’t to hit, but to make them move or deflect it.
Kunai were okay for close combat, you could slit the enemy’s throat, slip the blade between their ribs, and all that fun stuff, but the further away the enemy, the lower the effectiveness without using chakra. Both of them dodged, as expected, and Kushina rushed towards Hisame.
“Old hag!” she roared, finishing the seals and creating a water whip.
Kushina dodged the first swing with a slide and aimed to angle the kunai into the girl’s heart from below the breast, only to miss when she twisted. Kushina threw the kunai at Murasame to force him to redirect his water whip long enough for her to grab Hisame by her loose shirt and toss her out of it and directly into Murasame.
Enraged, both of them sent their water whips straight towards her, like poles. They were also standing close enough to be caught up in her next shot.
“Water Style: Spiraling Water Ball!” she said, as she leapt back, following the same pattern as her son, but taking from the condensation in the air and mixing with water chakra. She took a deep breath, aimed towards the pair at a slightly downward angle, and fired the ball of spiral water.
It cut through the whips easily since they were stretched far enough and knocked the duo off their feet on impact. Kushina created four chakra chains from the palm of her hand and shot them out like snakes, making them coil around the pair. She then slammed them into a tree, pulled them in with a single tug, and clothes-lined them both.
They didn’t get back up.
Kushina breathed a sigh of relief once Naruto returned and looked unharmed. “Place him with the others,” she said, before she released the man in her barrier and pulled out the Unofficial Bingo Book from sealing scroll in her backpack.
“They aren’t here, meaning they were new missing-nin…” she mumbled, closing the book and turning to Naruto. “Have any problems?”
“Nah, the guy was cannon fodder at best,” he shrugged.
“Don’t take any battle lightly. Things have a bad habit of going from bad to worse really quickly…” she paused before looking at the man. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” the man said as he stood up and picked up his bag from the ground. “Thanks for the save.”
“We were just in the neighborhood and heard the commotion,” Naruto told him, not bothering to look up as he started looting the unconscious Ame-nins’ supplies. “Ooh, they’ve got cool blank masks and a scroll to do that whip thing… and another one that follows up with lightning!”
Kushina sighed and shook her head. “It was no problem… I’m sorry; I don’t believe we’ve done introductions yet.”
“My name is Gen,” he said, extending his hand for Kushina to shake. “I’m a blacksmith from Takumi.”
Kushina grabbed his hand and shook it politely, noting how hard and callus they were. It was evidence that he worked long and hard towards his profession.
“My name is Shina,” she pointed to Naruto, “and this is my son, Naru. I’ve heard of your village before. It specializes in making customized weapons for shinobi.”
The man sighed. “It used to, but now so many villages have gained some skill in it. We’ve lost a lot of business, so we visit nearby villages and set up shops. What about you? I don’t think I’ve seen that barrier jutsu before and you aren’t wearing a forehead protector… ”
Kushina smiled. “We’re basically mercenary-nin, without a village… hang on for a second, please.”
They both stopped to look at Naruto chuckling, as he had finished stripping the missing-nin of their supplies and wallets. She rolled her eyes and made the Tiger-Ram-Snake-Tiger seals and cried, “Water Style: Froth Prison!”
A stream of light-pink water came from her mouth and collided with the ground around the three. The moment it made contact with the organic matter it began a chemical reaction that formed a good amount of solid foam which strengthened based on the amount of chakra present. “They’ll be like that for a day or so.”
“Mercenaries… would you two be interested in serving as my bodyguards for my trip to Suna?” he asked. “I can’t pay you a lot right now, but I can make you just about any weapon you could want, for both of you!”
Well, that was convenient. Never again will I doubt my son’s dumb luck, Kushina thought. “We’d be glad to—I wanted to try my hand at selling some of my own things there anyway, and I heard they had an open bazaar.”
He chuckled. “It is pretty big, but you can never get any space unless you get there early or reserve a spot. I don’t mind sharing my stand. What will we be selling?”
“Seals,” Kushina tapped her shoulder and released a bit of chakra, causing a shuriken to appear. “These are my special combat storage seals. I made them to hold various items in separate compartments, and respond to the amount of chakra I release when I touch them.”
“Yeah,” Naruto showed him the palm of his gloves. “All I have to do is pulse chakra into mine and BAM! I have something to fight with. Although the frequency and burst of the chakra pulse determines what comes out… ”
Gen whistled and smiled. “I tried to be a shinobi when I was younger, but I dropped out before I became a genin and moved to Takumi. So I can use chakra, but only for using small storage seals and testing the weapons I make that don’t require elemental chakra.”
“Interesting… tell me, have ever considered using a chakra storage seal that…” Kushina and Gen went on about endless possibilities of seals and weapons combined…
Somewhere in Konoha
A girl with buns in her hair was working with her father on blacksmithing, when she stopped mid-swing and looked up with sparkles in her eyes…
“Something wonderful is going to happen, and it involves me and weaponry… ”
Her father just sighed and shrugged.
Several Days Later
It took far longer to get to Suna with Gen in tow, since he couldn’t keep up with the pair at full speed. Before they entered the village’s range, Naruto and Kushina had changed to their civilian clothes and asked Gen to keep quiet that they were fully-capable shinobi since they wanted to keep things on the low for now. Suna and Konoha are allies, and if they drew attention here…
Gen had no problem with it, and it wasn’t too hard to get into the village as civilians. Seal salesmen were expected to have some chakra to make or demonstrate their goods, and they didn’t belong to any village. They kept all their combat clothes and private things in a seal that Kushina kept hidden inside another seal, in case they tried to check for it.
Once Naruto and Kushina got a room, they went sightseeing around the village. The marketing areas were the most active, but the buildings were the same color of brown and looked like they were made of clay. There was that really round building in the center of the town, but other than that…
Their BBQ places were great to eat at and had a surprisingly wide arrangement of foods that were imported. There were a few kids around Naruto’s age, but they were training in Suna’s style and, while Naruto left Konoha and trained with his mother, he didn’t want to take any chances. He just went around with his mother as she checked out various stories and bought things that she could probably use to make a fortune later on.
Later that night, Naruto was snoring in his bed. Watching him sleep peacefully from behind a desk with a small lamp on it was Kushina. She’d always hoped that she would get the chance to watch him grow
He looked so much like Minato. She missed him so much, it wasn’t fair. It felt like she took away his second chance from seeing their son.
But she knew if they kept going, they would get a chance to bring him back. So, to keep their boy safe until then, she needed to get stronger. That was the reason she had three scrolls in front of her.
The first one was Sealing Arts of Yin, written by the Uzumaki Clan. It went into detail about the use of yin chakra and spiritual energy, how it brings illusions and phantasms out and give them shape. The sealing formulas it had inside involved forcefully disturbing the balance of yin and yang chakra.
The second one was Yin Style: Phantasmal Markings, which she got from Kurogane. It uses yin chakra to mark a target’s spiritual energy with symbols or letters that exist but don’t have physical form and couldn’t interact with the physical world.
Yin chakra was an absolute nightmare for her to use, as her chakra was geared towards yang chakra. That was why she never went into genjutsu. While Naruto had abysmal control from having the fox to blame, she had her own chakra quality to blame.
She would need at least a year of practice without shadow clones to mold the necessary yin chakra for phantasmal marking, but with the help of these two arts, she could create a truly demonic technique.
One that she hoped she never had to use.
Two weeks later
If one were to ask how Kushina’s sales were going, they would probably have to wait in line. For about an hour. On a good day.
Her seals were a hit!
Affinity Breakdown Seals, Combat Storage Seals, Security Seals, Privacy Seals—not the new ones she made, but their older versions—they were selling. If she got low on some, she’d have a few shadow clones in hiding make more.
To make matters even better, Kurogane contacted her through their scrolls and had requested more of the seals she made him. When she mentioned the new ones she made, he just said to send them over after he gave her the profits from her last ones.
Now, Kushina wasn’t a greedy person by nature and she didn’t change in the slightest. She put everything else that wasn’t needed for the next two weeks and Naruto’s allowance away. It had to go towards building their village back up again.
If she franchised it… hehehe…
But, extremely profitable dreams aside, she was technically housing a missing-nin and that wouldn’t change until he got support from another village as large as Konoha, but since he was housing the fox, that wouldn’t stop a war from breaking out. It had to be more than a single village…
It was only thanks to their appearance changing seals—she didn’t market those for obvious reasons—that they could live in temporary peace. But Naruto was at least talking to others his age that didn’t hate him because of their parents. The main downside was that the fox’s chakra would destroy the seal if he used any of it besides the healing portion.
Gen was making an equally great amount of profit with his custom weapons. Between his and Kushina’s techniques, the weapons gained some popularity for being able to absorb chakra flow easier and strengthen themselves to prevent chipping and breaking. Most of the blacksmiths couldn’t match those, and Gen and Kushina could sell the templates for a commission.
The two had big plans for even more potent weapons and seals combinations, using elemental seals and such, but Kushina wanted to hold off until they tested them on her and Naruto’s custom weapons, as well a few prototypes. She only bought the sealing scrolls that were geared towards using regular chakra, water chakra, and wind chakra from Uzushio. When Kushina eventually left Suna for Konoha, she would definitely give him a scroll like the one she gave Kurogane.
Having a guy like him in Uzushio would do well for economic growth.
Naruto’s sealing lessons were the only ones they could practice while inside the village. He was moving onto making tracking seals and chakra releasing seal. Tracking was done in two parts or more depending on the seal. Typically one was applied to the target and sent a chakra signal to another seal that had a receiver.
The chakra releasing seals did just that: release chakra. It was a storage seal that handled chakra and as a result could hold jutsu as well if the seal was properly done. Naruto couldn’t make one to hold jutsu on his own, but he could make one to just release pure chakra. If a second layer of sealing formula was applied then you could shape the chakra, otherwise it just burst out, and a third layer added the pressure of force behind the released chakra. Too little pressure was the same as having a light breeze push it out, but too much could change the shape added by the second layer and rupture it.
Kushina demonstrated by taking a decorative kunai she made with Gen. It was shaped more like a normal one, except it was flattened out more and the sides of the blade above the hand were curved into points. The top side of the kunai had one set of seals that activated when she used chakra and fired a blast in the shape of the kunai’s blade. The bottom side seal released a small outward pulse.
Naruto would most likely learn how to do the third layer in half a year and a half without shadow clones. He had the second layer down, but he needed to study some physics and matters related to forces applied to surfaces. Then it was a matter of trial and error.
The next thing on Kushina’s list was to find a puppet maker.
It was through some rumors and basic information gathering that she came to learn of the “Honorable Grandmother” Chiyo, who was the best puppet master in Suna and also the best puppet maker. She also found out what her favorite restaurant was and started to take Naruto there to eat a few times. On their fifth visit in two weeks, she spotted her.
“Excuse me,” Kushina said as she walked up to the elderly woman. “Are you Chiyo-sama?”
“Ah, the girl who sells those popular seals…” the elder said, turning in her seat. “What do you want with an old woman like me?”
“I’ve heard that you were the best puppet maker in Suna,” Kushina bowed. “Can you teach me how to make a certain type of puppet? I am certain that only someone with you experience could do such a thing.”
Kushina kept her head down for what seemed like hours, waiting for a response, until Naruto tapped her on the arm. “I think she just died… ”
“Huh?” Kushina looked up to see he eyes half open and her face lowered and relaxed. Her breathe was nonexistent. “Quick, someone get a medic! I’ll see if I can—”
She was cut off by Chiyo suddenly jumping out of the chair and both she and Naruto jumped back. They both almost went into a combat stand out of shock. Instead they resisted the urge and stood there shaking.
“Hehehe… Just kidding! I’m not dead.” Chiyo chuckled. Given how most people knew her… eccentric habits, they also chuckled. What they didn’t know was that Kushina didn’t like being laughed at.
The pony tail Kushina had tied as part of her disguised appearance began to crackle with eldritch energy and unravel, branching into nine tendrils. Some people would say that the room chilled suddenly, others would say they could see her literally burning with anger. Naruto had his hands full holding her back.
“C-calm d-down m-m-mom…” Naruto stuttered. “You can’t go around doing that to anyone that angers you… ”
The old woman just continued to chuckle. “You amuse me,” she turned around. “Unfortunately, I’m no longer an active puppet master or maker, nor do I take students….”
She walked away from Kushina and out the door. “You’re simply out of luck dear.”
“Tough break lady,” some random guy said. “Chiyo-baa-sama doesn’t really do anything these days for anyone.”
“What’ll we do?” Naruto asked quietly. “We can’t just give up.”
Kushina closed her eyes and smiled, she wouldn’t give up that easily. “Of course not, Nar—” she was cut off by the sound of explosives coming from down the street, followed by screams. The clacking of wood came was the only thing that stood out.
“Naru, stay inside here!” she said, before running outside to see about five Suna ANBU fighting shinobi with Suna forehead protectors and their puppets. Chiyo’s body was lying on the ground, unmoving. When one of the civilians was running past her, Kushina grabbed the woman’s wrists and asked what happened.
“Some members of the Puppet Brigade attacked Chiyo-baa-sama, after telling her to hand over some scrolls! She refused and suddenly there was a puppet attacking from under the ground! She stopped it with her strings but the arm shot off and stole her scrolls! After that more guys and puppets came and the fighting started to escalate—!”
“WHERE’S MY CHILD!” another woman screamed.
Kushina was starting to get worried, and tried to think of a way to help. She could pass herself off as a mercenary shinobi, but it would cause them to doubt her since she was supposed to be a civilian. Plus, the air was so dry that the amount of condensation to use an effective spiraling water ball would take too long, and jumping into the fight all of a sudden could get her targeted by ANBU by mistake.
“BOOM!” a loud crash came from an alley, and Kushina recognized her son’s chakra by heart despite not being a sensor-nin, since it was currently flowing through her body. She took off to go get her son and missed the Chiyo laying on the ground becoming a pile of sand and scattering in the wind.
With Naruto
Naruto wanted to see what was going on, despite his mother’s warning, so he watched from the back entrance of the restaurant they were in. It was then that he saw a man with a little girl in his arms, running around a corner. His ears twitched once his enhanced hearing heard the little girl sobbing silently for someone to help her, before being knocked out and another voice said something about the old lady’s scrolls.
The guy had grabbed a little girl during the commotion to use as a hostage, after his partner’s puppets grabbed the scrolls. Chiyo had some impressive techniques, and for her not to teach them how to make or use those ten special puppets of hers was as good as treason to them. He and his partners knew they couldn’t return and that they’d become missing-nin, but they figured they could aid Suna from the shadows instead, and if taking a hostage was necessary, then so be it.
Suna placed the importance of missions above all else, and the ones caught up in the fighting knew that they had to by some time for him to get away. If they died, then they knew they did what was for the best. The mission came before their lives, and this was their mission.
Naruto chased after the man. He was afraid that if he went to get help, the man could escape or use the child as a hostage…plus he felt confident that he could take the man down after he handled the missing-nin from Ame with moderate ease. But brute force was out of the question, it had to be a sneak attack.
He made three shadow clones and transformed two into rocks and the last into a wooden stick, running behind the man and into the alley. “Wait right there, you bastard!”
The shinobi looked back at Naruto, who threw both the rocks past his head. The man sighed, pocketing the two stolen scrolls and pulling out a storage one with a new puppet. The puppet clacked and its chest popped open to reveal dozens of poison dipped spikes before charging at him.
Naruto threw the wooden stick over the puppet, flying straight towards the shinobi. The man shook his head. The child thought he could stop him with a few rocks and a stick.
Too bad kid, if you just ignored me th—his thoughts were cut off in an instant, as the wooden stick the thought he dodged became a clone… and smashed his face in with his knee. He thought it was simple stick that he could avoid and didn’t even consider using a substitution. Before he could get his puppet in finish the boy off, a voice came from behind him, and a spike in chakra.
“WIND STYLE: AIR BULLET!” a second clone called out before firing condensed chakra bullet at the puppet. The real Naruto jumped into the air and braced himself, right before the attack landed.
The alley way was hit hard and dust flew into the air once the condensed chakra ruptured and exploded out with enough concussive force to slam Naruto into a pile of rubble that was once a dead end wall. The clone used a good potion its chakra for the attack since Naruto wasn’t sure how durable the puppet was, and it had dissipated once it was hit by the backlash. The puppet was just splinters and scrap steel.
The child and Chiyo’s scrolls had been spared by the attack thanks to Naruto’s planning. In that instant the man looked up at him, the second rock became the third clone and grabbed the child, while his first clone grabbed the scrolls and both ran past the second clone and out the alley, not seeing the figure standing on the rooftops watching.
Naruto chuckled in delight for pulling off such a well-executed plan enough to fool the man.
“You little brat!” the shinobi screamed, jumping out of the dust cloud with a tanto in his hands. He had every intention of ending Naruto’s life. The boy had to move… he couldn’t.
Naruto looked down to register what happened to his body as time slowed down. The shrapnel from the debris had embedded itself into his stomach and legs, cutting open his shirt, and pierced deeply enough cause moderate bleeding, but it hadn’t cut into a major blood vessel. The healing chakra from the fox could heal it in less than five minutes… he didn’t have five seconds.
Don’t freeze up, he tried to tell himself, as the tanto began its descent.
Move or you’ll die, he couldn’t concentrate like this. He couldn’t use substitution like this!
Mov—Splat.
The sound of flesh being pierced rang in the boy’s ears, and the smell of iron from blood and steel colliding overpowered his nose. Blood fell over his forehead and slowly oozed its way down into the open space of his gaping mouth. He laid there shivering…
As the man’s empty eyes met his own.
“That was a close one,” an old voice reached his ears.
Naruto was in shock, so he didn’t notice the chakra strings attached to dead man’s hands. With a quick tug from the puppet master, the man who manipulated a puppet seconds ago, became a puppet that slid the tanto between his ribcage and into his heart.
The one pulling the strings was none other than Chiyo herself.
The world began to tunnel and the sight of those empty eyes would forever be engraved on the boy mind. The last thing Naruto heard before he passed out was his mother’s voice.
Minutes Later
“Do you have any privacy seals, dear?” Chiyo asked Kushina.
Kushina nodded and pulled out a complicated, customized sealing array, far beyond what she normally sold. It had a formula for disturbing sound waves by distorting the air it traveled through, while releasing alternating frequencies of chakra to disrupt the use of any sight-based technique like the Byakugan. If any outside chakra came into contact with the seal’s chakra, it would alter them immediately.
It took Kushina over a month of studying and trial and error at Uzushio to learn how to make the seal properly, setting aside several shadow clones to speed up the process.
Chiyo planted the seal on the wall and pulsed chakra into it. “That’s better. You truly are gifted child… this seal is a step above my own.”
Kushina didn’t pay the compliment any mind. She just had to get her baby clean and take care of him and… and…
“You can lay him down on the couch—the blood was my fault anyway,” the old lady said nonchalantly. “I’ll fetch the basin, some washcloths, towels…” she trailed off.
Kushina laid Naruto on the couch, and took off his torn and bloodstained shirt. The shrapnel was ejected the moment the healing kicked in, and there were no visible marks anymore, so it was probably just the shock of it all that made him faint.
Right…?
“I told the guards that I would heal the boy and give a full statement about what happened before I dismissed them,” the old woman said, as she bought the material using her chakra strings. “When they wouldn’t leave, I showed them how versatile my strings were and reminded them I still had some power over the council. Your son will not be bothered for the remainder of your stay.”
“You have my gratitude, Chiyo-sama.” Kushina said, as she bowed politely.
“You can drop the honorifics dear. I’m too old to care,” she chuckled, before calming down and speaking in a more sincere voice. “Was it his first time… seeing someone die like that?”
Kushina nodded and ran her fingers through his hair as tenderly as she could. “He’ll be fine… all of us go through it at some point in our careers. But… for it to happen to my little boy… ”
“Indeed… it was probably better that he go through it now than on the battlefield… same for you. Our careers tend to lead to short life spans,” she said, not adding … with a few exceptions of course.
Kushina dipped the rag in the water basin and twisted it, slowly wiping the blood away from her child with tears in her eyes.
“I admired his courage, but if I was a second slower, your child would not have survived. Why did your son go so far to save a child he didn’t know? He is not one of us.”
Kushina shook her head and kept wiping away at her son. She had finally cleaned his beautiful sleeping face. “We may be strangers, but Naruto couldn’t just stand by and let that happen.”
In Chiyo’s hands were the scrolls that Naruto retrieved from the thief. As she watched from the rooftop, she saw his mother quickly grab the child and the scrolls before the two clones dispelled themselves before they drew any attention. Kushina tossed the scrolls to her and grabbed her son, getting ready to flee before she told them she would handle the fallout. She told ANBU that the child chased the man foolishly and was about to be attacked by a puppet when she interfered.
She figured they were probably missing-nin who wanted to settle down without worrying about anyone trying to hunt them. Truthfully, she would’ve been content with losing the scrolls since they no longer held importance to her at this point in her life, but in the wrong hands…”These scrolls contain years of my studies and notes, as well as my greatest ten puppets. You would have probably benefited more from them than trying to learn only basics from me.”
“We wouldn’t go that far,” Kushina said softly. “Neither one of us would forgive ourselves if we stole something important from someone who didn’t wrong us.”
“… Tell me about the boy there,” Chiyo pointed towards the sleeping Naruto. “I saw the seal on his stomach when he was healing himself, and I know that much chakra isn’t normally possible for one so young… I’ve seen his kind before.”
“Will I have your word that this will stay between us?” Kushina asked. Chiyo nodded her head. “My son was made a Jinchuuriki when he was born, as a last resort. We hoped that he would be seen as a hero, we didn’t want to think the worse possible solution… That he’d be persecuted because of it and suffer because of it.”
“I take it that both of you are using some form of disguises and alias right now?” Kushina nodded her head. “Good, the less I know the better. Tell me why you sought me out.”
Kushina finished wiping her boy clean and put on the spare shirt Chiyo bought, before she showed the scroll detailing the puppet she needed made. To be blunt, it was very similar to making puppet out of humans in some aspects. But while human puppets were just shells that could borrow the skills they had in life, this actually used someone’s chakra to shape the doll and store their consciousness inside of it.
You could theoretically raise the dead with it. The materials weren’t just easily available, but it was still possible to gather them with enough finances. The biggest problem was that the sealing arrays needed for it were so finesse and delicate, if you made one mistake in placing the seals, it would be ruined for good. There was only one village that had such proficiency…
“It is things like this that got your village targeted in the first place,” Chiyo chuckled, but there was no malice or ill-intent in her words. “There are many people who would commit the greatest of sins to get their hands on this, including the foolish Kazekage. Lucky for you, I’m not one of them.”
She handed the scroll back to Kushina. “Only show it to those you can trust, and never those with ambition or suffering from the pain of losing someone they cared about. Otherwise you’ll run the risk of repeating history.”
Kushina only nodded silently, rubbing her sweet son’s face.
“I will get you the materials that I can, but it may take years to do it subtly enough to not draw attention. Despite not officially taking on students anymore, I know of both a private place where you can train and a young girl who would be helpful towards teaching the boy how to use his wind chakra, and I’ll teach you the basics of puppetry myself,” she paused as Kushina looked up in shock, “on one condition, of course.”
“If it is within my ability, I’ll do so.” Kushina replied.
Chiyo put a sad smile on her face. “I have long since withdrawn from my village’s affairs after I was forced to do something I regret to this day.” She flicked her wrists and chakra strings flew out and attached themselves to the dirty washcloths, basin, Naruto’s old shirt, and the towels.
“That man should never have been made Kazekage,” she shook her head in disappointment. “Instead of allowing the raccoon dog to remain sealed away in the kettle, he did the one thing no parent should have done to such a small child for only creating a weapon… ”
Chiyo looked at Naruto with sad eyes, as if recalling a past memory. It was then Kushina realized what happened. “He used his newborn child?”
“It wasn’t surprising really… most of the tailed-beasts are sealed inside those who they feel would be most loyal to the village. If they are lucky, they only face discrimination from the shadows. But that man… he actively encouraged people to fear the boy, even going so far as to have the only person who outright loved the boy drive him to the very edge.”
Chiyo shed a single tear. “He was completely broken after that…”
Kushina was absolutely livid. She couldn’t be there for Naruto when he was suffering, to hold him tightly and tell him everything would be alright. She would regret that for the rest of her second life.
“Having proficiency in sealing is a necessary skill in making puppets from scratch,” Chiyo sighed. “I was the best at making puppets. But what that foolish man failed to realize was that people weren’t puppets… they were much more fragile.”
Chiyo just stood there in silence; her eyes were as still as empty pools of sorrow. Kages have to make decisions for the good of the village. But if that were the case, she could probably understand.
“I lost my faith in the village after seeing what I had done,” Chiyo finally continued. “Since then, that man has made one foolish decision after another, from antagonizing the Daimyo to meeting with that man from Oto.”
Chiyo flicked her wrist and strings flew out. She had a scroll in her hands in the next second. “These are the details of the seal I used on the boy,” she muttered, as she handed the scroll to Kushina.
“Though my pride would never call for me to rely on another person, I know I am at my limit. My only request is that you help me fix the seal on the child, so he no longer suffers and can sleep again at night.”
Kushina looked over the details of the seal and then looked back at the woman. “How long do we have?”
Chiyo smiled. “Two months, at the last portion of the Chuunin Exams.”
Kushina looked at her son’s peaceful sleeping face, as if he could tell the blood had been wiped clean. Even though he would probably have nightmare about that scene, or when he takes his first life in battle, every child should be able to sleep in peace.
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
Canon Jutsu:
Wind Style: Spiraling Wind Ball – Gathers wind chakra laced air and spins it, before shooting it. The power varies on how long the user inhales.
Wind Style: Air Bullet – Condenses wind chakra and fires it in ball shaped bursts, the explosive force is determined by the amount of chakra condensed.
Non-canon Jutsu:
Water Style: Spiraling Water Ball – Gathers water chakra laced condensation from the air and spins it, before shooting it. The power varies on how long the user inhales.
Water Style: Froth Prison – Sprays water onto the ground and begins a chemical reaction that creates foam, it solidifies based on the amount of chakra used.
Chakra Chain: Emergence – Allows Kushina to generate chakra chains away from her body.
Notes:
And so, it begins…
I tried to get across what a parent would go through had their child gone through the ringer. The world of Naruto is awesome and all…but technically, they are child soldiers at that age, and Kushina only met her son for a few minutes…twelve years and four months ago.
Advent of the Spiraling Ninja: Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Training in the Land of Whirlpools
Author’s Notes: Revised as of 1/2/15
Beta: Bluemew22
At the Land of Whirlpools
It had been only four months since Naruto reached the Land of Whirlpools and the fallen village of Uzushio. Using a special puppet, he pulled out his mother’s chakra and she was given a physical vessel to inhabit. There were a couple of conditions, such as Naruto having to transfer his own chakra into a seal on her stomach whenever she ran low, otherwise she would vanish, but it was worth it.
“Alright kids, we’re going to get started with the daily routine. Remember, those who complete their training or get the furthest every hour or so should dispel themselves before we start again so the experience goes to each of you.”
“Yes ma’am,” about a thousand or so voices responded back. She smirked upon seeing her sons beginning their training.
When Naruto was asked to demonstrate what he had learned in the Academy, he showed her. She prompt told him that she was going to introduce those instructors to her fist and then the floor. They had sabotaged the boy academically in more ways than one.
His taijutsu needed a lot of work, his chakra control was shot, and the boy wasn’t too bright knowledge-wise. Kushina wasn’t a Nara, but she at least knew enough about history and the world. Not to mention her taijutsu was formidable.
Thank the Sage of Six Paths for shadow clones. The experience sharing trait was a blessing.
For the first month, Naruto would make several hundred shadow clones a day, increasing the amount every week. He started out with about five hundred clones and as his chakra reserves and control increased with training, he could make more.
Next, the clones would be split into groups.
A few dozen clones would be sent to scour the entire island for food. Even though they had some emergency rations, a shinobi must be able to fend for themselves in the wilderness. A few would hunt for small animals or birds that dotted the island, while others would start fishing with their home made rods.
One group consisting of ten clones would stay in the underground shelter to read up on various subjects. Given his short attention span, that was a punishment worse than death and they complained… until her hair split into nine sections and chains started popping out of her body.
At times like this she wished she knew more about seals that affected the brain.
In the scrolls she found, there were instructions to make mental focusing easier by placing a temporary seal on the clones that would focus their attention on the subject matters at hand. It used chakra to activate the part of the brain that registers when something is pleasurable and fun. She didn’t know enough about human psychology or anatomy to risk doing that to anyone, let alone her son.
Next, they had about three groups of clones each working on various training exercises. The first group would do the wall climbing exercise on the tallest standing pillars left in the ruins. The second group would do the water walking exercise on the river. The third group would focus on chakra control exercise that Kushina called “Spiraling Tower”.
She basically had them pick blades of grass and balanced them on one finger, before adding another blade on top that one. Naruto would then spin the blades of grass without either one falling off using chakra. At first he only had to spin them, but then he needed to make them spin at the same speed, and then have them spin in different directions at the same time.
Another group of three clones would work on training Naruto in using his Transformation and Substitution jutsu. He needed to learn to alter his weight and mass with each transformation, so he could start using it in conjunction with his clones by transforming them into things like rocks or weapons. He also needed to speed up his substitution… so she used him for a lot of target practice.
The remaining clones would be used to practice memorizing the katas from a form of taijutsu native to their clan, based around circular movements to dodge, block, and strike. The clones gained muscle memory of the forms and then the original and Kushina would spar. She wouldn’t hold back either.
He was covered in bruises every time.
Kushina had also tweaked Naruto’s seal, since she and Minato were in a rush and cut off some of the necessary functions of the seal.
The seal was formatted with an updated filtration system to clean the chakra more efficiently, and deal with the poisonous effects. She also rigged him with a stronger healing factor by compartmentalizing a section of the fox’s yang chakra to be used only for healing him. He didn’t need to tap into the raw power of the fox anymore to heal quickly.
The fox was whining about how she was essentially cutting a piece of it off and purifying it, but she shut it up by changing the sewer-like prison to a more open, natural space. It didn’t appreciate having a few of her chains as a leash though. She didn’t really like the natural disaster, but it did save Naruto’s life in the village and they both wanted the masked man dead.
Kushina also trained in mastering as many of her clan’s techniques as she could. Her chakra was keeping her anchored to the doll, so she could never go below a certain amount or she’d vanish for good. However, this was easy enough to get around, as Kushina could slowly convert Naruto’s lingering chakra into her own. She simply compartmentalized the chakra into regular use, emergency use, and life support.
As a backup, she created seals to hold chakra in any item she wanted and could therefore store any chakra that she didn’t use before Naruto refilled her reserves. The puppet body looked and worked like a human’s, so it could only hold so much. This way she could refill her reserves on the run or leave a few behind in case something happened.
She could also make a few shadow clones, which she used to study and train along with Naruto. She wasn’t really too good at ninjutsu and this gave her a chance to study up on some techniques. If Naruto continued this level of training, he would truly shine.
She was so proud of how he could grasp some semi-complicated seals now.
Flashback
“Naruto, I want you to look at this seal and tell me what it does.” Kushina said, as she handed him a square sheet of paper. It had several circles on it, connected by lines to various symbols, which were isolated by enclosed markings. The borders of the paper had countless line of sealing formula, serving as the base of the seal, to break down the chakra it is imbued with.
He examined it for a good ten minutes before speaking. “It has the basic elements on it, along with several bloodline elements, and… I’m not sure which these two are, but it determines the user’s element by sealing it inside the seal and then dividing it into properties… I think?”
Kushina smiled at him. “The two you didn’t recognize are yin and yang elements, the balance of physical and spirit energy. Still you managed to understand it in less than an hour, very good Naruto. Now, tell me what you can do with this seal?”
Naruto scratched his head and scrunched up his face in thought. “Umm, well you could test for someone’s element with it, but there’s chakra paper for that… I’ve got nothing.”
“First, this seal can be used to identify if you have an element-based bloodline or your affinity. It’s better to use chakra paper as the base for the seal, and then use the proper sequence of code to create a formula to break down the chakra and sort it into the individual elements alone. The other reason is because it can serve as a lock that can only be opened by a certain combination of chakra that belongs to the user. Now, tell me what else I can use it for.”
“Uh,” Naruto rubbed his head. “Chakra-based Traps… and Tracking Seals?”
“Yep. Seal someone’s chakra inside it and use it in conjunction with a tracking array, or set it to activate on touch and sample the chakra of the person who touched it. If they match, BOOM!” she said, while placing her finger on the symbol in the center of the seal a pouring her chakra into it.
From the center, a shimmering blue line traveled along a path to the symbol of water. “So, you have a water affinity?” Naruto asked.
“I wasn’t really good at ninjutsu so I never really developed it. But while I do have an affinity for water, I usually use my chakra chains by manipulating yang chakra on a higher level than most people since my chakra has a special quality geared towards it.”
She then took her finger off the paper and had Naruto place his on it. He had a wind affinity.
“How about we both work on elemental training together?” she asked him with a smile that would melt the hearts of most men. Naruto nodded enthusiastically.
Back to the Present
Kushina wanted to start Naruto on learning her Chakra Chain jutsu, which used shape manipulation and yang chakra. She would divide the concentration of spiritual and physical energy that made up chakra into a large amount of yang chakra, which gave the chains a physical presence. The form would be kept in place by shape manipulation. It was like setting the mold, the pouring in the liquid steel, and then cooling it down to a solid mass, all at once.
Anyway, since the underground shelter had scrolls on element manipulation, they both decided to start training in it during the second month. They both started by working on cutting and soaking small sheets of scroll paper they found, and then planned to move up to using elemental chakra flow on things like weapons.
Kushina also found an interesting application of water chakra through her study of the scrolls, in contrast to Naruto’s wind chakra.
By the middle of the third month, they both could quickly cut and soak an object in about two seconds through pure chakra flow alone. They could dedicate more time towards it later, maybe even getting a second element in practice. But first they wanted to practice some water style and wind style jutsu.
Naruto had gained a bit of muscle on his body after all the training. His clothing had changed, given he lost his previous clothes to throw ANBU off his tail. He wore some simple, dark shinobi pants, a shirt, and combat sandals that they found in the storage room. He complained, but Kushina simply said she was in the same boat until they found a tailor.
She had also gotten back into shape within these four months, losing her excess weight from the time she sealed her chakra into Naruto’s seal, and was now back to being a fit kunoichi. Naruto had once made a comment regarding her weight. He wasn’t very well versed in common sense either at that point.
One training session later, he swore never to question women when it came to bodily matters, and the fox was laughing his nine tails off.
Despite their relentless training, the pair would take a day off every week to start cleaning up the village as best they could. That included burying any skeletons they came across. Kushina cried more than once in the process, given that her clan was fairly big and she occasionally found child-sized remains. They would also inspect the buildings to see if anything that could be used was left behind. They found some slightly used kunai and shuriken, chakra paper, and other trinkets.
These four months were the best of Naruto’s life, and Kushina was happy as well with helping to groom her son to be a respectable shinobi.
That Night
“Huh?” Naruto said, his jaw dropped from his mother’s last statement.
“My chakra wasn’t the only one sealed inside. Your father’s is inside you as well. He left a portion his chakra inside, as well as dealing with the yin chakra of the fox.”
“A pointless endeavor,” the fox said inside Naruto’s head. “My chakra will reform in time. There’s no way to kill our kind short of Yin-Yang release or merging us into our original form. And that would be far worse for this world… ”
“Then, if we use another puppet…” Naruto started before she shook her head.
“Unfortunately, there was only one. To make the puppet you used we’ll need materials from Suna and Konoha, as well as contacting someone skilled at make puppets, human anatomy, and some other stuff. Plus, I’ll need to study sealing jutsu a lot more before we can even try and summon Minato. The person who made this one was an even better seal master than most special-jounin, in a village that specialized in sealing.”
Looking at her saddened son, she sighed and then told him, “We’ll head out tomorrow to start gathering the materials and knowledge we need.”
“I thought we were leaving after a year?” Naruto asked, before taking a bite out of the grilled fish.
“I originally planned to, but we need supplies and you need to interact with more people than just your mother. It might give you a complex. But to be honest, between our shadow clones, your training is advancing smoothly and we can train on the road.”
“How are we gonna get there? I’m kinda a missing-nin, remember?”
“Since we shouldn’t be seen entering from the port, we’ll make a raft to get us near the mainland and then walk on the surface of the water to go the rest of the way. On the way back, hopefully we’ll have enough money to buy a small boat. As for your appearance, using a transformation won’t be good enough, but that’s what seals are for. I’ll have you make an appearance changing seal as a final exam.”
“What specifications?” Naruto sighed.
“One that can change your hair color and your eye color will do for now. Although when we get to Konoha, we’ll upgrade it to hide your whisker marks and your chakra signature, in case we run into any Hyuuga. While we’re on the subject, what are the key factors on changing your face, eyes and hair?”
“Alter the melanin for the iris pigmentation… thing for the eyes, the two types of melanin in the hair follicles for hair, and the stratum corn… thingy for epidermis of the face. Set the seal to use chakra to release minute amounts geared towards the altercations without producing too much or too little, and making sure it is evenly distributed.”
“Hm… close enough, but get the terminology right in case we run across some place to sell our spare seals. I want us to make enough money and connections so we can start planning towards rebuilding the village.”
“… Mom?” Naruto said silently. “Will the two us alone really be able to completely rebuild everything?”
“No, Naruto,” she shook her head, “we can’t do it alone. Getting recognized as a village will be nearly impossible in such a short time, which is why we need to make connections in high places and among the common people. Our village was destroyed because it was attacked by multiple villages that feared our seals, and Konoha was fighting its own war.”
“We’ll need shinobi to defend our home, an economy to finance our growth, demolishing the rest of the rubble and rebuilding the village… Naruto, to be blunt we’re going to have a long road ahead of us.”
“Ahh, all of this making my head hurt,” the boy cried.
“It’s not too bad. It would be best if we started selling things we find, and our seals, in a village. Maybe Suna or Kiri would be best, and then there are a bunch of smaller villages. Then we hire someone to come out here and demolish the old ruins and build up a few places for living in, although we’ll have to keep quiet about it. After that, maybe we could train a few shinobi who are missing-nin, but not wanted for anything like needless murder and let them come here… but then there’s the risk of them betraying us… ”
Kushina went on and on about her plan, and it was well thought out. But in the end, it would take too long going alone and they’d have to travel between the mainland and the island a lot of times…
But that was fine with Naruto. Traveling with someone you cared about beat the hell out of a village full of people that loathe you.
The Next Day
Naruto and Kushina had left the remains of the village. After Kushina revealed her village had a method of temporarily halting some of the whirlpools protecting the island naturally, they both just started running across the ocean since it would take too long by raft.
Even with the chakra they had, it was impossible to accomplish in only a single sprint. So they pulled the raft out of a storage scroll when they got tired and slept on it for a few hours. When they woke up, they’d eat some of their rations before Naruto refilled his mother’s chakra supply, and then they went right back to running.
They made land fall about a mile from the port soon enough.
Naruto had applied his appearance changing seal to give himself red hair and green eyes, and they both hid their Uzushio forehead protectors. They needed to mask themselves as civilian for now. Any bandit that was dumb enough to attack them was dumb enough to pay for it.
They rented a room at a hotel and rested until morning. Kushina went to the port bazaar, since it would be a great place to stock up on supplies and sell some of the things they didn’t need in the long run. Naruto was just happy he could finally eat some ramen and took off toward the nearest stand. It wasn’t as good as Ichiraku’s, but it had been so long…
“Welcome…” a man with shady glasses that could rival an Aburame’s said, as Kushina entered into a rundown building. He had things on display that weren’t present in normal stores or stands. She was sure enough that this guy was dealing in black market goods.
“Hello,” she said politely. “I won’t waste your time, so I’ll just ask. I’m looking to get rid of a few things and obtain a copy of the Unofficial Bingo Book.”
He pulled out a slip of paper with a bunch of seals on it. “Touch this seal and don’t use any chakra. If you lie or use chakra, this seal will kill you. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He looked her up and down, watching her posture, foot position, breathing pattern, basically any sign she was ANBU from a village after his head. “Are you a kunoichi?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I am sealing expert who is not affiliated with any major hidden villages.”
“Hm… your posture carries a little of Konoha, but not in the style of their major clans or recent graduates.”
“I haven’t been in Konoha in over a decade,” she responded calmly. “You won’t find me in the Bingo Book because they believe I’m dead.”
The man continued on asking several questions to trip her into lying, but she didn’t tell him anything that wasn’t at least partly true. He finally relented after their deadly game of twenty questions. “… Show me what you want to pitch, but if you make any sudden movements… ”
“Yeah, yeah. By the way, the seals in your shop need a lot of work. I might be willing to make new ones for you, if you’re interested.”
The man arched an eyebrow. “… Go on.”
Twenty-minutes later, Kushina walked out of the shady store with her hands on the Unofficial Bingo Book, suited for bounty hunters who didn’t mind going someplace else other than a village to get rid of their bounties… or assassination targets. To be honest, she just wanted to see if there were any missing-nin that she could convert to help them, low bounties wanted for just running away or a minor crime.
She really wasn’t happy when she saw her son in the Bingo Book as a C-rank target. Consider how the council had some power behind them and he was a genin, she realized that Sarutobi had no choice if the council kept pressing him. At least it was a low rank and capture-only order.
She also got rid of some of the things she took from the shelter to barter with. She needed the cash, and she didn’t want to sell to a normal merchant since there was a chance of having it traced back to the dead village. She couldn’t draw attention just yet, and the one thing about the black market you can count on is the difficulty of tracing anything sold there.
The man in the shop, who only identified himself as Kurogane, was well informed when it came to his wares. He tried to test her again by offering her things that were low quality or would interest an ANBU, since he knew the last test wasn’t fool-proof. After that secondary test was finished, they began their business transactions.
She bought a map that had the secret routes used by shinobi of various villages, including the big five, a book for medic-nin chakra control from Konoha, several scrolls on wind style and water style ninjutsu, and even a few on specialty ninjutsu done using yin and yang chakra. All of these were top-grade goods that should never leave certain clans or villages. Kushina would later add seals to make sure they weren’t stolen from her or read by a third party without their permission.
Needless to say, Kurogane didn’t say how he “acquired” these goods, and Kushina didn’t ask, although she made a mental note to thank Jiraiya on teaching her some of the more subtle and darker aspects of the shinobi world. He was a master spy after all. It still wouldn’t stop her from kicking his ass for not watching over Naruto though.
Somewhere in the Land of Fire
Jiraiya was talking with one of his contacts when a sudden feeling of dread washed over him.
“… Why do feel like I’m going to get my ass kicked in a few months?” he said while shaking uncontrollably.
Back to Kushina
Anyway, she gave him an upgraded version of his testing seal.
Unlike the previous version that sent a backlash if chakra was stored in it and had a basic diagnostic jutsu woven in to monitor the sign of stress from lying, her version included her seal that was used to test their affinities. It broke down chakra into elements and recorded signatures, so that if someone came in after using a transformation based on a client that left, or a genjutsu to control others, they wouldn’t get by him due to the high traces on yin chakra found in those particular jutsus.
Then she updated his storage seals, and security seals. Kurogane was pleased with the work and offered her a fair amount for her goods and a few extra seals to sell. Before she was getting ready to leave, there was still a question he wanted to ask…
“… You’re an Uzumaki aren’t you? I’ve had a few customers over the years with the same hair color and sealing proficiency… although yours is impressive even by their standards at the time.”
She turned to face him. “Yes, I am… I have been looking for members of my clan. Could we make another arrangement?”
He nodded. “Let me guess, contact you if I meet with any and set up a connection?”
She pulled out a scroll and gave it to him. “This is a scroll with seals embedded inside it. Anything written on here and then has chakra applied to it will appear in the scroll I’m carrying. It can also share items through a combination of a summoning and storage seals.”
Kurogane took the scroll. “I hope you don’t mind if I use this to contact you with more…business offers in the future. I move around a lot and I have a feeling that your products will be much… desired.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” she chuckled. “Until the next time, Kurogane-san.”
“Indeed… what should I refer to you as?”
She smirked at him. “How about Shiokitsu?”
“Very well. Until next time, Shiokitsu-san.”
After her dirty dealings, Kushina stocked up living essentials, as well as some clothing material to take to a tailor for some clothing for Naruto and herself. He was still on a feeding frenzy at that poor ramen vendor’s stand. The guy was crying at this point, trying to keep up with feeding him.
Later that night, they both took the chance to get accustomed to their new casual clothes, and more importantly, their combat clothing.
Naruto now had black combat sandals and pants, an orange t-shirt and a light-blue hooded jacket with a spiraling wave at the center. He also had a pair of blue-fingerless gloves for his hands. Kushina was wearing a short-sleeved mesh shirt under a light-blue kimono-like blouse with a white spiraling wave pattern at the bottom, held together with a black obi. She had a dark skirt with shorts underneath them, just in case she had to fight a pervert…or Jiraiya.
It looked great with their Uzushio forehead protectors.
They both then dropped onto their beds, after setting a few security seals in their room. Robbing travelers while they slept wasn’t exactly uncommon, even in hotels. Their gear was stored in storage scrolls that were sealed by their own locking seals, but it wouldn’t stop some people.
Either way, the pair would set out for Suna in the morning.
Konoha
The Third Hokage sighed as he looked over the reports.
He had sent several teams to retrieve Naruto, but after he ditched his clothes he basically fell off the map. He had the Inuzuka clan members try to track his scent, but after that last shadow clone barrage his scent was everywhere. There had been no sign of him since he vanished, which usually meant one thing when it was a genin and a child…
If another village discovered he was a container for the Kyuubi, they would basically draft him into service. If they figured out his heritage, then Iwa would call for his head on a pike. If it were bandits… well, he’d probably be fine.
Still, it worried the old man to no end that the boy vanished, although he could understand why. After that fiasco, word had gotten around about his “condition” and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t silence the current generation of genin from knowing the truth. Several of them reacted as expected… not the Hyuuga girl of course, but he wouldn’t have been welcomed at the Academy anymore.
The damn civilian council literally threw a party once they knew he ran away. Danzo was pissed about losing a future asset, and the shinobi council knew that it was a blow to their forces, although the clan heads showed the boy some sympathy knowing who his parents were. Too bad they never acted on it.
Regardless, at this point they knew they needed to put him in the Bingo Book and settled for desertion at a C-rank, but a modest bounty to be paid if he was brought back alive.
Sarutobi also contacted Jiraiya, who got right to work in searching for the boy, knowing Akatsuki would jump at the chance. He also received a tip about Orochimaru planning something during the Chuunin Exams that were three months away. He asked Jiraiya to find Tsunade as well if he could.
He just prayed that the boy was alright.
Notes:
Shiokitsu = (Tide Fox)
Kuro(me)gane = (Black Shades)
Alright, now that we got that out of the way, let me start by saying that Naruto will be traveling with his mother to gain the necessary allies to rebuild their clan’s village. Most of the Konoha 12 will not gain major roles in the story… for now. Instead I’m throwing in some filler characters, other tailed-beast hosts, and OCs.
Pairings haven’t been determined yet, but there will be no incest at all. Naruto x Hinata might have some ground given how it started, but for the first part of the planned story their interactions are limited and Naruto is still technically a missing-nin.
Neither Naruto nor Kushina will be unstoppable machines of destruction, or at least I don’t plan for them to be, but Naruto’s first solution will not be to spam clones until the enemy stop moving nor will it be Rasengan all the time.
ASN Naruto Fanfic Update
I’ve finally gotten around to the Fall of the Mizukage arc of the story. So Here’s Chapter 9
Naruto: Advent of the Spiraling Ninja8 is out
Been a long time since I released a new chapter of this, so here you go: Here
Twilit Dreams Circle 