Gazing at the one whom had killed him from a portal that allowed those in Hell to see the world of the living, the former Konoha nukenin, now deceased, Hiruko couldn't help but actually smirk.

Sure that "Wind Release: Rasenshuriken" thing, which Hiruko had unable to replicate, due to its highly complex combination of shape and nature manipulation, had hurt like a bitch, and dying sucked...and right when he was about to achieve his goals too...Yet what he'd learned had made his loss bittersweet as opposed to just loathsome. In fact, he was almost PLEASED by the unintentional result. It seemed some of the deep blue, viscous fluid Hiruko's body exuded for the Chimera jutsu had landed on and seeped into Naruto and made him into a human chimera without his noticing.

Since then, Naruto's body had acquired kekki Genkai, all of which without the boy's notice! The Meiton, Kōton, Ranton and Jinton ones from when Hiruko himself was defeated, and Mokuton from that ANBU going by the name Yamato after he'd ingested the seeds the man made with wood style and had slipped them into Naruto's food recently...The Chimera technique was even able to genetically reproduce Shisui Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan in BOTH eyes after Itachi's crow had force-fed itself to Naruto!

None of those abilities had activated yet, but that was fine with Hiruko, the kid's body had to sort everything out first after all. Modify itself so as to have those abilities yet avoid genetic decomposition due to tampering. The healing factor granted to him by the Biju within him and his being a direct descendant of the Uzumaki clan giving him a remarkably powerful life force with immense potential for longevity as well as equally strong vitality had actually aided in the process of seeing to his body's adaptation and eventually, it's awakening as a human chimera!

Ho, being sent to the afterlife was a trifle compared to this! The Chimera Jutsu he'd developed being able to flourish like this and could even potentially create another Rikudō Sennin made it worth it! With a legacy like that, Hiruko wouldn't need immortality to be renowned forever!

Now...it was about time for his OTHER jutsu to activate at long last, the one he'd stumbled across to send him to that other world where he'd learned of what had allowed him to begin his research into the chimera jutsu. He was glad he'd learned of time-triggered jutsu and jikūkan ninjutsu for this!


Naruto grunted as his body sent a formal complaint to him mind in the form of a flash of pain, Causing the one wrapping his wounds to give him a look.

"Too tight?"

Naruto shook his head as he looked at her. Next to him was a fair-skinned woman of tall stature with a stoic, aloof expression on her face. She had icy blue eyes and straight, blond hair framing her face cut in an asymmetrical bob style with the front bangs reaching her shoulders. She wore a very low-cut outfit which displayed her sizeable cleavage, with mesh armor underneath, a short skirt and red hand guards, high boots, and what appeared to be a modified Kumogakure flak jacket that covered her stomach only, similar to a girdle. She also had a tantō strapped horizontally to her lower back.

She'd offered to patch him up as an apology for her, in her own words, "short-fused ape of a teammate" beating on him. Said beating had even reopened a few of his wounds from his six-on-one fight with the cadaver puppets of the Rinnegan-user, Nagato.

"No, and I told you that you didn't need to do this for me." he said, looking at his fellow blue-eyed blond.

She rolled her eyes at him, her expression somewhere between amused and annoyed, "Its cool that you don't want me to trouble myself with treating you, but as the second-in-command of my squad next to Bee-sensei, my teammates are MY responsibility since he's indisposed, so taking care of the injuries Karui gave you and the ones she reopened that you got from your fight with Pain when she was beating on you is an obligation on my part."

"I got it, good to know you're sensei put someone like you as their second-in-command. You know, my offer to help find him still stands until I know he's safe. Since I'm a jinchūriki myself, they'd come to me and you Kumo-nins could ambu..."

"Absolutely not! I get you wanting to help us save our mentor, but throwing yourself into the line of fire, especially in your condition, is complete suicide!"

Naruto looked at the stern face of the woman as though she was DARING him to even think of objecting. Naruto swallowed his agruments...for now. But as far as he was concerned, it wasn't over, not by a long shot. Not until their teacher was safely out of the Akatsuki's hands.

"Fine, but you know WHY it's so important to me that I help you. By the way, you never did tell me your name." Naruto said "I'm..."

"Uzumaki Naruto, I know. The villagers are talking about you quite a bit. As for my own name, it's Samui."

"Heheh...the villagers are out singing my praises now?...go figure..." he muttered under his breath, Samui noticed the slightly bitter, mocking quality it had. It put a bad taste in her mouth, having learned UNDER a jinchūriki herself and, thanks to Bee-sensei, she'd become fairly goods friends with Yugito, she understood why he was having mixed feelings about that. His whole life, he'd been a pariah for what wasn't his fault, yet now the ones who had made his life that way were sucking up to him and calling him a hero.

The sheer hypocrisy of the people in the village was hard for him to stomach, yet being acknowledged as something good had been his goal in life for as long as he could recall. Small wonder why he was upset by it.

As Samui bandaged his cheek with a medical gauze patch, an array under them activated. They looked down, did a sealing jutsu of some kind just activate? Naruto and Samui had no time to react as a white light engulfed them.

And in a flash, they were both gone.


Naruto and Samui groaned as their eyes opened and they found themselves looking up at the stars. Wait...Stars? How long were they out for? It had still been morning before that flash of light hit them. The two shinobi sat up, both groaning and looked around.

Where were they? This wasn't Konoha.

Groaning as he stood, Naruto helped Samui stand before his head started hurting. What was that?! Needing to steady himself, Naruto walked up to one of the trees and placed a hand on the trunk, before he went wide-eyed and abruptly leapt back and away as if he'd been burned "Ok...what the HELL is going on here?! This isn't the Elemental Nations!" he yelped, pain forgotten and replaced by sheer shock.

Samui went wide-eyed at that. "What?! What do you mean?! Furthermore, how do you know that?"

"If there's one thing any Konoha shinobi knows, it's the woods around them." Naruto explained, nodding to the tree he'd touched. "These trees aren't from anywhere in Hi no kuni or the other villages or places I've seen...they're utterly foreign..."

Samui nodded, feeling that arguing with him would be counterproductive, besides, any shinobi was expected to know the topography and geography of their own homelands, so it wasn't all that hard to figure that he knew what he was talking about.

Samui jumped up into the tree and Naruto followed her into the branches, both stopping in the topmost ones and looking around at the countryside.

"Looks like there's a town with an inn not to far away from the looks of it." Naruto said, pointing it out with a smirk. "That's good, but we're not in the areas of the shinobi nations, so what'er we gonna do?"

"We'll come up with some story. But for now, let's focus on learning where we are." Samui said as they got out of the tree and together they walked through the woods until they found a path leading to the town they had seen. It was an hour before they reached the inn. It was a normal-enough looking place as the two went in. A few men were sitting around a table playing cards. Well at least they were - until Naruto and Samui walked in. The men stared, their eyes flitting first toward the Kumo kunoichi's breasts-perverts-before a growl and sudden flash of murderous intent coming from the young man next to her got them to focus on their game again.

Samui shot Naruto a glance and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards just only ever-so-slightly in a small, almost unseen smile of appreciation.

Naruto walked to the desk "I'd like a one room - a big one if you don't mind." he said, only to get an odd look from the man. Naruto rolled his eyes and the employee snapped out of his staring when Naruto spoke, he nodded and handed Naruto a room key, to which Naruto took it and, pulling out his toad-shaped wallet, Gama-chan, and put a few bills in the man's hand in return, Samui could've sworn she saw a tear escape the wallet's eye as the bills were removed.

But after looking at the money, the man grabbed Naruto by the front of his jacket.

"Hey! What're you trying to pull?! This is foreign cash!" the desk man demanded.

Naruto didn't notice but his eyes flashed red again for a brief moment, the design of what looked like a black, four-bladed buzzsaw in them spinning briefly and the man's whole demeanor suddenly reversed.

"Ok...sorry, don't want to be hostile to paying customers. And money's money no matter where you go, so my apologies. Here's your room key, sir." he said, releasing Naruto.

Naruto blinked, confused. A second ago the man was furious with them, now he was willingly acceptant? Samui, while also puzzled, wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth and nudged him to get his attention. The two shinobi headed toward their room. It was roomy and soon enough Naruto and Samui were sitting on each one of the two beds. As soon as she was on her bed, Samui started rubbing her shoulder.

Naruto frowned "You ok?" he asked.

"It's nothing...I just occasionally get aches in my shoulders." Samui said as she gripped her shoulder trying to ease the pain. "I get them constantly."

'Guess having breasts that size can have drawbacks for some people,' Naruto thought. He smiled "No problem, let me help you."

The young woman looked at him, "What do you plan on doing?" Samui asked with a bit of caution.

"Just massage your shoulders of course." Naruto replied standing up and moving to set next to her on her bed. He didn't question or feel offended by her caution, they hardly knew one another and were both shinobi, after all. In their business, someone you didn't know having your back usually ended with you being put six feet under the ground.

"And you think that will be enough to stop the aches?" Samui asked.

"Positive. Now turn around." Naruto said as she did so. Naruto then got behind her and placed his hands on Samui's shoulders, marveling at how soft her skin felt for a second, and feeling the tension and knots in her shoulders and back, proceeded to massage them. Samui felt a little tense at first but once she started accepting it, she was able to relax.

"Mmm, this does feel good." She moaned, after only a minute of massage, she actually broke out into a smile. "Ah, right there. Little harder..."

Naruto smiled and decided to up the ante, while rubbing harder, he started channeling chakra to his hands, then forming chakra affinities together. The reaction to this from Samui was a wide-eyed gaping look, before suddenly becoming boneless as she nearly melted on the spot, a dopey smile on her face.

"H-how are you d-doing that?" Samui questioned with a light moan while Naruto snickered to himself.

"Some types of elemental chakra have slight healing properties when used at low levels. Fire can warm a person and help relieve tension when used at low levels, wind swirls and thereby rubs and relaxes muscles easily, and lightning causes this really nice tingling feeling when used at low levels. If you know enough about chakra shaping, manipulation, and chakra flow, its one of the easiest forms of jutsu to use." Naruto explained while Samui swayed from side to side, still smiling to herself while her brain was in a haze…

"So I'm using fire, lightning and wind together on your shoulders." Naruto said, before his eyes widened.

Lightning and fire? As far as Kakashi had ever taught him, he only had wind!

But when Naruto thought about that a moment, he shrugged it off. After all, chakra was just raw energy that was tuned to a certain frequency to produce the effects of jutsu, like changing the stations of a radio. That was why it wasn't unusual for a person to have more than one elemental affinity. Just because he had only learn one didn't mean that was all he had.

It took ten more minutes until Samui was happy, and Naruto stopped before she fell asleep. Of course, that didn't mean he was free to go. Just as he stepped away from her, he felt an arm wrap around his chest, pulling him into a soft valley.

"I'm keeping you." Samui muttered tightening her grip on him slightly.

"Uh...what about finding out where we are as opposed to deciding I'm your property?" Naruto asked, his cheeks a scarlet color as where his face was being held by the woman.

Samui let out a grunt and simply held him closer, apparently not willing to sacrifice either of those things, yet she muttered about finding a map, even as she snuggled him into her chest.

Managing to somehow squirm free of the Kunoichi's grasp enough to get his hands to touch and used a Kawarimi to swap himself for one of the pillows, Naruto sat down on his own bed again.

Seeing the lack of orange with her, Samui frowned at him. "You know, it's rude to deny a lady, no wonder Karui beat on you so badly."

Naruto shrugged, "Eh...denying wasn't an intention, but you've got a strong grip, and I do like being able to actually USE my lungs."

The busty kunoichi smirked at that. If anything, it was a compliment seeing as she trained long and hard to achieve her level of strength and ability as a Kumo shinobi. "Thanks for saying that. Now what we need to do is figure out where we are and how to get back. We'll need a map and supplies for long-term travel, we need information and I doubt that this small town has much to offer, if at all, and there's no way to know how long we'll be here for until we find a way back."

"But how are we going to get things like that? Our currency's foreign here, we saw that at the desk to this place. And we're able to speak and understand the language here like we've been using it our whole lives. If I had to hazard a guess, it was added onto what sent us here so who wasn't caught up in it having to deal with a language barrier. That's important since it means someone from the Elemental Nations was most likely here before and took that into account."

Samui's eyes widened, impressed that he had figured out something like that, and that guess was spot-on accurate. "I hear you. Question is, who activated that seal and why'd we get caught up in it then?"

Naruto nodded "I know. But we'd have a better shot at that after we rest up."

"Agreed."

-X-

The following day, the pair of shinobi went to the bar and were surprised to see all the costumers were gathered around a very short blond boy with his hair in a braid and someone wearing armor.

The people around them were talking all at once, the pair caught words like "alchemist" and "fullmetal". Then someone said "Shortie".

The reaction was instant - the next moment the blond kid was attacking the other costumers, shouting things like "WHO YOU'RE CALLING SHORT YOU IDIOTS?!" and so on.

The guy in the armor started crying out "BROTHER!" as he tried to stop the blond from beating the poor men unconscious.

Samui let out a breath, shrugging off her knapsack, she muttered mostly to herself "Looks like they need help."

Naruto nodded, snickering at the display the braided boy in the red coat was putting on. "I've got Mr. anger-management, you cover the tall one?" he asked.

She ignored him and walked pass him to the armored boy, who noticed her for the first time. "You need help?" Samui asked.

He stared at her, "I would appreciate it. My brother's always like this about his height." he sighed.

Samui shrugged, "The person I'm with'll stop your brother from destroying the bar."

Naruto took a deep breath then, quick as a flash, he was behind the other blond boy- who was in the middle of launching two men he had grabbed into the air-and grabbed his arms pining them to sides, but his eyes widened. Naruto knew he wasn't THAT fast yet!

The shortie let go of the men and turned breaking Naruto's grip and ready to punch him just as quick but Naruto blocked the punch, looking at him.

The guy really WAS small, standing at only 4'11". He wore his golden-blond hair long and tied in a braid that hung down to his shoulders. He parted his bangs in the middle so that they framed his face on either side as they fall and, in the center of the parting, was a single strand of hair sticking up like an antenna. Added to that, this midget's eyes were gold colored. He wore a bright red, long-sleeved, hooded cloak whose tail went down to his upper calves. Emblazoned in black on the back was a symbol depicted as a cross with a snake or serpent draped about it, as well as detached wings and a crown above it. He also wore black trousers and black shirt under his coat. From what Naruto could see, it was a black shirt with a black jacket that had silver/white lining along the edges and connected at the top with a button, and falling slightly short of waist-length, making it possible to see the black shirt. He also wore a pair two thick brown leather belts worn parallel to each other, one of which had a silver pocket watch affixed to it. And, owing to what Naruto guessed was part of this guy's attempts to seem taller, he had on black leather elevator shoe boots with thick, red soles, which meant he was most likely SHORTER than the 4'11", and additionally, he wore white gloves.

"Sheesh...is the reason you're such an explosive hot-head because you can't get anyone to notice you without a microscope otherwise?" Naruto asked.

"WHAT'D YOU JUST SAY?!" the runt demanded, looking ready to explode.

The armored individual shot Samui a glance as if to demand HOW this was suppose to help.

"Relax...besides, I know you'll grow out of being short for your age, I was 4'9" three years ago, now I'm 5'6"." Naruto said with a shrug.

The one in the jacket laughed, "HA! You were even shorter than I am!" then he went bug-eyed as he went quiet in for a few seconds "Did...I just...?" he said faintly.

"Say you were short? Yeah." Naruto said.

The guy who Naruto was talking to grit his teeth, tugged as his hair, he broke out into a sweat and broke out into a series of grunts that wouldn't normally be considered human escaped his throat. Then he turned to Naruto, eyes popping, mouth foaming and all the veins in his head simultaneously bulging to the point of nearly bursting, presenting a visage that was both deranged and terrifying, and snarled "YOU TRICKED ME!"

"If that's what you think, let's take this outside." Naruto said, snickering at how easy it was to get this guy riled up and moved for the door.

"Gladly!" the other boy snapped, tailing him.

Samui and the metal-clad figure shared a glance and she shrugged. "What? I said that the person I'm with would stop your brother from destroying the bar, I never said how he'd do it."

The person in the suit seemed to nod at that after thinking about it a moment.

Samui followed the person as he tailed Naruto and the one with the short temper outside.

He wore a gunmetal-colored steel armor, the helmet that covered this person's face was adorned with a large, conical horn in the middle of the forehead, and had a pair of parallel, horizontal vents beneath each half-moon eye hole and a fang motif just above the protruding chin. The top of the helmet also sported a ribbon of white hair that hung down to the small of the suit's back. The trunk of the body also consisted of a removable breastplate with a protruding, triangular shelf on the chest just below the throat guard, a high collar that extended out of the back and surrounded the rear and sides of the neck, and a large, circular leather patch on either side of the abdomen. A breech cloth covered the groin of the armor and painted on the left shoulder was what she recognized as a Flamel, like the short one Uzumaki had just challenged to a fight had on the back of his jacket, only the one painted on the armor was red instead of black. The person's armor also had a triple spike motif, as each shoulder is adorned with a trio of large conical spikes lined in a row and each elbow, knee and foot carries small, spiky protrusions as well. Whoever was in it also appeared to have a white band around his suit's right leg which held up a small weapons holster.

One thing that Samui didn't get was how a guy this tall had a voice like a ten-year-old boy. Shrugging it off, she decided that it wasn't too big a deal and wasn't her business anyways.

Leading the other blond boy well outside of the town they were in, Naruto turned to look at him, "This outta be far enough away to where we can really cut loose without worrying about collateral damage or a crossfire. Before we begin, I'd at least like to know your name."

His soon-to-be opponent's topaz eyes narrowed, "Edward, Edward Elric. The guy in the armor is my brother Alphonse." he said.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at that. So, he used his given name before his family one, eh? Well, if that was a custom here (wherever "here" was) best follow it, even if he did find a bit weird to what he was used to.

"Naruto Uzumaki." he said, sticking his thumb in his chest, likewise introducing himself.

Moving forward with that same abnormal speed, Naruto landed a right hook square to Edward's cheek.

Edward went tumbling until he struck a tree back-first and after a moment, slowly pulled himself up "...Ok. Didn't know a person could be that fast. And you hit like you've got automail...ow..." Edward said, holding and rubbing his jaw.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. Automail? What the heck was that? His musings were cut short as Edward rushed forward and landed a kick which hit Naruto under the chin and sent him off his feet. While Naruto was airborne, Edward jumped up a surprising distance, caught Naruto, flipped him up onto his shoulders and jumped into the air, slamming Naruto directly onto the ground head, neck, and back first, before dragging him across the ground until he could hold on no longer and tossed Naruto away. Naruto landed in a heap and collapsed three feet away before standing up. wincing and grunting in annoyance.

Ok...so short-stuff knew his taijutsu. Still...Naruto's been hit harder than that before. He looked up to see Edward leaping at him with his right fist cocked back. flipping onto his back, Naruto mule-kicked the other blond body in the stomach, driving the air out of him sending him flying while the Konoha ninja flipped to his feet. As Edward struck the ground again, Naruto rushed him and was about to clothesline him as edward stood, but to Naruto's surprise, Elric caught his arm and twisted it into a submission hold and held him with his arm twisted behind his back.

As he was about to pull free, Naruto suddenly fell to his knees as a stabbing pain resounded through his arm.

His Hand! Oh, Kami his hand! He could feel it! Something was pushing...no forcing it's way out, and it felt like someone had stabbed a katana down the length of his arm and then poured salt water down the wound.

Edward gained a concerned look when Naruto suddenly collapsed to the ground in pain. The young alchemist was still holding his arm, and he could feel the muscles tightening and contracting.

Naruto screamed again as another surge of pain racked his body. He had never felt anything like this before. He had been attacked and hurt in every way imaginable by the villagers, they had even placed a bucket of sulfuric acid above the door in his apartment so that when he walked in it dumped on him. He was in the hospital for a whole week after, the longest he'd ever been in one. But that had felt like nothing compared to this. He felt the muscles in his arm convulse, and something almost as thick as his wrist came shooting out of his arm before the gold-eyed young man could react.

There was a thump.

Blood was spilt.