Desperation and anger were the two feelings that were flooding the young male as he gripped his companion's shoulders. Finally after listening to his companion's last words, his eyes closed. His shoulders shook, though with anger or sadness, was up to debate. An eerie wind cut through the deaden mist to ruffle the blond spikes of the male. Blue orbs flashed upward toward his enemy, some masked kid that enjoyed being a tool. His anger reached a terrifying pitch, and he let loose an anger filled roar of pain.
The three black whisker marks on each of his cheeks, grew deeper and more rugged. Harshly his breath expelled, as his pupils slit, and his cornea's bled. Canines elongated, knuckles crackled and stretched forming claws. Death's hand rose from it's normal perch to invade the blond youth, and with that felt it time to dissuade the enemy of life.
"I'll kill you!" He growled out, and with speed he wasn't gifted with earlier leapt toward the enemy watching from his mirrors. For a minute it seemed as if nothing changed, as the masked boy flung his long pointed senbon needles at the blond. The outrage on the blond's face, flashed with the outpour of red energy which incinerated the long needles and began healing some of the prior battle wounds.
"His chakra is amazing, I have to end this!" The mask boy muttered as he leapt to another one of his mirrors. He never made it, as the blond reached forward and grabbed his wrist. Another flash of the red chakra had mirrors cracking exponentially. The masked boy could feel despair settling in, as his chakra was exceptionally low from the drawn out battle. A crack had the masked boy flicking his eyes toward his wrist, one of his smaller bones had snapped under pressure.
So immense in his wrist's new problem, he did not see the blond draw back his arm for a straight punch to the face. Another crack sounded through the silent battlefield, as the white mask with a red swooping swirl split down the middle and fell away. The face revealed stopped the blond in his murderous rage.
"You're the boy from the forest." The blond murmured. Indeed, the afternoon prior, he had met the effeminate face boy staring at him. The long dark locks waved sadly in the wind, only tasseled by a large bun in the back. Warm but sad brown eyes stared mournfully back as they met the fading red orbs of the blond. Blue eyes blinked confused, and stared at the forehead protector of the youth, the four squiggly lines that signified 'Mist Village.' As those piercing blues stared the dark haired youth down, he heard the story that belong to the past of the one he almost ripped asunder.
As he listened, he compared, and realized they shared similar lives. However their paths diverged and now there was no way for the two to share friendship. 'In another life, we could have been friends.' He murmured sadly with in his mind, and drew his weapon up at the bidding of the other youth. The arrow shape kunai angled at the heart and he drew back to plunge quick and powerful, as designated for a quick death.
However, before his kunai could make purchase, the youth known as Haku, caught his wrist this time. Haku apologized to him, using his given name Naruto, before making a one handed seal and vanishing from before his eyes. Yet, he tracked the youth, as the mist began to clear, to see his sensei's hand shoved through Haku's chest. The last traces of cackling energy dying out as his sensei stared in shock. Naruto knew then that the battle with the nukenin's was over, so he ignored his sensei's battle in favor of his pink-haired female teammate who called him.
Naruto flinched perceptively, and his eyes darted to his fallen raven-haired teammate. A sad cry from the emerald-eye girl, had him turning away from the scene, in his mind's-eye he failed one of his precious people. Closing his ears to the growing cries of Sakura, he instead viewed the incoming surge of chakra from various sources. With nothing to distract him, he noted, that the one they had been hired to protect against had decided he wanted to crash the party.
The man was diminutive in size, and his eyes hidden beneath dark shades. Yet, that didn't still the waves of unflinching greed and hate that rolled off the man known as Gatou. With no more incentive to fight, as Gatou had retracted his contract with Zabuza, the man lowered his weapon from his sensei. All turned to see the actions of Gatou, as he kicked Haku's fallen body, and again Naruto felt righteous anger course, as Zabuza did not react. Angered he appeared beside the tall nukenin, and began yelling harshly. Even bypassing the order of stand-down by his sensei, he only stopped when Zabuza agreed, and a tear slipped from the mist nukenin Jônin.
A request came from Zabuza then, and without hesitation, Naruto tossed him his kunai. Zabuza caught the kunai in his mouth, as his arms were made useless by Kakashi-sensei in their battle. Both watched as Zabuza took Gatou with him into death's embrace. Then his grey hair sensei trooped over, as the villagers of the wave had shown up to scare away the rest of the mercenaries. With his one black eye showing, Kakashi listened to Zabuza's last words, his red sharingan tucked back under the sideways forehead protector embossed with the leaf sign of Konoha. Then the snow came, and with it the wakening of the injured raven-haired, onyx-eyed teammate Sasuke.
Elsewhere as all this was happening, a slumbering presence stirred. Eyes of jade sea-green blinked wearily open, light tan arms rose in a stretch. Several pops were heard as bones snapped into place and joints worked out their stiffness. Long strands of brown and gold hair shuffled around the feminine face of near twenty. "Hmm." An interested whisper escaped the yawning lips. "I recognize that yokai energy, indeed, I have felt it before." She mumble intrigued, still suffering the effects of slumber. The slow moving cogs of her brain finally pieced the answer together and her eyes flew open, no longer asleep. "Oh my!" She yelped, and stood, ignoring the tingling feeling in her legs. Quickly she pack her meager belongings, but there were a few items that belied her meager surroundings. "Kyûbi-sama!" The identity of the yokai, had slipped from her mouth, and a line of determination followed.
Naruto followed his team back to his client's house for recuperation, as Kakashi-sensei still needed a few hours rest in order to carry Sasuke back to Konohagakure. He was silent, out of his regular characteristic, but it was a solemn silence, and he could feel now the semi accusing glare of his girl teammate Sakura. It wasn't like he asked Sasuke to move in front of the senbon needles.
Ten minutes later they were back at the client's house, and another twenty minutes later found Naruto outside, once again climbing the trees without his hands. He would no longer follow his sensei training regime, as it was not geared toward the way he learned. His senses tingled, telling him, he had eyes on him, but he shrugged it off as being Inari, the client's grandson.
Indeed he did have eyes on him, but they were not the little Inari, instead they belonged to the one from prior that awoken to the fox's chakra. She watched as he climbed the tree several times, a complaintive countenance on his face. A few minutes of body language told her all she needed to know. With that she promised to shadow them to Konohagakure silently, and return to fulfill a promise made.
Naruto smiled at the name of the bridge, something that belonged to him and his rising skills. Sasuke had made a quick recovery as the needles weren't geared to kill. Naruto withheld a scoff though, as he saw his teammate's blood limit come under scrutiny. His eyes fell down to his feet sadly, as with the wakening of the Sharingan in Sasuke, meant even more attention heaped on the last Uchiha, and whatever attention that had been gleaned from his sensei would now disappear totally. Again Naruto felt a strange feeling of being watched, but with none of his team reacting to such, he ignored it. However, he couldn't stop his eyes from roving silently once, and they landed on his female teammate Sakura as she yelped out praises to Sasuke.
That was another thing that bothered the always smiling blond, he had a child crush on the female, but she was immensely enamored of Sasuke, and would have none of him. Still, he couldn't blame his raven haired teammate Sasuke, hearts and minds of people always seem to gravitate away from him.
Naruto was still young, and though he couldn't blame Sasuke, he could definitely feel jealous. His loud and brash actions screamed for attention, but he received hardly any, and his complete opposite got everything with a simple breath. He worried that if he didn't gain recognition and acknowledgment from Sasuke, his jealousy would get the best of him and turn into hate. Naruto had seen what hate could to do people, the raven haired avenger before him was a prime example in the making.
His forehead protector caught the light of the rising sun, and he raised a complaintive finger to trace the spiral leaf engraved in the metal. The metal was slightly soft from use, and cushioned his head well. His finger traveled the spiral leaf of his home before slipping over the metal edges of the plate. Again he felt the usage of it, as the metal was blunted, instead of sharp like a new one, he treasured it. His one true sensei and parent-like figure 'Iruka-sensei,' gave him his own forehead protector. Very few memories of their time spent together flittered over his eyes before he sighed quietly.
"Is it great Naruto?" Sakura chimed in, breaking his reminiscing.
"Huh?" He muttered and glanced at her, her waiting face told him what she wanted to hear. "Oh, yeah." Naruto blurted out. He had no idea what in the world she was talking about, but with the furtive glances at Sasuke confirmed it had something to do with him. After all, that was Sakura's main topic of discussion, Sasuke-kun, every second of her day it seemed.
Though Naruto caught the proud gaze of his sensei on Sasuke and put the final piece in his empty puzzle, they were still going on the activation of the Sharingan in the Uchiha. For a minute he wondered at the heaps of attention poured on the Uchiha, after all, it was known that the Sharingan was their blood limit, so what was so great that he finally activated it? Wasn't it a given that he would eventually have his family's dojutsu? His pondering went deeper as he crossed the newly built bridge on his way back to Konoha.
From what he could understand from the combined lectures of Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, and Sakura on the history of bloodline limits is the families that activated such things had ancestors that found out how to make such things work. Then they bred selectively so only their descendants could activate their limit by their genes instead of hard work. Naruto thought this sucked, but then his eyes widened at an implication. It was possible to recreate these situations using hard work! Flicking a gaze over at the silent Uchiha, and the still grinning sensei, he admit he would have to watch them quietly for awhile. Then he let out an aggravated mental sigh, it wasn't like he was going to retrieve training anyhow.
"Damn, a blood line brat." The woman muttered as she shadowed the team known as Team Seven or Team Kakashi. She wasn't fond of bloodline children as by the tone in her voice, and she saw the body language of the peruse sensei. He was ultimately thrilled the boy had activated his red eye nonsense. "It's a copy brat, even better." She added harshly. "I hate the damn Leaf." Her voice escaped her as they entered the familiar terrain of Fire Country.
Naruto followed his team into the Hokage's office, smiling his blinding mask. Closing his ears as they gave their report, including the wonderful activation of one of the Leaf's illustrious bloodlines. The Hokage nodded and smiled, giving a through look over as he handed over their pay. "Naruto, stay a minute." The Hokage instructed, as the team readied to leave. Naruto nodded, glancing at the fire shadow with a bright smile, which was incredibility empty.
"Naruto, did the usage of the kitsune's chakra damage you in anyway?" The Hokage asked.
"No." Naruto answered honestly. 'Except make me realize how stupid I've been, or maybe I just blinded myself.' The Hokage studied him with wise, but tired eyes.
"Naruto, you know you have people that support you." The Hokage reminded him.
"Yes." Naruto responded. 'A total of two that I know.' He thought while he listened to the old man chat with him. His one word answers was reminding him of Sasuke, and he didn't want that, but he didn't feel like filling the space with nonsense either at the moment. "May I be excuse now?" He respectfully requested. The Hokage looked over him one more time, before nodding. Naruto left the building, and instead of heading to his favorite restaurant he went home instead and settled into bed.
As the boy disappear from the Hokage's office, a shadow pealed away from the wall. "Who are you?" The Hokage demanded.
"A person that has returned to fulfill a promise, I need status of a Konoha citizen." The feminine voice answered.
"Come into the light." The Hokage ordered.
"Very well." She agreed, and the flash of jade sea-green eyes glowed in the dusting light. Sunlight hit the blond and brown hair strands.
"You're..you're.." The Hokage stumbled over his comment.
"Me." She completed his sentence, though it wasn't how he wanted to form it. "I see potential." She added.
"Who?" He inquired.
"I refuse to answer." She respond, the Hokage nodded quietly.
"I agree to the terms you want." He subjected.
"I have a mission for one of your genin teams tomorrow." She commented.
"Oh?" The Hokage bantered, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I kind of like the team that was just in here." She tossed out.
"Hmm, fine, I'll assign Team Kakashi to the mission tomorrow then." The Hokage said, and scribbled a note on his growing scroll before him. He completely missed the muttering of 'Egotistical Jônin leaders,' from the female. "Is there anything else?" The Hokage tried subtly to pry information from the female.
"Not at this time." The female stated, grabbed the papers that the Hokage handed over, and left with a brisk wind. A tired sigh slipped from the old man, times were changing too drastically.
The female that had shadowed Team 7 stalked down the village of Konoha. Her eyes searched out for a suitable house that will inspire power. A certain mansion gained her attention and she smirked. "That will do nicely." She muttered, ignoring the surprise of one old jônin. Marching away, she sought out the building she needed in order to obtain said mansion.
A few minutes later she came back, a large smirk on her face. As she entered the mansion with several papers and a jingle of keys, she tapped a pocket on her left pant leg. A wisp of colorless chakra escaped her finger and opened the sealed pocket. Then she raised the finger to her teeth, nicked it, and let the drop of blood fall into the pocket. As the action followed through large clouds of smoke billowed out. The smoke retreated and several large forms could be seen. Followed by several smaller forms, and then various noises filled the mansion.
"All right guys and girls, time to move in." She instructed and the forms were revealed to be various animals. Her eyes traced over them and landed on a specific two. "Akemori, Tsuchikami, you two need a bath." Her voice informed them. A large dark orange tiger turned toward her with a snuff. "Don't argue Tsuchikami, you'll have fun, break in the genin." She muttered. A white wolf then let out a snort, and she smiled. "Akemori, don't be that way." was the instruction, and they went separate ways in the mansion. "The rest of you need to be brushed." She informed them, as she waved away mounds of hair.
"Perhaps I should inform the Hokage to raise the rank of the mission?" She mumbled to herself. Then an evil smirk spread on her face. "Nah, and I'll make sure the blood line brat gets Sekiou." She added cheerfully.
WORD LIST
Akemori- Bright Woods
Sekiou- Red King
Tsuchikami- Earth Goddess
I'm new to this section of the site, but it's not my first time writing for it. Fair warning I may use a couple of cliche's but I hope it won't be to overwhelming. Second of all, Naruto will be inspired to be smart/powerful, but not overbearingly so, not to mention he'll be bringing a lot of people along for the ride. I think I leave this as a tidbit for now. Standard disclaimer applies. Nice to meet you all- WCB.
