Hey Reprieve here. Welcoming you all to an exciting new project co-hosted/authored by Dylan Millwood and myself. The first chapter for this is mostly his work while I beta'd and tweaked. However I did fix quite a bit and added a few new paragraphs into the mix for zest.
To my readers, you'll know which paragraphs I did. ;)
To Dylan's readers, he is still very much alive.
Important Note: Neither of us owns Naruto.
With that said; into the melting pot we g-g-g-o!
Hokuto's Wish, Naruto's Desire: Chapter 1
Hokuto sighed, she already missed him. Her village was doing a fair bit better now with the star gone, still...it had upset him that he'd destroyed the star; it had meant a lot to her village.
She looked out at her home, the Village Hidden Among Stars. It was located in the Land of Bears. Hoshigakure was formed sometime after a strange meteorite, which the people that founded the village called the "star", struck its location some two-hundred years earlier. After that, no trees or plants could grow around the vicinity after it landed. Its leader was the Hoshikage, though only a Kage in name only since the Five Great Nations never recognize Hoshigakure as an equal, deeming that there wasn't any ninja truly worthy of the title.
While the meteorite itself wasn't that large, it emitted a chakra enhancing radiation. Upon this discovery, the First Hoshikage was able to devise a training method to allow the ninja in the village to harness the power of the star, allowing the ninja to gain supernatural chakra levels. The technique that was used to harness this power was the Ninja Art: Kujaku. If this technique was fully mastered, it gave the user almost unrivaled chakra control, to the point where they could solidify it as a shield or even create wings for flight. However, the training was eventually banned by the Third Hoshikage after he realized the deadly toll the training took on those that practiced it.
Even if a ninja survived the training, the side effects would eventually kill them. Only Natsuhi and Hotorubi, the parents of her friend Sumaru, managed to survive the training to see the full benefits, but even then both had perished.
Akahoshi assassinated The Third in order to become the substitute Hoshikage and reinstated the training. Knowing what the star did, he decided to ignore the effects in the hope of forcing the other villages to accept Hoshigakure. Akahoshi had absorbed the star in a last-ditch effort to see his ambitions be made real. But HE stopped the corrupt substitute Hoshikage, by destroying the star in the process.
Hokuto felt her face grow hot as a glowing poker again as she had thought of the boy once more. The boy was around her age; thirteen years old to be precise. The boy had wild blond hair that shot up from every possible angle from his blue headband that was adorned by a metal plate with the Hidden Leaf's insignia of a spiral arrow engraved into it. He had some bandages wrapped around his thigh along with a kunai holster, as well as a small pouch on his belt for basic ninja supplies.
The girl allowed herself a smile, he had style too. The blond wore orange pants complete with a matching jacket that bore blue around the shoulders and had a white lined collar. On the back of the fashionable jacket was a red spiral symbol, while a not too dissimilar whirl design could be found on one of his upper sleeves.
As for his face, he had most dazzling blue eyes she had ever seen. And those odd whisker-like marks on his face, only added to his feral like charm. He was loud, energetic, caring, a hard worker, and (in her opinion) good looking. When it came to pure battle tactics or improvising on the battlefield, he was nothing short of a genius. And he had only left two days ago…
Hokuto sighed as she looked up into the twilight sky and spotted a shooting star; she closed her eyes and made but one wish, to see him again.
"Naruto...Keep up." Neji said, Naruto sighed, looking back in the direction of the Hidden Star Village again. Neji didn't appear too pleased with the blond's lack of attention.
"Neji, leave Naruto alone." Lee said.
"Or what? If he doesn't keep his eyes ahead, he'll get hurt crashing into something." Neji said.
"THEN I CHALLENGE YOU TO A NINETY-THOUSAND KILOMETER RUN BACKWARDS WITHOUT USING YOUR BYAKUGAN!" Lee cried, as Neji moaned. Lee was always challenging him; having decided that Neji was his rival. The Hyuuga found it all more of an annoyance than anything else.
"Me and my big mouth, I should have seen that coming..." Neji muttered.
Naruto looked back again. Sure he had helped to stop Akahoshi...he even stopped the lethal side effects of the star-training forever...but still he didn't feel as though he'd helped enough, the people who had exposed themselves to the star's chakra enhancing radiation before he and Team Guy had arrived in the Hidden Star village would still parish due to the side effects.
That. That was what he wanted...to help prevent that, only then could Naruto feel that he'd done enough to leave the Star village with peace of mind. It was eating away at his thoughts, he'd have a better time of losing his own shadow. There just HAD to be a way to help save those who had done the star training.
As the four young ninja camped to rest, Naruto had an odd dream: A creature made of star chakra with the Ninja Art: Kujaku was struggling to escape the jaws of a large fox's head made out of hellfire-crimson chakra.
The one caster of the Ninja Art: Kujaku cried out as their chakra network became visible on their skin, then the person's chakra-network grew and grew, eventually outgrowing the physical body of the Kujaku practitioner, who continued to cry out in raw agony as this happened.
But as the Kujaku-beast kept struggling in the fox's jaws, it cried out in defeat and retreated back to the giant of lines that glowed with energy. The fox-head pressed its advantage and rammed into the giant chakra-network, causing it to shrink back to the proper size for the person's body. After that, a chakra seal, kaijin appeared on the person along with the number twenty-four. Naruto bolted awake and dashed back to the Hidden Leaf Village. He needed to tell Tsunade about this.
Lee too awoke and watched as Naruto took off into the night. "EVEN THROUGH THE GLIMMER OF NIGHT YOUR FLAMES STILL BURN BRIGHT, I TOO SHALL BURN!" He exclaimed with tears rolling down his cheeks, as he slung his sleeping comrades over his shoulders. "I WON'T LOSE!"
"….Interesting theory. There is a slight chance, that the chakra of the nine-tails could neutralize the star-chakra and undo the damage to the chakra-network. There may also be a chance, that it could cause the star chakra to stabilize so that our allies. They may even still be able to use the Kujaku after balance has been restored to their bodies."
"REALLY!?"
"I'll have to console Jiraiya on this matter, as he knows the full effects of the Kyuubi's chakra. Until then, stand by." Tsunade said, as she looked over the mission report from Neji; detailing the effects of the star chakra. "I just may have to send you back to-"
Naruto whooped and leapt into the air, now he could help the ones the chakra poisoning so they wouldn't die! Tsunade looked a bit miffed at being interrupted, but she smiled at the blond's antics. Naruto suddenly froze and he turned his Hokage.
"Wait, you're trusting me with this?"
"I don't see why not. Neji thought you showed good judgment with the mission."
The blond blinked at this. "He did?"
Tsunade nodded affirmative, while Naruto made a mental note to thank the Hyuuga later. "What about the word 'kaijin' with the number twenty-four?"
"From what I know, the Kaijin is a type of time seal. As for the number, it could mean anything. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks… Do you recall anything else from this dream of yours?"
"Ah… I'm not sure..."
"Hm, perhaps it would be best to adapt the seal based of the some of the medical reports recorded." A third voice entered the conversation.
Both blonds looked towards the window to find Jiraiya leaning against it. "Oi, Ero-sennin!" Naruto exclaimed as he pointed at the old sage in surprise.
Jiraiya's face grew annoyed. "Thought I told you to stop calling me that!"
"Ero-sennin, Ero-sennin, Ero-sennin!"
The sage's fingers twitched in anger. "You little brat!"
"Ahem!" Tsunade cut in.
"Right, anyway…" He said reaching into his vest, revealing a small plastic bag before tossing it in Tsunade's direction. "One of my spies managed to pick this up. It's a fragment of the star."
"I see, what do you have in mind then?"
"Well…"
…
The blond smiled with an ear-splitting grin. "So that's how it is then. It's ninja tools and taijutsu only for twenty-four hours after I treat them with the fox's chakra? No problem! I'll even stay there to assist in defending the Hidden Star Village until everyone's chakra networks are fixed up!" Naruto cried happily. Tsunade, being a medical ninja, allowed this. It sounded like a viable solution for an otherwise difficult problem. Plus with Naruto gone she could get more work done.
Tsunade cleared her throat. "Uzumaki Naruto, you are to head back to our friends of the Village Hidden Among Stars to treat them. As well as inform them that they would be unable to use their chakra for a day as a part of their healing process. This will be treated as an A-ranked mission; as such the money will be added to your account upon completion. "
Naruto's eyes widened. A-ranked payment, just him! He could buy so much ramen with that kind of doe. Now he really couldn't wait for being able to help heal the people of the Village Hidden Among Stars!
"Yosh! I-"
"...BUT you're to return to the Leaf Village if the Akatsuki arrive in the Star Village to capture you." Tsunade warned. "There's no need to drag our allies into our problems, especially considering the recent transition in leadership." Naruto swore he'd be careful and get back to the Leaf Village if things got out of hand. Satisfied, Tsunade sent him back to the Hidden Star Village.
Meanwhile, Hokuto felt her heart speeding up pleasantly for some reason. The wind blew as a single leaf danced up to her and landed right on the star symbol on her headband. The brunette peeled the leaf off to examine it, before smile graced her lips. Hokuto didn't exactly believe in omens; she twirled the stem between her fingers. But for some reason she felt that she would be meeting up with her crush very, very soon.
Heh.
Later.