A/N: Here's my second chapter. I was asked to make my new chapters less canon, and I'm trying, but until I get all the character introductions out of the way, that will be difficult. The daemons come into more philosophical/ideological things, as you'll see in upcoming chapters, and they're major fighters. You'll also see more later on about how they link up to their humans and their personalities, and, when they're fighting, what it means for them to bleed. Well, I love you all and I hope you enjoy! Be sure to check out my other account, Li Michal.
Disclaimer: I do not own His Dark Materials or Naruto.
Soul Wounds Trilogy
Book One
The Boy with Two Daemons
Chapter Two
My Name is Konohamaru, and this is My Daemon Iegi
The day was bright and warm. Waves of heat rolled off the Hokage monument as if those very faces and their amazing daemons were giving it off, as if they were still alive, as if they were sending great sheets of hot breath over the village. But it was welcome, for it was late spring, and the warmth would cause the flowers to bloom very, very soon.
On the balcony of one building, overlooking the monument, a photographer leaned against his camera and tripod, a bored, annoyed look on his face. His daemon, a gray parrot, was busy fiddling with a troublesome wire on the camera.
"Listen, kid," the man said, "are you sure you want me to take your picture like that?"
"Just do it already!" Naruto said impatiently. "Come on already, come on, come on!"
The man sighed and ducked behind his camera. His parrot moved to allow him access. "Don't blame me later," he said sourly, and snapped the picture.
To the outside man, it was a ridiculous photo: Naruto had covered himself in white and red paint, had abstained from putting his headband on, and had reached out to the photographer in a very godlike, pretentious manner. Ehetia was perched on his shoulder, a snarling red fox. If one knew where she got her shape, they would be terrified, for her eyes gleamed red and slitted like the nine-tails.
---
It was later that day at the academy that Naruto sat before Sarutobi, Gijega, an old man in a bowl-cap, and his dog daemon as they looked over his ninja registration form in a long, empty room. Sarutobi's old hands held the paper loosely, for he was really studying the grinning boy beyond the foolish picture. He had seen Ehetia's eyes in the photo, and they worried him.
Naruto laughed a bit. He proceeded on a long rambling speech about how he prepared for the picture, ending a few minutes later with Sarutobi saying tiredly, "Take it again."
"No way!" Naruto shouted after a short pause. Ehetia leaped from his shoulder to his lap as a pine martin, arched defensively.
"We can't accept this photo," Sarutobi continued.
"Yeah, well I'm not doing it again!" Naruto said.
The two stared at each other (though Ehetia couldn't force herself to meet Gijega's fearsome eyes, which seemed to be searching for something), and then Naruto's hands swept themselves into the form of a seal. Taking her cue, Ehetia prepared herself for the distinctive surge of outright sexy chakra and felt her body morph into that of a plaintively mewling male Abyssinian while Naruto became a voluptuous young woman surrounded by a faint mist.
For a moment, Sarutobi blinked in surprise. Then he let out a slight cry, Gijega trumpeting faintly, and nearly toppled out of his chair. The feathers along Gijega's neck raised like the hackles on a dog and her wings beat powerfully as though to drive the image away. The reaction was different than that of Iruka's, but it was nonetheless effective, and, to Naruto and Ehetia, utterly satisfying.
The two changed back, slightly surprised by the old man's reaction, while something lurked behind the door.
"That's the sexy jutsu, you say?" Sarutobi asked, wiping his nose while Gijega smoothed her feathers nervously. "Very tricky. Much too tricky. Don't do it again."
Naruto laughed nervously again, and Ehetia became a female Abyssinian this time and licked her paw delicately. She was proud, that was plain.
"Where is your headband, Naruto?" Gijega asked sharply, her voice an unexpected trill on the air. "You're supposed to be wearing it." It was not often that the swan spoke to those other than her human. As a former teacher, she was accustomed to it, but she had stopped once her students had left her. Now she only spoke when Sarutobi was too shocked or embarrassed to continue for her, or when there was something important that she herself wanted to say, to make it clear.
"Oh," Naruto said, fixing the goggles that were set firmly in place on his forehead, "I'm not putting it on until the orientation. I don't wanna mess it up."
"So you want your headband to look nice," Sarutobi said, leading in from Gijega's question, "but your photo, which is supposed to identify you as a ninja, makes you look like a clown. It's for ninja training and missions, which is the key to your future. Look at this picture," he continued, pointing. "You can't even tell who it is."
Though yes, you can, he thought secretly. Ehetia's eyes are those of the nine-tails. Anyone can see that. Even now, in her Abyssinian form, her pupils are slitted and the irises are red.
"Well, fine!" Naruto said loudly. "How am I supposed to know all this complicated stuff anyway?"
Gijega's head turned slightly then to look toward the door. It was a furtive move, one that neither Naruto or Ehetia noticed, and she made it look like she was preening her feathers again when in reality her bright, keen eyes were looking at the shadow beneath the door crack.
Suddenly the door flew open, and there stood a young child not more than nine years old, his red ermine daemon standing at his ankle with her back arched threateningly. He held a shuriken in one hand and wore some unassuming clothing, but the look on his face was one of sheer determination and absolute vigor.
"Old man!" he shouted, holding the shuriken aloft. "We challenge you!" He and his daemon ran forward, his daemon spitting almost like a snake, before the child tripped on his ridiculously long scarf and landed flat on his nose. His daemon recoiled and cringed, pawing at her nose, while the child picked himself up and hiccuped, trying to hold back the tears.
"Our grandson," Gijega said to Sarutobi so that only he would understand, "another headache."
Another intruder barged in then: a man in a navy shirt and pants with the sleeves of the shirt rolled up, wearing his headband like a bandana. He wore round, dark glasses, and his coydog daemon looked commanding and submissive at the same time.
"Something tripped me!" the boy whined, grabbing his daemon and hugging her to his chest.
The coydog whined too, taking a few steps forward tentatively, and then a few steps back.
"A-are you okay, Honorable Grandson?" the man in the doorway stammered. "And by the way, there's nothing here for you to trip on—it's pretty flat."
Ehetia changed her form to be the most vexing and jealousy-invoking form she could: a beautiful red fox, the paws and legs splashed black, the front washed white, and the tail long and bushy and ending with a white tip. She wrapped herself around Naruto's legs protectively, looking at the child curiously with her slitted red Kyuubi eyes.
The man in the doorway turned to see Naruto, and he seemed shocked—his coydog let out a low growl.
"All right," the boy threatened, pointing a finger and Naruto as he stormed up. He nearly stepped on Ehetia's tail, but she sidestepped out of the way. "You're the one that tripped me, aren't you?" His daemon had become a wildcat, and was hissing at Ehetia, who was growling lightly back.
Naruto, annoyed, stood and grabbed the boy by the scarf. He said, "You tripped over your own feet, kid!" Ehetia curled her lip and showed her little fangs to the wildcat, who seemed unfazed.
"Hey, you!" the man in the doorway (who had now left the doorway and was standing in front of Sarutobi) shouted. "Take your hands off of him, right now! He's the Honorable Grandson of the Honorable Third Hokage!"
Naruto looked up at the man idly, uninterested but caught slightly by the sound of his voice. Ehetia let her curled lip fall and regarded the small wildcat with a steely eye. Then Naruto looked long and hard at the boy. He noticed he was missing a tooth.
"What's the matter, huh? I thought you were gonna hit me, tough guy!" the boy snapped. "Afraid 'cause the Third Hokage's my grandfather?"
Naruto and Ehetia both flared up at this—Ehetia launched forward and grabbed the cat by the scruff, shaking her from side to side while Naruto shouted, "I don't care if he's your grandmother!" and punched the boy's head.
Ehetia released the boy's daemon as the boy fell, limp, to the ground. The wildcat stumbled for a bit before collapsing beside her human.
The man that had followed the boy seemed absolutely shocked. He didn't quite know what to do with his hands—they were hovering in front of him while his mouth hung slack, and his coydog daemon put a paw over her long muzzle.
"This isn't looking good," Gijega muttered into Sarutobi's ear. Sarutobi knit his fingers together and rested his chin in the basket they created.
---
"Listen carefully," the man said to the boy after he had woken up. "You are the Honorable Grandson of the Honorable Third Hokage. You cannot let riffraff like this draw you into a fight, even though he deserves it. You see, he's far beneath you. You mustn't stoop to his level. As your elite ninja trainer, I am never wrong which means I am always right. I'm far above the other trainers, so heed my every word.
"Your goal," the man continued while his daemon sat at the ready, "is to become the next Hokage, and I can teach you the best way to do it. Indeed, with my great skill, I can take you quickly and easily to the top, but you must stay close to me. You understand me? Right, Honorable Grandson?"
But while the man had turned away, and while his daemon was enthralled by his proclamations of self-love, the boy had slipped away and was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd he go now?" the man shouted. His coydog jumped up from her sit, barking smartly.
"I think he followed Naruto," Sarutobi said, "but I have no idea where they're going."
"He's with Naruto?" the man said, thoroughly in a panic. "That's a disaster!" He and his coydog ran from the room.
Sarutobi and Gijega sighed in unison. "How did he grow up to be like that?" the swan asked tiredly. "Our grandson's quite determined. That was his twentieth sneak attack today. And if he starts running around with Naruto, he's sure to get even worse."
"Naruto wouldn't teach him anything really bad, would he?" Sarutobi asked slowly.
"I hope not," Gijega muttered.
---
Naruto and Ehetia had snuck out during the odd man's explanation of judgement and skill, and now were walking along a wide alleyway. The birds hummed thoughtfully and Ehetia was still in her fox form, her bushy tail swinging behind her as she went.
People often stared at her because no matter how much she changed, Ehetia's eyes were always the same. Naruto saw no problem in them—he thought them quite beautiful—but when one from Konoha sees a fox with unnaturally slitted eyes that gleam as red as blood, they instantaneously think of the nine-tails, and Naruto understood that now, knowing who he was. Still, it didn't bother him, and it wouldn't stop him from his goals.
Suddenly, though, Ehetia heard a noise, and her ear flicked. Naruto stopped, sensing the same thing she had, and he looked up. Turning around, Naruto saw the boy from before poorly trying to conceal himself underneath what looked like a tan tablecloth. Unfortunately, his raccoon daemon's tail was peeking out, striped gray and black.
"We should ignore him," Ehetia said. Naruto nodded and followed her onward. He could distinctly hear the boy throwing off his cloth and following him with loud, clumsy steps. Doubtless he would trip over that ridiculous scarf of his again...
Annoyed after a few minutes, Naruto whirled around with an accusatory finger and said, "I know you're following me, so just give it up." He sighed when he saw the boy's new hiding place. His daemon had smartly become an unassuming moth (unassuming except for the fact that it was high noon), but the boy's fence-designed cloth that Naruto was so used to using was held so that the stripes went horizontally rather than vertically, and his ponytail and feet stuck out from over the top and beneath it.
"That's so obvious, it's pathetic," Naruto said, quivering with barely suppressed anger.
The boy laughed and pulled down his cloth. "Saw through my disguise, huh?" he asked. "The rumors about you are true—you're good!" He came up to Naruto, his daemon as a raccoon again clinging to his shoulder, and pointed to the older boy's face. "All right," he said. "I'll be your apprentice and you'll be my trainer."
"What?" Naruto asked. Ehetia snorted as though she had some dust up her nose.
"And afterwards," the boy continued desperately, "you gotta show me that sexy jutsu thing you used on Grandpa Hokage!"
"This is some kind of joke, isn't it?" Naruto asked, turning away.
"No!" the boy whined. "I need a new trainer! Please, Boss?" His raccoon daemon yipped her agreement.
"What?" Naruto asked. "Boss?"
"Yeah!" the boy said. "You're the boss! Boss, Boss, Boss!"
"Well," Naruto said, "how can I refuse?"
---
In a busier part of town, Naruto and Ehetia led the boy and his daemon down the street.
"You wanna be a master ninja?" Naruto asked accusingly. "Then you gotta learn to control your catra."
"Your catra?" the boy asked. His daemon turned into a fat blonde tabby to express their shared confusion.
"I said your catra," Naruto said in a commanding tone. Ehetia yipped excitedly.
"Boss," the boy said, "I think you're talking about chakra."
"Don't question me," Naruto snapped. "Real ninja say 'catra.'"
"Really?" the boy asked excitedly. "I didn't know that—that's cool!"
"He believes anything you say," Ehetia laughed so that only Naruto would understand her. He nodded briskly.
"Listen," Naruto said to the boy. "I'll explain what chakra is."
But the boy interrupted. "Chakra," he explained, "is the elemental life-energy that is used to perform jutsu. Like blood. Or Dust. The ninja arts combine physical energy from each cell in the body with mystical energy which is intensified through training and experience. When these two chakra mix, special hand signs allow the ninja to focus this combined energy through himself and his daemon for advanced jutsu."
But the boy had pulled out a scroll and was merely reading a dictionary definition. Naruto slapped the scroll away.
"You can blab all you want about how to do ninja techniques," he said with his hands on his hips, "but it really comes down to one thing."
"What is it?" the boy asked.
"Just plain hard work and guts," Naruto said simply.
"Okay, I'm with you!" the boy shouted.
"All right," Naruto said. "I'm gonna throw some really big challenges at you now. Are you ready?"
"Ready, Boss!" the boy said.
"Good. Then let's do it—show me a transformation. Show me what you can do and I'll take you to the next level."
"All right, sure," the boy said. "But what do I transform into?"
Glancing around for a few minutes, Naruto quickly spied a petite young woman in a purple kimono with a brown thrush as her daemon. "Transform into her," Naruto said, pointing.
"No problem!" the boy said. "Here I go, Boss!" Performing the appropriate seals, the boy let his chakra flow throughout himself and his daemon. The Dust writhed within his daemon's body as the chakra surged, and then there was a great cloud of smoke. "Well?" he asked when the smoke had cleared. "Do I look like her?" His voice was impossibly masculine; the petite frame that Naruto had specified was bulged like a balloon, and the thrush was missing some of its tail feathers.
"The clothes... kinda look like her," Naruto said slowly, unsure of what to say. The woman was behind him now, curious because of the commotion, and she raised her fist angrily.
"That looks like me?" she screeched, punching Naruto hard on the head. Ehetia yelped and jumped, and the thrush twittered reprovingly.
"Now, now, Honorable Grandson," the woman said, waving her finger at the boy. "Next time you transform into me, make me a little cuter, okay? Buh-bye." She waved and left, her thrush daemon flitting around her head like a fly.
"She's scary," the boy's daemon said, quivering as a raccoon on his shoulder.
"You did it," Naruto moaned. "Why am I the one that gets whacked around?"
---
They stood in front of a small green-plastered shop, looking up in appreciation. Naruto knew full well what lay within. He liked the girls and Ehetia liked their daemons—it was an easy win-win.
"All right," Naruto said, rubbing the lump on the back of his head. "Since your last attempt all but failed, we're going to do some research on female beauty."
"Right!" the boy said excitedly.
The inside of the small shop was dusty and dim. The storekeeper and his rat daemon both were sleeping soundly behind the counter. Naruto creaked the door in and allowed the boy and his daemon to step inside first. He himself and Ehetia came afterwards, not bothering to shut the door behind them. They all crept across to the back of the small shop to a small rack where magazines with pretty girls and their daemons were printed on the covers. Ehetia stared longingly at one picture of a male fox daemon, luxuriously curled around his human's neck. She noted with a trace of annoyance that his eyes were a normal fox's brown, and narrowed her own hatefully.
Naruto picked her magazine of choice out of the rack and flipped it open so that the boy could see. The pictures were astounding: there were girls with flat stomachs and large breasts with impossibly handsome daemons dancing around them like mist. There were swimsuits and underwear that barely covered the girls' privates, and some wore nothing at all.
There was a rude awakening for all four of them then—the storekeeper had woken up, and his rat daemon was sitting on his shoulder looking as though she was about to have a cow. Her human was tapping a switch against his back, and he growled, "This is not a library, Naruto!"
Apparently Naruto had been caught here before, and now, like all the other times, he was going to pay for his lecherous, immature ways.
---
Naruto's back was stinging from the swats the man had given him with his switch, but he was undeterred. He led the boy to the training locker rooms and said, "This is the last stop, so give it everything you got, understand?"
The boy nodded and swept his hands to form the seals at the same time Naruto did to perform a transformation.
It was the only time Ehetia could actually hide her demonic eyes—she needed her human's chakra pulsing through her along with the Dust she was made of. She needed him to be someone else for a while so that she could be someone else's daemon. For this reason, her eyes became blue and soft when he transformed himself into a girl with high, long pigtails and she jumped into his arms as a large tabby cat.
The boy and his own daemon had no such luck transforming as swiftly or soundly as Naruto. Once again, the petite frame that was called for was bulged and round like a ball. The face was ill-proportioned, and the ermine that was also transformed through chakra and not Dust was just as fat and round, hardly able to move unless the boy was holding her. Of course, both daemons were now male for the time that their humans were female.
Looking the way they did, the two boys sauntered in to the ladies' locker room. For a few moments, there was silence. And then there was a ruckus that could only be compared to an animal stampede—at least twenty girls were screaming and raging, their daemons howling and snarling, sharing their rage, as they pounded on Naruto and chased him and the younger boy out. Ino and her caracal Heji were one of the main pursuers, and they most certainly left the most bruises.
"Why do they only hurt me?" Naruto asked a few minutes later, as he and the boy had escaped into the woods.
"Sorry," the boy said quietly. "It's because I'm the grandson of the Hokage." His daemon rested as a mouse in the palm of his hand, and she looked quite shamefaced and sad.
"Don't worry about it," Naruto said, noticing this. Had there been no taboo he would have reached out to stroke the little thing, but as the taboo had been instilled in his instincts since birth, the thought never even crossed his mind. "I've prepared you, so now you're ready to learn the sexy jutsu. You're just gonna need to practice."
There was a long pause, then the boy's daemon transformed into her raccoon shape and he said, "Practice! All right, Boss, let's do this!"
---
"Naruto..." the odd man's coydog growled under her breath as she and her human stood atop Sarutobi's monument on the Hokage Mountain. "What's he done with the Honorable Grandson? What's he up to? Where did they go?"
"We are a jounin," the odd man said, and he identified the both of them as one entity because his daemon was really part of him, his soul. "We are the elite, the trainers of future Hokage. This parasite that leeches on to our student will be squashed."
---
It was some time later that Naruto and the boy and their daemons sat on a log together, eating cup-ramen from a vending machine stall in the park a ways over.
"I gotta know," Naruto said after slurping up some noodles. "What's this obsession you've got with your grandfather?"
The boy looked away. "My grandfather named me Konohamaru," he said, and Naruto felt stupid for not asking his name earlier. "Gijega named my daemon Iegi. Since my name comes from the village's name, it should be easy to remember. But nobody calls me that—not one person. And they never address Iegi at all. That's 'cause when they look at us, they don't really see us. All they see is the Honorable Grandson of the Hokage-sama. No one knows who I am.
"I can't stand it anymore," Konohamaru continued. "It's like I'm invisible; like I don't exist. I hate that. We both do. Sometimes, because of the way they treat us, it's almost like I don't even have Iegi with me. Like I don't have a daemon. That's why I've got to become the Hokage now, so people know who I am! I don't want to feel like I don't even have a daemon. It feels so wrong."
Naruto was silent for a moment. The idea of not having a daemon terrified him—about this, he was honest with himself. Really, if someone said they weren't scared of something like that, he would be afraid of them. Someone without a daemon was like someone without a head. Even the odd shinobi who had their daemon cut from them at some point in their life kept them remarkably close, because after someone gets cut from their daemon, their connection becomes thin. Those shinobi that lost that connection at some point were always working to gain it back lest they lose their soul. And instinctually, that was wrong.
But then Naruto drew himself away from those damned thoughts and returned himself to the idea that Konohamaru and Iegi wanted to become Hokage. How silly.
"Get real," he said at last, after a pause in which Ehetia crawled into his lap. "You think people are going to accept a squirt like you? A kid can't just turn into a Hokage after a day or two."
Konohamaru leapt up, Iegi a hissing ermine beside him. "What?" he shouted.
"It's not that simple," Naruto continued doggedly. "You keep saying 'Hokage, Hokage.' To really be a Hokage, you know what you'll have to do?"
"What?" Konohamaru asked again. "Whatever it is, I'll do it."
And then Naruto grinned, a fox-like grin which Ehetia shared, her eyes now reverted to their normal slitted blood reds, calmly as a fox once again. Naruto turned to look at Konohamaru, and Ehetia turned to look at Iegi, who had by now stopped hissing and was gazing fearfully into those gleaming red eyes.
"You're going to have to defeat us in battle," Naruto said, a fierce look in his eye.
The challenge had been made, and because of his promise, Konohamaru could no longer back down if he wanted to. He would fight for his whole life if only to be able to defeat Naruto—he would fight for the strength, the power to do so.
---
It was quiet beneath the Hokage faces as Sarutobi stood, Gijega at his side.
"Hokage-sama!" That was Iruka's voice. He appeared behind Sarutobi, Yideyu on his shoulder. Her wing was tightly bandaged after her run-in with Mizuki's lemur (both were now in prison), and, following suit, Iruka's was in a sling. "We've been looking for you."
"For what purpose?" Sarutobi asked, not bothering to turn around.
"It's about Naruto," Iruka said, coming to stand beside the old man. "Did he resubmit his ninja ID photo?"
Sarutobi grunted the affirmative.
"You know," Iruka laughed, "Yideyu and I gave him a long lecture the other night at Ichiraku's, but he's still beaming because he became a genin. He thinks that will change things, that people will stop looking down on him now."
Sarutobi's gaze was intense as he looked up at the Hokage Faces. Gijega twisted her neck slightly to look at Iruka out of the corner of her eye, but neither said anything as their concentration was on the Fourth.
Finally, Sarutobi said, "I fear his dream may not come true. People don't change that easily. Why do you think daemons settle into one form? Your crow daemon cannot become a swan daemon now that your personality is set by her in Dust."
"Oh?" Iruka asked.
"The nine-tailed fox is within him," Sarutobi continued. "You can see it in Ehetia's eyes, burning there. And whenever she's as a fox, its presence is so apparent that it's almost frightening. But not everyone knows that, of course. Not everyone looks at her eyes. Only those who fought the beast twelve years ago know what those eyes mean anyway.
"I decreed that no one could speak about this," he said. "Even those who whispered it were punished severely. So the children of today know nothing about Naruto's connection to the beast, or why it is so dangerous for Ehetia to choose to settle as a fox. As long as the children are unaware of this, Naruto has some hope of being accepted. That was the wish of his father, the Fourth Hokage.
"Before he sacrificed himself to save us, he asked that when Naruto grew up, he should be regarded as a hero."
Gijega had turned away now, and had stretched her neck out as though to reach for the precious Fourth above her.
"A hero?" Iruka asked.
"The Fourth Hokage defeated the fox by sealing its spirit within a newborn baby—his baby," Sarutobi explained. "His umbilical cord had just been cut. I doubt Naruto fully understands that the tattoo on his stomach is the seal for the fox. But by containing the spirit within his tiny body, Naruto saved the village. That's why he is a hero.
"Unfortunately, many of the villagers don't understand this. People are driven by fear. They think the beast could kill Ehetia and take over Naruto's body—no, they think he is the beast now, and their children feel their fear and hatred, and they turn against Naruto as well." Sarutobi stopped, and Gijega retracted her head and continued for him.
"Do you know what the Ancients said about such things, Iruka?" she asked softly.
"What's that, Gijega-sama?" Iruka asked.
"When the people reject someone's very existence, and then they look at that person, their eyes become cold, and their daemons become colder. Cold as an ice storm in the deepest winter, or colder still."
---
The odd man and his coydog daemon leaped through the trees, still searching frantically for Konohamaru and Iegi. The coydog stopped on a branch a few yards away from her human and barked angrily, "I found you!"
Both boys and their daemons turned to look up at her as the odd man joined her on her perch.
The coydog let out a low growl as she gazed at Ehetia's fox form, one that to the odd man said, "Look at her. It's disgusting. She takes the shape of the nine-tails."
The odd man gazed down coldly at Naruto and Ehetia.
Ehetia let out a growl of her own. To Naruto, she said, "They all look at us that way!" It made her angry and sad, and the turmoil of feelings inside of her sometimes made her sick, because Naruto felt them as well and added to them, making them twofold.
The odd man leapt down, his coydog beside him. "So, Honorable Grandson," he said, his voice hard. "Time to go home."
"No way!" Konohamaru snapped, almost before the odd man could finish. "Me and Iegi are learning how to beat my grandfather so I can get the title 'Hokage!' Now, don't get in our way!"
"Hokage is more than just a fighter," the odd man said, walking forward coolly. "He must know virtue, honor, fortitude. He must be skilled beyond measure, and his daemon must be the most beautiful and pure thing there is. You don't even know one jutsu, and look at your daemon. A stoat is not a viable daemon for a Hokage."
"She's not a stoat, she's an ermine!" Konohamaru shouted. His hands swept together to form the transformation seal, and he sent a pulse of chakra surging down through his connection with Iegi. He sent it flowing into her body and it reverberated back to his.
"Transform!"
The rush of chakra and Dust made the odd man and his coydog daemon stop in their tracks.
"Hi there. Like my jutsu?" The voice was tantalizingly feminine, and the urging growl was coming from a sleek and powerful male panther curled protectively around the woman's legs. She was curvy, delicate, fine. He was deliciously sculpted, and added to her valuer.
The odd man's face went red, and he screamed. His coydog raced around in a circle about his legs, whimpering and shouting.
"Hey, he's not defeated!" Konohamaru pouted, returning to normal. His now female raccoon daemon leaped up onto his shoulder.
"What... What kind of scandalous technique is that?" the odd man shouted, hands quivering. His daemon jumped and howled her disapproval. "Such tasteless vulgarity can never influence me! I am far above it!" He grabbed on to Konohamaru's scarf and began pulling in the direction of the village. "Honorable Grandson, stop this!" he ordered. "Right now!" His coydog was busy trying to capture Iegi in her mouth, but the raccoon had changed into an ermine again, and was dodging every swipe the coydog sent her.
"Naruto's turning you into a delinquent!" the odd man continued. "Only my special training can put you on the fast track to becoming the Hokage!"
"Leave me alone!" Konohamaru shouted, pulling in vain against the scarf.
"Shadow clone jutsu!"
And suddenly there were a thousand Narutos and a thousand Ehetias, all ready and willing to fight.
Konohamaru could only stare in shock as Iegi jumped up onto his shoulder, a raccoon once again.
"I'm not impressed," the odd man said pretentiously. "I'm a jounin, an elite ninja warrior. I'm not some lightweight like Mizuki." He stepped forward, and his coydog came to back him, baring her teeth in a vicious snarl.
The dog in her must be something strong, like a shepherd! Naruto thought as the two advanced.
"Watch," the odd man was saying, "how a real ninja defeats an upstart."
The Narutos and Ehetias readied themselves for the attack, determined and knowing full well that they could defeat this man.
The odd man lowered himself into an offensive-defensive stance, and his daemon did the same, lowering her throat to the ground but lowering her hind legs as well, ready to spring.
"Transform!" one Naruto said, and the thousand Narutos and Ehetias transformed with him, into their sleek womanly shapes and Abyssinian forms. The women latched on to the odd man, and the male Abyssinians latched on to the coydog. The odd man and his daemon fell twitching to the ground.
"Gotcha," Naruto said, dismissing his clones. "That was my harem jutsu."
---
It was late afternoon now, and the sun was just starting its trek toward the horizon. Konoharmu said angrily, "Oh, I couldn't even beat that stupid trainer of mine! I want to be Hokage so bad but I keep messing up! Why can't I do it?"
"You really think it's that easy?" Naruto asked, perturbed. "To be the Hokage, you have to be the greatest of all ninja, and have the most beautiful, awesome daemon there is. You have to prove yourself so everyone believes in you. Look at me. I've been through a lot already with Ehetia. We've been ignored, pushed away, and treated like we were nothing, not even Dust. And after all that, we found one person and their daemon who believes in us. To find that one person, we had to get knocked down a lot. So you better make sure that you're ready."
"For what?" Konohamaru asked.
Naruto turned away, and Ehetia leaped up into his arms. "For lots of things," he said. "Sweat. Tears. Blood. Dust. While you're learning to be a ninja."
A coarse breeze whipped through the forest, stirring the leaves and branches high above and ripping green from their stems, sending them fluttering down to the forest floor.
Naruto and Ehetia turned around again and smiled. "By the way," Naruto said, "there is no easy way to becoming Hokage."
But Konohamaru turned away, and Iegi turned her raccoon tail up as an insult to Naruto and Ehetia. "Ha!" Konohamaru said. "Who do you think you are, giving me a big lecture like that? That's it—I'm not going to be your apprentice anymore." He turned around again to face Naruto. "From now on, we're rivals." He smiled, showing that missing tooth of his that was somehow cute and winning at the same time, and Naruto smiled back. Ehetia panted her laughter, and Iegi squeaked hers.
"I can't be your trainer anyway," Naruto said quickly. "Tomorrow I start my advanced ninja studies. But I accept your challenge, and someday we'll fight for the title of Hokage-sama. So let's all look forward to that day, Konohamaru and Iegi."
The fact that Naruto accepted his challenge was not what moved Konohamaru and Iegi so completely—it was the fact that he'd noticed them, the fact that he'd said their names, that he'd acknowledged Iegi at all and that he'd called Konohamaru by his proper name. And while they both stared after the older boy quietly, he turned and walked away with his fox daemon balanced on both his shoulders. He raised his hand and she moved her tail slightly to allow him a small wave before dropping his arm back down.
Konohamaru saluted smartly, straightening himself so that he stood tall.