Hello again everyone! I decided that, since I have so much freetime in the summer, that I would begin my NEW CHAPTER! I am very happy that people read this, and I thank .Alpha for leaving a kind first review d^_^b. Anyways, heres the next chappie!
Sidenote: Im sorry the breaks didn't work on the first chapter T_T…. I fixed them though :D
Disclaimer: Iway on'tday ownway arutonay.
Deep within Naruto's mind, a battle raged on. The dark, foul chakra of the gauntlet's spirit was clashing constantly with the demonic, fiery chakra of the Kyuubi. In the midst of the hurricane of power, a tiny, seemingly insignificant clump of blue chakra desperately tried to assert itself. It was futile however, as the two other monstrous chakras battled for dominance.
But it seemed as if the dark chakra was winning.
The Kyuubi, inside of the cage built for it was straining, trying to force more and more chakra through the bars of its prison. But the seal was beginning to limit it, making the red chakra retreat back to the demon lord. The Fox fell back a bit, straining like it never had within the seal.
"Damnable creature! I will not be bested by a pitiful spirit like you! This host belongs to me!" the Kyuubi roared.
The dark chakra, with no limiters like the Kyuubi, was implanting itself into the mind of its new host. Only the fraying interference of the Kyuubi kept the black chakra from fully taking over.
As the war between the two behemoth chakras continued, the blue chakra began to slowly ebb away.
Soon, the small pool of chakra would disappear completely, drowned in the sea of malicious energy.
XXXXXXXXXX
Iruka dashed through the Village Hidden in the Leaves, zooming like a bullet towards the Hokage tower. He clutched Naruto close to his chest, praying, pleading that the boy would make it boy was gasping, eyes screwed shut, obviously in pain. Though Naruto didn't have any physical wounds, Iruka could tell that the mental war inside of Naruto was destroying him from the inside.
As Iruka came up to the entrance to the Hokage tower, he was stopped by the two chunin guards.
"Iruka-san! What's going on?"
"We heard someone stole the Forbidden scroll!"
"Enough!" Iruka yelled, frustrated that people would get in his way, "I'm on a mission for the Hokage! Get out of my way so I can go too him!"
The guards leaped out of the way, stunned that the normally polite, quiet teacher would blow up at them like that. As the desperate sensei darted through, the guards finally spotted the blood covered boy that Iruka was carrying with him.
Confused, but loyal, the guards stayed at their posts, confident that they would get answers from their buddies at the bar later.
Iruka crashed into a desk, flipped over it and continued on his mad dash up through the tower, still gripping Naruto close to his chest.
As he leaped over a screaming secretary, Iruka contemplated the worst. Looking at the visibly fluctuating chakra floating over Naruto, he thought,
'Hokage-sama should be able to fix this insane chakra, if he can't help, then no one can!'
When the speeding teacher finally made it up to the Hokage's Office, an anbu was there to see him crash up the stairs. The anbu nodded in his direction, opened the door to the office, and said, "Hokage-Sama, Iruka-san has returned." "Send him in, now" the strong voice of the Hokage said.
Iruka nodded in thanks to the anbu, and sped into the office.
The Hokage sat back in his chair, but once he saw the state that Naruto was in, he leaped to his feet and ran over to inspect the blond.
As his old hands ran over the boy, checking for injuries, he touched the blood soaked gauntlet. Recoiling in horror, the Hokage cursed, "Damn! That blasted gauntlet! Come Iruka, quickly, set him down."
Iruka laid the young man down on the rug in the Hokage's office, worried about the Hokage's reaction to the gauntlet. The Hokage looked at Iruka, his face completely serious, "Iruka. You must tell me what you saw. Describe what you came upon EXACTLY."
As Iruka explained what happened in the forest clearing, the Hokage stripped the jacket off of Naruto's chest. The blond boy was drenched in blood. The gauntlet had clamped down on the arm, the metal ending at the elbow. There was no visible flesh underneath it. The metal gauntlet completely covered all of Naruto's fingers and arm. The spike at the end extended three or four inches out from the end of his elbow, and the claws totally covered Naruto's hand.
The aged Hokage cursed again, and ran over to his desk. From there, he pulled an ink-pot and brush and dashed back over to Naruto. Iruka kneeled by the boy's side, worry written all over his face.
"Iruka."
The stern sound of his name broke Iruka free of his reverie and he looked into the focused face of the Sandaime.
"I am going to make a Containment Seal on Naruto's shoulder. It should be able to stop most of the evil chakra from leaking through into his system. The Seal should also be able to rip out the chakra that has already implanted itself. But I am going to need your help." At this the Hokage's expression grew even more serious. "You must help me keep Naruto stabilized throughout the procedure. His body will try to reject the seal, so you have to make sure that he doesn't ruin the procedure. Can I count on you to do whatever is necessary to make sure Naruto doesn't move?"
Iruka gazed down at the boy he saw as his own sibling, and his face hardened at the sight of the poor boy in pain. The kind sensei looked up at the older man and said, with a determined look on his face, "You can count on me, Hokage-Sama. I want to save this boy as much as you."
The wrinkled face of the Hokage broke into a small smile, and then he set to work on making the seal on the child's arm.
The battle was nearly won for the dark chakra. Nearly all the Kyuubi's chakra had been forced back by the power of the Yondaime's Seal, and the blue chakra never stood a chance in the wake of the tidal wave of darkness.
But just when the body was about to fully succumb to the will of the darkness; tendrils began breaking out around where the darkness originally emanated from. These tendrils, blacker then the darkness surrounding them, began to tether and weave the dark chakra back to its source.
The evil chakra tried desperately to regain its hold on the host's mind, struggling against the black tendrils that tried to corral the evil back. The tendrils became stronger as each second passed, and soon, the ocean of malice was forced back into its place of beginning. The tendrils weaved themselves into a wall, blocking the evil chakra from attempting to push back through.
With the evil chakra forced back by the black tendrils, and the demonic chakra of the Kyuubi kept in check by its own seal, the blue chakra began to reclaim its lost territory. It permeated throughout the warzone, healing interior damage, and returning the area to its former look.
Within the darkness, behind the wall of tendrils, a strange mist began crawling along, oozing together into a blob within the shadow. A being manifested, humanoid in shape, but lacking defining characteristics. All that could be seen was a single eye on the "head" of the body.
The eye burned with fury, and a voice rang out from the surrounding blackness.
"YOU CANNOT. ESCAPE ME."
The Hokage sat back in his chair with a whoosh of air, picking up his pipe and reading it. Iruka slouched across from him, looking as tired as the old man felt. Below them, lay the boy that they both cherished, who was sleeping peacefully, the gauntlet finally quiet at his side.
The new seal that the Hokage had placed on Naruto was still visible on Naruto's upper arm. In the center was a spiral, much like the seal on Naruto's stomach, but odd, spiderlike tendrils spread out from the spiral. The tendrils connected to each other and formed a web of black, spreading around Naruto's shoulder, stretching all the way to his shoulder blade on his back, and his right pec on his chest. The black webbing crawled down his arm all the way to where tanned flesh met the red metal of the gauntlet.
The Hokage sighed. "I think it is time for an explanation, Iruka."
Rising to his feet, and walking over to the window, the aged man gazed out over the village he loved.
"The Ketsueki Seishin no Tsume, or the Claws of the Blood Spirit, are very, very old." The Sandaime began. "The gauntlet originated from the West, and it was part of a suit of armor that belonged to a very evil man by the name of Drucalu, who lived nearly 200 years ago. When he died, his spirit was sealed into his armor and the pieces of the suit were separated. The right gauntlet came to the elemental nations by way of a merchant, who thought to sell a 'rare artifact from the west' to someone here," the Hokage grimaced.
Iruka sat, rapt with attention. He was witnessing a fraction of what made the Sandaime known as "The Professor", and he was not about to miss a bit.
"The merchant was attacked by bandits and was killed. The bandit leader, an unknown man, took the gauntlet as a prize and placed it on himself. He went insane with bloodlust, tearing into his men with wild abandon. Regardless of his wounds, he butchered nearly every single one of his men using the claws on the gauntlet. One of the survivors of the bandit group described what the bandit leader turned into to an anbu guard later. The man told how the leader's very eyes turned black, misting like an evil swamp, his mouth open in a terrifying, screaming roar. Later, the anbu investigated the sight, and found the corpse of the leader. His right arm was gone, severed cleanly at the elbow joint, but there was no sign of the gauntlet." The Hokage sighed.
After a short pause, tapping his pipe, the Hokage continued.
"This was the last we heard of the gauntlet for some time. However, some 30 years ago, it resurfaced. A small farming village had been annihilated, with no survivors, but one missing corpse. A week later, another nearby village was destroyed, with the same instance of a single missing body. These villages were found in a valley, and one other village was inside it. The village hired us, and we sent a team of chunin there to defend it." The old man grimaced again, "But what they found was horrifying."
The Hokage was silent for a minute or so, and Iruka was about to ask what had happened when the Hokage continued of his own violation.
"The chunin found a wasteland of corpses. All were dismembered, bloody, and unrecognizable. In the middle of the carnage, was the corpse of an unknown man with the gauntlet, still attached to his right arm. Foolishly, one of the chunin reached out and grabbed the claws. The gauntlet immediately detached off the bloated corpse and clamped onto the chunin. The effect was immediate. The chunin reverted to something similar to the bandit leader previously described. The other two chunin were set upon by their former teammate. The insane ninja brutally slaughtered the first chunin, having caught him by surprise, but the other chunin was able to suppress the mad man with a series of ninjustsu. The body of the chunin gone crazy gave out, and the gauntlet, with no living host, detached itself to find a new body to take over. However, the surviving chunin was able to capture it, and it was brought before me for inspection."
Taking another huff from his pipe, Sarutobi began telling the last part of his tale. "When I inspected the item, I found that a large part of the spirit of Drucalu had been sealed into the right gauntlet. Drucalu's spirit had rotted, descending into the madness of bloodlust. From what I found, the gauntlet forces it's chakra through the host, overpowering his or her mind and taking over it. The spirit then drives its new body to kill every living thing in its way. The spirit's chakra gives the wielder fantastic strength and agility, as well as a near immunity to pain. However, I deemed it too dangerous to use a weapon, due to the fact that the spirit cannot tell friend from foe. I could not destroy the gauntlet though. It resisted some of my greatest ninjutsu, and not even the power of Emna could shatter it. So I decided to hide it. I created its name, and had it sealed into the Forbidden scroll, hopefully never to be heard from again."
Iruka gazed at the Hokage and said, "But how did Naruto get access to the Scroll? And WHY would he take it? I think that's going far even for him as a prank."
From what I gleaned from my crystal ball," the Hokage gestured towards the faintly glowing orb on his desk, "Mizuki tricked Naruto into taking the scroll so he could get it himself and deal with Naruto in the process. However, the idea backfired with Naruto was taken by the gauntlet. I am afraid that Mizuki was the corpse you found in the clearing where Naruto was." Although he didn't sound very remorseful at all. Traitors were dealt with harshly in Konohana.
Iruka nodded, but then another look of worry and confusion came over his face, "But what about the other chakra I felt? Was that the Kyu…" he quickly slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes widening in shock. The poor teacher was sitting in the presence of the man who made the very law he was about to break.
Sarutobi waved his hand, dismissing the near miss, "Do not worry, Iruka. I made that law to preserve Naruto's well-being from people who wanted to hurt him. I know that I can trust you. And yes, I believe that the other chakra you detected was indeed the Kyuubi's. Although why that demon interfered is questionable…" The Hokage furrowed his brow in thought.
Iruka sat in thought as well, thinking about any possibilities that could point to a conclusion.
"Also," Iruka began slowly, "How will the seal affect Naruto? Did you completely cut him off from the Spirit?"
The old Hokage sighed sadly and explained. "No I could not completely cut him off from the Spirit's influence. The seal I've placed on him is known as a 'Spider Web Seal'. The seal will stop nearly 90% of the chakra, but, like a spider's web, there are tiny holes that some chakra may leak through. But I don't know how else this seal will affect Naruto, or the leaking chakra, or even how the new seal will react with the old one! The combination of the Kyuubi's demonic chakra, Drucalu's tainted chakra, and Naruto's own pure chakra may cause a reaction I could never predict… something very, very dangerous..." the Hokage went silent.
After a few moments, the Sandaime broke off his train of thought and sighed. He walked around his desk and sat down again and looked at Iruka closely.
"Iruka, because I trust you with Naruto, I will require your help to enact a plan. Think of it as a… Private mission, assigned directly by the Hokage."
Iruka straightened up, astonished and proud that the Hokage would assign a mission to an academy teacher like him.
"What do you request of me Hokage-Sama?" Iruka said seriously, adding a small bow.
Sarutobi grinned, glancing over at Naruto for a brief moment, before saying with a slight chuckle,
"Play along."
A bit shorter then last chapter, but with a longwinded historical explanation! I like it. Yeah but R&R please! Reviews are like cookies for writers! Speaking of, anyone who guess who I based "Drucalu" off of gets magic invisible candy! Signing off,
GearsofAwesomeness
P.S. If I missed some grammer stuff SORRY! I don't have a beta, and I don't catch everything, even if I reread it multiple times T_T…