Disclaimer: I don't own the Fairy Tail or Naruto series.

A/N: Criticisms are fine. Don't like, don't read. I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

Beta: VivyPotter

~Chapter 2: Meetings – Natsu~

"…"

"…"

"…OKAY!" Natsu finally exploded. "Can you two say something?! What is the use of staring at each other?!" he raged. "And plus, I'm hungry! Where's the food…?" he crumbled to the ground as he held his stomach while the two stared at him as if he were some amazing animal they'd picked up. Which, in a sense, was somewhat true.

Itachi and Naruto made eye contact.

'Is this the one that dragon of yours said to find for him?' Itachi asked him silently.

Naruto inclined his head by a centimeter, barely noticeable. 'He smells like him, and the kid did ask for the dragon.' The two turned their attention to said dragon kid who was groaning on the ground. Well, they didn't really understand what he fully said. The only thing Naruto recognize was the 'Igneel' name.

'Is he hungry? I just got a deer a moment ago. All it needs is for you to cook it.' He told Naruto silently and Naruto made a move to cook the deer. They had come to an agreement to have him cook for the two of them, since apparently, he had the better cooking skills and nose amongst the two of them, which helps more than one may think in cooking.

Itachi gathered the wood together and blew out a small fireball that was eyed by Natsu. The ball disappeared down his gullet as he let out a satisfied sigh. "Man, your fire tastes good! It was a good desert!" he complimented the frozen ninjas who stared at him wide-eyed behind their masks.

"…Hn…?"

"…Hn…"

Natsu looked at them, annoyed. He didn't understand 'Hnese' nor did he speak it! "Can you two say something besides 'Hn', it's really annoying. Can't you say something everybody can understand?!" and as he went on about with his rant, the two were having their own silent conversation using a mixture of hand signs and eye-contact.

'What was that? Did he just eat your fireball?' Naruto asked as he quickly skinned the deer.

'He did. Maybe it has something to do with being raised by a dragon. It is worth looking into.' Itachi answered as he, once again, blew out a fireball and to his relief it didn't get eaten.

"Are you two listening to me?!" Natsu's annoyed voice broke into their silent questions and they turned to him, answering in their usual 'Hn'.

"Hn."

"You weren't listening at all!" Natsu complained, but dragged himself to sit on one of the logs that surrounded the small fire as Naruto laid the deer meat near the fire.

'What is he complaining about? We can't understand the language, and the most we can do is read and write it! Including the basic greetings and whatnot from our spying and other reconnaissance, learning something that isn't even in your own language… I want the gaki to try it and see for himself. Too bad I can't say any of this in a way he can understand.' Naruto tuned out the grumbles from the small dragon slayer as he seasoned the food carefully.

Itachi sighed quietly, thinking about all the books they had to read and felt a tinge of annoyance entering his mind. 'I feel as if my intelligence was insulted. Thank Kami for henge, since we had to go read children's books which are the easiest to read based on all the pictures to help us. Our prodigy titles were on the line too. If it had been any other person, they would have given it up long ago. But speaking… that is a whole other problem that will never be fixed. Trying to teach ourselves how to speak it… is pushing it, not like either of us are socialists anyways.' He gave a nodded of thanks to his partner who nodded in return as he bit into the tender meat using a genjutsu to hide his face.

"Whoa! This is good! How did you make it so good?" Natsu's loudly complimented the ninja as he set the meat on fire, and ate it that way. The two ninjas felt their eyebrows rise.

'What an odd way of eating things.'

'People called my ramen addiction weird. Fire addiction is more dangerous than my addiction, at least for the normal people…'

The two stared hard at the clueless dragon-slayer. Their gazes were like those of a scientist, mentally cutting him open to see what the pink-haired boy was made with inside. A stray thought crossed their minds briefly.

'Orochimaru would love to experiment on him. Good thing he's dead.'

A shiver went down Natsu's spine as he turned this way and that way. "What was that odd chill? Meh, who cares!" And he happily chomped into another meat, missing the seconds the ninjas used to take off their masks and speed-eat their dinner without choking. When he noticed, the two were already done, and were just sitting by the small fire.

Natsu choked in shock for a second as he stared at the two, dumbfounded. "H-how? You two? Just… What?" he spluttered as the two silently laughed at his face. It was always funny to see the reactions from others. They should thank Kakashi for the amusement and trick. That man wore his mask almost all his life after all, and he had a good reason to. If he hadn't, gosh, only could only imagine his life if he needed to run every day from the female population.

Natsu muttered inaudibly under his breath as he lay down on the ground and yawned loudly. "You guys will still be here in the morning, right?" By then, his eyelids were already drooping, but he could still see the slight nods before he fell into slumber, a peaceful smile on his face as he slept like a log.

"Zzz…"

"What are we going to do with him?" Naruto finally asked since no one was in vicinity to hear them talk in their language, but he still made sure to talk low for fear of waking the pink-haired child up.

"What did the fire dragon tell you anyways? I've gotten ahold of a book and it stated that dragons no longer existed, but then you had to go and meet one." Itachi crossed his arms as he turned the mask to the side on his face, his chakra sticking it to his head so it didn't fall off, and the blonde mimicked his actions, cool sapphire eyes staring into obsidian as they went into a stare down.

"…" Naruto was the one to break the contact as he rubbed his forehead. "Good thing the dragon somehow managed to figure out I can't speak the language and instead, wrote it on a sheet of paper. It just said: "I have a pink-haired son that is still pretty young. Please help him out and take him somewhere where he will be fine. I am in your debt, stranger from another world. My name is Igneel, proud Fire Dragon." And he just left without me even getting a chance to reject. Good thing we're good at finding things since this guys didn't even describe the gaki – besides saying he was young, pink-haired, and a boy." He mutter death threats to the– as his old Nara friend would put it– troublesome dragon.

"Where were you planning to take him then?" Itachi asked, his gaze fixed on the boy. "He could pass for Sakura's brother in our world with his hair." His lips quirked a bit at the mention of the proud combat medic.

"I was planning to do some spying on those light guilds we read about and hopefully leave the gaki at one of the good ones. And they both have similar personalities, except Sakura was more… clever?" he answered with a shrug. They really were similar though, except they would probably be punched by said medic if she ever heard their words.

Darn right, SHANNARO!

"Let's go to sleep, I feel like tomorrow is going to be a long day." Itachi nodded in agreement as Naruto silently made a Kage Bunshin to take watch. They doused the fire and jumped into one of the surrounding trees, but not before covering up the young mage and moving him to a better, more hidden spot.

Night.

xxxxx

"OI! Where the heck did you two go?!" Natsu yelled when he found them gone the next morning. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the one he deemed 'Crow' appeared behind him like a shadow. "Don't scare me like that!" he yelled as Itachi handed him a book. He took it and looked at it with a sour face. "I have to read this?" at his nod, he obediently opened the book to try and read it but…

At the sight of him struggling, Itachi had to hold back a sigh. 'Don't tell me this kid can't read, or he doesn't know enough to read the book…'

Natsu finally had enough of the book and threw it up into the air, preparing to burn it with a roar. However, before he could, Itachi saved the book he 'borrowed' just in time.

Natsu was just about to go into another rant when 'Fox' appeared right beside his partner. This time, he was handed a map, which he had no idea how to read so Naruto took it back.

"So where are we going?" Natsu asked again, and like last time, Naruto just gestured in a random direction. He wanted to punch him or something, but decided to just follow them since they may know where Igneel is.

"Where's Igneel?" They didn't answer him, and only gestured to follow them.

And follow them he did.

xxxxx

It was nightfall again, and the two began to discuss their plans.

"What have you found?"

"There are many guilds, but I managed to narrow it down to one. I think the sign says 'Fairy Tail', but I may have read it wrong since it is such an odd name." Naruto mulled it over as he remembered the chaos of the whole guild, but otherwise, it was nice. A place where the gaki would probably fit in like a jigsaw piece in the perfect spot.

"Fairy Tail? I believe it was mentioned as the Number One Guild in Fiore. Do they meet your requirements? I'm quite sure there were others." Itachi asked as he played around with a bit of fire-manipulation, making odd shapes and upping his control on his fire-natured chakra. It wouldn't do well for them to neglect their training and slip now, would they?

"There were many children there, and they all had a good aura. Kurama's ability does come in handy at such times. There were others, but I felt that they were the most suitable. They are also the strongest, so they can help the gaki. We're heading there, but it will take at least a week at the pace we're going at." He informed his partner who nodded. It was fine for them to go at a slow pace since they weren't in a hurry anymore. Now, they could just take their time, make money and when they found a suitable place to live, build a small house to live in. A life of luxury that didn't sound so bad to the two, since they were quite tired of the urgency during the war.

"Should I help the child with his fire-control? He has a lot of it but he can't control it well. I'm partially afraid he may do some serious damage by accident." Itachi commented wryly as Natsu burned a log into ashes in his sleep. Being able to breathe fire was a nice ability, but what happened if you accidently burned your home down while sleeping? That wouldn't be nice at all.

The two sighed in union. "In Shikamaru's words, he is troublesome." They both agreed and went to their selective spots for some much-needed sleep. The week would be a long one…

xxxxx

A week later…

They finally arrived in Fiore. It had been a long and harsh seven days, especially for Itachi since he was attempting to help the young mage in controlling his fires better. The week consisted of Natsu yelling at the man that still hadn't said a word the whole time he taught him, leading be example through a series of fighting and hands-on work. He eventually did get better control of his magic, thus, stronger attacks, but other than that, he was 100% the same as before.

The young mage had also made it his personal mission to somehow get the masks off the two and see their faces, as well as getting them to actually say something besides 'Hn' which wasn't even a word! So far, every try had failed, and most of them were quite amusing to the two, who evaded every attempt. They ranged from trying to set them on fire, to putting traps that he himself fallen into instead of his intended targets.

He also made sure to ask the two about his foster-dragon parent, but they dodged every attempt as well, or answered him with a simple 'Hn' that would piss him off, and essentially divert him from the question and topic. Now, they were just standing over a forest that stretched over and into Fiore.

"Wow! This place is so crowded!" Natsu observed in awe as he took in the sights. As a person who was raised in an isolated place by a dragon, he had never seen so many things gathered in one place, so it really was a sight for him to see. A hand placed itself on his head and he looked up into the mask of the one he had affectionately nicknamed 'Blondie-Fox' since he had seen that he had blond hair while his partner had black. Blondie-Fox gestured to him to follow them so they could use a more 'secret' place to get into town. They were quite famous after all.

xxxxx

Fairy Tail…

The whole guild was partying like usual, people laughing and cheering as their Master mulled over the newspaper with Gildarts right beside him, both with a mug of beer in their hands.

"Hm… they haven't done anything this whole week… usually they would do something at least once a week…" Makarov took a gulp of his beer as Gildarts laughed from his seat.

"Maybe they're taking a break. I have a feeling something incredible will happen today. My instinct is just flaring at me," he mused to the old Master who snorted at their ace.

"Really?"

"Yep. We might be getting a new member today!" He cheered happily. Getting new members was definitely something to be happy about, but lately, the guild seemed more like a daycare with the number of young children mages they had around. Meh, who cared? They'd grow up and become splendid mages in a few years!

"You want a piece of me?!"

"Bring it on, you piece of fat pig!

"Pig? Why you, you useless princess! Why don't you go look for Charming?!"

"Princess? Like you're one to talk! You eat cake all day!"

Their usual two members were getting into an argument again, eh? Erza and Mirajane had done the most damage to the guild so far, they'd better calm the two female members down before things started to get out of hand. But before they could yell at the two to calm down, the door slowly creaked open and the guild quieted to take a look at the visitor.

They were stunned. It was the Silent Masks! What would they be doing here? The two of them could easily feel the power that was rolling off the two masked figures and they felt a smaller and weaker one beside them as well. The one with the fox mask moved his cloak gently to the side to show a small pink-haired child that frowned at them.

"Where are we? I thought we were going to find Igneel?" he asked the Fox, and like usual, he gave no answer. Instead, he took a step backward and allowed the cloak to fall to its usual spot once more as he gave a polite nod to Makarov.

"Are you guys leaving me here?" he looked like he was about to cry again. He was just left by Igneel, and now these two? Although he didn't know them for long, they were the only people he knew in here!

Makarov decided to interrupt. "Excuse me, are you here to join?"

Natsu whipped his head around and faced him, confusion on his face as he asked. "Eh? Join? What?" The last question was directed at Fox who gave him a gentle push toward the Master. "Join them? Where are you guys going then? Where's Igneel? You guys never answered my question, and you never say anything!" he yelled in anger at the two as tears began to form.

Fox knelt down next to him and pushed his mask to the side, making sure only Natsu could see his face as he patted the pink mop on top of the boy's head. "You will find Igneel one day. Do not give up, do not waver, and try your best," he whispered to him in their own language as he allowed a smile to lightly cross his face.

Natsu was in shock as he stared at him. He never seen how he looked like, nor ever heard of him talk, but now he was talking to him. The words sounded like an encouragement, but the only thing he understood was Igneel. "Igneel? What about Igneel?"

Fox pushed the mask back into place as he took a small note from his cloak and gave it to Natsu. Without another word, he stood up and started to walk out of the door, patting his head one last time.

"WAIT! You guys haven't told me where you guys are going! I don't even know your names!" he yelled in desperation as Fox left the guild with Crow still standing at the doors.

With the best accent-free voice he could manage, he said to him. "Grow… stronger. And find us… one day. Then, you may… ask. Ganbatte." Ignoring the surprised looks from the surrounding people of the guild, he focused on the child in front of him.

"I'll become stronger! I will find Igneel! And I will find out about you guys too! And I'll beat you up!" he declared fiercely while Itachi chuckled silently at him.

He gave him his most-hated response. "Hn." And he disappeared in a flock of crows in front of them.

Once he was gone, they whole guild went into an uproar.

"He talked! They talked! Even if we only heard one!" one of them gushed.

"His voice was smooth… and he had an odd accent…" another piped in.

"Maybe that's why they don't talk…" Gildarts himself imputed thoughtfully before his eyes widen in shock. "I forgot to ask them to join!" He sounded depressed whilst Makarov chuckled as Natsu walked up to him. "I doubt they would agree in the first place."

Natsu stood in front of him as he declared. "I have no idea where I am, and I don't know who you are. But if you can make me stronger and help me find Igneel then I'll join! Where am I, anyway?"

"You're in a guild, Fairy Tail." Makarov answered him.

Natsu frowned. "What's a guild?"

"A guild is…"

xxxxx

"We did what we needed to do." Naruto told his partner as he gazed at the stars in a tree.

"Hn." Itachi answered.

Naruto relaxed as much as he could. "This forest is pretty good. Let's build a house here. We're quite near Fiore too."

"Hn."