Uzumaki- Taisho

Chapter 2

By FullMetalRuromaru

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto! NOOOOOOO!!!!

A/N: The ages:

Naruto and the rest of the rookie nine, except Hinata: 13

Sesshomaru: Really old; maybe just over 875? Appears to be 47.

Shippo: appears to be about 10; probably about 350.

Hinata: 12

Others: doesn't matter. XD

Review Responses

winxclubluver: I can try, but I doubt I can update faster... (Edit: And now I'm sure I can't.)

anonomys: You seem to be in some confusion about what I may be deleting. I was talking about my other story. Also, while Inu Yasha definitely won't be showing up, because I ended up killing him off (but his reincarnation will!), Kagome is going to show up for a while. Miroku will probably be mentioned in passing several times, while Sango will probably not be talked about or shown at all. Again, I can't update very fast, probably. (Edit: Definitely.)

T.O.B.- I really appreciate your suggestion, but I've been thinking about this story for about 6 months and I already know what Naruto is going to look like. (Added in at later date) Also, thanks for the suggestion (again) but seriously... I already have the bloodlines figured out! Anyway, I can't use some of those, because 1) they'd make him too powerful; 2) there are a lot more elements than that, and they'd make him even more powerful; and 3) if this is going to be a NaruHina fic, then I can't let Naruto have that bloodline, it'd be far too much like incest.

Arazashi Hatake- I really appreciate your support, but... if you mean the storyline... I might not stick to it past the Chunnin exams. (Edit: In fact, I won't.)

scienceboy- Thanks, but I decided that I could live without one.

But, you burned me to a crisp with a Katon jutsu for a cliffhanger! In my face!

Wait, what?

Gaara-kun- Yaaay! Now I am proud of myself!

Ckeffer- This is well written? ... O.o (Edit: O.o)

Captain50- Naruto has multiple tails, 3 fox and 1 dog... his ears will actually look like a cross between dog and fox ears. In case you're wondering how it will look, watch the beginning of Inu Yasha the movie 3: Swords of and Honorable Ruler, and look at the back view of Inu Taisho... he has two tails hanging down his back.

Windsbane- Yaaay! You think it is original! That rocks! Unfortunately, I am not good at making up new fighting styles... but I do have one idea that I like! However, he will mostly use Sesshomaru's style, with maybe some of Lee's and a few others thrown in...

inu-kag101- As above mentioned, Inu Yasha, Kagome, Sango, and Miroku are all dead, but I can say that they loved each other before they died... actually, I probably will.

writer-of-stuff- That's two people who think this is well-written! I must be dreaming! (pinches self) Ow! Guess not... don't worry, I'll be bringing Naruto back. Although, Naruto may end up being slightly too powerful... I'll work on it.

Dragon Man 180- No, this takes place a few centuries after the human part of the Inu-gang's time... even Inu Yasha is dead! Kilala comes in later. Actually, you'll probably see a Temari vs. Kagura fight sometime during the Chunnin exams. P.S. - Love your fanfiction!

the Dragonbard- I've already explained this over e-mail so here's the condensed version for others: very few of the youkai clans will be named after the animal, especially because of the fact that the Boar clan will play a large part later, and I can't call them boar because it translates to Osu-buta, and that will get confusing, seeing as what I've named the lord. Yeah. (Also, in this context, 'Taisho' means 'general'.)

Kaori- Yaaay! Thank you, I've decided not to have a beta, but thanks!!! Also, two people have decided that they hate my cliffhangers! That rocks!

I think...

anime goddes- 'damn me and update soon'?!? Mixed opinions!

SOENergetic- Okay, I can't explain it really well, but here goes: Shippo is technically older than Naruto, but because Naruto hasn't absorbed all of Kyuubi and Inu Taisho's power, he isn't a full demon, so he's older physically because he ages faster. (They're about the same age mentally.) Kagome will be included later, and Rin (Inu Yasha Rin, not Kakashi's teammate) will come in, though not as much (her reincarnation, however, will play a slightly more significant role- not major, but more than just a mention). No, Naruto is not able to go to the past.

As for how I thought of this, it's a long story. I'd just finished reading the second-to-last chapter of Akki no Tama's 'Sealed Demon and Half Demon' (there was a long wait between the 18th and 19th chapters) and wanted to do something like it. (I used to have huge problems being original.) I basically rewrote it after I discovered that I didn't like the ending. When I realized that besides having Inu Yasha rescue Naruto was not only unoriginal, it was dumb because it was Sesshomaru who ended up training him, I rewrote it so that Sesshomaru rescued him, then again so that Inu Yasha and some of the excess things were cut out. (In other words, I did the exact same thing that made me dislike Akki no Tama's fanfic: I killed off InuYasha.) One thing I edited out- after the Chunnin exams, Naruto was going to participate in the taiyoukai exams. From there, I edited Naruto's fights until I came up with this. All in all, the process took just over 7 months: 3 months for the first version, 3 months for various in-between stages, three weeks of typing, and a week of final editing.

MasterBrattan: A beta is someone who you give your finished but not edited chapter and they edit it. (At least, that's what I think it is.) Inu Yasha died of old age, but he lived for 500 years, so he had a nice, long life. If you mean Rin, Sesshomaru's ward, then we won't see her much; if you meant Rin, Kakashi's teammate, we will definitely see her!

Everyone who wants me to update soon: I'll try, but I can't promise anything. (Edit: The chapters may be slightly faster than last time. I've begun to see a pattern with when I finish my chapters- it's almost always when my internet is down. Well, recently my family finally got a new laptop- the old one, on which I wrote my first fanfictions, is dead and gone- and my dad is trying to fix up the internet so that both computers have it. Wouldn't you just know it, he's completely messed it up. I haven't been on the internet for a day and a half so far, and it'll probably last a pretty long time. Oh, well- more for you. Of course, I can't actually post the chapters until the internet is back up... this is so troublesome...)

ATTENTION ALL READERS!!!

The pairings have finally been decided. Sesshomaru/Tsunade won by only a few votes; Kyuubi/Inu Taisho had already been decided; and Naruto/Hinata has shoved all the other pairings out of the way with more than forty votes. The others had an average of ten.

-----

On with it!

-----

Last time:

Shippo laid a clawed hand on the doors, and they swung open as if of their own accord...

-----

...to reveal a majestic office. The floors were granite and covered with fine rugs; the walls, wooden and hung with rich tapestries. A row of glass windows lined one of the walls; Sasuke hadn't realized they were so close to the surface. A desk made out of mahogany was set directly in front of it, so as to catch the light well. Two people sat on either side of the desk, doing paperwork.

The other was wearing the same style of clothing as Sesshomaru. However, he did not have a breastplate; his haori was yellow and red instead of white and red; his sash was completely red; he had three tails all hanging down his back, two red and one white; and instead of two swords at his side, he had six, all slung over his back: three peeking out over his right shoulder, and three peeking out over his left shoulder. Three had black sheathes, one had no sheath, one had a red sheath, two had red handles, one had a yellow-and-blue handle, and one had a black handle. The last one was completely shrouded in black cloth so that nobody could see what it looked like. He had hair that was a mixture of red, silver, and blond; two ears that looked like a cross between dog and fox ears, with mixed red and silver fur; and three whisker-scars on each cheek, making him look vulpine in nature. His eyes, while mainly a laughing blue color, also had small flecks of red and yellow mixed in, making them look slightly darker than normal. He sported fangs and claws; while not as long as Sesshomaru's or Shippo's, they were definitely large enough to take a chunk out of anyone he wished to. Most of the ninja correctly assumed that this was Naruto.

Naruto looked up at the sound of the door closing and stood, concealing the fact that he hadn't been doing his paperwork. "Sesshomaru-sama."

"Long time, no see, Sarutobi," Sesshomaru said as he signed a paper and looked up.

"Hello, Sesshomaru," the Sandaime said, then bowed slightly. "May I please present the new generation of Konoha gennin: Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chougi, Yamanaka Ino, Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata. Also, their Jounin senseis, Hatake Kakashi, Sarutobi Asuma, and Yuuhi Kurenai. I believe you already know Umino Iruka."

The shinobi bowed to Sesshomaru, and the Taiyoukai inclined his head. "I am Taisho Sesshomaru. This is my adoptive younger brother, Uzumaki-Taisho Naruto; my adoptive nephew, Higurashi-Taisho Shippo, was your guide on the way here."

Shippo gave Kiba a wolf's grin, showing all his teeth, when the Inuzuka looked back at him in surprise. The other boy quickly looked away.

Naruto smiled his fox's grin and bowed. "Nice to meetcha."

-----

Later that day, Iruka heard a knock on the door of the room he'd been assigned. He opened it curiously. It was Naruto.

"Iruka-sensei?" he asked nervously. "Can I come in? I want to ask you something."

The Chuunin teacher looked startled. "Of course. It's your castle, after all. Come on, have a seat."

Naruto smiled a bit as he stepped in and sat down. He fiddled with his fingers a bit, growing even more nervous under Iruka's curious gaze. Finally, he blurted out, "Whydyousavemeithoughtyouhatedmelikeveryonelse?"

Iruka blinked twice. "Wait, what?"

"Why'd you save me? I thought you hated me like everyone else," the jinchuuriki said with obvious relief that his one-time teacher hadn't kicked him out when he tried to ask.

Iruka sat in silence for a moment, then finally replied. "You reminded me of myself, as a student- a troublemaker, the class clown, no parents... mine died in the Kyuubi attack, did you know?"

Naruto bent his head in shame. "It's my fault."

"Nonsense," Iruka said sharply. "That's just as dumb as saying that I was the one to make Orochimaru leave-which I didn't, thank you very much. You are not 500 feet tall, you do not have nine tails, you have never attacked Konoha- I think-, and you did not kill my parents. As far as I know, you did not drag yourself out of your hospital crib and strangle them with your bare hands. For that matter, the Kyuubi had been attacking for most of two days before you were born, and my parents died on the first day. There's no way you could be at fault."

"But the villagers--"

"To hell with the villagers, Naruto," Iruka practically snarled. "The majority isn't always right, you know!"

"All right, all right," Naruto said, holding his hands up meekly in surrender. "But I'd be scared to be the majority, around you."

Iruka chuckled. "So, got any good ramen places around here?"

At the mention of the magic word, Naruto's eyes were suddenly ablaze with the Flames of Youth...

-----

On his way back from dinner, Naruto met Shikamaru and Chougi walking to their rooms and stopped them for a moment.

"Hey," he said. "Shikamaru and Chougi, right? The lazy one and the boy who wouldn't stop eating?"

Relieved that the other boy wasn't about to call Chougi fat, Shikamaru nodded. "Yeah. And you're the blond that dyed Mizuki-sensei's hair bright pink?"

"Like a Haruno's," Naruto grinned.

Shikamaru made a rare, lazy smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Really?" Naruto said, completely surprised.

Shikamaru nodded. "Life's been boring and even more troublesome since you've left."

Naruto smiled his fox grin and ushered them towards their rooms.

-----

Later that night, Shippo, Sesshomaru, and Naruto were talking in Sesshomaru's office about the Konoha delegation.

"Naruto, I saw you talking to those shinobi," Shippo said darkly. "I can't think very well about them. Their leader told them- in front of me, no less! - that they were to befriend you so that you'd return to Konoha."

"Of course they did," Sesshomaru said, annoyed. "I've been friends with their leader since he was a gennin. He's straightforward and honest, even if he's matured into a true shinobi. That was simply Sarutobi's way of saying that he wasn't going to hide anything. The whole point of them coming here is to persuade Naruto to come back. Otherwise, they'd still be at home."

"Even so, you should be careful," Shippo muttered.

Naruto looked him in the eye. "I am, truly," he replied honestly. "But those two were the closest things I had to friends while I was there. Shikamaru's too smart not to know people are being biased, and Chougi's too kind not to treat people equally- until they call him fat, take his snacks, or try and threaten his friends," Naruto allowed.

"I just hope you know what you're doing, if you accept their invitation," Sesshomaru said quietly. "Sarutobi's all right, as you remember, and so is that Iruka person, even if he's too weak to be of much use. But the others... remember, Naruto, I've seen your memories. That Haruno girl treated like dirt- just like the Yamanaka, Inuzuka, and the Uchiha did. Aburame didn't have much to do with you, and the Hyuuga didn't have the backbone to talk to you. That's two out of nine- not exactly the best ratio of friends, especially for you."

"I can win them over," Naruto said earnestly.

"I wasn't finished. Not only will you have to put up with them, but you'll also have to go back to the village and people that tried to kill you. You'll have to do actual, dangerous missions that could probably kill even someone like me."

Naruto ticked his responses off on his fingers. "I'll be able to win them over, I don't care about the people- I could always throw them through a tree- the village is a place, not some monster who's out for my blood, Gennin always start out with D-rank missions, and I won't get into the truly hard ones until high Chuunin or Tokubetsu Jounin."

"I just hope you know what you're getting into, whatever you choose," Shippo muttered.

Neither Naruto or Sesshomaru had the will to disagree.

-----

After Shippo and Naruto had left, Sesshomaru leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I assume you heard all of that?"

"Of course," the Sandaime said as he melted out of the wall. "I learned from the best. So, what is so important about Naruto's seal that you couldn't tell me in writing?"

Sesshomaru beckoned to a seat. "Sit down. You'll need it."

Once the other man was settled and looking at him curiously, he sighed and rubbed his temples with his lone hand, then began.

"About three years ago, we were training Naruto in the art of meditation, as a way to retreat into his mind and ask the Kyuubi for power. Well, he made it, all right- but there's two things nobody knew about the Kyuubi."

After waiting a suitable amount of time, Sandaime growled, "Well, don't keep me waiting- spit it out!"

"All right," Sesshomaru replied. "When he made it in, Naruto found a cage representing the seal. But it didn't have just the Kyuubi in it- it had my father, Inu Taisho, as well. From what we gathered, a dark priestess summoned his soul to the world of the living, and someone with the right knowledge sealed it into the Kyuubi with a berserker seal, then turned it on Konoha. It proceeded to rampage until your successor stopped it, but when the fox was sealed, the seal holding Inu Taisho broke, releasing it into Naruto's seal. That seal, while one of the strongest in existence, was strained under the power of two bijou, leading it to leak out youki. The youki is slowly changing Naruto into a demon, as he absorbs the Kyuubi's and Inu Taisho's demonic chakra- the reason for his rather drastic changes in appearance. He's not quite one-fourth fox-dog demon at this point."

"And if that happened in three years, what will happen in the next three?" the Hokage whispered in wonder.

Sesshomaru sighed again. "There's worse. Who can you think up off of the top of your head that knows berserker seals, has a grudge against Konoha, is powerful enough to seal the soul of a Taiyoukai, and is powerful enough to get close to the Kyuubi without being killed?"

Sarutobi groaned. "Not Orochimaru?"

"The one and only. And you'll never guess who he and the new dark priestess are working for- Naraku. Looks like he's not so dead, after all."

"This day has gotten better and better," Sarutobi muttered, cradling his forehead.

Sesshomaru smirked. "Ah, but you haven't heard the other thing you didn't know about Kyuubi."

"What now?" the other groaned.
Sesshomaru's smirk had evolved into an unholy grin as he leaned over and whispered something into Sarutobi's ear.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE KYUUBI'S A GIRL?!?"

-----

The very next day, Naruto declined offers of friendship from Sakura and Ino, telling them that "it's not happening if you don't mean it". Sakura sighed and walked away; Ino, on the other hand, was much harder to get rid of, having followed him around the castle for a day.

That same day, however, Naruto had accepted an offer of friendship from Aburame Shino. When Shippo asked him why, he said cheerfully, "he wouldn't offer if he didn't mean it, and besides- someone like him probably hasn't got a lot of friends. It would be better for both of us to be close."

Sasuke, Kiba, and Hinata had yet to approach him by the end of the week. Sakura hadn't tried again; Ino had, but had, once again, been turned down.

On the third day, Naruto had been training in one of the large training grounds near his quarters when Sasuke walked in. The fox-boy smiled at the avenger; the other boy 'Hn'-ed and began to walk out of the training ground when Naruto stopped him.

"I'm almost done," Naruto smiled. "Please wait one minute."

Sasuke glared at him, then sat down near the entrance.

"Do you even want to come back to Konoha?" he muttered under his breath.

"I don't know," Naruto answered truthfully, surprising Sasuke. He hadn't thought the double jinchuuriki had heard him. "I've lived here for six years, and I'm accepted here- but Konoha's my home village, and I have, or had, friends there, too. Sure, there weren't many of them, but--"

"But you miss them," Sasuke said quietly.

Naruto looked up in surprise from where he had been gathering up his swords. "Yes, I do."

Sasuke nodded and stood up, brushing off his pants.

"If I may be so bold as to inquire," Naruto ventured tentatively.

Sasuke, curious, looked at Naruto. For a moment, the other boy's eyes were slightly fearful- like he was afraid of not having his question answered. But then it was replaced with pure mischief.

"Where did you get the stick that you've been sitting on so righteously?"

Sasuke stood there, speechless, then let out a squawk of indignation. (A/N: Sasuke squawking... wonder how that would sound...)

"You—!"

Naruto took off around the training ground, howling in laughter, with Sasuke in close pursuit.

-----

Sasuke eventually caught him a few hours later. By that time, he was wheezing with exhaustion, but to his credit, Naruto had barely broken a sweat.

"I naturally have large amounts of stamina," he explained, seeing Sasuke's curious look. "Are you really still mad over the 'stick' thing?"

"Not really," Sasuke admitted. "It was actually kind of refreshing, having someone insult me. While we were running, I thought- everyone respects me too much to do that." He grimaced. "Then I realized that all they respected was the Uchiha name, not that there's not much left to respect."

Seeing that Naruto wanted clarification, he looked away and sighed reluctantly. "My brother, Itachi. He slaughtered the entire clan- from my infant cousin Sota to my great-aunt Ryuka. I'm the only one left alive now."

Naruto nodded sympathetically, if such a thing was possible. "I am sorry for your loss."

Sasuke made a face, which Naruto caught. He grimaced. "I suppose you must have heard that a lot."

"Half of them didn't even really mean it," he sighed. "They just wanted to get in on the newest fad- showing sympathy for that Uchiha kid. They didn't even care about how I felt, they cared that the village had just lost 169 valuable shinobi, including most of the police force."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You counted the deaths?"

"243 of them," came the quiet reply. "I wanted to see what I was up against."

"Revenge?" he asked.

He received a nod in return. "That, and reviving my clan."

"Just remember- if you go too far for power, you won't be able to revive the clan," Naruto warned him, getting up and stretching. "Now, I'm hungry. I wonder what's for dinner tonight."

Sasuke stared after him as he left. That was the first time anyone had ever done anything other than encourage him to seek revenge or roll their eyes up to the clouds, as if to say, 'kids will be kids'.

It was actually slightly addictive, he realized. He'd have to come back for more tomorrow.

-----

Sasuke started to be around Naruto more and more. He was the only one who really understood him, having gone through severe opposition and having been treated in a certain way consistently for something he had no control over. True, they had been treated in very different ways- but it was still the same concept. The world would be a better place if opinions were earned instead of preconceived.

One day not long after Naruto and Sasuke had become friends (in a way), Hinata was sitting slumped in the garden at the top of the mountain. She'd wandered around it for a few days, and found a spot she liked- farther back towards the far edge of the garden, with a small waterfall and pond with water lilies growing in it.

Despite the niceness of the spot, and of the day, she found herself growing depressed again. She wouldn't be any help on this mission- she couldn't force herself to be friends with this boy, she just couldn't. She wasn't outgoing enough. It wasn't that she didn't like him- far from it, she thought with a blush- but she didn't have the confidence to approach him.

Suddenly, Hinata was jolted out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps on the rock behind her. She turned around to see Naruto.

"Hi," he said with a grin as he sat down next to her. "It's really nice here, isn't it?"

She turned and blushed. "H-hai, it i-is."

"Why do you stutter?" he asked her with a frown. "Is it something I said?"

"N-no!" she yelped. "B-but... i-it's just..."

"It's just what?" Naruto repeated.

"I- I'm worthless," she said quietly, bowing her head towards the ground. "I am b-by far t-the worst of t-the Rookie E-Eight. I'm o-only a bit a-above the D-Dead-Last- and t-that's because S-Shikamaru was too l-lazy to even p-pick up the p-pencil on tests. I c-cannot beat anyone, n-not even my s-sister, seven y-years younger than m-me."
"So?" Naruto asked gently. "Strength is not measured in comparison to others."

"Not by my father's standards," she said miserably.

"Well, screw your father," he said strongly, ignoring her gasp of surprise. "He's not here, so lighten up. If anything, you can say you've had a good month."

Hinata bent her head to disguise her blush. "But, Naruto-sama--"

Naruto twitched. "Anything but '-sama', please. That's what some of the stuffier retainers call me."

"N-Naruto-san, then," she said bravely. "My f-father is the h-head of the H-Hyuuga clan. I-if he chooses, h-he can t-throw me out of t-the clan. I c-cannot survive o-on my own y-yet, and s-so I must d-do my best t-to please him."

Naruto refrained from asking her if she'd known how wrong that had sounded, then asked her out loud, "So, once you're old enough to take care of yourself, then what will you do?"

Hinata froze, not having thought that far yet.

"See?" Naruto asked, trying not to be unkind. "You were using it as an excuse. Try and figure out what you want to do with your life, instead of letting others take over for you."

Hinata was about to answer, when suddenly an inhumane screech rang out over the gardens. Naruto had been too busy talking to hear the faint rustle of feathers, as a crow demon nearly thirty feet across had drifted closer and closer on the morning breeze.

The demon saw its target and, evaluating its companion as of no concern, dove down towards the two twelve-year-olds.

Naruto reacted as fast as he could, shoving Hinata to the side and creating two shadow clones. One shadow clone raced for the entrance, trying to bring Sesshomaru as fast as he could; the other created a third. Both of them stayed with Hinata, as Naruto jumped up, nearly sixty feet into the air, to catch the crow demon.

The crow, on the other hand, was too wily to fall into the trap. As Naruto prepared for an assault on a huge demon, he was suddenly faced with the crow-demon's human form- which, as it had not even finished growing, was under five feet tall. As he tried to slice through it with a dagger, which he had pulled from his sleeve, the dagger went right through it.

Falling back to earth, Naruto realized that that crow had only been an illusion. So where was-

He whirled around with a curse as he felt two of his shadow clones disappear into puffs of smoke, hiding where Hinata had been standing mere moments before.

He waited a few seconds for the smoke to dissipate, then when that did not happen, he blew it away with a small Fuuton jutsu. Hinata and the crow-boy, who looked like he was the demonic equivalent of their age, were gone.

Naruto spat out a curse and started running through the treetops after the scent. It trailed through the garden, taking a zigzagging path until it began to near the outer wall. Then the trail ran in a straight line.

Naruto could smell the fear of the crow-boy. He also suddenly noticed that he had unknowingly called up his demons' chakra, enveloping his body in a nimbus of bright red-orange and a sickly green. His eyes had turned bright red with green streaks, and his whisker-marks were more emphasized.

The crow-boy suddenly came into sight. He was carrying Hinata slung across his back; she was, surprisingly, unharmed, though tied and gagged. Naruto snarled and increased his pace. Even with the Kyuubi asleep, her dreams were telling him to kill.

The crow-boy looked back when he reached the wall. Seeing Naruto, he squawked and jumped into the air, pulling large black wings out of his back.

Naruto sheathed his dagger and pulled out one of his swords. It was a standard katana shape, with a black sheathe and a red handle. As he channeled the demons' chakra up it, it was suddenly enveloped in a sickly green glow. Naruto reached out for one of his demons.

'Ready, Inu Taisho?'

'Go.'

The crow-boy, still carrying Hinata, was circling back over the garden, bound for the lands in that direction.

Naruto jumped far up into the air and hurled the sword at the crow demon. It went straight through where the right wing joined the body, severing it, and then lodged into the left wing.

The crow-boy dropped like a stone. There would be no recovering for him: crow demons had three major arteries in their wings alone.

Naruto ran towards where he had seen the crow-boy fall- one of the garden's many small ponds- as Sesshomaru, Shippo, Sarutobi, and the Jounin burst out of the entrance to the tunnels.

The crow had fallen into the shallows of the pond. Naruto, having lost most of his demonic aura, waded in, prying the tied and gagged Hinata out of its claws. He pulled her to shore, where Sesshomaru took her.

"Go get your sword back," the taiyoukai ordered him crisply. "You used the Chuudokusaiga?"

Naruto nodded wearily as he went to retrieve his sword.

Kakashi pulled out a kunai and sliced Hinata's bonds and gag off. She was sobbing silently, body shaking from the stress.

"She's all right," the silver-haired Jounin said. "He didn't harm her."
Sesshomaru flexed his claws and, walking over to the corpse, sliced the back of its shirt open.

There, on its back, was a scar in the shape of a spider.

"Naraku," Sesshomaru said with a grimace. "But if he's the one behind this, then he must have a reason."

"A message?" Sarutobi suggested. "To show you he can strike at you even in your own home?"

"No," Sesshomaru said grimly. "It can't be that, because Naraku would have simply killed her. And he can't want her for a hostage, because Konoha and Inuyama law will not allow the exchange of hostages, and her father doesn't care enough about her. No, Naraku wants her alive...

"There's something about that girl that he wants specially..."

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A/N: Ah, finally, I'm done. I have been taking my royal time with this chapter, but this time I actually have real excuses (and some that you probably won't accept). I had some relatives in the house for Thanksgiving and I couldn't use the computer. I had plot bunnies for other stories running around in my head. I forgot my password and still hasn't emailed it to me, and I asked for it over a week ago. My English teacher went on a rampage and demanded two short stories, one with an original character, and I have had two (school) band concerts recently with a third this coming Thursday. We got a new laptop and my father has completely messed up the internet for the desktop trying to give the laptop wireless internet access. One of my friends has gotten herself addicted to Kingdom Hearts 2, written part of a fanfiction (which I have naturally felt obliged to read, and it's not bad even if she does have an annoying habit of sticking in OCs that sound remarkably like herself COUGH self inserts COUGH (and in her KH2 story will sometimes refer to the character as 'I' instead of using the name). Of course, I've never played Kingdom Hearts, and probably never will, so I have absolutely no clue who most of these people are, what any of the concepts are, or what the plot is about. I watched 'Howl's Moving Castle' and couldn't write anything decent for a day afterward. Another friend has an idea for a story but doesn't have an account and wants me to post it on mine, but can't decide on how to begin writing it and keeps tearing it out. And now I've started to come up with non-fanfiction story ideas, which I am having a very hard time with because they won't get out of my head. It seems like my entire life is conspiring against me. And the next weekend I'll be especially busy, because it's my sister's and my birthdays. (That can't be grammatically correct.) By some quirk of fate, my sister was born the day before my fifth birthday, which makes December the first and second a terrible pain.

Back onto story-like topics before the excuses get longer than the story, this chapter has taken such a long time that I ended up putting in a little something not from the original in there just to end my boredom. It wasn't anything spur-of-the-moment, though, and it will fit in quite nicely with the rest of my story. I also got tired of having Naruto fight with daggers (what is he, a walking weaponry?) so I brought his weakest sword in a lot sooner. This one wasn't even supposed to be introduced until the fight with Neji, or somewhere around there. Its name, Chuudokusaiga, means 'poisoning fang'. I really don't like it, but I'm tired right now, and besides- poison doesn't sound very good when it's translated into Japanese.

The whole point of this sword is that it channels Inu Taisho's powers and provides help for Naruto. It really has no other purpose, and I'll probably get rid of it towards the end.

Also, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me how little I know about Inu Yasha fanfiction on I'll say it again: I first read Inu Yasha fanfiction several years ago, on a different site that is now deceased, and the words for most things were very different. I also have a remarkably decreased taste for Inu Yasha- it got repetitive- and have no desire to begin reading it here. Naruto is enough for me. So, if you see anything you don't understand or is different (like 'Taiyoukai' and 'daiyokai', or 'Inu Taisho' or 'Inu no Taisho/Toga'), that's probably why.

This leads into something else. Some of you have probably seen the third Inu Yasha movie, 'Swords of an Honorable Ruler'. In that movie, Inu Taisho had three swords, one each from Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Somehow that twisted around in my mind until every demonic sword could be classified as 'heaven', 'earth', or 'hell'. Heavens help with healing or have effects in those areas; earths have destructive powers lower that those of hells, and you have to have a certain level of power to use them, but do not have bad side effects; and hells have high destructiveness but will try to possess you, temporarily change parts of your body, or otherwise create bad side effects. Naruto has two of each, some more powerful than others. The Chuudokusaiga (the one in this chapter) is earth.

Thank you to all those who have reviewed, especially Dragon Man 180, T.O.B., and Anonymous, who are three of my most faithful reviewers, and also to Infinite Freedom, who has (for some odd reason) begun referring to me using higher-level Japanese honorifics, and likes my story well enough that he says that I don't need to edit it.

As for FantasyFreak4Life, the whole reason why I'm editing this story is because it's not very good; I know that the page breaks are absurd, and they have been fixed; I'm sorry, but Naru/Hina won by a landslide; if you have nothing good to say about my story, then why even bother writing a review; and if you don't like it, then don't read it.

-FullMetalRuromaru

11/24/06