AN: Sorry for the delay, folks; I'm afraid that I've been buried (sometimes literally) in cardboard boxes for the past month trying to get everything put away after the move. Most of the hard stuff seems to be done - and I've got a new desk - so I should be able to start shipping chapters out somewhat frequently...if I don't keep getting blindsided by family wanting to get together. :P
Out of curiosity, does anyone else wonder whether the next backend update to FFn will make it impossible to combine punctuation with quotation marks?
AN2: Thanks for the reviews; there were some interesting points brought up.
ChaosLord: Thanks for the praise. As for your suspicions...I shall neither confirm nor deny...yet. ;)
UzumakiCest: That's certainly my expectation, although I don't exactly have the story planned out as of yet.
notgonnasay: Nice name there, friend. I must ask, though; what gave you the idea Naruto would be getting a daughter? I rather thought the line specifying Akemi as not much younger than him would preclude that possible deduction...
Bleeding Inside: Ouch, that's not good; although I suppose you probably are comfortably numb. The perspective changes pretty much just appeared on the screen, as I reckon it; I didn't really have much say and wasn't going to try to argue. It helps that I'm used to writing individual scenes for the story challenges over at EDelta88's forum (which, btw, I hate that the site mods decided to delete most of our longer threads without warning). The story will probably remain mostly chronological from here out, but the introduction wasn't really going to let itself be worked that way, nor as later flashbacks. Trust me when I say that I doubt I could stand to write that way for very long much, if any, more than you could stand to read it.
Bonkers: *raises eyebrow* Quite.
AN3: I figure I should probably go ahead and mention this now before some high-horse berates me or reports this unannounced - although it should be apparent from a line or two in the previous chapter - but this story is rated for Mature Dialogue, Violence, Nudity and Adult Situations. *rolls eyes*
AN4: I actually had this done over a week ago, but it's taken this long to get even a mildly constructive beta to look it over for me. Once again, I apologize for the delay.
Additional Thanks for this chapter go to: Selonianth
Without further ado, I present to you:
Naruto no Kitsune: Chapter Two
"Where is that blond baka," angrily shouted a young girl with pink hair. "When I get my hands on him for making us worry and keeping Sasuke-kun from training..."
"Maa, maa; calm yourself, Sakura-chan." This came from a gentleman with silver hair who was wearing a cloth mask and reading an orange-covered book. "I'm sure Naruto-kun is fine and just wore himself out training. He'll be back before you know it. Right, Sasuke-kun?"
"Hn. The dobe probably hit his head falling out of a tree. Why are we wasting our time waiting around?" The boy was the same age as Sakura and Naruto, and his blue shirt had a red and white fan emblazoned across the back.
"Well, Sasuke-kun, that's because -"
"Kakashi-sensei! Hey!"
Turning toward the source of this shout, the trio immediately saw their blond teammate, complete with his thick orange and blue coat and orange pants speeding in their direction.
As Naruto closed the distance between them, Hatake Kakashi heard a very animalistic growl emitting from his kunoichi student.
"Naruto...!" Haruno Sakura stepped forward and swung her fist toward the new arrival, channelling all of her anger into a single blow meant to show the boy just how she felt about his disappearance.
Naruto, himself, highly familiar with his long-time crush's extreme temper, cringed back and clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable impact with his skull.
It never came.
A moment later, Naruto opened his eyes to see their sensei restraining Sakura by the elbow and forcing her to look at his face.
"Now, now, Sakura-chan. That wasn't very nice. Weren't you just saying how worried you were about your teammate?" Kakashi closed his single visible eye in the smile that his students were beginning to dread. "How are we going to train together if you knock him unconscious for the rest of the day?"
He released the pink-haired genin kunoichi, and she slumped into herself and crossed her arms with an aggravated huff.
Kakashi glanced at Uchiha Sasuke, who wore a scowl on his facial expression, then turned to Naruto with a serious expression of his own. "Care to tell us where you've been all night and morning, Naruto-kun?
The blond smiled and reached one hand up to ruffle the hair at the back of his head self-consciously. "Eh-heh...well, sensei...Boss spent the whole night training that technique you showed us yesterday. He just sent me to tell you that he found a girl injured in the woods and took her somewhere to help her get better!"
"Really," Kakashi drawled in response, eyeing the now-obvious Shadow Clone with suspicion. "Just how is he supposed to do that without any supplies?"
"That's already being taken care of, Sensei! Boss sent another clone to bring him his bag. Hey, wait!"
As soon as the clone had mentioned the other one sent for supplies, the remainder of Team Seven had immediately turned and rushed back to the house where they were staying, hoping to follow it back to Naruto so they could ask him some...pressingquestions. After a moment, the second clone hopped out of the window from the room where the shinobi had been sleeping and dashed off into the woods, Team Seven close behind.
With that quartet vanishing into the distance, the first clone was unable to hold back a smirk as a third clone also hopped out the window, this one carrying Naruto's real bag.
Mission accomplished.
The first clone's chakra ran out, and he dispelled.
"Wait here," Naruto hissed to his clones, signalling a stop with one hand. Forming an hand-seal, he whispered the jutsu name as he formed more clones to act as scouts.
"Three of you come with me; we'll make sure the cave is safe. The rest of you new guys, spread out and check the area for trouble."
"Yosh!"
The three groups separated, those clones supporting the mysterious kitsune maiden retreating back into the woods slightly to avoid being seen if there was any trouble.
I wonder what happened to her, Naruto pondered. She looks like somebody attacked her, but she was also covered in leaves when she showed up, and nobody else appeared after her. Did she catch her attacker off guard and kill him? No...why would she run afterward in that case? Unless there was more than one...
Naruto bowed his head and cupped his chin in thought, trusting the clones he had brought to pay attention. For that matter, he continued, remembering the attitudes and behavior of his female team mate. Why am I so sure that it was a guyattacking her? Maybe she got in a fight with another girl, like Sakura-chan and Ino keep doing! He shook his head. In any case, she got away from them and looked like she ran pretty f-
The blond ninja stumbled slightly at an unexpected sensation of achievement, briefly catching the attention of his clones, who paused and waited for him to recover.
"What the hell? Why do I remember talking to Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan and the Temee when I sent a Shadow Clone to take care of that for me?"
"Maybe it's a part of the jutsu, Boss. I mean, what's cooler than a physical clone that can use awesome jutsu and give you its memories of the bad guy's base it just scouted out even if someone destroys it?"
"Hey, you're right! Can you imagine the potential this has for pranks now? More importantly, we can use it to train to beat Sasuke-temee and finally show Sakura-chan how cool we are!"
"Yatta!"
"Yatt-itai!"
At that instant, Naruto broke off from the cheer he was sharing with his clones to crouch down and grasp his head in a pose they all recognised intimately.
"Maybe we should hold off on trying to impress Sakura-chan; she hits us too hard...and remind me to tell her that I am not a pervert!"
"Ano, Boss...that might not be a good idea, either - she might hit you again..."
With that said, they reached the back wall of the cave and started their return to the others, having found nothing of note.
"Oof!"
The cloud of smoke and dust quickly cleared as Kakashi and Sasuke approached, revealing a dazed Sakura lying across an ambiguous mission pack with her face in the dirt.
"Sakura."
The girl twitched, then began to groggily raise herself back up. "Sa...Sasuke-kun?"
A moment passed as she looked around, before she remembered what had just occurred.
"That...that baka! How dare he trick me? Which way did he go?"
"Maa, Sakura-chan...that was a clone. Naruto-kun was never really here." Kakashi's voice took on a saccharine-sweet note as he continued. "Furthermore, you just lost our only lead. I guess that means you get to take his place in sparring practice this evening! Isn't that lovely, my sweet little genin?"
"Ah! Ha-hai...Sensei..."
Sasuke just grunted reluctantly.
"Ano...Sensei..."
"Ah, Sakura-chan?"
"Won't Naruto have to come back for the supplies?"
"No. The dobe grabbed my pack, instead."
"Aa...it was a good distraction."
"All clear, Boss. Did you find anything?"
"Nah, the cave's empty. We should be just fine, so long as we get inside before anybody floats by and sees us. I did learn that I get your memories, though!"
"Really, Boss? That's awesome! Can you imagine the-"
"-potential for pranks and training? Yeah. Let's hurry, though; there's no telling when somebody else might come."
"Yosh!"
The clones Naruto had sent out as scouts dispelled themselves as the last four approached him carrying their charge.
"How is she, guys?"
"Not much change, Boss. She's still out of it. Her breath's a bit more even, though, even if she's still pretty pale."
"She's probably dehydrated, Boss; not to mention her obvious exhaustion."
"Un. Let's get her inside and get her some water while we wait for the supplies."
"Right, Boss!"
Together, the group of five transported their precious cargo to the roomiest section of the cave and carefully laid her on the floor. Two of them then raised her to a sitting position as Naruto opened his canteen. Supporting the kitsune's head, he slowly poured a few sips of water into her mouth, then closed it and tilted her head back until she swallowed, repeating the process before having his clones lower her back down.
"You two go guard the entrance - make sure to disguise yourselves so nobody passing by gets curious."
Naruto gave her water twice more while he waited, several minutes apart, before his clone arrived with his pack.
"Thanks. Good job."
"Any time, Boss."
The first thing the blond did was to pull his bedroll from the pack, worrying that the younger girl might be getting too cold between her possible dehydration and the fact she was separated from the cave floor only by the thin sheet of the stretcher into which his clone had earlier transformed. He rolled it out on the floor, then had his clones help him to move the girl onto it, though it was still closed.
Going back to his pack, Naruto searched for the emergency medical kit Hokage-jiisan had given him the day Iruka-sensei had insisted before his class that every ninja have one as part of their standard Mission Kit. The boy had never used it for attending his own injuries, but the class on doing so for others was one of the few at the Academy not taught by Iruka-sensei where the teachers hadn't ignored him, insulted him or kicked him out. Opening it and retrieving the bottle of alcohol, some cotton balls and a roll of gauze, he set these aside and had his clones sit the girl up again so he could open her yukata and see to cleaning her wounds. Immediately, he found himself thankful for the research he had done for his Oiroke no Jutsu, as he suspected he might have passed out from his own blood loss without it - as it was, he still blushed furiously.
Then his fingers brushed her bared skin as he continued to remove the garment and he froze as three things happened simultaneously; the Seal holding the Kyuubi twinged, the girl squirmed and her skin gained just the slightest shade of healthier pigment. Forcing himself to relax, Naruto pulled his hand back, his blush growing and a trickle of blood leaking from his nose when she squirmed again and moaned quietly as he accidentally grazed a slight bump on her frayed and straining chest bindings.
"Boss, we can't hold her up for long like this; I think she's drawing at Its chakra within us whenever we touch her skin..."
"What are you talking about? It's inside the Boss, not us!"
"Think about it! When the Boss was climbing those trees, the Seal kept hurting before he fell. Then, after he created you guys, the Boss touched hershoulder and the same thing happened before she relaxed! Now we're getting weaker whenever we touch her skin, only we don't have nearly the amount of either kind of chakra to notice it again, and that's probably all balanced throughout us."
Naruto was looking back and forth between his clones. This almost felt like watching a sparring match, or one of Jiji's meetings with the Village Council. He decided to stop them before it could get out of hand.
"But-"
"No, guys; I think he's right."
The two clones who had been helping all along stared at their creator in disbelief.
"He's telling the truth about what happened, and I think it makes sense that Itmust be leaking chakra into all my jutsu and I just didn't notice before because I was putting so much more chakra into them that the other chakra didn't have to fight as much to get out. It hurt trying to make regular clones, too; remember? Kawarimi wasn't fun to learn, either..."
The clones looked like they were getting ready to cry until they remembered where they were and noticed how weak they felt. Firming their resolve, they nodded to each other and their creator, then lowered the now half-nude kitsune maiden back to the bedroll, setting her down just as their chakra ran out and they dispelled. Naruto himself noticed that, though she was again breathing more easily, her skin still looked the same. He figured that probably meant that his regular chakra wouldn't help her much and that there wasn't enough of the other in his clones to make any difference.
Squaring his shoulders, the young boy leaned over the younger girl and set to work cleaning her wounds. Another thought occurred to him as he did so - he was glad nobody was around to see his face; blushing wasn't very manly, even if his had mostly faded.