Hey readers! Here is the next chapter of Naruto, Nephew to Whirlpool's Red Demon!
Thanks for the people who followed/favored this story already. I have added some stuff to the first chapter already.
Here is some more!
Disclaimer: See author's notes in chapter 1
Chapter 2: Retired but Extremely Dangerous
Late morning after the Kyuubi's attack, former site of Akane's mom's house.
Akane was awoken by the sounds of what could only be described as a commotion coming from outside the tent she had been sleeping in. She turned her head to her right, and saw Toshiro lying next to her, fast asleep and mouth wide open with a little droll leaking out from a corner. Turning to her left, she saw that the spot were Honoka, Toshiro's sister, had been sleeping was empty. Naruto was gone, too.
She sat up, the sheet covering her falling off and revealing her f-cup sports bra, which was the only thing she wore as a top. She wasn't worried, if anything had happened, she'd have sensed it. Speaking of which, she had an extremely faint recollection of punching someone earlier, and felt she did so because she had been annoyed, not threatened. What was that about?
She reached behind her, and grabbed her cargo pants which were thrown over a large, red chest that had the Uzumaki clan's crest emblazoned on the lid. That chest had been one of the very few things that had been rescued from her mother's home before its destruction, and Akane was glad for it. She'd have to thank Mei later for getting it out.
She got up, and quickly put on her pants before exiting the tent. She first looked in direction of the commotion. It was coming from the path that used to lead to her house, where a group of what looked like civilians was gathered. Blocking their path were several Konoha ANBU, and three pandareans in battle gear. They looked like they had things under control for the moment, so Akane looked around to see if she could find Honoka and her nephew. It didn't take long. The 16 years old, red haired girl was sitting under a tree, apparently feeding Naruto a bottle of formula. Right next to them was Liu, laying his back against the ground, his hat on top of his belly, asleep and snoring loudly.
"Finally awoke, Aka-san."
Akane turned towards the speaker. He was a tall, thin man who had long reddish-brown hair that was held into a tight ponytail tied right behind his head. From a distance, his eyelids looked closed, but Akane knew they actually weren't, this was just the way he was normally. If you looked at him straight in the eyes a few feet from him, you could just catch a glimpse of purple pupils.
"Hey there, Shinn." Akane said."Mind explaining me what this is about?" She said, pointing to the group of civilians.
"Weeeell," Shin said, "it seems that late last night, some time after you went to sleep, the word got around the village that your nephew was the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi. And what would you know, some people around this town are sore against that furball to the point they want to snuff the fledging life out of your nephew."
"Ho really?" Akane raised an eyebrow.
Shinn nodded. "Yup. Found out while checking out what was left of my shop last night. A group of civilians tried to jump me. Luckily, by that point old coot Sarutobi was already aware of the situation, and I crossed the path of a few ANBU looking out for trouble. They escorted me here, and never really left. Shortly after, Cao-san and his bros arrived, not looking amused at all."
"Why didn't anyone wake me up?"
"I tried." Shinn said, "But you mumbled something rude, and punched me!" at that, he pointed to his left cheek, which was slightly red and swollen.
"Ah!" Akane said, understanding dawning on her face, "So that's what it was! Good to know it was you then, I thought I punched some poor fellow who didn't deserve it!"
"And how exactly do I deserve to be punched!?"
"Because you're a shifty-eyed coward that makes my skin crawl?"
"…..What pisses me off is that you're not even worried I might provide you with bad ink as revenge one day."
"Of course I'm not worried." Akane said, waving him off, "After all, you can't afford to lose your biggest customer, especially now. Isn't that right, Mr. My-ink-shop-is-a-pile-of-rubble? Anyway, talk to you later, got some civilians to scare off."
As Akane walked towards the group of civilians and it's retaining cordon, she could see that Shinn spoke the truth and that, indeed, the Pandareans carpenters had really-not-amused look on their faces. Especially their 'chief', the imposing Cao Zhao. Akane had never met an adult male pandarean that was under six feet tall, but Cao stood at over seven and a half. The large anthropomorphic* panda had a long goatee that reached the base of his neck, and he had a great mane of wavy black hair that reached under his shoulder. His huge arms were folded over his chest, and he was staring down the angry civilians.
"Why are you protecting that demon?" one of them asked, obviously agitated.
"I am not protecting any demon," Cao said quite calmly, "I am protecting an infant. And the reason for this is the same one that made me and brothers save you and your children from that falling building; I dislike seeing innocents killed without reason."
"But that thing killed my wife!"
"The Kyuubi was the cause of that, and since your wife is dead, maybe your place should be with your grieving children instead of here. In fact, I am sure all of you have better things to do. Please go before someone gets hurt."
"You should listen to him," Akane said as she walked up to them, "I know you people are angry at the Kyuubi, I am too, but my nephew isn't responsible for what happened."
"How can you even consider him family with that thing inside of him?" another civilian said.
There might have been worst things to say, but if there was, they were very few indeed.
"Huh?" she said, her 'demon-head" jutsu activating, and a vein on her temple started bulging, "Sorry, didn't hear that right, that sounded like the very stupid last words of a very dead man. Care to repeat what you just said?"
"I-I.." The man stuttered.
"Listen carefully, you damn nimrods," She said, "I don't give a flying fuck what you think of my nephew, or what's inside of him. I lost my little sister last night, so don't expect any pity from me. And I didn't have breakfast yet, hell, not even my morning cigarette, so I'm pretty fucking cranky right now! You want to vent your frustrations with senseless violence? Fine! I'll take all of you on with my bare hands! I'll rip your fucking vertebral columns out of your arses!"
"Uzumaki-san!" Someone said from behind her. She knew who it was before even turning around.
"Kakashi Hatake" Akane said as she turned around, "I wondered when you'd show up. Got a message for me from the Third, I presume?"
"Indeed." The silver haired shinobi said in his usual monotone voice, "He asks you to come and see him right away, he wants to talk to you ASAP about urgent matters."
"I bet he does."
The group of civilians, whom Kakashi's appearance gave the time to collectively decide they liked their vertebral column were it was and that this crazy woman was way too scary, all turned around and started to walk away, some of them throwing the woman dirty looks all the same.
"Tsk." Akane said as she glared back at them, "Bunch of spineless cowards." She turned back towards Kakashi, "Go tell the Third I'll be there right away. I don't need any escorting, if I find more of these imbeciles, I'll just knock them unconscious. "
"…Very well." Kakashi said, shunshining away.
Akane went back to her tent, and finished dressing. She was done, and lighting a cigarette, when Toshiro awoke.
"Hu?" He blinked a few times, "You going somewhere?"
"Got to go see the third." Akane said as she took a drag, "Some stuff happened after we went to bed last night. Shinn will explain it to you. Honoka's outside with Naruto under Liu's tree. Keep an eye on them, I won't be long."
After throwing her weapon belt on, she left the tent.
Five minutes later, Hokage Tower, the Hokage's office.
"In retrospect, I think it's not surprising something like is happened," Sarutobi said, "the destruction of the village, and the deaths that have come with it, seems to have been compounded for its inhabitants by the death of the Fourth. "The Third sighed, "Drastic measure might be needed in the future if they don't calm down. I refrained from telling the populace that Naruto was Minato's son for the boy's safety. You had enough enemies as it was, I thought it best to try to shield you and the boy from Minato's. I'm not so sure that was a good judgment call now. "
"At least you're trying to use yours, Hiruzen," Akane said, standing by the office's broken window, her cigarette smoke flying away through it. "Those who want to arm my nephew certainly aren't. And I'm not so sure that telling them that Naruto was Minato's son would have done much good." She turned around, "I heard about your wife. I'm sorry."
Hiruzen didn't answer right away, "Don't be." He said after a moment, "While I wish she was still here, she and I knew what we were getting into when we married, that we both could die at any moment and be separated from one another. Just like Minato and your sister did. She wouldn't want me to mope over it, and most certainly not blame it on a new-born."
"It's just that, maybe if I had waited before setting out-"
"Even if you had been there," Hiruzen said, cutting her off, "it might not have changed much."
"…how so?"
"Biwanko, Taiji and the ANBU team I had guarding the safe house where Kushina was to give birth were not killed by the Kyuubi. They were killed by someone with high ninja skills."
Akane's eye narrowed. "What are you getting at?"
"I believe the Kyuubi didn't just break out of his seal, but rather, was pulled out of your sister. Intentionally. What's more, whoever did this was skilled enough that Minato couldn't prevent it."
"Holy shit." Akane whispered.
"You can say that again. I also have an unreliable report from now dead ANBU who swore he saw the Fourth briefly engage a masked individual within the village. The ANBU said the masked person was brought down by the Fourth, but we found no body where the fight supposedly took place."
"So what you're basically saying is that there is a person still out here who was able to pull off all of this?" Akane said.
"Yes." Hiruzen said. "We can't be sure of anything, but we should at least assume that such an individual did something like this for a reason, and, if his objectives weren't met, that he will try again."
"Nice way of telling me to watch my back, Hiruzen." Akane said.
"Humpf." The third said, "Another problem is that the attack has gravely weakened the village. Never mind the death of the Fourth, we lost many of our best and more of our promising shinobis. Not to mention the blow to the economy. We might have had peace since the end of the Third War, but this relied in great part on our strength compared to that of the other Hidden Villages. That one or all of them would choose now to attack us would not surprise me one bit."
"Yeah, I know all that." Akane said. "My own country was victim of something similar, remember? So what do you want me to do? Take your place? Cuz the answer is hell no."
Hiruzen actually laughed. "Ho dear no." He said," Well, maybe I do want you to, but you can't. There is no way that the council, the population or most of our ninjas would approve you as Hokage. Now now at least."
"So what was your point?"
"My point is that we need to take measures to restore Konoha's strength." Hiruzen said. "So, I'll cut to the chase now, and ask you: do you still plan on resurrecting the Uzumaki clan?"
Akane stared at Hiruzen for a moment, then smiled sadly "Of course I do, I've been working on this for years." Akane then scratched the back of her head, "It's just that Kushina was a big part of it, for the longest time, she was the only one who supported me in this. We also wanted to wait until we had gathered more members, if we could find and convince them. And good luck to us to get the permission to set up a clan from the council now."
"Yet you were motivated enough to go and try to do just that, despite any misgiving I know you had in regard to Kushina giving birth. You're not going tell me that burning determination of yours has burnt out now of all times, are you?"
"More like temporarily quenched." Akane said. "I mean, I'm going to have my hands full for a while now."
"All of us are," Hiruzen said, "Well, if you still want to revive your clan in Konoha, I believe I'll be able to help you greatly with this. It might take a sometime and a lot of pushing, but I believe I can convince the Council to approve the re-establishment of the Uzumaki clan."
Akane raised an eyebrow, "You really think you can pull that off?"
"Like I said, the village needs power. You've already got the land, you've got the name and the knowledge, and you're ridiculously filthy rich, if that report I got on the contents of your bank account, sorry, accounts, is to be trusted. All they need to give you is a vote, and Konoha has got itself a clan of elite Seal Masters."
"I name only, at least for a quite a while." Akane said, then smiled, "Very well, if you take care of the Political Bullshit, I'll take care of everything else to set up a clan. My clan."
"Good." Hiruzen nodded, "Now, to make sure you have the time needed to properly do that, I'm ready to take you off of active duty, if that's alright with you."
"Early retirement, huh?" Akane said, "Very well, sounds good, at least for now"
As soon as she said that, the sword scabbard on Akane's back started shaking. She sighed, and after making a few hand signs, a seal appeared on the scabbard, and it disappeared in a puff of smoke, taking the sword along with it.
"Perfect." Hiruzen nodded, and reached down to open one of the drawers of his desk. From it, he took out he folder containing Akane's shinobi records, along with a large rectangular rubber stamp and an equally large pad of red ink, "Funny enough, I have wanted to use this for the longest time. Never thought I would after Minato became Hokage."
He slammed the stamp on the pad, making sure e got enough ink on it, and then slammed it on top of Akane's folder. He removed the rubber stamp, and three capital letters were revealed. Inside of a red rectangular frame, there leters formed the word-
"Red?" She read, and looked up quizzically at Hiruzen.
"That's actually R.E.D., and stands for 'Retired but Extremely Dangerous'. Just a coincidence that the first one I get to use it on is you, of all people."
"No shit? You had this for a long time?"
"Yes." The third nodded.
"How many people has it been used for?"
"Including you? Two." Hiruzen said.
"Who's the other one?"
"Me. Minato was the one who used it."
A few minutes later, back at the site of Akane's mother's house.
When Akane made it back, she found the ANBU were still there, but they had retreated under the trees surrounding the dirt field. The Pandareans, including Liu, and Akane's kin were gathered in a circle, someone, most likely Mei, having whipped up some form of breakfast.
"Hey there, guys." She said as she approached them, "there is some left for me, I hope?"
"Of course," Toshiro said, handing her a bowl of white rice along with a pair of chopsticks, "Mei-san is making some soup right now."
"Vegetable?"
"How did you guess?" Toshiro said with a smile.
"With great ease." Akane said, humoring her lover's sarcasm as she sat down, "Good news, Tosh." She said after a few bites, "Looks like we're going to resurrect the Clan after all. Hiruzen made a deal with me."
"Hey, that's awesome."
She nodded. "We're going to be busy from now on."
Just then, there was a huge racked form inside her tent, sort-of similar to the noise a 'runaway' washing machine makes. All of them turned towards it.
"Ho, that's right," Toshiro said, then turned towards Akane, who was sweat dropping, "why did you seal-send Jan back here?"
"Because he's crazy?"
Just then, something red slashed through the roof of the tent and flew up in the skies for a couple hundred feet, spinning madly. That something then fell back down and planted itself tip first just behind Akane. It was her sword, which had gotten free of its scabbard. The gleaming red blade of the sword, wider than a katana and it's curvature less pronounced, had two set of saw teeth-like notches, one on the cutting side near the guard, the other on the non-cutting side close to the tip. Just after the guard, a brilliant red oval stone was set into the blade, and was surrounded by a band of gold-ish metal. The gem was glowing.
"You've got a lot of nerve, woman!" The sword said, in a surprisingly deep voice, "How the heck you figure you're getting off from active duty without consulting ME first, huh? There's two of us to his outfit, unless you forgot!"
"Ho yeah," Akane said to Toshiro, "I'm officially retired. It's kind of neat actually, the third used this big ass stamp that-"
"Did you listen to me at all, woman!" The sword shrieked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening to you." Akane said, "I'm not going to be retired forever, just long enough to properly set up our clan again, and see to it that Naruto over there is properly raised while I am at it. We'll be back to doling out death in new and interesting ways in a decade or so."
"A decade!?" the sword said, sounding positively outraged, "What the fresh hell am I supposed to do during that time!?"
"I dunno, stay sharp?" Akane said, eating the rest of her rice, "Anyway, it's a done deal. If you don't like it, I can go and reseal you in the volcano on Tian Gui**, where you can wait for another badass like me for another thousand year."
"Tsk." The sword said, "Fine. But you better keep me polished, you hear!"
"One hundred percent." Akane said, putting her bowl and chopsticks aside. She got up, and stretched. "Now, got a funeral to prepare." She said dryly. "Liu, you said you put Kushina in the cave back there?"
The large pandarean nodded. "It's cool in there, so I thought it best."
"Thank you." Akane said. "Meng," She asked another Pandarean, who had huge sideburns and who was one of Cao's three brothers. "Can you please find me some decent firewood? Enough to build a good sized pyre?"
The pandarean nodded.
"And Cao, I know this is sudden," She said to the Large Pandarean, "But could you and Mao start looking into building me a new house as soon as you can? We're going to need something way bigger than my mom's house, and money isn't an issue."
"We'll get started on it right away." Cao nodded, "Shinn san, do you still have some paper and ink we could use?"
"I've got some that I always keep on myself," Shinn said. "It's not much, but it should do for rough sketches."
"Great." Mao nodded.
Same day at dusk, outskirt of the Site of Akane's mother's house.
All of the Pandareans and the Uzumaki in Konoha, dressed in black, had gathered in a small clearing that used to be behind Akane's mother's house. In that clearing, off to the side, were buried the ashes of both her mother, and grand-mother. And soon, those of Kushina would be as well.
It pissed Akane to no end; Kushina should have been at least buried alongside Minato, but there was no way they could justify it without coming out about the two's secret marriage.
Because of the mood of the village towards her and her kin, and also because all morticians were going to be busy for the next few weeks, Akane had prepared Kushina's body herself. Kushina, now washed and dressed in a snow white kimono, was lying on her funeral pyre. Akane was holding the torch, and was about to set it on fire when someone spoke behind her.
"I'm sorry we're late, Uzumaki sensei!"
Akane turned around, and smiled. "I wasn't expecting you to come, so that's alright, Guy."
Might Guy, one of Akane's first, and so far last, genin team was standing there. He had thankfully traded his tight green spandex suit for a black haori and hakama ensemble.
"This is the least I could do." Guy said, bowing, "I came here with your sister's former teammates."
Coming up from behind Guy were two women, both in black kimonos. One of them had long grayish-black hair and very dark blue eyes, and her name was Mikoto Uchiha. The other one had equally long, shinny dark purple hair, and pale eyes without pupils. Her name was Hanako Hyuuga. Mikoto was helping Hanako walk, her swollen belly making it clear she was in the late stage of a pregnancy.
"Mikoto-san, Hanako-san." Akane said, nodding towards them.
"Akane-san," Mikoto said, "I hope you won't mind if we witness the funeral."
"I won't." Akane said. "I'm sure Kushina would have liked you being there. Come. I was just about to set fire to the pyre."
The two women stepped up between Akane and Toshiro, who was holding Naruto in one arm, the other resting on his cane. Guy stood behind them. Akane stepped up to the pyre, and lighted it with her torch.
She stood there for a while, watching the fire spread. "This is goodbye, Imouto." Akane said softly, "At least until it's my turn."
She stepped back next to Mikoto, who had been glancing at Naruto. The Uchiha woman then turned to look directly at the now brightly burning pyre. Doing so, she spoke, "When I last saw Kushina, she told me how it would be nice if our two sons became friends when they grew up, and I agreed with her. Akane-san, I know what is inside of him, and while I can't speak for my husband, for my part I still hope that they will."
Akane eyed Mikoto for a moment, "Did…Kushina ever tell you two that she-?"
"Now," Mikoto cut her off, conspicuously quickly, "If only Hanako was also expecting a son, then the three of them could have made a kick as squad and give Ino–Shika–Chō a run for their money!"
"Well, it's not my fault I'm expecting a girl," Hanako said, rubbing her belly.
"I wasn't implying it's a bad thing." Mikoto said, "And who knows? Maybe my son and yours will compete to win your daughter's heart."
"Eh." Akane said, "That's be just great."
End of Chapter 2
Hope you people like the second chapter. Will be working on my next Code Geass chapter for the next week or so, and then back to this.
Again, if you liked the story, favorite and follow it away! And don't forget to leave me a review! Reviews are the fuel of my creativity!
*Note: Someone asked me to explain the Pandareans. Basically, they're a race of anthropomorphic pandas. For those of you familiar with the Warcraft universe, they're basically the same as the the Pandarens. They even live on a giant turtle!
** Tian Gui: The Heavenly Turtle, which is the name of the turtle the Pendareans live on.
Until next time, Peace out people!
-The Stan Man
