The Writer Says: Critical reviews I will take, but downright abusive comments, I will not. You don't like it, don't read it, because I'm not writing for you. On that note, I will do my best to not repeat, and when I get the opportunity edit, to fix the apparent problem a couple of have mentioned. I guess I lied about action in this chapter, but I hope I managed to clarify things down to those who found themselves confused. It wasn't the original chapter, but I salvaged a few scenes. Next update may be around the weekend.
Shifting his grip on the pen, a utensil that even after nine years of using constantly, still felt foreign in his rough hands. Calloused and scarred, his hands bespoke of his combative nature, not soft and ink stained like the hands of Lucy, Levy and even Mirajane. He flexed the hand, still amazed at the movement, his hand was still quite pale, from being encased in bandages for what seemed like an age. The important thing was that he didn't feel any impediment to movement in the hand. A specialist who had taken the time to speak with Naruto had basically said, from what little Naruto had bothered to listen to, that he might find some difficulty in dexterity.
That had been enough for him. Naruto was walking and that meant he was good enough to go. So he had found out, by eavesdropping another patient, speaking to a pink haired Medic whom was none other than Sakura Haruno, or Sakura Rocks as her name tag read, could sign himself out. He hadn't meant to listen in, but seeing Sakura, alive and well, it was had to tear his eyes off her. Absolutely enthralled to note that she had the same forehead, long garish pink hair, darker than Natsu's, and bright green eyes. She was also quite round around the middle. That wasn't like the Sakura he had known.
It was almost like he remembered; which was good enough for him.
Except she turned around, to file the forms, freshly signed and smiled politely at him, as if he was a stranger to her. It was a blow to the gut for Naruto, she was Sakura, no matter how different she acted. The Sakura he knew would have shoved a patient trying to leave without the approval of a Medic back into bed, if it was Naruto, she'd have punched him in the head. Well, if he wanted out of here, he better finish the form, he thought with a sigh.
Do you understand that if any complications occur, this Medical Facility cannot be held accountable? Please tick the appropriate box.
Naruto did as it said, skipped through the rest and simply scribbled his name at the line on the bottom, dumped it on a desk.
"Later, Chief!" He called out, throwing a glance behind his shoulder as the man in question began to run after him.
It took nearly an hour after he escaped from the prison known as a place of healing, for Naruto to make his first stop to a 'Ayame's'. The small stand which had quadrupled in size over seven years, and was now a proper restaurant, with indoor and outdoor seating, still had the same homey atmosphere that had made this his favourite place to eat. Saliva pooled in his mouth, as he stepped through the door way, and was hit by the smell of his favourite meal. He saw Ayame immediately, and was taken aback. She looked so much older.
Fine lines had began to frame tired eyes, and Naruto had saw his own picture, several of his pictures framed on the walls. It had been seven years since he had seen Ayame, he had sent birthday cards, and the odd letter, but Naruto wasn't very good at writing letters, and had avoided it. Ayame must be nearly thirty now, he realised, surprised, she was only a few years older than him.
"Ayame..." He began, not sure what to say, the brown haired woman he had long considered a sister put down her notepad, began to dive towards him, her face brightening up and punched him.
"Seven years and you have not shown your face once, Naruto," she yelled. "I've known you for years, you are family, and yet you couldn't visit? I am so mad, Naruto Namikaze!" Normally mild mannered, seeing her so angry, made him flinch a little beneath the anger.
Naruto winced, not for the punch which he deserved, but at the Namikaze. He'd never used that name, because he had never known the Wizard Saint Minato Namikaze, and didn't feel an attachment to his name. Of course, Ayame only knew him really by that name. However, he felt warmth disperse itself through his chest, as Ayame stopped venting and wrapped her arms around him. Head resting against his chest, and her hair tickling her nose.
She sniffed. "I was worried, Naruto, one day you just stopped coming and a couple of months later you send three lines of writing. You missed my wedding, I wanted you at it, you were all I had besides Dad, and he died years ago."
Huh, Ayame had married? He pulled away from her and noticed that Ayame had a bulge underneath her apron. He wasn't so dense not to realise that Ayame was pregnant. "I had to come to terms with a lot of things. It was stupid, Ayame. I was an idiot. It won't ever happen again. " He promised, meaning it. Seeing Ayame standing there, older, married and expectant, made him realise how much he had missed. "So, who do I have to threaten about hurting you?" He teased, feeling so much more lighter, and secretly dying to know who won the heart of Ayame.
She blushed, vividly. Naruto had never seen Ayame blush like that, nor clasp her hands together and beam so brilliantly that Naruto was tempted to close his eyes out of fear of his eyes being burnt. She was glowing like he had never seen her before.
"His name is Chouji, and he is a Rune Knight like you used to be, Naruto. He is so big and strong, but gentle. My Chouji never has a bad word to say about anyone."
Chouji Akimichi. Naruto felt a light smile cross his face, knowing Ayame was in good hands; large hands, but kind ones, all the same. It seemed while many things had changed from what he had known, others stayed the same. "Aah, that is where you are mistaken," he began, a little boasting entering his voice and stance. "I've been reinstated, I'll be stationed here in Era, Ayame. I've been promoted actually, I answer directly to the Chairman."
Despite being a woman of nearly thirty, happily married and pregnant, Ayame squealed like a young girl, when he told her. "Naruto, that means you have no excuses for not visiting. You'll be a great Uncle when the baby comes. Dad would be so proud of you, he always said you'd be great!"
Uncle, huh, that sounded strangely nice. Just like when in Fairy Tail, her warmth and joy infected him, perhaps to greater effect. She was warm and accepting, a shard of a past he had thought to discard, and make it easier on himself to move on, but he found himself responding to her as if time hadn't passed. "Yeah, look at you though, you've reached your dream, Ayame, I'm proud of you." He complimented her, hoping to turn the conversation back towards her, he had missed out on too much.
"Yeah, I guess I did, especially now that you are home, Naruto," she smiled fondly, and in another mood swing, wagged her finger in his face. "We'll talk later, I've got work to do, just because I'm glad to see you, doesn't mean I've forgotten why I was mad."
Home, it sounded good. He grinned and slung an arm around her shoulders. "How about some beef ramen, to make it more like old times?" He grinned, stomach rumbling, and Ayame giggling as he stared at her unabashed, flickers of delight dancing throughout him. Being back here, he could almost pretend, forget all the things that weighed down on his shoulders.
It was all business now. His earlier high spirits had evaporated upon being directed to an office, it was a large office, windows covering the entire right wall, making it less enclosed than it might have been. There was even a name plate declaring his ownership. The best thing was the swivel seat, which he eyed with no small bit of glee, although he was trying to contain himself, from his newly appointed assistant.
He seated himself and gave her the remainder of the day off. Now, all he had to do was go over the last three weeks, because he was beginning to find it difficult to believe that here he was again. Naruto had taken a mission, it had been sent by the Blue Pegasus Master, and he suspected an illegal compulsion charm tailored to him had been on it, now that he thought about it. Before they had been outlawed, Bob had been quite the charmer, as far as Naruto could remember from his file. At that, he was already planning on how to teach the meddling old man a lesson.
Secondly, he was embarrassed at how easily he had been tricked by the slippery coward, Iwan Dreyar. Rune Knights of Naruto's calibre were highly skilled, and his additional years as a Guild mage had only served to hone his abilities. Thirdly, he had failed in his mission, probably because the hideout of Iwan's thugs had been rigged to explode, and Naruto had been caught in it, and knocked out for the count. Lastly, the Rune Knights had came to his rescue, with a Medic team, who probably saved his life, and the Chairman Guran Doma had forcibly reinstated Naruto into his ranks. He hated that white bearded, stick carrying, wrinkly assed old man.
He'd been out for nearly a week, partially due to lots of sedatives. Spent a further four days healing, thanks to his own special brand of healing powers, and by the fifth day of being awake he had began a boot camp of light training as prescribed by Chief Medic to help his body get back into fighting fitness. So what now? He was given unlimited resources, all for the purpose of eliminating all dark activity, he was in other words Guran's dog on a leash. Guran Doma was no fool, he would regain the support of his administration, all by being sensibly proactive where the former Council had failed.
The problem with that was, well, Naruto Uzumaki wasn't a dog. He didn't subscribe to being ordered about, it was his way or the highway. That first thing he had done was eat lots of ramen, and charge it to the Council account. That would teach Guran Doma in manipulating Naruto Uzumaki, and now he actually had things to do.
Personnel folders covered the desk. Naruto peered at the front page of the first, and chucked it in the trashcan. If a man was called Boo Sowers, would you hire him? The second far more interesting, the eyebrows of the man, they were nothing short of astonishing, and the noted teacher. Lee Rocks, twenty seven years old, former student of Guy Maito. He grinned, picked up a stamp and slammed it on the folder. He wanted the man.
Now he wondered if there was a Tenten here. He flicked through the files curiously, and to his surprise actually found her, but with an note referencing a recent admission to Mermaid Heel. An all female Guild, which sounded just about right if she was anything like the Tenten he had known. He wanted her, if he had to have a skeleton squad to command, then he would pick the best.
This freedom was strangely uplifting, even if it was only supposed to be the illusion of freedom, Guran Doma didn't know what he had unleashed. Out of the hospital, renewed with seeing Ayame again, he felt as if he could take on the world. He didn't intend to roll over when asked. He didn't want this, but now that he was here, he would use it so kids like Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster and all the others didn't suffer from the darkness brought about through the actions of illegal mages.
He glanced at a calendar, that was propped on his desk, and spat out the water he had been drinking, then at a clock that hung on the wall.
It was 1527 hours, October 10th, of the year x784, and exactly nine years since his world had changed. Naruto was twenty six today. He rubbed his eyes, placing down the folders, and just sat. It couldn't have been nine years, surely? It seemed both so much longer, and as if no time had passed by at all. He thought of Fairy Tail, and found himself wondering on how they would be doing, if he was back in Magnolia, there would have been a great party, lots of drinking, food and strange presents.
He was stuck in an office, trying to decide which of what seemed like hundreds of folders, would be strong enough to survive what he was going to be involving them in. Makarov had spoken often enough of how the Dark Guilds were aligned together, more and more often. The Guilds alone could not shoulder this burden in stopping them, they were still untainted with some of the darker realities that he had found himself floored by. It was that burning determination that uplifted him.
He had hit that epiphany in the hospital. Shortly after Guran Doma had left, the words that the manipulative old man had used on him, kept echoing inside his head. It was then that he realised that moping and brooding after so many years was making him a mockery of who he had sworn to be. Naruto Uzumaki didn't bend over and cry, he didn't back down and take a beating, he pushed forwards and gave the beating, and it was in that moment that he remembered the words of a wise man.
The Will of Fire will burn forever within you!
He had felt ashamed, but that would do nothing, so what he had to do was fix his mistakes. He had always done that as a kid, make mistakes and amend his mistakes. Why not now? He stood up from his seat and threw all the files that he gathered up into his arms in the bin. He wasn't meant to be stuck in an office, he was a mage, the Fairy Tail mark was still on his arm, which probably wasn't technically allowed, but Makarov held the power to cancel them out, and if the Master hadn't done so - the message was clear. No matter who he was working for, what he was doing, Naruto was still a member of Fairy Tail's family.
He was still a Fairy Tail mage!
Well, time to act like it.
He looked down at the uniform that Doma had probably had one of his numerous aides order, and knew that he wouldn't be wearing it, which meant only one thing - he had to see if his moist eyes and pout would still work on Ayame. Naruto sure as Zeref's latrine didn't want to go shopping, and if he gave her his exact measurements and lots of credits, then surely his sister figure would delight in an excuse to shop?
As it had turned out, Ayame had been delighted, except she had dragged Naruto out with her. Just because Naruto had forgotten his birthday initially, Ayame hadn't, and was keen to make up for all the missed birthdays over the years. He had an entire wardrobe now, which Ayame had promised to have embroidered with the insignia that adorned his actual uniform.
All of that had been two days ago.
He'd told his mousy assistant that he was going out on business, which he was, just not officially ordered business. So a couple of trains later, even if he could have commandeered some sort of vehicle, he found himself after a long and boring journey, outside the town where Mermaid Heel made its home.
He walked through the town, which had a very large female population, judging from the stores devoted to female fashion, a sense of foreboding hitting him right in the gut. There had been rumours about the Guild. He was sure they were only rumours, because no legal Guild would ever be permitted to get away with the content of the rumours, but he was still wary.
There was one thing that Naruto had learned over the years, was that females were deadly, it didn't matter what age, how they looked, or how powerful they really were. They were deadly. He knew that he could deal with just about anything thrown at him, the disaster that had caused him being back in the Council lackey ranks had been a fluke. Iwan Dreyar wouldn't have won in a fair fight, and it hadn't been a mage that had taken Naruto out, but an exploding building - which didn't count as a defeat. He'd find Iwan and his lackeys, and Naruto Uzumaki would pound them into dust and let them find out that Naruto had much more up his sleeves than the few tricks he had unleashed before.
Mermaid Heel was surprisingly not the pink, bunnies, lace and flowery type of building he had expected.
He made it to outside the door, straightened his black trench coat, he couldn't resist getting one like Gildarts owned, it looked cool and was pretty durable in a fight, considering Gildarts had owned the same one for years. Just above the heart, Ayame had embroidered in silver, a perfect copy of the insignia of the Council. He took in a deep breath, and opened the door.
About twelve females turned to stare at him.
"Commander Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm here to see Tenten Steeling, it is important. So I'd really appreciate it if you could point me on my way to finding her, ladies." He had finally managed to say.
"What do you want with Tenten?" A curly haired woman demanded, standing up and waltzing over to Naruto, sticking her face right up at his.
Naruto blinked, and then looked at the woman again. "What do I want with you, don't you mean?" He prodded at her, because he was pretty sure, bar the curly hair, that he was staring at Tenten Steeling.
Narrowed brown eyes peered right through Naruto, the woman crossed her arms underneath her breasts, and raised her chin, defiantly. "Well, what do you want? It can't be because you want to join Mermaid Heel, we are a female Guild, and I don't know you. So what do you want? You can say it in front of us all, or not at all." She was very hostile as she spoke.
"I want to hire you. You specialise in Wind Magic and Weapon Magic, you use a form of Requip and formerly served as a Rune Knight, before mustering out and joining Mermaid Heel. We've got a lot in common, and if you accept, we'll have even more. I'm in charge of a new elite Division, we will be the worst nightmare of illegal Guilds. You're a tough one, and I want you. You can do a lot of good." Naruto went straight to the point, blunt and succinct, and dying to get out of the Guild. He wasn't scared, but he felt holes boring into him from the glares of the members. He didn't blame them, he was trying to poach one of their S-rank members.
"Okay, I hear you, Commander, but I want to fight you. "
"You want to fight me." Naruto repeated, he hadn't had a chance to fight for weeks, and Tenten was meant to be really good. However, smaller Guilds like Mermaid Heel had lower standards for S-rank mages than other Guilds. Phantom Lord had been the same, five of their S-rankers weren't particularly deserving of the title, in general standards, they were highly skilled, but not exactly comparable to true S-rank mages like Laxus Dreyar, Erza Scarlet, Mirajane and possibly Mistogan. "Fine, lets fight." He finally said, it'd be a good time to see her strengths and weaknesses, and he was itching for a chance to be active.
"Follow me then," smugly, the Mermaid Heel mage said in response. She led Naruto, her fellow female mages following out of the Guild. A pathway led them just outside of the town, and in the middle of a great clearing of green. A place like this wouldn't survive a few hours if Fairy Tail had access to it, Naruto thought with a smile.
They finally stood, a few metres apart, and waiting for the other to attack.
He attacked first, he could try and pretend it was to see her reaction times, but he had been bored of waiting. She responded by sending sharpened wind blades at him, which he smugly dissipated with a wave of his hand, causing her brow to furrow and teeth to grit in anger. Naruto was a jack of many trades, and even a master of a couple. He did have an unfair advantage, but he had earned his skills from training.
He laughed as he jumped up into the air, avoiding a flurry of weapons sent his way, one scraped his boots. "Try harder, show me your power, I can take it." He shouted, as he took a deep breath and with a smirk sent her next attack in all directions with a 'Great Wind Barrier'. Wind Magic had been the easiest thing for him to learn, nine years ago, and was one of the magics that he had completely mastered.
"I'll kill you if I don't hold back!" Frustrated, the mage screamed in response as she retreated a few feet, as she returned her weapons and tried to plot out her next attack.
"I'm very hard to kill," Naruto quipped, she was holding back and it frustrated him. She was possibly stronger than he had given her credit for being, but she was showing none of it against him.
Instead of magic, she resorted to fists, as she smashed him in the jaw. Naruto rolled his jaw a little, to avoid a fractured jaw, but found himself approving of her raw strength. Not hesitating he rammed a fist through her guard and she went back a few feet, one arm clutching her ribs. It didn't hold her back for long though, because she retaliated with bringing out two swords, using her Requip abilities.
Naruto responded by doing the same thing, minus one sword. He had never been able to learn how to wield two swords, it had taken him long enough to get the knack of using one sword, but magical swords were different from plain old swords, which made it easier. Tenten was in her element, she battered through any defense he managed to put up, and he was going on the offensive, rather mixed up, but he was always better when attacking.
"I'd love to see you fight Erza," he managed to grunt, raising his weapon in time to avoid losing the use of his arm, and duck his head. "You are good, but you take a while to adjust to fighting someone new. I could have killed you by now, that is a weakness you can't afford to have." He paid for the critical comment with having to blast her backwards with a hastily and very raw 'Wind Barrier' that saved him from the assortment of weapons she had managed to Requip. He was impressed, in the midst of engagement, she had the ability to think and act on new avenues of attack.
She was panting.
Naruto should have guessed, she didn't have the stamina for sustained battle. She had gained her reputation by working as a squad and being quick to end things. "Lets finish this, end it with one last attack." He called out, they both parted ways, each silent as their magical power spiked. He stood his ground, watched as she was lost in the midst of what was thousands of projectiles, held aloft by Wind Magic and he could see barely, Tenten raising her arms, having abandoned her swords, and drop them forwards.
He grinned, the wave of steel death roaring as it sped towards him.
