Hunger of the Lizard Chapter 3: Apex predator

I'm back and ready for action.

Once again because of chakra the Lizard will have some differences from the original. Also to note, I never stated Tonton was dead only that she got slashed. Shizune got messed up.

Now, let's begin!

Beastoftruth does not own Naruto or Spider-man or any music used.

Chapter 3: Apex Predator

Kushina stood at the ready, sword drawn and waiting for her reptilian opponent to appear. She recognized the jutsu the creature used. It was the Subterranean Voyage jutsu, an earth justu that allowed the user to move through the earth like water, hiding them from sight. A useful jutsu, but should have been an impossibility. Her Chakra Chains were able to hold down the Kyubi without it escaping, so once she had the creature, it shouldn't have been able to escape even with the jutsu. She was lucky though, even if she couldn't see it, she felt the creature's eyes on her. She was not happy at having to face an unknown enemy after coming to find out what happened to her son, but at least it wasn't trying to chase Tsunade. She saw in her peripherals that other ninja were watching on the rooftops but were not making a move to aid her. She would have put more thought into it, had she not heard something burst out of the ground behind her.

(Play "Spider man OST Thrill of the hunt" type it into youtube, should be the first to pop up.)

She narrowly avoided having her head ripped off as the creature launched out of the ground like a torpedo, jaws open and aiming to capture said head. Kushina ducked under the offending creature and swung her katana in a downwards swing, hoping to use the creature's momentum to slice the creature in half. She was surprised when the creature was not bisected as expected, but the katana did minimal damage only making a thin red line across the creature's body. The creature didn't seem to care as it seemed to stick to the opposing building and did a leaping turn, going for another pass. It leaped at her claws out, going for a leaping tackle to cause her to lose her guard. Sadly, Kushina is just faster than it.

"Chakra Chains Barrier."

Chakra chains sprang to life, creating an impenetrable barrier to protect her. The creature was not prepared for this new development, so it slammed into the invisible barrier. This caused its outstretched arms to give way and its head to slam into the barrier. The creature slowly tried to get up in its dazed state, Kushina was not going to let it. She rushed it and quickly channeled wind chakra into her blade. While she might not be wind natured, she wasn't an S rank for nothing. Unluckily, the creature in its dazed state still had the wits to protect its head.

"Skreeee!"

Kushina jumped back as she watched the creatures blocking arm fell to the ground and writhed until it ceased all motion. The hulking reptilian screamed in pain as it waved its stump of an arm around, spraying its dark red blood everywhere. Its blood was also running down its face, blinding it. As it flailed and screamed in pain, Kushina drew wind chakra to her blade, ready to finish the battle.

Then she felt it.

The foul chakra that started to permeate and made one feel once more like a child scared of the dark. The feeling of something completely beyond understanding and she should know the feeling. It was sealed inside her for years.

She watched in a mix of fascination and horror as the creature started to regenerate. In a pace quicker than any medical jutsu, the arm started to grow back. Bone, ligaments, muscle, and flesh intertwined until what once was gone returned. Then scales and claws burst from the skin in their proper places. The scales were lighter color than the rest. Kushina watched as all the cuts and marks she made disappeared. Then real changes began to happen. As she felt the vile chakra move throughout its body, its scales seemed to flare up and turn to a dark red color.

"Must be some byproduct of the Kyubbi, I can't let it tap any more of its chakra."

She once more tried to rush it, only to be hit when it span around and whipped her with its tail. Not expecting such a maneuver, she flew through the air and crashed into a nearby store. She slowly tried to get up, but winched and clutched her ribcage where the tail whipped her. Her body was telling her to stay down but she couldn't, she wouldn't.

"I won't give up! Naruto's waiting for me. I wouldn't fall to something like this! I will find Naruto!"

Through pure will, she slowly stood up expecting to have to wait for her opponent to pop out of the ground for a sneak attack, but she would be surprised. The monster had suddenly rushed her at an incredible speed and grabbed her with a hand choke hold. Kushina felt its claws start to stab their way into her neck as their owner continued to run towards the wall at the back of the store. Kushina started to choke from the force and the strength of the grip. As the wall quickly drew closer, she also felt the pain of the claws trying to pierce her skin.

"So fast!"

The monster broke through the brick wall, along with the victim it was carrying and went into the back ally. It then slammed its cargo into the ground and raised its other clawed hand intent to finish its victim.

Only to be confused when it found it was holding a broken log. It tried to sniff out its source of anger, only to be further confused when it saw three different copies of its prey surround him in a triangle formation.

"Triple moon illusion!"

The copies quickly slide by it with swords out, each ending in the opposite end from where they started. The creature screamed as three long cuts appeared and spurted out its blood. The copies had a look of hope but quickly lost it as the cuts seemed to regenerate as fast as they appeared. The creature looked at them in rage.

"SKRREEE!"

Kushina watched from the end of the street as she started to calmly rub her neck. Thank Kami for Kawarimi and Kage Bushin no jutsu. As she watched the moster try to fight her clones, she could already feel her neck swelling and tiny pinpricks of it bleeding. She wouldn't lie, if she had not pulled out the academy jutsu, her windpipe would be crushed and her neck slashed up. She calmly watched as her clones fight the monster. She was looking for an opening to try to put this creature down; she was not going to let it have another chance to tear her down like that. It wasn't hard to find an opening. The creature, while having a boost in strength and speed, acted like a bull and only attacked whoever was closest. While it was distracted with her clones, she summoned a familiar sphere of chakra. She sunnshin'd in front of the monster. If it was surprised, it didn't show it. It still had the look of rage as she thrust the orb into its chest.

"Rasengan!"

The creature gave a yelp as it felt the orb grind through its scales and into its soft skin. It got worse as the force of the Rasengan forced the creature off the ground and sent it spinning through the air, sending it crashing through the wall of an adjacent building. Kushina let out a sigh of relief as she dispelled her clones.

"Let see it get up from that, dattebane!"

"Grrrrrrrrr."

"….You got to be fucking kidding me."

Kushina looked at the opening the creature went through only to see it getting back up. It still had a spiral shaped mark on its chest still bleeding freely, however that fact that it got up and the blood was starting to slow down shows its healing factor was still one-hundred percent. The creature got up and looked ready to continue the fight, and then it tensed and sniffed the air. It than got panicked and turned tail and ran promptly taking out wall on its way out. Kushina got an angry look on her face.

"That's right you better run! No one messes with Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze and you remember that, Dattebane!"

"Yes, I'm sure he will remember that."

"Damn right he will! No one messes with a friend of mine and gets away with it."

"…..Not even an hour and you've already got in a fight. You haven't changed at all, Kushina."

Kushina was going to continue on her victory rant but stopped when she noticed the person talking to her. Very few in Konoha just called her by her name after she married Minato. She turned to see Kakashi standing in his full face masked glory and reading material in hand. He turned and gave her an eye smile as he waved with his open hand.

"Yo."

Kushina grow a tick mark in anger on her head ready to beat Kakashi up for reading such smut in public but then stopped. The creatures behavior before it ran was starting to make since especially if Kakashi just appeared by her. Kakashi looked in confusion as a dark cloud appeared over Kushina's head and she started to poke the ground with her sword.

"It was more afraid of you than me."

Kakashi sweat dropped as he looked at her, his appearance popping her ego.

"Ma ma, I doubt that. I bet he was just scared of facing two strong shinobi."

"You right! I bet it was so overwhelmed by me, it thought it wouldn't be able to handle anymore so it ran, Dattebane!"

Kakashi just gave a tired sigh, he didn't have the heart to tell her it was afraid of him from a past encounter but he didn't want to deal with a depressed Kushina. A sad Kushina was harder to work with than an ego happy Kushina.

Konoha Hospital

Kushina was not happy.

She wanted to go to the hokage and talk to him right away but Kakashi somehow convinced her of going to the hospital first to check on her wounds. She suspects he used some type of genjutsu but she would have noticed it. She so far had been trapped her for a couple hours, the doctors running tests and worrying about internal bleeding. Bah! She's been stab the Kyubbi's claw before, she doubts this will take her down! She had a son to get to! She heard the door to her room open and was about to yell for them to bring the hokage, only to see the man himself walk into her room.

"Hello, Kushina it's been a while."

"Hiruzen…"

He looked much older than the last time she saw him. He must have felt older too, because the first thing he walk to the chair by her bed and sit down. He made a little bit of noise sitting down and exhaled as he sat.

"Hmm, I'm too old for this. Do you still want to be the first female hokage? I'll happily give it up."

Kushina chuckled a bit at Hiruzen trying to break the preverbal ice. He knew that she gave up that dream the second she found out she was pregnant with Naruto.

"Sorry, you'll have to find some other sucker for the job."

They both chuckled at her brashness before Hiruzen drew a serious look.

"Kushina, I hoped you would come. I will just start out to say, every word of that letter is true, Naruto has been located. He is alive, only a short distance from here and the people that took him are dead."

Her heart leapt at the news. Her baby was only a short while away. Soon she will be with her son and be a family.

"However, like always, bad news always follows the good."

Kushina's eyes narrowed. She didn't like the idea of something bad happening to stop her quest to find Naruto but she'll get through.

"What is it? Whatever or whoever it is, I'll cut through it."

"It's a little more complicated than that. I will start out, however, by saying I had no knowledge of what I'm about to say."

Kushina looked at Hiruzen, even though he was the God of Shinobi and can hide his emotions, right now his face was like an open book for his emotions. She saw regret, anger, disgust, and great shame. Kushina grew a worried on her face from the emotions she was clearly seeing.

"How…bad is it?"

"So bad that if anyone tried to kill me over it, I would happily accept the blade."

Her heart then fell to the deepest pits of her soul. He was saying that if she tried to kill him after he told her, he would not fight back. He would die letting her have revenge for an unspoken horror. That's how deeply shamed he was of it, even though he was not involved.

"What….are you saying?"

"Tell me, what do you think of the creature you fought."

Why was he bringing this up? Was he trying to change the convocation? No, he wasn't, from what Kushina got tell from his voice it was matter of great importance. Did the creature have Naruto?

"It was strong and fast. It's healing ability is a problem."

She tried to keep her answer short so she can hear what the point of this was.

"I see, we've been trying to catch him this entire month. That's why we're on lock down. Now, Kushina I have something horrible to tell you."

He told her everything. What Danzo did, the reports, the mutilated and eaten bodies, and what her son had become. At the end of the story, he bowed his head in forgiveness for the act he did not commit, but Kushina couldn't answer. She was heartbroken; her son had been turned into a monster against before he could even crawl. She sat there no moving as Hiruzen got up and started to leave as he opened the door he turned to her.

"He's going to need to heal. He will do it in the Sunken Swamp in the Forest of Death. With reptiles there to control, he is the true apex predator in the swamp. When you heal, I'll have a team ready to track him with you for a capture."

As he left, Kushina looked up. Her eyes red with tears but full of determination, not only was she going to get him back, but she would also turn him to normal.

Because she was an Uzumaki mother and they will do anything for their child!

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