Chapter 3: Mystery Girl Unveiled!
A/N:
Helloooo all! Sorry for the delay, LIFE HAPPENED! I have…. A JOB? Didn't think that would happen
I'm just going to say for the benefit of you guys and mine, I'm going to reference scenes throughout this fanfic that directly reference events from the anime that I won't be writing out, so bear with me PLEASE! I believe in your ability to fill in the blanks a little bit….. soooooo
Happy Reading!
-Recap-
Minato nodded, "Thank you. I think she trusts you, so hopefully that'll make our conversation a little easier,"
Kakashi nodded, "Understood,"
"Well then, I will send word when I visit her again," Minato responded
Naruko had a pounding headache when she woke up. As she came to her senses, she took a slow, deep breath and opened her eyes. As her blue eyes focused on the door in the corner. She moved her head slowly to the other side, gazing through the window. She watched the clouds moving through the sky. The trees rustling in the breeze. "Back in the leaf village huh…" she thought to herself, "I wonder why I'm here… I thought the leaf village was destroyed…" Naruko rolled her shoulders back, arching her back to stretch. She then sat up slowly, pulling herself up to lean on the backboard. She groaned slightly in pain and held her midsection, looking down at the hospital clothes she was wearing. Loose white pants and shirt. She pulled up the shirt, observing the neatly wrapped bandages around her torso. She rubbed the area over the bandages, feeling a slightly raised area underneath. She put her hands down and looked around the room again. She thought back to the battle with Obito, and how suddenly she had been transported to another place through his transportation jutsu. The strange part was… he didn't remember her. "We'd been fighting less than 5 minutes before that, how could he have forgotten me…And Kurama too…"
Naruko closed her eyes, and concentrated on the nine tails within her, entering the familiar chamber where the nine tails resided.
"So… You're back again child…" A low voice said, echoing through the chamber
"Yes, I've come to talk… so to speak… you say you don't remember me?"
"No… I have no idea who you are," the fox snarled, "Don't you fear me young kunoichi?" putting its nose up to the bars of the cage that restrained it.
"I know you wouldn't hurt me Kurama… I know you," Naruko said softly
"No," the fox snarled, "You are nothing more than a temporary vessel, you could not possibly understand my power, nor do I believe you know my true form,"
Naruko looked down sadly, "Can you look into my memories? If I could show you what we went through, maybe you would remember,"
"Since I'm doing nothing better today… I suppose I could humor you. I seem to be trapped in this vile cage, so I could use some… entertainment," Kurama said dryly.
Naruko nodded, and sat down on the surface of the water, "Let me show you…"
A nurse walked down the hall, making the rounds on the patients on the floor. As she walked up to Naruko's room, she listened quickly for any movement, then knocks lightly on the door. After waiting for a second, she opened the door and walked in to check on Naruko.
"Oh," she said in surprise. Naruko was sitting up, as if meditating, eyes closed in concentration, "I'm sorry I didn't know you were awake!"
Naruko opened here eyes, and glanced over at the nurse, "Oh no, don't worry about it at all!" Naruko said with a grin, "I was just gathering my thoughts,"
The nurse smiled brightly back, "Oh I'm glad! You've been in and out these past couple days , so I'm happy to see you are feeling a little better,"
Naruko nodded, then asked, "So what's all," she gestured towards herself, "this from,"
The nurse nodded, "You had a lot of injuries when the Hokage brought you in. Including quite a few broken ribs, and a stab wound in your stomach. Which is what I am here for. I just wanted to check on your wound, and change those bandages,"
Naruko looked down, and nodded.
The nurse smiled and walked towards her. Narukochatted lightly with the nurse as she unwrapped her older bandages. Naruko looked down and the swollen red scab that sat under her ribs on the left side.
"This is healing very nicely!" The nurse said, "I can put a smaller bandage on this now,"
"What about my ribs?" Naruko asked as the nurse put a large piece of gauze over her injury,
"Yes, I was actually going to check those next. Can you lay down please?" she asked after finishing sticking the gauze to her stomach.
Naruko nodded, as the nurse helped her down. The nurses hands glowed green as she ran her hands over Naruko's ribs, "You are doing very well Miss. Uzumaki! Your ribs aren't healed completely, of course, but they are much further along than they normally would be. You will probably have to stay in this hospital for a few more days, but after I think you should be okay to leave,"
Naruko nodded and grimaced as the nurse used her medical ninjutsu on her.
"Well, everything checks out for now. I see you're sitting up already which is fine, but try not to walk around. You are still very weak,"
Naruko sat up, with the help of the nurse, and nodded with a meek grin, "I'll try my best, thank you,"
The nurse nodded, "Yes of course. I think that's all for today though. Do you need anything else before I leave again?"
Naruko shook her head.
"Alright! Well there is a little alarm over here if you are in urgent need of anything. Don't hesitate! There should be another person in here in a bit to help you change into some fresh clothes.
Naruko nodded, and waved as the nurse left again. She took another deep breath, and settled into her meditation again.
The nurse walked down the hall, going towards the office where the phone was located, "Hello Hokage? You wanted me to call when Naruko woke up?"
Minato nodded, and stood up. He walked out the door of office and out the building towards the hospital. As he walked to the hospital, he took a winding route through the outer streets of the city. Where he knew Kakashi liked to read.
When he saw Kakashi, he walked up to him and said, "Kakashi, nice to see you," walking up to him sitting on a bench.
Kakashi looked up, and closed his book. He stood up and walked up to Minato, putting his book in his pocket as he approached the Hokage.
"Yo," Kakashi said casually.
"So, you're up to coming with me again huh?" Minato said, "If you don't want to come, you don't have to,"
Kakashi shook his head, "I want to know how she knows me, its … disconcerting,"
Minato nodded slightly, as they started walking towards the hospital.
Kakashi asked Minato, "So, you really think she's from the leaf? You don't think that she snuck in or... anything else?"
"Well, she did have a leaf hitai-ate, and we had it examined. The cloth is non-standard, but the hitai-ate itself was genuine. So she either stole it, or she's from the village. And additionally, she knew things about both of us that I don't think are widely known. I actually have a few theories on how she got here, but I need to ask her a few more questions,"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow slightly, unsure of Minato's trust of the girl. He was suspicious of her, and her motives. Especially after she stole the nine-tails.
"What if she is a spy?" Kakashi asked.
Minato raised his eyebrow, "Call it intuition, but I don't think she is a spy. I saw her fighting that… Man… Who I am actually going to talk to after Uzumaki. It feels so weird to say that and not be talking about Kushina," Minato said with a laugh, "I would like you to come with me to that if you are tagging along. I think you'll want to see this. He is heavily sedated right now, and we are lucky to have a Hyuuga on our medical staff who has been blocking his chakra networks so that he can't use that phasing Jutsu,"
Kakashi nodded, and walked with Minato chatting amicably until they got to the hospital. As they were walking up to Naruko's room, Minato asked, "So Kakashi, have you ever had a girlfriend before?"
Kakashi looked over skeptically, "No, why?"
"Just wondering," Minato said waggishly, watching Kakashi, "Do you like men?"
Kakashi stopped, sputtering, "Where did that come from?" He shouted
Kakashi was shushed by a nurse, and his face turned red, blush peeking out from behind his mask.
Minato laughed, "You never tell my anything, and you don't seem interested in girls, so I thought I'd ask,"
Kakashi shook his head slowly, "I'm interested in women. I just haven't found anyone I like,"
The two kept walking, and Minato responded, "You liked Rin right?"
Kakashi sighed, "Why are you asking me these questions?"
Minato shrugged, "It was obvious Obito liked her, but I was never quite sure about you,"
Kakashi shrugged, "I guess"
"You can't love someone who's dead Kakashi,"
"Yeah. I know," Kakashi said softly.
The two walked up to the door, and Kakashi opened the door quickly, and stepped in. Distracted by his own thoughts he didn't notice when Minato shouted, "Wait, Kakashi!"
Kakashi looked up and saw Naruko standing up, with her hair in a messy bun. His eyes widened as his eyes slowly made it up from her feet, up her legs, to her lower back, and to her… Naked upper body. His eyes flickered over the large purple bruises covering her ribs and back, analyzing the pattern of bruising along her body quickly before realizing what he was doing.
"Who's there," the nurse standing next to Naruko said. The Nurse turned and her eyes widened, and Naruko turned around and saw Kakashi staring at her. She quickly put her arms over her chest, took a deep breath and yelled,
"GET OUT YOU PERVERT,"
She flicked her shoe up from her foot to her hand and threw it at him.
Kakashi jumped and dodged her shoe, running out of the room as her second shoe smacked him in the back of the head. He slammed the door closed and slid down the wall, looking at the wall in front of him.
Minato stifled some laughter and said, "I tried to warn you Kakashi,"
"Well obviously you didn't do a good job!" He said in a low grumbling voice.
"She's got good aim," Minato said, gesturing at the slipper on the floor outside the door, "Must run through the Uzumaki bloodline. Kushina could throw anything at me and I think it would hit me in the head," he said, trying to distract Kakashi from his embarrassing entrance. Kakashi didn't respond, still staring at the wall, "Well if she didn't know you before, she knows you now!"
"Yeah as a pervert," Kakashi said, putting his head in his hands. "It's not all bad! Maybe she'll forget it happened," Minato said.
"She had so many bruises on her ribs, I've never seen something like that in person,"
Minato nodded, "You've never broken a rib before?"
"I mean I have, but it never looked like that,"
"The nurse said it looked like she had a lot of older broken ribs that had partially healed, as if she had been in some sort of fight the day before. They had to reset the ones that had healed improperly. She wasn't in good shape when I brought her in,"
"When you say reset you mean…?"
"Yeah they had to re-break the bones to set them correctly,"
"You said she had been fighting with that man right? Could it have been from that?"
Minato shook his head, "They said the fractures looked old. Combined with her quick healing, they said she was particularily prone to this sort of problem. She also told me she hadn't seen injuries like that since the third great ninja war when ninja would come home after days of fighting with lots of compounded injuries,"
"That's… Interesting…" Kakashi said, thoughts racing through his head about where she was from,
"I wonder if she…" Minato started, as the nurse peeked her head out and said, "Sorry! We didn't know you were coming, she's all ready now,"
Minato nodded, "Alright Kakashi,"
The two walked in, to see Naruko sitting on the bed with her legs crossed. She had a lazy expression on her face, but as she looked over a look of confusion came over her face. Then she became visibly tense, standing up on the opposite side of the bed.
"Who are you?" She asked suspiciously, eyeing the two defensively, she reflexively felt her leg and back for shuriken, and pursed her lips when she remembered she was in hospital clothes.
"You don't need to be scared," Minato said calmly, "My name is Minato Namikaze and I am the fourth Hokage, and this is Kakashi Hatake. He is a leaf village shinobi,"
Naruko laughed, then winced from the pain in her ribs, "You know that's the shittiest attempt to impersonate someone from the leaf I've ever seen. Minato Namikaze and Kakashi Hatake are dead. So why don't you show me who you really are,"
Minato looked at her quizzically, "I'm not dead, I'm standing right here. And neither is Kakashi as you can see,"
Minato took a step forward to try and decompress the situation, "Why don't we all just sit down,"
"Don't come any closer," Naruko said shakily, stepping back.
Minato stood for a moment and thought about his options. He then said, "What can I do to prove I'm me,"
Naruko raised an eyebrow, and looked at him and Kakashi suspiciously, "Fine, I have two questions. The first one is for you," she said, pointing at Minato, "If you're really Minato Namikaze, then how did you find Kushina when she was kidnapped by ninja when you two were in the academy?"
Minato made a half smile, "That's really specific. And I'm actually surprised you know about that. I followed a trail of hairs she left in the forest,"
Naruko nodded slowly, then looked to Kakashi, "Now for you. What did Obito give you as a gift for becoming a jonin?"
Minato thought to himself, "That's very specific too,"
Kakashi stared at her, as if trying to burn a laser through her skull, "This eye," He said, pointing at the eye hidden behind his headband.
Naruko tilted her head to the side.
"Naruko, do you believe us now?" Minato said,
Naruko furrowed her eyebrows, "I'm mostly… really confused right now,"
"I think we're all confused, but let's sit down to talk about it. I imagine you're tired from everything you've been through,"
Naruko nodded, and climbed back on the bed, crossing her legs again as Minato pulled up a chair next to the bed, and Kakashi leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.
"So why don't you start off with how you got here?"
Naruko nodded, "I'll try my best… I was fighting in the fourth great ninja war, and I had just sort of figured out the whole nine-tails thing and I was able to really harness its power. Like Kurama and I got along a lot better, it was awesome. I was glowing, and way faster and stronger, and I had mastered how to do the tailed beast bomb which was pretty awesome, ya know!" She said, grinning
Minato thought to himself, "She has those verbal tics that Kushina always uses,"
Naruko's grin faltered though, as she went on, "Now that I'm here though I guess… that's all changed… But anyways, I was fighting this masked man, who we later found out was Obito Uchiha, and then it turned really bad. Because there was a resurrection Jutsu, and Obito and Zetsu and some other bad dudes resurrected a whole bunch of dead people. Like all of the Hokage's,including you, and Madara Uchiha, and… a lot of people that were really powerful. And we just couldn't keep up. We had all five great nations fighting against these people and our ninja were just being killed left and right… I mean there was nothing we could do," Naruko said, becoming visibly upset. She wiped her eyes, and continued, "Kakashi and I, along with a few others, were fighting Obito. We were doing alright, because Kakashi was able to use the same phasing jutsu as Obito, and we were able to attack him that way. Once Obito found out what we were doing tough, he… He killed Kakashi. He got up to where Kakashi was, and ripped out his sharingan so that he couldn't use it, and then he just…. Well I won't go into the gory details, ya know," Naruko said with a weak laugh.
Kakashi was staring at Naruko, unsure of whether to believe her. She knew about his past, but he had never met her before.
"Anyways… Obito killed the remaining ninja around us. I tried to stop him, I really did. I just," Naruko stifled her tears, "Even with Kurama," she squealed out, "I couldn't save Kakashi, or Sakura, or Sasuke, or… anyone," Naruko took a deep shaky breaths, her voice uneven "And I tried fighting Obito, and I was hardly keeping up with him. Probably because of the nine-tails chakra, and because he had been injured. But he was still really beating me up, and I-I knew I was going to die,"
Naruko looked up with hollow eyes, "I knew I was going to die, but I was so angry I just couldn't stop. Eventually, he had me pinned. I couldn't move, and he sucked me into his stupid void thing and I swear he was about to kill me. He was running at me, and I just freaked out I don't know what happened, ya know. I was in that void, then I was above the leaf village and I had this hot burning sensation in my stomach. Then I don't even know what happened and I was fighting Obito again, and I guess you know what happened in there…" She said, trailing off at the end. Naruko pulled her knees up to her chest and put her head in her arms, "I don't know where I am right now. I'm so confused, and...and,"
Minato looked over from Naruko with a very concerned expression, to Kakashi, who looked mildly horrified at her story.
"I… That's… I'm so sorry for what you went through," Minato said softly, "So from what it sounds like, Obito was it?" Naruko nodded, "He is able to phase in and out by transporting parts of his body, or his whole body into his void. And Kakashi who has the same Sharingan is able to do the same as Obito?"
Naruko nodded again.
"I guess that explains that,"
Kakashi pulled up a chair and sat down next to Minato, "So if your story is true, how did Obito live," Kakashi asked intensely.
"Um…" Naruko said, bringing her head out of her arms, "Well he wasn't killed when the rocks fell on him. He was dying, but not dead. Then Zetsu, this double personality tree ninja guy, helped him. Along with Madara Uchiha… He wasn't dead then. With the help of Madara, Zetsu was able to replace the parts of his body too damaged to recover with cells from the first Hokage, and basically regrew them. And then he went around doing whatever, I guess, until he found out you and Rin were on a mission. He saw you kill Rin, and now he hates you and the whole leaf village I guess. He was trying to resurrect the ten tails. And he helped initiate the mass killing of the uchiha clan. He had been collecting the tailed beasts for a long time,"
Minato looked mildly surprised, and Kakashi looked angry.
"Minato doesn't know the whole story. I didn't kill Rin," he yelled
"You don't have to yell, I know the story," Naruko mumbled, putting her head on her arms, and turning her face away from the two shinobi.
"Naruko," Minato said gently, "You said some other stuff the first time we met,"
Naruko turned her head, "I don't remember talking to you,"
"Oh, well we talked a little bit while you were under some heavy medication,"
Naruko looked up, trying to remember, then shrugged.
"You're from the Uzumaki clan?" Minato asked
"Yeah, I guess. You're my father, and Kushina Uzumaki is my mother,"
Minato nodded, and put his hand on his head, "This is very confusing isn't it," he said with a small smile, "If you don't mind me asking, why did you think I was dead? I do have a young son named Naruto. You two do have remarkably similar names, but I'm alive right now,"
Naruko nodded, "Well you and mom died during the nine-tails attack,"
"How?" Minato probed, getting more serious. They had just experienced an attack.
"Obito wanted the nine tails, and set it loose on the village. When you went to try and stop it I guess you weren't able to. The only way you were able to save the village was to create a new jinchuriki…" Naruko said softly, "And so you got me and mom, and you decided to put the nine-tails in me. You used the reaper death seal to seal it in me. But while you were doing that, the nine tails was able to escape mom's chakra chains, and he tried to kill me. Originally mom was going to be alive to take care of me, but both you and mom jumped in front of it's claw to save me. So you both died, right after you sealed the nine-tailed fox in me," Naruko pulled up her shirt to show them the seal on her stomach, "This is the seal that keeps the nine tails in me,"
Minato nodded, "That actually makes a lot of sense,"
Kakashi stared at the marks on her stomach. He had always found seals intriguing to look at.
"So this is my current hypothesis on what happened," Minato said, leaning forward, "So you were fighting Obito and you were brought into his void. I'm going to assume this void is in another dimension, separated from this world so that you cannot access it unless you have that sharingan. So as he brought you into the dimension the Obito in this time was accessing his void space. Somehow, through some fight or flight response in addition to nine-tailed energy, you were able to travel between these voids. OIbito was using his void and must have expelled something from it at the same time as you went into his, transporting you into our world where he was. Obviously you are not from our future, as my child is a boy, and you are a girl. So somehow the void that Obito uses is connected across all of these Obitos across dimensions. If that makes sense?"
Naruko looked confused, "I… uh… think so? I understood enough of that I think,"
Kakashi nodded.
Minato stood up and clapped, "Alright, so that's figured out. Naruko, I trust you. I want to fully integrate you into the leaf village, here, but you have to understand we will have to have some of our shinobi confirm your identity and your mental state and make sense of all this beurocratic mess. If you are open and willing to participate, I anticipate that they will go by very quickly. We will provide you with a temporary living facilities, and a small loan that you can pay off after you start going on missions. After that, if it all goes smoothly, we will have to gauge your level and assign you as…" Minato looked at her for a second, then continued, "I think you would be about a chunin… and we will start to send you on missions so that you can make a living for yourself. Does that sound alright to you?"
Naruko nodded quickly.
"Alright awesome. Is there anything else I'm missing?"
Naruko looked up, then smiled sheepishly, "Um… If you don't mind, there is one thing,"
Minato nodded.
"You know Jiriyah?"
Minato said, "Yes, he's in the village currently I believe. He came for Naruto's birth,"
"Um, would it be possible for you to tell him about me? He… he was my sensei for a long time. I traveled with him and he trained me. If it's possible I'd like to see him… He died where I'm from…so… "
Minato furrowed his eyebrows, and nodded, "I think I can set that up for you,"
"Thank you so much," she said with a huge smile.
She leapt up quickly and gave Minato a hug, then Kakashi, who stood awkwardly as Naruko squeezed him, "I'm so happy you guys are alive,"
A/N:
WOW THAT WAS LONG! Hopefully you guys liked it! it is extra long for you guys this time!
If you were reading before my chapter updates - sorry for those spelling errors! I am on google docs, and it didn't really alert me to any spelling errors (as per usual) but I definitely forgot to use spell check on my editing process … My bad ~\(6.6)/~ won't happen again! (probably)
To my newer readers! You get a newly edited story!
Smash that review button!
