Uzumaki Naruto: Sorceror for Hire
xxx
Sarutobi took a deep drag of his pipe as he mulled over Kakashi's report. It was... quite unbelievable, really. Apparently Naruto's new secret techniques had turned him into something of a one man demolition squad. Naturally, there were weaknesses and flaws as well. Naruto had apparently been bringing his full force to bear towards leading Kakashi into a trap, so if Kakashi had had a partner to work in concert with him a single attack from behind would have pretty much ended the match before it began.
Also interesting was the sheer variety of attacks he'd produced. For certain, Naruto was versatile. Also.... this was just a suspicion from an old man, but it seemed that Naruto couldn't produce the individual effects too terribly often over a small period of time. Like how Kakashi could only use his signature move a few times a day, but different somehow, in a manner that still escaped him for the moment. So alone and outnumbered, even by mere genin, he could be beaten. There would be casualties of course, but it was possible.
Still, the most intriguing thing was that Naruto's nebulous partner had apparently revealed itself. Or herself, as it was apparently female. Sarutobi couldn't recall there being anything at that festival resembling this 'Kazumi' creature.
Then again, given that he'd been in retirement, he'd spent a large portion of the festival drunk out of his mind. So it was entirely possible that he had met something like her, and simply couldn't remember.
xxx
Certain healing potions could ward off the need for sleep, or even remove it entirely. This was not a well known fact, but it was proven to be true nonetheless as Naruto spent several hours into the night re-memorizing the spells he'd used in his assault on Kakashi, as well as a couple of others to boot. The Wondrous Word of Power: Instant Depths of Uninterrupted Slumber, to be precise. Power Word: Sleep, for those who prefer brevity over flowery prose in their arcane incantations.
Sometime after midnight, the potion wore off and his body began shutting down. He had enough time to stagger to a nearby bed before he lost consciousness.
After that, he managed to net a few short hours of slumber before being rudely awakened through cold water. Kazumi wasn't even slightly ashamed of herself as she casually levitated a second sphere of water over his head and grinned widely.
"Wakey, wakey Boss."
He glared.
"Your demonic heritage is showing through, I see."
"Oopsie-daisy, I seem to be temporarily losing control over my telikin-"
"I'm up, I'm up.... fiendish creature." He mumbled under his breath.
"You're gonna be la-ate!" Kazumi chirped, seeming to take no offense.
"Yeah, I get it. Ninja. What a drag. I'll just... go do... ninja stuff, then. And maybe work out a way to convincingly fake my death."
"Have fun!"
Naruto continued grumbling lightly as he teleported out of the tower.
xxx
Sakura blinked. Just a moment ago, she'd been sure that she was the first one to the meeting spot. Then she blinked, and now Naruto was there, shielding his eyes and glowering in the direction of the sun.
"Too bright..." He grumbled, flipping up the hood of his cloak as he sought refuge in the shade. Sakura began to ask where he'd come from, but caught a glimpse of the approaching Sasuke out of the corner of her eye and lost all train of thought as her vision turned into a pink framework of flowers surrounding his face.
"Sasuke-kun!"
"Out of my way!" He snarled. "You, fight me! Now!"
Naruto sighed deeply as he leaned against the tree.
"It's too early in the morning for his crap. Besides that... I just don't feel like it right now."
"If you won't fight, then it just means it'll be an easy win!" Sasuke yelled as he drew a kunai and lunged, prompting Naruto to sigh again.
"You really should cool down. How about a nice nap?" His eyes focused and he brought up a single finger, unconsciously mimicking a figure from Sasuke's past as he poked at his forehead, mumbling the appropriate incantation under his breath. Sasuke was snoring before he hit the ground.
"Hm. Not five minutes and I already had to use one. Better keep the other in reserve." He mumbled to himself.
Sakura didn't hear him, to overwhelmed with shock that her obsession had been taken out so casually. Then a partially evil/partially perverted leer fell over her face and she began to slowly stalk towards her defenseless obsession. Naruto ignored the way she crept up on the Uchiha's limp form, fingers twitching, as he pulled Hrea's journal out of his cloak and continued the effort of translating it.
Mere minutes later, she let loose a howl of anguish and disbelief.
"Tiny! Miniscule! Shrimpy! Shriveled! Dwarfish! Stunted! Infantile! Oh god, it's horrible! Who could have imagined that Sasuke-kun would be so, so..."
She slumped over, the shock at whatever she'd discovered being enough that she'd passed out. Naruto flipped the page, casually ignoring the entire sordid display.
xxx
Kazumi had arrived eventually, cloaked under a minor illusion coupled with a 'look elsewhere' mental effect, both of which he assumed came from the Fae portion of her ancestry. He wasn't sure what she'd been doing in the tower that she wanted him gone first, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
It was hours after that that Kakashi chose to show himself, long enough that the sun was well above the tree-line and his other two students had begun to stir. He took the opportunity to demonstrate a Suiton Jutsu to Naruto, who privately reflected that it was much like what Kazumi had done to him, save on a somewhat larger scale.
Once the two unconscious portions of the team ceased gasping and spluttering and Naruto had marked his place in the journal and returned it to his pocket, Kakashi explained what they would be doing that day.
Naruto's patience, such as it was, snapped.
"Wait, wait, wait.... You want us to what?"
"Like I said, Naruto.... the four of us are going to practice our tracking skills in combination with our retrieval and delivery techniques by-"
"Catching a freaking cat."
Naruto frowned deeply as his mind shot in multiple different directions at once.
"Not gonna do it. Frankly I'm disgusted by the very idea, and flatly refuse to participate in any mission where I'm not going to get even the opportunity to kill someone. I'll make you a counteroffer, though."
Good, good. He'd made his point and, if he was reading their facial expressions correctly, mildly disturbed his teammates, and reinforced his 'insanity'. Three in one shot!
"Listen carefully, 'cause I'll only say this once. You don't bug me about pointless D-ranks, and I won't set your houses on fire. Sound like a fair deal?"
Kakashi took a moment to stare at him through his one visible eye, probably trying to decide whether or not he would attempt such a thing and, more importantly, calculate what his odds were of succeeding. Naruto took a calculated sip of mana potion. A sweatdrop rolled slowly down the back of the Jounin's head.
"Right.... like I was saying, the three of us are going to practice our tracking skills in combination with our retrieval and delivery techniques by hunting down Tora the cat and returning him to his owner."
Naruto smirked victoriously as the other two genin sent death-glares at his back.
"I could set houses on fire, if I wanted to." Sasuke mumbled just loud enough for Naruto to overhear. "Uchiha are the best with fire techniques."
Naruto's smirk grew wider.
xxx
The days following went much the same. Kakashi would gently suggest the idea of coming along on a D-rank, Naruto would casually threaten the entire team's life and/or property, the suggestion would be retracted, and he would be left to his own devices for the day. Typically he had to knock out or humiliate Sasuke once or twice a day for flavor as well.
Either he was a glutton for punishment, or he had a real problem with his short term memory. Frankly, Naruto didn't care which, but he'd reached the point that he was perfectly willing to stab him in the face if he didn't quit being irritating. Or even if he did. Actually, he'd just made up his mind to stab him the next time they met when he sauntered up to the meeting place.
Naruto greeted him by launching a pair of shuriken at his eyes. Sasuke screamed like a terrified little girl and dived to the side, right into the path of an Entangling Vines spell.
Naruto allowed a creepy leer to fall over his face as he tugged out a curved silver dagger and began slowly stalking towards the trapped genin. Sasuke struggled harder and opened his mouth to scream again, but was cut off as a loose vine wrapped itself around his face, gagging him. Naruto stabbed for his forehead....
... and the world went black.
When he came to, it was to Sasuke's melodious wails to Kakashi about how he was insane and should be put down like the rabid dog he was.
"That's a.... little rude, don't you think, Sasuke-kun?"
"Little rude? You tried to stab me, you psychotic freak!"
"Well... yeah, but in my defense you're really annoying. And I was bored. You know how it is."
"No I don't. You know why? Because I'm not a psychotic freak!"
Kakashi felt a weird sense of deja vu as his students continued arguing, one calm and relatively polite and one being loud and abrasive. Why was it that he got the feeling it should be the other way around, though? He quickly shook it off.
"Anyway, about that… since it's become obvious that our teamwork has begun to suffer recently, I've taken the liberty of reserving a C-rank. Maybe this would interest you, Naruto?"
"Depends. Does it involve rakes, puppies, vacuum cleaners, paint, groceries, or kittens in any way not also directly involved with brutal and fiendish murder?"
"Um… Just at a guess, I'm going to say… probably not."
"Eh, sure. Why not."
"Oh. In that case, allow me to introduce you to the client for this mission, Tazuna-san. We'll be protecting him from C-class enemies, such as bandits and highwaymen, as he returns to the land of waves and finishes building a bridge."
A taciturn, smelly old drunk stepped out and grunted half-heartedly at them. Naruto considered him for a long moment.
"Hmm... I suppose it's too late to change my mind, huh."
"Far, far too late."
The drunk coughed irritably.
"You know... I am standing right here. Would it be too much to ask that you at least wait until you can reasonably be considered to be behind my back before you talk smack?"
He was resoundingly ignored by all other involved parties.
"Maa... I regret my hasty agreement. I regret it with the fury of a hurricane!"
"Well... at least it's a change of scenery, right, Naruto?"
"Scenery? Tch." Sasuke grumbled, although Sakura looked mildly interested.
"Anyway... make your preparations and assemble in one hour at the main gates." Kakashi ordered.
xxx
"Assemble in one hour." Naruto grumbled. "That was... what, three... four hours ago?"
"Yo! I'm afraid I got lost on the road of life..."
"Whatever. Let's just go, already."
"Ho... always in such a rush...."
"Don't get me wrong... I'm just bored as all hell from waiting for you."
"Oh really?"
"Hmm..." Sakura wondered under her breath as they set off. "Despite how he's grumbling, he actually seems pretty eager. Don't you think? Eh... Sasuke?"
He grunted, not sparing a moment to glance away from glaring into the back of Naruto's head.
"Ehehe... Sasuke seems... a little angry. Right, Naruto? Uh... Naruto...?"
Naruto had completely ignored the girl in favor of staring creepily at the bridge builder.
"What... do you want, you overdressed little runt?"
A vein pulsed lightly at Naruto's temple.
"Dunno. Just trying to decide how many bandits I'm going to have to slaughter in order to keep from smothering you to death in your sleep, you stupid old drunkard."
Tazuna snorted, ignoring the way Naruto's teammates had gone a much whiter shade of pale than normal and begun making frantic shushing motions.
"Hah. You talk big, runt, but I don't think you have the stones to do anything to your employer."
"OH REALLY!? BURN!"
Naruto unleashed a low level spell, blasting a cone of flame out from his palm that would have rendered Tazuna into a charred husk if Kakashi hadn't chosen just that moment to blur over and remove him to safety, charring the edges of his clothes slightly in the process.
"All right, mission rule number one. Naruto, no murdering the client. Rule number two, Tazuna, don't taunt the shinobi on anti-psychotics."
"I'll... I'll remember that..." Tazuna mumbled, obviously shaken by his unexpected brush with fiery death.
Sasuke and Sakura sighed in relief as Naruto grunted, shaking his hand slightly to dissipate the smoke floating around it.
"Let's go then. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can massacre all the bandits between here and wherever it is we're going."
"Rule number three. Our job is to protect Tazuna-san, not to hunt down bandits. Killing the ones that target us is fine, but we won't be actively hunting them down this time."
"Oh? In that case, I may as well have just stayed in bed today... what a waste of time."
Naruto flipped up his hood and withdrew an ornate walking stick, grumbling to himself as he started off, pausing only to glance up at a soft rustle in a tree.
Several minutes passed in silence.
"Ah... such a nice day. Now is an excellent time for a lesson." Kakashi decided. "I'm going to teach you a little about some random subjects, like the Kages and our destination."
"Um... Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura ventured. "Is this... really relevant to guarding Tazuna-san?"
".......... Before that though, I have a little story. It's about three genin and their instructor, out on their first C-rank mission. The instructor graciously decided to impart some of his wisdom to his students, but they didn't feel like listening. And so, their instructor had no choice but to thrash them severely, tie them up, hang them upside down from a tree branch, and lecture them for several hours before they could be on their way."
"............" Was the genin's unanimous statement on the matter.
"The moral of the story is 'Don't question me, just shut up and pay attention'."
"Y... yes, sensei."
"Right. Now.... where was I? Dammit Sakura, you made me completely lose my train of thought, and-"
Kakashi was interrupted as a chain wrapped around him from nowhere and tore him into four or five pieces. There was a moment of silence before Naruto asked what everyone was thinking.
"Sakura, did you just murder Kakashi with your mind?"
"I-I didn't mean to, I swear!"
"Um... just so you kids know, I'm still alive." Kakashi called down from a tree branch. "The whole replacement technique thing, you know... they just cut up a log."
"Ah?" Naruto blinked. "So they did. My mistake. So... who's 'they'?"
Kakashi wordlessly dropped two ninja to the ground, tied up tightly with their own chain. Naruto grinned, then blinked and frowned.
"Kakashi-sensei..." He whined. "They're unconcsious. It's no fun killing them if they're not terrified..."
Tazuna and Sasuke shuddered unanimously and each took one large step away from the blonde.
"Ah well.... dibs on the next fight!"
Sakura blinked, wondering just what the hell had just happened.
xxx
After a quickly extracted confession from Tazuna and a vote, they'd continued on to the ferry to Wave country. Except it was less 'ferry' and more 'glorified canoe' than anything else.
"You know, I've never been on a boat before." Naruto stated aloud. "And if they're all like this, I don't think I ever want-"
"Shut up, dobe!" Sasuke hissed. "Sound carries over water. You're going to get us caught!"
"Eh? Oh... I get it. I wondered why everyone was so hush-hush. How about..."
He stood up abruptly, setting a foot on the side of the boat as he cupped his hands around his mouth.
"HEY, GATOU! WE'RE COMING TO KILL YOU GATOU! GAAATOOOUUU! THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT, GATOU! TRY TO STOP US, GATOU!"
Sasuke was very nearly on the verge of tackling Naruto out of the ferry before he sat down again.
"You... you complete and utter moron!" he hissed. "What the hell are you thinking, you-?"
"Now before you get all shirty with me." Naruto interrupted, extending one finger. "Listen closely. What do you hear? Or rather, what should you be hearing right now that isn't there for you to hear it?"
As Sasuke puzzled that last sentence out, Sakura blinked.
"Alarms... After that outburst, there should definitely be some sort of alarm raised, if Gato's ships really are patrolling these waters properly..."
"They are." Kakashi confirmed, sparing a moment to point out a few looming shapes in the mist that could, in all honesty, be anything. Sakura was easily convinced however.
"My... hijutsu." Naruto said. "One is.... well, I don't really feel like explaining the mechanics, and it's not like you would understand anyway, so let's say it makes something like an invisible barrier against sound, encapsulating a small area. Nothing in or out... of course it has its drawbacks in several situations, it'll break once we make landfall, and it can't be used too often."
"Why can't it?" Sakura asked aloud, prompting a curious stare at Naruto from all parties of the boat. He grimaced.
"Y'know Sakura, I have a story a lot like Kakashi's from earlier. Except instead of beatings, ropes, and lectures, there's fatal stabbings, explosions, fire, and the desecration of corpses. Now, I'm going to pretend to forget you asked that question. Are you going to ask it again?"
She shook her head vigorously from side to side, and there was a long, awkward silence.
"We're making landfall." Kakashi spoke up eventually.
"About time." Naruto grunted. "The sooner we get there, the sooner I can go drop Gatou's house on his head."
"Uh, no, that's not happening Naruto."
"Eh? Just so we're all on the same page here, isn't it your job to protect me? Killing Gatou would-"
"We weren't paid for an assassination mission, Tazuna-san. Technically you're correct, but I doubt that Gatou's left whatever place he's at unguarded, and we're only being paid for a C-rank, to guard you against C-rank dangers. So basically, if there's an infestation of rabid gerbils in your town, we're all over it. Until then, we're going to let the fights come to us."
"Well, I hear those rabid gerbils can get pretty nasty..." Tazuna mumbled, disappointed and uncomfortable with the Jounin's sarcasm.
Silence fell before Sakura broke it.
"So, um... Naruto. Those things on your face... not that I was looking, but are they whiskers, or tatoos, or.... what are they"
Naruto began an angry retort, but it died as he actually thought about the question.
"You know..." he realized. "I actually have no idea."
"Duck." Kakashi interrupted blandly.
"Where?" Sasuke asked, though he would later fervently deny having said anything. Kakashi grabbed him by the head and drug him to the ground, narrowly missing having bits removed by the giant sword that swung through the air above their heads almost immdiately afterwards.
It continued on a ways before lodging in a tree, where a ninja dropped down onto the handle and began chuckling darkly. Naruto wasted no time in tugging his curved dagger back out.
"YES! I can finally cut loose!"
"Naruto, no! I recognize this opponent- He's A-class Momochi Zabuza, demon of the mist!"
"Like I care!"
"Hohoho.... what's this? A worthless little genin? Boy, until you've made enough of-"
Naruto took advantage of Zabuza's impending monologue to call down a bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky, sending Zabuza scrambling to avoid it.
"What the hell!?" he howled.
"Victory goes to the one who wears the opponent down first!" Naruto launched a snowball, which erupted into razor-sharp, jutting spears of ice next to Zabuza's feet. "Hold still, that I might rend thee to dust"
Meanwhile, Zabuza was sweating heavily as he desperately maneuvered himself around the blondes attacks. The situation was quickly taking a turn for the worse, Sharingan Kakashi hadn't even involved himself yet, and while he'd originally intended to write off all the Genin as inconsequential, he could no longer afford to do so. Now would be a good time for Haku to implement Plan B.
He no sooner thought it, than a handful of senbon zeroed in on his neck and he barely managed to be impressed at the promptness before slumping to the ground.
The masked boy flickered in next to Zabuza.
"You have my gratitude for occupying his attention. I've been waiting weeks for an opportunity to-"
"Don't care." Naruto interrupted sourly. "Fair warning- I've got a lot of agression to work through, so if he isn't dead, I'm going to kill him messily now. If he is dead, then I'm going to messily decorate his body. At this point, whether or not I have to kill you first doesn't matter to me."
"B-but I'm a Kiri hunter-nin!"
"Don't care. But in the interests of fairness, and because it'll amuse me, I'll let you make your case. You have five minutes."
"I, uh, need to take the body to be properly identified and disposed of so that Kiri secrets cannot be stolen from it!"
"Tell you what, I'll peel his face off for you. I can assure you that there won't be enough of anything else left to be stolen, either."
Haku started to panic, grasping at any excuse to get away. He didn't find one. Time for plan C.
"Here you go." He called, loosening a pouch at his side. "Part of the bounty for killing him. Catch."
Haku tossed the pouch in a deliberate arc, and Naruto turned and stepped to catch it before realizing the distraction for what it was and snapping his gaze back to Haku, who'd formed a handseal.
"No you dont! Magical missile, one shot!"
The sphere of light shot forward, coming to a halt for a moment in the fading afterimage of its target before it zipped off again.
"Tch... got away. I'll kill him next time."
Elsewhere, as team seven continued on to Tazuna's house, Haku recieved an unpleasant suprise as he began to set Zabuza down for some impromptu field medicine, and the two of them were slammed into a nearby tree by the missile he'd thought that he'd left far behind.
After spitting out a mouthful of blood and checking to make sure that he hadn't actually bitten clear through his tongue, he unknowingly repeated Naruto's promise. Except that his version was slurred somewhat, and utilized far fouler language.
xxx
A.N. Somewhat bit shorter than previous chapters, but what can you do? With finals up next freaking week it was either post what I had now or wait until after finals and then after however long it will take me to recuperate from them.
Someone mentioned in a review that my Kakashi's personality seems very much like the Naruto Abridged series' Kakashi. That actually broke a block I had on this chapter, and you might notice a line or two creatively appropriated from that series.
I feel very, very slightly guilty about picking on Sasuke and Sakura so much. It didn't stop me from doing so, and it will not stop me from doing so in the future, however. Also, while Naruto is only pretending to be insane, it's a very fine line between that and pretending not to be insane.
On top of that, I've just realized that the Kyuubi has not yet played any part in anything that has happened as yet. This will be dealt with soon, bearing in mind that 'soon' is a relative term that I tend to define as 'at some point. Y'know... eventually'.
Also, I've picked up that apparently the Dungeons and Dragons spell 'Magic Missile' is apparently pretty much autohit awesomeness. Having only some small experience with the computer game-ized variations, and none at all of the actual tabletop RPG itself, I've not as yet verified this for myself, but if so then that's pretty much what Naruto cast. Basic explanation on this variation is that as long as Naruto casts it before the target leaves, they can get as far away as they like with the ninja-teleport thingy and it will still hit them at some point. Probably at a completely unexpected, i.e. worst possible, moment as well. One shot can be fired pretty much instantly, two shots takes a little longer, three shots a little longer than that, all the way up to a nine-shot barrage that requires the longest start up time, albeit still pretty short notice, in exchange for maximum firepower.
The nine-shot thing will almost undoubtedly be used at some point on Orochimaru or one of the other big-bads of the Naruto-verse.