Re: Chasing Naruto Chapter 4

Hinata's perspective

It had been three and a half years since that battle at the Final Valley, and since then, Naruto and I had really come into our own. We were both in the waterfall room of the Akatsuki base in the land of Demons. We had just saved the land from the reign of terror of the demon Moryo, all in the hard days work of an Akatsuki apprentice. That is right, we still weren't full fledged Akatsuki. Everybody in the organization knew we were close to getting "an upgrade", which set them on edge. What most of them didn't know is that we had been trading promises for ninjutsu, so only two of the members were being targeted. Orochimaru, who had gone insane and left the organization many years ago, and Deidara, whom Naruto had a deep and personal hatred for. Naruto detested his "art" which gave him migraines. As I pondered all of this, I let my body float around in the cool water below our waterfall. The water was cool enough to be soothing, but not cool enough to catch a cold. Naruto was sitting directly under the waterfall, concentrating on holding his sage mode for longer durations. He had picked up that jutsu from the toads, and had kept it secret to everybody but myself and our master, Itachi.

Itachi had this very odd ability to come up at just the right moments. He rapped on the door to let us know that he was coming in. We were both decent, so we made no move to do anything, and he walked in. "We have our next set of stuff to do...Naruto, you and Kisame will be traveling to your mistress' temple for your meeting with your father, and Hinata, you and I have a little investigative mission to take care of, we leave in an hour, be ready to leave in half an hour." Our master dictated.

Naruto let his sage chakra dissipate, and then jumped out from beneath the waterfall. His blond hair was the same length as always, his birthmarks were also unchanged, but he wore the traditional Akatsuki under-robe gear. He quickly dried off, and walked to a pile of various personal effects in a corner. They were his armor, or rather, Itachi's old ANBU gear. He snapped the arm-plates and shin guards on. Buckled the vest and shoulder pads and inserted the sword into its holster. The final touch was a Fox-mask, thus completing his hunter-nin disguise. He waved goodbye and then left to go seek out Kisame. Itachi motioned for me to follow him, so I did.

He showed me into the map room, and I sat down on a stool. A Three Dimensional map of the Elemental Nations was glued down on a large table. Scattered on the map were different pins, which represented points of interest. The Eight Red ones represented Tailed Beast Hosts, or Jinchuriki. Two in the Land of Lightning, two in the land of Earth, one in the Land of Water, one in the land of Waterfalls, one in the Land of Wind, and the final one was circling the countries, in a wandering pattern, he had been last seen in the land of Eddies. Itachi picked up a new red one and stuck it in the Fire country. We both knew that Naruto had control of his "beast", and that he was currently in the nearby area, so I gazed at my master patiently, waiting for him to spill the beans. He was frowning and looking at the new mark. "The monks of the Fire Temple," he said, "somehow got their hands on a bit of the Fox's chakra, and then made it grow, as of right now, it is growing, in about a year, it will be a fully fledged Nine Tails fox spirit, which we want to avoid. I have to try help with the attack on the Sand village, so you will have to do this on your own, can you handle it?"

I nodded, so he handed me a scroll with the details on this host, and the likely outcome of a fight between us if he were to undo the very fragile seal on him. The trick would be to not even let it come to a fight, and to take him alive. I was out of the hideout in half an hour, and headed towards the Land of Fire.

The trip itself was uneventful, and I wasn't scared of being near home, or meeting somebody from home, but I didn't want to cause a ruckus that would bring even more attention to the Akatsuki, so I had to be as discreet as possible. After two days of traveling, I finally reached the temple. I pretended to be a pilgrim looking for a couple days of rest before continuing a long journey. As I stayed in the temple, I quickly identified the Jinchuriki, his name was Sora, and the seal was on his arm, just as stated. I also quickly found out that his father was considered a hero around the temple, and he always kept the grave of his father without dirt or wear of any kind. That would be all the opening I needed.

I found the grave easily, and desecrated it. I left a note, telling him where he would find me. He sought me out, and in a rage, so when he made a move to attack me with a ninjutsu, I put him under a genjutsu, and thus out of commission. I picked up his body, and left the site for the nearest base, where he was put in a sealed container, to be used at the appropriate time. After that, I was left with nothing to do, but to wait for further orders from Itachi, so I decided to go out and buy myself a treat, some red bean paste. As I savored my favorite food, I noticed that seven paper cranes flew toward the nearest hideout, which meant that it was a meeting time. I paid the fee for the paste and left the store. As soon as I was far enough away to not be disturbed, I was sucked into the Astral Projection Jutsu.

A shadow clone Naruto was busy drawing the Shukaku out from Gaara. It would be a painless procedure, and Gaara would live, if only because he was Kazekage and a friend of Naruto. The Leader was deep in conversation with Itachi. "But we need someone to take care of those fools chasing Deidara, Sasori and Naruto down, I think that you and Kisame would be good for this job."

"I disagree, Kisame is busy defending the real Naruto during his training, he should not be disturbed, send me and Hinata. It will be a good test to see how far she has come. She could handle ninja of those caliber with no problems."

The Leader sighed and then gave in, "Fine, I assume that she already knows how to do this jutsu?"

Itachi nodded and then winked at me. I rushed through the seals, and invaded the mind of one of Sasori's spies, sending him some of my chakra, and his body changed into my own. I opened my new eyes and looked around, I was underground, and hiding my chakra. Four chakra signatures were walking past me, and they all seemed familiar. I activated my Byakugan, it was Neji, Gai, Lee and Tenten. They were running to the location of the hideout, so I planned out my attack and acted. I sent a pulse of chakra directly at the four of them. They got out of the way (as planned) and the pulse destroyed a small hill behind them, as I dust poofed up I popped out of the ground. The dust quickly settled, and I looked down at them. "Just who the hell are you?" Neji shouted at me.

I was startled to say the least, then I remembered that I had my straw hat on, so I discarded it and flipped my hair out from underneath my robes. They recognized me instantly. Neji gazed at me, as if dumbstruck and I laughed at him. Gai looked around and then asked, "Do you guys know her?"

"Water Style: Explosive Water Shock Wave!" I shouted, and I shot out water from my mouth until I had created a miniature lake. Then I gathered some wind chakra and began to create waves. Veritable Tidal waves plagued team Gai. I went under the water and let the waves stop just as fast as they had begun, and just as Gai had recovered from the chaos, I had trapped Lee, Neji and Tenten in water prisons. He ran at me with some sort of taijutsu attack planned, but I made eye contact, and that was all I would need. This was the same move that Itachi had used on Kakashi after our fights at the Final Valley, Guy hit me, and I turned into several crows, and the Water prisons floated into the air. As Tenten, Lee and Neji all thrashed to survive, Gai jumped at them, only for them to dodge out of the way. He unsealed some of his gates, and I let him get to the prisons, only for them to also split into crows. This only angered Gai more, and but then he calmed down (ish) and stopped the flow of his chakra, and thus destroyed the illusion. He proceeded to use his blinding speed to save his students from destruction by the slightest margin. I formed a water clone and looked at them each in turn. I knew that with only thirty percent of my usual chakra at my disposal, I wouldn't be able to win, I would be able to cripple, but not kill.

Itachi had told me that when fighting against ninja like Gai and Lee, to not use Taijutsu, and Genjutsu would only go so far, and ninjutsu was too slow. The only way to win was to outlast. So I started a conversation, "um...ano, it has been a long time, hasn't it, N-N-Neji ni-san?"

"I would have thought that they would have killed you as soon as they took the fox out of Naruto... why are you still alive, Hinata?"

I felt a tick mark form on my forehead, and apparently it showed, because Lee and Tenten were taken aback. I dropped the stuttering act, "Naruto is busy taking the One-tail out of Gaara right now, and I can't let you interrupt that. Naruto and I are still alive and kicking, and we are way stronger than any of you Konoha Ninja. Just make it easier on everybody and go home, we will deliver the corpse when we are done...don't worry."

Even Neji was shocked. I smiled to myself and launched myself over to him and using the blinding speed Itachi had taught me, sealed all of his chakra points in fewer than two seconds. He flew backwards and into the water, where I knew he would drown. Tenten threw a small artillery of weapons at me and I effortlessly repelled all of them with a simple chakra rotation. Itachi had helped me refine that jutsu to the point where I could even direct the objects being repelled. I sent all the bombs right back at her and sent the sharp-n-pointies right over to Neji's body. The water turned red, and Gai went down under the water to try to save him. I used a Gaara-Kisame fusion jutsu and pressurized the water around Gai, and pinned him to the bottom of the mini-lake, and then began to slowly crush him. Tenten was still spraying weapons at me so I sped around her and forced her into a genjutsu. She quickly lost control of her body and also fell to the bottom of the lake.

That left only Rock Lee. He was staring at me in an odd mixture of fear and excitement. He was terrified of the thought of facing me, but also energized by the idea of beating me and saving everybody. I disillusioned him, "You are not going to beat me like that, you love to win, right?"

He nodded absently so I continued, "The difference between me and you is that you love to win and I hate to lose. That is what makes the difference between a winner and a loser, You want to win, but I will not accept defeat."

Itachi had spent most of our three years in training abroad, and during one of our travels, we had bumped into a woman who used a very unusual sword. She called it Valentine, and when one pressed a button on its hilt, the blade seemed to fall apart into a whip with shards of the blade equal-distant apart from each other across a maybe four foot long indestructible metal wire. Then, upon releasing the switch, the wire retracted into the hilt, and it became a regular sword again. This woman was drunk, and started a fight with me, and after a long and grueling match, I had killed her and taken her unusual sword for my own, and I had practiced with it until I perfectly understood how to use it. It was currently in its sheathe behind my back under my robes. I withdrew it and dashed behind my adversary.

Lee twirled around and brought out his nunchucks. I extended the blade to whip mode and snatched the weapons away with two flicks of my wrist. Then Lee brought out a staff and we entered battle once again. Lee was good, but in this, I knew that eventually, I would win, because my weapon was so unpredictable, that even Lee could not keep up with the rapid transformations it was undergoing. I finally beat the staff out of his hand and was going for the killing blow, when something pierced me from behind. It was a sword made out of lightning, Sasuke's new jutsu I had heard so much about, no doubt. This host body was going to die, no doubt about that, but not for another five minutes, so I decided to play along.

He withdrew the blade and took me to the beach. He laid me down and demanded, "Is Naruto still alive? Where the hell is he?"

I laughed at him. I let my head roll to the right, I saw that Sakura and some old lady were treating the wounds of team Gai. "So," I asked, "How was Itachi? I haven't seen him in a few days..."

He glared down at me and said, "It wasn't really him, and I can safely assume that this isn't the real you. But it thought it was worth a shot anyway."

I stuck out my tongue and let the jutsu dissipate. The ritual with Gaara was nearly finished, and he was going to live, beyond a doubt. Naruto smiled at me and then focused back to his work, or rather, his shadow clone smiled at me and then he went back to work. The last bits of the Shukaku drained out of Gaara and his eyes closed and then reopened. Naruto kept him from sitting up too quickly and then lifted him up and brought him to the back chamber. He gave him water, and a plate of bread with some of our best ration cheese. He then locked the ornate door and handed Deidara the key.

Deidara smiled and said, "That just like you, my man Naruto, got a plan for everything."

Naruto walked over to me and opened the back door, and we left Deidara and Sasori to deal with the Konoha Ninja. As we walked away, we hid our chakra and and I put on my full cloak. "So, I have a plan to get out rings...wanna know how I think we can do it?"

I laughed and then nodded so he continued, "You take Orochimaru and I can kill Deidara."

I knew that Orochimaru would be no easy kill, but neither would Deidara, so as I considered the different options we kept walking. I would have to track him down, and then kill him, which many had failed to do. Naruto could kill Deidara after the Konoha ninja had been sent into retreat, or he could just openly assault Deidara when he was healed afterwords. Soon we were standing in front of the Kyuubi's shrine. Naruto had built it over the years, and it was sturdy, and usually filled with the offerings of those who were superstitious after word of its creation had gotten around. That meant fresh food. Some delicious looking fish caught my eye, so I picked them up and began to munch on them. Naruto had hired a nearby family to watch over the shrine, and they were usually scandalized when I did something like this, but, I had met the Kyuubi, and I knew that she hated fish. God help you if you touched any chicken, but fish, pshaw. She could care less. Naruto walked out of the main building and saw me, and dashed straight for me. He nearly brought me to the ground in his excitement, but before I could protest, he brought me close and kissed me deeply. Fireworks shot off in my head, and I turned cherry red. Once he had broken the kiss I tried my best to glare at him, but all that did was make him laugh at me.

After two more such kisses, I mentioned that we should probably be watching the battle, to make sure that Sasori and Deidara went down. He nodded and we were within the hour back at the battle site. It was Sasori v.s. Sakura and that old lady I had seen earlier. They had nearly destroyed the entire hideout, all that remained was the back room where Gaara sat recovering. The battle was for all accounts, over. Sasori was telling Sakura and this old lady about his final thoughts on whatever, probably life, and they listened intently. We would have claimed his ring if it were not for the fact that another had "dibs" on it, if you would. I activated my Byakugan and searched the nearby area for Deidara. He was fighting Sasuke and Kakashi. The battle was about to end, and not in the favorable way for Akatuski. I told Naruto as much, so he blurred over to the battle.

He concealed his identity completely, grabbed Deidara and ran. He was gone before Sasuke and Kakashi had a chance to react. They were miles away from me, but I still watched them. I read both their lips to watch the conversation. The general gist was that Naruto wanted Deidara's ring, which Deidara refused, so Naruto killed him. Even Deidara could not have possibly handled six tails. Naruto pocketed the ring and blurred back next to me.

"I already know where Orochimaru is going to be in about a month, lets get him then, until then, we can hide away from the world, and maybe, pretend like we don't have to worry about it."

"That sounds nice, Naruto."

I grabbed his hand and we took our sweet time getting back to base. Naruto went to meditate and I left to go and take a well deserved nap. After what could not have been even five minutes of sleep, Naruto walked into my room with a tray loaded with tea and different traditional snacks. I was intrigued, to say the least. "Um," he started, "I need you to do you-know-what again."

I nodded, it was about that time of month. Due to Naruto's extreme amounts of chakra, he could get a little "built up" around once a month. It caused his not pain, but he would get weighed down by it. "Assume the position," I commanded.

He sat down on the middle of my floor and closed his eyes. I faced him and rapidly formed the seals required. I whispered, "Ninja Art: Chakra Extraction."

I formed a needle on my right index finger and reached into Naruto's chakra pool. I slowly extracted the excess red chakra and transferred it to my left hand. It formed and orb of about seven inches in diameter. Naruto knew that he was back to normal amounts, so he stood up and grabbed a vial from my desk. As he busied himself with that, I compressed the chakra so than an inch in diameter. Red liquid chakra poured into the vial with careful precision that only came with hard practice.

Including this vial we had twenty eight total. This little thing could be ingested in the heat of battle for sudden bursts of power that were at least ten times as effective as soldier pills. Itachi had first tested it, and then Kisame, and we discovered that the vials increased chakra relative to the original user's chakra. Soon we would distribute them to the other members, but for now, we kept them secret.

The thought of red chakra brought my thoughts back to that kid Sora. I told Naruto about him, and Naruto was greatly displeased at the thought of another Kyuubi. We decided to take care of him quickly. I opened the container I had kept him in, and Naruto picked him up and set him down on a work table. He studied the seal on the boys arm for about two minutes and then decided he would need to extract this mini-version. He muttered something to the effect of "She is gonna be so P.."

Naruto slid through some quick hand-signs and his eyes turned purple, and his pupils became slits. The Kyuubi's voice used Naruto's mouth, "What do you need from me now, kit?"

Naruto's eyes went back to normal and he said, "Look deep into the chakra reserves of this guy."

His eyes went to purple and he hissed, "Who did this, and when?"

"The monks at the fire temple, my lady."

"You know what I require of you, kit, but I want to know what you have in mind."

"What we did to the Akitasha clan?"

"More omph..."

"I have never done anything with more omph than that, my lady."

"Don't you remember what I told you I did to the warlord Shingen Takeda?"

"...you want me to do that?"

"Yes."

Naruto visibly shivered and nodded. I couldn't help but to ask, "What did she do to Shingen Takeda?"

"You don't want to know," he responded.

He made me promise to stay in the base while he was gone. Something about how I wouldn't be prepared for the madness to come. I nodded meekly, if a prank scared Naruto, it probably wasn't wise to watch it unfold. When Naruto had left, I made my way to the waterfall room, stripped and meditated under the waterfall. This specific fall had been made by Naruto in his training, for the express purpose of chakra restoration and relaxation. Naruto poured some of his own chakra into this everyday so that if one meditated under it, one would fill up on pure, blue chakra.

As I filled myself up with soothing chakra I switched from the cool waterfall to the nearby hot spring. As I put my body through the soothing but sharp changes, I felt my muscles relax and when I had had enough I put on a black robe and walked over to the masseuse table. On it were two bracelets that were made of brass and jade. I threw them into the nearby water, and observed the transformation. The bracelets sunk to the bottom and then stirred. They floated to the top of the water, and a body of water rose from the surface of the lake and took the form of a lithe woman. Her skin was blue and translucent, she wore a simple shift and leggings, and her eyes glowed green like the jade of her bracelets. Her name was Churn, and she was an old elemental spirit, a fury. She was a subordinate of the Morrigan and thus, obeyed me explicitly.

In ancient times, when the Morrigan and the Kyuubi walked the earth freely, a man stole the magic of the spirits, and gave some of the elements life. Before he could finish his spell, the Morrigan and the other spirits stopped him, but the elements still had life. So what they did was they redid the original spell, with a twist, the elements would obey the spirits, rather than the man. They were from then on called Furies.

The Morrigan taught me how to bind a fury to a physical body, and Churn was the result of my first attempt. Water furies were almost no good at fighting, but they were the best healers around, and that was Churn's main function. She could stretch you out by just touching you, she could heal all but the most grievous of injuries in no time at all, and as it turned out, she could give one hell of a massage.

I had also bound Earth, Wind and Fire Furies, but as it turned out it was much harder to form a substantial lightning fury. Earth furies were super strong, and very fast, but turned to dust the minute they lost contact with the earth. They usually took the forms of mammals. Fire furies were excellent for attacking, but were rather like a bomb than a stream of fire, they just destroyed everything around them if not carefully monitored. They took the forms of birds, or powerful ones became dragons. Wind furies were no good at fighting, they could fly, and let you fly with them, but were usually destroyed by salt. They took the forms of animals that moved as fast as they did, whether that be birds, horses, and I had even seen one in the shape of a griffon. In order to bind a lightning fury, you had to get struck by lightning, which I did not want to do, so I didn't have one. But the Morrigan knew another way, and I knew it, so I was working on getting her to spill it, mainly through promises of feeding her children, the crows, but also I have let her channel herself through me, which gives her control of my body in the middle of battle, which she greatly enjoys, being the spirit of war. The only problem with the latter is that she leaves no prisoners, which can be troublesome in missions.

Churn worked her magic on me, showing no mercy and put me into a stupor. I almost didn't notice the crow that flew into the room. It had Byakugan eyes, which meant that my mistress wanted to speak. I mentally descended into my mindscape. She was waiting for me. "A war has broken out in the east that I have taken interest in. You will go there and monitor it for me it is a war between families, specifically mine," she said, "i don't want to tell you how it started, but here is the general idea, my two sisters have decided that because I am not constantly watching them anymore, that they can resume their bickering, and they have decided for a chess match of sorts, but using real people as pieces. You will confront my sisters, and make them see reason, we do not use humans to settle petty squabbles."

I nodded meekly and then rose to consciousness. Churn was done with me and had sunk back into the water, leaving her bracelets on the table next to me. I donned some new clothes and left the hideout without another word. When the Morrigan had said east, it turned out she had meant far to the east, three days ninja run to the east. I knew that I had gotten to where I needed to be because there was a monumental battle occurring. I activated my Byakugan and noticed there were only two crows in the entire battlefield. This was strange because crows usually flock to battlefields as a rule, because they feast on the remains. So those two must have been the sisters. They were fighting high above the main conflict.

I reached into a pouch at my side and pulled out a large bird talon. I felt for a breeze and I threw said talon into that breeze and my fury manifested. I called him Jet stream, and he took the form of a gigantic hawk. I jumped on his back and flew into the air. The two crows stopped fighting for a moment to stare at my fury, and I noticed that when they did that, the two armies below them crumpled into balls of exhaustion. They looked at me and made their beaks smile, and then simultaneously charged at me. Jet stream was only barely faster. His great wings bashed them silly and then onto the ground. We flew down to catch up to them, and then once on the ground, I dismissed Jet stream. I put his talon away in my pouch, and brought out two gigantic emeralds. I dropped them onto the ground, and a wolf made of earth the size of a small horse formed up, with the emeralds as eyes. "Julius," I said, "pin these two mongrels down for me please?"

Julius bounded towards them and pinned them both down with a paw and then looked back at me. I nodded, so he looked back down at them and growled deep in his throat. With a poof the two crows took their real forms, which were similar to the Morrigan in every way but their eyes, which instead of black were yellow and green respectively. I walked up to Julius and scratched him behind the ears, which made him whine in delight, and then called my mistress. Her presence filled me and I let her take over.

She started to speak in a tongue that I did not understand, which told me that I was not allowed into this discussion. They argued for a very long time, so long, that Julius sat down because his feet hurt. I could tell because he was my fury, and there was a profound bond in that. When it was all said and done, my mistress told Julius to get off them, which he did, and the sisters slunk off like two whipped children. The Morrigan gave me control of my body again without another word, and then left my body without any new orders, so I went home.

On the second day of travel, I found myself in the middle of quite the thunderstorm. It got so bad that I had to stop and hide under the protection of some trees. As I prepared for the worst, a lone crow flitted over to me. It had Sharingan eyes, and we made eye contact, and then the knowledge of how to bind a lightning fury was impressed upon me. Then it left without another word. I didn't have to get struck by lightning, I just had to have what I planned to bind it to hit the bolt. So I sent Julius deep into the earth to find some rare gemstones or metals, because those worked best, and was rewarded with some silver and four sapphires. I called forth Jetstream to create a wind shield against the rain, and then I reached into my fury pouch and brought out a gold collar inlaid with garnet. Using that, I called forth my most powerful fury, Slag. He was what most people would call a dragon, but specifically, his form was similar to our own teenage body for a dragon, he said it was a "drake". His body was formed from molten lava, and his wings were made of white fire. He could fly, but to fly on him would be suicide. "I need a favor Slag," I requested, "could you please make a collar out of this stuff, I am going to bind another fury."

I tossed the silver and the gems into the air and he snatched them from the air with his powerful jaws. He chewed on it for a little, and then spat it out onto the ground. The only way that Slag could develop into a fully-fledged dragon was if I kept feeding him Garnet, so as reward, I tossed him a lump that I had found a while back while near a volcano and he gulped it down greedily. He showed me his intimidating teeth in a grin and then disappated, his collar falling down to the ground near the one he had just made. I patted Julius on the head, and then dismissed him, jumped onto Jet Stream and flew up into the air. Jet stream could do this thing where he quickened my reactions to the point of absurdity, so when lightning struck, the collar hit it just in time. A great flash of light filled the area and the collar was filled with said element, and then took shape, the shape of a Velociraptor. He looked at me and I flew down to meet him. "Your name is...Silverbolt. Okay?"

He nodded, and then dissapated, and I was greatly pleased with myself and my new fury. Naruto was going to be absolutely green with envy. Even after Itachi's craziness, he still loved to learn new jutsu, and the Kyuubi didn't want Naruto to use furies for whatever reason, and he was intensely jealous. After I had tamed Silverbolt, I discovered that he had been the one causing the storm, so it quickly faded into nothing, and my journey continued with all speed.

When I finally got home, Naruto was getting pounded by Churn and grunting and groaning as different points of his back were tweaked. "Wussy," I called him.

He waved my comment off and grunted in pleasure. "Check out my new friend," I taunted.

Silverbolt formed and made a gesture similar to cracking his neck and then shook some sensation off. Naruto looked up, analyzed what he saw, his jaw dropped, then he narrowed his eyes and breathed in as if to say something petulant and rude, but Churn saw this and quickly delivered a strong and yet decisive blow to his mid-back, which sent him back into his noisy stupor. A new, but familiar voice entered the conversation, "It is mean to tease like that, Hinata, you know how Naruto gets around new furies."

Itachi had been sitting under the waterfall, regaining chakra from some mission no doubt, observing in silence, which was his thing. I bowed in respect and then said, "I finally got the whole set."

His eyes were closed, but his smirk betrayed his amusement. I looked around the room for Kisame, and saw that he was on the bottom of our small lake grinning his usual madman grin. I waved and he waved back, I had a good relationship with shark-man, simply this one time during my training I learned under Kisame about the using of shinobi swords. I wouldn't take the Sharkskin from Kisame because it didn't like my chakra as much as it liked Kisame's, but as soon as I found another one of the swordsmen, I knew that I would have their sword.

Naruto's voice carried across the cave, "Do you know what day it is Hinata?"

"No," I responded, "but I have a feeling that you do."

"It is the twenty-eighth of December. Happy Birthday."

I gasped, it was my birthday. I had forgotten, wow....I was sixteen. Naruto was quite suddenly right behind me, so I turned around and was handed a flier of some festival in the land of waves. "I got a great dinner reservation at this tiny little place I know over there. It should be a lot of fun. We have to get ready to go soon, so I am gonna go get my gear all set up to go. You should too, hint hint."

He was gone in a flash of yellow that made me smile, his father's ninjutsu and sacred mission were just excuses for him to learn new tricks. Kisame gave me a very disconcerting hug, and then presented me with a ninjutsu scroll that he had no doubt stolen from the hidden mist village on his historic break out. Itachi came over to me and poked me in the head with his index and middle fingers and said, "I am sorry, it will have to be another time, Hinata, right now, you have to catch up with Naruto. He has spent a lot of time on this one."

I self consciously laughed and then sprinted away. Naruto was waiting for me at the door, in an all black duplicate of his normal orange jacket-pants set. He took my hand when I nodded to him and we teleported away. The restaurant initially looked very shabby, but I found out that the reason that Naruto had invited me was because they had the best red bean soup he had ever had, and there was a coffee shop across the streets with good cinnamon rolls. He was at the top of his game that day. The soup was amazing and the rolls blew my mind. Naruto invited me to a walk across "The Great Naruto Bridge", and told me the story of this bridge. It was classic Naruto. When we finally reached the grave of Zabuza we found that the sword was no longer there. I was slightly dissapointed, but I quickly got over it, because Naruto said that he had a treat for me, and so we crept over some trees and saw that some Mist Ninja were nearby, and one of them held Zabuza's sword, and another one had a different Shinobi Sword. It was the Hiramekarei. Which meant that Chojiro was the second ninja. I knew this because Kisame had given me a roster.

Naruto whispered to me, "If you want the Hiramekarei, then take it, but I am taking the Decapitating Carving Knife with me back to the grave site."

I nodded, and then summoned my furies. I stationed Julius underneath the camp, Silverbolt about five yards out of sight, and Slag was with me. I formed a blade from chakra pointing out from my fingers, dashed up and stabbed the bearer of Zabuza's blade in the back. He died quietly, but in plain sight which was normally taboo in a ninja fight, but then Silverbolt, pardon the pun, dashed in like lightning, and jumped him, digging his claws into Chojiro's back and electrocuting him. Chojiro managed to yank him off and draw his blade, and called, "Hiramekarei Unleashing!"

The bandages around the blade fell to the ground, and a chakra hammer formed around the blade, which he smashed down on Silverbolt. The result of that blow was one KO'ed Lightning Fury. Chojiro started to rapidly swing the hammer around his head so I backed off. I called Julius, who jumped out of the ground and onto my body, forming an earthen armor. I called up Julius' strength through that earth and stopped the blade with a fist. Chojiro bounced backwards onto his ass, and blinked up at me. I brought down my fist only to miss his crotch by inches. He quickly jumped up and swung the blade again but this time aimed at my head.

I spun around, my head ringing, and hit the dirt. The main reason that Naruto didn't interfere was because, well, if he did, the blade would recognize him as the successor of Chojiro, which I didn't want. So he stayed back and watched, no doubt laughing at the whooping that he knew Chojiro had coming, because that hit, had pissed me off, which meant that I got sucked into the dirt with Julius and then spewed out into the air, which signaled Slag to start what our team attack. "It is time," I shouted, "for The Onslaught!"

I landed on the ground and began a chakra rotation. Slag blew some of his fire onto this ball, and thus turned me into a spinning ball of flaming death. Slag proceeded to play kitten and ball of yarn with me all over the battlefield, and then concluded by adding more flame to the ball, and then jumping back. The reason he jumped back was because at that moment, I let the chakra shoot off of my rotation, which created a fireball approximately twenty yards in radius. All that was left in the entire clearing was Hiramekarei.

Naruto dropped out of thin air next to me and whispered, "What is that thing called again?"

"Hiramekarei," I responded, "otherwise known as, The Blade of Flickering Splendor."

Naruto nodded and said, "I did good, didn't I?"

"Yes, you are a good boy."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

stuff has been going on, so I am still here, but not as...attached. What do you think? Please Comment, it fuels the drive for writing!