I apologize for grammar errors, Polish is my first language, not English. I speak and type English fluently but I do sometimes struggle.
:radio chatter:
word - word = break in radio chatter
I am sorry if this chapter feels lackluster or weak compared to the previous chapters, it is the end of the waterfalls of death arc and the set up to the new one, so I apologize if you find it boring.
I do not own Naruto.
please enjoy!
waterfalls of death IV(end), the fire burns strong I
In the week that followed, what the entirety of Takigakure would call the cleanse, Naruto's team had just barely managed to recover. Chimon had woken on the fourth day and wasn't up and walking until the next day. Morio and Shoto's own injuries had been an easy fix once two medical-nin had been able to help them. kaori…..kaori wasn't looking good.
Naruto slapped his hand over Kaori's mouth covering the coughs that escaped her lips, he wrapped his other hand around her body, pulling her close preventing the shakes that came with her coughs from being noticed, a group of twenty Oto nin rested in the clearing in front of them.
For once Naruto was glad it was the middle of Taki territories rain season, the sound of light rain drowned out the noises he couldn't cover up. The Oto shinobi talked about inconsequential things, the rain, how much this place sucked, general soldier talk. It took them ten minutes to get bored of their position before they left. Naruto waited for another twenty until he was sure, they were gone.
His friends appeared out of the shadows. The two taki nin, Haruto and Ayano, had adjusted well. They had ditched their own uniforms and were now wearing Morio and Shoto's spare half mask shirts allowing them to communicate with the ANBU through its built-in radio. Naruto and Kaori wore their own their shirts. Their masks having been shattered in their last fight.
Naruto wiped the blood that had leaked through Kaori's cloth mask on his pants. Before letting her rest in her makeshift bed, a sleeping roll tucked under a thick bush. smoke rose in the sky in the distance, the Otogakure advance had been halted, the lack of mobility and overwhelming firepower coming from both sides had led to large trenches being dug, nearly cutting Taki territory in half.
"she's not gonna last if we stay here." The statement from chimon didn't require a response, Kaori's increasingly worse coughs were enough. "we've got two options. We head for the battlefront and try to cross the no-man's land. Or we can head south towards fire country, crossover then loop back towards a border entry point and get help there, it will be longer but ultimately probably safer."
"I can warn ero-sennin." They looked at Naruto confused. "I can use my summons to get my sensei to meet us at the border!"
"why didn't you do this before?" Morio didn't sound happy. Naruto rubbed the back of his head.
"I uhhhh im not really good at it, and once I do summon any sensor in the country will know we are here."
"I vote to not go through no-mans land." Everyone else, except Kaori, nodded along.
"so we have a plan, pack up get ready to go in five minutes."
They didn't need the five minutes, no one had really set anything up, Kaori's bloody sleeping mat was out away and the key was tied to chimon's back. Naruto tied Kaori on to his back, worry passed through him when he felt her uneven and raspy breathing caressing his neck. He shook it off, they surrounded him waiting for him to summon Gamakichi. Naruto had always sucked a summoning.
The massive could of smoke, blew away reviling them standing on a very pissed off Gamabunta.
"fuck!"
"Naruto, what the hell did I tell you about summoning me!" Naruto didn't have to be a sensor to feel the nearby chakra signatures flare.
"there's no time boss we need to get south!" the giant toad, opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a storm of kunai and jutsu. The boss toad took it all like a mountain, not even flinching with the kunai ricochet of his skin.
"fine but just this once!"
Naruto managed to yell out a very meek "hold on!" before the gargantuan being leaped forward. With the wind rushing in his ears, Naruto couldn't hear his teams screams, but he could see the shock across their faces.
The two-day journey was shortened into forty minutes, the entire way Oto shinobi attempted to stop their class-A summon but nothing short of an army would be able to stop the legendary boss toad. They hit the edge of the mountains that created the border between fire country and Taki territory. The massive amphibian hopped an entire mountain in two jumps before crashing down into the forest. The sight and sound of the large toad managed to attract the Konoha's BPB who had been deployed to the border to keep an eye on the war north of them. it took his team a minute to slide down the toad's body, they collapsed on to the forest floor.
"brat!" Gamabunta leaned down "why were you there?"
"we were on a mission." The toad's eyes narrowed.
"we will have words later!" he popped into a huge column of smoke, they were swarmed a second later. The border patrol battalion landed all around them, med nin rushed forward. They didn't need proof of identity, Gamabunta had been enough.
"here!" he slid Kaori off his back "take her first!" her half face mask once black was now a dark red. A med nin ran a green hand over her chest.
"she's got a punctured lung! Broken ribs. We need to get her out of here!" a jonin landed near them shouting out orders.
"get them to the outpost, tell them to radio in that we have five ANBU in need of EVAC. You!" he pointed to a group of chunin "take the prisoners-"
Naruto stood from where he sat, letting go of Kaori's hand. "they're not prisoners! They helped us during our mission, take them to an outpost near here on the other side of the trenches."
The jonin looked ready to refuse until he saw that Morio, Shoto, and Chimon took intimidating steps forward. No one wants to argue with the ANBU, they held an unconditional higher rank than anyone in Konoha's military, unless you were the Hokage, or ordered otherwise.
"Hirotoki, Kaichi, take your teams to escort these Taki nin to Namikaze outpost." Naruto turned to his new friends.
"I'm sorry, we can't part on better terms."
"don't sweat it, you've done a lot for us this past week, get your team taken care off." The two bowed deeply.
"thank you for saving our country!" Naruto took an involuntary step back.
"ahhhhh uhhhh, it's just our-"
"you've saved countless lives! our village will never forget this great gift you have given us!" they rose, Ayano gave him a hug.
"thank you."
"ANBU we need to go get you and your team out of here, a sensor just picked up on foreign chakra signatures." Naruto managed to give them a last good-bye smile before they were separated.
Konoha was split into half ringed sectors, one through thirty, going out from sector one the Hokage tower and the admin building underneath the Hokage monument to sector thirty right up next to the villages massive walls. There was only one gate that allowed access to the village it had a main road that led straight to the Hokage tower and administrative, it was also incredibly easy to ambush anyone walking down it.
Jackal team entered on the opposite end of the main gate, using an ANBU entry point. Their seals flared when they entered, signaling any nearby team that they needed to be escorted to the hospital. Four heavy combat teams showed up to help.
Konoha's main hospital, which sat in sector-3 near the main road, was always guarded by a small contingent of chunin and jonin. It contained too many injured shinobi and genetic material to just leave alone. The top floor was secured for ANBU, recent targets of assassination, or the Hokage. only doctors and nurses that had been screened by intelligence were allowed to work there.
His team had been met by the few doctors and nurses the worked on the top floor. Kaori had been whisked away for immediate surgery, Morio, and Shoto, and chimon had been taken away to be treated for their own injuries. Naruto who had at this point had practically regenerated everything, felt fine. They had still given him his own room and a fresh set of decent clothes, and he wasn't going to complain when the bed was insanely more comfortable than the muddy bush he had been sleeping under for the past week.
His door slid open, Jiraiya entered a massive smile on his face behind him Tsunade scowled. Normally he was happy to see her, she was the first older women to actually treat him in any sort of motherly fashion, she had cared….but his recent months memories passed through his mind, waking on a mountain, forced to go through horrible training, sitting in the cold swamp, the dark monsters tearing apart the inn keeps daughter, charging into…..he shivered and frowned. She had signed off on him to do it.
"what's wrong kid? You look like something bad happened! You did amazing." Jiraiya put on a show, waving his hands dramatically.
"I…...we almost…we almost didn't make it….some….a lot didn't!" fan's dead body on the ground, the miserable civilians falling still after being murdered by the beasts.
"your whole team made it back!" Kaori's dead body collapsing next to him.
"no…..i guess." He slumped forward. "do..do you need the report, my lady." He didn't miss their frowns.
Tsundae hesitated, "no it can wait until you've all recovered, I came to see how you were doing."
"I …im fine. Just tired."
"then we'll let you sleep, you did well naruto." She turned and left, Naruto didn't miss her hesitance. Jiraiya turned to look back at him.
"don't blame her kid. I get where you're coming from but….she's doing her best." Naruto didn't say anything.
That night he woke up in the sewers. The massive bronze bars, that held in the Kyuubi gleamed in the lowlight of his mind. The darkness behind it moved to reveal the nine tails in all its glory.
"you have done well….you exceeded what I thought you could do"
"you didn't think I could do it."
"no, I thought you would die." Naruto wasn't shocked by the ancient beasts admittance.
"do…..do you know what it was we….saw in the…..the darkness?" the beast's tails stopped moving and for a moment Naruto thought he was looking at a statue.
"no, what we witnessed in the darkness…troubled me."
"y-you don't know!" the beast shifted like this was the first time it had ever encountered a situation like this, it probably was.
"I have a hypothesis."
"a what."
"a theory…no I will not tell you, if it turns out to be right you may find out anyway but it is still too early to truly know."
Sewers of his mind faded quickly the Kyuubi shouted out to him but he couldn't hear. only the darkness remained, he heard the whispers, its pleas to be released. The beast was in front of him, its crooked white grin sent him to his knees. Then the room was white, he was standing in nothing but pure light for miles on end.
When he woke up, he ran to the sink nearby. The vomit was the inky black slime of the blight.
"shit."
Naruto spent the rest of the morning writing his report, recounting everything he could about the mission, only leaving out their prior knowledge of the key, his new fire powers and the visions in the dark. Someone knocked on his door.
"it's Nara."
"come in." Chimon entered, he was dressed in a traditional hospital gown, Naruto snorted at the man's very annoyed face.
"You look ridiculous."
"shut up we can all be blessed with your luck!"
"im not blessed, im just friends with the Hokage."
"now you sound ridiculous!"
Naruto smiled.
"let's see the report." His smile went away, he tossed over his writings to the Nara. Who began reading it intently.
"its…..okay we need to all talk to get our story straight but this is a good story so far."
"what's wrong?"
"we need it to be air tight…you do know withholding information on a report, especially the type of information we are is treason, right?" chimon got real quite the more that sentence went on.
"r-right, I uhhhh knew that." Chimon tossed the report onto back onto the bed.
"Shoto and morio should be up later today…..I've got no idea when Kaori will be okay." They both paused. "but I've been thinking."
"hmm"
"if there was one vault….there might be more."
"you would be correct."
the deep voice of the Kyuubi leaving his lips startled him, he brought his hand to cover his mouth. looking around his room in horror.
"what the fuck was that!" Chimon hissed.
"I-I don't know, this has-"
"you know what this is, but the shadow is correct there are more vaults."
"the shadow?"
"remember your theory with the bloodlines? Maybe…"
"this isn't a bloodline it's just a technique."
"are their any more shadow users you have heard of."
"Enough of this pointless banter, shadow procced with your previous statement."
Chimon took a visible gulp. "right so...so if there are other vaults, and Orochimaru found one, he might be looking for, or could have found others. Like think the Konoha crush came out of nowhere, and he led it. But why he was gone for such a long time? people honestly thought he was dead."
Naruto could feel the Kyuubi think. "maybe this is where the key was?"
"no, there Is a vault nearby. Shadow you have a mind with you yes?"
"a mind?"
"humans and their stupid names, they are all blond much like all of Hachibi's creations, they may have blue-"
"Yamanaka?"
"I assume that is their mongrel name then."
"we have Kaori."
"she will not do."
"but kaori's a yamanaka." Naruto spoke up in her defense.
"she is a half breed, you will need someone of pure blood."
"then im no use either, my father is not a Nara."
"now he's annoyed, thanks." Chimon just shrugged
"find a pureblood shadow and mind….or body, we only need two. then I will explain the rest." Naruto didn't know how he knew, but he could fell when the Kyuubi had left his senses, a gargantuan weight had lifted off his back.
"I think he's gone."
"t-that was the nine tails!" Naruto saw an opportunity.
"ya, so." He tried to act as nonchalant as he could.
"he…he talked to us…like….."
"it's not really that big a deal."
"fuck you, you were shocked too!"
The Konoha council was formed, during the middle of the first Hokage's reign, the admittedly naïve man had created it so that, everyone in the village would have some form of say in the ongoings of the village. the second Hokage had nearly abolished the entire thing. Keeping it around to handle small matters that he did not have the time to deal with. The third had been forced to use it to solve issues that continually popped up through the three shinobi world wars he carried the village through. The fourth Hokage had lived much like the first, letting villagers elect representatives to the council, allowing him to hear what they want. Upon his death, the old and tired third Hokage hadn't changed a thing allowing the council to strong-arm their way into major village politics before he left Tsunade with the mess.
she had rearranged the entire room, changing the previous circular table that the Fourth Hokage had, to something more reminiscent of when the third truly ran the village. the tables were organized into an amphitheater, she sat at its head in the center stage, underneath everyone on the council, but impossible to ignore.
She glowered up at the sixty-five various council members organized into their factions and sects. Merchants with merchants, nobles with nobles, shinobi with shinobi. Even then it broke down further to personal loyalties.
"you have been called to discuss operation ICON, the plan to groom naruto Uzumaki into the villages shield and face, to help pull us out of our troubled times."
A fat merchant raised his hand Tsunade made him wait before calling on him. "I wasn't aware that there was an issue with the current plan. Has something happened?"
She stood, pulling up with her a manila folder. "open yours." The unusual tone and setting had most of them nervously scrambling to open it. "this is the recently declassified portion of recon team-12's mission into Takigakure territory, Naruto was on this mission because of your plan." She watched their faces react to what they were reading, the nobles and merchants reacted just as civilians should with horror and fear, the shinobi in the room had stern and steady faces.
"ANBU captain Rat-1 of recon division will give you a short brief on the current status of operation ICON."
The ANBU appeared out of the shadows, holding his own folder, he cleared his throat "Naruto Uzumaki has shown considerable growth in these past few months, current estimates put him ahead of the council's current power level plan, he has grown as a leader and as a person. But we are starting to see issues, patterns that weren't there before. Both physically and psychologically, intelligence generated a summary with the newly acquired data. They estimate burn out by the age of sixteen, a discreet psych evaluation performed during his stay at the hospital, flagged thirty-two different markers similar to Itachi Uchiha's, and fifteen similar to Orochimaru, they range from thoughts of self-harm and homicide to traitorous tendencies. His physical revealed, that while his body is about to enter its peak performance, it's recently undergone drastic changes that no one can explain. Please look to section eight of the brief."
He waited for the noise of rustling paper to go away, "the teammates awake at the time claimed he went into this 'darkness' for just over a minute, Naruto claims to have been in them for hours. Now upon his physical, his body temperature sits at around one hundred and forty-eight degrees."
"what im hearing is we should change targets, make a new icon like lady Tsunade's apprentice."
"no that won't be entirely necessary, the original plan was for him to learn under duress, allowing his natural strength to keep him going, allowing recon to deploy him to places that could be hazardous, allowing him to learn at a slightly slower pace."
"will we be able to afford the time?"
"Taki's already released their own version of the story, telling of how jackal team single-handedly saved their entire country and the world from a threat that was seemingly unstoppable. This should allow us some time to let him recuperate."
"how much time exactly? Wasn't he supposed to leave for operation waterfront?"
"intelligence estimates that we have until his birthday for any type of strike to be carried by our enemies. If we use the first six months of the year to let him and his team recuperate, I believe we can launch waterfront then."
"I support this idea." Tsunade was instantly suspicious, Danzo had not said a word until then, the usually quiet man rarely ever said a word during a council meeting preferring to control what he could from the background. "but I would like to hear more about their mission."
Rat threw a look at her, she nodded.
"I brought you some food."
"Oh yes, im dying from this hospital garbage!" Kaori sat upright from her bed scooting over to make space for him. "they keep giving me soup and im, not a fan." She opened the container of ramen and frowned.
"uhhhh."
"I would have preferred katsu don but whatever."
"wait if you're only on liquids-" she tore into the bowl, slurping the noodles down happily. "oh well."
They sat in a semi-comfortable silence, enjoying the noodle dish as best they could. Naruto watched her eat enjoying, her simple movements and her smiles, then he remembered her dead body landing on the ground next to him.
"im…..im sorry." She put the food down, not saying anything "im sorry I let you-"
"im alive!" she whispered to herself "im alive, and…and you got me here, alive if anything I should be say sorry to you for making you carry me so far."
The silence they sat in was no longer comfortable.
"Naruto I-"
"Kaori I-"
Naruto blushed when he realized how close they were, strands of her blond unkempt hair tickled his nose, and her face had a cute half smile on it.
"I-I-I"
"im sorry you had to see me die."
"what! how can...its not your fault."
"I know, but I can feel your emotions remember, your sad, terrified when you see me now."
"im sorry." she huffed.
"don't apologize it's me that almost reading your mind."
"you don't actually read minds do you?"
"no, I just get a sense of people's emotions. it was worse as a kid but now I can kinda block it out, but occasionally there are people I can't block." she looked him in the eye.
"Oh, you can't block-" he blushed bright red, she snorted.
"ya, I am glad you feel that way."
thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. again I apologize for any grammar issues.
I am also sorry if this more plot and exposition chapter wasn't exactly what you were looking for, but I really did have to squeeze it in at some point.
leave a review, hate, criticism or like.