Author's Note: I apologize for the delay! I didn't think it would take me this long to get this chapter done!
Last Time:
He didn't focus on them long though. Beyond them, just less than a mile away, Menma strolled along the top of the water with a wickedly bright look in his eyes.
"There you are," Menma cooed as he stopped and looked at Naruto for the first time since they were separated.
"Naruto, don't!" Hinata cried out from beyond Menma as she landed against the water and avoided an attack from Hayato.
Naruto didn't hear her. He didn't hear anyone. With extreme quickness, Naruto flew across the water's surface. Menma removed his dagger from its sheath and easily blocked Naruto's sword as it came down.
"Long time no see Naruto," Menma snickered. "You may not believe me when I say this, but it's good to see you."
Cradle: Chapter 9 – The Ripple Effect
"I'm not letting you take her," Naruto snarled as he met Menma's gaze. "Don't make me hurt you."
"Hurt me?" Menma repeated before erupting into gut-busting laughter. "Oh, little Naruto, do you really think you're capable of standing up against me? You never beat me in a fight when we were little kids, and I was always running to your defense. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you're suddenly capable of hurting me?"
"A lot's changed in the last ten years, Menma," Naruto warned as his eyes changed from their brilliant blue to a menacing red. His whisker markings darkened and his canines extended, "I wasn't going to roll over and die just because you weren't around anymore."
Menma narrowed his eyes at Naruto, "You might as well have. It would've made my life a little bit easier."
Naruto's breath caught in his throat as he looked down and saw a large black fox had wrapped its jaw around his torso. As it sunk its teeth deeper into him, he felt a burning sensation radiate through him. And then his eyes widened.
"I'll be taking the rest of him with me," Menma smirked as he cut through Naruto's sword and grabbed him by his throat. "So do me a favor and cooperate!"
Naruto gritted his teeth as he took ahold of Menma's arm. And almost simultaneously, two pillars of light erupted around the two of them. From Naruto, a large pillar of light orange light stretched out towards the sky while Menma's was dark orange.
Both pillars of light caused violent waves to ripple out around them and caused the clouds overhead to swirl and appear more frightening than they were before. For those on the water, the overwhelming sensation they felt at the sight of those two pillars left them frozen where they stood and staring at the scene in front of them with wide eyes.
"You're going to make this harder than it needs to be, huh, Naruto?" Menma questioned as a smirk grew on his lips. "Be smart about this. You and I both know that you won't win against me."
"You're not making this easy for me either, Menma!" Naruto shouted as he gritted his teeth and glared at his brother. "I already told you that I wasn't going to roll over and die just because you weren't around, and I'm certainly not going to do it now just because you asked."
"What if I say please?" Menma teased.
Their pillars of lights started to expand outward. The space between the two of them became smaller and smaller, and as they touched, a powerful pulse shot out and knocked everyone on the water off their feet. Many others were sent tumbling across the water as the pulse knocked them back, and others struggled to hang on.
Near the ferry, Sakura dove out of the way of the violently rocking ferry as it was lifted up by the waves before crashing back down against the water. As she anchors herself to the water, she looked up in time to see something appear above Naruto and Menma. Each of them had half the face of a large fox leering above their heads, growling at one another with exposed teeth and bright scarlet eyes.
"Come!" Menma encouraged with a gleeful look in his eyes. "Show me who you've become!"
When lightning struck the water's surface, the two of them bolted towards one another. It was a bare-knuckles fight, and it was fierce. As Naruto and Menma clashed, bolts of orange lightning jolted out and exploded against the water. When their fists struck against one another, it sounded like thunder, and the force was enough to cause a powerful gust of wind to blow out from around them and cause violent waves to emerge.
Naruto ducked beneath Menma's right hook, and just before he could land a powerful punch in Menma's gut, Menma launched himself off the water using Naruto's arm as support. He landed on the water behind Naruto and ducked low enough to miss Naruto's leg swinging over his head. Naruto gritted his teeth and flipped back a few feet, but as he landed on his feet, he saw Menma was just inches in front of him.
He crossed his arms in front of him and endured the brute force of Menma's punch that sent him flying across the water. He skidded across the water's surface like a stone across a pond before he slowed himself down by sinking his fingers into the water's surface. He got up in time to dodge out of the way of Menma who dove towards him.
Menma landed atop the water and spun around in time to kick Naruto in the side. He sucked his teeth as Naruto endured the blow. "This isn't like you at all, Naruto. If anything, you're supposed to be more hostile than this. You used to be so desperate to win against me when we were kids."
"We aren't kids anymore, Menma," Naruto groaned.
Menma let out a light chuckle, "I can see that. I can honestly say I'm proud to see that you've grown up so much since Mom died, but let's face it, we both know how this ends so let's stop delaying the inevitable so you can go ahead and go see Mom again."
Just then, Menma's nine black foxes that varied in size and shape sprung out of the water with their mask pulled back and their mouths agape. Naruto's eyes widen at the sight of them, and just before he could react, Menma jumped out of the way, and all nine of the foxes let loose a powerful attack.
Menma didn't flinch as water erupted where his foxes had attacked Naruto. He merely stood back and waited.
"Naruto-kun!" Hinata shrieked. In her moment of distraction, a woman from Kuroichi came up behind Hinata and caught her in full nelson. Hinata gritted her teeth, and just as another Kuroichi member dove towards her with the tip of their blade pointed at her stomach, all three of them were engulfed in water.
The orb of water dragged them down, and as both Kuroichi members struggled to breathe, Hinata darted away from them and through the water towards where Menma was. As she shot out of the water, she landed atop it and let out an agonizing yell as a massive wave of water erupted from where she landed.
Before the wave could crash over Menma, another wave of the same size erupted from behind Menma and crashed against Hinata's. Hayato landed just beside Menma with a confident smirk on his lips.
"I would've been fine," Menma muttered as he began to walk towards a motionless Naruto who remained floating in the water.
"I'm just doing my job, Boss," Hayato assured him.
"Now then," Menma reached Naruto and knelt beside him, "you should still be breathing after that." He reached down and placed his hand against Naruto's back, "Be sure to say hi to Mom for me when you see her."
Menma pause for a moment. When Menma started to laugh lightly to himself, Hayato looked over his shoulder at him with a look of concern and curiosity.
"Boss?" Hayato watched as Menma stood. "What's going on?"
"It's not him," Menma said.
"Huh?"
Across the water, beyond the beach and not too far into the woods, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, and Sasuke were barreling through the woods. None of them were sure how far they ran or for how long, but when they finally decided to stop, they were all panting and sweating.
Sakura sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and wiped sweat from her forehead, "How long do you think we have before Menma notices?"
"Knowing Menma, he's noticed already," Naruto said between pants. "What we need to worry about is when he's going to come after us again, and realistically speaking, there's really no way to predict that until he's already on us."
Neither Hinata or Sasuke said a word. Sakura looked between the three of them, and she couldn't help but notice the harrowing expressions on their faces. "Something happened when yours and Menma's Mana touched, didn't it? Something serious?"
"When we found out Menma was your brother, you told us to do everything without our power to keep the two of you away from one another," Sasuke began as he narrowed his eyes at Naruto. "There have been countless moments where you've been within twenty-fucking-miles of Menma, and we've created distance between the two of you to prevent what just happened, from happening!"
"What did happen?" Sakura asked.
"It's…complicated," Hinata confessed.
"How does it get more complicated than the fact that he's an Uzumaki that's supposed to be dead?" Sakura asked.
"You told her?" Sasuke questioned.
"She had a right to know," Naruto argued.
Sasuke rubbed his face and let out a groan of frustration, "If it's not one thing it's something else. Why did you leave the ferry? Why was tonight different than any other time."
"He would've hurt Hinata," Naruto said. "I was doing my job. I swore I would protect the both of you because I owe my life to you, and I wasn't going to go back on that just because I had a responsibility to myself to stay away from Menma."
"To yourself?" Sasuke scoffed. "It's like you're undermining the severity of this situation right now, Naruto."
"Sasuke-kun," Hinata spoke softly, and Sasuke looked at her, "what's done is done. There's nothing we can do about it now."
Sasuke gritted his teeth, "You can't just stand there and act like this is okay."
"I'm not," Hinata argued. "I'm just as upset with Naruto as you are, maybe even more, but yelling at him isn't going to change that's already been done. And no one said that what comes next is our problem."
"It will be once they come for him," Sasuke reminded her.
"Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?" Sakura asked in frustration.
"Menma and I are the hosts for the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox Kurama," Naruto answered, and an ashen expression fell over Sakura's face at the sound of his answer. "Part of the reason Queen Mother Kaguya had my clan wiped out was not only because she feared what we were capable of, but she was also looking for Kurama."
"Hang on," Sakura let out a half-hearted chuckle as she looked back and forth between the three of them, "Queen Mother Kaguya regularly boasts how the Tailed Beasts are in possession of the Nine Houses of the Outsutsuki Clan. They've been in possession of the Nine Houses of the Outsutsuki Clan for well over two millennia, haven't they?"
Naruto shook his head, "They haven't had the Tailed Beasts for almost that length of time. Queen Mother Kaguya uses the Tailed Beasts as a scare tactic to keep citizens in line, but if they knew the truth, then there'd be nothing stopping them from rebelling against the Outsutsuki Clan and their Nine Houses."
"It's not like one isn't already brewing anyway," Sasuke muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked over to Sakura, "The Nine Houses of the Outsutsuki Clan lost possession of the Tailed Beast almost two millennia ago, and the Tailed Beasts themselves have been around for nearly five. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that the Outsutsuki Clan founded this continent and this kingdom thousands of years ago? Back when there was nothing here but trees and grass and mountains and dirt?"
Sakura looked offended, "Of course. I'm not incompetent."
"Anyway," Sasuke brushed pass Sakura's comment, "the matriarch of the Outsutsuki Clan, Outsutsuki Kaguya – not to be confused with the woman who sits on the throne now – killed her eldest son Outsutsuki Hagoromo and divided his body up into nine parts and from those parts, the Tailed Beasts were born."
"I didn't know that part," Sakura admitted.
Hinata let out a heavy sigh, "The Outsutsuki Clan like to paint over the bloody parts of their history and present more acceptable stories to the people. But, that part is true. The Matriarch felt threatened by Master Hagoromo because he proved himself to be more powerful than she was, and she knew that once he assumed his place on the throne after her, he would undo all of her work that placed the Outsutsuki in a position of supreme power. So, she killed him."
"After Hagoromo was split into the Nine Tailed Beasts, they were scattered across the continent and kept locked away in valleys and caverns far away from towns and villages," Naruto explained. "It wasn't until the population started to grow and people began exploring that the Tailed Beasts were discovered, so The Matriarch retrieved the Tailed Beasts and divided the Outsutsuki Clan into nine houses. Each house was tasked with protecting and serving a Tailed Beasts, but eventually, infighting began amongst the Outsutsuki Clan as they debated about which Tailed Beasts was the strongest and who should have the right to rule."
"The Tenth House and Main House of the Outsutsuki Clan, the house that the Matriarch commanded, tried to stop the fighting but a war broke out and devastated half the continent," Hinata explained. "After that, the Tailed Beasts went into a deep slumber because the people who were tasked to protect them drained them of their mana and nearly the entirety of their life force. Then, they disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Sakura repeated. "How did they just disappear?"
"They jumped Realms," Naruto answered. "Unbeknownst to the Outsutsuki Clan, they moved through multiple Realms for nearly a thousand years before they returned to this one. And in order to avoid the Outsutsuki Clan, each of the Tailed Beasts sought the help of prominent Clans across the continent to serve them and protect them. Kurama found my ancestors on our islands when he returned, and after making a deal with the clan head at the time, Kurama joined with the clan head, and he remained on the island and was treated as a deity and protected."
"It wasn't until the last one hundred years or so that they've started a serious hunt for the Tailed Beasts," Sasuke added. "They've succeeded a few times, usually clashing with several clans in search for the Tailed Beasts, but they've been unsuccessful at keeping the Tailed Beasts. Then, in Queen Mother Kaguya's frustration, she started ordering the eradication of entire clans."
"The search for the Tailed Beasts have always been tricky for the Outsutsuki Clan seeing as the Tailed Beasts served their familial connection with them, but it became especially hard after Menma and I were born. Traditionally, there's only one host for Kurama in the Uzumaki Clan, but when they tried sealing Kurama within Menma, they discovered his body was too weak, and so they settled on dividing Kurama into two and placing half in Menma and half in me.
"It was important that the two of us never come in contact with one another because if Kurama were to become whole again, then his Mana would disturb the Mana of the other Tailed Beasts and practically send a signal to the Outsutsuki Clan," Naruto explained in a solemn voice. "It only became a problem after Menma, and I became his hosts. Before, Kurama was able to control his own Mana and keep it at bay, but with Menma and I, he says there's something different about us that serves as a beacon almost."
"He?" Sakura asked. "You don't mean, Kurama, do you?"
Naruto nodded, "I do." He rubbed his stomach, "He's usually sleeping because he can't function very well with only half his Mana, but lately, he's been agitated. He says it's your fault that he's irritable right now."
"My fault? How is it my fault?" Sakura questioned.
"He's not sure," Naruto answered. "But I just know that when I first saw you, and you unleashed your Mana in The Abyss, something triggered Kurama and scared him."
"Scared him?" Hinata was the one to appear curious now. "She scares him?"
Naruto nodded.
"It's one thing on top of another," Sasuke groaned. "Look, our main priority at the moment is to figure out what she is so we can figure out how to get her Mana under control. On top of that, we have to worry about the Outsutsuki Clan not only hunting her down, but they're going to be coming after you too, Naruto. Them and Menma that is."
"And what about the other hosts of the Tailed Beasts?" Naruto asked.
"What about them?" Sasuke asked. "You don't even know if they have hosts like Kurama does."
"He says they do," Naruto countered. "And we can't just leave them to fend for themselves. The Outsutsuki are going to be relentless when it comes to trying to retrieve the Tailed Beasts. Extracting a Tailed Beasts improperly means death for the hosts. I messed up which means their lives are in my hands and they're my responsibility now."
Sasuke groaned and rubbed his face, "This is why we told you to stay on the ferry in the first place."
Hinata let out a heavy sigh, "Sasuke-kun."
"I know," Sasuke complained. He let out a heavy sigh and placed his hands on his hips, "We'll devise a plan in the morning for what we're going to do about all of…this." Sasuke gestured to nothing and no one in particular. "We should keep moving for a little while, create some more distance between us and the shoreline. The chances of Menma pursuing us now are slim since he hasn't already made it here."
"He won't come," Naruto said. "He's moving away. It won't be too much longer now before I can't feel him anymore."
"That's a relief," Sakura admitted and saw Hinata nod in agreement.
As for Menma, he seemed unbothered by the trick pulled by Naruto and his friends. He was on his own, wandering through thick brush and moving in no particular direction. He stopped however when he heard a twig break behind him. "What is that girl?"
"That's none of your concern," Urashiki answered as the portal closed behind him. "I'm surprised you failed, Menma."
Menma snickered and looked over his shoulder at Urashiki with a wild and disturbing look in his eyes, "My apologies, Lord Urashiki. I couldn't exactly function with that girl around. She bothers Kurama; she bothers him so much that he was practically ready to crawl back into his cage and stay there. What. Is. She."
"Like I said before, it's none of your concern," Urashiki argued. "All you need to know is that Queen Mother Kaguya wants her dead as soon as possible. Don't forget that brother of yours is the bonus here, Menma. But I suppose I should be thanking your brother for his carelessness. It seems the other Tailed Beasts might be rustling now."
"You're welcome." Menma turned and faced Urashiki. "I'll be honest with you though, it's not going to be easy to retrieve all of the Tailed Beasts. If they're as stubborn as Kurama, then I doubt you'll have any luck getting near any of them."
"Don't worry about that," Urashiki said. "And I hope you understand that you're not safe from this, Menma. You may have half of Kurama, but the other half exists."
"You don't think I know that?" Menma seemed offended. "The only reason you haven't taken Kurama yet is because I've proven myself useful to you time and time again, Urashiki. Don't think my usefulness runs out after I've killed that girl."
"And don't think for a second that I'm employing your services because I need help," Urashiki countered, and he saw the way Menma's jaw tightened. "I thought employing you for this would make things end quickly so that I could go home and drink more liquor and fuck more women, but I guess I put too much faith in you. I'll give you another chance because I've seen your work, but if you fail again, then I promise you I'll drop your body off to your brother so that he can give you a proper burial. Do I make myself clear?"
Menma sucked his teeth.
"Don't fuck up again," Urashiki spat before another portal opened behind him. "So long, Menma." Urashiki jumped back through the portal, and it disappeared as soon as he was through.
Menma felt his ears get hot while his heart began pounding violently against his chest. He let out a roar of frustration and punched through a nearby tree trunk. He stood by as the tree fell and smacked against the ground.
To Be Continued…
