Hey guys, it's moi, as usual! I think this chapter might be a little late, but oh well...I have this giant English project I have to finish, it's a glog. Which is a virtual poster on a website called Glogster, it's kinda fun and addicting. Plus all we have to do is pick a hero, or a superhero and say how they contributed to society. Not real life society but the society in the book/comic book/cartoon/ect they're from. So I picked Raven from Teen Titans, yes she is my favorite superhero, next to Kid Flash, but too many people were doing theirs' on him so I picked her. But that's just me...so enjoy the chapter!
Edit: I had a few grammatical errors in this chapter that Lanslet picked out for me, thank-you I think I go most of them, if you see another one let me know and let me know which one, it helps :D
Edit: I finally got my spell check working again, so I'm going through my chapters editing out stupid mistakes, the next chappie will be up a little later.
The two had set up camp in the dense underbrush one day while just wandering around aimlessly, trying to find some missions or bounties. Both were inexplicably bored out of their mind and both were simply sitting there, a fire lit and chewing away on some cooked wild boar. The two glass creatures gnawing away on some ribs hungrily. Neither of them bother to conceal their presence, their masks sitting next to them, someone finding them might be fun anyways, if not nice. There was a long silence, punctuated by the sparks from the crackling fire, before Laughing finally spoke up, "I think it's time, I've discussed with Shichibi, you need to start training in the way of the Will."
Naruto looked up clearly surprised, he had never heard of Laughing mention Shichibi, he had only heard him mention about him being a Jinchuuriki as well when he had first met Laughing at the bottom of the hole. But nothing else, the topic had never really come up in any of their conversations either so it wasn't too big of a shock. "What's the way of the Will?"
"It's a method that will allow you to control Kyuubi's power, there are two ways, one way is to go through such a harsh training that your body can naturally be able to control all the chakra, that could take years and years, and it's very painful. The second would be to simply train your mind and your will to the point where your will is stronger than the influence of Kyuubi's chakra. So you will do what you want to do, not what Kyuubi wants you to do. This is a much faster and easier way, not to mention that it's much less painful, which is a good thing, seeing as how we don't have too much time on our hands," Laughing finished off his piece of meat and helped himself to another which hung over the fire, its fat crackling in the heat.
"So how do I train my mind?" Naruto asked, sitting up straighter at the sound of training and learning something new.
Laughing paused before looking around him on the ground, finally he spotted it, a pebble, about the size of somebody's eyeball, opening his hand so the palm face up, the pebble flew into his hand. He tossed the pebble to Naruto who caught it mid-flight, "As you can see, I didn't use any chakra to bring that pebble to me, but merely used my will to make it come towards me. I want you to focus on that rock until you can get it to levitate without chakra, when you can get it to levitate, that means you have found the state of mind, it might take you a while, but I'll give you a week. If you can't get it down in a week then we're going to do the harsh training." Laughing instructed. He yawned, it was only mid-afternoon, but the warm sun beating down unrelentlessly on his back was making him rather sleepy. "Wake me when the sun sets, we'll keep on moving at night."
Naruto nodded and created several hundred Kage Bunshin, each one dashed off to find their own pebble and to sit down and get working on trying to make the blasted little rock move upwards an inch. The original set the rock down on the ground in front of him, crossed his legs and began taking deep calming breaths, he tried to clear his mind and focus on nothing but the rock levitating. It was hard as his thoughts kept wandering off, what would their next job be like? How was Shichi and Grandmaster doing back at the temple? When could he get a decent bowl of ramen? But despite all this, Naruto gritted his teeth and tried pushing all the thoughts away, focusing on the rock and the rock only. Slowly the thoughts faded into the background, he knew they were still there but they weren't his center of attention, the pebble sitting on the ground in front of him was.
Suddenly he was brought out of his state of mind by a sharp rap on the head, startled, Naruto tried to jump up and defend himself, but he had crossed his legs, making him just fall flat on his face, "Ow..."
"I thought I had told you to wake me up when the sun sets! Look now! It's already pretty late! Sheesh, let's get moving buddy boy, we'll have to go twice as fast as planned to make up for lost time, come on, get moving, we can talk once we're on our way," Laughing glared at the boy on whom he had just used the hilt of his katana to whack over the head with. He picked up his glass dragon, which was named Kagerou oddly enough and leapt into the trees, not even bothering to wait for the blonde, he knew Naruto could easily catch up to him if he really tried. The fire had been put out by dirt on the ground and their tracks erased by a wind jutsu by the looks of the scattered dirt.
"Gomen, gomen!" Naruto apologized frantically, scooping up his pebble and putting it into one of the inside pockets of his cloak. All of his clones disspelled at the same time with a large puff of smoke, giving him a headache as all their memories flowed back to him, brushing the pain aside, he struggled to get his bearings in the smoke. Hurriedly, he donned his mask and picked up his pack, which hadn't been open at all. Once he made sure his glass fox, named Hikaru was secure on his shoulder and that they didn't leave anything behind, he leapt after his partner, letting his cloak drag on the ground, effectively erasing any foot prints he had left behind.
Kitsune had caught up to Laughing about fifty miles or so away from their camp site, at that point, it was difficult to track him because he was simply a blur of black against the dark wood of the trees. The two traveled in silence, neither had anything really to say, and you couldn't really do anything when you're traveling at a speed of a hundred miles per hour, if not even faster. Soon enough, they arrived at a long river which twisted its way through the forest they had been traveling in for so long now. Laughing skidded in the slippery riverbanks, finally stopping when he used chakra to stick the the muddy ground.
"Fill your water bottles, I don't know when we will get more water," Laughing took out his canteen and walked out to the middle of the river, where the water wasn't nearly as obstructed or dirty as the riverbanks were. He dipped the canteen in the water, filling it to the brim. Rummaging around in his cloak, he pulled out two little round white tablets, marked with a little water droplet. "Water purifying tablets, I don't know what's in this water and where its been," he explained, dropping one into Kitsune's bottle as well.
Once they were ready, the two of them decided to follow the river, well not walk along the riverbanks, that would be way too obvious, although both were sorely tempted to. Laughing didn't want anyone to know they were there when they were traveling, they definitely didn't want any stalkers, or hunter-nin for that matter either. So they leapt into the trees again, this time keeping the river in their sights, trying not to stray too far from the river. Laughing's theory was that where there's water, there's always civilization. And a big river like this should have a fairly large civilization. And civilization meant people, and people meant jobs for them.
The pair traveled for what seemed to be hours on end, until the sun was directly above them and it was getting really hot out. Now it wasn't as hot as Suna was, but the thing was that it was humid, very humid. Combine humidity with heat and it was complete torture. Of course, Laughing was perfectly composed, not a single hair out of place, and a drop of sweat fell. At last Kitsune couldn't take the heat and humidity any longer and collapsed in the shade of a particularly large tree. Hikaru leapt off of his master's shoulders just in time to not get crushed into little bit, he made a sound which was equal to a growl for other animals. This sound was nothing like a growl, it was more like nails on chalkboard and it sent shivers down your spine.
"Well if you're going to rest, you might as well find a more sheltered place to rest," Laughing sighed and helped his goofball of a partner up.
Kitsune's eyes widened, Laughing's hand was cool, like he had spent the whole day in an air-conditioned ice cream parlour or something, drinking ice-cold drinks all day. "How-why is your hand so cool? Why aren't you even sweating?" Seeing how Kitsune was standing upright again, Hikaru leapt up onto his rightful place on Kitsune's shoulders again, but as he did, he made sure to dig in his sharp glass claws, as a warning to Kitsune, not to crush him again, accidentally or not.
Laughing didn't answer and made his way over to the base of a gigantic tree, the tree's roots were all tangled and twisted over each other and Laughing could clearly see a large space beneath all those roots. He circled the tree once, then twice and then a third time, Kagerou also watching the tree intently as his master circled it, Kitsune watched him with his with his eyebrows raised faintly in interest. The last time he walked around, he walked behind a rather large root, Kitsune waited for Laughing to reappear on the other side of the root, he stood there, staring at the root and waiting for Laughing's grinning dragon mask to peek out but nothing appeared. No sounds, no movements. He looked helplessly at Hikaru, who merely just gave a shrug, if you could call it that.
Kitsune panicked, was it a trap? Had Laughing fallen for the trap? Was he in trouble? "Laughing? Laughing?! Are you there?!" Kitsune ran his eyes around the roots and the last root that Laughing had disappeared behind. He dashed forwards, katana drawn, waiting for some unknown enemy to just jump out and ambush him. But there was nothing, Kitsune ran around the tree like Laughing had just done moments before, he had run around four times when he realized what he was doing was completely illogical and idiotic. He reached out with his chakra, yep Laughing's chakra signature was there, within the roots?
Frowning he walked forwards, sheathing his katana, he walked around the last root Laughing had walked around, then he noticed the large gap between the roots, the moss was a little crushed on the ground where the gap was. Understanding what Laughing had done and what he had just done to make a fool of himself, he hurried through the gap. The gap was more like a passageway, which was formed by the overlapping, gnarled roots. It twisted and turned sharply, one right after the other, just as he could make out his partner's shape, the passage was got a little narrowed and he had to worm and wiggle his way in between the roots.
"Took you long enough buddy boy, what the hell were you thinking, running around yelling my name out like that?! Are you stupid? Did you hit your head and get brain damage? Or do you even have one?" Laughing fired off question after question, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. He sighed, "You're a total moron you know that? I don't even know why I put up with you...or chose you to be my partner."
Kitsune gulped, memories came flashing back, the villagers calling him names, getting beaten and stabbed, getting banished, this was like a total deja vu. He closed his eyes under his mask and prepared himself for the verbal if not physical beating his was about to get, he paused and waited, and waited and waited and nothing. He opened up his eyes tentatively, Laughing stared at his with one eyebrow raised slightly in question and mild amusement, as if saying, 'What the hell are you doing buddy boy?'
Kitsune relaxed, but realized he shouldn't have done that, now his guard was down and was totally unprepared for what was coming next. Laughing had flung his fist at his face, purposely aiming it so it would fly by his head, once it did, he curved his wrist and elbow around, wrapping his whole arm around Kitsune's neck. Essentially he had just put Kitsune into a headlock. Drawing Kitsune's head closer to his body, Laughing's other hand formed a fist and gave Kitsune a noogie. All of this happened in a split second and had Kitsune in complete shock. So he wasn't going to get beaten or killed, instead he got a noogie.
It too Kitsune all his strength to break free of Laughing's headlock, and when he did he stood there completely shocked.
"You're an idiot but that's what I like about you, always the number one unpredictable ninja...it suits your style, although you seriously need to use ALOT of common sense if you want to really survive, up 'till recently, you've been living because of luck, but that luck's bound to run out some day, so smarten up!" Laughing whacked him across the top of his head lightly with the hilt of his katana.
"Yessir! Thank-you sir!" Kitsune bowed, a silly grin plastered all over his face, so Laughing didn't hate him, or think he was useless, he was just toying with him...
And that's a wrap up! Thanks to all those that reviewed last time, and please continuing reviewing. Remember, even two or three words work for me! Just let me know what you think! And the whole Way of the Will thing is a going to be really important later on, so are the two glass creatures, although they didn't really get mentioned too much in this chapter so don't think I'm retarded and just throwing random things in there without any apparent order or system. There is method to my madness...Of course, until next time!
~AnimeClouds~