A/N: Hey guys, welcome to the newest chapter of 'Kid of the Hunt'. I'm so sorry that it took me so long for the new chaoter, but I was on holiday, then I broke up with my girlfriend, now I'm already going to university, and tbh, I lost my motivation a bit. Now, though, I have a feeling that I gained my motivation back a bit. Hope you can forgive me.
NyaNyaKittyFace: Yes, this is a NaruTsunade Romance story.
ichika aono: True, it's very hard, but I try my best. Thanks for your support
Crystalbullet: Thank you, glad you like it.
Anyways, here's the new chapter:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sunagakure, Namikaze Mansion
Everyone quickly found a nice bedroom for themselves, there was more than enough space obviously. Naruto changed a few things, so there were no Konoha signs or other symbols of alliance left inside the mansion.
The Desert Hunt prepared to initiate itself as a worthy mercenary cell. Kankuro went out to look for jobs, since his reputation in Suna as the Kazekage's brother was the best from all of them, Deidara prepared and managed the weaponry, even tagging papers with seals to various objects and weapons like Naruto requested. Karin started to manage their medical equipment, while their leader, Naruto, managed their rations, and otherwise studied his new big project: The Wood Style.
One of the very side effects of the Wood Style was his now distinct Earth affinity, and that, together with his natural Wind affinity, gave him the ability to experiment a bit and try to mix up the two elements.
While the others did their respective work, he was already finished with his and now did basic Wood Style training. His first task was to simply form and manipualte a single root.The Jinchuuriki remembered the first sentences of the scroll he red over and over again.
The five basic elemantal affinities all take their own place in nature, and have their own purposes. Therefore, wood is the most special. It isn't simply one element of nature, or even two mixed together. Wood is nature. It creates air and therefore wind, it feeds off water and earth, and is destroyed by fire and lightning. Wood combines each element, and gives it another purpose. In order to understand wood, you unite yourself with nature, you act as a part of it, and use it to your will. Feel the connection to everything, not just to one thing which works against something different. Wood is the ultimate force of nature, having the ability to even control and surpress demonic chakra. It is everything.
'Feel the connection to everything, not just one thing.', Naruto thought, over and over again.
He closed his eyes, and remembered how he concentrated in his Wind Style training. He focused simply on the feeling in the air, how it passed around him, through his hair. He tried to expand this feeling. The gusting of wind, the flowing of water, the crumbling of earth, the burning of fire and the roaring of lightning, while focusing on the wooden ground he stood on.
'Wood is everything.', he thought, and tried to form a root.
'Wood is everything.', he thought, while the ground in front of him stirred a bit.
'It is the ultimate force of nature, it gives everything a purpose.', he thought.
After a bit of stronger concentration, he managed to lift a wooden plank from the ground. Then the feeling hit him. It was like the wood was an extention of his body, like the plank was another arm. He tried to surpress and twist it to form a root. Slowly, after half a minute, he managed to actually form a half meter long root, which looked like a wooden snake. He carefully tried to move into all directions from all angles, but was only able to do it at a slow pace. Currently, it was definetely not helpful in combat.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Yeah, who is it?", the hunter told, while carefully dropping the wooden plank back into its actual place.
"It's me, Karin. Can I come in?", the clear and stern, yet soft voice of his cousin called out.
"Yes, of course.", he replied, turning to the opening door.
The familiar sight of his red-haired relative and teammate greeted him.
"What do you need, Karin-chan?", he asked.
"It's about your swords, may I look at them?", she asked with her typical analytical gaze.
He looked confused, but complied nevertheless, and unsheathed his four katanas, holding them out to her.
"Why, what's wrong with them?", the hunter asked, searhcing for an answer in her deep-in-thought face.
She watched the four weapons presented to her intently, and tried to search out for anything different or suspicious.
Then she felt it. It was similar when she saw the Kyuubi in Naruto, but so much stronger and darker. Violence, darkness, bloodlust. Every possible aggressive emotion was so deeply concentrated into this weapon that it made her shiver slightly.
"Naruto-kun, be careful when you handle these. I can sense a deep rooted bloodlust in them, and I'm afraid they can influence or pollute your mind as well.", she told, pushing up her glasses.
He nodded, looked at his weapon, but then grinned sheepishly.
"Yeah, master already told me that. Don't worry about that, Karin-chan, no ancient weapon can change me, believe it!"
Though not fully convinced, she smiled slightly at his childish antics and nodded.
"Very well, I hope so."
"Oh, Karin-chan, I have a question."
She nodded. "Go ahead, what's your question?"
"You're an Uzumaki, right? So do you alse have our bloodline, and can you help me to train them?", he asked intrigued.
"Yes, I have the Chakra Chains and can fully control them. However, I can't help you if you haven't activated them yet. Our bloodline is activated in a strong moment of panic or despair, where we actually fear for our lives."
Naruto was disappointed, but nodded, knowing Karin couldn't help him with the ability.
"When did you activate them?"
Karin sighed and had a faraway look in her red eyes, replying:
"If you bite my arm you're fully healed, you already now that. Back in Kusagakure, I was abused for my ability. Once, I was chased and cornered by furious and desperate ninja and civilians, who yelled at me to use my power to heal someone. I was terrified, and closed my eyes. And then, they just shot out. The chains wrapped around them. I did not think and ran away again.", she finished, shuddering a bit from painful memory of her childhood.
"Don't worry, Karin-chan, I won't let anyone use you like that again, noone does that to my family, even though your ability is really cool."
She looked back at his childishly smiling yet sincere facey telling her that every word leaving this boys' mouth was the truth. He had what she craved for for ao long: The true love of family.
She smiled again, and bowed her head a bit.
"Thank you, Naruto-kun. Or, since you're my cousin, Naruto-nii-san?", she asked.
He smiled brightly, and replied: "Yes, that's fine, Karin-nee-chan."
Both smiled a bit silently, until Karin remembered: "Oh, by the way, Kankuro found a job for us, but he was in a really bad mood. We should look what it is.", she said, to which he nodded and left the training room.
They reached a former dining room in the second floor, which they quickly rearranged to an assembly room for their meetings. Already, the two of them heard the angry, no the furious and murderous voice of the puppet master.
"You should have seen his smug face! Oh, how much I would want to use my Iron Maiden against him, this stupid, narcissistic son of a bitch!" he roared for the entire floor to hear.
The cousins looked to each other and shrugged, opening the door to walk into an amusing sight. Kankuro, stepping around the assembly room with a face red from anger and throwing a tantrum, while Deidara sat on one of the chairs in the room with his feet on the table, ignoring the words of Kankuro and playing around with a handfull of clay.
"What's with him?", Naruto asked Deidara loud enough to hear him.
The clay user shrugged while still looking on the white mass in his hands.
"He was like that when he came in already, just shouting about someone. I started to ignore it after a while.", he answered nonchalantly.
Naruto nodded and walked over to the shouting Sand-nin. He simply slapped him, interrupting his tantrum and causing him to fall on the ground.
The puppet master looked even more furious than before and yelled: "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you!?"
Naruto, now equally pissed, yelled back: "With me? What the hell is wrong with YOU!?" I would be surprised if the whole shinobi world hasn't heard your shouting yet! The hell made you that pissed?"
Kankuro's anger then switched from his partner to his original target.
"Grrr, it's Akira and his group, the Abyss. They are an independent mercenary group but have an excellent reputation. In our world reputation is everything, and because of his flawless one, he tends to get nearly all the jobs. I was in one of the pubs, and he was there with his partners, getting contracts thrown at him as if he was a stripper and the contracts were money. And his face, oh his face, how I would love to reshape it!"
Deidara asked "So why don't we do it then?"
Kankuro gritted his teeth "He has so much influence, and has nearly one hundred men. We, unfortunately, are only four. To turn against him is to turn against all of his allies and the entire Abyss. They are good, and I doubt anything besides one of Deidara's ultimate bomb can kill them all just like that."
"But shouldn't our reputation already be awesome? You and me infiltrated the Otokage mansion and managed to escape, and Deidara alone wiped out the entire village.", Naruto asked confused.
"This proves that we can kill a few weak guards and cause destruction. But can we protect a client, can we secure an important payload, can we track and hunt down a target, all of us? I did a few of these things already, but did you? Noone knows that, and until we did all of those things and did them well, our reputation stays as it is. Promising, yet young.", he finished his explanation solemnly.
Everyone nodded and though about the new pieces of information. Besides a fortune which could be in sight, a reputation was the key to a successful new life.
"You did manage to get a job for us though, what is it?", Karin asked.
"Yeah, a contract by the Wave Daimyo. Apparently, a few missing-nins are terrorizing Nami no Kuni (Wave Country), so they sent out a courier to Suna."
'Nami no Kuni, huh. Great, I can see how that drunken old man, Tsunami and Inari are.', Naruto smiled, reminiscing about his first mission outside of Konoha.
He started to speak again: "Well then, guys, we can care about this Akira guy later, now pack your stuff and prepare, we'll go to Nami no Kuni. Deidara, have you prepared the kunai I asked for?"
"Yep, here they are.", the clay user exclaimed, throwing a pouch of kunai to his leader.
"Then let's go, guys.", Naruto yelled out to his partners, pumping his fist into the air.
The Desert Hunt prepared itself for its first job, collecting all tools necessary, and hopped onto Deidara's clay bird, flying to Wave Country.
After a while, they reached the border of Fire to Wave Country, and found themselves a fitting place to land soon afterwards, a nice clearing in a forest.
The group walked into the direction of the main village, until they closed in to a gigantic bridge. Directly in front of the bridge, there was a sign of stone with a few engravings.
We honour this bridge to our saviour from the opression of Gato and the hero of Nami no Kuni
Welcome to the Great Naruto Bridge
"I can't believe Tazuna named the bridge after me.", Naruto muttered in awe, reading the sign over again.
"You have an own bridge?", Kankuro asked curiously.
"Apparently. It was the first mission of my old team outside of Konoha. We fought against Zabuza and his friend Haku. Zabuza was a violent ninja, and Haku, he was just like me. Both died as good people and honourable shinobi, though."
"Wait, you were the ones who defeated the Demon of the Bloody Mist?", Deidara asked, genuinely surprised.
The Jinchuuriki nodded. "Yes, we did not kill him though, he died because of the wounds he received from Gato's thugs until he could reach and kill him. Come, we will go into town."
The group walked silently through the lively town in Wave Country, getting mostly confused looks. Probably because of the strange pairing of hitai-ates.
'Wow, this place is so much bigger than I remember. No wonder that's the capital of Nami no Kuni.', thought Naruto.
A few minutes of walking, the mercenaries reached a huge market place. Push carts blocked their view to the other side of the place, filled with different kinds of exotic food and ingredients, spices, clothes and weapons.
At the end of the market place, the Suna-nin could not miss the gigantic looking palace with samurai guards in front of it. The palace of the Wave Daimyo.
"Halt, Suna-nin. What are you doing here?", one of the guards spoke, hands on the hilt of their katanas.
"We are mercenaries from Suna, the ones your Daimyo hired for your Missing-nin problem.", Kankuro answered, showing the business contract from the Wave courier.
The guards briefly checked the contract, and talked again.
"Alright, we'll escort you to our Daiymo. Keep your hands where we can see them.", the samurai instructed, with two standing in front of the Suna group, and two standing behind them.
The group closed in towards a large iron gate on a red carpet. Clearly the way to the throne room of the Daimyo.
Entering the majestic throne room, the group was greeted by the sight of a whole dozen samurai guards, an even shinier and more golden room, and the strong smell of...sake?
Apparently, the Daimyo was enjoying his second bottle of the strong liquor, clearly making his guards uncomfortable.
Naruto furrowed his red eyebrows. He could swear he knew the old, bearded face of the man of royalty sitting in front of him.
"Whaddya wan' here?", began the slightly sluggish voice of the ruler.
The group leaders' eyes widened, he definetely knew this voice as well.
"Tazuna-jiji?", Naruto answered, to the surprise of his group and anger of the guards.
"Talk with more respect, stranger, you are here as our guest!", roared the samurai, unsheathing his sword, causing Kankuro and Deidara to reach for their respective weapons as well. Naruto held up his hand to signal his partners to calm down.
"Ye, who're you to call me by my name like that, boy?", spoke Tazuna.
"Hey, for saving your ass against Zabuza, you surely are very ungrateful, old man!", the Jinchuuriki spoke, pulling down his face mask to reveal his smiling, whiskered face.
The leaders' and samurais' eyes nearly popped out of their skulls in surprise. Tazuna stumbled on his feet, and walked to his former saviour.
"How's that possible? Naruto?",
"'Course, gramps!", he laughed, causing Tazuna to laugh heartily as well and envelop the young man in a tight hug.
"What the hell are you doing here? We were told you were dead, and the hell's wrong with your headband, kid?"
"Hehe, about that..."
A lot of storytelling later
"What?!? Get me those punks, I'll kill them all!", the Wave Daimyo screamed, taking a sword from one of his samurai. He walked towards the giant entrance.
"Wait, Jiji, come back. You are a Daimyo, you can't just go and fight people."
"Ahh, you're right. Commander, mobilize all your forces. I want you to slaughter every single one of their brethren!"
"B-but my lord, Konoha is far too powerful for..."
"I DON'T CARE! How dare they spit on our hero like that, I want them to pay for that!"
"No, he is right, Tazuna-jiji. Konoha is far too powerful for Wave, and you don't have any ninja. Besides, I don't want you to kill them."
"Everyone in favour of slaughter, raise your hands!", called out Deidara while raising his right hand, causing Tazuna to immediately raise his hand as well.
Naruto looked at Deidara with a sarcastic "Thank you"-look, while Kankuro chuckled, Karin facepalmed and Deidara grinned cheekily. The leader started to talk again.
"Anyway, that isn't the reason we came here. Your courier told us you had problems with a bunch of Missing-nins here?"
Trying to calm himself down, Tazuna sighed and rubbed his temples.
"Yes, some punks are messing with us. They attack our trade ships and caravans, raid the smaller villages around here and disappear into their camps again. They are shinobi, and my samurai have a hard time to defend themselves against them."
"That's why we're here, Jiji. We'll take care of 'em, believe it!", Naruto said, getting nods from his group and a smile from Tazuna.
"I'm glad you're here, you can really help us, I know it."
The talk was interrupted by a samurai entering the hall through the door.
"My lord, your other guests are here."
Tazuna was briefly confused, though he was widening his eyes immediately. Naruto meanwhile pulled up his face mask.
Sighing, the Daimyo said: "Ok, bring them in."
He turned to Naruto and started to speak again.
"You see, those nins have two camps, so a bigger and a smaller one. You're four, so we hired you for the smaller camp. And, eheheh, we kinda hired another group. Normal shinobi though, not mercenaries."
"Oh ok, and who did you hire?", Naruto asked innocently.
Before the Daimyo could answer, the door opened again, causing everyone to turn towards the door. When the groups of people saw each other, they were immediately on edge.
Naruto examined the group closely. There were two figures in front of six younger figures. He figured they would be Jonin teams. One of the figures in front was a tall and brown skinned man, with black hair and a black beard. The other figure was a slender, white skinned woman with brown hair, crimson eyes and bandages all over her body.
Then he briefly scanned the younger persons behind them. They looked like they were his age. A boy with black pineapple-shaped hair, a chubby boy with brown hair and red marks on his cheeks, and a girl with a platinum blond ponytail. The other group consisted of a boy completely concealed by his jacket and sunglasses, a boy with an enormous dog besides him and a girl with lavender, pupilless eyes.
The worst thing, though, was a single detail.
Naruto tried to calm himself down seeing those headbands.
They were from Konoha, and Naruto knew every single person standing in front of him.
He tried to remember the words he told Tazuna, that he didn't want to kill anyone, but to see those people was a different story than talking about them.
The Konoha-nin were on edge as well. The mercenaries already looked threatening, and especially the masked one with his slashed Konoha headband and his venomous, red-eyed gaze.
Trying to kill the awkward silence, the bearded Konoha-nin coughed to get the Daimyo's attention, and started to talk.
"Team Asuma and Team Kurenai from Konoha. We are here to help you with the Missing-nins."
"Ah yes, Asuma-san. As I already instructed those mercenaries here, we need your help at the bigger camp of those delinquents. Here, those are papers with the instructions to find the camps. Come back here if you need any help, or are finished with your work. Good luck."
Tazuna gave Naruto and Asuma a scroll each, which then left the palace next to each other in awkward silence.
The next thing happening though surprised everyone. The dog walking with the feral looking boy from Kurenai's group walked over to Naruto, causing everyone to stand dead in their tracks. The white dog sniffed Naruto up and down, and started to wiggle his tail violently after some time while barking happily.
The feral boy was the most confused and asked: "Hey Akamaru, what are you doing with this...dude?"
Akamaru barked even more, while Naruto tried to not move at all.
"He looks very happy to see him Kiba, troublesome...", muttered the pineapple-haired boy.
"I can see that Shikamaru, I'm just wondering why. Hey, you there, redhead! Who the hell are you?"
The Jinchuuriki's red-slitted eyes found Kiba's black ones.
"I really don't think I want to talk with you, Kiba.", answered Naruto with a dead voice, spitting out Kiba's name as if it was the vilest thing he could think of. Kiba was one of the worst people he had to handle in his age group. Of course he didn't have any ill feelings towards Akamaru for...obvious reasons, but he is still surprised to be greeted so warmly by him.
"What did you say? Big words for a traitor like you! How dare you even slash that headband, let alone wear it afterwards?"
"I'm not obligated to answer any questions from you, mutt.", countered the mercenary.
"Come here and call me that again!", said Kiba, who stepped towards Naruto.
"K-kiba-kun, w-we shouldn't s-start a fight h-here.", came the timid voice of the lavender-eyed girl.
"Hinata is right Kiba, knock it off!", Kurenai called out to her student, who gritted his teeth, but stopped his tantrum and called back Akamaru.
"Hey, you there! Kiba's right, though. Akamaru likes you, so we should know you. Who are you? And what is the brother or the Kazekage doing here? So troublesome..", asked Shikamaru.
"The brother of the Kazekage? Wait, you are those people, right?", Asuma said, immediately on edge.
"What do you mean 'those people', sensei?", asked the munching voice of the brown-haired boy.
"Well Chouji, I only mean the four people who fought Orochimaru, survived and then annihilated the entire village of his.", the smoker answered, stunning the group from Konoha.
"Ahhh yes, my finest piece of art yet, yeah!", yelled Deidara.
"If you excuse us, I'm here to earn my money, not to talk with the kinds of you.", said Naruto.
His group started to leave towards his destination, before Asuma's voice called out again.
"You're lucky that we met here, and that you seem to be an official Suna mercenary force. I can't ensure our next encounter will go out this peaceful."
The group stood still briefly, and without turning back, the addressed boy answered: "Good, then I'm happy to see you on the battlefield soon."
The groups left into their respective opposite directions, without a conflict. Though, in the far future, a conflict seems to be unavoidable, when the rain turns to blood, and the clouds turn red.
A/N: Sorry that there's only talking in this chapter guys, but I'm trying not to vary my chapters too much in length. Review please, and see you soon.