Hey guys. sorry for the late update but I have been quite sick as of late. here is the next installation of THAB!
Found You.
The flames grew higher as the consumed another torn page from her book. The oils from the paints and various amounts of glue on the paper added fuel to the fire. Whipping about and curling around the pages, the flames danced for joy.
She tore out another page. This one she placed in a pile on her coffee table as one to keep. It was a picture of her dad and herself on her first day as an academy student. These pictures were a treasure and should not be burnt with the rest of her Sasuke obsession. As she flicked through the book, there really was no other way to describe it.
There were "wedding pictures" for crying out loud. Did her parents not see the signs of a dangerous obsession here? Did they not try to encourage her to seek out a boy that was maybe a little less likely to sell her and the fire nation down the river for a tip on his older brother's location?
Of course they had. She just didn't listen. He was still the fallen prince who just needed a loving princess to save him from the darkness. It was now that she was older and wiser that she realized that what he needed was psychiatric help. Not hugs and kisses.
She looked at the thinning book in her hands. So many pages devoted to something that had destroyed her friendship with so many people. Maybe Sasuke was not the only one who needed to see a psychiatrist. She was in need of some serious counselling as well. The first step to any road to recovery was to admit that you had a problem and Sakura's had slapped her in the face big time now. There was no way to keep denying it now.
Sasuke was dead and so was her fantasy. That was not what bothered her though. It was the price that Naruto had paid for her fantasy. How he had kept quiet as the toll grew higher and higher. She had a warning of how much it was costing him when he prophesied that when He and Sasuke fought, both of them would die.
It was with greater urgency now that she tore out more pages and threw them into the metal bucket on her coffee table. These pages would hurt Naruto no more. No one would ever see them again. Once the pages were nothing but ash, she would go look for him. He could be anywhere but there was always hope that he would wait until after the storm had passed that he would try something. She prayed to every God she knew that he would wait, but as the ticking of her clock echoed through the otherwise quiet home, she knew that time was growing short.
She would have been out of there the instant he left had it not been for this cursed book. There was no point in bringing him back if the first thing he saw when he walked in that door was the same book of lovey dovey crap, still sitting on her table. She had to remove everything that was of Sasuke if he was ever to listen to her. She could not do all of that in a few minutes but this book would know her wrath for hurting Naruto the way it had. It was really an attack on herself though. Just as the fire in the metal bucket would cleanse the world of this book, so too would she cleanse herself of Sasuke so that nothing like this would ever happen again.
As she ripped out the last page of her treasured family pictures and placed the safely to the side, she ungracefully dropped the rest of the book into the blazing inferno that was now on her coffee table. It was with satisfaction that she watched it burn, but even these fires could not stop the aching despair that was growing in her chest. She had to find Naruto now! She had to stop him before it was too late.
Leaving the bucket of fire to burn itself out, she grabbed her cloak and pulled on some more durable boots. These ones would hold up to the torrential rain and mud that was likely to hit her as she left her home. The storm had grown stronger when Naruto had left and died down again. She was sure that it would pick up again when she left. As she strode towards her door, she was stopped when someone knocked on it.
A tiny glimmer of hope crossed her mind that it might be Naruto. He had left in such a hurry that he had left a few things behind. Some wet clothes were in the bathroom and his sandals were by the door. Maybe he had come back for them and did not want to just "flash in" with the Hiraishin and grab them before she realized he was there. Naruto was never so rude as that.
Grabbing the door handle and opening it quickly, all her hopes were quickly dashed as Shikamaru stood before her. The rain was starting to come down heavily again and he was looking unusually miserable to be in it. He lifted his head to look into her eyes as he spoke.
"I need to talk to you because I need your help."
Sakura was not wanting to waste time talking to Shikamaru right now. Hokage request or not, she had to find Naruto.
"I can't talk right now. I have something very important to do that even you can't stop me."
Shikamaru had to be cautious with his words. He did not know what was happening between Sakura and Naruto. She could still be upset about the whole Sasuke incident and talks of Naruto in a death like state could go badly if not handled delicately. The report from Kiba and Sai was that she had dropped around this morning at his home but it was decided that since the shield was still up that Naruto had ditched her with a clone. If she had discovered this treachery then she would be fuming at his deceit. He could not let on that Naruto was under surveillance either because that would raise too many questions. He had to tell her what had happened but in the right order so she would co-operate with them.
"I did not say I want to talk to you Sakura. I said that I need to talk with you. Something has happened and we need you to look into it. I don't care if you are busy right now. As the Hokage's order, this takes precedence."
"And as I told you, I have something I have to do and you can not stop me! I have to find HIM!"
Shikamaru paused for a moment as the gears in his head started to turn. Many had doubted his strength but his mind was his greatest weapon. He started to quickly take in the details and deduce what was happening. She had only said two sentences but that told him more than enough.
The fact that she had stated that even an order from the Hokage would not stop her, meant that this person was both trusted and very important to her. She was wearing heavy weather gear. Cloak and boots but her hair was not tied down and she did not have an umbrella. From Ino, he had learnt that Sakura had taken just about as much pride in her appearance as she did and to not care about it right now meant that she was leaving in a hurry. She had also stated that she was looking for a male and judging from the only report he had of the men she kept company with, that could only be one person. Sasuke was dead. Kakashi was away on leave in Kumo. Sai was part of the surveillance team. Naruto was the only one left that she would trust and had recent contact with.
"I know where Naruto is. We need to talk. Can we please go inside? This rain is troublesome."
No sooner had he said those words did Sakura grab him by his collar and drag him inside before slamming him against the wall. This was not done out of anger but anxiousness for answers.
"WHERE IS HE? IS HE OK?!"
"Geez! Calm down Sakura. He is at his apartment and Tsunade is with him."
This was not a lie in a sense but if he told her outright that he was in a coma like state then she would rush off before he could explain what happened. He needed all the information he could get about what had happened from her before he would tell her his side of the story. Only then would he know if she would be an emotional wreck or if she would throw him into the wall again like Neji did.
Sakura seemed to calm down at the knowledge that he was with Tsunade. She was the only one besides herself that she would really trust to look after Naruto had he injured himself. But the presence of Tsunade being there also made her worry more.
"Why is Lady Tsunade there?! What happened to him!?"
The vice like hands were only getting tighter on his Hokage robes and he was starting to see a few stares as this terrifying woman was literally giving him a shake down. He panicked.
"WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! THAT IS WHY WE NEED YOU!"
The pinkette dropped the Hokage and was heading out the door in a second. She had to get to Naruto. She needed to make sure he was alright.
Shikamaru was a bit dazed at having been dropped on the floor but was quick to rise back to his feet. As he looked to the open door and the rain that was pouring in, he knew where she was headed and ran after her.
From his perch on the cliff edge, blue eyes watched in morbid fascination as wave after wave of men and women crashed into each other. Their cries of frustration and anger were only drowned out by those of pain and agony. Over the cacophony of screams, the roar of paper bombs being detonated hurt his ears. Great pillars of fire shot towards the heavens as the explosions rocked the earth and people disappeared into the hellish inferno. Arrows filled the sky and rained down on those who survived the blasts.
Sword was met with spear. Fist met jaw. Dagger was blocked by tanto. Shuriken and kunai met the arrows in the sky and redirected them towards a new target. The land was so filled with the dead and dying that those who ran to fight the enemy would trip over the fallen and become victim themselves. There was no grace or style in this fight. It was hack and slash, punch and kick, club and crush.
The people on the ground held no remorse or hesitation as they fought, tooth and nail, for every bit of land in what Naruto could see from his position, as a never ending slaughter.
The screams and meaty thuds as the bodies hit the floor were horrifying, but any man who had seen battle knew that this was what war truly was. Many wise Generals spoke of honour on the battlefield and compassion for your enemy but the truth was that even the greatest idealist was no match for the grim reality of a sword heading towards you. It was kill or be killed until you grow tired and are cut down anyway. There was no honour in real war. Only agonizing death for the one who hesitated.
As he watched the scene below, trying to find Sasuke in the mess of blood and carnage, a few peculiarities caught his eyes.
There was one man, who he could have sworn was just killed, running head first into the enemy again. Sword raised above his head and screaming, he swung down and cleaved a man in two. At this moment, an opening was created and the bifurcated man's comrade took it to stab the attacker with his spear. Bleeding, he fell to his knees, the spear was ripped from his chest and he fell forward dead.
Not a few moments after this man's death, did Naruto hear that same distinct battle cry and see him again, running towards the enemy with his sword raised. This time he was hit by an arrow to the leg and a "scavenger" crept to him and slit his throat. Again, he died.
However, once again he was charging towards his opponents with a spear this time. Naruto looked around him and noticed more people who had been killed were back up and fighting. It seemed as if when they were killed that they would come back to life at their home lines and grab a weapon before charging out again. Millions of people fighting and dying only to be brought back to die again. It was truly a never ending war.
Another thing that caught his attention was that none of these soldiers were using chakra. Not a single one of them. They were not even trying to run along a wall or jump higher. There were no elemental techniques or even basic Gennin practices. It was hand to hand fighting or weapons with exploding tags.
Naruto looked at his hand for a moment and formed a Rasengan. Just a small one to test his theory, but when the blue swirling sphere came to his hand, he was more confused than ever. Why did they not use chakra? He could use it, why couldn't they?
The last thing he noticed was the great open door at the side of the arena of death. This door looked ancient but untouched by the ravages of war. It was open for all to pass through and could easily allow an escape for these people. They did not have to fight. They could all just leave. Why then, did they stay?
Naruto had to make a choice if he wanted to continue to look for Sasuke. It was a war below and he needed to choose a side. He did not think that it really mattered in all of this chaos. It was hard enough to pick which side most men came anyway. There were no markings as to alliances. Everything was just glorified chaos.
Flipping a coin in his mind, he chose the left side; it really didn't matter to him. If Sasuke was not down there then he would change sides and if he still could not find him, he would move on through the great doorway.
After making his decision, he leaped from the cliff face and fell towards the ground. With a tuck and a roll when he hit, he stood and made his way towards the rear lines.
NxS
Sakura was running through the rain quickly. She would forego the cover of buildings for the speed that roof hopping gave. As lightning crashed the sky and illuminated her path, she could only pray that he really was alright. Her master was there with him and there was little that Sakura could do that Tsunade couldn't. Why would they request her specifically then?
Such thoughts were only a distraction right now. She would get to him first and then she would figure out such things. Finally after an agonizing three minutes of roof hopping, she made it to his building.
Jumping down to the open balcony of doors that lined his floor, she ran to his door and burst through it. What met her eyes was the worst thing she had ever seen.
Naruto was chained to a stone slab altar in the middle of the dark room. His wrists were still bloody and his eyes half open in an expression that she had seen in those who had died painfully on the battlefield. There was not the peaceful look in his eyes as some who had died on an operating table during surgery. Rather than that, it was the gaze of a tortured man who had his life ripped from him.
Running towards his still form that was sprawled on the cold stone, she howled in tears. She could not hide her breaking heart from the world and would not give the world the satisfaction of making her hide it either. Tears streamed her face and her throat was starting to grow raw from her crying. Her hands were shaking him as she tried to wake him, only for him to fall limp when she let go.
"Na-naruto… PLEASE! ..NO! …WAKE UP NARUTO!"
She was like a child again. So powerless and so frightened. Naruto was always there for her. A life with him gone was impossible to even comprehend. He was cold to her touch and unresponsive to her calls.
There was movement in the room but she didn't care. She was too late to save him.
He marched with his head high to the rear soldiers guarding the flank. As he approached, they raised their weapons to him. Naruto simply raised his Naginata and stabbed the blunt end into the earth, burying it so it could stand on its own. He stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. Who is your commanding officer?"
"I AM!" came the reply from a man twice Naruto's height. The man was a giant and solid muscle. His chest was bare and on his shoulders was a club the size of a horse. It had to weigh over fifty tons. Only a monster of a man could move it. Naruto felt he would meet a lot of men like this in his travels through Hell.
"I am looking for a man. He claims to be the Last Uchiha. Do you know him?"
"Why should I tell a pipsqueak like you? You are not even big enough to serve as fodder for the arrows that are coming in!" The giant laughed.
"You should not go by appearances you know. You may look tough but are clearly not a soldier or else you would be out on the front lines and not hiding behind your men. A guard is only good enough to sound an alarm before dying. Anyone of great fighting prowess is used for the war itself. Even a monkey would know that."
Naruto's snide remark was met exactly how he would expect a brute to respond. The man charged him and swung his club down at the blond in a blind rage. He saw the blow coming but didn't make a move. The massive steel lump hit the ground and buried itself into the earth, cracks from the resulting crater spread out like a spider's web.
"Heh, Guess I squished that bug!" He laughed
It was then that all the years that Naruto's training under Kakashi kicked in as he looked down from the man's burly shoulder and asked in a bored tone "Oh really? Where?"
The man lifted his giant steel club to check that Naruto indeed was not under it and that this man sitting on his shoulder was not a doppelganger.
"How! How did you..!?"
He was cut off as Naruto dropped a clenched fist on the man's head, like he would if he was trying to crush a nut on a table counter. It was only a light tap really but the man's eye went white and he fell face first into the dirt, unconscious.
Naruto sighed as he left the fallen man on the ground and moved back towards his Naginata. Plucking it from the ground, he started to twirl it above his head before dropping the blunt end into the ground again. This time the ground all around them shook and great cracks coursed through the earth before climbing up the stone cliff. A large section of the cliff tumbled and fell to the ground in a great cloud of dust.
"Now… let me finish my introduction…" He said in a calm voice.
"My name it Uzumaki Naruto… I am the Toad Sage…"
He again pulled his Naginata from the ground but this time started to walk towards the group of men that was now amassing at the sight of their fallen General.
"..I am the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki…"
His voice was growing cold and he chose now to flare his chakra. The great waves of energy were now flowing around the blonde man.
"…I am the Demon of the Hidden Leaf…"
All those around him took a small step back as he neared them. No one had chakra here. Not even those who claimed to be the leaders of this war had chakra. What the hell was this man if not a real demon!?
"…And I want to know…"
Naruto stopped and looked them all dead in the eye. His voice was cold as ice and he gave off the aura of a murderous beast.
"…WHERE IS SASUKE UCHIHA!?"
Naruto was sick of playing the nice guy and not being given any respect. All his life he was treated like a demon and now that he was in Hell with all these other criminals, if they wanted a demon… they would get one. He was not going to go nice on those who stood in his way. Such was the nature of the battlefield. You had to be tougher than nails if you wanted to survive.
One of the men who was close to wetting himself pointed a finger to the opposing side.
"I…I..I think he ..is on that side… Naruto-sama!"
The man was visibly shaking in fear. Death down here meant nothing to anyone. You would be brought back after a few moments. The fear was not of dying but of the pain of dying and how many creative ways people around here had come up with. This man before him, had just taken out one of those self-appointed Generals and now wanted to know where another man was. He had no idea of where this "Sasuke" was but if he could direct the aggression towards the enemy then at least it was not aimed at them.
"What is this war about? Who is fighting who? And for what reasons?"
Naruto's question stumped a lot of the men that were around him. In truth, none of them had even thought about it. Again, the same man spoke up.
"We.. we don't know sir. We only fight them because they fight us. There is really no one is command. Only those who deem themselves strong enough to be general take charge. We have been fighting for years and never really made any progress. All that we know is that they killed our guys so we are going to kill the double for it!"
"Yeah! That's right! Those animals have killed thousands of our guys! We HAVE to kill them! To avenge our men and our honour!"
"LEAD US UZUMAKI-SAMA!"
A round of cheers was raised as cries of how the great Uzumaki-sama would lead them to victory spread.
Naruto nodded his head to the man and leapt into the air, headed for the front lines. All the men around had breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone and would not kill them but secretly wanted to thank him for taking out "Kuzamu-sama" who was now unconscious on the ground. He really was just a tyrant, hiding behind the lines as a "guard".
As Naruto made a run for the front lines, the words of the men behind him started to sink in. This war was a war without purpose. It was the embodiment of the cycle of hate that his master had taught him to be wary of. One man attacks another and kills him. The dead man's friends seek justice for their friend's death, a reasonable thing. But was one life truly worth another? The second man's death sparked HIS friends to seek out Justice for his death as well. The more people who are killed, the less satisfied the living are with the end result and so seek out more "Justice" and more people die. Eventually, everyone is affected and the dispute becomes a war. A cycle of death and hatred. A world of chaos.
This place was what could have happened to his home had someone not intervened to stop the conflict. Most wars were stopped by a single battle that turned the tides unmistakably in the others favour and forced a truce before one or both sides were destroyed. A truce was not peace however. It was enforced obedience. Obey our terms or die.
Resentment and hate was still just below the surface and only grew as the years went by, each side just biding their time as they secretly amassed armies to start the war all over.
Naruto knew of only two ways to get both factions to stop fighting and work together for peace. One way was for both sides to swallow their pride and forget about "honour" and hatred and put it behind them to start a new. This was next to impossible. Years of hate and war could not be forgotten overnight. Treaties that were signed were, in the end, just pieces of paper. No one could really make peace this way. It just went against human nature.
There was one other way that did work and had worked back in the realm of the living. That was a common enemy. A third party that entered the fray and declared itself a combatant of great strength. So strong that only by fusion of the previous warring parties could they defeat it. That was what had happened with Akatsuki.
Naruto snapped out of his thoughts as he reached the centre of the conflict. Closing in on the front line, he jumped up into the air again and swung his Naginata down into the ground, causing an earthquake. This took a lot of chakra and a fair bit of control. He was basically stealing Tsunade's move here but he needed to get everyone's attention. The ground shook violently and everyone in the centre was thrown back by the shockwave.
Before they could reorganise to attack each other again, Naruto ran through some handsigns and kicked the ground. The resulting effect was a great stone wall rising from the earth and separating the two warring factions.
With a great voice he called out to them.
"THAT IS ENOUGH!"
A lot of the fighters looked outraged that someone would dare to intrude on their battles. How dare this whelp show up and tell them what to do.
"THIS WAR IS TO END NOW! FOR YEARS YOU HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR NO REASON AT ALL AND I AM HERE TO TELL YOU IT STOPS TODAY!"
"And who are you to state such things?!" A voice called out from the masses.
With these words, Naruto formed ten shadow clones and had them stand along the wall. All of them started to work on their own Oodama Rasengan. The line of great spheres were then moved together and merged to form a single Oodama Rasengan. All ten clones were working to keep this monstrous chakra ball stable. The great Rasengan now stood at high as the wall on top of it. Its blaring hum of destruction was just waiting to be released at a moment's notice.
"I AM THE DEMON OF THE LEAF AND THE ONE WHO CONTROLS HOW YOU DIE!"
If his words did not have everyone's attention then the swirling mass of death that was now roaring above them did.
"THIS CHAKRA BOMB WILL CLEAR YOU ALL OFF THE FACE OF THIS REALM IN AN INSTANT! I AM ORDERING YOU TO THROW DOWN YOUR ARMS AND YOUR HATRED, LESS YOU FEEL MY WRATH! THERE IS A WORLD BEYOND THIS WAR THAT IS WAITING FOR YOU! THE DOOR IS THERE FOR YOU. YOU JUST HAVE TO WALK THROUGH IT!
It was this moment that a few of the people on the ground actually took the time to look around and see the giant door to the side of them. So busy had they been with fighting that the great door was simply forgotten. Many of them put their weapons down the moment they saw it and ran for the door. So happy to be free of this world. They did not know what lay beyond the great door but anything had to be better than this.
At the site of most of the forces laying down their weapons and starting to leave, did Naruto allow his chakra bomb to dissipate. He had no intentions of actually using it. It was just a threat to get people to open up their eyes and see the door before them. Now that the fighting was over, he could ask where Sasuke was.
Sakura felt a hand on her shoulder but did not register it until it started to pull her away from the dead man. She was too distraught let him go. All those things that she had said had finally come back to bite her. He had gone and done it.
Years of pushing him away had brought him to this state he was in. The rain outside the room felt like it might as well be a light shower compared to the tears she was shedding for this man. He was so far away now.
As she was pulled from the body and into a chair in the corner of the room, a powerful slap crossed her face. Pain registered from the external source and so did the words that were being shouted at her.
"HE IS ALIVE YOU IDIOT!"
Through blurry eyes she saw the ticked off face of her master. The sting of her face at the blow was now covering the whole side of her face and as she ran her tongue around inside her mouth, she thought she could taste blood. The full force of the slap now was realized and the woman dropped out of the chair clutching her face and curled up on the floor.
"OOOOWW! THAT HURT!"
Sakura was so stunned by the whole thing that she forgot for a moment that she could alleviate the pain herself with a healing technique.
Tsunade just rolled her eyes at the young woman writhing in agony on the floor before pulling her up onto the chair again and healing her "bruised" cheek herself. Granted, she did hit the girl a bit hard but she was tired of telling her that he was not dead for the past ten minutes with little result.
"Why did you hit me so hard?"
"Because you wouldn't shut up! I swear, you are as loud as Naruto was when YOU were unconscious in hospital!"
At the mention of his name, Sakura looked back at the blonde on the stone table and felt like she was going to cry again.
"So.. so he isn't dead?"
"Yeah.. that is what I have been trying to tell you for the past fifteen minutes. What kind of medic are you? Use your diagnostic skills before you declare someone dead next time!"
Sakura could not believe that she had made such a stupid mistake. She was one of the finest medics in fire country. It was just that when it came to Naruto that she fell apart. There was an unsaid rule among surgeons though, that you do not operate on family or friends. Your emotions can influence your decisions during a procedure.
Getting up from her chair, she edged towards the deathly still blonde and placed her hand on his neck and found the artery. Gently beneath her fingers, she could feel the pulse of his heart. It was the most beautiful thing that she had ever felt. Moving her hand up to his nose, she felt the warm breeze of air flowing from his nostrils. She turned back to her master with a great smile.
"He IS alive!"
Tsunade snorted and crossed her arms.
"What? You doubted my ability to tell if someone is alive or dead? Impudent child!"
She would not let Sakura discover that she was in a similar state when she first found him like that. That was one of the things that she would die first before revealing. Still, they needed to get to work.
"Sakura, I want you to run a full diagnostic on him. Check everything and tell me what you find."
Sakura nodded and quickly removed her cloak and hung it behind the door before getting to work. Her hand started to glow as the green chakra flowed from it and into the unconscious blonde. Her face contorted as she ran her diagnostic sweep over him and just as Tsunade had done, she paused over his forehead before running over him again to find the same results.
"He is comatose."
Tsunade nodded with her arms still crossed and her eyes closed in contemplation.
"Just as I had deduced."
"He also has muscular spasms that are in synchronisation with each other. His muscles are pulling him in all directions and trying to rip his body apart. They are equally balanced however and cancel each other out. That is why he is in such a contorted position."
Sakura placed her hand on a pressure point towards the top of his neck and the blonde's whole body just flopped to a more relaxed position. Even his face turned to one that was more resting than screaming.
"I also can't seem to find any of his chakra or life energy. I feel the Kyuubi's but not his. What does that mean?"
"I don't know Sakura but that is what we need you to find out."
Shikamaru entered from the side window and made his way to Naruto's desk. He was drenched from the rain and was looking miserable. He may have been the smartest in the village and the best for negotiations and treaties but that did not make him as fast as a crazed kunoichi. Tsunade was starting to wonder about her choice at making him Hokage.
"These piles of scrolls and papers are all that we found when we broke in. We can't quite understand it. It is all kinds of nonsense. We need you to go through it all and help us make some sense of what he was working on. It would take us weeks to just go through these files, let alone figure it out and I don't think we have that much time."
He pointed to the hourglass that was at the head of the stone altar. The black sands were still running through the fine glass funnel and pooling in a pile below.
"Whatever he did, he put a timer on it. We don't know what will happen when that timer runs out but we need to figure it out. It could be that he wakes up on his own or it could be that he will die. These are the two extremes but the point is that it could be anything. We just don't know. We don't even know if the answer is in these papers, but it is our best shot."
Shikamaru could see the worried look on Sakura's face as she eyed the hourglass. The mention of Naruto dying was meant to motivate her into action but she looked like she was just going to cry again. He watched as she moved closer to him and started to stroke his hair. It was a thing she had picked up when she was watching over him for that week before Sasuke showed up. He took it as a sign that the old Sakura was back.
The young medic pulled away from Naruto and spoke with a determined if somewhat forced voice.
"Well, tears and regret are not going to help him much are they? Let's get to work then!"
To everyone's surprise, Sakura put her hands into a cross formation and called out in a firm voice.
"Shadow clone Technique!"
Two more "Sakuras" appeared in a cloud of smoke and made their way towards the mountain of scrolls on the desk. She had a long night ahead of her and these two would certainly help. One clone picked up a scroll that was marked "Seals for Dummies" while the other found one marked as "The Cult of Sparrow."
"It was one of the last things he taught me to do. He taught it to me as a chakra building exercise but warned me never to make more than two."
There was an air or sad nostalgia in her voice as she explained. Shikamaru and Tsunade just nodded before moving to the desk and picking out a book. This was going to be a long night.
Naruto stood on his wall as he oversaw the procession of people make their way to the door. They were happy and almost celebrating to be free from the fighting. Some had spent hundreds of years; battling for no reason other than "they started it." It was really cause for celebration that they were no longer needed to fight. The door was wide open and all could go free. It just seemed too good to be true.
Naruto frowned as he watched the masses move through the door. He had not seen Sasuke yet but what he had seen had worried him greatly.
Not everyone had taken to the whole "lay down your weapons and move on" idea as well as he had hoped. The way things were going really was too good to be true and the distrustful eyes of those that neared the door made him wonder. They were smiling and cheering as they made their way to the exit, but in their pockets were hidden knives and paper bombs. The tension between the two sides only grew as both sides needed to walk side by side to exit through the doorway.
It really was a bottleneck and a small spark of hostility could set the fighting off again. It really did not take that long.
A man was a bit too eager to get out and bumped into the guy to his right. It was only a light bump, but it was enough to annoy the other man.
"Hey… Watch it Pal.. Wait your turn!"
"Yeah! there is plenty of time for you and your side to go through! Keep back!"
"Don't tell us to stay back! We have just as much right to go through as you do!"
An argument was brewing as to who had first right to exit through the door. Naruto could not reach it in time to quell it before it spread.
"THEY ARE TRYING TO KEEP US FROM LEAVING!"
"GET THEM AWAY FROM THE DOOR! OUR SIDE SHOULD LEAVE FIRST!"
"STOP THEM! THEY ARE TRYING TO BLOCK THE DOORWAY!"
Suddenly there was a scream as one of the people pulled out his knife to emphasise his point. The act of drawing a knife led to a mad scurry back to the fallen weapons on the ground. The drawing of weapons led to the use of them. War had broken out again. Fighting was so engrained into their way of life now that to do anything but that was foreign. They could not just let it go and move on. Hate had consumed them.
From the crowds of soldiers on either side of the wall, came a barrage of arrows and kunai, each laced with an exploding tag. These projectiles dug themselves into the stone wall that separated the two armies and blew the structure to rubble. As the wall came down beneath Naruto's feet, He jumped from his position and landed on the ground. Naruto stood and watched as his last hope for a peaceful outcome went down in a cloud of dust.
Men and women were already clambering over the rubble in an attempt to kill one another. The contempt in their eyes was palpable and their blades were already moving through the flesh of their opponents. Screams filled the air and the bombardment of projectiles with exploding tags was started again. Fires raged and blood pooled into the ground again.
There was just no way to stop the fighting. He was a fool to try and change Hell. This was a world that was made to bring out the worst in you. A world of suffering and pain.
A swarm of arrows descended on Naruto's position as he got his bearings again. With a swing of his Naginata, he blew away the arrows with a gust of wind. The arrows landed a few feet away from him and Naruto started as he heard the hiss of a paper bomb fuse. He dashed to the side as the great blast destroyed the ground where he was just standing. Shards of rock rained down from the sky, having been blown upwards.
A loud roar came from his left and he turned to see a cluster of men running towards him. The one in the lead thrust his spear at him but Naruto parried it away with his Naginata before twirling around to catch him with the broad side of his blade and flinging the man to the side. Another man jumped behind Naruto with his sword above his head and was just about to swing down when Naruto drew the Naginata back and drove the blunt end of the pole into the man's gut.
The third was a woman and Naruto thought it unfortunate that she would be the first to taste the actual steel of his weapon. He always did hesitate at the thought of harming a woman. He drove the blade into the ground by her feet and pushed down on the end of the pole causing it to bend under the pressure. The woman was drawing her yumi bow when the ground below her gave way and the spring that the pole had, caused the blade to shoot upwards at tremendous speed, cleaving her in two from groin to shoulder.
Her bow fired and the arrow shot past Naruto's neck and killed the next fool that decided to try and take him from behind. Naruto then swung the pole blade in a wide horizontal ark and sprayed the blood of the fifth persons slit throat as the steel edge glided cleanly through.
The pole blade was truly a terrifying weapon in the hands of a master and Naruto was no novice. He had spent thousands of shadow clones, learning the finer arts of weapons training. Tenten had told him that the true masters of a weapon were old men who were self-trained. They had created a pure technique of their own that was individual to them and mastered it, but were too old to use it as they would when they were young and fit.
When a technique was passed on to a student however, even the best teachers could not pass on every detail and so what was passed on was more of the gist of it. This meant that the pure technique was corrupted by a new master and only a fraction of the power that the original creator had achieved. The paradox came in that by the time that the creator had mastered it, he was old and frail. There were no true masters who had ever reached perfection of a style while still being young. Naruto was the exception to the rule though.
He had the ability with his shadow clones to cram fifty years of study and training into just one year. He had lived and trained with his weapon and had made the years of experience into an unstoppable fighting style that not even a sharingan could copy perfectly. With his Naginata in his hands, he could stop armies and dominate countries if he wanted to.
A tingling feeling was on the back of his neck and he closed his eyes in meditation of the style as he swung around and blocked the blade that had been heading for his spine. He opened his eyes and looked into the black irises of his opponent.
"Found you … Sasuke"
Wow... He found him rather quickly didn't he? Who would have thought that it would be that easy... -insert evil laugh here- ...oh well, I guess we will have to wait to find out what happens next! Thankyou to all my wonderful followers for the reviews and words of encouragement! Thankyou so much you guys and gals!...wait.. are there any girls reading this? eh... who cares. TO THE PARADOX CAVE, ROBIN! -cutscene music-
Please review if you feel moved to do so. I will have you know that I wrote this all in one sitting. There were a lot of cups of tea and even a bag of crisps involved.