Disclaimer: I do not own either Avatar the last air bender or Naruto… Would be interesting if I did oh well back to the story.
Chapter 10 -
Naruto woke up with a familiar weight on his chest. He smiled knowing that it was Hinata. Aang woke up in a position that he was not familiar with, namely with Katara's arm wrapped around his waist.
"Morning beautiful." Naruto said quietly with a kiss.
"Hn… Morning…" Hinata said with a yawn, she then snuggled into Naruto's chest. "I love you Naruto-kun"
"Finally! You're awake!" Sokka yells, waking Katara who looked at Aang and blushed.
"You are even louder than me. And that is saying something." Naruto says with a chuckle. Hinata giggles as she continued to snuggle with Naruto. Naruto starts to forget what he wanted to tell Sokka as Hinata kissed him which he returned with just as much passion.
"Jeez, is that all you do? Just kiss?" Sokka asked frustrated and annoyed.
Naruto got a big grin on his face as he turned to Sokka. Hinata sensing what he was up too whispered into Naruto's ear. "Don't you dare Naruto-kun."
Naruto frowned and kissed Hinata. "But Hinata-chan he is complaining about us kissing."
"Let the poor boy be we need to discuss something with him anyways." Hinata reminded Naruto.
Naruto immediately became serious. "Sokka we have to talk."
Sokka let out a loud gulp.
Sokka then looked serious. "Don't tell me. You are a demon but you are going to tell me that you do not want to eat me." Sokka then plastered a huge grin on his face hoping for a few laughs.
The room was silent as Naruto mood changed to being very sad as Hinata hugged Naruto.
"Hey! I was just kidding. You are not a demon. Heck they don't even exist." Sokka said as he tried to liven the mood.
Naruto shook his head as tears fell. "No Sokka. Demons do exist." Naruto raised his head as he showed his feral state, eyes red with a slit in each, wild hair and darkened whisker marks. "I am not a demon but I do posses one."
Sokka looked very scared. "You are not going to eat me are you?"
"No he is not. Sokka get a grip of yourself." Katara said angrily.
Sokka then looked at Naruto and saw the tears. "Are you crying? Why are you crying?"
"I was afraid you will hate me for containing a demon." Naruto said as his features returned to normal.
"Hate you? Why would I hate you? We have the Avatar and now we have access to a demon. Now we can take on the whole Fire Nation and win." Sokka said with a satisfied smile.
"Naruto-kun is not ready to do a war for you. We also do not know if everything you say is true about the Fire Nation." Hinata said angrily glaring at Sokka.
"Sokka he is not a demon, he is its jailor. And I only know how to bend air right now. I still need to find teachers to teach me how to bend the other elements. So we are not ready to fight the Fire Nation." Aang said sadly.
"Aang and Hinata are right Sokka. So listen and shut up. You are upsetting Naruto." Katara glared daggers at Sokka.
Sokka knew when he was beat and hung his head in defeat. "I am sorry Naruto, please continue."
Naruto nodded. "As we told you before there are things that we would not tell you yet. Well we are going to tell them to you now." Naruto waited for Sokka to nod. "We are from a different place, I am not sure if it is a different plain or planet, I just don't know. Where come from a place where there are demons, and yes they are very real. One attacked my village the day I was born. My father in order to protect the village sealed this demon inside of me. When I get really emotional as you saw I show some of the traits of the demon. I can use and mold it's chakra but I am not the demon. Does that help you any?"
Sokka nodded.
"The reason for my exile was also partly because I was the container of the demon. I have never hurt those of the village but they did hurt me. So many times I lost count." The last sentence was only a whisper. "I did as I was told and was punished for it. I may never become Hokage now." Naruto slumped over as tears dripped onto the ground.
"Oh Naruto-kun. If we get back I am sure we can figure a way to get that done together, my love." Hinata said as she rubbed Naruto's back.
Sokka looked down and put a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Sorry man, I didn't mean to make fun of you. I really didn't know you had a demon sealed within you. I am really sorry. I know we have a long road ahead of us but I just thought…" Sokka didn't finish the thought. "Sorry."
Hinata weakly smiled. "We know. It is just an open wound that is slowly healing. Naruto-kun, let's go outside and spar some."
Naruto nodded wiping his eyes and walking outside with Hinata. The others followed him. Naruto took up a loose stance while Hinata took up a juken stance. Naruto took a deep breath and then shot forward. His right hand shot at Hinata's face but was blocked by her left hand. She sent her right hand at Naruto's exposed right side. Naruto spun to his left and avoided it while he swung his left hand high, which she promptly ducked. Naruto right foot came up then down but was blocked by Hinata's right arm as she did a foot sweep that sent Naruto to the ground. He rolled out of it into a standing pose smiling.
"Feeling better Naruto-kun?" Hinata said flirtatiously as she smiled at Naruto.
"Much better Hinata-hime, thank you. Is that enough for a warm up?" Naruto asked as Hinata nodded. They again started to trade blows but this time only Aang could follow the speed at which they were striking. Naruto and Hinata continued for another thirty minutes. Both stopped suddenly and bowed to each other then embraced in a passionate kiss. Sokka watched with his mouth hung open the whole time. Katara watched and then blushed when the kissed. Aang smiled at the spar.
"You guys were incredible. Is that some of the jutsu we talked about?" Aang asked in an excited voice.
Naruto and Hinata finally broke the kiss and looked at Aang as if bewildered. "That was taijutsu. Both the strong and gentle fist techniques. Hinata is of course better than I am in taijutsu. I am sure you have taijutsu. What styles do you have?" Naruto asked smiling at Aang while still a little out of breath.
"Well there are four styles that I know of. Each corresponds to an element. I know how the air style works if you like I could teach you." Aang responded smiling. "You might even be able to bend air if we are lucky."
Naruto smiled. "I do have wind affinity to my chakra so I am slanted to wind type jutsu. Hinata has a water affinity so she is more apt to water." Naruto said then seemed to have an idea. "We can help you figure out how to mold chakra and then we can find your affinity. Then we can train you to use jutsu. While Hinata can watch you bend and then we can figure out how and if we can also learn to bend the elements."
"That is a great idea." Aang said excitedly.
Hinata activated her Byakugan and watch Aang and Katara do some bending. "It is their chakra grabbing hold of the element and then using that element. Naruto release some chakra from your hand and with that chakra move your hand in a slicing pattern."
Naruto released come chakra from his hand and made a slicing motion. But nothing happened. "Hinata-chan, nothing happened."
"Naruto use your wind chakra this time." Hinata said as she watched.
Naruto concentrated then moved his arm and a small breeze came from his hand. Everyone's jaws dropped. Naruto continued to play with airbending for the rest of the day with Aang watching and trying to correct him when he was not doing the bending correctly.
Naruto smiled at Aang. "This is harder than it looks."
"You are making it look easy. I have been doing airbending for about nine years or so and was not able to bend air as quickly as you have when I first was taught. I think you and I should train so that I can improve and you can learn how to properly airbend." Aang said with a smile.
Hinata and Katara watched as the boys started to do airbender kata. After watching for about ten minutes Hinata walked over to a pond and stood on the surface. Katara just looked on in awe.
Suddenly small balls of water came up from the water and started to surround Hinata in a hemisphere shape. She started to move her arms and the water balls would break apart then reform. Her arms would move around her in graceful sweeps. Hinata increased the speed of her arms. First an after image of a second arm appeared. Hinata started to breathe heavily but continued for about three minutes then the water all flew away from her. Hinata then sunk to her knees and panted heavily.
"You have it almost down but still need to build stamina, don't you Hinata-chan?" Naruto commented with a huge smile while continuing the kata Aang was teaching him.
Hinata panted heavily but answered. "Yes, Naruto-kun, I am almost there. Also the water is freezing, and is taking a lot of energy to keep warm and also work with it." Hinata stood with a wobble and walked back to the shore of the pond.
Katara grabbed Hinata's arm as she got to the shore. "That was amazing."
Sokka looked dejected. "Great another bender. Am I the only NORMAL person here?"
"Guess so." Both Aang and Naruto said as one. This caused them both to laugh and lose track of the kata.
Katara and Hinata both giggled. "Hinata if Naruto can learn air bending and you seem to be able to use water. I don't see any reason you can't learn to waterbend. Would you like that? When we get to the North Pole we can learn from a master. But until then we can work together on waterbending. I will train you with what I know." Katara said while smiling at Hinata.
"That sounds good. We will in turn teach you how to use jutsu. But first we will have to work on your chakra." Hinata said smiling as she was able to get her breath more under control.
"Ok that is first set of kata, Naruto. Tomorrow we will work on the second set. There are sixteen in all." Aang said as he bowed to Naruto. "You are an excellent student."
"Thank you Aang-sensei." Naruto said as he returned the bow. "Now let's get over to the girls and work on your chakra and helping you learn the hand signs for leaning jutsu. But first… Shadow clone jutsu." Five Naruto appear and start working on the kata. "Now that will help me commit it to memory so that I can train my muscles later."
"I have to learn that one. Hey you didn't use a hand sign to do that jutsu. How did you do it?" Aang asked in surprise.
"Well when you get used to a jutsu, you eventually will not need to use hand signs to do it. As you can mentally form the chakra without the help of the hand signs. Right Hinata-chan?" Naruto smiled as he scratched his head and asked Hinata.
"Yes Naruto-kun. Ok all of you come here. Yes even you Sokka, you may just be able to do jutsu." Hinata said with a smile.
Sokka walked over to the rest of the group.
"Ok the first thing is that chakra is the energy that comes from our body's cells and it is also spiritual energy. Now I am going to give you a crash course in this so if you miss something ask." Hinata started to lecture.
"Sure… What are we doing?" Sokka asked incredulously.
Hinata ignored Sokka's comments, and continued. The next few hours were filled with what chakra was and how it was accessed and used. Surprisingly Sokka had an easier time with learning to focus his chakra than the others and he had had not training. Aang and Katara had to learn from scratch how to access their chakra as they were not used to doing this in any other way than by force of will. And they had been more focused on learning bending. Thus they had to learn two ways to work with chakra, and figure out how not to mix them up.
The next day Hinata and Naruto again began with their morning sparring match. Again they seemed to be evenly matched but Hinata was surprised when Naruto started to avoid attacks that would normally hit. Also his movements were not what she had come to expect from the love of her life. They stopped when he seemed to be able to avoid a lot of her attacks in a row.
"Naruto-kun? What was that?" Hinata asked as Naruto shrugged. "Did you add some moves to your taijutsu?"
"I don't know. Sorry Hinata-chan. Did I do something wrong?" Naruto said with a sorry look on his face.
"No Naruto-kun, you have been able to avoid more than the usual number of attacks. You have suddenly improved. Were you using some of the moves you learned from Aang?" Hinata asked barely able to contain her excitement.
"I don't know, it just felt right to use the maneuvers I used." Naruto said but was surprised when he was tackled by a smiling Hinata. She then smothered him with kisses.
Sokka came out and noticed them on the ground kissing. "Get a room you two." He turned and was thrown into a wall by a gust of wind. "Ouch! Aang why did you hit me with airbending?"
Aang walked out of the building scratching his head and yawning. "What do you mean Sokka? I just got up."
"But… but… but…" Sokka stuttered.
"What is Sokka complaining about?" Katara asked Aang as she came out after him.
Aang shrugged. "I don't know."
Training continued the rest of the day. The group left on Appa the next morning after training. They traveled for a week until they entered a town near the coast. They were found by a group of fire nation soldiers.
"Halt you are all under arrest in the name of the Fire Lord!" One of the soldiers yelled.
"Fire Lord? Fire Nation or Fire Country?" Naruto said as he got into a stance and looked at the fire emblems on their armor. The emblem was always a flame never a leaf. "Guess we are not near Konoha anymore…" Naruto whispered sadly.
"Fire Country? There is no Fire Country. Why do you insult the Fire Nation? For that you will die." The soldier moved into a fighting stance and extended his hand forward. A stream of fire left his fist and headed towards Naruto.
Naruto smiled. He shifted two meters to his right and two meters closer to the soldier in less than a second. "Could you hit me if I were closer?"
The angered soldier performed several hand thrusts sending fire balls at Naruto. He continued to dodge them deftly. "Hold still child and I will end your ignorance!" The soldier yelled.
Naruto was finally right in front of the soldier. "Man you are barely making me sweat with your weak attacks. Here maybe you can hit two targets. Shadow clone jutsu!" A second Naruto appears and started working on creating a Rasengan in Naruto's right hand.
"Holding still, you're making this too easy." The soldier said with a smile.
The soldier thrust his hand but was caught by Naruto's left hand. "You had your chance to hit me. You were too slow." Naruto produced a foxy grin. "My turn. RASENGAN!" Naruto yelled as he hit the soldier in the stomach with the rasengan, sending him spinning into the other dozen soldiers like waiting bowling pins. "Guess it is time to go. Ok, I got a dozen soldiers, how many did you get Sokka?" Naruto said as he walked over to and into Appa's saddle.
Sokka smacked his forehead. "How am I supposed to compete with that? I can barely do a clone. You can make shadow clones and that rasengan thingy."
"I can train you how to do it. But it took my dad three years to develop it." Naruto said as Appa took off heading out towards the ocean and away from the town they had just left.
"Three years? Hmm… How long did it take you to master it?" Sokka asked.
"Well, with the shadow clone, I was able to master it in a month." Naruto said as he sat in the saddle next to Hinata who kissed him on the cheek and smiled. Sokka just let his mouth hang open in shock.
"Naruto you know that was the fifth patrol that you beat single handedly. You might end up with a higher price on your head than me." Aang said as he laughed. "I wonder how Zuko is doing."
Several hundred miles away Zuko is going over a map it has several lines that zigzag around the island that has the southern air temple. "Uncle, what is the Avatar up too?"
Iroh smiled. "Well either he is a military genius or he is taking a tour of the lands. Either way we got off lucky with our last encounter. He only damaged the ship. General Zahn has lost about forty men to injuries when dealing with the Avatar and his party. We need to work more on your technique if you want to have any hope of defeating the Avatar my nephew. First let us have some Jade tea." Iroh said as he lifted a tea pot with a smile.
"Ah!! Uncle, my technique is fine I need to learn the advanced moves so that I can take on the Avatar!" Zuko yelled.
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A/N: Meet the Kyoshi warriors next chapter… Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up and out. I have been busy with things. I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. A little longer than usual and a little scattered at the end, sorry about that. We will see Zuko again and he gets to meet the most unpredictable, knuckleheaded ninja from Konoha. Until next chapter, also the next chapter will follow cannon a little bit but hey I have to have Sokka meet Suki. What else can I do?