Chapter 12
Author: Note, before you read (and I hate telling people this outside of the story, but it might be warranted for these past couple of chapters) this happened in the past. Several months passed by in the last chapter, but this is all covering what Naruto did as soon as they reached mist and what happens afterward and finally the plot is going to thicken :) Thank you all for being patient and leaving me nice reviews, I want to make it fun for you to read so please try to keep up with me; as one reader suggested, he/she really had to pay attention to what I had to write to be able to follow. Nothing is changing. :p
Luv,
Mos
Naruto sat in a large guest room with two body guards standing at the double doors while Orochimaru stood next to a large series of shelves perusing the available texts for something to catch his eye. Naruto looks thin, sickly even and his eyes were stuck on the sannin with a mean glare creeping out from under his brow. His stomach was killing him; a pang of hunger squeezed his guts like a dog chewing on a rubber ball. His cheeks were pale, lips chapped and his skin terribly rubbery due to the rough travels to Mizu.
Naruto had a very good reason to be glaring at the sannin who played blissfully unaware of the eyes, solid neon blue and livid like a teal flame in a fancy drink. His angry knuckles were white after every last drop of blood must have been squeezed out of them to move to the muscles of his hand; he clenched his fists tightly until his hands began to shake, but even with all of the killing intent that was coming off of the boy the sannin didn't seem to mind at all. Instead, he reached up to a particularly small scroll and flipped through the pages briefly before tossing it over his shoulder behind him, grumbling a "No, no."
Naruto didn't notice the growing pile of scrolls lying on the floor behind Orochimaru, his attention was glued to the sannin as he tried to watch for some sort of opening that wasn't completely obvious as it was now. If he attacked, he knew that he would be killed. No, Naruto had to play it smarter than that, but what could he do? He tried to think of something else to get his mind off of trying to kill the much stronger man, but every thought he had slowly came back to his trip across the waters to the Land of Water and the hidden mist within it.
When Orochimaru and his unwilling charge stepped over to the shore, Naruto looked around and nodded. "Are we going to camp out here tonight?"
Chuckling in his drawn out voice, Orochimaru smirked and simply shook his head no as he looked out onto the surface of the water as the waves rushed the beach. He took off his sandals and put them in his Kimono before walking into the water.
Naruto blinked and did the same, and following after the sannin as the tide came back covering further than it had the last time it came up. Naruto was actually astounded at the view. After all, this was the first time he had ever seen the beach. As he walked into the water, he felt a little dizzy because of the waves and almost didn't notice that Orochimaru had begun to rise up onto the surface of the water even as it became so deep that Naruto's shins had become covered by the tide.
"Wait, what're you doing!" Naruto demanded, looking out into the middle of the water and not quite able to see Mizu because it was just that far away from the shore.
Naruto chased after him, molding chakra as he pushed it through his legs to keep himself afloat.
As he sank through the surface of the water, he felt that familiar tug from when he initially tried to perform the first technique from the scroll of sealing. He struggled to stay afloat, but he never learned how to properly swim since swimming around in a pond and in the ocean were totally different venues, and the ocean waters were too turbulent for him to make any real progress swimming anyways. One particularly dastardly lick from a turning wave hit him directly on the top of the head and pushed his head under the water. He coughed as he managed to bring himself back up to the surface and sucked in as much breath as he could before he felt his control slipping from him again. His hands reached upwards and he managed to use enough chakra to pull himself back up to the surface, but seeing the fin of a shark a few meters away made his focus slip and caused him to fall face first back in.
The thick salty taste and smell of the water that reminded him of what cheap laundry detergent smelled like made him gag while underwater; the area around him was displaced as he coughed and bubbles of air escaped his mouth as water rushed in and gargled screams escaped his mouth, his body sinking even more.
As his vision started to go, he felt a fist reach in and snag him back up by his blond hair, dragging him back onto the surface of the water where he looked up as he tried to rub the salt water out of his eyes. Orochimaru smirked and knelt down, looking the boy directly in the eye with his golden eyes.
"What?" Naruto demanded, spitting out water and coughing as he tried to focus on keeping himself suspended on the surface of the water. It felt as if he were walking on strings and the only thing keeping him from rolling back in was a bit of determination and his new fear of drowning to death.
"Is this the extent to which you are willing to walk? Is this as far as you will go for your ambitions? If you cannot walk the whole way, then I may as well kill you now and drag along your body with me. You no longer have any collateral and your corpse is worth just as much as your living, breathing self."
Naruto didn't say a word. He shook from the cold of the water and from the lack of chakra in his system. He didn't get up, and didn't make a move to follow the sannin as he began to turn around.
Orochimaru turned and looked down over his shoulder at the boy and smirked, "Is that all I can expect of you? A bawling child crying on his knees that he's not strong enough? Get up, boy."
Naruto looked up and glared at the pale faced man. He pushed himself up onto his feet and began walking again. He couldn't see Mizu yet and they had already walked ten minutes.
"I couldn't imagine how long you'd last if we had to run away from hidden mist's assassins. I'll let you drown if you can't keep up with me."
"Go to hell!" Naruto screamed at him, walking behind him as each step pained him, inevitably more and more of his chakra drained and he began to feel as if his entire body was an hourglass and his time was nearly up.
Orochimaru snickered with a hissing sounding voice.
Naruto rolled his eyes, toiling through the work of walking this ridiculously long distance by water-walking. Why the hell couldn't we get a boat? Hell, I'd steal one right now if I saw one moving around out here.
He looked at the sannin who wore a black kimono with fluorescent purple and white grass and daffodil designs hand-sewn into the chest and side. He was nothing if not eccentric; the way the older man carried himself could be praiseworthy if he wasn't such a sadistic piece of rotten human filth. But he didn't seem to mind. Naruto didn't try to pretend to unveil the sannin's thought process, but he knew that anything this man had in mind would not be good for the him, the shinobi villages, and much less for mankind.
As time passed, each step he took felt like a knife was cutting into his shins. He would take the next step and feel his feet dig into the water as if he were standing on some sort of wobbly rubber and he'd have to subsequently dig each of his feet out of the water as he felt the cool liquid running in between his feet and his sandals. The land of water was finally visible; it surprised him tremendously how it suddenly popped up out of nowhere. He wondered how accurate a map could be, remembering one he saw of their continent during a class at the academy, when the only way you could find a place is if you were standing right next to it.
To Naruto's surprise, while he was looking down at his feet to keep track of his walking, he heard Orochimaru say to him, "You are strong. Stronger than some." Not sure what to make of it, and wondering if that was some sort of complement coming from the old man, Naruto just filed that little thought away for later, trying to focus on the last few meters as they reached the beach. The sannin never turned to look back on the boy, even as their feet finally reached the floor and Naruto fell to his knees, his legs burning and his heart railing against his chest while his head pounded. He rolled over onto his back and took in deep breaths, his eyes screwed shut as the chakra exhaustion began creeping over him and he felt small sores in various places along his legs which he figured were where his tenketsu were located.
He didn't pass out, but the pain was unbearable and no amount of cursing or groaning from the sannin could get him to move. They were met there by Mizu's ANBU, a three man cell of hunter-nin. The three ANBU looked fairly apprehensive at first, but it must've been because of the war. There was smoke coming out just outside the jungle area at the front before the mountain regions. It was black, and clouded the sky ominously, signaling the struggle and death there was to come to those who stepped forth and entered this gruesome country.
Naruto's glare eased up when he started to feel sleepy, while a knock came at the door and the two body guards stepped aside to allow a messenger to pass.
"Namikaze boy. Your presence is requested," When Naruto didn't move to get up, the young boy with shark teeth spoke up, "Now."
Naruto turned to look at Orochimaru, who grinned impishly, "That's you, boy."
Naruto sneered, "That's Uzumaki, not Namikaze you idiot."
The short-haired boy glared, "Who are you calling an idiot!"
They glared at one another up close, neither breaking eye contact. "If you have to ask, then it's worse than I thought."
"I'll kill you!"
"I know of things much worse than death if you ever intend to follow through with that threat."
Naruto and the other boy froze and turned to look Orochimaru's way. The sannin had a self-satisfied smile on his face, like the look one gets after having just had their favorite meal.
The messenger nodded, readjusting his glasses and tilted his head, "Let's go." He said to Naruto before gulping down the saliva that had gathered in his mouth as he nearly peed himself.
Naruto sighed, annoyed, "Fine."
As they walked, Naruto asked, "So what's your name, anyways?"
"That doesn't matter."
"You're a real prick, you know that?"
The messenger smirked and nodded, readjusting his glasses again. "No fooling?"
Naruto just shook his head and accompanied him back to the Grand Hall of the Seven Swordsmen where the Mizukage was waiting for him. He walked in through two grandesque doors, an ocean of eyes pointed at him from either side of the hidden mist kage; she did not wear the customary kage robes, only the hat the designated her as the village leader and one of the five great shadows. The reason why kages were called shadows, was because of the old saying that a master shinobi could not only hide in the shadows of the dark, but became shadow and engulfed everything around him in shade.
"Naruto. Forgive my young servant Chojuro; he can be very hot-headed. We know you as Namikaze because that was the surname of your father: Namikaze Minato, or perhaps you aren't aware of this? Regardless, I'd like to welcome you to the Hidden Mist village. We are in the process of reconstruction… both internally and externally, as you may have seen coming here-do you know where you are standing right now?"
Naruto shook his head, silent as he gazed on with fire in his eyes from the torches lit along the walls of the large room.
"You're standing where Namikaze Minato stood and challenged all seven of the bloody mist's swordsmen, and won."
Naruto's eyes widened. There was a light grumbling within the room as he suddenly realized that the people in the room with them were alive and he had to wonder who they were. The mizukage gave nothing away, her green eyes lit pale with the flame as it danced off of them.
"Incredible, isn't it? One person against seven legendary swordsmen with swords infused with chakra and very different, very incredible abilities that were passed down from generation to generation only by challenging the previous owner… Your father was a man worth marrying, falling for… I was a chunin, standing there in the crowd." She raised her hand and pointed, smiling fondly. "It was an incredible experience, one that influenced my training and gave me the resolve to become faster and stronger in order to secure my position here as this village's leader… though I must admit that a few other circumstances helped me along as well."
Chojuro shifted uncomfortably; he had heard the stories, but it was scary knowing that a man like that had any offspring. He wondered if bantering with the young blond had been a good idea after all.
Naruto clenched his jaw, looking at her incredulously.
She smiled, leaning close and showing off her cleavage behind her shoulder-revealing top of her blue dress, the fishnet she wore hugging her breasts snugly and drawing a few beads of sweat from Naruto as he realized for the first time just how much of a woman she was; he liked that she wasn't actually very thin, the mizukage was a hearty woman with curves that couldn't be hidden by the dress she wore. Her hair was carrot juice orange, blended beautifully with her tanned skin and lips that were not smeared with any shade of lipstick. She was a lucky woman, having naturally blushing lips that made Naruto wish he was a few years older and simultaneously wonder if she was into young boys.
"What's with that look?" She smirked, he was sneaky with the way he ogled her, but she could still tell he was enthralled. "Do you find it hard to believe your own ancestry when I'm here spelling it out here for you? Your father was really quite the man… I expect nothing less from his only son."
"You're that sure I'm his kid, huh?" Naruto all but growled, his eyes narrowing. "I've been told this bullshit for the past couple of weeks and I'm done. You all can go to the edge of a cliff and jump. So what if I'm his son? I don't even understand how that could possibly be important. How do you know I am going to be like the Yondaime Hokage? Or like this person that everyone mistakenly believes is my father… what was his name again? Namikaze Minato? A load of bull shit."
"Watch your mouth around the mizukage, you jerk."
Naruto turned and glared at Chojuro, his eyes reflecting a level of killer intent much higher than his age and experience should've allowed; the blue-haired boy took a step back and as tremors ran through his body he reached for his kunai and dropped it before cursing and picking it back up again.
The mizukage was still smiling. Naruto continued, his upper lip rising just a bit in annoyance. "Even if I'm related to him, that doesn't mean I'll be like him or better than him; hell, according to my grades at the academy I'm a loser who can't pick up on simple jutsu, an orphan and an outcast according to my damn instructors, a freakin' bargaining chip whose corpse is worth just as much as his living, breathing self according to the legendary sannin Orochimaru, someone probably just as strong as at least three or four of your legendary swordsmen, if not more than that… I couldn't even save my friend." Naruto closed his eyes, ending his words ominously as he finally vented all of the frustration that he felt against this whole ordeal, feeling bitter and angry, and very hungry.
The mizukage stood up from her seat and glided her curvaceous self to his side and bent over, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. Naruto blushed, looking up from the ground where he left the disappointment and regret aside as he gazed into the lime green eyes of the beautiful kage, her lips curving slightly. "I don't introduce myself to many men, but I think I'll make an exception in this case…" She bowed her head to him, drawing a gasp from the audience filled with mizu's council members and some of the elitist figures like the heads of some of the clans and organizations within the village that had not taken part in the civil war. There was some talk, but it was in a fading murmur that Naruto couldn't hear due to the soft breathing of the woman in front of him.
"Please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Terumi Mei, the newly appointed Godaime Mizukage; I am the owner of two inherent kekkai genkai… do you know what those are?"
At her easy smile, Naruto nodded slowly, "It's like the byakugan in Konoha."
She nodded, "Yes, you're right! Did you know we are in a civil war?"
Naruto nodded slowly, "But I only found out when we reached the shore… or, I'm not sure, I think Orochimaru might have mentioned it before we got here, but I pay as little attention to him as possible."
Smirking, the mizukage hooked her arm with his and lead him out the double doors, "You're hungry, aren't you? Come, let's go eat."
He followed her wordlessly, and they spent the rest of the evening together sitting on a balcony and dining on various types of seafood, but there were no ramen noodles. Unfortunately, their view from the balcony was that of the civil war going on and the fires and raids happening just beyond the steep walls at the edge of the village where there was a drop off of the edge of the snow-capped mountain. Naruto's eyes blazed along with the flames as he watched and slowly began to lose his appetite, while the mizukage only sat there and watched in sorrow as her village and country was being destroyed from the inside out.
"I'm going to keep him here. I have the two prisoners that you wanted in exchange for him… but I hardly think they are worth trading for."
Orochimaru smirked as Mei stood before him with the keys to the prison cell so that he could transport the prisoners at his own pace. He took the keys and grasped her hand as he pulled her close, whispering into her ear, "So are you telling me that I should seek some other form of… payment?"
The woman glared at him, her eyes like green shards of glass that dug into his face. Her lips were curved in a pleasant smile even as she whispered back, "Forgive me, but I'm not the type of woman that goes for wrinkly old men…" And with that, she turned around just before he let his long tongue slip out of his mouth in his scary smile before pulling it back in and watching as she shut the door behind her.
With the keys in hand, Orochimaru smirked as he held the keys to the next step in his plan to train the sights of each of the hidden villages upon each other as his own newly created village came in; a committee of vultures to feast upon the corpses of the fallen.
Had the mother of all hangovers. Pretty long chapter tonight. Enjoy :) Oh, and had to add those line breaks in otherwise it looked kinda weird. Sorry about that. Reread those parts if you want. :p
