Chapter 11: The Gathering
It has been over nine hours since Kushina's broadcast around the world. Naruto said his greetings to Tazuza and his family. His daughter Tsunami and usher the children to their rooms. Naruto could blearily sleep through the early morning. It didn't help when Inari—Tazuna's grandson—vehemently lashed out to Naruto with putrid insults of being useless and he, and the entire of the K-9 were going to die. The worst part of Inari's ranting got Naruto over the edge when he told Naruto he didn't know how it feels to be alone.
Naruto felt like he needed to segregate himself from everyone. She saw Naruto trashing in his sleep. Sakura was disquieted about him through the early morning. She was involute herself next to Naruto, making sure. Kakashi, Sasuke and him were soundly asleep. She gently stroked his whisker marks, surprisingly a cute pouted wash sighed out. She giggled. Even she thought a motor mouth, boisterous boy the likes of Naruto had a way of being cute.
It's not like she fancies the boy, unlike his alter ego and split-personality.
Naruto began to stir as he felt a light throb on his right shoulder. His eyes were still tediously, blurry from the sun rays, seeping through the bamboo blinders. The first image that popped out was a squinted, grinning Kakashi. Naruto reverted a goofy grin of his own.
"Rise and shine!" he said, still with that awkward smile.
Naruto yawned, "What time is it?
"It's quarter to ten."
Naruto let out another slumbering yawn. Kakashi was still grinning at him.
"Not too worry, I can see clearly why you over slept. Breakfast is ready down stairs. And wake her too." Kakashi snickered.
Naruto watched Kakashi exit the room. His mind was baffled from comical expression written over his sensei's face. When he said her... Her, he thought. It wasn't until he noticed a young feminine voice, grunting in and moaning into his ear. He felt hot all of a suddenly and amiable breath, trickled down the nape of his neck. He'd felt his legs being intertwined with something so cordial. He also felt something warm and soft, pressed against his back.
Something warm was also flushed against his groin, grinding it. The strands of pink hair blew within his. Naruto blew the strands away. He then tried to move, but found it to be futile. His right arm was trapped under the waist of someone. His eyes were wider than before. Only one female in his life was known to wake up sleeping next to him was Kushina. Usually he found himself cuddled into her arms.
But it wasn't his mother. Naruto's forehead gently brushed against Sakura's forehead in time for her to flutter. Immediately, Naruto was on cloud nine. This had to be a dream, waking up and cuddled next to the girl of his dream because Sakura would have never slept with him. Sakura's head crocked to her left. Both gawked each other in the eyes, bumping against their noses together. Naruto felt a knot tightening inside his throat, judging from her horrifying expression because their lips were merely inches away.
His cheeks flared.
Naruto noticed that his right arm overlapped Sakura's beautiful body had his right hand fondled with her left undeveloped chest. He let go knowing that it was too late to save his own behind.
Naruto faked a grin, "Morning Sakura-chan."
Sakura had screamed at the top of her longs, alerted everyone in the house just in time to witnessed Sakura yelled, "PEVERT," and punched Naruto through the second-story wall. His body went sailing out of view.
A couple of hours later, Naruto gathered around the kitchen table with Tazuna's family and the two other teams. Team 8 and Team Nine. This was the first time the nine rookies got to see each other all together. Ino was the first to come up to Naruto and gave him a hefty hug.
"Naruto nii-san, are you'll alright?"
"Ah-hum," he blurted out.
Before he could gather his thoughts to respond, Ino had already left him and jumped on Sasuke's back. Sasuke, likewise, continued his brooding and increased the malevolent killing intent in his eyes, glaring up at her.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked. "Get off me!"
"Ino you pig! Get the hell off Sasuke-kun!"
Sakura jumped in and tried to seize Ino off of him by the collar. They both butted foreheads like battering rams, ramming into a gate of a castle—their teeth gritted, growling.
"What in the blazing hell, billboards! Sasuke-kun is off-limits to everyone except me."
"Says who? Sasuke-kun has not been taken yet! By all means, it's fair game."
Sakura growled evilly as she applied more pressure on Ino's forehead. Likewise, Ino responded in the same way growling. Their heads were bobbing back and forth like a tug of war. Ino then decided to back away with a devious look on her face, then she started laughing, pointing in Naruto's direction.
"Ohh... I totally forgot about early this morning. I didn't get that much sleep because you were busy making out with your boyfriend." She smirked menacingly.
Sakura and everyone glanced at her ambiguously.
"Pig! Naruto is not my boyfriend!" She screeched.
"Really," still smirking, "Why did you sleep with my nii-san?"
Kakashi shook his head. Why can't she make up her mind who she fancies?
Sakura remained impassively silent. She peered towards Naruto as his cheeks had hundred different shades of red.
"Stop putting words into my mouth! I never slept with Naruto! I... I just 'fell asleep' that's all. You want to know the reason why I was next to him? Naruto was having nightmares. I just was too weary from the trip to return to my covers."
Ino had doubts, "That doesn't explain why you were cuddled next to him; arms and legs intertwine with his. Not to mention that you were grunting and whimpering and moaning... "Namikaze-kun. oh... uh... harder..."
Sakura face erupted like magma. It was very difficult to discern by anger, embarrassment or raging hormones. Kakashi closed his orange book a decided to put an end to Ino's pestering before things got out of control.
"That's enough ladies!"
Kakashi peered out from the longhouse and saw a group of people, dressed in black capes approaching from the northeastern side of the woods. In the middle of the pact, with his shrewd ninja eye, Kakashi could make out his sensei's face, which he'd never seen in person for nearly twelve years. Beside him, the redhead, no doubt had to be Minato's wife.
"We have company." Kakashi pointed out the door.
Sarutobi Asuma, son of the Sandaime Hokage and instructor for the second generation InoShikaCho stood on Kakashi's right. His girlfriend Kurenai became Kiba, Shino and Hinata's instructor, and stood to Kakashi's left. They follow Kakashi as he went out to greet the Akatsuki members.
"So you've come."
"My oh my... for a minute. I thought you were Sakumo-sensei in the flesh." Kushina said.
"Good to see you too, Kushina-sama." Kushina smiled warmly as a response. "Sensei, it's awhile hasn't it been?"
Minato agreed, "It has but unfortunately, we don't have that much time to become acquaintance throughout the day. We must make our reunion short. As we speak, Danzo is assembling an army. According to Jiraiya's sources, they will be fully assembled by today."
Kakashi sighed, "So the time has come. How much are we talking about?"
"Five-thousand. That's not including Orochimaru's blood-thirsty minions. We need to make haste and be on our way."
"We should welcome the children to their families first before we start." Kushina said.
Behind them, two people stepped out from the shadows beside Kushina. Haruno Mebuki and her husband Haruno Kizashi made their way passed the Akatsuki. Kakashi smiled with mirth as she had seen Sakura exited the long-house, vaulting towards her parents.
"Kaa-san! Tou-san!" Sakura wept as she hugged both her parents. "How did you get here?"
"We left that kami forsaken village. I'm sorry we had to raise you in that hell hole." Kazashi cupped his daughter's cheeks and kissed her forehead. "Now everything is going to be alright. By the end of this month, Konoha will be cleansed from corruption and all the malevolent. Then everything will be how it was before the Kyuubi invasion."
Sakura never replied as she continued to deepen the hug.
Hyuuga Hiashi appearance was projected next to Hinata, which made her fringed. She held her arms out to embrace him, but to her arms slipped right through the hologram.
"Tou-sama!"
"Shh... my child. You've done me well." Hinata was still crying. "What becomes of Konoha and us depends on the future success of Operation Maelstrom. This is perhaps once in a lifetime an opportunity to do something for Konoha that will relish your reputation among your peers. No doubt this achievement will automatically seal your position as my successor. However, this victory will be some what legendary. All you have to do is accept the mission and join your teammates. There is no shame to abandon the mission..."
"I accept!" Hinata retorted.
"Good, do not let me down or else... everything that you'll come to know will be ripped out from your world within a blink of an eye."
Meanwhile, Kushina was searching for Naruto while all the kids were being acquainted with their parents and family members. Kushina smacked her lips when she spotted Naruto hunched in the patch of Irises in Tsuname's garden of flowers. His golden spiky hair stood out like a thorn on leafs.
Naruto lifted his head to observe his teammates and former classes with their parents. Naruto had saw Minato approaching him from three o'clock, grinning like a wolf eager to pounce and sink its fangs into its prey. He pointed behind Naruto. Naruto swiveled around and saw his mother about to pounce on him. Just as he thought, mischievous intent was hidden under her red cheeks and drooling, snot nose mouth.
"My baby boy!" she chorused. "Mommy misses you very much!"
Naruto would have backed up, but remembering the flower patch was behind him and around. He was forced to remain stationary. Kushina clung to him like her life depend on it. She swung him around in like a sack of potatoes, and gathered him in. Naruto's face had the sign of the grim weeper written all over it, as Kushina puckered her lips tainted with maroon lipstick.
Naruto squinted acrimoniously.
Kushina kissed him both sides of his face, which left numerous lipstick imprints of her lips. Naruto was deadpanned has he heard laughter in the background. He dared not to look in that direction.
Sakura turned aside from her parents to see Naruto and his mother interacting with one another. They were ten paces away from, but she'd seen what Kushina had done to Naruto, which made her giggled. Even from this distance, she could make out Naruto's horrified expression much to his chagrin. A tear trickled down her right cheek, not from sadness.
That's why he was in hiding. Kakashi thought... Kushina is also known to be a prankster and a joker in her prime that he inherited, Poor lad.
"Kaa-chan!" Naruto cried. "That's enough!"
"Oh... hush hun."
She teased him at her handy work. Then she decided enough was enough, pulling a handkerchief from n her cape, damping it from her saliva that was like from the tongue. She then whipped the remnants of lipstick off of Naruto's face, removing it just like magic. Naruto reminisced about the other times she'd wiped his face with that handkerchief. During training on launch breaks, she would watch Minato and Naruto spar in the palace or at the beach. She would either wipe the blood, sweat or dirt on his face.
Her hands moving swift across his face with such soft touches of her finger tips, laced in with the fabric always made him purr like a kit since the day he'd known his mother. Minato decided that it was the appropriate time to intrude on them. The glint in Narutp's cerulean eyes flickered upon the prowling, silhouetted figure of Minato approaching him dead on.
"Dad!"
Minato grinned goofy like his son. "Long time no see... heh." Minato bumped fist with Naruto. "Come here, lad." He beckoned Naruto.
Minato snaked under an armed around and under Naruto's neck, constricted it like a python, but in a gentle way. He then jammed and drilled a fist on Naruto's cranium ticklishly. Naruto laughed, trying to wiggle free.
"You still have much to learn, my boy. Always be wary of your surroundings, not just in front of yah." Naruto glanced up at him as he continued. "If this was Operation Maelstrom, your mother could have gutted you on the spot."
"Don't be too harsh, darling. Even Kakashi himself would have a very difficult time sniffing me out."
"Well," rubbing his cheeks thoughtfully, "That's a given. However, it'll compensate his teammates to have his back at all time. I'm very positive that even myself would have a difficult time prowling on these kids without Hiraishin, as I watched them trained nearly all their lives. They're talented to outwit Ibiki and his Anbu division."
"Still, I wished we didn't have to send them alone, assuming that there will be three more genins to join them."
Kushina drawn her eyes to her toes. Minato quickly gathered her into his muscular; half bulk and half ripped arms and cuddled her tenderly.
"Everything is going to be fine. At first, sign of trouble, I'll be there faster than lightning itself."
Naruto smiled at his coupled parent's interaction. He imagined years henceforth, him cuddling Sakura like that. He had to turn away, to hide his blush from his parents. His eyes flung to the crowd, and there he saw two people with raven hairs. The man in the Akatsuki robes was Itachi. Damn... he sure has grown, Naruto thought. And the person right next to him was his mother... Aunt Mikoto.
Naruto's eyes flickered with excitement. It was many years that he'd lain eyes upon her, beautiful as ever. He couldn't even imagine how someone young as her to produce a full-grown son, now a man. Itachi looked older enough to be Mikoto's betrothal than her son. He wondered how many women during his lifetime he met that they looked too young for their age? Granny Tsunade apparently so post to be fifty years old—old enough to be Minato's mother. Even so, her youth from Genisis Rebirth made her appearance in her mid twenties.
Naruto shrugged off those thoughts aside. He found himself urging towards Mikoto. The sound of a thousand birds chirping got his attention. A shadow dashed around the corner of his left eye. To his horror, it was Sasuke charging in with a chidori, formed around his right arm like a lightning gauntlet, cursing, "I'm going to kill you traitors!" Rage was coursing through his veins. That much he knew.
He heard Mikoto gasped without taking his eyes off Sasuke. Just like Namikaze had done in the Genin Exam, Itachi effortlessly caught Sasuke's Chidori by the wrist, merely inches away from his face. Twisting it counter clockwise, Sasuke faltered to his knees, wailing in pain. The Chidori dwindled into nothing. A sound of a hand meeting flesh averted Naruto's eyes away from Sasuke, clenching perhaps a broken wrist.
Mikoto slapped Itachi.
Itachi gazed at her apologetically.
Mikoto gritted and turn to meet her youngest son. She was speechless. She couldn't get the words conjured to mind. How was she was going to approach him?
"Sasuke-kun!" she knelt beside him and cup his sore wrist into her tendered hands, "how I miss you. My heart has been empty these past six years. When he took you away from us... me, I couldn't eat and sleep well. The horrific nightmares that hunted my dreams brought me on the edge of death, nearly commuting suicide. I could only imagine what Danzo and his hideous right hand Orochimaru had done to you, just like what they had done to your brother."
Mikoto inclined his head to perceive the fuuin marks the size of someone's teeth marking on the jugular. He clamped him mouth shut, disbelieving what she had just seen. Orochimaru's Cursed Seal. Tears cascading vastly down her cheeks as she murmured, "Oh Sasuke." She clung to him, cradling him like a baby who seemed like ages ago she'd done to him when he was an infant.
Sasuke remained silent, brooding typically. His hands remained to his sides. He felt like anything but happiness. It was the feeling of a hundred rats, clogged in his belly, mauling their way through his entrails in the arms of a traitor who'd condemned her own kin to slaughter. And she had the audacity to come to him with open arms as if nothing ever happened.
His level three Sharingan activated, and the Curse Seal was accumulating all the malevolent influence into Orochimaru's chakra. The chakra at first appeared to be an orange flame, spreading to the nape of his neck. Sasuke already was accustomed to the wretched pain of hot iron begin pressed against his flesh.
He shoved Mikoto off himself; teeth gritted like a Black Panther. Mikoto landed on her behind, ambiguously starring at Sasuke with her beautiful onyx spontaneously became watery again. Her eye lids were starting to swell up, her heartbeat like a thousand drums. Her heart shattered into molecules. Sasuke rejected her.
"You backstabbing wench! How dare you to come to me with opens, neglecting the past!" He pointed to his brother, "Him... murderers. Hate you! I hate you all!"
Naruto clenched his fist, growling like a lion. His whiskers became denser. Naruto grew four foxy fangs. His pretty cerulean eyes were with replace with a fox slit crimson blood. His fingernails turned into claws. Then a big calloused hand went over his shoulder. It was Minato, index swaying . Naruto roared, forcing the Kyuubi's chakra to subside within his chakra network.
As that happened, his azure eyes were revitalized, no longer having claws and fangs. He'd seen Kushina gathered a weeping Mikoto to her feet. She was disconcerted being rejected by her son. Kushina may or not abandon the first four years in his life, but that was no way to treat the woman who'd brought you into this world, raised you, fed you and put a roof over your head. His flickered in amazement after glancing at his tactician.
Shikamaru was utterly disturbed and frowning, which told Naruto that not even Shikamaru would behave the way Sasuke had, even though, Yoshino was considered a rude, crudely ill-tempered woman.
A mother will always be a mother, and is something that nor child cannot neglect.
Itachi remained baffled at his little brother's rude and barbaric behavior. Then it hit him like a bulldozer. He doesn't remember as he'd feared.
"Sasuke. Don't you remember?"
"What? All I remember you slaughtering our kinsmen like cattle, wile our lovely parents stood by your side, savoring in the gruesome moment, while you guys left me for dead. I swear on blood oath I'll have my vengeance!" He spat.
"Stop!" Itachi shrieked. "You speak non-sense. Don't you remember tou-sama being fatally maimed by me? He has lost an arm?" He frowned
"Lies! I saw him! He was fine when you left me—"
"You have been deceived, Sasuke. Either the Godaime erased your memories and planted fibs, or he'd twisted the original. I intend to bestow the truth upon you with Tsukuyomi."
Mikoto shrieked, severing her bounds from her friend's grasp. She lurched madly, and yanked the collar of Itachi's collar.
"You fool! You promise to me that you'll never use that jutsu ever again, unless it was a plight! He's too young to withstand it! You'll either end up killing him or permanently cripple him for life!"
"This is an emergency, Kaa-sama I'll swear it on my life that Sasuke won't be harm. If all goes wrong, I'll forfeit my life. This is our only hope to redeem him."
"What's use to throw away your life if that meant that I'll be losing not one but two sons? I will not stand by and let it transpire! If Sasuke-kun hates me, I'll rather bear the burden to forfeit my life either by his hand or not. 'Tis is the duty of a parent who failed their child. You are my son, and also my duty to place myself above you too. Both of you are my dearest treasures that I cherished more than life itself."
Itachi grimaced as she let go of his collar, "I won't allow it!"
He closed his eyes, shaking his head. By the time he had risen his head to meet her eyes, he had activated the Mangekyo Sharingan. His irises were the shape of two shurikens. Mikoto cringed, but that was the last thing saw before she had collapsed into her elder son's arms. A blissful smiled formed from her.
"Forgive me mother. This is my burden, not yours and tou-sama's."
Sasuke stared at him with murderous intent. His blood boiled with hell fire and brimstone.
"What have you done to her?"
"I simply put her to sleep under Gen-jutsu Now harm will come to her. I simply do the opposite... to compensate and bring joy to one's misery and despair and to relive forgotten memories. Look into my eyes and see the truth Danzo has hidden from you."
Sasuke glare into them as Itachi shouted, "Tsukuyomi!" Just like his mother, he collapsed. "It is done."
Asuma's cigar fell from his lips and Kurenai's lips formed in a straight line. Their expressions were passive while Kakashi remained impassive.
"That's impossible," Kurenai blurted out. "He couldn't have recited that many amounts of information."
Kakashi was very amazed by the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan. It was more than legendary, that he believed. The symptoms were precisely like what it was stated in the archive. Victims who were not tough enough would go into shock just being in the Gen-jutssu alone. After receiving the Curse Seal from Orochimaru, his endurance was able to nullify the shock.
"It was documented in the Shodai Hokage's journal that the world of Tsukuyomi is like twenty-four hours in the span of several minutes in reality."
She gaped at him as him as he'd grown two heads," How did you come by with this information. It should have been classified."
"It is indeed. The Sandaime Hokage allowed me to document the Uchiha Clan's Dou-jutsu after I've received Obito's Sharingan. Notes that were from that journal, but it did not stop me scooping for more information." He grinned under that mask.
"Just thinking that you would have been caught like a mouse in a trap if it wasn't for me." The three glanced Minato approaching them with Naruto behind him. "Brings back stupendous memories." And the repugnant ones, he thought.
"That was an understatement," he jested, and they chortled.
"You've grown into a fine woman, Kurenai." She blushed as she ricocheted to the soles of her feet. "Asuma was very fortunate to land you—that I know from experience..." Asuma sighed a looked away, but Minato's keen cerulean eyes got red streaks on his upper cheeks before it was out of sight.
Kakashi gave Minato an amazement glance. "Just like old times," he grinned. "There's no one better procuring information down to the fullest details optimum than you, sensei."
"I wouldn't be the world's fastest man, if I can't out maneuver chakra sensors and motion detectors." He boasted proudly, while Kakashi sighed. Minato then steered his eyes back on Kurenai. "Your father was one of the great losses that night. He was a good man. I've learned a lot from."
A darkness glint beamed from her eyes. She could not voice her words to thank him.
"Speaking of the little devil," Minato chuckled as Sasuke regained conscious the same time as his mother.
"Sasuke's awake," Naruto exclaimed.
The rests of the Uzumaki families got acquainted with one another. Sasuke cried in Mikoto's arms and asked for his forgiveness. She granted him that. Fugaku used this time to make an appearance. Sasuke nearly deadpanned, gaping at the right shoulder that once had an arm. Itachi was accurate. This was a happy gathering as the Uchihas are reunited once again, becoming the last of the Uchiha family.
Naruto met Sakura's parents, and Mebuki made a formal apology to Naruto for her past berating treatments. The very first timed he'd recalled seeing her was when he was four years old. He reminisced on those times when she swatted him with the broom over the years when she either seen her closed to her daughter, or when he sneaked into her bakery and stole some blueberry muffins.
He glanced over to Hinata as she was being greeted by Minato. Just like with him, Hinata's face flared red. Minato patted her on the head. She fell into profound slumbering. Naruto couldn't comprehend why she always had fevers confronting him. Now his father as the same problem, but unfortunate for him, Minato knew Hinata was in heat, which Kushina furiously came beside him and brought her fist down upon his cranium.
Naruto laughed when her heard the words, "Pedophile!" He shook his head in retaliation. He wondered how sensual his idiotic, boisterous mustered that derisory notion. Minato grinned sheepishly as a made a mocking retorted that Hinata was just like her mother. A tang of jealousy, Naruto saw from her, but Minato quickly pressed his lips to hers forcefully, eradicating any resettlement and jealousy that was accumulated within Kushina. Naruto's eyes trailed on his pink hair Cherry Blossom approaching him from the left.
He knew, by the way; she was glancing his way; she was ogling his split-self, Namikaze. He reflected what had transpired during hers and Sasuke's private conversation. Judging from her the gloomy expression written over her face, he knew Sasuke had rejected her once—or—she came to confess the "bad news" that she and Sasuke are a officially a couple, knowing that she may break his heart Even Namikaze glanced at her apprehensively.
"Sakura-san, what brings you here?' Asked Namikaze.
Sakura's blushed, staring down at her toes. She was shy of both the Narutos' thoughts. Uzumaki surveyed her face that had quite similar crimson hues on her cheeks like Hinata. He'd pondered if Sakura had the fever like Hinata. That must be it, he though.
Namikaze's brows furrowed.
"I just wondering that you can g-go on another date with me, Namikaze-kun?"
TBC
Special Thanks
(Previous chapter)
Deathcheater, Ratatosk The Devine Demon, thedarkpokermaster and sherry.
Comments
Crimson Fox: I had to cut that part off, knowing that Minato had arrived at the ending of the previous chapter manga. I want to see how well acquainted Sakura is going to learn that Naruto's father is the Yondaime Hokage. The Road to Ninja disappoint me in that department. Hopefully the canon manga would be a promise.
Now I like to admit this was a terrible plotted chapter. I glad its over and personally I hope Sakura's confession to Namikaze, dropped a bombshell, cliffhanger. There is several scenarios that I've committed for later progress in the story. One, what has happened in Itachi's Tsukuyomi? And two, has Sakura final gave up on Sasuke's rejection? I like to keep you guys guessing.
The next chapter will debut the entire Akatsuki faction in active duty. The reset of the member will arrive before Naruto's team heads out back to. MinaKushi fans, I know I have marked them to be protagonists in this story too, and haven't gave them enough screen time. I do promise that the to fill in that void. Some flashbacks during their childhood may be AU, but I really striving the MK pairing to match NS as much as possible.
Onto the reviews. First up...
Deathcheater: Yeah thats the spirit! Keep up the good work. Still i think, this fiction is lack of update
Crimson Fox: Thank you...but I did explain my reasons what I'm going to do about it in the previous chapter :)
thedarkpokermaster: Dame so does this mean that Kisame is work both side or just Madara?
Crimson Fox: Yup. This answers the flaming review I had way back about the battle between Nagato and Kisame. Why didn't Kisame used his Sharkmode against Nagato, this reviewer said. Now you see that Kisame's defeat at the hands of Nagato was premeditated, proved from Madara appearing out of the shadows watching them. I do believe if Kisame would have killed him if he unleashed all of his arsenal, because Nagato has yet to master the Rinnegan.
Sherry: don't listen to fanfan your story line is great and awesome keep it up :))))))))))))))))
p.s. more narusaku:P
Crimson Fox: Fanfan loves to brew trouble amongst the NS fanfiction community. I wouldn't worry about he or she. I'll try not to disappoint you in the future. Hopefully this chapter was to your amusement^_^
Konoha's Crimson Fox: Until next time peeps! And don't forget to review on your way out.