"Thank you miss..." Kakashi paused as they sat down at the table inside Tazuna's house. It was the first dinner they were going to have without the fear of Gato coming in and confiscating their food.
"Konan." the red headed woman said with a smile as she blew gently on her hot bowl in front of her while she tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear.
Kakashi smiled a bit under his mask as he looked at her, "Right, thank you for saving my student. We all felt the chakra burst coming from down at the bridge, we thought something bad was happening to Naruto."
Kyuubi looked taken aback for a moment and gave a look of mock shock, "Ohh Naruto-kun?" she reached over to the boy she was sitting next to, "He was doing great against Peace... Well of course until the man started trying. I think he knew I was there want wanted to draw me out of hiding. I think Naruto is just extremely lucky that the man decided to toy with him and I was able to come in at the last moment and stop the fight."
Naruto scoffed at that, but once Kyuubi stepped roughly on his foot under the table, the scoff turned into something more akin to a gasp. It was rather ungraceful, and caused quiet a bit of attention as he hit his bowl with his arm spilling some soup onto the table which in turn attracted the attention of Sakura.
"Naruto! Be more careful." she reprimanded him with a frown. They were still guests in Tazuna and Tsunami's house. He should at least be showing proper table manners.
Naruto gave a weak smile and resisted rolling his eyes, he felt like his foot had been ran over by a wagon carrying sand.
Kyuubi paused and took a sip of her soup, doing her best to be charming. Much to Naruto's displeasure, it was working particularly well on the older males in the room. She gently crossed her arms and leaned forward on the table, making sure that her arms pushed up her bust a fair amount before asking, "So your name is Sasuke, correct?" she designated the Uchiha who was currently eating his soup quietly, little red specs on his neck. Blood that he couldn't wash off effectively in the bathroom before dinner. It seemed that "Ladies first" applied regardless of how dirty the men were in the household.
Sasuke' looked at the possessed woman with one eye open before pushing his bowl away gently, "Yeah..." he said slowly trying to understand what she was getting at.
The degrees in the room dropped quite a bit when she asked, "So... I saw a lot of blood on your shirt today at the bridge, do you enjoy killing?" there was a small gleam in her eye as the strands of hair she tucked behind her ear fell back to the front of her face.
Everyone waited on Sasuke's response, he had closed his eyes and reached for his bowl. He wasn't anything like his brother and said, "Of course not. I just did what needed to be done to complete the mission."
Kakashi however on the other hand thought that Sasuke sounded exactly like his older brother, he couldn't help but let that get to him and make him worry a bit.
Kyuubi rested back and sighed, "Well that is too bad, I am retired now. However I personally believe that you can't go long doing a job that you don't like. A shinobi is supposed to kill, if you don't like to do it you are more likely to get burnt out."
The seasoned jounin tensed, they looked ready to spring on a moments notice, Asuma had to ask the question, "So are you saying that you enjoy killing Konan-san?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow at how she planned to answer this question, but resisted rolling his eyes when she brought her bowl close to her again preparing to eat, but not before saying, "I like the color red."
Naruto had never had a beer or sake before, but he felt that if he had this would be one of those times where he would say 'I need a drink.' Naruto sighed and picked up the bowl in front of him, and through years of practically inhaling his ramen, he drank Tsunami's soup instantly.
"Excuse me." Naruto said standing up running a hand through his hair, "I need to go get some fresh air." and promptly walked out of the house, near slamming the front door.
Kyuubi grinned as Naruto left. It was rather comforting knowing that she had an effect on the boy inside and outside of the seal, she didn't even need to address him.
"So... besides your student leaving up, tell me what exactly happened with your team when everyone was down on the bridge Asuma-san?" It nearly killed her to give this much respect to a monkey, literally in more ways then one.
Asuma sighed, "Well Chouji is currently recovering. Despite his talents, the shinobi they were fighting was still able to strangulate him. However once Chouji was unconscious Shikamaru said he was able to tie stick the enemy with an exploding note. The fight ended momentarily after that."
Kyuubi raised an eyebrow, "And your enemy?"
Asuma scoffed at the woman's question, he was a jounin. "Yeah... he got cut up pretty badly. He didn't stand a chance."
Kyuubi's eyes narrowed when Asuma scoffed, she wanted to break his fingers one by one for doing something that insulting, however she kept her cool. "That explains why one of your students aren't eating with us, but it doesn't explain why the other two are absent."
Asuma sighed, he went for a cigarette in his pocket, but the glare he received from Tsunami sitting across from him clearly told him 'Don't even think about it.'
"Shikamaru is upstairs with Chouji, recovering from his first kill. Ino said she felt under the weather, but I think it was for similar reasons that she chose to turn in early." Asuma reasoned before finishing his statement with a shrug.
Kyuubi continued trying to make conversations with the people in the room, which was fairly easy. All she had to do was ask simple questions based off answers to questions she had previously asked. "So Kakashi-san, why is it that your students don't seem too affected by the outcome of their battle?"
Next to her the pink haired girl groaned at the thought of her part during the battle. She pushed her bowl away and put her elbows on the table, hands over her eyes groaning, "Speak for yourself..."
Kyuubi couldn't help but smirk at the girl, shaken up by killing something? See this is one of the reasons why demons are superior to humans. 'We realize life is simple, only the strong survive. We don't make silly attachments and baseline beliefs throughout nations that it isn't politically correct to kill another human being. These mortals are foolish, creating occupations where your number one task is to kill people and then saying it is wrong to enjoy it.'
Kyuubi sighed as she leaned back and crossed her arms, "Well that covers everyone except, where is that brunette girl?"
Kakashi paused at the mention of Haku. She had been gone for an incredibly long time now, had she run? "She said she was going to dispose of Gato's body. I don't really know where she is right now."
The sound of rain instantly coming down on the house filled everyone's ears. The beating and tapping sounds it gave off when it hit the house and fell off of different parts of the roof. Kyuubi could sense the chakra in the rain and raised an eyebrow before turning to the group at the table. "Yes well, I am sure that someone will bring her back or she will come back on her own. It is getting rather late, and with this storm, she may get lost unless somebody is able to find her in it.
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Naruto's walk had been just that, a walk. Nothing out of the ordinary until he activated his newly learned jutsu over the town. He mine as well practice it, even if it wasn't exactly the best thing that he could do for the people in wave that were growing crops the best they could. They were likely over watered by now.
However his interest was peaked when he felt Haku's chakra signature, along with a signature that was incredibly weak. It practically wasn't there. It was about a couple miles into the woods, he couldn't help but break into a run and go to check it out.
It didn't take long, being a ninja did have it's bonuses. One of those bonuses was the ability to run a fast as most wagons going thirty or so miles an hour without much training. When he got there he was surprised with what he saw.
Haku must not have noticed him with her either being distracted, or due to the rain being to loud to overhear his presence. In front of her was Gato tied to a tree, shirtless. On the stump next to her were several assortments of tools, senbons, pliers, a medical scalpel.
Gato had various cuts littering his body and chest, some of them were rather gruesome. For example the "Murderer" carved across his belly. The man appeared to be missing his right nipple as well. He had the eyes of a man that had long since lost the will to live. His eyes were red from rain going into them, or was it from tears falling out of them.
He couldn't really tell, yet what he did see was Haku pick up the scalpel and a senbon. She stuck a senbon right at the top of his shoulder on his left side before saying something to herself.
"Incision along the left forearm."
The man screamed bloody murder as his arm was cut into by the sharp knife, and his flesh was cut open, allowing the rain to splash into it making it all the more irritating.
"Tell me where you keep your funds." Haku's statement was icy, almost a different person than he was used to. He realized why Kyuubi liked Haku more then Ino. She could seemingly be just as sadistic as Kyuubi when she needed to be. It nearly contradicted the loving girl he had gotten to know the past couple of days.
Gato stayed strong and refused to answer the girl. If he was going to be tortured to death, if he could have it his way no one would lay a hand on his money in the process.
Haku's eyes narrowed, "It would appear I need to go lower then?" she asked icily as she made a quick shallow swipe near the waist. Not enough to draw a flow of blood, but enough to stick like an annoying paper cut being splashed with water.
Gato grinned, opening his mouth showing his bloody teeth. Or what teeth remained.
Naruto flinched a bit when he saw that, 'Well thats what the pliers were for...'
"Only if you use your mouth you filthy whore." Gato gasped out, but his grin remained the same despite the pain he was in.
Haku raised an eyebrow, "No thank you." she said giving a fake smile right before she stabbed the scalpel into Gato's leg. "Please hold still while I unbuckle your pants."
Gato once again screamed, once his pants were unbuckled, she hadn't even bothered to remove the medical knife. She just pulled his pants and underwear down in one swift motion, the knife dragging and cutting his leg before it fell out into the muddy ground below.
Haku sighed, "My apologies if you are cold." she said as she picked up the muddy scalpel. "Do you plan to talk yet?"
Gato spit blood at her to the best of his ability. He was lacking energy, and lacking teeth.
Haku looked down at her shinobi outfit, and blood now dripping down it, "Have it your way." She spun the knife around in the mud some before picking it up and saying,
"Incision from the base down to the head of the penis..."
Naruto flinched and held his package. She sounded completely serious, that was most likely why Gato chose that moment to crack.
"Okay! It is located down at the shipping crates down by the docks. It is inside the only black shipping container. The safe combination is 12-19-24. Please don't cut me there!"
It was rather entertaining to see Gato scream and squirm like a little girl like she was told she was going to have to take a bath. However he couldn't complain, if he found out that some sadist was about to make a cut down the length of his manhood, he would likely squirm like a little girl too.
Haku made a move to make the cut anyways and Naruto grimaced and called out, "Haku..."
Haku looked extremely startled, and fearful. 'How much of that did he see?' she thought as she made a proper impression of a fish. She seemed at a loss for words which caused Naruto to sigh.
"Don't worry about it, leave him here... lets go down to the shipping docks." he said it calmly, but there was no mistaking it, it was an order.
Haku looked back at the man and couldn't help but feel frustrated at the fact that it wasn't going to be her that took care of him. However what Naruto said next made her not feel so bad at the idea of leaving him here.
"Let the wolves have him."
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Naruto and Haku both made it down to the docks in a relatively quick time. The docks despite the rainy weather were full of people digging into crates. With Gato gone, people were all rejoicing and taking their goods back. Many weren't even stealing, which was something the average person would do in this situation. The people were just so excited to have their stuff back, there were various calls out in the crowd of items found in the crates.
The good thing for them however was, the people were searching through the stacks crates, going for the ones on the ground floor first. The crate they needed was black, and near the top of the pile. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of various green, red, and yellow crates.
"So was this why you haven't been talking to me lately?" Naruto asked, trying to remain relatively calm about the whole ordeal. Haku didn't say anything for a bit and chose to get to work on the initial lock on the crate with a couple senbon.
"I encountered Warren Peace a few days ago..." she began with a frown on her face, "He spared me when I was inside Zabuza's former hideout. Gato ordered him to capture me and he didn't. I didn't particularly want to participate in fighting Peace." she said as she popped open the lock and walked inside. There was a rack right on the side that had a couple flash lights hanging from it. Someone had been trading with Ame it would seem.
Naruto stepped in after Haku and grabbed a flashlight, "So instead of working on a way to take Peace down you were working on a method to take down Gato?" Naruto frowned.
Haku nodded as she approached the safe near the back of the crate, and motioned for Naruto to shine the light there. Haku paused, "You should have one of your clones do it..." she said quietly, moving to the back of the crate and opening it. They had no clue if Gato even decided to put traps all around the crate. He didn't seem like the kind of man to even bother with that sort of thing since he seemed to believe he ran everything. However one couldn't be too sure.
As one of Naruto's shadow clones went up and began to turn the proper dial for the safe, Naruto turned to Haku. "So you knew that Peace was out enemy all of this time, and yet you didn't feel like telling me?"
Haku sighed, "I thought I gave you a big enough clue way before I even encountered Peace at the hideout when I said we would likely be seeing the man soon."
Naruto groaned, it could of been life and death and Haku put his life in the hands of a hint. That was a bit unsettling. A sound of a latch coming undone, and the gobsmacked expression of a shadow clone at the end of the crate was all he need to know that Gato was in fact not smart enough to trap his funds.
They walked over to vault hidden in the crate and could help but be surprised and frown at the implications.
"So this is what a hundred billion yen looks like?" Naruto wasn't expecting an answer to his statement. There were stacks upon stacks of money inside the vault along with deeds, including deeds to the docks which Gato illegally owned. The man must have bled the country dry, this was only the amount of money that would come from a country that was formerly booming.
"Naruto... I think we should take some of it." Naruto spun around on Haku in surprise.
"What do you mean we should take some of it? Haku... this money belongs to the people of wave." Naruto said with a frown on his face, trying to convince himself. There was a lot of money there. He used to struggle for money in Konoha, and here he was with enough money to last him several life times staring him in the face.
"Yet we saved these people Naruto. They would still be in poverty if it wasn't for us." Haku tried to reason, nearly pleading with him to take the money.
Naruto frowned, "If it wasn't for me Haku. Me..." he said with emphasis, "Until recently you were going to kill the bridge builder Haku..."
Haku looked like she got slapped in the face before closing her mouth and staying silent. No point in arguing the truth in that. She gave a final parting comment however, "Money is power Naruto-sama..."
Naruto paused as Haku added the suffix to his name once again. He took a deep breath suppressing a shiver, thats what she called him in bed a few nights ago. The suffix to him, getting respect for the first time in his life was rather intoxicating.
Naruto grit his teeth, suppressing a grin, "Fine. Take twenty to twenty-five percent of it. Better yet, teach me how to seal it in a storage scroll."
Haku smiled when she realized that Naruto was going to see things her way and take the money. It wasn't that she had anything against the people in Wave. It was just they had next to no money, besides the pay that she received up front from Gato. She had yet to tell Naruto anything about that, and planned to keep it that way. The only reason this was working was because they were both effectively broke, and needed money. If it turned out that they actually had money Naruto may reconsider.
Haku sighed, finally being able to live rather comfortably, she showed Naruto how to seal nearly 250 million dollars into a scroll.
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With the morale of the village extremely high with the defeat of Gato, it took no time for the bridge to be completed. All of the villagers pitched in, even the women if they weren't physically helping out, then they were cooking and preparing lunches to bring to the men while they worked on the bridge.
With the man power of an entire village behind them, they had completed the bridge in a matter of days. Those said days, Naruto abused his power of being designated as team leader. Instead of directly working on the bridge, he sent a dozen clones there each morning before saying he had to continue writing his mission report. Which was a partial truth, he had paced himself in doing a little bit each day. However the majority of the time was spent reconnecting with Haku, and trying his best to learn how to copy her ice manipulation. It was probably one of the most frustrating things he had ever experienced in his entire life to be doing everything correctly yet not being able to perfectly pull something off.
That was why he found himself talking to one of the most annoying people he ever had the displeasure of knowing, and yet at the same time likely the most knowledgeable and strongest individual he would likely ever know.
"Let me get this straight? You want to learn how to manipulate water and ice and freeze things like your little girlfriend over there?" Kyuubi pointed over to Haku who was pushing a cart with several slabs of stone in it down the bridge.
Naruto rolled his eyes, "I have been saying that this entire time!"
Kyuubi picked a piece of meat out of her teeth with one of her painted fingernails before asking, "Why the hell would you want to learn that? Fire manipulation is far more fun. Here watch!"
She snapped her finger in the direction of several men carrying a stone block, only for the block to burst into dust and rubble before turning into grain.
Naruto had wide eyes similar to Kyuubi's at the moment, but for different reasons. "What the hell are you trying to do? Destroy the bridge?"
Kyuubi rolled her eyes, "Relax, this bridge will likely fall in fifty years anyways, you mortals never build anything that lasts." acting completely oblivious to the house wives that were standing around nearby that could overhear the mortals comment.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Be quiet, I am already writing in this report that all this crap with you, Ino, and myself never happened. I would like it to be kept that way." Naruto nearly snarled out the last part.
"Ahhh poor Naru-kun, turning more fox like already. With the lying and the growling, if only you weren't so tiny..." Kyuubi cooed at him as if he was a child which was rather frustrating, but was also something that he chose to ignore to the best of his ability.
"It's fine, I like being small. Weren't you beaten by someone my size 12 years ago?" Naruto jabbed at her verbally.
Kyuubi shrugged, "And yet I am alive and the blond man is not?" she said as she leaned back on her hands, her figure catching the sun perfectly. It actually provided many of the males in the area with some nice eye candy, much to the displeasure of their wives.
Kyuubi began clicking her feet together as they dangled over the side of a wooden crate they were sitting on, "So I still don't understand, why ice over fire?"
Naruto sighed he had explained this time after time to her, "I don't understand why it bothers you so much. Can you or can you not do something to help me learn different affinities?"
Kyuubi merely scoffed at Naruto, "Please don't insult me, altering your pathetic races DNA is likely one of the simplest things I can do. Did you know that I can make you grow eight more eyes, and thirteen more fingers with a touch of the hand?"
Naruto paused... no he did not know that. However that suddenly gave him just another reason to be weary of her. If she ever got in a bad mood, he could go from interesting, to play thing in a matter of seconds and suddenly start growing things in unwanted places.
"So does that mean that you will open up my affinities for me?" Naruto asked hopefully.
Kyuubi stared at Naruto for a moment, before shrugging, "On One condition, I can call in any one favor from you whenever I want."
Naruto stared at Kyuubi for a moment before outstretching his hand, "Just nothing sexual, I don't need to ruin any relationships I could be building because you are influencing my life even when you aren't in my body."
Kyuubi rolled her eyes, "Please, don't flatter yourself. I could have you begging for me to sleep with you if I wanted to, you haven't earned it yet. This sad puppy begging routine isn't getting you any points for the department either if you were interested."
Naruto scowled as she laid a hand on his back, "Sorry, I don't want to catch any demon stds from you." he whispered the last half of that quietly so that no one nearby would hear.
Kyuubi smiled before yelling it his ear as the sound of a drill came about from down the bridge, "What I'm Sorry! Did you say more pain?" she yelled, all the while utterly enjoying the situation.
Naruto's scream was drowned out by the drill in the background, however anyone that looked at his face before he hid it in his lap would have seen his giant wide eyes and wide open mouth as he yelled bloody murder. It felt as if every single part of his body was on fire and being reconstructed. Even if there were no visible changes to his body, he most definitely felt changes.
About a half hour later when the back to back drilling stopped, Naruto had since wiped the tears of pain from his eyes, and opted to lay down flat on his back and cover his eyes from the sun with his hands. Yep Kyuubi may act like she hates him, and is only there to cause him pain. However, she helped him with something that put him far ahead of anyone else in the ninja world that he knew of. He just hoped that favor that he owes her wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass later on in life.
For now, he needed to sleep. The bridge was supposed to be done at the end of the day. They would be catching a ride back in a trader's wagon to Konoha. If he could for once in the last few days forget about everything that was going on and just get some peaceful sleep, he would be happy.
So he drifted off to sleep thinking about what he could do, now being likely the richest individual person with residence in Konoha besides Sasuke.
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Since I have yet to see Kyuubi like this, can you please rate her on a scale of 1-10 again personality wise. I am trying to develop a baseline for what you believe Kyuubi should be acting like. Overall last chapter it seemed pretty good, some said she could be a bit more sadistic. However I wasn't going for a complete sadist, so anyways I am interesting in what you all think.
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and got some answers from it. This chapter was mainly highlighting Haku's dstance to Naruto, and the aftermath of Kyuubi being released.
I got some comments about Naruto not giving Ino a hard enough time, just sit tight.
I feel rather foolish giving Naruto that type of money right now thinking about it, however I don't think it really hurts the story much since he is going to be effectively tied up well into time skip and from what I personally see right now, no plausible time to use his money.
Naruto and affinities, I actually expecting some sort of flame or what not about what I have done here. Either it being Kyuubi is too powerful, or your setting Naruto up to being too powerful.
I don't think I am as of right now... he has lost Kyuubi, have a sword with great potential that he has yet to learn how to use. He has likely one of the best tracking abilities/ avoiding tracking abilities around, but aside from that he hasn't learned much.
Tell me what you thought about the scenes in this chapter. I personally want the scenes with Haku and Naruto at the crates, and Haku torturing Gato to be rated on a scale of 1-10.
Quick note: This is the last time I will ever use Yen as the currency to describe how much money is where or blah blah blah whatever. From now on I am using dollars, if you want to be overly critical about it and say "NARUTOVERSE DOESN'T USE DOLLARS!" fine, convert it on your own time. It was just that the money I had to covert myself, because I couldn't find a calculator for it, and it is far more frustrating when you want to try and pull a number out of your bum that is just chump change.
Anyways... rate the scenes and 1 more thing I have decided to add in as of now.
A Priority list. This list is just showing the two things on the top of my mind at the moment as development goes and what not.
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1: Sasuke
2: Haku's residence
3: Ino, and the Kyuubi incident problem being addressed.
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Just because something you felt that should be listed there wasn't doesn't mean it isn't being worked on. It just means it is not at the top of my list. For example, Naruto's blade. Doesn't really need to be expanded on for quite a few more chapters.