This is my first fanfic!
Ugh… time flies when you have a mid year exam and multiple projects. …those were completely unexpected, I swear. Sorry about the late update again. I know I keep promising to make it better but I don't… _.
Dude: "Ok, what the fork is this excrement, you get off on this insane abuse or something, sicko?
You need help."
Sorry you don't like it, I guess. Don't like, don't read. No need to go around flaming like that. _
Troutman30: "Awesome! Naruto kisses The Ice Queen of Konoha in chapter 6 and then sees her naked in chapter 12! Naruto's not gonna get a lot of sleep, I know what I'd be seeing everytime I closed my eyes!"
I know right? I'm glad you like the story!!
InARealPickle: "I find it hard to believe that a bunch of ninja and civilians knew that Naruto contained the Kyuubi,
but Kurenai, Anko, and Asuma -all of whom were at least genin at the time of the attack- did not and had to be made aware of the S-rank law protecting the secret."
Actually, in this fanfic, Kurenai is only about 7 years older than Naruto. That means that when Naruto was born (Kyuubi was attacking), she was 7, 8 at most. In canon, iirc they graduated from the Academy at 11, or 12. That means that they weren't even technically genin yet, and thus unaware of Naruto being the jailor.
That also works with the other chapters as well, seeing as if Naruto was 4, Kurenai could be 12 or 13 ish. Notice that in canon, Naruto's team was entered into the chuunin exam pretty early on (somewhere around episode 23 I think in the anime).
InARealPickle: "Also, if they didn't even know about the Kyuubi, then why did they hesitate to defend a little 4 year old from a mob beating?
They just sat there and watched while the kid was beaten to a bloody mess and stabbed four times?
What kind of village protectors are they?"
Well if you were eating with your friends and you saw a random kid getting beat up by adults, you wouldn't immediately jump to action – despite how good willed you were, most likely you would simply not have expected the event and until your brain processed what you were seeing, you would remain frozen. Also, although my description kind of dragged it on, it's supposed to be taking place all in a matter of seconds to minutes.
All in all, glad some of you at least are enjoying the fic!
Thanks for reviewing!
The sun was shining rather brightly in the sky. The whistles of the birds nesting in the trees, coupled with the large white, puffy clouds created the perfect spring day. The breeze picked up slightly, blowing by two individuals walking down a dusty, dirt path.
"Ero-senniiiiiin…", whined one of the figures, who was slouching slightly. He, Naruto Uzumaki, was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. His disheveled blond hair almost screamed messy to anyone who was looking at him.
The man in front, Jiraiya, stopped suddenly, a tick mark apparent on his forehead. He turned around, arms folded. His right eyelid was twitching.
"Gaki, how many times have I told you not to call me that?!", Jiraiya barked furiously. Naruto glared at him, meeting his teacher's gaze.
"And how many times have I told you not to call me gaki?! I'm not a gaki!", Naruto protested back, waving his arms.
Jiraiya sighed. "I'll stop calling you gaki when you stop being a gaki, brat!"
Naruto humphed and crossed his own arms. "And I'll stop calling you Ero-sennin when you stop being an Ero-sennin, Ero-sennin!"
Jiraiya had half a mind to pummel Naruto into the ground for that last comment, but he decided to just turn around, counting to infinitely high numbers to calm his frustration.
'Kids these days…', he muttered under his breath, while crying fake anime tears. 'No respect at all.'
He turned back again, facing his temporary student, and then sighed deeply. "Alright gaki, whaddya want."
Naruto looked furious at that, and he opened his mouth to shout, but then himself decided that it wasn't worth it.
"I have a question about Kage Bunshin.", he declared, waiting for a response. Naruto squinted his eyes while scratched the top of his head, a look that showed he was thinking. Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, before nodding with approval.
"So you finally have a valid question that isn't something about the nearest ramen stand or if we're at our destination yet.", Jiraiya said, sighing with relief.
Naruto looked thoughtful at that retort. "Where is the nearest ramen stand, anyway? And are we there yet?" Jiraiya sweat dropped and face faulted – not a very nice combination.
"What's your question?", Jiraiya asked, ignoring Naruto's outburst, after a while of Naruto being himself. Naruto shrugged. "I guess it's about its usefulness."
Seeing Jiraiya's puzzled look, Naruto elaborated. "I know Kage Bunshin is all great and stuff because you can train with it and there are multiple yous and all that, but it never seems to help in my fights."
Mizuki grinned. "It doesn't matter how many clones you make, punk." He twirled his kunai, expertly jabbing it into the thigh of an incoming Naruto, making it yelp in pain and dispel. "As you've probably learned in the Academy…". He threw the kunai, which embedded itself into the forehead of another Naruto, which also dispelled. "One hundred times zero is still zero."
Getting the gist of Naruto's question, Jiraiya smiled. "I see what you're getting at." Naruto looked relieved at the prospect of not having to explain again. He looked at the toad sage expectantly.
Jiraiya looked up at the sky, pondering about the best way to go about answering the interesting question, before looking back at Naruto.
"Naruto, I want you to jump.", he said with a tone of authority.
Naruto looked confused, but he complied, leaping off the ground slightly, only lifting himself mere inches off the Earth. Jiraiya nodded.
"Now, jump higher.", Jiraiya said. Naruto looked as if he was going to voice his mind and start spouting off questions, that is, until he was silenced by Jiraiya with a poke to the forehead. "I'll explain later."
Naruto jumped higher off the ground, clearing a good maybe 1 foot.
"Even higher.", Jiraiya commanded, and Naruto jumped higher and higher. This continued until Naruto was literally at his limit. He had even resorted to using chakra to propel his feet off the ground.
Naruto landed, and fell to his knees, panting slightly, trying to regain his breath. They had been going at this for a while.
"Jump higher.", Jiraiya repeated, raising an eyebrow. He already realized that Naruto was at the maximum height that he could jump.
Naruto glared at him. "I'm at my peak, Ero-sennin. I can't jump any higher. I channeled chakra to my feet and everything! What's the point?"
The sannin folded his arms, brushing off the last question as if it was nothing important. "Okay then. So beginning from the first jump, when I said to jump higher, what did you do?"
Naruto looked at him strangely, before saying, "Well, I added more force to my jump?"
Jiraiya nodded. "Exactly. And every time you wanted to go higher like I asked, you added more force, right?"
"How does this have to do with Kage Bunshin?", Naruto repeated curiously, starting to get a little frustrated. Jiraiya face palmed. "I said I'd explain it, and I will."
Straightening himself, Jiraiya continued with his lecture. "So why couldn't you go any further?"
Naruto gave him another strange look, as if Jiraiya was obviously missing the obvious. Could anyone be that dense? "Well, duh, ero-sennin… I couldn't apply anymore force! Just like you said I should." He pointed out.
Jiraiya smirked. "Exactly. You applied the maximum amount of force to your jump that any one person could add.", he explained, emphasizing the word 'one'. Naruto's frustrated and annoyed expression turned into one with realization.
"Watch.", Jiraiya instructed, forming a ram seal and creating a shadow clone of himself. One of the Jiraiyas put his hands out, one over the other, palm in palm, and nodded signifying that he was ready. Naruto looked at the spectacle with excitement and anticipation at the possibility of learning something new. The original took a running start, before leaping, and landing on top of the outstretched hands of the first Jiraiya, who used his hands to push the jumping Jiraiya up higher into the air.
Jiraiya was sent flying well beyond Naruto's peak jump, as the upward force applied to him was the combination of his own effort and his clone's upward push. Naruto watched in awe as Jiraiya sailed through the air, flipping and landing gracefully with a dull clop on the ground as his wooden sandals hit the dirt path they were walking on.
Jiraiya smiled at Naruto's awed expression. "As you can tell, you can basically extend your ninja capabilities beyond the limitations that you would have just by only having one Naruto."
Naruto grinned, coming up with ideas of how to use Kage Bunshin. Jiraiya smiled even greater, both prideful in his student and prideful in himself for managing to shut up Naruto even if only for a while. He turned and continued walking down the path, Naruto following after, silent and in thought.
This silence was short lived, however. "Ne, Ero-sennin…!"
Another tick appeared in Jiraiya's forehead as he turned around swiftly with a small glare. "What is it, Naruto?"
"Are we there yet?"
Who knew a legendary sannin could use such colorful language?
Kurenai was feeling slightly downcast. While her fellow jounin senseis passed it off as another rude man trying to score a date with her, it was, in actuality, because of Naruto. It wasn't the genin himself. She felt slightly useless, because another person, albeit a legendary sannin, but that was besides the point, had become the teacher, even if temporary, to one of her students. It made her feel like she wasn't a good sensei.
She shook her head, clearing it of petty thoughts like this.
She was taking a walk, alongside one of her good friends Sarutobi Asuma. They were walking upon a rather large bridge that hovered over a relatively calm, thin river that was about jumping distance for the average shinobi.
As they continued walking, Asuma froze. Kurenai, noticing this immediately, turned to him, alert. Asuma subtly nodded over his shoulder, which Kurenai looked at. There were two unknown figures walking about 100 meters away, near the bridge.
Kurenai detected what Asuma had noticed that was strange about the two; they seemed to have kage level chakra levels, which was not an every day occurrence. They also had suspicious clothing on – long black coats that went well beyond their torsos, with red clouds that were outlined in white. Their faces were covered by the large bamboo hats they wore. Each step they took was accompanied by a small ringing noise, as there were red strings tied to the edges of the bamboo that had bells on the ends.
Asuma then tilted his head to the left, and Kurenai followed his gaze. There was a serious looking Kakashi about 50 meters on the other side, who was staring intently right at them, using his body language to show that he too was unsure about the pair of unknown shinobi.
Using quick gestures, they conversed silently, as no words were needed in this conversation, only the ability to interpret gestures and movements, as well as emotions. They finally agreed that Asuma and Kurenai would interrogate the two. When Asuma gave Kakashi a slightly puzzled look, and raised an eyebrow, meaning that he wanted to know what Kakashi was going to do, Kakashi smirked. He pointed over his shoulder, and then used the index and middle fingers of each hand, pressed them together and curled them above each eye, like big fuzzy eyebrows.
Kurenai giggled slightly as she understood what he was inferring. He was going to go get Guy.
Either way, they had a duty to do. As Asuma and Kurenai turned around sharply to find the mysterious duo, they saw the black coated people walking up the bridge, probably to pass by them and into the village.
Snarling, Asuma confronted them, sticking himself in an aggressive pose about 5 feet away from the figures, making them stop in their tracks.
"What do you want here in Konoha?", he asked, leaking a bit of killing intent. Kurenai stood off to the side, observing their movements carefully and trying to figure out who they were and if they were familiar.
"It's been a long time… Asuma…", one of the figures said in a cold emotionless voice, nodding at Asuma, "…Kurenai…", he said, nodding in acknowledgement at Kurenai as well. They looked surprised and slightly puzzled. Who was this man? And how did he know their names?
With a slight shake of the head, the bamboo hat fell off, revealing two blood red eyes that matched Kurenai's own, and long black hair that ruffled in the wind. The Konoha nin gasped in recognition.
"Itachi Uchiha." Asuma said gruffly, his hands moving towards the place where he kept his trench knives. "You have a lot of guts coming back here, after what you did."
Itachi smirked, and his partner chuckled slightly. "You seem to have lots of friends here, don't you Itachi." The man suddenly lurched forward, and a long bandaged sword shot out of the back of his coat, twirling in the air. He swung his head to the side, and his bamboo hat fell off as well. He raised a long arm upwards, catching the sword by the handle. The man then swung downwards with the blade in a one handed slice, smashing a decent sized dent in the ground. He looked up at the non-cloaked shinobi.
"Can I kill them?", he asked, half jokingly, half serious.
Itachi's partner had blue skin and dark blue lines cutting across his cheeks, apparently gills. He had this maniacal grin on his face, and threw off killing intent as if it was nothing.
"Kisame Hoshigaki.", Kurenai said with a slight gasp. Here there were, two S ranked ninja who were wanted in nearly every country, just standing in front of them.
"You seem to know my name…", the blue man drawled, picking up his sword in a steady position ahead of them. "…I'm honored."
"You still haven't answered my question.", Asuma said, a knife in each hand, preparing for combat.
"That is none of your concern.", Itachi said coolly, giving them a hard stare with his red eyes. Kisame grinned wider at this. "I think that's a yes, right?"
Itachi and Kisame made eye contact, before Itachi gave a short nod. The edges of Kisame's mouth stretched far into a toothy, evil grin.
"Make this quick.", were Itachi's only comments. He acted as if this was a normal happenstance, and he said it kind of offhandedly, as if he knew that the Konoha nin would have no chance against Kisame.
Before Asuma could react, Kisame had flung himself forward suddenly, hacking his sword downwards with immense, almost superhuman speed and strength.
Dodging back, the bearded jounin Asuma barely escaped the attack. The blade had smashed into the ground with a resounding thwack. Asuma was now standing beside Kurenai. The jounin looked at each other.
"I got the swordsman.", Asuma stated simply, to which Kurenai nodded. Asuma charged at Kisame, who swung his sword from the ground upwards, while Kurenai fell back.
Asuma blocked the attack with one of his trench knives, but found himself being pushed back just by the simple strength of the fish-man. 'What power…', he inwardly mused. He lunged forward, swinging at Kisame with a powerful right hook at Kisame's face. Kisame decided to be simplistic, and dodged by tilting his head back, letting Asuma's fist travel by.
However, he was surprised by a searing pain in his cheek. Looking closer at Asuma's knives, he noticed that the trench knife in Asuma's dominant right hand had an aura of chakra around it, which was molded into a sharp extended machete about a foot long. The other knife was also extended, but not as much.
It was the typical swordsman two swords approach. The longer sword in your dominant hand, which is used for attacking from farther distances – lunging, gouging, the works. The shorter one, with more control, is used for defense, balance, and if you can get close enough, stabbing.
Kisame quickly wiped the blood from his cheek from where the wound was, and then smirked. "You're not bad.", he drawled, before slicing downwards again at Asuma's body that was still following through on the attack.
Asuma barely had any time to do anything, but he managed to block the large sword with his own trench knife, pushing him back even more. Asuma smirked despite himself, and thrusted himself at Kisame again. They traded blows expertly, and went into a sort of pattern. Kisame would attack with a single powerful attack, which Asuma would parry barely, and then Asuma would counterattack multiple times, each attempt Kisame was easily able to dodge and block.
Kurenai nodded, seeing that Asuma was alright, and concentrated on her opponent. Flashing through hand seals, she released one of her more powerful genjutsu. It was a triple layered genjutsu, and it required a lot of skill and expertise and know how in the field, one that a genjutsu expert like Kurenai had.
The first layer was her signature jutsu, which turned the world into shades of pink. A tree blasted out of the stone ground, stretching out and ensnaring the opponent. The second genjutsu layer was slightly less obvious, and something to fall back upon if her opponents broke through the first layer, which was just about as easy as breaking through a normal genjutsu.
This second layer didn't really have anything special, but it basically made opponents overconfident, as it almost shouted that there was a genjutsu there. That was the purpose – to make them too sure in their own skills that they failed to see the third layer.
If they broke through the second layer, they would hit the third layer. The third layer was so intricately made that no excess chakra was exerted, and there was almost no difference between the real world (in appearance) and inside the genjutsu, making it nigh undetectable. However, if they were trapped in this layer, and started fighting with Kurenai on this level, Kurenai would have a definite advantage.
At her will, she could make it seem as though she had dodged left or moved in one direction, and then in actuality go in the other. It should be obvious how easily Kurenai would be able to land powerful blows this way. And if the genjutsu user was extremely clever, and skilled in using this distorted field, as Kurenai was, they could still make it seem as though there was no genjutsu, despite obviously using it to their advantage.
It was one of her prize and joys, and was something Kurenai had concocted after years of practicing. However, she was surprised when Itachi made no effort to break out of the first layer, instead closing his eyes as the branches wrapped tightly around him.
Oh well, all the better for her. She drew a kunai, dashing towards Itachi, intending to land a finishing blow, when suddenly, he opened his eyes widely, his iris, which had taken on the shape of a shuriken, spinning wildly.
In a flash, Kurenai couldn't move. She found herself stuck in her own genjutsu, and Itachi the one about to deal the finishing blow. The positions were reversed!?
'But how…', she thought.
Concentrating in her mind, she released her own genjutsu suddenly, just to see Itachi spin around, throwing a roundhouse kick at her. Forming a small seal less genjutsu, she made it seem as though she had jumped backwards to avoid it, when in reality she had simply ducked the kick. It was, in a way, a smaller simpler version of the more complex one she had just used. And it sufficed.
She threw a punch at Itachi, releasing the smaller genjutsu, expecting him to be taken by surprise. But nope, it seemed as though that genjutsu had been seen through as well. Itachi easily weaved around the punch, and thrusted forward, kneeing Kurenai smartly in the stomach, sending her off the bridge and into the water, which she managed to not sink in by using water walking skills.
Asuma was not faring any better. Somehow, he was finding it harder and harder to maintain the chakra blades, as every time one of his trench knives was blocked by the large bandaged sword, the elongated blade would shimmer, as if losing chakra, and he would be forced to force more chakra into it to keep it going.
He was panting now. "…how?" he sputtered out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kurenai flying off the bridge. "Kurenai!" he shouted out, concerned, but then Kisame's blade flew downwards again, and Asuma was forced to block with his chakra blades, and once again they seemed to get sucked away.
The situation looked grim.
Kurenai got up to her feet, standing on the water's surface. She shuddered. How could anyone see through her genjutsus so easily? It seemed as though she was not match for Itachi…
She saw him gracefully leap onto the water as well, walking towards her with a kunai in hand that he was casually twirling.
"Looks like it ends here.", he said, and Kurenai spat at him. "Like hell it is."
Itachi slashed diagonally, and Kurenai drew a kunai of her own in an attempt to block, when suddenly there was a loud clang.
In front of her, was Kakashi, holding a kunai of his own, stopping the attack. "Looks like I came right in time, hmm Kurenai-san?"
Kurenai let out a sigh of relief, as Kakashi was definitely a better match for this man, as she was a genjutsu specialist, and it seemed as though genjutsu was unable to hinder Itachi, even for a millisecond.
"SEVERE KONOHA SENPU!", came a loud shout, as Guy flew at Kisame, spinning in mid air and landing a powerful aerial kick to the swordsman's chest, causing him to skid backwards some.
"…Reinforcements.", Kisame sneered. "No matter, I can take you down anyways." He flipped his blade upwards, holding it in a more comfortable position.
"Stop, Kisame."
Itachi looked impassive, looking directly at Kakashi. "Your way is inefficient. Slow. Wastes time. Energy. My way is simpler. Faster. And deadlier." He stared right at Kakashi in the eyes, and to Kakashi, the skies turned red and gloomy.
Kakashi gasped, and tried to move, but found he couldn't. He looked downwards and found himself tied to wooden plank that was sticking upright out of the ground.
"For the next 72 hours, this is how you will feel." A deep voice said, making him shiver slightly.
And then he felt a searing pain in his stomach as a blade was stabbed through him.