A Shinobi Among Yokai Chapter 14
I don't own Naruto or Rosario + Vampire.
Naruto felt weightless. He flew through the air, eyes half open and mouth slightly agape with blood trailing out.
The last thing that came to mind was looking straight into Madara's purple, rippled eyes, then everything was replaced by immense pain. Some of his ribs were more than likely broken, his head felt like it was constantly getting pummeled by a sledgehammer, and he might have even had a busted lung.
He weakly turned his head to the side and saw that there was mass amounts of sand soaring alongside him. Before anything else could happen, a warm feeling enveloped him, and his eyes snapped open to attention while the pain started subsiding at a rapid rate. He looked at his body and saw that he was being bathed in a golden glow—Kurama's chakra.
There was a snapping sound that made him wince, only to be followed by several others and he groaned out loud. He guessed that was his ribs being set back in place and fixed.
He twisted his body around just in time to land feet-first on the sand before looking around the area. A loud thump-whoosh followed as the sand that had been in the air slammed back down to the ground.
There was a crater right in front of him, and not a small one, either. It was like a dent in the Earth, easily a kilometer wide in diameter, and was extremely deep. At the middle of the crater, a giant blue being as tall as the crater was deep was standing there, staring at him as if it were sending silent taunts his way.
Sasuke wasn't anywhere to be seen, which meant that he'd probably been blown away just like he had, but where?
Naruto didn't have any time to take a look around, because Madara's Susanoo drew out one of its swords that had been resting at its left hip. It raised the ethereal blade high into the air, before bringing it down. The blade sliced through the air, causing an extremely loud WHOOSH! as it went.
Kurama's chakra seemed to prove just as reliable as ever, as Naruto had easily been able to manoeuvre his body out of the way. The blade smashed into the sand, spraying the annoying and irritating substance everywhere. He balled his hand into a fist before launching it at the ethereal blade, causing it to slide along the sand away from him with cracks forming along it all the way up to the hilt.
The Susanoo's head was level with him, so it wasn't awkward when he glared straight into Madara's eyes as he stood inside of his Susanoo's helmet-covered skull, arms crossed and looking as calm and stoic as ever.
He knew the words he was about to speak probably wouldn't be very threatening, but they came with the same promise of ending the Uchiha's existence.
"I'm going to seal you away forever!"
Kuyo took the first move.
He drew his hand back over his shoulder, another one of his flame balls bursting into life. The yokai threw his arm forward, palm faced towards them, and the ball of fire soon turned into a stream of fire that was nearly wide enough to cover the entirety of the room—kind of like a flamethrower.
Naruto and Moka reacted almost simultaneously; they turned around, grabbed one of the other two people in the room, and were out the door and into a corridor by the time the room exploded.
Naruto grabbed whoever he'd picked up and slung over his shoulder before putting them on their own feet and realized he'd grabbed Kurumu. "...Uh, hey.." He said a little awkwardly.
Kurumu didn't offer a response and just looked over in the direction of Moka and Yukari, something he was glad for.
Yukari seemed to be pouting as Moka put her down with an annoyed expression. The witch was probably going to open her mouth to say something, because Moka glared at her and snapped. "Keep your mouth shut and leave."
There was an audible click as Yukari closed her mouth.
"Yeah, you two better leave." Naruto agreed.
Kurumu and Yukari shared a meaningful glance before the young witch spoke up. "Alright, try to stay alive."
He managed to keep a straight face. "...Thanks for the advice." He said. Yukari nodded and turned around before she began to walk away with Kurumu beside her. Before they were out of range though, Naruto had an idea. "Hey wait!"
Kurumu stopped in her tracks first and turned to face him, her head tilted to side slightly in curiosity. "What is it?"
A small poof of smoke later, and Naruto was holding a tri-pronged kunai. He flicked his wrist and sent it soaring, embedding it in the wall around a foot away from the succubus. "Take that with you, give it to Tsukune or something."
Kurumu took a glance at it, shrugged, and plucked the weapon out of the wall. "Uh, sure." She looked interested as to why, but she didn't say anything and just turned around to continue her walk with Yukari.
Naruto sighed before he turned around to face Moka. "That was the gas can, wasn't it?" He asked, referring to the previous explosion.
"Yes, it was." She answered, her attention completely on the hole she'd made that they'd used as an exit. Flames spewed out of it every now and then, almost silently hissing as they burnt the surroundings.
'Kind of surprised the walls didn't completely blow apart.' Naruto mused as he eyed the cracks that had spread like a spider's web along the brick from the explosion. He didn't get any longer to think about the subject as Kuyo slowly stepped through the hole looking mildly annoyed; Naruto simply couldn't resist. "So we both had stupid ideas today, huh?"
The yokai grunted but didn't look like he was going to deny it. "Regrettable ideas aside, I need to deal with the two of you so I can move on to other matters."
Moka looked slightly annoyed at the idea of Kuyo being able to beat her, but before she could say anything, Naruto decided to pipe up. "I don't know about the dealing with us part, but a fight's perfectly fine with me." Naruto hid a grimace, that stupid sentence sounded like something someone would say when they begin a fight, not one they'd say when they were already technically fighting. "I mean, yeah, let's get this over with."
Kuyo's yoki began to increase, and as it did the malicious intent the yokai had been emitting began growing as well. Naruto and Moka watched in silence as Kuyo's entire form burst into blazing hot flames, incinerating his clothes before he bent down until he was on all fours while his entire human structure began to shift and change.
His head became a snout, his golden eyes turned into a strange, red glow, his ribcage seemed to shrink in size slightly, and his back legs changed to ones someone would expect to see on a dog or even a fox. The fire surrounding him seemed to flow a bit brighter and four tails made entirely of flames sprouted out of his back, flailing around dangerously. To finish it off, Kuyo opened his mouth and let out a loud bellow.
Naruto's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "You... have got to be kidding me."
"Well would you look at that." Kurama supplied in a completely non-helpful manner.
'That's all you've got to say?'
He could almost picture Kurama rolling his eyes. "What'd you expect? I'm made up entirely of chakra while he has yoki, it's not like I'm going to have some sort of connection to him."
'I kinda thought that actually...'
"Why?" Kurama sounded a little bit annoyed. "Is it because I take the form of a fox while his true form is one?"
'...Yeah, a little.'
"Damn brat."
Naruto twitched, but before he could hope to continue bickering with the Biju, Moka started to explain what Kuyo was with some begrudging respect in her tone. "He's a yoko, an S-Class yokai such as myself. They supposedly even have the potential to become strong enough to be considered gods." She frowned. "Unfortunately, this isn't going to go as quickly as I'd hoped."
Keep your mouth shut and leave.
Those had been words that were directed at Yukari in the situation, but Kurumu knew they were for both of them. She supposed it was just Moka's way of telling them to go and start Naruto's horrendously insane and stupid plan. Seriously, how did that guy think up a plan like that?
She and Yukari walked briskly through the hallways of Yokai Academy, heading in the direction of the Newspaper Club's room. They were both silent on their journey as neither of them had any reason to talk.
Upon reaching the room, she rolled the sliding door open, and was greeted with the two people she was looking for. Gin was relaxing at the desk up the front of the room, his feet were kicked up while he twirled a pencil in his hand. Tsukune was seated in the same place he'd been in when they had left just staring off into space with a small, self-mocking smile on his face.
It was eerily silent in the club room, with just the breeze coming in through the open windows giving any life to it. "Hey!" Kurumu called to get their attention. It worked as well, Tsukune stopped staring at nothing and looked at her while Gin stopped twirling his pencil and glanced in her direction. She hoped she at least had a slightly stern look on her face; she couldn't really pull them off, stern and serious just didn't suit her. "What are you doing just sitting around? We've got a plan to carry out!"
"What plan?" Tsukune asked slowly.
"Naruto's plan." She answered. "You know, the one with the..." She trailed off when she saw Tsukune's disbelieving expression. "What is it?"
"You mean... that you're actually going through with that plan?" His disbelief was in his voice, too. "But the plan is so..." He furrowed his eyebrows, probably looking for the best word that wouldn't be insulting. "Ridiculous."
"Yeah, I know." She agreed whole-heartedly. "But it's all we can do to help Naruto-kun and Moka fight Kuyo right now, so get up already so we can go and put it into action."
She hadn't expected Tsukune to jump up and shout out to the entire world that he was going to give the plan his all, but it was no less disappointing when he sighed and got up from his desk with an unenthusiastic expression. "What do you want me to do then?"
Yukari was the one to explain to Tsukune his role. During it all, Gin had only spared them a few more glances, but Kurumu hadn't expected much from their President in the first place. "...And that's you're role." Yukari finished, looking sympathetic.
Tsukune was almost as pale as the dead, a bead of nervous sweat rolled down his forehead from what Yukari had just told him to do. He gulped and stood up to his full height, which was a few inches shorter than Naruto's. His expression had become one of grim determination, as if he'd just signed a contract that would get him killed but would save people in the process.
Kurumu wanted to tell him everything would be okay in the end, but how could she when she didn't even have confidence in that very statement? She swallowed the lump in her throat and put on a reassuring smile, deciding to give it a shot anyway. "It'll be..." Her voice cracked, and she couldn't get the words out.
Tsukune smiled at her in thanks. "Yeah, everything'll be just fine."
Kuyo's tails spun above him like the rotors on a helicopter, creating a set of five fireballs that swirled around in a circle at incredible speeds. "Prepare to be burnt into nothing but ashes!" Kuyo declared, and Naruto noticed that his voice had become deeper with a more powerful undertone. The yokai's tails reared back in preparation, the five balls of brightly burning flames creating a mini fire cyclone on their own. Kuyo lurched forward, followed by his tails and then his attack.
Fire really was Naruto's worst enemy—he couldn't counter it with any of his techniques, he hadn't even used Amaterasu once where he'd need to suppress the flames, lest he burn everything and everyone in the area, so there was no chance for him overpowering it. So, all that was left for him to do was either dodge or defend. He chose to dodge at the last second by leaping to his right and rolling along the cold floor once he'd landed.
There was an explosion behind him, followed by the sound of bricks slamming into various other objects. He glanced behind him and noticed that the wall he and Moka had been standing in front of was all but obliterated with flames licking at the edges of the big hole that had been left. Past that hole he could see what he presumed was dirt, he couldn't really make it out from the distance and the dim lights.
He squinted to see through the flames better and could just barely make out the form of Moka standing back on her own two feet at the other side of the corridor, apparently she'd decided to move out of the way as well.
Moka apparently didn't feel like standing around though as her form briefly blurred out of his sights before he found her a couple of feet in front of Kuyo in a semi-crouch, her leg behind her and ready to send the yoko on a one-way trip to the other side of the HQ.
It seemed that Kuyo had been ready for her though, and going by his bared teeth, he didn't appreciate the gesture. He leaped backwards, jumping into the room that had previously exploded because of a gas can, dodging Moka's limb by a hairline and letting it destroy the wall even further.
Their eyes locked briefly, and Moka inclined her head slightly in the direction of Kuyo as if to say, You just going to stay there all day? Huh, so it wasn't beneath her to accept help in a fight, what an eye-opener.
"Time to join in on the fun then." He mused aloud to himself before running back into the room that had exploded beforehand and also the one that Kuyo and Moka were inside of.
The walls, floor and the high-ceiling were all charred into a dark-grey bordering on black. The steel chair in the middle of the room looked disfigured, but still in the same place, probably because it was bolted into the ground. The stone bench off to his left with all the tools on it had taken quite a beating, if the fact that it looked nothing more than a large rock was anything to go by. The tools themselves were scattered around it, looking bent, out of shape and no longer usable.
Naruto blinked a few times. "Wow, you really did a number on this poor place."
Kuyo was standing on all fours at the opposite side of him and Moka, still looking like he wanted nothing more than to burn them into nothing but ashes. He beat his tails together above him, and another round of five fireballs appeared, spinning around like a mini cyclone. "Unfortunately for you, you won't be seeing it ever again after today."
Naruto took a few steps in Kuyo's direction, he supposed if Kuyo had transformed and decided to take them seriously, then he could take it up a few notches as well. "No, I guess I won't, but that's only because I don't want to come back down into this dank place." He turned his head around to glance at Moka. "Hope you don't mind that I'll be taking the spot light for a bit."
She studied him, her piercing crimson eyes looking straight into his very being before she nodded subtly. "Sure."
Much like before, Kuyo lurched forwards, his tails followed, and the five spinning fireballs were sent roaring at Naruto and the vampire behind him.
Just before impact, Naruto felt a familiar stinging sensation behind his eyes.
With rough directions on a pseudo-map given to him by Yukari who had scribbled it up, Tsukune navigated the corridors of Yokai Academy in order to instigate his roll of Naruto's plan.
Well, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't really simply Naruto's plan anymore seeing as Yukari had tweaked it, changing it from crazy and ridiculous to just plain crazy. If he was to be honest with himself, he would rather someone else take his place and do what he was about to do, but he knew that wouldn't be possible—Kurumu and Yukari had their own things to do and he doubted Gin would want to take any part in it.
He glanced down at the poorly drawn map, just barely understanding where to go. He had his right hand in his pocket, gripping one of Naruto's tri-pronged kunai that Kurumu had given to him while saying that Naruto told her to give it to Tsukune.
There was only two reasons that came to Tsukune's mind when he thought about why Naruto had wanted him to have the kunai; either it was because Naruto could teleport to it at will, or it was because the blond wanted him to use it and-
He cut his own thoughts off before they could take that rather dark path.
There wasn't anyone walking through the corridors with him as all the students were supposed to be at their classes, and it gave the area an eerily cold feeling to it. Despite the fact that he was wearing a blazer and pants, Tsukune shivered. He hand't ever noticed it before, but now that there was no one around, Yokai Academy really did give off the same feeling that a Haunted Mansion gave.
Before much longer, Tsukune found himself standing in front of a set of double doors. He glanced down at the map in his hands to make sure he was in the right place before taking in a deep breath and pushing the door to his left slightly open, just enough so that he could peek inside.
He'd been expecting something similar to the underground prison in Vegas, but was somewhat disappointed when he saw the stack of stairs leading downwards, dimly lit by the two light bulbs hanging from the inclined ceiling.
'How original.' He thought sarcastically before shaking it off and making his way down the stairs. He crept down them as silently as he could manage, hoping to any and all powerful beings out there that there wasn't a yokai that had enhanced hearing at or near the bottom.
Fortunately there wasn't, and he was able to release a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. He flipped the map that Yukari had given him around and was greeted with a somewhat completed bird's eye view of the Public Safety Committee's Headquarters. The fact that it wasn't complete didn't really matter though, it still showed the path he needed to take to reach his desired destination.
He breathed in the cold and slightly repulsive air before taking a few steps forward, getting more and more confident that no one was around every time one of his feet went in front of the other until he was briskly walking down the lone corridor that had greeted him. There were eight doors on the left and four on the right, but going by Yukari's map, he needed to take the very last one on the right.
The muffled sound of a wall collapsing reached his ears and he quickened his pace, his mind coming to the conclusion that the sound had been because of Naruto and Moka trying to pummel Kuyo.
He took a hold of the door knob that was connected to the door at the end of the corridor. With the same grim determination he'd felt swell within him at the club room, he turned it and pushed the door open. He felt his shoulders slump in relief when he saw that there was no one in the room, and he closed the door behind him without looking back at it—something he'd soon come to realize as a big mistake.
The room itself was quite small, with a width of only three or four meters and probably double that in length. Along the walls were metal lockers, all having an assortment of locks on them—code, key, and even one that looked like it should be locking up a bike instead. At the very end, a ring with keys on it hung onto a hook which was embedded in the wall, they glinted at different intervals from the light on the ceiling.
He was about to take a step towards them, but stopped when he heard a cold voice speak from behind him—right where the door was located.
"Hello, Tsukune-kun."
If Moka had been a gambler, she'd bet that her expression would be one of surprise, and not the Happy Birthday, I got you this! surprise, but the What the hell is that, and what is going on? surprise.
When Naruto had said that he was going to 'take the spotlight for a bit', she'd noticed a strange gleam in his eyes as if he was up to something. It wasn't hard to guess that this was what he had been up to.
Naruto was fine, in fact she'd say that he was much more than fine. A large, purple, skeletal being had surrounded him. It was tall enough that it's skull nearly hit the high-ceiling, and in its left hand was a purple, glowing and ethereal beam-like structure that reminded her of a sword. The sword was pointed outwards, having just sliced through Kuyo's attack seemingly without much effort at all.
The flames that had resulted settled down, and Kuyo was visible to their eyes again looking just as surprised if not more so than she was.
The purple being surrounding Naruto put its hand back at its side while the sword disappeared. "It's been nearly two months since I last used this." Naruto muttered, his tone colder than before.
Two months? Moka's mind involuntarily wandered; two months ago had been before the school year started, but what situation would call for him to call on such a being? Did it have anything to do with the incident in Tokyo he'd briefly mentioned to her other half?
Before she could continue her musings, Kuyo began to speak, his surprise having apparently waned. "Interesting, to think that a human such as yourself would not only be able to fight yokai alone, but also be able to bring forth something like this." Kuyo's eyes narrowed. "Even so, do you really think that this... being will change the results?"
"Who knows." Naruto shrugged, and Moka could picture the carefree smile that was probably on his face. His voice gained that colder tone it had before. "Why don't you attack and see what happens?"
It was an obvious lure and Kuyo probably knew it, but he generated another set of five fireballs and launched them at the blond anyway. It happened just as it had before—another sword came into existence in the purple beings hand and sliced horizontally, disrupting Kuyo's attack and causing an explosion at the control the compressed flames suddenly lost.
This time, the purple ethereal sword didn't disappear when the flames dimmed down. Instead the being that looked to be under Naruto's control gripped it tighter, bringing the blade behind itself like it was getting ready to swing.
And swing it did; it sliced through the air with a loud whistle, before slamming into Kuyo's side before the yoko could even so much as yelp. The Head of the Public Safety Committee was sent careening through the nearby wall, followed by the next three.
Much like the other times when the walls had been broken apart, bricks went flying around the immediate area, colliding with others before landing on the ground. Some of them had been reduced to almost nothing but ash from Kuyo's flaming body, and others were still in the process of burning.
Naruto began to walk forward in the direction Kuyo had been sent, but before he had completely left, he turned around to glance at her and she couldn't help but be taken aback by his eyes. No longer where they blue, they were instead the same colour red her eyes were, with a strange pattern to it that she couldn't make out from the distance between them.
"You just going to stay there all day?" He asked, using the words she'd thought when she had tried to kick Kuyo to the other side of the Committee's Headquarters.
"You finished showing off?" She found herself asking rather flatly while gesturing to the skeletal being around him.
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "...I wasn't trying to show off."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure."
Tsukune froze as the cold hand rested upon his shoulder. He wasn't very familiar with the voice that the hand belonged to, but he could definitely identify who it was. "Ishigami." He was still holding the map in his left hand, with his right hand in his pocket, tightly coiled around Naruto's tri-pronged kunai.
"Ah, I'm glad you remember who I am." She whispered, her cold breath going along his ear and sending a shudder down his spine. "It was the club that you belong to that put me in this situation, after all."
It was either survival instinct or just him panicking, but Tsukune's mind was racing—filled with possible outcomes to escape the position he found himself in, and some of them were just incoherent babble inside his head. The hand in his pocket shook slightly and he cursed it. "You did that to yourself."
"Is that so?" She mused aloud, but there was an almost undetectable angry hiss in her tone. "I must ask you though, what are you doing all the way down here?"
Tsukune's throat felt dry, but he managed to get out a reply. "I just got lost and wandered down here." He tried and knew she didn't believe him when he heard a soft chortle.
"Come now, Tsukune-kun, you don't really think that I'd believe something like that, do you?" The cold hand on his shoulder moved around until it rested on the nape of his neck. "Now why are you really down here?"
Tsukune wasn't oblivious to the threatening tone her voice carried, as if she was silently telling him that if he didn't tell her the truth, then he'd simply be killed; or worse, be trapped forever as a stone statue.
What could he do? It's not like he could actually tell her and sell everyone out, that was just out of the question, not even a possible option.
"Wait a minute, why are you down here, sensei?" He asked in an attempt to buy time.
The grip she had at the nape of his neck softened slightly—he didn't know why, but he wasn't complaining. "Oh, nothing much, it's just that Kuyo and I have an arrangement."
There was something else in her tone, bitterness, annoyance? Maybe even both, but that wasn't important. What was important was what she had said about having an arrangement with Kuyo. "What do you mean?"
She hummed. "Don't worry, just know that it concerns Naruto-kun and outside information."
"You mean the whole thing about Kuyo thinking he's a human?"
"Ah." She sighed, her grip tightened once again. "It seems that I've said enough. Goodbye, Tsukune-kun."
Goodbye, a common word said to people who are leaving temporarily or permanently—unfortunately, Tsukune felt that it was the latter. He made a last-second decision, he began to pull Naruto's tri-pronged kunai from his pocket, but stopped when he heard a cry of pain followed by Ishigami's hand removing itself from the nape of his neck.
Tsukune spun around in surprise and was greeted to the sight of Gin standing above the prone and apparently unconscious form of Ishigami. The werewolf ran a hand through his hair, shoulders slumping as he left his body relax before a sigh escaped his mouth. "You guys are really troublesome, Tsukune."
"S-senpai?!" He felt his eyes widen while his jaw twitched like it wanted to have a one-way vacation to the centre of the Earth. "Why are you here?"
Gin did a pat down on his clothes and Tsukune only just noticed his rather dishevelled state, as if he'd sprinted at light speed around the school—okay, an exaggeration, but Gin was still pretty fast when he wanted to be nonetheless. "I'm here because I made a decision."
"You mean you don't want to be a guinea pig anymore?"
Gin's face wrinkled in a combination of annoyance and amusement. "Sure, let's go with that." He straightened. "Need some help, then?"
For the first time since the whole situation with Kuyo and the Public Safety Committee started, Tsukune smiled, and it wasn't to put someone else's nerves at ease. "Yeah, that'd be appreciated."
Naruto rubbed at his mildly stinging eyes—it was almost exactly like the time one the plane and he'd watched the Saw movies and his eyes started getting irritated from staring at the screen for too long, only the difference was that it wouldn't go away or even simmer down.
He followed the trail of destroyed walls and burning flames, Susanoo's incomplete form still surrounding him. He knew that Kuyo was still alive—he could still sense his strong yoki, and he knew that Susanoo's sword when it wasn't complete wasn't used for slicing and dicing, but was used more like a baseball bat.
Moka walked by his side, looking just as confident, dignified and deadly as ever. She occasionally shot curious glances at the skeletal being around him but stayed silent and he didn't offer up any information.
Finally, they made it to the room that Kuyo had tumbled into. Said yokai had his head down, hacking up a pool of blood. The room itself was rather plain and empty, the same brick walls were present, the ceiling was still high enough to fit the Susanoo's body, there was a wide open door at the other end and it still had the dark, cold and creepy feeling to it.
The corner of Naruto's lips twitched upwards. "Have a nice flight?"
He hadn't expected Kuyo to say No, it was terrible, the plane was crashing into everything, but it was still somewhat annoying when the yoko dismissed his attempt at lightening the mood with a hateful glare. He spat out some more blood and beared his teeth at the two of them, some of the crimson liquid staining his teeth,
"He doesn't seem to be in a joking mood." Moka remarked with some amusement and Naruto smiled slightly—the current Moka didn't usually ever show much emotion.
Before Naruto could even think of a reply, the air around them started to become colder. They both looked around warily, searching for the reason until both of their eyes locked onto Kuyo.
The Head of the Public Safety Committee was changing, and not in a good way. He was stood up on his two back legs, his body becoming slightly thinner and taller by the second. Within mere seconds, Kuyo no longer had a fox-like body structure, it was more of a humans.
Naruto frowned, sensing Kuyo's yoki rising to a whole new level. "He's not transforming back into a human form, is he?"
Moka shook her head. "No, definitely not."
Kuyo stood as tall as he had been before releasing his true form, his ears went to the top of his skull while flickering with blue flames, four tails with the same blue flames flailed around behind him. His torso was revealed to them with strange tribal-like markings on them, and his lower body was bathed in his own flames—thankfully. Despite the blue fire, Naruto could still tell that his legs were the only thing that hadn't changed in his new transformation.
Naruto pursed his lips. The colder temperature was unexpected, but not entirely unfamiliar—it was similar to the Amaterasu flames, so hot that it felt cold.
Kuyo spread his arms out wide, looking like he truly enjoyed being in the form he was currently in. "You should feel honoured, not many people get to see my finely honed battle form, and those that have are all ashes in the wind." He spoke calmly and confidently, as if just him transforming for the second time guaranteed his victory. He narrowed his golden, malicious eyes. "So, who wants to be the first one to die?"
Despite the fact that either Moka or Naruto could potentially die, he felt excited; his heart rate had sped up, his senses were on high alert, his brain was on overdrive, and of course his blood was really pumping. That was the reason Naruto enjoyed fights like these, the excitement and the adrenaline running through his veins felt empowering and not in the same way he felt when he was using Kurama's chakra—it was simply just his body's reaction, and he loved it.
He felt a small grin tug at his lips. "Come on then, Kuyo. Show me what this new form of yours can do." As soon as the words left his mouth, the Susanoo materialized another ethereal blade in its hand. Beside him, Moka tensed in preparation.
Kuyo raised his hand in the air, the blue flames that surrounded it following obediently. A small, almost harmless looking ball of blue flames burst into his palm, flickering and hissing. Slowly, almost as if Kuyo was purposefully waiting on suspense, he brought his hand down, his arm stretched to its full length, and the blue fireball shot forward, expanding to fill the entire width of the room in mere seconds.
Naruto had a sense of déjà vu as the flames barrelled towards him and Moka, but didn't dwell on it for very long. Instead, he grabbed Moka by her arm and pulled her inside of the skeletal being surrounding him. She grunted indignantly in a very unlady-like manner, but didn't resist. The Susanoo twisted and shifted its body until its arms, sword and entire torso was covering them, gaining what Naruto would describe as its 'skin'.
Now that she was inside a clearly safe position, Moka yanked herself away from the blond's grasp, crossed her arms, looked away and raised her nose in the air slightly. "That wasn't necessary."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sure it wasn't." He said sarcastically, betting that she probably knew her only other choice would have been to dodge.
She looked straight ahead, glaring at the flames as if that would make them disappear. "It's impressive that you're able to call on something like this."
"Thanks." He said off-handedly, rubbing his eyes that had been steadily becoming more and more irritated.
There was a slight pause before Moka spoke up again. "How long will this last?"
She didn't gesture to anything, but it was fairly obvious that she meant the Susanoo. "It should outlast Kuyo's flames pretty easily, I only upped it's defence just to be sure."
Kuyo's flames persisted, but Naruto's Susanoo remained unmoving and stubborn. Naruto frowned in annoyance, he could surely move towards Kuyo's location with Susanoo protecting him, but how would he take the yoko out? He couldn't even see him with all the fire in the way.
"Move closer." Moka said.
He couldn't place her expression, but it seemed like she had an idea, so he did as told and began to take a few steps in Kuyo's general direction. The Susanoo held steadfast, unflinching even as it inched more and more into the flames—though Naruto doubted it could actually flinch in the first place.
That's when he caught on—when he sensed who was getting closer. Naruto and Moka moved forwards, the Susanoo around them deflecting Kuyo's flames and making them hit the side of the walls which had started to slowly crumble and fall apart in some areas.
A growl came from the other side of the wall of bright, blue flames. "Just roll over and die already!"
Suddenly, the flames grew in size, towering over and covering the Susanoo like a blanket. Naruto looked all around and was met with just the purple structure of his Susanoo, the blue fire around them, and Moka herself. Some of the Susanoo's skin began to melt off in some areas, but it was only on small scales so Naruto wasn't overly worried about it.
Naruto glanced at her. "You'd think he'd have run out of steam by now."
Moka merely shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, she's here."
As if to prove Moka's claim, a familiar, feminine, and childish voice reached their ears. "Hey, you! Yeah, stupid and bad excuse for the Human Torch, over here!"
Naruto bit back a grin. "Wow, she's letting lose on the insults, huh?" Moka didn't respond verbally, but there was a small, amused smirk on her face.
The flames around them died down into small embers that traced along the floor. At the opposite end of the room in the doorway, Yukari stood with a small grin on her face while holding onto the head of a hose which looked full with water. It wasn't a small garden hose either, oh no, it was a high-pressure hose that looked like it belonged on a fire truck rather than in an eleven year old's hands.
Kuyo had moved to the side of the room in front of a wall that was still crumbling so that he could take in all three of them in his line of sight. He looked furious as he glared at Yukari, but his shoulders were slumped slightly and the way he stood was loose, as if Naruto could just poke him and make him fall over. "So you've returned to die with these two." He narrowed his eyes at the hose. "What do you think a hose can do?"
The Susanoo disappeared from around Naruto and Moka while the stinging sensation behind his eyes disappeared. He gave a small grin, he knew what the hose was for, it had been part of his plan after all! "Not much to worry about, Kuyo."
Before anyone could offer anything else up to the conversation, alarms began blaring all around the HQ, making Kuyo go rigid with surprise. "What have you done!?"
Yukari's grin grew slightly bigger. "It seems like Tsukune-san has finished his part of the plan—letting every single one of your prisoners free to run this place to the ground."
Naruto blinked; that hadn't been a part of the plan he'd supplied, but who was he to complain? Going by Kuyo's expression it was obvious that he was far from happy, and that was a good thing in Naruto's books.
Despite the hose in Yukari's hands looking full, it kept slowly expanding as more and more water pumped into it. "Out of time!" Yukari announced, pulling back the clamp that blocked the water from being released. Water burst forth from the hose and Kuyo watched with disbelief written on his face as the liquid blasted a nice hole in the wall right next to him.
Yukari looked like she was struggling to aim it at the yoko, and Kuyo scowled as if he'd been insulted. "Even pressurised water to that degree won't have a chance to take me down, you stupid witch!"
She kept struggling, but still managed to get out a reply. "Oh I know that already, I think everyone does, but that wasn't it's purpose." When she kept struggling, Moka went over to her, having apparently decided to give the young witch a hand. "It's actually probably more useful in this situation as well. Seeing as it doesn't look like we'd be able to get close to you for an extended period of time, we—well, it was Naruto's idea, but you get the gist—decided to forcibly lower your power with a flames natural enemy, water."
Done with her small speech, Yukari let go of the hose as soon as Moka took a hold of it. Without much effort at all, Moka directed the high-pressure hose directly at Kuyo, obliterating what had been left of the walls as it went.
Kuyo sneered. "Foolish thinking! As if a hose could ever do such a thing!" Despite him looking more drained than when he'd transformed into his current state, he apparently still had enough energy to put more power into the flames around his body, causing his entire body to light up like a Real Life Human Torch, only blue. He raised his hands and the flames massed in front of him, forming a pseudo-barrier.
The water slammed into flames, generating a thick mist that covered a nice area of around five meters squared, therefore hiding Kuyo completely. Naruto smirked, it was show time. He sprinted over to Yukari and Moka, with the latter ditching the hose to the young witch who seemed more than glad to take it and move out of the way to destroy some more walls.
Naruto grabbed her arm and looked into her eyes. "Ready?"
The alarms were still blaring loudly and there was the distant sound of fighting as well as some crazed yells—Naruto guessed that those belonged to the former prisoners.
Moka nodded. "Yeah."
Naruto took a step forwards, gripping Moka's arm tighter with both hands. He hissed in a breath before flinging the vampire forwards, directly at the mist which surrounded Kuyo.
Moka twisted her body so that she was barrelling in feet-first. She punched a hole through the mist like rocket; Naruto caught the expression of shock that had shown on Kuyo's revealed face, only to see the yoko disappear when he was formally introduced to the bottom of Moka's shoes.
Naruto watched with smug satisfaction as Kuyo's face distorted, before it was followed by several loud cracking sounds like bones breaking—which was probably the case. The next second, Moka and Kuyo had disappeared, rather loud booms being the only indication that they were still in motion and slamming through walls.
Naruto turned around to Yukari and saw that the young witch had apparently stopped destroying things with water. The clamp on the hose was back down, but the hose itself looked empty, as if someone had stopped pumping water into it. "Run out?"
She pouted. "Yeah, apparently that big-chested cow decided to turn it off."
"Who?"
"Kurumu."
"Ah." His lips twitched upwards slightly at her nickname for the succubus. "Where is she anyway?"
Yukari blinked at him and placed the hose down in the inch-deep water she was standing in. "On top of the tallest building at this academy, it's where the hose was."
Naruto opened his mouth to say how stupid it was to have a hose on a roof, but decided against it and just shook his head instead. "Alright, whatever, I'm going to Moka-chan."
Finding Moka wasn't hard, he just had to follow the trail of destroyed walls and blue flames. When he came to the last destroyed wall, he found Moka leaning against a locker with her arms crossed, apparently waiting for him. She was standing in an admittedly small room, it was only three our four meters wide and the length of it was around double that. Exact replicas of the locker that Moka was leaning on coated the walls with various locks on them.
Kuyo, on the other hand, didn't look to be in very good condition. He was slumped on a bent in locker, his blue flames flickering hopelessly and looking more harmless than malicious. He opened his mouth in a snarl as a way of greeting him, but he coughed and hacked up some blood onto the floor beside him.
Naruto smiled. "It looks like you're barely holding onto consciousness, Kuyo."
Kuyo managed a snarl this time. "I'll get stronger." He promised. "And when I do, I'll kill everyone you've ever shown any affection towards."
Naruto took a couple of steps so he was standing in front of the downed yoko. "Really?" He asked, bending down to glare straight into Kuyo's golden eyes. "You can try I suppose, but that doesn't really matter right now. What does is how you found out that I'm a human."
"Ishigami."
Naruto blinked. "Wow, that was easy. I didn't expect you to rat her out so easily."
Kuyo sneered. "Why shouldn't I? I don't have any loyalty to her, and finding out that she might be killed brings me joy."
"Good point." Naruto amended before standing back up and sighing. He looked back down into Kuyo's hateful eyes. "It's fine if you plan on coming after me again in the future, but I guess you should at least know what you're up against." A warm slowly started to spread through his body and he soon found himself looking at a shocked Kuyo, his body having gained a golden glow and a tattered cloak—Kurama's chakra. "I don't want to see you again until you think you can fight me full on Kuyo, because the next time I won't hold back."
Another golden ember broke off from his cloak, and that was the last one Naruto saw before he felt Kurama's chakra leave him. Kuyo's head had slumped down, apparently unconscious.
"What... was that just now?" Moka asked and he turned around to see her looking genuinely surprised and interested.
"Maybe I'll tell you sometime." Naruto shrugged with what he hoped was a dismissive smile. "But now we need to go get Tsukune as well as Gin, freeing a bunch of crazy yokai from imprisonment can't have been enjoyable."
Chapter 14 done!