Yo guys, sorry for the late posting. I have exams going on. Also very sorry that I cannot reply to all the reviews like I used to but when I get time, I will start doing it again.
But thanks for reviewing and liking the story so far.
Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto.
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The nine Biju were created from the dreadful Juubi, even though at first their hearts were in the right place, their chakra was not. And to balance that out from the Nature twelve creatures, known as Zodiac beasts, were born. Raiju found it was unfair how the Biju's fell victim to the darkness of the mankind while the Zodiac beasts received the kindness from the humans. After all this year, most of the Biju's hearts became as tainted as their chakra.
Now Raiju was facing Kurama, one of the strongest of them, who was laughing, not menacingly but more like he just figured out a joke.
"I know what you did Raiju. You created another mindscape over mine to act as a barrier to make sure the brat doesn't come here. Maybe you were afraid that he might be tainted or his blessed power might merge with mine. But look, even with all these precautions he drew out my chakra, and so much of it but the best part is he did it all by himself." Kurama said when his laughter slowed down. He looked at Raiju and smirked.
"No matter what you will do Raiju, nothing will work. I saw the darkness in mankind. Just because one person is good and pure doesn't mean he won't be tainted. It is the other way around. Take it like this, the better a person is in heart and in soul the higher he flies but when his wings snaps, and trust me they always do, they fall to the ground hardest. And after tasting despair and pain, they are the ones that get twisted beyond saving." Kurama chuckled when he saw Raiju flinched for a second, "This kid will also fall; maybe not today, or tomorrow but someday his wings will broke as well. But I have to admit I am surprised to see him combining my chakra with his own blessed power."
Raiju looked down for a moment as if he was in deep thought, then suddenly he started chuckling softly, "You may be right in some cases, Kurama. But I think you are wrong about Naruto. His wings are strong enough not only to carry himself but also his loved ones and in return his loved ones will make sure to protect his wings. Yes, in this world anything can happen but for once I will bet on a human. He is different, you and I both know it. Like you said there is darkness in everyone but I know he will overcome his own." Raiju met Kurama's grin with his own.
"Then let us see how it all plays out." Kurama just shook his head.
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With Naruto
When Naruto heard the series of explosions and trembling of the ground that came after that he dashed. He panicked but for some reason he could feel all of his friends, they were alive but injured, not critically but Hinata was in a different place than others. His heart started to feel heavy, he ran as fast his legs could, "Hinata, be safe, be safe." That was all he thought.
When he was able to pinpoint her location he landed there only to see her get shot to the heart by an arrow. She fell down the cliff but Shino caught her before she hit the ground. He saw from all the way up there that blood started coming out from her mouth.
Rage.
Pure Rage.
That's all he was feeling. He looked at the guy that had the galls to hurt his Hinata.
He wanted to crush his bone one by one,
Leisurely so he could hear the sound of his bone breaking.
He wanted to tear the guy limb by limb,
Slowly so he could hear him scream.
He wanted to cut him open to pull out his organs painfully.
While he was still alive and conscious.
He would scream at him, would beg to kill him.
But he wouldn't let him die, not so quickly.
All this thoughts ignited a new power inside of him, he felt it and without a second thought he embraced it. But it was not enough, he started to push pure raw lightning chakra while getting covered by that wicked one. His body hurt but he gave no mind to that, although it gave him a sick pleasure when he saw the fear in his victim's eyes. He grinned.
"I want to see your insides."
No.5 dashed back and started shooting arrows hastily, he knew what Naruto was, a jinchuriki. There was no way to go around it. His mission was to get Raiga's sword, all till now looked like it was going well until he pissed of a jinchuriki. He would have to get the sword later, now his main objective was to get the hell out of there alive, at any cost; if he can. When he saw his arrows couldn't penetrate his chakra cloak he threw flash arrows and waited for them to go off. The moment it did, he ran the other side of where Naruto was.
Then he heard some 'swooshing' sound and he took a hard turn to dodge an incoming 'hand'. It was a chakra hand, it landed on a huge stone and grinded it to dust as if it was nothing. He looked back to see, Naruto was just a few meters away from, same distance like before but he wasn't moving, just staying there, grinning at him, taunting him; it was like a predator playing with his prey. No.5 paled, he wasn't so sure if he could come back alive. He needed a distraction, a…..
The ground beneath him cracked, he looked down to a chakra hand came out and grabbed his ankle so tightly that he felt his bones started cracking. He looked at Naruto in horror to see one of his hand was pointing downwards and a thick chakra pierced the ground. Before he could do anything, Naruto pulled his hand, the arm that was holding his ankle forced him to come towards him.
No.5 was trying to find a way, any way to get out of this alive but he knew that he couldn't. He felt the arm holding his ankle tightened the grip breaking the bones there, and some chakra was also being injected inside him, not the malice chakra, the lightning one which was making his body go numb. It was even hard to mold his chakra now. Naruto smacked him in to the ground, No.5 looked at him helplessly as Naruto put both of his hand up from where chakra arm came out and formed as a hammer, and then, he started smashing him.
One time,
Two time,
He would smash him hard and then wait to see if he was conscious, then would smash him again.
He didn't know how long the hellish beating continued but it stopped after a while which felt like eternity to him.
Naruto looked at him with calculated eyes; yes, he broke his bones, all of them maybe, just like he wanted to. Now to tear him from limb to limb, one at a time.
"Naruto-kun." The sweet voice that he fought for called out to him. He looked back to see Hinata was there standing, looking at him with worried eyes. Yamato was coming towards her shouting and telling her to get back. He snarled at him and in an instance he was right in front of Hinata. Hinata was surprised at his sudden outburst of speed but she smiled at him afterwards, seeing Naruto grumbling, she made slow shushing sound and opened her jacket, although it was really embarrassing for her but the situation was dire. She pointed at her heart.
"See Naruto-kun, I was not injured, you saved me." She hold out the Uzumaki locket which was a bit dented. She was hit by the arrow right in the heart area but the arrow was blunt, it was meant for her to get knocked out without injuring her although it would had done some extensive damage but luck was on her side as it hit the necklace which took most of the damage, surprisingly it got dented a bit only, but the force still pushed her back and she received some damage from that.
Hinata's face lit up like Christmas light when Naruto started sniffing her left breast. She hold out her hand to touch Naruto but Naruto moved his head back wearily and looked at her cautiously. Seeing that Hinata shook of her embarrassment and started humming a gentle tune which seemed to calm him down a bit. She once again hold out her hand but this time he didn't back out. She was ready for the pain that would come when she would touch the chakra cloak but to her surprise the moment she was inches away from that, the chakra cloak vanished from there, it was still covering his arm and legs also the chakra tail and ears were still visible but on other areas of Naruto's body the chakra cloak seemed to be dwindled as if the chakra itself didn't want to hurt her. She took the chance and started scratching his darkened whiskers, he started purring indicating that he liked that.
"It's ok, Naruto-kun. I am here. You beat up all the bad guys. Rest now." She said gently and slowly trying to reassure him that it was over.
Hinata sat down and slowly pulled Naruto's head onto her lap. With one hand she was scratching his whiskers and with another she was rubbing his head while humming the tune. Slowly the cloak vanished leaving a normal but battered Naruto in Hinata's lap. She smiled and gently kissed him on the cheek. Naruto purred a bit and rubbed his head against her thighs making her blush fiercely.
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With Yamato
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When the explosion occurred, Yamato quickly created his 'wood locking wall' with all his remaining chakra, not to increase the size of the wall but to harden it. Good thing that no one else was there for him to cover. After the landslide passed he came out exhausted to see Kurenai was nursing Haku, who seemed to be in a catching duty on this mission.
Minutes later they felt that, the dreadful Kyuubi's aura. They saw Shino was holding Hinata who was coughing cause of the hit she received. Yamato immediately got the idea of what occurred but before he could even say anything, Hinata shook Shino off and ran towards the chakra, Yamato told Kurenai to stay there and to keep an eye on the genin and Raiga whose whereabouts was still unknown.
Because of all the fights he was not as fast as his normal self, so when he reached he saw Hinata was calling out to Naruto and he was in chakra cloak mode, way too much Kyuubi's chakra slipped out of the seal. He shouted at Hinata to get back but that seemed to rile up Naruto who, in an instance, was beside Hinata. He stopped dead on his track. One wrong move and he might hurt Hinata. He started wrecking through his brain to come up with something, anything to avoid the tragedy that he was sure to come.
Wasn't he supposed to protect him from this? Wasn't that one of the reason he started looking after this boy? All of his thoughts prevented him to see what Hinata was doing until he heard her humming. After what transpired from there, was engraved in his memory and he knew he would forever remember this. Hinata calmed down a pissed off powered up jinchuriki with just a tune and some simple touches. No fucking wood jutus or Sharingan, nothing.
The tension was too much, he fell on his butt and started laughing.
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With Raiga
The landslide was coming towards them, he could have dodged it but Ranmaru was there, he had to protect him. He used his second 'Lightning Dragon Tornado' on the landslide to make a way for him to go to Ranmaru. When he reached him it was too late, the landslide was already upon them, so he charged as much lightning as he could and used his favorite jutsu 'Fangs of lightning' and hold it for as long as he could. When it was over, he looked back to see if Ranmaru was alright or not and to his relief he was. But sadly he took too much damage from the rubbles and his chakra was almost zero, he knew he wouldn't live for long.
Ranmaru woke up to see Raiga all battered up and he couldn't feel his chakra, he moved in to re-energize him with his own chakra.
"Don't, Ranmaru. You don't have enough chakra and even you give me all, this injuries will kill me anyway." Hearing Ranamaru's cries, he softened up, "Live on Ranmaru, go with the Konoha shinobi, they will take care of you. But before that could you come here. I want one last favor from you." Ranmaru moved to hear his foster father's last wish.
Kurenai came to check if Raiga was alive or not, after Yamato left she heard a loud thundering noise coming from a bit far. She came to see Raiga was looking at Ranmaru softly and shushing the kid who was crying. It broke her heart even though they were her enemies, from taking on look at Raiga she could see his time was up. Seeing Kurenai, Raiga looked at her pleadingly.
"I know I am not in any position to ask for any favor, but tell the wood-user that I respected him as an excellent shinobi. And if he felt anything similar to me at all, please ask him to look after Ranmaru. Take Ranmaru to him and he….will…tell…the…rest." With the last part he closed his eyes.
Ranmaru started crying harder. Kurenai let him, the child needed to release his pain. She waited until Ranmaru fell asleep crying, then she pick him up and came back to the rendezvous point to see Yamato was holding Naruto while Hinata was on his side, she released a breath of relief.
"Let's go back."
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Back at the Village
After one day
Yamato was staring at Ranmaru who was fidgeting and for some reason was close to Naruto who had no idea what was happening.
"I respected Raiga, I will admit that he was a great fighter and if I can I would like to honor his wish but could you start from the beginning." Yamato said softly so he didn't scare the kid.
In response the kid just looked at Naruto and said, "Umm, Nii-san could you hold out your hand?" Ranmaru said politely which all the girls found cute, heck even Naruto was feeling all high and mighty cause someone called him 'Nii-san'. He did and Ranmaru took the Kiba swords from his bag and before anyone could do anything he shoved the swords into Naruto's hand.
Suddenly lightning started coming out the swords and formed the shape of Raiga, everyone's eyes almost popped out. Seeing that Raiga chuckled a bit, "Now this is a scene I think I will enjoy in my afterlife. But as much as I wish to talk and discuss I wasn't able to put too much chakra. In short, I put my remaining chakra here to do one last thing. You boy," pointing at Naruto, "What's your name?"
"Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto replied but he was sweating a lot, this guy was a mist swordsmen meaning he knew how to kick his ass and now his ghost came to haunt him.
"This is one of the tradition for those who wielded Kiba, the owner can pass it down to the last person who impressed him in case he or she dies untimely. And to me you did that, you are the first person who was able to withstand one of the Kiba's strongest attacks. So I will pass Kiba to you in return all I ask is that give me your word that you will take care of Ranmaru, treat him like your family; that is my only request, as one swordsmen to other."
Naruto nodded violently. "I promise I will take care of him like my own brother, and I never back down on my promise." Seeing his determination in his eyes, Raiga chuckled, looking at Ranmaru his face saddened a bit,
"Find the life I couldn't give you my son."
With that the lightning vanished and Naruto shook for a second, he looked at his hand to see a bit blood came out and it fell on Kiba which glowed when it got his blood and absorbed it after which it glowed for a second time and calmed down. Nobody knew what to say after the bizarre situation.
"It was a ghost wasn't it?" Naruto asked after that his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he was once again to his dreamland.
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Few Hours later
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Naruto woke up to see Hinata was beside him chatting with Haku and Ranmaru was close to them while listening raptly. His groan told them about him being conscious again,
"Naruto-kun, you ok?" Hinata asked while Haku giggled a bit, "Don't worry Hinata-chan, he is fine. He thought he was possessed by a ghost."
Naruto narrowed his eyes but didn't have a comeback for that. He looked at Ranmaru who was looking as if he was out of place. "Yo little guy, how are you feeling?"
"He lost his father figure and now he is onto his way to a new village which he has no idea about. But I think he is fine." Haku playfully answered for Ranmaru who blushed and Naruto looked pissed.
"Alright guys break it up." Yamato came into the room, "Ranmaru here helped us to finish our original mission, he gave me the whereabouts of the place where bandits kept their lootings and luckily we found our requested item."
Kurenai and the rest also entered the room. "It is broken, so we can take a peek at it right?" Kiba asked curiously.
"Well, it was damaged and I happen to see what was inside accidentally but here you go." All the young ones came and took a look inside the box, which was put into a table by Yamato; there was a picture and a worn out wristband made of marbles.
"What the heck, this is it? Why did the old guy tell this was a treasure? Damn we almost died for these junks." Kiba got pissed and left, almost everyone left feeling a bit disappointed except Naruto who was looking at the picture intently. The picture was of a guy, who looked younger version of Karashi, who was laughing while hugging a women tightly and the said women was kissing his cheek. For some reason he felt something as if the picture was giving him a déjà vu. He had no idea which part but it scared him. He went back to his friends and tried to forget about it.
"Alright guys we will be going back to the village after we have a decent meal and rest, so pack up your gears." Kurenai ordered out.
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Hokage's Office
There were no problems in their way back. Naruto carried Ranmaru and they reached their home a bit faster than their expected time, now they are in front of Hokage who was rubbing his head.
"Kurenai, Yamato, Naruto and Ranmaru stay, others can leave." Hearing that the rest of the genins left hesitatingly. "Yamato, I don't know should I keep sending you and Naruto to C rank missions to bring more beneficial factors to the village or should stop you from doing any, in order to save the ones you are supposed to back up."
Yamato and Naruto blushed a bit hearing that.
"So, let me get the facts straight, you faced another mist swordsman who died being betrayed by his fellow comrade who was pulverized by a Kyuubi empowered Naruto and who it seemed was stopped by Hinata singing lullaby to him. Oh yes, let's not forget Raiga who was on the verge of dying used the 'honor code' of shinobi to make sure you take care of Ranmaru and at the end he gave Naruto the ownership of Kiba, one of the legendary mist swords which now cannot be accessed by any other person." Sandaime looked at the jonin to confirm all of those.
"Hokage-sama, why not let Ranmaru join our team? I mean we already have two members and with him we will have three, a proper functioning team. What do you say?" Naruto asked with a hopeful voice.
"Naruto-kun, it is not that easy. There are things you have to follow and by the look of it although Ranmaru wants to be a Konoha shinobi, he has very little training on shinobi skills unlike Haku, and so it is better if he starts from academy. And not to mention the paperwork that will come with it if I just put him directly in your team without any proper reasoning." Hiruzen sighed, even though it would have been better that way it would cause too many problems and suspicions.
"Let's make a deal, you assign Ranmaru in our team and I and Haku would do our best to shape him up faster than any academy can." Naruto insisted, he had a trump card but he didn't wanted to use it so soon.
"Naruto I cannot do that, there will be too…." Hiruzen replied firmly but was stopped when Naruto brought out his trump card,
"I will tell you the secret to beat the paperwork." In a few second, Yamato was holding some papers confirming that Ranmaru was now officially on his team. Kurenai and Ranmaru was watching the whole scene played out and truthfully it was funny as hell. Hiruzen looked at Naruto with eyes that was screaming for 'The Secret'.
Naruto sighed and made the sign for 'Shadow Clone'. Hiruzen looked at him puzzled but then it all clicked.
The god of shinobi, feared by the evil, respected by his enemies, sensei of the legendary sanins, started banging his head on his table while weeping 'why'.
Everyone sweat-dropped except for Naruto, who was grinning madly.
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Sometime later
Karashi was leaving, he got his treasure back. Now it was time for him to hit the road again. But he stopped when he saw the blond kid ahead of him.
"I thought you were going to celebrate with your friends about the tough mission. Sorry about that kid, I didn't know…"
He was stopped when Naruto softly asked, "Who was she? The women on the picture."
Karashi's face saddened but he replied, "My late fiancée, why?"
"What happened?" Naruto asked again.
Karashi's face hardened, "Why do you want to know brat?"
Naruto looked at him sadly, "In the picture, your eyes are full of life and hope. They were reflecting all of yourself and now here you are wearing a mask, when I saw the picture I knew there was something similar but at first I didn't know what, it is your smile, they are same like mine. You smile now like how I used to." "Before I found out about Hinata-chan and Iruka-sensei."
"Long story brat, let's take a seat first." They moved at one side of the road and sat on a bench.
"Now where do I begin, ahh. Let's start from the beginning, I was an orphan in Takigakure, a small shinobi village. As an orphan I didn't receive much attention so I wanted to be the best to prove that I can be someone other than a nobody. I worked hard till I dropped and it all started paying off, my first friend who became my fiancée. She was also an orphan who supported me all the way. I became a respected jonin and a well-known figure throughout the shinobi side as well as the civilian side."
Karashi paused as he looked to the sky sadly, "But one day, we were attacked by some strong enemies, they were after someone in our village. I had a bad feeling about that attack, I wanted to stay in the village to protect my fiancée as she was pregnant, but she reassured me everything was going to be fine. So I left to confront the enemy with some other strong shinobis as well as with our Kage. It was a bloodbath, there were two of them but they were strong. At the end we won, one of them died other retreated, we lost some good man and I lost my arm in order to protect the Kage. But when I came back,"
Karashi paused again. He closed his eyes but Naruto could see the tears leaking, "Everything was gone. My fiancée was killed along with some other people by one of the enemy's technique, I didn't know the detail of the technique but didn't care. Everyone said it was going to be ok, they even nominated me to take a seat in the council, one of the thing I dreamed of but it didn't matter. The person I wanted in my life more than my dream was gone, what's the point? All the acknowledgements, honor and medals wouldn't bring back my true treasure. She was gone and so was my soul and my will. After that I left the village, I just wander around. All that left of her is the memories and a few stuffs like this." With that he took out the picture and the wristband and looked at those yearningly.
"Well that is my life story kid. In this world, you don't know when you are going to die or worse when your precious one will. So make sure to find and hold onto your real treasure." With that he stood up and started heading towards the village gate, without even looking back.
"Why don't you blame anyone, the villagers or those guys?" Naruto yelled at the retreating back.
"I am not a coward kid, the only thing I blamed and still blame is my hesitation for not following my intuition, my weakness for not being strong enough and my blindness for not seeing my actual dream, a life with her." Karashi gave Naruto a smile, a true sad smile, one that portrayed all of his feelings then.
Naruto waited till Karashi's figure vanished.
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With Hinata
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Hinata and the rest of the members that did the C rank mission had a small celebration for surviving the mission which turned into an A rank. Naruto left saying that he needed to do something. After an hour or two, they were done and Hinata was returning home when she saw her boyfriend on a tree a bit far away from her compound.
"Naruto-kun." Hinata called him out but stopped when she saw his pained look. Before she could ask he jumped and landed behind Hinata, he wrapped his arm around her waist while burying his nose into her neck, Hinata would have turned crimson if she didn't feel him shaking slightly, she knew even if she would ask what happened Naruto wouldn't tell her, not now. So she just stood there and was patting his hand.
"I am not like you, Karashi-jiji. I will be stronger, more than now." He whispered and buried his nose deeper.
"I will protect my true treasure."
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OMAKE
FALLING FOR A TEACHER
"So what's wrong, Anko? Lately you seem to be up to something." Kurenai asked in an accusing tone. She, Anko and Yugao were having a girl's night out.
"Well I found this one interesting guy." Anko replied back absentmindedly.
"What?" Both Kurenai and Yugao shouted.
"You are falling for a man?" Yugao asked.
"Anko." Hearing the seriousness in her voice, Anko looked at Kurenai, "Is he a good person?"
Flashback
Anko was following Iruka who just caught the prankster, she was a specialist in T&I department, getting information was a piece of cake for her, she found out the mysterious kind person just in one day. She saw how Iruka was dealing with Naruto, the jinchuriki, he got mad when he saw Naruto did wrong, Oh how sexy he looked when he was mad, she got a bit turned on seeing his angry face, it didn't contain any malice or evil just anger for the brat, for his wellbeing. After the jinchuriki quieted down and mumbled an apology, he smiled warmly and took him to a ramen stand.
Flashback Ends
Well if he liked the jinchuriki who everyone hated and he did it because he cared while giving no considerations towards those who thought what he was doing was wrong; so he was definitely a good person; scratch that, he was a great person. "Ya I think so." Like hell she would admit that strongly, better not to give too much information to Kurenai and Yugao.
"Well if he is a good person then, that's great." Kurenai smiled warmly.
"Well, is he good looking?" Yugao asked.
Flashback
It was one of those days, when Naruto pranked one of the anbu hideouts, she would thank the kid later. He swapped the signboards of the bath houses. Anko came there because Yugao dragged her. When she and few other female members entered the bath house, they saw the males but her eyes were glued the scarred chunin, he had a semi-build tanned body but with his hair wet and down, he was looking like a rough warrior and all the scars in his body was enhancing that look; she almost jumped him. But the screaming and shouting stopped her from getting any more good view but she did stole a peek at his ass. Later she learned why he was there, one of the anbu invited Iruka because he looked after his kid.
Flashback Ends
"Damn right he is good looking, one of the sexiest ass I have ever seen." But she just shrugged.
"Well guess you should go for him." Kurenai asked, Anko just gaped at her when she heard that.
"What? I don't like him that much, I just found him interesting." She denied too quickly.
"Anko when we asked was he a good person, you had this very soft and admiring look on your face and when we asked about his looks, you were openly drooling." Yugao chuckled.
"Damn." Anko cursed her girlfriends for being so observant.
"So who is he?" Kurenai asked.
"He is a teacher."
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There, all done.
There are some questions I will answer in the latter chapters,
Why Raiga seemed so close to Ranmaru?
How Hinata was able to subdue Naruto's chakra?
How can Naruto 'Feel' his friends?
The first two I might answer in the next chapter while the last two you guys have to wait a bit.