Chapter 21

Naruto blearily opened up his eyes.

Sitting up from his position on the bed, he stretched his body out and let loose a wide, exaggerated yawn. After retaining that position for a satisfying few seconds, Naruto reached out to his side to find that Mei had left him alone in the tent.

Looking towards the only other piece of furniture in the tent, he found a note that read thusly:

I have to report in to the commander's tent earlier than usual. You looked so peaceful as you slept that I didn't want to wake you up.

I made some eggs for breakfast. Eat up and have a good day.

Indeed there was a small plate of scrambled eggs next to the note.

Naruto stretched out all the kinks from his system and got dressed for the day. It was kind of chilly out, which made Naruto weary of the fact that Yugito still had the upper part of his jumpsuit.

He sat down and started to scarf down the meal that Mei had cooked for him. Looking around, he found that the tent was strangely desolate. It was normally desolate, but to Naruto it was desolate of one thing in particular.

The Nuibari.

Eyes opening widely, Naruto started to visually search the room for any sign of the sword. He distinctly remembered coming into the tent with it in his hands at one point, but he couldn't for the life of him remember where he put it. Once he finished the meal of scrambled eggs, Naruto frantically searched the tent of anywhere that it might be hiding.

There was really only one other area that could theoretically hold the sword, and it wasn't there under the fold-out bed. The only conclusion that Naruto could make was that Mei had taken the sword with her for some reason. So he decided to seek her out at the commander's tent.

The commander's tent was easy to find because it was the only structure that differed in any way from the rest of the temporary domiciles. Naruto made a beeline straight for it, unknowingly getting strange looks from any of the rebels that happened to get a good look at his face.

The tent flaps were open, affording Naruto a view of what was happening inside. Mei was hunched over a map and surrounded by jonin level shinobi looking anxiously at her, waiting for her opinion on something no doubt. The Nuibari was directly in the middle of the table that they were sitting at, so Naruto decided to sneak over there and grab it while everyone's attention was directed towards something far more important.

Only that didn't go exactly as planned.

Once Naruto's hand had touched the hilt of the sword, Mei's head shot up to look at him with a piercing glare. Noticing that it was only her husband who was trying to touch the legendary sword, her glare lessened considerably.

"Hi honey." She said with an affable smile. By now all of the attention of the council of shinobi were directed toward him. "How's your morning been?"

Now that Naruto was put on the spot and getting mixed looks from a variety of powerful kekai genkai users, he got slightly nervous. "U-Uhh. Good? I was uhh… I was just getting the Nuibari."

"Oh yes!" Mei exclaimed with great exuberance. "We were just talking about that."

"Talking about what?"

"Well, I brought over the Nuibari so that I could show them" she gestured to the council "That it chose you. But some of them didn't believe me."

"I-It's not that." A nervous shinobi said from the side of the table. "We just find it strange that one of the legendary swords of the hidden mist chose your politically arranged husband from the hidden leaf as its new wielder."

"Well we'll just have to see about that, won't we? Naruto, if you'd please." Mei waved at the sword that he was still on the cusp of grabbing.

Sensing her desire, he picked up the sword by its handle and immediately felt his chakra being siphoned off into the blade. Although this time it didn't adopt a sheen of blue chakra around itself.

"It's happening." A rather portly shinobi said from the table.

"He's not just pushing chakra into it?" a kunoichi asked from his side.

"No. it's being siphoned off. I can sense it."

All of the ninja present gave him various appraising looks.

"So he really is its wielder."

"Isn't the Nuibari the most difficult to use out of all of them?"

"He must be related to a Kiri shinobi or something."

"Does he have any value as a military asset?"

Mei looked on with slight annoyance as the council members began to talk amongst themselves about the new development. Walking from her position at the head of the table and towards her husband got them all to immediately shut up.

"This." She said, clapping her hands on the shoulders of her husband. "Is my husband. His name is Naruto Uzumaki. He is a proud shinobi of the hidden leaf. He is also the new wielder of the legendary blade Nuibari. As far as I know, he has had no ties to Kirigakure before our union. He will work hard to perfect the techniques that were passed down to him by Kushimaru Kuriarare. But he will not work on any missions that might place him in any risk of harm."

"Hey" Naruto said in indignation.

Mei placed her index finger on his lips, effectively quieting him. "It's not that I don't think that you're strong enough, it's just because you're too important to not only the rebellion, but also to the rest of the elemental nations that I'm not going to even consider sending you out on potentially lethal situations."

Mei described the situation is a logical and fair way, but that didn't stop Naruto from pouting. "Okay." He said dejectedly.

"Good." Mei said with her usual smile.

Naruto began to pull away from her grip, but he was held firm in place.

"Mei? I need to go train."

"Okay honey, but come back for lunch."

"Yes ma'am." He tried to pull away again, but she still didn't let go.

"And don't stay out until nighttime."

"Okay." She still wouldn't loosen her grip.

"And be careful."

Naruto was able to twist out of her grip this time. "I'll be careful. I promise." He turned to run to the woods where he practiced the day before.

"Honey…"

Naruto turned around slowly with an exasperated look on his face.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Naruto looked at the Nuibari that he was holding. Then back at her in confusion. Her arms were stretched out wide, sending the signal that she wanted a goodbye hug.

"Erm." Naruto walked over to her tentatively and encircled his arms around her waist. She bent down to pull him into a tight embrace. It was a warm hug. Not warm in the way that she was uncomfortably temperate, but in the way that she put genuine emotion behind the hug.

She pulled away from him, but only after giving him one final squeeze. "Have a good day honey." She said to him, beginning to walk back to her spot at the head of the table.

The last glimpse of her that he received before walking away from the tent was her face turning back from the carefree face and into a face that spoke of severity.

00000000

Somewhere around earth country

"UUhhgg. Where the fuck is this guy?!"

"Keep your voice down! You might start a rockslide."

Deidara levelled a glare at his partner. "That's only with avalanches. You can't create a rockslide using only your voice."

"You think I give a fuck? Shut your mouth, or I'll turn you into a true piece of art." Sasori retorted.

Deidara sighed into the palm of his hand. "For the last time, true art is a momentary glimpse of awe and splendor. Your little 'puppets' don't hold a candle to my true works of art."

Sasori shook his head. "Art is an expression that can be held for the future to look and behold for generations to come. Your little 'explosions' can't even compete-"

A rock shifted on a ledge to their left. They both leapt away from the ledge and into battle ready positions, ready to face any foe that might come their way.

Too bad for them that the foe that they were presented with was merely a mountain goat that was unlucky enough to meet two of the very few S-ranked ninja in the entire elemental nations.

Deidara smirked at Sasori's outer shell. "Looks like we're having goat for dinner tonight."

"I don't eat."

"Looks like I'm having goat for dinner tonight."

Despite Deidara's words, he didn't make any move to brutally kill the offending animal that was looking at the two of them with slow, wary eyes.

"Well?" Sasori growled out.

Deidara sweatdropped. "You got a kunai?"

"None that aren't poisoned."

"Well I can't exactly kill the thing with an explosion."

"Sounds like a you problem."

"Well how am I going to kill it?"

"You're a shinobi. Punch it to death or something."

"That'd ruin the meat."

"Then snap its neck."

"That thing isn't going to let me near it."

Sasori looked at Deidara with emotionless, unfeeling eyes. "You're a shinobi. Shinobi are resourceful."

The mountain goat jumped away from the two of them while they were bickering over the ways to properly kill it. Deidara sweatdropped once again. "Sometimes I wonder about that, yeah."

Sasori began to walk in the direction that they were walking in at first. "Come on, we're losing daylight."

Deidara followed him. "Why are we looking for the four-tails again?"

"To seal it away." Sasori replied simply.

"Yeah, but why are we looking for it? Our abilities aren't exactly tracking oriented."

"Zetsu looked into it. Apparently he's around here."

Incredulous, Deidara threw his arms around him to show off the ridge that they were walking on. "'Around here' is a pretty vague term."

"Complain if you want, but I'm not going to go against Leader-sama's orders."

"We've been at this for weeks! Yeah. How long are we going to keep at it?"

Sasori's interest was drawn to the sky. There was a hawk circling above them. "Not anymore. It would appear that one of the other squads got one."

Deidara too looked up at the circling bird and groaned pitifully. "Does that mean we have to go back? We're going to lose all our progress?"

"What progress? You said it yourself, we've only been wandering around a big ass mountain range for a few weeks with no signs of anybody being here. The only thing that happened in that time range is that you complained for days on end and were defeated by a mountain goat."

Deidara pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "I didn't get defeated by a mountain goat."

"A mountain goat walked up to you, you wanted to eat said mountain goat, the mountain goat got away. You were defeated by a mountain goat."

Deidara looked at Sasori with no small amount of ire. "I could have killed it if I wanted to."

"But you didn't. It got away. Now let's head back, it's a long ways away." Sasori immediately turned around to head in the direction opposite that he was facing.

"How far away are we from the nearest hide out? Yeah"

"About 50 miles."

Deidara groaned out loudly and started to complain.

If Sasori's eye could move it would have twitched violently. This was going to be a long trip for the both of them.

00000000

Rebel camp, surrounding forest

Despite the fact that Water country was situated on a large archipelago, there were still great amounts of sprawling forests situated in the island chains. These large forests are known for being temperate in nature and hosting large amounts of strange indigenous flora and fauna. As it was, walking around the twisting trees and looking for a clearing to train in was almost impossible.

Naruto had been lucky in finding a clearing to practice in the previous day. So because he didn't remember where the clearing was, he had to waste large amounts of man hours trying to find a suitable location to practice with the Nuibari.

The twitter of the birds in the trees was almost deafening to Naruto's ears. The variety of flora and fauna also attracted a large variety of birds and other animals to the forested areas as well.

Naruto stopped and looked about him. There was nothing as far as he could see, only trees, rocks, and roots were visible to him. He would probably have to scale a tree again in order to find the camp in time for lunch.

The sound of birds stopped suddenly. Even Naruto, as dense as he was, knew that when animals started behaving strangely for seemingly no reason, there was always a reason. He started looking around him for any sign of abnormality. It was a good thing that he did too, else he would have been crushed to a pulp by a falling tree trunk.

Dashing to the side of the falling trunk, he immediately shot back up and looked to the direction that it fell from to find a source. The tree that fell was tall and he only evaded the upper part of the tree, so as he looked to the source of the tree's destruction, he was only barely able to make out a faint blue-ish outline of a person.

"OI!" Naruto shouted at the blur. It was no use however as the birds once again began to chirp up a frenzy, drowning out his voice. Hopping up on the tree, Naruto made his way to the blur and soon was able to make out the person that the blur was composed.

It was that guy. The guy that came with Mei to Konoha when he first met her. His name was Cho-something.

"OI!" Naruto shouted once more when he reasonably close to the teen.

Chojuro started violently at the sound of Naruto yelling at him. Whipping around to face the sudden intruder, Chojuro sighed and sank to his knees in relief.

"Oh, it's just you Naruto-san." He huffed a few breathes of precious oxygen and forced himself up onto his legs once more. "You scared me."

"I scared you?! You scared me! This tree almost crushed me!" Naruto hopped down from the massive trunk to face his fellow swordsman.

Chojuro immediately adopted a nervous and apologetic demeanor. "I-I'm sorry Naruto-san. I thought that everybody was out on missions or down-time. I didn't think that there would be anybody else out here."

Naruto eyed Chojuro critically. The swordsman was so nervous that he wasn't able to properly face Naruto.

The blonde sighed in exasperation "It's fine." Naruto turned his gaze towards the base of the tree, which had been cut though halfway and left to fall over under its own weight. "What did you do to this thing?"

Chojuro brightened up a little at the change in subject. He brought to attention the giant sword on his back by grabbing it by both handles and hefting it out of its large holder. "I'm the wielder of the Hiramekarie. It's one of the swords of the seven swordsmen. I'm able to hold a lot of chakra in the blade and discharge all of it in one go to manipulate it in different structures. I used it to cut a gash in the tree and push it over."

"Wow. That's really cool." Naruto said with raised eyebrows. "Can you do it again?"

Chojuro rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, it takes a lot of chakra to manifest the item that I wish and… well… it's also really heavy." Chojuro replied nervously.

Naruto waved him off. "It's fine then." He looked around the field once more. It was wide and open, allowing for the perfect place to train in the use of his legendary sword. "You mind if I train here too?"

"Uuuhh sure. I'm just going to be doing some strength training and chakra expansion exercises. I hope that I don't get in your way."

Naruto created a clone and handed off the Nuibari to it. The clone ran off to the middle of the clearing with Kushimaru's scroll in tow in order to practice some of the exercises mentioned in it. "I'll join you then." Naruto said, hopping off the trunk to face Chojuro.

"But. Weren't you going to…" Chojuro trailed off and looked in the direction that the clone went off to.

"My shadow clone passes off all the knowledge that it gets in its lifespan to me once it dispels. Pretty cool right?" Naruto said boastfully.

"Er, yes I suppose. But wouldn't it make more sense to make a lot of clones and have them train all at once?"

"I… guess. Maybe, but for some reason the sword doesn't duplicate with the clones."

"Oh. I see."

"So what's your regimen?"

Chojuro adopted a sheepish look once more. "Well to start, I…"

00000000

2 hours later.

Naruto hit the ground with a small thud and didn't get up.

His chest was heaving, drawing in large amounts of air to sustain his body. Chojuro collapsed right next him, also heaving.

Naruto had something that most would rightfully call endurance. Endurance is a term used to describe an organism's ability to persevere under physical trauma under long periods of time. This does not mean that he is fast like Gai or Lee. This does not mean that he is agile like Anko or Yugito. And this does not mean that he is strong like Chojuro apparently was. This means that he is capable of operating and fighting under large amounts of pain, physical trauma, and hardship. But even he has a breaking point. The breaking point being extreme strength training.

Once Naruto was capable of breathing regularly, he rasped out. "Your training is really intense."

Chojuro sat up and calmed his breathing. "Thanks, I guess. You did a lot better than I thought you would. Do you train in strength very much?"

"Sometimes. Not much though."

"Huh? Must be your 'Uzumaki vitality' then."

"Uzumaki vitality? What's that mean?"

"You don't know about your clan?"

"My clan is special?"

"Well yes. We at the rebellion employ many shinobi who have a lot of different kekai genkai. Even though we don't have any with us, everyone knows about the Uzumaki clan."

Naruto sat up with great effort. "What's so special about the Uzumaki?"

"They don't have any kekai genkai per say, but nearly every single one is reputed to have lived much longer than the average person because of a reputed 'vitality' as well as having a large affinity towards any sort of sealing jutsu."

Naruto winced in phantom pain. Another one of his clones had managed to kill itself with the Nuibari. Naruto quickly spawned another one and it hobbled off in pursuit of the sword.

Chojuro watched it wander off with slight interest. "Why do you want to strength train anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Well, Kushimaru was reputed to have only been able to use the Nuibari to its fullest extent because his body was extremely thin, lanky, and agile. You won't gain very much ability in swordsmanship if you train in strength."

Naruto groaned out loudly and sank back to the ground. "Now you tell me?"

"I'm... sorry. I thought that you already knew."

"…You know any speed programs?"

"Sorry. The Hiramekarie is best utilized through a large amount of strength training. I don't know anyone who specialized in speed at the camp."

'Speed and agility huh? I'm going to have to talk to the Bushy Brows' for help on speed. For agility… I don't know.'

"Hey Chojuro?"

"Yes Naruto-san?"

"What's vitality mean?"

"it's… practically a synonym for endurance."

"So I'm able to fight for as long as I'm usually able to because I was born an Uzumaki?" Naruto asked with a slightly saddened tone. He always thought that his arguably best combat asset came from personal ability, not birth.

"You are only half Uzumaki if what Mei told the rebellion is accurate. I'm not sure how much of your vitality comes from birth and how much comes from your own willpower." This comment brightened up Naruto, if only slightly.

The sun peeked from the canopy to glare directly in Naruto's eye. It was almost directly above them, meaning that it was about noon-ish.

"You said that Kushimaru was able to use the Nuibari because he was so thin and lanky right? Does that mean that I won't be able to use it to its full potential?"

"… I don't know much about the Nuibari, but it's just the way he used it that made him renowned. There are a lot of body modification jutsus that can help make one thin and lanky, but those usually backfire immensely. I still doubt that the Nuibari would benefit from strength training, but perhaps you could make your own style of using it that compliments your body structure."

"What about you then?"

"What about me?"

"Well… you're not a 'big' guy. Your body structure isn't really suited to your sword much either right?"

"The Nuibari has only had one owner, so nobody knows much about how its best used. We only have Kushimaru on which to base our conceptions of it on. But the Hiramekarie's many users suggest that strength is the best way to go with it. So I'm going to continue with my strength training."

"Huh. Makes sense I guess." Naruto stood up and stretched his very sore muscles.

"So what are you going to do now?"

Naruto stretched his back far enough to the side that it popped several vertebra. "Mei said to come back for lunch."

"I see. Have a good lunch then."

"You wanna come too?"

"Uhm… no, I've packed a lunch." Chojuro took out a scroll and unsealed a bento.

"Cool. I'll see ya in a bit then." Naruto said, starting to walk off in the direction of where he presumed the camp was.

"You too." Chojuro called out after him

00000000

Half an hour later.

Naruto knew that there was something wrong with the tent that he shared with Mei, but didn't feel like venturing inside to find out what.

Directly outside of the tent stood the bed and the table with its assorted portable kitchenware on top. Meaning that something was going on in there that required enough room that all the things that propagated the tent had to be placed outside of it

"Anybody in there?" Naruto called out.

"Ah, Naruto." Came the muffled voice of Mei. "It's fine, come on inside."

"Err… okay…" Naruto hesitantly opened the flap of the tent to find Mei bathing in a large, circular hole in the ground that was filled up with steaming water.

"Mei!" Naruto cried indignantly, while covering his eyes.

"What? Close the flap, you're letting all the cold in." Mei said nonchalantly.

He dutifully stepped inside and let the flap close behind him. "Can you please stop doing things like this?" Naruto said, referring to her rather… open attitude when it came to her physicality.

"Things like what?" Mei asked playfully.

"Things like wanting to sleep in your underwear with me."

"I told you, I can't sleep comfortably any other way. And I'm the leader of the rebellion, I need my sleep."

Naruto sighed, still covering his eyes. "Or things like not announcing that you're bathing in our tent. How did you manage to do this anyway?"

"I used an earth jutsu to lower a cylindrical plot of earth downwards, then I filled it up with water from a Boil release jutsu."

"Boil release?"

"You might have heard it called corrosive release, or steam release. They're all the same thing."

"So that explains how you did it, but why did you?"

"Why did I what?"

"Why did you make a bath inside our tent!?"

"It's bath day."

"It's noon."

"This is my only free time… Okay, one sec." Naruto heard assorted splashing sounds come from Mei's direction. "I'm covered now"

He lowered his hand from his eyes. Indeed, Mei had covered herself with a towel from a small stack of them on the ledge to her back. "Come on in. the water's fine."

"I thought that I was coming over from training for lunch."

Mei also produced a bento box from the ledge behind her.

Naruto didn't feel very many qualms about bathing with another person. So long as she was covered, he didn't have a problem with it. But he still wanted to get back to training, so a bath in the middle of the day would be a rather moot point. "I can't, I've still got to go train after this."

"I thought that your shadow clone did all the training."

"Well… it does, but…"

Mei wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Naruto, you're training really hard. I can sense that. But a bath isn't going to hurt you, especially if you're not going to be working up a sweat for the rest of the day."

Naruto stewed in deliberation for a while longer before finally saying. "Fine. I guess it wouldn't hurt."

Mei smiled at him and tossed a towel in his direction, which he caught with little trouble. "Don't look." Naruto commanded.

Mei closed her eyes and turned her head to the side. After a bit of sounds of clothe running on skin, she heard Naruto tentatively dip his self into the warm water.

Mei opened her eyes to find Naruto sighing to himself as the warm water soothed his aching muscles and washed the scent of sweat away from him. Once a few moments of heated bliss passed for the married couple, Mei waded over with a sponge in hand. "Hey sweety, mind getting my back?"

Naruto looked at the sponge with a critical eye before taking it in hand and wading behind her. She unwound the towel from her back to allow Naruto access for sponging. Not knowing how hard to press the sponge into her back, he started out gently lathering her back first.

Mei started humming in contentment at the ministrations of her underage husband. Frowning, she said "You don't have to be so gentle."

Naruto took this as the affirmative to press the sponge harder into her back. Roughly sponging her back made her once again hum in pleasure. The humming made Naruto slightly uneasy, but he didn't stop so as to avoid an awkward confrontation.

He continued to slide the sponge on her back in an effort to thoroughly clean it. Her back was toned and muscled, completely devoid of any fat or unattractive quality. Her entire body, in fact, was toned and lean. It the body of a kunoichi whose job it was to maintain oneself physically. She was a very attractive woman. As he continued to scrub her back, he felt strange sensation in his nether regions. His phallus was swelling with blood in arousal. Naruto had gotten boners before, but never in such close physical contact with another person, making him very nervous and more than a little embarrassed.

"MMmmmm… I think that's fine. I'll do you now." Mei said, wrapping her towel once more around her back. Naruto nodded dully and passed the sponge off to her. Luckily enough, the water was misty from the natural minerals that came with boil release jutsu, so his arousal wasn't apparent to her.

He presented his back to her for scrubbing. She began to lather his back much like her did to her at first. Her gently using the sponge to scrape his back clean from sweat and grime had a pleasuring effect on him. Despite his aroused state, the pleasure that he felt from her ministrations were not erotic in nature. He didn't have anything to attribute the feeling to, but anyone with a parent would attribute the feeling to when their mother would rub their backs. It was relaxing.

Naruto felt his muscles lose their tension almost immediately as she continued to rub his back with the cleaning implement. His body let out a groan against his will.

"Having fun are we?" Mei said teasingly.

Naruto turned a dull red at the jab, before hesitantly asking "Hey Mei, is it wrong to feel…" Naruto trailed off, not finding the words to describe his feeling.

"Love?" Mei finished his sentence for him when he seemed incapable of finishing it himself. "Naruto, of course it's okay to love Kurotsuchi. I know that it may seem kind of overwhelming, but-"

"No, it's not that." Naruto interrupted her. "Is it just… is it wrong to feel…"

"Hatred?"

"No."

"Jealousy?"

"No."

"Lackadaisical?"

"What even is that? No."

Mei scrubbed away mindlessly at Naruto's back in thought at what Naruto could possibly be feeling. Figuring it out, she almost slapped her forehead out of her own stupidity. "Oh I know… You're feeling horny aren't you?"

Naruto turned an even duller red and started to splutter out refusals incoherently, but Mei quickly silenced him. "Of course it's okay to feel horny." She replied with slight enthusiasm.

"But- I just… I know that the pervy-sage said that it was okay, but…"

"Naruto… you're at an age where your hormones are starting to go wild in your body. Frankly, it would strange if you didn't feel horny every once and a while."

"But… what am I supposed to do when I am horny?"

"Well, I'm not a proponent of casual sex, so I'd suggest that you masturbate to abate your lust."

"Well... what about now?"

Mei's eyes grew extremely wide in surprise. "You want to masturbate now? I don't know if-"

"NO." Naruto said quickly. "I mean… if I'm horny now, then does that mean that I don't actually like Kurotsuchi?" Naruto asked quietly.

Mei lightly bonked Naruto on the head. "Of course not. Arousal is an out of mind experience. So just because you feel arousal at another person, it doesn't mean that you're in love with that person, or not in love with another."

It felt strangely comforting to Naruto the way that Mei explained sexual feeling towards him. Despite what Jiraya said to Naruto about the subject, it didn't impact him the way the way that Mei's words did. She was a comforting presence beside Naruto, it felt to Naruto like he could to talk to her in faith about things that he was confused about. Unknown to him, she was starting to fill a sort of pseudo-mother role to him.

"Thanks Mei." Naruto said in relief.

"For what?"

"For talking to me about this kind of stuff."

"It's fine. After all," she peered around his back to look at him straight in the eye with a smile on her face. "We're friends right?"

He smiled back at her in response. "Yeah. We're friends."

Mei waded over to her original position at the ledge and grabbed the bento box. As she swam over, she took off the lid and tossed it back to the edge. Inside the container was some fried riceballs, a few sushi slices, and some assorted vegetables and meats. There was also only one set of chopsticks.

She grabbed the chopsticks and swam over to Naruto. "Sweety, open up." Mei used the chopsticks to pick up a sushi roll and hold it up to her husband.

Naruto sweatdropped. "I can feed myself you know."

"Oh? If that's how you want to do it, then okay." Saying that, she gave the bento and chopsticks to him.

Naruto gratefully received the bento and began to feed himself from its contents. "Uhh." Mei grunted. Naruto looked up to see her with her eyes closed and mouth wide open. She opened her eyes to see Naruto's confused expression. "There's only one bento and one set of chopsticks you know. I'm hungry." She said with a pouting lilt.

Blushing a little bit, he grabbed some food from the container with the chopsticks and raised it slowly to Mei's lips. Just as she enclosed her mouth around the food, an extremely agitated rebel burst through the tent flaps with an urgent expression on his face.

"MEI-SAMA" he shouted out. "THE MIZUKAGE IS HERE" as if on cue, an explosion was heard off in the distance.

Mei went back into her leader persona and jumped out of the water without a moment's hesitation. "Where is he?" she ordered out to her subordinate, still with a mouth full of food and naked from the bath.

There was another explosion in the distance. The shaking shinobi wordlessly pointed out in the direction of the large explosion.

"I'll go engage him. You" she pointed at the unnamed shinobi. "Help out in way that you can. You" she pointed at Naruto, who was getting out of the bath. "Stay here, and don't die."

"Fuck that shit. I'm coming with you."

"No you aren't." she replied sternly. "I'm your wife and it's my responsibility to protect my husband."

"Well I'm your husband and it's my responsibility to protect my wife!" Naruto shouted at her loudly, disregarding her nakedness. Now wasn't the time for perverse thoughts or being shamed over reproductive systems.

Mei looked at him with a conflicted expression on her face. Right now, she couldn't waste any time arguing with her husband, but she also couldn't let him get killed. Naruto got up from the water, naked as well. "I'll be fine. I have to help."

"RRggg. Fine. You go with him." she said, pointing to the unnamed shinobi. "And make sure that he doesn't die."

"Okay, got it. Follow me!" the shinobi shouted at Naruto. Naruto bent down and grabbed a kunai from his clothing pile while hastily wrapping a towel around his waist.

"Got it!"

A shinobi battlefield is a very different thing than one on one shinobi fights as he soon realized. For one thing, there was only chaos within the fights. No time to think, no time to see, no time to move. People died indiscriminately when they didn't do any of the three mentioned things. A lot of people died

Another thing that he realized is that towels don't like staying wrapped around one's waist while its occupant was fighting.

The official Kirigakure shinobi that were fighting the rebels also moved far differently than any normal person. Their movements were jerky and robotic, they also were only capable of fighting a single person at once it seemed. Not only that, but they didn't seem to be able to register pain and attacked with a suicidal passion.

The scariest things about them were their faces. Expressionless, unmoving, untalking, unscreaming. Even when one was impaled by a lance of rock, he continued to try and attack the person who impaled him with an expressionless gleam in his eyes.

That doesn't mean that they were invincible like Hidan. Once they had a vital organ punctured or they lost enough blood, they fell over on the ground and didn't get back up.

Naruto witnessed Chojuro come into the fray whilst swinging his huge blade around like a club. Cleaving through the shinobi that got in his way through merit of physical impact trauma and a slightly dull edge only.

That kid was seriously strong.

Naruto formed another rasengan in his hand with the help of a clone and charged into the fray next to Chojuro. He used the rasengan to blast away a shinobi that had managed to sneak up next to the blue-haired teen and promptly used the earth walking technique to sink away into the soft earth in an effort to get away from the scene. Chojuro looked around for the sudden help and came up empty. His attention was pulled away when another suicide shinobi ran up to him with a katana.

Naruto surfaced a ways away from the fighting and started heaving for breath immediately. At the academy, they taught that getting one's first kill might come to them as a shock and gave them a variety of exercises that would prepare them for it. Naruto however, didn't feel anything as he killed the Kirigakure shinobi. They weren't acting like people, they were acting like automatons. Another strange thing about the battle is that the Kirigakure shinobi were losing, badly. Anyone would be able to see that continuing to fight would mean certain death to those involved and yet, they continued to.

The kekai genkai shinobi had been startled at the tactics that the enemy had used at first and lost a lot of good shinobi to that, but they quickly regrouped and began to slaughter the offending shinobi in droves, in herds. Like they were so much cattle.

"Boss!" a shadow clone of his that was still clothed walked up to him. In his hand was the Nuibari. Naruto took the handle of the sword from the clone and looked back at the battle.

It was happening all over the camp. The kekai genkai shinobi were quickly wrapping up the battle with the Kirigakure shinobi.

It had taken about 10 minutes in total for all the shinobi to be killed like lambs to slaughter. Naruto had managed to incapacitate a few with the some coordinated rasengan blasts and kill a few more with his kunai.

"What happened?" the confused clone asked Naruto.

"No idea, but it's over now I guess."

The clone dispelled before it could see a geyser of lava shooting up in the air near a wooded area.

'Mei.' Naruto thought out. Naruto was naïve in many respects, but he knew that if he went and joined the battle, he would probably be a hindrance to the fight. He had to check though, he had to make sure that she was okay.

Naruto ran off to see the battle.

Naruto landed on a tree just out of reach from a strange mist. Inside of the cloud of influence, everything was getting corroded down to its basest of levels. Trees were falling down, corroded at the root; rocks were getting turned into poisonous slime; and the very soil itself was getting turned into a toxic swamp. Not exactly the most pleasant of areas to be caught in.

Although, even with all that the toxic steam was able to do, Naruto saw blasts of water dragons, strange coral structures, and lava streams burst out of the cloud every so often.

Every time that a lava stream exited the cloud, Naruto's heart soared. Every time that a coral structure materialized, his heart dropped.

"Tch. Didn't think that the shinobi would stall for so little time." a voice said from directly to Naruto's side.

Naruto twirled around and brought the Nuibari directly up the perpetrator's throat. "Who are you!?" Naruto asked with a surprised tone of voice.

The man, for his merit, seemed very surprised at the situation as well. He was wearing a black cloak with red clouds on top of it along with a plain white mask that only had one hole on it, obscuring the entirety of the stranger's face. "Woah woah woah… Wait, you're the nine tails' Jinchuuriki? Why are you here? Why are you naked?"

'This guy's akatsuki.' Naruto deduced from the cloak. Naruto answered the strange man's question by attempting to behead him. But his sword only went through air as it seemingly cleaved the man's head off.

"Is that the Nuibari?" the man continued, not even noticing the murder attempt.

'Genjutsu huh?' Naruto brought the sword down and graced his shin with a small cut, just large enough to induce a pang of pain on his person. Once the pain subsided, Naruto again attempted to cleave through the man's head and was met with the same level of success.

"What are you doing out of Konoha? Did you go rogue?" a scream of a hawk took his attention away from Naruto. The man just ignored him at this point. 'I can't take him, not if I have to wait longer than a few days to expel him from Kamui. Not only that, but thanks to the rebellion leader's steam ability, I can't get a good gauge of her skills. This has all been a waste of time.'

Obito looked at Naruto fruitlessly swing his sword through Obito's nonexistent body. 'Is being naked a rebellion thing?'

With that last thought, Obito sunk down into the tree and out of Naruto's swinging range.

Naruto huffed out in slight exertion. 'That was weird.'

His attention was returned once again to the mist. It seemed to be destabilizing, which allowed Naruto to head inside to look for Mei.

"MEI!" Naruto shouted out.

The amount of destruction that was left behind by the attack was staggering. His feet squelched in the mud. He had to jump over decaying trees and cooling lava pools. He had to make sure not to touch the destabilizing coral constructs out of fear of what might happen to him.

"MEI!" Naruto shouted out once more.

He heard a groaning sound to his right. Naruto ran over to where the groaning was being pitifully whimpered from and came to the position of looking down on a fallen Mei. She had a large tree trunk resting on her torso, not letting her get up.

"Oh shit!" Naruto grabbed the trunk and tried to lift it up, but it was far too heavy.

She coughed feebly and blearily opened up her eyes. "Naruto… *cough* stop it. It's done. It's over."

"No it's not! You are not going to die. Not here. Not on me!" Naruto stood up straight and spawned huge amounts of shadow clones. They all bent over and grabbed various parts of the fallen trunk. "LIFT!" the original belted out. Using chakra to supplement their strength, they pulled upwards with as much strength as they had.

It was no use. They weren't strong enough.

"I'm not done yet!" Naruto spawned another load of shadow clones who all took up positions right next to or under the other clones. "LIfT!" The original belted out once more.

The trunk lifted infinitesimally. The original fell to the ground where Mei was and grabbed her by her armpits, then pulled her out from under the trunk through the extremely small gap.

Her torso was a bloody mess, her ribcage looked slightly deformed, and there was a shard of coral jutting out of her thigh.

All of the clones dispelled at once, making Naruto sink to his knees in exhaustion. He used too much chakra with that stunt.

His body impacted the ground right next Mei. He used way too much chakra with that stunt.

Naruto couldn't keep his eyes open. He couldn't find the will to breathe anymore. He couldn't feel his arms or legs anymore!

"Mei…" he whispered out.

Her breathing hitched. She had registered his word.

"Thanks."

The last thing that remembered before passing out was a veritable stampede of feet in their general direction.

AN/ There you have it. Chapter 21.

Okay, I have some announcements:

As stated in the last chapter, I'm going to be creating chapters of larger sizes. This however is going to slow update progress.

I'm also probably going to work on creating some other stories that have been pervading my mental capacity as of late.

Last thing, I'm not sure how many of you noticed, but my profile is rather bare. I'm looking to fill it up full of things, but I can't think of anything (I refuse to copy paste the 100 man laws, or the 100 murphey laws that every author and his/her dog seems to have)

You have any ideas on how to go about that, put it in the review, or PM me.

Have a gentlemanly day.