A/N: This is going up immediately my Beta readers (Sorry! ^^; ) because I want to get this out with no further delay.
I'm sorry (pshh when am I not? -_-) for this being two and half months late, but I am not a machine that can pump out chapters each month. With this one especially, I had roadblock on how to write this chapter. In addition, my enthusiasm for writing has gone down since writing the confession scene, so I had to muscle myself into writing this as well. As soon as I DID have enough enthusiasm to write, The end of the first marking period was looming on the horizon and I had to get my math and history grades up from Cs to at least a B-. The hard work paid off somewhat, as I got the B- in math but not for history. I got a C+ there. Thus when my dad repremanded me for not getting all As and Bs, my enthusiasm left me, and I focused on just school work.
Art is also eating up much of my free time, since A) that is the field of study I would like to make a living in, namely the section that deals with videogames, and B) I am in AP drawing, which means many projects that take a lot of time and effort.
Just be glad that this wasn't put on hiatus. I know the end to this story since it is in my head, but you guys don't. So now I am recording the story down on paper from my head so you guys can know too. That is my new purpose for writing this now. I am no longer writing for myself.
Enjoy. I threw in a few candies to make this a sweeter continuation.
Chapter 25 – Road Block
Naruto and Hinata sat cross-legged on the large rock at their cliff ledge that looked out over the mountains, back to back, meditating. This had become part of their training, where they would feel everything around them as far as they could reach with their chakra. "Listen to the thrum of nature around you. Become one." Yoshi had instructed them.
They would do this an hour before breakfast and after dinner. It felt familiar to when they went into the Amatsu Senzai (The Heavenly Garden) for the wood for their Soul Blades except this time, they could feel everything, from the few bugs still alive at the end of winter to the Bijuu within each other.
When the time was up, the sun had just barely cleared a nearby mountain ridge. They leapt off the rock and stood side by side in the clearing with their Soul Blades at their sides.
"Kata Ichi!"
Simultaneously drawing their swords in the first movement, the blocked someone on their left, then countered. They turned and blocked to the right in perfect synchronization, and continued on through the kata.
They performed eighteen katas like this, same with wide sweeping movements, other straightforward, a few moving only side to side. The purpose of the different movements was to train the body in the different movements it could perform with the varying speed, strength and softness of the movements to train in that aspect as well. It also trained the body on how to react to an attack, how to string together combinations of moves and which combinations were effective, which were awkward and which flowed well. Afterwards, Naruto and Hinata put chakra barriers around their sword's keen edges and began to spar.
"How many times do I need to tell you not to hold back?" Hinata complained a half hour later as they walked through the woods to breakfast.
Naruto smiled shamefully and stopped to hug her. "You know why."
Her face went slightly pink. He still had this effect on her, even after a month of being together. She hoped he would always have this effect on her.
She snorted a laugh at his poor excuse and hugged him tighter. She felt his arms squeeze her in response.
"Hey, Hina-chan." His deep tone made her look up at his face. His eyes were full of curiosity, like he wanted to try something.
And he did. Suddenly, he bent down and placed his lips on hers.
It was the sort of kiss where nobody knows what to do. You just want to show that you love the person. Their lips moved slowly and way out of synchronization, but it was sweet nonetheless and Hinata responded with just as much enthusiasm.
Hinata pulled away from him first. If the kiss had lasted any longer, she felt her heart would burst. "I never thought that this would happen." she whispered into his shoulder.
He smiled. "You didn't think a lot of things about me would ever happen."
"I know."
They didn't speak anymore as they walked back to the cottage, not because there was nothing to say, but because they were content just to be in silence together.
Yoshi berated them once they shook off the melting snow inside. "There you guys are. I almost thought I'd have to go get you because breakfast was getting cold."
After the breakfast dishes had been washed and put away, Yoshi stood with them in the middle of the clearing in front of the cottages. "Do either of you know what Sage chakra or Demon chakra is?"
They just stared at him, confusion written all over their faces.
Naruto broke into a grin. "Something that's super-special-awesome-mighty-cool powerful?"
Yoshi sighed, a corner of his mouth twitching up into a smile. "Sage chakra is taken from nature and channeled through your body. Demon chakra is just that, chakra from a demon, any demon. However, because its creator is not human, it is difficult and dangerous for a human to handle.
"You need to learn how to use and control both. The things you learn from handling Sage chakra will help you with the finer tuning of your Demon chakra, since you roughly know how to use it. And because you have been meditating, it will be easier for you to learn about Sage chakra. So," he said, jumping into the top of the nearest tree easily, "stand on the top of a tree and meditate. This time, pull in the chakra around you."
Naruto and Hinata climbed into adjacent trees and tried what he said, letting all their senses except for sight to take them over. Feeling out where the chakra was around them was not the obstacle and as expected, only finding out how to pull the nature chakra in was.
The difference was simple. Their chakra flowed through them through their chakra passageways and it acted on their command. Nature chakra is exactly that: natural. It flows freely from plants and animals that are unable to control it. For this reason it is not easily tamed, the reason why man is only able to control small patches of nature and how even then he does not have total control over it.
Yoshi could see the teenagers were having trouble. "You are a man trying to get to the heart of a mountain. Instead of trying to lift the mountain, find the caves that go to the center."
What did that mean? Naruto's mouth twitched, irritated. That man spoke in riddles like this sometimes. Really annoying ones too.
So he was a man. That made the mountain the nature chakra he was trying to access. Lifting a mountain was impossible as far as he knew, and apparently that was what he was unconsciously trying to do. The caves…what were these?
Caves, caves… the only thing that came to mind with the word 'cave' was the passageways that led to the Kyuubi's cage. A passageway. A pass. A path. The caves were paths to the goal. Caves were usually hard to find, so he had to look for these 'paths.'
Which left him right back where he started. Great.
'Well, think about it again.' Naruto told himself. However, he only came to the same conclusion as before, with no answer.
What was wrong then? Why could he not get it? Was there some small detail he had missed that had thrown him completely off course? 'Skip the riddle.' He thought. 'Find you r own way.'
Naruto made very little progress that day, and Hinata did not make much more than him.
She sat between Naruto's legs reading an old scroll on the nature of cat demons that Yoshi suggested she read with him reading over her shoulder on her side of the cottage during their free time after meditating that night, wrapped up in a blanket. Usually he would read right along with her, but he was too frustrated with himself to concentrate on the little words on paper. After the first year of training with his mother's family, he usually picked things up right away and had no trouble using them, so this was a harsh change of pace.
Hinata could feel his eyes boring a hole in the paper she held. This was no secret to her either. Sure, she was agitated like him but she was not angry about it. It would come to her in due time she believed.
She unrolled the scroll a bit more. "Naruto-kun, calm down please."
He rubbed his forehead against the back of her hair. "Hm?"
"You're angry. Please stop."
He settled his chin on her shoulder and pretended to be reading the scroll. "No I'm not."
"Yes you are. And you're not much of a liar, so don't even try." She turned a bit to look him in the eye. "I'm frustrated about this too, but I'm not getting worked up at myself over it. Calm down, okay?" She rubbed her head against his. "A Hokage needs to be a patient person with everything."
"Yeah." Naruto grumbled.
The next day did not yield any further progress either. Nor did the next.
Fed up, Naruto went to the cliffside clearing after training to think.
He had not missed and spots had he? Every avenue in his thought process had been explored and still none of it led him to the answer tot his "nature" chakra. The only conclusion he could come to as to why was he was he was not thinking in the right direction. However, he could not think of another way on how to comprehend it.
With his regular chakra, he would just move it through his body, sometimes unconsciously. Because it was second nature to him, he could not describe exactly how he manipulated it.
The nature chakra came from a foreign body, so it was a completely different story. There were no set rules to how it worked. You had to discover those rules on your own.
Suddenly, he sensed a familiar chakra coming up behind him. "It's late Naruto." Yoshi stepped out of the trees. "Get to bed, Hinata is worried about you."
"But-"
"I know how dedicated you are, but it is way past midnight. We three are going somewhere tomorrow and it will take a good part of the morning to get there."
"But I-"
"Naruto." His voice had that gentle but firm tone that parents often used.
Naruto took a deep breath through his nose, stood up, and followed his sensei back to their cottages. He opened the door and inside Hinata was curled up on her futon bed. He tried to be as quiet as possible so he would not wake her, but the faint 'click' of the door woke her. She stirred from her clump of blankets, sat up and searched for him with her sleepy eyes.
"Naruto-kun?" she mumbled.
She caught him just as he was about to go into his room. He turned back around and squatted down in front of her. "I'm right here." he said with a smile.
"Did-" – a yawn forced her to stop – "Did you figgre it out?"
"Nope. Not yet." He took her hand in his. "If I was Shikamaru I could."
"Hm." She paused. "Your hands are cold." She said halfheartedly.
He snorted with amusement and his smile grew a bit. "Well, I better get to bed. Goodnight Hinata." He squeezed her hand, kissed her head and stood up to leave.
Hinata did not let go of his hand. "Stay, S'cold tunnight."
"I'm going to make you cold."
"You're the cold one. I'mma warm you up." She still sounded half asleep.
On impulse, he let the less honorable part of himself decide on this, ignoring the protests of the side of him that knew this was not the right thing to agree to. "All right. I'll be right back."
Moments later, he came back in his slightly small pajamas and with a pillow under one arm. He left the stuffed fox back in his room. As he crawled into her bed, he realized that if her mind was not clouded, she would never suggest it in the first place and she did not blush for a second. Not when she asked, not when he got settled with his back to her chest under the covers.
She really was really warm.
Hinata squeezed his fingers which were wrapped around hers. "G'night Naruto-kun." She mumbled.
He kissed her hair. "Night Hina-chan. I love you."
"Love y'too…" she whispered back.
Thankfully the morning was not that awkward.
Yoshi had planned a hot springs trip to a volcano twenty some miles away.
"These are the best springs I have ever been to." He explained on the way there. "The water is melt water from snow high up in the mountains so it has amazing rejuvenating properties. As soon as you step into the water, it is almost as it you are cured immediately."
Naruto enthusiastically jumped in as soon as he had stripped down to his boxers (it was so the men and women did not have to be separated, like in traditional springs). With a loud cry of "Fuck, that's HOT!!" he climbed just as quickly out, much to the laughter of Hinata and Yoshi when they emerged from changing in the trees.
Yoshi had a strip of cloth wrapped around his groin and waist in the traditional style. Hinata immediately turned from pale to pink when she caught Naruto staring at her chest, which was only covered by a bra. She quickly sat in the water up to her neck before his eyes wandered down to her panties, which were thankfully modest from year of strict formality in the Hyuuga household.
Naruto hurriedly plopped himself down on the edge of the pool with the water up to his knees next to her, but faced away so he would not be tempted to steal a peek.
Watching the young lovers discover this possible aspect of their relationship was quite funny, and Yoshi just had to laugh.
"Whaaat?" Naruto complained, turning red.
Yoshi just shook his head. "Oh!" I almost forgot. We have not had lunch yet." He strolled back into the trees.
Naruto, frowning, slipped into the water next to Hinata, which only reached up to his shoulders. She automatically leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they waited, for the first time since they got together, awkwardly in silence.
A minute later, they were hungrily wolfing down their lunch. Once they were done, Yoshi launched into another legend.
"After Orochi was defeated by the Kyuubi, he slunk away to a corner of the world to nurse his wounds and recuperate. This took a while, even with the Kusanagi sword, which he still had.
"Once he was fully healed, he dared not challenge the Kyuubi again for fear of being completely obliterated.
"Around this time, Susanno-wo descended from Heaven after being banished from deceiving Amaretsu. He descended down to a place near the waters of the River Hi. He heard sound to someone crying in grief and sought out the source. He came upon an old man and his wife weeping at the riverbank, with their daughter between them.
"'Who are ye?' Susanno-wo asked.
"'I am an Earth Deity, son of the Deity Great-Mountain-Possessor. My name is Foot-Stroking-Elder and this is my wife, Hand-Stroking-Elder. My daughter is known by Wondrous-Inada-Princess.' the old man replied.
"'Why dost thou weep?' Susanno-wo asked.
"'Wondrous-Inada-Princess is the last of my eight daughters, the seven before her devoured one every spring by the eight-forked serpent Yamato-no-Orochi. The time of year is drawing near for her sacrifice, thus we show our grief.'
"'what dost the beast appear to be?' Susanno-wo asked. Foot-Stroking-Elder then described Yamato-no-Orochi to him. 'If I help thou rid thyself of this beast, will thou offer thy daughter to me?'
"'With reverence,' he replied, yet I know not thine name.'
"'I am the brother of the goddesses of the Sun and Moon. Thus I have descended from Heaven.'
"'If that be true, we offer her with reverence to thee.'
"Then Susanno-wo changed Wondrous-Inada-Princess into a beautiful comb, which he stuck in his hair for safekeeping. Then he said to them 'Distill some eight-fold refined sake, then build a fence with eight gates with eight platforms. Upon each platform place a liquor-vat and in each vat fill it with the eight-fold refined sake and wait.'
"Thus they did as they were instructed and Orochi eventually came. It drank to the bottom of each vat and slept soundly and drunkenly. Susanno-wo drew his great saber and cut the great beast into pieces. When he came to the middle tail, he found it could not be cut. So he slit it open and found the Kusanagi sword, which he respectfully gave to Amaretsu.
"Thus the snake worshipers learned of their god's death, the recovered the pieces of his body and sealed his spirit in a lantern. They place this lantern in their temple and worship it.
"Hundred of years pass. Shinobi and the Shinobi arts rise to power. The lantern look just as it did the day Orochi was sealed within it and as such gains a legendary quality to it, since time changes the beliefs of the human heart.
"Then, around half a century ago, a radical priest of the Orochi cult sealed the snake's spirit into an unborn child, who still had at least a month before he was to be born.
"Since then, I know not what has happened to the spirit of Yamato no Orochi, just that the child that he was fused with is most likely still alive somewhere."
"I don't think that's right. We would know of this snake child wouldn't we? Especially if they have that sort of power." commented Hinata. "There's just something off about it."
Yoshi sighed. "Well at least you are taking it as the truth, not just a fancy story."
Naruto thought he saw a flaw. "Yoshi-san, if Orochi the Hachibi, was sealed in a child before birth wouldn't that make him a Jinjuuriki, like us?"
"There is a difference here than what happened to your friend Gaara-san. First off, this spirit was sealed into the child quite some time before his birth, giving it some time to fuse into the developing one of the child. Gaara-san was very well formed when the Ichibi was sealed into him and only had a very very short time until he was to be born. Second off, the spirit of Orochi was already marred since his body had been cut into pieces. All of the other Bijuu's spirits were whole, just separate from their physical bodies."
"…I guess I get it now, but Hina-chan is right. We don't know any snake-spirit child and I think we would if there was one."
Hinata half-turned to her boyfriend. "Naruto-kun, the child would be in its fifties or sixties right now. Their powers would be well known at this point."
"Naruto, Hinata, calm down! I told you that myth so you would remember it for your studies. There is no need to debate the finer aspects of it. Many things are lost over time, such as accuracy of what might have really happened. Come on, get into deeper water" Yoshi waded into the pool until he was standing neck deep. "We are here to relax, remember?"
The teenagers got up and waded in, holding hands. "Relax." Yoshi looked at Naruto with a rather severe and knowing look in his eye. "Submerge yourself in the water and let it take over every sense in your body. Almost let it become a part of you."
Hinata closed her eyes and sighed. "This feels good…"
Naruto relaxed everything. He felt the water all around his body and the heat from the water. He smelled the steam rising off the surface of the pool. He heard the near perfect silence of the surrounding forest. He could nearly taste the crisp air on his tongue.
His shoulders relaxed and his arms went limp. A funny feeling crept up his spine and spread out in his whole body. It felt… inhuman. Alien.
He remained still, letting it fill up within him. It was peaceful, yet powerful. Even more powerful than his own chakra.
"Y-Yoshi-san! Why does Naruto look like a frog?!" Hinata gasped.
His eyes opened in alarm. "Eh?!" He scrambled out of the water and stood on a rock at the edge of the pool. As soon as the ripples died down, he nearly fell in at the sight of his own reflection.
He looked like himself…well…nearly. His eyes were yellow with horizontal slits, like a frog. He had black rings around his eyes, like a frog. His nose was somewhat squashed, just like a frog.
"What is this?!" he protested loudly at his sensei. "Why do I look like stupid frog? Is this some kind of joke?!"
Yoshi had a smug smile on his lips. "Congratulations."
Naruto stopped. "Huh?"
"You just learned how to bring Sage chakra into your body."
It took a second to sink in. the next second, he was whooping and hollering loudly, performing an inverted version of some dance.
"I just learned Sage chakra, Sage chakra, Sage chakra! I just learned Sage chakra! Yeah!" He ended in a thumbs-up pose.
Hinata giggled at him as he jumped back into the water. She squeaked in alarm when he picked her up and spun her around in his arms. "I did iiiiiit." he whispered when he touched his forehead to hers.
She laughed. "Now you have to teach me, Mr. Frog."
"Like I wouldn't?" He turned to Yoshi. "Hey, why do I look like frog?"
"Can you summon frogs?"
"Mhmm."
"What you can summon is usually what you may partially turn into when you use Sage chakra. Hinata-san, can you summon anything?"
She shook her head. "My family doesn't own any summoning contracts."
"Then when you master this, you may change though since you have no animal connections aside from your Bijuu, you will turn more into a…true form of yourself. We will have to see though."
"So how does my summoning contract determine what I turn into?" Naruto asked.
"Summons are animals, and thus very in tune with and a part of nature. So, they are a medium for Sage chakra. It's as simple as that."
"Interesting." Naruto said. He turned back to Hinata, eyes brimming with happiness.
Yoshi climbed out of the water with a barely hidden smile. "Excuse me. I have to go relive myself."
Neither of the teens heard anything past the first two words, since the world had disappeared the second their lips met.
A/N: More legends will follow and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. I really like how I am going to incorporate the mythology into this. :D
It should be obvious who the snake-child is. Shame on you if you don't know.
Don't expect another chapter in a month. The wait time between updates will vary from now on since school and art are the new priorites.
Until next time,
-IBP-
Next Chapter: The third party begins to piece together what is the motive of 'Akatsuki.' It does not brighten up the sky of the future; it only makes it darker.