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Chapter 25: Forest of Annoyance
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"If I can put four of the kits in demon space..." The kyuubi murmured slowly. "Then why not put all of them there? Then I don't have to deal with the whole nonsense!" She crowed happily, rumbling the spiritual energy over/beside most of the land of Fire, stirring the sand demon sleeping in the woods. She noted that subconsciously, but was too busy trying to transfer the babies.
"There!" She said in satisfaction. For a brief second she felt free... then the pain hit. Her human body started to shred and her demon self was unraveling. She could feel the kits wailing in primitive distress. "What?" She gasped, shuddering. The kits' lives started to waver. "No!" She hurriedly shoved (as gently as possible) the twins back into her human body, working frantically to sort out and sooth all the various and complicated connections between her kits and herself. She brushed her chakra over all the little ones, assuring herself that they were unharmed.
"Sorry, so sorry!" The kitsune mourned. She had almost lost them! Even though at one point she had wanted to do this on purpose, how close she had come to doing it by accident was scaring her terribly. "I won't try that again, shh..." She crooned to her kits, in both dimensions.
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"So... this test is pretty fun, eh?"
Neither of Naruto's teammates so much as looked at him. They had gotten quite good at completely ignoring him in the past six hours.
"Where do you think we should camp later? I sort of like the idea of going up in one of these trees."
"You would." Kankuro muttered.
"Ah? Did you say something teammate?" Naruto bounced over to the other boy.
"I said it's no wonder you would want to sleep in the trees, you damn leaf monkey!" Kankuro snapped.
"I'm a fox, not a monkey." Naruto pouted.
"Oh yeah? How do you figure?" Kankuro asked, swinging down his burden and leaning against it with one elbow on the sort tuft of hair.
"One day I'm going to be a fox sage." Naruto puffed out his chest proudly.
"Uh huh." Kankuro rearranged the hair under his elbow. "Don't you need a contract to become an animal sage?"
"I have a contract. I drew it myself." Naruto smiled proudly.
"Sure you did. Is it on construction paper written in crayon?"
"Will you two boys stop posing at each other. We are not alone in the forest." Temari sighed. Not expecting either to listen to her, she half unfurled her fan and began to scan the area.
"I did! On real scroll paper and everything!" Naruto protested. "Why does no one ever believe me?"
"Because you're a loud-mouthed shrimp and the foxes are demons and can't be summoned?" Kankuro drawled.
"Can, too!" Naruto bit his finger and slammed the blood into the ground. The resulting poof of smoke was cut by a kunai that sliced the exact area Naruto's head would have been. "What the?"
"Hey, boss. Do you want me to kill those kits up in the tree then?" The fuzzy white fox asked, flicking a rounded ear.
"Ah! Demon!" Kankuro yelled as he scurried away.
"So cute!" Temari burst out at almost the same second. She immediately looked horrified of the uncontrollable moment of female hormones.
The fox twitched an ear in Temari's direction before nudging Naruto out of the way of another kunai. "Boss?"
"Yeah, yeah." Naruto plucked the next kunai out of the air and flung it back.
Temari swept her fan at the trees and they could hear crashing as two people fell from the branches.
"Oooh." Naruto gushed. "That's pretty cool! I thought the fan was just to look pretty. Eep!" He squeaked as he, too, was blown off into the bushes after the other team. The fox weathered the small tornado with a bored expression.
"Should we..." Kankuro started, but trailed off as a dozen Narutos burst from the underbrush, three to a grass-nin.
"Hey, these guys are kind of weak." The Narutos commented.
"Well what do you expect for a minor village?" Kankuro asked. He stepped forward and riffled through the packs of the closest one, moving with the other ninja as he dodged the Narutos strikes. "Dammit! Another Heaven."
The grass-nin looked annoyed that the painted boy couldn't even wait for the end of the battle to steal from him. There was something extremely insulting about being attacked by clones and robbed simultaneously. Fortunately he was soon unconscious.
"Aw!" The Naruto's whined. "No luck! Although, that means we get to continue this fun camp-out!"
"Boss, am I here for a reason or did you just want to show off to the lady?" The fox interjected.
"Well, that's a funny story actually..." Narutos replied as they knocked out the other two grass-nin. "Whoops!" He looked down in bemusement as one turned into a bundle of leaves. Several Narutos went up into poofs of smoke and the rest started to run around in surprise.
"Huh. Looks like they have a few tricks up their sleeves." Kankuro commented.
"Ahh!" The fox started to scream, dropping to the ground and putting his paws over his ears. "Forget this!" He yipped before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
"What the?" Kankuro asked, before he grabbed his own ears. "Ah!"
Temari started to yell as well, before reflexively sweeping with her fan, which blasted both the sound waves from the air and the attacker out of the tree.
The grass-nin darted across the way, knocking Temari's fan from her hand and holding a kunai to her throat. Temari blinked, dropping her hands and staring at the blood on them. Ironically only her captor's grip kept her upright as she staggered dizzily to the side.
Kankuro strode forward angrily, seemingly unaffected. "Let my sister go!"
"No! I want my scroll back. Then I'll take my team-mates and be on my way. We'll just both forget this ever happened, ok?"
"Forget it!" Kankuro yelled back, shaking his fist angrily.
"I can cut her pretty little throat at any time!" The grass-nin yelled back.
"Hey Temari!" One of the few remaining Narutos called from behind Kankuro.
Temari glared at him, her head tilted a bit to the side.
"I guess this proves that kunoichi are pretty useless, eh? Always being caught and used as bait..."
The grass-nin wasn't quite sure what happened, but somehow he ended up on the ground, pinned by a giant fan wielded by an extremely irate woman who looked about to fall over.
"You want to come say that to my face, shrimp?" She snarled.
"Eheh... not really..." All of the clones dissipated.
Temari thunked the grass-nin on the head with her fan, knocking him out cold. "Then I'll come to you!" She snapped, taking a step and almost falling over.
"That's not the best idea, sister." Kankuro said. "We need to find someplace to heal up. Right here in the middle of a battle-ground is sure to attract others."
"Yeah! Listen to your brother!" Naruto said uneasily, trying to hide behind Kankuro. "That looks sort of painful... does it only affect women?"
Kankuro sighed and smacked his teammate over the head for his sister.
"Fine." Temari snapped irritably, before turning to Naruto. "I'm only going to let you live because you said that to motivate me." She started walking away from the disturbed area. "I didn't think you were paying enough attention to know anything about us, with all that babbling you do." She muttered, begrudgingly impressed.
"How could I fail to pay attention to such a lovely woman?" Naruto grabbed his heart, pretending to be wounded.
"Uh huh." Temari shook her head, but when that caused her to almost fall over, she concentrated on walking.
"Do you need me to carry you?" Naruto asked, sidling up to her side, just out of striking range.
"No." Temari snapped.
"How about now?"
"No!"
"How about now?"
"Argh!"
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"Hey, Sasuke!"
The Uchiha turned toward the call, getting a very bad feeling about this.
"Idiot! You're not supposed to call out to the enemy!" A female voice scolded.
"He's not the enemy- we're from the same village!"
"We're not from your village!" Sasuke could see that the blond girl looked like she wanted to smack Naruto on the head. The size of her fan indicated that it would be a very painful experience.
"Well... I'm friends with him, and you're friends with me, so we're all friends so it's ok." Sasuke winced at the poor logic.
"No. We're all ninja in a competition, so we're all enemies." The girl retorted. Sasuke began to look around nervously for the third member of Naruto's team, but could see no one.
"So Sasuke, what scroll do you have?" Naruto asked.
"We aren't telling you anything. Shoo." Sakura made the 'shoo' gestures with her hands.
"When you can knock me out, Sakura, then maybe I'll listen to you." Naruto stuck out his tongue at the pink-haired kunoichi.
"Why you little!" She rushed up to Naruto, who easily ducked the blows.
Temari sighed. "You might as well tell us what you have. I don't want to get in another fight for the same scroll if I don't have to. This is getting boring." She watched Sakura for a few more seconds before adding: "Though I might be persuaded to fight in order to end this pathetic attempt at skill and show you all what a real female fighter can do."
Sasuke just stared at her with his black eyes hostilely blank.
"You're not as ugly a bitch as the ones I have to travel with. Maybe I can tell you." The pale third member of Team Kakashi smiled with his eyes closed pleasantly.
"What did you just say to me?" Temari asked, her eyebrow twitching.
"I said 'you're not as ugly a bitch as...'" The pale kid broke off his recital in order to dodge the giant fan. "Did you not want me to repeat that, whore?"
"Oh, you are so going to die!" Temari lunged at him.
"Ignore Sai. It's bad for your blood pressure to let him get to you." Sasuke advised.
"Dickless does tend to ignore me, it's true. He seems to have a harder time finding his balls today than usual."
Sasuke sighed.
"Wow. And I thought getting stuck with Naruto as a team-mate was the pits." Kankuro said from right behind Sasuke, who jumped a bit and squeaked, which made his subsequent attempt to make it seem that he knew the other boy was there the whole time kind of pointless. "Well, thanks for the scroll. You can have one of our heaven ones in exchange, k? I'm getting the impression your life sucks enough without being left totally high and dry here."
"Give that back!" Sasuke protested, his eyes flashing red.
"Ooh, pretty, Uchiha. Got anything more interesting to challenge me with?" Kankuro smirked as he hopped backward.
"That asshole painted on my fan! I'm going to kill... oh shit!" Temari's voice interrupted Kankuro from further taunting Sasuke. He looked over at his sister to see her fighting a giant lion, apparently made from ink.
"Ow!" Sasuke started cursing and shaking his hand, looking at Kankuro in puzzlement.
"Your Uchiha eyes can't tell my beautiful puppet from a real person?" Kankuro('s puppet) taunted. "How unexpected." He said sarcastically.
Sasuke cursed even more vehemently. The Hyuuga could see the strings of chakra easily enough, but the Sharingan eyes had a really hard time predicting where a puppet was likely to head next, as it could move in any direction at any point.
"You could just give up." Kankuro('s puppet) suggested.
Sasuke scanned the brush, trying to see where the puppet-master was hiding. Considering that he hadn't been able to sense the guy before he had basically yelled in his ear (though that was the puppet...), Sasuke wasn't feeling too hopeful. Although he felt a bit better about not detecting the breathing and small involuntary movements that gave a person away as, well, there hadn't been any.
Sasuke had to quickly dodge out of the way to avoid an extending arm of the puppet, noting with unease that the blade seemed to be tipped in poison. He sent a katon jutsu at the puppet, though the flames didn't seem to have much of an effect beyond singing the wood a little bit. It had been a long-shot, admittedly, but sometimes ninja were single minded enough to forget something as important as fireproofing their wood weapon.
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"I have reviewed a very interesting proposal by Uchiha Mikoto. And seeing as how she has been doing such a good job representing the clan while I was indisposed, I gave it particular attention." Musume said. Her eyes flicked to the Itachi and Shishui sitting in the corner as they let off a brief spark of killing intent. She smirked slightly, whipping out a thick packet of papers. Her gaze swept the hundred odd Uchiha in the room- all the remnants of the clan in the village at the moment. She was rather proud of them, actually. When she was in the hospital, Mikoto tried to push all sorts of odd agendas, but had generally steered the Council in the best interests of the clan. And the rest- mostly civilians or low level ninja- had come together. There had been chaos, there had been helpfulness, but there had been little stick-up-the-ass behavior.
"It is a great honor to serve, Uchiha-sama." Mikoto said, grinning like a fox in the hen house. Musume approved, but thought that maybe Mikoto should not try to out-fox the highest level fox demon...
"What proposal is this?" Itachi asked, looking like he knew exactly which one, but was maintaining a futile hope that it was something different.
"Why, a proposal to require Uchiha to marry." Musume said.
There was a roar of noise at the pronouncement.
After basking in the near-riot for a while, Musume stood and waved her hands placatingly. "Now, now. It's not so bad! Everyone agreed earlier that this incident with the Hyuuga has dropped our numbers to a low that is unacceptable. And we have Orochimaru's recommendations on how to be a strong genetic population."
"What do you mean it's not so bad!" Aenka asked, glaring at her employer. "You expect me to suddenly marry some fool from the village?"
"You are just trying to pressure the Hokage into marrying you." Itachi snarked.
Musume grinned. "I have no idea what you are talking about, Itachi-kun. The dragging heals of a certain yellow-haired nuisance have no bearing on my decision here." When the protests and calls of support started up again, Musume sighed in annoyance and held up her hand. They quieted. "Now, this will go into effect immediately. I have in my hand the revised proposal. I modified it to better fit the clan. I think that everyone should thank Mikoto." There were glares and smiles directed at the interim clan head. "After all, her sacrifice in this instance is a shining example of the clan spirit that we need in these troubled times."
The grin fell off Mikoto's face and she sat up straight in her chair. "What?"
"You are a single woman of child-bearing age, are you not?" Musume purred. Mikoto's face went white. Musume felt a slow grin slide over her face, totally satisfied.
"What!" Mikoto stood up so quickly her chair got knocked over.
"We are very pleased with your ingenuity." Musume said, keeping a straight face for a few seconds before the look of horror on Mikoto's face made her throw back her head and cackle gleefully.
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"What are you doing?" Temari sighed.
"You're supposed to do this when your friend is passed out." Naruto explained, as he stuck Sasuke's hand down Sai's pant and put the Uchiha's other hand on Sakura's flat chest.
"What kind of pervert is your father?" Temari asked incredulously, seriously reconsidering her assessment of the Hokage.
"Oh, no. Dad will probably be mad at me when he finds out." Naruto stood back to survey his work, then bent down to draw another curl to the mustache on Sai's face. "Musume-chan and Jiraya-sensi have taught me about this stuff." He shifted Sai slightly so that his lips were touching Sakura's. He drew a big heart on Sakura's forehead before dropping the brush and slapping his hands together in satisfaction. "That should about do it." Naruto nodded.
"They look like they are engaged in the most awkward orgy known to man." Kankuro said flatly.
"Excellent!" Naruto pumped his fist into the air. "Well, let's head on out."
The two siblings sighed, but followed after their hyper-active teammate, stepping over the three unconscious mist-nin who had come to investigate. "Why are we leaving a copy of both scrolls with your friends again?" Temari asked.
"That Sasuke guy has to deal with the other two all the time." Kankuro answered for Naruto.
"Yeah! And besides, we don't need it. We already had an Earth before these mist guys gave us theirs." Naruto said happly, gesturing at the unconscious ninja beside the Leaf team.
"What if we get attacked and lose it?" Temari replied sharply. "It took forever to get an Earth scroll. Just because we got two now doesn't mean we should assume it will be easy to get another."
"Well... we have been injured when we fight the other groups, but..." Kankuro searched for a delicate way to put it.
"But we kicked their asses hard-core." Naruto grinned. "We're just too good for them."
"It's not good to get cocky." Temari replied, though she didn't sound particularly convinced about her comment.
"We had to put up with Gaara for most of our lives, Temari." Kankuro said dryly.
"Point." Temari acknowledged.
"What? Your little brother is that bad?" Naruto pouted. "I want to fight him!"
"No you don't." Temari and Kankuro retorted instantly.
"Yes I do!" Naruto protested. "He must be even crazier than Musume-chan if he made both of you get so good all at once."
"How crazy is this Musume person?" Temari asked uneasily.
"Oh, totally nuts. But that's why she's so much fun! No one else will teach me the really cool jutsus." Naruto shook his head. "But what does Gaara do?"
"He controls sand." Kankuro replied, shrugging as if to say 'not like it's a secret' when Temari gave him a sharp look.
"That doesn't seem so bad." Naruto said in confusion.
"He can make a coffin and squeeze a man until he bursts into fluid all over the ground." Kankuro said, his voice blank of emotion.
"Oh." Naruto looked down at the ground, thoughtful. "Hey, hey!"
"What?" Temari asked, already regretting encouraging Naruto when he had been quiet for a full minute.
"You want to go collect all the scrolls? Then we'll be the only ones who can say who passes. We could make them do funny things like act like a chicken!" Naruto said, bouncing on his feet.
"No." Temari and Kankuro said almost reflexively.
"Aw, come on. It would be fun! You could have them do whatever you want. How about have them build a statue of you and worship it with flowers?" Naruto conjoled.
"No." Temari repeated. "I want a shower, and to sleep in a real bed, and eat actual food tonight. We just finished traveling here from Suna and I haven't had a decent meal except for the welcome feast and the opening ceremonies brunch, which should hardly count."
Naruto pouted. "You guys are no fun."
"Naruto, some day you will learn that it's just better to agree when a woman wants something." Kankuro muttered.
"Damn right." Temari said, grinning as she saw the tower entrance right ahead. She briskly waved her fan to get rid of the trio of ninja that had shown up in front of them and ran through into the tower. Naruto and Kankuro hurried to catch up, Naruto wistfully looking at the spilled bag that had a Heaven scroll peaking out of it. He looked at his teammates surreptitiously before darting over and grabbing the scroll and then running into the tower cackling gleefully.
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A/N: Went on a writing spree so posting a week early! But super busy for the next month, so the next chapter may be a week delayed. I call that fair... no net change.
Apparently Dattebayo has not been subbing Naruto for years (though that is where they get their name from, obviously). So I guess lots of people haven't heard of them, which makes me feel old... But anyway- look up their fansubs, especially the YHBT (you have been trolled)/ parody subs. Hilarious stuff.