25. Haunted Mansion

Author's Notes: I apologize in advance for the two plus weeks it took to get this out, trying to find a proper source episode or arc and trying to make it less boring made it a bit of a challenge to write. That and I got multiple weeks where I worked extra hours and even extra days made getting the energy to even work on this story hard.

Story Start: Two Days After Uzmaki Probation Mission

Naruto and Haku once more stood in front of the mission desk with a group of shinobi who normally weren't part of their team, though they had worked with them in the past. The Genin from Team 8 had been called along with Naruto and Haku for this mission, and Tsunade studied the three genin for a moment before she turned her gaze onto Naruto and said "A time sensitive search and rescue has come up. The missing person is the Mistress of the Land of Honey, Lady Kayo. She was on her way to visit the household of her parents in the Land of Candy. Attendants from Land of Candy went out to meet them, thinking it odd that their arrival had been delayed, only to find that the palanquin and poles had been cast away at the mountain pass marked on the map included with the mission scroll. Team 8, you are to track down Lady Kayo's location with Naruto providing transport. He and Haku will also serve as backup if needed. Any questions?"

"Just one, this mountain pass wouldn't happen to be the same one where those rumors of a ghost castle have popped up would it?" Naruto asked semi nervously as he pulled out the scroll and looked at the map inside, giving a slight wince when he confirmed its location.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow and said "Jounin Uzumaki, are you saying that you're actually scared of ghosts?"

Naruto shamelessly held up a hand with index finger and thumb held slightly apart and said "Just a little, though I would call it less scared, and more shinobi oriented paranoia. After all, you normally can't hurt a ghost unless you salt and burn their bones, but they can sure hurt you while you try to find said bones." Haku and Kiba snickered at that while Hinata gained a touch of uncertainty in her eyes. Shino being Shino, didn't so much as twitch.

"Fair enough." Tsunade allowed before she grew slightly more serious and said "Rumors of spirits or not though, be on your guard. Something abducted Lady Kayo and her escort, so keep your wits about you."

"Yes Ma'am." All five shinobi acknowledged before leaving once their Kage dismissed them.

As they left the tower, Kiba put his hands behind his head and said "So Naruto, what are the chances that we are actually dealing with spirits here?" All joking aside, shinobi dealt with some strange things, and even Team 8 had heard rumors of what other Shinobi teams had run into over the years.

"Well, there HAD been a castle in that area quite a while back, though it's no longer there anymore. A fire burned it right down to the foundations." Naruto said as he made three clones and pulled Haku and Team 8 through the slipstream briefly and came out by the main gates. Cocking his head as one of his clones signed them out, Naruto continued "If the area IS haunted, we'll probably have to use Hinata's Byakugan to look around the site for any surviving bones, though I doubt they'll be in good condition after the fire and all of this time."

Kiba let out a slight shudder and said "That doesn't really help you know." Akamaru let out a small whine of agreement from where he was sticking his head out of Kiba's coat. Naruto merely grinned at his former pranking partner before he and his clones once more pulled his current team into the slipstream.

Scene Change: Entrance to The Broken Neck Pass

Four blondes suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. As Naruto and his clones deposited their passengers, Naruto said "Alright, this is the start of the mountain pass where Lady Kayo was reported to have vanished from. Kiba, do you want my clones to hang around to help search or not?"

Kiba, the team leader when Kurenai wasn't around studied them for a moment before he nodded and said "If they can search without throwing up that chakra fog then they can start a grid search on the other side of the pass while we work from the Palanquin site."

"Got it." One of the clones said with a nod before all three shot off at high Jounin speed, moving so fast to the Genin's eyes they might as well have joined the Slipstream again.

A moment after they were gone, Kiba asked "Hinata, any out of place chakra sources?"

Hinata's Byakugan flared and after a moment, she shook her head and said "None, Kiba."

"Hm." Kiba hummed before he and Akamaru took deep sniffs and said "Nothing that smells weird. Shino, your insects picking up on anything?"

There was a buzzing from the Aburame's coat for a moment before Shino shook his head and said "They do not detect anything."

"Just once, I wish it was that simple out of the gate." Kiba mused to himself before he shook his head and said "Alright guys, you know the drill by now, keep your senses peeled, and your kunai ready, lets go!" And with that, he let Akamaru out of his coat, used his beast mimicry jutsu, and began moving at an unrushed semi respectable run for a genin with nose to the ground along side Akamaru as they began moving towards the last known spot of Lady Kayo's group, getting the scent of them as they went. Hinata and Shino followed behind, Hinata's eyes still scanning and Shino's insects beginning to pour out of his coat and spread out over a large area.

As the three Genin headed out, Haku hummed and said "They seem to be working even smoother than before."

"They have had just under a year of working together." Naruto pointed out as the two followed, easily keeping the three in sight.

"True." Haku said and the two fell silent.

Even at the 'slow' speed Kiba led his team at in order to not miss any potential clues, it only took the five man (I mean six, sorry Akamaru!) team twenty minutes to reach the area where the Lady Kayo and her escort had vanished. As soon as Kiba and Akamaru had had a minute to sniff at the remains of the palanquin, Shino's beetles swarmed the wood and fabric like a compacted swarm of locusts, the insects taking twenty seconds to get whatever it was they used for tracking purposes before flying up into the air so that even more of their kind could get a sample.

Hinata meanwhile had her Byakugan active and was frowning. Turning her head in order to work around the blind spot of her dojutsu, Hinata said "Their tracks just stop. No sign of heading in any direction, no sign of rising, it's like they came to a stop and just disappeared. And there aren't any extra chakra sources either."

"No weird smells at all, I've got six scents and that's it. Everything else is local wildlife." Kiba said with a frown, Akamaru whining his agreement.

Shino was silent when everyone glanced at him to see if he had anything. Kiba and Hinata patiently waited for two minutes as the Aburame conversed with his hive on their findings. Naruto and Haku took their ques from those two though they did keep their heads on a swivel. When Shino spoke, they didn't need to see his mouth to know that he was also frowning as he said "There are no detectable signs of what happened here. It seems we may be dealing with the paranormal after all."

Kiba let out a slight shudder and said "So we might be dealing with ghosts after all, that's just great." Turning to Naruto, he said "Where's this haunted mansion supposed to be?"

Naruto opened his mouth only for his eyes to flick upwards and a frown appeared on his face as he said "Take a look for yourself."

Everyone else followed where he was looking and their spines all stiffened as Hinata nervously said "That wasn't there ten seconds ago."

"No it certainly was not." Shino said stoically.

'That' was the five story tall, relatively narrow building sitting halfway up the closest hill. The building sat on a story tall platform foundation of stone and was made out of wood, the tallest story a short tower in the center of the fifth floor's roof.

Just as soon as the other four got a good look at the castle, a blue shockwave with white tints emerged from it, rapidly expanding towards the group. As the Genin panicked, Naruto rapidly whipped out a kunai with a blank seal tag attached to it, chakra wrote an elaborate seal on it, and lodged the kunai into the ground between him and the trackers. A split second later, the tag shot to the end of its string and a barrier sprung up around the six Leaf shinobi and the shockwave passed them harmlessly. Kiba was visibly shivering even as his limbs went stiff like a board as he said "What was that?!"

"At a guess, what happened to our missing Lady and her escort." Haku said as he watched the shockwave fizzle out behind them before turning back towards the mansion.

Shino frowned and said "My hive seems to have been somehow transported into the mansion by that shockwave. It stands to reason that our missing people are inside."

Getting control of himself, Kiba let out a sigh of relief and said "Man, it feels like we really dodged a kunai there." Glancing down at the seal tag that was now once more blank and limply hanging from the kunai it was attached to he said "Naruto, what did you put on that thing?"

"Just a general bunker seal coupled with an anti summoning array. Wasn't sure WHAT that shockwave would do, I just knew I didn't want to find out." Naruto said as he pocketed the kunai. Glancing up at the mansion with a sigh, Naruto said rhetorically "We're going to have to go in there anyway to rescue those people, aren't we?" Sighing to himself, he pulled out a scroll and unraveled it as he said "Good thing I had a clone grab these while we were at the gate."

As he unsealed five five-pound bags of salt and handed them out to the others, Haku shook his head and said "Your speedster abilities never cease to impress and terrify Naruto. To actually have a clone able to purchase these and get them to you without us noticing, that's quite a feat."

"Cheating's what it is, not that I'm complaining. So, put salt on any bones we find then burn them right?" Kiba said, hefting the bag in his hands at the end.

Naruto nodded as he unsealed one last thing from the scroll before rolling it back up, a tube of some kind of paste. Pulling out several kunai, he put a pearl of its contents on each blade before passing the tube to Haku and as he spread the paste around the blades said "This is salt paste, so spread it on your weapons and you should be able to hold off any ghosts that come after us. You see anything that's translucent or doesn't register as human to your senses, you gank them, understood?"

"Hai." His teammates said, ignoring Naruto's strange choice of wording as they began coating their weapons as well.

Once the shinobi were properly armed, they began walking towards the mansion. As they walked, Kiba asked "So Naruto, how do you know about all of this stuff for dealing with ghosts anyway?"

Naruto shrugged and said "I had a mission five years ago in Demon Country protecting a high priestess and she taught me a few things." He then snorted and said "I'm pretty sure she was trying to bribe me into accepting a marriage with her daughter. She seemed quite taken with the idea, according to Old Man Sarutobi she actually tried to slip that in as a term for a trade agreement."

Haku let out a slight snicker at that even as the genin gave him confused looks and Kiba said "But you would have been seven at the time, why would she-?"

Naruto shrugged and said "Something about her having limited future viewing abilities and me cloaked in golden flames." He then paused and said "Though I DID hear her muttering to herself about me being the best chance she had for grand children within the next three decades, but I don't think she wanted me to hear her saying that." Hinata rapidly flushed and spluttered at that while Kiba laughed.

The group quieted as they reached the mansion, stacking up with Hinata and Haku on one side of the doorway and Kiba, Shino, and Naruto on the other. Kiba shot Hinata a hand sign asking if there were enemies and a split second later, Hinata shook her head, Byakugan active. Kiba nodded and counted down three fingers before he and Hinata took three steps towards each other, turned, then together kicked in the double doors in a well practiced maneuver. As the two pointmen of the shinobi formation moved in, the other three followed with their heads on a swivel. Not that it took long for their opponents to show up.

Soon as they had taken five steps in, the shinobi were surrounded by twenty samurai in armor that was standard half a century ago, slightly glowing white and with swords already drawn. Kiba cracked his neck side to side and said "Nice welcome committee." The next moment, he was ducking under a sword swing with salted kunai out and the rest of the combatants began moving as well. The salt paste on the shinobi's weapons meant that they could affect the ghosts, but it was more in line of making them like mortal opponents rather than one shot kills, they still had to get around the armor of the ghosts the normal way. Naruto held back on joining the Slipstream though, both because Hinata had her Byakugan active and even outnumbered they weren't in a desperate situation yet.

Once all of the ghosts had faded away after receiving 'kill' shots, Naruto let out a huff and said "Those guys won't be gone for long, we need to find their bones and S&B them if we want anything we do to them to actually stick."

Punctuating that statement was the sound of several sets of heavy foot prints swarming down the nearby hallways on either side of the staircase at the end of the entrance hall. Seconds later, fifty ghost samurai poured out of the hallways of the first and second floor, forty of the group foot soldiers, while the last ten were archers which took up position at the top of the stairs. Seeing this, Kiba made a face and said "Hinata find those bones, Shino, the Lady and her escort, we'll cover you! Naruto, Clones, twelve man squadron strength!"

"Hai!" Hinata said with her and Shino moving into the center of their combat circle. Naruto nodded and made the requested clones who made a front line in front of the others as the foot soldiers let out haunting yells and charged forwards. The ghosts tried to overwhelm Naruto's clones only to be stopped like a wave hitting a stone wall, and the original and Kiba picked off any who got around the front line. Haku meanwhile picked off the archers with senbon to the throats, pulling his salted needles back to him thanks to the wire he had tied around each before launching them.

A few minutes later, the entrance hall was once more clear and Kiba said "Think that was all of them?"

"For now, it won't take long for them to regroup though." Naruto said.

"Great, have you found them yet Shino?" Kiba grumbled before glancing at Shino in question.

Shino nodded and said "They are kept in what appears to be this place's detainment center, which is logical for ghosts of a military nature. Follow me."

Shino quickly lead the shinobi further into the mansion and down a flight of stairs. A pair of ghost guards at the bottom of the stairs were rather quickly dispatched by the insect using shinobi. There was another pair in front of a couple of cells and they too were quickly taken out. The prisoners quickly scrabbled up to the bars as this happened and one of them, a woman said happily "Oh thank kami, shinobi. Please, you have to get us out of here."

"That's the plan ma'am. We were sent to find you guys after all." Kiba said as he pulled out a set of lock picks and began fiddling with the door lock. It took a while since the lock was almost completely rusted, though whether the ghosts did that on purpose or not was up for debate, but five minutes of careful maneuvering had the lock undone on both cell doors.

Once the prisoners were free, Naruto stepped forward and said "I'm going to put you all in a stasis seal. It will allow us to protect you better if you all are in a single place and we don't have to worry about friendly fire."

There was some hesitation from the released prisoners but Lady Kayo metaphorically stepped up as she nodded and said "Do it." Sure, there was the possibility that these shinobi were lying about why they were here and could decide to hold her for ransom, but she didn't think so, and besides, better in their hands then the spirits'.

Soon enough, the civilians were in the stasis seal and Kiba said "Hinata, have you found those bones yet?"

Hinata nodded and pointed as she said "They are that way, in a large chamber under where the entrance way is."

Hinata lead the way this time, and they were soon in a rather large chamber with a rather eerie sight: several rows of skeletons sitting seiza facing a skeleton sitting on a simple chair. Shuddering, Kiba said "Guess we won't have to dig for the bones after all."

At his words, the room filled with spectral samurai kneeling in front of their lord. They didn't stay kneeling for long though, as one, they stood up out of their skeletons, turned, and drew their weapons as their lord called out "Enemies of this land, you may have penetrated the barrier placed over this stronghold, but you shall not taste victory here, destroy them!"

There was a roar from all of the other ghosts as they charged, even the archers from before drawing swords in this room where they could not get the needed elevation to shoot over their comrades' heads. Now that they didn't need to hold back for risk of blinding Hinata, Naruto's clone squadron flooded the room with chakra and began tearing through the ranks, causing the ghosts to fade away only to rapidly reappear by their skeletons in a continuous loop. Clearly, if any other normal Shinobi team attempted this then they would be worn down in a battle of attrition.

Kiba didn't let that thought stay in his mind long though, instead he said "Come on guys, we need to salt and burn the bones while the ghosts are distracted!"

Even as they moved forward to do so, Shino calmly stated "We do not have enough salt to cover such a large number of bones."

"Just salt what you can, I'll handle the rest." Naruto said, writing on seal tags that he was pouring small amounts of salt from his five pound bag on. Soon enough, twenty of the skeletons had a little bit of salt on each bone and were burning thanks to the Campfire Starter Jutsu that every academy student was taught in their last year. Naruto quickly put his seal tags on the skulls of the rest of the skeletons which flashed once before 'shadow clones' of the source salt poured out in streams over each skeleton. Soon enough those too were burning and all of the ghosts abruptly faded out of sight.

Once the bones had finished burning, Naruto used a quick wind jutsu to accelerate the dispersion of smoke and both Kiba and Akamaru gave sighs of relief as the smell of said smoke diminished and he said "Glad that's over with, this has got to be the weirdest mission we've ever had."

"Not even in my top ten." Naruto said with a chuckle earning startled looks from Team 8, even Shino in his own way. Haku let out a chuckle at that and said "While I wouldn't say I'm quite as 'experienced' as Naruto, I too have witnessed a small number of weirder missions."

There was a spectral chuckle causing shivers to go down the Genin's spines even as they snapped to full alert. Haku and Naruto meanwhile calmly glanced over at the throne where the Samurai Lord's Ghost once more stood, this time with a much more pleasant look on his face. Smiling at the group of shinobi, he said "This world can certainly be a strange one indeed. But that is for the living to experience. I thank you for releasing me and my men from this realm and allowing us to travel to the next." The Samurai Lord gave a deep bow before fading away again.

Kiba gave another shudder and said "Definitely our weirdest."

Naruto and Haku chuckled at that as the area around them faded revealing the descript ruins of the mansion around them. Team 8 was quick to vacate said ruins and once Haku and Naruto had rejoined them, the people they were sent to rescue were unsealed and the group of young Shinobi began escorting them out of the area.

This was certainly one for Team 8's books, and they would have quite the story to tell their sensei when they got back. But for Naruto and Haku, it was a Tuesday.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on my Profile.

Hey guys, sorry again for how long this one took to get out. It WOULD have been out two nights ago but I called in because the Maintenance worker who was supposed to be working that night had their mom checked into the hospital. (Shrugs) Oh well, what can you do right?

Anyways, I have a favor to ask my readers. Would any of you like to be the ones to start up a TVTropes page for my stories? Apparently, it's a bit of a faux pas to make one for your own works, though I won't mind adding to it once it's up and running. PM me if you're interested.