disclaimer: as I've said so many times, none of this is mine. when are you gonna stop bugging me?
foreword:
This fic really, really, really needs a beta. I've been too empathetic and projecting my philosophy in life through these characters, and as a result it's been dragging down this story's quality (i.e. I can't kill off anyone - and I don't want to kill Tayuya because she has the same VA as Ibis Douglas). Anyone who can help with this please leave me a message. ...This fic has the potential to become oh so much better, but with all that's going on...
...for all of that, here's Chapter 26.
Chapter 26 - Down the Rabbit Hole We Go
"Jiraiya-sensei?" the old woman asked as the Toad Sannin made his entrance. "What, may I ask, are you doing here?"
"Just need a second, third and possibly fourth opinion on this," he said, handing over a scroll. "I've been studying how the symbols interact, and I've noticed some of the similarities it has with your work, Chiyo-sama."
The old woman did a perfect double-take when she saw the scroll (which contained an annotated copy of Naruto's upgraded seal).
"My word... so that's how the arrays were reinforced... but this means... hmm, most of the effects were reversed or modified while maintaining the basic structure..." Chiyo-sama said, lost in thought.
"Hmm, these arrays and layers are surprisingly similar to the modifications on my grandson's seal. A work of art, if I may say so myself, and completely out of my, your, and your beloved little Fourth Hokage's league."
"I met the man."
"Really? So how have the years been treating him?"
Jiraiya shrugged, because his suspicions about that old drinking buddy of his started to pay off. "He's doing as well as anyone can. You should see him, he's practically living as a bum these days."
"Isn't that how the Sages of old lived?" the old lady asked, smiling slyly at her little jibe at Jiraiya's expense.
"Well, if you must know that, then..."
His statement was interrupted by a small poof of smoke and a small toad appearing on the Kazekage's office table.
"What are you doing here, Gamakichi?" he asked.
"Emergency message from the Fifth Hokage, sir!" the small toad exclaimed before handing over a small scroll and rushing back to the summoned plane in a puff of smoke, not even bothering to ask for his customary reward.
Jiraiya unrolled the scroll and palmed his face with his free hand after taking a brief look at the message.
"Ugh, another one of our chickens come home to roost," he said before incinerating the scroll with a small fire jutsu.
"Given your current manpower problems, you could use the help of my grandchildren," Chiyo said. "I know more about your Councilman Shimura (may his soul rot in the Shinigami's belly forever) than I usually let on, and if my guess is correct, this is just the beginning of damage control. You really don't know just how far that monster has gone in undermining all of the Elemental Countries, have you? Oh well, you can meet Baki's team at the village gates."
She left her final statement unmentioned. And maybe begin to pay off the debt we incurred from getting yanked by the nose by your former teammate...
Jiraiya nodded. "I don't know how soon we'll make it, but I'll do my best. After all..."
"Yes, I understand just how undermanned your forces ended up after your sensei took it upon himself to do some large-scale uprooting (heh heh), not to mention that little Exam fiasco. Our audience is ended, and I still need to take a look at this seal pattern - this old dog has one or two tricks left to learn, it seems."
It was a dismissal, and Jiraiya stood up from the chair and bowed. "By your leave, Kazekage-sama."
"Make haste then, Jiraiya-sama."
As soon as the Sannin left, the acting Kazekage produced a towel and wiped the sweat off her brow. The modifications on Gaara's seal had blown her away, and now, seeing what had been done to the Kyuubi container had given her the largest shock of her long life.
Investigating further into how the seals were arrayed, the acting Kazekage shook her head. It was a masterpiece of simplicity, and she almost wanted to kick herself for not coming up with it. Seals of this (ironic) complexity and ingenuity were an entire order of magnitude above the seal masters of their generation. She wondered who would take up the craft and reach the skill level this... Dragon Sage possessed.
...Would a lifetime devoted to the study of this field even be enough to not just produce, but revise and upgrade a seal of that caliber? she thought. Regardless... I owe him my thanks for helping the old pervert finish the arrays on my grandson.
The mission was supposed to be for Hunter-Nin, but since all the squads were presently deployed and the ANBU were thinned out because of the recent ROOT purge, the Fifth Hokage had to bite the bullet.
"Nara. Uzumaki. Testarossa," she announced. "This will be your first official mission as chunin of the Leaf. The three of you will lead a pursuit team to apprehend one of our own who has escaped with unknown ninja towards the borders of Fire Country."
"Who's the perp?" Alicia asked.
"The former ROOT-nin Sai."
"That can't be..." Naruto said.
"Well, it is, for reasons that I cannot disclose for the time being. Each of you will have one genin adjutant of your choice to accompany you - except for Uchiha Sasuke..."
"...because you're suspecting that the escorts could be Sound-nin, the defector might be going to Sound, and we can't hazard the Sharingan being lost."
"Excellent deduction, Shikamaru. Who will your genin adjutant be?"
"I'll pick Akimichi Chouji."
"I'll choose Inuzuka Kiba," Naruto added.
"Hmm..." Alicia thought for a while before she said "Hyuuga Neji."
Naruto thought carefully. None of us know Sai that well, and I'm not sure if the team we put together will even agree to this operation.
Shikamaru sensed his fellow chunin's discomfort, going on the same line of thought, and had to say something. "We may not actually like him, but he's of the Leaf, so it is our duty to do what we can."
Alicia nodded and gave the Nara an appreciative smile.
"Given their movements, if we had some sort of rapid movement jutsu like the Yondaime's Hiraishin, we should be able to..."
"Naruto and I can reach the enemy nin group in time," Alicia said. "You guys can follow up while we slow them down. Based on accounts I've read of the Fourth's trademark technique, what Naruto and I can do isn't as fast, but it will get the job done."
"A good plan," Shikamaru said.
"Well, it's all cleared," Tsunade said, "and now you can get to briefing your team and planning the mission. Execute the mission quickly; time is of the essence."
"Yes, Hokage-sama!"
"Godspeed. Dismissed."
The three chunin bowed and exited the office, preparing to brief their team.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away...
"Please prepare our guest some tea and then wait for our meeting to finish before tending to me."
"Yes, sir." The two girls nodded as they went about their business.
"I see they've still left you a decently long leash to move around in," the aqua-haired woman began.
"Yes, it's a good enough leash for me; and no, I don't have any pressing need to get myself involved in this business again. I've retired, you see."
"I can see that," the woman answered, "but when it seems the Bureau and I have finished dealing with the cloak and dagger..."
"...Something like this comes up." She produced a letter addressed to her, with the old man she was conversing with named within it.
"Ah, so my informant has finally written to you. Did he mention me?"
"He wants to send his thanks for the Device you sent him."
"Ah, for something as basic as a Storage Device? That seems strange," the old man said, thoughtful. "Then again, based on our correspondence, he seemed filled with wonder upon witnessing our technology, even if it was just a presentation."
"Please get to the point, Admiral."
"You are the Admiral, not me. I am merely an old man enjoying my last days."
"True..." the woman answered, brushing a lock of her aqua green hair aside. "Still, what this letter implies..."
"You've taken my spot long enough to know that the TSAB has a few discreet surveillance operations going on. Some worlds are meant to be dealt with in a low-key manner, right?"
"Fair enough, but your man says that their world may come under active TSAB supervision within... three years, or so he says."
"...based on the Bureau policies upon my departure, you should have a low-volume high-power assault squad for this situation."
"Unfortunately, I'll also be retiring by that time - but my successor should be able to take over from where I leave my little corner of the Bureau off."
"That may be, Admiral Harlaown..." the man said, "but we should take into account any and every eventuality."
"Indeed, Admiral Graham," Admiral Lindy Haralown replied. "Something worries me. Your informant had vaguely said that there was a high-profile TSAB target on their world. Who it is, I have no idea..."
"Only time will tell, I guess," former Admiral Gil Graham answered. "You have paid this old man a most enlightening visit; thank you."
Admiral Harlaown nodded. "You're welcome, Gil. I suppose I should go and tell Hayate-chan you're doing all right."
He shrugged, not bothering to notice the two silhouettes outside his office stiffen briefly at the mention of "Hayate-chan". "You would, Lindy... but I don't want to spend whatever time I have left lying to her."
"How long?"
"Around 36 to 48 months before the initial symptoms appear. 72 months at most until it has run the full course."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Take care of those youngsters, that's all I can ask you to do. Let us talk of more pleasant things, while we can. Is it true that Chrono's only now noticed Amy?"
"Why yes, he has. And aside from that..."
It was during the empty times in between missions, training and other things that Precia Testarossa began questioning just how inconsistent things appeared with what they really were.
She looked in the bathroom mirror closely, examining her face for the subtle signs of aging she had overlooked back when she was desperately in the hunt for those pieces of Lost Logia... but now, there was nothing.
The first sign that something was wrong was when a few weeks into her stay with her daughter and the Uzumaki boy, a physical process she thought had stopped... somehow began once more.
Now that the empty times in between her appointed tasks were growing, she found herself asking, this was a patent impossibility, something that even the highest tier of Midchildan research couldn't come up with.
Somehow, who or whatever saved her life had not only excised her disease, but had also reset her biological odometer, so to speak.
The Fifth Hokage was a renowned medic-nin, so logic dictated that she have herself looked at - if only to put an end to the uncertainty bothering her since the new regime went into place.
She finished preparing herself for the small visit to the Hokage Tower and hospital - in that order - to get her appointment for her annual physical checkup personally overseen by the Hokage herself.
Busy as she may be, she'll probably take a little time to look over me when they see that something's amiss...
"Two sets of kunai, shuriken, and reserves."
"Check."
"Storage and emergency sealing scrolls."
"Check."
"Field rations."
"Check."
"Clan-specific items."
"All here."
"Chakra reserves?"
"Good to go."
"Cartridges."
"All stocked, color-coded, and up to capacity."
"Excellent. Let's go bring one of us back to the fold."
"Move out!"
The six-man pursuit team made their way from the gates of Konoha towards their target(s).
"How long until Bucket Beauty wakes up?"
"Damn if I know!"
The five of them were darting across the Fire Country forests, trying to make it to Rice Country as fast as they could. The reason for their haste was because their hopes for not being detected were sadly dashed by the "princess sleeping in the bucket" (or so their white-haired team leader described him).
They only found out that the defector had stolen the Heart of Konoha - which would mean that they would be found, a team would be formed, and they would be tracked down faster now than before.
Life sucked sometimes when you were a ninja, the guy with the rather flat nose thought. Here I thought making jonin and getting these awesome new powers meant it was all looking up.
Little did he and his teammates know that things were going from bad, to worse, to what would be the start of a long-running cold war within the Elemental Countries... and that the troubles would begin with a beige and a dark green blur darting past their group, only to stop in front of them, strange weapons at the ready.
"...Sound headbands?" Naruto asked.
"Weren't you those guys who played in Hokage-sama's inauguration?" Alicia Testarossa asked, pointing her Spellblade at the redhead.
"...that little display of talent almost blew our cover, to be honest," the leader, a white-haired young man with red facial markings, commented. "Since you've already shaken us down in so short a time, might as well cut the crap. It's not like you and your teammates are gonna be walking or talking after this," he added. "Sad, but what can you do. It's a wild world out there."
"...hard to get by with just upon a smile?" Naruto asked, making the Sound-nin group break out into grins.
Well, at least they know their art, Kyuubi replied. This will, however, be all business from this point on. You know what your objectives are.
And you know this: no quarter asked, none given. Get ready, Meister.
Uzumaki Naruto gripped his daggers tighter as his stance began to loosen.
Showtime.
"At first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you, Precia-san," Shizune began, just as the checkup had finished. "Your physical shows that you're in perfect health, and that..."
"Hold that thought, Shizune," Senju Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, cut in while entering the diagnostic room carrying a few charts. "I've found something strange in your chakra networks, Testarossa-san."
"What about my condition?"
"Precia-san, your condition isn't the thing you should be asking about right now. I've detected traces of demonic chakra throughout your pathways. Given that you've fought with a jinchuriki like the one in Kumo, I would have overlooked it, but..."
"But... what, Hokage-sama?"
"Well," Tsunade finished, "what little traces of demonic chakra within you are currently harmless. In so many words, they have an effect similar to my Creation Rebirth technique - but it draws on its own energy, not on yours."
"So what you mean to tell me is..."
"Your original hypothesis was right. Whoever fixed you up wound your biological clock back around one or two, maybe three decades. But..." Tsunade said, hesitating.
She gave her assistant a glance, who promptly activated the security seals in the room.
"...the entity responsible for doing so is..."
"The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox?" Precia asked with a smile, sending the Godaime and her assistant on a loop.
"Relax, I've had a hunch for quite some time now. Jiraiya and his friend Senryuu the Dragon Sage sort of confirmed my suspicions. You can take it easy, it's not like I want to shout this out to the world."
"I still haven't gotten around to amending Sensei's old law about it, though."
"So what do I do?"
"Do? It's like getting a second life."
"I HAVE had a second life upon seeing Alicia up and well again."
"Of course. I'm sure you're going to mold your daughter and Naruto into even stronger ninjas or that thing you call your strange method of combat-"
"We call it magic."
"Right, magic. Either way, this was one place Sensei didn't drop the ball on."
"Indeed. And as a small favor..."
"Anything?"
"...just don't put down my official age yet after this, all right?"
Tsunade and Shizune laughed out loud before the latter disengaged the security seals.
"But of course."
As soon as the elder Testarossa left, Tsunade had to let out a large sigh.
"...and I never even got to tell her that it was more 'spiritual' than 'demonic'. Just what's going on here now?" Tsunade said gloomily as her assistant shrugged.
"You think it's a good idea to tell her you sent her daughter off into a high-risk mission, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked at last.
"She knows the risks, she's trained her daughter. Besides, the three of them (Naruto included) know something that we don't."
"And what's that?"
"They can fly."
If Shizune's jaw could have crashed onto the ground, it would have at her surprise at the statement.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," the Fifth said, slightly annoyed at both her assistant's reaction and that fact. "Saw it recently in an SS-class secret demonstration shortly after people started sniffing around - we managed to reach a decent enough compromise after it. All the more reason we need to get the Heart back here, because her report just came back in: the Heart is the same class of equipment as the daggers Naruto uses."
"Something they use for what Precia-san called magic?"
"If we're lucky, Konoha will now have four of their class in its active roster."
Her eyebrows furrowed over the intelligence reports sent to her. And if these rumors are any indication, it's not just only Konoha who will end up with these new devices of warfare in the future... she thought.
She sighed and made up her mind to start training successors as soon as possible to prepare Konoha for the inevitable shifts of power in the near future.
"...'to achieve the next evolution of the Sharingan, one must slay his closest friend'? What kind of bull is this?" Uchiha Sasuke asked himself while poring over the most secret of the Uchiha Clan's secret scrolls.
It had been a day since Sasuke had discovered his Clan's secret meeting room. He had waited, procrastinated and did many other things for four and a half years before today, as his position as the Academy rookie had been snatched under his nose by Hyuuga Hinata, which put his brother's ominous little suggestion on the back burner.
Four years of playing neck-and-neck with Hyuuga Hinata for #1 Rookie at the Academy, and then there was Team 7 (and the infamous Thousand-Years-of-Death technique courtesy of Kakashi-sensei), missions, serious training, the Chunin Exams, even more serious training, the Finals... he never really got to reading the Clan's secret scrolls until after he scheduled the Clan properties for clearing in preparation for their inevitable lease.
And now, reading through the secret scrolls, he discovered a surprising irony: the last remaining loyal Uchiha wasn't very Uchiha-like at all.
I don't have any close friends. I have friends, but not as close as I'd want them to be... maybe Yamanaka-san, but he's more like a father figure to me...
He had wanted answers on how he was able to summon those strange black flames of his, and how he could actually wield them for use, and found nothing in the clan's scrolls. Nothing but stolen fighting techniques, sword techniques, ninjutsu, genjutsu, even medical jutsu - all of which he planned to donate to the Konoha public library.
To Uchiha Sasuke's credit, he didn't particularly care about the Sharingan's jutsu-copying ability (to him, "that's Kakashi-sensei's schtick"). What he did like about it was its ability to sense, disrupt and amplify genjutsu to an obscene degree - and the strange flames he could suddenly make was a nice bonus as well. The reason his mindset changed so is because being a genius is double the heartbreak and disillusionment when you find out there's someone better than you, and he experienced it at the end of his education at the Academy after coming up in second place (to someone like Hyuuga Hinata, no less!).
But in hindsight, it ended up actually being a good thing, because by then, he started paying attention to all the other things they didn't teach in the Academy.
There was a few interesting readings on the "Mangekyo Sharingan" and its application to genjutsu, particularly a few treatises on its manipulative effect on one's sense of time and space...
Sasuke grinned evilly. Jackpot. His eyes flowed into the Sharingan, and then beyond, to absorb all the information within the scroll even faster...
...and that was then the stone walls of the Naka Shrine basement suddenly decided to light up and reveal their secrets to the boy.
Letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and treatises began pouring wholesale into Uchiha Sasuke's brain.
He dropped the scroll he was reading, gripped his head, roared in agony for a full ten seconds before he mercifully passed out from the pain.
Barely five minutes had passed since the battle started.
The mission plan was to hold up the enemy group until their teammates could join the fray, but Naruto and Alicia were already convinced that their foes were of a higher tier than they were.
They did have the advantages of Devices and other surprises they'd reveal in time, but for now, playing the underdogs would suffice.
The guy who looked like his nose got into an epic battle with a door and lost suddenly revealed four other arms, each holding a kunai.
"Tell me, why am I not freaking out right now?" Alicia asked as she deftly dodged the hail of kunai from the strange Sound-Nin, darted past the one with the pointed chin and slashed at the redheaded kunoichi, who parried her Spellblade slash with her chakra-coated flute, before backpedaling from the incoming counterattack.
"Because we've seen even stranger things!" Naruto said while getting into a tangle with the heavyset and the white-haired one - the latter did most of the attacks as the former carried a strange bucket he assumed Sai was enclosed in. "Isn't this kidnapping?" he added as his dagger slash was parried by - were those bones jutting out of his arms?
"Think of it whatever you will - you will not impede our mission."
"Don't those things hurt?" Naruto asked as he dodged a slash from an elongated radius or ulna or whatever that medic-nin textbook called it.
"Bloodline thing."
"Oh," Naruto said as he jumped back and threw a brace of shuriken at the white-haired leader, who merely parried them with that bone sword-arm of his.
What the hell is taking the cavalry so long? Naruto thought. If this keeps up, I might have to pop a cartridge or two for Kage Bunshin!
He said he was going meet me for lunch after spending some time at what used to be the Naka Shrine and reading a few scrolls... but he's not here. I wonder where he is, wondered Haruno Sakura as she entered the only building that was miraculously untouched by the invasion several weeks ago.
She put the bento box down at the dining table and waited.
Ten minutes had passed when she had finally had it and decided to go look for him.
She found him passed out on the shrine's basement, scrolls scattered here and there - it was to her credit that she did not panic but rather went back up, out the shrine door towards where she knew an ANBU was patrolling, and explained the situation.
She might not have forgotten the bento box, but Sakura still did freak out a little when she saw the medic-nin finally take Sasuke to the hospital.
It was just the pursuit team's bad luck to arrive a bit too late, as they saw Naruto cutting Alicia loose from being entangled in - are those spider webs? Not only that, the enemy group had taken off, leaving the heavyset one behind.
Nara Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at the tactic these Sound-Nin employed, and began mentally shuffling through his roster of teammates to see who would be the right person to take on this guy.
Sadly, he couldn't voice his opinions then as his teammate and friend Akimichi Chouji stepped right up to the plate and told everyone to continue the pursuit - he'd take care of this guy.
"You sure?" the shadow-user asked Chouji.
"Positive. Now get going, I'll follow as soon as I deal with him," Chouji said.
"What makes you think I'll let YOU do that?" asked the Sound-nin, but before he could form hand seals to try and impede the Konoha pursuit group, he flew back a couple of feet from the right cross Chouji threw.
"What are you waiting for? Go on, go!" he yelled.
"Fascinating..." Chouji's opponent said, stroking his chin as he watched the little drama unfold.
"What are you smiling at?" Chouji asked at his opponent when his team had finally left to pursue the remaining four Sound-nin.
"Leave it to you Leaf chumps to put up their big guy versus our team's big guy," the man said, smiling. "Real smart. The name's Jirobo, by the way."
"I-I-I volunteered!" Chouji said, taking the lull in conversation to strap on a set of metallic bracers to his forearms.
"Is that so?" Jirobo asked, taking a gradually wider stance as he shifted into his usual mode of combat.
"Yaargh!" Chouji yelled as he dashed in and aimed to end the fight early with one punch... only to fail miserably as the counter punch from the larger man knocked him back.
"Hmm, and they say Konoha-nin are the nicest ones around. I actually introduced myself and all you do is try and land one on me? Bad form, kid... bad form."
"My name is Akimichi Chouji... and I'm going to take you down!"
Jirobo cracked his knuckles. "We'll see about that... Chouji."
"You sure he's gonna be fine?" Alicia asked.
"Don't worry about him, he's been doing a lot of extra training!" Shikamaru said as the group dashed onward.
"INCOMING!" Hyuuga Neji yelled, and the group dispersed to avoid the strange bolts that were leveled at them.
"What the hell was that?" Naruto asked.
"More trouble," Kiba replied.
"Indeed," Shikamaru added. "They're going to try and slow us down one at a time so they can spirit their cargo out of here!"
Naruto winced slightly at the terminology his erstwhile teammate used. Cargo?
"It's the eight-armed one," Neji said, his Byakugan activated and scanning the immediate area. "We'll have to choose who the best match for him will be..."
"I'll do it," Naruto said. "Reynard and I can-"
Neji let out a little laugh. "Number One..."
"Yeah?" Shikamaru asked.
"Go on, I'll make sure Uzumaki here doesn't bite off more than he can chew."
Shikamaru gave the genin a chuckle. "Roger that."
The two of them then broke off before heading towards their target.
Jirobo of the Sound Five wasn't your run-of-the-mill special jonin.
If you asked him, he didn't even know how he ended up in Oto and part of the feared Sound Five, too. All he knew was that he started off as a sumo, got disgraced by a rival who employed some missing-nin, managed to fight them off before being rescued by a certain Orochimaru...
...and then he was set in learning jutsu, hand seals, and the basics of being ninja.
He single-handedly proved (aside from the Akimichi clan, but that's neither here nor there) that size didn't impede anyone from being an effective ninja - in fact, his biggest accomplishment was assassinating a high-level diplomat at a sumo match by simply throwing his opponent in sumo at him.
Sometime before he would be Branded with the Seal marking his status as a special jonin of Oto, he had discovered music, along with his fellow batch mates - who would end up being the Sound Five. Here he found that his other liking for hitting things and his little character quirk of regularity made him a perfect drummer. After the Branding, there was a short lull in which he had to orient himself to its effects. Then came the infiltration of Konoha, and now he was examining the irony of battling a fledgling Akimichi.
He smiled as he did a picture-perfect over-the-shoulder throw more often seen in aikido than in sumo, and smiled even wider as his opponent rolled off it and reversed the throw.
He got up quickly, and flashed a frighteningly intense smile at the boy.
"I'm not gonna waste your time with jokes about how the ladies must love your clan techniques," Jirobo said as he clapped his hands together and got down into a sumo stance. "My mission is to see the defector safe to my Master, at any and every cost."
Stomp. "If you want to catch up to your teammates..."
Stomp. "...you're gonna have to get through me first."
Stomp. "...Boy."
Chouji gritted his teeth. This guy is tough! Should I use the medicine given to me, or is it too early to do so?
Screw this, he thought as he went into the same sumo stance as his opponent, clapped a few times, and breathed in before charging at his opponent with a loud cry.
The impact of their collision sent a shockwave rippling all across the forest clearing.
"Chakra flare at our ten-o-clock."
"Thanks, Shukaku," the redhead said, before turning towards his teammates. "We've got a direction, so come on, let's go. They'll probably keep flaring chakra until we get a decent bead on them."
"You have an idea as to who we're after?"
"Maybe... maybe not. All we need to do now is our jobs, and that's one less worry over Sunagakure's head."
They nodded at his statement, and since the three of them had already arrived in Fire Country (sans Jiraiya, who had to get to Konoha pronto and dig up whatever he could about Orochimaru and Danzo's collusion), they were now at the heels of the Konoha pursuit squad, aiming to back them up (to pay off one of the "debts" incurred because of the invasion a few weeks before).
Gaara of the Desert narrowed his eyes at the whole situation. What will Sound do next, why a defector, and is there more to this than the players of this game can see?
He resumed this line of thinking as he and his sibling team continued their movement.
Chapter 26 - END
a/n: Here we go, fight scene time! I swear, writing down the next few chapters will be bloody freaking murder as I shift from each one-on-one fight to another in the narrative. And that's not covering all the weirdness about to go down in Konoha.
Anyway, you'll notice that I've taken a few liberties with the MGLN timeline regarding the discrepancy between Precia's actual age (in the MGLN universe) and perceived age (in this story). This is not accidental and will be explained much, much later in the story (you can guess if you've read between the lines, feel free to make your guesses about where, how, and why the whole thing went down). Alicia's age discrepancy is likewise taken care of in this manner.
Also, Naruto's flight ability in an earlier chapter would have gone mostly unnoticed as 1) people would automatically assume it to be a chakra-enhanced leap; and 2) Naruto was instructed to be discreet about the skill, so he keeps the speed and altitude low and mixes a few chakra-powered-jumps with it when practicing it in town.
I might include a few paragraphs about Sakura's growth. I opted to go with the "Fight Club Ending Route" and have her "merge" with her other personality, hence her sudden increase in power - while I haven't actually written Sakura in a fight scene, whatever scene featuring her fighting will illustrate just how well the merging of personalities has occurred and how this merging of personalities actually makes her stronger, not weaker. She will, however, still slap down her teammates for being ecchi (and they both can't help it).
Next chapter: We go further into the Konoha-Oto gauntlet, a familiar face makes a comeback, more secrets about the Uchiha clan are revealed and things take an even stranger turn.
You can also volunteer to beta-read these chapters and help revise the older ones! I'd owe you an awful lot if you could do so. Either message me on the board, send me a message to my profile, or actually read my profile and check out other means on how to contact me.
Oh look, there's a "Review" link below! Why don't you click it and give me a bit of input on how I can make this fic better. All suggestions will be addressed on the message board - just click on my profile.