I don't own Naruto or Dungeon & Dragons.

- o 0 o -

Naruto

"Think it'll hold up under the strain, Fighter?" He asks the black furred humanoid that is a part of him and yet wasn't. "I mean, you did crafted that out of all of those paper panels..."

"It'll hold up, Druid. I'm a natural sorcerer even if I preferred the way of the blade." The black furred Rakshasa remarks with a tsk.

"It looks like a fireball." He couldn't help but point out as thunder continues to sound in this dreamscape. "I keep expecting the skeleton to catch fire."

"Then maybe you should strengthen it." Is the parting reply as the Rakshasa vanishes into his shadow and he just sighs.

"I'm so going to regret this..." He murmurs as he walks up to the skeleton, not caring that he's walking on air to get to the head, the wooden statues that he had been working on were forgotten upon the ground. The skeleton stops moving and even comes 'swimming' towards him.

"This is going to hurt so much..." He mutters as he traces a index finger along the lower jaw of the whale skull. Lightning seems to jump about the surface as his finger continues to make contact with the skull. Pulling his finger away, he takes a deep breath before placing both of his palms upon the whale skull.

He hisses softly as electricity dances up his arm and his hair seems to stand on end. He works through the pain to cause muscle to grow to flush out the bones and the meshy roots. The fireball within the rib cage is soon hidden from sight as neon green muscle with red bits of fat.

As the pain and doziness begin to take their toll, the muscle then sprouts a layer of brown, bark like skin. The thunder in the background slows as he feels himself slowly fall away from the brown whale as it begins to sing a song. The ship whale vanishes in a blink of his eye.

He lands on something, something that is bobbing up and down and the whale song seem just an inch away from his ear. He takes a deep, calming breathe and as he closes his eyes, he feels the world around him alters and by the time he opens his eyes once more, he finds himself laying down on the deck of the ship with Den whining someplace behind him.

"Naruto! You ok?" He hears Sakura shout at him and he just groans before finding the strength to lift his head.

"Just... tired..." He mutters softly as he tries to focus on what's going on around him. Not that he feels like hurrying as he feels really, really drained.

He can feel Den's worry but couldn't find it within himself to rush himself as he focuses on sitting up. He notes in an abstracted way that the monster's tail is still wrapped around the ship but found himself unworried about that. He watches as lightning hits the deck after Sakura dodges to the side.

Sakura tries to, once more, hack at the offending tail that's still wrapped about the ship. Sasuke seems to be engaged in a fight with one of those riders of the beast. He isn't disturbed as the scratches and cuts of his two team-mates heal within seconds of being inflicted, after all, he had mended those wooden statues while waiting for the black furred fighter to finish messing around with those spells, fusing them into a ball of fire that then got inserted into the whale's chest.

He tries to suppress a yawn and tries to gather what little resolve he has to keep himself from dozing off. It wouldn't do for him to fall asleep in the middle of a battle. Could this even be called a battle? He wonders as Sasuke's opponent finally disengages from Sasuke to leap onto the large tail and begins racing upon the giant monster's back, heading back to its allies while Sasuke just watches the being retreat.

It's not as if the monster or its riders are really paying us any heed... He admits as he watches the interactions going on between the humanoid beings and the beast that seems to be about the size of a really old dragon. The one eyed monster doesn't seem to care about the ship one way or another while the riders seem more intent on killing said cyclops, clearly not looking to start a fight with any of them or else that one that Sasuke was engaging wouldn't have fled off ship.

"I think we're just in the wrong place at the wrong time." He mutters to himself as Sasuke comes to give him a hand to stand up. He gives himself a shake and blinks a few times after finding himself staring down at the deck.

"What do you mean by that?" The current half-fiend asks with a slight frown and he just waves his hand over to the main body of the creature. Sasuke follows his hand only to look at him once more with a much more increasingly annoyed look upon his face.

"That creature isn't interested in us. We're just something it came upon while it's struggling with those beings upon its back and head." He points out. "And those guys are too pre-occupied with killing that cyclops monster to care about what we might have on board our ship in terms of treasure."

"Neither are really attacking us, Sasuke. We're just some kind of log floating down a 'river'. We're not on their radar, we might have been if we encountered either on their own but not when they're busy with each other." He couldn't help but stress.

"I hate it when you're making way too much sense..." Sasuke growls softly as the rogue sees it his way. He just grins in a weary kind of way. "Not that it helps solve the tail problem..." Sasuke remarks and he glances over to the slowly tightening coils of the cyclops' long, snake tail.

"I did my bit, I did what I could to increase the strength of the hull of the ship. What's left is getting rid of that tail section." He says with a shrug, wincing as whirl blades of wind seems to pass around Sasuke and his profiles, hitting the deck with enough strength to leave gashes upon the wood.

He watches as the minor scratches upon Sasuke's face close up within seconds, healing in a very speedy fashion. He touches a few spots upon his own body and found only a minor soreness but not rips upon his being. "It's like those attacks just ghosted right through you..." Sasuke mutters in surprise with a hint of awe upon the other's face.

He just sighs, he really didn't know what to say and therefore decided not to say anything at all. He glances over to where Sakura is and just shakes his head at the sight of Sakura's blade bouncing off of the creature's thick hide. It's clear that Sakura's not having any real luck with penetrating the beast's scaly leather hide.

"And the tail is suppose to be the least defended spot on something like that..." He hears Sasuke muse with a sigh. He just slightly shakes his head.

"We're so not going to have any luck getting rid of any of this... We're also already veering off course too." He admits, some of his energy returning.

"That's assuming we knew we were on course to begin with." Sasuke points out with a bit of a smirk upon his face before Sasuke glances towards the main body of the beast and frowns, likely regarding the battle going on atop of the cyclops' body.

"One could only hope we knew what we were doing... I'm no sorcerer or wizard after all. I'm pretty much out of my depth in dealing with any spells placed upon this ship." He admits, although his hand does go to that particular item he crafted for a second before placing his hand on his hip while his other goes to his chin as he studies the struggle going on with Sakura and the tail.

"You know any spells to increase the sharpness of our blades?" Sasuke asks curiously and he snorts softly. "Then what can you do to help with the tail?" The other asks him.

"What would happen if we come out of this Astral Sea with that tail still wrapped around the ship?" He wonders out loud as that thought circles about within his mind. He's more then a little curious as to hear Sasuke's thoughts on the matter since the Uchiha was standing right there.

"Wouldn't know, wouldn't we drag it and them into the Prime Material Plane along with us?" Sasuke muses and he hums in a thoughtful manner. "What, you think we wouldn't?"

"I didn't say anything, but you do have wonder... Can that beast even survive in the Prime Material Plane? I mean, I don't recall any creature like it in any stories." He points out. "Something that huge... Can you imagine the kind of damage it could do to a city? A castle? An army on foot?"

Sasuke seems to shift his weight, clearly a sign that the other could see where he's coming from. "I mean, how hard would it be to summon something like that to do your bidding... I mean, wizards and sorcerers are always summoning devils, demons, and other planar beings, so why haven't somebody summoned that?" He muses.

After a few minutes, Sasuke says, "You know, while this is a very fascinating conversation, I don't think we'll be worrying about it anymore." He blinks as he comes out of his thoughts to stare at his team-mate.

"I'm pretty sure we're about to have something new to worry about. After all, how often do you encounter a floating keep in this place?" Sasuke says, pointing to some point beyond Sakura and he follows the finger to see said floating keep.

"Looks like we got another dungeon to raid or something." He muses with a frown as Sasuke yells at Sakura to snap her out of her current rage. To alert her to their collision with a bit of floating land in this Astral Plane, a plane that exists between planes.

)-o-(

Neji

"Where did that crow come from?" Lee asks him as they watch their female team-mate try to lure the bird towards her by offering it some jerky. It's been days since they've encountered another living thing since they entered the stone manor to rest.

Undead circle around the abandon manor, unable to leave but also unable to enter into the slowly rotting building. It's been at least a day since they last seen the team from Sand. Though he's pretty sure that they're exploring the basement in hopes of finding answers to the problem of the undead. It wouldn't surprise him that Kankuro ends up with said magical artifact either, after all, Kankuro is a practicing Necromancer and would make better use of this artifact that affects the undead then he ever could.

"Flew in?" He muses after Lee refuses to take his shrug for an actual answer. Lee huffs softly, clearly not liking the idea of some bird being able to enter into a room they secured for their own use.

"So I was once more practicing transfiguration on inanimate objects and Tenten took a liking to that fork turned crow." He finally confesses and Lee just grunts before standing up from his position of sleeping with his back towards the wall. Lee yawns slightly, glistening fanged teeth shine slightly in candle light while he turns to read more about the subject of transfiguration, thinking of turning some of the stone rubble into arrows for Tenten to use.

"How long until the crow goes back to being a fork?" Lee asks him curiously after the Dragonborn monk finishes stretching. He glances up from his book to glance over at the crow.

"Might transform back by dawn or sooner." He answers before the undead out in the surrounding courtyard begin their nightly chorus of groans, screams, and other haunting noises. "How they can make any noise lacking a proper set of lungs, I'll never know..." He mutters under his breath while the fake crow caws at the new sounds.

"Might be telepathic communication." Lee suggests as the Dragonborn rummages around within his pack for something to eat for supper. "Or there's a small dimensional crossover from the Ethereal Plane and that's where the sounds are really originating from."

"That sounds so reasonable... It's scary." He admits, he couldn't help but be a bit impressed with Lee's insight.

"Well, you do tend to fall asleep with a book in your lap." Lee admits. "And I really doubt you'd like Tenten being the one to put you to bed." Lee adds and he just nods in agreement with that sentiment.

"Also... Couldn't you, I don't know, transform into a dragon and destroy the lot of them with your frosty breath?" Lee wonders and he sighs. He had been expecting this conversation for a while now.

"Lee... When you look at me, what do you see?" He asks the Dragonborn and the other pauses in mid-chew for a few seconds to study him. Lee's yellow, reptilian eyes rarely blink as the monk does so.

"A human with odd ridges around your eyes, on your nose, and around your jaw?" Lee muses, finally blinking and after swallowing what's within his mouth.

"Fairly correct." He admits before sighing. "I kind of went over board with my history and this body is a result of that. You see, I should have more scales and maybe a pair of wings growing out of my back but, being vain, I thought it would be a good idea to put something in my history explaining my too human appearance."

"Meaning...?" Lee asks curiously, he could only imagine the look of interest on Tenten's face even though she's not looking in his direction. It's clear that the crow wasn't holding Tenten's interest at this particular moment.

"I put something into my history about a 'cousin' of mine deciding to 'punish' me for my 'disgracing' my 'noble' heritage with 'foul' foreign blood. That this 'cousin' placed bindings upon me to keep the more powerful abilities from being used before teleporting me to the mainland without anything but the cloth upon my back. Hoping that some humanoid will remove the stain on the family that I represent." He admits, it had sounded to be such a good idea at the time too...

"So these bindings keep you in human form?" Lee asks slowly and he nods. "You really are a diva, huh?" Lee finally states and he just sighs, which causes Tenten to chuckle softly from her position.

"I prefer vain." He says, after all, that's what he got for preferring to amp up his other stats and being left with such a low number for the one that determines his looks. He goes back to reading his book, pointedly ignoring the other two within the room.

-)T(-

"So... This is the thing had been animating that horde of undead..." Lee muses as the monk holds the simple glass orb to the candle light, causing the clear orb to take a sickly green glow.

"Until Gaara touched, it was." Kankuro agrees, clearly not happy that fragile enchantment had been broken from his brother simply touching the orb. The only remaining magic seems to be leaking away, soon the glass orb will be just that, a glass orb without any special enchantments upon it or special abilities to offer its owner.

Tenten looks more then a little happy about that, but then, elves, even half-elves, never liked mocking around with the dead. It doesn't help Tenten's usual mood that they're traveling in the company of a Necromancer so Tenten had to take her moments where she can.

"Well, at least everything ended well." Tenten says as she finishes swinging her bow over her shoulder. More then ready to leave the manor, but then, Tenten is a ranger and preferred to sleep under the stars then having a roof over her head.

"But it's now a useless trinket!" Kankuro objects at Tenten's cheerful point of view. "It must have been a master piece of Necromancy before Gaara touched it and ruined it!" Kankuro bemoans as they snuff out the candles now that they're all packed.

"I'm sure you'll find something to replace it one of these days." Temari says in a comforting tone as she takes the glass orb from Lee.

Kankuro doesn't reply, allowing them to leave the manor in peace at least.

-)Be Continued . . .(-