Chapter 50: The Kalulan Warrior
The tattooed man had chosen to fight. Naruto could understand just by looking at the man's face that he was desperate.
Naruto raised his voice. "I know one of you can understand me! Please tell your leader that if he wants a fight, then let me fight him one on one. I don't want any unnecessary casualty."
One of the men behind the leader approached and whispered something into his ear. The leader showed agreement to it. He looked back at Naruto with due respect.
The leader raised his arm to point eastward. The man beside him said, "We fight there!"
Naruto nodded. He raised his hand as if to catch something. A moment later, his white surfboard came dashing through the trees and into his hand.
The same man beside the leader said, "Tell your people not to interfere!"
"I've already told them!" Naruto shouted back.
The leader nodded and began to walk towards the direction he had pointed. Naruto let them have the lead before following. What they did not know was that he had already taken care of any possible interference by sending shadow clones to his companions and using Eien no Chinmoku, the technique where he eliminated sound from a particular span of space, to render them unconscious. At the moment, his imperishable replicates were guarding them.
The leader took him into a vast plateau covered with nothing but dry soil. The contours of the mountains lined the horizon beyond, and early that morning, they had the pleasing color of gray blue. The group immediately made a large circle around them, standing on the edges of the plateau in case that someone made a mistake and needed help to get back up or avoid falling over.
The leader said something and the same man translated for him. "You and your group are going with us peacefully if I defeat you."
Naruto smiled upon hearing this. "So you were not really planning to kill us."
"I was not. I need you alive. There are no rules. You can fight however you want."
"I understand." A long stare-off followed, and then they disappeared as if flames snuffed.
…
"My head is still whirling," Neji muttered as he stood up.
"Is your vision fine? That technique affects capillary flow. It makes vision blurred," Chiasa said. "You are the only one that did not totally faint. You have excellent reflexes."
"That's what I train really hard for—pinpoint sharp muscle-brain coordination. How's Aika?"
"Sleeping."
"She is?"
"You seem doubtful."
"You haven't seen yet how good that girl's reflexes are."
"She seems to be enjoying it."
"Oh." He looked at Chiasa. "How did you escape the technique?"
"It's more that I anticipated something like this."
Neji frowned. His thoughts had not come almost as close, though he had been friends with Naruto for years. Yet this girl was saying that she could anticipate Naruto's impulsive tendencies even if their length of friendship had yet to exceed half a year.
"Anyway, let's go. He's fighting with the leader of the hunters."
Something clicked inside Neji's head and it stopped him. That was it. Naruto was really intending for them to escape his technique. If Aika had not managed to get away, no one would have had. Chiasa knew that, too, but she had lied to…that was the question. He was not sure.
"What are you waiting for? Come on!" Chiasa said.
What are you thinking, Naruto? Neji shouted inside his head as he ran after Chiasa.
The large group of warriors was crowded at the ledge of the plateau, avidly watching something below. It was when Neji realized that not all of their pursuers were warriors. Most of the group had with them adze and rakes and household bolo. Even their builds were different from the true fighters who were distinct in posture and muscle characteristic. Was Naruto insistent on talking with them because he somehow knew? That was impossible. Naruto did not have Sharingan or Byakugan to see obscure differences, especially of a big group from long distances that he, in actuality, had missed.
He turned to look at Chiasa as she talked with an elderly among the group. The old man was wringing his hands, conspicuously trying to hide his nervousness but failing. Neji could read on his face that he wanted whatever it was that they were witnessing to stop because he was afraid that he might lose his bet, not that the old man seemed to have betted anything. In short, he cared for whoever it was down there. Armed with overbrimming curiousty and concern now, Neji made his way through the crowd and looked down. At first, he could not see anything, only periodic crumbling of stones and whirls of dust. He got frustrated overtime as what he could not see implicated a sore deficiency with his normal state of vision. For this, he activated his Byakugan, which the people around him seemed to have not noticed or had chosen to ignore.
Now he could see clearly. The tattooed man had the linear speed of Rock Lee and his agility, but Naruto was faster in his opinion. Naruto pumped punches three times as fast as the tattooed man did. The only thing was Naruto's punches were less than eighty percent accurate while the tattooed man got all his attacks in. Another thing, he could see that Naruto already had wounds on his face and arms, not to mention some tears on his clothes, while the tattooed man was still clean. This made him wonder how he managed to stay unscathed under Naruto's constant barrage of far-from-ordinary strikes.
He watched more carefully, and after a few more exchanges, he got his answer. The tattooed man was the same as Katsuo, a monk. The tattoos on his skin were mantra inscriptions as those that were on Katsuo's head. When Naruto was about to land a punch, the tattoos on the man glowed, and at the moment of impact, his skin turned into carbonized crystal, in a layman's point of view, or diamond in his. His Byakugan could see the molecular arrangement of the material and he could not have mistaken it for another.
On the other hand, Naruto's style of fighting and his decisiveness in choosing from a variety of possible moves were impressive. He would not admit this to anyone but to himself: he would not be able to get even a draw if he fought him right now. And he could see that Naruto was holding back a lot—Naruto rode up on his surfboard and soared high—or not.
Naruto called up clones, which, like him, floated on surfboards. Then, with a wave of his hand, he commanded them to attack. The clones eagerly chased down the tattooed man. Confident, the tattooed man stopped moving and changed his skin into diamond. The nearest of the clones grinned.
"Fuujin no Jutsu: Kamikaze!"
Upon contact the clone exploded, massively. Neji could see the look of utter disbelief in the tattooed man's eyes. Now, instead of confidence, he met the second clone with a touch of fear on his face. Another explosion. It opened hell even wider, bringing forth reddish yellow flame to engulf the tattooed man. The tattooed man, hurt for the first time, ran away from the third clone; but the clone, having a mind of its own, avoided unnecessary contact with land and made pursuit. The tattooed man lost his cool and only focused on steering clear from the kamikazes, so he did not have time to take notice of his surrounding. Naruto, using an earth element release, raised the ground in front of the tattooed man, creating a huge wall. The tattooed man was unprepared to meet a huge barricade ahead. It forced him to make a sharp turn, and because of its suddenness, the turn took away his balance. Three clones gained on him and delivered the damage due.
Naruto fell on his knees and heaved for air. The technique obviously ate a lot of chakra. The tattooed man slowly stood up from the crater created by the three consecutive explosions and looked up at Naruto. Blood gushed out from his ruptured skin, although, in Neji's judgment, the wounds were not that deep. The confidence, which had been replaced by a touch of fear, evolved now to angry determination. It was clear that Naruto was the first man to hurt him like that, and for that matter, he should be the last.
The tattooed man lowered his stance and put his knees closer. Neji detected a burst of chakra coming off his body as he began performing some kind of ritual dance. The air around him began to whirl. Chunks of diamond appeared and began to cover his entire body. Not like earlier, these diamonds were five times thicker and rougher than his first version. He went on that way until he became a diamond golem that had a fearsome shape but had a beautiful constitution. Neji was just beginning to calculate the golem's speed when it suddenly disappeared from where it was and reappeared in front of Naruto almost simultaneously. Neji knew that he had now a funny expression of bafflement on his face, but he did not care. The only time he had seen speed like that was when Rock Lee opened his sixth gate.
The diamond golem clapped to sandwich Naruto between its gigantic palms when, unexpectedly, this Naruto exploded. The golem landed on a rise, looking around, the explosion seemingly a breeze against its body. Three Narutos came out from nowhere and crashed with the golem. Three large explosions ensued, but the golem did not even flinch. The golem kept on looking until it noticed a presence to his right. Neji blanched when he realized that it was the real Naruto, crouching under a recessed rock alcove. He willed a warning in his direction, but of course, to no avail. Naruto feebly looked up. He was in pain, and Neji thought he saw that posture before. Naruto was clutching his heart and he was breathing through his mouth. Was it the technique or was it something else?
The golem seemed to understand the situation so it did not rush towards Naruto. It walked slowly like a man curious of a new species of animal—it had tilted its head to the side. Neji was hoping that the golem had lost interest in carrying on. But then the golem leaped off and cocked its massive arm for a coup de grace. Neji was not aware that he was crying his lungs out to tell Naruto to escape. Chiasa was also doing the same and few of the warriors were preventing her to go down. No ill intention could be seen of this gesture from their apparent enemies, only a genuine concern for Chiasa's safety. Certainly, no man would be spared if he came in between these two superwarriors.
"Naruto, get out from there! Naruto!" Neji went on shouting. Chiasa was doing her best to get away from the arms that had enclosed around her, and she was so confused that she forgot that she could easily use a ninjutsu to escape. The golem ignored the commotion, not entertaining thoughts of backing off. Naruto, on the other hand, did not show any desire of fleeing, as if he had already accepted his fate.
At the instant of contact, a black ray of light burst out in the direction of the golem. The eruption of the killing aura and the perceptible strength of the black ray made all of them stop. Where did it come from and from whom?
The black ray blinded them all for a moment, so they were surprised to see the golem reeling backwards, its right side naked of diamond armor. Neji wondered what would have happened of the man if he had not with him that nearly impenetrable defense. Neji shifted his attention to Naruto and saw a chilling sight. The left side of Naruto's face had darker skin. His left eye's sclera was black and its iris was red, while his right eye had its original color of blue. By reading his lips, Neji understood what he was saying to the golem.
"I'm trying not kill you. There is a part in me that is very eager to do that, but as long as I can, I will try to suppress it. Please consider admitting your defeat."
Neji did not have the chance to know the golem's reply for his back was on him, but basing on Naruto's disappointed reaction, the golem had chosen to continue. This became more evident when the golem reassumed his low stance and began accumulating energy again. The diamond armor rebuilt itself and in no time regained its bulk. However, before the golem could so much as move a finger, Naruto was already on him. He hit the golem with a black rasengan, intimidating with its purple hairs of electricity coming off its body. As if made of crusted sand, the diamond armor crumbled off and the golem disappeared, replaced by the brown-skinned tattooed man. The magnitude of the force pushed the tattooed man into the face of the plateau where Neji and the others were.
"Surrender now, please, for your own good. I've just realized that my time is limited when I'm in this form," Naruto said. "I might kill you if this goes on."
"Tapusin mo na ako! Sa pagkatalo kong ito, para ko na ring inilibing ang anak ko!"
"What is he saying?" Neji asked the people around him. When no one replied, he repeated his question. "What is that man saying?"
"He wants for your friend to finish him off. He can't accept his defeat because it is like burying his own son," the man on his left said.
"What happened to his son?"
"We were forced to do this, stranger. That boy saw through us and wished to settle the situation non-violently. But Talim, our leader, did not want to take any chances."
"Then let's stop them!"
The man looked at Neji. "You don't understand. Our leader doesn't speak the universal language because he abhors liberal thinking. He sticks devotedly to the old ways. I don't want to say this, but please feel. Feel the flow of spirit like that blond boy has done. He understood everything about us at a glance."
Should he take it as an insult? But it rang of truth. This was their territory. He was a foreigner. Right now he could do nothing but watch and trust Naruto—but he could not help gritting his teeth in impatience.
The tattooed man scraped his palms on the rock so that they bleed. He was talking, but Neji did not understand a word he said. The tattooed man began smearing his body with blood.
"Talim, tumigil ka!" the man on Neji's left said. "Ikamamatay mo yan!" The tattooed man ignored him.
"What is the matter?" Neji asked.
"Our leader is planning to use the sacred art of Kalulan. It's the art of opening the spirit gates and borrowing the strength of the gods. You are a shinobi, right?"
"Yes."
"It's the same as opening the eighth celestial gate, in other words, the Death Gate."
"What?" Neji stood up. "This is now a matter of life and death. I don't care about his beliefs."
The man held his wrist. When Neji looked down at him, he saw despair in his eyes. "I was just half-wishing and half-hoping. Nobody can stop him now, stranger."
"You are just going to let him die?"
"Except that boy. I believe he can do something about it."
What? The man's faith in Naruto surprised Neji, but it did not end there. Looking around, he saw hope on the faces of the crowd. They had the same conviction as this man. How had Naruto won their hearts within a short time?
The tattooed man's skin turned crimson and veins bulged all over his body as the flow of his chakra sped up. The atmosphere was changing rapidly, too. The air was becoming thick as power built up around the place.
"I can speak your language, too, but I choose not," the tattooed man said. "And to stop myself from the temptation, I open my sentences with 'Hindi kita maintindihan,' or 'I don't understand' when I speak to foreigners."
"You are a very honest man," Naruto said.
"I figured that a foreigner might as well know before I take us both to hell."
"That's not a very nice thing to hear from a very honest man." He smiled and the tattooed man smiled back.
"If you survive this, please save my son."
The tattooed man screamed as if in great pain, and then vanished with a drum-roll of dust. The dark half of Naruto's face began to eat away its other half until Naruto's right eye was the only one remaining of his original appearance.
"Save him yourself. I'll be the backup," Naruto said, and vanished.
The explosion was the biggest of the day and it destroyed in seconds structures that nature had erected painstakingly for centuries. Naruto had caught the head of the tattooed man in midair and slammed it down. The clash of energies brought about by superhuman speed had caused the massive explosion.
"Is it finished?" Neji asked.
"It is," the man on his left said, smiling. "He saved him before it's too late."
"I don't get you."
"Talim did not have the chance to activate his Death Gate since the boy stopped him before he could." The man stood up. "The fight is over. Your friend has won."
There was a collective gasp from the crowd. When Neji turned to see what caused it, he saw that the tattooed man was back on his feet, and his right arm, which was covered again with diamond, was glowing red with chakra. The table had turned. Naruto was now the one lying on his stomach. The tattooed man staggered towards Naruto. His breathing was shallow. Seeing this, Neji could not hold himself anymore. The tattooed man raised his fist and brought it down towards Naruto's head. The next thing Neji knew, he had moved.
Neji was wide-eyed as he watched some of the hunters stood barricading Naruto while some held their leader back. Moreover, among the brown bodies in front of him, Neji noticed a new face, an old man's face filled with tribal tattoos. He had a hand on the tattooed man's chest.
"I hope you find it in your heart to forgive us," the old man said. "Please forgive my son, and my tribe."
Now Setsuko, still in her Sage Mode, pushed through the crowd. "We have reached some kind of deal."
The old man touched something extending out of his chest. Slowly, it materialized into an iron chain. "Your friend here was too convincing to refuse." The old man smiled. "Welcome to Kalulan."
…
When Yumiko woke up, she found herself inside a glass coffin. Not a second after, the glass coffin disintegrated into dust of pink light and faded in air. It was like her waking up was a signal for it to leave. She felt under her right palm a hard object and realized that it was the black katana her father's samurai Yarui had given her. She pulled the katana out of its sheath to expose a little of its blade. The black blade gleamed under the available sunlight, seeming to promise loyalty and impeccable service. Satisfied, she pushed it back with a click and tied it around her waist.
She looked around. The sky was but a cluster of green leaves that expanded up to build a nearly impenetrable ceiling. If not for small gaps that dappled the sunlight trying to seep through, the place would have been in pitch darkness. She got down of the slab that was on a rubble-built platform that was in the center of a vast, still lake. The dappled rays made the lake gleam dark green, a sentiment of its depth. She turned to her right, all but large trunks. She turned to her left…the same. She was on a dry place in a thick forest that let but little sunlight in. She knew this place too well to forget. This had been their last destination, the Temple of Preservation.
"Yumiko? Yumiko, the Crimson Queen, is that you?" a woman's voice said.
Yumiko turned and for the first time noticed other glass coffins a few meters away from her. There were eight others. Yumiko walked to the seventh coffin and peered into it. She squinted and made out the face of the loveliest short-haired girl she had seen. "You are Akane, the Healer, right?"
"Yes. It's good to see you…again. How did you get out of your enclosure?"
"I got my freedom."
"Do you mean that your Jinchuuriki attained Yuujo…and chose the second form?"
Yumiko smiled, proudly. "He is an amazing man."
"I can see it in your eyes…that you admire him quite a lot. Anyway, could you get me out of here?"
Yumiko's face became grim. She put a hand on the hilt of her sword. "Do you remember our oath?"
"Yes, but you also know what I'm like when I'm choosing a master."
"I understand. I'll just need your help to get away from this temple."
"Not so bad a deal. Okay. I accept."
"You will have my allegiance if you get me out of here," another girl said. This came from the fourth coffin. In there was a muscular girl with eyes as black as Yumiko's sword.
"Help me out of here, love. I promise I'll go wherever you go," another woman said. The woman had olive skin and she wore a cream, middle-eastern styled cloak and tunic appropriate for the hot climate of the deserts.
Yumiko did not want to waste time and so slashed the coffins open. To give them back their chakra, she broke the urns at the feet of the coffins. She had had her own urn, but it had disappeared with her glass coffin a while ago. The Sage of Six Paths had gotten from them a part of their spirits and used the urns as containers. Once a Biju was out of its Jinchuuriki, the existence where the Biju had rooted would come back to its original body. However, only those Bijus whose masters had attained and chosen the second form of Yuujo could go out of the sealed coffin without an external application of force. The Sage of Six Paths had been an optimist and a notorious prankster. Often he had cheated on fate and often he had succeeded…like today.
"It's so good to be moving again!" Akane said. "Thank you, Yumiko."
The muscular girl was eyeing the other coffins. Right now, only the eighth coffin had a person inside. "It's a pity the others chose to pass on," she said.
"They chose it with a smile on their faces. Nothing to be sad about, Amaya," said the olive-skinned girl.
"Should we leave him, too?" Amaya said, pertaining to the eight-tails.
"His Jinchuuriki is strong. It will be long before he wakes up. Besides, we don't need to worry about him," Akane said. "Let's get going. Our savior seems to be in a hurry."
These girls, all blessed with beautiful faces, had, like Yumiko, engraved their names in history. Amaya was the legendary ironsmith who had created the Rashomon or the Hell Gate, which was now considered the strongest direct defense against Class-S techniques. She was reputed to have travelled all the beasts' worlds and forged for the kings monumental structures that were yet to be surpassed in strength and design. She had built Monkey King Enka's fortress that Hiruzen had summoned to defend himself against Naruto's kamikaze back in Hensen no Kuusho. Because of her creations, people called her the Iron Forger.
The olive-skinned girl was called Toshiko. She had been the fiercest assassin the East had ever known. She helped to overthrow a long running dynasty in the Middle East that enslaved millions of families by killing every single member of its clan. She wrote the book "The Art of Assassination" that black-ops and ANBUs used as their primary guide for covert operations and tactics. Despite Kirigakure's claim that it had originated from them, Zabuza's Kirigakure no Jutsu or the Hidden Mist Technique had been created by Toshiko. This technique, being a water element release, made a sensation in the Middle East which prompted shinobi art authorities to give her the moniker Stealth Death.
The last one, the only girl that could match Yumiko in feminine charm, was Akane the Healer. Her name became known in the world when she healed the Emperor of Sanuchin who had an incurable disease. Without her, the Sage of Six Paths would not have been able to tear the Jubi into nine separate and weaker entities. Since the Jubi was immortal, the Sage of Six Paths needed to match it with immortality and he did this by using Akane's ability of inducing cell regeneration at incredible speed with a single command. Nobody knew how she did this even the Sage of Six Paths, so historians alluded to her as being a goddess in human form.
"I'm neutral," Akane said, "but I want you to know that I don't like the Crimson Queen."
"My hatred are all gone, Healer. The Crimson Queen is dead."
Akane extended her hand. "I'll see that for myself."
Yumiko shook it. "You seem to have shed yours as well, but I'll be careful around you, too."
Both smiled at each other.
…
At last, they reached Kumogakure. Sasuke eyed the steep mountains surrounding the village and felt a deepening uneasiness as the familiar low thunder clouds entered his line of sight. It was not the kind of uneasiness that accompanied nervousness. It was more out of concern for Killer Bee. He was a close friend of Naruto's and he did not want to do something that would hurt Naruto anymore. If I could only do something…
The First Son stood beside him. "I expect you to perform brilliantly for this final test, Sasuke."
Sasuke sighed and walked on. His final test, as Madara had decided, was to bring the eight-tails back.
