Chapter 44
Welcome to the Land of Snow
"Is that so? She carries the hexagonal crystal on her?" deep voice asked, placing down a cup of liquid on the armrest of his throne.
"There's no doubt. The actress Yuki Fujikaze is Koyuki Kazahana." A second, lighter voice said in a dark room, his kneeling figure illuminated by the barest of light of the moon.
"Our efforts these past 10 years haven't been wasted" a third, clearly female voice added.
"This should be a piece of cake. She's just a girl." A fourth, gruff voice muttered as a cloud covered the light of the moon and the room was plunged into darkness.
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"Daddy" a small child called into the darkness. "Where are you daddy?" her voice echoed through the distance. The only response to her call was the ever present falling of snow. Her feet prodded softly on the wooden platform leading to the house. "Daddy?"
A from inside the house, a dim light was seen.
"Daddy?" she called.
A back turned to face her, revealing a face with large black eyes partially hidden behind a pair of circular framed glasses. "oh its Koyuki. Come inside." He smiled kindly.
The innocent girl, Koyuki walked into the dimly lit room and looked around. Her father was seated on one of the edges of several mirrors arranged in a hexagonal shape. "now stay there and don't move" her father instructed. "What do you see?"
"I see… Father and me" she replied
"Look closer" he said "and you can see the future"
The girl moved closer and peered intently at her reflection. Suddenly, flashes of explosions and fire appeared, followed by her image trapped in a block of ice, and finally of her falling into the vast waters.
XXXX
Yuki Fujikaze slowly opened her eyes, awoken by the sun shining through the small window in her room. Her eyes glazed over as she looked around. The actress rubbed her eyes just as a knock on the door sounded "Are you awake Miss Yuki?"
"Sandayu, bring me some water" she groaned. "Am I sick?" she wondered out loud "why do I feel like I'm still swaying?"
"You're not sick. Have you forgotten? You're on a ship" Sandayu answered as he handed her a cup of water.
Yuki looked down into her cup as the memories of the night before came back to her. She had just finished another scene and voiced her displeasure about going to Snow Country again.
*flashback*
"I don't want to go back to that place of lies again!" Yuki shouted.
"Place of lies? Back?" Fu asked. "You came from there?"
"Fu. Enough" Hibiki said firmly.
"You had a place called home" Naruto growled.
Yuki sneered at them "And so what? I also had a liar of a father. A father that gave false hopes, and guess what? He died. He died as a fool."
The air around them started to grow cold. First it was slowly and barely noticeable, then it started to pick up pace. A small chill in the actress's back was brought to attention. A chill that she had thought nothing of, a figment of her imagination. She realized that it wasn't just herself that had the chill when the next time she breathed out, it was visible.\
"You had a father that died trying to reach that dream. You had a father that loved you to the end." Haku snarled back and sharp spikes of ice started to form on the ship around him. "You have no idea how fortunate you are-"
"Haku. That is enough." Hibiki said as he put a hand on Haku's shoulder and spiked his chakra. Hibiki knew that his chakra wouldn't intimidate Haku into submission, but it didn't need to.
Haku took a deep breath and stopped his subconscious output of chakra. Slowly the spikes melted, and the temperature returned to normal. "I apologize for my behaviour" he bowed and turned to walk away with Hibiki.
Naruto lingered a bit longer "It isn't easy to anger Haku" he said "Haku is the most level headed out of the three of us but even he has his limits. Once those break, I cannot promise I will protect you from him" Naruto said and flashed his sharingan out to glare at the unnerved actress.
A small part of her mind noted "I cannot promise I will protect you from him". the hidden threat of watching on the side lines and not even lifting a finger to help, or even joining in with Haku was implied. Pushing down her unease, she looked at the remaining member of her bodyguards. "What? You got something to say too?" she snarked.
Fu snorted "I follow my brothers" was her only response.
"great I was just threatened by 3/4 of my body guard team" she thought sarcastically.
After that she had somehow found a stash of liquor and proceeded to drink herself unconscious.
*flashback end*
Yuki frowned into her reflection "what do they know" she muttered and downed the entire glass in one go.
XXXXX
"DIRECTOR! THERE'S A PROBLEM!" one of the crew shouted.
Less than a minute later the elderly director slammed open the door to the outside with his red speaker in hand "Wha-" he began then paused when he saw the gigantic iceberg.
The landscape had been almost completely altered. Where yesterday there was open ocean for as far as eyes could see, now in front of them was nothing but a frozen tundra what had no way around.
"Hey Haku, did you do that" Naruto whispered.
"Do I have you monster reserves?" he replied rhetorically.
"I woke up this morning and saw this" the one who shouted explained as the director frowned and eyed the iceberg with a critical eye. "Director! What do we do?"
The director's eyes widened in realization "I got it! We can use this for the movie! In fact we can even use this for the cover image!"
"huh"
"you idiot! This is a gift from the Movie Gods! Everyone get ready to disembark!" the director commanded excitedly.
XXXXX
"Scene 36 Cut 22… Action!"
The rest of the crew watched as the guy playing as the villain stood on top of a raised block of ice carry out his role of threatening the princess. "You are no match for me!" he claimed and threw out his hand "ha!"
Just then a section of the glacier behind him exploded.
The actor blinked in surprise. "this wasn't part of the play" he thought as he turned around to see the smoke billowing from where the explosion came from.
"what are you doing!" the director shouted at Hibiki who had his arm stretched from when he threw the explosive kunai.
"Everyone get behind me! Now!" Hibiki bellowed and narrowed his eyes at the place where he sensed a disturbance of chakra.
True to his suspicions, a moment later, a small section on the ground started moving before it was discovered to be a camouflage sheet. The sheet was thrown back by a man with purple hair and body armour "welcome to The Land of Snow" he said.
Hibiki turned his head to look to the right of where the "villain" was played by an elderly actor to see a lady with pink hair and also wearing body armour "Welcome back, Princess Koyuki. Did you bring back the Hexagonal Crystal?"
A large man burst from the snow not far right from where the rest of the crew were standing. "Let's play"
Hibiki gritted his teeth "looks like they're all at least high chunin level" he thought as he analysed their pose, body structure and chakra levels. "Naruto, Haku, Fu! Protect the princess! Everyone else, back on the ship!" he shouted.
The apparent leader looked down at the crew scurrying about "Fubiki, Mizore. I'll leave the princess to you." He said as he jumped down towards Hibiki.
"Fine" said the woman as she jumped down after him.
"My name is Nadare Roga" said Nadare as he stood in front of Hibiki.
"Hibiki Saito" Hibiki said as he charged towards Nadare.
Xxx
"come one guys! Let's not let sensei hog all the glory!" Naruto smirked and charged towards the large man on the right.
"I'm in my element Naruto, I should be the one who's more excited" complained Haku.
"Fine, fine" Fu rolled her eyes "I'll just be here on guard duty. Sheesh, boys, taking all the fun"
"You think this is a game?" Yuki, or Koyuki, said "those two are going to get killed!"
"Just watch, princess" Fu deadpanned "we three aren't exactly pushovers"
XXX
Nadare vs Hibiki
Just by glancing at Hibiki, Nadare knew that he was no match for him in a contest of physical strength. The snow ninja held his hands palm up and got in a defensive stance as the Mist ninja got within range and threw a straight punch. "fast" thought Nadare as he barely managed to divert it in time to avoid having his head blown off.
Still on the offensive, Hibiki spun on his foot and used the momentum to swing his other arm around making Nadare curse as he was forced to bring his arms up to block. The impact of the arm jarred his bone and Nadare had no doubt they would have been broken if it wasn't for his armour. Before Nadare had time to recover, Hibiki was upon him again. Nadare took a knee to the stomach before dodging another strike to his head.
Now behind Hibiki's exposed back, Nadare took out a hidden Kunai and stabbed it at the large man's spine. His eyes widened when Hibiki reacted much faster than he expected and dodged the stab and delivered a kick that sent Nadare flying a distance away.
Hibiki panted slightly at the fast exchange and gazed upon the body a few meters away in the white snow "I know it takes more than that to take you down Nadare. Don't play possum with me"
Nadare's laughter echoed around through the snow "Not bad. I am definitely not a match for your taijutsu, luckily that's not where I specialize in. Ice style: wolf fang avalanche!"
"ice style?" Hibiki thought as he looked up at the wolves descend from the top of the mountain "HA! You call that Ice style? You almost worried me for a second" Hibiki laughed and looked at Haku.
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Haku vs Fubuki
"I do not wish to harm you" Haku said softly as he readied a senbon.
"oh, give me a break, little girl, as if you can match up against me!"
Haku bowed his head "very well" he said as he disappeared in a burst of speed and appeared behind the kunoichi. He threw a kick at her back and was unsurprised to see her dodge it easily. Haku recovered quickly to see her quickly jump back a distance. "ice style: swallow snow storm" she said and sent a cluster of swallows made of snow at Haku.
"So you can use ice style too? Intresting." Haku muttered and stamped his foot "ice style: a thousand flying needles of death"
Fubuki looked in shock as Haku's ice needles effortlessly pierced through the middle of each of her swallows and cancelled out her jutsu. "Just who are you" she snarled.
"Its's common courtesy to give out your own name when asking for others" Haku replied while marvelling at the effects of his jutsu "that took virtually no chakra, and that's more needles than I expected" he smiled inwardly "looks like this is my turf advantage."
"I am Fubuki Kakuyoku. Member of Doto's 3 man team"
"Haku Yuki. Sole survivor of the Yuki Clan"
With the introductions out the way, the two began their battle once more.
XXX
Naruto vs Mizore Fuyukuma
Mizore pulled out his snowboard from behind him and made his way down hill to meet Naruto head on.
Naruto looked at the man barrelling towards him and deadpanned "you really expecting me to run into that?" he said before taking out an explosive kunai and throwing it right into the path of the large snow ninja.
The resulting blast threw him off the snowboard and sent the board flying off into the ocean below.
Naruto watched the man warily. Despite being blasted off his board while coming down the mountain, the man didn't look that badly damaged, in fact, if anything the loss of his board only served to mildly irritate him.
Naruto dug his foot into the snow underneath him and held his arm up. "You're big and you're bulky. That makes you slow" Naruto taunted.
He was proven wrong a second later when the man charged at him at speeds much faster than he expected. This would have been his downfall if his honed instincts make him jump back just before the man's giant armoured hand crashed down and shattered the ice about a foot deep where the blond ninja was standing a second before.
Naruto's eyes widened for a second as the man quickly recovered from his miss and swung his body into a handstand before dropping his leg down in a variation of a guillotine drop. "I take it back, you're actually pretty good" Naruto admitted as he backflipped out of the way.
The snow ninja merely ignored him and jumped forward to cover the distance with his arm cocked back.
"good enough I'll have to use this" Naruto muttered as the blue sharingan with three tome faded into his eyes. "with this, I see everything" Naruto claimed as time seemed to slow down. Naruto saw how air was blasted out the back of the gauntlet on the man's arm and how the force of it pushed him forward at speeds faster than normal. He saw how the gauntlet was aimed at his head and moved his head just enough so the attack would miss and make the large shinobi barrel past him and punch the glacier behind.
Naruto frowned as he watched a small shield of chakra surround the man protect him from the large pieces of falling ice blocks, leaving him virtually unscathed. "just what is that" Naruto muttered.
AN: wow 2 weeks pass so quickly. It feels as if I just posted the last chapter a few days ago…
The first battle of our spring/snow arc is underway! The snow ninja being formidable enough for Naruto to reveal his sharingan this early in the battle! Actually I just put it there because there has been complaints it isn't getting enough screen time. I hope that satisfied enough of your hunger for the copy eye.
As I said last chapter, this is a combination of 3 arcs. After a bit of debating for the final piece of the arc I am to two routes I could take. Now I'm not going to tell you what it is, except that you can influence it by choosing
Option 1 (1 score so far)
or
Option 2
Lastly, the summon animals for Naruto and Fu have been decided but the summons for Haku are still up for debate.
Summons proposed so far:
· Penguins
· Wolf : (I'm not accepting this for the sole reason Naruto is already getting it.)
PS: sorry for the encoded chapter
Reviews:
Dexter44: Here's your action, served refreshingly cold with a hint of glacier
Inuyasha16451: thanks
StormDragon981: those sound pretty good, a bit like over enhanced Ameterasu and normal sharingan mixed with Tsukuyomi and Izanami though.
Susanoo will stay as Susanoo, as good as your idea sounds, I already have plans with that particular technique.
Zeus501: well you can assume he was in the shadows in case Yuki somehow escaped Haku and Fu (as unlikely as it is). And let's just say the final battle with Yagura won't be long after this arc ;). Also, you're the only one who voted last chapter, so thanks for that.
Wyrtha: Thanks. That's true, unless a certain author steps in and makes some decisions that will make a bunch of readers unhappy… yeah
Sadhaka: thanks for your criticism (even though you probably won't read this). From your reviews, a large majority are pointed towards lack of description with the occasional shot at me taking away their individuality and debatable fighting techniques. That's cool with me. You gave me criticism that was helpful, and I will do my best to try to rectify my mistakes.
Ladygoddess8: haha that would be quite a sight, though I'm not sure I would be able to supress the urge to include the penguins of Madagascar. None the less, I shall put it on the list of options.
Gruntsbreeder: thanks
Eeveetheimmortal: thanks for your input, but I'm afraid I can't accept this for the sole reason Naruto is already getting it.
: thanks
Noahendless: thanks
Fanficlover2017: Naruto does know of his heritage (in fact the whole of "chapter 27: History" was dedicated to it). As for going back to Konoha, well not to stay there permanently. I do try follow the cannon storyline as close as I can while still maintaining the differences between my fic and the original. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the chapter!
