Hello there guys! Thank you to all my reader and reviewers for their support. Thank you all of you as I my story has passed the 1oo hundred mark, Yahoo! But thanks to my friend Reikson for his great work in proof checking it. Thanks to a friend of mine who gave me a great idea for this chapter… Guys I will update 'Naruto - Rebirth of the Rikudō Sennin' next after this one.

Fairy Tail's Shinobi

Normal Speech: "Naruto"

Important or Emphasized Speech: "Naruto"

Thoughts: 'Then I will break that curse. If there is such thing as peace, I will find it. I won't give up!'

Spells canting and Jutsu Names: "Katon Jutsu, Ice Make Shield!"

Demons and Dragons Speech: "Now then... Who do you want to kill...?"

Demons and Dragons Thinking: 'The question is what to do with him…'

The Kingdom of Fiore is a neutral country of seventeen million people.

It is a world of magic.

Magic, bought and sought every day, is an integral part of the people's lives.

Moreover, there are those who use magic as their occupation. These people are mages or sorcerers.

The mages belong to various guilds, and perform jobs on commission.

There are a large number of guilds throughout the country of Fiore.

In addition, there lies a certain guild in a certain city.

This guild hosted legends in times long ago, and would continue to host more such legends long into the future…

…and its name is Fairy Tail!

Chapter 6 – The Cursed Island

"A cursed island?" Naruto parroted, now somewhat interested. "Why is it cursed?"

"Legend is that the island has the power to change people to demons because of a curse," Mirajane said. "The job asked to lift that curse from the island."

"How long have they been away, Mira-chan?" Naruto asked, disappointed.

"They've been gone for three days now, Naruto-kun," Mirajane sighed.

Looking over at Erza, Naruto frowned at her silence, which he took as a bad sign. Walking up to her, he placed a hand on her shoulder. She flinched in place before turning an angry glare on him, but he remained unmoved. Everyone in sight of her glare promptly flinched, save for Makarov and Mirajane, and Naruto was unimpressed with Erza's behavior. Finally, he said, "Let's go get those brats back here and finish the job while for them while we're at it."

Erza growled. "I don't care about the job," she muttered. "They broke the rules of the guild and they must come back to face their punishment, that's all."

Naruto's eyes softened somewhat. "Don't forget your love for them just because they made a really big mistake," he grunted. "We're only human, after all, and mistakes are what we tend to do."

Erza's eyes widened at Naruto's words. Then they softened, and she sighed. Surprised by their newest members honest words, the guild members smiled. They were glad that the guild finally had a member who could defuse Erza quite handily.

Makarov only laughed. "Well said, Naruto," he chuckled. "Oh, and I've received some good word from the owner of that request you took. I'm proud of you, and I'd like to celebrate, but getting those brats back comes first. As of now, however, you're an S-class mage of Fairy Tail. I'll send the needed paperwork to the Magic Council in Era for registration."

Naruto nodded and joined Erza as she headed for the guildhall's front door. "One more thing," he called after the two of them, making them stop in their tracks and look back at him. "…please hurry, both of you. I'm worried about those reckless brats."

The blond shinobi smiled and gave a lackadaisical two-finger saluted in response before grabbing Erza's left shoulder. Almost instantly, the two of them vanished in a small tornado of wind and leaves.

Makarov was taken off-guard again. "How does he do that? I didn't even see him use any of those jutsu of his?"

Mirajane only giggled. "That's what we're trying to figure out too, master."

Thursday, 20th August X784, Galuna Island

It was the dawn of a beautiful new day, or as beautiful as a day could be when you're fighting for your very life. Lucy was on the beach, fighting for dear life against Sherry Blendy of the Lamia Scale guild and her magic Rock Doll spell. But a timely use of Aquarius's double-edged Giant Wave Attack on Lucy's part, swept her and her pink-haired adversary away in a torrential sweep of water that left both of them staggering about in dizziness.

Lucy snapped out of it first and knocked Sherry to the ground with a clothesline attack that hit Sherry's upper chest and neck and slammed her to the ground. As she was about to lose consciousness, Sherry called on her giant green pet rat Angelica to avenge her, which it did, but neither of them could've imagined that Erza Scarlet would appear from out of nowhere and defeat the rat with a single slash from her Heart Kreuz sword.

"Erza!" Lucy squeaked in relief, but when she noticed the redhead's terrifying scowl, she trailed off. She was scared stiff, having never seen Erza this angry before. Her eyes seemed to be glowing in anger, and Lucy remembered that she'd joined Natsu and Happy in breaking the rules of the guild to go off on an S-class quest without permission. Fairy Tail's Titania had come to take them back for punishment.

To make matters worse, Happy came to see if she was fine. The second he arrived, though, he saw Erza and tried to escape by flying. But Erza grabbed him by the tail, catching him, before returning her angry stare at Lucy all while holding Happy in place. "Lucy, do you know why I'm here?" The redheaded swordswoman demanded imperiously, looking every bit the queen that Sorcerer Magazine had once dubbed her.

Trying to curry some favor, Lucy squeaked softly, "To take us back to the guild for breaking the rules?"

But the three of them didn't notice a masked person was spying on them. "Heehee, I should inform Lyon-sama of this development," it giggled.

"It's rude to spy on other people, you know," a male voice mused aloud from behind the masked man, surprising him.

"Oh, is that right?" the masked man sneered sarcastically. He turned around and saw a tall man standing on a tree branch above him. He was wearing a long sleeve black shirt under a hooded black jacket, with a pair of vambraces on his forearms, metal-plated gloves on his hands, with black cargo pants and greaves on his lower legs, with steel-reinforced boots on his feet.

"Well, well, well, the Yellow Flash of Fairy Tail himself? My name is Zalty; I'm honored to meet you," the man said, bowing with mock respect. Naruto only frowned, having noticed something odd about Zalty already. Discreetly sending chakra to his eyes and quickly activated his dōjutsu from the shadow of his hood, he smiled as he realized what he was seeing.

"Now why would you hide such beauty under that transformation, young lady?"

This shocked Zalty speechless. "H-how…?" the disguised woman sputtered.

Naruto smirked. "I discovered the nature of your magical energy flow. From there, learning that you were using transformation magic to hide your true form was child's play. Additionally, my senses are sharp enough for me to discern gender by scent, but your actions just now only confirmed my theory."

Ultear Milkovich flinched under the weight of his words. 'That's impossible; no one can sense me when I use my magic, and he could also smell my phero… this is embarrassing. At least he didn't see me blushing.' Then her eyes widened.'Wait a minute, how'd he know of my beauty? The only way that could've- there's more to the Yellow Flash of Fairy Tail than meets the eye. With no knowledge of his abilities available, I'll have to retreat.' She jumped away from Naruto and vanished. Left behind, he smiled in the knowledge that he'd scared the young woman away.

Using Shunshin no jutsu, he appeared beside Erza and scared her when he clapped a hand on her right shoulder. "Maa, maa, Benihime-chan, go easy on them or they'll never make it back to the guild," he told her genially.

"Naruto-san!" a surprised Lucy and Happy yelled simultaneously.

Before he could say anything, Erza asked, "Naruto, why are you late?" without even looking at him.

"Sorry, I just got lost on the path of life," the blond shinobi shrugged.

Lucy, Happy, and even Erza all fell over at his rather nonchalant reply. Getting up first, Erza shrugged before turning to the captured duo. "Where are Natsu and Gray?"

"We don't know!" they wailed in unison, not wanting Erza's 'scary face' on them again.

"Let's go to the village that gave that S-class quest in the first place," Naruto suggested. "That way, we might find one of them there."

Erza nodded as she dragged Lucy and Happy with her.

Gray woke up to find himself in a strange place; a tent of some kind, with a lot of stuff scattered about its confines. He winced as he managed to sit up, taking notice of his bandaged torso; his ribs had been damaged somehow. Crawling out of the tent, he looked around and found himself in an unfamiliar place. "Where am I?" he mumbled to himself.

"Thank goodness you're awake!" one of the village girls exclaimed. She had a pretty face, had short black hair, big brown eyes, and was wearing a red tribal bead necklace with an orange bikini top along with a sea-green cloth miniskirt.

"What is this place?" Gray wondered aloud.

"This is the storage house, which is away from our village," the village girl mumbled, looking sad. "We had to move here since the village was destroyed yesterday."

He then remembered what his old rival Lyon had said as he ordered the destruction of the village. 'Did the bastard actually do it?!'

The girl added, "Thanks to Natsu-san and Lucy-san, nobody was hurt and we're grateful for that."

He turned to her again. "Are they here too?"

"Yes," she nodded.

She showed him to a big tent. What he saw in front of it made him shout in surprise. "Erza?! Naruto-san?!" Erza was sitting down on a crate, her legs crossed and with a tied-up and crying Lucy and Happy kneeling by her side. Naruto was leaning up against a nearby wall. He was unusually quiet, simply nodding to Gray in acknowledgment.

"Gray, weren't you supposed to get them back to the guild?" Erza asked coldly, brooking no niceties. "I would've this type of behavior from Natsu, but you've left me speechless."

"Uh, wh- where's Natsu?" Gray sputtered, trying to stall.

"That's what I want to know myself," the redheaded swordswoman growled.

"He should've been in the village fighting Reitei's lackeys," Lucy murmured sadly. "But when we went there to check for him, we didn't find anything."

"I searched from the air," Happy added his two cents, "…and that is how we found this place; tied up like this."

Everyone ignored the last comment as Erza stood and walked towards the exit. "Gray, we're going to look for Natsu," she said decisively. "When we find him, we're returning back to the guild."

Shocked by her words, Gray yelled, "What are you saying, Erza? If you've heard what's happening here, then you'd also know what's happening on the island!"

"So what?" she snapped coldly.

Her response shocked Gray into silence. Naruto knew that she was right, but didn't voice his personal disagreements with the redhead's sentiments.

"I came here to bring back some guild-law breakers," the redhead sneered. "I have not even a sliver of interest in anything else."

"Didn't you see what kind of condition the people of this island are in?!" Gray roared at her.

"Yes, I did," she nodded.

"…and you're just going to leave them like that?!"

"Their request has been posted to every guild," she shrugged. "Wouldn't it be better to leave it to some other guild mages that can take on this job properly?"

Gray recoiled, one of his eyebrows ticking from the sheer force of his anger, before he popped his knuckles. "All this time… clearly, I've misjudged you," he hissed.

"What did you say?" She snapped. Her anger was mounting in the face of these brats' audacity in breaking master's rule, and now they're talking about finishing a job that they'd stolen in the first place?

"How dare you say that to Erza-sama!" Happy bawled nervously, making Lucy twitch at his reaction and his use of the very respectful suffix.

"Do you intend to break the guild rules any more than you already have?" the redhead demanded, activating her magic and summoned her usual long sword. Leveling the weapon at Gray's chin, she sneered, "You won't get away with it."

Gray grabbed the sword barehanded defiantly. "Do what you must," he snapped, his hand beginning to bleed as the blade cut in to his palm. "I've chosen to follow this path and I'll see it through to the end. If you want to cut me down, do it." He let go of her sword and stood there.

When Erza said nothing and only scowled at him, he turned about on his heel. Just as he was about to leave, however, Naruto broke the silence. "Gray, you're in enough trouble as it is, we'll finish this job for you. Tell us everything you know about this mission." As the Ice-Make mage stopped in his tracks, the blond shinobi added, "Erza, now that we're here, we might as well finish this job for them. After all, we're both S-class mages. So let Lucy and Happy go. They'll be helping us."

Erza snorted at Naruto's orders as she cut Lucy and Happy free. Just as the two of them were about to celebrate, she snapped, "Don't get the wrong idea! You'll still be punished when we get back to the guild!" As the comical duo sighed deeply in simultaneous agreement, Naruto gestured at some nearby crates. Once they had all sat down, he nodded at Gray to begin his explanation.

Meanwhile, near the ancient temple, Natsu groaned as he sat up. "I finally have a good idea and then I go and oversleep." Staggering to his feet, he reached the doorway into the temple and clenched his hands. "Anyways, let's start!" he roared, running into at top speed with flame-wreathed fists.

At that same time, in the ancient temple itself, Reitei Lyon was sitting on a stone throne and critically examining his one remaining subordinate. "How pitiful," he sighed. "You're the only one left, Toby?"

Toby twitched, trying not to let his team leader know that he'd knocked himself out early on in their brawl with the Fairy Tail team.

Lyon muttered, "Deliora's resurrection may be endangered, at this rate," just as Zalty entered the chamber.

The masked 'man' was much more confident. "Deliora will be resurrected when we pour in the full magical power of the moon tonight."

He paused a bit before adding, "But if the Moon Drip Ceremony is interrupted, then Deliora will stay in that ice forever. To make things worse, Fairy Tail has sent the Titania and the Yellow Flash to reinforce the team that they'd initially sent." Behind Zalty's 'mask' of magic, however, Ultear grimaced. Fairy Tail's newest mage, its Demon King the Yellow Flash, had casually proved to be far more dangerous than any of the Ten Wizard Saints had initially thought possible.

"Your intelligence is fast, as always," Lyon grunted. "But I'm not about to be defeated. Nothing defeats the ice sword that can surpass even Ur…"

"That is quite heartening to hear," Zalty snapped. "Then again, it's been a while, but perhaps I should join in the battle myself. Yes… as you know, I have knowledge of Lost Magic, you see…"

Suddenly, the ground began to shake and quiver and the whole temple began to tilt to the side.

The tremors increased, and muffled explosions could be heard from beneath the floor of the temple. A great stream of fire erupted from the lower chamber, allowing access to Lyon, Zalty, and Toby through a large hole through the floors of the temple.

Lyon shouted, "What the Hell is this?!"

Zalty moved to the smoke billowing from the hole. A quick look later, and the masked 'man' called back to them, "He didn't waste any time at all. Look, he's down below." Lyon and Toby came up and glanced down, and noticed that pink-haired Fairy Tail mage laughing up at them.

He shouted up at them, "I'd rather destroy it before you found me, but these ruins are a lot harder to bring down than I thought!"

"What are you trying to do?!" Lyon roared.

"Tip the building over!" Natsu laughed. "Then the moonlight can't land on the demon in the basement!"

"You bastard! How dare you?! You damned Fairy Tail mage!" Lyon sputtered.

"What'd he do, Lyon?" Toby asked.

"By destroying half of the pillars at the base of the ruins," Zalty lectured, "…he can tilt the building so that the light of moon won't hit Deliora. That's his plan, I believe. He may not look like it, but he's quite shrewd."

Natsu had enough of talking, and shouted up at them, "Enough blabbing!" He activated his magic as his fire magic surrounded his feet. Plumes of flame quickly condensed into jets, making him rise up from the ground before flashing white.

The display caught Lyon and Toby off-guard long enough for Natsu to launch himself at them like a missile, the flames from his feet roaring like an overpowered engine. He flew up and head-butted Lyon in the stomach, but was surprised when the silver haired Ice Make mage began to crack and shatter into pieces of ice.

"Huh? A fake?" Natsu sputtered, looking around for the real Lyon. Emerging from behind a nearby pillar, the man in question made a hand gesture and shouted, "Ice Make: Eagle!"

"You can't avoid them while you're in midair!" Lyon sneered as the magical ice sculptures shimmered into existence and soared towards him.

Natsu knew he was right, so he released a stream of flame that slammed him to the ground and handily let him avoid the icy raptors. Lyon grunted in anger as Natsu somersaulted into a handstand, attacking the Ice Make mage with a blast of flame shot from his feet.

He ducked, managing to dodge the stream of fire that roared overhead as he grumbled, "What random magic…"

Natsu continued his attack with a couple of fire whips from his legs, but Lyon dodged again and jumped back. But, somehow, Natsu attacked him while Lyon was still airborne. While he was still on his hands, he shouted, "Karyū no Hōkō!" and launched a stream of fire at the vulnerable Lyon. But Zalty used his magic to make a hole where Natsu was standing, causing him to fall down to the floor below.

"You got luck, Reitei-sama," the mysterious masked figure said casually.

"What did you do?" Lyon demanded.

"What indeed?" the masked man mused rhetorically.

"Don't dodge the question, answer me!" Lyon snapped indignantly. "It was your magic that destroyed the floor!"

"Ah, Reitei-sama… nothing gets past your eyes," Zalty said dryly. "Nevertheless, please understand. I cannot afford to lose you until Deliora is resurrected."

Angered by Zalty's words and continued evasiveness, Lyon flared his magic power to the point that a visible icy mist hung around him. "You're saying that I'd have been beaten if I was hit by those flames?" he snarled. In an uncontrolled display of his power, his power lashed and coated the entire room in a fresh shell of ice. "Get lost! I'll finish him off myself. I'm Reitei Lyon! The one and only wizard who can defeat Deliora! To even imply that I'd have trouble with a brat like him is insulting!"

Zalty smiled enigmatically. "My, my…"

"Defeat Deliora?" Natsu asked cluelessly, causing Lyon to spin about and confront the Fire Dragon Slayer mage again.

Meanwhile, outside the ruins, Gray had explained everything, even that the ice encasing the demon called Deliora was actually his old mentor Ur. But his explanation took too much time; the sun was beginning to set, and nightfall was fast approaching. Now they were about to head into the ruins, just before Naruto realized something. "So your mentor Ur is still alive, but she's now the ice coffin that's keeping Deliora in place, right?" Gray nodded, not sure about Naruto's train of thought.

The blond shinobi smirked. "Come here, Gray." While he was surprised, the Ice Make mage did as he was told.

"Now remember Ur. Remember what she used to look like…" Naruto murmured softly, his voice hypnotic and lulling. Gray nodded, closing his eyes as he felt a hand grab his forehead. Barely a minute later and the hand pulled itself away. "That'll be all, Gray, thanks."

"You're welcome, I guess…" Gray muttered uncertainly.

Erza cocked an eyebrow at the display, but said nothing. As always, Naruto's behavior and motives were a mystery to her. After jogging through the ruins for several hours, they were close to the ancient temple. Sensing that they were not alone, however, Naruto said, "I've got something important to do near here. You carry on without me."

Erza turned to say something to him, but he'd already disappeared. Snarling in irritation, she turned back to Lucy, Happy, and Gray and barked, "Let's go!"

Minutes later, they reached the ruins but found that something odd had just happened. The ruins had collapsed on one side, which was surprising, but they all knew that Natsu was the kind of person to do something so ridiculous. They were ready to ignore the sight, but Erza suddenly pushed Lucy and Happy into nearby trees, just as crescent blades were thrown at them from the bushes. Erza and Gray both jumped, managing to evade the thrown projectile weapons.

When they landed, Erza shouted, "Who's there?!"

People in purple hooded robes appeared. One of them shouted, "We found you, Fairy Tail! We won't allow you to interfere with Reitei-sama!"

"Well, well, so these are Lyon's followers?" Erza hissed coldly.

A panicked Lucy shouted, "We're surrounded!"

"Aye!" Happy wailed alongside her.

"Leave them to me!" Erza yelled, bringing out her favorite sword. "Gray, finish things with Lyon!"

Gray was speechless so he just nodded, just as Lucy said, "Don't worry! We're here, too, so just go!" and Happy was quick to agree.

As he made his way to the ruins, he smiled. "You guys…" he murmured.

Within the depths of the ruined temple, the ice-encased Deliora was a sight that only a mother could love. As Naruto appeared in front of the beast from Shunshin no jutsu, he actually whistled in astonishment. "Damn, you're one ugly bastard, ain't'cha?!" he exclaimed. "At least the Bijū looked cool, but you don't even have that much of an oppressive aura. This killing intent… it's nothing even close to anything that those guys could field, even when they were all sealed up, and yet you were feared. Your creator had to be terrifying than you, I'm sure of it." Only then noticing its coffin for the first time, he quirked an eyebrow. "So that's the ice that Ur-san made…"

He activated his new dōjutsu, which he'd named Chōbuku Rinnegan; a pair of purple eyes with four ripples and a crimson red iris, with three tomoe on each of the four ripple rings. This mutation was the perfect dōjutsu, having none of the weakness of the three legendary dōjutsu; Byakugan, Sharingan, and Rinnegan. It also has its own special jutsu as well, but he had never used them ever since he had come to this dimension; mainly because he hadn't faced anyone powerful enough to warrant their use yet.

He could clearly see the flow of energies from within the ice. He could even see Ur's magic and life force through the ice itself, as Deliora's own life force was being steadily drained. 'I think that I can bring her back as herself. Thanks to Gray, I've got a detailed description of her appearance, and I have all of her life force right here in front of me.'

Cracking his knuckles, he stretched in place.'I have both parts necessary for a successful reversal. But I have to wait until the ice melts, while it contains her life force within, before I can even begin. That said, even if the demon's already dead, some precautionary binding seals never hurt.'

Ur's Ice Shell spell was a powerful ability, to draining the very life force of the demon Deliora and thus killing it. What he could see of the demon itself was that it'd been powerful in its heyday, but nowhere near as powerful as any of the Bijū; at its peak, Deliora didn't have anywhere near as much power as even the Ichibi no Shukaku, but to be able to immobilize such a figure was a notable feat unto itself.

Magic was a frightening thing, indeed. This spell could've saved many lives during the Kyūbi rampage on the night of his birth. Such a pity that this magic wouldn't work in his world; using Eternano was akin to using senjutsu, and the requirements for that ability back home was so stringent that using magic was effectively pointless.

Personally, he'd come to see Kurama as a friend, and couldn't freeze him forever; not in good conscience. His rampage that night hadn't even been his fault to begin with, but rather that of the masked man that Kakashi-sensei had called Uchiha Obito.

Naruto shook his head, trying to rid himself of that particular train of thought. He walked behind the frozen beast, so that no one could see him and interrupt his own work, and summoned his calligraphy set and a large scroll. Kneeling before the scroll, he grabbed his brush and began his work on the containment seal. As he was working, however, he could sense Natsu fighting Lyon.

He sighed. He had to finish this quickly.

A couple of hours later, Naruto had finished his fūinjutsu work and was now meditating. The ground was shaking as he felt the effects of some kind of clashing magic. Activating the Chōbuku Rinnegan again so he could observe the situation better, he saw Natsu and Gray on one of the top floors of the temple. They seemed to be fighting Lyon, the apparent leader of the opposition. He began to read their lips as Zalty came in and told Lyon that the ritual would begin soon, and he asked the masked 'man' if he'd fixed the temple yet.

The masked 'man' laughed as Natsu asked the same thing and promptly ignored the pink-haired boy. Losing his temper, the Fire Dragon Slayer charged the masked man, trying to punch his face in, as Gray moved to fight Lyon. Much to Naruto's surprise, both of them used Ice Make magic.

Naruto noticed that Erza, Lucy, and Happy, were all outside the temple fighting Lyon's minions. He couldn't join as he had to wait for the Moon Drip ritual to change the ice into energy-saturated water.

Luckily, he didn't have to wait long. A weird liquid streamed down from the ceiling of the basement cavern and he noticed that someone familiar was coming. Hiding in the shadows, he noticed that it was the transformed woman Zalty. Now that he thought about it, he could even feel that Zalty's energy was not too dissimilar from Ur; some kind of family relationship, most likely. His suspicions were only confirmed when Zalty dropped the transformation to reveal that the woman underneath even looked like Ur somewhat, when compared against the image of her that he'd gotten from Gray.

Briefly wondering why and how, but not really caring, he started to infuse his chakra into the fūinjutsu containment seal. The seal array glowed pale-blue, as the chakra initiated the absorption of the water that melted from the ice. Zalty stepped back, staring warily at the elaborate array of a magical circle that she'd never seen before, but a large explosion behind her spurred her into reestablishing her disguise again.

Just in time, too, given that Natsu showed up moments later and was spoiling for a fight. "Salamander-kun, how did you find me?" Zalty teased.

Natsu smirked. "I've got a good nose, and you smell like women's perfume, for some reason…"

Much to Naruto's amusement, they started fighting. What interested Naruto was that Zalty's magic seemed to control temporal flows of anything other than humans; a useful ability with such a crippling weakness had an irony to it that wasn't lost on him. He then heard an explosion on the higher floors of the temple and looked up, only to see Gray defeat Lyon by shooting him with Ice Make: Ice Cannon, which just looked really cool.

Naruto chuckled at the lame pun, but a loud screeching roar snapped him out of his amusement. He winced, tempted to block out the horrible noise with his hands. Then his eyes widen as he realized that the sound had come from Deliora.

Meanwhile, Natsu and Zalty were still fighting. Zalty was beating the crap out of Natsu by using a crystal ball; multiplying the balls' number and making the orbs rain down on Natsu. But the pink-haired Fire Dragon Slayer used it to his advantage, destroying all of them with one attack and generating a cloud of smoke that hid him from sight until he could slam a powerful punch to Zalty's jaw and send 'him' flying.

Gray came as soon as he could, to try to stop the monster. Even Lyon, who was half-dead, came to fight the creature but was knocked out with a chop to the back of the neck by Gray. Just as he was about to prime Iced Shell himself, however, Naruto's containment seal had finished collecting all of the melted ice and water.

Naruto picked up the fūinjutsu scroll and rolled it up before placing it in his pouch. Using Shunshin no jutsu, he appeared in front of Gray and managed to startle him long enough to stop him from performing the spell. "Gray," the blond shinobi said gravely, "…I'll stop Deliora."

Gray was about to argue until he saw Naruto's eyes, and quickly shut up. He nodded as he turned back to the beast and raised his left hand. Shouting, "Chakra no kusari jutsu!" prompted several golden-glowing spiked chains, topped with kunai heads, to fire out of Naruto's palm and ensnare Deliora itself completely. The beast couldn't even move a muscle before the blond shinobi pulled on his chains and managed to crush the beast into dust.

Gray, Lyon, and Natsu stood stiff and openmouthed. They were all terrified by the power of a man who could defeat Deliora so casually.

Of course, that was just before Natsu started shouting about how Naruto's latest stunt was so cool.

But Zalty was shocked as well. The Yellow Flash of Fairy Tail defeating one of Zeref's demon-creations with just one attack? This definitely had to get back to him…

Naruto sighed. "That's not as impressive as I made it look, Natsu," he reproached the Fire Dragon Slayer casually. "That demon was on its last legs; Ur's magic had already defeated it to begin with. Plus, I have something else to do now."

Pulling out a scroll, he looked over at Gray. "I have something that might bring you to tears, Gray," he said dryly, unfurling the scroll and laying it before him.

Closing his eyes, Naruto made a Kage Bunshin with a single hand-sign. The spectators were stunned, but didn't do anything lest they anger him in some way. The Bunshin touched the center of the scroll and shouted, "Kai!" and the seal began to glow brightly, just as the shinobi opened his eyes.

Gray saw a pair of crimson irises and purple ripples had replaced Naruto's blue eyes. Then he realized that those eyes were identical to the Hannya mask that appeared after the first time that Natsu had tried to punch him. He shivered reflexively as he remembered the cold and murderously dark aura that had seemed to hang around that ghastly spectral visage.

Natsu twitched as he felt that dreaded cold again, the same cold that he felt the one time that he'd angered Naruto. He looked over at the blond shinobi and noticed that he now had the same eyes as that dreaded demon mask.

Naruto then made a series of hand seals, finishing with a clap of his hands as he shouted, "Onmyōton: Banbutsu Sōzō!" A flash of white light blinded everyone there, but Naruto could see Ur's gathered life force beginning to form and create her body again. Her body absorbed the water that had been saturated with her life force and her magic power, and was quick to coalesce and condense into actual flesh and blood. When the blinding light finally faded away, Gray, Natsu, and Lyon were all shocked by what they found.

Ur was lying unconscious on Naruto's scroll, a fully flesh-and-blood woman and alive once more. Of course, she was completely naked, which the Kage Bunshin immediately compensated for by draping an oversized cloak over her body.

But before they could say anything else, Naruto fell to the ground unconscious, with blood dribbling from his mouth and nose.

None of them noticed Zalty standing up and dropping a transformation spell to reveal the young woman that Naruto had met and discovered earlier.

A wide-eyed Ultear Milkovich stared at the five of them for several long minutes before cloaking herself in her Transformation magic again and spiriting herself away, trying to understand the implications of what she'd just seen happen. Her mother was alive…?

Saturday, 21th August X784, Galuna Island

With the mission successfully finished, Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy were all leaving the island on the pirate ship that Erza and Naruto had commandeered. The four of them were smiling broadly, having finished an S-class quest and thus proving to themselves that they had some mettle to them.

But Erza noticed that Naruto hadn't said a word and was worried. "What's wrong, Naruto? You haven't said a word ever since you woke up after reviving Ur-san. Are you angry at Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Happy?" She was still trying to figure out how he'd revived Gray's mentor, purely for academic reasons.

Naruto looked at all of them to their faces. "I'm not angry, more like disappointed," he said finally. "I expected better from the four of you. You shouldn't have taken a mission like that. Gray, you should've brought them back instead of joining them."

Predictably, Natsu started to shout while the other three looked down in shame.

Naruto turned his back on them as he looked out to the sea. When he turned back to them, his face betrayed a bizarre mixture of anger, sadness, and wistful nostalgia. Finally, however, he said, "You know, my first teacher used to say a phrase that I took to heart and still follow to this day. Those that break rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum."

"Naruto, calling them scum is uncalled for and very harsh!" Erza shouted at him.

"Hey, relax, Benihime-chan, I haven't made my point yet," the blond shinobi sighed, putting up his hands in surrender. "The reason that master even placed those rules is to insure the safety of everybody in the guild, and they just went and disregarded his judgment."

Turning back to look out at the sea, he added, "You guys didn't do that for your comrades. Your own selfish desires wanted the prestige of pulling off an S-Rank mission successfully, and you went and almost got yourselves killed for your trouble."

Natsu, Gray, and Lucy exchanged uneasy glances with each other. They'd been so caught up in Naruto's monstrous power and casual boredom with regular jobs that Natsu's hotheadedness had led him to think that he could mimic the shinobi's feat. He'd managed to coax Happy and Lucy into his own brand of foolishness, and suckered Gray into it when his rival had noticed where the mission was being held.

Having let them mull over his words long enough, Naruto added, "What would you have done if you couldn't handle the realities of the mission?" When the three of them turned to look at him, they noticed that he was absently twirling a kunai around his finger. "What if there had been more trouble than you could handle? Then what you do? You could've sacrifice each other's lives, but for what? To know what it's like to do an S-Rank mission? Making mistakes… I don't know how disappointed I should be in the four of you when I've done some things just as stupid."

With that, Naruto left them to let them think over his words. Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and even Happy just sat there in silence, trying to understand the implications of his words.

Erza was lost in thought for a different reason. "This is the first time that he's ever spoken about his past. He's almost as much of a host of sorrows as me but he can still smile warmly to everyone. What's happened to him to make him the man that he is today?"

To be continued…