"Absolutely disgusting."
The rough shuffling of papers echoed through the small room. Calling the space a room was honestly being generous. It was more akin to a closet with a single large desk occupying much of its space. A blonde-haired woman sat at the paper-covered desk, riffling through the hundreds upon hundreds of documents that sat upon it.
"You absolute idiot." The woman huffed while squinting her eyes down at a piece of paper. Even with her proximity to the document, it was hard to make out what exactly was on it. The borders of the paper had faded kanji that encapsulated dozens upon coupons of intersecting circles and lines.
"Crude. This is the work of a genius? Pathetic. You really were useless, Uncle." The woman grunted out while balling the paper up and throwing it over her shoulder. This process would continue well into the night, ending with the floor covered in a lot more paper than the desk.
"What's the point of all that fat on your arms if you can't even throw a punch?"
"Shut your mouth, Uzumaki!"
Minato groaned to himself at his son's words. When he had told the boy to rile up his fellow containers, he was hoping it would in a more subtle way. Calling an Akimichi fat was a sure-fire way to piss them off. He wanted them riled, not pissed.
"I'm going to cave your stupid face in!" The large boy's words took on a more guttural tone towards the end of his statement as he dropped down onto all fours. The occupants of the room watched, two with heavy disappointment, as a cloud of red chakra began to emit from the boy's back. Quickly, as if it was being pushed out by his own anger, the chakra covered the boy completely.
"Die!" The boy's words were nearly indistinguishable at this point. With a mighty roar that had no business coming out of the child's throat, he leapt through the air towards his blond counterpart.
The blond rolled out of the way of the rampaging Akimichi as he descended down to earth, only nearly missing getting crushed. The weight of his impact was heavy, cratering the area he landed on.
"Any time now, Mom!" Naruto shouted up at the viewer platform where his mother stood. His sentence was interrupted several times by him having to duck and dodge his way around the wild Akimichi.
"You should have spent more time practicing your own chakra chains rather than talking to that stupid fox!" The blond wanted to curse at his mother but was too busy bending nearly 180 degrees at the hip to avoid having his head taken off by a devastating lariat.
"Kushina." The current Uzumaki matriarch looked over to see her husband giving him one of his looks. They held their stares for a few moments that were highlighted by the sound of their sons spastic attempts at dodging the raging Akimichi before Kushina raised raised her arm.
"I wasn't going to let him get hurt. Just wanted him to learn a little lesson." Minato rolled his eyes as three golden chains erupted from the arena's floor. While the speed of a hyped up jinchuriki was impressive, the speed of the chains were even more so. Before the Akimichi boy could take even two more steps further, the chains wrapped around his torso. Almost as if a valve had been loosened, the chakra around the boy and his anger began to fade away. Bit by bit, the boy's natural skin tone revealed itself to the world, albeit a bit redder, as his chakra cloak receded into his boy. Within a matter of seconds, Choji was back to normal.
"Choji!" A man shouted as he jumped from the viewing platform. The whole arena seemed to shake when he landed. The man was massive, looking to be over six feet of muscle covered in only a small layer of barely visible fat.
The smaller Akimichi seemed out of it at first but the thundering steps of the larger man approaching him seemed to snap him out of any trance he was in. The boy scampered up to his feet, barely managing to catch his balance just as the man stopped before him.
"You let your anger get a hold of you, boy!" Choji cowered at the booming words of the large man. "I must not have worked you hard enough to be able to get that angry."
"Drop!" Almost by instinct, Choji dropped down into a push-up position. He didn't have to wait for long before several large weight plates were unceremoniously dropped onto his back.
"Start pushing, boy!" And with that, the Akimichi started his pushups in view of everyone in the arena.
"Choza really does work that boy."
"Seems like something you could pick up, Inoichi. I'm tired of hearing my wife talk about your wife complain about Ino's lack of bijuu progress." Inoichi Yamanaka groaned at his friend's words.
"Ino lacks the affinity and surprising motivation your son has for his bijuu." The male duo glanced down at the platform across the arena to see one Shikamaru Nara laying in a hammock made completely of sand. The boy looked to be sleeping but both observers had been around Naras enough to tell the difference between one feigning sleep and one actually sleeping.
"This." The single word echoed through the arena and captured the attention of everyone in the arena. All attention was directed to the upper platform where the Hokage and his wife stood.
"Is a prime example of why you must have control of your anger." The man continued while sweeping his eyes over the occupants of the room. "A cloaked jinchuriki is a powerful but reckless thing. The power boost you gain from losing yourself to the beast's chakra is not worth the lack of awareness that comes from it."
"Out in the field, you will be exposed to sadness, anger, stress and even the death of your friends and family." The space was deadly quiet excluding Choji's grunting while he continued his push-ups. Even Shikamaru had sat up from his makeshift hammock, directing his full attention at the Hokage.
"And if you want to make sure that you live to ensure their bodies return home safely and they can be avenged, you'll do well to make sure you properly control your beast's chakra. With that, you all are dismissed." The blond flashed away with his wife, leaving the occupants to process his parting words.
"...Those two forgot me again. Dammit."
"Master Mifune!" The aged samurai lifted his gaze as one of his aids entered his room. The young aid bowed deeply in the presence of the legendary sword user before presenting a scroll.
"A message from the border. Delivered by the contact known as 'Seed'. It carried your personal seal so the border patrol assumed you would want to see it immediately." The aid offered another bow after depositing the scroll on his master's desk. With only the smallest of movements, Mifune dismissed the aid and watched as he left through the only door in the office.
The old man waited several beats before reaching to open the seal. He needed not to worry about security. His office was in the deepest recesses of a mountain, buried by hundreds of feet of snow and stone. The path to his office was a grueling one, one that he took each day to maintain his physique and ensure his safety.
With a slight bend, the seal was cracked open and the scroll unfolded. It took him mere moments to read the contents of the seal and not even a second more to incinerate it to ashes. As the ashes of the document fell upon his desk, the man sat back into his chair and allowed his eyes to drift.
"Ancor Vantian." A small smile slipped past the man's usual stoic facade. The smile was quickly lost as he leaned forward once more, his eyes taking on a steely quality.
"The weapon has been found. Now for the ammo."
"Minato, this is ridiculous!"
"We've been over this already, Tsume. The decision is final. Your clansmen will simply have to wait." The man's words ended with a heavy slam as the Inuzuka matriarch slammed her fist onto the man's desk. The Hokage remained still while staring into the widened and angered eyes of his former classmate as she leaned over his desk.
"Five generations, Minato." The woman grunted while returning to her full height. "My clan hasn't had a bijuu for five generations."
"We are the only major ninja clan in this village without a tailed beast. We look pathetic!" She all but growled out.
"Your clan's last THREE containers lost control of their beast. The last rampage destroyed a quarter of this village and put your clan in debt."
"And we have learned!" Tsume shouted!
"Have you?" Minato raised a singular eyebrow while glancing at Tsume's hand. The woman looked down and saw that she had unknowingly allowed her nails to extend to claws.
"Look Tsume." The man sighed out. "Despite not having one of the tailed-beasts, your clan still has worth in this village. Do not doubt that. When the next two generations of containers come and go, your clan will get a chance to host one of them. Until then, there is nothing that can be done.
The woman gave her superior a hard stare for several seconds before huffing and turning. The man watched as the angered woman stormed out of the woman, slamming the door behind her and leaving him to himself.
"Yo, this thing is slippery." A man's voice could be heard within the deep recesses of a large structure. The building looked akin to a castle with its largest structure standing over two hundred meters tall. Jutting towers covered in moss and decay streaked high into the sky. If one were to manage to find their way into the center of the structure, they would find an interesting sight.
"Stop talking so we can finish this thing." A red-haired man grunted out before spewing a stream of molten lava from his mouth. The stream streaked through the air and slammed into the body of a large, purple leech-like creature. It was hard to tell if the creature felt the blow as it didn't visibly react to the attack. Instead, dozens of pale arms sprung from its body and shot towards the two men.
"Ay, I'm tryna!" A dark-skinned man shouted in response while slicing away at the arms that came his way. Seven swords were tucked away in various places on his body as he leapt and tumbled through the air. Despite how odd his sword style looked, it seemed to be effective as each movement made by him resulted in the cut and destroyed limbs.
The two men continued to duck and weave through the mass of arms for a full minute, making very little progress in closing in on the creature. The singular mask on the creature's body was in the shape of a sadistic expression as it toyed with the two. The expression morphed into an angered one and in an instant the whole room became filled with arms.
"Woah!" The two men exclaimed separately as the arms quickly overwhelmed them. The two were soon wrapped in the appendages and found themselves being squeezed to death as more and more arms encircled them.
"Fuck!" The dark skinned man grunted out as the arms tried to crush his ribs. His red-headed counterpart said nothing as he was too busy spewing lava from his body in an attempt to free himself.
As the situation seemed to turn dire for the two men, a blond streak erupted from the room's ceiling. Before anyone in the room could react, the streak blasted to the creature and slammed into its mask. If one were perceptive enough, they would have been able to see the streak was a blond woman. The woman's fist crashed into the creature's mask, shattering it into pieces and pushing the massive leach nearly 100 meters away. All the arms emitting from the creature disappeared as it slammed into the wall at the opposite end of the room.
"Woah there!" The vocal man exclaimed while both him and his fighting partner fell to the ground. Both shinobi managed to stick the landing before looking up at their saviour.
"Thanks for the save, blondie!" The man shouted while holding up the peace-sign. The person in question rolled her eyes at the man's statement before turning to address the other occupant of the room.
"I was tired of watching you two fuck around. I expected better from you, Roshi." The red-hair grunted at her words while the dark-skinned man shouted indigantly at not being included. "Now hurry up and seal the beast before it recovers." With those words, the woman disappeared from the room in a bright yellow flash, leaving the two men alone.
"I swear Bee gets no love." Roshi rolled his eyes at his partner's statement before unsealing a painting brush and a jar. It was time to do what they came here for.
AN: I made a new discord server. Server code is uwDbA84u. Hop on in if you want.