Chapter Nineteen: Cardboard Boxes
Bullshit. The entire prison was bullshit. It was also highly illogical.
That was Naruto's opinion of Demon Lantern Castle. The scenery was pretty pleasing, with a chill in the air, clouds partially obscuring the sun and moon, and the raging ocean surrounding the prison complex.
Basically, if you didn't have access to your chakra, you couldn't escape. High cliffs led to jagged rocks dotting the waters and the wind didn't help much either. In order to scale the rocky walls, you had to use your chakra slowly and surely.
That wasn't even including the churning liquid surrounding the island, but if a prisoner reached that point it was considered a miracle.
The guards could be disregarded. A great majority of them were civilians given batons to thwack disabled prisoners around.
This presented a problem: ninja prisoners could kill the guards with their bare hands, which posed a problem. How did the warden solve that particular problem?
"Super-crappy sealing", in Naruto's humble opinion. It was actually a very useful imprisoning seal, absorbing chakra and then burning the inflicted individual by using the absorbed chakra.
That posed a problem, though. Someone who was very proficient in Fire Release wouldn't be harmed and could actually shatter the seal. Certain bloodline limits prevented the fire from actually harming them, too.
As for Naruto... he could either undo the seal himself with his own blood, or overload the seal with chakra. That was what he was waiting to do after being branded. That, and waiting in some room for one of the guards to search him for any hidden weapons.
Boring.
Well, it would be if some white-haired girl with bangs covering an eye wasn't observing him from the corner of her visible eye. She had a striped, green bandana on her head and wore a sleeveless kimono over a green top. Her eyes were gray and had concentric rings in them, looking eerily reminiscent of the Rinnegan.
She was attractive enough. The question was: Did her personality call to him, or did it not? That was probably the ultimate decider... along with aesthetics. But hey, beauty is supposedly subjective.
After a few minutes of waiting, Naruto groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "How long is this idiocy going to take! Can they hurry up so I can go rip this seal off of my body and sleep? Stupid-ass guards... stupid-ass warden..." The blond kept grumbling under his breath.
A couple of the other prisoners glanced at him before snorting. "Right, a kid like you could totally remove your seal without any supplies and without any chakra," a heavyset man sarcastically said.
Naruto's eyebrow twitched. "I can do anything I want, jackass. I'm the most interesting man in the Elemental Nations."
"You want some beer for that kid?"
Before the blond jinchūriki could reply, one of the guards called Naruto into the searching room where the fat head guard dude was waiting. Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and gave the guards in the room a flat stare. "So... how are we going to do this?" he asked.
"We need to make sure you're not hiding any weapons, so strip," the fat head guard dude explained.
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Normally I would make a crack about homosexuality in this situation, but I'm sure society is moving towards equality in that regard and that statement would make me a hypocrite considering I'm a jinchūriki that promotes equality for all."
Silence. The three guards in the room blinked rapidly in an attempt to figure out what Naruto had just said.
Naruto shrugged. Given how dumb they were, they had probably forgotten what he was in the room for, so the blond left without being searched. They didn't call him back either.
Besides, if they really gave a damn, they would've searched him before entering the prison complex. Sure, the warden branded him with an imprisoning seal, but the fact that he could have possibly smuggled weapons into the prison sort of downplayed the security.
It wasn't that smart, in short. What if he had smuggled explosive tags? They didn't require much chakra at all to activate and some variations didn't need chakra at all.
Naruto exited the room and waited for one of the guards to escort him to his room. While waiting, the white-haired kunoichi walked up to him.
"You know, you shouldn't underestimate the guards here. They won't take any chances with the prisoners," she cautioned.
He almost burst out laughing. Almost. However, Kurama did so within his mind.
"I'm not afraid of the guards," Naruto replied, grinning at the kunoichi. "Didn't you hear me earlier? I'm the most interesting man in the Elemental Nations. I'm sure the most interesting man in the Elemental Nations has more than a few tricks up his sleeve to avoid and distract the guards here. I could probably ditch everyone if I really wanted to, too."
The white-haired kunoichi stared at him for a moment before deciding to humor the blond. "If you were the most interesting man in the Elemental Nations, then I would've known your name."
Naruto shrugged. "That doesn't mean I'm not the most interesting man in the Elemental Nations. Besides," he said, his grin turning into a smirk, "I'm not the most famous. I'm the most interesting." Naruto stuck his hand out. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki of the Hidden Leaf Village."
He left out the fact that he was Hokage because no one really would end up caring since he was in prison. A Hokage would look bad if it was known that he or she was in prison, too.
The kunoichi eyed the proffered hand before shaking it with her own. "Ryuuzetsu, ANBU of the Hidden Grass. Regardless of how proficient you are at evading the guards and escaping them, you should be wary. Mui is not above killing prisoners."
Yeah, right. Naruto wouldn't be killed. Hurt and threatened maybe, but not killed. Mui and his cronies needed a battery to open up the Box of Ultimate Sexiness or whatever it was called.
"If you're in this prison, then you probably did something pretty bad to get yourself locked in," Naruto said. "What did you do?"
Ryuuzetsu's eyes flicked over to the nearby guard. "I will tell you later." She discreetly gave him a set of directions to a certain cave away from the prison complex that Naruto did not find suspicious at all.
"So she's banking on the fact that you aren't all talk. Let's meet her tonight," Kurama rumbled. Naruto accepted the directions and was then forced to bid the kunoichi farewell.
Two guards had grabbed him and were dragging him along to his cell.
VvVvV
=Naruto's Cozy Cell=
Naruto stretched his body out and groaned as his bones popped back into place. Truly, there was nothing like a short rest on hard granite. It really helped revitalize his body.
He looked down at his body and smirked at the lack of a seal covering it. The guards were really too stupid for their own good. Shatter the seal and use a Transformation jutsu to prevent them from finding out the seal was gone.
Really, only ninja could actively detect a transformation. Too bad no ninja was strong enough to detect or dispel Naruto's transformation.
A clone appeared on the thin blanket used as a bed and took its place in order to avoid letting any guards know that Naruto was sneaking out.
The blond inspected the lock that prevented the cell door from opening. Rather than break the lock, which would draw unnecessary attention, he simply manipulated reality's influence and walked through the bars.
He loved Yin-Yang Release. It was such a shame that it's more destructive tendencies were overshadowed by his plethora of other jutsu.
Once outside of his cell, Naruto quickly glanced around, making sure no guards were nearby... and then vanished in a suppressed Body Flicker. No one would be able to detect the usage of chakra.
After appearing on a ledge near the ceiling where an open window was, Naruto jumped out and blurred into motion. The spotlights scanning the outside of the prison were easily avoided by his blistering speed.
It only took him a few moments to reach the cliff. It was where the first part of Ryuuzetsu's instructions began. "Holy shit, this thing is steep. It reminds me of when Fuu and I did that one thing."
"When she used her wings to send you two up into the sky-"
"Yes," Naruto quickly said, interrupting Kurama as he jumped straight down into the churning waves. The wind blew in his face and ruffled his clothing as he directed his body towards a nearby spire of rock.
Chakra anchored him to the rock and he shot off of it towards an opening in the nearby rock face. There was a flickering light within it, signifying that there was a fire within.
Naruto burst from the opening, landing on his hands and then springing up to his feet. He grinned at the sitting Ryuuzetsu and shook his head rapidly.
"Must you be so immature?" Ryuuzetsu asked, shuffling away from the water droplets that were being flung from Naruto's golden hair.
The blond winked at Ryuuzetsu before plopping down on the rock. "Hey, it was wet. It's not my fault you chose this place," Naruto defended.
The kunoichi merely stared at him before returning her gaze to the fire she had built. "You do know why you're here at Demon Lantern Castle, right? I was notified that you would be briefed on this."
"Something about a weapon or whatever that I need to either secure or destroy."
"You are... partially correct," Ryuuzetsu said. "Mui, the leader of the prison, needs a lot of power in order to open something known as the Box of Ultimate Bliss."
Naruto nodded. "Right, that thing. Boxes are fun to hide in because no one will ever notice you, but what's in the box? One more super weapon capable of mass destruction?"
Ryuuzetsu sighed. "Mui, the leader of this prison, once sacrificed his son in an attempt to open the box."
"And given your posture, not to mention the nuances in your voice, Mui's son meant a lot to you, right?" Naruto nonchalantly asked.
The white-haired kunoichi snapped her gaze to him and scrutinized his face before nodding. "Muku and I were good friends before he was sacrificed to the box." She clenched her hands. "In order to prevent any more lives from being taken and to prevent more evil from spreading, we will need to destroy the box."
"Not secure it? I'm pretty sure I'm powerful enough to secure that box."
"No, we need to destroy it," Ryuuzetsu insisted.
Naruto stared at her before rolling his eyes and sighing. "Fine, I get it. Awesome weapon that needs to be destroyed. No fun for old Naruto-kun here..." the blond grumbled.
His nearby companion pointedly ignored that. "We need to remove the seals on our bodies first or else we won't stand much of a chance. Even then, despite his strength, Mui doesn't deal with the prisoners."
A snort was her response. "I've already removed the seal. I just need to find that box."
Ryuuzetsu raised an eyebrow, surprised at the information. "How did you remove the seal? Without the ability to use chakra, it's impossible to do so," the kunoichi said.
The blond let out a bark of laughter in response. "I'm amazing. That's how I was able to remove the seal. I just used my own blood and shattered the seal with my immense reserves of chakra."
"That's probably why Mui won't kill you if you get in his way," Ryuuzetsu muttered. "You're a jinchūriki, right?"
Naruto blinked, not sure where she was going with this. Seeing his confusion, Ryuuzetsu elaborated, "Mui sacrificed his son and the chakra he held in order to open the box. Since you're a jinchūriki, he can just sap your chakra and use it to open the box."
"Everybody sees Tailed Beasts as chakra batteries," Naruto said, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. I'll destroy the box and get us out of here."
"Us?" Ryuuzetsu asked, wondering why he was including her.
"I'm sure you don't want to stay in this dreary hellhole, right? Besides, you can kill Mui and get your revenge and then we can leave."
"I don't want to kill him. Destroying the box is revenge enough," Ryuuzetsu replied.
Naruto shrugged. "All right. So how do we draw Mui out?"
"We can cause a riot that will overpower the guards and force him to reveal himself and assert his authority," she said. "Once he's out, we'll grab and interrogate him on the whereabouts of the box."
"And we're just going to ignore the guards and prisoners around us?"
"The guards are civilians and the prisoners have their chakra sealed."
"Sounds good to me," the blond said. "So should I get rid of that seal on your body now?"
Ryuuzetsu looked away for a moment. Naruto thought he saw a faint tinge of pink on her cheeks, but it was probably a trick of the flickering light.
"What's the problem?" Naruto asked, smirking slightly at the now-shy kunoichi.
"N-Nothing..." she murmured. "The seals are just on my upper body, meaning that..."
The blond rolled his eyes. Why were people of this world so insecure about their bodies? No one was like that at all back in his world. They were all kick-ass. "You're a kunoichi. I'm sure your upper body looks amazing. It's nothing I haven't seen anyway."
She took a deep breath and turned away from the blond before revealing her bare torso to him. He couldn't really see anything since she was just showing him her back, though. "This might sting," he softly said before laying a finger on the Grass ninja's right shoulder.
The kunoichi gasped in pain as Kurama's chakra flowed into her. The seal began glowing bright red as it was eaten away. It only took a minute, but the seal faded from Ryuuzetsu's tanned skin. The kunoichi slumped forward slightly, her chest heaving.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded. It wasn't that bad... she was supposed to be an ANBU, after all. She could deal with this. She had dealt with worse stuff before.
"Try channeling some chakra," Naruto suggested. "I need to make sure you won't explode or anything."
"What?"
"I'm just kidding." Naruto grinned at her exasperated expression as she slipped back into her clothing. She made a single clone before nodding.
"Cool. Make sure to use the Transformation Jutsu in order to make the guards believe the seal is still on you. Time to start a riot," the blond said, grinning deviously while rubbing his hands together.
Chaos was too much fun.
VvVvV
=Outside of the Eating Place Where Prisoners Hang out=
The plan was really simple. Honestly, if anyone heard the plan Naruto and Ryuuzetsu came up with, they would laugh in the faces of the two ninja.
Fight in the middle of the courtyard and cause a riot that would overwhelm the guards. No chakra would be used, so no one would be hurt and the guards would still believe Naruto and Ryuuzetsu had the seals on their bodies.
Eventually, Mui would appear in order to quell the minor uprising, and that was when the blond and the white-haired kunoichi would silently leave to find out where the Box of Ultimate Bliss was being held.
Grabbing Mui in the middle of all of the chaos, fun as it seemed, would only cause more trouble. People might get seriously hurt, which was why Ryuuzetsu eventually decided against it. Naruto didn't care much either way.
He had stopped giving a damn about harming others the moment he stepped into the corrupt prison complex that was holding serious criminals. He did, however, have to keep up his cover, stupid as it was.
So once the plan was sprung and a riot raging, both ninja crept away from the courtyard and into a hallway leading to the lower levels of the prison. "This place smells like shit," Naruto whispered, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"We're near the sewer waters," his companion explained. "Keep your voice down. The room where the box is remaining should be nearby."
Naruto grimaced, but kept his trap shut. The two kept creeping along until they reached a room with various equipment in it, as well as a stretcher of some sort.
Ryuuzetsu shuddered slightly. "Squeamish much? Or bad memories?" Naruto asked.
"This is where Mui sacrificed Muku," the white-haired kunoichi whispered.
The blond nodded grimly and walked past the room, deftly avoiding all of the hidden traps as if they weren't even there. Ryuuzetsu followed shortly afterward and the two kept walking towards the end of the room.
"So this is it?"
"Yes. This is the Box of Ultimate Bliss. I remember it from when I watched Muku..." She trailed off, not really wanting to relive watching her best friend be sucked up by a demented box. That was sure to give nightmares... odd, odd nightmares.
Naruto gave the box a once over. It looked like it was made up of stone, had several weird-looking faces on it, and seemed pretty harmless aside from its strange name.
"Huh, I can smell evil chakra within. Some idiot must have gathered demon chakra and stuffed it into a regular box."
So that's why they call it the Box of Ultimate Bliss?
"Weren't you paying attention? The box is said to be able to grant wishes, but I'm guessing the chakra within just turns you super evil."
Oh, really? I was staring at the kunoichi's ass. It's not half-bad. Sexism and the objectification of women aside, this is probably bad news right? If there's evil chakra inside this thing, then it's not really a weapon.
"It's still a weapon, but an indiscriminate one. Let's get this over with."
Naruto cut off the quick mental connection with Kurama and walked up to the box. "So how are we going to blow it up? I can't incinerate it or else this place will cave in on us. By the way, Mui's approaching. He's seen through our extremely clever ruse," the blond informed.
Ryuuzetsu scowled, but her body tensed in preparation. She formed a Tiger hand seal, which caused many fireballs to appear, each taking the shape of an eerie specter. "Fire Release: Demon Lantern!" she cried.
The ghost-like fireballs begin circling Ryuuzetsu protectively as more were produced. Some even made contact with Naruto, but instead of exploding, they simply phased through his body as if he wasn't even there.
Footsteps echoed as Mui appeared, gazing at the swirling mass of fire without concern. His sudden appearance caused many of the demon lanterns to break away from Ryuuzetsu and attack him. The remaining mass of fireballs flung themselves towards the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
"That won't work," Mui said and the fireballs exploded upon impacting the box. After the dust cleared, the box seemed to be completely intact. There was no visible damage anywhere.
Naruto frowned and Ryuuzetsu grit her teeth. The kunoichi whirled around to face Mui. "Mui, I won't allow you to open the Box of Ultimate Bliss!"
"You won't be able to stop me," Mui replied. "The jinchūriki will open the box whether of his own volition or not."
"I have a name, asshole," Naruto muttered. His pupils elongated into bar-pupils, because bar-pupils were awesome and Sage Mode was awesome too. "Jutsu may not do anything, but I can still punch holes into anything I want."
Before Mui could react, Naruto had punched the box with enough force to shake the entire cavern the three ninja were in. Feeling his chakra being sucked away, Naruto backpedaled and glared at the now vibrating box. "What the fuck? This thing sucks chakra just like Nagato? Why does all of the Sage's stuff absorb chakra?"
"Naruto, this place is going to collapse! Let's get out of here!" Ryuuzetsu yelled. She grabbed Naruto's hand and the two got the hell out of there as the box began to spin like a drill. It began to ascend just as the cavern began to cave in on itself.
Once completely outside in a way that defied logic, Naruto realized that the Box of Ultimate Bliss was in the middle of a rather large courtyard, looking completely unassuming. Well, it would have, if it didn't have four freaky faces pasted onto its sides.
Mui was there as well, only he wasn't paying attention to Ryuuzetsu or Naruto. Most of his focus was on the box, with part of it straying towards four weird dudes wearing masks. Naruto could tell, by way of chakra levels alone, that they weren't ANBU or competent ninja.
Although, chakra levels didn't always indicate skill level. Sometimes people had infinite chakra based on the situation, but that phenomenon was almost always overlooked because of a super-flashy, important battle.
Everyone was staring at the box. It had randomly popped up from underground in everyone else's eyes, so why wouldn't they be staring at it? They couldn't really ignore the overall creepy vibe radiating from it.
And then the mouth of the box opened wide, revealing an infinite nothingness within that seemed to swallow up incoming light.
Naruto whistled. "And here I thought the stone itself was static."
A figure stepped out from the mouth, eliciting gasps from Ryuuzetsu, the four masked ninja, and Mui. The rest of the prisoners were eying the figure with no small amount of distrust.
Naruto sniffed the air. "What the fuck? Mui's crying!" he loudly whispered to Ryuuzetsu.
Indeed, the master of Demon Lantern Castle was crying tears of joy, if the situation was anything to note. The man slowly walked up to the pale human that had exited the front mouth of the box.
"It's been so long... Muku! My son!"
That statement threw Naruto and Ryuuzetsu for a loop. So was Mui supposed to be a villain or not?
"Is that really Muku?" Naruto whispered. Ryuuzetsu nodded in response, her eyes still trained on Mui approaching his long-lost son.
It could have been a tender moment, but the stormy skies, weird-ass box, and large amount of watching prisoners kind of ruined it. Oh, and the fact that Muku stabbed his father through the chest with his own damned hand contributed to the moment's destruction.
"Hey!" Naruto yelled out in annoyance. "Killing someone in such a gruesome way is my job!"
Muku simply transformed into a grotesque thing that looked too disturbing to describe. Demon or not, its physiology didn't even make sense to Naruto, and he had seen a lot of fucked up shit.
"I am Satori, bringer of the box's judgment!" the bird-thing roared.
Despite what was about to happen, Naruto couldn't help but guffaw at that statement.
The box suddenly began inhaling and the four masked figures that had accompanied Mui were sucked into the object. Several other prisoners began to follow, much to Satori's glee.
"So... you ready to kick this thing's ass?" Naruto asked, glancing at his white-haired companion. She appeared frozen in shock. "Well, whether or not it has an ass, I'm still kicking its ass."
Bar-pupils go... along with a snazzy red coat. "What the hell? Where did this thing come from?" Naruto glanced down at the tacky coat that had suddenly appeared alongside the onset of Sage Mode. The blond shrugged; at the very least he got to look cool while blowing up an evil demon.
Looking cool went a long way towards the hero profile. It probably went a long way towards the villain profile, too.
A Rasengan appeared in Naruto's hands before it began growing dramatically. Its color changed to a bright, golden yellow as the blond supercharged it with lightning. With a Rasengan the size of a human-sized boulder, Naruto aimed it at Satori, who was now flying around and shoving random people inside its special little box.
"Lightning Release: Spiraling Plasma Rush!" The ball of electrical chakra then sent out a volley of rapid electrical lightning bolts, each of which homed in on Satori's position.
Much to Naruto's confusion, the beast evaded all of the attacks even as they approached it. The homing feature of the attack didn't even make a difference. As the lightning bolts continued firing in intensity, the Rasengan began to shrink until it was the size of an ordinary Rasengan.
Naruto was really annoyed. The Rasengan beat everything, damn it! Stupid strange demon thing was somehow evading all of the lightning bolts.
The blond grunted and then fired the ball in his hands. It shot straight towards Satori, who flew to the left to avoid it. However, it didn't anticipate the ball of electricity to sharply turn in the air and follow the demon thing.
Naruto felt quite a bit of satisfaction at seeing the spiral ball of electrical chakra smash into Satori's hide. Electricity wreaked havoc on its body for a few seconds before the demon shrugged it off and fired a giant sphere of red-something at Naruto.
"Very smart," Naruto muttered, shaking his head as he waited for the attack to impact. "Seal!" he yelled just as the ball neared him. Everyone paused, including Satori, and watched as the large ball of redness distorted and was sucked into Naruto's outstretched palm.
Then the thing was fired back at Satori, who evaded Naruto's attack once more. Satori also had to avoid the tentacles from a Hachibi-fied Killer Bee, as well as the vibrational attacks generated from Fuu's buzzing wings.
It also avoided a multitude of other attacks, such as Guren's Crystal Release techniques and the stream of fire unleashed by a Nibi-fied Yugito. Genjutsu seemed to have no effect on it as Itachi and Sasuke, as well as Tayuya, opted to use more conventional ninjutsu and explosive tags to attack the demon.
Basically, a huge fucking diversity of techniques and weapons were being flung at Satori, who had a strange propensity towards evading almost every attack.
"This is complete fucking bullshit!" Tayuya screamed, sounding very pissed off at the fact that her explosive tags kept missing.
Satori laughed. "I have the ability to sense fear and bloodlust. My body is instinctively evading your attacks based on those two emotions alone!"
The blond's eyebrow twitched. Even the fucking demons of the timeline he was stuck in were completely idiotic. Why would you reveal such an advantage? It wasn't like there was an audience that needed clarification on how the demon was avoiding everything.
And then the thing flew directly up to avoid the demonic fireballs that were being launched at it by Ryuuzetsu. It flew higher up before nose diving down at Ryuuzetsu. She appeared unable to evade the astonishingly fast attack. She was going to-
Nope. Not on Naruto Uzumaki's watch. He was too fast for such a death to occur. Ryuuzetsu was held in his arms, bridal-style, and he glared at Satori before returning his gaze to the kunoichi he was carrying.
Ryuuzetsu stirred, completely amazed that she had been saved from certain death. The crater around Satori certainly spoke wonders about its strength. "Stop being afraid," Naruto chastised, grinning down at the girl. "I know your buddy is in there, but he's kind of insane right now. Let's turn him back to normal, shall we?"
Satori was suddenly launched into the air, courtesy of a golden armor-clad Naruto. The blond jumped up to where Satori was still rising and punched him directly underneath the mouth-chin part of its body. A tail of chakra pulsed out from Naruto's body and grabbed Satori before it could escape.
"I'm so fucking happy that I can kick your ass right now!" Naruto yelled, grinning maniacally. "And I'm sure there's a difference between bloodlust and happiness!"
Kurama's head materialized around Naruto's body and it opened wide, chakra spinning in its maws. "You go boom now, motherfucker!"
Tailed Beast Bombs solved everything. The spectacular explosion of light in the sky was pretty breathtaking to behold.
When Naruto landed, he saw that particles of what used to be Satori were coming back together. They reformed into Muku, who looked quite dead, before being sucked back into the box. Mui was sucked into the box too because Naruto doesn't give a rat's ass about him. No father-son lasers here.
"How anticlimactic," Kurama rumbled.
The prisoners attempted to escape, but were rounded up rather handily with two Tailed Beast Mode jinchūriki raging around the complex. Scaring the shit out of people was a very good way of controlling them.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss was thrown into the ocean, where no one would be able to find it again... until ninja came up with submarines.
Naruto was on the boat ride, along with Fuu, Killer B, and Yugito to Island Turtle. Oddly enough Ryuuzetsu was with him, but she would depart to the Hidden Grass on one of their stops.
"I still wish you hadn't destroyed Satori in that way, unconventional as it was," she said to Naruto.
"Don't be distraught over your friend," Naruto urged. "Imagine being alone, in constant darkness. Whatever sanity he had was long gone by the time we found him. It's a shame, but we had to purge that sort of unrestrained destruction. This is coming from a jinchūriki, so you know it's serious."
Ryuuzetsu nodded in resigned acceptance, but then kissed Naruto's cheek. "That was for saving me from Satori and from my fears, cliché as it sounds."
Naruto smirked at the kunoichi. "No problem. All in a day's work for the most interesting man in the world." The blond paused for a moment and then sighed.
"What is it?" Ryuuzetsu asked.
"I need some western beer."