Chapter Twenty: Jinchūriki At Sea

=Hidden Rain Village=

"I hate paperwork," Nagato said, glaring down at the pile of papers. He had regained mobility in his legs after Tsunade had healed him, much to his extreme gratitude. His villainous orientation had also done a complete one-eighty and he had allied himself with the Hidden Leaf.

Naruto really did seem to have a magical Therapy Jutsu. Punching people usually helped too.

"Now you know how I feel."

Nagato didn't even glance at the newcomer. Konan had decided to become the official ambassador for the Hidden Rain and so most of the time, she wasn't in the village. Oh, how he would have loved to pawn off the paperwork to her.

Nagato sighed and then clapped his hands together. His six Paths of Pain appeared and they all began to sort through the pile of paper. It was just that easy, especially with reanimated corpses.

"I wonder how Tobi will attempt to defeat the ninja villages," Nagato mused.

Konan smiled slightly. "He's not going to be able to deal with so many of them, as well as the amount of ninja we have. Besides, we have the statue that contains the Tailed Beasts."

"Actually, that went missing a week or so ago."

Konan stared at Nagato, her mouth agape in shock and surprise. "What are you talking about? You control that thing, don't you?" she exclaimed.

Nagato shrugged. "I have no idea at all. It was in the abyss and then it disappeared when I went to release the Tailed Beasts like Naruto instructed me to. Honestly, I was completely surprised as well."

"Perhaps it got up and walked off on its own?" Konan suggested, a wry grin on her face.

"Considering that there wasn't any destruction at or around the cavern it was being stored in, I doubt that." Regardless of his flat tone, Nagato's eyebrows twitched in amusement.

Konan sighed and folded her arms across her chest. "Couldn't you summon it again?" she asked.

The former leader of Akatsuki frowned. "You know, I never thought about doing that. It's just that, I've been swamped with so much paperwork..." the man trailed off, chuckling sheepishly at Konan's skeptical look. "Never mind."

In an effort to save face, Nagato jumped out the window and into the nearby, extremely large clearing. He flipped through some seals and slammed his palms into the ground.

Konan, from her perch in the window above, waited for the giant statue full of Tailed Beasts to appear.

It never did. There was no large puff of smoke that signified a successful summing, but there was an extremely small one. So, the summoning could technically be regarded as successful.

The blue-haired kunoichi jumped down to where Nagato was bent. He had picked up a scroll that had appeared. His excellent eyes quickly scanned through it and he grimaced at what he read.

"What does it say?"

He wordlessly handed the scroll over to his companion. She scanned the scroll and then palmed her face. "Of course. He would figure out a way to get the Rinnegan without taking it from you. He's too damn crafty," Konan lamented.

The scroll read: I managed to unlock my own Rinnegan through the power of Senju DNA infusion. It looks like my newest bitc- err, I mean PARTNER is more useful than I thought. In your face, Nagato!

-Tobi

VvVvV

=Adventures at Sea=

Special events or adventures always happened to Naruto Uzumaki. It wasn't coincidence if it was the damned law of the land. Despite traveling on a large ship with his buddies to an island that was really a giant turtle wasn't an exception.

Somewhere along the way they had dropped off Ryuuzetsu, who had gotten along quite well with Yugito and Fuu, and picked up Jiraiya. The pervert was not above continually making perverted comments and suggestions.

Which was pretty normal, since Naruto might've felt like something was wrong otherwise.

"Oi!" Naruto called out, watching as a giant, random bird kidnapped Gai Maito. The man was still seasick, which was why the bird was able to snatch him up so easily.

The crew thought the sight of the S-rank jōnin being toted through the air was too funny to stop. Despite that opinion, they still veered off course and followed the bird back to a giant island that was situated in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't even on their sea charts.

"You've got to be kidding me," Fuu groaned out. "First a giant fish..."

"...then some idiot ninja wasting our time..." Yugito said.

"...Can't forget that sketchy ghost ship and the battleship they were in, too!" Bee chimed in.

Naruto shrugged to himself. "Meh, what's a random, probably deserted island to a bunch of S-rank ninja..." Naruto turned to Aoba. "And Aoba."

Said ninja hung his head. Naruto flashed him a reassuring grin. Everyone was useful at something. Aoba was a better sensor than Naruto was without Sage Mode activated... usually. Maybe. Well, he was an extra hand.

Jiraiya's face immediately lit up in a blush. "Ooh! What if it's not deserted and it's actually a resort full of scantily clad women!" Steam blazed out of the man's nose.

Everyone ignored his lack of common sense.

The helmsman steered their boat towards the island and docked it near the beach. Naruto, Jiraiya, Bee, Fuu, and Yugito all jumped ashore to look for Gai. Yamato and Aoba decided to remain on the ship because their presence wasn't needed at all.

Were four jinchūriki and Jiraiya of the Sannin overkill?

Yugito whistled as she took in the beach. "Huh, I might like to relax here after this shtick is over."

"Yeah, once the war is over this place would be pretty nice to visit," Fuu agreed.

"Never mind the fact that it's a deserted island, you fools," Bee murmured, shaking his head at his fellow jinchūriki.

"I'd like you two to come here for vacation," Jiraiya said, grinning perversely. Yugito and Fuu rolled their eyes, pretty much used to his behavior at this point.

"Let's start moving," Naruto said, his bar-pupils fading. He had used Sage Mode to pick up Gai's chakra signature while his friends were bickering. "He should be up ahead. That bird that picked him up is slowing down for some reason. Either he's struggling or the bird's already tired."

The five dashed onward, with Naruto taking point. Given the speed they were able to reach, it wouldn't take long before they closed in on the bird's location.

However, Naruto noticed that parts of the forest seemed a bit too artificial. A natural island wouldn't have disturbances such as that.

His suspicions increased when he saw just why the giant bird had slowed down. It was being attacked by an absolutely gigantic centipede... and Gai was still woozy. Come on, that was a really poor trait to have if you were a taijutsu expert.

The bird was finally bit by the centipede and dropped Gai, who was caught by a blistering fast Jiraiya. Once laid on the ground, Gai quickly regained his senses and his wooziness vanished. "My most youthful friends!" the eccentric man cried, bringing in everyone for an unwanted hug.

"This is very touchy and all, but maybe we should do something about that centipede." Naruto jerked a finger at the centipede, which had just finished devouring the bird.

This time, Jiraiya sated his own penchant for destruction. He used an advanced Fire Release jutsu and burnt the thing to a crisp. It smelled really bad afterward, too.

"Okay, we got Gai. Let's head out, brats."

"Wait," Fuu said, frowning slightly. "I got something from that centipede before you incinerated it. Apparently, it's supposed to be a summon."

The revelation caused everyone to snap their attention to her. "What do you mean a summon?" Yugito asked, narrowing her eyes. "Summon animals have their own realms that they live in."

"I don't think this thing was meant to be a normal summoning animal. This island might have all kinds of summons that are meant to be optimal," Bee offered. His sunglasses seemed to gleam at his fairly poor rhyming scheme.

The blond Uzumaki sighed. "Sure, let's investigate more of this creepy deserted island. We don't have any deadlines to meet. Of course not."

"Don't whine, brat," Jiraiya cheerfully said.

"Shut up. I outrank you, you perverted idiot." Oh well. It could possibly help them out in the end.

The perverted sage snorted and the group of six dashed onward in a search for anything that seemed suspicious or out of place.

It was rather easy to find, actually. There was a random house among the trees they were traveling in. It was old, shabby, and completely abandoned.

So the main question was: Who the hell was on the island previously?

The random house would answer their questions, hopefully. They all decided to begin exploring the place.

It only took a few moments to find something of importance. "Hey guys, come here," Naruto announced, quickly rifling through the old journal that he had found lying in a drawer of a beat-up desk.

"What do you have there, Naruto-kun?" Gai said with unnatural seriousness.

"That's a journal, isn't it?" Fuu said.

Naruto nodded. "Yep, and from what I'm reading... the researchers here wanted to create the ultimate summoning animal, which is why there are so many giant animals running around. They succeeded, but it was too difficult to control so they got..." Naruto's eyes widened. "Holy shit! They got a survivor of the Uzumaki Clan to seal it away!"

"Well, it is hard to completely eradicate something," Jiraiya murmured. "I'm assuming they didn't succeed since everything is pretty much abandoned."

"Let's keep looking! I'm sure something's cooking!"

Well, a man could try.

They all exited the house, but Naruto kept the journal with him. It felt... strange. There was an odd presence associated with it, one that felt vaguely familiar.

"Look to your right," Kurama rumbled.

Naruto's head sharply turned to the right and he saw a ghostly image of a red-haired girl with onyx eyes and pale skin standing in the trees. His vision went fuzzy for a moment, but he shook it off. Why was that girl so familiar?

Shrugging the odd, familiar sensation off, he kept moving with his group. The journal had said that the main research facility was up in the sole mountain of the place, so they all high-tailed it over there.

They really had no obligation to remain on the island, but hey, a shinobi's got to sate their curiosity.

When they reached the area, they realized that the facility was situated next to a volcano. "Well, this seems fairly safe," Naruto remarked.

"Just because there's a volcano doesn't mean it's active," Yugito said.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's safe. I mean, all of that heat has got to damage something."

"Maybe they wanted a place to get rid of the failures?" Jiraiya suggested. Everyone frowned at that. Animal cruelty, whether or not they were artificial, was still animal cruelty. And not even the most evil of villains were cruel to animals.

The group of ninja eventually found the research facility that was mentioned in the journal Naruto had found. They also found some disfigured, extremely disgusting looking thing sleeping in a vat of some kind of liquid or whatever.

"So, is this the thing that was mentioned?" Fuu asked. "It looks like it's sleeping."

"Let's seal this thing away before it decides to make us pay," Bee said with unusual seriousness.

Naruto nodded in agreement. "Right. Pervert! You're up!"

"What? Why me?"

"I'm too lazy to do anything right now."

Jiraiya growled at Naruto. "You have shadow clones and Uzumaki sealing skills!"

"So do you!"

Jiraiya was about to continue but there was a flash of light. Everyone stared, dumbfounded, as a wavering image of a red-haired kunoichi appeared.

"Honoka?" Naruto spit out in disbelief.

The specter didn't reply, but chains made up of words began to pull themselves out of the chakra points located in her arms.

"Never mind, let me do this," Naruto muttered. He jumped up to where the chimera-like summoning animal was and began flipping through a series of seals.

The chains from Honoka writhed in the air and infused themselves on the sleeping beast, which did not awake. When Naruto finished his long string of seals, he slammed his palms on the ground, causing the words to glow bright red.

The shinobi in the room all felt the ridiculous influx of chakra that Naruto was pumping into the glowing words. The chakra quickly drained away, leaving a dead-looking beast that was covered by strange inscriptions and symbols.

"That was pretty anticlimactic," Jiraiya said.

"What, did you expect some sort of amazing battle? I'm performing the sealing, after all."

"Yeah, whatever. Who's the redhead?" Jiraiya asked.

Said redhead turned to Naruto, graced him with a smile, and then vanished into pinpricks of light.

"That was... someone familiar. I guess she died in this one and wasn't quite so great in sealing as she was in my timeline." Naruto shrugged and headed out of the research facility.

When they were a safe distance from the place, Naruto took out the journal and incinerated it, frowning slightly as he did so. Then he made a hand seal and the facility exploded in a violent display of fire and light.

"We're done here," the blond cheerfully said, feeling a lot better now that the alternate Honoka's soul could rest.

How he knew this, no one would ever know.

VvVvV

=Near Nadeshiko Village=

"Ooh, we've got to stop here!"

Everyone stared at Jiraiya. "Why?" Yugito asked, tilting her head slightly.

The perverse giggle pretty much answered her question.

"So we're staying here because you want to whore yourself out?" Naruto raised an eyebrow at Jiraiya's rapid nod. "Okay... I'm confused. While you do usually say that since you think all women are magnetically attracted to you, you're much more... assured, I think?"

Jiraiya's chest puffed up and his eyes gleamed.

"Oh come on! The only way your whoring would actually work would be if there were only women on that island!" Jiraiya's grin threatened to crack his face in half. "Holy shit... that island only has women on it?"

Bee, Yugito, and Fuu leaned in slightly to hear Jiraiya's answer. "Yep! I came here years ago and defeated the previous leader of this village. Because monogamy sucks dick only and polygamy sucks everything else, I declined her offer of marriage."

Everyone was very, very confused at this point.

"Oh, right. Maybe I should explain some more." Jiraiya chuckled sheepishly. "Nadeshiko Village is ruled by women only and while there are some males... they're practically non-existent."

"The males bend over while the females control everything?" Jiraiya nodded his head. "I like this village already," Yugito cheerfully chimed.

Naruto didn't like the look on her face. "So what does this have to do with anything? You declined her marriage, blah blah blah... what's going on?"

"Well," Jiraiya said, continuing with his explanation, "Due to the way the village works, the females must leave their village in order to find a husband. The catch is that the males they find must be able to defeat the females before they get hitched."

Realization dawned on their faces. "So she wanted you, but you defeated her and then declined her offer of marriage. Are you coming back here for nostalgia?" Fuu questioned.

"Nope!" Jiraiya said, grinning widely again. "I came here because in order to escape the marriage, I pawned off a future apprentice to her successor."

"Ha, I can't wait to see the sucker who got sucked into that marriage... wait..." Naruto trailed off before his expression turned deadpan. "Fuck. I'm technically your apprentice, aren't I?"

"Yep. I don't know who her successor is, but if she's anything like her predecessor, then you'll be quite satisfied."

"Fine, let's make a detour. Might as well explore this place anyway," Naruto said, assenting to dropping into the island and meeting the leader.

The ship changed course and Naruto and Jiraiya ended up exploring the village together. Bee, Yugito, and Fuu went elsewhere to pick up some souvenirs or in Bee's case, sing for some middle-aged women.

That was totally a respectable fetish, by the way.

As the two S-rank ninja were exploring, some strange puppet-like contraption appeared out of nowhere and began attacking some women on the path they were on. Shopkeepers and civilians cleared out of the street, avoiding the scuffle before it could break out.

Naruto made to attack the thing simply because he could, but Jiraiya put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. "Wait," he said. "I want to find out exactly who that girl is." He had a creeping suspicion...

The man wielding the weird-puppet-thing was easily defeated by the kunoichi, who resumed her uptight stance as if nothing had ever happened.

The guard she was with suddenly locked eyes with Jiraiya and in a blink of an eye, was next to the toad sage. Naruto cried tears of joy.

Both the guard and the guarded had curvaceous bodies with rather modest busts. Really modest busts. A quick cursory glance around the village told Naruto that the women must all have been naturally gifted.

It was a good day today, he decided. Listening to Jiraiya was a good idea.

"You!" the guard said, pointing at Jiraiya.

The man actually nodded seriously, his face slightly grim. "Yes, it is me, Jiraiya of the Hidden Leaf. Is that you, Tokiwa?"

The woman with short brown hair and pale skin nodded. "Am I correct in assuming that you have come to uphold the arrangements made so many years ago?"

Before Jiraiya could reply, Naruto butt in. "Hey, don't I get a say in this?"

Tokiwa's eyes snapped to the slightly shorter blond, who was forced to lock eyes with her in order to avoid incurring her wrath.

Damn, those things are hard to keep away from, Naruto thought. Kurama chortled at his vain attempts to keep his eyes locked on Tokiwa's face.

"This is very convenient, to be honest. We were on our way to find you two. Shizuka!" Tokiwa barked, causing the dark-haired kunoichi to walk up to Jiraiya and Naruto. "I'd like you to meet Jiraiya of the Sannin, and his apprentice-"

"Naruto Uzumaki," the blond smoothly said, giving the now-named Shizuka a smirk. He found that he very much liked her eyes. Her torso had already been mentioned and the rest of her body went without saying.

"Are you the one I am to fight?" she said in a flat tone.

"Now, when you say fight, what kind of fight are we talking about here?"

Rather than reply, Tokiwa and Shizuka turned and began walking. Naruto glanced at his godfather, who shrugged. The two ninja began to follow the two kunoichi out of the village and into an isolated clearing.

Tokiwa flipped through some seals, slammed her hands onto the ground, and yelled out, "Earth Release: Iron Fist Prison!"

A gigantic dome with tall walls rose around the four ninja, trapping them within. Naruto whistled at the impressive display. "So this is where we'll be fighting?" the blond asked.

"Obviously," Jiraiya said, rolling his eyes.

"Do we really have to do this?"

"Yes, brat. Now defend my honor and my ring finger."

Naruto sighed in resignation and took his spot opposite of Shizuka, who had remained quiet over the slight amount of bickering. Tokiwa and Jiraiya both jumped a decent distance away in order to avoid being caught up in any wide-scale techniques the two ninja would use.

Shizuka started off the battle by chucking a ridiculous amount of kunai and shuriken at Naruto. As he dipped, dived, and ducked, he wondered just where she was getting all of the weapons. Perhaps she had seals or something on her clothes?

It was eerily familiar to fighting Tenten that one time when he made a sexist comment and pissed her off. That was pretty fun, watching as every single type of weapon was chucked at his body and then blown away.

Tenten hadn't been amused, so Naruto had to... apologize. He rolled away from another burst of kunai that was sent from Shizuka's rapidly spinning body and shuddered. Apologizing sucked. He was above that shit, for crying out loud.

"That's pretty arrogant, you know."

Shut up, I can be arrogant if I want, Naruto fired back.

"I must commend you on evading my Nadeshiko-Style: Deep Crimson Dance Performance and my Dance Performance: Second Step," Shizuka said, actually speaking for once.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You spoke again? Here I thought you were ridiculously shy or something."

Shizuka briefly frowned. Her name did mean "quiet", after all. She mentally chanted out the name of her next technique, Violent Whirlwind, and then exhaled a fierce stream of wind at her opponent.

"Using wind manipulation against me? Not quite so smart," Naruto called out, grinning at Shizuka. Coating his entire body in wind chakra, he surged forward, effectively diverting the winds around his body and was about to make Shizuka yield when a giant puppet-robot-thing appeared.

He didn't even know what to call those things anymore.

Quickly backing away, Naruto watched as Shizuka huffed in annoyance at the appearance of the man with the weird contraptions. "Shizuka-chan! I'm here to forcibly take your hand in marriage again!" he called out.

Naruto snorted. That was incredibly silly. She would just kill him when his guard was down.

The dark-haired kunoichi Naruto had been fighting against destroyed the puppet the man was in before her body froze up. "Ha! I now have control of Shizuka with some super clever jutsu of mine based on chakra threads!" he yelled. "Nadeshiko Village is now mine once I force Shizuka-chan to marry me!"

The blond gave the man a deadpan look. "Did you really just tell me a part of your super clever jutsu?" he asked.

The man nodded triumphantly. Naruto palmed his face and sighed in irritation. He snapped his fingers, causing Shizuka to return to her senses, much to the man's surprise.

And then Naruto blasted the man into the sky with a chakra-fueled roar. He was probably going to die. Oh well. He couldn't exactly remove the man's chest cavity in front of Jiraiya and Tokiwa... then again, where were they?

"Great job, brat. You beat the bad guy and avoided getting hitched," Jiraiya said, cheerfully clapping Naruto on the shoulder. "Sorry, I was treating Tokiwa here to some lunch. We just got back. Did you know Bee actually has a fanbase here now?"

"Cool story," Naruto grumbled.

Shizuka groaned and rubbed her head, causing Tokiwa to hurry over to her. "Are you all right, Shizuka?" She was worried.

The future leader of the village nodded before staring at Naruto. "I... think I'll submit to Naruto," she announced.

"Why? The fight wasn't over," he replied.

"You were able to evade everything and your wind manipulation is stronger than mine. You're more powerful than I am," Shizuka evenly said, bowing her head in submission to the blond.

"Actually, he's more powerful than everyone," Jiraiya chimed. "He's actually the second Sage of the Six Paths and he's from some random future. We don't tend to focus on that, though. What he does in the present is more interesting than what he did in his own future."

"That sounds very confusing," Tokiwa noted.

Naruto shrugged. "I'm not going to marry Shizuka over here." At Shizuka's startled look, he explained his reasons. "Look, you're pretty and strong, but that's all I know about you. Arranged marriages are the things of sappy romantic fiction and more often than not, suck. I'd rather not do that to you since you're being forced into it as much as I am."

Shizuka's eyes were pretty wide at this point.

"Besides, it's not like we're going to suddenly love each other if the marriage goes through. What, do people think that would actually happen? We're humans, not puppets."

"So a great idea would be for you to take her out," Tokiwa finally said after a minute of silence.

Naruto shrugged. "Sure." He grabbed Shizuka's hand and dragged the wide-eyed girl out of the arena, blasting a hole in the wall in the process.

It took them twenty minutes to find a place to eat, but that was due to Naruto. He didn't know the village layout at all and Shizuka wanted to eat somewhere that wouldn't draw attention to her.

When they were all situated and eating some random dinner that didn't warrant a description, Naruto decided to begin their conversation. "So tell me about yourself, Shizuka," Naruto began, keeping his eyes off of her bosom.

The kunoichi nodded. "I was born here and groomed to be the next leader. I'm sure Lord Jiraiya told you, but here females must seek out males powerful enough to defeat them and bring them here for marriage."

Naruto really wanted to bring up the topic of homosexuality regarding the females of the village, but that might've been disrespectful. He ended up doing it anyway. "So if kunoichi from this village can't find a man, do they end up as lesbians? Come to think of it, how are you raised to like men if there are very few men in this village? Do aesthetics not matter to you at all?"

Shizuka was very confused by the barrage of rapid-fire questions, but answered honestly anyway. "Sometimes, through books and conditioning, and more often than not it's personality and strength that matter to us. Respectively," she added as a forethought.

The blond nodded. "I see. What about you? I'm sure you didn't like being forced to fight me in some arrangement my sensei half-assed."

Shizuka sighed. "Years ago, there was someone very precious to me. We were forbidden to see each other because of the village's laws. He, however, died and I ended up closing my heart off. The village laws were partially to blame because of this and I've wanted to change them ever since."

"Was this person your lover?"

Shizuka appeared uneasy before looking away from Naruto. "We didn't have a chance to get that far before he died."

"I can relate to you there, at least," Naruto mumbled. "But that's no reason to be all emotionally negative. There are a lot of people in this world and many of them could give you a run for your money. There's always going to be someone who can make you as happy or possibly even more than your previous partner."

"Do you really believe that?" Shizuka asked.

"'Course I do," he replied, grinning at her. "I'm an optimistic person. I'm borderline insane too, but what the fuck. What's a shinobi without a little craziness thrown in?"

Shizuka actually giggled at that. Then she frowned. "Still, there is the issue of the village laws."

"I'm not bound by these laws. Diplomatic immunity is awesome for the Hokage," he cheekily said.

Shizuka's eyebrows shot up. "You're the Hokage?" she said in complete surprise.

"Yeah, but I also have a demon sealed in my gut, hence why I'm being stowed away on some random island. But that's another topic that I don't particularly care about. You really should attempt to change the rules in this village. For one, people generally like freedom, and two, not every dude will want to be dragged back to this village after he defeats a woman from here."

"True," Shizuka agreed. "I'm going to get stronger, then. For this village, and for someone else."

"Is that someone else me?"

"Maybe," Shizuka let out, a smirk on her face. The effect was lessened by the tinge of pink on her face.

"Well then, I guess it's time for a romantic cliché," he said.

"Really?" Shizuka asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep. Since we're not going through with the arranged marriage, I'm going to take you for a walk. Got a park anywhere?"

Shizuka rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, taking him out of the restaurant and out into the village.