Part VI
Author's note:
Oh my god…
This fic is at its sixth chapter! Yay! Never thought I'd have the attention span to write a six chapter story before! I'm still accepting suggestions and ideas for the end of this story. Please leave them with a review or e-mail them directly to
Thanks again!
The midday sun beat down hard on the barren rocky cliffs that lined the border between the fire country and the stone country. The rugged exterior was covered in clay coloured dust, puffs of it swirled around as the wind blew by. Tiny granules of the dust seemed everywhere now. The upper plateaus of the cliffs were jagged and blown apart, as if by some tremendous force.
Slowly, the dust began to settle, slowly dissipating to reveal two figures standing at the top. One was crouched down low, clutching its right wrist. The other was standing a few metres away, a slump to its shoulders.
The crouched figure, a young boy, wore a black shirt with a wide collar, the symbol of a fan embroidered on the back. The boy gasped and wheezed, out of breath. His dark blue hair plastered to his face by perspiration. Sweat trickled down his neck and onto his back, passing over a dark, three-pronged swirl on his skin.
The other figure, an older man, stood casually away from the boy. Clad in the Jounin uniform of a Konoha ninja, his face was almost completely covered by a mask, save for his right eye. His hair, tall and grey, was covered in the reddish dust of the cliffs. He flipped idly through the pages of a naughty book.
"Sasuke, lets see it one more time" The older man said.
The boy exhaled and nodded. He turned to face a tall, rocky section of the cliff wall. Like a flash, his hands executed a series of complicated seals, ending with his right palm facing the ground, his left supporting his wrist.
Before it could be seen, the technique echoed through the expanse of cliffs; a high pitched screeching. As if birds from all around were calling in anger.
A thousand birds.
Chakra streaked across the boy's right palm, like blue lightning it crissed and crossed around his arm. The boy took off like a flash, speeding for the cliff wall, his arm outstretched in front of him. Everything around seemed to pale in comparison to the brilliant blue light of the concentrated chakra, which connected quickly to the wall.
"Chidori!"
With the force of a small explosion, the wall of the cliff gave in upon itself, yielding to the mighty pierce of the stab from the boy. The rock crumbled and disintegrated, destroyed on a molecular level by the furious chakra.
The entire half of the cliff fell and plummeted to the earth below.
Soon after the chakra began to fade and dissipate.
"Ah, your control is improving Sasuke. You've gained almost complete mastery of the Chidori" The man said, putting away his book.
The boy turned to face his teacher, his eyes a scorching red. His pupils lined with yin shaped swirls.
"Well, I think we've destroyed enough of the scenery around here. What do you say to heading back?" The man said.
The boy wiped his hair out of his eyes, revealing the gleaming metal plate of a Konoha head protector.
"It'll took us three days to get out here, Kakashi-sensei," He said at last, "Now…I think we can cut that time in half getting back".
"Aren't you eager," The man said, a grin visible through his mask. "Alright, we'll be back in Konoha in two days. Are you sure you'll be able to keep that kind of pace up?"
The boy smiled.
Naruto made his way down the street. He was in a foul mood; he gave up on waiting for the manager after almost an hour. He told Ayame he'd be back for lunch and that they'd better have ramen by the time he got back.
It figured that the one chance he had to relax would be riddled with problems. Kakashi was off training with Sasuke, and while Ero-Senin was in Konoha, he hadn't heard anything from him about more training or anything like that.
Looking back on yesterday, he felt a bit stupid.
Hinata had invited him to spend the afternoon with her, Shino and Kiba as they trained, but he had turned her down. He figured he'd have plenty to do during his moment of rest. Besides, he didn't want to have to put up with Kiba's snide remarks or having Hinata follow him around and mumble all day.
Konohamaru had asked him if he would play ninja with him and his friends, but Naruto had turned them down as well. If he didn't want to be with Kiba and Hinata, he sure didn't want to spend the day babysitting a bunch of snot-nosed kids.
But now, with his breakfast plans dashed and little else to look forward to, Naruto regretted turning down those invitations. They would have at least kept him from being bored. Naruto racked his mind, trying to think of who he could visit or see.
"Maybe Ikura sensei's not too busy with classes, or maybe I could track down Ero-Senin and get him to help me practice the Rasengan…or,"
An idea popped into his head. The only member of team 7 who wasn't away!
"Sakura-chan" He said dreamily. Maybe today would be the day that she'd finally go out with him! Naruto made up his mind that he'd go see Sakura right away.
As he began to run (He could see Sakura faster if he did) Naruto noticed a large crowd of people blocking his path. They seemed to be watching something exciting, shouting and cheering.
"Huh?" Naruto said, pushing his way past the crowd to get a better look.
Two people were fighting.
Naruto saw two people squaring off within the circle of the crowd. One of them Naruto recognised as Yamanaka Ino, her blonde hair askew and missing in patches, she seemed a little bigger than normal though.
"Hey, it's Sasuke-Idiot!" Naruto called out. Ino didn't seem to notice, her attention solely draw by her opponent.
The person Ino was facing had their back to Naruto. He was bigger than anyone Naruto had ever seen. Not height wise, mind you, but in weight. The person Ino was fighting was extremely fat, his stomach jiggling every time he moved.
Naruto didn't get a good look at him until he circled around enough for him to see his head. He was fair skinned, had a girlish face, and had pink hair.
Girlish face…pink hair!
Suddenly Ino's opponent's identity dawned on Naruto.
"That's…that's…the guy who ate all my ramen!" He shouted.
Naruto didn't really care about Ino, she was just another girl who always wanted to be near Sasuke, but he immediately sided with her now. Now that he knew what was at stake.
Naruto watched the fight continue, waiting with bated breath. Neither Ino nor the pink haired man made a move; they just continued to circle around each other in some kind of deadly test of wills. Naruto quickly got bored of this and decided to take matters into his own hands.
His fingers flashed in front of him, forming a cross.
Suddenly a second Naruto appeared next to himself. A kage bunshin.
Naruto opened his palm to the shadow doppelganger, he felt chakra flowing through is arm and into his outstretched hand. The doppelganger began motioning over Naruto's palm. Soon, a spherical swirl of chakra began to materialize. It shown bright blue.
The crowd soon became less interested in the fight, now gazing at the brilliant blue ball. Ino's attention was finally wrenched away from her opponent as well, as both of them slowly turned to face Naruto.
The doppelganger's motions intensified, the ball of chakra began to spin in every direction, becoming more and more focussed. Finally the sphere reached its critical mass, the doppelganger burst into a puff of smoke.
"You ate my breakfast, you bastard!" Naruto shouted.
He crouched low and ran swiftly past the crowd, right up to the pink haired man. Naruto took aim and thrusted his palm into the man's gut.
"RASENGAN!"
The ball of chakra forced its way into the belly of the pink haired man, it shred off the clothing he was wearing, before sinking into his fat stomach. The man screamed a high pitched, womanly scream. Naruto thought he recognised it.
The end result of the technique, however, was not as Naruto planned.
Naruto's rasengan logged itself in the man's stomach, but from there it seemed to stop. Normally the chakra burned and tore at the person being attacked, but instead the ball simply seemed to be engulfed in the blubber of the man…
…with Naruto's hand still attached!
Naruto's face screwed up, his hand was stuck.
"N-nani?!" He choked.
The spiralling of the rasengan began too take effect, but not on Naruto's opponent. Naruto felt his wrist began to twist. He was suddenly thrown of his feet and sent into a dizzying spiral. The rasengan was spinning him around instead of the pink haired man!
With the rasengan's chakra just about spent, Naruto was sent shooting off into the air. His body flying overheard of his opponent, Ino and the crowd, until it came in contact with something:
The wall of a building.
Naruto impacted the wall with a loud CRACK! He felt his body stiffen as he hit. He rebounded off the wall and hit the crushed dirt road with a painful THWUMP! His entire body ached, his wrist especially. He figured it might be broken from the rasengan backfiring. He felt his eyes become heavy as he was losing consciousness.
"Naruto-kun!" He heard a voice shout.
That's Sakura-chan's voice!
He forced his eyes open, but the only thing he could see has the shadow of the huge, pink haired man moving towards him. Is he gonna finish me off? Naruto thought.
Then he felt someone holding him. The warm, soft press of skin caressed his face.
"Naruto, daijoubu-ka?" A voice said.
Naruto could see Sakura's face fill his eyes. But they began to close again. Another voice called out to him. It was gruff and old sounding:
"Don't worry, little girl. He'll be alright" The voice said.
Naruto couldn't be bothered with listening to things now, he was tired. So very, very tired. Maybe he'd just close his eyes and rest a while. That seemed like a good idea. He'd see Sakura later when he woke up.
Naruto smiled despite the pain, he felt Sakura against him.
Strange, she felt a lot fatter than the last time he'd gotten a chance to see her.
The afternoon passed and the sun began to once again set on the Konoha Gakure village. The events of the day eventually passed from peoples minds into the hustle and bustle. Dark clouds began to roll in from the northwest along with high winds. Rain looked eventual.
Ino looked out of her window at the approaching storm. Her mind still reeling after all of what had happened today. She knew that a few things were for sure, though.
Sakura was beating her.
Somehow, Sakura had found a way to get extremely fat in a short period of time. She was now more than three times Ino's size. She knew that it shouldn't surprise her. Sakura was smart. She was brilliant! She had always come in first on written test scores in the academy. It was entirely possible that she came up with some jutsu to make her gain weight like crazy.
It was discouraging, after all the work she'd done to gain weight for Sasuke, Sakura had outdone her in almost no time at all.
"Ino-chan, dinner!" Her mother called from downstairs.
Ino decided that this was no time to give up.
"Sakura-san thinks she can outdo me? Not a chance in hell! I'll catch up to her and win Sasuke's love before she even knows what's going on!"
With that, she headed downstairs.
Ino's parents sat quietly at their dinner table. Large bowls of food occupied almost every space. Ino's father raised an eyebrow.
"Dear, I'd like to speak to you about something" He said.
"What is it?" Ino's mother asked as she served the rice.
"Ino's weight. She's been eating an awful lot lately. I'm worried that her health could be at risk".
"I doubt it" she said.
Ino's father groaned. "Dear, you may not quite grasp this, but ninjas must learn to be stealthy. It's not easy to sneak around when you're overweight".
Ino's mother snorted. "She's not overweight. I think it's fantastic that she's eating more. I was so worried that she wasn't eating enough, she was so thin. That can't be good for a ninja either, can it?"
"Oto-san, Oka-san. What's for dinner?" Ino asked as she came down the stairs.
"We're having pork cutlet tonight sweetie. Oh! Are you alright? Your face?" Ino's mother pointed to the few bruises and missing tufts of hair from Ino's head.
"Oh…those. I was…training with Shikamaru and Chouji and things got a bit rough. I'm fine mom" Ino said quickly, thinking on her feet.
"Alright, well eat up. We want you to be big and strong for your next missions, don't we dear?" Ino's mother kicked Ino's father under the table.
"OH! Of course we do…" he mumbled.
With that being said, Ino helped herself to as much as she could eat, taking advantage of her wonderful mother's love.
After dinner, Ino crept up to her room and emptied her bank. She decided that she would sneak out and spend as much as she could on her next binge. She was determined to out eat Sakura at any cost.
She opened her window and crept out into the darkness.
A world of tantalizing treats lay ahead of her.
Sakura now found herself in Naruto's apartment. She'd never been inside his home before; somehow her surroundings were exactly as she'd imagined them. The walls were lined with posters of expensive kinds of ramen, Naruto hung a very revealing girlie calendar by his bed. Trash littered the floors and the sink was full of unwashed dishes.
He really is an idiot she thought.
Naruto lay on his bed, completely dead to the world. He snored a bit, drool dripping from his open mouth. His right wrist and hand were bound in bandages.
"He'll be alright. I'm no medical ninja, but a know how to heal a fractured bone. Besides, Naruto is much tougher than he looks".
Sakura turned to the man who had helped her earlier.
After Ino had attacked her, Naruto tried to fight Sakura off of her by using some kind of Chakra technique. It had burned the skin on her stomach (not to mention ruined the dress Tsunade had lent her) but she wasn't badly hurt. The technique didn't work properly for some reason. Sakura's tummy had somehow bounced the chakra back and sent Naruto sprawling.
Sakura had immediately tried to help him, she'd had forgotten Ino for the moment. Just as she had reached him, a tall, long haired man had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to help them.
"Don't worry, little girl. He'll be alright" He had said. He brought the two of them back to Naruto's place and helped him.
The man turned to Sakura. The lights in Naruto's apartment were out, but the man's figure was no less striking. He stood quite tall, over six feet. He wore fancy red and green robes with wooden sandals. He looked pretty old, not as old as Hokage Gi-chan might have been, but definitely older than Kakashi-sensei. He had a mole on his nose, red lines down the side of his face, and wore a heavy, horned head protector atop his long, shaggy white hair.
"Are you alright?" He asked gruffly.
Sakura felt words fail her. Her mouth became dry. "I-I-"
"You took the Rasengan on at almost full power. Certainly you can't be unhurt"
Sakura felt her large stomach and winced. It hurt pretty badly.
"Here, I'll take a look. Lift up your shirt" He said.
Sakura blushed. Once again she was being asked by an older person to expose herself.
"Don't worry. I'm not into girls who are as…uh…endowed as you are"
Sakura felt her body again. It was hard getting used to being so big. She lifted the tatters of the dress she was wearing.
"Ah yes, chakra burns. I can heal this, but it might sting a bit". The man placed his hand on Sakura's stomach, right above her naval. His hands were warm but very coarse. The man pulled his hand away quickly, a look of surprise on his face.
"What is it? Is it bad?" Sakura asked.
The man lowered his voice. "Tsunade did this to you. Why?" His face became stern.
Sakura's eyes widened. How did he know?
"You have Tsunade's chakra signature coursing through you. She used that technique on you, didn't she?" The man's mouth became a wide grin.
"Y-yes, she did. I asked her to use it on me" Sakura said at last.
The man looked puzzled. "You purposely asked to be like this? Why would you want to be this fat?"
Sakura blushed even harder. Not only was this man peeking under her dress, but now he wanted her to tell him her inner most desire?
"I'm…I'm trying to attract someone…someone close to me" She mumbled.
Sakura waited for him to laugh or look at her with disgust, but that didn't happen. Instead, he simply smiled.
"I think I see why she performed that technique on you now. You are quite similar…
"Ever since she was your age, she was always finding ways of manipulating her body in order to attract that special someone. Ah…that was a long time ago".
Sakura was confused. "Are you talking about Tsunade-sama? Did you know her?"
The man chuckled and raised his left hand. There was a ring on his index finger.
The same ring Tsunade wore, which means…
The man smiled again.
"I'd give you the full song and dance, but I don't want to wake stupid over there. I am Jiraiya. Tsunade was one of my comrades when we were your age. We were part of a three-man team under the Sandaime"
Sakura gasped.
"You're one of the Sanin! Konoha's three greatest shinobi!" She squealed.
"Yeah, that's' me. I wish your idiot friend over there would recognise that more often".
"You know Naruto?"
"I'm the one that taught him the technique he used against you. Stupid of him really. I've told him the Rasengan is powerful and should be used sparingly, but does he listen?! Well, that's another story
"Let's get started on healing that burn, shall we?" With that said, Jiraiya bit his thumb and formed a series of seals. He then smacked his palm with the bloody thumb onto the ground.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu" he whispered.
A cloud of smoke exploded where his palm was. The smoke slowly went away, revealing a red, wary toad the size of a large loaf of bread. Jiraiya picked up the toad with both his hands and held it close to Sakura.
"Ninpo: Healing Frog Salve!" he said, giving the toad a big squeeze. The toad's mouth opened and shot a glob of green slime out, right onto Sakura's stomach.
Sakura felt her throat rise. The slime felt so gross!
"Now hold still, this salve will heal the burn in an instant. Wonderful stuff, frog salve. For chakra burns, toad is best" He said as he began to rub it into Sakura's stomach burn.
"Ano, Jiraiya-sama, I really don't think that's necessary. I can handleooooooohh" Sakura felt a wonderful sensation in her stomach. The wincing pain was gone, completely replaced by the soothing, rubbing motion of Jiraiya's hand. Her large tummy rumbled in delight. Having her tummy rubbed felt amazing!
"There, see? What'd I tell you?" Jiraiya said, wiping off his hand.
"Now, before I go, I'd like a couple questions answered. I saw your little tiff with that blonde babe, as well as this idiot using that technique, but nothing before that. Why were you fighting?" he asked.
Sakura sighed and began her story, explaining how she had found out from Ino about her precious person's interest in chubby girls, and their subsequent race to gain the most weight to catch his attention.
"I see. Just be careful what you do. The human body is a delicate thing. Too much of anything, even something that feels good, can be bad. Oh, one more thing. Who's the boy you're trying to do this for?"
"Uchiha Sasuke" Sakura said.
"Ah…I see. Very similar indeed" He said. He picked up his stuff and left Sakura with Naruto alone in his apartment.
Sakura sighed and sat down. Naruto's kitchen chair cracked and broke under the weight of her girth. Naruto didn't notice though, he was sleeping like a baby.
"Shoot. I'll never be able to sit down properly again…" she muttered under her breath.
Suddenly the feeling from before returned.
Like a tidal wave, it consumed Sakura in an instant.
The carnal hunger, the need to eat.
Her stomach growled at the prospect of more food. Sakura managed to stand and make her way to the door. "I should get dinner…very hungry, after all".
She wedged her way through Naruto's meagre doorframe and headed towards the delicious smell of food once again.