Oni Hogosha
Disclaimer:
Naruto is a product of Masashi Kishimoto, so I don't own him.
Legend:
"": quote, "italic": thought, italic: new
Japanese word (check glossary), underline:
techniques.
Chapter 3: The missing shinobi
As the sun rose and the birds started singing, Konohagure woke up to welcome a new day. For Haruno Sakura it was another day of lesson with her new sensei Tsunade, she and Hyuuga Hinata requested to become medical kunochis. Given the fact that Hinata was a good ointment maker and Sakura's intelligence they were both accepted, but Shizune attended most of their training. Tsunade who was only training Sakura because she wanted to help her in her quest to help both Naruto and that traitor Sasuke, Tsunade was too busy with running the village, to follow her education regularly. While heading towards the administration office she always goes to visit the three genins who were still on their stretcher, it was all she could do to repay them for their attempt to bring back her beloved Sasuke.
To her surprise the last one, recovered fairly quickly given the fact that he was the last one to return home, he was out of the hospital with the second day. This was of course Uzumaki Naruto, who had failed to keep up with his promise, however he did renew his vow by saying that now it was a lifetime promise. He courage was the reason why she decided to become a medical kunochis at least then she could be some assistance.
A week had passed since Naruto was faced with his new reality. His aunt had kept her promise, she was the toughest sensei he ever had. At one point she had actually brought a whip along with her to force him to exceed his slow speed. Deep inside he knew she cared about him, after all she never whipped him it was the ground that received the beating but the sound was enough to get him going. A week had passed since the boy had been searching for the perverted toad sennin who had disappeared from action after their last talk at the hospital. He figured the old geezer would visit him eventually meanwhile he was still adjusting to his aunt and Kyuubi's harsh training in Onimakai. The training was so gruesome that it usually took him a whole day of sleep to recover.
Since, nobody really paid attention to him, none really noticed that he was not sleeping at his apartment for a week Well none except Sakura who noticed that her ex-teammate had lost his sense of hyper activeness. It had been a week since she had seen him, almost as if he was avoiding her. She promised her self to visit him today during her lunch break. Today was not a lucky day for the blond shinobi apparently Tsunade was also seeking him.
As the pink haired kunochi entered the administration building, she felt something was not right; everyone was in a state of panic. As she reached near the Hokage office, she heard Tsunade screaming at some of the shinobis.
"What you mean he is missing? How can he me missing?", she screamed.
"Well Hokage-sama, you requested to see him, so I went to his apartment to call him, but he was not home and in addition his ninpou kit along with backpacks were missing…", replied Aoba.
"We think he may have sneaked out of the village", continued Genma.
Everyone was feeling Tsunade's anger, as she marched aggressively back in forth.
"He is 13 for god sake, are you telling me that this villages security team cannot even track a 13 year old boy? What kind of security is this? At this rate, Orochimaru will be upon us before you idiots even realize it", she yelled.
Kakashi who was always late as usual stepped in to face a barrage of assault from the Godaime. After learning of the details he became fearful known how determined the loudest mouth in Konoha can get on a promise.
"I think, Naruto is off after Sasuke again… we should start searching outside of Konoha, given what happened last time, there is no tell what another meeting between those two will result into. Not to mention, him getting butchered by Orochimaru's henchmen before he even reaches his goal", he said.
Sakura, was shocked, so it was Naruto they were talking about, It seems making him the promise was a bad idea given how Naruto felt about promises, she began to fear the worst.
"We already lost one last time, I don't want to lose Naruto too. Commence the search party, I want every section checked till the Fire country borders got it, DON'T JUST STAND HERE GET YOUR ASSES MOVING!", screamed the angry Hokage of Konoha.
Thus all available shinobis were sent to search for Naruto, outside Jiraiya learned of the event. He was about to come and meet the lad, but unlike the others he decided to concentrate on looking at the training grounds the blond shinobi trained. It was obvious that since their last discussion that the boy wanted to get stronger and he knew he had at least three years to save Sasuke. Meanwhile a worried Tsunade, feared for Naruto, she considered him as her little brother and did not wish to relive another reoccurrence of her past.
While, everyone was scrambling for Naruto, he was peacefully sleeping near the falls. After a few hours of rest, he woke up and decided to practice his new taijutsu fighting style that he recovered from Konoha achieves, which was of course the hirameki style of the Uzumaki. Thanks to Yuki's help he had managed to sneak, under sleepy Tsunade's nose and copy the style with the help of one of her stealth hare. After all, who would suspect the furry rabbit. By the end of the week, he had grasped the basic of the style perfectly, all he needed now was to increase his speed. Now this was not achievable instantly. The hirameki speed was great and now he didn't even had to perform the seal required to use it, but it wasn't he's actual speed and he wanted to increase that so that he may become even faster.
Yuki, found with it the perfect opportunity to present him to the village of the Shinku, which was far advanced then anything Naruto had encountered before. He soon found out why his aunt had an evil smirk in her face when she pushed him into one of her training room. Apparently it was a room where she could increase the mass of gravity, which would act similarly to additional weights.
This sounded delightful till you realize who was his trainer. If Gai was called a lunatic for forcing Rock Lee to wear exaggerated weights, Yuki was the goddess. She immediately started with the gravity at ten times the boy's normal weight. The first night was indeed gruesome, fortunately Naruto was lucky he had high stamina and by the third day he was running at his normal speed in it by the third night.
With the help of his sadomasochistic aunt, the teen was finally improving. She was right he was indeed lucky, the hirameki style fit perfectly with him, especially with his Shinku transformation, which would allow him to attack his target without living many hint about his long fingernails. Although much had changed from his previous transformations, now he's fangs didn't hung out, and those fox grin would be less colorful then before. Apparently those were Kyuubi's additions to make him look more ferocious, but now that Naruto knew how to cancel them, they had disappeared, much to the displeasure of Kyuubi, who wanted him to keep them. To Naruto however, the only useful things were the longer claws and his eyes so he stayed firm with his decision.
By noon, Jiraiya finally reached the waterfalls, he had searched all other locations and this was the final destination. As he reached the falls, he noticed a young blond haired boy in blue t-shirt at the edge of a hill, realizing who he was he rushed towards him.
"Naruto!" he yelled, "What are you doing here? Do you know how much everyone is worried about you, they have been looking for you all day".
As he reached near him, he noticed that his jacket was in pieces and he had many cuts in his cloths, "have you been attacked?" asked Jiraiya.
"Looking for me? Can't a man train by himself now or are we in Martial Law? Ah these, I haven't been attacked, I have training a bit overboard I guess", replied the boy in an annoying voice, while hiding the works of his ferocious aunt.
Jiraiya noticed that his young pupil had changed, he was really serious and this time it was outside of a battle. "That event must've hit him hard", thought the Toad Sannin.
"It seems, my goofiness is keeping me behind of my progress, I have been goofing to long… things will have to change…" replied the boy.
"It wasn't your fault, I told you already, they are a like, all they care about is power, besides what's the point of bringing back a person with force? Even if you had beaten him up and brought him back, don't you think he would run away again?" shouted Jiraiya trying to force the teen to understand the situation.
"I wasn't talking about Sasuke, that saga is over, next time I won't sacrifice myself for him, five of my comrades almost died for him, if he cannot understand that then he doesn't deserves to be rescued, but I have a promise that I cannot go back on, so he better hope he falls on my good side next time I see him", he answered and posed for an instant.
"What I wish now is to get stronger, I got a village to protect… from incidents like those and rasengan or Gamabunta should only be used for last resort, so I need you to teach me every jutsu you know starting by fire jutsus", he demanded.
"Wow, I think you are getting too serious now, you haven't even mastered the skills you currently possessed and now you wish to learn, how about refine those first?" laughed the Sannin.
Deep inside, he knew he was losing apart of the boy who he use to see smile, he understood that it was bound to happen one day or the other, but it seemed losing his best friend, speeded the process tenfold. Of course, he did not know that Naruto's reason were far different from what he believed in.
Naruto smirked, "Refining? You mean like this?", as he began to gather chikara on him right palm, instantly the rasengan was formed.
Jiraiya while shocked that the kid actually performed the jutsu on one hand. In a split second Naruto jumped over him and slammed the blue spiral ball into to the pillar in front from him, which triggered a huge explosion. The pillar began to crumble from the inside, the sound of the crumbling alerted the shinobis in the village who converged on the location, thinking a battle had started. He was impressed the boy really did master the move faster then him or even the creator himself, however the subject changed when he noticed his eyes were crimson instead of its usual aqua color.
"Those eyes, what happened to your eyes… why are they crimson?" asked the shocked the Toad Sannin.
"Well, It seems my mother left me these gifts… after all these aren't from the Uzumaki traits now is it… Jiraiya Uzumaki? It starts to make sense now why, you decided to train me, after all we all do alike don't we, me you and father… or should I say Yondaime?" whispered Naruto.
"So you figured out, well I was going to tell you one of these days anyway, but tell me who told you that those are from your mother? And who is your mother?", asked the intrigued Sannin.
He heard about the story, but he did not know who the mother could have been, after all the only one who knew about what happened in the last minute of the battle was Sandaime, who kept the rest in darkness.
"How should I know, I am just guessing, I discovered this during my last battle, it seems Uchiha Sasuke wasn't the only bloodline user in that fight", smirked Naruto.
"Kyuubi must've told him this, after all considering he had to fight a cursed level 2 Sasuke, he probably must've sought power from him", thought Jiraiya. "So what does these wonderful eyes allow you then?", questioned the Sannin.
Of course Naruto wasn't going to tell him about his real powers. So the boy simply replied that it allowed him to learn faster and remember moves that were previously performed against him. A pretty good lie, he guessed considering that Kyuubi is planning him to learn water another other elemental jutsus from dead spirits, so this lie would serve him later. Jiraiya wasn't that pleased. After all trying to say that you have a retarded version of the Uchina bloodline was not interesting at all, but then again it was better then nothing, right? He suspected the boy was making up a bit, but then again it would explain how he comes to learn most skills faster then their required times.
"Oh yeah, I forgot to show you the second skill now didn't I, let's see if I can bring the king toad out: kuchiyose no jutsu!", laughed Naruto.
The ground started to rumble as the giant toad began to appear; apparently he was just about to take his bath. Gamabunta was very angry, since he was still in his bathrobe, he calmed down after Naruto explained the reason of his summoning, which meant trouble for Jiraiya. Since Naruto told the toad that Jiraiya asked him to summon the great king. Poor Jiraiya was feeling the hot vapor coming out of the giant toad's pipe, when shinobis began to appear around them, including Tsunade and Kakashi. Unlike the others, Kakashi noticed that it was Naruto who summoned Gamabunta, since there was still some blood dripping from his thumb.
"What in the world, since when did he learn to summon toads? Not to mention sensei's toad… I see now, this is probably why Sasuke left, I haven't kept my eyes on you, it seems I barely know you now Uzumaki Naruto", thought Kakashi recalling flashbacks of team 7.
Of course, unlike him, Tsunade got near the kid, who quickly turned his eyes back into his original colors, which Jiraiya noticed and figured that the boy was not ready to reveal himself.
"Naruto!" she screamed as she hit him on the back sending him crushing on the ground, "You baka, where have you been, you had me worried sick about you!"
As Naruto was getting up, the other shinobis looked at the giant toad behind them in awe.
Ebisu, being the closet pervert he was thought it was Jiraiya who summoned Gamabunta. He was of course one of the devoted fans of the great writer of the "come come paradise" novel. He began to praise Jiraiya's skill and level of genius ness, which got Gamabunta angry.
So the Toad king scolded the special jounin that it was the boy and not the geezer who summoned him and since it seemed he was in here for a demonstration, he wasn't needed anymore, so he departed back to his realm.
Of course the announcement shocked the shinobis apart Tsunade, Jiraiya and Kakashi. Jiraiya covered up by saying that he was training Naruto some new jutsus so that's why he was missing during the day. This earned him a giant whack from Tsunade followed by some scolding for getting her worried. Tsunade was about to give a few missions but Jiraiya interrupted saying that since he was teaching the boy, he did not want him to be interrupted with missions till he said so. Understand Jiraiya's request Tsunade abandoned her plans. Jiraiya agreed to teach his pupil all the fire jutsus he knew, of course this got Kakashi worried and he requested if he could chat with Jiraiya later in the evening. As people began to depart, Tsunade also asked if Naruto was okay if she sent him out to train with Jiraiya for three years. But Jiraiya quickly changed his request saying that it would be better if they stayed here, he could learn the skills while Jiraiya reported his missions. As all three agreed, Tsunade also cleared the area, as Jiraiya began his lesson.
As the sun was setting on the village, Kakashi and Jiraiya were sitting in one of the empty tearoom of there the local bar, sipping their favorite beverages. Kakashi was concerned about Naruto and he tried reasoning with the Sannin about the skills he was teaching and there were many questions he wanted to be answered.
"I don't understand, lately I have been thinking of his skills, the rasengan was a jutsu only you and sensei were able to perform, wasn't it a Uzumaki bloodline attack? How can a adopted child learn it?" asked the jounin.
When Naruto was picked up, everyone was told that Yondaime adopted him, since the boy's parent could not be found. Jiraiya looked at Kakashi for an instance and requested that this conversation would never be heard after today, which Kakashi agreed.
"Who told you he was adopted? He looks exactly like Arashi, their resemblance is similar, he is really his son and is not adopted", whispered Jiraiya.
"But, who is his mother then, I never seen sensei with a woman, or heard he ever had a lover…", asked Kakashi, who was surprised to learn how close Naruto was to his sensei.
"That I have no clue either, from the information that I had secretly gathered on the subject, it is possible that she was that black long haired maiden that appeared in Konoha five years before that Kyuubi attack, however, I could not find any detail on who she is. She was very mysterious indeed", whispered Jiraiya.
"Jiraiya-sama how could that be, if that was the case Naruto would have been at least 17 by now …" replied Kakashi.
"Well, your sensei kept a diary of his adventures with her, there last meeting was ten months before the event, so she is likely the candidate, considering she was the only one who Arashi gave shelter at his home and the only girl I ever sore him with", he replied the Sannin as he took another sip of his drink.
"Ah now I remember her, yes sensei had told me he had given her shelter, because the village inn, refused to allow her foxes in their houses If you say what is true, it is most likely her, she was stunning and it was the only time I had actually seen sensei blushing", replied the copy cat shinobi remembering the old times.
"For you she might have been stunning, but some of them said she was a witch of some sort, I personally thought she looked like a old hag, but now I am fairly certain she used some genjutsu after all if Tsunade can have a genjutsu that makes her look younger why can't this maiden have a genjutsu to make her look older. Have anything else to ask?", smirked Jiraiya.
"Yes, I know you will be teaching him more then the fire jutsus, do you plan to teach him sensei's tricks also? Also, I know that his training is essential for the survival of the Uzumaki now that there is a new hope, but I hope you also teach him not to unleash his wrath on Sasuke… It would be sad, in Konoha lost one of its clan at the expense of the other…" added Kakashi.
"Look, I can't promise you on the last part, its their problem now, and you can't really blame Naruto for it, he almost gave his life for that guy, I know this might hurt you, like it does to him, but those that seek only power cannot be helped. As for what I will teach, well I cannot help him with all the jutsus his father left behind since even I am not that fast, he seemed to have the higher genes and if Naruto posses the same then he will learn them by himself, with the assistance of Arashi's scroll list. I will teach him all I know", replied Jiraiya as he smiled trough the air.
He was indeed a lucky teacher, few have managed two geniuses on their lists, but unlike them he was the only one who had both two from the same clan.
"I guess, the rumors that Konoha's Yellow Flash has return, will spread soon then…" smiled Kakashi.
"I believe this one is more of a raging flash then yellow, well good luck in your works and wish me luck", answered Jiraiya as he finished his drink. The two men got out and went their separate ways.
Kakashi still feared the Kyuubi, but knowing that Naruto was getting stronger and much better at controlling it then being controlled gave him hope.
He regretted not being in charge of team 7, he hoped that at least, one day they would be reunited, "I hope this will be reunion, rather then our story Obito, I don't want either of them having to lose their comrades like I did, maybe someday, she will come back also, isn't it funny we ignore those we care about when they are near, but miss them when they are gone", he thought as he looked at the shooting stars in the sky.
Meaning at her home, Sakura also looked at the stars and wished for the same. She was relived that Naruto was okay, but compared to him she had a lot of catch up to do.
End of chapter 3
Please review! If there are any words you do not understand, check the glossary or check previous chapters for explications. Thanks for all the reviews. This chapter has been edited.
Glossary
Baka: stupid.
Kunochi: term used to describe female ninja.
Techniques
Hirameki/Flash: Uzumaki bloodline taijutsu style. It allows the clan member to fight at flashing speed. This is one of the reasons that made the Uzumaki one of the most feared clans in the old times, the opponent would never see the oncoming attack and if they did by luck they would never be able to dodge the assault. Of course this depended of the user. User: Arashi, Naruto, Jiraiya.
