Hey readers sorry this is so late…or at least it feels like it. I just got distracted and got busy with other stuff. Anyways now I ready to start writing and hopefully you all like it…but that is something that is up for all of you to decide. Anyways I am gonna stop talking and hope that you enjoy this, also I promise that I will try and get a schedule set up where I am not sporatic…but it may be a bit seeing as starting at the end of the month I should be working full time as well. So yea, basically my life is a busy mess right now with a thousand things to do with barely anytime for said things. Yay real world.
Chapter 43
"W-what!?" Shizuka screamed out in shock as she started at Naruto who stayed where he was. "You are who I am looking for!" She yelled shocked.
"Yes, the only students that Jiraiya has taken that I am aware of is my father and me; and seeing as you can't fight my father that leaves only me." Naruto told her with a bit of dark humor.
"Of all people I have to fight it has to be Naruto-kun." Shizuka thought trying to process what she just heard. "…I guess this is at least some partially good news. After all I don't have to be with someone that I know nothing about. Though this leaves me in a new predicament seeing as I don't want to marry anyone seeing as I still am thinking about Sagiri. But I don't want to kill him if he loses either….ugh what am I going to do!" She thought more confused than ever.
"So, Shizuka what are we going to do? I mean I don't want to force you into something especially after what you just went through. Plus I am sure you wouldn't be happy due to my…predicament." Naruto asked.
"I-I don't know." Shizuka honestly told him. "But I guess that I will have to tell Tokiwa-san but I both options are horrible for me…no offense." Shizuka told him honestly then realized that she partially insulting her friend.
"No offense taken I understand what you meant, but I honestly have no idea what we are going to do other than fighting each other and see what the outcome is." Naruto told her trying to think of some way to keep both her village happy enough to not push for something further while still somehow still being able to help his friend.
"..yea I guess we will have to…for what it is worth I am sorry for dragging you into my mess again" Shizuka told him then got up from her spot. She then walked over to the door before looking over to him. "So…I guess this will be good bye until our match and don't worry I will make sure that we don't come till tomorrow….good bye." She said sadly before disappearing from the house. As soon as she left Haku turned towards Naruto who clearly was troubled by the predicament as well.
"So, why is the fact you two are fighting so bad?" She asked confused seeing as people had spars all the time.
"For her village a proper fight with a male isn't just a regular match. Instead if I win she has to become my wife according to their laws. Meanwhile if I lose then…well it basically is a death sentence for me." Naruto explained.
"What!? Why would any clan have a rule like that?" Haku asked finding the whole thing insane.
"Yea it is a strange law. Though we worked past it before. You see we have already fought and I won against her." Naruto explained surprising her even more.
"So that means that the man that she was seeing was technically her cheating on you?" Haku asked even more confused then ever.
"Well I can see why you would think that but we made it a bit more complicated than that. You see when I first met them they were two people that were in love but the village's law prevented them from actually marrying. So, seeing as I became friends with both of them I dressed up like Sagiri and fought her. Needless to say I won and I thought it would be happy ever after but as you can see it had an unforeseen problem." Naruto explained finally letting Haku understand the situation. He then frowned when he thought of the continuation of what their 'fix' did. "Come to think of it I could be the cause of his death seeing as I made him seem like a warrior that could have handled the bandit." Naruto told growled out realizing that his friend may have lived if he didn't make him seem like a fighter that could have saved his group, thus putting him onto the front line of the fight.
"Oh, Naru-kun you didn't know what was going to happen." Haku told him trying to make the blond feel better.
"Thanks Haku-chan…but I think I am just going to get ready for this battle and try and think of a way to have this end nicely…if possible." Naruto told her heading into his room.
+ Next Day +
Naruto sat in his kitchen eating a quick bowl of ramen while he waited for the inevitable to happen. Though this time he had to wait what felt like hours for him when in reality it was only about an hour until he heard a knock on the door.
"Hello?" Naruto muttered trying to not frown when he saw the two girls in front of him.
"Are you Naruto Uzumaki, student of Jiraiya the sannnin?" Tokiwa asked.
"Yes I am." Naruto told her.
"Then we are here to tell you that due to a promise that your sensei made years ago to a member of the Nadeshiko village; you and Shizuka-san have to battle. If you win this match then you will take her as your bride but if you lose than your life is forfeit, as our clans laws dictate. Do you have any questions?" She explained to him.
"Um do we have to battle?" Naruto asked hoping the older women would know of a way to get them out of the fight all together.
"I am afraid Naruto-san that the option of not fighting is not available to you. If you do not fight her now then we will have no choice but to get the battle started by nearly any means necessary." She told him with a straight face. "Please just accept the battle. After all the hokage already ordered us to not cause a scene. I would rather not cause political turmoil for this…even if this is a vital part to keeping our village thriving." Tokiwa thought nervous.
"So basically if I try to ignore this fight then they will either follow me until I do fight her or attack me right now…something which would harm the village I promised to protect…*sigh* I hope I can think of a way to make this work out as nicely as it possibly can." Naruto thought.
"Ok then I suppose I have no choice then….follow me." Naruto told them before running to the nearest training ground with the two girls following closely after him.
"Now, this fight will have two separate ways to end. Either the challenger; in this case Naruto-san you win by forcing Shizuka-san to surrender. Shizuka-san you win by killing your opponent. Do you both understand?" she asked getting nods from both of them. "Then let this match…begin." She told them swinging her arm down in-between both of them before jumping out of the way.
As soon as she said this Naruto and Shizuka rushed at each other and began to fight using simple taijutusu. A spar that ended when Shizuka landed a heavy blow onto Naruto's chin sending him into the air where she then kicked him in the gut launching him into a tree several feet away where he landed with a heavy thud.
"Ugh, well she really is taking this serious..." Naruto mumbled out after a groan left his mouth. "…though I do suppose it would only cause more problems if she didn't" he added before refocusing on the match. He still stayed on the ground in front of the tree but quickly slammed his hand onto the ground confusing the two girls watching him. Still Shizuka quickly got over this and rushed at the downed blond with a kunai in hand. Course she only made it a few steps before a blue chain launched out of the ground and wrapped around her leg before she could stop it. Naruto the look at her with an evil smirk and pulled the chain out from the ground. He then pulled on his chakra chain and used it to swing Shizuka back first into a tree or would have had she turned her around at the last moment so that she instead was able to take the impact on her arms. A blow that was lessened with chakra reinforcement.
She then forced her own chakra into the chain disrupting it enough to break her leg free from the chain. She then quickly brought her hand up and formed a ball of fast moving charka in it and quickly launched the spiraling wind ball at Naruto who rolled out of the way. A successful dodge that meant little seeing as she was launching several more at Naruto forcing him to keep moving to not take the impact.
So he quickly rolled behind a tree that quickly took a blow for him that was hard enough to take out a large chunk of the wood. Still the tree survived enough to give him enough time to stand up and he quickly coated his had in dense wind chakra and pushed his hand at the tree releasing his hold on the chakra letting it launch out at the tree. Needless to say the already injured tree couldn't handle the blow and broke apart into splinters that launched towards Shizuka forcing her to jumped to the side to not be injured by the wood. "well at least I know the gale palm has more than one use." Naruto thinks happily launching himself at Shizuka as fast as he could.
Now of course she saw this coming and quickly grabbed another kunai and swung at Naruto who quickly was coming at her. Then as soon he was close enough she tried to stab him only to have Naruto surprise her yet again by rolling underneath her stab getting behind her. She quickly tried turning to protect herself but found a spinning mass of chakra that was the rasengan already at her head before she could do anything about it.
"Surrender." Naruto ordered her and she quickly dropped the kunai to the ground accepting the fact that there was nothing she could do.
"The winner is Naruto Uzumaki" Tokiwa declared and then watched as Naruto let the chakra disperse and moved away from Shizuka. "Now Naruto-san seeing as you are officially the winner you are now the fiancé of Shizuka-san here. So, let's go get the paperwork started to transfer you to our village." Tokiwa told them shocking Naruto.
"Wait what do you mean transfer papers?" He asked confused.
"Well we need you in our village of course. After all Shizuka is the leader of the Nadeshiko village and is needed. So, you will have to come with us so that you can possibly produce the next leader with her." Tokiwa told him making him blush at the idea of 'creating the heir' part. "Now, enough of this let's go to the Hokage and get this started." She added before placing a hand on Naruto's should and used the shunshin to head to the hokage tower before Naruto could do anything to prevent it. Course this just made Shizuka shake her head and chase after them both.
~Hokage Tower, Hokage's office~
"Absolutely Not!" Tsunade growled at the women in front of her.
"In all respect Hokage-sama due to Narutos-san wining he is married to her so through the village's rule he must be with her.
"Then leave her here and they will be together. " Tsunade argued.
"We can't she is needed to lead the village."
"Well we need Naruto because he is the last heir to two of our important clans and because of another reason…besides he already has relationships here."
"What he is married already?...I don't think our laws have ever had a situation like this…" Tokiwa said surprised trying to think of what this could possibly mean. While they were arguing both Naruto and Shizuka were simply sitting on a nearby couch watching the madness happen.
"Ok this is getting nowhere I need to stop this…but how." Naruto thought before getting a partial idea that he decided to go with hoping he could finish it on the fly.
"Hold up!" Naruto told both of them while standing up from his seat. "Both of you are making valid points but you got to remember that I am a part of this as well. So, due to my status as leader of two clans of Konoha and being under its CRA I have too many attachments to allow me to leave the village. Meanwhile Shizuka is the same way with needing to help her village run smoothly. So, how about we instead go for the one idea that makes sense. Shizuka and me can get married but instead of having it be a regular one we can…um…form a bond between the two villages by having two...significant parts get married. Now to make this work we can…um…umm set up a…." Naruto began before looking around and noticing a date on a scroll. "dates that we meet and be…together." Naruto finished telling the adults happy that his partial planned seemed to work but was also blushing due to what his last sentence could be taken as.
"…huh you know the brat could be on to something there." Tsunade muttered.
"Yes, that could work but I would need to speak to the village." Tokiwa agreed.
"That is fine and please feel free to take all the time you need." Naruto told the women who nodded and turned to Shizuka.
"I guess we need to get packed up then…I am sure that this idea will take a while to get worked out so we must leave as early as possible so it can be done as quick as possible; go get packed." She told the girl who nodded with a smile on her face.
"Naruto's plan while not perfect not only ended relatively good but also gives me the time to properly mourn my poor love's death…I don't know if you did this on purpose or not but thank you Naruto." Shizuka thought happily and before she could stop herself gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the check before running off to pack. Course what Naruto didn't know was that as soon as she left the office her face turned bright red due to embarrassment. "Oh, why did I do that…and in front of people as well." She complained to herself blushing. Meanwhile Naruto simply stood in the room rubbing his cheek confused.
"I don't think I will ever fully understand what goes on in a girl's mind.." Naruto thinks looking at the door.
And I think that is a good spot to end this chapter. Now I know it is short but I wanted to end this 'section' before starting another…plus the ending to me seemed like a really good transition. Anyways I am not gonna lie to you and say that this is the best chapter ever but I did try to make it good for you. Though I do realize now that I still need a lot of practice in fight scenes…so there probably will be a lot more battles just so I can get actually happy with the way I can write them. But to be honest for the battle against her kind of sucked in the anime as well leaving me to thin that she could possibly be a decent bit weaker than the 'main characters' of the Naruto anime. Anyways I hope all of you have a good day even after reading this chapter. Ja Ne.