"Talking"

'Thinking'

Flashback - "Talking"/ 'Thinking'

Chapter 4:

Naruto was standing in the middle of the forest, not that far from Konoha as he thought he will be.

All around him, there are trees, lying on the ground, most of them completely destroyed while some, relatively undamaged, except they were ripped out from the roots.

Naruto was standing on one of those trees, and was looking down at the girl, who was apparently his cousin, and who he is supposed to save.

"It just had to be her," Naruto said to himself. "And how the hell is she still alive? It's been around three days since her battle with Shikamaru, and I'm assuming, Temari, judging by the damage done to the forest, which can only be done by a very powerful Wind Type jutsu."

He sighed, and then jumped down from the destroyed tree, right next to the girl's upper body. Her lower was buried under the trees, which have fallen on her legs and most definitely, crushed them into oblivion. "I doubt there is a single unbroken bone in her lower body." Naruto commented to himself. "The goddess was right, she's probably only alive because she is in a coma. She would have died from the pain if she was conscious."

Naruto kneeled next to the girl and looked at her for a few minutes, thinking if it would be better to just let her die, instead of going through with what the goddess told him.

Xxx Flashback xxX

"Tell me," Naruto asked just before the goddess was about to send him back. "How am I supposed to save this girl… whoever she is? I'm not a medic, and none of Espada had skills to heal others. They could only regenerate themselves."

"You need to understand, Naruto, that you are different then the Espada were," the goddess said. "All of your powers, which Espada had, are now joined and amplified. Because of the High Speed Regeneration, you are now virtually immortal, as you can regenerate yourself even if the only thing left of you is a single cell."

This was a news and a big surprise for Naruto, as he didn't think that his High Speed Regeneration would now be that powerful.

Of all the Espada, Ulquiorra had the best High Speed Regeneration, and even he had his limits, as he couldn't regenerate his brain and other internal organs. But now, with all Espada joined back into the original Naruto, his HSR, went off the charts.

"What does that have to do with healing the girl?" Naruto asked.

"Unlike the Espada who could only regenerate themselves, your blood now has a capabilities of transformation," the goddess said, and Naruto was utterly confused, which was shown on his face. He had no idea what she was talking about.

"Your blood can transform humans into human/hollow hybrid, just like you are." The goddess finally said, making Naruto's eyes bug-out of their sockets.

"You cannot be serious!" Naruto said.

"I am." The goddess confirmed.

"So you actually want me to turn her into a human/hollow hybrid," Naruto question? "Why would I do that? And did you even ask yourself what would she want? Would she want to simply die, or be turned into partial monster?"

"She wants to live, Naruto," the goddess sighed. "She fought for six days, trying to survive, and unconsciously hoping that someone would find her and rescue her. After sixth day, she finally died. She was in a coma, all time, which is one of the reason she lasted for so long, but as I said, even thought she was in coma, she fought to last as long as possible.

"As for the part of her becoming a partial monster, as you put it. "I don't think she would want that, but if she was to be given the option of choosing between death, or life as something more then a human, then I'm sure she would chose the latter."

Naruto shock his head, and sighed. "How exactly are this girl and I related? You never said that."

"She is half Uzumaki, just like you," the goddess said, while Naruto rose his eyebrows. "Your mother was from the Uzumaki Clan, while your father was Konoha's Fourth Hokage," Naruto's eyes bugged out again.

The goddess then went and explained to Naruto the history of the Uzumaki Clan, and what caused their ending. She then went and told him what happened on the night of his birth and why the Nine-Tails ended up sealed inside of him.

By then, Naruto was pissed beyond belief. Not only because of what happened to his mother's clan, but because his father is the village hero, while he was treated like garbage, and even executed for doing his mission.

How many times has he asked the Third about his parents, only for the old bastard to tell him how he doesn't know who they were, and that Naruto shouldn't pay that much attention to finding out, as there is no point, since, if they are dead, then they are dead, and nothing will change if he finds out who they were. But if they are still alive, then that would mean that they abandoned him. The old man said, that sometimes, some things are better left unknown.

'Damn you, Sarutobi,' Naruto raged in his head! 'Damn you Konoha! Damn you all to hell!'

Xxx Flashback end xxX

Naruto 'woke up', from his memories, and then decided to just finish this off already and go to find someplace where he and Tayuya can stay for a little while.

He bit his right thumb, drawing blood, before he moved the hand above Tayuya's slightly opened mouth, and let a single drop of it, fall into her mouth.

XXX

Tayuya felt like she was starting to regain her consciousness.

Up until now, all she felt was like she was floating into an endless space, where, outside of the fact she knew she was there, she didn't have any other senses.

This has gone for what felt like eternity to her, but then, she felt a sudden warmth which spread around her body, before she felt excruciating pain, unlike any she has felt before, and she was given the curse seal by Orochimaru.

Because of the pain, she finally lost the grip she had on her conscious, and blacked out completely.

She has no idea how long it's been since that moment, but now, she can feel herself lying on something soft, she thought it must be a bed. She could also hear some noise in the background, though it wasn't so loud as to be annoying. Finally, she felt that there is something different about her, she just didn't know what it was.

She opened her eyes, slowly, as to adjust to the light, and because she was in a coma for a few days, which made her feel very tired and sluggish.

Through the bleary sight, she looked around, trying to figure out where she was. The first thing she noticed, is that she was in a normal looking room, and lying on the bed, as she previously thought. Then, she realized that this is not one of the rooms in Orochimaru's lair, as they are all underground and thus, dark, while the room she is in, has a small window, which is letting a good amount of sunlight enter it.

Before Tayuya could see anything else in the room, which would help her figure out where she is, she heard a voice. "I see you are finally awake," the voice said, startling Tayuya in the process, and making her look toward where it came from. "It's about time. It was getting boring just seating here."

The voice has instantly cleared her eyesight, thus, allowing Tayuya to see Naruto, who was currently seating on an armchair, across from the bed she was lying on.

The moment her eyes laid on Naruto and she took in his form and smirking face, she blushed, heavily. This didn't escape Naruto, whose smirk widened.

"Oh, is little Tayuya, blushing just from seeing little old me?" Naruto teased Tayuya, whose blush widened for a moment, before her eyes flared in rage.

"Shut up, you cocksucker," Tayuya exploded at Naruto! "And who the hell are you!?"

Naruto's smirk vanished in an instant, only to be replaced by a scowl and narrowed eyes. The look on his face made Tayuya recoil a little in fright.

"Listen to me carefully, Tayuya," Naruto said in even voice, not projecting any anger whatsoever, but Tayuya knew better then to assume he is not angry. "Orochimaru and your old buddies might have tolerated your foul language… but I will not. Do you understand?" Naruto's words were laced with power, which scared the shit out of Tayuya, who nodded her head, vigorously. Naruto's calm tone and the threat reminded Tayuya far too much of Orochimaru, and she knew better then to anger Orochimaru, otherwise she will find herself on an experiment table. With Naruto on the other hand, she doesn't know what to expect, so potentially, he is even worse then Orochimaru, especially since she can feel the power rolling off of him in waves and pressing on her whole body. It was suffocating.

Tayuya gulped, and then politely asked, being careful not to utter some foul word, or who knows what might happen. "Who are you? Where am I? And what happened to me?"

Naruto looked Tayuya in the eyes, for a few moments, before he sighed. "You can call me, Alessandro Starrk…" here, Tayuya interrupted him.

"Is that your real name?" She asked because it sounded strange to her that Naruto said, 'you can call me', instead of just saying 'my name is'.

"No!" Naruto simply said, and Tayuya gave him a deadpan look. "My real name is not important, so as I said, call me Alessandro Starrk.

"We are currently in an inn, in a small town, not far from where I found you, as for what happened to you… well, you got your ass handed to you by the heir of the Nara Clan, and the daughter of the late Fourth Kazekage. They almost killed you, and you would have died if I didn't find you and saved you."

When Naruto said what happened to her, Tayuya's memories resurfaced, and she remembered the battle she was in against the shadow bastard, before that sand whore joined in and blew her with that thrice damned, Wind Jutsu of hers.

The last thing she remembered, was the unbelievable pain in her legs, which at that point were pressed under the several tons of weight from the trees which were destroyed by Temari's wind jutsu. She remembered how she used most of the chakra she had left and redirected it into her heart and brain, leaving barely anything for the rest of her body. This has almost completely shut down the rest of her body, though. She did that in order to survive as long as possible, and hoped that someone will find her and save here from dying. Apparently, someone did find her.

Tayuya then looked at herself, and at her legs, which she can move normally. In fact, she felt so good, that if she didn't know better, she would have thought that nothing happened to her and that it was all a dream.

"H-How are my legs all healed," Tayuya asked? "They were buried under that rubble of trees, and there is no way to heal something like that. Not even Orochimaru's former teammate, Tsunade Senju would be able to heal my legs."

Naruto smirked a little. "I never said I healed you… did I? This made Tayuya even more confused and made her want to rage and swear to hell and back, but managed to hold her tongue.

"Then who did?" She asked.

"You weren't healed, Tayuya," Naruto said. "You were... reconstructed."

"What the FUCK does that mean!?" Tayuya shouted, before she realized that she swore, and clapped her hand over her mouth, while looking at Naruto's narrowed eyes, with her wide and fearful ones.

Naruto decided to forget about her slip-up, and focused on explaining to Tayuya what he did to her and what she is right now.

It took him a few minutes, but Naruto was finally finished with his explanation, and was now looking at Tayuya, who had a blank look on her face.

The silence lasted for about five minutes, before Tayuya took a deep breath, and looked at Naruto. "So, what am I right now?"

"You are just like me," Naruto said. "Half human, half hollow. Because of that, you now have two forms of power. One is chakra, while the other is called Reiryoku. As such, you need training to be able to separate them and use them, since ninja techniques wouldn't work if you mix Reiryoku into them by accident. The same goes for hollow techniques, which won't work with chakra.

"Do you understand?"

Tayuya nodded, confirming that she understood, though she was having a hard time believing in everything Naruto, or Alessandro, as he doesn't want to tell her his real name, has told her.

Tayuya has always thought that the world she knew is very big and that there is already too much unbelievable stuff in it, so there is no way that there is something even more unbelievable. Right?

She was wrong, and now she knows about it. She did wonder if there is someone else in the EN, who actually knows about everything that Naruto told her, or are the two of them the only of their kind and the only ones who know about Soul Reapers and Hollows, in all the EN. She also wondered about, how Alessandro became what he is, since that is something he didn't tell her, and refuses to tell her. At least for now.

Tayuya sighed, and looked at Naruto. "What now?"

"We are staying here until tomorrow, so that you can get used to your new self," Naruto said, "and then, we are heading to Tanzaku-gai, so that I can make some money."

Tayuya looked at Naruto with raised eyebrows, and asked. "Why Tanzaku-gai? What do you actually do to get money? You never mentioned that, and I doubt you are a ninja affiliated with any village."

"Hm… I was affiliated to a village until not that long ago," Naruto said, surprising Tayuya as he said that. "But I'm not anymore, which means that I need to get money however I can, especially now that you are with me.

"The money I used to pay for this room, was the money I… liberated, from the corpses of some bandits I run into on the way here," Naruto said with a straight face, making Tayuya shudder because of how cold he sounded when he said that. "I divided that money in two groups. One for the food and other expenses for the next two weeks, while two more weeks' worth of money, I will use inside of some gambling halls in Tanzaku-gai."

"But why gamble what little money you have," Tayuya asked? "There is no way for you to know that you will actually make some money in the gambling houses and not lose everything. Why not keep it, and we can search for some rogue ninja for bounties?"

"That might take a while," Naruto said. "We don't even know where to begin to look, and how long it will take. On the other hand, I'm VERY lucky when it comes to gambling. I guess you can say that, all the bad luck I had in life was balanced by the good luck I had in gambling.

"Also, it will take a while for you to learn to control your new powers, and until that happens, I don't want you to battle against anyone and risk dying, after I went through the trouble of all but reviving you."

Tayuya was taken aback by Naruto's words, as she didn't think he actually cares about her. Then again, he did mention during his earlier explanation, that they are cousins, as he is half Uzumaki, just like she is.

"Fine," she finally said. "I need you to do something for me, before we leave this place, though."

Naruto rose his eyebrows in interest. "What do you need?" He asked.

"Orochimaru has spies everywhere," she said. "Which is why, I need a disguise to hide my face, so that he won't find out that I'm alive, since, I'm assuming he thinks I'm dead, as I have never returned to Sound Village, and he can feel the curse mark on all those he placed it on. Now that it is gone, after the reconstruction, he will most definitely think I'm dead, but it's still better to hide for a while, just in case."

"I wouldn't worry about Orochimaru, if I were you," Naruto said. "He won't be able to get to you, without going through me first. But, if you wish to hide for a while, then I will try to find you something else to wear, and some mask for your face."

Tayuya was very surprised by the fact that 'Alessandro', doesn't seem to be afraid of Orochimaru. She knew exactly how powerful the snake-pedo is, and as such, is wondering if 'Alessandro', is not afraid because he is that strong, or because he is severely overestimating himself, and underestimating Orochimaru.

Whichever of the two is, she is sure that one day, maybe even very soon, she will find out. She can only hope that 'Alessandro', really is as strong as he makes himself to be, because if he isn't, and Orochimaru gets his hands on her… well, she would rather die, then end up as an experiment for Orochimaru and his butt-buddy, Kabuto.

With their conversation finished, for now, Naruto left to get some food for Tayuya, since she hasn't eaten anything in nearly five days, and is probably starving. Tayuya stayed in bed, as Naruto told her not to get up for a little while longer, to allow her body to adjust to the changes in went through.

Naruto is going to keep his real name a secret for a while, so I chose a different name for him. Alessandro is based on Dordoni Alessandro Del Socaccio, one of Privaron Espada, while Starrk is Coyote Starrk's last name. I chose those two because they go nicely together, compared to some others I could do.

Naruto discovered his luck in gambling when he was in Tanzaku-gai with Jiraiya, Tsunade and Shizune. He made quite a lot of money during that time.

Tayuya's voice is the same as in the anime. Voiced by Kari Wahlgren.