"Talking"

'Thinking'

Flashback - "Talking"/ 'Thinking'

Chapter 5:

More than two months has passed since Naruto saved Tayuya and the two of them became traveling companions. While the two of them are cousins, they have been pretty much alone their entire lives, with no real family whatsoever, as Naruto's have died on the same night he was born, while Tayuya was too young when he parents died, so she barely has any memories of them.

Because of this, their agreement is that for now, they are going to be traveling companions, while their relationship is going be friends, and student and teacher type of relationship.

During the last two months, Naruto didn't change much, and was still the same. Tayuya on the other hand… well, she has changed a lot, starting with the outfit that Naruto commissioned to be made for her.

That day when Naruto went to get some food for himself and Tayuya, he also went and found a tailor, in the small town they were in. There, he found the material he wanted the outfit to be made off, and then, much to the confusion of the tailor, he drew the type of outfit he wants to be made for Tayuya. He also told the tailor the exact size for each piece of the suit, as he has apparently been able to size Tayuya up.

The ability to draw and size people up, is something Naruto got from Szayelaporro. Naruto was happy, that there was a part of him which turned out to be very smart, because drawing and sizing people up in any way, shape and form, was not something he was good at while he was still alive and a citizen of the Leaf Village. Maybe that's one of the reasons he ended up on the execution platform.

When Tayuya saw the finished outfit that Naruto ordered to be made for her, she almost blew her fuse, because the outfit is… well in one word… perverted.

She calmed down after a while, after Naruto was able to convince her that that outfit is going to make her sexy, which, deep down, she had nothing against, and will also help her in the battle, as even though it is not made to protect her body, it will serve as a distraction during a battle against guys.

The reason Naruto had Tayuya's outfit as he did, is because he wanted it to be similar to his, so he remembered the kind of outfits the female Arrancar's used to wear, while he was in Hueco Mundo, and picked the one he thought would be best suited for Tayuya.

XXX

Right now, Naruto and Tayuya were walking along the road, while all around them, there were fields, which people use for cultivating food. There were also small mountains and hills, here and there.

While Naruto looks as he did after the resurrection, Tayuya now has her hair in two pigtails, which reach down her back, and has an Oni Mask on her face, hiding it from everyone's sight. Tayuya's uniform includes a short, frilled skirt, white half-sleeves worn from the elbows down to the wrists, and what appears to be thigh-length black-colored, white-outlined boots. She wears white bracelets on her arms, and she also wears a white-colored, black-outlined material that ties around her neck, which reveals a fair portion of her stomach as well as her chest. (Basically, her uniform looks like Loly Aivirrne's)

Strapped on Tayuya's right hip, is a simple katana, which Naruto bought for her, so he can teach her Kenjutsu. After the transformation into a human/hollow hybrid, Tayuya didn't get any weapon, unlike Naruto, but Naruto doesn't actually know, if she will develop some special power over time, and gain some weapon, which is why he bought her a sword. There is a chance that if she awakens some powers, she will get another type of weapon, and not a sword, but if that happens, then Naruto will try to teach her how to use it.

While they were walking down the road, Naruto asked. "Remind me, why are we here in the Rice Country, when this is the land where Orochimaru's lair is, and you specifically said, that you don't want to go anywhere near him, thus, the mask on your face."

Tayuya looked at Naruto and groaned. "Didn't you say that you plan to revive the Uzumaki Clan, one day, and to rebuild the Land of Whirlpools," she asked him, and Naruto nodded? "Well, if you plan to rebuild the village, you need people who will live in it, which is why we are here."

"And there are people here who are willing to join us?" Naruto questioned.

"Yes," Tayuya said. "There is a Clan here, which was quite famous a while ago, but have, over time, fallen out of favor, so to say, and were surpassed by many other clans from other villages. The clan split into two factions where some of their most powerful members were tricked by Orochimaru, who promised to restore their clan's status, and were used in his kinjutsu development experiments. The other faction became involved in criminal activity and were considered traitors by the rest of the clan."

"Let me get this straight," Naruto said. "You want me, to invite 'criminals', to join the village I plan to build?"

"When you put it like that… it does sound strange and stupid," Tayuya said. "But you need to understand that those, criminals, didn't have much of a choice. The Land of Rice Paddies is not like the Land of Fire, or some other countries. The Daimyo is corrupt and power hungry, and even before Orochimaru came, people have suffered here. In fact, the reason Orochimaru even built a hidden village here, is because of how power and money hungry the Daimyo is. Just like with the Fūma Clan, Orochimaru promised him everything the Daimyo wanted to hear, and was allowed to build a village. Of course, Orochimaru never intended to keep his word in the first place, and plans to dispose of the Daimyo when the time is right.

"The faction of the Fūma Clan which didn't join Orochimaru, didn't have anything else to do, but to resort to stealing, thievery, blackmail and such. They can't survive in any other way, except to be criminals, or to pack up and move to another country, and even that wouldn't be easy, because if they are caught by Orochimaru's man, or Daimyo's samurai, they would be declared traitors, and then they would be executed, at best, or taken by Orochimaru for experimenting, at worst.

Naruto groaned. "Why am I even going through with this," he murmured slowly. "I should just wipe out the EN, and be done with this shit."

Even though he was talking quietly, Naruto's words were heard by Tayuya, whose eyes widened for a moment, before she looked at him with both curiosity and fear in her eyes.

Naruto saw the look in her eyes, and realized that she heard him, which made him groan again, and shake his head a little.

"Fine," Naruto said. "We will go and have a talk with, whoever is the head of that clan. After that, we will see what happens."

Tayuya nodded her head, and looked ahead of herself, but she was deep in thought about what she heard Naruto say. 'What was that all about? Would he really destroy all of the EN? Can he even do that?'

From then on, the two of them continued to walk in silence.

XXX

Naruto and Tayuya found themselves standing in front of the gate, surrounding the town… if it can even be called that, and not a wasteland of run-down houses and barely any people.

"So this is the place where the remnants of the Fūma Clan live at," Naruto commented as he looked at the town, through the opened gate. "Not much of a place, is it?"

Tayuya sighed. "Unfortunately, many of the towns in the Land of Rice Paddies, are like this. This country was a home to many shinobi clans, who had been used in a hopeless war, with the clans suffering heavily. Members of the Fūma Clan are not the only ones who joined Orochimaru. Many of the surviving clans, have joined Orochimaru, lured by his power to help them revive their clans.

"With most of the ninja clans now being in Sound Village, the rest of the towns are only left with civilians, and barely any ninja, which caused an even greater poverty then there was before."

"If there are so many clans here in this land, then why did you only want me to invite Fūma Clan to join my village, and not a members of some other clans?" Naruto asked.

"Because there are barely any left of all those clans," Tayuya said. "As I said, majority of the ninja clans from the Land of Rice Paddies, have perished in the wars between each other, and what was left has joined Orochimaru and his Sound Village. Few who didn't join Orochimaru don't have a fixed location, as far as I know. They are constantly on the run because they know that sooner or later, Orochimaru will come after them, and once he does, he will not give them a choice to join his forces as a ninja, but will use them in his sick experiments, and that is something nobody wants, trust me on that."

"Hm," Naruto hmed, before he looked away from Tayuya, and to the town. "Let's see what we can do with the Fūma Clan, and then we can continue to talk about Orochimaru's forces. I'm really curious to find out how powerful his village and forces are, and what kind of experiments he is performing in that hole."

"Wait," Tayuya called after Naruto, as he was about to pass through the gate and enter into the town. Hearing Tayuya's call, Naruto stopped, and turned around to look at her, with raised eyebrows.

"What?" He asked.

"I never said that the Fūma Clan is in this town," Tayuya said with a sweat-drop on her face.

When he heard what Tayuya said, Naruto narrowed his eyes and glared at her. Tayuya flinched, and looked away from Naruto. "If they are not here," Naruto spoke in a low tone of voice. "Then where are they, and why are we here if they are not?"

"Well…" Tayuya tried to say, but the glare she was getting from Naruto, was sending shivers through her body. "You see, there is still about two days of walking until we reach the town where the Fūma Clan is, so I thought that, since it's already nearing the end of the day, we should make a stop here, and sleep indoors, instead of camping out."

Naruto continued to look at Tayuya with narrowed eyes for a little while, making her squirm under his gaze. After about a minute, he sighed, and said. "Fine. But next time, tell me your plans a little bit earlier. I don't like surprises. Do you understand?"

Tayuya nodded quickly, and then followed after Naruto as they both passed through the gate.

XXX

Naruto and Tayuya were walking down the dusty road, in what looked like an abandoned town.

All around them, were mostly ruined houses, with some of them completely ruined and uninhabitable, and barely few of them can be used for anything.

As they were walking, they noticed that there are some people in the town, but they were all hiding behind the walls of the houses, so that they wouldn't be noticed. That would have worked on normal civilians, and low level ninja, but Naruto and Tayuya were none of the two, so they noticed them even before they passed through the town's gate.

"Is there even a place where we can spend the night, in this dump?" Naruto asked with a frown.

"Well, I don't really know," Tayuya admitted. "I've never really been here, and only heard about this place and several others like this one, throughout the Land of Rice Paddies."

Naruto sighed again. "Let's just see in that place over there," Naruto pointed to one of the less run-down places in the town.

The two of them soon found themselves passing through the door of the house, only to see that it is not a house at all, but instead, a bar… or at least it looks like a bar from the inside.

Naruto and Tayuya stood at the inside of the bar, and were looking at the place they just entered. All they could see is that the place doesn't look much better than the rest of the town, and that the only people inside are several woman, all but one of which are looking to be in their twenties, while the last one, the one of the two who are standing behind the bar counter, seems to be middle-aged.

"Well, hello there, strangers," the oldest woman in the bar said as soon as she saw Naruto and Tayuya.

"Would you look at these two," said the woman with red hair, who was seating on one of the seats next to another woman with purple hair.

"They sure look interesting," said the purple haired woman. "Though I'm getting bad wide from them," she frowned. "There is just something strange about them, and I'm not talking about their cloths."

Naruto and Tayuya looked at each other, and both sighed. "Let's seat down, and see what they have to offer," Tayuya suggested. "It's not like there is something better to do, and we can ask about accommodations, while getting some food at the same time."

Naruto shrugged, and walked toward one of many free booths, and set down, with Tayuya seating right next to him.

They ordered some food as soon as the oldest woman in the joint came and asked what they want. After that, they ate, as much as possible, since the food as nothing special, but at least it's better than one would think after they see how the place looks like.

"Hey," Naruto called to the lady who works in the bar, and she approached them.

"How may I be of help?" She asked with a wide smile, which Naruto and Tayuya noticed right away is full of greed and is only there to make customers drop their pants, so to say, after which, both Naruto and Tayuya knew nothing good would happen.

"We are wondering if there is an inn or something like that in this town, so we can spend the night." Naruto questioned.

"Well, unfortunately, we don't have any inn or hotel in this town," the woman frowned. "But, I'm sure I can find something that would suit you," she was again wearing a large smile on her face. "But while I look for a place for you to stay, would you be interested in some fun with our ladies over there?"

Naruto and Tayuya looked at the woman with raised eyebrows, not believing what they were being asked. The two then looked at each other, before Naruto said. "Sorry, but I'm not interested."

The woman raised an eyebrow, as she was surprise that Naruto would so quickly dismiss her offer. She tried to remember when was the last time a male entered into her joint, and refused the services of one or more of her girls… she failed to remember after a full minute of trying.

Tayuya was also surprised that Naruto refused to have some fun with the whores in this town, but then she remembered that they have been traveling together for about two months, and even though she is wearing an extremely sexy outfit, Naruto never even once looked at her in an inappropriate way. It made her wonder if Naruto might actually be homosexual. She looked over him, and sighed 'Damn, that would be a waste of a good man, if he turns out to be gay.' Tayuya thought in her head.

The bar owner, shrugged eventually, and turned around, before she went to the bar counter, and took a check. She went back to the booth, and handed it to Naruto, who took one look at the check, and immediately noticed that it has a whole lot of zeros more than it should.

"You know," Naruto said, drawing the attention of everyone in the bar. "I was expecting that someone would try to rip me off in this place, but at least I was thinking they will try to be subtle about it. This on the other hand… this is ridiculous."

Naruto then lifted his eyes from the check, and looked at the woman who gave it to him, with a look in his eyes, which almost made her piss herself in fear.

XXX

Fifteen minutes later, Naruto and Tayuya were walking away from the small run-down town. Naruto had a scowl on her face, while Tayuya was just looking at the ground in front of her as she was walking few steps behind Naruto.

"I'm sorry," Tayuya mumbled as she was walking. Naruto stopped for a moment, and looked at her.

"What for?" He asked.

"For bringing you here," she replied. "We should have just slept outside and then continued to search for the Fūma Clan in the morning."

Naruto looked at Tayuya without saying anything, for about a minute, before he sighed. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Thought next time, warn me about your plans in advance."

"Ok." Tayuya said with a slight smile on her face, before the two continued to walk.

They walked for another minute, before Naruto suddenly stopped, turned around and looked back at the village, from the top of the hill he and Tayuya were currently on.

"You know what," Naruto said. "I think this is a perfect opportunity to show you another technique, which all Arrancar can use."

Tayuya looked at Naruto with wide eyes in disbelief. "What? Now! Here!" She shouted.

"Yes," Naruto said. "That town is an eyesore… I should do something about it. Don't you think?"

Without waiting for Tayuya to say anything, Naruto jumped up into the air, and stood on air. He motioned to Tayuya to come near him, and she did, so now, they were both standing on air, outside of the run-down town, filed with scum of the earth.

"The technique I will show you is called, Cero," Naruto said. "Now, there are several variations of Cero. There is normal Cero, which can be used by all hollows from Gillian Class and above, then there are many different variations, all depending on the user, and can only be used by that user. For example, you might achieve a variation of Cero which is unique to you, and which I won't be able to use. I have several of those, though, and you wouldn't be able to use them, so I won't bother to teach them to you.

"Finally, there is Gran Rey Cero, which could only be used by the strongest Arrancar's. Right now, you are not at the level where you could use it, but one day, you might be, so I will show it to you, so that you could see what you will be able to do if you reach a certain level of power."

Tayuya just stood on air, and carefully listened to what Naruto was saying. She didn't want to miss anything, since she was excited to learn this new technique, especially since she has already learned several others, and was over the moon, with how good they are, and how powerful she got in just two months of training with those techniques.

"Any other Cero can be fired without much preparations or trouble," Naruto started to speak again, while at the same time, he bit the thumb of his right hand. "But with Gran Rey Cero, you actually need to infuse a little bit of your blood, for it to work. Sort of like a Summoning Jutsu. Do you understand?" Tayuya nodded, so Naruto continued.

"After that, you push the hand with the blood on it, forward, and put your fingers in a way that they are all bent slightly and the tips pointing straight. Then you push Reiryoku in front of that hand, and form it into a ball…" from here, Naruto just formed a blue orb of destruction, with the middle of it, being whitish. The ball was spinning like a razor as it compresses and decompresses due to the sheer speed and raw power of it.

Once the ball was finally ready, Naruto fired it at the middle of the town.

Tayuya watched in shock and horror, as the ball hit the ground in the middle of the town, and exploded, causing an explosion of catastrophic proportion, which completely engulfed the town in a giant dome of blue and white energy of destruction.

The dome must have been a kilometer in height, and has engulfed not only the town, but the large portion of the surrounding area. Even outside of the dome, there was destruction, as the ground broke, and deep trenches have been forming and spreading far into the distance. The trees have been uprooted and were set flying all over the area, from the shockwave, and many trees have fallen into the trenches, whose bottom can't even be seen by Naruto and Tayuya, who were high into the air and above the dome.

When it was all over, the results of the destruction were greater than if the Nine-Tails has thrown a Tailed Beast Bomb on this place.

Where once stood a town, which can be considered a scar on the face of the Earth, now there is no reason for consideration... because there really is a scar on the face of the earth.

The crater which was created by the explosion, looks like it's probably around five kilometers in radius and almost 200 meters in depth. Around the crater, there were many cracks in the ground, which seem to go forever in both length and depth. The surrounding forest has been almost completely obliterated by the force of the explosion, and Tayuya, who was looking at the destruction, could have sworn that some of the hills, have actually decreased in height, as if they have sunk underground for a few meters.

Tayuya looked away from the ground, and toward Naruto, with eyes wide opened in disbelief, fear, awe and every other sort of emotion one can think of. She immediately noticed a frown on Naruto's face, and it made her wonder, why the hell is he frowning. She also couldn't help but think about all the people who were in the town, and who were just completely obliterated by Naruto. She wondered if Naruto even feels some guilt by killing all of those people, and if they have truly deserved to die like this, even though they were criminals.

The look on Naruto's face, though, didn't seem like the look on the face of the one who feels any sort of guild whatsoever.

"Hm," Naruto hmed. "This is not nice." He then pulled his sword from the sheet, and pointed it upwards, toward the sky.

The moment Tayuya saw Naruto pull out his sword, she almost had a heart attack, because this is the first time she actually saw him pull out that sword, and it made her wonder what kind of destruction can he cause with it, if he can change landscapes with his bare hands.

Suddenly, Naruto's sword was surrounded in light blue color, and then there was a stream of water flying over the sword, and coiling around like a serpent. "Cascada!" Naruto said, and brought the sword downward toward the crater.

The water followed after the sword, and a huge pillar of water rushed down and struck into the crater, before it started to flow around and fill the crater. Once it reached the trenches, it started to fill them as well.

Naruto held this for about a minute, during which he has created millions of gallons of water, which has filled the crater and trenches, thus, creating an artificial lake and several dozen rivers connected to the lake.

Naruto smirked at his handiwork, and re-sheeted his sword, before he looked at Tayuya's dumbfounded face. "What!" He asked with a small smirk on his face.

"What the hell are you!?" Tayuya asked.

Naruto's smirk widened for a moment, before he said. "I'm no different than you are. You will realize that soon enough."

Naruto then came back down to the ground, followed by Tayuya, and the two of them continued on their way toward the town where Fūma Clan is currently living.

As they were walking, Naruto cast the look at two different places, where he has noticed that there are some people, and while he recognized the chakra signatures of one group, as belonging to those woman from the bar, who have run away after he disposed of the brutes they summoned to rob him, he didn't recognized the chakra signature of the lone person who was on the other side of the road, hiding behind some bush.

He was tempted for a second to kill all of them, so that they won't blab about what happened here to anyone… but in the end, he decided not to do it, and let them live. For now, anyway.