It was the day after Deloria, a demon of Zeref freed by an edgy teenager named Lyon, a sibling pupil of Grey, had been finally put down by the combined efforts of Grey, Natsu and Erza, and the five members of Fairy Tail Lucy and a curious blue flying cat named Happy included along the journey back home. Also included in this list was the mysterious blond stranger whose name they didn't yet know, but tagged along at the insistence of Natsu and Erza, though Erza's insistence was much more consistent with blackmail and threats.
Naruto Uzumaki stood near the bow of the boat taking in the calm seas, leaning into the rails and using his hands to support his head. Upon further inspection it was obvious his eyes were glazed as he was oblivious to the world around him.
'We've been sealed away for over four hundred years.' the blond jinchuuriki thought silently to his life long partner. The fox, Kurama listened intently and quietly as Naruto felt the sorrow at the thought of losing another loved one, this one cutting deeper than even the death of his master Jiraiya, or his comrade at arms Neji Hyuuga. 'Yet it was only the blink of an eye for me.'
"Us," the beast reminded the blond. "I rather liked the redhead, willing to look and befriend beyond her own kind. Reminds me of a certain airhead i know."
Naruto chuckled at the fox's attempt to lift up his spirit. Giving his companion a light smile, the jinchuuriki thanked Kurama, before he frowned deeply, 'Erza is almost a perfect clone of Irene. But is as talented as her father was in swordsmanship.'
"That's a serious assumption you're making there, Naruto." Kurama stated through narrowed eyes, Naruto frowned, 'the whiskers are no coincidence. Plus, the fact Natsu is somehow still here, it is a wild guess, but I'm certain of it. I'd bet my estate on it if I still had it.'
The ninja frowned a little further, 'In fact, do you remember when Irene took some of our chakra?'
The tailed beast remained silent afterwards.
The time displaced ninja was called back to reality when Erza came up to him, and stated, "You never told us your name."
"Naruto," the blond answered easily, "Naruto Uzumaki. Warrior by nature, pacifist at heart."
"You are… odd Naruto Uzumaki," The redhead teen stated as she looked at him with an odd look, to which said oddball replied with a toothy grin and a remark, pointing a thumb at himself, "There's a reason in my time I was the number one unpredictable ninja!"
"So, is there no way we could be related?" Erza asked, still holding onto a dim glimmer of hope.
Naruto turned to the sea, thinking of an answer, before a distant, almost forgotten memory came back to him in full force. Erza saw him give the sea a ghost of a smile before he spoke. "There was this old man in the village I was born in, long before I ever came to Dragnof, when I was just a fresh out of the academy..."
Erza listened with a frown on her face, so many things didn't make sense within that sentence, he looked not much older than her, and aside being sealed in stasis, there was no indication he was over the age of twenty.
Seeing that Naruto was waiting on her, she quickly apologized and listened to him attently, "I remember like it was yesterday, the idea of another war spreading throughout the continent was terrifying after losing 2 Hokage and suffering through a ninja war, and two direct attacks within the span of a decade. But amongst the chaos of reconstruction there was an old man, a carpenter, in search of two things, his grandson and to have a treasure hunt with said grandson.
"We met on a random night while eating at a ramen bar, he struck up a conversation, and even offered to pay for my ramen, and ever since he would be like a grandfather to me. But it didn't last, we were a ninja village, one of the five military powers of the continent, and his cover was off, he was a spy.
"The entire ninja force was mobilized from the greenest genin like myself to the most cut throat black ops we had. He was an enemy ninja, but not just any enemy ninja, he was of one of the village we last warred against, and their defeat came at the hands of my father, though i didn't know who he was then, my father was a very hated man outside our borders for his actions that brought us the very same victory."
"To make a long story short, turns out that while he had infiltrated the village to finish what he started in the war, our meeting gave him a change of hearts, and instead, he got his last wishes as a dying Shinobi, he met his grandson and had his last treasure hunt with him. Turns out I looked just like said grandson, but with whiskers." Laughs, "the old man died with a smile, he found what he was looking for, and I found one of the many people I would come to call precious, despite the history of war between our nations…"
"Just because we share a similar feature doesn't automatically mean we are related, but it doesn't stop us from finding family, I'm sure you know that well," Naruto's smile had widened, as he reflected on the story he just told.
Despite the morbid details of the story, Erza found herself smiling as well as she answered him "You're right. Thank you."
It was a short few days later they arrived in Magnolia town, Naruto had been in a bit of a shock seeing how vastly different Fiore was from both Dragnof and the Hidden leaf or any other place in the elemental nations for that matter.
Yet upon arriving in the city Naruto lost his relaxed state upon feeling the tension in the air, he didn't need Kurama to feel it, and his companions must have felt the same as the walk was silent and awkward through the city as they got pitying looks.
Soon enough, the group of half a dozen reached a destroyed building, which caused his travel companions to gasp in shock. Upon seeing the destroyed building the Guild members broke out into a sprint to find out what had happened to the building they had come to see as a second home, as they approached, their beloved bartender and former S-Rank mage came to greet them, "hey guys, the others are just in the basement." After the Blanchette finished speaking they followed her into the derelict guildhall and into the basement to meet with the Master and the others.
Once in the basement Natsu was the first to speak up, "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?" He shouted at assembled people and proceeded to go on a rant before Makarov smacked him and grumbled, "shut up brat, you're loud!"
"But gramps!" Natsu tried, hoping to reason with the old master.
Though not entirely interested in a backyard brawl, Naruto was surprised to hear from the presumed owner of the Guild, "We won't be retaliating, the guildhall can be rebuilt, why bother with cowards who attacked during midnight when we weren't here, not to mention the treaty that forbids all guild wars."
The old master took a swig from his canteen before he turned to the newcomer in the room, "Who are… follow me!"
"Wait, this conversation isn't over!" Natsu yelled, before he was met with the slitted eyes of the stranger that claimed to know him. Yet the feeling was extremely familiar to him, as he heard Naruto speak "Natsu! I know you were raised better than this, there's no point in fighting a useless conflict."
Everyone in the room noticed immediately how deflated and subdued the Dragonslayer became at the reprimand, especially Makarov, who filed the tidbit away about the man. after they reached the destroyed office where he wanted to talk to the blond in question, "so, are you here to join?" The old man questioned.
"That's one of the reasons, the other is that i want to put Erza's mind at ease about us being related, I already told her that she can't be related to me but I don't think she really believed me." The response threw the old man for a loop, because other than having whisker marks they had nothing in common looks wise, and the boy looked to be younger than her, albeit not by much.
"Well we can help with that, we have something of a doctor for the guild, she can perform the necessary tests to find out whether you and Erza are related." The old man told Naruto.
"Sounds good, the sooner we sort this out the better, because I really, really hope Irene didn't molest me in my sleep… actually that's just like her to do that…" the blond responded while rubbing the back of his with a sweat drop.
Makarov choked on his beer when he heard that last comment. "As a side note, how do you know Natsu?" He questioned.
Naruto chuckled lightly before answering, "I don't, I just know his dick brother and Igneel."
Taken aback Makarov can't help but ask, "Natsu has a brother?"
In response Naruto said, "It's best if we leave it, I'm still very angry with his brother so I'm going to be messing with Natsu for the foreseeable future in hopes of getting him out of hiding"
Laughing Makarov spoke up. "That's fine as long as there's no permanent injury, anyway we should get going, follow me."
It took Makarov, Naruto and Erza 45 minutes of walking to make it Porlyusica's cottage which was deep in forest when the old man made it to the door he knocked and what answered was an irate pink haired lady who's first words were, "why are you here, you know i hate humans, leave."
"We're actually here to get a paternity test done."
Makarov responded.
"Fine, Erza, blondie get your asses over here, this will be quick and I want you gone." The cranky old lady ordered.
After the duo let her get blood samples, (which she was way more forceful than required) they walked back over to the guild master.
It took about five minutes for the test to finish and when it did Porlyusica just looked confused about the results, finally speaking up she said, "well, I've never met two people so unrelated yet so perfectly matched, you don't even share the same common ancestor that all people are supposed to share, how is that even possible?... it doesn't matter, point is, despite being unrelated the structure of her D.N.A is almost identical to what it would be if she had been his child, the biggest similarity being the energy that was introduced to her pre-birth is near the same that floods his own magic."
"Well Irene did take a bunch of my magic at one point… guess this is what she meant to do with it." The blond mumbled.
Erza, who looked sad at the lost chance of having had a family member questioned in a disappointed tone "So we truly aren't related then?"
Seeing the sadness in her eyes, which reminded him of the day Hiruzen coldly crushed the dream of finding his own family, Naruto told her, putting a warm harm on top of her head, "Sadly, no. There was no way we could've been related, my clan was wiped out, and the rest of my people followed after after millennia of self destruction. I am quite literally the last of my kind. And trust me, when I first laid eyes on you I really wished you were my daughter, I love your mother more than I realized then, and trust me when I say, if she was still alive today. There would be Nothing stopping us now from being a family…"
Naruto paused for a moment, taking a good look at her whiskers, and it finally clicked to him what Irene had intended to do, "There's nothing that would stop me now from treating you like a daughter if you accept me as a father."
AN:(Aiden)
Sorry for the huge delay, i just completely lost interest in writing, mostly because of my current burn out on the source material of naruto just genuinely not being very good. As a side note please give Pel a huge thank you, if it wasn't for him i don't know when this update would come if at all, seriously he was a huge factor in motivating me. We are switching the schedule around a bit. Its gonna be two chapters per month, one on either the first of each month and the fifteenth or the fifteenth of each month and then the thirtieth of the month, of there is a preference let us know in the reviews and once more all criticism is good but needless hate will be ignored. We also will be pre writing incase either of us get burnt out on this. Seriously so sorry this happened, i can't promise we won't burn out but chapters will be made for that eventuality.
With the aforementioned done let's move onto the most common question, "what's the pairing?"
We have finally decided definitively what it is, from this chapter i can guess many have figured it out though, but we aren't gonna say just yet for those who haven't
Also I said before but really thank Pel so much, this really wouldn't have gotten done without him messaging me about it so much, so this chapter is for sure his baby, he's been waiting on it for ages.
AN2: (Pel) also, for instance something like this ever happens again we will try to work on as many chapters in advance so we can continue to update even in the event we aren't writing, I know Aiden just said it above. But we can't stress it enough. Creative Burnout can be a bitch.
Also, Yuki you absolute legend, you thought we wouldn't notice did you? Well played sir, well played.
(Black Clover and Naruto fans, let your peers know in the review)