"Darkness comes. Many lie down to sleep. Some do not get up again."
Naruto shuddered at the memory of one of the first things that Kokuō had ever told him. He'd just turned six when he became aware of her presence, and they were soon fast friends. There were times where he wondered if he and his Bijuu could ever be more than friends, but then common sense took over and forced him to question how exactly that would work itself out. Even with the blood running in his veins that caused him to live well over three hundred years, he didn't know if that would be enough time. Perhaps he should've joined Uncle Orochimaru in his pursuit of perfect immortality. Nah, he'd just be another Kabuto. He could live without that.
There was banging at the front door that ripped him from Naruto from his thoughts. The banging became more and more violent, the wooden door soon splintering and breaking.
'Those bastards…' Naruto thought. 'How dare those fucks break down someone's door like they own it!'
Granted his mother often did it when his Uncle Jiraiya got too handsy, but technically it wasn't her breaking it. She simply punched the everloving life out of the Toad Sage and sent him crashing into and through the nearest construct. If it wasn't one of Orochimaru's Rashomon -which Naruto had been privy to on that particular day- it was a ceiling or door. Naruto sighed and ceased arguing semantics with himself as he returned to the issue at hand.
Behind him, Tsunami held Inari close to her, while the boy held a loaded crossbow in his hands. He was ready to protect the woman who held onto him with the intent of taking whatever blow would come their way as she turned to protect him.
It reminded him briefly of his sister that would hold him close whenever his mother went on her bi-weekly rampage. Hopefully he missed the one that no doubt almost leveled most of Konoha. Hell, he'd be surprised if there was even a Konoha left by the time he and his team returned. If there was, it wouldn't be that way long once she learned of his… brief moment of martyr-like stupidity.
"Out of the way, brat." the taller of the two men tried to push past Naruto and scowled with the boy didn't budge an inch.
Instead, the blonde stepped on his foot and loosed an uppercut into the man's stomach. Naruto had seen his mother liquify someone's insides before, but as he did and the man expelled horrid smelling viscera in the form of crimson liquid, he could only say that it felt weird. The man crumpled into a lifeless heap in his own liquified innards.
"Fix the damn door." he said, only to facepalm moments afterwards.
He killed the man before he told them to…
'For fuck's sake.' he thought. 'Ko-chan, I'm a failure.'
The snickering at the edge of his consciousness let him know that she found his plight entertaining. The other man standing in the broken door shook in terror. He thought that the blonde boy was nothing more than the bitch's bastard son, but he only knew he was wrong when cold blue eyes rested on his own. Before he could turn and run, a hand wrapped tightly around his throat.
"Now here's the fun part," Naruto said with a sadistic smile. "You're going to answer my two questions truthfully and I'm going to kill you. Blink twice if you understand."
"Don't you mean 'or', Naruto-kun?"
Naruto ignored the teasing tone as the man obeyed, blinking twice before he felt both his colon and bladder relieve themselves simultaneously. The killing intent the blonde emanated through eye contact alone was unlike anything the disgraced samurai had come across before. It was both humbling and beyond terrifying.
"Where is Gato?"
The simple fact that the boy's voice was so calm when his eyes promised a fate worse than the man he killed moments prior was even more nightmare inducing than the look in his eyes. The man resolved himself to, if he somehow survived this encounter, return to the Land of Iron and beg Mifune-dono's forgiveness.
"O-On his way to the b-bridge." he stammered out.
Naruto nodded. "And why were you and your friend here?"
"W-We were just following orders. T-To get the bridge builder's family and bring them back to the bridge."
Naruto nodded and tightened his grip on the man's throat, forcing his mouth to open wider. The blonde licked his lips and did the one thing he'd been dying to do since the day before the bell test.
"Ninja Art: Poison Mist." he exhaled, blowing a dense purple fog directly into the man's open mouth and nostrils before he released his grip.
The disgraced samurai inhaled greedily, taking in as much oxygen as he could. His body seized up immediately, frozen and trembling. Naruto knew that it felt like every single cell within the man's body was simultaneously melting and being pierced. As the man struggled to breathe, Naruto conjured two shadow clones and hooked his thumb in the direction of the corpse still in the house.
"Please clean that up and protect them until we get back."
The clones gave crisp salute with a broad grin. "You got it, boss."
With a wink to the mother and son, who were looking at him as though he were Kami incarnate, Naruto vanished.
"I see that blonde brat of yours is gone." Zabuza grinned viciously. "I still have a bone to pick with him."
Kakashi said nothing, struggling to hold his ground against the Missing-Nin, his kunai grinding against the sword. None of his usual tricks were working. It was as though their brief battle opened his mind to the mind games the Sharingan wielder normally employed to gain the upper hand.
"I'll admit," Zabuza continued as he blocked a punch from the other man. "I felt a little bad for the brat taking the blade to the chest. In fact, I was hoping to get you."
The Konoha-Nin scowled, having figured as much already. Something felt off. Acting off basest instinct, Kakashi backflipped away the exact moment that a shock of blonde made itself known.
"Boil Release: Unrivalled Strength." Zabuza eyed Kakashi wearily, thinking it was another one of the other man's mind games. "Heavenly Spear Kick."
Snap!
Zabuza arched his back involuntarily, the force of the blow forcing the grip on his blade to fade entirely. The sensation of the attack was bizarre; it was instant pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before, but in a flash it was gone and he couldn't feel anything below the waist. The older man's body was flung like a ragdoll, rolling across the bridge and landing at Kakashi's feet. He's breathing was erratic, his face contorted with both pain and confusion. Truthfully speaking, Haku had been telling him to just forget the job. His tool had a sinking suspicion that this would be, perhaps, their last mission. Even now, as he stared up at the shocked and pitiful gaze of Kakashi of the Sharingan, he thought that he should've taken Haku's advice.
"Zabuza-sama!" the roar was furious, a cry that held deepest emotion for the owner of the name.
The dome of mirrors made from crystalized ice chakra immediately crumbled, revealing Sasuke who looked like a pin cushion and figure in a Kiri Hunter-Nin mask. In a burst of speed, the masked-nin abandoned the unmoving Uchiha and appeared before Naruto. In both hands, the shinobi held three senbon in between the spaces of their fingers. They were fast. Lightning chakra coated Naruto's right hand, and as he ducked the initial attack, he touched the back of the masked-nin's neck.
"Body Pathway Derangement." Naruto allowed the lightning chakra to attack the other shinobi's nervous system, rearranging the signals of the body.
The masked-nin fell, as their feet didn't seem to follow whatever directions given. Instead, they struggled to even move properly. Naruto walked up and removed the porcelain mask as Sakura rushed over to Sasuke. He gasped.
"Haku," Naruto muttered, though part of him wasn't surprised. Having met literally everyone that was a citizen, she was the only one -aside from the smattering of thugs and bandits that he put in the ground- that he couldn't recognize. Even still, he thought nothing of helping her pick herbs for her 'friend's' well-being. "Please, just stay still. I don't want to kill you."
She glared at him with a look of deepest loathing, a look that he returned backed by monstrous killing intent. Her glare was immediately replaced by the look of fear as the killing intent worthy of tailed beast washed over her. Naruto didn't take too kindly to being glared at. Only two people were immune, four if he counted his teammates. He seldom did.
There was a slow clapping as a group of some five hundred men joined the shinobi on the bridge. Each of the men wielded a weapon; a sword, axe, a length of chain. Naruto giggled to himself at his luck - now the people he was coming across were definitely utilizing chain so that he could add more and more to the jutsu he more or less created the night before he met Haku.
"Well, well, well." the short man in a rather fancy suit and shades said. "What-"
Naruto, cool and collected, picked up Zabuza's sword. It had a nice weight to it, ensuring that no weakling would be able to wield it. With a look of utmost jubilation, he looked to his sensei.
"Okay, this is going to be some of the most fun I've had." he snickered as steam began to erupt from his body once more.
Kakashi began to wonder what the boy meant before he turned the blade in hand, holding it in a reverse grip. With his left hand, he held up a one handed ram seal and smiled at the solid clone that appeared with its own broad grin.
"Go long," said the original as he threw the sword like a spear, his Boil Release enhanced strength making it act as a projectile fired from a cannon.
There was more steam as the clone raced forward in a blur of white and yellow. The shluck let Naruto know that he hit his target, since Gato was at the front of his group of three hundred. The little man was skewered on the blade of the Kubikiribōchō, his blood being absorbed the weapon. The blonde clone appeared at Gato's flank and grabbed the hilt of the sword before the force with which it was thrown could take now dead man off of his feet.
"Ninja Art: Poison Mist."
When Naruto's clone returned to his side, he roared an exhale, a dense purple fog engulfing the small army of three hundred. Immediately, the bandits and former samurai started coughing and dropping, one by one, then ten by ten until they'd all hit the floor.
'Well that was anticlimactic.' he thought. 'I would have expected at least one of them to hold their breath. Dumb asses. What do you think, Ko-chan?'
The scoff at the back of his mind was his answer. He chuckled and turned back to the group. Sakura was happy that Sasuke was okay though she looked rather fearfully at the blonde, while Sasuke looked put off at the display of a jutsu that he'd never heard of. Either that, or he was upset that Haku managed to show him a true elite. Kakashi, Haku, and Zabuza were gobsmacked at the boy that had the Kubikiribōchō resting on his shoulder with Gato impaled on it.
"Naruto-nii!"
The whole of the Land of Wave stood before them, armed and ready to war. This, of course, was before Naruto swung the sword and relieved it of the now lifeless body of the miniscule tyrant at their feet. They stared at him, then the corpse, then back to him. All jaws were dropped.
"You're free." he smiled.
A month.
That was how long her baby had been away from home. Tsunade sighed, which was quickly followed by a sigh from Shizune. They both missed the little ball of sunshine dearly. They knocked on the door to the Hokage's office.
"Come in." the buxom blonde and her apprentice entered before catching sight of Team Seven and the bright, goofy grin on the face of the blonde. "Ah, Tsunade, Shizune-chan. Come in and hear about the exploits of Team Seven."