p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"#Naruto #FairyTail #ANBU!Naruto #Hurt!Naruto #Immortal!Naruto #Asexual!Naruto #Traumatized!Naruto #Brotherly!Naruto #Badass!Naruto #Sensei!Naruto #Agender!Naruto #Scary!Naruto #Fatherly!Naruto #Smart!Natsu #Badass!Natsu #DragonSlayerFamily #ShikaNaru #ShikamaruxNaruto/span/p
h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 16pt; margin-bottom: 4pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #434343; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Chapter 7/span/h3
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It had only been a day or two since the group had left the village they had called home for a year. Naruto had wanted to get as far away as possible from the village as fast as possible so he had taken all of the kid's luggage and sealed them in scrolls that he then sealed in his arm, grabbed the kids with clones, and took off. He hadn't slowed until Shi had started to wake at sundown for the second day. Naruto stopped and carefully made his way down to the ground. "Shi, are you with me yet? Shi, come on, open your eyes." Naruto pleaded as his clones laid the others down and held Adi. Shi's eyes slowly opened to take in Naruto's face and his surroundings. "There you are Shi. Welcome back." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What happened to me?" Shi asked in confusion as he grabbed his head./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""A demon attacked the village and you got injured in the attack." Naruto answered softly while he waited for Shi to clear the fog he knew happened because of a healing sleep. Shi looked around and saw everyone asleep on the ground. Then he spotted his sister and stared at her face for a long while. After a couple minutes Naruto piped up again. "Her face was burnt pretty badly, but Wendy was able to save her eye. She'll have a scare for the rest of her life, but she'll be fine. We all will." Naruto mumbled the last part as he felt guilt come over him once again. Over the last couple of years he had let his chakra control slip and it had cost his friend's their lives, orphaned three children, gotten one of them a demon in the stomach, and the other two burned so badly they would scare. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Determination flooded his senses and he swore to himself that he would be stronger than ever by the time they reached Fairy Tail. He pulled his brush and ink out and added his cakra to it before making another restriction seal to add resistance to his body. He already had four on each limb and his chest but he was going to get the fifth seal on everything to max. He also added a chakra resistor to the main points of his chakra pathways to slow and lower the amount of chakra flowing through his system. His reserve had increased exponentially after Kurama had given him his chakra and abilities to stop Madara from ever reviving Kayga again. Slowly but surely the other biju had done so as well until he had become a second Jubi and that was where his inability to age had come in. A lot like Garaa he hadn't really needed to control the power he had gained; it did what it wanted to do. Now though, he needed to be able to control that power and until he could completely control it like second nature, he wasn't going to use it. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Pulling himself from his thoughts he looked back at Shi to see him staring at Adi in his clone's arms. Putting the seal aside he stood up and took Adi from his clone's arms before kneeling before Shi. "Meet your little brother, Adi." He said before slowly lowering Adi into Shi's arms. Shi stared at his brother like he was foreign object that he had never seen before. He held him like he would break if he breathed wrong. He looked back up at Naruto and asked the dreaded question./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Where are my parents?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto's breath hitched and he stared sadly into Shi's eyes and he seemed to get the hint. His eyes filled with tears and he looked back down at Adi when they started to fall. Naruto grabbed each side of his head and brought his eyes back up to him. He wiped the new tears that were trying to make a run for his cheek before simply pulling him into a hug while being careful not to squish Adi, who was still in his brother's arms. Neither said a word. Naruto could have told him that it was unfair or to let it all out, but no words could have described how unfair it was that he had to lose his parents without being able to say goodbye. How unfair it was that he would have to live with a reminder of that day forever on his arm. How he would have to tell his baby brother about their parents instead of them raising him. It was unfair and there weren't enough words to describe how unfair it was./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto sat there with Shi and Adi until he heard Shi quite down and felt his body sage into his. He put an arm between his chest and Shi's so the clone could grab Adi before his brother accidentally crushed him. He layed Shi back down on his bedding and looked over at his clones he had left out to watch the kids. He had some training to do so this would never happen again while he was there./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The next morning Naruto returned when his clone popped to let him know that everyone was up. He walked into the clearing, after stopping to rinse off in a river, to see Shi hugging his sister close as she cried and everyone else looked on sadly as they remembered what it felt like to lose their parents as well. Suddenly the reality of the situation smacked Naruto in the face. He had five teenagers, five exceeds, two six-year olds, and a newborn that were all relying on him. He made his way over to the twins and wrapped them in his arms as he let both of them cry. The others made their way closer and Naruto could see some of the wounds he hadn't been able to see in the dark. All of his kids had bruises and cuts along with some healed burns here and there. Wendy must have seen the burns as the most important injuries and worn herself out fixing those and left everything else. The kids had been so tired after the fight that they had slept the entire time he had been running. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You guys come here and let me heal you." He ordered as he moved out of his hug and farther away from the new addition to the group. Slowly his kids got up and made their way over to him and he took his time with each kid to heal their wounds, check their emotional state, and cheer them up. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I can heal some of them, Dad." Wendy said slowly when her turn came up./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You rest. You have done enough. You took over when I couldn't and I'm sorry. So you sit, rest, and feel better." Naruto refused as he healed her wounds. She didn't argue and once she was done layed back down on her bed. Once everyone was done Naruto asked them to hunt or get wood if they were up to it. Every kid volunteered to go and get something and made their way out of the camp while looking at Shi and Zahia. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto made his way back to the twins after he was done and saw that his clone was still holding Adi. He carefully took the baby from the clone's arms once again and made his way to the pair that had calmed down from when he had gotten back. Shi saw him approaching and followed his movements until he was seated in front of them with Adi in his arms. Zahia looked into his eyes and he looked into hers. He could see all the pain and sadness in her eyes along with some curiosity as to what was in his arms. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Zahia, this is Adi, your baby brother. He was born a little while before your parent's died." He held the bundle out to her and she slowly reached out to take him from Naruto. "Shi, woke up last night and got to hold and meet him so I thought you might want to meet him." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Does he have a middle name?" She asked as she looked down to Adi's sleeping face. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Not as far as I know. Do you two want to give him one?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Zahia and Shi looked at each other before nodding and looking back at him, "Halvalora" Naruto smiled at the love and childness of the name. Both of their parent's names crammed together to make the newborn's middle name. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""That is wonderful." Was all he said to them about the matter and he watched the siblings as they bonded to the new life that had replaced their parent's. He heard them gasp as he finally opened his eyes and they saw his heterochromia. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""His eyes are beautiful." Zahia muttered as Adi cooed and held his hands out to her. Shi leaned over to get a better look and Adi grabbed a fistfull of his hair and pulled. Shi let out a surprised gasp and then a pained hiss. Zahia saw this happen and let out a laugh with Shi following close behind. Naruto watched the siblings interact and felt a longing his thought he had buried rise once again. The want for a sibling. Someone you could tell anything to and trust. A person he would want to strangle, but loved. A person who understood him and at the same time was baffled by him. Someone who could tell him to get back up after pushing him down. He quickly crushed the jealousy rising in him and buried the feeling once again. At that moment the kids came back with fish and he busied himself with making food./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Three weeks later find the group walking into Magnolia with Naruto in the front holding Adi and the rest of the kids behind him. The group stared in awe at the size of Magnolia as they walked through the city to the center where a big building sat. It was three stories high with smaller stories as it went up. In the center of the top story sat an orange flag with a fairy or phoenix looking creature. Naruto looked at it and gave a small smile. It had been a long time since he had come here. "Welcome to Fairy Tail." Naruto introduced them as he made his way in only to run into a barrier. "What hit me?" He muttered as he looked at the doorway./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm sorry mister. I must have done something to the runes while trying to take them down." A small younger looking girl apologized. She had blue hair and an orange dress on./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""That's fine Ms." Naruto responded while making sure Adi was okay in his arms only to see the collision hadn't made him wake at all. "Can I ask why there are runes around your guild door in the first place?" He turned his attention back to the girl./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm not sure I should tell you." She responded only to have a short old man in orange appear by her side. Naruto recognized him immediately and by his expression he recognized him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Levy, you can tell him everything. After all, he's probably the only one we have right now that would be able to stop Laxus." Makarov told her as she looked between Naruto and Makarov. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You know him master?" She asked surprised./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes, after all he's a fairy." Makarov responded, getting surprised gasps from everyone but the oldest there./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Did you have to tell the kids before I could Maky." Naruto teased as he looked at Makarov. He had grown quite a bit older since he had last seen him and it hurt Naruto a little to be reminded of the time that passed through his loved ones./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Of course. But right now isn't the time for chit-chat. Laxus turned his own guild mates into stone and is threatening the entire town with those lighting lacrima." he pointed to a ball of light that Naruto had thought to be some kind of magical protection, not destruction./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Natsu go find a man with the scent of lighting and anger with spiky blond hair. He should be somewhere away from the town, but close enough to see what's happening. Gajeel you go with him. Wendy, you stay here and help me free the girls." He ordered his kids. "Are his goonies still following him around?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes, they are helping him as well." Makarov responded while looking at Naruto in shock./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then Sting you go for a girl with the ability to turn people to stone and Rogue you got after a man that can control inanimate objects." Naruto ordered once again, "Patherlily, Happy, and Carla go get the people that have been hurt or knocked out because of battle. Lector and Frosch, you two stay here with Wendy and I and help us protect and help the people in the building." Everyone split to do their respective jobs and Naruto handed Adi to Zahia and turned to Levy. "What have you deciphered so far?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Are you sure that they will be okay, Naruto?" Makarov asked him as he pulled out his light pen he kept on him for moments like this./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Completely." Was all Naruto had to say for Makarov to believe him. The conviction in his voice was enough to convince every person in the world that the sun didn't exist and bananas didn't exist. Makarov just nodded to him before looking at what he was doing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I've finished deciphering it and it's a warrior to keep people older than eighty in and everyone out." Naruto let out a sigh or relief at that. They wouldn't be able to guess his age./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Any progress on deactivating it?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I know we have to do the reverse, but I don't know them off the top of my head and I would need my book but it's at my house." Levy answered as she looked down in guilt./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No need to beat yourself up about it." Naruto encouraged her. "Here, I have then written on a piece of paper I keep on me. You do your right to left and I'll do my right to left." He threw the paper through the barrier and got to work on his side of the barrier. It took them a little over five minutes to get the barrier down and for Naruto and Wendy to rush to the girls. Adi, Shi, and Zahia took a seat around the tables that were in the building while Frosch and Lector blocked the entrance in their human forms with their weapons out. Naruto started to scan the girls for any weak point in the magic and once he got close to a girl with long straight hair that reached her knees she started to crack. This freaked Naruto out as he started to think the magic would kill whoever was affected by it after a certain period of time had passed. The cement that surrounded her cracked and fell off before she burst from her prison of stone and fell to the ground. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto ran to her and noticed her long red hair that reminded him of his mother. He pulled her to her feet and noticed she had armor on that covered her from head to toe. The woman, seeing that a strange man was holding her, lashed out and nailed him in the nose causing him to let her go and her to fall down once again. This time she started to crawl away from Naruto./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You pervert. What are you doing here? Are you in cahoots with Laxus? I have to go stop him." She attempted to stand and Naruto pulled her back only to have to dogue a sword that the red-head had gotten from nowhere./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey, you could have seriously hurt him, you lunatic." Wendy yelled as she tackled the red-head to the ground. Only for her to kick her in the stomach. The red-head's eyes widened as Wendy caught her kick and held her down on her back with her arms stuck between them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Wendy, don't hurt her. She was only trying to protect herself and her friends." Naruto said as he healed his nose that the woman had broken, "Also, we are here to help you. I was trying to find a way to free you and your friends on the stage when you started to crack. I don't know how you got free, but I'm sorry for scaring you."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Bullshit you pervert. Like I would believe you." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Erza, that is enough." Said Makarov as he finally intervened. "These people are our guests and one is even part of the guild. They are here to help us." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Erza looked closely at Naruto and Wendy before turning back to Makarov, "But Master, I haven't seen either of these people around the guild."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Because I haven't been here for a long while. Now will you help us free the other girls or are you going to run off to fight and leave them like that?" Naruto cut in./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Erza looked back at her guildmates, friends, to the sounds of fighting just outside the entrance to the guild and back before looking Naruto in the eyes. "I still don't like you, but I will work with you to save them." Naruto could see the truth of her words in her eyes and moved out of her way so she could get to her guildmates./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Do you know how you could have broken out of the stone?" He asked Erza as she looked at the frozen faces of her friends./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I have no clue. The last thing I remember is looking into Evergreen's eyes and then I was waking up." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto thought back to everything he knew about being turned to stone; which wasn't a lot, but far traveled, far learned; or something like that. The only thing he could think of was to cut off the magic affecting the girls from their own magic. It was a risk and he could accidently cut their own magic off from their bodies, but it was worth the risk to him. He looked at Wendy and in that moment he saw a flash of Sakura with her hair up and the look on her face that said either they were coming home or many more of the enemy weren't. They could do this. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Wendy, we need to cut off the foreign magic from their own magic." Wendy gave him a nod and she sat down to get to work. He followed suit and started with feeling for the overwhelming magical presence he could feel in each of the girls. He needed to identify their magic before identifying the foreign one. Once he had found both he slowly untangled the magics from each other until the girl he was working on was able to move completely. Wendy and him had made their way to the last two when he felt a strong magic from every direction that was only getting stronger. He could feel the electricity in the air and immediately knew what was happening. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto shot up and teleported out of the room while yelling at Wendy to keep going. Sure enough the lacrama surrounding the city was glowing and he could see a countdown over the church where he could sense Natsu and Gajeel. Comforted by their ability to stop any foe he destroyed one and then another and another until he sensed something coming in quick behind him. Dodging out of the way he saw a bolt of lightning travel over his head before curving to hit him. He gave a smirk and continued his job while dodging any bolts that targeted him. His world became a blur of dodge, hit, kick, attack, destroy, and save until the last one was destroyed. By that point he had a full thunderstorm of lighting following him around and even after teleporting they would find him and continue the case. Naruto thought about destroying them, but then they could scatter and hurt an innocent person, so that was out of the options. He could contain them, but they could just get out or have some random person find them and hurt themselves or another, so no. Finally he decided to just let them hit him. Stopping just outside of the city limit he let the lighting hit him dead on and at full force, but he was disappointed. All that magic and it hadn;t even hurt. Looking down at his body he could see all of the burns, cuts, and other injuries healing just as fast as they appeared. This made Naruto give a small smile. He really was something else, wasn't he? /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Over to his left he could feel the last of the electricity in the air fizz out and he released a sigh. The fighting was over, so now it was time for the recovery. He slowly made his way back through the city as the innocent people were talking about the amazing fury world the guild had put on and how they were so excited they were here for that. He just smiled and continued to walk. No panicked people made his job so much easier. Back to the guild he could see Laxus being pulled in through the door by Natsu and Gajeel, Wendy was catching the girls up on what they had missed while Erza supervised, all the exceeds had transformed back into their cat form, Sting was talking to some other of the guild with Rogue, the three youngest were still sitting in their spots, and Makarov was looking for something. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto made a beeline for all of his kids to check up on them and make sure they are okay when Makarov came up behind him and asked if he could do a check up on all the guild. He agreed and made his way around to all of the people that were pulled into the fighting. All was going well until one of the older members recognized him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey Naruto, your back?" Came the voice of Macao from behind him. He slowly turned to see that the exclamation had gotten the attention of the entire guild so he sighed and answered the question./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes Macao, I'm back." He answered with a little nod and smile./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well, give us details. Where did you go? Did you meet anyone?" Macao teased./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Dad, who is that? Another old friend of yours?" Wendy asked as she overheard the conversation./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She's your daughter? Are all the other kids I haven't seen before yours as well?" Erza asked while looking between Naruto and Wendy./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""To answer the questions. Macao, I was pretty much all over and no I did not. Wendy, this is Macao and he is more of an overly affectionate puppy than anything…" That got a "hey" out of Macao, "and Erza, yes all of the kids you see walking around that you have never seen before are mine." The room filled with voices that wondered how old he actually was if he knew Macao and none of them had ever seen him before, how old Wendy was, and who the lucky girl was./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then you are lying." Erza stated and the room went silent. "If all these kids are yours you found a lucky girl, as Macao put it, or you sleep around so much that you have way too many kids and you're a pervert. Either way you lied."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I didn't lie to anyone, Erza." Naruto started to defend himself before Zahia jumped up, with Adi still in her arms, and said,/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""He saved all of us." She started at Erza with hate filling her eyes. "You should get to know someone a bit more before you jump to conclusions. He saved my brothers and I from our burning village after a demon attacked and our parents died." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""And he took Natsu, Sting, Rogue, Gajeel, and myself in after we were abandoned by our parents." Wendy chimed in after her and pointed to every person as she said their names. "I have no idea where I would be right now if it wasn't for him, but I doubt I would be as strong, skilled, smart, or happy." Wendy wiped her eyes to get rid of the tears that had formed from her emotional speech and sat down again as Zahia made her way to Naruto. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I think Adi is getting tired of his siblings. He needs you." She handed Adi to Naruto and he took the baby with caution and held him against his chest as he started to sway to put him back to sleep after the exciting day./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I hate to interrupt this tender moment of bonding and introductions, but Naruto can I speak to you in my office?" Makarov asked as he made his way up the stairs. Naruto followed, still holding the baby and climbed the stairs. He felt someone staring so he turned around to see Erza giving him a 'I-hope-you-get-in-trouble' look. He ignored her so he could figure out why he hated him so much later and followed Makarov to his office. This was going to be a long talk./spanspan id="docs-internal-guid-542b1ce1-7fff-832e-8e3e-4b5691200970"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"span id="docs-internal-guid-b20b713f-7fff-746b-45a4-90c0a36d7733"span style="font-size: 11pt; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"Disclaimer: I love Erza as a character. I just like the idea of Naruto being the one person she can't intimidate and she gets mad about it, so she doesn't like Naruto. /span/span/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 16pt; margin-bottom: 4pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #434343; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Chapter 7/span/h3
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It had only been a day or two since the group had left the village they had called home for a year. Naruto had wanted to get as far away as possible from the village as fast as possible so he had taken all of the kid's luggage and sealed them in scrolls that he then sealed in his arm, grabbed the kids with clones, and took off. He hadn't slowed until Shi had started to wake at sundown for the second day. Naruto stopped and carefully made his way down to the ground. "Shi, are you with me yet? Shi, come on, open your eyes." Naruto pleaded as his clones laid the others down and held Adi. Shi's eyes slowly opened to take in Naruto's face and his surroundings. "There you are Shi. Welcome back." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What happened to me?" Shi asked in confusion as he grabbed his head./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""A demon attacked the village and you got injured in the attack." Naruto answered softly while he waited for Shi to clear the fog he knew happened because of a healing sleep. Shi looked around and saw everyone asleep on the ground. Then he spotted his sister and stared at her face for a long while. After a couple minutes Naruto piped up again. "Her face was burnt pretty badly, but Wendy was able to save her eye. She'll have a scare for the rest of her life, but she'll be fine. We all will." Naruto mumbled the last part as he felt guilt come over him once again. Over the last couple of years he had let his chakra control slip and it had cost his friend's their lives, orphaned three children, gotten one of them a demon in the stomach, and the other two burned so badly they would scare. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Determination flooded his senses and he swore to himself that he would be stronger than ever by the time they reached Fairy Tail. He pulled his brush and ink out and added his cakra to it before making another restriction seal to add resistance to his body. He already had four on each limb and his chest but he was going to get the fifth seal on everything to max. He also added a chakra resistor to the main points of his chakra pathways to slow and lower the amount of chakra flowing through his system. His reserve had increased exponentially after Kurama had given him his chakra and abilities to stop Madara from ever reviving Kayga again. Slowly but surely the other biju had done so as well until he had become a second Jubi and that was where his inability to age had come in. A lot like Garaa he hadn't really needed to control the power he had gained; it did what it wanted to do. Now though, he needed to be able to control that power and until he could completely control it like second nature, he wasn't going to use it. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Pulling himself from his thoughts he looked back at Shi to see him staring at Adi in his clone's arms. Putting the seal aside he stood up and took Adi from his clone's arms before kneeling before Shi. "Meet your little brother, Adi." He said before slowly lowering Adi into Shi's arms. Shi stared at his brother like he was foreign object that he had never seen before. He held him like he would break if he breathed wrong. He looked back up at Naruto and asked the dreaded question./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Where are my parents?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto's breath hitched and he stared sadly into Shi's eyes and he seemed to get the hint. His eyes filled with tears and he looked back down at Adi when they started to fall. Naruto grabbed each side of his head and brought his eyes back up to him. He wiped the new tears that were trying to make a run for his cheek before simply pulling him into a hug while being careful not to squish Adi, who was still in his brother's arms. Neither said a word. Naruto could have told him that it was unfair or to let it all out, but no words could have described how unfair it was that he had to lose his parents without being able to say goodbye. How unfair it was that he would have to live with a reminder of that day forever on his arm. How he would have to tell his baby brother about their parents instead of them raising him. It was unfair and there weren't enough words to describe how unfair it was./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto sat there with Shi and Adi until he heard Shi quite down and felt his body sage into his. He put an arm between his chest and Shi's so the clone could grab Adi before his brother accidentally crushed him. He layed Shi back down on his bedding and looked over at his clones he had left out to watch the kids. He had some training to do so this would never happen again while he was there./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The next morning Naruto returned when his clone popped to let him know that everyone was up. He walked into the clearing, after stopping to rinse off in a river, to see Shi hugging his sister close as she cried and everyone else looked on sadly as they remembered what it felt like to lose their parents as well. Suddenly the reality of the situation smacked Naruto in the face. He had five teenagers, five exceeds, two six-year olds, and a newborn that were all relying on him. He made his way over to the twins and wrapped them in his arms as he let both of them cry. The others made their way closer and Naruto could see some of the wounds he hadn't been able to see in the dark. All of his kids had bruises and cuts along with some healed burns here and there. Wendy must have seen the burns as the most important injuries and worn herself out fixing those and left everything else. The kids had been so tired after the fight that they had slept the entire time he had been running. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You guys come here and let me heal you." He ordered as he moved out of his hug and farther away from the new addition to the group. Slowly his kids got up and made their way over to him and he took his time with each kid to heal their wounds, check their emotional state, and cheer them up. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I can heal some of them, Dad." Wendy said slowly when her turn came up./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You rest. You have done enough. You took over when I couldn't and I'm sorry. So you sit, rest, and feel better." Naruto refused as he healed her wounds. She didn't argue and once she was done layed back down on her bed. Once everyone was done Naruto asked them to hunt or get wood if they were up to it. Every kid volunteered to go and get something and made their way out of the camp while looking at Shi and Zahia. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto made his way back to the twins after he was done and saw that his clone was still holding Adi. He carefully took the baby from the clone's arms once again and made his way to the pair that had calmed down from when he had gotten back. Shi saw him approaching and followed his movements until he was seated in front of them with Adi in his arms. Zahia looked into his eyes and he looked into hers. He could see all the pain and sadness in her eyes along with some curiosity as to what was in his arms. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Zahia, this is Adi, your baby brother. He was born a little while before your parent's died." He held the bundle out to her and she slowly reached out to take him from Naruto. "Shi, woke up last night and got to hold and meet him so I thought you might want to meet him." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Does he have a middle name?" She asked as she looked down to Adi's sleeping face. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Not as far as I know. Do you two want to give him one?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Zahia and Shi looked at each other before nodding and looking back at him, "Halvalora" Naruto smiled at the love and childness of the name. Both of their parent's names crammed together to make the newborn's middle name. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""That is wonderful." Was all he said to them about the matter and he watched the siblings as they bonded to the new life that had replaced their parent's. He heard them gasp as he finally opened his eyes and they saw his heterochromia. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""His eyes are beautiful." Zahia muttered as Adi cooed and held his hands out to her. Shi leaned over to get a better look and Adi grabbed a fistfull of his hair and pulled. Shi let out a surprised gasp and then a pained hiss. Zahia saw this happen and let out a laugh with Shi following close behind. Naruto watched the siblings interact and felt a longing his thought he had buried rise once again. The want for a sibling. Someone you could tell anything to and trust. A person he would want to strangle, but loved. A person who understood him and at the same time was baffled by him. Someone who could tell him to get back up after pushing him down. He quickly crushed the jealousy rising in him and buried the feeling once again. At that moment the kids came back with fish and he busied himself with making food./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Three weeks later find the group walking into Magnolia with Naruto in the front holding Adi and the rest of the kids behind him. The group stared in awe at the size of Magnolia as they walked through the city to the center where a big building sat. It was three stories high with smaller stories as it went up. In the center of the top story sat an orange flag with a fairy or phoenix looking creature. Naruto looked at it and gave a small smile. It had been a long time since he had come here. "Welcome to Fairy Tail." Naruto introduced them as he made his way in only to run into a barrier. "What hit me?" He muttered as he looked at the doorway./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm sorry mister. I must have done something to the runes while trying to take them down." A small younger looking girl apologized. She had blue hair and an orange dress on./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""That's fine Ms." Naruto responded while making sure Adi was okay in his arms only to see the collision hadn't made him wake at all. "Can I ask why there are runes around your guild door in the first place?" He turned his attention back to the girl./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm not sure I should tell you." She responded only to have a short old man in orange appear by her side. Naruto recognized him immediately and by his expression he recognized him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Levy, you can tell him everything. After all, he's probably the only one we have right now that would be able to stop Laxus." Makarov told her as she looked between Naruto and Makarov. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You know him master?" She asked surprised./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes, after all he's a fairy." Makarov responded, getting surprised gasps from everyone but the oldest there./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Did you have to tell the kids before I could Maky." Naruto teased as he looked at Makarov. He had grown quite a bit older since he had last seen him and it hurt Naruto a little to be reminded of the time that passed through his loved ones./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Of course. But right now isn't the time for chit-chat. Laxus turned his own guild mates into stone and is threatening the entire town with those lighting lacrima." he pointed to a ball of light that Naruto had thought to be some kind of magical protection, not destruction./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Natsu go find a man with the scent of lighting and anger with spiky blond hair. He should be somewhere away from the town, but close enough to see what's happening. Gajeel you go with him. Wendy, you stay here and help me free the girls." He ordered his kids. "Are his goonies still following him around?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes, they are helping him as well." Makarov responded while looking at Naruto in shock./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then Sting you go for a girl with the ability to turn people to stone and Rogue you got after a man that can control inanimate objects." Naruto ordered once again, "Patherlily, Happy, and Carla go get the people that have been hurt or knocked out because of battle. Lector and Frosch, you two stay here with Wendy and I and help us protect and help the people in the building." Everyone split to do their respective jobs and Naruto handed Adi to Zahia and turned to Levy. "What have you deciphered so far?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Are you sure that they will be okay, Naruto?" Makarov asked him as he pulled out his light pen he kept on him for moments like this./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Completely." Was all Naruto had to say for Makarov to believe him. The conviction in his voice was enough to convince every person in the world that the sun didn't exist and bananas didn't exist. Makarov just nodded to him before looking at what he was doing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I've finished deciphering it and it's a warrior to keep people older than eighty in and everyone out." Naruto let out a sigh or relief at that. They wouldn't be able to guess his age./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Any progress on deactivating it?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I know we have to do the reverse, but I don't know them off the top of my head and I would need my book but it's at my house." Levy answered as she looked down in guilt./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No need to beat yourself up about it." Naruto encouraged her. "Here, I have then written on a piece of paper I keep on me. You do your right to left and I'll do my right to left." He threw the paper through the barrier and got to work on his side of the barrier. It took them a little over five minutes to get the barrier down and for Naruto and Wendy to rush to the girls. Adi, Shi, and Zahia took a seat around the tables that were in the building while Frosch and Lector blocked the entrance in their human forms with their weapons out. Naruto started to scan the girls for any weak point in the magic and once he got close to a girl with long straight hair that reached her knees she started to crack. This freaked Naruto out as he started to think the magic would kill whoever was affected by it after a certain period of time had passed. The cement that surrounded her cracked and fell off before she burst from her prison of stone and fell to the ground. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto ran to her and noticed her long red hair that reminded him of his mother. He pulled her to her feet and noticed she had armor on that covered her from head to toe. The woman, seeing that a strange man was holding her, lashed out and nailed him in the nose causing him to let her go and her to fall down once again. This time she started to crawl away from Naruto./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""You pervert. What are you doing here? Are you in cahoots with Laxus? I have to go stop him." She attempted to stand and Naruto pulled her back only to have to dogue a sword that the red-head had gotten from nowhere./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey, you could have seriously hurt him, you lunatic." Wendy yelled as she tackled the red-head to the ground. Only for her to kick her in the stomach. The red-head's eyes widened as Wendy caught her kick and held her down on her back with her arms stuck between them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Wendy, don't hurt her. She was only trying to protect herself and her friends." Naruto said as he healed his nose that the woman had broken, "Also, we are here to help you. I was trying to find a way to free you and your friends on the stage when you started to crack. I don't know how you got free, but I'm sorry for scaring you."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Bullshit you pervert. Like I would believe you." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Erza, that is enough." Said Makarov as he finally intervened. "These people are our guests and one is even part of the guild. They are here to help us." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Erza looked closely at Naruto and Wendy before turning back to Makarov, "But Master, I haven't seen either of these people around the guild."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Because I haven't been here for a long while. Now will you help us free the other girls or are you going to run off to fight and leave them like that?" Naruto cut in./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Erza looked back at her guildmates, friends, to the sounds of fighting just outside the entrance to the guild and back before looking Naruto in the eyes. "I still don't like you, but I will work with you to save them." Naruto could see the truth of her words in her eyes and moved out of her way so she could get to her guildmates./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Do you know how you could have broken out of the stone?" He asked Erza as she looked at the frozen faces of her friends./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I have no clue. The last thing I remember is looking into Evergreen's eyes and then I was waking up." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto thought back to everything he knew about being turned to stone; which wasn't a lot, but far traveled, far learned; or something like that. The only thing he could think of was to cut off the magic affecting the girls from their own magic. It was a risk and he could accidently cut their own magic off from their bodies, but it was worth the risk to him. He looked at Wendy and in that moment he saw a flash of Sakura with her hair up and the look on her face that said either they were coming home or many more of the enemy weren't. They could do this. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Wendy, we need to cut off the foreign magic from their own magic." Wendy gave him a nod and she sat down to get to work. He followed suit and started with feeling for the overwhelming magical presence he could feel in each of the girls. He needed to identify their magic before identifying the foreign one. Once he had found both he slowly untangled the magics from each other until the girl he was working on was able to move completely. Wendy and him had made their way to the last two when he felt a strong magic from every direction that was only getting stronger. He could feel the electricity in the air and immediately knew what was happening. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto shot up and teleported out of the room while yelling at Wendy to keep going. Sure enough the lacrama surrounding the city was glowing and he could see a countdown over the church where he could sense Natsu and Gajeel. Comforted by their ability to stop any foe he destroyed one and then another and another until he sensed something coming in quick behind him. Dodging out of the way he saw a bolt of lightning travel over his head before curving to hit him. He gave a smirk and continued his job while dodging any bolts that targeted him. His world became a blur of dodge, hit, kick, attack, destroy, and save until the last one was destroyed. By that point he had a full thunderstorm of lighting following him around and even after teleporting they would find him and continue the case. Naruto thought about destroying them, but then they could scatter and hurt an innocent person, so that was out of the options. He could contain them, but they could just get out or have some random person find them and hurt themselves or another, so no. Finally he decided to just let them hit him. Stopping just outside of the city limit he let the lighting hit him dead on and at full force, but he was disappointed. All that magic and it hadn;t even hurt. Looking down at his body he could see all of the burns, cuts, and other injuries healing just as fast as they appeared. This made Naruto give a small smile. He really was something else, wasn't he? /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Over to his left he could feel the last of the electricity in the air fizz out and he released a sigh. The fighting was over, so now it was time for the recovery. He slowly made his way back through the city as the innocent people were talking about the amazing fury world the guild had put on and how they were so excited they were here for that. He just smiled and continued to walk. No panicked people made his job so much easier. Back to the guild he could see Laxus being pulled in through the door by Natsu and Gajeel, Wendy was catching the girls up on what they had missed while Erza supervised, all the exceeds had transformed back into their cat form, Sting was talking to some other of the guild with Rogue, the three youngest were still sitting in their spots, and Makarov was looking for something. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Naruto made a beeline for all of his kids to check up on them and make sure they are okay when Makarov came up behind him and asked if he could do a check up on all the guild. He agreed and made his way around to all of the people that were pulled into the fighting. All was going well until one of the older members recognized him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey Naruto, your back?" Came the voice of Macao from behind him. He slowly turned to see that the exclamation had gotten the attention of the entire guild so he sighed and answered the question./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Yes Macao, I'm back." He answered with a little nod and smile./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Well, give us details. Where did you go? Did you meet anyone?" Macao teased./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Dad, who is that? Another old friend of yours?" Wendy asked as she overheard the conversation./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She's your daughter? Are all the other kids I haven't seen before yours as well?" Erza asked while looking between Naruto and Wendy./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""To answer the questions. Macao, I was pretty much all over and no I did not. Wendy, this is Macao and he is more of an overly affectionate puppy than anything…" That got a "hey" out of Macao, "and Erza, yes all of the kids you see walking around that you have never seen before are mine." The room filled with voices that wondered how old he actually was if he knew Macao and none of them had ever seen him before, how old Wendy was, and who the lucky girl was./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then you are lying." Erza stated and the room went silent. "If all these kids are yours you found a lucky girl, as Macao put it, or you sleep around so much that you have way too many kids and you're a pervert. Either way you lied."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I didn't lie to anyone, Erza." Naruto started to defend himself before Zahia jumped up, with Adi still in her arms, and said,/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""He saved all of us." She started at Erza with hate filling her eyes. "You should get to know someone a bit more before you jump to conclusions. He saved my brothers and I from our burning village after a demon attacked and our parents died." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""And he took Natsu, Sting, Rogue, Gajeel, and myself in after we were abandoned by our parents." Wendy chimed in after her and pointed to every person as she said their names. "I have no idea where I would be right now if it wasn't for him, but I doubt I would be as strong, skilled, smart, or happy." Wendy wiped her eyes to get rid of the tears that had formed from her emotional speech and sat down again as Zahia made her way to Naruto. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I think Adi is getting tired of his siblings. He needs you." She handed Adi to Naruto and he took the baby with caution and held him against his chest as he started to sway to put him back to sleep after the exciting day./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I hate to interrupt this tender moment of bonding and introductions, but Naruto can I speak to you in my office?" Makarov asked as he made his way up the stairs. Naruto followed, still holding the baby and climbed the stairs. He felt someone staring so he turned around to see Erza giving him a 'I-hope-you-get-in-trouble' look. He ignored her so he could figure out why he hated him so much later and followed Makarov to his office. This was going to be a long talk./spanspan id="docs-internal-guid-542b1ce1-7fff-832e-8e3e-4b5691200970"/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"span id="docs-internal-guid-b20b713f-7fff-746b-45a4-90c0a36d7733"span style="font-size: 11pt; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"Disclaimer: I love Erza as a character. I just like the idea of Naruto being the one person she can't intimidate and she gets mad about it, so she doesn't like Naruto. /span/span/span/p
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