Insert disclaimer here
Blah Blah Blah basic text (i.e. description, speech, etc)
Blah Blah Blah Thought or some transaction within someone's mind
Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi talking Jutsu will also be bold
BLAH BLAH BLAH yelling or emphasis of some sort
Naruto of the Nine Tails
Rated M for language, violence, adult content, and graphic imagery
Chp 23: Calm Before the Storm
"Well, this should be interesting," Sakura decided, staring blankly down at her number and mentally matched up the others as she walked out of the Forest of Death with the other contestants. 'I got "one," so that means I'm up against Shikamaru… that's going to be complicated.'
"You don't say?" Inner Sakura responded as she played around with an oversized three dimensional chess board… where the hell had that come from?
'Choji and that sand girl both got the last numbers so they'll be the last match and Sasuke got number four so that would mean he's… Oh…Uh oh,' her eyes bulging as she glanced over at Sasuke who was staring across the room at Neji, a terrifying grin splitting his face.
"Wait! Fate boy got number… Oh… Oh damn." Neji had pulled number three. That meant Neji was going to be fighting a fresh Sasuke with an ax to grind and years of pent up aggression to blow off. "You know… Hyuuga might not be wrong about fate, it certainly seems to hate him…but doesn't that mean-"
'Yeah,' Sakura agreed. That meant Hinata and Naruto had that sand wielding psycho.
"Um… aren't we forgetting someone?"
'…No?'
"The Living Hive and the Puppet Punk?"
'Are you kidding? The Aburame slaughtered the puppet corps in the second great war. That isn't even a match, it's a footnote!' And she wasn't kidding, the Aburame had been the absolute bane of the Puppet Corps' collective existence in that war. It was only the dumb luck that the Aburame's kichai insects at the time hadn't been bred to resist the heat of the desert that kept Konoha from marching nearly unopposed all the way to Suna.
"What if puppet boy comes to the match with a giant can of Raid?"
'…Shino enters a berserker rage and goes on a murderous rampage that brings existence as we know it to a violent end?'
Inner Sakura froze. Then, sagging slightly, she leveled a blank glare at Sakura.
'What? Why are you staring at me like that?' Sakura demanded nervously.
"Seriously, I'm supposed to be the violent one! You're stealing my gimmick!" Inner Sakura raged.
'Oh for the love of-'
Meanwhile, as Sakura continued to argue with… herself, Sasuke had wandered off in the general direction of his home, thoughts of sugar plums and extreme bodily harm dancing in his head.
No one that knew him would accuse Sasuke of being the protective type. In truth? Yeah, he wasn't. After all, what did he have to protect? Everyone he cared about was dead… right?
An image of his team popped unbidden into his head, a photograph they had taken together after the bell test that he kept on his bedside table. There he was, standing in the middle of the group, arms crossed with an annoyed scowl on his face. Behind him was Kakashi, smiling and giving a victory sign to the camera. Hinata was on his right, smiling like a maniac as she knelt down next do Naruto who had taken up a position in front of her but a little closer to the middle. Then there was Sakura, standing on his left and trying her level best not to touch him, all the while looking incredibly smug.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Kakashi asked as he casually walked up next to, matching his student's pace while his nose remained firmly buried in his book.
"Just… things," Sasuke responded evasively.
"Hm," Kakashi hummed, closely watching his student's agitated movements. He had been so hopeful when Sasuke had started bugging Sakura at the beginning of the exam but now it appeared he would have to run damage control. "Want to talk about it?"
"Hn," Sasuke grunted, refusing to answer.
"You know, you are so much like I was at your age that it's scary," Kakashi mused, casually turning the page.
"Is that really so bad?" Sasuke asked. After all, Kakashi had turned out just fine. Right?
"I ended up losing my eye and got my best friend killed," Kakashi told him, looking up from his book for the first time.
Sasuke said nothing, turning his head away from his sensei in embarrassment.
"Have you given any thought on how you'll handle Neji?" Kakashi asked, casually flipping to the next page.
"I have a few ideas," Sasuke murmured, his fingers flexing ominously as his eyes flashed red.
"Sasuke," Kakashi sighed, his book vanishing as he knelt down to his students level to look him in the eye. "I won't pretend to understand how you are feeling right now—this isn't the same as it was for me—but promise me something, okay?"
"What sort of promise?" Sasuke asked cautiously.
"Don't kill him?"
Sasuke went rigid, staring strangely at his teacher.
"Oh! And try to avoid maiming him? Gai would never let me hear the end of it," Kakashi added, almost as an afterthought.
Sasuke snorted, shaking his head as he turned to continue walking, his dark mood broken.
"In all seriousness, though, we should start with your training as soon as possible. Neji isn't going to be easy to beat," Kakashi explained, once more walking next to his student, his nose buried in his book.
"What about Sakura and Hinata?" Sasuke asked. "Who's going to be training them for the finals?"
"Oh, I already took care of that," Kakashi told him, waving it off.
"Took care of it?" Sasuke paraphrased skeptically. He was not convinced.
"Most of what I know is meant for tracking or heavy combat, so I… convinced, a friend of mine to teach Sakura a few things."
Commercial District
"…How is this supposed to help me again?" Sakura asked skeptically.
"The Nara are a clan of thinkers, screw up their ability to think or throw a wrench into their plans and they're as good as yours," Anko explained, nodding sagely as she worked her way through an order of dango.
"So, I'm trying to put him off his game?"
"Exactly!"
"Right… and how exactly does this help with that?" Sakura asked, holding up a riding crop.
"Nara men are terrified of women with dominating personalities." Oddly attracted to them too, but that wasn't important right now!
"Huh?"
"His mother smacks his father with a frying pan when she's annoyed with him, he'll associate the crop with traumatic childhood memories," she explained.
"Ok… and the rest of it?" she asked, staring dubiously at the form fitting hardened leather pants, armored corset, a pair of knee high combat zori, and what looked like miniaturized versions of the elbow gloves worn by ANBU.
"Wear those and sway your hips. You will distract any hot blooded male in the area."
"Uh huh…" Sakura said, staring blandly at the older kunoichi.
'Blackmail me will you? You will rue this day Hatake Kakashi. I swear it!' Anko thought, chuckling evilly, either not noticing or not caring for the strange look her student was giving her.
"Is she prepping us for a Ninja tournament or a visit to a BDSM dungeon?" Inner Sakura asked, scratching her head confusedly.
'The real question we should be asking… Do we actually want to know?'
"…Good point, let's just roll with it."
Back With Sasuke and Kakashi
"Why do I suddenly feel like I've stabbed the metaphorical sleeping dragon?" Kakashi wondered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Huh?"
"Nothing," Kakashi shrugged. "Just a random feeling, it's probably nothing."
"Right…What about Hinata?" Sasuke pressed. "Who's training her? Her family?" There was no way he was letting this go. Naruto or no Naruto, that Gaara kid was no joke.
"She has… other arrangements," Kakashi responded cryptically.
Local Osen
Moving through the faint mist surrounding the hot spring like a ghost, Hinata walked toward her destination, Naruto padding along behind her.
"Hehe!"
Naruto froze, his parabolic ears snapping toward the direction the giggling, his eyes narrowing predatorily when the giggling came again. Slowly, a sinister, vulpine grin worked its way onto his face as he looked at Hinata expectantly.
"Yes, I hear him," she sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Usually she'd just let Naruto have his fun but considering recent events… she wasn't sure if that was such a good idea in a densely populated area. "Naruto, maybe we should-"
But she was too late.
"Ero-sennin~" the fox boy sang, happily bounding into this mist.
"Son of a-umph!"
Hinata winced as she heard a man's cry of surprise only to be drowned out by a resounding crash."Oh Naruto," Hinata groaned, her face falling into her hands as a symphony of curses, womanly shrieks of indignation, and the many sounds of property damage drifted to her through the mist.
"Back fiend! Back I say!" cried a large white haired man as he sprinted past, a laughing Naruto hot on his heels and stampede of women in towels following close behind as Hinata's ears turned steadily darker shades of pink.
Well, at least it was just the fence this time…
Sometime later…
"So, let me get this straight," Jiraiya said, now sitting calmly against a tree, Hinata sitting across from him with Naruto using her lap as a pillow. "In the last week you have antagonized a room full of foreign ninja, mind fucked our leading torture and interrogation specialist, fought my thrice damned traitor of a teammate and lived to tell about it, and sent one of your old classmates to the mental ward… I'm I leaving anything out?"
"There was the, um…" Hinata's voice trailed off as she nervously pointed to the junction of her neck and shoulder where Naruto had bitten her.
"Yes that," Jiraiya said with a smirk. They were growing up so fast! Still, he'd have to check that thing later, no telling what Naruto had actually done but it certainly wasn't normal if Hinata's description was to be believed.
But that could wait.
"You said Orochimaru did something to Naruto before he went berserk?" Jiraiya asked, finally getting down to business.
Hinata nodded. "Yes, he hit him in the stomach using some kind of seal, intending to disrupt his chakra I think."
"Well, let's have a look," Jiraiya said, coming over to crouch next to them so he could get a better look at the seal. "Yeah, that's Orochimaru's work, alright," he muttered, scowling down at the black symbols.
"You can fix it, right?" Hinata asked uncertainly.
Jiraiya snorted, flailing his arms dramatically. "Girl, I am the gallant Jiraiya-sama! What do you take me for? Some amateur like my former teammate! I think not!"
"So… you can fix it then?" Hinata deadpanned, not the least bit impressed.
Jiraiya deflated, staring flatly down at the little Hyuuga."Yes, I can fix it you ungrateful brat," he muttered, sullenly blowing some stray locks of hair out of his face. "Kids these days! No respect, I tell you. No respect!"
Hinata rolled her eyes at his antics. "Do you need to make any preparations?" she asked.
"No, I should be able to do it right here," he explained, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Although, it'll probably hurt a bit so if you could do your thing with him before I, you know…"
Hinata nodded, turning to her partner. "Naruto, this might sting a little, so-"
"Gogyo Kaifuin!" Jiraiya barked, pressing his fingers into Orochimaru's seal while Naruto was distracted… shortly before he reappeared twenty meters away imbedded in a boulder. "Ow…"
"You old goat! How many times have I told you not to surprise him!" Hinata shrieked as she got between the two of them. "Naruto? Naruto look at me!" she ordered, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to look at her only to gasp in surprise as his hair faded from a bloody red into a light orange. 'I wasn't imagining it!'
"Well, that's… different," Jiraiya decided, scratching the side of his head as he watched the strange phenomenon.
"What could it mean?" Hinata asked, turning hopeful eyes on the old sage.
Jiraiya scowled thoughtfully. "I wish I knew kiddo, but your guess is as good as mine at this point," he said with a sigh, the worried creases on his face deepening as Hinata's face fell.
For the longest time, the three of them sat there in silence, Hinata against her tree with Naruto once more in her lap and Jiraiya… in his tree, each leaving the others to their own thoughts… or in Naruto's case, playing with his tail.
"You said you two were facing that Gaara kid?" Jiraiya asked, finally breaking the silence.
"I did," Hinata confirmed.
"A battle between jinchuuriki… that's going to get messy," he decided. He'd have to talk to Sarutobi-sensei about adding some emergency measures to the stadium. Seals could work… or maybe that one kid that had survived Orochimaru's experiments with mokuton. What was his name again? Tanto? Tozo? It started with a "T." He knew the guy had worked with Kakashi in the ANBU, he'd be helpful.
"Be fun though!" Naruto laughed.
"Right…" Jiraiya drawled. Well, at least someone was excited at the idea of facing the homicidal incarnation of the desert. "You have a plan?" he asked, turning to Hinata.
"Something like that…" Hinata muttered nervously, refusing to meet the sage's gaze.
'This is either going to make my week or have some kind of apocalyptic fallout,' he decided… meh, there was something threatening to destroy the world every other week anyway. "And this something would be… what exactly?"
"Well, there's this project I've been working on for a few months…"
"Yes?" Jiraiya pressed.
"I've may have…hypothetically… kinda… sorta been-"
Hokage's Office
Suddenly the Sandaime shivered in absolute terror as Jiraiya's maniacal laughter echoed through the village. It was not an unpleasant sound… but it was a sound he had come to associate with things that were going to give him a migraine. For instance, the last time he'd heard that sound… Minato had explained the theory of a technique he had been working on to Jiraiya… several weeks later, the Hiraishin was born.
"May the gods take pity on us all," Hiruzen muttered, sending out a small prayer for the poor unfortunate soul that would be on the receiving end of whatever madness his former student was about to unleash on the world.
Deleted Scene: Blood Doesn't Wash Off
Wrote this but it didn't fit with what I wanted for the chp…
No one that knew him would accuse Sasuke of being the protective type. In truth? Yeah, he wasn't. After all, what did he have to protect? Everyone he cared about was dead… right? Vague images began flicking across his vision.
The smiling faces of his kinsmen, traitors that they were but his family all the same.
His parents standing together in the backyard of their house, one of the only times he could remember his father smiling.
Itachi…
Sasuke frowned, stopping in his tracks as his eyes unconsciously dropped to stare at his hands. To anyone else, his hands appeared normal; perhaps a little dirty but nothing out of the ordinary. To Sasuke… they always looked the same. He could still smell it, that coppery tang in the air. He could still feel it, slick and warm on his hands. It was always there. The blood never went away…
Omake
An alternate version of Kakashi's talk with Sasuke…
"Penny for your thoughts?" Kakashi asked as he casually walked up next to, matching his student's pace while his nose remained firmly buried in his book.
"Just… things," Sasuke responded evasively.
"Hm," Kakashi hummed, closely watching his student's agitated movements. He had been so hopeful when Sasuke had started bugging Sakura at the beginning of the exam but now it appeared he would have to run damage control. "Want to talk about it?"
"Hn," Sasuke grunted, turning his head away from his sensei. Then, the next thing he knew, he was eating dirt as a sore bump started growing on the back of his head where Kakashi had smacked him.
"You know, you are so much like I was at your age that it's scary," Kakashi mused, casually turning the page.
"What the hell!" Sasuke screamed, ready to get up and charge his sensei only to have the older man literally sit on him.
"Have you given any thought on how you'll handle Neji?" Kakashi asked as though it was perfectly normal to use his student as a chair.
"I have a few ideas!" Sasuke barked, trying to push himself up. "Maybe I should test them on you?" he asked, his eyes flashing red as he stared up at Kakashi only to receive a sharp whack courtesy of Icha Icha: Paradise.
"I won't pretend to understand how you are feeling right now—this isn't the same as it was for me—but I'm going to do the same thing for you that my sensei did for me when I would get into a mood."
"And what was that?" Sasuke snapped, trying to push himself up again.
"He beat the shit out of me until I decided to behave myself," Kakashi said with a shrug.
End Notes
Edited: 2/10/17
I'm wounded guys. How many times do I have to say it before you'll believe me? I will never give up on a fic once I've started it. You here me? Never! I am the Naruto of Fanfiction! BELIEVE IT!
Anyway, I feel that you guys have a right to know just where the hell I've been for the past… year. For starters, my laptop with ALL my stuff on it died over the summer. It took forever to replace it because my mother kept insisting that she would help and then forever again to retrieve the data and badger my mother into following through on her promise to buy me the new Microsoft Office suite… Between that and the rest of my life, I turned around and well… you get the idea. Either way, I realized that I was leaving you hanging and have been working my ass off ever.
Rant
So, I was writing this when I realized something very important.
…I'm almost afraid to ask.
Pansy…
Yeah so?
You can ask on your own or I can edit your line, your choice X}
Fine! What wondrous discovery have you made this chapter oh great and merciful EDelta88, benevolent teller of epics and speaker of lore?
So I was sitting in my happy place when all of a sudden-
Asshole! You highjacked my line!
…I did warn you.
You-I'm gonna-grrrrr…
Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I was sitting in my happy place, chipping away at this chp when I realized, "Holy shit… this is chapter twenty-three!" When the hell did that happen?
…You're getting old Delta.
Five seconds.
What?
Four seconds.
What are you-
Three.
Oh crap! Not this again!
Two… One… And now that he's gone, I will let him run until he figures out that I'm not actually going to chase him (^.^)V