*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*
Transformation Arc:
Chapter 6 – The Tale of Naruto the Gallant (Part I)
"Wait a second."
"What is it, Shikamaru? Did you find something?"
Idly flipping through the pages of Jiraiya's journal, something had caught the eye of the Nara boy.
It had been at least 3 hours since the strange earthquake incident, and although he hated to admit it, Kakashi had determined that it was in his best interest to stay and help the two chuunin try to decode whatever hidden messages that could reside within the book. At least, until he was instructed otherwise.
In the meantime, however, the copy-nin's attention drifted back to his favorite Icha Icha novel – and was engrossed in a rather… heated chapter when Shikamaru spoke up.
"Hmm? Hmm! Find anything interesting, Shikamaru?"
The boy rolled his eyes, and flipped open the journal. In front of him was a scroll on intermediate sealing jutsus. He had found the scroll on the ground after the earthquake had dislodged it earlier – and it had rather piqued his interest. One section of the document had caught his eye.
"What do we know about sealing jutsus?" Shikamaru asked rhetorically. After flipping past the last page of writing and moving through the empty pages in the book, he stopped on the two bloodsoaked pages towards the back.
Kakashi blinked, and set his book down. 'Well then, from the tone in his voice, I think he thinks he's cracked it.'
"Humor us," said a very annoyed Sakura. "Just spit it out already. We're on the clock here."
Shikamaru sighed, muttered 'Troublesome', and set the book down, still open to the two bloodsoaked pages. He took his index finger, channeled a little chakra into the end, and touched the first red page.
To the surprise of both Sakura and Kakashi, a faint seal glowed from within the bloody mess.
"What? How…?" Sakura said, obviously flabbergasted. She had spent twenty minutes earlier trying to find anything within those very same pages.
"See, you should have let me finish," grumbled Shikamaru, before taking his finger off of the page. "Sealing Jutsus are unique, in that they typically use blood and chakra-infused ink to work." He then pointed to the scroll he was referencing. "It's actually possible to only use blood for the writing, although it requires a significantly higher amount of chakra to work."
Sakura still looked confused. "But wouldn't the rest of the blood on the page ruin the seal once it was saturated?"
"Not necessarily. As long as the seal was formed first, you could theoretically write all over it and it wouldn't matter. A little more blood on top does a good job at hiding the seal, and making it harder to find."
"Huh." Sakura leaned back in her chair, frowning, still thinking. "Well, alright then. What kind of seal was that?"
Shikamaru pressed his finger back down on the paper, and this time took note of the shape and size of the seal. "Unfortunately, I have no idea."
"I do," Kakashi smiled, leaning forward. "As a matter of fact, I know that exact seal quite well. I wonder who got ahold of instructions to Minato-sensei's memory seal?"
"Memory seal?" Shikamaru and Sakura both looked up at the jonin.
Kakashi nodded. "Oh yes. It's quite easy to make, but requires quite a bit of chakra. It allows people to store their memories down on paper, granting them the ability to physically store their thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations in the real world."
"But how do you know about all of this? You mentioned a Minato-sensei?" Sakura cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh! Of course, silly of me to think you would know of Minato by that name. You probably are more familiar with his job title, 'Fourth Hokage'," smiled Kakashi.
Sakura gasped, looking back at the seal. "The Fourth Hokage?"
Shikamaru looked up with a look of mild surprise. "I thought that name sounded familiar."
The copy-nin nodded. "Yep. He was my jonin instructor back when I was still a freshly recruited shinobi. Haven't I told… you this… already?" He frowned, looked down quizzically, thinking to himself.
Sakura sweatdropped. "No, No… I'm pretty sure I would have remembered something as important as the Fourth Hokage being your sensei, Kakashi-sensei," she stated sarcastically.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Kakashi smiled weakly, before regaining his composure slightly. "Sensei used this jutsu to help train us whenever he had to go out on solo missions in the war, and we stayed back in the village. It was marked as a forbidden technique due to the astronomical chakra requirements in order to store memories longer than a few seconds."
"Astronomical chakra requirements that someone, say, with a Tailed Beast and Uzumaki blood would be able to meet quite easily?" remarked Shikamaru.
Kakashi smiled slightly and nodded. "It would seem so. Although I have no idea how he could have learned it. The scroll is locked up in the Hokage's personal vault, along with many other forbidden jutsus. There's no way Naruto could have snuck back into the village undetected, then break into the vault and steal the scroll. Someone would have noticed him - or at the very least, the missing scroll during weekly vault inspections."
"Well, at least we know what it does. Is there any way to activate it, Kakashi-sensei?" The Nara boy looked up from the intricate lettering of the slightly glowing seal, and glanced at the exposed eye of the White-haired shinobi.
"And should we activate it now? Shouldn't we wait for the Hokage to be here as well before we release the seal?"
Kakashi shook his head, still smiling. "That's the genius of this jutsu – it can be replayed dozens of times before the seal begins to fade. And personally, with everything that's been going on around here, I don't think we should bother the Hokage with something that we aren't sure is even valuable. It is in our best interest to view the contents of the seal first, validate their importance, then report to Lady Hokage for her to look it over as well."
"I can understand that," nodded Shikamaru, before he rolled up the scroll and set it aside. "Is there anything in particular we need to do to prepare for this?"
"And what does it feel like?" squirmed Sakura. She was really hoping it wasn't going to make her nauseous.
"Don't worry, you two," smirked Kakashi. "All you have to do is touch the center of the seal, and it'll start to play back its contents to everyone within a 5 foot radius. And it just feels like you're looking through someone else's eyes for a while, that's all, Sakura." He then gave an eye smile. "Although it is a bit weird to hear someone else's thoughts in your head, and a voice that isn't your own speaking."
Sakura gulped. 'I should have brought some motion sickness tablets,' she thought to herself, before sitting up straight and nodding. "Alright then, I'm ready."
Shikamaru sighed, and pressed his index finger into the swirl pattern in the middle of the seal. "Here goes nothing."
A pair of eyes opened and closed groggily a few times, and two arms stretched out in front of them. A stifled yawn echoed through the small tent the person was in, followed by the two hands moving up and scratching the eyes feverishly for a moment.
"Oi! Naruto! Get up! We have a long day of travelling and training to get through today!"
"Whoa! Is that Master Jiraiya?" Shikamaru marveled, as he let the sights and sounds of Naruto's memory wash over him.
"Yeah, looks like it. This must be from when they were on their training trip, before everything started to happen," replied Kakashi casually.
"Whoa…" mumbled Sakura, still in awe of the feeling she was experiencing – reliving someone else's memories.
"Yeah, yeah! That's what you said yesterday. Training this, traveling that! I bet all we're gonna do today is race off to another hot springs so you can spy on more women for that smut you call books, you damn pervert!"
Naruto's voice made Sakura's heart stop for a moment. It was just as she remembered it – loud, bombastic, and littered with profanity. She smiled to herself, well aware that the other two couldn't see her. They were too busy experiencing the same moments as well.
"You fool! You dare antagonize the great Toad Sage Jiraiya? And this early in the morning? I'm starting to think you don't want me to train you for the next two and a half years!"
Naruto grumbled to himself. "Ugh, alright, fine. But you had better teach me something badass, you damn pervy sage!"
Naruto pulled back the tent door, and stepped out into the sunlight. They were situated under a series of tall trees, off the trail a few hundred feet. Jiraiya was standing in front of him, already dressed, glaring at the boy.
Naruto rolled his eyes, and reached back into his tent for his trademark orange jumpsuit and pants. He quickly threw them on, pulled out a storage scroll, and resealed his tent inside of it.
"Oh, I have something very special planned for today!" grinned Jiraiya mischievously.
"NO WOMEN!" shouted Naruto angrily. It was obvious that this was something Naruto had to deal with on a frequent basis.
Jiraiya winced, and frowned. "Fine, fine. But we do have to get a move on – I want to make it to the next town before lunchtime. I've heard they have a tremendous archive of old sealing jutsus and scrolls. That would certainly help in my search to figure out how to let you tap into the Nine-Tails' chakra safely."
Naruto nodded, before yawning again. "Yeah, I hope we find something. We've been looking for almost two months now. I'm starting to think that we'll never find anything." 'I'm never going to get strong enough to fight off the Akatsuki at this rate,' he thought to himself with a frown.
"Now that's ironic," quipped Shikamaru.
Sensing Naruto's doubts, Jiraiya grinned widely. "This is it for sure! I know it is! It has to be! We'll find something! And until then, I want you to keep working on your chakra control, and Shadow Clone techniques. You can certainly improve on what you already know." He sweatdropped. "Kami knows your Shadow Clone techniques are crap."
"HEY! They've worked great for me so far!" shouted Naruto. "So what if I just make a ton and send them into battle. If it gets the job done, then what does it matter!"
Jiraiya conked the jinchuuriki on the head. "You idiot, it won't just 'get the job done' with the Akatsuki! You'll need to formulate a plan and be tactical when fighting them, or you'll die!"
Naruto sighed again, rubbing his head. "Ow! Alright, fine. What should I do first?"
The memory began to fade to black.
"Well that was worthless," Shikamaru grumbled.
"Kakashi-sensei did say that it required a massive amount of chakra to make one of these seals. Maybe he didn't have enough when he made these?" wondered Sakura.
"Quiet! Both of you! There's more," stated Kakashi.
Another memory faded into view – this time, of a small village's marketplace. Naruto was following close behind Jiraiya as they navigated through the swarms of people shopping.
"Where is that library? I was told it would be right off the market square!" grouched Jiraiya, above all the noise and commotion around them.
"This must be the village they were talking about in the previous memory," mused Shikamaru.
"Hey, Pervy Sage, is that it?" Naruto pointed off to the left, down a small alleyway. A man had recently walked out of a small building at the end, and he had just barely caught a glimpse of a large array of bookshelves filled with scrolls behind him before the door closed.
"Aha! That's it alright!" exclaimed the Sannin, as they made their way through the crowd.
After walking into the room, Naruto was immediately hit with the smell of old parchment and aged leather – the quintessential scent of a well-frequented library.
"Wow," gaped Sakura. "I can actually smell what it felt like to be there."
Kakashi murmured in agreement. "Yeah, this jutsu is pretty incredible."
Naruto yawned, and immediately began to seek out a chair. After finding a nice comfy one in the back corner, nestled between a few rows of bookshelves, Jiraiya piped up.
"Oh no you don't! You're not just gonna sit and lounge around all day while I'm working," the Toad Sage announced, pulling a small pebble from his pocket. "You're gonna practice your chakra control all day until you get it right!"
He tossed the stone to Naruto, who sweatdropped and looked up at his Master. "Again? Really? I don't think I can take much more of this."
He sat down in the chair, placed the pebble on his forehead, and concentrated. After a few moments of holding the stone to his face, he moved his hand away, and the pebble stuck.
"How long do I have to hold this for, you old pervert?" Naruto grumbled. After not receiving a response, he began looking around at the various scrolls and parchments that surrounded him, and the rest of the building.
Pretty soon after, he began to feel drowsy, and as the memory began to fade, the pebble fell from his forehead and bounced on the ground.
The next memory began immediately after the previous – and it started with the loud roar of Jiraiya in Naruto's face.
"YOU FOOL! I told you to sit and hold that pebble on your forehead all day! You can't just slack off like that!"
Naruto sighed and crossed his arms angrily. "You call this training?! I have been doing the same dumb exercise for the past week! I can't take it anymore! If that pebble's on my forehead for another minute, it's gonna start growing into my face!"
He was still sitting on the large armchair from before, but this time there was a very angry white-haired man standing over him, holding a small scroll in his balled up hand.
Noticing the scroll, Naruto sat up and pointed at it. "What's that? Did you find something?"
Seemingly forgetting the world of pain he was preparing his apprentice to descend into for breaking his instructions, Jiraiya sat up, and held it out in front of him with a cheeky grin. "Oh, this? This is nothing. It's only the perfect sealing jutsu that will allow you to tap completely into Nine-Tails' chakra without breaking a sweat."
"WHAT?! YOU ACTUALLY FOUND SOMETHING?!" shouted Naruto. It was then that a rather attractive looking librarian rounded the corner with a very annoyed expression on her face.
"Excuse me, gentlemen. But this is a library. I'd appreciate it if you would not scream in here like it's a playground."
"Oh, sorry, I'll tell my associate to keep it dow-"
Jiraiya's half-baked apology froze up in his throat as he turned around and saw the beautiful woman in front of him. His ogling didn't last very long, however, because the librarian whacked the Sannin upside the head with the rather large book in her hand.
"I'll have you know that it was mostly you that was making the noise, sir." She frowned at him, and turned around. "Pervert."
Jiraiya immediately followed after her, trying to apologize, still yelling. 'Ugh, why did I have to get stuck with him? Why couldn't the Legendary Sannin have some other, much cooler toad guy in it?'
Kakashi smiled to himself. 'It's funny, if Minato had been a few decades older…'
The next memory took them to a small wooded clearing – one that was significantly greener and more secluded than the first memory's. Naruto was sitting down in the middle, feet stretched out, arms propping him up from behind. In front of him was Jiraiya, holding another scroll, and reading through it intently.
"Are you sure you figured it out?" groaned Naruto, obviously bored beyond comprehension.
"It's funny, I can feel his boredom through the memory," chuckled Shikamaru. "Maybe if I learned this sealing jutsu, people would finally see how troublesome life is from my perspective."
"Shush!" Sakura hissed, obviously still trying to pay attention to the memory.
"Yes! Well, I think so!" grinned Jiraiya from above the scroll. "I had to modify this seal so that it wouldn't conflict with the Eight Trigrams one you already have, so I had to rewrite some of it. But otherwise, it should do exactly as it was intended to do."
"Ehh, what exactly does it do again?" Naruto asked cheekily.
"FOOL! Why don't you ever listen to me when I talk to you?!" bellowed the Toad Sage.
"What was that?" Naruto grinned, obviously joking around at this point.
Jiraiya's head seemed to heat up considerably, and Naruto could have sworn he heard a tea kettle whistling. Then, he let out a long sigh, and chuckled twice to himself.
"You really are a piece of work, you know that, kid?" smirked Jiraiya. "Now, as I said before – this sealing jutsu is a special one. It was designed to help tame untamable wild beasts, such as the many large creatures that frequent this forest and the forest around the village we were just at. The clans there came up with this seal to incapacitate them. It is said to render the creature emotionless and in an almost brain-dead state, for as long as the seal lasts."
Kakashi whistled. "Well then, Jiraiya, I was right it seems. You were meddling with forces that were above even you. The Kyuubi isn't just some forest animal."
"But the Nine-Tails isn't just a big ass pig!" grumbled Naruto, as if he had heard Kakashi's comment.
"Imbecile! You think I don't know that! The Nine-Tails is the most powerful of the Tailed Beasts. This will only incapacitate him slightly. But it should be enough time to draw out a considerable amount of his chakra, and store it elsewhere within you."
Naruto nodded. He couldn't hope to ever understand the complicated details and various idiosyncrasies of the seal Jiraiya was talking about. But he could at least understand what to do once the seal was in place. "Alright then. I'm ready whenever you are."
He stood up, and took off his jacket and mesh shirt, exposing the preexisting seal on his stomach.
Jiraiya looked at him for a moment, then nodded too. "Alright then. I'm only going to put the least powerful version of the seal in place, in case something goes wrong. We don't want to kill the Nine-Tails."
"But I thought you said the Nine-Tails couldn't die!" Naruto said with a confused look on his face.
"He can't! Well, he can't die in the traditional sense…" Jiraiya trailed off, before snapping back to reality, and laying the sealing scroll on the forest floor in front of him. "Well, here goes nothing."
Jiraiya extended his right hand, pulling his sleeve back to his elbow. A faint glow began to emanate from his fingertips, and small and convoluted symbols appeared down his arm. He took a step towards Naruto, and plunged his hand into the boy's stomach, directly on top of the Eight Trigrams Seal.
"Four Points, Untamed Beast Seal!" He shouted, blasting Naruto back several yards and into a tree.
His vision began to blur, and a hot, fiery burning sensation began to spread throughout his body…
The memory went black for a moment, and the three ninja were sitting around the library table once again.
"Four Points… Untamed Beast Seal…" muttered Kakashi, as he took a pen from his Jonin flak jacket and began scribbling on the blank page at the end of his Icha Icha novel. At this point, the intel they were receiving from the memory seal was far more valuable than his book.
"Wait!" yelled Sakura. "I don't think it's over yet. This memory is hazy, but I can still see a faint outline."
Kakashi nodded, before looking over at Shikamaru. "I see it too. Shikamaru, channel some more chakra into the seal. This memory was weak to begin with."
Doing as he was told, another memory filled their visions and they leaned back in their chairs again.
Drip.
Drip.
Naruto opened his eyes, and found himself laying several inches deep in a pool of water, in what looked to be a large, expansive sewer system. He smiled, and stood up; his clothes completely dry.
"Whoa, is this Naruto's subconscious mind?" Sakura whispered. "It's so dark and depressing…"
He began walking down the seemingly endless dark hallway. Although he didn't show it, he knew exactly where he was going.
Naruto passed hallway after hallway, before stopping at one in particular. Even through the memory, Sakura could feel something dreadful around the corner. Something tainted. Something evil.
He turned, and continued walking. This time, however, he walked into a large, expansive room. Although there were no visible light sources, the entire cavernous room was lit with a gloomy glow that reflected off the moisture on the walls and the pool of water that was still coating the floor.
What was most shocking, however, was the massive pair of golden gates in the middle of the room that expanded several dozen yards in all directions – even further in height. In the middle, there was a large metal clasp, covered by a slip of paper with the kanji for "seal" inscribed upon it. The back wall could not be seen from behind the gate – seemingly going on forever. The darkness quickly became the least unsettling thing in the room, as a pair of blood red eyes and snow white teeth punctured the onyx abyss with a snarl.
"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO, YOU BRAT?!" shouted the beast.
Sakura jumped back in her chair, and nearly toppled over backwards. Was this the Nine-Tailed Fox that had resided in the body of her teammate for all these years?
Naruto only grinned, and put his hands behind his head. "Nothing that concerns you, furball. I'm just taking what's rightfully mine."
The beast roared, and jumped forward, lashing out past the gate with its claws, desperately trying to get at its jailor. But the seal held, as it always did, and Naruto stood tall before it, unflinching.
"You dare call me by such a name? I am the Nine-Tailed Fox! You petulant brat!" it bellowed, before moving completely into the light of Naruto's side of the room.
"Whoa… Naruto's had that thing inside of him this entire time? How did he not go completely insane?" gaped Shikamaru, parroting Sakura's thoughts.
"I don't know. I certainly wouldn't have been able to pull off being a jinchuuriki. Naruto is stronger than any of us realize," noted Kakashi. 'It looks just like it did on that fateful night. I can't believe it. So this is what Naruto had to live with for 14 years.'
The Nine-Tails opened its mouth to continue berating the boy, when it suddenly went wide eyed and fell backwards with a shriek.
"What…. What have you done to me?!" it demanded, with a tinge of fear in its voice. Naruto was quick to pick up on it.
"Haha! Take that, you stupid fox!" he laughed, running up to the gate. "Now give me your chakra!"
The fox stood up again and took another swing at Naruto, which forced him back again. It grabbed one of the bars as it fell again, this time into the gate itself.
Naruto looked at the beast with a slight bit of worry. But also with a slight bit of glee. "Say, Kyuubi, you don't look so good."
Naruto was right – the recently thin and muscular anthropomorphic demon was quickly beginning to wrinkle and grow pale. Its once burnt-orange fur began to pale as well. His eyes, however, continued to be as piercing and hate filled as ever.
"You'll pay for this! You'll-"
Suddenly, the Nine-Tails gasped, stood up again, and fell backwards with a shriek. And there it stayed, while Naruto watched on with curiosity and amazement.
'I can't believe the Pervy Sage's trick worked! That grouch is down for the count! Awesome!'
Naruto turned, and began to walk out of the room. As he turned, a small blue streak of chakra could be seen coming from Naruto's side, and leaking across the room, and into the cage. This went unnoticed by the boy…
…but not by his sensei. "Wait a second. What was that? Did either of you two catch that just now?"
"You mean that strange blue beam of chakra coming off of Naruto? Yeah," replied Sakura with a confused look on her face. She was still reeling over the fact she had just seen the Kyuubi, the real Kyuubi, in its true form, sealed away within the depths of Naruto's body.
"Hmm… looks troublesome to me," muttered Shikamaru, before continuing with the Memory Seal Jutsu. "Maybe that's what the chakra extraction process looks like."
Naruto opened his eyes, and noticed he was back in the real world.
With a very concerned Jiraiya hovering over him.
"Hey, kid, you alright? You took quite the smash into that tree there," he said, pointing in front of them. In the path Naruto had travelled after being launched, he had flown straight through a tree, causing it to splinter and split down the middle into a crumpled heap off to the side of the clearing.
Naruto coughed once or twice, winced because of the pain in his ribs, and nodded. "Yeah, I feel fine! And I think it worked! It shut the bastard up, that's for sure!"
Jiraiya felt relieved. "Thank goodness for that. Honestly, I had honestly no idea how the beast was going to react." He sighed, extended a hand to Naruto, and helped him up on his feet again.
"Yeah! I feel… different now! Much better than before, that's for sure! And it's definitely a bonus that the old furball isn't antagonizing me every step of the way anymore," the boy grinned. "I wonder what my chakra capacity is now…?" He wondered out loud, making sideways glances at Jiraiya, as if asking for permission to test something out.
Jiraiya shrugged and smiled. "Sure, go ahead kid. Might as well learn as much as we can about what this jutsu does in regards to your chakra capacity now, before you're forced to later in combat."
"Alright! Here we go then!" he shouted, before forming a hand seal and announcing, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
The entire forest erupted into a plume of smoke, making Jiraiya's eyes widen in shock. "Naruto… this is at least…"
At that moment, the fog cleared, revealing thousands of shadow clones, stretching for miles in all directions.
"Whoa…" Naruto whispered. "My limit used to be 400 or so. But this is…"
"How many clones did you summon, Naruto?" gaped Jiraiya.
"Well, I do what I always do, and think of ten thousand. That always maxes me out, and I feel a significant strain. But right now…"
"Ten thousand?! Kid, that's the most shadow clones one person has ever summoned," shouted Jiraiya.
Naruto smiled. "And I know for a fact I can still make more. I just have to think bigger!" Then, he got a devilish idea.
He weaved a few more hand signs. "And I still have the power to do this! Sexy Jutsu!"
There was another cloud of smoke, which revealed hundreds upon hundreds of scantily-clad women, all batting their eyes and blowing kisses at Jiraiya. Each clone from before had transformed into an almost naked woman, complete with Naruto's signature blond hair and whisker marks.
"That idiot!" Sakura shouted, as Jiraiya's bloodied nose propelled him into the sky.
Kakashi quickly thanked the gods that he wore a facemask and kept most of his face covered, otherwise he'd have to explain the blush and his own slight nosebleed to the chuunin. "Oh, well… if it works, it works! Hehe…" he hastily remarked with an eyesmile.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, and smiled. "It certainly seems to have an effect on Master Jiraiya, at least."
The next memory faded in directly over the previous.
Naruto jerked awake inside of his tent, panting heavily and sweating profusely. After regaining his composure and looking around a little bit, he decided it would be best to stand outside and get some fresh air to try to calm his nerves.
When he unzipped the tent and stepped out into the cool summer night, he sighed with relief, before stretching a little bit and putting on his mesh undershirt.
He had just had a nightmare – one that didn't really make much sense, but terrified him nonetheless. It was one of those nightmares that you forget immediately upon waking up, and Naruto cursed to himself that he would get so worked up over a bad dream.
But something about this dream was worse than any of the others that he'd ever had – it was gut-wrenchingly horrible. At least, that's what he could remember of it. After walking around their campsite a few times and thinking to himself, he stepped out into the moonlit clearing that bordered their tenting area.
What he saw shocked him.
His skin was very, very pale – even that much was obvious in the dim moonlight. In addition to being chalky-white, his arms had begun to sag slightly – almost as if he was aging at an accelerated rate. His fingernails had begun to darken as well.
'The way my fingernails look seems familiar,' he thought to himself, before looking closer.
Suddenly, it hit him.
'Wait, this is what happens to my hands whenever I use the Nine-Tails' cloak.'
Gulping, he rushed towards the small stream that ran through the clearing. He threw himself down, and leaned over the edge, attempting to see his reflection.
Staring back at him were a pair of crimson red eyes – not unlike the color his eyes became whenever he got extremely angry or agitated. The pupils were slitted, and were blacker than the night sky.
He pulled back his gums, in order to get a better look at his teeth. Sure enough, his canines had grown significantly, and his teeth in general looked sharpened and deadly.
Naruto sat back, and stared off into the water in front of him as it reflected the subtle outlines of the moonlit trees. 'Why is this happening to me? I don't understand… I'm not angry, and there's no reason for me to be in this state right now. I also don't have the red chakra cloak right now. This doesn't make any sense…'
Suddenly, a deep feeling of dread overcame him. 'What if this has something to do with the seal the Pervy Sage put on me this morning?'
He lifted up his shirt, and channeled a little chakra down to his toes, which ran through the seal and allowed it to surface on his skin.
He panicked a little when he noticed it was glowing. Normally, his seal was hidden until he channeled chakra in his body, and when it appeared, it was black and unmoving.
Naruto took a closer look at the seal. In place as always was the Eight Trigrams Seal the Fourth Hokage had placed on him on the day of his birth. But now, there was a small ring of symbols and lettering that circled it.
And the Eight Trigrams Seal was glowing inside the ring.
Fear quickly came rushing back. 'What if the Nine-Tails is trying to break free? Is that why I suddenly look like this? I don't understand…'
Naruto though about what Jiraiya might say if he saw this. 'He'd probably blame me for it – I must be doing something wrong! Then he'll end up punishing me for ruining his seal and all his hard work…' Naruto frowned a little. 'It's not like it's really all that noticeable, I mean, I'm still me. I still feel the same. It would probably be a good idea not to tell him about this until something happens.'
"Something tells me that was a mistake… a huge mistake," murmured Shikamaru. "That troublesome idiot. Why wouldn't he tell Master Jiraiya the seal was acting up?"
'Actually…' Naruto thought to himself with a grin, 'I feel pretty great. I can probably train for much longer now! So maybe this is supposed to be happening.'
Then, he got an idea. 'I wonder…'
Naruto closed his eyes, grunted, and began channeling his chakra around the seal. 'This always worked before… I hope it'll work now.'
After holding it for a few seconds, the chakra was absorbed by the seal, and Naruto let out a sigh of relief. He looked back down at his reflection, and saw that his eyes had gone back to their vibrant sky-blue hue. His pupil was round and the way it should be. His teeth were still a little long, but not much more than usual. With a smile, he stood up, and dusted himself off.
That's when he noticed his hands. His fingernails were still long and clawlike.
'Aww, what the hell!' he yelled inside of his head. 'Are they just gonna stay like that forever now?'
He sighed, and admitted defeat. 'Well, the old Pervert is gonna notice this, so I'd better wrap them up with bandages.' He'd have to come up with an excuse for his pale skin, too, but he'd have to think about that later. Besides, he wore a longsleeve jacket all the time, who was going to see?
Kakashi put his head in his hands. "Oh, Naruto…"
"Why didn't he say anything to Jiraiya?" Sakura began to get frustrated. "That idiot. He never stops to think about his own wellbeing."
Naruto headed back to bed, and the memory began to fade again.
The next one began abruptly to Jiraiya shaking his tent vigorously from the outside. "OI! Get up, kid! We've got a long day of Big Ball Rasengan training to work on today!"
Naruto sat up immediately, and looked around. His tent was lit with the warm glow of the morning sun, and he could hear the vibrant sounds of nature all around him. It was the next morning already.
He blinked a few times, and rubbed his eyes. 'Maybe I was just dreaming?'
He got his answer, when he looked down at his hands, and saw the clawed fingernails.
'I guess that answers that question.'
"HEY! GET UP!" bellowed the Toad Sage from outside.
"Alright! Alright!" grumbled Naruto. He quickly took out a kunai from his pouch, whittled down his nails so they wouldn't puncture through the bandages, and quickly wrapped his hands before getting dressed and stepping out into the morning light.
Jiraiya had turned slightly, and was jotting down notes in a small leather book. He paused when he saw Naruto step out and seal his tent away, then raised an eyebrow when he saw his hands.
"What's the deal with the bandages?"
Naruto jumped slightly. He knew his master would pick up on it almost immediately, but it still surprised him how little time it took. Regardless, he had mentally rehearsed what he was going to say already, and it took little time for him to blurt it out.
"I burned my hand a little bit when making all those Giant Rasengan yesterday. I'll just have to be more careful today when I train," he quipped, quickly adding a smile at the end.
Jiraiya stared at him with a quizzical look on his face for a moment, then sighed and smiled. "I told you not to overwork yourself! Now look at what you've done." He turned around, and started walking. "Come on! We have a little under three hours until we reach the next village."
The memory seemed to get hazy for a moment, as they departed the campsite and rejoined the main trail again. After a few moments of blurriness, Sakura was about to mention something to Kakashi, when the memory suddenly snapped back into focus.
Naruto and Jiraiya were still walking, each maintaining the comfortable silence. The trees on either side of the cleared gravel path seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see, and the sun was now high in the sky.
Suddenly, Naruto felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. It startled him, and he stopped for a second, but he quickly got used to the pain and continued walking. 'Must be because I didn't get very much sleep last night…' he thought to himself, before yawning quietly.
The two kept walking. Naruto had almost forgotten about the pain from before when suddenly it skyrocketed, like someone had stabbed a kunai through the back of his head and into his brain.
"Agh!"
He grasped the back of his head with his bandaged hands, and fell over in a dizzied haze. The pain was getting worse by the second, worse by the moment, and it was unbearable.
Jiraiya immediately turned around, kunai drawn, expecting some sort of ambush. Instead, he saw his student doubled over on the trail, breathing erratically, and clutching at the back of his neck. A stifled moan would leak out of his mouth every few seconds.
Suddenly, he stopped completely, and started shaking.
'Wh… what's happening?' he thought to himself in a panic.
"I hate that bastard. He's always coming by my stall and stealing my produce. One of these days he's gonna get what's coming to him."
"I can't believe he'd cheat on me with that whore of a woman. How dare he."
"My father doesn't understand me. No one understands me! I hate them all! They all should die!"
Naruto gasped, his eyes shooting open. He was laying in the fetal position now, with Jiraiya standing over him with a genuinely scared expression on his face.
"STOP! STOP TALKING!" he screamed at Jiraiya. "I CAN'T… I CAN'T…"
He began hyperventilating, as another wave of voices began to wash over him.
"Those shinobi bastards. They come through here every week and think they're all high and mighty. They're despicable."
"My son is a failure. I can't believe he can't even perform a simple henge jutsu. He's going to grow up as some worthless-"
"NARUTO!"
Naruto snapped out of it long enough to notice Jiraiya holding him by the shoulders and shaking him around. "Wh… what? What happened?"
"You tell me! You had me really worried. What was that all about? Are you okay?"
Naruto blinked a few times. "Where'd… where'd all those people go?"
Jiraiya looked around. "What people? We haven't seen another soul for miles."
Naruto shook his head. "I could hear… so many voices. They were all angry, all so angry…" he began to shudder, as if a cold breeze had passed over him.
"Naruto, are you okay? Naruto?" Jiraiya leaned down, and looked him in the eye. Then he jumped back.
"Naruto… are you feeling okay? Your eyes… they're red…"
The boy sat up slightly, and his eyes returned to their normal blue color. "Yeah, I'm feeling fine now. That was very weird…"
"Don't scare me like that! And I think it probably has something to do with that seal I gave you yesterday. I need to look it over to make sure everything is okay." He looked at Naruto authoritatively.
"Okay…" he said quietly, and lifted up his shirt. Jiraiya stared at it for a few moments, studying the seal quietly and inspecting it for any problems.
After a few moments, he shook his head, and looked up at the boy. "Well, I don't see anything wrong with it. So it's not the seal. Can you think of anything that might be making you hallucinate recently? Any changes in strength or energy?"
Naruto shook his head slightly. "Well, I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights. And I have been training pretty hard." He held up his bandaged hands, as if to prove a point.
Jiraiya chuckled. "Well alright then. You need to take it easier for the next few days. Just until you start to feel better. Okay?"
Naruto nodded, and stood up. He stumbled a little bit, but the dizziness from getting up too quickly soon passed, and they continued on their way.
Naruto didn't bother mentioning that he could still hear voices – although they were much quieter now. Like a whisper.
Shikamaru grunted a little, and the memories began to fade. "Sorry guys, that's my limit. I'm all out of chakra."
Kakashi smiled, and began to assemble his books into a pile in front of him. "That's alright, you two. It's already getting pretty late." He nodded towards the windows, which were growing darker and darker with each second, as the Hidden Leaf village was plunged into twilight.
"Whoa, how long were we sitting here?" mumbled Sakura, rubbing her eyes.
"Judging by how sore I am right now, a long time," grimaced Shikamaru, as he fidgeted in his seat. "My mom is probably gonna kill me for sitting around all day."
"Well, we weren't exactly just sitting around," Kakashi noted, pointing at the page of the Icha Icha book he had been jotting down notes in. It was completely covered – he had even begun to write on the first few pages, between the lines of the book itself. "There was a lot of information to go through."
"Yeah… and there's still more to sift through," said Shikamaru, as he looked at the seal on the book in front of him. "We probably have another few hours ahead of us, at least."
"Well then, let's not waste any time," Kakashi smiled. "Let's meet up here first thing in the morning and keep gathering information. The more we are able to get from these seals, the better our chances of the retrieval squad being successful."
The two Chuunin nodded, and began packing up their belongings. Kakashi took the leather-bound notebook and put it away in his vest for safekeeping, before gathering up his Icha Icha collection in his arms and standing up. "Now, I don't know about you, but I'm famished! How does barbeque sound? My treat."
"Yeah, yeah, you always say that, but then you bail before the check comes," sweatdropped Sakura. "But I don't care. I'm starving. I could eat a horse."
And so, the three of them departed the library, as they mentally processed everything they had just seen.
Kyuubi approached the large stone statue with a grin on his face.
"Well, well, well. It took you long enough," chastised Kisume with a grin. "What have you been doing all day, kid?"
The boy threw down two bodies, and they fell to the floor with a thump.
"The Eight-Tails and the Two-Tails, as promised. And in under 8 hours," smiled Kyuubi.
"Impressive," muttered Itachi, as he watched the boy join the rest of the Akatsuki on the outstretched fingers of the Gedo Statue.
"Nicely done, Kyuubi. We will now begin the sealing of both the Two-Tails and the Eight-Tails. Prepare for a three-day sealing jutsu," came the powerful voice of the purple-eyed one.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa – three days?!" gawked Hidan. "What the hell? I thought these ceremonies only took one day!"
Kyuubi sighed, and looked at the white-haired man. "I'm not going to be able to make quite the same… significant contribution to the sealing jutsu this time," he stated, before holding his hands out. They were tattered and torn, and the Nine-Tails' chakra was poking out from each gash – although not as vibrantly as before. "Destroying the Hidden Cloud and having to do so while working around this seal, was, well, rather troublesome," He grinned.
"Regardless, the sealing will take significantly shorter with Kyuubi here, even at his reduced strength, for the time being," said Pain, also looking at Hidan. "Unless you'd like to spend the next week on each of these Jinchuuriki."
Hidan paled, and shook his head vehemently. "I'll take what I can get, I guess. But damn, at least let me go to the bathroom first."
"Silence. We will now begin the sealing," barked the leader, as he weaved a dozen or so hand signs in quick succession.