Hey guys bringing chapter 2 with me, I am working on this thing but it's going very slowly as I'm still doing it solo. To those that messaged me I appreciate your interest, unfortunately the ideal candidate; someone with the kind of basic experience and knowledge enough with grammar corrections and additions to my very basic story outlines I'm looking for has yet to come along. So again I will mention it, if you desire see this thing get back onto it's feet properly let me know if you or someone you know is a beta reader or someone with the above skills that would be suitable to help me out with this thing.
"Awake now are we?" a deep voice jeered.
Naruto rubbed his blurry eyes and began to process the situation at hand; he'd run from the village and was now waking up on the outskirts of the fire country in the middle of no mans land. Most of what he could recollect was easy enough to understand, but the one part that confused him was the voice he had just heard. "Must've been a part of that weird dream," he thought.
"I haven't cut your ears off yet so you ought to be able to hear me," The man spoke again. Eyes snapping open, Naruto jumped to his feet and found himself staring dead in the face of a rather disturbing looking man. Naruto quickly observed that the headband tied tightly around the man's forehead meant that he was in the presence of a ninja and the unfamiliar pattern on it made it clear to him that it wasn't one from the Hidden Leaf.
"Now I suggest you get prepared because I'm going to attack you and you're going to show me why I shouldn't kill you," the ninja explained as a look of horror came across Naruto's face before he bit it back and accepted his fate. Naruto slid into a poorly constructed fighting stance lining up across from the man.
"Before I fight you, what is your name?" Naruto demanded.
"I guess they really don't do a good job of educating the Konoha academy students in fighting stances nor beyond that..." The individual said causing Naruto to look down at himself. To his surprise, he saw no errors; after all, it was what he had been taught. "...Because if they did, you'd know exactly who I am!" the man shouted as he began to rush towards Naruto.
Naruto barely dodged the mans punch. "Fast," he thought while backing up to avoid the kick coming for him next.
"Come on, I want this fight to be fun!" The man yelled.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked again, louder and more insistent this time, making the man smile.
"I like ninja who have the honour to make themselves know their opponent," the man leered in response before removing a sword from his back and stabbing it into the ground with his right hand. Naruto stiffened and tried to stop a mixture of awe and fear forming on his face but he wasn't particularly successful. It was good thing he had that mask of his.
Sticking out from the earth was an unnerving weapon to look upon. It was taller than any man Naruto had ever met and extremely broad. There was an air of mystery to it as well because unlike most swords, the blade was bound tightly by what appeared to be cloth bandages.
"Kisame Hoshigaki, Monster of the Hidden Mist, notorious S-rank missing-nin," the swordsman stated proudly with a sadistic grin, "and who do I have pleasure of fighting today?"
"Naruto Uzumaki" Naruto started before hesitantly adding, "Monster of the Hidden Leaf." Kisame cocked an eyebrow as Naruto back tracked, "I mean... Monster... No. Demon of the Hidden Leaf."
"'Been a while since I've fought an Uzumaki and I can't say I've ever met a blond one. Thought you all had red hair… Oh well, you've yet to use any sealing techniques so I guess that means you don't really know your clan anyways," Kisame said before straightening up. Naruto grit his teeth. The man was right.
"Demon of the hidden leaf, huh? Intriguing..." He spoke with a bit of a grin, "let's see you live up to that name!" Kisame yelled before running towards Naruto with his sword dragging through the ground. Despite the bandage sheath it was in, it tore up the earth as though it was gliding through water. Spraying dirt all around, Kisame yanked the sword out of the trench he had created and brought it over his head while jumping up to swing it down on what was meant to be the top of Naruto's head. It met leaf covered ground instead because Naruto had just barely managed to dive out of the sword's path and into the bushes.
"Well, well. He does have some skill after all, at least in agility," Kisame paused to think just before Naruto rushed out of the bushes at him. Kisame intercepted him easily, grabbing the leg he was kicking with and holding him upside down in the air without difficulty.
"I'm disappointed, it seems you don't live up to your name at all," Kisame said coldly as Naruto struggled in his grasp like a fly caught in a spider's web. He enjoyed seeing the child claw and kick helplessly but to his annoyance, his fun was cut short by a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. Anticipating an attack, he leisurely side stepped, and sure enough another Naruto jumped out from the bushes. The one he was holding promptly disappeared in smoke. "So he can create solid clones and he's smart enough to use some basic strategy. Interesting..." He noted inwardly.
Naruto glared at Kisame, resenting how easily the man had dodged his surprise attack, only to feel a rush of power emanate from the man so intense that he instinctively braced himself. Before either party had time to even blink, Kisame took off at a blinding pace towards Naruto, smashing him with a flurry of punches and kicks, knocking him off his feet and against the foot a tree.
"Not so demon like after all, are we?" Kisame asked the worn out ragdoll of a person at his feet. Then, as he was shaking his head and tutting in mock disappointment, Kisame felt a noticeable change in the air around his young opponent. His toothy smile quickly became a taut line as a red cloak seemed to take over the young ninja. Gripping his sword tightly, he unraveled the bandages revealing bristling spine-like scales in the place of where one would expect a blade. He took a swing at the scarlet cloud and the chakra beginning to surround surround Naruto dissipated as though eaten away, effectively ending the fight. Kisame had seen what he needed to and felt that there was no reason to drag this fight on any longer.
After a few moments of tense consideration, Kisame lodged the huge sword under Naruto's chin. "Congratulations, kid. You interest me, so you're either going to work for me or I will kill you right now. The choice is yours, and it would be my pleasure to make either happen," Kisame announced with a sinister smirk.
Naruto used the last of his strength to lift his head and stare back wearily at the shark-like ninja. "I'll work for you. I have nowhere else and no one else. Spare me and I'll make it worth your while," Naruto conceded. It wasn't as though he had any options.
"Smart choice," Kisame chuckled, wrapping his sword up and returning it to it's original position on his back. "We're camping here for the night so that you can rest. We'll move out tomorrow. Not that you have much to prepare, but be prepared for the morning. We'll leave then."
"Yes sir," Naruto managed to wheeze out before the full force of his exhaustion hit him like a wave. His head lolled to the side and with a pained sigh he promptly passed out in his sitting position at the base of the tree.
Naruto awoke with a start. The sun was going down and Kisame had made a fire roasting some meat over it.
"Awake again. Welcome back to the world of the living, which you are lucky to be apart of," Kisame smirked, "anyway, tell me why you ran away from the village hidden in the leaves. You have their forehead protector so obviously it once must have been your home."
"There are a lot of reasons I left, but…" Naruto trailed off flashing back to the night before, still reeling from his recent unconsciousness.
Naruto felt lost, "I've lived with only good intentions and yet all I ever got was a straight kick in the face. How am I supposed to deal with that? And always being alone I…"
Frustrated at his own inabilities and all the what if's that always crossed his mind he walked away no longer able to deal with all of the suffering he'd been put through. As he continued to dwell on his past mistakes he cried out frustrated and punched the nearest tree with all of his might.
"I can't take any more of this mental torture life has dealt me and yet all I feel I can do is plough right through it and move on. And for what? Why? Why do I have to be cursed with this resolve? this ability to move on? Why? Why couldn't he just give up on himself like so many others? I guess there are times when I wish I could," he admitted to himself.
"Let me guess. The main reason is that you're a Jinchuuriki," Kisame interjected rather matter of factly breaking Naruto out of his trance.
"Jinchuuriki…" Naruto mused as if he was trying to get a feel for the word, "Yeah… I don't think I was supposed to ever find out but… It wasn't… pretty... my upbringing I mean," he said in a low tone.
"I can imagine. And the mask?"
"What about it?" Naruto asked hurriedly, clearly antsy about the subject,
"I'm just curious. It's an innocent question. Did something happen to your-" Kisame began.
"There's nothing wrong with my face" Naruto interrupted brusquely.
There was a moment of dead silence between the two before Kisame once again spoke up. "Okay... Anyway, first of all I can see to a degree that your training was sabotaged but despite that you still have a lot of potential," he said changing the subject.
He hadn't meant it as a compliment but nonetheless Naruto beamed. The kid was smiling so hard that the fabric of the mask stretched taut. It made Kisame wonder if Naruto had ever heard praise before.
"Thank you, Kisame-san" Naruto whispered almost reverently as he wiped a bit of moisture from his eyes with the back of hand. Kisame looked away and shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable and at a bit of a loss. Making people happy wasn't his thing. In fact, it was the exact opposite of his thing.
"But we have a lot of hard training ahead of us to get you anywhere close to the level you need to be at" Kisame continued on in a firm tone of voice once Naruto had regained his composure. A sort of burning inspiration came into Naruto's eyes.
"I'll train until I pass out if that's what's necessary, Kisame-san!" Naruto vowed with determination.
Kisame could see that he had assessed the situation well. Deciding against killing Naruto certainly seemed to have been the right decision. He hadn't been lying when he told Naruto that he had potential. He could see that in a few years he'd be much happier to have him on his side rather than against him at the very least.
"Good. I can guarantee you there will be a few of those days coming in your future," Kisame said handing Naruto a stick of the meat before promptly chomping into his own.
"Since you were sleeping most recently you're on watch first." Kisame yawned after finishing his final skewer. "Wake me up in six hours and then it will be your turn to rest until tomorrow morning," he commanded, jerking his chin up at the canopy above them to suggest Naruto head skywards to do his shift. "Go. I'll see you in six hours."
"I'll go find a tree nearby right now, Kisame-san" Naruto chirped, jumping to his feet and walking to the nearest tree.
Kisame grimaced as he watched Naruto hesitantly assess the height of the tree in front of him and then pull himself clumsily into the branches.
"The kid doesn't even know how to use chakra to walk up a tree. Well I guess I know what I'll be teaching him first then," he sighed inwardly as he was making himself as comfortable as he could amongst the foliage. To be honest, he had been giving several crazy ideas a considerable amount of thought recently, but not even he could have expected that training a ninja would be part of the plan.