Chapter 23: Retrieving the Rings
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Yu Yu Hakusho.
A/N: Again, thank you Hishman for supplying yet another insightful review.
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Both Yusuke and Naruto took off from the ground and grabbed on to the nearest rock to them. They began scaling the mountain at a slow rate, bent on making it to the top of the mountain to further advance in their quest. Yusuke was having no trouble at all with the trial, because he had worked with Genkai on this before and he was well built, muscle-wise. Naruto, on the other hand, was not experienced at this in any way possible. As Yusuke climbed higher and higher, Naruto began having trouble pulling up himself with his upper body strength.
"Wait, that's it!" Naruto excitedly shouted.
"What's it?" Yusuke asked while holding on to one niche in the mountain side.
'Kyuubi, has any of my chakra restored yet?'
"Actually, yes, some of it has restored."
'Thanks, that's all I needed to know.'
Naruto gathered what chakra he had left and sent it to his feet. He then began running up the mountain side, passing Yusuke while doing so.
"Later Yusuke!" Naruto stuck his tongue out while passing.
"Wait! That's cheap! Just wait until I get to the top, Naruto!"
"I'll be waiting," Naruto said while nearing the top.
Several exhausting minutes later, Yusuke, who had broken into a serious sweat, only had several feet left to climb. His motivation was getting to the top in as fast as possible, only giving Naruto a short time to gloat. He backed up his reason for motivation with hard physical labor. With one last flip, Yusuke landed on both of his feet atop of the mountain, only to find a sleeping Naruto.
"You've got to be kidding me," Yusuke sarcastically said while sweat dropping. "Wake up!"
"Huh, oh, hey Yusuke, took you long enough to get up here," Naruto chuckled while grinning.
Yusuke told Naruto to get up and the sleepy blonde complied by standing up and stretching.
"If you look down this side of the mountain, there's a smooth path leading down it right over there. Let's just try and run down the mountain side," Yusuke shortly suggested while getting in a track runners starting position.
"I'm with you," Naruto agreed.
The first to take off was Yusuke who immediately took off running. He leaped off when he neared the bottom and ended up crashing into the ground right in front of the forest. Naruto did the exact same thing.
"If memory serves me right, this is the entrance I took when I had to run a race through the forest. Just follow me and we should make it out quickly," Yusuke confidently said.
"Okay, if you say so," Naruto cautiously responded.
When they first entered the forest, an odd feeling overtook Naruto. He feared the worst by the time they made it to a fork in the road. After hours of walking, they stopped in an open field full of overgrown weeds and exotic plants.
"Oh, visitors, how fun this will be," a screechy voice snickered.
"Naruto, you head that, right?"
"Yeah, I heard it. It must be one of the demons Genkai warned us about. Stay on your guard."
When they least suspected anything to happen, a tall, ripped demon with red skin ran into view and punched Yusuke right in the jaw before tripping Naruto. Pissed off, Yusuke told Naruto to sit back and relax while he took care of this. When the demon began another rush towards Yusuke, Yusuke stood ready and as the demon prepared a punch, Yusuke stuck his hand out quickly, grabbing the demons throat.
"Keep your eyes on this one, Naruto. It'll blow your mind. Shotgun!" Yusuke screamed while his other hand let out a flurry of balls made of spirit energy, killing the demon.
"You've got to tell me how to do that," Naruto demanded while in complete awe.
"It's pretty good, eh?"
"Good? That's great!" Naruto excitedly complimented.
The two students of Genkai continued forward after taking care of the demon. Luckily, Yusuke's remembered directions were still accurate, because they had both exited the forest shortly after beating the weak demon.
"Naruto, I can see the sun rising. We need to hurry," Yusuke observed while running up a hill blocking the view of the nearby area.
"Damn it, we need to hurry."
"Look, over there, it's the temple," Yusuke pointed at a small temple in the distance.
"You know what, Yusuke, let's race to the temple. That'd be fun!" Naruto came up with a fun way to hurriedly get to the temple.
"Okay then, on my mark then."
Right after they had both got into their running positions, Yusuke yelled go into the sky and they both took off as fast as possible. They stayed neck and neck for the duration of the race, but, in the end, Yusuke won after Naruto tripped over a rock on the ground. Yusuke held back a chuckle and helped Naruto get up. There they stood, right at the bottom of the stairs to the temple. Knowing they didn't have much time left to complete their ordered training, Yusuke and Naruto ran up the stairs as fast as possible and reached the doors.
"Look, at the end of the room, there are those two rings, I think. Let's get over there as fast as possible," Naruto nudged Sasuke while pointing across the room.
"Let's do this. We need to complete that old hag's task."
Yusuke and Naruto used what remaining energy they had to get across the room to the rings and the both of them nearly collapsed when they reached them if it hadn't of been for the table with the rings on it to support them.
"What're we going to do, Yusuke, we're both out of energy and we haven't completed our task?" Naruto wondered while struggling to stand up.
"May Genkai have mercy on our souls," Yusuke quietly whispered, causing Naruto to start laughing.
"Are you two going to keep bickering and laughing or are you actually going to get serious?" Genkai questioned as she entered her own temple. "I knew you two wouldn't complete the task, so, I took it upon myself to sleep until dawn and get over here."
Surprised, Naruto and Yusuke stood straight up and stared at Genkai, wondering how the hell she got up here so fast. These thoughts ceased when Genkai snapped at them.
"Put those rings on, rugrats. They should prove to help you somewhat. In other words, you'll go from little girls to big girls in no time. Just place them on your right index fingers. Over time, the rings will do three things, increase your total spirit energy capacity, strengthen your attacks, and help manipulate your spirit energy. You'll both need these boosts."
"Great, but, for now, and I say this for the both of us, we're going to take a short nap," Yusuke yawned before falling asleep on the temple floor, Naruto doing the same thing just moments later.
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Two Months Later
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Three others fighters for Team Urameshi stood on an island near one of it's main docks with hundreds of demons, waiting for the remaining members of their team. Their names were Hiei, Kuwabara, and Kurama. Kuwabara began complaining again about how late Yusuke and the other two people were and how they wouldn't be able to board the boat. Kurama continued to assure him that they were coming. Just before Kuwabara could get louder, a familiar voice told him to shut the hell up.
"Hey, it's Urameshi! But who's the shrimp with the blonde hair and the midget wrapped in toilet paper?" Kuwabara asked whoever was around him.
"I see you're still a huge dumbass Kuwabara. Those two are Naruto, our fifth member, and someone who met up with us on our way here. He calls himself the Masked Fighter," Yusuke told Kuwabara.
Before anyone could object to the presence of the other two members or make snide comments about them, the captain of the ship they were to board called for the fighters to board the boat. Naruto, whose hair had now reached shoulder length, moved his hair out of his eyes and walked towards the boat, Yusuke standing to his right and the rest of the team was following. By the time the boat took off, Yusuke and Naruto had found places on the boat to sit against and sleep while Kurama, Hiei, the Masked Fighter, and Kuwabara stood near them, waiting for the boat to get to the dock on Hanging Neck Island. But, suddenly, the boat ceased in movement and the captain approached the passengers.
"Yar, maties, this'd be the preliminaries. The last team standing gets off this godforsaken ship and gets to fight in the tournament, yar!"
"This seems like fun, Kurama, let's dispose of these disgraces for demons," Hiei calmly spoke.
One complete massacre later, Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara, and the Masked Fighter stood victorious over the demons. All while Yusuke and Naruto were asleep against railing.
"Next stop, Hanging Neck Island," the Captain shouted before returning to his captain's wheel.
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Narrator: With Naruto and Yusuke fast asleep, will the team manage to get them awake before there next big battle? Find out on the next chapter of The Venture of Four.
End of Chapter 23