Chapter 15 – Late Night Box-trot

A/N: Aw man, you guys are really good at making me feel guilty about having other work besides this... Hehe, but that's cool, as long as I know you guys are still reading this stuff!

Ah, and I miss Boxer-sama, and I just really need to write about him beating the crap out of bad-ass ninjas. And so, expect it in this chapter! ACTION-PACKED UNDERWEAR SCENES RULE

The hours flew by as Naruto enthusiastically retold the events of his birth, his eyes aflame with passion. Sakura was taken aback at how mature Naruto became while he was talking. He swung on his swing playfully at some points, and sometimes he would stop suddenly and smile sadly.

"...And so, that little baby boy..." Naruto continued, his eyes filled with a wise glint as he stopped swinging once again. "Was charged with holding onto the evil spirit of the Kyuubi. The Fourth Hokage told everyone, with his dying breath, to respect the kid as a hero: that he should be praised for his sacrifice... But uh... I guess they didn't really..." Naruto said, ending with a weak chuckle.

"How do you know they didn't?" Sakura asked. "You sound like you know personally..."

Naruto gaped, but quickly laughed out loud like an idiot. "Hohoho! I'm just... Making the story a little more interesting! Hohoho!"

Sakura stared at him nervously for a moment, then broke out in laughter. Naruto squinted at her curiously, before deciding to break out in nervous laughter himself, hoping that he had just made a joke.

Sakura held out her hand to him, beckoning. "Give me your script." Naruto obliged with a curious face.

"Why?"

"Why?" Sakura repeated, puffing her cheeks. "Because I've got to make some changes, and well... I thought I'd make them in yours first... Since you have to study the most lines! That's all!" she quickly added when she saw Naruto's face burn red, causing her to blush with him. She quickly changed the topic.

"Well... We should probably be getting back." Sakura smiled wistfully. Naruto had gone off into his own world as he told the story, his eyes filling with unseen wisdom and maturity. She had to fight the feeling that her cheeks had lit up as she watched him talk.

Naruto looked up into the sky curiously. "Yeah, I guess so. It must be way past midnight. I can't believe we were out here so long!" he said with a cheeky grin. "Jiraiya would be so pissed if he found out!"

The two laughed as they walked out of the park and back towards the shoddy hotel. Naruto reached up and grabbed the front doors handle and gave it a light turn, only to meet unexpected resistance.

"Huh?"

Naruto tugged again and again, but the door didn't budge. "Uh... I think the door's locked."

Sakura stepped next to him and tried the knob herself. Suddenly she gasped in realization. "Oh! Shizune-sensei mentioned that the hotel locked up after midnight."

"What?" Naruto exclaimed with surprise. "Well... We'll just break in then."

Naruto wound up his fist to pound down the door, but froze as a sudden wind passed by, blowing the hotel over to a fifty-degree angle. As the wind calmed down, the hotel building lurched back and forth like a metronome, settling back into the middle bit by bit. Naruto looked up at it with a scared face, looked down at his hand, then lowered it slowly, stepping away from the building.

"Uhh... Maybe we should come back in the morning..."

"I agree..."

Naruto and Sakura wandered the streets of the town, wondering where they could stay the night. The hotels had all locked up, much like their own, and the streets were deserted. A strong wind blew by, causing Sakura to grimace from the cold. Naruto noticed her in the corner of his eye.

"Argh!" Naruto exclaimed suddenly, causing Sakura to jump back in surprise. "It's just too hot with this jacket on!" he complained, unzipping it and taking it off. Underneath, Naruto was wearing a simple white singlet, exposing his neck, arms, and shoulders to the cold as he fought his urge to shiver. He looked at Sakura with a slightly red face and embarassed scowl. "Here, wear it for me!"

Sakura awkwardly caught Naruto's orange jacket as he tossed it to her, looking at him in confusion. "Aren't you cold? It's freezing."

Naruto shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away from her. "I don't know, I just feel hot, okay? Just put it on, jeez..."

Sakura stared at the shy blonde with a blank look, before quietly smiling, her cheeks brightening, and she felt as though it wasn't really all that cold.

"Thanks..."

"I haven't done anything, silly..."

Naruto continued to look away from her as they walked, his face feeling hot. In their distraction, they hadn't noticed that they had walked past a set of graves, one with a large sword etched into the ground next to it. Sakura recognized it and tugged at Naruto's arm.

"Hey, look! Remember these?" she said, pulling Naruto with her as she walked up to them. Without noticing, they had wandered along the outskirts of the town, and by chance had passed by the graves they had build for Zabuza and Haku, two ninjas they fought what felt like a long time ago. Nearby, the sound of the streaming water of a shallow river echoed lightly throughout the area. (Okay, maybe there wasn't a river, but I think it would be better if they were buried near a river, okay?)

Naruto stared at them in bittersweet reminisence. "Too bad we had to fight them... They were good people... At heart, anyway." he said with a sad grin. "... Wow, it's really been a long time since we fought them. It sure doesn't feel that long... And nothing's really changed, don'tcha think, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura stood behind him, looking at him in thought. Her eyes went along his exposed body, his arms and neck littered with little cuts and bruises, as well as a large scar that seemed to peek out from behind Naruto's singlet, a scar which felt very familiar. "Well, I can think of one thing that's changed a lot..."

Naruto stared at her curiously. "Really? Who? You mean Sasuke? He doesn't seem all that different..."

Sakura giggled at Naruto's thickness. "Not Sasuke-kun, idiot!" she said with a smile. "You."

Naruto stared at her in surprise, her cheeks lighting up. "M-Me?"

Before their conversation could continue, they suddenly heard a noise nearby. Jumping to attention, the two quickly darted into nearby bushes, going in separate directions. Naruto lay prone in a patch of shrubs, while Sakura leapt up into one of the trees, hiding within the leaves.

A lone figure stepped into the clearing, fairly large, with a large, long object straddled on his shoulder. Naruto only realized who it was when he began to speak.

"It's been a long time, Traitor of Kirigakure."

"Kisame..." Naruto whispered in shock. "What's he doing here?"

Kisame stepped up to the grave, a shiny object in his hand. Kisame smirked menacingly, staring into the object in his hands.

"Well, if this does what Itachi said it would do... You won't be a traitor anymore... Well, not to the Akatsuki, anyway!"

Naruto tensed up at Kisame's comment. He didn't know exactly what Kisame meant, but felt it was somehow dangerous. Thinking fast, he began stripping his pants off, revealing his heart-patterned boxers underneath. He reached into one of his pants pockets and pulled out an old cloth. It wasn't exactly the mask he always wore, but it was all he had on him. Clad in his boxers, cloth, and singlet, he once again became Boxer-sama. He closed his eyes, opening them to once again reveal deep-red pupils.

"HEY!"

Kisame's hands were raised towards the sword, opting to put the strange object onto it. He stopped suddenly and turned to face Boxer-sama, who had jumped out of the nearby bushes. Sakura almost gasped in delight.

"I don't know what you're up to, Kisame," Boxer-sama said in his fake, deeper voice. "But I'm not going to let you do what you want!"

Kisame turned to him with an intimidated face. "B-Boxer-sama? Why are you here?"

"Why are you here? Stay away from Zabuza's grave! You don't deserve to get near great men like him!"

"Heh, a great man, huh?" Kisame said with a smirk. "That guy decided to run away from our village. Zabuza wasn't a great man... But he soon will be."

"W-What do you mean?" Boxer-sama asked cautiously. Kisame didn't reply, instead drawing his sword. With speed and strength that Naruto was not prepared for, Kisame dashed up to attacking distance and whacked Boxer-sama as though he was swinging a baseball bat. He yelled in pain as the razor-sharp teeth of Kisame's sword, Samehada, ripped through his singlet and abdomen, his stomach covered in blood, and went sailing through the sky, his back slamming into a tree. Suddenly, intense pain sparked from his back, along a scar that he didn't know existed.

"I guess even the mighty Boxer-sama isn't invincible." Kisame smirked and turned back to Zabuza's sword, Zanbato. "And after this, we are going to tear you to shreds."

Sakura leapt out of the trees, crouching beside the fallen Boxer-sama. His body was streaked with blood, and his breathing was quick. She judged that the last attack must have broken some of Boxer-sama's ribs. "Boxer-sama! Are you okay?"

Mustering his breath, Boxer-sama spoke to her. "Sakura... Go... Go get... Jiraiya... Now..."

"But you're hurt!"

"It's important! Go now!" he forced out, before flinching from his broken bones pushing on his lungs. "I'll live, this isn't too bad. But I need Jiraiya here. Go!"

Sakura reluctantly gave in, giving Boxer-sama a quick dose of her ki, which she learnt to store much like Tsunade. It was enough to mend his bones, but his body was still extremely weak, and the scar on his back seemed to pulsate with pain. She leapt away hurriedly, as Boxer-sama helped himself up with the tree behind him, and returned his gaze to Kisame, and gasped.

Right before his eyes, next to Kisame, was a face he remembered from long ago. In his hand, he held the large Zanbato, which had a strange shiny object imbedded into its hilt. He stood by Kisame, facing Boxer-sama.

"Zabuza... B-But how?" Boxer-sama stared at the figure curiously. He was certain that it was Zabuza. "That's impossible! Zabuza died!"

Kisame grinned back at Boxer-sama menacingly. "Itachi has set his sights on ridding the world of you, Boxer-sama. He knows you're powerful, so he thought we'd need all the help we could get." Kisame and Zabuza stepped towards Boxer-sama, raising their swords. "Only few ninja in the world can defeat one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. None can defeat two."

Boxer-sama coughed and sputtered, holding his mouth with his hand. He looked at his hand, and saw a streak of blood on it.

"Shit... This isn't good..."

"Zabuza! Attack!"

The two Swordsmen lifted their swords above their head, and charged.

"Jiraiya! Jiraiya!" Sakura screamed at the front door of the hotel. Finally giving up discretion, she gave a strong punch into the door, flinging it open and snapping the lock. Running up the stairs, she crashed through the door into their room, waking everyone up. "Jiraiya! Wake up!"

"H-Huh? What?" Jiraiya murmured, still half-asleep. Shizune sat up in her futon, glancing at them sleepily. "What's going on?"

"Come with me! Now!" Sakura yelled at him urgently. "Kisame appeared out of nowhere, and now he's attacking Boxer-sama!"

The mentions of Boxer-sama and Kisame immediately brought Jiraiya to full alert. The girls and boys also shot up in surprise.

"Boxer-sama's in trouble?" the girls exclaimed.

"Kisame's here?" the boys yelled.

"This isn't the time for needless yelling!" Sakura groaned. "Boxer-sama needs help, now, Jiraiya-sama! He told me to get you!"

Jiraiya stood up, his face dead serious. "Sakura, you stay here. Shizune, take care of the kids and don't let any of them leave. I'm going after Boxer-sama. Sakura, where are they?"

"T-The grave of Zabuza. It's by the river a few minutes that way," she said, pointing.

Jiraiya leapt out the window hastily, worried sick about Naruto.

"Dammit, Naruto, you better be alive when I get there."

"Ugh!" Boxer-sama yelped, as he was once again crushed into a tree. His body had recieved many more cuts and slits from the two huge swords of Kisame and Zabuza.

'Shit, it looks like Zabuza is completely under Kisame's control... How can this be happening?'

Boxer-sama threw himself to the side, avoiding a vertical chop from Zabuza's sword. But he didn't have time to dodge Kisame's attack, which came directly after Zabuza's.

"Suiton: Suikoudan no Jutsu!"

At point-blank range, Boxer-sama felt a mighty blow to his chest, sending him skidding along the floor from the sudden shot of water that came out of Kisame. Hopping like a skipping stone in water, Boxer-sama came to a halt halfway into the nearby stream, crouching in pain.

Kisame and Zabuza approached him menacingly. "Like I said," Kisame said, raising his blade above his head, Zabuza doing the same. "Nobody can defeat two Swordsmen of the Mist. Not even the great Boxer-sama."

Boxer-sama could barely open his eyes anymore. His body was battered completely, more of his ribs broken, and blood loss dulling his reflexes. The only part of his body he could still feel was his right hand, water swishing in between his fingers. The feeling reminded him of a certain feeling. "Oh yeah..."

He knew it was a long shot, but he knew that if this didn't work, he was doomed. Before Kisame and Zabuza could come any closer, Boxer-sama yelled at the top of his lungs, ignoring the pain it caused as his bones pinched at them.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

With an incredible amount of willpower, Boxer-sama managed to summon a staggering one thousand clones, standing all about the forest. Kisame and Zabuza looked about in surprise as they were quickly surrounded.

"I'm impressed that you can even use any Jutsus in your condition," Kisame said. "But at your state..." He stepped out and swept his sword out horizontally. The clones were apparently all in the same condition as the original, and were unable to avoid Kisame's attack. In one swing, Kisame had taken out six of them. "... This will be too easy."

Kisame and Zabuza set about destroying the clones, and they faded at an incredible rate. 'Damn... Do I have enough time?" Boxer-sama mumbled. The water about his right hand was torrenting madly, but was unnoticed with the splashes and crashes made by Kisame, Zabuza, and the clones, as they danced about the water in combat.

Within the minute, nearly all the clones had disappeared, with less than twenty left. Kisame and Zabuza had been too quick, and their swords made easy work of them. "Just give it up, Boxer-sama. You can't win."

Suddenly, the clones began disappearing one by one, the only one left lying in the stream, half dead. Kisame and Zabuza stepped in front of him, filled with contentment and a sense of victory.

"It's over, Boxer-sama. The only news people will be hearing about you, is the sudden appearance of your bits and pieces all over the world."

"Oh yeah?"

The Boxer-sama in front of them suddenly poofed out of existence, the voice calling from behind them, as they turned around, they saw the real Boxer-sama, standing a few feet away from them, his hand creating a vacuum. In their confidence, they hadn't noticed the intense amount of ki that Naruto had created in his palm, and the pull it made they mistook for strong wind.

"W-What the hell is that?" Kisame exclaimed. Kisame and Zabuza began to back away, but Boxer-sama didn't seem to care.

"Odama Rasengan Vacuum!" (Don't know the Japanese for vacuum, and how to write it in this sense, so... meh)

Boxer-sama slammed his hand in their direction, and the strength of his vacuum grew immensely. Screaming out, Boxer-sama began to focus the pull forward, creating a kind of tube of wind, and aimed it at Kisame and Zabuza. Unlike his usual Rasengan, Boxer-sama had somehow managed to make it pull in rather than push out. A trick he learnt during Jiraiya's 'special training'.

"I-It's so strong!" Kisame said in shock, soon losing his grip and getting sucked towards Boxer-sama, followed shortly by Zabuza. They flew quickly towards Boxer-sama, and as they neared him, the pull tightened. The extreme current sucked them right onto Boxer-sama's ball of ki, making them feel as though they were being scrunched up.

Suddenly, Boxer-sama began to yell louder. He lifted his hand up into the air, bringing Zabuza and Kisame up with it, and stepped into the river. The power of his Rasengan disturbed the water's natural flow, as it began to circle around Boxer-sama like a whirlpool.

"RASENGAN!"

Boxer-sama's pull changed, as it began to spin faster and faster. Suddenly, it launched a blast of air into the sky, pushing away Kisame and Zabuza at mach speeds. He looked up as he saw the two of them flying away, Zabuza losing grip of his sword and watching it blow up into the air and land into the river, plunging into the ground. As for Kisame and the fake Zabuza, they disappeared into the sky, twinkling into the distance.

Boxer-sama dropped to one knee, his Rasengan winds slowly disappearing, leaving only the river's flow to disturb the silence once again. He glanced to his side and saw the Zanbato, splitting the river around it. Getting back on his feet, he walked over to it, and noticed the shiny object that Kisame was holding embedded into the sword's hilt.

"Huh, this must be some kind of enchanted stone or something..." he thought to himself, as he forced it out of the sword. Examining it, it looked much like a black gemstone. With a grunt, Boxer-sama slammed it to the ground, bursting it to pieces, and watching the remains float down the river.

He grabbed at Zanbato's handle with his right hand, and pulled it out of the ground. Dragging it out of the river, he trudged over to the grave, and once again imbedded it as he did before long ago.

"I'll bury you next to Haku again, Zabuza," Naruto said as he took off the cloth covering his face. Blood was trickling steadily out of his mouth, and his pupils had returned to blue, and were dilating. "... I won't let them do that to you again... Sorry, looks like I'm still too weak..."

He began to walk towards the stream, thinking of cleaning himself off. As he stepped into it, he noticed a streak of red flowing down the water. He noticed it was coming out of him.

Turning around again, he saw that there was a path of blood-filled dirt from the grave to the water. His body was bleeding like mad, with the combination of numerous small cuts from Kisame's blade, and a few large ones from Zabuza. Naruto fell to his knees, as though suddenly realizing that he felt weak. It didn't help that Naruto had not only exhausted all of his energy, but it seemed as though he had exhausted energy that didn't even exist in him. Suddenly, a stupid thought hit him that made him smile stupidly.

'If I thought of staying at Inari's place tonight... This wouldn't have happened... Haha...'

The last thing Naruto could remember was seeing a blurred world of red water in one eye, and a burly, white-haired man standing over him in the other.

What Naruto didn't see was the young, red-haired girl in an orange dress, sitting up on a tree with a grin.

"Interesting."

END CHAPTER 15

A/N: My God, that was bloody. Perhaps I overdid it? Oh well. Wonder how Naruto will explain this? I mean, if you saw a guy you knew covered with cuts, bruises, and broken bones, and he said nothing happened, would you believe it? Hell no! Perhaps this will affect the play? Anyway, I finally brought Boxer-sama back, which was cool. Boxers kick ass. I need, like, a brief-wearing rival or something...

Here's a curious thing: if Naruto could still change his eye-colour, and he can't heal as well as he used to, what's going on? And what's with this girl who thinks everything's 'interesting'? (she said it in both of her appearances). Find out soon, if I can keep finding time like I am now. Hopefully I'll update soon! I feel like adding some good-ol' "nurse me!" scenes for Naruto while he's hospitalized, the lucky son-of-a-gun...