Naru; Why must you rhyme every time?
Sora; You did so as well, can't you tell?
LC; YES! The rhyme curse has begun to verse!
Naru; Make this curse go away!
Sora; We don't want to rhyme all day!
LC; Sadly I can not, not for the tea, not for the pot!
Disclaimer; I do not own Mother Goose...or Naruto, as of yet. My plan is still in stage one.
Chapter 2, Episode 2! Woop 'd' doo!
"A shinobi's life is too dangerous to garuntee that." I finished coldly, not taking my eyes off Tsunade. Kiba had fainted, as had Hinata, Akamaru's jaw broke through the floor, Lee's eyebrows had nearly flown off his head, Neji looked like he wanted to go bald, he was pulling out his hair, Tenten was rocking back and forth on the ground.
Ino looked like someone had told her she was fat. Chouji had actually dropped his bag of chips. Shikamaru had the strangest reaction, he started looking out the window nervously, probably looking to see if the sky was still where it should be.
Tsunade looked like she'd been tricked into going sober for a year.
Jaraiya, who was sitting on the window sill, had falled off of said window sill and was laying some twenty feet below, twitching.
When no one seemed to recover, I took matters into my own hands. "What?" I asked them, ignoring Somma's giggles as Neji's hair really did start to fall out.
"Kit, I told you they were all nuts." Kyu muttered under his breath.
'Yeah, I see your point.' I thought. 'Lots of ninja retire when they have kids. What's so strange about me?'
"The fact your under a genjutsu that hides the fact your a half demon?" He suggested. He did have a good point there actually.
"Your going to retire?" Tsunade repeated, heartbroken. "Are you going to just become a citizen then?" Oh, she was still on the idea of me staying in the Leaf.
"Sorry grandma." I said slowly, sadly. "But, things change. Three years ago, I'd have given anything to come back. Now, I can hardly stand being here at all. I'll stay for the war, no longer."
Sora put a hand to my shoulder and steered me out, thankfully, I was worried I'd start crying if I had to look and see her expression.
"Are you sure you can do this?" We were standing on team seven's bridge, the place we used to meet as genin. "Sora, I grew up without ever meeting my parents." I told him. "I want Somma to know who his mother and father is. I want him to be able to hear us say we love him."
He embraced us both, and later, we went to my old apartment to spend the long night in each other's presence/bed.
Sora knew the reason I still trained, why I worked my ass off, why I fought. It was because, I am more demon than human now, and Somma is half demon as well.
The next morning, I left Somma with Sora and went for a nice long walk. As I did so, yet more people bowed to me, more men stared at me shamelessly now I was without husband or son, and many women glared enviously.
The fact I was still wearing my head band around my neck with it's slash must have deterred them from approaching me though.
Before I knew where I was going, I found myself in front of Ichiraku's ramen shop. "How nastalgic." I muttered once more, wondering how many more times I would do it.
Ayame walked out of the flap with one of the delivery bags. "Dear, I'm going on a delivery!" She called back inside. She saw me and gasped. "N-Naru?"
Out of the shop came none other than Iruka. "Did you say something Ayame?" He stopped when he saw me. "Naru?"
"Hey Iruka-sensei, Ayame-chan." I said jokingly, as if I had never left.
Without warning, I again had to struggle to breathe as both of them hugged the life out of me. "Air." I gasped weakly. "Need...air!"
When they let me go, I was certain my face was as purple as my eyes. "Geez, why is everyone doing that?" I choked out.
"I can't believe your back!" Iruka cried happily, tears in his eyes.
"Come on Iruka, no tears." I pleaded. The water works had always been slightly annoying, especially when it was a man using them.
We sat down to catch up over some ramen, at which time, their two kids came from behind the shop. "Mom, Dad, who's she?" The two year old girl asked sweetly.
"This is an old family friend, Tsuki." Ayame answered, picking her daughter up. The four year old boy walked up next. "Dad, she has a scratch on her head band. You said only bad ninja had scratches."
I left some time after that, ready to go home and see my own child. Once there, I found Sora entertaining all of my friends from my Leaf days. "One time, some ninjas attacked us at home, late at night." Oh Kami, he wasn't going to tell them that was he? "Well, she rushed out there and beat them fairly quickly." Oh no! "I had been watching from our bedroom window, and that's when we realized, the reason the ninja hadn't put up a fight," Kami no! "Was because she had rushed out without any clothes!"
My old friends began laughing at my stupidity, saying something along the lines of, we knew she'd do it someday!
"Okay party's over!" I growled, letting lose enough KI to make Orochimaru drop a friend down his pants.
Everyone slowly turned to the open doorway, I could smell their fear. Over the years, my KI had changed from a threat, to a promise.
"Leave." I ordered idly. They all nodded, and if I hadn't grabbed him by the ear before he left, Sora would have joined them. "Where are you going?" I asked him.
"Ehehe, nowhere." He chuckled nervously.
I chuckled and reeled in the KI, much to his relief.
After a quick shower, I took Somma and went to team seven's training grounds. "Alright Somma, watch mama train now, ok?" I crooned to my son.
"Mama!" He replied happily, obviously proud of himself. "Mama twain!"
"Yes, mama trains!" I told him, setting him down in the shade of a nearby tree. I gave him a ball to play with and walked to one of the training stumps.
Cracking my knuckles, I released the genjutsu around both me and Somma, revealing our matching fox ears and tails. I then began to punch through the stumps until they were nothing but splinters on the ground.
"Company calling Kit." Kyu yawned tiredly, he'd been growing weaker lately.
Turning around, I saw Sakura, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten crooning to Somma about his cute ears and tail. "I think I missed something." I muttered. "Oh, well, after you left, master Tsunade told everyone about your ears and tail." Sakura informed me kindly. "But, we didn't know your son would have them too!"
"Uh huh." I said, making a mental note to 'talk' to grandma later. "Your here why?"
"It's been ages since we dragged you shopping!" Ino cried. Crap, I knew today was going to be a bad day.
"I don't need anything." I told them, picking up Somma, much to their chagrin. "Nor do I intend to waste money on things I don't need."
I had to deal with them for another entire hour before they got the picture and left me alone on top of the monuments. Well, to be honest I kinda used Hiraishin to get away, but it's the same principle.
"Mama!" Somma crooned, pulling the still showing ear. "Mama!" I chuckled and pulled on his own ear. "Yep, I'm mama, your Somma. Say Somma? So-ma?" He tilted his head to one side, as if trying to wrap his head around the new challenge.
"Sthoma?" He tried.
"Good enough." I sighed to him, looking over the village I hadn't set foot in for four years.
When we went back home, many more people bowed to me, and it was seriously getting annoying. Finally I stopped in the middle of the street and looked over the many people inclining their heads at me.
"Alright, I think I get it already." I said. "Stop bowing and scraping to me already!"
Of course, none of them listened to me. I gave up and just went back home. "Sora, remind me to kill the next guy who bows to me." I muttered to my husband.
The next day, every ninja in the Leaf was called to an important meeting, where Tsunade would reveal certain things about me that had been kept on a need to know basis for twenty years.
"What I'm about to indulge to you all is a twenty year old SSS-ranked secret." Tsunade announced, wearing her formal Hokage robes. "That secret, is the parentage of Naru Uzumaki!"
My return had been the favorite topic for gossip, but no one expected this. "As all of you should know, Naru has been called back to the Leaf village because we are on the brink of another shinobi war. What you don't know, is who she really is."
She definetly had everyone's attention now. I was standing in the shadows, waiting for her to call me up.
"Naru's full name, is Naru Uzumaki-Namikaze!" Tsunade dropped the bomb. Really, it's amazing no one ever put two and two together. Hello, I'm a female clone of the old man! "She is the daughter of Kushina Uzumaki, and Minato Namikaze! She is also the jinchuriki for the Nine Tailed Fox, and as of right now, a mercenary hired by the Leaf village!"
Oh yeah, the mercenary bit caught their full attention. To my utter surprise, it was Ebisu who spoke up. "Why hasn't she been reinstated? After all, we all know the charged put against her four years ago were false! And she has remained lyal to the Leaf despite this!"
Tsunade nodded in my direction so I took my place at the podium. "Let me make one thing clear, I am no longer a Leaf kunoichi!" I announced to them all. "I have not been reinstated because I do not intend to stay here after the war! I am merely helping out to repay a debt, is that clear!"
An uproar filled the room after I finished my announcement. Near the back, I could make out Konohamaru wearing a chunin vest. He didn't seem surprised, but he did look a bit depressed.
"But why?" Many of them asked. "What happened to giving your all for the Leaf? To becoming Hokage?" Many demanded.
I took a deep breath before answering them. "I recall doing many things for this village. I gave my all when I could. But now, I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that!" I snapped. "As for becoming Hokage, I think that's something I can die without doing!"
I left the meeting shortly after while everyone else talked about tactics and plans for battle, it wouldn't be long till we set out.
One week later...
I looked over the huge field with everyone else. There wasn't much room to take cover, and since my squad contained mostly chunin, this would most likely be a difficult battle for them.
With a mighty roar, our enemy was upon us and we had to fight. I brought out many of my personalized kunai and began to take down ninja after ninja using Hiraishin.
The battle lasted five minutes, and not a single man was lost on our side. "Alright, let's send word back to the main force." I ordered them.
The next day, we went up against a lot of Iwa nins. I remembered the 'flee on sight' order they had put for my dad, and decided to have a little fun.
"Boys, why don't you just hang back and watch the show." I suggested to my squad. "I'll be right back."
I stood in front of the enemy nins as they looked me up and down. "The Leaf village must be desperate if they can only send one ninja here to stop us." One guy commented.
"Nah, I just told my squad I'd take care of you." I told them, whipping out my kunai. "Tell me, do you recognize these kunai?" Many of the older nins paled considerably at the sight of them, but they stood strong, pity, they might've lived longer if they'd run away.
When I was finished, I decided to go and see what my squad was doing. I turned around to see them gaping at me like they'd never seen someone of the female species before.
"Something wrong?" I asked them, a little ticked off at the stares.
"You killed all of them, without breaking a sweat." One of them said unbelievingly. I turned back around and found about a hundred dead ninja on the ground.
"What?" I asked them again. "You act like you've never heard of the Hiraishin before."
For many more days, we fought battles, and for many more days, I lived with the absolute boredom of it all. At least being a missing nin, I could go where I liked and didn't listen to anybody.
If I wanted to go and destroy some buildings in Sound, I went and blew them up. Now, I just fought pointless battles that only left me with a bruise at most.
"This is boring." I complained. "When am I going to fight someone who's actually a challenge?"
"Sooner rather than later." A voice drawled. Recognizing the laziness, I turned to adress Shikamaru. "It seems the Kages of the three warring nations are coming into battle. Iwa's kage, Sound's kage, and Grass' kage, are all coming."
Most people would have paled and started writing out their wills, I on the other hand, grinned my signature foxy grin.
"Sounds like fun." I giggled.
Before leaving the room, I noticed Shikamaru shudder involuntarily.
For the next two days, I fought more and more battles. When I finished with one, I would dash off to help out with another. I became a sort of symbol. When our allies saw me come out, they fought all the harder as our enemies tried hopelessly to escape. I never left survivors.
And then, came the day the Tsuchikage came into battle. We faced eachother, an entire field apart. "I've heard rumors that that blasted Minato Namikaze had a daughter hidden away somewhere." He told me. He was aged, older than Old Man had been. "And now your making your big dabue in this war as the Crimson Flash, is that right?"
"Crimson Flash?" I repeated. "So that's what their calling me."
"So it's true then?" I nodded my confirmation. Without any warning, I threw several kunai and vanished from the spot, before he even registered I wasn't there anymore, I was behind him with a kunai at his neck. "How simple it would be, to just flick my wrist." I crooned into his ear.
"Who don't you do it then?" It was so obvious I could cry, he was only playing for time while someone snuck up on me or caused a distraction for him.
"Maybe I will." I said, slashing my wrist and cutting through his neck like paper. He gasped and turned into a log. "Substitution eh?" I called to the surrounding area. "Hoping to get the drop on me?"
I felt cold steal press against the back of my throat. "Maybe I am." He replied.
"That's good, I was afraid you'd turn tail and run." I said calmly, a smile playing on my lips.
"Don't you fear death?" He asked. It was a reasonable question, seeing as how she hadn't even tensed up, her voice was perfectly level, and she didn't even shudder when he pressed the kunai to her throat.
"Slit my throat, find out." I urged him quietly.
He did so, without hesitation, have to give him credit for eagerness I suppose.
Imagine everyone's surprise, when it healed almost instantly, before I was even able to lose a pint of blood? Yeah, it made me wish for a camera.
Turning to the stunned and close to panicking kage, I smirked. "It's a little harder to kill me then that." I informed him politely. "W-what are you?" He demanded panickingly.
"I am Naru Uzumaki, and no one else." I said slowly, with utmost clarity. "And you, are my prey."
Darting forward with a sudden burst of speed, I hiraishinned behind him and slit his throat easily. My chakra was depleted, so when I saw it was a substitution, I was slightly worried.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are old man!" She called playfully, not letting her fatigue show.
Without any warning, the ground beneath her gave way and she fell down to the depths of the Earth.
Upon crashing to the ground, she heard the sound of a cave falling in and looked up to see her window of oppurtunity beggining to close.
With a feral growl, she pushed herself up using her chakra as a spring board until she flew out of the hole and into the light.
Story PAUSE!
LC; Wow, I have to say, this has taken me forever to do.
Naruto; Certainly not your best work either.
Sasuke; Could use some editing.
LC; Well that's why I have a beta.
Naruto; So, you planning on finishing the next chapter within the year?
LC; With any luck and if enough reviews get in for this new chappie!