Chapter 2: Mysteries
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Twilight.
Leah Clearwater woke up the next morning feeling sore all over.
With a frown, she thought about the night before and what she had been told. So now she was a shape shifter, a wolf like in the legends she had been told by her father when she was just a little girl. When she had turned ten she had stopped listening to the stories but her father would still tell her until she knew those stories and was able to tell them like it was second nature.
They were legends. Myths. They were never meant to be real. And to make things worse, there had never been a female wolf before so she had no way of knowing how the transformation would affect her after she was used to it.
She had however learned that due to the healing factor that the pack possessed, she would never age, and for her, she learned, that meant that because of the stasis she would never be able to have children until after she stopped her transformations. That however, took control that she didn't have.
Leah was naturally a hothead and could be provoked at the slightest things, and that nature of hers had only been supercharged after her change. It was awful, it was like she had all this pent up aggression that no matter how much she bit or clawed at someone or something, it wouldn't go away. So what that meant for her, no control equals no reversion of the transformation. No reversion meant she couldn't bear a child, and when she thought this problem over it would make her so angry that more often than not, she would change into a wolf.
Right now she was going for her longest stretch without transforming, a big whooping three hours.
That new record was about to end however because she was thinking about how last night Sam had revealed why he had broken up with her and broken her heart. He had imprinted, on her cousin no less. After they had made her calm down, Sam had explained how he had loved her when they were going out, which triggered another transformation, but when he had seen Emily, he couldn't specifically explain it so he had decided to show her by transforming himself and shared his thoughts.
That was a big mistake however, as she then had to deal with the fact that the pack she had unwillingly joined could read each other's thoughts, so there were no secrets. But that wasn't the actual problem. No the problem came from the fact that Sam had inadvertently shown her his and Emily's night time activities and she had experienced said activities from the male perspective.
Bad thoughts aside, the fact was that she was rather bitter about the fact that she wasn't the one who had ended up with Sam. All those years she had spent dating him, loving him, had all been a waste of time if he was only going to throw her aside to go nipping at the heels of someone that he barely knew. Great, she thought she was over the break up but they had only been under the surface and were ready to pop up at the worst possible time.
She had also learned that her parents had been in on the whole pack thing as well and that her little brother was expected to transform rather soon. Switching to these thoughts calmed her down. Apparently with the Cullens back in town, as she had discovered they were actually part of the cold ones that so many of the stories were about, the elders had theorized that the wolf gene was reacting to their presence, causing the transformations to occur in the younger kids of the tribe as well.
The transformations also raised the body's metabolism, temperature, and accelerated growth to an insane degree. The growth thing had been made obvious to her as before the transformation she had only been five-three and now she was almost five-eleven. She was expected to grow to be around six-three. So not only could she transform into a wolf and be forced to see into the minds of several teenage boys, she was going to be an Amazon when she stopped growing.
Well, at least now she wouldn't have to worry about getting fat. With the high metabolism she could now eat anything she wanted and literally not gain an ounce. But that was just a hollow victory for her. Her mind would only focus on the fact that she couldn't have children.
Sighing, she got out of bed and settled on doing something productive. After getting dressed up in short-shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt to keep herself cool, and almost brushed her hair when she realized that she had had to cut her long black hair up to shoulder length so that her wolf form wouldn't be annoyingly shaggy. Just as she was about to head out she heard her stomach growl, and blushing slightly she remembered that with her new metabolism it might be a good idea to have a large breakfast to get through the morning.
Walking into the kitchen she saw that her mother was up cooking up some delicious smelling scrambled eggs just the way she liked them. Smiling at her mother's back she looked over to the table to see every breakfast food she could think of. There was toast, French toast, hash-browns, bacon, sausage, hot links, and anything else that could even remotely be considered a breakfast food.
When Sue Clearwater turned around and saw her daughter eyeing the food with a wide open mouth, she smiled fondly. She had been expecting Seth to transform soon so she had stockpiled large amounts of food in order satisfy what was going to be an insatiable appetite. Now with her daughter part of the pack she had to stockpile even more food.
"You can start eating now; Seth ate a little over an hour ago and left with some friends. Don't worry. I saved up a lot of food for a situation like this." She told her oldest.
Leah gave her mother a flat look that said 'For Seth, you mean.' But shrugged and sat down to eat.
As soon as the food passed her lips, Leah started shoveling food down her throat like a starving man who hadn't seen food for weeks. She had a high metabolism now and she had barely eaten anything in the last three days because of the panic she had. So if anyone had a reason to be shoving as much food down their gullet it was her. However, before she got even halfway through she felt a light slap on the back of her head.
Turning around, she saw her mother shaking her hand in pain, "Damn, I forgot how thick a werewolf's skull is." She mumbled irritably.
"What was that for?" Leah asked confused
"Do you look like a wolf right now?" Sue asked in a sickly sweet voice.
Hearing her mother's tone scared the crap out of Leah. Not trusting her voice, Leah just shook her head.
"Then stop eating like one." And to put emphasis on that order, Sue held up the frying pan she had just been cooking scrambled eggs in.
"Y-yes mom, I'll eat slower." She quickly assured her mother, she didn't want to take her chances against a cast iron skillet. A healing factor could only do so much for brain damage.
Returning to a less terrifying smile, Sue grabbed some of the food she made and began to eat along with her daughter at a much slower rate. When she was almost done eating she looked all across the table and saw that there were a few scraps left over from her daughter eating the lions portion of the meal. The sight made her sigh.
Hearing her mother sigh, Leah looked over at her and saw her dejected look. Reaching over, Leah grabbed her mother's hand asking, "What's wrong?"
"Well I expected for Seth to be the one to transform." She said, and Leah nodded being reminded once more she was the only female wolf to come out of the Quileute pack. "I just don't know if I can handle two, we barely make enough for this much as is." She finished with a defeated air.
Trying to cheer her mother up, Leah decided to break some good news to her mother, "Well, you might want to know that I got a raise at the book store a couple of days before I… went wolf."
Sue looked at her daughter with a slight bit of hope Sue asked the obvious question, "Really, how much?" Hopefully it was a big raise.
Smiling at her mother, she said, "It's around fourteen dollars an hour now."
"What made them give you the raise?" Sue asked curious as to what got the owners to give her daughter a large jump in the pay grade.
"Well, I asked the owner to buy several copies of a well known book series from Japan about two weeks before I transformed. Book sales have risen and public interest in the store has only gone up." Leah said proud of her accomplishment, "And we're not going to release all of the volumes at once; we are going to release them one at a time at one month intervals in order to maximize profits."
"Oh that's good to know." Sue said, happy that they wouldn't be struggling as badly as she thought. But then she had to ask, "So what is the name of this series?"
"Um, in Japan, it's called Icha-Icha, but after translation it comes out as the Make-out series." Leah told her mother, only to feel the cast iron skillet from earlier smash into her head. As she lay out on the ground she mumbled, "What was that for?"
"Your store is the one responsible for handing out that perverted book?" Sue asked her laid out daughter in a dangerous voice, once again scaring the crap out of Leah,
Leah confirmed it, and even though she was scared, she took affront to the books she was selling being called perverted. "They are not perverted! They have drama, suspense, romance, and action. Sure they may have some sex scenes, but the books are all very well written and the man who wrote them should be given an award."
Leah happened to be a very huge fan of the Icha-Icha series and hearing someone call it just a perverted book made her shake with anger. Only now it was literal, not figurative. However her coming to the defense of her favorite book series only served to give her another hit on the head with that damned skillet and looked up to her mother who had an angry glimmer in her eyes.
Instead of saying anything else, Leah got up quickly and jumped to the door as fast as she could, which happened to be pretty fast considering her longer legs and new strength. Making it to the door, she turned and blew her mother a kiss and called out before she left, "Bye mom, love you. I've got to get to work." And with that, she ran out the door.
Sue Clearwater fell back into her chair, heaving an exhausted sigh. Now she had to rely on her daughter selling perverted books just to feed her children. 'Great,' she thought sarcastically.
The night before, after he had arrived at Forks after his investigation/exploration of the plagued city of Seattle, Naruto came to the small apartment complex he had rented where he took out a scroll that he always kept on him at all times which held his weapons, armor, and various other tools that he used for his job. Rolling the scroll open he performed a short series of hand seals, and after he finished there was a brief puff of smoke before a small scroll labeled "weapons" popped out. Repeating the process with the second scroll, he found a katana, a pouch full of shuriken, some bandages, a pair of gloves, and ten tri-pronged kunai.
Picking up one of the kunai, Naruto walked to his headboard and jammed the knife into the wood.
Walking back over to his assorted weaponry, he removed his shirt before unsealing another scroll labeled as "seals" and took out a container of ink and a handmade paint brush. He uncorked the ink container and dipped the brush into it. Letting a couple of drops fall of the tip of the brush, he drew one storage seal on each of his arms and two different seals on the palms of his hand, two more storage seals were printed on his sides, and then he created a shadow clone and had it draw two more storage seals on his back, one on his lower back and the other between his shoulder blades.
When the clone was done with its job it placed the brush back into the container and dispersed into a puff of smoke. After that was done he took the brush one last time and drew a storage seal on his right thigh. Nodding his head, he re-corked the bottle of ink and sealed the items away.
Reaching over to the items on his bed, he grabbed his gloves and sealed them into the storage seals on his arms, and following that, he took his katana and placed it into the seal between his shoulder blades. He reached back and grabbed the bandages and proceeded to wrap them around his thigh, and then place all the tri-pronged kunai into the wrapping before they too disappeared into the seals.
Normally he would have covered the stuff with genjutsu but if he was going to be in the same class with a girl who could easily shrug off illusions for some unknown reason, he preferred to just seal them away. He grabbed the pouch of shuriken, and placed them into the last available storage seal on his back before he was done.
After that was all done, he rolled both the scrolls back up and sealed them up again before putting the large scroll on his shelf before he turned around and laid down on his bed and slept the rest of the night. He didn't expect for his night to be as peaceful as it was though. For once, instead of returning to the place where he lost everything he found himself on a beach.
Alone he sat on that beach reveling in the peace he felt instead of the guilt of watching those he cared about die again.
His peace, however, was interrupted when he heard a loud snarl. Jumping into action he flipped himself onto his feet and span around to see what had made such a threatening noise towards him, and what he saw was one of the largest wolves he had seen in centuries. It was as large as a full grown bear and had obsidian black fur, its eyes shining as it glared balefully at him.
If it wasn't for the simple fact that he was dreaming, he would have tried to study it to see if it was a ninken. He was always looking for something that may have survived the Elemental Nations' destruction. But sadly, barely anything could be found anymore, most of everything had been swept away into the sea, and some of the stuff from what was left of his home village had most recently been found by several archeologists in some of his hiding spots all over Japan.
He was dragged out of his thoughts when he heard a lower growl just right in front of him, and looking down saw a powerful looking gray wolf crouching protectively in front of him. This wolf was a thing of beauty, its fur was mostly gray but there were patches of white all around its body with the largest patch on its underbelly, and even though it was smaller than the black wolf, it was most likely faster. In fact if he had to take a guess he would say that the black wolf growling at him was a male and the smaller gray one was female.
But one thing bothered him about the whole situation; why was the female protecting him? Just looking at her he could see the tense muscles in her body just ready to spring into action if the larger one made even a step towards him. And just staring at the female wolf made him feel…safe?
That was the only thing he could think of to describe the feeling.
All of a sudden the two wolves were replaced with people. Now in the place of the black wolf, stood a tall dark skinned man who seemed to scowl at him hatefully as if he had committed a horrible crime. Naruto didn't like that look at all.
Where the smaller gray wolf had stood, there was now a fairly tall, dark skinned young woman with her back to him. From what he could see, the woman was a beauty. She had long, long legs that went on for miles, an attractively round and supple looking rear indicating that she most likely was as well developed in the front as she was in the back.
He heard noises that seemed to come from the people, meaning they were most likely speaking with each other, however the voices only came out as echoes and he couldn't understand the exchange. One thing he did understand though, there was tension between the two and both looked on the verge of jumping at one another. And like the wolves before them, the people were gone.
What had that been about? What was his mind telling him that it kept the memories at bay? Was there something other than the killings in Seattle that had drawn him here?
Looking around the beach, he found that he was truly alone he sat back down to look at the view of the ocean. There was a problem with that plan of action; there was a large grotesque creature with a single eye and ten tails chained to a large dome of rock with each of its tails and chest staked into the stone construct.
This creature was the thing that made even the worst nightmares of humanity shit their pants, a being so powerful its original container split its chakra into nine pieces and imprisoned its body into the moon just to keep it from destroying humanity. The Juubi, the Ten-Tailed Beast, the being that gave him immortality. Looking at the creature, Naruto felt nothing but loathing for the being; Kurama may have been his friend in the end but this thing was not Kurama, it had only re-absorbed Kurama to gain its powers back.
The feeling of loathing was mutual between the prisoner and the jailor, as was shown when the great beast tried to struggle against the bonds that held its body to the dome, roaring out its displeasure of being restrained. The struggling continued only for the rain clouds above the dream ocean start to rumble with thunder before a large bolt of lightning struck the creature making it cry out in pain. When the lightning was done striking the beast, it raised its head to stare at its jailor hatefully before letting out a mighty roar.
To many, it would have just been a very loud roar, but to Naruto it was very clear that the beast was saying, "Let me out, you pathetic human!"
Naruto, however, didn't care what it wanted. He only lowered his head so his hair covered his eyes and cupped his hands in front of him, forming a basketball sized orb of black gravity. "Chibaku Tensei (Heavenly Body Bursting from the Earth)." He muttered before launching the orb right at the Juubi where it stopped before colliding with the colossal monster. Staying in place, the black orb drew in rocks, trees, sand, and water; smashing them all together to form an even larger dome than before covering up the Juubi so he wouldn't have to deal with its incessant screams.
Lifting his head a set of metallic purple eyes with a ripple pattern were revealed before they shifted back into the familiar electric blue orbs of Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze
With the view ruined by the giant dome of rocks, Naruto turned away from the shore intent on walking before he saw the same large gray wolf that was staring down the even larger black wolf from earlier down. The larger than average creature didn't seem to be threatening in any way towards him only staring at him with adoring eyes. Why would it do that?
The wolf walked towards him with a slow gait, and when it reached him, it lowered its head offering it to Naruto.
Reaching out to the creature Naruto pet it and the wolf nuzzled its face into his hand. The fur was soft, softer than anything he had felt in a long time; it seemed so out of place on something that was so vicious in nature. His wonderings were stopped however when he heard a distinctly female voice in his head.
'Please find me.' And Naruto was sure the voice came from the wolf in front of him. Before he could wonder what was going on the dream world around him shattered, forcing him to wake up.
Coming into awareness, Naruto noticed that his eyes weren't suddenly assaulted by the sun and looked through the window in his small apartment to see looming clouds in the sky. The apartment could be described in two words: small and plain. It had a television, a couch, and a bed in the ways of furniture with an empty fridge, a stove, and a microwave so that residents could feed themselves.
Forks didn't seem to be a place where you could rent a place and stay for an agreed amount of time, it was more of the kind of place where you bought a house and stayed permanently. He was lucky to even find the small apartment he was now living out of. It was still better than nothing and he learned a very long time ago not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Getting out of his bed, he walked over to his dresser where he pulled out a pair of baggy blue jeans and a white t-shirt with orange lightning bolts on the front. He went into the small bathroom and took a nice hot shower. When he was done he put his clothes on save the shirt, he went into his bedroom and placed his hands into a familiar cross hand-seal and created ten clones before putting them into the two storage seals in his sides.
It was better to be prepared for anything.
When he was sure that everything was ready, he walked to the door where he picked up a backpack that he had prepared a few days earlier. He had actually been going to school down in Florida for several months before he had heard the rumors of the killing spree that gave him a sense of déjà vu. It was a good routine that he had built up in the last two centuries; come into a town as an obscure transfer student, get necessary information such as recent events and how to speak a language and then graduate and be set for another ten or so years.
Then news channels were invented and it became even easier and stopped going to school all together, but when the channels started to get biased a couple of decades ago he started going back to school again. During his time in Florida he had discovered how much he had actually missed school. He still hated academics, it was a necessary evil, but he missed just being around people who looked like his physical age, they were more open-minded about his ways.
And it was all work during the time he wasn't in school. Things like writing Icha-Icha or tracking down nuclear weapons so that humans didn't wipe each other out. Being immortal was bad enough as you couldn't stay in some places for long and watch anybody you knew die while you just lingered, it would be even worse if he was totally alone in the world.
Shaking his head and clearing it of those thoughts, he opened the door and started walking to school, he thought back to Seattle as he exited his home. He walked down the road and went over the things he saw last night; nothing had seemed strange except for the dumpster fires but now that he looked back on it, why had there been so many fires? Seattle was relatively warm this time of the year, the homeless wouldn't go around starting fires without a justifiable reason and the fires themselves had been too many and too far apart to be an arsonist.
Then he remembered a group of kids he had seen the previous night, partiers were what he had thought they were. Time had made his observation skills sloppy if he was thinking about this just now. But why would there be a bunch of kids out in the middle of the night partying when there was a killer or killers out in Seattle that seemed to strike only at night? Were these partiers somehow connected to the killings or were they just stupid kids out at night rebelling against their parents and looking for a good time.
His gut told him it was the former and Naruto always listened to his gut, it had saved him in all the wars he had been present for more times than he could count. But there was something about the whole situation in Seattle that just seemed so familiar; the disappearances, the killings, and the fires all played around in his head at once as he tried to find the answers for this mystery in the recesses of his memory. Why did it all seem so familiar?
Naruto came out of his musings when he reached Forks High school. It was a small place that held a little over four hundred students all together where some of those students seemed excited for the upcoming graduation and freedom from school. All in all, it was a nice place in a small and obscure town, just the way he liked it; to him it was certainly better than Jacksonville with its absurd humidity levels. It made it hard to enjoy a good cup of ramen.
The nice little atmosphere, however, seemed to be disrupted by some kind of dispute happening in the front parking lot and he was surprised to see the couple he had met on the plane last night with the ice cold boyfriend and the girl who didn't seem to be affected by mental techniques, Edward and Bella. Standing there in front of them was a very tall dark skinned teenager that looked to be in his late teens.
Looking closely, he saw that the teenager said something that seemed to instill a look of fear on Bella's face as she whispered something he couldn't here; that didn't matter however seeing as Naruto could read lips and what he saw seemed to be something like "She came back for me." Naruto frowned wondering just who 'she' was. His musing was cut short when he saw Bella round on Edward angrily but he was unable to see what she was saying as he couldn't read what she was saying from behind her. So he just settled for watching Edward.
Edward was a little harder to read since, as Naruto noticed, he seemed to speak with more fluidity than most movie stars and there were barely any chops when he spoke which always made it easier to read lips. Despite that he was able to glean off a little of what Edward said.
"…let her get close…"
It wasn't complete but he was able to glean that there was most likely something dangerous around that made it seem, to Edward, necessary to take a girl out of the state, and across the country, for a little while. Retreating into his mind he made a mental list for possible leads for his investigation and strange occurrences that seemed to happen in the area.
Mass murder, the fires, kids partying at night with a psychotic murderer(s) on the loose, a person who had skin that was cold to the touch, and a girl with the uncanny ability to shrug off illusions. All these things on the list, all happening within at least a hundred miles of each other, was just too coincidental for his liking. The fact that the killings in Seattle reminded him of some long forgotten memory really unsettled him as he couldn't remember anything like this happening in the last two centuries in America.
The only problems America had given in the last two centuries were the civil war and the A-bombs. They had had four of those monstrosities when he had investigated. He had intended to take three of them down and leave only one but he hadn't been fast enough dismantling the second one and by the time that he was finished with that one, the officials had come to load up two of them before he could start on number three. Millennia of experience and learning had paid off for him in that instance.
Luckily, they had only needed the two bombs they loaded.
Coming back into the present, Naruto looked at the assembled group and saw Bella say, "Shut up, Jacob."
So the teens name was Jacob, interesting. He would look him up later in his investigation along with Edward and Bella, whatever was going on in Seattle, Naruto was sure that those three knew what was happening or were involved on some level and investigating them may shed some light on who this 'she' was.
Suddenly, Bella seemed to be upset saying that Jacob had supposed to have sold something. Jacob said it belonged to her and that he'd hold onto it until she wanted to come back for it. Naruto looked back to Edward and Bella to see Edward's arms around the girl and if he looked closely, Naruto swore that he saw the girl's eyes narrow and tried to remove the arms with little success.
That was the end of the conversation as Jacob looked ready to leave with the statement "Who needs friends," before a voice called out "Okay, get to class," coming from a rather squat man with a highish voice. That was all Naruto needed to see before turning around and heading to class. Whatever the hell was going on with this place he was absolutely sure that Bella, Edward, and this Jacob were somehow involved with it all. The question was how?
Hearing the sound of a motorcycle, Naruto was alerted to the departure of Jacob. When he entered the building he made sure he was alone before summoning a clone from the seals on his side. Looking at the chakra construct he simply told it, "Follow the kid on the bike. Dispel if you see something I should know about."
The clone nodded before disappearing in a yellow flash. "Damn flashy clone," He said to nobody in particular before heading to the administration building where he was given his class schedule and an attendance slip to tell the teachers to put him on the roster for the class. His first class was English.
Walking down the empty hall he found the appropriate classroom, preparing himself with a mask of a classic smartass about to graduate. Knocking on the door he waited until someone told him to enter which he did and came into a class with a rather tall man in front of them all with a sour expression most likely because he didn't appreciate his class being interrupted. Naruto handed him the slip that was given to him without a word and the man signed it before turning back to the class.
"Well class it seems that we have a new arrival today, why don't you introduce yourself?" The man asked the blonde.
The first thing Naruto thought about the man was asshole. This guy looked like he enjoyed making others squirm but too bad for the guy he was messing with Naruto fucking Uzumaki and nothing made him squirm, he made others squirm. But that all came later after his introduction, so turning to the class he said "Hi there, The names Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, I like ramen and my friends…and girls just so you know," at that comment Naruto thought he heard a groan from somewhere as did everybody else as they looked around for the source, only to find a skinny asian kid. Okay, Naruto wasn't going to say anything about that so he continued with his introduction.
"Um so yeah I dislike the three minutes it takes to cook ramen, and idiots who try to embarrass somebody (excluding myself) and that's about it, oh the marks are real, I hope we can all be good friends." He finished his speech and walked to a desk somewhere in the middle of the class room where when he looked around he saw Bella and Edward in the class and Bella was waving to him. Giving a slight wave back before turning back to what the teacher was saying.
Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'? Bitch please, he had helped write that piece with Will, he knew everything about that play including scenes that had been cut due to time and general effects that had not been available. Come to think of it he had helped write most of Will's plays, cool guy with unique ideas. In a way he would be proud that a lot of modern works were based off his works. Ahh, good times.
He was snapped out of his reverie when he heard the snickering from his classmate before he gained a feral grin. You could take the man away from the prankster but you could never take the prankster out of the man, a statement that was very true for one immortal shinobi as even after all these years he still loved to prank the hell out of people, unless something went horribly wrong and caused a city wide blackout, how was he supposed to know that dumping paint on some random guy would cause that. That was not the point Naruto loved pranking people and no one would ever be able to match him.
What people were snickering at was the note on the English teacher's back that said, "Please kick me, I am an asshole."
How had that happened, was the thought going through many of the people's heads as they read the note and started laughing, even Edward was surprised and that was saying something considering he was a, you know, mind reader. That he had not noticed somebody stick the note to the teacher's back was impressive in and of itself even more impressive was that he could not figure out when it was done.
Looking over to the blond man who had entered the classroom, Edward was the only one in the room who caught the sight of Naruto with an evil smirk on his face. He was absolutely certain at that point in time that Naruto was the one who had pulled off the prank that was occurring at this very moment. Everyone, including Bella was trying to hold back their laughter.
Deciding to try and read the enigmatic blonde's mind he gained a glimpse of the broken and scattered thoughts that came from his mind '…Pranks…City wide blackout…random…caused that' was all he got and he was thoroughly confused especially about the city wide blackout. Could he be planning something? Was he in league with someone? Did he want to harm Bella?
Deciding to dig deeper, he focused more on the blondes mind, digging deeper until he felt his mind hit something and his mind was suddenly assaulted with some kind of blaring noise. The noise he heard actually caused him to wince in pain, nothing had ever made him feel like this, not even his Bella's mind caused him pain like this, it was like he was taking in all the schools thoughts all at once. When he gained his bearings back he looked back over to the blonde man to find him staring at him with a suspicious glance.
Whatever just happened something was definitely off about the blonde man, now more so than ever.
At the end of the day classes were let out and nothing interesting had really except the attempted intrusion of his mind during the first class. When he had felt the alarm in his mind go off he turned to the direction that his mind had "felt" the intrusion coming from. He really couldn't bring himself to be surprised when he saw Bella's boyfriend wincing as if he was being bombarded by a horrible sound. He had known since he had met Bella and Edward that something was off, that had increased when he had seen them mention a woman with slight fear and then connected them in some way to the events in Seattle. Whatever was going on in this town and that city, Bella and Edward were definitely involved not to mention the little pixy that practically clung to Bella and called Edward her brother.
Now that school was out he had the opportunity to head back to Seattle and perform a follow up of the investigation he had performed the previous night. He made a quick turn to get out of sight and immediately teleported to the seal he had left at the airport. When he showed up in the city, was immediately assaulted by the sudden change in weather. Forks was a rainy place with constant cloud cover and the ever impending signs of rain at all times of the day, Seattle in comparison didn't do rain to the extreme like Forks but still had semi-constant cloud cover but had more chances than Forks did on having a sunny day.
Looking around to make sure he hadn't been noticed, he made sure there were no cameras in the area before he slipped one of the Tri-pronged kunai out of the seal on his thigh and tossed it straight into the air. When it reached the apex of its flight he teleported to it and threw it once more to the closest building and once more teleporting to it. After that he fell into a pattern of running a little ways, then throwing the kunai, after that he would teleport to the kunai, catch it and then repeat. He continued this pattern until he reached the destination he had in mind, a location of one of the dumpsters which had been on fire.
When he reached the location he looked into the back alley where he had seen it and looked at the area from the ledge of the building. He locked onto the fact that there weren't very many people walking in the area, as well as the fact that there was police tape left on the scene after the police had gotten all of what they could find from this place. Dropping down into the alley, he landed softly on the ground, and was immediately assaulted by the sickly sweet smell that was permeating from the dumpster.
What could possibly have been burned that left this kind of smell?
Naruto paused for a moment after the smell invaded his senses. Why was this smell familiar to him? That long forgotten memory from millennia before was acting up but he just couldn't grasp what the memory was. If he had experienced this type of situation before then it most likely wasn't going to be a pleasant one if he related it to fire, nothing good ever came out of memories of fire.
He was about to study the dumpster for any clues before his mind was suddenly invaded by foreign memories that signified that the clone had dispelled.
Apparently the clone had been able to follow the kid to some reserve near the coast and continued to follow the kid until he reached his home. After that the kid went into his house and didn't come out for several hours. Didn't he have school? He didn't come out until two kids, as tall as he was, came to his house and told him to come with them. The clone had followed them and happened upon a meeting between several men and a surly looking girl. And as soon as Jacob and the two guys entered the clearing everybody just sniffed the area, almost like the Inuzuka did when they smelled something unfamiliar in their territories.
At that point the clone had decided to relay the information, as little as there was, and dispelled before he was discovered.
When he finished examining the memory he just thought, 'What is with this place? There is no way any of this is a coincidence, there's just too much happening all at once for this to simply be chance.'
Thinking of the memories of the clone he decided to focus on the girl. From what he could tell, she was pissed, like PMSing pissed, but aside from that she seemed familiar, like he had seen her before and he just couldn't remember where.
Putting those thoughts aside he went back to his investigation.
Pulling out a pair of sun glasses, he placed them on his face and activated the Rinnegan. Using the Asura path he created a heat seeking and infrared system to the sun glasses then continued to use the path to connect the circuitry that had been made by the path to the neural interface in his brain and filing any evidence that was found into the part of his brain that regulated memory.
Walking over the dumpster he found several handprints on the side and some places that looked like they had been pushed in by somebody punching the dumpster, however that line of thinking was squashed when he immediately caught the fact that the dent had a distinctly hand shaped imprint in the center. Whatever had done this was strong and determining the size and shape of the indent, it was female.
Stowing that away for later thought he created a scanner and analyzer into the glasses and looked into the dumpster. What he found was ashes, he hadn't expected anything else, that was until his glasses displayed a message [Partial Human DNA Found…Unknown Factor Discovered…Unknown Factor Found To Be The Cause Of Alternization Of Human DNA]. Well that was interesting.
Leaving the scene, he traveled to more of the sights and found similar findings, and all had the DNA and the unknown factor that had somehow altered the DNA. Now the disturbing part for Naruto was the unknown factor that the glasses had discovered, with the glasses being connected to the neural interface in his brain the glasses had a database with millennia's worth of knowledge and for it to find something that he didn't know about was rather disturbing, seeing as in the millennia he had lived he had a lot of time to study different compounds and chemicals. Whatever this stuff was it was changing DNA something that was almost impossible.
His contemplation was interrupted when he heard merry making in the street. By the time he had finished his investigation, it was dark and he was at the edge of Seattle ready to take the long way back to Forks he needed to think on this stuff and he always thought better when he was on the move.
Looking down he saw the kids who had been partying the previous night he watched them warily. The previous night he had seen these kids from a street or two away, now he saw them up close and he felt a sense of foreboding that he hadn't felt in centuries, like he was walking into a death trap. They had pale white skin and from what he could tell the skin wasn't normal and they all just seemed too…perfect. Suddenly his glasses, which he had not removed, displayed a message [No Pulse Detected…Partial Human DNA Found With Unknown Factor…Action Advised With Extreme Caution]. Nodding he removed the glasses and deactivated the Rinnegan. Seeing three of the partiers separate from the group to go get some food he followed them.
Whatever these things were, it was definite that they weren't human; whatever that Unknown factor did it changes more than just DNA. This Unknown factor was becoming more and more troublesome as far as he could see, but for now he would refrain, it was best to observe the enemy before an encounter know their strengths their weaknesses.
Or he was going to before he heard what one of the things said, "Come on JC, where's our food I'm getting thirsty again." Thirsty? That wasn't right.
"You idiot, we're always thirsty. She said it was all part of being a newborn." The one he presumed to be JC said. Newborn? Could he be referring to what they were? If he was then that meant that they might have been human before whatever happened to them occurred and there was the "She" again, just who was she?
The only girl in the group seemed the most reasonable out of all of them, "Are you sure that she's telling us everything, I mean she is going through a lot just to avenge one friend, and Riley follows her like a little puppy."
"So, you think something is going on that she's not telling us." The first one who had spoken asked her.
"I don't know, it just seems strange to me, and I get these feelings that there's something more than just avenging an old friend, that there's something in this thing for her." The girl explained. When Naruto heard he couldn't help but nod, there's all ways something in it for the leader.
"Enough Bree," So the girls name is Bree, "Lady Victoria gave us this power, we might as well use it and get on with eternity." JC told her in a stern voice. When Naruto heard the last word he froze. There were others? Other immortals? Why had he never found a trace of them before? He was millennia old and he had never come across anything like this before and he wanted to know why.
The girl looked angry and headed off in another direction away from the two guys she had been walking with before in favor of solitude. The one who first spoke didn't seem at all bothered, "Good riddance, she's paranoid I tell you. Even before she was changed she was always going on and on about all these different conspiracies that she was absolutely sure about. And she's grown even more crazy since she woke up." So the girl seemed to see hidden truths. That was a rare ability even back in his younger days when the phrase had been "Look underneath the underneath."
Back then, not many had taken that to heart, including himself, and he had only truly learned it when he was traveling the world for thousands of years to stay inconspicuous and hidden from people who would have hunted him down just because he was a stranger in a new place.
Suddenly a slight breeze blew past him and into the alley below. He noticed when the two teens froze, as if they had a hot rod to their back before both of them looked towards his location at the top of the building. Now that they were both looking in his direction he could see that both their eyes were a hungry blood red, something that was unnatural on a human.
He didn't have to wonder what had blown his cover, it had been the wind, and whatever they were they had enhanced sense of smell and considering how dark it was now, excellent night vision. "Well JC, it seems that we don't have to work for our meal tonight, it came to us." Let's add carnivorous to that list as well.
Deciding to see what the two beings were made of Naruto pulled out his kunai and slipped back into the pattern he had used to get to the locations earlier. Right after he disappeared he heard the one called JC comment loudly "You were saying!" before both gave chase at incredible speeds as he led them out of the city.
For over an hour Naruto led them back towards the town he had taken up residence in. This was for two reasons: One he wanted to eliminate the chance of any back up for the two beings that had so willingly followed him. Two, he was testing their abilities. From what he could tell, they were inexperienced hunters, they had most likely become complacent in the city and were not used to a prey that had experience in leaving false trails. Despite the blatant inexperience that he was seeing from the two, he could tell that they were learning as they never fell for the same trick more than twice. Still despite the all the evasive maneuvers he had used he still had to use the Hiraishin to get out of dome tough spots and he had long since activated his Doujutsu to keep himself from getting tunnel vision and still the things were faster than him, even if slightly. These creatures whatever they are were excellent hunters, no, the perfect hunters, or at least their species were.
Deciding that he had run enough, he slowed down enough to let the two creatures get close to him, he waited until the last second to stretch his arms out and calmly stated, "Shinra Tensei (Heavenly Subjugation of an Omnipresent God)." And a wall of gravity sprung forth that shot the two creatures away from him and smash into a couple of trees, whose trunks exploded from the sheer force they had impacted them.
Under normal circumstances he would have been worried that he might have killed the two, but the things had tried to eat him or something just as unpleasant and he had watched the impacts the two had caused and the bodies didn't cave in or break the way a human would have with that kind of force. So whatever these things were, they were also very durable.
As if to confirm his suspicion one of the things said, "I swear JC, I'm gonna kill this motherfucker!" The one who did most of the talking said before charging at Naruto.
"Richie, wait!" JC shouted after the angry New born, but Richie was too angry to listen.
Charging at the incredible speed that he had come to expect from the creature Naruto avoided the wild swing that the creature launched at him and watched as the fist collided with a tree that had been standing behind him shatter. Feeling the air shift, he twisted his body mid flight to avoid another attack from JC who smashed into Richie. They had strength and speed but sorely lacked in the knowledge on how to use it effectively. They may have had the speed and strength that Lee had had but they were far from the level that Lee had achieved before he had died.
Moving his hand to his back, he unsealed his katana and got ready to fight the creatures that were terrorizing Seattle. None of them noticed the onlooker a distance away.
Leah had been taking a simple stroll when she smelt it.
Earlier in the day Sam had called a "Pack Meeting" to discuss the situation with the Cullens. IT was going to be a meeting to discuss the recent border issue and the vampire, Victoria, who had been using their territory as a safe haven from the coven of vampires.
She had to snort at the irony of that. Who would've thought a vampire would use the wolves, their natural enemy, as an unintentional guardian? It was just too much.
Still the pack was having just as much luck catching the bitch as the Cullens, i.e. none.
But when Jacob, with Quil and Embry, had arrived the wind had blown and they had all caught an unfamiliar scent before it just disappeared. Whatever had been following Jacob had definitely been human but something had been off about the scent that for some reason she was the only one who noticed. The scent had smelled human but it smelled old as well as fake, whatever that meant.
The wolves had then patrolled the area for a short time only to find nothing before they sat back down and commenced the meeting.
Sam had wanted to discuss the recent border incursions done by Victoria and how to combat them. Surprisingly it had been Quil who suggested that they temporarily drop the treaty that kept the Cullens off their land and try to work in conjunction with the blood suckers. When he finished the suggestion, Paul being the idiot he was taunted him with comments about how he would let bloodsuckers near his imprint, Claire, and put her in danger.
That had led to Quil nearly transforming and jumping Paul, an unspoken rule among the pack was never hint that a wolf did not care about the safety of their imprint, it was an insult as well as considered a threat against the other wolf. After Sam had quelled the situation, he had asked for Quil's reasoning to which Quil said, "Well, since they've been here and since they came back, they haven't attacked anybody, and have stuck to the terms of the treaty that Jake's grandfather put forth himself a century ago. One of them is even dating Bella." Quil said to their leader before continuing "They want the red head just as much, if not more so, than we do and from what I've seen the border is hindering us more in our efforts to catch her than helping and if we dropped the border for now we could use it as a trap if she thinks to use our land as a haven against the Cullens. And besides I'd rather have the 'vegetarians' on our land than the full blown carnivore."
Leah had listened to the reasons and found them reasonable and logical. Even though she had never taken part in the hunts for the vampire that the rest of the pack had been hunting for the last three months, she found that Quil's analysis of the border was very insightful. From what she had heard, the big one in the Cullen family had almost had her, but the red head had crossed the border and Paul went in guns blazing in his typical shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude and attacked the vampire. If the border were to be taken down temporarily then they would have a better chance at catching, and hopefully killing, the vampire female.
She had nearly fell into a rabid rage when the group ultimately decided to not drop the border, with only Quil, Embry, a reluctant Jake, and herself, actually supporting the idea and the other ten members of the pack turning it down.
She was thrown out of her daze when she smelt something in the air, a cold, sickly sweet smell that hurt her nose. Quil, who was one of the few people in the pack she could tolerate, had explained what the smell of a vampire was like and what she smelled right now matched what she was told. Reluctantly she went into the woods and slipped out of her clothes before she transformed into her wolf form.
She had managed to be able to transform at will but still had trouble with emotional control that would make her slip into her wolf form unintentionally.
Now in her silvery-grey form she couldn't help but admire just how beautiful her wolf was. It was a thing of nature, calm and beautiful, but was vicious and unforgiving when provoked.
She snapped back into focus and launched herself in the direction the scent had come out of. Her powerful legs made long strides through the woods and tore through underbrush as if it were not there. Finding one of the more used trails she followed it as it went in the same direction as the scent of the vampires, and now that she was close enough and in wolf form she could now smell the same scent from the meeting. She followed the smell until she came across two destroyed trees and hearing another smash she looked just in time to see some blonde guy in a white t-shirt spin in midair to avoid being hit by a vampire while another had his fist in a tree that he had hit trying to smash the blonde.
When he landed Leah got a good look at him. When she saw him clearly something inside her exploded in some kind of primal joy, like she was a blind person who for the first time in their life they were seeing the sun in all of its glory. He was perfect in her eyes; nothing could ever convince her that there was anything in the least bit wrong with him in any way. She realized after that line of thinking that she had just imprinted on the blonde, and now she understood why Sam had left her, that fact for once didn't sting, the memories he had shown her had only given her the briefest glimmer of what this feeling was like. Even at her bitchiest, she would never wish anyone to deprive themselves of these feelings that even now she felt overwhelming her
While she was in that state she saw him pull a sword from nowhere, and that was what made her wolf change from an adoring puppy to a fiercely protective beast.
Naruto waited as JC charged him with another wild swing which he redirected and slashed the teen with his sword across the chest. The blade did almost nothing to the kid himself aside from cut open his shirt and when the blade had slid across the skin it was like the sword was grinding against stone. Spinning around, he heel kicked the teenager into another tree before jumping into the air to deliver a swift kick to the face of Richie which caused him to trip and roll on the ground.
"You son of a-" Was as far as Richie got before a large gray beast launched itself at him with a vicious growl and clamped its jaws down on the creature's head and tackling it to the side.
Blinking at the unexpected assistance Naruto turned to the kid who he had sent into a tree not even a couple of seconds earlier. The kid watched his friend get dragged away unable to scream because of the beast's massive jaws covering his face before he turned to Naruto with an angry glare before charging in once more.
Seeing as straight taijutsu wasn't going to work, he channeled wind nature chakra into the blade, making it sharper and more deadly. Figuring that the torso would be the most difficult to cut through Naruto aimed the blade towards the arm that the kid launched for another punch and when the blade met the arm it sliced through it with much difficulty but it had managed to cut the arm off. JC like many beings went with his instinct and went into a berserker like rage and launched Naruto back into a tree which stunned him and was barely able to escape from another punch from JC and used the Hiraishin seal on the kid's arm to flash behind him where he grabbed the collar of his shirt and threw him over his head and into the ground and then punted him into off into the distance.
Running after him, Naruto caught up to him in midflight and did an axe kick that smashed him into the ground.
Naruto underestimated just how hard the skin of the creatures was and when he tried to follow up on the downed teen, he received a punch that if he hadn't had his regeneration ability would have killed him instantly that sent him flying away.
Getting up he decided that he had seen enough of these things, they had strength and speed as well as enhanced senses but lacked the experience and knowledge of how to use them properly. They were like RPGs, one off weapons that one simply pointed in the general direction of their target and pulled the trigger.
Using the animal path he summoned a rhino that charged the creature, and when it reached him the kid was pushed back a little but even with on arm the kid proved just how powerful something like him was when he tossed the rhino to the side where it disappeared in a puff of smoke. That, however, had only been a distraction as he turned back towards Naruto to see him with his hand outstretched towards him, but his hand was different it now resembled something from a futuristic sci-fi movie with the blue glow and swirling motors that he could see.
Naruto had activated his Asura path and transformed his arm into a chakra gun like the one Nagato had used when he had been under the influence of Kabuto's resurrection jutsu during the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Aiming the cannon at the teen, Naruto let loose a concentrated beam of chakra that would have sliced through human flesh but with something like JC's skin being as hard as it was it only singed the kid and threw him against a random boulder. When JC impacted the rock Naruto turned and ran op the nearest tree to him until he was as far up as he would go.
Turning and sliding to a stop, Naruto then used his Deva path to lower gravity around him before launching himself forwards with tremendous speed. As he flew towards the immobile teen, who saw him coming, he started spinning with his leg stretched out and covered the leg with large amounts of fire chakra being compressed around the limb.
In less than a second he had arrived and JC had no chance of avoiding the attack. Naruto called out the name of the attack, "Katon: Konoha Goriki Senpuu (Fire Release: Severe leaf Hurricane)." It was a variant of an attack of the Goken that Naruto had seen Might Gai use when he was younger and he knew first hand just how powerful the attack was on its own, so add in an elemental affinity and the b-rank taijutsu technique was bumped up to an A-rank, and if you pushed it, S-rank.
The impact caused an explosion and a pillar of flames to rise up in such a way that it resembled a tornado of flames. Naruto flew out of the blaze with his shirt gone and his pants burned beyond repair any burns he had were healing quickly, and the only slightly serious injury he had was the head injury he had sustained earlier but that was healing quickly as well.
When the flames cleared, Naruto was subject to the sight of the kid he had just fought rolling on the ground screaming and on fire, but that stopped soon as he quickly burned down into a pile of ashes. He sniffed the air and found the same smell he had caught at the dumpsters but it was much more potent and hurt his nose. Well at least he found that they were weak…to…"Fire." He whispered the last part as the sense of déjà vu assaulted him and he remembered the Elemental Nations right before they were destroyed, how they were attacked by creatures just like JC and Richie and their weakness to fire.
Then he remembered how cold the tings were and thought about Edward. It was all coming together now, Edward was just like the creatures that he had fought, but that didn't make sense the creatures that attacked his old home attacked people indiscriminately and Bella was most definitely human, so why hadn't he attacked her?
That was the question.
Turning to the creature that had assisted him he found it coming towards him and found that it was a large silver-gray wolf. Hearing sounds just behind him he turned to see other wolves, much much larger than the gray one all growling at him. Seeing that, he reached out his hand and used his gravity manipulation to bring his sword to him and shifted his arm into the chakra gun.
Pointing the sword towards the gray wolf and his cannon at the others, he waited to see what would happen. The gray one however didn't attack but stood in front of him growling at the others and the others just backed off albeit still giving him death glares from one or two. That had been unexpected, but seeing how they were backing of he figured it was high time he left so deactivating the Rinnegan but keeping the sword out he was about to leave before he just started coughing up blood.
He figured something like this would have happened after not using his doujutsu extensively for more than a decade. Coughing up more blood he muttered, "Shit…" before he fell towards the ground, and at the last moment of consciousness he swore that he saw the silver-gray wolf transform into one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
Chapter end
Yep I decided to work on this after I finished my last chapter with The Shadow-fox.
Now the thing with Quil, he always struck me as a reasonable guy when he wasn't doting on Claire so I figure when Victoria was using their land as a sort of safe haven he might have actually suggested something like what I put in the chapter.
Also I am hinting something with Bree, though I never read the novella that centered around her I kinda liked her character in eclipse, so pretty much I'm just making stuff up that fits my purposes for the story. Also after the eclipse story Breaking Dawn will be involve in this story as well.
I am adding a new story so look out for that.