Hey guys, it's me as usual. Thanks to all whom have reviewed, your constructive critisicm was very much apprieciated, even if it was just a few words of encouragement, nobody asked you to write a whole essay for me. This chapter has alot of fighting in it, which was mildly difficult for me to write but I got over it. This chapter is also a turning point...kinda for Naruto, or should I say Kitsune, more fight scenes will come as they face off against the Akatsuki and various other high leveled ninja. I have not decided what to do with Sasuke yet so please don't ask right now, but other than that, enjoy :D
"When I realized that reality was harsh, when the little world of lies I had built collapsed around me, when I met Laughing and he beat it into me, that the world won't change for me, I have to change for the world." A long silence followed these words as everyone tried to digest the words that had changed their old teamate so much. This silence was broken by Naruto himself, with a chakra filled stomp of his foot, he sent all the floorboards of the wooden floor beneath him flying upwards, creating a nice distraction as well as from a gaping hole in the floor should he or Laughing have the need to excape from the building in a hurry.
The wave of the floorboards also carried his Kitsune mask towards him, which he plucked out of the boards with his katana and allowed it to fall gently into place, onto his face. Even before the dust and debris had cleared out, Kitsune knew exactly where everyone was and what to do, his hunter's instinct told him everything, from the cockroach skittering on the floor because the floorboards had disturbed it to the leaves floating in from the open window. Without any hesitation what-so-ever, Kitsune leapt through the dust, katana out, ready to attack mercilessly.
Sasuke saw this coming and ducked under the incoming blade but didn't foresee the foot that followed the blade and was thrown into the wall with an almighty thud. Kitsune knew his priorities, who was strongest, who was fastest and who to take out first. Twirling his katana, he speared several kunai through the ring on the end, then with a flick of his wrist, he sent the kunai flying back, ring first. Satisfied that the blunt end of the kunai had found their marks, effectively knocking a few of his former comrades out. Ducking under a punch, he spun around the fist and grabbed it, wrenching the arm back, producing a cry of pain from Lee, the owner of the said arm. Kitsune released this arm, letting Lee drop to the ground, cradling his injured arm.
Suddenly Kitsune leapt side, the shadow passing harmlessly beside him, grimacing at what a pain this was, he preformed a quick shunshin, appearing instantly beside the shadow user's side, using the hilt of his katana, a quick blow to the temple was enough to make the genius crumple to the ground, out cold. Twisting and turning to dodge a huge canine and his master, two vicious axe kicks from the side put them out of the battle. Blocking Neji's attack was simply a matter of knowledge, during his training with Shichi, he had learned all about pressure points, tenketsu and nerve endings, where they were and how to exploit them.
Therefore, since he already knew Neji's attack was directed at tenketsu, it was simply a matter of moving his sword to cover those tenketsu in order to ensure his own safety. In the middle of his attack though, a roundhouse kick with all his power and weight behind it was enough to knock out Neji. A swarm of bugs quickly dragged Neji out of the line of fire and then converge on Kitsune. In retaliation, he flew through a set of familiar hand seals, "Fuuton: Kaze Yaiba!" A whirlwind surrounded the bugs and the sharp piercing blades of the winds killed many of the hive, forcing Shino to recall them and hurl a set of shurikan in their place.
The shurikan were all redirected at Tenten, who was rushing at him with a chained scythe. She swatted the shurikan away with her scythe and managed to wrap the chain around his katana which was on the offense. With a grunt, he twisted his katana loosening the chains wrapped around it and stabbed forwards, effectively cutting her arm. Making a split second decision, she wisely decided to let go of the chain binding his katana rather lose her arm over it. As she did so, he finished that fight with an open palm to the abdomen.
Turning from them, he faced the remaining three, Sasuke, who had recovered from the kick earlier, Sakura and Hinata, both whom looked at him with a pained expression. "And then there were three," he grinned fiendishly at them, but they couldn't see that of course due to his mask. Not waiting for any response, he speared over half a dozen shuriken and kunai that lay littered on the ground from before with his katana, and then with a flick of the wrist he sent those projectiles flying towards them. Flying through his handseals at breakneck pace, he shouted out, "Kage Shurikan no Jutsu!"
The weapons suddenly flickered in mid-flight and then doubled, then tripled creating a wall of sharp pointy projectiles. The three Konoha nin readied kunai of their own, deflecting the majority of the incoming weapons, recieving minor cuts and scratches from the onslaught. The wall of weapons was all the distraction Kitsune needed though, he had sensed Laughing on his way back, with a chakra induced punch, he opened a new doorway in the wall, seeing that they were almost finished with the wall of weapons, he formed a singular and familiar handseal, "Kirigakure no Jutsu!" The thick mist wafted in, surrounding Kitsune in a spiral first then swiftly spreading to other parts of the place. A minor Genjutsu would be enough to prevent Hinata from using her Byakugan to follow them, he was never good at Genjutsu, so lucky for him, Laughing had prepared something called Genjutsu Seals.
Which were essentially exactly what their name implied, seals that cast a genjutsu, they were quick to use, could last a long time and were pretty handy for people who were practically useless in Genjutsu. Pumping enough chakra into the seal so it would last a good ten maybe fifteen minutes tops, which was enough time for the two of them to get going and get far enough away from the village. He slapped the self-adhesive seal onto the wall next to the hole and leapt out, sensing Laughing jump out right behind him. "Nice work there buddy boy," Laughing's mask had glowed faintly when he leapt out of the hole but now the glow had faded away, that was an indicator that the seals in the mask was working to release the genjutsu as soon as he had encountered it.
"Same for you," Kitsune replied, sheathing his katana with a low rasp. The rest of the journey was continued in silence, until they had crossed the border and was well on their way to Suna.
"I remember why I hate the desert...it's so hot out here," Naruto grumbled as they trudged through another dune of hot sand. He had long ago taken off his mask as he felt it was suffocating him, but it was only a tiny bit better without it on, a tiny bit. Laughing hadn't removed any of his clothing, his dark cloak and mask still in place.
Finally Naruto couldn't stand it any more, he turned around sharply and pointed a finger in Laughing's face. Raising his mask faintly to give Naruto a bemused look, Laughing simply bit down on the offending finger with his very sharp canine, which elicted a howl of pain from the blonde. "You bit me!"
"You offered me the finger, would you have prefered I cut it off, cook it then bit it?" Laughing replied offhandedly, continuing walking through the sand.
Naruto hissed and muttured curses under his breath as he nursed his swelling finger, inside his head, Kyuubi was howling with laughter. "He got you! He so got you! Ahahaha, oh man that was good!"
"Only a little bit further buddy boy and then we'll be at where the client is meeting us so hurry up," Laughing called out behind him, already leaving the Jinchuuriki behind.
"Oi! Wait up! I'm injured!" Naruto yelled, scrambling around in the sand in an effort to catch up.
They arrived shortly at a small town called Uindo which specialized in glass making and glass blowing. People seemed to ignore the two and keep on going about with their daily business. They seemed to know Laughing and weren't at all scared of him as he walked around in his mask and battle get-up, several children waved at him as they walked past, to which he responded with a mere nod.
At last he turned down a small pathway to a simple garden gate which swung open with a soft creak. Upon closer inspection, the garden gate was completely made of glass, in fact, once you got a closer look around, everything was made from glass, or stained glass, from the roses planted in the soil to the birds sitting on the birdbath...which was again made of glass.
"Garasu-san? Are you there?" Laughing called out, standing in the middle of the garden, he didn't go up to the glass house and knock on the door, which Naruto found was odd.
"Come on down!" A voice called out from seemingly nowhere. The glass staircase leading up to the house, glowed faintly and part of the walk way moved back to reveal that the staircase continued downwards.
Raising his eyebrows faintly, Laughing trudged down the stairs in his usual brisk pace while Naruto hesitantly stepped down the transparent stairs, it felt like he was walking on air, almost like the glass was going to crack under him at any given moment and he was going to plunge to his apparent death.
Once he realized that Laughing was far ahead of him he hastily bounded down the stairs after him, still watching the glass underneath him wearily.
Garasu-san turned out to be a man in his late twenties, sitting in a room that was lit by the forge in the far end. All around him stood glass creations, varying in size, shape and colour. While Naruto gaped like a fish out of water at the spectacle surrounding him, Laughing was in business mode immeadietly, conferring to Garasu about their deal.
Garasu smiled and turned, opening a large cabinet at one side of the room while Laughing pulled out the scroll containing the blueprint they had just stolen. Turning back, Garasu placed a medium sized cage covered by a cloth on the table and a briefcase. The briefcase was unlocked and opened, showing bundles of ryou, all neatly tied and placed in the briefcase. Laughing scanned over the bundles briefly, his mind calculating the amount. He sealed all the money into two different scrolls, half and half, half for himself and half for Naruto. Then the cage was unveiled.
Inside the cage stood two elegeant creatures, both were entirely made of glass but moved quite fluidly. You couldn't quite see them in the dim light, but you could make them out as what little light there was reflect off of them in a rainbow of colours. Garasu took the first one out and handed it to Laughing, who accepted it, by allowing the creature to crawl up onto his arm. The creature stretched, and flexed its wings, and Naruto reconized it as a dragon, he could just see it's curving fangs.
Garasu beckoned him closer before handing him his own creature. A fox made it's way up his arm slowly, twining around his shoulders, where it settled down for a nap. "These two have been tested but they adapt and learn so quickly it's impossible to tell what their limit is," Garasu informed them, "they'll eat whatever you eat and more than often, they'll eat rocks or metal. They can draw off your chakra, your enemy's chakra, the chakra around them or whatever they eat, so you don't have to worry to much. And they can repair themselves, so if something happens to them, give it an hour, if nothing good happens, then bring them to me."
Laughing turned from the fancy new creature perched gracefully on his shoulder to the glass maker, "Arigatou Garasu-san." He gave a deep bow before turning swiftly on his heel and leaving back the way they came. Naruto gave a quick hasty bow and followed his partner out as well, the glass stairs went by unnoticed as his attention was still rivited on the glass fox sleeping on his shoulders.
Once they were outside again, the glass convering slid back over the stairs, a low rumbling was heard and the glass ground beneath them began to shake. Several moments passed before the rumbling finally stopped and all was still once more. "Come on buddy boy, destiny doesn't wait for anyone!" Naruto turned, only to find Laughing already way ahead of him, halfway down the street.
"Well it better damn wait for me then!"
And that was the chapter, a sort of long chapter if you ask me, more will be revealed about the glass creatures in later chapters and yeah...that's about it. So please R&R, remember even the littlest things help, until next time. ~AnimeClouds~