Forest of Death
Part V
Naruto winced as he rubbed his wrists where the plastic ties had dug into his skin. Sakura had tried to get them off by picking at them with her fingernails, but that hadn't worked so Sasuke's charmeleon had had to cut the plastic off with his claws. The removal of the ties had been made all the more difficult by Shadow, who'd been so glad to find him again that the umbreon wouldn't stop licking his face which made it very hard to sit still.
"I'm okay," Naruto muttered as he tried to keep his face from getting licked raw. "Really, Shadow, I'm glad that you found me. You can stop licking me now."
"How do you get into these messes?" Sasuke grumbled.
"I don't do it on purpose," Naruto pouted. "The creeps snuck up on me!"
"You could've died," Sakura frowned. "That one had a knife to your throat."
"I know," Naruto mumbled with a shiver.
He remembered the knife. Even though it had never touched him, he knew where it had been pointing. And if Team Sound was ready to kill police officers, they definitely wouldn't be afraid of killing one little trainer.
"Ow!"
Naruto turned his head to watch Tsunade and her blissey treat the League Champion's various scrapes, cuts, and burns, while her sceptile and nidoqueen gleefully tied the Sound goons and their monster minions to a tree trunk with vines.
"Relax," Tsunade grumbled. "I barely touched you! Now hold still…"
He looks so tired, Naruto thought as he watched…his father…wince when Tsunade rubbed an alcohol wipe over a filthy cut. He went out with the first bunch of police officers last night. They must've chased him and chased him…all night and all day and all night again.
"The officers…" the older trainer hissed around clenched teeth. "Did you…find any of them?"
"A few," the gym leader answered softly. "We…couldn't help them. Our party was attacked and scattered before we could find any more."
The man's shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his eyes, looking even more worn.
Naruto chewed at his lip for a moment before slipping off the fallen tree he'd been sitting on, picked his way around some fallen branches, edged up to his father, and mutely offered up his chocolate candy bar.
"For me?" he asked hoarsely, and when Naruto nodded, he took the candy. "Thank you—yowch!"
"Ooh," Tsunade clucked her tongue as she studied part of the Champion's arm with her flashlight. "It looks like there are some splinters here. Let me get my tweezers…"
"Great," he muttered and fumbled with the candy's wrapper.
"Naruto," Sakura held up his half-emptied bag, "this is yours, right?"
"Yeah." Naruto hurried over to take it and started searching the ground for his scattered things. "Those jerks went through my bag…"
"Where did you get evolution stones?" Sasuke asked, holding the thunderstone in one hand and the firestone in the other.
"They're an early birthday present," Naruto replied, snatching the stones from the Uchiha's hands and stuffing them back in their box before anyone saw the note still in it.
Sakura paused in picking through fallen leaves for some of Naruto's lost things and eyed the glowing stones curiously. "Your mom bought you evolution stones?"
Money had always been on the tight side in his home growing up. Professor Sarutobi was very generous in paying his mother for her work, but she only worked for him part-time and Konoha Town became a more expensive place to live once the professor retired there and a bunch of wealthy families followed him. The only reason that they'd had such a nice little house was because it had been left to his mother by the nice old lady who used to live in it. Kaede-san, the old Berry Lady, had had no living relatives and had grown attached to him and his mother, so when she faded away when he'd was four, the house had become theirs.
Naruto didn't answer Sakura's question. If he said yes, it would be a lie. If he told her the truth, he'd have to explain his…complicated…family. So he just focused on finding his stuff and shoving it back in his bag.
"Alright," Tsunade said to the Champion as she started packing up her first aid kit. "That should do it. If anything gives you trouble, go to the hospital."
"Thank you," he replied, and then yawned.
"Go on, get out of here," Tsunade snorted, "before you fall asleep. And take these kids with you, will you?"
The man nodded meekly and got back to his feet. Satisfied that he'd found all of his stuff Naruto, along with Demon and Shadow, hurried back over to the two adults. Sasuke and Sakura and their pokémon were right behind him. Tsunade summoned her leafeon and whispered some instructions to it before sending them all off.
"Nawaki will be sure to lead you back to Senju City," she informed them. "I used to lend him to Dan a lot…so he's familiar with every corner of this forest."
"Are…you sure you'll be alright by yourself, Tsunade-oba-san?" the Champion asked uneasily. "I'm sure that there are a lot more of these goons out here…"
"They're leaving," Sasuke said.
"Yeah," Sakura nodded eagerly. "We were hiding in some bushes and overheard a few of them talking about what they'd been doing here and how they were leaving now."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "And what were they doing here?"
"They poached and stole pokémon, they did some studying of the Mossy Stone, and…" Sakura frowned in thought for a moment. "And some people they called 'Akatsuki' were looking for some kind of green fairy, but I don't think they found it."
The Champion scratched at the back of his head. "A green fairy?"
"Anything else?" Tsunade probed.
"They said that their leader was allied with this 'Akatsuki' thing," Sasuke added.
"Huh," Tsunade laughed. "What handy little spies you two are! Now away with all of you." She waved her hands at them. "Shoo!"
They needed no further prompting and were soon on their way, following the leafeon's lead. Their hike was a silent as they trudged through the dark trees. With the late hour, their exhausted states, the fear of other potential enemies, and all the shocking things that had happened, none of them felt like talking.
Shadow seemed to hear something and paused to growl off into the darkness. Naruto tensed and they all braced themselves for whatever might come at them next. When the wobbly little balloon pokémon, drifloon, entered the light cast off from Dragon the charmeleon and Kiroi the raichu they were tempted to collapse from the sudden break in tension.
"A balloon pokémon?" Sakura blinked.
"A drifloon," the Champion muttered. "Weird… This species is never found in dense forests like this. They stay up in the sky or in windy places like wide open fields and grasslands."
"Oh, it's you again." Naruto patted Shadow's head to calm the growling umbreon and picked his way through some tall weeds to where the drifloon hovered nervously. "Why didn't you just float away?"
The purple drifloon lifted its string-like arms and presented him with an object.
"…The soothe bell?" The pink ribbon had been sliced and was stained with dirt. The silver sphere of the bell was significantly dented and there was more dirt packed in its crevices. When Naruto jingled it, it made a dull clunking sound instead of the melodious chime. "Aw, it's broken."
The drifloon wilted with a sad squeak.
"Don't worry about it." Naruto shoved the ruined bell into his pocket and patted the balloon, whose skin felt cool and very much like an ordinary rubber balloon. "Thanks for bringing it to me anyway."
It made a happier squeak and wrapped its string arms around his wrist.
Naruto grinned. He hadn't set out to catch any pokémon while he was here—this wasn't the situation to do such things. But it looked like he'd done it anyway. With how friendly it was being, he was sure that he could persuade it to join him easily, and if it joined him by choice it would work out better than a pokémon he attacked and weakened to capture it.
With a little bit of special training, I think I should be able to teach it how to carry letters to mom if I decide to stay out in the wilds for a long time. That is…if it's a flying type, or has levitate. I should check…
He started digging around for his pokédex with his free hand—
"Naruto, that's a—"
"Quiet."
Frowning, Naruto turned back to see Sasuke shushing Sakura. Both had their own pokédexes out and open. Sakura looked worried, Sasuke looked annoyed at her, and…his father just watched him curiously.
"What?" Naruto asked.
"Nothing," Sasuke muttered, putting his pokédex away. "Let's just get out of here."
Sakura looked unsure, but followed his example.
"Sasuke, somehow I don't believe you…" Naruto muttered as he returned to the faint trail with the drifloon still clinging to his wrist.
"Don't worry about it," the Champion advised as they started down the path again. "She might've been worried about some of the information on drifloon in the pokédex."
"What sort of information?" Naruto wondered.
"That drifloon tug on children's wrists to steal them away," the older trainer answered. "It's something of an old wives' tale. Drifloon aren't strong enough to carry much, so most children are too heavy. And so the kids usually just play with the drifloon like real balloons until the pokémon runs away, or stays for good. I don't think I've ever heard of a drifloon actually succeeding."
"Weird," Naruto said thoughtfully.
"If you really want to hear weird things about pokémon, check out the entry on luvdisc sometime," his father chuckled.
Luvdisc? Naruto rubbed at a scarred cheek. I wonder what sort of pokémon that is…
The next morning, Naruto yawned as he brushed his teeth in the pokémon center bathroom. They'd made it back to Senju City without incident—no further encounters with the bad guys, or attacks from angry wild pokémon. His father had disappeared to his hotel, and he and his friends had dragged themselves to the pokémon center where they could sleep.
Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were already there and waiting for them. They'd managed to escape from the chaos and get straight back to the city without any injury. After alerting the few police that were still in the city, the three of them had gone to the pokémon center to wait. Well, Kiba had wanted to go back in and help, but Shino overruled him and almost sat on him to keep him from going anyway.
When Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had returned to their pokémon center beds, their old classmates pounced on them before they could get to sleep. In fact, Hinata had gone so far as to hug Naruto before just as abruptly letting him go with a stuttered apology. Too worn out to really care about anything, Naruto left it to Sakura and Sasuke to share information as he crawled straight into bed and slept.
Man, I'm still beat… he thought as he went about washing his face and then getting dressed. Last night really sucked. That made Suna City seem like a walk in the park…or a walk on the beach…without the ocean.
Once he was dressed, Naruto headed down to the ground level to retrieve his pokémon (which he'd submitted for treatment) and do some tweaking to his line-up. Now that the mess in the Forest of Death was pretty much over, it was time to get back to the real reason that he'd come to this city. He needed to prepare for his gym battle with Tsunade so that he could get the Leaf badge.
I've seen four of the pokémon that she keeps on hand: nidoqueen, blissey, sceptile, and leafeon. Typhoon would really only be useful against the nidoqueen…if it didn't know thunderbolt…and since Tsunade really gets aggressive when facing gyarados, I should send him away for a while. And with nidoqueen immune to electricity, and sceptile and leafeon resistant to electricity, Bolt won't be of much use, so I could send him off too…
…That leaves two empty spaces to fill. So if I—
"Oh, Sasuke-kun! I've missed you so much!"
"Hey! Let go of his arm, Ino-pig!"
"Make me, Forehead-girl!"
"Let. Go. Now."
Naruto paused, half-way between the stairs and the counter, and stared as Sakura and Ino quarreled and Sasuke just looked angry.
Ino? When did she get here? And if Ino's here…
Scanning the wide open lobby of the pokémon center, Naruto spied Chouji and Shikamaru sitting on a couch, barely paying attention to what Ino was doing. Shikamaru looked half-asleep, as usual. And Chouji was demolishing a bag of potato chips, also as usual.
Geeze, it's like we're back in school in Konoha Town…
Jamming his hands into his pockets, he slipped around the scene that the two girls were making and plopped down on the couch beside Chouji.
"Morning," he greeted. "When did you guys get here?"
"Hi, Naruto!" Chouji greeted cheerfully with a wave. "You're here, too, huh?"
"We got in yesterday evening," Shikamaru muttered. "We tried staying in the center closer to the contest hall, but it was too full so we had to come here. It was very troublesome."
Yesterday evening… So they totally missed the police recruiting trainers. And if they went to bed early, they missed us all coming back from the forest.
"What happened to your chin?" Chouji asked around a mouthful of potato chips.
Naruto fingered the darkening bruise on his chin and winced a bit. "Oh, I tripped out in the forest." He watched the two girls bicker for a moment before speaking lowly to his two old friends. "How long do you think it'll take for Sasuke to sneak away?"
"Ten minutes," Chouji guessed.
"Twelve," Shikamaru countered after a moment's observation. "So…aside from planting your face out in the forest, what have you been up to?"
"I got more badges," Naruto proudly informed them, flashing the inside of his jacket where he wore the decorated metal pins. "And I got more pokémon," he added, and released Shadow (who had evolved since they'd last met) along with Gamakichi and Sandy.
"Cool!" Chouji grinned.
"Impressive," Shikamaru remarked.
"Aie! A bug!" Ino wailed, abruptly latching onto Sasuke's arm with a death-grip. "Sasuke-kun, save me!"
Sandy the vibrava certainly looked like a bug. She had large green eyes, green-and-black diamond-shaped wings, a long tail, and black insect-like legs. But in spite of her dragonfly appearance, she was a dragon and ground type—not a bug type at all.
Stung by Ino's fear, Sandy wilted in mid-air (with her levitate ability let her float, even when her wings didn't move) and drifted over to land on Naruto's shoulders.
"Hey, Sandy isn't a bug, she's a dragon," Naruto scowled. "What's to be scared of Ino? She's not even bothering you."
"I know a bug when I see one," Ino whimpered, trying to use Sasuke as a human shield between herself and Sandy. "It has those giant bug eyes and those creepy bug legs and a whole bunch of other ugly bug parts—it's a bug!"
"She's not a bug!" Naruto insisted, shaking his fist at the blonde girl.
"Naruto is correct," Shino interjected, seemingly appearing from nowhere, but with how quiet he usually was he'd probably been nearby and watching for a while. "Vibrava is not a bug-type pokémon at all, but a dragon and ground type. Although, in terms of breeding, vibrava and its whole evolutionary line belong to the 'bug' group."
"I don't care what type it is," Ino snapped. "If it looks like a bug, it is a bug!"
"Would you let go?!" Sasuke hissed. "I'm starting to lose feeling in my arm!"
"I don't see why Ino hates bugs so much," Chouji sighed, releasing his butterfree, which lazily circled over all of their heads. "She loves Cho and he's a bug."
"Cho is a butterfly, not a bug," Ino replied, ignoring Sasuke's demand. "Butterflies are cute and harmless and gentle and graceful. Bugs are ugly and disgusting and creepy!"
Sandy sagged more heavily on Naruto's shoulders.
"Sandy is not ugly!" Naruto fumed.
"Man, I just don't get girls," Kiba grumbled as he trudged onto the scene with Akamaru and plopped on the couch next to Shikamaru.
"Ino, let go of his arm before I have Pinky pry you off," Sakura threatened with a glare.
"Not until that bug goes away!" Ino insisted.
Naruto stuck his tongue out at the Yamanaka girl and put Sandy, along with Gamakichi and Shadow, away. "Don't listen to Ino," he said to the vibrava's pokéball. "She's crazy. She's looking for the ugliest fish pokémon ever so that she can make it beautiful."
"I am not crazy!" Ino snapped, releasing Sasuke's arm at last. "And feebas may be ugly, but when I make it beautiful, it will evolve into the most beautiful pokémon in the world and I'll win all the beauty contests without breaking a sweat!"
"Whatever," Naruto snorted and left the cluster of old classmates in search of a free terminal to use. "I need to get ready to challenge the gym."
No one followed him or called after him and Naruto quickly found a terminal where he could exchange active pokémon for stored pokémon and make calls. He reluctantly sent away Typhoon and Bolt, whispering apologies as he made the transfers. In exchange for them, he called up Spooky the haunter and Drifter the drifloon.
I'll have to do a lot of training with these guys before I can challenge Tsunade again, he thought as he studied the great-ball and pokéball. Spooky is barely tame and I barely know anything about their attacks and abilities. …And I need to work up the nerve to command a ghost.
But before any of that, he had one thing to do first: call home.
After several rings, his mother's image came into the focus on the video screen…and she frowned at him.
"How did you bruise your face?"
"I fell," Naruto shrugged. "It's nothing." There was no way he was telling his mother that he'd tangled with a bunch of criminals that had tried to kill him. She'd freak. "I made it to Senju City. I meant to call sooner, but I totally got distracted with finding the gym leader and stuff."
His mother eyed him suspiciously for a moment. "Alright. So, have you found Tsunade yet?"
"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "I'll make my official challenge in a few weeks. I need to do some training and strategizing first."
"Well I wouldn't use Typhoon if I were you," his mother advised.
"I know," Naruto grimaced.
"You found out about that, huh?" His mom looked curious. "So what do you plan to do?"
"I sent Bolt and Typhoon away for a while so I can use my two back-ups," Naruto replied.
"Two? I know you have that haunter…but what else do you have?"
"This!" Naruto grinned and set Drifter free. The purple balloon had never been indoors before and was fascinated by everything, especially the ceiling. Naruto had to gently pull it down by its strings so that his mom could see it. "Isn't it cool?"
His mother stared blankly back at him. "Er…you're not afraid of it?"
"No." Naruto frowned. "Why would I be?"
"Well…that's a ghost pokémon."
It took a good minute for that fact to sink it. "What?!"
"…You didn't know?"
Naruto shook his head vigorously. "It…it can't be! Ghost pokémon are creepy and scary! Drifter just looks cute and squishy!"
"Naruto…" his mother sighed.
"What's wrong?"
Naruto jerked his head around to find his father watching him. He still looked tired, but a whole lot better than he had the night before. He wore long sleeves to hide the bandages on his arms, and there was a large bandage on his cheek. In his hand he had a cup of coffee.
"You never said that drifloon was a ghost pokémon!" Naruto sputtered.
"I never said that it wasn't," the older trainer shrugged. "Its type should only matter in matching it with an opponent you know."
"Minato? Is that you? Come closer so that I can see you."
"But…" Naruto wilted, fingering the heart-ends of Drifter's strings. "Why didn't you mention it before?"
The man moved closer, so that the video pick-up could see him too. "You seemed to like it so much before you knew that I saw no reason to tell you something that might frighten you away from it. Besides, as soon as you looked it up in the pokédex, you would've found out."
Naruto bit his lip. "Oh…"
"Minato…what happened to your face?"
His father hesitated, and slowly turned to face the screen. "Oh, just a close call with a fire attack."
The red-haired woman stared hard at them through the video screen. "I don't believe you! There's more to it than that, isn't there? One of you better tell me right now, or—"
"It's a long story," the blond man laughed. "I'll call you a bit later and tell you all about it. Bye!" And then he cut the connection.
Naruto gaped at his father. "…She's gonna be really mad at you."
"I know," the man chuckled weakly. "But that's for me to worry about. You should worry about preparing for your gym battle, don't you think?"
"Yeah," Naruto agreed quietly. Then he gathered his nerve and set his jaw. "Yeah!"
And then he scampered out of the pokémon center in search of a good training place with Drifter bobbing along behind him.
I need to get to training if I'm ever going to get the Leaf badge from grumpy old Tsunade!
…And next time I get beat up and call home, I need to remember to use "voice-only" mode.