Raijin

Chapter II

Here we are again! This is chapter II of Raijin, as you can see by the title, and hopefully there will be many more to come! I didn't get many reviews for the first chapter, so I'm hoping this update will bring a few more around. Tell me if you like the progression of the story, and leave me ideas and suggestions. I love ideas and suggestions. Flames welcome, as well! -Hangovergoblin

Midnight in Kusagakure was a beautiful sight, especially on a night with a full moon like this one. Konoha's nights didn't even compare to this. Not even when Naruto sat high atop the Hokage monument, gazing out over the village. This was on a whole different level. As Naruto sat on the rail of his room's balcony, he watched the first red streamer spiral up into the air and burst into a thousand little red starbursts. Naruto had always loved fireworks for as long as he could remember. Even when the October 10th festival was going on, there was a small slit in his wall that he could peek out of and see the fireworks dance in the sky.

There was a festival here, too, but instead of celebrating the supposed death of the Kyuubi and the sacrifice of the Yondaime, they were celebrating the first Chuunin exam to be held in Kusa for a whole decade, and boy, did they know how to celebrate. Everywhere you looked, something was happening, someone was getting drunk, or someone was having a good time. It was quite a sight to behold, especially when the first streamer went up at the stroke of midnight.

Legs dangling over the railing and trenchcoat waving in the winds coming off the plains, Uzumaki Naruto closed his eyes and listened to the merry-making and the explosions of the pyrotechnics. He smiled as he heard a small child below him singing a small tune, repetitive but cute, as she skipped down the street to the festival. He never once dreamed he'd see or hear such a huge party without the sounds of an angry mob outside his front door accompanying them.

The sound of rushing air met his ears as a pair of dainty, boot-encased feet tapped on the balcony's tile floor. As he turned around, a firework went off behind him, exposing the face of the person who was at his proverbial doorstep. The rush of white and red light revealed a lovely pinkette by the name of Haruno Sakura.

"Sakura...," he said, sounding out her name like it was the first word he'd ever learned. The light of the fireworks bathed her in a lovely ethereal-pink glow, adding to the beauty that he thought couldn't increase anymore because the laws of the Universe should prevent it. He grinned. She was so gorgeous.

"Hi, Naruto," she greeted, waving cutely. Her arms wrapped around her body, shivering. "It's kinda chilly out here, huh?"

Naruto nodded, smiling. He leapt off of the balcony and gracefully pulled off his trenchcoat. "Here. It'll help."

She was about to protest, but decided against it as the warm leather wrapped around her cold body. Naruto's unnatural body heat saturated her like the sun in spring. "Ooh," she sighed, smiling, her pink hair settling into the coat's large collar. "That's nice."

The coat was obviously too big for her, reaching nearly to the floor of the balcony. The orange leather shone in the light of the fireworks as they burst again.

Naruto patted the spot beside him on the railing. "Come on," he called softly. "Sit beside me."

As she walked over, Sakura could feel the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Now that she was here, she didn't know how she could handle being beside him. She was now fully aware of everything that she felt for him, and that was the thing that made this so difficult. Should she tell him? Or would that be the wrong move? She just couldn't tell anymore.

As she sat on the rail beside him, he slid closer. Her breath caught in her throat at the prospect of being so close to him outside of battle. She could feel her cheeks heat up to Hinata-esque levels and wondered how the small Hyuuga dealt with it. It felt like the walls were closing in on her.

She stole a sideways glance at Naruto, who was watching the sky intently, eyes lighting up with amusement as each firework burst in the sky. The sparks seemed to dance in his eyes as she watched him. The butterflies compounded.

"Naruto? Have you ever wanted to ask someone something, but were too afraid to ask?"

Naruto glanced over at her, his blue eyes narrowing. "Eh?" he asked, puzzled. "No...," he said, swinging his legs back and forth against the railing. "If I have a question, I ask. No matter what the consequences." He grinned, showing off his white teeth and slightly elongated canines. "Do you have a question, Sakura?"

Sakura, to be honest, was a little taken aback at his ability to read her. Certainly it shouldn't have been that easy... But Naruto did have quite the ability to read people, so she couldn't say too much.

"Maybe," she said, smiling prettily for him. She could feel her cheeks practically scorching. "Maybe not."

The blonde teen pouted, crossing his arms like a petulant child. "No fair."

Sakura giggled lightly. "For me, it is," she said, still smiling. Naruto grumbled a little, under his breath. "Well I think you do, Sakura," he said, turning to look at her, arms still folded. "So ask."

She took her first baby step into what would be the cold water revival of her lovelife.

"What do you think of me, Naruto?

The blonde teen turned back to the fireworks, which were still going off steadily, as if not wanting to end themselves. His head tilted up as he gazed at them, and he answered, "I think you're a wonderful kunoichi, Sakura. You're different from the girl I left back in Konoha." He grinned. "In a good way."

"Really?" she asked, head cocked to the side as her legs swung lazily over the railing's edge. "How so?"

The boy shrugged. "It's just... There, ya' know?" His brow furrowed as he thought of a way to put it. "It's hard to explain." Sakura made an 'O' shape with her mouth. "Right," she said. "Now for my second question."

She grabbed the railing of the balcony for some support as she prepared herself for the answer.

"What do you think of me... As a woman?"

Sasuke walked quietly through the streets of Kusa, wandering aimlessly. He was at a loss for sleep tonight, and with the fireworks bursting like mad cannons outside his window, the sandman was hard-pressed to make an appearance. So he'd done what he did back in Konoha on sleepless nights. He got dressed, and went out. The only real difference was that he had no fear of Itachi bursting through a window or popping out behind him to slit his throat. He was well aware that even if Itachi had the ability to sneak into Kusa and cut said throat, the older Uchiha wouldn't. Sasuke was Itachi's one way ticket to something; that much he could gather. Out of all the times he'd seen Itachi since the massacre, the man had barely spoken ten words to him, but never attempted to kill him. All he did was do a little psychological harm, which was something that Sasuke could deal with now.

So as he wound his way silently through the shadows of the buildings, he couldn't help but wonder why Itachi hadn't killed him in the first place. It made sense. To be the only Uchiha left would be a great, but terrible thing. At the same time, Itachi could potentially remake the clan from his own twisted vision, but something told Sasuke Itachi was not the type to take brides, or knock up some chick to have a kid. Maybe it was the whole 'murderous prodigal son of a prodigal clan gone mad' thing. Who knew?

Sasuke's eyes widened as he came to an abrupt stop. He had heard a hiss, and it was not an artificial one, either. His Sharingan activated, bathing the area instantly in a sort of half-light, like mid-way between night and day, which was considerably better than his normal vision. If there was one thing that could make Sasuke shiver with fear, it was snakes. He never used to be afraid of them, but that was before Orochimaru. The ophidian bastard had instilled in Sasuke a dreadful, paranoia-fuelled hatred of all things slithering or hissing, and it was that very paranoia that drove the teen now.

His skin crawled as he heard another hiss, this time, to his left. His magnifying vision settled on the origin of the sound, and saw something small and slim slither into a doorway. He followed after it, pulling his chokuto from its sheath and holding it at the ready across his body in an x-shape. He stepped into the doorway, his Sharingan illuminating the room. There was nothing there but some empty trashbins and an old, timeworn desk that was falling apart at the seams.

Sasuke sighed in relief. The snake was obviously gone, too-

"Gah!" Sasuke yelled as something sharp dug into his ankle. He looked down to see the small snake burying its fangs deep into his leg. He could feel a hot, searing pain fill his leg, and he shook the small beast off, slicing its head off as it flew through the air with his blade. It landed in a heap on the floor and for a moment, stayed still. Then it poofed away in a cloud of smoke.

"A summon," Sasuke gasped through labored breaths. "That goddamned fucking son of a bitch." He grit his teeth as he limped out of the building. Luckily, his hotel room wasn't too far away: It was about two blocks. He hoped he could make it. The pain was growing in his leg, and soon... There mightn't be any pain at all.

"A... A woman?"

Naruto gazed at Sakura, unsure of where this was going. She had never asked him anything along the lines of this, so he had no previous knowledge to work on... Which left him at a loss.

"What do you mean?" he asked, desperate for a hint.

Sakura shrugged. "Nevermind," she said, eyes downcast. Maybe Naruto hadn't changed. Maybe he was still dense, still confounded by questions that were intrinsically simple and complex at the same time.

"I think, Sakura, that you're still the most beautiful woman in the world."

Sakura's eyes shot up to his, a look of disbelief etched on her face. "Really?"

The blonde nodded, reaching out with his own hand, and setting it down on hers gently on the railing. "Really."

She gazed intently into his eyes as they inched closer to each other on the rail, the fireworks still booming over Kusa, like their heartbeats in their chests. The last one shot up just as their faces moved closer, and when their lips met, it exploded, sending thousands of red and orange sparks spewing into the air, illuminating Kusa like the midday sun. Then it was dark again, and only the moonlight was left to light the shadows.

There was a sharp gasp of pain from below their balcony and a loud thump as something heavy hit the ground. Naruto and Sakura parted, and the blonde teen peeked over the balcony to see a red and black figure lying on the ground, twitching occasionally.

"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, jumping off the railing, leaving a stunned Sakura behind. He activated his Fuujin as he hit the ground, negating the impact and allowing him to reach Sasuke faster. The boy was foaming slightly at the mouth.

"Sakura!" Naruto called back up to the balcony, panicked. "Get Kakashi! Bring him to my room!"

She was already gone.

Sasuke was totally unconscious by the time Naruto had wind-jumped back up to the balcony, and had stopped breathing when lain on the bed. Kakashi had burst in the door that very moment, a scared and panicked Sakura in tow.

"What happened?" he yelled, his grey hair bouncing angrily as he made his way to the bed. He was already weaving signs as he kneeled beside Sasuke's prone form, and placed them on his chest. The boy's lifeless body jumped as an electric shock ripped through him, bringing him back to life, if only temporarily.

Naruto was busy taking off Sasuke's red vest as Kakashi prepared an analytical jutsu, his hands glowing from concentrated chakra. The blond member of team 7 had small tears leaking from the corner of his eyes as he busied himself in helping Kakashi, whose brow was furrowed and sweaty from the concentration. The old scarecrow removed his hands from Sasuke's chest and pulled out what appeared to be a small green pill. Sasuke was going back into convulsions as his body once more attempted to shut itself down.

Sakura stepped onto the bed and laid Sasuke's head in her lap, holding it firmly to keep him from biting Kakashi's finger off as the Jounin placed the pill into his mouth. As Kakashi inserted the small pill, Naruto shut his eyes. If his friend died, he didn't want to see it. Especially after everything they had been through in the past couple of years. The boy involuntarily chewed the pill as his teeth clenched and unclenched and his throat's muscles convulsed.

Within seconds, the effect was noticeable, as the seizures died down and the boy coughed up a vile red substance that looked quite like blood. It was not blood, however. It was far too runny, like water.

"I think he'll be okay," Kakashi said, visibly slumping as he sat in the small chair beside Sasuke's bed. "It was poison," he explained, pointing at the substance that was now pooled in little mercurial drops on the floor. "Poison from a firesnake, if the red color is any evidence. I'd say from a summoned one. Firesnakes live only in a couple of cave systems around the whole continent, and even then, they are very elusive." His cycloptic eye narrowed as the realization of the summoned snake hit Naruto and Sakura in unison, their jaws clenching painfully.

"Orochimaru."

Kakashi nodded. "That would be my first guess," he mused. His chin sat on his hand as he contemplated. "And the one that makes the most sense. Manda is very picky of who signs his contracts." Naruto nodded.

"I remember he said that if Orochimaru summoned him again for battle without providing sacrifice, he'd eat Orochimaru," the Jinchuuriki said. At Sakura's puzzled look, he explained, "That was when I left with Jiraiya to find Tsunade-baba." She made an 'O' face.

"Ah."

"So that means," Naruto stood up and began pacing, "That Orochimaru is here. Now. In Kusa. He'll be in disguise like in Konoha, I'll bet."

Kakashi was surprised at the forethought Naruto had put into this. His cogs must've been turning as soon as he saw Sasuke collapsed on the street.

"Yes," the scarecrow agreed, sighing. "Which means by the end of this, we may tangle with him again." He stood up and moved to the shutters, drawing them closed. "Sakura," he said. "Go get your things. Naruto, go to Sasuke's room and get his. My room will be fine. Bring all the stuff here." The two shinobi nodded and did as they were told. They left quickly and quietly, intent on finishing the task set ahead of them.

Kakashi stood still for a moment, listening to their footsteps as the left. He reached over to the bedside table and picked up the phone. Dialing a number, he pressed the small button on the receiver, and the call went through, straight to a room on the opposite end of Kusa.

He was met with a gruff, "Hello," and the sound of the opposite sex, or many of the opposite sex giggling in the background.

"Jiraiya, it's Kakashi. There's a problem."

There was a pause, and the quick rustling of cloth could be heard. A few girlish squeals of disappointment filled Kakashi's ears and the phone was picked up again. "I'll be right over," Jiraiya said.

A dark chuckle filled the air as the Oto-nin scrambled down the alleyway, tripping over his feet in panic. His hand clutched at his robed shoulder, where a large dark stain was growing steadily by the moment, the blood rushing through his ears bumping in time to the throbbing in his wounded arm. His eyes widened in pain and distress as he slipped, his shoulder gouging painfully into the ground. He gasped and tried to pick himself up, but that same evil chuckle sounded, and he was pinned to the ground by a heavy shoe on his back.

"Look what we have here, partner. A runner."

The oto-nin gasped in pain as the shoe dug into his back and twisted, leaving him breathless. An absolutely enormous shadow moved into the light in front of him, revealing a massive hunched figure with beady black eyes, a red cape, and a straw hat. An evil aura seeped from the figure, but it was nothing compared to the absolute horror, terror, and all around viciously deadly aura emanating from the person at his back.

"You shouldn't have run into us, boy," the figure at his front snickered. "Because now Orochimaru is gonna be short one man."

"That fucking snake is gonna be short a whole lot more, when we're done here."

The sound of metal rending the very air around it was the last thing the boy heard as his head was sliced from his body, the spurting blood spraying like a vile black fountain in the moonlight.

As Naruto kept a silent vigil over his recovering teammate, he felt a creeping presence enter his mind. Naruto sighed; he knew what was about to happen. It always happened like this, even when he was face-down in the waters of the Valley of the End. He was about to be pulled into his mindscape to have a little chat with his resident prisoner and the manic ball of manifested wind, Kaze.

He closed his eyes and waited.

"Boy…"

The great tailed beast was close to the bars of his cage, like when Naruto had first encountered him. The fox's fangs filled most of Naruto's vision, and its loud, rumbling voice swallowed up the sound of the dripping water in the sewers of his mind. Naruto shook his head of the mental cobwebs and glared at the beast.

"What do you want, old fox? My best friend is dying, and this is when you want to talk?" he asked, folding his arms as he stood up. "Why couldn't you have picked all of those free moments we had while I was travelling to Kusa?"

The beast just looked back at him as Kaze made his presence known, swirling down out of the highest reaches of the ceiling. The wind manifestation settled to a stop just beside the Kyuubi's great maw.

"Up until now, we had no reason to call you here… There is something we must discuss," the ball of air said. With no discernable emotions to pick out on the faceless orb, Naruto had to go by tone alone in surmising that something was bothering them. Naruto frowned. The ball was never this serious, no matter what they were facing, unless he was actively training Naruto in something.

"Would someone tell me what's going on, then?" the blond genin asked.

"It would seem you're about to complete the Chidori, boy. That could prove disastrous for you." The great beast sat back on his haunches, providing Naruto with his full visage, instead of just his eyes and his gaping, fanged cavern of a mouth. "It would seem the fool Jiraiya has led you astray on how the actual technique is used and the limiting effects it creates on the user. Since the Toady has never performed the famed Raikiri, he doesn't truly know the ins and outs of it.

Kaze nodded as he agreed with the King of Beasts' ample explanation of the problem. Naruto, however, was more than curious as to what they were going on about and stated so. Kaze took that moment to interject.

"We have watched the memory of Sasuke using the technique on you in the Valley of the End over and over. We have picked out two flaws that the old man doesn't know about. A, the Chidori uses lightning-enhanced chakra; something Jiraiya-sama doesn't realize. B, it creates a tunnel-vision effect on your line of sight. We're not entirely sure why it does this to the user, but it is indeed the largest drawback to the technique."

"So what?" Naruto asked, recrossing his arms. "I can use the Fuujin and get out of the way quickly enough if I miss my target."

"Fool," the Kyuubi growled. "Have you learned nothing Kaze taught you? What's the first drawback of the Fuujin Doujutsu? Since you're apparently too dense to get it, I'll explain it. Your ability to use anything besides wind techniques is severely diminished." The Kyuubi pawed the bar of his cage, as if agitated by Naruto's lack of foresight. "Which means you cannot use a Lightning-affiliated technique while the Doujutsu is active."

The boy on the other side of the cage frowned. He hadn't thought of that. It made perfect sense, though. When he had tried to work on the technique back in Suna, he had the Fuujin activated. He remembered growing incredibly frustrated because he could only make sparks instead of the fully-fledged technique. He had more than enough chakra to feed the beast that was the Chidori, and the control necessary to perform it… he just couldn't perform it because of his Doujutsu.

"And because of that limiting factor, Naruto, there is another problem; Without the Fuujin, you couldn't possibly move quick enough to evade a counter strike. It could possibly mean your death. And," the ball said, gesturing with a flick of its spherical surface to the Kyuubi, "Our death, as well. I have no desire to float around in the elemental plane for another few thousand years looking for a viable host."

"So," Naruto began, frowning, "you mean I should give up learning the Chidori?"

"Unless you plan on developing a lightning affinity within the next few days before the exams, yes, boy. Besides, you've already learned it well enough. If you could develop a way to negate the limiting effects of your Kekkei-Genkai and the technique itself, you could surely use it to great effect, but I don't foresee that happening any time soon. Do you?"

Naruto hung his head in defeat. It truly bothered him that he couldn't perform the one jutsu Kakashi had handed down to him. Maybe it wasn't so wrong of Kakashi to have looked after Sasuke so well when they were younger. Sasuke was much like Kakashi in many ways; Naruto was unlike anyone alive. Cursed with the most powerful of demons, gifted with the oldest of bloodlines… to his knowledge, there wasn't anyone as unique as he was; and that was the problem. Who could train someone like that?

"Do not look at it as defeat, master," Kaze said, hovering just in front of Naruto's face. "Look at it as a challenge. As you always have looked at such problems. For every problem, there is a solution, whether it is given or achieved. And there is much, much more in store for you, Uzumaki Naruto. I can feel it."

Naruto perked up at this.

"Thank you, Kaze," he said. He looked up at the fox with a cheeky grin. "Anything you want to say, you big ball of considerate fur?"

The Kyuubi's great cavernous maw leaned close to the bars again. In a loud and rumbling voice, he said one thing as he grinned.

"Meatsack."

I enjoyed writing this chapter during the first go around, and I liked it even more once it was expanded. I think I cleared up a few issues in this chapter, and set it the story up for much more than I originally had planned. Like usual, please leave me good, meaty reviews so I can contemplate on how I should go about working on this story. I really enjoy the feedback! Flames and rants welcome, too! -Hangovergoblin