Chapter 3: Is this what home feels like?
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The genin stared in shock at the massive gated fence before them. It had to be at least twenty feet high and looked to be made of incredibly strong metal. To top it off, the gate (that they could see, this was gate number 14) had more locks on it than all the doors in Konoha combined as well as barbed wire so thick it looked like a tube of barbed metal was atop the fences.
"So this isn't a henge?" Anko asked the redhead. Naruko nodded, "the old me was a henge!" Anko wanted to ask more and teach the girl a few tricks, but she noticed the other genin had arrived. "Well, I guess it is time to get started with this part of the exam," she turned to Naruko briefly, "go hook up with your team." Naruko got up and ran to her teammates at top speed. The speedy movement caught the interest of a number of the genin present. The most note worthy were a Hyūga girl, a young man wearing green spandex, a grey haired youth and a grass ninja.
"Welcome to Training Area 44, also known as the Forest of Death," Anko announced, "though it is much better known as my playground. The giant tigers are cute and cuddly." Everyone present, even the high ranked ninja, sweat dropped at her comment. "This leg of the exam is a five day long battle royal where you will be fighting other genin teams, wild animals and the express need to throttle the idiots in your team," many people looked at those idiots in their team while Anko took a breath, "you will nominate a team leader, then you will go to this tent to receive a scroll." Anko pulled out two scrolls, one marked 'Earth' and the other marked 'Heaven.' She held them up for all to see, "each team will receive one scroll and you will need to take the one you don't have from the other teams by any means necessary. Since there are a limited number of each scroll, only half of you could pass, though most likely less than a quarter of you will make it out alive. After getting a scroll, make your way to the tower in the center of the forest. Get moving!"
After a few moments of shivers or whatever it was people did when they heard something ominous, the teams started deciding who would lead. For Team 7, Sasuke wound up pulling the clan card, then the Kekkai Genkai card, the 'only guy in the group' card, then started pulling out the popularity card when Naruko growled and told him to shove the damn scroll up his ass for all she cared. They went to the tent, which Sasuke noted was curtained so it would be that much harder to guess who had what scroll. Team 7 was assigned to Gate 22 and received a Heaven Scroll. They were warned not to open it before they got to the tower, another thing Anko forgot to mention, before they stowed it in a metal carrier with a belt for carrying.
Team 7 waited before their gate. After a few minutes, the man at the gate cracked it open. "Go now!" he bellowed. Team 7 ran through the opening and heard the gate slam shut behind them.
[End of day 1, somewhere in the forest]
Naruko wanted nothing more than to punt Sasuke's sleeping duck ass out of the forest and into the Hokage Monument. The bastard cheated during their rock paper scissors duel, using his sharingan to read his teammate's hand movements so he could counter them. Then Naruko almost beat Sakura-chan's rock with her paper, but noticed it coming and switched to scissors. Now guard duty was Naruko from 10pm until 2am, then Sakura-chan from 2am to 5am, then Sasuke would guard from 5am till 7am when they would start moving again.
It was now 2:30am.
Naruko let Sakura-chan sleep, not feeling tired in the least bit. Oddly enough, despite all the tree climbing, running and constant worry of being attacked by a wild animal, Naruko felt oddly at peace in the forest. She felt invigorated. Team 7 hadn't encountered any other genin nor did they run into wild beasts. That struck the kitsune as weird. Well, with how much Team 7 had to walk and with there being 44 gates to this wonderful forest, it was no small wonder that no other team had stumbled across them yet.
Naruko took another deep breath of the crisp night air and fed the small fire some wood to keep it going. She was going to wake the teme up and hour early and make him take the rest of the watch, the cheating jerk.
[Day 2, 10am, somewhere else in the forest]
Sakura had a full night of sleep, Naruko having opted to cover most of the first two shifts. Sakura would have been a little worried, but Naruko seemed to be as energetic as ever, possibly even more than usual if such a thing were possible.
They were currently moving through the trees because the terrain under them was too rough for running. Sasuke was in the front with Sakura in the middle and Naruko bringing up the rear. This didn't seem to be a good setup because Naruko kept accidentally passing Sakura.
Speaking of the girl, she seemed a bit...weird for the last while. She kept turning and looking in various directions, almost like she heard something.
"Naruko, stop doing that," Sasuke ordered.
The redhead locked her gaze on the heir. "But I keep hearing things," she said.
Sasuke signalled a stop. The three genin descended to ground level because it was starting to even out enough to run across. "Alright," Sasuke said, then kicked Naruko hard in the stomach.
"S-Sasuke-kun?" Sakura stammered.
"I never thought I would meet someone who was even worse at transforming than Naruko," Sasuke said to the girl he had just kicked, "Naruko wears her weapon pouch on her right leg, not the left."
'Naruko' released the henge, revealing herself to be a male Ame-nin with a full gas mask. He threw a kunai at Sakura, marking her as the weak link. Sasuke deflected the weapon, then threw his own to make the ninja run. He gave chase, seeing Naruko laying on the ground, drooling a bit while knocked out. He tossed a kunai down next to her head, figuring she had been caught and replaced with little trouble. Hopefully, the kunai landing next to her head would rouse her.
He returned his attention to the Ame-nin and attempted to land a few hard blows on him, but the ninja just wove around the strikes. With one of these odd twists, the older ninja swung his arm at Sasuke's face, knocking him down to a tree branch. The ninja then jumped down at Sasuke, intent on finishing him off.
Thunk!
The attacking ninja had to redirect himself at the last moment to avoid a kunai thrown courtesy of Naruko. Sasuke took the weapon using a variation of the tree climbing exercise and launched it at the ninja while there was an opening. As expected, the ninja twisted out of the way, but provided a large enough opening for Sasuke to appear behind him and strike him down with the same kunai he had just dodged.
"Sakura!" Sasuke yelled as his sharingan blazed, "this is real combat! Freezing up will end with you dying! You need to wake up and fight for your life!" Sakura started at this, but realized that she would have to fight with her all soon enough. This is why she didn't feel ready for this exam.
A few minutes later, after having found no scroll on the dead ninja, the team decided to use a code so they wouldn't mess up again. It was a really complicated code too. "Let's get goi-" Sasuke started, but a large blast of wind struck the genin, throwing Naruko away with a particularly powerful gust.
"Hello, Sasuke-kun," a kunoichi said from the center of the blast. She didn't look like too much, but she radiated power. She merely smirked as Sakura and Sasuke recovered their footing. In a flash, kunai slammed into their foreheads, killing them. The sensation disappeared in a moment and Sasuke realized that it was just the woman's killing intent, nothing else.
'This is bad,' Sasuke thought as his gaze slid over to see Sakura shaking and crying on the ground from the sensation. The girl was overloaded on killing intent, her mind temporarily broken. 'We need to move!' He battled with his body as the Kusa-nin drew closer and closer, every step throwing waves of KI at the two genin. When she threw a pair of kunai at the two, Sasuke drew his own kunai and stabbed himself in the leg, then tackled Sakura out of the way with the blade still in him.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shouted, shocked at waking up from the nightmare to see Sasuke with a kunai in his leg. Another volley of kunai flew at them and they had to split up.
[Not too far away, same time]
"Ow!" the redheaded kitsune snapped as she held her head. She had been thrown into a tree, but not before bouncing off a tree root or two, maybe a rock too. "Where is Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme?" she asked herself as she looked around. She calmed herself and attempted to listen for the sounds of battle or something. A very strong smell hit her nose, one that she would later realize was fear. She heard something, but it wasn't battle. Her eyes snapped open to see a very large snake staring down at her, tongue flicking out to taste the air.
"Oh shit!" Naruko shouted as the snake darted for her. She jumped at the last second, making the snake miss by a few centimeters. She actually landed on it and then decided it was katon time.
...
"Um, how did I do it again?" she asked herself. The snake didn't like ferrying people around, so it batted the girl off its head with its tail. Naruko landed and looked up in time for the snake to slam into her, mouth wide open.
'I was eaten...' Naruko thought as she was swallowed. She took solace in knowing that no other Hokage (to-be) before her has been eaten by a giant snake and lived to tell the tale, of course, she had to live first. Since she couldn't remember how she used that katon before and she had no tails or anything, she had to think of another way to escape.
Hiss.
"Dammit! I'm getting burned!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. To her shock, the snake exploded for some reason. She recovered after she picked herself off the ground, happy that she didn't have snake bits all over her. "I'm the next Hokage, I can't become lunch yet," she told any other large creatures that might be looking for a free snack. She bolted towards the smell, thinking it might lead her to her friends.
She didn't notice her hair growing wilder, or her nails sharpening as she ran. She didn't even notice when she dropped to all fours and took to the high tree branches with a single leap.
[Sasuke and Sakura]
"Sasu-!" Sakura started, but the heir faced her with a kunai ready. She realized what he wanted and repeated the code. Sasuke relaxed slightly. "We need to find Naruko," he said. Sakura nodded and the two started to move around, looking for the redhead.
"Sasuke!" the girl shouted as she came into view. "Quiet!" Sakura shot back. Naruko scratched the back of her head. "Sorry Sakura."
In a flash, Sakura knocked Naruko back and held a kunai to her throat as Sasuke also pointed his kunai to her heart. Naruko looked shocked for a moment, then started to chuckle in a creepy tone. "How did you know it wasn't me?" she asked as the henge dispelled to reveal the grass ninja. "Naruko always calls me Sakura-chan," the pinkette informed the dark haired woman.
"Such a stupid mistake," the Kusa-nin said before blowing the genin away with another gust of wind. Luckily, they were blown away together this time.
When they landed, Sakura noticed that Sasuke was bleeding badly. "Sasuke-kun!" she shouted, only to be stopped from continuing when Sasuke placed his hand over her mouth. She noticed his expression, one she hadn't seen since Wave: Sasuke was panicking. 'For Sasuke-kun to panic like this, that woman must be very dangerous!' Sakura then noticed a large snake slide between them as it eyed Sasuke's head.
"Mmm! Mmmm!" Sakura tried. Good thing Sasuke decided to reinforce the need to remain quiet by turning to look at her. This allowed him to see the snake attempt to bite his head off. He released Sakura and jumped away from the serpent as it grew larger. It followed him and he launched kunai and shuriken into its head, killing it. He landed in the branches while the snake's body fell to the ground. He was catching his breath when it tore open and the Kusa-nin rose out of the wound.
"Kukukuku," she chuckled, "very good Sasuke-kun. Now let us talk for a moment." She pulled out an Earth scroll. "You want my Earth scroll?" She opened her mouth and her tongue wrapped around the scroll, then she swallowed it. "Let's battle for the scroll then," she...pulled the skin away from her eye slightly as her face seemed to become more masculine and older for a moment, "with our lives as the prize!"
Another snake flew at Sasuke, this one being the woman as her lower body became a snake's tail. She wound up the tree in a flash and struck at Sasuke with two kunai, much like a snake would bite a bird. Sasuke jumped out of the way, throwing kunai at the woman. She wove around the weapons as she sped at Sasuke. Sasuke went for another kunai, but found no more as the woman closed in.
Three kunai slammed into the branch in front of the woman, forcing her to change direction and go to another tree.
"Sorry Sasuke," Naruko said from her branch, "I forgot that code right away."
Sakura had never been so happy to see Naruko and Sasuke looked relieved as well. But it didn't mean much. Naruko had not been able to reproduce that katon of hers and she hadn't gotten much better after releasing her henge. You would think that using henge heavily for at least eight or so years would give her some awesome chakra control, but it didn't do jack for her.
Sasuke sighed to himself and removed the scroll and its case from his shoulder. He placed it on the branch. "We yield to you," he said as he backed off.
The kunoichi chuckled. "Very good Sasuke-kun. The prey knows that presenting something more valuable will appease the predator." She went to get it, but another kunai landed in front of her as Naruko landed in front of Sasuke and grabbed the scroll.
"Naru-!" Sasuke shouted, but Naruko punched him in the face. Surprisingly, Sasuke flew back into the tree they were on. "Shut up you imposter!" she shouted, "I don't remember the code, but I know a coward like you could never be Sasuke!" Sasuke snapped back up. "You don't understand anything! We need to hand over the scroll or she will kill us!" SLAP! Sasuke was staggering back from Naruko. "You idiot! What makes you think she will be happy with the scroll!" Naruko shouted back.
The Kusa-nin chuckled. "Why would you go spoiling my fun like that, little girl?" Sasuke started sweating bullets. He should have realized it when he first saw her. Nothing other than their deaths would satisfy this woman. "I don't know who you are, but I would bet that you are her daughter with that monstrous strength," the Kusa-nin mused.
"Who?" Naruko shouted suddenly, "who could be my mother?" She wanted to see how much this woman knew.
"Senju Tsunade," the Kusa-nin stated, "it is the only explanation for that chakra enhanced power you possess." She then finished her summoning, a snake larger than the one Naruko had killed reared back to attack Sasuke.
The heir was still frozen from the realization that the only way they would leave this forest was in body bags, that was if they ever left. He saw the snake, but his body was too numb to move out of the way. Just before it struck, Naruko appeared and stopped it with her bare hands and back. "What's the matter, scaredy cat?" she asked. Before Sasuke could answer, the Kusa-nin's long tongue wrapped around her left wrist and both ankles, then pulled her up to the kunoichi as the snake dispersed.
Orochimaru was furious. Who was this girl? None of Kabuto's information told him about her. When the hell had that old woman gone and had a kid? By the looks of the redhead, it had to be about thirteen years ago. None of that made sense though since he had been keeping tabs on her for a while just in case he needed her. Then again, she might hide a pregnancy and her debts would have forced her to send her kid away. What was most troubling was that Sasuke was supposed to be in a team with that demon brat. He had heard something happened to him in Wave...Could he have been killed there? Orochimaru rethought how the seal worked, figuring that only a proper unsealing would result in the demon breaking free.
Now he had to deal with this annoying little kunoichi. No matter, he would just tear her open from stem to sternum and drop her useless carcass. He would do the same to that annoying little girl with pink hair as well. All he needed from this team was Sasuke.
"Time to get rid of you," Orochimaru hissed as he pulled open her battle dress and prepared to slice her wide open. To his shock, he saw the remains of a seal on her stomach, a seal he had wanted to study for a while. 'That is the Eight Trigrams Seal! But how?' he thought for a few moments, then realized that this redhead was the demon child. He chuckled to himself, figuring that the two had fused somehow. Suddenly, the girl was valuable. She had incredible chakra. Maybe he could use her? Without the fox in her, she would be that much easier to take over, providing that she survived the Curse Seal of Heaven. He extended his neck and bit her, instantly feeling her tense up and then faint as the foreign chakra started coursing through her body. It had been difficult, requiring much more chakra than normal, but he still had more than enough chakra to create a seal for Sasuke.
Sakura watched in horror and the woman's neck stretched and bit Naruko's neck. She saw the redhead get tossed away. "Naruko!" Sakura shouted as she threw a kunai to save the girl from falling. What she saw when Naruko was caught up on the tree was something she would have to talk to her about later.
A cry of pain made her look up again and see Sasuke with that woman biting down on his neck too. The heir was also tossed aside, but Sakura caught him before he hit the ground. The Kusa-nin hissed in an amused way.
"What did you do to Naruko and Sasuke-kun?" Sakura shouted. She watched as the woman destroyed their scroll.
"Nothing much, just gave them a mark that will remove the scales from their eyes," the black haired woman said, "both are too powerful for this tiny village. It can't handle people of their level." Her eyes levelled on Sakura, who noted the eyes were now gold with slits, just like a snake's eyes. "They will both come looking for me because I can give them what this village can't ever give them." She sank into the tree and was gone.
Sakura looked down at Sasuke, seeing the black chakra rising from where he had been bitten. "Naruko!" she wailed, then saw Naruko's bite would was also emitting black smoke and she was twitching in pain.
A/N~
End of this chapter. Not much to say really. Next up will be Team Dosu versus Sakura & Team 10. Also, don't expect too much evil (there will still be some) from Naruko. I have plans for Orochimaru's hickey.
Anyone who reads Konoha's Two Demons would know that I'm currently ill. Luckily, it seems to be in the final stages. Still cough hard enough to hurt my throat and I can't hear so well out of one ear, but that's normal for me when I have a throat infection and ear infection at the same time. I figure it will be gone or mostly gone by Thursday. Oh, sorry for not posting this earlier. I got kind of wrapped up in writing KTD.
Dinian: Naruto/Sakura/Ino is my favourite pairing. Making Naruto a girl just makes it better ;) Nothing beats Yuri except a Yuri Harem!
Sky Zephyrus: Naruko's powers are practically never before seen in the Narutoverse. Mostly extremely high end chakra manipulation, but still wildly powerful. And yes, she will be very powerful, but I am giving her a limiter that will make her stronger than in canon, but not powerful enough to smoke Akatsuki with ease.
I have links to some Naruko/Sakura pics on my profile. You could just search on google. You can also find Sasuke in a maid configuration there. Trust me, it's funny.
ddcj1990: Here it is.
Garra king of sand: Question has been answered.
SuperNeos2: That will be explained when the greatest Super Pervert ever to plague the world appears. Hint for later: Groin cup!
Firestar001: Thanks for checking out both my fics. And I will continue. Is you're ability to talk supported by Vista? That would explain the failure...
Hoover456: Again, I will continue.
Chm01: This will be the last one for a little while.
Anonymous: Good luck tracking me down. Even in a place where I've lived practically my whole life, only two or three people know where I live. Most don't even know my name, well, not my real name anyways. I'm not exactly a social butterfly and I can blend into a crowd in spite of wearing noticeable clothing. I guess you could say I'm a modern day, urban ninja in that sense. Don't worry though, I will continue this story from the grave if I have to. I just need someone to use Edo Tensei for that to work...
!Announcement!
I will be working almost exclusively on Konoha's Two Demons until I hit the end of Part I, then I will work on this fic til the same point. I will then switch between the two fics while reading what is currently released. I will release up to chapter 5, but then I will stop while working on Konoha's Two Demons. Once Part I for KTD is fully written out on my computer, I will continue working on and releasing Kyūbi's Kit.
I am doing this because the planning for Konoha's Two Demons Part I is mostly complete while much of Kyūbi's Kit is still unplanned. Arcs will be heavily altered due to Naruko's increased potential and new powers. In a sense, she is an OC. Also, making 12 year old Ino OOC is hard. Right now, I've planned up to the beginning of the Oto/Suna invasion.