Chapitre Dix

In El Reino de Aragón, or the Kingdom of Aragon, people rarely traveled after nightfall, in fear of running afoul of bandits or slavers and the like. The regular citizens usually locked up their houses not long before the moon rose. Even the King would only send out men at night who were fleet of foot, and who knew where they were going.

Tonight, though, was an odd night.

A solitary figure, draped in a tattered gray cloak that covered its face, stumbled through a forest.

Not far behind it came the sounds of a stampede and shouts of indignant anger.

The person was panting heavily from exhaustion, having been running for so long. Placing a hand against a tree, the figure tilted its head down. Sweat dripped down from within the folds of its cloak, only to be swallowed up by the dark shadows created by the trees.

Shaking its head, the figure continued on, the gray cloak billowing in its wake.

After what seemed like hours of more running and losing its pursuers, the person came across a campsite.

It quickly darted behind a bush when it heard some rustling nearby. Peeking over its hiding place, it sighed in relief when it noticed that the occupant of the site was asleep.

Then it gasped.

"Maestro?" it asked softly in a feminine, disbelieving voice.

Delicate hands pushed back the hood of the cloak to reveal a beautiful, tanned face framed by long, sandy yellow locks of hair. Oddly, there was a bone white mask covering the bottom half of her face, in the shape of the jaw of a shark. Curious emerald eyes reflected the campfire as the woman took in the sleeping man who looked so much like her master…

The man who she had just killed…even if purely by accident.

Silently, tears poured from her eyes as she shakily reached a hand towards this man.

She was suitably surprised when the man's hand reached out and pulled her towards him.

She squeaked in protest as his muscular arms encircled her frame.

She blushed morbidly when he put his head on her shoulder from behind.

She fainted dead away when she felt his third leg as he continued to press her body against his.

And for his part, Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto slept on, woefully ignorant of this new dilemma, dreaming of his much younger days…

Flashback

Naruto screamed loudly, whirling his arms while trying to stabilize himself and extinguish the flames on himself, as the resultant explosion of his latest seal experiment propelled him skywards.

Several pairs of eyes dully followed his fiery flight path before two of those pairs lit up and turned to look at each other.

"Damn," said the body of Senju Tsunade as she frowned at the body of Mitarashi Anko. "This still feels weird, after all these years."

Anko shook her head and replied, "Yeah, you'd think I'd get used to it by now…"

The two looked at their companions' dead expressions and sighed. "Well, there's no helping it now. The best I can hope for is to just go with the flow," Tsunade muttered.

"So what, just leave them here?" Anko asked, gesturing towards the others.

"I'm…still not used to them being like that. At least I got used to these two," the blonde woman sighed, pointing towards herself and her 'awake' companion. "Besides, I already know that even without taking control of them, they can handle themselves in a fight."

Anko sighed as well. "Well, alright. I was just feeling guilty." She suddenly smirked. "Besides, I'm really hurting at the moment, so I suppose I should leave now," she added haughtily.

Tsunade barked out a laugh. "I know me too well. Come on, let's go."

They bounded off into the trees, making their way towards Naruto.

When they found him, he was badly burnt, somewhat mutilated from the large explosion, and completely unconscious and barely clothed.

"I'm going to kill myself one of these days," Tsunade muttered, clicking her tongue in annoyance as she pushed up her sleeves and began to heal the blonde man.

Anko rolled her eyes. "From myself or from one of my other bodies?" she asked sarcastically.

"Oh hush," Tsunade chided, not taking her eyes away from Naruto.

Anko pouted at her nonchalance, but relented and leaned against a tree while she watched her counterpart work on their main body. "Why did I wake up this body anyway?" she grumbled.

"Because I wanted to talk to myself," the blonde woman shot back with a straight face.

The snake woman giggled. "Liar."

"…why are you so fucking loud…?" a voice interrupted tiredly.

Both women looked down and see that Naruto was awake; thanks to his own immortality and Tsunade's healing techniques speeding things up, he was nearly fully recovered with little burns left and a slightly pinkish tinge to his skin. Still, he looked rather weary and his eyes were narrowed and bloodshot.

Anko stuck her tongue out at him. "I'm loud because I feel like it."

Naruto shook his head in exasperation, and then winced at the slight pain the motion caused. "Kami-sama, why am I arguing with myself?"

Tsunade chuckled. "Because that's how I am," she responded, answering for all three of them.

The neo-Kyuubi sighed. "Well, at any rate, the time-dilation seal project is still a no-go for now. That explosion speaks for itself when I say that won't touch it again until further research."

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Anko scolded, a hand on her hip. "A little explosion every now and then is good for you."

In return, she received two deadpan stares. "How the hell are we the same person?"

She shrugged. "…whatever."

Naruto groaned as he rolled to his feet. "Moving on… That damned explosion probably attracted every ninja within a five mile radius. Anko, grab the other bodies and meet us at Point Thirteen," he instructed, leaning against Tsunade's slightly taller form.

"Right," Anko acknowledged, and leapt away to the previous area.

Tsunade moved him onto her back as they too leapt away.

They were halfway to the safe house designated as Point Thirteen, when, typical of their luck, a humungous blast of chakra detonated not more than eighty yards away. It was not even close enough to compare to Naruto's near infinite stores, but it was still a cause for worry.

With an unspoken agreement, they veered off course and headed straight for it.

And when they arrived at the site of the chakra detonation, it was not pretty.

A large crater thirty feet across and likely the same deep was the main attraction of a newly formed, and still smoking, clearing.

But that was not what held their interest. It was the massive creature that lay in a pool of its own oddly blue blood, down at the bottom of the crater.

"What the fuck?" Naruto exclaimed, hopping off his counterpart's back to closer examine the scene. He jumped down, unmindful of any threat the creature would pose, even in a mortally wounded state.

Tsunade sighed and silently followed him.

It was in a state of quiet awe that Naruto observed the creature in.

"I…I didn't think that any were still alive…" he mumbled, reaching out a hand to touch it.

The thing's eyes snapped open and it weakly raised its head and roared in a last act of defiance.

"Hey, woah, chill!" Naruto yelled out, falling to the side as its tail, torn up as it was, lashed out at him. He raised his hands up in a sign a peace.

Apparently, the creature understood him and ceased, but it still eyed him warily.

"Calm down, both of you," Tsunade chided. She raised an eyebrow when both Naruto and the creature pouted at her, but pushed it out of mind. "If you'd let me examine you, perhaps I can heal you," she offered to the beast.

Surprisingly, it shook its head slightly, almost sadly.

It looked to Naruto, who met its gaze steadily.

After a full minute, it seemed to nod. Then it rolled over slightly, revealing the item that it had protecting the whole time.

"A…an egg?" The blonde immortals gaped in disbelief.

With increasingly sluggish movements, it nudged the giant egg in Naruto's direction.

Solemnly, he met its eyes again. "Are you sure?" he asked seriously.

It gave another tired nod.

"Then I will raise it to the best of my abilities," he stated, gently picking up the large egg.

One last time, it gave an appraising look to the two before it just…deflated.

At that, the duo knew it was dead. Turning to each other, they went back on course, bringing the mysterious egg with them.

While they were still connected to Anko, she wasn't too happy on being left out of the loop.

"You leave me to deal with these zombies and you come across A FUCKING DRAGON EGG!"

Naruto was unfazed, however. "Hey, it wasn't my fault. Random occurrence and all that," he explained with a yawn.

A vain pulsed on the woman's forehead but she said nothing to respond to that. Instead, she turned and pouted, crossing her arms.

"On the up side, I think you've already become a separate aspect," he tossed out absently, tilting the egg slightly on the table.

Both Anko and Tsunade, who had just come in from the kitchen, stared at him. "What? Really?" they both asked, surprised.

"Yeah. You're already acting more independent from me, despite the fact that we have the connection," he explained, now placing an ear onto the egg.

Anko grinned. "Well, now, that's some interesting news…"

Tsunade frowned. "Just don't let it go to your head, baka."

"Hum," Naruto said, smiling, and set the egg down on the floor. "It's about to hatch."

"Eh?"

They turned to the egg, and saw a slight bulge on the sides. A small cracking sound occurred and suddenly, a claw shot through the shell. This gave the baby dragon the foothold it needed to break out of the egg. With that, it crawled out of its birth shell.

It was about the size of a large dog, and azure blue in color with matching eyes.

Blinking, it scanned the room and locked eyes with Naruto.

Then it jumped on him.

Laughing, the blonde picked it up off of his chest and whirled it around, spinning.

Looking at his other two selves, he grinned and said, "This one's a keeper! She's gonna be a strong one, I can tell."

"It's a girl?" Anko asked dubiously, glancing at the thing snuggling into the man's arms.

"Yup!" he admitted happily. Looking back into the dragon's eyes, he nodded.

"I think I'll name you…"

Flashback End

"…Makoto!" Naruto gasped, lurching forward from his bedroll. He blinked and shook his head. "Wow, that was a looong time ago…"

He looked up and noted that the sun had risen and his campfire still burned brightly.

Sighing, he laid back down.

"What the hell?"

Rolling away, he stood up and saw the intruder in his bedroll. It was a blonde, tanned woman, maybe about twenty years of age, curled up underneath a tattered gray cloak. What really struck him was the hollow mask that was on her face.

"Huh? A hollow? What the hell is a hollow doing here?" He peered at her more closely. "A Vasto Lorde at that! Wow!" He scratched the back of his neck as he continued to stare at her. "Well…I think it's safe to say she's not here to kill me…I doubt she even knows what she is right now." He chuckled dryly.

Moving to start making breakfast, he made one last comment to himself.

"I wonder why she ended up in bed with me…"

A/N: Not exactly what I was aiming for, but then again I'm kinda busy nowadays earning my keep around the house; summer cleaning and all that jazz, plus I'm working on another story project called Code Evangelion.