Immortal Phoenix

Author: The Phoenix is Immortal

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor am I making any profit from this work.

Chapter 21: All of That Trouble for Naught

The Kakashi human looked suspiciously at me. I also noticed that the bridge builder and his daughter had come.

Well, I would just have to tell him, and all of them, then.

"I am Akarui, of course." Whether the human believed me or not was another story.

The human just looked at me. Then, "Prove it." I turned my head to look at the speaker. The Sasuke human was the one who had spoken. He had kept quiet before, but now it seemed he really wanted to know.

"Fine, if you want me to." In a flurry of feathers, I shifted back and came to land on Naruto's shoulder. "See, it is me."

The Kakashi human just looked at me, but Sasuke human seemed satisfied. "What are you?" The Kakashi human wanted to know, it seemed.

"Me? I am a nin-bird." Technically, that was the truth. Not the whole, complete truth, but the truth nonetheless.

He just continued to look at me. I think he was trying to figure out what I was. It would not be surprising if he had already figured it out.

Then after a bit, he switched his gaze to the others. I believed that he had something else to talk about. "Something's not right here. Usually, hunter-nins dispose of the body of the person they killed right then and there."

Right then and there? That means…Zabuza human's body had not been disposed of correctly. Perhaps the hunter was not really a hunter?

"What! But Zabuza's body was not disposed of that way!" At least Naruto noticed. That was good. He was getting better.

"The masked boy took the body. If he needed proof of his work, he could have just taken the head. And the weapons he used…"

What about the weapons? They were needles, right?

Sasuke human noticed it first. "No way."

Someone explained to the confused bird here. I would be grateful. I had no idea what was happening.

"Yeah, exactly…" Kakashi human, you are not explaining.

The bridge builder spoke up. "What are you guys talking about?" Yes, explain.

"Most likely, Zabuza is still alive!" The looks on Naruto's, Sakura's, and the bridge builder's were hilarious. I was shocked also, but it was hard to show any emotions on my face.

So Zabuza human was still alive? The hunter-nin had been on his side then. All of that trouble, and for naught. Great.

Screaming ensued. Naruto and Sakura were quite angry. They wanted an explanation…after all, Kakashi had told them that Zabuza human had been dead.

I wanted an explanation also. I had fairly limited knowledge about human anatomy…but I was sure that humans could not come back from the dead like I could.

Kakashi human explained. Apparently, the needle could temporarily "kill" someone. That was interesting. And he said that we needed to prepare. Speaking about preparing…

"Kakashi human, I need to speak to you about something." This was perfect. He could not exactly move. I landed on the ground in front of him and shifted into my human form.

"Remember what I said when I first met you? Well, you are not living up to the expectation. So that means…" I lit the tips of my fingers on fire. His hair would make a nice bonfire, all shiny and bright.

He looked a little panicked. "Maa, maa, there's no need to rush, I was just going to do that anyway."

"Really? Good." I made the flames on my fingertips disappear.

"But sensei, how will we prepare? You can barely move." Sakura human looked a little concerned.

"Don't worry about it. We're going to train." I wondered what we would do.

"Sensei! What's a little training going to do? Our enemy is a ninja you struggled against even with the Sharingan!" She had a point with the Kakashi human struggling part, but better to train and get better through time than do nothing. All ninjas improved by training, not sitting down and watching others fight.

"You guys are growing rapidly. Especially Naruto. But, obviously, this training is just until I get better. You won't be able to defeat him without me." Naruto looked extremely pleased with the compliment. Well, it was not that Naruto was really the worst, he just was horrible at the written part and certain Ninjutsu parts.

But what about Zabuza human? He could attack or something. I did not have to ask though. Sakura did for me. After that, Kakashi human explained that it took time for a body to recover from the temporary death state. We had time.

Then we got interrupted by a small human child. Apparently, he was named Inari. He went over to hug his grandpa and then turned to his mom. "Mom, they're all going to die."

What a pessimistic child. But then again, maybe he had reason to be.

At this Naruto exploded. "What are you talking about?" He was so loud. Sakura was yelling at him to stop yelling. It was ironic, actually.

"Naruto, you are yelling at a child. You do not have to yell." I hoped that he would quiet down.

He did so, but continued to talk. "Listen, I am a superhero who will one day become an incredible ninja called a Hokage! I do not know this Gato, but he is nothing against me!"

Naruto, a superhero? He was pushing it. Ninjas are not quite superheroes. I do not think that Naruto has realized that yet.

"What are you, stupid? There's no such thing as heroes. If you don't want to die, you should leave." With that, Inari human left.

No such things as heroes? Well, some humans also believed there were no such things as dragons and phoenixes. They were wrong, obviously. Phoenixes and dragons are harder to believe in then heroes, but here I am still.

The bridge builder apologized for his grandson. Naruto marched upstairs to confront the Inari child. Nothing came of it. I could hear the child crying, and so could Naruto.

The next day, we went outside. We were going to train. But before that, Kakashi human asked the group of they knew what chakra was.

Before Naruto could say anything, I pecked him and reminded him of what it was. How he could forget, I did not understand. Ninjas seemed to need chakra. I did not know of any ninja who could not use chakra, but there could be some.

Sasuke and Naruto both thought that since they could use jutsu, they were fine already. Well, Naruto had already worked on some chakra control exercises.

I stopped listening after a while. I was considering catching the squirrel that I could see underneath the bush.

That was, until Kakashi said, "Tree-climbing," really loudly and scared it away. My lunch…

Tree-climbing? The chakra control exercise? Naruto already knew that.

"What? But Kakashi-sensei…I already know that!"

"Hmm? You do? This is not normal tree-climbing, you have to climb with no hands!" He demonstrated, climbing up the tree without his hands. Sasuke human and Sakura human looked impressed.

"Yeah, that's what I meant! Akarui helped me out with it!" Naruto always spoke in exclamation marks…

"Really? Show me." Kakashi human wanted some proof. Well, Naruto could do it. And Naruto did. He had learned this several years ago. "You said Akarui-san helped you?" He turned to me with his lazy expression. "How did you know about it?"

I looked at him. "I bought a scroll while trying to learn about it and there was the exercise inside. Anyway, since Naruto already knows this, can I take him somewhere else and work on his speed? Strictly speaking….it's…not good." It was really bad, but that was impolite to say.

"Well, since Naruto already knows the exercise, I guess it would not be a problem."

I told Naruto to follow me and we went a little deeper into the woods. Unfortunately, we got interrupted. "Look! A frog!" Naruto jumped up to it…and began imitating it. Right down to the puffed up cheeks*. He made a frog noise also.

I just stared at him. He was very immature, but he was still a child. "Naruto, could we please go?" He finally stood up and began to follow me again. That is, after an "aww" sound. We then made it to a clearing.

"Naruto, since we need to work on your speed…we could combine the exercise with dodging practice."

"What are we going to do?" Oh, Naruto was going to enjoy this…or not.

"Easy, you dodge the flames!" With that I started to throw flames at him.

He ran like he was running for his life. Which, he was. After all, I had not told him that I could extinguish the flames in midair if need be. He did not need to know. And so practice continued.

When we finally got backed to the house, Naruto looked quite worn out. Which he was. But I was pleased, he had managed to dodge all the flames, even if they were slow ones. We could get onto faster ones later.

I noticed that Sasuke human was also looking worse for the wear. He must have been trying hard also.

And so dinner began. I even got a miniature bowl to eat from. How nice of them. I had to get one of these when we got back to Konoha.

Then, for some reason, Sasuke and Naruto began an eating competition. After several bowls…they promptly threw it all up. They said that to get stronger, they had to eat.

Still, they did not have to throw up…and this place seemed poor enough already.

That was when Sakura questioned about a picture on the wall. Part of it had been torn off. The bridge builder and his daughter explained. The man had been a hero…and the man Inari child considered his father. They had lost him to Gato…and with him, the town had lost all hope and courage. How very sad.

Of course, this made Naruto all the more determined to prove to Inari that heroes do exist.

And so we trained some more. After the fifth day of my training, Naruto had fallen asleep. I was happy with him. He had much greatly improved. But it seemed like he was really tired. And so I let him sleep. It was not that bad outside, anyway. Being outside is better than being inside, anyway.

But what was with the sparrows? They were not scared of bigger things at all. They kept jumping onto Naruto. They were a little annoying, but I chirped with them anyway. Not that anything they said actually made any sense. The normal animals in this world were not sentient, so all they ever said related to food and the like. They like Naruto because of the bright colors he had on. The same with me. They were actually sort of cute.

I was dozing off in my sparrow size when I saw a girl in pink come by. Who was she? She started to come over. I chirped into Naruto's ear to wake him up.

He woke up right before the girl came over. "Huh? Who are you?"

The girl never gave a name, but Naruto went right on talking and then offered to help her pick herbs. And so the two of them began to do so. I just watched them and continued to chirp nonsense with the sparrows.

The two of them held their own conversations. It was about dreams and the people they cared for the most. Apparently, when a human had something to protect, they became stronger. Was it true? I was not sure. One would also become stronger if they were fighting for their own life also…not just for the life of their friends…right?

And then the person said something that surprised me. She…was a boy. I really needed to work on how to differentiate between a male and a female…

And a day after that…Kakashi human was back to normal. And, probably, so was the Zabuza human. We would engage in battle soon. And I hoped that we were ready.

Author's note:

* I actually got this from volume three's inside cover page, which depicts Naruto imitating a frog.

So sorry for the longer then normal wait. Been busy…since it is this time of the year.

People have been telling me to make the length longer. I will try, but there is a reason I cannot. I have a very one-track mind when it comes to writing. When I start I cannot stop until I finish. If I stop, I lose track and then I have a hard time motivating myself to start again. So when I start, I have to finish…but I need more time to make longer chapters, time I simply do not have. So I am very sorry if the length seems insufficient. I have tried to make up for it with fast updates (even if this one was slow).

Thanks for reading and thanks to my reviewers!