No apology can make this alright... Heh, sorry for the wait. I hope you are all still here with me and await this update as much as my dream versions of you did.
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Naruto sat up in a cold sweat. He had vague dreams of being burned alive in a pit of lava, being surrounded by evil and darkness, and having to embrace the bitter loneliness that was the first twelve years of his life.
Upon taking stock of his environment, he knew he wasn't in the waking world. "I can except flying lava, a sober Tsunade, polite Jiraiya, and hell, even a slgihtly-happier-than-average Sasuke. What I can't except, however, is that the real Sakura is really asleep on my chest holding me like her snuggle buddy. I have woken up from this dream way too many times to take any sense of 'real life' out of it.
Sakura groggily opened her eyes and stared up at her moving pillow. "Naru-kun, I was having a nice dream, why are you yelling? Did you have the dream again where I hated you?"
Naruto stared quizically at the pink haired beauty in his lap. "This can't be right. Sakura doesn't like me like this. She likes the Teme. I'm having a very good-very bad-very good... A very bood dream. I'm having a very bood dream, the real Sakura is at her house, dreaming of the bastard, and I'm sleeping with Jiraiya and Sasuke." Naruto prepared to speak to Sakura before he face-palmed and thought to himself. "Inner thoughts or not, in a dream or not, this needs to be clarified. I'm not sleeping with those two, that would be terrible and I don't roll that way. We are all merely sharing a confined space, in a clearing, alone, in the woods, ater traveling together for nearly half a year. That's all, nothing else is going on."
"Naru-kun, is everything okay? You haven't said anything since I've woken up." Sakura began as she sat up a little to be closer to his face. "Do I need to bring you back to the world of the living?" She leaned in to give him a kiss, which he prepared himself to recieve, even if it was only a dream. As he closed his eyes he felt her lips land on his forhead. Then again and again, until he opened his eyes and realized he was in a dark cave with no clue where he was.
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"It's always in the good parts... I like my dreams from a week ago better, they left less of an empty feeling inside of me when they ended." Sakura sat up from her desk at the hospital and mean-looked the miniature pile of paperwork Tsunade assigned to her the hour before. "I'm her medical student, not her Hokage-in-training. I shouldn't have to sign of on official Konoha documents. Lazy drunk."
"What was that Sakura, about a drunk?" Tsunade calmy said as she walked in the room and quickly noticed the drool next to the untouched paper. "Ah, I noticed someone else has been nodding off at their desk of late."
Sakura straightened out and bowed to her master. "Sorry Tsunade-shishou. I haven't been sleeping so well, and I must have dozed off when I tried resting my eyes. It won't happen again." She bowed again, hoping her master would except her explanation.
"Don't make promises you can't keep. If you continue this line of work there will be plenty of nights you won't make it home, and most of those will result in un-intended sleep. Now, what where you talking about a lazy drunk?"
Sakura sweat-dropped. "One of my patients was a lazy old man who stumbled in drunk. I had to fix a cut on his knee he got from falling." The look of knowing she got from her master told Sakura her lie had been seen through.
"Alright Sakura, if that is the story you wish to go with. Once that stack of paperwork is finished we have a training session on training ground 13." With that Tsunade walked out of Sakura's office, and she both relaxed and tensed at the same time.
"She didn't yell at me here, but I know this training session is not going to end well."
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Training ground 13 came into sight as Sakura was hopping through the trees. Her quick reflexes are what saved her from the kunai flying at her from the side. She hopped down from the trees and drew one for herself, now fully alert of everything around her. Two more kunai flew at her from the front, and as she was about to dodge she sensed three senbon coming towards her from different directions. She adjusted her dodge to accomodate for them, and they all collided above her. She saw the poison on one senbon and noticed too late that they were all poisoned. She cast a replacement jutsu with a log just as they were about to embed in her, and she dove underground with the headhunter jutsu. She still had no clue where her master was, but this way she could atleast get a seconds repreve from being bombarded.
"Sakura, your objective today is to heal three targets hidden around this training ground, while simultaneously keeping yourself alive. Two targets will offer to help you, and one of those two will betray you. It is up to you to determine who is lieing and who is telling the truth. Should you manage to retrieve the targets, you may then choose to retreat, or fight me. Should you win that fight, you will get a month off from training."
Sakura's ears perked up at that last comment. A whole month of from training would be just the vacation she needed. But at the same time, she didn't believe she would be able to beat her master. "I wonder who the targets are, and who will be the one to offer assistance." She raced around the grounds still using her headhunter jutsu to try and find the targets. The first one she noticed the first target and surveyed the area around him. She new it wouldn't be this easy, so she sent up a stone clone first.
It immediately got punched into oblivion.
"So Tsunade, or a clone of Tsunade, is guarding this target. Suprise sup-" The ground started shattering apart as Tsunade slammed her fist into the ground.
"In battle you wont always have time to think it over Sakura. You need to be on your toes and avoid damage." Tsunade scolded as her student rolled to her feet and crouched down low.
"Yes shishou, I'll do my best." Sakura lept forward stringing hand signs together. She faked a punch to Tsunade's head with her left hand as a stone sword formed in her right. She spun to land a hit on Tsunade that shattered the sword and made the clone disappear. "Good. I don't know what I would have done if I smashed the real Tsunade over the head with stone." She split off an earth clone to guard her back as she went to heal her first target. "Kakashi-sensei, wake up. Quickly, before Tsunade comes back."
The perverted Jonin slowly opened his one visible eye and stared up at his student. "Thanks." Was all he said as he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
Sakura sighed. "Well, looks like I won't be getting help from him. Damn it, he is one of the strongest ninja in the village. Who else could help me stand up against Tsunade?" Sakura motioned to her clone and they set out towards the next chakra signature they felt. It was faint, like the person was near death, so they went faster than normal to reach them quickly. "Tsunade wouldn't put someone in any real danger, would she? No, she wouldn't. And besides, she most likely has a clone nearby anyway to heal whoever it is if I take too long."
Sakura sent her clone to check for traps and Tsunade while she surveyed the small clearing around the target. "That's why it is suh a weak chakra signature, it's Lee. He doesn't really have much chakra to begin with." Sakura's clone exploded after setting off an unseen explosive tag. "Glad it wasn't me, but I don't sense Tsunade anywhere. She couldn't expect me to fall for a few traps alone." Sakura was about to jump down before she spotted a floating Sakura petal in the trees.
There were no cherry blossom trees in this forest.
"Kai!" Sakura shouted. The forest around her melted away and she found herself about to be on the receiving end of her master's punch. She backflipped out of the way and kicked her master'sjaw in one fluid motion, putting some space between the two. "I barely even noticed I was under a genjutsu, when did you start it?"
Her master smirked. "All good things in time, Sakura. Genjutsu is the lastthing I'll be training you in." Tsunade faded into a puddle that smelt strongly of alcohol and sank in to the ground. Sakura quickly called upon her chakra for a jutsu. "Doton: Kakimawasu!" (Earth style: Churn) The earth around Sakura begin to move and grind. After a few moments Sakura heard a pop as Tsunade's clone dispersed underground. She stopped her jutsu and realized she was starting to run low on chakra. "This is bad. If things keep up at this rate I won't be able to challenge Shishou at the end, let alone have a chance to win." Sakura bounded over to Lee, who was snoring as if he were asleep. Sakura scanned him to find out he was poisoned, and it was keeping him unconcious. She infused some of her chakra into his system and urged his blood to bring the poison to a central area, while she made a small incision. Once the poison was collected, she formed a bubble of chakra around it and pulled it out through the cut she made.
Lee opened his eyes immediately once the poison was removed. "Yosh! Thank you Sakura-san! My fire of youth is burning furiously once more!" Lee leaned up as if he was about to kiss Sakura before she put her hand in his path.
"I'm sorry Lee, but I still don't like you like that." Lee looked down in defeat.
"Will you atleast let me assist you in the battle? I can't let you go by yourself." Lee looked back up at her with pleading eyes, way too large for his face to fit.
"He is the one who is supposed to help me fight Tsunade? Well, I suppose he would be able to get in close before she would have a chance to see him. He can be extremely fast when he takes off those waits." "Sure Lee, I would love your assistance." The green clad ninja jumped to his feet proclaiming his excitement over helping his love. "He's a nice person and all, but I just don't have feelings for him."
Inner Sakura took this moment to chime in. "He's like a more youth obsessed version of Naruto. But make sure you don't let your guard down. Don't forget, Tsunade said one fo the two offering us help would betray us."
"I can't see him doing that to us," replied outer Sakura "But I'll keep my eyes peeled."
"Sakura-san! Are you ready to head out? It probably isn't a good idea to stay in the same area too long." Lee started looking around concerned, and Sakura realized they had been there for a rather long time for a battle.
"You're right Lee, lets go. I sense the last chakra presence, follow me." Sakura stood up and started rcing through the trees. The branch she prepared to stop on broke under her, and she started tumbling towards the ground. Before she could react, Lee jumped down from the tree line and pushed her out of the way. Sakura was confused, until she saw a senbon inbed itself in his neck. Close to a fatal shot, but just far enough away that he would make it. Sakura landed and deflected two senbon that were rushing through the air towards her, and was about to start a jutsu when Lee burst from behind her and began trading blows with the Slug-sannin.
"Go heal the last person, I'll keep her distracted!" Lee yelled inbetween blows. Sakura, not wanting to waste any time, rushed to the last target. She didn't want to have to heal the target that was probably going to betray her, but she could always refuse their help. She landed next to the chakra signature and saw one of the last people she expected to see. It was Konohamaru.
"This is strange. Why would Tsunade-shishou choose him as one of the targets?" She began healing him when she felt air displace behind her. She quickly ducked forward just in time to avoid a kick that most certainly would have taken her out of the competition. She didn't get to turn around as she had to take Konohamaru's body with her in a headhunters jutsu underground and pop up behind the tree line. She finished healing him and went into full alert mode. She knew her master was good, but she didn't think she would be able to deal with Lee's speed that quickly.
"Sakura, let me help you take out that old hag! I never agreed to help you train, she just knocked me out without warning." Konohamaru sat up behind Sakura, who formed a water clone to keep a look out.
"I would appreciate the help, but you pro-" Sakura's clone was blown into her, cutting her sentence short. She recovered in time to see a flash of green where her clone had been. "Lee was the traitor!? But he sounded so genuine. And since Kakashi just let right off the bat that means I really am supposed to get help from Konohamaru. Great, I have a genin to help me take on the second fastest ninja in the village and the Hokage. Great." "Konohamaru, I accept your help. Now watch out!"
"Sakura, agreeing to take help from two people is cheating." Tsunade tsked as she appeared beside her apprentice and punched the ground. Sakura jumped up over the debris and formed the handsigns to launch a water spear at her master. Lee appeared between them and kicked the spear away.
"You never said I wasn't allowed to accept both of them. It just so happens that I accepted the wrong one first." Sakura landed a few feet away and Konohamaru jumped to her side.
"Are you sure you wish to challenge me Sakura? Before you choose, I need to make something clear. If you win, you get your month like I said. But should you lose, you have to do all of my paperwork until six months after Naruto gets back." Tsunade began smoothing out her outfit from the previous attack. She assumed Sakura wouldn't dare take the risk, and didn't want to lose anytime before she could return to tackling her mountain of paperwork. She convinced Shizune that if she got it all done they could go out drinking and Shizune wouldn't complain. It was going to be a great night.
Tsunade began walking towards the hokage building. "As I expected. I will se-"
"I accept those conditions!" Sakura shouted before regretting it. She knew she had no chance of beating her master and Lee with only Konohamaru as her ally. She had no idea why she said it, but the look of disbelief that flashed on Tsunade's face made it almost worth it.
Tsunade had turned around at Sakura's proclamation. She never expected Sakura to except the deal, and as such was shocked to see her student flying towards her with a fist cocked back and ready to fire.
"Hokage-sama!" Lee yelled as he jumped to intercept Sakura. That was what she expected. She quickly formed her stone sword and repeated the same trick that caught Tsunade off guard. Lee saw this, shifted to block that rather than the punch, and was met with Sakura smirking as she punched his lights out. Lee skidded, bounced, and rolled through the forest, oly coming to stop in the base of a rather large tree.
"Wow." Was all Konohamaru managed to mumble as he watched the massive display of strength.
Tsunade regained her composure and rushed head on to meet Sakura. As they began throwing punches at eachother it was clear that Sakura had finally managed to match her own potential for strength. Each blow made a loud clapping noise and let off a little shockwave from there colliding hands, and with each kick you heard the fracturing and quick healing of bones as they both coated themselves with healing chakra. It was a move that required immense chakra control, a vast knowledge of medical jutsu, and a superb understanding of your own body and how it works.
By the time they seperated, Sakura had nearly exhausted te chakra she had available, and was debating whther or not she should give up now, before she saw Konohamaru jump in front of Tsunade. She thought for sure that she would just bat the brat away, but he ducked under her punched and formed a handsign that Sakura remembered all too well.
"Sexy girl-on-girl jutsu!" He yelled as a poof of smoke covered him, before revealing two naked woman, modest only because of the smoke the covered their most private of places. Sakura prepared herself for a furious yell from Tsunade before she let out one of her own, but realized Tsunade had been stunned in place again. "Now Sakura-chan." Said one of the girls as they winked towards her. Sakura decided to beat the kid later and opted to get her master in a position of defeat.
"I submit." Tsunade said through gritted teeth. Konohamaru dispelled his jutsu and began jumping for joy. "Now let me up so I can beat the Naruto out of him." Sakura jumped away and bowed with her arm outstretched as to usher her master towards her target.
"Yes Hokage-sama. And thank you for the assistance Konohamaru, but if I were you, I would run away as fast as I could." Sakura glanced up to see a smokey outline of Konohamaru where he had been standing. "Today is a good day." Sakura said as she started smiling. She had a month vacation, she finally beat her master, albeit with some unexpected methods, and her beloved Naruto-kun was do back any day now. She watched as her master sprinted after her now former ally and quietly laughed to herself as she began walking home to clean up.
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Naruto opened his eyes. As he glanced around he noticed the sleeping forms of Jiraiya and Sasuke. There was a single fish on a stick above the embers of a fire, and a small pile of cold rice sitting in the pot directly next to the fire. He looked to his left, where he heard the sound of running water, and saw what looked to be a man made river. On the other side he saw two beautiful gold statues. As he stared at the statues, he realized they began to pulse with a very dim energy, barely visible. Naruto looked around the room, and the longer he looked, the more each item began to have an aura of energy. When he looked down at his traveling companions he immediately had to avert his eyes as the energy emission from them was so bright. Once he decided to open his eyes he saw a scroll on the ground next to him. Hoping it was from Jiraiya about what happened after he blacked out or something he picked it up. The faint energy around the scroll burst into a field that nearly encompassed him, and slowly recessed into nothingness. A seal that had been on the scroll faded away, and Naruto felt as if the scroll became much lighter.
"I have no clue what's going on. This is a little weird." Naruto slowly unraveled the scroll to see a table of contents under the title of the scroll. Everything You Need To Know About The Hakai No Ai, and the subtitle As You Need To Know It.
"Hakai no ai means the Eye of destruction. What the hell is this supposed to mean? Whatever, I've had enough of sitting here. I'm going to look around this dark, dingy place." At this the room dropped a string with a light attached next to Naruto, and the black cave-like walls slowly brithened in color until they were closer to light grey than black. "This place weirds me out to no end." Naruto mumbled. He decided he wouldn't focus on anything for too long as he went towards one of the doors in a corner. He didn't want anything glowing and burning his eyes anymore. The door was in arm's length before he realized there was no handle. He sighed before starting the signs for the headhunter jutsu. He was going to try and phase through the door. As he began manipulating chakra it flew out of him and in to the door infront of him. It glew orange before fading out to reveal the word "History". The door opened and Naruto walked in, looking around. He saw what appeared to be never ending shelves of scrolls lined up along the walls, and a column with artwork down the center of the room.
Looking at the first few pieces, he saw nothing but a few shacks inside of the forest next to a large body of water. But as he went on the building became larger and more showed up, until it started taking shape as well-on-its-way village. Then one picture had nothing but water and the tops of a few trees. "The whole place got destroyed, that really sucks. But clearly there is something here now, so they must have rebuilt. I'd love to keep looking, but I want to see the rest of this place and I know I'm probably not coming back here." Naruto started towards the exit before thinking out loud. "Hey, room, you've done a lot of things. Can you store all of this stuff so I can bring it with me?"
As Naruto was looking around he noticed the energy in the walls start increasing, and he closed his eyes to prevent any damage. Each shelf of scrolls sealed into the shelf itself, which rolled into a scroll, and each stack of shelves rolled into a scroll. The far side of the room started shrinking, pushing the furthest down scrolls into the closer ones. Every pile of five scrolls sealed in to one, and the end result was a scroll on both sides of the room next to Naruto. The paintings had a much more simple process of sealing. The furthest painting sealed in to a scroll on the wall, which folded on to the one next to it, and the process repeated until there was just one scroll ready to be taken. Naruto looked at the once massive contents of the room now sealed in the bindings of paper smaller than his arm and was dumbfounded.
"Everything I know about sealing tells me that should be impossible, but here it is. The end result should be atleast a hundred scrolls if not more." The walls on the side of the room slowly pushed in, moving the scrolls closer together. Once they were all next to eachother, a final scroll decended from the ceiling and sealed them, leaving just one for Naruto to take.
"By far the strangest day I have ever had." Even glimpsing at the scroll hurt Naruto's eyes, because he saw just how much energy was required to keep all of those items combined into one scroll. Naruto picked it up and put it in his bag, before heading to the next room. Rather than trying to use a jutsu, he just called some of his chakra to the surface and felt it leave him. It flew in to the door and the glowing process began again.
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Jiraiya awoke to a muttering of "Damn it." He looked around and saw a mostly naked Naruto kneeling near the hole in the wall where the water was entering. Naruto proceeded to stand back up, form a long string of hand signs, and conjure up two spheres of air- one in each hand. The water under Naruto's feet also started moving extremely fast in circular patterns. It remind Jiraiya of the Rasengan, but he could tell it wasn't supposed to be a change in chakra form. Naruto's heels lifted off the water, before the balls of air destabalized and he collapsed in.
"Damn it! This isn't working. I need a new approach." Naruto swam to the edge of the water and climbed out. The water started evaporating off of Naruto insanely fast, almost as those he was standing next to a fire. "Huh, that's weird. Oh well, just another thing to chalk up to this room." Naruto grabbed for his clothes which were lying on top of his bag and quickly re-robed. Jiraiya chose this moment to alert Naruto to his awakeness.
"What was that you were trying on the water?" Jiraiya was shifting to sit up, not quite yet ready to stand.
"Just a jutsu I was working on. I'm trying to learn how to fly!" Kiraiya deadpaned at his student and just shook his head. "You don't believe I can do it, do you?"
"Do you know how many ninja have wasted there lives trying to learn how to fly? Only a few people have come close, but none have ever truly mastered it. It just isn't worth it to try and do the impossible."
Naruto shrugged his words off. "I'll be the one to develop a true flight jutsu, just like I'll be the one to become the next Hokage. Believe it!" Naruto grinned with his last sentence. Jiraiya felt some of his doubts fade, but he still didn't want to give the kid false hope.
"Alright Gaki. If you're that persistant go ahead and train your brains out. Just remember not to let yourself go while you are trying to do the un-doable."
"Thanks pervy sage! Oh, hey, can you tell me if you've heard of the Hakai No Ai before?"
Jiraiya stood in place as he finished staring and responded with slight fear in his voice. "Naruto, come closer for a moment please."
As Naruto got closer Jiraiya could see it ever more clearly. The dark grey eye with an Omega symbol in the center. The eye fated to bring the world to a permanent end.
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There you have it! It's been well over two years but I updated for all of you lovely people! I'm sorry it took so long, truly I am. But I can't even make a guess as to when the next chapter will be out because my life has no tether point right now. I'll do my best to make it as soon as possible, but for all I know that'll be another year away.
Tell me what you think in a review. What you like, what you hate, how you think the fight scen played out, how much you hate me. Anything. Also, due to lack of communication, I am now the sole author of this story, and almost everything from here on out will be just me.
Until next time,
The King- has left- the building. Uh thank you very much.