AN: Another chapter has arrived, whoo! Not to sure what to say in this AN, but there's a few things that have been raised on the forum or in reviews. First off, for reference, Kurama currently looks like Viximon, the In-Training Digimon. Secondly, can anyone think of any good 'monsters'? I want to avoid the stereotypical dragon, but I want something massive and terrifying, something that at least approaches boss summon size. It doesn't even have to be a 'real' monster, perhaps an amalgamation of several, just something big and scary. Any ideas would be gratefully received, thank you.
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 15 – Slice of Life
Resting lazily on a tree branch, Kurama watched Naruto practise his archery, while he contemplated recent events.
The boy was strange, of that there was no doubt. When he had been sealed previously, all of his vessels had had something that they wanted to say to him. Mito had told him, on more than one occasion, that he was a beast that needed to be tamed, and that he was too wild for a 'civilised' world. Kushina had been similar, but instead of repeating Mito's words, she'd told him that love would conquer his hatred, and other such drivel.
When Naruto had first come to see him in the seal, it hadn't been to declare his beliefs to Kurama, and nor was it to demand chakra… Kurama had to pause there as a mental image forced its way into his head, a blonde pre-teen wearing an ugly, orange jumpsuit demanding 'rent' from him.
That was ridiculous, Naruto was his jailer, not his landlord. It would be his pleasure to be 'evicted' for not paying his rent.
Shaking himself, Kurama went back to his observations. What was he thinking about again? Oh, yeah, Naruto when he first came into the seal. The fox almost laughed at the memory of Naruto's indignation regarding the fourth's chosen method of defeating him.
Perhaps it had something to do with growing up around youkai, purely spiritual beings, but Naruto had been greatly disturbed by the thought of a soul being torn in two. He'd later asked what effect that would have on Kurama, and whether they could be considered two parts of one being now or of they were more like Siamese twins that had now been separated.
Truthfully, Kurama couldn't answer him. As all of the current biju were fragments of the juubi, there was a previous example to draw conclusions from, but what exactly the sage had done when he created them… well, the biju remembered their own birth about as well as a human does.
Seeing as he himself was a part of the juubi that was separated, and now he and his yin half had been separated, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to consider them two separate entities, though whether this logic carried over to the actual metaphysics of it was another matter.
It was entirely possible that tearing him in two like he had been would prevent him from reforming if his current vessel died. Perhaps his yang chakra would wait around for eternity for his yin chakra, refusing to reform until it was 'complete'. On the other hand, it could be that he might fully regenerate, yin chakra and all, even without the half of himself that had been taken by the shinigami.
It was a risk, and not one Kurama felt like testing out at present. After all, while things could be better right now, they were also a lot better than they had been before. He had a physical body – even if it was a tiny little blob with legs and a tail – and he could wander as he pleased in the outside world.
It was one of the reasons he was currently not being particularly antagonistic towards Naruto. Oh, he still bit the blonde boy and fired underpowered bijudama at him – it was rather entertaining getting into an argument with the kid – but the boy was just as willing to retaliate in kind. Hinoe was already becoming annoyed by their frequent little brawls, though she also admitted to some amusement at seeing something so tiny get the best of Naruto every now and then.
Kurama still hated humanity though, that hadn't changed in the slightest. Humans were pathetic, arrogant, self-entitled, and all round dicks in his opinion. They feared what they didn't understand and hated that which was different, preferring to hide behind their own beliefs.
Having seen through Naruto's eyes though, Kurama knew that the blonde didn't think that way. While he did mostly interact with the humanoid youkai, he was also quick to befriend others, like that Madara inugami, the mizuchi known as Ran, or some of the others.
What appeared to be a cat with a ridiculously long tail landed on a branch nearby.
"Having fun there, fox?" Shin, the bakeneko, asked. "I must say though, I too find watching Naruto practise his archery somewhat relaxing."
Kurama scoffed. "And just what is so riveting about a little human launching arrows into a stationary target? Now if it was another human however, that might be a little more entertaining." He grinned nastily at Shin, who merely rolled his eyes at the biju.
"Dramatic, aren't you?" Shin replied casually, not at all threatened by the fox's act. After all, it was currently inhabiting a body created with one of Naruto's talismans, so if it did do anything, all Naruto had to do was cancel the shikigami body Kurama was inhabiting and refuse to let him out again.
Huffing in response, Kurama simply continued to watch the blonde launch arrow after arrow into the target, switching between spirit, fire, and lightning arrows every now and then.
Shin, however, attempted to continue their conversation. "Are you enjoying having a body of your own?"
"I'm tiny enough that a human could step on me, what do you think?" Kurama acidly responded.
"You at least have a physical body though." Shin retorted.
"I suppose I do." Kurama admitted. "However, it is severely lacking."
"Give Naruto time, he'll work something out." Shin told him, before pausing. "By the way, there's something I've been meaning to ask you; could you always see youkai, or is it only since you were sealed into Naruto that you could do so?"
"Since the sealing." Kurama replied. "The fact I still can see you is proof enough that I'm still tied to the kid."
"Hmm, curious." Shin mused to himself.
Kurama didn't offer any response to that, content to just nap away the daylight hours. He was warm in the sunlight, he was comfortable on this branch, and he was as at peace as he had ever been in the last… oh, it must be getting onto about a century since he was first sealed inside of Mito Uzumaki, or at least seventy or eighty years. They all just blended together in his memory.
xxxxx
Naruto lowered his bow, looking at the now rather heavily damaged target standing across from him. He was quite pleased to see his practise was beginning to pay off, as while they weren't all perfect bullseye shots or something ridiculous like that, all of his arrows had hit within the second black ring at least.
Letting the bow return to the short stick of wood that was its core and putting it away, Naruto pulled out two more 'shiki-weapons' he'd made. He had to grin to himself at that. While the Konoha Public Library had absolutely zero chakra-based techniques in any of the available books, there were some interesting things in some of the history books.
Naruto's smile widened as the shiki-weapon revealed itself to be an old-fashioned repeating crossbow, a Zhuge Nu or Chu-ko-nu as they were otherwise known. It had been surprisingly simple to put together actually, when he'd made a prototype of it so he knew how it worked – after all, he couldn't make a shiki of something he didn't understand.
He'd even made some small improvements on the design he'd found! Rather than a fixed magazine attached to the lever mechanism of the bow, he'd made it into two separate pieces, essentially giving it a removable magazine, which was great on the reload time.
After clipping a magazine of metal tipped wooden bolts onto it and then raising the crossbow, Naruto began firing it as quickly and accurately as he could. He went through the twenty loaded bolts in just over fifteen seconds, and the spread of hits on the target was less than pleasing. He then took six seconds to remove the spent magazine and clip a fresh one in its place.
Once he'd gone through four magazines worth of bolts, Naruto set the repeating crossbow aside. In its place, he revealed the second shiki-weapon he'd been able to make. This one was rather similar to the repeating crossbow he'd just been using, with the major differences being the greater size and lack of magazine.
In Naruto's hands was an arbalest, a large and heavy crossbow that used a winch system to draw the bowstring back. Using that system, Naruto prepared to fire a bolt from his weapon and braced himself against the force he knew was coming. Honestly, Naruto was a bit too small and young to be using something with as much recoil as an arbalest did, but if he didn't know how to use one, how would his shiki?
That was what Naruto's problem currently was. When thinking about it, and imagining 'archer' shikigami, he hadn't taken into consideration the amount of strength needed to draw the bow back when he eventually got on to using heavier and heavier bows. While he was human, and could one day be very strong, shiki simply didn't have the same power he did.
Therefore, rather than abandon the idea completely, he'd looked into alternatives. It was while he was in the history section of the library that Naruto had come across siege weapons, something that was apparently once used by civilian military forces during the warring clans era. It had been there that he'd come across catapults, trebuchets, and ballistae.
It had only been one small step from ballistae to crossbows, and he'd started looking into the different types of crossbows that existed. Looking at the different crossbows, he'd found himself fascinated by the way their designs had to balance between rate of fire, power, accuracy, and ease of use.
The repeating crossbow, while lacking in actual punch and accuracy, was very simple to operate and was at the top in terms of rate of fire. The arbalest, on the other hand, had a very low rate of fire and took a little effort to reload, but its power and accuracy were amazing to the young boy.
It seemed Naruto had found his solution to his shikigami archery problem. Instead of bows and arrows, he'd instead arm them with crossbows. They were strong enough to use them, and if they worked together, like a squad, they could make for something that was a legitimate threat to a ninja.
Holding the arbalest steady, Naruto let loose another bolt. Checking his accuracy before loading another one and firing it, he was quite happy to see that his accuracy was even better than with a yumi bow, even without anywhere near as much practice.
He'd keep going for a while longer though. At present, he was only capable of firing one shot roughly every thirty seconds, and while that wasn't bad, he wanted his shiki to be able to manage three shots per minute if he could.
"Playing with toys still, Naruto?" A voice called out.
"Weapons, not toys, Shin." The blonde replied. "Can't you see what the arbalest has done to my target?"
"The arbalest being the big one, I'm guessing?" Shin shrugged. "Such a thing might amount to a toothpick for those like Misuzu, all but useless really."
Naruto shrugged. "Well, Misuzu is a lot bigger than a human, isn't he? It'd make sense that it'd take something more to hurt him, but then again, do you know what a mounted ballista is?"
"No, and I don't particularly care to either." Shin responded, though not unkindly. "Honestly, humans complicate killing each other too much. It's so much easier to understand when the bigger and stronger amongst you possess the power to make others bow before you."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Do I need to be concerned about you possibly becoming a tyrannical dictator?" He joked.
Shin scoffed. "Hardly, it's too much effort to really bother with."
Naruto chuckled, mumbling 'lazy cat' under his breath, though he knew that Shin would not deny it. He then asked whether there was anyone looking for him, or if anyone would mind if he kept up his archery as he found it very relaxing. He'd finished with Hinoe's lessons for the day, and had trained with Takame and Masami, but there was no telling when the kappa would come and bug him to play a game with them, and there were other youkai that sought him out occasionally.
"No, there's nothing really going on right now, not that I know of at least." Shin told him. "Hinoe did make a breakthrough with that 'rapid movement' technique she's been working on, but she's found it to be far too inefficient to bother with and has decided to try a different approach. I'm not sure what, but I believe that she said she would call the technique 'hirenkyuaku' if it works how she thinks it might."
"That's interesting, I wonder how long this will take her to work out." Naruto commented as he went to retrieve the crossbow bolts embedded in his target, mentally grumbling over how quickly he tended to go through the damn things. Maybe he should start using nothing but light arrows when training? Then again, he needed to learn how to form other arrows faster, especially his lightning arrows, so he'd just have to put up with it.
"I believe she already has a good foundation for the technique. Hopefully she'll get it done faster than she did with the ninjutsu imitation she was attempting." Shin replied. "She did mutter something about 'separate moving entities acting in concert' when I last passed by her."
Naruto smiled, it was just like Hinoe to get lost working something out. As frustrated as she got doing so, she truly enjoyed learning new things, and it was one of the primary reasons she was one of the few 'scholarly' youkai around.
"What about you, Kurama?" Naruto called out, seeing the tip of his tail. "Enjoying yourself?"
"I'm having a nice and relaxing nap, brat, shut up and go away." The fox replied.
Shaking his head, Naruto pretty much ignored the fox's attitude. The last few days with him around had been interesting, and the human boy had developed a few theories about the fox on his own. For example, giving him his name wasn't something that Naruto had expected, however there might be a few reasons for it.
First off, Kurama may truly be that thankful for at least a measure of freedom that he treated Naruto, while not with a great deal of good will, at least without too much animosity. A second, and to Naruto more likely, reason was as a test of some sort. As the biju weren't youkai, the same rules didn't apply to them, including being bound by their name. Nevertheless, Kurama might have been testing Naruto to see if he would even attempt to bind him in some way, which he hadn't.
Seeing Naruto smile and turn back to his archery, Shin spoke up one more time. "Tsurara said she's going to be doing the cooking this evening." He said. "I think she overheard someone in the village say that 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach'. Be prepared for whatever she decides to make."
"Will do." Naruto replied. "Thanks for telling me."
"No problem." Shin replied. "I, myself, am rather curious whether the frost woman will be able to cook something fit for human consumption."
"And there goes my appetite." Naruto muttered, before shaking himself. Who knows, maybe Tsurara would turn out to be a really good cook. For now, he was training and relaxing at the same time, all that mattered was his arrows and his target.
xxxxx
Tsurara gave the cooking pot a frustrated luck. The blazing fire underneath it would, in normal circumstances, be rather unbearable to be near. However, as a creature of ice, Tsurara's nature as a yuki-onna was working against it. This made cooking anything at all… rather difficult.
It didn't help that whenever she tried to pick something up it got cold very quickly. For now, she was making a simple soup, something so simple even she couldn't screw it up. She had to tie a long stick to the handle of a ladle to stir it though, which was rather annoying.
A growl from off to the side got a small smirk of amusement from Tsurara, though she was forced to duck as a shikigami slammed into a tree on the opposite side of the clearing.
"Getting all worked up over there, Hinoe?" She asked, looking at the youkai as she scribbled down some notes while several shiki attempted to move at high speed around her.
"It works, it does!" Hinoe exclaimed. "It's just… so difficult to control." She sighed.
"Why don't you tell me about it?" Tsurara suggested. "Maybe you'll think of something new while you talk."
"I suppose that's as good as anything else right now." Hinoe muttered. "Anyway, you know what I was trying to do before, right? Create a high speed movement technique to imitate the one human ninjas have? Well, I found out it was possible, but reiryoku is really not suited to physical things like that, so the energy cost was simply ridiculous for little gain."
"I know, that's why you're trying another method, right?" Tsurara nodded absently.
"Exactly." Hinoe agreed. "This time I'm trying to create a small platform of reiryoku beneath my feet that I can control remotely, and as I am on top of it, I would go where it does. That understandable?"
"Sure. Rather than force yourself to move at high speed, you are instead 'riding' something that does the moving for you, kind of like how humans ride horses, yeah?" Tsurara answered her.
"Not the best comparison, but it fits I suppose." Hinoe grumbled. "Anyway, actually creating the platform isn't a problem. It's basic shape manipulation really, and sticking to it is easy, you can just use those tree and water walking exercises the kappa spied on. It's actually moving the platform that's the issue."
Tsurara's eyes flickered up to the now dented tree. "I can see, too much acceleration?"
"No, actually, getting up to speed is easy, it's stopping that's the problem." Hinoe told her.
"I'm sure you'll get it down soon enough." Tsurara comforted her. "You haven't been at it long, and you're already at this point. It's also more efficient than the other method you were researching, right?"
"Oh, massively." Hinoe sighed. "I think it's the ki part of chakra that the body flicker relies on mostly, so trying to emulate it with nothing but reiryoku was pretty much doomed to failure from the start. There's probably a number of other techniques I won't be able to emulate because of that."
"Hmm." Tsurara gave a hum of acknowledgement. "Hey, Hinoe, does this soup look right to you?"
Getting to her feet and wandering over, Hinoe took a look at what was in the pot. "It looks fine to me. Leave it to simmer for a while though and I'll go see where Naruto is. Perhaps by the time we return it will be ready to eat."
"Sounds good to me." Tsurara cheered.
Hinoe chuckled to herself at Tsurara's enthusiasm as she began wandering off in the direction of where Naruto always set up his archery targets. If he wasn't there, she'd try the kappas' lake, and failing that she'd wander into the human village, to the library. Aside from school and his own little camp, those were the places he spent most of his time.
Tsurara kept an eye on the soup as Hinoe disappeared between the trees, quite proud of her accomplishment. She had never cooked human food before, so she was quite relieved that she had apparently succeeded at the task. Now, all she had to do next was figure out how to make herself even more appealing to Naruto.
From what she'd seen so far, Naruto preferred strong, independent females. That was good, as she was rather strong herself, and she was also capable of looking after herself. Now, what else did Naruto seem to like… well, there were those letters he was exchanging with foreign jinchuuriki, so he liked making friends, but that wasn't very useful to her…
He seemed to enjoy his archery as well, and if she'd heard right he also liked reading about history, especially more ancient history… Hmm, perhaps for his birthday in October she could get him some scrolls on youkai history. She knew a few youkai up in Iron Country that would be willing to deal with her, or would at least be too scared of yuki-onna to think about trying something stupid against her.
Now, what else could she do?
Well she had to get on the good side of that Benio youkai, she was a near constant around him, rarely leaving his side. Hinoe was another she would have to get along with, his main teacher and perhaps even something of a mother figure to him as well. The kappa that Naruto was friends with were easy, a little friendliness and they counted you as one of them. Even better, she did like the kappa, so all of her feelings in this regard were truly genuine and not fabrication.
She began humming to herself. It was no particular song or anything, but it felt right to do so, and the upbeat tune did make her smile that smallest bit wider. Oh, how she looked forward to when Naruto was older and she could really start getting down to the more… 'x-rated' things she wanted to do. He was a good kid now, but what would he be like in a decade?
Tsurara didn't notice as her eyes became slightly unfocused and she began to drool slightly. With all of the physical training he was putting himself through, and that wild, untamed look he got from living in the forest on top of his piercing blue eyes added up to a very 'yummy' picture in her mind.
It was at that point that Takame and Masami wandered into the clearing, the two of them having gotten in some sparring practice of their own. If they wanted to be the weapons of an active ninja, well, they had better well make sure that they were prepared for what that sort of life entailed.
At least that's what Takame believed, and she'd convinced Masami to work with her on this one.
"Is she… drooling?" Masami asked.
Takame sighed. "Probably thinking about our master, you know what her objective is."
Masami grinned. "Well I don't suppose I can blame her then, Naruto looks like he could be quite delicious in a few years time, and I'm not talking about literally eating him if you know what I mean." She nudged Takame in the ribs and winked at her.
Sighing once again, Takame flicked Masami's forehead. "Believe me, I know what you mean, even if I didn't want to."
"Didn't want to?" Masami asked. "Has our little master been invading your thoughts recently?" She mock-gasped. "Oh, Takame, robbing the cradle! How could you?"
Takame growled and whacked Masami over the head. "Shut up, you know that wasn't what I was saying."
Masami pouted. "You take the fun out of everything." She groused.
"No, I just stabilise the insanity around me." Takame said, before walking forwards and whacking Tsurara over the head as well.
"You were drooling." She explained in response to the yuki-onna's glare.
Tsurara grumbled under her breath as she stirred the soup.
"What were you thinking of, Tsurara?" Masami asked her with a gleam in her eyes.
"I was in the middle of a rather pleasant fantasy." Tsurara admitted, completely without shame. "A fantasy that will one day be made a reality if I have any say in the matter."
"Oh, tell me more." Masami egged her on.
Takame ignored the two of them as they began to giggle together in between bouts of quiet discussion. It didn't take a genius to guess what they were talking about and she wanted no part of that, thank you very much. She was a weapon, fighting was her forte, and her essence sang for conflict, not the foibles of 'romance'.
She waited patiently however, until she saw Hinoe appear from further into the forest, Naruto, Shin, and Kurama following closely behind. As always, Benio was in butterfly form on the blonde's head…
Takame had to wonder just how long Benio was going to keep that up. It was getting to the point that she sometimes forgot the butterfly youkai was there, and in her head she'd already begun to form one 'folder' for Naruto and Benio combined, because the two were almost never separated for any length of time.
"Practising your archery again?" Takame, the first to notice their arrival, asked.
"Yeah, I like doing it and it's something useful as well." Naruto replied.
"To each their own." Takame shrugged. "Just so long as you don't focus on one skill to the exclusion of all else you should be fine."
"You beat me into the ground once per day, you know I have more than one skill." Naruto dryly responded.
"I know your hand to hand sucks badly." Takame smirked at Naruto, making him grumble.
"I'm getting better." He groused.
"Slowly." Takame shot back. "Taijutsu just doesn't seem to be your thing, you're already better at using my claws or Masami's chain."
"It just means I need to try harder." Naruto affirmed. "Taijutsu is just too much of a core aspect of fighting to ignore, no matter how bad I am at it."
"You'll get better at it with practice." Takame reassured him. "Maybe you just haven't found a sty-"
"NARUTO!" Tsurara called out.
"So she finally noticed you, took her long enough." Takame commented.
Naruto laughed, before turning to the yuki-onna. "Hey, Tsurara, I heard you did the cooking today."
"I did, I hope it's good as I don't have much experience in the way of cooking." Tsurara said, before glomping onto his side. She was pleased to note that he was having less and less of a reaction to her cold body the more she did this, almost as if he was building up a resistance.
"It looks pretty good from here." Naruto told her, and by that he meant he couldn't see anything immediately wrong with it. He'd become okay at cooking himself since he started living in the forest, and he knew what to look out for with simple stuff. "I guess we'll just have to taste it and see for ourselves just how good it is."
"I'll get some bowls and spoons out." Hinoe offered.
"I'll get the bread for dunking then." Naruto added.
The two of them fell into step with each other as they went to get what they'd said they would. Naruto was silently thinking about how useful learning to shape-shift had been. While there was a few shopkeepers who didn't like the village jinchuuriki and did jack up their prices for him, it was an entirely different story when a cute girl was shopping there, a fact Naruto took ruthless advantage off when buying things he couldn't catch or grow himself, such as bread, butter, and milk.
Naruto and Hinoe shared a smile as they collected the items from Naruto's hand built cupboards – really, this 'camp' of his was well on the way to becoming a cabin, it even had a herb garden for him to grow potion reagents – before Hinoe spoke to him.
"Let's see how good your 'admirer' actually is at cooking, shall we?" She chuckled. "I did keep an eye on her as I worked on that speed technique, so it should at least be edible."
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Naruto replied. "If not… you do remember how bad my first attempts at cooking were, right?"
Hinoe narrowed her eyes at him. "No matter how bad you are at cooking, food is not supposed to physically attack you, Naruto. What you made was not food by any stretch of the imagination, it was an abomination."
Naruto laughed lightly. "So therefore, as Tsurara's cooking has yet to try and kill us, she's already better than I was when I started, no?"
"Being worse, in all truth, would be impossible." Hinoe huffed.
Naruto didn't reply except to grin at her, and together they returned to the rest of the group to eat together.
As it turned out, Tsurara was actually a rather decent cook, and her soup was pretty tasty.
xxxxx
Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Hokage, tried once again to get his crystal ball to focus on Naruto. He'd been trying to do so for several days now, ever since some of his chakra-sensetive Anbu had reported to him that they'd sensed some of the kyuubi's chakra actually clinging to the boy. Not emanating from him or being held within him, like he would expect, but clinging to him from the outside.
Concerned, Hiruzen had sent a Hyuuga Anbu to check Naruto with their byakugan. Fortunately, it still seemed as if the kyuubi was sealed up inside of the boy, or at least the vast majority of its chakra was safely sealed away still. The traces on Naruto himself were minute, especially in comparison to the nine-tail's vast reserves, and the only reason it was particularly noticeable was because of the sheer density of said chakra.
So that left Hiruzen to wonder, how did Naruto come into contact with an external source of the kyuubi's chakra? Had he found something from the kyuubi attack years ago that had, somehow, managed to absorb its chakra? That was the only real explanation he could think of, and without questioning Naruto there was little he could do to find out.
He had considered asking the boy, but if he did that then he may end up having to reveal the fact he was a jinchuuriki to Naruto, and the blonde child was far too young to be burdened with such a dark and heavy thing. Perhaps when he was older he could start training with the fox's chakra, probably with Jiraiya, who would be able to keep an eye on the seal.
Sighing as he failed once more to catch sight of Naruto in his crystal ball, the Hokage turned back to the report the Hyuuga Anbu had given him. Aside from the specifics regarding the kyuubi, there was something else there as well. Apparently there was something different about Naruto's chakra, but just what it meant, the Anbu had been unable to tell.
Groaning to himself, Hiruzen wondered just why he'd taken the hat back after he'd retired once already.
He was getting far too old to deal with this crap!