AN: Okay, and here is the last little bit of day to day filler before the next mini-arc, which will once again take place completely outside Konoha. After this is over and done with, we'll then move onto Naruto's academy days, which probably won't take up too many chapters, before he becomes a genin! Yes, for those that noticed it, there is some quincy influence here and there with Naruto, which is cool, I am making him into an archer after all, so the whole 'spirit archer' thing fits really well, no?
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 16 – Hey, Mister Turtle
Akiko slowly meandered towards Naruto's home, and it was a home now. Over the past two years, it had been slowly built up from a rough camp, to a more permanent camping place, to an actual home. For goodness sake, he even had a vegetable garden behind the cabin he and some of the youkai had built, and that wasn't counting the smaller 'herb' garden where he grew stuff for his potions.
The biggest change, at least from Akiko's point of view, was the seal etched underneath the house, making every youkai within the house and those close by visible to humans. Not that such a thing meant anything to anyone except Akiko herself, being the only human to visit, with Naruto being able to see them regardless.
Knocking on the large double doors – one of the signs this home was built with more than just humans in mind – Akiko waited. She heard a call of 'coming!' from within… followed shortly by a thud, a pained exclamation, and the cabin shuddering.
One of the doors opened, revealing a seven year old Naruto, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, alongside a knocked over coat rack.
"Hey, Akiko-sensei, come on in." Naruto cheerfully greeted her, even if his words were slightly muffled by him rubbing his face still.
"Are you still practising your hirenkyaku whenever you can?" She asked in response, stepping in the door. "What's wrong with walking to the front door?"
"The more I practise it, the better I'll get at it." Naruto replied. "If I use it more often, I'll get better at it quicker, see?"
"If you say so, Naruto." She sighed. "The sight of you crashing into things is still not a particularly comforting one though."
"I can use it well enough in open spaces." Naruto told her. "Not all fights are going to happen in large fields though, and I don't know of any fights that happen in mid-air."
Akiko twitched at that, remembering the first time she'd seen Naruto use that movement technique of his to stand on thin air, and the fright she'd had when he tried to move and then crashed head first into a tree, before falling into the kappas' lake.
"Yes, Naruto, because the Elemental Nations need ninja to take fights into the air as well, where they can rain down destructive techniques on the innocent from above." She huffed, rolling her eyes as Naruto looked a little sheepish at that. "Just be careful, alright? Don't go too high until you have proper control over the technique."
"I won't." Naruto reassured her. "I'm not that stupid."
"Sometimes I wonder." Akiko grumbled under her breath. For all Naruto appeared mature at times, and was quite well read as well, he did come up with some of the most ridiculous ideas ever too. She doubted she would ever forget the time Naruto had tried making a seal that would make plants grow quicker – it was meant for fruit and vegetables – especially when said seal had caused them to come to life and try and eat people. The sight of a fire-breathing miniature kyuubi, Naruto using his fire arrows, and several youkai hacking said living plants to pieces would stay with her forever.
Naruto went to lead Akiko to the front room of his cabin, but paused and turned around. It was only a moment later that one of Naruto's falcon shikigami climbed through a cat-flap that was put there for them, and then flew up to land on the blonde's shoulder, presenting him with the two letters it carried.
Akiko looked on in silent interest as Naruto opened the two letters and read through them. She knew he was in contact with other people around the continent, mostly other jinchuuriki though, and she was wondering who these letters in particular were from.
Naruto, having noticed her curiosity chose to tell her about them.
"They're from Yugito and B in Kumo." He said. "Yugito is complaining about things mostly, the weather, guys trying to 'charm' her and failing miserably, and how many missions she's been doing lately. She likes the money, but she wants to have a bit of a vacation apparently. B, on the other hand, seems a bit frustrated at how few missions he gets, how his brother coddles him too much, and how he's failed another genin team."
"The sort of thing just about every kunoichi and shinobi has, I'd imagine." Akiko commented. "Do they never talk about anything more… personal? I mean, you've been exchanging letters for quite a while now. I'd have thought that would build up at least some level of trust."
"We're from opposing villages." Naruto shrugged. "And while I'm not particularly close to Konoha in general, they are both rather loyal to their village. They do write about other things occasionally, but all of us make sure that we don't write anything that's at all compromising about our own villages."
"So distant friends then?" Akiko asked.
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Naruto answered her. "I have photos of them, as you can see, but we're not exactly 'best buddies' or anything." The blonde indicated some photos on one wall, which had the relevant photos hanging there, along with some others, like Han, Roshi, and even one of Fu, a girl only a few years older than Naruto. Beside them were some paintings done of youkai that Naruto knew, as a camera was unable to capture their image.
Akiko smiled at those photos, happy that her favourite student had some human friends, even if they weren't exactly local. While she had nothing against youkai, she hoped that the letters he sent and received would sort of 'balance' out the influence the youkai had on him, making him more normal.
"Hey, Kurama!" Naruto called out. "Do you have anything you want to say to the Nibi or Hachibi? I'm writing letters to their hosts right now."
"You ask me this every time you send one of your bloody letters!" The Kyuubi's voice yelled back from another room. "I don't want to say anything at all to them! If I wanted to talk to my damned siblings, I'd do it myself!"
"How would you even do that? They're all sealed, just like you technically are." Naruto groused, wandering into the room Kurama's voice was coming from, finding the miniature fox laid on a large cushion and enjoying some sunlight coming through the window.
"We were all once one being, the Juubi, or did you forget that, idiot?" The fox growled. "We're all still connected because of that, so for the last time, if I wanted to talk to them, I could do it any time I wanted to, whether any of us were sealed up or not."
"That… sounds amazingly useful." Naruto commented, his mind already trying to work out how that connection functioned. "Is it some sort of resonance, or is there some part of you that's acting like a radio? Is it something that happened on it's own, or was it something the sage added when he made you nine?"
"Stop it with the questions!" The fox snarled. "Make me a larger body and I'll let you study the damn thing! Just go away and let me nap in peace!"
Naruto gave the fox a confused look, before leaning forwards and sniffing lightly. "You're… drunk? No, you're hungover. What, did you go to that party at the sake spring last night?"
"So what if I did? It's my life, I can do whatever I want with it." Kurama snapped at him.
"Geez, calm down, I was only saying." Naruto huffed. "As for a larger body… I have a few ideas, but they're mostly untested. We can see if one of them works if you want, I really want to see what that communication technique is like."
"Yes! By the sage, yes!" The kyuubi shouted, leaping to its feet. "If I can get something better than this little blob with limbs for a body, then I want it now!"
"Sure, I'll be back in a moment." Naruto agreed, leaving the kyuubi with Akiko.
"What is it, fleshbag?" The kyuubi asked, seeing Akiko staring at him.
"I'm just… struck by how human you are." Akiko said. "You're nothing like I'd have imagined you to be. Sure, you're pretty bloodthirsty and quite sadistic too, but… you have wants and desires, just like anyone else."
"Thank you for stating the obvious." Kurama drawled. "What did you think before? Did you really expect something that exists purely for destruction to actually exist, especially with how long we've been around." The fox snorted. "Simpleton."
"Gee, thanks." Akiko grumbled. "See what I get for trying to be nice."
"I am not nice, human, and your race has done far too much to me for me to forgive any single one of you just like 'that'." The fox shot back.
"You like Naruto well enough." She retorted.
"The blonde is actively trying to make things better for me, and that's on top of him having the power to deny me this freedom. I'm not fool enough to piss him off when he could make things so much worse for me." The kyuubi explained, speaking like one would to a particularly slow five year old.
"There's no need to be so grumpy with me in particular." Akiko growled. "It's not like there's anything I can do to help you at all!"
"And there's no reason for me to be nice to you either." Kurama replied. "This right now is me being more polite than I would be to ninety nine percent of your race, so if anything, you're actually getting the 'nice' me right now."
Akiko muttered under her breath about how that still wasn't very nice, but further conversation was put on pause when Naruto came back into the room with several things in his hands.
"Right, these are all the things that I think might work." He said, before pulling out his notebook and three particular items from the pile. "These are what I think are most likely to work out of everything I'm trying. Want me to explain each of them and my theories?"
"As long as it works, I don't care." Kurama stated. "However, I will admit to some curiosity this time."
"Right, let's start with this one." Naruto pulled out a talisman, this one absolutely covered in symbols. "As you can see, this is a standard talisman, albeit one that's a tad more complicated than the ones I usually use. You see, where yin chakra, or reiryoku, can follow simple symbols to a complex result, yang chakra, or ki, is far less 'intelligent', and must be told exactly what it's supposed to do."
"Hence the numerous symbols." Kurama guessed. "They define exactly what form the chakra should take."
"Correct." Naruto acknowledged. "Also, given it's ki rather than reiryoku, each symbol on here is one I've had to create myself, pretty much from scratch. It's far from perfect, and I'm sure there's far more efficient ways of doing this, but it should work."
"So that's option number one, what are the other two?" Kurama asked. "I imagine they rely on something other than just a multitude of symbols I don't understand?"
"The next idea I had is this one." The blonde answered, revealing it. "This one has the actual shape of the talisman play a role in defining the form you should take if I use your power to activate it, meaning I need far less symbols as I don't need to create an entire wire-frame model of a body with them."
"Is that… an origami fox?" Kurama asked in disbelief. "Your answer to 'improving a talisman'… is making it more 'artistic'?"
"Hey, it's a legitimate idea!" Naruto defended himself. "Besides, I learned a lot doing that. I've found that I can strengthen stuff with my own ki, making paper shuriken and kunai legitimate weapons, especially as they seem to 'cut' through the air, making their lack of weight less of a problem."
Kurama didn't quite know how to respond to that, and chose to press on. "Option three would be? Please don't say it's some sort of ritual dance or something, because if you do I might just chose to kill myself to save myself the humiliation."
Naruto snorted. "No, there's no dancing. If anything, it's an extension of the last idea." He pulled out a wooden model of a fox with the same symbols etched into it. "Rather than paper, this is wooden, and so can handle more power than an ordinary talisman can. That's the third idea."
"Do you have a spare talisman for my current form, in case none of these work?" Kurama asked, getting a nod from Naruto. "Then I choose all of them, let's see what works best."
"Okay then, let's try the complex talisman first." Naruto said.
Kurama cancelled his possession of the talisman he'd inhabited since he and Naruto first met and returned to the seal. Immediately after that, Naruto grabbed his chakra and forced it through his arm and into the talisman, holding back tears of pain as the corrosive chakra attacked his body on the way out.
"This is weird." Kurama commented, once he'd taken form. "I'm made up of a lot of flat surfaces."
It was true as well. Kurama was now the size of a regular fox, and pretty much the right shape as well. However, he wasn't smooth curves at all, his body was made up of a large number of polygons that interlocked with each other to form a rather angular body. It felt really weird when he tried moving around, and it wasn't the most comfortable thing ever.
"Okay, so I'm a better size. I don't like this though, it's far too stiff and rigid." He looked at Naruto, who was now wiping down his chakra-burned hand with a soothing ointment to calm down Kurama's dense chakra. "Are you up for the next one?" He asked, showing a small amount of care for the injury he'd caused.
"Yeah, but the third one will be done with my left hand." Naruto answered the biju. "I don't want to damage myself too badly."
"Just be careful, Naruto." Akiko cautioned him. "It won't make much of a difference if you wait a few days between each experiment."
"I'll be fine, I'm already healing, and the ointment is doing its job." He said, and it was too. He absolutely loved some of the potions he could make at times, they were just so awesome!
"Right, I'll just dismiss myself then." Kurama said, doing just that.
"Okay, attempt two… let's go with the wooden statue." Naruto said, picking up the mentioned statue, channelling Kurama's ki into it.
This time, Kurama took the form of a fox that was almost twice as tall at the shoulder compared to a regular one. However, he ran into issues almost straight away. While the wood could handle more of his power than paper could, it seemed to 'store' it more than let it flow, and while that worked for Naruto's shiki-weapons, he actively channelled his power to use his techniques – both the bijudama he had before and the new things he'd learned under Hinoe – and so this was a no go as well.
"This form is more physically powerful, but my ki isn't flowing properly. It's like it's… clotting? That's probably as accurately as I can describe it, and I'd rather be miniature again than stay like this." Kurama told them.
Naruto sighed in disappointment. "So the first one is too stiff and this one isn't working either."
"Cheer up, Naruto, the origami fox might work." Akiko smiled at the boy, earning her a smile in return. "Besides, you're designing this from the ground upwards, of course there's going to be mistakes. I'd say you're doing really well for someone so young, really well."
"I had help." Naruto blushed embarrassedly. "Hinoe and the others had a load of ideas, it's not all me."
"If this stupid 'origami' idea works, I'll roll onto my back and ask for belly rubs." Kurama expressed his opinion of the idea in his usual sarcastic way.
"Well, let's see if it works then." Naruto said, sending a small glare at the fox.
Returning to the seal again, Kurama prepared to possess another bit of paper. However, as he manifested in that burrow in Naruto's mindscape again, he thought for a moment that he saw something impossible. For just a flash, he could have sworn he saw his previous container and her husband, asleep.
'Actually, maybe they're the other two consciousnesses that they found in the seal.'Kurama thought to himself, finding it rather amusing that their son was helping the 'prisoner' out of his cell while the 'guards' slept.
He only had a moment to think about that, as he was almost instantly pulled out of the seal again, this time possessing the origami fox talisman.
Kurama found himself to be a shade taller than a regular fox in this form, and actually looked like one instead of a roughly cut model. He also found that his joints moved fluidly and he couldn't feel any problems in how his ki flowed around inside his body. All in all, it was the best result so far.
He froze at that, before glaring at Naruto and Akiko.
"I will bite you if you try and get me to roll over." He growled as menacingly as he could.
Akiko did give him an amused look, a slight vicious gleam in her eyes. "You did say that if it worked that you would roll over and ask for belly rubs." She chimed in.
"I hate you more than all but two other humans right now." Kurama snarled at the woman, leaving Naruto confused about what was going on between them.
xxxxx
"Okay, here is where our minds meet." Kurama told Naruto, gesturing around at the massive, empty space. "I can call to any of my siblings and they can answer me if they want to, understand?"
Naruto looked up at the kyuubi, currently full-sized as this was inside his mind, and then around at the empty space.
"Could you call someone for me, please?" He asked politely.
"Who?" Kurama bluntly asked.
"Either the ichibi, sanbi, or rokubi." Naruto said. "They're the only ones whose jinchuuriki I'm not in contact with."
"Shukaku, the one-tailed raccoon, is a childish little shit, and he only respects those who can overpower him. I wouldn't advise trying to speak to him until you are far stronger than you currently are. As for Isobu, the three-tailed turtle, and Saiken, the six-tailed slug… they're both more even tempered than Shukaku." Kurama told him.
"Could you call for Isobu, please?" Naruto asked. "I know he's sealed inside of the current mizukage, and I wonder if he knows why the man's so against bloodlines."
"ISOBU!" Kurama yelled loudly in answer.
Naruto, before Isobu arrived, mentally conjured up a mask to wear so that the biju couldn't tell Yagura about him if the turtle was on the mizukage's side in what was happening.
"Kurama, is that you?" Isobu asked, making an appearance in this shared 'mindscape'.
"Yeah, it's me." The fox replied bluntly.
"Why did you call me here? It's not like you to bother with the rest of us." The one-eyed turtle asked curiously.
"My container wanted to speak to you." Kurama said, nudging Naruto forward with a paw.
"Hello there, Kurama's host, my name is Isobu. It's a pleasure to meet you." The biju politely introduced itself.
"Ah, hello." Naruto was caught off guard by how nice this biju seemed to be. The mask he'd created faded as his concentration broke. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, it's nice to meet you too."
"Much more polite than I'd expect one of Kurama's hosts to be, I'd have thought he'd taint them with his aggression." The turtle stated.
"Honestly, you're more polite than I was expecting too. I thought you'd be more like this guy here." Naruto responded.
Isobu laughed lightly at that, though his loud voice still managed to shake Naruto's eardrums because of how large the biju was. "Ah, as much as they'll both deny it, Kurama and Shukaku are the most alike of us nine."
"I am nothing like that pathetic raccoon!" Kurama growled at Isobu, who pretty much ignored the outburst.
"Myself, Saiken, and Chomei, who you would now as the rokubi and nanabi respectively, are considered the friendliest of the biju." Isobu told Naruto. "I must ask though, why did you get Kurama to call for me?"
"Well, a couple of things really." Naruto admitted. "I was curious, I wanted to meet you, and… well, I want to know why Yagura is so set on eliminating so many clans."
Isobu seemed quite happy with the first two points before becoming depressed at that last bit. "Poor Yagura. He had such dreams, and now he'll never live for any of them." The turtle… was it crying? "You see, Naruto, he wasn't always like that, but one day he was ambushed by a masked man."
"A masked man?" Kurama asked, jolting upwards. "Did he wear an orange mask with a spiral on it?"
"He did! Do you know who he is?" Isobu looked to Kurama, a small amount of hope in his eye.
"He claimed to be Madara Uchiha, but he wasn't." Kurama answered his fellow biju. "Oh, he's certainly from that cursed clan, but Madara himself he was not. I'm guessing this story of yours involves that damned red eye of his?"
"Yes, the sharingan!" Isobu exclaimed. "He pretty much destroyed Yagura's mind and took control of him. Right now, my vessel is just a brain dead meat puppet for the false Madara."
"That sucks." Naruto frowned. "And I can't think of anything I can do to help either."
"Life sucks, brat, the sooner you learn that the softer the blows will be." Kurama huffed.
Naruto didn't reply immediately, his attention shifting between Isobu, Kurama, and the shared mindscape they were currently in, before repeating. He looked at Isobu, thought about what he really was, and then at Kurama, what he was, and then at the mindscape once more, thinking about what it represented.
Kurama could see the cogs turning in Naruto's head. "I know that look, Naruto, what stupid idea has lodged itself in your skull this time?"
Isobu, in curiosity, looked at the little human.
"Well..." Naruto started. "The biju, if we get right down to it, are essentially masses of self-replicating chakra with an intelligent will of their own, right?"
"That's right." Kurama hesitantly replied, wary of where this was going.
"And this space we're currently in links all of you together, like a bridge that spans nine islands?" He continued.
"You could call it that, I suppose." Isobu agreed.
"So, do you think it's at all possible for the biju themselves to 'cross' that bridge?" Naruto asked, earning himself a stunned silence from the two biju. "I know it sounds really stupid, but is there any reason you couldn't do it?"
"I..." Isobu tried to say something."I don't know."
"That is probably your most stupid idea yet, kid." Kurama told Naruto. "Still, I don't see why it wouldn't work… though there might be problems with it."
"I'd probably have to leave all of my chakra behind and start producing it from nothing." Isobu added. "But that's not much of a problem for a biju, we produce chakra simply by existing."
"Do… do you want to try it?" Naruto asked. "I mean, you said Yagura was brain dead, so it's not like you could break him out of a genjutsu and everything would be okay, there's… nothing there for you to save."
"I think… yes, this is probably for the best. If Kurama of all people can vouch for you then there must be something good about you." Isobu stated.
"He's acceptable." Kurama grudgingly admitted. "Probably the best vessel I could ask for, not that there was much competition or anything."
"Then I agree as well." Isobu said, before looking directly at Naruto. "Naruto Uzumaki, I, Isobu the Sanbi, do request sanctuary from you. Will you give it to me?"
"I will." Naruto said, wishing he could think of something more official sounding given Isobu's sudden turn of formal speech.
"Then let's see if this actually works." Isobu nodded, some excitement leaking into his voice.
"You know what this means, don't you, kid?" Kurama glanced at Naruto.
"What?" Naruto wondered.
"You're going to have to try and find a way for your talismans to work for regular chakra so Isobu can have a body outside of the seal as well." Kurama told him.
Naruto deflated slightly, already imagining how much work that was going to be.
"Bugger!"
xxxxx
In actual fact, it only took Naruto four days to make Isobu a talisman for a body. Granted, Isobu was small enough to sit on Naruto's head, but he didn't seem to particularly mind that fact, and he had some fun swimming about in the kappas' lake, reminiscing about when he was first created by the sage and was much smaller than he was when fully grown.
Naruto, in order to create Isobu's talisman, had combined what he knew about reiryoku seals and ki seals together into one. It didn't work very well, as his talismans tried to treat the two parts of a single energy as separate entities, but he was proud of the fact he managed to get it to work at all.
However, that made Naruto wonder just what the hell seals were. He knew for a fact the symbol-based talismans he made, even the one for Isobu, was absolutely nothing like regular, human fuinjutsu, so how did they work then? There was some sort of significance to the seals, but what, and why did particular shapes make various energies do specific things?
Deciding to shelve that line of thought for now, especially as it only confused him, Naruto made a decision to not learn any new skills until he was a genin. He'd improve what he had, but learning anything new would only slow down his current development, and he'd end up a jack of all trades, master of none.
Actually, he might as well get on with hi-
"Damn it, Isobu, stop doing that!" Kurama yelled, running past Naruto, breathing fire back over his shoulder.
"Stop being so damn lazy then, 'big brother'." Isobu followed after him, breathing a stream of water to counteract the fire.
"That sounds freaking weird when you say it, stop! You are not a schoolgirl, you are a giant monster turtle!"
Actually, he might as well get on with putting a stop to this fight.
xxxxx
In a remote cave, far from where Naruto currently was, a group of village boys were playing a game of 'chicken'. You see, the cave they were in was supposed to be haunted by an evil monster from long ago, but it was sealed away in a large rock by an exorcist – a group that had faded into myth and legend themselves.
However, regardless of it being sealed away, the cave was supposed to retain the monster's evil presence and would curse anyone who stayed the night in the cave. These boys, teenagers, were going to prove they weren't scared, and planned on staying the night.
Maybe if they showed they were brave then one of the pretty girls they knew might go out with them. If they stayed, all the other boys who were too scared to stay the night would know that they were real men, and they weren't scared of anything, especially not some silly story!
They'd brought blankets to sleep on, and some camp food too, as well as a lantern each.
Looking around the cave, they found the rock the evil monster was supposed to be sealed into, it was pretty obvious what with the strange rope wrapped around it, and they all laughed about how monsters couldn't be beaten with a bit of rope, conveniently forgetting what ninjas were capable of.
They all decided to go to sleep around the large rock, and after telling scary stories around a lantern and eating sandwiches, they did just that. However, one of the boys was a bit of a restless sleeper, and he tossed and he turned, rolling this way and that trying to get comfortable.
He even rolled towards the rock at one point, and came into contact with the rope.
The rope that was old and eaten away by time and… something else.
A rope that fell apart quite easily at the rough treatment of the boy.
A rope that really was holding something back.
A rope that, now broken, had let something free.