AN: So it seems now that I'm working that I can only really get one chapter out a week, and only of this length. Honestly, that's a bit disappointing, as I really wanted to get something done for my other two stories. Still, I refuse to abandon anything I've written, and eventually they will be complete, I'll just have to get back to them at some point in the future. I hope you enjoy this chapter, as this is the only story I have plenty of inspiration for right now, and please leave a review for me at the end. I am somewhat disappointed in the fight scene, as much as I acknowledge that they are something I not very good at, so any ideas for improvement are very welcome. Oh! A couple of days ago I found a story that started with a similar concept to mine, a Shaman King / Naruto crossover called Naruto the Shinobi Shaman of Konoha. I thought that was pretty cool!
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 19 – Abomination Beast
Naruto threw himself to the ground and rolled backwards as one of the walking corpses swung at him with some sort of strange hybrid of axe and scythe. Tsurara then stepped forward and froze it solid, before Masami shattered it with her weighted chain.
Getting instantly to his feet, Naruto cast a force blast down the tunnel, forcing the undead to either brace themselves or get launched backwards. He then retreated to stand beside Takame and Benio, both of whom were pretty much useless in this particular battle.
When the corpses had 'woken up' and attacked them, the first thing that Naruto had tried had been taking their heads off. It was the sort of thing that worked in stories, but it seemed that reality was a different matter. Even when they cut their limbs off, they kept crawling towards the group of youkai and one human.
The only way they'd stop coming was if they were literally incapable of doing so, whether that was because they'd been cut into small enough pieces as to be rendered harmless, frozen solid, or burnt to a crisp. Being underground limited their options though, as Naruto couldn't use fire arrows unless he wanted to use up all of the breathable air down there.
Also, given that they had started in the deepest part of the cave, they didn't want their path blocked by flaming zombies.
"Does anyone remember just how many bodies were down here?" Masami asked, looking worn out and sweaty from all of the physical exertion.
"Hundreds." Benio grumbled, kind of pissed off that the illusions she'd put the effort into learning were completely useless against these dead things.
"I don't think I have the stamina to take all of them on like this." Tsurara complained. "Freezing a human-sized enemy completely solid uses up a fair chunk of power."
"What else can we do but take them out as we go?" Naruto asked, forming several lightning spears and throwing them at the zombies, pinning them to the wall. He had to hold back his frustration as he fought, because aside from not using his fire arrows and orbs, the tunnels were too narrow for his shikigami to really be effective.
An idea then occurred to him. "Hold them back a moment, I'm going to try something!" He called.
Tsurara and Masami, the two currently most effective fighters stepped in front of the others, while Benio and Takame kept a close eye out for any traps that might be lying about.
Naruto, for his part, pulled out a piece of paper and quickly scribbled down several symbols before wrapping it around a loose stone and tossing it down the tunnel.
"Look out!" He yelled, before the talisman detonated in a small explosion of wind blades which shredded four zombies.
"Combat talismans, and written up so quickly?" Benio smirked. "You're learning quickly."
"It was only something simple." Naruto blushed slightly. "Nothing special, and it wasn't as effective as I'd like it to be."
"Fight now, talk later!" Takame chided them, catching an old and rusty sword on her left claw, before hooking her right into the corpses jaw and tearing its badly preserved head off. "Naruto, join with me!"
"Okay." Naruto responded, before reaching out for the tsukumogami youkai, who proceeded to visibly sink into his body. A moment later, Takame's metal claws appeared on Naruto's hands, extending up his arms and forming deadly looking clawed gauntlets. His stance shifted, and when he looked up, you could see his eyes were glowing slightly.
This was the reason why Naruto had initially gone into the seal to confront whatever it was he held, a partial possession that hybridised himself and a youkai. His massive reserves and physical body combined with a youkai's skills and natural abilities, combining together to make something truly impressive.
Charging towards the front of the group, and headlong towards the oncoming horde, Naruto lashed out with his claws, extending his reach with reiryoku and slashing apart the undead standing before him. Moving more fluidly than he normally would, he was then able to dodge one of the severed hands that reached out to grab him, turn around and cut it into pieces as well, before stomping on the head of another corpse, crushing it underfoot.
"No fair!" Tsurara yelled, pouting. "I wanted to be Naruto's first joining!"
"This is better." Naruto and Takame's double-layered voice answered her. "You and Masami can destroy these creatures working together, but myself and Naruto have trouble unless we combine our skills. I mean no insult to Benio, but her skills are only useful against humans or youkai, which these meat puppets aren't."
"You've got Naruto's reiryoku though." Masami grumbled, only to blink in surprise as she caught something that the currently possessed boy tossed her. Taking a closer look, she saw it was one of the single dose potion vials that Naruto wore at his belt.
"A fortifying draft." Naruto explained. "That should help."
Masami took the top of the vial and downed the contents in a single gulp. Her eyes then widened in surprise as she could literally feel it spreading throughout her body, reinvigorating her and raising her limits slightly. She grinned widely, tossing the empty vial back to Naruto, before twirling her weighted chain around her head and tossing it down the passageway, splattering one zombie's dried brains against the wall as it smashed its head.
Masami wasn't the only one feeling refreshed and ready for another go though, Tsurara had also taken one of Naruto's potions, and she looked almost giddy with energy as she danced down the tunnel, freezing the undead solid, impaling them on conjured icicles, and binding their joints in blocks of ice.
'Well that seems effective.' Takame commented to Naruto. 'I apologise for thinking your alchemy was so useless.'
'You thought it was useless?' Naruto responded with surprise, before mentally sighing. 'Well, it is one of the most basic potions there are, I wasn't expecting particularly great results either. Let's just hope we get out of this cave before it runs out and they crash, you can only safely take so many per day.'
With that in mind, the combined Naruto and Takame renewed their own assault, cutting apart the still moving corpses into smaller and smaller pieces. Benio, bringing up the rear, used a small dagger to take care of any little bits that were still wriggling after everyone else had passed them by.
xxxxx
Matatabi frowned inside of Yugito's seal.
Even with her senses dulled by that damned bit of fuinjutsu, she could still feel the demonic taint seeping into her container, but there wasn't much that she could do about it even if she wanted to act. If her relationship with Yugito was better, like Gyuuki and Killer B's was maybe, then she might be able to get through to the blonde girl, but alas, Matatabi and Yugito only just tolerated each other.
At least the taint wasn't doing too much. Enhancing negative emotions, as much as it sounded bad, wasn't something a mind as disciplined as Yugito's would succumb to. She'd think a little worse of others, yes, and focus on negative things as well, but she could still function properly, and it would fade once this mess was taken care of.
What worried Matatabi though was the cause of the sudden increase of the taint. Either the demon had just gained a rather significant amount of power, which wasn't very likely, or an older source of demonic power had been unearthed. Perhaps an old curse catalyst had been uncovered, or victims unearthed.
What was clear was that Naruto had likely found something, as who else in the vicinity was actually looking into it?
Matatabi turned thoughtful at that. Naruto, an odd boy really, especially if what Kurama had told her was accurate. He wasn't the first jinchuuriki to be relatively friendly to their biju – goodness knows that there could be someone who was capable of hating Chomei's general cheerfulness – but he was the first, to her knowledge, to actually do something for their prisoner.
Three host's ago, Matatabi had been sealed inside a boy that had worked hard to change his mindscape to become something relatively pleasant for her. While she could have done without him asking her if she could 'transform' using ninja techniques – and his strong belief that she would be some sort of super attractive female – she had been somewhat entertained and amused by him. At least, she was before the fool got himself killed trying to fight someone who was clearly far stronger than he was, believing himself almost invincible because he was a jinchuuriki.
What Naruto had done for Isobu though, and apparently for Kurama too, actually giving them physical bodies to inhabit outside of his own... She would admit to being intrigued by that at least, and she wondered how easily just such a skill could be taught, not that she'd ask the boy to teach Yugito it. She wouldn't do that to the young child.
Her container thought loyalty was doing anything and everything asked of her, regardless of her own personal beliefs and morals. She would, if the Raikage told her to, be quite willing stab herself through the heart, and if the Raikage were that sort of man, she would be as submissive as he required her to be.
True, she did have a mind of her own, her tenuous friendship with Naruto proved that much at least. However, that very basic friendship would last only so long as there were no overtly hostile moves made between Kumo and Konoha, and as Matatabi had noticed, their 'friendship' had not stopped Yugito trying to get as accurate of an idea of Naruto's skills as she could.
Honestly, that girl was rather messed up in the head, and Matatabi had neither the means nor the desire to even begin trying to 'fix' her. When it came time for Yugito to die, or for her to be transferred into another host, she would use the escape method Kurama had told her of, and that would be that.
With these thoughts in mind, Matatabi kept her silence and watched through her container's eyes as the demon problem became that slightest bit worse every minute.
xxxxx
A great gout of flame erupted out of the 'demon' cave, not that there was anyone to see it. There wasn't anyone to see the small group that stumbled out of there moments later, all of them looking exhausted, weary, and somewhat battered as well.
"I...am… so tired!" Naruto panted out. Takame slumped against him, not even having the energy to stand properly.
"You're not very well synchronised, joining like that will have taken a lot out of you." Benio explained. "I'm amazed you were even capable of getting it to work at all, and to the level you had it working at was nothing to sneeze at!"
Naruto merely groaned in reply, reaching for his first aid kit and dressing his wounds. He had a lot of bruises, as while the undead they'd fought had only been marginally faster and stronger than 'trained' civilians, they most definitely had had a killer grip! You could clearly see where there hands had been when they'd grabbed him.
He had some other marks as well, like a nasty slice down his left arm, from shoulder to elbow, where a zombie had caught him off guard in one of the larger chambers. That wound was quickly cleaned and dressed with a bandage. He might heal faster than normal because of Kurama being sealed inside of him, but he was by no means immune to infection and disease.
"Next time, ask Ran to come along instead of that useless Madara." Masami complained. "At least she would stick around rather than immediately go off and enjoy treats that you paid for."
"Ran wouldn't have been able to fit in those tunnels." Naruto pointed out. "And the only reason I chose Madara over Ran is because he's right there in the forest, while Ran lives all the way over at the Valley of the End. Give me some time to get faster with my Hirenkyaku and I'll start asking her for help instead, 'kay?"
"Sounds good to me." Masami grinned at Naruto and gave him a thumbs up in approval. "Just no more zombies, they're icky."
Naruto laughed. "I'll see what I can do, no promises though."
Tsurara smiled though. "Look on the bright side, those zombies would be about the same threat level as a group of bandits, right? They were harder to deal with, but much more stupid, so this could be proof that you're getting better at fighting. You're probably at least low genin, no?"
"Maybe." Naruto answered non-committally, though there was a note of pride in his voice as he spoke. "At least now the flesh beast can't call on these old corpses for help, can you imagine how much damage they could do to a civilian settlement?"
"A lot." Takame grimly answered him. "This discovery, however, also tells us just what sort of methods this particular demon uses. As is quite obvious, this particular flesh beast has a talent for merging and animating living matter. The next question is 'what are its limits?'"
Masami grimaced. "Yeah, that six-armed guy was a tough one to fight." She grumbled. "And did you see that one who had, like, five arms merged together to make one huge, muscular one? Now that was gross!"
Naruto grimaced as well. "Yeah, I noticed that one, why did you think I cut his arm off as soon as I saw him? I don't even want to think about how much it would hurt to be hit by him, and that axe he was carrying looked sharp enough to cut a boulder in two, never mind me."
Takame sighed, stretching herself out a bit. She still felt incredibly drained from that joining with Naruto, but she was already beginning to recover. She blanked out the rest of the group chatting with each other, before frowning as she felt just how much heavier the demonic taint had gotten. It had probably increased when they'd broken open the back of the demon's old lair, and speaking of that place…
"Naruto, before we head back to the village, do you want to send your shiki-wolves off with what we found in the tunnels?" She asked, interrupting Masami, who was telling Naruto about something or other. It was an entertaining and amusing story if their shared smiles were anything to go by.
"Oh, yeah!" Naruto recalled, a metaphorical exclamation mark appearing above his head as he remembered what they'd left behind. He then reached inside his jacket and pulled out a single pack of shikigami from an inside pocket. Tossing it in front of him, he soon had six pure black wolves, each the size of a large horse waiting for his instructions.
Pulling his pack off his back, Naruto took out the large sheet of waterproof canvas he used for a tent, as well as several coils of rope – you could never have too much rope! - before he ordered his shiki into the cave and told them to retrieve the items they'd left behind within.
One after the other, as they were too large to walk side by side in the tunnels, the shikigami went in and retrieved what they'd been ordered to get. When they had done that, Naruto tied it all up into a single package, tied as tightly as he could make it, which was then tied onto the back of one of the wolves.
"Now, as fast as you can, please take all of this back to my home. Do be careful not to drop or damage any of it though." Naruto commanded them. "Two wolves will be going with this one to protect it, though I'd prefer you avoid human contact completely if you can. The other three wolves… there's a demon somewhere nearby, see what you can sniff out, but stay out of sight of the villagers. Is this all understood?"
The six wolves all nodded their heads, before the one carrying the 'loot' from the cave sped off to the east, flanked by two more of the wolves. The remaining three shikigami separated and headed towards the village, seemingly blending into the shadows like true predators on the hunt, despite their great size.
"Are we heading back to the blonde girl now?" Tsurara asked.
"She's twenty, hardly a 'girl'." Naruto said. "But yes, I think we should. We've gotten some information here, and while I'm on this mission – officially or not – Yugito is kind of my teammate. I'm not going to hide anything from her that might get her hurt."
Benio gave Naruto a look, before getting his attention by placing both her hands on his shoulders and facing him head on. "Be careful, Naruto. I know you've been sending each other letters for a while now, but she has neither earned nor demonstrated any great level of trust. Don't push her away or become suspicious for no reason, but make sure you're careful, okay? You don't know Yugito well enough to drop your guard around her."
"I'll be careful." Naruto promised.
"Good, that's all I ask." Benio smirked at the blonde.
xxxxx
Power! It Came Back! But Broken. Enemy Destroying Thralls! Old Forgotten Thralls! Enemy Is Stealing Treasures! Yellow One Is Enemy! Yellow One Is A Threat! Can't Run Though. Enemy's Shadow Thralls Hunting For It. Enemy Is Great Threat!
Threat Must Be Eliminated.
xxxxx
The shiki-wolves had much better senses than a human did, much like the creatures they were based off. While they couldn't 'home in' on chakra, reiryoku, or anything like that unless they were specifically designed to do so, they could track through more mundane methods, with sight, sound, and smell.
The flesh beast wasn't truly alive, and so it should smell of death, rot, and decay. All the wolves needed to do was find a living person who didn't smell fully alive. That wasn't as easy as it sounded though, especially if they had to keep out of the regular humans.
To counter this, instead of looking for something that smelled bad, they looked for what smelled normal. Rather than tracking this scent though, they memorised where it was coming from, and ignored it. In essence, instead of searching for a single positive result, they were eliminating all of the negatives, until only one remained.
One of the wolves approached the village from the south, while the other two took the east and west approach. The cave was to the north, where their creator and his youkai companions were, meaning they had the four cardinal directions covered.
Stealthily, the massive canine crept forwards, its body moving in ways something with a skeleton and defined muscle structure should not be able to, as it managed to avoid detection. It came near the first home, and quickly scented around the windows and doorways, before moving onto the next one when it found nothing out of the ordinary.
It would keep doing this, working systematically, until it was either finished or its creator gave it a new task. That was what a shikigami was supposed to do, and Naruto had plenty of practise making and directing them. In fact, he'd made it a habit to spend ten minutes each night before bed making fresh shiki.
As Naruto could neatly scribble out one shiki formula every eight seconds – due to a hefty amount of practice – that meant he made roughly seventy five shikigami every night, even more when he went over his ten minutes of self-allotted time as he sometimes did.
This meant he had a lot practice, and therefore his shikigami were quite high quality. This resulted in improved speed, strength, durability, and above all… intelligence! So, of course, the wolf noticed when one particular villager seemed to be in a bit more of a hurry than the others, as well as the way he was trying to covertly look around at everything at once.
The wolf made this human a priority, and immediately began to stalk him.
xxxxx
Can Feel Shadow Thrall. It's Behind Me! Where!? Where Is It!? Can't See It, Only Sense It! Must Get Back! Must Wake It Up. It's Not Finished. It Will Have To Do. Work As Distraction While I Escape. Must Get Away. Yellow One Too Big Of A Threat To Try And Hide.
As quickly as it could, without appearing too rushed to the humans around it, the flesh beast in its meat suit made its way, surprisingly to some, towards the centre of the village as opposed to the outskirts. Who would look in the middle of the village for a threat that they thought came from the outside after all? Who would think to look in the old storage area beneath the town hall where food had been stored before the newer granaries had been built?
It only took the flesh beast a handful of minutes to reach the middle of the village, and in that time it had sensed two more of Naruto's shiki come near, before one of them left for somewhere else. It was also unable to miss the fact that Naruto himself, the 'yellow one', had started heading in its direction as well, along with the other powerful presences it knew were about the place.
xxxxx
Yugito wasn't caught completely unaware when one of Naruto's shiki appeared right in front of her. Being a skilled jounin of Kumo meant that she wasn't some oblivious idiot. Still, there was just something about a massive wolf large enough to look down at you that made even the strongest of beings reflexively swallow.
Of course, once she'd gotten over her mild surprise at seeing the creature, and realising that it wasn't the demon she was here to deal with, interpreting what it wanted was fairly simple. It quite obviously wanted her to follow it, and when asked whether it belonged to Naruto, it nodded its head.
With that out of the way, and with the knowledge that Naruto would have come himself if there wasn't something else that required his attention, Yugito followed after the massive wolf as it led her… towards the more populated areas of the village?
Then again, more people around meant more potential victims and more hiding places as well, so it did make some sense for the demon to hide there. She really should have thought of that before now, but with all of the victims so far being found on the northern edge of the village, she'd fallen into the trap of thinking that a 'dumb beast' wouldn't leave a false trail.
She shifted her attention to the massive wolf she was following, mentally noting it down as one more of Naruto's techniques, and quite an impressive one at that. She didn't know what it was, but it was most likely some form of ninjutsu, and probably based off of a solid clone as well.
It appeared to possess a human-like intelligence, being capable of understanding her questions and responding, and making excellent use of cover and shadows to remain unnoticed by the regular people of the village. In fact, all of their attention was on the kunoichi running down the street rather than the massive black wolf that alternately ran along rooftops and behind bushes.
Yugito's attention shifted once again as she felt something akin to a genjutsu nudge at her mind. It was like a little voice in her ear whispering 'there's nothing to see here', 'turn around, you forgot about something elsewhere', and 'leave this place now'.
She could clearly see that the civilians around her were responding to this mental command, some more easily than others though. A pair of women walked by her, and she could hear then talking about how they really should check out that new shop on the southern side of the village. Soon after, a well-built man walked the same way they did, mumbling underneath his breath about how he just 'knew' he'd forgotten something, but couldn't remember exactly what.
She mentally added genjutsu to his list of skills, unaware that it was actually Benio who had cast the diversionary spell.
xxxxx
Isobu caught onto the movement around the village at the same time Naruto did. In fact, it was because he was linked to the blonde that he noticed it. He picked up on Naruto's mood change when the young boy realised that his shiki had started acting in concert with one another to surround one particular area of the village, and most likely one particular individual as well.
Making his way towards where the shiki were stalking what was probably the demon – and moving much faster than people would expect a turtle to be capable of going – Isobu quickly reached a place that resembled a ghost town, mostly because there was no one on the streets and no signs of anyone being indoors either.
It was only a moment later that the turtle saw one of Naruto's shiki-wolves walking down the middle of the street, doing nothing to try and hide itself. Then again, given how deserted the place was, there didn't appear to be anyone to hide from.
With a quick blast of water, Isobu launched himself into the air and landed on the wolf's back. Not stopping or slowing down, the black beast kept going towards its destination, carrying Isobu with it. The turtle took this opportunity to go over what power he currently had in his reduced form.
He could use blasts of water, and while it wasn't of the same quantity as his full-sized form, he could still pressurise it enough to cut through steel if he needed to. Most people thought of water as doing blunt, impact damage, but nowhere was there a rule saying that water couldn't be sharp.
His coral would be pretty useless though, as while he could produce it, he needed access to more power if he was going to make it strong enough to be worth a damn in a fight. Making coral like that would also tip people off that he was more than just an ordinary 'ninja trained' turtle as well. Water was understandable, coral wasn't.
A loud noise from up ahead drew his attention and brought an end to his contemplation.
xxxxx
Naruto was closer to the disturbance than Isobu was, which let him and the others with him see exactly what was happening. The problem was… it was very hard to understand or describe just what it was he was looking at, it being too surreal to really be put into words.
Bursting up through the ground was some sort of strange… creature? That was the best description that Naruto could give it, as it seemed to be a mass of arms, legs, torsos and so on all sort of merged together. Arms and legs seemed to be wrapped together like individual muscles to form limbs themselves, and the bodies seemed haphazardly combined to make something that writhed and wriggled like some demented form of spider and slug hybrid.
"Naruto, is that the demon!?" A yell from Yugito coming from another direction made the blonde boy snap up to look at her.
"No, it's not." He called back. "I think the flesh beast did create it though, you can see the different corpses it's stitched together to make it."
"So it needs to be destroyed then?" She asked him.
"Yes, it does." Naruto agreed, before raising his hand and forming the largest fireball he could.
Flinging it at the creature, Naruto immediately used hirenkyaku to flash to another place and throw another fireball at the abomination in front of him, and then repeating his actions again and again.
It roared in pain as the fireballs sizzled against its flesh, but while they hurt the creature, they didn't do any lasting damage. It regenerated almost faster than the damage was done, and while they could keep going until its reserves were ran dry, there was no telling just how much collateral damage the thing would cause before it was brought down.
Already, simply breaking out from underground had caused some of the nearby buildings to sink slightly.
Switching to lightning javelins, Naruto began trying to pin the large beast in place so that Yugito could destroy it, hopefully with a powerful enough fire technique to stop it getting back up again. He threw his javelins at the waving tentacles of the creature, formed from the limbs of the flesh beast's dead victims, and watched as it shrieked in agony in response.
Yugito, for her part, was quite interested in what she could see. Naruto was using no hand signs to use his techniques, and he was throwing them out in rapid succession, seemingly with no thought to potential chakra exhaustion. Then again, the techniques seemed simple and not very powerful, likely meaning they didn't take much chakra to use.
She waited for an opportunity to burn the entire beast, keeping an eye on how things were going. Naruto's black wolves were tearing into it with their fangs and claws, ripping off chunks of dead flesh. The turtle was slicing off bits of the thing with highly pressurised jets of water, and Naruto himself seemed to be testing out a variety of basic techniques on the flailing beast.
He seemed to favour fire and lightning, but he'd also tossed a discus of wind at one point that she'd seen, and he'd scribbled off some sort of seal on a bit of paper before adding that to the mix, resulting in a small explosion as well.
She wasn't standing there and doing nothing herself though, even if she wasn't trying particularly hard to fight this thing. As terrifying as it no doubt looked to a civilian, it was far too slow to be a threat to her, and while its regeneration was annoying, it would be beaten down eventually.
She grimaced in disgust as a mouth opened up on its body and vomited some foul substance at her, which she dodged. The fact the regurgitated puddle began hissing and steaming as soon as it hit the ground made her quite glad that she hadn't tried to test out that attack and had dodged it instead.
Looking at all of the bits cut off, Yugito had to wonder though…
"Just how much will this keep regenerating?" She asked Naruto.
"I don't know." He replied. "The more power it has, the longer it can keep going. I'd have thought the flesh beast would have kept most of its power to itself rather than give it all to its creation though. This is more than I expected."
With that, Naruto leapt into the air, where he stopped, apparently standing on nothing. A black bow then appeared in his left hand, and an arrow of lightning appeared on the string, which he promptly loosed straight down at the creature. However, as soon as it left his bow, he drew it again and fired another arrow, and then another, and another, and another.
Yugito watched as the abomination was quickly riddled with several dozen lightning arrows, none of which looked like they'd be dissipating any time soon. With it now pinned and unable to move, Yugito jumped on top of a building as well, running through hand signs and calling out a jutsu.
When she did that, a great blaze of blue coloured fire poured out of her mouth and engulfed the abomination completely, thankfully not reaching the houses on either side of the road.
It was a morbid and unpleasant sight, the pinned creatures flesh simultaneously burning away and regenerating, neither one seemingly being able to overpower the other. It took several moments, but the regeneration began to slow down and the fire overtook it, burning the creature up almost completely, leaving some rather nasty remains in its place.
Once the creature had been defeated though, Naruto quickly made his way to the hole in the ground it had come from, and after creating a floating light, descended into the darkness. Yugito was only a moment behind him, and what she saw down there was perhaps even more disgusting than the creature she'd just killed.
"Well, we can see why the flesh beast wanted those reproductive organs now." Naruto mumbled, though he looked rather queasy as he said that.
"What… is this?" Yugito wondered in horror.
"A nest." Naruto told her. "A breeding ground for creatures like the one we just destroyed." He told her, looking around.
Everywhere they could see, there were fleshy masses that wriggled and writhed all over each other. The most noticeable thing about them, and the only consistent thing as well, were the reproductive organs that were on display, and fleshy sacks that had things growing in them, each silhouette being different and equally as horrifying as the abomination they'd just stopped above.
Fireballs began to appear and circle Naruto, before he sent them out to burn away all of the unborn abominations in this underground storage room. He'd feel some level of pity for them, but if they were anything like the undead he'd faced back the tunnels, they had no true intelligence or will of their own, being nothing more than fleshy puppets animated by the flesh beast that had created them.
That did not make the screams of the dying any easier to bear though, even if he did try and kill them as quickly and painlessly as he could.
xxxxx
On the outskirts of the village, the flesh beast inhabiting the body of its latest victim hurried away from its lair. It was angry that its newest experiment had been killed so easily, and even more so when it felt its breeding den being destroyed, but it had escaped and that was what was important.
Oh, the yellow ones would pay for what they'd done! They'd become his toys, and he'd play with them, or maybe even eat them! Oh yes, the littler blonde had smelled of power, lots of it, and the bigger blonde had smelled quite tasty too, but that would be another time. First, it needed to get away and start a new hive somewhere else, somwh- oof!
"Where do you think you're going, little demon?" A voice asked, making the flesh beast look up to see what it had run into.
A large, white canine with a red design of some sort on its head looked back. Madara glared down at the weakling that was trying to run away from the village, a place he could smell Naruto's scent coming from.
"Got to get away!" The demon gibbered. "Got to be safe! Revenge on the yellow one coming!" It yelled almost incoherently.
"Yellow one?" Madara muttered, knowing that Naruto was blonde-haired. "I don't think so, little demon. How about you and I… become more acquainted with one another?"
It looked up into Madara's open mouth, and a moment later…
It knew no more.