Chapter 6 - Akado Yoroi
"…Now let me introduce you to my Chakra stealing technique."
Naruto cursed, and tried to turn round, but the ninja now had one hand round his neck in a headlock, and the other holding a Kunai to his back.
"Don't move, and you'll live. I won't take enough to kill you, just leave you unconscious, so don't struggle." The man hissed in his ear.
Naruto groaned to himself. He'd used a lot of Chakra taking down the other guy, and even if he escaped now, he wouldn't have enough to challenge this one. First things first though, how was he going to get away. Using his diminishing reserves, Naruto pushed as much as he could out of his chakra release points on his back. He twisted round to punch the ninja in the face, and as he suspected he didn't wait, and went to stab him in the back, however the Kunai was stopped inches from his skin by the blue wall of chakra he had build up.
He quickly bit down on the nin's arm, his elongated canines sinking into the arm. Naruto felt the grip around his throat loosen slightly, and he was able to slip out of the choke hold, and jump back a few meters.
"I wasn't expecting that, but I've already taken too much for you to be able to fight me."
Naruto could see he was right, but chose to try and delay so he could come up with a plan. "What does Orochimaru want me for?"
"You'll find out soon enough." The man growled, and continued walking forward towards Naruto.
"What, you don't know? What sort of useless spy are you?"
"Such an arrogant little boy, Lord Orochimaru doesn't want you, he wants what's in your belly."
Naruto wasn't listening to the spy though; instead he was listening to a different voice.
'Let him touch you again.'
'But.'
'Just do it.'
'Alright' "I want to meet this Lord guy, maybe we can come to some sort of agreement."
The spy didn't believe his ears, and looked at Naruto like he was crazy. "You what?"
"I want you to take me to Orochimaru. It shouldn't be that difficult to understand."Naruto said again impatiently.
"OK, drop your weapons and come over here then." Naruto did as he asked, and felt the man touch his skin again, and his chakra begin to leave him again, however this time it felt a bit different, like it didn't want to leave.
Suddenly the man fell to the floor. His eyes turned red, and he started to trash around wildly, red sparks flying off his body, before after a little while he slowed down and stopped, laying still on the ground.
'What did you do to him?' Naruto asking incredulously.
'Fed him some of my Chakra.' Kyuubi panted, 'This is what would've happened if the fourth hadn't sealed me in a new born baby like you. You've grown up with my chakra, so you can stand it, and control some, however to everyone else, it's poison.'
'Cool, thanks for saving me'
'That's alright, I guess I owe it to you. Forcing that chakra into your system has knackered me, it's going to take a while for me to get partially thought the seal anytime soon, so you'll be on your own.'
'OK, have a good time.'
'Yeah, something like that.' She muttered, so Naruto could only just hear. 'Remember to train, and I'll give you some interesting stuff when we next see each other. I think it's time for you to leave Konoha soon. That was only two people, there will probably be another member somewhere, so watch out. Good luck.' And with that she was gone.
Naruto frowned, and gradually got up looking around him. Weapons littered the ground, with a lot of blood surrounding the two dead bodies. Naruto quickly checked their pulse to make sure, then collected any decent looking weapons, sealed them in a scroll, and made his way back to the temporary base he had set up for himself.
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Naruto made it back to his apartment, and started planning for the next day. He'd sealed anything of value in scrolls, and left them in a hiding place a few miles out of Konoha. He was going to head in the general direction of wave country however ever since he and his team had saved wave, the country always went to Konoha to get it's missions, so the place would be crawling with Konoha Shinobi. There were however lots of small nations without a Shinobi village in that area, so he wouldn't have to worry too much about where he was going, more of how he was going to get there, and what he was going to do when he left.
He'd decided that since he wouldn't have another sensei apart from Kyuubi who didn't know many human techniques, he would have to borrow a few things before he went. Naruto hadn't had time to look at any other techniques on the secret scroll before Mizuki had found him, however he had flipped though, and thought at the tome some of them looked interesting. That would be a good place to start, however there were only a maximum of twenty techniques on that scroll.
He debated for a minute or two, if he stole the scroll, then he'd become a missing nin, in fact if he left anyhow, he'd still become a missing nin, whichever way you looked at it, he was still an active member of the Konoha Shinobi force…
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"Danzu, come in quickly, or Sarutobi will be onto us." A black door in a back ally opened, and the man was quickly ushered inside before the door slammed shut.
"Of course, Councillor-sama, I trust everything went as planned, when I met the old man a few hours ago he looked quite unhappy about something."
"Of course, but as you said there was nothing he could do. The Kyuubi brat isn't going anywhere, and we've got him angry enough." Honoma said looking at the bandage-wrapped man, only illuminated by the lone candle burning in the small room.
"The person we were looking for is coming tomorrow, we can lay the trap then. He says it will be possible, but the transition must be complete up to two tails before we do anything. Sai, keep a close eye on the target, we don't want him slipping off."
The two elders gasped as the slender boy appeared from the dark, brushed past them, and left though the door they came in through. "Are you sure he won't give us away?" Koharu asked nervously, glancing back at Danzu to see him grinning smugly.
"My men are emotionless, they live to serve me, and my plans. The old fool was wise to break up my division, however he could never truly stomp us out. Sai is my number one servant. He's young so no-one suspects him. He was recently keeping an eye on the Uchiha before he left. On that subject, I have a Root team following him, when do you think you'll be ready?"
"We're looking for willing volunteers to bear his children currently. A few decided to start blabbing though, so we had to kill them, and pause for a few weeks to stop the Hokage becoming suspicious, but I'd say we'll have ten by the end of next week." Koharu said, smiling at the prospect of having Konoha's most famous clan be restored.
"Excellent. How is Kakashi and his team doing. Konohamuru will be having some more private lessons with Ebisu, to make sure he doesn't become too much like Sarutobi."
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Naruto woke the next day, and after a few morning exercises, a shower and breakfast, he made his way to the Hokage office.
"Old man."
"Hello Naruto, how have you been getting on?" The Hokage sat slumped at his desk, and didn't even bother to look up when Naruto entered.
"Tough day eh Jiji?"
"People used to respect the position of Hokage. First the fire lord, and the councillors order me to stop you becoming a proper Shinobi, now if we catch Sasuke, he's going to have to sleep with ten fan girls of his to revive the clan." The old man sighed, and absently span his Hokage hat in his hand.
Naruto couldn't help let out a giggle. "Poor guy, let's hope he doesn't get caught eh?"
"For once, I'm going to have to agree with you. This village's done nothing but worship him ever since the massacre, I don't really blame him wanting to get away from it all. You and him, two very different ends of the spectrum, yet you became friends."
"What…how do you know that?"
The Hokage looked guilty as Naruto stared at him. "The Chrystal ball… I was checking up on you. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone."
"What's this ball?"
The Hokage smiled, and began telling the blond before him:
"Jiji, these nasty men came and tried to get me, I couldn't get away, and they kicked me into a wall, then everything went black, and I woke up in a dustbin."
The old man looked at the four year old Naruto who was covered in cuts and bruises. Seeing nothing serious, the Hokage quickly healed most of them.
"Why do they all hate me?" Naruto asked in such a small pitiful voice the Hokage nearly started crying. He wanted to tell the little boy, but he knew Naruto would be much worse off if he knew he had a giant demon sealed in his stomach. Maybe he could distract him.
"Come and sit on my knew Naruto, and I'll show you a very special item the Hokage get's." He pulled out the Chrystal ball, and began to show Naruto around Konoha from above, looking in on a Jonin training session and a few of the classrooms in the academy. He made sure to keep away from his usual haunts… cough cough hot springs. He knew if he turned Naruto into a pervert, somehow Minato would come back from the grave and haunt him for the rest of his life.
The Hokage ignored the mountain high pile of paperwork sitting on his desk, and spent the rest of the day with Naruto.
The Hokage snapped out of it, and looked at Naruto standing before him. "I didn't mention the bit about the hot springs did I?" He suddenly asked, looking panicky.
"No, but I'm starting to piece a few things together…" Naruto grinned at the horrified look on the face of the village leader.
"Yes well. What did you want Naruto?" The Hokage asked briskly, trying to hide his blush.
"I want to retire. Being a Shinobi is nothing if I can't get promoted, I won't be able to become Hokage, or become an ANBU, and I won't get recognised, so there's nothing left for me."
"I'm so sorry Naruto, to be blunt though retiring isn't that easy. People saw a way round the system a long time ago, and when they wanted to leave for another village they simply retired, and joined another village. You won't be retiring from just this village, but from every Shinobi village there are in the known world. When you retire you can never go back, you'll be stuck as a citizen or mercenary, or whatever for the rest of your life."
"Don't expect people to employ you either. Mercenaries don't get a lot of respect from Missing nin's, or from Bounty collectors either."
"What do you mean, Naruto asked, confused that people who had betrayed their village would reject people who'd run away.
"People who leave normally from a village are often spies trying to catch missing nin's off guard, their names won't appear in the bingo book, so nobody knows if their stories true or not. Also their viewed as cowards, who aren't strong enough to take on the hunter nins."
"So I should run away?"
"Do what you must Naruto, but be careful, the elders are planning something, and Danzu left the country for a few weeks recently. He's back now, so you should be extra careful."
"One last think Jiji, just for the record, seeing as I rescued it from being stolen, where is the secret scroll being kept."
The Hokage smirked, looked around him conspiratorially, and whispered. "I'm afraid I can't tell Genin that all the secret scrolls are found in this office behind that picture over there, and that all it takes is a drop of my blood and a key to open."
Naruto grinned slyly, "Shame, I'd just like to know that Konoha's secrets are safe. I hope you keep the key safe."
"Of course, I usually sleep with it on, however sometimes when I'm really forgetful I leave it in the top draw, along with my Lucky Kunai, that I accidentally stabbed myself with this morning."
"Excellent. I feel safe in the knowledge that no evil people can steal Konoha's secrets." Naruto smiled at the Hokage and got up to leave.
"Naruto, before you go." The blond turned around and looked at the old man, who was looking slightly worried. "You may find some facts that have been hidden from you in there. It was not my intention to keep them from you, I promised not to…" Naruto simply nodded. "Good luck Naruto, and know that Konoha will be a lesser, much more boring place without you."
"Thanks you…Hokage-sama."
AN: If there's any spelling/grammar errors, I'm sorry this was a bit rushed, however I will check over it again in a week or so and make any changes that are needed.
Thanks for the great response to the last chapter. I don't have the time at the moment to answer the reviews, but I'll get round to it eventually.
See ya.