Hola! I be back.
"talking"
thoughts
"Kyuubi, Kurobi, demonic Kiri talking"
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Chapter 6
Kiri opened her eyes on to a wet, dripping sewer.
THIS is Naruto's mind scape! I'm surprised he's not suicidal. This place is completely and utterly depressing! Oops.
Kiri jumped to her feet and banged her head on the low ceiling which made a metallic thunk. She shook her head to try and clear away the pretty lights flying in front of her eyes and looked around to find her demon friend. What she saw was quite humorous. The sewer hallway type area was only a little over six feet tall and her seven food furry mentor was a little bit, well, squished. He was crouching in front of her so that only his head brushed the ceiling and trying to keep as much of him out of the two inch stream of water slowly flowing down the hall at the same time, which resulted in a position that looked like he was trying to tiptoe.
"Kurobi, its only water. Not that I usually like water, but seriously, it's not even deep enough to blow bubbles in. Come on, it's not that bad. Let's find Naruto." She said giggling. She tried to turn around in the narrow hallway and came to an unfortunate conclusion. It was too narrow for her to turn around. She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Okay, I guess I'll have to go butt first." She sighed. Kurobi started chuckling at the image of her friend running down the wet halls only to encounter a huge tiger butt.
"Hey, what's so funny?" She asked confused. Kurobi stifled his laughter and shook his head. He hoped they would meet up with the fox kid. Who said demons had no sense of humor.
Kiri shrugged and started backing down the long hall, ignoring any of the side passages branching out from the main hall, they were even smaller and she had no intention of getting stuck in a hallway in someone else's mindscape. That would be embarrassing if Naruto found her and had to pull her out. The light was quite dim and seemed to be emanating from the floor, making it ripple and dance in a weird, disconcerting way. Luckily the main hall didn't turn much so she only hit her butt occasionally on the walls. Kurobi followed her, luckily for him, facing forward and listened for any sign that they were closer to Naruto.
"Wait, down that way. " He said, indicating a slightly larger passage on the left. "I can hear him. He's just a little ways down." Kiri nodded and backed past the opening so she could walk through head first. Kurobi started to follow, but decided against it. Instead he closed his eyes and returned to Kiri's mindscape where he could watch the show from her perspective. He would wait to confront the Kyuubi until the right moment. He was her superior in raw power as the most powerful bijuu, but the two tended to get into loud violent arguments occasionally. It was all fun and games, but having two demons play fighting in one's mindscape probably wouldn't be comfortable.
Kiri looked around and found herself in a large chamber. It was big enough that she could move around comfortably and the ceiling was considerably higher. There was still the constant trickle of water and glowing floor, though it seemed slightly brighter. The far wall, though, was taken up for the most part by large cage doors, held shut by a small, complex looking seal.
Naruto stood off to the side, carefully giving the cage a healthy distance, leaning on the right wall. When Kiri entered, he was completely taken off guard and jumped before eyeing the giant tiger carefully. He knew that Akiri's demon was the twelve tailed tiger, but what was a one tailed tiger doing here? He had never seen a tiger that was black with silver stripes either, but for some reason it looked familiar. How a giant tiger could look familiar was beyond him, but then it turned and he saw its eyes. They were the same electric blue that Kiri's were. Then it started talking and there was no doubt left in his mind that it was somehow Kiri.
"Naruto? What's with your mindscape? Are you depressed? Kurobi had to practically crawl through the hallways! It was hilarious. Plus he was practically tip-toeing through the water. I'm soooo glad this room is bigger, I couldn't turn around I had to walk backwards down the hallways! I'm glad you got here before us or you might have run smack into my butt, I didn't have a clue where I was going. Where's Kyuubi? Is she supposed to be behind those doors?" she said in one long breath. Naruto grinned at the stream of inquiries. And she said he asked a lot of questions, ha.
"Yeah, she's in there, but I don't know why she's not coming. Usually by now she's made an appearance." He replied.
Kiri puzzled over it, but her answer appeared before she could figure it out. The Kyuubi no Kitsune stood before the bars of her cage. Her fur was a blood red and her ears and the nine tails that fanned out behind her were all tipped in black. She was only as tall as Kiri, though she seemed smaller because she was lither than Kiri's solid, muscled form. Kyuubi was obviously built more for speed than strength, as all foxes were. Her red eyes glared out at the one (currently) human in the chamber, Naruto.
"What do you want boy?" Her voice was low and growling asshe spat out the last word like it was poison. "Make it quick, before I lose the entire miniscule amount of patience I have for you. I swear on my grave that I will find a way out of here and when I do, hehehe, the first thing I shall do is to kill you and then the rest of that disgusting village you call Konoha! "
Kiri finally had enough of the fox's threats and walked up to the bars, growling under her breath and killing intent pouring off her body like heat waves. No one was allowed to threaten her friends like that.
"Fox, you go too far. Explain yourself immediately. There is no reason to treat your container like this. If I am not satisfied with your reasons or your apology, you can be sure I will rip you limb from limb for talking like that to my teammate." Kiri growled her voice as demonic as the Kyuubi's. Her tail flicked back and forth and was suddenly joined by a second as her chakra spiked.
The Kyuubi seemed shocked when she looked to the nearly six foot tiger outside her prison, but her snarl remained and she looked not the least bit apologetic.
"Who are you and how dare you order me to do anything. I am the nine tailed fox, cat, and who and why I threaten is my own business. What do you want?" she snarled threateningly. Naruto backed away a few feet. The fox demon's red chakra was starting to creep towards the bars of the cage. Kiri growled and bared her teeth at the fox. Then she paused for a moment and did a complete mood change. She relaxed and stopped growling.
"My name is Gintora Akiri. I am the Jinchuuriki of Kurobi the Juunibi no Tora." She shrank and blurred until she was in her one tailed human form as she spoke. When the change was over, she stood in front of the demon, hands still in the tiger seal and still looking deathly serious. "And I want to know what the hell is going on here."
"YOU!" The fox growled, "Why have you rejoined the living, cousin of a murderer and associate of murderers. I thought I dealt with you and sent you to hell where you belonged."
"You speak of murders and murderers, yet I haven't a clue what you are talking about. If you explain, I shall be happy to do the same." Kiri replied releasing her hold on her demon's chakra, her killing intent and the purple chakra cloak receding into her body. She walked up to the bars of the cage and held out her hand as if to shake the demon's hand. Kyuubi glared at the hand, but decided there was no harm in it. Kurobi's container seemed to be genuine in her lack of knowledge and so far neither she nor the boy had made any indications that they knew what had happened. Now that she thought about it, the blonde one hadn't given any indication of knowing since she had been sealed inside of him. She nodded and decided, shrinking and blurring.
Naruto was in awe as the Kyuubi's body seemed to melt into the form of a human woman. She was almost exactly Kiri's height with blood red hair which was in a loose ponytail that reached down to her lower back (picture Neji's if you poured red paint on his head :) ) and matching colored eyes. She wore a standard issue black jounin outfit with a maroon flak jacket and black, square-toed boots that ended just below her knees. She wore no headband and her right hand was wrapped in bandages. She walked the few feet between her and Kiri's outstretched hand confidently until she was standing right in front of the black haired Jinchuuriki. She stuck out her hand to shake Kiri's, but something flashed from where her hand had tried to reach through the bars and her hand was yanked back suddenly, like she had been burned.
Kyuubi glared at the bars separating her from the others. Something was keeping her from reaching through the bars and whatever it was, it hurt. Her fingers still tingled unpleasantly from the shock the barrier had given her. It was nothing compared to other pain she had endured, but it was still unpleasant. This was extremely vexing, she had been locked in this wet, depressing dump of a mindscape for fifteen years and she couldn't even reach her hands beyond the bars of her cage. She growled with frustration.
Kiri jumped at the sudden flash. Geezes, the Fourth hadn't been messing around when he had sealed the fox away. He had sealed away the Kyuubi's soul so completely that she couldn't put a toe outside her little area of the boy's mind.
Kurobi, she though in a singsong voice, would you like to come out and play now? We have a sealing issue and Kyuubi seems to have calmed down enough to tell us what's going on. Maybe we can change Naruto's mindscape to something more pleasant while we're at it.
"Okay, I guess. Why must you always interrupt my naps, I was just drifting off…"
"JUUNIBI NO TORA, GET YOUR ASS UP AND OUT HERE! THIS IS NO TIME FOR SLEEPING! HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SLEEP SO MUCH? ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT RELATED TO A SLOTH?" Kiri's voice boomed inside her own head. Kurobi snorted and poofed out of her mindscape.
Naruto jumped back as a seven foot tall white tiger appeared in the chamber, twelve tails splayed out behind him. Geeze, how many people could fit in his mind anyway? A giant fox, him, a giant tiger, Kiri… It was starting to get a little crowded.
"And no, there is no possible way I am related to a sloth. Sloths live in trees and eat leaves. I live in your head and eat little annoying kunoichi for breakfast. See? Big difference." Kurobi said. Matching sweat drops appeared on Naruto and Kyuubi's head.
"Why don't we continue this conversation after we fix things up here?" Kiri replied. "I want to sleeeeep."
Kurobi grinned and started to examine the Kyuubi's seal. He hemmed and hawed for a minute before shaking his head.
"Either the Yondaime was paranoid or you really had him scared that you would take over the kid's head, Kyuubi. The seal is extremely specific in its parameters." He informed the red haired woman.
"I don't care what it does, could you just fix it so I can have a decent conversation with these people?" Kyuubi snapped. Kiri hid a giggle behind her hand. It was funny seeing this 'evil demon' being so impatient. Sure she had an attention span of about half a minute, but you would think an immortal, giant fox would learn some patience in the however many thousands of years she had been alive.
Kurobi smirked and sent a small amount of chakra (for him) into the seal and Kiri and Naruto watched while the small black symbols surrounding the seal squirmed and slithered into new shapes that now resembled flames. The tiger demon nodded in satisfaction and then backed away from the cage and turned to the blond ninja.
"Hey blondie, want to change this place up a bit? It's kind of depressing and small. Unless you actually enjoy having a mind full of sewers?" Naruto didn't even need a minute to think it over.
"Yeah! Cool! Um, how do we do that?"
"You just picture it as being different. Pick anything you want."
Naruto thought for a moment, and then grinned mischievously. The sewer around them blurred and froze for a second before settling into a different scene.
Kiri and Naruto's jaws dropped. They were standing in the corner of a large, white, carpeted banquet hall with a large, low, heavy wooden table spanning the length of the room. On that table were (magical fanfare) dozens of bowls of ramen.
Kiri squealed in delight and ran towards the food with open arms like she wanted to hug it. She stopped just before she ran into the table and looked around for chopsticks. Finding none, she simply yelled "Itadakimasu!" and made a pair of metal chopsticks out of one of the links in her chains and started eating like she had been starved for half her life. Naruto had followed closely behind her but, not having incredible abilities to make chopsticks in less than a second, nearly started crying and looked pleadingly at the girl on the opposite side of the table. Kiri looked up long enough from her sixth bowl to notice her teammate's predicament.
"Oh, Kami! Sorry Naruto! Here! This is the most awesome mindscape ever!" she said and quickly produced a pair of chopsticks for him before again digging into the ramen. Naruto smiled in pure bliss and followed his friend's example. Kurobi and Kyuubi just stood and stared at their strange containers who were eating like starving wolves. Kurobi started chuckling at the amusing scene while Kyuubi simply raised an eyebrow.
"Do they always act like this? She was so serious just a minute ago. Now… Are we bound to mentally retarded mortals?" She asked incredulous. Kurobi started laughing outright.
"Yup, they're usually like this. No they're probably not deranged, but sometimes I wonder. Kiri is not exactly the most mature person and it seems like Naruto is almost exactly the same. Sometimes they're so alike it's scary, like they're related or something."
"Are they?"
"Not so far as I know. Most of the Gintora clan was killed in the Shinobi War and Kiri was the last one alive when you attacked." He lay down, more gracefully than you'd expect someone his size to, and crossed one of his paws over the other, laying his head on top of them in order to keep watching their silly containers.
"No, she wasn't." Kyuubi said with an undertone of both sadness and suppressed anger. "There was one more. But they had absolutely nothing in common."
Kurobi was shocked. He had thought that Kiri had told him everything about what had happened before they'd been joined. He knew she trusted him to the moon and back and he reciprocated that. What could have been so secret that she had kept it from even him? He thought back over all the memories she had shown him, trying to figure out what he could have missed. Then he shook his head and forcibly repressed his train of thought. If Kiri had not shown him herself, then there was most likely a very good reason why. She was usually sensible like that. He would wait until she was ready to tell him herself.
Kiri was in ramen heaven, ignoring the depressing aura coming from the corner of the room. If they wanted to be all sad and miserable, that was their choice. She was certainly going to keep having fun. She polished off her seventeenth bowl and lay down on the floor with a contented sigh. She was finally full. Naruto wasn't far behind as he finished his twentieth and joined her with a thud as he flopped ungracefully on his back.
"Ahhhh. That was good!" Naruto exclaimed." Now, what were we supposed to be doing?"
"Oh yeah! Kyuubi!" She yelled across the room. "Front and center! It's story time! Naruto, could you make some chairs or something?"
"Sure!" Naruto said enthusiastically. Now that he knew how to do this it was getting to be pretty fun. The room melted around them and they found themselves in a small apartment that looked suspiciously like his. Various clues included the orange walls, the orange sheets, the fox plushie sitting on his pillow and the huge number of scrolls and ninja equipment stashed in a corner on a small set of wire shelves. There were also some black and white bean bags sitting in the middle of the room, circled around a low table set with bowls of, you guessed it, more ramen, and also some dango for Kiri.
"Yay! There's dango too!" Kiri said happily and collapsed into one of the black poofy bean bags. Naruto sat next to her in a white fuzzy one and Kyuubi took one opposite them.
Kurobi, who could have changed to his human form, decided against it. He wasn't really comfortable with human form, it had been a while since he had used it and he didn't want his fellow demon to see him tripping all over the place over his two legs. So he simple shrank down to the size of a house cat and lay down on Kiri's lap. Kiri petted his head absently while carefully eating a stick of dango. It wasn't ramen, but it was still her second favorite food and she wanted to savor it. It was very good.
"So are you going to start or am I?" Kyuubi asked, wondering how such a skinny girl could eat so much.
"Why don't you so we can go in chronological order." Kiri replied between mouthfuls.
And so I can finish this dango. Either Naruto is an amazing cook or he really knows what good ramen and dango taste like. MMMmmmmmm.
Kyuubi hesitated a second before beginning.
"About a day before I attacked Konoha, I was out hunting. I hadn't been able to find anything suitable, so I returned to my cave early. What I found when I got back will haunt me until the end of the world. My…my kits. They, someone had killed them. All three of them." A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at her knees folded under her. "I exploded. I was so… enraged." She was shaking with the remembered emotions. "I just exploded. Literally. After that, all I could think of was finding who did it so I could kill them in the longest, most painful way possible. So I examined every inch of it, every blood spattered inch. All I could find was a single scent trail of two humans mixed with snake. I tracked it for days. It wound around forever, in circles, over a mountain, and ten times through rivers and streams. Eventually though, it led to a place you all know well the front gate of Konohagakure. Sitting right in front of it, was… It was my little Akaaka's paw. She was my youngest kit, and without a doubt the strongest and happiest of the three. I couldn't help myself. I knew where her killer was and as far as I knew, everyone in the village was aware of what they had done and were protecting them. The rest of it is as you saw it, or learned of it in Naruto's case and I was sealed inside a baby by the Yondaime Hokage." Kiri and Naruto had stopped eating and watched one of the most powerful demons in the world shaking like a leaf as she revealed the horror of what they had not known.
Kurobi's eyes widened when he heard about her kits. Among demons, offspring were rare. The foremost reason being that no other animal of their species was as powerful as they were. Even among the tigers, the most powerful of those gifted with demon powers had only five or six tails. Kyuubi's mate had been an unusually powerful four tailed fox. Plus, the fact that they had had three kits, and then to have all of them killed, brutally, it was horrific. Kiri was shell shocked. Kurobi had told her about how precious cubs were to demons. Naruto was just plain shocked. Then all at once, Kiri and Naruto both came to the same conclusion.
"Orochimaru." Both of them growled. The two demons looked at them. Kiri took the lead.
"The only one who used snake summons regularly in the village of Konoha and still does is Orochimaru, the Sanin and now missing ninja and scorn of Konoha. It has to be." Her teeth were getting longer and purple chakra was leaking from her body. "He was also the one who stole my body from its grave and used it for his experiments. The result, I guess, is me standing here, alive. I suppose someone else might be thankful, but not me. If it had been anyone else, I might have. But to have been brought to life by that snake pedophile, nothing disgusts me. I feel lucky every day that he was not the one to find me that day at the lab." She looked to the fox demon across the table. "We will go after that traitorous bastard. We will bring back Uchiha Sasuke, and they will pay for what they did. I'll gladly leave you to handle Orochimaru, but on one condition. Yakushi Kabuto is mine. He was and is Orochimaru's right hand man and is most likely the person involved. I want to kill him myself." Her offer left no room for argument on the point of her target. The rest of them nodded, curious, but they respected her reasons and didn't pry.
Kiri nodded and calmed down, her teeth and chakra returning to normal. Then she flopped back on the bean bag and gave an enormous yawn.
"Well, now that that's settled, can we all go to sleep? Naruto and Kyuubi, tomorrow we're going to work on merging and then we have to go and find these idiot Akatsuki. We need sleep."
"I know how the merging works, human. The only reason I did not do so is because I refused to share a mind in any way with a person who I thought was aware of my kit's murders and didn't care. I will be able to instruct the kit tomorrow morning. Go ahead and sleep in. We will not need assistance." She said, rising from her bean bag and walking into the next room to the bed. "You are right mortal, it is time to sleep. So skedaddle." She pulled down the sheet and climbed on top, then poofed into a red silk nightgown with a black cartoon fox on the front that was sleeping on a blue pillow with cute blue Z's rising from its mouth.
Kiri, Naruto and Kurobi all stood and exited Naruto's mindscape. Kiri and Naruto opened their eyes to a still dark (thankfully) park. Kiri groaned and flopped out of her sitting position. Meditation always ended with a sore back and cramped legs. Being immobile for too long was definitely bad for her. She looked up at the sky and tried to judge what time it was. She had no luck, so she merely stood and looked to her friend. Apparently he was even more tired in her. He hadn't even been back in the real world for a second before he just lay down and started snoring. Kiri smirked and pressed the record button on a tape recorder. She was going to get revenge for having to carry him back to the inn. He had fallen asleep once before at training and there was no possible way to wake the kid up. He slept like a rock. A very dead rock. She groaned as she easily tossed him over her shoulder. This was going to be awkward to explain to Kakashi, at least the reason why she was carrying a passed out Naruto over her shoulder. He would probably scold her for tiring out her teammate on the night before they had an important mission and he was probably right. Oh well, she still got the tape of Naruto's snoring. It sounded like the kid was trying to mumble and whistle at the same time. She walked slowly back across the street and back up to their rooms at the hotel. No one was still up, thankfully, and she was able to drop a still sleeping knuckle-headed ninja into his bed (Kakashi had left the door unlocked since he hadn't given Naruto a key), before collapsing into her own in the girl's room next door. She briefly noticed that Sakura had finally finished with Kankuro and was asleep on her own bed. That was a good sign, if anything had gone wrong with his treatment, she wouldn't have come here to sleep. So Kankuro had made it. That was good. Then she quickly drifted off to sleep.
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The next morning decided to announce itself way too early in Kiri's opinion. The way it decided to announce itself was even more annoying. She was sleeping peacefully and having a nice dream about fluffy sheep that were somehow purple and made of cotton candy running away from her as she tried to catch them. Then, someone rudely (and stupidly) tried to wake her up and make her return to reality. She did not want to go. Last night had been freezing and she had piled at least four comforters on top of herself. Plus, she was enjoying the purple, edible sheep. The annoying voice was calling her quite loudly now, so she rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head. Aahhhh, peaceful silence.
Kiri's pillow was yanked away and someone flung off her covers. That was the last straw; whoever was ruining her wonderful sleeping time was going to die. She sprung up and summoned a short katana to her hand as she slammed the perpetrator against the wall with the sharp blade to their throat and several kunai floating in mid air in front of several of their vitalorgans. She opened her eyes to glare the person to death and then realized that it wasn't who she thought it was. Kakashi stood wide-eyed against the wall which now had a similar shaped depression in it.
"Umm, Kiri, it's almost noon and the Suna elder who is going to accompany us is ready to go. We're leaving in half an hour. Is this going to be happening every time we try to wake you up?"
Kiri immediately let her teammate go and stepped back, giving an embarrassed laugh.
"You should see my alarm clock. I'll try to restrain myself. You might want to wake me up with a ten foot pole next time though. I don't like waking up. How long do we have?"
"About half an hour, you're the last one up. Sakura and I were up at eight this morning and Naruto was up at nine. What did you tell that boy to do? He was just standing in the middle of the training area for an hour and then his chakra exploded. Maybe you should go check on him."
Kiri nodded. Hopefully nothing too bad had happened. She finally put away her katana and the kunai before shooing Kakashi out of the room so she could take a quick shower.
She emerged ten minutes later from a steamy bathroom with a white fuzzy towel on her head. She had changed into her gear already and walked to the window on the other side of the beds. It was quite hot here; she realized and was a very pleasant change from Konoha's weather. It was nearly a hundred degrees out in the sun and there wasn't a bit of humidity in the air, true desert weather. Kiri loved it, except at night. She hadn't been to Suna before and the nights were as unpleasant for her as the days were joyous. Thank Kami there had been lots of extra blankets kept in the closet. She finished getting ready and packed up her things. As far as she knew, they might not be coming back to this exact inn when the mission was over, so she would have to bring her stuff with her. Luckily, she had brought a sealing scroll and stored most of her stuff like her sleeping bag and clothes in that. She kept out only her weapons and the food she had packed. That done, she could finally go check on Naruto.
She grabbed her gear and took the window exit to the street in front of the inn. Looking around, she realized that she had no idea where the training area was. She sighed in annoyance, but quickly recovered her normal cheer and smiled. Now since she had the excuse, she could explore the village. She hadn't been awake enough to see further than two inches in front of her feet the night before. She turned and sped down the street at top speed, just running for the fun of it. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to see around the street corner and as she turned to the left she ran straight into the boy she was looking for, though the circumstances were rather unexpected. They rolled about and ended up in the middle of the street twenty feet behind where Naruto had been standing with Kiri laying face down in the dirt and Naruto sprawled on top of her.
"Naruto, this. Is. Kind of. Uncomfortable. Could you please. Get your. Ass. Off my. Back." She said, sounding very flattened and winded. This had not gone as planned. She was supposed to find him first, and then tackle him, and then land on top of him. Whyyyyy?
Naruto groaned and rolled off her. Damn that hurt. He was going to have a lump on his head.
"Oh, yay! I found you! Kakashi was worried about something earlier. How did training go? Was Kyuubi a fart face again or was she actually being civil? How far did you get? Do you know who the person is that is traveling with us? Kakashi said she was an elder, why are we taking an old lady? Especially on a mission where we're going to be running after S-class criminals who want to kill us? Did you see where my pack went?" Wow, she was even able to ask questions when she was face down in the dirt after he landed on her. Either some very stupid person had given her sugar or she healed as fast as he did since he had definitely felt one of her ribs crack. It was probably the latter, or a combination of the two. He gave her a hand up and dusted himself off as she did the same. Luckily the street was only occupied by themselves and a few other people so they didn't have to endure too many stares.
"Ummm, I think it's up there." He said pointing to a bag hanging to one of the small shop's roof corner.
"Oh wonderful! It didn't end up in a trash can this time!" she said optimistically. She backed up a few steps before running headlong at the shop's front bar. It was a small sweets shop luckily so she didn't step on any poor customer's food as she jumped onto the counter and then ran straight up the wall to snatch her bag before gracefully flipping and landing on the ground two floors below in a crouch.
"And that was without even a single drop of chakra!" She grinned before politely apologizing to the amused girl at the counter. (AN: Yes, I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 while writing that :) "So, you gonna spill or am I going to have to tickle it out of you." She chuckled at her friend's raised eyebrow.
"No its okay, not necessary." Naruto said worriedly taking a step back. Kiri grinned happily; either option was fine with her. "My training went fine; the Kyuubi has actually been pretty nice since last night's ramen party. She explained the theory of what I had to do to begin merging with her and then I spent a while on actually doing it. It took a while, but I actually was able to merge up to one full tail! It was soooo cool and it didn't even hurt at all. Kyuubi nearly peed her pants when I got it down after only an hour or so! Ha-ha, it was hilarious. What was the other thing you wanted to know?"
"The old lady that we're supposed to be taking on our search and rescue mission? Oops, we'd better get going, we only have ten minutes until we're leaving." Kiri started walking towards the village gate. It was quite a few blocks away so they had better start walking. It was too soon after she got up to start running all over the place. Then again, maybe not. Running would be fun. She gestured at Naruto for him to follow and started running down the middle of the street at full speed, leaving a trail of dust behind her whooping in elation. Naruto followed close behind her despite the fact that he thought it was way too hot to be running at all. It was better to stay with Kiri and be a little tired than to lose her and have to look all over for her. It would delay the mission and plus, the girl had never been here before and would undoubtedly get sidetracked by a shiny object or a candy shop or something.
Kiri was enjoying herself, her last question forgotten as she wound her way around the shops and people crowding the streets. So much so in fact, that she began flipping and cartwheeling just for the fun of it. The warm sun was glorious and they were on their way to rescue the Kazekage from a bunch of homicidal maniacs, life was wonderful. Except for maybe the homicidal part. Maniacs she could deal with, she could probably be classified as one herself depending on who you asked. Thinking along these happy lines, she came to the next car in her train of thought, pranks. She had been too tired to do one yesterday, so today was prime time. She slowed slightly so Naruto could fall in alongside her and reached into her pocket.
"Naruto, I need to give you something! She yelled over the dull roar of the civilians in the marketplace they were passing through. Naruto quirked his head to the side, slightly wary, but put out his hand anyway. Kiri reached out and placed an apple sized, smooth, round ball of copper in his hand. Naruto looked at her quizzically and she motioned that he should put it in his pocket and he carefully slipped it into his kunai holster. They finally got free of the crowded market street and ran the last three blocks to the outer wall. Naruto started to head towards the huge main gate, but Kiri had other ideas. She grabbed him by the arm and jumped as high as she could before pulling off one of her chains and forming it into her circular platform beneath their feet. Naruto was whooping with exhilaration as they rode the saucer through loop-de-loops and flips and whirls over the wall to the spot right outside the gate where the rest of their team and another dot were waiting. Naruto loved the feeling of flying; it was like being totally free of every worry or care as well as gravity. He kept a firm hold on Kiri's other chain though; he did not want to fall off the piece of metal. A drop from this height would be fatal to even the most skilled of ninja. As they spiraled down to meet the ninja dots below them, they both gazed in awe at the view of the desert before them. The dunes of yellow sand stretched out for miles upon miles to meet the western horizon. A small line of green was visible on the eastern horizon where the trees started and the dunes ended. It was so open that they marveled at the size of the blue sky stretching above them, completely cloudless.
We're coming Gaara, and you better be alright when we get there.
Hooray! I finally finished. This one was hard to write, I don't know why. The next one will be posted very soon, I got it all planned out.
Happy Halloween! :D
I really like my Halloween costume this year, I am your death :P It was funny when everyone was freaked out that the quiet blond girl came in with overdone eyeliner, black lipstick, black hair and the Chinese character for death on her forehead. Lol, the Chinese was a joke, it's the language they're forcing us to "learn". ENJOY ALL THE CANDY!! I KNOW I WILL!
See ya soon,
-X-Amira-X-