Darkon: If it's any consolation this chapter while a bit boring does have Idate Morino getting blown up.
Sir: Ahem don't you want to explain to the audience any plans you have later on.
Darkon: Shion, just Shion and I've been playing through Okami again which actually does tie in to my plotline slightly, not to get me wrong but Kaiza of Wave lives but is injured badly and Haku does meet Naruto before Shion but getting Naruto and Shion together in the right place is going to require me to figure how exactly that occurs or I'm going to have to do a amnesia claim because Shion ends up there first and her entire arc story will have been completed without Naruto's interference in Demon Country so they won't exactly be meeting there.
Sir: In other words as long as the characters don't know how they got there and you don't have to either, thus making up a half assed story later to how it happened that they readily agree too without thinking too hard about it.
Darkon: Now what were we talking about because I think I've contracted, um… what were we talking about?
Sir: I'm too late, I'm afraid you've already started.
Darkon: Oh, right we were talking about the chapter title it reminded me so much of 'Snake, Rattle and Roll' from the NES days where you played as red or blue snake to run up a mountain and face the foot king with the cheese moon fight and then licked feet with the power of… what were we talking about.
Sir: We were talking about how you always go off subject when someone tries to get you to focus on a problem.
Darkon: Oh right, about cleaned rats and how good they are after getting cooked over a camp fire.
Sir: I feel like I'm going to be stuck writing this chapter today, I dread the idea of thinking like Darkon, which is far removed from the box so there's nothing left to stand on while I'm stuck in the dark inside it.
Darkon: Yes but how will you get the weasel to accept the carrot as it is not a rabbit so therefore the trap has no effect on ferrets.
Sir: Just start writing already we don't need to listen to any more insane babble from you Darkon.
Chapter 5: Snaked, Rattled and Rolled.
It was by some miraculous amount of fortune that Naruto had; not too long after escaping Asuma's battered team including the Jonin himself because Isaribi could hit really hard despite not having any taijutsu style so even the glancing blows had to sting, found a person who was claiming to be a doctor despite his completely weird appearance and thus Naruto had to create another clone and dispel it as he was led to a large house near the port where they would catch a ship to Tea Country the next day but it was still entrenched in the woods for about a half a mile.
Once he went into the house he saw all manner of medical implements and also training gear and a gym where there was a petite looking seal with a pink fighters headband wrapped around its head leaving two trails streaming down its back as it punched a sand bag that says it weighs five hundred pounds and was held up by four solid metal stands and the bag actually moved with each thrust of a flipper.
"Cesealia please don't break that bag it took me forever to set it up with how much it weighs" The stranger that was claiming to be a doctor had antlers sticking out of his weird hat and had a animal like muzzle with a blue nose not to mention all the brown fur, the white coat was the most normal thing about him, if that wasn't weird the seal named Cesealia turned and bowed to them before waving at the so called doctor happily while barking something unintelligible to Naruto, Viper was asleep in a Naruto clones arms snuggled deeply in his arms smiling in her sleep where she was coiled up and Isaribi was out cold with her injuries still apparent.
"Oh excuse the mess I never expected to see anybody with injuries like your friends, but I must ask where she came from and what species she's of and I might as well check you two out as well but I need place of birth to discern what kind of medical practices I can or can't do" The weird antlered man said as he started setting up a examination table, he was not only a doctor but a veterinarian because he could communicate with other animals which was really useful as he could be a doctor to anyone.
"I was born in Konoha, I guess Isaribi was born in Sea Country and she's human but she had someone doing horrible experiments on her when I found her and well I killed the guy after he turned into a vicious sea monster and before that he tried to drown me in living water, oh and Viper is from Konoha as well or she lived really close to it" The doctors reaction to him being born in Konoha was nothing, the reaction to Isaribi being experimented on caused him to frown and when he looked at the snake and how it was smiling he told Naruto to set Isaribi on the table along with Viper and to come over to the side with him, his clones did just that and dispelled.
"Was the girl or anyone else ever bit by that snake?" Naruto look puzzled that the doctor… oh yeah Viper was of a dangerous species of snake he had to reassure the doctor that she was safe… mostly.
"No, Vipers harmless she was born without fangs and poison glands" The doctor looked relieved for a moment before he went back over to Viper and set her off to the side on a pillow however Viper didn't look so comfortable in her sleep as she frowned slightly at the missing warmth after all she had been sitting on Isaribi's body probably dreaming of Naruto.
"Okay then the situation might be much simpler then I thought, you've recently been in battle with a bunch of ninja am I right? No don't answer I can see the damage already… some is chakra based" Naruto nodded to the doctor and watched as he carefully checked over Isaribi's Injuries and scales, he also took a mild sample of blood that fell freshly out of Isaribi's wounds to study it a bit when the seal came over and barked a question as he was looking down at it through a microscope.
"Yes you might want to set the table for six this is going to be slightly more difficult then I originally thought whoever did this was a mad man but they knew what they were attempting at least, irreversible I'm sad to say and the process damages a chakra network if a human does in fact ever gain access to their chakra and this seems to only work if the chakra is unlocked before the experimentation is done, some of these wounds would be hard to heal except this girl has a slightly higher regeneration rate then humans but it's still not noticeable enough to leave the wounds be, she'll be okay but she'll need some rest and a bit of medication to speed up the process, I'm also assuming she has a transformational ability judging by what was done to her…" After that the doctor moved over to Isaribi and started to patch her up, the Seal went off into presumably the kitchen to make dinner.
"Yeah she can transform into a ultra cool sea serpent creature slightly larger than herself but she still looks relatively the same only more scaly, she also gets a lot faster in water while in that form but she can't transform back to a human without the scales" The doctor just nodded and continued looking over Isaribi and after he was done he set her up in a spare bed in the next room for patients and walked back into the main room.
"Okay I think I'll be able to give her something to make the scales less visible but the medication involved will only make the scales match her skin tone I'm sorry about that I can't work a miracle on the poor girl I'm not exactly a medical ninja you know I am however the greatest normal doctor in the world second only to Tsunade in the healing arts because I don't use ninja healing techniques, now how about I look over your pet snake" As soon as he had said that he saw Naruto frown and glare at him, of course Naruto might laugh about him being normal in any sense of the word.
"She doesn't like being called a pet" The doctor looked at Naruto for a moment before he burst out laughing surprising Naruto.
"Oh, you are so lucky and to think you'd be dead by now if she had her fangs, so why did you kiss her and what force on earth would make you choose one of her species anyway, she's not the likeliest of snakes you would want to make a life bond with, so did it happen on accident or on purpose" Naruto had no clue what the doctor just meant by life bond, but he knew he was going to learn a bit about whatever it was he was posed to know except the fact that Viper was married to him as the snake tells him, he really didn't ask what that marriage entailed because he was to afraid to do so when he got the answer.
"Actually it was both an accident and on purpose, I was trying to find one of her species so I could get a kiss, I didn't know it meant being bit at the time and well…" It was still a touchy subject for Naruto to talk about he never would live down the day he gave Viper that first kiss as she hasn't left his side very much for too long except on the weekends where she would search for information around the village or to track that Kurenai woman she had talked about a lot when Kurenai was actually in the village on a break.
"Well at least she gave you a reason to continue on I guess, I'll just go check over your friend Viper… just so you know she's going to be by your side no matter what happens between you two and will help you in any way possible, I've seen and heard of a few cases of it in my time as a traveler and you better keep her alive because I heard of some of the most disastrous things that could happen to a life bonded partner when the other one dies and I'm not going to be around forever to make sure you live from all your terrible injuries in whatever line of work it is your pursuing to meet up with ninja's so take good care of her hopefully to a point where one of you die a peaceful quiet death or else something bad will always inevitably happen to the other, sorry for keeping you as you might want to go get some rest in the patients quarters and don't worry I work equally well with animals if you can't already tell" With that the doctor went on his chipper way to uncoiling Viper onto the table who mildly struggled in her sleep and started inspecting the snake after a short bit of checking he noticed the snake had internal bleeding some of which was still slightly going and a few blood clots nothing too serious but he would have to fix this or else this snake might be worse off later, also lots of not very visible bruising this snake has taken some heavy blows that reached internally but it was a while ago about under three months so he needed to make sure she got better before she left and he didn't know how long these people were willing to stay here they were obviously on the move, in fact he might even have to leave his house for a while to make sure all three of these people were well on their way.
Naruto slowly went into the patient's room and saw Isaribi wearing bandages she actually needed for once, her breathing was even and she didn't look to be close to death not that she had before but that many cuts actually worried him, he walked over to a empty bed and laid down to close his eyes and think about what the doctor had meant about a life bond, that no matter what Viper would always be there and that was a scary thought for having a kiss happy snake around you for the rest of your life, he gave thought to how the doctor stated that something bad would happen if Viper died a violent death… well maybe the doctor was right and he was pretty sure Viper going on a genjutsu rampage because he died didn't sound so pleasant either and he wasn't sure where he stood with her as he wanted them to be just friends which Naruto would try to assert but Viper seemed to ignore it in kind for being able to get a kiss from him as she was completely obsessed about it, but hey whatever made her happy.
That last line was the kind of thought that made Naruto wonder if he was actually giving into the Vipers constant determination to be near him at all times like a bodyguard only better because she knew when to not be stifling or fussy with him, in fact he knew the doctor was right in saying she gave him a reason to live as when Viper came along he finally had a friend and then there was Isaribi he actually had someone else who cared that was somewhat human and maybe like a sister? Yeah he was better off leaving Konoha or else Isaribi would have been in the hands of that mad man a lot longer, not to mention Viper might have been discovered and killed after the first time because it might not be that purple haired woman that took her back to the forest of death that caught her afterwards.
That thought actually tore at him, he could guess he understood where the doctor was coming from with the life bond thing as long as he keeps telling Viper what was not acceptable behavior which might take a while as getting her to stop kissing him required a ridiculous effort into increasing his dodging skills as Viper was highly flexible and strikes from every angle possible when given the chance and the only reason why she would strike from every angle is obvious… she was a snake after all and she takes her prey when it shows a weakness basically his mouth in a yawning motion.
Later that night they had dinner with a deer man, a literal naval combat seal and a male camel named "eyelashes" that finally showed up from who knows where as they were on an island with no desert and they ate a lot of fish, but man could that seal Cesealia cook as she was obviously really skilled in making fried fish and sushi, not to mention rice and all manner of toppings with lots of vegetables, even Viper enjoyed the food as much as she could gum up and dice with her tongue before swallowing as she had acquired a rather nice sense of taste even if swallowing a whole rat was still fun for her it's taste still paled in comparison to a nice fell off the bone barbeque pork ramen that melted in her mouth.
Before they knew it they were on their way with the deer man doctor leaving the seal and camel behind to watch the house so that he made sure his patients were fine and on that boat to Tea Country the next day wishing them luck, also to tell Naruto to lighten up and Viper that she try holding back on the strenuous activities for a few days and to stop pushing Naruto so much as he'll come around on his own time, which was acceptable advice by both parties.
In the next three days they would be in Tea Country where there was no Konoha presence waiting for them but a team of rain ninja and Aoi Rokushi were, but at the same time Asuma had arrived back in Konoha and the hokage got the medical report on his desk the first day they did.
The hokage knew what the council did was really stupid, if they killed Naruto at any time before he hit twenty the Kyuubi would be free to destroy them all and it had a really good reason too, after all they spent years torturing Naruto effortlessly and the hokage was pretty sure that it wouldn't like Naruto taking all the credit for the near destruction of this village, now everyone and their grandma's was searching for Naruto out of nothing more than sheer curiosity as to why a civilian has been marked so high as a kill order in the bingo book of bounties in fact he heard the ninja village hidden in the clouds sent a special tracker out to retrieve Naruto and has yet to actually get a lead on him but it was only a matter of time, he started going over the medical profiles of his ninja that were injured. (Darkon: assuming that Kyuubi is an evil constantly destructive demon male with no sense of morals)
Shikamaru had the worst damage with his back flayed open by what could only have been a whip and the back of his skull was said to have been slammed into a tree by Naruto when he somehow broke the Nara's vaunted Shadow Possession jutsu and the Nara clan wished to see him when he was better to ask what happened and his mother demanded to be allowed personally get Shikamaru up off of his lazy ass, she was still one fiery kunoichi that went entirely domestic and she still had to be denied outright as her son needed to rest and to wait and see if he could continue being a ninja with the damage that he had incurred on himself with his own jutsu as Naruto was apparently the stronger of the two wills with the kyuubi's backing probably when he garnered control of the jutsu. (Darkon: Kyan had nothing to do with it as she has yet to try anything with Naruto except talk to him and apologize)
Asuma surprisingly was the second worst and that was because every single one of his ribs were cracked slightly whoever hit him had immense strength to do that with one blow by the way the ribs were all bent slightly out of shape, this was not accounting for mention of a sprained ankle and a nearly broke arm with some internal hemorrhaging that wasn't immediately or anywhere near fatal, he should be okay in a few days.
Choji had taken a few vicious hits but his 'sturdiness' is what kept him from being like Shikamaru when he was hit with a hard blunt instrument and struck with a senbon in the wrong spot that diffused one of his expansion jutsu causing him no end of pain when his arm expelled all that chakra and to top it all off he was choked into unconsciousness by what was reported to be a snake wielding a parasol that had to be made of mostly metal to do the damage it had, luckily the senbon used weren't poisonous or else he would have been worse off than Shikamaru, but otherwise his recovery was stated to be solid.
Ino, what could the hokage think about the girl it was obvious the council has dropped the ball on kunoichi training and this was proof enough, she didn't put up much of a fight she spent most of it as a hostage that was shortly released when Naruto made his escape and not only that she didn't follow direct orders to not use her clans jutsu on Naruto it was any luck that Naruto knew of a counter to her clans jutsu in a extreme version of a simple chakra exercise that captured her mind in a bunch of inanimate leaves charged with a lot of chakra, to make sure that the genin didn't learn of Naruto's sealed pariah he would have to spin it as that being one of the many reasons why she was told not to use that particular jutsu otherwise the younger generation might learn about the being that Naruto held and he wouldn't have any reason at all to come back. (Darkon: not that Naruto has a reason right now either)
There was also the fact that Ino couldn't even carry her teammates weight even Shikamaru and she was hardly injured except for a few bruises from being shot up into a bunch of tree branches and then summarily hitting the ground face first, but otherwise the hokage was troubled by the fact that Naruto had counters for two of the clans jutsu and the monster that was reported to take on Asuma was found out to be a girl from Sea Country that had been a test subject of one of Orochimaru's old lairs, but Orochimaru had eventually stopped funding that.
So Naruto either worked for him in destroying the still continuing research facility or the snake that traveled with him was Anko's in the guise of being just a friendly intelligent pet as revenge against one of Orochimaru's hidden operations that was shut down violently which was still a stretch as he had no clue what Naruto was doing or where he was going to, as the spy network lost track of him when he left the island and he could go in any direction from there.
What didn't make sense was that the snake was of a non summon type and a particularly highly poisonous venom, one bite would have killed any one of Asuma's team and if Naruto worked for Orochimaru then the snake wouldn't have held back and Naruto wouldn't have told Shikamaru to get off his lazy ass as stated by the still half cognizant genin, so it had to be Anko, it must have been because he couldn't think of a better answer so he would have to ask her about it later and if it wasn't hers or Orochimaru's…
Then the implications just got a lot stranger and the old man hokage would have to stop thinking like a ninja entirely and come at this from a different angle, while he was doing that he was looking over the sudden rise of ailurophobia cases in some ninja and a sudden instant drop in random ninja and civillians puking up their food at inopportune moments, the hokage had to wonder why he couldn't get a break from all this crap or the fact of Naruto being capable of leveling a installation that Orochimaru had a part in making with an unknown amount of help or the reason why he would in the first place.
Naruto and Isaribi were walking down the street together and neither of them were getting odd looks, at least Isaribi wasn't as Naruto actually got her some clothes over the time they traveled to Tea Country and she apparently liked the color yellow mixed with some purple and the only reason why people were staring at Naruto was because he had on a dark orange jumpsuit which made him stand out some, luckily there weren't any ninja or anyone with the knowledge that Naruto was a wanted person around yet, but that would quickly change.
Viper was bored, she was sitting on the inside of Naruto's jumpsuit and because of how baggy it was nobody would notice her presence, she poked her head slightly out of the jumpsuit to get a good look around at Tea Country who's major export was every kind of tea imaginable and Viper was beginning to get thirsty just looking at all the tea houses in the area and wondered where the registration for the race is and which one of them will actually be racing, they were all pretty good sprinters but she doubted they'd accept a snake as a main racer.
It was because of their attention to their surroundings that when a man a little older then Naruto's age bumped into him then started running, all Naruto and Viper had done was start smiling about it, Isaribi didn't immediately get the joke.
Idate Morino thought to have died in an incident involving his older brother and a ninja known as Aoi Rokusho that betrayed him very much like Naruto was going to be when he was told to steal the forbidden scroll and a special sword that was said to make a technique called the flying thunder god even more powerful was stolen, the scroll was obviously recovered to later be stolen by Naruto but the sword was lost to the defecting ninja Aoi.
Now the young man known as Idate tried to steal from Naruto making a very huge mistake in choosing an obvious looking target thinking it to be some kind of orange wearing idiot and what seemed to be his girlfriend as Isaribi's skin looked mostly normal but if he were to look closely he would have seen that her skin took form in small scale shaped patches, fortunately all their important stuff was sealed away in either Naruto's jacket or Isaribi's clothes, Naruto also had Viper's parasol sealed in his clothes in a easily accessible spot along with his actual wallet.
Isaribi looked to Naruto questioningly as he held up a wallet that he had just stolen as the guy just stole his wallet shaped packet of low yield explosive notes in case of such a thing as it being stolen ever happened he had set it to go off a short while after it was taken; though why he had made a wallet to intentionally be stolen in the first place was odd and Isaribi would probably need an explanation about it later, he just took the money out of the wallet he stole and looked at the name as the thief had left his identification behind.
"Idate Morino? Morino… where have I heard that name before, ah well, it'll come to me and this says that he's from… KONOHA … Viper I need you to go spy on someone for me and see if he's a possible hostile… you know how to find us later right? " Viper stuck her head up in front of Naruto's face smiling and nodding as she discreetly slipped out from the leggings of Naruto's jumpsuit as she had a failure thief to go follow and judging from the explosion he apparently found out that he didn't steal a wallet and was about to find his stolen.
Naruto always wore a shirt, underwear and shorts underneath his jumpsuit otherwise he'd feel rather nervous about having Viper slithering around inside of it and Viper would never bother Naruto's privacy except maybe once or twice since she was just curious that one time, and curiosity killed the cat but nothing was ever said about it killing a snake.
"You know stealing is not nice Naruto, but since he was going to steal from you first and obviously stole your exploding ninja wallet…" Isaribi trailed off thinking Naruto was rather noble in many regards even easily honorable in nature for his chosen profession as he had tried to pay the odd but friendly doctor but they didn't have the kind of money he accepted and he just wrote them off saying he never said anything about getting paid anyway and the experience of meeting Naruto and learning of his predicament was enough payment because it was an interesting story, what would have been a more interesting is the doctors story as to why he was there and looked like he did or why he cuddled the seal like a teddy bear in his sleep as it left a bunch of unanswered questions not to mention the out of place camel, but then again did they really want to know or pry into the nice doctors life.
"Okay, now how about we go use this money to get some tea on this Idate guys tab?" Isaribi smiled at that as she wouldn't say no to a free meal, besides Naruto was her first real friend and he was offering to take her out for tea in a place where it's a major business with all kinds of flavors and not to mention it would give them time to let Viper get whatever information she could from that Idate guy so why not have a snack at the thief's behalf with one of her two best and only friends.
Isaribi didn't know much about the outside world because she spent half her life as a lab subject and thus was just happy to have found some modicum of human normalcy thanks to the oddball doctor making her scales appear skin colored but it was still readily noticeable close up and he managed to not mess up her other form at all in the process which was really neat but she was still saddened that he couldn't fix any of the other problems like her chakra network only working on water based jutsu and sealing because she didn't need control for that, chakra exercises were somewhat hard if they didn't involve water walking which didn't take her any effort to do.
Idate had no clue what happened he was stealing from someone he thought was a grade A plus sucker only to find out what he had stolen was a bunch of active explosive notes in the form of a wallet, the guy even managed to steal his own wallet and that was quite a blow to Idate's meager pride as a thief on the streets as he had once been a ninja and should have noticed when he lost something that belonged to him unless that guy was a ninja himself which couldn't have been true as no self respecting ninja would wear orange not much less his friend wearing the bright yellow and purple kimono though it did make her look nice.
"No ninja would wear those colors… unless they were good enough to get away with it" Idate thought bitterly as he started brushing the blackened charred clothing of soot and slight burn damage still wondering when his own wallet was stolen while also wondering how much skin and hair he just lost to those explosive notes, he got up and started walking back to the house of the family that recently took him in; the Wasabi's, and had yet to notice he was being followed by a slithering low to the ground form who was keeping a good eye on him while trailing off a bit to catch a rat or some other pest to snack on, hey nobody liked those things being around and she was just doing her public service by making them disappear.
Naruto and Isaribi were busy getting their own information such as why the daimyo held the races every four years or so whenever he chose, it was usually between the Wagarashi and the Wasabi family's but anyone could join, but there was a lot of doubt anyone could beat the runners hired by the family's in a speed contest as they were insanely fast and hard to catch on land, one of which was Idate Morino to Naruto's surprise and the other was some random punk named Fukusuke Hikyakuya.
Neither of them seemed too hard to beat by description and they were allowed to have bodyguards during the race but they couldn't help the person race after the checkpoint , Naruto figured he could beat them easily as he had been outracing Anbu who could run pretty damn fast and do the ninja teleport thing long distances for years, so it was no skin off his nose if these two think they can stop the chakra powered exuberance that was the Uzumaki express plus he got a layout for the race and he knew with Isaribi to help him he'd have a huge head start on them unless they were fast enough on foot to catch him before he reached the finish line he would do perfectly fine, now all he had to do was register himself and wait for the race day to come up and then he'd be good for money as he always was good at gambling.
Right now they were both enjoying some of the most simplistic tea they could afford as they had no room to splurge with a party of three mouths; Viper still ate lots of ramen despite everything else she eats, the food was decent and well worth the price as well, but Naruto couldn't help but worry about Viper it was a nagging sense that he wanted her to be around and he quickly squashed it trying not to enjoy spending some time outside of Vipers near constant company but the last three, almost four years of his life with Viper and they hardly ever were separated for any large amount of time but he knew Viper could take care of herself and she would find him eventually as she had his particular scent permanently etched into her tongue after one of the many occasions when she would just lick him or kiss him more innocently on the cheek which was a rare occasion as Viper was usually to pardon the pun 'an animal' when it came to lip locking.
After they finished lunch Naruto decided that he should get registered for the race and place a huge bet that he would win, his plan as with an as early lead as he was going to get he could make clones on the run to lay down an endless line of traps in the other runners paths and they'd be the mostly harmless gag traps that Nauto liked to make that were more for stalling then they were for damage if he seriously wanted to kill someone by now he would have done so on purpose, not counting Amachi of course.
He was promptly laughed at by more than a few civilians who no matter the training couldn't keep up with the fast paced running set by the two family's runners, but that was just about all they were good at is running and maybe a bit of boating as they did have to traverse the sea to get to the checkpoint, maybe Idate had some combat experience.
"Laugh all you want but I plan on winning this thing and my body guard will see me through from any malicious actions taken against us" Blushing Isaribi knew Naruto believed in her and she knew even more that she'd be far faster than a boat can sail even with the wind on their sides she was sure she could give Naruto an advantage even if he couldn't outrace the two people he was remarkably resourceful and cunning, but mostly Viper could be the biggest advantage they had if they knew what she was going to be doing during the race, she could hide in Naruto's jumpsuit, wait at the finish line to stall the opponents or any number of things like going to ahead through the race course early and laying some of her own snake themed traps from helping Naruto in prank making.
"You've got some balls kid I'll give you that and if you can win this then I'm putting up five percent of the Wasabi families earnings for a month that is if you can beat my racer" The clan head man from the Wasabi clan was followed by another recognized as the Wagarashi clan head who not to be out done made a boastful gesture.
"That's all, what are you afraid of Wasabi I'm willing to stake ten percent of my families money we earn in two months time" After that Naruto smiled cheekily to both the men who watched him sign up for the race with the girl that didn't look much like a bodyguard at his side, he seemed to be a complete idiot to the two gentlemen.
"I'll hold you two to that and I hope the daimyo of Tea Country will as well" Naruto said cheerily and walked off, he had several days to prepare for the race and he also was going to get some training in, he was going to find out what his elemental nature was as he readily knows Isaribi's, giving him the idea to look up his in the first place and he'd guess Viper would want to learn hers as well given that she would want to have some form of ninjutsu even if it's not very powerful in her tail it'd still be useful if she ever gained even some ninjutsu proficiency, as a ninja needed to be good in all aspects and not just their chosen main focus which is why he was trying so hard to get better in using his instinctive taijutsu as he couldn't be subtle or controlled enough to even perform a genjutsu.(Sir note: Viper has no hands, thus not powerful in her tail)
Meanwhile across town Viper had trailed Idate and had finally come to the conclusion that either Idate was a deserter or a missing ninja that was thought to be dead or else he would have been caught by now as his stealth sucked and he didn't appear to be jumpy or acting like a ninja in the slightest but he did notice a genjutsu she cast in his direction and she was sure of the fact that he was a ninja, because he became panicky and was looking around all over the place but seeing as no one was attacking him he wrote it off as someone playing a trick on him as there was no one around him that seemed remotely capable of using a genjutsu, the only thing he noticed was a snake that seemed to be minding its own business and munching on a roach which was slightly odd as he could have sworn he's seen that type of snake before.
Viper knew that Idate was highly alerted by her use of the Fake Genjutsu genjutsu, it was a technique that made a person think they were put under a genjutsu for a few seconds which was the entire point in the first place because they were just one with little to no effect that a person knows they were but not the effects and thus this jutsu tends to cause paranoia in the target and on the right target a severe nervous breakdown, Viper could have sworn she knew why Morino sounded like an important name but she couldn't exactly focus on it right now but it did occur to her later though why it was familiar.
Idate had shrugged it off too easily causing Viper to get miffed and continue following him, until she was grabbed by the neck of someone who was just talking about scaring the Wasabi families runner silly which Viper had no part in knowing that they meant Idate until after this brief incident and they actually got it into their heads that throwing a 'maybe' poisonous snake at him would cause him to skip out on the race which didn't work all too well after it all played out.
One of the two men from the Wagarashi clan called out to Idate causing to spin around, Viper was hurled at him by the guy after something was said and just as she was about to beat the tar out of the idiot that would dare pick her up in such a undignified manner, when she slammed into Idate he fell on his back and began to panic that was until Viper who was definitely not a happy snake by this point slithered off of him and shot at the two men in a lunge and what followed was something Idate would forever remember and he silently swore to himself that he would never ever piss off any wildlife like those two bozo's obviously just did.
Viper rapidly wrapped her upper body around the left arm of the guy that threw her and grabbed his friends right arm wrapping it with her tail and with a tight pull of the muscles in her body they both slammed into each other face first, she unraveled her tail and then quickly got it around the guys left leg and with a pressure point tap from her tail and a lift the friend of the snake throwing guy got kneed and hard where the sun didn't shine while she move her upper body to swing the man's arm into his friends stomach causing them both to go down.
She quickly got off them and faced toward them as they slowly got back up from the sudden onset of pain the one that didn't take a large blow to the nuts or was a total jerk that threw here was getting up faster, she was prepping her favorite taijutsu movements from her Living Whip taijutsu, it was a rapid flurry of painful deep gash digging whip and pressure point strikes to cause paralysis and immense pain that a person couldn't scream about as their jaws were locked in a closed position and there was also a pressure point for keeping a person awake through it, it usually wore off after five minutes but it was never a good idea to piss off a genjutsu user that can make it seem like it lasted for a lot longer than that and these weren't ninja so shrugging it off wasn't possible.
She bound forward and brought her entire body to bear over her head and then let loose a storm of pain on the two men in the form of a rapid cracking sounds that sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off in a display of agility slamming her tail rapidly into her two targets at a frantic pace that would tire her out in a few seconds, Idate and a crowd of people just came to watch the two Wagarashi clan members getting beat up by a snake and they were all rooting for her too as the Wagarashi clan was not the most well liked clan in the world, having rumored to have ties to bandits and the like not that the Wasabi clan didn't, but those bandits were far more lethal and more twisted then anything the Wasabi clans hidden ties would do.
Looking at the crowd she suddenly had while breathing a tad harder than normal, Viper sweat dropped but decided to play it off as a trick of everybody's minds and disappear through the use of a well timed genjutsu, besides this gave her a chance to test her latest in animal specific genjutsu that affected the user as a major supportive genjutsu, she didn't take into the account that it had better applications then what it was meant to do so she just used it right now while looking confused about having a crowd around her.
"What? Why is everyone staring at me like… now you're all just looking at me weirdly, was it something I said" Indeed everyone was staring at Viper who smiled coyly because she was speaking in a English dialect but it was mostly the sound of her hissing being translated into a human voice via genjutsu as a process for translating her voice into something understandable by humans, she really couldn't speak English but she could make people think she did with a genjutsu that tweaked either her own voice to save on chakra or the crowds sense of hearing to be selective about who understands her or not which used more energy, it also could be used to deliver misinformation as Vipers voice wasn't exactly set in stone. (Sir: everyone speaks English because this was written by an English reading person despite the standard being of Japanese)
Everyone was gawking until one tried to voice their thoughts but it was too late as Viper had managed to disappear within the blink of many eyes making everyone blink a couple of times wondering if they imagined a snake kicking those two guys asses and it just being some person with a whip that could create illusions of talking snakes to make sure nobody knew who it was that in fact attacked two people of one of the major clans in Tea Country.
The only one not tripped up by the illusion was Idate who tried to follow the snake but lost her somewhere around the town as she randomly slithered through a hole in the wall and he cursed the fact that he couldn't catch the snake, he didn't even know where she was from or what she exactly was but he was downright curious about it now and he was going to lose a lot of sleep over it as he didn't know if that was a real snake or not because of how well made the illusion was that was in place around the snake to make her disappear all he got was that voice, it sounded like a girls maybe the one in the purple and yellow clothing with the orange wearing guy were really ninja's and were here to track him down or they were here for an entirely different reason maybe to be his guards in the race; he wouldn't know until later, he decided to go continue training for the race.
Viper in the meantime had doubled back around and started watching the two guys that threw her at Idate, they just had to anger her and she was going to find out why they chose to throw her of all people at that guy Idate, she wouldn't get back to Naruto till tomorrow but it was worth the knowledge about a team of ninja and a man known as Aoi Rokusho's interference in the race, she remembered that name as being the guy that stole the thunder god sword which was mostly just a hilt until it was charged with chakra thus creating a solid lightning blade based on the users will to give it shape, so this was as important and as relevant as the newest bingo books that had come out and if Naruto had showed up; as Asuma's team had hinted at, in it even as a civilian then this was going to cause problems.
While Viper didn't like the idea of Aoi Rokusho going after Naruto she didn't think they could avoid a fight with him as he had a sword that belonged to Naruto by right of being his family heirloom and he or whatever ninja he had with him were going to probably hunt Naruto down for the bounty or at least the forbidden scroll as that information was going to get out no matter what that Naruto had the scroll and given the civilian council of Konoha are plain idiots they'd care less if everyone else in the world could use it to learn how to decimate their ninja forces as long as they killed Naruto, bloodlines don't make good ninja obviously and that was the only strength they cared about in the slightest in Konoha.
Essentially the council; the civilian portion at least, would let it get to the point that Konoha is not even a village of leaf ninja as it was already doing poorly in the academy teaching standards, not that Viper had any problems with finding reading material to circumvent the academy's teaching problems, why would a snake ever need to learn flower arrangement as that was only useful if you ever planned to do an infiltration mission and needed to work as a floral designer which hardly ever came up and what didn't make sense was that Ino Yamanaka had to attend and she was already a floral designer by her family's civilian trade when missions were at an all time low, so she already knew all the crap involved already and should have been given a seduction class at least.
This led Viper to thinking Naruto did well in the anti-seduction class but then again that was mostly her fault that he did do so well when a woman tried to seduce him and he didn't react in the slightest to any teasing and only Shikamaru, Sasuke and Shino could do the same thing he had without training in the slightest but Shino did have a bit of blood dripping from his nose although discreetly stopped up with his clans kikai bugs and Shikamaru was too lazy to notice a woman when he saw one, Sasuke was a blank and frozen stiff wall he couldn't feel a single positive emotion if his life depended on it unless it was in some form of power lusting greed.
It was the next morning and Naruto couldn't feel any weight next to, around or on top of him and he felt around with his arms to make sure before sitting up and starting his yawn at the same moment Viper managed to finally find the right hotel and slither into the window to see that she was missing her cue so she quickly slithered in as she was too tired to perform a lunge at the moment, she got a chaste kiss on Naruto's lips before passing out on the bed.
Naruto sighed he should have expected it but he was surprised it didn't get to the levels it usually did as Viper passed out on the bed he slept in she must have spent the entire night out finding info and Isaribi had seen the act but wasn't upset as she's seen Vipers affection long before that and accepted that the snake really loved Naruto, it was just that it was usually with more passion then just passing out on the bed after quick kiss, she must have been tired and it didn't look like she's been in a fight but then again she guessed stealth took a lot out of a… well Isaribi would consider Viper a person with her personality.
Deciding not to bother the tired snake Naruto decided to go find out what his main elemental focus should be he was guessing wind or water as he was pretty good at those, he never was good at doing fire jutsu so he highly doubted that that was his element, he looked to Isaribi as she followed him like a lost puppy out of the hotel to get a plain piece of paper, then to stop in a clearing somewhere outside the port city with Isaribi holding a book of on chakra waiting for Naruto to start so she could accurately describe what elements Naruto had, Naruto never did leave the text books he had taken with him in the academy and anyone who had them could theoretically learn to be a ninja so Isaribi was just catching up to Viper in knowledge with the more applicable books Naruto had taken with him, the reason why she wasn't trying to catch up with Naruto in text book knowledge was obvious as Naruto hardly ever relied on it but Viper seemed to do okay enough with it and her constant penchant for originality in genjutsu making.
Not many people would know this but a plain piece of paper worked just as well as chakra sensitive paper only it required a larger amount to set off the effects in a normal sheet of paper and Naruto was never one for doing it the easy way with paper that sounded expensive, so he prepared to place at least a quarter of his chakra into a normal sheet of paper.
When he did they quickly learned that his primary element wasn't wind at all it was the neutral element being any ninjutsu that didn't use any elements, the paper just glowed brightly for a bit to comfirm this and the secondary elements Naruto would be good at showed up seconds later as the paper surprisingly crinkled up while setting of a ton of tiny sparks before it shredding itself violently in a small gust of sharp wind.
Apparently Naruto main stay was neutral based ninjutsu with side elements of lightning and wind; well this would explain his relative ease with doing any ninjutsu that didn't use elements like Replacement and Mod Shape Shift jutsu.
Naruto was surprised that the wind was actually his third strongest element following lightning as being his second but it stood to reason with his father being a flying thunder god and wielding a thunder god sword, but he didn't know why he had a higher then that neutral element and shouldn't that mean he should have had it easier when it came to doing chakra exercises?
In any case it was going to be pretty tricky from now on to figure out jutsu to use as there weren't very many non elemental damage dealing jutsu but they all had very good effects in battle, his Shadow Clone jutsu was just particularly one that had an entire assortment of uses except in battle unless the user was highly skilled the clones wouldn't be able to land a single hit on even a child wielding a knife before being destroyed.
After a moment both Isaribi and Naruto started exercising as they had a race to win, not to mention light sparring with Isaribi outside her serpent form and then with her serpent form and switching between the two constantly in battle as her serpent form was bigger then her normal human form it really did make her look kind of cool and somewhat pretty with her glistening scales which reminded him all too much of Viper's shiny beautiful… he treated Isaribi like a sister which is how she wanted it apparently but his mind tended to wander into dark territories where Viper was involved and he tried really hard not to.
It'd be about ten hours before they went back to the hotel and found Viper awake that they would prepare lunch and talk about the upcoming race and what Viper had managed to discover and also why she was so tired, they managed to test her for her element at the time and they were surprised by what it was. (Darkon: It should come up later)
"I've got some good and bad news, what do you two want to hear first" Viper was using her hissing to English translation genjutsu to appear as if she was talking in a feminine human voice and Naruto hadn't at first recognized it but Isaribi had and quickly understood what Viper was doing, Naruto on the other hand hadn't.
"I want to hear the bad… wait a minute… did you just talk?" It was at this moment that Naruto realized he was being stared at by both Isaribi and Viper as if saying; it should be highly obvious to you in a few moments and then it occurred to Naruto what Vipers main choice of the three main jutsu paths for ninja's being genjutsu and smacked himself in the face with the palm of his hand for not catching on sooner, it actually saved on having to translate for Isaribi.
"I guess I know what the good news is, so tell me the bad news Viper" From look on the snakes face this was a serious bit of information and not likely to be pleasant because she was staring worriedly at him hoping he didn't overreact to the first bit of bad news in fact Viper thought better of it and made it her second or maybe even third bit of bad news, better yet she should stall until there's nothing left in the way.
"I have a couple of good 'bad news' tidbits that we should be aware of and after that I still have good news but I'll give you the bad news in a order of from bad to worse, first off the Wagarashi clan plans to rig the race with a ninja team from rain" Okay good start just don't drop it all on him at once Viper or else he might freak out or worse start up with the long list of snake obscenities she taught him when he was first learning to talk with her.
"Know anything about them" When Naruto asked that Viper cringed and he noticed it along with the frown crossing the snakes face and she didn't immediately give up the ghost and continued with the information she had gathered, he kind of liked the voice Viper chose as her own for the genjutsu it seemed to fit the movements of her mouth quite nicely and here he was expecting stretched S words as a rumored annoying habit that snakes posed to do if they were summoned types.
"Yes, you could say that… rain country shinobi specialize in weapons and genjutsu, most noticeably crossbows and parasols as they are in close trade relations with grass, rain ninja are also known for a minute amount of specialized water ninjutsu and they sent a Konoha standard style of team because of the Wagarashi clan, however they are below even Konoha's standard in a one on one fight with each of them except the… jonin, also my second bit of bad news is that Idate Morino is in mortal danger as the Wasabi clan isn't going to hire him a bodyguard" Nice save and change of subject Viper thought to herself, hopefully Naruto wouldn't push the subject because she didn't want to upset him personally.
"And I should care about a thief that used to live in Konoha and might rat me out why?" Naruto asked he wasn't angry with the guy he was just curious as to why it should bother him any if Idate died or not as he had his own hide to watch out for.
"That's some of the good news I was going to tell you, one Idate is no threat to us, two he's the brother of Ibiki Morino who works with Anko Mitarashi in the interrogation division at Konoha I think he was presumed dead in the Aoi Rokusho incident and he hasn't returned because he would have been considered a missing ninja for what he did" Now that definitely had Naruto's attention as he was half way into biting his third sandwich he stopped and stared blankly, causing Isaribi to wonder what was going on as Naruto slowly pulled his tuna and chicken sandwich away from his mouth.
"What's wrong Naruto" Isaribi had no clue why but the name Ibiki Morino stopped him cold.
"So the other piece of bad news is that I have a way of repaying my debt to Ibiki but it's going to involve one of us having to protect that Idate guy and we're going to have to move again before the hokage can send ninja trackers after us when we send the info in to his brother, just great how can this be worse" Viper looked away slightly while tipping a cup of tea up to her lips and taking a sip using her tail to hold the handle, Naruto noticed the movement after his sarcastic remark and sighed.
"Come on Viper, get it over with" Naruto didn't know what he was going to hear next but Viper was obviously jumpy, Ibiki Morino… he hadn't heard from that guy in a long time.
"Fine, I know where your family's Thunder God sword is, but you're not going to like it as it pertains to a side piece of information about you that I came across and who the jonin of the rain team is, I find it very ironic but I don't like the irony" Naruto understood where this was going as he now remembered where he heard of Idate before and that was because he heard a similar story involving the theft of the forbidden scroll like him and Mizuki, only Naruto was a lot smarter about it and the guy who reportedly stole the Thunder God sword was… Aoi Rokusho who defected to… well now he knows why Viper said it was ironic and he had to wonder why she was so scared about it.
"Okay, we'll just kick Aoi's ass and then take back the sword, easy right?" Viper looked sullenly at him then slithered up to the window and opened it slightly reached out with her tail and reeled it back in wrapped around a book which she hesitantly flung to Naruto, it had taken her all night to steal that from the ninja team and with a lot of carefully placed genjutsu's going on at once that drained her chakra and mentally stressed her out holding together several genjutsu like that without alerting any ninja around including in particular Aoi himself who almost caught her a good eight times as his team was here for the race in the next few days as the Wagarashi clans hired bodyguards for their racer.
He caught it then opened up the book to two pages that was obviously earmarked by Viper; he read the earmarked pages his face dropping from its positive happy go lucky attitude into one of a cold calculating ninja he slammed the book shut before looking to both Isaribi and Viper, one of which who was expecting a more volatile reaction then the instant ninja mode Naruto now sported.
"…" Naruto silently got up and walked into the bathroom but not before handing the book off to Isaribi as she needed to know about this, his silent demeanor worried Viper and she could hear muffled hissing that sounded like… yep Naruto was unhappy and she didn't like it when he was but she couldn't do anything about it at this time.
Isaribi checked the cover and saw that it was a Bingo Book but why would that cause a reaction in Naruto unless, she opened it to the marked pages and saw what Naruto had read and paled, she started thinking about other things than what she had just read, like how one of them was going to definitely be needed to defend Idate and starting a fight in town was just asking people to get hurt, so the only chance they had to nail Aoi and get Naruto's sword thingy was during the race… her thoughts traveled back to what she read and she thought 'damn that was going to be a big problem'.
"Didn't you say that rain shinobi have problems with one on one fights and used water based jutsu?" Isaribi was the first one of the group to have an idea this time and with any luck Aoi would be after her and Naruto to steal the forbidden scroll otherwise he would be after Idate to finish the job he started years ago and they had to come up with two plans depending on which situation that comes up first as the team was obviously going to be going after the other target.
Of course the ninja could all just wipe out Idate early and then Naruto with ease so they had to make sure the ninja split up to have any success in beating them and when they were done with the race they were making a bee line for anywhere else but Tea Country because someone opened a 'very' large can of worms on Naruto and it wouldn't be a pleasant experience if they sat still for too long in one place because of it, not to mention they'd endanger people by being followed all over the place by missing ninja and every other hidden village along with Konoha, that's not counting mercenaries, freelancers and even the occasional loner without any affiliation or ninja training.
End Chapter.
The listing of one jutsu-
Fake Genjutsu- Genjutsu- target area: single, multiple or selective targets- effect: causes a person to think or notice they are under the effects of a genjutsu on purpose for paranoia reasons, used to make a ninja waste time by dispelling it, used in conjunction with other genjutsu as a first shell layer to make someone believe they've dispelled the genjutsu messing up their senses while missing the real one , used to distract a low level ninja , used to force a ninja into dispelling it while standing on explosive seals and notes for a deadly effect and used to cause high end paranoia in some people as reactions to this genjutsu are incredibly varied.
Darkon: And that's a wrapping paper be back next time on 'To kiss a snake' the sail and foot race in all its glory what happens and who fights who, will Aoi be defeated while he holds the sword that supposedly makes him invincible or is he just a loud braggart with no skill whatsoever.
Sir: Name the title of the chapter Darkon as this one didn't seem to match up that well unless you consider the backhanded meaning of rattled like the hokage and rolled like the Wagarashi guys as well as Naruto after finding out he's a civilian with an uproariously high bounty.
Darkon: Next time "Dancing Queens, Running Kings" and the winner is... a secret, till next chapter. Oh and by the by I really didn't give this chapter a third look over for errors and I ordered Sir to post it anyway I'm evil like that.