Darkon: Ughhh…. start the chapter, also copious amounts of needless Jiraiya bashing ahead.
Chapter 11: Painting the town with Orange. (Sir: It's going to be a bright orange shiny day.)
It was a nice morning in rather specific hotel room, the sun was shining, three people were sleeping in a one bed room with two of them using the floor and they soon would wake up to a rather entertaining day.
For today, havoc, prank making, fighting, collecting supplies for a mobile base of operations and turning everything in the general area upside down for the fun of it would be the least of what they were going to be doing to Tanzaku, this would be a huge stress reliever for Naruto, Viper and Isaribi especially considering how many targets they had after them in town.
Stirring from his place on the floor Naruto woke up to a very funny feeling, apparently Viper was gnawing toothlessly at his neck which he slowly moved away causing Viper to whine slightly and slowly blink herself awake before Naruto kissed her, this got her up instantly.
"Just to get it out of the way early today, for today we're going to be busy" it was Naruto's way of bluntly preempting Vipers administrating her daily allotment of mouth tag.
"So are we going to finally test and see if we can pass as viable ninja by our standards" blearily Viper yawned before slithering out of the sleeping bag.
"Hey, the test was Isaribi's idea not mine, besides she should know we will probably set the standards at an all time low to pass because one we're good, two we're in the bingo book with minor exception to you and three we play with some pretty mean explosive notes which I wouldn't want to be on the business end of too many times, not to mention if you ignore the fact that for people who can't perform all of the three basic jutsu we're doing pretty well for ourselves" the door to the bathroom closed as Naruto sat up and started to stretch out.
Naruto didn't really want to know what Viper would need to do in human a bathroom, he was waiting for his turn by waking up a rather comfortable girl who had gained a concussion back in Wave country and if anything she wanted to test her ability a little as part of today's plan.
Today was an exercise in misdirection, from what Viper had on Jiraiya through her contacts he frequents hot springs and is frequently beaten up because he likes to peep on women.
Isaribi had to do a little extra mission which was to righteously get angry and beat the snot out of what was posed to be Naruto's godfather then discreetly leave him a little surprise, if she can get away with it she'll consider herself fit to be a ninja.
"So… Isaribi… how many Mushroom Makers do we have left" it was the question of the hour, because they couldn't just keep exploding their way out of situations; not that it wasn't really fun to do so, they really didn't learn anything by making everything go up in a blaze of high powered explosives, except for the fact that if the ninja thing didn't work out they had a set future in demolitions and construction though they would have to be far from Fire country before they could do anything like that safely as a job.
"To answer your question; two, those things aren't easy to make or even replicate you know and the precision behind making the seals and let's not forget the exorbitant amount of resources to make even as many as I have already… other than that we're set on the flashy, loud and noisy stuff you asked me to make yesterday, we're going to be light on heavy armaments for a while" speaking of yesterday Naruto remembered calling Orochimaru a snake and the way he had worded what he said to make his godfather sound gay; it caused him to chuckle slightly considering his godfathers penchant for writing smut, apparently Viper didn't take offense to Orochimaru being called a snake except for the fact she was afraid to have anything in common with him given his legendary habit of creating monstrous abominations.
"The plan is set and ready to go then, we just need time to clean ourselves up, maybe eat something and then we'll move out" looking at Viper she looked particularly cheerful and awake as she slithered from the bathroom motioning for Naruto to go on in, Isaribi got off the bed and started a conversation with Viper waiting for Naruto to finish his turn.
Later Isaribi and Naruto were walking down the street when Isaribi was stopped by Naruto when he gripped her shoulder, Isaribi looked around not seeing any trouble and it was still early in the day and Naruto was wearing one of his many orange jumpsuits again.
"I don't believe it… we so have got to check it out" of course what Naruto was referring to was a 'snakes and fishcakes' ramen stand, which got Vipers attention immediately and she poked her head up to hiss an agreement unheard by Isaribi who got dragged into the stand under protest that they were both ramen eating lunatics.
Entering into the stand and wondering if they were open, they got a very familiar persons voice who exclaimed she'd be out in a minute.
Viper blinked before hissing a question to Naruto who raised an eyebrow as Viper slithered out of the jumpsuit and took up her own seat.
"Yeah that is a good question, what is she doing here… and are you conserving chakra because I noticed you aren't talking anymore" he got and affirmative hiss and the fact that she'd need her energy later today to last up to the grand finale especially if Isaribi does her part effectively.
"Sorry for the wait… welcome to… OH HELL NO! NOT YOU TWO AGAIN" it was the same girl from Wave country, who was receiving a sheepish tail wave from Viper, an embarrassed look from Naruto and moderately expectant look from Isaribi, why was it expectant? Because she thought that that kind of reaction had to do with their date that they won't talk about.
The long haired brunette girl sighed and calmed down before she just rubbed her forehead at least these two were paying customers and they paid quite well at that, but then she garnered an idea… what better way to test her new recipes then with these two self proclaimed ramen aficionados.
Not that they didn't eat everything she had last time she saw them; mostly the blonde kid but the snake had seven helpings and even stated she didn't usually eat that much, they were both really freaky at describing everything she put into every ramen dish down to the very last ingredient including how fresh the liquids used in it were, not to mention the fact that they were on a date.
It was a very, VERY, very strange world this girl lived in especially after the snake's offhand comment on them being married already even if they were currently on a date at the time.
"Um, excuse me can we get a little service or are you going to tell me how their date went" All three looked away from Isaribi not wanting to meet her gaze, the woman simply coughed into her fist and decided to introduce an idea to the two who were obviously still together and she wondered who the girl was having never met her before but she was obviously with these two.
"Um… are you with them like in a threesome" it was an awkward question to ask but she just had to know, hey Viper and Naruto were drowning her with innuendo's last time she met them and they weren't doing it on purpose either.
"No, but we are three ninja if that's what you mean I'm kind of his adopted sister and that would make her my sister–in-law and I'm not the least bit interested in a relationship at this point and we're still too young to do anything like that miss…" Isaribi handled that assumption well enough with a calm demeanor despite all the things that could have been suggested about them and the fact that she's seen too many weird things including being a weird thing herself she was immune to the bizarre things that happened around her.
"Old enough to travel by yourselves apparently, I'm Yumi Men-Tei and you two couldn't have found me at a better time, I need you to test out a new ramen recipe I'm working on and tell me what you think but it's not for free so I was wondering if you would pay for a bowl and tell me what needs to make it better" both Naruto and Viper had smiles and Isaribi groaned hoping this wouldn't take them forever, they had a busy schedule today that involved fireworks.
Minutes later Viper was flicking her tongue a bit and tilting her head from side to side trying to get a feel for her ramen and surprisingly Naruto was eating slowly like her, Isaribi swears it was either that or the laws of physics fell apart while she wasn't looking, naruto usually didn't stop to consider taste… or did he?
"Hmm… cut back on the salinity slightly and maybe add a cup of chopped chives" After translating for Viper Naruto just continued on eating, Isaribi had never thought that she'd see a look of concentration on Naruto's face as he slowly finished his ramen as well, taking a moment to put his hand to his chin and nod a few times before he looked to Viper thinking about her response on this concoction.
"What she said but add three more ounces of liquid and put a bit more bacon into it and you've got yourself a breakfast ramen made from the gods of ramen themselves" inside of Naruto a giant nine-tailed fox snorted about that as the ramen gods; though very good cooks, hardly ever blessed anyone as they are lazy and usually seen hedonistically bathing in giant bowls of broth though one did give the kit a nice dream once for his patronage to all things ramen and it even thought to use Viper as one of the noodles. So cute was the reaction of the kit waking up from that dream in cold fearful sweat of actually enjoying it.
Nabi wandered over wondering what made Kyan show a small bit of emotion instead of constantly being the master of all moody things everywhere, she started a discussion about why Kyan didn't ask her to deliver the message to the man hugger Naruto saw yesterday that looks to be targeted by a recently made clan of cats she's now hearing about that is rapidly expanding across fire country.
"Because someone's looking to let that asshole otherwise known as… darkness itself… free again from what you told me about those red cloud cloaked men and you remember what happened the last time that lunatic got free, he makes orochimaru look like a puppy hugging, rainbow loving, pink wearing friendly saint. That is the reason why I told Naruto to deliver the message as we need to lay low, he needs to work on his skills and if the man hugging kid manages to get the 'Light Bringer' then the world will be all the safer if the 'Cloakies' manage to crack the seal even without us" Nabi smiled cheerily at Kyan knowing she was doing this most likely to save her wife the grief of having to deal with HIM again and the animosity her foxy friend had was pointed in the right direction and at least she wasn't so sad anymore.
Outside the seal heading towards a building materials store was a beautiful young lady with a sway in her step, no whisker marks, long black hair done up and held elegantly in a clip and highly refined blue and purple clothing usually reserved for those of high finances.
It was without a doubt that if Isaribi had not known it was Naruto she would have completely thought that he really never existed given how well she sauntered up with a pack of three somewhat burly men of wildly varying description facial structures, clothing, hairstyles and etcetera, which was a wondrous bit of diversifying on Naruto's part as they all had different voices as well.
"Excuse me but I'm here to pick up some stuff for a project my people are going to be working on, is any of the material here good enough to match my level of refinement, after all we wouldn't want to ruin our company and yours by association of purchasing shoddy stuff now would we, hmmm…" that poor man sitting in his chair at a desk was swooning at the sight of her smiling glossy smiling lips and shapely hips, while Isaribi raised a brow to Viper as they left the scene on their way to set up a unnatural disaster the Uzumaki way with an odd clone carrying a lot more chakra than normal.
"Hey after I found out he could physically change into a female I had him working on Kunoichi seduction classes, it really helped in actually getting him any food that wasn't ramen" after having said; with a translation through the unusual Naruto clone, Isaribi had a really good question to ask Viper.
"Did you take those classes yourself, because I notice you have a tendency to tease other people who aren't Naruto and I think it freaks them out more than anything that a snake would do that" Viper didn't say anything and gave a sly wink to Isaribi before making a kissy face at her before smiling.
"I really need to learn how to speak snake" says the fish girl who might have the ability to talk to fish, she didn't know as she has yet to actually try and she'd rather not as she would like to eat sashimi without feeling guilty.
Once they made it to the correct location the Naruto clone set off to perform her (Not a typo) part as the lure summoning nine more shadow clones, while Viper concentrated on how her part was to go.
This square was going to get noisy soon and Isaribi set out to find Jiraiya wherever he was at around one of the local hot springs, she had the hardest part of the coming mess with having to slip under a high level ninja's radar and she would be rather thankful if that ninja could only sense normal chakra instead of the elemental kind.
The only problem with the plan is what to do with the other four Konoha ninja who were still in town because they were going to get involved and she had told the shadow clone they all had dubbed Orange as much, but the reply from her was not to be worried about it.
Of course Viper would be worried as they now had Orange; a supposedly sentient shadow clone, running around and was a living being that can siphon off Naruto's chakra from any distance and there were plenty of obvious drawbacks to having her out and about.
She was the clone Naruto originally made to the learn the Shadow Weapon jutsu, she had succeeded and then she started taking initiative instead of following simple programming of the jutsu which spawned her and that brought about the two combination techniques Naruto has been going on about, one of which he could perform and the other not so much as he didn't have a water elemental ability or the control to come close to matching it.
It only took an hour after breakfast to learn everything about her which really wasn't much except she was vastly different from every other clone Naruto frequently makes when she noticed she didn't know everything Naruto does after being summoned a second time and being told "you know what to do", she was likened to being a special summoning jutsu by Viper.
Thus led to a lengthy if boring Iruka style lecture about what a summoning jutsu entails. It involves the creature in question that is summoned, the contract that bonds them with their summoners; usually signed in blood, and the forming of a pact that has special requirements dependent on the creature not all creatures have requirements, though some requirements can range from being paid with money to sacrificing people.
Viper eventually laid it out to both of them that Orange is like a creature Naruto summoned if by accident, the contract was written in Naruto's own Chakra which Orange is bound to and as for special requirements she requires to feed off of Naruto at a mild constant rate which increases if she's damaged or if she personally runs dry of chakra she will either draw more to continue functioning or dispel back to wherever she came from. The fact that she can draw more chakra to keep her physical structure stable was a bit of a surprise and because of that Viper was immediately suspicious of what exactly Orange was.
The ever so interesting response from Orange about the "wherever she came from" was that she couldn't say exactly where that was, the odd clone missed the scrutinizing look from Viper.
Viper decided to break it up and explain that they would have to look into this later as they had fun to plan today and they told Orange what they wanted to accomplish, she readily agreed to be the bait and Naruto had already sent another clone to run ahead to start setting up the spot since Orange was not what he was expecting to get the first time he tried cloning today.
Now we're all up to date and the clone simply known as Orange walks into a bar… (Trio: Not one of those jokes again, you're a horrible joke and story teller dude)
Looking around Orange took in the description of every single person Viper had given to her via Genjutsu on who or what to look out for and this bar was full of them, since Prime Naruto wanted to start a riot and since she was around for the occasion to oblige there was only one way this could all go.
What's the most likely thing you'd expect someone like Orange to do, yell out loud that she was Naruto and run for it…? Maybe start talking to someone, maybe the bartender and then try to discreetly exit and fail miserably on purpose garnering the notice of all the people to start chasing after her…? Nope she did the one thing guaranteed to start a riot anywhere and will always piss off everyone in a room into an anger filled frenzy.
What was it that she did… she simply threw a chair.
Of course she then promptly multiplied it with the shadow weapon jutsu mid flight and thus multiple shadow chairs slammed into a bunch of people, things went downright hectic real fast and this was not a localized incident as nine other Orange clones were doing the same thing across the city.
Everyone knows what happens when you throw one chair but when you throw multiple chairs it only stood to reason what the response would be to said throwing of chairs, it wasn't going to be a pleasant 'thank you sir may I take another chair to the head sir', it would be instant opened can of fishing worms and those worms were biting for a big fish bounty. (Sir: Actually I would have that response of asking for another chair, it's in my job description.)
Outside the bar the main Orange clone was in, it seemed entirely peaceful for a second before a glass window exploded outward showering a few people in broken glass and they watched as the figure that broke the window roll into a standing position and then took off down the street at an extreme speed.
Said figure was followed by a hail of senbon launched from two small clawed gloves that belonged to a women with long extremely thick brown hair pulled back into a single braid, she was tall and wearing a simple black clothed garb that covered most of her body, it left a lot to the imagination what was under the face mask as only the top of her head and green eyes were visible.
"YOU WON'T ESCAPE ME UZUMAKI" Apparently Orange had found one of the three deadly sirens of assassination, she was simply known by her codename 'Puncture' for her senbon launching gloves that had metal blades at the end of the fingers, her two sisters were known as 'Stab' a expert knife fighter and 'Pierce' a duel spear wielder, they looked vaguely similar except Stab was the shortest and Pierce was slightly older looking which was the only difference other than their weapons.
In another point in Tanzaku an eerily similar scene was playing out with Stab who was busy pulling knives from who knows where on her body and launching them with dangerous accuracy as she did flips and cartwheels pulling a knife from a different spot each time, she wasn't a ninja but she carried a lot of her chosen weapon on her at all times and definitely was skilled in the use of them as she was at finding places to hide them.
At a third point Pierce just walked out of another bar; Tanzaku wasn't known as the party town for nothing, with a frown on her face and holding a pair of heavily blood stained spears, what was troubling her was the shriek Uzumaki released before he disappeared in a puff of smoke where she stabbed him hoping to incapacitate him. One thing more nobody told her that this target was a trained ninja when they specifically labeled him as a civilian, something was not right about all this and those stone ninja were not only after her target but her as well.
Someone was going to pay dearly for this as she wasn't specifically told about Stone countries exact involvement in the area; her informants were so dead when she finds them as she didn't like being set up and if it wasn't for Uzumaki's untimely intervention with the chairs she might not have seen the ninja coming for her.
Pierce disliked any ninja involvement on the job but stone country ninja were thankfully more about quantity with mild bits of diamond like quality than anything else and none of those ninja had anything on her swift actions to rip them apart; all eighteen of them at that, and she managed to stop the clone from escaping but that was pointless as she didn't know where the actual target was and she destroyed her only method to finding that out.
Thinking quickly Pierce darted into the nearest alleyway and sought out Stab and Puncture, they have to know that someone wanted them dead before it was too late.
Running down a street an Orange clone was being followed by a male of average height and build with his black hair spiking upwards slightly, who was running after the clone keeping a hand tightly one of his two swords, he was pissed if the large knot on his forehead had anything to do with it. They quickly passed by a bamboo and spiny rodent shop where in a flash of light the clone ducked and slowly the bamboo slid apart falling to the ground and the spiny rodents were all shivering and cowering in fear curling up into little balls refusing to uncurl till the danger passed.
The clone looked back at the angry man that was recognized as being a Samurai, they sure were scary and it's understandable why Ninja don't confront them in direct combat now that he barely missed dispelling the clone that suddenly start moving all the faster from the katana wielding man by jumping up onto a nearby wall and running along it followed by leaping onto a rooftop to the opposite side of the street.
"Hmmm… now this… is a challenge" the man smiled to himself and set off after the fleeing clone, it seems there was more to the bounty than what was known, no wonder so many people were after the orange jump suit wearing person but wasn't it posed to be a boy, in fact he looked to his left and saw a similar if different gendered orange jump suit figure heading in the same direction while dodging flying rocks from all different angles, now things were getting interesting.
Fighting had broken out everywhere and it was all being directed towards the square in one corner of Tanzaku, which happens to be the furthest from where Naruto and Isaribi actually were. Viper was prepping herself for this mentally and made sure all the normal Naruto clones were in place, she wanted this to be just perfect and Naruto would finally get his title she made for him into the bingo book, she was still thinking of one for herself so far she had "Vivacious Ventriloquist", "Venomous Veil" and "Vexing Veneer". Viper couldn't for some reason stop working the V angle for her title and she was still thinking about Orange the other shadow clone, for some reason that clone rubbed her the wrong way because it certainly felt odd to be near her. Maybe if she took a word from each of the titles she thought up and combined it to another title she'd get something like "Vexing Veil" or "Venomous Ventriloquist".
"Mistress Viper the four leaf ninjas are currently in pursuit of one of the Orange clones, do you need us to intercept" it was a cute little black kitten and Viper sighed to herself, she just couldn't stop liking cats they were all so cute and lazy except when pushed to driving ninja insane from years of "ninja dogs are better then you" syndrome to get revenge for.
"No, I'm sure the clone can handle it they'll just get caught up in the trap like everyone else we're not going to be choosy with our targets and if we can get the hyuuga into the trap it'll be even better to see his reaction, so what happened with Isaribi" What the snake wasn't saying was that she suspected something of the female shadow clone she was suspicious the instant she saw it appear, but now wasn't a time to do anything about that now was a time for action and she needed to know Isaribi pulled off her part of the plan.
"She has successfully planted her tags on the toad sage and is on route to your husband, as an added bonus his old teammate tends to frequent Tanzaku and she was at the hot springs so…" Thus a small flashback into when Isaribi crossed paths before fights started breaking out in the streets about who's getting the bounty on the orange jumpsuit wearing freelance teenage ninja marked civilian.
Isaribi kept a tight rein on her fluctuating elemental chakra, as she spied on the man with long spiky white hair and snuck up on him. He seemed to busy with his pleasure to notice the dangers of a very irate girl coming up behind him, Isaribi didn't need to pretend to be angry when she started to beat the living tar out of the man and then Tsunade arrived.
"What's going on here" Tsunade asked sternly as she realize it was her old teammate being beaten up by a young teen and she looked to be hitting him ridiculously hard to cause those bone snapping sounds she's hearing, but the poor girl apparently wouldn't do much what with Jiraiya always armoring himself to angry female chakra based hits.
"This guy was peeking on women in the hot spring and he made a pass at me the pedophile and he said when he finally managed to catch up with his bisexual male lover he'd asked if we could get into a threesome" she might have been going overboard with the teary eyes look, but the look on Tsunade's face pretty much said it wasn't a far cry from being possible and the look on Jiraiya's face was absolute fear.
A black kitten that shall remain nameless ran up Isaribi and leapt into her arms and whined pitifully then Jiraiya had to open his mouth making it worse for himself after Isaribi commented on him frightening her cat when he did something weird with his hands and danced around on a frog, something she only knew about because Jiraiya was a well known exhibitionist.
"Oh come on, I didn't even know about you or your pussy a second ago… I MEANT THE CAT…. I MEANT THE CAT" poor choice of words coming from a well known super pervert who just halfway admitted to what Isaribi had said without realizing it, he suddenly found himself held in the air by Tsunade the slug sage his neck was already wringed.
"Still doing those stupid dances of yours and trying to find our lost teammate, he was here yesterday with some guy so if you're looking to make him your boyfriend you're a tad late… ALSO A LITTLE GIRL, YOU'VE SUNK TO A KNEW LOW JIRAIYA… so this will probably hurt for a week…" While Jiraiya was cringing he reached back a hand to get a hold of something to help him escaped Tsunade's wrath and it fell on Isaribi's chest and she gasped while repositioning the cat that mewled angrily about putting Jiraiya on the clans blacklist of ninja to justifiably torture considering he even squeezed the poor girls chest after a moment, the results were immediately terrifying to any male in the vicinity when Tsunade's eyes narrowed.
Minutes later his beaten and bloody corpse was on the ground Isaribi knelt down and poked him with a stick to see if he was still alive, also managing to do what she came here to do as she discreetly snuck some special tags onto his person making sure to keep her back to Tsunade and the stick visible at all times. Ninja Rule forty seven always is to be aware of your surroundings, IE Tsunade was a leaf ninja even if she was a nice person that just offered her some food to get over her very trying experience and when in doubt… free food, sashimi and rice ball platter here she comes.
When looking up the first four ninja rules they are as follows: "Deception", "Double Deception", "?" and "Profiting from deception". Isaribi was curious about the question mark the first time but she knew what it meant now, that she thought of it in a sideways manner.
"I still feel so dirty" poor fish girl Isaribi was eating second plate of Sashimi on Tsunade's good will to pay for her food. Naruto was rubbing off his more natural survival habits in a hostile environment, which was to be the general area around here very soon.
"I didn't think Jiraiya would go so far down the drain, at least Orochimaru isn't like that he's just gay and evil… but mostly evil… what is this world coming to" with that the woman with blonde hair in twin tails started drinking her sorrows away of actually ever having respected Jiraiya even a smidge, nothing was wrong with Orochimaru swinging the other way it was just his evil complex that gave her the shivers. (Sure he might steal a younger person's body but he would never do anything outside his age range or given age range of a body he steals.)
While Isaribi bade Tsunade goodbye, seconds later the spirit of the three tailed turtle demon in the guise of a average ninja named Dan came in to start talking to Tsunade who while listening to him would be too drunk to remember she had this conversation with her dead love until later when it was most important for her to remember what he said to her while she was inebriated.
Jiraiya after getting over his most recent Tsunade mauling was still in quite a bit of pain and would in fact be feeling it for a month because he wasn't quite done being involved in pain involving situations today.
He saw a the riot and fighting breaking out, it was heading towards a square of the town and being an information expert he was and given he was here scouting out for Orochimaru and Naruto who is under suspicion of working with the snake...
Given that Tsunade has seen Orochimaru he could only hope he wasn't too late to stop the demon sealed boy from making a huge mistake, they really didn't need a demon powered enemy and with a demon like the nine tails how could the boy resist using those powers against Konoha?
Thus while Jiraiya was following the fight towards the epicenter, Viper was sending a small burst genjutsu to one of the hiding clones in the area under the disguise as; ironically enough by Naruto's bingo book description, a civilian.
The hiding shadow clone looked towards Viper and gave a nod, she had a knack for communicating silent messages through genjutsu and the best part is that no one can intercept what she wants them to hear as she can feel who the genjutsu is affecting and if there is anyone purposely drawing chakra from her genjutsu she'd know about it.
Slowly the people in the area started clearing out as the first of the Orange clones arrived followed by a man with two swords who stood still and didn't continue to attack the clone, it was like he was aware something was going to go down and he was standing there smirking as he watched another Orange clone run into the area being chased by a bunch of stone country ninja.
Around this time assassins, rogues, a few samurai and a number of stone country ninja that were supposedly missing ninja having all come into fire country for their own reasons, they all flooded into the area and took notice that there were nine Orange clones, eight standing around the one in the center of the square who with a flourish twirled and pulled out a megaphone.
"Hello, welcome one and all to the Naruto 'the ninjutsu howitzer' Uzumaki party extravaganza with your host me Orange the other shadow clone, just so you know you are now surrounded and have fun trying to figure out what's going on, HIT IT!" with that Viper dropped her second genjutsu the first was already covering a still intricately laid and hidden trap, the second was to hide Isaribi's serpent form water clones standing on the roofs surrounding the square.
With that the Orange and her clones dispelled, whereas Naruto clones revealed themselves and started drawing everyone to attack each other and promptly summoned a mass of intangible clones to run around causing even more of a distraction.
The Stone country ninja were the first to figure out and tried to dispel the genjutsu only nothing changed when they did so, they just decided to take a different approach and attack everyone without caring about the genjutsu as it was obviously nothing, before that they were soon knocked about when several of the water cloned serpent forms of Isaribi jumped off the roofs causing shockwaves when they hit the ground.
While all this was happening Maito Gai and his team arrived chasing the last Orange clone which immediately dispelled itself upon arrival, they watched as the people began fighting each other as well as the orange wearing people who had ninja style reflex's and some weird monsters were taking up a majority of battle.
At this point Neji went to activate his byakugan only to become dazed when an apple slammed into his face, which was followed by several Naruto clones attacked the group, dragging two of three well known assassins in the area into a fight with the Konoha team.
Viper had quickly leapt off the roof she had been sitting on and into a fruit stand, taking the first thing she could get her tail on she launched it square into the hyuuga's face, she smiled a bit that the clones and the assassins were keeping the Konoha ninja's distracted.
After that she set out to move among the fighting mass of people taking down a few of them with a leap and a flick of her tail to several important spots on their bodies, she had to constantly be on the move making sure that the last stage of the party went without a hitch, then she'd get to her cardboard box.
Fights that would be remembered broke out among everyone and a few of them were started with very little reason except to rid everyone else of the competition for Naruto's bounty, others were more morally stimulating like where Puncture took a particularly nasty blow from Maito Gai and before she could rush at him a sword was put in her path and the man who had been following the Orange clone to all the fun angrily stepped forth to challenge Gai.
"I don't care if she's a lowly assassin but she's still a woman and since you hit her on my pride as one of the great Miyamoto clan you will be given a very good fight, besides I'd like to see how all this turns out the kid has something big planned. The names Musashi after one of my many great ancestors who've been named that, let's see if your fist can match my swords, I challenge you to a duel." with that the samurai rushed Gai and swung both his swords outward creating a small shockwave that forced Gai backwards.
It started a epic battle of swords, fists and nunchucks when it was quickly found out that punching someone with the name Musashi while they wielded a weapon was next to impossible no matter how fast you were moving.
Puncture ignored the help and sought out someone else to fight she knew she shouldn't pick fights with ninja's or crazy ass samurai that were willing to fight someone with that kind of a punch and eventually ended up against Lee who was just fast but she wasn't a slouch either with her senbon launchers giving her a mild edge.
Stab had been throwing knives at the shadow clone that annoyed her until he was gone in a cloud of smoke and seeing another weapons thrower in the area… she threw a knife at Tenten who had been caught off guard and the hair on the left side of her head fell out of its bun.
Tenten slowly looked back to the wall the knife impaled and on it was the ribbon used to tie her bun in place it was the same color as her hair and that woman had manage to nail it to a wall without cutting any of her hair.
She turned to Stab to stare in shock before she grew angry and threw two kunai at her, Stab was unimpressed as she kicked the first kunai upwards with a small leap then shot her other leg forward kicking the second on upwards and grabbing both of the airborne deflected kunai she threw one, then upon landing she spins and throws the other.
Thus started what could only be described as two circus acts for the price of one, juggling and knife throwing with more than twenty objects in the air flying between the two at any given moment.
All the while Jiraiya arrived to stand on a nearby rooftop to gawk at the scene and stared flabbergasted he did, he couldn't tell where Naruto was and there were tons of clones; shadow and otherwise, running around beating the tar out of the rogues, minor assassins and stone ninja.
"That kid…" Jiraiya noticed those serpent things were water clones only a lot stronger than normal, he looked around seeing a Konoha team holding its own having been dragged into all this, this kid was pulling one huge deception and Jiraiya didn't know what to make of it except he thought he caught a glimpse of a seal.
Viper almost lost control of her main genjutsu of the many she had splayed all over the place, she was just glad nobody saw that slip in her focus, she was having a hard enough time fighting without drawing attention to herself to immobilize as many people as she could while making sure nobody blows the big surprise, nobody was tired enough yet for them to set it off and at least the auxiliary plan to incapacitate Jiraiya was already in effect if needed.
Across the square from Jiraiya two cloaked figures narrowed their eyes as they stood on the rooftops looking for their target, but apparently… he wasn't here, so they were waiting for him to reveal himself failing to do that they'd start searching for him again, they needed to find him with urgency.
Pierce arrived on the scene only quirking an eye at the wild party being thrown in the square, obviously this Uzumaki is a mastermind at causing chaos to have planned this all out but she couldn't help to follow that foreboding feeling to stay out of the square's center, the samurai though few they were fought exceptionally well even if they hadn't killed anybody yet, not for the lack of trying mind you given that the clones were specifically making sure no one died.
Taking in everything that's happening, she noticed that there were no civilians getting caught in the crossfire, the many clones of what used to be her target were not actively fighting to kill only to immobilize or tire…
It's a trap, but what kind and why would it require everyone to be pack so tightly into the square unless...
It took a moment but her eyes widened Pierce quickly made for Stab and Puncture, only to note that the hyuuga managed to finish off the shadow clones that were keeping him distracted, instead of activating his byakugan he went straight for Punctures back.
Pierce glared at the boy but he obviously was running a bit low on his chakra from having to deal with so many clones running about, Hyuuga's sometimes expended so much energy on their style of combat it was quite wasteful.
Before Neji could land a decisive blow on Puncture as she took another near bone shattering punch, a spear jammed its way through his left shoulder causing him to unleash an agonizing muffled scream as his blood painted the ground where he was forced down into it a second later.
"STAB, PUNCTURE, UZUMAKI ISN'T OUR TARGET ANYMORE WE MUST MAKE HASTE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE IS NO LONGE OURS AND WE WERE NOT WARNED THAT NINJA WOULD BE INVOLVED THUS OUR CONTRACT IS VOID" she was yelling this because she was panicked, that and she was busy holding down a Hyuuga that was still in too much agony to do anything with one of her spears while using the other to bat away a stone country ninja, she stepped onto Neji's back eliciting a loud enough scream for his teammates to hear as she kept her spear thoroughly wedged in his shoulders not wanted to let the Hyuuga up quite yet.
"NEJI/MY YOUTHFUL STUDENT" Tenten and Lee immediately dropped what they were doing and went to help out Neji, Gai tried to move but Musashi just got in his way exclaiming that he wasn't done yet taking a swipe at the man with one of his swords which was blocked by the chain of one nunchuck while he brought about the other only for it to be knocked back by the samurai's other sword.
Taking opportunity from Pierce's distraction, Stab gathered as many kunai and knives as she could before making a quick escape, only to stopping to help Puncture make her escape and to lick their wounds figuratively.
Puncture was badly bruised with maybe a few crack bones, she certainly didn't care about picking up any errant senbon and once she was out of the area Stab shouldered her to get her further away from the action when she finally started actually feeling what happened to her body, that green wearing mini clone was a monster.
Pierce made sure to keep Neji pinned, she wasn't being paid to kill him so it wasn't in her interest to do so and earn the ire of ninja's though she was certainly paying herself by stealing all the stone ninja's wallets that had died at the bar she was at.
Tenten was the first to get close enough to Pierce only to jump back from her when she swung her free spear and narrowly missed, but she hit something as Tenten's other ribbon fell to the ground letting her hair loose in its full glory and boy was the kunoichi mad after that, she didn't get time to react on it when their other teammate blurred forward and forced the assassin to start using both her spears to defend herself.
Neji could have sworn he saw an angel in his agonizing pain as he was trying to get the woman off his back struggling slightly until the weight was released from his shoulder splattering even more blood around him.
Tenten knelt down to patch up his wound while Rock Lee; Maito Gai's mini clone, rushed in and started a short range assault which was hard when your opponent wielded powerful weapons that just wouldn't break.
"Why can I not break your spears" Lee was anything if interesting in the fact that his devastating standing axe kick and chops should have decimated her weapons thus making her useless.
"I had them specially made from rubber tree plants" With that she leapt back stabbed a spear into the ground and predictably Lee rushed forward, Pierce quickly pulled back on the spear she planted in the ground and released caused the wood end to spring forward and knock Rock Lee senseless.
Pierce seeing she has given her counterparts enough time to escape she would make do with escaping herself, pulling her spear from the ground she rapidly fled the area.
Not too far away Viper was catching a large rock and chucking it back at the stone ninja causing it to smack the girl straight in the face causing her legs to fly out from under her and the poor ninja ended up on her back as Viper turned to a different one and launched herself at him before tapping several pressure points in quick succession with her tail.
The stone ninja, Samurai and a few assassins had done quite well in dispelling a mass number of clones, but they were all tired so it was time to call on the great finale by Vipers estimate as she watched the stone ninja lose his lunch to the ground from her tail poking.
Well there was something you didn't see everyday rutabaga, potatoes, some kind of stomach acid altered tomato sauce and awkwardly enough lots of undigested corn, a few chunks of beets… was that ninja a vegetarian? Well it kind of stood to reason given Stone country had plenty of fields for crops which is why they can afford to fund large armies.
Viper sped by one of the clones that were staying on the edge of things watching as another Isaribi serpent clone was finally ripped to watery shreds, hissing a short message Viper stayed around to make sure her genjutsu stayed in place until the very last second and she was making sure that her cardboard box was still around as she'd need it in the next minute or so.
The clone quickly nodded at Vipers hissed statement and ran towards the edge of the fight jumping over swinging swords, diving underneath stabbings spears and dancing around flying stone dragons and balls of rock flying every which way to finally reach his destination.
In front of the Naruto clone sat another clone wearing a poncho and sombrero carving a wooden statue of Viper coiled around a parasol with a rusty Kunai, the Naruto clone made several hand signs to the poncho wearing clone and it nodded leaving the clone to drop back into battle.
The Poncho clone shoved the statue it had been carving under a nearby cardboard box and took out a carved wooden toad; Naruto had many a talent and he was recently picking up wood carving as part of an idea he was going to work into his future building project, he quickly wrapped the toad wood carving in a tag he had Isaribi set up for him to signal the finale.
With a counter clockwise spin the poncho wearing shadow clone threw the wrapped wooden toad as high into the air as he could making sure the time delay set off at the apex, when it did it created quite a blinding light and loud noise thus attracting quite a bit of attention to itself.
Where Naruto physically was…
Turning to the blinding explosion in the distance Naruto turned to Isaribi who had come along to help his three 'men' carry his supplies to their 'transport' otherwise known as one of Isaribi's sealing scrolls around the corner from where they bought a mass of wood and a quite a bit of metal.
"Zho Jei what was that" It was Naruto's false name while he was in the form of a woman, he just turned to Isaribi and quirked an eyebrow.
"I believe it was someone launching a fireworks display too early, but we must not dally for we have to be going" with that said Isaribi knew what Naruto's wry smile meant, time to set off the whole shebang.
Why it couldn't have been at a fairly nearby large bridge was something Isaribi grumbled about but decided to start by heading to the opposite side of the alley they were using to store the materials into the scroll near where they bought them.
Kneeling down Isaribi started doing hand signs and then placed a tag on the ground that led to a series of concealed tags that led all the way to the square, she set off the tag and a small line of minor pops and flashes shot off away from the alleyway in a domino kind of manner.
Around the square everyone was too distracted by the blinding flash to notice the genjutsu drop but when they noticed what the square was covered in they all went wide eyed.
Viper pulled the cardboard box over herself and noticed the statue of her; that looked like it could fit inside of a snow globe, she smiled then frowned when she realized that she should be pushing the box for all she's worth or else get caught in the trap as well.
Slowly but surely a cardboard box was seen sliding away from the field of battle as the last remaining clones; there weren't many at that, disappeared.
Soon a popping noise started to get louder and louder as the people around the square started to turn and run, but alas it was too late for them… to save their clothing and reputations.
In the distance Naruto and Isaribi watched from a safe distance on a rooftop as a humongous mushroom shaped pillar of orange paint shot into the air before dropping back down and flooding that section of town.
"Well there goes the last of them, got any money so I can make more" turning his head away Naruto didn't want to tell her that what money they had left was going into food for the next month or so.
"Let me guess, food? Ah well, I guess we can get by for a little while without mushroom makers, though it makes me question your sanity for having that much orange paint on you" snickering Naruto didn't say a word, he wouldn't dare mention he still had exorbitant amounts of pink, yellow and blood red paint.
"What can I say Isaribi, when it came to prank making the orange paint was always free as nobody in our village would buy it for the fact that it would give me much better camouflage points to hide in or they'd have to destroy buildings in the hopes that they can catch me, destruction of public property is frowned upon much more so then how much I defaced it as much as they defaced my apartment when I had one" Viper suddenly slithered up to Naruto's side smiling while dragging a cardboard box covered in orange paint up onto the roof with her.
"Well this was a successful venture, but there's still one thing we need to do" hearing Vipers voice Isaribi smiled and she formed a hand seal for the final blow to Jiraiya's pride as a spy master.
"I agree, but we better lay low… it's what we're good at and we're out of mushroom makers without those our previous battles could have gone so much worse, we need to change tactics as people are going to start expecting explosions around us" with that Isaribi let off a small pulse of water elemental chakra.
Elsewhere.
"I keep hearing news about this orange wearing Civilian and explosives, someone is stealing my gimmick and they are so going to get my art where the sun doesn't shine" Deidara said at the hideout of the easily self destructive organization of the Akatsuki.
Back in Tanzaku.
Naruto, Viper and Isaribi's heads were tilted back and they watched as the flying toad sage reached the apex of his arc before he started descending… straight toward shingled roof and he slammed against it hard.
"That had to hurt" speaking to soon Naruto watched as Jiraiya slid off the roof and flipped over so he was falling with his back facing down until he hit an awning and shot across the street in another arc flipping so he was falling face down…. over a bamboo and spiny rodents stand.
At the stand it looked like someone had looked to have sharpened the bamboo to a fine point and all the rodents were curling up and their spines were point towards the shadow in the sky.
"No… that... has to hurt…" the tittering of Vipers giggles just couldn't be held back, this was probably the funniest if not seriously deadly looking injuries ever incurred unintentionally.
"Happy birthday Viper, my wife" the orange clad mercenary ninja whispered to Viper who stood shock still and looked at him with teary eyes.
"Best birthday of our lives, huh" She whispered back while Isaribi watched as Jiraiya stood up and walked a few steps from the stand and then proceeded scream.
"I have no idea what you're talking about Viper and I most certainly didn't say that to you out loud" he was right he didn't say it out loud, but Viper just coiled around him not caring if he didn't say it out loud she squeezed him tightly to the point he could barely breathe, they both looked to Jiraiya and bit their lower lips.
Elsewhere in Sea Country.
They had traveled a vast distance to reach here overnight and they had scouted the area, now they were walking around bored out of their minds until they heard Jiraiya's scream.
"That was Jiraiya's Voice we must make haste to Pocky Country and the pocky eating tournament they're holding there soon, he'll never look for us there" the missing ninja of the leaf Itachi Uchiha had managed to travel very fast to get them here but it was a false clue, the three tailed demon turtles sister was nowhere near here or even an orange jumpsuit wearing person they were sent to find and capture.
"His voice sounds like it's actually coming from across the ocean, so he can't be that close also…" before the missing ninja of the hidden mist; known as shark swordsman Kisame, could go any further he found a sword at his throat and a kunai at his unmentionables.
"we… are… going… to… Pocky…. Country…" his calm demeanor and enunciation really belied the fact that he'd have no trouble killing Kisame, especially if he got in the way of a Pocky eating tournament and nobody said no to a crazy Uchiha unless they were ready to kill them or be killed.
Back in Tanzaku a little later, in their hotel room.
"Why in the world would someone sell bamboo and spiny rodents I'll never know" Isaribi had nearly died of laughter watching Jiraiya stand up covered in quills, not to mention two small bamboo spears sticking loosely out of two rather specific spots on his chest.
Viper had to force water down Naruto's throat to get him to stop laughing and when that didn't work she made ramen with a little help from Isaribi, it kind of saved his life as he took his ramen seriously.
"I know why, it's actually a Do It Yourself blow pipe, poison dart and organic senbon stand, assassins buy that kind of stuff in bulk when they want someone dead without being suspicious" Naruto just stared at Viper for a bit as she continued to stay wrapped around his body since before they even got back, even when they were making ramen she stayed wrapped around his body all the while he was still laughing.
"But isn't it kind of suspicious that people would buy bamboo and spiny rodents in bulk" this is around the moment that someone outside the door to their hotel room started commenting on what they were talking about, Naruto couldn't believe the conversations that would follow.
"I'm going to need some needles and something to make a splint with… I KNOW, I saw a nearby stand that sells porcupine quills and bamboo, Lee could you watch Neji for me" Outside the door was an orange covered Tenten, carrying and orange covered Neji who luckily didn't get any paint in his wound, followed by a brown and slightly orange covered lee.
"Did you say you've seen a bamboo stand; my panda has been getting hungry and I can pay you dearly if you run out and get me some, also get me a some of those quills my dressmakers are running out of pointy needles to use and they've been all about going organic being the wave of the future" It sounded like a noble that owned a panda was talking to the female voice all three of them were listening to.
"Hey I could also use some Bamboo; if I give you ninja's some money would you get me some so I can make a flute, I can make a cool weapon out of a second still functional after the fact bamboo flute if you want" Outside the door Tenten was getting exasperated as a third person walked in on their conversation.
"I want a safe porcupine to cuddle and keep as a pet; if you're going there can you find me one that's cute and won't hurt me" From inside their apartment Naruto was becoming more and more irritable, that gruff sounding strong man had him smacking his hand with his face.
He looked at Viper and Isaribi giggling at him, probably because he should be smacking his face with his hand.
"Okay, okay, but make the check out to Konoha and I'll take you up on that flute weapon offer" Tenten took all their requests and went off to buy from the bamboo and spiny rodent's merchant, only to barely get enough merchandise because some orange paint covered man destroyed most of the stand, not that he cared the man paid him lots of money in recompense for scaring his animals and destroying his bamboo.
"Okay, well I guess it can't be that strange" Naruto finally admitted while Viper rubbed her face against his neck still giggling.
"Just another thing to add to the story" Viper said as the book she was writing was going to be a best seller someday she just knew it. (Ironic echo)
Somewhere in Tanzaku one of the two cloaked stranger was laughing amiably, the target had a lot of guts and could have done much worse but didn't and he was sure they'd get along just fine as long as there wasn't any misconception as to why they were seeking him out.
The other cloaked stranger was crying about how his wonderful blue cloak was now a ugly lime green, but then he stopped and realized it reminded him of one of his favorite bags and stopped, he suddenly sneezed and a shuriken flew out his nose, he rubbed it idly and went back to staring blankly at nothing, the shuriken didn't even injure him flying out of his nose.
End Chapter.
Darkon: Next chapter Land of Snow… but wait a moment… how can we a do a land of snow arc without Naruto or Kakashi's team? In fact I still don't know how to introduce Kakashi or Sasuke into the story without explanation.
So if I do eventually get around to introducing them or whatever team they have they'll be horribly unbalanced in Sasuke's favor which is not saying much given Kakashi's training methods of focus on one person after making them wait three hours to train, Sasuke's progress will reflect that kind of work ethic. In short he's as strong as a nerf dart and definitely nothing.
Darkon: So far I haven't gone beyond belief, why? Because I don't have one person resurrecting entire armies on phlebtonium powers who should be long dead and that person will die in this story before the entire resurrection thing becomes an issue in a very cheap demeaning anti-climatic death, I'm looking at you Kabuto...