Hey there gang! This one I really enjoyed writing, although I'm not sure if you guys will find it as funny as I did... However, credit is given where credit is due, and this was inspired by reviews left by OkeyDokey33 and an anon. Thanks for the idea, guys! Hope you enjoy!
Tales from Training 5
Treeborn Dreamer
In the dining room, the smell of food filled the air beside the raucous laughter of friends. Dishes clinked together, and wine gurgled as it was passed around and poured again.
"Where do you get all the money for this, Naruto?" Kiba grinned as he passed a plate of food to Akamaru, who was curled up as small as he could make himself.
"You wouldn't believe the story even if I told you!" Naruto crowed, and the room went quiet, all eyes focused on him.
"After all the stories you've told us, you think you have one we won't believe? Shikamaru got married, you nearly got groped, and you think a story of getting rich will be the thing we don't believe? Try us!" Kiba leaned back, crossing his arms in front of him. Naruto shrugged.
"Alright, you asked for it. But for it to make any sense, you'll need some context..."
"Come on Naruto, put your back into it!" I gritted my teeth, sweating like no other, as ero-sennin shouted at me. My hands were flying in circles, and wind was whipping through the forest clearing.
"Here we go!" I screamed as the chakra began burning my hands, and the jutsu took shape. "Oodama Rasengan!" The rasengan grew larger and larger as I held it in front of me, ero-sennin watching me with his arms crossed in front of him.
I could barely keep control of it when at full strength, but this was the fifth time I'd tried to get it right in the last hour, and I was exhausted. My control slipped, and the rasengan began to collapse in on itself before I knew what was happening.
"Dammit!" It exploded in my face, sending me flying backwards. I landed on my ass, groaning and sore all over.
"Naruto, you're never going to get this right at this rate! And we both know that it's only going to get harder from here!" I made an obscene hand gesture in ero-sennin's direction, and pulled myself up to my feet.
My hands were raw and red, and if my face's burning was any indication, I wasn't looking too hot all over. Ero-sennin sighed.
"Alright, we'll pick it up tomorrow. Let's head back into town." I shook my head and stood up, stretching and grimacing, and we started on our way back to the town that we had chosen to hole up in.
We were somewhere near Kusagakure, and although we are allied, ero-sennin thought it best if we kept our headbands and ninja tools in our hotel room so as not to raise suspicion. He had met with a contact the previous day, and we had decided to stay here and train for a few days; me, because of the clear air and secluded clearings to practice in, ero-sennin because of the several onsen that were always filled with traveling women.
"Ero-sennin, what am I doing wrong?" I asked, and he didn't answer for a while.
"Well, Naruto, I'd assume that you're just loading too much power into it and not balancing it with enough control. The excess power throws off the jutsu, and causes it to explode in your face over and over again. So by all means, continue doing so, it's hilarious." He started laughing, and I ignored him for the rest of the trip back to town.
When we got there, however, the streets were deserted, no one anywhere to be seen. Ero-sennin and I walked through town, confused, and saw that every shop, restaurant, and home was locked and boarded up. Even our hotel, just off the main road, was locked up tight: we couldn't get in.
"Hey, ero-sennin, what's going on?" None of it made any sense to me, although my recent head trauma might have had something to do with that. Ero-sennin, to my credit, looked just as confused as I felt.
"I don't know, Naruto. It isn't a holy day, sunset is still an hour or two away, there's no storms on the horizon..." Ero-sennin trailed off, and we both heard a commotion from the main street. Without thinking, I ran to check it out, and ero-sennin followed behind me.
Nearly a hundred women on horseback were charging through the main street, yelling and shouting. Each one had a large sword strapped to her back, were dressed entirely in white, and had a weird headband on their forehead, with "Yuki-Onna" written on them in kanji.
As soon as ero-sennin got a look at them, he grabbed me by the collar and pulled me into an alley, out of their sight.
"Listen, Naruto," he whispered, his tone and expression more serious than I had ever seen them before, "those are members of the all-female mercenary group, the Yuki-Onna. They're all nukenin, mostly from from Yukigakure but not exclusively. I had no idea they were this far south this early in the season..."
"What? Slow down ero-sennin, you're not making any sense!"
"The point is, they're an extremely powerful mercenary group. I've had run-ins with them a few times, and they're not fun to tangle with. They're lead by a very powerful nukenin with nearly a thousand identities, and it's said her power rivals Hanzo of Amegakure, we must be very careful-"
"Or perhaps you could be very quiet and surrender." Ero-sennin cursed and I turned around slowly to see a sword-tip pointed at my face, and a very grumpy looking woman on horseback holding it. She raised an eyebrow as she saw me.
"The hell happened to your face?" I had to think quickly, which is more difficult than it sounds when there's a sword between your eyes.
"I fell out of a tree." I lied, praying internally that she would buy it. She snorted.
"Dumb kids." she chuckled, and I had to keep myself from attacking her. "Omo-sama, I've found an old guy and a kid. What should I do with them?" Another woman on horseback trotted into the alley and rode up beside the swordswoman, scanning us with her eyes. She was mid-thirties it looked, with black hair and green eyes, a real stunner of a woman to be perfectly honest; I couldn't see ero-sennin, but I could tell he was going to do something stupid in front of a girl that pretty.
"Please, spare us!" he blurted out, and I looked over my shoulder at him; he had hunched slightly, putting on a fairly convincing old man act. "My omago-chan and I are just poor travelers on our way to Kusagakure, we have nothing but the clothing on our backs!" The green-eyed woman narrowed her eyes, and I said a silent prayer and jumped on board.
"We were just passing through town and got caught up in this! Please, let my ojii-sama go free!" The green-eyed woman looked us both up and down, and I tried my best to look scared. To my surprise, she nodded.
"Alright jiji-san, get out of here. The boy's coming with us, though." My jaw dropped, and I looked back at ero-sennin, who had dropped to his knees and prostrated himself.
"Please, take me instead, let omago-chan go!" The green-eyed woman dismounted, walked past me and, as I watched, kicked ero-sennin in the ribs. I clenched my fist and was about to attack her, when I caught ero-sennin's eye, and he stilled me with a look.
"Okay, I'll go with you. Just please, don't hurt ojii-sama." I heard the sword-wielding woman sheath her blade, and the green-eyed woman grabbed the scruff of my neck and formed a one-handed hand sign.
A surge of chakra went down my spine, and my arms and legs went numb. I stood there, mostly immobile, and the green-eyed woman got back onto her horse. Swordswoman and green-eyed woman turned around, and I shot a quick look over my shoulder at ero-sennin, who was still crumpled up on the ground. He nodded and bit his thumb, and as he did I felt my legs moving without my telling them to, and I began to follow the Yuki Onnas out towards the main road.
It's kind of a weird feeling, walking when your limbs are numb and unresponsive to your commands. And that weird feeling dragged on and on as I followed the green-eyed woman, who I overheard to be called Omo, and her horde for miles and miles, almost all of them carrying some kind of sword. My head cleared after a while, and I wondered where ero-sennin was and, more importantly, what the hell I was in for.
I noticed a few other guys in the crowd, most of them around my age or older, but none older than mid-twenties or so. There weren't any common features we shared, so I guessed that they were all abducted by chance, just like I was.
We walked until the sun went down, and the horde broke camp as the moon began to peek above the forest line. The other men and I were forced, in our awkward numb-limb way, to sit in a small circle near the center, with the swordswoman from earlier and a few others standing guard. We were chained up and given the use of our arms and legs back, although Omo told the guards to keep an especially close eye on me, and to kill me if I tried anything.
We were allowed to talk, although we had to be audible and clear so they could hear.
I told them I was from a small village near the border of Hi no Kuni, and that jiji-sama and I often made trips to Kusagakure to gather supplies for the farming season. The other guys, around eleven of them, were all from up north somewhere, one of the older ones from Yukigakure itself. One of the older ones told me that if I didn't prove myself useful in some way, I'd be sold the next time we passed through Amegakure. The others all looked weary and broken, and I knew that I had to help them.
I barely slept that night, and just as dawn broke I felt something sharp poking me in the ribs.
"Hey, brat," the swordswoman grunted, poking me with a stick, "wake up. Omo-sama wants to see you." I was unshackled from the others, and for a second I thought about making a daring escape, but I couldn't abandon those guys to be slaves. So I allowed myself to be prodded towards a huge tent, and when we finally arrived I was made to wait while one of the other guards went in and informed Omo. However, I heard a short snippet of a conversation before she was interrupted.
"So you're sure that the money is in this area?"
"Of course, Omo-sama. The landmarks near this village match the ones we recorded in the logbook."
"Excellent, I- What is it?"
"Omo-sama, the new boy has awakened and is outside."
"Very well. Hana, dismissed. Send him in!"
A stern-looking woman in a flak jacket marched out of the tent just before I stepped in, and she smirked as she stomped on my foot. I gritted my teeth and ducked inside the tent.
It was huge, almost as large as my old apartment, with small chests and tables set up around the inside. In the center, standing on the opposite side of the largest table, stood the green-eyed woman Omo.
She was fierce, that's the best word to describe her. She stood much taller now, her arms crossed in front of her and looking down her nose at me.
"So, omago-chan..." she smirked and I clenched my fist, "I know that you're a ninja, I can sense your chakra despite your efforts to conceal it. I also know your jiji-san was also a ninja, although his concealing efforts were nearly perfect. I kept you alive to see what you would try, yet you were like a sheep before the shepherd. Tell me, boy, why I should let you live." I knew I only had one shot, so I cleared my throat and puffed up my chest.
"Because I know one jutsu that will decimate your entire army." Her smirk shifted into a large grin, and I began wracking my brain for something to back up my big talk.
"Is that so? Then, by all means, perform your jutsu. I shall never lose to the likes of you." In my mind, I rolled my eyes; like I hadn't heard that before! I cracked my knuckles, my brain racing, and finally the spark went off in my brain. The technique I had been practicing in secret for months, endlessly tinkering with the fine points and fine-tuning into the ultimate weapon!
A cloud of smoke surrounded me as I formed the handsign, and as the miniature fog cleared, I revealed the faces of her destruction.
Thirteen bishounen, completely in the nude, draped over each other and giving her bedroom eyes!
"Oiroke: Gyaku Haremu no Jutsu!"
She reeled, her eyes scrambling between all of my clones and I, and I heard the guard behind me faint and hit the floor. Blood trickled out of Omo's nose, and she fell back into a chair, covering her mouth and stuttering. I took that as the opportunity to fire the ending salvo
"Omo-senpai, won't you ever notice me?" My new voice was velveteen and smooth, and Omo's eyes widened drastically.
"Omo-senpai, will this be enough to get you to notice me?" One of my clones said, as he took off a pair of glasses. That proved too much for her, and she fell backwards into a pile, blood running from her nose and her grin plastered onto her face.
I had my twelve clones guard the tent flap as I ran to the table she had been standing over earlier, and snatched up a map that was on it, noticing a few red x's marked across it around the area we were in. I cracked my knuckles, tucked the map into my back pocket, and formed another handsign.
"Oiroke: Tajuu Gyaku Haremu no jutsu!"
After about ten minutes, I had managed to subdue most of the horde, either through sexy or by force, and I unchained the prisoners. It was about that time that ero-sennin swooped in, riding a massive toad.
"Fear not, Naruto! I, the great and powerful Jiraiya, shall not let these villains hold you a second longer!"
"You're too late, ero-sennin. I already defeated them all." He looked around, shrugged, and immediately pulled a notebook out and began scribbling with a furor, giggling to himself.
"After that, the prisoners all set out with swords and supplies from the Yuki Onna camp, we turned in Omo for a pretty good-sized bounty, and I sent a hundred or so clones to hunt for the hidden money. After a day or so of searching, we found it. And that's the story of how I got so rich all of a sudden." Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back, grinning. Everyone at the table sat in silence, stunned.
"Naruto?" Tenten squeaked out, and Naruto looked over to her.
"Yeah?" A small grin landed on Tenten's face, and she giggled.
"Maybe you should demonstrate this killer technique of yours, just to show that you're not making it up."