Chapter 8 – Rain Country Part 2

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" " – human speech/writing

' ' – human thought

' ' – demon thought

" " – demon speech

-Obscuro-

Naruto was used to strangeness and surprises. After living a year with Obscuro, he had become rather accustomed to unexplained occurrences happening around him. Combined with his training and harsh life, it was very hard to catch him off-guard. But he would never forget the sight of Ajisai sleeping with him in his blanket, with a small smile on her face.

Her hair had a pleasant smell to it, some type of flower but he wasn't sure as to which. Her head was snuggled into his chest, and one arm was wrapped around him. To add to the surprise, when he took a peek outside, he saw that the rain stopped. It was still a bit cloudy, but the only falling drops that he saw were the ones dripping from the cave's entrance.

To top it all off, Naruto felt warm. Back when he lived in the village and in the streets, the most warmth he got when sleeping was the occasional mouldy rug, if at all. When he moved in with Obscuro, he got a warm bed, but during the chilly winter nights it was next to impossible to block out the drafts which seeped through the cracks. But now, he had never felt warmer in his life.

Not wanting to lose this warmth, he tried to settle back. However, he must have moved a leg because the purple-haired girl shook a bit and blinked her eyes open.

They both stared at each other for a minute or so, the atmosphere slowly becoming more awkward by the second, until Naruto asked "So, how well did you sleep?"

A tinge of red appeared on Ajisai's cheeks as she looked away. 'At least she didn't hit me or something.'

He quickly got up to dispel the tension. "The rain has stopped. We can cover more ground if we leave now, so pack your things." She nodded and went to her sleeping bag. He turned to the mouth of the cave to see a shadowy claw motioning him to come out. Anticipating such an event, the blond mentally prepared himself as he called out to the girl "I'm taking a leak so wait here!"

Exiting the cave, he took a moment to admire the view. The forest around him glittered with water left over from last night. The sun's rays that managed to shine down brightened the leaves and gave a tranquil feeling to the air around him. However, he was soon pulled to the side as the familiar board popped up.

"Rather bold decision you made."

"I know, it was a spur of the moment thing, but I couldn't just leave her there," he whispered.

"Why?"

"Why? Because the ninja would've found her and maybe killed! I didn't save her life just so she could be captured again."

"This is unlike you. You usually don't care about people."

"I usually don't, but…she feels…different alright? She doesn't look like a whiny brat, she can help me."

The board remained blank and Naruto sighed. He looked at the board and said in a slightly pleading tone: "Look, I know you don't like humans, but it doesn't mean you have to hate each individual one. Just…just give her a chance, alright?"

Ignoring the hypocrisy of that statement, Obscuro pondered the merits of this unexpected situation. While it did abhor humans as a whole, it knew that there were some humans that were more open-minded than the rest, case in point being the boy in front of it. When they had slain the human filth back in the town, the girl had looked at their fused form with an expression not akin to fear, but rather akin to surprise and relief. Also, it would do well for the boy to have some nonprofessional human interaction.

"This will slow us down."

"I already told her that we can cover more ground today. She didn't complain at all."

"How will you inform her about me or your little 'situation'?"

This question caused Naruto to pause, as it did have some considerable thought to it. He didn't think that going up to her and saying "Hi, when I saved your life, I did it with the help of a demon who's been raising me for a year and I've got another one sealed inside me" was not the correct course of action. Unable to formulate an immediate answer, he made a decision.

"Give me some time to think about it, but I promise you that by the time we arrive back at the Forest House I will tell her about you."

After mentally reviewing that answer, Obscuro decided that this was probably the best course of action. A little more time getting used to the boy will definitely make her trust in him grow enough to listen to reasonable statements.

"Agreed." The blond was then handed a small compass, which he mentally concluded was pilfered from the town. "Head west until you reach a large ravine. I shall then guide you from there." With those words, the board vanished.

Naruto re-entered the cave to see Ajisai waiting for him with a calm expression.

"Did you take everything with you?" She simply handed him the sleeping bag. Remembering how he took it last time, Naruto mentally slapped his forehead and sealed the bag in a scroll. "Thanks, let's go." Without another word he headed out of the cave, with Ajisai following him close behind.

Taking full advantage of the clear day, Naruto attempted to cover as much ground as he could allow himself with his new companion. The landscape remained the same pretty much as they travelled, with only more boulders appearing on their self-made path. Every few minutes he would turn his head to check on her, only to see her holding up fine. Naruto concluded she must've had some basic ninja training before, or she's just naturally resilient.

After a few hours of running, they stopped at a boulder field to take a rest. Naruto leaned against a rock for a breather when he saw a rabbit jumping by. Taking note of his (and presumably Ajisai's) hunger, he quickly drew his Kris to lunge and stab the rabbit.

He turned to his purple-haired companion "I've caught us some food here, do you wanna eat?" Seeing her nod, he went atop a large boulder to prepare the rabbit and light a fire. After half an hour of preparing, the food was ready.

Ajisai climbed onto the rock and took a leg of meat while he took another leg. As they were eating, Naruto decided that in order for the girl to handle the news about his guardian shadow-demon, he should make an effort to get to know her.

"So, did you like the book?" She looked at him for a moment, as though she didn't expect him to talk much but then answered.

"It was rather enjoyable, thank you for that. Do you have any more?" Naruto smiled at the memory of his beloved books.

"Yeah, I've got a whole library back home filled with all kinds of books. Fiction, history, poems…I love 'em all."

A tiny smile crept onto her face. "That sounds very nice. Books are a wonderful thing. I'm glad that there's someone who truly appreciates them."

Naruto noticed that her eyes looked zoned out, as though recalling something from the past. Taking a cautious step forward (figuratively), he asked "Did you read a lot in the past?"

She snapped out of her daze and gave him a cautious look. "Y-yes, there was a library near where I lived; I would go there all the time."

Ajisai then decided to ask her questions. "You said you aren't from Ame. Where are you from?"

"Konohagakure – the village hidden in the leaves"

Letting out a small 'oh', she continued. "Are you a ninja?"

"No," he said in an angry voice. He knew he shouldn't do that to the girl but his anger at ninjas, especially the ones from his village made him unconsciously react. Seeing the startled look on the purplenette's face, he quickly assured her, "I'm sorry it's just that I don't like ninja, at least the ones from Konoha. That doesn't mean I hate you."

She looked at him with a confused glance. "The fact that you were able to keep up with me means that you have ninja training. Don't worry I'm not angry with you."

Ajisai calmed down at those words. Seeing Naruto do a 'go on' gesture, she continued to ask. "If you're not a ninja, what are you?" Naruto hummed in thought to this. He knew what term he could be categorized under; although he wasn't sure that he qualified, being only an apprentice and the first real one in many, many years. Eventually he answered.

"I am a…ritualist."

"A ritualist? What's that?"

"It's someone who practices rituals and gathers knowledge. Remember my scrolls? Think of it as an older version of that."

Still looking confused, he decided to simply show it to her. Reaching for his scrolls, he unsealed from one of them a pencil, his notebook and some chalk. He then drew two squares, one angled from the other so that they formed an eight-pointed star, inside a circle. Snapping the pencil in half, he placed both halves in the circle.

The blond pressed his hands to the circle's edge and channelled life-force into it. Almost immediately, the circle glowed in an electrical bluish-white hue. After a few seconds, the glow subsided, and the pencil was back in one piece, as though it had never been snapped.

As Ajisai quickly snatched and examined the writing tool, Naruto erased the circle and said "That was called the Reconstruction Ritual. With it, I can fix any broken object as long as I have all of its parts inside the circle."

She handed the pencil back to him and stared at where the circle was drawn. "That wasn't chakra was it?"

Letting out a small noise of surprise, Naruto was startled by how fast she managed to figure it out. "About what you said earlier, I'm not really a ninja. Like you, I received ninja training, so I know chakra when I see it, and that's not chakra. So what is it?"

While he knew that he should gain her trust, Naruto was afraid of letting out that much information. "That's a secret."

Slightly pouting (causing Naruto to blush at her face), Ajisai nonetheless relented. Seeing that the rabbit was nothing but bone now, Naruto resealed his items. "We should get going."

Getting up from the rock and erasing traces of the fire, the duo kept heading west. As they ran through the fields, the two children occasionally exchanged words with each other. These little chats led Naruto to deduce that Ajisai was a rather stoic and serious person, although she was easier to approach once you talked to her a little.

As time passed, the landscape shifted to a more rocky terrain. After a couple of hours (it was still afternoon), they stopped at the location that Obscuro had mentioned beforehand.

The ravine was rather large, although calling it a small canyon would be more accurate. A river was flowing at the bottom, which was a bit more than 50 meters below the duo. Lush greenery covered the rocky cliffsides and several birds could be heard chirping. All in all, it was a rather beautiful scene.

Both children stood to admire the beauty for a few minutes. Ajisai then seemed to recognize something as she turned to Naruto and asked, "Shouldn't Konoha be in the opposite direction?"

"Yeah," the blond replied. "But there's someplace here that I need to check out first."

"What kind of place?"

"It's a ritual site," Naruto said as he carefully constructed a little fib to throw her off for now. "I read a few maps and books and managed to find that it's somewhere here."

The young Uzumaki then looked over the ravine, trying to see anything out of the ordinary. When he turned to his right, he saw a thin trail of shadows leading down to the large rocks. Motioning Ajisai to follow him, he went after the trail.

They jumped down a boulder or two and saw a series of stone steps in front of them. Following the steps, they soon reached a large triangle of boulders.

Still seeing the shadow-trail lead into the rocks, Naruto concluded that one of them must be a hidden entrance. He trailed his hands over the rock looking for a lever or a switch until he felt a bump. Rubbing that spot, he saw a small ritual circle.

Without any second thought, he pressed his fingers to it and channelled some life-force. Unlike the ritual he had performed beforehand, the circle merely flashed for an instant. Then, a rumbling sound was heard. He quickly removed his fingers as the central boulder dug itself into the ground, revealing a dark passageway.

"We've found it. Come on, let's go in." He made to enter when Ajisai asked, "What do you expect to find there?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but no answer seemed to come to him. 'He never told me what's in there,' he thought with some irritation. Sighing, he answered the girl truthfully. "I don't know."

She looked at him incredulously. "You're just gonna go in there with no idea of what's inside?"

"I didn't come all the way here just to back out now. Besides, I can defend myself should something happen." With those words, he entered the dark corridor, with an exasperated Ajisai behind him.

The corridor seemed rather long, taking them deep into the rock. The walls occasionally felt wet from the water that seeped from above. Naruto slowly crept forward, feeling the walls so that he wouldn't slip.

"Did you forget to light a match?" Ajisai asked in a slightly amused tone. He just grumbled in irritation.

With the light from the entrance slowly fading, Naruto knew that something else had to be close by. Several minutes passed walking in silence until they reach a small chamber. Small rays of light from above illuminated it faintly. In the dim light, Naruto saw a large set of doors, with unlit torches flanking its sides. Wanting to shed more light on the situation (hah!), Naruto unsealed his matchbox, using the dim sunlight as guidance. Grabbing a torch from the walls, he asked his companion to hold it. A few seconds later, the torch's light illuminated the rest of the chamber. Apart from the door, it had no unusual features. Lighting the other torch for her, the duo opened the doors.

(Play Misanthropik – A Dark Ritual in Heaven and Organ 100 – Witch's Sorrow)

They found themselves in another, much larger chamber. A single ray of light shone through a hole in the ceiling. A ring of torches was seen around the walls of the chamber. Strange markings decorated the walls, undiscernible in the dimly lit room. Similar markings adorned the floor, with a large stone altar in the center. At the far side of the chamber, a large culvert was seen, but any contents it may possess were too far to see.

Taking a breath and stepping forward, Naruto nearly dropped his torch when suddenly the ring of torches lit up the whole chamber. Thanks to the added light, the markings of the floor was shown to be those of a ritual circle; an equal-sided cross atop a many-pointed star, with faded inscriptions ringing it and the altar at the center. Splotches of blood were scattered across the walls and floor. Gazing to the walls, he saw that the 'strange markings' were actually carvings – a stone mural decorating the room.

The mural depicted many things; humans fighting amongst each other in a sea of blood and swords, demons and dark spirits roaming the land, winged beings flying around and slaying many, depictions of horrible rituals performed to summon beings, both fair and twisted. But the carvings above the far culvert drew the young jinchuuriki's attention the most.

Ignoring Ajisai's gasp of fright, he gazed upon the image of a large tree. Its limbs and roots were twisted upwards, and what seemed like a beam of light shone from its center upwards. Opposite the tree was a large structure that seemed to be its literal opposite. If the tree symbolized light, then this certainly symbolized darkness. It was shaped like a tower of sorts, with twisted markings adorning it and a crown of spikes, all holding a black sphere in an invisible grasp.

In between those two was a strange pattern, seemingly made up of two pillars flanking a larger one, with three circles on each of the former and four circles aligned on the central pillar. The circles were all connected by lines, and the pattern itself was surrounded by a black and white halo.

Naruto was snapped out of any musings he may have had when he felt Ajisai tug at his sleeve. Hearing her shivering gasps, he saw her pointing to a black-robed skeleton lying against the left wall. Squeezing her shoulder in assurance, he went to inspect it. After searching its mouldy robes, he found a rusty knife (useless), some silver coins (nice) and a small amulet, with a unicursal hexagram surrounding a small ruby. Pocketing the coins and amulet, he tuned to the frightened girl.

"It's safe, don't worry," he reassured her. "There's nothing harmful here. But try not to cut yourself as long as we're here okay?" She nodded, the fright seemingly leaving her.

"I was just concerned," she said. "This place feels…weird." She gestured to the murals. "All of this doesn't exactly help the mood."

A bit confused at her first statement, Naruto blocked out anything she may have said and focused on the room.

He felt what she meant. This place has definitely seen plenty of use in the past. The aether here practically flooded the place. But unlike back at the house, the aether here seemed…tainted, as though something had gone wrong with whatever that happened here. Judging by the blood on the walls and the permanent resident here, it seemed very likely.

He was brought back to reality when the purplenette shook him. Seeing her light-green eyes ask a silent, yet understood question. "It's nothing. Just let me take a look there," he pointed at the culvert, "and we can leave." Nodding, Ajisai let go of the blond.

He went and looked inside the culvert. The hexagram he saw on the amulet appeared there as well. In the base of the culvert, he saw a small wooden box. Picking it up, he tried to open the lid but it remained shut, even though it had no visible lock. Turning the box around in his torch-free hand, he saw a faded circle inscribed on the side.

Pressing his thumb and channelling life-force, Naruto saw as the lid snapped open to reveal a journal and a corked vial, with a wooden fragment inside of it. Deciding to have a better look back home, Naruto closed the box, asked Ajisai to hold his torch and sealed it into a scroll with his notebook.

"Come on, let's head back." Handing the torch to him, the girl followed the blond as they headed out of the chamber and back outside. The sun was setting, so Naruto knew that they needed to either find shelter or… to take a leap of faith. Naruto knew that this wasn't exactly a good way for her to trust him, but he didn't want to remain in this country very longer. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Ajisai.

"Can you trust me?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It'll take us another two days or so to get back to Fire Country's border if we run and sleep. There's a high chance we might encounter those men again or bandits if we do so though. I have another way that'll take much less time, but if you want to go for it, you need to trust me a little, and I know that's asking a lot from you. Believe me, I know the feeling."

"So, are you willing to trust me?" he asked, stretching his hand out for her.

Ajisai was a bit surprised that he had asked her to trust him out of the blue, but he raised a good point. She had a feeling that even with Naruto alongside her too many things could go wrong. Also, thanks to the time that she had spent with the blue-eyed boy she managed to discern that he did keep his promises. He had not abandoned her in the woods after all, and he didn't seem like the kind of guy to just suddenly betray her. So she decided to take a leap of faith of her own.

She grasped Naruto's outstretched hand and said in a calm voice: "I trust you. You haven't given me a reason not to yet."

Cracking a small smile, Naruto pulled her into a boulder's shadow and wrapped his arms around her.

"Alright, whatever you do, don't freak out and don't let go."

Before she could ask what he meant, he called out, "Obscuro! Can you give us a lift?"

For a few seconds nothing happened. Then suddenly, he felt himself being pulled into the familiar shadow world, with Ajisai holding onto him. Feeling her fear, he pressed her head onto his chest in reassurance. Without a word, the shadowy claws of Obscuro held them and they took off.

To Ajisai, who wasn't used to this method of traveling, it was as if the whole world grew dark and she was being hurled forward at blistering speeds. The only thing she managed to feel was Naruto's hold on her, protecting her from this…nightmare.

Due to the fact that it was getting dark, they covered much more ground in far less time when compared to the forward trip. Naruto couldn't even see the landscaping passing by anymore; just a dark and red blur rushing above him and Ajisai.

Speaking of, the girl had managed, by some unexplainable reason, to fall asleep in his arms. 'At least she won't complain about the rest of trip,' he thought.

Eventually, they both popped out behind the house. The sun had already set, but Naruto had no way of knowing just how late it was. Seeing that the girl was still asleep, he called to Obscuro for help. When he received no reply, he could've sworn that someone was laughing at him.

Tired and irritated, Naruto trudged into the house and up into his room, where he set Ajisai on one side of the bed. Deciding that he would take a bath tomorrow, he put the scrolls on his desk and changed into his sleeping clothes: a simple t-shirt and shorts. He lay down on the other side of the bed and tried to sleep.

Before he could do so however, he felt something shift next to him and soon enough, he found himself in Ajisai's embrace once more. Too tired to protest, the blond settled in, enjoying the warmth they now shared.

New chapter introducing my new beta: Metalman Mech!

There are a few hidden references here (HINT: one's from a famous Visual Novel). Anyone who points out what they are will get free cookies!

This chapter may feel a little bit rushed in the end, but I don't think that Naruto is ready for a confrontation (yet), and creating a repeat of the journey in reverse is a bit asinine .

Go check out my other story "Mugenjin of Judgment" and vote on the poll on my profile! (Looking for a beta on that story now)

Read and review. Review. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIIIEEWWWWWWW!