Kitsune here with the next chapter. You know, a lot actually happens in this one, even if it doesn't seem like it. I think it's my longest chapter to boot. Next one is planned. Anyway, I've got nothing else to say on the matter.
"Thanks and Thanks again!" to my favers, reviewers, alerters, and c2ers. Lots of cookies to you all!
This chapter's question, "What's your favorite NON anime movie?" I have quite a few. Princess Bride, Hellboy, True Lies, Lion King...the list goes on and on.
Lazy clapping could be heard from the window. Roy sighed, not even bothering to look even as his companion jumped. "How long have you two been there?"
"Long enough," Kakashi shrugged as he stepped into the room. Mustang was pretty sure there wasn't a ledge outside that window—best not to think about it, he decided as Naruto's head popped up at an odd angle.
"Were you applauding the idea or the game?"
"Both, actually." Kakashi strolled over, "Fascinating game." He eyed the board with a calculating stare for a moment before continuing, "Tsunade, my boss, has told me to offer our full assistance. In return, all we ask is assistance with the Alchemy needed to get us home. Sound fair?"
"And why should I agree to that?" Roy snapped, "For all I know, this is some elaborate plot you came up with!" Grumman was strangely quiet as he watched the scene unfold. The flame alchemist vaguely felt like his was acting out a play the Fuhrer had written, and he was watching him from the front row. Mustang remembered that feeling, and he hated it. If only I was half as good as the old coot...
"Possible," the other man admitted, "But unlikely. It's more likely that whoever attacked this Briggs place is the same one who somehow managed to pull Naruto to this world. After talking with Naruto about what that strange person said, I doubt that this was Nagato's plan at all." Kakashi looked serious, "In short, you have a problem."
"And what do you think of all this?" Mustang asked Naruto, who was sitting on the windowsill.
The blond shrugged. "I don't like it," he stated, "But Kakashi-sensei's right, the whole thing stinks like sour milk. Someone over there is responsible for bringing me here, and as much as I really DON'T like you, I'm willing to ignore that to get the chance to beat the shit of out them."
"How very big of you, my boy!" Grumman put in, a grin on his face, "There you have it, Brigadier General, they've volunteered their help. I'm sure it won't take much to get the Elric's to go along. As you pointed out, it might be harder to get them to stay. So. You have your orders." The Fuhrer stood, Mustang reluctantly following suit and saluting, "Get your gear together and get going. Time is of the essence."
He gave the only answer he really could as the man left the room, probably to inform the others of the trip. "Yes, Sir!" He turned his glare at the two others in the room. Roy felt a migraine coming on at the thought of having to take them along.
"He's good," Kakashi looked up from the chessboard, "I can see why he's in charge. So, when are we leaving?"
"I would assume by the end of the day. Let me make myself clear, however. I don't like you, and I sure as hell don't trust you. But, we'll teach you what we can, if for no other reason than to get rid of that brat..." Mustang ground his teeth as he spotted Naruto out of the corner of his eye. The blond was rummaging though his desk drawers, drawers he was sure he had locked. "...Which couldn't be too soon. You, in exchange, are going to teach Edward and Alphonse what you can of chakra. YOU! Get out of that drawer!"
"Yeah, yeah, hold your horses, Ash-hole. Just getting my books. AH! Here they are!" The blond held the two well-loved books up, grinning happily. "Can't go anywhere without my, what was it again? Oh yeah, 'mission plans' or some such bullshit. Ok, Kakashi-sensei, I'm ready to go."
_*&*&*_Time Skip_*&*&*_
It had taken a remarkably short amount of time to get ready. Actually, no time at all, since Hawkeye had barged into the room only a short while later (catching Naruto dancing with his adult novel in hand) to tell him that Ed, Al, and Alex were all waiting for them at the front gate, packed and ready. Ed had even gotten his automail swapped out for the trip already. When he'd gone to protest, Hawkeye just glared at him and said his bags were also ready, and were with Alex. Apparently she'd packed his stuff after she'd gotten her things together. Now he just had to ignore Naruto's little love songs about the two of them. "Would you shut up? You've been annoying the hell out of me since we arrived at the train station. Keep it up, and I'm going to kill you."
"HA! Like you could, lover-boy." The blond grinned, not even looking at him. Instead he looked at the train with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.
"Naruto, if you don't stop, I will shoot you right now. Is that understood?" When Naruto went to laugh, Hawkeye backed up her threat by pulling her weapon on him as Ed and Al got out of the line of fire. Smart boys. It was a testament to how well the people at the train station knew most of the members of their group that no one acted as if this was odd.
"Hehe... Oh yeah! Ms. Hawkeye, have you met Kakashi-sensei?" A wicked glint shone in the blue eyes, "He's been my sensei since I was twelve. I've learned so much from him! In fact, he introduced me to the "Come Come" series back when I was a kid." The blond just grinned as all the color drained out from Kakashi's face.
Riza immediately swung her gun around to point at the silver haired man. "Is that true?"
"Well, technically, yes. BUT! I was just reading it and it's not..."
"YOU READ IT TO HIM?" The safety clicked off.
"NO!" The man waved his hands, looking truly afraid, "Calm down! I'm not bullet-proof, right?" He looked at his student who was just laughing, "Tell her, Naruto! I never read "Come Come" to you out loud! I just read it while teaching you guys!"
Roy couldn't help asking, "What?"
"Oh, he'd give us a task and then sit back and read his perv-books."
"SEE? I never read them out loud to them. It's not my fault if Naruto was stupid enough to read it out loud over my shoulder one day, is it?"
"You read it out loud? What were you thinking? Didn't you know what it was?" Ed laughed.
"Sasuke, Sakura, and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about." The other blond pouted, "Ok, so it was mostly me, but still. I was curious. Besides, that was only after Kakashi had me pick up the next volume at the bookstore for him, you know?"
Hawkeye didn't take this revelation well, "You had a twelve year old pick up a pornographic novel for you?"
"Actually, he was twelve and a half at the time." Kakashi said, only to gulp, "A very mature twelve and a half!"
Hawkeye looked over to where the boys stood, all three laughing now, and raised an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Er. Please don't shoot me?" Kakashi sweat-dropped, "Cut me some slack, ok? His godfather writes a really good story!" Godfather? Wait, didn't he say his 'Master' wrote them? "And it's not like I taught him that technique, Sexy-jutsu. He knew that BEFORE he met me. I've got NO CLUE where he picked that one up."
All eyes turned to Naruto, who just shrugged, "Home-made when I was eight." He raised his hands up, "Long story, involving a lot of booze and adult TV. I really don't want to talk about it." There was a moment of awkward silence as Hawkeye put away her gun. It occurred to him that maybe Naruto's past was not as simple as he had thought. He should know very well what kind of pain a cocky smile could hide. "So, are we really going to ride a train?"
Roy laughed at his expression, "What, did you expect us to run the whole way?"
"Well, yeah, actually. I kinda did."
Ed gaped at them, "You're nuts! That would take forever, you know!"
"At the speed we could go, it would be about a week." Kakashi put in as he opened his book back up.
"You shinobi have obviously trained your bodies to the height of physical perfection to manage such a feat!"
Naruto grinned at Armstrong, "Yeah, we're awesome. So, about this train thing? Is it safe?"
"You've never been on a train before?" Hawkeye sounded as shocked as he was. He couldn't imagine traveling any great distance without the use of trains.
Blue eyes rolled in an exaggerated manner, "Well, duh. I mean, it's not like there was a train station at the hidden village, you know? Besides, train-fare is expensive."
The boarding call went out and they all quickly gathered their bags and climbed on board as Kakashi elaborated, "Not to mention that as shinobi we rarely need to go anywhere a train could take us. Though I'm surprised, I would have thought Jiraiya rode the train."
"Ero-sennin? Nah, too expensive. He'd rather spend his money in the clubs. Of course, if you had asked him, he would have said something about it being good training for me or something. Broke bastard." His face lit up, "I call window!"
"Fine, fine. Just no climbing out of the window just yet, alright?"
Alphonse chuckled nervously, "But, he wouldn't really do that, right, Naruto?"
"Huh? Of course I would! I can't wait to try training on a train that's moving! Kakashi-sensei, can I please?"
The man laughed, "See, I know my number one knuckle-headed student. Maybe later, let the train get out of town first at least."
_*&*&*_POV NARUTO_*&*&*_
It had taken a lot of talk to convince the idiot Mustang that they knew what they were doing. In the end, Roy had grudgingly allowed them to 'tempt fate on a speeding train,' as he put it. As long as Kakashi took the opportunity to start teaching the other blonds about chakra control. Which was how Naruto found himself battling his own clone on the top of a speeding roof while Kakashi was the next car over explaining what he was doing to the two teens. He had kind of been hoping to spar with his sensei, but he had to admit, this worked better. The two brothers seemed to be fast learners, and the pointers they shouted out periodically weren't completely useless.
"Knock him off balance! The speed of the train should do the rest!" Alphonse called, "So, you can use chakra to stick to things then, like the train? That explains how Naruto-kun ran up a wall. What..."
The down side of them shouting out advice is the clone can hear them, too... Naruto mused as his clone kicked his feet out from under him, sending him skidding and bouncing along the roof of the car into open space. "CRAP!" The two Naruto's shouted, quickly forming a few more clones to grab the original and toss him back onto the roof before dispelling. "That would have hurt."
"And you would have fallen behind, Naruto." Kakashi lazily pointed out, waving at Naruto to take a break. "It's possible to walk on water, yes. Not air. Training in these techniques improves chakra control, making it easier to do more advanced techniques."
"Like what, other than fighting?" Ed was taking notes, reminding Naruto of Sai a bit.
"You can use chakra for all sorts of things," Naruto put in as he joined them, "Healing, for one. Oh! You can use it to help make things, like the potter down the road from my apartment. Um... Special effects in movies, too?"
Ed glared at him, "Your examples suck."
"Yeah, well, I'm a shinobi, alright?" Naruto growled back, "I never paid attention in the academy when they explained the other uses, you jerk."
"How could not pay attention to that?" Al wondered, "It seems important."
"Because Naruto here knew he was going to be a ninja," Kakashi interrupted before a full scale argument could ensue, "He'd picked his path before going into the academy, so he would have only gone to a few of the classes on chakra manipulation for civilians. After the first year, kunoichi are the only ones required to attend."
"Why?"
"Well," Naruto said, "It has something to do with the idea that they're better suited for infiltration missions." He shrugged, "I don't get it though. Sakura and Ino, well, they'd be horrible at it. Sakura uses her chakra to increase her physical strength and to heal others, by the way. Her punches are like WOW!" he threw up his hands, "She could totally kill you if they connect. But, then she could fix you right up."
"Naruto here happens to be her favorite punching bag." Kakashi laughed, "I used to think, 'why did I get saddled with such an odd team?' But, you've grown up into a fine shinobi, Naruto." Naruto grinned, feeling very warm and happy with the compliment as Kakashi continued the lesson. He decided that maybe helping these two was better than training. After all, Konohamaru had been fun to teach.
_*&*&*_Time Skip_*&*&*_
In the end, it took three days for them to reach the train station nearest Briggs. The roof-top lessons had to be moved into the train itself; it was really much too cold. Of course, getting caught having a mock battle on the top of the train at one of the stops might have something to do with it. Naruto had thought it very funny when Roy stood on the train platform yelling at them to knock it off before they broke the train. A few dents didn't seem like that big of a deal to him, after all.
Apparently, there had been a blizzard just the other day, and the roads had not been cleared, so the cars that had originally been sent were no use. So, the last leg of their journey had to be completed by truck. An old, recycled army vehicle that was older than he was, actually. The thing groaned and complained loudly when Roy started it, and promptly had gotten stuck in the new snow. It had taken an hour for everyone to dig out the truck the first time, only to have it get stuck within sight of the last hole. Next, they'd landed in a ditch. Really, the only good thing was the heater worked, because it was freezing.
So, when they'd finally come across the impressive fortress known as Briggs, Naruto's reaction was not one of awe (not that it would have been anyway, he'd seen better) but one of cranky relief. They were hours late, and he was starving and freezing, a litany he had subjected everyone to for the last hour. At that moment, he wouldn't have cared if their destination was a little hole in the ground, as long as it meant that they were there.
"I vote charcoal breath is never, ever allowed to drive again." Naruto grumbled while they waited at the gates to be let in, "A toad could probably drive better."
"Well, why don't you call one and have it try then, brat?" Roy sighed, obviously getting annoyed.
Naruto looked at him in shock, "What? Are you nuts? It's freezing out here! Toads don't do cold, man." He shuddered, "Anyone I called would become a toad Popsicle in under a minute. I wouldn't do that to them."
"Then would you shut up?"
"Yes, why don't you just shut up, little boy. You've only been here for five minutes, and you are already giving me a headache." Naruto froze; he hadn't felt anyone approach. Turning slowly he saw a woman with long blond hair, blue eyes and full lips .Actually, she is quite attractive, he noticed, except for the whole 'shut it or I'll kill you' vibe.
He smiled nervously at her, noticing the sword at her hip, "Shutting up now."
"Mustang, you're late. These idiots the 'help' you said you'd bring?"
"Obviously."
She smiled cruelly at Kakashi and Naruto, "I'm Olivier Armstrong, maggots. Welcome to Briggs."