The Dragon in the Maelstrom

Chapter 16: Godmother.

Written by Jlargent.

Me: Okay folks here's my early Christmas gift to you. Now Sean asked me in a review if this chapter would be in a third person and my response is that I'm not comfortable with doing that so I prefer to do it in a first person perspective. Now as you already know the typical disclaimers apply, I do not own Naruto or Avatar the Last Airbender in any shape or form.

Azula's POV

Looking at the state of the village brings to mind the ruined village that my brother and Aang fought each other but it was still functioning but barely as I notice the depression in the eyes of the people that were forced to abandon their hopes and dreams were shattered as my mind drifts back to the previous night.

Flashback

"Tsunami, I'm home!" Tazuna calls out as a familiar woman from eight years ago walks into the living room drying a plate in her hands only to drop it in shock causing it to shatter when she recognizes me, she stomps over to me and with a loud smack slaps me in the face with enough force to make my head turn. I gently place my hand on my cheek as I turn my head to see Tsunami with tears in her eyes. She stands there for a few seconds before falling to her knees and broke down and cries, I gently grab her and for a moment she stops crying long enough to look me in the eyes and I could plainly see the pain and loneliness in her tear-filled eyes before burying her face into my shoulder and continues crying.

After explaining to Tsunami that the reasons why I did not receive the letters that her father had sent was due to the interference of the civilian council she apologized for her actions and we spent the majority of that afternoon talking while the rest of the team was unpacking their supplies.

End flashback

I sigh as I continue looking around, after unpacking Anko suggested checking out the village to assess how bad the situation is. Naruto volunteered to stay behind and guard the house while the rest of us explored the village after a few seconds even I could tell that the village was hit hard by Gato's iron grip He's already broken the spirit of this place making it easier for him to drive the village right into the ground, if we don't stop this bastard soon then he's going to start doing mass executions for failing to pay him. I would do the same if I was still a cruel and sadistic bitch. I thought to myself as the sounds of a scuffle catches my attention.

I rush towards the source of the sounds to see a few men armed with knives cornering a small boy wearing overalls and a bucket hat.

"Hand over the bag of food kid! Us mercenaries need to eat too you know." he said as he held the knife in his hands in a threatening manner as the child was clutching the bag of groceries protectively.

"NO!" he screams out as the leading man reaches and yanks the bag out of his arms and kicks the child sending him into a wall knocking him out, the man then walks over and lifts him up into the air.

"Seeing as you're Tazuna's brat. I'll kill you right here as a message to your old man not to mess with Gato!" he sneered as I leapt into action.

"Drop the kid and walk away!" I yell out catching the three men off guard, I pull out a kunai and hold it in a defensive position. I repeated my order and not surprisingly the three men laughed until the lead man held his hand up and immediately they stopped.

"I recognize you. You're one of Tazuna's cut-rate ninjas, you picked the wrong client to work for bitch! Let's kill her and give her to the boss, he'll reward us greatly for killing one of the old man's guards." he said as one of the men withdraws a sword and the third man pulls out a pair of hatchets from behind his back. The second man started to swing his sword haphazardly clearly an armature in every sense of the word I fired a low powered lightning bolt hitting the blade of the sword shocking him long enough to knock him out, the third man rushes me and swings the hatchets around better than his companion but still pathetically stupid in leaving the holes in his defense so wide open, he misses wildly with a swing allowing me to take advantage of the situation and counter attack, I slam my foot into the man's back and I could distinctly hear the sound of bone cracking and an agonizing sound of pain came from the man and he collapses onto the street writhing and moaning in pain.

The final man looked at his companions and growled "Useless bastards…good help is hard to find and bad help is everywhere." he muttered as he reaches for his belt and pulls out a second knife and holds it in a reverse grip he then starts approaching me cautiously I carefully shifted my feet to move in front of the injured child and I decided on a risky course of action: instead of shooting the lighting out of my fingertips I would instead use the palm of my hand. I slowly go into the stance gathering up the latent energy around me and the man's eyes widen at what I was going to do and runs at me.

I thrust my palm out and instead of a narrow stream of lightning a wide beam of lightning shoots out slamming into the man blinding me for a moment, the light faded and the sound of a body hitting the ground catches my attention I look to where the man was and he was laying on the ground with a gaping hole the size of a large ball smoking from the corpse Well that's new, I wonder what would happen if I could utilize both hands? I wondered to myself as I bent down and picked the boy up to take him back to Tazuna's home.

Early the next morning the team assembled in a nearby clearing, Naruto, Hinata and Shino stood in attention knowing that despite this being a mission I refuse to let them slack off on training unlike Kakashi who has a habit of sucking the civilian council's collective dicks off.

"Okay today we'll go over charka control exercises then some sparring." I said as the three of them groaned, well Naruto and Hinata groaned Shino was silent throughout my orders but I could tell that he was groaning mentally, after a few hours of tree walking and water walking I moved them on for the three of them to spar each other all at once with the promise of a jutsu to the winner as a reward. I smiled as the three of them fought at their best and absolutely refused to give up but in the end due to Naruto's inhuman stamina from the 'infernal fur ball from hell' as Naruto puts it he stands over the collapsed forms of his teammates breathing hard.

I clap my hands gaining his attention "Congrats Naruto you just won yourself the Shadow Clone Jutsu." I smirked as he falls to his knees and laid on the ground it was at this time that Inari walked into the clearing.

"Mom sent me to tell you that lunch is ready." he said rudely and turns and heads back to the house not wanting to be around us any longer.

Anko looks at the retreating form of Inari "Since you're his godmother does that mean you can spank him for that?" she asks me as I wake Hinata and Shino up and help them to their feet.

I sighed "Trust me I am severely tempted right now. But Tsunami would gut me for that." I pointed out as we make our way to the house.

Later that night…

After eating lunch we continue training and after explaining the Shadow Clone Jutsu and what it can be used for he set to work on mastering it and to my surprise he managed to create nearly a thousand clones all at once. I reasoned that since Naruto needs less charka control for the shadow clone it would allow him to make a army without even denting his reserves. I then drilled him to use less clones in order to conserve his charka for emergencies after a few more sparring sessions but less intensity the six of us walk back to eat dinner while we're eating at the table I could sense that there was something wrong with Inari. After Naruto made a joke that had Hinata and Tsunami giggling Inari snapped and slams his palms on the table and gave Naruto a heated gaze.

"You're all going to die and you're laughing about it! You don't understand what we are going through and you never will!" he screams out as Tsunami scolds Inari, Naruto backhands Inari in the face hard making him clutch his reddened cheek as Naruto was leaking out restrained killing intent that was making Inari shake.

"You said I didn't understand? That's where you're wrong you little brat…before your godmother adopted me I knew nothing of love, nothing of family and warmth, I was living each day in my own personal hell. The villagers hunted me weekly and often succeeded in torturing the so called 'demon' that was plaguing their village. And it was worse on my birthday I have lost count of the times the villagers have beaten me but I know that they almost killed me at least fifty times. So don't you DARE tell me that I don't know what you're going through. Your mom told me about Kaiza and I'm willing to bet that he'd be spinning in his grave right now about how you're acting." Naruto spoke and turns to leave the room slamming the door hard enough to make the house shake.

After dinner I waited until Inari was sitting on the docks looking out at the water with his knees to his chin silently crying he hears me approaching and quickly wipes his eyes as I sit next to him I wait a moment trying to explain Naruto's actions and to apologize for not being there for him.

"Naruto's not normally this blunt you know?" I casually spoke catching Inari's attention.

"So?" he asks.

"What I'm trying to say is that Naruto's was sugarcoating the truth a little bit. His life was worse than you could ever imagine when I first met him I saved him from a crowd and felt a connection to him. That's when I decided to adopt Naruto and try to make his life better than the hell he has ever known and I haven't regretted it since then." I said as Inari looked at me in surprise.

"I would also like to apologize to my only godson for not being there for you when you needed me the most. When I found out that your grandfather was in trouble I had no idea how bad. Apparently the civilian council still resents me and prevented me from getting your letters and for that I'm sorry." I spoke as Inari leaps into my arms and I hug him deeply as he cries for his deceased father and finding his godmother.

To be continued…

Me: Keep the reviews coming and to everyone out there Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Next time: Burning Bridges.

As always Hoody Hoo!