Chapter 31

The demon girl of the sea

Naruto and Haku walked through the town. Keeping an eye on anyone that may seem suspicious while looking for the girl at the same time. The sun had already reached its highest point and began its slow decent towards the sea. The two boys had searched the whole morning but the only piece of information they got was the girl's name. Isaribi. Once they mentioned that name, they would get looks of hate, fear or both and were promptly dismissed with a warning of "if you know what's best for you, you wouldn't try look for her."

Naruto sighed a he inspected a fish a storeowner was selling. The fish was about half a meter long sardine. To a normal person, it would seem as if the fish was just caught, maybe a day ago but in perfect condition. But to a ninja, it was easily visible that the fish had been painted. Some parts were already rotting and there was a slight smell in the air. By Naruto's estimate, the fish was almost a week old.

"So what do you say young fellow?" the shop owner asked "1 000 ryo for the fish. That's a great price for a fish just caught yesterday don't you think?" Naruto nodded. "Thanks, but no thanks"

Just then a girl with some bandages around her face, arms and legs walked past. She had purple hair and wore a sleeveless tunic-blouse and brown shorts. In her hands, she was carrying a basket of medium sized fish. Just a look inside the basket and Naruto could tell that the fish were top quality and just caught. Many of them were still twitching and gasping.

The girl walked up to the storeowner selling bad fish and presented the bucket of fish. He took a look inside and nodded. "500 ryo" he said. The girl looked like she wanted to argue but nodded in the end. She gave him the basket while he threw her a pouch. She barely caught the pouch and opening it, she counted the coins inside. Looking up, she opened her mouth as if to say something. It was likely the money was short. But the man beat her to it. He grabbed a nearby broom and held it threateningly. "Problem?" he asked. The girl quickly closed her mouth and shook her head. "That's what I thought. Now scram! You're interrupting my business and disturbing my customers." He shouted.

The girl quickly turned around and left the shop.

Naruto made eye contact with Haku and gave a discrete nod. This was very likely Isaribi. They quickly and discretely followed her at a distance. After a while, the girl seemed to notice them trailing her and quickened her pace. Ducking into alleys and trying to blend into the crowd. A very hard thing to do when people parted away when you came near and glared in your direction.

Soon they reached the edge of the city and she broke into a full sprint. "Damn, for a non-shinobi, she is quite fast. She must have knowledge of how to use chakra" Naruto cursed. But even if she did, Naruto and Haku were shinobi and had a much greater control of chakra. They caught up to her at the edge of the beach where the water met sand. Naruto jumped in front of her and Haku behind to block off her escape routes. They stood about a meter away from her in a non-threatening manner and held up their hands. "Relax, we just want to talk."

Isaribi narrowed her eyes and before they could react, she jumped and dived right into the sea. They tried to chase after her, but Isaribi just dived deeper and within a minute, they lost sight of her. On land shinobi were faster, but it seems that Isaribi was even faster than shinobi in the sea.

"Naruto, make some shadow clones and have them search the coastline. If she lives on the mainland then she must have a house somewhere here. Given what the town thinks of her, I doubt that they would allow her to live where they do." Haku commanded.

Naruto nodded. "Shadow clone jutsu!" instantly, there was a huge cloud of smoke as dozens of clones appeared. "Alright! You heard him! Scatter!" the clones all saluted and jumped away. "now we wait"

Naruto sat down on the beach. "Those fish she had, they were definitely worth more than 500 ryo" he muttered.

Haku nodded "yeah, tomorrow he will find all his fish spoiled" Naruto looked at him in surprise. "I didn't know you were the vengeful type Haku!"

The ice user shrugged "who said it was me?" he winked.

The blond jinchuriki was about to retort when he was hit by a memory "I found it. It's just north of here. Let's go"

Xxx

The two boys arrived at where Naruto's clone dispersed. They saw a house that was covered in graffiti with several boys throwing rocks at it.

"Die demon!"

"Return to where you come from!"

"Give me back my father!"

Were some of the things they were shouting. With each shout, they threw another rock. And since the place was built on a rocky ground, there were plenty to choose from.

"hey look" Naruto whispered to Haku. Isaribi walked out from behind the house with a bucket. Judging by the fact that her bandages and clothes were dry, they assumed that she had been there for a while and gotten changed already. She placed the bucket on a flat rock and took out a sponge and began cleaning off the graffiti, completely ignoring the rocks thrown at her. One particular accurate rock flew and hit her arm that was holding the sponge, causing her to drop it. Even from afar, Naruto could see her wince and rub the spot here she was hit before bending down and picking up the sponge again.

The boys cheered and praised the one who threw the rock and booed when she just ignored them and continued to scrub her house. Angered they were being ignored, they picked up more rocks and threw in her direction again.

Whether by chance or he was just that accurate, the same boy who's rock hit her the first time, threw another rock that was headed for her head, and since she made no move to get out the way, it was likely she didn't know of it. Before the rock hit her, Haku threw a rock of his own that knocked it off course. Surprised by the new direction the rock came from, both Isaribi and the boys turned to the direction it came from.

"Hey! Why did you do that! It was going to hit the monster!" he shouted.

"That's why I did it." Haku answered back.

"He's in league with the monster! Get him!" he told his friends.

Haku watched as all of them threw rocks in their direction. He pulled his hands out his pockets to reveal he had hidden rocks. Throwing them as if they were shuriken, he knocked all the other rocks out the air before they got anywhere near them. "Enough of this. Go home" he said.

One of the boys gritted his teeth and bent down to pick up another rock. Just as he was about to pick it up, he felt the sharp pain of a rock hitting his hand and fell back in shock. "I said go home."

It was then that they noticed the Mist headbands Haku and Naruto wore. "Shinobi!" they cried in fear and tripped over themselves getting away.

The two shinobi watched them leave before jumping down to where Isaribi stood watching. Once she realized that they were coming, she started heading for the sea again but stopped once she saw there were clones blocking the way. She turned around to see that she was trapped. Naruto to her left, his clones to her right, Haku in front of her and her house behind her.

Haku stepped forward but stopped when Isaribi bent down and picked up a rock. He held his hands up. "Isaribi. We are not here to hurt you. We just want to talk" he promised.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at them suspiciously "how do you know my name?"

Haku and Naruto glanced at each other "we asked around" Haku gave.

Isaribi relaxed her stance a slight bit. Not much to say she trusted them, but enough to say that she wouldn't be running away at the first chance and at would at least hear them out. "Fine. What do you want to talk about" she relented. Naruto took this as his cue to dispel his clones.

"I am Haku Yuki and this is Naruto." He introduced "We are on a mission to find an individual. All we know is that this person may be the cause of the sea monster attacks and is likely the same person who kidnapped all the children 3 years ago. Since you are the only person who came back from wherever it was, we thought that maybe you knew who the person was and tell us anything you can remember. This could help us catch him and clear your name. You won't have people treat you as an outcast anymore." Haku explained.

The girl hesitated for a moment. The two shinobi could see the conflicting emotions, sadness, anger, hope and… guilt? It came and went so fast they couldn't be sure. Finally, Isaribi opened her mouth to speak. "The island I was taken to was one of the four main ones. The man who took me was a man called Amachi. The people kidnapped were all used for experiments and I… I only escaped because he let me. And as for treating me like an outcast… the villagers have a good reason to, because… I am a monster!"

Her exclamation caught the two completely off guard and moved to deny, but they hesitated when they saw the slight formation of tears by her eyes. This hesitation cost them as Isaribi kicked up some of the rocks and blinded them before jumping into the water.

When they recovered, Naruto moved to chase after her but was stopped by Haku. "Going on after her is pointless. She had already proven to be faster than us in water. Let's head back to the village and meet up with Fu and Mei to tell them the news. Naruto opened and closed his mouth a few times, doing on impressive imitation of a gaping fish. Finally he closed his eyes took a deep breath. "Yeah. I see your point. Let's go" Naruto said, walking off with Haku following closely behind. "That girl, she reminds me of my time in Mist with the bloodline cleansing. People fear what they don't understand. And them not understanding makes people think rashly and resort to violence. And since they children learn from their parents, they blindly hate without knowing why." He said. "if only people took the time to understand, the world would be a much better place."

Unknown to Haku, there was a third person was listening to his thoughts. "but that's just a naïve way of thinking. Humans always seek out violence. It is in their nature" Isaribi thought to herself as she sunk back into the waters.

AN: (again, sorry for the coded version last chapter. That problem has been solved. Thanks to all who told me about it. I wouldn't have known otherwise)

Yes this is slightly shorter than my normal lengths (and a few hours later than intended too. I should probably start getting them out earlier, I feel like I'm losing readers :/).

Reviews:

(Guest)CW: no I didn't forget (it's kinda hard to when its literally in the title when you post). It's just that no major battles that require the sharingan has happened yet.

(other Guest): a codded problem

Thedarkwolf95: sorry. Has been fixed

Hikari Nova: thanks for the heads up

Cloudmatter: sorry just a saving bug

Noahendless: yeah

Eeveetheimmortal: yeah thanks

Zeus501: done and dusted

Lou2003us: saving error

Anbufox771: yeah it just saved wrong

Golfaholic: sorry bout that. You can continue enjoying the chapters now

Roxas199: it didn't get converted properly

: its fixed now

Jacklvmage12: yeah, the "Kaima". This is that Kaima capture mission (Episode 169-173 in part 1). The hydrofication technique is from canon. The bloodline of the Hozuki (remember Suigetsu?).

Yeah the three old ladies with their knitting tools are on my side, or rather they fear me too much to dare oppose me. I am the lord of creation. I am creation. Chaos, Order, Helix. I created them out of nothing. Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Aztec, every last immortal. Every last all powerful entity is only strong because I allowed them to be. Besides, who said I was Doomsday? Who said I wasn't the original destroyer? My power of destruction isn't as much as destroying as much as taking back what I created. But as powerful as I am, I am just as generous. I shall allow you to keep some of my feline creations. I can always create better ones. (on a side note, I wonder how many people read our battle for amusement)

I'm saving up to buy a console that has storm 4. It sucked when it didn't come out on xbox360 :/

Antex- The Legendary Zoroark: thanks, and yeah