A/N: Hey everyone, I have to apologize about the last chapter as I personally felt it was a bit lackluster myself. Anyways, no reviews last chapter, but thanks to everyone who read it. In order to compensate for the last chapter, I have an extra long chapter in store for you guys (and girls), containing a bit of everything. So anyways, here it is:
Disclaimer: The owner and creator of Naruto is Kishimoto and therefore it is fair to assume that he owns all the characters from it as well as the story. I do not own Naruto, just the occasional OC and stuff.
Chapter 5: The Land of Fire
Konoha, early afternoon:
Naruto began his walk back from the Hokage monument thinking of some possible places to go for his date later. He was struggling to think of something that would be suitable, which unfortunately did not include Ichiraku ramen much to his dismay. While Naruto was lost in thought, he ran into someone who was walking his way, "Hey, watch where you're-" he stopped upon realizing he had run into Shino, "Oh, Shino it's just you. Sorry about that I was just thinking about something."
Shino slightly readjusted his glasses changing the reflection of the sun off of them, before saying, "If you were lost in thought, something must be bugging you, what were you thinking about?"
"Eh, I was just having problem planning a date that's all." Naruto replied, not really expecting Shino to delve deep into his business.
"I take it that your date tonight is with Hinata, I know that because my bugs are particularly perceptive." Shino said stoically.
Naruto sweat-dropped slightly before answering, "Y-yeah it is. I don't suppose you would have any advice would you."
"Actually I do have some. For a first date, you should make sure that you dress yourself appropriately, not too casual, but at the same time not too formal. Also, you should pay for your date as it is the gentlemanly thing to do. A first date should never be at a place such as Ichiraku's despite how much you might enjoy it. Plan out a date which shows you put in the effort, knowing Hinata she would appreciate that much in itself. That is all I have to say, so I must go and tend to some business regarding my insects." Shino finished, leaving Naruto jaw-dropped.
"Uh, thanks Shino." Naruto said, before Shino nodded and left. 'Geeze who'd imagine that guy would know so much, I guess I don't give him enough credit.' Naruto thought to himself, before heading home to prepare for his date.
Elsewhere, Hinata was preparing herself for her date, more mentally than physically. 'I cannot faint in front of Naruto-kun.' she thought to herself, before shifting through her clothes trying to find something suitable to wear later. After finding something she felt was suitable, she decided she would polish up her look and went to the powder room to prepare.
Konoha, late afternoon:
Naruto stood outside the Hyuga compound wearing a white button up shirt and black slacks. He had just notified one of the branch member guards that he was there to take Hinata on a date, to which the branch member went to notify Hinata with a small smirk on his face.
After pacing slightly worriedly, he saw the gate open and Hinata walked out. She wore a pink dress (A/N: Watch Naruto Shippuden Ending 21 (Cascade) to see an image of it because I can't really describe it.) which had a rounded collar and she wore a blue tank top underneath, which only had its straps visible from the opening in the dress. "Hello Naruto-kun" said Hinata timidly.
"Wow Hinata, you look amazing!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Thank you Naruto-kun, you look great too." Hinata replied.
"I've got a bunch of awesome stuff planned tonight, so we should leave now." Naruto said with a goofy grin before gently grabbing Hinata's hand. He intertwined his fingers with hers before they started walking towards their first destination.
'Naruto-kun is such a gentleman' Hinata thought to herself before asking Naruto, "Naruto-kun, where are we going?"
"Well first off I was thinking we could go to this new sushi place," Naruto said, "I hear they are pretty good and I have a feeling you would like it."
"That sounds wonderful Naruto-kun." Hinata said, while shifting slightly closer to him as they walked. Hinata found that having Naruto by her side made her feel for a lack of a better word, safe, as if he would stop anything from hurting her. Naruto on the other side was glad to have someone to stick by his side and support him, especially someone who shared the same mindset and beliefs as him.
The couple shortly arrived at the restaurant where they were guided to a table by a very polite server, who was rather shocked to be serving both the Hyuga heiress and the village hero at a single table. The restaurant was fairly small, but it had a new feel to it, being well ornamented, but being dimly lit. Candles at each table illuminated the restaurant which was composed mainly of wood and bamboo.
The server took each person's order, before leaving to fetch some glasses of water. Upon acquiring the waters the server witnessed Naruto ecstatically explaining a story to Hinata, who was trying to stifle a laugh. The server then smiled at the pair before leaving to give the cook the order leaving Naruto to continue the story.
Hinata covered her mouth with her hand while giggling, "Kakashi-sensei beat both you and the group of enemy ninja?"
"Yeah, but back then we were really weak and stuff," Naruto pouted, "After the mission I asked Kakashi if I could see what was behind his mask and guess what was?"
Hinata now eager to hear the conclusion to the story sat with her head on her hands, "What was behind the mask Naruto-kun?"
"Believe this, another mask!" Naruto said before laughing alongside Hinata, "I guess I never got to see what was behind it though."
"Don't worry Naruto-kun, some things are better left unseen," Hinata said while gently laying her hand and Naruto's, to which he looked up at her and smiled, receiving a smile in return. The server then brought their meals and wished for them to have a good meal, before dismissing himself.
Naruto surprisingly ate his food with a certain delicacy, determined to impress his date. The blond also began to tell another story while the two ate, Hinata enjoying every second of his company.
Upon finishing the meal and receiving the bill, Naruto grabbed the bill, before Hinata stopped him, "Naruto-kun, please let me pay for it, it's the least I can do to repay you for planning the date," she said.
Naruto replied, "I'm sorry Hinata, but I'm obligated to pay, after all it is my job to make this date amazing and I never go back on my word."
Hinata smiled, before letting go of the cheque saying, "Alright Naruto-kun, just promise me you won't pay for me all the time, I can't let you do that."
Naruto grinned before placing money to pay for the meal and a reasonable tip on the table, "I'll try not to ok Hinata?", before grabbing her hand and leading her outside of the restaurant and towards their next destination.
"Where are we going next Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked, curious as to what else the blond had in store.
"Well, I was thinking that we could go on a walk around the village, but I have a better idea." Naruto said, leading Hinata towards the Hokage monument. The pair stopped at a park which had a good view of the Hokage monument and the sun about to set behind it. Naruto signalled towards a bench before the two sat on it, side by side.
"You know, of all the times that I looked up there in admiration, I've actually never seen it at sunset," Naruto began, "It really is amazing, don't ya think Hinata?"
Hinata nodded, "It is Naruto-kun and I know you'll be up there one day too."
"You really think so?" Naruto asked, "I'm sure Sasuke-teme is a pretty good contender."
"Of course Naruto-kun and I'll do everything I can to help you get there and I never go back on my word because that-" Hinata responded.
"-is our ninja way." Naruto finished, before pulling Hinata closer and putting an arm protectively around her, "I want you to stay by my side and help me get up there."
"I will, I promise." Hinata responded, snuggling a bit closer to Naruto while they sat in comfortable silence watching the sun set.
Unbeknownst to them, a certain Uchiha was sitting a tree at the edge of the park watching before he thought to himself, 'Hn, we'll see who becomes Hokage dobe,' he then smirked before leaving to rest after a day of intensive training.
Naruto walked Hinata home as closure to their date, bringing her to the front of the Hyuga compound. "Well this is your place I guess," Naruto sheepishly said.
Hinata nodded before responding, "Naruto-kun, the date was wonderful, thank you for planning it all out."
Naruto rubbed the back of his head before replying, "It really wasn't much trouble Hinata, I'm just glad you liked it, so umm, I guess you'd be fine with another right?"
"Of course Naruto-kun. I'm sure my father is worrying right now though, so I should go soon." Hinata said.
"Alright Hinata, bye!" he said while bringing her into a hug, to which Hinata hugged back.
"Bye Naruto-kun," she answered while staring into his eyes, while he returned the stare for a lingering moment before Naruto broke the hug slightly to Hinata's discontent.
Hinata started to walk back to her house as Naruto waved and started to leave the other way, 'Damn, I should've kissed her there.' he thought starting to sulk.
"Naruto-kun?" he heard Hinata say before he turned around.
"Y-yeah?", he replied before Hinata wrapped her hands around his neck and brought his head down to meet his lips.
The kiss lasted for a few seconds before Hinata whispered, "Bye," and quickly ran back to the Hyuga compound with a scorching blush which was invisible in the night.
"Bye." Naruto responded to the now vacant street, before erupting in a mad grin and walking home with a certain bounce in his step.
Civilian Village, close to the border of the Land of Fire, evening:
Two figures walked into a civilian village, one wearing a loose-fitting red kimono with a red bandanna over their lower face and a tanto on their back, while the other wore a metal(silver) chest plate and had a few giant(fuma) shuriken on his back as well as storage seals on his arm. The two stopped at the outskirts of the village before the older figure turned to his partner, "Yakekoge, you know what our leader said, do whatever you want, but I don't particularly want to take part in this."
Yakekoge turned towards his partner giving an angry glare, "Shogai, we are to distract Konoha while leader-sama completes his work there. If that means killing civilians then I am more than willing to do it, as long as it leads to the fall of Konoha." he paused before continuing, "Besides, innocents are never spared, this village will suffer the same fate as mine had to."
"Fine, do whatever you have to, but I'm not getting involved in this, I'm just in this to get revenge on a certain someone." Shogai responded.
"Very well, don't get in my way," Yakekoge warned, Shogai walking out of the village as Yakekoge leapt onto a nearby rooftop and flew through a few hand signs. "Fire Style: Great Phoenix Sage Fire!" he shouted while launching a greatly enhanced version of the normal barrage of small fireballs, the technique instead sent fireballs the size of an Uchiha's fireball jutsu raining down on the village shredding through buildings and sending civilians running onto the street.
Yakekoge then narrowed his eyes, before jumping high up and quickly sending a fireball onto the building he was standing upon and landing gracefully on the street. "Fire Style: Flame Stream" he announced before ignited the entire street with a massive stream of fire which stretched across the length of the entire village incinerating any of those in the path of the flames. The few survivors of the initial assault quickly fled to the exits of the village, but were unable to reach them as Yakekoge quickly leapt from civilian to civilian taking them out with a quick slash of the tanto to the neck, without a single smear of blood landing on the tanto.
Shogai quickly leapt to the street Yakekoge was on as he picked off two more survivors. "Yakekoge that's enough, besides we have to leave a survivor to warn Konoha," Shogai said.
"They'll know eventually," Yakekoge said, before leaping down to the remaining 3 civilians and quickly killing two before precisely throwing his tanto into the back of the final one.
"After all," Yakekoge said as he turned towards Shogai with a look of pure malice, "only one civilian village's destruction won't be enough to attract a shinobi village."
Shogai surprisingly was unfazed by the pure killer intent coming from Yakekoge and he responded, "Fine, whatever, you can do your thing and I'll do mine, in the end we both have our reasons to take down Konoha and if this is what we have to do, then fine by me."
Yakekoge then turned towards the exit of the village and walked out followed by Shogai, leaving the flaming wreckage of what was once a peaceful border village, the flames now illuminating the night.
Konoha, the next day:
Naruto stumbled out of his bed and made himself some instant ramen as he woke himself up. After he ate his ramen breakfast, he reminisced about the events of the previous day with a grin before setting out to find his Uchiha rival.
Konoha Training Grounds:
"Hey teme! What are you doing?" Naruto asked as he landed next to Sasuke in one of Konoha's training grounds.
"Tch, I'm training. What do you want dobe?" Sasuke asked in an annoyed tone.
"Hm, how about a spar, unless you're afraid?" Naruto said while leaning closer to Sasuke.
"Hn, I don't have time for that right now Naruto, I'm working on some techniques right now." the Uchiha responded while pushing Naruto away.
"Fine, whatever I barely wanted to fight you anyways," Naruto said while pouting before leaving to go to his own training ground.
Naruto went into a meditative position in the center of the training ground and tried to access the tailed beast plane only to find himself in a familiar sewer surrounding. 'Well I guess this is a good enough sign that Kurama has been fixing the seal' Naruto thought as he walked towards the location where the nine-tails had been imprisoned for a good portion of 16 years.
Upon arriving at the large room he couldn't help but notice that there was a large closed cage with a certain resting fox behind it, "Oi! Kurama, what happened here?" Naruto exclaimed.
One of the fox's eyes lazily opened, while it said in a growl, "Go away brat, do you know how difficult it is to rebuild our chakra link?"
Naruto scratched his head, "Not really."
Kurama slowly lifted himself into an upright position, "Well I basically had to rebuild the seal exactly as it had been originally from the inside. Do you know how much work that is kit? Anyways, in order to stabilize my chakra so that it did not mess you up during your fight, I had to build the seal as it originally was, so you'd have to use the seal key to access my chakra again."
Naruto gave the fox a sly grin, "And what if I don't?"
Kurama then proceeded to lie down, "Then I'll just go back to resting, it's your loss."
Naruto then proceeded to wave his hands frantically, "No! I need to train, I'll use the seal key you damn fox!" he shouted before reaching towards his stomach and applying some slight chakra to his fingers and twisting his hand to release the seal. The massive cage containing the fox swung open allowing the fox to swing its tails around more freely before the two entered the deeper Tailed Beast Plane.
Naruto stood surrounded by the nine-tailed beasts, before he decided to ask, "Hey Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Chomei, Gyuki and furball." The fox twitched at the comment before deciding not to bother remarking. "How have you been?" Naruto asked.
Matatabi responded, "We have been very well thanks to your efforts Naruto."
"So I don't really get why only Kurama was able to fix the seal, don't I have all of your chakra inside of me?" Naruto asked.
Chomei announced, "Allow me to explain that. We were unable to directly access your body from our own bodies because your connection to Kurama was severed. The direct connection with Kurama is what allows you to reach this plane where we can communicate with you."
Naruto nodded trying to understand, "I think I get what you are saying."
Kurama then clarified, "Basically, you still had their chakra, but you did not have their sentience or mind. So even though you had the chakra, it could not be manipulated to fix the seal."
Naruto then understood, "Ah, I get it now, alright thanks guys. I'm going to train now I guess…" he said before awakening in the real world.
Naruto then proceeded to tap into the chakra of the tailed beasts, granting him his Sage of Six Path's cloak with the corresponding Truth-Seeking balls floating behind him. Naruto then grinned before trying to determine how he should train.
"Kit I have a suggestion, why don't you use clones to train on a couple different areas. Have one clone outside of the Sage's Cloak training in some ninjutsu and taijutsu so that you can hold your own in case something like this happens again. You can also have two clones in this mode training taijutsu against each other while the original works on manipulating the gudo-dama."
Naruto then proceeded to follow the fox's instructions and created the necessary clones before beginning his training. The clone of Naruto which was in his base mode went to the side of the training field and sat in a meditative position while the other two clones in the bijuu cloak mode began a fierce taijutsu fight on the other side of the field.
'Hey Kurama, what do you suggest I do with the gudo-dama?' Naruto asked.
"Hmm, I'm sure you remember that Obito and Madara were both able to use them offensively and defensively so I recommend you try to do the same. Try sending the balls at different targets around the training ground for starters." Kurama said.
Naruto then turned towards a tree at the side of the training ground before saying, "Alright, let's do this!" to which he sent the ball towards the tree at a high-speed only to miss it by a meter. "EH!" Naruto shouted astonished he missed by that much.
"Kit, try using them at lower speeds to improve your accuracy before you use them quickly, Obito and Madara were probably far more experienced than you when it comes to chakra control so it's not really a surprise that they could use them more effectively." Kurama said.
Naruto nodded before bringing the ball back and trying again. The two clones engaged in a taijutsu fight did not particularly need any instruction, so they continued the assault against each other. The final clone however accessed the bijuu plane to ask for some advice, "So what do you guys suggest I do in my basic form?" the clone asked.
"Hmm, you remember how you have our chakra? You should be able to use our abilities without our direct contact, but you need to learn how. The techniques you completed during the war required our direct input, but if you could manipulate the abilities granted by our chakra by yourself, you could easily hold your own in this mode." Son Goku said.
"Wait, but I'm doubting anyone would be damaging my seal to the level that Kaguya did, so couldn't you guys just help me directly?" Naruto asked.
"We could, but keep in mind that we are free now. That means that we are contacting you from our real bodies right now, which actually requires some focus as our distance from you is quite far right now. Should we become preoccupied we would not be able to manipulate the chakra for you. Besides, if you mastered our abilities then you could use them to a greater extent than you could with our help." Son said.
Naruto nodded before asking, "So who's abilities should I master first?"
Son laughed before stating, "Mine of course, it is the strongest after all." the other bijuu grew tick marks of annoyance at Son's pride, but decided to let it slide.
"Alright let's do this Son!" Naruto shouted.
"Yeah." Son replied.
The clone in the real world then proceeded to start using some low level lava techniques with Son Goku's assistance to get the feel of lava style.
Close to the Land of Fire Border:
"Ebisu-sensei, I didn't get why we had to bother doing that mission, it was barely a C-rank!" Konohamaru shouted.
"Diplomatic missions are of utmost importance Konohamaru, especially with the closure of the war, we have to make sure our relations with the other villages are still strong or else we could be attacked while we are still weak as a village." Ebisu explained.
"Well sending us off just makes the village weaker!" Konohamaru whined.
"Konohamaru, don't forget that Naruto is back, he can protect the village by himself." Moegi said.
"Boss needs me there too though!" Konohamaru argued, before stopping upon seeing some smoke in the distance.
"Ebisu-sensei, what is going on over there?" Udon asked.
"I'm not sure, but we should go check it out, it's a civilian village so innocents may be in danger." Ebisu stated before running towards the village, followed by the rest of the team.
Upon arriving in the village, they found what was the charred wreckage of a once prosperous border town. "What happened here?" Konohamaru asked, while walking to the ruined remains of a building with a bit of smoke rising from it.
Moegi then saw a body and immediately ran over to it and attempted medical ninjutsu on the person only to realize they had been dead for a little while and the wounds they had suffered could not be healed. She then covered her mouth as a gasp escaped her lips. Ebisu was also analyzing one of the corpses only to see a very precise slash mark across the victims throat.
"Everyone, we have to report this to Hokage-sama immediately," Ebisu explained, before thinking to himself, 'Whoever did this is ruthless.'
"Hai sensei!" the three team members said before running towards the Leaf Village with dire news to report. Elsewhere in the village, the few remaining flames ran out of fuel and extinguished, leaving a charred surface in its wake.
A/N: So let me know what you thought of the chapter. Every review means a lot and definitely helps me write the story, as right now I don't really have any way to know how good (or bad) it has been so far. So let me know in a review please! Also, thanks for reading and I'll stop pestering you about reviews now.
Next chapter will be up probably next Monday? Maybe earlier or later depending on how much time I have. Also get ready as we'll be getting closer to the confrontation between Yakekoge, Shogai and whoever the leaf sends after them. The fight will be the first major one in this story and I expect it to last at least 2 chapters? We'll see once I get to writing it though. Thanks again for reading!