Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

Warnings: AU for parts of both worlds (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), mild character bashing, mild to moderate violence (there are shinobi involved after all), and a few others that will be announced as they crop up.

AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

NOTE: Someone had asked for a reminder as to who's who, so here it is:

Takeshi - Harry
Arata - Dudley
Eri - Eloise
Satoshi - Teddy
Aika - Dudley & Eloise's daughter

Everyone else should be self-explanatory as they are all canon or anime/game extra people.

Chapter 26: The Kubisaki Castle

Saturday, May 02, 2003, Late Morning
Broken Neck Pass, High Neck Mountains
Shu no Kuni

Naruto slipped off the road and hunkered down behind a small pile of broken rocks while Midori and Housei both took cover in a ditch on the other side of the road. Less than a dozen meters in front of them, the supposedly haunted ruins of Kubisaki Castle loomed in the center of a small valley. The blond felt more than a little uneasy due to the negative emotions he'd been feeling since entering the side pass growing heavier with each step he'd taken into the pass. He also couldn't help but feel like he was being watched all the time.

Shaking his head, Naruto buried his unease as he peered into the valley that opened up off of the road (which was more of an overgrown track) they had been following. The small valley was surrounded on all sides bar the small pass through which the road passed by steep cliffs and was mostly flat bar the small handful of scraggly trees that were scattered about the area. A cold mist clung to the ground, the thin fog swirling endlessly in the faint breezes that were funneled into the sheltered valley via the pass they'd just traversed.

His eyes were drawn to the castle ruins next and Naruto couldn't help but think that the castle was in far better condition than some of the buildings in Konoha despite the fact that the building had been labeled as 'ruins'. There was also a distinct lack of outbuildings that one would expect to find in such a remote area; such as watch towers, guard houses, and storage sheds. He also would have expected there to be a curtain wall built across the pass in order to protect the only entrance point to the valley; though, he supposed the pile of rocks he was currently hiding behind could be all that remained of said wall.

Naruto bit his lip as he tore his eyes from unnaturally undamaged castle to let his gaze skim over the rest of the valley a second time. His earlier uneasiness soon returned as he finally noticed the complete lack of wildlife in the valley; his disguised clones the only thing moving beneath the swirling mist. The blond shuddered in response to the unnatural feel of the valley and the negative emotions that seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere. He then turned so that he could communicate with his teammates.

'Anything?' Naruto asked using the sign code that Kakashi had taught the three of them.

'Nothing,' Housei signed back; his older teammate looking just as uneasy as he felt.

Naruto scowled in response as he returned his gaze to the creepy castle. He then cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a short series of yips that mimicked the sound a fox made when it barked. His henged clones ghosted deeper into the mist to circle their target (the castle) in response to his signal. Once the castle had been completely surrounded, one of his clones dispelled to 'report' back to him and Naruto waved at his teammates to let them know the perimeter of the castle had been secured.

The three of them would abandon their hiding places a heartbeat later and converged in the center of the trail as they entered the valley and carefully approached the castle. Naruto couldn't help but think that the castle certainly had the 'creepy haunted' look down pat between the darkened windows and swirling mist. The fact that the building seemed to be the source of the negative emotions he could sense only added to the sinister ambience that clung to the place.

Hogwarts was a far cooler castle to visit, Naruto thought to himself as the three of them approached the steps leading up to the door of the castle. It was a real haunted castle too; though those ghosts weren't all that scary. This place is just creepy.

They had nearly reached the top of the stairs when Midori grabbed hold of Naruto's wrist and pointed to a small splash of bright color on the porch that was out of place given the drab color of the castle and the overall dreary appearance of the valley. The blond squinted at the small patch of color before he silently signaled for Midori to inspect it while he and Housei kept watch for enemies. Midori nodded and slipped up the stairs with careful steps until she reached the top.

The kunoichi then crouched down to make herself less of a target (in case the bit of color was bait for a trap) and inched closer to the item. After a brief moment, she twisted around to face Naruto as she signed, 'Pink silk; torn.'

Naruto bit his lip as he and Housei exchanged a brief glance; the scrap of silk had most likely come from Lady Kayo's clothes since the color would have faded if it had sat on the porch for any significant length of time. Actually, if it had been there for more than a day or two, then it would have been carried off by a passing bird to use in its nest. Though, the lack of wildlife in the valley meant that there might not be any birds in the area to have seen it. It was also possible that the scrap of expensive fabric had been placed there sometime in the past couple of hours as bait to draw them closer to the castle.

Frowning, Naruto glanced at the splash of bright color before he glanced out over the small stretch of the valley that was visible from his perch on the second to last step. When he didn't catch sight of any enemies trying to sneak up on them (something his clones would have noticed in any case), he turned back to Midori and instructed, 'Pin it.'

Midori nodded and withdrew a kunai to pin the scrap of silk to the porch so that it would be blown away by the wind; the piece of fabric could potentially give Kakashi's pack something to track if the princess's scent was still on it when their sensei joined them (if they didn't find her first). Midori's kunai would also let Kakashi know that they'd seen the small scrap and that they'd intentionally left it behind without actually touching it because they'd recognized it as a clue to the princess's whereabouts. It was a method of containment that Kakashi had taught them specifically for tracking missions.

It was also a huge mistake.

The moment Midori's kunai pierced the porch, a loud, pained roar had all three Genin clapping their hands to their ears even as the castle shook beneath their feet. Naruto felt himself tumble backwards off the steps before something wrapped around his ankle and yanked him towards the now open door of the castle. He had a brief glimpse of both his teammates being pulled into the castle alongside of him before he felt himself being slammed into a wall. Naruto grunted in pain as his back impacted against the wall before it felt like he'd been pulled through the wall.

He was dropped to the floor a moment later and let out a string of curses when his elbow hit the floor first. Eyes tearing up from the unfunny pain in his funny bone, Naruto scrambled up onto his feet and began looking for Midori and Housei to make certain they were alright. When he didn't see either of his teammates in the room with him, he panicked. The negative feelings that were pressing down on him didn't help because they were ten times worse inside of the castle than they had been outside and it took him several minutes before he managed to calm himself down.

Once he could think straight, he glanced about the room again. The room was mostly empty bar a pair of ancient suits of samurai armor that bracketed the archway leading into the room and an odd painting of what looked like a feudal lord that was hung on the wall directly opposite the entrance. Naruto felt uneasy as he stared at the painting for a moment; his thoughts automatically going to the magical paintings he'd seen and talked to. The suits of armor, however, radiated the malevolent emptiness that he'd been sensing since they'd entered the pass leading to the Kubisaki Castle.

Shaking his head, Naruto pushed aside his memories of the months he'd spent in England and turned away from the rather creepy panting. He then brought his hands up to form a cross with his index and middle fingers. A few seconds later, a dozen Kage Bunshin burst into existence in a cloud of chakra smoke. As soon as the clones finished forming, he ordered them to henge into birds and spread out through the castle to search for his missing teammates.

"What the hell!?" Naruto exclaimed a heartbeat later as he literally watched the walls of the room he was in come to life and kill every single one of his clones; dozens of slimy tentacle-like appendages lashing out at the twelve flying clones to prevent them from leaving the room.

When he saw several of the tentacles heading in his direction, Naruto dug into the outer left-hand pocket of his jacket and grabbed a handful of shuriken that he flung at the slimy ropes. Each time a shuriken struck its target, another pained roar would echoed through the room and the entire castle would shake. The pre-teen was grabbed from behind by a pair of the tentacles a moment later and he let out a cry of disgust as the slim quickly soaked through his clothes. As he felt himself being pulled backwards, Naruto dug out a kunai and cut himself free.

A horrified look slipped onto his face when he was splashed with blood as the pieces of tentacle he cut off dropped away from his body while the part still attached to the wall frantically thrashed in pain before they withdrew into the wall.

The castle was alive!

And it had just eaten him and his teammates!

"Oh, hell no!" Naruto bellowed angrily at the mere idea that he and his teammates were going to be eaten by some freak building. He then brought his hands back up to form the cross seal with his hands as he loudly cried, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" This time, fifty of clones appeared in a burst of smoke; each one of them armed with a replica of the kunai he'd been holding in his hand. All fifty-one of the Narutos present then simultaneously yelled, "Team Kakashi is nobody's lunch, dattebayo! Attack!"

The small army of blue and orange clad Narutos surged forward and began cutting and slashing their way out of the room; some of them not even bothering to aim for the archway as they cut through the walls instead. Many of the clones died as the floor came alive beneath their feet but enough of them survived that they were able to cut their way free of the room that they had been imprisoned in. The rest of the castle was no better than the room he'd ended up in though and Naruto had to produce a second wave and third wave of clones to sustain his assault on the living castle.

At some point, the blond Jinchuuriki discarded his kunai and started using his father's Rasengan to tear through the walls as he and his clones swarmed through the castle in search of his teammates and the missing princess. All around him, the castle shuddered, shook, and shrieked as Naruto and his clones viciously lashed out time and time again at the thing that had taken his teammates… his friends from him.

Three walls later, he found himself in what should have been the entrance hall of the castle; several doorways leading deeper into the castle, a wide staircase leading higher, and a blank stretch of wall that should have held the exit. Naruto created what must have been an eighth wave of clones to join those that were still with him and watched them split up to search the rest of the castle while he approached the wall that was supposed to hold the door leading outside. He didn't even get within ten feet of the wall before a barricade in the form of two dozen white spikes pushing up from the floor slammed together with another two dozen that dropped down out of the ceiling just a scant few inches from his face.

It only took him a moment to realize that he was looking at a row of large, sharp teeth and that he could have been caught between them if he'd gone even one step closer. Naruto swallowed thickly as he stumbled backwards away from the death trap that had literally snapped shut in front of his face. Once he recovered from the brief scare, Naruto formed another Rasengan and attempted to smash through the house's teeth only for him to end up being blown backwards when the chakra sphere failed to scratch the giant teeth.

That alone told Naruto that that wall was the way out.

He was in the middle of trying to come up with another way to break through the barricade separating him from the exit when several of his clones dispelled and sent him memories of seeing Housei being sucked into the ceiling by dozens of slimy ropes. Abandoning his efforts to force his way out of the house, Naruto sped up the stairs and did his best to ignore the way the staircase twisted and swayed beneath his feet. As soon as he reached the first landing, the castle went eerily still beneath his feet and Naruto froze for a moment before he shook off his shock and made for the next flight of stairs.

Halfway up that second flight of stairs, Naruto brought his hands together once more to form another fifty clones when he felt a wave of eagerness surge through the building. Anything that made a creepy, flesh eating building eager couldn't be a good thing in Naruto's mind. Ignoring the knot of dread that had formed in his stomach, Naruto sped up as his clones fell into step beside and behind him. They hit the second flood landing a heartbeat later and half of the clones peeled off to search the second floor for any sign of Housei while the original Naruto and the rest of his clones continued upwards.

Once they reached the third floor, Naruto and his clones attempted to run down the left hand hallway instead of heading up the next flight of stairs (so he could search the rooms above where he'd last seen his teammate) when the house attacked yet again. Naruto skidded to a stop as he caught sight of white spikes (teeth) rising out of the floor. Several of his clones weren't as observant and Naruto turned a little green when the deadly barricade of teeth snapped shut on the clones and he received the memories of what it felt like to be bitten in half.

Naruto slammed his fist into the wall of teeth before he was forced to jump backwards when the floor twisted under his feet to form what looked like the insides of some giant beast. He then ducked down and retreated further when several of the slimy tentacles formed from the ceiling and walls and reached for him. The castle would chase him back across the short stretch of hallway that he'd managed to cover before his path forward had been blocked. As soon as he had backed up onto the landing at the top of the stairs, the attack immediately stopped.

Surprised, Naruto paused for a moment to catch his breath before he crept forward once more (the blond thinking that the house was trying to keep him away from his teammate). He'd barely gone three steps before the castle launched another attack that would again stop as soon as he retreated. His attempt to head to the right of the landing produced the same results. A single attempt to go downstairs was also met with the same result while the one attempt he made to go upstairs had not met any resistance. In Naruto's mind, that meant that the castle wanted him to go upstairs.

And the last thing he wanted to do was anything that the thing trying to devour his team wanted him to do.

Naruto brought his hands up one more time to form the cross seal for the Kage Bunshin and focused his thoughts on how happy Midori and Housei had been when they'd received the official papers naming them as wards of the Namikaze Clan. They may not share any blood but they were family and Naruto would not let some stupid, ugly, creepy looking castle keep them. Determination filled the blond as he stopped channeling chakra to the pebbles he had stuck to his body and redirected that chakra into his jutsu along with every ounce of chakra he could spare.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," Naruto bellowed at the top of his lungs a heartbeat later.

Well over a thousand blond clones materialized in a giant explosion of chakra smoke; the bodies filling up the entire staircase, the third floor landing, and much of the hallway off of the third landing in either direction. The castle groaned shuddered beneath the feet of the many Narutos for several seconds before it went still; as if the living building was holding its breath. A split second later, over two thousand orbs of pure chakra formed on both hands of each clone and the army of blonds roared out a demand to give him back his teammates before they attacked the house en mass.

The next five minutes were a blur in Naruto's mind as he and his clones tore the haunted castle apart instead of just cutting through the walls like they previously had. The castle tried to crush his clone army in return but there were just so many of them that its attacks had become completely ineffective except in the cases where a group of less than fifteen clones were caught on the fringes. Just picking off the stragglers at the back of the back or those rushing ahead leading edge of the army was not enough to slow, let alone stop, the mass of angry clones.

At the end of those five minutes, the castle let out a pained groan before it exploded into smoke and Naruto and his army of shadow clones soon found themselves stranded close to thirty feet in the air above a stone foundation. Several feet above them, an ancient scroll that had once rested within the tallest tower of the castle was left suspended in the air when it too had been left behind by the castle. The blond had but a split second to curse the stupid castle of doom for leaving them hanging like that before gravity caught hold of him and dragged him down.

Naruto screamed as he twisted around in midair to see the stone foundation of what used to be a large castle rushing up towards his face as he plummeted towards the earth. All around him, his clones echoed him as they floundered in midair. Half of the clones falling alongside of him then got the bright idea to transform into birds to save themselves before they hurriedly landed below Naruto and began forming a living tower that rose rapidly into the air to prevent him from being splattered on the foundation.

The blond met them a mere eight feet off the ground and the tower collapsed inwards on itself as his clones began exploding into smoke from the impact. Those clones of his that had not taken the opportunity to henge into feathered forms or that tried to change too late were dispelled at the same time as they slammed into the ground just a few seconds after Naruto hit the top of the clone tower. The few clones landed on the foundation a moment later, a couple of them bursting from heavy landings while the rest survived.

One clone would have the misfortune to catch the falling scroll on its head just as it was letting out a relieved sigh at surviving the fall; the poor clone dispelling with a squawk of dismay while one of its neighbors caught the scroll in his arms before it could hit the ground and shatter.

A wave of exhaustion slammed into him as he settled on the stone just a few seconds later due to several hundred clones being dispelled all at the same time. The headache that followed on the heels of the clones' combined memories was nothing to sneeze at either and Naruto groaned weakly as he curled up in a ball and clutched at his pounding head. Those of his clones that had managed to survive the ordeal spread out to protect the original and search for the others. His teammates would actually find Naruto and his clones first.

"Naruto!" Midori cried as she forcefully pushed her way through the protective ring of clones that had surrounded the original. "Are you okay, Naruto!?"

"Hurts," Naruto whimpered as he curled up tighter when his teammate inadvertently dispelled several more clones in her rush to get to him.

"Housei! Hurry up and get over here! Naruto's hurt!" Midori bellowed and Naruto let out a low whine in response to the way her loud voice seemed to make the pain in his head rip pierce deeper his brain.

"Budge up, clones," Housei ordered as he began pushing his way through the protective ring around Naruto. "Go guard the princess or something." The older boy dropped down beside Naruto a moment later and began checking him over for injuries. "Where are you injured, Naruto? I see lots of blood but I'm not finding any cuts."

"Head. Too many," Naruto rasped out as tried to wriggle away from Housei's hands when the older boy hit a couple of his ticklish spots.

"Too many what?" Housei inquired as he shifted his hands up to pull Naruto's hands away from his head to check for a head injury.

"Clones."

"There's nothing I do to help you with that," Housei muttered as he dropped his hands down to peel Naruto's jacket off of him before he folded it up to form a makeshift pillow that he slid under Naruto's head and neck. The older teen had been made aware of the risks involved in dispelling Kage Bunshin in large numbers after he had been designated as their team's medic. He'd also been taught how to deal with the negative backlash of dispelling too many clones (which was basically sleep it off and don't let any remaining clones be dispelled until it was safe). "Go to sleep; we'll watch over you and make sure the rest of your clones aren't dispelled."

Naruto complied readily enough; he'd only remained conscious as long as he had because he'd been worried about his teammates. When he finally woke up again, it was well after sunset. As soon as he opened his eyes, he discovered that he'd been moved into the tent that he and his teammates often shared on missions and tucked into his sleeping bag. He sat up gingerly and immediately regretted it as wave of dizziness passed through him at the same times as his head began pounding once more.

Hands grabbed hold of him a moment later and gently aid him back down on the bed before Kakashi instructed, "Don't move, gaki; you're body is still recovering from your reckless stunt with your Kage Bunshin."

"I wasn't gonna let some dumb possessed castle eat my teammates," Naruto growled as he reopened one eye and all but glared up at his sensei.

"I wasn't implying that you should have; I was merely pointing out the fact that you could have found a better way to go about getting everyone out," Kakashi dryly pointed out. "And for the record, it wasn't a possessed castle that was trying to eat you; it was a powerful summons that had been trapped in this world. You're lucky that the creature didn't take you, your teammates, and our missing princess with it when you and your clones managed to damage it enough to force it to dispel."

Naruto scrunched his face up in distaste as he thought about what might have happened to him and the others if the summons that had eaten them had taken them with it. He shuddered a moment later as he imagined being trapped inside of the creature for the rest of his life. When he had first learned about summoning contracts, he'd thought they were kind of cool and he had been looking forward to signing the Toad Contract on his fifteenth birthday. Jiraiya had originally offered to let him sign several months ago but Takeshi had asked him to hold off on that for at least another year.

At the time, Naruto hadn't understood why his cousin had not wanted him to sign the contract yet. Now, he thought he might understand; summonses were not just cool pets that could fight and talk; they were powerful beings that could just as easily kill you as help you. Sure, the little ones like Kakashi's ninken seemed harmless enough but Naruto had seen Pakkun (the smallest of the pack) take down a fully grown man on his own. And he knew from stories his father had told him that some of the Toads were large enough to flatten a row of houses with a single jump.

The summons disguised as the creepy castle had been huge and it had been able to transform itself into a building.

"Hey, sensei; if the castle was a summons; then where was the summoner? Couldn't he just call the summons back to attack us again?"

"There is always a risk that that could happen when you are facing a summoner but in this case I don't think that is going to happen. From what your clones told me when I arrived, you and your army of clones significantly injured the creature with your attacks and it will take time for it to recover from the attack; if it lives through its injuries. I also suspect that the summoner of this particular creature is no longer amongst the living due to the fact that your clones somehow got their hands on the summoning contract and that would only happen if the summoner discarded it or if they died."

"Why would someone discard a summoning contract? Aren't they really rare and valuable?"

"They are not as rare as most people would have you believe. It is the Great Contracts, those that encompass an entire animal family as a whole (such as the Toad Contract) that are considered rare. The Minor Contracts, those that are linked to a single species or specific individual, are rather common. The contract I have with my pack is a Minor Contract since I am only allowed to summon the eight ninken that I trained and not the rest of the Dog Clan. The contract your clones picked up was also a Minor Contract, for the Chameleons, because they also fall under the Lizard Contract; which is one of the Great Contracts."

"As for why a summoner would discard a contract…? There are potentially many reasons. Some summonses are seen as weak or useless because they are not all that powerful or have a very limited skill set. Then there are those summonses that demand tokens or tributes that a summoner is either incapable or unwilling to provide. And then there are instances when a summons will reject the summoner because the summoner does not meet the conditions that they require of a summoner."

"For example, I didn't have the chakra reserves necessary to claim the Dog Contract at the time I had signed it but was still allowed to form a sub contract with the eight individuals that make up my pack. I could probably claim the Dog Contract now, if I wanted to since my reserves have more than tripled since I first signed the Dog Contract, but I won't because I am happy with my current pack. We've been together for years and work well together so there is no need for me to seek out new summonses."

"I wonder if that is why Keshi-nii told Jiraiya no when Jiraiya offered to let me sign the Toad Contract back in January," Naruto mused out loud.

"Er, no; your cousin refused to let you sign the contract this year because the Toad Boss requires all new summoners that pass his initiation test to drink sake with him before he will accept them," Kakashi corrected. "And Takeshi wasn't about to allow Jiraiya to encourage you to drink alcohol before you'd even hit puberty."

"Huh, guess that explains why I saw Jiraiya walking around in a pink tutu and pigtails when he finished talking with Keshi-nii that day."

"Did you have any other questions?"

"What's going to happen to the summoning contract that my clones found?"

"It belongs to the Namikaze Clan now, since you were the one that found it; whether or not you sign it is up to you and your cousin."

"Urgh, I think I'll pass; I don't wanna see that stupid castle again, dattebayo! Housei or Midori can have it, if they want it."

"Neither one of them has the chakra reserves to sign even a Minor Contract right now; though it is considerate of you to think of your teammates. If one of them is interested in the Chameleon Contract, then they will need to build up their reserves first. That is something that they will need to discuss with Takeshi first though; since he is their sponsor and the head of the Namikaze Clan."

Naruto shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to reply only for his stomach to speak up first; a low rumbling grumble filling the tent. Kakashi arched his visible eyebrow at him before he let out a soft snort of amusement and Naruto gave him an embarrassed grin in return.

"Sounds like someone is mostly recovered now," Kakashi drawled a moment later. "I guess that means that I had better send your little co-conspirators in with supper so they can see for themselves that you'll survive."

Kakashi backed out of the tent as soon as he finished talking and less then eight minutes later, Midori and Housei were crowding into the tent to hug him and ply him with food. The three Genin then spent the next hour sharing their separate experiences inside of the false castle. By the time they finished comparing notes, all three of them made the unanimous decision that they didn't want anything to do with the Chameleon Contract; they were just too creepy. Naruto even went so far as to silently declare that the Chameleon Clan was creepier than real ghosts.

At the end of that hour, Naruto crashed again and slept through the night. When he woke up the next morning, he felt far better than he had when he'd gone to sleep and his head no longer felt as if it was trying to bash its way out of his skull while twirling in place. After a quick breakfast, Team Kakashi packed up and gathered up the missing princess and her entourage before they escorted their charges out of the pass. From the moment they moved out, one of Naruto's many shadow clones would dispel every thirty minutes until the last of the clones he'd created to fight the castle were gone.

As soon as they cleared the pass on the morning of the fourth, Lady Kayo and her people were handed over to her parents' men and Team Kakashi headed home. Once they hit the port and booked their passage north, the three Genin were given two hours to explore and they bought their usual round of souvenirs before they returned to the docks and boarded the ship. They would be dropped off at a tiny little port just five miles north of the border between Kawa no Kuni and Hi no Kuni two days later and they would leisurely make their way back to Konoha on foot with Naruto removing the seal disguising his hair and eyes when they were nearly home.

The four of them would stroll through the main gate of Konoha around supper time on the tenth of May and head straight to the Hokage's Tower to report the successful completion of their mission. The news that they had taken possession of a Minor Summoning Contract during the mission would see their team being awarded a tidy little pay bonus for bringing a new contract into the village. At the end of their debriefing, Team Kakashi would be given seven days off to recoup from the mission and Naruto was ordered to present himself to Tsunade first thing in the morning for a medical check-up.

"I still don't see why I have to have a stupid check-up," Naruto grumbled under his breath as he followed Housei and Midori out of the Mission Room while Kakashi disappeared through the nearest window. "I mean, it's not like there's anything wrong with me now."

His teammates merely rolled their eyes and ignored his whining; they were long used to hearing him complain any time he was ordered to see a medic for any reason. They were just exiting the Tower when Naruto was plowed into by a small boy several years older than Satoshi wearing a bright yellow shirt with the Konoha leaf on the front, a long blue scarf, and a white helmet with an angry smiley face on one side, a small red dot on the other, and a hole through which his brown hair stuck out. The poor kid bounced off Naruto and landed on his butt when Naruto automatically stuck his feet to the ground with chakra to keep from being knocked off his feet.

Long used to being tackled by his otouto (which was why he'd taken to using chakra to stick his feet to the ground when he was bumped into), Naruto simply sighed as he reached down and lifted the kid back up onto his feet by the back of his shirt as he drawled out, "Oi, keep your eyes open if you're going to run about like you own the place, pipsqueak; not all of the brick walls you run into around here will be nice enough to pick you back up and dust you off."

Housei snorted in amusement as he commented, "What is it with you and snot-nosed gaki crashing into you? I swear, every time we step through a door there is someone trying to tackle you!"

"That's because my otouto is far too predictable and you refuse to step into the apartment first," Naruto retorted as he stepped around the bewildered boy that had run into him as the three Genin continued on their way. "Otherwise you would be the one being tackled once in a while."

"And get in the way of Satoshi-kun greeting you after we've been gone for days? I don't think so! The gaki's like a leech once he grabs hold of a body."

All three teammates laughed fondly at the very apt description of the young metamorphmagus; Satoshi tended to get a little clingy when Naruto and Takeshi returned from their longer missions. Naruto really didn't mind though. He loved being hugged by his family; it reminded him that he was no longer alone.

They were just drawing close to the small curtain wall that enclosed the Hokage's Compound when Naruto reached out to latch onto the two teens as he exclaimed, "Come on! Let's hurry up and get home. I want to take a shower before we hit Ichiraku's for ramen. It's been far too long since I've eaten the food of the gods, dattebayo!"

If the three Genin had bothered to turn around before they broke into a run and took to the rooftops, they would have seen the kid that had run into Naruto gaping after them in shock over the fact that Naruto had both admonished him and not apologized for being in the way while the other two had not really acknowledged him at all.

Translations: Japanese to English

An no Kuni – Red Bean Jam Country (also called the Land of Candy in the English subtitles of the Japanese version of the anime)
Kawa no Kuni – River Country

Techniques/Skills:

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu – Shadow Clones
Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu – Multiple Shadow Clone Technique

Notes:

Broken Neck Pass – you know, I must have spent well over an hour trying to find the Japanese translation for Broken Neck Pass but even Google Translate only spewed out gibberish. Someone had actually given me the translation for this, I think, but the PM they sent it to me in (or was it a review?) has been buried and I got too frustrated trying to find it again (both so I could reply, if I didn't already) and so I could use the translation. So, I left it as is.

Geographic Locations – the exact locations of An, Mitsu, and Shu no Kuni in relationship to Konoha have not been revealed and so I took the liberty of placing them south of Kaze no Kuni.

High Neck Mountains – author created name for the mountains in which Broken Neck Pass is located.

Kakashi's Ninken Pack – Pakkun (the talking pug), Shiba (the one with the black crest on his head), Bisuke (little one with tattoo on forehead), Akino (one with glasses), Guruko (little one with the hitai-ate on his forehead), Uhei (one with bandages), Urushi (the white one), & Buru (the big black bulldog).

Naruto's rampage – now before anyone starts complaining, there are several reasons why I went with the one-man army to destroy the summoned chameleon instead of having Naruto hunt out the contract. One, he was angry about being separated from his two teammates. Two, the chameleon didn't have any time to initiate the whole spirit genjutsu thing that it had used during the filler arc because it attacked in retaliation to the perceived attack it felt when Midori tried to pin the piece of silk to it. And three, Naruto was panicking a bit over the house trying to eat him and his teammates.

There are other reasons too but those three were the biggest ones. I also have several reasons why I didn't have Naruto draw on the Kyuubi's chakra. First, the one-man army scene here replaces the one-man army that took down Mizuki since the Mizuki Incident didn't occur in this universe. Second, Naruto knew both of his teammates were still alive (or at least he didn't think that they were dead or even 'like dead') so he didn't lose it like he did in the Wave Arc. And third, he has far more knowledge regarding the seal & the Kyuubi due to Minato's ghost spending so much time with him and Harry over the past 3-4 years and he therefore knows not to recklessly tap into the Kyuubi's power.

* This chapter was loosely based on the Naruto Anime Season 8, episode # 194: The Cursed Phantom Castle (title also translated as The Haunted Castle in some translations) which is an anime only filler arc that took place after Sasuke's desertion.

AN: Running a day late but on the plus side, I actually have two chapters to post this weekend instead of just one like last weekend; I'd spent yesterday and most of today wrapping that second chapter up so I could finish the missing arc that was holding updates for this fic up.

Anyway, as per the norm for the past few weeks, I've also updated the first 14 chapters of this story and will update the next 14 tomorrow as well as posting the next chapter. All updates were fairly minor and mostly grammatical in nature so there is no need to go back and re-read the entire story unless you want to. ~ Jenn