As-salamu Alaykum
How's your December going? Hope you're all staying amazing :)
Shout out to my wonderfully unfiltered beta reader, DoctorNiklaus.
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 6
Ishikawa fields
Grasslands north of Konoha
Grass country
Mikoto liked to think she was a very open-minded person.
Sure, she might have a small, harmless temper, but she never claimed to be perfect.
She wasn't the kind of person that was quick to judge whether or not she would get along with someone; don't judge a book by its cover, was a popular saying. There could be common ground between her and everyone around her, if she looked for it.
Sai Shimura not only threw a wrench at her belief system but he threw the whole damn tool shed.
"Oi, Washboard." Mikoto ground her teeth, a thick vein pulsing on the side of her temple and her hands curled into fists, digging so hard into her palms she was sure her fingernails were leaving deep grooves. "Washboard look, look. A rabbit."
He didn't get a reply from Mikoto, walking down the meandering path through the field of grass and pointedly keeping her eyes ahead.
"Have you ever had a rabbit?" He jogged to her side and prodded her cheek. "Did you hear what I said?" When she didn't reply, he continued. "Well, have you?"
She grumbled, not giving him so much as a passing side eye. The boy smiled, eyes closed and tittering. "I get the feeling you don't like my nickname for you, Washboard."
Rounding on Sai, Mikoto's eyes blackened and her iris turned red, elongating at the top and bottom, widening with hatred and bloodlust.
The voice she spoke with was demonic, enough to make Yugao Uzuki cautious.
"You think?"
"I read somewhere that fun nicknames are great for strengthening new bonds of friendship." He examined her from head to toe, the sickly false smile ever-present on his lips and his pleased eyes nearly closed. "I just chose a prominent feature. Or in your case, nonexistent–"
Yugao just made it in time to hold Mikoto back from wailing on a chuckling Sai. "I am not a washboard!"
The Jounin laughed, nervous. "Alright, Sai, that's enough!"
Stepping back respectfully–shocking Mikoto so much with that singular action–the boy nodded. "Hai, Yugao-senpai."
When Yugao was sure Mikoto had calmed down, she released her. Mikoto huffed, straightening her shirt and baring a short snarl at Sai when he smiled at her, facing front and continuing the journey.
"How come Yugao doesn't get a nickname?" Mikoto grumbled after a little while.
"Yugao-senpai isn't my friend; she's my senpai." Then, to get a reaction, he added. "Plus, I actually respect her."
Mikoto pulled up the sleeve of her broken arm, fire rushing through her veins hot enough to forget she couldn't use that arm. "You know what–"
"Mikoto, Sai, I said that's enough." Yugao ordered, her tone strong and her glare harsh. "Sai, play nice. Mikoto, don't let him annoy you."
Scoffing, and smiling as ever, Sai raised his hands in defeat. "Alright."
Despite Yugao's advice, Mikoto boiled. 'Who does this pale kid think he is? I'm. Not. Flat!'
Saying that Sai Shimura was pale was like saying that water was wet; it was like he had lived his whole life underground, pale enough for Mikoto to spy some blue-purple veins on his neck and the back of his hands, catching them in just the right light. He had dark eyes and black hair that drooped messily. He wore a short sleeve, dark blue half-shirt with long sleeve mesh armor underneath with black shinobi pants that reached above his ankles and light brown ninja sandals. His weapon, Mikoto observed was a tanto sheathed slanted to his right shoulder on his back, a shuriken pouch on his lower back and a kunai pouch on the side of his right thigh, also carrying a side bag with what she assumed were his camping necessities. His forehead protector was on his forehead.
Wherever it was this pale reptile had slithered out from must have been dark and lonely.
She could easily pick on him about how pale he was, but she shook her head.
'I'll be picking rocks out of my mouth for weeks if I stoop to his level.'
Making an exaggerated show of avoiding him, Mikoto jogged up to the team's Jounin, beaming.
Yugao, on the other hand, wasn't an unfamiliar face.
The deputy ANBU captain was frequently called to babysit Mikoto, as the twins were frequently too busy from when they acquired their forehead protectors. She was also the first person outside of her family Mikoto grew comfortable around, which meant she more than often invited herself to Yugao and Anko's small apartment when she felt like it, and foraged for food in their fridge.
Mikoto didn't know much about Yugao's family, other than that she was the lastborn, only daughter with ten older brothers. Her parents ran a big farm and the earliest part of her life, aside from trying to survive being mobbed by her brothers, was working on the fields. Juggling Academy schoolwork with tending cows out to pasture and fighting her brothers for a place at the house, Yugao was understandably strong-willed.
She wasn't a woman of many words, and Mikoto respected that.
Yugao gave her a short smile. "How's the arm?"
"Itches." Mikoto admitted with a shrug, shifting the casted arm a little. "Doc says I should be able to remove it by next week."
A sympathetic corner of her lips quirked up, turning her eyes to the road ahead. "Must suck."
"I mean, it's not the best." Mikoto breathed in and out, enjoying the fresh air and the grass extending as far as the eye could see. "But I guess I'm lucky."
The woman lifted an eyebrow, briefly turning her glance to the young girl. "How so?"
"I didn't bruise my ribs. Again. Which is good." Yugao seemed to accept this with a purse of her lips and a nod, looking forward. "And the Kyuubi makes my healing faster. Less painful. All that good stuff."
Of course, Mikoto knew she housed the Nine Tailed Fox.
From a young age, Minato wanted her to come to terms with her gigantic chakra reserves, the sheer volatility of the chakra, and expressed the dire need for her to not explode with quick rage. Her father's thinking was that if she was aware of this and they answered any questions she had concerning the beast sealed in her gut, it would be easier for her to cope.
Her father didn't want her to be an emotionless robot, or whatever Naruto was, or an overactive lightning bolt, like Rin; he wanted her to be reasonable.
There weren't any active plans to train her to master her Beast Chakra, not until Minato heard from Jiraiya, but this awareness of the monster jailed in her body gave her better perspective on why she needed to keep a firm cap on any extreme emotions.
There was a great deal of trust her father confided in her.
It was humbling.
Mikoto wasn't sure if Kurama was in fact the Kyuubi.
Kurama was more like…a voice in her head, telling her secrets and revealing facts.
Ancient truths and forgotten jutsu, when she asked politely.
The Rasengan she tried at the Chunin exams was her first time displaying the technique outside of her mind, and it was because of Kurama's guidance she could pull it off, as incomplete as it was.
The reason Kurama told her these things and taught her how to use them was simple.
It didn't want her to die a worthless death.
Mikoto wasn't too keen on that occurring either, so it was a win-win in her opinion.
Was she eager to reveal that her 'genius' was, in part, due to Kurama's influence? Not really.
Her Jinchuriki status wasn't a secret in the village; although the Nine Tails had destroyed many lives and ruined the village as a whole, there was a certain level of reassurance comforting the citizens when they remembered that a level ten seal master and an S rank team lived in close proximity to her. There also needed to be a General Shinobi Knowledge included in the Civilian and Ninja Academy curriculum, where the basics of fuinjutsu and ninjutsu were taught.
There were still dissenting voices calling for tighter restraints and limitations on her, some of those voices even sat in the Council, but twelve years of nothing occurring dampened the noise.
Even now, Yugao had been provided a handful of seals to suppress the Kyuubi's chakra if something happened to Mikoto, and her grip on her emotions unraveled.
Just in case.
"Have you ever been this far from Konoha?" Yugao wondered, making casual conversation; she was fine with silence, all of her friends knew her to be a quiet person, but she could feel the awkwardness from Mikoto. The girl was fumbling with her fingers and searching her mind for something to talk about.
She brightened up at the question. "Wave's as far as I've gone. This is my first time." Mikoto glanced over her shoulder to Sai, who's drooping smile turned back up when he saw her blue gaze. They began marching up a steep hill. "The place we're going to, Zyouki, what do you know about it?"
Not really in the mood for a long-winded verbal instruction–that was more Kakashi's thing–Yugao made a flippant gesture over her shoulder. "Sai? What do you know about Zyouki?"
The other Genin was quick to jump on the question, his voice monotonous as he monologued. "Zyouki is a border city at the south western corner of Hot Water country, strategically located in the general area where Fire country and Grass country met Hot Water country. The intention was to make Zyouki into a trading hub for Hot Water, which had at that time been known across the continent for its hot springs alone. Although populated with hot springs and massage parlors, Zyouki is no longer a trading town, but in fact a gambling city. This is due to the massive importation of bootleg Grass country wine by a small-time gang in Hot Water and a movement of cigarettes from Fire country, encouraging less than friendly attention by delinquents and ne'er-do-wells."
Sai rambled on, reciting–word-for-word–the textbook he had crammed hours ahead of this mission.
"The Hot Water government decided to scrap their hopes for a trading hub, replacing it with profiteering from the surge in alcohol and cigarettes. They did this by snatching control of the importation of wine and cigarettes from the Yakuza, making the price enticingly low and enacting special laws for Zyouki alone."
The Hot Water government wasn't even trying to hide their greediness.
They saw a chance to make profit, and they grabbed it with both hands and feet.
The Hot Water government, and Zyouki administration, were principally a Yakuza of their own.
Fortunately, the Zyouki experiment worked remarkably well; if certain precautions had not been taken, and certain prison sentences hadn't been distributed, Zyouki would have been a cesspool of depravity and illicit behavior.
Now, it was a government-regulated cesspool of depravity and illicit behavior.
Yugao scoffed.
Violent crime was down to five percent, the presence of an organized gang was close to zero percent, and Hot Water's fumbling economy skyrocketed.
There were no residential houses for people to live long term and hide inside as they drank their stores of wine, only hotels and such, where payment was made monthly and the bars were constantly flowing with wine. For those that thought they could live good, clean lives while in Zyouki, there were restaurants and roadside food vendors, where they could find something to eat and drink that wasn't going to make them high.
…Probably.
The intention was so blatant Yugao scoffed again.
Sai finished by saying, "Although there isn't a strict age limit for people entering the city, anyone below the age of eighteen is prohibited from taking alcohol or narcotics of any kind, including tea and coffee. Alcohol and narcotics vendors are warned by punishment of death if any minor is caught intoxicated."
It was strangely moral of them.
They reached the top of the hill and bore witness to a mile-long line of carts and carriages, easing little by little through Zyouki's gate.
Sai made a sweeping gesture to it all, at the adventure awaiting them inside the continent's most corrupt city, his fake grin reaching ear to ear.
"Welcome to Zyouki, Washboard."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Wave Strait
South East of Konoha
Naruto honestly wanted to say that the boat ride was uneventful.
It wasn't.
First, they were hit with a storm.
Then he was jarred into remembering that Rin wasn't a water person.
Leaning listlessly at the side of the boat, Rin moaned terribly, her eyes swirling and her green face reflecting back to her on the murky blue water. Her cheeks puffed out–
"Huagghh."
Naruto kept her hair away from her face, absentmindedly patting her back. "It's alright…. It's ok…."
"I'm sorry, Naruto!" his sister wept, tears muddying her face. "I'm so sorry!"
"No, no. Don't apologize!" He consoled her with a shout over the storm, wincing a little when she released another stream of sickness into the water. The fishermen on the small boat were distracted by the harsh lapping of water against the side of the fishing vessel, roaring to their comrades, throwing nets into the water and capitalizing on the disturbance of the sudden store.
The fishermen, with some use of chakra, stood at the front and end of the ship, bellowing infrequent wind from their lips to push away the storm from tearing their boat to bits, not so powerful as to calm the storm. "We should have gone through Wave! Taken a cruise to Marsh!" he cringed at the foul exhale of undigested breakfast from his sister. "It's my fault! I forgot!"
"Nooooo!"
At this point, Rin was dry heaving air.
The twins were disguised as fishermen, wearing grey rain ponchos, boots and waterproof caps, shading their faces as best as they could until they docked in Hidden Marsh; the secrecy of their mission demanded they stay incognito, except for the captain of the ship, who ran over to them, carefully trying not to slip.
"Is this storm usual, captain?! We're in the middle of autumn!" Naruto bellowed, collecting a canteen of fresh water from the large fisherman and helping his sister wash her face.
The captain sent an odd look to his left, yelling in his coarse accent. "'Tis odd, Namikaze! We's not expectin' a storm fur 'nother month! I's thinkin' sumethun's bringin' the storm!"
Naruto's eyebrows lifted. "Sea monster?!"
The captain nodded. "Aye!"
Rin spat, eyes wide like dinner plates. "They exist?!"
"Aye, Miss! Overgrown seafood's what they are!"
A large wave punched into the boat, forcing the twins to connect to the ground with chakra. Naruto reached for the captain, securing him down when it seemed that the larger man was going to fall overboard.
"Damned Kraken!" the captain bellowed, his booming voice carrying over the storm. He waved his fist angrily. "I paid good money fer this here ship!"
"Kraken?!" Rin repeated, her voice cracking with hysteria. "Did you just say Kraken?!"
The captain didn't answer, rumbling to his quarters for his harpoons, cursing to the wind and the water.
Their little boat couldn't handle any more of this storm, being held together by the efforts of the former ninjas exhaling wind to counter the powerful fists of the storm. A hurricane was gathering in the distance, far enough for them to see the funneling tip rise higher and higher into the sky, but close enough for the boat to get drawn toward it.
"Kami, damn it!" Naruto shouted. He pushed his sister to stay where she was. "Look after the boat! I'll go kill this thing!"
She didn't put up a fight, partly relieved that she didn't need to accompany him on this blistering storm. "If you die–!"
Her brother beamed, a bright expression on his pallid face. "I can't die, sis!"
He leapt overboard and ran on the water into the storm, the red mist of his dash quickly lost to the wind.
Naruto soon found out that it wasn't, in fact, a Kraken causing the storm.
Which was good.
It was Samehada.
Which was worse.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hokage's tower
Konoha
Minato hummed briefly, his blue eyes lifting up and looking to his office's open window when he felt a small, micro-tremor run up his feet. It was a telltale sign that his son had tapped into his Ghost Speed release, surpassing normal Jounin speeds with a crack of air.
This sensation wasn't something people outside of the clan could easily pick up.
Minato was inclined to worry.
Naruto didn't often need to resort to using Ghost Speed outside of a properly timed Ghost flicker technique, normally slowing down to Flash Step release speeds, which itself was miles faster than high Jounin.
The Hokage pushed down his worry.
He had to believe that his son would come out of whatever scuffle he was in fine.
He sighed and rolled his shoulders, bending back to work; an assistant had written for him a speech to commission a second hydroelectric dam in the village, an event to take place within the week. The first hydroelectric dam was built in the Second Hokage's era, and for years it had been struggling to raise the needed power for the ever growing village; diesel engines had been an option for a long while, but when many of them were on at the same time, there was too much noise and smoke pollution. Solar panels would have been the next best option, but Konoha's scientists were having trouble building them, so Minato charged his scientists to study under Waterfall, learning about their ally's hydroelectric dam and using this knowledge to build an improvement on their own.
Although, technically, the new dam was already functioning to supply electricity across the village and the people were all the more glad for it, the village's council pressed the Hokage to formalize the commissioning.
Minato didn't see the need.
He had done a lot of projects in and around the village that had just been open for public use, without any formal commissioning; renovating the near-abandoned Civilian Academy library, expanding the intensive section of the hospital, collaborated with Suna to build the Suna-Konoha highway, built scores of houses at the western side of village, upgraded the village's bank, electrified ninety percent of the village, constructed telephone lines and phone booths around the village, resurrected the village's dying Post Office and made the messenger hawk handlers join forces with the post office, and other such things.
This time, the council stressed that the hydroelectric dam was something that had been in dire need for many years. Voltage going into houses had formerly been too low or too high, breaking appliances that were properly unplugged, electricity wasn't assured for the whole day, and winter always meant there was a power-draught, where citizens had to brave the cold without electricity.
The speech would silence some critics, at the very least.
Minato was the peacetime Hokage, after all; his focus was improving village infrastructure and creating/maintaining alliances, not just fortifying the village and rushing ninja academy students out onto the field. Konoha was globally known to prefer quality over quantity when it came to many things, like the skill of its ninjas.
It was why Konoha had more globally renowned ninja and were infamous for their military logistics, instead of planning to use sheer numbers to overwhelm enemy forces, like Iwa.
Minato snorted at that, recalling how he had decimated a thousand Iwa ninjas on his own.
Sure, a large amount of skill was involved in that slaughter and a larger amount of chakra had been expelled, but it didn't excuse Iwa in any way.
Still, Minato didn't like how quiet Hidden Rock was being, only sending scouts to push at Konoha's borders and observe the village from afar–
His eyes narrowed when a single sheet of paper fluttered through his window, rising in preparation to flash away with the paper in case it was a bomb.
His guards had the same idea, diving down without hesitation and snagging the gaily fluttering paper from the air.
ANBU Operative Tiger checked for traps on the paper, keeping his body between the paper and his Hokage. Monkey concentrated her senses for an incoming attack, poking her head out and flickering her eyes all about, while Rat and Horse stood guard in front and behind Minato, their weapons at the ready.
"Safe." Tiger declared, releasing a small breath. "No traps, sir."
"What is it?" Minato walked past Rat and collected the lonesome sheet of paper from Tiger.
The scrawled words on the paper made Minato's face turn down with foreboding.
In the writer's haste, they were unable to finish the last word of the three-word letter.
Send help
Ko
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Wave Strait
South East of Konoha
Naruto narrowed his eyes, charging deep into the storm and running low on the water.
Cold sea mist hit his face and sharp rain beat his waterproof cap, skidding left and right on the turbulent waters, blazing up a wave curling high enough to blot out the sky before him. Each powerful step he made oozed steamy red afterimages, tearing into the top of the wave and leaping through.
Soaring through the air, the world stilled.
Naruto's rain poncho flapped harder when he opened his arms and legs to catch as much air as possible, soaring in that moment of aerial calm.
The hurricane spiraled in his front, a funneling storm of water and mist, twisting from the sea and disappearing in the sky. The sea below whirled, sucked to that singular catastrophic point, raising defiant waves rolling outwards.
Naruto's purple eyes spun, iris converging to a point before widening, expanding and revolving with three tomoe glaring expressionlessly into the heart of the storm.
He saw the creature causing the hurricane, a man-sized thing that pulsed purplish chakra. The archaic web of chakra network running from its narrow end to the largish top, reaching a gaping jaw, trickled with an unharmonious cluster of foreign chakra. One strain of chakra Naruto found that wasn't yet shared into the creature's chakra network was tucked into a ball at the very middle of the sea monster's chakra reserves; the chakra in the creature's gut wasn't alive, while the surrounding it stormed hot and cold.
The creature wasn't mindless.
It was screaming.
It was mourning.
Naruto recognized the violent rapidity that was the creature's chakra, first seeing it in his father the day his wife was killed, lying dead on his lap and unknowing of the child reading his chakra network from afar.
His eyes bugged out, bringing his forearms to his face and his knees to his elbows, letting himself get sucked into the storm.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Naruto started in a ball, keeping his arms and legs close to his middle and gritting his teeth at the bellow of the storm in his ears. The mix of chakra and water bashed and smashed into him, cycling him upwards into the sky.
The hurricane whipped him round and round, flinging him higher and higher up the funnel, yet he remained as calm as possible, trusting his intuition not to steer him into the grave. In that spiraling rise, he turned his sharingan stare to the sea creature causing this storm, getting a more definite image of it, using the chakra network to create an outline and filling in the gaps himself.
It looked like a club, with a gaping maw and shuddering scales, raised in a noticeable forty-five-degree angle.
Round and round, higher and higher, Naruto became more and more sure that the insanity of the creature was born from an uncomfortably sentient sorrow.
His brow knit and his lips turned down.
Naruto wasn't one for compassion, not for anyone that didn't share his last name, but even he was forced to feel something when he saw the stark similarity of the monster's mourning with that of his father's.
Lashing out at everything.
Thoughtless of others.
Feral with rage.
Nearing the top of the hurricane, Naruto shook the memory from his head with a hard clench of his teeth. He opened his arms and got his legs underneath him, building chakra up in his gut and holding his breath.
Then he was thrown out of the top of the hurricane, tossed into the atmosphere.
The air was thin, electric with the creature's chakra yet light of oxygen.
Naruto gazed into the darkness of space, his sharingan beginning an anti-clockwise grind.
Then he started falling back into the mouth of the storm.
He turned in the air and moved toward the rim of the hurricane, clapping his palms together and a sharp crack of chakra briefly lit the sky in dark red, a premature sunset that spanned the Wave Strait.
He called his jutsu, and the occupants of the Wave Strait, fishermen on his boat and other boats caught in the storm, bore witness to a miracle.
The start of a Red Demon folktale.
"Ghost Speed Release: Water Style: Breath Taker."
The red sky shone, choked with chakra and focusing down into the hurricane.
Like a distorted drill, the red chakra traveled into the storm and wound through it, around it, turning blue water red and sucking in the turbulent noise of the hurricane.
The mist of chakra expelling from Naruto's body as he channeled his bloodline colored the hurricane crimson.
Mesmerized from the sight, Rin's jaw dropped; arms now drooped from pushing waves from the boat with exhaled gusts of wind. The captain of the boat stopped, the storm lulled in their favor and the other boats on the Strait found the water to be relatively calm. Though no one really noticed this.
They just gazed at the red hurricane–awed and afraid.
Reaching from the blue sea and merging into the crimson sky, the storm twisted with deafening noiselessness.
The captain of the boat breathed, goosebumps rising on his arms. "In all my years…"
A red hurricane.
In the eye of the storm, Naruto wrapped the monster in a bubble of pressurized red water and examined it.
There weren't any pictures of Samehada, but Naruto put together all the written descriptions in his mind.
The vibration generated ringing in his fingertips; all ten digits were dipped into the water prison of the thrashing sea beast, causing the water to tremble at a cellular level. The pressure increased, becoming similar to the depth pressure of thousands of miles under the sea.
It squeezed the writhing Kiri sword, holding it together firmer and harder, preventing not so much as a twitch of motion.
"Calm down, big guy." Naruto whispered, using his chakra as a shell to encase the water, while the molecular vibrations of his fingers pressurized the water prison. He was smart enough to know that if he made the mistake of pushing chakra into the water prison, it would only strengthen the sorrowful sword.
He did to Samehada what he wished he could have done for his father when he was younger.
Comfort him.
He was young; no one would blame him for reacting to his fathers raised walls by raising his own, hating the world and shutting it out.
Days, weeks, and months after his wife's passing, Minato blocked out his children, and his son lashed back, as if it was his responsibility to do so.
Neither refused to understand that both were going through the exact same thing.
Older now, he regretted not opening up to his father, limiting his humanity to his twin and blocking out Mikoto for the better part of her infancy. Minato had experienced loss on a greater scale than Naruto perceived, since he had watched his clan die out, leaving him behind.
Their grieving threatened to tear their suffering apart.
Konoha credited Naruto for being a genius, but he accepted that Rin was the smarter twin; she knew that her father's heart was still too large, even after years of being an infamous shinobi, and that losing someone he loved with his entire being impacted him terribly, more so than seeing his clan wither and die.
Rin was their bridge, heartbroken as she was at the death of her mother.
A tether linking the family together.
She retaught the family the words that brought them back together.
"It's alright." Naruto consoled; voice low and gentle.
He wasn't known for his humanity, but he understood losing himself because of trauma and loss.
Samehada's mindless thrashing reminded Naruto of his father, and of himself.
Naruto's throat clogged with guilt and remembrance. "You're ok," he whispered.
Ever so gradually, Samehada stopped battering against the pressure, quivering in the water prison.
Naruto stopped the turning of the great, red hurricane, letting the mighty storm fall and gathering his chakra back to himself.
Encased in the water prison, Samehada didn't resist when Naruto brought him back to the boat.
There, it opened its gaping maw and vomited the corpse of Kisame Hoshigaki, the Zero Tailed Beast.
Authors note
Jutsu Info
"Ghost Speed Release: Water Style: Breath Taker."
An A rank Namikaze clan jutsu, derived from the Water Prison technique and modified to suit Ghost Speed Release holders. The user would first form a water prison and then begin to send a steady thrum of extremely high-speed vibrations into the water prison that would simulate the squeezing pressure at the bottom of the ocean. The purpose of the jutsu is not to drown the victim, but to capture, squeezing air out of their lungs and inevitably crushing the life from them, if used for too long.
As long as a hand of the user is inside the water prison, the structure will be maintained.
Done
Observant readers already know what I'm cooking up ;-]
What do you think of this chapter?
What do you think of the story so far?
Tell me what you think, if you would be so kind. Stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.
Happy Christmas, everyone :)
Foy.
