Here's the new chapter, try and check out my newest story 'A hothead in Long Beach' feel free to do it. Also, I will be working on a new story in the future containing Saints Row crossover. Don't know when but I am working on it.
Enjoy!
In the sea, few miles off the coast from Galuna Island
A pirate ship was seen sailing right towards the cursed island, with its crew mostly beaten up and their captain fearfully was the only man standing sailing the ship.
The short eye-patched bearded man nervously turned around to his captor "Please reconsider, don't let us go to Galuna Island. I heard it was cursed."
"Just shut up and steer."
"At least drop us off somewhere and you can take the ship!" The captain pleaded while his crew started wakening up "Please I beg you, I hear that anyone who steps foot there will turn into some sort of demon."
"I'm willing to take that risk."
"B-but why go there!"
"Because the guilty must be punished. And that is all I can tell you." Erza stated as she was not in the best mood. After finding out Natsu, Happy and Lucy took an S-class quest from the second-floor board, she took no second to spare and went off with the first train to Hargeon Town and hijacked the pirate ship she saw and forced them to sail right for the 'cursed' island.
Master Makarov had ordered her to go immediately to the island and do one simple task; find Natsu, Happy and Lucy to bring them back to the guild as soon as she found them. That counted the same for Gray who didn't respond either and given the nature of the rivalries between the fire and ice mage, it could've resulted in both of them trying to finish this quest. But that won't butch her as she was determent to get them all back to the guildhall.
Ignoring the comments from the pirates who were now willing to help her out, she was busy in her thoughts, thinking about how her master said that Naruto was on the island in an unrelated quest in taking out a smuggling ring.
'Naruto must've seen Natsu and the others, that island is not that big and with Natsu's ability to sense Naruto from a mile away it would be easy for them to come across each other.' But still, what was it with this smuggling ring that Naruto was going in alone? It wasn't the first time he went on taking down a criminal enterprise but this time he went off alone and Master Makarov did not give her any details about it.
Then out of sudden, the ground began to erupt, causing the seas to go wild and make the ship wiggle a bit.
"Wow, what was that? an earthquake?"
"It can't be, this must a first."
BOOM!
The top of the mountain suddenly had several fire bursts exploding into the air, like a volcano outburst it shot dozens of fireballs out in the air. Causing an immediate aftershock to occur and to many surprises the pirates. But Erza already thought who it could've been.
"Those idiots….what did they get themselves into now…."
Only did Erza not know that it wasn't Natsu or the gang.
A few minutes earlier….
Natsu, Gray, Lucy, Happy and one of Lucy's celestial mages called Lyra were seen hiding behind a few rocks, watching how a ritual was taking place to which they saw a group of cloaked and masked people who were in a circle and do what appears to be gathering the moonlight and concentrating it directly to the frozen monster, Deliora.
Lyra the celestial spirit explained to them that it was possible to destroy the sealing effect of Gray's former master by using a spell called 'Moon Drip' to try and disable the sealing spell, she wasn't for certain but it was a possibility. The celestial spirit also said that the Moon Drip spell could cause side effects, explaining why the villagers are in their current state. They have been contaminated with too much Moon Drip energy.
"Are they out of their minds?!" Gray grew angry "They haven't seen what that monster can do."
"Shhh! Somebody is coming." Lucy said spotting a few people coming from the stairs and walking up to the middle of the area. The most noticeable and possible leader of the group was the armor-wearing masked Reitei. Standing behind him were the dog look-a-like Toby, the blue-haired Yuka and the woman Sherry.
"What a waste, I've lost so much precious sleep for nothing." Yuka complained, "We've searched all they for the intruders but never found a trace of them."
"Maybe there weren't any!" Toby yelled at him, already deprived of his sleep he really needed.
Sherry walked up to Reitei "I'm afraid I have some bad news, cold emperor. We thought we had intruders during the day, but it seems they got away somehow. I cannot speak of love in such a situation."
Natsu got his eye on the masked one "That guy must be their leader."
"Trying to act all high and mighty with that stupid mask," Lucy said staring at them.
"I don't know, I think it looks cool."
Reitei asked Sherry for a status report "Has Deliora been awakened yet?"
"It should be later tonight or tomorrow, sir," Sherry answered, much to Toby's anger who asked her precisely when.
Reitei nodded "The time has almost come, if you see those intruders again, kill them. I don't anyone getting in my way." That voice for some reason became very familiar to Gray, who couldn't think of someone who he knew precisely. No, it couldn't be, he wouldn't do that.
Sherry thought of the possibilities "Maybe it were the villagers. Or even the smugglers in the dock. They did not like my Angelica."
"Maybe because no one likes rats, Sherry."
"Enough," Reitei stopped their bickering "It couldn't be the smugglers because they haven't been spotted anywhere around the island, so it must be the villagers. Destroy them."
"Understood." All three of Reitei's followers complied.
"It's a shame there has to be bloodshed." Those last few words caught Gray's full attention, there was no doubt in his mind anymore. He knew exactly who this person was.
Then suddenly the earth started shaking violently, causing everybody to lose their balance.
"What's going on?!" Toby demanded, "I thought there were no earthquakes here!"
Lucy landed on her bottom and looked around "Where's that coming from!"
BOOM!
They turned to where that loud explosion came from and saw that it came from the big mountain in front of them, dozens of fireballs shot out and a reddish inferno spread out in the air like a volcano outburst.
Yuka realized where it came from "It's where the smuggler's dock is at!"
"Fools!" Reitei shouted, "What are they up to!?"
The Fairy Tail members shortly knew who it could be behind that explosion.
Lyra was slightly shocked by that explosion and was shivering "T-That was a loud one."
"Yeah," Lucy agreed to hold herself together while turning to Gray "You think Naruto's behind this?"
"No doubt about it. that's the same direction where he was going. But there's no time worrying about him." Gray turned to the enemy wizards "We need to stop them before they attack the village."
"ALRIGHT NARUTO!" Natsu exclaimed as he breathed out a whole lot of fire from his belly into the air "I'M FIRED UP!" Lucy and Gray were left dumbfounded by Natsu's antic while Lyra disappeared and Happy was….well, he was being Happy.
"Let's go!" Happy cheered on as he flew up in the air.
Lucy sighed "There goes nothing." She sees Gray go forwards but briefly glances at the mountain, wondering what happened there.
A few minutes earlier
The smuggler's dock was already on fire as it was in the midst of a battle. The sound of blades clashing against each other and the sight of dead bodies already laying fresh on the ground. With fires already spreading around as the scent of alcohol was strong in the air.
'CLASH!'
Two figures flew straight head on to a single one before dropping back down on the ground, revealing to be Tayuya fighting head-on two Kiri rogue Shinobi, both wearing masks to conceal their identity and they both were wielding swords.
While the first Kiri nin landed without a scratch, the other had to land on his knee, seeing he took a hit in the neck and was bleeding a lot. But then he collapsed fully to the ground as his back was revealed to be bleeding also. Dying a slow death with fatal injuries.
Tayuya smirks while turning her bloodied kunai "Looks like your friend is done for."
"You bitch!" the first one said as he ran towards her with his blade. Tayuya went to the offensive and went for the first Shinobi with her own kunai.
While on the other side, Chōjūrō was surrounded by three of the former Kiri ninja who he once saw as comrades when he was just a genin. Now he was fighting them as traitors.
"Get the little shit!" They all three went for him all at the same time.
SLASH!
SLASH!
SLASH!
They all had their swords inside the blue-haired swordsman until the body disfigured into a mass of water.
"A water clone!" the water soon surrounded the area around their feet and looked up to see Chōjūrō going through multiple hand signs.
"Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu!" a giant water dragon emerges from the water from the sea behind blue-haired swordsman and it was aimed directly at the three Kiri rogue ninja. It crushes upon them, taking them out in an instant with the only thing left was the screams of pain being silenced by the masses of water entering their lungs.
Chōjūrō lands on his feet and took some deep breathes "I used a lot of chakra for that." Without noticing, from behind a rogue Kiri nin with a kunai tried to stab the swordman in the back.
From a pipe, a couple of bubbles were flying towards the shinobi.
"Water Style: Bubble Jutsu!"
A bubble exploded right behind Chōjūrō, taking out the rogue ninja and making the swordsman turn around to see an enemy ninja was taken out by the same person who summoned those bubbles. It was the man in the robes with the pipe.
"Utakata-sensei!"
"Please drop that title, Chōjūrō. And thank me later," The robed man swiftly turned around blocking a leg kick from a rogue shinobi "we've still got a fight on our hands."
"R-Right!" Chōjūrō nodded as he unsheathed his sword from his back and runs towards a group of smugglers who were on one of the ships.
A series of explosions occurred as two figures jumped in the middle of what's left off the camp. It was Naruto and the guy he just freed from the wooden pole.
Ao had his back against Naruto's and was breathing hard "You're a shinobi, no doubt about it. But who are you?" no one else would use a kunai or move like a shinobi that fast.
"Can we leave the introductions for later?" Naruto blocked a flying kunai with his own "How many enemies did we take out, I've lost count."
"Right," Ao nods as he blocked an attack by a rogue ninja and stabbed him in the chest before kicking his body away "We've must've taken out thirty of these scumbags now, including some of Kenji's men. Especially with that explosion of yours. But you're lucky you didn't hit the main depot." He said referring to the big pile of unopened boxes that laid against the wall behind the camp "If that explodes, the whole dock will crumble down on us."
"Then we have to get out of here quickly." Naruto said looking around "Where is that girl who was with you?"
"Her name's Hotaru," Ao said blocking two shurikens coming at them "Let me see." He focuses his chakra in his patched eye as veins began to pop up and a strong surge of chakra was concentrating in his patched eye.
"….Byakugan."
Naruto froze when he heard that and slightly turned his eyes on the guy behind him.
'He possesses an Byakugan eye…'
Ao looked around and turned his head up to see something and points "Up there!"
Naruto turns around to see where Ao was pointing at and saw that Kenji was standing in one of the entrances of the tunnel above them, with three of his men standing by him and the girl named Hotaru held in an arms lock.
"I must say, you've successfully found this place, I give you that." Kenji stated slightly choking the girl as he pulls out of his patch a kunai with an explosive tag attached to it "Let's see if you can escape from it!" he said throwing the kunai.
Ao and Naruto watched as they saw where it was going and; for the crates.
"Damn it! we've got to run, NOW!" Naruto said sprinting for the exit "Tayuya!"
"Chōjūrō! Utakata!"
They all started running to the ground level exit just when the kunai hit the crates, and in a matter of seconds, it exploded.
BOOM!
The explosion hit the ceiling as the whole place was going to crumble down.
"Shit!" Tayuya jumped off the ship and started running for the exit "Blue brains, run!"
"I'm running!" Chōjūrō said running as fast as he could. Utakata was nowhere to be seen as the earth started crumbling down upon the ships, destroying them with the crew on it.
The whole place soon was filled with falling rocks as the Chōjūrō was the last person to make it out before the exit was fully blocked off.
Back to the others
Gray was now in a standoff against the self-named Reitei who in actuality was his old friend Lyon, a fellow Ice magic-user and someone who also was a student under his master, Ur. It was quite a shocker when he found out Lyon was behind all of this. He was trying to resurrect the monster that not only killed his family and village but also their master who sacrificed her own life to seal the monster. They were alone as Lyon's people were sent to try and destroy the village, Lucy and Happy were trying to stop them and Natsu…..well let's say he was busy trying to get out of a situation he got himself into.
Lyon was more focused on the smoke that was smoldering from the mountain "Hmmm, something must've happened…" Not knowing that another Fairy Tail member was responsible for that explosion with some others.
"That would be Naruto's doing…." Gray answered it has to be him since he was exploring the tunnels and must've come across something that triggered that explosion.
"Naruto you say, like Uzumaki?" Lyon said turning back to Gray "He would be lucky if he survived the people he came across."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not wasting my time explaining it to you." Lyon got in his battle stance "I won't let you stop me from reaching my goal."
"Stop acting like you're my senior, Lyon." Gray warned him taking his own stance "We're not Ur's students anymore."
"I'm well aware of that, painfully aware." Lyon took off the mask revealing his face to him "Our beloved teacher is no longer on this world."
"Her final act was sealing that monster away!" Gray shouted at him furiously "You're trying to destroy of what's left of Ur?!"
"Don't delude yourself," Lyon glares at him "You're the one who killed her. and yet, you don't seem to feel any guilt."
Gray gasped as he sweats from his brow.
"How cruel…"
Inside the mountain
After the underground dock was fully destroyed, the four shinobi were seen walking through the only tunnel that some burning lights.
Tayuya was sitting on the floor with sweat dripping from her forehead "Shit, that was close." A moment later and she could've been under a rock "Hey, you think anyone survived it in there?"
"Let me see." Ao was using his Byakugan to see through the boulders and scan the area that was once the dock "I don't see any life forms breathing. No one could've survived that."
"You think Utakata is dea-Agh!" Chōjūrō stopped talking when he felt a horrible pain in his leg. He was laying against the wall and was being checked by Naruto. He narrowly got out but his leg got caught by a boulder and made sure he couldn't feel his feet now.
"I don't see his chakra signal, so I assume he made it out," Ao said knowing that Utakata's chakra was very different than that of a normal shinobi since his are larger.
The older shinobi turned to Naruto and asked "How is he?"
"He's going to be alright," Naruto examined the leg and shook his head "but he will be out of action, for now, foot is obviously got the worst and is fractured but not too much. And his leg has taken a bad hit."
"So he basically cannot fight now…" Ao listened to his dismay as he turned to Chōjūrō and berated him "Look what that clumsiness has gotten you too."
"Hey speak for yourself," Tayuya suddenly spoke and was speaking back against Ao "I don't know if you realized it yet but just ten minutes ago you were a prisoner to these bastards."
"Watch your tone, girl." Ao barked at the redhead with a glare "The boy knew the risks of this mission, if he's stupid enough to get himself hit by a boulder then he shouldn't be in this mission in the first place!"
"Enough!" Naruto shouted to stop the bickering between the two and mediate "We got no time for this crap, we need to track down the remaining rogue ninja and take them out. The risk they will leave the island and relocate to the mainland is not that I am willing to take." Naruto said walking up to Chōjūrō.
He bends down in front of him and pulls from under his coat a sealing scroll and opens it for them to see it was indeed a sealing scroll, taking the interest of the elder Kiri shinobi. Especially when they saw the small insignia on the scroll that resembled a whirlpool that was on all of Naruto's scrolls.
'That cannot be, they are extinct….'
From the scroll appeared a few packs of bandages and some medicine and he turns to Tayuya with the material "Use this to try and ease up the pain. You learned from those medical-nin scrolls I gave you?"
Tayuya nodded, after since she got defeated by one of Naruto's friends a few years ago she decided to broader up her abilities, this included learning medical jutsu "Yeah, I did."
"Good, because he's your first patient." She took the material out of his hands and he stood up "I'm going out and track them down."
SHINK!
"Not so fast," Ao said stopping Naruto from moving as he suddenly pulls out his kunai and had it pointed under Naruto's chin who didn't move an inch. Taking everyone by surprise.
"Ao, what are you doing?!" Chōjūrō asked his comrade "He's a friend!" Tayuya was about to stand up but stopped when Naruto motioned her to stop.
"Don't Tayuya, let me handle it." The blonde man didn't seem to look intimidated and questioned the Kiri nin "Any reason for why you are pulling a blade on me?"
"Those scrolls you contain," Ao pointed at the scroll he just opened in front of them "has the insignia of the Uzumakis, a clan that was renowned for the arts of using Sealing jutsu and having close ties to the Village Hidden in the Leaves."
Naruto saw where this man was going and decided to play it along "So?"
"There aren't any Uzumakis left, not in great numbers of course." Ao held the kunai closer to his chin "but I remembered there was one Uzumaki that lived once in Hidden Leaf village…."
There was a moment of silence to where Ao was going to, no doubt in his mind that this boy was that Uzumaki "and he was also part of the team that took out the rogue ninja from our village, Zabuza Momoichi and his pupil, Haku Yuki."
Chōjūrō was too frozen for words when he heard those two names. Zabuza was once a member of the seven swordsmen of the Hidden Mist and one of the most feared shinobi of his village who turned rogue after an attempted coup d'état. He'd learned he died a few years ago in a confrontation against a couple of Leaf ninja that included the legendary Copy ninja Kakashi Hatake and a few of his genin.
"In Hatake's team was a young boy," Ao's face inched closer to Naruto "who didn't have the red hair of the Uzumakis but sure had the family name. To which we found out had later gone rogue after he was found out planting a bomb trap to kill the members of the Civilian and Elder councils of his home village…" he now stated clearly as he was directly talking to the young man in front of him "And now I am talking right to that person standing in front of me. Naruto Uzumaki, rogue Shinobi from the Hidden Leaf village."
Naruto just stood there before answering in one single line "…..So you guessed who I am."
Chōjūrō just felt frozen when he heard Ao reveal this guy's full identity that he was a rogue ninja, Tayuya, on the other hand, was ready to reach for her kunai and take necessary measures if needed….
"Okay, I am Naruto Uzumaki. But now I got to ask you this," Naruto countered with a different question to the veteran shinobi "what are you going to do now since you found out I am a rogue shinobi from a different village? Because even if you decided to kill me you would be stuck in a bad situation."
Ao frowned "Explain?"
"I know you possess the Byakugan, and that it is an Dôjutsu that is known in the Hidden Leaf that only the Hyuuga clan has. And by the looks of it, you ain't no Hyuuga. So you must've possibly taken it from one."
"I took it as an-"
"Doesn't matter much if the word would go back to the Hidden Leaf village if they heard who my alleged slayer was and what he has under that patch." Naruto points his finger at it "You must've already known what happened last time when someone tried to steal the secrets of the Hyuuga Dôjutsu, as the Hyuuga-Cloud incident rings you any bells? How that almost ended in a war between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud?"
Ao's eye began to open up from realization, this kid was making sense.
"What would you think will happen when the Hidden Leaf finds out that someone from a different village had the Byakugan?" Naruto said not needing to answer since he already knew what the veteran was thinking.
"It could lead to war." Chōjūrō figured out with his face almost turning white "and that's the last thing the Mizukage wanted…." The status of the Hidden Mist's military was still unclear to most villages, but in reality, they were low on Shinobi. After the civil war ended they only had 1/3 of their forces left and their best swordsmen were almost all deceased with some of the legendary swords still missing. Meaning that the Hidden Mist was at its most vulnerable point now and could not sustain any more damage or even fight any wars in the near future. So they had to avoid major conflict at any cost if they wanted to retain the status as one of the five strongest nations of the Elemental continent.
"Not only that, you are currently outnumbered. With four against one if you killed me and my partner right there." Naruto points to Tayuya "and for as far I know, that other shinobi who was with us may not be here right now. So now it's only you against four former ANBU hunter-ninjas." Naruto pointed out the final fact "It's your call."
Ao was struggling with the points the young man made and knew that what Chōjūrō and this kid said is true, he had no other choice but to take the risk working with this rogue ninja.
He lowered his kunai and asked him in a stern voice "What's your plan?"
"I'll go track down Kenji and his men while you go back to the village and protect it in case someone wants to destroy it, I assume you know where it is…" To which Ao nods as he turned to the others "Tayuya will help out your partner to get down the mountain towards the village. And Tayuya, once you're there, I need you to go and join Ao and help him. Can you guys do that?"
"Will do," Tayuya nodded "You can count on me."
Then the ground began to rumble again as some dust fell down upon them.
"Looks like the party has begun. I'm going now." Naruto turned around and starts running "Let's go old man!"
"Wait for me kid!" Ao shouted as he began running after Naruto as Chōjūrō watched them go on without them.
The swordsman looked down muttering to himself "Damn it…."
"What's the matter?" Tayuya asked him while bandaging his leg "you're not growing soft on me, are you?"
"Does it matter, Ao-sensei's right," Chōjūrō said staring to the ground "look at me, I'm useless now. I even failed to notice you guys were shinobi."
"Ex-Shinobi." She corrected him "We are ex-shinobi, Naruto and I left that life when we arrived in Fiore and built up new lives."
"You were a Hidden Leaf ninja?"
"Nope, Hidden Sound. I was an underling for Orochimaru."
"One of the three Sannin?" Chōjūrō guessed until something came up to his mind "But wait, didn't your village go to war with his during the finals of the Chunin Exams?"
"Yep, I was there."
"Then why are you two friendly to each other?"
"Look, kid, when I said we left that life, we left everything." She added to her argument "the grudges, the vendettas, everything. We both lost people fighting each other. Like I lost my friends, he lost his apparent grandfather." She tried not to bring up the fact they were family "so we both agreed to drop those grudges and move on with our lives." remembering the feeling of relief from her gut that she had someone related to her was actually very uplifting. After all, she grew up without anyone looking out for her or giving a purpose and now with Naruto as her cousin and the guild she joined a few years prior. She felt like there was a reason to be happy "Honestly, now I am living in Fiore I feel much better."
"Don't you miss it?" Chōjūrō asked curious "The life of a ninja?"
"I do some times." She smiled pausing as she tapped her arm where her guild stamp was "but after meeting people who now look after me like a family, I feel like I have a purpose again."
Chōjūrō was honestly stunned by that comment. He had heard there were people who were living in Fiore and the magical continent after leaving the Shinobi life, but he had never met someone who actually done it. his dream was to be the Mizukage and to be one of the Hidden Mist's strongest swordsmen. He couldn't imagine a life without it. He'd wondered if there were Kiri ninja also living on this side of the sea, after the civil war and the Bloodline purges many civilians and ninja disappeared and were never seen.
The tunnel began to shake again and he felt suddenly lifted up by the redhead as his arm was over her shoulder.
"Let's go." Tayuya said stepping forwards "before this tunnel collapses above us."
"Yeah….hey,"
"What?"
"….Thanks." Chōjūrō said nervously while trying to avoid eye-contact "for the help, I mean."
Tayuya didn't help but smirk and a slight tint of shade turn up her cheek "Your welcome." grabbing Chōjūrō's blade they were stepping slowly towards the end of the tunnel.
That is it!
Please review and follow.
Peace!