Chapter 23: The Curry of Life
"Leave it to the civvie to go running into the village infested with enemies," Naruto muttered as he leaped down the cliff from boulder to boulder in pursuit of Rokusuke. The village was set in a valley surrounded by cliffs on all sides with the mine situated in one end, and a large field devoid of any plant life full of graves in between it and the village. The ground itself was a depressing grey, adding to the gloomy atmosphere as clouds rolled in.
The five of them landed on an outcrop of rocks sitting above the mine. Below, who Naruto assumed were villagers went about toting minerals out. "I guess the gold mining business is booming."
Neji surveyed the area with his Byakugan. "Look!" Karin whispered, pointing at an elderly man that had fallen to the ground. The rocks in the buckets he carried on his shoulder spilled onto the ground. As the four gang members below surrounded him, Naruto slid his tantō a few inches out of its sheath.
"Wait," Neji interrupted him. "We shouldn't rush in."
"You do realize they'll just stand there and beat him, yes?"
"I'll handle it!" Lee exclaimed, shooting one fist into the air as he leaped up.
"Wait, you idiot-" Karin hissed. She cut off when he disappeared into thin air, making her facepalm.
One of the men on the ground raised his fist to strike the old man. Lee's fist slammed into his ribcage, making his eyes go wide as he froze briefly before letting out a strangled cry of pain and slumping to the ground. In mere seconds, the other three had fallen to Lee's fist, making Naruto shake his head before following the genin down. He definitely belongs with Sakura…
"You shouldn't have done that!" wept the old man. "Quickly, hit me too! Knock me down!"
"Um, excuse me?" TenTen raised an eyebrow at him in clear disbelief. Neji turned and activated his dojutsu again, while Naruto just rubbed his temples.
"They'll think I was responsible! If you won't do it, I will, they'll hold a funeral for me!"
"Wait! Don't!" Lee caught the man's hands as he tried to begin hitting himself. "What do you mean funeral?"
The man stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes. With shaking hands, he turned and pointed towards the village, cringing. "The Kurosuki gang. They came in and removed the men controlling this town. At first we were overjoyed, because they'd relieved us of the extorting taxes they'd made us pay, but their leader Raiga gives anyone who disobeys him a funeral and buries them alive!"
"Buries them alive? That's horrible!" Disgust made TenTen's shoulders creep up towards her ears as she shuddered. She'd love to deck the infamous Raiga a good one at that moment.
The beat of a gong filled the air. "Looks like they're having another 'funeral' right now," Neji said. Naruto looked up from handing Karin several exploding tags, watching several figures in the distance. "And it's for Rokusuke."
There were six men giving Rokusuke his sick "funeral", all of which had rudimentary shinobi skills but were quite easy to deal with. While Lee dealt with his friend, Naruto pried the top of the coffin off.
"O-oh g-god," Rokusuke shuddered out, sitting up with a pale complexion. "T-thank you so much. They were going to bury me!"
"Yep, kinda obvious, buddy."
"I'm sorry. I only wanted to help my friend." The man looked down in shame, shoulders hunched. "They buried him as we were leaving. I thought…"
A bit more sympathetic, Naruto patted him on the shoulder. "It's all right. I'd do the same if it were my cousin over there."
"Naruto, there are several more closing in on our position," Neji called.
"All right, Karashi," Naruto said, dragging Lee's friend over by the collar. He didn't trust him a bit. "Watch Rokusuke for us."
"A-all right!"
The five ninja leaped away under guidance of Neji's Byakugan, spreading out to take care of the figures he'd spotted as a mist rolled in.
Naruto recognized it- Zabuza used the very same technique. So he really is one of the Seven Swordsman? If he's as strong as Kisame or Zabuza, that might present a problem.
He mused to himself as he dropped down on his target, stabbing his tantō into a tree branch. Blinking, he lifted his blade from the bark and looked around. "That's odd," he muttered. He could clearly feel a chakra network directly in front of him- he should have hit it directly. The two chakras on the cliff weren't moving, so he figured that was Raiga and his right-hand- but what were the other gang members doing to hide themselves?
He paused. Oh, crap.
He could feel chakra shooting towards him over the ground like a snake, an acidic quality to it he recognized as very potent lightning chakra. There were mere seconds before it reached him at the speed it was going-
He jumped and flipped himself so he could perform a handstand, driving his tantō into the ground as the blade crackled with electricity. He balanced on the handle and gritted his teeth as stray shocks of electricity zapped him- he hadn't had time to switch it out for the Raijin no Ken, which would have blocked anything that made it to the handle.
"Your reflexes are quick, at least."
"GAH!" With a scream, he tumbled to the ground, nearly cracking his head open on a rock.
A suppressed chuckle. Scowling, Naruto shoved himself to his feet and pointed at Madara in an accusing way. "Are you tryin' to kill me?"
"Yes, I'm trying to commit homicide from beyond the grave. Astute observation."
"What're you doing here anyway?"
"Bo-"
"If you say 'boredom' or anything related to it so help me-"
"Your little friends are unconscious, you know."
"Oh." Naruto stared blankly through the mist, watching the distant form of Rock Lee battle a much taller figure. "I should probably help that."
He took off with a new ghosty companion, resolving to give this Raiga fellow a good punch to the eye for nearly electrocuting him into unconsciousness.
"How the ever-loving hell is he fighting unconscious?"
Madara and Naruto stared at the strange sight before them, eyes narrowed in something ranging in between confusion and remote fascination. "That," Naruto continued, shaking his head. "That isn't normal."
"Even the Senju never achieved something so…" Madara trailed off. Naruto would have made fun of the fact he seemed to be at a loss for words, but he was too busy wallowing in his disbelief.
"Oi, Neji, TenTen, rise and shine," Naruto yelled, ducking in when Lee caught both of Raiga's blades with his hands and feet- he looked like a noodle- and driving a fist into Raiga's gut. Considering the fact his punching power was on par with Lee's when he put his mind to it- and they could both demolish solid rock- it made sense that Raiga's face went pale before twisting in pain as he shot back into the cliff side.
He jumped towards Karin, lifting her from the ground and leaning her against his arm. "Hey, Karin, you all right?"
"Ugh…" She groaned and winced as she roused, reaching up to groggily adjust her glasses. He tried (and failed, miserably) to hide his concern; she was the only living family he had left. He considered his team his family, of course, but he didn't have the same comradery with them- the same knowledge that they were both Uzumaki, and had a shared heritage.
"Naruto-sama?"
"There ya go." He set her on her feet with a grin, brushing the dirt off her shoulders. She wore an outfit much like TenTen, though with an inverted color scheme, as it was mainly black with purple accents to match the purple Uzumaki spiral Sasuke had sewn into her clothing. She also wore shorts in lieu of pants to leave room for storage seals on her legs.
With a groan, TenTen quickly got to her feet. Her eyes alighted on a bundle that had fallen off Raiga; she motioned to Neji and shot towards it.
"For a swordsman of the Mist, his strength is disappointing," Madara drawled, watching the proceedings from a rock as he sat with his chin on one palm. Naruto turned and followed his gaze, watching Raiga retreat up the cliff side. He yelled something about an avalanche, but Naruto wasn't concerned.
"Yeah, you're telling me," he complained, taking his fan out with a pout. "I was hoping for a fight like we had with Zabuza. Not to mention-"
"Um, Naruto-kun, there is an avalanche coming towards us," Lee said urgently, sweatdropping at him.
"Oh. Right." Naruto grinned, making a cold pit of fear enter Lee's chest.
But he wasn't afraid for himself. It was an irrational fear, settling in and making him wary for whoever had garnered Naruto's ire.
The blond swung his fan, unleashing a torrent of wind.
TenTen stared up at the cliff with a sour expression. "I bet you got that from the Suna kunoichi, didn't you?"
Naruto snickered, reattaching his fan to his back as he dropped down beside her. His winds had cut clean through the boulders falling towards them, reducing them to pebbles before it took Raiga for a ride. "Yep. Had a different teacher, though."
She twitched. He beamed at her.
"Naruto-sama is amazing," Karin said with an identical grin. "Someday he'll be the most skilled wind user in the Land of Fire!"
"Ah, Karin, I don't know why you have so much faith in me," he said genuinely, laughing.
"It's because you're amazing!"
"I know, you said that already, aa~"
Neji and Lee had knelt in front of the bundle. Curious, Naruto looked over Neji's shoulder, eyebrows raising in surprise when he found a small blue-haired child within.
"What's a child doing with someone like Raiga?" he asked, gaining no reaction. The kid was almost creepily composed.
"This dust…he's the one who was blocking my Byakugan," Neji muttered.
"That was me," the boy admitted. "Raiga is…my other half."
"Other half? I'd hate to be the other half to someone that loony."
The boy sighed and closed his eyes. "You see him as that, but when I was small, Raiga found me and showed me a new life. I was crippled by sickness at a young age, confined to a blanket indoors, and shunned by my village, but he showed me the outside world. We have never been apart, through battle and bloodshed. I became his eyes and ears, and he became my hands and feet. Before Raiga, I had no purpose to my life. I didn't know why I was here or why I'd been born…I had no reason for my existence…but Raiga was the same way. Together we found a reason. Without him, I might as well be dead."
Team Nine was silent, slightly stunned by someone so young having such a pessimistic look on life. He's just like Haku was before I blew some sense into Zabuza… Naruto thought, reminiscing. Because Konoha and Kiri were newly formed allies, he'd met Zabuza and Haku many more times- Haku was a good friend of his. He understood some of what Naruto had gone through, even though he himself wasn't a Jinchuriki- he knew what it was to have no reason for one's existence.
I had no reason for my existence.
He didn't like thinking about the years he'd spent alone, before Iruka, before Sasuke and Sakura, even before Izuna and Kurama. Most children couldn't remember their youth, but Naruto remembered in almost painful detail, from the time he'd been able to topple around on two feet. He remembered vague flashes of dull grey orphanage walls, mattresses like bricks, apathetic stares from the workers whenever he cried; cold nights on the streets shivering in the rain and hoping to kami he might find some food.
Day after day wondering why he was even alive.
"…It's a painful thing to have no reason to live," he murmured, having dropped into a crouch beside the boy. "To wonder…every single day, if the world is so hateful and cruel that it doesn't want you, why were you brought into it? To have to wonder why people seem to hate your existence and look at you as less than human when you haven't even done anything to them…" The boy's eyes turned to meet his. "He is your…most precious person. Even if what he's doing is wrong, you won't leave him."
My purpose in life now is to make sure his dreams come true.
"Because he gave you a purpose. Now that that purpose is gone-" Naruto cut himself off, remembering who he was with, shaking his head.
…kit? You all right?
I'm fine.
Karin laid a hand on his shoulder. Her expression was understanding- true understanding, rather than just pity.
Neji stared at his back, while Lee and TenTen cast their gazes to the floor, pensive. "There are many chakra signatures gathering near the village," Karin said, glancing in its direction.
"Very well," Neji said after a moment's pause. "We'll circle back and remove the rest of the gang. We've cut off their leader, and there's no telling what the rest of the beast will do now that the head is gone."
Naruto's distrust in Karashi turned out to be completely justified; he mentally congratulated Sasuke on making him just as paranoid as him.
After (rather easily) dealing with the ambush the Kurosuki family had waiting for them- and Lee begging the villagers to let him and Sansho deal with Karashi himself- they looped back to where they'd tied up Ranmaru. Madara was unusually silent the whole way; he usually made comments (usually derogatory) and snide remarks and insults whenever he followed Naruto around. He knew it was the Uchiha's way of bantering with him without actually admitting to the fact he seemed to like conversing in the first place.
"Are you all right?" Neji asked, taking out a kunai to cut the ropes binding the boy to a support pillar in the shack.
"You might as well leave me here. I have no reason to live now that Raiga is gone," the boy replied.
"Shouldn't we just do as he says and leave him? He's a weakling," TenTen said, crossing her arms. "I can't stand weak and indecisive people."
Naruto was quiet. That's something Sasuke would say, he thought with a twinge of irritation.
"For much of my life that room was all I knew," Ranmaru said, eyes on the floor. "I don't remember my parents. I only survived because some villagers brought me food occasionally. But I had a power no one else did. I could see things from that room that normal people couldn't. Because of that, everyone shunned me. They called me a monster…and said I was cursed… And no one brought me food anymore. I was just waiting to die…but then…Raiga found me."
"Your past is so tragic," Lee muttered.
"I see. So he was able to become a Seven Swordsman because he borrowed your power," Neji deduced.
This is all just a crappy trip down memory lane, Naruto thought, closing his eyes. Sasuke and Sakura- they were his Raiga, his Zabuza, even if he wasn't so obsessively devoted. Even if he had his arms and legs to use, he had been waiting to die at one point, too. No parents or family to call his own- shunned by everyone; called a monster.
"And if Raiga was just using you to commit evil deeds? What would you do then?" He heard Karin ask.
"Either way," Ranmaru replied, "I was of use to him. It didn't matter."
Out of the corner of his eye, Neji spotted a tear slip down Naruto's cheek. Startled, he turned to look at the boy fully, but the blond was already opening his eyes and moving forward.
"Then you're not really living," he said bluntly, making Ranmaru's eyes widen. "I know how it feels to have no purpose. I know how it feels to just be ready to give up and die. But if you're going to survive by yourself, you have to give it everything you've got. What's the point of dying? Why not go on and find new people to call your friends? Why not prove everybody wrong who said you were a monster or said you couldn't live on your own? Screw them. If you can't live for yourself you can't live at all. But you can start," he held up one hand, at the climax of his famed 'talk no jutsu'- "by having some Curry of Life!"
Karin and TenTen faceplanted into the ground. "Are you kidding? W-won't that hurt his body?" TenTen said, sweating.
"Naruto, you shouldn't have any, either," Neji said, crossing his arms with a disapproving expression.
He's right. I was feeling your indigestion, Kurama grumbled, ears flat back from within Naruto's mindscape.
Naruto beamed, loosing Ranmaru from his confines and transferring him to his back. "Don't be ridiculous, Neji. I'm sure it'll help him."
"Curry of Life?" Madara asked, speaking up at last.
"Too bad you can't have any," Naruto said, to everyone's confusion as he spoke to thin air. "Even you would be cowed by this curry, ohoho~."
"I don't… I don't think this is a good idea…"
"Nonsense! Go on, Ranmaru."
"I'm not that hungry," the boy muttered.
Naruto held the steaming bowl of black goop out to Neji. "You want some, then?"
Twitching, Neji snatched the bowl from his hands. "Eat too much of that and your esophagus will burn."
"Ey, c'mon, give it back."
"No."
"You should always eat your portion."
"Not when it poses a threat to your health."
"Looks like a storm is moving in," Karin interrupted, pushing her glasses up her nose as she peered out the window. Storm clouds had gathered in the distance, an ominous presence on the horizon.
"We should go get some wood to reinforce the shop," Lee said around a mouthful of curry.
"You guys stay here," Naruto said to Karashi and Ranmaru as he stood up and smoothed out his haori. "We'll be back in a jiff with enough to hunker down."
Naruto swung his fan, slicing four trees and tossing them into the air. They landed in neat stacks, each one split into four logs. "Yatta! I'm doing better on accuracy, yeah?"
Madara leaned down to inspect the bark. "A clean cut," he said. Naruto translated this as "good job". He was fluent in Uchiha by now; growing up around them lent itself to the ability.
"This ought to be enough," Neji said, lifting one of the logs onto his shoulder. "Would you make some clones, Naruto?"
"All righty, captain."
"Shouldn't TenTen have come back by now?" Karin questioned with a frown in the direction of Sansho's shop. Neji had sent her back several minutes before to check on Karashi and Ranmaru.
Naruto's clones popped into existence and began piling the logs they'd cut onto their shoulders to carry back. "Go ahead and check," Naruto said, forming half a hand seal to concentrate. Karin mimicked him, closing her eyes.
"You're a sensor nin as well, Naruto?" Lee asked. The boy nodded absentmindedly, looking for TenTen's chakra signature.
"I found her," Karin exclaimed, brow furrowed. "But she's not at the shop…Karashi's chakra is there, too, but-"
"Crap," Naruto said. He dropped his log with a loud thud.
"What is it?" Neji asked, alert. He set his own log down and gave them his full attention.
"Raiga's back. Ranmaru's chakra is dangerously low." A bead of sweat dripped down Karin's forehead as she opened her eyes and relaxed her hands. "TenTen's too."
"Get moving. Naruto, have your clones finish up here."
Naruto snapped at his kage bunshin, making them pick up the pace. "Karin, do me a favor."
"Yes, Naruto-sama?" She was ready to start sprinting, but paused.
"Go back to the shop and make sure Sansho is all right."
"What? But I-"
"It's not that I don't think you're capable, and it's not because of your gender, I assure you. But I think Karashi may run away again, despite Lee's attempts to drill the cowardice out of him, and I need you to watch over Sansho during the storm. Knowing him he probably did something stupid and put her in danger."
"All right, Naruto-sama."
Naruto led Neji and Lee to Raiga's chakra, finding him on the edge of a cliff. Convenient, he thought, opening up his fan.
"I'll hold a funeral for all of you," the man was saying, practically frothing at the mouth.
He raised the Kiba swords above his head. Lightning crackled ominously above, making Naruto narrow his eyes.
He raised his hands, pentagrams glowing on his palms. "Tcerider dna tcartta," he yelled, making seven large pentagrams appear in the sky.
Almost simultaneously, lightning struck down from the clouds, making Neji and Lee dodge to other side of him. This action proved unnecessary when the bolt struck the nearest pentagram instead of the Leaf shinobi, turning in a hard arc overhead as the pentagram pulled it in.
"I see," Neji muttered, "they work like lightning rods."
"You people killed him!" Raiga roared, summoning a bolt of lightning to his sword to shoot at them like a bullet. "I won't even hold a funeral for you- I'll kill you right here!"
"He's cray-cray," Naruto said, dodging a streak of lightning.
Madara's eyebrows creased, but he said nothing; his pride kept him from asking what the hell that meant. "Left," he said in a bored tone.
Naruto leapt into the air to avoid a wild dash Raiga made on his left. As soon as he had spun around, he ran through a set of hand signs Madara had taught him. "Katon: Gōka Messhitsu!"
Neji's eyes visibly widened and Lee looked on in awe at the destructive power of the flames that spewed from his mouth, taking up the whole section of cliff in a straight line in front of him. After nearly twenty seconds, he let himself catch his breath, letting the flames die out.
The first thing he saw was a crackle of electricity, followed by the Kiba, crossed in front of Raiga as he stood panting. Much of his body was burned, and he looked ready to fall to the ground. "It's a good thing I activated my thunder armor," the man breathed, a crazy glint in his eye, "or else that would've killed me. But I know…" A grin overtook his face. "Just what I need."
He ran forward at a dead sprint. Raising an eyebrow, Naruto dodged him quite easily, while Madara snorted.
"He wasn't going for you, child."
Naruto's eyes widened. "Damnit," he said, whirling around and sprinting after the man.
Neji wasn't one to be intimidated so easily; he fell into his Gentle Fist stance and went to meet Raiga head-on. Even if the man was insane, however, he still seemed to have retained some sense of strategy; as soon as Naruto closed in, he stopped on his heel and did a one-eighty, lunging for Naruto with both arms outstretched.
What the hell? The man's behavior made no sense whatsoever; it was just like he was trying to randomly grab him-
Teeth sunk into his shoulder. Naruto's brain came to a screeching halt, the metaphorical train of thought going flying off the rails. For a moment, he was stunned, and had no idea what the man was doing, but the feeling of his chakra rapidly depleting snapped him out of his daze.
"The hell-!" Naruto tried to kick his opponent off, but had no traction. His limbs felt heavier than before, almost like-
Oh…crap.
Neji burst in between them in a blaze of chakra, his rotation sending Raiga flying. Instead of having a body full of scorch marks, the missing nin had almost completely healed, steam rising off his shoulders while he grinned and wiped his mouth. "Your chakra is so potent," he said, almost appreciatively.
"All right, so he was going for you," Madara conceded.
Groaning, Naruto rolled to his feet, sending the Uchiha a glare. "Thanks."
Lee landed directly in front of him like a guard dog. "Naruto! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, just a little tired." He and Karin must have been more closely related than he thought. He was fairly sure his mother hadn't been able to heal people like that, but evidently he was justlucky.
"What was that?" Both Lee and Neji gave Raiga suspicious glares, standing side by side in their respective taijutsu stances.
"I'd heard that Uzumaki chakra was a delicious feast to dine on," Raiga said with a disturbing smile, making Naruto shudder. He was getting Orochimaru-vibes off the guy. Team Seven was quickly coming to be disturbed easily by Orochimaru-look-alikes. "It's said some of them could heal others and themselves by biting their skin and absorbing it that way. Evidently, I was right. Thank you so much, kid. Maybe I'll hold a funeral for you after all."
He raised the Kiba overhead again, making the genin and one chuunin spread out. Naruto shook himself and pulled his fan from his back, nearly dropping it in the process. Damn, that's more tiring than Karin makes it seem.
Instead, he slipped out the Raijin no Ken, intending to cut through the lightning. Raiga aimed at him with a grin that reminded him of Sasuke's description of Kisame.
"Ikazuchi no Kiba!"
The lightning careened towards him.
"He's going to aim for the Hyuuga," Madara said suddenly.
And at the last moment possible, it changed course, heading straight for Neji.
It happened in mere seconds- less than mere seconds.
Naruto was the son of the Yellow Flash, related in some convoluted way to the Nidaime, two speed demons in their own right. He was the fastest of his age group- and even if his body wasn't as fast as a jounin, a Hiraishin user had to train their minds to work at a faster pace. He could outthink a jounin any day.
In the heat of battle, details were often lost. His feet moved of their own accord as he rushed across ground, throwing himself in front of Neji without any thought for the consequences. He had no time to perform a technique, or even to drill his chakra chains into the ground and form a barrier; no time to chant a spell or avert the lightning's course.
He zoned out somewhere in the middle, noting that it struck him square in the ribcage near his chest but not feeling any pain. Kurama screamed something from within his mind, but Naruto's mind was groggy enough it was only gibberish.
Sound rushed back to him all at once. He crashed into the ground, skidding to a stop when one foot caught on a dip in the rock. Electricity seemed to bounce off his form, making pain ripple up his spine as he curled in on himself.
"Naruto!"
Gritting his teeth, Naruto painstakingly pulled himself a few inches, lifting his head. His vision was bleary, but he saw Neji and Lee leaping about, bolts of lightning following after them like homing beacons as Raiga's mad laughter echoed in his ears.
"C-crap…Lee- Neji-" He hissed, before sinking into the throes of unconsciousness.
"Naruto-sama, please eat this!"
"Ugggh." Naruto turned his head away from the sound; he had a pounding headache.
Someone shook him roughly. "Get up, gaki. This is no time to be napping."
Naruto's eyes creaked open. Madara knelt by his side with Karin on the other, the former looking as impassive as ever- but he seemed agitated, for reasons Naruto didn't know. "Just as shrill as Izuna," he said.
"Naruto-sama, please bite my arm," Karin said, setting the plate of curry in her hand down before offering her arm.
Naruto squinted at her. "Guy did that to me. It sucks…ahah pun-" He winced at the pain his chuckle produced.
She pursed her lips and glared at him. "Do it anyway! You're of more use than me right now."
"This feels weird," Naruto mumbled before he bit into her forearm. He felt his wounds begin to heal and his energy begin to return, making him nearly fully rejuvenated.
He sat up and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Thank you," he said sincerely as she panted.
"Just eat this," she ordered, shoving the plate in his face.
Naruto froze. The smell wafting from the curry was more than enticing- it smelled better than freshly made ramen after a seven hour training marathon.
At lightning speed, he snatched the plate and began shoveling it down, ignoring the proffered spoon. She gave him a disturbed look that matched the expression Madara wore as he quite literally licked the plate clean, a strange sheen to his eyes.
"That was awesome," he said, wearing a dopey grin.
"Uh…Naruto-sama?"
"Kage bunshin no jutsu!" he shouted suddenly, pointing at a rock so abruptly she nearly fell over.
A shadow clone popped into existence, the only difference between them being it had red eyes. "Did that have wine in it?" The clone- Kurama, to be precise- asked dreamily, staring at the sky with a goofy smile.
"Uh…" Karin was at a loss for words.
"Hello," Kurama told her, still smiling. "I'm the Kyuubi. Fear me and scream."
The effect was totally ruined by his zoned-out appearance and the way his head tilted to one side as if he weren't strong enough to hold it up.
Naruto giggled. "Wine's like catnip for Kyuuuuu-chan~" he said, flopping forward and wrapping his arms around Kurama's neck. "Am I drunk?"
"I think we are," Kurama said, eyes wide in amazement.
"Ah!" Naruto shot up, swaying so badly he stumbled straight through an incredulous Madara. "Raira!"
"It's Raiga," Kurama corrected, clumsily getting to his feet.
"Ranga!" Naruto agreed. "Let's go get 'im!"
The two took off at a run, stumbling occasionally, leaving Karin staring with her mouth hanging open.
Naruto crashed bodily into Lee, conveniently saving them both from a streak of lightning. "Woohoo!" he yelled, twirling around to avoid another. "Are you as drunk as I am?" Neji was passed out somewhere on the cliff; Naruto had seen him in passing as Karashi tried to feed him the Curry of Life.
"I think so," Lee replied with a grin, lolling from side to side. Kurama stumbled to a stop and fell face down on the ground behind them.
"Hey! That's that guy!" Naruto pointed at an irritated Raiga as if he'd never seen him before. "He electrocuted me once!"
Lee gasped. "What?! How could he do such a thing?!"
"I dunno! Let's get him!"
"For youth!"
"For blood!"
Lee cast him a disturbed stare. "For what?"
"For love, I said," Naruto corrected, radiating shojo style flowers.
"YES! For love!" Lee cheered. "Get him!"
Raiga never stood a chance against the two intoxicated shinobi.
"But Neji, I want more!" Naruto whined, pawing at the Hyuuga's back as he stood between Naruto and the shop in the doorway.
The boy shot him a glare over his shoulder. "Absolutely not. You're intoxicated enough as it is."
"Can we have some wine for the road?" Naruto yelled over his head.
"Ohoho," Sansho giggled to herself. Karashi and Ranmaru were making curry behind her, dumping various spices and ingredients into the pots on the stove. "You just sleep it off, dear, and come back when you're older. I'll cook you up a special batch."
He beamed. "Okay!"
Lee had already sobered up, but had to be dragged away by TenTen and Karin to avoid them all being forced to digest another meal of the Curry of Life. "Please?" Naruto tried again, letting his feet make small trenches in the dirt as Neji dragged him away.
"No," the Hyuuga said, scowling.
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No!"
"Uncle Dara says I can! Don't you Uncle Dara?"
"No," Madara said flatly.
"Aww," Naruto whined. In his mindscape, the Kyuubi was conked out in the field, snoring.
Twitching, Neji fairly lifted him off his feet and leapt into the trees, and Naruto badgered him about getting wine once they returned the whole way home.
He wasn't supposed to care about the boy.
But seeing his body…his still body…
He'd lost brothers- he'd lost Izuna- and so many children.
His body had been still for nearly ten minutes.
Bandages were wound around Izuna's empty eye sockets, matching the soft white robes he wore to accompany his funeral pyre. The Uchiha didn't bury their dead.
Naruto was beginning to sober up by the time they reached the village. Neji had made double time to avoid being caught in the open with him out of commission. Izumo and Kotetsu stared incredulously at their team as they went by, Naruto hanging off Neji's shoulders- his feet didn't touch the ground due to how short he was- and what looked to be one of Naruto's shadow clones staggering behind them, stumbling all over the road and routinely falling on his face. The mad cackling fits that sounded just a tad evil didn't help things.
"You look like an dog regurgitated its dinner," Naruto whispered to a passing Senju ghost he had never spoken to personally before.
The man whirled around, expression twisting as he stepped closer, scowling. "Excuse me?"
He choked when Madara's hand found a home around his neck, eyes bulging slightly. Madara hadn't even noticed he'd done it, but he found himself staring into the Senju's terrified brown eyes- he hadn't seen Madara lurking at the rear of their group- with his Sharingan activated. Hm. So he could still activate it as a ghost.
"Keep a thirty foot distance," he sneered in lieu of addressing his actions in any way, tossing the man through a passing civilian. Living in denial was sweet.
"You have pretty eyes," Naruto giggled, eyes hazy as he finally noticed the Hokage Tower. Madara stared at him. A loud gasp escaped the boy's throat before he leapt away from Team Gai, screaming loud enough for the whole street to hear. "I wonder if Jiji's around! BAA-CHAN!"
He took off at a speed that would give the Yondaime a run for his money, making Neji groan and shake his head.
It was off-putting to have a blond menace burst into her office when she was trying to get paperwork done, let alone when she hadn't had a drink in seven hours.
Naruto barreled through the door, smacking it into Gai as he was leaving and plastering the jounin into the wall. "Baa-chan!" he cried, skidding to a stop with a large grin.
"Naruto?" she stared at him in confusion. On either side of her, Hashirama mimicked her expression almost exactly while Tobirama just furrowed his eyebrows. "What's-"
A flustered Neji burst in after him. "I apologize, Tsunade-sama!" he said, bowing at the waist. "Naruto is- indisposed-"
"Uggh," Gai slithered out from behind the door and rubbed his nose. "Ah! My youthful students have returned from their mission!"
Naruto turned and gave Neji a dark look. "I am not 'indisposed'," he said, making air quotes with his fingers. "I'm perfectly yucid."
"Do you mean 'lucid'?" Neji raised his eyebrows.
"Shut up."
The rest of Team Gai filed in after them, looking sheepish. "I can deliver the mission repor-" Neji began.
There was a tap on the roof as Jiraiya swung in the window. "What's all the ruckus?" he asked.
The Hyuuga sighed, resigning himself to the fate of being constantly interrupted. At once, Naruto brightened, throwing himself upon the man with all the gusto and enthusiasm of someone who hadn't seen a loved one in years. "Ero-jiji!"
"Eh?" Jiraiya gawked down at him as he wrapped himself around the sannin's midsection, jaw hanging open.
"I missed you!" Naruto said, voice muffled by Jiraiya's haori.
"Y-you did?" The round, watery eyes reappeared. "M-my cute little student actually missed me!" He wailed, returning the embrace in such a way that TenTen was eerily reminded of Gai and Lee.
The kunoichi stiffened when Lee began to sniffle. "Such love between student and teacher," he said, dramatic tears leaking out of his eyes. "It's so beautiful! Gai-sensei, isn't it?!"
The man's fist was shaking. Shadows covered his eyes in a way that made his bowl cut even more exaggerated. "It…it is!" he said, beginning to weep. "Oh, Lee, leap into my embrace as we celebrate this sacred bond!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
TenTen and Karin cringed, retreating to the corner behind Neji. The boy reached up to rub one temple and closed his eyes in consternation.
"…what is happening right now?" Tobirama uttered, at a complete loss for words. He went unheard.
Kurama finally crashed in behind them, coming to a stop directly in front of the desk. "I am the Ryuushii no Gogo!" he roared in a voice slightly deeper than Naruto's, the red eyes and thick whisker marks apparent to everyone in the room not previously occupied. "Fear me!"
He spun around in a tailspin, thunking into the wall and sliding down it until he lay strewn across the doorway.
"Hey!" Naruto gasped, jerking back to stare up at Jiraiya with wide eyes. "I have another kekkei genkai too!"
"What? What is it?"
Naruto's disjointed thought process jumped between the events of the mission; somewhere along the way between his brain and mouth, things got jumbled. "The guy we were fighting bit me," he said with a triumphant smile, thinking that would explain it.
Momentarily thrown off the topic of conversation, Jiraiya squinted in confusion. "Bit you?"
"Yeah!" Naruto pulled his collar to the side, revealing the bite mark on his shoulder- a mark from healing someone was permanent like it was for Karin, despite his Jinchuriki healing element. "He said I was…delicious?"
Jiraiya froze. Gai and Lee froze mid-embrace. Everyone froze. "…what?" he croaked.
"It's not what you think-" Karin began, sweatdropping.
"You sent him on a mission with a- a- a- pervert?" Jiraiya screamed, making everyone in the room wince. Tsunade briefly wondered at the irony that Jiraiya of all people was calling someone a pervert.
"Raiga of the Seven Swordsman-" she began.
"He was defeated-" Neji said at the same time.
"That's it!" Jiraiya bodily tossed Naruto over his shoulder and ran for the window again, pausing only briefly halfway out to point accusingly at Tsunade. "No more out-of-village missions! I never expected this from you, Tsunade!"
He took off like a bat out of hell.
"So…he didn't actually molest you…"
"No, he just stole my chakra. I can heal people now, evidently. The grogginess sucks, though."
"…you did not just make that pun."
"I just made that pun for the second time."
Jiraiya dragged a hand down his face. Naruto stuffed another piece of packaged dango into his mouth, wondering why Jiraiya even bothered to get a hotel room. It made sense considering how little time he'd spent in the village before, but he hung around quite a bit after starting to train Naruto.
"I'm still not happy," the man muttered, crossing his arms and sinking into his chair with a sullen glare at the table.
Naruto- luckily for him- had almost no 'hangover' symptoms, thanks to Kurama. He didn't know where the fox had gotten off to, but he supposed he must have been sniffing out food. It had taken a few hours of staring at the ceiling of Jiraiya's room for the wine to wear off.
Naruto frowned. "Did I really hug you?"
Jiraiya smirked at him. It was the same smirk he wore when he won at shogi. "Yes," he said smugly, "and I got it on camera."
Naruto blanched. "What- seriously? How?"
"Kage bunshin, brat. You're not the only one who knows that technique."
"Whatever," Naruto mumbled. "Shouldn't you just get an apartment, ero-sennin? Your worthless trashy books surely don't make enough for you to pay hotel prices every week."
Jiraiya's head twitched at the word 'trashy', but only slightly; he was getting better at repressing the depression cloud. "Probably."
"I'd let you use mine, but it's really tiny and I crash there sometimes."
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at him.
"I think you might hit the ceiling in the bathroom," Naruto mused. He gave Jiraiya a squinted-eyed look, tilting his head. "Don't you have anything in particular you need to be doing? We've been here for hours."
"No," the man huffed. "I don't go knocking on my spies' door every single day, brat."
"How'd the Hyuuga thing go?"
"Final hearing is next week. You're invited. Joy."
"Hm." Naruto glanced at the ceiling.
"You're just avoiding something, aren't you?"
"Several things. For one, Iruka-sensei will be freaking out about biting rumors and I have to bring Madara to meet oji-chan."
"Happy fun times. Has he forked over any more information on Akatsuki?"
"Not really. The Tobi person he put in charge formed most of the current membership. He died too long ago to know current hideouts and things."
"What about the identity of this Tobi?"
"Said it was some Uchiha he found near death. It was the war, so that makes sense." Naruto shrugged.
Jiraiya sighed and rubbed his nose. He pushed his chair back and stood up, motioning for Naruto to follow him when all he received was a blank stare. "Come on, gaki. Might as well avoid our responsibilities a while longer."
"What're we doing?"
"Finding an apartment."
Elsewhere, Kurama stared up at a billboard for Icha Icha with disgust clear on his face. "Humans are disgusting," he muttered.
He turned away from it and wandered down the back alley he'd found himself in. He didn't remember much beyond "I am the Kyuubi no Yoko! Fear me!" but he figured it had been one hell of a ride.
Ah, wine. He'd forgotten how delectable it was.
"Naruto?"
At first, he didn't register that whoever was speaking was actually addressing him. "Hey! Naruto!"
Kurama stopped, realizing he was, in fact, in Naruto's kage bunshin body. A curse exited his mouth as he turned around, freezing when he saw Team Kurenai walking towards him.
"What's up, buddy?" Kiba called with a wave. Akamaru tilted his head and yipped. Kurama cursed the mutt in his head. "Eh? What do you mean that's not Naruto?"
"Um," the great Kyuubi no Yoko replied intelligently.
"Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked hesitantly.
"I have a … thing to do, that's normal for humans- human shinobi- shinobi to do, that they do a lot," Kurama sputtered. "That's very normal." Frankly, he was a Bijuu, but the creepy Aburame's stare was throwing even him off. "Goodbye!"
He rushed in the other direction, rounding a corner and taking out a kunai. He stabbed himself in the eye and dispelled, leaving nothing but small wisps of smoke in his wake as Kiba peeked around the corner.
"Weird," the Inuzuka mused aloud. "I'll have to ask him to come over for dinner later."