CHAPTER 7
Naruto's status as Kyuubi's jinchuriki, as the beast called him, wasn't as secret as the Sandaime hoped.
'What was I expecting? That the Sandaime would finally pull through for something? That's laughable and I know it,' Naruto thought as he again used one of his silver snake ropes, having three in total, to grab a Sand shinobi by his throat and throw another seal-augmented weapon at him, a silver chain, at the man's forehead. On contact, a seal warped to life on the man's temple, forming the complex kanji for 'deep sleep'. All the supposed 'guards' the Hokage had appointed had failed, blindsided by the snap genjutsu and the sheer number of invaders.
The seal master felt the barrier sphere around him tingle and he, without looking, repeated his last action, adding the attacking Sand shinobi to the countless sleeping shinobi around him.
No blood was shed, he didn't like killing. Yet.
His 'X' seal tingled and Daku appeared before him on his right knee. "Master Naruto,"
"I want you to go and assist the others in fending off the invaders." Nodding in appreciation Daku shot two wooden stacks behind him at two ninjas creeping toward them. "Make sure you're not seen. There are not any Uchiha that can track you and the Hyuuga are too busy pushing out the snakes. If you see that the 'Kazekage' is winning on the roof, lend a hand there as well. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Master Naruto." He stood up and saluted his master sharply. "Mind I ask what you will be doing, Master?"
Here, Naruto allowed a ghost of a smile to cross his face. "I'm going to stretch my legs." He flicked his eyes to the rampaging sand jinchuriki in the arena. Daku nodded and blinked out of sight, not using any jutsu; just pure speed. Naruto slowly creaked to his feet and rolled his shoulders before he remembered something. He leaned down to his wheelchair and, with resolute finality on what he was about to do, tapped the right arm.
On the far east side of Konoha, Teams Eight and Ten were busy ushering in the civilians and academy students into an underground bunker. Hinata, with her face set in a light smile, assured the little girl and her mother that everything was going well. Her eyes widened exponentially when she felt her weight seals drop completely.
'Heavens, am I flying!?' She looked at both her hands and stamped her feet on the ground lightly to make sure her feet were still firmly on the ground. 'Naruto-sensei must have dropped the seals! I feel so light!'
"Hinata, are you ok?" Kiba Inuzuka asked her, looking on with a bewildered expression.
She turned to him and grinned widely, doing so for the first time in a week or so, and laughed. "I'm more than okay, Kiba! I feel great!"
"Hinata…" Shino murmured tentatively as he watched her curiously. She lifted her hand in the air and let it drop, flapping her arms ridiculously, and then she began doing a weird equivalent of the toad dance. He was at least glad the civilians and the academy students were safely inside so they wouldn't see the Hyuuga heiress make a fool of herself. "What has gotten into you?"
"I feel so free, Shino!" She did a handless backflip, twirling dexterously in the sky before she landed, and much to Shino's surprise she didn't kick up any dust. Not that Kiba noticed though.
"Snap out of it, Hinata. This isn't the time to play around." Just then, the ground rocked with a massive explosion, throwing the team off balance. "I don't know about you two, but I'm going to fight. You with me, Akamaru?!"
Bark!
The Aburame heir shrugged and looked at Hinata, frowning slightly when he didn't see any visible nerves, very much unlike the Hinata he knew, and she wasn't an illusion, his hive assured him that. Reflexively, he began to ask, "You don't have to—" before he could finish his sentence, Hinata blurred out of sight, "—come…"
"Where'd she go?!" Kiba yelled.
"My hive says she went that way, to the centre of the village." Shino started running after her, relying completely on his hive to track her since he couldn't see her. Kiba and his animal partner sped after the Aburame and chased Hinata. When they got to where Shino had lost track of the Hyuuga heiress, Shino murmured to himself. "Heavens…" This was because before he and his male teammate lay the bodies of incapacitated Sound shinobi. They had deep gouges groves on their chests, carving out their hearts or having their chests punched clean through.
"Who did this…?" The dog boy was fairly certain he knew how all the jounin fought since a chunin certainly couldn't wreck this much damage.
Shino raised his pointer finger to eye level and a bug landed on it weakly. He stared at it for half a minute before he responded, his tone quiet and amazed, "It was Hinata…"
Meanwhile, Hinata was currently in a speeding frenzy that blurred past enemy shinobi, leaving those in her wake at death's door and blindsided by who got past them.
She thrust her hands out and mistakenly punched through a Sand kunoichi's chest. Not disturbed by the bloodshed too much since technically she had 'killed' someone before; a mysterious stranger who had wanted to kidnap her during a training session with Naruto. The boy had his back turned and the shadowy kidnapper landed noisily behind her. She acted before she could think; she threw her fist straight into the person's chest and watched with wide, horrified eyes as life left his eyes and blood pumped onto her hand. She had tried to keep her composure around Naruto after that to show that it didn't get to her, not noticing that the 'dead body' of the kidnapper had melted into a puddle of water.
Her byakugan caught sight of a kunai training on her back and she rolled forward and lifted a Sound shinobi so the weapon sliced through his lungs. She whirled around and glared at the team of Sound shinobi that surrounded her.
"Lookie her, boys, we've got a rebellious teen on our hands," The apparent leader sneered. "You should have hidden. Maybe our master would have used your eyes." He wore the standard clothing for chunin group leaders and had no distinguishing facial features.
"You want my eyes?" She settled into a rigid solid gentle fist stance. "Come and get them."
"Gladly." The man smirked cockily, commanding his squad, "Get her!" Fully expecting the obvious genin to turn tail and run but was surprised when she was the one to act first; she shoulder-tackled one of his comrades with blazing speed and with a sharp uppercut, she shattered his jaw.
Hinata winced. "…Oops…. Who's next?"
Now the rest of the Sound team were hesitant.
The supposed little girl had taken down a chunin of average strength in five seconds flat. They cowardly wavered in place, nervously looking at their leader.
"We've got the numbers advantage, you idiots!" His angered shout seemed to bolster what little bravery they had; they slipped out their kunai and dived into their opponent. Seeing this, Hinata, using her byakugan, snorted at how slow they seemed to be going. She poked a man's ribs with a chakra-laced finger which made the victim fall onto another opponent, screaming in agony at the small prod. Her all-seeing eyes confirmed that she had broken his rib and punctured his lung with the rib in that one strike.
She blazed her hands over another enemy and the man crumpled bonelessly to the ground. The Hyuuga then did a flawless spin to dodge a wave of shuriken, plucking two out of the sky and nailing two Sound chunin on their foreheads.
She barrelled into a chunin and jabbed his chest twice, ducked a sloppy and tired right hook, and jabbed his chest again. The man wheezed and tried another right hook but this one failed as much as the first one, she stepped aside and snap-kicked the man across his face, bursting an eyeball.
"Uhm…whoopsie…" she cringed again, nearly remorseful for not knowing how to hold back her strength.
Her all-seeing eyes forewarned her about the imminent danger of a barrage of Earth release: Mudball Landslide sent to her courtesy of the last remaining chunin invader, the leader of the dead group. She glared at him.
"You killed all my men!" he snarled furiously, powering through another set of hand seals. "Earth Release: Heat Seeking Rock Balls!"
The ground around him gurgled and began spitting out fist-sized rocks at the girl.
She dove out of the way from a massive wave and was subsequently thrown away from the resulting explosion. It wasn't the largest she had seen but still, she wasn't expecting it. "Stay still!"
Hinata refrained from slapping the attacking balls away, as she could with the tiny objects still going a bit too slow for her. She neatly caught a ball, not applying much pressure so as not to trigger an explosion, and blurred to her attacker, ramming the exploding ball down his hysterically open mouth and covering her face with her sleeve as the man's head exploded.
She stuck her tongue out in quiet distaste. "Gross." She looked around her and nodded when she saw that no trouble was approaching. "Where do I go now…?" Just then a deep, beastly bellow came from the chunin exams arena. "There."
And with that, she blurred out of sight again.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Naruto didn't expect to be having this much fun fighting a sand monster.
The boy ran at low chunin speed, which was as fast as he could go, away from aggressive sand spikes being shot at him by the mad One-Tails jinchuriki.
'You're enjoying yourself too much Naruto,' Kyuubi rumbled from deep inside Naruto's seal, amused by his brother's attempts at staking his holder. Naruto was glad now that he had listened to the Nine-Tails to study fuinjutsu. He raised his forearm and a hazy blue rectangular shield spiralled out of a seal on that arm, blocking the sand spikes attacking him effectively (think something like a Roman shield).
He dug his feet into the ground when the intensity increased and stuck his hand into a pocket in his baggy pants, bringing out a sheet of paper with a complex seal drawn on it. He threw the sheet of paper like a shuriken and watched with grim satisfaction as a subsequent inferno turned the sand covering the Kazekage's son half turned to glass.
The boy began to wonder about the true loyalty Konoha ninja had since more than half of the shinobi populace ran over to protect the Sandaime, knowing the man was still fully capable of defending himself, instead of trying to stop the walking natural disaster that was Shukaku and its jinchuriki.
Though Naruto was glad for their absence, he didn't want any ninja or civilian to see him fighting except his opponents.
The first problem he encountered was the Uchiha survivor, Sasuke, who was doing fairly well against the sand monster. Naruto knocked the boy out into a deep sleep silver chain tapped to the back of his head before he could react.
Gaara's siblings watched in awe as the boy they knew they saw sitting in a wheelchair not thirty minutes ago held his own against the terror of Hidden Sand.
They were beginning to waver in the direct command Gaara had given them; to not get in his way.
Naruto wore a dark blue and black long-sleeved shirt that was still neat despite all the sand he had to battle through, with black baggy pants. He flew through three hand seals. "Ninja art: Fuinjutsu: Child of Paper Chaos!"
Sheets of paper flew out of his sleeves immediately after the last hand seal and exploded all over the Gaara, who was almost in his full sand Tanuki form.
"I will have your blood!" Gaara yelled with crazed eyes, pumping a staggering amount of chakra into his glass limbs to shatter them. He cackled madly and did something Naruto did not expect.
He fell asleep.
"Shukaku is back baby! Woo!" The sand monster formed out of the gooey sand around the sleeping boy and threw his arms in the air in celebration. He looked down at Naruto, who was glaring up at him. "Oho! So you're the bug trying to kill me!" He swung his arm to Naruto, creating a deep groove wherever it passed, forcing the seal master to run lengthwise away from it. "Run, little rat! Run!"
The boy ran up and wall and glued himself in place, his mind was a whirlwind of ideas on how to take down the beast.
"Naruto-sensei!"
"Hinata?" he turned in confusion to his only student as she called, forgetting his opponent. Shukaku capitalised on this by throwing his arm at Naruto, who was only fast enough to create his rectangular blue shield to take the brunt of the attack. He was thrown across the arena straight into a wall. Dust exploded in his wake.
"Sensei!" Hinata cried in horror, not expecting her sensei to get blindsided. Shukaku yelled in triumph and took his time to celebrate.
The semi-crippled boy coughed and waved away the dust in the air from his face. The dust blew away slowly to reveal the fuinjutsu master encased in a softly glowing blue ball, embedded in the wall.
"Got to love seals," he mumbled and deactivated the protective blue shell casing around him so he could land on the ground.
"You're a stubborn little shit, you know that right." The sand Tanuki growled and threw his hands to Naruto. "Wind Release: Sand Scattering Bullets!"
The intensity of the sand-based attacks increased and pelted down on Naruto, who activated his arm shield to deflect them. He again threw an exploding seal paper shuriken at the monster and used the beast's frustrated cry to run to his shocked student.
"What are you doing here?" he asked coolly, throwing three more paper infernos at Shukaku.
"I-I came to see how I could help…" she murmured, still shaken up at nearly watching her idol's demise. Her eyes trained on Temari and Kankuro, who were on the other side of the arena, ready to help when necessary.
Naruto silently contemplated how she could help. He threw three more exploding paper shuriken, turning the beast's body almost completely to glass. "I need you to distract the sand beast while I get close to that boy at its forehead." He pointed at Gaara.
Her knees shook slightly in fear. "I don't know if I can do it."
"I saw how fast you can run and how hard you can hit." He didn't, obviously since he was busy fighting Gaara, but he correctly assumed the weight seals being down would bring those results. "You'll be fine." He patted her shoulder to reassure her. Before the girl could respond, he spun around to his main opponent and sped over to it. His fingers flashed through a set of hand seals. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique."
The arm that had been coming down in a merciless axe chop immediately turned to glass. Hinata snapped out of her daze and sped to the sand monster.
Her jutsu followed her teachers, exhaling from her mouth. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
She was fairly inexperienced with the jutsu, seeing as wind funnelled out of her mouth in a straight line to Shukaku, slicing off its other sand arm. Naruto had only introduced her to using ninjutsu a week ago, beating into her head the fact that her taijutsu alone would not be enough to survive as a ninja.
Her affinity, strangely enough, was water but she was more comfortable with wind jutsu, though she only knew one ninjutsu. Naruto had promised to teach her more Wind and Water ninjutsu. She powered through the seals again and cut off half of the sand monster's face, almost grazing Gaara, making the beast more enraged and forget Naruto in its wrathful delirium.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique."
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Both attacks met at the centre and the wind jutsu cut through the fire, coming out with a blistering hot gas spike that nailed Shukaku in his chest.
The result was instantaneous; glass began cracking and webbing from his chest to his arms, to where his feet were supposed to be. Naruto used its hysterical panic to run up its torso, clinging on with his chakra. When he got to Gaara he pulled his hand back and gave the sleeping boy a sharp slap.
Thwack!
The sound reverted around the arena and silence fell around. Nobody inside the arena dared breathe.
"He slapped him…" Temari murmured, her knees feeling weak. Kankuro only nodded dumbly.
Their younger brother's eyes flared open and the sand monster's body crumbled to the ground. Naruto grabbed the boy by his arm and leapt away, saving the sleepy boy from the glass shards under them. He dropped the boy by a wall and slumped down to the ground for a breather.
Hinata knelt beside him with furrowed eyebrows and asked the nonverbal question, to which he answered, "I'm fine. Just a bit tired." He waved her concerns away, his shield warped to life and he held it to Gaara's neck as the boy tried to slink away, doing so without looking away from the arriving sand siblings.
"Who-Who are you?" Gaara said in a quiet, trembling voice; he dared not shift or the shield's edge would cut into his neck.
"You may call me Naruto," he said to Gaara in a light tone, sitting up and warning Temari and Kankuro as they approached, "Not a step closer or you'll lose a brother." Gaara's older siblings both held up their hands to show they weren't going to try anything. "I can see those strings, puppet master. Don't even think about it," he warned again and pressed his shield closer to the one-tailed jinchuriki neck; a thin bloody line formed under, showing them that the shield made out of a complex seal was truly sharp.
Temari glared at her direct younger brother and Kankuro, and the two took a cautious half-step back, further assuring Naruto that they weren't going to try anything.
"Now, give me one reason not to kill all of you. Right here, right now." Naruto stood up and Hinata stood protectively behind him, glaring icily at the pair. When both fumbled for words and couldn't answer he shrugged nonchalantly. "I thought so." He raised his hand a bit and before he could plunge it through Gaara's neck Kankuro yelled.
"Wait!" Naruto raised a curious eyebrow. "We-We have information. Just-Just…let's not do anything rash."
Naruto cocked his head to the side curiously; looking so innocent Temari would have swooned if her brother wasn't literally under the knife. He asked, "What kind of information?"
"The-reasons-we're-invading kind of information." He ignored his sister when she looked sharply at him. Naruto nodded for him to continue, "Orochimaru of the Sannin somehow convinced our father, the Kazekage, that Konoha was the enemy and by invading here we would expand Sand and make it wealthier. He didn't want to listen to reason."
"That's enough for me." Naruto pulled his shield away from Gaara and stepped back, allowing his siblings to worry over him. "Your brother and sister care for you Sand shinobi. Releasing confidential information just so they can keep you alive. Now that is love."
He turned around to go,
"How are you strong!?" Gaara asked loudly, losing the last bits of self-restraint at how helpless he had been at Naruto's hands. Temari and Kankuro weren't able to settle Gaara down, as the redhead shouted. "You're a cripple. How are you so strong?!"
"I'm strong because I have something worth living for," Naruto answered, referring to Wave Country and all that (unknowingly) depended on him inside and out, Hinata wholly included. The seal on his belly tingled and he looked up to the ceiling, sensing the fight above. He waved for Hinata to go and help secure the borders. "Next time, Sand shinobi, use your strength before you use another's. That's what I did."
He ran out of the arena just as the meaning of what he said dawned on them,
"He has a tailed beast…" Kankuro mumbled.
"And he didn't use it," Temari finished.
Gaara looked at his siblings and his shoulders sagged from stress, years of pain and heartbreak, "Temari…Kankuro…I'm sorry."
Maybe if he learned to love them again, he could be as strong as that blonde boy.
Love them even more than they loved him.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Just as Daku left Naruto
The roof
Naruto's dark half hummed to himself as he observed the barrier seals summoned by the 'Sound Four'. He poked it and pulled his hand back when it disintegrated his hand. His hand began reforming immediately after. He wasn't the only one trying to gain entry into the seal; the Third's ANBU guards were also trying.
The Sandaime was locked inside the seal against Orochimaru of the Sannin.
At the moment Orochimaru was making a rather long monologue on how Hiruzen had made a mistake in not appointing him the Hokage, and that he was going to destroy the Leaf since he couldn't have it for himself. Daku rolled his red eyes and ran through his limited knowledge of seals.
Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any way to counter a Four-Point Barrier Seal which was much stronger than a simple barrier seal.
He cast a powerful transformation on himself, making himself look like a generic ANBU shinobi and walked briskly to one of the 'points' on the barrier.
He scratched his chin before pulling his hand back, forming a stone stake, and fired directly at Jirobo's feet, throwing off his concentration and allowing Daku to slide inside much faster than the other ninja.
"Another one of your toys, Orochimaru?" Hiruzen snarled as he turned to the mysterious Daku. Orochimaru paused in his rant and looked as well, bewildered and curious. "Who are you?"
"I am here to assist you, Lord Third," Daku responded and, not one for theatrics, shoulder-tackled Orochimaru to the ground, stabbing him clean through the head with a stone stake and humming sourly when the man melted into a mud puddle.
"You're fast, I'll give you that," Orochimaru hissed from behind Daku, bringing his leg down for a skull-shattering axe kick but the stranger turned around much faster than he anticipated and crossed his arms, taking the full brunt of the legendary snake Sannin kick with his wood, stone and seal augmented arms.
Not even wincing when his arm broke, he swept his feet under Orochimaru, expecting the man to leap over it, and used the split second the man was airborne to snap his broken arms back together.
"Durable too. Are you sure you don't want to join my ranks? There's always a place for one of your skills." The man landed in front of the stranger and smirked.
Daku didn't deem the man an answer; he honed his arms at the snake summoner and began shooting at him. The pale man regurgitated his Grass Cutter sword and began hacking away at the annoying wood missiles. His head caved inside his shoulders from a smash from the Third Hokage's adamantium bow staff. He again melted into a puddle of mud, his sword as well.
"Two against one is hardly fair. Let me even the odds," the snake Sannin said from behind the Third, making the elder Sarutobi swing his legs behind him and watch as Orochimaru slinked back like a snake, going through a set of hand seals. "Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation," he hissed the name of the jutsu as he finished the seals and three wooden coffins shot out of the ground beside him.
The lids popped off and Hiruzen gasped in horror. "You have gone too far, Orochimaru."
The pale man snarled in response, "You forced me down this path. It's only fitting that you die by your predecessors." One by one the occupants of the coffins walked out.
"Hiruzen? Man, you got old!" Hashirama exclaimed.
Tobirama, the more reserved of the two, looked around. "We are not supposed to be alive. My jutsu has been perfected?" He looked to his left and snorted when he saw a pile of ash on the ground. "Not too perfect it seems…" Using their distraction, Orochimaru jammed seal kunai at the back of their necks, making their eyes glaze over.
"Kill your student and that other person." Orochimaru didn't count on the fact that the corpses Orochimaru re-animated weren't at full strength.
Daku split himself into four and blurred over to Hashirama, while the Second Hokage, Tobirama, ran to his student.
The fight between the First Hokage and Naruto's loyal shadow was like looking at the sun reflecting off a kunai; with the speed both shinobi were using to trade blows, blocks and counters, most would say it would be enough to generate power.
Hashirama drilled punches into Daku's head and the dark shadow raised his forearms to catch all of the blows, fixing them up immediately after and catching the Wood-style user's fist mid-flight and roughly pulling it out of his socket.
He didn't stop; he sent over a brain-bashing heel kick to the dead man's cheek, then another one, then another one, driving the man back and dazing him slightly. Hashirama caught a leg before it could reach his face again but didn't count on Daku's clones sending chakra-powered punches to his face and ribs. The four Daku clones didn't give Hashirama an inch of breathing space.
If he were alive, Hashirama knew he would have been in a world of pain.
The clones worked in tandem to physically break down the Hokage's defence, not slowing him down though. The dead man blinked in shock when the stranger's hands turned to sharp stone stakes, firing them between his eyes and driving him back even more.
Daku silently ran up to the dizzy man and had his knee meet the dead Hokage's chin in a jarring rising knee kick, taking the man into the air. The clones capitalised on this by leaping up as well and shoving him into the barrier. Ending the fight as Hashirama disintegrated into fine ash.
Hiruzen seemed to be having the same idea. He bent away from some Water release: Drilling Water Bullets and smashed his teacher's chin with his unbreakable iron staff. He grunted in pain when Orochimaru slid up behind him and plunged his sword through his spine and out his belly.
"I win sensei," Orochimaru gloated, not seeing how the Daku clones threw the Nidaime into the barrier as well, destroying him and releasing his soul back to the afterlife.
Blood dripped out of Sandaime's mouth and ears as the lethal toxins in the Grasscutter leaked into his system through his spine. His eyes felt much too heavy to be kept open. His breathing got heavier and he tried to slow down his heart rate, to slow down the rampaging poisons.
"Die sensei… just die," was the soothing hiss from one of his failures, his student.
A rough hand grabbed the Sannin by the neck and threw him away, still holding his sword. The man expertly fastened himself to the ground a few yards away and scowled at Daku before he smiled pleasantly. "There is nothing you can do to save him, stranger. His immune system is too frail to fight my poisons. He will die today." Daku gently lays the old Hokage on the ground, still keeping his eyes on Orochimaru. "Sadly, I will not see him die myself." He swallowed his sword and whistled for his Sound Four to drop the barrier. "When you are ready to join me, all you have to do is call."
He then melted into a muddy goo on the ground and the Sound Four flickered out of sight via body flickers.
Authors note
Jutsu list
Earth Release: Mudball Landslide: is a C-rank jutsu that fires strong balls of mud out of the user's mouth to wherever he wishes to attack or target.
Earth Release: Heat-Seeking Rock Balls: is an A-rank technique that was adapted from 'Earth Release: Rock Ball Landslide'. It shoots exploding, fist-sized rock balls at the intended target from the ground. This jutsu is dangerous because the rock balls have to break before they explode, allowing the opponent to catch one and hurl it back.
Ninja Art: Fuinjutsu: Child of Paper Chaos: this is an A-rank jutsu created by Uzumaki Kushina after seeing a magic show in Konoha, where the magician made origami paper butterflies fly out of his sleeves. This jutsu is a combination of ninjutsu and fuinjutsu in the sense that specific affinity chakra seals have to be drawn on thick sheets of paper and they have to be blown out of trap seals on the wrists, so the paper would spin in the air like a shuriken to the target. On contact with anything it would explode into the affinity channelled in. Naruto made the jutsu his own by increasing the number of paper bombs, from a few dozen to thousands, replicating each using specially-created seals.
Any questions, complaints and criticism can be forwarded to my PM or the review. I'm fine with either.
So, what did you all think?
I am aware that I might have created a monster by making Hinata that strong but quite frankly it was coming.
The First Hokage may have seemed a bit too underpowered. Daku didn't give him room to make any of his legendary wood jutsu. The same with Tobirama.
The next chapters are gonna be amazing… I hope… I haven't started typing it down yet.
Tell me what you honestly think; I'd really like to know.
See you guys on the flip side.
Please review.
Foy.