Woo! Better reception than I thought, which is nice! Keep 'em coming, if you all don't mind.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 11

The Namikaze-Uzumaki estate was a large but at the same time humble place.

The house contained a parlour, a living room, a kitchen, a humble library, a storage room, four bedrooms and an attic. The front yard was filled with multi-coloured flowers Naruto only assumed his mother had planted in her leisure. The backyard was humble but not large enough for an all-out spar. There were also sweet-smelling flowers in the backyard that were miraculously still in good condition thanks to some seals he found inside the walls that froze motion in the house and his godmother keeping the flowers intact when she was alive.

Tsunade had already gone and left him to look around by himself.

He was now in his parent's room, running his fingers slowly through his father's white with red flamed cloak. The seals inside the walls kept everything within suspended animation until the blood seal was deactivated at the gate, probably a combination of his parent's talents in fuinjutsu. The cloak still lightly smelt of freshly cut grass and a light rain shower, and his mother's kimono smelt of…ramen.

This made him laugh a little.

He liked ramen as well, probably not as much as she did though. His parent's room looked a bit scattered, making him think that he had come out a bit earlier than normal of the fist-sized hole in the wall and a body imprint embedded in the wall.

After exiting his parent's room, we find him kneeling inside the baby's room. His eyes looked around at all his parents had gotten him from teddy bears to rubber shuriken, to cute little soccer balls. There was a wooden crib with a neat blue blanket inside. The wallpaper was, predictably, bowls of ramen and blue whirlpools. He grasped a small teddy bear in his hands and looked around calmly before he sealed it into a storage seal near his heart that had his mother's comb and his father's hitaite.

He walked around the whole house like a phantom, touching and reading the little letters and instructions his parents left for him like he should snap the gas stove's knob to the right exactly three times before it would turn on, telling him that it always stuck. He found a note on the fridge telling him the exact places he should place his groceries. His mother was both methodical and playful, he was sure he inherited the former. Maybe the gut feeling his parents had for impending doom was thrumming too harshly for his parents.

He looked through the wedding photos the two had, and though there weren't many presents because it was a more private wedding it was still something.

After the emotional trip, or as emotional as Naruto could get, the boy couldn't resist checking out the joint clan library.

The place was about the same size as his baby room but it was stacked with books, scrolls and tomes. Most of them were from the Uzumaki clan, probably sent to the last princess before the village was destroyed. The rest were Minato's unfinished breakthroughs in all aspects of ninja life, like his studies on how to perfectly combine fuinjutsu and genjutsu. Naruto had done that with Yakumo's demon, but he wasn't sure if it would work on a person or how fast he'd be able to prepare the seal in the heat of battle. So, in a way, he could half-mark off what his father had started. This put some warmth in his chest.

The studies the man was able to finish were his studies on how to combine taijutsu and fuinjutsu; his fighting style was one of the legends and was said to only be able to be mastered by his blood, or someone with high regeneration.

Sadly, still Naruto couldn't use the Hummingbird fighting style because it made use of flexibility, light stances and raw speed. The strikes came fast and unseen, breaking the opponent down with blows to vital organs so fast he wouldn't know how to dodge.

The Yondaime was truly a shinobi of power only seen once in a generation or two. Maybe that was where Naruto inherited his prowess for seals and study or research.

That was not to say Kushina wasn't a genius with seals; the red-haired woman was said to have the strongest barrier seals and the most durable restraint seals, something that weakened when he was being given birth to. The woman, with all the Uzumaki scrolls, had in the library jutsu scrolls, a few summoning scrolls and fighting styles she had found during her missions as an active shinobi. Looking through the fighting styles he found two that could serve him well if he mastered them.

The first was called the Armadillo fighting style.

This style was discovered in a giant ant hill outside Earth country. Kushina's team had been scouting out the border for any holes until she had almost tripped over it. The woman, after reading it, had put it into storage since she was in no remote way a defensive fighter. The style greatly emphasised strong feet, forearms and back with limited flexibility. The scroll said that durable forearm and shin protectors were an important requirement. If a person was to attack, the user of the style was to block, after studying all the ways to effectively block an attack, and counter with bone-shattering strength.

Naruto could handle all that.

The second was called the Sloth fighting style.

The scroll wrote that it was the Third Uzukage's fighting style since the man was born with a slight limp in his right leg. The style made use of deceptively slow but precise strikes to major organs, either with weapons or with seals. Additionally, the man incorporated his chakra chains alongside his strikes. It greatly depended on the user's ability to think on their feet since the blocks were terrible, to say the least, but the counters and strikes were mouth-watering. The man used his chakra chains to grab hold of his opponent when he was near and rained down blows on him, or if he was fighting in a forest, he used them to climb trees or throw away weapons.

The blonde boy pursed his lips in thought and weighed the scrolls in his hands, trying to decide which one to learn. Then he made his decision. 'Who says I can't learn both? I'll start with the armadillo style since that one is closer to what I can do with my body. What do you think, Kyuubi?'

"I agree. With enough practice, you can improve on it and incorporate your chakra beam." The great beast was sitting on his haunches, looking out of Naruto's eyes and reading through the boy's memories. "What summons are you going to pick?"

'Who says I need summons?'

Kurama rolled his eyes and snorted. "Right now, honestly, you won't need them, but since I've known you, you've never not had a backup plan for your backup plan."

'I'll think about it.'

"Suit yourself. I'm going to have a nap." And he was out like a light. Naruto looked down at the two scrolls in his hands and nodded resolutely.

"There's work to be done."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Hinata! Hey, Hinata!" The Hyuuga heiress turned to the person calling her name and lightly smiled at the Yamanaka heiress.

"Hi, Ino." The blonde girl was lugging two pots of Juniper saplings in her thin arms. The Hyuuga girl politely took a pot out of Ino's hands and walked alongside her to her family flower shop, choosing to postpone her trip back to her clan compound. "How have you been doing?"

"I've been well." The girl flipped her hair and eyed the Hyuuga with her teal green eyes. "You look good, Hinata." True to what Ino had said, Hinata did look good. She wore her purple coat fully unzipped, exposing her midriff black shirt and the bandages wrapped around her torso and her arms. She also had on a thigh-length black skirt and dark purple leggings, with a pair of light blue sandals. Hinata smiled widely at the girl.

"Thank you. I thought no one would notice." Contrary to what she said, she knew Naruto first noticed; he had sent her a smile and a thumbs up.

"Are you kidding me?! Look around, all the guys are ogling you," Hinata raised an eyebrow and looked around, true to Ino's words she was being ogled. Most of the younger boys and some men stopped and were blatantly staring at her; a guy she passed by even licked his lips. She blushed deeply and lowered her head.

"Oh…"

"'Oh' is right. Hinata you're HOT." Ino nudged her playfully. "What's your secret?"

"Secret?"

"Yeah. I mean, just before the chunin exams you were so bland, no offence, now you look amazing." Hinata blushed deeper and Ino giggled. "Hold your horses. I'm not crushing on you." She paused and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "Or am I…?" steam was blowing out of Hinata's ears. "Oh, calm down. I was just messing with you. Now spill. What's your secret? Is it some sort of complicated diet? Do you detoxify yourself? I hear if you swallow tapeworm eggs—"

"No! Don't do that or any of that." The Hyuuga heiress' eyes were wide in horror. "I exercise, I watch what I eat, and I train. There's nothing to it."

"I've been exercising, I've been counting calories, and I've been training. There has to be more to it."

Hinata eyed the girl beside her. "You don't eat much."

"I have to keep my figure. This," she used her free hand to motion to her body, "doesn't happen overnight, y'know."

"Yes, but you're too thin. No offence."

Ino sighed and blew her fringe out of her eye. "None taken. But what do you want me to do? Sasuke doesn't like fat girls."

"Sasuke owns your body?" Hinata was genuinely confused.

The other girl blushed lightly. "Well…no…he doesn't."

"Why are you starving yourself for him? Your weight is an important factor in being a ninja; you don't have to be fat."

"I heard someone say Sasuke likes thinner girls." Ino stubbornly said with her nose raised.

"Unless you want him to use you and leave you; Sasuke isn't exactly who you'd consider loyal," she whispered the last part to the girl beside her.

"If we start dating, I'll change him." They both waved to the bun-haired weapons mistress and the girl jogged up to them.

"Hiya, Hinata, Ino." Both girls smiled at her as she joined their group, or Ino tried to smile. "What're you girls talking about?"

"Ino's being delusional."

"Hey!"

Tenten laughed and quirked an eyebrow at the purple-haired girl. "How so?"

"She thinks Sasuke would notice her."

"HEY!"

"The Uchiha kid? I know a romantic lost cause when I see one and he is a lost cause."

Ino ducked her head. "I-I can help him…"

"You can do that, but you need to eat!" Hinata exclaimed, she followed the blonde heiress into her family's flower shop and gently placed the flower pot in her arms onto the counter, she put her hands on her hips and pointedly looked at the blonde girl, who couldn't meet her eyes.

Tenten furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. "If Sasuke can't see you for you then he's not worth it." Before Ino could raise a complaint, the Tenten girl spoke up. "I saw how you were eying those dumplings next door." Ino's argument died in her throat.

"And those chocolate bars down the street," Hinata said with a small smile.

"And those frosted tarts next to the chocolate store," Tenten said with a big smile.

"And those roasted turkeys next to that store," Hinata said with a full-blown grin.

"And the soda that kid was drinking," Tenten said with a little giggle in her hands.

"You saw that?" Hinata 'whispered' to the weapons mistress.

"Yeah. I even saw her lick her lips." Both laughed loudly.

"I get it ok!" the blonde girl exclaimed over their cackling, her face was beet red. She punched Tenten's shoulder and crossed her arms with a small pout. "I'll eat more. Are you happy?"

"Very happy." Hinata pulled her into a side hug and pulled Tenten, who was hesitant to join in too. "Now, we have to convince Sakura to eat more as well."

"I have an idea; let's set up a team picnic," the weapons mistress said as she and the other two gently pulled away from each other.

"That's a great idea. I know the perfect spot," Ino chirped as she swivelled around and began setting the juniper saplings in their right places. "I found this cool river near training ground 14 near these nice flowers." she sighed wistfully.

"I'll even ask Naruto and Yakumo to come," Hinata said.

"Who's Naruto? Was he in the chunin exams?"

"Yeah. He was in the reserved booth. Lord Third put him there for his safety."

"The boy in the wheelchair? The guy that held Neji back with that freaky rope, right?" Tenten supplied with a confused look.

"Yes. He won't admit it but he's really shy. But when you get to know him, you'll see he's a real gentleman." She sighed wistfully.

"Sounds like a cool guy. My teams are off training and on missions this weekend," Ino said as she watered some tulips.

"Mine too," Tenten added.

"Same," was Hinata's addition, referring to Team Seven. "I think team seven would be free this weekend too. We'll go round and invite them."

"We can even hold a small spar a while before we eat," the weapons mistress bubbled out.

"I'll handle the food—"

"Me too," Ino cut into whatever Hinata was about to say. "Do we cook here or at your place? I'm fine with either."

"Let's do the cooking here, but I'm bringing my special cinnamon buns with me, that's for sure." the Hyuuga heiress licked her lips.

"I can't wait. I have to go and open the store now. See you guys later. Say…this evening?"

"Yeah. I'll bring a forehead girl with me." Tenten waved and left the flower store. The girl had slowly made friends with the other girls when she visited Hinata in the hospital and apologised for her Hyuuga teammate's harsh words. Hinata couldn't hold a grudge even if it would kill her so she insisted that it was fine. Hinata had been coming over to her father's weapons store to talk and restock her kunai and shuriken. From there a sort of friendship formed.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Quiet metal-clad feet trudged slowly through knee-deep snow.

The person, a female with long white frizzy hair, looked up the mountain with mild excitement dancing in her eyes before she blew out some air and continued her slow progress.

It was moments like these that Rai truly appreciated; to be able to walk at the speed she wants to and to take in the scenery. The view that she beheld was of the golden sun slowly rising from the horizon and the light green trees in the forests close to the mountain she was climbing glistening softly as the sun's rays beamed down on them.

She stopped and furrowed her eyebrows in thought, trying to remember how many times she had looked for this sort of peace but coming up with blanks; maybe her thirst for a good fight kept her in the light.

She riffled through her red cloud-speckled Akatsuki uniform and brought out a map. 'This should be the place.' She looked up but only saw thick snow falling from the sky and the top of the mountain much farther than she had expected. 'Maybe I've got the wrong mountain?' Then she shook her head negatively. 'The guide said the highest mountain…but he also said the monster was mythical…. I should have thought this through.'

She pushed the map back into her robe and ran a finger over the large scroll on her lower back, unsealing a pair of binoculars. She squinted her eyes through them and looked upwards, the snow clouding her view slightly but she did make out a faint outline of a cave.

'I've never slept in an ice cave before.' To warm herself up she sent a short burst of lightning outwards, melting the snow and making steam come off her body. 'Much better.'

She sealed the binoculars back into the scroll and pushed her left foot back a bit, clenching her fists as she did so. It started with a small spark from her knees, then the spark turned into dangerous electrical crackling before her whole body was covered in harsh lightning surges and she leapt forward and appeared at the mouth of the cave.

The electricity coursing around her flickered to a stop and she scratched her cheek lightly with her gauntlet-covered hand.

'Point seven seconds. Not bad.' She wrapped a scarf around her neck and rubbed her hands together, generating a small spark and expelling it out of her body again. The radius was a bit smaller than last time since the snow was much thicker up there.

She used her pointer finger to point ahead at the massive cave opening and a sharp beam of white light shot out; it was a nifty personalised chakra control technique that doubled up as a flashlight.

This brought back the memory of her sparring with the Uchiha and the swordsman.

Rai had not anticipated Itachi and Kisame ganging up on her but she took it all in stride.

Itachi's Mangekyo could perfectly track her speed but it was one thing to track her and it was another to be able to keep up with her. Though his Susanno armour did become very pesky as well as his Amaterasu, he used them frugally but effectively. She had to take off a few weight seals to be able to just barely slip into the armour as he activated it and electrocute him.

Kisame was what most would consider having been matched up against a person that would perfectly match him; seeing as Rai was an electricity incarnate and the shark was 92% water.

The last mistake the man had made was shooting out a constant stream of water from his mouth and all she had to do was travel through as live electricity and punch him through a wall, using the small puddles to hop around and penetrate Itachi's Susanno just barely. Lucky for her she didn't look into his eyes, she would have been a goner.

Make no mistake, it was a long way into the fight before she even saw the slightest of openings in Kisame's form to be able to think of using the water from his mouth to knock him out, or even think of using the puddles around to dodge Fire Release: Mystic Phoenix Fire or the Wind Release: Shuriken Storm, or even the hardest one to counter, Itachi's secret jutsu Fire and Earth Release: Combination Jutsu: Rage of the Fallen god.

All these jutsu were used before Kisame was put out of the equation.

The clan killer fought like a cornered lion that was for sure.

Just thinking of Itachi's last jutsu, Fire and Earth Release: Combination Jutsu: Rage of the Fallen god, sent ripples of goosebumps up her arm.

Itachi expended more than half of his remaining chakra to create water clones out of the water around, while Kisame fully merged with Samehada and showed all present that he didn't need water to be able to swim; he could swim in the air.

After making the clones and ordering them to attack her, Kisame included, the Uchiha hid in the waves of clones to go through a fifty-hand seal-long chain just before he cancelled his clones to give him room.

Molten chains latched onto his arms from the ground, searing his sleeves off, and with a mighty heave, he pulled out a demonic-looking creature from the ground, controlling it with the chains in his grasp. The creature was made completely out of molten rock. It looked like half man, half bull, with long protruding horns from its head and a massive axe in its hands. The creature moved considerably fast.

The clan killer sent the creature after her, not counting on the fact that it perfectly negated her lightning attacks by transferring the electricity to the ground and punching his heavy arms at her, sending blood out of her nose in her shock.

Kisame zipped after her airborne body and head-butted her into the ground, creating a massive gash on her forehead. Her daze didn't last long; she noticed the shark man had the intention of sucking her chakra out so she spun to her feet and threw arcs of lightning at the man, forcing him to dodge and not having any other option than to spray her with the jet of sharp water from his mouth, this was what ended his participation in the fight.

The woman didn't know any effective water jutsu to douse the molten creation so she managed to kick it into the air and pump so much electricity into its body that it exploded. From there all she had to do was push her way into the Susanno shield and electrocute Itachi into submission.

Rai didn't expect this much of a challenge for both S-rank ninjas but she was grateful for the challenge.

The Kumo missing ninja shook her head to bring her back to the present and she slowly walked into the pitch-black cave. Her small finger flashlight cut through the darkness like butter.

Her silver boots crunched under her as she cautiously looked around.

Just then she heard a sharp whooshing sound and she jumped a little in the air to dodge a tail trying to clear her feet from under her. Her danger senses, the ones all experienced shinobi had, blared and she lay on the ground quickly to duck a paw strike, rolling away from another paw strike.

Her eyes crackled with electricity and two arcs of electricity escaped her fingers, bouncing around the cave walls and meeting at the other side, allowing her to get a small mental map of how wide the cave was and briefly see who had attacked her.

What she saw was a spiny, mutated variation of a mountain lion, with an abnormally long prehensile tail and thick spines jutting out of its back two feet into the air. The teeth, from what she saw, were jagged and serrated and descended past its sharp lower lip. It was a lumbering behemoth that pawed the ground like a bull, leaving a deep claw track in the ground.

It was also made out of ice; eyes, body, tail and everything.

The ice creature opened its mouth wide and roared, and the sound drove a deep shudder into the mountain, casting the chilling below several miles away.

Rai laughed. "You're so cute." She stood up and dusted down her robe calmly. "Now, do me a favour and die, will ya."

She took a basic kickboxer's stance and motioned with both her hands for the ice monster to come at her.

The monster, showing surprising intelligence, leapt at her. Her silver gauntlet fist swung and smashed against its head, creating a deep crack in its forehead and pushing it back a few feet. The crack smoothed over but the monster warily stalked around her.

The woman laughed again. "Now you're careful huh? Too late." Electricity danced in her eyes again and she grabbed the ground, making white lightning crack through the ice and circle the monster. Her creature warily looked around but didn't step out of the crackling circle. "Smart kitty." Live power sparked sharply and covered the ice monster in a dome of electricity. "Lightning Release: Half Moon."

The monster's blood-curdling screams could be heard from miles around.

The white-haired missing ninja walked into the smoke and waved it away; she bent down and grabbed the ice creature's massive head.

She silently sealed it into her scroll and began setting up camp in the dead creature's cave.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yumi, Leader of Hidden Chill, raised her head sharply when she heard the unfamiliar roar of the mythical ice mountain lion.

She idly rubbed her hands through a husky's head to calm him down as she stared in the general direction of where the lion was believed to reside. This was the first time since the Second Shinobi War that it had been heard, and from its volume, it sounded final.

She smoothly stood up from her knees and dusted them down before she handed the husky to a masked male ninja standing behind her.

"Take him back to the kennels, Jyu."

The ninja bowed sharply and gently began leading the scared dog back to the kennels. The woman pushed open her home's small fence and began her short trek to the leader's administrative building.

Hidden Chill wasn't a shinobi village popularly known for its ninja animals but when there wasn't much of an option, dog partners were called in to help.

The woman placed her hands behind her back and walked out of Chill's equivalent of a park. The ground was always snowy and the air was frigid, almost unbearably so, but there was never a lack of children playing around.

The blonde woman smiled slightly at some parents trying to get their four children to take it easy with the running. The couple were in their mid-twenties and they were red-faced from exhaustion; children were a bundle of energy.

She called out to the couple, "By any chance, would you need some assistance?"

The flustered parents bowed politely. The male partner said, "No, Lady Yumi. It's fine."

They looked behind them to find their kids but didn't see anyone. Panic flashed in their eyes and they whirled around to the leader, but they paused when they saw their children lined up in front of the blonde woman, staring up at her with wide eyes. All four wore thick black parkas, starkly contrasting the snow falling on their shoulders, with equally thick white snow boots.

Yumi smiled with her eyes closed at them and gave them a finger-wiggling wave. "Hello~."

"Is it true you can fly?!" a female child, probably the youngest blurted out and began flapping her arms.

"Don't answer her…. Is it true you can see in the dark? How many carrots did you eat?!" another girl said, maybe the oldest.

"Now, kids, we don't want to tire out Yumi, right?" The couple pulled their children back gently.

"They're sweethearts. Don't worry about it." Yumi tittered a small laugh as she whirled around, her long blonde hair flying in the little breeze and waved over her shoulder to them.

Hidden Chill was situated in the colder region of the elemental nations, farther up north than even Snow Country. This made it a partially hostile environment for some civilians, but generations of living in Chill had taught all the little tricks one could do to stay as warm as one wanted, even for civilians.

The present generation didn't find the cold in any way bothersome unless there was the occasional blizzard.

Chill was abundant in the land because most other hidden villages faltered at the sort of cold Chill goes through daily.

Despite these minor setbacks, Chill had adapted and advanced more than most expected, having a minor trading agreement with Snow Country to purchase technology like gas cookers, water heaters, and steam-powered trucks to clear away the snow near houses in the morning and the evening, among other things. From there Chills engineers started inventing.

Chill was ostracised by the other nations, once upon a time, when an epidemic befell them. Starting from a child who managed to say he took some dumplings from a masked stranger before he died. From that child more became infected with what was referred to as the Cold Disease, because the body would freeze up and intense shivering would befall, like epilepsy, but the person would gradually lose his colour and die.

It mostly struck the younger kids and their animals.

This was a time when healers were not too common in Chill, only engineers. It was almost too late for Chill until a junior nurse began an unsanctioned experiment on the first victim, extracting the soggy almost digested dumpling from the dead child and finding a small black ball bearing inside. She took her findings to the doctor and a cure was scraped out from the ball bearing.

The nurse died from initial contact but a memorial was placed in her honour, as well as the other casualties, in front of the Leader's administrative building.

Yumi had lost her mother, the then Leader of the village, and her three sisters to the epidemic, leaving only her to try and scurry for control when only chaos and confusion arose after the epidemic had ended.

She was fourteen when she became Leader.

She had gained her peoples' trust and had so far led them well enough.

Those were among her proudest moments; the major other one being that she had agreed to ally herself with the other five minor villages.

Naruto had given her seals that would be able to keep a whole building warm, and the Hidden Smoke leader, Kitsuen, had some of his best builders build a massive structure for livestock and a farm. The seals were put into the building as well as the houses of willing civilians and shinobi who wanted to keep warm the easy way.

Currently, there were numerous Marsh and Waterfall medics in her hospital teaching the medics their more efficient ways of treating patients. Most visitors opted to stay permanently.

The woman pushed open her office doors and sat down on her desk, preparing for another whole day of reading mission reports and writing correspondence letters to the other five leaders.

Authors note

Jutsu list

Wind Release: Shuriken Storm: This is a B-rank jutsu that creates a cyclone of air around the target that gradually turns into wind shuriken shuriken. If used properly mastered, one would be able to expand the cyclone into a hurricane or even a tornado. Other variations of this jutsu are available with the other affinities except Earth.

Fire and Earth Release: Combination Jutsu: Rage of the Fallen god: This is the third of the four 'Fallen god' jutsu personally created by Itachi, Shisui and Bibi Uchiha. The three Uchiha prodigies of their time created this particular jutsu in the genin days but perfected it in the jounin days, where a year later, two prodigies died from mysterious circumstances. The jutsu combines fire and earth affinities to create something close to molten lava and moulds the figure of a half man, half bull (a minotaur) who is said to embody the 'Rage' of the 'fallen god'. The beast, according to the three prodigies' notes, is said to boost their energy from its palpable anger and lust for the user's opponents' defeat, possibly death. From the notes, it was written that the jutsu was inspired by Suna's puppet master's ability to control puppets. They went further to write that the molten chains, despite being painful, made it very easy to control the 'Rage of the fallen god'.

Lightning Release: Half-Moon: This is supposed to be a C-rank jutsu, but in Rai's hands it turns into an A-rank jutsu. The jutsu is a capture-only technique, meant to incapacitate the victim inside the dome. Rai can utilise this as a capture technique but she prefers using it as an execution technique, sparing her from the spray of blood and guts. It can be negated by any B-rank Wind jutsu.

Please review. It would be greatly appreciated :D

See you later.

Foy.