CHAPTER 26
Naruto's mindscape
Instinct took over as Kyuubi's beast ball rapidly enlarged.
Naruto went down on one knee and crossed his fingers into the ram seal. "Multiple Shadow Clone technique."
Dozens of plumes of chakra burst to life around him, and clones sped out of the smoke with urgency, closing down on the massive tailed beast and flickering their hands through hand seals. Halfway to the beast, they all skidded to a stop and slammed their hands onto the ground.
"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
The ground rippled for miles around, darkening and turning swampy. The unstable ground forced the Kyuubi to falter, and it leapt high into the air to escape the soupy ground, with its tailed beast ball fully formed.
It didn't bother targeting the clones, levelling the sun-sized ball onto the original with a beastly grin.
Meanwhile, Naruto was finished with his preparation, balancing precariously on the swampy ground with his chakra and putting a flick on a seal on the back of his right hand. Blood oozed from his left pointer finger and he dragged a final slash across the red seal.
The seal glowed blue and the Kyuubi fired the tailed beast ball.
Naruto clenched his right hand, feeling the blistering heat from the tailed beast ball as it bore down on him at blinding speed, and he yanked his right arm back as if he was charging up a blow, but instead, the swampy earth rippled beneath his feet and he was dragged away by his feet from the devastating attack just as it slammed into the ground.
Naruto's clones barely managed to dodge, but only two survived.
The landscape trembled and the ground fractured, hardening from the impact, Naruto grit his teeth as sharp rocks peppered his back as he escaped the attack; the seal was a bastardised version of his Chakra Beam seal, but only for the Earth Affinity aspect of the Chakra Beam, which allowed him to control over any surface as long as his chakra was spread through it, which Naruto's clones did by using Jiraiya's swampy jutsu.
It didn't have a name; it was a spur-of-the-moment creation.
The seal at the back of his hand deactivated and Naruto hurtled off the ground, no longer connected by the seal to it, and he front flipped twice, digging his hands into the ground to slow down his momentum.
A good chunk of the swampy world hardened to clay and hot rocks, burning with hellish ferocity, but Naruto could still feel his chakra seep into the ground.
The Kyuubi crashed onto the now hard ground, chuckling with a grin and charging at Naruto.
Naruto clenched his right fist and the seal flickered back on, spreading up from the back of his hand to his elbow as he dragged his arm back for a blow. His legs were in a wide stance and his teeth were clenched, releasing the coil of tension in his muscles and letting his fist fly as the beast came within fifty yards of the boy.
A plateau of rock jutted from the ground and slammed under Kyuubi's chin, blasting it aside. The Kyuubi rolled messily and Naruto's two surviving clones pounced, bombarding the dazed beast with heaps of rock, burying it before it could catch its breath.
Naruto, on the other hand, hissed as he looked at his hand; the seal was blackened, the tips of his fingers were black, and the veins of his hand were purple up to his elbow.
The seal wasn't perfect and the intended purpose was to control a particularly stubborn element; earth. Naruto didn't doubt if he had time to settle down and study the seal, he could improve it, but he didn't have that luxury now.
His fingers trembled as he closed his hand into a fist, forcing his chakra into the seal and making it glow. He exhaled a wheezing breath at the pain, wrenching his eyes shut and collapsing to a knee. "Damn it."
He bit his left thumb, drawing blood, and began drawing a different seal on top of the flickering seal on the back of his right hand, circling it with his blood and slashing it twice. He breathed out shakily as the Containment seal he crafted performed its function, pulling back the pain into the seal. It was a fairly complex seal that functioned the same way as the containment seal Kakashi used to use on Sasuke's Cursed seal. Old and outdated but simple enough for Naruto to quickly draw without much thought.
He sent a scathing look to the Mangekyo sun, flinching when the earth groaned and the mountain of rock that was the Nine-Tailed Beast exploded, taking out Naruto's last two clones.
He absentmindedly drew a seal on his forehead.
Beads of sweat trickled down Naruto's brow at the devilish grin the beast sent him, gripping the earth with its jagged claws and hypnotically waving its nine tails.
"Good luck using jutsu with only one hand, brat." The beast's deep voice reverberated far and wide.
Naruto smirked, shouting, "Underestimating me is a bad idea. We both know that!"
He had a plan.
He moved his right hand to the left and the earth obeyed him, dragging him by his feet away as two of Kyuubi's tails broke out of the ground. Naruto manoeuvred his hand, lowering himself as he surfed the rocky ground, directing the hand towards the sneering beast while he multitasked with his other hand, drawing a different seal on his right shoulder with his blood.
Kurama punched the ground and a shockwave splintered to Naruto, who skidded away from the attack. Naruto winced as he forced his hands together, still moving at blinding speed as Kurama's tails lashed at his position.
The containment seal he drew shattered and Naruto's eyes reddened with pain, but he uttered a jutsu as he surfed around the beast, "Earth Release: Fuinjutsu: Volcanic Rock Beast Restraints."
Kyuubi charged up another beast ball, bit down on it and exhaled a beam of toxic beast chakra at Naruto, only to be diverted away from a direct hit by hard, black rocks flying out from beneath him and wrapping around his torso, slamming him flush against the ground.
The unending beam of beast chakra bellowed behind Naruto's back, carving up the mindscape.
The seal on Naruto's brow glowed and activated, covering him in a shell of blue chakra that protected him from the radioactive heat and flames of the beast's attack. The beam flickered off when four volcanic rock chains wrapped around the Kyuubi's neck and forced it to sit back on its heels, with its wrists encased in multiple chains at its side and each of its nine tails embedded in the ground.
The path of destruction that the Kyuubi's beam had carved burned with a ferocity, increasing the intensity of the heat in the mindscape. Naruto grit his teeth, fighting for each breath.
Kurama's eyes bugged wide at its position, snarling fiercely when it spotted the speck of sand that was Naruto surfing at blistering speed towards him. Naruto's hand on his elbow was black and held close to his gut, clenched and still manoeuvring the earth to his will. He busily drew a different seal on his throat, slashing the seal with a flourish.
The earth groaned and the Kyuubi roared.
It was a beastly sound that splintered the sky, and its chakra pulsed from his form in deadly waves, washing over Naruto's protective shell. The heat seared off the right side of his shirt and singed his blonde hair, but the boy pressed on, closing the distance between him and his long-time companion.
The Kyuubi tore its left arm out of the solid rock chains restraining it, swiping at the boy and sending a more focused wave of heat and pressure.
The bubble shield burst from the outward pressure, covering Naruto completely in Kyuubi's corrosive flames.
The blow blasted Naruto back several miles, crashing and smashing and barrelling through the mangled landscape, his body alight with beast flames and charred beyond recognition, but Kurama wasn't stupid.
It screamed, tearing its tails from the ground and clawing at the chains on its right arm, not bothering with the chains on its legs and torso, and roared with feral intensity, charging up a beast ball in its mouth and facing its seething red eyes at the burning pile of flesh a few dozen miles from its position.
It wasn't going to stop until Naruto was completely atomised.
True to its assumption, the pile of human-shaped fire rolled onto its front and stumbled upright. The agony of Naruto's movements was evident in the careful way he picked himself up, as there were chunks of charred flesh falling off his body. His right arm was gone, a stump to his shoulder, obliterated from using the Earth Affinity Chakra Beam seal to take most of the pressure of the previous attack alongside the blue shell that had previously been protecting the boy.
The Kyuubi's fire ate deep into his bones, burning off the skin covering his torso to show the charred muscles and a few ribs, and his kneecaps were visible through the deep red flames coating the boy.
A pair of clear blue eyes glared at the Kyuubi.
The new seal on Naruto's throat glowed.
The ball of beast chakra grew to twice the size of the Mangekyo sun, made entirely of compressed Kyuubi chakra and unbridled, feral rage.
Naruto got into a ready position, clutching his chest with his left hand, and took in a deep and mighty breath; the flames burning his skin were steadily sucked into his mouth and the beast chakra fuelling the fire followed just as easily, much to Kurama's surprise, leaving Naruto's burned and charred body seen as the flames were sucked into Naruto's mouth. His chest puffed higher and higher as more beast chakra flooded his system.
The ball beast chakra Kyuubi was forming reached four times the size of the Mangekyo sun, roughly ten seconds after starting, and Kyuubi released it on Naruto.
It was as akin to watching the end of the universe, as the dark red sun expanded over the earth and ate away anything it came in contact with, fracturing and destroying what was left of Naruto's mindscape. There was nowhere he could dodge to that the approaching catastrophe would reach him, no matter how fast he moved.
The boy stopped inhaling, curling his left hand into a half-ram seal under his lips and mixing the beast chakra roiling in his swollen lungs and cheeks. He used his chakra control to press down on the mixture of chakra and pursed his lips, blowing out a column of fire and chakra from his mouth.
Not at the ball of Kyuubi fire, but at the glowering Mangekyo eye hanging in the sky.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Naruto's eyes flicked open, shutting immediately at the piercing brightness of the room he was in.
His lips opened, releasing a wheezing breath and scratchily clearing his throat before he tried to open his eyes again.
His attention went to the clock hanging on the wall at his feet, following the ticking second's hand as it rotated the clock once, then he slowly looked down at himself, almost wilting with relief when he felt that his right arm was still attached to his shoulder and not evaporated like in his mindscape.
He had been draped over with a blanket, with only his head visible.
He patiently allowed his hands to slowly flex, regaining some measure of control. He winced when he couldn't feel his right leg underneath the blanket. The refined Forced Movement seal on his hip that gave his right leg functionality wasn't working.
None of the seals on his body were working, but his attention was forced to his leg and the lack of feeling from it.
It was a lack of sensation he hadn't felt in years.
Memories accompanied his inability to feel his leg; sitting alone during birthdays in a cold corner of his room wondering why he existed when there was no point to his life. The smell of wet mould of his childhood home came to him, and the sight of broken glass underneath his windows after heavy rocks had been thrown through it before the ANBU watching over him cleaned it up.
His first memory was that of being cold and alone, huddled in an alley after being thrown out of the orphanage. The Third Hokage coming soon after didn't help much, placing the boy in a ramshackle apartment building and occasionally sending food. Never enough.
The Kyuubi hadn't been in the picture until the boy had been forced to eat mouldy bread.
Naruto swallowed and slowly sat up, rubbing his head and moaning at the disused creak of his bones.
He was drawn out of the downward spiral of his thoughts by the accompanying groan of pain from the back of his mind. He smirked at the Kyuubi's pain, and the beast spat in distaste. "I hate those Uchiha. Bastards. All of them."
Rightly so, as that was the second time the beast had devolved into its feral state while it was inside a jinchuriki, the fourth time if you counted the Kyuubi attack and the battle between Hashirama and Madara in the Valley of End. Naruto could only imagine how many encounters Kurama had with Uchiha in the past.
"You didn't win, by the way," the beast remarked offhandedly, groaning and rubbing its sore head. "You didn't beat me."
"I didn't want to beat you," Naruto said quietly, a small smile tickling the corners of his lips. "The point was to destroy the Mangekyo, and I did that."
"You could have beaten me though. When I'm feral, I'm sloppy." Kurama rolled onto its back, sitting under a slowly reforming chakra tree and basking in the rejuvenating atmosphere as his excess chakra was gently siphoned out of its body and stored in the ground. "Very sloppy."
"I know." Naruto shrugged, shuffling back so that he was sitting upright against his pillow and letting the blanket slide down to his waist. He leaned back and breathed out. "When I beat you, I don't want you to give any excuses. I want you at your best."
Kurama scoffed. "Cocky bastard."
Naruto chuckled, not replying to the taunt.
Not moving much, he surveyed the room, realising he was in a hospital room.
A small, coloured television was attached to the top left corner of the room, playing an old episode of a sitcom Naruto vaguely remembered Temari telling him about. His eyes moved to the right side of his hospital bed and he saw a large battle fan leaning on the wall, a sealing scroll that was almost as big as the fan, and a wooden chair pulled close to his bed with a weasel sitting upright, staring in confusion at the bewildered boy.
Naruto's eyebrows lifted, amused at the sight of the summons. He raised his left hand and waved. "Hello."
"…Sup," the weasel answered in a deep tone after a short pause.
Naruto blinked in surprise at the deep voice of the relatively small creature and was about to comment on it, only for the door to carefully open to reveal Temari, holding a bagel in her mouth and two foam cups in her hands. She was blinking blearily, her face was pale and her eyes sagged with fatigue, standing with a slight slouch until her eyes met Naruto's.
The world stilled.
Temari's eyes grew and her mouth dropped open, letting the bagel fall.
Naruto gave her a nervous smile, and the weasel whipped its head between Naruto and Temari, then back to Naruto, then finally to Temari.
"He's awake," the small creature said, pointing at Naruto with its stubby arm.
Temari nodded absentmindedly, crossing over the bagel and walking carefully, setting the two foam cups on the nightstand near the head of Naruto's hospital bed, bringing her hands to her mouth and looking at him with eyes that gradually watered.
Naruto took that moment to get a better look at her, and he saw that even though her clothes were neat, her eyes were sunken from exhaustion and her shoulders were sagged.
He surprised himself when he held his right hand out to her, and she tentatively took it with one hand, still covering the small sobs from her mouth with her other hand and weaving her fingers through his as he tried to give her a comforting smile. Her shoulders trembled and he pulled her to the bed, letting her sit on the edge before she could collapse.
His eyes were fixed on her face as she trembled.
He asked in a low, soft voice, tilting his head to her, "…You've been with me this whole time?"
She nodded once, casting a look at him with a wry, teary smile.
"Thank you." He breathed out a smile, looking at her with so much appreciation that Temari flushed.
"It's—" she sniffed, wiping her nose into the elbow of the hand covering her mouth. "It's nothing."
The Wave Leader's face hardened. "How long was I unconscious?"
Temari's lips screwed shut and she shook her head, avoiding Naruto's piercing look. The boy frowned and the girl gave up, saying, "Six months."
Naruto's hummed in surprise, throwing his eyes out to the genially shining sun outside of his hospital room, and the bustling noise of activity in the nearby Inner Wave market. There didn't seem to be anything out of place, from the little he could see from his position.
He sat up, seeing a few new buildings in Wave Country's skyline. He heard the distinct sound of motors moving about the streets, the shrill whistle of a traffic warden in the close distance, and finally, there was a slow-moving blimp carrying an announcement for residents of Wave Country to report any suspicious or criminal activity to the nearest police officer or ninja.
Temari chuckled a little. "Lots of things have changed since you were last awake."
"I can see that…" Naruto said, in awe, even from the little he could see.
He already gave Mole credit for being an exceptional ninja, and for Naruto to entrust her to lead while he was incapacitated meant he trusted her capacity to lead, but he had to give her more credit for what she had been able to do in six months.
Temari found a rolled-up newspaper on the nightstand, releasing Naruto's hand for him to take it.
He had a lot of catching up to do.
Offhandedly, as he skimmed the front page of the newspaper, he asked Temari, "What about Orochimaru?" she didn't answer for a moment, again screwing her mouth shut and turning away. Naruto looked at her with furrowed eyebrows. "Hm?"
"…He turned our allies against you."
Authors note
That's that for this chapter.
See you when I see you (in two days).
Foy.