Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!
'It feels nice to be able to wear clothes again.' Rei sighed in relief as she watched, but didn't help, Kohta and Asami move all of the guns and the ammo to a safe location. She placed her hand on her side, and she felt the gun that was given to her. She had her spear as her main weapon, but now she had a gun as well, and she looked at Saeko and Saya as well, both of whom had weapons at their sides as well.
Saeko had a Beretta M92 Vertec, and her Katana.
Saya had a Kiku Crest Luger P08.
She had a Sig Sauer P226, and her Spear.
Finally, Naruto had Smith & Wesson M37 Air Weight, and his Fists.
Naruto had the weapon that had the least amount of rounds, because he was the one least likely to need to switch to a different weapon in the heat of a battle. Saeko had her strapped to her leg, she had her belted at her skirt, Saya had her gun on her leg as well, and Naruto had his on his belt. They weren't leaving at the moment, since both she and Naruto was still recovering.
"I've left the girls ammo to refill with, and I wrote down instructions on how to do it. There wasn't a lot of ammo for your gun though..." Kohta explained to Naruto as Rei watched on.
Naruto waved it off.
"No big deal, this is a standard issue cop gun. If I find a zombie cop or any cop cars, I'll take the ammo I find. I don't plan on using this gun unless I don't have much of an option." Naruto wasn't too concerned about lacking ammunition for his gun. All of them had their preferred weapons that they were going to use instead of a gun anyway, with only Saya not having a real weapon. Then again, she wasn't a fighter and would only use her gun if she had little choice, and the zombie was really close to her anyway since she wasn't a good shot.
"I want a gun too..." Alice pouted up at Shizuka.
"No gun for you, if you're ever in a situation where you would need a gun, just stay quiet and crawl to a safe spot." Naruto called out to Alice. He turned his attention back to Kohta, and he could see the hyuga mechanic was still working on the RV to get it back into running condition. He saw the giant dent that was in the side of the RV, and he frowned. It wasn't a big deal, but the dent just looked so ugly to him on his very nice RV.
It was petty, but it still upset him.
Kurama went to Naruto's side, nipped at his ankles.
"Kurama?" Kohta looked down, but Naruto nodded and he tied a letter to Kurama's collar.
"There you go, take this letter to Takashi. It will explain the new information that we found out from Orochimaru. Come back when you've given him the letter." Naruto gave the directions to his partner fox. There was a yip from the small creature, before he ran up to the wall surrounding the Hyuga, and ran up the side of it, before jumping over it. With that, the fox was gone once more.
"Are you okay with... well... that... isn't Kurama your pet?" Kohta asked, because Naruto had just spent weeks without his pet fox, and now he was sending the creature off on another mission.
He got a raised eyebrow.
"Kurama isn't just a pet, he's a trained animal. Yeah, I miss him when he's gone, but this is what he lives for. Kurama has a job, and this is his job, and it makes him happy to be given something to do." Naruto kept his pet mentally stimulated by training him and giving him challenging tasks to do, and they were tasks that he could only entrust to his trusted companion animal. A small creature smart enough to easily evade any zombies, and with such a highly trained sense of smell that he could always find his way back to Naruto, with an excellent internal compass and sense of direction.
Kurama was trained to carry secret messages, and to find people who were lost of kidnapped, and just be helpful to those who Naruto wanted to help.
"Kohta, before we part ways, please teach me how to use this." Saeko approached Kohta and placed her hand over her assigned gun. She wasn't trained in the use of them, and she really didn't want to leave without getting proper instruction from Kohta, a firearms expert, on the subject. Her statement separated her and Kohta from Naruto as they went to instruct her on firearms in general. Naruto nodded his head to himself.
He saw Hiashi was watching them with Hanabi and several of the maids of the Hyuga family, now that he and Rei were able to stand and be on their feet again, it was only a matter of time before they left to find a better place to call home.
"... I should have written a letter to Takashi... crap." Rei realized, before she sighed and stood by Naruto's side.
Just because she had moved on from wanting romance with him, didn't mean she didn't consider him a close friend or want to abandon him. She still wanted to have some kind of contact with him to make sure he was okay, and now that he was going to be a father, she wanted to make sure that her mother was doing okay at the cult base. It was a good chance to check up on her friend and her mother.
"It's okay, we'll see them again." Naruto stated to her.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, once we find a new place for the Hyuga to live, it only makes sense that we go and invite them to live there too. The more people we can have at the safe place, the safer we can make it." Naruto explained, because he wanted as many humans to survive as possible. It didn't hurt that he wanted those newborn babies to have better chances at life as well, even if they weren't his babies, they were the next generation.
Rei smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
She just wanted to touch him.
"Naruto, come with me, I need to speak with you." Saya approached Naruto, and gestured towards an area of the compound that was away from listening ears. Naruto raised an eyebrow, but he followed her as she walked away from everyone else. Rei looked like she wanted to follow, but stayed behind. Once they were out of earshot from everyone else, Saya crossed her arms under her breasts, leaned up against the Hyuga wall, and looked at him with dead serious eyes. "... I think we should leave Alice behind." Saya stated.
"No."
"She's a child."
"Alice is a child, and the safest place for Alice to be is by my side, and I promised her father to look after her. If Alice wants to stay, she can stay. This isn't up for debate, I'm using my authority as leader for this one." Naruto told Saya. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and he looked down at her to show and positioned himself in a stance of a leader instead of a simple ally. She looked away for a second, looked back at him and glared, before she softened her gaze and nodded her head.
She wanted to ensure Alice's safety in her own way, and that was sweet of her.
"It's stupid to bring her along... but she wants to be by your side, so I doubt I can convince her to stay even if I wanted to." Saya admitted under her breath. Shizuka needed to come with them, even though she lacked any battle ability and was clumsy, because of her medical knowledge and the fact she was the only one other than Naruto who could drive the RV with any amount of skill or experience.
Naruto watched her, and she stayed right in front of him, but he didn't call her out on what she said under her breath. He just wanted to listen to anything else that she had to say. She looked back up at him, looked down again and thought about what she was going to say.
"When Kurama gets back... do you think you could send him out... to find my parents? I just... want to know if they are really dead or alive." Saya whispered to Naruto, and she looked away with reddened cheeks. It had been something that was weighing on her mind, not knowing if her parents were dead or alive had been bothering her for weeks now. She knew her family home had gone up in flames, because she had seen it from a distance, but that didn't mean her parents were dead. It just meant that they weren't at the mansion she lived at.
She looked up at Naruto, who wasn't looking at her and was instead looking up at the sky and thinking about what she requested.
"... No, I'm not sending Kurama-" Naruto raised a hand when she was about to speak and looked down at her. "-but... I think it would be better to go there in person and see if anyone is staying there, or if there is anything that survived the fire. We can give any survivors instructions on how to get here." Naruto explained to her.
She looked at him, before she nodded her head.
"That works too, I just want to know. Okay, one final thing, and this is something that that you have to be honest with me about." Saya started the final thing she wanted to talk about, and for this one she seemed afraid to ask.
No, she seemed afraid of what the answer could be.
"Ask away."
"Orochimaru, the man you sent the letter too. It didn't say it in the letter, but for him to find so much about the zombie parasites... he experimented on living people by infecting them. Why are you friends with somebody so evil." Saya asked with her eyes locked onto Naruto. Nobody else had caught that part of the letter, but as she thought about it, she realized that Naruto had been the one to send Kurama to the mad doctor.
That meant that Naruto knew this man before meeting them all.
"I'm not his ally, I don't like the guy. He's a shitty person, and I hate the fact that I know him well enough to send Kurama to him. I know Orochimaru well enough to know that he would hate to see humanity go extinct... he enjoys watching people and studying them too much to want them to disappear... and the man is a genius among geniuses. The man is a criminal, but the police were never able to pin any crimes on him." Naruto explained his complicated relationship to the mad man.
"Oh?" Saya asked.
"Don't 'oh' me. Trust me, me and him aren't allies. We're just enemies that respect each other. He knows I can kill him, and I know his motives well enough to trust him when he talks about science. If we ever meet the man, none of you are ever allowed to be alone in a room with him." Naruto told Saya, and she looked surprised, but comforted by the knowledge that Naruto was not actually close friends with a guy who experimented on people.
"Why didn't you kill him... let me guess, because if you killed him, you would be just as bad as he is?" Saya asked with a small smirk.
Naruto stared her down.
"Because, if I kill him, I'll go to jail and his lackies would just carry on his work for him. Leaving Orochimaru alive was the lesser or two evils, because as long as I was alive, he would limit the horrors he would commit... and as long as he was alive, his bat shit insane supporters wouldn't go wild while I go to prison." Naruto explained his real reason behind why he never killed the evil man.
"He experiments on people."
"Ever since I threatened him, Orochimaru stopped experimenting on innocent people. Now, he only experiments on his followers who give him permission... it's still horrible, and I hate it... but if his followers want to give themselves to him..." Naruto didn't lie it, but it was by their choice that they got experimented on. Naruto had no doubt that Orochimaru infected his own supporters with the zombie parasites to test cures on them.
Saya wasn't happy, she was relieved, but she wasn't happy.
"You trust him that he won't use these... mutant zombie cells to craft some kind of super zombie then?" Saya asked with a narrowed gaze.
"Yeah, I do trust him not to do that. The man wants humanity to survive... so that he can experiment on them. Horrible, selfish people like that are predictable. They do things according to their desires, and if you understand what they want, you know what they will do." Naruto explained further.
You could trust evil people to act selfishly and fulfill their own desires.
He knew what Orochimaru desired more than anything, and because he knew that, he knew when he could trust Orochimaru, and when he needed to distrust him.
Saya was satisfied with his explanation completely.
"Okay then... okay... so, Alice stays with us, we're going to visit my family home to check the ruins, and finally Orochimaru is evil, but predictable. Do I have that about right?" Saya summarized it, and when Naruto nodded his head, she started to walk off. "... Just so you know, I do trust you now. You've earned my trust and support... but I'm still going to call you out whenever I think you're being retarded." Saya reminded him.
He laughed a little.
"Please, call me out when I'm being an idiot. God knows I have my stupid moments now and again." Naruto didn't take any offense at all to her statement.
Everyone needed somebody to hold them accountable.
Chapter End!
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