After Naruto hashed out how to accurately summon something better than tadpoles the day after learning the jutsu for summoning, he went over to Shikamaru's house to find the Nara boy still a little banged up with bandages still adorning his torso, but fortunately he was in good enough condition to go walk with Naruto to check on Chouji, as their rotund friend had run aground of some foul luck in his own right during his last mission.
It was good to know that there were others around that weren't receiving the full blessing of Kami's bounty as well… in a sort of sick way.
Regardless, Naruto and Shikamaru were walking through the streets towards the hospital. It wasn't because Chouji was still in bad condition at all. As a matter of fact Chouji was more or less cleared to go home by this point. The reason he was in the hospital was because when he did go home he was given a big meal by his family and overate to the point of landing himself back into the hospital again.
The sun was looking like it was beginning to set on the early fall day in Konoha as the two walked through the streets and the normally bustling paths had the populace dwindling as the people returned to their own homes for the evening. It was Shikamaru's kind of time of day if he were to be honest with himself.
Naruto had his new goggles down over his eyes to protect them from the blinding sunset directly in his face and Shikamaru just had his eyes closed altogether. Hey, Naruto could see for him. Why use his eyes when Naruto had a perfectly good pair already working for them both?
"So…" Naruto said, acting nonchalant despite what he wanted to say.
"So…" Shikamaru sounded as if he was being put under duress just by being forced to speak. Why say anything Naruto? It was cool just walking down the street and staring at the back of his own eyelids. Hey, maybe he'd get a seeing-eye dog. He liked not having to look at things and waste brainpower scrutinizing everything on the roads.
When Shikamaru didn't say anything further, Naruto took it upon himself to proceed with the conversation, "So… are you taking the job to go train as a guard?" He asked, actually getting Shikamaru to crack an eye to look over at him, "…I'm asking you 'cuz I am. I'm going. Ero-sensei convinced me."
Shikamaru nodded and sighed tiredly, "Well at least that means I didn't make the decision to go too for nothing. Because if you weren't going I wasn't going to go. Someone's got to try to make sure you don't get nabbed by some crazy criminals that want your fuzzy little indigestion problem… even if it is the single most troublesome thing I've ever agreed to."
That really meant a lot to Naruto. Usually people tried to distance themselves from him because of his little problem. It was rare to find people that actually wanted to watch his back because of it. He could count the number of standup people that would do such a thing on one hand, "Thanks Shika. That's really cool of you."
"Whatever. Don't thank me yet. You're the one telling Ino."
"What?" Naruto replied with an owlish blinking of his eyes before reality set in on just what that implied, "No! Fuck that, you tell Ino-chan."
"Make a clone and tell her. You don't even have to be there for it."
"You make a clone and tell her then 'Mr I-have-clones-and-didn't-think-to-tell-anyone-about-it.'"
"I can only make one."
"You only need one!"
The bickering between the two continued all the way into the hospital until they found the staff in a tizzy. Both boys looked around confusedly and went to the main desk to try and get some attention, "Um, excuse me." Naruto asked the woman behind the counter, "Could you tell us where Akimichi Chouji's room is?"
The lady turned around from her rapid filing of reports and saw the two young chunin looking at her in confusion as to what was going on, "Oh, I'm sorry. Now's not really a good time. Uchiha Sasuke awoke from his coma and attacked several orderlies before breaking out of the hospital."
"What?" Both Naruto and Shikamaru said simultaneously. Naruto could understand wanting to break out of the hospital, but injuring people just for that? That was a little much.
"It wasn't that long ago." The woman said with a frown on her face, "No one knows where he went. It happened so fast he broke out and left without anyone touching him."
Without even saying a word, Naruto shot a glance to Shikamaru who didn't even need to look back to know that Naruto's eyes were boring into the side of his head, "You seriously want to go do this? Let someone else handle it, someone like a chun-. Oh hell…"
"It's our job though Shikamaru, so let's go!" Naruto said, grabbing Shikamaru by the arm and dragging him out of the hospital to begin searching, though he had a tough time of it as Shikamaru had dug his feet into the ground outside to keep from being pulled, "What are you doing?"
"We're going to go by ourselves?" Shikamaru questioned rhetorically, "At least let's get someone that can track. We don't even know where he went. Your jutsu isn't good for distance searching, remember?"
That got Naruto to stop in his tracks and turn to Shikamaru slowly, "Come on Shika. We're in a bit of a rush here. It'll have to do for now won't it? What if Sasuke actually hurts someone? Or what if he had a head injury and it's messing with him? We know about it, so let's go get him." With that, Naruto took off down the path away from the hospital and jumped off onto a rooftop to begin searching above the walls that would disrupt the better range of his jutsu that he'd get on the ground.
With a desperate groan, Shikamaru took off after him, "I'm really not looking forward to going back to the hospital over this whole thing…"
XxX
(Meanwhile – Hokage Tower – Hokage's Office)
"What?" Anko squawked out indignantly upon being told of the news from the ANBU who had entered the room and delivered news to her, Kakashi, and Hiruzen, "He broke out? But he had enough sedatives in him to put down a bull elephant!"
The masked ANBU nodded and continued, "On his escape from his wing of the hospital he injured several of the staff orderlies. None dead or severely hurt though, just a little banged up at most. He is still somewhere within the limits of Konohagakure as the guards on gate duty have tripled in response.
Hiruzen nodded and turned his attention to Anko, "Anko, how dangerous is Sasuke with the Cursed Seal of Heaven?"
The purple-haired specialist shook her head, "I… couldn't tell you. I was angry, really angry and I wanted to just fight something when I woke up from it. It went away after a while though. I never found anything to vent on so I just tore apart what was left of the base I was in. That's all I remember Hokage-sama."
That wasn't particularly the answer that Hiruzen was looking for, but there was a call to make, "Anko I want you to mobilize a team to find Sasuke before he gets himself hurt or hurts someone else. If there are any available Inuzuka or Hyuuga clan members in the village you would take do as you wish. Until further notice you have free reign to recruit." Anko nodded and left the office to get herself a team in a hurry.
Kakashi stood there, more or less at attention, and that in of itself should have let one know of just how uncomfortable he was with not being out there himself, "Kakashi." The way Kakashi's body tensed up waiting on his own order spoke volumes, "Prepare the isolated room for Sasuke's sealing. His life is no longer in jeopardy from the physical effects of the seal, it is time to handle this once he is retrieved."
"I should be out there Hokage-sama." Kakashi replied, chomping at the bit to be granted the right to go get his student, "This is my responsibility. This happened on my watch. Any consequences should fall on my head and I should be the one out there to locate Sasuke."
"I understand Kakashi. Believe me I do." The age on Hiruzen's face shone through at that moment as he did everything but let out a sigh, "But none of this was your fault. You were split up and separated in battle. This is not something you have to do on your own. You stress teamwork, well this village is your team as well. Let others handle this for the time being and believe in your student. He won't succumb to Orochimaru's darkness. Anko didn't."
Kakashi's single visible eye looked rather grim at the final analogy made by his Hokage, "Sasuke has far more darkness of his own than Anko had."
XxX
(With Naruto and Shikamaru – Training Ground 44 – Forest of Death)
"You're telling us he went in there." Shikamaru's voice couldn't have sounded any more disenfranchised at the moment, "Are you sure you're not just smelling the wrong thing? Who goes into this place? Ever. For any reason at all?"
On the search around town for Sasuke, he and Naruto found Kiba and Akamaru and enlisted the help of two actual trackers so that he and Naruto didn't spend time chasing their own tails, no pun intended. This was much to Naruto's chagrin as it slighted his tracking skill… that he didn't technically have, but it was an extra set of hands and paws so they went with it anyway and kept searching. This quickly led them to the current abnormally large and gated off forest they were standing in front of.
How a forest like that actually existed within Konoha's gates was beyond the trio of them and how they had never been there before, but that didn't mean anything at that point in time, "I don't know what you want me to say Shikamaru." Kiba said with a deadpan look on his face, "He's in there… unless someone cut him in half and threw part of him over that fence… but even then I'd smell that too. He's intact, he's in there, and his chakra smells pretty funky."
"Well let's rock and roll then." Naruto said as he hit a switch that opened the nearest gate and motioned for the others to follow him, "Come on guys, let's get a move on!"
"This is just getting worse and worse all the time." Shikamaru muttered as he followed Kiba, Akamaru, and Naruto inside the large, foreboding looking forest to begin searching for their wayward comrade, "How did Sasuke just wake up and flip out anyway? Wasn't he in a coma or something? Who just wakes up from something like that and decides to go for a little jog?"
The trio managed to climb their way up into the branches of the massive trees that the forest held and Kiba decided to comment, "Yeah, this is quite the 'little jog' isn't it?" He remarked idly, getting a bark from Akamaru as he did so, "Alright, follow me. Me and Akamaru are getting a good whiff now."
The sheer amount of overgrowth was staggering. They couldn't even see the sun through the canopy. What that place needed was a good old fashioned forest fire to clear some of that crap out of there, especially on the ground. It looked particularly nasty down there, and the animal life for the most part seemed none too friendly.
Genin were not supposed to be allowed entry into that place without permission first, but Naruto and Shikamaru were chunin and he was supposed to be with them. At least that was the excuse they were going to use if they got in trouble for going in there.
Just like their Academy delinquency days, only Chouji wasn't with them this time, having been stuck in the hospital.
And instead of skipping school they were running through a potentially deadly forest chasing after a comrade to figure out what was wrong with him.
"Whoa, check it out. Tigers. They're huge, and they're all looking right at us from down there. Hmm… there sure are a lot of them."
Yeah, this was a great idea.
XxX
(Konoha Hospital)
Both Ino and Sakura walked through the halls of the hospital on the way to Sasuke's room, with Sakura wheeling an embarrassed Chouji around in a wheelchair, "You seriously don't have to do this Sakura. It's not like I'm here for an actual reason."
"Your doctor told you to relax." Sakura chided him getting Chouji to stop disputing her assistance, "It's not that far from your room to Sasuke-kun's either. None of us got to see each other before we were released. You were put back into the hospital and you haven't even seen him yet."
"It's good to know that my team wasn't the only ones that got their asses kicked recently." Ino said too cheerfully for the topic of her comment, "That didn't sound very nice in hindsight did it?" She remarked after the fact, getting a shake of the head from both Sakura and Chouji, "My bad."
"Why'd you decide to come anyway Ino?" Chouji asked as they all continued to proceed down the hall, "I thought you didn't really like Sasuke the way that Sakura did anymore. So what's with visiting him in the hospital?"
Suspicion crept into Sakura as she narrowed her eyes at her newly reformed best friend, "Hey… yeah. This isn't some plan to get to Sasuke-kun to nurse him back to health is it? Because if it is you can just sit back and watch-."
A shrug came from the blonde Yamanaka girl in response, not particularly rising to Sakura's suspicions, "I don't know why I came. Forehead here was going to go, and I don't know where Goldie-kun or Shika are so I figured I'd go too. You're still my friend Chouji, Sasuke's still from our grad class and he's a chunin like the rest of my team so why not?"
She kept hearing it, but she couldn't really believe it. Ino really wasn't that into Sasuke anymore. It was just hard for Sakura to wrap her mind around that the person she had split with years ago had given up on her entire reason for ending their friendship. Did splitting off into teams after graduation really change things that much? It was like there was something else attracting her attention entirely. Was it purely her training? Because the exams that Sakura had seen showed that Ino had picked up quite a few nasty tricks. She was supposed to be smart so what wasn't she getting about the whole situation?
Better not to look a gift horse in the mouth anyway. If Ino didn't like Sasuke like that any longer it was all the better for her. No need to really wonder why, "Okay. If you say so, but I still don't know what in the world happened to make you-." Sakura stopped as they rounded a corner and saw the glass to an observation room broken and scattering the hallway floor, in the process of being cleaned, "What happened here?" She saw Kabuto as one of the people sweeping up the glass and decided to speak to him about it, "Kabuto-san. What's going on?"
Upon seeing Sakura, Kabuto put on a strained smile, "Oh. Well your teammate had a bit of a freak-out when he woke up from his coma. He took off from the hospital to who knows where. Sorry."
"What do you mean? He just freaked out and left?" Chouji asked, standing up slowly from his wheelchair, "Why would he freak out? He's back at home. He had to have known that after getting up."
"I don't know what to tell you guys." Kabuto said helplessly, "I wasn't even on this floor when it happened, but I've been here for the whole aftermath. Sasuke beat up a couple of orderlies that tried to keep him from leaving, took out that window and just left."
It was a shock to the systems of both Sakura and Chouji. Sasuke didn't just freak out. Ever. Even when he was upset about something he seemed in control for the most part. Slowly backtracking down the hall, Sakura eventually took off running, "I've got to go find Kakashi-sensei… Chouji you should go back to bed!" She finished with a shout as she ran past the personnel in the corridor.
"Wait! Sakura!" Chouji said preparing to follow after her, but almost falling out on the floor if not for Ino supporting him and putting him back into his chair, "Damn it… I'll never catch her like this. Ino can you go get her and make sure everything's alright?"
"Yeah." Ino assured him, making sure that the large young man was alright before heading off after Sakura, "Don't worry about anything Chouji, everything's going to be fine!" The frown on Chouji's face as Ino ran away didn't seem too sure of that fact.
XxX
(With Naruto, Shikamaru, and Kiba – Training Ground 44 – Forest of Death)
They had been following after Sasuke's trail for well over an hour and below they had been finding a trail of abject destruction. Vicious animals of all sorts found themselves deceased or severely wounded. Proud predators found themselves slinking off to hide somewhere like injured prey and they weren't paying the three youngsters and small puppy moving in the trees above them any mind.
Kiba took a sniff of the air and grimaced slightly, "We're getting close. Really close. That's definitely Sasuke man." He shook his head and spared a glance back at his two friends, "What the hell is he on? It's got to be the strongest soldier pill or steroid on the market to be up and about after just waking up like that." Akamaru whined inside of Kiba's jacket, "Are you kidding me boy? It's that intense?"
"What's intense?" Naruto asked as they moved from branch to branch, "This forest? Because yeah, I agree with the puppy. This place sucks."
"No damn it." Kiba said, rolling his feral eyes at the young jinchuuriki's comment, "Akamaru says that Sasuke's chakra is powerful. It's nasty guys."
That didn't sit easy with Shikamaru who had gotten his fill of powerful chakra during the chunin exams, "How nasty?"
"Real nasty." Confirmed Kiba before getting another telling whiff of the air, "I think he stopped. It's time to find out what's up with the last Uchiha standing." The group sped up and started moving lower and lower to the ground.
It didn't take too much longer for them to find the exact place they were looking for, with Sasuke standing on a rock in the middle of the river looking down at his reflection like he was Adonis seeing himself for the first time. He didn't even have a pair of sandals on his feet and he didn't seem to care.
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Kiba all looked at each other wondering just what Sasuke's deal was. He didn't even seem to notice that they were there. Either that or he just didn't care. Deciding to break the stillness of the situation, Naruto let out a whistle to get Sasuke's attention, not even getting him to turn towards them, "Sasuke! Oi, what's going on? Why'd you hurt those people and leave the hospital?"
No response, he was still just looking down into the water with his back turned.
So Kiba tried a more subtle approach, "Yo prick! We've been chasing your ass all over this forest for the last two hours! What, did you flip out and flashback to the asskicking that landed you in the hospital in the first place?"
"They were in the way."
"What?" Shikamaru said, having barely heard Sasuke at all. Kiba had heard him and raised an eyebrow at what the dark-haired chunin had uttered, "They were what?"
"They were in the way." Sasuke repeated louder this time, "I didn't need to be in the hospital. I needed to get back to training. I can't let what happened on the last mission happen again, and I guess my body is agreeing with me… because I've never felt this good in my entire life. Not even when I awakened my Sharingan." He turned around to show that the entire left side of his body was covered in black flame-like markings, "What do you guys think? I like the new look."
"Damn dude." Kiba exclaimed, taking a step back at the strange sight on Sasuke's body, "You look… horrific. That's like the regret tat from hell. What the fuck is that supposed to be?"
Sasuke looked at himself and at his own hands, "I don't know honestly. I woke up and the first time I looked at myself I saw these markings. I feel stronger though. So much stronger. I think that if I had this during the chunin exams I could have beaten Fuu." He then looked up towards Naruto, "Then we could have fought and had our rematch the right way Naruto. What do you think?"
He took a step forward and all three boys standing across from him felt quite a bit of malice emanating off of Sasuke. Naruto held his hands up and tried to reason with him, "We can have a rematch Sasuke, no problem. But now's not really the time don't you think? There's something wrong with you. Something just doesn't feel right."
"It's this power of mine right?" Sasuke said, grinning as he continued to step forward, "It's not wrong. And if you asked me, now's the perfect time for a fight in my opinion. I'm ready to go, and it would be a great test for the both of us… unless you're scared." He knew that questioning Naruto's courage or resolve was the quickest way to get him into a conflict.
"I'm not scared of you Sasuke." Naruto stepped forward with his hands clenched into fists.
"That's what I wanted to hear."
That wasn't what Naruto, Kiba, or Shikamaru wanted to hear though. But Sasuke didn't want to seem to take no for an answer as he used absurd speed to get between all three of them, delivering a jumping split kick that knocked both Kiba and Shikamaru away from himself and Naruto in one move.
Despite having watched Sasuke fight during the exams, they had no idea he was that much faster than what they had seen. Caught off-guard, Naruto's eyes went wide as he got an up-close feel of Sasuke's malevolent chakra, "Sasuke… this isn't-."
"You're not going to back down are you Naruto?" Sasuke said, standing well within reaching distance of Naruto but staying his hand regardless, "I've wanted a match with you ever since Nami no Kuni, and when you won the chunin exam with your team and we both got promoted that just made me want to fight you even more. I want to see if I couldn't have defeated you had we faced off instead."
"Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow Possesion Jutsu)!"
Sasuke jumped off of the ground away from Naruto to avoid the swift shadow snaking towards him on the ground from behind, taking refuge on the trunk of one of the massive trees the Forest of Death had to offer. Sasuke narrowed his eye at Shikamaru, Sharingan active but felt an instinct to dodge again.
"Gatsuuga (Fang Passing Fang)!"
A pair of drills that were a rapidly rotating Kiba and Akamaru flew at Sasuke, but he avoided them and they smashed large chunks of tree out of the trunk before they both landed on the ground with Kiba and Akamaru in a man-beast clone of Kiba staring Sasuke down, "What's your problem? We came here to help you out and you attacked us! You're hurt! You need to be back in the hospital!"
Sasuke stood straight up and raised an eyebrow at the Inuzuka pair, "Do I look like I need to be in the hospital?"
"A mental hospital, yes!" Kiba snapped at him, not taking kindly to being kicked as hard as he had been by Sasuke moments ago, "We're your friends dude! You don't dropkick friends in the chest!"
"Sasuke what about Sakura and Chouji!" Shikamaru shouted, trying to convince him to stop before things got out of hand, "What would they think of you if they saw you now? What would you do if they were here? Would you just attack them too?"
That got Sasuke to turn towards the young genius with a scowl on his face, "They're part of the reason I feel like I need this power. During the exams… for all the skill I'm supposed to have, I was still too weak to keep my team safe. And then on our first real mission out we were all almost killed. I was spared and I was given this power..."
"By who?"
"I'm not really sure to be honest." Sasuke felt a bit of confusion as he had never thought of why exactly he had suddenly received so much power, "It's not important. The source… it doesn't matter. But I need this. I need to see just how far this power can take me. I need to…" He had to swallow a lump in his throat as he thought about who had coined the phrase he was going to utter next, "…I need to test the limits of my ability." He couldn't believe that he had just given the excuse his brother had given to him on why he had killed their entire clan.
Naruto tilted his head in confusion as he tried to process what Sasuke had just said, "What does that even mean? What does going off on villagers have to do with testing anyone's limits? Listen, I know about power that messes with your head. It screws up your point of view, and it's okay. You can control it, alright? Just… don't let it control you. Bad things happen when you do that." Naruto thought back to his own foolish thoughts and combat strategies, and that term was used loosely, when channeling the Kyuubi's chakra against Gaara and later Guren, with worse results against the latter.
"Power controlling you…" Sasuke said to himself as if it were some kind of foreign language he was trying to decipher.
"Yeah." Shikamaru said, seeing what Naruto was doing and trying to follow up, "This isn't you. Uchiha Sasuke might be a cold bastard and he might be one step above a functional mute for all intents and purposes, but he doesn't attack innocent people, he doesn't go on rampages through forests. It's not you. It's whatever power you've got now. Listen to Naruto, he knows a little something about this."
Kiba's eyes panned towards Naruto when it had been brought up that the blonde knew something about strange powers. He most certainly did in the dog-using ninja's mind. He had seen the last two rounds of the tournament and the abnormally intense orange chakra Naruto used. Was that what he was talking about? It had to have been. But for now they were proverbially talking Sasuke down from the ledge and he could sate that curiosity some other time.
Besides, it seemed to be working anyway.
"I don't want to fight you like this Sasuke." Naruto continued on speaking, "Not because you're using this power. If you really want to fight like this when we do it again you can, but I'm not going to fight a guy that's letting a stupid seal tell him what to do."
At first looking like a cornered animal when he began taking their words to mind, eventually Sasuke seemed to mellow out significantly and the marks on his body began to recede, centering towards a mark on the back of his left shoulder and neck area. He dropped to the ground on his knees, overtaken by the sudden loss of power that came with the canceling of the seal on his body's effects. It made him feel somewhat emptier.
The nightmares he had suffered while in a coma from the seal's application and the constant reassurances in the back of his mind that using the power as his own was the right thing to do didn't feel domestic, 'What happened to me? I was knocked out in that forest at the border and then I woke up feeling better than ever.' He ran his hand over his neck where he could feel the seal lightly burning his senses as if it was trying to coax him into using it again.
"For all of your gifts and as hard as you train you'll never reach the level of a real shinobi the way you are now. Your village is soft, not treating you like the weapon you think you were trained to be. Look at us. Orochimaru-sama saw us and imparted us with this gift, our cursed seals."
He could still see Sakon standing over him and gloating, as clear as day with similar marking all over his body as to what Sasuke had seen on himself. And therein lay the answer as to the origin and the source of his little 'gifting' of power, "Orochimaru…" Sasuke said quietly as he fell forward, stopping himself from planting face-first with his hands.
Kiba and Naruto ran over and held Sasuke up with an arm around their necks to support him, "Told you that you were still injured asshole." Kiba said with a toothy grin, Akamaru barking in a frantically happy manner as he ran circles around them.
"Shut up…" Sasuke replied, looking rather haggard with the seal burning his system. It was like an itch he needed to scratch to use it again. That kind of told him all he needed to know about it right there.
Shikamaru sighed in relief at finding the trouble to be all over. Having Sasuke lose his shit and pick a meaningless fight was not very high up on his to-do list, not today or on any day, "I think I should have stayed in the hospital longer. Then I wouldn't have to deal with this crap."
"Oh whatever Shika." Naruto rolled his eyes at his unmotivated teammate, "We did a good deed. Show some good cheer and be happy for once damn it. We helped Sasuke-teme find himself again, right Sasuke?"
"I wish I didn't need you to stand up right now dobe."
"You're welcome." Naruto deadpanned before he saw Kiba looking around expectantly, "What's up?"
Gesturing his head in a certain direction, Kiba answered him, "It looks like we don't have to drag this guy all the way back to the hospital. Check it out. Five, four, three, two-."
Before Kiba finished counting down, multiple blurs landed at the riverside that they were standing by. A team populated by Anko, Kiba's sister Hana, and what seemed to be three other chunin, "What's up sis?" He said with a grin, waving with his other hand to the young woman.
"Kiba… I knew I smelled you and Akamaru." Hana said as her three ninken sat on the haunches, panting and looking at the youngest people in the clearing, "You're not supposed to be in the Forest of Death without the permission from a superior." Kiba then pointed wordlessly at both Naruto and Shikamaru.
Anko meanwhile stomped towards Naruto, Kiba, and Sasuke with a scowl on her face, "What the hell are you brats doing out here? Did you come out here to stop Kakashi's runt?" Both Kiba and Naruto looked at each other confusedly and turned back to Anko to nod, "Are you out of your minds chasing this guy into the Forest of Death?"
"It's just Sasuke." Naruto said with a shrug, "It was a crazy Sasuke, but it's still Sasuke. Isn't it our job to deal with stuff like that in the village?" Chunin were supposed to be for rudimentary village defense… right? Or did he mess that part up when Shiho had driven tons of useless facts into his head earlier that year?
Anko marched over to Sasuke and pulled his collar down to show the mark on Sasuke's neck, "Do you see that? This thing was active when you got to him wasn't it? It makes him into a killing machine."
"I already am a killing machine." Sasuke said in his more common tone of voice until Anko gave his collar a good shake for measure.
Giving Sasuke a meaningful look, she returned to chastising the other youngsters, "What would have happened if he didn't calm down? If he had been berserk would you have been prepared to do whatever you had to in order to stop him?"
"But he did calm down." Shikamaru disputed, lazily looking over at the purple-haired elder kunoichi, "So I don't really know what the problem is here. If we would have had to fight him we would have fought him. But we didn't… so I don't see how this matters. Someone had to do something. We did. That's all."
Hana shook her head with an amused smile on her face, "Ooh, you just wait. Mom's going to kick your ass when she gets home and I tell her what I caught up to you doing Kiba."
"Kick my ass?" Kiba bellowed indignantly, "What the hell did I do wrong?" He stood back up straight as Anko took Sasuke off of his and Naruto's hands, hoisting him over her back fireman's carry style, "Where are you taking him?"
Anko stopped and turned back towards Naruto and Kiba before pointing at Sasuke whom she was holding up, "This brat, the Cursed Seal is siphoning his chakra like a leech, trying to get him to use the seal's own power to make up for what he's losing. That's a big no-no. We can't have that happen, so we're taking him to get the influence of the seal cut off."
"Ha!" Naruto said with a victorious fist-pump, "I knew it was a seal that did that to him!" He then stopped and took a moment to think, "Wait, there's a protocol for this happening? This happened to someone before?"
"Yup." Turning towards Naruto, Anko pulled back the collar of her trench coat and her mesh bodysuit to show her own Cursed Seal that looked like Sasuke's. Naruto stared blankly, and Anko took that as him being more or less speechless, "Well, good job I guess maggots." She said before taking off with most of the team sans Hana who stayed behind with the others.
Naruto pointed at where Anko had been standing beforehand and looked at Hana, "What is that seal supposed to be? I've never seen one like that before."
"It's nothing good." Hana assured him, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head, "Sasuke's been branded by a very bad person that did the same thing to Anko a long time ago. You guys know about the ninja Orochimaru don't you? He used to be one of the best that had ever come out of Konoha, then he defected. Well when he left he took Anko with him under false pretenses and put the Cursed Seal of Heaven on her. We got her back, but she couldn't remember just what had happened."
That name kept coming up around Naruto. Orochimaru. First he had heard Jiraiya say it, then he had heard Tsunade say it. Was that guy really that much of a big deal? He had to be if he was Jiraiya's teammate, because both he and Tsunade were considered to be the best. Staying alive for ten years outside of Konoha and still making moves against it had to hold some sort of weight on the matter as well.
"She's okay now right?" Kiba asked his sister, "Anko right? She's cool now isn't she?"
Hana smiled at the empathy of her little brother and pushed the hood of his jacket back to ruffle his hair, "Yes. Anko's been fine for a while. She never activates the Cursed Seal because using it more corrodes your mind. She wants to skin Orochimaru with the ring end of a kunai though, but that's just Anko being Anko." She let out a sigh, "I think she'd be like that even if she never had the seal on her."
"Good." Kiba sounded relieved to hear that, "…Because a woman that unlawfully fine shouldn't be afflicted by any nasty seal." A fist to the top of the head from Hana then sent Kiba right to the ground to eat dirt, "You wish you looked that good." Kiba said with his face in the ground, only for Hana to step a foot on the back of his head and push his face further into the dirt.
"Every kunoichi I've ever seen looks good." Naruto commented idly, picking at his ear dismissively, "Your sister is hot Kiba. Don't mess with Hana like that."
Hana stopped glowering down at Kiba and took her foot off of his head as she looked over at Naruto thankfully, "Aw. That's so sweet Naruto. You're a good kid." She looked down at Kiba who was choking up pieces of dirt and getting his air back, "You could learn how to speak to a lady from your friend."
Kiba didn't respond as he kept on hacking until he hit his chest several times to clear his airways. He then froze up before robotically turning towards Naruto with a thousand-yard stare, "…Did you just hit on my sister?"
An affronted looking Naruto took offense to that and quickly defended himself, "Who do you think I am? I didn't hit on Hana! If I wanted to hit on her I'd have said something stupid like Ero-sensei. Something like; 'Hana you're so pretty. I like a girl that's in touch with her instincts like you… it lets me know when she likes what I'm doing.'" Naruto then stuck his tongue out and gave a thumbs down, "…Something lame like that."
"Stop hitting on Hana you bastard! I'll kill you!"
"I'm not hitting on Hana! Are you deaf or do you need Akamaru to bark it out for you flea-brain?"
Shikamaru, Hana, Akamaru, and Hana's three ninken watched as Naruto and Kiba began angrily tussling on the forest floor for a while before Shikamaru let out a bored yawn, "Well this stopped being funny… I'm going home." He turned to Hana and pointed in a bunch of random directions, "Which way's the fastest way out of here?"
Hana's attention stayed on her little brother and his jinchuuriki friend wrestling like three-year olds until they fell into the nearby river. At that point she turned to Shikamaru with a toothy grin, "Well you can just go back the way you came. It's 10 kilometers all around towards the center in any direction and we're only five km in at the farthest. The way you entered would be the fastest way. Come on. I'll show you."
"What about them?" Asked Shikamaru, pointing at Naruto and Kiba as they took turns trying to drown each other, Kiba currently winning as Naruto took wisecracks at his hygiene practices.
"They're fine." Hana said with a dismissive wave, "Kiba can find the fastest way out of here on his own. And if they don't get out before nighttime when the tigers come out to hunt that's their problem. Let's go." She said, gesturing for him to follow before taking off into the trees.
Shikamaru spared a glance towards Naruto and Kiba before following after Hana to find the way out of the forest, "Well what do you know…for once a woman wasn't the most troublesome person in the group."
"I heard that kid!"
"…Nevermind."
XxX
(Konoha Hospital)
"This is gross." Sasuke said in minor complaint as he sat shirtless in a room, a sealing circle on the floor around his body with kunai in its edges. The reason he had complaints was because on his body there were numerous kanji written on his body in blood. It wasn't his, he knew that much. He was pretty sure it wasn't Kakashi's either.
"Oh it's not that bad Sasuke." Kakashi said as he finished drawing the last symbol on Sasuke and walked over into his own prepared circle for the jutsu right behind Sasuke, "Just think of them as temporary tattoos… made of blood."
"Whose blood?"
"Meh, someone's."
Sasuke frowned as Kakashi finished up his preparations for whatever this technique was going to do, "What is she doing here?" He asked, shooting his eyes towards Anko who was leaning against the wall observing the scene.
"I'm probably the first person you should be talking about when it comes to that death hickey on your neck." Anko responded with a smirk, "So get used to little old Anko Uchiha-kid. I'm going to be something like your parole officer when it comes to that seal."
"I don't think this is necessary." Sasuke defended, wishing he didn't need to stay statue still because the symbols painted onto him made him want to scratch, "I'll just train and get control of the seal. That'll be that."
Anko stared at Sasuke with a twitching eye, wishing that she could go over there and hit him one good time without messing Kakashi's entire jutsu up, "You don't get control over the seal fruitcake. The seal gets control of you. It makes you want to use it. That whole draining your chakra thing that's going on now, it's trying to force your body to keep it active for as long as possible after its awakening. The longer it's active the more your mind starts getting screwed. It wants you to use it and rely on it as much as possible."
Sasuke was a little insulted at what Anko was implying. It was like she was saying that his will and his mind weren't stable enough to handle any negative effects the seal may have had with it. So it would be a trump card. Big deal. Rock Lee's Eight Gates probably did the same thing to his body that the seal would do to Sasuke's mind. It was a trade-off to use in a pinch, just like most other kinjutsu.
"You don't want to use this seal for anything Sasuke." Kakashi said, as if he could read the boy's mind, "Its power is dark. Couldn't you feel it? Now I can't remove this seal. There are too many elements comprising the very core of it that are bonded to you. I can restrict its influence though. You can be normal and use chakra again without struggle after this, but your own will is the thing that will keep this seal intact over the other one. You have to resist the temptation to use the Cursed Seal."
A nod came from Sasuke, but Anko could see it in his eyes that the message didn't really sink in, "Hey Kakashi. This kid, he's not a genin anymore right?" This time a nod came from Kakashi, "Well how about I work with him for a while after this." Maybe she could convince him just how dark the seal really was? It was worth a shot. Orochimaru getting his claws into anyone else, especially one like Sasuke was just unacceptable.
At hearing the offer from Anko, Sasuke frowned visibly, "Don't I get a choice in this? I'd rather not. I can train on my own and do missions with Team 7, same as always. This thing isn't a big deal at all."
'Yes it is Sasuke.' Kakashi thought as he slowly began making hand-seals, 'You really need to understand this.' His single visible eye panned towards Anko, 'Come on. Sell this one Anko. He's not going to just accept it and I can't make him do it.'
"Fine." Anko said, seeming to give up on her attempts to work with Sasuke, "*sigh* And I needed a partner for some old-fashioned debaucherous missions too…" She feigned dejection until something seemed to hit her like a flash of lightning, "Oh wait… Hokage-sama gave me free reign to recruit anyone I wanted to until further notice. So you've been drafted maggot!"
Sasuke's jaw was dropped as he looked over at Anko, frozen at having his autonomy taken from him to work with Anko for the time being and didn't notice Kakashi going through a long set of hand-seals, "Don't worry Sasuke." He said to his student, "Anko's actually a sweet woman-."
"Aw… thanks Cyclops."
"-Once you get past everything else."
"I still accept that as a compliment."
"Of course you do. Fuuja Houin (Evil Sealing Method)!"
With that, Kakashi finished his hand-seals and pushed down on the focal point of where the binding seal was located, Sasuke's Cursed Seal, and all of the characters drawn on Sasuke's body seemed to recede into the Cursed Seal and form a red seal mark around it. This all caused a tremendous amount of pain to Sasuke and had the side-effect of him blacking out, falling to the floor unconscious.
With a sigh, Kakashi picked Sasuke up off of the ground to return him to a hospital bed until he woke up again, "So when are you going to start working with him?" He asked Anko as they walked towards the door to leave.
"The second he gets released." Anko responded brightly, "Who knows? Maybe having Mr. Personality here around yours truly will have some of my own precocious nature rub off on him a bit." So that was what she called it?
"I hope it'll be the other way around…" Kakashi grumbled, letting Anko leave the room before him and shutting the door behind them.
XxX
(A Few Weeks Later – Gates of Konoha)
"Back home at last." Naruto said with a huge grin on his face as he jumped through the threshold of the large open gates as if they were a portal or something, "That mission sucked!"
Trailing behind the kid with seemingly boundless energy were Kiba, Shino, and Hinata, "Was it the most exciting mission? No." Shino said as they pulled a cart with multiple cages that had birds of all types in them, "But the village needs a constant source of possible messenger birds. Hence it is necessary."
"Thank you Shino." Naruto deadpanned, stopping his excitement at returning home to turn towards the bug-manipulating genin, "Because I didn't get that whole explanation from the guy that gave us this mission." He said sarcastically.
"I'm sure that you didn't."
"Shut up Shino."
"The remark made by the losing side of an argument. Bad form Naruto."
Naruto stared at Shino, seeing if he could get Shino to blink first but even if he could with those sunglasses how would he have been able to tell? It was a moot point, "Well we finished the list off and that's all that matters I guess. Where's Kurenai-sensei anyway? Why am I running this?"
"She had her own stuff to deal with and couldn't go on a mission with us this time." Kiba said as they left the cart with shinobi that were supposed to be responsible for the aviary, "She didn't tell, we didn't ask. We know better. So we grabbed you since you were the first chunin we know that we saw." Akamaru barked something to the contrary that got Kiba to snicker and pan his eyes momentarily to Hinata, "…Quiet boy. Bad joke."
"Whatever." Naruto said, waving the whole thing off before turning towards them, "That was good work you guys. Especially you Hinata." He said, getting the girl to freeze at the complete attention he was paying her, "Half the birds we found were because of you. It would have taken way more than three days even with all the clones I had if you didn't have the Byakugan."
Averting her eyes away from Naruto to lessen some of the embarrassment she felt at getting brazenly complimented. Her red face contrasted her eyes greatly at the moment, "I-It's not that big of a deal. Any Hyuuga could have done it."
"Oh whatever, I'd much rather work with you than some other Hyuuga ninja. You seriously need to give yourself more credit." Naruto said, arms crossed as he walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder, getting her to freeze up, "If you don't believe in yourself then who else is gonna?"
Seeming to get a kick out of Hinata's reaction to physical contact with Naruto, Kiba spoke up, "I don't know Naruto. She doesn't look very motivated. She looks like she needs a hug or something. Right Hinata?" He then caught an elbow from a silent Shino in the ribs, "Ow, what? I'm helping."
A strange request, but Naruto had heard weirder. He turned to Hinata with a raised eyebrow wondering why the hell her face was so red for no reason before shrugging as he didn't see anything wrong with it and pulling her into a one-armed hug, "There you go. If you guys need some help again later just come looking for me. I'll help you out whenever you need it until I have to leave." He said before making the ram seal and vanishing in style with a Shunshin.
Upon the loss of having Naruto to lean on, Hinata's eyes fluttered and she fell backwards only to be caught by Kiba and Shino, "Seriously. You've got to break this little habit of yours." Kiba said, not that she could hear him at the moment though, "The kid's as thick as a brick about stuff like this."
"Look who's talking."
"Shut up Shino."
"You kept from going to that for as long as you could bear didn't you?" Picking with Kiba aside though, there was something that Naruto said that Shino's overanalyzing nature took notice of in regards to his last comment, 'I wonder what he meant when he spoke of having to leave? He couldn't have been given a different mission in the meantime or he would have said something about it at least once over the course of three days.' Maybe he was just over-thinking it.
XxX
(Team 10 Training Ground)
Shikamaru and Ino were seated under a tree in the shade as the sound of metal clashing sounded out from in front of them, "So he's been doing this since before I got here?" Shikamaru asked Ino as they both continued to watch. Ino merely nodded and continued to watch, "Where'd the toad come from?" He asked before noticing that there was another observer sitting with them, "Oh, toads."
On the ground next to them was a small orange toad wearing a blue jacket with purple markings around his eyes, mouth, and belly that was also watching the fight in front of them all, "The kid out there is the new summoner. He summoned me, then he summoned Gama when he put more power into it." In front of them, Gama in samurai armor was in a fight with Naruto and his machete, "Don't know why they're fighting though…"
Shikamaru didn't seem too stunned by the talking toad, but he expected Ino to have some kind of reaction, instead she was simply steadily watching Naruto fight the toad at least three times his size, "So the toad talks and you're just sitting there?"
"I've been here for three hours before you showed up." Ino said, not taking her eyes off of the battle, "I had my freakout, I trained for a bit, and now Gamakichi and me have come to an understanding."
"An understanding?"
"I don't call her cutie, sweetheart, or anything like that, and she doesn't step on me or wring the oil out of my body."
"Sounds like Ino." Shikamaru said, getting a nod of agreement from Ino herself before he saw Naruto hack away at Gama's samurai armor repeatedly, "Since when could Naruto summon toads? I never saw him do that."
"A few weeks apparently." Ino said with a smile on her face, "It's kind of cool right? Naruto's got the contract to one of Konoha's three legendary summon animals." Apparently, Gama got tired of being forced to block Naruto's manic machete strikes and used his tongue to grab him around the waist and chuck him at the tree that everyone else was sitting under.
A screaming Naruto crashed into the tree trunk and landed on the ground before sitting up and shaking the cobwebs out of his head, "I'm going to get you back for that you know!" He shouted at Gama who just croaked in a patronizing fashion and canceled his own summoning to return home, "I'm going to kick that thing's ass one of these days."
"You done?" Ino remarked, standing over Naruto with a raised eyebrow and an amused look on her face, "Because I'm done looking at you fight a big toad."
"It was just a spar." Naruto cracked his back and stood back up before he found that Gamakichi jumped onto the top of his head to lay in his hair, "These toads are really tough. Well, not really Gamakichi, but all the other ones I've summoned so far."
"Hey Boss, why don't you summon my pops?" Gamakichi asked Naruto, poking him on the top of the head with a webbed finger, "He's the boss of all the toads. You've got to meet him, he's the strongest."
"Really?" Naruto said, sounding interested and rather curious, "How much chakra do you think it would take to summon him then? Or do you even know in the first place?" Gamakichi shrugged and Naruto responded in kind, "You don't know much do you?"
"I'm still young. Cut me some slack here." Gamakichi stuck his long tongue out and dropped it in Naruto's face to mess with him, irritating him intentionally, "How much chakra did it take you to summon Gama? Because I guess you'd have to use at least that much… and then way more."
"What? I used a shit-ton to summon Gama!" Naruto yelled at his diminutive summon partner, "How much more do I freaking need?" He then felt Ino rap him over the back of the head, "Ow! What the hell?"
"You have way more chakra." Ino informed him, patting him on his stomach, "You've got all the chakra in the world. So put that big orange-red battery to use already and summon yourself a boss-level creature. I want to see it."
Despite not saying anything, Shikamaru did too. Both he and Ino had been regaled by their parents in the past with tales of the most powerful summons that Konoha ever had. They hadn't seen any before, so if Naruto could bring one of them out that was something he'd stay awake to see.
The power of summoning creatures, used by those chosen by them to fight alongside them and engage in mortal combat with one's enemies… now officially the plaything of a team of thirteen year old ninja.
"You guys sure?" Naruto said, rolling his shoulder out and preparing to dig deep.
Shikamaru took a minute to think about it before dragging Naruto and Ino far away from that tree. He liked that spot and didn't want to see it get randomly destroyed the way he knew it was probably about to be, "Yeah, now go ahead."
"Turn up the heat Goldie-kun." Ino encouraged, rather excited at the prospect.
"Whatever." Naruto said before taking a minute to focus and pull out some of the Kyuubi's chakra. It took longer than he anticipated because the biju was being a bastard and fighting him the whole way, but Naruto knew what the feeling was to use the chakra by now. As long as he had that, it didn't matter how long it took, he could draw upon it for one good burst to perform his summoning, "Here goes nothing!" He yelled as he bit his finger and made the necessary hand-seals, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"
A massive puff of smoke that covered the whole training field burst out from the point where Naruto slammed his hand down.
"Damn it Jiraiya, why did you just summon me?" Shouted a booming voice covered by the smoke, "There isn't anything going on around here and I don't see any drink!"
"…Naruto what did you just do?"
"Hey pops!"
Omake: Training Day 5
"This is boring Neji." Naruto complained as he sat down on a stump in a forest, the same as Neji as the Hyuuga had his eyes closed, "When you said you wanted to train I thought we were going to spar or something."
"This is one of my own training methods Naruto." Neji replied calmly before opening his eyes with his Byakugan now active, "I'm improving on my own perceptive ability with my kekkei genkai."
Naruto stared at him with squinted eyes as he deciphered what Neji was saying, "…So you're trying to see stuff better with your Byakugan?" Well that made sense. Naruto did the same thing with Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu) all the time. It was boring, and he was sure Neji knew that too, but apparently he was way more patient than the blonde.
"Exactly."
With that, Naruto and Neji both sat in silence while Neji seemed to be looking around without even turning his head. Nearly 360 degrees of vision gave one that sort of advantage. If nothing else, it was nice that the animosity or the rivalry, whatever it was, between the two of them had dulled significantly after their scrap in Tetsu no Kuni. After returning, for some reason Neji seemed way more approachable and pleasant to be around.
"How many birds do you see?" Neji said, catching Naruto's attention, "With your jutsu. It's supposed to be a sensor jutsu first isn't it? Use it and tell me how many birds you can feel in the vicinity." He then turned his Byakugan off so that he didn't take a flash of chakra to the eyes by accident.
It seemed like a reasonable enough request, so Naruto let out a burst of chakra sonar-style and the birds apparently felt it because they took off into the air, but Naruto had already counted the life-forms that he had sensed, "Meh, I got 8."
"It's seven." Neji disputed with a smirk. Hey, he could turn this into a competition if he wanted to.
"No… it's eight. You're missing one and you're supposed to be able to see through everything. How'd you miss that?" Naruto asked, noticing Neji's pronounced frown at the question, "Oh, we should leave too."
"Why?"
"Because when you turned your Byakugan off I felt Lee coming from way back. So if you don't want to fight him-."
"-Let's go."
Abruptly jumping up from their place on their stumps, Naruto and Neji both ran away as fast as they could. No offense to Lee, but the guy was just too extreme for them sometimes, and coming from Naruto that was really saying something.
Eventually Lee came across the location that Naruto and Neji had been staying and looked around, seeing no sign of them, "Oh ho! So it seems that both of my eternal rivals wish to test my ability to follow a trail. Very well then! If I cannot find Neji or Naruto-kun I will do five hundred pushups! And if I cannot do that the I will do six hundred squats! And if I cannot do that-!"
This continued on as Lee ran through the forest, looking for a way to track the two boys.
Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)
Konohagakure Shinobi
Inuzuka Hana
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 3
Genjutsu: 2.5
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 3
Speed: 3.5
Stamina: 2
Hand-Seals: 1.5
Total Score: 22