Naruto, Tales of Symphonia 1. Confusion

Naruto groaned in pain as he began to awake from blissful unconsciousness, though right about now he was wishing he didn't wake up at all. What the hell had happened? He felt like he had practically been run straight through...

_He gasped in agony before opening his mouth in a wordless scream, feeling white hot fire run straight through his chest; burning, searing pain..._

He gasped in agony, in an odd sense of deja vu and moved to place a hand over his heart as a phantom pain shot through him, before realizing that he could not do so.

He blinked slowly and looked at the small room he found himself in. He frowned in distaste before sighing. A prison cell. _It's been awhile since I've been in one of these._

Naruto experimentally flexed his limbs and quickly discovered the reason for his current lack of any ability to move. After all, being shackled directly to the wall of the cell would do that kinda thing. There were thick metal braces on his arms or legs that kept him standing and unable to move, and his arms were up above his head.

He grunted as he pulled on them to test their strength. They were made pretty well actually. It'd probably be possible to snap them if he was at a hundred percent, but he wasn't very confident in his ability to do so at the moment.

How did he get here? What had made him a prisoner? The last thing he remembered was... was...

_He gasped in agony before opening his mouth in a wordless scream, feeling white hot fire run straight through his chest; burning, searing pain..._

He snarled and threw his head back against the wall of the cell. Why couldn't he REMEMBER? Everything else before the last few days was there clear as crystal, lucid and vivid as if he had just experienced them a few minutes before.

Kakashi had brought them all out to celebrate the recent successful raids on the Oto encampments and to announce that he and Anko were going out now. Then she had decked him for being so blunt and obvious about it instead of letting us piece it together ourselves. Took all the fun out of it, she said. That was a couple days ago.

Lets see... Hiashi finally stepped down as clan head of the Hyuugas and ended up making Neji leader due to his obvious skill with both fighting and foresight. He supposed that the reason he picked Neji over his daughters was that in war you really need to have the best leader available, and direct bloodline or not Neji was still Hyuuga; the best in fact. Hanabi was probably a bit peeved at the whole thing but he was pretty sure Hinata-chan was overjoyed at the whole matter, Neji really did deserve that position. But that was a few days ago too.

Oh, when he tried to ask Sakura-chan out on a date again she ended up telling him she was experimenting with Ino now. That little declaration stuck with him a bit, he remembered. Sakura-chan was blushing bright red and he ended up having to slap himself to get the admittedly nice mental image out of his head.

He growled again out loud. Damn it that was a couple days ago too! He knew that much, so why was there a frightfully large spot of his memory where _nothing was there?_

"So, you're awake. I thought I heard the snarling of a wild animal. Seems I was correct." A young man in a full ninja bodysuit stepped out of the shadows directly across from the cell. Naruto's eye twitched in agitation. This guy just oozed casual smugness.

Naruto glanced again at the man's clothing. The bodysuit was a dark blue, enough to seem black in the dim lighting of the prison. He was completely covered except for his eyes, which were a piercing green. The man also had twin swords on his back. Whether they were ninja-to or not, he couldn't tell without the man turning around to give him a good look. He was dressed like a covert or black ops ninja; those that must always hide their identity.

The man pulled out a small clipboard from seemingly nowhere and leveled his gaze with Naruto's. "Name, age, and birthplace?"

Naruto gave him a flat stare. "I'm being interrogated?" Though in his head he was thinking, _there are ninjas who still don't know me? Thought I was pretty famous by now._

"Yes." The man deadpanned. "Name, age, and birthplace?"

"Uzumaki Naruto. Eighteen." Naruto said flatly. "And Konoha, obviously." He replied, glancing up at his head where his forehead protector lay, with Konoha's symbol of a leaf engraved into the metal of it.

"Konoha?" The man quirked an eyebrow and also glanced at the symbol on his headband but that was it. He wrote something on the clipboard. "Where is that?"

Naruto quirked an eyebrow right back. Obvious questions much? Is he just being used to train an interrogation rookie or something? "Fire Country."

The man gave him a blank stare for a moment before unlocking and opening the door to the cell. He then looked the blond shinobi directly in the eye. "Say again? Where is Konoha located?"

Naruto's eye twitched. Deaf idiot. "Fire Country."

The ninja in blue frowned and mumbled to himself. "I hate this part."

Naruto's eyes widened and he attempted to lurch forward suddenly as a fist ended up finding its way buried into his stomach. Unfortunately being shackled to the wall made such a thing impossible, and so he merely spit some saliva onto the face and mask of his assailant from the force of the punch, and then violently coughed a few times. Not that the man appeared to really care.

"What the hell did you do that for, Asshole?" Naruto spat out as he glared at the man.

The Asshole, as Naruto decided to refer to him as, looked at him neutrally and asked again. "Where is Konoha located?"

Naruto glared forward at the Asshole. "Fire Country."

A fist once again magically found itself buried in his stomach, and as Naruto ended up spitting over him again the man sighed silently. "Its gonna be a long, irritating day."

* * *

><p>The Asshole wasn't incorrect in his assumption. Every simple question he asked besides "Name" and "Age" ended up with him forcing to beat up the blond. What seemed to Naruto as perfectly reasonable answers (and things you could mostly discover by picking up a book, at that) would apparently always lead to the Asshole punching him. So he was understandably getting a bit ticked off, pain tolerance and awesome regenerative abilities aside.<p>

"Okay, I'll bite. What the fuck is wrong with you and with my answers that you feel the need to keep freaking punching me?" Naruto snarled at the man after a particularly nasty punch broke his nose and knocked his head back against the wall. Sure, it'd been broken more times than he could count, but that didn't mean he _liked_ having his nose busted up.

The Asshole looked up from his clipboard and leveled a neutral stare on the blond. He turned his eyes back down to the clipboard and continued writing something. "Obviously, your answers aren't what I want. So you're either lying really terribly or simply don't feel like making the effort to give me the truth."

"Except I AM telling you the truth, Asshole!" Naruto growled at him. "I'm from Konoha in the Fire Country!"

"Except that's where you're mistaken." The man sighed in irritation. "We have no information on either area you speak of, and while a simple town being unknown is possible; unlikely, but possible, there is assuredly nowhere in the world called the 'Fire Country.'"

Naruto seemed to stare in shock for a moment before regaining his bearings and rejected that answer. "You're fucking with me."

"No, Naruto, I most definitely am not 'fucking with you', as you so bluntly decided to put it." The man seemed to let off a small smirk even though Naruto couldn't see it through his mask, before he walked over and grabbed the blond's nose and quickly snapped it back to its proper position. No need to force it to heal incorrectly after all. The Asshole's eyebrow quirked a bit at his lack of a reaction to setting his bone, but shrugged and turned to leave.

"H-hey! You can't just ditch me here! I haven't done anything wrong! Let me out!" Naruto yelled, pulling at the shackles for emphasis. "And I sure as hell didn't give you permission to talk to me on a first name basis." He mumbled as an afterthought.

The Asshole turned and looked at him confused. "I thought you said your name was Uzumaki Naruto?" Completely ignoring his request.

"I did." Naruto stared at him as if he were stupid.

"Ah, you say your surname first." The man stated as if he just noticed, which he probably did, pulling out his clipboard again and scribbling something out.

"Duh." Naruto deadpanned. "Let me out now?" He gave a big pleading smile.

"No."

"OH COME ON! At least tell me what the hell I did to be put in prison!" He struggled once again against the thick shackles, hearing them groan in protest of trying to hold him but otherwise succeeding in their job.

The Asshole stopped and sighed a moment before turning his head to look at him. "Your way of arrival was odd and unknown and almost everything you say is obscure. A village of ninja can't accept anything unknown if we wish to survive."

Naruto stared out of his cell at where the man was. He didn't know why Konoha and Fire Country were apparently 'unknowns', but looking from their point of view he supposed if he didn't understand anything a prisoner was spouting out of their mouth he probably wouldn't let them go either.

The blond shinobi sighed and looked up to the ceiling of his cell. They could have at least put him in a more comfortable position... or given him some food...

* * *

><p>It was a couple hours later when he heard footsteps moving towards his cell. Good, because he was getting really bored, and counting the number of impressions made in the walls and floor of his cell and the number of creases in his clothing got really boring after the first hour. It was 205 and 140 respectively, in case you were wondering.<p>

A woman walked around the corner beyond his cell and began unlocking it. Naruto's brilliant sapphire eyes became cold and analyzing for just a moment as he sized up the new ninja. She appeared to be wearing the top half of a purple battle kimono, which honestly appeared to be struggling to hold in her rather large assets, and had a large pink ribbon going around her waist to hold it closed, with the bow part on her back and with the ribbons trailing behind her a few inches short of touching the ground. She was wearing a black bodysuit underneath, covering her legs completely and going down her arms, though much of the suit wasn't visible at all because of purple boots and gloves in addition to the kimono.

She had sharp hazel eyes and relatively short black hair, which would be about to her shoulders were it not pulled into a messy ponytail. But the most beautiful thing about her had to be the tray of food she was obviously bringing to him.

He grinned widely despite his somewhat bloody face. "Thank Kami, I was starving! It feels like I haven't eaten for days!"

She quirked an eyebrow and smiled at his upbeat attitude despite being a prisoner but then just shrugged. "You probably haven't. You've been shackled down here for a bit, and I doubt you ate anything the very moment before you decided to appear in a fireworks display consisting of burning down our forest. Quite a dramatic entrance. I'm Sheena by the way."

He sweat-dropped and smiled nervously at her. "Naruto. And I burned down the forest?"

"Yup. A lot of it anyway. You were just kinda found in the blast zone of a fiery explosion without a scratch on you, with all of our trees burning around you." She frowned at him. "Don't do that again."

"Uhm, sure, if I remember how to do it I'll keep that in mind."

"Oh Kami, you're not claiming amnesia are you?" She sighed as she put a hand to her forehead. "Seriously, that's the oldest trick in the book."

"Hey, its not like I can't remember anything at all. I just can't remember the last two or three days." He replied, frowning.

"That's still awfully convenient. Suddenly forgetting the day where you cause a gigantic explosion in our forest, even though you were right in the center of the whole thing." She grinned knowingly at him, while he just continued to frown.

"Hey, I'm being serious here. Besides, who ever heard of someone just lying in the middle of the ground in such a danger zone without a scratch on him? Isn't it more likely I was just planted there after the explosion happened?" He retorted, but he knew the chance of that was low too. More than likely Kyuubi simply healed his wounds from the blast, so it looked like he didn't belong there.

Her smile disappeared and was replaced by a frown. "That's... possible, I suppose." She said, bringing in another metal tray-looking object which ended up being a small folding table. She pulled it in front of Naruto and put the food tray on it before pulling a key out of her shirt. Naruto couldn't help it when his eyes automatically locked onto the tiny object in her hands before she pulled it away and began to make 'tsk tsk' sounds.

"Don't go getting any funny ideas now. If you answer our questions you'll be out of here in a few days tops, since we don't have a ton of reason to keep you here. So don't throw your life away by trying to escape and forcing us to kill you." She seemed to remember his bloodied face for a moment and then smirked at him. "Though it seems like you've already made an enemy out of the person before me by not answering their questions huh?"

He grumbled to himself while Sheena leaned up to reach one of the shackles on his wrists; she was a bit shorter than he was. "I was answering them just fine, he just wasn't believing my answers is all."

"Not believing you? He's usually pretty tame, so either you were being difficult or weren't giving proper answers." She said to him without really looking at him, finishing unlocking one of the shackles and then stepping back and leaning against the cell wall.

"Aw, not going to unlock the rest of them for me? Cruel." He said with a mock pout. He knew it wouldn't be that easy. "But seriously, I was answering the questions honestly. The idiot just doesn't know what Konoha and Fire Country is so he takes it out on me."

"I haven't heard of either of those places either, so I guess that answers the question of why he kept punching you." She replied and took notice of his shocked expression. "Hurry up and eat so I can get out of this dingy place, one hand is plenty to eat with. There's a festival tonight and I'd really rather not be down here instead."

He looked suspiciously at some weird meat-thing on the tray before shrugging and biting deeply into it. _Meh, it's not ramen but it isn't bad. Funny aftertaste though. _"What's the festival for?"

"It's to celebrate allying ourselves with the king of Tethe'alla. The festival is more of a way to drive a point home if anything. We've been the spy network and shadows for the king for years, it's just that nobody knew about us. Now it's out in the open." She nodded to herself, apparently pleased with her own explanation.

Naruto sweat-dropped, but still continued eating the odd but not-too-terrible food. "Shouldn't you... not tell your prisoner about the people your spy network work for? That stuff is usually pretty classified."

Her eyes widened a little and she laughed nervously. "Ahahaha... well I'm sure you won't tell anyone right? Plus everyone will know pretty soon I'm sure. Letting one prisoner know a few days in advance is no big deal." She began nodding to herself again.

"Uh, sure. Whatever you say." He replied, quirking a small smile. _She's a little ditzy. Or just clumsy with her words. _He then mulled over what she said. "Wait wait wait back up a second. Did you say _king_? Not Daimyo?"

"Yep. Not sure what a Daimyo is, but we're the personal ninja of the king of all of Tethe'alla!" She puffed her chest out in obvious pride, doing interesting things to her anatomy that Naruto was a bit too confused to appreciate as his late teacher would have wanted him to.

"And by "all of Tethe'alla" you mean?..."

The woman put two fingers to her temple and he could just imagine her counting down from ten to try and not blow up at him. "You know, Tethe'alla? The world? King of the world?"

"T-the WORLD?" Naruto sputtered out. "Are you off your rocker? There's no way that's true!"

"You know, the amnesia thing is still pretty lame. At least learn to lie properly." She said as she began to 'tsk tsk' at him again.

"I'm not lying damn it! You're the one saying crazy stuff like there being a 'king of the world'! That's bullshit!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "No more bullshit than you saying you're from a place that doesn't exist."

"But it does exist! I grew up there and practically traveled the whole place, it obviously exists! Just because you haven't been there-"

"And stop right there!" She yelled dramatically, cutting him off and poking him in the forehead. "There's no such thing as Fire Country, unless its possible for a place to be as small as an island and called a country at the same time." She smirked. "We've explored the whole world over. Nowhere we haven't spied on. And nowhere called Fi-re Coun-try."

"Or the Elemental Nations?" He asked incredulously, with his mouth slightly agape.

"Nope!" She chirped happily, unashamed that she caused his currently crestfallen expression.

Naruto managed to get a rein on his emotions again after a moment. "I'll believe it when I see it. It wouldn't be too hard for you to lie to me while I'm stuck in a prison cell, probably underground and unable to see the world that you're talking about. You just want me to think I'm crazy."

"Don't have to make you think it, you already are. Though, yeah, I suppose it would be pretty easy to lie wouldn't it?" Sheena shrugged, unconcerned. She walked up and gathered up the tray and table that he was finished with and put his wrist back in its shackle over his head. As she moved to leave she turned and smirked back at him. "Well, I've got a festival to get to. Enjoy your nap!"

"Bring me back something!" He yelled out before hearing Sheena's laughter echoing down the long corridor. "Yeah yeah, sure. Go and enjoy the festival. Not like I wanted to go or anything." He said with a yawn before his eyes widened in realization. "Shit. I shouldn't be getting tired yet. I've just been drugged haven't I?"

* * *

><p>Sheena licked absently at the ice cream cone in her hand while sitting on one of the small stone fences surrounding the village water well. She probably shouldn't be gorging herself on the treats, but she usually couldn't get them unless she went to Meltokio; the capital always had something new for her to try. A few ninja had apparently brought the ingredients and recipes of a few of the capital's delicacies over just before the festival to make it just that little bit nicer.<p>

The festival ended two days ago now, and her turn to feed the blond enigma was coming up soon. She hadn't been down there since before the festival. She didn't really mind doing it much, she just wished it wasn't so boring down there in the cells. Not that it was any more interesting up above though, she mused.

Sheena took another lick of the vanilla ice cream and fingered the purple choker around her neck that she had bought during the festival. It was kind of tacky, and a little too girly for her honestly. Which made it the perfect present to tease Naruto endlessly with during the hour she was going to have to stay down in the dreary place.

_Hey, he only said he wanted me to bring him back something. Not that it had to be anything cool, expensive, or even a color he'd like._

She actually hoped they'd be permitted to let him out soon. It seemed kinda paranoid to keep him locked up so tightly down there. Even if he was probably a bit of a pyromaniac, all he had done was make an explosion about a quarter of a mile from the village and burn down about a dozen trees. Really odd and weird, sure, but he hadn't hurt anyone as far as she could tell so the interrogation was kind of excessive.

She shrugged. It wasn't really her problem. She didn't even know the guy.

Glancing up at the sky she noticed that it was almost noon, judging by the sun. Not quite time to go down and check on Naruto, but it probably wouldn't hurt to ask Tiga if they had gotten any new information out of him over the last two days. Knowing what to expect couldn't hurt.

She hopped off the stone fencing and popped the last part of the cone into her mouth at one time and shivered slightly at the sensation. Cold, but _really_ good. She loved vanilla. Part of her was tempted to go buy yet another one, but instead she continued onwards to the house of the Chief.

As she entered she was immediately struck by the sound of arguing. She twitched slightly at the volume; she really wished they'd be quieter. There were quite a few people already here, surprisingly.

Her grandfather Igaguri was where he always was, lying on a futon in the far back corner of the Chief's house, shrouded by a curtain while he was in his comatose state. Sheena felt a flash of guilt build up within her quickly before she immediately squashed it. She was used to doing so by now.

Tiga was sitting quietly in his normal position in the back of the room, with his traditional garb consisting of a light brown kimono. His short black hair was allowed to fall limply in its natural way, and he still had the short beard that he had grown after becoming Chief. His stern black eyes intently watched the two men in front of him.

Kuchinawa stood behind and to the left of Tiga, in his dark red ninja bodysuit that hid most of his features from the world. Only his green eyes were visible, everything else being covered by the suit or by black armored accessories, like his gloves, boots and face mask. He had a simple ninja-to strapped to his back.

Orochi, as always, looked almost like a perfect mirror image of his brother Kuchinawa except he was wearing a dark blue bodysuit, contrasting with his sibling's dark red and had twin wakizashi strapped to his back.

The man he was arguing with was the one she knew the least, though with good reason. He was a scientist and doctor sent here to Mizuho a little over a week ago by the king to serve as a medic and to pass on valuable medicinal practices before he left. Sheena believed his name was Kizuna. He was wearing a classic white lab coat that was open and showed his casual civilian clothing underneath. His hair was brown but appeared to be starting to grey from age, and he was wearing round glasses.

The argument appeared to be quite serious. Tiga, even as the chief, was simply sitting with his eyes closed, just soaking in the words said on both sides.

"He must be sent back to Sybak! His regeneration is astounding; bordering on absolutely ridiculous! A cut or scrape is healed within a minute and it takes five times the normal amount of drugs to keep him down for any reasonable length of time!" Even though he was yelling his eyes were practically shining while thinking of the possibilities.

Meanwhile Orochi's eyes, in sharp contrast, turned cold and harsh. "What of our morality? The man is an innocent, all things considered. Burning down a few trees isn't even grounds for imprisoning him, we only did so as a precaution due to how close he was to the village. Yet you wish for us to send him off to Sybak despite the fact that he has done nothing wrong?"

Sheena quirked an eyebrow in realization. "You two are arguing over Naruto?"

The two turned slightly to acknowledge her with nods, but otherwise did nothing to change their stances.

Kizuna narrowed his eyes slightly but was still practically beaming. "What does right and wrong have anything to do with this situation? Despite being a prisoner for just a few days, he is still a prisoner, and studying his ability could save thousands of lives across Tethe'alla."

Orochi was still not amused. "You continue to call him a prisoner when we are saying that he has committed no crime, unless being incredibly confused by his situation is a crime. Why do you keep insisting on calling him such?"

Tiga opened his eyes to look at Kizuna while the doctor just kept smiling at Orochi in that disarming way of his. "As soon as he became a criminal, Meltokio, and by proxy the research institute in Sybak, became free to do with him as we please. We have full obligation to use criminals in any way that could improve Tethe'alla or society in general. Criminals have no rights you know."

Orochi's eyes narrowed dangerously and his fingers instinctively twitched towards his sword, but a glare from Tiga stilled him. The Chief turned his head back towards the doctor. "You will have your man. An escort will be ready for you to return to Sybak tomorrow morning."

Kizuna smiled as he dropped to his knees and then bowed graciously to the man, putting his forehead on the floor. "Thank you Tiga-sama."

The doctor rose from his kneeling position and then bowed to Orochi as well, though the ninja made no reaction to it. He then calmly moved towards the door and left, no doubt to either check on Naruto or prepare for the trip tomorrow.

As soon as the man left Sheena let out a breath that she didn't even realize she had been holding. Why did this whole situation feel very tense and wrong?

Orochi sighed and turned towards Tiga. "Tiga-sama, I must honestly say that I do not like this. Submitting to these people's wishes to do such things to others..."

Tiga nodded and frowned. "I do not like it either Orochi, but we must think of the village first. We can not disobey the will of the king or those who serve him, especially not directly after it has come out that we work for him as well. Unfortunately, we have no choice in these matters."

Sheena was somewhat confused however. "Is it really so bad? Sybak seemed like a pretty nice place the times I've been there."

Orochi shook his head. "But Naruto will not be going there to live Sheena. There is a darker side to Sybak. Kizuna's request was just a nicer way of saying they wish to make him a glorified research subject." The man frowned sadly. "He will be caged and studied to discover the secret of his ability to apparently heal himself without the use of mana."

Sheena looked disgusted, understandably. "That's terrible. How could they do something like that?"

Orochi was about to speak again before Tiga spoke first and interrupted him, his eyes sad. "Yes, it is a terrible thing, but there's nothing we can do about it. The village's continued safety must come before an unknown man. It is best if we simply forget he existed after we deliver him to Sybak."

All three ninja nodded in acceptance, even Kuchinawa who still hadn't said a word, but inside Sheena was still disgusted with the situation. _This isn't right._

* * *

><p>Naruto groaned and tried to open his eyes but found extreme difficulty in doing so. Part of his mind was telling him to go back to sleep because of how sluggish he was feeling, the quicker thinking part of him was wondering just how much drugs his captors must have pumped into his system to keep him down so effectively for so long.<p>

Finally opening his eyes a little he was immediately blinded by the sun. When had they moved him outside? Actually, it felt like he was still moving right now. He lifted a hand to his forehead to block the sun's rays and mumbled a bit to himself.

He heard a few voices and looked to his side to see what was going on. There was a blurry outline there that looked distinctly feminine, but with his head pounding and the sun behind them he couldn't really tell.

The next moment he saw her move forward and felt cool metal press against his neck.

The woman whispered to him. "I'm sorry." Then blissful darkness claimed him once again.

* * *

><p>Sheena yawned slightly but otherwise stayed alert. It had been a while since she had a mission and even with one as distasteful as this, she wasn't about to let the group be swarmed by bandits or monsters.<p>

They were currently pulling Naruto along on a cart usually meant for produce. Kizuna was walking ahead of it, while Sheena was on the right side. A ninja named Derek was pulling the cart along while wearing casual civilian clothing rather than ninja garb. Sheena didn't know Derek all that well; though she was pretty sure his wife was the one that she kept going to for ice cream.

She heard their unwilling passenger groan and her eyes widened. He was waking up already? Damn, they weren't kidding when they said it took a lot to keep him down. The amount of drugs the doctor put into him would have kept an elephant down for over a day, but it had only been a few hours and he was waking up again.

The doctor apparently heard the groan as well because he turned to look at her. "Don't let him wake up. Put him under again." He then simply turned forward to look at the path again.

"Yeah yeah I know." She muttered and searched her clothes for the syringe the man had handed to her before they left. She held it in front of her eyes and gazed sadly at the dark blue liquid inside. Naruto really didn't deserve this.

She turned back to him in time to see him lift his hand up to cover his eyes and mumble something that sounded suspiciously like 'I feel like shit.' She quirked a small smile that quickly disappeared when she noticed he was becoming far too aware too quickly.

She mumbled a quick apology; to Naruto, or to Kami for what she was doing, she didn't know. She then pressed the needle against his neck before watching the light practically vanish from his eyes as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Sheena felt sick as she hid the syringe back inside her clothing. Watching his eyes just fade out like that... she may as well have killed him herself instead of what was apparently going to happen to him.

She wanted to just let him go. He was completely innocent from this, but the village had to come first, and she vowed to never let her village down again.


	2. Fury

Naruto groaned as he began to come to once again. _This is getting really irritating and repetitive._

He opened one of his eyes to take in his new surroundings. He was shackled to the wall again, in the exact same position as when he was in his old cell in fact. Just that now instead of in a prison cell, he was in some kind of weird lab.

There were giant test tubes all over the place, filled with some weird green liquid that reminded him of Orochimaru's old labs that he visited (and subsequently destroyed) in his search for Sasuke. What he immediately noticed however was that nobody was in the room. For the moment, he was alone.

He flexed his muscles experimentally and was disgusted at how weak he felt. The good news though was that even with his body in such a terrible state, it was probably well enough to try and pull off an escape attempt with how the shackles of this lab were straining to hold him back even at just this level of physical strength.

Naruto grinned and yanked his arms forward brutally, pleased at the sounds of the shackles snapping from the force and landing somewhere across the room. He quickly bent down and ripped out the restraints on his legs as well. Thank Kami these ones seemed way weaker than the shackles in his cell.

The blond began to take a better look around the room as he stretched and rotated his arms to try and get some more feeling in them. _Damn I feel really stiff. Though I guess getting repeatedly drugged on and off for three days would do that to a guy._

This room was creepy as hell though, and giving him a really bad vibe on top of it. A lot of the test tubes had things that looked alive in them, or maybe they had been alive at one point. One looked like a really huge chicken-monster-thing. Another looked quite a lot like a horse. There was even what appeared to be a human infant floating in one with a bunch of wires connected to it. He grimaced at the last one and turned away quickly. He really didn't need to see that.

The fourth tube drew his eyes to it. There wasn't any liquid in this one; just a gigantic empty tube which contained what looked to be a tiny blood red crystal held in the center of it by a dozen tiny little metal claws that extended from the top and bottom of the tube.

He stared at the tiny crystal. He swallowed hard and put his hand up to his forehead. It suddenly felt way hotter in this room than it did a second ago, and his mouth felt like he was in a desert. He could hear his heartbeat pounding heavily in his ears. Whatever this thing was, some part of him was just telling him to grab it and run.

He licked his dry lips. He didn't know how but... somehow he _knew_ that this little crystal was really powerful; that it would make him stronger. Surely it wasn't that important, right? Nobody would miss the little thing; and even if they did, they locked him up here. It was practically his Kami-given right to steal it away from them.

Naruto reached forward and pressed his hand against the glass, trying to get closer to it. It was getting hard to think straight. He heard a sharp gasp that brought him back to his senses as he quickly turned to look at the woman that had walked into the lab while he was distracted. She had dark green hair and was wearing a white lab coat.

"W-what are you doing walking around?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she snarled as she saw the test tube that Naruto seemed so fascinated with. "Get away from there!"

Naruto moved to knock her out before she caused trouble but he was too slow. She slammed her hand on a big red button that was on the wall next to the door, and suddenly alarms were blaring out all over the building. The blond shinobi sighed and glared at the new arrival. "You just made this all so much more annoying."

The woman smirked in a haughty way. "Funny, I was about to say the exact same thing to you." She stepped to the side as about a dozen soldiers in dark grey armor filed into the room and surrounded Naruto in a semi-circle, pointing their spears at him with his back to the odd test tube.

He smiled and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Hey hey guys, hold up, I didn't do anything. No need to try and get so rough."

The woman smirked at him again. "You broke your restraints, it's obvious what you were planning to do." She nodded towards the soldiers. "Detain him. He can regenerate, so no need to go easy on him. Just don't run him through or decapitate him or anything."

The soldiers nodded and replied 'yes Catherine', so Naruto assumed that was her name. As the guards began to close around him one of them raised his hand. "Hold up guys, let me take this one. I've been itchin' for a fight lately."

Naruto's eyebrow quirked. He sounded pretty young. The other soldiers backed away a bit, a couple of them sighing in exasperation. He was probably a new recruit then, trying to prove himself to the others. The shinobi grinned. He'd be happy to oblige.

The cocky recruit charged forward, attempting to impale the ninja on his spear. The scientist woman behind the young soldier shouted something about not getting carried away and killing him, but Naruto wasn't too concerned at the moment.

The blond ninja quickly moved to the side of the thrust and grinned, before grabbing the section of the spear just below the blade and pulled harshly. The spear blade impaled itself on the wall next to the red crystal's test tube and the soldier was yanked forward before Naruto's fist smashed into his face, shattering his helmet and dropping him to the floor. The whole exchange lasted about a second.

The other soldiers just stood silently, some probably with their mouths agape in shock but Naruto couldn't really tell since they all wore helmets. The blond meanwhile was flexing his fist and frowning. He was sure he put a lot more force into the punch then that. He was planning to scare off the rest of the soldiers with a show of brute force, but it looked like that was beyond him right now. Kami he felt as weak as a newborn.

A couple of the guards seemed to regain their bearings as they rushed forward to incapacitate him. Naruto smirked, they didn't realize that even with his strength so low like this they were still completely outclassed.

Naruto grabbed the spear of the first soldier and yanked hard. Instead of getting dragged like the recruit he had defeated (probably killed, he couldn't tell) this soldier had instead opted to let go of his weapon. Naruto flipped it around and immediately shoved it through the man and impaled him, ending his life. He pushed the newly created corpse out of the way to create more room to maneuver. Another soldier thrust forward to avenge his comrade but a swift downward kick from Naruto snapped his weapon in half, before the shinobi spun his body and a crushing second kick broke the man's arm and threw him into one of the multiple testing vats.

He heard the woman start sputtering behind him. "Y-you fools! This is all extremely valuable equipment! Be more careful!" Naruto smiled to himself at her outrage and grabbed another soldier by the arm before pulling the man over his shoulder and throwing him in the direction of the woman. He heard a satisfying crash of metal and glass breaking before Catherine began screeching with renewed vigor. He giggled somewhat immaturely in his head. She was pretty fun to annoy.

He punched yet another guard in the face, feeling his face cave underneath the pressure of his fist, but as he moved to engage the next one he felt a searing pain in his back and had to stop himself from crying out. He could smell something burning and he just knew it was him.

He turned his head to glare at the scientist and she glared right back at him unflinchingly, tossing a ball of fire up and down in her hand. Without warning she threw it aggressively at him, but he dropped low to the ground to allow it to fly over him and explode against another table behind him filled with important looking flasks and beakers.

Her face went red with outrage at the sounds of her work exploding by her own hand. "Stalagmite!" She yelled as she lifted a hand to the ceiling, and before Naruto could move to dodge the unknown attack, the floor underneath him rose up and carried him up to the ceiling, attempting to crush him against it.

The shinobi hit the ceiling hard, feeling the air in his lungs rush out of him from the force of the blow, and feeling the burn on his back sending glaring pain signals to his brain in protest of the pressure being forced upon it.

Naruto quickly punched the rock pillar underneath him, shattering it before it could try to crush him further and flipping back towards the ground. As soon as his feet touched the floor he dashed towards the scientist, tossing a punch at her which she easily dodged by skipping backwards and lobbing another fireball at him.

The ninja moved to dodge the fireball before he felt a presence behind him. A soldier moved to attack his blind spot while he was distracted with the woman, but he was still far too slow. Naruto performed a quick Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Technique) with the guard, swapping their positions as the blond grabbed the confused man by his shoulders, preventing him from moving. The fireball impacted and exploded painfully against the guard's chest, causing him to scream out in pain before Naruto grabbed the sides of his head and twisted his neck, putting him out of his misery quickly.

He let the man drop to the ground as he wiped his forehead from a thin sheen of sweat that had formed there. This was ridiculous; he shouldn't be this weak. He hadn't even pulled out any real techniques yet but he was already feeling slightly winded; let alone the fact that these small fry were even hitting him in the first place. He should be way faster than them.

Naruto's eye twitched as some more guards and scientists rushed into the room to see what was going on. This lab was way too small for this. With the amount of people in the room and the corpses beginning to litter the floor, he wouldn't have any room to maneuver soon; and he didn't really fancy his chances at taking fireballs head on in his current condition.

He calmed himself and began making hand seals as everyone else in the room moved to defend himself. He smirked and brought a hand to his mouth and made a ring with his index finger to use for directing the technique.

"I'll show you a fireball! Burn! Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Grand Fireball Technique)!" He exhaled as a gigantic fireball emerged from his mouth, as he directed it towards the mass of people near the entrance of the room. Even after the fireball reached its target he continued to use the technique like a giant flamethrower, moving his head back and forth to force it to scorch everyone within his vision.

After a few seconds he dropped the technique and panted in exhaustion while his surprised eyes took in the people who were mostly intact. All of the scientists had apparently brought up some kind of green barrier to protect themselves and the guards nearby from the flames, while most of the soldiers who weren't next to a scientist had burned to ash.

He glanced at his own hands and made a disgusted face as he saw them shaking in exertion. He was even worse off than he thought. Holding a simple fire jutsu for a few seconds caused him to be completely spent; normally he could toss them around for the better part of a day before needing to stop to rest.

Catherine noticed him looking at his shaking hands and smirked at him confidently. "Having some trouble getting your body to listen to you?" Before she had even finished her sentence she had conjured up two more fireballs and lobbed them at the prone ninja.

Naruto saw them coming a mile away, they were so obvious and slow. However once he moved to dodge them his legs betrayed him and seized up, rooting him in the fireball's path. One hit him directly in the chest while another burned his arm, causing him to gasp out and fall to his knees as she laughed at him in such an irritating way that he really wished he could just shut her up.

She smiled down at him after laughing, trying to sound apologetic and failing miserably. "Sorry, but we can't let someone like you wander freely. You're far too valuable. All of our prisoners down here are injected with multiple drugs very often, not just those to put you to sleep. In addition to the sleeping drugs making you drowsy and sluggish, there are others that are inhibiting your mana levels and your motor skills. You're like a sitting duck."

While Naruto didn't know what the hell 'Mana' was, he could bet that it had something to do with his chakra, since that would clear up everything that was wrong with him. He felt sluggish and slow as all hell, his body was acting weird and he had barely any energy to speak of. _Cheating bastards._

As she watched him painfully pull himself up to his feet again she grinned. "Well? Ready to be shackled to the wall again little boy? Though it seems like we'll need some stronger restraints for you next time." She smiled as yet more people crowded into the tiny room.

Naruto's eyes darted back and forth among all the people as he tried to take a few steps backwards. This was a bad situation. This was probably the best chance to escape he was ever going to get; they wouldn't be so careless with security or the drugs a second time. He wasn't sure how to get out of here though with how crappy his body was acting and the amount of people in the building.

Suddenly his heartbeat started to quicken and his mouth began to feel dry again. Was that because of the drugs too? He had no idea, but apparently he had been slowly backpedaling the entire time he was thinking because he heard a dull 'clink' sound as he bumped into something directly behind him. Naruto glanced backwards to eye the test tube he had been looking at earlier, with the little red crystal still sitting there innocently watching him.

He turned back to all of the people watching him with both fireballs and spears ready to put him down. He sighed and shrugged. "Nothing left to lose now right?" He grinned at them and quickly spun around before smashing his hand through the glass of the test tube and grabbing the little crystal, pulling it out of its tiny home and ripping out the metal claws that attempted to protect the gem.

The woman gasped and glared at him with fury in her eyes, and more than a little fear. "S-stop that! Do you have any idea of what that is or the significance of what you're doing?"

Naruto smiled a gigantic shit-eating fox grin at her. "Nope!" He chirped happily.

And then his world exploded into white-hot fire.

Naruto gasped in pain and immediately dropped to his knees with everyone around him taking a step back in surprise. His senses were reporting nothing but unbelievable _pain_, his vision had already failed him; showing nothing but black even though he was sure his eyes were still open, and he couldn't hear anything but his own incessant heartbeat, racing like it was trying to win a goddamn marathon. It was just beating and beating in his ears and part of him just wished that it would _shut the fuck up._

He started to scream but then quickly bit it back as soon as it had begun. Like hell he was giving these pricks that satisfaction, though he had no clue what the fuck was going on. His left hand moved by instinct alone to grasp his wrist, because even though the pain had spread widely, it was still most intense in his right hand.

On the outside Catherine was losing her fury and it was being replaced by more and more unbridled fear. When his mana had begun to skyrocket and saturate the air in the room she had become terrified and ordered the soldiers to kill him and take the crystal back despite her own orders to keep him alive. The result of her command being multiple dead guards, or others that were still alive but probably wouldn't be for much longer due to them currently burning alive by what seemed to be nothing but pure mana.

There was something like a... a shield of some sort surrounding him as he knelt in the middle of the floor, she didn't know what the hell it was. It was just burning everything that touched it without discrimination; a few of the smarter soldiers had tried to merely stab through it after seeing their colleagues burn, but it was for naught as their weapons simply vaporized once they passed through the red mist surrounding the blond.

The scientist finally took notice of his eyes, which were darting all over the room, unable to focus on anything in particular. She couldn't remember what his original eye color was, but she was pretty sure she'd remember them being blood red and slitted.

The blond suddenly started screaming as the oppressive pressure in the room increased dramatically, forcing most of the people in the room to their knees. The screaming increased again and he bent over as a giant _tail, _a bloody tail of all things burst out from his lower back and started flailing around wildly like a fish out of water.

She couldn't even tell if it was furry or what color the thing was supposed to be; it was covered in far too much blood from where it burst out of the blond. The man's screaming was dieing down now, to be replaced by his rapid panting, but he was still grasping his right wrist like it was a lifeline and his blood red eyes continued to jump aimlessly around the room.

One guard decided to speak the words that everyone in the room was thinking but nobody had the courage to voice. "What the fu-" The words died in his throat as the tail immediately lunged forward the moment he spoke the first word and rammed itself straight through his chest. He tried to say more but it only came out as a helpless gurgle as he starting choking on his own blood.

The tail just continued to twitch absently as if it didn't just murder someone, and it was now holding the man off the floor as his legs had already failed him.

The blond man's demonic eyes suddenly locked onto hers, regaining their focus momentarily. She held her breath, in a desperate bid that the demon would lose interest in her and allow her to live. As his eyes narrowed and she noticed his muscles bunch in preparation to leap she knew that such a wish was foolhardy.

She could at least warn the others. "Everyone run!" She yelled out as she suddenly felt blinding pain in her upper left chest, and felt blood splatter upwards onto her face. She looked down in horror to see a bloody arm sticking through her, unmoving.

A part of her registered that he had stabbed his arm straight through her heart but she couldn't feel any pain. Was she too far gone already to feel such a thing? He grinned sadistically through the blood haze and pulled the limb free again with a wet, disgusting squelching sound. She was dead before she even hit the floor.

* * *

><p>Sheena looked around the village frantically. She had only just woken up from a nap, what had happened to put the town into such an uproar in such a short time? Luckily, she had spotted the Chief quite quickly even among all of the commotion.<p>

"Tiga-sama! What is going on?" She shouted out and she pushed herself through the crowd of ninja running all over the place; placing fortifications and gathering weapons, it looked like.

The Chief turned and nodded to acknowledge that he heard her and she fell into step beside him. He shouted out a few more orders to others as they walked and she started wondering if he was going to answer her question.

"Sybak has been attacked." He blurted out suddenly, ignoring her response of 'What?' in favor of just continuing his explanation. He pointed off in the distance, over the mountainous cliffs where she could make out several columns of smoke plumes rising into the sky. "We don't know what did it, but whatever it is it's powerful. We can feel the immense pressure of mana as it moves about; it's like a gigantic beacon." He frowned and clenched his fists. "It's on the way here."

"S-seriously?" She replied, somewhat scared at the possibility. Indeed, she could feel an incredibly large mass of mana moving through the Gaoracchia forest, towards Mizuho.

Tiga nodded solemnly. "We aren't sure yet if it will attack Mizuho as well or if it will simply run past us; but we must be prepared. If necessary we will attempt to fight it off."

Sheena gulped nervously but steeled herself and nodded seriously before running off to make her own preparations. Tiga watched her go with a melancholy look and glanced up at the sky. "Will Mizuho be destroyed today like Sybak was?..."

* * *

><p>A few hours later and everyone was tense with fear. Ninjas were positioned all around the village, ready to call out at the first sign of the monster, as if such a thing was necessary. It was still giving off a ridiculous amount of mana, like a giant lighthouse; so it was easy to tell where it was at all times. And it was basically right at their front door.<p>

The monster had raced past Mizuho almost an hour earlier, letting everyone breathe a sigh of relief, but then it had stopped not even half a mile away. Now it was just staying in the same spot, unmoving, but still far too close to the village for comfort.

Everyone was getting antsy. Jumping at random sounds and anxiously sharpening their weapons. It was really nerve wracking. Sheena herself was nibbling nervously on the cone part of an ice cream cone, just that it had nothing in it. She kept jumping at noises and ghosts that weren't there and spilling the treat, so she had just decided to nibble on the harder part to calm her nerves.

Tiga suddenly stood and raised a hand, commanding the attention of the ninja. They all looked at him seriously and dropped to one knee, awaiting their orders.

The Chief looked down at the gathered ninja and spoke seriously. "I know that you all are unnerved and possibly frightened by the amount of mana the monster just outside our village has, but we can not risk the chance any longer of it attacking us. We must strike preemptively and drive the creature away from our village, so that our homes and families may be safe."

The ninja bulked up slightly at his words and nodded back. "Yes, Tiga-sama!" Before they leaped away to start preparing for a direct assault. Sheena herself stayed by Tiga's side, as she was already carrying all her weapons in the first place.

"Do you think we can succeed, Tiga-sama?" She asked nervously, not knowing if they would come back alive from this endeavor. The Chief sighed, unsure of quite how to answer her.

"I will be honest Sheena, I do not know. Our foe's power is immense, but we are dedicated and strong in our own right. I have high hopes that we can at the least, pin down this enemy and drive it off, even if we are unable to kill it." He continued to look in the direction the beacon of mana was coming from, not even glancing at the female ninja.

"I must admit however Sheena, that I have a bad feeling about this. The area the creature stopped in... it is exactly the same place we found Naruto not even a week ago." He grimaced and took a sip of the sake (rice-based alcohol) at his side. "I feel we may yet regret our decision to send the young boy off to protect ourselves."

"Y-you think that may be Naruto?" She sputtered in shock.

"I'm saying the possibility is there, but further worrying will not help us defend our home." He remarked and turned to glance at her. "You should steel yourself Sheena. You may have to be the one to put the creature down. We'll leave at sunset."

Sheena nodded seriously. She knew that already. Seals were especially useful against the more powerful demons and monsters, and she was the most proficient in their use in the whole village.

She was Sheena Fujibayashi. She could not fail.

* * *

><p>Her earlier confidence was quickly diminishing as her and a group of about twenty of the most skilled ninja in the village got closer and closer to Naruto's 'impact site', where the creature was hanging around. The oppressive pressure of its mana was enough to cause her to start panting from the exertion of pushing the fear down. She kept telling herself to keep moving forward while every bone in her body was screaming at her to run the other way. It was really interfering with her speed and ability to think.<p>

Sheena looked around at the other ninja in the group and was glad that she at least wasn't the only one freaking out. Quite a few of the other ninja were worse off than she was, their clothing already becoming damp with sweat and their eyes darting one way and the other, as if something was going to jump out of the trees and swallow them whole. She chuckled to herself humorlessly. Such an idea probably wasn't too far off from the truth.

Finally, they arrived at the clearing Naruto's little pyromaniac show had created almost a week before. It was just an area in the middle of the forest where about a dozen trees had been burned completely to ash, leaving a scorched black area that the demon was currently prowling around, stopping at intervals to look up at where her and her team were situated; hidden in the treetops.

Orochi turned and made a simple hand sign. About half of the ninja nodded and split off, let by Kuchinawa to surround most of the area. They'd surround it for the tactical advantage, but leave a large opening in the opposite direction from the village so that if the creature decided to flee instead of fight it would be herded away from their home.

Sheena paused to look at the demon. It was difficult to pick out at this distance but it was mostly red and black, and humanoid-shaped, except for the long red tail twitching and swirling around behind it.

She steeled herself as Orochi gave the sign to move forward, and simultaneously ninja jumped out of the trees all around the demon. Sheena herself was just behind Orochi; he was the most skilled of their group in close combat, while Sheena, as a seal user, was capable of dealing the most damage but generally needed someone else to create openings for her. If things worked out, Orochi and the other close combat shinobi would try to outright kill it, and if they couldn't manage that they'd knock it off balance enough that Sheena could do some damage.

As soon as they landed the demon stopped prowling and looked directly at her. She took a sharp intake of breath as she looked ahead sadly. _It really is Naruto..._

He looked a lot different from the last time she saw him. His spiky hair had gotten longer, hanging in front of his eyes and seemed to be tinted red at their roots, changing back to their previous bright blond as you looked closer to the tips. The whisker marks that adorned his cheeks that she thought were tattoos were now wild, dark and feral, stretching across most of his face, whereas before she wouldn't have minded saying they looked kind of cute.

His eyes were a blood red; and slitted like a fox. His clothes were nothing more than orange rags, shredded from fighting. From this closer distance she could see that his tail was orange as well. He looked red and black from a distance because of the blood. He was covered with the stuff, enough that you start to question if he wasn't always that color. The red was blood that seemed freshly spilt; the black was long since dry.

She pushed down the bile that was threatening to rise up her throat. She hadn't seen so much blood before in her life. The only time that may have come close was Volt's attack on her people because of her; but Volt mostly just electrocuted people to death, there was usually little blood.

Orochi stepped forward and a distant part of her mind realized he had been speaking while she was lost in memories. Something about asking Naruto to leave in peace; but the blond's eyes didn't waver, nor did he make a single motion to register that he had heard Orochi speak at all.

The shinobi garbed in blue grimaced and motioned to the other ninja. "We have no choice. Take him down." Orochi said as he drew his two wakizashi. The rest of the ninja steeled their features and also drew their weapons.

Sheena followed suit and pulled out what appeared to be a thick deck of cards. She pulled out five 'cards' and placed the rest back into her clothes, spreading the five she had pulled out in her hand; revealing them each to be inscribed with seals.

Orochi was the first to charge forward, with many of the other ninja following in his wake. As soon as the charge had begun, Naruto had finally decided to move and stopped staring at her, which she was thankful for. It was getting really creepy and intimidating.

Reaching his target, Orochi made an experimental swipe with his sword, eyes widening when he saw Naruto's immense speed at dodging. He quickly reversed his grip on the sword and brought it down again, slashing down Naruto's arm. The blond weaved to the side of the blade to avoid losing his arm and used the close distance to slash Orochi's side with his claws, causing a nasty gash that would have been much worse had the ninja's reflexes not been so quick as to begin a dodge before the claws reached him. Orochi quickly began backpedaling away from the demon to try and create some distance and regain his footing, while other ninja began to throw kunai and shuriken to slow down the blond.

Kuchinawa moved to assist his brother, stabbing forward with his ninja-to as Naruto rushed past him. The blond did not even pretend to notice Kuchinawa; he simply kept running forward toward his target, letting the blade carve a deep trench into his side that the demon simply ignored in his race towards Orochi. A few kunai also managed to find their marks in Naruto's back due to him ignoring them and refusing to dodge away from his target.

Sheena rushed towards Orochi to assist as well as she watched Naruto run at her best friend with incredible speed. _He's like a berserker. He's just gonna ignore us and keep charging until Orochi is dead._

Naruto finally caught up to the blue-clad shinobi and moved to tear into him with his claws again, roaring out a challenge. Sheena stepped around Orochi to defend him from Naruto, and as soon as he came within range she spun gracefully and hit him in the side of the head with a devastating roundhouse kick. The blond's head snapped to the side but he stood firmly rooted in his position, refusing to give up ground. Sheena continued spinning with the momentum from her kick, and pulled a seal slip into her palm.

"Pyre Seal!" On the next rotation of her spin she landed an open-palm strike to the side of Naruto's head, hearing a satisfying crunch as the force of a boulder hit him in the skull from the earth-style seal. The demon stumbled and fell to the ground, but quickly regained his bearings and dashed at the duo again. Sheena jerked back; shocked at how fast he had recovered from such a harsh blow and scrambled for a new seal.

"Guardian Seal!" She pulled out a new seal which erected a green barrier in front of her and Orochi, protecting them both. Naruto seemed unconcerned with this development, continuing his dash forward and punching the green wall, causing a deep impression in it and causing deep cracks to spiderweb throughout the structure.

"You've got to be kidding!" She yelled incredulously. "His strength is monstrous!" She attempted to reinforce the barrier as Orochi retreated back towards the trees. He would probably bandage his wound to stop the blood loss before returning.

Kuchinawa had finally caught up to Naruto again and stabbed him through the back before he could punch the barrier again and shatter it to get to Sheena. Naruto growled but made no other motion that he really cared much that he was just stabbed, but the distraction worked anyway as he kicked out behind him, hitting Kuchinawa in the chest and causing him to skid back along the ground while at the same time dislodging the short sword. He raised his eyes to see the wound he had just created start to fizzle and burn as it already began to close up. "He's regenerating!" He yelled out to his fellow shinobi, spreading the information out among the group.

As the blond demon turned to further attack the red-clad brother Sheena prepared to hit him with another seal as soon as she got the chance. Her idea was crushed however as the moment he turned around his tail seemed to act with a mind of its own and lunged towards her, attempting to impale her.

It cut straight through the already damaged barrier as if it was simple glass and almost succeeded in skewering her but the kunoichi dropped low to the ground to dodge the strike. She had no time to rest however as it merely stabbed downwards to try and impale her once again. Sheena used her hands and feet to throw herself to the size in a haphazard dodge, simply trying to get away before getting ripped apart by his tail.

She succeeded, getting out successfully as the tail dug deep into the ground from its attempt to kill her. Naruto appeared to ignore the failed attack and continued his dash towards the younger shinobi brother.

The blond threw out a quick kick to the man's side that was quickly dodged before throwing a punch immediately afterwards that Kuchinawa moved to catch to start a grapple.

He was successful in grabbing Naruto's punch, but he cried out in pain as he felt his hand shatter from the impact and tried to stumble backwards get away from the berserker. The demon grinned in bloodlust and moved to close the distance once more as chains appeared at his sides and wrapped around his arms tightly, binding him in place.

The two ninjas that had captured him grinned and pulled the chains tight, trying to keep him locked in place while at the same time attempting to crush his arms from the way the chains were wrapped. Naruto roared in fury at the interruption, freezing the two ninja in place from sheer killing intent alone. Naruto took advantage of the now slackened chains and grabbed one, yanking its respective ninja towards him.

The demon grinned at the human flying through the air towards him and shoved his arm forward, easily impaling the man through the chest before letting him harmlessly drop to the ground, dead.

"Gero!" The ninja with the other chain shouted, his rage at seeing his friend perish letting him easily break through the intimidation caused by the blond's killing intent. "You bastard!" He yelled and pulled the chain harder, still trying to control the demon even with his partner dead.

Naruto growled and was about to kill him too before Kuchinawa regained some control and made a quick slash with his ninja-to; luckily his broken hand wasn't his dominant one, so he could still use his sword. The demonic shinobi was still quite easily dodging the strikes, but he was definitely slower than normal because of the chain still pulling and restraining him. Some of the long-range shinobi and kunoichi took this new-found difficulty in movement as a free target and began throwing projectiles at him with renewed vigor, showering his back with dozens of pointy metal objects.

Naruto was slowly growing more and more furious. He just wanted these little rats to _die_, but the one in front of him kept dancing around and the other pulling on his arm was determined to not go out like his friend had and was holding his ground admirably. No matter how hard he yanked the damn metal chain the man refused to budge more than a foot in any direction.

Sheena had finally managed to dash her way back to the fight and planted a new tag onto his back. "Pyro Seal!" The tiny paper suddenly burst into flames in a controlled explosion, ripping open his back and causing him to roar out in pain. As his tail jabbed out to skewer her Sheena skipped backwards and grabbed the chain that was unwillingly abandoned earlier by its shinobi and she pulled hard to restrain his other arm.

The demon growled and pulled hard on the chain and Sheena had to put all her strength into it just to stop from being yanked around the clearing like a rag doll. He was like a freaking bull; his raw physical strength was monstrous. Orochi came up behind her with his wounds properly bandaged and moved to make her let go of the chain. She did so gladly and was thankful when another ninja moved forward to take her place. Thank Kami too; she definitely wasn't the most physically strong ninja in the group and wasn't up to something so demanding as to try and hold this berserker still.

Orochi moved to Naruto's blind spot and stabbed a sword into the blond's side. Pulling it out viciously to encourage blood loss he swung the other wakizashi in a wide arc towards the demon's neck. Not quite pleased with the idea of getting decapitated, the blond shinobi grabbed the sword and quickly flicked his wrist to the side, snapping the blade in half before it could cut its way through his hand.

Orochi's eyes widened at the display of skill and speed, but he quickly regained himself and danced to the front of the demon, slashing quickly along the blond's front and carving another deep trench along his stomach. He smirked victoriously, but it was short lived as he gasped out when he suddenly found his airway restricted. Naruto grinned sadistically as he tightened his grip of his throat and lifted him in the air, completely at his mercy.

"Orochi! Let him go you demon!" Kuchinawa yelled with fear in his voice. He moved to stab forward with his ninja-to but a swift kick to the chest knocked him away a long distance and against a tree, hearing a sharp cracking sound at the impact. Before his foot could return to its normal position however another chain hook shot out and wrapped tightly around his outstretched leg. Naruto growled and slammed his foot into the earth, planting it firmly before the ninja holding the chain could pull his feet out from under him.

Orochi suddenly began screaming and trashing in Naruto's grip like a madman, it was like he was being slowly murdered. From what Sheena could see though the blond wasn't even doing much of anything to him; he was just holding Orochi aloft and staring at him with a sick grin on his face.

She didn't know what the hell was going on but she knew that it was probably bad. She glanced at the seal in her palm and nodded to herself. He was probably restrained enough now. She'd just have to dodge his tail. The seal mistress steeled her features and dashed toward the demon that was surely killing her best friend.

Orochi was still screaming like the living dead and Naruto was only barely paying attention to her at all. He was still wearing that sick grin on his face and his eyes had only just now shifted from Orochi to regard her. Though from the look on his face she could tell that he didn't consider her much of a threat. She smirked to herself despite the situation. _Let's see if he can smile after this._

Time seemed to slow down as she moved to attack him with another open-palm strike. Just like she anticipated, his tail came around from behind him to try and kill her; the only part of his body he could risk trying to move now. She danced around it gracefully; it wasn't hard when she knew it was coming. As she finished her spin her smirk grew into a victorious grin as what appeared to be white lightning arced off of the paper tag in her palm.

"Demon Seal!" She yelled and pushed her palm, along with the tag into Naruto's forehead. The demonic ninja suddenly started screaming as well, mimicking the man he still refused to let go. White lightning suddenly began arcing off the tag, randomly striking and searing the parts of Naruto that were unlucky enough to be hit. Every now and then a particularly powerful bolt would strike a part of Naruto and then move across his skin as it burned him, as if it was trying to burn words into his body. Sheena kept her hand on top of it, pressing it forcefully against the blond's head. She grunted as she pushed more and more of her mana into the seal. This is one of the few tags that she couldn't just fire and forget; she had to keep a hold of it, and she knew that Naruto wasn't going to just sit and take this punishment.

She was correct in her assumption as his tail lashed out in another attempt to impale her, this time through her head. She moved her head to the side to stop the furry appendage from stabbing her and let it move past her skull with a smirk. His tail was really fast, but when there was only one option open to him, it was really difficult for him to catch a ninja off guard.

Sheena felt her confidence leave her in a rush along with her oxygen as the tail roughly grabbed her by the neck and lift her off the ground. _F-fuck... I didn't think he could control it w-well enough to do that. _She tried to gasp feebly for air but was failing miserably, his tail had a damn good grip on her. She grimaced and ignored her brain's signals for her to breathe and pushed more mana through the Demon Seal. As the white lightning grew and lashed out viciously against the man holding her, and his screaming intensified, a small part of her mind was wondering what everyone else was doing.

Ah, right. Kuchinawa probably had a broken back over by that tree and everyone else was either pelting Naruto's back with pointy objects or pulling on the chains to hold him down.

Shit, her mind was wandering. She was losing consciousness. Focus focus focus. The kunoichi managed to bring herself back to the realm of the living for a little longer and smiled a little when a particularly harsh lightning bolt roasted the demon's arm that was holding Orochi. He still refused to let go however.

Sheena shifted her eyes to look at him. He wasn't looking so great. He had stopped screaming a little while ago and now was just hanging prone from Naruto's hand around his throat. His clothes had actually crumpled and started to fall off. When that had happened or why, she didn't know. Underneath she could see that his skin was actually getting really wrinkled. A part of her mind told her that he shouldn't be that wrinkly, he's only twenty-two, but she couldn't gather up much thinking ability while she was choking to death and subsequently frying a fox demon.

As consciousness was about to leave her, she glanced up and took notice of Orochi's eyes. Normally a bright green; sometimes cool and calculating, but often warm and inviting.

Now they were neither. His eyes were completely black; just simple voids. His eyes were dead.

Tears formed on the edges of her vision and she glared at Naruto. She didn't know what had happened, but she did know what the cause of it was; and she was still in a good enough position to take care of it. She grimaced through the tears and made a hand-seal with her free hand; if this worked she was probably dead, if it didn't she was definitely dead. Not too much of a gamble in her eyes, which was good because she had shit for luck.

The white lightning had steadily died down while she was slowly losing consciousness and Naruto was worse for wear; burned completely over his body. But his eyes were still open and staring at her with fury. He was still awake.

_Not for much longer. _She mused, clutching his forehead with the hand that had not moved in the last few minutes with the last bit of strength still left in her suffocating body. Sheena grinned tiredly at him and completed her technique with a second hand seal. "Mana C-Cascade."

Her seal immediately betrayed her, as she intended. Instead of waiting patiently for her to push mana into it to keep it activated it started forcefully stealing mana from her to power itself, starting the white lightning over again anew. She let her hand drop pitifully as the last vestiges of energy left her body as Naruto screamed in pain and dropped her. She looked over at Orochi sadly as she fell towards the ground. Naruto had also let go of her best friend in his extreme pain, but unlike herself, the man had literally turned to dust upon impacting the ground.

She began to fade blissfully into unconsciousness, confident of their victory. The seal would keep relentlessly frying him using his own mana as a battery until he either dropped unconscious or dead, whichever ended up coming first.

_We win._

* * *

><p>Hope you guys enjoy that, been years since I wrote a battle scene. Tell me what you think of it.<em><br>_


	3. Trust

_She lay on the ground, beaten and bloody. The Demon looked down on her with crimson eyes of blood as he grinned. She would always end up like this; forced to fight back as he beat her to the ground with little effort. But he would never take that next step, never kill her. Instead, the moment she became unable to move, and completely helpless, a man would materialize next to the Demon. He would look down on her with disappointment before the Demon grabbed him by the neck._

_He would always scream at the beginning, but not for long. Eventually he began to fade away, starting from his feet. He'd simply turn to dust, and the wind would carry him away. Sometimes she'd refuse to look, but if she turned her head the two would always be in front of her no matter where she gazed. Sometimes she closed her eyes to avoid looking altogether, but then the screaming never stopped. In a way that was worse than having to watch, so she never tried to keep her eyes closed for long._

_The two's expressions never changed. The Demon always had on a look of pride and sadistic glee, taking great joy in her pain and the other man's. The man, even during the screams kept looking down at her with nothing but disappointment; and when he finally turned to dust, she would begin to hear whispers until it all started over again for the hundredth time._

_Why didn't you help me..._

_Why didn't you try to save me..._

_The voice grew angry. It turned away from its ghostly whispers and into a hateful snarl._

_Why are you so USELESS?_

* * *

><p>"OROCHI!" Sheena sat up in a panic, hands grasping her sheets, damp with her sweat as she panted in fear. She turned her panicked gaze around the room, noticing the familiar surroundings and inhaling slowly before releasing a drawn-out and shaky breath.<p>

"J-just a dream..." She choked out as she moved her hands to rub her eyes, disgusted to find both fresh and dry tears. _More like a nightmare._ Pushing off the sheets and rising from her futon she padded over towards the bathroom and hurriedly splashed some cool water onto her face, succeeding in waking herself up properly.

_Kami, I'm a mess._ Her hair was out of its short ponytail and was falling limply around her face. Bags were beginning to form under her eyes, acknowledging her recent trouble sleeping. Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, and her face was pale and damp with sweat, along with the rest of her naked body.

She mused if she should stop sleeping in the nude, then shrugged it off. Nobody would drop in anyway, and it was comfortable.

Sheena sighed to herself as she brushed her teeth. She really needed to go to the prison today. As much as she didn't want to see him, some closure would do her some good. It had already been two days. It wouldn't be much longer now before knights arrived to take him off their hands. It certainly took them long enough. Lazy bastards, the whole lot of them.

She sniffed the air a moment and grimaced. First she needed a bath though. Kami, she smelled terrible. Waking up covered in sweat the past two mornings sure as hell wasn't helping her hygiene any.

* * *

><p>Sheena walked silently down the dark corridor, shivering slightly at the cold air and wrapping her arms around herself. They really needed some heating down here or something.<p>

As she turned the last corner towards Naruto's cell she frowned. She hadn't even thought about what she was going to say or ask; as soon as she decided that she wanted to talk to him before he was dragged away her feet had just carried her here of their own accord.

She licked her lips nervously as she stepped in front of his cell. Placing a hand on one of the bars and looking inside she noticed he didn't look all that great either. His head was down, and his hair was hanging limply, a few dashes of crimson staining the blond mess; but whether his hair was just like that naturally now or if it was just blood mixed with the blond locks she couldn't really tell. She quirked an eyebrow at its length. Was his hair that long before? She didn't think so, but then again she didn't pay much attention to it.

It was maybe a bit longer than hers; the spiky blond hair reaching down the back of his head to a bit past his shoulders. She rolled her eyes; figures a guy would have better hair than her. She reached into her clothes and pulled out the key that she had received from the guards at the entrance and unlocked the cell door.

Naruto seemed to stir at this as she walked into his cell. He chuckled lightly and sighed. "Back again so soon? Hasn't been all that long since you beat me last; you must be restless today." He lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes shining with recognition before he smirked. "Oh, it's you. I was hoping you'd show up."

She flinched slightly at his somewhat mangled state; there was a lot of dried blood and bruises. He seemed to notice her unease and made an amused smile. "It's not as bad as it looks. I haven't gotten to have a bath since the fight. The beatings from that one ninja are a bit painful and annoying, but advanced regeneration and toughened demon skin is pretty damn awesome."

Sheena nodded; it was understandable that everyone was wary of him. And she had an idea of who that 'one ninja' was he was referring to. "So, why are you suddenly being so chatty? You didn't seem like one for words during our little confrontation in the woods."

He flinched. "H-heh... yeah. I was unfortunately a bit of a berserker back there. Practically being a spectator in your own body isn't a very pleasant experience."

She narrowed her eyes at his explanation, not fully believing it. Naruto wasn't too surprised that she didn't though; he did kill a few of their ninja and rampage through a town before that. If she believed him unconditionally she'd probably be a pretty crappy ninja.

She noticed him zoning out for a moment and decided it was as good a place as any to start. "So, what's on your mind?"

He smiled nervously. He didn't necessarily want to come out and say that he was arguing in his head whether or not she was a crappy ninja. "Oh, you know. Just deciding on when I'm gonna break out of here." He replied with a cocky smirk.

She quirked an eyebrow at his declaration and smirked back at him. "Oh, is that so? And how were you planning on breaking out of your restraints and getting past me? I was the one who eventually knocked you out last time."

She glanced at his new bindings. Everyone had really gone all out to make sure he stayed restrained this time. Three steel cuffs on each limb, including three recently installed ones especially made for him to try and keep his tail out of order. To finish everything off there were heavy chains crisscrossing around the room, each one bound to a limb and bolted to the walls of the cell. It was all pretty heavy duty stuff.

He didn't seem especially concerned and just rolled his eyes. "Despite what everyone seems to think, going berserk tends to make you weaker, not stronger." Naruto smiled cheekily at her. "When you all beat me I was running into every attack you made, and I didn't use a single technique of my own besides some sloppy and instinct driven hand-to-hand combat. So I'm pretty confident I could get out of here whenever I want."

Her eyes widened a margin before she narrowed them suspiciously at their 'captive.' He had brought up a good point; they had beaten a berserker. Not a tactician, or a soldier, or even a person with the mental capacity to think up a basic strategy such as 'dodge pointy objects, proceed to punch repeatedly until victory.' He was pretty much an animal during the fight, only one not possessing enough thought for even self-preservation. So that raised the question...

"Well, if you're sure you can escape so easily, why are you still here?" She asked curiously.

His grin widened, threatening to split his face horizontally. "I was waiting for you to visit of course!"

Her face lost its suspicious look as she stared at him flatly, before she dropped her head and sighed. Great, _another_ flirt. That's what she needed. As if Zelos wasn't bad enough.

Naruto's giant fox-grin steadily morphed into a sad smile as he looked away from her. "It may not sound like it, but I'm being serious. I really wanted to say sorry... and thank you."

Sheena raised her head and looked at him with an unreadable expression. Then she straightened up and crossed her arms before looking at him seriously. "I guess I can understand wanting to apologize, though you don't really have a reason to say sorry specifically to me do you? And I don't think I've done anything requiring you to thank me either besides frying your brain with a seal that has a tendency to go out of control." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "So why did you say you were waiting specifically for just me before going about your 'escape?'"

Naruto's lips threatened to tug upwards into a bigger smile as she talked. _Not as ditzy as she seemed last time. _"Well, you're right about the first thing. You're just one of the people who probably deserved the apology more than others." He laughed lightly, a little embarrassed. "I've actually apologized to everyone who has come into this cell over the past two days. Didn't necessarily make them like me more, but it seemed like something I should do, you know?"

Her gaze hardened. "Yeah, people generally don't forgive people who murder their friends simply because they say 'sorry' afterwards."

He flinched and his eyes looked sad for a moment before he made another sad smile. "Guess I deserved that."

"Damn straight you did. And the thank you? What's that for?" She questioned, curious but keeping her eyes serious.

"Well, one reason is for 'frying my brain' as you so delicately put it." He smirked in a joking fashion. At Sheena's incredulous look he continued. "Being nothing more than a passenger while your own body runs around killing and destroying isn't really pleasant. I may not have been able to control myself, but I was still fully aware of what was going on and what I was doing." Naruto's fists clenched and he grimaced. "My body was just moving of its own accord. So, thanks for helping me get control of myself again."

The kunoichi sighed as she closed her eyes and pushed two fingers to her temple. After a few moments of consideration she opened one of her eyes and fixed its hazel gaze onto his own cerulean eyes. "Lets just say I believe you and move on from here. Second reason?"

He halted for a moment, as if searching for the proper words for what he was trying to say. Eventually he just sighed and shook his head before smiling softly. "I wanted to say thank you for, in a way, saving your friend from me."

"My friend?" She questioned. It wasn't difficult. She had only one after all. Her eyes quickly narrowed. "You mean Orochi?"

He nodded. "I'd assume that's his name, based on what that red clothed ninja keeps muttering or shouting whenever he comes in here."

Her fists clenched and she started grinding her teeth as she glared hatefully at the cheery blond. "Saved him? How the hell did I 'save' him? You murdered him in cold blood; practically sucked the life right out of him right in front of my fucking eyes! Turned him into dust!" Her face morphed into something reminiscent of a snarl. "And you did it with a fucking smile on your face."

The blond shinobi flinched and quickly averted his gaze. Damn, he knew this wouldn't be easy but she has quite a temper. He may not have been able to control his actions but that didn't change what she saw. It was still his body that did it. That killed Orochi. Naruto steeled himself and moved his gaze back to hers.

"I meant what I said. Thank you." Seeing that she wasn't calming down in the slightest and was probably about to maul him, he quickly continued on. "Your explanation for what I was doing to him was eerily accurate. I was..." He grimaced for a moment. "Sucking the life out of him, for lack of a better way to put it. Draining his lifeforce."

Her eyes widened. "H-his mana?"

Naruto's eyebrow rose. "If that's what you call it here. Personally everyone has been doing nothing but spouting that word constantly since I've arrived here. If its just another word for a person's lifeforce at least that makes things easy on me. Its a change from people talking about nothing but chakra at least."

"I have no idea what 'chakra' is either, just like how you apparently don't know what mana is." She explained, beginning to at least calm down enough to not rip his throat out.

He gaped shamelessly before managing to get control of himself. "Geez, if what you're saying ends up being true this world really is different huh?"

She sighed and resisted the urge to rub her temple again. "Explain what this chakra thing is then and how it relates to mana. It might help me understand the whole thing about you..." She grimaced for a moment. "...draining my friend." She settled for just using draining instead of 'killing' or 'murdering'.

"Well... I'm not really good with this sort of thing, but I guess I could try. I remember a lesson on this." He frowned, trying to recall a distant memory. "My teacher used to say that all life began with your lifeforce, or I guess for you people, it would be 'mana'. Just another word for the same thing." He squinted his eyes and moved to cross his arms into his normal 'thinking' position but was obviously unable to, given his restraints. Instead he ended up just shrugging.

"So Life begins with Mana. Simple enough. Mana is then separated into the physical and mental energy your body needs to sustain itself. My home just called them what they were, physical and mental energy. There was never much need to go further than that." He paused for a moment, thinking hard. Then he smiled widely and snapped his fingers in a 'eureka!' moment. "Physical energy is sometimes called Ki. Mental energy is called Reiryoku. Ninja train their 'chakra coils' from a young age to properly expand them, because of how small and underdeveloped they are by nature, and use them to mix the Ki and Reiryoku back together again; which makes Chakra, instead of Mana."

He grinned cheekily, obviously quite proud of himself. "That lesson was quite a few years ago. You're lucky I'm such a great student." He bragged.

The kunoichi frowned and decided to swerve the conversation back to the topic she was uncomfortable with, but still wanting a definite answer to. "So how does that tie into Orochi?"

He flinched. This was the real kicker. "So... I was basically absorbing his lifeforce. Or 'eating' his mana... and his soul."

She snarled viciously. "His SOUL?" She lunged forward and wrapped a hand around his neck, pushing his head roughly back against the cell wall and squeezing. Naruto was mostly unfazed however; his vision blurred a little from hitting the wall but he simply continued staring her in the eyes. "You were planning on devouring his SOUL?"

His eyes drooped sadly. "Yes." Whether he was in control or not was, in the end, a moot point. It was still his body, and therefore his responsibility what he ended up doing in his berserk state. "Yes, I was."

Sheena growled and squeezed his neck harder. He grimaced in slight pain. He was starting to feel it now, demon-enhanced body or not she had some decent strength to her. Her nails were a bit sharp too.

"Give me one good reason not to just kill you right now. I mean... devouring souls? My best friend's soul? That's monstrous!" She glared at him harshly.

Naruto winced. She was squeezing pretty tight now, and the monster comment was kind of a low blow for him, not that he hadn't been called that thousands of times before. It was a pretty common thing to be shouted at him when he was younger and couldn't defend himself.

"It's not that I was specifically going after souls or anything... my body was just working on auto-pilot, just being an animal that was hungry. Which apparently feeds on mana." He grimaced. She was still pretty pissed. Those little hands of hers really shouldn't be capable of this kind of pressure. "The soul is pretty much your entire life. So if mana and lifeforce is the same thing, its obvious that if I was hunting for mana that I would aim for the soul. My body just... decided it needed food. There wasn't any malice in the attack, and I wasn't out to spite you or that red clothed ninja. My body was just 'hungry' and decided it needed food."

"B-but... but it was his soul! Don't you even care?" Tears were beginning to form on the edge of her eyes now, and the guilt made him flinch. The steadily decreasing lack of oxygen wasn't helping much either, but he wasn't too worried, he could last a while longer; though the possibility of his windpipe being crushed if he pissed her off too much more was quite a possibility. Damn women and their Tsunade-like physical strength.

"Obviously I care, who would willingly want to turn into some kind of monster?" He glared and Sheena flinched back slightly but didn't relinquish her grip. "Besides, this all links back to the reason I haven't left quite yet, even though I'm fully capable of doing so."

"H-huh?" She stuttered out, slightly shocked. She seemed to have forgotten what the whole conversation had started with.

"I wanted to talk to you, to say thank you." He said softly. "I didn't end up absorbing his soul. I certainly tried to; my feral form wanted it badly. But you stopped me. So thank you."

"Stopped you?" She questioned incredulously. "He turned to dust! How did I stop you? He's dead!"

"Yes, he is." Naruto responded, wincing slightly at her tear-filled eyes. Shit, he really was an asshole. He probably didn't need to be quite that blunt about it. "But taking Mana and, by proxy, souls was what I was aiming for; and I didn't get his."

He took in her confused expression and sighed softly in thanks as her grip started to loosen up. "You made me let go while I was draining him. You forcefully severed the connection I needed to take his soul. Yeah, you're right that he died; but its thanks to you that he's capable of passing on to whatever afterlife might exist out there." He smiled kindly at her as the tears kept building up. "I'm sure he's beyond thankful for that. And I am too. Thanks for not letting me become more of a monster than I currently am at the moment." He explained and chuckled, though without any humor in it.

Tears rolled unopposed down her cheeks as she let go of his neck and backed up from him. Her hazel eyes gazed forward sadly as she scrunched her face up slightly, trying to will the tears to stop but refusing to raise her arms to wipe them away. "So what do you expect me to do now? Be happy that he's dead?"

He scoffed at that. "Of course not. Just take solace in the fact that somewhere out there, he's fine because of what you did."

Sheena gave a small smile at that. In the end, that IS what she had come down here for wasn't it? Hoping for some form of closure. Though she expected the closure to come in a more violent form than this one, involving beating up a certain blond. Meh, beggars can't be choosers.

The kunoichi reached behind her neck and started messing with the back of her purple choker. The tears had begun to slow down, but the marks left by them going down her cheeks were still quite visible. She glanced at him. "Thanks, it helps to hear that, even coming from you. Guess I just really needed someone to say that."

He shrugged but said nothing. She removed the choker from his neck and he looked at it oddly. "What the hell is that thing? Looks kinda tacky."

She grinned. "Your present. You asked me to get you something at the festival, remember?"

"Well, yeah, but I was hoping for something a little cooler." He said and tried to pout but you could see the corners of his lips trying to pull upwards into a smile.

"Too bad. This is what I bought, this is what you get." She replied and leaned forward and fastened it around his neck. A small girlish giggle forced itself up through her, even through the few tears still present. It really didn't suit him; it looked a little ridiculous with the tiny fake gems and bright purple color, and clashing horribly with his clothes and hair. But that's why it was damn funny.

His eyes softened and his lips finished pulling up into a smile. "Thanks. I... don't really receive many gifts."

Sheena looked curious for a moment but waved it off and said nothing. After a few moments of silence Naruto finally spoke up once again. "Well, that was what I wanted to say before I left, so I guess I'll be taking my leave now." He exclaimed with a wide grin.

The kunoichi smirked back. "I'd like to see you try. I'm still right here, you're still restrained, you're still drugged, and I'm still not planning on betraying my Chief's trust by letting you go."

He shrugged. "You asked for it. I wasn't planning on you letting me go anyway."

She quirked an eyebrow and glanced down when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes bulged comically as his tail strained against its multiple bindings, the bolts shooting out from the pressure of trying to hold the appendage still. Seemingly with little effort the furry limb yanked itself forcefully out of its shackles, destroying some of them. Other shackles succeeded in their duty, but the cell wall behind them did not. Large pieces of stone were effortlessly pulled out along with the tail as it freed itself.

She gaped at him and he began to laugh loudly at her expression. After a moment his laughing began to subside into quiet giggles. "Still think I'm incapable of escaping huh?"

The startled ninja started sputtering indignantly as he proceeded to do the same thing with the rest of his limbs; simply pulling them forcefully off of the wall, whether the wall itself could sustain the pressure or not. "T-that's ridiculous! Those shackles were top notch and there were so many! And you should still be drugged up!"

Naruto shrugged as he started using his appendages as makeshift clubs because of the stone attached to them, smashing them against the walls to smash the rocks weighing him down. "Ever since the transformation my immune system has gotten even better than before. Haven't felt a thing you guys have tried to force into me to be honest."

She shook her head and tried to steel herself, though in reality she knew there was nothing she could actually do about this. "I'm not gonna let you just walk out of here."

The blond grinned cheekily at her and placed his hands in a hand sign. "Actually, you are. Henge. (Transform)"

A short puff of white smoke later and two Sheenas were now standing in the prison cell, though one without the faint tear marks. One of them gaping humorously, one grinning. One with a choker, one without. And oddly enough, one still wearing familiar orange clothes.

He raised an eyebrow at his own clothes still being present on his new feminine form. "Odd, I'm sure I did that right. Though I admit it feels more difficult to perform and sustain now than it used to."

The real Sheena started sputtering while pointing at him in shock. "Y-y-you're ME! What the hell?"

He grinned and started stripping out of his old clothes, revealing that underneath them the transformation was still successful; a perfect copy of Sheena's own outfit. "Damn straight I am. I'm just that awesome." The once-blond paused a moment to admire the new assets he had acquired during his Henge. He reached his now feminine hands up to grab a fistful of his new breasts. "Holy shit. They really are huge aren't they? How do you stand walking around with these damn things in the way all the time?"

She blushed a deep crimson, partly from rage but mostly embarrassment. "Stop groping my body you pervert! OFF LIMITS!"

Naruto laughed heartily at her reaction before it died down to a chuckle. Then he smiled at her, which Sheena realized was kinda odd, seeing her smiling at herself. "Thanks for the chat and the present, and I'm sorry in advance about this but we can't really have two Sheenas walking around until I'm safely out of your village."

She was about to question what he meant when it clicked in her mind. She moved to dodge out of the way as soon as she realized what he was up to but he was ridiculously quick, reaching his arm out to her neck in the blink of an eye and squeezing a particular set of pressure points, before she quickly lost consciousness and fell into the arms of her double.

Naruto set her down gently on the floor and moved to leave before he suddenly stopped. "Something doesn't seem quite right about this. Am I forgetting something important?" He pondered this in his classic thinking pose, squinting his eyes with his arms partly crossed. Then he grinned widely as he snapped his fingers in realization.

The blond formed a hand sign and concentrated his chakra. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique)"

In a puff of smoke yet another Sheena was in the prison cell. The real Naruto gave the clone a thumbs up before he turned to leave. "You know what to do. Get some supplies in town a little after I escape and make sure they never forget the name Uzumaki Naruto!"

"You got it boss!" The clone saluted. Naruto walked down the hallway whistling a happy tune. It was unfortunate that he couldn't be here to witness their reactions himself, but he'd be plenty pleased with the memories he'd get when his clone dispelled. Ah, it was going to be absolutely glorious.

* * *

><p>His ear twitched when he heard a twig snap. He grinned and rushed towards the source, his prey already making itself scarce. Good, it knew it was being hunted. Made things slightly more interesting. A quick sniff was all it took before he began to rush towards the north. He glanced around intently as he dashed; at this point in the chase his prey would likely try to either hide or lose him with a rough trail.<p>

He paused and sniffed the air again. Ah, it was moving forward in zig-zag pattern. Normally quite a good way to shake a predator; too bad for it though, trying to do that against him in particular was probably one of the worst ideas you could make. It was wasting precious time in escaping by trying to disguise its trail, even though without the use of a river or stream to hide its scent it would never be able to escape his nose.

_There!_ He swerved as the scent changed direction, immediately spotting his prey. He grinned and shot forward, snapping his jaws shut but missing by inches. It seems he underestimated his prey's will to live, it was quite speedy. The creature did not spare him a second glance, knowing that if it were to stop running it would surely die.

_Smart, but at the same time quite stupid. How will you outrun me?_ He licked his lips at what was basically, at this point, nothing more than a meal with legs. He dashed forward and lunged once again with much greater speed, tired of this game of chase. He closed his jaws on top of his prey, catching it right around the middle. Perfect capture.

He ripped a piece of meat off the recent kill and swallowed before licking the fresh blood from his muzzle. It was unfortunate; even in this new place there was never any kind of challenging prey.

His ears swivelled to the side at a small sound before he heard a gentle landing behind him. He grinned as he heard soft footfalls closing in before he heard a sigh, and then a voice.

"So, we meet again Naruto."

* * *

><p>Sheena frowned as she hopped from tree branch to tree branch. This was beginning to get tedious. The damn thing kept moving around wildly and she was having trouble tracking it. These kind of tasks, meaning the patrol mission she was currently on, were starting to grate on her nerves; sure, she knew that with the really important mission coming up soon she had to be available most of the time, and they couldn't risk her on anything dangerous, but seriously. Tracking down wild animals while on patrol and doing odd jobs around Mizuho as a daily routine was kinda pathetic.<p>

She glanced around and cursed. She'd lost the damn thing again! This was the fourth time and she swore she was gonna skin the damn animal alive when she found it.

"Getting a little upset Sheena? You should calm down." A little voice piped up from atop her head.

"Shut up Corrine. Busy." She mumbled, too annoyed to really care. The little fox on her head shrugged before settling down again.

Okay, so it wasn't technically a fox. It was an artificial summon spirit in the form of a tiny fox kit with blue tipped tails; so really it wasn't an animal in the first place. She was glad she finally convinced the researchers to let her take the little guy on her upcoming mission. He'd be a big help and she was happy that he finally got to get outside for once. They kept him cooped up way too much.

"Is that what you're looking for?" Corrine piped up again, pulling her from her thoughts and motioning towards an orange and yellow animal in the distance. She nodded. The trail led here at any rate; if this wasn't the proper animal then it wasn't really her business to search any further, so she'd be happy either way.

She landed and saw the creature's ears swivel towards her. Sheena took in its appearance and quirked an eyebrow. It looked exactly like a real fox, despite its size. Not a monster or anything. That was surprising, not many normal foxes around anymore.

She started walking towards the odd fox. Its fur was a very light orange, with yellow on the tips of its tail and ears. The size of it was a little bigger than usual; about the size of a medium sized dog. Her eyes then focused on the only other out of ordinary thing about the fox. It had a purple choker around its neck. A very familiar and tacky looking choker, seemingly functioning like a collar on the animal.

Sheena stopped walking and sighed. So much for an easy mission. Even if it seemed odd, she was pretty sure who this fox actually was. After all, the last time she saw him he did have on the same choker, had a fox's tail on his behind, and the ability to transform. It wasn't too hard to figure out.

"So, we meet again Naruto."

The kitsune turned its head to look at her, looking slightly intimidating with blood still covering its maw. The intimidation factor was cut down slightly when it grinned widely at her, eyes squinting in the process.

"Hey again Sheena. Glad to see you're still well." The fox said in a surprisingly human sounding voice. "How long has it been? Two weeks? Three weeks?"

"Almost two months." She deadpanned.

Naruto in his kitsune form had the audacity to look sheepish at this. "Meh, keeping track of time isn't really all that important I'm sure." He did something reminiscent of a shrug, or as close as a fox can get to a shrug and then leaned his head down to rip another piece of meat off of his prey. His eyes moved up to take notice of the small creature on her head. "Who's the kit?"

"Corrine. He's a summon." Sheena said and gave a vaguely disgusted look as he ate. She circled him and Naruto nodded in regard to her answer. He was feasting on a rather large rabbit; or a monster version of one, at any rate. Most of the animals that were still normal sized were fading fast; to be replaced by bigger and stronger forms of themselves.

"How can you stand to eat like that?" She grimaced. "You're just ripping it apart... and its raw."

"Foxes tend to eat things raw Sheena." He said smugly, biting into another piece. She nodded at that explanation and dismissed Corrine, hearing the little 'poof' sound of him vanishing. Naruto continued. "Shouldn't you be more worried about me attacking you than how I'm going about eating my dinner?"

She stopped for a moment in thought. Yeah, she probably should be thinking that shouldn't she? "Well, I just figured that if you wanted me dead you would have just done it in that prison cell while I was defenseless. So I really doubt you're out to kill me." She frowned at him and narrowed her eyes. "I got into trouble for that you know, since you escaped while I was still in the cell."

"Really?" He looked up from the rabbit, surprised. "I figured they'd let you off the hook pretty easily after I basically ripped apart the cell with my bare hands. What did they want you to do against that something like that exactly?"

"That's what I said!" She exclaimed. "And what the hell was up with your little farewell gifts to the village?"

He giggled childishly and smirked at her. "You guys liked that huh?"

"You wrote "Uzumaki Naruto Was Here" in bright orange paint all over the village; and somehow without anybody noticing." She deadpanned.

"Damn straight I did!" He exclaimed proudly. "I'm the prank king, don't mess with me!"

"You also replaced all of Kuchinawa's ninja outfits with frilly pink dresses." She continued.

"Maybe it'll make him lighten up a bit? Far too uptight. He spent almost as much time in my cell as I did." He shrugged, unconcerned.

"You drew little spirals all over my face and clothes with marker while I was unconscious." Sheena continued once more.

"I thought it was an improvement." He grinned.

She narrowed her eyes again. "You also wrote "Property of Uzumaki Naruto" across the top of my breasts with that same marker."

"I stand by my response of it being an improvement." He laughed, which came out more like a bark seeing as he was a fox. "And its technically true; I did cop a feel if you remember, even though they weren't really _your_ breasts at the time."

The kunoichi groaned and covered her face with her hands. "You're impossible... you don't really care much what you do, do you?"

"Hell no I don't!" He exclaimed happily. "There's way more fun to be had in the world when you just do whatever you damn well feel like. Just be thankful I didn't go any further than I did. I could have permanently tattooed that "Property of Uzumaki Naruto" message on the ass of every person in your village instead." He grinned cheekily.

She groaned again. "I'm not even sure if you're joking anymore." Sheena removed her hands from her face and narrowed her eyes. "I'm still supposed to take you in you know."

"But you know you can't." He pointed out.

"Doesn't mean I'm not gonna try though." She grinned and pulled out her seal slips.

He grinned back and stood on all fours, his tongue flashing out to lick a little blood from his muzzle, and his meal mostly finished. "Should be fun, I could do with a spar." A puff of white smoke suddenly appeared around Naruto and he was once again in his human form.

His hair had gotten longer again, almost reaching his mid-back. It definitely wasn't normal for his hair to grow so much in just under two months. The red streaks she saw in the prison cell and passed off for blood most certainly were not blood, seeing as how they were still there. There were two dark streaks of crimson going down the length of his hair, close to the sides. Another crimson mark was in his hair just above his forehead, but it didn't go any further than that. His forehead protector was still right where it should be, on his temple. His whisker marks were present on his cheeks as they always were, and an orange tail lazily waved back and forth behind him. But she gaped when she saw his clothes.

It was a dark red ninja outfit, the same color as Kuchinawa's. But it was loose and baggy compared to the other ninja's bodysuit. His lower half was covered by baggy red pants, ending off in brown shoes. His top half was covered by a dark red battle kimono much like Sheena's own; though while Sheena's continued part of the way down her legs after her sash, Naruto's ended shortly after his waist. Dark red gloves ended the ensemble, as well as seeing the beginnings of an orange undershirt poking out of his outfit near his neck.

"Y-you stole the outfit for the Master of the Igaguri Style!" She gaped comically, while Naruto just looked at her funny and started tugging on random parts of his outfit.

"Hey now, I didn't steal anything. I just didn't know what people wore around here, so I copied the outfit from your village that looked the coolest and actually allowed some freedom of movement." He stuck his tongue out at her and smiled.

"Copied?" She questioned curiously. Naruto stared at her with a deadpan look on his face.

"I transformed into an exact copy of you when I escaped. What makes you think I couldn't copy a simple outfit?" Naruto pointed out. Sheena stared at him blankly for a moment before bopping herself on the head. That was a stupid question.

"Whatever, less talking more fighting!" She yelled and lunged forward, aiming for a palm strike on his chest. Naruto grinned and the kunoichi yelped in pain as she suddenly felt something impact the bottom of her arm, pushing it off course and letting it harmlessly pass to the side of his head.

Taking advantage of how close she now was Naruto quickly shoved his knee into her gut. She lurched forward from the impact, and Naruto quickly headbutt her as she bent over, smashing their heads together.

She stumbled backwards, a hand on her stomach with another on her forehead, wincing in pain from the brief confrontation. "Owowow, shit that hurt." She glared at him while he grinned back cheekily at her, unfazed by the headbutt. A demon-enhanced body ensures that, at the very least, your head is a lot harder than your opponent's.

As soon as her vision stopped swirling she halted to think for a moment. _I know he didn't push my palm away with his arms, I was watching. So did he kick me? If he was fast it would be possible, I was concentrating more on his upper body. _Naruto just stood there, hands behind his head and whistling innocently as she thought, content to wait for her to attack first. Sheena bristled at his lack of seriousness and charged forward again.

She moved to kick him in the side and he grinned once again. She could almost imagine him making 'tsk tsk' sounds at her assault. He brought up a leg to use as a guard and stopped her kick. As soon as her momentum was gone he dropped his leg and lashed out with his other foot, attempting to kick her leg that was still on the ground out from under her.

Sheena quickly hopped backwards from the kick but Naruto didn't back off this time. He charged forward and lashed out once again, trying to shove his foot into her side. She back-flipped away and her eyes widened slightly. That was close, he was pretty quick.

Once she landed from her flip he was already upon her once again, but she was ready this time around. He kicked out at her chest and she dodged quickly to the side. She made a hammer motion with her fist and slammed it on the top of his outstretched foot. "Pyre Seal!"

A loud crack erupted from the impact and Naruto hissed slightly due to the added concussive force from the seal. Naruto's previously outstretched leg ended up knee deep in the earth, due to her fist and the seal forcing it straight downwards. Before he could pull his leg free she lashed out with her other hand and hit his forehead with another open-palm strike. "Pyre Seal!"

Another crack sound echoed through the forest following the strike, Naruto flying through the air and rolling slightly on the ground before hopping back to his feet, looking at her with an appraising gaze.

"You're doing better than I thought Sheena-chan." He said as he he rubbed his forehead, pulling his hand away to see a little blood. He smirked at her. She seemed a little thrown off by the friendly way of referring to her. "You sure like to use that Pyre Seal of yours a lot huh?"

She shrugged and gave a sheepish smile. "To be honest I'm not sure my other seals could hurt you, your skin is rock hard. So I'm sticking to good old concussive force. Never fought someone before that simply refused to take damage."

He nodded in understanding. "Smart girl, at least you're thinking ahead and not using something that won't work on me. But now it's time to kick it up a notch!" He exclaimed and dashed forward at a shocking pace, closing the distance between them in a second. She gave a small 'eep' sound of surprise at his speed and moved to hop backward, but quickly bumped into a tree that was behind her.

Naruto jumped slightly off the ground and spun to use a roundhouse kick aimed at her head. Her eyes widened and she dropped low to the ground on instinct alone. The kick continued but she heard no thud or thunk sound that indicated he had hit the tree behind her, just a sharp whistle and then nothing.

She looked up to see the blond grinning at her, seemingly proud of himself. She was about to ask why he had stopped when she heard a loud crash behind her. She spun quickly and gaped.

He had not simply hit the tree, somehow his kick had _cut_ right through it. There were no cracks to signify any pressure was put on it, just a clean cut right through the tree trunk as if it was bread.

"H-holy shit... how?" She stammered out, not caring in the slightest at how she sounded. She was shocked. Naruto laughed loudly at her expression and tried to calm himself but it wasn't really working. Sheena growled slightly at his immaturity but just settled down until he managed to stop laughing.

When he started to wind down, she huffed and glared at him. "Why did you stop? I could have kept going."

"Uh huh, right. Sorry Sheena-chan but I have no interest in killing you today." He stated plainly. At her indignant look, (though whether it was from saying he'd end up killing her or from calling her Sheena-chan, he didn't know) he deadpanned. "You're saying you can fight against something like that?" He explained, pointing a thumb at the felled tree. Her face drooped and she sighed. No, she really couldn't. If he really wanted to he could have hit her with that.

"So how did you even do that?" She questioned as Naruto got a giant fox grin on his face. He lifted up one of his feet and tapped a finger on the back of his shoe, making a 'clink' sound from tapping the tiny metal plate that was present there.

"I have a natural affinity for wind elemental chakra, which can be used to cause objects to cut much more effectively than normal." Naruto explained. "You'd normally use it with a sword, but I'm not much of a swordsman. So I use it with my heel when I kick."

"So... your kicks cut." She stated. This chakra stuff sounded pretty useful.

"Yup!" He chirped proudly. "I can't do it with all my kicks; just the ones that are both fast and use my heel. Trying to force something that's usually blunt to cut that well is pretty damn difficult. High-speed movement helps a ton, since I can focus on the real wind around my leg instead of on the metal plate." Naruto smirked and thumped his chest. "My taijutsu style is really unique. Made it myself. I call it Torikkusuta-Onkei. (Trickster's Grace)"

He started ranting on about it, obviously proud of one of the few things he invented completely on his own. "I use mainly my legs for attack and defense so my hands are always free to make hand signs for ninjutsu. Sometimes I'll headbutt people if they give me the opportunity." He grinned at this and she bristled. "It mainly focuses on diverting strikes or making the opponent back off, coupled with a few lightning quick kicks for offense, since when you don't have both feet on the ground it's too easy to knock you off balance." He smirked. "There's only about two different kicks in my style that have to do with trying to seriously damage the opponent."

Thinking back to how he fought, the kunoichi frowned. "How come you never threw a punch? It's like you weren't even taking me seriously."

"Well to be honest, until you actually hit me I wasn't." Naruto chuckled. "Don't let the fact that I wasn't throwing punches get you down though, I wouldn't use my hands against you anyway. My taijutsu style uses only kicks, for the most part, unless I'm going for serious damage or a kill."

She blinked once. Then twice. "Isn't that really ineffective? Why would you just decide not to use your arms?"

"Normally, yeah. But I centered the entire style from beginning to end to only use my legs for a reason." He smirked. "My teacher always told me I was a prodigy in ninjutsu, but my skill in taijutsu was always only average. Most ninjutsu use hand signs, so I wanted to free my hands even in close combat so I could take advantage of that. So I started making my own taijutsu style to play to my strengths; being unpredictable and being good at ninjutsu." Naruto frowned for a moment, a little upset. "I trained really hard on it, but it kinda fell through eventually. It was difficult to use only my legs for the style, and once I learned my Frog Kata it became redundant."

"So now you've gone back to it for no reason?" She questioned. It was kinda weird to just talk with him casually like this, considering she was supposed to be trying to lock him up; she wasn't going to complain though. Plus he had just proved there was no way in hell she was going to capture him alone.

"No, the main reason is that my Frog Kata style is... beyond me now." He grimaced. "I can no longer perform it. Second reason is that even if I don't use my hands, I now still have three other limbs to fall back on, rather than my original two." He grinned cheekily and flicked her in the face with his tail.

She rolled her eyes and pushed his tail away. "What's wrong with this frog thing if it's so good?"

He sighed and rolled his shoulders. "You really like to make me ramble on and on with your questions don't you?" He glared playfully and she made a sheepish smile. "The Frog Kata requires total focus and unity with nature, so that it will allow you to use its own chakra to fight with." He grimaced and looked away. "Unfortunately, Mother Nature apparently doesn't... approve of my current form. Nature chakra rejects me, so I can't use that style anymore."

Sheena flinched a little. "Sorry for asking. It all seems to come back to your current form huh?"

"Yep, seems like it. It's not all bad though." He shrugged. "Now that you've asked me a billion questions about why I like to kick things, why do you use seals in the way you do?"

She blinked. "What's wrong with how I use them? I thought it was pretty effective. Just use the seal slip to properly mold your Mana for you so that you can use it easily in a fast-paced melee fight."

"Hm, I guess that's fine, just never thought to use them like that. Always seemed to be more of a support to a main style to me, you know?" He smiled and accepted her answer.

"Well, I've dedicated my whole life to improving my sealing, because it's something that only I can do properly in our village because of my heritage." She explained. "I actually haven't learned much in the way of direct combat, my seals usually help make up for any shortcomings I have. Most of my time was taken by learning more about seals."

He chuckled. "Yeah, its an art that will gladly eat up any time you're willing to give it. Someday you should learn a fighting style to go with it." He frowned as he recalled something. "Are you sure you should be out here chatting and playing around with me for so long? Don't you have duties to perform and stuff?"

Her eyes bulged comically and she cursed. "Shit! This was supposed to just be a quick little mission so I could be back in time for more info on the big one!" She turned and jumped into the trees and started to hop away. Naruto rolled his eyes and started counting down.

3...2...1...

"I'll capture you next time! Don't you forget it!" He heard Sheena yell out from the forest. He chuckled quietly to himself. Yeah, that would be the day. The blond shinobi sighed and stretched as he learned back against a nearby tree. Almost immediately the tree began to lose its bright green color and became more dull and lifeless. Naruto made sure to stop before he killed the thing though, moving over to a different tree so the old one could recover sometime in the future.

"So, 'what am I going to do now?' is the question. I've already explored a good portion of this world in... how long did Sheena-chan say it was? Two months?" He frowned. "I'm starting to think they're telling the truth about Fire Country not existing here. This world is too small for an entire continent the size of the elemental nations to hide. I'm pretty sure in fact that the entire elemental nations would dwarf the size of this 'world'."

He sighed to himself. "So what to do in the meantime to stave off the boredom..." Naruto thought long and hard, and eventually his face split into a shit-eating fox grin. He pulled a small coin out of his outfit and held it in his hand. "Okay, tails I think of something else to do, heads I invade Sheena-chan's personal life for fun."

He grinned and flipped the coin with a small 'ping'. He caught it and checked at what it landed on with enthusiasm.

Tails.

The blond pouted. What fun was that? "Bah, what would a coin know anyway?" He shrugged and smiled as he tucked the little coin away. "Invading Sheena-chan's personal life it is!" He exclaimed happily and bounced off through the trees, changing back into a fox along the way.

* * *

><p>The entire village of Mizuho was bustling. People were running back and forth, trying to make everything perfect; because the King and his associates had finally arrived with information on probably the biggest mission Mizuho had ever taken.<p>

Of course, most of the people in the village wouldn't get to know what the mission was about until it was long over. That was fine though, it was standard protocol. What was important was the fact that the King of Tethe'alla was in their little village; him and the other strange man were currently talking with their village Chief and the ninja who would be taking on the mission.

There were currently four people in the Chief's house, not counting Grandpa Igaguri, who was still in a coma from his injury, lying in a corner on a futon. They were all talking adamantly about the mission, and were discussing how the ninja and the strange man would soon depart to meet in two days at a secret location.

What they didn't know was that a fox had dug a tunnel leading straight under the Chief's house, and was currently sitting directly under the floorboards, listening to their conversation with rapt attention and a giant fox grin.

Sure, he didn't get all of what they were talking about, and some words were too quiet to hear properly, but he did get the gist of it and he was excited. Words such as 'assassination', 'Chosen', and 'Sister World' were spoken of abundantly.

_Oh Sheena-chan, Sheena-chan. You're travelling to a whole other world and didn't think to include little old me? What if the world you end up going to is my own? _The fox's grin widened and you could swear that there was a little glint in its eyes. _Maybe I'll just invite myself then._

* * *

><p>AN; Damn there's a ton of explaining in this chapter. It has to be done though, there's not much of a way of avoiding it. Most of it is out of the way now though. Hope you still enjoyed it.<p>

Yes, Naruto has lost the use of his Senjutsu and Sage mode. A demon bonding with nature seems pretty odd, so he'll have to work around that.

If you're having trouble visualizing Naruto's outfit, google Sheena Successor Outfit. Yes, he found and copied the outfit for the successor of the Igaguri Style.

Well, keep an eye out for errors and plot holes, read and review, later.


	4. Arrival

Sheena licked her lips nervously as she inked out some new seal slips. Every now and then she would shuffle the new ones into the 'deck' of the rest of her seals; she didn't necessarily need any more right now, and she probably shouldn't even be mixing them up like that, but it was calming and she really, really needed help keeping calm right now.

She was on her own from here on out. She had arrived at the location the Renegade named Botta had given, and had been shocked that there was an entire base there. Maybe she should tell the Chief whenever she returns to Mizuho to step up the work for their information network. They really should have known that such a huge building was hiding out here in the archipelago of islands that surrounded the snowy continent (more like a large island really) that the town of Flanoir was found on.

The kunoichi still wasn't sure about this whole 'Sister Worlds' concept that the Renegades kept talking about, but apparently the King believed them, and therefore Mizuho believed them. They must have shown some proof to him. The Renegades (which looked a lot like the pictures of Desians that she saw, with their red and black suits and helmets; which apparently was the whole point) wanted help in a mission that was especially suited to ninja. It was damn confusing though.

It was all very complicated to her, and a lot to take in in just two days. She knew the way Tethe'alla worked in regards to mana was that the Chosen would complete the journey of world regeneration, and then mana would surge into the world with vigor; allowing mana-based machinery to work, crops to grow nearly everywhere, and so on. Having a ton of mana made the world better, simply put.

The start of the Regeneration Journey began with a pillar of light appearing from the Oracle Shrine, along with the gigantic Tower of Salvation appearing out of thin air; reaching up into the heavens. A second light would also appear from the Oracle Shrine a few months before the mana began to recede.

Every time the Chosen completed the journey though, the mana only lasted about fifteen to twenty years before vanishing, and then a new Chosen would be born in Tethe'alla; a baby born with a tiny red crystal held in their hand. The recent exception to this 'rule' is that it has been about thirty six years now since Tethe'alla began flourishing. The second light pillar came from the Oracle Shrine as it usually did, but the mana never vanished.

Everyone believed it to be some sort of act from Kami. There were people partying in the streets for weeks, as everyone believed that the mana would now last forever, and they would never have to worry about things like food and water.

But just five days ago, the Oracle Shrine gave off that pillar of light again; the signal that Tethe'alla's mana would disappear and the world would begin to die. Everyone who was old enough to know what the light meant, since it had been many years now, became incredibly depressed while the rest of the world were confused until others explained it to them.

Then the Renegades had shown themselves; which is why she was here now.

According to the Renegades, there was a Sister World to Tethe'alla that was called Sylvarant. The two worlds fought over the mana supply, and they had a Chosen over there as well. The whole point of the Regeneration Journey was to reverse the way the mana flowed.

When Tethe'alla's Chosen succeeded, mana flowed into Tethe'alla and away from Sylvarant; and the opposite held true to them. The reason why they had kept their mana for an extra sixteen years is that Sylvarant's Chosen had failed their journey, so the mana continued to flow into Tethe'alla until a new Chosen could grow up.

The light from the Oracle Shrine signalled the start of a Chosen's journey, no matter which world they were from. The mana would always recede a few months after the light appeared because the Chosen would complete their journey and reverse the flow of mana; giving it to Sylvarant.

She was too young to know most of this stuff normally, but the knowledge was passed down each generation in Mizuho, so it made sense to her. Eventually it all led back to her mission. To assassinate Sylvarant's Chosen before they could complete their journey, thus stopping Tethe'alla from declining, and in the process further dooming Sylvarant.

Sheena wasn't sure how to feel about that. She would save an entire world; but doom another one in the process. In a way she wasn't just murdering the Chosen, but thousands across the planet. Whoever ended up dieing because of the mana shortage, whether it be a shortage of food or water, would technically die because of her. But this world was her home and her people lived here, so she would do what she had to do.

She finished the inking of her seals and slid them back into her clothes. There was now officially nothing she could do but sit here and wait for them to come get her. They could have at least made this place a little homey, but noooo. Had to be nothing but white and blue metal everywhere, and the little 'bench' she was sitting on in the middle of this hall was making her ass hurt. She tried not to stare at all the Renegades running back and forth in front of her getting ready either; they made her dizzy. She wasn't even sure why they needed ninja with a veritable army right here.

Well, that's kind of a lie. She did know; it's because hopping from one world to another wasn't a simple task and the machines they used for it were pricy and few in number. One ninja could kill a large amount of regular soldiers with little trouble, so when they were limited in how many people they could send to do the job, the personal ninja of the King would probably rate pretty high on that list. She just hoped she wouldn't disappoint.

Sheena bit her lip nervously. This was the first big mission she had gone on in a long time; the last one was nine years ago when she was just ten years old, and THAT mission ended in complete disaster. Hopefully this one would go better and she wouldn't regret volunteering, since the odd little green gem she got on her hand for her trouble kinda made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn't describe.

The Renegades had called it an Exsphere and she recognized it as the object she had seen before on some of the castle's guards and scientists. Supposedly it "unlocked hidden potential and pushed you to physical limits", but she hadn't fought with it on yet so she didn't know if that was just a lie yet or what.

Sheena jumped a bit when a loud voice blared out across the whole complex. "Sheena, we're ready now. Come to the hangar immediately."

The kunoichi had no idea how they did that, but she had the decency to blush a bit in embarrassment when some of the Renegades turned to glance at her when she jumped, seeming to take amusement in her obvious nervousness.

She walked steadily toward the 'hangar', something she had never heard of before, struggling to keep her head held high with all of the Renegades looking at her as she passed. Didn't they know that staring with those damn visors on their helmets gave people the creeps?

The ninja arrived at the hangar and looked over at Botta. He was a tall man; about seven feet tall with large arms. He wore a plain grey robe that covered his torso and legs, but his arms were left bare. His hair looked like a military-style buzz cut, but longer, and he had a beard over most of his face as if he hadn't shaved for a month or so.

The imposing man looked over at her and nodded towards one of the Renegades at some kind of machine terminal. The woman pressed a few buttons and the entire room began to brighten and whir, stunning Sheena as the floor opened up and revealed what appeared to be a large mechanical bird.

It was primarily white, with streaks of blue across the top of the wings. There were four wings; though two seemed to be doubling as legs while it was docked like it was. There seemed to be a place to stand in the center of the machine; with the handles and controls in front of you, the wings directly to your sides to prevent you from falling, and your back and legs open to the air.

Botta looked over at her and noticed her appraising gaze. "You will be travelling to Sylvarant on this. It is called a Rheaird."

Sheena nodded but then noticed something... off. "It's kind of small for two people, isn't it? Who's piloting it?"

The kunoichi could practically feel his smirk as he oozed amusement. "Why, you are of course. Who else?"

She started sputtering. "Y-you expect me to fly this... this metal bird? With no instruction or anything? You're trying to kill me!"

The man snorted at that. "Hardly. You will stand on it, and we will activate the 'auto-pilot' to take you to our second base on Sylvarant. As long as you don't mess with anything you'll arrive just fine."

She calmed down slightly at that, but not much. She didn't have much faith in either the Renegades or their flying metal deathtrap.

Botta didn't really seem to care about her unease however. "Go ahead, step on it and just don't let go. We've already experienced multiple delays and we should get you to Sylvarant as soon as possible."

Sheena gulped but nodded an affirmative. It wouldn't do to appear cowardly, even if all of this did seem really crazy.

The kunoichi steeled herself and stepped forward. She planted her feet solidly on the Rheaird and held tightly onto the handles. A female Renegade turned and started shouting orders to some of the others and the platform the machine rested on began to rise as the engine began to whir.

White-hot energy poured out of the back of the Rheaird, she assumed it was mana or had something to do with it. The machine began to shake and strain against the 'claws' holding it to the platform. The Renegades were still shouting things out about 'propulsion' and 'efficiency' but she didn't know much about what it had to do with regards to this metal deathtrap.

She heard the woman yell out "Now! Launch it!" And then it happened. Sheena felt a weight land on her shoulders and drape down her back. She looked to her left and came face-to-face with a familiar golden muzzle and red eyes. The passenger grinned at her mischievously.

"N-Naruto! What the hell do you think you're doing?" She yelled, trying to shake him off her back and pulling her hands off the Rheaird to reach up to the paws that were draped over her shoulders to hold on. The moment she did Botta started yelling at an unbelievable volume.

"Don't take your hands off the Rheaird you fool! Just ignore the damn animal, that machine is worth more than this entire base and most of the people in it!" He practically screamed at the ninja. Sheena jumped in shock and quickly grabbed the handles of the metal bird again. Meanwhile she could feel the smugness oozing off of Naruto as he grinned, placing his head on her shoulder and still draped down her back.

"You know I'm going to kill you for this." She muttered, her eye twitching. If anything the fox's grin simply widened.

"You're welcome to try Sheena-chan." Naruto said simply as the Rheaird was detached from the platform, rocketing out of the tunnel leading out of the base and flying up into the air.

Sheena closed her eyes and tried to refrain from screaming as the wind rushed past her, blowing her hair in every which direction. They said she didn't have to do anything but hold on, and she was going to take full advantage of that. In her eyes that meant she didn't have to actually watch and freak out over how fast they were going or how high they were. Meanwhile she could still hear just fine.

"WOO! What a rush!" Naruto hollered next to her ear, making her cringe from the volume as he laughed. The Rheaird picked up more speed and seemed to almost rip through the sky, disappearing and leaving a large black hole in its wake that quickly shrunk and vanished.

* * *

><p>Immediately after entering the rift they exited the other side, high in the air of a land they didn't know. Naruto was looking around excitedly, amazed that it had worked at all. Sheena's eyes were still closed.<p>

Then the fox's eyes glanced down at the control system for the Rheaird and blinked in confusion. "Uhm, Sheena-chan, are all those flashing red lights normal?"

Her eyes snapped open and darted down to the control panel that she wasn't supposed to touch. But as Naruto had said, there were bright flashing red lights blinking all over the controls, and then something reminiscent of a siren started blaring out from the Rheaird.

Sheena cringed at the volume of the noise and looked nervously at the machine. "No, definitely not normal. We should be fine though... right?"

The fox shrugged, or as close to a shrug as a canine animal can get. "I'm sure I'll be fine, 'cause I'm awesome. Now you, on the other hand, might end up going splat." He proclaimed as the Rheaird began steadily losing altitude.

Her eye twitched. It seemed to be doing that a lot lately. _Arrogant prick. Wish I could knock you down a peg._

"You should probably jump soon." He noted absentmindedly. "We're about to hit that bright white dome that's in the middle of the desert, and I'm pretty sure you can survive a fall from this height."

"Thanks for the tip." She retorted blandly, before reaching up and grabbing his paws before lifting him up over her head. "I'd like to jump solo though, thanks."

Naruto started flailing around over her head comically. "Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down you sexy angry woman! Lets talk this over!"

Sheena ignored him and tossed him off the Rheaird, immediately jumping off herself afterwards. Naruto continued to flail as he sailed closer and closer to the ground. To be honest Sheena kinda assumed he would land on his feet, since he usually seemed so invincible, but Naruto 'thumped' into the sand, landing on his back and leaving a nice fox-shaped imprint behind. Sheena landed cleanly on her feet, unharmed and smirked at the other ninja as he whimpered. "Ow."

"That was for piggybacking along on an inter-dimensional assassination mission." She frowned down at him and he grinned nervously back up at her.

"Well, since I couldn't find my home anywhere after escaping from your village, I figured it might be somewhere in this new world you were going to, you know?" He stood up slowly and cringed a little in slight pain before shaking the sand out of his fur.

"How did you even know about my mission?" She raised an eyebrow and he froze before chuckling nervously.

"Well I may have possibly been spying on you." He gulped slightly as she practically growled at him. "H-hey now... shouldn't you be getting on with your mission? The Chosen isn't going to trip like a klutz and do your job for you you know." Naruto said, attempting to placate the angry woman; while unknown to them both a different blond far away sneezed.

"This won't take long." She said and cracked her knuckles while Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on. You and I both know that you'd probably spend the entire day TRYING to hit me. Not a very clever use of your time there Sheena-chan." He commented, dodging a punch that she tried to land on his muzzle.

_It's really annoying when he's right._ Sheena growled again but turned to walk away, towards the large white dome thing that the Rheaird crashed into. She assumed it was the Renegade's Sylvarant base_._

It only took a few moments of walking before she noticed she still wasn't alone. She narrowed her eyes and looked down next to her to see Naruto still grinning up at her. "Why are you following me?"

"Aww, come on Sheena-chan don't be like that." He commented, padding up next to her as she continued to walk. "I mean, you're going to be travelling in an unknown world... and I need to explore this world to see if it's mine. Why shouldn't we just travel together?" He smiled brightly while Sheena merely glowered at him.

"Because we'll try to kill each other in our sleep?" She stated plainly.

"Surely you wouldn't do that to this cute face would you?" He said, giving her big watery puppy eyes, or in this case fox eyes. Her expression never faltered and Naruto shrugged nonchalantly. "Okay so maybe you would consider it."

"Maybe."

"Pleeeease? This is such an awesome deal for you, you get someone as amazing as me to watch your back and pull you out if your mission gets dangerous!" He whined. The fox then grinned widely at her. "Maybe I could teach you some stuff to sweeten the deal hmm?"

The kunoichi ignored his offer. "And what would you get out of this little deal then hmm?"

"Someone to talk to so I'm not bored, and some eye candy. You're sure as hell not bad looking." He stated. He whistled innocently to himself when she turned her head down to glare at him. "Seriously though, it's not much to ask. I don't get many people to talk to as a fox. Or as a human with a giant fox tail for that matter. It kinda turns people off, you know?"

Sheena supposed she could see how that would turn people off. Though it was more like scare them away. "Can't you just do that fancy transformation thing you did to copy me? Then you wouldn't have to worry." She said as the base drew closer and closer.

"Well, I can swap back and forth between this form and my other one really easily, but it's hard to hold a real transformation for long." He frowned. "My disguise isn't really a disguise at all, it's a complete physical change. Not an easy thing to manipulate and control, you understand." He glanced up at her face but she wasn't looking at him. "That's also why I prefer to be a fox, most of the time. My fox form and hybrid forms are natural and I only need energy to swap back and forth, not hold them; and people are more likely to overlook a fox. With my shoddy control since the 'accident' I can barely hold a Henge for five minutes now."

He smirked afterwards however. "My Henge basically improved to a real shapeshift in exchange for me being shit at holding onto it. During those five minutes I'm essentially any person I choose, right down to their body structure. That first time I transformed into you? It was scary as hell to suddenly find an important piece of my anatomy gone down there and replaced with a vagina, let me tell you." He nodded wisely.

She choked and stared wide eyed down at him. "Y-you..."

Naruto frowned up at her. "Hey now, don't look at me like that. It wasn't really pleasant for me either. I was freaking the hell out. Wouldn't you?"

"I-I g-guess so..." She stuttered out, inwardly raging in embarrassment. He had essentially seen her entire body naked.

"Besides," Naruto continued, "I was spying on you out of boredom and you sleep in the nude. If you want to rage at me for being a pervert, it should probably be because of that and not because of my transformation." He grinned cheekily, unashamed.

Her face suddenly turned an interesting shade of red, though whether from embarrassment or anger, he wasn't sure. "PERVERT!" _Ah, probably anger then._

"Yeah yeah, I'm a teenage boy so I'm the ultimate evil blah blah blah." He rolled his eyes. "I had already technically seen you naked before then anyway."

She was still kind of disturbed that he could basically see her naked whenever he wished. Sure, it wasn't really _her_, just a transformed version of himself, but it was still really weird since the body itself was still exactly... the... same...

She turned slightly green at her odd train of thought. But damn she was curious. "So you're... really a girl when you change? Like you have a time of the month and can get pregnant?"

Naruto sputtered and Sheena swore his fur began turning red. She wasn't sure if foxes could actually blush or not. "I-I guess. If I could hold a transformation for a full nine months instead of just five minutes." He shuddered at the thought and looked up at her pleadingly. "Less awkward topic now?"

Sheena couldn't help it and burst out laughing. It was just such a ridiculous notion, and the look on his face was priceless. At least his pride wasn't invincible.

The ninja glanced down at the fox. "Let's say I let you tag along out of the goodness of my heart. How do I know I won't get killed in my sleep?"

Naruto snorted at the 'goodness of my heart' part but responded anyway. "I could kill you now with little effort, but you don't see me leaping at your throat or anything. I really don't have to tag along with you to do that."

Sheena fought the urge to sigh. That didn't really reassure her, but he had a point. If he wanted her dead he had plenty of opportunity to do so already. "Fine... you can tag along, or whatever. But I want something out of this to put up with you."

The fox shrugged. "I can teach you some stuff about sealing, catch food and keep watch at night."

"That... works." Sheena said slowly. She was expecting a bit of whining, honestly. Not for him to immediately start spouting off things he would do. "You really wanna come along huh?"

"Do you have any idea how bored it is with nobody to talk to for months? Ugh its terrible." He screwed up his face and padded up to the giant door in front of them. "We're here by the way, so I should probably stop talking before they decide to try and examine me or something."

The kunoichi glanced up and noticed that, indeed, they were right in front of the Renegade base. She hadn't even noticed actually. She nodded in acceptance of his statement and walked inside, the demon fox on her heels.

* * *

><p>"So... why are we still just waiting here?" Naruto questioned for what seemed like the hundredth time. Sheena's willpower was steadily failing her and soon she was sure she'd throttle the damn fox.<p>

"_Because, _Naruto, I'm waiting for the Chosen's group to come through here." The kunoichi responded.

'Here', of course, was on the Ossa Trail. After exploring the base (which consisted of Naruto trying not to touch any of the important looking machinery and ignoring everything everyone was saying) they were told that the Chosen was at the first 'seal', the places they had to go for the Regeneration Journey, and they would soon be leaving by way of the Ossa Trail, since it was the only way from this desert to a place called Izlood. They knew this because the base had been attacked by the Chosen's group to rescue one of their group members, and that was the reason the Rheaird crashed. Nobody had been inside to open the hangar doors for the mechanical bird.

Naruto and Sheena had been here for a day already, hoping to ambush the group because of the cliffs that surrounded the mountain trail.

Naruto started rolling around out of boredom while Sheena still looked out over the trail seriously from their vantage point on top of one of the cliffs.

"But why can't we just go take them out at the seal? All this waiting around is so boring!" He whined and Sheena could feel her eye twitching again.

"Because the Chosen themselves are usually pretty powerful, they're chosen by angels after all. Not to mention that they usually have groups of guardians with them, rarely does a Chosen travel by themselves." The kunoichi glanced at Naruto with the corner of her eye. "Now do you see why I need to ambush them? I'm going to be severely outnumbered."

"But you have me here to help." Naruto shot back. Sure, he knew it was a solid plan and a perfect place for an ambush, but he just didn't like this lack of action.

"And this is MY mission. I'd like to be the one to complete it. So thanks but no thanks." She said, going back to watching the trail. "I'm fine with you pulling me out if I get in over my head, but my village trusted me with this. I don't want you to have to do it for me."

Naruto nodded seriously. He understood that much, he was the same way. Being put on a team for a mission was one thing; but being trusted to complete it yourself and then having someone else nosing in on you anyway was like spitting on your abilities.

"There's a travel group coming through the pass." Sheena noted, and Naruto looked down to see a group of five people walking almost directly underneath them.

There was a boy with short brown hair, and his clothing looked to be entirely red and thick, possibly a kind of leather or something. His entire body was covered with the red clothing, and it reminded him a lot of his old orange jumpsuit, since only his head was left exposed. He had two swords sheathed at his sides.

There was a girl with long golden blond hair, and she had an outfit that made her look something like a priest, though it wasn't a robe. It was a white coat with blue trim. It was pretty long, going down to about her knees, and she was wearing black... pants? Stockings? Naruto had no idea. White gloves and boots topped off her outfit.

The third person was a man with bright red hair, spiked wildly, but mostly towards the right side of his head. He was wearing dark purple clothing that appeared to be light battle armor. It was form-fitting, with a cloak made of two wing-like parts that went down his back. He had a shield on his arm and a longsword sheathed at his side. A classic warrior then, Naruto noted.

The fourth person was a young boy with silver hair, spiked wildly somewhat like the man, but longer and towards the left instead of the right. He was only about half the height of the adults in the group, and was wearing a rather plain blue outfit and blue shorts. He was playing with a toy called a Kendama, a small hammer with a ball attached on a string. Naruto had seen a few for sale in a town after he had escaped Mizuho; never really paid attention to them but he remembered the name at least.

The final person was a woman who looked quite a bit like the boy; probably his mother or sister. She had silver hair going down to her shoulders, and an orange 'coat' that draped over her shoulders and went down the sides of her body, so you could see her white shirt and black pants. Finally, she was wearing white boots, and carrying a rod.

Sheena stood up next to him, while Naruto simply stayed lying down. He figured he'd just watch, and if she got in trouble just vanish with her.

"Is the Chosen among your group?" She yelled down at them, and Naruto just cringed.

"Sheena-chan, I'm pretty sure if they were they wouldn't just tell you that..." Naruto muttered to her, and Sheena flushed and looked embarrassed at him before someone in the group shouted back.

"Oh, that's me! I'm the Chosen!" The blond girl shouted back with a bright smile. Naruto placed a paw over his face and groaned, while Sheena just grinned smugly at him before hopping down the cliff face and landing softly on the ground in front of the group. They gaped at her and Naruto rolled his eyes. Sheena was worried about these guys? They were jokes.

"Then prepare to die." Sheena said calmly, pulling out her seal slips and rushing forward. Naruto resisted the urge to groan again. Then again, Sheena wasn't being very smart about this either. What kind of ambush was it when you revealed your intent AND just rushed forward blindly? Even he stopped doing that around fifteen, and people always told him he was way too cocky for his own good.

The blond girl gasped in surprise as the others moved to try and protect her from Sheena. The redhead was the only one among them that seemed to have real skill though. The two boys were blown away right from the start by Pyre Seal palm strikes. Sure, they'd get back up again pretty quick, but if Sheena reached the Chosen it wouldn't really matter. The redhead on the other hand was holding his own quite well.

Sheena obviously wasn't aiming to kill him; it would take too long and would be difficult with the particular seals she was using. She was just trying to hit him with a good palm strike to knock him across the clearing like the others, clearing the path to the blond Chosen. However she couldn't even manage that.

The kunoichi lashed out with yet another palm strike aimed at his shoulder, but he used his shield arm to push her arm away so that it sailed harmlessly over him. He must have noticed from her earlier attacks on the boys that trying to block her probably wouldn't end well; the shield would either crack or the momentum would smash it (along with his arm) into his stomach, which would probably cause more damage, not less.

Naruto glanced at the final member of the party, the silver haired woman. She didn't seem to be concentrating on the fight, instead waving her rod over the two boys as it glowed blue. Naruto raised his eyebrows at this. Maybe a medic? He saw no other reason for her to be over there instead of helping the redhead.

Eventually Sheena seemed to get annoyed with her lack of progress and simply used her higher speed to fake out the redhead and dash around him, aiming to kill the Chosen quickly. The man cursed and dashed after her, showing surprising speed compared to what he was using before. _He was holding back?_

The Chosen gasped and stumbled back as Sheena closed in on her. The kunoichi pulled out a kunai from her clothes, the only bladed weapon Naruto had seen her use so far, and lunged forward for a quick kill.

It didn't quite go as planned however. As Sheena sliced the blade across where the Chosen's neck would have been, the blond girl tripped and fell backward, letting the blade cut nothing but a few hairs from her head. But that wasn't all; when the girl tripped she fell on top of a lever hidden by the brush, which immediately triggered a trap door that just so happened to be underneath Sheena at that very moment.

"SHIIIIIT!" Sheena yelled as she tumbled down into the darkness, and Naruto winced when he heard a loud thump after a considerable fall. That blond girl had some serious good luck; she looked to be done for.

The blond shinobi sighed and shook the dry dust from his fur. Well, time to go bail Sheena out. The group had talked a little bit before simply moving on; probably trying to just get out of the pass before Sheena got out.

He walked slowly up to the hole and looked down. Damn it was deep. It was pitch black and he couldn't see the bottom. He took a deep breath.

"SHEENA! ARE YOU OKAY DOWN THERE?" He yelled out, then listened patiently as he heard his voice echo repeatedly down into the darkness. It only took a moment for a response.

"MORE OR LESS! GO SLOW THEM DOWN, I'LL CATCH UP!" He heard the woman yell back. He nodded an affirmative as if someone could see him and ran off to catch up to the group.

* * *

><p>It wasn't too hard to slow them down, to be honest. He could rush ahead and transform into his hybrid form to push boulders into the pass, blocking their route and forcing them to climb over them. The small boy and the Chosen didn't seem very physically fit, they had massive difficulties in climbing. He thought that, as a medic, the silver haired woman would have difficulty too, but she got by just fine.<p>

Spying was ridiculously simple; he just changed back into a fox and wandered near them, a couple of times he merely lid down on the side of the pass and listened to them as they walked by. The redhead glanced at him a few times, but said nothing, so Naruto figured he was just curious why there were 'so many' foxes in the pass, when in reality he just kept seeing the same fox over and over again.

Unfortunately, while the spying part was easy, getting them to talk about something useful was next to impossible. So far he had only learned their names, and that the silver haired boy was something called a 'mage'.

The blond Chosen was named Colette, and she seemed to be good friends with the two younger boys. The brown haired boy was named Lloyd, while the silver haired was named Genis. The silver haired woman was Genis' sister Raine, and the redhead was named Kratos.

Other than that, they wouldn't really talk about anything important. Lloyd just kept saying stuff about how awesome he was at beating up 'desians' and Colette just kept agreeing with him basically.

After quite a while, due to Naruto's timely rock slides slowing them down considerably, they reached the end of the trail. Naruto himself was in his fox form, once again lying off to the side of the pass to hear what they were saying. Unfortunately for him, this time Kratos wasn't the only one to notice him.

"Oh my goddess, its so adorable!" He heard at the same time as a feminine squeal. A shudder went down his back and he suddenly felt as if he was in incredible danger.

It only took a moment for him to find himself in Colette's arms being crushed by way of a death hug. "Ack!" He coughed out, this girl was stronger than she looked!

She gasped and loosened her hold on him. "Sorry foxy, did I hurt you?" The blond said, while everyone else in the group looked oddly at the fox.

"Did it just say something?" Lloyd finally questioned as Naruto resisted the urge to shake his head 'no'. It probably wouldn't be a good idea for them to know he understood them, so he just made a little 'yip' sound that he at least thought normal foxes made.

"Don't be silly Lloyd, foxes don't talk!" The Chosen chided, as if the notion was ridiculous. Naruto sweatdropped. He wasn't expecting them to drop that so easily, since he _did _talk just a moment ago. Maybe the Chosen was just a little... 'special'?

"Be careful Colette. Foxes are wild animals and can be dangerous." Kratos informed, while looking at Naruto suspiciously. He gulped. Okay maybe one of them wasn't so gullible.

"Nonsense, he's a little sweetie!"

Naruto let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding and sighed. It seemed like the Chosen was going to keep jumping to his defense. She was probably a bit too sweet.

Just as Kratos was going to say something else to get her to put the fox down, a loud crash erupted from the road in front of them as a large wooden door was kicked down and out stepped a coughing Sheena along with a thick cloud of dust.

"G-geez... that mine was nothing but trouble. So much weird stuff. Crazy skeletal swordsmen are where I draw the line." She muttered to herself before looking up and noticing the Chosen's group right in front of her.

"Shit! Why are you guys right at the exit?" She shouted, trying to compose herself, hurriedly dusting off her clothes and searching for her seal slips.

The Chosen's group (minus Colette) immediately drew their respective weapons and faced Sheena. Naruto raised an eyebrow when Genis pulled out the kendama and actually brandished it threateningly like it was a weapon.

For a few moments nobody moved. Sheena was standing in a fighting stance while glaring at the group; though a couple of times she glanced at Naruto over in Colette's arms. She probably tried not to look too much to give him away.

Kratos was the one to move first, dashing forward and attempting a simple stab forward to test the waters. Sheena easily dodged it of course, stepping off to the side and attempting a palm strike at his arm. Kratos recovered incredibly quickly however, as he didn't put much reach or weight behind his stab, quickly pulling back and slashing at the woman, forcing her to pull back before she lost her hand.

That would have been the end of the first confrontation were it not for the other people still in the area. Lloyd had gotten tired of the redhead hogging his spotlight and dashed forward as well, releasing a flurry of strikes with his twin blades that were fast, but had no real form. Nevertheless, they were unpredictable and difficult to judge so Sheena was forced to start backpedalling as Genis joined the fray by tossing several fireballs.

_Ah, so he's like the people in Sybak. _Naruto mused, remembering how they also threw fireballs with little warning. Genis seemed to have a habit of playing with the kendama a little before tossing one, and it didn't take long for Naruto to notice that the longer he played with the toy, the larger the fireball ended up being.

_That's quite interesting. Guess it must be doing something to help him out. _He contemplated once more before turning back to the fight again.

Sheena dodged the fireballs easily, they were shot from so far away that she had plenty of time to notice them. The kunoichi ducked low, causing both a fireball and Lloyd's sword to both go harmlessly over her head. She smirked at them and stuck her tongue out at them childishly for their lackluster attempts to hurt her.

She then decided it was time for her to go on the offensive again. The ninja grabbed the wrist that was still over her head and pulled hard while at the same rising back to her normal height. The boy's expression changed the moment he knew what was happening, but it was too late to do something about it. Sheena brought up a knee and shoved it into his gut, causing him to double over in pain. Not letting up, she immediately let him go and started jabbing repeatedly into his stomach, making the boy cough and wince with every blow before finally upper cutting him in the chin to knock him away.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. That didn't seem like the kind of move she'd usually use; or at least one she hadn't used against him. Her blows also seemed to cause quite a bit more damage than he thought possible of her.

The blond's silent question was answered when Lloyd attempted to get back up again and repeatedly failed, struggling to stay even on his knees. "What... what's wrong with me?"

The kunoichi grinned cheekily and opened her fists, revealing partially crumpled seals inside.

"This is my Power Seal. All it takes is a simple tap and it starts sapping your strength." Her grin widened. "And not just that." She commented, dashing forward to knock Lloyd out of the fight. Kratos moved to defend him, raising his shield to stop the ninja. She just smirked and punched the shield, seemingly without effort, but the small buckler obtained a new spiderweb of cracks from the mocking blow. Kratos' eyes widened at the display.

"After it drains you of your strength, it adds it to my own." She commented again, smiling. Sheena lashed out with a kick at the redhead swordsman, but he decided not to contend with her new-found strength and dodged backwards. "Temporarily, but still useful."

The fight dissolved into another short waiting game. Lloyd was still trying and failing to stand, while everyone else was preparing for the other to make the next move. Kratos seemed much more cautious this time around, while Sheena was just grinning smugly, content to wait for one of them to attack first so that she could counterattack with her seals.

Not even a minute into their makeshift staring contest, a young voice said, "Hey, what's wrong with your paw?"

The fighters glanced over to see Colette fussing over Naruto in his fox form, while he just looked lost as to what was going on.

Colette frowned as she held his paw up, seeing a faint but noticeable red glow coming from underneath his orange fur. "What is this?"

Naruto looked pretty confused himself, never noticing that before. However after a moment his eyes shone with recognition. _Shit! That was when I..._

* * *

><p><em>He grinned at them and quickly spun around before smashing his hand through the glass of the test tube and grabbing the little crystal, pulling it out of its tiny home and ripping out the metal claws that attempted to protect the gem.<em>

_The woman gasped and glared at him with fury in her eyes, and more than a little fear. "S-stop that! Do you have any idea of what that is or the significance of what you're doing?"_

_Naruto smiled a gigantic shit-eating fox grin at her. "Nope!" He chirped happily._

_And then his world exploded into white-hot fire._

* * *

><p><em>It's that crystal! <em>He shouted in his mind. _You can still see the glow at the spot I grabbed it! _The ninja-turned-fox made a few yipping noises and pulled on his paw a bit to try and make her ignore it or let go, but she wasn't having any of it. She kept a tight grip.

"It almost reminds me of my..." Colette started, but trailed off as the faint red light became deeper and more pronounced. In response to it her body seemed to completely seize up, and her eyes became dull and unfocused. Unseen by everyone else, the same thing was happening to Naruto. He was unable to move as the light became a darker and darker red.

"Colette! Get away from that thing!" Kratos ordered; but then cursed when he saw her body's odd state. Raine was still near her however, as she was waiting in the back until someone required healing, but at Kratos' yell she quickly reached out to the fox and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck before throwing him into the middle of the fray.

Naruto sailed through the air as little more than a rag doll. His eyes still seemed unfocused and his body was rigid and unmoving. He impacted the ground with a dull thump and only then did he seem to come back to the world of the living, along with Colette gasping and holding a hand over her heart at the same time.

Naruto simply stayed lying on his back for a moment, his legs in the air and his tail sprawled out around him. Shortly afterwards he said, "What the hell just happened?"

Everyone just stared at him with wide eyes when he spoke and Sheena slapped a hand over her face in exasperation. "It can talk!" Colette and Raine both yelled out at the same time, though Colette's was more of a gasp, while the silver-haired woman's yell was definitely more manic. She was staring at the fox with a disturbing gleam in her eye.

"Shit. My bad Sheena-chan." Naruto apologized with a nervous smile on her face while Sheena just sighed. He didn't have long to say much more however when a sword from a certain redhead nearly skewered him. "Whoa! That's not cool! I haven't even done anything yet!" The ninja exclaimed, dodging all of Kratos' sword swings with relative ease; ducking, jumping, and weaving in and around the sword with his nimble body.

Naruto glanced at Sheena to his right and saw her simply staring at him bemusedly as he narrowly avoided getting cut up by the swordsman. "NOW can I fight back? I'm kinda getting attacked directly here."

The kunoichi rolled her eyes. "I guess so..." She started, but then trailed off when she heard an unearthly moan that sent chills down her spine. Looking around she noticed it had the same effect on everyone else in the fight; they were all looking around wildly for the source of the noise.

However, Sheena already knew exactly what it was. She spun around quickly and looked toward the mine exit that she had come out of earlier. A large black skeleton with four arms, each with a sword was wandering out from the darkness of the mine. The monster was easily as tall as three men combined, and it had no eyes; simply black voids where its eyes should be.

The kunoichi cursed. "Damn it, not this crazy thing again."

The skull of the skeleton grinned widely the moment it stepped outside. Its gaze wandered over all the fighters and it chuckled lowly to itself. **"I knew that I heard fighting. All these warriors on my doorstep... it's like a dream! Fight me! Make me feel alive!"** The skeleton cackled and dashed forward, intent on simply ripping the people on both sides of the confrontation into shreds.

Naruto was musing about how much this demonic skeleton reminded him of Gaara when something grabbed his tail and started yanking on it painfully. He turned his head to growl at Sheena who was glaring back at him.

"Come on, we're leaving! We can attack them sometime later, that thing is crazy and I am NOT dealing with it again!" Sheena ordered and pulled on his tail again. Naruto growled but didn't care to argue; he could probably beat this skeletal swordsman if he tried but it was giving him a really, really weird vibe and to be honest he just wanted to be away from the crazy thing.

Sheena and Naruto both jumped up the sides of the cliff, letting the Chosen's group gawk at them as the ninjas left them to their fate of fighting the skeletal swordsman. As they jumped off into the mountains the skeleton continued to laugh and yell while swinging its swords widely all over the place. **"Its been so long since I've fought! Keep struggling! I'll kill you all, and if you try to run I'll track you to the ends of the world! I'll never leave any of you alone until you're all dead, I swear by my title of Sword Dancer!"**

Naruto groaned as the 'Sword Dancer' continued to cackle and fight like a madman. Great, they've only been in this world for a little over a day and they've already failed their first ambush and acquired a demonic stalker skeleton. Wonderful.

* * *

><p>Naruto yawned from his position of lazily lying on a bench in 'Izlood' in his fox form. Sheena was trying to find passage across the ocean to a place called 'Palmacosta' so that they could get there before the Chosen's group; he assumed it was so they could have an ambush already set up for them. All the names of these towns sounded so weird to him, honestly.<p>

He opened an eye and lazily gazed up at Sheena as she walked over to him and sat on the bench next to him. She sighed and began to speak.

"There are no ships available at the moment, apparently the seas are dangerous right now and full of monsters. It is going to be difficult to find anyone willing to try and take us across." She explained.

Naruto thought for a moment before responding. "Doesn't that mean the Chosen will be stuck here too?"

The kunoichi shook her head. "I doubt it. They either have special passage set up for her or they will risk their lives to get her across. This entire world is counting on her to finish her journey." She explained again, scrunching up her face at the end of her comment. _Probably still finding the thought of murdering such a person distasteful, _Naruto mused.

"So why don't we just walk on water to get over the ocean? Or ambush them while they're defenseless on the boat?" Naruto questioned, honestly curious.

The woman glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and snorted in an unladylike manner. "Whenever one of us learns to walk on water, let me know and we can do that."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "What kind of ninja are you that you can't walk on water?"

Sheena blinked blankly. "What kind of ninja are you that you can?"

The fox groaned and thumped his forehead on the bench before mumbling to the other ninja. "Well, I know what I'm teaching you first now. Then we'll attack their boat when they try to cross, okay?"

She raised an eyebrow in confusion but she didn't have any better ideas. "Okay I guess. You'll teach me to walk on water?" She questioned with obvious disbelief.

"Yeah, but I doubt there are any hot springs around here to practice on, so I'll just boil some water for you to fall into when you screw up." He commented offhandedly without concern. Sheena gulped nervously. He didn't sound like a teacher that cared much for safety. This probably wasn't going to be pretty.


End file.
