Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Return of the Lost Son ❯ Enter the Bug Master ( Chapter 10 )

It took some time before Kenichi felt stable on his feet. He had heard of the Aburame clan, a group of shinobi who used chakra-eating bugs as their personal weapons. Although he had never met them due to their secretive natures, he had heard that those who had were reduced to shells of their former selves. He looked back at Kakashi. That boy really was a tricky genius, using his half-sharingan to hypnotize Kenichi enough to allow that Aburame to sneak up and place his bugs on him. It really was going to be a shame when he wiped him out along with the village. However more pressing matters lay ahead of him in the form of the bug master.

 

“I was meditating when I heard the commotion over here,” came a somber voice from behind the trench coat. “It looks like I have arrived just in time. Tell me stranger, who are you, and why have you attacked our ANBU officers?”

 

“It is only fitting that the long lost son of Konoha would not be recognized by his peers. For now you may call me Kenichi, but I don't see the point in telling you, especially since your fate on this earth was sealed the moment you placed your chakra pests on me.”

 

“Surrender now and I will leave you with enough chakra to walk yourself into the Konoha jail. Continue with your assault, and my kikaichu will suck you dry and leave you unable to call yourself a shinobi.”

 

“Do you know what your biggest mistake was?” Kenichi asked slyly, “It wasn't that you came here, or even that you've drained most of my chakra.” Kenichi hunched over as he said this, spreading his legs apart as if he was preparing to lunge at the unnamed Aburame clansman. But that was impossible since the kikaichu had drained enough chakra to leave most shinobi helpless on the ground. “Your biggest mistake,” Kenichi continued, “was leaving a chakra vacuum in me and there is only one thing that can fill it in.”

 

With that last comment, the Aburame clansmen sensed that the stranger's chakra was growing steadily, as if there were no bugs on him at all. To his further surprise, he saw visible proof of what he sensed as a reddish-orange aura started to grow around the stranger. His entire physical presence was changing from what it had been when the Aburame had arrived. His eyes, which were blue like a clear, summer sky, were now a dark orange shade and slit like an animal's. His fingers were curled, ready to slash at whoever opposed him with inhumanly long and sharp claws. His mouth was set in a snarl, exposing wolf-like canines. This stranger was no mere shinobi; he was a monster from the depths of hell.

 

The Aburame clansman had no choice. “Ultimate Parasitic Swarm jutsu,” he called out, sending forth a stream of kikaichu at his target. The bugs continued to cover the stranger, at first numbering in the tens, then the hundreds, and finally the thousands. The stranger looked like a living kikaichu doll, as the bugs covered him from head to toe, completely swallowing him up in their ranks. The Aburame clansman had exhausted his supply of bugs, and was left drained by the last ditch effort to subdue this threat to Konoha. He could feel the chakra level of the stranger receding, but something was wrong.

 

Kenichi's chakra level should have been plummeting at an incredible rate, but instead it was slowly receding, like water from a bucket with a pin-sized hole at the bottom.

 

“Unbelievable,” the Aburame thought to himself, awestruck by what he was witnessing. Then, another unfortunate surprise happened, as the Aburame watched one of his bugs fall off the mass, and onto its back, legs twitching in the air. The kikaichu only assumed this position when they were full of chakra and unable to absorb anymore. Then, another one fell, and another, and another. Soon, the ground around the stranger was becoming littered with the bloated bodies of the Aburame bugs.

 

The Aburame looked up at the mass of kikaichu that were feasting on the stranger, and a cold chill infiltrated his body as he realized that the stranger's chakra was no longer receding, but rather growing at a phenomenal rate. The mass that had completely covered the stranger was withering away, allowing the once uniform blackness to be broken through by occasional spots of orange chakra. The Aburame clansman stood rooted in place, in awe and unable to move, as he watched his mass of kikaichu slowly swell out like a balloon. Something else was wrong with the bugs now. They were falling off by the dozens, but it wasn't from being full on chakra.

 

Then the smell reached his nose; a smell that any member of the Aburame clan would find appalling. It was the rancid smell of kikaichu on fire; the stranger was burning off his bugs with his chakra!