Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Three ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine, but Yuri and Akuma are.

Translations:

baka: idiot

Chichiue: father

kuso: damn

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Three

by: Lostlily

Chapter 4

Naruto cried out with surprise when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. He tried to quickly turn in his stool to see who it was, but he ended up losing his balance and fell to the floor with a small crash. A soft giggle made him glance up. There stood Yuri, trying to muffle her giggles, then she offered her hand to him, "Gomen ne, Naruto-kun. I didn't mean to scare you again." Naruto let out a sigh as he thought to himself, 'I really need to be more aware of my surroundings. It's shameful for an expert ninja like me to be surprised so many times.'

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"Who is that girl, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked the young Uchiha as they watched Naruto from their hiding spot across the street behind a fruit stand. They had been tailing their blond teammate ever since Kakashi let them go for the day. Sakura wanted to know what was wrong with him, so she convinced Sasuke to go follow him with her. Despite his aloof attitude, Sasuke found himself worrying about the loud baka as much as the kunoichi was.

So here they were, watching as a girl, whom they've never seen before, helped Naruto to his feet. Sasuke narrows his eyes slightly as he answers the pink-haired girl's question, "I don't know, but Naruto seems familiar with her."

"That's so strange, he doesn't have many friends and the ones he does have, we know them. Do you think he just met her recently?" Sakura quietly pondered, her green eyes, never straying from the scene across the street. The Inner Sakura scratches her head with frustration, yelling out, 'Chikuso, I want to know!!' Sasuke just mumbles his trademark, "Hn."

Sakura's eyes suddenly widened, "Look at his face, he's so serious. What's he saying to her?" They watched as Naruto spoke to the girl, his face serious in a way they've never seen outside of a battle. The girl nodded, then gave him a brief reply. Sasuke quickly pulled Sakura into the shadows of their hiding place as the girl and Naruto exited the ramen place. He could have sworn that she glanced in their direction, with her strange blue-violet eyes, before they walked off together. Sasuke quietly murmured, "Come on, let's hurry before we lose them."

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Yuri patiently waited for Naruto to start speaking. He said in the ramen bar that he had a lot of questions to ask her, so she agreed to come out here and answer them. He took her to the bridge where his team usually met up, knowing that it was a quiet, secluded place where they could talk. Naruto leaned against the rail of the bridge as he tried to gather all his thoughts. Finally, he began to speak, "Who are you really and where are you from because I know that you're not from around here."

"I am a genin from the Hidden Cloud Village and as to who I am, well, I'm the daughter of the Raikage," was the calm reply he got, although there was a hint of strain when the last part was said.

"Why are you here?"

"Like I've mentioned before, I came here for you."

Naruto's hands clenched into fists as he asked a bit loudly, "Why!?"

"Because we're the same."

"You said that yesterday and I still don't understand!" The young shinobi was breathing with frustration, then he became startled as Yuri walks up to him, like she had done the day before, and looks him the eye. He leaned back, almost trying to get away from her closeness, yet he couldn't seem to look away from her eyes. They looked so familiar to him, but why?

Softly, the cloud-nin whispers, "The look I see in your eyes is the same look I see every time I look in a mirror." This shocked the blond ninja like nothing else. He had thought those words when he saw the look of sadness and loneliness in Gaara's eyes during his battle with him. 'Just like me...' He stared back into the eyes before him, as he said in a barely audible voice, "Iie...it can't be..."

Hearing those words, the girl silently moved away from him to lean on the rail and stare down at the water flowing below. Quietly, she murmured, "Hai, it's true. I have a youkai in me just like you and Gaara. I know what it's like to have such great power within me.." She looked down, but she didn't see her reflection, she saw something from the past.

"Iie...it can't be..." The Raikage said with horror as he tried to take in the scene before him. Two bodies were sprawled on the ground of the courtyard, burned beyond recognition. Judging from whatever was left of their clothing, they were just some teenage genin. Whispers from the jounin present seemed to float around.

"It looks as if lightning struck them."

"But there was no storm."

"A little girl did this?"

"She has that thing inside of her."

"Shh...she might hear us and we'll end up just like those two."

A short distance away from the bodies was a seven-year-old Yuri, hugging herself as she rocked back and forth, a look of utter shock on her face. The Raikage licked his lips nervously before hoarsely asking his daughter, "W-what happened here?"

The trembling child looked up to her father, crying out, "Chichiue!! I...I didn't mean to...th-they just ap-appeared. They...s-said th-they w-were g-gonna rid th-the village of a-a m-m-monster...I-I told th-them to s-stay away, b-but they k-kept coming...I t-t-told th-them to s-stay a-away..."

The Raikage stared down at the sobbing form of his daughter, his mind unable to comprehend the destruction she caused. Finally, he looked to the jounin and said harshly, "Take these bodies away and report that they were attacked by outside forces. Say not a word of what you saw here this night, understood?" Then, without looking at her, he says to Yuri, just as harshly, "Go to your room and stay there." After saying that, he departs, never once seeing the broken look in the little girl's eyes.

"Yuri-san...are you ok?"

Yuri comes back to the present, "N-nani?"

Naruto looked at her with concern, "You're crying."

She touches her cheek, surprised to find it wet with tears. She quickly wiped the wetness away, then gazed at him, "It's nothing." The blond shinobi looked as if he didn't believe her but decided not to make any comments. He rested his hands on the back of his head as he turned his attention up to the sky, which for some reason looked even more cloudy then before, like it was about to rain or something. After a moment of silence, he said, "What other reason do you have for coming here?"

Yuri looked back down at the water, "I want you to have the same chance that was given to me and Gaara."

"Chance?" Surprise and curiosity was evident in his voice.

"The chance to control the youkai power within you."

"I can already control the Kyuubi's chakra and from our battle, it looked as if Gaara had some control already as well."

"But that's only a small amount of control that you have. Even I can use the power of the youkai in me, but the youkai itself, is beyond my control. Which the same for you and Gaara. At any moment, your seal could break and you'll be lost forever as the Kyuubi takes over your body. Even Gaara has that fear, I know I do," She placed a hand over her chest, where a cursed seal was, just above her heart. It gave a small throb of power.

Naruto's hands lowered to his sides as he gave a small shudder from her words. He knew there was truth in what she said. The times he tapped into the Kyuubi's chakra, he could feel the struggle of power between him and youkai. Sure, in the end, he won the power struggle, but what about the next time? What if the Kyuubi wins? What then? Flashes of the people he knew and friends he made go through his mind. If he could fully control the Kyuubi's power, then everyone will finally acknowledge his strength...even Sasuke. Then he'll be able to recognize his dream of becoming Hokage.

Yuri watched him, waiting for him to make his decision, but she already knew what it was going to be. He looked towards her and said without any hesitation, "Tell me how."

"Let's take a walk as I explain everything," She said as she headed towards the end of the bridge, making him quickly follow. Then he watched with open-mouth surprise as a kunai appeared in her hand and she swiftly turned and threw it towards a bush on the other end of the bridge. Naruto asked with confusion, "What did you do that for?"

Yuri frowned at the bush for a moment, then said, "I thought I heard something." Then she shrugged and they continued on with her explaining about the forbidden scroll as Akuma did for Gaara on the night they met him.

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The moment Naruto and the girl called Yuri disappeared into the forest, two hidden ninja relaxed slightly. "Kuso!" Sasuke muttered quietly before he took his hand off of Sakura's mouth, letting her take in a deep breath. Sakura glanced anxiously towards her teammate, "That was close...should we keep following them?"

"Iie, it's too risky. She almost got us this time." Their eyes strayed towards the tree behind them where the kunai embedded itself along with several strands of pink hair. "I think we better have a talk with Kakashi-sensei. He'll know what to do." The female shinobi nodded with agreement, then they both jumped out of sight, not noticing how the clouds in the sky seemed to be gone now.