Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Tsunade's Heir ❯ Wave Arc Pt.2 to present ( Chapter 11 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Okay, and this chapter brings us up towards fanfiction.net

For now.

It's a shame but I think wordpad swallows my line breaks

And it's a shame I have to use wordpad at all.

Seriously. Wtf?


Chapter 20: Chapter 20



Disclaimer: I'm so sick of disclaiming these things. Seriously, do I even need to? Is it just tradition or what?

This chapter was been (sort of) brought to you by the Review a Song campaign.



It was hard to see through this weather. Thousands of raindrops littered the vision, and torrential winds had a tendency to hurl that water into a traveller's face.

It was also hard to walk, with the previous dirt-packed road eroding into a marsh-like consistency of mud.

The howls of the wind chilled the soul…

The beating of the rain deafened the ears…

This was the state of the eastern shore.

Because of the limitation of sight, Naruto couldn't say he spotted the next port, exactly. He rather just stumbled onto it.

Or what remained of it.

Soaked and rotten wood littered the ground, the remains of ships washed ashore.

Naruto allowed himself a moment to take in the sight, and reflect on his past efforts.

Damn.

How many… just how many?

How many ports had he visited?

How long had he been walking through this hellish torrent?

This one… please…

Please!

It was into a dilapidated dock bar that lined this violent scene that Naruto walked into. The bar had been secured with tarp and line, so the only real light source of the commons were the various swinging lamps attached to every wall. There was the constant sound of water striking the tarp outside, like the restless beating of an army of drums, and an almost periodic howl from the wind.

The ceiling was high, the interior old fashioned.

The patrons… There were 3 patrons.

Naruto would have jumped for joy at seeing signs of life in the watery wasteland that the entire eastern shore had become…

But even his enthusiastic personality had been beaten down, after so many failed attempts.

Naruto walked in, and the door gave a protesting groan as the winds slammed it shut.

Hair that would be windswept if it weren't so matted to his forehead with water covered his family diamond, and the quality white jacket he wore was mudded by weather and torn from his previous fight. He looked a begraddled beggar.

A man stood, greyed and muscled. And Naruto assessed him as both gruff and reckless. He was gruff, likely from years of battles between himself and the sea, and he was proved reckless by seeking out alcohol rather than securing his own house from the winds.

Or, Naruto considered as he looked at the man's raggy attire, without a home to secure.

The man spoke. "What do you want, kid? This ain't no place to serve milk."

Naruto shook his head. "I'd be crazy to be thirsty in this weather, old man."

The man scoffed, turning back to nursing his brew.

"Need a hand, traveller?" The bartender – a balding and thin-faced, pale man – asked wearily. His establishment wasn't much one for children, being normally a den of sailors and merchants. Exotic brews and exotic women had passed through his modest business in equal measure, and both were equal poison to an unprepared youth.

But he was an old and experienced barkeep. And he learned long ago that when a lone boy, of any size, strides into your bar and immediately looks to the rafters and the foreheads of your patrons... you treat that boy as a man.

A Ninja disguised as a kid?

A Kid that was an experienced ninja?

A samurai in training?

A martial artist?

After years and years of being in the business, the man had learned one jewel of wisdom that he wouldn't trade his entire till for: It didn't matter. They were all lousy tippers, and meant as much trouble as any other force of nature that a barrister must endure.

The child took a seat at the bar, opening his satchel and retrieved a torn hitai-ate to show the barkeep.

It was protocol for ninja that had their hitai-ate somehow damaged. They were required by law to provide equivalence to the proof of their profession wherever they went.

The barkeep swore under his breath. "Can I help you?" he asked nervously. He had no idea if his place would make the night as it stood. A ninja atop that-! "I'd like to offer you a warm cup of sake, stranger, on the house. But I'll require some further identification." His eyes found a particular gash in the blonde's outfit and fixated on it. If he could find the true age of the ninja at least...

"ID?" The stranger asked, an amused and disbelieving tilt invading his tone. Without looking up his right hand shot out towards the barkeep, stopping just below his chin and...

"No." The boy shook his head, after a second. "I'm here on serious business." He reminded himself. "I don't want a drink anyway. Look, I need a boat." He said seriously.

He was not taken thus.

All three of the patrons laughed uproariously.

"A boat?" The gruff man from before stood. "A boat, he says! And sailors to man it too, I'd wager! And a cure for cancer while we're at it!" He roared appealingly to the room. "We've got another fool on our hands!" The man declared, as if Naruto was strange enough to be on display. "You should get dry and give up, as the little lady upstairs has."

Naruto considered the man's words. So there was another before him.

The two other drunkards held their mugs up in support of the forthcoming reprimand of the stranger. They sat side by side, rigidly. Their features were difficult to discern, in the dim lamplight of the bar, but they sat as mirror images of eachother.

The grey muscleman gave a bitter guffaw. "Boy, you've just arrived and I'm sure you think this is a lovely little storm we have here on our hands, and that it will be gone in the morning." The man paused, staring far off to where none but he could see. And a shadow of hurt caressed his gruff, grey features. "I had a boat. It was a fine boat. My d... my dog was on that boat – I know it sounds foolish, worrying for a dog. But he was not just any dog. He was mine, and his name was Wolfer… On the fifth day of this demonic storm – not the second, nor the first, but the fifth day of this hellish state my boat and pet both were dashed to a hundred thousand pieces!" He exclaimed, swinging his mug in a wide arc. He would have splashed the already drenched Naruto with his spillage, if the boy hadn't deftly sidestepped it.

Hey, if it was dealing with drunkards, he was an old hat at it.

"Mine was the last boat destroyed, boy." The man said, a mixture of pride and pain in his voice. "The last. What a title. She lasted the longest, but what good is it? She was dashed on the fifth day and that was two days ago. That was..."

Naruto frowned.

A week-long storm, and not a sliver of chakra in sight. It would be a national disaster, when news of it reached inland.

"How wide is the area?" Naruto asked, for he had yet to get a proper scope of it.

But the man was nonresponsive.

The barkeep spoke up. "Of the entire eastern shore, as far as three days walk north or south can take you in this weather, you will find nothing but the same."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Damn. That had been even farther than he had feared.

"I need to get across the sea." Naruto insisted. "I need a way. But all the boats are destroyed. There must be another way – there always is. But I don't know the sea. So let's put our heads together!" He challenged the inhabitants, stepping onto a table and holding out his arms. "Let's find a way out of this!"

Nothing.

Not derision, nor acceptance.

Just... nothing. Despair began to grip Naruto's heart. Not again.

The barkeep continued to quietly wipe his glass mug. "If you've pressing business abroad then I'm afraid it's a fool's errand."

"Fool's errand?" Naruto echoed. "Then call me a fool." He challenged, looking to the barkeep and the patrons. "Look at me – what a fool I am. Aren't you going to laugh?" He asked, archingly. "Or are you just going to sit there and give up on life? ! Come on! I've been to many bars like this one, but everywhere else was abandoned or filled with soulless husks that wouldn't even look at me! Come on!" He yelled. "You had some fire! You used it to insult me but it was something to work with! Come on!"

"Pointless." The gruff man said. "You're a fool."

"I've heard that one already." Naruto grit his teeth and objected. "And me? I'm a fool?" Quickly, Naruto bounded between bar tables to the man's area. He crouched by the man's head and forcefully pulled down his bottom lip. A sight of spongy gums upon the man's pale face greeted him. "Scurvy." Naruto scoffed. "F*cking scurvy. As a sailor, there's no way you're going to tell me that you didn't see it coming."

"Leave off." The man grunted, pushing Naruto's hand away.

"You've all given up." Naruto declared as he rose again to be standing on the table. "All of you. You two are a joke." The blonde pointed to the two silent patrons. "You're just going through the motions." He pointed at the barkeep. "And you're waiting to die." He finally pointed at the patron seated at the table he was standing on. "You aren't doing a damn thing!" Naruto exclaimed in exhasperation. "Can't you help me out?"

"Leave. Us. Be." The grey sailor insisted, dangerously.

Naruto got off of the table, and instead slid into the chair opposite the old sailor. "Do you think it's so terrible? Shit, yes. Okay, life sucks right now." Naruto admitted. "I get it. But there are millions of people counting on me across the see. I have to get there – I'm not just screwing around!"

The man scoffed. "Milloins of people, brat? Aren't you full of yourself? Just what do you think you are, anyway?"

"I'm a healer." Naruto replied, as if he had been awaiting the cue. "And across the sea is a country comprised entirely of small islands. They have ninjas, and all are gifted with water element affinity, but they could only hold back nature for so long. When they get tired, their country, their homes, their entire way of life will be swallowed up by the tide and the wave. Is that okay with you?" Naruto demanded. "Warriors of the sea, you're going to just forsake others to the waves?"

"What do you expect us to do?" The man demanded.

"Just get me there." Naruto growled. "Please."

"And what will you do?"

"I am a healer." Naruto reaffirmed. "I will heal it."

The man raised a brow. "You mean the victims?"

Naruto shook his head. "I mean the sea."

The gruff man stared at the young pup he was arguing with, before shifting his stare to his mug. Holy shit, was he that drunk? No, wait… he wasn't.

He looked back at the pup.

Then he pinched himself. "You're insane." He finally said in a kind of delayed awe. "The cold's hit you in the head and knocked out what little fool sense it found there."

"I'd rather be crazy than a damn quitter waiting to die!" Naruto spat.

Digging in his pockets for something particular, he gave it to the man. "Here, take these vitamins and cool your head." They would help the sailor's scurvy, both knew.

The man growled with the full amount of his gruffness. "I don't want to be healed. I won't take them. What then, great healer? How would you heal the sea if you can't even heal me?" The man scoffed. "It's hopeless. Your chances are the same to either task. Zero."

"Oh." Naruto's eye took on a dangerous glint. "You said something good there." He assessed. "Very well," he slammed the vitamins upon the table, "I will show you how to win a zero-chance bet. I will get you to take the vitamins and I will not force you. It is nothing for me."

"You think I'm an idiot? You think I'm a coward?" The man, growling, asked. "I know well of scurvy and death. And I desire both!"

"As a sailor, why are you even thinking of dying here, in a damp bar above a salty pitcher of beer?" Naruto asked. "It's pathetic. If you talk of dying, don't you talk of dying at sea?"

"I have no boat!" The man yelled in anger.

Naruto slammed his hands on the table, careful not to shatter it, yet shaking it terribly. "Help me find one!"

The man similarly slammed his hands on the table. His arms were larger, and the table did jump from his violence. "ENOUGH! Just - Just STOP IT!"

Naruto stared at the angry, beaten man, and sighed as he sat down. "Whatever," he said, looking away.

The man, feeling the abrupt finality of it… feeling that he had finally got his way… sat down as well – tiredly.

And… somehow a little disappointedly.

No. It was a fool's errand. Sweet words and nothing more. Somehow, the boy lit a bit of fire in him, but it was an illusion. It was a warm illusion.

Of course he wanted to sail. He had been born on the sea. He had lived on the sea. Embraced it. Relied on it. And even now, after the sea had devoured everything he had ever cared for… he still loved it. For he never would have had those things in the first place, if not for that azure treasure.

Of c…

Of course he didn't want to die here in a goddamn bar.

But…

He would not die a fool. He would die as he desired. He took a swing of his mug, and finished the brew.

He would –.

The man held his throat in surprise.

"Y-You…" The man regarded the child in unparalleled shock.

A flat stare met him. Waiting.

"You said you would not force me." The man objected, feeling the pills slip down his throat.

"I didn't do it." Naruto replied. "You did it." He placed a palm on the table for emphasis. "With your own hands."

When… When he had slammed the table? The pills bounced? "The… the chances of them actually dropping in my mug are idiotic." He objected, weakened by the shock.

"Oh. You said another good thing. It's a fool's bet right? Right." Naruto nodded. "When they lifted, I moved the mug so that the vitamins would drop in it. So I hope you understand," Naruto narrowed his eyes, "when I tell you that I am the kingof fool's bets."

"That's… That's cheating." The man objected, awed by the audacity.

Naruto's serious, flat look remained. He did his levelled best to imbue his speech with the full weight of his sincerity. This had to work. "Old man, miracles aren't like this damn rain. They aren't just going to fall from the sky. We have to get up and make it happen! It can happen, if we try! I was originally travelling towards water country for something else, and then I found this ridiculous state of nature. But I know what is happening. I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you that I can fix it." Naruto sincerely repeated. "I can fix it. I promise."

"I…"

"Help me." Naruto insisted. "There are a million ways to die. You didn't need to take scurvy. In your heart, you miss the sea."

"I…"

"One more time." Naruto pleaded. "Just once more!"

"…N-No." The man's withered hands, mere weeks ago so proud and strong, shook from the booze. "No. I… No."

He seemed to fold in on himself, physically and mentally. And no matter what Naruto tried, the man would say no more than a hollow 'No'.

Silently, Naruto stood up. Damn. Damn.

Damn!

He looked to the barkeep, who kept his eyes on the same glass he'd been wiping since Naruto had entered.

Damn.

The two in the corner, silent and cloaked.

Damn!

Without a word he walked again into the rain, the wind, and the cold. Again, the sleet struck him with force and chill like so many tiny needles of ice.

The door closed behind him, slammed by the wind, with a protesting groan.

His clothes that had barely begun to dry were once more saturated in seconds.

And he was not one step closer to his goal.

Damn.



A/N:

Review a song campaign: 1 review of my BETA's song = next chapter within a week (or so.) See my author's page for details. Otherwise, don't worry: I'll see you when I eventually make time for stuff.

Story itself: I was origionally going to title this chapter Hurricane Naruto (bitchin' reference no jutsu), but I realized that maybe 1% of you would actually get the reference.

Anyone that saw this turn of events gets a digital, metaphorical (fake) cookie. Anyone that forsees the next turn of events gets two coockies.

Anyone that can predict who the next enemies are, gets the mutha*ing coockie-jar.

Anyone that predicted I would update so quickly, I call bullshit on thee.

Survey Time! Isn't that wonderful?: Okay, rankings pls. D being 'it sucked'. S being 'it was perfect'

Mysteriousness.

Emotionality.

Imagery.< br>
Also, Image test: Please give an impression of the bar imagery. If you are having trouble describing your experience, here are some pre-configured answers:

I imagined the bar based on the author's descriptions, including the lamplight, the sound of the rain and wind, and the general image of the bar.

I read the bar description, but then forgot about it, and just thought of a bar in general for the setting.

I always skip descriptive paragraphs anyways, so I don't even know what you're talking about.



Chapter 21: Chapter 21



Disclaimer: If I did own Naruto, Shippuden would be 50% more awesome and have 3000% more continuity.

But then that's not saying much (I have a grudge against shippuden).



The lone ninja stared at what he could make out of the muddy path before him. It was not much. The hurricane obscured his sight.

He should go back and ask how far it was to the next port. He should. But he didn't know that he could stomach to see those people once more.

They were sick. In the heart. And it seemed he was not healer enough to aid them.

Damn.

He walked slowly forwards, for he had far to go and had need to preserve his chakra.

He walked and walked, and through the deafening roar of wind and rain, he knew it was impossible to hear a second lonely creak behind him.

But he knew that it must be there.

He pretended not to sense the two cloaked bar patrons approach him cautiously from the back.

They're coming.

He was expecting them.

He'd known what they were halfway through his argument with the old man. They only ever revealed one hand and their postures were too rigid for true drinkers, being limited by resting something heavy beneath their cloaks upon the dirty bar room floor.

The torrential rain obscured both footsteps and breathing, and he presumed that the people behind him were counting on this to make him oblivious to their movements. Yet they had little skill in the way of chakra obscurance.

From this, Naruto could derive two things. One, they were of a different group than those that had attacked the caravan, if their intel on him was so poor.

And two, he now had the element of surprise.

Yes.

He knew they were coming. And for the first time in his long history of being targeted for assassination… he… he wanted it.

He had been having a bad week and he needed something to hit.

Yes. They would be his lone silver lining to this dreary state of nature.

Their chakra flared in preparation to attack and Naruto spun around abruptly to surprise them that he would be an alert quarry, after all.

Yet, as he spun around, his heart raced to see what he would have never expected. Time seemed to slow and Naruto could practically make out the manifold individual raindrops.

For in that moment, he saw with horror…

The man.

So weak. So tired. He'd no physical energy to speak of, that Naruto could sense with his acute skill.

But he somewhat made out through the rain… the remaining handle of a broken, empty mug in the man's hand. And a rebreather-wearing, cloaked ninja standing with glass shards in his hair.

"Run!" The man yelled, hurling his large form at the cloaked assailant. "You damned fool!"

N…

No.

Naruto was already moving, dashing for the true fool between the two of them, heart pounding.

How? Why? The old man hadn't even raised a hand for himself. He wouldn't even eat a damn vitamin to save his own life.

Why?

Naruto was too late, the assailants too fast, and the distance simply too significant.

The man fell to the floor, chest slashed.

Naruto made this out, even through the heavy rain and the darkened sky. A man had fallen for him. Before his eyes. A civilian and a poor, pained soul that had stood up from the pit of despair to do what he thought was right…

It was so stupid! So futile! There was barely any strategic value from civilian interference, if the enemy was skilled enough.

And if they weren't that skilled, then who cared?

But the man wouldn't have known that.

Because he was a civilian.

A scream of sudden rage died in Naruto's throat. He had been having a bad week, and he would not allow the man to die for him!

The nuke-nin that hadn't been dealing with the interloper dashed to intercept Naruto and they met in the dim light below sun-stealing rainclouds – a clash of steel on flesh.

Naruto growled, holding back the larger ninja's clawed hand. "Out of my way." He warned in a low tone. "You've lost your edge."

They'd never had an edge.

But he would give them one chance to back down. He would give them one chance to let this end with all their bones intact – the minutes he would save were that precious.

Had to end this fast.

The old man…

Blood-loss?

No, infection from the mud.

Shit.

The clawed hand closed around Naruto's arm, even as they stalemated. The claw was sharp, but the metal itself was less sturdy than Naruto's reinforced skin. The metal cried out in protest as it scratched meaninglessly upon him, but it's small wails were swallowed by a sudden howl from the wind. "You're strong." The assailant admitted with a hiss. "But you're just a boy."

Fine.

Naruto growled out to his obstacle: "Whatever." Naruto focused on the hand that was interlocked with his opponent's large claw.

A moderate godhand charge, and the assailant had to stagger backwards with his unwieldy weapon flung above his head. Naruto stepped in. The assailant attempted to stagger back, eyes wide.

But he could not.

"Ngh!" The cloaked man grunted, feeling his right foot crushed. Eyes darting downwards, he had enough time to register his foot being stepped on with alarming force, before being struck by a slugger of a blow to his sternum.

It was no fancy godhand, and no true taijutsu technique. It was pure reinforcement and long nights of strength training.

So the man crumpled around Naruto's fist, rather than be blasted away.

Abruptly, Naruto spun the passed out man around as he fell, grasped him by the neck, and held his limp body towards his comrade. "Hostage trade!" He barked sharply. "Or I blast his neck to pieces!"

It was a bluff. He wouldn't kill for nothing. He wasn't so foolish.

But from his frustration and the way they had struck down a civilian with such indifference… he would beat them black, blue, and bloody if he had the time.

So his malevolence was very convincing.

The remaining rebreather-wearing man hissed low. That damn old fool had distracted him, and the brat so easily… so quickly!

The child was more than he seemed.

If only they had been able to attack together, from the shadows and with their chain. Conditions were ideal. The rain made it so hard to hear that they could have gotten the perfect drop on their foe. Their element saturated the field of battle. And they were going to strike in a moment of emotional turmoil.

Textbook perfect conditions-!

But that damn old man!

The old man… The demon brother looked down at the bleeding, unconscious man. "You're going to make up for ruining our mark." He muttered to the corpse.

The child was on a different platou. A different paradigm. The assassin could feel this, and was not ashamed. He knew well that there were those in the world both young and fearsome. The assailant accepted that he was no direct match without his brother, and he would not escape.

Could not.

His compatriots were not so accepting.

If he could just scrape the boy in passing! These claws were coated in poison – uncommon poison he had acquired from his associates. The poison would not wash away or dissolve with the rain, and was a competent paralytic agent.

If he could make the exchange close, and just scratch the boy to break the skin, and then retreat.

And just stay alive after that…

Even with a scratch and a few minutes… if he just stalled then the boy's movements would slow… Just stall!

He could play possum with this foe all day! The field of battle was saturated in his element!

"All right!" The nuke-nin assented in farce, having to shout over the beating of the weather. "We'll trade hostages! But how do I know I can trust you?"

"You really can't." Naruto growled.

From behind him.

Shit!

Too late, the nuke-nin attempted to react to the boy suddenly appearing behind him.

Before he had half-turned, he felt a hand grasp his upper and lower arm, straigtening the appendage. Moments later, a tremendous explosive force shattered the bones in his upper arm. In the next few moments he was immediately pinned to the muddy ground beside his so-called hostage, letting loose a scream of searing pain.

"Hard to hear in this rain." A dark whisper cut through the torrent around them, sending shivers of fear down the man's spine. "Isn't it?" Naruto asked, with a dark fury. "You shouldn't have looked away."

In the distance, a Kage-bunshin began to drag the unconscious brother over to the real Naruto.

Naruto made another clone, who inspected the old man as he continued to pin the beaten nin. The wound would be easy; the infection from this muddy ground would be another matter. But it could be solved with ijutsu, and Naruto's clone did so.

But for the worst, there had been poison on those claws, if the man's vitals were any indication.

He siphoned out what he could – which wasn't much. He had taken too long and the poison was already in circulation.

Naruto saw this, and demanded to know what poison was used.

"Y-You're still a child." The nin replied, faintly, but madly through the pain. "You c-can't make me talk! You don't have the - "

Naruto interrupted the assailant with a tug on the ruined arm, sending the nin into another wail of pain. Rallying his frustration and his anger, he warned in a vicious voice: "Having trouble being coherant? Listen carefully, because you don't have the time to hear this twice. I have broken your upper arm at an angle that has cut the brachial artery in your upper arm with shattered bone. Right now, every beat of your heart is pumping 30cc of blood out of your circulatory system. Symptoms will develop before I even finish explaining them to you – your skin will appear bruised by trapped blood. You will leak life fluid from every orifice on your body – including several you are not now considering. You will enter terminal shock and die in five minutes unless I treat you. Now, I have one question: What POISON did you USE?" He demanded.

"B-Butterfly dew!" Came the strangled reply.

"Have you the serum? Are you personally immune?"

"I do not!" The man wailed. "I am not! I received the poison from another!"

Shit.

Naruto healed the man's wounds quickly, but he was weak and already with illness. In this state, he had been poisoned.

Butterfly dew…

Damn. That was new.

Never heard of it.

Hadn't the serum.

He would… have to make it.

But to make a serum, in such an amount of time…

He would have to…

It had been meaningless for him to interfere. It had been such a fool thing.

…

Damn.

"Us fools should stick together." He informed his patient, as he picked his larger form up easily. "So don't you die on me here."

x-x

The barkeep did his best to keep his attention fixated on the mug he was drying, and be as unassuming as possible as the stranger came barging back into the room. The lonely creak of the door screamed in urgency. "I need a bed, and drink." He said, sternly.

The barkeep did not look up. "If you need drink, stranger, you'll need ID."

"Just orange juice." Naruto corrected. "Or any kind of juice, really."

"Excuse me," a kimono robed figure stood to attention, a wooden medicine box characteristic of an apothecary strapped to her back. "Do you require assistance? I am an apothecary in training."

She stood, slightly taller than him, and he supposed a few years older. Long, black, straight hair remained unnaturally well-kept considering the weather, and framed gentle and smooth features. She wore a casual kimono of undyed cotton, clearly intended for travel. She didn't seem to have the stature of one familiar with carrying an apothecary's chest of medicines, being slender and frail by stature.

Yet she showed no signs of strain, and the weight seemed familiar on her form. She possessed a hidden strength, or rudimentary knowledge in the ways of chakra.

Which wasn't that odd, for a traveller.

So she was the other who came before him looking for passage across the sea.

How strange to see a female traveling healer. And one so young. How convenient.

How suspicious.

Naruto grit his teeth.

The millions across the sea…

He needed to go to them. He couldn't die here.

But this man. This fool.

"Help me." He asked of the newcomer.

It didn't matter. This girl would be far more reliable than a shadow clone. There was a minor link with shadow clones. It was from this link that memories and chakra were recovered, and when the main body was severely disturbed, it was common for clones to dispel.

He could not afford that.

A clone carefully took the man upstairs, and the barkeep scurried behind his counter for something free of alcohol. And the mysterious, long-haired, pale apothecary spoke to Naruto.

"Prognosis?"

"Butterfly dew." Naruto answered, as he assessed the Demon Brothers.

He healed the artery he had cut quickly, but the man had internally bled profusely. Symptoms were beginning to show, much to the barkeeps horror.

That was fine. The assailant would be less of a risk.

How to quickly and effectively mitigate flight and attack risks…

Naruto reminded himself that he had to be thorough as he set about his task.

As Naruto ripped opened the claw apparatus with brute reinforced strength and the groan of twisted metal, a thought belatedly occurred to him. The girl was an apothecary. "Have you the serum for butterfly dew?" he asked of her.

The apothecary shook her head, in awe of the display of strength. "That is a powerful poison, and rare." She managed to reply after a while.

"Damn." Naruto muttered, as he proceeded to systematically and clinically break the assassin's fingers, wrists, and ankles. "I haven't the serum either."

The process was completed in two minutes and a clone would finish tying them up.

Naruto snapped off one large, metallic claw with another groan of twisted metal, and headed to the stairs.

The apothecary blinked as she followed him to the top floor, where the patient was laid down. "Without the serum, how will you…"

"I'll make it." Naruto replied.

The apothecary froze. She considered the broken claw piece in the stranger's hand, and her delicate features twisted in true shock. "Here?" She asked. "Now? Immediately?"

He observed her, and knew that she understood his plot. "Yes. Can you do blood transfusion?"

For a moment, he saw a war rage across the delicate girl's face concerning weather to support his fool gambit or not…"I… can manage." She finally said, with reservation. "Your blood type?"

"Type O"

The apothecary nodded. Type O was the universal donor.

Naruto gave one last consideration to the risk he would undertake. There was only one way to make the serum, and that was naturally. Inside a human body.

… The risks were high.

But they were right, after all. Everyone that he had met, that is…

Attempting to cross this sea, and with no boat…

It was a fool's errand.

And to even have a chance, he would need an appropriate fool for the errand.

His long shot to save the water country was still very long, but with this man's help it may get within sight.

By the end of the night, whether he would succeed in saving this man or whether he would be backstabbed here in this crumbling, nameless bar, he would know where he stood.

He would not be out in the rain, wondering when the next run-down bar would come by, and whether there would be anyone alive within. He would not remain trapped in that quest that seemed to have no end, and no hope.

His journey would move to the next step.

One way or another.

Naruto blinked, belatedly realizing just how little he knew of the person whom he would entrust his life to. "What's your name?" Naruto asked of the apothecary, as he took the bed opposite the old man.

On the bed, he began to unload transfusion materials. Focusing his breathing, and fighting back his instincts, he bled the chakra from his system as much as he could, leaving him – temporarily - only human. And then he stabbed himself with the Demon Brother's poisoned claw.

"Me?" The elegant, robed girl asked, before demurely replying: "My name is Haku."

Thunder suddenly struck somewhere outside, and the wind howled once more with a haunting, ominous note.

As the poison took him, his strong body rallying valiantly to produce the requisite antibody, Naruto prayed that the uncanny timing of the hurricane's cries meant nothing.



A/N:

Review a song campaign: 1 review of my BETA's song = next chapter within a week (or so.) See my author's page for details. Otherwise, don't worry: I'll see you when I eventually make time for stuff.

Story lacks a little polish. I R busy with exams. This chapter is dedicated to all the people taking university exams. Yeah - hang in there.

Okay. Who foresaw the Demon Brothers and Haku being the next enemies, and be honest. Hands up. Nobody? Damn straight.

I'm like: OC, OC, OC, OC, cannon characters!

Bam! Like that. Never saw it coming.

Also: the Demon Brothers will forever be immortalized as the Naruto-verse's chump characters – both in cannon and in fanfiction. I give props to anyone that can write them in anything but a curb stomp battle. Or I would, if there were such a person that I knew of.

Haku is referenced as a girl, because Naruto sees her as a girl.

As for his/her true gender, Haku hasn't decided on it yet.

I would also like to thank everyone that helped by ranking things last chapter, and doing the image test. I better understand your perception now.



Chapter 22: Chapter 22



Disclaimer:I don't own Naruto. But hey, Shizuka's mine.



The way to handle poisons was fairly simple. Fairly standard.

Fairly typical of 'modern medical theory'.

It was something that bothered Naruto, and the young man was fairly sure that his mother was the same.

It was... pretty pathetic.

All their chakra. All that precision. Yet they were so damn limited.

In the end, the vaulted medical techniques of even Houou Tunade played second fiddle to the machinations of the human anatomy.

A 'serum' for poison was just the natural immunities built up in the body, extracted and shared.

Generally, a small amount of poison was administered at a time, setting up a battle that the body could surely win. Antibodies would be created, and those would be extracted from the blood. That was what a 'serum' really was.

It was why there were things like snake farms. The poison was necessary to cure the poison.

Naruto himself was a walking fortress of immunities. Between a paranoid sister and a morally dubious mother, he'd been subject to the cliché ninja 'poison in your food' thing since a very young age. By this point he could literally draw his own blood to cure no less than a collection of 6,000 poisons, diseases, and viral or bacterial threats.

But it would take time for latent defenses to activate and flood the blood. That it was less time required was the only thing that allowed it to be viable to create serums as a responsive measure.

Creation from scratch was a proactive process, as a general rule. After all, the solution was simply to poison a person slowly to save a person poisoned quickly.

And here, with this particularly rare poison, Naruto would need to create them from scratch.

At a pace that exceeded the rate that the patient was succumbing.

So, with a quiet prayer of forgiveness to his mother, his sister, and the established practices of a few hundred years of medical practitioners, he prepared to commit every taboo in the book.

He decidedly did not elevate the injured appendage. He did not remain calm. He took short, rapid breaths and forced his heart into an artificial state of high activity. Adrenaline rushed his system. His blood carried the poison far and wide, and he was fully succumbed within moments.

Now, he would just have to get better before the old man got much worse.

Naruto considered the horrified face of the apothecary - Haku, she called herself.

Yes. If nothing else, she really did seem to know the rules of -first aid-. Her story held up somewhat. But he couldn't help but feel unease at her.

It was her breathing, Naruto distantly decided through a poison-induced haze. She did not breathe enough.

Either she had the level of cardiovascular efficiency to oxygenate the body at a nearly superhuman rate of conversion - the mark of an advanced chakra-heavy fighting machine, or her metabolic system was simply abysmal.

He felt her reach out and take his pulse. Her hands were cold, like ice.

Perhaps the latter.

He closed his eyes. It hardly mattered. This wasn't a matter of trust, because he had no option now.

With these thoughts, he slipped briefly into unconsciousness.

x-x

"Hey, you okay?"

Oh god, not this scene again.

"Uhm. H-Hello, Sir." The older girl stood up, shakily. She was quite his senior, Naruto could tell. Enough to be called a 'Nee-chan'.

What the hell was she calling him Sir for?

No, more importantly... "Did you get hurt? I'm sorry for bumping into… are those bruises?" Naruto asked.

The older girl gasped, seeing her wrists exposed. Hastily, she arranged them back under her sleeves, eyes instantly downcast.

Although her eyes were downcast, that was in fact fairly convenient, since Naruto was naturally shorter.

He peered up into her dark eyes before she could look away. "I can heal that." Naruto told her. "I won't charge you anything." He amended, noting her form.

She was older than she looked, he knew.

Malnutrition could do that.

"I-I can't..." She gasped suddenly. "My Kimono! Oh no. Oh god. My master will kill me."

"Master?" Naruto asked, quizzically. "Are you a servant? Are you on an errand?"

Shizuka flinched, unsure of what she was allowed to speak of with strangers, and only nodded in response. She didn't trust herself to speak.

I remember. Shizuka had clammed up. I sort of knew, form the way my family handled cases like this, that I had to take things slow. I offered to take her dress to a cleaner. We had bumped into each other, so I claimed partial responsibility for her spill. She didn't have anything to change into, of course, so I had to get her a kimono to wear in the meantime.

"It's so pretty." Shizuka breathed, observing the kimono she now wore. She held up sleeve of multi-colored flowers on a sky-blue silk, and observed it at length.

"You can have it." Naruto replied.

Joy flashed in her eyes, before being smothered by concern. "N-No. My master would get upset. He said I mustn't take things from strangers. He... He get's jealous."

I remember thinking, that maybe that jealousy had driven the man to neglect, or to abuse.

But I had no use for a woman's kimono like that. The shop didn't take returns. So I'd told her she could just give it away if she wanted – I presume she did, for I never saw it again.

"Are you a maid?" I had asked, curious. "A vassal?"

The young woman shook her head."I'm a courtesan."

…

Courtesan. Right. Even back, then, I had doubted her. We were in the fire country capital, after all. I had been to the court of the fire Daimyo, observing my mother's work. The imperial court was an enormous collection of holdings which housed those involved in the highest level of centralized politics of the country. Beyond the high and guarded walls of the court, it was like stepping into a different world, and I had seen many courtesans inside. On average, I guess it was one courtesan per noble.

Because every noble needed a courtesan.

Or something like that.

I saw elegant women who wouldn't loose to the elegant gold and satin their favoured nobles spun about them.

Women that tittered and flirted behind fans. Women that bowed to every man, then stood behind them and whispered rules to survive in the turbulent political world.

Beauty, yes, but also control. Of themselves. Of their clients.

"A courtesan, huh?" I had asked.

"Yes!" she smiled, and young Naruto could tell that she held pride in it. "Um. I haven't graduated to political things, yet. I – I have been focussed on the… physical aspects, so far."

'Physical aspects'. What a pretty word for it. In these times of ninjas and covert operations, 'physical aspects' could sometimes refer to training as a form of retainer. But it always meant sex.

She wasn't my patient. She didn't want to be my patient, and if the same thing happened today, I would probably respect that because none of us know the circumstances that others have…

No. That's a lie.

I got involved back then, and I would probably get involved today. I would get involved right now.

A person was being abused. Even if she had let me heal her wounds – and she hadn't – it was like treating the symptom and not the disease.

Atazaki Todai was just that – a disease.

He was a miserable man that couldn't cope with his fall from grace. He lost his nobility after being caught in bed with the Daimyo's personal courtesan, a woman who remains to this day under exclusive contract.

He wasn't kicked on that reasoning officially, of course. Various excuses were made, but the Daimyo loved that woman more than his wife – whom he did not love and whom loved him not at all. His arrangement with his wife had been mutually one of politics – of legal unity. His arrangement with his courtesan had been meant to be one of love.

So he was quite offended.

And the Daiymo's personal guard were elite ninjas if nothing else.

Ninjas that could do more than guard a life. More than take a life.

They could twist a life. Ruin it. Drag it through the mud until you wished you could give that life away.

All this I found out in inquiries afterward. At the time, all I knew was that Atazaki Todai was a miserable man clinging to what he could of his past.

He took Shizuka in off the streets when she was young. Lied to her. Raised her like some kind of human bonsai, keeping her in her little room and cutting her down.

Every.

Single.

Day.

For years. It was a poor man's solution to brainwashing. It was uneducated. And he couldn't even stick to his own plans.

For he made this thing… this fake courtesan… and it wasn't equal to what he lost.

Because he hadn't raised her remotely right. He wanted everything from her, but hadn't the patience, resources, nor the skill to teach it to her.

And he blamed her for that. And he hurt her for that.

And she learned that the world didn't make sense. That it didn't have to make sense, or add up, or hold justice.

She learned that her master's joy could protect her. That his joy could feed her. But only when he felt like it. And gradually, she accepted it until It defined her.

Damn him.

And then Todai found a wife. He found a noble in a different country that would marry him. He found a different court that he could go to, bartering what connections and secrets he had retained.

But his new wife grew suspicious, in no small part due to my sniffing around Todai's house.

The Houou's hold an enormous amount of goodwill. An enormous amount of Honor, such that it was respected even in distant lands.

So when one of us starts trying to dig around, people tend to expect there to be a reason for it.

And Todai's relationship with his new wife – unlike many in the courts – was meant to hold love and loyalty.

So his wife came to town, and Shizuka – who had been told to acquire some self-taught retainer skills – slipped the Madame a poisonous herb. I saved her life, and she went on the warpath – thinking her erstwhile husband a traitor after her full fortune through her death.

So Todai tried to appease her, and desperately needed to get rid of the dirt. The bonsai. Shizuka was a liability, and one that proved to be out of his control.

But he couldn't have anyone else do it. She was his dirty little secret, after all. That I met her was almost a cosmic co-incidence, as she was let out only once a blue moon.

And that damn man, again without skill or caution, or a single drop of human decency, decided to pick up a butcher-knife and take it to the girl he had raised. He told her to die.

And she, for the first time in years, said no. And in self-defense, with the skills that he had forced her to teach herself, she ended up killing him.

But that's how it is with these things. Eventually, the immune system grabs a hold of the disease. Eventually, it fights back and kills the source.

But Shizuka, she blamed me. She blamed me for inadvertently bringing the wife to town, and for keeping her alive.

And she's not exactly wrong. I did do those things. I did, in a way, contribute to her life loosing all it's meaning.

But sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better. That's just how it is.

I can tell though, that the ghost of what she has done haunts her. She burned down her world. As wrong as it feels to compare Todai to my family, I suppose it would be something like Godhanding them all to death during a training accident.

I have had my share of nightmares on that, so I do understand.

It was self-defense though. It was probably an accident. And even if it had been neither, even the legal system was ready to be somewhat understanding in the circumstances. And she received jail time which, with the exception of added time for breaking out and coming after me on a habitual basis, she has since served. She actually had a reduction for good behavior, odd as that seems. It seems she's perfectly okay with everyone but me. It makes a strange kind of sense, when I think about it. She has pushed the blame for everything that ever went wrong to her onto me. Therefore, quite sensibly, she has no beef with anyone else in the world.

Just me.

x—x

Naruto opened his eyes, blearily. He felt weak.

"Hey." Haku said, hovering above him. "You're alive."

"Thanks." Naruto moaned. "You know, I had my suspicions, but it's nice to get confirmation from a qualified apothecary."

"Jokes already?" Haku quipped. "At this rate, you'll be up and about in-"

"Now." Naruto interjected. "I'll be up and about now."

"Hold on a second!" Haku exclaimed.

The apothecary tried to hold Naruto down, but even weakened he had strength enough to brush such efforts aside. He was woozy on his feet, but it would have to do. "The old man?" He inquired.

"He's in bed." Haku explained pointedly, looking somewhat put out at having both wrists clamped in an iron like grip. "He's recovering like a dutiful patient so that he can be properly well."

"Good. But I'm okay." Naruto explained. "And just in time, too. Really, I don't know what it is with co-incidences lately. You know, I thought you were too much of a coincidence yourself. I thought you were a ninja, or a samurai, or one of a million things out to kill me. Yet I'm still alive." Naruto smiled at her. "And it seems like you can't feel that presence at the front door."

x-front door-x

Naruto opened the door a crack, and immediately the wind swung it fully opened and banged it against the outdoor wall.

The howl of the wind and the obscuring rain met him. For a while, he couldn't even make out the form on the ground. It seemed camouflaged by being wrapped in a dark-shaded cloth.

Was that… purple?

…

That better not be what he thought it was.

Couldn't be, though.

How much of a coincidence would it have to be… that when he just finished dreaming about her…

Lightning flashed, giving a moment of perfect illumination, and Naruto let forth a resigned sigh.

It was just one of those days.

"Shizuka," he began slowly, "Shizuka, don't do this. Not today. Not now! Please!" He yelled over the rain. "I… I'm weak, Shizuka!" He yelled. It seemed mad to tell his foe that now, but she had to understand. She had never stopped because he was stronger, but perhaps if she understood just what kind of position he had landed himself in… Ultimately, she did know him very well. She had to know that today was going to be different. That she had to walk away. For both of them. "I've poisoned myself! And if – if we do this now, I…" Naruto trailed off, shaking his head. He didn't want this. "If we do this now, I can't hold back. I'll kill you Shizuka! I mean it. I'll punch a goddamn hole through your chest!"

Her head tilts up, then. Her ivory skin reflects what meagre light comes passively through the rainclouds, but Naruto couldn't quite make out her expression.

But he saw as she drew a kunai from her kimono.

"Shizuka!" Naruto complained. Damn her. Damn her! "You don't even have your Ninja-to! I took it!"

She stumbled towards Naruto. He expected that she probably popped her own joints back in, after he had dislocated them and that had left a lingering pain from her inexperience.

She stumbles into a run, and wields the kunai in a reverse-grip. Naruto backpedalled through the bar door and into the common room.

"Damn it Shizuka!"



AN:

Review a song campaign: 1 review of my BETA's song = next chapter within a week (or so.) See my author's page for details. Otherwise, don't worry: I'll see you when I eventually make time for stuff.

To people that wonder about this, it just means a lot to me, personally. And it`s motivating to think that someone would go the extra mile for the work I put in.

I recently found out that there was a link problem with the review area for that song review thing. It`s fixed now.

Also, the next chapter can be expected in a week, as I also discovered that there had been a song review a little while ago, so I`m going to be carrying out my efforts henceforth.



Hey. Yeah. It`s that story again. You know, the one that always seems to have been utterly abandoned, only to miraculously revive a few months later like a Treeborn Frog that just won`t quit. Little do you know that it`s all in a ploy to wait just long enough to make you forget that you`ve already reviewed past chapters so that you`ll feel obligated to review this one. Hahaha. Joke.

So, sort of a backstory chapter. Sort of a bridge chapter. A bridge. Must resist Jo-Kage Yugioh abridged reference.

Okay, I bet like half the people that read this never expected Shizuka to appear again, ever. It was like OC OC OC real character OC. Boggles the mind. I`ll be honest, I just pick names out of a hat. (Joke).

New Omake up to commemorate this story`s special summon from the graveyard.

I will be using more First Person POV in this story. The chapters will be shorter and more frequent (these are techniques I learned from writing I Just Want a Vacation). Well... I would like to reign this story in, and I hope these techniques will help me have a more unified plot and smoother progress. I hope...



Chapter 23: Chapter 23



Unmet Review a song campaign demand: 3 - 2

Disclaimer:I don't own Naruto. But hey, Shizuka's mine.

AN: This chapter will be done primarily in the first person POV of Naruto.



It was frantic. Fervent swipes drew small lines of blood from my forearms that I bring up to block.

My defense is faltering.

I have to.

I don't want to.

But I have to!

She makes a swipe with her kunai. It's not quite right, because she's plainly substituting this thing she picked up for her customized, much longer ninja-to.

The blade's too short to quite reach my throat as I sidestep her and grasp her outstretched arm.

Using a quick hip-bump and sliding my leg to swipe her balance out from under her, I roll her over my body and into a classical hip-throw.

I'm sorry.

Probably because I'm physically and mentally tired – and this is affecting my emotional state – I feel a stray hot tear escape.

It's okay. She deserves it. My tears and my mercy.

But I'm all out of mercy today, Shizuka.

Her arm dislocated again from the sheer force I exert on it during my throw.

She slams bodily into hard wooden wall, and I'm not sure if the associated crack is from splintered wood or something significantly more vital.

Gasping, she begins to make her way to her feet.

The wood then.

I just died, I think. When I slipped in for that throw she was a few centimeters away from really killing me with a kunai. I had my defence up, of course, and that's why I hadn't just God Handed her into the floor.

But the point was she was aiming for my jugular.

I take solace in this thought as I close down on her.

By the time she gets her feet under her, I'm in a position of power. All to plan. This is it. I rear back my fist, and I tell myself this is finally it.

One blow.

I'm so sorry.

I hear a gasp behind me. It's probably Haku by the tone.

She's shocked at what I have wrought with my own hands.

The wanton destruction.

I'm surprised, too.

"Damnit." I mutter, staring into Shizuka's eyes. They were wide with wonder, and they were alive.

I pull my arm back from where I had… somehow… thrown the punch to miss Shizuka's rain-soaked head.

What is wrong with me?

"I killed you, just now." She whispered. "I could have."

I note the pressure of the metallic ring on a kunai. She presses the blunt end meaningfully into my gut.

"We could have killed each other." She tells me. "But we chose not to."

I see what she's trying to say, and I don't know who I'm more surprised at – her or myself.

But she's not quite right. She is very fast, but I had attacked from a position of opportunity. I would have hit first.

And Godhand has the trait to blow away all semblance of counterattacks along with the physical body of the target.

But it doesn't matter, because the second I pulled my punch she could have critically wounded me and taken me to ground. And in my condition, and without backup, I would have been taken apart.

But I don't tell her all that.

"Why didn't we, Shizuka?" I ask, exasperated at myself and at her, both. I honestly want to know what she has to say on the subject. "Why can't we just get over each other?" She may be messed up, but I'm more messed up to be asking her. "Why can't we just walk away and never look back?"

"Never." She whispers to me. And for the first time I notice that the droplets running down her cheeks aren't all from the rain she'd left outside.

"Never ever." She amended, voice wavering and tears falling freely now. It bothers me that I don't quite know what emotion lies in her now. Sadness? Resignation?

But I'm leaned over her and I'm aware of our proximity.

I'm aware that, even though she is taller than me, here I loom over her. And as I loom over her, she is at my utter mercy and she doesn't care.

Then, she reaches into her kimono, and I am shocked at what she pulls out.

"You took them?" I ask as I grasp the empty bottle that she shows me.

She took them.

After all these years.

"It… It was hard." Tears streak down her face as she tells me this. "I took them and it was so hard to just lie there and think about it all. About what I've done. About what I've… what I've had done to me. I never… I never thought about it before. I never could. The pills helped me."

The pills are fake, Shizuka. Placebos.

You're brainwashed, not brain-dead.

But the conviction is real. The conviction to take a stand and face up to what has happened.

I'm no psychiatrist. You are out of my area of expertise. But they all say the same thing: they can't help you if you don't want to live in the same reality as everyone else. Yours is an illness of denial and emotional trauma.

She drops the kunai – thank god – and clutches me abruptly as she cries into my shirt. "Master." She sobs. "My Master! I... I…"

Okay. Here we go. So she's sad, after all. She's grieving. This is good. The bastard was a bastard but yes, you killed him. It was self-defense, but you killed him. Let it out. You're at the grieving stage.

"I'm so happy!" She sobs in… joy.

Or not. F*ck. Somebody re-check the crazy denial box. False alarm.

"You're…" I begin as I mentally bracing myself for the worst, "you're… so…" I grate out in a deadpan "happy?"

Oh this -can't- be good.

She nods into my chest and laughs brokenly. "I'm so happy that you didn't kill me! I'm so happy that you haven't given up on me! Todai-sama… Todai-sama tried to kill me just for getting between him and his wife!"

You also tried to kill his golden goose.

"You – You're so much better than him." She insists.

Considering that he was one of the lowest forms of scum, you know that really isn't saying much… right?

"I love you."

...Sorry. I think I have something in my ear. I... what?

"I love you." She repeats, with more conviction.

Lightning flashes in the background, I swear. The wind howls. The earth shakes in fear. Somewhere, surely, a cat has fallen off a bridge and not landed on its feet.

Oh shit. OOOOh shit.

Ero-Uncle told me about this. He told me that if there was one thing – one thing - that I could learn from him it was that one day, a girl would tell me three little words that would make me want to run for my life and testicular health. And on that day, I should damn well run.

Shit, I thought he was joking!

She pulls back and stares me right in the eyes. She smiles tenderly and caresses my face. "I love how you love me."

What? How does that… how does that even…

What the f*ck?

Ero-Uncle's words ring in my mind, like some ephemeral guardian angel – except, you know, perverted and stuff. Run, you poor bastard! He screams at me. Run like a little bitch! Run like debt-collectors from hell are after your balls! Ruuuun!

I get up. I stagger backwards. I do try to run. I really, honestly do. But I still stay, transfixed as if with cement, and staring in horrified awe at the train-wreck that was my relationship with this woman.

Slowly, she reaches up, a radiant smile on her face and –happy- tears falling down from her shining eyes. She gently grasps the collar of her kimono, and pulls it down. Her generous bust spills out. Other people might find the sight of a rain-soaked, mature, busty woman kneeling in front of them with insufficient chest support distractingly attractive.

I was too busy being horrified.

She wore a sky-blue kimono underneath. A sky-blue kimono with a multi-colored floral design. It was faded. It was frayed from… from wear and tear.

It was a few sizes too small.

It was the goddamn kimono I had bought her six years ago.

Didn't she throw it away?

A cold wave passes through me. I have a bad, bad, bad feeling about this.

A bad feeling.

What the hell. What the ever-loving, monkey wanking, shit-eating –

What the hell, Shizuka?

"I'm so sorry I ever hurt you." She whispers. "I'm so sorry I've been so bad – and even today! But I had to know. I had to know you would never do what he did. That you would never, no matter what, just try to kill me. I had to know that you really loved me!"

Oh no. Oh no. Hell no.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

"And I'm so sorry for everything! I'm so sorry it's driving me insane!"

Driving you insane? Holy shit! You get more insane?

Happily, she smiles at me. She seems inexplicably proud of herself for arriving at a kind of divine truth. In the most cheery and prideful tone, she tells me: "I'll be so good. You'll see."

No. I don't want to see! Please don't show me!

"My – " She pulls back. She stares. Fore one brief, horrifying moment, I think she's going to kiss me.

Don't say it!

" – beloved –" Oh come on!

I'm begging you. I'm begging you!

" –Master!" She smiles broadly. Her eyes light up. And now I think those are happy tears, after all.

F…

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUU!-


A/N:

Review a song campaign: 1 review of my BETA's song = next chapter within a week (or so.) See my author's page for details. Otherwise, don't worry: I'll see you when I eventually make time for stuff.

To people that wonder about this, it just means a lot to me, personally. And it`s motivating to think that someone would go the extra mile for the work I put in.

The letter after E is obviously F in the alphabet. And now the chapter title makes sense.

Short chapter, but this is how I roll now. Cliff-hangers all over the place. It was necessary to implement Giant F-Bomb fade-out no jutsu. With the use of this trope no jutsu, my story is now one step closer to completion. I would have made the FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUU longer, but document manager doesn't seem to like it.

Recognizing the shortness, I offer up a lowly omake as (let's face it) padding. I have also realized that when I post them to the Tsunade's Heir: Omake and Extra Files story, only a fraction of people even read it. I think that people don't even know that thing exists. I think most people don't read these A/Ns so they don't know. Silly other people.

Omake

Hiashi and Hanabi stared at the tea set which sat before them.

Meals had been terse since Hinata's return. She had not fared well in the mission and, while failure itself was not something that Hinata felt was particularly new, failing Naruto was.

The household members had learned quickly not to mention her performance before her.

No, not because she would flip out and try to kill everything – as might be expected and perhaps even encouraged by this point. It was because she would go to the nearest corner and cry such that her depression invaded every normally stoic Hyuuga within a radius proportional to her woe.

It was really quite alarming.

But here, Hinata's cherished tea-set lay in pieces where it – seemingly – instantaneously shattered.

Hiashi, ever traditional, thought it to be a bad omen but wisely refrained from saying such.

Naruto had been the one to buy the tea-set, after all.

Hanabi shifted uneasily upon her cushion. "Um, sister… I… I'm sure it can be fixed."

Hinata didn't seem to register what had happened. "I have… this strange, overwhelming urge to… Naruto-kun had a term he said once… I want…to…" She stared into space for a few terse seconds. "… to choke a bitch."

Her family members didn't quite know what to say to that.

So saying, Hinata slowly stood up. "Excuse me. I seem to be inexplicably angry. I might be coming down with something."

An older, kimono'd main-house woman met her in the hallway and bowed politely. "Oh, hello Hinata-sama."

Hinata palmed her through two rice-paper walls.

"…" Hinata stared at what she had done to the taller, prettier woman who had a bigger bust than her and wore a sky-blue kimono. "…B*tch."

Hiashi set down his tea slowly, eerily reminded of his wife's infamous rampages. Hanabi was pretty sure the 'Gentle Fist' wasn't supposed to be used that way.

"Hanabi?"

"Yes father?"

"Upon reflection I don't think we spend nearly enough time together."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Camping trip."

"Oh. When do we leave?"

It was then which a woman came flying through the door.

Haishi, with purposed grace, bowed his head forwards and pushed Hanabi's head forwards, too.

The woman sailed breezily overhead, sky-blue kimono sleeves trialing in the air behind her, before landing unceremoniously on her… substantial air bags.

"B*tch." Drifted in through the door.

"I'm thinking…" Hiashi began. "As soon as physically possible."

"Let me remove the get-well pranks I put in sister's room first."

"That would be wise."



A/N: I beg you to focus your reviews on the main story and not on the omake.

Also, let's say that Hinata has tapped some hidden byakugan powers that allow users to feel the bend of fate around the 'apple of their eye'. Or something.



Chapter 24: Chapter 24



Unmet Review a song campaign demand: 2 - 1 = 1. I might be a bit late on the next one. I have a bunch of tests around that time. But I should have it up by Friday, which was the original schedule before an early update put us on Wednesday, anyways.

So I guess maybe 70% of people were surprised at the last chapter. 30% saw it coming from the moment they saw shizuka. So if she had been a non-recurring character 30% of people would have been surprised instead. Not bad.

Chapter 24

The Most Excellent Chapter in the History of Forever

"Okay." I say, holding my hands up before me. "Okay." I say again, in a placating tone. "Let's just calm down and not do anything rash like say things that we don't really mean."

"Mast –"

"Like that." I tell her. "Exactly like that."

She frowns c…

Cutely.

Shizuka's being cute… to me.

God, this whole situation is F$cked right to hell. What does it say about my life when it would honestly be less disturbing to me if she was being cute to the mortuary tablet of that Todai guy?

Or hell, even his skull or something?

I mean, can we maybe just go back to killing eachother now?

"Master –"

I flinch.

She looks at me pleadingly. I've seen this look before. I think it was three years ago when she formally submitted a request for me to 'just die like the home-wrecker I was'. Oh god. " – I'm… sorry." She tells me. "I – I know that this seems sudden."

Okay. Okay, she's starting to speak my language here.

"I've… I've been so bad. But I'll be better now. I've changed." She insists.

I stare at her. I stare at her as she kneels in seiza and touches her hands to the floor in this little triangle thing that is supposed to be symbolic of… something. And, honestly, she looks 100% normal and sane and demure. And I can't express adequately in words just how unnerving that is. "Okay…" I tell her. I close my eyes and gather my courage, because I know I'm going to have to get the whole story out of her. That's going to be… fun. "Okay, get up. Let's get you dry and warm before you catch something, and you can explain to me how you actually got from A to B."

She's not supposed to be crazy crazy. I remind myself. She's crazy weird, and crazy brainwashed – not crazy crazy.

I contemplate how easy it would be if she was crazy crazy – handing her off to an institution which handled such things. Some nice place with lots of trees and understanding councillors and people who applied psychotropic drugs intelligently and responsibly.

Yeah…

She sneezes, bringing me out of my fantasy. Right. I sometimes forget this about Shizuka, but she's not actually a ninja. She's not even a retainer, exactly. She's a bundle of specialized self-taught techniques, single-minded conditioning, and performance-enhancing drug abuse. She doesn't have any of the more obscure training that people in my profession take for granted.

She sneezes again, and I toss my coat on her shoulders. It's Crystal Tree Silk, so it dries at lightning-speed and should help her stay warm.

"Thank you, Master."

Wish she would stop calling me that.

And not just because she killed the last person she called that.

"You're very kind." She says softly, staring with me into the fireplace we're crouched in front of. "You're always doing things like this."

"Why do you think I'm your master?" I ask. I need to know this. Really. I need to know it so that I can find some objective logic or some kind of… some kind of logic flaw that, now that she's trying to be rational I can...

God, I don't even really know. This isn't my department!

I'm not a f*cking psychiatrist!

Why? Why am I suddenly your master, Shizuka?

"I know what gratitude is." She frowns. "Todai-sama told me… he told me that I should be grateful for everything he did for me. That he put clothes on my back, and food on my plate, and a roof over my head, and so I belonged to him."

F*cker. He's dead and he's still f*cking shit up in new ways.

"Even though he worked so hard to teach me that over and over," she shuddered, "even though I worked so hard to learn it… I forgot it." She clutched my jacket a little tighter around her. The movement she makes draws my attention to the scars I can somewhat see that she carries on her wrists and up the underside of her arms.

Marks of her 'learning' process I bet.

Todai, that f*cker.

I rub the bridge of my nose. Okay, so that's what she thinks creates a master-servant relationship. Okay. We're getting somewhere.

Here's hoping that we're getting to somewhere less 'holy shit' terrifying than having this woman trying to serve me tea every day.

Please understand, she's been after my head for six years.

"When I..." Shizuka continues. "When Todai-sama… died… I wasn't thinking. Everything was so… He betrayed me and I killed him. I didn't… I didn't mean to… It just happened. I meant to kill that bitch but never Todai-sama and I couldn't handle it… it just hurt so much. It was like he was whipping my heart from the grave, every day, and I… I just ran from the pain and pretended that it all never happened. I wanted to kill myself, so bad. But I… I couldn't. I was weak."

Okay. No. I'm not letting that go. Euthanasia. Suicide. I hate it all. It goes against everything I swear to. It is my antithesis andI hate that I must accept that there are times where it is for the best. But not today. Not today. "Shizuka, there's no justice or anything in killing yourself. There's never anything to be ashamed of about saying no to that."

"But –"

I grab her chin and force her to lock gazes with me. "Never." I tell her.

"Y…" She shakes a little. "Yes, Master." She breathes.

…

Shit.

…

I probably shouldn't have done that.

…

Who am I kidding, I would do it again if I had to. Story of my life.

I let go of her face like it's on fire but she hardly seems to notice.

"I… Um…" She attempts to recover where she was in her tale. "So I kind of… I kind of pushed the blame on you. And instead of killing myself I… I kind of…"

She doesn't quite finish the sentence.

Yeah, I know what she did. I was there. On the receiving end.

"And things became so much easier to deal with. And I… I blamed you for everything else, too. I blamed you for my Master not loving me. I didn't… I couldn't rationalize it or anything, but it became easier. And I blamed you for his wife and… and I never told you this but I blamed you for how Todai-sama would beat me."

I rub my eyes. Okay…

"I… I kind of knew it was wrong, but I kept telling myself and everyone else that that was how it was. But I… I knew… somewhere in the back of my mind… that I had destroyed my only place in the world. But-!" She brightens from her morose composure. "But I had another master all along! You… clothed me." She smiles fondly, looking down.

… Shit.

The kimono.

The kimono I bought her when we met.

That's what she's talking about.

Kimono = gratitude = servitude.

Okay. There's the logic. But it's not like the relationship is equal. A kimono is not nearly as precious as her liberty or, let's face it, my personal sanity.

I stare at her. "But it's not like I fed you, or put a roof over your head." I protest.

In response, she shoots me that silent smile which all women seem to have a hold of in their arsenal. You know the one. The one that says 'oh you silly, ignorant man. Do you know that you're lucky you have me to keep track of these things for you?' "But you did. So much. Remember?"

"I… threw you in jail?" I hazard. "Is that what you're talking about?"

"You put me in the best jails." She smiled. "And you made sure that I was not raped. Very sure. And that I was not placed with anyone unsavoury. And that the guards always treated me fairly. And that I had better food than all the other prisoners."

She sounds so proud, as if there was some prestige to be derived in being fed the best while in prison.

Was there? Maybe.

But hell, I had figured that she was depressed enough at the time. That was one of the roots of her 'pseudo-madness', after all. She needed fresh, nutritious food and regular exercise at least. And I did feel a little responsible for her. Someone had to be responsible for her. She was too old for the orphanage, but too young in the ways of the actual world to be expected to look after herself. A kimono, decent food, and putting her in respectable jails are what she's calling me 'Master' over? "That's not –" I protest.

"You cared for me so much even though I was so bad to you. No one ever cared for me, before. They cared about what I could do for them, or what I had. But it wasn't really me. But you did. You didn't even use me – you who I now realize had the most right out of anyone. You didn't use me but you still cared, because you love me and I'm so grateful and I'm going to be so good to you now that I'm better."

I rub my eyes. "Shizuka, look. It's… that's not…"

"Remember that place," she interrupts, excitedly, "in Lightning Country? When it was all damp and full of leering men?"

"…Yeah." I reply absently as I recall the memory. The change in pace of our conversation pretty much derails me – If I had rails to begin with. "That was messed up. I had to punch out like, ten guys and a chick just to walk back out the door with you."

She giggles. "I remember. And that hairy man tried to feel you up."

"I thought I told you we would never speak of that again."

"Ah. I'm sorry, Master." She turns to me and bows demurely in that traditional sort of way. "I forgot."

What do I say to that?

Another thought strikes Shizuka's pretty, misguided head. "I remember that other place, where they would not allow your servant to bring me food." She further reminisced as she returns to looking at the fire with me. That 'servant' by the way, was just a restaurant delivery girl who's establishment I had prepaid meals for Shizuka from. "You seemed so personally offended and you would not let me stay there."

"I know you were trying to kill me and everything, but they wouldn't let you have Ramen." I reminisce. "That just seemed cruel and unnecessary. I – wait, don't give me that look." That loving look. It's creepy.

With a start, I realize that – holy shit – we sound like some kind of melancholy married couple looking back on their times together.

We do. That is exactly what we sound like. What does that mean? What does that even mean?

I… holy shit.

Holy shit.

I…

I... I… need to get away for a second. I need air. And possibly alcohol.

I stand up woodenly and walk over to the bar where the wide-eyed barkeep just stares at me. It seems he's been listening in.

And he says nothing about asking for ID as he hands me a big bottle of sake and whispers some kind of barkeep prayer for me to the goddess of wine for protection against bad life choices. I hope that prayer reaches her. I really do.

I take two drink saucers and walk back in Shizuka's direction.

My mind is a whirl. It is a murky, twisty, denial-filled whirl.

But not like, unsubstantiated denial. I have very real reasons to be full of denial. I have justifiable denial because Shizuka's wrong.

Right?

I stop by Haku on the way. She's holding onto my satchel for me, and seems… happy on my behalf? What the hell, Haku? You're okay with all this?

I dig through the satchel, and produce a camera – asking Haku to take pictures. The last thing I need after all this is to have kaa-chan kill me when I get home, for not documenting my first desperate reach for Sake to make things better… or whatever.

For some reason, Haku smiles serenely as if it were quite natural to desire documentation and this really was all a wonderful and momentous occasion. "I think she'll be good to you from now on. She fills in your gaps, doesn't she? Her speed to your power? Her ruthlessness to your kindness? I think, maybe, in the deepest parts of her soul, she was forging herself to be your perfect tool" She tells me, enchanted as if by a fairytale. "And I'm sure you'll be a good master, don't worry. Love is what's important."

…What the hell, Haku?

"Where are people getting this love thing from?" I ask, more than personally bewildered.

She gives me that same damn smile. And if ever I wondered about her gender, what with her pretty face but washboard chest, now all doubts are erased. Only girls smile that way. "Oh Naruto-san, you took care of her out of nothing but worry, and without reciprocation for six years… then she was going to kill you and you pulled your punch!" She smiled as she familiarized herself with the camera. "If that's not love, what is?"

I… that…

Well obviously love is…

It's, you know, it's…

It's that thing where people care about…

Holy shit.

Holy f*cking shit.

"We're talking about platonic love though, right?" I ask. Not romantic love, surely.

I'll admit it. I'm pretty much pleading at this point. I'll take just about whatever I can get.

She smiles at me patiently, making me feel ignorant. Definitely a girl. "Oh Naruto-san, you'd be surprised how little the specifics matter at the end of the day."

Well that was… vague… and unhelpful.

And foreboding.

I'm not saying I agree, but when put like that I think I'm…

God, I think I'm starting to understand where Shizuka is coming from.

In her mind, I think, I'd been her master ever since I gave her that kimono all those years ago. And ever since then her trying to kill me has been, what, her misbehaving?

That's some misbehaving.

I mean, she was pretty ineffectual right up until the end there, but still.

Or… she might be saying that I was her master, but she hadn't noticed it. She hadn't really clued in to it. But to her, it's not that she's asking me to be her master right now. I offered to be it when I gave her a kimono, and she accepted the kimono and contract both right then.

And she's… let's see… she's thankful that I've been patient… or something.

I want to cry. I actually want to cry because I can see where this is all heading, and I have no idea how to deal with it because I'm not a f*cking psychiatrist. But I suck it up.

I go back and sit beside the woman at the centre of it all.

I set her saucer down between us. I don't think she even looks at her own saucer. Which is odd, because she's perked up, alert, and staring at the sake jug purposefully, so I presume that my desire to get really f*cking smashed is reciprocated.

But at any rate, my hand is literally shaking as I pour myself a full saucer and set the jug down.

Now it should be understood that I literally don't just start shaking. I have the kind of body control that people in movies show off when they do something fancy to an egg without breaking it or having it move from a stationary position. Sometimes, that control is the only thing that allows me to have chakra in my body and set down a Ramen bowl without splitting the whole table at the same time. It's a whole thing.

So what I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty well on my way to being mind-f*cked right now.

Hopefully I can get drunk enough to make it all make sense again. Or make the crazy things crazy again. I'm not really sure but at this point, like I mentioned, I'll pretty much take whatever I can get.

Ugh! Wow, I thought this stuff would taste good? It tastes like shit! How do the adults in my life drink this as if it were water? It burns? It freaking burns! I cough.

And then it happens.

As I bring the saucer, now empty, down from my lips… Shizuka picks up the jug daintily…

Like some kind of demure traditional woman – a Yamato nadeshiko – which I suppose she must fancy herself all of a sudden…

Anyways she picks the jug up and quietly pours until my saucer is again full.

When she pulls back from pouring, I swear not a drop spills, and she doesn't set the jug down either. She just sort of nestles it in her lap. There it lies, ready no doubt to be poured again at my merest convenience… and Shizuka gives me this tentative but pleading look… like some kind of puppy that just rolled over.

And in that moment… it might have been the alcohol or the lingering poison or the days of travel without rest… but in that moment I swear I have this weird kind of epiphany. I know. I just… know.

She's serious. She might not be any kind of crazy, any more, except for crazily maladjusted. But she's 100% serious.

And I could tell her I 'herby formally release her from my service' and hey, now she's magically free and isn't that just wonderful? And I could tell her that if it's about gratitude – if this is some kind of indentured servitude – that hell, her ninja-to is probably worth more than this freaking bar and let's just work out a trade. And I could tell her that I don't love her, exactly. And that she doesn't love me, exactly. That there is a difference between care and love – and no I don't know what it particularly is, but there's a difference – and she's rushing into things. I could argue with her. I could take her to any kind of professional and have them explain to her that she's just wrong. I… hell, I could just freaking run.

But I just know…

…in that moment…

There's no point.

"I'm never going to get rid of you, am I?" I ask.

She perks up instantly – more than before, I mean – and her eyes are shining. "No. Never! I'm so happy, master! Oh thank you!"

And I realize that, somehow, I've just pat the puppy, given it a treat, and told it 'good girl'.

I stare at her.

She beams back, but over time becomes a little self-conscious and shy under my gaze.

…

…

…

…
…

F*ck it.

I throw the saucer over my shoulder, grab the Sake Jug from her, latch on, and just go for it.

Still tastes like shit.

Distantly, I hear the phantom Ero-Uncle again. I think the drunker I get the more clear his voice becomes.

There's irony in there, somewhere.

You poor sunnovabitch. I told you to run you poor, soon-to-be-emasculated sunnovabitch. May God have mercy on your soul, because Joy and Liberty have told you to go f*ck yourself. You now have a ball and chain around your neck –a huge one – and yet you're still somehow a virgin!

Shut up Ero-Uncle.

Is that a new world record? That's like a new world record. YOU POOR SUNNOVABITCH!

I SAID SHUT THE F*CK UP!



A/N: This is it. This is my masterpiece. This is my Mona Lisa. My Sistine Chapel. My Castle in the Sky. Other people might not agree with me, but I can feel it in my bones. I feel it with the surety that a rock suspended in midair without a source of upward-force feels that it will invariably fall to the earth. This is the peak of my writing career. This right here is a synthesis from all my other forays into 'I Just Want a Vacation', 'Shippuden Complaint', a certain crackfic story I have not yet brought to , and several abandoned works that are just between me and my computer. Every success and every failure I've ever learned from… every word I've ever written from the very moment my chubby little child-hands first gripped a thoroughly chewed #2 HB pencil has been leading to this. It's all downhill from here. Surely this is the pinnacle of my existence. When I am older and a successful business man... When at that time I look back, I will look back past my beautiful son and daughter, past my kind and well-humoured wife, past my McLaren F1, past the exterior of my white picket-fenced, two story house with a basement, and I will look directly to my computer where this very chapter will sit displayed in all its world-shattering glory. And it will still be the greatest thing I have ever accomplished. So many people look back and wonder at what could have been, at how far they could have gone, but I know. I know. This is it. This is how far I could go. This right here. Wow.



Chapter 25: Chapter 25



Unmet review a song campaign demand 1 - 1 = 0.

I did it. I never (intentionally) missed the schedule (within reason) and I got through. Huzzah!

Chapter 25

Morning After

Ugh. Wow. What the hell is going on? What's all that noise? It's like a stampede is going on somewhere.

And oh, my head.

I feel like I'm just returning to consciousness from one of kaa-chan's ultra-galactic-noogie bombs.

My head is killing me.

My thoughts are a mess.

I open my eyes with no minor effort and stare at the rafters above me. Oh yeah. I'm in a bar/inn.

Hey. Roof's leaking

I'm in a bar/inn inside a week-long storm… on my way to try and fulfil a mission I took to…

Agh! Right in the eye! The roof… is leaking right in my eye now. How did I sleep in these conditions? And would someone kill the elephants stampeding outside! Or, not kill, but lock them up and throw the key –

Agh! Stupid leak is cold! And I'm so warm under the sheets.

Warm. Comfy.

This is an awesome body pillow.

Body pillow?

Oh shit.

That's right. It's all coming back to me now.

Shizuka.

Shit.

She went crazy. Or, she went un-crazy in the most inconvenient way imaginable.

And in my misery I decided, bright and responsible guy that I am, to get drunk.

Right.

So, going by the alcohol horror stories that kaa-chan always went on about… that stampede is really raindrops hitting my window and me being terribly hung over.

Which explains the headache.

And the body pillow.

Tentatively, full of dread, I reach to the cotton sheets that cover me, lift up the edge, and peek underneath.

I cringe.

Yeah.

Never drinking again.

"Good morning, master." Shizuka mumbles from… sigh… from under my – our I suppose – sheets.

Oh, the things I could say. The one-liners. The lamentations. The indignations.

The swear words. The glorious swear words.

I don't know what they are, exactly, but surely they would be glorious.

If only my head was not about to explode. "Not so loud." I complain instead. "I think I'm hung over."

"You did drink an entire sake jug, master." She explained, whispering now, as she rustles underneath those sheets. "And you were tired and had lost a lot of blood before that. It was not – ah." Her face pops up from under the sheets just in time to see another water bead drop past her eye-level and towards my face.

Her hand shoots out, like some kind of magician performing their best trick, and snatches it out of the air before it reaches her chin. Her hair's down. The dark locks cascade around her soft features and pool on the mattress to either side of me. Ridiculously, it shimmers like she hadn't just trekked it through a hurricane yesterday.

Chalk up another magical mystery for womankind.

She looks like such a lady when she's not scowling or glaring at me. No, more than that. She looks… simple. Pure. Not in the 'innocent' way. But in the sense that no more than one emotion seemed to be on her face at a time. At first, joy. Then, surprise. Then, horror.

"The roof leaks again? When did – I thought I stopped it." She looks to my wet face in dismay. "Oh master, I'm sorry. I did fix it. And before that I caught every drop, I swear. I just –"

She slides out of bed. Naked.

I don't want to know. I really don't.

"I'll go do it now." She tells me.

No comment on your nakedness? Oy!

"I'm so sorry. I'll be good. I didn't… I didn't mean…" She continues as she arranges a ladder and a bucket of sealant as quietly as possible. And she looks sorry, too. She looks terrified. I think… she expects me to hurt her or something. And the scars I see on her bare back remind me that she may feel she has reason. They look big on her now. And scars do not grow as a person grows up. The body doesn't have any need to enlarge it's scars to proportion. So those scars would have been enormous on her when she got them six years ago.

Todai. F*cker. I swear – ah.

Her hand shoots out, like a cobra on the strike, and she catches another water droplet from my leaky roof.

And with no support to speak of, her sizable boobs sway like a pair of – goddamn it.

"Put clothes on." I croak. Great. I'm at the randomly croaking stage of my alcoholic experience. Joy. "And don't do that. The speed thing. It's not healthy."

She had gotten faster in a hurry. I'm not sure which pills she popped, exactly, but there are repercussions for that kind of thing.

She blinks owlishly at me. "Yes, master." She says.

As I begin to crawl out of bed, Shizuka drops to the floor causing her breasts to –

GodDAMNit!

I find myself sandaled before my feet hit the ground. I find myself coated before I stand up.

Thankfully – Thankfully – I had been otherwise fully dressed.

As I stand up, woozy and hung over, I think I should probably say something to her. Surely.

Maybe I should make some complaint about how this was all so messed up.

Maybe some quip that I'm a big boy, and I can dress myself.

But as she buttons up my jacket she just looks so hopeful. So happy.

And I haven't seen her be either in six years.

Not since that day so long ago, inside a small tailor's shop in the Fire Country Capital, standing before a mirror as she tried on a sky-blue kimono with a floral motif.

Getting drunk hadn't helped. Sleeping the night hadn't helped. Getting hung over was sure as hell no better.

I still had this overwhelming certainty that I was stuck with her.

I need a psychiatrist.

No, I need three. Two for her and one for me.

Or, at this rate… one for her and two for me. Shit.

"Your clothes." I croak out.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, bowing. "They're drying in the commons."

Right. She had been soaked. Okay. That was equally a cliché development, but infinitely more preferable than what I had been worried about.

The door creeks. I turn to it as it opens. There is a muffled –fwip- behind me and I know that Shizuka has again abused her speed.

I just told her.

"I'm sorry, master." She whispers behind me. "But that part of me's only for you. I was protecting it."

I look over my shoulder at her. She's cloaked in bed sheets now, but that much she could have managed at normal speed.

She's done up her hair.

As if, somehow, seeing it down was something private for me.

What the hell Shizuka. Do you realize that there are things that are natural and things that aren't? That, somewhere, you're going to pay for every ounce of speed you didn't earn?

Did you really have to do up your hair?

I palm my face – which of course explodes my headache – as Haku steps into the room, a tray of tea in her hands and Shizuka's purple kimono draped over her arm.

I don't know if Shizuka wants to be my courtesan or my retainer or whatever the hell it is that's going through her head…

But she sure as hell seems to be in the driver's seat so far. I haven't issued a single order, but I already feel the rules, traditions, and acceptable behaviours falling in to place around me.

Like an elaborate cage.

Sigh.

Well, I suppose I issued one: to not use her speed.

Which she immediately ignored anyway, so I don't think it counts.

Sigh.

Haku smiles. "I'm glad you're up." She tells me in a whisper. Right. Apothecary. She's familiar with hangover symptoms including my killer headache. Good. "Mugwort tea?" she offers. "It will help your, ehm, inebriation. Drink up, get well, hope you don't become overly nauseous, and come on down. Preparations are almost done."

"For?" I ask.

"Departure, of course. We're going to Water Country."

x—x

Headache's feeling much better.

"You might not remember this – you were quite drunk at the time – but Shizuka-san did manage to feed you last night before you passed out. We even managed to get some coconut water into you. That was fortunate. And after that you were asleep for a full eight hours." Haku informs me as she leads me to the common room.

Huh. Okay. It was hard to mark the passage of time with the clouds outside obscuring the sun and moon. I basically blot the part about Shizuka feeding me from my memory. Forever.

"It was for the best, really." Haku continues. "You needed the rest after everything that had happened and we're counting on you to be in top shape today."

I nod at this. Sounds like there's a plan.

The old man is at the bottom of the stairs. Tools are strewed here and there around him, and indeed, around the rest of the deserted bar. "Morning, brat." He greets. "I don't think we've been introduced."

"Houou Naruto." I explain, offering my hand. "Medic-Nin in training."

"Mizuke Kenta." The gruff man tells me. "Sailor, grateful you saved my life, and a big fool ready to cheat mother nature with you. And, apparently, not half bad at home improvement."

I look to the walls, how they're covered in a grey substance. I see empty buckets stacked to one side that were identical to what Shizuka had planned to use to – "You sealed the bar?"

"Aye." He nods.

"Why?"

"Because." The bartender begins, as he walks over to me. "This old bar was built to float. Many bars were, back in the day, in order to deal with changes in the tides or the presence of storms."

I crock an eyebrow.

"You want to use this bar as a boat? And you guys were calling me nuts. I love it. But what I meant was, why are you in on this all of a sudden, Mr…?"

The thin, greying man shook his head. "Just call me barkeep – everyone does." He explained. "I've been running this place for a long time, and I've been barkeep all those years – can't really say I'd know to respond if you did call me my real name. But all the same, I'm an old goat at this stuff and my point is that I've seen all manner of man and beast pass through my establishment. None quite as amazing as you. So far, you've finished walking through a hurricane, fighting, poisoning yourself, donating your blood for the antidote of a man you barely know, fighting again, and turning an old enemy into your servant..." He finished counting the feats off on his bony fingers. "Now I would normally be still sceptical to bet my bar on you – it's simply worth that much to my heart. But after you did all that, you threw back an entire jug of the strongest damn gut-busting, hair growing sake – sake which I've stocked for the express purpose of knocking unsavoury customers instantly unconscious with a single saucer – and you're still alive. Now, I'm pretty sure that's a sign from the goddess of wine" he nodded solemnly, and I think he was actually serious about this, "and far be it from me to deny her."

Seriously? Things are going my way?

That's good news! Which is a nice change from the shitty news from hell that I keep getting.

Something about the fact that good news has become my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – and twice as rare – makes me want to laugh. And maybe cry a little bit where no one can see. But mostly I want to laugh.

Because I got it. I got the pot of gold, assholes.

But now isn't the time for that. Now is the time for a rousing inspirational speech of great rousingness.

I heroicly stand atop a table and regard my new underli – partners. I regard my new partners. "We five are going to Water Country. And we're going to do it." I fix them with a look and place a hand on my heart. "We're going to stop this hurricane. That's going to save the entire middle-to-lower class of water country." I pointed at Kenta, addressing him. "We're going to save the fishing industry and traditions of the mainland." I pointed at the barkeep. "We're going to get this man's paying customers back."

I contemplate what Shizuka wants out of this trip, shudder, and say instead: "And we must get Shizuka to a qualified psychiatric so that she can work through some personal issues and get out of my life, before my mother teases me to literal death."

The old man – Kenta – looks amused.

The barkeep, old and wizened soul that he is, seems to be the only one that understands the sheer depth of the shit in the shit bucket that I find myself in. And he, I think, mutters a prayer to the goddess of wine for my success.

Barkeep, if we all get out of this alive and I manage to get Shizuka thinking like a normal member of society, I will literally convert to your obscure alcohol-related religion.

Shizuka reacts by flinching and looks apologetic. For… hell, I don't even know. I don't know if she knows, either.

Haku gives me a disapproving look.

She thinks I'm joking? My sanity would literally be up for grabs if kaa-chan ever got wind of this situation.

And it's more than that anyways. There are courtesans and yes, I understand that the profession is not without purpose. It's not without a certain brand of pride, when certain lines are drawn and certain rules are followed. But the courtesan profession itself is okay or not isn't the issue. For starters, Shizuka's not a courtesan. She doesn't have all that expensive training and upbringing that lands her in a pitfall of debt. She doesn't need to sell her services to me to pay off a lifetime of luxurious silks and skills. And, secondly, Shizuka never chose. She never chose to walk that path. With the way she was mentally conditioned as she was brought up, I don't even know if she could consider choosing to quit. And that – that part – is definitely wrong. I just wish I could make her see that. Everything I say seems to twist around in the air between me and her, and somehow just makes it all worse. But the fact that I suck at getting through to her doesn't change reality. It's still wrong. I don't care what anyone says. I don't care if Kaa-chan comes at me with a mallet and a bad case of PMS. It is wrong and nothing in this world can make it right except getting Shizuka to someone who can work her through her issues.

But that will have to wait until I am finished with this Hurricane.

Finally, I pointed at Haku. "We're getting you through miles of high waves and lightning at sea because you… why do you have to cross the sea, exactly?"

Haku nodded. "I must reunite with my master."

Okay. Facepalm time. "Your…" Goddamnit. "Master." I ground out.

"Yes!" She smiled happily.

Okay.

1. wtf Haku?

2. Well that her behaviour last night

3. WTF HAKU?

Suddenly I realize that maybe I'm being paranoid and jumping to conclusions. 'Master' might just refer to her mentor. . She's an apothecary in training, after all.

That would actually make more sense, right?

I decide I'm going to go with that assumption. I decide I'm going to work very hard to go with it.

So I try not to notice Shizuka lighting up and splitting a high five with Haku.

I fail, because Shizuka's action creates a jiggle that draws my –

GODDAMNIT!

Shit.

F*CK!

This is Ero-Uncle's fault! I know it is! That pervy asshole finally got to me!

I don't know how, but that's definitely it! Next time I see him, I'm gonna' prank him black and blue! The last thing I need is to get hormonal right now! You don't need to be a psychiatrist to know that would just make Shizuka worse!

Damnit.

…

Just move on.

Just… Just move on.

As things go on, I ask them how they're planning to deal with the high waves caused by the hurricane. It's then that I find out that Shizuka had helped them plan, while accounting what I could contribute to the effort. Apparently I was there, but too inebriated to be more useful than as comedic relief.

It bothers me that I can't remember that entire gap of time, but maybe it's for the best.

All the same, Shizuka had already proven to know more than enough about my skills and they were able to accurately devise how I would best help.

I am going to provide wind and be at the figurative helm as I basically hold the mast in my hands like a kite itself. Being able to use chakra to ground myself through Godhand level kickback forces, I would essentially be a human mast pole as I steered our boathouse in accordance to Kenta's lookout advice. Barkeep would eye the left side and Shizuka the right.

I am concerned about our sail being strong enough to deal with the winds I would have to produce to move something as big as this bar, so I suppose I must reach out and reinforce the sail with my chakra, too.

Which is going to be about as stressful as it sounds.

I mean, I'm familiar with flooding objects with chakra. After all, that lay at the heart of tree-walking, water-walking, and my anchoring techniques. But even though my futon is on the lower end of the chakra use spectrum I do worry about splitting my concentration and fuelling everything over the long haul. After all, we don't know what kind of time we're going to be able to make in these conditions. We don't even have a real boat. Kenta says that there will be times when we'll be able to take in the sail and 'weather the storm' so to speak, as long as we can keep track of how the waves alter our course and stay on standby to deal with any huge or cresting waves.

So it's looking a bit like an endurance nightmare, but it's a shot. And at this point that's all I can really ask for.

It's a long shot, though.

I mean, they want to sail a floating bar through a hurricane on human power and chakra glue.

Which is crazy-awesome.

But yes, a long shot.

And, to be honest I'm not actually much of a gambler. I generally take the highest odds.

It's just that this is better than my alternative.

Which isn't saying much. My alternative is to just piggyback Kenta and walk through the waves to water country. I'd need Kenta because he will need to do mapreading to keep me on course. But though I am sturdy, Kenta is only human. He would surely die within hours and I would be lost in the vast sea with no shelter, guidance, or hope. So my alternative is pretty much 0% if we round the values off.

Story of my life.

"Hey, Shizuka?" I ask, turning to find her as the others file out for their own preparations. I have something to tell her.

Where'd she…? She's behind me again.

Her hands are – I don't believe this.

Apparently this part of the roof has a leak too. And she's catching it in her hands. Like some kind of human umbrella.

Somehow it pisses me off. I take her hands in mine and I fix her with a stern look. "Shizuka," I say, "I want you to know that you don't have to come with us. You're not really getting anything by coming with us. I can send you back to konoha if I – are you listening to me?"

Her head bobs up and down, following the small water drops that seep through some minor looseness in the sealed sealing, somewhere.

"Shizuka, look at me."

"Yes Master." She snaps to attention.

"Look: you shouldn't use your speed unless it's an emergency, but you still have your ninja-to skills and your hearing. Honestly you'd be a big help to us and everyone we're going to save. And to me, saving those people is worth risking my life. And so I want you to… I mean, I could use your help okay?" There. I said it. "But it's up to you Shizuka. I want you to understand that. You have a choice because that's how the world works."

Shizuka blinks, and as her face shows me a sort of minor eureka moment, I have this crazy hope that I have just taught this woman the concept of free will.

And then she sort of melts into this loving look.

It's still pretty creepy.

Yeah.

Maybe I should just shut up.

But then, I notice something amiss.

I'm a ninja after all. I have a healthy curiosity about things that don't add up.

I recall, now, that there had been a leak above my head. Presumably it is still there.

And I know that I'll regret starting discussion again. I want it to be very clear that at this moment I fully understand that I'm going to regret asking her my question. But I can't help myself. I do it anyway.

Story of my life.

"Shizuka?" I ask.

"Yes master?"

"Why aren't I feeling the water drop on my head?"

"Master?"

"I have both your hands, right?"

"Yes Master."

"And I'm looking right at you, right?"

Shizuka beams. "Yes Master. Any beauty I posses exists only to –"

I cut her off. The last thing I need is to get her going. "So what I'm saying is, what exactly are you doing to keep the water off my head? If I look up now, what in the nine and a half layers of hell am I going to see, exactly?"

I'm almost scared to look up.

"Nine and… a half, master?"

"Don't change the subject. Answer the question."

"Yes Master. My foot, master."

"Your… foot."

"Yes master. Obviously. I mean, it certainly isn't one of my hands – you have both of mine in your sturdy, hard, overpowering grasp."

There are definitely some unnecessary adjectives there, but I gather my considerable guts and looked up all the same. Surely, there really was a foot there.

"Okay. How in the nine and a half layers of hell –"

- and I appreciate that she visibly restrains herself from asking me where I get the extra half a hell from. Because hell if I know. –

"- did you manage to curl your foot up behind me and over my head?"

Shizuka perks up. "Oh master, I'm double jointed. Didn't you know?"

I did know, actually. I noted it when I gave her the first check-up of her life. She was cuffed at the time, of course. And disarmed. For my safety. "You're about half a ruler-length away from touching your nose with your toe, Shizuka. I don't think double jointed really covers it."

If possible, Shizuka beams even more blatantly as she preens and begins a prideful display of flexibility by poking her own nose and then tracing the contours of her face in what can only be described as an obscurely erotic fashion... with one manicured big-toe. "Advanced Tantric –"

"Never mind." I interject, holding up my hand in a 'stop' demand. "Just… never mind, okay?"

I don't want to know.

…

Well…

Maybe a litt–

Damnit Ero-Uncle.



A/N: A bit of a transitionary chapter. Looking back on it, I could have timeskipped over a ton and just summarized what was important. What can I say, though? I wrote it, and it would be cannon to my fic even if it weren't. I might as well post it. Also, people have been telling me to stop trying to curtail this fic and end it sooner. Even my BETA says to stop trying to cut out plot and character development and arcs and scenes and stuff.

Anyways, I think I'll do 3rd person for the next chapter, as the journey through the hurricane should probably be pretty descriptive. That, or I'll timeskip the journey and just land them right where they need to go.

Hmm…

Finally got through all the review a song campaign demand. Now I'm back to unscheduled updates. God, it's been like a month. Was weird to have deadlines like that.

Let's see… Shizuka's still pretty easy to write. I thought she would be hard to write well or interestingly after things settled down. Straight up servitude is innately reliable and therefore predictable, after all. Luckily she's not trained as an actual courtesan – and not trained properly to be a fake one either – or she would probably be really bland in this context.

Got a lot of reviews last chapter. I'm happy about the amount of in-depth ones I got that explained which elements they felt were the best. A lot of people liked shizuka which was a relief. . People got the Haku dynamics as well, even though I intentionally didn't spell out everything in her section. I was also worried that people would get caught up in the drama and the funny would feel out of place or get caught up in the funny and the drama would feel contrived. But it seems to have gone over all right in the end. People more or less got the funny from the drama and the drama from the crazy. So I'm content.



Omake Section

I actually got omake from my reviewers. I think this is the first time I've ever gotten actual full omake scenes (short though they are) from my readers. That's amazing. As expected of the greatest chapter in the history of forever, it really inspired a different degree. Obviously, these are based on chapter 24:

Note that, unlike my omake which are –mostly- cannon to the fic to some degree, neither of these are. Rather than scenes that just didn't have a place to fit into the chapters well, these are just good ol' 'what if' fun. You know, like most omake from any author that isn't me.

.

Guest Omake 1: ChronoMitsurugi

Shizuka: Master, you should not drink so much.

Oh god she's looking at me with those damn loving eyes again. It might be the alcohol, but she looks like a damn puppy like that. With her tail wagging a hundred miles an hour like she just got a treat.

Fuck. The perv was right. I just set a new world record. Getting screwed over in record time. Skip the relationship and go straight to the ball and chain.

Naruto: Barkeep...three more bottles please.

Shizuka: Very well Master. I guess I will just have to care for you till your hangover passes.

Fuck

Naruto: Make it four.

.

Guest Omake 2: goddessa39

Tsunade looked up from her paperwork [damn rules for even her] and she nodded to herself. Her white jacket got slipped off as she walked away from a daily duty she would rather not have and her senses brought her to one of the more high class hot springs in the area. It did not take long for her to find him.

With one giant punch, Jiraiya went flying. A thousand feet above the ground, taking a pause from his crying, the Toad Sannin wondered what Naruto had done now.

On the ground smiling, an aged woman hiding behind a glamour gave herself a pat on the back [via kage bunshin]. Yes, she would not let the letch corrupt her baby.



As for the paperwork. Note that Tsunade is the director of the hospital in Tsunade's Heir so it's hospital paperwork. Also, I can't believe how well the second one leads in to this chapter.



Chapter 26: Chapter 26



Review a song campaign: 1 review of my BETA's song = next chapter within a week (or so.) See my author's page for details. Otherwise, don't worry: I'll see you when I eventually make time for stuff.

Exploratory chapter. I want to try some try/practice some third person techniques and descriptive techniques. And dynamic narrative (is that a real thing? I think that's a real thing). Pay attention, there is a quiz (survey) at the end.

Also, I put up a poll JUST for Tsunade's Hier pairings. Vote. Check it out.

Also, I'm going to take A/N liberties and writing liberties beyond what I normally do. But on the other hand, this is a way faster update than usual so take it with a grain of salt.

Chapter 26

Rock you like a hurricane.

Naruto looked about him, at the rafters and secured tables. He looked up at the leaking roof and tried to imagine the natural fury beyond.

He found that he couldn't, really. Not in its full scope.

His enemy this time was as a function of nature itself, and somehow to go against it… seemed so much more than a ninja's job.

He wondered if Kenta felt this way when he sailed. Probably not this much.

"We need to cast off." Kenta, a bandana around his greying hair, explained. "The waves might be higher deeper at sea, but nearer to the shore they break more often. And of course, at the shoreline itself, they'll break for certain. At any rate, we'll in principle have to try and ride the swell of the waves. Being hit by the crest would not only set us back, it would hurl us inside about even if you reinforced against structural damage. That is also why we must all be able to secure ourselves with rope at a moment's notice."

"I've got it." Naruto reassured. "No worries."

And so he started to make handseals.

And handseals.

And handseals.

Eventually, Kenta raised an eyebrow. "Wow… okay. Is this going to actually end, or…"

Barkeep split a bemused grin himself. "So do I maybe have time to unbatten some cupboards, boil us some coffee, put everything away again, and re-batten it all?" He asked. "Because I could use a cuppa'."

"Haha." Naruto deadpanned. "Funny guys. Don't even try to start a dis war with me, you land-legged loony lushes. I'll lampoon you into two into such a depression your loins will shrivel up and mummify from associated shame."

The man, being a sailor, stared. "Alliteration dis? I have to say I'm impressed. And I'm a sailor. I retract every bad comment I ever made about you, since I –"

"Bored now." Naruto interrupted. "Dragon's here."

"The what is what?"



It was a sleet of rain. It was a torrent of wind. Lightning arced in a random dance seemingly at the whims of some god. It was a bleak scene on the eastern coast. The entire dirt road had turned all to mud before eroding into a river itself.

And it was from there that Naruto took his fresh water.

Jutsu activated, the flow began to slow. Then, it ceased, frozen in time. The wind howled and the rain drummed, but that particular part of the river did not move. And just as the current from upstream was about to overrun the water frozen in time, it surged upwards in a spray of water and riverbed rock. A form emerged from the river then, as if nature had decided to give birth to some elemental beast.

And it rose to the sky: a sinuous, thin, solid thing with its tail attached to the water of the river itself.

And the dragon opened its long yawning mouth towards the heavens.

And just then, lightning flashed, as if the beast would use thunder itself for its roar of birth.

And then, it turned it's watery, elemental, cerulean eyes onto one small bar so very small away. So very insignificant to it's great stature. And it slithered down through the sky.

And this great beast tenderly wrapped it's thin but long neck about the bar.

And it set them ever so gently down beyond the waves that crested too often.

It was the last gentleness the travelers would find.



The waves were high and unreasonable.

And wide. So wide. It took what felt like forever to pass over one safely and it seemed wrong to call them waves at all.

It was tough to keep the buoyancy when the swell threatened to swallow them from underneath.

And when they got to big, one of his watchers would yell to Naruto that they had to scramble. They had to deal with it broke and crested. Before it dragged them in and crashed all around them.

But how do you dodge something so big? How do you dodge a wave that swallows the horizon itself? You can't. You amp up the wind and beat the cresting or you reinforce the structure and be tossed about like a rag-doll in a pit-bull's mouth.

They tried to avoid the latter scenario.

On the inside of this valiant, jury-rigged ship was a scene of mindless repetition.

It was too much stress, for too long. The mind couldn't handle it all, but everyone knew they couldn't afford to slack.

So the mind handled it as it could, as was its nature.

And all thoughts but the scurry of tasks were forgotten as if swallowed up by the swell of every wave. They barely remembered what they were there for and they couldn't tell for how long they had been working. Was it six hours? Sixteen? Sixty? They knew not. Barkeep barely remembered a time when he wasn't looking through the hatches. It seemed he had been perched at that window all his life. Shizuka and Haku found themselves occasionally reaching to bail water that wasn't there yet.

Kenta, big and greying, was devoted to his task. He threw rope out the back of the ship, consulted his maps constantly, and practically danced around as he tried to keep them from sailing four hours into the north Atlantic.

Naruto. Naruto expended every bit of every type of reserve that a man could have. And he was both born an Uzumaki and raised by chakra monsters. So his reserves were no laughing matter. His mind too, was taxed. Concentration that could bring the force equivalence of X square feet of TNT into a single pinprick point was taxed over the hours of endless storm.

And then something changed.

"Dear god," Barkeep whispered.

A tornado.

A tornado that stretched up to the heavens and across for a village's width. A tornado littered with the carcasses of fallen ships.

Barkeep yelled "danger!"

Naruto yelled "opportunity!"

That... and "Hold on!"

And if anything could wake the sea goers out of their endless repetition, it was the pure out of place-ness that they saw when they looked to the origin of this shout.

Naruto began to rotate in place with such refined elegance that he seemed to be practicing Tai chi. He threw his right arm in wide, opened, concentric circles, and only Shizuka realized what the refined elegance of his motions truly signified. Only she, who had studied his techniques so zealously, knew that he had removed his wind dragon from the sail and was leading it now through this hurricane. He was making it feed off the crosswinds around them. And as if it were an organic beast, the dragon would grow bigger with each meal. Stronger. More violent.

And with each additional rotation that her Master made, Shizuka became that much paler.

She had never seen him charge so long or grandly. It was like looking at a spring that some child stubbornly insisted on loading beyond the manufactured limit.

The others hesitatingly followed her lead in tying themselves to the tables secured to the floor.

And it was then when the little floating bar was lifted up by a dragon for the second time this journey.

Where the thin and purposed Suiryuudan had been alarmingly gentle, Naruto's overcharged Furyuu Toppa was violence itself. It scooped up the bar like pelican on the dive and took off like a rocket. Everyone but Naruto screamed. Everyone but Naruto clutched to their rope and their tables for support.

Naruto simply stood in the middle of it all and concentrated.

Someone screamed "are you insane?"

"Of course not!" Naruto replied. "I would only be insane if this doesn't work!"

And it will, he told himself.

He believed. He overcharged the f*ck out of Furyuu Toppa and he believed.

The elemental beast did not disappoint. It raced along the turbulent sea towards its target, diving through the air with the purpose of an arrow freshly loosed.

And like an arrow, it would pierce.

It would pierce.

It had to pierce, Naruto thought. And he fed the beast with all he had left.

Had it been much slower, Furyuu Toppa may have crashed into the tornado and been ripped apart by the crosswind. It may have been swallowed up as the inferior wind against one of nature's mightiest performances.

It did not. It was concentrated will and heart. It struck true. It pierced faithfully and guarded its occupants with its mighty clenched jaw. Like this, it broke through the wall of moving wind and all its flying debris. And both the bar and its patrons were introduced to the world of calm in the middle of an unnaturally enormous tornado. The sky was a beautiful clear blue. The tornado, from the inside, seemed as a solid wall of cloud lit with incandescent lightning blue. The world was eerily silent. The water, still.

And as the bar hung above the unnaturally still waters of this peaceful new world, bleeding off what little forwards momentum that hadn't been expended in piercing the tornado, it experienced a moment of quiet and peace.

And then gravity caught up to it.

In the moment when the bar broke through the tornado in the middle of the turbulent sea, Naruto let the technique go immediately and collapsed at once. This had the interesting and unplanned effect of leaving the inhabitants to plummet to their doom.

Shizuka reached out quickly and latched on to her Master. She clutched him securely to her bosom as the inhabitants of the bar felt their untimely decent begin.

Fortunately, they were all secured.



The inhabitants of the bar were spread-eagled and all but splattered to the floor on their backs. They were rocked with amazement and never so happy to be alive.

Haku didn't have to put very much effort into pretending to be exhausted and bruised. She had utilized much more of her capacity than what a regular apothecary cover normally would, but no one had paid her any mind. They were all too focused on their own tasks. "Can't believe… that's over."

A chuckle started. No one knew who started it. But in seconds they were all joined in. They laughed at the fates. Laughed weakly, of course. But they laughed all the same.

Naruto was still chuckling a little when he turned to the Barkeep sprawled to his left. "The hell is your bar made out of, old man? Did you paint reinforced steel to look like wood?"

Barkeep laughed. "That's my old girl. I knew she could do it. You know, they don't make them like they used to?"

"I believe you." Naruto said. "I really do."

There had been more to it than that. He never did recall the reinforcement chakra after he let Furyuu Toppa go. Hell, he hadn't even actually let Furyuu Toppa go. He had just passed out. So the bar really had been strong like steel when it crashed to the water below. Still, the structure was somewhat of a marvel.

He still didn't know exactly how long they had been at sea now. Time had blurred pretty hard back there. But even the best reinforcement could only go so far with an inherently weak structure. So Naruto was certain that the bar's own integrity had saved them from a watery grave more than once or twice.

Shizuka interrupted his thoughts. "Master are you well?"

Naruto groaned. What a question to ask. It made him actually take stock of himself and he groaned again. "Define 'well'." He said.

"Are you in danger? Do you require something?"

"Food, a toothbrush, and a bed. In that order."

Shizuka perked up. Her head raised two whole centimeters from the floor before she rolled over and began to drag herself across the common room. "I'm coming Master. I'll be there in five minutes."

She was two whole tables away. Naruto wasn't sure if she was going to be able to keep to her optimistic schedule.

Barkeep stumbled up. He was old and thin, but his job had been more about the mental strain than the physical. "Food's my job." He declared in a voice hoarse from constant yelled warnings. Then he stumbled purposefully towards the bar. "We have chips, bagels, and about fifty pounds of salted peanuts. And beer. Lots of beer."

"I'll take seven bagels. Shizuka, what do you want?"

"I would like three bagels, Master."

"Kenta?" Naruto asked.

"I want a steak dinner." The sailor moaned.

"F*ck no." Barkeep replied succinctly.

"Well don't you have jerky or something?"

"Yes. But they're up the stairs and in the back."

"Can you go get it?"

"Sure."

"Really?" Kenta perked up.

"F*ck no. "

Kenta sighed. "I'll have three bagels."

"Thirteen bagels old man." Naruto summarized.

"That'll be 390 ryo."

"Really?" Naruto moaned. "You're going to charge us? We just braved the hurricane of the century and rammed through a tornado together so we could take a nap in the eye of the storm. I thought we were tight, barkeep?"

"Food's my job. That means I get paid. And I haven't had a paying customer in weeks. Humour me."

"Put it on my tab. I'll pay for it once I can reach my wallet. "

"Where's that?'

"My left pocket."

"I'll get it Master. I'm coming. Three more minutes."

Bagels were hurled across the room with alarming accuracy. Naruto was going to comment on this, but a bagel rammed between his teeth stopped him.

Chew Chew.

Swallow.

And Naruto had a new comment to make. "I have to tell you: this crusty stale bagel is the most delicious bagel I've ever had in my whole life."

Barkeep nodded. "It's the ambiance. That's what it is."

"And the company." Kenta mumbled through his own bagel.

"I believe you." Naruto said. "I really do."

Guest Omake Section

Guest Omake 1: Cry Wine? by Goddessa39

Mizuke Kenta, the barkeep, look up over the counter at the annoying brat, or at least, the brat that looked like he could have been annoying in a normal and perfect world. His yellow hair was still damp as was his clothing, though that was nothing new.

But, Kenta knew, it would be his job to clean the floor and toss the water out of the inn/bar/boat/place of residence. Crap.

With a sigh, he bent over his stock and dishes of alcohol. Now, the brat hadn't exactly specified what he'd wanted. He was slightly annoying, but he was also, Kenta had heard, something of a busy boy. The poor kid. His hand wavered over the boring stuff before moving over a bottle of red something that was old and likely acidic by now. Nah, he shrugged and went for the gree jug. It was rich stuff and fit to take down an elephant. The kid looked like he needed it.

"Here, kid," he motioned to a dish and poured a nice amount, he thought about adding some water in the lessen the impact but the lady sitting next to him, hot and older at that, took it and put it to the boy's mouth. Yeah, this was fucked up. The kid needed it.

As Naruto sipped and swallowed, Kenta waited for him to drop. But he didn't. With a raised eyebrow, Mizuke Kenta popped the top, took a sniff and frowned. Yep, it was what he thought it was, praise She-of-good-Whiskey-and-Wine.

By the third serving, Kenta felt numb and the crazy woman next to the blonde was still insane and showing nothing on her face but absolute subservience to the boy. Naruto was mumbling quietly to himself. He seemed about to fall asleep but he was still looking around and acting paranoid. He kept muttering things like, "What will my mommy say?" "Damn Ero-Uncle!" and "Ramen-Kami, help me," and things of that sort.

The strange woman, Shizuka, snapped the occasional photo after she took the cap off the front. After the fourth serving, the boy finally dropped. To sleep. And the woman carried him up to sleep.

In the quiet of the night, the barkeep looked pensive. "I wonder..." he mumbled aloud. He took a dish for himself, filled it half with water and half with the sake he had given to the brat. He sipped it back like a professional sailor and fisherman he was.

At first, nothing happened.

Then he settled the plugged jug on the counter, let the dish drop, and fell to the floor himself. He had just enough time to tuck his arm behind his head for a pillow as the room went bright, then dark, and he dreamed of whiskey and wine.

In the morning, the goddess would be in his thoughts.

.

.

Guest Omake 2: by Lunatic Pandora1

I don't even know if I dare open this door, or if I should. But I do and inside is Shizuka, knitting separatively with her hands and feet.

"Master!" She cries joyfully. "I will have these done for you in record time!"

I close the door, may Kami have mercy on my soul.



A/N: Neither omake is cannon. They're just for fun ^^. I'm happy I got more omake submissions again this time.

Kenta is the old sailor. The barkeep is just called Barkeep. The alcohol should be about that powerful. Shizuka really can knit with her feet.

Naruto's clothes were not damp at the time of the bar-scene back then as they are Crystal Silk and thus are quick-dry. (which stems from a plot arc that I never wrote which involved one of the Houou family assets being a grove of trees left behind by the Shodaime. These special trees were used to create that paper used to determine chakra affinity and other random things. Silkworms that live on these special trees spin crystal silk cocoons, which are harvested for the silk.) There are only two places that have those trees, one owned by the Houous and one somewhere in water country. This silk is mentioned in chapters 11 and 24 but like I said the scene involving these trees will probably never be written. It does exist in the Tsunade's Heir universe though, in the background that only I care about *cry*. The grove is big. It is pretty. It is well guarded from the shadows. Btw the Houous also own a few underground ruins of lost technology, and have mayoral-like sway in the towns around those ruins, as they are more or less built around the flow of technology that stems from the asset under Houou family control. (There was going to be a scene there involving the akatsuki, the houous, and the hyuugas. It was where Eclipse version Shizune was going to premiere. She was going to gank-kill Kabto and 4-5 akatsuki after crashing the lights and tripping the dehumidifier system with gratuitous blood-sprays from Hidan's severed head. This was also abandoned in favor of just time-skipping back to konoha and the scene as it was conceptualized will probably never be written.) Until recently, all proceeds from these large assets went to Konoha villiage finances (ever since the Shodaime's time) as they were pledged to aid the start-up financing of the then-young village. Tsunade has recently began to take back profit rights, and has always held control of the assets in the ownership and managerial sense. Btw Naruto, Tsunade, and Shizune get the silk for their outfits free. Tsunade gets her cameras and a few other lost technology gadgets free.







Converting /tmp/phpHa21lG to /dev/stdout