Chapter 14
Two hours later Naruto was talking to Sasuke as they made their way to the grounds where they had to meet everyone else.
The two were discussing what Naruto would do about the seal. The day Sasuke had been bitten they had made a counter-active seal over Orochimaru's seal that would help him control it better.
Naruto had explained she wouldn't be able to remove the cursed seal of heaven from him as only Orochimaru's chakra would be able to do so. It would be possible but only if she extracted Orochimaru's chakra which was within the seal. That or if she ever met the pedo hebi then she could get a sample.
She with held a cackle as she thought about the many different things she could do with a sample of one of the sennins. Looking around the hall, she could see several people had survived the forest and made it in time.
Teams 7, 8, 9, 10 from Konoha were there, the sand siblings team, and a a team from Otogakure and another from Ame. She found it hard to pay attention to what the old man was saying and instead focused on Gaara's eyes.
They seemed to... sparkle the last few days. Nothing like Gai sensei when yelling about youth, however it was so much more different compared to when his eyes were hard teal.
She was snapped out of it when Sasuke began dragging her off the court and onto the upper court for them to watch what was going on.
'You know, I don't really appreciate being ignored.'
'Hey Kurama it's been a while.' she mentally smiled, not wanting people to question her sanity for smiling out of no where.
'Hmph. It wouldn't have been a while if you stopped fawning over Shukaku's host and paid attention to me.'
She didn't give an immediate reply and instead sat down with her legs crossed before entering her mind scape.
'Kurama... are you sulking?' she held back a smile however one would have to be blind to not see the mirth in her eyes as she regarded the bijuu.
'Foolish jinchuriki! I am the almighty nine tailed fox demon! I do not sulk!' his tails wagged indignantly behind him.
Giggling she made her way over to him and began petting his fur, eliciting a loud purr from the fox, causing her to giggle again. Upon hearing the giggle he stopped purring and retracted from her, sitting in a ball as he glared at her.
'Minus when I am allowed to leave your seal, you are the only one I can communicate with. You have your team and family, I have you and myself.'
'Aww, does Kurama get lonely without little old me?' she cooed. She knew at any moment he would lash a tail out at her and the two of them would end up fighting for a long time.
'I don't know what the blond girl sees in you.' he grumbled, making her tilt her head till she got who he was on about.
'Maybe my charm?'
Kurama scoffed at her, 'What charm? Your chest?'
She glared as she covered her chest, 'Hey! That's just rude! There's more to me than my chest dattebayo!'
Kurama carried on, ignoring her in the process, 'Then there is the middle sibling, all he sees is your chest. I would have to assume your chest is also the reason Shukaku's jinchuriki pays any attention to you. Tsunade most certainly recieved a lot of attention because of hers. As does that Anko girl. I also have no doubt that the Hyuuga girl will grow to have an ample bosom to rival the two womens.'
He was paying her no attention even as she yelled about his being a pervert right to her face.
She hadn't been paying attention to time and hte next thing she knew, she was being jerked back to reality. Sasuke and Sakura stood in front of her, irritation marred their faces as she grinned sheepishly.
"Uhh... did I miss something?"
Sasuke's left eye twitched, "Your match against Neji is next. The first match was Kin against Hinata, Hinata won. Chouji was aginst that Zaku guy and. He had initially defeated him after he got called fat but collapsed before the proctor declared the end of the match, meaning he lost. Shikamaru's match was against Dosu. The best part was when Temari pushed him over the railing. That was funny.
"That flirt Konkuro was against Sakura and he won against her using his puppets. TenTen was against me and I won, but I will admit she was good with her weapons. Ino had gone against Gaara... he broke her leg when she tried to go inside his head but she'll be fine. Then it was Shino against Temari and he forfeited when his bugs had been threatened. Kiba was against Lee and that ended in a tie but now get up and go to your match woman."
He shoved her down to the stairs and she glared before rolling her eyes and making her way to the arena. Neji was already there waiting and just as Hayate was about to start the match she raised a hand and spoke up. "Before we start, why don't we let Neji start talking? I refuse to fight whilst he monologues about fate. Hearing him go on about it once was bad enough."
The room was filled with agreements in the form of words, cheers and grunts. Hayate gave him a chance however when he didn't talk he began the match. Naruto not wanting to subject herself to such a cruel fate threw a tri-pronged kunai behind him, hiraishined there and chopped the back of his neck, knocking him unconcious in the process.
This of course elicited different reactions, Lee screamed about how un-youthfully his rival had fallen, several gaped faces, several blank faces and a few people laughing it all off till they couldn’t breathe properly.
Brushing off the imaginative dust from her trousers and shoulder she made her way to the waiting area where all the spectators were watching them. She stood between team 7 and the sand siblings as Hayate summoned them all to the bottom to select a number.
7 Hinata
1 Shikamaru
5 Kankuro
4 Sasuke
3 Gaara
2 Temari
6 Naruto
Naruto’s eye twitched at the numbers, knowing she would be fighting two matches whilst everyone else would fight one. Lucky bastards.
The old man gave another speech about how the next round was in a month giving them plenty of time to plan against their opponents. Her fights against Konkuro and Hinata wouldn’t be nearly as hard as her supposed match against Gaara. She didn’t doubt Sasuke’s abilities, however even the Uchiha heir was no match for a jinchuriki.
She quite liked this match-up. It allowed her enough time to practice as well as time to work on the seals she needed to get one with. The best part of the next month would be that Jiraiya would be coming back to Konoha to train her. Correction; he was already in Konoha as of yesterday.
She made her way to the hokage tower where she knew she had to be in order to officially meet Jiraiya. As she had grown up she had received letters from the toad sage and had on occasion sent one back whenever she could. She knew he was out keeping up with his spy network looking for Orochimaru which had lead him to Akatsuki.
She frowned at the thought of them. They were based in Ame and were hunting jinchuiki, at least which was what Itachi had told them during his years as a hidden agent within their organization.
The thought of Itachi upset her. She missed her elder brother figure just as much as she hated the citizens of Konoha for shunning him. Once again she cursed to the sandaime for allowing the situation to have gone that far yet she shook her head knowing there was nothing she could do about the past.
Before she knew it she was in front of her godfather and a busty blonde woman who was tied to a chair, gag in her mouth as she glaring at the old pervert.
“I’m all for perverted things and all… but I think this is crossing some sort of line, ero-sennin.” She spoke as she smirked leaning against the closed door.
The sandiame sat in his chair, shaking his head as he took a puff of his pipe, clearly amused over the situation at hand even though it looked to be very serious.
“Naruto, meet Tsunade. Tsunade meet Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, Minato and Kushina’s daughter. Also the host to the nine tails.”
Tsunade stopped stuggling against the ropes that bound her which was when she noticed a seal preventing her from using jutsu’s to escape.
She gaze the honorable grand-daughter a smile and wave before taking a seat next to her, knowing that somehow she would be here for a long time.