Chapter 22
Two weeks later.
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Naruto collapsed onto the base of a tree in training ground 24 in her adult form.
“Hmm… you’re getting a lot better at this. Just a little more and you’ll be set to go onto the front lines with little opposition who could stand against you and survive.” Noted Orochimaru as he lowered himself to her level.
Before she could retort a loud voice interrupted, “What the hell?!”
Orochimaru and Naruto turned to look at the person whose voice was unnecessarily loud after a hard training session only to see Teams Minato and Kushina. It had been Obito who had yelled it but apparently Iruka had also said it, perhaps a little quieter.
She breathed in heavily, still trying to catch her breath as she quirked her brow, “What’s up?”
Iruka pointed at her, eyes frantic, “What’s up?! We should be asking that to you! What the hell- How do you- Why do you-” he seemed unable to complete his sentence however he as pointed up and down at her form to show what he meant.
Naruto sighed heavily as Orochimaru answered, “It is special training. Her eight year old body can’t handle the strain of certain things so we are training her with her elder body.”
“How did she transform into her elder body?” asked Rin as she came over to heal Naruto.
Naruto’s eyes widened as she stood up and jumped back, hitting her back into the bark of another tree. Orochimaru leaped in front of her, kunai raised to the medic nin whose steps faltered.
“You should know by now, Naruto does not allow people to heal her.” his s’s turning into a hiss that even Naruto became shocked by it.
Rin’s hands stopped glowing as she bowed, “I apologise.” Naruto could smell the feint scent of sweat everyone was emitting before releasing her transformation.
She gasped at the sudden shock, her body feeling more lethargic than she had thought it would be. Orochimaru turned around, notebook and pen out, writing what he saw.
“It would seem… you still feel it when you transform back. Perhaps if we changed the seal…” he carried on mumbling to himself about different methods and ways they could ensure she wouldn’t feel too much when she transformed back.
“There’s not much we can do about that now. We’ve done the best that we can.” Spoke Jiraiya, appearing out of nowhere beside his teammate.
He looked at Naruto, ignoring those behind him as he gave her his hand- a hand she took without registering it. Once she was on her feet she felt a stabbing pain in her stomach, more specifically in her seal.
‘What’s wrong, Kurama?’ she asked, entering the seal.
Kurama didn’t answer her straight away, looking in the general direction of three o’clock.‘My siblings are causing more trouble on your borders. They have taken over their jinchuriki.’
Her eyes widened and she left the seal, returning to everyone else It hadn’t been more than a moment in their time however that mere moment was the most important.
“Son Goku and Kokuo have taken over Roshi and Han.” She stated, knowing only the sages around her would now what she was going on about.
Their eyes widened as Minato took a hold of the three of them, teleporting them into the hokage’s office in the middle of a meeting. A meeting Danzo, Homura and Koharu thought was important as they began to yell at them for insubordination.
“Han and Roshi have been taken over.” the sandaime’s eyes widened, showing an emotion his council hadn’t thought he would show.
He stood up abruptly, “How fast can you get to the border?”
“I’ve not been to that border before so I can’t use the hiraishin to get there.” She replied.
“The battalion there, their medical squad have one of my hiraishin kunai in case of emergencies, I can use that to teleport us there.” Added Minato, eyes hard as he looked into the eyes of his kage.
“All four of you, go there together and take down our enemy, no matter the price.” Minato’s fist clenched, nails digging into his palm to break the skin slightly but not enough to draw blood.
The four of them bowed before Minato once again took a hold of them, teleporting them to the medical ninja’s base.
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They had no need to find their enemy, nor to find the medical corps as their enemy was there, destroying the surroundings with their corrosive chakra- burning it all.
Not even a moment after touching ground, a tail came their way so immediately Naruto activated her chakra cloak. She had already transformed into her adult form back in the hokage’s office so there was no worry of wearing herself out even if she was slightly tiered already.
It was easier to take down angry bijuu than it would have been to take down Roshi and Han- she shouldn’t have to kill the two of them.
“Aniki, teleport the survivors back to Konoha, the three of us will deal with these two.” She felt no room for arguing in her order, an order he listened to. Not surprising, sandaime-sama had stated during the first meeting that she would be captain of this attack when the time came.
When Minato left, teleporting to and fro from the battlefield to Konoha Naruto turned her attention back to Son and Kokuo. Coating her body with Kurama’s chakra, both bijuu turned to face her, stopping their rampage.
“Can you two cut it out or I swear I’ll bite.” Spoke Kurama from her mouth having temporarily taken over. He seemed to like the idea of knocking his siblings down a peg.
Neither of them replied in a tongue she understand and instead chose to roar at her, charging at her with their red coated bodies.
She sighed, figuring she was going to have to fight them. Releasing her tails she wrapped one around Son as she created a boulder sized bijuu-dama and aided it at Kokuo, knocking him to the ground as Jiraiya placed a seal on him which forced him back into his seal.
She made another, smaller in size as Son was closer and once again aimed it at her fellow jinchuriki, watching as Orochimaru placed a similar seal on him and like Kokuo, forced Son back into his seal.
Jiraiya looked at her perplexed, “That’s it? After all that training and planning this is all it took?”
Naruto gave a nervous chuckle, “They had both taken over Roshi and Han so instead of fighting two kekkei-genkai wielding shinobi, we were fighting petulant bijuu. If Roshi and Han were in control it would have been harder. Also, there is the little fact that none of the nine bijuu would hurt me.” she shrugged her shoulders, unsure what else she could say as Jiraiya face-palmed.
“Bijuu taken down by the fact they can’t consider harming their adoptive mother.” Muttered Jiraiya as Orochimaru massaged his head, as if trying to remove the whole situation from his mind.
Naruto went over to the two jinchuriki, placing chakra suppression seals on them, powerful enough to suppress the bijuu chakra as well as they waited for Minato.
“You know, we could always go back via my own hiraishin, right?” asked Naruto a few minutes into waiting for him and the two sannin looked to her.
“With two other jinchuriki? No.” they spoke simultaneously caused her to raise her hands in surrender.
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FEBRUARY- 34 MONTHS-
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“Didn’t I specifically say you couldn’t practise senjutsu until you turned ten?! Look what’s happened!” yelled an irate Jiraiya, pointing to the trees that had grown within their home as she had been sleeping.
She sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, letting out a nervous chuckle, “I wasn’t going far with my senjutsu, working on absorbing only a small amount every day to amp up my sensory skills. Without absorbing small amounts it would be near impossible for me to feel what’s around me. I’m not a natural sensor- I worked for it back in my time which is what I’m trying to do now.”
“But you haven’t been absorbing small amounts. You’ve absorbed enough nature chakra that it’s changed your chakra coils. You now have many natural affinities.” He crossed his arms as he pierced her with a stern look.
“I don’t see the issue. I could use all nature types before.” She genuinely had no idea what he was so upset about.
“You learnt those affinities. Now, those affinities are natural- which isn’t natural!”
Orochimaru stood in front of Jiraiya, “What he means is it is now problematic that you can use the Mokuton. Danzo already wanted you in his ranks so if he gets wind of you being a user of the shodai’s own jutsu, it will be problematic.”
Naruto raised her hands in exasperation, “How is it problematic? You’ve already created a person capable of using the wood style better than I can! And right now, said person is in the Foundation.”
Orochimaru sighed as he massaged his head, “Whilst that is true, do you think he will be happy with just one when he finds out there are two?”
With that she faltered, “Well… I… I suppose not.” She knew too well what his greed was like, and if she ever wavered in her thoughts of the war hawk- all she need do was think of Sasuke who had been made an orphan by the mans greed.
“As long as you understand. Do not use the Mokuton, do not speak of being able to use it and refrain from thinking about it lest we wish for this incident to reoccur.” With that, the snake sennin led Jiraiya out of the room by the arm, insisting the man help with dinner for once.
She hadn’t intended for her to mess with her coils, hadn’t thought absorbing such small amounts of nature chakra would- could- even do such a thing yet she stood corrected.
In theory it made sense, chakra was a natural source within the body and at her age where her coils were still developing it made slight sense that external chakra, should it be entered into her system, would change her coils.
She hadn’t thought it a possibility considering she had Kurama’s chakra messing up her coils since she was born, the possibility that nature could mess them up further was beyond her expectations. If anything, she assumed nature would fix what his chakra did to her.
‘You make it seem like I’m damaging you.’
‘Not so much damaging as… rearranging.’
Kurama huffed, ‘Well of course I need to rearrange, your mind is a horrid place to be in and your chakra coils were so pathetic, changes had to be made for the greater good.’
Naruto sighed but did not argue with him, if it wasn’t for him she would be long dead or perhaps even a completely different person and that was a prospect she didn’t want to think of.
Hastily so she could go back to sleep she undid the jutsu and tucked herself back into bed, only for her window to be broken into as a person entered.
She eyes widened as she threw two kunai at the intruder reflexively, pinning him to the wall. Said intruder was a member of the ANBU and she furrowed her brows, unsure why he was breaking into her room so noisily when he could have teleported in without breaking her damn window.
Having heard the crash, Jiriaya and Orochimaru entered, weapons ready to attack the assailant only to see him pinned to the room.
“Do you care to explain why you just broke into my daughter’s room late at night, Turtle?” asked Jiraiya, his voice like his aura- cold.
The ANBU, Turtle, removed himself from the wall and returned her kunai to her, kneeling on the ground to look her in the eyes, “Lord Third has summoned you to the office for a mission, Namikaze-san. I also wish to apologise for my imprudent entrance, I was told it was hihghighlyent and to get your attention by any means necessary.”
With those words Naruto bolted out of bed, ignoring the fact she was only in Ero-sennin’s happi which she had yet to return and walked into her closet to get changed. It didn’t take long and she hastily attached her bandages, kunai pouch, back pouches and left the closet.
Turtle had already left, most likely to report he had called her or to summon the rest of her team and she hiraishined into the hokage office.
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The sandaime’s face was grimmer than usual and Naruto was sure she could see a new white hair amongst his brown ones as he levelled them with a tiered stare. He wasn’t only physically tiered but emotionally as well, and Naruto knew he wanted nothing more than for this war to end so he could step down as hokage.
“I apologise for summoning you so late in the night however I must as you, Team Kushina, to take this mission. Usually you would be given a choice whether or not you would take part in a mission however I’m afraid you do not have the option this time.” The team concealed their surprised well, it was rare for a team to not have the chance to opt-out.
If they were ANBU it made sense, however they were your average four man cell- she stopped her train of thought when she remembered a small fact. Both she and Kushina were jinchuriki, if the sandaime was saying they didn’t have a choice it was most likely because of that. Or their client had stated they wanted this team.
“We’ve just received word that the Seven Ninja Swordsman of the Mist have joined the war, whether by the word of the Mizukage or not is clear. They have taken their stance at the border of Yugakure and the Land of Fire. Your mission is to intercept them and keep them away from our lands as much as you can.
“Currently you are the only team with the capabilities for both infiltration, sabotage and combat in the village. These scrolls hold further details about this mission, next steps the village will take and the next steps you should take. Remember to send word daily, whilst this is a dangerous mission I would like each of you to return to your homes. To your families.”
He indicated for his ANBU to come closer, four in total, each carrying several other scrolls most likely containing provisions they hadn’t brought with them.
“These contain food, rations, pills, clothes and supplies you will require during your mission.” Each person was given a scroll with their names on it, leading Naruto to believe each one had been custom made for them which made her curious to see what was in each one to see what hers had that the boys didn’t have.
“Kushina-san, Naruto-san, please drink these before leaving and ensure to take the medication provided.”
All of Team Kushina’s faces’ were tinted pink, knowing just what the medication was they were asking them to drink and they did. Naruto and Kushina were by no means ashamed or shy of their bodily functions, however they didn’t usually talk about it in front of the boys.
Hell, Naruto had no need to drink it and most likely wouldn’t for another few years however considering she ate a lot, it was possible that she would have need for it.
"You leave in two hours with a medic and will be gone for quite some time so be sure to do whatever you need to do. You will meet at the gate and leave immediately after so do not be late. You are dismissed."
They all left their respective ways, Naruto via hiraishin as she contemplated how much she had fucked up the past since she was almost certain they hadn't taken part in this war. At least, they hadn't done anything she recalled till after the war was over when they took Rin.
Going into the living room of her home she saw Orochimaru sleeping on the floor beside Jiraiya who was trying to squeeze the man's ninexistant boobs, clearly having a perverted dream. The sight made her want mental bleach to remove it from her memory and she was actually tempted for Kurama to erase it from her mind completely.
She gathered the rest of her supplies such as more ink, scrolls, finished seals and other things she thought would be necessary for the mission before leaving a note for the two Sannin, letting them know what was going on and to make sure they damn well cleaned up, ate properly and remembered to feed the plants in the garden or they'd have to deal with Kurama.
The fox was very touchy when it came to nature.
One hour and fifty-five minutes after the meeting, five minutes early, everyone had gathered and introduced themselves. Their medic was a single lady who was twenty-five, Mei Aburame. She was skilled in infiltration, her clan techniques and with her refined chakra control, she was capable of using iryo ninjutsu on the field.
With haste they made their way to Yugakure, Naruto using the hiraishin to take them to the border of the Land of Fire without much issue however, they had to run the rest of the way as she hadn’t been to Yugakure before in this time.
It didn’t take them long to reach their destination, having to go southwards from where they had been teleported. Half a day of travelling, they stopped to make camp where they remained, Naruto making fuinjutsu-blood clones to stay on watch with the other person and they would be sensing for anything out of the ordinary.
Even if it was an odd coloured bird that shouldn’t be in the area.
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