Lost in the storm
With Naruto and the others
Naruto, Gaara, Shikamaru, Haku, and Hinata hopped out of the portal followed by, Red, Soul, Jin, Aiko, and Kubo. They landed outside the gates of Kurama's house, sanding on the other side stood Hidi and Hati, in his fox form, waiting for them. "It's nice to see your kits dropping by, though I do wish you would do it more often," Hati said with a foxy smile.
"Why don't you brats get in here and we'll have lunch?" Hidi said as she opened the gates for them.
Naruto and the others wasted no time getting into the house, even though they had gone to dinner a few hours ago, they didn't eat much. They were either too busy catching up with Shikaku or analyzing everything that was going on around them to eat. It might have been because it was the first time they were having dinner with someone from one of their past and was, therefore, a potential enemy, but either way, they were too alert to relax and eat. Now, because of that, they were starving. When they entered the kitchen they were met with two things, one the delicious sight and smells of Heidi's and (fox) Hinata's home-cooked meals, and second, A glaring at colorful squares on the table. "A-nii-san, what are you doing here?" Asked Naruto, startling A out of his inner thoughts.
"Huh? Me? What about you guys, shouldn't out you be in Suna right about now getting ready to go to the first event?" A asked as he slid the colorful squares to the side.
"We were there," Shikamaru said, "but we had to leave because Gaara wanted to bring us here for something."
"Oh? And what could that be?" An asked.
"Shikaku should be here soon, I'll explain then," Gaara said as he took a seat next to Mabui and gladly accepted the bowl of shrimp ramen that Hidi offered to him.
A shrugged his shoulders and went back to glaring at the colorful squares again, "what's he doing?" Hinata asked as she sat across from Mabui.
"He's trying to figure out what to do with the decorations for your parent's and siblings' upcoming party," Mabui said before taking another bite of her yakisoba.
"Couldn't he have done that back home?" Haku asked as he took a sip of his tea.
"I suppose, but he opened up the portal to get here without my input," Mabus said.
"How'd that happen?" Naruto asked as he slurped his pork ramen.
Mabui thought about that for a moment, "well, it's started when we were in the kage office...."
One hour earlier
"It was raining the first time we met, do you remember?" A asked as he walked into his office with Mabui.
"Yes A-sama, I remember that day bright as day, it was the day that you tried to hit on my sister and she turned you down for Killer B." Mabui shot back stockily as she wrote something down on her clipboard.
A sweatdropped, "oh, right," he sighed, "well anyway, that day something else happened to me."
"And what would that be, A-sama?" Mabui asked, almost half interested in what the fourth rikage was about to say.
"That day, my father got remarried to my stepmother, Kurama, do you remember their wedding?" A asked remembering that day, it was a bright and colorful event that featured a very....bright declaration of love between his father and his step-mother. Don't get him wrong, he liked the wedding and all, but he didn't see the point of making it so bright and colorful, a simple, traditional wedding would have been just fine in his mind, but no, his mother wanted everyone to remember the event forever and ever. He sighed, "and of course, my sister was born the year after on the day of their wedding anniversary."
"Oh that's right, wasn't your youngest brother also born on that day too, but only two years later?" Mabui asked A slumped down in his chair, "now that you bring it up, isn't their fourth anniversary coming up soon?"
A dragged his hand down his face, "yes, and since Naruto and Shikamaru are off with the others in Suna for the next few months, I have to be the one to plan out the event this year."
Mabui looked at him slightly confused, "why don't you higher someone to plan out the party for you? I mean, you are the fourth rikage now, you have a lot of paperwork to do, you don't have the time to be planning your parent's wedding anniversary."
"No way! Are you kidding me Mabui?!" An all but yelled.
"What d-"
"I can't let someone else plan the party, let alone something so special as an important family event as sacred as a birthday or an anniversary!" A shivered, "Naruto would never let me live it down, and B would rap about it until we all start to think his raps are any good."
Mabui sweatdropped, "wow, I didn't realize how highly your family holds these kinds of event, A-sama."
"That's it!" A suddenly got up from his seat and hopped over his desk, "I know how to fix this problem," he grinned as he started doing hand signs.
Mabui looked at him, puzzled, "you're not going to try to get out of work by using more shadow clones, are you?"
"Hmm, please, I'm not wasting any more shadow clones on those evil stacks of paper," A said as he finished the last of his hand seals. When he was done, a portal opened up, "come on Mabui, I've got someone to see."
Mabui watched as A jump through the portal first, she turned back to the office to see ten Rikage's working on paperwork, two signing documents, and one scheduling meetings. This was supposed to be what she was meant to do, but if A already had it cover, she saw no point in sticking around and jumped threw the portal too.
".....And now we're here," she said as she finished up her food.
By now, Naruto and Shikamaru were looking at A, "stop staring at me like that! It's not my fault that I don't know anything about planning stuff like this," A looked away from the two boys as he sipped his tea. There was a knock that came to the door then, "hm? Is that the guy that you've been waiting for?" He asked as he watched (fox) Hinata get up to answer the door, Shikamaru and Naruto nodded.
A moment later, Shikaku walked into the kitchen, "hay guys, sorry I'm late, I got caught up in a meeting," he said as he sat down. A second later, a puff of smoke appeared in the cent of the kitchen to reveal another Shikaku, "how'd it go?" he asked the second Shikaku.
The second Shikaku smiled, "better than expected," he said before going up into smoke again. This time when the smoke cleared, Kurama was standing there with a foxy grin, "it seems that the extra person was your ex-wife the whole time," he said as he sat down in a space next to Naruto. "So, how are my kits doing today? When I felt your chakra signatures leave the hotel, I had a feeling that you all would show up here sooner or later. But I would like to know why," he said as he spread some jam on his toast before taking a bite of it.
"Shikamaru's seeing those things again," Gaara said when no one else spoke up.
"Seriously man? I thought you weren't going to say anything about that!" Shikamaru said with a deep pout on his face.
"I said that I wouldn't say anything as long as it doesn't affect you, but now it's affecting you," Gaara said as he finished his second bowl of ramen.
"Is it that bad now?" Haku asked, "I thought mama took care of your eyes before Jay was born."
Shikamaru was quite as he leaned back in his seat, pouting, his blueberry waffles seemingly forgotten, Shikaku looked at his son worriedly. "Shikamaru? What are they talking about?" He asked, Shikamaru looked down at his half-eaten waffles, not wanting to meet his father's eyes, "Shikamaru.....what do you see?"
Kurama was quiet for a moment before slowly nodding his head, "he's been seeing anything for a while now, most things that aren't there, and some things that shouldn't be. However, lately....it seems that he's been seeing other things too, and I also suspect that he's not been sleeping lately?" Shikamaru jumped slightly when his eyes met Kurama's for a second before turning them away, Kurama nodded, "he hasn't been sleeping at all recently, from what I can see that is."
"But I thought that only Panda-chan could stay up continuously like that," Naruto said remembering how Gaara used to be before they fixed his seal.
"Yes, Gaara used to stay up all day and night without a wink of sleep, but that was because of his seal. It forced him awake whenever he tried to go to sleep, so the only kind of sleep he could get was to meditate so that his body could rest, while his mind stayed awake." Kurama shook his head, "because of that seal, Gaara couldn't get proper sleep, but now that the seal is fixed, it seems that he can't sleep enough, right Gaara?" He chuckled as the other redhead at the table blushed and looked away, "anyways, Shikamaru's a different case.
"How so?" Shikaku asked, "I'm assuming that Shikamaru's recent lack of sleep would cause him to hallucinate about things that aren't and shouldn't be there. Although I can't imagine why that is," he looked at Shikamaru's for a moment before turning back to Kurama, "what's going on with my son?"
Kurama sighed as he put down his jam covered toast, he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, "I can't say for sure what his problem is now, when it happened last time, that was a whole other thing."
"What happened last time?" Shikaku asked.
Kurama thought back to a few years ago, back before they went to Kumo...
Flashback
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Gaara were playing out in the ruins of Uzu, they had just gotten to the abandoned village a few hours ago and were allowed to roam about freely. Shikamaru and Naruto were looking through the buildings that were a little more damaged than the others, they thought that with so much damage, there may be more things to find there. However, Gaara chose not to go into those buildings with them, fearing that they may collapse in on themselves while they were in there, so he ended up staying outside for the time being, while Naruto and Shikamaru looked around inside. The two didn't find too much inside some of the ruined buildings, some old books, ripped clothes, broken dishes and shards of glass, nothing too special. Although, when they got closer to the building close to the edge of the village, they found an alone building that was much more ruined than the other's they had seen. The place looked like it had once been a grand place where someone would come home and hang their hat on a hook, a few servants to wait on them when Naruto thought that the place would have servants because it was so big and all. The building, compared to all the other's they had seen, was by far the largest one there was, "I bet this place used to be a compound or something," suggested Shikamaru."
"What makes you think that?" Gaara asked as he looked up at the large building.
"What, haven't you seen a clan compound before?" Naruto asked.
Gaara shook his head, "no, there aren't any clans in Suna, not anymore, the wars wiped them all out."
"Really?" Naruto said, "Man that sucks, I hope that we don't have to fight in a war when we grow up, I don't want us to get wiped out."
Shikamaru chuckled, "we won't get wiped out as long as we know how to fight and plan, we should be fine." He turned his attention back to the ruined compound, "maybe if we train hard enough, we could put our heads together and think of a way to survive anything that comes our way."
Naruto smiled, "yeah, we'll be the best, maybe we'll come up with a name for ourselves, together as a group and as individuals." He boasted as he pumped his fist in the air, "we'll be strong and win every fight we face, who's with me?"
Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders, "well I wouldn't want to die before I get to see my old man again, so count me in," he bumped fist with Naruto and they both turned to Gaara expectantly.
"O-oh, y-yeah, I'll work hard too, I don't want my family dying on me if I can help it," he said with a small blush on his face as he bumped fist with the others.
"Alright!" Naruto cheered and broke away from the two boys, "let us go inside and see if they have any jutsus we can use to train with!" Naruto ran over to the broken down compound and started to look for a way inside, most of the walls were unstable and somewhere crumbling, so scaling the wall was out of the question. He found some large windows and tried to open each of them, most couldn't move from their shut position and the others were too broken to do anything to. Finally, they came around the back of the compound and found a door that looked like it had been cut in half once upon a time, they guessed it was during the last war. Luckily, the door was cut in half, the bottom half was taken away somewhere some time ago, but the top part of the door was still there, it came to a stop an inch or two over their heads so they could just walk in. On the inside everything was dark and a damp smell made it's the way to their noses, "this place must not have been used for a very long time," Naruto said as he looked around the place. Everything he saw in the dim light was either burned or had water damage from all the rain that seemed through the broken roof, other things were just worn with age and seemed to have fallen to the ground under its weight because of it. A few times Naruto and Shikamaru had to jump out of the way because something decided to fall to the ground because of the water that weighed it down, or because it's aging exterior could not stand to be attached to the ceiling any longer.
Walking through the hallway wasn't much better, there was barely any light to see where it was that they were going, "man I can barely see two feet in front of me." Naruto complained as he felt his pants pockets, their clothes were oversized because they were all wearing the spare clothes they bought before heading over to Suna. He was looking for something to use as a light so they could see, but he came up empty, he looked into his bag and only found food, "well that's a bummer." He moped, "it's getting hard to see, and we don't even have a flashlight?"
Shikamaru checked his pockets and bags, "I'm coming up empty too, what should we do. Come back tomorrow maybe?"
Just as Naruto was thinking about what they should do, Gaara came over to them, "hay guys, I found this thing in one of the rooms, it's lighter, see?" Gaara said as he held up the little device, "and I found some sticks laying around, we can make touches with them."
"Oh, good idea," Naruto took one of the sticks and Gaara handed the last one to Shikamaru, they then light one of the sticks and held the other up to the fire that was created. "Grate, now what should we do?"
"I think we should check this room next," Shikamaru said as he turned to a door that was a few feet away from them. Now that they had enough light to see, the place seemed to be even worse than they thought. The ceiling looked even more dangerous than before like it would cave-in at any moment, the floors were littered with wood and broken glass, screws, and nails. It was a good thing that they kept their shoes on. The door that Shikamaru pointed to was larger than the others, it had the Uzumaki swirl on the door. "I think that there's something behind here," he said as he walked up to the door and touched it, he turned back to Naruto and Gaara, "we should look inside here for things to help us train."
Naruto shrugged, "fine with me," he said as he went over to the door, "you coming with us?"
Gaara looked at the door hesitantly, "are you sure that we should do this? What if there's still someone living here or something?"
Naruto looked around the place, "maybe, but who would want to live in the ruins of an old village anyways?" Gaara shrugged his shoulders, "exactly, you don't know because no one would, well, that I know of. Anyways, let's stop wasting time, Kurama and Shukaku will be calling for us soon, so let's try to get through as much as we can while we can."
"We could also come back when everyone's asleep or something, too," Shikamaru said as he started to push open the door, but it wouldn't move. "It's stuck?"
"See, it can't even open, let's just check somewhere else and come back to this one in the morning," Gaara insisted.
"Don't be silly Gaara, he just needs a little help, here hold this," Naruto handed Gaara his torch and went over to help Shikamaru push open the door. With a few more tries, the door was pushed halfway open, another push and the door swung all the way open, revealing the room beyond. Together, the trio looked around the room to see what they could see, inside the room was large and wide. There in the center of the room was the Uzumaki swirl again and next to that was some stairs, it wasn't a whole bunch, just three or four, they lead up to another level of the room that had a large round table and some chairs. Oddly enough, this room was the only thing that remained undamaged from the happenings of war, "what's that thing over there, on the table?"
Naruto points him to the table and Shikamaru took his torch and shined it into the room, "I don't know, you wanna get a closer look?" Naruto nodded and the two walked over the stairs, Shikamaru stopped when he noticed that something was missing. He turned back to the door to see Gaara was still standing there, "what's the matter now? There's nothing wrong with this room, look, there's not even anything broken in here."
"But that's what worries me," Gaara said timidly.
Naruto turned back around to look see why Shikamaru stopped, he was standing on the stairs on the second step, "what's the matter now?"
"Gaara's worried about the room," Shikamaru informed him.
"Why?" Naruto asked Shikamaru shrugged, Naruto rolled his eyes and got off the steps. "You should really use your words more," he said as he passed Shikamaru, he stopped in front of Gaara and took his torch back from him, then he took his now free hand in his own, holding it tight, "just hold my hand and don't let g, 'kay?"
Gaara blushed, he wasn't used to holding hands with someone else, he's never held hands with anyone else, ever. Now he was holding Naruto's hand and he couldn't help but think how warm and soft it felt in his, "0-0-0ka-ay," he stammered as he allowed Naruto to lead him into the room. Once Gaara was in, the three of them made their way up the steps to the second level in the room, they stood atop the steps and looked down at the other half of the room. From where they stood with their torches in hand, they could now see that the Uzumaki swirl in the center of the room was not like the swirl they had seen in all the other buildings. No, this one was different, it was odd, the swirl itself was purple, not red like all the other times they 'd seen it. The symbol was also had three commas around the center, and around the edge was outlined shapes of animals, "what kind of animals do you think they are?" Gaara asked.
"Donno," Naruto said, he looked up at Shikamaru, "what do you think?"
Shikamaru shrugged, "no clue," he looked at Naruto and Gaara, "why do you think this one's different from the others?"
Naruto shrugged again, "I don't know, but we can worry about that later," he said turning his attention on the table behind them, "hey look over there, is that a crystal ball?" He asked as he walked over to the table to get a better look, "I've seen Jiji use this once or twice before."
"You mean that perverted old sage frog sage?" Shikamaru asked.
"No, no, not him, it's another old guy, but less pervy." Naruto explained, "remember the sand-lime Hokage that we meet before we left the village?" Shikamaru thought for a second then nodded, "well I've seen him use one of these before, I think you need to put in some chakra to get it to work, but I don't know how much." Naruto inspected the glass ball from all angels as if he was looking for an 'ON' switch, "you guys wanna try it out?"
"Sure, how's it work?" Shikamaru asked while Gaara only watched, still holding onto Naruto's hand.
"Okay, I think we should just put our chakra into it and see what happens next, um," Naruto looked at his hand, he had his torch in one and Gaara's hand in the other. Not knowing what else to do, he lifted his and Gaara's joined hands and placed it on top of the crystal ball, Shikamaru put his hand over Naruto's, thinking that it wouldn't make much of a difference where he placed his hand on the ball. Remembering back to their brief lessons in chakra control, Naruto, Shikamaru, and Gaara all filtered their chakra into the ball. For a moment, nothing happened, Naruto pouted and was about to take his hand off the ball, but then it started to glow a bright white color, but then the glowing started to die down, "I think we need to put in some more," he said. He pushed in some more chakra into the ball, Shikamaru followed suit, Gaara, even though he still wasn't sure about all this, he put in some more chakra of his own. The ball started to glow again, this time a little brighter this time, but then the light started to die down again, "just a little more," he said as they put in even more chakra, he was starting to feel a little tired, but at the same time, his curiosity was getting the better of him. As they kept filtering more of their chakra into the ball, the light that came from it glowed brighter and brighter, soon it was shining almost as bright as the sun.
"Now what?" Shikamaru asked as he started to huff and puff, he was getting tired, they all were, even though they had some training in chakra control, they never had to use so much chakra at once before. Without getting a reply, a strong force overtook them and pushed them away from the crystal ball forcefully, they ended up hitting the wall behind them, hard. Shikamaru was the first to recover, "what was that?" He asked as he watched the crystal ball, he half expected it is light to go out again, but this time it didn't, the light started to glow brighter and brighter until the whole room was under its glow. Every corner was uncovered, every shadow was slain, looking around the room, Shikamaru found that there were more to the room than what they first saw. In one corner of the room on his right was a bright blue door, on the other side of the room, his left, there was a bright red door (where have I seen this reference before?). "What are those doors for?"
Naruto got up from the ground and shook his head, "wha?" He asked as he looked around to get his bearings.
Gaara sat up and held his head, "hm? What happened?"
"Same day man," Shikamaru said getting up to check on his friends, "you guys okay?"
Naruto gradually regained his mind and slowly got to his feet, "well that was something," he said with a chuckle, he looked around and gasped.
"What's the matter?" Gaara and Shikamaru asked together.
"Look!" Naruto pointed to where his stick had fallen out of his hand due to the force from the crystal ball, he walked closer to it. The torch lay on the ground, still burning and un-affected, "it must have fallen out of my hand when the ball pushed us back." He observed the burning flames closely from a safe distance.
Shikamaru and Gaara observed it as well, "why's it burning still?" Shika asked.
Naruto straightened up and looked around the room again, "I don't know, but there's something about this place that's not right."
"What do you mean?" Shikamaru asked.
"There's a feeling in here that I'm not sure if I like or not," Naruto said when suddenly the light from the crystal ball grew even brighter, like a burst of light, before going dim. It stayed at a light glow for a few moments before it started to rise from the table. The three boys watched as the glowing ball hung in mid hair for a while until Naruto asked, "what's it doing?"
Shikamaru took a step forward and stopped as the light from the ball turned a light green before turning a darker shade, "whoa...."
Gaara took a step closer to pull Naruto away from the ball of light, but that prompted the ball turned a pinkish-red color before changing to a darker red. "Why'd it do that?"
"I don't know," Shikamaru said, "but I want to find out," he took another step forward towards the ball and it changed back to green, slowly turning a darker shade as he went. When he was almost under the ball, it moved, Gaara warned him to be careful, but Shikamaru kept going. The ball slowly came down to meet Shikamaru halfway, he stopped just in front of it and lifted his hands towards it, he thought that he ball would float into his arms, but it stayed put. By now, Shikamaru was fixated on the ball, he reached up and brushed a finger on the surface of the ball, the color changed from dark green to a bright yellow color, sending a spark through him. He was so focused on the ball that he hardly notices when Naruto and Gaara came up to him, the two were worried about him and pulled him away from the ball of changing light. Now that he was away from the light, he turned on his friends, "what was that for?" He asked, he was slightly mad that he was interrupted, but also a little confused on how he could get so caught up in a ball of light.
"Haven't you noticed?" Naruto asked.
"Notice what?" Shikamaru asked, now honestly confused.
"Look around," Gaara put in his two cents, "don't you notice something...different?"
Shikamaru looked around the room and found nothing out of the ordinary, not that he could see, he couldn't feel anything different around them either. "No, what are you guys even talking about?"
"I don't think we should stay here any longer, this was a bad idea," Naruto said nervously as he watched the ball suspended in the hair a yard away. "There' s something here I don't like."
"Oh yeah? What is it?" Shikamaru asked.
"I don't know what it is," Naruto answered, he was starting to get frustrated, how could he not know what he was feeling? He always knew what he was feeling.
"I think we should leave now, I don't like it here anymore," Gaara said.
"You never liked it here to begin with," Shikamaru sighed, "fine, just give me a second."
"What are you going to do?" Gaara asked.
"What's it look like? I'm gonna take this thing with me, I want to see it out in the light," Shikamaru walked back over to the ball of light and reached up for it, the ball turned light pink, almost as if it was happy.
"No don't!" Naruto and Gaara said together, but it was too late, Shikamaru reached up and put his hands around the ball when he did that, the room started to shake. Naruto looked up at the ceiling and walls, there was something that was about to happen, whether it was good or bad, Naruto wasn't sure he wanted to find out. "Shikamaru, I think it's about time to get out of here," he said turning back to the ex-Nara, he saw that Shikamaru seemed to be too captivated by the crystal ball hear what he had said. He turned to Gaara, "come on, we're getting out of here," he walked over to Shikamaru and pulled him over to the stairs by the arm, "let us go."
"What about the ball?" Gaara asked as he eyed the ball in Shikamaru's hands.
Naruto shook his head, "we'll deal with it outside, let us get out of here before this place collapses on us," he said. Gaara nodded and followed him down the steps and out the way they came, as they were walking, he notices that the walls of the compound were shaking as if they were going through an earthquake. The walls trembled, the floors shook with violence, things fell to the ground from the ceiling, the whole place looked to be falling apart from the seams. When they got back outside of the compound, they kept moving away from the shaking building, breaking into a small run after reaching the door they used to enter. They ran and ran until they were far enough away from the compound that they could see the outline of it, they were on the outskirts of the forest when they turned back to see the compound. They had turned just in time to see the thing fall in on itself, they all breath a sigh of relief knowing that they weren't inside, then they turned to another matter, "so..." Naruto began, "what should we do with this thing?"
"It's not like we can return it now," Gaara began, turning back to the collapsed building that they just left, "it's gone now."
"It wants us to keep it," Shikamaru said suddenly.
The two looked at him, "what do you mean?" Asked Naruto, he looked around at the trees and bushes, "what want's us to keep it?"
Shikamaru looked up at them, eyes serious, "this ball is special, it is lucky and it wants us to keep it."
Gaara looked at Naruto for a while, then he looked between Shikamaru and the glass ball in his hands. He knew what it was like to be crazy, be was still a little crazy for himself, however, how was he supposed to handle someone else's crazy? Thinking quickly, he said, "let's see how it goes for now."
"Gaara?" Naruto asked, "we don't know anything about this thing, what if it's da-"
"That's why we're keeping it Naruto," Gaara looked at the ball in Shika's hands, "if this affects you badly, I'm telling Kurama and Shukaku, got it?"
Shikamaru nodded, "yeah, I got it," the two of them nodded their understanding.
But Naruto rolled his eyes, "alright, but if that thing starts doing some weird stuff, don't say I didn't warn you, 'cuz I did."
"Deal," Gaara said.
Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders, "sounds good to me," they then turned around to head to where the other's were supposed to be playing while they searched the buildings. Unknown to the three of them, there was a Killer B that had seen and heard the whole thing but was keeping it a secret for the time being.
Flashback end