Naruto: The Lost Phoenix

Chapter 54: Explination

"Yo Lord Raikage, I'm back now!" Kai lifted his hands and waved as soon as he was let into the office, though he immediately found that things weren't going to be like the light-hearted reunion he'd hoped that it would be.

"Where the hell were you?!" Ay roared before Kai felt his entire head be enveloped inside of a massive hand. And as the hand wrapped around him too quickly for him to even react, Kai soon found that the giant was attempting to crush both his skull as well as his neck as Ay picked him up off of the ground by his head only. "It's the claw for you!"

"I-I might be able to talk better with my skull intact!" Kai attempted to pry himself away in vain as his legs flailed in the air.

"Explain! Now!" Ay roared before Kai was suddenly dropped into one of the chairs across from Ay's own at his desk.

"Where should I start?" Kai asked nervously, only now realizing that the room was completely packed with ninja who were most likely all jounin level.

"The cave." Ay instructed as he sat down in his own chair and stared at Kai with a gaze so intense that it nearly made him want to run away.

"Well... I went to the very end of the cave in order to pay respects to my parents when I heard a voice in my head." Kai slowly started telling his story. "As it turned out, the phoenix queen was sealed underneath the mountain. She'd killed my parents instantly with fire in order to spare them the fate of having to starve to death, and when she realized that I was dying, she asked for my help."

"Kai, if you're making up some kind of story-"

"I'm not making this up, I'm really not!" Kai shied away as the Raikage's angry face leaned across the table. "The phoenix queen known as Etna asked for me to free her from her seal, and in return she would offer me a way to live!"

"And you took it?" Neko asked while completely baffled.

"I made her promise not to harm anyone in the outside world first." Kai assured her.

"And you believed it?!" Neko asked while even more baffled.

"Phoenix are very prideful beings, as I've come to understand." Kai slowly nodded as he recounted all of the times Noshii had pecked him because he'd insulted her. "They would never go back on a promise."

"But still, there was probably a reason that she was sealed in the first place." A blonde woman whom Kai knew as the Raikage's secretary stated seriously. "Were you even thinking of the consequences?"

"The reason she was imprisoned was because people were afraid of her, and that's no reason to be imprisoned!" Kai replied. "Yes, I was thinking of the possible consequences, but she'd done nothing but help both me and my parents and I had no reason do doubt any of her words."

"So what happened after you freed her?" Ay asked.

"Oh, I only freed her about two, maybe three weeks ago." Kai pointed out. "After I first met with her, I passed one of her trials and was taken to a place called Hinokoku in order to both train and heal myself so that I wouldn't die before I freed her."

"You were trained by phoenix?" Psycho-Killer asked skeptically.

"Only for about a month. But after I was done, they not only taught me several fire style jutsus and how to use a dual-sided glaive, but they even showed me how to become practically immortal." Kai replied before sticking his tongue out at the disbelieving man.

"You said you freed her about a month ago... where have you been since then?" Ay asked.

"I went to Konoha to tell the rest of my family the news about my parents." Kai replied. "Though I didn't get to stay there for very long seeing as I accidentally made friends with the Hokage's son and was invited to some kind of meeting with their clan heads. And that... didn't go over very well."