Chunin Exams III
Drip ...drip ...drip.
The steady drip of water was all Naruto could hear for several moments after he came to, though he appeared to be in some kind of underground tunnel or sewer once he finally got his bearings. There was at least a half foot of standing water, and he was thankful he didn't drown, nor did the water smell too much like the sewers of Konoha, which made him wonder where exactly he was. The only things around him were a pair of pipes that ran through the tunnel, one large one that was occasionally leaking a corrosive thick red substance, and a smaller one that had a soft blue glow that felt very comforting and familiar.
In one direction, there was just rough light to make out that the tunnel continued for some ways, and with nothing else to do but find out where he was and how to get out, he followed the tunnel towards the light. He seemed to be walking for some time as the tunnels turned, and sometimes even forked, but he always seemed to be getting closer to the growing light at the end of the tunnel, and hoped he wasn't "walking into the light" that signified he died. The silence was only broken by the sound of water sloshing around, and occasional distant bangs of something being struck hard against metal, and wondered again what he was walking towards.
With the increased noise of more water, and getting continuously closer to the banging noise, Naruto finally reached an area where the dark tunnel ended in an impossibly large cavernous room that was only illuminated by the glowing dark red light from the larger pipes, which seemed to have grown in size and number as he approached this large space. The room was so large and covered mostly in shadows, but there was an unmistakable metal bar cage the size of the Hokage Tower that cut off one whole side of the cavernous room with nothing but a small piece of paper with the kanji for "seal" on it.
"My jailor finally decides to visit," came the growling voice, so filled with menace that it actually caused Naruto to fault in his steps, as he never felt such hatred and malevolence, even though he had lived the life of the village pariah.
"Who's there?" he asked in a bit of a trembling voice, not knowing what the hell was going on, or even where the hell he was., but easily feeling the hatred in the voice directed at him.
A large banging noise and movement behind those impossibly large metal bars, had Naruto staring wide eyed at the equally impossibly large fox as it tried to swipe one of it's house size paws at the blonde, who even despite the bars between them, fell back in shock. The creature was beyond enormous, with dark orangish red fur of a similar color to the lighting in these underground sewers, with long floppy ears, and malevolent burning red eyes that glared in hatred at the young blonde ninja. Naruto could only stare in shock as his brain tried to understand what he was looking at, and almost couldn't believe that he was facing the bijuu that was supposedly sealed inside of him.
"Hahahaha," came the sadistic and dark laugh of the impossibly large creature as it glared at the fallen blonde, "that's right ninjen ...stay on the ground where you belong."
"K-k-kyuubi?" came the stuttered question from Naruto, as he said the only thing he possibly could in the face of such a malevolent creature, wondering how the hell he was talking to and seeing the Kyuubi in person, and wondered if he truly did just die, and this was the creature getting released from his seal.
"Grrrr," came the low animalistic growl of the Kyuubi, as he seemed to settle down lower towards the ground, but kept his angry red eyes fixed squarely on the young ninja before him.
"Oh shit ...I'm dead," groaned Naruto, thinking he had died and was witnessing the Kyuubi being set free from his seal, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"I wish," growled the Kyuubi, still glaring heatedly at the blonde, who was now looking at him with even larger wide eyes, trying to process everything he was seeing and better understand.
"Where are we?" came Naruto's question, as he had an idea, but couldn't believe that the seal could work like that, where he could visit the imprisoned Kyuubi like this.
"You already know where we are," came the continued growling voice, "you are just too stupid to accept it."
"I'm not stupid you overgrown bunny," came the replied shout from Naruto, that had the large fox take another attempt at swinging his house size paw at the young ninja, but only making a banging sound against the bars of his imprisoned cage.
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT," screamed the large chakra monster, that rattled the enormous cavernous room, shaking up the water on the ground everywhere as a surge of the malevolent glowing red substance filled the nearby pipes and exploded down them and out of the room, causing Naruto's whole body to shudder in a bit of phantom pain.
"THEN DON'T CALL ME STUPID," screamed Naruto right back, ignoring the growing anger of the fox, or the phantom pain he was feeling in his body as it seemingly burned a bit from the inside.
"Hmm," huffed the fox, who stared at the young blonde in front of him with a touch of respect, that he would still stand up to him, the greatest of the bijuu, and decided to give the kid a little break, as he was just too tired to argue constantly after being trapped inside this seal for years with no company or anything to do. "Then stop asking questions you already know the answer to."
"Maybe I wanted to confirm my thoughts were right?" came the biting response of Naruto, still a bit worked up despite the fox seeming to have settled down a bit, and feeling aggressive for some reason until the glowing of the red pipes lessened over the next minute and with it his irrational anger.
During that time, Naruto really looked around the cavernous room, the fox's prison, the multitude of thick pipes that ran off in every direction, most of them carrying the red substance, but just as many only smaller ones carrying the familiar blue. He had a pretty good guess as to what that was, but didn't want to ask the fox and be called stupid again, so instead he started looking at the kanji seal on the bars. The fox continued to observe the young blonde ninja as he looked around, and even perked up a bit when he started looking more closely at the seal, wondering what he had in mind and what he was thinking about.
"This seal looks too simple to contain you," came his almost mumbled question, still going over things in his mind, and not completely directing that question to the room's only other occupant.
"It is," came the growled response, though it lacked a lot of the total hatred from before, "it's just your mind's representation of the seal, if you knew more about Fuinjutsu, it would start looking more and more complicated and like the real version on your stomach when its expanded."
"I am trying to learn more about Fuinjutsu, but it's not been a priority lately," responded Naruto matter of factly, seeing no reason to continue antagonizing the large Fox Demon, "and something tells me ...this one is a lot more complex than most."
"So you aren't completely ignorant," came the huffed response from Kyuubi, as it continued watching Naruto study the seal.
"Hey ...I'm trying," came Naruto's somewhat exasperated reply, causing the fox to do something the blonde would not have thought possible, it started to chuckle.
"That is true," came the fox after a few moments, and the chuckles died down, "a few months of actual hard work has done you well."
"Umm ...thanks," came the disbelieving reply before he remembered what happened just before he came here, "but it wasn't enough to survive against Orochimaru."
"Give it time," spoke the Kyuubi flatly, as he seemed to be getting bored with Naruto's continued focus on the seal, and had laid down his head on his paws, only half watching now and seemingly trying to go back to sleep.
"Can you help me?" came the question from Naruto several moments later, after studying the seal and realizing he didn't know enough to mess with it, but wanting to get back to his real body and teammates to check and see if any of them survived the encounter with Konoha's most notorious missing nin.
"And why should I?" came the somewhat expected response from Kyuubi.
"Aren't you tied to me now?" continued Naruto, "don't you want a strong jinkurichi?"
"Hmm," hummed the fox, who raised his head to look directly at the unflinching blonde, and wondering what it was about him that was so different from his previous two hosts other than his gender, "...and, what's in it for me?"
"What do you want?" came the nervous question from Naruto, knowing how important the next few seconds could be to his continued growth and the relationship he would share with his imprisoned bijuu.
"Ultimately ...my freedom," came the huffed response from the fox, "...but I'd settle for a change in scenery ...and maybe some access?"
"What kind of access?" asked Naruto slowly, "and how would I even go about changing the scenery?"
"We are in your mindscape," responded Kyuubi, "you control the scenery it says a lot about the type of life you've lived to imagine a sewer as your mind's closest representation ...and access to your senses would be enough for me."
"Ignoring the dig at my mind's expense," replied Naruto with a deadpan look at the grinning fox, "how would you access my senses, and what would that mean for me?"
"I would be able to see, hear, smell, and sense chakra through you," replied the fox to his captivated audience, happy to see the blonde was actually listening to him and not dismissing him out of hand. "Likewise, you would have a little more of my youkai, or bijuu chakra, running through you than you do now ...maybe a 2% increase, and your senses would all be heightened considerably, but otherwise nothing would really change except that we could communicate more easily."
"And how do I know you are being truthful with me now?" asked Naruto somewhat suspiciously, as it sounded almost too good to be true.
"I give you my word," spoke the Kyuubi slowly and deliberately, "I am fucking bored of just sitting here staring at this prison cell."
"I guess I can understand that," responded Naruto, while still staring intently at the fox trying to make sure he couldn't sense any deception, "okay ...so how do we get you access to my senses?"
"You tear a small corner of the seal paper off ...no more than a fingernail size piece," answered the Kyuubi with a matching intense gaze at Naruto, excited for the chance to have some interaction with the world around him, and glad the kid was even considering it, as his mother and aunt never did.
Naruto thought about it for a minute, until the Kyuubi sweetened the pot by stating that the small increase of his youkai would also allow Naruto to continue to grow at even faster levels as his recovery rate would skyrocket even more. Plus with enhanced senses and a reliable chakra sensing skill, he would be a much better ninja, and have the skills to be a first rate tracker to add to his other abilities. Then Naruto tore the small corner off the seal paper, and had to flinch as his body was flooded with an increased amount of the fox's chakra, causing the red pipes in the tunnels to expand a bit and glow even brighter than before.
The change wasn't as noticeable inside his mindscape, but after a few tries to get out, Naruto found himself waking up inside a small earth shaped room with Sasuke next to him. His teammate looked to be in pretty bad shape, as his outfit was mared with tears and stains of blood and dirt, and was sweating something fierce while seemingly involved in a nightmare his thrashing around was so bad. The pain in his own abdomen was still pretty intense from where Orochimaru connected his powerful hit, but he could also feel the concentration of what he now knew to be Kyuubi's chakra or youkai fixing the damage.
His eyesight was also visibly better than he could ever remember, and after the first breath, made sure not to use his enhanced sense of smell inside the small cave like room with all the blood and sweat smells that were overwhelmingly everywhere. He could also hear and feel movement just outside of the little cave, that he was instantly able to determine was Sakura and almost sagged in relief that they were both still alive. It was quite overwhelming at first, all the new sights, sounds, smells, and feel of chakra that he simply laid on the hard earth for a while until he could make better sense of it all and his stomach was feeling back to normal.
It was as he was just starting to sit up though, when he felt the three approaching chakra signatures, as it was such a new experience, it took him another few moments until he got a better handle on it and understood what it meant. Then it was a matter of stopping his spinning head after trying to jump up and charge outside to help Sakura, which took another several moments until he felt even remotely like himself again. Before he left their little cave, he created a pair of clones making it tight fitting, but wanted them in case they needed to move Sasuke somewhere during the upcoming battle he could already start to hear the beginning of.
He was in too much of a rush to really notice that both of his new clones had purple glowing eyes, and if he compared would have found they had slightly thicker whiskers than he was used to as well. But he never noticed either of those small details in his rush to get outside and help his female teammate, coming to find an overly trapped area with a short haired Sakura struggling to stay upright. The three chakra signatures he felt, matched perfectly to the three Sound Ninjas that stood at the other end of the clearing taunting and sending potshots at Sakura from a distance, seemingly realizing that they didn't want to deal with traps just yet and had almost completely worn her down.
"Come on you fucking tree hugger," came the angry voice of one of the boys on the team, as he seemingly shot almost neverending wind attacks out of holes in his palms at Sakura's position forcing her to defend and avoid the sprung traps that were also thrown towards her, "tell us where Sasuke Uchiha is, so we can kill him for Orochimaru."
"You work for that pedophile?" came the snarky question from Naruto, getting a relieved sag of Sakura's shoulders as one of her teammates finally joined her to help stave off these Sound assholes, "must be fun?"
"Fuck you!" shouted the only female member of the team, a relatively attractive dark haired girl who was seemingly holding bells and glaring hard at the blonde.
"Is that an offer?" snarked Naruto back, getting said girl to growl in anger and her two teammates to pause a moment to laugh at her misfortune, which was all the time Naruto needed to spawn easily a hundred plus shadow clones that were soon bombarding the trio from Sound with relentless attacks that kept them purely on the defensive.
Within a minute, the girl was taken down and secured in ropes, and the two remaining boys were throwing out even stronger attacks as they were in danger of being overrun by Naruto clones and getting desperate. Another minute had the two boys being tied up just as Naruto felt another team arriving, though this one he recognized once he saw the green spandex of their loudest member, and his friend. Lee landed right near Sakura and offered her help, and asked for another date, while his teammates landed in higher up branches that dotted the clearing that had been made from all the various wind attacks.
"Hi Lee," greeted Naruto, always finding the boy with the bowl cut and bushy eyebrows a genuinely nice person even if he was a pain in the ass to fight against or sometimes even talk to.
"Naruto," greeted Lee exuberantly, "you are so lucky to have such a beautiful flower as your teammate."
"I could say the same to you Lee," replied Naruto with a glance and a wink to a suddenly blushing Tenten as her and Neji watched from a little distance away, ignoring Sakura's spluttering as Lee tried talking to her.
"Is this some kind of Konoha party?" came the unmistakable lazy drawl of Shikamaru, as he and his two teammates arrived from a different direction, and looked carefully over the ruined clearing and the now three tied up and knocked out Sound ninja.
Unfortunately, before anyone could answer, there was an explosion of chakra from the small cave under the tree Sasuke was still in, causing even Naruto's two clones he left behind to disperse, giving the blonde a weird memory of Sasuke with black lines all over his skin. He was able to see that for himself a moment later as Sasuke burst out of the cave, covered in inky black line work that pulsed with a malevolent feeling chakra that raised the hairs on everyone presents' arms. Sakura, ignoring the bad feelings, immediately rushed Sasuke, glad he was still alive but was casually pushed aside after he saw the bruising and cuts she had all over her body and his face took on an even more menacing tone.
"Who hurt you Sakura?" he practically growled, causing Naruto and the other Konoha teams to realize that this wasn't the same Sasuke they were all used to hearing, as the dark haired boy glared along the clearing until they rested on the now tied up and unconscious sound ninja, "was it this trash?"
Before any of the others could react, Naruto was directly in front of Sasuke, and blocking his singular focus on his perceived enemy, but Sasuke was having none of it and tried to simply push Naruto aside. But Naruto didn't budge, forcing Sasuke to growl at him like an animal as he stared at his blonde teammate that was currently in his way from delivering justice. Naruto simply held his hand to Sasuke's chest and told him to calm the fuck down, as he wasn't acting himself, and the inky black lines littering his skin was the most likely cause.
"What did Orochimaru do to you after he took me out?" asked Naruto quietly, but all the present ninja could still hear it clearly, and all of them tensed in seriousness, as all of Konoha knew that name and it wasn't one spoken of pleasantly.
"He bit him on the shoulder," interjected Sakura, causing Shikamaru to curse and Ino to start crying, while the members of Team Guy looked on in various degrees of shock.
"He gave me power," roared Sasuke, as he attempted to blast through Naruto and get to the sound ninja he saw as the most likely people he could practice his new power on, "now let me at them."
"At what cost, teme?" came the question from Naruto, as he refused to be pushed aside and held his ground, glaring back at Sasuke as his teammate's anger only increased with every passing second.
"Who cares," replied Sasuke, giving up on simply getting passed Naruto, and threw a strong punch that could have really hurt the blonde had he not sensed it coming and countered brutally, knocking the arm aside and dropping a very heavy elbow onto the exact spot on his shoulder that the Snake Sannin bit.
"Ahhh," screamed Sasuke in obvious pain at the still tender spot, before he lost all control and started swinging and kicking wildly in an attempt to lay out Naruto, who was now his apparent enemy.
"Sasuke, stop!" yelled Sakura to no avail, as Sasuke continued sending out kicks and punches that would have crippled the blond a couple months ago, but were all being deflected and dodged as Naruto tried to wear his teammate out and get him to see reason.
A frustrated Sasuke just kept getting more violent in his attacks, and everyone could see the toll it was taking on Naruto to just defend against them all without fighting back, not wanting to hurt his teammate. Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru started yelling along with Sakura to get him to stop, but his growing frustration just fueled his growing anger as he got faster and faster until Naruto couldn't dodge or avoid all the hits. Instead, he let himself take a hit on his leg, to deliver a paralysis seal on his dark-haired teammate's chest, instantly dropping him to the ground as Naruto winced at the pain and all those around them were staring in shock at the fast and brutal fight between teammates.
"Naruto, are you okay?" came the question from Lee, the closest of the others, as he was only seconds away from interfering in the teammate battle while his eyes continued to glare at Sasuke for his un-youthfulness.
"Yeah Lee, I'll be okay," answered Naruto with a small grin at his friend, hiding the wince from the hit on his leg that was luckily being healed as he spoke, and reminded him about his own new circumstances with Kyuubi that he still needed to figure out and deal with.
"Lee," spoke Neji with a glare at the other two Konoha rookie teams, "we've wasted enough time ...let's go."
"Naruto?" asked Lee again, and received a nod from the blonde telling him to go with his team, and that he would take care of Sasuke before he leapt into the trees after a departing Neji and a waving Tenten as they took off towards the central tower.
"Why the fuck was Orochimaru here?" asked Shikamaru curiously, as he looked at a very tense looking Naruto, a paralyzed Sasuke, and a frantic Sakura for answers.
"He said something about giving Sasuke a gift," started Sakura, "before he knocked me out. I only found Sasuke with a bite mark on his shoulder after I came too, and Naruto had already been taken out."
"That bite mark has some kind of Fuinjutsu element to it, but not one I know anything about," replied Naruto with a worried look to his paralysed teammate, as Team 10 looked on in varying stages of worry over their friends' predicament.
"Do you guys need help to get him to the tower?" asked Choji, always trying to be friendly and helpful.
"No ...we should be okay ...but thanks," replied Naruto with a grin towards the larger boy, "hopefully those Sound idiots have a Heaven scroll and we can be done with this test ...do you guys have any need for an Earth scroll? Pretty sure Sasuke still has our duplicate one."
"You have two Earth scrolls?" asked Ino with wide eyes, wondering how many other teams we've already encountered, and if they could somehow get their hands on it.
Naruto quickly rifled through Sasuke's inner pocket, pulling out their duplicate Earth scroll and tossing it to a wide eyed Ino, who was still looking confusedly between the three members of Team 7 and couldn't understand all they had already been put through. Ino tried to give the scroll back, but Naruto pulled out his own Earth scroll to show that they really didn't need it, and they should take it as a thank you for coming and checking on them. He then went to the tied up Sound trio, and liberated them of all their supplies, including a Heaven Scroll that he pocketed along with their original Earth scroll, eager to get this part of the test done, and talk to Kakashi and Jiji about their run in with Orochimaru.
Team 10 said their goodbyes, and Naruto waited a minute to check over Sasuke, whose skin at least seemed back to normal, before freeing him from the paralysis seal and watching as he came to. He and Sakura didn't speak as he sat up and looked around them, both wondering what was going through their final teammate's head and if he would even remember what had happened over the last day. Somewhat thankfully, Sasuke did remember everything, including the powerful feeling of chakra the bite from Orochimaru gave him, and how his teammate stopped him from testing his new powers on the knocked out Sound team.
They were at least able to talk a bit about what Orochimaru said to him, and how Naruto thought the bite was a way of Orochimaru transferring some kind of Fuinjutsu seal onto him that was more advanced than anything he had seen to date. Sasuke thankfully wasn't too upset with Naruto stopping his mini rampage, but was now even more eager to fight the blonde to see where he really stood up to his dobe teammate. For the last month, destroying Naruto's clones had really boosted his confidence in his ability to defeat the blonde, but he was just reminded rather abruptly, that the original was a lot harder to take down, and would be even more so after having to go through his clones first.
With both scrolls now in their possession and night of the second day quickly approaching, they slowly made their way towards the tower, not wanting to race there in case other teams were lying in wait to ambush them as they neared the central tower everyone had to reach. During this time, Naruto was able to really get a feel and use his newest chakra sensing ability to avoid the worst of the ambush locations, telling his team that his clones scouted them out the safest path. His clones were in fact scouting out the area around them, as well as several other teams he had his eyes on, including the two teams they left tied up and unconscious from Sand and Sound respectively.
It was late when they finally reached the entrance to the central tower, but neither of them wanted to spend a night in the forest when the end was so near, so they pushed through to make it well after dark. When they reached the doors, they had to read a small poem about balance, yin and yang, physical and spiritual chakra, and Heaven and Earth. They unrolled their pair of scrolls and had to all jump back as the scrolls summoned someone they all knew well, to welcome them into the tower and the completion of stage 2.
"Iruka-sensei?" came the question from all three former Academy students as their former teacher appeared before them with a large proud smile on his face.
"Welcome Team 7," he greeted them proudly, "come inside ...I'll get you set up in a room until the completion of this stage. You all did really well ...just a few teams have arrived so far."
"Anyone we know?" asked Naruto, wondering if the other rookie teams had arrived yet and glad to catch up with his friend for however brief it may be.
Iruka led them inside the tower, showed them the cafeteria where food would be available to them, and eventually led them to unoccupied rooms they could use until the second stage was officially completed. He mentioned Team 10 arriving shortly before them, and Team 8 even earlier this morning, as well as a Sand team that arrived insanely quickly on the first day. Naruto asked if there was a medic in the house, or if they were allowed to see Kakashi or the Hokage as they encountered someone not part of the exams that they needed to know about.
Iruka asked who, and then paled considerably when Team 7 mentioned running into and having to fight Orochimaru, even showing him Sasuke's new bite mark as proof of their seriousness. Iruka promised he would pass the message on, but wasn't sure if the rules would allow for them to meet with their sensei or village leader until the end of the stage, but hoped they would. He left them at a nice empty room he claimed was nearby the other rookie teams, and left to go find the Hokage, as he knew this was something that needed to be addressed immediately, and couldn't believe what those three must have gone through or why the Snake Sannin had focused his attention on them.