We watched in suspense as Naruto worked against the nine tails.
"Is it really ok to leave him like this?" Yamato asked as I moved from my crouching position and sat down near him.
"Yeah," I nodded, "worst case, Lady Kushina and Naruto don't manage to stop the nine tails and we have a tailed beast rampant on our hands. But I really doubt that'll happen."
"Naruto and nine tails are in confrontation I hope it'll settle soon and meet our expectations, but I know all this waiting can feel very drawn out so to pass the time why don't you and I work out?" B rapped; I smiled as Yamato began freaking out.
"Will you knock it off?! This isn't the time for doing a rap!" he shouted at B who looked surprised for a moment before returning to his carefree self again.
"Oh really? Shut up!" B suddenly shouted surprising not only me but Yamato as well. Damn. He not too happy, huh?
"Look. Right now, Naruto is locked in an internal battle with the nine tails. There's nothing more we can do to help out," B told him, "I know you care about Naruto's wellbeing but the only things we can do now are wait and have faith that he'll get the job done."
Yamato smiled and calmed down at this.
"You know Naruto," I looked at Yamato, "if anything he'll use his 'talk no jutsu' skill and talk the nine tails into submission."
"Probably," Yamato laughed before our attentions were pulled back to Naruto. The nine tails cloak and half of the transformation all disappeared into thin air.
"Yeah!" B exclaimed, "this is real nice but now keeping watch will suffice!"
I smiled and nodded.
I knew he could do it. Naruto has the tendency of battling any kind of issue with pure amazing inner strength. Not only that but he had his mother on his side. A mother's love can do wonders for anyone.
"Isn't that..." Yamato brought our attentions to Naruto's eyes becoming a tainted orange.
"Sage mode!" I exclaimed, "he's totally got this in the bag! There's no need to worry about him now, I'm positive that Naruto will beat the nine tails and come out of this with a new strength."
Naruto's sage mode disappeared, and it was silent for a few moments. It was so tense you could cut the tension with a damn knife. Suddenly he smiled and then his eyes shot open.
"Naruto! You did it!" I cheered before dragging him into a hug, "I'm so proud of you."
"Yeah!" he grinned.
"How'd you do it?" Yamato asked.
"It was a lot of this, a lot of that," Naruto shrugged before bumping fists with B.
"I can see it. I get it. And I totally understand. Your face is calm, completely blank," B said rather oddly.
"So? What about the nine tailed fox?" Yamato asked, "were you able to control it?"
Naruto nodded.
"Alright! Good for you, 'specially when you used it in that situation," B nodded, "yo! No way! Don't tell me that you mean you know what?"
What?
I looked to Yamato to see he was equally confused.
Are they having a mental conversation? That's cool. But... I can't help but feel a tiny bit out of the loop.
"Yup!" Naruto nodded, "I sure do, that's right, you know?"
"Listen! Will someone just explain to me what happened already?" Yamato freaked out and I pulled away from Naruto and patted his shoulder with a small sigh, "words like 'this' and 'that' don't mean anything! I can tell... you guys are doing this to me on purpose! Don't you even try to deny it!"
"Let the jinchuriki have their secrets," I told him, "just be happy that Naruto succeeded. We don't need details."
"It's ok. Relax, captain Yamato," Naruto looked to Yamato as B sat down crossed legged across from the blonde, "I've stored the nine tails chakra inside of me in a place different from my own chakra. That way, I'm not using it all the time."
"That's smart," I nodded. He's totally different from the child I used to babysit in Lord Third's absence. I'm so proud to see him like this.
Naruto's form began to glow a blinding yellow until his whole appearance changed.
"Whoa-- that's so cool," I squeaked out, not being able to contain my excitement.
I looked at the design of his clothes and grinned. It kind of reminded me of the design of the Sage of Six Paths. Not only that but he kind of looks like he's on fire.
"This is how it is when I tap into the nine tails chakra that I've stored in there," Naruto told us as he stood up.
He looks freaking awesome!
"You're really excited about his new look, huh?" Yamato asked as I tried to wipe my ever-growing smile of curiosity off my face.
"I love witnessing new jutsu and chakra come to be," I told him, "it's super cool to watch it grow and become a larger force. I've never seen anything like this before, I haven't even read anything like this. Makes me think this is the first time a jinchuriki has managed to do this with the nine tails. It does seem to be the most hateful tailed beast out of the nine of them."
I turned to Naruto and shot him a thumbs up.
"You're so cool, Naruto. When did you stop being the baby Naruto I used to know?" I asked as I wiped a non-existent tear from my face. Naruto let out a small laugh.
The sound of growing wood caught our attention and we turned to see Yamato's pillars (from when he was going to attempt to stop the nine tails transformation) suddenly growing branches of trees.
"Wow, it's so full of life energy," Yamato commented as we looked at the tree that now stood towering over us.
Oh wow. Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! That's amazing. It's glowing!
My eyes were reacting to the sudden change and that's when I noticed that I was actually seeing Naruto's chakra colour rather than the usual mess of blue that I see. Does that mean that his chakra is a superior strength to my eyes? Or maybe it's a pure form of life? Eh-- let's not try understand what the hell's going on.
"It's even affecting my wood style, I can't believe it," Yamato mumbled. Naruto gasped, looking surprised which caught our attention.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"You really think that you can hide from me now?" Naruto asked, hitting his fist into his open palm.
"Huh?" I looked around nothing was out of place.
"What? You're sensing another presence?" Yamato asked, looking between us confused.
"Yeah. He's sensing another presence that I didn't and was careless of. I must do penance," B said.
"No. It's not chakra," Naruto shook his head, "it feels hazy but it's something else. Something sinister and it's coming right from your blade!"
I looked to B's sword on his back. Isn't that Samehada? One of the seven ninja swords of the hidden mist?
"You mean something is inside the sword?" I asked, looking to Naruto cautiously, he nodded. That's not good... what if it's another Akatsuki member? We'd be sitting ducks and they'd be right in the middle of the eight and nine tails. Jack pot for them, I suppose.
But the only member left would be the Zetsu thing and 'Madara' or whoever he really is.
Kisame died at the Hokage summit apparently. Killed by Lord A and Killer B. Hidan was buried alive by Shikamaru in the Nara's forest land. Kakuzu is definitely dead thanks to Kakashi and the rest of them. Sasori died fighting Sakura and Lady Chiyo months ago. Deidara committed suicide with some hellish jutsu a while ago in a fight against Sasuke, Itachi is dead thank to his illness... the Six Paths of Pain and their puppet master Nagato are all dead too. I don't know what happened to the paper angel Konan but from what Naruto told me, I'm going to guess she isn't a member of the Akatsuki anymore... could it be there were more members of the Akatsuki that I failed to recognise? Or maybe... someone isn't as dead as they're supposed to be.
Suddenly Samehada jumped off B's back, it's spikes penetrating the bandages that were wrapped around it. The mouth opened up and out came some kind of grey blob.
"It appears that you can sense hate," the voice of Kisame came from the blob as it formed into the shark like man, "and other negative emotions."
Great.
This is just great. Can't the dead stay dead? Why is it so hard for that to happen?
"That ability doesn't fit into any known sensory type," Kisame said as Samehada dropped to the floor again. It was like their bodies had merged, there was Kisame sticking out of Samehada from just below his shoulder blades and up and then the rest down was Samehada. It was kind of weird to look at if anything.
"It must be the power of a jinchuriki who's achieved control over the nine tails!" he declared.
Yeah. I think we've already established that.
"Hold on! You're the Akatsuki shark guy!" B exclaimed.
"Kisame Hoshigaki," I said, "he's known to be the zero tailed tailed beast because of his overwhelming amount of chakra and strength. But he also seems to be a cockroach because he's once again, alive."
"But how? I thought we chopped his head off a while back," B asked as he did a head chopping motion with his hand, "so how in the world did you evade me and my brothers tag team attack?"
"He had help," I frowned. But from who?
"Yes. The Nara brat is right. It was quite simple, I merely switched places as we battled in the bubble of water," Kisame enlightened us, "you only cut off the head of my clone."
"But clones simply disappear when you hit them hard enough," B said, "and the corpse still remained post-mortem, no question. If someone else had transformed into you then my buddy, C, would've sensed it for sure. A perplexing constellation."
"Chakra copying!" I blurted out as it registered what had happed, everyone looked at me, "you killed a white zetsu not Kisame or any kind of clone. The white zetsu has an ability to copy a person's chakra and take on a carbon copy of them from the appearance down to the chakra signature!"
Naruto, Yamato, and B looked at me with wide surprised eyes while Kisame didn't look so happy.
"I'm quite versed in the information about the Akatsuki," I stated, "I spent years tracking them just to speak with a friend again."
Sure, that ended in a little more than just a friendly conversation, but we won't talk about that.
"Tch-- you're right. It was a parasitic clone that can be controlled remotely by the caster," Kisame glared at me, "we'll leave that as it is for now. But this situation--"
The spikes on Samehada began to spread out and act as legs, supporting the Akatsuki member.
"--to be facing two jinchuriki, a wood style user and the Nara with cursed eyes... that's tough," Kisame scoffed almost sarcastically, "even for me."
One of the spikes dropped onto some kind of button on the floor.
"No way. How'd you even figure out the way to open the door to this room?!" B shouted as the door suddenly began to open up again.
Oh no. This is bad. This is really bad...