Naruto leaned back and panted, recovering his breath as he heard Ramen's voice starting to wake up in the back of his mind and he brought her up to speed on what was going on.
"Fishy?" Naruto said, sitting up as the Saika-born that was implanted inside him passed along Tenten's worries.
He wasn't quite sure why it was fishy, though Ramen seemed to be thinking that it was something like one of the Kyubi's tricks. He'd never actually seen the fox that was sealed into his soul, but Hinata, Tenten and he had been spectators to one side of the Saika-borns attempts to deal with it. And it's own attempts to trick them into things, though it could only reach Erma and Weird if they "visited" Ramen.
The Kyubi's tricks from what he could gather, none of the Saika-born had much of a vocabulary yet, involved convincing someone to do one thing that looked like a benefit to the target, but was actually to benefit him.
"Why would Mizuki-sensei want me to steal this scroll?" he wondered.
The answer came to him almost immediately.
He wants it? Ramen asked innocently.
"But he's a chunin of the Leaf," Naruto said. "He can look at this whenever he wants. Can't he?"
Hinata-chan is coming with Erma. Tenten is way, way, way, way far away and Weird says she can't come.
Naruto knew the second part already.
"Well, I guess that means I can teach Hinata this..."
"Naruto!" a voice declared. "Who are you talking to?"
"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto said. "So did Mizuki-sensei tell you about the extra test?"
"Extra test?" Iruka said, confused. "Mizuki put you up to this? Is that who you were talking to?"
"Put me up to...it was a trick then?" Naruto asked.
Knives!
Naruto blinked and looked around to see what had attracted Ramen's attention when he was roughly pushed out of the way and a salvo of kunai knives slammed around Iruka's body, pinning him to the wall.
"Nice job finding him," Mizuki said with a laugh. "Now, Naruto, give me that scroll."
"Don't give him the scroll, Naruto, even if you die!" Iruka shouted. "That's a dangerous scroll with forbidden techniques in it! Mizuki used you to steal it so he could get it for himself!"
"Well there's no point in Naruto having it," Mizuki said. "After all, there's a truth to you..."
"No," Iruka shouted. "Don't tell him that!"
"You know about the demon that was sealed away twelve years ago, right?" the rogue ninja said. "Well..."
"You mean the one that's in me?" Naruto asked.
"There was a new..." Mizuki stopped and even Iruka took a deep breath.
"You knew?" Iruka said. "How...?"
"I have a friend that doesn't it like it much," Naruto said as he flicked his hand a kunai appeared in it, seemingly passing out of his arm.
His left hand reached down to grab a trio of kunai in a more normal fashion.
"Heh," Mizuki said. "You don't actually think you're going to beat me, do you?"
Mizuki jumped down at Naruto, knocking away the three kunai that lashed out at him and stabbing downward at Naruto. At the last instant, the rogue was shoved away by Iruka, and he went tumbling away, coming to his feet and lashing out with the massive shuriken at his back.
Naruto leaped over it, overshooting his goal of dodging the attack by a wide margin. Both Mizuki and Iruke looked up to see his form vanishing into the shadows, save two red spots of light about where his eyes should have been.
Mizuki flinched upon seeing the blood-red demonic eyes and even Iruka stepped aside in concern as Naruto came down and started attacking Iruka. His strikes came with insane speed, but he still had the skill of a novice and beginner.
Though the way the bark of the tree that Naruto struck simply shattered convinced Mizuki to be doubly careful not to let the Demon Brat hit him.
"So, you're going to use the Demon power already?" Mizuki demanded. "Look at this 'kid' Iruka! He really is the kyubi."
"Like hell!" Naruto shouted. "This ain't the Kyubi! This is the power of Ramen!"
He smirked as he said it, but the smirk vanished as the experienced ninja sent him off course and then slashed downward into Naruto's back. Straight down into his back through a vital point.
"Naruto!?" Iruka shouted as the blade came down.
Both he and Mizuki were surprised as the blonde rolled back and came up to standing as if he hadn't been struck at all.
Ahh! If I was not with you now, you'd be dead! This is not love! Cutting is for love! Not hurting!
Poor naive spirit, the Kyubi chuckled where only Ramen could hear it. See how the humans kill even what they would consider good if they knew it? Hatred is the only way to treat them.
No! Humans are good!
Humans are as evil as you or I. To be living is to hurt others, spirit.
NO!NO!NO!
"Ramen?" Naruto said, panting. "Are you okay...?"
The red light started to fade from his eyes and he winced in pain as her sheltering presence fled. Even if she had kept the injury from being lethal, she'd only kept the pain away while active and now. And the blood was flowing out of the wound compounding his fatigue as he dropped to his feet.
"Talking to your food?" Mizuki said coming in again and kicking Naruto in the face, sending him flying backwards. "Has the Kyubi driven you insane then? Only a step away from killing people now aren't you."
Iruka came flying in then and slashed out with his own kunai, but Mizuki easily took the assault from the already weakened chunin and slashed his blade into the man's shoulder before shoving him away and looking toward the man with a snarl.
"Don't you see?!" Mizuki snapped. "He's insane, he's the Demon itself!"
"No!" Iruka said. "Naruto isn't like that! If you'd watched your students more carefully, you'd know that Mizuki. Naruto is kind and enduring. He is one of my excellent students."
"Fine," Mizuki said. "I'll just have to kill you and your excellent student together."
Which was when the second small, red-eyed form dropped down and slashed out at Mizuki with a long Kodachi knife which Mizuki just barely dodged aside.
"Hinata?" Naruto gasped, taking a breath.
"Naruto-kun, don't move, you might hurt yourself!"
Ramen! Ramen is scared! He hurt Naruto! Erma shouted in Hinata's mind as the girl stepped forward to slash at the confounded image of Mizuki.
"Hinata-chan!" Iruka called out in surprise.
"Where'd you come from?" Mizuki demanded. The red-glowing of the eyes combined with the already disturbing throbbing veins of the byakugan made him hesitate to respond to the girl's attack.
Finally he snapped a knee up into her face, hard enough to snap her head back in a way that should have broken it. Only the muscle held and she snapped her head right back as if she had been nodding.
"What the hell is this? Is this that power of Ramen thing?" he demanded.
"Ramen is Naruto-kun's kunai," Hinata said quietly. "My Kodachi is Erma."
She stabbed forward again, getting through his guard just barely and stabbing her knife blade into Mizuki's thigh.
Erma's voice and words flooded into him.
You should love people! Only cut for love! Cut for love! No killing! No hurting! No taking! No!No!No! I won't let you hurt Hinata!! Hinata and I won't let you hurt anyone again!
Mizuki dropped the kunai in his hand and reached up to grab his head and trying to fight through the cascade of words.
"She is right! I won't let you hurt Naruto-kun!" Hinata shouted, pulling back her left hand and preparing a barrage of one-handed jyuken blows to Mizuki's vitals as the blade still in his thigh attacked him psychically.
But Erma had been ordered to make no children, and she was not nearly as strong or old as Saika.
Before the jyuken could land, a surge of adrenaline gave Mizuki the chance to push through the assault and slam his own fist down into Hinata's head. The distraction to both Erma and Hinata lasting long enough for him to break her arm and tear the kodachi away from her.
"Hinata-chan!" Naruto said, standing up.
Hinata thudded back into a tree and pushed herself to standing as she looked at her broken arm, noting that Erma was still keeping the pain away as she physically twisted it about and set it, her Saika-born's power holding it firmly in place.
However, separated from her kodachi, she could already feel Erma's voice fading down inside her. Without the conduit, the Saika-born would just be a mute useless presence shortly.
"Whatever it is you have," Mizuki said. "It's clearly not enough."
Iruka grimaced and moved to standing as the power finally left Hinata and the girl cried out briefly in muffled pain.
"You two! Go," Iruka said. "I'll hold him off."
No, Naruto-kun, he'll hurt you. Grab Hinata-chan and run! Run! He is hate! Like the Kyubi! He is all hate!
"You think I'm going to let you hurt anybody else!?" Naruto asked, panting as his injury still bled. "I've still got something!"
He hooked his fingers through the ring of Ramen's handle and went through a hand sign.
"Don't worry, Ramen," he said under his breath. "I'll protect Hinata-chan, Iruka-sensei, you, Erma." He shouted the next part. "I'll stop him here! Because I'm going to be Hokage!"
And that's when the shadow clones filled the clearing to Mizuki's astonishment.
Hinata and Iruka looked on in astonishment as Hinata tried to move back around to reach her kodachi in the confusion. Eventually, she grabbed hold of it and Erma's voice came flowing back to her. And when the voice came, the pain went away with it.
Naruto-kun is awesome, Erma whispered as the clones beat down on Mizuki. You should tell him, Hinata! Show love! Make Children! No...Mother said no children.
Naruto... Ramen whispered quietly, ashamed that she had failed to do much of anything.
At which point Hinata fainted.
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(Posted Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:54)
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