The Path Of a Hunternin

Training and fatherhood

The sight before everyone had brought back memories from seventeen years ago. Both Yamato and Jiraiya remembered how close to soiling themselves they were upon seeing the beast for the first time. The sannin admittedly behaved much better than the mokuton user as Yamato was a mere infant at the time. The beast was growling at them and it even started drooling with saliva as it looked at the shinobi like they were a healthy snack. All three of them were already prepared for the worst. Jiraiya, for the life of him, couldn't figure out what happened wrong as he looked at the gigantic beast. All of a sudden, as he beast suddenly started laughing.

"Hahaahahhaha...you all should have seen the looks on your faces." Naruto laughed with his voice, even if a bit altered because of the transformation.

The shinobi in front of the nine-tailed beast, despite not believing it was indeed Naruto in front of them, sighed in dismay at the blond's practical joke. Kyuubi's image alone was enough to scare less willed minded to death. Nevertheless, they figured that like the Hachibi Jinchuuriki, Naruto right now managed to exert complete control over his tailed beast, though that was taking into consideration that the blond had actually pulled it off. For all they knew, the fox might be playing tricks with their minds. To put their minds at ease, the blond transformed once more. Before the other ninja's very eyes, the fox started diminishing in size until pieces of the hunter-nin's clothes started appearing. The entire transformation took no more than a minute, before Naruto appeared in front of Jiraiya, Mei and Yamato just like they saw him before he transformed into the nine-tailed beast Kyuubi no Yoko.

"Nice job, kid. Now, I believe you earned some rest time. We'll start practicing your first transformation in the middle of combat. First, you'll fight against Yamato."

Naruto nodded and went to his room to rest for a while. He at first considered telling Jiraiya that he didn't need rest, but that would be far from the truth. He has been training non-stop for the entire day using the fox's chakra. His chakra coils were strained from mixing both his chakra and the fox's. If he were to overstrain it, surely it would lead to him being bedridden for quite a while. Plus, with the much appreciated rest, it gave him time to ponder on his next course of action. Not a single part of his body wished to remain behind bars for the entire duration of the war. He knew, though, that simply leaving this place and joining the battlefield would be close to impossible, at least by force. Neither the location nor the people guarding him were chosen randomly. Naruto figured that he could be a match for Yamato without using the fox's chakra. With it, he was sure that neither Jiraiya nor the Mizukage would manage to keep him at bay without hurting him. The problem however was that Yamato could use his abilities to suppress the fox's chakra, therefore narrowing his chances of fleeing this accursed prison.

It just wasn't right…Akatsuki was his enemy, not the entire world.

It just didn't make sense that all the five nations had to mobilize just to rid the world of one organization. Now that he gained new sources of power, he would be able to beat his enemies. He was already able to stand up against Kisame with just one-tail of the fox's chakra. The shark member of the Akatsuki was one tough shinobi amongst their ranks. He doubted that the rest were that much stronger than the now deceased Kiri missing-nin. A long sigh escaped Naruto's mouth as he smoothly landed on his bed and looked outside the window for a bit. Complaining about the situation wasn't going to take him very far. Perhaps if he demonstrates his strength and trains hard, the others will see that Naruto never needed protection in the first place. In order to do that, he would need to defeat both Jiraiya and the Mizukage, not only one-on-one, but at the same time. It was considered quite ludicrous to believe himself capable of defeating two kage-level shinobi on his own.

Somehow, Naruto figured that asking nicely was out of the question. Therefore, he was at a loss.

Without much left to ponder about, the blond closed his eyes to rest, not at all prepared for what was going on with his lover.