Naruto Shippuden - part 30

Jiraiya rubbed at his forehead in consternation, staring at the redheaded teenager that had just now finished telling them about Naruto's recent activities. Gaara was in a similar state of consternation, unsure what he should think of this, but knowing that the man who had saved him from Shukaku so long ago had crossed a terrible threshhold.

"Why are you telling us all this?" The toad Sannin asked.

"I told you because I think that what he's doing is wrong. I used to be Orochimaru's assistant and I've seen some pretty bad stuff, but what Naruto is doing now is way beyond that, no matter his reasons for doing it." Karin said with a shiver.

Jiraiya mulled it over, Gaara doing the same. It had been quite a shocker when the Uzumaki teenager had seemingly just appeared in the village out of nowhere and asked to speak to the Kazekage and Jiraiya. They were both greatly disturbed to hear about the lengths that Naruto was going to in order to save the Kyuubi. If he was willing to go that far, then he wouldn't be stopped by anything. The things that Jiraiya had learned from Tsunade about Naruto's mental state only further reinforced this.

"If you know so much about what he's doing, then why did he let you go?" Gaara asked.

"Because he knows that you can't do anything about it. He never told me where that valley was and he has Hiraishin beacons scattered over most of the Elemental Nations by now, so he can go anywhere at anytime. He's also much too strong to be even slowed down by anyone that isn't Kage level. The only one that he's sure he would lose against right now is Madara."

Jiraiya grimaced slightly at that, knowing it to be true. He was quite upset that neither Naruto nor Tsunade had seen fit to tell him about Madara's resurrection. Naruto was clearly making it personal, but he couldn't fault his godson's logic. With the kind of power that Madara had amassed, it would be a slaughter if they tried to fight him head on and they weren't very likely to achieve anything by it either. He might not have seen the Shodai fighting Madara, but he knew what kind of monsters those two were.

At the very least, it was a huge weight off his chest to know that it hadn't been Naruto who had destroyed Konoha. Though he was deeply unsettled to hear that Orochimaru was now forced to help Naruto with his plans. Those two working together couldn't possibly end well.

He wondered if Tsunade had even realised just how much power she had ceded to Naruto. She had followed his suggestions and gone along with his plans even though she was Hokage and he'd been a Chunin and then a missing-nin. By all rights it should have been her calling the shots, but in the end she had done things the way that Naruto wanted them done, both before and after he became a missing-nin.

Jiraiya knew that Tsunade had never really wanted to be Hokage and would have preferred someone else to take the position. His deceased teammate would have been much more comfortable just running the hospital and giving advice rather than issuing orders. Maybe she had been relieved that Naruto took charge so easily, or maybe she had subtly been trying to get him to take the post.

"Thank you for telling us this Karin-san. The Chunin outside will guide you to your temporary lodgings until I can arrange something more permanent." Gaara said in his usual gravely monotone.

"Thank you Kazekage-sama." Karin replied and left the office, feeling only slightly guilty for revealing all this. Naruto had been the one to bring her here after all and he was well aware that she would tell them everything. Aside from that, she knew that her self proclaimed big brother had to be stopped.

She sympathised with his desire to save his wife, but was it really worth the sacrifices he was making? She wouldn't have said a word if he was making sacrifices only of himself, that would be his business after all, but he was willing to sacrifice everything and everyone. If he wasn't stopped he would probably destroy the world without even noticing it.

"So, what do we do about this?" Gaara asked once they were alone again.

Jiraiya sighed and rubbed at his face again.

What indeed?

He wanted to believe that his godson's actions weren't as bad as they looked, but that would be stupid. He knew with chilling clarity how far Naruto would go. Even Tsunade and those cute girls that the blond had always been spending time with would say that he was going too far. It actually made him quite angry that Naruto was proving the summon clans right in their killing off every baby that showed the potential to use the Mokuton. There was no way that something like that should be the right thing to do and yet Naruto's actions clearly supported Fukasaku's arguments.

Jiraiya very much suspected that losing those girls had done no favors to Naruto's mental state. The blond had enough problems empathising with people even with them around, now that they were gone, it was little wonder that he had started seeing people as a means to an end.

On the other end of the spectrum, Madara and his plans to enslave the world in an eternal Genjutsu were potentially even more dangerous and Naruto might well be the only one who could stop the Uchiha. The blond held key pieces that prevented that plan from coming to fruition, along with being the only one whose power came anywhere close to Madara's.

Trying to get the other Kage to work together would be nigh impossible with the war going on. They'd either think it was some clever ploy or fail to see the big picture. Not to mention that wars, especially ones as vicious as the one they were currently embroiled in, always had the distressing tendency of making people hate outsiders, making it incredibly difficult to get any cooperation out of them.

Even if they could have united the shinobi world to fight against a common threat, which one to act against?

Jiraiya felt that it was his responsibility to stop his godson and student, but Madara presented a more immediate danger. Of course, that kind of thinking was quite pointless in the end, because nobody had any idea where either of them were or how to do anything about them. Madara was probably too powerful and Naruto was the only living master of space-time Fuinjutsu, which made both them untouchable in their own way.

Currently, Naruto had Madara deadlocked, so they didn't dare obstruct him for fear of giving the Uchiha free reign to complete his plans, but they also couldn't just let him do as he pleased or he would slowly suck the life out of the entire continent...unless of course he actually managed to restore Xanna first.

Jiraiya grimaced when he realised that his mind was just going in circles at this point. The situation was so screwed up that no matter what they did, things were likely to go to hell. The only thing that he could realistically hope for was Naruto's success in restoring his demonic wife so that he would no longer need to drain the life out of everything around him.

What a mess.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Madara was brooding again.

He was getting really impatient and his sense of paranoia was acting up massively. It had been months since he had last seen or heard of Uzumaki and he didn't like it. Aside from a few brief blinks on his senses, the blond had been like a ghost.

The worst thing about all this was that he had absolutely no idea what in the hells his adversary was doing. He was used to having good intelligence on his enemies while they stumbled about blindly. He found himself not liking it when the shoe was on the other foot.

What ate at him the most was the same as ever.

Uzumaki had the Gedō Mazō.

He knew what the blond was trying to do, and he was slowly starting to lose the certainty that it would be impossible. Having nothing but time to think recently had impressed upon him the fact that many shinobi had done incredible things without any kind of bloodline.

He couldn't afford to assume that Uzumaki would fail to extract the chakra from the Gedō Mazō.

This of course meant that he couldn't afford to leave the Hachibi in the open.

Who knows what kind of dangerous ideas that crazy blond might get.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Gedō Mazō used to be the Juubi.

The Juubi used to be the Shinju.

The Shinju was a tree. A God Tree, but still a tree.

That little leap of logic had only come to Naruto a good week after Karin's departure, much to his embarrassment. He'd spent the day after Karin had left experimenting with his new life draining ability and discovered that he could only use it on certain things. To be more precise, he could only use it on humans.

Now, he knew for a fact that animals and plants also had life force, but he couldn't touch it, couldn't even feel it in fact. It had taken him and Xanna quite a while to deduce why this might be so and they eventually concluded that it was probably because they were simply too foreign to him. They were somewhat baffled as to how nobody had ever figured out the idea of sucking the life out of other humans before but eventually wrote it off as a consequence of there being so few sages over time.

Unknown to them, it was not something that was done as easily as they thought. Naruto had only been able to develop the ability due to his personalized Senjutsu.

The feral features of his Senjutsu were a by-product of the slight changes done to him by Xanna while he had been growing up, further complimented by his aggressive personality, but those features were fairly superficial. In essence however, it was still a Human Style Senjutsu, something that had never been discovered before due to lack of easy access to natural energy abundant locations, as most of them were occupied by summon clans.

Even if there had been such a place, it would have required a level of self acceptance that most humans simply weren't capable of. Confusing beings that humans are, constantly at war with themselves, constantly questioning whether their actions were 'right' or 'wrong' or doing various other things that went against their nature, it left them unable to find the needed balance to become sages on their own merit. It was easier to have a cranky old animal sage tell you what to do and get used to the already half moulded natural energy native to the summon clan territories. Even then most of them turned into statues.

Xanna had inadvertantly taught Naruto to never look back and never doubt himself. To accept who he was and his own feelings and never deny them. This, along with his ability to cheat around the dangers of turning into stone through clever use of the Reaper Death Seal had allowed him to be first human to do something like this.

The Mokuton was another bit of a cheat in this direction, as the deep connection to plant life that it provided also made it much easier to learn Senjutsu once sufficiently mastered. The bloodline only awoke naturally in those Senju with an extremely powerful life force, which were quite rare.

The Uzumaki branch of the family had internalized that life force, granting them more powerful bodies and somewhat accelerated healing. Naruto's particular bloodline had been forcibly developed to a very high degree, first by the strain of having the Kyuubi sealed into him and then by the training he had put himself through.

The Senju's version of this was less noticeable. They were quite a bit hardier than the average ninja, but not on the level of the Uzumaki. However, in the occasional rare person, it was strong enough to manifest as the Mokuton.

The reason that Naruto had taken so easily to Hashirama's cells was exactly because his own life force was already more than powerful enough to manifest the Mokuton, whereas Madara had needed to wait for decades for the cells to fully settle and assimilate. If he and Hashirama hadn't been nearly equal in power, then it wouldn't have worked at all. The cells would have either overpowered him or given only a minimal boost, certainly not enough to manifest the Rinnegan.

Speaking of the Mokuton, Naruto had been training to master it as obsessively and as psychotically as he had trained when Xanna had first told him that she would only marry an equal.

He'd been a rather deluded child when he was ten, thinking that a couple of years of hard training would do the trick

Either way, he was reasonably confident that he would be able to suck the life out of trees if he mastered it, as well as the Gedō Mazō(he hoped), which was what he was really after.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Taro licked his lips in anticipation as he stared at the pretty young girl making her way down the road. She seemed to be moving away from one of the villages that were closer to the contested territories, if the backpack she was carrying was any indication.

Usually this would have been a very smart thing to do, as it wasn't unheard of for civilians to get caught in the crossfire, even though shinobi generally tried to avoid such things. Unfortunately for the girl, what remained of Fire Country had descended into lawlessness without the threat of Konoha shinobi. She really shouldn't have been travelling alone.

Taro was just a small-time bandit that was leading a group that numbered only seven, but that was the way he liked it. Large groups attracted too much attention and needed too much resources to sustain. Even if most of the shinobi were tied up in the fighting, it wasn't unheard of for a single ninja to be sent on bandit extermination duty if too much noise was made.

He liked to keep his group mobile so that no single area made too many complaints and it had worked well so far. They did the occasional raid for supplies, avoided other bandit groups and if they got really lucky, like just now, they would come across a pretty girl that could be used to 'keep up morale' for a while.

She was quite eye-catching with her long dark hair, deep blue eyes and voluptuous figure. Taro, along with the six men behind him, couldn't wait to see if she looked just as good under her clothes.

Motioning to his men, they silently surrounded the girl to block off all escape and then moved into her line of sight.

"Hey there miss, That bag looks pretty heavy and you must be tired. Why don't you come back to our camp and get some rest." Taro said with a lecherous smile, making the others snicker at the obvious implications.

Alarm bells started ringing in his head when the girl didn't look the slightest bit scared, but pleased instead.

"I'm so glad I found you, my wife and I were just getting hungry." During the course of that one sentence, the deep blue eyes developed a predatory slit and turned a burning gold-orange color, the voice deepened until it was a clearly male growl and the very attractive young girl turned into a monstrously dangerous looking man with a long mane of golden hair.

Taro and his compatriots did not die well.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto cracked his neck after dropping the bandit leader's dessicated carcass to the ground and scoffed.

He couldn't believe he'd actually been worried that he would run out of rapists, bandits, murderers and other assorted trash and need to start draining innocents. The chaos gripping the world seemed to have a detrimental effect on the general morality of the human race. Apparently the world was crawling with filth that was just looking for an excuse to start acting like the scum of the earth.

He'd used the 'pretty girl travelling alone' trick several times already and it never failed to attract rapists looking for a victim or bandits looking for whatever might be in the backpack(it was just rocks actually), usually both at the same time.

Well it certainly made his situation easier since he didn't need to resort to anything as drastic as using completely innocent people to prolong his life. Contrary to what the rest of the world seemed to think, he was not an evil man and would have hated it if he was forced to kill the innocent. This way, he got his life force and the world was made a slightly better place with every waste of flesh that he disposed of.

Well either way, it was a better way of going about things than scouring the countryside for every bandit hidey hole. Though his nose had helped him track down a few of those too, all he had to do was follow the scent of unwashed bodies.

If all went well, he would soon master the Mokuton and be able to drain the Gedō Mazō. He was so close that he could practically taste it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto had his eyes closed while he sat naked in lotus position in the middle of the valley, focusing inward.

According to Hashirama's memories, his mastery of the Mokuton was complete now, all that remained was to decypher the mysteries of the man's Senjutsu.

In the end, there proved to be very little mystery about it that he hadn't already figured out or taken from Hashirama's memories. The Shodai Hokage's Senjutsu bridged the gap between nature and man, just as the Mokuton did. Whoever used it walked in both worlds and was nurtured by the strength of nature just as he nurtured it.

Now that his control of the powerful bloodline was no longer so shoddy, he could perceive it as more than just a weapon. He could feel himself as part of the living world around him, he could feel the grass under him, the trees growing nearby, Orochimaru off in the distance and much more.

More importantly, he could feel the Gedō Mazō and its imposing presence as it pressed against everything around it, its hunger that drove away every animal and the disjointed, primal anger it felt at everything around it. The creature hated him and it hated Orochimaru, just as it hated every human that wielded the power which had originally belonged to it alone. Somehow, it knew that he was descended from the man who had sundered it, just as it must have known that Madara was as well.

Its impotent hatred for the man with Rinnegan eyes must have been great indeed if it could hate him this much just because he was descended from the Sage of Six Paths.

Turning his attention away from the statue, he focused on the grass underneath him, feeling it so clearly that it almost seemed as if it was part of him. The grass was so fragile and weak in comparison to him, but it was alive all the same.

Naruto spread his consciousness through the stalks of grass growing in a small circle around him and drew them closer. The fragile nature of the small plants made them easy to manipulate and he was drawing the life out of them almost before he realised it. It took mere moments for the vibrantly green grass to become withered and then collapse into dust.

He opened his eyes and took a look at his handy work, seeing the sad state of the ground- under him. The grass was now nothing more than dried up straw, dead and lifeless.

Once more he closed his eyes and focused on the ground under him, still feeling some life in it. It was harder to pull on than the grass, but not impossible and he did it just to see what would happen. When he next opened his eyes to take a look, he saw that he was sitting in a circle of barren sand, utterly lifeless.

Scooping some of the sand up, he let it run through his fingers and drift away in the wind, feeling that every bit of life was completely gone from the earth, the water dried out and the tiny lifeforms living in it dead.

What a terrible power, this must be what that old toad was so afraid of. Xanna murmured. She was not one to be overmuch concerned with collateral damage, but having the world turned into a wasteland and spending her immortality wandering the barren sands forever was a thought that chilled even her.

Naruto agreed. He could easily see how someone like Fukasaku would be pissing himself at the thought of anyone being able to do this. This was a power to bring about the end of the world.

Someone must have learned to do this before you, it would certainly explain the deserts of Wind Country.

What do you mean? Naruto asked in confusion.

You know that I have occasionally left the Elemental Nations in favor of exploring the rest of the world. Well one time that I came back, I found a desert where none had been before. That was something that has been puzzling me for centuries but I've never found any explanation for it until now. A sage must have risen who had the power to do this, a sage that most likely also had the Mokuton. Xanna explained.

It would certainly fit and explain a lot. Naruto mused. He was not surprised at all that there were no records of such a thing. The people living in the Elemental Nations were notoriously bad at keeping track of their own history. They could barely remember what happened a hundred years ago, trying to find any records of times before that was just an exercise in frustration, the most you were liable to get was 'There were many shinobi clans killing each other for unknown reasons'. Even the Sage of Six Paths had been reduced to a mostly forgotten myth, despite the fact that he had saved the world from being destroyed by a vengeful god.

The idea that people would remember that some guy had created a desert with his Senjutsu and Mokuton was laughable when you thought of it that way.

It had probably never even crossed Hashirama's mind that something like this could be done and the man had been far too noble to even consider using it if he had known. The deceased Senju had loved nature and used his powerful chakra to cultivate growth as much as possible, knowing that he had the power to kill the world would have been abhorrent to him.

Deciding to experiment some more, he stood up and sat down among the grass again, the newly made sand pit only a few feet away.

Focusing his chakra, he directed it into the plants around him and willed them to grow. Rapidly, the grass got taller and several trees that had been merely seeds sprouted instantly.

Everything became lush with life except for the sand pit, which stayed dead. Naruto frowned slightly in thought. He hadn't felt any drain on his life force despite the fact that the plants around him had become stronger. Apparently a Mokuton user could stimulate growth using chakra without needing to sacrifice any of his own life force. Interesting.

"Mokuton Hijutsu: Jukai Kōtan(Wood Release Secret Technique: Nativity of a World of Trees)."

He focused the technique on the patch of sand and immediately felt a small drain on his life force as plants were forced to grow in a place that couldn't support them. The sand was pushed aside as trees sprouted from it and dug their roots into the surrounding earth and drew what they needed. Even more remarkably, he felt the newly made trees rapidly recycle the sand and restore it to its previously fertile state.

It wasn't the same of course. Things were missing such as insects and bacteria, but now that it wasn't just lifeless sand anymore, those things would return swiftly.

Naruto let out a gusty sigh and smiled. He had learned much and his goal was within arms reach. He would begin his attempts at draining the Gedō Mazō next. He would also refrain from life draining the plants for as long as he had a plentiful supply of human scum for that purpose.

After all, humans were the only living things with the capacity to become worthless as anything other than bodies to be used to prolong his and Xanna's life. He would sooner spare a single blade of grass than any number of rapists for example.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A widely grinning blond sat in the Gedō Mazō's lap, sturdy branches of wood growing out of him and piercing the creature in a manner very similar to his chains.

Learning how to twist his own chakra and body to turn it into wood had been one of the harder things about the Mokuton to learn, but now that he had done it, nothing stood in his way.

The Gedō Mazō tried to resist of course, but it was futile. In its incomplete state, it could do nothing but sit there while Naruto's branches pierced it and got a feel for its potent life force and now he finally had it.

To be entirely honest, he had half expected run into yet another road block, and then being forced to track down that sneaky bastard Jashin in an attempt to get around it. He was much relieved that he was spared the need for doing that.

Focusing on it, he began pulling the immense life force into himself. Immediately, he encountered heavy resistance from the Gedō Mazō as it tried to prevent him from draining it, easily able to feel its rage at what he was attempting.

With a scowl he pulled on it even harder, feeling just a trickle coming through the branches due to the Gedō Mazō's stubbornness.

Try opening the first gate, it may help. Xanna suggested, having been observing the proceedings with great interest.

Naruto did so and instantly felt the full potential of his body become available to him, as well as the great increase in the rate of draining by Xanna. Fortunately, his wife had been right, with the first limiter released, his ability to pull the life out of the Gedō Mazō was also much greater.

Grinning viciously, Naruto continued to open one gate after another, increasing his own ability to drain the statue exponentially.

YES! Keep going! We are gaining far more than we are losing! Xanna encouraged exultantly, relishing in the primal fear that was now coming from the statue as it was trapped by the powerful pull exerted by her husband. It meant that they were definitely doing something right.

By the time that Naruto opened the seventh gate, he was glowing with the power he was exerting, and the usual damage sustained by anyone who opened the gates was canceled out by the instantaneous regeneration that drawing that amount of divine life force was giving him.

I still can't reach the chakra trapped inside it. Naruto scowled. I can sense that it's somehow using it to continually regenerate its own life force. We could be here forever this way.

I may have a solution to that. Xanna said with the mental equivalent of a smirk. I know that you never learned how to open the Death Gate, but you have used it on others to drain them for some time now and I am connected to yours. If we work together, we can force it open.

Naruto continued pulling the life out of the Gedō Mazō as he mulled over the risks of such a move. Forcing one of the lower gates open without being ready was tantamount to suicide, so doing that with the Death Gate seemed to be nothing short of madness.

As long as you continue to drain the statue, you will be in no danger, but this battle cannot be won as long as you are limited by even a single gate. Even tainted and diminished, the Gedō Mazō is still divine, you must rise above your humanity to defeat it. Xanna said, interrupting his thoughts on the matter.

Naruto nodded to himself, trusting her fully, he moved his focus towards the gate in question and they worked together to tear it open.

Pain ripped through his heart as the Death Gate was opened through brute force instead of proper training. Fortunately it diminished quickly as his regeneration kicked in and fixed the damage, allowing him to refocus on the task at hand.

With the largest limitation on his potential removed, he began pulling away the Gedō Mazō's life force even faster than before, completely ignorant of the bright chakra shroud burning around him.

With all eight gates open, the Gedō Mazō began losing the battle, its ability to endlessly regenerate its own life force with the chakra of the previously captured Bijuu overpowered by the pull Naruto was exerting. If it had been complete, the battle would have likely been about even, but it was not.

Soon, the chakra that the dessicated statue was clinging to so desperately was in reach and Xanna took hold of it with a triumphant roar, using Naruto's connection to the Gedō Mazō as a medium. The Juubi's original spirit, which was forever bound to the Gedō Mazō, couldn't retain its deathgrip on the chakra because of how badly Naruto had weakened it and thus had it torn away no matter how much it tried to resist.

Naruto himself made a strange expression between a pained grimace and a victorious grin as the powerful and corrosive Bijuu chakra was pulled through his coils and into the long empty Reaper Death Seal. It burned to have it pulled into him so forcibly, but he was in no danger of suffering permanent damage.

When all of the Bijuu chakra was finally pulled out of the statue, Naruto closed the gates and removed the branches through which he had been connected to it. Taking a deep breath and exhaling, he turned his attention to his wife, feeling that she had just about finished taking control of the chakra they had ripped away from the Gedō Mazō.

Are you alright?

I feel MUCH stronger, stronger than I ever was. She replied, the grin in her voice practically audible.

Naruto grinned as he hopped down from the Gedō Mazō's lap and immediately turned his attention to getting his wife out of the seal. It had been far too long since he had held her.

Xanna was equally eager to be free once again, though she managed to restrain her eagerness enough to slow down her exit from her husband's body in order to prevent herself from damaging him.

Now that she held the chakra of all her siblings except for the Hachibi, it took somewhat longer than it would have if she were still merely the Kyuubi instead of something above it, but it happened quick enough.

Her chakra was a bit more unwieldy than she recalled due to being merged with the chakra of seven other Bijuu, but it was no great hardship to force it into her human form once again.

As soon as she was properly formed, an impatient Naruto who had barely been able to wait grabbed her into a tight hug and kept running his hands over her as if he needed to touch every bit of her to make sure that she was really there.

When she finally managed to pull away enough to look at him, she found his lips smashed onto hers for a moment before she was pushed to the ground, with her overeager husband still attached to her lips.

When she tasted his tears, she knew that he was simply too overcome by his emotions to be good for anything that involved thinking. Instead of trying to say or even think anything at him, she simply wrapped her arms around him while he continued assaulting her lips and directed a feeling of wordless reassurance at him.

Naruto soon moved to her neck, kissing and nibbling on it before going further downwards. She let out a slight gasp as he moved his attention to her breasts and nipples, poking them ever so slightly with his sharp teeth.

Xanna would usually have been a far more active participant, but this time all she did was lay one hand behind Naruto's head as a wordless encouragement to continue. It was fun to play rough games with him and to selfishly seek her own pleasure while he did the same sometimes, but this was not one of those times.

Naruto had saved her from being destroyed, sacrificed his own life force to sustain her, worked tirelessly to find a solution and lost loved ones because of his refusal to abandon her. The least she could do was let him have his way with her.

For a while...until he calmed down a bit...at least for one orgasm.

Her thoughts were suddenly torn to shreds as she felt his tongue penetrate far deeper than it should have been logically capable of doing. A scream of pleasure tore out of her throat as the prehensile muscle started twisting every which way and lashing at her insides with a great deal of enthusiasm. When Naruto extended it in just such a way that it also rubbed against her clitoris, she found herself gasping and grabbing his head hard enough that her claws cut into the back of it and dyed his hair red with his own blood.

In no time at all, she was shuddering due to an intensely powerful orgasm.

I completely forgot about that tongue technique in all the excitement of finally being free again. She thought to herself dazedly while Naruto continued his attempts to map out the entirety of her vaginal tunnel with his tongue.

That alone had definitely been worth enslaving Orochimaru over. She really needed to figure out an equivalent to test out Naruto's response to a tongue job.

Before Xanna could continue that line of thought, Naruto's tongue snapped back into his mouth, causing her to yelp in pleasure at the unexpectedly quick movement. Immediately afterwards, an already naked Naruto settled on top of her and drove himself all the way into her instantly.

Xanna kept her legs spread while her husband ploughed into her with reckless abandon. She held him close while he did so, knowing that the blond idiot needed this. It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying herself, but Naruto hadn't been this clumsy with a woman since he was sixteen, so it definitely wasn't up to the usual standard. It was actually rather amusing to think that he would have completely pulverized the pelvic and thigh bones of a human woman if he was this forceful with one.

It took no more than a few minutes before Naruto reached his climax and discharged inside her, which instantly triggered another orgasm from the demoness, despite having been nowhere close to one.

Both Naruto and Xanna had in their eagerness failed to remember her reaction to his semen when he had first completed his Senjutsu training. Due to the fact that her body was in essence just a lifeless chakra construct directed by her will, it reacted extremely favorably to Naruto's chakra and life force saturated seed.

That had been before he'd drained practically everything out of the Gedō Mazō. Now his sperm was all but blazing with life and the effects were scaled appropriately.

Xanna regained her senses after blacking out slightly due to pleasure overload(something which she had thought was supposed to be impossible for her). The first things she noted was that she was shaking and that Naruto's member was still pulsing slightly inside her and that she was absolutely flooded with his semen, to the point where it would have been spilling out of her like a river if Naruto wasn't blocking the exit. This way it was just trickling.

The second thing she noted was that she was actually still experiencing a low level orgasm, which she hadn't been able to notice earlier due to how overwhelming the initial sensation had been. After a good thirty seconds, the feeling faded as the chakra and life force charge in the sperm dissipated. She grunted slightly when Naruto pulled out of her and the aforementioned spilling happened, which she quickly put an end to by disposing of all the sperm still inside her by burning it off with her chakra.

Considering the spectacular ending, she wouldn't give Naruto too much grief over the frantic way he'd rutted with her just now.

Naruto grabbed hold of the demoness and used the Hiraishin to teleport them back to the hammock where they slept to get them away from the mess they left on the ground.

Now cuddled together, each one of them took the time to assess how they had been changed.

Naruto could tell that his lovely wife had gained a considerable power boost, raising her above her previous status as the Kyuubi. She was actually closer to being the Juubi than the Kyuubi now, which was certainly something that he wasn't complaining about. Other than that, he couldn't discern any real difference. As for himself, aside from feeling stronger and more energetic than ever, he couldn't tell if he'd actually gained anything.

Xanna however, noted a little bit more. Aside from a considerable increase in her maximum chakra, she had also gained the particular elemental affinities of her destroyed siblings, which had always been part of their chakra, something that she was very pleased with. The chakra which had been hers alone had no affinity, it was simply so massively powerful that it easily overshadowed her siblings, but the addition of their affinities gave her a lot of versatility that she had otherwise lacked.

As for the changes in Naruto...well they were obvious if you looked closely. Previously, his hair had been merely very brightly colored, but now it was actually glowing slightly from the power of his life force. His skin was also letting off a very low level glow that was only really visible because it was getting dark. His chakra coils had also expanded further due to the abuse and regeneration they'd been through.

Xanna smiled as she laid her head down on his chest and closed her eyes. If she didn't miss her guess, Naruto had stolen enough life from the Gedō Mazō to be able to live for ten thousand lifetimes...give or take several thousand years.

There were already ideas churning in her head about ways to finish off that dried up husk but they would have to wait for later.

Naruto's hand was already kneading her rear end and something big was throbbing against her leg. It was apparently time to once again perform her wifely duties.

Xanna nearly snorted to herself at the ridiculous thought. Clearly she wasn't immune to being giddy if she was having such absurd thoughts.

Her glow-in-the-dark husband had his freebie already. From this point onward, he was going to have to work for it if he wanted her to submit.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Orochimaru was certain that he was in hell.

A week.

That was how long Naruto and his recently released demonic wife had been having sex, almost without breaks.

He'd been watching and hoping that Naruto was right in his assumption about the Mokuton and the Gedō Mazō, that way he could finally get the seal removed from his forehead and learn how to absorb natural energy to make himself immortal and hopefully even how to suck the life out of other people. That last one hadn't been part of the initial deal, but he hoped that Naruto would include it.

He'd been sure that Naruto would have ended up dead after seeing him open the Eight Gate, but he had instead looked fresh as a daisy afterwards...better even, which made no sense at all.

When the naked redhead which he presumed was the Kyuubi in human form had appeared, he'd almost approached to ask the blond to remove the seal, but something had held him back.

When the two of them had started having intercourse right there, apparently completely forgetting that someone by the name of Orochimaru of the Sannin existed, it became clear what that something was. It had been the small amount of social graces he had retained telling him that Naruto would not be in the mood to deal with him right away.

He had shrugged it off at the time, thinking that he could bring it up in the morning. Unfortunately, the strange married couple showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon. The valley rang with the sound of their continued loud and apparently rather violent rutting, allowing no sleep for any living creature until they were good and finished.

Orochimaru had performed many enhancements on himself, which let him get away with very little sleep, but even he had limits. He'd barely slept a wink for a whole week and he had to sneak around like a thief to avoid stumbling on the married couple, because they apparently liked to move around a lot.

The animals were showing signs of insanity caused by sleep deprivation, which had actually been pretty interesting at first.

Nothing like seeing a squirrel chew on a rock because it was hallucinating and thought it was a nut or something.

But now it was finally over. The roars of pleasure and pain, the clawing of trees and stones, the slapping of flesh were all gone and had been for several hours already. That could only mean that they'd finally gone to sleep.

Orochimaru decided that he should get some sleep too, he was probably going to need it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I assume you'd like that seal on your forehead removed?" Naruto asked rhetorically when Orochimaru joined him and Xanna for breakfast.

The demoness was industriously tearing apart a piece of barbecued deer, just for the sake of being able to eat again even if she didn't need it.

The snake Sannin nodded and fixed the blond with an expectant stare.

"Well, I'm afraid that's not gonna happen." Naruto said flippantly.

"What?! Why?" Orochimaru demanded. He'd come to be certain that Naruto would hold up his end of the bargain, so this betrayal was completely unexpected.

"You're a very dangerous man Orochimaru, did you really think I was just going to cut you loose?" Naruto once more asked rhetorically and raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "That would be retarded."

Orochimaru said nothing, only clenching his fists and glaring in impotent fury. He knew that he couldn't attack Naruto because of the seal, which left him completely powerless.

"Have you ever wondered Orochimaru, why you gradually came to accept your situation?" Naruto asked, cutting off the snake Sannin's angry thoughts.

Orochimaru frowned, suddenly realising that it was very out of character for him to do that.

"I didn't tell you everything about that seal. There was another part to it that was kept hidden. At first it wouldn't do much, but the longer you stayed in my presence the more it would affect you. Very slowly and very carefully, far too slowly to be noticed, the seal has been indoctrinating you to a certain way of thinking. As time passed, you eventually came to believe that I would honestly set you free once Xanna was restored, despite being deeply suspicious at first. The indoctrination would have been fairly easy to resist if you'd known about it, but if kept ignorant the changes were so gradual that you wouldn't find anything odd about them." Naruto explained with a smirk.

Orochimaru would have gone pale if he wasn't already completely white faced, but anger quickly replaced his horror. "Why do this?! I couldn't have gone against you with this seal on my head either way, so why bother with the indoctrination?" He demanded.

"Because it made you more cooperative and easier to deal with." Was the flippant answer.

"I lost our last real battle and you've grown much stronger since then, what purpose would you have for keeping this seal on me now?" Orochimaru asked, doing his best to calm down. Anger would do him no good here.

"Do you remember Tayuya, Orochimaru?"

The snake Sannin frowned again, needing to take a moment before he remembered that Tayuya had been part of the Sound Four. He hadn't thought of them in years. Actually, he hadn't thought of them since he'd sent them to collect Sasuke.

"Yes...?" He answered/asked cautiously, uncertain of where the blond was going with this.

"I liked her you know, she had spunk and she was really cute. That foul mouth of hers was just too damn funny. It would have been nice to have her as a little sister." Naruto said regretfully, Making Xanna roll her eyes at her husband's ridiculous little sister fetish.

Orochimaru's face creased in confusion, wondering what the hell that had to do with anything.

"She really needed someone to help her, someone that would have kept her safe and supported her while she dealt with whatever trauma she suffered. Instead of that, she met you, who planted a cursed seal on her and turned her mind into an unrecognisable mess so that she would be unflinchingly loyal."

Ah, now Orochimaru was starting to see the parallels, stretched though they were. He really had to hand it to the blond, he knew how to hold a grudge for the stupidest of reasons. He couldn't have known that girl for more than ten minutes and he was still holding a grudge four years later?!

"Well anyway, you said you wanted to know the truth of this world?"

Orochimaru nodded cautiously, every instinct telling him that this wasn't going to end in a way that he would like. It was supremely unfortunate that there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

"Tough."

And Orochimaru's vision went dark, as if someone had just turned off the lights.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, that was remarkably treachorous of you, usually you prefer a more up front approach." Xanna commented idly after the snake Sannin's body collapsed to the ground.

"Well, Orochimaru was a huge asshole, so I'm lumping him in with the same trash that I've been using as lab rats and life force batteries up to now, just more competent. He had it coming." Naruto answered with a shrug, feeling not even a trickle of guilt for the way he had backstabbed the man.

"You're just mad that you had to kill that girl instead of making her another of your 'cute little sisters' aren't you?"

Naruto fell off the stump he was sitting on in a perfect face fault.

"Is it that obvious?"

"It is to me."

"It would have been so great, she would have gone around calling everyone 'shithead' or 'cuntface' or whatever and I would have stolen her panties just to see what she'd do. And that stupid mutt Kiba would probably try to hit on her and she would have totally kicked him in the balls or used her flute to play the brown noise." Naruto rambled with a stupid grin on his face, imagining it all.

Xanna raised an eyebrow at the stupidity she'd just heard, but she was still glad that Naruto could be light hearted about a subject like this. She'd been genuinely worried about how his mental state would be like after losing all those girls, but it looked like he had recovered and was able to remember them fondly instead of being depressed over their deaths.

One thing needed to be answered though. "What in the world is the brown noise?"

"Oh, it's a sound frequency that causes everyone hearing it to lose control of their bowels."

"That is such a load of shit husband."

"Exactly."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Here it was, the moment of truth. The time of prophecy. The day that every man and woman the world over dreads.

"Hey mom and dad, it's good to finally meet you." Naruto said with a fanged grin.

"Naruto-chan?" Two confused but cautiously happy voices asked.

Meeting the in-laws.

"That's me."

Minato and Kushina brushed away their confusion at the realisation that the huge blond with creepy eyes and sharp teeth was their son, instead moving closer to him.

Well, Minato moved closer, Kushina charged into a hug.

"You're so big and handsome! How old are and who is this with you?" Kushina babbled in excitement.

Minato just observed, knowing full well that he wasn't going to be getting a word in until his wife calmed down.

"I'm twenty two right now and this is my wife, Xanna." Naruto explained, perfectly happy to return his mother's hug.

"Oooh, how did you meet? You've got to- EEEP!" Kushina squealed in surprise and failed to remove herself from Naruto's grip due to the chains that were suddenly holding her in place.

"Naruto-chan?" She began to ask, ignoring for the moment just how awesome it was that her son could use the Uzumaki chakra chains just like her.

"Yeah mom?"

"Why are you groping my butt?"

"The look on your faces are just too priceless, I couldn't help myself. Besides, it's a really nice ass and I'm a pervert."

Minato sighed in defeat. "Jiraiya got to you didn't he." It was not a question.

Naruto scoffed. "Bitch please, Jiraiya has nothing on me. He even wrote a book about me and it was his best-seller."

Minato wasn't sure if he should be beaming with pride or facepalming at this point. He also had no idea how to feel about the fact that his son still hadn't let go of his wife's posterior.

Kushina finally managed to wiggle out of the grope hold and moved back to her husband's side.

"Well, you still haven't answered my question. How did you meet your lovely wife?" Kushina asked, now much more in control of herself.

Naruto smiled at them widely. "Actually, I have you to thank for that. You sealed her into me when I was born. You guys are the best parents ever, you sacrificed your lives so that I could meet my soul mate. I love you so much." He finished, overdramatically wiping at his eyes as if he was in tears.

The two reincarnated ninja looked confused for a second before realisation dawned and they turned shocked and horrified gazes on the red eyed woman who had stayed silent all this time.

"Greetings mother-in-law, father-in-law." Xanna said with a wide smirk that showed off her sharp teeth and deliberately made her eyes glow.

Well, Xanna didn't dread meeting them. It was actually pretty funny. That thought that she had all those years ago had been right, Minato's expression really had been one for the ages and Kushina's wasn't far behind.

"Isn't she great?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So if I understand you correctly you fell in love with the Kyuubi and made it your life's dream to marry her and become immortal. Then due to a series of outside events that weren't really your fault, shafted the toads and got removed as their summoner, became a missing-nin, learned terrible forbidden techniques, enslaved Orochimaru of the Sannin, stole the Shodai Hokage's memories and bloodline and generally kept abusing your powers to save your wife after she was nearly destroyed and are now very close to being ready to battle the resurrected Uchiha Madara in an epic final battle that will determine the fate of the world?" Minato summarised incredulously.

"Well if you tell it like that it makes me sound kind of like the bad guy. Honestly, if people had just minded their own damn business I would have been perfectly happy to spend my life taking care of my cute little sisters and loving my wife. I probably wouldn't have sacrificed more than five or six dozen scumbags before I figured out immortality."

Kushina and Minato could only shake their heads at their son's effortless dehumanizing of certain criminals.

They'd been rather badly shocked by the whole story, and couldn't quite fathom their son's behavior. He hadn't been shy at all about the fact that his childhood had been full of misery, but he had then just looked at them strangely when they tried to apologize, as if he couldn't understand why they were saying they were sorry.

As far as he was concerned, they had done him a huge favor by sealing the Kyuubi into him and he loved them for it. They were happy to hear that, but were also deeply unnerved by everything they'd heard. Oh, they grew to accept the idea that they'd screwed up when Xanna had showed up at the village with their panicky reaction and they grew to accept that the two of them truly loved each other despite the strangeness of the situation.

What unnerved them was his rather obsessive adoration of the demoness. But they wouldn't say anything on the matter. It quickly became obvious that even though he loved them, their son had no real attachment to them, which made sense considering they were dead.

They would take this opportunity to spend some time with their son before he released the Edo Tensei and sent their souls back where they belonged. It was somewhat saddening to learn that he apparently had no intention of ever joining them there, but all things considered it was perfectly understandable.

"So ummm, what kind of things do you two do together?" Kushina asked, obviously trying to redirect the conversation to safer waters.

"Well, we like to play the rape game a lot." Xanna revealed with a smirk, deliberately making things awkward. This was just too amusing for words.

"The...rape game?" Minato asked painfully, already knowing that he was going to regret asking, but seeing no way to avoid it.

"Yes, we violently rape each other, but the only things that we are allowed to use is brute force. Whoever pins the other in a submission hold and scores the most orgasms wins, either their own or their partner's. If any other women stumble on us, then whoever makes them the most uncomfortable gets a double point bonus, triple if they convince them to join in as temporary sex slaves." The demoness explained with glee, delighting in their incredibly awkward expressions.

"I see." Both reincarnated ninja chorused...painfully.

"What if a man stumbles in on you?" Kushina blurted out and instantly regretted it. Rarely had there been a situation where she had wished more fervently that there was some kind of filter between her mouth and her brain.

"Eh, no other men allowed in the rape game, women only."

"But why?" Kushina asked once again, curiousity overpowering her better judgement.

"Because I'm kind of a hypocrite. I'd kill any man that tries to touch my lovely demoness even though she doesn't seem to care if I sleep with other women." Naruto explained with a shrug.

Kushina was a bit stunned at the blatant ease with which Naruto admitted something like that, with absolutely no attempt to justify himself. It was just a blunt statement of fact that basically said 'I'm a hypocrite, deal with it.'.

"Could we please stop talking about the rape game?" Minato pleaded, looking incredibly pained. He knew that Kushina was something of a perv, but this was going way too far.

"How about you tell us some stories about your Genin days Naruto-chan?" Kushina asked, thinking that it would be a safe topic of conversation.

"Okay, I got just the story. Jiraiya came to get me for a mission and told me that we were heading out to get Tsunade so that she could become Godaime Hokage..." Naruto began the tale.

"...And that's how Jiraiya got inspired to write Icha Icha: Shibari." Naruto finished, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

Minato lowered his head into his hands in disbelief. Dear sweet merciful god, is it wrong that I'm starting to feel grateful for being dead? I love my son, I really do, but he's completely insane.

Kushina was having a somewhat different reaction. After getting used to the idea that her son was an utter pervert, she was able to look at it all from a different perspective.

"My son, he is so MANLY!" She exclaimed, having realised just how much guts it took to consistently pull off the kind of madness that he did.

"Aw, thanks mom, you're the best." Naruto said with a grin before looking towards his sulking father in confusion. "...But what's up with dad?"

Kushina looked at her husband and cuffed him slightly on the head. "Don't mind him, he's always been a bit flaky."

"Do you have any stories that don't involve sex?" Minato asked, wanting to learn something else about his son aside from his apparently supernatural ability to make everyone uncomfortable with his blatant sexuality

"Well there was this one time when the Hyuuga main house pissed me the fuck off by putting that Caged Bird Seal of theirs on my cute little sister..."

Minato made an imperceptible sigh, having the feeling that he knew how that had ended. Both he and Kushina had picked up on Naruto's bizzare little sister fetish by now and if they were reading things right, then there was really only one probable outcome to that situation.

At least there wasn't likely going to be any graphic sexual descriptions in this one.

"You see, Xanna and I just got back from raping this super perverted brothel girl(don't worry, she liked it). man Keiko sure was something, it's a shame she got killed when Madara dropped that meteor on Konoha. She got so excited at the prospect of getting raped that she actually creamed herself while we were making her choke on our dick. We were sharing my body at the time so we were technically both doing her at the same time, but that's not really the point..."

Minato sighed in defeat, clearly he'd thought himself safe too soon.

"Wait...wasn't I talking about how I handled the Hyuuga main house?"

"Yes son, yes you were." Minato provided helpfully. He was pretty sure that Naruto had done that bit of digression on purpose if the smirks on his and Xanna's faces were any indication.

Clearly, this was going to be a very awkward family reunion, no matter how happy they were to see their son. It just wasn't fair, parents were supposed to make their children feel awkward, not the other way around!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto hummed to himself cheerfully as he made his way through Lightning Country in broad daylight, not bothering with any kind of stealth aside from avoiding any patrols he smelled or sensed.

Xanna was inside him again, neither of them willing to risk another summoning incident.

They were on a mission and that mission was to get the Hachibi, stuff it into the Gedō Mazō and then rip it out again so that Xanna would truly be the Juubi. Recycling Bijuu for the win.

After that, they would suck everything out of the statue until what was left of the Juubi's original spirit withered and died. That would in turn open the possibility for Xanna to take over ownership of the Gedō Mazō and replace it as the Ten Tailed Goddess, thus making her truly divine instead of just divine in Naruto's opinion.

Might as well go all the way if you were nearly there. Madara would certainly never know what hit him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Team Samui carefully observed the advancing blond, feeling rather uncertain about how to deal with the situation.

They were pretty sure that he hadn't noticed them yet, as they had taken pains to stay downwind of him to avoid being sniffed out, but that didn't really help them figure out what to do.

They'd been sent on patrol duty, so technically they were supposed to confront him for trespassing in Lightning Country, but Samui had shot that idea down for now because she knew that they were no match for him at all.

Karui had been all for just going ahead and confronting him. The Raikage had left standing orders to try and talk him into joining Kumogakure and the only thing that this observation was doing was telling them that he was on his way to Kumo anyway.

As for Omoi...

"What if he's planning to infiltrate our village and assassinate Raikage-sama and usurp his position? Or maybe he's going to destroy the village like he did Konoha?...or maybe he's going to capture all the women and turn them into his concubines?" Omoi muttered to himself.

Karui smashed her fist over his head and hissed at him angrily. "Shut the hell up Omoi, you're overthinking things again!" She only just remembered to keep her voice down so that Uzumaki didn't hear them.

It was all for naught however as Samui saw the target of their observation stop and then turn towards them with a grin, making it clear that he was just waiting for them to come to him.

"Not cool."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto had actually been alerted to their presence by the flash of anger from Karui rather than her rebuke of Omoi, but it was all the same in the end.

It didn't take him long to recognise the three of them from the bingo book and he couldn't help grinning at his good fortune. Killer Bee's students would surely know how to find the man himself, but of more immediate interest was the fact that all three of them were skilled with Kenjutsu.

There was something he wanted to try.

"Greetings Uzumaki-san." Samui greeted politely.

"Hey there Jugs." Naruto greeted back...impolitely. He couldn't help it, this girl was almost as chesty as Tsunade!

Samui kept the slight irritation at his rudeness off her face, it was hardly the first time that someone had tried to rile her up by commenting on her breasts. It helped that Naruto's bingo book entry clearly stated that he would do something like this.

"What is your purpose in Lightning Country?"

"What do you think my purpose is?" He countered with a grin, clearly having fun by being difficult.

Samui just stared at him silently instead of playing his game, so he turned his attention to her teammates.

"How about you Omoi, what do you think I'm here to do?"

Omoi grabbed his chin in thought while he swirled the sucker around in his mouth, dropping out of the cautious stance that all three of them had been in so far. None of them were too surprised that he knew their names already, they were in the bingo book after all.

"You're behaving very calmly and you approached in the open, so you're intentions probably aren't hostile...unless that's what you want us to think and you're trying to use us to get close to the Raikage and assassinate him. Or maybe you've fallen in love with either Samui or Karui at first sight and you're trying to get into their panties." The white haired man said speculatively.

Naruto looked oddly at the man, trying to figure out what kind of thought process had led him from assassinating the Raikage to falling in love with the two women present.

In the end he just shrugged it off and grinned, weird people were fun and he was going to take his amusement where he could get it.

"Or maybe, I've been overcome by my insatiable lust for women and I'm heading to Kumogakure to create myself a massive harem of hot girls with which I'll have children and then I'll train those children into the ultimate fighting force that will take over the world!" Naruto said, giving all three of them a somewhat crazed looking grin.

Samui and Karui could easily see that he was just being difficult again but Omoi looked horrified, as that kind of logic fit neatly into his way of thinking.

"I can't allow you to do that, even if it costs me my life!" He declared and pulled out his katana.

Only to get smashed over the head by Karui again. "Idiot! He's just messing with you!" She roared at him, incensed at how gullible he was.

Naruto snickered at the sight, pulling their attention back to him. These three were just too damn funny.

"You really remind me of my wife Karui, I like you." Naruto said to the redhead of the group, making her blush slightly. Though she was slightly surprised to hear that he was married.

"O-oh really? How so?"

"She has a similar skin tone and hair color...but she's taller and she's not flat...and her eyes are red...actually now that I think about it, her hair is a much more vibrant shade of red and her skin is more lustrous as well...not to mention that her personality is completely different...come to think of it, you don't remind me all that much of her at all. It's kind of like comparing a newborn kitten to a dire tiger."

Karui was all but trembling with anger at this point and the only reason that she hadn't pulled her sword on the annoying blond was the warning glance that Samui gave her.

Naruto sighed in disappointment at her non-reaction and pulled out the Kusanagi. "I was really hoping to provoke one of you into attacking me, but it looks like I'm going to have to attack you instead."

Three sets of eyes widened in alarm and they hurriedly drew their swords and backed away to give themselves some more space. They watched in confusion as Naruto simply stared at his sword with a look of intense focus.

Much to their shock, the blade began changing shape, going from a fairly short-ish double bladed jian into a single bladed nodachi with a long hilt made for a two handed grip and a curved blade that was nearly as long as an average sized man was tall.

"Ah, this sword just keeps getting better. Tenten would have squealed if she saw that it could do this." Naruto said to himself fondly.

If it could change its length, then why couldn't it change shape as well? Naruto had asked himself this question once while contemplating the sword and when neither he nor Xanna nor Orochimaru could provide an answer to the question, he had tried to do it. It was a lot harder than a simple extension, but it could be done.

"Now then, are you going one at a time or are you coming at me all at once?" He questioned the shocked trio with a wide grin, pointing the transformed Kusanagi at them challengingly.

None of them moved, so Naruto stepped towards Karui, preparing to take a swing at her. He was going to hold back most of his strength though...he didn't really want to hurt them after all.

The threatening action spurred them into action, making Omoi and Samui break off into a flanking maneuver while Karui attacked from the front.

Against their expectations, he continued to wield the Kusanagi one handed and pushed against Karui's sword, easily making her skid backwards, which allowed him to avoid the attacks of her teammates.

Following his rather gentle push with a more forceful shove that knocked her completely off balance and sent her crashing ass first to the ground, he turned to Samui and Omoi, blocking their combined attack just by placing the Kusanagi in the way of it.

Sensing that Karui was already back on her feet and ready to attack, he gave another hard shove to break the parry and send them both stumbling backwards. Turning his back on them, he refocused on Karui and let her make a few attacks, contenting himself with parrying before he used the flat of the blade to push her around so that he had all three in his field of vision again.

The three sword users took a moment to center themselves after the brief battle and exchange frustrated glances. All three of them had by now come to the same conclusion. Each one of them was more skilled with a blade than their adversary, but it was doing them no good when he was so ridiculously strong that he could completely break their balance without exerting any real effort. His much longer arms and sword also gave him a far greater reach, which made attacking him problematic.

"Come on now, if you don't attack me then I'm going to attack you." Naruto warned with the same infuriating grin on his face that he had been sporting the entire time.

In unison they attacked again, not even needing to speak in order to decide on a plan that more or less hinged on overwhelming him with their greater numbers and striking at his back.

They were severely confused when he just kept blocking their attacks instead of attacking despite having several opportunities to do so. They also noticed that he seemed to be getting more skilled with his weapon the longer the fight dragged on. That in and of itself wouldn't have been too unusual if it wasn't for the fact that it was happening with such speed that it only took a few minutes before he didn't even need to rely on his superior strength to keep them at bay anymore. Learning at that speed was simply impossible no matter what kind of genius you were.

They were right of course, it was impossible. Naruto however, was not learning it out of nothing. Senju Hashirama had been incredibly skilled with a sword, but that didn't really translate to Naruto because his body didn't know the movements. The whole point of provoking this battle was to get in some sword practice and allow his body to catch up to his mind.

Having gotten what he was after, he decided to tease them some more before he moved on towards Kumo. He deliberately left his back open and Omoi wasted no time in taking the opening to slash at his back.

Only to have his sword stopped by hair that would not be cut.

"W-what?" He stuttered out in shock, unable to believe that not even a single hair had been cut by his attack.

"it's been a while since I've used my hair in battle, but I really don't want a haircut either, so I learned to passively reinforce it with Senjutsu chakra. This way, my hair is like living armor that keeps my back safe from slashing attacks and it's tougher than chakra hardened steel wire." Naruto explained with a chuckle.

"You shouldn't let your guard down!" Karui shouted and slashed across his bare chest.

...creating a tiny scratch that didn't even have time to bleed before it healed.

"Yeah, I forgot to mention that I do the same thing with my skin."

"YOU BASTARD! You've been toying with us this whole time!" Karui roared angrily and focused her fire natured chakra to flow down her sword and coat it in fire. Immediately afterwards she launched herself at Naruto in a furious assault.

"Whoa! It's like fighting a berserker kitten of chaos and destruction!" Naruto exclaimed with a snicker that only pissed Karui off even more. "Come at me pussycat!"

Samui grimaced slightly as she and Omoi coated their blades with lightning and went to back up their teammate. The fact that they were being toyed with had been obvious from the very start, which was why they hadn't used chakra flow to enhance their blades up to this point. They had no idea what Uzumaki was after, but he didn't seem interested in actually harming them and it was generally a bad idea to escalate the battle against a far superior opponent.

Instead of using wind, which would have been quite a bad idea against Karui's fire, Naruto simply enhanced the Kusanagi with raw chakra, which prevented the lightning charged blades from shocking him. Karui's fire blade wasn't really affected by this, but Naruto's glowing blue blade was easily dealing with all three of them now, putting them exactly back to square one.

Another few minutes later, the three Kumo-nin were starting to get tired from the constant bladework and the strain that Naruto's superior strength put on their muscles. Not to mention that they'd wasted about a quarter of their chakra reserves and had nothing to show for it.

They didn't dare use anything from their limited repertoir of Ninjutsu, well aware that getting into that kind of battle against a Jinchuuriki was stupid in the extreme. If Uzumaki wanted to stick with blades then that was just fine with them.

"What do you want Uzumaki-san?" Samui asked, her voice now much colder. "Stop playing these uncool games and just tell us."

Naruto sighed and put away the Kusanagi, sealing it into his coat without bothering to turn it back to its previous shape. He liked it better as a nodachi anyway. "Well since you three have been such good sports about giving me a sword fight, I guess I'll tell you."

Team Samui leaned forward in interest, relaxing their guard slightly when it became obvious that he wasn't going to keep fighting them.

"I'm going to take the Hachibi away from your sensei, but don't worry, I'm sure that I can do it in a way that keeps him alive." Naruto said reassuringly.

He was quite surprised to feel grief flash through all three of them instead of the expected anger or fear.

"...Killer Bee isn't alive anymore is he?" He asked with resignation, already having a very good idea who was to blame for that one.

The Kumo-nin were surprised that he'd picked up on that so quickly, but gave short nods. Technically they weren't supposed to tell anyone about that, but he already knew anyway. His intentions of stealing the Hachibi from Kumo aside, he hadn't actually done anything worth fighting over so they would stand down for now.

"Oh fuck all kinds of duck." Naruto said with some frustration and looked towards a random direction in the distance. "You just had to make things difficult didn't you? Of course you did, it would be too much to hope for that you'd just sit and wait patiently for me to kill your resurrected ass. Fucking cunt."

"Wait, you know who killed our sensei?! Who was it?!" Karui demanded, having picked up on that among his obscenities. She'd been burning with the need to avenge her teacher, but Kumo hadn't been able to figure out who had done it. His body had been found in the Valley of Clouds and Lightning, staked to the ground with strange black rods. The cause of death was determined to be a ruptured chakra network due to the forced extraction of the Hachibi. Nobody had seen anyone coming or going from the valley, nor was there any physical evidence aside from the mysterious rods made of unknown material.

They would have blamed Akatsuki if they hadn't been informed that Uzumaki had already torn that particular organisation to pieces. As it was, they had nothing to go on and it had been eating at all of Team Samui.

Naruto looked over at the expectant looks on the three Kumo-nin and mulled over whether he should tell them or not. They'd never be able to match Madara even if they found him and if the Raikage learned of it, the hothead would more than likely get himself and many others killed in a fight he couldn't win.

"Nobody you need to concern yourselves with, he's not someone that you can fight."

Karui's temper boiled over at this again, unable to stand the fact that this man knew her sensei's killer but wouldn't tell her. "How dare you tell us that it's not our concern! Do you have any idea what it's like to have your sensei killed and being unable to avenge him?!"

Naruto gave a her a somewhat weak grin at the tirade before he answered. "The same man killed a good friend, my big sister and forced three of my cute little sisters into a situation that made them commit suicide right in front of me so that he couldn't use them against me."

Karui adopted a horrified expression as she suddenly had the wind taken out of her sails, making her feel very stupid for what she'd just said. That...was a lot worse than just having her sensei killed.

"Well, I guess he did also kill one of my sensei's, but we weren't as close as you were to yours. This was the same guy that flattened Konoha by the way."

The Kumo-nin winced in unison. That really wasn't something that they could fight, they weren't even sure if the Raikage could have won against someone with that kind of power.

Naruto used their momentary lack of attention to move closer and scoop Samui and Karui into a hug, making both of them yelp slightly in surprise and try to squirm away without success.

"Don't worry girls, I might not be doing it for your sensei, but that guy will get what's coming to him." He reassured, pressing both of them into his chest, much to their anger and embarrassment.

"Let us go!" Karui ground out.

"Sure thing kitten." Naruto said with a chuckle and let them go, noting with a grin that both girls were blushing slightly. "Hehehe, you two are so cute."

"Shut up!" Karui demanded, almost willing to pull her sword on him again just to make him stop with his embarrassing forwardness.

"Sorry about what I said earlier Karui, you're very beautiful. I was just trying to provoke you."

"I told you to shut up!" The redhead demanded again, her face feeling as if it was on fire at this point.

"You're so cute when you're angry."

"GAH!" Karui articulated and tried to punch him, only to have her fist caught and then get spun around so that her back was pressed against Naruto's chest.

"You're really something else kitten." He snickered and used the opportunity to feel up her rear end, making her jump away with a startled yelp.

He tried to make a move towards Samui next, his fingers itching to grab those huge breasts of hers before he returned to the valley.

Unfortunately, he found Samui's tanto pointed towards his crotch before he could make any such moves.

"Oi oi oi, that is not cool." Naruto protested as he took a step back.

Samui's lips twitched into a tiny smirk at his choice of words.

"Fooling around with other girls if you're already married isn't cool either." She countered.

"Now that is a pretty damn complicated situation." Naruto retorted. "But fine, if you don't want any hugs before I leave, it's your choice."

"I'll manage." She was quite sure that there would have been some groping involved in that hug as well.

"Suit yourself I guess." Naruto replied, only slightly disappointed. "Bye now."

"I think he completely forgot about me after we stopped fighting." Omoi commented after Naruto vanished in a Hiraishin teleport.

"He didn't, he just didn't pay any attention to you because you're a guy." Samui replied.

"Damn pervert." Karui muttered.

"The bingo book really didn't do his perversion justice." Samui agreed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well, so much for that plan. Naruto said sourly.

The plan can still work, it merely needs some...adjusting. Xanna replied.

True enough, I was just hoping to completely own Madara when we fight him. If he has the Hachibi then things are going to be slightly more even.

No matter, it will only prove to be a slight delay. At least we will have more time to beat him into the ground before he stops getting up.

There is that. Naruto agreed.

"Well, no time like the present I guess. I'm about ready to finish this off and get back to my honeymoon." Naruto said to himself and turned his gaze on the Gedō Mazō. "You hear that Juubi? We're going to kill you."

Naruto liked to think that the Gedō Mazō smelled afraid, even though he knew it couldn't understand him.