Naruto x Sekirei - Part 6

Uzume was nervous, which was a perfectly understandable state of affairs all things considered. It wasn't every day that a girl walked into a potential trap set by a known pervert after all.

That being said, she was also hopeful that things would turn out for the best. While the horned blond had something of a mixed reputation, he seemed to genuinely want to help the Sekirei in his own odd way. At least on the surface of it.

She'd made the decision to take the bait because she did not trust Higa in the slightest. Chiho's condition was serious and supposedly incurable, but after some consideration she had to bitterly conclude that he wouldn't have allowed her to be treated even if it were possible, because then he wouldn't be able to blackmail Uzume anymore.

She sincerely hoped that she wasn't just switching blackmailers.

Finding him hadn't been hard at all, it wasn't as if the man was concerned with keeping a low profile after all. Taking one last deep breath to settle her nerves, she knocked on the door.

She wasn't overly surprised that the door was opened by a Sekirei, though this one was a bit of an oddity due to the mark on her forehead. She had only a passing acquaintance with Akitsu, as they had been kept in different areas of the MBI labs, so she didn't really know what to expect of her.

"Ah….hello."

"Hi."

Awkward silence.

"Is Uzumaki Naruto-san in?"

"….no."

More awkward silence.

Uzume was starting to get unnerved by the emotionless stare that the other Sekirei was giving her, not to mention stilted 'conversation'.

"Oi Akitsu, who is it?" A female voice that was vaguely familiar to Uzume called from further within the penthouse.

"Uzume-san." Akitsu replied in a much more quiet voice.

"What?" The same voice hollered, clearly not having heard.

Akitsu fidgeted, clearly unwilling to raise her voice to the level needed to make herself heard. Fortunately for the conflicted Sekirei, another person spoke up.

"Stop yelling Haihane, if you want to know who it is then go look yourself." It was also a female voice, beautiful and melodius despite the authority in it.

The knowledge that Haihane was just one room over made Uzume even more uncomfortable. She knew, intellectually, that the Blue Sekirei wasn't part of the Disciplinary Squad anymore, but that was the only way that she'd ever been able to see her. It made her consider just giving the whole thing up as a bad idea and leaving.

"But I'm in the middle of a game." Haihane protested.

"Then pause it."

"I can't pause an online game!"

"Then pause reality."

Uzume could almost hear the deadpan expression that Haihane had to be making.

"Not everyone is a god of practically unlimited power." The tone of Haihane's voice was very, very dry.

"Indeed." There was so much self-satisfied smugness in that one word that it irritated even Uzume, who really had nothing to do with that situation.

"Would it kill you to stop mocking everyone around you?" Haihane spoke in a tone of consternation.

"No, but it would lessen my amusement."

The only thing Uzume heard after that was some grumbling and then more button mashing as Haihane obviously focused back on her game.

Having nothing else to eavesdrop on, Uzume was uncomfortably reminded of the fact that the ice Sekirei was still staring at her with that blank, sleepy expression. It was creepy.

"Let her in Akitsu, I think we've made her uncomfortable enough."

Uzume felt a spark of irritation inside at the fact that she'd obviously been played just now. Akitsu had been deliberately making things uncomfortable and creepy, quite probably at the suggestion of the unknown woman that so enjoyed mocking people.

"Yes mistress." Akitsu said in the same quiet tone that shouldn't be audible to the other room but obviously was.

Seeing as she had come this far already, Uzume allowed herself to be led into the large living room, which had obviously gone through some serious customisation. There were multiple screens and gaming consoles scattered all over the place, a sight that made Uzume itch to try some of them out. Apparently she had a fondness of video games in common with the Blue Sekirei, as Haihane was currently occupying one of them.

A tall, horned woman was laying across the couch, reading a book. Uzume figured that this must be Naruto's wife and most probably also the one that liked to mock people since she was the only one there aside from Haihane and Akitsu.

Speaking of the ice Sekirei, she had made a beeline for the couch, placed the horned woman's feet in her lap and started massaging them. Uzume could swear that Akitsu actually looked marginally happier than she'd been when she answered the door.

"Ummm….I'm here to talk to Uzumaki-san. Something about him being able to heal my Ashikabi?" Uzume started awkwardly, feeling immensely uncomfortable with the way that everyone seemed to be ignoring her. She figured that there was no need to hide the fact that Chiho needed healing since they probably knew already.

"You needn't refer to my brutish husband so respectfully, he cares little for politeness." The horned woman said casually, not even lifting her eyes off the book.

"O….kay…." Uzume said slowly, before deciding to just not think too much about it and plowed on. "Is he here?"

"Nope, he took Yashima and Kuu-chan on a little trip." Haihane answered.

Ah, that would explain their absence. Uzume had been wondering about that.

"You are welcome to wait for him here." Xanna offered.

"Thank you." Uzume said and sat down in a nearby armchair, fidgeting nervously in the atmosphere that was obviously tense only for her.

After a minute, she couldn't take the silence anymore and blurted out a question. "Can he really heal my Chiho?"

"Yes."

Uzume blinked at the blunt answer she'd been given. Just yes? No explanation? No conditions? No difficulties at all? No way it was that easy.

"What would I need to do to convince him to help me?"

"Akitsu, answer the girl."

"Yes Xanna-sama."

Uzume raised an eyebrow at the strange name. She'd honestly been expecting a Japanese name despite the horned woman's exotic appearance. Weird, but she dismissed it in favor of listening to Akitsu's words. It was important after all.

"Master is a pervert, if you want his help you should offer him all your holes."

If Uzume had been drinking anything she'd have done a spit take. "Hehehe, if he can heal my Chiho, I might just do that, even if I'm more interested in girls."

"Master is more interested in girls too." Akitsu offered helpfully.

"That's not really the point…." Uzume sweatdropped.

Haihane couldn't hold back her snickers any more, drawing the cloth using Sekirei's attention. "What Akitsu isn't telling you is that he'd probably help you even if you did nothing but call him big brother or maybe even for no reason at all."

"No way, for real?" Uzume asked In shock, having expected things to be….harder.

At Haihane's amused nod, she turned back to the ice Sekirei and asked suspiciously. "You were just messing with me weren't you?"

Akitsu looked back with a face that betrayed absolutely nothing. "….I was just trying to help, master fills up my holes every time I ask for something."

Of course, she failed to mention that she only ever asked that he do exactly that.

Uzume was still suspicious, but that perfect poker face revealed nothing. It dawned on her that it was rather odd for this Xanna woman to be so unbothered by the fact that her husband was apparently screwing Akitsu's brains out, but she decided it was better not to ask too many questions.

"Hey Uzume, you wanna play a game?" Haihane interjected, holding up a controller. More players were always more fun.

"I'd love to." Uzume agreed, perhaps just a shade too quickly, but she was just so damn relieved to be doing something instead of sitting in awkward silence.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hey onii-chan, how come nobody is freaking out over the way you look?" Yashima asked curiously, looking around and noticing that they weren't even being given a second glance, much less the gawking that Naruto should have attracted.

"As far as they're concerned, I'm a completely unremarkable guy." Naruto answered dryly, absentmindedly disintegrating the cotton candy residue that Kusano was occasionally leaving in his hair as she rode on his shoulders.

He'd decided to take his two newly adopted little sisters to an amusement park, correctly guessing that they'd never been to one. It was fun to spend some time with them like this. Yashima was still troubled over what she'd gone through with her abusive Ashikabi and enjoyed spending the day having simple fun and going on the rides. It helped that being around Naruto let her feel safe, as she was otherwise somewhat distrustful of humans thanks to having an overabundance of bad experiences with them.

Kusano was a lot simpler, she just liked all the great snacks and spending time with her new big brother.

"Ooooh! Onii-chan, lets go on that one!" She exclaimed suddenly, pointing excitedly at a giant ferris wheel.

"Alright then, lets go." Naruto agreed easily and the three of them went towards it, ignoring the line and getting on the ride without paying. Nobody so much as twitched at the action, having not seen it happen.

"Isn't that a petty abuse of power?" Yashima asked humorously, not really bothered by it. Who wanted to stand in line anyway?

"Funny thing about being a god, everything is a petty abuse of power." Naruto responded dryly.

"How about striving for world peace? I hear that's what the last guy claiming divinity tried." Was Yashima's counter, though she wasn't being too serious about it, just arguing for the sake of conversation.

Naruto's voice was heavy with irony as he replied. "Yeah, and that worked out really well for him didn't it?"

Yashima was still contemplating a response when he continued speaking. "If I wanted to pacify this world I'd first have to conquer it and I'm just not willing to deal with all that stuff. All the backstabbing and the pointless assassination attempts and then some idiot would probably try to launch a nuke at me if I didn't dismantle them all first."

"You really think someone would use one of those?" Yashima asked incredulously. She only knew the basics of nuclear weapons but she'd been stunned to know that in essence, the superpowers of the world were constantly pointing an arsenal of nation destroying weaponry at each other. It sounded insane.

"You would not believe how stupid people can get under the proper circumstances." He told her by way of an answer. "They like to think that the time they live in now is an enlightened age, but most of them still have the same 'us versus them' mentality that everyone has had for thousands of years despite overwhelming evidence saying that everyone is basically the same. Trying to get humanity as a whole to work together rather than against each other would probably be like trying to teach a monkey how to fly a plane, it might be doable but you'd be better off waiting for that monkey to evolve a bit more unless you wanted it to crash and burn."

Yashima giggled at the comparison, taking care to be quiet as Kusano had apparently decided that the ferris wheel wasn't as interesting as she'd thought it would be and fallen asleep on Naruto's lap.

"That's a pretty low opinion you've got of your own species." She pointed out, knowing that he was technically…sort of….still human himself.

"Well, I'll admit that I might have picked up some bias from my wife." Naruto admitted. "Though it isn't as if I've seen a whole lot of examples that would give me a good opinion on the subject. Where I came from, everyone was constantly at war with each other and they didn't even know why for the most part. That was just the way it was and nobody gave it much thought."

That made Yashima think of the Sekirei Plan and how blindly everyone had accepted Minaka's lunacy. She knew that it hadn't been aimed at her, but she still shifted uncomfortably, knowing that she had been just like everyone else in that respect.

"As for this world…." And various extra-dimensional versions of it now that Naruto thought about it. "Well, even if it doesn't look like they're going to kill each other with war, they'll do it by poisoning themselves."

"What do you mean?" Yashima asked in puzzlement, finding it hard to believe that close to eight billion people would be able to simultaneously poison themselves.

"They're dumping so much filth everywhere that I don't honestly expect humanity to survive for longer than one or two hundred years."

"It can't really be that bad." Yashima said sceptically, not seeing any obvious signs of that kind of pollution. "The world looks pretty clean to me."

"That's the problem." Naruto said dryly. "As long as it looks clean, it's easy to dismiss, but there's actually a floating island of garbage sitting in the middle of the ocean and plenty more of it is under the water."

Both he and Xanna had been incredulous when they'd found it back in the previous dimension and it had only been bigger in this one since there was a twenty year time difference. It had only taken them a few minutes of incredulity that people would poison their own world like this before they cynically realised that the only thing that had prevented the shinobi world from ending up the same was the use of chakra. It was a clean and environmentally friendly way of killing each other after all and it had also kept technology from becoming as pervasive as it was here. Though that had likely already started changing since Xanna had taken their chakra away.

This train of thought once more prompted Naruto to think about what he could do for all these Sekirei that he was taking in. He had taken responsibility for them and he would keep them safe, but there were some issues with that. He was already quite sure that staying in this world after he was done gathering them up was simply not an option. The rest of the world was simply too greedy for their power and he'd have to keep watch over them at all times. There would be kidnapping attempts galore until they got the hint that he was a far more dangerous enemy than Minaka. After that there would be more subtle methods, such as planting suitors and who knows what else.

The problem was that even if he and Xanna took them all to a new dimension, the same thing would just repeat itself eventually.

He could just bully the world into submission but that would open a whole other can of worms that he didn't want to deal with. Not to mention that he wanted the girls to be able to live their lives without constantly being gawked at and feared.

A light touch on his arm startled him out of the deep thoughts he'd sunk into.

"You ok Naruto?" Yashima asked with some worry, using his name for a change. "You zoned out for a bit."

"Yeah I'm ok, just thinking of something." Naruto assured, steadying Kusano as the girl groggily woke up.

"Onii-chan, this is boring." The young Sekirei complained with a pout. It had looked more fun from a distance.

"Want to ride something faster?" he asked with a grin, pointing at a rollercoaster.

Kusano nodded eagerly, thinking that the fast ride looked fun, especially after finding out that the ferris wheel was unexpectedly dull.

Twenty minutes later, all three of them discovered that large quantities of snacks in combination with rollercoasters often resulted in projectile vomit. Naruto was fine, not really needing to eat and having an adamantium stomach in any case, as was Yashima, who hadn't really eaten much. Kusano unfortunately, had pigged out on snacks like a bandit and subsequently covered all three of them in puke.

Personally, Naruto had found it hilarious, but the girls were less amused. Fortunately, another petty abuse of godlike power took care of it so there was no harm done, though he'd have to remember not to let Kusano stuff her face like that again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The furious video game battle between Haihane and Uzume was interrupted by yet more knocking.

Akitsu made to go answer the door again but Xanna pressed her feet down to prevent her from getting up. "Haihane, you should answer the door this time."

"But we're in the middle of the game." The bandaged Sekirei said, repeating her previous excuse.

"Just go open the door." Xanna said with a sigh.

"Fine." Haihane huffed and went to do as she'd been told.

Uzume snickered, very amused by the scene. She'd loosened up a great deal by now and wasn't uncomfortable around Haihane anymore. Even if she had been, this scene had looked so much like a mother sending a temperamental teenager to do a chore that it was impossible not to laugh.

"I was not acting like a mother to Haihane, the person knocking on the door is simply someone that she knows." Xanna said, seemingly out of the blue.

Uzume's head snapped in her direction with wide eyes. Had she just….?

"Yes Uzume, I read your mind."

What the hell? Did the horned woman do that all the time?

"No. You are, quite frankly, not that interesting."

Well now wasn't that somehow both reassuring and insulting at the same time?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Beni?" Haihane asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Benitsubasa shifted awkwardly, clearly not very comfortable. "Can we talk?"

Seeing that her sort-of friend and former teammate was being uncharacteristically non-angry, Haihane was plenty willing to do that. Besides, she'd missed teasing Benitsubasa about her flat chest. "Lets go to the roof, it's private."

A couple of minutes later, the two Sekirei were dangling their legs over the roof and Haihane started the conversation. "So Beni, what's eating you so bad that you came all the way over here?"

"It's….well, it's Natsuo-sama."

Haihane rolled her eyes, instantly deducing what was going on from that one sentence and the obvious frustration in Benitsubasa's voice. "He's not letting you ride his pole is he?"

"He hasn't even let me see him in days. Ever since you and Karasuba-senpai left, the Disciplinary Squad basically doesn't exist anymore and Natsuo-sama doesn't want anything to do with me. I might have gotten to spend some time with him if there was actually something to do, but that blond bastard is somehow keeping the whole city pacified while he goes on doing whatever he does."

Haihane's grin kept widening during the diatribe, finding the situation incredibly funny. "Yeah, when Naruto takes over, he takes over."

"It's not funny!" The Red Sekirei yelled, incensed.

"Oi Beni, calm down." Haihane said, the last of her snickering dying down. "You knew that Natsuo was a fruit before this, did you really think you'd get his interest just because you had him all to yourself?"

Benitsubasa looked away with a sour look on her face. She had in fact been gleeful over the fact that she had been the only member of the Disciplinary Squad to stay on board and therefore have exclusive access to Natsuo. She'd figured that without Haihane or Karasuba to get in her way, she'd be able to get into his pants in no time. Only, it had turned out that not only was his interest in her as non-existent as before, now she was lonely on top of it.

"So, what do you want to do?"The Blue Sekirei asked, for once disdaining to poke fun at the pink haired one.

"I don't know." Benitsubasa said, kicking her legs out at the same time, which made Haihane bite her lip at how childish her old teammate looked at that moment. "I just wanted to talk to someone and you're the only one I know besides Karasuba-senpai."

"Is she here too by the way?" The Red Sekirei asked before Haihane could respond.

"Nah, Naruto and her have some weird thing going on where they fight for fun. The last time they did it, she got knocked out and took off as soon as she woke up and hasn't been seen since." Haihane explained.

"That pervert's ruined everything." Benitsubasa sulked. She couldn't believe that she was missing the days when Karasuba was scaring her to death with her odd moods or Haihane was teasing her. It had made her angry and frustrated at the time, but it was better than what she had now, which was an endless stream of nothing. Natsuo wanted nothing to do with her and actively avoided her the more she pursued him, there was nothing to do and no one to talk to. It sucked.

"I think it needed to be ruined." Haihane shrugged. "Did you know that our reactions to Natsuo were artificially induced? We weren't really supposed to react to him."

"Did Uzumaki tell you that?" Benitsubasa scoffed after she got over the momentary shock. "The pervert has to be lying, there's no way you could just make a Sekirei react."

"This is the guy that can unwing Sekirei as he pleases and make them unwingable." Haihane said back with a grin. "I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on this one."

Benitsubasa was about to reply when a new voice suddenly intruded. "Oh my, if it isn't Nipples! The Amazing Raging Sekirei!"

Temper instantly reaching fever pitch at the presence of the man that pissed her off on so many levels and at the nickname which reminded her of their last encounter, Benitsubasa spun around and drove her fist at full power to where she expected his gut would be. Her aim was spot on, but the abs she hit felt more like a titanium wall than flesh, which made her yelp in pain and cradle her wrist.

"What the hell are you made of?!" She screamed at the grinning man.

"A concentrated mixture of awesome and testosterone, with a helping of hentai for flavor." Naruto retorted instantly. He'd never admit it, but he'd been waiting for someone to ask him that for months. Well before he and Xanna even arrived in this dimension in fact.

Haihane giggled at the infuriated look on Beni's face. She'd missed that look of red faced rage.

"Gimme that hand." Naruto said and snatched Benitsubasa's injured wrist without giving her a chance to comply.

"What the hell are you doing?" She demanded, trying to pull her hand out without injuring it further, but having no success. A second later it became a moot point as a cool numbness spread through the hand and causing the pain to vanish.

"It would've healed by itself in a few minutes anyway." She muttered sourly, refusing to be grateful. He'd been the one to injure it in the first place anyway, according to her logic at least.

"So, did you come here to be unwinged too?" Naruto asked, smirking at her surly behavior. Surly females were nothing new to him and he definitely wasn't going to be put off by one.

"No way!" Benitsubasa asserted. "You're not going to subvert me the way you did Karasuba-senpai and Haihane." Despite everything, she did still have hope of getting together with Natsuo, fading though it was.

"Well then, you might need this if you want to seduce that Ashikabi of yours." Naruto said and presented her with a rather large strapon dildo.

"AAAGGHH!" Benitsubasa howled her rage to the backdrop of Haihane's hysterical laughter. "I FUCKING HATE YOU!"

Looking at her back as she stormed off, Naruto yelled after her. "You forgot your strapon!"

"FUCK YOU!"

"Ah well, I guess I'll mail it to her or something." He muttered, setting off a new round of giggling from Haihane.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, you need help healing your Ashikabi Chiho?" Naruto asked, steepling his fingers in a manner befitting an evil mastermind.

"Considering that you were the one who baited me here with claims of being able to heal, you should already know that." Uzume replied dryly.

It was hard to be afraid of Naruto at this point, seeing as he had come through the room and put the exhausted Kusano to bed, looking far more gentle aboout it than someone of his intimidating appearance had any right to be.

They were currently in the last empty bedroom of the penthouse, where they had gone so that they could speak privately. If he got any more Sekirei to move in with him, they'd either need to start bunking together or he'd need to buy the whole damn floor.

"I'll take that as a yes." Naruto stated seriously. "Wait right here, I'll be right back."

"Wait, what…?" Uzume started saying only to trail off with her mouth open as Naruto vanished for a moment and reappeared with Chiho in his arms.

"….are you?" Chiho was saying with a highly alarmed tone of voice, no doubt frightened at the sudden appearance of a horned man.

"Chiho!" Uzume exclaimed joyously and rushed to give her Ashikabi a hug, which coincidentally did a lot to calm the sickly girl down.

"Uzume-chan, what's going on? Who is he?" Chiho asked in a loud whisper that completely failed to prevent Naruto from hearing the question.

"I am the great Satan!" He announced ominously before the Sekirei could speak. "Uzume has paid for your healing by giving me unlimited use of her body for any and all depravities as well as her immortal soul."

Chiho gasped and stared at Uzume in horror. In that particular instance, Chiho forgot that she wasn't actually religious, though it was undestandable since a creepy looking horned man had abducted her from the hospital and was now telling her that he was the devil.

Uzume couldn't help chortling at the joke even as she rushed to explain that it was actually a joke. "He's just kidding Chiho-baby, he's not Satan and he's not asking for anything in return for healing you…..though I wouldn't have minded one or two rounds of depravity in exchange for that." She finished cheekily, causing her Ashikabi to blush.

"But….the horns…" Chiho tried to say, unsure of how to express her feelings on the matter. Things were happening so fast that she wasn't really keeping up.

Naruto once again spoke before Uzume could. "I'm such a massive pervert that I've grown horns, this way everyone that looks at me knows that I'm a horny bastard."

Uzume snickered again, but tried to focus on the task at hand. "Okay Naruto, we get it. You're hilarious, now can we please get to the healing."

"Right you are, we can't let such a pretty girl stay sick now can we." He said and placed his hand on Chiho's stomach. The shy girl was blushing up a storm both at the casual compliment and the touch.

Now, Naruto didn't know the first thing about whatever virus was slowly killing the tiny girl, but there was one surefire way to fix any disease. Flooding her body with healing energy and using it to transform her weak and failing immune system into something that would have doctors everyhwere gaping in astonishment. With speed that nature didn't really allow, the immune system which had previously been akin to an ailing kitten that was just barely clinging to life was transformed into something more closely resembling sabertooth tiger in a blood rage and it instantly turned on the virus and metaphorically tore it to pieces. Noticing that her muscles were fairly atrophied as a result of inactivity, he gave those a little boost as well.

Within seconds, Chiho felt the pervasive weakness that had plagued her for as long as she could remember recede.

"There we go, now try to stand." Naruto said.

Chiho did as she was told, a bit clumsy at first, but her limbs soon remembered how to support her. She stared in amazement at her hands as she clenched them, marveling at the strength she could put into that action. Mere seconds ago she couldn't even make a decent fist, much less stand or clench her hands with enough strength to turn the knuckles white.

"How do you feel?" Uzume asked, both worried and hopeful.

"I feel incredible, I've never felt this good before." Chiho answered with a tone of dazed wonder.

That was all the response Uzume needed as she rushed at her Ashikabi and hugged her, though she still made sure to keep her own strength in check, just in case.

After they separated a short while later, Uzume turned to Naruto and spoke empathically. "Bro, you are amazing!"

"What did you just call me?" Naruto growled back.

Both girls blanched at the growl and Uzume hesitantly spoke again. "Umm….Bro?" She hadn't even thought of it, it was just the way she spoke, but hadn't Haihane said something about him liking it when girls called him that? Why was he angry?

Naruto continued to give her a penetrating look for a few moments and then spread his arms and said in a questioning tone. "Little sister?"

"Bro?" Uzume said again, hopeful that he'd just been kidding.

"Little sister." Naruto repeated in a tone of assurance.

"Bro!" Uzume exclaimed happily.

"Little sister!" Naruto echoed her sentiment.

"Bro!" Uzume jumped into his open arms.

"Little sister!" Naruto hugged her and a rocky beach appeared, bathed in the glow of a dark orange sunset.

Chiho stared at the spectacle, at first confused and then rapidly becoming incredulous as it got more and more ridiculous. Bending down, she picked up one of the smaller stones and threw it into the ocean, gaping as it made a splash. "No way, it's real?!"

Naruto and Uzume separated and the beach sunset vanished instantly. "This one was for you Lee and Gai-sensei, you crazy bastards."

"Who are Lee and Gai-sensei?" Uzume asked in bemusement.

"Just a couple of lunatics in green spandex I used to know, good guys but definitely a few cabbages short of a tomato salad." Naruto explained, much to Chiho and Uzume's continued confusion.

"Now then, there is only one more thing to do." He announced, grabbed Uzume again and swung her into a dramatic dip.

"Bro?" Uzume questioned in confusion, but was ignored.

"The beautiful and petite Chiho, weakened by her illness and subsequent recovery-"

"But I feel great!" Chiho protested.

"The beautiful and petite Chiho, bound to the bed with a mysterious cloth-"

"Whaaaaa-!" Chiho tried to question only to find herself suddenly bound to the bed with a mysterious cloth.

"Was helpless to resist the attentions of the chesty sexual predator that had decided to claim her as a mate." Naruto continued.

"I think I like where this is going." Uzume commented with a grin.

"Uzume-chan!" Chiho tried to protest, her face burning bright red. Alas, she was ignored.

"After all, such a tale of dramatic rescue has to end with sex or else be classified as a children's tale."

Naruto conveniently ignored the fact that there had been nothing dramatic about the rescue. He'd just teleported in, snatched the girl and teleported out.

"Bro, I love the way you think."

"That's because you're a pervert little sister, just like me." Naruto responded with a grin and let her stand on her own again. "Feel free to go nuts on the room, I know Miya is so prudish and uptight that you'd need the jaws of life to pry her ass open."

Uzume chortled at the mental image and aimed an anticipatory, leering expression at the bound Chiho, who was looking both aprehensive and turned on.

Naruto nodded to himself and showed himself out of the room with a final comment to himself. "I have furthered the cause of girl on girl action, the good has been upheld."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A bleary Chiho and grinning Uzume joined them for breakfast the next day, having spent most of the night cathing up on things that they'd missed due to their separation. Mostly physical things.

"Had fun?" Naruto asked the cloth using Sekirei with a grin. The light show and chakra surges that had been coming from the room he'd given the two had let everyone know what was going on in there.

"You have no idea." Uzume responded with a grin of her own and a backstretch, which did interesting things to her large breasts.

"Ah…false, we have a very good idea." Akitsu countered quietly and shifted a bit closer to Xanna. She had been surprised at her own lack of longing at the obviously strong bond between Uzume and Chiho, but hadn't given it much thought. She was happy with where she was right now and wouldn't trade it for anything.

The comment garnered a few snickers, but it gave rise to certain questions in Uzume's mind. "Bro, what have you been teaching her?"

"Me?" Naruto asked in surprise. "You're looking at the wrong person, Akitsu's sassy personality is all thanks to my dear wife."

"Sassy?" Uzume repeated doubtfully, staring at the expressionless ice Sekirei. Akitsu didn't seem like the sassy type.

"Are you trying to say that Akitsu is not capable of being sassy?" Xanna asked archly.

"Well no….." Uzume denied awkwardly, unsure of how to respond. The word 'sassy' brought to mind someone who was energetic and lively…..which Akitsu was not.

"Ah…..Uzume-san thinks that I am dull." Akitsu said, giving every impression of sad realisation, from her depressive expression to the way she leaned into Xanna's side for a hug as if seeking comfort.

"What? No, I didn't mean that!" Uzume hastily denied. The last thing she wanted to do was offend someone that was obviously valued by Naruto and his wife.

"It's alright Akitsu, some people simply have no decency and feel the need to put others down." Xanna said soothingly and rubbed one of Akitsu's arms.

"That's not what I meant!" Uzume insisted, starting to become a little desperate to prove that she wasn't like that.

Akitsu looked at the cloth wearing Sekirei and blinked slowly before speaking in a dull monotone. "…..It's fine, I am used to being considered…inferior to others."

"But I don't think of you that way at all! You're a very beautiful woman and a wonderful person."

"So that's how it is? Now that you've had your way with me you're going after Akitsu?" Chiho suddenly spoke up with a sniffle, having picked up on the fact that Uzume was the butt of a joke. "I guess I should have expected it, her breasts are much bigger than mine after all."

Uzume nearly gave herself whiplash from the speed at which her head snapped towards her Ashikabi. "That's crazy, I could never just leave you for someone else." Literally, what with the bond between Ashikabi and Sekirei and whatnot.

"I suppose you were lying to poor Akitsu about being beautiful then?" Xanna asked with heavy disapproval.

Uzume had by now developed a rather frantic expression from the multi sided assault and didn't know what to do anymore. Fortunately, Haihane and Yashima's giggling snapped her out of it and made her realise that she was being messed with. "You guys are totally trolling me here!"

"Took you long enough to figure out." Haihane snorted.

"Akitsu's poker face is too perfect, you can never tell what she's thinking." Uzume groused good naturedly.

About half an hour later, Chiho and Uzume were ready to get going, having decided that they were going to stay at Izumo Inn despite Naruto's offer to move in with them, though Uzume was willing to reconsider that decision if Miya insisted too hard on her no sex rule.

There was one more thing that Uzume wanted to say to Naruto before leaving though. "I didn't thank you properly for healing Chiho yesterday bro, so….thank you. If there's anything I can do for you, anything at all, just ask." She said empathically.

"Stop being so serious and give me a hug." Naruto commanded, snatching her into a hug before she could respond. "I might take you up on that offer soon though, but don't worry, I think you'll like what I want your help with."

"Hehe, you should come by the Inn sometime you know? Miya wants to talk to you and Xanna anyway." Uzume said as she hugged him back. The giddy feeling at being freed from Higa and having Chiho healed completely still hadn't faded and she couldn't be happier with her decision to take that bait.

"Eh, we'll get around to talking to Miya when we feel like it." He said dismissively. She'd get her turn too, but there were still things to be done before the conversation with Miya.

Uzume snickered, amused at how casually they were snubbing the most powerful of all Sekirei.

"By the way, would you like to be there when I kill Higa and Kakizaki?" Naruto asked, figuring that she'd want some payback.

Uzume's expression darkened at the mere mention of the bastard that had used Chiho to blackmail her and his chief toady. "You know, I think I would."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

On the evening of the same day, Naruto and Xanna went their separate ways(literally, not figuratively), leaving all the Sekirei alone in the penthouse.

While Xanna went to the mansion of Mikogami Hayato, Naruto stared contemplatively across the city, pondering a little mystery about the Sekirei that had caught his attention.

He'd need to examine some more Sekirei before he could make any conclusions but so far every bit of evidence he'd seen seemed to indicate that his suspicions were right.

There was something strange and just plain wrong with the Sekirei, but it was more evident in the Fist and Weapon types. They were far more prone to violence than the elemental types and a disturbingly large percentage of them were bloodthirsty psychopaths like Yomi and Amebane.

Naruto liked to have at least a vague idea of where most Sekirei were so that he could prevent any stupid fighting between them. Some of them were still under the impression that the Sekirei Plan mattered, despite even Takami spreading word that it was defunct(against Minaka's wishes no doubt).

This allowed him to know who was the perfect target for his investigation. It was time to pay the western part of the city a visit.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sanada Nishi was not an idiot despite looking like a dumb biker for all intents and purposes, but it payed to have people underestimate you sometimes. He was also a lot like Seo in that he kept an ear to the ground and thus kept himself informed of important goings on in the city. His Sekirei were very important to him and he did all he could to make sure they all survived.

So it was that when Naruto appeared, he was not busy trying to figure out what the hell he was and wondering when demons had started roaming the Earth. Instead, he was trying to figure what the hell he'd done to rate a visit from the city's new boogeyman.

When rumor had gone around that the Sekirei Plan had been canceled, he'd been sceptical but cautiously optimistic and had taken pains to convince his fellow Ashikabi in the western part of Shinto Teito to avoid fighting of any type. He was glad he had done so when several further rumors had gone around of a horned blond man killing several Sekirei and one Ashikabi.

Which of course, still left the mystery of this visit.

"Uzumaki, to what do I owe the pleasure?" He drawled warily, using his arms to prevent any of his six Sekirei from walking in front of him. If his information was correct, then picking a fight with this man would be a terrible idea. Inwardly, he desperately hoped that the three of his Sekirei who were bloodthirsty and violent would listen to him this time, even though it was getting harder and harder to control them.

"There was a little something bugging me about the Sekirei as a whole and you happen to have six of them that are just the right type, so I came to take a look at them." Naruto answered, looking over the girls that Nishi was trying to keep behind him with limited success.

All of them except the little girl that looked about twelve years old were dressed in bikini tops , but it was obvious that three of them were itching to attack him then and there. Seeing them so close together it was like the difference between night and day, with three looking cheerful and curious and three of them murderous.

"What type would that be?" Nishi asked warily, cursing inwardly when he saw Chiyo, Yuuna and Hatae adjusting their weapon grips, cleary debating with themselves whether to attack or not. This could get messy really damn fast.

"Close combat types and you just so happen to have six, as I said before. Even better, three of them are clearly salivating at the idea of killing me."

The words startled Nishi and provoke the three Sekirei he'd mentioned into stepping around him with clearly hostile intent.

"I'm not just going to let you kill them. They're my Sekirei even if they are hard to control." Nishi asserted, preparing himself for what may or may not be a losing battle. He wasn't sure if even all of them together were a match for Uzumaki, but it didn't matter if he'd come here to kill them, they would need to fight either way.

"Well, fortunately for you I'm not here for that. What I would like is to see whether Chiyo, Yuuna and Hatae can fight or are they only good as eye candy and bed warmers." Naruto said mockingly.

Nishi had no time to calm the situation down or explain that those three had never shown the slightest bit of interest in sex and were still virgins. He'd only slept with Kuzuri and Kujika while Shijime took the role of a little sister.

Naruto's taunt instantly provoked the three killers on the offensive, Chiyo swinging her scythe wide, Yuuna staying a bit further off and lashing out with her wires and Hatae flanking with with her claw knives.

Naruto easily avoided the multi pronged attacked and tsked as if disappointed, deliberately provoking them further.

The three Sekirei continued attacking almost manically until Naruto allowed them to sink their weapons into his chest, making all three give triumphant exclamations.

"Well that was enlightening." Naruto commented idly, as if he wasn't injured and ripped their weapons away. Too shocked to react, all three found themselves bound in chains, Yuuna and Hatae lying helpless on the ground while Chiyo was held suspended spread eagle in front of him.

"Now lets see what's going on with you." He muttered, placing his palm on her stomach and ignoring the angry cursing of the slightly anorexic looking Sekirei.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Nishi demanded, stepping closer while ordering the other three of his Sekirei to stay back. The negligent ease with which Chiyo, Yuuno and Hatae had been defeated had shown him quite clearly that they were very far from being able to challenge the horned man.

"I'm having a look at her Sekirei core and how it's interacting with her body." Naruto explained absently, not taking his attention away from the Sekirei in front of him.

"And what are you seeing?" Nishi asked, more calmly this time. It didn't look as if there was going to be any killing today, for which he was glad. He didn't want three of his Sekirei to be killed even if they were pretty crazy.

"Not sure to be honest. I'm not exactly a medical expert, but it looks like the core is stimulating certain parts of the brain, along with increasing adrenaline production." Naruto answered thoughtfully.

Not really giving Nishi time to answer, he freed one of Chiyo's arms and put a dagger in her hand. Predictably, she tried to stab him in the neck. He let her do it and she was instantly sprayed with his blood, but he wasn't paying attention to that and he'd blocked off his own pain response anyway. Far more telling was the surge of pleasure he felt from her at the fact that she'd caused him such a 'grievous injury' and possibly killed him since she wasn't aware that he was entirely unkillable.

Binding her hand again, he commented in the same thoughtful tone. "Seems like she literally gets off on killing and causing pain and I'll bet the other two are the same."

Nishi stared at the horned man, somewhat bloodstained himself, unable to believe that he'd just seen a man take a knife to the neck without flinching and then healing as if it was less than a paper cut.

Frowning thoughtfully, he put Chiyo with the other two and looked at Nishi. "They all reacted to you right?"

"Yeah, of course they did." Nishi answered cautiously, wondering at how that was relevant.

"So it's not that either." Naruto muttered to himself and turned towards the other three Sekirei, the ones that were not obsessed with violence. "Would one of you girls please step forward so that I can have a look at you too?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto went back to the hotel, some of his questions answered but most of them not.

The other three girls were vastly different from the three crazies, having only a slight enjoyment of fighting and really just wanting to have fun and spend time with their Ashikabi. Which of course meant that it wasn't a case of being a close combat type that influenced whether a Sekirei went a bit kill happy or not, at least not exclusively.

It also meant that the Sekirei reaction proved exactly nothing as far compatibility with an Ashikabi went, which was something he'd suspected from the start in any case. If it had meant anything, then Sekirei with such wildly different personalities wouldn't have all reacted to the same Ashikabi. Never mind the fact that sociopathic killers wouldn't have any interest in love and therefore wouldn't have reacted if things were actually the way that MBI had advertised them. Minaka actually believed his own spiel about destiny, but that lunatic knew less than he thought he did.

It also explained how exactly scum like Higa and Kakizaki had gotten any Sekirei at all. The reaction was either completely random or it simply happened after a Sekirei spent a sufficiently long time around any Ashikabi. And after he'd gotten his first two, Ichiya and Toyotama, Higa had seen their use as enforcers and immediately sent them to capture more in order to forcibly wing them.

He didn't quite have an explanation for Kusano's long distance reaction yet, but hers had been the only one he'd seen so far, so he didn't really have anything to compare it to. But he'd figure it out eventually, he knew he would. This whole situation was looking more suspicious the more he thought about it and the one most likely to have answers was Miya, but he wanted to know more before he spoke to her, even though he was dying to see if he could provoke her to violence through sheer force of perversion.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A nervous Mutsu led Xanna through Hayato's mansion, desperately hoping that his Ashikabi would listen to him and not antagonize the horned woman. She made him nervous, as she exuded a sense of power and danger even greater than Naruto, which he'd not even thought was possible.

The two Sekirei that Hayato had assigned to scout the southern parts of the city for any more unwinged ones had come upon her and approached in an effort get some information out of her.

Their unconscious bodies had been dumped in front of Mutsu when the horned woman had appeared right in front of him and demanded that he take her to 'the sniveling child who owns this gaudy pisshole'. Mutsu suspected that the woman had been the one who had arranged the encounter with the now unconscious Sekirei to make a point. Well, her point had certainly been made and he hoped that his young Ashikabi would know better than to throw any of his usual tantrums when things didn't go the way he wanted.

Meanwhile, Xanna was restraining herself from giving a disgusted snort at the overly opulent mansion. She hadn't teleported directly to Mikogami because she'd been a bit curious about this place, but now she was feeling the vague urge to start spewing fire at everything.

The hotel that she and Naruto were staying in at the moment was expensive and opulent to be sure, but it wasn't done in such an absurd and gaudy fashion that it almost made your eyes bleed from all the crap that was on display. Whoever this child's parents were, they had apparently decided that they needed to display how rich they were by buying up anything expensive and then hanging it along the walls without too much concern for how it looked. To be honest, the mansion gave off the vibe of a warehouse for dumping their acquisitions rather than a place to live. Considering that they'd left their son here along with a bunch of servants, it said a lot about their parenting style.

Finally, the reached the room where Hayato was waiting for them.

He was dressed in one of his frilly silk shirts, along with an expensive pair of pants and shiny dress shoes. The whole outfit made him look spoiled and more than just slightly ridiculous.

"Welcome, Mutsu told me that you would be coming." Hayato greeted politely, with a smile and everything. He kept eye contact, just as his etiquete tutors had told him to, despite the ominous crimson eyes and slit pupils. He payed no attention to her horns and gave every impression that he was not rattled by her odd appearance and height.

For days now, Mutsu had been on his case about being polite and respectful to this woman when she arrived, which would be at some undetermined time. He'd reiterated constantly that she was likely to be even more dangerous than the feared Hannya of the North and that it would be best to simply do as she asked and hope she left quickly.

"I am Mikogami Hayato, Ashikabi of the South, as you already know. May I have your name?" Hayato continued according to protocol, though a note of pride entered his voice when he said his title in the Sekirei Plan. He was quite proud of himself for having managed to get the most Sekirei out of all the Ashikabi out there. It meant that he was doing well in this exciting game.

Xanna's lip curled in disgust at the conceited little brat and the pride he took in enslaving others. She was not particularly sympathetic to the Sekirei that had bonds forced on them because of the idiot child's belief that the whole thing was a game and that the Sekirei were toys, but the sheer stupidity of it made her want to slap a Caged Bird Seal on his forehead and give the controls to someone like Musubi for the sake of irony.

Instead of a verbal response, Hayato found himself yanked into the air and held suspended there.

"What are you doing?!" The young Ashikabi yelped in alarm and tried to struggle free, to no avail.

"Be silent, or I will break your jaw." She stated flatly, and tore off the frilly shirt. Not because she had to, but because it was one of the ugliest shirts she'd ever seen and it was annoying her to no end with the way it was fluttering around.

"Mutsu help me!" Hayato cried out, ignoring the warning.

Compelled to move by the order, Mutsu tried to do as he was told, but found a single black pole impaled into the fleshy area of his shoulder. For a Sekirei it should have been a negligible injury, but he collapsed like a stack of cards and felt a terrible chill grip his body, preventing him from moving completely.

Meanwhile, Xanna had done as she had said she would and backhanded Hayato across the jaw hard enough to break it. "People in this world make too many empty threats…..nobody takes a threat seriously anymore."

The young Ashikabi screamed as much as he could with his jaw broken and instantly started crying. It was by far the worst thing he'd ever experienced, used as he was to a life of luxury and comfort.

Xanna's disgust rose further at the display, unable to help comparing him to a fifteen year old Naruto. Her husband had frequently trained until he scraped the skin off his knuckles or cracked his bones when he was that age and this brat was crying over something as minor as a broken jaw?

She knew that it wasn't a fair comparison, but she'd never cared about being fair anyway.

She'd wanted to examine an Ashikabi that had many Sekirei, preferably of all types and Hayato just so happened to be the most suitable for that purpose. Naruto had even been nice enough to give a warning of her coming, but he hadn't cared enough about the brat's welfare to do any more than that. Hayato was fifteen years old and as far as Naruto was concerned, more than old enough that he should have known better than to treat the Sekirei like toys or collectible items and therefore old enough to suffer the consequences of his actions.

While Xanna started examining the many Sekirei bonds linked to Hayato, Mutsu struggled to speak against the chill gripping his body. "Please s-stop, he's just a c-child."

"I am over three thousand years old, do you have any idea how many children I've killed?" Xanna asked flatly without turning to him, continuing to separate the mess of connections into individual threads. "Besides, he is fifteen, not a child and should survive in any case."

Mutsu felt a chill of an entirely different sort crawl up his spine at that bit of knowledge. The off hand claim that Hayato 'should' survive was not particularly comforting either. The horned woman clearly didn't care either way and would make no effort to make certain.

Uncaring of the disabled Sekirei's worries or the fifteen year old Ashikabi's pained crying, Xanna was focused on the system of connections. It did not take her long to find the thread that linked Mutsu to him, as it was the strongest by a considerable margin.

Much to her amusement, it looked as if Hayato had actually established enough connections to the chakra cores of various Sekirei that he would be capable of using a few of the more basic Ninjutsu available to shinobi, even if the chakra he'd siphoned was not really his. Though, with no one to teach him, he'd never have realised it. Once again, this seemed more pronounced with Mutsu's connection, probably a subconscious side effect of the fact that Hayato valued him above any of the others he had. Mutsu was a sort of big brother to him, while the others were merely 'things'.

Curiously, it seemed as if the feelings of distress that Hayato was feeling were also being projected along the connection, though only Mutsu's connection seemed strong enough to carry the feelings.

Wondering if they would carry in the event that his distress was increased, she callously reached over and broke his wrist.

Mutsu instantly felt his Ashikabi's pain and became even more desperate to free himself, but the Outer Path rod kept him immobile. The distress didn't travel along the weak bonds that he had to the others though, making Xanna wonder if it was because he placed no real value in them or if it was because he was simply so used to relying on Mutsu for protection.

Idle curiousity satisfied, she grabbed hold of a random bond and snapped it, sensing the sudden shock of a Sekirei in another corner of the mansion and then a stampede as over twenty Sekirei charged to her position, becoming aware that their Ashikabi was in danger.

They reached her quickly and stormed into the room with the intent of protecting the brat who had enslaved them, the false love that the bond forced on them compelling them to it.

Xanna pinned them to the walls one by one and looked at them closely, this time looking for the same bloodthirst that Naruto had noticed in several Sekirei already.

All of them were throwing curses, threats or pleas to stop hurting their Ashikabi at her, but some were because they wanted to protect their enslaver and some were because they wanted to kill.

Xanna made careful note of the bloodthirsty ones, seeing that every last one of them was a close combat type.

Out of the twenty four Sekirei bonded to Hayato, eighteen used either weapons or fought barehanded. Of those eighteen, seven had only murder in mind and of those seven, five were weapon users. Among the elemental types, there were none.

Considering that there had been only only one hundred and eight Sekirei on their ship, that was a ridiculous number. Any society produces the occasional psychopath, but for so many to be among such a small number of Sekirei could only mean that Naruto was right to smell something suspicious about the whole situation.

It would not have been strange if there were only decent people among the one hundred and eight Sekirei, but to find that seven out of twenty four were natural killers and all of them close combat fighters? Yes, there was definitely something very rotten about the whole thing and Xanna had a feeling that she and Naruto were on the right track to figuring it out.

Her investigations done, the horned goddess proceeded to snap every bond except for that of Mutsu, who had already declared that he wished to stay with the spoiled brat.

That act brought about another wave of exclamations from the gaggle of Sekirei, but it was quickly silenced when she simultaneously broke the necks of all the bloodthisty ones and disintegrated their bodies. She could hardly let them go free and rampage across the city after all, that would almost make her feel responsible for the deaths they'd cause and it was better to just kill them all.

"You were all winged forcibly by this sniveling idiot." Xanna stated, gesturing at the whimpering Hayato, who had barely even noticed the loss of nearly all his Sekirei, focused as he was on his own pain. "I've freed you and made you unwingable so that it cannot happen again. If you actually wanted to stay bonded to the meatbag for some reason, then come speak to my husband and he will restore your winging ability and bring you back here. Mutsu will show you where you can find us." Of course, she very much doubted that any of them would go for that. Once the initial shock wore off, they'd realise that they didn't want anything to do with Hayato and his deluded opinions that Sekirei were toys to be played with, not to mention that Naruto had a strange sort of blunt charisma and could convince a donkey that it was a horse if he had enough time.

Mutsu knew instantly that this was not something to be contested. He would show the newly freed Sekirei to the hotel where the two monsters were staying, or else likely get a visit from the horned man, who would probably finish what his wife had started.

He grimaced when he realised that Naruto hadn't even lied to him. Hayato was alive, though he'd suffered injuries because he'd annoyed the horned woman, but all the effort he'd put into winging as many Sekirei as possible was now gone, having done nothing but make him a target.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Satisfied with what she'd found out and having fulfilled her husband's request to free the Sekirei that Mikogami had forcibly winged, Xanna made her way out. The Sekirei inside the room dropped to the floor and the rod in Mutsu's shoulder vanished, allowing him to move again and start taking care of his injuried Ashikabi.

As soon as she made two steps down the hallways and before she managed to teleport away, her eyebrow started twitching in irritation as she once again saw all the gaudy crap lined along the hall.

Suddenly developing a grin as an idea came to mind, she sent all of it to what Naruto liked to refer as 'the interdimensional storage locker'. She had to admit that it was an appropriate term for the empty spot between dimensions that both of them used to dump various things that they didn't want to get rid of but didn't want to carry around in real space either. It was convenient place because it was in permanent temporal stasis and thus, nothing inside it suffered from the ravages of time.

A couple of minutes later, Mikogami Hayato's front yard was host to the most expensive bonfire in the history of bonfires.