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Post by giga on Oct 8, 2012 21:52:27 GMT
C
Nagato is a monster.
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Post by overtninja on Oct 8, 2012 22:33:47 GMT
C seems like the most interesting.
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Post by Zeo on Jan 21, 2013 5:59:51 GMT
How's life been, guys?
-----
After trotting a short distance away, you duck back into an alley between two buildings and flick your hands through the usual motions.
In moments and a large puff of smoke, six Naruto Uzumaki's are left standing around, and five of them are clasping a separate sheet of paper each.
"You guys know the plan, right?" You ask.
The nearest shadow clone nods his head firmly, taking on a random villager-henge afterward. The others follow suit and then quickly disperse, leaving you alone once more.
Like your clones, you take a moment to henge, settling into the more comfortable appearance of your older self.
Now that I have mom and dad here, and the Kyuubi under control, it's time to focus on Amegakure, you think, cracking your knuckles.
Nagato nearly beat me black and blue the last time we met. It's going to take everything I have just to try and knock some sense into him, and Hanzo... Hanzo is definitely going to be an issue.
Shaking your head, you turn around and begin to emerge before stopping again as you catch a reflection of yourself in a window ahead.
Your eyes are still blue and your features softened, rather than the burning gold of Sage Mode and the heightened lines that should be there.
"How could you forget that?" You ask yourself irritably. Shaking your head, your close your eyes and settle down to get a good feel for nature energy when an different idea crops up.
"I wonder..." trailing off, you repeat the motions of the henge and examine yourself a moment later - the traits associated with grasping senjutsu energy are present in your reflection.
Grinning at the easier way of maintaining the illusion of two Naruto Uzumaki's roaming Konoha now, you shunshine out from the alley and begin heading toward the training grounds the Hokage had reserved specifically for Hanzo's usage ever since the last shinobi to try practicing near him met the same fate Yamato had.
-----
In minutes you've tracked down the far-away training grounds.
It's almost half-way to the Hokage monument, following along the same path leading to the former Root base, but its secluded enough to keep the poison from spreading toward any particular Clan districts or civilian housing, either.
Even if it weren't, however, you espy a few seal markers along the way, carefully guarded by a single ANBU each.
The last of them intercepts you before you can approach the unseen barrier nearest to Hanzo.
"Hold, Uzumaki-kun," the eagle-faced man orders.
You pause, letting your red cloak settle down now that it is out of your windstream.
"Hokage-sama has rendered this land off-limits to anyone barring Hanzo-san or those with his permission," he says.
"Ah," you answer, thinking a moment. "I just came from a meeting with Old man- er, Hokage-sama," you correct, trying another grin.
You can not see the ANBU's expression, but by the tension in his stance, his opinion of the long-lost elder-brother-you just fell to somewhere equivalent to the child-you.
"No one enters, Uzumaki. Show me your signed approval or scram." He orders flatly.
"Alright, alright," you answer.
Rummaging inside of your red coat, you barely flick your fingers through the summoning of a shadow clone and cover the puff of smoke with a brief cough, hunching over.
After a moment your fingers dig into a particularly deep pocket and draw out a scroll, which you attempt to hand over.
He draws a kunai and holds it loosely toward you in response. "Open it yourself," he instructs.
You frown and look back down to it, then thumb it open and hold the hopefully-accurately-looking orders out - they should be accurate, given what you saw on his desk twenty minutes before and plenty of times before that in both timelines, but you might have missed something.
He nods his head once in satisfaction after a few moments and turns around, digging the kunai underneath the seal before him and prying it free of the tree it is stuck to.
"Go on - hurry!" He says tautly.
"Right."
Nodding your head you dash forward, and just before shunshining again, you hear him murmur beneath his breath, "I hope you have an antidote on you, brat."
Your frown dissolves into a grimace as the barrier is reapplied behind your back, and you let the clone-henged scroll vanish as well once you are out of sight.
In a few minutes you find the air has begun to reek of a putrid stench, and the trees nearby start to thin even further than they already were, becoming wispy, barren things devoid of the leaves the village is so named for.
It doesn't take long thereafter to find Hanzo himself, performing katas and practicing with a chain-sickle.
Every few motions he pauses to expel a thick, poisonous breath into the environment, and then launches into it with a swing of the blade as through striking toward vital points on an opponent.
The air is almost unbreathable this close to the man, and you drag a sleeve over your nose and mouth just to avoid gagging.
His shoulders stiffen in the middle of the next motion, and that chain is suddenly whipping around and driving toward your shoulder.
"Hey!" dropping flat to the ground, you barely duck the strike, only to have it whip back toward him with a practiced flick of the wrist.
The whistling tip is barely a warning before it digs into your right shoulder from behind instead of the front, merely trading one injury for another.
Scarlet pain lances through the torn muscle and bleeds straight down to your elbow, running along and spiraling up your neck.
"Ow! What the hell are you doing?" You shout at him from between clenched teeth.
Hanzo allows the chain to go slack in his grip, but at your words he draws it taut again and yanks the blade free, drawing another yelp from your lips while he catches the sickle cleanly in his other hand.
"What do you want, Uzumaki-san?" He asks instead of answering you.
Dragging yourself up into a sitting position, you slap your other hand over the bleeding shoulder by instinct, and try to suppress a wince.
The fingers beneath the wound feel numb, but you still force them to comply and take a moment to call up another few shadow clones.
One of them strips off your cloak for you and quickly begins ripping it to pieces for tying around the inch by half-inch jagged slit, while another draws out an actual scroll from your waist and opens it up.
The seal on the inside of it will slow the bleeding down by a marginal degree, but short of seeing an actual medic, nothing will stop the wound permanently.
He activates it and presses it gingerly to the wound, and immediately afterward the others begin wrapping the cloth around it to slow the flow down even further, pulling tightly enough to make you growl.
Hanzo watches all of this in silence, before idly flicking the chain out and scything cleaning through each clones neck with a small adjustment of his wrist with each motion.
"Again I ask, what do you want, Uzumaki-san?"
Grimacing at the older shinobi, you force your feet underneath you and stand up.
Your right arm feels more leaden than limb at this point, and it seems more than a little probable that some of his poison has been spread over the blade- meaning its circulating around inside of your body even as you stand there.
What do you do? A. Ignore the risks of the poison and declare you are there to spar and train with Hanzo in preparation for re-taking Ame in a couple of months. B. Forget about dealing with Hanzo and seek out medical treatment immediately.
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Post by overtninja on Jan 22, 2013 7:34:10 GMT
A. Kuruma's healing abilities should buy us some time.
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Post by Zeo on Jan 22, 2013 11:21:31 GMT
Yeah, that was more a place-holder vote than anything.
-----
"I came here to offer my help when you take on Amegakure in two months," you respond sourly, barely covering a cough that sends a wave of pain through the injury and all along the surrounding muscles.
His dark eyes narrow, and he flicks the chain around in the air a few times as if deliberating the purpose of attacking you once again.
Unwilling to chance it with the strike-happy man, you thrust your good hand into your pocket and draw out a kunai, internally molding the necessary chakra to enhance it.
"And what can you do that your Sandaime Hokage can not, child?" He asks, still rotating the blade to the tune of a quiet whistling, but his stance hasn't yet adjusted as it did the first few attacks.
Bringing the kunai up, you hastily draw in as much of a fair breath as you can before expelling it across the length of the blade, pouring your gathered chakra out.
The weapon takes on a more vibrant edge as the wind-natured chakra covers and stretches across it, leaving a proper blade gripped in between your fingers.
"Has he declined the offer to help?" You finally ask in return, stalling for a moment to verify something internally.
None of the Kyuubi's energy has manifested yet, nor has the normal recovery begun to manifest around the slit in your shoulder.
A distant echo in your mind seems to confirm what you had already begun to suspect - something about the modified seal is limiting the Kyuubi's influence. Whether that was intentionally done or not by your parents, you aren't going to be making a swift recovery from any wounds sustained in the foreseeable future.
Even if that hadn't been the case, however, revealing yourself to be the jinchuriki of the Nine Tails does not seem like something you would want to do.
It's worth the pain.
A beat after the thought, Hanzo leans to one side and suddenly throws the chain forward, flicking his wrist as usual to adjust the angle on the fly.
You swing your left arm up and around to block the blade with your own, sending it careening toward the dirt.
"No, he has not. Nor has he agreed to remain neutral."
Wrapping the chain around one arm, he rips it back toward him and snatches the object free, scanning for damages caused by the chakra.
Your fingers barely respond to the effort to move them, and the pain is beginning to reach toward the back of your neck, slithering toward your ribcage.
Hanzo turns his gaze back to you and you have the distinct feeling he is examining your body just the same, as if determining how swiftly the poison is working.
"You will be useless in a matter of minutes, Uzumaki-san. Disabled within ten, and dead at dusk." His voice is coldly efficient, simply stating facts.
"What?"
He points the tip of the sickle at your heart, and rakes it up toward your head. "The poison works toward the two greatest organs in the body. I have refined it further thanks to your Hokage's efforts here," he explains, and sweeps the weapon around at the dead trees and vegetation.
For a long moment, fear runs through your heart.
Not just fear at your own death, but fear of what will become of the world if it is allowed to progress on the same route as before - of what Madara Uchiha can do with the released Kyuubi on the loose in the elemental nations.
Your arm is entirely useless by now, and numbness is working along your ribcage toward your heart, pumping through the veins all the quicker at your rapid heartbeat.
Naruto, calm down! Just as the fox's voice had spoken to you before, your father's does so now, if slightly more strained.
Forget about fighting him like you are and gather the Kyuubi's chakra like you did before! he instructs.
Exhaling quickly, you drop the wind-enhanced blade and stumble back from Hanzo, trying to take a few shallow and calming breaths.
It isn't working.
A sudden wrenching sensation pulls at the edges of your consciousness, but you fight against it.
Hanzo stands as he was, watching you succumb to his poison without eagerness, only approval of his handiwork.
Son, take the Kyuubi's chakra and the damages will stop! both of their voices rush through your head.
You force your eyes closed and swallow another breath of air around the tension in your chest, dragging your left hand across the seal in your stomach to try and focus.
Like a floodgate opened, the pain is doubled, tripled... and suddenly a burning current cascades throughout your body, radiating from the seal outward.
The worst of it is swept aside. The seal over the slit erupts into flame as the Kyuubi's vile chakra radiates around the source of corruption, and where that chakra flows, the numbness is gradually repulsed.
Well done, Minato's voice echoes in your mind, fatigue apparent in the tone.
Th... thanks, dad, mom, you think in return.
The panic is gone. The overwhelming life contained within the yang-chakra amplifies the natural healing process even further, and you shrug up to your feet again wearily.
Hanzo stares in complete silence as you work your right hand slowly. That transitions up to the elbow, to the shoulder, and finally to a shallow but even breath.
The dead trees around you shudder as new seeds sprout, spreading to fresh bulbs and tiny leaves. In moments the vegetation is not exactly flourishing, but certainly recovering.
"This is what I can do," you finally answer his original question.
Hanzo's pupils are widened to the limit as he looks from one point to another.
"Very well... Uzumaki-san." His tone is not quite angered, if mildly stunned, but he accepts the apparent ability you possess and wraps the chain around his arm to store it for the moment.
"If my basic poison can not fell you, then allow me to test the limits of your worth against that wretched brat!"
His posture has changed; unlike before, where he had been dismissive of you, perhaps even testing you, the shinobi before you now is ready for combat.
-----
Intermission point.
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Post by giga on Jan 23, 2013 21:28:34 GMT
Cool.
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Post by overtninja on Jan 23, 2013 22:06:33 GMT
^ Your sig...
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Post by giga on Jan 24, 2013 5:56:14 GMT
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Post by Zeo on Jul 30, 2017 8:11:21 GMT
Guess who's back, back again? Zeo's back, tell a friend.
So yo my friends, long years no updates hey? Only excuse is life. Life finds a way- but no, seriously, I've had a lot of stuff I've been busy with. Well, I think that I can afford to put time back into this CYOA now, even if it has to be weekly rather than daily or the like as I'd once hoped to maintain. I've just spent the past couple hours(between watching Toonami too) to refresh my memory of events. I cannot believe how much this has swayed away from the original fic(that I still need to rewrite too, jeez). I intend for us to get back to the thick of things in the coming days and, at the very least, to complete the Amegakure saga before I vanish into the ether anew.
I'm really pleased to see that at least one old CYOA is still active. I'd vote on it but I'm extremely lost and I need to reread from the beginning, and that is a lot of pages, so I'll try to vote when I can.
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Post by stabngrab on Jul 30, 2017 8:18:24 GMT
Hullo!
I'm a newer writer around the block (as in I've been writing is 2015 oh boy) , a main in the chat down below, but nice to see one of the old guard coming back. Most naruto CYOAs these days take place on the Naruto Storm Generation's board on gamefaqs. Pyro remains the last hold out here, pretty much.
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