A strange new life

6.23.n – Sunshine brat in: Where is this granny-ttebayo? Part 2

Naruto flooded the clearing with clones and swarmed the enemy.

Kimimaro spun faster than Naruto expected. Bones protruded from the joints of his elbows and knees, from his chest and back. Attacks were deflected, dodged, or simply ignored. More often than not, Kimimaro moved in a way that made Naruto’s clones impale themselves in the bones.

Naruto moved around until he was at the enemy’s back. He threw shuriken when an opportunity arose.

Without turning, Kimimaro deflected the thrown weapons.

How? Did that guy have eyes in the back of his head or something?

“You’re weak,” Kimimaro said.

He killed a dozen of the clones in a sweeping, fast strike. More swarmed, but it wasn’t enough. The guy was faster than Hinata-chan even when she went all out, better at taijutsu than Bushy Brows and Sasuke combined. The clones couldn’t touch him, and in the rare moments they did, they ended up impaling themselves in the bones.

In the distance, a quake hit the whole city. Naruto’s attention tore away from the bone-guy and toward the commotion: Giant waves crashed through the houses, sweeping the place in destruction.

Pain exploded on Naruto’s side.

“You shouldn’t take your eyes off the enemy,” Kimimaro said.

Naruto looked at the white-haired boy who didn’t look that older than some other chunin in the village. Kimimaro held the bone sword, the pointy end piercing Naruto’s side.

Rage bubbled inside Naruto’s gut. In the back of his mind, he heard the damned fox chuckling. Chakra spilled forward. Naruto pushed the sword away. The puncture wound regenerated in but a moment.

“Why are you doing this?” Naruto asked, teeth gritted.

“Telling you is a waste of time,” Kimimaro said.

Naruto’s hand flashed with a seal. He flooded the jutsu with the Kyuubi’s chakra. He covered the whole clearing with even more clones.

“I’m gonna beat you up!” Naruto hollered.

His clones swarmed the enemy again, trying for the same strategy that worked against Gaara while he was half-transformed into the one tail. Meanwhile, Naruto concentrated on his hand, trying to form a complete Rasengan.

Naruto just realized that… he had no other jutsu to help him in this situation.

Hinata-chan had her explosions and doton jutsu, as well as her body flicker and barriers. Sasuke had his family fire and Chidori; he could copy the enemy's movements with his Sharingan and use shinobi tools better than anyone Naruto had seen.

Naruto, on the other hand, had no other jutsu other than shadow clones.

“Naruto! We got your message.” A woman’s voice called out.

He followed the voice. It wasn’t just one woman. It was the young-looking Obaa-san and her companion. The one who called out was Shizune, the pretty black-haired one. The words registered in Naruto’s mind. What message?

Shizune was fast. She pointed her arm toward Kimimaro and did something Naruto couldn’t see.

Kimimaro reacted even faster than before. His bone sword spun, and Naruto heard clinking sounds—like metal hitting metal. Then Kimimaro pointed his hand toward Shizune. No, not his hands, his fingers.

With a wet popping sound, a small white something flew from his fingertips. Shizune threw herself out of the way. The projectiles hit the earth behind her, creating a small hole.

Out in the distance, the other battle still raged on. The sounds and impacts doing a good job of telling Naruto he had no business whatsoever with whoever was causing that much ruckus.

Tsunade, who had been mostly quiet, dashed in, waving between Naruto’s clones. She punched down. The ground broke into a vast crater. Most of the copies got caught up in the ensuing devastation and dispersed.

“You punk, you’re too young to be this cocky,” She said.

“You are Tsunade,” Kimimaro said from where he had fled. “Orochimaru told me how to deal with you.”

Orochimaru? Who was that? Naruto had heard that name before.

“You’re working with that snake?” Shizune demanded.

Tsunade moved in again, ready to attack once more. This time, Kimimaro didn’t evade; he punctured his hands with a bone and splashed blood all over Tsunade.

The young Obaa-san stopped, staring at her bloody hands. She started to shiver like she was lost in her mind.

Kimimaro advanced on the now frozen young-old lady.

“Tsunade!” Shizune yelled, but she was too far away to help.

Naruto wasn’t, or his clones weren’t. In that one moment of clarity, he knew what he had to do. His problem was that he couldn’t control his chakra. One of him wasn’t enough to contain it. But hadn’t Hinata-chan taught him better? His copies were more than just copies.

Clones rushed Kimimaro, getting in his way and preventing him from approaching the obaa-chan.

Meanwhile, Naruto built the power and rotation while a second clone contained it. Once it was done, a third clone grabbed Naruto’s other hand, spun, and threw the original at Kimimaro, who was still fending off clone waves.

Kimimaro spun toward Naruto. His arm morphed into a large bone structure-like shield. The Rasengan hit the bone, bone cracked, but that gave Kimimaro time to move and throw Naruto away from him.

Naruto fell, hand first. His complete Rasengan hit the ground, created another huge crater.

“Time’s up, Kimimaro.” Another voice said. Naruto cast a glance. It was a guy that looked a lot like a shark. He even had gills and a tail, like a shark. The guy was also banged up pretty badly. Blood poured out of his mouth; pieces of flesh were missing from his arms and chest.

“The Frog Sannin will be here any second.”

“Annoying,” Kimimaro said.

Dark lines spread from his neck until it covered most of his face and shoulder. He placed his hands on the ground, and a forest of bones sprouted around Naruto. The bones looked wicked sharp and dangerous.

Naruto heard an agonized yell. Shizune or Obaa-chan, he couldn’t tell.

Kimimaro walked from between the bones. “You’re coming with—”

Between one moment and another, Ero-sennin was in front of Naruto. He looked different, with two tiny frogs on his shoulders.

“No, he’s not,” He said.

Kimimaro looked around, then, as if he had heard someone say something, nodded and retreated back inside the bones.

Jiraiya turned toward Naruto. The man didn't look like he had just fought a battle that wreaked the whole city.

“I’m sorry it took me so long, Naruto.”

Naruto looked in stunned silence for a while, then he yelled. “The obaa-chan!”

“Shit!” Jiraiya whirled, dashed inside the forest of deadly bones.

As it turned out, the forest of bones wasn’t something that affected only the area where Naruto was. Half of the already destroyed city had been caught in the attack. Many had died.

Shizune and Tsunade hadn’t come out unscathed as well.

Somehow, the Obaa-san had managed to stay alive even with a bone piercing her stomach and out her back. Right now, she was healing Shizune. The woman looked dead on her feet, and now, old; really old, like an old wrinkly hag.

Jiraiya approached, carrying Tonton, Shizune’s pink pet pig.

“I’m sorry Tsunade,” He said, placed the dead piglet by the Obaa-chan side.

“Shizune is going to live,” Tsunade said, her wrinkling voice sounding weak. She got up with difficulty and walked to the dead piglet. With gentle movements, she picked it up and hugged it.

“Take her back to Konoha,” Obaa-chan said. She turned away and started walking.

“Where are you going?” Jiraiya asked.

“Don’t try to find me again,” Tsunade answered without looking back.

Naruto looked at the scene, feeling conflicted. He didn’t have a good impression of the old lady, but this felt bad on a whole new level. He didn’t even have the courage to demand the necklace, even if he had won the bet.