Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Prologue – Arc 1: The Soul Robber

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Chapter 5: A dragon in the dragon's fire

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Shikamaru, Choji, Tsubai, Natsuri and Himari are all still standing on the beach while everyone else runs away from the sea.

"Is that a damn fucking dragon!" yells Tsubai as the monster moves its eyes as if it was looking for something in the village.

"That's a huge problem right there,..." says Shikamaru, out of options. "There's not much we can do against this flying thing. We can at least help to evacuate the beach."

The black dragon turns its head to the Minamoto mansion, and a violent storm suddenly starts. As the village is quickly overtaken by the storm, a black thunderbolt strikes the mansion and completely blasts it off.

"Shit!", says Himari. "Good thing you asked the maids to leave, Tsubai!"

"IS THAT SHIT REAL!" screams Natsuri still standing next to Shikamaru.

"New Plan!" shouts Shikamaru, "Miss Natsuri, go take cover with Himari. We'll evacuate the villagers."

"No time for that!", says Choji. "It's right there and already about to destroy everything that's on the surface of this village."

"Then we'll gather the people in the undergrounds." answers Shikamaru.

"Cool but who the fuck is supposed to fight that dragon shit then?" asks Tsubai seeing the dragon bend over to come closer to the village.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it.", says a calm voice behind them.

Everybody turns around, even the dragon looks to the person who just arrived on the beach.

"Naruto?" asks Shikamaru. "Will it be okay alone!"

"Of course... Go, you five. Focus on saving the people", answers Naruto while walking on the beach toward the dragon. "Now, show me what you got!"

Shikamaru and others leave the beach and go to gather the village's inhabitants in the undergrounds. The dragon hurries to fly down to Naruto as he's the only person remaining on the beach. Naruto jumps right to the beast's face and unleashes his Biju Chakra Mode, and then his Biju Mode. Kurama's avatar appears more than 100 meters tall and grabs the dragon's head who was going straight to the village. He then lifts his 9 tails up in the air and strikes the dragon's horns and neck to the ground with all of them at once.

At the hostel, Sasuke still in his room hurries to stand up and grab his cloak and sword. He just felt that powerful strike on the ground, and it probably went through the whole village and more. He can feel Naruto unleashing his Biju Chakra outside, but surprisingly, he doesn't feel anything else. From his point of view, Naruto is fighting alone. Sakura suddenly opens the room's door.

"You stood up? Where are you going"

"Isn't it obvious?" he answers.

"It is, but you shouldn't. Naruto is taking care of it. You can at least help the others to protect the villagers."

"I'm not doing that."

"Yes you are. You need to earn those people's trust. We were talking about this just yesterday, did you already forget?"

"..."

"I did my best to make you recover until now. You could bring much help to Shikamaru, Choji and Hinata right now, so do it", she says just before leaving.

Sasuke just stands there next to the bed. He is surprised by the way Sakura spoke to him just now. It didn't bother him. On the contrary, he finds it good that she finally dares to speak as she thinks with him. He decides to do just as she said and leaves the room, looking for Tsubai.

On the sea, not far away from the beach, 3 Kurama clones grab the dragon's tail, pull and throw it away from the beach. The three Kurama clones caught fire by touching the dragon's body. They are all three being burnt down by mysterious blue flames. The dragon stops mid-air and tries to shoot the real Naruto in his Biju Mode with black thunderbolts. Naruto manages to dodge all of them except the last one who strikes the Kurama avatar and destroys its upper-body.

"This long lizard dog is really manipulating the weather as he wishes. These thunderbolts aren't as well controlled as Sasuke's Kirin. But they are black." says Naruto to Kurama. "You think they are senjutsu?"

"This thing..." answers Kurama. "It looks like it's manipulating all the surrounding natural chakra. Even these blue flames... There's something special about them that I still don't see. It can't just be Fire release. But yeah, It's definitely Senjutsu."

"Well if this monster's a sage, how come I can't feel any chakra emanating from it?"

Kurama is shocked as he realizes he too can't feel the dragon's chakra.

"You're in Sage Mode. It shouldn't be possible for you not to feel its chakra. But whatever, it's a dragon and that isn't supposed to exist anyway. Could it be that its powers don't come from chakra?"

"Well, this thing's tough", says Naruto. "But as I promised to Hinata, I'm still beating the shit out of this flying dog snake! Katashiki seems to be pretty bad at controlling it."

Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)

Many dozens of Naruto shadow clones appear and all jump toward the dragon to throw their punches at it together. Every clone who lands a hit is immediately burnt and forced to disperse by blue flames coming from under the black scales when they're damaged. Still, the clones manage to push the dragon further and further away from the land.

Meanwhile, Sakura runs to the beach to see how Naruto's doing. Tsubai who's currently helping Himari and Natsuri down a cave in the hostel with some other friends sees her running in the wrong direction.

"I'm leaving you and your friends there. Don't move or try anything stupid." he says just before going to follow Sakura.

"Wait! Where are you going?" shouts Himari as Tsubai hurries to close the cave's trapdoor and leave without giving an answer.

"Stay here! You heard him right? We better don't try anything stupid." says Natsuri to Himari who was already preparing to follow him.

"Miss Yokawa... You're right..." she answers as she sits down on the ground next to her.

"Lord Tsubai grew some balls as I can see." says another young girl sitting next to Natsuri. "What happened to him?" she asks Himari since she was the only person with him on his travel.

"... I don't know... I don't understand anything of what's going on with his life right now. I just know I should stay next to him no matter what happens."

"... Why are you so strongly concerned about his life? Do you love him?"

"What? No! I don't think I do… It's just that… Tsubai seems like he really needs a friend like me these days… I'm just making sure he has someone he can rely on."

"Geiri..." says Natsuri calling the girl speaking with Himari. "You should worry more about what's gonna happen to your village rather than about Tsubai's love life."

"Yeah right! Sorry Natsuri." answers Geiri. "I'm just trying to not get into things I won't understand. Like there's currently a giant yellow shiny nine-tailed fox wrestling with a giant black dragon right there on the beach. It's better for my mental health to be more concerned about people I know than about this weird stuff."

"Yeah..." answers Natsuri. "you got a point".

On the sea, the dragon is still being forced away from the village. Naruto's forcefulness and uninterrupted rain of clones is keeping the creature from making any counter-attack. At least, it was what Naruto was trying to do. The dragon utters a violent howl pushing Naruto and the clones away. It turns its head to the Kurama Avatar and starts gathering chakra in front of its mouth to form a black and red ball.

"What's this?" asks Naruto. "Some kind of customized version of the Bijudama?"

"Don't know but you better not take it right in my face!" answers Kurama.

The orb suddenly grows 5 times bigger and is fired at high speed in Naruto's direction, speed so high that even the Kurama Chakra Mode has no time to dodge it. It easily pierces through the Kurama avatar's body and the air to make its way through the sky above the village before hitting the mountain and exploding as it touches the ground, resulting in a huge hole in the whole mountain and a powerful shock wave, shaking even the village's undergrounds.

"Shit that was powerful!" says Kurama to Naruto, while looking at the mountain with only his upper body remaining posed on the ocean's surface.

The dragon turns to Naruto and lays his body down on the water and slides rapidly to him with its mouth wide open. Naruto turns back to his opponent and raises Kurama's hands to stop the monster's jaw from swallowing him whole, but is struggling to keep it away.

"Fuck it! Here, check out my version of the chakra orb!" yells the Biju.

Kurama's avatar, whose remaining part of the head and upper body is entirely between the monster's enormous jaws, opens its mouth and loads a Bijudama inside of the dragon's head. Shooting it inside its jaw, Naruto provokes the dragon's jaw and face to blow up, along with what remained of his Biju Mode. As the blown up head of the dragon is being pushed back by the shock, Naruto crosses his fingers.

Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multi-shadow clone jutsu)

A thousand of Naruto clones appear in front of the monster and half of them create Big Ball Rasengans in their hands to strike its long and giant body and pressure it down in the ocean. The first half of clones disappear and let the other five hundreds take action. To prevent it from fleeing, they all use Magnet Release - Rasengan at the same time to try and seal the dragon before it can escape, like Naruto did for the giant octopus. And just like with all the other beasts, the defeated dragon's remains glow to blow up, but this time, it explodes immediately and violently in the deep sea, making all the 500 clones explode with it and lifting the ocean up. The explosion is so powerful it provokes a giant tsunami like wave that heads in all directions, including the Ryuka village. The wave hits the original Naruto, breaks what remains of his Biju Mode and overthrows him.

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A few seconds sooner, Sasuke, in the village, was covering a bunch of people with Susanoo to protect them from the shock wave caused by the Dragon's orb explosion. He makes sure everyone is fine before undoing his jutsu and goes to open the main door of a building. He turns to one of the people behind him and asks:

"There's a cave or some underground in your shop, right?"

"It's my dad's shop, but yes there's something like that." answers the young woman.

"Then, can you guide everyone that's behind you inside and to the cave?"

"Yes, of course. There's nobody left in the village after us, is it?"

"Yes, I'm leaving it to you here" says Sasuke as he turns around ready to join Naruto in his fight.

"Wait!…" She grabs Sasuke's hand to stop him. He turns back to her. "Thank you!"

"…" He says nothing and just stares at her in a thankful way, even though she was the one being thankful.

"The village leader isn't there, which means nobody asked or paid you for your service, but you and your friends are still doing all of this for us. I, We all owe you our lives." says the woman still holding Sasuke's hand.

Suddenly a light blinds the village. Sasuke turns to the sea to see an explosion in the distance and a giant wave heading to the beach. The explosion seems to come from very far away since the sound of the blast still didn't reach them.

"Damn! Get to safety now!" says Sasuke.

"Yeah…" answers the girl letting Sasuke's hand go.

He heads directly to the beach. Sakura, standing on there already, sees the giant wave get closer. "Naruto, you messed up!" she thinks. "Good thing we thought of hiding people in the undergrounds… I just hope everybody is in a safe place already.". She turns around to go and make sure her fellow ninjas are done with hiding everyone. At the same moment she turns her back, a black spiral portal open in front of her.

Katashiki in person comes out of it and directly stabs her twice around the heart with two pointy chakra rods before she even has time to do anything. Reacting a bit too late, Sakura gives a powerful punch to the man in front of her to push him back in his portal. He takes the hit right in the torso and flies back through his gate. But he forces his own soul out of his body, flies back to Sakura and manages to grab her shoulder. He immediately starts to pull the injured woman's soul out of her body as she can't do anything against it.

Already thinking about everything this girl could do for him as a Tsukumogami, Katashiki's thoughts are suddenly interrupted, just like all his movements. The only thing still working on his body are his eyes still seeing what's in front of him but unable to move. Just like him, Sakura also seems to be frozen in space like that. Even the grains of sand around her and the giant wave behind are completely still in the air.

Katashiki's rinnegans could see everything standing still except for one thing: Minamoto Tsubai running toward him as fast as possible. Tsubai falls on his knees, looking exhausted, and turns his head to Sasuke, as still as the rest of the world, who's coming to save Sakura. Tsubai loudly exhales as everything starts to move normally again.

Katashiki turns his eyes to Tsubai for not even a second trying to understand what happened, but turns back to Sakura as he senses something surprising about what he is trying to pull out of her.

"This woman... I'm grabbing more than just her soul there".

Ameno Tejikara

Before he could think more about it, Sakura disappears and is replaced by Sasuke in front of him who cuts through the flying soul with his sword. Unsurprisingly, it has absolutely no effect, and the soul just flies back to its body in the portal.

"You and this woman are closer to each other than I thought." he says to Sasuke before closing his portal and leaving the place.

Sasuke immediately turns to Sakura, now sitting on the ground where he landed earlier. He turns to the sea and sees the giant wave come to them. He runs to grab the girl, then hurries to Tsubai and summons Susanoo around them to cover from what is about to come.

The tsunami reaches the village and quickly overtakes the beach. It reaches the village and crushes down the first buildings, including the hostel and the surrounding restaurants. It floods the whole village and ends splashing in the forest behind. The water level in the village slowly gets down to normal and back to the sea.

Naruto who was thrown away by the explosion along with the water, was brought back to the village by the wave. Sasuke deactivates the Susanoo who perfectly protected them from the wave and lays Sakura on the ground next to him with her head resting on his lap out of the water before taking the rods out of her body. Tsubai turns to the village to make sure everything's okay.

"Oh damn..." he says seeing the destroyed buildings and half flood village.

"Did you just stop time?" asks Sasuke.

"What?" answers Tsubai. "How do you know? Did you see it? You weren't supposed to."

"We'll talk about this later." Sasuke says while looking at Sakura. "Can't you heal yourself anymore?" he asks her who's strongly bleeding from her wounds.

"N-No... I... u-used up all the... chakra of the..." answers Sakura, struggling to speak.

"Stop talking!" yells Sasuke. "Don't worry for the villagers. We got them all to safe spaces earlier. They just have to wait for the flood to end." he says to Tsubai. "More important. We need to get her to medic-nins."

"I don't think the hospital from here is operational right now... And if you want to find medical ninjutsu users, the best place is obviously Konoha."

"Ok then..." answers Sasuke who immediately forms the Perfect Susanoo Body around Sakura and him and flies up the sky to Konoha.

Tsubai is thrown away by the formation and take-off of the Giant Chakra Body. He gets back on his legs further away among the flooded buildings. Meanwhile, Naruto walks through the village to join the beach.

"What the hell was that dragon?" he asks to Kurama inside of him.

"Do you really expect a correct answer?" answers the fox. "A dragon like giant creature that can not be sensed even by your Sage Mode… that could also manipulate the weather, create black thunder and extremely strong blue flames… And has a jutsu similar to my Bijudama. I strongly doubt all these powers come from Katashiki. We may never know what that shit was."

Naruto scratches his head, thinking, then raises his head to look at the Susanoo flying away from the village. Confused, he gets closer to the beach and sees Tsubai going to the hostel's location. He hurries to join him.

"Where is he going?" asks Naruto about Sasuke.

"Oh umh! His girl is injured. He's bringing her to Konoha as fast as possible." Tsubai answers while going through the shattered walls of the hostel.

"Sakura? What happened to her?"

"Oh! Katashiki came damn outta nowhere and stabbed her to death, except she isn't dead somehow." answers Tsubai reaching for a trapdoor on the ground.

"Shit… You better hurry, Sasuke…" says Naruto quietly looking at the sky in direction of Konoha.

"Could you get rid of the water around here so they can leave this cave without it being flooded?"

"Sure. I won, but I kinda messed up anyway..." answers Naruto as he simply uses Wind Release to push the water away.

Tsubai opens the door and releases the girls from the cave. Geiri, Natsuri's friend, runs out of the hole and jumps to Tsubai's neck who makes a surprised and disturbed face as her body touches his.

"Tsubai lord! You saved us all!" yells Geiri in Tsubai's ears.

"yeah yeah. damn!" he says quietly while pushing her back.

Naruto just looked at them cheering as if the place wasn't totally ruined. "It seems he's popular with girls... As if he did anything." he thinks.

"Thank you!" sings Himari, jumping to Naruto. "You defeated that thing! I'm sure you did as you said yesterday: Destroy its flying ass before it even touches the ground."

"Hehe, exactly." says Naruto smiling, and thinking Himari is kinda trying to raise awareness to the other girls.

"We all owe you life! If it wasn't for you, the village would look even more terrible!"

"I know I messed up, but Hinata and all managed to keep everyone safe. And this sage dragon's not gonna come back, ya know!"

Geiri and all the girls who were hiding with Natsuri turn to Naruto at the same time and go to him to cheer.

"Girls, he has a girlfriend." says Tsubai to stop them all at once.

"But you don't." says Geiri.

"Yeah but none of you is my type." he answers immediately.

"That was cold!" says Natsuri.

Hinata, Shikamaru and Choji join them in the hostel's ruins.

"Looks like our vacations are ruined." says Choji.

"You should still stay there to make sure everything goes right." suggests Tsubai who then turns to Natsuri. "Natsuri, I entrust this village and it population to you."

"What? Why? Where are you going?" say Himari, Geiri and Natsuri together.

"I can't stay there or else, something like this is just gonna happen over and over until I die."

"I'm coming with you." says Himari with a serious voice.

"No you're not. You better stay here, But you, noodle-head, you're coming with me."

"Mister Minamoto", says Shikamaru. "If you're willing to keep this village safe, then Himari should leave as well. The enemy knows about her and her link to you. He could use her to get to you if she stays."

"Sigh... Ok Himari come then."

"And me?" asks Naruto. "Is it because you need the both of me and Sasuke to beat Katashiki up?"

"Naruto, It's also because you could help Tsubai with getting along with the Tengu." answers Shikamaru.

"I see. I go back to Konoha and you three stay here until everyone's fine." says Naruto.

"Fine" says Tsubai. "As I said, I entrust the village to you, Natsuri."

"It's okay, you can trust me. I'll take command of everything until you or your father come back." answers Natsuri.

Naruto Uzumaki, Tsubai Minamoto and Himari Sakazawa leave the village of Ryuka and head to Konoha.

Far away, on the mountain, a man with half-long brown hair, a brown and red uniform and a crossed-out Yugakure headband on the right arm observes the group of three with binoculars. The man takes a talkie-walkies from his pocket.

"Voodoo to Sir Minamoto. A hole was pierced in the mountain, but the village seems safe. The last Uchiha left the village with the fifth Hokage's student. Your son is leaving right now, but the Kyubi's jinchuriki is still with him. Over."

The man puts the binoculars and the talkie back in his pockets and turns around leaving the place.

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Some hours later, Katashiki still in his hideout in the middle of the ocean, is speaking with a mysterious man. By using something similar to the Astral Projection Jutsu, he can see an image of his interlocutor: A tall pale man, around 1.90 meters, with long gray-green hair, two large, thick and pointy light brown horns on top of his head, two Byakugans and a red marking going through his chest and the right side of his face. He's wearing nothing more than a simple black gown with a white belt above his hips. The two men are discussing about what happened a few hours ago in the village of Ryuka.

"The Yamabushi used a new jutsu to stop me from taking the girl's soul. It was like time had stopped and the only thing that could still move was him, except I could still see. I'm not sure if anyone could or just me thanks to the rinnegan."

"I know this jutsu. Kala or Jikanteido (Time Stop)." answers the mysterious person. "He did stop time and you still could see only thanks to your Dojutsu. It freezes the whole dimension in which it's performed. But since the user is a simple human, he probably can't maintain it for more than a few seconds and will not be able to keep the jutsu active if he touches any living thing."

"I see... Also, I felt something when I grabbed this woman's soul. It seems like another life has just started to grow in her. Since she's the Rinnegan user's partner, It is no use to me, but I thought you may want to know it."

"... Not me, but I know who would be interested by this."

"Who? Do you mean the World Consumer? Momo..."

"I made a deal with him." interrupts the man. "The time of his coming to this world is getting closer. I know you intend to leave soon but not me. So I need to find something to make sure he doesn't affect my vessels."

"I see. So it means I'll have to give up on the woman's soul... Annoying, but I can do that."

"One last thing, Katashiki. I'm obviously still safe since I'm hidden in my own dimension, but not you. Even just the few things you made are enough for them to see you, Those who see everything. If you don't hurry, they'll come for you and you won't be able to fight any of them."

"… Indeed… Until now, I always took action only when she, with the golden eyes, was asleep. But she didn't go to sleep for many years now, and I couldn't stay hidden while I just learned about the Minamoto and Kaguya's inheritors. It's really a shame that you couldn't tell me about them earlier. I suppose you're suggesting that I should go out myself and make what I want. I may still have Setsura and Gojiki's souls by my sides but it's still a very risky operation…"

"... Could it be that you're afraid of mere humans?" says Katashiki's interlocutor with a challenging smile.

"What?" he yells, offended by these words. "Me? Afraid? I went face to face with 5 of the Celestial Judges and survived, what could possibly scare me?"

"Did I make you angry? You should get rid of these feelings like I did... Anyway, finish them off, just keep the Uchiha's partner alive. And remember not to say anything that could turn against me. She can also read on your lips..." says the man before disappearing.

Katashiki watches the man's projection disappear and then turns around in the dark, to a lizardous three-tailed body. He raises his hand to the body as his red eyes start to glow and releases another horned soul from his hand. The soul immediately goes to hide within the lizard body and stands up. The two-tailed shadow woman comes out of Katashiki's back and goes to stand on the lizard's side.

"The three of us against the three of them then." he says, watching the two remaining Tsukumogami that stand before him.

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End of chapter 5 - Next chapter: Daikoku