Not even giving Chishimo time to say anything, Naruto pumped chakra to his legs and jumped, taking to the sky and landing on the roof of a building several feet away. He dashed off, hopping across the roofs as he chased after the so called 'Cursed Warrior'. Looking up at the sky, he saw that the armor clad warrior was still floating up above him, just a few meters out from his position.
He was soon forced to abandon his roof hopping when he entered a more forested area. As the trees passed by him in a blur, Naruto looked on ahead and saw that he was coming up on a single building surrounded by a small wooden fence. Without hesitating, the blond Chunin ran towards the building, coming to a stop just a few feet in front of it.
The building he was staring at reminded Naruto of some of the shrines he had seen. It was elevated several feet above the ground by rocks that had been compressed together then had sediment poured in between them to form a wall. There was a staircase in front of him, leading to a small rectangular pedestal that looked like it was used to light incense. Behind the pedestal sat a building that looked very much like the Honden of a Shinto Shrine, right down to it's architectural style. Only the scent of death that hung in the air, stale and old, let Naruto know that this was a burial sight, likely to the recently deceased Daimyo and Sagi's father.
A frown marred Naruto's face as his eyes scanned the area, glowing unnaturally bright as his enhanced vision cut through the night with ease. He couldn't see anything, and his hearing couldn't pick up any movement either. Channeling youki into his eyes, the blond's irises went from blue to amethyst, the pupils elongating into slits. His frown increased when he still couldn't see nothing, not even a flicker of chakra anywhere.
That didn't bode well.
'Kyuubi, can you sense anything?'
At hearing Naruto's question, the great Bijuu perked up. Extending her senses outside of the blonde's body, she looked for any sign of the armor clad figure that her tenant had been chasing. After a moment, a frown marred her face. She sighed, then shook her head and said, 'No, nothing. Odd...'
'Could they be masking their presence?'
Kyuubi scoffed, sounding insulted as she said, 'They may be able to hide to your inferior senses. But no human can hope to hide from me.' The very notion that somebody, a mere human at that, could possibly hide their presence so thoroughly that even she could not sense it was ridiculous.
Naruto gulped as the chills once more returned. 'So then... it might really be a ghost.'
A severe case of eye twitching was the response to his fear. 'Oh for the love of – when did you become such a coward?'
'Oi!' Naruto shouted in his mindscape, affronted by Kyuubi's accusation. 'I am not a coward. I just... don't like ghosts.'
Kyuubi sighed, then rolled her eyes and said, 'Even if it is a ghost, you can still hurt it with ninjutsu. Remember, a ghost is nothing more than a spirit. Therefore, it is made up entirely of spiritual energy. Chakra is partially made up of spiritual energy, and youki is far more potent than chakra and possesses a more supernatural aspect to it. It doesn't matter if the thing you are dealing with is a ghost, you should be more than capable of killing it just like anything else.'
'How can I kill something if it's already dead?'
'Grr! You know what I mean. Stop being so damn obstin –'
Kyuubi's words were cut off as the door leading into the burial sight opened with a loud creak. Naruto stiffened, fear coursing through him. Fuck, he just had to be dealing with a ghost didn't he? God he hated his life. Despite his fear, the blond had the piece of mind to summon a pair of kunai. He thought about getting out his katana, or even Kubikirihoucho – having a big ass head cleaving blade would make him feel infinitely better right about now – but wasn't sure if weapons would even work yet. No sense in bringing out the big guns until he figured out if they would even be of any use to him.
The warrior in white armor slowly stepped out of the doorway. It then proceeded to float past the pedestal and land on the ground a few feet away from Naruto. Said blond did his best not to let the creepy glowing yellow eyes of the armored warrior get to him. The way they were staring at him was really giving him the creeps. Unable to deal with the look anymore, the whiskered shinobi pointed at the warrior and shouted. "Alright! I don't know who the fuck you are! But if you think I'm gonna let some creepy ass specter scare me, you've got another thing coming!"
Within her seal, Kyuubi face palmed. "Is it just me or is Naruto allowing his fear over ghosts to revert himself back to his original self?"
The armored warrior didn't respond and Naruto, unaware of Kyuubi's question, decided that he had enough. With a flick of his wrists, the blond sent the two kunai in his hand soaring through the air. They impaled the chest plate of the warrior with quite a bit of voice, enough to send it stumbling backwards several steps as the dull planking sound of metal piercing metal echoed throughout the clearing. Still, the apparition didn't seem at all bothered by having a pair of kunai impaling it, as it just straightened back up.
Eyes twitching as he stared at the thing, for that was all he could call this armored warrior, Naruto decided that he was going to bring out the big guns... sword. Reaching into his pouch, he summoned a sealing scroll from one of the storage seals inside his kunai pouch. He unrolled the scroll in mid-air, biting his thumb and then swiping it along the parchment, a thin trail of blood following in it's wake. With a burst of smoke, Naruto unsealed Kubikirihoucho. He swung the blade up, letting it rest on his shoulder and took a wide stance.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Naruto's amethyst eyes narrowed. His feet slid further apart, rustling the dirt underneath, but that was the only movement he made. With slow, steady breaths as he tried to calm his beating heart, Naruto waited for the thing in front of him to make the first move.
It did, taking a single step forward, it's armor clanking together, rattling ominously.
Naruto didn't let it take another step.
Bursting forward, propelled by a youki enhanced push off the ground, Naruto almost glided above the ground as he sped towards the Cursed Warrior. He channeled youki through Kubikirihoucho, the blade becoming consumed with an intense flame of ethereal purple. Naruto dashed passed the armored figure, the large head cleaver slashing through the Samurai armor like a hot knife through butter. Skidding to a stop just a few feet behind the warrior, the blond turned around and went back into a ready stance, waiting to see what would happen next.
For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Naruto was about to begin freaking out about how his youki didn't even seem to be capable of defeating this apparition, when light burst forth from the armor. Bright rays of light came out of the sword slash the blond had made in the armored body, from left shoulder to right hip the intense rays shot out from the inside, as if something was trying to break through the armored shell. As the light began to disappear, the armored figure fell backwards, hitting the ground with a loud clang.
Naruto waited for a few moments, wanting to make sure that the thing he had attacked would stay down. After several seconds, which to him felt like hours, the blond moved, cautiously, towards the armored figure. He stopped when his foot was close enough to touch it and frowned, then gulped. Kneeling down he grabbed the first piece of armor he could get his hands on, the helmet, and lifted it off the ground. Looking inside of the armor, Naruto paled when he saw that it was empty.
'Oh my god! This really is a ghost! This is so not cool! Why did I ever accept this mission... oh, wait, I didn't, Oba-chan ordered me to go on it. Damn that woman! She knew I would run into a ghost and be forced into mortal combat with it! I bet she's laughing at me even now! That horrid, loathesome –'
'For love of all that is good and holy, shut up!'Kyuubi snapped from inside the seal. However, Naruto was too far gone, having gone from complaining about how horrible Tsunade was to send him on a mission that would involve fights with the supernatural, to ranting about how he was gonna, in his own words, 'prank her ass into oblivion for making him go on this stupid mission'.
Kyuubi sighed, sitting down on the bed and covering her ears with as many of the fluffy pillows around her that she could reach.
"You know," she commented, her voice muffled by the large red pillow on her face. 'He's as bad as you are when it comes to dealing with ghosts and the like."
There were no words spoken, but Kyuubi got the distinct feeling of embarrassment coming from the area around her. She let out a mild chuckle, but was forced to stop when she realized Naruto was still continuing his rant, only now it was about something entirely unrelated to ghosts or pranks.
'– and when I get out of here, I'm gonna treat myself to several dozen bowls of ramen. I wonder what kind I should have? Maybe Miso, Pork and Chicken... or Chicken, Shrimp and Miso... or maybe...'
Kyuubi groaned as she buried her face in her bed. "Kami, what did I do to deserve this?"
She had not been expecting an answer, but Kyuubi thought she heard snickering. Lifting up a single finger, she gave a one-fingered salute, even though she was sure her guardian couldn't even see it.
She sighed, all Kyuubi could do now was pray Naruto ran out of breath soon. Because if she had to listen to this brat talk for much longer, then she was going to go insane.
.
.
.
🎉The novel is available in PDF with more than 400 chapters, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉
🎉ko-fi.com/sosukeaizen123🎉