Foxhound Chapter 1: Part 5

Naruto wasn’t able to hear the demon fox’s bellows over the strange roaring in his head that grew moment by moment. His body felt strange. It felt like he was being tickled, yet also like he had to puke at the same time. His limbs became heavier and he dropped to one knee without realizing it. Spasms and jerks wormed their way through the muscles all throughout his body. They were becoming more intense as the seconds past.

“Wha-” Naruto’s voice clogged up. Dammit, he couldn’t even talk! What the hell did that guy do to him?

“Heh, lemme guess. You’re wondering what that thing was, right?” Tsurugi asked, his arms crossed over his chest and wearing a smug expression. Naruto could only glare as his jaw began clenching tighter and tighter against his will. “No worries, brat. You’ll find out soon enough.”

The spasms were growing. They were starting to hurt. They were starting to hurt a LOT. Confused and unable to move, Naruto could only kneel helplessly as his arms and legs began twitching violently. Even his neck was jerking a bit. Damn, if only the fox could help him. Obviously it couldn’t or he wouldn’t be sitting here like this in the dirt.

The spasms stopped. Before Naruto could feel relief, fire seemed to spread through his veins. It felt like someone had mixed vinegar and baking soda inside his body (one of the few science facts Naruto knew, which he’d learned for its messy prank potential.) Right now, it felt like his blood was foaming and bubbling and trying to boil its way right out his skin. The pressure in his veins was growing. His muscles were swelling like overfilled balloons all over his body. It was growing too much. His body couldn’t take it. What the hell was happening to him!

“Heh, any minute now, brat, any minute and you-”

With a wet, ripping sound the larger muscles in Naruto’s arms, his upper legs, his torso, and his back exploded as fiery, chaotic chakra tore its way out of his body. Blood splattered everywhere on the ground as the energy flew outwards. The greenish-gray chakra ripped up the ground all around him as it twisted and coiled on itself. The boy felt a single moment of horrifying agony and then he was down, still as death. The Akatsuki stared at the target, dumbstruck at the sight. The chakra continued to flow from the boy in torrents for several moments before it died down. A pool of blood started to spread under the brat. The missing-nin couldn’t believe that the seal had done this to the vessel. He was about to go and see if he could keep the target alive when the earth shuddered underneath him.

The bizarre chakra had caught both Jiraiya and his opponent off guard. The Sannin had taken one look at Naruto’s body and lost his temper.

“You two just made a huge mistake,” The hermit growled at the woman-thing, who couldn’t muster up the usual smirk do to the target’s state. Jiraiya merely bit his thumb and smeared it on his hand before slamming it into the ground. “Kuchiyose no jutsu! (Summoning Skill)”

The androgynous Akatsuki only had a chance to see an enormous cloud of ninja smoke, before a gigantic webbed foot flew out of it and landed on her. Jiraiya ignored the sickening crunch as Gamabunta landed directly on top of his opponent. As far as he was concerned, that was simply one down, one to go. He turned and gave the male attacker a look of unrestrained fury.

“Shit!” Tsurugi snarled as he jumped back to the tree line. This was not how the mission was supposed to go. They let their egos get in the way when they made the deal for the seals and blindly assumed that their ‘benefactors’ were actually helping them. The missing-nin looked from the bloodied boy to the Sannin and his toad. He had to suppress a shudder at the look of raw fury in the hermit’s eyes. Even on his best day, Tsurugi would have a hard time beating any of the Three Legendaries (assuming he even could.) Gamabunta rarely listened to Jiraiya, but when they did work together they were nigh unbeatable except by Orochimaru and his snake or possibly Itachi-san.

‘Hmm, I shouldn’t fight. Besides, we can’t risk the target’s life any further I guess we’ll have to-’ Tsurugi noticed for the first time that his partner was absent. His eyes traced past Jiraiya and noticed part of an Akatsuki cloak sticking out from underneath Gamabunta’s foot. Even as he caught sight of it, the toad lifted his paw up and wiped what was left of the missing-nin off on a couple trees nearby, muttering about stepping in something nasty.

Time to retreat.

Jiraiya watched the man chuck a hasty smoke bomb and run before it had even exploded. He waited till the man’s panicked chakra faded into the distance, before diving towards his student.

“Naruto? Naruto, are you- Oh, Kami-sama…” The Sannin trailed off, feeling a cold, sick spot growing in his stomach. The boy was shredded. He looked like somebody had gone gung-ho with a blender all over his body. He was lying in a pool of his own blood that was still growing. His blond hair looked neon compared to his ashy-blue skin.

‘He’s dead,’ Jiraiya thought. He couldn’t help but stare for a moment longer, until Gamabunta’s voice jolted him out of his stupor.

“JIRAIYA! Why did you summon me! We’re in the middle of nowhere and I stepped in something nasty. What’s going on?” The toad bellowed, taking a drag off his enormous pipe.

Jiraiya didn’t answer immediately. Instead he was praying to every god and deity in existence as he leaned his face over Naruto’s mouth. A moment later and he was thanking them all as he felt the faintest breath against the whiskers on his face. Thank the Kami he hadn’t been able to shave for the past few days. The hermit ripped off one of the sashes on his outfit and tore it into hunks. He was going to give Tsunade a huge kiss and a giant tub of sake when he got back to thank her for all those times when they were young and she’d insisted that she teach at least him basic first aid. He was never going to tease her about her medical skills again.

“Who’s that you got there, Jiraiya? They look pretty mangled,” Gamabunta said as he leaned his huge, scarred face down to look at what appeared to be a pile of raw meat with blond hair on top of it. Jiraiya took the chunks of cloth and formed tourniquets at the top of Naruto’s arms and legs. If he lived, hopefully the fox could repair any damage to his limbs. It wasn’t like they were getting much circulation anyways, the hermit grimly noted. When he caught up to the man that did this to his student…

“It’s Naruto,” The Sannin distantly said as he ripped open the boy’s shredded jacket. He cursed and fought the urge to lose his dinner. The boy’s muscles were destroyed. There was no other word for the scale of damage done to his body (though ‘shredded’, ‘pureed’, ‘torn to ribbons from the inside out’, all came to his mind.) There was a huge breeze as Gamabunta reacted to the sight of his youngest summoner with a sharp intake of breath.

“Kami, Jiraiya… Is he going to survive?” The Boss Toad asked, an unusual note of worry in his deep, bellowing voice.

“I have no idea,” The hermit answered as he shoved a blood stopping pill or three into the boy’s mouth. Seeing the bleeding slow down to a dripping pace rather than a steady flow, he reached into his pouch for a soldier pill. He was just about to force that into the boy’s mouth when his eyes glanced down at the mark covering Naruto’s abdomen. He jerked the pill away like his hand had been burned.

“What is it?” Gamabunta asked.

“I don’t know. There’s some sort of seal messing up the Yondaime’s. Something’s screwing his chakra up,” He would have to hold off giving the boy any chakra supplements until he had the Godaime check him out.

“Boss Toad, I need to get the boy back to Konoha! Only Tsunade can help him!” Jiraiya yelled as he took off his outer robes and wrapped them firmly around Naruto. He lifted the boy into his arms and leapt atop the giant frog. The boy seemed much lighter than usual.

“Alright, but I’m only doing this for the kid. Hang on!” Gamabunta roared as he jumped over a quarter a mile in the Hidden Leaf’s general direction. Jiraiya channeled his chakra into his feet to stick to the toad’s skin. Carefully, he swayed and moved in time with the toad’s leaps, knowing sudden movements would only worsen his student’s condition. It couldn’t be helped though. Speed was more important than being careful.

Jiraiya could only pray that Tsunade could save the boy. He couldn’t handle losing another student before their life even started.