796Chapter Thirty
Naruto and Ino found themselves in a room that seemed to be made out of light or rainbows. The walls, ceiling, floor, it was like walking on light itself. It was small, like their old classroom, and devoid of features. However, it immediately began to expand and within seconds because as big as the chuunin exam stadium. The colors became less vibrant and more mixed. The room continued to get bigger, until the ceiling looked more like a sky and they couldn't even see the walls anymore. With that, the room developed features.
The floor became a grassy field, with mountains at every horizon. A forest ringed around them, and a small river cut through the field from one end to the other. In the center was a wooden building that looked like that building Angi had called a longhouse. Beside the visible entrance was a large stone with a hole carved into the top.
"Where are we?" Naruto asked, looking around.
"Either this is a genjutsu, or we're in some kind of pocket dimension." Ino suggested.
"Pocket dimension?" Naruto asked.
Ino huffed, annoyed that she was going to be stuck here with the dead last. "You know how when you seal something into a scroll? It doesn't just turn into a picture, it gets put into a small space like a pocket that you can't see from the outside. This could be the same thing, just a lot bigger."
"Okay, so we're inside a seal. Now what?"
"Well I think we're supposed to find something if we want to get out of her. So do something useful and start looking."
Naruto rolled his eyes but did as told and looked around. He came up to the large stone, which was positioned as if it were supposed to be a pillar, and he noticed something carved into it.
'Are those runes? No, these look more like tally marks.'
"Hey Ino, check this out."
The platinum blonde came over and saw the marks on the pillar. Curious, she counted them while checking all sides. "If I'm not wrong, and I know I'm not, this looks like someone carved in 100 marks, as if counting something. But what?"
Not getting any further clues, Naruto left the pillar and checked the longhouse. He saw no lock, though there was a long rope with bells at the front which he pulled. It rang like either a doorbell or an alarm, but nothing happened. Right at the edge of the door were two axes dug into the wood, like they were put there for later rather than used to chop anything down. Inside he saw a large room with four tables and two benches to each, with nothing on them. The far wall showed the doorways to four rooms but no actual doors, and visible beds within. The wall on his side had no rooms but there were boxes filled with straw and other things he couldn't discern right now. And both ends of the long house had a room on each side, these having doors. Along the walls were animal heads put up like trophies, ranging from deer to wolves to even a full body bear on its hind legs by the right side wall.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" He called out, but got no response.
"No one's here genius." Ino said sarcastically.
Naruto gave her an annoyed look. "Well I don't see you doing anything."
"Well instead of looking in some musty old building we should be trying to find a way out of here."
"If we're inside a seal then I don't think we can open it from the inside."
Ino wanted to protest, but she had to admit his argument had some validity. "We can't be in here forever. No one builds a room you can get into but not out of."
Outside the longhouse, there was a howl, silencing them both. Naruto approached the door slowly and looked outside, seeing two wolves that looked like they'd be right at home in the Forest of Death. Oddly, these wolves were orange with black stripes, just like a tiger, but other than that they were definitely wolves. And these wolves were coming their way.
Acting quickly, Naruto pulled one of the axes out of the door frame and handed it to Ino, who only took it out of reflex. "Here!"
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Ino asked.
Naruto gave her an incredulous look. "Make a cake, what do you think you do with an ax? Fight them!"
He moved to take the other as the wolves came up and pounced. He swung his ax, hitting it in the jaw. The impact clearly hurt the wolf but didn't change its trajectory, so it crashed into him making him fall backwards on the ground with a heavy wolf atop him. Ino gasped and, after tightening her grip on her own ax, she came up and swung it into the back of the wolf's neck. There was a sickly thud and some blood spurting, but the beast whined and then went limp, allowing Naruto to get out from under it.
The other wolf came up from behind Ino and clamped its maw on her upper arm. She screamed in agony and dropped her ax, certain that the arm was broken and moment away from being ripped off her body.
Naruto glared and summoned his valkyrie sword in his hands before jabbing it into the wolf's side. It released the kunoichi and howled, trying to claw at the whiskered blonde with its paws. Naruto pushed the sword in deeper, and didn't let up until the animal stopped moving.
Ino checked around, seeing no other wolves in the area. But the pain in her arm was too great, so she collapsed to her knees and cried, clutching it. This hurt worse than any other pain she had ever experienced. She thought she heard some noises behind her but ignored them. The only thing that caught her attention was Naruto taking hold of her injured arm.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She demanded to know.
He placed two splints on her upper arm then wrapped the area with what she saw was the sleeve of his jumpsuit. This surprised her and made her stop fighting him.
"Since when did you learn to treat a broken bone?" She asked.
"I'm only popular when it comes to hurting me, remember? Did you honestly think that name-calling was the worst thing anyone ever did to me?" He replied.
"Oh please, stop acting like you're a victim you idiot! You've never suffered a day in your life!" Ino countered angrily.
Naruto glared at her and for a moment she swore his blue eyes were red. He tightened the sleeve then got up.
"Don't expect any more favors from me Yamanaka."
"Hey! Where the hell do you get off acting like that to me?!" Ino shouted, her pain being overshadowed by her moral indignation.
Naruto got in her face, and for a moment Ino actually felt some fear. Not that she would ever admit that Naruto Uzumaki had scared her.
"You want to hate me Yamanaka? Fine, go ahead. That's nothing new to me. Don't think that makes you special, like you hating me means more than someone else doing it. But you're going to hate me, at least make the effort to know something about me first."
"I already know all I need to know about you." She insisted.
"Like what? What do you actually know about me?"
"You're disrespectful, lazy, annoying, good-for-nothing, and the whole world can only be better without you in it! You want to do something good for Konoha? Take that sword and cut your own heart out!"
Naruto looked offended and a little horrified that she could be so callous. "You serious?"
Ino then summoned her own sword without thinking too hard about it and held it towards him. "If you won't, I will."
Naruto just stared at her, unsure how to process this. Then he took a deep breath and made his sword go away.
"Do it then. If you hate me that much, do it. Who's going to stop you?"
Ino raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. This had to be a trick, right? Then again, this was the dead last, he couldn't possibly have any way to fight her, a clan heiress and the strongest kunoichi in their class. Yet for reasons that she didn't understand, she couldn't bring herself to actually do it. She just... couldn't.
Naruto just watched her struggle, not liking that she was even considering killing him after all that. "You're on your own while we're here Yamanaka."
"Like I need your help." She hissed.
Naruto turned and walked away, taking one of the axes with him and leaving her the other. Ino huffed and stuck her tongue out at him while pulling her eyelid down before heading into the longhouse.
Time went by in this pocket dimension, and Ino was finding it unbearable. Food was provided in the longhouse every night, but only the one meal. The hearth still needed to be lit in order for her to be warm, and the longhouse was not exactly warm. Her clothes got dirty easily and there were no spares, forcing her to wash them herself and use furs and blankets to cover herself when that happened. Doing everything with one working arm was proving very difficult.
She hadn't seen Naruto since the big fight, and while she didn't miss him at all the absence of him didn't make her feel any better. Where could he be? Was he even still alive? He was so inept there was no way he could take care of himself if she was struggling. Even if he had four arms he'd be worse off than she was. And yet she couldn't even find a body.
What confused her the most however was the pillar with the tally marks. When she got here, she had been certain that it had 100 marks, but after the first day she saw it had been changed to 98. Then a week later it had gone down to 95.
'It's got to be some kind of countdown, but what's it counting down to?'
Now she had been here for, according to her track of time, three months. And the loneliness was getting to her. She had never been this alone before, and right now even Naruto would have been welcome company.
'Maybe I went too far. I mean, does he really deserve to die?' She asked herself, seated in the longhouse trying to mend her outfit. 'Why did I act that way? I mean, Naruto may be dumb, dense, and loud, but who hasn't said those exact words about me too? And even if he was worse than me, does he really deserve to die because of it? Why did I even say that?'
She sighed, putting down her clothes. Right now she was just in her underwear and covering herself with a furskin to stay warm.
'At least no one is here to see me like this. But still... maybe I owe Naruto an apology.' She thought before sighing. 'Like he's going to accept it. I told him to kill himself and actually threatened to do it myself if he didn't. If Forehead saw this she'd probably try to rip my hair out of my scalp and cram it down my throat for this. What apology could I possibly give that would-?'
She was cut off by the sound of something approaching the entrance of the longhouse. It looked like a creature she had never seen before. It was based on a local animal people in the west would call a moose, but to her it was like a deer and a giant monkey had a baby and that baby was ten feet tall. The head was like a moose but the body was more like a sasquatch, it had no weapon or claws or fangs, but it very clearly could crush her if it could ahold of her.
Ino panicked and scrambled away from the door, with the creature trying to tear it apart to make it bigger so it could enter. She could see and hear the wood breaking, so it was only a matter of time before it got inside.
"NARUTO! HELP ME! PLEASE!" She screamed, having no other idea what to do.
The creature ripped off a chunk of wall and could now reach in much further even though it couldn't fully enter. Its arm came for her, and she backed against a wall as much as she could. A window was right next to her, and if needed she'd run out in a heartbeat. Though that would just delay the inevitable, not save her.
All of a sudden, the creature bellowed in pain and retreated. Ino was confused but stayed where she was. Except when she saw that ax she had been neglecting, and now she really wanted it. She ran for it and grabbed it, clutching it with both hands tightly and inadvertently letting her furskin cover drop off her. But right now she was too scared to be cold or modest.
Sounds of conflict outside could be heard, drawing her attention. Slowly, she looked around the broken wall, and was surprised to see the creature was dead with several Naruto's around it before they dispersed, leaving the original. Like her, his outfit wasn't in good condition, but it was better patched than hers was.
"Naruto?" She called out.
The whiskered blonde turned to her, and she could see that he was still unhappy with her. Could she blame him?
"Thank you. I would have been dead without you." She managed to say.
Naruto just shrugged and looked away, beginning to skin the mutant animal.
"Naruto?" Ino asked, lowering her ax and stepping his way. He didn't turn towards her, but she could tell he was listening. "I owe you a massive apology. I don't know why I said all that to you."
"Yes you do." Naruto cut in, still not looking at her. "Have you ever wished death on anyone else?"
Ino said nothing, but she looked very ashamed of herself.
"That kind of hatred doesn't come out of nowhere Ino. You hate me for a reason, and as far as I can tell, either I did something I don't remember, or you're just prejudiced. Which is it?"
Ino sighed and shook her head. "There is no good answer."
"I didn't say I wanted a good answer." Naruto remarked, his back still to her. With the beast skinned, he was now moving to cutting out chunks of meat. He sure acted like he knew how to identify what was edible and what wasn't.
Ino was silent for a moment but took a step closer to the whiskered blonde. "How have you survived these last three months on your own? I've been struggling so much."
"I could tell you, but you won't take me seriously. I'm just a loser after all."
"Naruto, I'm sorry."
"No, you're not." Naruto objected. "You're sorry that you can't back up your claim. You're sorry that the dead last is holding his own while you can barely do anything. What you're not sorry for is telling me the world is better off without me in it."
"But-"
"Would you be trying to get back on my good side if you weren't struggling to survive right now?" Naruto cut her off.
Ino said nothing, but he could hear her starting to cry.
"You're right. I thought I was a badass kunoichi being held back by a bunch of clowns, but I'm miserable here on my own. I can barely forage, I can't treat my own wounds, I can't fix my own clothes let alone the building I'm in. I'm... how do you do it? How can you live like this and not go crazy?"
"For all I know, I am crazy. I mean, I've got gods and monsters showing up in my life, I can talk to the dead, and I say I'm going to become hokage when literally nobody wants me to succeed. What the hell do I know about sanity?" Naruto responded.
"Can you... can you please help me survive this?" Ino asked, afraid of the answer.
"No more insults?" Naruto asked back.
"I promise." Ino said.
Naruto stood up and turned to face her, blushing upon seeing her state of attire before looking away. Ino saw this and looked down at herself, seeing her lack of clothes, and blushed more than he was.
"PERVERT!" She shrieked before punching him and running back into the longhouse.
Time would pass for the two genin and they managed to work their way into a steady form of coexistence. Naruto was able to make her some clothes out of furs that were nothing special but they were warm and surprisingly comfortable. He did the same for himself. Ino was surprised to learn that the whiskered blonde had some sewing skills, which he claimed to have acquired due to a lifelong struggle to gain clothes or keep them in good condition.
In her time here, Ino had learned an awful lot about Naruto and from him as well. She had always known he was an orphan, but now she realized she had never actually thought about how that affected him on a day-to-day basis. Pretty much every skill she took for granted or dismissed the need for, Naruto had to know just to get through the day. He could cook, clean, sharpen equipment, and fight a lot better than she could. He had to, because who else would do it for him. Ino had to accept that she had been rather spoiled. She never cooked or cleaned for herself if someone else could do it for her, and clothes and equipment were always affordable enough for her to replace. Naruto didn't have that luxury.
Training proved to be similar. Not wanting their skills to dull, the two genin had no choice but to train together. Ino found he definitely had the advantage over her in physical skills, but lacked any real finesse. This prompted her to correct the flaws in his taijutsu and show her some moves that she had learned from the Yamanaka. In turn, he pushed her out of her comfort zone and taught her how to use a weapon. His own training on that was minimal at best, but Naruto did know more than she did in regards to kenjutsu. Ino also helped him with genjutsu and breaking free of them while he educated her on how to live off the land.
"How long have we been here?" Naruto asked one day, bringing in some wood.
Ino checked over some tally marks she had made in the wall of the longhouse. "By my count, a whole year. How many enemies do we have left to wait for?"
Naruto checked the rune stone outside. In the past few months, both had concluded that the countdown in question referred to the number of enemies that would appear. Each one they killed removed a mark, so when they killed a grand total of one hundred, presumably this whole experience would be over and they could return to the normal world. But the problem was the threat was very, very inconsistent. Enemies never appeared in a predictable quantity or time frame. It could be anywhere from one to a dozen, and after they were vanquished a new one could respawn either a minute later or an entire month later. This meant Naruto and Ino could never know what to expect next, and had to always be prepared.
"It says about forty or so." He told her.
Ino sighed. "We could be here another year by this rate. By now everyone back home must think we're dead."
"Not if my parents can tell them. I think being an einherjar pretty much guarantees I'm going to Heaven. No, Valhalla, they called it. So if I'm not there, then that's proof I'm still alive."
One thing Naruto had discovered here in this place was that he could not summon spirits of any kind. All his other valkyrie skills applied, but not that one for some reason. As a result, he could not contact Minato or Kushina, not even indirectly. Nor could he manifest the horse his mother told him he would one day have. Though now he'd have plenty of time to come up with a name for one.
A roar came from outside, and the two grabbed their swords and axes before going to see it. There were two monsters that looked like giant serpents with cat faces. They had seen these before and knew these were a pain to deal with.
"Looks like thirty-eight to go after this." Ino corrected, brandishing the Sumarbrandur sword with more confidence than before while Naruto wielded Beor. With war cries, they charged at the new opponents and made mincemeat out of them. Ino had it slightly better since she could use the scabbard of her sword as a shield, but Naruto could summon armor so he tended to defend her more.
One of the cat serpents surprised Ino by diving into the ground under her, so she tried to move away from the immediate area. The beast jumped out from behind and pounced like a leopard. Naruto cut off the head of his cat serpent and rushed to block for Ino. Unfortunately, he took a bite to the area where his neck met his shoulder.
Naruto screamed in pain and Ino screamed in horror. Acting on her will, Sumarbrandur flew on its own and pierced the skull of the cat serpent, forcing it to release the whiskered blonde before collapsing. But Naruto did as well, his armor dissipating.
"Naruto? Naruto?" Ino asked, checking on him. He was bleeding quite a bit and breathing heavily, his eyes fighting to remain open before he passed out. Recalling some first aid she had learned, she applied pressure to the wound and used some fur strips to soak up the blood. To her surprise, there was some red chakra around the wound, and it looked like it was starting to heal him.
'Must be a valkyrie thing, but I don't remember him saying healing was a power he had now.' She noted, picking him up and dragging him into the longhouse. She got the fire started and laid him by it before putting a fur blanket over him.
'Naruto's strong, stronger than I ever thought he could be, but he's not invincible. When we get out of here, he's going to face a lot more danger like this. Maybe that's what this whole place is, a training room. If he's going to save Sasuke-kun and Hinata's cousin from evil gods, he's going to have to get so much stronger.' Ino thought, looking down at her former classmate, who now she was willing to call a genuine friend.
She then raised a fist with determination. 'And so will I. Me and my sword will be by his side along the way. I owe it to him, and... and I want it too.'
That night, Ino decided to curl up next to him, both to keep him warm and keep herself warm.
'If Hinata or Sakura saw this, I'd be in so much trouble.'
More time went by, and by now Naruto and Ino had been here for close to two years. Both had grown, with Naruto taller and sporting a beard and mustache, and Ino taller and more mature as a woman. They wore fur and leather outfits made from the materials they got in their battles. Naruto looked sort of like Tarzan now but with a shirt too, and Ino looked like a tribal cavewoman.
Ino was taking a moment to enjoy herself in a makeshift bath in the longhouse, the one guilty pleasure she still had in this place. Food technically counted too since dieting had proven to be a bad idea here and Naruto always knew where to find edible plants to go with their acquired meat.
'I can't wait to have a normal bath back home.' She thought scrubbing some dirt off her while taking a moment to appreciate how much she had developed since her young teen years.
"Hey Ino?" Naruto could be heard calling out.
"Back here." She called back before she realized just what she had said, making her blush.
Naruto followed her voice, but stopped before he could see anything. "Is the water still warm? I got a lot of blood on me and could use the tub when you're done."
Ino silently sighed in relief at the fact he wasn't going to sneak up on her and surprise her, but strangely a small part of her was disappointed that he wasn't going to try something. It wasn't like he hadn't been looking at her cleavage or butt several times already. Though she was guilty of checking him out quite a bit as well over the past half a year.
"It could use some more heat. Please tell me it's monster blood."
"Yes, and good news. The stone says there's only one monster left to slay."
Ino grinned. "Awesome. We're almost out of here. But you just know this place saved the worst for last."
"Agreed. Well, I'll get started on dinner while you're in there."
"Oh no you don't." Ino said, getting out of the tub. "You're not making anything when you've got actual blood on your hands."
"But..." Naruto objected, but couldn't finish.
Into wrapped herself in a furskin towel and left the washroom, stepping out into the main room of the structure. Naruto saw her and made sure to look away, and she headed to her room to get dressed. Since Naruto hadn't actually started on dinner yet, he chose to get his bath now that he could.
Maybe it was paranoia, but while the two were dried, dressed, and eating they had been on edge, half-expecting the final opponent to appear at any second.
"What's the first thing you going to do when we get out of here?" Ino asked to break the silence.
"Contact my parents and see how we can get back home. You?"
"Get some real clothes and a real bath. Maybe a haircut too."
"Good idea. I could use a shave." Naruto commented, scratching his chin.
"Oh I think the beard looks good on you. Very manly."
Naruto grinned a little at that. "I wonder how everyone else is."
Ino nodded in understanding. "Home is going to be very different, but it's better than staying here forever."
All of a sudden, it got dark outside, like someone had turned off the sun. And the air got cold with the hearth immediately going out.
"Looks like this is it." Naruto said, getting on his feet and taking out his weapons.
Ino did the same. "And I was right, this one's going to be a tough one."
The two departed the longhouse, where they saw what looked like a person before them. This immediately caught them off guard. All threats had been animalistic during their two years here. Wolves, giant cats, bears, trolls, even some dragons too. But never anything that looked like a person. Not only that, but this person looked like a blacj-haired woman wearing a black version of Naruto's valkyrie armor and sporting crow wings, using them to hover above the ground.
"Naruto, is that a valkyrie?" Ino asked, admittedly worried about this one.
"Looks like it." He agreed.
The valkyrie landed and took out a spear with both ends pointed, holding it horizontally. Ino and Naruto summoned their swords and held them defensively, resulting in a two-against-one standoff. Neither side made an immediate move to strike first. Naruto summoned his armor and wings too, while Ino lamented her own lack of it. She knew right now she was the one at a disadvantage in this fight.
"Naruto, distract her if you can." She whispered.
Naruto nodded and summoned some shadow clones to surround the valkyrie and attack her. This caught her by surprise but she reacted swiftly and swung her spear, cutting down the clones and creating a lot of smoke. The real Naruto came in through the sword and tried to skewer her, but her armor protected her. The valkyrie turned and grabbed Naruto by the throat before lifting him into the air, strangling him.
"Naruto!" Ino shouted in a panic. She dropped her sword and readied her hands in her signature jutsu. All she had to do was take over this valkyrie's mind and the fight would be over. They had taken down several of their toughest threats this way. But the valkyrie was like a bird in the air, very difficult to aim at.
Naruto tried to break free from the valkyrie's grip but her hands were like a vice. He tried punching her in the face, which did hurt her since she wasn't wearing a helmet, but that didn't free him. Instead she used her free hand to drive his spear through one of his wings. Naruto felt that as if it were his own arm or leg, but he couldn't scream.
Then, with a jerk, the valkyrie screamed and loosened her grip on him. Naruto broke free and attempted to remain aloft, but his damaged wing made that too difficult, so he settled for an uncomfortable landing.
"Are you okay?" Ino asked, coming up to him.
"I've been worse. What did you do?" He asked.
Ino looked up, seeing Sumarbrandur fight the Valkyrie on her behalf in the air. Until the valkyrie batted it away to the ground before spinning her spear and thrusting it downward yet not throwing it. All of a sudden, it rained hundreds of rays of light up on them, as if the sun itself was attacking them. The rays hit the two of them like needles, piercing them and the ground around them, and it hurt like hell. Though not a single one of these rays left a physical wound.
Naruto and Ino felt like they had just experienced the world's worst acupuncture and could barely move. Odds are the valkyrie wasn't intending on hitting any of their pressure points or tenketsu, so that damage was pure coincidental. As they struggled to get up on their feet, the valkyrie landed beside them and made a move to assault them both with her spear. That is until a wall of light formed a dome around them both, shielding them.
The valkyrie was confused, until she saw Naruto holding a rune stone with a ᛉ on it. The rune of protection, and with two years under his belt Naruto had gotten better at using runes. This wasn't perfect, but it bought them time for him to apply a ᛋ which healed them up enough to move comfortably again. Feeling better, Naruto dropped the shield and struck out with his sword. The valkyrie blocked, but Ino summoned Sumarbrandur towards her, positioning herself so the valkyrie was between the two of them, resulting in the sword stabbing her in the back yet again. The Valkyrie screamed, and Naruto swung his sword to cut her head off.
The enemy collapsed with the head rolling on the ground, but unlike the other threats where the body remained to be used by the shinobi, this time the body dissolved into black vapors. Save for the wings, which remained and appeared to meld together into what looked like a bow sculpted to resemble bird wings.
The large stone that had counted down their time in this place was now clear of tally marks, and then Naruto and Ino could hear angelic singing. The same kind they had heard when the chamber doors that brought them here in the first place opened up.
"Is that it? Can we go now?" Ino asked.
Naruto picked up the bow and put it on his back. "Gotta say, a part of me is going to miss this place."
"Maybe, but I'll be happy to never come back."
"Oh same here."
The room got bright, too bright to accurately see anything. They both felt like they were suspended in warm water, like the world's deepest bath, and just as quickly as it started, it all went away. They were back in the chamber they had left, and standing right were the light elves and Angi who brought them here. As if they had stayed there for the last two years.
"What happened?" Angi asked.