Genius Bloodline

Chapter 11 – Bloodline vs Seal

By – vuvudolls

Italics – thoughts

Waking up from a bird landing on his face, Naruto opened his eyes to see a pair of brown eyes staring at him.

"Hmm, its not polite to stare at someone while they're sleeping."

"Well, I was wondering if you were dead, cause I didn't think anyone was dumb enough to fall asleep out in the open."

A small tick mark appeared on Naruto's head as he sat up to take in the morning air.

"I musta just fell asleep from training. By the way, what are you doing here?"

"Just picking herbs."

"Do ya need any help?"

They walked into another area of the forest and started to pick some of the herbs. It was pretty silent until, the other person started talking.

"Are you by any chance a ninja?"

"Of course, that's why I was training and fell asleep outside. I thought that was obvious?"

"Well it was, I was just confirming and wanted to know why you were training."

"I have to keep up my training so I don't fall behind from laziness."

"No, no, I meant why do you train?"

"Oh...well that's kinda of an important thing to be telling someone I don't even know. Why don't you tell me something about yourself and I will tell you why."

Taken by surprise at the request, this person just smiled and looked down.

"Sorry about that. My name is Haku. I just want to know why you train so hard." Haku gave a faraway gaze as if remembering an old memory. "A person is able to become truly strong when they wish to protect someone they cherish."

"Oh. Well, I think I understand that more than you think. There aren't many people in the world that care about me. I can count them on one of my hands."

"That can't be true, you seem like a nice person. You offered to help me without knowing anything about me."

"I just treat people the way I want to be treated. That's what my older brother taught me."

"So do you fight to protect him? He sounds like a wise person."

Naruto just smiled at the thought of Vu.

8 year old Naruto was coming out of the hospital after being beaten by a few villagers on his birthday.

"Aniki, why do people hate me?"

The angry expression that was on his face, lightened at Naruto's question.

"Naruto, people don't hate you...they just don't know any better. If you try to treat people with kindness and an open heart, everyone will eventually come to see you that way."

"But I do! They keep calling me a demon and hitting me even though I don't say anything back to them."

Vu knelt down to look Naruto in the eyes as he wiped away the tears that were forming on his face.

"Naruto, I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you. I know I won't always be around to protect, so how about I teach you something to help protect yourself from people trying to hurt you?"

"He's the best. He saved me and I would do anything to pay him back for everything he's done for me."

They both smiled at each other and finished picking up the herbs. Haku started to walk away before turning around,

"By the way, I'm a boy."

Naruto smirked, "I know, you have subtle mannerisms of a man, I guess you have your own reasons why you dress and act like a female."

Haku laughed and shook his head before walking away. Watching him walk away, he saw Sasuke walking up.

"Hey Naruto, what are you doing here? Did you forget about breakfast?"

"Oh, I fell asleep outside and was helping that boy with something."

A tick mark appeared on Sasuke's head. That was a boy?

"Hey Sasuke, did that boy look familiar?" There were some callouses on his hands that can't be from picking herbs, and he smells like blood. Pretty suspicious if you ask me.

"Hn, I dunno. Let's go before more people get worried about you."

"Aww, Sasuke, you were worried about me?"

After breakfast and normal training, Naruto went back out to the clearing to continue his training.

Its been a while since I've tried working on my Bakuretsu Knuckle. Okay, lets see. First stage is creating a fireball by creating friction using my chakra. Easy enough.

Naruto held out his hand in front of him with his palm facing out towards the lake as a fireball erupted and flew towards the lake at a blazing speed. Right as it hit the surface of the water, a small explosion occurred and a 5 foot crater appeared at the surface of the water.

Not bad, lets try the Second Stage. Instead of letting the flame get released, condense the flames around the muscles of my arms to enhance my strength.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on weaving the flame chakra as thin as possible to enhance his strength. Opening his eyes, both his arms were coated in flame chakra and a huge heatwave was blowing the dirt away from his body. Content with successfully executing the 2nd stage of the technique, he started to concentrate on the 3rd stage.

Ok, I've always messed this up, but here goes nothing. Create the flames using the 2nd stage and concentrate it on my palm.

Sweat beads started appearing on his face as he concentrated all the flames to condense into his palm.

"Shit!"

The flame was too unstable and exploded in his face knocking him back into the forest 40 feet back, knocking him out.

"Kakashi-sensei, I'm worried about Naruto. He hasn't come back yet."

"Yeah, I'm worried about him too, why don't you go see where he is?"

"Okay." Before she got to the door, Kakashi smirked and in a teasing tone asked her, "Sakura, make sure you don't take TOO much time out there alone with him." Blushing, she exited the house and slammed the door in embarrassment.

Walking up to the training area that they were at before, she started to smell smoke and charred earth. Rushing up and hoping nothing was wrong, she found Naruto laying against a tree unconscious, his coat and arms showing burnt marks.

"Naruto!" She ran up to him and observed the destruction that was in front of him.

Well, it looks like he has a heartbeat, I think he just knocked himself out, the silly baka.

Picking him up, she dragged him back to the house and had Kakashi and Sasuke help lay him down to rest.

"I guess we should let him sleep in tomorrow, looks like he overdid it today."

Naruto woke up to the sound of screaming. He recognized the screams from Inari's voice. Quickly getting up, he jumped out the window and saw 2 men walking with Tsunami across the pier, and Inari blindly charging them.

Smirking at his courage, Naruto leapt towards the group and grabbed both Inari and Tsunami before anything else could happen to them.

Both men were confused at what happened, but a slight sound behind them, got their attention. Turning around, they saw Naruto pulling a katana out of the ground.

"Kuchiyose: Tetsu no Ken (Iron Sword)"

"Ooh, you guys have swords, lets see how if you can use them." In a blur, he disappeared and reappeared behind both of them. Looking down, both of their swords had crumbled and began falling to the ground as impact bumps appeared on their stomachs.

They both fell to the ground as Naruto walked back up to the mother and son duo.

"Good job with screaming Inari, I came as soon as I heard you. I knocked them out, so tie them up, I think Tazuna might be in trouble if they sent these guys to hurt you." I'm going to release the chakra on my weights and hopefully I'm wrong and they're not in trouble.

In a flash, Naruto dashed towards the bridge.

Approaching the bridge, he saw the thick fog and knew that Zabuza was there. He prayed he wasn't too late and blew a sigh of relief when he got near enough to see Sakura and Tazuna.

"Sakura, whats going on?"

"Sasuke is fighting that hunter-nin that we met before and Kakashi-sensei is fighting Zabuza."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" "Protect Tazuna."

"Sakura, take me to Sasuke, I can't see in this fog and we need to help him now. I'm sure Kakashi-sensei can handle Zabuza"

Sakura took Naruto towards the direction she saw them going, and they both found themselves in front of a huge ice dome looking thing.

"Sakura, stay back." Hopefully this works.

Gathering fire chakra, he continuously shot 10 fireballs onto the ice dome, but only ended up cracking them a little bit.

Shit, my Stage 1 Bakuretsu Knuckle doesn't do anything.

The hunter-nin sensed someone outside and crashed his jutsu, releasing Sasuke from within. He turned around and saw Naruto and Sakura trying to break his mirrors and started chuckling.

"You can't possibly think you can break my mirrors." Naruto's eyes frowned at recognizing the voice. "I will trap you all in my world.

A powerful burst of chakra erupted out and Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura found themselves inside the dome. It had double in size and doubled the amount of mirrors.

"This must be your kekkai genkai. Ice mirrors that are infused with your chakra so that they can't be easily destroyed."

"Very good Uzumaki Naruto, but even if you know what it is, that doesn't mean you can beat it."

"Haku, I know that its you, why are you attacking us?"

Taken back from being found out so soon, "I have to make sure Zabuza-san's dream comes true."

Before any more words can be said, Haku duplicated himself in all the mirrors and withdrew a handful of senbon needles.

"Shit, be careful guys!" As the needles flew from all direction heading straight for all 3 of them.

They managed to deflect a huge number of them, and Naruto using his speed from releasing his weights, managed to keep the damage to a minimum. However, Sakura and Sasuke still got hit with a few.

We can't keep trying to block his attack, he's gonna wear us down. Deciding to go on the offensive, Naruto dashed towards one of the mirrors while charging up Stage 2 into his arms.

Moving at an incredible speed, he seemingly disappeared from view, however, that speed wasn't enough to move faster than Haku. As Naruto charged one of the mirrors with his fist pulled back, Haku appeared in front of him kneeing him in the gut, and knocking him back and landing on the ground next to Sasuke and Sakura.

Holy...hes faster than I am.

"I can tell your top speed Naruto, and my kekkai genkai allows me to allocate more chakra to make me faster than you and my mirrors to be more durable. You don't have a chance at winning."

With that, Haku threw needles again at them. Desperately trying to dodge and protect everyone, Naruto cursed his inability to think of a good plan cause he had to protect Sasuke and Sakura from being impaled. Even with the other 2 slowing down, it seems like they weren't getting impaled as much.

"Hmm, not bad. To be able to activate your kekkai genkai in battle is a huge feat in itself." Confused at the statement, everyone looked around to discover that Sasuke had activated his Sharingan.

"Nice Sasuke! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Each clone shot multiple fireballs at the mirrors, as Sasuke shot out his fire jutsu. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"

Haku focused more chakra into the mirrors and went to dispatch all the clones while shooting more senbon towards Sasuke and Sakura.

Hearing Sakura scream, Naruto looked back and saw that she had been impaled by a dozen of them and fell to the ground.

"Sakura!" Naruto yelled while running up to her.

"Naruto! Watch out!" Sasuke yelled.

And in a flash, Naruto looked up and saw that Sasuke had taken the hit that was meant for him.

"Sasuke!" Naruto jumped up to grab Sasuke and laid him down next to Sakura. His eyes widened at the scene in front of him.

"I can't die yet...I haven't killed him yet.. Naruto, don't die."

I was too weak to protect Sakura, and I was to stupid and let Sasuke die.

"He jumped into my trap, just to save you...he was very brave to protect you and died for it. Unfortunately that is the path of a shinobi."

"Oy... you think its funny to kill my friends?" Naruto looked up at Haku in one of his mirrors, "I'm going to kill you!"

Red chakra surrounded Naruto as his whiskers widened, and eyes turned red.

"You're pretty confident about your speed huh?" Naruto disappeared from sight and slammed his fist into the mirror that Haku was in. Shattering the mirror, Haku jumped into another mirror and withdrew some needles.

Before he could throw them, a fist thrashed that particular mirror, forcing Haku into another.

He's too fast! Haku mirrored himself in all the remaining mirrors and needles from all direction, hoping some of them would hit. Naruto's hands moved at lightning speed while twirling around and caught all 100 needles aimed at him.

Shocked at his speed, Haku jumped out his mirror with the intent of jumping to the one behind Naruto. Unfortunately, just as he was about to enter the mirror, Naruto grabbed his neck, twisted his body around and threw Haku across the dome area where he crashed through one of the mirrors.

Landing 20 feet away from where the domes were, he could no longer hold up his mirrors and they came crashing down behind Naruto. He charged towards Haku when he started to get up on a knee but stopped when he saw his face.

Going through the mirror tore off his mask and his face had a gouge on it where blood was freely pouring from it.

"Why did you stop? I killed 2 of your friends, but you can't kill me?"

"I want to. I want to kill you so bad because you took away 2 of the people that treated me like a human being, but I can't. The face you have right now, is the same face as that time." Naruto started to explain. "A few years ago, there were some people that use to beat me. I got so mad at them that I started to attack them back, before I could do anything more serious than the beating that I gave to them, my aniki stopped me. He told me that you can't kill out of anger. It doesn't resolve anything, and you won't feel better about it."

Naruto pulled out some rope and tied Haku up. "Wait what are you doing?"

"You killed my friends, you will spend the rest of your life atoning for what you did. I thought I was strong enough to protect them. I was wrong, and I will have to live the rest of my life knowing that." Naruto chopped Haku in the back of his neck, knocking him out.

Hearing a loud chirping noise, he turned up towards the sound and started to make his way to it. When he came to, he saw Kakashi's hand through Zabuza's chest and huge amounts of blood pouring out. Dispelling his Kage Bunshin, he collected the memories of the fight and saw everything that happened.

"Kakashi-sensei, are you okay?"

"Naruto? Are you okay? Where are Sasuke and Sakura?"

"Yeah, I beat Haku, but...Sasuke and Sakura are...dead," he could barely speak that sentence before tears starting to pour down his face.

"Naruto..."

"I know Kakashi-sensei, A ninja must put the mission first and must have a heart that will not allow him to cry...but they were the only people to treat me like I was a normal person! How can I not be sad that they're gone because of me?"

A small distance from the bridge, "Well what happened here?" Kakashi and Naruto looked up to see a short man in a suit surrounded by a mob of mercenaries.

"Oh? You killed Zabuza? That saves me the trouble of having to pay him."

"Are you Gatou?" Naruto asked figuring out who the small man was.

"So what if I am?"

Its his fault...its his fault they're dead! "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Twice the number of clones versus mercenaries appeared in front of Naruto and Kakashi. They shot out fireballs and incinerated the boat attached to the bridge. As the boat burned into the sea, another mob was forming behind them.

Quickly turning around, they saw Inari with the group of villagers charging towards Gatou and his men. Seeing how they were completely outnumbered, everyone surrendered and was being escorted to prison.

Naruto, however, wasn't as enthused about capturing those men, he wanted to go back to Sasuke and Sakura's bodies. As he walked up to them, he heard a cough coming from Sakura. Shocked evident on his face, he ran to them and saw both of them wincing as they tried to move around.

"Sasuke! Sakura! You're alive!" He grabbed them both into his arms and hugged them tightly.

"Naruto-no-baka! Quit squeezing us so tight! You're making it worse." Sakura complained while trying to get Naruto to loosen up his grip.

"I thought you were dead...I didn't know what to think..."

"Listen dobe, we're ok, it looks like he planned on just knocking us out, not killing us."

Naruto's eyes widened as he turned to see Haku's unconscious body. He didn't know what to do between fighting us or listening to Zabuza. He was willing to die to honor us both?

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!

Naruto had each clone carry Sasuke and Haku back to the house, while he carried Sakura back bridal style, earning a blush on her face.

The next day, as Sasuke and Sakura were still recovering from their wounds, Haku woke up. Naruto took the inititive to talk to Haku about everything that happened the day before.

"Haku, I know what you did for us yesterday, and I want to thank you."

"Where's Zabuza-san's?"

"He, unfortunately died on the bridge."

"I see. And now that you know what I have done, what will you do with me?"

"I don't really know, but I know you aren't a bad person, so why don't you come back to Konoha with us?"

"I...I no longer have any kind of purpose. Not that Zabuza is dead, I don't have anything to live for." Haku said this in a low tone.

Naruto stood up and walked to the window, "You know, no one has a purpose in life, you make your own dreams. And when those dreams come true, you make new ones. All you have to do is take that first step in a different direction and see where it takes you."

"Those are some deep words from someone so young."

"Haha, of course. Those are the words that saved me when I didn't have my own dream."

After the bridge was completed, and everyone said their goodbyes, the group walked away from the bridge back towards Konoha.

"That boy helped us create this bridge, protected it, gave everyone here the courage to move forward, and made us believe in ourselves again."

"Oh yeah, what are we going to name it?"

"Haha, we're going to call it the Great Naruto Bridge!"