The sealed kunai

Chapter 62: A Stroke of Absurdity

The middle of the goddamn ocean, miles and miles away from Kumogakure... and Kirabi was there.

What the hell? Wasn't he in that huge valley outside of the village that he called his home? How did he even know that Naruto was in Kumo, let alone that he was taking a ship out of Kaminari no Kuni back home to Hi no Kuni? He was only there long enough to drop off Yugito and tell the Raikage about their little episode with the enemy. Talk about having an ear to the ground.

"B... why are you following me home?" In his head, Naruto was well aware of just how much hot water all of the Kumo sailors onboard were. For Kami's sake, the strongest ninja in Kumogakure managed to sneak away from his village at a time of war under their watch for a 'vacation' of sorts, "Your brother is gonna-."

Kill him? Kill everybody on the ship that let it happen? Kill Naruto for even being loosely involved with it? And after all of that time trying to get in good with the Kumo high brass too. Naruto didn't want to eat a Lariat. Not a chance, he liked his head on his shoulders and his spine lined up the way that they were already thank you very much.

"-A ain't gonna do a thing." Kirabi stated, waving off his fellow jinchuuriki's concern, "I got that fool played like a puppet on a string." He'd get his face nearly crushed in an Iron Claw for punishment, but after a few minutes of that and a few hours of getting chewed out later it would all blow over for him. No problem.

And everyone else there happened to be stationed at the coast of the country on wait for the Kiri forces in case they ever managed to reach the mainland. They'd all be way too far away from A's eventual wrath when it came down. He'd destroy his office, get it rebuilt, and that would be the worst of it.

Once again, Naruto looked around at the would-be unfortunate Kumo sailors and turned back to Kirabi, "I want to kick you over the side and make you swim home." But damn it that would probably start a fight that he didn't feel like seeing through on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

Still though, Kirabi held a ridiculously strong grip on Naruto that the younger biju container simply couldn't seem to pry off without using his sword as a lever first, "Aw come on kid you know this trip'll be a thriller, 'cause you're sharing a ship ride with the killer! Killer B that is! Yeah!"

'I'd rather share a ship ride with Yugito.' Naruto thought to himself, pushing on Kirabi's face to try and get the man's bro hug off of him, '...For multiple reasons, but he sure doesn't need to hear that part.' When he heard Kirabi say something about helping him write some new lyrics, Naruto started looking around rabidly like a trapped coyote that was one step short of trying to gnaw off its own leg to escape.

The Kumo sailors pitied him, but they had their own problems to worry about. Apparently Naruto Uzumaki was supposed to be absurdly tough, both physically and mentally. He could take a few days of dealing with that.

But Naruto would have rather taken two days of periodic Root conditioning in their boot camp to being stuck next to the rapping shinobi of Kumogakure. At least that was supposed to have made him stronger.

XxX

(Hi no Kuni Countryside)

There was simply too much land for Konoha to cover all over the place.

The enemy intelligence had constantly wondered just how thinly spread Konoha's military might happened to be due to how they seemed to currently be doing well on all fronts that the war had presented to them, but now that she had managed to get behind the border of the country that housed Konohagakure and the country that housed Amegakure she had to say that had the Continental Ninja Federation had made a tactical mistake at the outset of the war.