Sai did as he was requested and stood by Naruto's side. Naruto began to walk towards the statue as it began walking towards him. Sai felt apprehensive about approaching the murderous stone effigy, but since Naruto was doing it he followed. Naruto made a bending a scooping motion, directing the statue to pick them up, "Going up?" Naruto cocked his hand back, as did the statue before he launched it forward, sending him and Sai flying up towards the top of the tower to the area where the ornate door was located. Naruto and Sai ended up smacking the door hard and breaking the decrepit metal door down.
Naruto and Sai picked themselves up as Naruto made a one handed ram seal, "Kai." Once again he glowed yellow before it faded.
Sai dusted himself off, "What was that Naruto-senpai?"
Naruto cracked his back, "It's a new seal of mine. I read that real fuuinjutsu masters come up with their own stuff so I made my own. I was going to test it in front of Shikamaru to piss him off, but here was just as good a time as any to use it right? It forces the wills of the recipients into a struggle. The winner ends up with temporary control over the other's body."
Sai nodded, "Are you sure you should have released it?"
Naruto waved off his concern, "What the fuck is it going to do all the way down there?"
The sounds of stone hitting the ground re -attracted their attention to the statue below as they saw it pick itself off of the ground and try climbing the wall. It only made it slightly off of the ground before dropping back down onto its back, it then repeated the process.
Naruto sweatdropped at the sight, "Let's get the hell out of here." He pointed at a bridge linking one tower to the next. The two dashed from their first location to their next destination as the sounds of the statue attempting to pursue them sounded out.
XxX
(Kirigakure)
Tayuya sat on the edge of a cliff on one of Kiri's surrounding mountains, looking out at the village while simply playing her flute in boredom. She looked over at Shikamaru who was sprawled out on the ground staring up expressionlessly.
Kakashi had told them to scope out surrounding areas and vantage points of the village that they could get away with seeing. Tayuya could feel the Anbu watching them but paid them no real mind. They weren't really doing anything wrong. While they had been off doing that, Kakashi had some… 'Kakashi stuff', as he dubbed it, to attend to elsewhere.
Tayuya finished up a song and looked up with Shikamaru, "How fucking long are we going to be here? I want to go home already, this is boring."
Shikamaru remained silent, staring at the clouds, apparently ignoring Tayuya. The red-head got a tick mark on her head, "Are you listening to me you lazy bastard? I'm trying to speak to you here."
Shikamaru sighed, "I know that. But I don't have the answer to your question or anything that I could say to make you feel better. It would be too troublesome to try and rack my brain to come up with something."
Tayuya placed her cheeks in her hands, "Shithead would have tried."
Shikamaru groaned in apathy, "It's always, 'Shithead this' or 'Shithead that'. You haven't stopped asking or talking about Naruto since he left us outside of Kiri. Even when Kakashi said he wouldn't tell you anymore. If you're that worried about the guy then chain him up when he gets back, or even better, marry the guy." He laughed to himself, "Yeah, then you would have a legally binding reason to be so troublesome about him." Shikamaru then had a heel firmly planted in his stomach.
Tayuya looked down at Shikamaru with her foot on his belly, "Do not say that about me and Shithead. We could never work out, he's a Shithead!"
Shikamaru spoke in a pained tone, "Calling him names just shows me that you care. You might as well be calling him Naruto-kun… Who am I kidding? You probably will be calling him Naruto-kun."
A grunt escaped his throat as Tayuya began stomping on him, "Shut up! There's absolutely nothing between me and Shithead!"
Shikamaru coughed with each stomp, "Your mouth says no but your heel says yes."
Tayuya eventually tired of stomping on him and sat back down, "Hey, you're friends with him right? Why is he so damn good and you're so not? You're the same age aren't you?"
Shikamaru readjusted himself on the ground, "I don't know. 8 months ago we were forced to fight him all at once, everyone from our graduating class. We didn't know he was that good, he beat us all."
Tayuya scoffed and chuckled, "Well I could have told you that was going to happen. You were all what, genin? That guy was a right destroyer of men, even years before this. He made me think that all Konoha had were superheroes coming out of the woodwork if a kid was as strong as he was. It just didn't seem natural."
Shikamaru's attention was now firmly on Tayuya, "What? Naruto was never much in the academy. It was scary, seeing where all of his power came out just suddenly like that. No one can tell where it came from."
Tayuya rubbed her cheek, "Well he's been like that for a while. When I first fought the bastard he couldn't have been any older than an academy student, that was what scared me about Konoha. You know the Cursed Seal that the little butt-pet Uchiha has? Well we were all fighting with it on, and we knew what we were doing. We were still going to lose until our fifth man showed up and took the advantage."
Shikamaru was confused, "How many years ago was this?" Tayuya thought for a moment, "I would say about six years or slightly less."
Shikamaru sat up abruptly, "Wait you're saying that Naruto fought you and the rest of your Oto kidnapping team when he was 8 years old? That's impossible, he first enrolled in the academy at the age of 8."
Tayuya shrugged, "I'm only telling you what happened. He had a weird plain white mask, but it got all carved up during the fight. The blonde hair and whisker marks were a dead giveaway when I saw him again though. I thought I saw my life flash before my eyes when I did. I was more worried about fighting him than you and your little fat friend at the time."
Shikamaru simply looked away in thought, 'Seriously Naruto. Why do things have to be so troublesome when you're involved? Who are you?'
XxX (Uzushiogakure – with Sai and Naruto)
Naruto and Sai emerged from the top of the third tower singed and with shallow cuts on their bodies. Naruto sighed, "What the hell? That wasn't anything at all, it was like the entire top floor of the building was one big trap!"
Sai winced slightly as he touched a cut on his side, "Maybe that was a training facility for Uzu shinobi. It certainly worked like one."