[Hope in Ruination] Chapter 7 - Death at Sea

AN: If you want to read more Naruto/League of Legends fics, I'd like to recommend you [Blade of the Deceiver] by "Ryujin Kurakami", on FFN.

Plot: LeBlanc, in the aftermath of a failed experiment, seeks a new weapon someone desperate, someone she can mould. Her search leads her to a boy on the verge of destruction, abandoned and hunted by his own people. Seizing the opportunity, she whisks him away, unknowingly claiming a soul bound to an ancient and powerful legacy.

Pairing: I believe that the pairing for his fic is Naruto/LeBlanc/Katarina - but it may be subject to change

Ryu has been consistent with his updates and I feel like his story has potential. Give the first 2-3 chapters a try, I believe that you will like what he's cooking :)

Without any further ado, here's the new chapter. Enjoy!

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

As morning came, the sailors’ third shift ended and the first shift replaced them, causing a great deal of noise and chatter. Ahri’s fox ears twitched and she buried her face into the pillow, curling herself into a ball, unwilling to get out of bed. 

When memories of the previous night came to her mind, she raised her head and looked to her side. 

‘He’s wearing the mask even in his sleep.’

She chuckled quietly at the ridiculousness of the situation. In spite of how sleepy she was, she grinned in mischief. She had met Naruto several weeks ago, but she had yet to see his face. Ahri was part fox, and she definitely had the curiosity of one. She was dying to see what he was hiding underneath.

Pulling down her blanket and raising herself on one elbow, she leaned over him, reaching slowly towards his mask. Her slit pupils dilated, and her white fox tail swayed in anticipation, but just as her fingers were about to touch the edge of his mask, a hand caught her wrist in a vice-like grip. 

She was startled so badly that she jumped off the bed as though there were springs under her feet, and she actually hissed at him. 

“You jerk, you were awake the entire time!” Ahri jeered at him when he burst into laughter. “You scared the living daylights out of me!”

“That’ll teach you not to do that again! Hahaha!”

Due to the scare he had given her, her sleepiness vanished entirely. 

Still chuckling, Naruto got out of bed and stretched his arms above his head, making Ahri involuntarily drop her eyes to the portion of skin revealed by the rising of his t-shirt. But she quickly looked away, not wanting to tip him off that she had let her eyes stray. 

Thinking that she was pouting because he had scared her, Naruto briefly patted the top of her head, between her perky fox ears, intending to annoy her even more. But, to his surprise, she didn’t try to slap his hand away.

“I’ll go clean myself up,” he said as he headed out. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Could you look over my backpack while I’m gone?”

“Sure,” she mumbled, still not looking at him. 

Little did he know that after he left the room, Ahri’s face turned a bright red. Although she had immediately stopped looking at his exposed midriff while he was stretching, the brief look she had gotten at his defined obliques would just not leave the front of her mind. 

“Ahri, get your mind out of the gutter!” the fox girl slapped her own cheeks and scolded herself. 

⁂

With the Jaull-fish fully harvested and the ship’s damage being repaired by the carpenters on board, it did not take long for the coast of the Serpent Isles to appear on the horizon. 

The Serpent Isles, also known to the rest of the world as the Blue Flame Isles, were home to the Buhru people, an ancient tribe of humans who worshipped the Goddess of the Sea, Nagakebouros. But they were not the only inhabitants of the archipelago. 

Unlike the Buhru people, who had been living on the northern Serpent Island for over 6000 years, isolated from outsiders, a new, far more recent nation came into being on the largest, southern island around 200 years ago: Bilgewater. 

A haven for pirates, criminals, traffickers, and other wanted people, Bilgewater was a lawless city where a modicum of order existed only thanks to the local gangs of pirates and warlords. It was an unpredictable and dangerous place even for someone like Ahri, which is why she decided to hire a bodyguard. 

Done with their morning rituals, Naruto and Ahri came out on deck. The lack of proper food, bathing, the countless rats they could hear at night, and the constant danger of being attacked by enormous sea monsters and potentially dying or being stranded in the middle of nowhere made sailing a troublesome and unpleasant experience for most people. The two of them did not enjoy travelling by sea either; they couldn’t wait to get back on land. 

Seeing their saviour coming out of his cabin, many of the sailors and soldiers in the first shift greeted him loudly and merrily. Even the newly chosen captain came to say hello.

“Mr Ifrit, good morning!”

“Good morning, Captain. Looks like we’ll arrive at Bilgewater in no time, huh?”

“Aye, we normally would be there in one or two hours. But it looks like the wind is against us. Highly unusual, I’ll tell you that.”

“What's going on?” asked Naruto. “Shouldn’t the tradewinds be at our back?”

It may seem like the wind blew wherever but that was not the case. Even the wind followed a general route on the sea. Those who sailed for a living had long since mapped out those tradewinds, those ‘corridors’ where the wind only blew in a certain direction. 

The captain nodded.

“I’ve sailed from Ionia to Bilgewater a hundred times, and the tradewinds were always at our back on this side of the sea. I don’t know what could’ve caused this change. Well, no matter. As the saying goes, the ocean has no memory, only moods. It’s not the end of the world. We’ve engaged in a tacking manoeuvre. We’ll arrive in three or four hours tops.”  (1)

Once he informed Naruto of the delay, the captain left him to his own devices and went back to his crew.

“I was hoping we’d get our breakfast in Bilgewater, but it looks like it will take us a while longer to get there. You want some?” Naruto asked while taking out his storage scroll and unsealing a cheese pie.

Ahri never said no to food, and he grinned when the fox girl mumbled a few words of thanks. Although she seemed to be unusually quiet that morning, he was not worried. Judging by the lazy sway of her fox tail, she did not appear to be upset. He did not know if Ahri was aware of it, but her tail always betrayed her mood. 

As he finished eating, he sat on the bench that had sort of become his special spot on the boat and rested, watching the seagulls fly about. Ahri sat down next to him too, and he noticed that she was quite close, their shoulders barely ten centimetres apart. Not just that, but her hand, which was on the bench, was mere millimetres away from his. She touched his hand with her pinky finger and glanced up at him with a grin.

Alas, her purposeful closeness, her subtle glances, and her little touches seemed to go right over Naruto’s head.

She sighed inwardly. 

‘He’s annoyingly perceptive when it comes to everything else, so why is he so dense now?’

She stopped her advances and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting. But her irritation faded into nothing when she recalled the memories she had seen while consuming his chakra last night. 

‘. . .He’s never been in a romantic relationship, has he?’

She had not seen the entirety of his life, but from the pieces of memories she had seen, Naruto had never been in love with anyone. 

‘The demon inside of him lets him know whenever someone harbours negative emotions. . .’

Ahri could also sense other people’s emotions, but she had to consciously focus on it. It wasn’t instinctual or automatic like it was with Naruto. 

‘It’s probably more like a curse for him. More often than not, people can’t control what they feel. They can control their actions and their words, but not their feelings. . . and he got to see that ugly, dark side of people every day since he was a child.’

Sometimes, people could be annoyed or tired and feel like wanting to slap others just for glancing their way. But that didn’t mean they truly wanted to do that. 

Her heart went out for him. She couldn’t imagine what sort of damage it had done to his psyche when he was younger, during his formative years. 

Naruto looked at Ahri in surprise when she placed her hand on top of his and turned it gently so that she would intertwine their fingers. His hand was rough and filled with tough callouses from decades of wielding weapons, but hers was so soft and delicate that he was afraid he would injure her just by touching it. 

As their gazes met, Naruto found himself unable to speak, momentarily losing himself in those playful, yellow eyes. A man with just a little more experience or emotional intelligence than him would have recognised the signs and leaned down to kiss her. 

She giggled softly when she understood that he was not going to make a move. Breaking eye contact, she shifted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her amusement only grew when her fox ears twitched and her sensitive hearing picked up the sound of his frantically beating heart. 

She squeezed his hand in a wordless gesture of affection and support, and, to her surprise, Naruto briefly tightened his hold on her hand too. 

‘Maybe he’s not a lost cause after all,’ Ahri thought, smiling as she started caressing his hand with her thumb. 

All of a sudden, Naruto jumped up to his feet, inadvertently yanking his hand out of her hold.

“What’s that?!”

Ahri stood up in a rush too when she also noticed the rapidly darkening horizon. It was a black cloud of massive proportions. 

“That’s no mere storm cloud,” he said. 

Kyuubi’s Negative Emotions Sensing was warning him of an immense amount of killing intent and hatred coming from it. 

If Naruto and Ahri, who were on the deck, noticed the cloud, the sailor perched up in the crow’s nest at the top of the fifty-meter-tall mast had certainly noticed it with his telescopic monocular too. 

In a show of impressive agility and athleticism, the sailor took no more than ten seconds to drop down from the crow’s nest and he ran up to the Captain. With her sensitive hearing, Ahri easily heard his words:

“Captain! We have to fall back! It’s the Black Mist!” said the sailor in a panicky voice. 

“The Black Mist?! Didn’t the Buhru people destroy it years ago? Are you still drunk?”

“I swear it’s true! I’d never forget that terrifying sight my entire life!”

Seeing as he was one of his oldest crewmates, the Captain took him seriously. He grabbed the monocular from the sailor’s hand and extended it to the maximum before looking at the horizon, towards the Serpent Isles. 

The distance was still too big for his monocular to show him a clear view, but what he was seeing was enough to convince him that the sailor was right. 

“Everyone to posts!” the Captain screamed and turned the helm as fast as he could. “Wake the second shift and tell them to get to the oars! Tell the third shift to come out with their weapons! The Black Mist is back!”

The Captain’s shouts electrified the boat, and the sailors started moving about in a rush. 

But the sailors weren’t the only ones who reacted like that. A massive flock of birds flew away from the Serpent Isles, towards the direction of the boat. They were fleeing from the Black Mist as well. 

The aquatic life was fleeing too: blue whales, orcas, dolphins, sharks, and even gigantic serpents and Jaull-fish could be seen breaching the surface of the water as they came up for air before diving underwater again. They were running in the same direction as the birds, opposite of the Serpent Isles.

“We might not make it at this rate,” Naruto said. 

The Black Mist in the distance was getting increasingly close. Although they had the wind blowing in their sails now and dozens of people were rowing desperately, the massive boat was ultimately too slow. 

Eventually, the Black Mist caught them up from behind, and Naruto got to see its appearance up close. 

“All soldiers to arms!” the Captain screamed. “Protect the sails with your bloody lives!”

“Rowers, keep manning the oars! Row like it’s yer last day in this world! Row like yer life is on the line, bastards!”

Tens of soldiers grabbed their swords, axes, spears, and muskets and came out on the deck, preparing for battle. 

It was as though an avalanche of darkness was descending upon them. The sun was covered, and the sky turned pitch black, like at midnight. Ghastly wails pierced their ears, and dozens of ghouls and other creatures of darkness landed on deck, materialising out of the Black Mist. 

Unfortunately, that was not their only problem. Gigantic tentacles suddenly split the surface of the water and wrapped around the enormous sailboat. It was a kraken, a creature larger than anything Naruto or the sailors had ever seen in their entire lives. 

“Leave the ghouls to the sailors! I’ll go for the kraken underwater! Try doing something about its tentacles before they destroy the ship!” Naruto told Ahri. 

He grabbed his large broadsword and jumped off the board, splitting the water with his weapon. 

“I got you!” Ahri said in response. 

Her fox tail turned into nine, and her eyes glowed with her magic power as she jumped into the air, levitating.

Three orbs of blue fire took form in her hands. . . but something was very different. They weren’t the small, fist-sized orbs she always conjured. They were five or six times larger, almost as large as half of her body, and they were so hot that even she, the one who conjured them, could feel their heat. She could only think of one explanation:

‘Is this because of Naruto’s life force?!’

She had fed on his chakra last night, but she had not expected it to have such a powerful impact on her magic. 

Nonetheless, there was no time to ponder about it. She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Still levitating, Ahri threw one gigantic orb of fire after another at the base of the kraken’s tentacles, outside the ship, taking great care not to set the sails on fire. 

An inhuman scream made the surface of the sea tremble, and the sailboat started shaking and groaning as the kraken thrashed around in pain.

Seeing the sea monster refusing to let go despite the pain, Ahri raised her arms above her head, and a large ball of fire appeared in her hands, bigger than her own body. She flew outside the ship and threw the orb into a giant tentacle. 

This time around, her fox fire did not only elicit a shriek of agony from kraken but the entire tentacle was engulfed by flames. A limb of flesh longer than thirty meters and weighing dozens of tons was turned into cinders. Thanks to the exquisite control of her magic, the blue flames did not spread from the tentacles to the rest of the ship. She gathered them all into another ball and then threw them the next tentacle. 

Unfortunately, her damaging attacks made her a priority for the Black Mist’s ghosts, flying creatures, and other monsters, which started focusing their attacks on her.

⁂

The kraken’s shrieks of agony nearly deafened Naruto after diving into the water, but he focused his chakra on protecting his eardrums and swam deeper, heading below the ship. 

Mind-controlled sharks, orcas, and water serpents lunged at him, but they were hardly a threat. The power of lightning crackled through his broadsword, shocking to death any creature that got close to him. 

Due to being underwater, his own lightning attacks were harmful to himself too, but he gritted his teeth to bear with the pain. He did not relent. He killed one wave of mind-controlled creatures after another as he swam towards the main body of the kraken. 

The sea monster’s true body was humongous. The Jaull-fish that he had killed before was not even half as large as the kraken he was seeing now. Even Kyuubi himself would be smaller. 

“Hmpf! That’s only because half of my power is sealed in the belly of the Shinigami! If I were at full strength, I’d still be bigger than this damn squid,” Kurama’s irritated growl came from within the seal. 

It appeared as though the fox’s pride was hurt because, for the first time in many months, Kyuubi willingly infused Naruto with his power, despite having said he would not help him anymore. 

A cloak of crimson red chakra engulfed Naruto’s body, and three fox-like tails of energy appeared at his back. 

His eyes turned red and slit, like the pupils of a fox, and his canines grew longer as Kyuubi’s chakra influenced his body. Naruto smiled. He had missed that feeling of power. Even without an arm, unable to cast his most powerful ninjutsu techniques, Naruto felt as though he could take on the entire world at that moment. 

Grabbing the handle of his broadsword with both his human and hextech hands, Naruto raised his weapon in front of him like a spear before bursting forth at the kraken. Despite being underwater, the three tails of energy at his back propelled him with the speed of a bullet. 

The kraken didn’t even have time to react as Naruto stabbed his lightning-covered broadsword into one of its enormous eyes. He didn’t just stab his sword to the hilt; compared to the kraken, his weapon and even his full body were like an ant in front of an elephant. Holding his breath and grimacing in disgust, Naruto gouged the kraken’s enormous eyeball out and dug into its skull, swinging his lightning-covered broadsword with wild abandon, cutting everything in front of his eyes. 

Massive amounts of blood made the seawater turn a murky red colour as Naruto gored the kraken’s head from the inside out. Its limbs being burned to ash by Ahri above and its skull getting torn to shreds from within, the kraken let out deafening shrieks of rage and agony. But that was all it could do. 

Two minutes after the blonde had dug his way into its skull, the kraken’s movement came to a stop as the sea beast breathed its last. 

Unfortunately, defeating the giant kraken did not signal the end of the fight. The battle against the Black Mist's monsters and the creatures who were mind-controlled by it raged for nearly one more hour. Sailors and soldiers dropped in doves, killed by the unending wave of monsters or falling prey to the Black Mist's corruption taking over their minds. 

Naruto himself was not invulnerable to that corruption either; every two or three minutes he had to expel large amounts of chakra from his body as though he were dispelling a powerful genjutsu in order to keep his mind clear. 

Ahri was the only one who had a relatively easier time against corruption because her abilities to charm others granted her a higher degree of resistance against mental attacks. That is not to say that she was immune to it. 

By the time the Black Mist pulled back, even Naruto, with his nigh-endless stamina, was breathing out harshly, exhausted. It appeared as though the Black Mist was not mindless because, after he killed the kraken, he had become the main target of the mist’s creatures, most of them focusing almost exclusively on him. 

To make matters worse, his hextech arm appeared to be malfunctioning after he used his entire strength against the kraken. It was making a creaking noise and letting out bright sparks every time he moved it.

⁂

The battle against the Black Mist had been a tragedy. The joy of having hunted an enormous Jaull-fish and having harvested everything of value from its body went up in smoke. That’s because more than 50 people, including the new captain, lost their lives against the creatures of the mist or were corrupted and had to be put down by their own comrades during the fight. 

Being a sailor in the seas of Runeterra was one of the most hazardous professions in the world, even deadlier than being a footman in the army of Noxus, a warmongering nation that treated its soldiers as though they were expendable.

The sea monsters, the cruel pirates of Bilgewater, and the wild and unpredictable ocean were more than enough to guarantee that at least half of those who sailed the seas for a long time would not get to reach retirement age. But when the Black Mist was also added to the mix, things became even more terrible. 

“Mr Ifrit, Miss Ahri, thank you for fighting alongside us. We survived only because of you.”

It was the newly elected captain of the ship, a thin man of average height, with a receding hairline, and two pistols strapped at his waist. Unlike the previous two captains of the ship, this third captain lacked the seemingly boundless confidence and charisma they had. Or maybe it appeared to be like that in the aftermath of that tragic battle. 

Be that as it may, the new captain and the rest of the crew understood that, if not for Naruto’s and Ahri’s efforts, they wouldn’t have gotten to see the end of the battle at all; the kraken would have sunk their ship minutes after the start of the attack. 

“We did it for our survival too,” Naruto replied. “But I see that the middle mast is damaged. Do you think we can reach Bilgewater in this state?”

“We’ll start working on patching it up once we have a drink and catch our breaths. I don’t know how many of our carpenters survived, but we’ll make it work somehow,” said the new captain. “Unfortunately, I came here to let you know that we won’t be going to Bilgewater anymore. We’re changing course and heading to Fallgren, the Noxian island closest to our location.”

“What?! But we’re only 20 or 30 miles away from Bilgewater! Probably even less!” Ahri said in disbelief.

“Reaching Bilgewater ain’t the problem, miss. The Black Mist is back. We ain’t afraid of pirates and sea creatures. But the mist? Ghosts and ghouls, and getting our minds brainwashed? None of us here signed up for that. You and Mr Ifrit may be able to hold your own just fine but look at us. Nearly half of us lost our lives in the last battle.”

“But surely the Black Mist won’t return immediately, would it? You have more than enough time to dock at Bilgewater, resupply, and then be on your way.”

Ahri’s question was not unreasonable. The Black Mist's attacks - the Harrowings - were infamous in the world of Runeterra. They were devastating, killing thousands or even more every time they erupted, but, thankfully, they did not have a high frequency. 

“Maybe not, maybe yes. But if your life was on the line, would you bet on it?” the captain asked. 

Ahri did not have an answer to that, so she remained silent. 

“Look, we’re grateful for your help. We can give you one of our rescue boats, some water, and some rations if it’s that important for you to go to Bilgewater. But we can’t accompany you there.”

⁂

Once the captain left, Naruto looked at Ahri strangely:

“You still want to go to Bilgewater after what just happened? What the hell was that even?”

He had fought kage-level shinobi, monsters, and demons, and he had survived despite the cruel pursuit from Konoha and Akatsuki for years, but he had never been more disturbed than in the present. He had never faced an enemy of that sort, an all-encompassing Black Mist that corrupted all living beings, brainwashed them, and enthralled them. On top of that, the ghosts created by the Black Mist were hard to deal with even for him because physical attacks didn’t work that well on them. 

“I know I can’t ask you to come with me now that the Black Mist is back. . . But I have to go. I’ve been looking for traces of the Vesani for years until I finally found them. If I miss out on this chance, it could be decades or more before I get another chance like this.”

“How long do you plan on staying?” he asked. He looked like he was unsure of what decision to make. 

“Bilgewater is only so big. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to find the artefact I’m looking for. The chance that there will be another Harrowing right away is very low, but even if another one were to happen, I can always just seek refuge on the island of the Buhru people. They’re an ancient tribe of people who worship a sea goddess. Their Goddess' magic protects them from the mist.”

At Naruto’s sceptical look, she said:

“I can tell what you’re thinking, but it’s not a sham. Nagakabouros is a real goddess. The goddess’ chosen one is called “Truth-Bearer” and they can channel her power. If rumours are to be believed, it was the Truth-Bearer and the Buhru people who defeated the Black Mist a few years ago.”

“You’re dead set on this, huh?”

She nodded wordlessly. 

He leaned on the ship’s railing, looking at the vast expanse of water without saying anything for a few moments. 

“What’s on your mind?” she asked. 

“I’m just thinking of what I would do in the worst-case scenario.”

“. . .You mean that you’re coming with me?” she asked in a voice that betrayed the surprise and the confusion she felt. 

“I promised that I’d protect you, didn’t I? I said I’d be your bodyguard. I don’t go back on my words.”

“Then why-”

“Just because I said I’d follow you wherever you went, it doesn’t mean I’ll keep quiet if I think you’re about to do something stupid. But if I can’t change your mind, I should at least try to come up with some countermeasures. . .”

He let out a sigh. 

‘If only I was a little better at Fuinjutsu. . .’

If he had been a master of the Hiriashin Jutsu from the Scroll of Seals, he would have had no worries. They could have teleported away from Bilgewater the very moment a Harrowing happened again. 

But he had not mastered the technique just yet. He had never had a sensei to teach him anything. Even the tree and water walking techniques, he had had to figure those out by himself. Learning Fuinjutsu from scratch, without a master, had been too difficult so Naruto had not given the Hiraishin much thought back when he was in the Elemental Nations.

He had become powerful enough to fight off even kage-level shinobi like Jiraiya of the Sannin, and the members of Akatsuki. He did not have much motivation to become a Fuinjutsu master back then.

It was only after arriving in Runeterra, after losing the ability to cast ninjutsu, that he started thinking seriously about learning Sealing Techniques.  

His train of thought stopped when the fox girl came next to him and hugged his side. 

“Thank you, Naruto,” she said in a quiet whisper that only he could hear. 

To him, it was only natural to keep his word. It was part of his moral code and who he was as a person. But, to Ahri, the fact that he chose to follow her into Bilgewater despite the reemergence of the Black Mist was the biggest proof she could have asked for that Naruto truly cared about her. 

All she could do was utter three words of gratitude and embrace him, hoping that her actions would drive her feelings across better than her words.

She vowed at that moment that she would do anything to pay him back, even if it meant putting her life at risk for him.

⁂

Half an hour later, after packing all their stuff, Naruto and Ahri bid their goodbyes to the captain and the rest of the sailors and walked alone towards the railing of the ship. 

“Are you sure it’s better to go like this instead of taking a lifeboat?” Ahri asked doubtfully. 

Many of the surviving crew members were looking at them with a weird look on their faces. 

“A boat as small as that would get flipped upside down by the first big wave. Might as well just go on foot. With my speed, we’ll reach the shore in minutes.”

Ahri glanced at the lifeboat, then back at Naruto, and then at the sea. 

“Come on, Ahri, don’t you trust me?” the blond said teasingly. 

His question made her snort with laughter. 

“No fair, that’s my saying!”

But then she let out a sigh.

“It’s just strange to think we’d run atop the ocean. . . but you are right.”

She grabbed Naruto’s backpack and put it on her back before Naruto took her in a piggyback carry. With her arms wrapped around his neck and his hands holding her from her thighs, Naruto jumped off the board and started running atop the water. 

Maybe it was because the recent passing of the Black Mist had scared away all the aquatic lifeforms, but they didn’t encounter any sea monsters or other predators anymore. 

With Ahri holding a magnetic compass and showing the way, Naruto ran as fast as he could on top of the water. The large and agitated waves of the Guardian Sea made it difficult for him to run as fast as he did on land, but he was certainly a lot faster than their boat. It was incomparable really. In a matter of minutes, the coast of the Serpent Isles appeared on the horizon once again.

Surfing down a particularly tall wave, over 15 meters tall, Naruto’s legs blasted off a large amount of water as he suddenly jumped high up in the air, using the water almost like a trampoline. 

Ahri giggled at the sensation, feeling as though she was riding a rollercoaster in Piltover’s amusement park during their Progress Day festivities. 

Encouraged by her laughter, his acrobatics became more daring and more impressive. They were having fun as though they had not had a life-and-death battle less than an hour ago. 

But such was life when one was a long-lived vastaya who had seen and lived through countless dangers while the other was a shinobi who had lived every day of his life expecting it to be his last. They had both made a habit out of doing their best to enjoy the present and try not to dwell too much on the past. 

“Naruto, wait, I think I heard something!” Ahri suddenly said in his ear. 

He had not heard anything himself, but he listened to her, reasoning that Ahri’s sense of hearing was most likely a lot more sensitive than his. After all, she was a fox vastaya; those fox ears of hers were not there just to look cute. 

“It’s coming from 10 o’clock!” she said and pointed her finger in that direction. 

“What sound is it? Couldn’t it be just a whale or some dolphins?” he asked.

“No, it’s different. I’m certain! It sounds. . . almost like a yordle. Maybe some people survived the Harrowing and need help.”

Still carrying Ahri on his back, he changed his direction and started running towards the direction Ahri was pointing. 

Half a minute after they changed their course, Naruto and Ahri arrived at what appeared to be the remains of a shipwreck. The main body of the sailboat had long since sunk to the bottom of the sea, but pieces of wood were still floating on the surface of the water. 

“I see a person! There’s someone floating in the water!” Ahri said. 

Naruto noticed them too, and he rushed to their location. 

An extremely tall and muscular man was floating atop the water on his back, seemingly unconscious. The two of them also got to see what was the source of the noise that had alerted Ahri and guided them there. 

“How lucky must he be to just float on his back like that? What are the chances of not drowning after falling unconscious?” Ahri remarked. 

But Naruto was more intrigued by the little creature standing on the man’s chest and making squawking sounds at them. “What’s that?” he asked, never before having seen a living being like that. 

It looked like a ball of fur and fluff, not much bigger than his palm. It took Ahri only one glance at the tiny creature's little ram horns and its disproportionally big mouth for her to recognise it:

“Ohhh! It’s a poro! But what is it doing here? Most of them are living on the other side of Runeterra, in Freljord!”

Walking closer to them, Naruto bent down and picked up the man from the water. Ahri was sensible enough to move away, climbing from her position on his back to his left shoulder. 

“Man, I miss my shadow clones,” he muttered as he hoisted the big man on his right shoulder and used his chakra to enhance his physical strength. 

The white little creature let out a happy squeak as it jumped into Ahri's arms, and the fox girl fluffed his soft fur in delight. 

“Kyuu!”

That cute little sound it made had Ahri swoon over it. Even Naruto had to admit that it was cute as hell. 

There was not a single person in Runeterra who hated the poros. And if there really was someone like that, Ahri wouldn’t trust those people with anything. 

“Hold on tight, Ahri. I’ll rush at my fastest speed towards the shore.”

Just before he broke into a sprint again, the poro jumped off from Ahri’s arms on top of Naruto’s head, nestling itself in his spiky blonde hair. 

“This little guy,” Naruto chuckled. “Maybe it’s best if you hold him, or he’ll fall off.”

Ahri giggled at Naruto's appearance with the furry little white creature on his head. 

“Don’t worry, they’re really good at holding onto things,” she said through giggles. “I wish I had one of those Piltover devices for snapping pictures. It looks too funny!”

With the giant, bald man on his right shoulder, a nine-tailed fox girl on his right shoulder, and a furry little creature on his head, Naruto painted a funny image as he ran on top of the water towards the shore. 

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: For this chapter, I strongly suggest watching this short cinematic (4 minutes). It will give you a better idea of what the Black Mist is and what it looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PbhGt8XxSM

As for the gif with Ahri, it's taken from this cinematic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzHrjOMfHPY . It's one of the best lol cinematics out there. Great animation, quite a few LoL champions being showcased, and nice action.

As for Poro and the man that Naruto just found floating in the sea, you can watch this short cinematic if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dvYxkyQFZU

(1) Tacking is a method of sailing developed by people in ancient times in order to go against the wind. They would sail in a zig-zag pattern so that the wind would blow into the side of the ship instead of going face-first against it. I felt it was interesting so I thought I’d share this little bit of knowledge with you. I often learn new things while researching stuff for my stories.