[Hope in Ruination] Chapter 6 - Ahri (II)

AN: I added a meme at the end of the chapter

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A few days later, Naruto and Ahri were about to board a large sailboat in a port on the southern coast of Navori, haggling over the price. 

Considering that their destination was the Serpent Islands, Bilgewater specifically, the price of a ticket was nearly 50 golden hexes per person. It had to be said that 1 or 2 golden hexes were enough to rent a room for the night at a respectable inn. The reason for that exorbitant price was that that sailboat was not designed for transporting customers. It was a merchant ship made for transporting goods. The only lodging it had was for its crewmen and soldiers. 

Alas, they did not have a choice. In general, only merchants were crazy enough to sail to Bilgewater. Leaving aside the perilous journey (the Guardian Sea was infested with gigantic serpents and other aquatic monsters), Bilgewater itself was a lawless place, a den of pirates and criminals. Fugitives from all over Runeterra took refuge in that place, for there was no government. There were no laws. There were no restrictions. 

“Strange that we couldn’t get aboard as bodyguards,” muttered Naruto in dismay. 

He got aboard with Ahri’s money, not his, but he still felt it was a pity for them to have paid such a price. 

“They don’t know us, so they don’t trust us,” Ahri explained. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Bilgewater pirate infiltrated a merchant ship’s crew and destroyed them from within. We’re lucky we got taken aboard at all.”

Naruto snorted. “Lucky, my ass. You did something to him. I saw his pupils flashing pink for a moment.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about~” she sing-sang jokingly.

“If you can mind control people like that, why not tell him to lower the price too?”

“This is this and that is that. I try to remain fair whenever possible. I do need to get to Bilgewater no matter what, so it can’t be helped, but I don’t want to scam the merchant either.”

At the ship owner's instructions, one of the sailors came to the two of them and asked them to walk with him towards their quarters. The entire time, the man could not stop sneaking glances at Ahri. Despite that her special features were hidden by her white cloak, as was most of her body, he could tell just from the sound of her voice and from her slender silhouette that she had to be a beautiful woman. If anything, not being able to see her appearance only made his imagination go wilder. Nevertheless, he did not cause them any problems. Once he showed them the room they would be living in during the trip, he left them to their devices and went back to his post. 

“One hundred golden hexes for this dingy hole?” said Naruto in dismay when they opened the door and heard the loud sound of many rodents scurrying across the wooden floor. 

“You’re such a money grubber; quit whining! It wasn’t even your money,” Ahri said, torn between laughing and being annoyed at him. “More importantly, there is only one bed.”

“It’s okay; you can have it,” he said, waving his hand off uncaringly. 

She walked in front of him and put her hands on her waist, frowning as she looked up at him. 

“You didn’t hear how many rats are on this ship? There’s no way I’m letting you sleep on the floor!”

“I meant that I don’t need sleep. I can spend a few days to a week without sleep just fine.”

“That’s not fine, no matter how you look at it!”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “There were times when I couldn’t sleep for two or even three weeks.”

The Seagull was an enormous sailboat with three masts; it was over 80 metres long and 15 metres wide, and it had a crew of nearly 70 people. Moreover, it was armed with 40 cannons, and its military personnel consisted of 40 gunners and over 150 soldiers wielding muskets and swords. 

That being said, most of the space was used for transporting cargo. The merchant ship carried goods that the inhabitants of Bilgewater needed, such as grains, alcohol, and clothes. Therefore, Naruto and Ahri were lucky to get a room; only the captain, who had a private room, and the officers, who were sleeping three or four in one room, could afford that luxury. The rest of the crew slept in hammocks, down below, crammed up together with the cargo. 

 

⁂

 

Time passed, and, on the sixth day of their voyage, Naruto stood by the handrail of the ship together with his large backpack, eating a meat pie as he watched the agitated sea. 

The sky was still clear, glittering with myriad stars, and a brilliant moon shone in the night, but the sailors must have sensed something because they all started raising the sails frantically, with the captain barking orders at them from the quarterdeck. 

A soft yawn was heard from behind, and he turned to see the fox girl rubbing at her eyes, her fox ears flopped down cutely. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked. 

“They could raise the dead with their screams, let alone me,” Ahri said tiredly and wrapped her white cloak tighter around herself when a cold breeze blew. 

Glancing at him, her amber eyes glinted with curiosity as she asked for what had to be the twentieth time since they first met:

“How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“How are you eating with your mask on?”

A more powerful gale blew, and Ahri involuntarily closed her eyes and turned her head to shield her face from the wind. When she raised her head again, the meat pie in Naruto’s hand was already gone. He was chewing its last remains. 

“Argh! You always do that!”

She lunged at him, but he caught her by the wrists before she could pull his mask off. 

“You already know my name; I can’t let you see my face too. My mask is off limits!”

She struggled to free her wrists from his grasp, but his physical strength was just too much. Eventually, she gave up and pouted at him. 

He chuckled at her behaviour. He never forgot that she had tried to drain his chakra, but she was so cute that that incident was quickly becoming a distant memory in his mind. He didn’t remember laughing as much in the past few years as he did ever since he met Ahri. 

Once he let go of her wrists, she came next to him, leaning on the handrail as well. 

“Do you have more of those meat pies?” 

“That’ll be 50 silver cogs.”

“Are you being serious!?”

Her outrage made him chuckle again as he rummaged through his large backpack and took out a scroll before unfurling it. 

Although they had paid 100 Golden Hexes to get on board, their food was not included in the price. They had to handle it themselves. Nevertheless, even if it were, neither of them would want to eat the same slop that the sailors did. Not only was the sailors’ food mostly simple jerky, rum, and tough biscuits, but the way it was stored left much to be desired. The ship was infested with rats, and the sailors themselves were some of the dirtiest and smelliest people that Naruto and Ahri had ever met. Stuck at sea for weeks at a time, most sailors rarely ever took any baths because freshwater was too valuable to waste on such things, and the sea was too dangerous to bathe in. 

He put his right hand on top of the scroll and channelled some of his chakra. A plume of smoke burst out, and a carefully wrapped, still warm, steaming meat pie appeared in his hand. 

Ahri let out a sound of admiration and clapped her hands like a little child. Seeing her anticipation, he couldn’t help wanting to tease her. Instead of giving her the meat pie, he brought it to his mouth and took a bite himself. 

“Come on, Ifrit, give me some too!” she pleaded, stretching her arms up, reaching for the pie, but he was taller than her. 

Left with no choice, she changed her target and snatched the scroll from his other hand instead. 

“Oi, be careful with that! If you damage it-”

“If I can’t have it, no-one can!” she shouted, threatening to rip the scroll in half. 

They bickered like that for nearly ten minutes, completely ignoring the rest of the crew, who appeared to become desperate now. It was only when they noticed the deck getting crowded by the over 100 soldiers that came out of the ship that they stopped fooling around. 

“Whazz goin on?” Ahri asked, with her mouth full and her cheeks bulging with food like a hamster (Naruto had wisely decided to stop teasing her and share his pies with her). 

Normally, the soldiers and the rest of the crew worked in three shifts, each shift lasting 8 hours. If all the soldiers came out with their muskets in their hands, that could only mean one thing: something serious was about to go down. 

Naruto closed his eyes and focused on his Negative Emotions Sensing ability. 

“I don’t sense anything,” he said after a few moments. But then, his expression changed. “No, I sense it now. Something is coming! Something really big and hungry!”

Ahri quickly finished the rest of her meat pie and wiped her hands off on Naruto’s travelling cloak.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said in annoyance, grabbing her by one of her fox ears and pulling on it. “Do you have no sense of danger?”

“Ow, ow! Let go of my ear first!” even as she yelped from pain, she was snickering. 

Considering that was hardly the time to fool around, Naruto stopped pulling on her ear and furled back the sealing scroll that contained his food before putting it back in his bag. He tied the large bag securely and put it on his back before grabbing his large poleaxe and readying for battle.

Ahri crossed her arms over her chest and nodded her head in a self-satisfied manner when she saw him preparing for battle. 

“You’re as reliable as ever. Umu. I was right to hire you as my bodyguard. With you protecting me, I’m the best-guarded person in Ionia.”

But the fox girl also stopped fooling around when a large amount of water started to rise up from the sea almost like a hill. 

As the water fell off the “hill,” everyone got to see just what exactly was underneath. 

It was an immense creature, a 40 metre long monstrosity. Although it was only half as long as the sailboat, its body was far bulkier. With its enormous size, skin that looked like plated armour, and a large, horrifying mouth filled with dozens of rows of vicious-looking teeth, it was a Jaull-fish. It was one of the most terrifying monsters of the sea, a being that could only be found in the Guardian Sea, in the proximity of the Serpent Isles. 



“Holy shit!” Naruto let out a curse. ‘That thing looks almost as big as you, Kurama.’

“Hmpf. You dare compare that mindless fish to someone like me?”

Sailors and soldiers alike were frozen in terror at seeing the upper half of the Jaull-fish’s body coming out of the sea. It was only their captain’s roar that brought them back to their senses. 

“GUNNERS! FIRE AT WILL!”

No sooner than his words ended, the barrels of 20 cannons lit up, and a deafening boom rang as 20 cannonballs hit the Jaull-fish in the head. 

The creature’s low, deep growl made the sea quake. A ten-meter-tall wave rose as the monster went underwater and started swimming at a great speed towards the ship. 

Proving his experience, the captain was quick to turn the helm and scream commands at his subordinates to pull on the sails, just barely managing to steer the ship from a perpendicular collision route. 

Unfortunately, there was only so much that the captain could do. Although the ship turned, the massive Jaull-fish’s charge still grazed the upper part of the bow of the ship, crumpling it as though it was paper. 

“GUNNERS! FIRE AGAIN!” the captain screamed. 

This time, it was not only the gunners who fired their cannons; the soldiers also aimed their muskets at the side of the Jaull-fish and fired their weapons too, as futile as that may have looked.

Even a monster as large and tough as the Jaull-fish couldn’t easily tank 40 cannonballs hitting it dead on. Its armoured skin was cracked open, and a large amount of its vile, putrid blood polluted the water with its stench. 

Deterred by the third salvo of cannonball attacks fired upon him, the Jaull-fish swam away quickly, avoiding most of the shots. 

With the monster being put on the run, the captain laughed out loud, boisterously. 

“DON’T LET IT ESCAPE, LADS! EVERYONE TO OARS!”

As dangerous and terrifying as they may have been, Jaull-fish were like a walking treasure for those capable enough to hunt them. Inside their mouths, close to their numerous rows of vicious teeth, the Jaull-fish grew something that looked like precious gems; they were called sapphilite sacs. Those gems could be distilled by mages and alchemists into extremely precious magic potions and elixirs that were sought worldwide. 

“We’re going to be rich! Bwahaha! Hear that? We’ll swim in hookers and rum for months!”

However, at that moment, a peculiar silhouette jumped out of the water like a fish. Its speed was so high and its jump so powerful that it flew over 30 metres in the air, landing straight on the quarterdeck. Due to its invisibility, nobody noticed its arrival, not even Naruto, who was more preoccupied with observing the monstrous fish in the distance. 

The captain was still laughing out loud when a searing pain came from his back and a long and wide curved dagger whose blade looked like that of a bone saw burst out from his chest. 

He choked on his laughter as blood filled his mouth, and he vomited blood and bile all over the helm. 

The captain’s aides were frozen in stupefaction as they watched their superior getting gutted like a fish in front of their very eyes. They broke out of their stupor only when the fat captain fell on the wooden floor in a pool of his own blood with a heavy thud. They pulled out their flintlock pistols and fired at the assassin, but he was like a ghost. His body appeared to become invisible once again, and the three men’s heads rolled on the ground in an instant. 
 


⁂

Noticing the sharp killing intent coming from the quarterdeck, Naruto glanced up just in time to see a bald, grey-skinned man wearing a strange bone armour stabbing the captain in the back. He didn't have time to make a move to stop him because the assassin became invisible and instantly beheaded the captain’s three aides before jumping off the board and diving headfirst into the water. 

“What the fuck is going on!?”

Just a few minutes ago, he was eating a meat pie and enjoying the salty breeze of the sea on a clear, peaceful night, yet now they were attacked by a massive sea monster, and the captain and his aides were assassinated!

The rest of the officers tried to instil order, but when the Jaull-fish did a 180 turn and started charging at the ship again, terror engulfed everyone. 

“If we get hit again, we’re all dead!” one of the officers screamed. “FIRE THE CANNONS!”

Woefully, with the captain and his aides killed off, the chain of command was broken and the ship was thrown into chaos. Only four out of twenty gunners fired their cannons. 

“Naruto, we have to get away!” Ahri said and grabbed him by the arm. In her anxiety, she forgot she was not supposed to call him by his real name in public. 

“Get away where?! We’re in the middle of the sea!” he shot back. 

“I can take us away! If it’s only the two of us-”

She didn’t get to finish her words because Naruto took off his backpack and handed it to her. 

“Please take good care of this. It’s almost as important as my life.”

It wasn’t the backpack itself that was so important to Naruto but the large Scroll of Seals that was bound to it. 

“Where are you going?! You’re going to die if you stay here!”

“I won’t let all these people die when I can do something about it,” Naruto said with conviction, and the massive pole axe in his right hand lit up with a bright, powerful flame, so intense that even the sailors who were several metres away felt the heat. 

Not leaving Ahri another moment to reply, Naruto broke into a sprint and jumped off board, eliciting a cry of surprise from the sailors and the soldiers who had seen him jump. At first, they thought that he had lost his mind due to panic, but when they saw him land on the agitated surface of the sea as though it was dry land, their surprise turned into outright shock. 

The Jaull-fish was not intelligent enough to understand or wonder why a human was capable of walking on water. It was undaunted in its charge. The monster opened its enormous mouth wide to swallow him whole, revealing countless rows of fearsome teeth that were even bigger than the human was tall. 



Naruto was not intimidated. A cloak of red chakra appeared around his body, and he let out a powerful war cry as he jumped high up into the air, well above the Jaull-fish, and smashed his flaming pole axe into the monster’s head. 

Strength of a Hundred Jutsu, Kyuubi’s 1st version of chakra cloak, and powerful Katon chakra coursing through the poleaxe: a powerful shockwave erupted from his strike, greatly shaking the sailboat in the distance and raising massive waves all around him. 

A desperate, mournful bellow came from the monster as a gash over 15 metres long and 5 metres deep appeared in its head, and the fire coming from the poleaxe incinerated its brain. 

Right after dealing that devastating blow, Naruto’s pole axe shattered into countless tiny metal shards, unable to withstand the heat of his chakra and his monstrous strength. 

Naruto jumped off the Jaull-fish's enormous body and put some distance from the monster. Despite having gotten killed on the spot, its massive, 40-meter-long body was still spasming uncontrollably, reminiscent of how regular fish would sometimes still move even after getting their heads chopped off. Except that this gargantuan monster was raising tsunami waves with every movement of its fins, making it hard even for Naruto, who could walk on water, to maintain his balance on top of the waves. 

Eventually, the dead Jaull-fish stopped moving, and its heavy, enormous body started slowly sinking into the water. 

Naruto let out a long breath of relief, happy that he had killed the creature in one shot. While the monster sank and the surface of the water slowly regained its calm, the sound of several metallic objects flying through the air was heard. 

Ten massive harpoons were fired from the large sailboat, stabbing deeply into the Jaull-fish’s body, preventing it from sinking down any further. 

⁂

When he returned on board, Ahri was the first to rush at him and throw her arms around him. 

“By the spirits, what was THAT?!” she shouted in excitement. She had lived for centuries, but she had never seen anything like that before. 

She wasn’t the only one to feel that way; the sailors and the soldiers crowded around him too, glancing at him in a mixture of awe, fear, and shock. 

Even half an hour later, when the ruckus died down a bit and the sailors became busy with dismantling the Jaull-fish’s body and harvesting the sapphilite sacs from its mouth, Ahri was still brimming with enthusiasm, asking him all sorts of questions. 

“How did you walk on water?!”

“What is that power of yours?”

“Chakra? How can you control it?”

“Five elements? Can anyone learn to do that??”

Fortunately for Ahri, after finding out just how valuable the sapphilite sacs harvested by the sailors from the Jaull-fish’s mouth were, the money-grubbing blond became happier than he had been in years. Despite also contributing to the fight against the Jaull-fish, the crewmen sensibly decided to give Naruto roughly 80% of the precious gems. In addition, they also gifted him a pretty high-quality steel broadsword after finding out that his polearm was shattered in the fight against the monster fish.

The blond was in a fantastic mood; he happily answered all of Ahri’s questions. 

⁂

Harvesting the valuable materials from the enormous Jaull-fish and repairing the damaged bow of the ship extended their voyage across the sea for nearly one extra week. 

While the sailors and even the soldiers were hard at work dismantling the monster, Naruto was sitting at the stern of the boat, in the shadow coming from a large umbrella that the sailors had so readily offered to him from the captain’s cabin. 

Speaking of the dead captain and his dead aides, they were swiftly replaced by the rest of the officers on board, with the leader of the soldiers becoming the new captain. Naruto stayed out of their discussions since he was not part of their crew. He spent most of his time reading from the Scroll of Seals and practising his fuinjutsu on various scrolls and other pieces of paper in an effort to master the Hiraishin technique. 

It was during the eighth day of their voyage, in the middle of the night, while Naruto was sitting outside of Ahri’s room with his back against the cabin wall that the door was opened and the fox girl stepped out of her room. 

“Say, Naruto, could you conjure some water for me, please?” Ahri asked. 

From the moment Ahri heard that Naruto could control all five elements, she instantly asked him to conjure some water for her so that she could bathe herself. Ahri was very particular about her hygiene; not being able to clean herself in nearly a week since she came aboard the ship was like torture to her. 

“Didn’t you take a bath two days ago?” he asked back. 

“I can’t sleep,” she mumbled. “I was thinking that a bath might help me relax. . .”

Naruto hummed, unconvinced. 

“You’re hungry again, aren’t you?”

Ahri averted her eyes. 

“. . .Yes,” she admitted quietly, knowing that she could not fool Naruto’s lie detector. “I haven’t fed since before we boarded the ship.”

He supported himself on his new broadsword to stand up and let out a yawn as he stretched his back. 

“You look tired. Shouldn’t you get some rest?”

“I can’t sleep easily in unfamiliar places.”

“I don’t mind sharing our bed,” Ahri said seriously, not teasing him like usual. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep.”

“Hmm. . . I don’t know. . . “

“Don’t you trust me?”

Naruto snorted in amusement. ‘Don’t you trust me?’ was one of the first things Ahri asked him when they first met a few weeks ago. After the incident when she tried to drain his life force, that question became like an inside joke between the two of them. 

“You better feed while I’m awake lest I go to sleep and never wake up again.”

Ahri had the decency to look sheepish. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with me. . . well, you know. . .”

“Sucking my-”

“Don’t be a pig!”

“-My life force! What else did you think I was going to say? Get your mind out of the gutter!” he shot back at her, laughing. 

Ahri flushed, not expecting him to accuse her of being the perverted one. 

“You don’t have to use such terms! I wasn’t even thinking of that!” she squawked.

He grinned so widely that it could be seen even with the mask that was covering his face. 

“Aww, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it? How cute.”

Her reply was to go back into the cabin and slam the door shut in his face. 

Naruto laughed happily at finally getting one over the fox girl who had been teasing him mercilessly for weeks now. 

He was about to sit down again, outside her cabin, when Ahri opened the door again but only enough so that she could make her voice heard. 

“Can you help me? Please.”

“Good grief.”

He smiled as he entered Ahri’s room and saw the fox girl looking anywhere but at him. She had never seen her act so vulnerable and embarrassed before. 

“So, how do we do this?” he asked as he put his broadsword down on the floor and walked to the bed. 

“We need physical contact. But not that kind of contact, so don’t misunderstand!” she said quickly, not giving him the opportunity to make any smart-aleck remarks.

Naruto’s chest shook with his laughter, much to her growing embarrassment. But then, he took her hand in his and squeezed it comfortingly. 

“I understand,” he said, no longer poking fun at her. 

“Thank you, Naruto,” she mumbled, and she took his hand in both hands. 

Her yellow fox eyes turned a bright magenta colour, and a soft giggle came from her mouth. Both his and her hands started glowing with blue light, and Ahri’s face morphed into an expression of bliss as she devoured his chakra. 

After not feeding in a long time and due to how powerful and delicious his life energy was, Ahri soon became so consumed by the act that she appeared to have lost control of her outward actions. 

Entranced by her Charm Spell, Naruto’s body moved on its own, according to Ahri’s desires, outside of his own volition. It was as though he became a spectator inside his own body. 

Having already experienced such a phenomenon before, he did not panic this time. He just prepared himself to send Kyuubi’s chakra into Ahri’s system if it looked like she lost herself to her hunger. 

For now, he only sat back and observed, letting Ahri do as she pleased. Under the fox girl’s Charm Spell, Naruto took off his boots and climbed up in the bed before lying on his side. Ahri climbed in bed after him too, never letting go of his hand. She lay on her side, and she made him embrace her, spooning her from behind. 

To his mixture of relief and disappointment, the girl did not ramp up things any further than that. Moreover, a few minutes later, Ahri stopped her feeding session on her own, and her Charm spell ended. 

With the spell no longer controlling his body, Naruto tactfully tried to sit up and get out of bed, but Ahri did not let go of his arms. 

“Don’t go. Stay with me.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea? I’m just a guy you’ve met not even a month ago.”

She turned to look at him, and Naruto couldn’t find the strength of will to refuse her. Those big, expressive, yellow eyes melted any objections he might have had. 

“I trust you, Naruto,” she said, pulling him down to her. “I’ve seen your life. I’ve seen your memories.”

This feeding session was far longer than the first one when she attacked him in Ionia. Considering that Ahri also received her target's memories when she drained their life force, she had seen a great deal of Naruto’s life this time around. 

When he also realised that fact, he felt as though he had become naked. He had forgotten about that aspect of her feeding.

“I’m not judging you,” she said in a soft voice and pulled him closer to her, embracing his head to her chest.

“You’ve led such a hard life. You did everything you could to survive. . . I admire you. Your strength of character, your power, and I admire that you have not lost your kindness even after everything you’ve been through.” 

“You’ve saved those mercenaries from the fire demon, Ifrit. You saved those children from Zaun and gave them all your money. You’ve saved everyone on this ship too. . . You’re always taking care of others. . . let Ahri take care of you now.”

Naruto couldn’t say a word. Until then, he had not realised just how starved for affection he had been his entire life. As Ahri embraced his head into her bosom and talked to him in a soft voice, he found himself embracing her back, burying his face deeper into her chest. 

“You did great, Naruto.”

“You fought well. You are a good and kind person.”

“You are a great friend.”

Although she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and in spite of the fact that his face was buried into her large, soft breasts, not a single sexual thought was in his mind at that moment. The way she complimented and recognised his efforts and struggles was unlike anything anyone had ever done to him before. All he could think of was how gentle and soothing her voice was, how nice she smelled, and how comfortable and warm were her 9 fox tails as she draped them over him almost like a blanket.

Her gentle caresses, her breathy voice whispering sweet, comforting words in his ears, and the warmth of her embrace lulled Naruto into a deep, peaceful sleep, devoid of any worries and bad dreams. 

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: The meme of the chapter: