[Hope in Ruination] Chapter 5 - Ahri (I)

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Chapter 5 - Ahri

The trip from the coast of Navori to the mountains of Ionia, where the Kinkou Monastery was located, was peaceful and devoid of any unexpected incidents, but it was in no way boring. Let alone the two children from Zaun; even Naruto himself was awed at the amazing and unusual sights of the Ionian continent and its people. 



Ahri acted as a guide for them, leading the way and telling them all sorts of tales and trivia about the people of Ionia who loved to live a simple life in communion with nature. Before the invasion of Noxus, Ionia did not even have a government. Crime used to be extremely rare, and those who stood out through their villainy were swiftly taken care of by the self-appointed protectors of the land, such as the Kinkou Order, the Hiarna Order, and the Shojin Order.

But, above all, nature in Ionia was alive. The people of Ionia had not needed a government for thousands of years because the Spirit of Ionia itself quelled any large-scale conflicts or external invasions. Even small and insignificant incidents like someone cutting down a tree for no good reason or hunting animals down for sport instead of need would lead to the Spirit of Ionia acting out and punishing the offender; enormous golems made of rock, earth, and wood would rise from the ground and dish out nature's wrath. 
 

Kyuubi’s Negative Emotions Sensing ability had made Naruto aware of Konoha’s hatred towards him from a very frail age, and after that, from the age of 12 until the day he left the continent of the Shinobi, he had been on the run, constantly having to fight for his life against Konoha’s Black Ops Ninja and the Akatsuki. 

Therefore, to Naruto, Ionia felt like an alien place. He couldn’t imagine a world without conflict, fights, killings, and assassinations. But at the same time, deep down, he longed for a life like that, to live in a place with no more fighting and no more hatred. 

Watching the fantastic beauty of nature, the Ionians’ nature-worshipping culture, and travelling alongside the two innocent children had been like a healing salve for his soul, like a balm to his exhausted spirit. It was a break that he did not know he needed. 

Particularly remarkable in their travels were the humongous, docile, turtle-like animals on whose backs some Ionians had actually built homes for themselves. 
 

The temples of various Orders and their architecture were also of a rarely-seen grandeur; only Demacia’s capital city could rival them in beauty. 
 

However, that period of peace and tranquillity came to an end eventually. After nearly one week, Naruto, Ahri, Kyle, and Hayley arrived at the main settlement of the Kinkou Order, the Kinkou Monastery in the Mountains of Ionia. 

Following the trend of most of the settlements he had seen until then in Ionia, the Kinkou Monastery was built in harmony with nature. It looked as though nature had consciously moulded itself in a way that would provide the monks with lodging. All the houses looked as though they had been raised out of the mountain, with trees and other forms of vegetation growing around them. 

⁂

Leaving the children in the care of the Kinkou Order had been a much quicker and easier affair than Naruto had expected, all the more so when he insisted for the monks to receive his money. But that could not be said about his departure too. 

“You’re a big boy. You shouldn’t cry,” said Naruto when Kyle hugged his leg and started bawling his eyes out. “Look, Hayley is a girl, but she isn’t crying.”

As if to prove him wrong, the little girl also hugged his other leg, starting to cry just like her younger brother too. 

Ahri looked at them smiling, her grin only widening when she saw the awkward look on Naruto’s face. 

“You should hug them too!” she mouthed without making a sound.

Naruto glanced at her and then back at the kids before kneeling on the grassy ground and taking them in his arms. 

The children only started crying harder when he returned their affection. 

“I hope you’re not wiping your noses on my cloak now.”

His grumpy mutter made both Kyle and Hayley involuntarily sniff with laughter, which actually splashed some of their mucus on his clothes. 

“Oy!!” he shouted at them but there was no real heat in his voice; it made Ahri and the monks who came to take the children smile at the heartwarming scene. 

It took a while for the two siblings to stop crying, but Naruto did not rush them, letting them get it all out of their system, only rubbing their backs and caressing their hair comfortingly. 

“Will we ever get to see you again? Or is this our final goodbye?” Hayley asked when she finally broke the hug. 

“We never know where life-” he began to say, but, upon feeling Ahri’s pointed glance at him, he stopped. “. . .Of course not,” he ended up saying. “Whenever I’m in Ionia again, I’ll make sure to come visit you.”

The girl smiled through her tears. 

“You promise to come to see us again in the future? On your word as a sellsword?” Kyle asked, his eyes still red and puffy. 

“You cunning little brat. You know I can’t lie if I give you my word, huh?” the blond said, ruffling his hair roughly. 

“You said you never go back on your word, didn’t you?” Hayley also said, catching on quickly. 

“Aye, aye, I give you my word. I’ll definitely come see you again. But you should also promise me that you’ll obey these kind people who took you in, okay?”

“We promise.”

And with that, Naruto stood up, grabbed his huge backpack, and turned to leave. 

“We’ll wait for you, Mister Ifrit!”

“We’ll miss you! I hope you don’t forget us!”

The children shouted and waved after him. 

Naruto did not turn to look at them. He just raised his good arm and waved once before his body seemed to blur out of existence, disappearing with a burst of speed. 

⁂

As he entered a forest with trees that had red leaves, the Kinkou Monastery disappeared from view, his pace slowed down to a walking speed. His heart was unnaturally heavy. He was not the type to often feel sad, depressed, or lonely, but he was still human in the end. 

“Hey, why did you run off ahead all by yourself?” a breathy voice came from behind him, and Naruto’s right hand instinctively went to the handle of his polearm as he turned around. 

It was Ahri. 

“Keep sneaking up on me, and something bad will happen one day,” he replied in annoyance. 

He didn’t quite understand how she was doing it, but his Negative Emotions Sensing didn’t pick up any bad intentions from her, and her presence, in general, didn’t feel like that of a human. 

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, grinning. Her smile slowly receded as she walked next to him. “Are you okay?” she asked in a gentle voice. 

“Of course, why do you ask?” 

Ahri’s white, fluffy fox tail lowered, and she turned her face away from him, looking ahead of her as she spoke. 

"One of my abilities is to sense other people’s emotions. I can sense your sadness. . . and loneliness”

“I'm alright,” he said, giving her an eye smile. 

“Truly?” she asked, turning to look at him, her amber eyes peering into his searchingly. 

He shrugged his shoulders, but, for a reason beyond his comprehension, he felt the urge to talk about it with her. Until then, he had not known how much power a woman’s genuine kindness could have on a lonely man. 

“It's just. . . After I said goodbye to the kids, it struck me that all my life, I’ve been alone. . . this is the first time I’ve ever made a meaningful connection with other people. I never realized it until now,” Naruto said, fiddling with the straps of his large backpack as he walked. “I left my home when I was 12. After that, I never lived in one place for more than a couple of days. I had been on the run, hunted by the assassins sent by the leaders of the village I ran away from. I didn’t have time to think about friends and relationships.”

“That sounds so sad,“ she muttered, her fox ears dropping. 

“It is what it is. At least I survived. All things considered, it wasn’t all that bad, you know? It could have been a lot worse. Anyway, what are your plans now?” he shrugged his shoulders again and changed the subject.

Having spent the better part of a week together with Ahri, despite his guarded attitude against her in the beginning, Naruto had inadvertently started seeing her as something more than just a stranger. 

“Oh right!” Ahri perked up at his question and suddenly hopped in front of him as if there were springs under her feet. “I wanted to ask you, how about you work for me from now on? I want to hire you for an undetermined amount of time.”

The blond narrowed his eyes at her. 

“I’m not the type to work under one person.”

She put her hands on her waist, pouting as she looked up at him. 

“You haven’t even heard what the job is going to be about!”

“I don’t have to hear it,” he said as he walked past her, seemingly unbothered by her cute pout. “I’m a sellsword. I like my freedom. I go where the wind takes me.”

“The wind won’t take you anywhere if you’re penniless!” she said, snickering. 

“Meh. I’m sure I’ll find some new job in the nearest town."

“No, you won’t. Nothing ever happens in Ionia,” Ahri said, her grin widening. “Unless you want to become a farmhand? If so, I'm sure you could find a job shovelling manure and feeding pigs."

“. . . I still have some money saved up so-”

The fox girl started giggling at how quickly he changed his tune.

“Liiiiar~ I know you gave the monks everything you had!”

When Naruto turned his head away from her, she burst into laughter even harder.

“You actually have a cute side to you too! Who knew?” Ahri said teasingly. 

“Oh, shut it!” he groused and walked ahead. 

The fox girl suddenly grabbed him by his travelling cloak from behind. 

“No, don’t go! Give me an answer!”

“I gave you an answer already; I said no!”

“Why not? It’s going to be fun! Weren’t you saying you’ve never made connections with other people? This is the perfect chance! Don’t you want to forge a bond with me too?~”

Naruto felt like kicking himself for opening his heart to her earlier because she was already using that information against him.

'No wonder everyone back home said that beautiful women are dangerous!'

He swore to never do it again.

“That’s on me. I should’ve kept my mouth shut!” he said in annoyance as he glared at the girl and yanked his cloak out of her hands.

Ahri smirked at him, her sharp fangs and her playful amber eyes giving her an especially mischievous look. 

“Why? Is the big, bad sellsword Ifrit scared of getting too close to a girl? Is he, perhaps, afraid he’ll fall for Ahri’s charms?” she cooed.



She suddenly stepped into his personal space, and her grin widened when he involuntarily stepped back to keep the distance. 

“Haha! I like her!” Kyuubi laughed in schadenfreude from inside the seal. 

‘Go back to sleep, asshole!’ Naruto shouted at him before turning his attention back to the fox girl.

“I know better than to fall for someone like you,” he said with a scoff.

His cloak out of her grasp now, he started walking quickly again, leaving her behind.

Her body appeared to have become ethereal as she spirit-rushed in front of him like a phantom, cutting his way.

“Someone like me?! Hey! What is that supposed to mean!”

“Alcohol, money, and beautiful women. Where I’m from, these are the Three Vices of Shinobi. Moreover, it’s common knowledge that the more beautiful a woman is, the more dangerous too. If that saying is true, you’re the most dangerous person I know!”

A pink tint appeared in Ahri’s cheeks at his words. 

Due to how close their faces were to each other, he noticed the minute changes in her expression. Realising the meaning of the words that he had just said, his face flushed too under his mask. 

“So you think I’m beautiful, huh?” she asked coyly.

The way her fox ears perked up and her white fox tail started wagging left and right betrayed what in a great mood she was. 

“Who doesn’t?” he muttered a reply as he tried to walk past her, but she quickly ran after him, chuckling merrily at his awkwardness. 

“I wasn’t wrong! You do have a cute side to you~”

He pulled onto the rim of conical bamboo to cover the visible part of his face and cleared his throat as he further quickened his pace. 

All of a sudden, Ahri spirit rushed at him from behind once again, and he didn’t even have time to react before she snatched his bamboo hat and ran away. 

“Whoa!” she exclaimed “I didn’t see it because of the hat, but you were all red and blushing!”

“Ahri! Give it back!” he shouted at her.

As playful as ever, the fox girl pretended to throw his hat back at him, only to hold onto it at the last moment; she threw it in the air above her instead, playing with it. 

“You want it? Catch me if you can!”

Naruto let out a curse under his breath as Ahri burst away with another spirit rush, instantly travelling over 20 metres in one go. 

“Goddamned fox, I’ll pluck out all your nine tails when I get my hands on you!”

“Then you better make sure you keep up with me, Mr Sellsword, or you’ll never find me again. I’m a vastaya, I am one with the forest.”

⁂

Ever since he arrived on this side of the world nearly one year ago, Naruto had never met anyone faster than him. As a shinobi, he could greatly enhance his physical abilities through the use of chakra. He was startled to find out that the fox girl he was chasing was not any slower than him! 

Every time it looked like he would catch her, Ahri would spirit rush 20 metres ahead, dashing with such speed that it made him wonder if it wasn't some sort of teleportation instead. Her body would become almost like a phantom, and she would slip out of his range. 

“Are you holding back for my sake?”

“I’m not one to brag, but I’ve never lost a game of tag~”

“You’re a famed Demon Hunter, are you not? Don’t disappoint me now, Ifrit~”

Every time she escaped, she would taunt him like that and giggle at him.

Great winds were stirred in their wake as they ran, raising large amounts of leaves and dirt everywhere they passed. Their speed was far faster than the human eye could perceive. 

By the time they sprinted over a distance of more than 70 kilometres, Naruto came to the conclusion that he would never catch her due to her spirit rushes, so he pulled onto the bijuu’s chakra. 

A cloak of crimson red energy engulfed his body, and his speed skyrocketed. 

Ahri let out a squawk of surprise when she was tackled from behind, and they both rolled like ragdolls on the ground, fighting and wrestling with each other to be the one who ended up on top. 

Unfortunately for the fox girl, as agile as she may have been, she was no match for Naruto's physical strength, even after he stopped using the bijuu chakra in order not to harm her. She tried pushing with her 9 tails to flip him over, but due to his Strength of a Hundred Jutsu, he was like an immovable object on top of her. 

“I got you now!” he said while gasping for air, their faces less than 20 centimetres apart as he straddled her waist and pinned her hands above her head. 

Ahri too was gasping for air, her sweet breath blowing on Naruto’s face and making him heat up all over. 

“Expecting a kiss, are we?~” 

Even while she was pinned to the ground, entirely at his mercy, Ahri was still teasing him!

Naruto hated himself because, for a moment there, he had to battle with himself not to fall for her provocations and kiss her breathless. He wanted nothing more than to wipe out that teasing, smug, stupid smirk off her face.

Those playful, yellow eyes shining with mischief, those perky fox ears flinching at every sound, the 3 pairs of cute whisker-like marks on her cheeks, and those plush, glistening red lips of hers had almost made him lose it.

But he wasn't going to let himself get sucked into her pace. He let go of her hands and stood up. . . Or at least he tried to. Right after Ahri's hands became free, Naruto’s Negative Emotions Sensing ability flared up.

‘Hunger?! What the-"

Why would his sensing ability detect hunger as a negative emotion?? It wasn't like she was suddenly going to eat him up, was it?

He got his answer when Ahri suddenly grabbed him by the face with both hands and her amber eyes turned a deep magenta colour.

Naruto felt his control over his body slip away, and he froze on top of her as though he had been paralysed. 

‘Oh shit!'

'Hey, Kurama! She cast a genjutsu on me! Hey! Help me break out of it!’ 

The bijuu laughed gloatingly at his misfortune. 

"Serves you right! Hahaha! It’s poetic justice that you’re going to get killed by a fox!”

It really looked like the stubborn Kyuubi had no intention of ever helping Naruto again.

Although their faces were 30 centimetres apart now, a stream of blue light came out of Naruto’s mouth and got sucked through Ahri’s open lips. The fox girl shuddered, and her body started twisting almost obscenely as she drained his life force. 

He tried with his entire willpower to break the paralysis spell, to move away from her, but he couldn’t. His limbs were not responding to his will. It was as if he had become a mere spectator in his own body. 

In a moment of inspiration, he pulled onto the small amount of bijuu chakra that he could steal from Kyuubi against his will once more and pushed it out through his mouth. 

The stream of blue light turned crimson red, and Ahri suddenly winced and let out a cry of pain as the corrosive chakra entered her system. She pushed Naruto back roughly and let out a hiss-like sound, jumping up to her feet with a flip. 

“Oh no! By the spirits! Please be okay!” Ahri shouted as though she had just awakened from a trance and ran at Naruto to check up on him. 

However, right as she got in range, a massive polearm was swung at her, and it was only due to a combination of pure instinct and sheer luck that she was able to dodge the heavy blow, the deadly blade almost grazing the tip of her ears. 

“Finally showed your true colours, huh?” Naruto said in a murderous voice, and his huge weapon became engulfed by a terrible fire. 

The more beautiful a woman, the more dangerous too - it turned out that that saying could not be any truer.

His killing intent was so terrible that Ahri immediately backed away and raised her hands in surrender. 

“I swear I didn’t mean to!” Ahri said in a pleading voice, trying to placate his anger. “Please, Naruto, just let me explain!”

“Explain what? That you tried to kill me?” he retorted. “How do you even know my true name? I’ve never given my name to anyone in this part of the world.”

The worst part about this entire deal was that his Negative Emotions Sensing was actually not detecting any lies from her. The only emotions she could feel were worry, remorse, and anxiety. It was only the fact that she was not lying that was stopping him from attacking her again.

“I would never try to do something like that on purpose! I swear on the spirits!”

Her fox ears were sagged, flattened to her head in submission, and her big amber eyes were filled with unshed tears. Her voice sounded like she was on the verge of crying too. At that moment, she looked like a cornered little animal. 

“Speak. You have 30 seconds. If you tell me even one tiny lie, I’ll kill you where you stand. And I assure you, fox, I will know if you lied to me.”

Despite his harsh words, Ahri's pitiful expression doused the rage he felt inwardly. Nevertheless, he had no intention of letting her off easily if he didn’t like the answer she was going to give him next. 

“I’m a type of vastaya who needs to absorb life force from other people to survive. I’ve learned to restrain myself and not to drain others to death but I haven’t fed on anyone during the week we travelling together. . . Your life force is so powerful and your body was so close to mine that I couldn’t hold back my hunger anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Naruto, I swear I didn’t mean to. I haven’t been around humans in decades! The time I spent with you and the two children was the longest I’ve been in the company of other people in the last 100 years.”

“Please trust me! I’m speaking the truth!"

Naruto let out a loud groan of frustration and ran his metallic hand over his face, rubbing his forehead roughly. He had hoped the entire time that she would try to lie to him so that he would have a reason to punish her. But his Negative Emotions Sensing did not detect any lies. 

Knowing that she was speaking the truth, he couldn’t bring himself to kill her in cold blood, especially since he had started to see her as almost like a friend during their one-week-long trip through Ionia. 

In the end, he went to a nearby tree and plopped himself down with a thud before resting his back against its trunk. 

“. . . How did you find out my name?” he asked eventually.

It was something that bugged him to no end because he had never introduced himself to anyone on Runeterra with his real name. He had always used a fake name before and, more recently, adopted the name “Ifrit” that the other mercenaries had given him after slaying the fire demon from the coal mine. 

“When I’m draining people’s life force, I also get some of their memories and thoughts,” Ahri said in a subdued voice. 

“How much did you see?”

Ahri hesitated to answer for a brief moment. 

“Not that much . . . but I learnt your name and the fact that your body serves as a jail for a very powerful Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.”

“Damn it!” Naruto let out a cuss. 

The fact that he was a jinchuuriki was his most important secret. It was something that he did not want to ever let anyone on this side of the world find out because he had no idea whether Konoha and the Akatsuki had a way to track him to Runeterra or not. On the off chance that they could do that, he did not want to make it easy for them to find him. 

But now the cat was out of the bag. Ahri had just found out his secret. 

He blew out another sigh and silence was instilled between them for a while. 

“For God's sake, Ahri! Why did you let your hunger get to this point if you know you’re prone to losing control if you don’t feed on time?” 

Still not daring to meet his eyes, she answered:

“I didn’t want you or the children to see me doing that. Feeding on other people’s life force is not something I’m proud of. It's like a curse. It's an addiction, something I can't rid myself of. I've tried to fight against this hunger my entire life but I could never stop it.”

“I see . . .why did you approach us in Danshan? And why did you offer to help me take the kids to the Kinkou Order?”

“You smelt a bit like a fox. . .  a bit like me. I never had any bad intentions. I thought you were one of my kind. I thought you were vastaya,” Ahri said. “You see, I’ve been searching for traces of my family for many years. . . Picking up your peculiar scent filled me with untold amounts of hope. I thought that I had finally met a kindred soul.”

Throughout the interrogation, Naruto focused his entire attention on his Negative Emotions Sensing to check whether she was lying or speaking the truth. 

“Why did you want to hire me? What for?”

When he asked that question, Ahri’s fox ears perked up, and she dared to raise her head to look at him. 

“I may have found a lead on the Vesani, my tribe’s whereabouts. A pirate from Bilgewater purchased a Vesani sunstone from the black market. I wanted you to accompany me there as my bodyguard, but I didn’t know how long this search would take me. That’s why I wanted to hire you for an undetermined period of time.”

Frankly, Naruto didn’t know what to do next. On one hand, Ahri had just attacked him and it could have turned into a dangerous situation if he hadn't gotten the idea to make use of his bijuu chakra. But on the other hand, the fox vastaya had grown on him and he also knew she had not done it on purpose. Ahri being so pretty and adopting such a pitiful look had undoubtedly influenced his state of mind too. 

He stood up from the ground and put his polearm on his back again. 

When he began walking away, the fox girl followed him tentatively, unsure of whether he was still mad at her or not. However, seeing Naruto not doing anything to chase her away, Ahri’s courage grew, and she started walking together with him. 

“How often do you have to feed?” he glanced at her and asked. 

“Once every two or three days. Rare enough to not flare up my addiction too much but also often enough not to let my hunger take over.”

When Naruto became quiet after that, Ahri asked:

“Are you alright? I mean. . .  how do you feel after what I did to you? I’m afraid I drained so much life force that I-”

“Where I’m from, the lifeforce you’re talking about is called chakra. Shinobi of my calibre have immense amounts of chakra. You’ve only drained a small fraction of it.”

“. . . Thank the spirits!” Ahri mumbled in relief.

They walked for a few kilometres in silence, the chirps of birds and the noises made by other animals being the only things that could be heard in the forest. Eventually, she glanced up at him from the corner of her eyes before asking in a rather timid voice:

“Where will you go now?”

“Back to the coast, to the nearest port. We ought to catch a boat to Bilegwater, don’t we?”

Ahri looked at him wide-eyed. “You’re coming with me?? Really?? Despite what I did?”

“I know you didn’t mean to,” he said. “And I understand what it’s like to be saddled with a curse that you can’t control. You have your hunger. I have my demon. We all have our own burdens.”

Naruto was caught completely off guard when the fox girl threw herself into his side and hugged him for all he was worth. 

“Good grief,” he said, pretending to be exasperated. 

“Thank you, Naruto,” she mumbled while embracing his side, her face a little red as she looked up at him. “It means more to me than you can imagine.”

Despite knowing now that Ahri was well over a century older than him, the vastaya looked so cute and vulnerable at that moment that he couldn’t hold back the urge to pat her on the head, right between her fox ears. 

His heart jolted when she half-closed her eyes and buried her face into his arm so that he would not see her embarrassed expression. 

Shortly after, Ahri let go of him, and they continued their journey. 

“By the way, Ahri?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me by my real name in the presence of others. Call me Ifrit, like before.”

“Okay~”

The girl remained silent for the rest of the day, but the spring in her step and the sway of her fox tails spoke volumes of her inner state.


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AN: For this chapter, I recommend you watch this LoL cinematic. It's only 3 minutes long and it's totally worth it :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGPoGtSBhu0