Canon Side-Story: Forest of Death, That Time Naruto Got Eaten

This is a day late but honestly, I'm happy it is. I've created this odd setup where because of work stresses, most things get made day of, and I have to force it. While I don't regret a lot of the decisions I've made with this story, strict deadlines are very harmful for the quality of individual pieces.

This got another day for me to think, and it's a lot better for it.
Wednesday's - Thursday morning really - Side-story also made me realize that I want side-stories to be a little longer if I can figure out an angle, so in the future I'll probably be attaching secondary parts to side stories that look like they're going to be very short.

I hope you guys are doing well!

Voting for the next round of side stories is on Monday.

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Watching them collect water from a little river that runs through the training grounds, Ino can’t help but feel that they’re maturing. They would have made this some kind of contest just a day ago, but here they’re just getting water like normal people. “You know, it’s a little surprising to find a river built into a training ground like this.” Naruto says, looking around himself for the first time.

“How else would the monsters be getting water?” Sasuke snorts, shaking his head at the blond boy. “They need a lot of it, they’re huge.” Okay, maybe they’re more tired than maturing.

“I know I just, it’s a lot.” Naruto shrugs, “Sakura’s whole thing with Wave has me thinking about infrastructure, and just how much logic goes into every decision. Do you think they built this training ground here because of the river, or that the river was built because they wanted to make a training ground here?”

Sasuke just shrugs, while she gets off her perch to approach him. He just said something that caught her ear, “what about Sakura and Wave?” She hadn’t told her a whole lot about it, just that it was a big deal and she has some trauma she’ll be working off until she’s in her thirties.

“Um-er-” before he can manage to squeak out anything but an awkward sound, she sees something in the water.

“What’s tha-” She instinctively pushes him forward with both arms before her brain even catches up to her, and her eyes watch him fly past razor sharp teeth and into the throat of a giant scaled beast that splashes out of the water. It slams webbed feet down onto the wet dirt with enough force to shake the ground underneath her. Its teeth clamp shut where Naruto was just half a second ago, revealing that her instinct probably saved his life, at least for the moment. “Giant monster-” She takes it in quickly, mind whirling at record pace. It’s easily fifty times her size, scaled flesh, giant spikes on its back - It dives back down with a splash that shoots water up high before she can finish looking at it. She doesn’t wait for that water to land on her, she’s off like a bullet. Her legs take her off the dirt and into the river, landing on its back and grabbing one of those spikes as quickly as she can, holding on with both hands before it dives deeper with her on it. “Save us, Sasuke!” She shouts, unsure if she even fully gets her message out before she’s garbled by the water overtaking her face.

Standing there on the shore, Sasuke watches it all happen with an almost detached look in his eyes. He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a silver coin, flicking it up with a thumb and watching it rise. “Heads I save them, tails I let the idiots handle it.” He mumbles tiredly, only moving slightly to catch the coin when it falls.

“Tails…” He glares at it with a frown, watching it shimmering in his hand, before sighing to himself nice and slow, in and out. With a belabored effort, he grabs the coin and flips it onto its face. “If you’re unsure, flip a coin, if you’re disappointed, flip it over.” He recites advice given to him by an old man, before nodding, and jumping onto the water’s surface. Sakura’s not the only one that picked up better control in Wave.

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“Hey, Naruto, what’s up?.” Sliding down into the giant fish’s belly isn’t her best cosmetic move, the gooey nonsense coating her hair is probably going to take forever to clean. It’s so sticky, and yet slimy and slippery. How does one make a substance that’s all three bad things at once? The only way to make it worse would be if it stains.

But looking at the boy sitting on the corpse of a smaller fish waiting in the monster’s stomach while laying his head back on a fleshy bulb inside the monster, makes it worth it. He’s alive, and not currently being torn apart by horrific acid, which is just a huge plus to her day. He’s holding a hastily put together torch in one hand, which is the only reason either of them can see. Sasuke’s been making them with a bunch of other cool make-shift tools. He’s gotten really handy and good with his hands, working with them appears to be his stress response. She’s observed that doing something useful makes him feel like he’s not as doomed. All that said, she’d probably prefer it if he hadn’t made the torch, as she’d rather not see the interior bulbousness of this monster.

“Hey, Ino, I’m just hanging out,” Naruto says, holding out a small object that Ino quickly realizes is a flopping fish struggling in his hold, “fish?”

“Uh, sure,” she takes it from him, admiring its shimmery scale, “shouldn’t we get stabbing our way out or something?”

“Sakura says to save energy when a better plan exists,” Naruto shrugs, “and I’m actually really tired. I’m using this opportunity to rest because Kakashi’s probably not going to come into the fish to-oh come on!” It’s at that moment, when a masked man with silver hair slides down the fish’s gullet, proving to Ino and Naruto that there is no end to the lengths he will go to fuck with them.

“It’s been two hours.” Kakashi explains, “get ready.”

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“Thanks for saving us!” Hanging off of Sasuke like this, with her arms wrapped around him and her whole body a little ragdolled for the effort, she can’t help but feel like this is too much like her earlier acts as a fangirl.

Unlike those though, this is legitimate. She could not be more grateful right now. The fish’s insides were surprisingly nice and soft, up until Kakashi started spin kicking Naruto into the walls, from there everything got very hectic, and well, whatever Sasuke had to do to kill the thing and drag it ashore didn’t help her balance. She’s never had her face in so much flesh before, and she’d prefer it if she never did again.

“Dummy.” Sasuke’s new nickname for her is very nice, it’s much better than ‘fangirl bitch’ as she’s heard him call her several times, and ‘crazy witch,’ when he knew she was within hearing range. At least he’s got the tact to be a little more gentle to her face, she gets the feeling that could have not been the case very easily; especially if she’d ever done anything truly crazy. Screw the fanclub, she’s glad it’s gone, they were insane. Poor Sasuke…

“Alright, your turn, Sasuke.” An authoritative voice says, and she totally understands when Sasuke kicks her aside into the grass. Kakashi’s after him, he needs to go!

“Run Sasuke, run!” Both Ino and Naruto echo at him.