Chapter 23 : The Adventure Begins!(4)

One hour later Naruto found that he was good as he could get after a fight that nearly killed him.

The royal doctors patched him up real good; his various cuts were either stitched up or completely wrapped in gauze to stem the bleeding.

His outfit consisted of a black turtleneck to cover the gigantic bruises on his neck and showed off the physique that he worked hard to gain, simple white baggy cargo pants that had the orange colored star logo for the Criminal brand on one of the side pockets and a pair of black sandals.

He finally reached the entrance of the Hard-Shell Tower, and met up with the two fishman that forced him to go through all that crap just to see his sister. Almost immediately the rude one, a viperfish fishman stopped his advancement with a toothy sneer.

"Brat, we told you never to return!" The viperfish sneered.

"Actually your buddy said once I reached level forty I could see her."

Placing his bandaged right hand into his pocket, he showed the fishman his official level forty patch. "And as you can see, I'm level forty, now let me in!"

"That's a fake! There is no way a runt like you could have gotten to that level at your age." The viperfish barked at him.

"It looks real to me." The other guard; a dragonfish merman replied after he looked at the patch.

"It's a fake!" Grabbing Naruto's left arm the viperfish fishman was about to use force to remove the blond annoyance.

Unfortunately for him Naruto was not even remotely in the mood to deal with him, he was tired, he was still hurt, and he still had a great amount of anger in him.

The viperfish soon found his right hand broken, the wind knocked out of him, and his jaw broken before blissful unconsciousness sent him off to la la land.

"You have a problem with me going in?" Naruto threatened the remaining guard after he cracked his knuckles.

"No!" The dragonfish fishman squeaked out. "Please, please go right on it."

Dropping his trident he brought both his hands to the steel doors and opened then; albeit with great difficulty.

Once they were open enough to have Naruto walk on through, but before the blond could even take a step both of them saw something extremely shiny from the distance.

The dragonfish fishman screamed in in horror. "It's one of Vander Decken's axes! Dammit boy you just had to make us open the doors!" He would have tried to shut the doors, if not for Naruto's interference by grabbing his shoulder and shaking his head.

"What, you think you can stop it? Boy the last guard who tried to stop it was sliced in half, what makes you think you can do any better!"

Giving the guard his infamous shark-like grin, Naruto leaped towards the descending weapon. When he drew closer to it he noticed that it was a pretty large double-headed axe with a red rose design on the middle of the connecting axe heads.

And with one punch of his right arm Naruto hit the blade, and the entire axe shattered to pieces. With his handy word done the blond landed on the ground, flashing the guard a superior look.

"What the? How! The last guy died doing that!"

"It's quite simple," Naruto replied once he reached the doors.

"He was weak."

And with that said he shut the doors behind him with ease.

After slamming the doors shut Naruto was greeted by darkness. His right eyebrow twitched in annoyance, his adoptive sister spent her time in the dark! Oh he was going to either beat, or prank the crap out of the idiot who thought it was a good idea to have Shirahoshi in the dark; especially when she was scared of it!

"Who's…who's there?" A soft, sleepy female voice said in the darkness.

A bright light automatically turned on from a ginormous fancy hanging lamp, brightening the room along with several other ones along the walls. Naruto's eyes were greeted with the sight of a pink and golden room.

But after his eyes recovered from the color rape, they steeled of Shirahoshi.

Good God the years had been good to her, she was bigger; given they type of mermaid she was, her strawberry-blond hair was longer, just reaching past her shoulder blades, and other than a golden halter top covered in pearls the one thing that was the same about her were her sparkling blue eyes.

"Onii-chan?" Her eyes widened in recognition, and then tears slowly made their way to her eyes. Shirahoshi couldn't believe that after six long years, her adoptive brother finally visited her.

She saw that he had changed, he was taller, more filled out than the scrawny boy she remembered, more mature. "Naruto-onii-chan, is it really you?"

"Of course it is Shira-chan. Happy birthday." Naruto said with the little pet name he gave her all those years ago.

Shirahoshi cried out in happiness, her giant; but soft hands wrapped around his entire body, and pressed him against her flat chest.

And Naruto, he unfortunately couldn't do jack squat about it, except let her enjoy it…not that he would deny her the right to hug her older brother on her birthday.

"Naruto-onii-chan I thought I would never see you again! Why didn't you come to see me until now!" The mermaid princess cried out with a ridiculous amount of tears falling from her eyes.

"If you stop…crushing me…I'll happily tell you." The blond gasped out when he felt his bones cracking.

Her eyes blinking in surprise Shirahoshi gently pulled her adoptive brother from her chest.

Folding her palms upwards she patiently waited for the explanation he had, and when Naruto was about to tell her why it took him so long to see her when one of the iron sealed windows started shaking a total of five times.

The mermaid princess squealed in glee after the fifth 'knock'. Tipping one hand to forced Naruto to tumble into the only one keeping him in the air, she used her other one to unlatch a lock from the side in order to quickly open it.

And to Naruto's surprise, a gigantic Megalodon black shark, with a white underbelly. Oddly enough he was wearing a red shirt with the Criminal fashion line logo on the front of it, and one of those bubble rings around his waist in order for him to float into the room.

"Shira-chan…what the hel-heak is that?" Naruto caught himself in mid-swear.

"Onii-chan, this is Megalo. Father assigned him to protect and keep me company. Isn't he cute?" She giggled as the gigantic creature nuzzled against her cheek.

'Cute? It's a freaking man-eater…an affectionate man-eater.' Naruto held in the urge to grimace when the shark licked him; leaving a trail of slime along the front half his body. '…gross.' That's what he was thinking, but he dully responded. "Yea, he's real cute."

Shirahoshi giggled in response and the gigantic shark nuzzled in her lap like a cat of all things. "So, Onii-chan you were about to tell me why it took you so long to see me."

"It's a one of a kind tale; I only hope it won't bore you." Naruto said before telling her of his adventures with Jinbe, his training, saving a princess from a foreign land, and the watered down version of his fight with Ace.

"Y-yo-you got beat up?" The mermaid princess teared up when she heard that he lost the fight.

"Only a little." Naruto scratched the back of his head, "It wasn't the best thing that could have happened to me, but I got a new rival out of that encounter."

"I don't like the thought of you fighting."

"Shira-chan, I'm sorry you feel that way. But like your brothers I swore to protect you from that madman. And until that day comes I'll keep getting stronger until I know that you're safe once and for all."

"Promise?" The mermaid asked.

"The promise of a lifetime, I swear." Naruto smiled at her, and held out his right pinkie finger to show his promise. And when Shirahoshi smiled back, she placed her larger pinkie finger against his to seal the deal.

_______________________________

there is 8 chapters ahead of the public release in p atreon for only 5$

my p atreon is :

https://www.p atreon.com/Huvnn

or search my name : Huvnn

________________________