Chapter 2: The Duel

Chapter 2: The Duel

As soon as Erza gave the command to begin, both blonds broke into sprints and met in the middle for a brief power tussle. Without wasting time, Naruto kicks Laxus dead center in the chest and follows up with a barrage of punches to which the dragon slayer blocks with slight difficulty.

Naruto doesn't stop there and continues his little onslaught.

"Laxus isn't getting any chances," Gray comments as he sees Naruto pushing Laxus to the edge.

"But this is Laxus we're talking about," Fried says as he watches the bout. "He won't lose easily."

Naruto reduces his speed and allowed Laxus to catch up and they exchange blows unfailingly. They go head-to-head and trade blows all the while parrying each other's blows. Naruto decides to spike things up as he catches Laxus' blow and flips him over his shoulder and onto the ground. Laxus gasps as the wind is knocked out of him. He rolls to the side to avoid a stomp from Naruto that cracks the ground, however before he could get up, Naruto kicks him forward.

"Is that all Laxus?" Naruto asks in a goading manner. "You're not doing anything to me."

Laxus growls and flips himself up before charging at his fellow blond. Naruto goes on the defensive as he lets Laxus throw a barrage of punches while he parries them with ease and grace and proceeds to tap Laxus lightly.

This repeats itself again and Naruto responds unfailingly and taps Laxus with the blond becoming increasingly frustrated. Laxus decides to spear Naruto but the blond catches him and powerbombs him into the ground, cracking it in the process.

"What power…" Natsu mutters as the powerbomb kicked up dust.

"Laxus is fairing this badly against him… just how strong is he?" Max asked in disbelief.

Laxus gets up from the small crater and dusts himself slightly. He goes into a stance and charges Naruto, but instead of parrying, Naruto decides to evade each and every one of his attacks.

"Your combat skills are sloppy."

"I know that," Laxus said with a slight rage.

Even Gildarts was surprised by the way Naruto was smacking Laxus about.

"So why do you want to know how strong you are?"

"I don't feel like I have to tell you." As Laxus said this, Naruto ducked under a punch and slammed a palm into his gut. He coughs a bit as wind is knocked out of him and stumbles back.

"Aww… c'mon. You can tell me anything." Naruto was smiling as he said this. He was having a lot of fun. Fairy Tail was fun. He would stay a bit.

"No," was Laxus' reply as he steadied himself.

This caused Naruto smirk. He decided to go on the offensive once again and pressure Laxus just a bit. He charges forward with ungodly speed as he leaves his fist on Laxus' face. The blond was sent tumbling backwards into a tree, but Naruto didn't let him end there. He tossed him into the air and leapt after him.

With each blow he unleashed, he launched Laxus further into the air before tossing him to the ground. A huge dust cloud was kicked up as Laxus' body impacted the ground.

"Why do you want to know where you stand?" Naruto asks as he comes down.

"It's because I couldn't do anything against Acnologia..." Tears filled Laxus' eyes as he slowly got up from the crater. "… Knowing that there are threats against my family that I won't be able to handle. I'm scared and I don't want to feel helpless. I want to be strong enough to be able to protect the things that are considered sacred to me." He staggered as he said the words, pouring out his heart. The entire guild felt the weight of his words. So this was how Laxus was feeling.

Naruto nodded. He had felt like this a lot of times in the past. "I understand the feeling of helplessness all too well. You're not the first and you won't be the last." Naruto smiled. "You know I wasn't always this strong right. I've beaten myself up like this in the past. You may not be strong now, but your heart is in the right place. You will get stronger."

At this point Naruto sat down on the ground. "We're only truly strong when we have something to protect. Someone told me that when I was twelve."

Laxus collapsed to the ground as he tried to regain strength.

"Are they done?!" Natsu shouted.

The rest of the guild was confused. They'd heard the exchange but couldn't make much of it.

"Erza!" Naruto shouted.

It didn't take long before the redhead reached both of them.

"The match is a draw," he told her as he got up, not failing to hold a hand up for Laxus. The blond accepted the hand as he shook dust off from his body.

"That was awesome!" Natsu shouted as he held a flaming fist. "Fight me next."

"No," Naruto said as he made his way to the group of mages at a slow but steady pace.

"But you agreed to fight Laxus… why not do the same with me."

"Because no."

"That's not fair… I'll make you fight me." Natsu charged at the blond, his fist wrapped up in a blaze. He was going to show him just how strong he was.

Naruto was about to move out of the way of Natsu's attack, but something unexpected happened. Naruto's eyes were forced to become firm for a minute as bloodlust emanated from his body. It extended to the pink-haired teen forcing him to his knees in less than a second, before spreading to the rest of Fairy Tail mages and forcing each of them into submission. Sweat rolled down their faces as terror filled their minds. It was like they were going to choke on the air and die.

They were wondering just how strong the blond was, to make everyone go on their knees without even lifting a single finger.

After noticing what was going on, he silenced the source of the bloodlust. Apparently Kurama had wanted to show off a bit. After the bloodlust had been suppressed, Naruto turned to look everyone in the eye.

"And that's why I don't like fighting all the time."

-Break-

It had been roughly a day since the spar between Laxus and Naruto. Fairy Tail were now going on jobs. The guild was mostly empty except for Natsu, Naruto, Makarov and Mirajane. Basically Natsu was bugging Naruto to spar with him and Mirajane and Makarov were in a discussion of some sort.

"Why didn't you go with your team?"

"I wanted to take the chance to have a private battle with you… Now fight me."

"Nope." Naruto held out his hands to block a punch from Natsu and without much delay flips him over his shoulder.

"Oi Naruto," Makarov called to the blond. "Why don't you go on a job?"

"A job?"

"Yeah… You're a mage right. The guild's low on cash and you look like you might need it. What do you say?"

Naruto stroked his chin a bit. "Okay… I might just need one. The warm up and not the money."

Makarov laughed slightly before he handed a job request to Naruto. Naruto accepted the slip and walked out of the guild, seemingly taking his time and without bothering to even spare the job rank a glance.

As he walked out of Magnolia Naruto sighed. The job would definitely not be anything he won't be able to handle. After all, he had mastered all the ninja arts in the world. He remembered the promise he made to himself to carry the weight of the ninja traditions on himself. He'd had at least five thousand years to train himself so nothing could surprise him.

His mind drifted to Fairy Tail. The loud group of mages reminded him of his old friends. He had been away from civilization a long time and this was his first interaction with the world. His peace had been taken away from him and he was going to join in on the chaos of the world. He took in a deep breath. After the job he would spend time to himself because he had doubts that Fairy Tail would let him be.

And with that final train of thought, he took his step… slowly but surely he made his way to his job. The job was vaguely easy… just a matter of recovering treasure that was lost at sea. Yep, a really stupid warm up.

-Break-

Naruto had arrived at the location of the job. On the way he had glanced at the job details. Apparently the requester of the job, his name Naruto did not care to remember, had lost some treasure of some sorts off the coast of Akane Beach. Naruto didn't bother wasting his time sightseeing, he just headed to the man's hotel room and knocked.

On the way there, people had looked at him oddly. Seeing someone dressed in a haori was something out of the ordinary for most people. Naruto agreed with them, dressing styles had changed a lot since his time and this time. He might need to change that, or not. To be honest he was used to it having been looked upon almost seventeen years as a monster.

"Who is it?" he heard from the other side of the door.

"I'm here for the job request." He replied with a somewhat cheerful voice.

The door opened and the man, or more correctly the Hotel Manager, dragged him inside. He raised an eyebrow at the man's actions.

"I'm sorry for doing that… it's just that many prying eyes are looking for my treasure."

"If that's the case then don't be worried… I'm plenty strong."

The Hotel Manager took a pause and looked at Naruto with a disapproving eye, something that the boy snorted at.

"Anyways what are the details? Where did it all go down?"

The manager proceeded to lead Naruto to the area where everything had occurred. They were on the beach ignoring pretty much everything happening around them, their mind pretty focused on only the treasure at the moment. Naruto could tell that it was a big treasure, why? You may ask, probably because the man had bodyguards following them and that he wanted to them to go in a boat. He also seemed scared of not receiving his treasure or his treasure being stolen.

"Okay I have gotten everything down but I'm going to have to ask you to let me do this by myself. I'm pretty much capable of handling anything that's thrown at me. You and your bodyguards can just wait on the shore here. Get binoculars and watch me handle everything." As he said this, he turned and faced the ocean.

From this point, Naruto proceeded to do the most crazy thing most people may have seen in their entire lives. He walked on water. Now to him it was normal, and maybe perhaps to some other people, but he could bet his bottom jewel that a vast majority of the people had not seen someone do that.

You could argue that they had seen magic, but let's be honest he didn't say a single spell. While he may have wanted to turn back and see their jaw dropped faces, he turned his eyes towards the job at hand.

He walked a couple hundred meters before stopping and summoning a clone. Now at this point the man with the job request just handed the binoculars to the person close to him and sat on the ground.

"I can't afford to lose my sanity now… someone tell me what he's doing?"

"Sir… he cloned himself… they're just standing… okay now the clone or him, I don't know which one just dove into the water while the other one is sitting atop the water."

No words were said… Naruto had taken over their minds with his abilities.

It was a few minutes before the guard spoke up again. "Sir, he has surfaced and… he's carrying nothing… he didn't get the treasure."

Now this sparked mixed thoughts in their heads. Some thought he had taken the treasure for himself and some thought he didn't see the treasure. However neither was the case.

It didn't take long before Naruto and his clone made their way to the shore.

"Where's the treasure?" the man asked. "Did you see it?"

"Relax," the blond said. "It's all in here." He held up his hands and showed them a scroll.

"What sorcery is this?!" the man asked clearly angered. "I want proof."

Naruto nodded and made a seal with his index and middle finger. After doing that he dug his hands into the scroll and brought out a couple of rubies. "See?"

At this, the man and his bodyguards nodded. The treasure was inside the scroll. However, before they could even attempt to leave the area, multiple individuals appeared… and they were not the friendly type. They were armed with swords and spears and daggers and all sorts of weapons.

From the multitude of individuals that gathered, one stepped forward, a long sword in his hand. As he stepped forward the rest visibly calmed. He was definitely the leader.

"Okay… I see what you got there, and to be honest I want it. Ever since that job about the treasure was posted… we've been keeping tabs on it. We tried going for it but just couldn't seem to find it and look here…" he chuckled ever so slightly. "It's our lucky day."

Naruto didn't even bother to reply them. He noticed that the Hotel Manager was already scared at the possibility of losing his treasure, and he just stepped forward. "Mr. Manager, get behind me… I'll handle this."

"Oh," the bandit leader raised an eyebrow at this. He was probably thinking that Naruto was crazy walking up to him as though he could take them on.

"Oi…" Naruto said as he began to stretch slightly as he approached them. "I see you guys have a death wish or something…"

"Please do not provoke them," the Manager pleaded.

"Relax Mr. Manager. Have you never heard of Fairy Tail…" as he said this, he opened up his left palm and showed them a guild mark. That was weird as it wasn't there before, but they didn't know that. "We're the strongest guild in all Fiore for a reason, and I'm gonna show you why. Come at me with all you've got."

Now the Leader knew Fairy Tail… the weakest guild in all of Fiore. They were only strong seven years ago, but after they lost their core members they became weak as hell. Now he knew the core members and Naruto was nothing like them. "Take him out," he said and his men charged.

Naruto took in a deep breath… this wasn't even going to be a warm-up. He didn't even bother making a seal as all but the bandit leader were stuck in place, the sand on the beach preventing them from moving.

"I want to make things fair for every one here." A look of confusion was shared on everyone's faces. How had he made the sand move like that and he didn't look like he made a magic seal. "How about your leader fights me and if he wins… I let you all go with the treasure… and I'll make things easy for you all." He took out a piece of cloth from his back pocket and covered his eyes. "I'll fight blindfolded… what say you? You have nothing to lose.

"What if I don't the bandit leader said."

"You definitely do not have a say in this."

The bandit leader smiled thinking that Naruto was being foolish. He launched himself at the blond and swung his sword, the sword going right through Naruto. The leader smirked but it soon turned to confusion as the body he sliced dissolved into sand.

Naruto appeared later behind the leader, his hands crossed over his chest as he just took in the sight… not that he could, he was blindfolded.

"Is that all you got?"

The leader infuriated charged at him and made swipes with his sword, but to his dismay the sand would get up to shield him from the attacks. The leader jumped back as he threw multiple daggers at Naruto, all to which were blocked by the sand.

The man grit his teeth as he launched himself forward… this time his sword glowed ever so slightly until it was shining as he neared the blond. This time the sand just shot up beneath the bandit's feet and solidified, holding him in place.

"Time's up."

Naruto removed the blindfold and threw the cloth away. "I'll make sure you never try to steal ever again."

At this point, almost everyone on the beach was watching the display with interest.

Naruto turned towards the leader and waved at him. "Hope you can swim." The sand adjusted itself such that the leader's butt was sticking out of it. Naruto stopped and faced the ocean as he made a seal by closing both hands and holding the middle and index fingers together while the rest were intertwined in a closed form… "Hidden Leaf Taijutsu Supreme Technique…" he pulled his arm backwards and crouched a bit. "… One Thousand Years of Death." He made a launching motion with his hands as he said this, the sand beneath his feet shot up and struck the hind area of the leader. The sand holding him released itself and he was launched hundreds of feet in the air before he began his descent and crashed into the ocean.

Everyone was astonished at the technique that Naruto had displayed and murmurings began to resound in the mouths of watchers. They were wondering just who this blond man was… the ones who had come earlier had heard him mention Fairy Tail. This was even more of a surprise as everyone knew just how weak Fairy Tail was except for seven years ago. Others who heard this made claims that Fairy Tail had returned, or more specifically the core members.

Naruto clearly heard their voices but ignored them. He turned towards the other assaulters and smirked. He made a single seal, bringing both hands together as though in prayer. The sand that was wrapped around their ankles spread until it was as if the sand had become a hand holding them in place and extending from the ground.

The bandits began to cry out in protest… many were begging for their lives while the rest were either praying or accepting their fates. Amidst their protest, Naruto only uttered a single word. "Bye." With that said he swung his hands and all the bandits were launched into the sky… and he turned his eyes away from them.

Did he kill them? No… he made sure that they would not die from the launch… he had everything prepared, but the people did not know that, and they need not know.

Naruto smiled as he handed the scroll over to the Hotel Manager… "Don't worry I have already taken my fair share according to what you told me at the hotel… ten percent." He waved his hands as he walked off not even bothering himself with the eyes that were on him.

-Break-

Naruto had decided to go off track and rather than return to the guild, wander aimlessly and try to get himself acquainted with humanity again. He had at least wished that the bandits would have proved to be worthy adversaries… he only used the abilities of the Ichibi after all… not that he was not powerful, something Naruto had to correct as the beast within him grumbled loudly, but just because even while using it, he didn't need to touch his chakra pool as much as he should have. Will all the fights be like this? Naruto asked himself… he missed the days when he would face the enemy with all he had. Those were fun times… now he was pretty much the strongest person alive…

He knew what he had to do now that he was stuck with Fairy Tail, al thanks to him getting involved way back then. They held promise seeing as they were the strongest guild and they pretty much reminded him of his days in Konoha. The blond man chuckled and steeled his mind… oh he was getting excited at the prospect of witnessing future actions of others, they were always interesting to watch.

His mind was made up. He was very much aware of the existence of threats way larger than the group can handle at this moment. His senses were well tuned to the point that he could sense a couple ones without even being in sage mode, though not to the extent of actively gauging their strength level accurately. If he did that then he would be able to sense the whole planet without bothering himself.

Fairy Tail would be wiped out were the words that escaped his mouth, but he was here so he wouldn't let that happen. He would work in the darkness, supporting them. His mind drifted to his old and best friend, Uchiha Sasuke. He would be the shadow of the fairies… he would bring them up to a level where they should be actively able to take on their threats, or perhaps more.

The guild was already plenty strong but with his guidance and experience, they would rocket themselves to the top in no time at all. Makarov was pretty much out of the question mainly because he was old and out of his prime… Naruto wouldn't want to exert his weak bones too much.

The rest of the guild would be his work force. Natsu was the one that stuck out to him the most… the son of Igneel and brother of the dark mage Zeref. Of course Naruto would know Zeref and Igneel, he has been around for that long. He remembered meeting Igneel on one of his journeys, he also remembered how hard he fought during the Dragon Festival… Zeref he was keeping an eye on mainly because of his involvement with dark magic all for the sake of his younger brother. It pretty much reminded Naruto of Itachi's relationship with Sasuke. Now Zeref had to die at the hands of Natsu or someone strong enough to deal the damage. The only ones that could actively match Zeref were either not interested or just wouldn't do it, then there was him. He saw no need to do it because if humanity couldn't fight their battles then they wouldn't grow.

Erza and the others each were not left lacking… their skills and their will to keep on fighting despite the adversaries they faced. Naruto would be lying if he said he didn't see monsters in Fairy Tail. But that didn't mean that the opposers were pushovers. If Fairy Tail wanted to win, they would have to train and surpass their current limits. Naruto had reached an area that was near a river and he sat down… a soft and gentle breeze blew around him and he smiled. He'd miss the quiet of the island but he'd be a part of something big. He had doubts that it would be as interesting as the war that he partook in when he was younger, but it would be a chance to make new memories.

There was some moments of silence before Naruto decided to break it. "You can come out Natsu."

There was silence for some time before rustling in the bushes.

"How'd you know I was there?" the pink haired boy said as he came out of the bushes pretty much embarrassed at being caught by the blond.

"Senses… smell, hearing and the occasional sixth sense," Naruto said with a smile. You'd have to be a fool to think that you'd be able to sneak up on Naruto, someone that can keep tabs on the entire world if he wanted, of course that would interfere with his normal senses but years of training have allowed him to maintain perfect control over his senses. He would usually just keep it to a small area within a defined radius.

"Aww man…I thought I would be able to spy on you. How long have you known?"

"Since you had that look in your eyes back at the guild."

"Was it that obvious?"

Naruto chuckled before his face attained a serious one. "Why'd you follow me Natsu?"

His voice was calm and held no room for argument or lies. Of course he would be able to tell if someone was lying.

Natsu noticed this and gulped slightly. He managed to steel his face with all his might before looking at Naruto. "I wanted to watch you… to make sure you had the guild's best interest at heart… an enemy to the guild is my enemy."

Despite Natsu breaking ever so slightly, his words were clear. If Naruto attacked the guild he would fight him.

The atmosphere around them was tense for some seconds before he smiled and laughed lightly. "Relax Salamander… I assume you saw or at least heard what happened on the beach." As he said this, he stretched forth his hands and opened his left palm. The mark of Fairy Tail appeared on it before dispersing once again. "I'm with Fairy Tail."

He noticed Natsu release a breath that he didn't know he was holding. Natsu knew definitely that in a fight Naruto would wipe the floor with his entire body. He was actually hoping that this was the blond's answer.

"But still…" he heard Naruto continue. "… to straight up threaten me… Salamander, it's either you have a death wish…or balls of steel." Naruto was smiling but Natsu could hear his words clearly. It was a threat to his threat.

Natsu wanted to say something but Naruto continued nevertheless… "I could easily kill you y'know. For example I can go from one to one thousand in less than a second." At this puffs of smoke filled the area and Natsu gasped. There was a multitude of Narutos everywhere he looked. In the trees, on the river… everywhere. How could he fight someone like this, but just like that, as soon as they all came, they disappeared.

"It's a good thing that I am on your side," Naruto said. "If I was against you, you wouldn't even last long. But my mind's made up… I want to help you all grow. You all have potential that you are not using and it needs to be harnessed. There's more to you all than meets the eye…" Naruto trailed off and silence took over. He smiled. "Let's head back to the guild."

-Break-

After the little journey, Naruto and Natsu were back at the guild. The entire guild was filled and everyone was cheering and chatting about. It was like a small party, just the way they all liked it. Naruto smiled to himself, yep, he was definitely going to enjoy it.