Chapter 74: A Battle To The Death - Jiraiya vs Nia

"Oh my goodness!" Nia placed her face in her hands as Naruto continuously kissed her cheeks and held her close to him, "I think I'm gonna die."

"Curly Brow, don't be so shy. Give your hero a kiss, ya know?" The blond urged the girl as Nia timidly removed her hands and looked to the ground.

This only prompted Naruto to squeeze her even tighter to him, making the girl feel immensely flustered.

"Oh woooow," She blushed heavily, "This is heaven."

"You're the one who agreed to be my girlfriend so this is what you get."

"I love this so much. I feel so safe and comfortable."

Naruto smirked as he placed a hand behind the girl's head and kept it at his chest.

Meanwhile, still having been walking towards them, Jiraiya just couldn't stop replaying the vision in his mind.

His students were hugging but in his mind, Nia was dying in Naruto's arms. They were smiling, but the sannin could only see tears and heartbreak.

"Curly Brow," He then snapped out of his thoughts as Naruto said, "I just found out after we made love this morning that there's going to be a new flavor of ramen coming in the market soon."

"Really?" Nia looked at him, "What kind?"

"I don't know, but it's supposed to cost a lot and I just gotta get my hands on it before anyone else does, ya know?"

Nia nodded and smiled, "Don't worry, you'll get it."

Because I'll be getting it for you as a huge surprise.

Immediately, Jiraiya stopped in his tracks as he heard this and threw a hand over his eye. A certain moment he had seen in the vision began to play itself in his mind once more.

~Vision~

"NARUTOOO!" Nia came over running to the genin with a bag behind her back as the boy was busy training in the training grounds.

"Curly Brow? What's up?" He stopped and asked as he was curious as to why the girl seemed so excited.

"You remember that new rare flavor of ramen you've been dying to taste and try out?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, guess what?" The girl then showed the ninja the bag she hid, "I was able to get my hands on the first and only one that was in the market for you!"

"NO WAAAAAAY!" Naruto's eyes sparkled as he jumped up and down and took the bag away from her, "Curly Brow, I can't believe you'd do that for me!"

He then embraced the girl and nuzzled his cheeks against her own, "You're the best person ever! I love you sooo much, ya know!"

"Naruto..." The girl nearly melted in his hug, "You're sorta hugging me too tight..."

~Vision Ends~

'That isn't good...' The sannin thought as he calmed down a bit, 'According to Naruto's memories in the vision, Nia ends up surprising him by buying that new flavor he wanted. If he's here talking about this new flavor right now, that means... Nia's death really is meant to happen like Great Elder prophesied. I can't... let that come to pass.'

"Naruto," Nia then gathered the courage to give a peck to the boy's cheek, "I love you..."

She leaned into his ear and whispered something. Immediately, the genin grinned from ear to ear.

"Oh yeah, against the wall would probably be incredible. You'd be all like: Ah~ Ah~ Yes~ Yes~ more~ more baby~ Ah yeah~" Naruto mimicked the moans Nia would usually make during intercourse.

This caused the girl to giggle and blush as the mere thought of the genin dominating her made her feel all hot and bothered.

"Naruto, I'm actually feeling like I'm in the mood again already..." Nia traced her finger along his chest.

The genin winked then replied, "Oh man, this is going to be really hot, ya know?"

"Why don't you two take a break from having sex all the time and listen to what I gotta say." Jiraiya finally approached the couple as Nia shrieked and buried her face in the genin's chest out of embarrassment.

"Oh man, Pervy Sage..." Naruto became annoyed, "Why'd you gotta go and do that for? I was about to have some fun, ya know?"

"Sorry kid, but do you think I can borrow Nia's time for a bit?"

"Huh? What for?"

Nia pulled away from her guy and listened to what her master had to say.

"Nia, I wanna teach you a new water jutsu. However, we're going to be needing a large space so we'll be training in the woods outside of the village."

"A new jutsu, really?" The girl seemed thrilled.

"Hold on, what about me?!" Naruto became somewhat envious.

"I'll be treating you to Ichiraku," Kakashi appeared also, "I have a coupon that says you can eat as much ramen as you'd like for one whole day."

"YOU'RE FOREAAAAL?!" The boy's mouth began to water at the mere thought of having as much ramen as he wanted.

"I wouldn't lie to you about this, now would I Naruto?"

"Oh yeah! Let's just get going already!"

Naruto stood up and quickly stretched, "I just ate Curly Brow's homemade goodies, but I can still chug down some good ol' ramen, ya know?"

Jiraiya and Kakashi exchanged looks.

"Great! That settles it!" The sannin pretended to smile, "Nia, you'll be coming with me while Naruto will be heading off with Kakashi."

"All right," The girl nodded and stood up also, "Erm, have a good time then you guys."

"Curly Brow, I'll see you later then, all right?" Naruto said as he then spread his arms a bit, "Here, give me a hug."

Without hesitation, Nia did as they both wanted then gave each other a peck on the lips.

"Do your best out there, all right?" Naruto began to walk away with Kakashi as he waved, "Love you!"

"Yeah! I love you too! See ya!" Nia responded back as she walked away with Jiraiya.

When she looked at him, his eyes were closed as something seemed to bother him.

Forgive me... Naruto.

Several minutes later, her and the toad sage had made it quite far away from the village. Jiraiya stood some feet across from Nia as the girl just patiently waited for him to speak.

"Nia... you really love Naruto, don't you?" He said as the girl smiled widely, placed her hands behind her back and swung her body a bit as she blushed deeply.

"Yes..." She nodded as she looked down, "I love him... with all my heart actually."

"You would never hurt him either, huh?"

"Never," She told the truth, "I'd be a fool to do that."

"What exactly is it about him that makes you so drawn to him? I mean, I don't think I've ever seen someone so in love before. Really, no joke."

Nia looked down and thought to herself, "I just think... he has this warmth to him. A warmth that made me be able to smile again. A warmth that made me wanna find value in myself once more after having others walk all over me. A warmth that... made me understand that I'm not worthless just because of my appearance. That I'm not some monster just for looking different. He helped me to see that despite all the heartless assholes' criticism and hatred, that my life is still worth living."

Jiraiya continued to listen as the girl gave a heartfelt answer.

"I obviously love him because he helped me get out of that darkness when no one else could. I was... going to take my life because I had felt alone. I couldn't see what it was that I had because I was too consumed in my own depression to notice it. I consider Naruto as my light because he impacted my life and way of thinking in such a powerful and inspiring way that it's not even funny. He's a great guy with a great personality and I just absolutely love the hell out of him. He's a freaking angel from the ninja heavens."

"Listen... I'm sorry I was never there for you. I never comforted you when you were down. I never even bothered to help you develop mental strength. I never defended you like Naruto always did."

Nia didn't say anything as Jiraiya confessed to something.

"That night before the morning Naruto and I met you, when you were being shunned and ridiculed by a small village... I was there... I was there watching as they tore your self-esteem apart. I was there when you went off on them then ran away with tears in your eyes..."

Nia slowly frowned and lowered her eyes, "You watched... and did nothing?"

The sannin nodded ashamedly, "To be honest with you, the person who stood up for you was Naruto."

"Naruto? But he wasn't there when that happened..."

"According to him, he passed by you in the woods with tears in your eyes. When he arrived at the village and realized what had happened, he scolded everyone saying that they shouldn't shun someone just for their appearance alone; that you shouldn't refer to someone as a monster solely because of their looks, but because of their actions and personality."

"Woah... are you serious?" Nia felt touched and placed a hand on her heart, "He really... did that?"

Jiraiya nodded, "Nia... Naruto may not always express his feelings in a way you may wish he did, but his heart's in the right place. Believe it or not, he'd be absolutely devastated if someone were to ever take you away from him."

"Well, I mean, I would never cheat on him or suddenly love someone else, so..."

"I meant... if you were to be murdered or killed in any way," Jiraiya clarified, "It would tear him to pieces."

"Well, I promised him that I'd stay with him... forever." Nia began to get a strange feeling from the conversation.

"It's easy to believe in forever when you're young. It's easy to believe you'll live forever or that you'll get the chance to grow old then die. However... no one knows when they're time is up until that exact moment of time has arrived. Who knows, maybe you will be privileged to grow old then die of natural causes."

"I mean, that's the plan." The kunoichi replied.

"At your age, you would have about sixty to eighty more years. But even so, you can still die within the next few decades... maybe in the next year... or the next month, tomorrow maybe, or even... within the next hour or less than that..."

A little creeped out, Nia took a step back, "Jiraiya-sensei, why don't we just cut this conversation short and move on to this jutsu you wanted to teach me."

"Nia..." He breathed, "I lied to you about having a training session."

"What? What're you talking about?"

"My reasoning for bringing you out here is so that I can engage you in a serious match... to the death."

Nia breathed a huge sigh of relief and only laughed this off, "C'mon Jiraiya-sensei, you don't really mean that. A battle to the death? No way."

"Prepare yourself, Nia." The sannin then began to make a few hand signs as he activated a technique that allowed his hair to grow.

"Jiraiya-sensei, seriously. This is a joke, right?" The girl said as she began to get nervous.

However, with a whip of his head, his lengthy hair swung right at the kunoichi as she ducked underneath it and watched as it brought down a tree behind her.

She gasped as it came back around and jumped into the air as the sannin then had strands of hair sharpen and spike out of its roots and sent it flying at his opponent as if they were flying needles.

"Jiraiya-sensei, c'mon! Stop playing around with me! You're not really trying to kill me are you?!" Nia grabbed a kunai and began to deflect it as she was landing to the ground.

When she did, she quickly hid behind a tree as the hair stabbed the other side of the bark.

'Oh geez,' She began to panic as everything was happening way too fast for her, 'This can't be- Is he really trying to harm me?! Why is he trying to hurt me?!'

"You can't hide from me forever, you know!" Jiraiya suddenly appeared in front of the girl and aimed his fist right at her as she shrieked and quickly moved to her right. The force of his attack had yet another tree fall to its demise.

'He's serious...' The girl thought as she found herself trying to either block or dodge his moves in a hand to hand combat.

"What's wrong, Nia?" He asked as he threw a right hook and saw as it grazed the girl's cheek as she struggled to defend herself, "You've gotten rusty!"

Seeing an open spot, Jiraiya slammed his knee in her gut as she keeled over then spun around and kicked his student across the face, watching as she slid on her front side a few yards away.

Nia pushed herself up and placed her hand on her cheek as blood came from out the corner of her mouth and down her jaw.

"Instead of having trying to win Naruto's heart and get him to be your boyfriend all this time, you should've invested more time and effort into improving yourself to be an even greater shinobi." The old man taunted, "Just look at yourself! You lost your touch! You can barely defend yourself, Nia!"

"That's not true!" The girl got back onto her feet, "I just... don't wanna fight you! I don't wanna have to be in this death match with you!"

"Nia..." Jiraiya grew even more serious, "You've been hiding something from all of us, haven't you?"

"H-Hiding what?"

"A certain power."

The kunoichi's eyes widened, "No... I don't have any power. The only power I have is the water jutsus you've taught me."

"Hmm... is that so?" Jiraiya realized  Nia wasn't aware of her own power the Great Elder of Mt. Myoboku had spoken of.

'There's probably not much time left,' He thought to himself, 'I'm sure the kid will be looking for us before sundown. I need to end this quickly before he does so.'

As the sannin thought this, Nia finally began to get serious herself as she knew the toad sage was not out to play any sort of game. She now fully understood she was fighting for her life.

'Good...' The man observed the stance the girl took, 'She understands I'm not joking... it's about time I start getting more serious.'

Suddenly, the sannin thrusted forward with two chakra charged fingers that would have plunged through Nia's shoulder had she not twisted away at the last moment and thrown up a hasty defensive screen of taijutsu moves.

"There you go," The man breathed as he redoubled his onslaught. "Looks like you haven't actually lost your touch, kid!"

"Why would I have?" Nia replied as she delivered a bone cracking chakra enhanced blow to her aged opponent's ribs, "I wasn't going to let my romance with Naruto distract me from continuing to better myself! I'm more than just a love interest, you know!"

The kunoichi delivered another set of jabs to Jiraiya's midriff when suddenly a ripple in the sannin's perceptions caught him up short. Leaving himself vulnerable to attack, Nia spun to the right and thrusted her fist into midair where it ran up against something solid. Before she could correct her stance though, the visible Jiraiya delivered a stout blow to her side and then melted into dark ooze.

"Of course this was freaking genjutsu!" The girl groaned as she leapt backwards to get clear of the immediate danger.

Aware of what was happening, she formed a seal and poured chakra into breaking the effects of the ongoing assault on her mind like the old man had once taught her to do long ago.

Nia watched Jiraiya warily as he circled her, looking for a weakness. She wasn't the best genjutsu user of all time. Her specialty was in resisting them, twisting them against their user, and recognizing when they were being used. Finally, Jiraiya decided that it was now or never. Even the kunoichi would quickly tear down any illusion that he might employ if he didn't act fast.

The sannin's hands flew through a series of seals that ended with rock hard earthen projectiles carving themselves out of the soil all around Nia's location. Quickly, Nia formed a plan in her head as she knew that if she didn't escaped, she'd be done for.

With a final burst of energy, the chakra molded into the impromptu kunai and was propelled into the girl. In a flash, she was impaled all over her body so much so that she resembled a strange looking porcupine.

"There," The sannin sighed as he dropped to his knees, "She... didn't use that power... I'm sorry."

As he was about to grieve, Jiraiya staggered and the ground beneath him cracked from the force of Nia's retaliation. There was a puff of smoke and Jiraiya realized that he had been fooled. The Nia that he had attacked had only been a shadow clone.

"I should really thank Naruto for teaching me that move cause that sure as hell saved my life!" The girl hollered as she took out a few paper bombs and threw it, "Take this!"

'WHAT?!' The sannin gasped as his hair spread out to shield him from the attack, 'There's no way she should've been able to escape!'

"Water Style:" The girl formed a series of hand seals while still descending from the air, "Raging Waves!"

Quickly, Jiraiya molded chakra into a spin to create a counter wind to repel the waves Nia was trying to crush him with.

Freed from the grip of her technique,  Jiraiya reacquired the girl's location and inhaled deeply, molding chakra into his breath for a series of air attacks of his own. Nia flickered and reappeared back on the ground, also swelling up for an elemental attack. Jiraiya barely had time to spit fire to vaporize the incoming shots of water his student was expelling toward him.

"Nia, you take me by surprise!" The sannin spoke, "I thought you were completely distracted with Naruto, but it looks like you've been putting in some secret training. You've gotten way better than I remember. I'm speechless!"

"Well," The girl panted a bit as she used quite a bit of chakra, "Usually, after I would spend the day with him, I'd sneak out of my house and arrive at the training grounds to work on myself. Sometimes even, Naruto would actually be training himself in the morning and I would just join him if I could."

"I see..." Jiraiya couldn't help but be proud, "You guys really were still keeping up!"

The master then got into a stance, "However... I can see you grow tired when using some of those jutsus. At this rate, I'll wear you down and you know it."

Nia then witnessed Jiraiya flash through another series of seals and faltered at what to do. Rushing in could be incredibly dangerous at this point, but if she didn't do something to end the match in her favor she was seriously going to die. Jiraiya had made it clear, for some reason known only to him, Kakashi, and Tsunade, he needed to beat the girl within a fraction of her life in the hopes she would awaken some power.

"Now let me show you something I've been working on myself, kid! This took many years for me to learn, but when there's a will, there's a way!"

Nia took a couple of hesitant steps forward and felt the ground slick over beneath her feet. Even enhanced traction provided by chakra couldn't prevail against the impossibly friction free surface of ice that Jiraiya had produced. Immediately, a hail of deadly shards rained down on her from all sides to take advantage of her temporary unsteadiness.

"You know how to use ice jutsu?!" The girl was mind blown.

"That's right, baby!" The man replied as the shards began cutting through Nia's skin as she tried her best to think of something while desperately dodging as much shards as possible.

As the girl was busy with that, Jiraiya concentrated a massive amount of chakra onto his palmsas he was prepared to use a very useful attack.

"Rasengan!" He shouted as he delivered two swirling maelstroms of chakra into Nia's stomach.
While calling out the attack wasn't necessary Jiraiya knew that sometimes an auditory cue helped focus the mind and as such made a difficult technique easier to pull off.

With a loud shriek that caused numerous birds to be scared off into the sky, Nia crashed backwards violently onto the ground as she felt something snap and like something had broken.

Immediately, she screamed at the top of her lungs in agony as she realized she could hardly move. Her ribs were sprained and her left was broken. She coughed out blood as the pain her ribs then intensified even more as her mind was going into a state of shock.

Sure, she was hurt badly before, but the fact that her favorite writer and master had did this to her caused her immense sorrow and heartbreak.

Knowing the wrong he had done, Jiraiya hesitated to finish the job as the girl lying helpless on the ground had reminded him too greatly of the vision except this Nia was yelling and scrunching her face up in pain as opposed to being unable to really move or talk at all.

However, though his heart was heavy, the sannin carried on over to the girl's body.

"J-Jiraiya-sensei..." The girl croaked as she looked at him with quivering eyes, "P-Please... please... don't do this..."

Jiraiya clenched his fists as they began to shake. He knew of the girl's prophesied fate and he knew one way to help prevent her death was to beat her down so bad, she would be forced to use a power. Even if she didn't, she was fated to die anyway.

However, did he wanna risk Naruto despising him for as long as he lived? If his female student died by his hands, would he come up with a story that could possibly fool the blond? What was he to do?

"Nia..." His voice was shaky and grim, "Forgive me..."

Meanwhile, at Ichiraku, the horror-stricken screams of Nia had managed to reach the ears of everyone at the shop.

"What the hell?!" Naruto dropped his chopsticks and stood up from off the stool after devouring his sixth bowl of ramen.

"What... was that?" Ayame stopped what she was doing as everyone had became startled.

"It sounded like... a scream." Teuchi replied as Kakashi realized how grave everything was going to become.

Thankfully, he had brought Yamato along as a last resort if Naruto was to get too out of hand.

As the screaming continued, Naruto eventually figured it out to be Nia's and immediately began to run out of the shop. However, he quickly found himself to be wrapped around thick wood and looked over his shoulder to see Yamato to have been the one responsible for that.

"Captain Yamato?! What the hell are you doing?! Let me go!" The genin demanded as he tried his best to get himself free, "That was Nia, ya know! She's in danger and maybe even Pervy Sage! Let me go so I can help them!"

"Sorry Naruto." Kakashi apologized as his hands were in his pockets.

"But we can't let you go off." Yamato finished.

"What the hell does that mean?! Are you guys outta your mind?! That's my girlfriend and master! Let me goooo, dammit!"

"No can do, Naruto," Kakashi responded, "I'm sure Master Jiraiya is just fine."

"Oh yeah? Well, what about Nia?! Is he protecting her like he should?!" Naruto grunted as his anger was beginning to get the best of him.

"Our orders were to keep you away from what is happening," Kakashi said plain and simple, "The hokage's orders must be followed."

As Nia's screaming turned into wailing, the genin's heart dropped while Kakashi only closed his eyes, trying his best to obey the sannin's wishes.

"Kakashi-sensei..." Red bubbles began to form around Naruto's body as his fangs began to grow and claws began to sharpen, "Weren't you the one to teach me that anyone who abandons their friends for the sake of the rules are worse than scum?!"

The copy-cat ninja's eyes widened as a memory hit him hard.

Suddenly, he realized what he was doing was wrong. It wasn't the right thing to do.

He watched as Naruto's eyes became red and his pupil's became slit like a feline's.

"Uh oh," Yamato tried to keep the boy in his grasp, "He's starting to break through, Kakashi!"

In moments, the genin used his new found strength to claw out of the jutsu and began taking off at top speed to where he was needed

"Damn!" Yamato followed after him as he attempted to get ahold of him once more as the teen continually dodged the wood.

Being much slower and of need of assistance, Yamato turned to face the jonin, only to realize Kakashi had dropped onto his knees as guilt began to wash over him.

"Oh no..." He mumbled to himself as he placed his hands onto the ground as well, "H-He's right... How could I have-"

"Kakashi!" The brown-haired male came running back and shook him by the shoulder, "Kakashi, c'mon! We gotta grab Naruto!"

Where Jiraiya and Nia were, the sannin continually kicked and jabbed the girl all over the place. Nia was so beaten, all she could do was cry and beg for the man to stop. However, as heart wrenching as it was for him to hurt her, he just couldn't fulfill her request.

And so, he continued to listen to her weep and bleed from all over as he was sure he may have nearly broken every bone in her body.

'A fraction of her life, a fraction of her life...' He tried to justify that what he was doing to her was for the ultimate good.

The more and more it became difficult for the girl to breathe, the more her sorrow would be slowly replaced with anger. Jiraiya stopped in shock as the girl began to very quickly make numerous signs with her hands as a purple glow formed all around it.

'This is it!' The sannin gasped as he began to feel a strange tingle in his back as the girl was about to activate the power the Great Toad had foretold, 'I did it! I didn't have to kill her! She really going to-'

"GWAAAAH!"

The sannin had suddenly found himself skidding yards away as he crashed through a multitude of trees and collided against a large boulder. Because this had happened, Nia dropped her hands back to her side, causing her power to not be activated.

"Curly Brow..." She faintly heard the low growl of Naruto calling for her.

Her eyes weakly focused on him as he was protectively in front of her with his back turned towards her but his head looking over his right shoulder.

"Your eyes..." The girl noticed the eyes of the nine-tails replacing that of the genin's own oceanic orbs.

He's already at three tails...

"Who did this to you?!" His voice was menacing and frightening.

Nia didn't respond.

"It was Pervy Sage, huh?! He was torturing you, wasn't he?!"

Nia felt an ache in her heart as all of that was true. A tear slipped out of her eye as she nodded.

"What the hell, Pervy Sage!" The boy was furious as he saw his master approaching the two cautiously, "What the hell were you thinking?! Why the hell were you hurting her like that?! Are you out of your mind?! How could you do that?!"

"Naruto... I..." The sannin had finally felt the sting in what he had done as soon as he saw the emotion in the blond's eyes.

At this point of time, the sun was beginning to set. However, the sky resembled the color of blood as opposed to a beautiful orange.

Naruto's nails clawed at the ground deeply. His aura flared so much, it caused wind to blow harshly around the entire area as his tails just swung around dangerously.

"Calm down, kid..." Jiraiya slowly approached as he reached for a paper seal.

"How the hell can you expect me to stay calm when I just saw you beating down Curly Brow so cruelly, dammit?!" The skin on his hands began to peel off, "I'm so mad and conflicted, I can't even think straight! You're supposed to protect her, aren't you?! You're her master too! You're not supposed to beat her to death, ya know!"

"Naruto, stop it..." Nia struggled to stay conscious as she began to witness the genin transform once more.

Jiraiya also attempted to keep Naruto in check, but as he pulled out his paper seal and came running towards the blond, Naruto lost himself completely to his frustration and madness. His aura, after many months, had soared into the air and pierced through the clouds themselves as a pillar of light had formed around him.

For another time, the boy had transformed into the four-tails.

---

A/N - That's the end of this chapter! I hope you guys liked it :)

Just in case some of you don't know, I have made a new book that's a alternate universe to this very book called: Will They Or Won't They?

It's a Modern Konoha high school story that I'm sure you guys will love. Please check out the book to find out what's it about and read the A/N 😊 be sure to put in your library so that you'll be notified when I release the first chapter!

Thanks for reading! Please comment and vote and have a great night everyone ❤️

QOTD:

1. Fave Part?

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3. What's the emotion you got out of this chapter?