Fic: Ask An Expert (a BTVS/ Naruto Crossover)
Title: Ask An Expert
Author: Hercat
Summary: It always helps to get a bit of advice when dealing with those difficult situations.
Authors notes: This story is intended as a chapter for Tales from the Bartender at TTH. Basic premise: Xander settled down in Cleveland and opened a bar. A fun read. Most of the stories in this series seem to focus on the Buffy side of things, so I thought I’d try it the other way around. Kudos to Cheysuli Night who wrote the other Naruto cross which I refer to.
Disclaimer: Naruto was created by the great Masashi Kishimoto. For background, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunade_(Naruto). Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon. I don’t own any of the characters. Although writing fanfic would sure be a lot more fun than my current job.
The Godaime Hokage crouched in the dark, tense and tight lipped. Above her head one of her ANBU bodyguards crouched on the ceiling.
Outside the door she could hear footsteps echo down the hall, coming closer, closer…and then fading away. When the last trace of that well known presence was gone she heaved a sigh of relief. Above her, the ANBU glared down. She shouldn’t have been able to tell through the ceramic bear mask he was wearing, but could regardless.
He doubtless believed it was beneath the dignity of the village’s leader to be hiding in a broom closet to escape paperwork, but dammit, it wasn’t like he was the one who had to spend all day reading the stuff. Worse yet, she was expected to remember all of it, a never-ending mind-numbing cascade of scrolls. She’d just wanted to wander over to the hospital for a bit and stretch her legs. So what if it had been a few hours, she was the Hokage, couldn’t she do what she wanted? Apparently not.
“Hokage sama…” began the ANBU.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, straightening a little in the cramped closet and bumping into the mops. Maybe they had enough time for a couple of drinks on the way back.
That was the point where she noticed the light leaking under the door. From behind her, where there definitely had not been a door a few minutes ago. From where it made absolutely no sense for there to be a door, since they were against the outside wall of the building.
Then the impossible door opened. In a split second the ANBU had the intruder pinned, arm up behind his back and a kunai at his throat.
If the hallway behind him was an illusion it was a hell of a good one, it even smelled real. Tsunade eyed the captive, a tall one-eyed man with short brown hair. His eye was wide, and his hands spread, frozen with surprise. A quick glance at his palms confirmed that this was no ninja.
“oookaaay…” said the captive slowly “Tell you what, if one of you gives me the toilet bowl cleaner, I’ll let you get back to doing…whatever.”
“Excuse me? You’re in no position to make demands.” snapped the Hokage. “If this is a kidnapping attempt, it’s a very poorly planned one. Who do you work for? What kind of jutsu did you use on the closet?” Better yet, how had they known where to connect it to? Hiding in the closet had been a spur of the moment decision. And why hadn’t she felt the surge of chakra?
“My name is Xander, this is Nights, my bar in Cleaveland, USA, Earth. This isn’t a kidnap attempt, there’s an interdimensional portal in the broom closet. On the plus side, it’s stable so no matter how long you stay, it’ll take you back where you came from. We’ve tried to get rid of it, but apparently it’s a pothole on the road of life or something. I don’t think having an interdimensional travel agency down the street helps any. Too much traffic.” The one eyed man abruptly lost the joking air and became serious. “No matter what, you’re safe here. The bar is layered with enough anti-violence spells to give a minor god pause.” Considering that he was standing with his hands in the air and a knife at his throat, it was amusing seeing him trying to reassure a woman who could probably pound him into paste without effort. “So, now that I’ve convinced you either that you’re safe, or that I’m completely nuts, you can come in for a drink, or just go straight back. But either way, I really need that cleaner.”
After a moment’s thought, Tsunade waved off the ANBU, and followed the one-eyed man around the corner, where sure enough, there was a bar. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, and the wooden floor creaked a little beneath her sandals. Tsunade gave up the idea that this was an illusion or an elaborate prank. Sight, sound, touch and smell were all perfect. Then again, she hadn’t tried taste yet. She swung herself up onto a barstool, which was a lot higher than she was used to, as the bartender settled into place.
“A bottle of sake” she eyed the thing with the antlers two seats down. “Actually, make that shochu.” The bartender nodded and placed a bottle and glass on the bar.
“And for you?” he asked, nodding at the ANBU guard. Tsunade was pleased to see that he wasn’t holding a grudge over having a kunai held to his throat. Most civilians weren’t that sensible.
“He’ll just have water” Tsunade answered. Not that the guard would be drinking it. She, being a powerful med-nin was pretty much unpoisonable, but the guard didn’t have her advantages. Her eyes scanned the room, marking exits as the bartender poured water for the guard, and toilet bowl cleaner for the thing with the antlers, who accepted it with a murmur of thanks before going back to its book. It looked a little like the time Shikamaru had tried to henge into a deer while drunk, gotten stuck, and decided that fixing things was ‘too troublesome’.
In the corner a pair of women was playing a game that seemed to involve stabbing balls on a table with sticks. One of them looked normal enough, but the other was corpse-white with a definite blue tinge to her skin. Aside from the main entrance and a door into the kitchen, she could see one more exit, with a large sign over it in script she didn’t recognize. The sight of it brought something to her attention.
“We’re not speaking the same language” she said accusingly to the bartender. Santa…was that it?
“No,” he agreed, reaching to pour her drink and getting cut off by the ANBU who reached the bottle first and poured slowly, doubtlessly checking for poison at the same time. “I had a translation spell installed a couple months ago. There are something like 800 demon languages. Oddly enough, I had more trouble with the humans. Most demons speak at least a little English.”
“If one does not have command of a language, how can they hope to command anything else?” The blue thing was suddenly standing beside her, and the ANBU was not happy about it. “Xander, another round to celebrate my most recent victory.”
“Man, Faith’s got to be pissed, she usually wins” Xander added as an aside to Tsunade.
“She strives in vain. Few can defeat a god on the field of battle and fewer still can challenge the might of an Old One.” Tsunade eyed the being doubtfully as it stalked off, drinks in tow.
“She claims to be a god?”
“More than just claims. We get a fair number of them in here.” Xander waved at the wall behind himself. “Sometimes they leave something for the wall behind. I collect stories too.” Tsunade eyed the crowded space. “The stories this stuff could tell…” The centerpiece was a sword of unusual design, but there were hundreds of other objects; photos, pieces of paper, clothing, and more than one thing she had no name for. But then something leapt out at her.
“That” she said pointing at the Konoha Hitai-ate, neatly pinned to the wall beside a green towel. “Where did that come from?” One of her ninja had been here before? Or was it a trophy from one of Konoha’s many enemies?
“Hm? That one? Sorry, but I never got the story behind it. Besides, if I explain stuff, I’ll lose all of my cool mysterous-ness.” The joker’s façade was back. It made him look oddly like Hatake, the chronically tardy bastard. A resemblance that only got stronger when the main door opened and the smile vanished like it’d never been.
“Hey!” Xander snapped at the young man who’d just run into the bar draped in a smoking black overcoat. “Can’t you read?” he said pointing at the sign over the far door, which incidentally Tsunade couldn’t. The newcomer’s shirt was squirming, and Tsunade was sure she saw a tail poke out briefly before being tucked back under.
“Aw c’mon man, it’s only a couple.”
“I don’t care if it’s only a half! And okay…gross mental picture. No kitten poker. You can play for money like everyone else.” The newcomer’s face warped and he snarled towards the bar. Tsunade felt her ANBU’s killing intent sharpen, but she gestured him to hold back as she sipped her drink. This was much more entertaining than watching Gai try to line dance by himself.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with man, I am a vampire! An immortal creature of the night.”
“No,” said the bartender coolly. “You’re a demon-possessed corpse, shortly to be a large pile of dust, unless you wise up. Now leave the kittens here or get out.” The demon snarled a bit, but dropped the kittens to the bar top before stalking off into the back room.
Xander pulled a large basket from under the counter and started dropping the kittens in with the air of someone very much put upon. “Don’t suppose you want one?”
“No thanks,” said Tsunade with a smirk. “I already spend enough time taking care of needy little monsters. The last thing I want is more.” The bartender nodded and started lining the basket with newspaper. “What did that thing mean by immortal?”
“Why? Interested?”
“Not for the reasons you’re thinking.” Xander pulled a small furball out of the basket. He was leaning back against the trophy wall, stroking the kitten and eying her. He should have looked ridiculous, an unarmed civilian holding a frantically purring ball of fur. Instead he looked like a dragon leaning back on its hoard, and Tsunade had the sudden conviction that when the ANBU had held the kunai to his throat, it was the ninja whose life had been in danger. There was no anger or hunger in that gaze, only calm appraisal.
“Tell me a story and I’ll think about it.” Tsunade hadn’t believed in fairytales since she’d become a chunin, more years ago than she cared to think about. But here in this bar that shouldn’t exist, she couldn’t help but believe again, just a little. And if there was one thing that she remembered from the stories it was that a fair exchange was always required.
So she took another drink from the glass (though she was far, far more sober than she wanted to be) and started a tale that no one had ever heard from her before.
“Once upon a time” her throat closed up and she had to start over. “Once upon a time three students passed the ninja academy’s exit exam, and were put on a team together. One was a genius, cold and calculating. One was a joker, perverted and kind, and the third was a silly little girl. The joker loved the girl, the girl loved the genius, and the genius loved power. The genius taught them to challenge themselves, the joker taught them to love life, and the girl taught them…something. Dammed if I know.” Tsunade drained and refilled her cup.
“For a while they were a family, but then things changed. The genius grew cold, the joker started to hide behind masks and the girl was more interested in holding them together to actually pay any attention to reality. Then, one day, their sensei, their teacher finally tracked down the people who’d been going missing in the village…and found the genius’ collection of human experiments. And spare parts. The genius vanished only to return years later wearing a new body, and kill their sensei. And now…now it’s my problem.” Xander was still leaning back against the trophy wall. Tsunade pulled herself upright and showed him the resolve that let her hold the title of Hokage. Without looking down, she pulled a photo from where it rested just over her heart and handed it to him. She didn’t have to look to see. It was the four of them, back before it all went wrong. The only photo she’d ever seen of Orochimaru really smiling. She could remember that day perfectly if she wanted to, but those days were in the past now.
“Tell me how to kill my brother.” Xander closed his eye as if in pain, and for a moment Tsunade was worried that she’d misjudged things completely and made a fool of herself, not that it would be the first time. Then he started to speak as he pinned the photo to the wall.
“There are five major classes of immortals, the one you’re dealing with is immortality by possession, which aside from being just wrong is also a stupid idea ‘cause it drives the user completely wacko eventually. The first thing you need to do is destroy the original body completely…”
His explanation is clear and more detailed than most of the mission briefings she’s been to. He tells her what to do, how to do it, and what order it needs to be done in. What’s more he explains why it needs to be done that way, and how the function of the immortality jutsu is its own most major flaw.
She leaves the bar with a head full of notes on how to use the orb of Thessulah that her ANBU’s carrying, a stomach full of booze, and a heart full of the knowledge that Orochimaru is completely, irredeemably screwed.
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