Link : https://www.fan fiction.net/s/10053799/1/Tomb-of-the-Ten-Tails
WC : 37k+
Plot : While traveling through the mysterious island in the Dragon's Triangle, Lara Croft stumbles upon a cave that holds a power not seen in the world for many years. When this power turns out to be the son of a hero that not even she knew, will she be willing to trust this strange man claiming to be a shinobi? Does she have a choice?
Chapter 1
Raiding the Tomb
An army of shinobi stood against a monster that had been present in the world only twice and each time always resulted in the death of many. This monster was the Ten-Tails, or the Juubi. The massive monster was preparing to wipe out the forces in a massive attack.
Two people were arguing, one was an older man with blonde hair and whisker-like marks on his face and the other was a younger eighteen-year-old with a darker shade of blonde hair and pale blue eyes.
"Otou-san, you have to seal it inside me! We don't have any choice!" the younger man said.
"There has to be some other way! We'll find a way! I promise!" the elder man said.
"There is no other way. It's about to destroy us! Please!" tears were streaming down the younger man's face.
"You don't understand, if we do this, then we'll have to seal you away too! Otherwise, it'll just burst out of you. I have no idea how long you'll need to be sealed in order for your body to adapt to the Juubi's power! You could never be able to come out of it!"
The younger man looked at his father with determination, "So be it."
"Very well," the father said before going through a rapid succession of hand signs before holding his hand out at the younger man, "Sealing Arts: Demonic Sealing Jutsu!" The jutsu sent a beam into the younger man before many smaller ones shot out of him to wrap around the Juubi before pulling it towards the younger man and dragging it into his body.
The man was then gripped by agony, his body feeling like it was being torn apart from the inside out.
"Otou-san, hurry! It's, urgh, trying to dig it's way back out!"
"Don't worry. I've got this," the elder man said, confident in his abilities, but still wishing he wouldn't have to sacrifice his son. He made another series of hand signs before shouting, "Sealing Arts: Demon Statue Seal!"
A few moments after that, runes typically seen in sealing jutsu began to snake all over the younger man's body before it began to slowly turn to stone. Just before his mouth was petrified, the man said, "Bye, Otou-san, I love you and tell Kaa-chan that I love her too."
The elder man nodded, "I will and I love you too. I'm sorry about all of this. You would have made one awesome Hokage."
The last thing the younger man could do before the last of his face petrified was smile with true happiness. Once his body was completely turned to stone, a massive demonic looking statue started forming around him until a stone statue of the Juubi, smaller than the real one, was formed. With the jutsu complete, the elder man had tears in his eyes as he knew what he had to do. Move the statue to a safe place, tell his wife and friends what had happened, and hunt down the bitch that was responsible for all of this.
Many millennia later
Lara Croft was having a bad day or rather a bad couple of days. She and the rest of the passengers and crew of the Endurance had journeyed into the Dragon's Triangle in search of the lost kingdom of Yamatai. Instead of the safe landing that they'd hoped for, the storms that made the area infamous tore the ship in half and stranded the survivors on this island. Lara herself had been separated from the rest of the survivors, knocked unconscious, and taken captive in some kind of sacrificial altar that was made in a cave. After escaping the collapsing cave and finally finding her friend Sam, who was in the company of a past shipwreck survivor, Lara had passed out from the injuries, only to wake up to find both of them gone. She'd met the rest of her friends and crewmates a few minutes later and they'd all decided to split up. Lara would travel with Dr. Whitman, who was one of the main reasons they could even do this expedition and the head archaeologist, in order to find Roth, Lara's friend and teacher. The rest of them would try and find Sam and this Mathias person. Whitman had gone ahead while Lara rested a bit more from her injuries and soreness at the base camp Sam had made in what appeared to be some ruins in the middle of the coastal forest.
She moved through the forest, an arrow drawn as she kept watch for any more wolves that had been hounding her. She was also looking for more salvage that she could hopefully use to modify her bow. She used her bow to take down more of the creepy talismans that litter the area. Seriously, what is it with these inhabitants and the disturbing decorations? As she was making her way towards where Whitman told her over the radio that she had that he was waiting, she spotted an opening in the cliff wall. There were some markings on the on the wall that looked to Lara as faded Japanese letters. It was a little difficult for her to make out, but she managed to make out four words, "Tomb," though that might have been "vault," but she couldn't be certain as the kanji was pretty faded, "Ten-tails," and "Juubi." What any of these words had to do with each other, Lara had no idea, but her inner archaeologist was making her curious about what might be inside.
She pulled the radio from her backpack to contact Whitman, "Dr. Whitman, I'm going to explore a cave, so I might be out of contact for a while."
"Lara, we don't have time for these little detours. You have to see what I've found!" Whitman said before adding, as if it were an afterthought, "Oh, and we need to still find Roth."
"Relax, doctor, it should only take a few minutes and I'll be right back out." Lara said as she began to walk into the darkness.
She lit her torch with a fire pot on one of the walls and started making her way through the tunnel. She could tell that the tunnel was carved, but had collapsed enough to lose its smooth surface. She moved slowly just in case there were any pitfalls in the darkness, which there luckily were not. When she came out of the tunnel, the archaeologist found herself in a massive open chamber. The main landmark of the room was a massive statue in the middle of the room. She'd never seen such a demon in all of the legends that she'd studied. Despite the obvious age of the statue, the edges weren't worn down by time, wind, or water and the only sign of its age was the moss that had grown over it. The creature had humanoid arms and legs along with what appeared to be a mouth of sharp teeth and a single eye with what looked like concentric circles. The key details of the statue that drew Lara's attention were the ten tentacle-like tails and the single eye.
"Maybe this was affected by the Greek myths of Cyclopes through traders and traveling scholars or maybe the source of those myths," Lara muttered outloud before realizing that she needed to continue her investigations, hopefully finding some things that she could use.
Beneath the statue, there was a deep pool and, from what the British citizen could tell, there wasn't another way out. Lara was a little disappointed and was about to leave when she noticed some images on the wall. They were a bit faded, but Lara could make them out enough to realize they were telling a story. A demon, the same one as the statue, was faced off against a warrior, who, in the next panel, imprisoned the demon, while banishing a shadow that stood behind the demon. The third image showed the shadow hiding away while the warrior prepared for its return. Lara had never heard of this legend, she made a mental note to research it when she got off the island.
She then noticed a pedestal on a platform in front of the large statue and approached it. The words were a little worn down and in a dialect of Japanese that she didn't recognize, but it was close enough to the modern version that she could make out enough of it.
The words said, "Release the hero when the Shadow of Fire commands it. The treasure of power lies within the stone, which must be broken to free it."
"'Treasure of power?' What does that mean? 'Lies within the stone?' Did the sculptor seal something in the statue?" she wondered.
She looked up to see what appeared to be a battering ram tipped with a metal point and covered with strange runes. While she was against the idea of destroying what was likely an extremely historical artifact, just on principal as an archaeologist, something told her that she should do what she was thinking, that she should destroy the statue. Her instincts told her what to do, so she began to climb up the ledges until she was on the same level as the ram. The rope holding it in place was tied to a beam wrapped in cloth. She used her torch to set fire to the cloth, which spread to the rope. The ram smashed into the statue, causing it to crumble to pieces.
What really shocked Lara was that what appeared to be a man tumbled out of it and fell into the pool.
"Damnit!" Lara cried as she jumped off the ledge to dive into the pool. She frantically swam towards the man, who was unconscious and sinking fast. She wrapped her arms around his waist to pull him to the surface. Once she broke the surface, she dragged the unconscious man to the ground. She checked the man's pulse and couldn't find it. She started giving him CPR and, after the second round of breaths, the man started coughing up water, so Lara helped him onto his side to ensure the water came out easily.
"Are you alright?" Lara asked.
"What? What did you say?" the man asked, sitting up and wiping the water from his face.
When the man spoke, Lara was surprised when he used words of the same dialect as the written words on the cave entrance as they appeared to be quite ancient and this man didn't appear to be older than twenty. She decided to try her luck at trying to speak to him, hoping that her knowledge of the language was close enough to his that he would understand her.
"I asked if you are alright," Lara said.
"Yes, I'm…fine," the man said, his sudden difficulty in creating a complete sentence came about due to the same reason as the slight blush on his face, he looked up for the first time to see his rescuer for the first time, "Wow, you're beautiful," he said, not even fully realizing what he said.
Lara blushed at the compliment. True, it wasn't the first time someone complimented her looks, even by men as handsome as the one before her, but most of them were either men trying to pick her up in clubs that Sam dragged her to or obnoxious colleagues that wanted to get into her pants. This one, however, seemed more…sincere. The man had dark blonde hair, wore a dark green flak vest with a hooded trench coat over it with images of falling leaves decorating it.
"Thank you," she said, smiling, "What's your name, anyway?"
"Uzumaki-Namikaze Minato, after my grandfather the fourth Hokage. What's your name, Miss?" Minato asked.
"Lara Croft," she replied with a smile.
"Nice to meet you, Croft-chan," Minato said, giving a big smile.
Lara giggled slightly, "Croft is my family name and Lara is my given name."
"You put your family name second? Weird." Minato teased, "So, where am I anyway?"
"You're on an unchartered island in the Dragon's Triangle."
Minato looked at her in confusion, "Where's that?"
"About 300 miles from the coast of Japan." Minato's blank expression didn't change, telling Lara that he had no idea where that was. "Where are you from? Maybe I could give you an idea if I use your home as a base location."
"I'm from Konohagakure in the Elemental Nations." Minato explained.
"I've never heard of those places, but I don't exactly have access to the sources of information on this island," Lara said, now even more curious about the strange man before her.
"Really? How's that possible? They're pretty famous," Minato said, curious as to Lara's ignorance.
"What were you doing in that statue anyway?" Lara asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"My father put me in there."
"What? Why?" Lara asked. She couldn't imagine a possible reason a father would seal his son into a statue, even through whatever means he used to seal Minato away.
"He sealed the Juubi inside my body, but a human body can't handle that amount of power, so he had to seal me away too in order to give my body time enough to adapt to it. Even my Otou-san's sealing jutsu weren't able to deal with that flaw, though at least he made it easy for someone to release me from the statue."
"Sealing jutsu? What's that?"
"A type of jutsu that uses seals. Obviously," Minato explained, confused as to how Lara doesn't know something so basic.
"But what is a jutsu?" Lara asked. She was curious as to what this thing called a 'jutsu' could have the ability to seal someone in stone.
"How could you not know that? Everyone knows that!"
"I don't and I've never heard of anyone that uses something with that name, so I'm thinking that perhaps the knowledge was lost during the time you were sealed away," Lara said, "Do you have any idea how long you were locked away?"
Minato shrugged, "I don't know, a couple years I guess?"
"Well, considering how much information that you know and no one I know does, I think it was a bit longer than that. How long I haven't got a clue, but judging from the apparent age of the room and the age of some of the shipwrecks I saw, I'd say ships have been coming here for hundreds of years and, if I had to guess, the statue holding you was even older."
That information hit Minato like a ton of bricks. It crushed his spirit to think that everyone he ever knew was likely long dead.
Lara placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry, Minato. It might just be that your home is just unknown to everyone else. There are still many places in the world that are still uncharted, even here in the Dragon's Triangle. It's possible that I just don't know, so please don't lose hope."
"You're right, Lara-chan. Otou-san always taught me that no matter how bleak and dark the situation might be, there's always hope. I refuse to let this break me!" Minato said with fire in his eyes.
Lara smiled at his inner fire, "I'm glad to hear that Minato. I'm glad you're feeling better."
"So, Lara-chan, why can't you leave this island?"
Lara then remembered what she'd been doing before her intellectual curiosity got the better of her, so she started explaining everything from why she and her friends came to the Dragon's Triangle to what had happened after the shipwreck. She explained the strange documents she'd found, describing beings called 'oni' and how the storms surrounding the island prevented anyone from leaving, that made the archaeologist in her even more curious as to the secrets of the island, though she was determined to ensure her friends were safe first and foremost. When she explained that she was looking for a kingdom that was ruled by the so-called Sun Queen Himiko, something prodded against the back of Minato's memory, though he didn't know what it could be. He realized that his time sealed away, clearly affected his memory, so parts of it were missing. Not wanting to worry the girl, Minato decided not to mention it, though he did say that Yamatai and the title 'Sun Queen' meant nothing to him.
When Lara finished her story, Minato had a determined look on his face, "I'd like to help you Lara-chan. I might have been asleep for a while, but I'll still be a big help to ya!"
"Thanks, Minato. I appreciate that. We should get going. Dr. Whitman is waiting for me to return."
"Lead the way, Lara-chan," Minato said, gesturing for her to do so.
When she stood up, she hissed in pain and grasped her wounded side, where a piece of rhubarb had pierced her body.
"Lara-chan, you're wounded!" Minato said, with worry.
"I'm fine, Minato, don't worry," she reassured.
"Let me see," Minato said.
"Really, I'm fine."
" .See," he insisted. Lara sighed and gently lifted the side of her tank top up, the cloth sticking to the blood of the injury. He looked at it carefully before saying, "It's not that bad. I should be able to heal that up pretty easily," before putting his hands over the wound. His hands started to glow a green light. Lara tried to question what he was doing, but he shushed her and continued to do whatever it was that he was doing. When he was finished, he took his hands away from her to reveal flawless, unblemished skin.
"W-what? Minato, h-how did you…?" Lara couldn't find the words for her shock at what just happened.
Minato shrugged, "A simple healing jutsu. I'm not as good as my mom, Auntie Sakura, or Grandma Tsunade, but I'm a decent field medic. Now, we should go and meet with your friends."
Lara snapped out of her surprise stupor and nodded. She had many more questions to ask him, but felt they would have to wait until later as she reentered the tunnel that she came through. Minato followed closely behind with Lara guiding them through the dark tunnel until they were out in the dim sunlight of the forest. When Lara explained that they were going to the large structure that could just be made out between the trees and began to walk towards it, Minato grabbed her arm to stop her. When she looked at her new companion questioningly, he pulled out a pair of kunai. That got Lara's attention and she stopped to listen and she heard growl, a sound she recognized to mean wolves. She pulled her bow out and nocked an arrow. Wolves burst out of the brush and Lara fired one of her arrows, embedding it in the eye of one of the canines. Minato threw a barrage of his kunai, killing the other six wolves with one knife each.
"Wow, you're quite skilled, Minato," Lara said as Minato pulled the blades from the dead wolves.
"Any shinobi worth the title knows how to make those hits," Minato said.
"Shinobi? You're a ninja?" Lara asked.
"Yep, Konohagakure is a shinobi village and I was trained by my Otou-san, the sixth Hokage to one day be the leader, just like him."
"This Hokage, is that the leader of your village?"
Minato nodded, "He's also the strongest shinobi in the village. The one everyone respects more than anything else."
Lara nodded, grateful for this new information, before leading him to where Dr. Whitman was waiting in front of a massive gate covered in images.
"Dr. Whitman!" Lara called as she got closer.
The doctor didn't even look away from the images on the door. "Lara, glad you finally got here. You have to see this. It appears to be some kind of deity, possibly an example of sun-worship."
Lara walked up to the gate right next to the doctor and touched the white paint of the images to pull her fingers away, now white with the paint.
"It's still wet. It was made recently," she said.
"Yes, likely by the inhabitants of this island," Whitman said.
"Who are they, doctor?"
"Likely survivors, just like us from the other ships that litter the beach," he said before finally turning around and seeing Minato for the first time, "Lara, who's that?"
"Doctor meet Uzumaki-Namikaze Minato. I found him inside that cave I explored," Lara said, while Minato just stared at the two, not understanding a single word they were saying.
"He was squatting in a cave?" Whitman said, his voice showing disgust at the concept.
"Actually…this is going to sound a bit strange, but he was actually sealed inside of an old statue."
"Truly?"
"Yes, he was sealed inside an old stone statue of a demon that I haven't seen in any of the literature. If what he says is true and accurate, he's from a culture that I've never even heard mentioned in any of the records that I've studied."
"Really?" Whitman said, his full attention now on Minato. He could smell as big a story with the blonde as with the search for Yamatai. "Hello there, I'm Doctor James Whitman, famed archaeologist. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, holding his hand out for Minato to shake it, which he did, though Minato looked at him with suspicion.
"Doctor, he only speaks a form of Japanese. He doesn't understand what you're saying," Lara said.
"Ah, well, I think I can speak enough of it to communicate," the doctor said, mentally going through his Japanese phrases.
"Doctor, I can communicate with him, besides we need to get past this door, which is more important right now," Lara said, trying to save the doctor from embarrassment and, quite frankly, it was obvious that Lara didn't like the doctor for whatever reason.
"Ah, yes, of course," the doctor said, sounding a little annoyed being unable to question the blonde.
Lara moved closer to the door before noticing wheels on either side of it and moved to the left one.
"Shit, the handle's missing," Lara muttered before she looked at her axe and stuck the handle into the hole of the missing handle. She and Whitman started to turn, but feeling the handle was about to break, Lara stopped and pulled it out. "Damn, it's not strong enough."
"I'm sure there are some things that you might be able to use to strengthen it," Whitman said.
Lara went over to a nearby fire and sat down on a log before she began to use the salvage that she'd found in order to do just that. Minato sat next to her, watching her work.
"You don't like Dr. Whitman, do you?" Lara asked, not looking up from her work.
"No," Minato said.
"You don't even know him. Why the quick judgment? Shouldn't you give him at least a chance?"
"You see, Lara-chan, to be a ninja, you have to have very good instincts, especially with people, so that you can anticipate threats. Right from the start, I could tell the sort of person Whitman-san is and it's not a good one. He cares more for himself than anyone else and he will sell us out the instant he feels that doing so will save his own skin."
"You're wrong. He's not perfect, but he'd never do something like that," she said, not willing to believe the man she respected as an archaeologist would do something like that without hard evidence.
"I'm sorry, Lara-chan, but you're wrong and I fear what will happen when you realize it." Minato said morbidly.
She finished it and went back to the gate, where Whitman was still examining the images.
"Ready, Lara? Shall we give it a go, then?" he asked as he prepared to turn the right wheel.
"Let's do this, doctor," she said as she put the axe back into the wheel. This time when they turned it, the door started moving and it made it all the way to the top. The three hurried through as the gate slowly began to close again.
The trio found themselves on a path with a long flight of steps. Whitman, still focused on the historical findings, spoke to Lara.
"The images on the door, judging from their age, they could be the Sun Queen," he said.
"Himiko? Are you sure you're not channeling Sam, Dr. Whitman?" Lara joked.
"Well, there's no doubt Himiko had power, some say shamanistic, elemental!" Whitman said excitedly.
"A woman wields that much power and sooner or later it gets called witchcraft," Lara said, while in the back of her mind thinking on the ninja of the trio's healing ability and wondering what else he could do. She felt it best not to ask because he seemed annoyed at her not agreeing with him about the doctor, but she figured he'd get over it. She glanced back at him to see he had a serious expression and was seemingly keeping an eye on the shadows.
"We shouldn't discount anything," Whitman said, "Even what may seem to us irrational. We still have much to learn about the world."
Lara sighed, "You sound like my father."
"It could be one hell of a story, Lara," Whitman said, sounding excited.
"Not if we don't live to tell it," she replied, getting nervous about not being able to see where exactly they were going despite having torches to light their way due to rocks and trees blocking an already windy path.
They came to a clearing where there was an altar with a statue of a woman being the centerpiece.
"Incredible, it is Himiko!" Whitman said, sounding like a child in a toy store.
"But look," Lara said, approaching it, "The bowls, the candles, why's she still being worshipped?"
"This island it must've once been part of Yamatai. You were right, Lara!" Whitman said.
Lara felt the excitement getting to her now, "The Lost Kingdom!"
"It's like finding Atlantis," Whitman agreed.
"But this is real, Dr. Whitman. We're not standing on a myth," she said with pride.
"Tell me can your friend tell us anything? You said that he was from some ancient culture, perhaps he knows something."
Lara looked at Minato, who was watching them with a confused and slightly suspicious expression, "I'm afraid not, doctor. That was one of the first things I asked him and he'd never heard of the Lost Kingdom."
"Shame, but still we're standing on a gold mine!" Whitman said, just before the sounds of twigs snapping and a deep Russian voice was heard. Whitman pulled his pistol out and Minato pulled out a pair of kunai.
"Come quickly, your friends are hurt!" the large Russian said.
Lara didn't believe them for a second, "Yes, probably by them," she whispered to Whitman, remembering the crazy man from the cave and the mutilated corpses she saw in the tunnels she'd passed through before meeting Minato.
"Stay back!" the doctor warned the strange men.
"They can't be trusted!" Lara whispered. Minato was staying next to them, ready to attack if they got to close. One of the men took the high ground, preparing to attack with a bow, which everyone noticed, "You still have a gun!" she said, as she could feel the doctor getting more and more worried. The man that had spoken still had his hands up to show he was unarmed, though he didn't seem worried in the least.
Whitman looked back at Lara and Minato for a second before saying, "I don't want any trouble," and taking his finger off the trigger and holding his hands up, much to Lara's horror and Minato's anger. "We'll come, but I insist that afterwards you take us to whoever's in charge."
"What are you doing!?" Lara asked Whitman as he put the gun on the ground and told her to be quiet.
Lara prepared her bow to attack, but someone hit her from behind, knocking her to the ground. She tried to fight the man tying her arms behind her and called for Minato, who was being advanced on by two others. Their eyes met and Minato gave her a look that said "I told you so." When the moment passed, a flash of light occurred and Minato was just gone. Lara realized then that he'd been right the whole time, he'd given her a chance and she threw it back, choosing to trust the doctor who even her closest friend warned about. As a result, she was now on her own.