I'm working on a number of stories, and this one happened to be at a point that I was relatively happy with. If anyone happens to read EOTS, the Kumo flashback will be up in a few hours.
This story is one that I based around a simple question I had when I first saw the Wave Arc. How does chakra propel ninja away from trees? This branched out, developing a form of flight. It developed further after more thought, into the whole idea of Naruto's abilities in this story.
It's another AU, with Naruto's family alive and him having a sister with the Kyuubi. In this one, though, she doesn't have the whole Kyuubi. She was given eight tails of chakra, with Naruto getting the mind and the last tail. Minato was weakened, his body losing strength and endurance. But with his Hiraishin and seals, he's still enough of a threat to retain the rank of Hokage. Oh, and the idea was made before the whole Tobi/Madara thing. So in this story, Tobi is Madara.
This chapter is just showing how everything started, compressing three years or so into a single chapter. Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Five year old Naruto Namikaze rolled out of bed with a sigh. As usual, his mother had just walked by calling for Kasumi to wake up. She hadn't even knocked on his door as she walked by. Not that he'd expected her to do anything. It had been almost eight months since either parent had shown even the most minor interest in him. They'd taught him basic chakra control exercises with his sister, as she needed a lot of practice to control the massive amount of biju given chakra. He took his time going through his morning routine, getting dressed in his usual burnt orange on black outfit.
He moved to the door and winced at the horrid lack of control as he tapped into his chakra to unlock the door. His fingers glowed with fluctuating blue light and the door unlocked. After the first time someone tried to abduct Kasumi, Minato had installed seals on most doors in the house, requiring one of the family to deactivate them with their chakra before the door could be opened.
Naruto made himself a quick breakfast in the kitchen, not bothering to go sit with his father, mother, and sister. None of them would even notice his absence. After he finished his meal, he exited the house and headed into one of the nearby forests. He wasn't a ninja, or even in the academy, so he wasn't allowed on the training grounds, and he had no intention of explaining why his control was so bad by practicing in the compound.
He found a suitable clearing within ten minutes. Taking a deep breath, he gathered a slight amount of chakra to his feet as he made to sprint up the tallest tree. Not surprisingly, he slipped off. With a sigh, he ran at the tree again. This time, as his foot made to touch the tree, he poured more chakra into his feet. This time, he was blasted away. He tried again and again, getting back into his usual routine. He'd done this so many times that he didn't even have to think about it anymore.
Naruto had been forced to go through this every day since he had first been taught about chakra control. It didn't matter how much time he spent each day, his control always got worse. He'd discovered that it was because his chakra reserves somehow constantly increased. It was unnatural, and no one he talked to had any ideas about such a condition. People's chakra reserves didn't grow like that. Through training, either physical or mental, one could increase their reserves, but people didn't just gain chakra. It wasn't possible.
Naruto shook himself out of his trance and was surprised to find himself pushed away from the tree. He sighed at the familiar feeling and waited to hit the ground. To his shock, he didn't feel it. He looked down. He was floating. Literally hovering above the surface of the tree. It was like he was still attached to the tree, but a foot or two away. He cut the chakra in his feet and fell to the ground. Naruto looked around, eyes wide. Was he really just levitating?
Naruto started to run through the possibilities in his mind. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. He had to try this. He slowly pushed chakra into his feet and was amazed to find himself rising into the air. He instinctively panicked once he rose more than an inch, falling back to the ground.
Naruto raced through his chakra control exercises. He needed to get to the library.
Four hours later, Naruto frowned as he closed the tenth book. He'd looked in every book and scroll on chakra control. The Namikaze Compound library was more complete with regards to ninja techniques than the Konoha Shinobi library, the massive collection of books available to ninja ranked genin and up.
He couldn't believe that NO ONE had ever discovered this before. Then again, he supposed that it was understandable. Not even his sister, with her eight tails of demon chakra, needed to practice chakra control as much as he did. Therefore, no one would have been practicing tree walking on autopilot like he had been.
Very few people liked being thrown into the air, so few ninja would have continued to emit chakra after being thrown from a tree. He smiled at the implications, before a new thought ran through his mind, making him smile wider. If no one had discovered this side of chakra control, who knew what else he would find in the basic knowledge. He opened the first, most basic book and began to read.
Naruto breathed deeply before beginning to circulate his chakra, exactly as described in the old book. It was a exercise that was considered rather useless: a technique to plot out the user's tenketsu. It was mostly used only for a few specialized medic ninja. Naruto, however, could see a number of uses for it.
He gathered his chakra in his circulatory system, before pulsing it out. His tenketsu flared as he blasted chakra out of every single one. Naruto winced at the sight of the damage to the clearing, not to mention the burning feeling in every inch of his skin. It was a good thing that he had left the house before trying it.
He wasn't sure exactly how many tenketsu he had, but he did know that he had far more than he should have. The damage that he had inflicted to the area was very reminiscent to the damage done to trees when he was blasted off of them, though on a much larger scale. Naruto's mind raced as he considered the implications. A wide foxy grin appeared on his face.
Over the next few weeks, Naruto discerned that, in total, he had 2,527 tenketsu, seven times the number of a normal person. He thought of a number of ways to use his incredible amount of chakra, as well as his enormous number of tenketsu. He was most happy about a new training method he'd made: He could emit chakra from tenketsu in order to mimic movement, allowing him to act in every way using nothing but chakra. It took him a month to get started, but from then on, he did nothing but use that technique for almost every aspect of life. He didn't need to do his tree walking in the forest, as he was constantly using his chakra, perfecting his control within minutes of waking each day. What's more, he didn't even need to walk around, he just used his chakra to propel himself everywhere.
It was six months later when Naruto finally realized what a big mistake he'd made. He tried to get out of bed normally, only to panic when he found that his muscles couldn't support him. Thinking he'd been poisoned, he used his chakra method to rush to the hospital, only to be told that his muscles were in an extreme state of atrophy, usually seen only in long term coma patients.
When the condition was explained to him, Naruto was horrified. He just told the doctors that he wasn't sure what had happened. But he knew. His chakra technique had caused this. He was forced to go through physical therapy in order to recover. It took him several months to get back to normal condition, even with healing jutsus.
He was terrified to try to use his movement technique again, going back to his forest training, until one night, two months later, when he heard his father and his so-called godfather Jiriaya discussing resistance seals. A resistance seal applied opposite force to muscles, forcing one to work harder for the same effect. A delighted Naruto set to work on enhancing his muscles using his tenketsu to emulate resistance. It would enhance his chakra control and make his muscles much stronger.
He needed to train his body, in order to learn the taijutsu style he'd created from a combination of compatible points of many of the styles he could find. Overall, the style he made was pretty much designed to be impossible for someone to predict and able to counter any opponent's style, though it would require him to be very strong physically, not to mention agile. It wasn't unbeatable, but it incorporated aspects of a large number of taijutsu styles that had been seen and recorded by Konohan shinobi, as Naruto had used his father's copy of the Hokage's taijutsu records. Through those techniques, he would be able to counter other styles as well. What's more, he had thought of another chakra technique using his tenketsu designed specifically for taijutsu.
It took Naruto two years to master his taijutsu style to what he thought was around chunin level. With his taijutsu chakra technique, he could probably beat a low level jonin. It helped that he could use his resistance training to build his muscles faster than any seal could accomplish, as he could adjust the resistance to the slightest degree. Physically, he believed himself to be stronger than most taijutsu specialist chunin in the village.
Naruto pushed his chakra out of the tenketsu on the outside of his hand as he drove his fist into the tree. Even before he touched the tree, his chakra was smashing the bark away, growing and inflicting more damage as his fist moved closer. When his fist made contact, there was an explosion of force and a portion of the huge trunk was obliterated.
The upper part of the tree fell through the gap created by the explosion and slammed down into the stump. For a moment, it remained perfectly still. Then, it began to sway. Naruto started to panic as it started to fall towards him. He turned and sprinted away, screaming. He narrowly avoided being squished.
"I think I'm done for the day." Naruto muttered. The sun had just finished setting, so he ought to be heading back anyway. He casually made his way back to the village. He'd just entered the gates, when he heard a scream. He moved towards the sound, which had come from the Uchiha district. He'd just entered the clan compound, when he saw Itachi Uchiha emerge from the clan meeting building, holding a bloody katana. With a flick of his wrist, he dislodged the impaled body from the keen blade.
Itachi moved towards a little girl, about Naruto's age, and raised his weapon. Naruto refused to allow this to happen. He sprinted forward, reversing his resistance technique. Instead of using opposite tenketsu to apply reverse force, he used the tenketsu that would enhance his movements, allowing him to move much faster.
Naruto practically vanished in front of Itachi and slammed his fist into the man's gut. Itachi flinched, but was barely knocked back. Naruto, realizing exactly the kind of threat this man was, began to emit chakra from every tenketsu, generating an aura of chakra around him. Not only would it confuse the Sharingan, it would increase his physical abilities substantially.
Naruto managed to block Itachi's next strike, and replied in kind. Itachi was quite skilled in taijutsu and avoided the blow with only moderate difficulty. However, something struck him as the fist neared him, sending him flying. Itachi, though surprised by the blow, did not allow it to slow him down. He flipped through hand signs and launched a powerful fireball at Naruto.
Naruto charged towards Itachi. His new, barely trained, longer range techniques were no match for the ANBU commander's ninjutsu repertoire. Throwing up a hand towards the sphere of flame, Naruto employed a technique he'd only theorized about, as he had never had a training partner. He didn't want to allow the fire to hit him, even though the aura should, theoretically, protect him. Using the massive number of tenketsu on his hand, he projected a mass of chakra outward, towards the fireball.
It was only partially successful. The majority of the fireball was dispersed, but a decent amount of flame still managed to get through the mass of chakra. Naruto winced as he felt the heat, though the aura did protect him. That technique really needed work.
He managed to reach Itachi just before the man finished his next jutsu. He struck at the ANBU commander as quickly as he could. Itachi managed to avoid just about everything, but he didn't understand why he still felt like he was being hit.
Irritated, Itachi leapt back and activated his Mangekyo Sharingan. All he had to do now was lock eyes with the little bastard. He didn't want to use Amaterasu, since it drained him a lot, and he still needed to escape the village, but his other technique would work just fine. He flashed through hand signs and launched a massive dragon, formed of flame, at Naruto.
Naruto took a deep breath, before raising his hand again. He concentrated his energy towards the single, much larger tenketsu in the center of his palm, and discharged the energy. He barely managed to bite back a scream as he released the power in the form of a colossal beam of light. The dragon was consumed by the gold-tinged blue energy. Itachi leapt to the right, but winced as his left hand was caught in the outermost edge of the beam. The flesh was burnt away, and parts of his fingers had disintegrated.
Naruto locked eyes with his black haired adversary, as he clutched his right wrist. His palm was heavily burnt, the result of discharging so much concentrated chakra. He hadn't been practicing that technique nearly enough. Thankfully, the demonic chakra inside of him was healing him quickly.
Itachi almost crowed with success as Naruto locked eyes with him in some vain attempt at intimidation. "Tsukiyomi!" He called out, invoking the most powerful genjutsu he knew of. Little did he know that it was one of the worst mistakes in the history of the Elemental Countries.
Suddenly, Naruto found himself in a world of black and red. He felt like… something was missing. He clutched at his gut and began to whimper. Flickers of red light appeared in Naruto's cerulean eyes. Strangely, the ring of gold that had surrounded his irises from the day he was born had vanished.
"It hurts." Naruto whimpered. "It hurts! Bring it back!"
Itachi appeared and walked over towards Naruto. "For the next 72 hours, I will…" He cut himself off at the sound of Naruto's whimpering. Something seemed… off about the boy. What was that red light coming from him? Then, Itachi remembered one of the S-rank secrets that he'd been told upon becoming the ANBU commander.
Minato Namikaze had indeed split the Kyuubi no Kitsune's mind from its power, sealing each part into one of his children, as the village had been told. However, he'd been unable to completely divide the mind from the chakra. Eight tails of chakra had been sealed into Kasumi and both the fox's mind and its remaining tail had been sealed into Naruto, in exchange for a portion of the Hokage's very existence.
Itachi raised his blade and dashed towards Naruto, even as a tendril of red light began to emerge from his huddled form. The red light exploded, however, blasted the both of them out of the technique. Naruto was wreathed in a mass of red and gold chakra, taking the form of a fox. The world of black and red shattered as the chakra ran rampant.
Itachi, dazed from being knocked out of the Tsukiyomi, barely managed to get out of the way of the boy's claw-like strike, dropping his sword in the process. It was a testament to the man's skill that, even with a half-unconscious mind, he managed to avoid the strikes of an enraged jinchuuriki. However, after a minute of slashing at the ANBU commander, Naruto finally managed to land a blow on his tired foe, his demonic energy-infused claw slicing through Itachi's shoulder like a hot knife through butter.
Itachi let out a pained scream as he went down. Naruto moved to deliver the killing blow, when the world seemed to shift. Space began to warp and, out of a spiraling tear in the fabric of reality, a man wearing an orange mask appeared. He gazed at Naruto with a strange Sharingan, and the red energy seemed to vanish from Naruto's eyes, though the cloak seemed to be resisting vanishing.
"Hello, Naruto. I'm afraid that I cannot allow you to kill my pupil, even if I am thankful that you rescued my granddaughter."
"Who- who're you?" Naruto asked, slurring his words. He was so tired, and there was a strange sensation in his gut.
"I am Madara Uchiha." The man glanced away, as if something had caught his attention. "I must go now, but we will meet again."
He grabbed Itachi and the boy's severed arm, before vanishing into another spiral vortex. Suddenly, Naruto let out an anguished cry as the red energy reappeared around him. A roar seemed to emerge from the red energy that continued to pour out of the boy. It took on a fox shape again, before exploding away from the boy, released into the air as a column of red energy. The beam of light vanished a moment later.
Naruto slumped to the ground, unconscious. Meanwhile, the girl, who had hidden while the fight was going on, came over to Naruto's body. A mutated Sharingan burned in her eyes, before they returned to the normal state. She gave a calculating smile as she looked him over.
This boy would be perfect. Her plans were already coming together. Her smile became more genuine as she looked down on him again. She composed herself into a crying mess. She had to look right to explain the story of a boy who miraculously managed to drive off the ANBU commander with taijutsu alone to the approaching ANBU.
The Kyuubi no Kitsune growled angrily as she stalked through the cave she'd taken refuge in. Try as she might, she could barely feel a connection to her other eight tails. Eight whole tails of power, gone! Luckily, it seemed that the brat's weird bloodline had drawn in energy that had occupied her place in the seal, or else she'd still be trapped. She'd have to think up a plan. It wouldn't do for the Queen of all demons to be lacking the vast majority of her abilities. She'd just have to bluff her way out of battles, until she could recover the power she'd lost.
Her thoughts drifted back to the boy who'd held her for the past eight and a half years. His chakra was strange. It was a warm golden power that sent a shiver through her. She would have to keep tabs on the boy. He might prove to be interesting.
What do you think? There are some parts I don't like, but as a whole, I think it's ok.
I haven't decided if the pairing will include F!Kyuubi or not. What do you think? Vote on my profile. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I'd like to know what people think.
Next time, will probably show the remainder of his time in Konoha, and will end with them joining Akatsuki.
Review please. I'd like to know what people think.