Forbidding
Treason for Gullible Stealth Noobs.
Uzumaki Naruto found a nice spot in the forests of the Leaf-Hidden Village. This time, the 'nice spot' was actually an ideal location and not some casual ambush-practice-setup. Okay, he understood: ninja village, everyday was ambush-practice, but the border patrol would scowl in disbelief at the sheer absurdity Naruto had to navigate to get away with the stupid Forbidden Scroll of Stupidly Forbidden Seals for his stupidly secret second chance graduation test. And people called him stupid.
Taking a breath to chill out for a second, he took the seal off his back and unfurled it for a nice, relaxing reading of...
Naruto was convinced someone had spilled ink to create the rows of chicken scratches before his eyes. The Scroll of Forbidden Seals had been easy enough to get, easy enough that an unranked novice of a ninja like Naruto could find the object in plain sight.
In a ninja village, secret things were so well hidden they barely even existed. If he could get his hands on something before he was a proper ninja, there was no way it could be used for anything that would harm the village.
Naruto's doubts in his unusually helpful teacher, Mizuki, buckled under the weight of the boys logic.
So, he read the stupid scroll for all it was worth, as Mizuki had instructed him. The more he read, the more sense it started to make. This didn't look like instructions for awesome ninjutsu... The scribbles actually looked like chakra theory, on further inspection. The formulas spelled out how several signs of hand seals could be skipped and the chakra could still be molded decently. He could cut the sequence in half and even make better ones out of the longer sequences. There were so many loopholes, Naruto had to dry the drool from his chin. The scroll was worth something, after all: He could use it to make a new jutsu!
Usually messing with jutsu creation ended with lethal accidents, since all the good ones had been discovered, but Naruto had managed to make a jutsu without incident several months ago. Of course, henge, the Transformation technique, was one of the only techniques Naruto behind which he understood the science. You reshaped yourself based on the identity of another person, using one's tuned senses and memory to get every detail right with photographic accuracy. All Naruto did was throw in an extra seal to emphasize the use of his mind, making room for creative editting. With that, he could transform into a version of himself modeled after the dirty magazines that distracted way too many older men.
Men like the Hokage, the leader of his village, who was probably awake and fuming that he had been knocked out by his own lechery. Naruto had been so happy and disappointed that the technique had worked. Sure, Naruto had looked up the sex-ed to amp up the pheromones through the jutsu-smoke, but...he just expected more of an epic battle...
He took himself out of memories with a sigh and read on.
On one line, the scroll dictated a particular trick that peaked his interest. Naruto had trouble with the bunshin, the clone technique. He couldn't perform it for the life of him and it had caused him to fail his exam, for the third time. From what he could tell he had too much chakra and not enough control of it. He told Iruka, his main teacher, but Iruka simply said that he would eventually get over such a problem if he just stopped goofing around. That didn't seem to be happening...not until he read the workings behind the short cut. With just onefriggin' seal, he could perform a 'kage bunshin', a Shadow Clone!
Shadow Clones were solid and relied on the simple chakra molding for 'copy' and 'form'. Self image was a strong part of the mind, so, of course, the default would be a copy of himself. The only warning about the seal function was that it took a hell of a lot of chakra to execute. Good thing Naruto had a hell of a lot of chakra to use.
Without worry, Naruto performed the single, crossing-fingers seal. Instantly, he was met with two copies of himself. They poked him, actually making contact.
"It works" said the Clone. The copy looked at his own duplicate of the scroll. "How many things can we copy?"
"Maybe we can copy other people", said the second clone, grinning.
"Why would I copy the enemy?" Asked the original. "I'd just be losing chakra."
"Not the enemy," said the second clone "but an ally. Not everyone has the stupidly high amount of chakra that we do, so now they can use a clone. One that can actually fight, I mean."
"Besides, maybe you could use their chakra." said the first clone.
"Hey" said the second clone, who was looking over the scroll, already distracted well before the first copy took his turn. "You should probably write some of the possible jutsu down, there is some damned good stuff that we won't be able to read again after the make-up test."
The three began to scribble down notes until they realised two things: they were writing down the same thing and it turned out cloned things were fragile. The first clone had poked a hole in the paper and it popped into a cloud of chakra-smoke. Not having that much paper, ink, or charcoal on him, even in his personal storage scroll, Naruto dispelled both clones with the same seal he had used to conjure them.
He paused. He had felt something, just then.
In thinking hard on how to get as much out of the scroll as possible, he had briefly reflected on the experience of conjuring his first Shadow Clones...and noticed he remembered it from three different angles. Before he could think of the proper applications of receiving memories for his clones, Naruto leaped to the idea that he needed to be able to see through his clones in real-time. The idea must have appeared from his time invested into mental ninjutsu when he thought he might be a Yamanaka, with his distinct blond hair. His ventures into his possible heritage had taught him many things, which sprang up for the prospect of putting everything he knew into a new jutsu...then he thought of Kushina Uzumaki, his mom that he had only been allowed to see when he was old enough to truly understand what a 'comatose state' meant.
For her, he focused. He could not yet execute Uzumaki or Yamanaka exclusive techniques, but he could put the minimum of what he knew to create something great. Mizuki would be coming to evaluate him soon, leaving no time for the young ninja-in-training to squeeze flashier jutsu from the scroll or his own personal studies .
He made five Shadow Clones to read over his shoulder. This of course resulted in a shoving match that the original had to break up, leaving the boy bruised, but with 2 remaining clones. One clone over each shoulder, Naruto began looking for the key shortcuts to get his clones share a constant mental link... and hopefully be a little tougher. The clones that had fought each other popped without Naruto even trying.
From the Uzumaki, he could draw on his inherently strong constitution and longevity to toughen his clones.
From the Yamanaka, at least his studies in mimicking them, he could construct a sort of telepathic bunshi intranet...he forgot he knew those words- Focus!
With the emphasis for 'seal' 'lock' and 'link' from Uzumaki Chakra Chains, he could coordinate the sensory network.
Then there was an idea from both clans: the spiritual aspect of the Yamanaka and the supposed affinity for the Death God the Uzuamaki had could work in keeping his Shadow Clones in a sort of limbo to catch their chakra when someone ended up dispelling one. Considering the dangers of undoing all these familiar yet complicated fail-saves, it might be a long time before he undid the technique all together.
'Self' was the default of kage bunshin technique and would be the basis to begin his formula.
Three hours later, and Naruto kind of regretted his sense of was more math and tables than he ever had done in one sitting.
So far, there were about 40 seals to safely make a clone that had a strong mental link to the original and other clones. Adding in durability bumped it up to five dozen. Thankfully, the extra variables made it easier to reduce the sequence with a few of the shortcut Seals...
He felt like the sun should have been up by the time he was down to 12 seals. He would have to do them with all the chakra control he could muster and it would still be too long to pull off in the middle of a fight, but from what he worked out, it was wiser to just keep the technique on indefinitely. Fully dispelling the technique would be risky, to say the least and there no drain after initiating the technique.
"I might as well start." Naruto whispered. He dispelled the clones over his shoulder and sorted through the memories. His recall would probably improve with his chakra control, but the reinforcement was the right call and he could almost remember half his work without the paper. In less than half a minute, Naruto had carefully gone through the sequence of 12 seals, four of which he did not know existed before opening the scroll. He ended with a his pointer and middle fingers forming a cross and shouted the name he had settled on;
"Kage Buntai No Jutsu!" . There was a poof as the "Shadow Squad" jutsu materialized. Naruto looked over his squad clones and pointed to the nearest one.
"Punch him." he ordered the one closest to the target clone.
With a nasty grin, the squad clone delivered a blow to its comrade's chin before the object of the experimental abuse could react. The victimized clone his held jaw and cursed as best he could, but it did not dispel. The others, including Naruto, winced and also rubbed their jaw. They could feel that the pain was no where near that of the one that was actually injured, but they felt it still, if faintly.
"Good enough." Nodded the original. Just then, he felt a speedily approaching presence. He couldn't dispel the Squad, but he could put them into a sort of limbo space. They seemingly vanished from the real world.
Iruka shot out of the thick branches and Naruto's teacher did not look to be in a congratulatory mood, especially when he shivered at passing through a ghostly Squad Clone. He didn't see or otherwise sense the Squad, Naruto observed, not any than one could pin down a ghost.
Naruto mentally signaled for one clone to return to real space, a ghostly chain from the Original to the clone pulsing as the message passed through the literal mind links. He performed the seals for the standard bunshin while the clone appeared at Naruto's side
"By The Hat, you've got the bunshin down." he shook off the surprise. "That, however does not excuse betraying the village."
Oh. Oh, no. No, not like this! This was a ninja village, of course nothing was as it seemed. Actually, they were as it seemed and that was the tricky part. "That son of a bitch Mizuki set me up!"
Naruto should have seen this coming. All the adults in the village gave the boy cold looks whenever he came into view. They would smile at anyone but him. There were a few exceptions and his second teacher was supposedly one of them. Mizuki smiled at him, but also gave him the cold look when he thought Naruto wasn't looking. Mizuki must have hated him to fake all that and set him up like this, with...howeverthe boy was set up.
Wait, how did Naruto betray the village?
Iruka answered as if reading his mind. Naruto subtly checked for mind links between himself and his teacher. None existed. He'd have to figure out later if he could link others into the squad or provide one for them.
"That scroll is a symbol." he said, pointing to the Forbidden Scroll. "It doesn't matter if it is a journal, a list, or a blank sheet. To take it is treason. If you had paid attention to history, you would have realized only rogue ninja take the forbidden scroll; as a bold declaration of treason."
"So, that's why it's just a cheat sheet?" Said the clone besides Naruto. The Original would have bonked him on the head if he had not remembered what hurts one, hurts the others, including the jutsu caster. The obnoxious clone looked at the cocked fist. "Shutting up."
"Whatever it is," Iruka insisted " you are not to take or read it unless you wish to challenge all of the Leaf-Hidden Village." He made a sweeping gesture to the forest. Or the direction of the village proper. Naruto and his Squad could not tell and mentally voted on 'it doesn't matter, right now'.
"But we don't want to challenge the Leaf!" theclone spoke up. " We want to be Hokage, remember?" he pointed to the crown of his head, as if it were his birthright to wear the honorary Hat of the Hokage.
There was a pause as Iruka considered just how obsessed Naruto was with becoming Hokage. There was probably much to consider.
Iruka's eyes widened as let a little snarl into his frown. "You said Mizuki set you up?"
Naruto nodded. Iruka sighed. "If Mizuki rigged his defection to make you look bad, then he is probably long gone. No one would be stupid enough to rope the loudest kid in the village into their schemes. No offense."
"None taken." The Squad chorused, even the handful in the In-Between. Naruto, the active Clone, and Iruka then dodged out of the way of the biggest shuriken they had ever seen.
Surprise reigned in the Squad's collective minds. They really should not have evaded the projectile so easily. It made sense in a way. 7 pairs of ears. Seven reflexes triggered. All seven Narutos grinned, the suspended five returning to real space. "You'll have to do better than that, Mizuki."
The Squad had emphasized the name like a swear word.
Dodging projectile after projectile, the seven went on the offensive with the white haired traitor. The jutsu was sequenced to prevent fatal, dangerous, or just annoying backfire, but Naruto never expected to have the unnatural coordination to be this good. The over-mind worked like a well oiled machine.
Mizuki thrust forth his kunai with the aim to utterly impale the boy. The clone rolled entirely out of the way, allowing at least two others to land significant blows on the older man. Mizuki avoided one Naruto, but only partially parried one other. The two more direct blows allowed enough time for the evaded clones to continue the assault.
The traitor got in one good punch, stunning the original. Before Mizuki could turn to take care of another, he felt the back of his knees being kicked in and his arms locked behind his back. It was only then that the most humiliating beating of his life began.
Iruka did not stop the torture as it was somehow more visually disturbing than ethically wrong. Iruka took the time to look over Naruto's paperwork as said boy did terrible things to Mizuki's nose with the man's own fingers. The reductions to the seal sequence was sound, but still bore a grand margin of error only someone with Naruto's reserves could safely pull off. Still, even Naruto's notes admitted that the sequence was long and took more mental focus than could usually be mustered mid-combat. Really, the boy's victory was very situational: he had virtually called in reinforcement entirely on accident.
And then there was the stuff he couldn't read. It shifted as he read it and would prick his finger for blood when he occasionally came close to touching it. Iruka knew Naruto wanted to make his heritage proud, but this was just scary. The blood didn't even stain the paper, slipping off it like glass in rain.
"This still may call for a field promotion."
"Really?
Five Narutos were looking up from their victim, who was still suffering at the attention of two. He had said it aloud without thinking.
"We'll let the Hokage decide."