Way of the Old
Here's my attempt at a new story. Now, theres some stories that have Naruto unable to use chakra. But then they focus on him going the path of Lee, with using only taijutsu, or a weapon master. Another fact is that almost every story about ninja of Naruto are the ones with jutsu, kekkai genkai, lightning swords and blah blah blah. Everyone seems to forget about the ninjas of old Japan. The masters of shadow. Men and women who were so good at their job (assassination, and high-profile bodyguarding compared to guarding bridge-builders, clearing yards of weeds, and chasing cats ) that people thought they were practitioners of black magic. This idea was sparked by Old School, a story by Gman391.
I do not own Naruto.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was currently sitting in the seat that, until about an hour ago, his successor was sitting in. His head bowed in memory of all those that had died to slow the kyuubi. He held this position for nearly five more minutes. Then his eyes opened to show eyes that held great grief and suffering. And weariness.
He got up, turned around and walked to the window that offered a view to the main gate, main square, and main street. And most recently, a view to the spot where the great demon had broken through the wall before being driven back by Gamabunta and Minato. When he thought of Minato a myriad of emotions swept through him. Sadness, remorse, and even anger. Then a single thought broke the string of emotions. Minato's son. The jailer of the kyubi. One Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze.
What was he to do. Minato's last request was for the people to see him as a hero. But he couldn't help but wonder, would they accept that the demon that nearly destroyed them was now sealed in the body of a baby boy? In the end he just sighed and prepared a way to reveal the news about the people's hero and the tragic way he saved them.
Then his old, worn, and weathered, but still honed to near perfection ears heard running. He pulled a kunai from a secret compartment in the desk he had returned to, and prepared to throw it when he felt a familiar chakra. Chakra he had experienced not an hour before. The Kyubi's chakra.
Thoughts rushed him. Was Minato's seal not working? Or had something else happened? Then in bust Kakashi Hatake, his successors student and currently his best anbu, with a small bundle in his arms. The small form looked like it was experiencing a horrible nightmare. But what got his attention was the cloak of red that surrounded the boy.
He took the boy from Kakashi, who had still had not said anything, wincing from the acidic-like feel of the youki surrounding Naruto. He attempted to find the cause of the problem but simply couldn't. He shot a glance at Kakashi, who head was in his hands and muttering about letting people down. He walked over to the anbu captain, picked him up by the collar and shook him.
"Kakashi, get a hold of yourself! Minato trained you better then this!" He yelled. Kakashi's eyes widened as he realized what the professor said. "Now Kakashi, go find Jairaya and bring him hear now." He stood shakily up and ran out the door. Sarutobi just stood there. He turned and looked at what appeared to be a plain wall. "As for you," he began, apparently talking to a wall like a madman. "I want you to find the best hyugga you can find." He heard the sound of a window opening and slight swooshing sounds as the hidden anbu left to carry out his orders. With nothing left to do, Sarutobi walked back to his desk, with the crying jinchuriki still on it, and sat down.
Jiraiya couldn't believe that his student may have failed in his most harebrained, crazy, and suicidal, literally, but also his most powerful and dangerous seal. The reason why he couldn't believe the seal couldn't work was that Minato was not the only one who worked on it. Jariya himself had helped make it. But his involvement was basically to know how it works and about how to fix and maintain it. Sure he had contributed to it, but in the end, not that much. The one that had helped Minato throughout the process was a monk that specialized in seals that Minato had found. But the monk was long gone and Minato was dead, so that made him him the person with the most experienced with it.
So Jiraya was currently looking at Minato's little boy. Of course only he, Sarutobi, and Kakashi knew about that fact. And he was surprised. The seal was leaking a large amount of Youki into the boy. He was unsure if the seal was supposed to do that, to force Naruto's body to adapt to the Kyubi, or if it was a last ditch attempt by the fox to break free before the seal forced it to sleep. Personaly, he felt that the latter answer of the fox attempting to break free simply because forcing chakra into a newborn, which has killed the children of important people because they wanted strong heirs, was unlike the kind and compassionate Minato.
He winced as a lance of youki suddenly pushed itself out of Naruto and lashed out at him. He prepared to dodge before the tail-like appendage dissolved. The toad sage grimaced as he figured out the fox's retarded plan. It was simply trying to force its chakra out of the boy in an attempt to break free. But he knew that the only thing that would accomplish was the boy and fox both dieing. While that would mean that the fox would be gone, it also meant that Naruto would die. While that was one main reason he vowed to stop the fox's last vain attempt to escape fail, it was also the fact that the death of the container would cause the chakra of the fox to be released as the equivalent explosion of 50 megatons worth of TNT.
Quickly working he slapped a seal that would assist to contain the youki inside the room onto the floor. The markings then took a life of their own and rushed up onto the ceiling and walls. The effect was immediate. The chakra would be unable to leave the room. He let loose a quick sigh of relief as the cloak surrounding the newborn quickly and severely diminished. He straightened himself and walked closer to Naruto, still slightly weary in case the great demon was gathering its strength for one final last ditch attempt to escape.
As he leaned over his godson, he marveled at the boy. He knew that demon chakra had acidic-like affects, and it even showed on the boy as some spots on his skin were pink, yet the kid hadn't cried once and as the toad sage looked the boy in the face he saw that the boy had a look of extreme concentration.
'What could Naruto be concentrating about so much?' He wondered. Suddenly he heard a sound. Immediately his face fell. Mentally he debated whether or not to check to see if he was right. When he decided to he toke a deep breath, leaned over Naruto... and took a whif. The effect was immediate. His hands shot to his nose nose as he considered the best way to destroy his sense of smell.
Five minutes later the hokage and eight anbu entered the room only to see Naruto with a humongous smile of satisfaction as he watched Jiraiya mumbling to himself. "Now if I combine this and this I should come up with a stasis seal that effects" and at that Jiraiya started to talk under his breath as the nine powerful ninja behind him sweat dropped.
"UM, Jiraiya?" asked the new/old hokage, "Is everything alright?" He heard stasis seal and thought it was to be used on the boy. And holding someone down meant something painful. Whether or not what Hiruzen was picturing was more painful then having acidic-chakra cover your entire newborn body, which had not yet encountered any pain and thus making it seem even more more painful, would not be known as at the moment that the elderly hokage reached the toad sage, he promptly stood up with their heads hitting each other. Jiraiya simply crouched down covering his head, while the old man was knocked out.
At that, each of the anbu smiled and shook their heads. One of them in a fox's mask looked at the kid. The kid looked just like Minato. He smirked at that thought . He shot his glance to the four hyuga they had brought. "Alright, get to it." he said his voice being slightly altered due to the voice scrambler built into the mask. All four of them all nodded and immediately activated their byakugan.
One of the hyuga, the clan heir Hiashi, was the first to activate the kekkai genkai, and as a result, was the first to see that the horrible thing the demon fox's selfish and vain attempt to gain freedom had done. It was, to him, the worst possible thing to be done to a child. To have ones journey end before it even started. He had been informed that this was the jinchuriki of the kyubi. And as an unofficial rule, all jinchuriki are to become ninja. But the fox had unintentionally ensured that Naruto becoming a ninja would be impossible.
He looked over to the man hailed as a god amongst shinobi, who was now getting up. They locked eyes and Hiashi found that he could not move. He simply shook his head, and the professor went white. His gaze gaze went to the rest of the hyuga and they all replied with shaking their heads.
Hiashi finally worked up the courage and began to speak to the elderly man that could probably kill him and all eight anbu in the room if the wrong buttons were pressed. "Sarutobi-sama," he began "I fear that the fox has crippled Naruto from the inside." At that the said Sarutobi's head fell.
"Is there anything that can be done to help him?" He asked.
Hiashi simply shook his head and began his explanation. "The outflux of chakra expanded the vessel's," But didn't get a chance to finish that sentence as a white haired man appeared behind him with a kunai to his throat.
"Hiashi, 'the vessel'" Jiraiya began in a mocking tone, "has a name. Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze." At this, every face appeared to whiten, save for the faces of Hiruzen, Jiraiya, and the fox masked anbu who was still watching over the little boy.
Hiashi was speechless, to seal the most powerful demon ever into the body of your own heir was unimaginable to him. His thoughts immediately traveled to his pregnant wife. He could only hope that nothing could go wrong with either of them.
Hiashi was still speechless so luckily another of the hyuga continued explaining Naruto's condition. "Anyway the massive amount of chakra that went through...Naruto's body caused his chakra coils to expand to the point they were practically bursting. Then when Jiraiya-sama used the seal to suppress the chakra, well...it worked better then expected. The chakra immediately receded back into the seal."
The god of shinobi looked at the hyuga and asked in a too polite voice, "So what's wrong?"
The Hyuga took a gulp air and continued. "With nothing to push the coils, they shrunk. Now you do know how chakra coils work right?"
Hiruzen simply nodded. It was very simple. Chakra started at the chakra coils, centered around the stomach, and flowed throughout the body via tubes reminiscent of blood vessels.
"Good, and the concept of expanding the chakra coils?" The Hyuga asked again. And again Hiruzen nodded. To use more chakra, you used it all up. Then because chakra was the energy of life, if it ran low the body would produce more of it. Thus the coils would be forced to stretch to accommodate the increased amount of chakra.
The unnamed Hyuga grew grim now. "Well, because the chakra being forced out wasn't Naruto's the body couldn't or cant replenish more of it. That and the fact that his chakra reserves are so small right now mean that his body can't force the coils back out to the point where the demonic chakra pushed it out. Thus his coils shrunk to fit his small chakra reserve. Then the demonic chakra, well I guess it caused his coils to harden."
He looked around at the faces of everyone else in the room. Only the Professor, Jiraiya, Hiashi and the curious anbu with a fox mask looked like they understood him. He looked at the other anbu and nearly face palmed. They were looking at him like kindergartens who had been asked to debate about the universal string theory.
"Basically his chakra reserves will remain as small as a newborns for the rest of his life."
"Oh" came the reply of 6 anbu.
The hokage walked up to the the group of anbu and asked in a voice that revealed a weariness and defeat never before heard in the elderly hokage's voice, "Is there anything that can be done?"
Hiashi looked at the man that had stood against four kages and emerged victorious. "Sarutobi-sama, this has never happened before. Even that boy born last year didn't have this problem. He simply can't mold chakra to use nin- or genjutsu. Naruto will be able to mold chakra but to use almost any jutsu beyond E-rank, I mean Kawami may not even be possible, would probably kill him."
The future leader of the Hyuga looked uncertain for a moment before continuing, "Well, he might, might be able to increase his chakra simply to the levels of teenage civilians. Maybe."
Hiruzen nodded his head in resignation. "You're all dismissed."The reply he received was a simple "Hai, Hokage-sama." He turned and looked at the baby boy as all eight anbu shunshined out of the room, undoubtedly to head to their clan houses to sort through the ruble.
"Good night, Naruto-kun."
The man opened the door quickly and silently. He entered the room and stared at the container of the most dangerous demon on the face of the planet. And stared.
The hokage had just assembled everyone in Konoha and told them that their hero the yondaime hokage had sacrificed his life to seal the great kyubi into the body of a baby boy and his last wish to treat the boy as a hero. Of course once everyone heard the 'beast' was still 'alive' they demanded its head on a stick, contained in a little boy or no. To him, it didn't matter. What he had to do, he had to do. He reached inside of the pouch and pulled out... a simple wooden fox mask.
He walked over to the crib that the boy had been placed in sometime after the diagnosis. He examined the child. The small tuft of blond hair signified that he would probably take after Minato in many ways. He carefully reached inside of the crib and poked the boy.
The child slowly waked up and, contrary to what Fox had thought, didn't cry and just stared at him with wide curious eyes like it had just hours earlier in the very room they were in. He took the mask and checked to see if he missed anything. 'Nope.' he thought.
He slowly lowered the mask into the crib. The fox boy took it gleefully and immediately snuggled up to it. Then it looked up at him and put on a face of intense concentration. As if he was trying to commit his face to memory.
The man simply smiled and took two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute and said' "See ya later kid. Make the family proud." And with those eight words, the man vanished. Never to be seen again in the village for at best many years.
Alright, this is the first chapter to my newest story, and hopefully, one of my best. Next chapter is going to focus on Naruto and how he faces life now that he can't be a 'traditional' shinobi. Naruto in this story is going to be a serious shinobi-type but will remain somewhat light-hearted. The story's going to be mostly action/adventure with humor and possibly mystery.
For pairings, my original idea was to have a Naruto/oc pairing, but after remembering certain changes to certain people, I feel I could pull off NarutoXanyHyuga alive at that point. This include NaruXneji NarutoXHanabi NarutoXHinata, and even (Shudder) NaruXHiashi. Don't worry, There will be no Yaoi. Ever. In any of my stories. And all thoughts of A teenager and a person past five years of his name is impossible in my stories. Anyway its probably going to be a NaruXhina. Now before everyone throws this story into the pile of Naruhina stories that aren't worth reading (Which rivals Olympus Mons [which is just a bit smaller then three times the size of mount Everest]) this is not going to have a Hinata so shy that if she gets within ten feet of Naruto she puts Rudolph the Red-nose raindeer to shame. Hinata is going to be, at best light gray, at worst, dark-gray plus she's going to be strong.
Anyway, since I have so many stories i'm just going to update them one at a time. My next story is going to be Naruto B-312, Great Uzumaki Clan, or my response to Gman391's Kitsune Archer challenge. Also, could anyone tell me a good English to Japanese translator to use. I've tried a few but I don't think they havn't even given me the correct translation for Sharingan. They say there isn't a correct translation. So, a little help would be appreciated.
Don't forget to review and till next time
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