The leaves shook in his wake, branches rustling under his weight as he flew across the forest. The birds chirping in the distance, the whisper of the wind through the trees, the sound flowed around him, a calming backdrop to the noise of his head. The noise that had started three years ago, when he entered the academy. The noise that had provided him with valuable knowledge, techniques, and ideas. The noise known as the Kyubi.
It had been three years ago to the day that he had entered for the academy, three years ago that he had heard a rumbling within his mind, three years ago that he had first heard it's voice. The voice that was currently telling him to duck or else the ANBU that was above him would catch him. He followed the advice, his body tucking into a roll as the ANBU snapped down, attempting to catch their prey. The wind rushed around him, seeming to push him onward as he narrowly escaped the attempt, calmly pulling out of the roll in time to spring off the next branch. Another warning, this time from below. A smirk grew on his face as he blurred to whatever chasers might have an eye on him, before taking the tackle at full speed, only to pass straight through the attacker. A branch, seemingly innocent wrapped itself around his leg as he landed on the next branch, only for the leg to disappear in a puff of smoke, the body quickly following suit, revealing the scarred body of a fourteen year old, a prosthetic leg and arm taking the place of his right arm and left leg, wearing a sleeveless black military outfit with silver trappings, and a red cloak around him. He turned, a cheeky grin on his face as his chasers approached him, three figures melting out of the forest.
"Finally caught me, eh Kurenai?" He called out as the three ANBU removed their masks, revealing a set of faces quite familiar to him, the brunette on the right shaking her head in disbelief, her bright red eyes flickering to where the branch had reverted to its previous state, no sign of the growth from before. The man in the middle, who was in possession of a rather astounding quantity of grey, spikey hair despite his evident youth, muttered something about how genjutsu was almost cheating, while the man on the furthest right grinned right back at him, pulling a cigarette from a seemingly never ending pouch on his hip, next to a white sash with an emblem inside of a red circle.
"If you didn't have that fox in ya, I would've caught you on that last move. Well done with the wind manipulation, but you still need to work on allowing the currents to take you, not saturating them with your chakra to force a direction. It knows where you want to go, and if you let it you'll use much less energy to do it Naruto." The smoker replied.
"If he hadn't used that phasing move that I believe you taught him, I would be the one bragging, but it seems he had other ideas Asuma." Said the man in the middle, glaring at him as he said so. "It's not like he'll even have use of that for another few years, but I suppose it's a good thing that he's getting practice with it."
Naruto chuckled at that, looking over his teachers. Asmua wore the traditional military uniform of Hi no Kuni, similar to the one he wore himself, save that it was the regulation dark blue, and that Asuma had quite a few ranks on him, as denoted by the epaulets. Kakashi, the grey haired man in the middle wore the same uniform as Naruto, with the addition of built in armor taking up the forearms of his sleeves and the fronts of his calves. Kurenai wore a uniform of the same color as Asuma, with her long black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. He had trained under them for the last three years, being assigned them after the initial tests, placed with them for the wind manipulation he could learn under Asuma, the stealth from Kurenai, and the assassination skills he was gaining from Kakashi. He wasn't their only student, nor did they always work together. He and his cohort had been split into individual programs upon their competency tests, himself being placed in the Infiltration and Assassination program, along with Sasuke Uchiha and Sai, both joining him for his stealth and assassination trainings, but heading off for their own elemental manipulation.
The other members of what had been known as the Rookie Ten throughout their early education had all gone to different programs, Hinata Hyuga and Sakura Haruno going into Medic training together, with their secondary programs being Scouting and Close Combat respectively. Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame had both gone into Tracking and Retrieval, while Ino Yamanaka had gone into Torture and Interrogation, a task she had evidently taken to with relish. Shikamaru Nara had placed into Intelligence and Strategy, while Choji Akimichi had been sent off to Close Combat and Poisons. They had all had relatively little contact over the last three years as compared to the five before where they had all received their general education, only having occasional breaks where they would meet up, and share some of the tales of their training.
The years had been harsh on all of them, as their training took them on actual missions, including the one that lost Naruto his arm and leg, while Sasuke had lost an eye, and Sai had lost a hand, which still irritated the pale boy to this day, claiming the replacement didn't have the full range of maneuverability, reducing his skill with a brush. Naruto always replied by either flipping him off, or giving him a kick, reminding him that some had gotten off less luckily that day. Sasuke had slightly mourned the loss, until he was able to get a new eye from an Uchiha who had died in a training accident, and left his eyes to those who had lost them. The replacement had been a near thing, as his chakra almost rejected it, until he turned on his sharingan and the proper connections to his coils had formed. The largest side effect he'd found was the ability to turn them on and off individually, which left him with a rather large headache if done for too long.
Naruto pulled himself out of his thoughts as Kakashi tossed him a scroll. He quickly unrolled and read it over, before staring at his teachers.
"They want me in the Sealing Corps?" He asked, excitement, confusion, and wonder all playing across his normally schooled face.
"Yup. Report first thing tomorrow, along with Sai. Sasuke's being sent to Torture, you should see him again in a month or two. Oh, and before I forget; Well done. You've graduated from Infiltration and Assassination." Asuma said. He paused a moment, allowing the knowledge to sink into the Uzumaki, before starting up again. "And a gift from us to you, same as we gave the other two." He tossed another scroll at Naruto.
He unrolled it, and tapped the tightly knit seal in the center with a burst of chakra. The seal splayed out, its coils unrolling and stretching to fill the space the small scroll allowed. Naruto glanced at the design; a mixture of the Uzumaki's whorls, the Uchiha's angles, and the Hyuga's flowing script. Clearly a design that was worth quite a bit to the village, as he noted the self destruct array built into the bottom left. He watched and waited for the seal to settle down, and after another flick of the arrays, it fell into place. His jaw dropped open as he read off the contents and effects of the seal.
"New armor, another cloak, an equipping glyph... And a summons contract? Damn. Central must have been impressed by our last evaluations. What contract?" He said, whistling a low note as he read and reread the contents.
"For you? What else would we have gotten you? I mean, it's not like we knew any of you would settle for any old creature contract. We went bigger." Kakashi replied.
Naruto took a moment to process that, before slamming his left palm down on the center of the seal. Beneath his fingers, the seal curled back up almost instantly, before flowing up onto his arm, and centering itself on his shoulder, the signature Uzumaki Whorl forming out of the seal. He slapped the seal with his right hand, watching as it spread, before a darkness seeped out over his arm, and took to the air around it, obscuring it momentarily before dispersing, revealing a pauldron and a bracer, connected along his upper arm by a few segments of black and silver plate armor. The pauldron itself put out flanges above and a bit beyond his shoulder, and was a matte black, save for the dark red gem inset with the middle of the pauldron, facing away from his body. The bracer was the same red as the gem, and ended in a fingerless black leather glove. He checked his new cloak, which matched the bracer and gem in color, and had the Uzumaki whorl in the center of his back.
He tapped the gem on the pauldron, having witnessed countless times as superiors used the armor's storage, catching the scroll that fell out, and immediately opened it, jumping over the name of the contract, and moving onto the previous summoners. All of their signatures were a dark black, indicating that the contract had no current summoners, and more importantly, no-one to pass on the contract.
"A dead contract? Wouldn't this have been better used by a small clan to help them gain some renown?"
"Read the species again. Carefully this time." At this, he reread the title he'd glanced over, shock slowly appearing on his face as he understood again.
"You got me the Kitsunes. THE Kitsunes. As in; The species I have the Boss Summons of stuck in my head."
"Yup." His teachers chorused with practiced ease, the amusement clear on their faces. Asuma took the moment to speak up, biting down on a chuckle as he did.
"Even better, they're rather well known for both their shape-shifting, and their wind manipulation. If I recall correctly, the legend goes that a single kitsune caused a storm with a flick of its tail, while the Kyubi was rather well known for it's legendary siege of Kaze no Kuni with a hundred day sandstorm, and that was only because it snored in its sleep."
Hearing the voice in his head chuckle at the story, he shook his head. "Kyubi chuckled at that. That's never a good sign."
"Maybe so, but regardless, the contract's your's now. Do what you will with it, but I do recommend getting in contact with the current boss other than Kyubi to let them know who you are. They get rather bored with no-one to talk to."
Naruto quickly nicked his left thumb on a carefully placed portion of his prosthetic, the hidden edge slicing a small cut into his digit, before signing his name with the blood, and shook off the glove of his armor to smear blood across his palm and press it into the paper, the seals within the contract ensuring that even a small amount was enough, and that the blood dried the instant it was in place. Naruto pulled his glove back on, glancing over to his teachers who gave him a nod for his troubles, and slit his thumb again. He ran through the seals he'd practiced a hundred times in preparation for this day, and slapped his hand down again.
A rush of smoke flooded the clearing they'd stopped in, climbing up to the treetops before swirling back down, compacting into an orb the size of a fist, and then whirling into itself, disappearing as it did. Naruto glanced around, no sign of the usual massively sized summon, only the whisper of the wind in the trees. And then the whisper spoke.
"You who wish to be our summoner, must answer me these questions three, or we shall return whence we came, and remove the contract from your presence. Will you take this test, aware of the consequences of failing, and of irritating us beyond measure with your failure?"
"I shall." He muttered, allowing the wind to take his words and spread them throughout the clearing, watching the trees at the perimeter for any sign of movement.
"Answer this young ninja; What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?"
"Man. Or Kitsune, if they so prefer."
"Your attempt at humor has been noted, but shall not help you, not yet. Answer me this: What moves as quickly as a newborn's breath, as surely as the old man's sigh, and with the strength of a young man's cry?"
"The wind, or perhaps the ninja. One might even assume you intend to imply yourself with this."
"Again the humor has been noted. Final question: Who shall rise and who shall fall before the end of it all?"
"The Kyubi? Perhaps man shall fall, but I think you mean more than that. I think you mean something a bit more abstract. I do believe you mean the sun."
"Then hear my words. The newest summoner, now tried and true, with bright blond hair, and armor too. He who shall tear apart the world, and remake it in his image, He who shall wreck havoc across entire countries for the simple purpose of helping a friend. He who shall decide the fate of a great battle to come, and He who shall repair that which has gone wrong. I name thee Naruto Uzumaki, Summoner of the Winds." The winds grew as the voice increased in volume, before all fell quiet as it uttered Naruto's new title. The orb of smoke appeared again, growing from nothing to spill out into reality, the wisps quickly appearing to fill a man shaped container, before solidifying into a tall man, with black hair and a well tailored suit. He bowed to Naruto, before showing a savage grin, a mouth filled with more than a few too many teeth. "My name is Ingram of the North, though if you prefer you may refer to me as Gram. Welcome to the family, Uzumaki of the Winds."
AN: I'm back! And alive with a new story! I regret to inform avid readers of Sage of the Biju that I'm taking more of a break from it, and doing the cliche thing, re-writing it to better fit with my current writing style. I don't think I can return to the style I was writing it in originally anymore, at least not for any length of time, and the muse for it seems to have decided to move on. I hopefully can do some more writing in some spare time I have most days at school now, and this story should continue for a fair length. The basis of this story is something of a mix between Fullmetal Alchemist's world and Naruto, though mainly for uniforms and military fashions. You'll see more of what I mean later, though for now I can safely say that alchemy and homonculi won't make an appearance, nor will any of the recognizable characters from FMA. This universe is more focused on open military conflicts and Covert operations as seperate issues rather than the Naruto Verse's method of combining those. Hope you all enjoy the Journey.
~Lux Out.