Chapter 2: The Power of Mana, The Birth of Chakra
The mysterious armored man met the Hokage's steely gaze with his own and held it for several seconds in silence before making a consenting sound and nodding respectfully towards the aged leader. He turned casually to once again take in the full view of the scene and decided to ask for a change of venue.
"Of course Hokage. I may not be from around here but I will gladly cooperate with your investigation into these matters, however…" he paused, and gestured vaguely towards the scene, "seeing as how the children do not require immediate medical attention it would probably be best for us to take this discussion elsewhere. "
Sarutobi made another draw from his pipe as he took a sidelong glance at the two orphan boys he had come to care for on a personal level. They were chatting animatedly, making lots of arm gestures and shaking their fists sporadically. Sarutobi returned most of his attention to the stranger now that he had convinced himself that the children would be alright for the moment. He stared at the man in question and tried to gauge him based on his body language.
'He seems relaxed yet ready, the stance of an experienced combat veteran…' the old Hokage mused, 'His posture shows deference to me even though I am not his leader, yet he is not submissive. He doesn't appear to exhibit any of the well hidden anxiety that would appear even on a highly skilled ninja, so I don't believe he intends to be deceitful.'
The analysis was moot at the moment, as the stranger's suggestion to talk somewhere else was one the Sandaime was going to make on his own, but it never hurt to take the time to get a feel for any potentially dangerous adversaries. Habitual information gathering just came with the territory of being the leader of a ninja village, and the man in front of him apparently without much effort dispatched a chuunin level shinobi, making him equal to a mid level jounin at the least.
It was a reasonable request to make when discussing issues in a ninja village, eyes and ears everywhere as they say. The Hokage could not refuse the request without losing some of his appearances as a reasonable and hospitable leader.
That did not mean, however, that the other man had pulled a fast one on the Hokage. In fact, since he had made the request first, he was putting himself in a position to be held with greater accountability for the event, essentially eliminating the possibility of fleeing the scene without repercussions. This was especially so considering that the new venue for discussion would of course be the Hokage's office.
This, aside from the man's body language and protective position he had previously taken in front of the children, convinced the Sandaime to at least hear the man out rather than immediately have him arrested for killing one of his shinobi.
"Very well, then…" he agreed, releasing the smoke he had been holding in throughout his entire inner monolog, "We shall continue this discussion in my office." He made a few discreet hand signals to his ANBU as he finished speaking, signaling them to take the body for an autopsy and do some recon in the area of the children's apartment to find out what happened and how they managed to give their guard the slip. As one the group of ANBU nodded in affirmation and vanished, one of them straggling to take the body of the assassin with him.
The Hokage grabbed one child under each arm, ignoring their protests that they could find their way on their own ("You wandered around on your own once already today remember?" "…hai"), and disappeared with a silent and seal less Shunshin.
He appeared outside the Hokage Tower and leaped up through the window of his office with negligible effort. He felt a slight breeze as he dropped the children onto a couch that was situated for the convenient of clients, and was unsurprised to see the mysterious stranger standing in front of his desk when he turned around.
He closed the window from across the room with a flick of his wrist and smirked when Naruto loudly proclaimed how awesome he was for being able to pull off such a simple trick.
The old ninja sat down in his comfy chair (it had to be comfy in order for the massive amount of paperwork he did at his desk to be at all survivable) and refilled his pipe as he turned to look expectantly at the children, wanting to get their explanations first.
Naruto, who had mostly been struggling to keep down his declarations of innocence, decided that he couldn't hold it in anymore.
"It's not our fault Hokage-jiji! We were just minding our own business, heading down to the festival, when suddenly BAM! I was out cold!" he exclaimed, waving his hands around to emphasize how randomly he was struck down. The Hokage didn't fail to notice that the mischievous youth was attempting to gloss right over the matter that he had given his guards the slip, and why he was out doors on the day of the festival when he had been explicitly forbidden to do so.
"The only thing I remember after that was waking up to a sharp pain in my chest, and seeing that mean ninja pushing a kunai into me for some reason!" he continued, honestly oblivious to the idea that the man was trying to kill him. The Sandaime would have preferred a more accurate description of where exactly Naruto was wounded, but the blonde's understanding of human anatomy was limited to knowing that it was his chest, and not say his arm or his head, that was impaled.
"I tried to fight back, I really did! I just felt so weak though, I mean I tried to move my arms to hit him but they wouldn't listen to me and it just kept getting darker until I couldn't see anything anymore! Actually, I don't think I heard or felt anything else either…" the child looked away and trailed off introspectively, not noticing the sharp and startled look directed his way when he began describing what was essential the experience of death to the Sandaime.
The young jinchuriki shook his head as if to dismiss his train of thought and opened his mouth to ramble on some more, but the Hokage decided that he had already pretty much gathered all the useful testimony he was going to get from the blonde and held his hand up, immediately silencing him.
He leaned back and considered the implications of what Naruto had told him about his experience. Apparently, the two had somehow managed to escape their guard and were on their way to the Kyuubi festival despite numerous warnings. They were summarily kidnapped and brought out to that training ground to be killed by one of his own men. Naruto was dealt a quick and fatal strike, most likely the Kyuubi was unable to protect and heal him due to his age and undeveloped chakra network.
His gaze swiveled around the room, taking in its three other occupants and getting their reactions to Naruto's description of the events. Naruto himself appeared to be more worried that he might have said something to get himself into trouble than his own near (?) death experience. Sasuke seemed rather calm and contemplative then the old man had expected, considering his own past trauma regarding death of his loved ones. The Third wasn't sure whether he liked the way the last Uchiha was handling this situation or not, and decided to forget about it for now to deal with more important concerns.
The stranger though, was displaying some odd reactions. He appeared calm and unconcerned over the man he recently (probably) killed. That was understandable; the way he carried himself made it clear to the experienced leader of warriors that he had seen and dealt his fair share of death, and killing someone when he believed he was doing the right thing probably didn't weigh heavily on his mind at this point. The off part about him was the tiny upturn of one side of his mouth and the hidden mirth in his eyes, as if he was amused about some part of tonight's events and was struggling to restrain himself for the sake of propriety.
"Sasuke-kun!" he snapped, turning his head to focus on the last Uchiha once more.
The young man was startled and instantly pulled out of his own musings by the Hokage's commanding voice, and gulped almost audibly, taking a few breaths to calm himself before he gave his own recounting of events.
"OK, so…" he began, desperately trying to think of the most innocent way to say this, "there we were, in our apartment minding our own business when all of a sudden the roof cracked and these two ninja fell down into this large vat of tar we had lying around and –"
"Hold on a minute there Sasuke…" the Hokage interrupted, one hand out in a stop gesture, and the other palming his face. "Why, exactly, did you two have a large vat tar in your apartment? Where would you even get such a thing?"
Caught in his attempt to speed talk the old ninja leader, he absently stroked one of his arms with his other hand and didn't meet the Hokage's eyes as he admitted, "Alright... we went out of our way to set a trap for the guards so we could get out and visit the festival…"
Already having guessed that far ahead, the Sandaime resolved to have the two ANBU working that shift sent to Ibiki as there was no way that any ninjas of that level who were not caught on purpose would get tricked in such a manner by a pair of six year olds – no matter how prodigal. 'Those fools probably thought they were being clever and covering their tracks. Who the hell do they take me for? I've seen through more elaborate and skilled ploys as a genin.'
"That's enough Sasuke, I think I know how this situation developed. Now I just want to know what part this man over here played in tonight's events." He directed, pointedly looking at the as of yet still unnamed stranger. His eyes narrowed a small fraction when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sasuke seemed almost relieved to be out of the spotlight. If the child was older, he might have read that as meaning that there was more to the story that he hadn't wanted to share, but as it was the Hokage dismissed it as a small child being intimidated by a stern questioning by the village leader.
"I was relaxing in a training field alone, " the stranger began, taking the Sandaime's hint, "I had been meditating and practicing a technique which allows me to sense strong emotions near bye. I figured that the easiest place to get a reading would be near a festival, and the one here in Konoha matched up with my traveling plans nicely."
The Hokage scratched his chin and understood the idea, it was after all well known that Konoha was a passionate village and the textbook method train a new technique is to apply it in the easiest conditions. He nodded in acknowledgment that the foreigner had adequately explained his presence and urged him on.
Seeing this as a good sign he continued his narrative, "I noticed a strange combination of emotions flaring up near bye including amusement, mischievousness, maliciousness, and a bit of killing intent was in there as well. Disturbed by these readings, I decided to keep an "eye" out for further developments and quickly deduced that two children were being kidnapped and brought to a nearby training area."
If the Hokage was impressed with the spear wielding man's deductive abilities he didn't show it outwardly.
'OK, moving on then…' "I hid behind some rocks and decided to interfere if I had the chance to." He finished, seemingly deciding that that was all there was to recount.
Sarutobi waited for a few moments, before deciding that he probably wasn't going to get any more out of the man without pressing for it.
"Why, exactly, did you decide to "interfere" with this apparent kidnapping? What did you believe was in it for you?" the Hokage didn't want to sound like he was ungrateful, but he had to make sure that the man in front of him didn't have less than noble intentions such as taking the hostages for himself or trying to claim a reward.
Whereas before the armored man's eyes shone with concealed mirth, at this line of questioning they hardened and became unreadable. "It is truly a sad state of the world when so few have honor that one is looked upon with suspicion for doing the right thing." His voice was level but his tone made it clear that he was restraining himself from launching into a rant the he must have had many times before. It seemed to be a sore point within the man who previously seemed moderately unshakable.
It appeared to the Hokage that the man was speaking earnestly, which raised the respect he had for the him somewhat. It's not easy to hold on to such honorable ideals in this age that's dominated by espionage and political intrigue.
"So, you hid then and waited for an opportunity to intervene. Naruto-kun appears to have been injured at some point though. I can only assume that the situation deteriorated before you could act then?" the Hokage injured, finally getting to the only part of the story he really needed to hear about as he could not infer it on his own.
The armored man shifted uncomfortably at this and looked away, before sighing and returning to looking the Hokage in the eye.
"Yes, I hesitated to attack the kidnapper because the children were waking up, and I thought he was going to knock them back out. I would have preferred for them to not see what I was about to do, but before I realized that he was just going to immediately kill them he had already stabbed a kunai into the blonde one's heart. I immediately launched across the field and impaled the kidnapper with my spear, but the young one was already dead by the time I pulled my weapon out of the corpse." he admitted to the Hokage, filling in a few more of the gaps in the story and setting up for the rest of his explanation.
Sarutobi had been wondering how Naruto had time to take a fatal blow (That he recovered from? There was still much more to this story..) when such a skilled looking warrior, able to dispatch a chuunin with ease, was around to save him, but had to admit from experience that it isn't always as simple as charging in to combat full force in many situations. He ran a quick mental simulation of the scenario and was satisfied that such an outcome was easily possible, and even likely based on what information he had gathered so far.
The story checked out... mostly.
He folded his arms and leaned back into his chair, fixing a even firmer stare on the other man.
"That's all well and good, and your version of events seems reasonable so far, however there's still an important detail that I'm impatient to get around to. You say that Naruto-kun was struck down and killed before you could act, and the boys own testimonies complement that story disturbingly well. But then, if this is true, tell me..."
The Hokage's gaze suddenly became even more piercing if possible, and the stranger let out a deep sigh as he knew what was coming next and was not looking forward to this next portion of his report.
"If he was dead then, why is he alive now?"
The encounter had started off strange, and was about to get stranger.
"I am a Dragoon." The armored man stated with pride, "One of the last of an ancient order. You are known as 'The Professor', are you not? Surely you must have some knowledge of this matter." He crossed his arms as he awaited the Hokage's response.
Sarutobi's eyes widened a fraction and he sat back in his chair to contemplate this new piece of information and its implications. The self proclaimed Dragoon was correct; the Sandaime was well versed in ancient lore and was able to put together a mental scenario that would make sense if the man told the truth. He appeared way too proud about his statement to be lying, which lent some credibility to his assertion to be a class of warrior that was thought to have long since vanished from the world.
Smoking his pipe, the Hokage mentally reviewed the relevant facts about Dragoons that he could remember off the top of his head. Almost a thousand years ago, when the world was in a state of perpetual war, a God named Ultima was said to have descended and granted those she deemed worthy with the ability to draw in the energy of the world and store it internally inside the body in what became known as 'mana pools' (which appeared to scholars to be the ancient precursor of chakra networks). Furthermore, Ultima would then grant unique abilities and the knowledge to use them to those who swore to uphold certain virtues. When a mana wielding human made this contract with Ultima they would gain what would become known as a Class, a designation which directly reflected their contract and abilities.
It was said that these various classes each wielded powers far beyond that of modern day shinobi. The ancient books that the Third had read about the subject did not detail what exactly happened to erase the majority of the classes from history, but it was widely believed that was some kind of natural disaster, as only the Geomancer class of warriors (whose powers revolved around manipulating fire, earth, lightning, water, etc) survived in large numbers and repopulated.
Eventually, even that class disappeared from the world, however their descendants still retained the ability to access their mana pools, although doing so caused them to lose physical energy at a rapid rate (which was not the case when Classed warriors had manipulated their mana). Modern scholars mostly agreed that this was where the idea of chakra came from, as well as the description of chakra being "a mixture of physical and spiritual energy".
If he remembered correctly, Dragoons were said to be armored knights who wielded spears primarily and who were able to move very fast linearly and jump very high even when heavily weighed down by equipment. The special power they wielded which put them on the same level as other Classed warriors was called Dragon Heart, which allowed a Dragoon who died to access their mana pools from beyond the grave and pull their soul back into their bodies. Particularly skilled Dragoons were also supposedly able to partially heal their bodies during this process and essentially become combat ready once again immediately.
"So, you are claiming that you somehow enabled Naruto-kun to utilize the long thought mythical Dragoon ability Dragon Heart, is that correct?" Hiruzen finally asked, curious as to what this man could tell him about the powers of the ancient warriors.
"I looked over and noticed that the dark haired child was taking his friends death particularly hard, so I tried to give him some hope to soften the blow. I explained that I could jumpstart the dead child's mana pool and temporarily connect him to Ultima, which would allow the boy to bring himself back to life if he had a strong enough will to live." He explained, somewhat matching the scenario that the Hokage had come up with earlier.
'That is about what I had figured…' "So, Naruto-kun is a dragoon now? Can you explain a little more of what that entails?" The third asked, automatically considering the military applications of such abilities.
"Not quite yet actually. He successfully used Dragon Heart, which is impressive, however he was connected to Ultima through me at the time. Even if I tried to teach him, he would be unable to even begin to learn any sort of Class skill until he takes a class oath, the Oath of the Dragoon for example in my case."
"I see…" the Sandaime began, "and how will he go about taking this oath and learning to use these abilities. Will you be taking the time to train him?"
"Unfortunately I cannot, however I will leave a few copies I have made of the important texts he would need to read. I do not recommend that he rushes into a decision to take a Class though. While a Class does give access to many abilities, remember that it also comes with a binding oath... a contract with Ultima that must be honored under penalty of loss of power or even death in some extreme cases. An oath, for any class really, could easily interfere with the career of a ninja so the matter should be taken seriously."
The man dropped a bag onto the Hokage's desk. When the old man glance inside he noticed a pile of books, way more then should be able to fit inside such a space. 'An ancient sealing method?'
When he looked up, the armored man was gone. The Sandaime just stared at the window. 'He didn't even tell me his name…' he thought with a sweatdrop forming.
He picked up the topmost two text from the bag, "Pros and Cons of the Class System" and "Class Warfare" and approved of the subtle naming conventions. A casual observer who saw these books on a shelf would assume they were about history or social class disparity. As the old man looked over at the young boys sleeping on his couch, a treasonous thought passed through his mind.
'... perhaps the village can survive even if these two decide on a different path than the way of the ninja. At the very least, it would be entertaining to see what they could come up with.'
A/N: Next chapter, time skip!