I really hate writing this every single chapter. I do not own Naruto.

Naruto breathed heavily, looking at his new creation proudly. Amari had taught him how to make his Death Scythe, but that was two days ago. He had spent the entire 48 hours working on his weapon. However, Naruto felt like it would have been easier if Amari had been more specific and clear.

Flashback

"You're going to create your own Death Scythe."

"…huh? A death scythe? But I never trained with a scythe before. Plus I'm more of a justu person myself.", complained Naruto.

Amari shook his head. "You really have to stop assuming too much, especially because you're a ninja. You do that on a mission and you'll find yourself in a deep pit."

Naruto was surprised, again for like the fourth time today. 'There's something wrong with him., thought Naruto, 'He talks like he knows about what a ninja goes through. Usually, this was the time Naruto would examine the person to see if he was good or bad. However, it was really hard to tell with him. Amari literally followed his . He wore a black trench coat, black pants, and a black shirt. His coat had a hood that he constantly wore and he wore a mask that was black also. If Amari stepped into a shadow, he wouldn't be able to spot him right away.

"So what is a Death Scythe exactly?", asked the blond. Instead of answering, Amari reached to the inside of his coat and grabbed something. But when Naruto looked closer, he saw nothing in his hands. Then, as if it appeared out of thin air, a dark knife appeared in his hand. He showed it to Naruto.

It wasn't like the kunai he had in his holster. This was a hunting knife. It had a thick edge on one side and a serrated edge on the other. On the blade itself, there were odd seals and characters that he had never seen before.

Amari smiled. "That's my Death Scythe." Naruto looked at him with confusion. "But this-" Amari interrupted. "I know. It's not a scythe. See, I told you that you have to stop assuming. Only a few reapers and the Grim Reaper have an actual scythe. The weapon takes on the form of the person's zeher. So what I want you to do is concentrate your zeher into this." Amari left the cave and brought back a metal rod. "Don't mess up. This is a silver rod. Hard as hell, but really expensive." With that, without leaving any instructions, Amari left.

Flashback End

It seems that Amari had forgotten another thing. Like last time when he forgot to explain, he forgot to tell Naruto how to find and use his zeher. But Naruto went into a meditative state, even though staying still was so boring, and found it after a day. He then went to the metal rod. He really didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to fashion his weapon out of this and use his zeher to help? No, he said that the weapon took on the form of the zeher so it probably had a huge part of the weapon creation. He had finally decided to just supercharge the rod with zeher and see what happens.

That was what happened. At the end of the day, Naruto was standing over his new Death Scythe. It was odd but he liked it. It looked like a sword, kind of. The hilt looked like any old hilt from a katana however there were two different kinds of seals. The rest of the sword was pretty regular except for one thing. The length wasn't it. It was a head and about a half shorter than him. The thickness was good too. It wasn't too thin that it was fragile but it wasn't too thick either. No, what was different about it was the width. It was really wide, wider than his arm. (Imagine Ichigo's zanpaktou from the first episode of Bleach.)

He stood up and lifted up the blade. It surprised him on how light it was. He went to the nearest tree, swung his scythe back, and let it cut into the tree. It surprised him again. It cut the tree as if it was butter. After getting over his surprise, he grinned. He had only started his training and yet he already had a powerful weapon. But he was still curious about the seals on the hilt. He knew that ninjas sometimes used seals ,and to activate or release it, they added chakra to it. He began doing that, but when nothing happened, he slapped his forehead. This was a reaper weapon so it probably needed zeher. He started doing that, and much to his delight yet more confusion, the blade started to glow. He went to another tree and swung.

The next thing he knew was that he was thrown into the tree behind him. After getting over the pain in his back, he looked at the tree. The weapon had managed to surprise him again.

The tree was gone. At least the top part was gone. The remaining trunk was smoking. His blade had managed to rip itself out of his hands and embed into another tree.

"Nice.", a voice said behind him. Naruto reacted instantly, adding zeher into the blade and swinging it behind him, but he remembered to add chakra to his feet so he wouldn't fly off again. The blade swung an inch past Amari's nose and hit the tree next to him. The blade cut clean through like the last time but this time as soon as the blade left the tree, a hole appeared and sucked in everything, leaving a smoking trunk.

"Easy there.", Amari said, with his hands in the air as an act of surrender, "I come in peace. Wait,… no, I don't. But you still shouldn't attack me."

Naruto's head dropped as he let out a big sigh of frustration. "What do you want?"

Amari smiled. "Well, I just wanted to see how far you were in creating your Death Scythe. And it seems you succeeded. That means I am awesome for teaching you how to create your own." At the second sentence, Amari had put his hands on his hips and looked at the sky heroically.

"Uhhh… There's one problem with that.", said Naruto. "You didn't teach me anything."

Amari looked at Naruto confused. "What do you mean I didn't teach you anything?"

Naruto sighed. This felt familiar. "I mean, you left without telling me how to do this." Amari scratched his head. "I don't recall. Wait, I planned this out. Let's see,", he said as he pulled out a notebook, "See this time I wrote it down. Okay… First, explain to apprentice about the . Second, enjoy a nice long vacation while apprentice makes Death Scythe. Third, teach apprentice about how to make Death Scythe. See, it's right there! I told you. I planned it out very carefully."

Naruto felt a headache coming on. "Another problem. You put teach me after coming back." Amari looked at Naruto with another confused look and read his notebook again. "Huh. Whoops, you're right. But you were able to find out the answer without me helping which means I must an awesome master.", he said with his hands on his hips and in a heroic fashion again.

Naruto decided not to play this game again with Amari. "So, I finished my Death Scythe. Now what?"

Amari rubbed his hands together. "We start the actual training. I'm going to teach you some Shadow techniques."

"…What the hell? You made me go through that entire making process and we don't even train for it?"

Amari shrugged. "Like every reaper, you should be able to know how to use your weapon, even if you never used that type of weapon before. Remember, it's your zeher. It has a part of your spiritual energy. If you have the patience, you'll learn it by yourself soon enough."

Naruto huffed. But if that was true, then he would have to spend less time with Amari. Less time equaled less headaches. "Fine."

Amari smiled and nodded. "Good. Then we can start training on how to use the power of Shadow." He lead Naruto to an open space with not as many trees. Here the sun hit the ground and made everything shine, from the grass to the rocks. There were few shadows, but the ones that did exist streaked through the field.

"Sit down. You have much to learn and I have little to teach.", said Amari. Naruto bit his tongue from replying to the nonsense of the sentence. Amari pointed a finger toward him. "Do you remember what I said about the Shadow, where its domain exists?"

Naruto thought for a moment. "I think the domain was the shadows of the universe and the darkness of one's heart."

"Good. That's an essential part of the techniques I'm going to teach you. For you to control the shadows like I do, you need to find your own darkness, and let it engulf you. Let the darkness take control."

Naruto didn't like the sound of that, but he shook his doubts away. 'Too late to back out now., he thought. He thought for a minute, trying to find his own darkness. He thought of how he failed in capturing Sasuke and thought that was good. He let it spread throughout his heart, but stopped when Amari said, "Stop."

Naruto looked up with frustration. "What?", he asked. Amari shook his head. "That darkness is no good. It is a powerful darkness because of the ties or bonds or whatever you want to call it with this boy, but say you saved him. What would happen to the darkness?" Without letting Naruto make a reply, he answered. "Poof. It would disappear. You would have to find a new darkness every single time. No, that's no good. Suppose you saved him in a middle of a fight. Do you think the people guarding your friend will give you time to think of another darkness? No, of course not. Find another darkness."

Naruto saw the reasoning in his argument and was again surprised but this time at the fact that Amari made sense. He went back to his thoughts and pushed the darkness that contained the thoughts of Sasuke down. He thought and thought but he couldn't think of another. He was about to give up when Amari again interrupted, "Remember, the darkness doesn't always have to be bad. It doesn't always have to be about failure and death."

Naruto nodded and tried again but this time allowing his mind to fill with any thought instead of bad ones. He saw many possible darknesses; however, one stood out from the others. He smiled at the thought. It was his one goal. He almost forgot about it fighting Sasuke.

He wanted to be acknowledged. For too long, people saw him as the fox. They saw a monster of great destruction, not a lonely boy. He waited for Amari to tell him again to say "That's no good.", but he only heard his calm breaths. He let the thought fill his mind. When he was sure it had engulfed his mind so that all he really wanted was that, he opened his eyes.

Amari smiled and nodded again. "Good. Now we can finally start." He stood up and walked over to a boulder that was imbedded in the field but Naruto still had a question. "Hey, why is this better? Why is this darkness better than the one about Sasuke? If I become Hokage, they would have to acknowledge me, right?"

Amari turned around. "You're kind of right. First, just because you become hokage, they aren't going to bow down and say, "All hail the mighty idiot."" Naruto let the insult past for his sanity's sake. "I know that. But, if I do, won't that make me vulnerable?"

Amari shook his head. "But you're limiting yourself. Your darkness was for people to acknowledge you. The good thing is that your stupidity made it broad. That's good." Naruto was starting to be bothered by the insults but he decided it was still better to say nothing. Amari continued. "It's good because you didn't specify anything. Your darkness will stay with you as long as a single person doesn't acknowledge you. But if someone doesn't know you, they can't acknowledge you. So as long as you don't meet every single person in the world, you'll be fine. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to start the training now."

Naruto smiled enthusiastically. He followed Amari who waved him toward a shadow that was created by a rock that reached their waists. It made a shadow that stretched two meters. Amari sat down next to the shadow so that his shadow didn't touch the rock's shadow. Naruto followed suit.

"Can you feel the darkness that you created within your heart?", Amari asked. Naruto nodded. "It feels kind of heavy."

"Good. Now, to control the shadows to your every whim, you must imagine the darkness in your heart reaching out to the shadows."

"Imagine?", Naruto asked, "Why would I have to imagine? Isn't the darkness like an energy?"

Amari responded by laughing out loud. "Listen to yourself. It would make no sense if darkness was an energy. We get rid of our darkness by eliminating its source or by counteracting it with a greater good experience. That doesn't sound like an energy at all."

Naruto got slightly embarrassed now that he thought about it. "So just imagine the darkness reaching out?" Amari didn't answer but rather directed Naruto's attention to the shadow. Naruto closed his eyes and tried to isolate the feeling of the darkness. When he did that, he opened his eyes and imagined the darkness traveling down his arms and legs and hitting the ground. Then he imagined the darkness traveling toward the shadow. When he felt like the darkness reached the shadow, he nodded at Amari.

Amari spoke, "Now use your imagination to shape the shadow. Imagine it rising off the ground and forming a shape."

Naruto thought for a moment in what he should do. After thinking a while, he decided to copy Amari. The shadow rose off the ground and formed a pair of hands. They began clapping, however it was much slower than when Amari did it.

Amari sighed. "Well, I guess that was okay although I wish it was more creative and original. But good. Now, I want you to practice until you can form the shadow in the span of a half-second." With that, Amari disappeared again.

Naruto began practicing, but in the middle of it, he wondered where Amari went all the time. But he pushed the thought away and focused on his training.

A month later, Naruto was done. He could have his darkness take control of any shadows in a 25 feet radius circle and do it in a half-second. And as if he knew he was done, Amari came walking into the field. Naruto greeted him with an energetic wave. He learned that because darkness isn't an energy, he doesn't lose any strength.

Amari gave a small wave back. "So, you're finished, right?"

Naruto grinned. "Yep.", but his grin fell and was replaced with a questioning look, "But the hands aren't solid. I tried touching the shadow hand, but my finger went right through. What's the point of this if I can't use solid forms?"

Amari waved his hands dismissively. "Don't worry. That's easy. Just the next time you create shadow forms, concentrate your zeher in your heart." Naruto sighed in disappointment. He really thought this wouldn't cost any energy. It would have been awesome if it didn't. "So what now?"

Amari smiled. "There is one benefit to being a reaper aligned with Shadow. Can you figure it out?"

Naruto looked up and down at Amari as he stretched his arms and legs out. But Naruto couldn't see anything unusual. "I give up. What's the benefit?" Amari pouted. "Aww, that's no fun if you give up. But fine. The benefit is my clothes. The truth is this isn't a type of fabric. It's made of shadow." Naruto's eyes went wide at that statement.

Amari smiled at his reaction. "Yep. So you're going to do this. But, when you do complete this, remember to wear actual clothes underneath the shadow clothes unless you're as good as me. Then you're okay."

Naruto looked at Amari with a strange look. "Wait, are you implying that you're not wearing anything underneath?" Amari just nodded proudly. Naruto asked, "Are you constantly adding zeher to your clothing?" Amari shook his head. "Of course not. That would be tiring."

"So basically, if I got this right, it's kind of like you're naked right now, right?", asked Naruto, hoping for a no. Unfortunately, Amari nodded proudly again. Naruto began inching away from his teacher until he decided it was far enough away.

However, Naruto noticed something odd with what Amari said before. "Wait, you said when I do complete this right now. Why not tell me this after I finish?" Amari rubbed the back of his head, much like Naruto does, making Naruto feel a little creeped out. "Well, you see," Amari began, "I'm done with teaching you as soon as you finish the shadow clothing."

"… WHAT?", yelled Naruto. "What do you mean? It can't be the end. There must be more shadow techniques you can teach me. And you never even taught me how to use my Death Scythe!"

Amari shrugged. "Sorry kid. But the thing is first, the techniques I use are all original. So like every other reaper, you have to create your own shadow techniques. That's why I wished you were more original and creative. And second, I have no idea on how to use your Death Scythe. I only know how to use mine, like any other reaper."

Naruto frowned and glared at Amari. "Then how the hell am I supposed to learn how to use it?"

Amari stuck up two fingers. "You can learn by two ways. First, get a swordmaster to teach you. However, that's not the best method. Second, learn it yourself. Your Death Scythe is made from your zeher, a part of you. If you have patience and listen to it, it will teach you. But don't actually stick the blade in your ear. It's not literal in that sense."

Naruto thought who would actually think that was true, but remembering who Amari was, he knew that the person in front of him had probably done it. "So what do I do now?"

Amari shrugged. "Why don't you go back to Konoha? You can train again with your friends and if you take enough missions, you might find the other three reapers aligned with the other and have them teach you how to use that particular ability."

Naruto nodded. He was kind of sad that Amari didn't teach him anything really good, but that he had to think of everything himself. But he was really glad on the fact that he would be with his friends again.

Amari clapped his hands together. "All right. Now if we are done with this talk, let's design your clothes."

END

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