Overlord
xxx
"No, wrong. Stop it. You're focusing too much on the mantle... the point of this exercise is to move the fabric like an extra limb. I'm not asking for much here, just to make it move... flex it. Do you have to focus so hard to move your arms? No! Stop focusing and just do it!"
Naruto's eye was twitching wildly... it was well into the night and he wanted to sleep before he had to go meet his ninja squad, but he wasn't allowed to leave this room before he'd learned how to move his mantle. The worst thing was, Laharl had been yelling at him like this for several hours, completely throwing his concentration to hell. And...
"I can't believe I'm wasting my time on you, you no-good, worthless imbecile!"
Naruto snapped, losing all control over himself as he dived at his sensei, mantle flapping forward and forming itself into a thrusting drill...
Wait, what now?
Naruto froze, turning his head to stare at the mantle. Yes... a drill made of fabric. Without thinking, he sped up the rotation, then slowed it down and reversed it... he was so fascinated by the motion that he didn't even notice that the second he'd begun his lunge Laharl had moved behind him fast enough to leave an afterimage, which was now slowly fading away. Laharl waited for him to notice. And waited. And coughed lightly to get his attention. And waited some more.
A blood vessel slowly made itself visible on his forehead as his cape swirled around his hand, revealing not his sword, but a large wooden hammer. He slammed it directly into the back of Naruto's head.
"Don't ignore me!"
Naruto mumbled something incomprehensible as he lifted his head from the face-shaped imprint in the floor.
"Now that you've finally got the hang of it... I dunno. Experiment if you want... or you could just go to sleep. I have something to do..."
"Wait! Don't go yet! I want to do the pulling weapons from nowhere thing that you keep doing... Show me how!"
"I have to... fine, I'll make this quick. While the fabric is swirling around your hand, concealing it from view, will the weapon you want from wherever it is to your hand... you have to know where it is though. Actually, it has nothing to do with the cape or mantle at all... that's just a distraction. Have fun... I guess."
Naruto immediately forgot about sleep and began focusing intently upon his hand, as though that would make it easier to call a weapon to it.
xxx
The orange prinny squeaked in surprise as a red cape darted around the corner, wrapping around one of its peg legs and spilling the laundry it had been carrying all over the floor as it was suspended upside down directly in front of Laharl's face.
"Uwaah! Hey! Put me down! ... Please?"
Laharl casually stepped across the dirty laundry and opened a door into an empty room. He entered and calmly closed the door before turning to glare at the prinny.
"If you please... I have a question. Who are you?"
A small sweatdrop appeared on the back of the prinnies head, and it blinked slowly before answering.
"I am..." it said, lowering it's voice and motioning Laharl closer, as though it was about to reveal some deep, dark secret.
"A prinny."
A vein popped out on Laharl's forehead and he directed his cape to wrap around the prinnies center and squeeze, turning it into something of an hourglass figure.
"AGONY! PAIN! GAH!"
After a moment, Laharl allowed the pressure to lessen somewhat.
"Let me rephrase that... Who were you?"
"Do I have to answer th-AGONY!"
Laharl had constricted his cape again.
"Gah! Ah! Okay, I'll talk! But first... how could you tell?"
Laharl arched an eyebrow.
"It was obvious you were no ordinary prinny within the first few seconds of seeing you. Out of thousands of prinnies, only one or two would choose to reincarnate as a higher level prinny than another form... and even had you simply done so on a whim, a normal prinny wouldn't have taken so much effort to avoid drawing attention to itself. It would have known that nobody normally pays attention to prinnies unless they do something out of the ordinary... but you gave it away with your speech patterns. Nobody knows why, but all normal prinnies tack '-su' onto the end of most sentences. You obviously didn't get around much, or you would have known this for yourself. Now... you will tell my who you were and why you requested this placement."
The prinny paused for a moment, then sighed and began its story.
"You should already know that prinnies are the tortured souls of sinners. When someone commits a sin, even an insignificant one, it is marked down and tallied up. When that person dies, they become a prinny, and have to work to earn enough money to equal their sins... then they can go to the red moon, and their sins will be absolved before they are reincarnated.
In my life... I had commited a few minor sins, but nothing truly major. I was a ninja... I killed whom I was ordered, and at times I did things that normal people may have considered wrong... but it was almost always justified. I played a large role in a war, bringing it to a close years before it would have without my efforts, and rose to a position of power within Konoha. I was... the Yondaime Hokage.
But... a little over a decade ago, the village was attacked by a monstrously large, incredibly powerful demon fox. The Kyuubi. We sent all our most powerful ninja out to stop it... it killed them as though it were swatting flies. Entire clans were lost that day, because of my stubborn decision to stay and fight, rather than evacuate the village. Then... when I found a way to defeat him... it came at a cost. To defend my village, I became a sinner beyond compare. I sacrificed my life, offered my soul to a demon, and destroyed a child's future. Any one of those sins alone would leave me a prinny for centuries. All of them together? I don't think I will ever be able to be free of my guilt.
That boy... when I died, I'd asked the village to see him as their hero. I honestly never expected to see him or them again... but the spirits of death allowed me to see, now and again, what was happening in my old home. They... were not doing it to be nice. The villagers... even some of the ninja... would blatantly defy my dying wish. After only a year, I could no longer bear to watch, and threw myself into work. It didn't change anything... but while I was exhausted, I could forget for a short time. Then... I was still an individual worker. I hadn't really put any thought into signing myself onto a long term contract... but then the call came up for a prinny, and it was his name on the form... I had volunteered before I even registered myself stepping forward, and I never once considered changing my mind. I don't know... Maybe, deep down, I thought that by placing myself in his service I could... pay back some of the debt I owe him. It's... so foolish, to even think something like that.
Will you let me go now?"
Slowly, Laharl's cape lowered the prinny to the ground, and it carefully gathered up the spilled laundry before it paused and turned back to Laharl.
"There were also two others, who seemed interested in the post... but unlike me, their sins were relatively minor. It won't be long until they go to the Red Moon... I'd keep an eye out for them afterwards... they seemed very interested in the idea of working for him."
The prinny left, leaving Laharl contemplating its words before he glanced out of a small window.
"Dawn..."
He shook his head and headed back to the room he'd left the kid in... as he'd expected, he'd fallen asleep while practicing calling his weapons to himself, and was slumbering on the ground with his sword dangling limply from his grip.
Laharl kicked him in the head.
"Gah! What the hell! What was that for?"
"Aren't you expected somewhere, in about an hour? Bathe yourself, change your clothes, then join me for breakfast before you leave. You can sleep while you wait for your sensei to arrive... suspicions would arise should you miss another meeting so swiftly, right?"
xxx
Sasuke breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he saw a distant figure begin to draw closer. The dobe was coming today then... thank god. He appreciated Sakura's attentions from a distance, a constant reminder of the fact that he was probably the most desired male in their generation, but he didn't like the thought of having to deal with her alone like yesterday again. He blinked, then looked closer at the running figure. What... the hell was the dobe wearing?
"Good morning, Sakura-chan! Sasuke-teme!"
Sakura had already clocked him in the head before she had fully turned from her crush to see the irritating blonde... and what he was wearing. Her jaw dropped in shock. He was still wearing his typical orange jumpsuit, but over that...
"Dobe... What the hell is that?"
"Ah? I see you've noticed, my stylish new mantle!"
"Mantle? It's a cape dobe. Why the hell are you wearing a cape?"
Naruto blinked, then sprouted a wide grin.
"Well, I lost some money at the card game, but I won all sorts of awesome stuff! Like this MANTLE, Sasuke-teme."
"Cape."
"Mantle."
"Cape."
"Mantle."
Sakura let out an aggrieved sigh... why couldn't the idiot have just stayed away like yesterday, and left her and Sasuke-kun in peace?
xxx
The kunoichi yawned as she stumbled into the dining room alongside the dragonling. They'd gone to train a little on their own while Naruto worked with his cape, with the result that the dragonling was almost an inch larger than it had been.
Glancing around, it became almost immediately apparent that none of the three at the table was their blonde boss.
"Oy..." the dragonling approximated a throaty rumble to its voice as best it could... leaving it more of a slightly squeaky purr. "Where'd the annoying brat go?"
The girls shrugged and went back to their meal. Dragons, even little ones, were entitled to some measure of arrogance. After all, if they lived long enough to avoid being rendered down for armor parts, they tended to become the most powerful and richest beings around, with their hoarding tendencies. They were like pack rats for anything valuable or rare... once they'd gathered enough, they tended to sleep in a pile of golden trinkets and coins.
Laharl bit off another chunk of bacon and swallowed before answering.
"My pupil had things to do in the village... he was a human until I came, after all. Appearances have to be kept up for at least a little while longer... I really don't feel like dealing with the human's questions just yet. He'll be back later in the day... you'll have to find your own amusement until then. But by all means, eat. There's plenty for both of my pupil's minions."
The dragonling growled slightly, but snagged an uncooked leg of some sort of large beast off the table, curling up around it as it tore shreds of flesh off. The kunoichi slumped down in the chair and began cleaning under her nails with a throwing knife.
"... I want to kill something."
xxx
Kakashi was still suspicious about Naruto's new lodgings... Although the story had checked out, and the Sandaime had even seemed pleased about it when he'd taken a look at the building's location with his crystal ball... he bit off a growl deep within his throat. Naruto's former apartment had been very close to most of the bars on that side of town... the random drunkards that vandalized his apartment were a critical part of bringing the boy to the breaking point. His will was strong, but sooner or later he would fall to the power of the Dark Side...
He shook his head. That was what he got for watching a Star Wars marathon when he should have been sleeping.
Even so, the quote was actually pretty valid in this instance. Naruto would be of most use to the village if he learned to use the demon sealed within him, but the experiences of his childhood would hold him back from choosing to use the evil energies. Even so, it wasn't impossible... he could be pushed to the breaking point, where he would dip into the demon's power to brutally massacre the enemy. If he could be goaded to the point where he had no other choice but to use the demon...
He shook off the nagging internal voice that suggested this was a bad idea, as he dropped down to the base of the bridge, sparing only a moment to glance at Naruto's new accessory.
"Good morning, everyone... I've got you all a nice D-rank mission from the Hokage's office. Um... Naruto? Why are you wearing a bedsheet?"
"IT'S A MANTLE!"
xxx
Kakashi's eye drifted over once more to Naruto, who was climbing up and down the tallest tree in their training ground again. Something... was different about him, but he couldn't tell what it was. The cape thing was negligible, and wearing it everywhere was actually a very Naruto-ish thing to do. Either he'd get bored with it and take it off eventually, or everyone would get used to it the same way they'd gotten used to the stupid orange jumpsuit that he loved so much. He'd taken to the D-rank mission with his normal excitement, and screwed it up in a variety of small ways that his teammates had to quickly fix, as usual... he hadn't begged Sakura for a date yet, but that wasn't actually something he did daily anyway. Frequently, but not daily... or maybe he'd just gotten a clue and given up on the obsessed girl?
Kakashi actually gave that a moment's consideration before banishing the idea. Naruto had been infatuated with her for years... why would he pick now to give up on it? He'd been just as mildly antagonistic towards Sasuke as normal too... And he'd been whining just as pathetically for Kakashi to teach him an 'awesome new technique' before he'd been ordered to work on his control by tree-walking.
He also hadn't realized yet that if Kakashi really wanted him to work on his control, he would have given him another technique to do so... tree walking would only go so far, and Naruto was perfectly ready to move on to the next stage of water-walking. Had been for a while really... but that wasn't part of the plan. He gave a mental shrug and turned back to Sasuke, completely ignoring the fact that Sakura had stopped her endurance training long ago, in favor of ogling Sasuke's shirtless form. He lifted his hand and the taijutsu training began again, with Sasuke dashing headlong at him, and him taking full advantage of the holes in his student's defenses.
Across the field, Naruto's eyes narrowed. Kakashi had finally stopped scrutinizing him... it was time. He looped around the tree, appearing to do so to dodge a branch, and created a kage bunshin that continued up the tree as he leaped away, gone before anyone had a chance to notice. The clone would be sufficient to give the illusion that he was still there for the next few hours... at this point, Kakashi would only glance towards the tree now and again to make sure he was still 'training'. It would spend the rest of the day running up and down the tree, before stumbling off, 'exhausted', to Laharl's place and dispel itself inside. If everything went well, none of them would ever realize that he'd be ditching them.
Naturally, things didn't go smoothly. About halfway back to the Inn, he'd run across a training ground where another group of rookies was practicing. He'd been quick to dart out of sight, and he'd slipped past the area unnoticed, with only a few close calls... Kiba would probably be able to tell that he'd passed by later though. He'd have to find a way to hide his scent, if he was to keep his business secret from people like the Inuzuka. The girl could be a problem too... he couldn't remember her name offhand, but she was a Hyuuga... if he caught her attention, she could keep an eye on him even while facing the opposite direction. That would be bad for keeping his activites a secret...
Had he looked behind him as he patted the stone guardians and entered the rickety building he'd come to view as home, he would have seen the very girl he was thinking about standing next to a tree, watching him.
"Naruto-kun...?"
xxx
Naruto sweatdropped at the sight before him. The little dragon was gnawing on some large bones, while Etna and the kunoichi were juggling what had apparently started as only kunai and shuriken between themselves. Flonne was squealing in excitement over it, and every few seconds she'd throw something sharp into the fray... so far she'd added darts, a few butcher knives, and a small handaxe, and she was glancing around for more... he glanced around the room and his sweatdrop grew... Laharl had turned his cape into a hammock and was completely ignoring everything. He turned back to the juggling act, and then dived, wide-eyed, out of the way of a Fuuma shuriken that both girls had failed to catch... it thunked deeply into the wall.
"Wh... What the hell? Hey!"
The dragonling rolled one eye towards him for a moment, then went back to its meaty bone... the kunoichi's reaction was far more pronounced. She immediately stopped what she was doing and dropped to one knee in front of him... leaving all sorts of bladed instruments flying randomly through the air.
Several terror filled seconds of frantic dodging later, Naruto caught his breath and glanced around the now-spiky walls. Laharl's cape had risen somewhat to deflect the blades that had headed his way without him even needing to move, but the rest of them had more problems... except the kunoichi, who hadn't even moved from her prone position.
"Ah... Hey, I didn't get your name."
"Mihoshi."
"Ah..."
Naruto gave another glance to the gleaming metal.
"For some reason, that name seems surprisingly apt at the moment. Here's a piece of advice... when you're doing something that requires all of your attention, it's acceptable to finish what you're doing before acknowledging me. And if you weren't giving juggling bladed weaponry your full attention... you should have been."
"I'll take that under advisement."
A loud crunch echoed through the room, prompting winces as heads spun to the dragonling. The bone it had been chewing had split down the middle.
"Gimme five minutes... this is taking up all of my attention right now."
Sweatdrops grew.
xxx
This place... it was creepy. There was no better word for it. She'd just barely managed to catch a glimpse of Naruto's blonde hair darting around a tree before he'd seemed to dissappear into the shadows... she'd excused herself and followed him, actually having to resort to her Byakugan to pick up his trail. The place he'd gone to... at first glance, it was an old, creaky mansion that was ready to fall over any day, but under the scrutinizing gaze of her bloodline the support timbers and interior structuring... was revealed to be new. It was just that the outside had been third and fourth-hand, half-useless materials tacked onto the good underneath.
Someone had built this building in an out of the way corner, with the intent of making it look like it had been there for much longer than it really had been... and to the average eye, it would be almost indistiguishable.
She'd turned the Byakugan off after entering the house, out of courtesy. She was beginning to regret it... every hallway and corridor looked exactly the same, and there were no distinguishing marks on the doors. The only way to tell where she was was by the decorations... but she'd gone through three very similar hallways where the suits of armor were in different alcoves every time. Oddly enough, she kept hearing muffled snickers in that corridor, but there was noone there.
Every so often she could hear people talking to each other, but not enough to make out a conversation, and at one point she'd winced at a large snapping noise. Several minutes later she was almost to the point of defying courtesy and activating her Byakugan to find her way through the maze-like structure, but the possibility of accidentally catching someone in the bath held her at bay.
Her face grew to an atomic red as an image of Naruto stepping out of a bathtub, towel wrapped loosely around his waist, seared itself into her mind. The incident had been just after they'd all become genin, a couple of months back. She'd finally gotten up the courage to speak to Naruto and had gone to his apartment... but he hadn't answered the door. Confused, she had activated her bloodline to scan the apartment, and very nearly got an eyeful as Naruto stepped out of his bath. She'd fled, red-faced, long before he made it to the door, but the image had stayed with her and would surface at the most innappropriate times.
She paused as she turned a corner, identical to the dozen she had passed already. A door was open... had she already come down this way? No, she could hear someone moving around inside... she slipped in, and came face to face with a man with blue hair, only a few years older than her, and behind him... Naruto! She flushed lightly and simultaneously hoped and feared that he would turn around and see her... but he didn't.
Laharl stared at her for a moment and then shrugged, making a note to teach Naruto how to tell if someone was sneaking up on him. If some girl had just walked in and he hadn't even noticed, an assassin could take him out easily. Oh well... he didn't know how she'd made it here, as humans shouldn't even be able to navigate the maze of hallways on their own, much less see the doorway to this room, opened or not, unless they were specifically invited. The odds of wandering the corridors randomly and happening to notice the illusion covering the door were astro-... Specifically invited.
He let out a large sigh and grabbed the girl by the wrist, ignoring her softly stuttered protests. Idiot. Barely half a day after he'd gotten his first demonic minons, and he was inviting humans to join his ranks as well. At least he could have chosen one that seemed worthy... this little girl looked to be more suited as a housewife, or for concubine duties.
He paused less than half a second to consider that that may just be what she was intended for... whatever. Not his place to judge the kid's taste in that matter... though personally, the empty eyes gave him the creeps.
He slammed his hand onto Naruto's shoulder just as he set the orb he'd purchased on the statue's tray.
xxx
Reality swirled around the three, and spit them out on a floating island next to a glowing circular pedestal. Runes slowly revolved around its edge, each relating to summoning and servitude. The true names of these objects had long since been lost, but the lowbrow masses had given them a new name... base panels. They could be found anywhere, and were useful to transport small groups of warriors immediately to the site of a battle... some of the more paranoid demonic nobles, fearing assassination, would spend millions to have portable ones created to be shrunk and inflated with a trigger, bringing their armies with them wherever they went.
Naruto hesitated in calling his sword... why had Laharl chosen to come along? This was a low level orb... nothing powerful for him to fight. Was it that he didn't think Naruto was capable of learning without him watching?
"Ah... Um... Wh-where...?"
Naruto's eyes widened as he spun to see, not only Laharl, but the Hyuuga girl from earlier as well. How did she...? No, Why did she...? He'd been sure he hadn't been seen, but why would someone have even bothered to follow him? And why would Laharl have not only allowed her to watch his travel to the item world, something she definitely wouldn't understand and might or might not refrain from speaking of, but actively involve her...? Laharl sent a scowl his way as he released the girl to stumble forward and pulled a red slip of paper from his cape. He tossed it forwards and it swelled up, forming into a floating door with 'EXIT' stamped on it in bold red letters.
"Hmph. Next time you've found a new minion, tell me before they show up... Got it?"
Laharl turned and stepped through the door before Naruto could answer, or convey his shock at this turn of events in any way, and the door swung closed... dissolving into dust that floated away. Naruto could tell from the girl... Hinata's widening eyes and slightly fearful expression that the entities behind him had begun their charge. He reached into his mantle and summoned his sword... and his gloves, which he tossed directly to her.
"Hinata! No time to explain, just put those on... and try not to die."
She nearly swooned when he remembered her name, but the charging monsters and the serious way he'd finished his statement convinced her to put her reactions on hold until she was sure she was in no danger of immediately dying.
xxx
Multiple of the little floating islands later, Hinata had worn herself to near exhaustion. When the creatures on this island ignored her in favor of tending to their own business, she slumped down to the ground, panting for breath. Naruto tugged a small cloth from somewhere within his mantle and used it to wipe the dark blood from his katana. She glanced down at her hands... sure enough, although she had done far less of the actual fighting than Naruto had, the spikes on the gloves he'd tossed her were liberally coated with the liquid. She fidgeted, uncertain as to begin cleaning it.
"Don't worry about it Hinata."
She flinched at the sudden statement, unsure of what Naruto was talking about. Some of this must have shown in her face, because he clarified almost immediately.
"The gloves... don't worry about cleaning them, I'll do it later. You seemed slightly queasy when you looked at the blood covering them... but from what I've overheard, your clans taijutsu style is almost completely bloodless, so it probably wouldn't be a big deal."
An uneasy silence fell between the two as Hinata cast her eyes down, already evaluating and second guessing everything he'd said. It wasn't long before she realized he was trying to catch her attention again, and she flushed lightly.
"U-um... I... I'm sorry. C-could you say that again?"
Naruto blinked, then shrugged.
"Like I said... this is probably the best place to talk. When we leave, we'll arrive back in our bodies less than a second after we left them. While I want to know why you followed me, and how you found that room... it's not as important as explaining to you..."
He paused, giving great care to the choosing of his words... something Hinata was unaccustomed to seeing from him. But then, even with her... surveillance of him, she wouldn't have expected to find him training on floaiting islands in the sky somewhere either. He sighed, apparently unsatisfied with whatever he'd decided to say.
"Laharl... jumped to a conclusion, when you walked in that door. Not the right conclusion, by any means, and I wouldn't have expected him to have sent you along with me either. I think he assumed... that I had... invited you for something, but with all you've seen... If he find's out that you weren't invited..."
He left the sentence trailing for a moment, then grimaced.
"There's no easy way to say this... he'll kill you, to keep the secrets you've seen safe."
Her eyes widened, then shot first to the gloves, then to the sword that Naruto had sheathed and set to lean on a nearby stone.
"B-but... I... I don't want to..."
He nodded somberly.
"To be blunt, I don't want him to have to kill you either... you're from one of Konoha's most prominent clans... it would be very difficult to explain your 'dissappearance' should we be questioned."
Despite the joking tone, she could tell he was deadly serious, and she was beginning to internally panic.
"So... we have two options. First is to have you play along for a little while until I can get you out of the building, and then have your memories 'fixed'... though repeated questioning or analysis might break the false memories, leaving the real ones open. Second... ah..."
He glanced at Hinata and sighed.
"Nah... forget the second, we'll go with the first plan. I think she still has th-"
"Um... Wh-wh-what would the second plan be?"
"... You really want to know? I doubt you'll like it."
She nodded, leaving him frowning again.
"...All right. What Laharl thinks I invited you to be, is a..."
He stumbled over the word 'minion', desperately seeking a word that wouldn't get him an up-close look at the taijutsu forms of the Hyuuga.
"... is a vassal, for me. Either to serve in battle, or I'd assume as a... uh... maid, of sorts. Plan two was that you actually become my... vassal. I told you you wouldn't like it."
Vassals... what do vassals do? The Hyuuga clan... or rather, her father, the head of the Hyuuga clan, had vassals... what did they do?
An image filled her head of her father, sipping sake from a cup as one of his vassals slowly and sensually scrubbed his back for him. The images faded and were replaced by Naruto and herself respectively... surprisingly, she didn't blush at the thought, though she came extremely close to having a major league nosebleed.
"I'LL DO IT! ... I... er... I-I mean... if you want?"
xxx
A.N.
Someone suggested Hinata as a minion, and I was already planning on altering her personality just a little bit from canon... Pervy Hinata-chan! It actually worked way better than I had planned. Anyway, enjoy, and leave a review with your suggestions for minions... by the way, slight spoiler here, but were Gozu and Meizu ever actually caught? I mean, Kakashi left them tied up for ANBU to pick up, but they could have escaped, right? They didn't neccessarily have to run back to Zabuza and lose against Sasuke again...