Harry stretched languidly as he opened his eyes and moaned at the stiffness that permeated his body. Harry didn't want a repeat of the day, but he couldn't help and appreciate the small amount of pain he was in at the moment. That pain meant he had survived the first day on Uzu and had gotten a good workout the previous day. Now, if he could get away from actually fighting for the day, he would be happy although he would be fine if he needed to be. Going through a few of the basic chakra exercises that he had been taught, his muscles instantly relaxing and the stiffness leaving his body. That was perhaps one of the greatest applications of chakra ever, Harry thought at the moment.
Moving out of his tent, Harry was happy that even though some of his temporary wards were offensive in nature, they hadn't been set off. Most likely, Harry would have been woken up if they had gone off, but it was nice to know that he hadn't been that exhausted the previous night. With his stomach calling out to those in dire straits like it was apparently, Harry dove into his sealed supplies for breakfast. He had been too tired to eat supper the previous day and a bit too busy for lunch, so two meals were scarfed down to try and recover all that energy. It was amusing to think that his earlier years had done more to prepare him for capture and drawn out battles than any of his training. Unfortunately, Harry could no longer say the Dursley's had never done anything for him, but he doubted they had ever planned for those days without food to help him. In fact, Harry knew that they had hoped he would pass out one day and just not get up again. How the schools and neighbors thought he was a malcontent individual that had supposedly murdered three people before he was seven when he barely had the strength to carry home his required books was beyond him.
Cleaning up his campsite, Harry decided that while there were still a few seals in the surrounding buildings that he hadn't seen, it was probably in his best interest to find out just how the constructs had found him yesterday and why they were summoned. Seeing no obvious trap or waystation, Harry decided to continue into the central part of the city to perhaps find the off switch for the trap as well as actual scrolls for the rest of the village. And although Harry had learned all skills of the shinobi world, he wasn't willing to chance a day like yesterday and brought out his invisibility cloak.
Harry had wanted to rip the old man a new one after the end of Voldemort and Harry had had time to actually study his invisibility cloak he had found a multitude of tracking charms and a few that allowed certain parties to actually see through it. So, during his time at Hogwarts he had almost gotten busted with the cloak over him and that should have never happened. Other invisibility cloaks were easy to spot if you were observant, but Harry's heirloom was a piece of Death's actual cloak! When he donned the cloak, there was nothing that would allow someone else to notice that he was there unless Harry wanted them to and was one of the few artifacts that he hadn't shared with his new home. He trusted Hiruzen and treated him as perhaps like a great uncle, they weren't close enough for a grandfather relationship and Hiruzen was almost twenty years older than Sirius, but Harry was also aware of what the Sandaime had to do to obtain his nicknames.
Stepping through one of the various gates that led to the inner city, Harry idly wondered whatever happened to the third hollow. He had never gone to look for the resurrection stone as that was a power he knew he wasn't ready for when he was still in Britain. Now though, it was idle curiosity as Konoha's counsellors were very good in getting someone over death and it was something else that Harry was happy for when arriving in this land. Apparently, only hit wizards and aurors were giving help through things relating to death and only if they hadn't dealt with it before they entered the force. The rest of the magical community was left to their own devices in dealing with tragedy and Harry shook his head at the ministry, especially after the Second War. It may not have been as long as the First, but Voldemort and his followers seemed to want the population in awe of them and the loss of life was tremendous. Of course, they couldn't go into the mundane world either since most witches and wizards lacked any physical records in the other part of the world, so that route was shot. Harry did want to speak to his family again, including Remus and Tonks, just to make sure that he could reach the afterlife and have them waiting for him.
Shaking his head to focus his thoughts as he avoided one of the samurai that patrolled the area, Harry spotted a rather large building. Not knowing where any of the buildings he was looking for was, Harry decided to take a chance and went in. He figured that this must have been a fairly important building as it was swarmed with the constructs and all seemed to be set in a tense position as if they expected someone to enter. Seeing this as a sign and thanking every deity he could thank for his true invisibility cloak, Harry quietly made his way across the building. He may not have had to keep his breathing low or watch his steps, but he couldn't help it being around so many hostiles and he even attempted to quite his heartbeat that seemed to be so loud in his head. He seemed to be hyperventilating every few minutes as he sucked in a breath when one of the samurai turned their heads and appeared to be looking right at him. Eventually, Harry made his way through the heavy congregation of the earthen warriors as they all appeared to be waiting in the annex of the building and now Harry knew there was something inside the building that was worth a looking into.
"Well, well, well," Harry muttered as he came across a bookshelf that was stuffed full, "What do we have here?" It seemed that Harry had somehow managed to find his way into either an academy of some sorts or a repository of jutsu since there weren't enough books and scrolls to be considered a library. Granted it was just one room, but Harry had a feeling that finding the Uzumaki library would leave him salivating. Still, what was in front of him was nothing to sneeze at as the rather large bookshelf that took up one half of a wall was filled with jutsu of all sorts. There were the basics that every village seemed to share of course, but there was others that seemed interesting and slightly different variations of a few techniques that were known in Konoha. That made sense though since the two villages were allies.
Harry decided to take everything, as ordered by Hiruzen, and there wasn't anything wrong with that. If he left them, the books and scrolls would have simply deteriorated in another decade or would have been picked up by a later team sent to Uzu. Harry separated the scrolls into the various categories and he grew a bit excited when he actually looked at some of the scrolls as they were all one handed. When he thought about it, one handed jutsu made sense since Uzu was well known for its sword masters even more so than Kumo now, so it was obvious that Uzu would have researched one hand seals quite thoroughly. Harry separated the scrolls into their various disciplines and anything that had Uzumaki as part of the jutsu was deposited into a special scroll for Naruto and his heritage that he would obtain when he became a genin, at least from his mother. Naruto wouldn't be allowed to know about his father at least until he had trained under Jiraya and although Harry was completely against the idea of not telling Naruto who his parents were, he almost understood. Why no one couldn't tell Naruto stories of his parents and just say their names were classified baffled Harry. Naruto may have been a bit naïve, but he was part of the ninja force and if he couldn't drop the subject when he was told to, then honestly he didn't deserve to be a part of the shinobi. It was perhaps a bit harsh, but it was the truth.
Finishing up with the bookshelf, Harry decided that he needed to move on and find out how to turn off the sentries as he wanted to enjoy the village and not have to look over his shoulder as he explored. As he exited the building, avoiding the congregation of warriors once again, the administrative building was easy to spot as the tower stuck out as it rose above the rest. Oddly enough, when Harry arrived at the tower there wasn't any defense waiting for him, but he had learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was about to proceed to the top when he noticed an odd glint just to the left of the staircase and although he was supposed to be a focused machine, he couldn't help but to be pulled to it just like he used to be pulled to a snitch.
"What do we have here?" Harry asked quietly and throwing a revealing charm to make sure it wasn't a trap. What he got was surprising though and confused him greatly. "What the hell are runes from my home doing here?" There was no mistaking what Harry was seeing as he gently brushed the dirt and grime from the wall and revealed more of what had first grabbed his attention. It seemed that the runes had reacted to his magical presence and now were glowing a bright blue. "Let's see, seals need blood to activate, so why not rune in seal central?"
Perhaps it wasn't sane for Harry to tamper with runes that he didn't fully understand, but after seven years of being a Gryffindor and truly fifteen years of almost no self-preservation thought ever crossing his mind, it was understandable that Harry wasn't exactly sane. However, Harry also had godly luck to make up for his horrible fate and it didn't fail this time either as a brief flash signified the acceptance of his blood and the wall behind the dunes seamlessly slid open. "Once more unto the breach dear friends," He muttered as he cast a light lumos charm and proceeded into the dungeons- for lack of a better word.
The beginning of the hidden walkway was somewhat disappointing as it was simply a walkway, although it was interesting to note that the halls were in much better shape than the village outside the tower and Harry wondered if it was because it was never found when the island was invaded or perhaps magic preserved it some way. There was no warning as Harry walked before he entered an antechamber that was already lit up with the light focused on a pedestal in the center of the room. There were portraits along the wall and although they received a cursory glance from the shinobi wizard, the pedestal drew his attention, more the item that was on it. Just as he was about to grasp the item, a cultured voice spoke up and drew his attention. "You are no longer a little boy, are you 'arry?"
Instinctively Harry drew his sword and took stock of his surroundings though he was confused when he couldn't see or sense anyone around him. "Am I hearing things?" He questioned out loud.
"No 'arry, but if you would look to your left you'll see me."
Doing what the voice said, Harry turned and all he saw was a portrait of a beautiful woman that looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't see where the voice came from. His eyes widened when he noticed the painting was now grinning and waving at him. It was then that he realized who the portrait was, "Fleur?!"
"Oui," She laughed musically, "Come closer 'arry, it's been a few hundred years since I've last seen you." Dumbly he nodded and simply followed the part Veela's instructions while his brain tried to catch up with what was just happening. "How long have you been in this period 'arry?"
Shaking his head, Harry answered his friend, "About three years Fleur. I arrived in Konoha in a flash of light and had to dodge actual ninja! It was so weird. Do you know what happened to me, or why I ended up here?"
"Do you mean if I know what Ronald and Draco did or why you ended up in this time?"
"I guess how I ended up here since you seem to know about those two," Harry answered.
"Oh yes, we knew what happened after a month of your absence and Ronald was experimenting with spells. It's sad that we hadn't expected him to have anything to do with your disappearance until he started applying himself to something that we weren't used to seeing. 'ermione and your 'eadmistress' combined glare had him confessing in no time flat and I think he was sleeping on the couch for quite a while." Harry grinned at the thought of Ron caving in front of the two sternest witches he knew. Although he loved his new home, if he met Ron or Malfoy again, they would be punished hard. "As for what actually happened to you, no one is sure to be told, but we could have definitely have used your help."
"Used my help, what happened?" Harry asked. It sounded like another problem came up and for some reason the rest of the wizarding world was useless against it. Of course, they were also useless against Voldemort and his minions and placed all their hopes on three teens that hadn't even had a full education and refused to actually fight back. Honestly, if they had been smart they would have set up traps as soon as the taboo was place and gotten rid of at least a few of the lower tiered death eaters instead of having to fight all of them at the final battle. Army against army sounded great in stories, but Harry would have been just fine in fighting only Voldemort at the end.
"The cause for the disappearance of magic and the eventual rise of chakra." Now Harry was interested. Getting a first-hand account of the supposed rise of chakra would be interesting as Harry had heard the legend of the Ridoku Senin. "It was twenty years after you had disappeared when a new dark lord rose. This one though had a unique spell that would drain any of those near him of their magic and unfortunately we had no fighters to take him on. You wouldn't be impressed by the next and last generation of magicals 'arry because they were more lazy than those before us with less common sense than the Malfoy's."
Harry snorted in amusement, "I'm honestly not surprised Fleur. You have to remember that I went to school with those that would birth the next generation and beyond that final battle when it was fight or die, there were very few that I would call upon for help and actually receive it. After years away from Ron and Hermione I can say they were pretty similar to the rest of my classmates, especially Ron."
Fleur sighed, "I can't argue with that especially now that we can see what happened. I'm probably the last magical portrait in existence and the only reason I'm here is because that Luna girl told us what was about to happen and I was the only one that believed her. The Weasley's outright ignored her and their spouses simply fell in line."
"Once again, not too surprising to be honest. But, we can come back to this later. You were talking about this new dark lord, so what did he do to have the world lose its magic?"
"It wasn't so much his fault as it was the lack of understanding of what magic truly is or once was. The villain, the scion of the Malfoy family if you would believe it, had taken Hogwarts and once again there was a battle at the ancient school. Someone, had decided that since he was draining the magic, if we could tap into the ley lines that resided right under the school, the man would be overpowered and then we could win. I'm not sure what happened as I was in Japan that day because we had heard rumors about Japan having a spell that was eerily similar to what the Malfoy child was using, but the United Kingdom and a bit of France was wiped off the map. We later learned that a beast had been created with the same powers as the Malfoy boy, but when we did learn it was already too late."
"So this beast, what was its name?" Harry asked after he was through cursing the Malfoy name to oblivion. Honesty, it seemed to always come back to the albino ferret and was one of the reasons why Britain was so bad.
"I think you know Harry, it was the Juubi. A monster of monsters and capable of molding the Earth to whatever it needed to be. It took ten years to grow out of sight and then, suddenly the Americas had vanished with no trace and Europe was being devastated. The magic that used to be in the Earth was instantly taken away and changed to something that none of us had ever experienced before and those that used magic felt ourselves growing weaker and weaker. The last bit of magic was used to create this portrait and in a fit of stupidity, try to recreate what created the monster in the first place. For some reason however, a tree grew in its place that bore just one fruit. My daughter Victoria volunteered to eat it and nothing was done except the monster hit some type of barrier and completely avoided what was once China and Japan.
"We were simply counting down the days to our demise when Victoria gave birth to a child with abilities never before seen and he was instantly trained as our last cast of the die and I hated every minute of it as it reminded me of what you once said your life felt like."
"So you created a weapon," Harry said in a monotone voice, as he unclenched his hands, trying to push down his feelings. Just before his sixth year, Harry had admitted that sometimes he felt so manipulated to Fleur in one of the few times that they were allowed a chance to be alone. Of course, Harry had simply brushed it aside when he got it out of his system and then the last two years took place and it was back to the forefront of his mind. Harry had told Fleur that next time he said something completely far-fetched, he was to be believed.
"Yes," Fleur sighed, "My grandson was turned into a weapon and I helped the bastards that did it. Bill and I had joined other curse breakers and rune masters that survived the first of the purges and crafted what you know as seals which did indeed help in the battle.
"Once everything was said and done, my grandson gave everybody, civilians and former magicals alike, the chance to share in his new energy and thus the shinobi era was born, with little to no technology around because of the foul taint that the beast left behind. While Hagoromo went off by himself to try and find a way to deal with the monster that he had sealed inside himself, my other children started their own families and after their generation, the Weasley hair came back and with a vengeance. We all eventually settled on this island and I got to see the first walls go up before my time came. Every clan head since that day has come to speak to me at least once a year, so that is why I am not currently asking about my descendants."
There was silence as Harry adjusted to what his friend told him. To be honest, Fleur's history sounded just as likely as the legend and since Fleur was supposedly there, he would take her word. "So, what now?" That was the question wasn't it.
"Well, I'm hoping you have the two hollows and once again reunite the hollows, but beyond that it is up to you. I am perfectly content to stay here and sleep until my next visitor as it becomes interesting to see what changes between visits. Perhaps one day someone will use this island to bring back magic," The way Fleur look at Harry told him that she knew much more than she was letting on, "Who knows? As long as you're happy Harry, I am content."
Seeing that Fleur wasn't forthcoming with any more answers, Harry decided to go ahead and pick up the resurrection stone. It was odd that he had just thought of the stone a few hours before and now had the chance to see it again. Picking up the stone, Harry turned back to ask Fleur if she knew how to turn off the earthen warriors when he was met with a terrifying figure that just screamed power. "Hello my master, I am Death and do I have a proposition for you," The voice seemed to both whisper and shout at the same time. Its scythe currently dripping blood and the head covered in a hooded cloak.
Ignoring the figure for just a moment, Harry tilted his body until he saw the stunned visage of Fleur, "Fleur, I'm going to have to put you on hold."
-Potter Sensei-
Naruto was slightly depressed as he walked around Konoha, not even noticing the glares that were sent his way at the moment. His sensei was out of the village, he had done all his exercises for the day, and even he knew he couldn't stay at a ramen stand all day. Naruto had hoped that Sensei Harry would have been home so he could have practiced his seals. Something about them just spoke to Naruto as he wrote and to know that a clan with the same last name as him had once been feared for their skills had driven him to even greater heights, especially as the Yondaime was said to know them as well. Naruto was so lost in his musings of how cool of a ninja he could be when he learned seals that he didn't notice the nonmoving figure until he found himself on his butt.
"Distracted there gaki?" The man said with an easy grin on his face. There was nothing special about the man and was someone that could simply be lost in the crowd without even trying.
"Sorry mister," Naruto said, prepared to bolt as soon as he got wind of the change of attitude in the man before him. He didn't know why, but Naruto did know that no one seemed to be nice after they had figured out just who they were looking at.
"No problem pipsqueak. So, what were you so focused on if you don't mind me asking?"
Seeing no harm in answering the man and wanting to share the awesomeness that was seals, Naruto answered, "I was kind of bummed that my teacher isn't in the village because I wanted to ask him for more seals to practice."
"A budding seal user huh," The man hummed and scratched his chin. "You know brat, I could teach you a thing or two about seals. I like to think I have a good hand involving fuinjutsu."
"You do!" Naruto's blue eyes shone brightly, "Can you teach me? Please!"
"Why not brat, after all I did offer already didn't I?"
"Awesome! I can't wait to learn more." Naruto cheered and the universe seemed to break at those simple words. "So who are you mister?"
"I can't tell you that brat," The man said as he motioned for Naruto to follow, "Right now I'm under a henge and everything. I'm a Konoha ninja, no worried there, but if someone were to see you with me, your life may be in danger. You'll be allowed to know one day, but for now just call me Sensei."
"Sure sensei!"
As the day wore on, Jiraya watched his godson take to the various seals he taught like a fish to water. There was room for improvement of course, but it seemed being a genius in seals bred true and Jiraya was happy to do this. He would have to thank this Harry for giving Sarutobi, and by extension him, a needed kick in the butt. This was exactly what both he and Naruto needed.
A/N: Would have had this chapter out earlier, but I was at a wedding, so... Anyways, hope you all liked the twist of Fleur as many of you thought it would be Luna. I admit, when I was planning this chapter it was originally Luna, but thought this would be a different route to take. Hopefully, you liked my history as well. I'm sure I forgot something important so if any of you could point it out, I'll try to fix it in a later chapter. Until next time!