Chapter 10:
I don't own Naruto, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any of the Naruto Abridged references that will soon show up. I do own all OCs and new jutsu in the story.
If you think I copied something from another fic, it depends. A small fact or trick probably is copied by accident, but big changes or powers are all me.
Please note that there will be heavy blood and gore at the end of this chapter.
o. o. o.
The rest of the first month went by quickly. Naruto and Hinata were progressing at an incredible pace, making even Ghost raise his eyebrows a few times.
'What is it with these child hero types? No matter how many I give a hand to, and no matter how stupid they originally were, they all end up learning and growing at speeds that would make chia pets shit themselves! What the hell do they eat?'
Naruto had progressed at an immense rate due to Ghost's tutelage and his new shadow clone training style. He could form a Rasengan in either hand with a mere flick of the wrist, regardless of whether he was tree climbing or water walking or leaf balancing (or any combination of the three).
Oddly enough, at one point in the training, Ghost was looking at the Rasengan that Naruto was making in his hands and after looking at his arm in comparison, he told Naruto to make the attack smaller. To show how small he wanted them, Ghost got a ruler and tied it to the underside of the boy's wrist so one end was sticking out from under his palm, and told him to make the attack small enough to not touch the stick.
It took a whole day to get it right (or several years' worth of clone training), but the smaller, more concentrated and more potent Rasengan became the new standard size when the blonde used it.
The kid's body had definitely shaped up a bit as well. While Ghost had noted that his body was pretty ripped before, it wasn't the kind he needed. The muscles he had, while powerful, were the wrong type for the kind of fighting he was going to do. Ghost's training had toned down Naruto's huge muscles and strengthened the ones he hadn't developed yet. In short, Ghost was turning Naruto's once future body builder type body to a more triathlon style body. Not overly muscular, but extremely strong and able to go long periods of time without needing to rest. While his body wasn't in the best shape it could be yet, it was only a matter of time.
All this with a gravity seal set on 3X.
Without his seal on, Ghost surmised that the kid was already as fast as a low level jōnin. Quite an improvement, considering his original speed only clocked in at low chūnin, which was a result of his constant pranking and escaping.
He still was nowhere near as fast as Lee without his weights, but that was to be expected. The green boy wonder was probably at high jōnin level speeds without his weights on now, and would only get faster as time went on. Ghost and Naruto wondered how fast the enthusiastic spandex lad would be when he grew up all the way. They decided that if Lee achieved a level of speed that only he could reach, they would create a new level named after him. Deciding on a decent name based off of Lee was proving to be a challenge though.
…So far Green Beast level, Tight Spandex level, Bushy Brows level, Scary level, and Shiny Hair level have all been considered and turned down. WTF level was still being considered.
By experimenting, he found that he could push his transformation to roughly as small as a medium sized fūma shuriken, or as large as someone roughly the size of Kisame with his sword. Same mass, shape, feel, look, everything. With a little practice, he could also transform with minimal smoke and without any hand seals. He also found that if one of his clones turned into a projectile covered in exploding tags, they wouldn't explode. When Naruto asked Ghost why, Ghost replied that the most reasonable answers would be that either it's because Naruto does not know how to make an exploding seal, and as such the fake seals on the transformation are null and void, or simply because that it's a transformation and the process of making an exploding tag is not incorporated into the new form, making the fake tags useless regardless of what he does. This idea also explained why when Naruto transformed into something/someone with a special ability, such as Kisame's sword or Itachi with his Sharingan, he only gained the shape and not the powers that came along with it.
Despite that setback, Naruto's training with his replacement technique had blossomed into something beautiful and exploitable beyond words, evident by how much Ghost was crying anime tears when Naruto first applied it in a spar with the long haired man.
True to what Ghost had predicted, Naruto could indeed replace himself with his clones. In fact, he could do it much faster with his clones than he could do so with a normal log once he got the hang of it. Both assumed it was because they had the same chakra wavelength and his experience with using clones in combat enabled him to do the switch more smoothly and without less chakra. Not only that, but Ghost had for a week and a half trained Naruto in replacing himself at faster speeds and intervals, and his range of replacing had increased to a 50 meter radius.
Naruto would first create roughly 300 clones (when he first started the exercise, his control had increased to the point where he could make 1400 without any trouble) and transform them into stones around a VERY happy Ghost and an uncomfortably large pile of kunai, with and without tags, while Naruto simply stood in a random spot. Ghost would then proceed to throw kunai at Naruto at an increasing pace and speed while Naruto continued to do nothing but replace himself around the area until all the clones were stabbed. It did not matter where Naruto relocated, as Ghost seemed to be able to tell where the boy was almost immediately after each switch.
No running or dodging aside from replacing was allowed. If he was hit or tried to get out of the way, they would start all over from the beginning again. This also gave Ghost good training in throwing weapons in various directions.
Needless to say Ghost enjoyed this training exercise far more than Naruto did.
Despite getting stabbed on average a few hundred times a day, Naruto had to admit that the results of the exercise were easily worth it. He could now replace himself at a moment's notice with virtually anything remotely close to his size, including large logs, small stones, occasionally random civilians, (even Hinata once by accident). He could perform replacements repeatedly with only a fraction of a second in between each one, and was very difficult to hit. Like his transformation, his replacement was also almost smokeless and seal-less.
Naruto and Ghost did notice that it was harder to replace yourself with someone/thing that had a fair amount of chakra that wasn't in tune with your own. The more chakra it had, the harder it was to do the technique.
It made sense logically… but logic wasn't really something the two really followed or listened to if it was against them and currently had a side project going up where they were trying to create a technique to replace themselves with virtually anyone regardless of how much chakra they had. It was slow going at the moment, but the two were stubborn, and the usefulness of such a technique was well worth the mental breakdowns.
He also made this trick to screw around with future opponents where he would set them up in the middle of transformed clones and start to replace himself repeatedly at a fast pace, occasionally adding a non-transformed clone every few replacements to give off the illusion that he is moving far faster than he really is, pretty much making Naruto look like the rebirth of the Yellow Flash.
When Ghost first saw this trick, he laughed his ass off and told him that if he ever pulled this trick off on an Iwa shinobi, they would freak out thinking that they were up against the phantom of the Fourth. Ghost made Naruto promise that if that ever happened, he would take a picture of his opponent's face so he could frame it later.
The youth's chakra control had also shot up at an incredible rate (think Tsunade's blood pressure when Jiraiya does something perverted fast). Even though his chakra reserves had increased a little, his control was still the main focus. By the end of the month, the boy was training with an astounding 1700 clones in the training grounds at once. The combined leaf balancing and water walking and tree climbing exercises was a miracle working activity, and when combined with the Frog-fu kata and other physical exercises, his control increased even more.
Ghost still pounded the clones whenever they screwed up, and he was still for some reason forcing a good deal of them to leaf balance several leaves on their forearms and under their wrists. Occasionally, he would even force them to cut the leaves while leaf balancing them from said positions without any help. That took a while in Naruto's opinion and seemed kind of useless, but Ghost kept on giving the youth the same excuse. "It will help you do something really freaking awesome later on."
Naruto didn't know what was going on, but considering that his new teacher thought his Flying Thunder God mimic move 'pretty damn cool', this new thing that supposedly was 'really freaking awesome' must be really freaking… awesome.
Naruto's Sage Mode training had also yielded some interesting results. At first, it took the kid at least thirty seconds to enter Sage Mode and could only use one clone as a spare battery and two for combat due to his reduced control and reserves.
Now after extensive training, a fair amount of good advice from Ghost about how different energies work, and an unknown number of concussions (Ghost was glad that the large stick he found earlier could be put to good use), Naruto could enter Sage Mode within nine seconds and use three clones as backups while using an additional five clones for combat purposes. They would have trained more in this field, but they still felt that it was too early to introduce Hinata to some of Naruto's more interesting skills.
Taijutsu wise, both the blonde and brunette were progressing at an incredible pace.
o. o. o.
Flashback:
The next time Hinata came over, Ghost introduced the two to several types of dancing forms and martial arts.
To both, he started teaching break dancing. When asked why, Ghost replied that while the entirety of the style is a bit too extravagant and inefficient to use for fighting, certain aspects of it were unusually helpful when up against stronger and slower opponents. To prove his point, Ghost told Naruto to hit him as hard as he could.
Naruto was more than happy to oblige, sending the man flying back several feet before hitting the ground, only to bounce back up on his feet the second he hit it… albeit he was hunched over and swearing about overpowered steroid-children.
Catching his breath again, Ghost then walked back to the two and proceeded to simply fall back on the ground, seemingly about to hit heavily, only to bounce back up in various manners and positions.
"The point of teaching you two break dancing is to apply three of its main characteristics into your fighting style to make it more efficient." Ghost explained to the two interested youths.
"The first is control. I am physically the weakest out of everyone in my family. At best, I am as strong as roughly an upper level chūnin or a lower level jōnin." This raised some eyebrows, "However, I also have the greatest control of how my body moves as well. Every movement I make can be and often is precise and linked to the next, leaving little or no wasted energy and power. Hinata, you are already on your way to mastering this step given your family's taijutsu style's focus of hitting specific points on the human body, but you still lack the range of control that you need to truly exploit this trait. Instead of focusing on your arms, this will train you to use and control your entire body to move at speeds and angles that you are not normally used to while maintaining a fair amount of accuracy in your strikes. Blondie, this goes double for you." Hinata blushed while Naruto growled.
"The second trait, and the one you will probably use most often, is recovery. Break dancing is very fast and wild and often has the user low on the ground or in the air about to hit the ground. Either way, there are methods to make sure the dancer lands from even the greatest falls without so much as a scratch and can pop back up from even the most unusual positions. Using these tricks will allow you to recover from taking a hit much faster than usual and possibly take less damage from the fall as well. Sometimes, it may allow you to recover fast enough to get a decent counter blow in. It is a very useful skill to have and can sometimes save your life."
Ghost grinned. "The last application of this style is its unpredictability. Break dancing is well known in several areas as a sort of creative sport. Each special trick and routine is supposed to be unique to the one who used it. The same way with fighting in general. The flashier and more creative your style is, the more eyes you will turn and the harder it is for your opponent to come up with something to top it. Unpredictability can sometimes be the deciding factor in a fight and result in even the weakest fighters overcoming the most experienced opponents." Naruto smirked. "Needless to say, Naruto has plenty of this and knows how to use it. This is good practice for the both of you to be creative with what you have and see what you can get out of it. By the end of the three months, I want both of you to create at least four solo routines and at least two duo routines, complete with your own personal moves. The duo routines are a teamwork and trust exercise, and will also teach you two to apply your creative thinking to situations where there are multiple elements on your side of the field."
Hinata was astonished at the applications of such a dancing style. If her family ever saw her perform as such, she would not hear the end of it, but the benefits were simply beyond useful. She watched as Ghost fell on his head several times; every time he fell exactly the same way, but his recovery was different each time. Sometimes he tucked in and rolled to his side, others he sprung his body into a flip, some he rolled forward on his feet, and others he landed almost flat on his face, only to have his body bend backwards and roll in the opposite direction until he was once again comfortably on his feet. Each time he was recovering without a scratch and moving as fluidly as running water.
It was worth it.
Naruto… was simply staring at how cool the dancing style was.
o. o. o.
Break dancing was perfect for the two. With Naruto's endless energy and knack for the chaotic arts and Hinata's grace and flexibility, the two were quickly learning several tricks and routines, mastering them as quickly as they were learning them thanks to their ninja training and their determination to get stronger.
While he didn't mention it before, the style had one more benefit. Due to the constant movement and frequent spinning that break dancing contained, the two children often became dizzy or disoriented during their practice runs and had to take frequent breaks. Breaks that were slowly shortening as time went on.
By the time the two finished their training in break dancing, Ghost determined that it would take a massive blow to the head or excessive blood loss to get the two to start making mistakes in their styles and forms. Not only that, but the spinning was excellent training for Hinata for when she finally started to learn Kaiten. Ghost had no doubt that there were more than a few Main house Hyūga who'd died after learning Kaiten because they lost their lunch during a fight after using the move too much.
Ghost soon afterwards began teaching Hinata tai-chi, which she recognized as a style that was remarkably similar to Jūken with its indirect movements and its fluid stances, aside from the fact that it dealt damage through fists as well as palm strikes. When she asked why he was teaching her this form, Ghost replied that it was an excellent counter style. He explained that since the form was similar to her Jūken, she could apply some of its stances and kata to Jūken to iron out some of the weaknesses in her family's style, such as some of the stiff counter stances to keep her form somewhat fresh. Also, he explained that in the event that she came across an opponent that is somehow immune to Jūken's chakra strikes, she would have a style that didn't rely on chakra strikes to defend herself with.
As an extra homework for the heiress, Ghost asked Hinata to look for a dancing style that she thought would be beneficial to her style of fighting and ask Ghost to teach her. When she asked what if she found something he didn't know how to dance to, Ghost merely laughed and told her that if she did, he would give her even more training than what he had originally planned as thanks for finding a new style for him to dance to.
She had yet to find anything, but Ghost knew that it wouldn't be long. The girl's eyes showed too much determination to simply give up.
To Ghost's amusement, even with the addition of another martial art, Hinata was improving at a far more impressive pace than Naruto was. He guessed that it was due to her family's focus on taijutsu and chakra control that she could learn new forms faster than other people. Her body was simply more used to memorizing stances and forms than Naruto's was.
Focusing on Hinata, the girl's progress was phenomenal despite the fact that she would only train with them three days a week. Her speed and precision in general was growing at a pace beyond ridiculous, let alone her striking speed. Ghost had to make a mental note to re-define the term 'poke of death' after watching the girl blow apart a practice log with her fingers with her seal on. When she and Naruto sparred using only taijutsu (meaning no shadow clones) without their seals on, Hinata won 90% of the time. After she got over her initial fear of hurting Naruto, of course. That took a few weeks.
Ghost was simply astounded on how much a little encouragement and positive reinforcement can do. He decided to have another talk with Hiashi to tell him that his daughter was something that prodigies should bloody well worship and to start getting his clan elder's heads out of their asses before they do something that they would regret dearly. If Ghost wasn't so sure that Naruto was going to be Hokage, he would have been pretty convinced the mousy girl would have been the next village leader the day she decided to stand up for herself.
Her standard gravity seal setting was already at 2.15X. Not bad considering the girl is tiny as hell.
Her chakra control and reserves had also blown up to ridiculous proportions. She could now train nearly twice as long as she used to when she first started, which placed her among the mid/upper tier of her age group in terms of reserves - still nowhere close to Naruto's, but who is aside from Kisame? - , and she could recover much quicker as well. Hinata could now without fail water walk and tree climb, and was almost done mastering the combinations as well. This didn't include her Rasengan training.
Naruto was 100% correct when he claimed that Hinata would learn the steps faster than he would. Within a week, she had already figured out the first step and had managed to pop the water balloon in her dominant hand. It took another week for her to be able to pop a water balloon in her other hand, and for extra credit do both at the same time in under 2 seconds as well. Both Naruto and Ghost were gaping when she showed them how fast she learned the first step. The third week was spent simply training herself to do a repeat performance while water walking and tree climbing. Needless to say the males in the group were beyond impressed.
Hinata was currently busy applying the first step to her Jūken, along with her tai-chi and her break dancing. When asked if she would show what she had come up with so far, Hinata merely blushed, pressed her fingers together, and mumbled that she wanted it to be a surprise and would show it to them when she felt it was ready.
Fighting style aside, Hinata had physically started to develop too … no, not in that way perverts… she started that development years ago. Hinata's body was more physically fit and muscular. What skin she did show - she was still too shy to ditch the coat - was tanning at a gradual pace and developing a great complexion. She was still paler than the general population, but now she could be identified as the Hyūga that didn't look like a closet shut-in.
Following some… advice from Ghost, Hinata had also decided to grow her hair out a bit. The results so far were not that noticeable, seeing as it has only been a month since she started, but there was a bit more length to her hairstyle now.
Training with Naruto and Ghost had slowly removed some of Hinata's timid personality. She did not stutter anymore unless Naruto was around, and even then it was reduced greatly. She had begun to assert herself with her training and had started to make decisions for herself instead of following other people's advice.
By other people's advice, we mean Ghost trying to get Hinata to do something stupid/embarrassing at least twice a week in order for her to grow a bit of back bone or to push the two kids closer together… or to see her do something stupid and or embarrassing.
o. o. o.
Flashbacks:
"Hey Hinata! I think Naruto would really like it if you sat in his lap and kissed him!"
"Hey Hinata! You should totally rub Naruto's belly and tell him you think he is your own personal Buddha!"
"Hey Hinata! Make me a sandwich!"
"Hey Hinata! I think you should go tell Naruto that you think he's hot and sexy and that you want to do dirty things to him!"
"Hey Hinata! Where do you think pigeons come from?"
"Hey Hinata!" Ghost runs in with a bag. "You should totally wear this stuff during your next training session!" Hinata opened the bag, closed it, and struck Ghost several dozen times with her Jūken before walking away blushing heavily. Surprisingly enough though, Ghost never found that bag after he came to…
o. o. o.
Needless to say, while Hinata still respected Ghost as a teacher, her respect for him as a competent human being was not so evident, going so far as to actually showing disapproval of his behavior and even occasionally mild irritation. Success!
While she never focused on the academy three with Naruto or Ghost, Hinata's clone, replacement, and transformation improved drastically. She now could do the techniques at a moment's notice without seals and with little to no smoke.
Before, Hinata had to focus to try to make any more than two normal clones; now she could make seven without a moment's hesitation and still fight with no trouble.
When Hinata asked the two why Naruto wasn't practicing the clone technique, the two merely responded that Naruto did not really need to learn it to become a genin. While she didn't show it, Hinata knew that they were hiding something from her. Growing up in the Hyūga clan had given her some skills in detecting misleading sentences, and red lights were flashing when they mentioned becoming genin and said nothing about the test. While she was curious as to why they were so confident in Naruto's progression into the ranks, she knew that they wouldn't tell her until they thought it was necessary.
Little did Hinata know that all she needed to do was ask why Naruto didn't need to know the clone technique. The males of the group had already decided that it was good for Hinata if they provoked her curiosity and encouraged her to ask questions in order to improve her timid personality. She needed to assert herself some more, and this was just one more way to encourage it.
o. o. o.
Ghost in the meantime had learned the Shadow Clone technique from Naruto several days after the meeting, and was constantly training with them in chakra control and learning/perfecting the replacement technique. When asked why he didn't learn the transformation or Rasengan, Ghost shrugged and claimed that he didn't need them.
What his two students didn't see was Ghost's night training, which focused on converting his natural energy into chakra and pushing it out into the air, giving him his Seventh Sense. Even with 100 clones and knowing a good part of what he was doing, it took the man a couple of weeks to get used to the change. Chakra was slightly less concentrated than normal energy, which meant it lasted in the air for a shorter period of time, reducing its effective range from his standard 500 meter radius to a 200 meter radius. However, the conditioning of the surrounding area took far less time than he expected, and controlling the surrounding air was a bit easier as well. Ghost assumed that this was due to this world's constant use of and flow of chakra, and as such the surrounding air was already preconditioned to some degree.
He'd also found a VERY interesting use for the tree climbing exercise in close quarters combat that he'd decided to keep to himself…
The rest of his month was committed to controlling the air around him with chakra, going through his normal patterns and familiarizing himself with the new form of power while creating small twisters, compressed pockets of air, wind blades, and large vacuums. Much to Ghost's irritation, anything large scale seemed to take up more energy than it should have.
After… borrowing a few books from the village's library and the old man and trying some wind style jutsu, Ghost came to the conclusion that the hand formations acted as a sort of spiritual to physical temper and mold. Unless the technique was extremely highly concentrated and close to the body, such as Rasengan and its variants, or if there was some sort of medium to channel a person's powers through, seal-less chakra fueled attacks were nearly useless outside a small range of the user's body because hand signs are needed to convert a person's chakra into a form that is real enough to exist independent of the user's body for any length of time.
The reason why people can perform some techniques without hand seals is because after a certain amount of practice and repetition, the body of the caster will be able to instinctively replicate the pattern normally created by the seals. The longer the pattern and the more powerful the technique is, the longer it will take for the body to memorize the sequence. Occasionally, the body will be able to automatically trigger the technique on instinct even if the person couldn't normally do so if it was a life or death situation.
The strongest attacks, which often require the most seals as well, are too powerful and complicated for the standard or even advanced ninja of this world to perform seal-less without severely damaging their body's chakra coils. The strain imposed by trying to prepare something that large by instinct is simply beyond their capability. Instead, what most ninja do is shorten the sequence to a handful of seals as a shortcut. That is why some ninja can perform attacks that require over 25 hand seals with just four. While in some cases this may lead to a slightly weaker attack due to a weak 'mold', the time saved by doing so was generally considered to make up for it.
This means that before Ghost could start pretending to be a god among ninja (pretending…hehehe), he will have to learn, and in many cases re-create, several dozen of his personal techniques before he can go about claiming to be the greatest thing since sliced bread… if he wanted to.
Because his body already knew how to perform these techniques, all he really needs to do is figure out the correct sequence of hand seals and practice them until he's able to do them chakra-efficiently. It is similar to using different kinds of fuel for a car. Ghost's engine is the way he uses his powers, and his energy is the fuel. Because he is changing his fuel to the kind needed in this world, he needs to change his engine as well, or else he will be highly inefficient (waste energy) on the road (fighting).
Luckily, he'd also discovered another little trick that would help Naruto and him out later. It seemed that Ghost, with a little experimenting and extra training, could comfortably create a shadow clone anywhere within his recently adjusted Seventh Sense, all the way over to the very edge of his awareness, over 200 meters away, with little concentration. Ghost assumed this was due to having his chakra already in place, and so focusing in that area caused the chakra there to react in kind.
Experimenting a little more, Ghost realized that he could perform any jutsu that did not require using his body as a medium or being fired as a projectile in his sense range as easily as if it was from his own body.
Such an advantage over his enemies was beyond useful.
Needless to say, there was a lot of maniacal laughter in the training grounds that night.
After Ghost returned to the land of the moderately sane, he finally got to business and started to go over the jutsu creation scrolls.
The visitor grumbled. He was like Naruto, a guy who learned by doing, not by reading. But unfortunately, this was something he had to do in private.
He had a mass assassination technique to make…
o. o. o.
Kakashi was added to the group several days after Ghost's meeting with the council. Though he was asked several times to meet the council again, Ghost declined, saying that he 'had absolute faith in the council and most esteemed Hokage's judgment on the matter, and felt that if he was there he would only complicate matters further.'
The council members who had their heads on straight, which were most of the clan heads, and surprisingly enough Danzō, got the real message.
"This is all I'm going to tell you for now. If you want more from me, do what the old man tells you to without any questions. Otherwise, fuck off and leave me alone or else I leave and the seal goes unsupervised."
Needless to say, the decisions regarding Naruto and Ghost went by a lot faster than Sarutobi expected, and within a few days Kakashi was in his office receiving instructions on his latest assignment.
The second Kakashi arrived (3 hours later than the designated time of course), Ghost snuck up behind the unsuspecting pervert and held him down in a full nelson while Naruto slammed a chain link into his forehead. Luckily, Hinata was not there that day to witness the ensuing chaos.
Kakashi spent the next hour rolling on the ground, grabbing his head, and above all else trying to stay away from Ghost and Naruto while they tried to take off his mask and take a picture of his face while giggling like little girls.
They currently have at least 37 pictures of a rather handsome man hidden somewhere in the village, primed for blackmail usage or to be copied for mass distribution.
When the cyclops finally came to, Ghost and Naruto explained to him what was going on, the rules of the game, who was currently involved, and assured him that nothing the villagers could do would affect the seal now. Ghost also told Kakashi that he could keep his link, as he was their best chance of getting one on Zabuza when the time came.
When asked why and how they would add Zabuza to the group, Ghost smirked and merely replied that he was doing some research on Mizugakure and its past few Kage, and he'd found some interesting things that the renegade swordsman might be interested in.
As for why they would want the man and his assistant on their side… Ghost simply slapped Kakashi upside the head and told him to figure it out himself.
Naruto left early that day to give his body a good rest with Ghost's permission, claiming that he needed to discuss something with Kakashi in private. He did, however, feel a massive amount of familiar killing intent on the way back to his apartment …
The next day, Kakashi was seen running throughout the village while shaking a carton of milk in front of his face, laughing his ass off and screaming "HAHAHA MOOOOOOO!" and "DANCE COW DANCE!"
Several days later, Naruto asked Kakashi what had happened, Kakashi having been detained for psychiatric evaluation in the meantime. The scarecrow paused before saying that he had a moment of weakness, made a bad decision, and was simply suffering the repercussions.
Naruto knew better than to ask any further questions on the subject when Ghost appeared behind Kakashi and the jōnin actually JUMPED in surprise, with a fair amount of fear.
Kakashi spent the rest of the month getting used to the fact that he was in the past, giving Naruto, Hinata and Ghost tips on various ninja techniques and control exercises, restoring his body to the shape it was in before the time jump, and regaining control of his Mangekyō Sharingan.
Apparently, the advanced form of the eye was unlocked via a mental trigger, so when Kakashi came back, his super eye of death ability came back too. Ghost asked Kakashi a few weeks of their initial meeting how he unlocked his eye's final power out of curiosity, but the silver haired man replied nonchalantly that everyone had their secrets and went back to his porn/book.
Hinata took Kakashi's appearance fairly well and was eager to have another teacher help her and Naruto get stronger… until she saw what he was reading and not so subtly made remarks about his choice of literature.
Needless to say, this gave the two youths another thing to talk about… their unfortunate attraction for perverted teachers. It would be perverts in general, but with Naruto's sexy techniques and Hinata's now ridiculously detailed fantasies, they both silently admitted to themselves that going in that direction would be both hypocritical and self-destructive.
Ironically enough, one day Ghost asked Kakashi if he could check out the book to see what the big deal was. He knew it was pretty graphic, but other than that he was pretty much clueless on the series. The only reason why he didn't simply buy the book was because he knew that if he was seen with it in public, even in a bag, his chances of getting laid in the village would plummet drastically.
There were WAY too many eligible and beautiful women in this village to take such a risk.
After a few moment's pause, and a somewhat intimidating evil grin, Kakashi handed over his book with an unconvincing eye smile.
It took a whole ten seconds of reading a random page before Ghost threw the book down on the ground and torched it with a lighter and some bug spray in front of a shocked and horrified Kakashi. The entire time, Ghost was chanting several exorcism rituals to kill the evil demon residing in that book known as horrible literature. While he may be a pervert, Ghost also loved good stories. Anything with less plot development than a semi-relevant filler TV episode of a large series (hint hint) was immediately a lost cause to the man and should be purged.
Ghost then dragged the mourning jōnin to the nearest bookstore, got him a moderately large adult rated science fiction book, thrust it into his chest and told him to read.
If people thought it was hard to get a book away from the man before… now it was near impossible for anyone besides the Hokage or Ghost.
When Naruto and Hinata asked why science fiction, Ghost responded, "Three reasons. One, the stuff is addicting as hell and there are enough series to keep his attention for a long time. Two, compared any other genre, science fiction has the widest range of creativity, characters and plot lines out there, so it's a good inspiration for various tactics against opponents with obscure abilities which he will most likely go up against in the future. Three, when it comes to smut, there is nothing that science fiction won't eventually cover. Unlike that Icha-Icha crap, said smut will be evenly paced, in decent detail, have proper grammar, and not sound like it came from the mouth of an eight year old that just came out of his first sex ed class."
When asked why he didn't read sci-fi as much as Kakashi, Ghost merely grinned, blushed and said, "Guess."
o. o. o.
Naruto, Hinata, Kakashi, and Ghost were in the training field finishing up the lunch that Hinata brought them. Naruto was silently worshipping Hinata's culinary skills, Kakashi was reading his new book with one hand while cleaning up with the other, Hinata was blushing in response to Naruto's mute praise while cleaning up a majority of the trash and Ghost was sleeping in a branch in a nearby tree, evident by the large bubble coming out of his nose.
According to Ghost, the training was going to get an upgrade that day. Apparently his two students had progressed far enough in their 'basic conditioning' training that he felt that it was time to give them a more intense regimen after their lunch break. Judging by how much he was giggling when he said it, Naruto and Hinata were sure they would not like it.
Just as everyone was ready to start their warm up exercises again, Ghost grabbed his head in such intense pain that he fell out of the tree and only barely managed to land on his feet.
"FUCK! Today?! Damn it!" He shouted in agony.
"Ghost-sensei?" Hinata asked in a shocked tone.
"Ero-nii?" Naruto said in a confused voice.
"Ghost-san? What's the matter?" Kakashi asked, having already put his book away.
"AAARRRHHH, FUCK!" He screamed as he stumbled violently to either side. None of them had ever seen Ghost act this way before. They would be lying if they had said that they weren't scared at that moment.
"Hold on," Kakashi said urgently as he tried to get a grip on the thrashing man. Hinata looked like she was about to cry and Naruto was simply paralyzed. "I'll get you to the hospital and we'll get you help."
"NO." Ghost muttered. The air around him seemed to echo that single word as if it was a part of him. Everyone froze in their spots, unable to breathe, let alone move.
"Whatever… you do." He breathed out between gasps in a somewhat darker and hoarse voice as a pair of stripped bone wings unfurled from his back, unrestrained by his shirt and jacket. Taking a few more strained breaths, the air around the man… cracked?
"Don't… follow me."
And with that he took off at a speed none of them thought was physically possible – even Kakashi, who's seen Gai fight with seven gates opened… and of course seen the Fourth in action as well - in a random direction, already out of sight before it registered to them that he had left. The slipstream he created in his wake was strong enough to carve a meter deep trench in the earth in the direction he was going, however the trees that should have been in his way were completely unmarred. Of course, the three shocked bystanders couldn't see the trench until the enormous cloud of dust and debris settled down and their fear induced paralysis wore off.
o. o. o.
Training area 44 was known as the Forest of Death for several reasons. Its inhabitants were bloodthirsty, giant abominations of nature. The plant life was almost as carnivorous as the animals and insects crawling on its boughs. A perfectly good example of one of the unique and lethal inhabitants would be the rare and dangerous exploding squirrel species. Among the smallest creatures in the forest, this critter has one of the highest kill per encounter ratio among non-ninja animals in the world, minus the bijū of course.
However, one of the top reasons why it was given its name was because it was a popular hangout area for Anko Mitarashi and anyone who had her interest at the time.
Today, it was Hana Inuzuka, chūnin, village vet, and unregistered ANBU for the Hokage.
The soon to be 18 year old was currently one of the few ANBU agents directed with spying on any and all ROOT agents and activities. Her division was the Hokage's answer to Danzō's ROOT program, and had been in action long before Ghost made his appearance. Her job as the village vet was the perfect cover to keep her in the village without drawing any attention as to why a perfectly capable chūnin with decent medical skills was constantly staying within the village walls instead of doing missions like everyone else.
Hana enjoyed what she did. She got to stay inside the village and relax a good portion of the time at home. There was little distance from anything she wanted or needed at any point in any of her missions. She got to stay with her family and make sure that they were safe, and she got paid VERY well for her tri-weekly espionage missions around town in addition to her day job, which mainly consisted of simply following confirmed ROOT members going about their daily lives and occasionally breaking and entering their homes to steal any letters or information that they'd received. Seeing that she only followed small fry and occasionally some mid-level members of the organization, the danger level of her work was reasonably low… considering she was dealing with an underground assassin organization and all.
At the moment though, she and her ninja hounds, the grey triplets, were simply on the receiving end of one of Anko's semi drunk rants.
In many, many cases this would count as an A-rank mission seeing as the Snake Mistress likes to 'rant' with kunai, senbon and other sharp implements.
"That long haired BASTARD!" She shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.
"I get it." Hana sighed somewhat irritably. "He fondled your breasts and got away with it without paying the consequences. It's no reason to hold a grudge for a month…" She was interrupted by a flurry of shuriken.
"You should know better mutt girl!" Anko growled, irritating the ANBU some more. "You knew that I was going to milk that ANBU pool for everything it was worth!" The purple haired woman wept. "I was going to put a genjutsu on myself that week and 'accidentally' fall out of a changing room topless with a few unsuspecting ninja inside the store nearby. They spread the word and the pool goes up in my favor! YOU then put a bet on my real size and several days later I let it slip to one of your team mates completely hammered and BOOM! We have enough cash to last us for the next three years! Gone! ALL GONE BECAUSE SOME PERVERT OUT OF NOWHERE DECIDED TO FEEL ME UP AND SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HOW BIG MY TITS ARE!" Anko was leaning against a tree, crying her eyes out at this point while Hana and her dogs simply deadpanned.
She didn't really need or want the money in the first place, she was just along for the thrill of screwing over some of the idiots that she worked with. The same morons who started the pool on how big Anko was were constantly making cracks about her own figure when they weren't on the job. Hana didn't have the heart or the nerve to tell Anko that she beat the Snake Mistress by a good two cup sizes… It hurt even thinking about putting on those restrictive chūnin vests every time she had to go on a mission…
Hana was more interested in said long haired pervert than the ruined scheme, and she knew that Anko was too… well, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement, but he did pique the Snake Mistress' curiosity. Anyone who could escape her clutches constantly while staying in the walls of the village had to be somewhat interesting.
That, and it was somewhat impressive that he could tell what a woman's bust size was with an accidental squeeze. Most perverts just grab and run without any brain functions working between the two steps.
Then there were his run-ins with Danzō and his ROOT agents.
Hana had been working as a spy for the Hokage for years, and had not once heard of someone who'd not only gained the war hawk's interest to the point of sending multiple squads to spy on them, but who was constantly taking out, looting, and thoroughly embarrassing said squads in the process in record time! She would have given anything to be on the scene when the man had pulled off his now legendary pirate, space alien and giraffe bondage incident… and to find out where the hell he gets his costumes from…the corset on the giraffe was simply…and the harness that the pirate was in was so… And do not get her started on the headgear…
Er… moving on.
She had heard rumors from the other ANBU that the guy was there to help fix a small problem with the Kyūbi kid's seal. She had nothing against the container, but the pranks he pulled were starting to get on her nerves. The last time he pulled one on the Inuzuka clan's compound, it took her weeks to get the remains of the prank and its messy aftereffects from the animal shelter pens. It took several more weeks to get the rancid smell of animal excrement out of her hair.
She'd also heard that the guy was unpredictable, crazy, cunning, a great dancer, smart, rude, and probably most important in her line of work, strong.
What she had seen supported all their claims.
o. o. o.
Flashback:
It had been Hana's shift that night, and she'd received word that there was something big was happening at the park. She had been staking out the outer edge of the grounds when she glimpsed a squad of ROOT agents leading the man known as Ghost to the lake. Hana had seen the guy before take out several squads before in town without even lifting a finger, once with Anko when she was stalking the guy to try to get a jump on him in revenge for her failed money making scheme.
They stopped that time when they saw four ROOT agents out of nowhere fall unconscious around the man, who immediately started to loot their belongings, at one point cackling like a maniac and slapping himself in the face immediately afterwards.
After he had kicked one of the members in the head to keep them unconscious, the man used some of the ink he had stolen to write some odd seals on each of the ROOT members, grumbling something about horrible names and annoying copyright laws. After which he had lifted all four spies up and proceeded to carry them to the nearest bath house, leapt over the gate, snuck into the women's changing room and dressed all four members in extravagant bunny girl and flamingo dancer costumes, positioning them in very lewd and somewhat impressive stances against the wall using high quality duct tape and some rope. One of them was even suspended off of the ceiling.
All of his tools were stored in what seemed like a storage seal on the inside of his trench coat.
The entire time, the man was giggling like Kakashi and muttering ideas and suggestions to himself.
When he was finished, the man covered the spies' mouths with more duct tape and wiped off the seals he had placed on them earlier, neatly folded up and stored away their work clothes, and ran outside the building laughing his ass off.
Needless to say, he had their full attention after that.
Hana had followed the party of seven as far as she could before she noticed that she was caught in a massive genjutsu and was surrounded by seven more ROOT agents. Luckily, she had her mask on and her canine companions were further behind as backup, just in case there was a genjutsu in the area and she was caught in it. She could not be easily identified, but seven on one were not good odds, even if the seven were genin … which they definitely weren't.
Before a fight could erupt though, all the ROOT agents in the area twitched, as if they were hit in the head really hard, and passed out. Apparently the ones casting the illusion were taken down as well, because Ghost and Danzō phased into view.
As she hid in the bushes and signaled for her hounds to come in from standby, she watched the brief confrontation between the two men. She did not know what Danzō wanted specifically with the stranger, but it had easily blown up in his face as Ghost dominated the entire event as he mocked and even injured the council member with incredible ease.
Hana was in shock. The fact that Danzō was out in the open meant that there HAD to be at least a few dozen ROOT agents in the area, yet none of them appeared to defend their leader. From what she could gather and smell, aside from the two men staring each other down, everyone else in the area had been knocked out.
Except Hana and her dogs. There was no one else in the area, and Danzō was not foolish enough to knock out his own troops just to prove his power. There was only one even remotely reasonable explanation.
Ghost knocked the agents out, and he KNEW she was there. The mere idea shook the ANBU to her core. If she was right, that meant that he knew that she'd been following him every time, and simply let her think that she wasn't detected.
After he left, Hana ran straight to the Hokage in a panic to report what she had witnessed, noting that he was most likely the one who had saved her life as well. Sarutobi, after recovering from his laughing fit from hearing about Danzō's incredible humiliation, responded that anything regarding the man was to be kept an S-class secret for the village's safety. He explained that Ghost was in a way ensuring the future safety of Konoha and the next generation, and that he was not someone to irritate.
Hana nodded and almost left the office when she remembered something.
"Hokage-sama, I don't know if this is important but…"
"Yes? What is it?" Sarutobi asked curiously.
"His scent… it, it was empty. I don't know any other way to describe it."
The Hokage paused in deep thought before chuckling lightly to himself, confusing the teen. "Hana. I have only known the man for a couple of weeks… but in a way I can tell that he has experienced things that I can only dream of encountering or comprehending. The way you described his scent… in a way," he paused. "I believe, that there is no better scent to describe him, than one that you can tell is there, yet has no distinct relation to anything else."
She left the office just as another ANBU charged in panicked about yet another mob attacking the Uzumaki…
Later that night after finishing the rest of her shift, Hana came back home to hear the ranting of her mother coming back from yet another council meeting. She was about to close the door to her room when she heard the thing that would keep her up for the rest of the night.
"Poor manners aside, we have to keep an eye on him. The last time anyone in the family recorded someone with an empty scent, several people disappeared and a lot of bodies started showing up in their places. And if I didn't know any better… I could have sworn that he also smelled like a True Alpha for a moment."
o. o. o.
True Alphas were something of a legend in the Inuzuka clan. Apparently, there were people in the world that had the presence of a great leader, like the Hokage, only they were practically BORN to be a leader, and the scent became stronger as the individual grew more powerful and focused. Regardless of gender, whenever a True Alpha was found and confirmed, great changes were soon to follow for better or for worse.
The last recorded known True Alpha was the Fourth. The Inuzuka's were among the first to get behind the legendary blonde, having known about his scent since he rescued a younger Tsume in the war and unknowingly giving the woman a decent whiff of his person as he carried her off the battlefield. Word of him spread quickly, and soon the Aburame clan knew of the man's leadership potential as well, having similar knowledge of potential leaders via animal instincts as well. As for great changes… well, the guy beat the Kyūbi and killed an entire army of Iwa-nin by himself.
CRASH!
A giant commotion in the forest brought the two women back to reality as Anko reached for yet another kunai and Hana gathered her chakra in case she needed to pull a fast Gatsūga. It wouldn't be the first time they were interrupted in the forest, and it sure wouldn't be their last, but it would be the first time they encountered something in the forest that could create such the huge crater that had just been made a few dozen meters away from them.
What they weren't expecting was the man occupying their thoughts to show up in the middle of the debris, swearing up a storm and grabbing his head.
Under most circumstances, Anko would be jumping with glee (and many sharp pointy… things, objects being too restrictive of a word to describe the variety of things that Anko uses) to see the source of her rage right in front of her with no one to stop her from exacting her revenge, but at the moment she could tell something wasn't right.
He was in such apparent 'discomfort' that he did not seem to be aware of his surroundings, and even the woman who prides herself in interrogation tactics doubted that she could do anything to make him suffer any more. Which brings her back to the land of semi rational thinking, and sparks the question: what the fuck is happening to the guy?
Anko decided to take her chances and walked up to the youth.
"You don't look too good…" She chuckled. Whatever she was expecting for him to say, it wasn't what she heard next.
As soon as Anko spoke, Ghost grimaced. "Fuck!" He swore loudly before his screaming continued. "Get away from me! Hurry!"
Anko now was shocked. "What do you-" She never got to finish her sentence before Ghost created a pulse of air that exploded from his body, throwing everything within a ten meters of him away at an incredible speed. Hana almost didn't react in time to catch the scantily clad special jōnin before she slammed into a nearby tree, hard. (No, not Shinra Tensei. It's just a large shock wave. They're pretty easy to make for an air manipulator.)
The following blood curdling scream was the second most horrible and mind scarring thing the two women would ever experience in their lives. Its very essence was unnatural, as if it were a combination of a human and some sort of immense beast writhing in such pain that the surrounding area reverberated in agony just by being in the presence of such anguish. A duet of indescribable torture and pain.
Stones shattered, branches flew away, wind surged with incredible speed, and dust was flying everywhere. Hana and Anko barely managed to get shelter behind one of the immense trees in the forest, and even then it was almost not enough to protect them from the loud backlash.
Yet it was only the second most traumatizing thing the two would ever experience, because the thing that would beat it would come immediately afterwards.
Before the dust could even settle, the two women could hear a sickening series of fleshy grunts, whimpers, gurgles, gasps, snaps, cracks, pops (the reason why Ghost never liked rice crispy treats), crunches and other disturbing noises from the other side of the tree.
Almost too afraid to look, the two kunoichi slowly peeked around the tree they were hiding behind to see what the hell was going on.
What the women saw was beyond nauseating.
The man in front of them was constantly getting mutilated from the inside at levels that Anko would swear even Orochimaru would have trouble holding his lunch at seeing.
The worst of it was that each mutilation would take place in less than two seconds. Then, his body would erupt in black fire and emerge almost as good as new only to immediately repeat the process in an entirely new and nauseating way.
Anko was no stranger to obscure torture methods and often enjoyed taking off a prisoner's limb or two when asked to, but this was something else entirely. In less than a minute, she had seen the SAME MAN get decapitated, drawn and quartered, exploding in several places with various levels of power, twisted to several pieces repeatedly, skinned multiple times in quick succession, lacerated all over his body in record time, get poked full of holes (large, medium, and small), have his jaw ripped off, his throat torn out, all his joints bent in the directions that they were not supposed to bend, snapped in half, thirds, quarters, vertically and horizontally, among many other possible demises. And it was still happening.
The two could only watch in wonder and fear as the man suffered continuously. Hana lasted five minutes before she emptied her stomach in front of her. Anko lasted ten. Neither could look away.
o. o. o.
Thirty seven minutes.
Thirty seven minutes of what could only be described as a torture not even Hell would employ.
Most people would go insane after thirty seven seconds, let alone minutes, but Ghost always made it a point to let people know that he was not 'normal'.
Lying on the ground, the man mentally groaned. You would think after over 2000 years of this, a person would get used to unimaginable tortures of indescribable pain.
Channeling what little focus he had left, Ghost counted how many chain links had appeared on his right hand.
"A little over 1500." He muttered/whispered to himself. "Damn, I knew that this one was gonna be bad."
The huge pile of connected black links slowly retracted themselves into his skin as the man continued his wonderful impression of a cadaver.
It was only then that he noticed the presence of the two women that were very slowly walking up to his body to check if he was alive.
Alive.
How much did he hate the meaning of that word?
Oh yeah. A lot.
"I'm not dead yet." Ghost groaned out with a half assed British accent with as much humor as he could muster. The women of course wouldn't get the joke, but he needed to do something to lift his spirits, or the tension in the area would kill him. Again.
The kunoichi froze, amazed that he not only could still be conscious, but he could joke after such an experience.
Anko was the first to snap out of her stupor and try to get things under control. Getting back to her feet, the snake mistress started to feebly bark out orders. "Hana, take your mutts to the hospital and-"
"No." Ghost groaned, still not moving from his comfortable position in the dirt.
"Wh-what?" Hana stammered.
"I…" Ghost breathed out in a hoarse voice. "I'll be fine. Just give… give me a few minutes to… rest. Don't let, cough… anyone know of this. I can't show any weaknesses… Too dangerous to let anyone know, especially Danzō…"
Hana's and Anko's eyes widened. Hana had told Anko what she saw that night in the park while waiting to meet with the Hokage in the waiting room. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the two to connect the dots to understand that the war hawk would jump at any chance to weaken the new man's surprisingly strong grip on the council.
"All right." The Snake Mistress growled, attempting to make herself seem more in control of things than she actually was. "We won't tell anyone about this, but I expect to have some questions answered in payment."
Ghost chuckled dryly. "Heheheh, sure, why not?"
Anko's eye brow twitched. How was it that she was suddenly taking orders from a guy that could barely lift a finger, not to mention the guy that just cost her a few million ryō?
As she was pondering her method of revenge, she suddenly thought of something, evident by the disturbingly sadistic grin on her face as she looked down at the man.
Ghost could have sworn his sister had just come to kick his ass again.
The last of the chain links had just disappeared into his arm.
Before Hana or Ghost could tell what was going on, Anko had reached down and taken off Ghost's glasses, and became the first Konoha resident to look at his eyes…
o. o. o.
In another universe, several immensely complicated and delicate looking machines in a rather large and tricked out room blinked and sounded off repeatedly in response to detecting several unstable but distinctive pulses of energy from another plane of existence. The machines sent an almost undetectable message to their creator of their findings after recording all the data regarding the where and when of the event.
Several minutes later Scabbard walked into the room, straight to the machine and read the information on one of the screens in a second with just a glance. His expression softened as he read the pattern of energy, knowing only one thing could cause such a signal.
"It seems that your curse has taken effect again, brother." He muttered to no one in particular with a hint of sadness.
Activating another nearby machine that served as his personal portal to different worlds, the Legacy's Prophet started to mutate his body to his public appearance: a large dark grey wolf with several lightning green tips and a basic mechanical contraption consisting of two pieces of metal and a strong spring replacing the bottom half of his back right leg.
As the portal began to boot up, Scabbard locked his room so that no one else could enter without his permission unless they used extreme force. Of course, anyone in his family was capable of such feats, but the bill that came with breaking down his door was intimidating enough to stop even Crypt from breaking in.
If his brother had not come back yet, he either wanted to have some time to himself, or he wanted it to be a surprise for everyone else in the family. In either case, HE was the only one in the family that could keep a secret, and was the only one aside from Shadow that could get Ghost to act his age when he wanted to. Ghost had been gone long enough without sending word back to the family to warrant some curiosity.
As the portal finally sprang to life, a large, dark purple wormhole with a white dot in the center opened in front of the wolf. While this would have intimidated anyone else, Scabbard and the rest of his family were long since used to the spectacle.
"Let's see this world that has captured your attention so intensely."
o. o. o.
A/N
Sorry it took so long. I kinda bum rushed this chapter, so it might not be as good as some of the other ones. Each chapter is pretty damn long though (the later chapters are on average around 30+ pages 1.5 spaced!), and the first nine were already pre made to a small degree when I first started updating so the quality might take a hit.
Anyways! Polls!
Haku:
Boy:5
Girl: 15
Sarutobi:
Live:18
Die 2
Remember folks, I'm only doing the votes by the actual poll on my profile. The reviews are nice (please PLEASE keep on reviewing) but they don't count towards the poll, so if the thing you want is not ahead, then vote!
Did I mention to review? I got like… 10 reviews yesterday and I am stoked! Keep on talking people, you are beautiful!
And yes, more Naruto Hinata will be on the way. I just have to get some of these other characters involved somehow and Ghost is the best catalyst for the job at the moment, whether he likes it or not. Sasori is nothing compared to me. I am the true puppet master! Muahahahahahahahahaha!
New A/N
After much deliberation I have decided to only add a new chapter once a week. The reason for this is simply that my chapters are WAY too long to do a bi weekly update.
What I will do is update a new chapter every Friday, and every Monday I will replace that chapter with an upgraded, more detailed, and in general better version of that chapter without most of the mistakes that was on it before. Sorry if this disappoints many of you, but seriously… these latest chapters are far too big to make to be able to push out two a week.
Anyways… I love the reviews I've been getting lately, keep it up!
P.S. The character profiles on my profile have some spoilers… not a lot, but it does tell you what my OCs can do. If you already read them and were put off, sorry. If you don't care, go my profile.
P.P.S. Do my poll's kids! It's the cool, hip thing to do! ^_^