Naruto and the figure had been fighting for a couple of minutes. The man's face was completely hidden by a black mask, and the rest of his body was shadowed.
But he was winning.
In only a couple of seconds, the figure had Naruto's throat right next to a very sharp Kunai. He also had his body in an unmovable position.
"I expected you to be better than this…" the man said in a gruff voice. "Are you sure you are Uzumaki Naruto?"
"The one and only!" Naruto retorted. But, he was all talk for now. He had no chakra due to his training, and the figure had a flippin' Kunai to his neck. I'll have to use the Nine tails chakra… Naruto thought. He closed his eyes, and then Naruto sprung away from the figures grasp. He turned around to face him, now with a red chakra tail on his back, and slightly longer teeth.
"Now lets-!" Naruto began when suddenly the figure interrupted.
"Oh! So you ARE Naruto!" The figure put away the kunai in his purple cloak and bowed apologetically. Naruto was now extremely confused.
"I'm sorry I had to do that, I had to make sure you really were Naruto." The figure said.
"Wha-?" Naruto's chakra dissipated. "Why would you need to know that?"
"Too many people are after my life kid." The figure stated clearly. He shifted his eyes nervously, then stuck out his hand.
"My name is Aizu the Nightmare, and I'm your new mentor!" Naruto reached out and shook the man's hand.
"Why are you mentoring me??" Naruto said, still confused.
"It was Jiraya- sama's orders." Aizu explained. "He is currently hospitalized, so I'm the replacement." Aizu looked at the scorch marks as Naruto looked over Aizu doubtfully.
"Why should YOU be my mentor! I'm better off training on my own then with you." Naruto said. Aizu looked at Naruto.
"BECAUSE (Ignorant little brat…) I have power on par with that of the sannin!" Aizu said in annoyance.
"You do? I don't believe it!" Naruto retorted.
"Okay fine, let's have a battle. If I win, you have to be my student, if you win, I leave." Aizu assumed his fighting position. "Also, don't use the fourth state of the nine tailed fox, Jiraya told me you couldn't control it."
"Whatever! I don't need it to beat you anyway!" Aizu became extremely ticked and rushed towards Naruto.
Meanwhile…
Tsunade sat in a room. The room was white all over, and it was sterilized to prevent diseases from spreading. Next to her was a bed. And in the bed was Jiraya. He had about a billion and two instruments monitoring his heart rate, and other miscellaneous things. Tsunade stared at Jiraya. He had not woken up in the last two weeks he'd been gone. The doctors said he was doing a fine recovery, and Tsunade knew it as well (being a medical ninja), but she could not help but worry over him. Tsunade looked at the clock, and realized it was time to go. She reached into her pocket, and found a white rose. She placed it on a desk next to Jiraya, and left.
Sasuke stared at the ceiling. He was on his bed, and was staring directly upwards at a white ceiling. Normally, Sasuke might be training with Kakashi, or eating at this time. But something was on Sasuke's mind that day. Itachi's words flickered through his mind at a consistent rate, and it made him uneasy…
"You've… beaten me…"
"Yes."
"Excellent…"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means… that nothing… is ever…what it seems to be…" Itachi gave one last smile, and disintegrated.
Sasuke felt uneasy of Itachis' words. It somehow reminded him of the time when Itachi put on the 'big brother' act. And also… there was something about his words that made him feel uneasy.
"Nothing is ever what it seems to be…"
Especially that line. Of course, Sasuke knew that the Itachi he fought had simply been a clone, so one would likely assume that Itachi was referring to the fact that Sasuke hadn't killed him yet. But Sasuke knew his brother better than that… It was obvious Itachi knew that Sasuke knew he was a fake. No, there was another meeting… a deeper, more mysterious meaning behind those words…
Sasuke's brows tightened as he thought, considering every meaning that Itachi had to hide. It would only be a matter of time before he cracked the code. He knew everything about his evil older brother.
"Nothing is ever what it seems to be…
"Hu…Huff…" Naruto managed to say. Naruto and Aizu were still fighting, however Aizu was clearly winning. Even in the two tailed state, Naruto had bruises and cuts and who knows what else all over his body. Of course, Aizu was dmaged as well, but not nearly as much as his opponent.
Those shadow Jutsu's are something else… Naruto thought to himself.
"Okay, I believe you now!" Naruto smiled.
"Good." Aizu rolled his eyes. "Now, we'd better get started with your training. I see a few weaknesses you need to know about yourself."
"Like what?" Naruto narrowed his eyes.
"For one thing, you're attacks aren't too versatile. You can only use them in certain situations, specifically, fighting multiple opponents. Yes, the shadow clones are good for that situation, but the hardly ever work as a team unless it's narrowed down to two or three." Naruto cocked his head as he pondered this fact.
"However, you're weakest point is you're chakra manipulation. According to my calculations, if you had as much chakra efficiency as I did, I would have lost hands down." Naruto stared as Aizu.
"Seriously…?"
"No question. And thus, as your new mentor…" Aizu reached into his cloak and pulled out some seals. "We are going to do some chakra manipulation training!"
"Okay!" Naruto smiled.
"First, hold out your arms and legs." Aizu commanded to Naruto. Naruto spread his legs and arms in an open stance. Aizu calmly walked over to Naruto and put four seals on him, one for each arm and leg. Then Aizu stepped back and made some hand sign and without warning, thrust hid palm to Naruto's stomach. Naruto was thrown back a couple feet, but still held his stance. Almost instantly, the seals on Naruto stuck to his body like adhesive glue.
"The seals I put on your body will make your chakra act uncontrollably. These seals are ideal for controlling chakra in future times." Aizu brushed some dust from his cloak. "For this exercise, all you need to do is cut me a little with your wind chakra. However, I am going to be fighting you to make sure it doesn't happen." Naruto smiled.
"Hah! I can already do that! Naruto made some HS "Shadow clone jutsu!" a very large amount of chakra was released from Naruto's body; it went up and disappeared in the air.
"What the-?" Naruto said in shock.
"You need to learn how to precisely control your chakra. If you don't concentrate, you won't be able to perform even the simplest of ninjutsu's, and it will all leak from your pores." Naruto made some more HS and concentrated once more.
"Shadow clone jutsu!" Some more chakra fizzed in the air, but this time, Naruto managed to make two shadow clones. Each of the three Naruto's grabbed some shuriken, and were prepared to attack.
"That's more like it." Aizu said. "However, you failed to see one small detail…"
"What?" Naruto asked.
"We're not fighting yet."
"HUH!? But you said-!"
"I never said we had to do it immediately." Naruto fell down anime style.
"Ugh…" Naruto de- summoned the shadow clones and put away the shuriken.
"Wait! Don't put away the shuriken!" Aizu said. Naruto froze in place.
"Before we fight, I am going to teach you a technique that the third Hokage invented." Aizu reached into his cloak and pulled out some of his own shuriken. "The shadow shuriken technique."
Sasuke looked into his window. The village of Konohagure had lights ablaze in the darkness of the night, which seemed like fireflies to him. He had seen Sakura today, but his best friend Naruto disappeared. Kakashi said he was training with 'the nightmare of Konoha', whatever that meant. Sasuke sighed as he took off his shirt and blew out the candle. Instantly, Sasuke was welcomed to the world of the night, and as he lay in his bed, his vision faded into nothingness.
In his dream, Sasuke was running. A gigantic shinigami was chasing him with his scythe menacingly in the air.
"I WILL KILL YOU SASUKE!!" it said in a laughing tone. Sasuke franticly made a shadow clone, and the two Sasuke's split up in separate directions.
"BWAHAHA! AMUSING PUNY HUMAN!!" The shinigami raised its scythe and slashed the Sasukes to nothingness.
Suddenly, another Sasuke came from behind the Shinigami, and cut him into two with a slash from his sword.
"That was amazing Sasuke!" Sakura randomly appeared.
"Yeah! Believe it!" Naruto smiled. Sasuke looked at his two teammates and gave a smile with a victory pose.
"You have an interesting subconscious, Sasuke…" a dark voice said. Instantly, the world in Sasuke's mind vanished to leave only a black world. The smiling faces of Naruto and Sakura vanished as well, leaving Sasuke alone in this black world.
"What the-?!" Sauke said. He looked around. To every side and angle, there was nothing but a distant blackness. He was even standing on the blackness. Sasuke's eyes widened. He had seen this world before. Three times in his life he had been here, and he had never imagined that he would be trapped again.
"So, how's it going?" a voice from the darkness said. Coming towards Sasuke was the sound of footsteps.
Sasuke had seen this world before. It was a world of bleakness and disparity. A world where you got tortured endlessly, while in the real world no time passed at all. A world that could make a person go insane with mental damage staggering off the charts.
This was the world of Tsukuyomi.
And there was only one person on this earth that could use such a move.
The footsteps stopped directly behind Sasuke.
"Surprised to see me again?" Sasuke turned around to face a man with black hair and a ponytail that went to his waist. He had an indistinguishable black cloak with red clouds on it, and red eyes that seemed to go into an endless abyss.
"I take it that you are- little brother…"
