Chapter 21
"So? How am I going to find this thing?" Naruto asked.
GG grinned. "Because it was created by a mage, the only way to find is through magic."
"Magic?" Naruto asked. "You mean like Abra Cadabra, sparks and fireworks magic? "Which card is yours" magic?"
GG rolled his eyes. "No, unfortunately, when most people think of magic, that is what they think of. The magic I speak of is the way of the mage. Magic, mage, see the resemblance? Magic is simply a derivative of the word mage. We don't do card tricks."
"Oh." Naruto answered, but pouted in his head. But they're so much fun. Especially with Shikacause he just ignores me and I can say "Is this your card?" as long as I want. Everybody else hits me after the fifth card.
"Stop daydreaming, boy," GG snapped, bringing Naruto back to the conversation. "You need to be able to track the energy of the device just like you would trail chakra using your ninja training," GG explained.
Naruto frowned and scratched the back of his head. "But it took me years to be able to sense and follow chakra, once I learned what chakra was," Naruto said. "We don't have years."
"No, we don't. So you will be on an accelerated course," GG replied.
" . . . it's gonna hurt, isn't it?"
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"Why are we out here?" Naruto asked. "We already meditated this morning, do I need to work on it more?"
GG chuckled. "Nope. This is something different. There is a slight difference between chakra, as you call it, and Areah Broah, or spirit energy, as we call it. When you activated you Areah Wahre you used chakra, which is why they only partially came. You must learn to access your spirit energy, the power of the mage that runs through your blood," he explained.
Naruto nodded. "So, what are we doing out here?"
"I have cast a spell on this part of the mountain range," GG said.
Naruto frowned. "What kind of spell?"
"You'll see. I have also led you outside the bounds of the clan, which means you must find your way back on your own."
"Huh?" Naruto asked. "How am I supposed to do that?"
GG turned around and smiled at him. "Be creative, boy." He then vanished in a swirl of wind.
Naruto stared at the spot where his great-grandfather was. "Okay, I gotta learn that trick."
"But first, I have to get back to the valley. Okay, I'll just do that chant-thingie again. Right?" Naruto closed his eyes and tried to center his chakra, only to find he couldn't.
He frowned at the lack of centered chakra. "Huh? What's wrong?"
Naruto closed his eyes and tried again, searching inside himself for his chakra. He reached for it like he usually did, right for the center of his being, but it was as though something was blocking it. Naruto frowned and tried harder to access his chakra, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't get his chakra.
Okay, nothing for it. Pushing down panic, Naruto closed his eyes and went into meditation, just like GG taught him. Okay, looking for chakra.
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Naruto's blue eyes opened in his mindscape, a network of tunnels and rooms that greatly resembled a sewer. He hurried through the tunnels along a somewhat familiar path. He knew the way to the fox's chamber better than to his own chakra well, oddly enough. He'd never had to go looking for his own chakra, it had always been right there. Naruto had to keep himself from running.
He arrived at the Chakra Well quickly and hurried up to the large and deep well before stopping and staring.
"Huh?"
It was locked up, with a crisscrossing of metal bars covering the opening. Naruto reached down and grabbed the bars, pulling up, but they didn't budge. He couldn't reach his hands through the bars to get to his chakra, either.
"What the hell?" Naruto demanded. He jumped up on the well, braced his feet on the sides and yanked as hard as he could on the bars. "Urrrgh!" He pulled until his arms ached and his hands got sweaty. Sweaty hands made a bad grip, though and the teen fell back onto the floor, landing hard on his butt.
"Ooof!" He took a deep breath, got up and wiped his hands off
Naruto ran his hands through his hair. "Why can't I access my chakra? What is blocking it?"
I have cast a spell on this part of the mountain range.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me,"Naruto growled. "Did he find some way to suppress chakra on this part of the mountain or something?"
Naruto threw himself down and punched the ground. "What am I supposed to do now?"
He jumped back up and began to pace, arms folded, eyes narrowed. "I can't access my chakra. How did that old geezer do that? Grr I hate him. When I get back, I'm gonna prank him so bad . . . Okay, focus instead. Just focus. To get into the valley, I need to be able to see the trail, since I don't have the herbs. The Areah Wahre. I need to activate them. What did GG say?"
"When you activated your Areah Wahre, you used your chakra, which is why they did not fully activate."
Naruto made a face. "Okay, so I need to use something other than chakra to access my spirit eyes, but what?"
He closed his eyes and thought harder, though it hurt his head a little. GG's voice came to him again.
"Spirit energy."
Naruto frowned. "What is spirit energy? How do I access it? GG said that spirit energy and chakra were close, but not the same. So, I need to find a way to tap into the spirit energy that I have. Okay."
Naruto stared around his mindscape, eyes narrowing. "Where to start?"
He sat down against a wall and folded his arms, thinking hard. "Well, I obviously can't just go running around pell-mell in my mind. I don't know every nook and cranny, and despite what everyone says, my mind is not that small, so it would take a while."
Naruto sighed and scratched his head. "I don't even know what I'm looking for. All I know is what GG told me and that's not much! If that's the case, I should start with everything I know about spirit energy, right?"
Naruto nodded sharply, answering himself, "Right.To the Memory Center."
Naruto wove his way through the halls until he reached the Memory Center. It wasn't a series of hallways with doors that you could go into. No, Naruto's Memory Center was more like a library. Each memory was contained in a box, and all of the Memory-boxes were all shelved. Each box was a different color, depending on what the box contained. Yellow boxes were happy memories. Dark boxes were bad memories. Pale blue boxes were soothing memories. Orange boxes were exciting memories, while red boxes signified stressful memories. Naruto could go into the memory center and look for each memory by a dozen different things. When he pulled a box out, and opened it, all of the senses and emotions associated with that memory flooded him, enabling him to relive it and even slow it down to analyze things.
The blonde teen stepped up to a shelf and said, "Spirit energy."
Pitifully few boxes appeared. Naruto sighed and grabbed one.
He opened it and was engulfed by cool air and the scent of trees and spring water.
"There is a slight difference between chakra, as you call it, and Areah Broah, or spirit energy, as we call it. When you activated you Areah Wahre you used chakra, which is why they only partially came. You must learn to access your spirit energy, the power of the mage that runs through your blood," he explained.
Naruto sighed and closed the box again. He reached for another. This one was beige with touches of red, indicating a small amount of stress was involved with the memory. It also had ridges, showing it was a collection of very closely related memories. He opened it.
He could feel the power flowing in his eyes. He could see little bits of green glowing dust in the air. They were coming from everything around him, the ground, the rocks, what little shrubbery there was, but most of all, from his family, especially his mom and dad. What are they?
--
Emanating from his pupil and going straight through his iris to the whites of his eyes, were tentacles of green, the same color as the spirit particles.
--
They began to form shapes and symbols on the face of a rock. On the last syllable of the chant, Meara threw out the bag of herbs and blood. The symbols glowed brilliant green, which then turned to white and the side of the mountain dissolved.
--
Green light blinded him, searing his eyes and shooting pain through his skull. So many spirit particles, his eyes couldn't handle them. A gnarled hand moved over his eyes and he felt unfamiliar power course through him.
Naruto focused on that feeling, on that power. "This must be GG spirit energy. So, I know what it feels like, although that's his and not mine." Naruto came to in the Memory Center and closed the box.
He frowned at the last one, feeling a sense of foreboding cover him. It was pure black, with streaks of virulent red covering it. Oddly enough, it also had claw marks on the side. Naruto frowned, he'd never seen anything like that. As he looked at it, dread settled deep in his stomach. He reached out, trying to touch it, but broke out in sweat.
"How can I sweat in my mind? How can I be afraid?" Naruto licked his lips and grabbed the box. Instantly, his stomach tightened to the point where he thought he would throw up.
His hands were trembling as he held the box. "Just open it." Naruto tried to open the box, but it was stuck. Frowning, he tried again, finally having to pull at the box from either side with both hands, wrenching it apart.
Naruto gasped as the cold hit him. It speared his body like a thousand needles, stealing his breath and freezing his blood. His teeth chattered and his hands shook. No wonder this had so much red in it. Naruto opened his eyes and looked around, stopping the memory replay so he could see.
He was in a library, with all kinds of high shelves and musty-looking books. There were glowing red coals in a fireplace that he was sitting next to. He shuddered in fear. Something about this place gave him bad feelings. He turned back to what he should have been looking at. It was a thick, ugly book with old yellowed pages and some form of weird writing on them.
Naruto frowned as he realized he could read these words. He cast a look around. He knew that language and this room, but couldn't place it. I know this room. He shivered, but not from the cold as something unpleasant again hit him. He did not want to be here, he wanted to get out. This place made him feel scared and small.
Let's get out of here soon. I mean it. Naruto turned back to the big book and began to check the page he was on, looking for clues of spirit energy.
" . . often confused with the ninja concept of chakra. Chakra is something that every living thing has, it is essential to life. It is the use and molding of chakra that is the basis of ninja fighting and all jutsus. Areah Broah is not common to every living thing. It's Japanese translation, "spirit energy," is a misleading translation, indicating that the Areah Broah is something all spirits have, while it is in fact not.
Areah Broah is in theory a specialized form of chakra that is closer to the concept of a kekkei genkai. The differences between regular chakra and Areah Broah have never been studied in detail and thus there is no concrete proof that they are separate, save for the fact that ninjas who are adept at using chakra cannot use spells based on Areah Broah, despite how much they train it.
Continuing with the history, the concept of Areah Broah was pioneered by the very first mage, a man known as Churaeah Horae. He was the first to tap into his Areah Broah. Horae did this by putting himself in Death Meditation, a practice which sends the person's mind and body to a state of virtual comatose conditions. The heart rate slows down and breathing becomes nearly imperceptible. In the case of the mind, the consciousness is temporarily separated from the spirit, allowing the person in Death Meditation to see the elements of his spirit with an analytical eye and identify each one.
This process is very difficult. There are three levels to meditation.
First, there is the entrance to the mindscape. The mindscape is achieved easily. To enter the mindscape, simply go into a state of deep meditation. With minimal training, once in meditation, reawakening in the mindscape is easy.
The second level is to achieve meditation while in the mindscape. At this point, the mind will go to what is known as the astral plane. The astral plane is a plane of existence that is unavailable to the physical body and can only be entered with the spirit. Geographic location and physical attributes consequentially have no meaning in the astral plane, only the qualities and strength of the spirit. This stage is far more difficult to achieve than the first one.
The third stage is by far the hardest to reach. It requires complete control over the entirety of the spirit and mind and can usually only be reached by those who are masters of their Areah Broah. The process of separating the logical mind from the rest of the spirit is different for every individual and thus cannot be cataloged by any book. Those who seek to reach Death Meditation usually must train for years.
The book went on, but Naruto had read enough. He gave on last look to the frightening library, still unable to figure out where he knew it from, and then exited the box, closing it and shoved it back onto the shelf, wishing he could wash his hands.
"Okay, so that's certainly interesting," Naruto murmured. "I'll have to think about that. But, maybe I can find my spirit energy without the Death Meditation. No harm in trying, right?"
Naruto left the Memory Center and wandered through the halls of his mind. He normally would have gone to the chakra well, but that was closed off, so he wandered instead to the Stream of Consciousness. Naruto's Stream of Consciousness emanated from the Center of his Mind and flowed through the rest of him as he thought and lived. His Stream of Consciousness right now was more like a little trickle, since he was inside his own mind, but he followed it to the Waterfall, the point where his thoughts stopped being instantaneous. He jumped down the Waterfall's edge and landed next to the Reflecting Pool, where all of his previous thoughts swirled around. Next to it, there was a small tide pool, where he could pull out thoughts from before and inspect them.
Sometimes, Naruto used the Memory Center and the Reflecting Pool together, to put together a memory and what he was thinking at the time, like all the times he'd asked Sakura out when she obviously hated him.
Naruto sighed and stared down at the Reflecting Pool, unsure of why he'd come. The Reflecting Pool wasn't going to help him now. He reached up and rubbed his hands over his face. "I wanted to think about my problem. This world or the old world, but I shouldn't think of it now! I need to get back into the valley."
Naruto jumped up and walked out. "I need to find my Areah Broah. Okay, where to next?"
The blonde hurried to the Control Area, the room that controlled and showed all of his life signs. He stepped in and gave a glance to all of his vitals, noting with some concern that his skin registered as very, very cold. Naruto frowned at it.
"Hm. I must have been in here longer than I thought," Naruto murmured.
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Naruto opened his eyes and shivered. "Damn. Night's nearly fallen." He jumped up and rubbed his legs, hoping desperately to get some feeling back in them. "Brr."
"Okay, I don't think I'm going to get back to the valley tonight," Naruto muttered, stamping his legs hard on the ground and flapping his arms. "So, I should find shelter and probably start a fire to keep warm."
Naruto hurried through the mountain passages until he came down beneath the tree line. He gathered some kindling and smaller logs and carried them to his shelter. He'd found a small cave, naturally making sure he knew how deep it was. He sighed and pulled a mini survival pack out of his back pocket. It didn't contain much, just some matches and very small flares and a few other essentials. Naruto pulled out a kunai he'd been hiding from his mother and hacked off a small chunk of hair, throwing it on the pile of kindling.
"Well," Naruto murmured, staring at his lone match. "You had better work."
To Naruto's great relief, it did.
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Naruto cracked his neck, rubbing at it, and scowled. He'd been trying all morning to reach the astral plane, but not quite making it. He could sorta meditate while in his mindscape, but he could not reach the stupid astral plane.
"What am I missing?" Naruto asked, punching the ground in frustration. He paced back and forth, arms folded, brow furrowed, deep in thought.
"Okay, how did I first get into my mindscape?" Naruto wondered. He thought back. "I know it wasn't through meditation."
Naruto closed his eyes and ran through his memories. "Ah-ha! When Ero-Sennin pushed me off that cliff and I had to ask the fox for his chakra!"
The blonde nodded sharply. "Yup. That's the first time I got into my mindscape. Well, I guess that's . . . totally useless! How does that help me? What am I going to do to get to the astral plane? Jump off another cliff?"
Naruto stopped pacing as the lightbulb above his head dinged on, but only paritally. "Jump off a cliff?" He grinned and punched the air. "Of course, that's perfect!" I got to my mindscape because my life depended on it. I can always do big stuff when I absolutely need to! Perfect!
He glanced around. "And I'm in the mountains, where there's tons of cliffs!"
Naruto started to run towards one, but stopped when he remembered what the book had said. Geographic location and physical attributes have no meaning. "Aw, man. And I was so close, too!"
He focused on what else the book had said about the elusive astral plane. "It said the astral plane can be achieved only by the spirit." Naruto sat down and folded his arms in concentration. I'm missing something again. Some really easy step.Now, the lightbulb turned all the way on. "Of course! How stupid of me!"
Naruto lowered his eyelids and sent himself to an all-too-familiar place.
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Naruto opened his eyes and grinned at the tunnels of his mind. "Okay. Now, where to find a cliff in my mind? Huh. Where would there be a cliff in my head?"
He sat down and scratched his chin, thinking hard about his mindscape. "Waaait a minute. I think I know."
Naruto jumped up and began to run down a random hallway, away from the center of his mind. He kept running and running and running until there stopped being doors and then there stopped being lights and suddenly, there stopped being floors.
"Hey! I found a cliff! At the edge of my mind! Yeah!"
Naruto was so elated he forgot for while that he was supposed to be trying to get into the astral plane. "Wait. Why am I doing this? . . . ohRight.Heh But . . ."
He frowned as the hair whipped past his head. "I didn't exactly try to get into my mindscape last time. I just ended up there because I was scared I'd die. But I can't exactly die here. Damn. I need to get out of here and think some more."
As he said this, Naruto closed his eyes and willed himself back to the real world. But when he opened them he was still in freefall. "Huh?"
Naruto tried again, but he was still falling. "Okay. I can't get back. . . . I CAN'T GET BACK! AHHHHH!"
Suffice it to say, Naruto started freaking out. "I can't get out! I can't get back to the real world! I'll be stuck here falling like this forever! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Naruto flapped his arms, trying to fly back up and get into his mind so he could get out of it. "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
Somewhere in his mind, Naruto understood that the only way to gain control of this situation was to get to the astral plane. "ASTRAL PLANE! AHHHHHHHHHHH! ASTRAL PLANE! AHHHHHHHH!" Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and continued this chantas the air rushed past his ears.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"Hey! What's your problem?"
Naruto opened his eyes. "Huh?" He looked around. He wasn't falling anymore, but rather was standing in a desert, as the wind swirled around them. "Where am I?"
"The astral plane, silly!"