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Atum-Coma: The City Hidden in the Nexus
By Demonabyss
Chapter 25: Training and Reflections
Hiashi watched his two daughters spar with two branch members with interest. Since her arrival, he had started teaching Hinata … Amethyst the basics of the Gentle Fist style with Ruby supervising. He figured it was a good place to start, to teach her something she would be able to use in the near future as well as get a better idea of who she was. Ruby had agreed on the grounds that she would be able to watch as well, much to Hiashi's displeasure. While the girl obviously had the speed, flexibility, chakra, and bloodline for it, she didn't have the personality or instincts for it. Because of her upbringing as a pirate, she was much more used to using force on her enemies rather than disabling them. However, she did adapt the style to herself somewhat. Instead of using chakra through her fingers to close a person's chakra points, she focused her chakra through the points on her fist and released it upon contact. Depending on when Amethyst released the chakra, it could have one of two effects. An earlier release would cause mass external damage, similar to the super strength technique used by the Sannin Tsunade, though nowhere near as automatic or potent yet. Given the fact that she already had physical conditioning similar to Gai's student Lee, it was still a powerful technique. A later release would send a mass of chakra right into the opponent. Unlike the Gentle Fist style, which could be likened to using arrows to sharp shoot small targets, this would be like using a cannon to blast a wide area. Instead of shutting down the opponent's chakra points, it would disrupt their chakra flow severely, causing random fluctuations and even causing the chakra to backfire on the one affected.
Another thing the Hyuuga head watched was how much their styles differed. Hanabi was drilled in the traditional Gentle Fist style and thus used flexibility and speed as her main assets to both attack and defend. Her main strategy was to quickly strike her opponent to disable, as was standard for the Gentle Fist style. Amethyst on the other hand, was almost completely random. Sometimes she would attack using only punches, then switch to just kicks in a split second, and then all of sudden just simply grab her opponent's arm, turn around and slam them into the ground, hard, showing that she was much stronger than she looked. She then repeated the previous action two or three times before spinning around and launching the unfortunate branch member into the nearest wall. (AN1) The only thing that was constant was that she was constantly moving anywhere and everything, never stopping and always on the go. If the enemy stopped for whatever reason, to try and analyze a situation, to gauge her, or to start a jutsu, she'd run right up with no fear at a breakneck speed, keeping up her attack. Curious, Hiashi turned to one of the few beings who knew anything about his daughter as she currently was … her bird Kir. "Tell me, why she fights as if she's in a war zone," he asked uneasily. It was weird enough talking to those darkstalkers at the meetings, but talking to a bird who apparently transformed into a weapon was just as weird. Still, he supposed it was better than trying to ask Ruby who was on the other side of the training area, critically watching the spars.
Kir looked at the Hyuuga clan head, wondering if he should answer or not. The bird may have been a nuisance and gave Amy a bit of a headache at times, but he was fiercely loyal to her and her alone and wouldn't think twice about risking his life for her. By default, he was also extremely loyal to Ruby, who was for all intents and purposes Amy's mother. This guy was trying to become Amy's father, whether or not he would take her away from Ruby was up in the air. In the end, Kir decided to answer his question, mostly because it wasn't that important anyway. "That's because on a pirate ship, it is a war zone in battle. When one ship's crew boards another, it's chaos, and that's how Amy operates in a fight. She tends to use that special eye thing of hers to keep track of everything that goes on the ship and who to go after in a fight. She also uses it to keep her crew paranoid and in line," he snickered the last part. Hiashi nodded, trying to imagine such as thing as he watched Amethyst go after the branch member with rage-like enthusiasm.
Ruby Heart silently watched as her daughter fought, using the new technique she had made from the teachings of the Hyuuga clan head. The pirate may have seemed a little … off to some but she was no fool. She knew this man wanted Amethyst back and in all honesty she couldn't blame him for that. Still, Ruby was sure as hell not going to give up her daughter without a fight nor was she going to force the girl to stay with her either. To do so would be a very bad idea as the girl was just as stubborn as Ruby was. So to that end, she decided to let the girl decide for herself what she wanted. She was also interested in Amethyst's sister as she too would play a factor in all of this. 'I wonder how Hiashi and Hanabi would like a little visit to me ship,' she thought with a grin.
Jiraiya watched carefully as the fox boy attempt the Water Dragon jutsu again. While the kid had the disadvantage of being aligned to fire and wind, he made up for it with sheer tenacity and extensive use of shadow clones. 'Kid's like his biological father, never giving up no matter what,' he thought as he remembered hearing about the Talbains from Sarutobi. In any case, the kid currently had fifty shadow clones all in what he called his were form, which looked like a large anthropomorphic fox with two tails. When he had first met the kid he had been in his normal form that was similar to his mother and had decent chakra control, though not quite as good as his human form. Naruto had finally mastered the Water Dragon jutsu in his human and normal forms and was now working to perfect it in his were form, though he was still having a little trouble. He then glanced at the blue, undead woman next to him who was casually sharpening one of her many blades. 'Where she keeps all those things, I'll never know,' he thought before speaking towards Naruto. "Hey kid, take a break for a second, I need to check something," he said motioning to the boy.
Naruto nodded, dispelling the clones and walking back to the white-haired pervert. He absently shifted from his were form into his standard form, shrinking a bit and becoming more human looking. "Sure thing, Ero-Sennin, what do you need?" he said causing Jiraiya to frown at the nick name and Hsien-Ko to chuckle. The old man may have been a good teacher and great ninja, but he was still a self-proclaimed super pervert.
Jiraiya frowned at the kid for the nickname he had chosen ever since he learned of his "research". "Will you stop calling me that! Anyways kid, I'd like to have a look at the seal," he said suddenly. Naruto gave him a questioning look while Hsien-Ko stared intently at him. They all knew what seal he was referring to and both darkstalkers were wondering what the old man was up to. The fox boy did as instructed, lifting up his shirt and showing the toad sage the modified seal. Jiraiya's eyes widened as he saw it. "What the hell did you do to it?" he asked speaking to the undead woman behind him. The seal was almost completely different from before. The spiral was still there but the seal script around it was arranged very differently from before. Before it had been arranged like two semi-circles with four lines extending from each, one above and one below the spiral. Now, the script was arranged much like a compass, with arrows that were opened at the tips pointing in all directions. However, it looked like it was missing two arrows, specifically the northwest and southeast arrows. Those areas had only a pair of small lines indicating that the arrows had been there along with a gap in the script. Before the toad hermit had been in the possession of the Key necessary to strengthened or weaken the seal to allow Naruto access to the Kyuubi's power. However, with this drastic change, the Key was now useless. There was also the question of how other seals would affect it now. He nodded after examining it. "Okay kid, get back to work and remember, let your chakra flow into the water, don't try to force it," he ordered. Naruto nodded and went back to work, shifting to his were form and creating a mass of clone again. Jiraiya then looked at the kuang-shi standing near him, waiting for an answer.
Hsien-Ko sighed, knowing the pervert hermit wanted an explanation as to why the seal was so altered along with why Naruto was what he now was. She sat down next to him, absently staring at her student as he tried to create a dragon out of water. "Before I explain this, you have to understand, back in the Lost Zone, things were bad. Many plants and animals were dying out; our whole ecosystem was falling apart. Then all of a sudden this kid appears with a Key of the Dark that can save us all by taking us here. The catch is, he can't use enough of the power he contained to save us without killing himself and thus damning us all," she spoke quietly, bringing up old memories.
"The Kyuubi," Jiraiya stated in understanding. The woman nodded. "So you turned him into a darkstalker so he could use the fox's power and save you all." She nodded again. "You do know they would've merged eventually," he pointed out.
She sighed. "While true, we honestly didn't have the time. With the ecosystem so screwed up, people, both darkstalkers and humans, were going mad all over. By the calculations we did, we had only a few years at most before all possible resources ran out or were unusable. Add to that people all over were going mad; quite frankly, we were all at the end of our rope. So we asked Naruto if he would be willing to become a darkstalker in order to save us all. He agreed and the rest is history."
The white haired man stood silent for a moment before speaking. "So what exactly did you do to the seal? Has he been in contact with the Kyuubi? And where did the kid get that Key thing in the first place?" he asked concerned.
Hsien-Ko sighed again. "I don't know all the details. You'd have to ask my sister or Donovan for that, but the gist is that we turned it into a type of lock that holds the excess power until Naruto is physically and mentally able to handle it. Naruto does have the capability to release it all at once as what we would call a Dark Force, but it would only last a short time and in his current state would have serious repercussions. As for being in contact with that fox or where he got the Key in the first place we're still not sure. Keys of the Dark are rare items and for one to lead from one human realm to another is unheard of. How that thing was made or where Naruto got a hold of it has been thoroughly looked into and yet we know very little. We suspect that someone from the Lost Zone ended up here and decided to create a way between the two worlds. Considering the Key was in the shape of a Kunai and was found in this world supports that idea, though how it became attuned to Kyuubi of all beings I have no clue. In regards to the fox, Naruto has spoken to it once or twice, but not often. Again we don't know much about it at all. What we do know is that there may have been far more to its attack on Konoha."
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. While he knew that the Biju were intelligent, most thought them to be little more than overgrown serial killers. He had been there the night the fox had been sealed and boy had that been a sight. That thing made Manda look like a common earthworm in comparison. "Oh really?" he said skeptically.
Hsien-Ko nodded. "I may not know much about this world, but I do know darkstalkers and demons far better then many people. Demons may love battle, but they don't do things for no reason, especially creatures as powerful as Kyuubi. Something that powerful had to have existed long before your village. For it to suddenly attack for no reason makes no sense. If it had the intelligence of an animal; that means it avoided your village until something caused it to attack. If on the other hand it had the intelligence of a standard darkstalker, then again it chose to leave your village alone until something made it choose otherwise. In either scenario, the Kyuubi was provoked into attacking in some fashion. Your guess is as good as mine as to what ticked it off though." Jiraiya nodded, turning his attention back to their student as he finally got the dragon to form.
Across town one Neji Hyuuga stood practicing, wondering about his first opponent, Hinata Hyuuga or as she was currently calling herself, Amethyst Heart. He wasn't sure what to feel. When his father had been sacrificed in place of Hiashi, he had sought out someone to blame. Initially he had wanted to go after Hinata until he learned that she had gone missing, so he turned his resentment to Hanabi. If he couldn't go after the one responsible, then he'd go after the next best thing, his daughter. However, with the discovery and appearance of Hinata, he wasn't sure what to think. 'Technically she is connected to main house, but only through blood. Her upbringing is questionable but her skills are nothing to doubt,' he thought as he remembered the riot in the first exam. He had only caught glimpses of her fighting in that chaos, but what really interested him was the fact that she was able to steal all that stuff without anyone noticing. Tenten had been pissed afterwards and had wanted to use the girl as a pin cushion for every weapon she had. Still, the stealth she had was impressive. He had also seen that fight between her and that creature on her ship. 'She is far more than she seems. That pirate woman as well,' he thought as the image of Ruby Heart entered his mind. There was something about that pirate that made his nervous, though he wasn't sure what it was. The dark-haired boy shook his head, 'It doesn't matter. I will defeat her and Hanabi, proving how weak the main house is. That is my fate.'
At night, on top of one of the many buildings in Konoha, Gaara of the Desert sat in confusion, thinking about the darkstalker girl who had approached him with no fear. After learning what she and her associates truly were part of the mystery of how she knew was solved and yet it didn't explain why that girl had been so casual around him. Perhaps she didn't know what Shukaku was truly capable of. That was one possibility and yet the boy got the feeling that that wasn't the reason. 'Why? Why did she act so kind to me?' he wondered as he thought about Shiva and where she came from … Atum-Coma, the city hidden in the Nexus. According to rumors and what he had seen, Nexus used to be Wave country until it was suddenly overrun with darkstalkers, being like Shiva and her companions. An odd thought then struck the sand shinobi, if Shiva accepted him so easily, would the others of her group accept him as well? Would her city, her country accept him? It was a truly foreign thought to him, to be accepted despite or maybe because of the demon he carried within him. He then thought about the look in the darkstalker's eyes. There had been no hate like the villagers', no fear like Kankuro's, no sadness like in Temari's, just curiosity, playfulness, and something he couldn't recognize. It was very confusing to him.
The day had finally come it was time for the tournament. The stadium was packed not only with citizens from the Fire country, but from other countries as well, not the least of which was Nexus country. A number of darkstalkers had taken to the stands as well, making some humans nervous and others just really confused and curious. There were darkstalkers in seats, flying darkstalkers that had taken spots on the roof, and a few darkstalkers that were acting as concession vendors. Some netherleafs had even created their own pseudo stands on the opposite side by creating some huge trees with plenty of seating. On the upper part of the normal stadium, Anko came walking in her true form, having dropped the disguise by now. She spotted Asuma and Kurenai and sat down next to them. "Hey guys, what's up? Has it started yet?" she asked as she reached into a bag she had with her.
Kurenai looked at her friend. Though the change in appearance was disturbing at first, Anko seemed fine with it so she just tried to ignore it. "No it hasn't, we're just waiting for the crowd to settle down. What are you eating?" she asked curious.
The half-naga just smiled, showing off her fangs. "Mimmoths," she said sweetly as she pulled out a mouse-sized, wiggling, squealing mammoth and plunked it in her mouth before swallowing it whole. Both the genjutsu mistress and the chain-smoker paled at the sight. "What? They taste good and they're even better when alive 'cause they wiggle all the way down," the special Jonin said, silently amused at their paling faces. They weren't the first non-Nexus residents to start turning green at this, some people even left their seats, and ran to the nearest toilet and or trashcan when they heard and found out what mimmoths were. 'Their loss,' she supposed as she down another one with practiced ease.
"Anyway," Asuma spoke shaking off his disgust, "who do you think will win in the fourth round, Neji or Hinata? Neji's the favorite to win along with the Uchiha, but that's only the Leaf's view."
"Her name is Amethyst," Anko corrected automatically, "and to be honest, it's really split as far the Atum-Coma is concerned. Naruto, Shiva, Anita, and Amethyst are all the most common favorites, but hell if I know who's going to win this thing. As for the upcoming match, I'd place my money on Amy, but then again I am the one who trained her," she said smugly.
Kurenai just smiled, "Well, whoever wins, this should be an interesting match." The other two nodded, despite the Leaf Nin paling at the tiny screams of the mimmoths as they were unceremoniously eaten by their half-naga friend. "As for the first match I have no clue what to think. I know Tenten is a weapon specialist, but I have no idea what Verity is, in any sense of the phase," she said referring to the fact that the girl looked like a walking garden.
Anko just smiled. "She's a netherleaf, a kind of sentient plant with human level intelligence that can manipulate plants though not in the same way the First Hokage did," she explained.
Asuma chuckled. "Great, a human hedge trimmer against a weed with an attitude, this should be interesting," he said taking another puff on his cigarette.
DARK TOME: Economy
Economy Info: Being as complex as it is, Atum-Coma's economy does rely on a few key things. One of the biggest contributors is shipping and trade, being an island nation and having open access to the seas. The standard water shipping contracts and routes once held by Gato now belong to the Nexus council and are divided evenly based on what's being shipped and to where. Recently added to these shipping contracts is the sky fleet with shipping by either sky ship or air ship depending on what's being shipped. Each type of shipping has its own limits and security measures as mentioned in a previous entry about Sky ships and Air ships. With all these shipping contract, Atum-Coma has a very large import and export trade which has a massive range.
With practically unlimited shipping ability, Atum-Coma makes full use of it under the direction of Shinara. They are able to export an extremely wide variety of merchandise due to all the different districts. For example, the Wilds has many different types of fruits and foods not found anywhere else, one of the most popular being Spirit Bee honey. Clockworks on the other had, exports a wide number of devices and contraptions ranging from the practical to the downright outrageous. Helios and Ice-blight specialize in healing items while Tirana is well known for making quality weapons. Also, there has also been talk of setting up a railway between Atum-Coma and any allied nations. Currently it is in the planning stages but is being back heavily by Clockworks and interestingly enough the Wilds.
Another big contributor to the economy is missions taken by their ninja. Like any other ninja country, missions are requested by people, ranked, and assigned accordingly. It should be important to note that Atum-Coma tends to rank their missions a little differently then normal villages. The reason for this is simply point of view. While catching runaway experiments or rounding up dangerous dark beasts might be ranked C or even B in other villages, they are usually ranked D in Atum-Coma due to the simple fact that they are within the village. Another thing that causes Nexus to stand out is the fact that the missions they usually take tend to be on the weird side, for normal people anyway. Such missions include exorcisms, alien abductions, ancient spirits, legendary creatures, etc. Another important note is that Nexus has an extra level of missions. Normally, the levels progress from easiest/safest to most difficult/dangerous at D, C, B, A, S, and then SS. However, Nexus has the added rank of X. X Rank missions are missions that are extremely dangerous even for some or all types darkstalkers. These missions often involve something of mass importance or on an extremely wide scale. A good example of an X Ranked mission would be venturing into the Lost Zone for any reason as in its current state, the Lost Zone is a 99.99% guaranteed death trap for any darkstalker. As a result of being such a high risk, those that attempt these high of rank missions can name nearly anything as their price for completion, with a few exceptions.
AN: Well, next chapter will start the actual tournament which is going to be fun to write. Anyways, if there is anything you want me to use in a DARK TOME entry, tell me in a review and I might use it for a future chapter.