IMPERIALS – THE COUNTER-ASPECT
The Void
"Kasumi, I feel strange. Everything feels a bit slower, a bit more painful."
"Yes, the tool that was used to trap you here wasn't meant to be used on you, it was meant to be used on Endou Akashi. The idea was that you would be replaced by your negative counterpart, but it didn't quite work for you. I don't know if it is because of Akashi's remains or tiny remnants of your future self, but the attack happened on you in both Homeworld and your pocket-world. It was meant to take you from the realm, but it only half-took you away from Homeworld and half-took you away from the pocket-world.
"Right now you are actually jumping between the two places at a speed you cannot imagine. To you it looks like you are staying here, but I am manipulating space and time to achieve that effect, it is only an illusion. However, you are travelling at this speed and even I can only do so much to protect you from the affects of that. Travelling at such speed has complicated consequences, I don't understand them entirely myself. In your case it seems that jumping back and forward between the two worlds at such speed means you are ageing very quickly."
"That's impossible, I understand divine energy. I should be immortal."
"Again, you are a complicated man Uzumaki Naruto, sometimes you continue ageing for a year, in rare cases two or three years. Unlike your counterparts you never stopped ageing all this time."
"How?"
"Would it help you to understand if I pointed out that there are two others experiencing the same thing as you. Both your father Namikaze Minato and your 2nd Hokage Senju Tobirama are also ageing. Now that you are travelling through the void you are ageing at an accelerated rate, but they are just ageing normally. What do the three of you share?"
"Kurama…"
"Me?" Kurama starts.
"It was Kurama, but now it is all of your comrades in your inner world. They are complicating matters; they are part of your being in a way that prevents your immortality. You have understood divine energy Naruto, but Kurama has always been part of you, and he has not. There is a part of you that therefore doesn't understand divine energy, and so long as that is the case you will continue to age.
"Your friend Sakura discovered that this was happening prior to your attack on the Foundry. She informed Princess Hinata about the problem and offered her view that it was due to extreme stress. Hinata did not know what to do with this information, to her it was good that you were taking the situation seriously. Then when the Foundry incident occurred she wished that she could have stopped you and saved Sakura's life. Sakura was her first friend from the pocket-world. When you were not looking she cried, another friend lost to the war."
"Is that why she was afraid to be with me?"
"That's what her sister believes. As an onlooker it is what I believe. But my opinion isn't worth much on the subject. If there is one person who knows the two souls of Hinata it is you."
Naruto nods.
"If I can offer you some advice, I believe she loves you. Hold onto that tightly, one day one of you will be gone and it will be sad. But if you never loved each other at all then all you would feel is regret. That is the kind of man you are, and that is the kind of woman she is, both Hyuuga and Endou."
"If Naruto is ageing quickly how long does he have?" Chomei asks.
"A few days, a week at most. If your friends can find the solution you will probably be very old when you emerge from this place. You will be frail compared to your current self, and much more so than your negative counterpart. That is why is important that we get started with the training right away. Even if I cannot make you much stronger with this training, I believe that we can stop you ageing before your natural life comes to an end."
"This is my fault."
"What are you talking about Kurama?"
"All this time I thought I had been helping you, but I have been holding you back."
"That is not true," Naruto insists. "Without your help I could never have got this far. You are the only person who has been with me on every step of my journey. You are my partner!"
"We should have seen this coming. This is exactly what the Seer Twins warned us about. 'You should be careful about your beast comrade; he may be your most useful ally, but at the same time, he is harming you in a way you do not yet realise.' If I had thought about it more then I might have realised what was happening to you, what I was doing to you."
"This is nobody's fault," Naruto says.
"Attributing blame will not help anyone," Kasumi says. "Other times the solution to this issue might be to extract the tailed-beast from you. I know that can be dangerous for you, but as a class 9 'life' user you would almost certainly survive. Right now that is not an option. You are moving so fast that if the tailed-beasts were extracted they would be torn apart instantly."
"We would return eventually," Kurama says.
"Not if you were in the void when it happened."
"There must be something we can do," says Isobu.
"There is. This training will help Naruto, placing him among the strongest class 9s to ever live, but it is not he who must develop. The breakthroughs must be by all of you, the tailed-beasts. As Naruto and Kurama might have noticed during their incursion into Fauna City you can share each other's divine energy type, but not the quality. This means that Kurama could use Naruto's 'life' energy when he took over but he remained a class 3 warrior.
"Now let's imagine the reverse. What if Naruto had nine other parts of his soul? What if there were nine other divine energy types that part of him understood? After breaking through you would each have class 4 energy assuming you understood normal elements. But if you gave your divine energy to Naruto it would retain the type you give it, but it would upgrade to class 9 quality.
"Naruto would be a class 9 warrior. Being an elderly man he would be at a disadvantage to his negative counterpart, but he would have something to compensate for that frailty. Your negative counterpart would fight with two available elements, but you would be fighting with eleven."
"But 9 breakthroughs?" Naruto mutters. "In a week that is impossible."
"Yes even Homeworld's greatest teacher Muto Sora may have been incapable of that. I may not be such a great teacher, but I have an advantage he did not. I understand every single element. I can provide personal intuition for each of you, I can give you years' worth of insights within minutes. For anyone in Homeworld this rate of tuition would be impossible, but for a progenitor it just might be possible."
"Then we need to start right away."
Kasumi claps her hands, "Let's get to work then."
North-East Ewoa
Ugokanai Mada, the counter-aspect of Uzumaki Naruto; his opposite in most meaningful ways, but with one key difference, he is loyal to the Dark Dimension beyond all else. He stands, his cloak fluttering in the wind, facing a small army. This army has been gathered by a couple of class 8 Imperial Guard colonels for the specific purpose of stopping this new rampaging force that has emerged. The leader of these forces is the Colonel Protector of Genzee, Farid.
"We outnumber you overwhelmingly," Farid says.
"It's laughable that you think it matters."
"I recognise you from the descriptions Uzumaki Naruto. You must know that this is the Kingdom of Ewoa, a nation lead by Queen Mauer Sabine, the strongest of all royals. If you remain here Ewoa's mighty Imperial Guard will soon eliminate you. If by a miracle you survive the Imperial Guard, the Queen herself will be forced to intervene, and she will be less merciful than I am being now. I offer you this chance, leave."
Mada uses his 'life' powers to manipulate the plant-life beneath Farid's feet. He grows the grass at tremendous speeds before wrapping it around Farid's ankles. The colonel is quickly wrestled to the ground by the powerfully manipulated foliage. His back is held down by intertwined grass running over his abdomen in an x shape. All four limbs are also bound to the earth as if by rope, the grass stronger than any restraints the colonel has ever experienced before.
Mada walks calmly to the side of the restrained colonel.
"Do you still believe that I am Uzumaki Naruto?"
"But you are—"
Mada uses the Energy Projection technique. While kneeling beside the colonel he does not move, yet the colonel is struck repeatedly in the chest. It is class 8 energy the same as his own, but he cannot move. The assault is relentless and painful, it takes only 10 seconds before he can tolerate no more and he yields.
"Stop! Stop!"
Mada stops.
"Who are you?"
"Knowing that will do you no good, you won't be alive much longer. Now, I am going to hand you the communication stone from your pocket. You are going to send a message to all your subordinates. You will confess that you were foolish to think you could stop me, you will tell them that you are too weak and that you have failed your empire. You will then relinquish your commission but only after giving your final order, tell them to run like their lives depend on it."
"I… I cannot do—"
The repeated Energy Projection strikes resume.
"Stop! Stop! I'll do it."
Mada stops again. He reaches into Farid's pocket and places the communication stone he founds into the bound hand of the colonel. He watches and listens as the colonel sends the embarrassing message to his subordinates. He smiles at their horrified reaction; at the terror they feel when they realise how much stronger than them he is. This is the full power he wishes his counterpart had wielded all this time, the might of the Naruto who could have ruled the world.
"OK, I've sent it, now what?" Farid asks.
"Now I kill you."
"But I did what you—"
Mada places his hand on Colonel Farid's chest. He then begins monitoring the 'life' within the colonel and does what his counterpart always refused to do. He begins to absorb that 'life' energy. Unlike with Naruto's life-gathering rasengan he does not take a tiny fraction of that energy; he takes it all in one go. For twenty painful seconds Farid feels his lifeforce leaving his body just to become a tool of this maniacal new enemy.
That is one enemy gone as far as Mada is concerned, one enemy that Uzumaki would have been too weak to kill. However, he tells Beast that he has no intention of stopping here. That message was designed to humiliate Farid and to terrify the others who have assembled to fight him, but he has no intention of letting them go. There is no mercy in the heart of Ugokanai Mada, to him the message was only ever entertainment.
Mada uses Detonation Martial Arts to power-up both his legs. He launches himself into the heart the enemy force and comes to a complete standstill. He smiles menacingly at them, knowing that they are too afraid to move. They have come up against an enemy they cannot hope to defeat. He decides to show them what his other self was holding back.
Mada gathers golden 'life' energy in an ultra-tight space between his hands, into a ball resembling the Rasengan. Then he releases that ball and the energy begins to expand. As it expands it is recoloured the red of his chakra cloak. The originally gold-white ball that he created is now a red bubble, expanding continuously until it encases every last one of his would-be opponents. At first it seems like nothing is happening, but when they realise the truth they are too slow to react.
The army stands dumbstruck, looking at the bubble. After thirty seconds one of the sensors notices that a small stream of divine energy is moving from her body in Mada's direction. When prompted the other sensors notice this too, there is a stream of energy moving from everyone towards Mada. Starting with the weakest warriors they all begin to feel sick. Soon afterwards they feel physical weakness and frailty, they begin to collapse and their bodies begin to fail. After two minutes the reality sets in, but it is too late for them to act on it, they are too weak.
Mada is absorbing all of their 'life' energy. He is killing them!
Only one class 8 colonel has the strength to go on. He runs towards the edge of the bubble as fast as he can, which thanks to Mada's technique is much slower than before. Mada chuckles and begins to run after the colonel. The counter-aspect deliberately runs slowly, matching the pace of the retreating colonel exactly. To the colonel's dismay the bubble is following Mada; he cannot escape from it!
The colonel has only one choice left; he turns to face his assailant. He throws a pair of strikes, but they both miss wildly because of his fatigue. Mada uses golden 'life' energy to manipulate the grass, growing it and binding this colonel to the ground just as he restrained Farid before. The counter-aspect walks to the side of the colonel and sits, watching out of curiosity. It would be easy for him to end things here, but he wants to see how long his life-absorbing technique will take with a class 8 warrior when the bubble is this size.
Thirty seconds pass before the colonel utters his final words.
"Who are you?"
Mada does not answer, he simply smiles tauntingly for the last few seconds of the colonels life. A small Imperial Guard army attacked him, an army lead by a pair of class 8 colonels. He firmly believes that the other version of him would have been too weak to handle this situation, but he is different. He has barely raised a finger and he has crippled the Imperial Guard in this region of Ewoa.
Nearby two recent escapees from the capital city watch on.
"Something is wrong with him."
"Should we confront him?"
"No, this is best left to the expert."
It is Ming Dai and Shao Chin.
Dai continues, "Shao Chin. We need to find Hinata immediately!"
Half A Day Later, North Ewoa
Mada sits on a hill overlooking the remains of the latest village to fall victim to his life-absorbing powers. He eats some food he took, the first thing he has eaten is this bread. It does not impress him but at least he chose to eat it. The One True Sense alerts him to his approaching comrades and he smiles. It seems that he will finally have the chance to speak to someone significant.
"Naruto," Hinata says, walking slowly at the head of the others. "What is going on? Is there something wrong with you? Is it what I said because—"
"Ah yes you wanted to make me king. Presumptuous of you considering that you are so weak. You think more people want to follow your lead than mine? Nonsense. Putting up with you for so long has been a mistake Endou Hinata. I thought that in time you might be more tolerable than your other half, but it seems that you have only become more like her."
"What are you saying?"
"I am saying that you have all been given too much credit in the past. Shao Chin, you are a hunter who has failed on every step of his journey. Ming Dai, you are a pathetic man running from his father. Michel, you were a coward who refused to fight because you were afraid. Claude, all you wanted to do was save one person because you lack the willpower to pursue your own ambitions. Mana, you are the would-be princess who hid while her empire suffered. Hannah, you sought your independence so desperately but then forfeited it immediately to become my student. Sasuke, you are so weak that you have forgotten your anger at Sakura's death. Mother, father, you two are the parents who let your child take the blame for your village's suffering. And Hinata, you are a challenger to the throne so weak that you need me to fight your battles for you. Each and every one of you is a failure."
"… you are not Naruto," Hinata realises.
"Ha, of course you would figure it out first princess. You know his heart better than anyone else don't you? I hope you know how much it pains him that you refuse to admit your feelings. It stings him more than any wound he has ever sustained in battle."
"A fake Naruto?" Minato asks.
"Am I? Let's test that theory out shall we. Hannah was biologically programmed to obey the commands of the first person who defeated her. Hannah, this is an order from Uzumaki Naruto, kill Claude."
Hinata watches in horror as Hannah begins to reach towards the owl on her shoulder. Claude flies away, he is yelling at Hannah to calm down and take control, but she is moving towards him. She is trying desperately to resist, just as she did in the past but she has no self-control. This is the type of control King Weiss Max once tried to gain over Hannah. She cannot allow this, even if it means fighting Naruto, she is determined that she will stop it.
Hinata draws the Sacred Sword and swings it in Mada's direction. Mada uses his Energy Projection to stop the sword from reaching him. He smiles at Hinata before power-transferring to his arm and knocking the sword from her hand. He is a class stronger than her, with his divine oddity also adding to his power she does not have a chance against him.
Mada uses his Energy Projection to force Hinata to move.
"Kneel," he commands her.
She tries to resist but she cannot, the Energy Projection overpowers her. Mada approaches the kneeling princess and taunts her.
"You wish to control an empire while you are so weak? You are a pitiful excuse for an empress, Hinata."
Minato is quick to react. He uses a marker he placed earlier and immediately begins to teleport his allies away, starting with Kushina and Mito. After a few seconds he gets through the majority of his allies, including the kneeling Hinata, but Mada is quick to react to the movements and grabs one key ally before Minato can rescue him. Naruto grabs Claude and holds him up in front of Hannah.
"Hannah, it is an order. Kill Claude."
Hannah's arm shakes as her fist clenches and she pulls her arm back. She prays for a way to control herself, dreading the same horror as she experienced in the past. Sasuke taught her a lesson about the will of enduring this multiple times, but she still does not want to do it. Claude has been with her through her entire life, he is family to her and she does not want to kill him. She refuses to go through this again, even going so far as to will her core to detonate. But her core does not detonate, the power of a command from the one who defeated her is absolute.
She strikes.
But she does not strike Clyde, she strikes Mada.
Her power surges in a way it never has before as her fist connects with his chest. She feels strength in every part of her body, overwhelming strength. Not only does she strike at Mada, but she also uses her other hand to grab her owl companion, saving him from the counter-aspect who was holding him hostage.
With his divine oddity it does not take long for Mada to halt his backwards momentum, but he still feels unlucky. He was so close to controlling Hannah, that would have helped him immensely in his efforts to fight for the Dark Dimension and cleanse Homeworld. Furthermore, that last strike was more powerful than any Hannah has ever delivered before and there has been a clear change in the quality of her divine energy.
"Go," Hannah says to Claude. "I will buy you time to retreat."
"But—"
"Even with the Flying Thunder God we won't be able to escape him for long, not with so many of us. Go, Minato can come back for me alone, until then make sure the others are safe."
"Hannah, you can't fight him. He's—"
"I said go!"
Claude watches Hannah for one more moment before flying away at top speed. He is leaving her to face this monster who looks like her teacher, a monster who would have had her kill him. He does not like it but he feels that he has no choice. After Naruto, Hannah is the most proficient fighter in their group, if there is anyone capable of holding this imposter at bay it is her.
"How did you defy the order?" Mada asks.
"Only Uzumaki Naruto can give me orders."
"You know?"
"I don't know the full story of who you are. You are an almost perfect copy of my teacher, but there are differences. It took a while, but my instincts did detect those differences, and they saved me from your order."
"A pity, you would have been a fine weapon for my cause. Do you truly believe that you will be able to fight me? You know that I have beaten you before."
"True, but that was a long time ago," Hannah says. "Since then I have learned a lot from the best. I have learned from the real Uzumaki Naruto. And back then I was not as strong as I am now. I was not…
"… class 9."
In Response to m'j doom
Who asks several questions
Q1: Will Naruto be class 10 after his training?
A1: As this chapter hopefully shows, he will still be class 9, unless something different happens.
Q2: Are you planning a sequel?
A2: Not at the moment, I'm just leaving options open.
Thanks for reading.
In Response to NicoFics
Who asks several questions
Q1: Will there be a continuation of this story later?
A1: I'm not planning to write one, but I might change my mind.
Q2: Is Goku one of the progenitor's other prospects?
A2: Yes, but it's worth bearing in mind that this crossover will probably never happen. I've spent almost four years writing this story and writing a second similar story would be a serious commitment.
Thanks for reading.
In Response to Guest
Who asks if Naruto is class 4 through chakra alone now
No, he is still a tier 3 chakra user.
Thanks for reading.
In Response to Tobito
Who asks several questions
Q1: Will Naruto become an unstoppable god?
A1: I couldn't possibly reveal that without giving away spoilers, but don't worry I have plans for how the story will end. I have tried to make it is as tense as possible.
Q2: Will there be a mega crossover with other shonen anime?
A2: I don't currently plan to write that sequel, but I may change my mind.
Thanks for reading.