Original Author's note: I'll be real, I have no idea about Kanji at all, and not much more understanding of basic japanese. Y'all can feel free to call me out in case I effed up my translations.
Addendum: Hey so this has been sitting around on my PC for like a year… I figured maybe I should post it? No idea when I'll post the followup chapter. Maybe next week, maybe next year .-.
"My… what!?" Naruto gaped. "The Kyuubi?"
"From what I can tell," I replied nonchalantly, "Honestly, it makes sense. Poor guy is sealed inside you and probably doesn't have much more to do than spectate your life. It'd suck for him too if you end up a vegetable."
"Isn't the Kyuubi just a monster?" Naruto questioned, which made me remember he probably hadn't spoken to the fuzzball as of yet… awkward.
"If the Kyuubi is just some unthinking creature, why would he show up in Konoha of all places?" I reasoned, "From a survival standpoint it'd be smartest to just hide out in the mountains somewhere."
"Maybe the Kyuubi's just stupid?" Naruto tried, getting a snort for his efforts. "Okay yeah, probably not. But that can only mean it attacked Konoha for fun, ya know?"
Would it be worth it to try and mend Naruto's relationship with Kurama early on, just so I might get some tips on how to abuse the shadow clone? Screw it. I'd already departed from canon. I may as well help Naruto out even more.
"Naruto, I highly doubt that it arrived in Konoha of its own volition," I proposed, "How would a gigantic fox even get close to the village without prior warning?"
I let Naruto reason that one out on his own. "It… was sealed somewhere?" he half asked half stated.
"Must have been, right? Now, I have no idea how he might've escaped," I lied, "But if you were stuck inside someone for many years, wouldn't you be a little cranky too? Especially if people started freaking out and shooting fireballs at you."
"Yeah but I wouldn't murder anyone! The Kyuubi is evil," Naruto grumbled back.
"And how does that statement differ from those directed at you?" I queried, "The Kyuubi has supposedly been around for a long long time. Having people glare at you and fear you for so long would make anyone hateful."
Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but snapped it back shut after a moment's consideration. "Okay, and what if Kyuubi is helping me?"
"In that case he could be a great source of knowledge!" I exclaimed, "I'd love to ask him a few questions, but I doubt that'll happen any time soon. Which means you could try and contact him in my stead?" I finished with my best attempt at puppy dog eyes.
"Well duh. I knew that," Naruto replied, "But how do I do that?"
"Dunno," I said honestly. Not like the anime had much to go on regarding the actual mechanics of how to enter the seal-space.
Except throwing Naruto off a cliff maybe.
Naruto may be willing to humor my theories, but I doubt he'd go quite that far. Still, I should at least jam the idea of socialising with Kurama into his skull. It was time for the surefire killing blow.
"Sorry for being so overbearing. Here I am, sounding all high and mighty, while you're the one who's had to live with the darn thing in your gut," I laid it on real thick by pitching my voice so it sounded like I had a lump in my throat, "It just saddens me to imagine how lonely the poor fox must feel."
The spiky-haired blond grimaced, but grudgingly promised to try and talk to him. I sincerely hoped it would all work out for the best. Naruto and Kurama both deserved it.
It had gotten quite late, so I didn't bother with any more training after our conversation ended. I simply bid Naruto a good night and went straight to bed. Even with my clone's midday boost, I had a lot of sleep to catch up on.
The following morning of training had gone very similarly to our first. Running laps around the training ground while dodging projectiles, three on one spars against our teacher, and various tracking and team formation drills. Not the most exciting, but frankly I was just glad Hayate wouldn't be forcing us into D-rank missions for the time being.
The afternoon, however, was a whole different story. As promised, our sensei gave each of us introductory lessons in the fields we'd chosen the previous day. He handed Akuma a practice tanto, and Yuu a stack of reading material. I, however, was left empty-handed.
Hayate directed my two teammates to acquaint themselves with their items as he pulled me over to the training ground's forested area.
"As you know, most sensory ninja have their own style," he began, "For example, the Hyuuga have their eyes, the Inuzuka have their noses, and the Aburame have their insects. Naturally, none of these aforementioned styles can be learnt, lest you have an ingrained ability to use them.
The most widespread sensory technique of them all, however, is to simply rely on our bodies' ingrained chakra sense. Unlike the alternatives, this skill is shared amongst all shinobi, and can be both taught and trained. It is also the one that I myself utilize."
It'd have been a lie to say I wasn't somewhat disappointed about my ability being a lot less special than I assumed. With my shadow clone plans falling to the wayside I needed any and every leg up I could possibly get.
"Don't look so blue, Satoya," continued Hayate as he ruffled my hair with a reassuring smile, "Just because it can be taught, doesn't mean you aren't special. You're one of the harder people to sneak up on, and that's without having ever gotten any instruction on the subject."
"Thanks, sensei," I half-heartedly responded.
Pull yourself together man; You're older than he is!
"I mean it, Satoya," he insisted, "Everyone can sense chakra, but few can tell apart whose chakra they're sensing. Fewer still can sense suppressed auras. To start off, I need to measure where exactly your current level falls."
Hayate then asked me to describe the feel of his chakra to him. The issue was that my teacher's unbridled curiosity overshadowed his, for lack of a better term, flavor. Having never really paid much attention to that aspect of someone's aura made it difficult to parse.
"Sensei, could you maybe reign in your curiosity?" I pleaded, "It's a bit distracting."
Instead of dissipating, his interest only grew with an added layer of surprise on top. "Satoya, do you mean to tell me that you can recognize my emotional state?"
"Is that not normally part of it?" I asked, honestly baffled.
Hayate shook his head in the negatory. "Not at all. It must be due to your increased spiritual energy somehow… I presume you cannot sense emotions without sensing chakra?"
After I shook my head, Hayate chose to ignore the revelation for now and told me to return to my earlier attempt. It took a good few minutes, but once he began lightly cycling his chakra, I finally managed to tease out his natures.
Like soothingly cool earth. Solid and dependable. After giving my description, Hayate proceeded to reduce his aura more and more until I was just barely unable to sense it anymore. He followed it up by creating a clone and sent it out into the forest. After advising me to go and find his copy he left me to my own devices.
Most of the afternoon went by with little progress on my end. After finding the clone once, and having him up the difficulty, I could no longer find it for the life of me. Even receiving various tips regarding focusing techniques and how to tune out my other senses, I was completely incapable of improving my sensory ability.
Noting my increasing frustration, Hayate suggested my problems may stem from a mental block. Odds were that my subconscious mind had simply learnt to shut out the massive influx of sensory information I'd otherwise be plagued by, not too unlike any normal inhabitant of the shinobi world. After all, even having gotten over the worst of my hypersensitivity, hugely chakra intensive abilities would likely still cause me intense pain.
However, if I could power through the discomfort, I'd have the opportunity to turn a supposed weakness into one of my greatest strengths. And so, even though I was specifically advised against abusing them, I summoned two clones to sit down next to me and meditate.
The idea was that with the sensory input of three people combined I'd artificially dive deeper into my ability. I dispelled the clones after ten minutes of sitting still, measuring my surroundings and…
It worked. It was darn uncomfortable, but it worked.
With closed eyes and cleared mind, the triple layered memory functioned like an amplifier to my senses instead of delivering a warbled mess of impressions. I noted that keeping clones active for lengthy periods of risk-free scouting might actually work out fine as long as my original body remained in sensory deprivation.
I repeated the strategy two more times before I finally managed to strong-arm my protesting brain into lowering its mental blockade, consequently enabling me to finally discover Hayate's clone who had been sitting, near invisible, a mere few feet above me.
No matter how much of a troll our teacher was, it didn't lessen the feelings of pride and accomplishment that welled up inside me.
The week drew by and our training kept upping in intensity. Hayate, it seemed, took his job as protector and teacher very seriously. In his own words, "If I can't effectively train a group of genin, then how will my future wife ever trust me to raise our children?"
The reminder of his untimely demise made me internally cringe. Though with the way things were shaping up, I doubted he'd be a proctor in the future, meaning he probably wouldn't be caught spying. I'd failed to understand how someone of his caliber even got caught in the first place until Hayate mentioned the link between keeping your emotions in check and suppressing your chakra signal.
I supposed that hearing you were about to get invaded by your ally would surprise anyone.
As a side note: I could not suppress my chakra for the life of me. Whenever I did, it felt simultaneously like my chest was getting crushed, while my body also wanted to explode. In fact, keeping it up for more than ten seconds had literally made me throw up.
Which is why I was now sitting in the shade with my back propped against a tree trunk, silently listening to the clang of Akuma and Hayate's blunted swords. Yuu sat nearby, peering over a seal and quietly hissing out the occasional curse.
"What's got you so riled up?" I asked. I had nothing better to do at the moment after all.
He drew in a sharp breath. "This cursed array!" he snapped, "It's just so… so… Argh!" He dropped his ink brush onto the grass and rubbed his stained hands across his forehead. "I am to copy it over, and when I feed it chakra it will supposedly emit a green light. But it just keeps fu- fizzling out instead!"
The way his voice had gotten progressively shriller amused me to no end. Nevertheless I swallowed down my urge to laugh. "Do you know why it's fizzling out?"
"Of course I know!" he bit back. "I can't keep my stupid fingers still enough!"
Hmm, maybe I could help him out? I have a lot of painting practice at this point…
"Can I watch you draw out the seal? I might be able to give you some advice on your brush technique," I suggested.
He looked at me as if I was the second coming of the Sage. "I would appreciate that, Satoya. Perhaps your frivolous enjoyment of drawing could be helpful to shinobi work after all."
I chalked Yuu's wry comment up to his poor mood and ignored it. Slowly scooching up to my friend so as to not further upset my stomach, I peered over his shoulder as he worked. "You said this seal was supposed to glow green?"
"Yes. And it's not a seal, just a technique formula," he explained, "Seals specifically restrict or bind. Formulas can apply to anything. However, the best, and most importantly permanent, seals all use Jutsu-Shiki."
I shrug off his correction. "Yeah yeah, whatever. Who cares about semantics anyway?" I joked as I watched him copy off his template. As testament to his hard work, I couldn't spot any glaring faults in his recreation. None at least, that by my estimation would have totally disrupted chakra flow.
"Arrays care about semantics, Satoya," Yuu commented, rolling his eyes, "Which is why each kanji needs to be perfectly drawn. Otherwise it does not convey the correct meaning."
"So what, it's just a sentence spelled out by chakra-conductive ink?" I probed, trying to decipher the strange Kanji structure in front of me.
"It uses specialized terms and symbols…" Yuu clarified "Though in essence, yes. Phrasing conveys meaning, which determines the result. This, for example," he traced his finger along the template's central symbol, ''is the origin point. Absorb, which wanders to convert, followed up by emit."
I pondered his explanation and checked over the code. Yuu had kept his description concise. The three runes were actually composed of more than one symbol each. A larger symbol, which represented the command word like absorb, was bound to a smaller symbol depicting the subject of the command. So the phrase was really 'Absorb: Chakra'.
Travelling along the thin lines of ink, linking the symbols like wires in a circuit board, lead to the second command, 'Convert: Chakra'. Following that directive, it finally landed on 'Emit: Light'.
Wait, what?
I wrinkled my nose. Sure, it was meant to be a beginner's seal, but to me it looked downright sloppy. The array was meant to emit green light. The final command also correctly stated to emit light. Yet, the variable 'light' had no prior definition at any point in the seal.
According to Yuu the intent behind words mattered when sealing -I mean formulating-, so the variables' names were simultaneously their own definitions. However, the emitted light would still need to originate from somewhere. That's it! The program never defined what the chakra should be converted into!
Absorb[chakra]
Convert[chakra]
Emit[light]
It made less sense the longer I stared at it. "Yuu," I mumbled at the despairing boy, "Have you actually tested the template?"
He looked at me for a short moment, his eyes widening. "No..."
His head swiveled to the original diagram and he shakily moved his hand over the center. The center kanji promptly began to glow a very light shade of blue as the chakra travelled along to the next line of code and… "NO!"
Nothing happened.
"I spent the entire afternoon working on copying my first fully functional array," he said, sounding utterly mortified, "and did not bother TO TEST THE ACCURSED TEMPLATE!" He tightened his grip around the sealing paper, crumpling it up in rage. "Fu-" he choked his anger back and took a deep breath. "No matter, I shall simply get someone else to make the entrapping seals for me."
I snatched the crumpled sheet out of the air as he spun around and casually tossed it over his shoulder. "Hey, don't beat yourself up about it! It's not your fault," I said in an attempt to soothe him. "At least you can probably get Hayate to pay you back somehow!"
Unsure whether my words reached him, I watched as he stiffly stepped over to our teacher. Knowing Yuu, he was probably about to give him a devastating tongue-lashing. Scratch that, he was attacking our teacher in the middle of his spar. I chuckled to myself as I unfolded the discarded array.
I couldn't help but let my eyes wander back and forth between the drawing and the discarded writing supplies. It couldn't be that easy, right?
Let's see, If I just added a bit of something over here; Maybe change the phrasing a bit…
Absorb[chakra]
Convert[chakra] to [light(green)]
Emit[light(green)]
The array only took about a minute to finish. I wasn't quite sure whether the symbols I used for my slapdash commands would function as intended, but since Yuu mentioned it was exactly the intent behind them that mattered, it should work out. I pushed in a trace amount of chakra and to my delight, the array lit up in the desired color.
It wasn't exactly an impressive amount of light, the material quality and improvised command structure likely limited the efficiency, but still.
I made up for it by overloading the circuit with chakra, which made the whole sheet glow like a cartoonishly radioactive lump of metal and elicited an equally cartoonish villainous chuckle. A few moments later the low-quality sheet of paper burnt out and crumbled to dust.
Without a lightshow to distract me I became aware of the slack-jawed trio of people standing behind me. "You… how did you get it to work!?" Yuu choked out.
"Uhm… I just took your copy of the template and modified it a bit," I replied, shrugging my shoulders, "It's no big deal."
Judging by Hayate's expression, I could not be more wrong. "Satoya-kun," our sensei said, "Casually fixing an array, with zero prior experience in Jutsu-Shiki is the opposite of 'no big deal'!"
Really? This is just basic code...
I looked back at the stack of unused paper. "I've been working on my calligraphy for a long time," I defended "And this code isn't what I'd call complex."
Hayate raised an eyebrow. "I take it you are not interested in furthering your studies on Jutsu-Shiki?" he posed, "I won't force you to learn something you do not wish to, even if it was a waste of potentially prodigious talent.."
It wasn't that I disliked the idea. I simply hadn't ever considered it worth the time investment. Or even really considered it much at all to be honest. Sealing was supposedly a huge chore to learn and I hadn't expected to be any good at it to begin with. Not to mention Konoha housed a grand total of one seal master who wasn't even in the village most of the time.
Nevertheless, with the clarity of hindsight I should have at least taken a look. "I might be interested," I admitted to both myself and my teacher, "I haven't really thought about it too much. What would a mastering technique formulas be good for?"
Yuu looked just about ready to pass out from my unbridled obliviousness when Hayate answered, "A true master? Think no further than the Yondaime Hokage and his Hiraishin."
"That…" I trailed off.
Maybe I didn't need to abuse shadow clones after all?