Naruto: Shinobi of the Force
Crying Out
It was a dark and calm evening, Naruto Uzumaki, age four, came stumbling into a clearing. Tonight, when he came home to the orphanage after school, he found all of his stuff packed neatly into a box. When he tried to open the orphanage door to see what was going on, he found it locked, and when he pounded on the door, yelling to be let in, nobody answered. He knew they were there, though he could not see them, it was like a sixth sense, he could feel their presence, and even a few of their emotions – resolve and determination – though he as a four-year-old could not name those feelings.
Naruto stood on the porch for about an hour, crying and begging to be let in, when even his boundless energy was depleted, he stepped back, looking up at the place he had lived since he could remember. He would never have called it a home, because even if they fed him, and clothed him, that was all they did. Most of the time, they ignored him, not giving him any attention, let alone affection, unless he acted up, then they were all too eager to give him a thrashing. The rest of the time, they barely acknowledged his presence, if he knew the word, indifference would be how he described their treatment of him.
The orphanage personnel were not alone in their apathy towards Naruto. Almost every person Naruto met, went out of their way to ignore him, it was like he was invisible to them. All children are required to attend elementary school to learn basic reading and writing, as well as some maths, before moving onto their primary education, or to the Leaf Village's Shinobi Academy, both beginning when the student turns six, his teachers ignored him in class when he asked for help. When he would walk down the street, he may as well have been invisible, they did not look at him, they looked through him. Shop keepers, restauranteurs, and stall operators went out of their way to overlook him, when he would enter their establishments. Even when he was standing in line.
The only time people would acknowledge Naruto's presence would be if the kind old man were with him, or if he went to Ichiraku Ramen. Beyond that, the people of Konoha, refused to acknowledge his existence, unless he did something bad. When that happened, they were all too eager to acknowledge Naruto's presence. It was almost getting to the point where he would rather be acknowledged any way he could, than allow them to overlook him. If it took him causing mischief to not be ignored, then he would make sure they acknowledged him. He had already learned that crying and raising a fuss did nothing to change his status with the citizens of Konoha.
Naruto was now walking through the village streets, carrying the box with all of his worldly possessions. There were men in comas, in the hospital that were acting more lively. Naruto's normal sky-blue eyes, looked more like gray overcast versions of themselves, as he meandered unseeingly through the Konoha nightlife. Naruto, knew not, where he was travelling, he did, however, know that he was being guided… by something outside of himself.
Tonight, whatever was happening to him, did not affect the children of the Leaf's brand of ostracism. He appeared to be as invisible to Konoha's populace as any other night. He journeyed away from the urban-center of the village, and entered a heavily wooded section, he appeared to be moving into the area that housed some of the training grounds. Naruto never actually crossed any of the training grounds, whatever was leading him, took pains to guide him around their perimeters. Naruto made his way past hilly terrain, and into more mountainous areas of the Konoha forest, the highest peak was only slightly smaller than Hokage Rock.
He might have been traversing this area for at least an hour, maybe more, when he came out over a ridge, that looked down into a perfectly, circular valley, which was bathed in the light of the full-moon. Obviously unnatural, it appeared to have been carved out of the top of a mountain, by a powerful ninjutsu of some kind. It looked old enough to have a rich patina of grass growing on the bottom. The bottom of the valley was slightly tilted, and had a small river, flowing from east to west, terminating in a surprisingly powerful waterfall. Naruto continued to walk around the edge of the, well, bowl was the best way he could have described it, if he were to be asked. Eventually, he was led to a tiny crevasse, which was the only entrance that an untrained ninja could use to get inside the valley. The corridor Naruto followed, flowed unnaturally smooth, and even seemed to resemble the glaze found upon ceramics.
Further inside, the corridor opened up into a cavern that could have been as big as the Hokage Mansion. The mouth of the cavern faced East, the same direction the river flowed, and thus is where Naruto found the source of the river, which if the warmth coming from it is anything to go by, was a natural hot-spring. In truth, the word spring, did not do justice to the size of the body of water, Naruto found, it would be more than apt to call it a hot-lake. Naruto spotted a rocky, stepped path, to the left side of the lake, which led out into the expanse of the bowl, as well as another path to his right, that led back to a much smaller cave than the cavern proper.
Naruto moved inside the small cave, which opened up into an antechamber, quite a bit smaller than the cavern, but still big enough to allow him to live comfortably. If he could estimate, it looked about the size of the Ichiraku Ramen Stand, in the village, customer and kitchen area included. It was here that Naruto, finally set his box down, before returning to the mouth of the small cave.
His strength had finally been eroded as he sat facing out into the void. Naruto was sitting directly in-line with the river that flowed out into the bowl, the scene on such a pristine evening, displayed the entire cosmos upon the glassy surface of the lake. A picture that flowed out of the trough of the lake, and seemed to pull the stars with it, into a long ribbon of light upon the river.
By this moment, Naruto had been rung through with emotion, he was not so much calm, as he was numb. He began to take deep breaths, while focusing completely upon the reflection in the lake, while eliminating all extraneous stimulation. He focused his consciousness, only upon the lake, even until he was no longer aware of his own breathing, all he could feel, was the loneliness in his own soul. When someone is as lonely as Naruto, their soul yearning for any form of human contact, most of the time nothing but their own efforts will allow them to overcome their feelings of abandonment. This time however, when the child reached out, something reached back, something powerful, and like a hand reaching out to grasp another, another soul reached back to grasp his.
This was a soul that had only recently become one with the Force, she was murdered by one, she at one time, loved. A member of her family, one whom she loved only slightly less than her son, or husband, she had been a mother, a wife, an aunt, a veteran of a few wars, a Jedi Master, and the Hand of the Emperor of her galaxy, which was two-billion lightyears away, in another part of the universe from where the Force was bringing her now.
Time and Space, mean nothing to the Force, because it is everywhere and nowhere, everywhen and nowhen, at the same time. The Force is aware of itself, even borderline sentient, with its own agenda, yet it can be guided and manipulated, the closest form of matter to describe the behavior of the Force is water. A river of existence which flows through the entire universe, which is as much about death as it is about life, for in order to live, life must feed upon life, whether it be a cow grazing in a field, or a tiger stalking the same cow for its own sustenance. For life to come into existence, a star must die in a most spectacular fashion, like that of a super-nova, there is neither light, nor dark, death is a lie, there is only The Force.
This was the knowledge that the Force implanted into the very soul of Mara Jade-Skywalker. Mara was unique in her experience with the Force, because she was the only one to ever use the light and dark, in significant parts of her life. From her youth to early adulthood, she was trained by Emperor Palpatine, in the ways of the dark-side, she allowed anger, fear, and even hate to guide her actions, and thoughts. While under his tutorship, on missions, even when she sought to kill the man who was responsible for the murder of her mentor, a man who would one day, become the love of her life, her husband, and father of her son. It was her husband Luke, that helped her to begin to walk in the path of the light, he shepherded her along, guiding her to use different feelings and emotions while using the Force. These were positive emotions, happiness, courage, and finally, love.
Yet, even those emotions were considered taboo, among the old Republic order of Jedi, they espoused a detachment from all emotions, even positive feelings, to the point that they forbade even the attachments, afforded by loved ones. They took no Padawans unless they were no older than three, sometimes four, but any older than that, and they are deemed too old to be trained as a Jedi.
Thus, because they isolated themselves from all emotion, even positive ones, they isolated themselves from the Force. It was their isolation from the Force that limited their vision, not just the dark-side, if they had stayed true to the teaching of the Living Force, then they may have been able to save themselves. No lifeform flourishes in isolation, they may live, and survive that way, but eventually they will stagnate and die. The Force can only be reached through feelings, a calm mind is necessary to create a connection, but once a being reaches synergy with the Force, they need to be able to accept not just one's positive emotions, but their negative feelings as well. When a person accepts all of their emotions as a part of themselves, they may begin to control their emotions, which will give them power in the Force far beyond anything the Jedi or the Sith could dream of.
The Force is like a deep, wide river, with shoals and riverbanks along the side, and Force-practitioners are like swimmers, in order to enter the water, they must begin by wading through the shallows. As for Jedi and other "light-side" users, that was as far as they allowed themselves to go. In the beginning, the Jedi Order at least allowed themselves to swim in the Force, as long as they kept their heads above water, but after a few of them allowed themselves to be pulled under and swept away by the Force. They stopped trying to swim, and only allowed themselves to wade into the shallows, they no longer trusted the Force as they once did, their connection began to wane, as they no longer listened, to the Living Force.
The Sith, though twisted and evil, at least had the right idea about how to approach the Force. They allowed themselves to be immersed in the Force completely, they just failed to remain in control, they allowed themselves to be swept away. They drowned themselves in the Force, because like stones around their neck, they allowed their negative feelings to pull them under, and cut away their positive, uplifting emotions.
Those that swim in ordinary water, require positive buoyancy, and locomotion to become strong. Positive emotions, and negative, act as a medium through which they swim the current of the Force. While one may be used to navigate the Force, only with both, may one control the power of it with precision, and when that happens, the Force-practitioner will become invincible, and almost omniscient.
All of this knowledge was given to Mara, by the Living Force itself, the Force practitioners of her former galaxy would never accept this perspective, they were to hard-bound by tradition to see the truth about the Force. Even her husband Luke Skywalker, who, while not blind to the mistakes of the extinct Order, still has too many preconceptions about the Force. He would never accept the truth after so many bad examples of Force-usage, from the "light-side" to the "dark-side." So, therefore, the Living Force has decided to allow a new front of Force-practitioners, but as sentient as it is, it knows it would not be able to adequately teach these concepts to any organisms, in any way they would understand without a medium from among them.
Mara Jade-Skywalker, with her unique perspective of the Force, Living as well as Cosmic, and with the knowledge the Force, for lack of a better term, downloaded into her mind, is the perfect person to train another in the use of the Force. The Living Force has chosen Naruto Uzumaki of Konohagakure, to be the recipient of knowledge of the Force, and since he has another metaphysical energy, unique to this planet, and his species of human, called Chakra, he will be able to appreciate the differences and similarities between them. Anyone, who learns the ways of the Force, can use it in conjunction with, or in leu of Chakra, because Chakra is awoken from the inside, and grows outward, whereas the Force comes from outside and is drawn inside of a person. Chakra must be nurtured and trained and controlled. The Force must be connected with and understood and submerged within.
Chakra is the spiritual, which includes mental and emotional energy, and physical energy that circulates through the Chakra Circulatory System, commonly referred to as the Chakra Coils, of the organisms of this world. The Force is the energy and matter, that makes up 95% of the Universe's mass, the Living Force is the power that binds the Cosmos together, while the Cosmic Force, pushes it apart.
Just as important, yes even to the all-powerful Force, a child needs a mother, and a mother needs a child, the child has been alone all his life, and the woman has been betrayed by one, she once loved. Mara's soul, manifested as a bright ball of light, before the body of the boy, who had closed his eyes by now. He was actually quite well connected to the Force, at the moment, which leaves his mind open. Mara wasted no time approaching him, though instead of being drawn to his forehead, she was nearing a place just below his abdomen.
Before she knew it, she entered his mindscape, which looked like a series of tunnels like a sewer, but without the stench of sewage, she refused to call it that. When Mara manifested in the mindscape she did so as her body, when she was in her prime. What appeared was a beautiful woman, with bushy, shoulder-length, red-gold hair, standing at 1.6 meters tall, 58 kilos, a high C-cup with symmetrical hips, and firm, strong abdominals. She was wearing a black leather, sleeveless top, with metallic bands at the shoulders, a similar style leather leggings, and ankle boots. A brown, leather belt, with a silver, belt buckle, a metallic choker, encircling her neck, along with a set of speeder goggles, and a pair of black, leather gloves completed her outfit, the only thing missing from her normal dress, was her lightsaber.
Mara began to move within Naruto's mindscape, she was allowing the Force to guide her path, by passing branches that would lead to other places. If she succeeded, she may be able to explore those passages another time, but for now she had to complete her primary objective: learn as much about this world as she could.
Eventually, she came to a central chamber, which had to house the tallest set of prison bars she had ever seen, they seemed to fill most of the room. The Force was telling her there were two beings in the cage, one was massive, while the other was close to her own size. Through the Force, the image of another red-head superimposed itself over the front of the cage, and Mara gasped when she realized what that meant, there was a woman trapped within the larger mass of Chakra.
Mara walked up to the bars, and noticed for the first time, a piece of paper with some form of writing on it, slapped over what could only be described as the door to the prison. This prison was obviously, not meant to keep anything out, but to keep something in, because Mara could have walked between the bars if she wanted to. She could sense that what lay within, while terribly angry, and full of hate, it was not malevolent. The Force seemed to want to draw her attention to the piece of paper, and not one to ignore such promptings, placed her hand over the paper to pull it off. As soon as she did so, it began to glow, blue flames, and out of the writing came a man, who at first, she thought was Naruto, because other than the dearth of whisker marks, and a different cut of his chin and nose, Mara could have been looking at her pupil's twin.
"You must be, Naruto's father," Mara stated to the phantom, most of what she said caused him to give her a puzzled look, until she said his son's name. "Not really, though, you are merely a mirage, and I cannot understand you," then the Force gave her a method to learn as much as she could about this world, "that makes what I'm about to do easier, than if you had been an actual soul." She looked up at him and found his eyes, her own emerald eyes turn as dark as blackholes, and from her hands, which were still at her side, a coil of what could best be described as chains shot out at the speed of light. They ensnared the chakra phantom, of Naruto's father, and began to drag it closer.
As it neared the woman, the tops of its head began to distort toward Mara's face, it began to look more like a piece of spaghetti than a human head. It was interesting, but the man did not seem to be putting up much resistance, he even had a smile on his face, as his very being was swallowed up by the soul of Mara Jade-Skywalker. As soon as the chakra phantom of Minato Namikaze was completely consumed by the woman, her mind was completely inundated with information. She suddenly knew the language, customs, and laws of this world, even the personal jutsu and the sealing knowledge of the Yellow Flash himself, would have become second nature to her if she had chakra. If she did not know for a fact where her true birth place was located, she would have thought she was born on this planet.
Mara turn back to the cage, not at all surprised to find herself staring into the eyes of the largest organism she had ever encountered. It was staring directly into her eyes, and to Mara's credit, she never even flinched, which caused the beast's eyes to narrow in suspicion. The only creatures that never backed away from its majesty, were those that either knew they could best him, or those that were unafraid of death. She moved her hand outward in his direction, "hello, Kyūbi-san, my name is Mara Jade, and I am going to be your new roommate."
"What are you," the Great Beast asked with barely subdued wonder, "you're not from this place, you smell nothing like the creatures here?"
"So, I have a scent, even if I do not have a body," Mara wondered in awe, "I guess you could call me a soul, but I guess in here I am a truly living being. And, you are correct, in that I am not native to this planet, nor even this galaxy. I am from what the natives of this place called the Whirlpool galaxy, I am here to train your container in the ways of the Force."
If the Kyūbi's eyes could have gotten any bigger at her words, they would have popped out of their sockets. A woman from beyond the stars, coming to train the brat he was contained inside, a new way of harnessing the energies of the Universe, he did not know what this force thing was, but from the way she spoke about it, it was a power similar to Chakra. Of which, Kyūbi and his other eight brethren were composed.
He was ready to ask about this power, when Mara answered him, "I'll answer your question as soon as I am ready to make conscious contact with Naruto. There are just a few housekeeping details I need to take care of before I answer, namely… you have something within you that needs to be removed. I'm sure you'll feel better once it leaves you."
Kyūbi only had time to yell, "What," before Mara raised a hand in a grasping posture?
It was as if the power of the Universe was holding him down, and yet it did not seem to be oppressive, "Sorry, Kyūbi, this is going to hurt, but I assure you it will not harm you. There is something within you that does not belong there, it seems Minato implanted the soul of your previous container inside of you to help Naruto, if he should need it. A worthy act by a father, to be sure, but your body should only contain your soul, not another, besides, I'm going to need her to help train her son as a ninja. We will make him worthy to wield your power," Mara promised.
Mara held up her other hand, and Kyūbi felt her reach inside him, she seemed not to need her eyes to find what she was looking for. Indeed, she had her eyes closed, as if she were going purely by touch alone, she felt him pass by his own soul, before moving on after giving him a reassuring squeeze. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she found what she was looking for and with a satisfied leer, she took a firm hold of it. When she began to tug, she was not lying when she said it would hurt like a mother… he gritted his teeth to keep himself from bawling like a baby. From within Kyūbi, a phantom arose, dragged from its slumber by the Force, and similar to a clump of annoying fur that was finally pulled loose, as soon as it was loose, the pain he had to endure was immediately counter-balanced with the relief he felt.
At first, the being that was pulled away from the Kyūbi, was much like Mara when she first appeared, an iridescent sphere of light. After a moment, the soul of Kushina Uzumaki began to change shape into who she was before her pregnancy. A beautiful woman, with tomato-red hair, in a long-mane down to her waist, she was a little taller than the Jedi Master, and a little slimmer, with a medium C-cup, slightly asymmetrical hips, and her own hard stomach. She was dressed in a white, short-sleeved top, with a green cover-all dress, ankle-length socks, and kunoichi sandals. She was built like a kunoichi that specialized in speed and endurance, her arms were as toned as any woman's could be and retained their feminine allure, this showed she was a master of kenjutsu, and the dexterity of her fingers showed her competent in either fuinjutsu, ninjutsu, or genjutsu, or perhaps, all three at once.
She opened her eyes to reveal a pair of vibrant, violet eyes, and a mischievous, but good-natured grin. "Hey, I'm Kushina," then upon seeing Kyūbi, but not her son, and a strange woman, she adopted a confused expression, "who might you be, and where's Naruto-chan?"
Mara moved forward and in a placating gesture, "Let me explain…"
Naruto continued with his meditations, he did not know how long he remained as he was, but he barely noticed the time ticking by. He began to pull back into himself, but seemed to be towing something, drawing it inside him. It was not heavy, not really, it was a satisfying weight to him, and just made him pull a little harder there was no resistance, at most it just felt like a little tension. Naruto drew it inside himself, down into his deepest part, Naruto felt, as if he were being guided, but he was also leading. He felt a warm glow at his center, he was both leading, and being led to that place. Somehow, Naruto knew that he needed symbolism to make since out of what was happening to him, so he imagined he was seeing a turn-valve, like what was used to direct water through pipes, it appeared to be pretty substantial. Naruto knew without help, he would not be able to open it, which was the purpose of coming here, to open this valve, but he also had to choose if this was the right time to open it.
This was a onetime use valve, once he opened it, he would never be able to close it. Naruto knew not what lay behind this choice, all he knew, was it would irrevocably change his life, for good or ill. Tonight, had been a major transition in his life, he had been thrown out of the only place he knew, the place he slept and ate, but would not call his home. The choice to leave had not been his it had been made for him, but this one choice would be his, and nobody would make this choice for him, he would not allow that. Naruto knew that for the time being, he was on his own, he did not know to whom he could turn to for help, but he could not ask the kind, old man to help him out. He did not even know where he lived, and he had enough to deal with from his war injuries, to bother with a four-year old waif, he only had one eye for crying out loud, and he walked with a cane.
Neither could he depend on the Ichiraku's for kindness. They allowed him one or two bowls of ramen, every now and then, but it was not right to try to mooch off them and take advantage of their kindness. Naruto knew, for now at least, that he was all alone, which meant he could not rely on anybody to help him out, he had to go it alone, for now. What lay behind this choice, he was unsure, what he did know; he needed every advantage he could get. Naruto placed his hands on the valve, and tried to turn it, but it was heavy. He tried with all his might to open it, but it just would not budge. He was about to give up, when he remembered what led him to this moment in the first place. He took what was connected to him in and allowed it to aid him, and like a lever this force helped Naruto break open the valve.
Almost instantly, an energy flooded into Naruto's system, Naruto's chakra cascaded into his body. The Force entered Naruto's Chakra Coils, but it did not seem to be mixing with the chakra, it was mingling with the Coils themselves, bolstering their walls, making them supple in some place to strengthen elasticity, and rigid in others for flow regulation. The hardest points of rigidity became the tenketsu, in his mindscape his Coils became an intricate canal system, instead of a sewer system, and the tenketsu became a series of gravity dams, with eight power regulation generators, representing the eight celestial gates. The only exception to this design was around the Kyūbi Seal, where the dams had changed their configuration to gravity-arch dams, leading off in eight different directions. The Seal had been reproduced on all eight sides of the gate. Each gate configured in the sacred Onmyōdo arrangement according to the eight cardinal directions. (Tian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, Kun)
This structure strengthened the seal, and at once, allowed the Kyūbi and Naruto to have a more symbiotic relationship, allowing the fox to share his chakra with its container, as it chose, and allowed Kyūbi to share his senses with Naruto. Naruto's physical senses became as acute as any fox's found in the wild, and while he could not use any of the Fox's chakra without permission, healing injuries was now much easier, and that combined with Naruto's Uzumaki resiliency, plus his connection to the Force, makes him harder to kill. The mutation of Naruto's Coils, makes even his gargantuan levels of chakra easier to control. He would still need to perfect the little exercises, all ninja need to in order to get good Chakra Control, but they will be maximized more efficiently to accommodate Naruto's Chakra capacity.
Of course, Naruto did not know this at the moment, all he knew was that he suddenly felt better than did all night. He had never felt this lively, not since the last time he got to eat birthday ramen, six-months ago. Naruto was suddenly, drawn to the place where the Kyūbi stayed, and there he met his mother for the first time, Mara Jade, his Force mentor, and of course the Kyūbi.