Notice: I do not own Naruto, and make no claims of copyright on the
characters who are not my property. Original characters, however, are mine.
Author's Notes: This will, hopefully, be the last chapter so filled with explanation for a while. I didn't originally intend to explain things so much, but I guess that's what happens some times.
To Begin With Death
Neji spent the next day in the hospital, recovering from a tremendous suite of bruises that covered his entire left side, from the face down to his leg. It was an abject lesson in the dangers of having your own moves turned against you. This lesson was brutally reinforced when he tried to walk about Konoha the next day.
He was largely ignored during those painful hours of walking through the hidden village. The nurses at the hospital had already told Neji that most everyone he knew had been dispatched on missions or on other business. He assumed Draci Xi had communicated his decision to the Hokage about becoming a dragon ninja, and no one else felt they could spare him any time. Neji made himself assume that, he refused to consider the other possibility. That no one would speak to him because they believed he had betrayed Konoha somehow. That certainly was the opinion of the Hyuuga clan, which turned Neji away and told him to go back to the hospital when he had managed to walk all the way over to their compound. In some ways that rejection hurt, and in others it was extremely gratifying, since Neji had struggled for years to make his family angry enough to send him away. I'm still saddled with their accursed seal, but maybe I won't need to worry about it from now on. He decided, though he was unsure about his decision. Still, Neji was more than practiced in the art of forcing his doubts away and cementing himself behind a purpose. A part of him hoped that he did so for the right reasons this time, when he had so often done so for the wrong reasons before. Another part of him did not care, but simply wanted to refuse any misgivings.
On the third morning, Neji saw Draci Xi again.
He was already up, and was trying to loosen his damaged and sore muscles by stretching out in the Hospital halls. Xi came walking deliberately down the halls, his own face tightly set, moving with a distinctive purpose, a type of movement ninja usually avoided, since it gave too much away. His bruises had faded or were covered by his uniform, but Neji could tell he was in significant pain. When he entered the hall his eyes fell on Neji almost immediately.
"You're up." Xi said gravely, keeping the pain from his voice with the low tones. "Good. Gather your equipment and head to the training ground. My little stunt appears to have cost us two days, and we need to make them up."
Neji nodded, but he heard something unsaid in Xi's words, and questioned the command. "Are we in some sort of hurry?"
"In a hurry?" Xi echoed, slightly disbelieving. "You mean aside from the urgent need to train more ninja to get ready for what may be the greatest crisis since the last true ninja war?" The words were laced and scored to emphasize their importance. "Yes, aside from that there is the matter of the two month deadline your Hokage has set me to show progress in your training. So I'm not wasting any more days."
"Two months?" Neji repeated. "That's plenty of time to 'show progress.'"
"Think so?" Xi sneered. "Don't think that becoming a dragon ninja is easy. It took me four months to become skilled enough to use any of our techniques, and I'm quite sure your Hokage dislikes me enough that you're going to have to demonstrate a technique to prove that you've made progress. So, there's no time. Get your stuff and met me there. You have fifteen minutes." He turned and walked back out of the hospital.
Fifteen minutes later Neji's muscles were screaming at him as he stood on the training field. Standing a few feet from Xi he could tell that the older ninja was not really any better off, he was just better at dealing with it. The run to get over here had been brutal. I can't train like this, Neji knew, and he knew Xi had to know that as well.
"Damn!" Xi muttered under his breath, but he must have known Neji could hear. "Well, I had hoped I'd be better off, but it seems there's a strict limit on the kind of things we can do." He motioned for Neji to take a seat on one of the chopped tree stumps that occupied the field. "Since I can't waste any time I guess I'll explain things for a while."
Neji sat, and settled into a posture to protect his damaged left side. This man was not Gai, when he said 'explain things for a while' Neji had the feeling he intended to talk a lot. He was attentive to Xi, since he knew little about the dragon ninja. What is he, how will he train me? He wondered.
"I'm sure Gai told you I have never trained students before." Xi began depreciatingly. That was not how Neji expected Xi to begin, for though Gai had made that point he had not stressed it, and it was hardly a thing most ninja would say. "Perhaps that will make this harder, but I don't know. My own master said that teaching me to be a dragon ninja was entirely different from teaching other genin, so I hope my inexperience will not matter. You are supposed to be a quick study boy, so you'll have to make up for it."
Xi sighed, and made sure Neji was listening. Neji was, and he had also noticed that while he spoke Xi stood stock still, as if he were trained to not move when speaking formally. "I have given it some thought on how to begin." Xi stated. "I had thought to start at the same place my master began with me, but I have decided that will not work. When my training began I had already been an ANBU for over a year and had killed many enemies on missions. Unless you killed someone during the Chuunin exam I am unaware of the first enemy you killed was Kidomaru of the Sound. Am I correct?"
The statement, made lightly by Xi, shot through Neji like a lightning bolt. He had killed Kidomaru. He had not thought about it during his recovery, probably because his memory of the end of that battle was rather hazy, and he had not spent any time standing over his enemy. While recovering he had simply not thought about it at all. "Yes," Neji muttered. "That's right."
The words fell rather flat, and Xi looked at Neji strangely. "You'd forgotten about that hadn't you?" He asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. "That's not surprising, none of us like to dwell on those we have killed. You had fought with lethal intent before that, this time you simply continued all the way through to completion. It is good that Kidomaru was the first one you killed, and not someone else. By killing him you made your mission possible, and performed a deed that protected the innocents of Konoha. By ridding the world of Kidomaru you have done a harsh thing, yes, but to a far greater benefit. It is burdensome, but all ninja bear these burdens. As a dragon ninja we embrace that burden, and take it upon ourselves to bear it so that other ninja might not have to. Do you understand?"
Neji nodded. He did not want to say anything right now, but considered Xi's words most seriously. Xi allowed him the time to do so. It was a strange feeling, to remember killing something. Neji went through the battle in his mind for the first time. He realized that he probably could have retreated at many points during the battle, could have run to catch up with Naruto and the rest of his team. The mission had not been to defeat the Sound ninja, but to retrieve Sasuke. But I stayed and fought the sound nin, even though I knew I was likely to lose. I was outmatched, but I took a wound to myself so that the opportunity would come to defeat him, and when I struck, I killed him. It had been instinctive, coming in the flow of battle, but Neji recognized now that he had decided he would fight Kidomaru until he won or was dead from the moment he told Shikamaru to go on. And to win I killed him.
Neji looked up to find Xi's eyes boring into his face. "I lack your eyes" The dragon ninja said. "But I believe you understand what I have said. There is a saying in the hundred shinobi sayings, one of the darkest of them all, it states: sometimes the cruelest choice is necessary for the greatest good. That saying is half of what the dragon ninja represent. It is that half of us that makes us killers, wielders of lethal jutsu that are used to slay opponents. We exist to take on the burden of dealing the only certain method to eliminate an enemy and restore peace. We are the last resort, used only when both sides have decided there can be no resolution but violence, but once that line has been crossed we strike down foes to save the maximum number of lives by eliminating the enemy. It is as simple as it is harsh, but by doing this we dragon ninja keep this burden off of others."
Xi stood up before continuing, walking over to Neji to drive the next few words home. "This is not a kind path to us, dragon ninja are cold unhappy people, the scions of war and conflict. Few others will ever befriend us, and we are outcast among even our friends. We are acknowledged, but not admired. It is hard, and few can become dragon ninja. Those like you, who have moved into a place that does not exist, a member of the Hyuuga branch family more powerful than one of the head family, are the ones who become dragon ninja. We become vilified to save those who would vilify us. That is half of what it is to be a dragon ninja. Do you understand and accept that Hyuuga Neji?"
Neji met Xi's eyes. How cold, those pupil-less orbs on him, colder even than Hiashi's. Yet Xi knew even before Neji spoke what the answer would be.
"Yes, I accept that." Neji replied quietly.
You say that now, Hyuuga Neji, Xi thought. We shall see how long you say that; one does not become a dragon ninja on the basis of words.
"If one half of being a dragon ninja is this lethal path," Neji said. "What is the other half?"
"The other half is the dragon." Xi said in a much lighter tone. He reached behind him into his flak jacket, and pulled forth a thick scroll bound made of a paper of many blended colors. It was bound with the character for dragon. "All our moves are taken from the inspiration of the dragon, for the dragon is like us, it fights to kill." Xi explained. "So our moves emulate those of the dragon itself, we wield its claws, fangs, tail, and even such things as eyes."
Neji recalled the frightful eyes Xi had used upon him, and understood a portion of what the other ninja meant. "Beyond simply emulating their movements however," Xi went on. "A dragon ninja can summon dragons."
While Neji knew this, since he had been told by Gai-sensei that Xi had summoned a dragon to save him, it was entirely different to have it told openly. To summon a dragon! The most powerful mythical creatures known, how can they be summoned? Many ninja used summoning jutsus of various types; Neji had seen some of them, such as ninja dogs that Kakashi had summoned during one of his many fights with Gai, or the toads that Jiraiya-sama could summon. These were ordinary creatures, even if powerful spirit versions of them could be called by the jutsu, how could one summon a dragon, creatures that existed only in the spirit world, and ruled it?
As before, Xi caught the slight confusion on Neji's face. "You don't believe that really, that I can summon a dragon." He fingered the scroll, and then opened it. "It does seem rather unbelievable, but that's only until you understand how we summon a dragon." He held out the opened scroll. Around the edge traveled a tremendous amount of concise script, but the chief portion of the scroll was sectioned off into little boxes. Into those had been written a single name, inked in the blood of the writer, confirming a pact. "I'm sure you have noticed the grand scroll Jiraiya-sama carries. The sennin's scroll contains the pact for toads summoning, and one who signs the scroll with their blood is given the power to summon toads according to that pact." Xi gestured to a single box on the many-colored scroll. Neji could read it easily, the single character within read Xi. "This scroll is much smaller, and very different. By placing your name here you enter a different sort of pact. I am sure you were told that I keep debts. This is the reason why; this pact allows the one whose name is written to share their debts equally with the dragons. Thus, by taking a debt with them we can summon them, or we can perform them a task and summon them to repay our debts. It is always difficult to keep from owing the dragons, so a dragon ninja must always try to accumulate debts. Once you place your name on the scroll you will understand it better." Xi concluded solemnly.
Neji processed the words quickly, and replied with a telling question. "Why is only your first name on the scroll, why not Draci?"
"Simple." Xi replied. "By placing my name on this scroll I exchanged my family of birth with the family of dragons. That's why I'm Draci Xi. All dragon ninja are Draci. When you become a dragon ninja you will no longer be a Hyuuga, but will be Draci Neji."
No longer be a Hyuuga? The concept shocked Neji. For his entire life his existence had been defined by what he was, a member of the Hyuuga branch family. The cursed seal drawn onto him further marked him as such. How can I become a different being just by signing a scroll? The prospect was uncertain, and Neji found that it caused a cold and ugly feeling down within him. Is this right? Can I truly give up my family in this way?
"So you wish me to sign the scroll?" Neji asked with unease.
"Hardly." Xi scoffed, and rolled the scroll back up with a single flick of the wrist. "You are not truly a dragon ninja yet. When you master the first dragon ninja technique, then I will allow you to take that step, but not until then."
Some time to decide. Fine, I accept that then. Neji grimaced. "You said time was limited, that you had to train me quickly." He gave Xi a dark and feral look, like he often wore when fighting. "So let's train."
"Watch yourself boy!" Xi hissed. "I have explained the essentials to you. If you have learned them fine, I'll teach you the first dragon jutsu." Xi made to shift around, but then turned back to Neji swiftly, pivoting on his good leg. He snapped out a rapid question. "Answer! What is the purpose of this jutsu?"
Neji didn't hesitate for a moment in replying. "To kill." He said the words as cold as ice.
"Good," Xi replied, voice also low. "As I said all our jutsus emulate a weapon the dragon wields. There are not many of them. Tell me boy, how many dragon jutsus do you think the dragon ninja style contains?"
Being called boy was beginning to wear thin with Neji, who had kept track of every time Xi had referred to him that way. He wanted to mention it, but he knew that the dragon ninja would not be swayed. To him, I am just a boy. Hmph, I'll prove him wrong soon enough. He answered confidently, knowing a good deal about the many styles of Konoha. "Counting all taijutsus, ninjutsus, and genjutsus I imagine the style probably has sixty to seventy moves at least."
"Ha!" Xi barked the laugh, but he was obviously not amused. "Sixty to seventy you say. Wrong, utterly wrong. You're forgetting that every dragon jutsu is designed to kill. A dragon ninja only uses lethal moves. Our style contains a mere twenty one techniques."
Only twenty one! No complete style would have so few moves. There were inexperienced genin who knew more moves than that. Indeed, Rock Lee knew that many specialized techniques already, and he could only use taijutsu. There had to be some explanation. Neji reasoned very fast, he was a genius after all, and had a talent for understanding how ninjas work. "Then the dragon ninja techniques are only a small part of your repertoire?" He suggested.
"You still don't understand." Xi snapped, berating Neji. "No, almost all my jutsus are dragon jutsu. Aside from the basic justsus known by all ninja, I know only five other techniques from lightning. They are all lethal moves as well. My taijutsu is based in the lightning style, but I have not learned any specialized techniques with it beyond a single lethal maneuver. Understand boy, the moves of the dragon ninja are more than powerful enough. They require tremendous control and expenditure of chakra, but no opponent will endure more than one of them if you execute them properly. Never think that knowledge of many jutsus increases your ability, as Orochimaru does. Naruto beat you in the chuunin exam using a single jutsu: Kage Bushin. Every jutsu I will teach you is a deadly tool, and used properly you should only need a few tools to solve any problem."
It makes sense, Neji admitted privately. After all, there are only a few techniques I know using the Byakugan, my advantage comes from knowing them perfectly, like knowing my blind spot when fighting Kidomaru. "So what is this jutsu then?"
"Dragon Rend." Xi said, the technique a single thought. "The application of the dragon's claws." He paused. "Attempting to explain further is pointless. I'll just show you."
The dragon ninja turned. His hands snapped down to his thighs in a lightning-quick motion, and when he raised them again Neji saw he was wearing the Nekode on each hand. Xi walked slowly over to one of the target logs. He raised both hands. "Rend!" He shouted, executing the move.
Neji's eyes zeroed in on Xi's hands. The dragon ninja moved with great speed, and tremendous focus. He brought his arms down in a crossing move, and then back across lower, and then back up to complete the motion, a triple slash. It seemed his hands practically glowed as they did so.
Done, Xi stepped away from the log so that Neji could see. Unbelievable! Was Neji's first reaction. Great gouges had been scored into the log, in the pattern that Xi's hands had moved. It was easy to see that they had not been scored with just the nekode, for the triplet slash marks went many inches deep. The wood of these logs is iron hard, Neji recalled, but it seems not to have slowed his hands at all! If you used such a technique on a person it would rip them apart, and likely anything they tried to block with as well. Neji stood up and walked over to the log, confirming what his eyes had seen with his hands.
"That is dragon rend," Xi said slowly, his breath a bit shallow. "It is the simplest of dragon ninja techniques. Razor sharp chakra blades extend from the hands and slash apart anything before them. If you strike a person with this you will rip them asunder."
"Chakra blades?" Neji remarked.
"Yes." Xi responded. "You form the chakra you push out of your hands into blades, sharper than any physical weapon, and then bring the hands down as you cut. The power comes from forming your chakra into a blade as it is released. It requires great chakra control, few ninja can do it, but I am certain you can."
"That is the trick then?" Neji looked Xi in the eye. "To master this jutsu all I have to do is form chakra into blades and hold that form as I cut through something? That does not seem very difficult at all."
"Really?" Xi raised an eyebrow. "Fine boy, try it. I'll even allow you to use your Byakugan to help you."
Neji approached the log. Chakra into a blade? That shouldn't be too hard. I've used chakra to cut things before, like those damn spider webs. Ah, yeah, that should do it. Just take the chakra and cut the log. Really, it's not so difficult. "Byakugan." He said quietly, activating his Hyuuga eyes. Now he could see the flow of chakra perfectly. Just channel a little into my hands, and then make it come out like a blade. And...strike!
Xi watched Neji bring his hands down across the log. Hmm...I can't see chakra like he can, which makes it more difficult, but he's obviously go the beginning of an idea.
Neji's hands came down, and he felt a bit of give in the wood. Yes, no problems. Then he felt everything start to push back. Force came against his fingers, and he could feel his chakra dispersing. What? What's going on? Instants passed, as Neji felt control of the chakra slip from his fingers. Then he felt his fingertips touch the wood, and friction made them stop.
How? He had watched it happen, watched both log and fingers through his Byakugan as he channeled the chakra. I had plenty on the end of my hand, and it shaped to cut easily, why didn't it work? Looking at the log now, Neji could see he had made four marks in it, like he had pushed his fingers into the would, but they were blunt and dispersed, had the log been a person the flesh would have just given under the blow, that wouldn't even cause a bruise.
Hmm...Xi looked closely at the marks Neji had made in the wood. Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, way better than I expected. He actually managed to shape and channel chakra into a stream from each finger. No cutting, but so what, he put together enough controlled chakra that he really only needs to be able to make blades to do the move. Still, I'm sure that's the Byakugan at work, to let him see the chakra stream out of his hands. That will need to improve. Xi let Neji consider things himself for a moment, and then spoke. "It looks like you formed your chakra into rods and smashed the log with them. That'll never work. They have to be blades, sharper than any knife you've ever seen. Still, you made it harder than it had to be."
"I know my chakra was forming to cut." Neji said firmly. "I am certain of it."
"And if it was?" Xi replied. "If you use the wrong amount of chakra to make blades, even a bit too much or too little the form will fall apart, and you won't be able to cut. You need to release, form, and maintain that precise amount of chakra the whole time, the blades of chakra need to be just as permanent as these blades here." Xi gestured to the tines extending past each finger on his nekode. He reached into his shuriken bag, and tossed something to Neji with a flick of the wrist.
Nekode, one for each hand, and sized exactly for me. Neji noted all this as they traveled towards him, and then grabbed them out of the air with one hand. "What are these for?" He asked Xi.
"Focus." The dragon ninja returned. "Imagine the chakra blades lining up under the nekode, they have to be sharper and stronger than those blades. They have to maintain that position. It provides a focus for the chakra to wear the nekode, making the jutsu significantly easier, since it concentrates your attention, which is required for the precision. While you could possibly do the jutsu without them, it would be at least one hundred times as difficult. I've never done rend without wearing the nekode." Xi said solemnly. He continued in a slightly different tone. "You, however, should eventually not need them, since you can actually see the chakra while I cannot. For now though, you should use them to learn."
Taking up the light weapons, Neji recognized that they were new, and had been built specially. He must have had them made after we fought, he decided. They are exactly the right size. Neji noted that, and determined Xi was more perceptive than he had originally thought. He put them on, and noted the fit, but said nothing about it. "So what now?"
"Practice making blades boy, until you can do it. Find out how much chakra you need by doing it. You know the rest of the steps, I'm not going to explain them again." Xi sat back down. "Since we managed to beat each other into such a mess, I'm not going anywhere. You can ask me questions if you must, but a 'genius' like you should have no problem just making blades of chakra."
Neji focused in on the log in front of him. Blades of chakra. That was what he had to achieve. He took Xi's words and analyzed them, breaking them apart slowly, piece by peace. Determine the amount of chakra, focus them into blades, hold the blades in place steadily, keep them the same size and sharp, focus the blades again. Neji was a brilliant ninja. No one would contest this. He had an ability to take a single idea and determine its potential, and then build upon that, as he had when he conceived of using the Kaiten. That brilliance helped him less now, when he simply had to figure out a task that required the utmost focus and repetition, but he was still able to break things down into more individual steps than almost any ninja would have been able to, making the process easier. I will do this, Neji had decided. He stared at the log, focused his chakra with utter resolve, and was ready. He was an arrow, and the target was rend. He launched himself.
Hmm...Xi marveled at the cold focus in Neji's eyes. Ah, I see why he believed so much in potential now, Xi noted. It was not just his upbringing as part of the Hyuuga branch family. He works as hard as anyone. As a dragon ninja, Xi was a cold realist. He knew that some people were born with talents others lacked. "A dropout can overcome a genius through hard work?" An interesting sentiment. Neji had tried to mock Naruto with it, only to have it blow up in his face. But Uzemaki Naruto was never a dropout, that was a foolish perception on Konoha's part, and he didn't win because of hard work, but because he had a demon inside him and because he outwitted Neji. This Hyuuga boy works as hard as any dropout, Xi decided as Neji continued to expend his chakra in his attacks on the log, never wavering, and each time making progress, even if only a tiny amount. Never discount anyone just on what you think of their potential, anyone can find a way to kill, but if there are two people who work equally hard, the one who had a greater potential will win. Hyuuga Neji is a rarity among rarities, not only is a he a genius ninja, but he is one willing to put in hard work. In two months, he'll be Draci Neji.
Author's Notes: This will, hopefully, be the last chapter so filled with explanation for a while. I didn't originally intend to explain things so much, but I guess that's what happens some times.
To Begin With Death
Neji spent the next day in the hospital, recovering from a tremendous suite of bruises that covered his entire left side, from the face down to his leg. It was an abject lesson in the dangers of having your own moves turned against you. This lesson was brutally reinforced when he tried to walk about Konoha the next day.
He was largely ignored during those painful hours of walking through the hidden village. The nurses at the hospital had already told Neji that most everyone he knew had been dispatched on missions or on other business. He assumed Draci Xi had communicated his decision to the Hokage about becoming a dragon ninja, and no one else felt they could spare him any time. Neji made himself assume that, he refused to consider the other possibility. That no one would speak to him because they believed he had betrayed Konoha somehow. That certainly was the opinion of the Hyuuga clan, which turned Neji away and told him to go back to the hospital when he had managed to walk all the way over to their compound. In some ways that rejection hurt, and in others it was extremely gratifying, since Neji had struggled for years to make his family angry enough to send him away. I'm still saddled with their accursed seal, but maybe I won't need to worry about it from now on. He decided, though he was unsure about his decision. Still, Neji was more than practiced in the art of forcing his doubts away and cementing himself behind a purpose. A part of him hoped that he did so for the right reasons this time, when he had so often done so for the wrong reasons before. Another part of him did not care, but simply wanted to refuse any misgivings.
On the third morning, Neji saw Draci Xi again.
He was already up, and was trying to loosen his damaged and sore muscles by stretching out in the Hospital halls. Xi came walking deliberately down the halls, his own face tightly set, moving with a distinctive purpose, a type of movement ninja usually avoided, since it gave too much away. His bruises had faded or were covered by his uniform, but Neji could tell he was in significant pain. When he entered the hall his eyes fell on Neji almost immediately.
"You're up." Xi said gravely, keeping the pain from his voice with the low tones. "Good. Gather your equipment and head to the training ground. My little stunt appears to have cost us two days, and we need to make them up."
Neji nodded, but he heard something unsaid in Xi's words, and questioned the command. "Are we in some sort of hurry?"
"In a hurry?" Xi echoed, slightly disbelieving. "You mean aside from the urgent need to train more ninja to get ready for what may be the greatest crisis since the last true ninja war?" The words were laced and scored to emphasize their importance. "Yes, aside from that there is the matter of the two month deadline your Hokage has set me to show progress in your training. So I'm not wasting any more days."
"Two months?" Neji repeated. "That's plenty of time to 'show progress.'"
"Think so?" Xi sneered. "Don't think that becoming a dragon ninja is easy. It took me four months to become skilled enough to use any of our techniques, and I'm quite sure your Hokage dislikes me enough that you're going to have to demonstrate a technique to prove that you've made progress. So, there's no time. Get your stuff and met me there. You have fifteen minutes." He turned and walked back out of the hospital.
Fifteen minutes later Neji's muscles were screaming at him as he stood on the training field. Standing a few feet from Xi he could tell that the older ninja was not really any better off, he was just better at dealing with it. The run to get over here had been brutal. I can't train like this, Neji knew, and he knew Xi had to know that as well.
"Damn!" Xi muttered under his breath, but he must have known Neji could hear. "Well, I had hoped I'd be better off, but it seems there's a strict limit on the kind of things we can do." He motioned for Neji to take a seat on one of the chopped tree stumps that occupied the field. "Since I can't waste any time I guess I'll explain things for a while."
Neji sat, and settled into a posture to protect his damaged left side. This man was not Gai, when he said 'explain things for a while' Neji had the feeling he intended to talk a lot. He was attentive to Xi, since he knew little about the dragon ninja. What is he, how will he train me? He wondered.
"I'm sure Gai told you I have never trained students before." Xi began depreciatingly. That was not how Neji expected Xi to begin, for though Gai had made that point he had not stressed it, and it was hardly a thing most ninja would say. "Perhaps that will make this harder, but I don't know. My own master said that teaching me to be a dragon ninja was entirely different from teaching other genin, so I hope my inexperience will not matter. You are supposed to be a quick study boy, so you'll have to make up for it."
Xi sighed, and made sure Neji was listening. Neji was, and he had also noticed that while he spoke Xi stood stock still, as if he were trained to not move when speaking formally. "I have given it some thought on how to begin." Xi stated. "I had thought to start at the same place my master began with me, but I have decided that will not work. When my training began I had already been an ANBU for over a year and had killed many enemies on missions. Unless you killed someone during the Chuunin exam I am unaware of the first enemy you killed was Kidomaru of the Sound. Am I correct?"
The statement, made lightly by Xi, shot through Neji like a lightning bolt. He had killed Kidomaru. He had not thought about it during his recovery, probably because his memory of the end of that battle was rather hazy, and he had not spent any time standing over his enemy. While recovering he had simply not thought about it at all. "Yes," Neji muttered. "That's right."
The words fell rather flat, and Xi looked at Neji strangely. "You'd forgotten about that hadn't you?" He asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. "That's not surprising, none of us like to dwell on those we have killed. You had fought with lethal intent before that, this time you simply continued all the way through to completion. It is good that Kidomaru was the first one you killed, and not someone else. By killing him you made your mission possible, and performed a deed that protected the innocents of Konoha. By ridding the world of Kidomaru you have done a harsh thing, yes, but to a far greater benefit. It is burdensome, but all ninja bear these burdens. As a dragon ninja we embrace that burden, and take it upon ourselves to bear it so that other ninja might not have to. Do you understand?"
Neji nodded. He did not want to say anything right now, but considered Xi's words most seriously. Xi allowed him the time to do so. It was a strange feeling, to remember killing something. Neji went through the battle in his mind for the first time. He realized that he probably could have retreated at many points during the battle, could have run to catch up with Naruto and the rest of his team. The mission had not been to defeat the Sound ninja, but to retrieve Sasuke. But I stayed and fought the sound nin, even though I knew I was likely to lose. I was outmatched, but I took a wound to myself so that the opportunity would come to defeat him, and when I struck, I killed him. It had been instinctive, coming in the flow of battle, but Neji recognized now that he had decided he would fight Kidomaru until he won or was dead from the moment he told Shikamaru to go on. And to win I killed him.
Neji looked up to find Xi's eyes boring into his face. "I lack your eyes" The dragon ninja said. "But I believe you understand what I have said. There is a saying in the hundred shinobi sayings, one of the darkest of them all, it states: sometimes the cruelest choice is necessary for the greatest good. That saying is half of what the dragon ninja represent. It is that half of us that makes us killers, wielders of lethal jutsu that are used to slay opponents. We exist to take on the burden of dealing the only certain method to eliminate an enemy and restore peace. We are the last resort, used only when both sides have decided there can be no resolution but violence, but once that line has been crossed we strike down foes to save the maximum number of lives by eliminating the enemy. It is as simple as it is harsh, but by doing this we dragon ninja keep this burden off of others."
Xi stood up before continuing, walking over to Neji to drive the next few words home. "This is not a kind path to us, dragon ninja are cold unhappy people, the scions of war and conflict. Few others will ever befriend us, and we are outcast among even our friends. We are acknowledged, but not admired. It is hard, and few can become dragon ninja. Those like you, who have moved into a place that does not exist, a member of the Hyuuga branch family more powerful than one of the head family, are the ones who become dragon ninja. We become vilified to save those who would vilify us. That is half of what it is to be a dragon ninja. Do you understand and accept that Hyuuga Neji?"
Neji met Xi's eyes. How cold, those pupil-less orbs on him, colder even than Hiashi's. Yet Xi knew even before Neji spoke what the answer would be.
"Yes, I accept that." Neji replied quietly.
You say that now, Hyuuga Neji, Xi thought. We shall see how long you say that; one does not become a dragon ninja on the basis of words.
"If one half of being a dragon ninja is this lethal path," Neji said. "What is the other half?"
"The other half is the dragon." Xi said in a much lighter tone. He reached behind him into his flak jacket, and pulled forth a thick scroll bound made of a paper of many blended colors. It was bound with the character for dragon. "All our moves are taken from the inspiration of the dragon, for the dragon is like us, it fights to kill." Xi explained. "So our moves emulate those of the dragon itself, we wield its claws, fangs, tail, and even such things as eyes."
Neji recalled the frightful eyes Xi had used upon him, and understood a portion of what the other ninja meant. "Beyond simply emulating their movements however," Xi went on. "A dragon ninja can summon dragons."
While Neji knew this, since he had been told by Gai-sensei that Xi had summoned a dragon to save him, it was entirely different to have it told openly. To summon a dragon! The most powerful mythical creatures known, how can they be summoned? Many ninja used summoning jutsus of various types; Neji had seen some of them, such as ninja dogs that Kakashi had summoned during one of his many fights with Gai, or the toads that Jiraiya-sama could summon. These were ordinary creatures, even if powerful spirit versions of them could be called by the jutsu, how could one summon a dragon, creatures that existed only in the spirit world, and ruled it?
As before, Xi caught the slight confusion on Neji's face. "You don't believe that really, that I can summon a dragon." He fingered the scroll, and then opened it. "It does seem rather unbelievable, but that's only until you understand how we summon a dragon." He held out the opened scroll. Around the edge traveled a tremendous amount of concise script, but the chief portion of the scroll was sectioned off into little boxes. Into those had been written a single name, inked in the blood of the writer, confirming a pact. "I'm sure you have noticed the grand scroll Jiraiya-sama carries. The sennin's scroll contains the pact for toads summoning, and one who signs the scroll with their blood is given the power to summon toads according to that pact." Xi gestured to a single box on the many-colored scroll. Neji could read it easily, the single character within read Xi. "This scroll is much smaller, and very different. By placing your name here you enter a different sort of pact. I am sure you were told that I keep debts. This is the reason why; this pact allows the one whose name is written to share their debts equally with the dragons. Thus, by taking a debt with them we can summon them, or we can perform them a task and summon them to repay our debts. It is always difficult to keep from owing the dragons, so a dragon ninja must always try to accumulate debts. Once you place your name on the scroll you will understand it better." Xi concluded solemnly.
Neji processed the words quickly, and replied with a telling question. "Why is only your first name on the scroll, why not Draci?"
"Simple." Xi replied. "By placing my name on this scroll I exchanged my family of birth with the family of dragons. That's why I'm Draci Xi. All dragon ninja are Draci. When you become a dragon ninja you will no longer be a Hyuuga, but will be Draci Neji."
No longer be a Hyuuga? The concept shocked Neji. For his entire life his existence had been defined by what he was, a member of the Hyuuga branch family. The cursed seal drawn onto him further marked him as such. How can I become a different being just by signing a scroll? The prospect was uncertain, and Neji found that it caused a cold and ugly feeling down within him. Is this right? Can I truly give up my family in this way?
"So you wish me to sign the scroll?" Neji asked with unease.
"Hardly." Xi scoffed, and rolled the scroll back up with a single flick of the wrist. "You are not truly a dragon ninja yet. When you master the first dragon ninja technique, then I will allow you to take that step, but not until then."
Some time to decide. Fine, I accept that then. Neji grimaced. "You said time was limited, that you had to train me quickly." He gave Xi a dark and feral look, like he often wore when fighting. "So let's train."
"Watch yourself boy!" Xi hissed. "I have explained the essentials to you. If you have learned them fine, I'll teach you the first dragon jutsu." Xi made to shift around, but then turned back to Neji swiftly, pivoting on his good leg. He snapped out a rapid question. "Answer! What is the purpose of this jutsu?"
Neji didn't hesitate for a moment in replying. "To kill." He said the words as cold as ice.
"Good," Xi replied, voice also low. "As I said all our jutsus emulate a weapon the dragon wields. There are not many of them. Tell me boy, how many dragon jutsus do you think the dragon ninja style contains?"
Being called boy was beginning to wear thin with Neji, who had kept track of every time Xi had referred to him that way. He wanted to mention it, but he knew that the dragon ninja would not be swayed. To him, I am just a boy. Hmph, I'll prove him wrong soon enough. He answered confidently, knowing a good deal about the many styles of Konoha. "Counting all taijutsus, ninjutsus, and genjutsus I imagine the style probably has sixty to seventy moves at least."
"Ha!" Xi barked the laugh, but he was obviously not amused. "Sixty to seventy you say. Wrong, utterly wrong. You're forgetting that every dragon jutsu is designed to kill. A dragon ninja only uses lethal moves. Our style contains a mere twenty one techniques."
Only twenty one! No complete style would have so few moves. There were inexperienced genin who knew more moves than that. Indeed, Rock Lee knew that many specialized techniques already, and he could only use taijutsu. There had to be some explanation. Neji reasoned very fast, he was a genius after all, and had a talent for understanding how ninjas work. "Then the dragon ninja techniques are only a small part of your repertoire?" He suggested.
"You still don't understand." Xi snapped, berating Neji. "No, almost all my jutsus are dragon jutsu. Aside from the basic justsus known by all ninja, I know only five other techniques from lightning. They are all lethal moves as well. My taijutsu is based in the lightning style, but I have not learned any specialized techniques with it beyond a single lethal maneuver. Understand boy, the moves of the dragon ninja are more than powerful enough. They require tremendous control and expenditure of chakra, but no opponent will endure more than one of them if you execute them properly. Never think that knowledge of many jutsus increases your ability, as Orochimaru does. Naruto beat you in the chuunin exam using a single jutsu: Kage Bushin. Every jutsu I will teach you is a deadly tool, and used properly you should only need a few tools to solve any problem."
It makes sense, Neji admitted privately. After all, there are only a few techniques I know using the Byakugan, my advantage comes from knowing them perfectly, like knowing my blind spot when fighting Kidomaru. "So what is this jutsu then?"
"Dragon Rend." Xi said, the technique a single thought. "The application of the dragon's claws." He paused. "Attempting to explain further is pointless. I'll just show you."
The dragon ninja turned. His hands snapped down to his thighs in a lightning-quick motion, and when he raised them again Neji saw he was wearing the Nekode on each hand. Xi walked slowly over to one of the target logs. He raised both hands. "Rend!" He shouted, executing the move.
Neji's eyes zeroed in on Xi's hands. The dragon ninja moved with great speed, and tremendous focus. He brought his arms down in a crossing move, and then back across lower, and then back up to complete the motion, a triple slash. It seemed his hands practically glowed as they did so.
Done, Xi stepped away from the log so that Neji could see. Unbelievable! Was Neji's first reaction. Great gouges had been scored into the log, in the pattern that Xi's hands had moved. It was easy to see that they had not been scored with just the nekode, for the triplet slash marks went many inches deep. The wood of these logs is iron hard, Neji recalled, but it seems not to have slowed his hands at all! If you used such a technique on a person it would rip them apart, and likely anything they tried to block with as well. Neji stood up and walked over to the log, confirming what his eyes had seen with his hands.
"That is dragon rend," Xi said slowly, his breath a bit shallow. "It is the simplest of dragon ninja techniques. Razor sharp chakra blades extend from the hands and slash apart anything before them. If you strike a person with this you will rip them asunder."
"Chakra blades?" Neji remarked.
"Yes." Xi responded. "You form the chakra you push out of your hands into blades, sharper than any physical weapon, and then bring the hands down as you cut. The power comes from forming your chakra into a blade as it is released. It requires great chakra control, few ninja can do it, but I am certain you can."
"That is the trick then?" Neji looked Xi in the eye. "To master this jutsu all I have to do is form chakra into blades and hold that form as I cut through something? That does not seem very difficult at all."
"Really?" Xi raised an eyebrow. "Fine boy, try it. I'll even allow you to use your Byakugan to help you."
Neji approached the log. Chakra into a blade? That shouldn't be too hard. I've used chakra to cut things before, like those damn spider webs. Ah, yeah, that should do it. Just take the chakra and cut the log. Really, it's not so difficult. "Byakugan." He said quietly, activating his Hyuuga eyes. Now he could see the flow of chakra perfectly. Just channel a little into my hands, and then make it come out like a blade. And...strike!
Xi watched Neji bring his hands down across the log. Hmm...I can't see chakra like he can, which makes it more difficult, but he's obviously go the beginning of an idea.
Neji's hands came down, and he felt a bit of give in the wood. Yes, no problems. Then he felt everything start to push back. Force came against his fingers, and he could feel his chakra dispersing. What? What's going on? Instants passed, as Neji felt control of the chakra slip from his fingers. Then he felt his fingertips touch the wood, and friction made them stop.
How? He had watched it happen, watched both log and fingers through his Byakugan as he channeled the chakra. I had plenty on the end of my hand, and it shaped to cut easily, why didn't it work? Looking at the log now, Neji could see he had made four marks in it, like he had pushed his fingers into the would, but they were blunt and dispersed, had the log been a person the flesh would have just given under the blow, that wouldn't even cause a bruise.
Hmm...Xi looked closely at the marks Neji had made in the wood. Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, way better than I expected. He actually managed to shape and channel chakra into a stream from each finger. No cutting, but so what, he put together enough controlled chakra that he really only needs to be able to make blades to do the move. Still, I'm sure that's the Byakugan at work, to let him see the chakra stream out of his hands. That will need to improve. Xi let Neji consider things himself for a moment, and then spoke. "It looks like you formed your chakra into rods and smashed the log with them. That'll never work. They have to be blades, sharper than any knife you've ever seen. Still, you made it harder than it had to be."
"I know my chakra was forming to cut." Neji said firmly. "I am certain of it."
"And if it was?" Xi replied. "If you use the wrong amount of chakra to make blades, even a bit too much or too little the form will fall apart, and you won't be able to cut. You need to release, form, and maintain that precise amount of chakra the whole time, the blades of chakra need to be just as permanent as these blades here." Xi gestured to the tines extending past each finger on his nekode. He reached into his shuriken bag, and tossed something to Neji with a flick of the wrist.
Nekode, one for each hand, and sized exactly for me. Neji noted all this as they traveled towards him, and then grabbed them out of the air with one hand. "What are these for?" He asked Xi.
"Focus." The dragon ninja returned. "Imagine the chakra blades lining up under the nekode, they have to be sharper and stronger than those blades. They have to maintain that position. It provides a focus for the chakra to wear the nekode, making the jutsu significantly easier, since it concentrates your attention, which is required for the precision. While you could possibly do the jutsu without them, it would be at least one hundred times as difficult. I've never done rend without wearing the nekode." Xi said solemnly. He continued in a slightly different tone. "You, however, should eventually not need them, since you can actually see the chakra while I cannot. For now though, you should use them to learn."
Taking up the light weapons, Neji recognized that they were new, and had been built specially. He must have had them made after we fought, he decided. They are exactly the right size. Neji noted that, and determined Xi was more perceptive than he had originally thought. He put them on, and noted the fit, but said nothing about it. "So what now?"
"Practice making blades boy, until you can do it. Find out how much chakra you need by doing it. You know the rest of the steps, I'm not going to explain them again." Xi sat back down. "Since we managed to beat each other into such a mess, I'm not going anywhere. You can ask me questions if you must, but a 'genius' like you should have no problem just making blades of chakra."
Neji focused in on the log in front of him. Blades of chakra. That was what he had to achieve. He took Xi's words and analyzed them, breaking them apart slowly, piece by peace. Determine the amount of chakra, focus them into blades, hold the blades in place steadily, keep them the same size and sharp, focus the blades again. Neji was a brilliant ninja. No one would contest this. He had an ability to take a single idea and determine its potential, and then build upon that, as he had when he conceived of using the Kaiten. That brilliance helped him less now, when he simply had to figure out a task that required the utmost focus and repetition, but he was still able to break things down into more individual steps than almost any ninja would have been able to, making the process easier. I will do this, Neji had decided. He stared at the log, focused his chakra with utter resolve, and was ready. He was an arrow, and the target was rend. He launched himself.
Hmm...Xi marveled at the cold focus in Neji's eyes. Ah, I see why he believed so much in potential now, Xi noted. It was not just his upbringing as part of the Hyuuga branch family. He works as hard as anyone. As a dragon ninja, Xi was a cold realist. He knew that some people were born with talents others lacked. "A dropout can overcome a genius through hard work?" An interesting sentiment. Neji had tried to mock Naruto with it, only to have it blow up in his face. But Uzemaki Naruto was never a dropout, that was a foolish perception on Konoha's part, and he didn't win because of hard work, but because he had a demon inside him and because he outwitted Neji. This Hyuuga boy works as hard as any dropout, Xi decided as Neji continued to expend his chakra in his attacks on the log, never wavering, and each time making progress, even if only a tiny amount. Never discount anyone just on what you think of their potential, anyone can find a way to kill, but if there are two people who work equally hard, the one who had a greater potential will win. Hyuuga Neji is a rarity among rarities, not only is a he a genius ninja, but he is one willing to put in hard work. In two months, he'll be Draci Neji.