Sarutobi dismissed the somewhat annoyed Hizashi and picked up his beads as they fell from the vanishing form of the Hyuuga, "Don't get to exited, Naruto-kun, it will a while before your allowed to call spirits. As much as you may dislike it, lesson one is learning the rules."
Naruto's face fell, "rules?"
Jeff raised a purple eyebrow at him, "What? Do you think we should just teach you reality altering skills without restricting your use of them?"
The boy saw the wisdom there, and grinned again, "Ok then, since you're the boss, but lets get this over with."
Jeffery sat down cross-legged, spreading his huge robe out around him, "Ok, the most important rule goes first. We allow some personal discretion in the use of your powers, but when you've been given a mission, it ALWAYS comes first. Do you understand?"
Naruto shrugged, "Yeah, sounds fair."
Jeff's black eyes seemed to darken even more, "You need to accept this, because I have to know that even if everyone you loved in life was about to be killed, you would not abandon your mission, no matter how trivial it seems to you. We are the governors of time and space, so mistakes can mean the ruin of civilizations."
Suddenly struck with the weight of responsibility, Naruto felt very small as he nodded.
"Excellent," Jeff said, "The rest of the rules are simple. No direct contact with the physical realm, No altering the same persons fate stream twice in one day, and No taking orders from anyone but me"
Naruto crossed his arms, "What if an angel came down with special instructions?"
"Then, you would tell the angel to clear the orders with me. And don't kid yourself, an angel might just be sneaky enough to try and pull something like that, and you'd be the one to take the heat if something went wrong. Play it safe, if your not sure about an order, wait to talk to me about it."
The boy was nodding again, so Jeff addressed the third, "Sarutobi, I need to get back to work, so get this kid up to speed as fast as possible. Starting with the basic fate controls, I want no less than 4 hours of practice a day."
The shinigami poofed out of existence, and Naruto jumped, "Ne, ne, why is he leaving so soon? He didn't spend much time here at all!"
Sandaime finished looping his beads and replaced them on his belt, "Since I have to take time training you, Jeffery has to do even more work than usual, so you won't see him much at first. Your training will be with me and anyone I see fit to call"
Naruto grinned brightly, "When do we start?"
"We'll start right now, unless you have something better to do?…"
The boy stared blankly at him.
"I didn't think so. Our first actual lesson will be the most basic of fate controls. It helps if the subject is someone your familiar with, so who do you think needs a little fate altering?"
For Naruto, that was easy, "Sasuke"
"I had a feeling you might say that, but there shouldn't be a problem. I'll do it first, and you can watch."
"But don't we need someone's permission? Who do we ask about altering someone's fate?"
Sarutobi laughed, "Naruto, unless we're given specific instructions by Jeff, it's up to our discretion. We are the ones who give the permission to alter destiny."
Naruto's mouth formed an 'O', "Never mind then, on to the fate messing"
"Not so fast, Naruto-kun, as I said, we're doing the most basic of fate controls, the Fatum Adnexus, or fate bind. It requires two people, whose destinies will be tied together. There is, however, a small annoyance that comes with this technique, we don't know HOW their destinies will be tied together."
The boy tilted his head, "explain"
"say, for example," Sarutobi said, "that we bound Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. In 3 years, they might meet again, she convinces him to return home, he takes his punishment and the two of them fall in love and have 9 kids."
Naruto was surprised by how little this line of thought bothered him, being dead made a lot of things clearer.
Sarutobi shocked him back from his ponderings by pointing his finger right between Naruto's eyes, "BUT, it isn't that simple. Because that scenario was only one possibility, another possibility would be that Sasuke decides that, in order to escape his past, he has to hunt down and kill Sakura. The two of them are still bound by fate, just in a different way, and it is impossible for us to predict the future, so we would have no idea which of those two scenarios would play out, or whether Sasuke and Sakura would be bound by fate in any one of another million ways."
Naruto let himself fall backwards and sat on the ground, "But then, how could I ever risk using that!"
Sandaime laughed, "I have to make it clear how dangerous some of these abilities are, but remember that we can re-alter fate later if we need to, so we'll get involved if something really bad happens. But I digress, you need to pick someone to bind Sasuke to."
Naruto thought, and thought and thought, and pondered, and thought.
"Tsunade," he said finally
Sarutobi nodded and stroked his beard in that way that only old wise men can while he considered Naruto's decision, "Good choice, this should work well. I'm going to do an example from my assignment list, then you can try Sasuke and Tsunade." The old man whipped out what looked to be an odd scroll and ran his finger over the lists of names.
He suddenly stopped and nodded to himself, then rolled the scroll back up and placed it back in the depths of his robes. At that moment, Naruto suddenly realized something; Sandaime was wearing white robes, much as he had when he was Hokage. The only thing missing was the hat.
Naruto made a note to inquire about how to get a change of cloths while dead, but Sarutobi was already starting his technique, and Naruto watched closely
The old man held his arms straight out to the sides, and formed two different seals, one per hand. His face scrunched with concentration and Naruto felt something gathering around Sarutobi's hands.
He suddenly brought his hands together, the two seals he was making connecting perfectly to form another more conventional, but still new, hand seal.
"FATUM ADNEXUS"
There was again the flash of light, and Naruto suddenly felt slightly nauseous, as if the world were spinning, but the feeling was gone a moment later.
"Whoa…" the boy shook his head, "what WAS that?"
"Nothing much, just the universe re-aligning itself. It happens after every fate shift, the larger the change, the more vicious the nausea, but you get used to it."
"Ok, I saw, or rather felt, what you were doing, but how did you specify the two people to be bound?"
"That" Sandaime said, "is the easiest of all. You just need to know who they are in your mind. It doesn't even matter if you know their names, you could just think 'The Kazekage' or 'the Doughnut Shop Man who gave me extra sprinkles that one time', as long as you know enough about them to distinguish them from anyone else, you just think of those defining characteristics and your power does the rest"
Naruto absorbed this, then closed his eyes, held out his arms as he had seen his teacher do, forming the two one-handed seals, and thought about Sasuke. He thought of everything that defined Sasuke as a person, and quickly felt a strange feeling in his left hand.
Somehow knowing the first half was done, he switched his thoughts to Tsunade. This one came faster, as he just imagined her as 'Godaime Hokage', a position no one else in the world could claim, and again felt the feeling, this time in his right hand.
A shiver of anticipation went through him, and he brought his hands together slowly, making sure the two seals linked up like they were supposed to.
"FATUM ADNEXUS!"
Naruto felt a shudder run through his body and knew the nausea was coming again. A moment later it hit him, and he keeled over onto one knee, breathing deeply. It immediately occurred to him that this was ridiculous, since he was dead and therefore did not need oxygen, but his lungs were pumping all the same.
Sarutobi was clapping enthusiastically, "Very good, Naruto-kun. I have to say I'm impressed. It took me three tries to get that skill down."
"So what happens now?" Naruto inquired, "How will I know if it worked?"
"It worked, our powers can't fail as long as the ritual is done properly, but we might not see the results for a few days, or even weeks."
The boy looked exhilarated, "Okay, so what's next?"
"You," Sandaime said, "just made your first enemy in the afterlife."
Naruto was taken aback, "Huh?"
"Not literally, Naruto-kun, but figuratively. Our work is such that Ghosts, Angels, Demons, and everything in between get annoyed with us. The occasional one gets pissed enough to attack us head on."
Sarutobi took a moment to collect his thoughts, "Angels use flaming swords, Demons use pitchforks, and there was once a time when we used large scythes. This was long before I was around, but back then Jeff had to personally intervene in most every conflict because of the rule of two. Jeff can never have more than two assistants, and two sub-Shinigami with scythes are no match for 30 Angels with their flaming swords. About 120 years ago, Jeff had a little talk with Chronos, the overlord of time, hoping to get us some better equipment to even the odds."
The old man snapped his fingers and a box appeared out of thin air, shimmering into existence. "He came back with two of these"
Sarutobi reached into the box and came out with the most bizarre looking thing Naruto had ever seen. It looked to be made out of metal, but it wasn't any weapon he knew of.
"What exactly," Naruto asked, "is that?"
"This," Sarutobi said proudly, "is a fully automatic Intratec DC-9. Features a blowback design, fires from the open bolt, and has a threaded barrel. Uses 50 round magazines, filled with our special ammunition manufactured by Chronos himself."
Naruto blinked, "Yes…..but what IS it?"
Sarutobi sighed and pointed the device into the forest. All Naruto saw was the old man tensing his hand, and a stream of objects moving at insane speeds blasted from the thing and tore into the trees.
After a few seconds of destruction, he stopped the spray of mayhem and lowered the weapon, "Do you get it now?"
Naruto shook his head
The old man fought off impatience; it was easy to forget that mortals and the recently dead had such limited knowledge of technology. He gestured for Naruto to sit down and started to explain the basics of operating and servicing a Tec-9.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Sasuke ran through the forest, relishing his recent victory. He had beaten Naruto!
Somewhere deep in the Uchiha's mind there was a small voice speaking out in concern for the fox boy. A small voice that sounded suspiciously like Kakashi.
What if he actually died from his injuries? The little voice said, if that happened, how could you ever forgive yourself?
Sasuke stopped and a tree branch and glared of into empty space, "Naruto wouldn't die from little injuries like those"
How do you know? Asked the little voice, did you examine his injuries?
"Well……no" Sasuke admitted, "But…"
Exactly. The little Kakashi voice said with authority, you didn't.
Sasuke crossed his arms, "Hey! I don't have to take this from you! You don't even exist, you're just a voice in my head!"
But you can't deny I'm right!
"La La La…I can't hear you"
Stop being so immature!
"Or what? What is the scary voice going to do to me?"
Arrrg! I'm going to talk to you later, when you're not acting like you're three!
Sasuke started off, again feeling proud of himself, he had shown that little imaginary voice who was boss!
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Exactly 74 minutes after the start of Sarutobi's explanation, Naruto knew he would never again be complete without his Tec-9.
The fact that so much ass kicking could be contained in so small a device mystified him at first, but Sarutobi carefully explained the mechanics of it, and at this moment, the old man was quizzing him on some of the things they had gone over.
"Where do you never point it?"
Naruto knew that one, "At myself"
"How many magazines do you carry at once?"
"Tw…" Naruto caught himself, "Three, one in the 'gun,' and two others"
The word 'gun' rolled unfamiliarly off Naruto's tongue as if it had an odd taste to it.
Sarutobi pondered his next question, "When do you get more ammunition?"
"Whenever any of my magazines are less than completely full"
The old man nodded, Naruto knew enough to at least protect himself. "Okay, Naruto-kun, then next thing I need to do is introduce you to Chronos, since we need to pick up two spare magazines for you and a few hundred astral bullets, but there's a minor issue we have to deal with first"
Naruto looked hopeful, "Do I get some of those beads you have?"
"Not yet, that requires more study on your part, but I do have something for you."
Sarutobi reached into the box from which he had taken the Tec-9 and withdrew what looked like a black robe.
Naruto examined it curiously, "And what is this?"
Sarutobi looked at him blankly, "It's a black robe…"
"What do I do with it?"
"You wear it"
"But what else does it do? What powers does it have?"
"None. It's just a black robe"
The boy was about to say something, but he was cut short, "yes, you have to wear it"
Naruto grumbled and grabbed the piece of clothing, and not caring about privacy, quickly changed into it right there in the forest. It looked like the garment would be far to large for his small body, but as he put it on, it adjusted itself so that when he finally stuck his head out the top, it fit like it had been tailored for him.
Sandaime looked at the boy thoughtfully, he didn't look half bad.
Naruto continued to grumble, "Why do I have a black robe when you and Jeff get white ones?"
Sarutobi shrugged, "That's just the way it's always been, the right hand of death has a black robe, and the left hand has a white robe. Jeff could wear Hawaiian shirts if he wanted to, but he likes the color white. Walk with me."
The old man snapped his fingers again, the box vanished, and he started to walk through the woods. Naruto ran to catch up while simultaneously trying not to trip over his robe.
As the two of them walked, Naruto carefully removed the magazine from his machine pistol and placed the two items into two separate pockets in his new clothing, while Sarutobi nodded approvingly.
"Now, before we arrive, there are some things you need to know about Chronos, Naruto-kun"
"Like what?"
"You need to make a good first impression. Chronos and Jeff are the two neutral overlords, Jeff controlling destiny, and Chronos, time. Obviously, their jobs overlap, so we work with Chronos on regular occasions. He can be a bit…odd…but you mustn't be rude"
Naruto grinned, "No problem, stop worrying, old man"
Sarutobi gave a long-suffering sigh, "You've never met Chronos"
The two continued to chat as they walked, but Sarutobi suddenly stopped and grabbed Naruto's wrist. The boy was overcome by a sense of vertigo for a few seconds, and when the feeling left, black rocks instead of trees surrounded them, and the dirt was bare, with no sign of plant life anywhere.
Naruto shook his head to clear the disorientation, "How did that happen?"
"Another trick you'll soon learn. For us, teleportation is another automatic thing. Know where you want to go, and you're power will do the rest."
"And where then, exactly" Naruto asked, "are we?"
"This is limbo, a part of the astral plane filled with absolutely nothing. Excellent place for those who want to be left alone" Sarutobi walked up to one of the larger rocks and tapped it twice in a specific spot.
The ground shook, and Naruto watched as the rock split in half, revealing a staircase downward.
(Meanwhile, in Hell)
Kyuubi was confident.
The object of his desire leaned against the wall casually. She was almost as large as the demon himself, but her gargantuan form was no less magnificent due to its enormous size.
She was a Succubus, and he was making his move.
He stood up on his hind legs, using his power to alter his body slightly, allowing him to stand upright and making him look rather like a huge orange werewolf. He advanced slowly towards his target, each of his steps sending tortured souls flying in all directions.
Kyuubi leaned up against the wall next to her, "I think you're in the wrong place, baby, cause you look heavenly to me"
She looked at him coolly, but the fox demon was undaunted, "Seeing as how we'll be stuck here together for the next little while, I was wondering if I might not get the chance to know you a bit better."
She raised a perfectly formed eyebrow, "Really? What could I possibly want to know about YOU?"
Kyuubi almost flinched at that one, but forced himself not to give up, trying another more direct method of attack. "Well, there's nothing but music here, and I'm not that good at passing time, but I can dance a mean Foxtrot."
The succubus smiled in the smallest possible way, "Is that so?"
(Back on the Astral Plane)
Naruto descended down the staircase, and the deeper he went; the more he noticed an odd smell in the air. It was a smell he was trained to know, but he couldn't believe there'd be any of THAT here.
Sarutobi wrinkled his nose, he had been hoping Chronos wouldn't be indulging in his habit today.
The stairway ended abruptly, and opened into a large room Naruto found indescribable. There were color's everywhere, but it was impossible to discern exactly where they came from. The smell hung in the smoky air, and Naruto started to make his way into the room, looking left and right at the many odd and peculiar objects that filled it, none of which he could put a name to.
At the other end of the room was a doorway, from which a person suddenly emerged.
He was about a foot taller than Naruto himself was, wore long flowing purple robes, and managed to look as inappropriate in said robes as Naruto imagined was possible. His hair was long, hanging messily down passed his shoulders, his face was unshaven, his eyes slightly bloodshot, and he held a pipe in his left hand.
He grinned when he saw the two of them, "Yo, dudes! This the new kid, Sarutobi?"
Sarutobi nodded with a sigh, and the figure grinned even wider, striding forward to grab Naruto's hand, "Hey man, I'm Chronos, Overlord of time," He winked at Naruto, "and seller of the best weed anywhere this side of heaven"
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Author's Notes:
The death god with sword thing is overdone, as is the scythe, so I figured I'd equip my supernatural beings with automatic weapons. It's more entertaining that way.
I'm going to continue on with the Kyuubi's adventures in hell, just because of the sheer fun potential.
For those who don't know what a Tec-9 machine pistol looks like, type it into a google image search, you'll get hundreds of results.
I think that's it for my random thoughts, don't forget to review...
Tune in next chapter as Naruto talks with the drugged up overlord of time and Sasuke has odd dreams
