Original Author's note: I'll be real, I have no idea about Kanji at all, and not much more understanding of basic Japanese. Y'all can feel free to call me out in case I effed up my translations.

Addendum: Hey so this has been sitting around on my PC for like a year… I figured maybe I should post it? No idea when I'll post the followup chapter. Maybe next week, maybe next year .-.

Chapter 13: Change of Plans

"The Kyuubi. Really?" Naruto stood and stared at me like I was insane. It was rather disheartening that he had a special face for that, actually.

"From what I can tell," I replied. "Honestly, it makes sense. Poor guy is sealed inside you and probably doesn't have much more to do than spectate your life. It'd suck for him too if you end up a vegetable."

"Why would I turn into a vegetable?" Naruto questioned, "No wait, why would the Kyuubi care at all? It's just a beast."

Right, Naruto probably hadn't spoken to the fuzzball as of yet. Awkward.

"If the Kyuubi was just some unthinking creature, why would he show up in Konoha of all places?" I reasoned. "From a survival standpoint it'd be smartest to just hide out in the mountains somewhere."

"Maybe it's just stupid?" Naruto tried, getting a snort for his efforts. "Okay yeah, probably not. But that can only mean it attacked Konoha for fun."

Would it be worth it to try and mend Naruto's relationship with Kurama early on, just so I might get some tips on how to abuse the clones? Eh, I'd already departed from canon. I may as well help Naruto out even more.

"Naruto, I highly doubt that it arrived in Konoha of its own volition," I argued, "How would a gigantic fox even get close to the village without prior warning?"

"It… teleported?"—he shook his head—"Satoya you know I'm no good with theories."

"Think about how the fox might be hidden. I'm sure you know a way."

He rubbed at his temples before smacking his fist into his palm. "It was sealed! Wouldn't that mean it was in someone else before me?"

"Must have been, right? Though I have no idea how he might've escaped," I lied. "In any case, imagine being stuck inside someone else's body for a super long time, wouldn't you be angry too? Especially if people started freaking out and attacking you."

"Satoya, are you really defending the Kyuubi right now?" Naruto asked, taking a step back and crossing his arms. "Murdering a whole bunch of people is definitely evil."

"Would you say it's evil if done in self defence?" I queried. "Anywho, I'm not saying what happened wasn't tragic. I'm just trying to figure out what the Kyuubi even had to gain, and why it might be helping you right now."

"How do we even know it's helping me on purpose?" he remarked.

"Okay, fair point," I responded. "Still, on the off chance it is on purpose, I would love to hear just what in the world is actually going on."

Naruto quirked his eyebrows. "You're crazy, ya know?"

"Hey, the Kyuubi has supposedly been around for a long long time. I'm sure he's got a treasure trove of information locked away in his head," I argued. "Think about how much we could learn from him."

Naruto sighed. "You won't drop this, huh? What do you want me to do?"

"Try and contact the fox," I said.

"And how do I do that?" he asked, lightly bonking my head.

"I… don't know," I said. Not like the anime had much to go on regarding the actual mechanics of how to enter the seal-space. Except throwing Naruto off a cliff maybe. Naruto may be willing to humour my theories, but I doubt he'd go quite that far. Still, I should at least jam the idea of socialising with Kurama into his skull.

"Sorry for being so overbearing. Here I am, sounding all high and mighty, while you're the one who's had to live with the darn thing in your gut." I laid it on real thick by pitching my voice so it sounded like I had a lump in my throat. "It just saddens me to imagine how lonely the poor fox must feel, stuck with no one to talk to for so many years."

Naruto wrung his hands, but grudgingly promised to try and talk to him. I sincerely hoped it would all work out for the best. Naruto and Kurama both deserved it.

The following morning of training with my team went very similarly to our first. Running laps around the training ground while dodging projectiles, three on one spars against our teacher, and various tracking and formation drills. Not the most exciting, but frankly I was just glad Hayate wouldn't be forcing us into D-rank missions for the time being.

The afternoon, however, was a whole different story. As promised, our sensei gave each of us introductory lessons in our previously chosen fields of study. He handed Akuma and Yuu a whole bunch of scrolls and directed my two teammates to acquaint themselves with the techniques as he pulled me over to the training ground's forest.

"The Hokage revealed your circumstances to me yesterday. I assume your sensory abilities are likely quite advanced by now."

I shrugged. "I don't really know how capable the average sensor is."

"The majority of Konoha's sensors have bloodlines to aid them," he stated, "The Hyuuga have their eyes, the Inuzuka have their noses, and the Aburame have their insects. It's not easy to quantify how effective a unique ability is without testing it first. Few people without bloodlines are declared sensor-nin."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, sensei." I chided.

"I did not intend to berate you," he said. "Everyone can learn to feel chakra signatures to a degree. Only the truly exceptional are officially declared sensor nin. To start off, why don't you try and describe how my chakra differs from yours?"

Yeah, as if that was so simple. I had no exact methodology for keeping people's auras apart. Besides the obvious stuff like unrestrained signal intensity corresponding to pool size, most characteristics were subliminal.

"Chakra capacity is the most obvious; mine feels higher than yours," I said, feeling my ears burn—I hate sincere immodesty. "I assume mine is slower too; though to be honest that's just speaking from experience and not due to my senses."

Hayate paced around, observing me from different angles. "Could you channel your chakra for a moment?"—I did as he said—"It doesn't seem slower to react."

I paused to consider. "Maybe slow isn't quite right. I just noticed over the years that my chakra feels less erratic than other people's. As if it has a lower baseline energetic state." I clenched my hands. "Ugh, that still isn't right. It's like—"

Hayate raised his hands. "Nevermind that, I think we are getting off track with semantics. Does everyone else's chakra have the same energy besides yours?"

"Naruto's doesn't. Exempting him there's very little variation though." At this point I was fairly certain it had to do with the spiritual/physical energy balance, but I couldn't explain that without revealing I knew about Kurama having been split in two.

"Then this is not useful for segregation. Do you notice any other differences between us?" Hayate asked, gently cycling his chakra to provide an easier read.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. His aura seemed relatively grounded, though focusing my full intent on the signal revealed the slightest undercurrent of taut anxiety.

I cut off my empathic inspection. "You seem worried about something."

"Worried…" he shook his head. "Do you mean to tell me that you can recognize my emotional state?"

"Is that so unusual?" I asked. "I'm not feeling the emotion directly, just the idle movement of your chakra."

"Are you sure you aren't misinterpreting? You couldn't possibly—" Hayate caught himself. "May I try something?"

"Sure, go ahead." I tossed my arms up. "You're the expert here, after all. In all likelihood I've just been imagining the sensation this whole time."

Hayate cleared his throat. "Save the sarcasm for after the test, please. Can you detect the same fluctuations now?"

I huffed out and repeated my earlier methodology. "A little bit, maybe. Though they're lessening as we speak."

Hayate tapped his leg. "What I just did is the most basic defensive tool against killing intent," he explained, "and projecting intent is, strictly speaking, not a chakra technique. It can be done even when chakra-exhausted."

"Sorry, how does that factor? When people project killing intent you feel the emotion directly, which I just explained I don't do."

"Killing intent emits raw spiritual energy, and defending against it requires you close off your mind, meaning no more spiritual energy can leak into your network."

"So I'm not sensing the emotions, I'm sensing the way that a person's emotional state affects their chakra," I concluded. "{Big fucking whoop.}"

"Emphatic sensing is normally a directed effort, and only highly skilled interrogators can subvert a target's awareness." Hayate knelt down to look at me face to face. "You have a gift, Satoya."

"I'm glad we clarified that and finally landed back where we started," I snarked, netting me a glare of disapproval. "What? You said to hold off on being sarcastic until after the test."

Hayate sighed, getting back to his feet. "I suppose I deserve that for not believing you. Describe what you sense now that I've removed the excess emotional influence."

Lacking emotions, his chakra felt like cool, soothing earth—solid and dependable. That description sounded like vague bullshit to me, but Hayate seemed satisfied. Next, he proceeded to reduce his aura more and more until I just barely lost the ability to sense him. He then created a clone and sent it out into the forest, advising me to go and search for it while he got back to the others.

Most of the afternoon went by with little progress on my end. The first time was easy with a bit of extra effort, and the second required I pull out all the stops using various meditative tricks I'd gleaned over the years.

Level three had me totally stumped. No matter how well I tuned out my other senses, I could not find his clone for the life of me, and I began to worry this roadblock would keep me busy for the next forty hours.

Noting my increasing frustration, Hayate assured me I was very skilled and had nothing to worry about. It would likely come with time and practice.

Well, that wasn't good enough for me. I knew I was way more sensitive at birth than I was now. Odds were that my subconscious mind had simply learnt to shut out the massive influx of sensory information I'd otherwise be plagued by, not too unlike any normal inhabitant of the shinobi world.

In essence, I needed to find a way to return to the level of sensitivity that made me bawl my eyes out all those years ago, and presto!

Therefore, though I'd specifically been warned about their misuse yesterday, I summoned two clones to sit down beside me and meditate. I hoped that with the sensory input of three people combined I'd artificially dive deeper into my ability. I dispelled the clones after ten minutes of sitting still, measuring my surroundings.

It worked. It was darn uncomfortable, but it worked.

With closed eyes and cleared mind, the triple layered memory functioned like an amplifier without turning into a mess of disparate impressions.

Repeating the strategy two more times from different positions allowed me to finally discover Hayate's clone once again.

"Well done! With enough practice you're sure to become a menace to infiltrators everywhere."

I couldn't help the feelings of pride and accomplishment that welled up inside me upon hearing those words. I went to sleep that night exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

The week drew by and our training maintained its intensity. Hayate took his job very seriously. In his own words, "If I can't effectively train a group of genin, then how will I ever raise children?"

This phrase served to remind me of his untimely demise, though thankfully Hayate assured me he wouldn't be proctoring the exams given his obligations as our teacher. I couldn't be totally sure this would stop him from getting caught spying, but I was planning on messing up the Konoha Crush arc either way.

I'd failed to grasp how someone of his calibre even got caught in the first place until his introductory lesson on chakra suppression. It took concentrated effort to halt the flow and getting startled could easily break the effect. I supposed hearing you were about to get invaded by your ally would suffice to disrupt it.

Not that I had to worry about intricacies like holding concentration when the act itself felt like my chest was getting crushed and my body was yearning to explode at the same time. I gave it my best shot, but keeping it up for more than a few seconds was torture, and doing so for an entire minute literally made me throw up.

I felt so discombobulated afterwards that I wound up skipping my sensory tutoring session to sit in the shade and recover. As I sat there with my back propped against a tree trunk, listening to the clang of Akuma and Hayate's blunted swords in the distant forest clearing, I heard Yuu hiss out some colourful language while peering over one of his practice seals.

"What's got you so riled up?" I asked. I had nothing better to do at the moment after all.

He drew in a sharp breath. "This accursed array!" he snapped, "It's just so… so… Argh!" He dropped his ink brush onto the grass and rubbed his stained hands across his forehead. "It is meant to emit green light when I feed it chakra, but it just keeps fu- fizzling out instead!"

The way his voice had gotten progressively shriller amused me to no end. Nevertheless I swallowed down my urge to laugh. "Do you know why it's fizzling out?"

"Of course I know!" he bit back. "I can't keep my stupid fingers still enough!"

"Mind if I watch you draw out the seal? I might be able to give you some advice on your brush technique," I suggested.

He looked at me as if I was the second coming of the Sage. "I would appreciate that, Satoya. Perhaps your frivolous enjoyment of drawing could be helpful to shinobi work after all."

Ouch man. Guess this really does have you pissed off.

Slowly scooching up to my friend so as to not further upset my stomach, I peered over his shoulder as he worked. "You said this seal was supposed to glow green?"

"Yes. And it's not a seal, just a technique formula," he explained, "Seals specifically restrict or bind. Formulas can apply to anything. However, the best, and most importantly permanent, sealing techniques all use technique formulas."

"Fuinjutsu, Jutsu-shiki; {potaeto, potahto}. Who cares about semantics anyway?" I chided, watching him copy off his template. As testament to his hard work, I couldn't spot any glaring faults in his recreation. None at least, that by my estimation would have totally disrupted the chakra flow.

"Arrays care about semantics, Satoya," Yuu responded, rolling his eyes, "Which is why each kanji needs to be perfectly drawn, lest it does not convey the correct meaning."

"So what, it's just a sentence spelled out by chakra-conductive ink?" I probed, trying to decipher the strange Kanji structure in front of me.

"It uses specialised terms and symbols," Yuu clarified "Though in essence, yes. A phrase conveys meaning, which determines the result. This, for example,"—he traced his finger along the template's central symbol—"is the origin point. Absorb, which wanders to convert, followed up by emit."

I pondered his explanation and checked over the sample. He had kept his description concise. The three runes were truthfully composed of more than one symbol each. A larger symbol, which represented the command word like absorb, was bound to a smaller symbol depicting the subject of the command. The phrase was really 'Absorb: Chakra'.

Travelling along the thin lines of ink, linking the symbols like wires in a circuit board, lead to the second command, 'Convert: Chakra'. Following that directive, it finally landed on 'Emit: Light'.

Wait, what?

I wrinkled my nose. Sure, it was meant to be a beginner's seal, but to me it looked downright sloppy. The array was meant to emit green light. The final command also correctly stated to emit light. Yet, the variable 'light' had no prior definition at any point in the seal.

I asked for clarification, and according to Yuu the intent behind words determined their meaning. The variables' names were simultaneously their own definitions.

Even so, would the emitted light not still need to originate from somewhere? Aha! The designer never defined what the chakra should be converted into!

Absorb[chakra]

Convert[chakra]

Emit[light]

It made less sense the longer I stared at it. "Yuu, have you actually tested the template?"

He looked at me for a short moment. "No..."

He hastily snatched the sheet from my hands and shakily moved his hand to its centre. The symbol promptly began to glow a dim blue as the chakra travelled along to the next line of code and…

"NO! I spent an entire afternoon copying this drivel and did not bother testing it first!" He tightened his grip around the sealing paper, crumpling it up in rage. "Fu-" he choked his words back and took a calming breath. "Nope. Never again. I shall simply get someone else to make the entrapping seals for me in the future like a sane individual."

He dropped the wrinkled parchment like a piece of trash and walked away.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it! It's not your fault," I shouted after him, picking the now much more dishevelled sheet up off the floor. "At least you can probably get Hayate to pay you back somehow!"

My words probably didn't reach him, considering the scowl painting his lips as he stiffly stepped over to our teacher. Knowing Yuu, he was probably about to give him a devastating tongue-lashing. Scratch that, he just unsheathed his sword. I chuckled to myself as I unfolded the discarded array. My eyes wandered back and forth between the drawing and the discarded writing supplies. It couldn't be that simple, right?

Let's see, If I just add a bit of something over here; Maybe change the phrasing a bit…

Absorb[chakra]

Convert[chakra] to [light(green)]

Emit[light(green)]

The array only took about a minute to finish. I wasn't quite sure whether the symbols I used for my slapdash commands would function as intended, but since Yuu mentioned it was exactly the intent behind them that mattered, it was probably fine. I pushed in a trace amount of chakra and to my delight, the array lit up in the desired color.

It wasn't exactly an impressive amount of light, the material quality and improvised command structure likely limited the efficiency, but better than nothing.

I made up for it by overloading the circuit with chakra, which made the whole sheet glow like a cartoonishly radioactive lump of metal and elicited an equally cartoonish villainous chuckle. A few moments later the low-quality sheet of paper burnt out and the symbols faded from sight.

Without a lightshow to distract me I became aware of the slack-jawed trio of people standing behind me. "How did you get it to work?" Yuu choked out.

"Uhm… I just took your copy of the template and modified it a bit," I replied. "It's no big deal."

Judging by Hayate's expression, I could not be more wrong. "Satoya-kun," our sensei said, "Casually fixing an array, with zero prior experience in Jutsu-Shiki is the opposite of 'no big deal'!"

Really? This is just basic code...

I looked back at the stack of unused paper. "I've been working on my calligraphy for a long time," I defended "And this isn't what I'd call complex."

Hayate raised an eyebrow. "I take it you are not interested in furthering your studies on Jutsu-Shiki?" he posed, "I won't force you to learn something you do not wish to, even if it's a waste of potential."

It wasn't that I disliked the idea. I honestly just hadn't considered it worth my time. Or even really considered it much at all in recent years. I'd asked about it in the Academy—I wasn't that genre-unsavvy—but was told it's too advanced for me and warned about how gruellingly difficult it was to learn. Basically everything would need to be self-taught since Konoha housed a grand total of one seal master who wasn't even in the village most of the time.

Nevertheless, with the clarity of hindsight I should have at least tried it out.

"I might be interested," I admitted to both myself and my teacher, "I haven't really given it much thought. What would mastering technique formulas be good for?"

Hayate smirked. "Think no further than the Yondaime Hokage and his Hiraishin."

Maybe I didn't need to abuse shadow clones after all?