Story Challenge: Free to good home! Naruto does not properly master the shadow clone technique, and it goes horribly, horribly wrong. Instead of creating physical clones of him made of chakra, it creates phantom spirit clones, which then possess his enemies.
The Phantom Clone Technique
How did all go so wrong?
Mizuki-sensei had given him a super-secret assignment that would let him pass even though he hadn't managed to perform the bunshin technique. Naruto Uzumaki just couldn't make a clone for his life! But, he had thought that something had finally, finally gone his way when his instructor had told about the steal-the-scroll-from-the-Hokage-tower make-up mission test.
The spikey blond-haired boy should have known it was a lie. Anyone else would have seen through such a ridiculous falsehood, but not him. He just had to believe it, because his teacher was actually trying to be nice to him. Naruto wanted it to be true so much that what little degree of skepticism he had managed to build up had gone right out the window when his grey haired instructor offered him such a sweet sounding deal.
And now he was gonna die.
Naruto stood, behind a tree, shaking uncontrollably in fear, his arms wrapped around the giant Forbidden Scroll of Sealing for which he had been betrayed as if it were a dear person. Mizuki was a chunin, a middle rank shinobi. Naruto wasn't even a genin. He'd failed the test for being the lowest rank ofa ninja. There was no way he could win.
Yet he wouldn't give the scroll to that bastard, even at the cost of his own life.
And Iruka….Iruka was probably dying right now. His teacher, his stern, but kind and fair teacher who didn't care if Naruto had some stupid demon fox trapped in his gut, had taken a huge Fuma shuriken right in the back! To save him! Naruto. The dead-last student at the Academy.
Iruka-sensei had even led Mizuki away from Naruto using the henge, taking on the boy's own appearance, giving his student half a chance to escape with the scroll, even while gravely injured. For that his teacher was going to be killed. He could hear Mizuki threatening to do exactly that.
Suddenly, the tears stopped.
As his thoughts turned from himself and his own fear of death to his teacher, a completely different feeling rose up inside of Naruto. It was a warm, strong feeling. It was a feeling he was familiar with. Defiance. Determination.
YES.
"I was going to save you for last, Iruka, but I think I'm going to just kill you now," Mizuki boasted, spinning the oversized shuriken and charging at a badly injured Iruka. There was no way, slumped up against a tree as he was, that his teacher could dodge.
That's when Naruto charged out from where he had hidden and planted his knee into Mizuki's face. His blow sent the spinning blade wildly off-course to rip a branch off a tree and the traitor instructor flying backwards head of heels to land at least twenty yards away.
Despite having just been successfully ambushed by the young student, Mizuki sneered at Naruto as he rose to his feet.
"Not bad, for a little runt," the traitor said, readying himself. It was fortuitous that the brat had stayed around. If he'd run off the ANBU, the Hokage's personal guard, may have arrived before he could recapture the scroll. Now it would be his.
"If you ever touch my sensei," Naruto said, a burning fire in his gut unlike anything he had ever felt before, "I'LL KILL YOU." And he meant it.
The boy looked serious, one hand on the forbidden scroll, face partially obscured by the angle he was standing at. But Mizuki was not impressed. He'd seen Naruto for much of his Academy life, and while he wasn't quite as pathetic as his reports said, the chunin had every reason to feel confident.
"Stupid brat! Don't you know I can annihilate you with just one move?"
"Bring it on!" Naruto challenged, at the moment uncaring what his former teacher threatened. "I'll throw back whatever you attack me with a thousand-fold!"
Grinning sadistically, the Mizuki began to charge the foolish boy.
And then Naruto did something unexpected.
Despite practicing with the scroll for an hour, doing his best to understand the complicated and esoteric instructions about chakra control, regulation, filtering, etc., Naruto had yet to succeed at the forbidden technique. The best he had done so far was create a faint image of himself that had floated in the air momentarily before fading away.
But none of that mattered. Defiance and determination burned within him and he would be damned if he wouldn't give Mizuki his best shot.
And so Naruto concentrated, putting his hands into the symbol cross sign the book called for to release the technique, poured his chakra, all that burning passion within him into it, and called out, "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"
YES! YES!
There was a massive burst of smoke as the load of wasted chakra Naruto had not properly directed into the technique bled out into nature. That alone was enough to stop Mizuki's attack, the mist completely obscuring his vision. Only a fool wood charge headfirst into something like that, even against an Academy student. When the smoke cleared, Mizuki looked at what faced him.
And laughed.
It was a single clone. It was a perfect replica of Naruto, except that it was floating just off the ground and had a faint ethereal quality to it that made it obvious that it was not real.
Naruto's shoulders slumped. He had poured everything into the technique. And it had failed. Again.
"Is that the best you can do, Demon Fox?" Mizuki mocked for a final time. "Well, Iruka, I guess you really can pass him now. He did make a functioning clone, even if it is pathetic."
And then he charged, kunai drawn, mirth turning to murderous intent. First, he headed for Naruto's clone, determined to give the boy one last disappointment as his "ultimate technique" was obliterated before he killed him.
Mizuki's kunai pierced straight through the clone, but as his hand passed through its body, the clone became an inky shadow, the color bursting with the kunai strike. The chunin was suddenly frozen in place, paralyzed, his eyes widened in shock. The shadow spread from his arm, covering his body, slowly enveloping his entire form, before seeping into his skin and fading away.
The paralysis wore off and Mizuki's eyes snapped up to Naruto. "What have you done?"
The blond boy dressed in the orange jumpsuit looked up at his traitorous sensei eyes wide. The hell if he knew.
And then Mizuki dropped to the ground and began convulsing.
Iruka and Naruto looked on, unwilling to go near the traitor, in case there was some kind of trick. That was when several black and grey clad ninja wearing white animal masks appeared, two flanking the fallen Mizuki and two on either side of Naruto and Iruka. The ANBU had arrived.
"Umino Iruka," one of the masked ninja, this one wearing a bird mask ordered, "Status?"
"Naruto is innocent!" Iruka blurted out immediately.
The bird-masked ANBU nodded. "Lord Hokage is aware. What is the status of the Scroll of Sealing, Uzumaki Naruto, and—"
Before the ANBU could finish or Iruka could respond, Mizuki stirred. The surrounding ANBU immediately pointed their tanto, short swords favored by the black ops, at the gray haired chunin. They were taking no chances.
Mizuki looked around bewildered. "Hey, what's going on?" he called out.
"Don't play dumb, Mizuki!" Iruka barked. "Everyone knows what you did!"
Confusion flashed across Mizuki's face. "Huh?" Then his eyes landed on Naruto, and a giant grin split his face. "Yatta! I did it!" He pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.
The surrounding two ANBU stabbed him immediately.
Mizuki's eyes went wide as he turned to look at the ANBU who had killed him. "Why?" he asked, blood pouring from his wounds. And then his eyes, his big blue cerulean eyes, went wide before they were covered in shadow for a moment, before the shadow faded, leaving only Mizuki's dull green, lifeless eyes behind.
Idea Details:
1. If Naruto manages to learn the standard shadow clone technique, there's always a chance that one or more of the clones is instead a phantom clone.
2. Phantom clones, like shadow clones, have personalities and feelings slightly different from the original, based partly on how he felt when creating them and on the clone's experiences after coming into existence. Generally, they will start off putting the original Naruto's interests above their own, even dying for him (as that was why they were initially made), but those that survive longer will begin to have their own interests and desires.
3. During the initial possession, the shadow clone will gain complete control of the victim while their soul is in shock. After a short while, the victim may resist the clone in one of two ways: 1. Attempt to expel the clone. If that fails, the victim's soul is expelled and they pass on to the Pure World. 2. Resist actions they do not want to do.
4. If the phantom cohabits a body with another soul for an extended time, the phantom spirit and the person will begin to merge, blending feelings, identities, etc.
5. If a phantom clone is expelled or dies before fully integrating with a victim (around 24 hours), the clone returns its chakra and memories to Naruto as if it were a regular shadow clone. However, Naruto only games the knowledge of the phantom clone, what it learned during the time it was in a victim's body, not all the knowledge the victim ever had.
6. Phantom clones retain all of Naruto's skills, but not his vast chakra. Unlike with normal shadow clones, phantom clones do not split chakra with Naruto evenly. They also do not take his physical items or characterteristics. Instead, they game the physical and chakra abilities of their victim. Yes, Orochimaru would love this technique. However, this means most of them won't be able to make their own phantom clones because it does take more chakra than the average jonin can produce for even 1.
7. Dark Naruto (Waterfall of Truth) can transfer out through a phantom. The Kyuubi cannot, unless Naruto is using the Kyuubi's chakra when he creates a phantom clone. Memory Kushina and Memory Minato could conceivably do so as well. But Dark Naruto *should* get out and that should be a major plot point-perhaps the main antagonist of the entire story.
8. Naruto should remain Naruto. Once he learns the nature of phantom clones, he should be loathe to use it, and certainly would not use it on an unwilling friend. However, not all of the phantom clones he creates (even of himself) will share the same compunctions. Especially those he makes on accident.
