Summary: Creating a jutsu is dangerous. Too bad an eleven-year-old Naruto didn't know that. AU, Naruto with MPD.
Warning: Some bad language.
Disclaimer: Not mine, apart from the parts that are.
A/N: Wooh, new edited Chapter Two. I'd advise any of the old readers to go over this, because the characters and events have changed. Thanks to martinique, who betaed. I'm really sorry this took so long to put up; I have no excuse. (Well, actually I have plenty of excuses, but none that would really be acceptable.) I've taken down the rest of the unedited chapters, because there's been some confusion over those. Hopefully, the next chapter won't take so long to put up.
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Chapter Two
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'I'm tellin' ya,' Red said, clearly exasperated. 'I knew what I was doin' with the jounin. Stop fussin', yeah? You're like a bunch of old women.'
'You annoyed a clearly dangerous jounin, because you thought it was a good idea,' Legacy said. 'I hardly think-'
"Will you lot just be quiet?" Naruto whined, nursing a mug of hot chocolate as he sat slouched at his kitchen table. "You're giving me a headache, and I still don't understand what you're saying about chakra."
'Was I ever that stupid?' Red wondered, and Naru made a noise of outrage.
'Red! Don't be nasty. Just because Naruto knows less than us, doesn't mean he's stupid,' Naru said, and Naruto sighed.
'That's an interesting thought,' Grey mused, his voice taking on a note of interest as he expounded on a theory. 'Theoretically, we should not be able to know more than Naruto, as we're created from possible memories in his mind. Our memories are formed around people he knows, and possible ways they could have acted, but if you consider it, we know no more about them than he does – this should apply to our knowledge as well, shouldn't it?'
'He could subconsciously know it,' Red said. 'A lot of people know more'n they think they do, yeah?'
Naruto moaned, dropping his head into his hands. Having been forced to wake at an unholy hour by Grey, who seemed convinced five-thirty in the morning was a perfectly practical time to get up, he was then deprived of his ramen by Naru (concerned over him stunting his own growth, so why didn't he have some fruit and a piece of toast instead?) and if that wasn't enough, then made to study, his headache was only growing as the others argued. Naruto failed to see the point of being forced to read over admittedly lack-luster results, as he had five other people in his head who were capable of giving him the answers – actually, scratch that, four. Shi didn't seem much the academic type, preferring to just cause unhealthy amounts of damage to whatever was bothering him, in the hopes that it would either die or go away – but either way, it seemed entirely stupid to waste his time studying when he could be doing something more worthwhile. Like sleeping. And eating ramen.
"Can we have a break?" he asked miserably, and there was a pause. He continued, hopefully. "It's ten o'clock. We've been studying way too long."
'You shouldn't ever give up,' Legacy said. 'Giving up is a weakness.'
'Screw you, yeah?' Red said. 'Can't you feel that we're hungry?'
As if on cue, Naruto's stomach rumbled, and he pouted, before realising they couldn't see him. That put a bit of a damper on conversations – especially Naruto's, which tended towards expansive gestures and making faces. Legacy grumbled a bit, but was shot down by Grey ('A distracted ninja learns badly,' he said, back to his usual monotone) and Naruto stumbled over to his cupboards, making it to the ramen before anyone could seriously complain.
Setting it to cook, he bounced from foot to foot excitedly, ignoring Red's mumbles of how he really hated ramen. No one could hate ramen. It was physically impossible. Red was just misguided, and should be taught the error of his ways. Checking his clock, he counted down the seconds impatiently- and then someone knocked on the door firmly.
'What the-?' Naruto thought. The only time people visited him was to make sure he was alive, and those visits only happened every four months. It was too soon for one of those checks.
'Why don't you go and see who's there, instead of wondering?' Naru prompted and Shi snorted.
'Might be danger,' he said, wariness coating his voice. 'Don't trust it.'
'I hardly think they'd knock if they were here to kill us,' Legacy said condescendingly, and there were a variety of mental shrugs. With a sigh, Naruto went to answer the door, stumbling over a mess of papers that he'd knocked over the day before and hadn't bothered to clear up.
Unlocking his door, and mumbling swearwords as the key got stuck in the lock, he finally tugged the door open. And stopped. And stared.
'Red, this is all your fault,' he whined, his expression clearly giving him away from the flicker of amusement that passed over Morino's face.
'Stop whinin' and find out why he's here,' Red sneered back, and Legacy began grumbling at him for his tone of voice, Naru nodding somewhere in the background.
'Can't I just shut the door and pretend he was never here?' Naruto asked, and there was some consideration over this.
'He's a jounin,' Grey said blandly after a few moments. 'A lock won't stop him.'
'Explosive tags might,' Shi grunted, and Naruto blinked. He went over what they said, and carefully translated it as a 'no, you can't shut the door in his face.'
"Uzumaki Naruto," Morino said, fixing dark eyes on him. Naruto cocked his head, and then tried to imitate the man's ponderous way of talking.
"Morino Ibiki," he said widening his eyes and trying to keep his face straight. Legacy was groaning in the back of his mind, but Red seemed more amused than anything.
Morino narrowed his head, but kept his composure. "May I come in?" he asked, but something in his voice hinted that it was more an order than a request. Naruto considered this, and then his mind flickered back to a story he'd been told once, and he managed to keep a smug smile off his face.
"Are you a vampire? 'Cause I heard you shouldn't ever invite a vampire in," he said, in the most innocent tone he could, taking great delight in the clear irritation in Morino's stance. Oh yeah, he was the Number One ninja at annoying people.
"Vampires don't exist, Uzumaki," Morino said, and Naruto blinked.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked, and Red encouraged him as he continued. "I mean, just because you've never seen one doesn't mean they don't exist. It could just be-"
"Uzumaki," Morino interrupted, and Naruto froze as a wave of something hit him, freezing him in place as his breath came in short, sharp gasps. He felt fear hit him, and his face paled as he stared at the scarred jounin, who suddenly seemed much more intimidating, looming over him.
'Killing intent,' Legacy squeaked out, clearly affected.
'Runnin' away would be a good idea, yeah?' Red managed to say, stumbling over the words. 'I'm thinkin', really, really good idea.'
'Kill him,' Shi snarled out, less affected than the other two, but Naruto could feel the fear and anger that swirled around him in waves of red. 'Danger. Stop.' His speech patterns were becoming more and more simplified as the killing intent spiked. Naruto could feel himself shivering uncontrollably.
Grey sighed, unamused by their reactions as Naru whimpered somewhere in the background. 'I will take over,' he offered, somehow completely unaffected by the fear that was wrapping around them. Naruto ceded control gratefully, retreating within them to the soulroom, where Naru latched onto him. Red was leaning back against a wall, his face pale and fists clenched, as they heard Grey's voice echoing around them.
"Your tricks are unnecessary, Morino-san," he said, and Morino was clearly surprised at the bland, steady tone the boy took – the same boy that had been trembling before.
"Twelve seconds," Morino said. "I'm impressed – perhaps you aren't quite the fool you seemed." He halted whatever he was doing, and there were audible sighs of relief inside the soul room, Naruto letting his tensed shoulders relax, unable to be overly bothered by Morino's comment as the shivers slowly halted.
"Twelve seconds?" Grey asked, with only the slightest inflection at the end of the sentence to show it was a question. Morino seemed bothered by something, his mouth twisting into some grotesque expression, as the scars pulled it up and across.
'He's tryin' to smile,' Red breathed in some horror. 'Remind me to leg it before anything like that could happen to me, yeah?'
'Coward,' Legacy sneered, trying to regain some pride, but by the filthy look Red shot him, it wasn't working very well.
"It took you twelve seconds to break the influence of the killing intent," Morino explained. "Now, may I come in?"
Grey raised an eyebrow, before stepping aside, allowing Morino to enter. There was a sort of blank wariness in Grey's expression as he closed the door again, but made sure he didn't lock it. 'Here,' he said, and Naruto jolted as he slid back into control, the switch somehow rougher between him and Grey than he remembered it being with Red. He eyed Morino's back uncertainly as the man made his way into the kitchen, stepping over the mess of papers on the floor without hesitation. Naruto briefly wondered what the man was thinking, and stopped by the table.
"So..." he said slowly. "Do you want something to drink?"
"No," Morino replied, his eyes boring into Naruto's own, and Naruto shifted slightly.
"Uh... Okay," he muttered. "What did you want then?"
"Want?" Morino asked, and Naruto frowned.
"Yeah, y'know. If you turned up on my doorstep, you probably wanted something, right?"
"Yesterday you seemed convinced I was a stalker," Morino shot back, and Naruto felt like slamming his head against a table. He hated word games.
"I changed my mind," he nearly whined. "I'm so not in the mood for this."
"Hm," Morino murmured. "As you will." He fumbled inside his coat for a second, and it was Red's paranoia that forced them to watch the hand as if it were going to bring out an explosive tag or something. "I want you-"
'Paedophile,' Red said under his breath, and Naruto choked.
"-To sign this," Morino said, pulling out a piece of paper, a gleam in his eye that told Naruto that the man definitely suspected the thought that had just run through his – or Red's, to be more precise – mind.
"What is it?" Naruto asked suspiciously.
"A piece of paper."
('No shit,' Red grumbled.)
Naruto, for once, decided to shut his mouth and focus on deciphering the flowing, complicated letters. His reading had never been as good as it should have been, and it was slow going – especially when Naruto didn't understand what half the words meant.
'In lieu of guardian,' it read, 'I, Sandaime Hokage of Konoha do allow one Morino Ibiki, of special jounin status, specialising in Intelligence, to submit his application for the apprenticeship of one Uzumaki Naruto. Should the chosen apprentice chose to accept this application, they are answerable to their aforementioned teacher for the duration of time that the teacher chooses to hold them for, and are awarded the status of temporary chuunin, when directly under the command of their teacher.'
Morino was poking through the papers still left on Naruto's kitchen table as Naruto attempted to work out the meaning of the statement. Picking one piece of paper up, his eyes flickered over it – and froze halfway, starting again more slowly. "I don't recognise this jutsu," he said, and Naruto didn't really catch what he was saying before he answered.
"Nah, you wouldn't," he said, absentmindedly. "Hey, hey, Morino-san, does this mean if I accept your offer I'd get promoted straight to chuunin?"
"No," Morino said. "It means that you'd still be an academy student, but when I'm with you, you'd be allowed to access places that you wouldn't normally be allowed to until you gained chuunin. What do you mean by, 'no, I wouldn't recognise this jutsu'?"
Naruto looked up from the statement properly then, to see just what Morino was raising purposely. He paled. That was the jutsu he'd been working on – the one that had resulted in the others coming out. "Um," he said intelligently. "That's... um..."
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Morino sighed. "The correct way to distract my attention from that would be something along the lines of 'just a jutsu I found in the library', and then follow it up with a question to change the subject. You need practice at that." He looked down at the jutsu, and then raised an eyebrow. "What is this, exactly?"
Naruto considered what he should say for a second, before grinning. "That's just a jutsu I found in the library," he parroted. "What does an apprenticeship mean?"
Morino twitched slightly in exasperation. "That wasn't an invitation for you to try that out on me," he said, obviously irritated. "Never mind." He made as if to put the jutsu down, sliding it up his sleeve in a near imperceptible movement, and Naruto watched in faint disbelief.
'He just stole it!' Naruto thought, outraged.
'Do you want to be the one to object?' Legacy asked, his voice surprisingly dry for him, and Naruto considered this, remembering the fear that had washed over him.
'...No,' he said finally. 'But this sucks.'
"Now, an apprenticeship." Morino looked thoughtful. "Basically, I'd give you extra training on top of your academy class, and you would obey me as you would a personal teacher. You get access to some of my work in Intelligence, and I can have you run errands, where I'd normally have to find a chuunin."
'Wicked,' Red breathed. 'Sign it, yeah? We don't want him to back out.'
'What happened to you wanting to run away?' Legacy asked, and Red could clearly be felt rolling his eyes.
'If he's teachin' us, I don't care how scary he is,' Red said plainly, and Naruto sighed, searching around for a pen. Morino watched his actions with an almost predatory look on his face, and Shi seemed particularly unenthusiastic, a low growl coming from him whenever Naruto's eyes flickered over the man.
('Shi's sulkin',' Red explained blandly. 'He ain't the big bad with Morino around.'
'Red!' Naru protested, and Red snickered slightly.)
Naruto scrawled his name out almost incomprehensibly, and Morino grinned; an action that made Naruto decidedly nervous. Snagging the scroll out of Naruto's hands, Morino flicked his eyes over it. "Good," he grunted. "Follow me."
"What for?" Naruto asked, and Morino spared him one irritated look.
"I need to test your abilities, and the easiest way to do that is an exercise I had my... acquaintances set up."
'This doesn't sound good,' Grey observed neutrally, and there was a sort of sick silence in Naruto's head.
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"Ibiki!" someone shouted cheerfully, and Naruto flinched slightly under Morino's hand. He'd been getting increasingly more nervous as he was marched over to training areas he knew academy students were banned from, due to the fact that there were traps set up there that could kill them far too easily. Of course, he was going to pass any test Morino set up, because he was Uzumaki Naruto and just that amazing, but that didn't change the fact that they were talking 'step in the wrong place and go 'boom''.
"Genma," Morino greeted blandly. "I don't remember asking you to set up the exercise."
The man – Genma – looked a bit odd, Naruto reckoned. Kinda cool, but seriously, who stuck a weapon in their mouth? Genma grinned, somehow managing to keep the senbon in his mouth, and he glanced over Naruto, looking entirely too gleeful.
"Kenji and Daisuke got called out on a mission. They asked me to take over," he said. "Don't worry, it's all set up properly."
"Hm," Morino said, his eyes narrowed, and then turned to Naruto. "See that rock in the middle?" he asked, and Naruto nodded slowly. "Good. You have to put your hand on the panel installed on it."
Naruto blinked. "What's the catch?"
"It's a genjutsu simulation," Genma said, before Morino could speak up. (Naruto was particularly glad of this, considering that Morino looked as if he were going to say something along the lines of 'why don't you find out?' and shove him at it). "Basically, you're put into a mindscape where I've set up a bunch of tests. We don't see what you do, but we can check your scores and compare them to other people's."
"Can I get hurt?" Naruto asked uncertainly.
"Nah," Genma shrugged off. "You can get phantom pain, but you aren't going to do damage to your body. It's all in the mind." He waved his hands around, as if to suggest some kind of mystical powers, and Naruto stared at him.
"...Okay," he said. 'This should be no problem, right guys?'
'No problem at all!' Naru echoed, sounding more enthusiastic than he had previously.
'Don't take it lightly,' Grey warned, but Naruto was already moving forward, squatting down in front of the rock and looking at the silvery grey panel embedded in the stone. He shoved his hand forward without hesitation, feeling the cool metal under his hand. He was going to ace this, he thought, before his vision swirled and jerked, pulling him forward.
"Ow," Naruto moaned, pushing himself to his feet as he looked around – a forest in front of him, with a clear sign pointing in.
"That looks slightly ominous," Legacy said mildly, and Naruto twisted, his eyes widening as he saw the other five in varying states of disarray, pushing themselves to their feet. They were all wearing the same clothes as him, he noted almost absentmindedly – the same dark grey shorts and green shirt, making them looked muted and older than they were. Shi in particular looked like he was far too old for his body, red eyes half pulsing with animalistic emotion.
"How-?" Naruto began to ask, and Grey answered, standing straight in what seemed to be an ideal guard pose, as if expecting an attack.
"This is within your mind," he said. "We are within your mind. Therefore, it stands to reason that we are released when you undertake training like this."
"I get that," Naruto said, in a voice clearly implying that he didn't.
"I think we have to enter the forest," Naru said quietly, sounding nervous. "I checked ahead – I can't sense any life."
"You didn't move," Naruto said, looking confused, and Naru smiled.
"It's a technique Iruka-sensei mentioned a couple of years back. You extend your chakra in waves, and see what bounces back. Chakra reflects chakra, after all," he explained, and Naruto shrugged.
"Who wants to go first?" he asked, and everyone looked at each other.
"I volunteer Legacy," Red said, speaking up for the first time, and Legacy looked somewhere between flattered and outraged.
"Acknowledging that I'm better than you?" he asked, and Red raised an eyebrow.
"No. More like I'm hopin' you'll get taken out first, yeah?"
Legacy narrowed his eyes in outrage, but moved forward anyway, and Red flashed a grin Naruto's way. Without really thinking, Naruto fell into pace beside Grey, Shi and Red at their backs and Naru sort of flitting from the front to the back, his eyes half-closed. This... fit in a way, Naruto found with a grin. 'Course, he should be leading, but that could come soon enough.
They kept on moving, and, strangely enough, it was Naruto who noticed it first, as they followed the path through the eerie forest. "We've passed that tree," he said, pointing at one particularly gnarled tree, its branches twisting around itself.
"Really?" Red asked.
"Yeah. This is the third time," Naruto said, and there was a sort of embarrassed silence.
"Aren't you supposed to be some kind of genjutsu expert, Red?" Legacy said, a note of taunting in his voice. Red blushed slightly, sticking his tongue out.
"Trees all look the same to me," he muttered.
"How do we disrupt it?" Grey asked, and Red looked at him.
"I'm thinkin', yeah?" Red said, his tone clearly conveying the unspoken 'shut up, moron'. "We have to do somethin' that they ain't expectin', and ain't prepared for."
"Earthquake?" Legacy suggested, and Red shook his head.
"I'm bettin' that they've prepared the place for all kinds of offensive jutsus," Red said. "Anythin' typical, anyway."
Naruto sat down on the ground, cross-legged and frowning as the others began to argue. He'd pulled this prank back when he was nine; this huge explosion that Sandaime had forbidden him from ever recreating again, but that wouldn't work right now. Something they weren't expecting...
Naruto pulled a kunai out hesitantly, hearing Legacy trying to shout Red down in irritation, while Naru tried to draw their attention to what Naruto was doing. What they weren't expecting, he thought to himself, and then rammed the kunai straight through his palm.
The forest dissolved as he pulled the kunai out, the wound disappearing as if it had never been there, leaving behind only a faint ache. A new landscape began to form, misty opponents up in front of him as the others appeared one by one behind him, Shi sounding particularly unhappy.
"What now?" Naruto asked, and he felt Naru extend his chakra.
"I guess those are our opponents," Naru said uncertainly. "But..." his voice cut off as mist began to roil over them, blocking out their vision completely.
Naruto felt someone press against his back, and leant backwards slightly, glad for the warm reassurance, however ineffective they probably were against an opponent they couldn't see. "Alright?" Legacy breathed softly, and Naruto swallowed.
"Yeah. The others-?" he stopped as he heard the sound of fists meeting flesh, and ragged breathing off to his right. 'Focus on yourself,' he told himself, closing his eyes and straining for noise. A footstep, to the left-
Naruto lunged forwards blindly, a kunai in one hand as he swung it around. It made impact, but barely from the noise of surprise his opponent made, but that didn't matter because Legacy was there, following it up with what sounded to be a vicious punch-
"He- dissolved," Legacy said, his voice confused. "What the-?"
"Mizu bunshin," Grey said, somewhere from behind them. "Naru says there are another three somewhere, and I don't know where Red is."
Naruto let his breathing calm, seeking out for his next opponent. His nose twitched slightly, and behind him he heard Shi snarl as he made contact with another one, Naru crying out somewhere, he didn't know where. Legacy let out a gasp of breath, sounding like someone had hit him beside Naruto, and he could feel the impact of air discharged as he moved forward with his kunai, slamming out into what felt like a stomach, the tension of flesh collapsing into water-
The mist slowly faded, and Naruto looked around, breathing in and out slowly and carefully. Shi over there, looking particularly annoyed as he tried to find another enemy, Naru, pale and shaky but still determined over there – and Red, standing around twenty metres away with his arms folded and looking particularly unruffled.
"Did you do anything there?" Legacy demanded, as the surroundings began to disappear once more, and Red smirked.
"You didn't need my help," he drawled out, and Naruto scowled at the nonchalance in his voice.
In front of them, a black box of some sort was forming, numbers on top of it reading 2:00, and Naruto forgot about his annoyance as he stepped closer to it – weird, the numbers had changed to 1:59, 1:58. "Hey, guys," he called, interrupting Legacy as he lectured Red. "I think this thing is counting down to something."
Grey moved beside him, and blinked. "That's a bomb," he said in a neutral tone of voice.
A bomb? Naruto had heard about them, but he hadn't ever seen one. "This explodes, right?" he asked.
"...Yes," Grey said.
"How do we stop it from exploding?"
Grey seemed almost abashed as he replied, staring at his feet. "I don't know," he said. "We cut a wire, but I don't know which one."
"I can't see any wires," Naru said, his brow furrowing in confusion and there was a pause.
1:23 glowed up at them. "How far can we run in one minute and..." Red paused, and checked the number again. "Eighteen seconds?"
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Not far enough, it turned out. The mindscape had erupted in a flash of yellow-orange-white, and for a second it had felt like his body was evaporating, before Naruto collapsed on the ground beside the rock, panting with his eyes wide and face pale.
The two men watching him exchanged mutters - "Too easy," Morino seemed to be grumbling as he performed some jutsu over the metal panel, and, "Set it at mid-genin," Genma was protesting – as Naruto closed his eyes. 'You lot alright?' he asked, and there was a variety of affirmatives.
"Poor," Morino told him, as Naruto stumbled to his feet. Genma seemed torn between agreeing and disagreeing with Morino as he left, and Naruto tried not to feel hurt at Morino's curt words. "You took too long to identify the genjutsu, used nothing save basic taijutsu and you didn't even attempt to disarm the bomb."
"I've never learnt how to!" Naruto protested, and Morino raised an eyebrow at him.
"I'll expect an essay about bombs and how to disarm them tomorrow, seven AM, then. At least one thousand words."
'What!' Naruto screeched, and the others seemed to be in agreement from the feelings rippling off them.
Morino frowned suddenly, looking down at him. "You've hurt your arm," he said, reaching out to grasp Naruto's right arm. Naruto looked confused.
"No I haven't," he said, and Morino's grip tightened.
"Oh?" he said mildly. "My mistake." He twisted viciously, and Naruto screamed as his shoulder popped out of its joint. Morino paused, and looked down at him. "You should probably not use that arm for a couple of days. I still expect the essay tomorrow. I'll come to your apartment."
"How can I write an essay like this, you bastard?" Naruto wailed, unable to contain his foul mouth as he clutched his right arm.
Morino smirked. "Learn to write left-handed," he said, walking off, seemingly without concern.
'What was that about?' Naruto cried internally, and there was a sort of mumbled argument between the others inside his head.
'I think he really wanted us to learn to use our left hand,' Grey said at last, and Naruto felt like sobbing.
'Could it get any worse?' he wondered to the others.
'Uh oh,' Naru said suddenly, and Naruto whimpered.
'What now?' he asked, and Naru seemed to be thinking how to phrase what he wanted to say.
'I think we left the stove on,' he said slowly, and Naruto's eyes widened.
'Shit!'