Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Aliens/Predator/AVP.
Kage no Oni:
Requiem of Redemption
Chapter Two: The Long Hunt
The week passed swiftly for Naruto, who had used that free time to enlighten himself with the world's history and memorize the exact layout of the village. That included hidden passageways, old/new blueprints of every building in the village, secret ANBU entry/exit points in Konoha's defensive walls, accurate layouts of every clan compound in the village, and even 99.99% geographically/topographically accurate layouts of all two-hundred-thirty-nine training grounds- actively used or abandoned- inside and outside of Konoha's walls.
All of it perfectly memorized down to the smallest damn detail from how the walls or leaves feel on the tips of his fingers to the type/grade of stone, dirt, wood, or plants- including grass- that was beneath his feet; he had visited every square inch of the village to ensure the information was accurate.
Cloaking devices were incredibly useful when doing recon…
He was a very meticulous and methodical hunter/tracker now, having spent the years of solitude embedding himself and engraving the ways of the Predators, the Yaut'ja, into his mind and body. Even their way of life of life-journey, the Long Hunt, was now Naruto's own life-journey, his religion.
He had even gone so far as to write down every thing he knew of their lifestyle and the meaning/laws of the Yaut'ja spiritual journey of the Long Hunt in triplicate format, by hand, with simple translations, easily digestible explanations, and side notes mixed in with the contents of his 'diaries'. Naruto actually included his own personal thoughts and feelings on the Long Hunt as well as edited and censored personal experiences that were related to the Long Hunt.
He wanted his past to remain a secret and to let it die in the eternal sea of time…
He could have easily added a seal array or three to have completely erased his memories, leaving the essentials and pure knowledge on how to operate his Pred-tech and abilities, but Naruto didn't do it for two reasons; One, he wanted to remember everything he did. Second, he was afraid that he might just repeat his actions.
On a side note, Naruto had even studied the myths and lore of the world as well as memorizing every single law he could find, including civilian, shinobi, clan, treaty, theological, and even theoretical political laws.
Apparently there were no Bijuu, which confused Naruto at first. From what the ancient records he found stated that the Bijuu were around for only a couple decades after the Sage of Six Paths split the Juubi into nine separate beings. However, less than a century after they disappeared, ten clans appeared during the start of the Clan Wars, long before the concept of the Hidden Villages was even thought of.
"Each of the ten clans, having their own rules and abilities like any other bloodline clan, had only one thing in common with each other. Their members had become one with the spirit beasts of their respective clans, giving them certain physical traits or abilities unique to them alone. The Raccoon Dog, the Hellcat, the Turtle, the Ape, the Whale Horse, the Gastropod, the Beetle, the Ox-Cephalopod, the Fox, and the Demon."
The names of seven clans were too faded to read, but three names were still illegible to the multi-breed giant that enlightened him to some things and yet confused a little bit more at the same time.
"The Fox, theorized- but never proven- to be or to be related to the Kyuubi no Kitsune, was the spirit beast of the Uzumaki clan. The Raccoon Dog, again theorized to be or to be related to the Ichibi no Tanuki, was the spirit beast of the Sabaku clan.
According to legend, the ten clans- the Seishin Yajuu (Spirit Beast) clans- had only a single Chosen One every couple generations that would master their spirit beasts, the very ones of their clan, and bring great honor to their clan, be it from peace or war. These Chosen Ones had the physical might of three hundred men, a gifted mind in one particular field or another (strategy, politics, technology, etc.), and had two separate 'modes' when concerning their spirit beast.
The first mode, or stage, was the 'Berserker' stage. Activated through tremendous anger, sorrow, or distress, the Chosen One's spirit beast will 'wake up' and their power would flood the Chosen One's body. Unaccustomed to the sudden spike of power from the foreign energy, the Chosen One, as the stage title suggests, will go berserk, maiming and/or killing anything they feel threatened by in their immediate vicinity with extreme prejudice.
The 'Berserker' stage is also the most crucial mode of a Chosen One's ascension to an Awakened, the final stage of the Chosen Ones' growth in power, because it is the deciding factor, their salvation or damnation. If they cannot obtain control of their spirit beast and calm down, they would most definitely be driven mad by the power and become a mindless beast killing everything in sight.
The second stage, called 'The Ascension', is where the Chosen One comes under the tutelage of their spirit beast and, depending on the number of tails it has, gradually masters each level of their spirit beast's power, making it their own one tail at a time. Upon completing their training, the Chosen One will become an Awakened One, gifted with the ability to transform or shift into either a twilight form between human and their spirit beast or into their spirit beast itself.
The Awakened Ones are also granted full control over their 'Berserker' stage, allowing them to call on their spirit beast's power at any time without transforming. Their power can be used for anything from boosting their speed, strength, reflexes, and stamina to completely leveling anything in front of them with a single punch.
The Chosen Ones, from the day their clans' spirit beast chooses their next champion, are gifted with powerful healing factors that varied in strength, which depended on the number of tails the spirit beast had. The more tails it had, the stronger/faster/smarter they and their champions were, healing factors included.
The Demon, unlike the nine other clan spirits, had no known description of how the Demon spirit may appear as. The clan linked to it, the Kagetenshi, were known to be an extremely anti-social, purposefully barren of allies, and a uniquely cautious and highly secretive clan of true ansatsusha, true assassins.
The Kagetenshi were the first clan to fully incorporate stealth, assassination techniques, espionage, sabotage, and discipline achieved only through true balance with the cycle of life and Nature Itself in their most basic training programs for their young shinobi in-training. The Kagetenshi clan had essentially laid the foundation for modern day shinobi techniques and styles. Nin-, Gen-, Tai-, and Kenjutsu didn't even scratch the surface of how influential the Kagetenshi clan had been through sheer reverse osmosis into the world around them."
Naruto was about to close his hand-copied record of the 'Chosen Ones and the Seishin Yajuu' record, done by a clone autonomously copying it without actually 'reading' the scripture as it worked, when his eyes caught sight of something on the next page of the book, seeing as the clone that copied the original record made the journals wording, condition of the print (faded/worn), and illustrations perfectly identical to that of the old scroll he found in the vault/library only the Hokage, and those he wished, could enter. Seeing a drawing of a great war as the two sides were mere feet from clashing, Naruto turned the page.
"The Kagetenshi, late into the Clan Wars, suddenly vanished from the face of the Earth not long after their mightiest Awakened in history and clan head led them into battle against the nine other Seishin Yajuu clans and their own Awakened and Chosen Ones.
All ten clans were almost completely eradicated in this tremendous lightning war that spanned all across the globe with almost one and a half MILLION shinobi from the ten Seishin Yajuu clans alone, who were the only clans involved in this incredibly short, but exceedingly bloody war."
Naruto, too enraptured by the history/legend of the Seishin Yajuu clans, never noticed that his three new students had arrived to the training ground they had been told to go to by their former chuunin instructor, who had been told by Naruto to send them here after the teams had been assigned.
Naruto felt so lucky when Minato gave him the chance to look over the files of all the new graduates and hand-pick the team he wanted to teach. Obviously, Naruto pounced on the opportunity like a hunting pack of starved Warriors ambushing their prey…
"The Kagetenshi clan head and Awakened went to war with the nine other Seishin Yajuu clans when they conspired to assassinate him after slaughtering his loved ones and possibly the whole Kagetenshi clan afterwards. Even the elderly, the ill, expecting or nursing mothers, and even the young, who couldn't even walk or talk, let alone fight, were to be slaughtered like cattle.
Enraged beyond what had been thought to be physically impossible, the Kagetenshi Awakened was said to have been locked in an unending 'Berserker' stage, spending the entire week of preparation and four days of non-stop battle without a moment's rest of the smallest morsel of food in his body.
Even in this unconsciously self-induced state of weakness, the Kagetenshi Awakened was relentless and without mercy as he, a true hunter of all beasts and devoted follower/warrior of his personally made religion or code, the Long Hunt, mauled every single Seishin Yajuu shinobi that was not of the Kagetenshi clan, letting the suffer slowly and painfully all alone in the middle of nowhere until they finally succumbed to their wounds and died.
It was said that it was his was of letting the true instigators of the 'Spirit War' know what a mere fraction of the pain and despair he felt when his spies told him about their plans of betrayal after nearly a hundred and twenty years of neutrality and peace among the ten Seishin Yajuu clans."
Naruto, finally noticing his students, tossed each of them a copy of his Long Hunt diary/journal without looking up from his book. Asuka, knowing what her adoptive 'O-nii-kun' wanted them to do, told her team mates to start reading as they waited.
"Out of the 1.5 million shinobi involved in the 'Spirit War', the Kagetenshi had the least number of shinobi starting at only about seventy-five thousand and walking away with just over a fifth of their initial forces, coming out at nearly fifteen thousand Kagetenshi clan members. The nine other clans, who had roughly a hundred-fifty thousand shinobi from each clan, barely made it back home with their lives, returning to their chosen territories with no more than five thousand shinobi from each of the nine clans, almost a third of the remaining Kagetenshi forces.
The Kagetenshi Awakened, despite winning the war and returning most of his people to their families and loved ones, was not satisfied and was angrier than ever before. During the actual 'Spirit War', a small group of powerful shinobi from the clan of the Ox-cephalopod spirit beast slipped past the Kagetenshi forces and infiltrated their main settlement, murdering every single person in the Kagetenshi clan head's immediate family as they slept in their beds, dreaming of when their brother, son, husband, and father would return victorious and in one piece."
Naruto paused in his reading as he looked at his students for a second, pleased that they were reading his journal with keen interest. He could relate to the Awakened one of the mysterious Kagetenshi clan. Naruto knew the limit of his anger and power, but he would go above and beyond such limitations to move Heaven and Earth if it meant to avenge or protect his loved ones and…family…
"The Awakened One of the Kagetenshi clan knew more than he let on or showed when, though quite rare, in the presence of the other Seishin Yajuu clan heads or any other Seishin Yajuu clan member. Even in front of his own people, he played ignorant or blind to some things, but he knew more about any of the nine other Seishin Yajuu clans than they themselves did.
For this reason, he knew the Uzumaki and Sabaku clans of the Fox and Raccoon Dog, respectively, had been forced into the 'Spirit War' by the clans of the Ape, Whale Horse, and Ox-cephalopod under the threat of total annihilation of their clans if they didn't co-operate.
Normally, such a threat from any other bloodline clan in the world would be ignored or the clan that threatened them would be reduced to a mere handful of members the next night. However, the Uzumaki clan's Chosen One was still in the middle of 'The Ascension', having mastered only three or four of the Fox's nine tails.
The Sabaku clan was in a similar state. Their Chosen One, while of Awakened status, was fairly new to it and incredibly young, not even at the age of ten yet. On top of that, the Raccoon Dog spirit beast was the weakest of the other eight Seishin Yajuu; no one knew how powerful the Demon spirit beast truly was, as with all Kagetenshi Chosen and Awakened Ones, none of them used anything other than their 'Berserker' stage in their entire life since the very beginning of the Seishin Yajuu clans.
Because they were forced into the war, the Kagetenshi Awakened killed the fewest of their clan during the four day long blood bath and even spared the Uzumaki and Sabaku clans, killing only their Chosen and Awakened Ones, respectively, when he went on a solitary rampage.
Starting with the clan of the Hellcat, the Awakened One meticulously and methodically slew every member of the Seishin Yajuu clans, sans the Uzumaki and Sabaku, until only a small number of their civilian members were left in each of the clans. The clan of the Ox-cephalopod was struck the worst, being reduced to mere single digits where as the Ape and Whale Horse clans were in the mid-teens.
After slaying nearly four-hundred-seventy-five thousand shinobi during the 'Spirit War', the Awakened One of the Demon spirit beast went on to kill another thirteen thousand innocents from each of the seven clans that banned together to destroy him and his people before suddenly…
He vanished without a trace…
It remains unknown to this day if the Kagetenshi Awakened One of the Demon spirit beast died of any wounds received in the war or if he died of starvation after a month-long campaign against his clan's traitorous cousins, but one thing is for certain; his religion, the Long Hunt, was adopted by the entire Kagetenshi clan and is believed to still follow the Awakened One's rules, laws, and guidelines of the Long Hunt to this very day…if they still exist, that is…
After the 'Spirit War' was officially over and the ten Seishin Yajuu clans returned to their old ways of neutrality and peace, leaving one another alone as they licked their wounds from the war and struggled to survive. The Chosen Ones continued to exist, appearing every few generations in the clans, but none have been known to complete 'The Ascension' and become an Awakened One. Many Chosen Ones had tried since the end of the war, but their clans' respective spirit beasts would never let their chosen champions complete the training during 'The Ascension' stage of their growth.
Heed this warning, any and all Chosen Ones; Do not demand anything of the Seishin Yajuu or they WILL kill you without a moment of hesitation and simply wait for the next life with the potential to be their new champion appeared.
I now finish the tale of my past with my last breath…"
Signed,
A Lost Hunter On The Long Hunt
Sighing softly as he closed the book, Naruto put it away in his trench coat before clearing his throat to get the attention of his students, holding his left wrist in his right hand behind his back with his feet spread apart at shoulder-width; it was a standard stance he had seen many Colonial Marines take in the past whenever given permission to be 'at ease', as they say, by their commanding officer or by any other military official of superior rank.
"Thank you all for waiting patiently and reading the books I handed to each of you." Naruto praised briefly with a slight touch of frost to his tone of voice as his three students stood up after closing their books, giving him their full attention.
"Um…O-nii-sensei?" Asuka curiously piped up as she slowly leafed through the Long Hunt. "This is a rather interesting journal and all, but what is its purpose? Who was the author?"
"Before I answer your questions, Asuka-chan, I just want to congratulate the three of you on passing my test." Naruto praised again, but his three students- Uzumaki-Namikaze Asuka, Inuzuka Hanone, and Yamanaka Seion- were confused by his words. "Each jounin sensei has a certain test they give their newly graduated team of genin. Normally, they focus around team mate, but mine was one of patience."
"That was one of the Five Virtues of the Hunter, right?" Seion questioned, receiving a nod of confirmation from Naruto as he smiled slightly behind his mask, his eyes softening a growing kinder. He then took the journals from them.
"That is correct. Now, it's ok if you can't remember, but what are all five virtues?" Naruto questioned Seion directly, ignoring the fact Asuka's hand shot into air moments after he finished speaking.
"They were Patience, Honor…Um…" Seion bit her bottom lip nervously as she looked down at the ground, blushing faintly out of embarrassment.
"Take you time. You aren't being graded on this." Naruto appeased the girl, who visibly calmed. "I'm merely testing your memory skills right now."
"H-Hai, sensei." Seion stuttered softly before gaining a look of realization on her face a minute later, her turquoise eyes shining with a brief flicker of confidence as she brushed a strand of her shoulder-length platinum blonde hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
"The Five Virtues of the Hunter are Patience, Honor, Control, Benevolence, and Loyalty. Did I get it right, sensei?" Seion proudly answered before asking him shyly, her blush darkening a little as she bowed her head a bit.
"Yes, those are the five virtues. They are also the very same principles your training will be dictated by. You have merely passed the initiation test for the Virtue of Patience. Every week, I will discipline you in Patience on Mondays, Honor on Tuesdays, Control on Wednesdays, Benevolence on Thursdays, and Loyalty on Fridays. On Saturdays, I will train each of you individually and then on Sundays, we'll take on one or two D-rank missions in the morning to build up your team work before returning here and further working on your team work skills, only it will be you three against one of my clones. Any Questions?"
"I've got one, sensei. What's the purpose of teaching us the Five Virtues of the Hunter when we're clearly shinobi?" Inuzuka Hanone finally chimed in. In Naruto's opinion, she closely resembled her older sister, Hana, more than anything, but lacked a canine companion of any kind unlike the rest of her clan.
He could smell what he guessed to be Highland and Arctic Wolf in her blood, an oddity he was sure that only he really knew, sans her family, and after spotting her permanently lengthened claws and canine teeth along with her acutely dilated black slit pupils that floated in twin pools of icy blue, Naruto figured she must have been chosen by either a low/mid-level spirit beast that chose her for a champion or she had been bitten by some kind of were-wolf.
The first option sounded more reasonable than a wear-beast attacking her, but Naruto wouldn't know for sure until he could get a good look around inside her head and soul.
"You don't get it, do you?" Naruto quietly growled as the temperature in the clearing dropped so low, the three girls in front of him could see their breath. All signs of him being in a good mood changed into frosty disappointment. "Shinobi are hunters. They track down and kill their target either for the bounty on their head or to keep their village safe."
"…" Hanone, although retaining her stubbornness and courage under his verbal assault, broke eye contact with her sensei. Even when he's in a good mood, his black eyes made her feel…naked…
"Think of it from the perspective of an Alpha wolf with a pack, a life-mate, and pups to feed and protect. Without him there to hunt down food for his pack, who will help him protect his family? If he doesn't hunt for food to feed his family, how will his pack grow?" Naruto growled out as he forced Hanone to look him in the eye again. "Do you understand what I'm telling you, Hanone? Hunters will always be around. You're not going to be kept safe behind Konoha's walls forever. You need to learn the truth about the real world that lies beyond the white stone walls, to learn how to protect yourself from it, to learn of the dangers that await you out there. Do you understand?"
"…Y-Yes, sir…" Hanone answered softly as her eyes- still burning with unrelenting courage and determination- grew misty with tears. Naruto's eyes softened instantly as the temperature returned to normal, gently pulling Hanone into a comforting hug.
"Oh, hush…Shh, it's alright, Hanone. I'm sorry." Naruto cooed softly into the side of his student's head as she buried her face against his chest, clinging to him for dear life as she silently cried into his shirt. "I'm sorry, Hanone, but I just need to make sure you girls know how to properly protect yourselves from the horrors the future holds in store for everyone, myself included; not just you…Shh.."
After a few more minutes of her clinging to him as if he were the only thing keeping her alive, Hanone slowly let go of Naruto and wiped away her tears before recomposing herself, appearing as if her feelings hadn't been hurt in the first place.
"Ahem, seeing as today is Saturday, I want each of you to pair off with one of my clones, who you will have a no-moves barred spar with for half an hour. Ninjutsu and Genjutsu is permitted, just don't wear yourselves out too bad because we're going to be here for a while." Naruto instructed them as he passed back the journals to his all-female genin team while creating three Kage Bunshin. "The journals are now your only life line while training under me. Do not worry how fast or slow your team mate is learning; just worry about yourself because you will not be permitted to learn anything new until you have your current lessons broken down into an art form."
"Hai, sensei!" All three girls chorused as they split up and scattered all across the clearing with a clone of Naruto with each of them.
As he instructed, his students started sparring with his clones, but he noticed something odd with one of them. Hanone, although in a fighting stance, wasn't moving as she and his clone tried to stare the other down.
'It seems she took my words to heart, but this isn't the day to learn Patience, Hanone.' Naruto thought to himself in mild amusement, shaking his head slightly with a bemused smirk. 'She will be an amusing one to teach as will Asuka. Seion, however, will be a little tougher to work with because of her little self-esteem and confidence issue. I'll have to pull her out of that little rut soon and fast.'
He then took the time to get a good look at his three students. Uzumaki-Namikaze Asuka was a power house hooked up to a 1.21 Gigawatt generator, but a wild card as well due to the possibility of her being the next Chosen One of the Uzumaki clan's spirit beast; the Fox.
Inuzuka Hanone, also a wild card for similar reasons, was pretty much a beastly female gladiator when it came to taijutsu seeing as she had remained undefeated in her class from start to end. She had untidy chin-length obsidian hair and unusually light colored skin for a tomboyish girl like her that has always been outside. She also stood at 5'6" with a lithe, athletic build.
She was wearing a dark brown leather vest with grey and tawny wolf fur lining the collar, shoulders, the bottom hem, and interior of the vest, a short-sleeved fish-net shirt, a black tube top covering her modest C-cup bust under the fish-net top since she usually left her vest open, a black elbow-length fingerless glove on her right forearm, a normal black fingerless glove on her left hand, baggy black, brown, and green camouflage pants tucked into black knee-high combat boots with bronze colored steel caps on the heel and toe of her boots, a pair of black leather belts crossed over each other around her waist that hung from her hips average-sized hips in an 'X' with a dangerously sharp kukri sheathed on each of them, and her Konoha hitai-ate tied around her neck.
Well-known for her short fuse and absolutely notorious for pummeling even upper-classmen boys at the Academy since day one for calling her names and making fun of her, Hanone would require a bit more than some TLC and spit n' polish to clean her act up and turn her into a hunter he would be proud to say he trained.
Yamanaka Seion, though painfully shy and uncertain of herself, had the potential to give him a run for his money in just raw intelligence. It was why he put Seion on the spot earlier, knowing the first chapter of the Long Hunt only mentioned the Five Virtues of the Hunter once and in a foot-note, at that. He wanted to test the sharpness of her mind and her attention to detail by seeing if she- or one of the others, by chance- would read every little word written on the front and back of every page in the three hundred something page diary; they were just copies of the first volume out of the thirty-three volume series of books he had written on the Long Hunt…in triplicate…
Thank Kami for Kage Bunshin…
Standing at about 5'4", Seion was the shortest member of the team with a rather slender and frail looking build, but also the most important because without a logical plan of action or strategy, they could get killed…or worse…
She was wearing a pair of black stiletto style high-heel kunoichi sandals, a pair of tight-fitting black capri pants that hugged her legs and rear like a second skin, a black spaghetti-strap midriff-bearing tank top that looked like it was barely containing her surprisingly well-endowed and large E-cup breasts for a 16-17 year old young woman, a burgundy long-sleeve button-up blouse over it that had the top three or four buttons undone to reveal just enough cleavage to distract the average male, shinobi or not, and her hitai-ate was tied around her left thigh while her hair was pinned back with maroon or burgundy hair pins.
'Man, seeing her personal attire, her fighting style, and supposedly 'shy' personality that actually makes her all the more attractive and cute, I can tell right now that training her is going to be a trip.' Naruto mused with mild disbelief as he watched his clone spar with Seion in taijutsu-only at the moment. Seion, for a 'shy' girl, was moving in rather provocative ways as she attacked or dodged so that it showed off her cleavage just enough to actually distract his clone after attempting a palm thrust to its chest and nearly hit it when she fluidly continued into a scorpion kick, again attempting to distract her opponent with the sinful pleasures of the flesh as her stiletto heel missed the clone's head by a hair's breadth.
He'll have to teach her when and when not to use such a seductively hypnotizing fighting style and improve on its offensive/defensive capabilities. Examining the exotic dance of death his student was performing, Naruto realized she was moving in just the right way that suggested she had probably trained in and could wear a mini-skirt or some other enticing dress while fighting with that particular fighting style with no problem. She'd be perfect for infiltrating a party or club to get close to a target.
Pulling out a note pad and pencil, Naruto started taking notes on what his students' strengths and weaknesses were from watching their spars, even listing a rough outline of a skill set or lesson plan for each of them…
