Naruto: Kung Fu Guardian
Chapter 8: Qi Training 101 – Naruto vs. Kyuubi
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A/N: Hi readers and reviewers. Again, my thanks to KyLewin for beta'ing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
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In the Monastery of Ancient Manuscripts, the three Junior Abbots each gathered their own five apprentices, as they had been accustomed to doing for the past four years.
Junior Abbot Feng gathered his students in the center courtyard, seated in lotus position.
"First Apprentice, have your fellow apprentice brothers mastered the lessons of Qi as learned through the flight of an eagle?"
The tallest of the five bowed and replied, "Yes, Abbot Feng. They have recently mastered them, and we are now working on incorporating those lessons into their Zodiac Kung Fu."
The Zodiac Kung Fu was the most comprehensive hand-to-hand combat technique to ever grace the mortal realm. It consisted of stances patterned after the movements of the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac, including the movements of the mythical dragon.
To be able to amplify one's strength with the flow of Qi while executing the Zodiac was no small feat. A few words of commendation were in order.
"Excellent. Since you've learned how to channel Qi properly, you've probably noticed how your Kung Fu skills have suddenly progressed in leaps and bounds. However, you still need many more years of meditation and practice before you achieve a complete oneness of your Kung Fu with the flow of Qi. But don't worry, that will come in time. Meanwhile, I want you to continue practicing against each other, perfecting your Zodiac Kung Fu. Remember the Grand Master Abbot's warning from four years ago – we could be under attack from the Masked Shadow and his cohorts at any time."
His five apprentices replied in unison, "Yes, Abbot Feng!"
"Good," said Feng as a proud smile accentuated his kind and serene face. Then he blinked his eyes, and his smile softened slightly while he channeled a warm but powerful Qi that encased their gathering. His Qi permeated into his apprentices and stirred the Qi that was innate in them.
The five teenagers immediately felt the effects of their teacher's Qi Infusion Technique. Closing their own eyes, they quickly assembled into sitting lotus and shifted their inner energies to absorb Feng's gift to them.
Once they were done, they opened their eyes and performed a Buddhist ceremonial obeisance to thank their teacher.
Feng sagely raised his right hand to acknowledge their bow and said, "No need. Now, I need you to pay attention to what I am teaching you next. This could save your life one day."
Immediately, he had every apprentice's attention.
"Have you noticed how the birds remain aware of their surroundings in their sleep?"
The First Apprentice replied, "Birds keep a third of their brain awake in their sleep to monitor their surroundings through their visual and audio sensory."
"Good," commended Feng with a small nod, his shaved bald head momentarily reflected sun glare onto the eyes of the five sitting before him. "Though you can't make a human brain do the same, you can channel Qi to your eyes and ears before you sleep, and it will monitor your surroundings and alert you to action when necessary."
The Fourth Apprentice frowned as he asked, "That sounds great, but how do we continue to channel Qi when we're asleep?"
"By using a technique that Master Wu of Mt. WuDang left as a parting gift four years ago before our honorable Grand Master Abbot sent him off to search for the prophesied Guardian of the Two Nines…."
"Excuse me, Abbot Feng," interrupted the youngest apprentice. "I was not aware that Master Wu had been here, much less that he had left for his search. All this time I thought he was too high-nosed to accept the Grand Master Abbot's invitation to our Monastery."
"Actually, he came as quickly as he could after receiving our message. His art of levitation was quite advanced and made the long trip in two days, covering a distance that regular martial artists would need two weeks to do. I don't think the Grand Master Abbot himself could have covered that distance any faster. Master Wu left the very next day after he had finished discussing the Prophecy with the Grand Master Abbot," replied Feng.
With a sigh of relief, the boy continued, "Does that mean we don't have to worry about pranks?"
Feng was puzzled at the oddity of the lack of pranks, then he remembered what happened. "Now that you've mentioned pranks, I do seem to recall hearing him mutter something about some dumb apprentice stepped into a trap he had intended for Master Wong."
While everyone was guessing what that prank might have been and who the dumb apprentice was, the youngest apprentice volunteered with embarrassment, just realized that the 'accident' he had experienced four years ago was actually Master Wu's prank.
"Uh... I think I might have accidentally stepped into the trap intended for our Grand Master Abbot."
"I bet it had something to do with food," suggested the boy seated closest to Feng, taking a small shot at the Fifth Apprentice's ferocious appetite. Some light, slightly muffled snickers could be heard.
"Well, Fifth Apprentice Brother, would you tell us what happened already?" urged the two older boys seated on both side of him.
"Wait. I know," said the eager boy seated behind the Fifth Apprentice. "Were you the one that fell into the pit while trying to get the red bean buns sacrificed to Buddha?"
"And didn't the accident set off a domino fall of the Buddha statues?" asked another boy.
"I was trying to get the buns for the Grand Master Abbot," defended the Fifth Apprentice. "They're his favorite."
"Sure you were," came the unison cries from his apprentice brothers as they snickered at his misfortune.
"Abbot Feng, can we please continue with our lesson?" pleaded the desperate boy, as the humiliating prank played over and over in his mind.
Feng smiled kindly at him and gave a small nod as he called his apprentices back to the subject at hand. He enjoyed jokes and teasing as much as anyone, though his students rarely saw it, but there were far more important matters for them to discuss than one poor boy's voracious appetite and propensity for making a fool of himself.
…o.0.O.0.o…
Umino Iruka was not happy at the moment. He had been staring at the student profiles for quite a long time. It was now way past midnight, and yet he was still having a difficult time deciding what to do about this graduating class.
Ever since the Sandaime reformed the Academy four years ago after the 'defect' of Uchiha Itachi, Iruka's job had been a living hell at the end of every school year. No longer was he able to simply graduate the students based on their exam scores and pass them off to be tested for teamwork by their Jounin-senseis.
After the loss of a whole platoon of elite ninjas to the Uchiha Massacre, the Academy adopted the enhanced and more rigorous curriculum designed to quickly replenish Konoha of capable ninjas.
Added to the mix, there had been a steady increase in the need for more security, especially when the Hokage kept hinting a possible attack from an unknown enemy – someone known by the name of "Masked Shadow."
Gone were the days of Jounin-senseis handholding the Genin grads on how to work together as a team. Their time was more valuable spent elsewhere.
Fittingly, the reformation called for the Academy teachers, instead of the Jounin-senseis, to determine who were "cut out" to be ninjas. It was a logical way to conclude the year.
Determining whom to promote to Genin was not what made Iruka's job difficult this year. His frustration lay in the process of team selection. He started by grouping together the obvious choices. Ino-Cho-Shika was easy for him to bundle together as a team. Naruto and Sasuke, the co-rookies of the year, would have to be grouped together, per the Hokage's directive. However, what to do with the remaining four Genin-grads – Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Haruno Sakura – was what kept Iruka late at the Academy.
Logic told Iruka to form a tracker team with Kiba, Shino, and Hinata, but Kiba's mom had made a personal request of him to keep Kiba and Sasuke together, if at all possible.
"It would have been so much easier if I can separate the two rookies of the year, and make it a Kiba-Sasuke-Sakura team," Iruka sighed. "As it is now, I can't put Kiba and Sasuke together, along with Naruto. It would leave the leftover team too unbalanced to survive their first real mission."
On his desk, he fished out two sheets of proposals from the randomly scattered leaflets on his desk. With a sweep of a hand, he dumped the rest his scribbles into the wastebasket and plopped his head onto the desk while thinking to himself, 'I'll present these two options to Hokage-sama in the morning.'
…o.0.O.0.o…
Naruto woke up to the melody of birds chirping outside his window. Today would be the day he found out who his third teammate would be.
As excited as he should be for such news, it was not why he was so eager to get out of bed this morning.
For the past four years, he had been working off and on with his adoptive father on the Kung Fu learnt from the Guardian Monks. Surprisingly, Asuma turned out to be quite knowledgeable in hand-to-hand combat and had learned enough from the Monks during his two-year training mission to satiate the boy's ferocious appetite for anything Kung Fu.
However, one thing that continued to frustrate Naruto these past four years was how Asuma kept delaying teaching him how to channel Qi.
Today would be different. Asuma had lost a bet to Naruto and was now honor bound to teach him. This time there would be no wiggling out of it, no last minute "missions" that seemed to mysteriously crop up whenever Naruto's arguments for why he should learn it were particularly sound, and no important dates with Anko that had to be kept.
Naruto rubbed his eyes to rid them of their sleep residue and made a shadow clone. He quickly dispatched it to the Academy while his original self got dressed and went to look for his adopted father on their private training ground.
Asuma could be found leaning against a tree, smoking his usual minty cigarette. He too sent a clone to the Academy. While most Jounin-senseis sparred with their students to gauge their skills, he had always taken it easy on the first day, focusing on getting to know the students' personalities in lieu of seeing what jutsus they could perform. A clone could easily fulfill such a light duty, and when it dissipated, its knowledge would return to the original.
His inner musing was soon interrupted by the sound of a metallic projectile cutting through air as his left hand caught a kunai aimed at his right shoulders.
Just when he was going to chide his protégé about how foolish it was to announce his location with a flying kunai, he felt another 'Naruto' landed a straight open palm thrust on his sternum.
As Naruto witnessed his adoptive father doubling over from the hit, he felt a piece of sharp, cold steel pressed against his throat.
"Heh, I'm not done yet, Dad," he said before he dissipated along with the Asuma clone that he hit, leaving the kunai-holding Asuma by himself, on alert, looking left and right.
Naruto took to Kage Bunshin like fish to water. After Yuugao taught it to him, he had used it at every opportunity until it became second nature. He had been pretty good at it even before all of the practice, having always been inclined towards ninjutsu abilities and usually very quick to figure them out. Of course, having an abundant amount of chakra so as not to feel the drain of the jutsu did not hurt either.
Due to Naruto using it so much during their sparring matches, Asuma got quite proficient with Kage Bunshin as well. Before Naruto started using it, he rarely incorporated that jutsu into his combat repertoire, but now it was practically an old habit.
After what seemed like a long time of nothingness, Asuma saw a boy's shadow emerged from the woods located to his far left, blocking him from the blindingly bright morning sun. The boy walked slowly towards him; in his right hand was his sword, unsheathed, and in his left, its sheath.
"Naruto, do you want to learn how to channel Qi, or not?" Asuma shouted across the field; his eyes never left the approaching shadow. "You know how long it usually takes us to finish…."
Before he voiced the rest of his complaint, he ducked a sword swing and drew forth his knuckle knives charged with his wind chakra to swing behind him, where he perceived a Naruto clone had attacked from.
In a distance, the shadow boy looked on with amusement on his face as his clone sparred with Asuma, only for his smile to turn into a frown. Naruto spun to his left, swinging his sheath with his spun, aiming it for the eyes of his mentor, whose real self was standing behind him.
Asuma brought his left hand in attempt to block Naruto's swing, but the anticipated swing never came. He turned his head to stare inquisitively at Naruto and saw him sheathing his sword. Just when he was about to ask his adopted son why, he felt it too and spoke up.
"You know it's not nice to spy on fellow Leaf-nins. Plus, what business do you have on our private training ground?" Asuma's emphasis on the word private carried a warning tone to the one spying on them.
Out came a girl wearing a Chinese-style pink vest. Her brunette hair was rolled into two hair buns, one on each side of her head.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy on you…."
Naruto's clone, who had been keeping an eye on her while she watched the sparring match, walked up behind her and interrupted her attempt to explain herself.
"Actually, you did," said his clone before dispersing itself.
The brunette turned around to the source of that voice, but only found a smoky remnant typical of a dispelled clone. She was completely shocked that someone a year younger had been able to sneak up on her from behind. Even more impressive was the fact that he'd done it with a shadow clone. To have such mastery over a Jounin level technique at his age was incredible.
'He's good … in fact, too good to be fresh out of the Academy.'
While young kunoichi was looking for the clone behind her, the real Naruto walked up to her to introduce himself.
When she turned back to Asuma and Naruto to get a better look at the boy whose sword art captured her attention a moment ago, she came face to face with the real Naruto. He was actually standing so close to her that their noses were nearly touching. Her brown eyes widened and she rocked back on her heels in surprise, but didn't step away from him despite the invasion of her personal space. In fact, she couldn't step away from him. She was completely mesmerized by his cerulean blue eyes, his untamable spiky blond hair, and his ferial birthmark whiskers.
Naruto was unsure of what to make of the intruder. She was the first girl he met that looked and carried herself like a kunoichi, at least from what his clone had observed when it discovered her spying. Though he knew that Hinata took her training seriously, his blue-haired classmate lacked the assertiveness of the brunette before him.
Asuma raised his eyebrows, amused at the scene before him and noted how his clueless adopted son was embarrassing the girl. He then saw the blush on the girl's cheeks deepened as she stumbled to formulate words to explain why she was there in the first place.
"Uh … well…" her mind drew a blank. Those two words were actually the closest she was coming to an intelligent response to Naruto's accusation. He just kept staring at her with those eyes, and the longer it went on, the more difficult it seemed for her to form any coherent thoughts.
Tenten was not the fan-girl type and was by far one of the most promising kunoichis to come out of the Academy since Anko and Yuugao. However, she could not help but behave this way at the moment because this was the first time she had been this close to a boy. Her being a budding thirteen-year-old with raging hormones did not help the matter either.
Asuma decided to spare the poor girl from further embarrassment for the moment and asked, "Does that scroll in your pouch have anything to do with why you're here?"
She let out the breath she'd been holding and said, "Oh yeah." Though she was breathing once more and had regained some control over her brain, she remained mesmerized by the boy's eyes. Somehow she managed to say, "The Hokage gave my team a D-rank mission to locate you, Yuugao, and Anko. I thought you would be at the Academy or spending time with your Genin team, but the Hokage told me to come here instead."
"Me?" asked a puzzled Naruto, pointing his finger to himself.
The brunette-haired girl, who had been unaware that she was still staring into the eyes of the blond in front of her while answering Asuma's question, covered her mouth and shook her head. She was beyond feeling embarrassed at the moment, so much so that she lost all confidence in what to say or do. Never before had she acted so unprofessionally, falling so short of her own standard of what a kunoichi should be, while she was on duty.
Learning that the girl was not a threat or a spy from Danzou cast her in a favored light with the blond. Now he looked at her again, this time appreciating her plain, but attractive attire, her keen, trained, but gentle brown eyes, and her tiny, adorable pink lips.
There was one thing that puzzled Naruto, though. 'Why is her face red like Hinata's?'
"No," Asuma came to her rescue again. "I think it's me that the Hokage wants. By the way, Naruto, this girl is Tenten, she is Maito Gai's student and graduated from the Academy last year. Tenten, this is Naruto, my adopted son. Tenten, knowing Gai, he probably had his students split up to see who can find us three first. If we hurry, we may beat your teammates, though with one of them a Hyuuga, I doubt you'll claim first."
"But Dad, we're supposed to…." Naruto left that sentence unfinished; he knew better than to give away more information about himself to a stranger than he already had. He filed away the information about Tenten's Hyuuga teammate for later.
Not missing a beat, Asuma quickly added, "I know, I'll leave a clone with you."
"But I want the real you…." Naruto began to whine.
"Stop whining. You sound like Konohamaru when you do that. You're a Genin of Konoha now, and, in the eyes of many, an adult. When your team or mine receives missions that take us outside of the village, we'll be seeing each other even less."
"I know that Dad," said the slightly downhearted blond, "that's what makes our time together now much more precious."
'Yes, Naruto, these moments are indeed getting more and more precious,' Asuma reflected on how fast the Chuunin Exam was approaching. If Naruto became a Chuunin – and there was little reason to believe that he would not – he would be told about his real parents, and all the cards would be on the table. 'Will you still treasure our time together once you learn of your true heritage?'
"Alright, Naruto, my clone will go with Tenten. But before they leave, you should tell her what you think of her."
Tenten, who had been listening attentively to their interchange and observing the deep fondness between the boy and his adoptive father, was caught off guard by Asuma's last remark.
"What do you mean what he thinks of me?" asked Tenten with an even more crimson blush, trying to hide both her nervousness and excitement to hear Naruto's answer.
She was more than intrigued by the boy in front of her. Before meeting him in person, she had already heard more than she cared to from the girls in the village about this young, good looking blond who graduated the top of his class. Rumors from most shinobi adults and girls around her age were quite favorable, but the ones from some of the civilian populace were, to put it mildly, quite derogatory in nature, calling him names such as "Demon Bastard" and "Yondaime Killer."
Asuma's comment was not innocent in nature. He intentionally wanted to further Tenten's embarrassment. It served her right for spying on them. However, he knew that his naïve son would wrongly assume that he was being asked, 'Do you think trust her? If so, tell her it's okay to join our training some time.'
'Ha, that'll teach you,' thought Asuma to himself while he said to Naruto, "Well, son, what are you, shy? Tell her what you think of her."
Naruto, unsure of what just happened during the little exchange between Asuma and Tenten, tilted his head and gave them a slightly puzzled look. After a moment, he gave a small shrug and said, "Oh, I think you're okay, Tenten. Come train with us anytime. But don't sneak in next time. We don't take kindly to unannounced visitors."
Now Tenten was even more flabbergasted. She was expecting "She looks like a serious kunoichi to me" or, if he was somewhat bold, "I like her cute hair style." She certainly was not expecting Naruto to outright ask her out on what could be considered a date. She looked at the boy and found no pretense on his face, then looked at Asuma, trying to decipher his facial expression.
"Hehe, don't worry, Tenten," Asuma said with the best straight face he could muster. "My clone will explain on the way."
After Tenten left with his clone, Asuma said, "I didn't think it's possible that a person's face can turn so red."
"Yeah, about that, do you know why girls do that?" asked Naruto. "Three girls in my class do that all the time. Hinata-hime sometimes looks like a tomato in a blue wig! I've even seen a couple of girls in the village get that way when I try to talk to them. It's weird."
Asuma did his best not to smile too smugly. It would not do to spoil the fun just yet.
"Well, since it's about girls, I think you should get an answer from one," he suggested as innocently as he could muster.
"You mean, like Anko?" asked Naruto, horrified at the thought of asking her. He had never considered her the type he would go to for advice on relationships.
"No, I meant your other female sensei, Yuugao," replied Asuma. Inwardly he mused to himself, 'Naruto and Yuugao would make a good couple, if only they're closer together in age. Nevertheless, Naruto needs someone older to guide him through his emotions and give him advice about girls. It's just unfortunate that Anko, whom Naruto relates well to, is not the type for this sort of thing.'
"Maybe later, but let's get to our Qi training. You'll teach me this time, right, Dad?"
"Of course, I lost our bet, didn't I?"
As Asuma said that, he motioned Naruto to follow him. They leapt out of the Sarutobi compound to a secluded forest nearby. One thing about Konoha was that there was always a forest nearby. The one that they went to had a lake and a waterfall.
"Um, I think you've let me win on that one," Naruto deduced out loud. "I mean, it was my first time playing poker, so how could I possibly have beaten you? You probably just wanted to teach me Qi as much as I want to learn it by then. That, or you were tired of hearing me asking for it every … single … day."
Asuma had been avoiding this particular subject not because he lacked the desire to teach Naruto or felt that it was too difficult for the boy to learn; but rather, it was because he himself was never able to channel Qi. He had only learned the theory of how it worked, but knowing how to do it was quite different than being able to do it.
"Well, that was true to some extent, but trust me when I say that you won that hand of poker all on your own. Some people just have all the luck." Just like your mother.
…o.0.O.0.o…
Part of what made Konoha the most powerful of the hidden villages was her near impenetrable defense. The first layer, and the one that most intruders neglected to look for, was an invisible, spectral spherical barrier protecting the hidden village from invasion of all sides, including from above. Any intruders would be immediately detected.
The few who were able to go through the barrier undetected had to have been very good or very familiar with the barrier. Kabuto, whom Orochimaru had taught how to do so, fell into the latter category. Madara the Masked Shadow, who had been with Konoha since her founding, was with the former category. The stranger standing on top of the Hokage Monument, namely on top of the Shodaime's head, also belonged to the former.
Looking below from where he stood, he saw a bustling village, one with the latest of conveniences, fashion and things that money could purchase. He felt a little out of place. The scene before him was definitely different than the modest Taoist temples or Buddhist monasteries that he was used to seeing.
With his right hand, he held his trusty sword up to shield part of the sun as he looked into the sky. "It's almost noon," he concluded.
Taking a deep whiff of the appetizing aroma coming from the restaurants below hustling to prepare for the lunch hour rush, he decided on visiting the small ramen bar to start. All that traveling, and a few days of living in the wilderness since he left the last village he stopped at, the swordsman had worked up quite a healthy appetite for civilized food.
"There seems to be a good place to listen in to the town happenings," he said to himself as he pointed his sword towards the nearby lantern with the Ichiraku kanji. "After this, I'll visit Old Man Flying Monkey."
He had always found it amusing to translate the Japanese names into his own language.
With a single leap off the Shodaime's head, he launched into sky, his legs moving as if they were treading in air, and landed in front of his destination. Even though his aerial display was slightly ostentatious, he remained careful not to be detected. He was not a master of stealth for nothing.
…o.0.O.0.o…
Iruka arrived late to class and was greeted by a rowdier than usual crowd. He did not blame the students, though. After all, they had been waiting an hour for him to arrive with their grades and team assignments.
The slightly-out-of-breath Chuunin came as soon as he was done meeting with the Hokage. In addition to discussing his proposed team assignments for the Sandaime's approval, he was also learning about the betrayal of his co-instructor, Mizuki, who got caught trying to steal the scroll of forbidden techniques the previous night.
Refocusing his mind to the tasks at hand, Iruka hushed the restless twelve-year-olds and prepared himself to address them one last time as their Academy instructor.
"Please be seated. First, I must congratulate you for your earnest efforts throughout your years in Ninja Academy. You all should be proud of your achievements, regardless of whether you've made Genin today; I know I am of you."
He took in a deep solemn breath, like he had often done when delivering the next part, and said, "As you already know, finishing the school curriculum does not guarantee you a Genin placement. Genin, like all shinobi ranks, is earned and only granted to those who are qualified for it. Unfortunately, not everyone is."
Iruka paused and noticed that his students were hanging on his every word, eagerly longing for each syllable that was uttered from his mouth – with the exceptions of the emotionless Aburame and the sleepy Nara. He sighed, 'If only I could get them to pay attention like this during my history lectures.'
Some of the girls shot what they hoped was not their last look at Sasuke and Naruto – in this case, his clone – and wondered if they would continue with their ninja career and hopefully be placed in one of their teams.
Among those girls were Sakura and Ino, who had been daydreaming about doing their victory dance when they were placed on either Sasuke or Naruto's team.
"This year only nine of you have met those qualifications. The ones that I called are to remain in class and wait for their Jounin-senseis. Those whose names I did not call, please be dismissed. You may go to the admissions office if you wish to get another chance by enrolling to repeat your final year."
The class reacted to his announcement with a few frantic look-arounds and light whispers. The children echoed the phrase "only nine" with shock.
Iruka continued, "Team Ten consists of Nara Shikamaru, Yamaka Ino, and Akimichi Chouji. Your Jounin-sensei is Sarutobi Asuma …."
"No!" shouted Ino, interrupting Iruka's announcement. She promptly stood and pointed her finger at the boy whose spiky ponytail gave his hair a distinct pineapple shape to it, though it was hard to tell with his head still slumped on his desk, and a spiky-haired brunet who just finished his tenth bag of potato chips. "Why do I get stuck with both a lazy bum and an eating machine on my team? I should be on either Naruto or Sasuke's team."
Sasuke gave Ino, who was standing next to him, a deadly cold stare. She felt his eyes on her, turned to look at him, and instantly fell silent. It was the first time she almost wished she had not beaten Sakura to take the seat next to Sasuke. The raven-haired boy then kept his stare on the platinum blonde until she sat back down. Once she did, Sasuke resumed patting Chame and turned his head towards the front, waiting for his own team to be announced.
The Naruto clone, who had turned its head toward Ino's cry, witnessed the disturbing scene and mentally filed it away to discuss with his adoptive grandfather later.
"Team Eight consists of Aburame Shino, …."
…o.0.O.0.o…
'Qi is like a river that flows freely into the sea that is never full. To the place from which Qi comes, to there and from there, it, like the river, returns again.'
Asuma's words echoed in Naruto's mind. In his boxers he sat on a rock underneath a small waterfall. The waters hammered the twelve-year-old's head and cascaded over his body as he continued his meditation.
'To learn Qi, you must clear your mind of all things. All that defines you, your existence, must be deadened. Your everything – your laughter, your sorrow, your happiness, your sadness, your triumph, your failure, your love, your hatred, your peace, your anger, your thoughts – must become nothing. Only then can you feel and harness Qi, or the natural energy that has always been around you, inside you, constantly going in and out of you.'
While Naruto trained under the waterfall, Asuma stood on the shore, looking on and remembering how difficult it was for him when he tried it with the Guardian Monks.
They had told him that it would have been easier if he had started younger. He certainly hoped so, for Naruto's sake.
The last thing Asuma had told his adopted son before he went under the waterfall was for him to imagine the water washing everything off of him. Once Naruto could no longer feel the cold pounding water or hear the thunderous splashes, he would have completed this first part of the Qi training.
It took Naruto a long time to transcend his mind over being under the heavy pounding, hearing the roaring waterfall, and feeling the freezing coldness. Once he entered into the meditative state, he systematically sorted through his emotions and memories and temporarily removed everything that defined his existence from his consciousness.
The firsts of the emotions that went were the pain and suffering he had experienced in his earlier years. He had never wanted to hold on to those memories anyway. Slowly, other emotions and memories washed off of him.
'Though I'm sure there are things you wish to erase from you forever, once you've stopped this exercise, everything will come into existence again.'
A couple of hours later, Naruto was successful in emptying everything out of him – everything that was his to empty, he emptied. Only one thing remained on the blond's mind, and it was not his to remove – Kyuubi.
Naruto now stood in a vast space of emptiness. It was not white or black; it was simply nothingness, void of anything, except the tailed beast sealed inside him.
An odd image of his prisoner held inside a gigantic cage in the middle of a vast emptiness appeared before Naruto.
This was not the first time Naruto had come to his mindscape on his own accord. He appeared before the transformed humanoid as he had often done since that life-changing night at his first Sarutobi dinner.
"Kyuubi-sensei."
The student sought out the teacher as much as she did him. They often engaged in hours of conversation, discussing the scrolls he had read from the Sarutobi library or the manuscripts on the Nine Stances and the Nine Yangs.
"Naruto, I've sensed your arrival. Are you here to bask in my abundant knowledge of the Nine Yangs again?" asked the proudest of all tailed beasts. She had transformed into her elegant, beautiful form as a habit since she had often done so to access either of the two ancient manuals that were currently in her safekeeping.
After four years of spending time with his prisoner, Naruto had gotten quite accustomed to Kyuubi's personalities, and at times, found them amusing. Now, however, he knew that the humanoid was delaying for what was to happen next.
He replied, "Since you already know that this training requires me to clear my mind of all things, including you, I'm here to inquire how I can do so. Please tell me what needs to be done."
With a deep sigh, Kyuubi said, "You're correct young one, I was delaying this. For you to advance in your training, you must understand the consequences of doing so."
"Consequences?" asked her vessel with a puzzled face.
"Yes, consequences," confirmed the humanoid. "Once you do this, you cannot turn back."
Naruto became slightly nervous and said, "But Asuma said that I'll get everything back once I stop my meditation." He did not really want to lose everything that defined him human.
"You'll indeed get all that you humans value back – your emotions, dreams, and memories – once you've either quit this child's play of an exercise or moved on to the second stage of your training, but what I'm talking about now is more involved than an effortless mind-clearing exercise that you humans do."
"Effortless?" repeated Naruto, incredulous that someone could call something that took him hours to get to where he was at and that his adoptive father was unable to accomplish as effortless.
Ignoring Naruto's pointless comments as she had often done in their past encounters, Kyuubi continued explaining from where she had left off.
"I'm sure that you remembered when that Old Prune grandfather of yours explained to you the workings of the blasted seals that the damnable Yondaime used to seal me into you."
The twelve-year-old rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Of course I remember, and stop calling Jiji that!" There was no anger or even real irritation in his voice; he had already gotten used to hearing her calling Sarutobi that a while ago. His reactions now were merely out of habit.
Kyuubi snickered and continued, "Now, what would happen if you were to peel that seal off the cage?"
"Nice try, but I'm not going to remove the seal," said Naruto.
"Don't overthink this," chided Kyuubi. "Just answer the question."
"We don't know for sure, but theoretically your powers would be completely merged into me, and if my mind or body can't withstand the merge, you could take over me completely or I could cease to exist."
"Good," commended Kyuubi. "And what would happen if no one tampers with the seal and you were to die?"
"Then you would die with me."
"And if I was to be forcefully extracted from you?"
"Jiji doesn't think anyone knows how or has enough chakra to do so; though according to the seal theories I've been studying, it is certainly possible," replied Naruto. "If you were extracted from me, then I would die."
"And if I was still sealed in you, no one tampered with the seal, and I was to die first?"
"Again, no one knows for sure," responded the jinchuuriki, "but Jiji thinks I would survive, and the seal would disappear."
"Well then," said Kyuubi, her patience waning. "If you had one ounce of intelligence, you should have realized that the only possible way for you to be rid of me is to kill me."
"Kill … you?" asked Naruto while tilting his head, looking puzzled. "Why? There must be another way."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," replied Kyuubi, sounding unsure herself while remaining ambiguous. "But that's the wrong question though."
"Wrong question?!" shouted Naruto, his impatience notably heard. "This is no time for your jokes or philosophical debates."
"Why you little brat!" she yelled back. "I was going to tell you what to do, but I guess we'll just have to do it the hard way."
Once the humanoid finished expressing her displeasure, she sent a blast of killer intent towards Naruto. Of all their twelve years of coexistence, this was the first time she deliberately made Naruto feel that he was in danger.
'So this is what Kyuubi's killer intent feels like,' thought Naruto as he struggled to remain standing. He wanted to look down and check his pants, but his neck muscles did not comply. He reasoned that they must still be dry, considering that normal bodily functions did not apply to his form, which was only a figment of his imagination in his mindscape.
"Ha!" Kyuubi mocked. "You're forgetting that I can hear your thoughts in here. Don't worry, they're still dry. Are you coming in, or are you giving up?"
Naruto molded as much of his own chakra as he could muster to counter the Nine-tailed Fox's killer intent. He had never had the need to access the large reservoir that was his own chakra. Asuma, Yuugao, and Anko had all been training him in speed and physical agility and rarely had asked him to mold chakra during training. Even when Naruto was sparring against them, they curbed him from using any of the more destructive and chakra consuming ninjutsus and limited the sparring to mostly taijutsu and kenjutsu. Thus, Naruto had no clue of what he was capable of doing if he was to go all out with his chakra.
Right now, he was pleasantly surprised by the result. He found himself slowly regaining control over his own body. Once he was able to move his neck, he looked over himself and examined the blue haze that engulfed him. Then, he sharply glared at Kyuubi with anger in his eyes.
"So you want to play rough?" asked Naruto, clearly pissed by his jailor's actions, joking or not.
Slowly he walked closer to the cage that held the most powerful of all bijuus and passed his small body in between the cage bars. Once he was inside, he sprinted towards his prisoner in attempt to punch her in the face.
The humanoid Kyuubi decided to humor Naruto. She let him try his attacks first and waited until the very last millisecond before she dodged each one of them, frustrating Naruto to no end.
"Hold still!" shouted her exasperated jailor. Though Naruto had been speeding up his attacks, he had not been able to land a single one on the humanoid. A part of him worried that if he was to let up on his attacks, Kyuubi would have the opening to transform back to her nine-story self and easily devoir him.
Of course, Kyuubi had already picked up on the reason behind her charge's anxiety and mused to herself, 'So the plan is working.'
Suddenly she stopped dodging and with one arm, she grabbed Naruto by the throat and lifted him off his feet.
She shouted into his face, "You imbecile, haven't I taught you anything? Instead of remaining calm to calculate your moves, you barged in here without a plan of attack? What did you hope to accomplish other than getting yourself killed? Is this how you want to die?"
Naruto could feel his life force slowly being choked out of him. He did the only thing he knew to do, though he had no hopes of succeeding. He molded even more chakra, giving it his all.
Unlike the previous time when he molded chakra outside the cage, Naruto found himself enclosed in a purple-hued chakra. An unfathomable amount of power surged through his body. And unlike before, part of this power felt unnatural and foreign.
With eyes widened at the possible implications of his actions, he struggled even harder under Kyuubi's choking grip and managed to whimper, "What … have … I … done?"
…o.0.O.0.o…
When Tenten arrived at the Hokage Tower with the Asuma clone, they found Anko and Yuugao already there waiting for them.
"Suma-chan, what took so long?" asked Anko in between chews as she finished the last of her dango.
"Yeah Asuma, what gives?" asked an equally annoyed Yuugao, who was the first to arrive and had been waiting an hour for this meeting to start.
"Well …."
Asuma was interrupted by his father's raised hand. He heard his father dismissing his escort, "That'll be all Tenten."
Once she left, a stranger holding an ancient-looking sword entered from a side door. Since he had been told their names, he greeted them while trying to contain his own laughter, "Hello, Moonflower, Red Bean Paste, and Young Flying Monkey."
The three Jounins turned towards the stranger. Though Anko and Yuugao were both fuming at the stranger for poking fun at their names, they held themselves back so as not to breach any peace agreements Konoha made with the nation of this foreign dignitary or to damage the possibility of one in the process of being negotiated.
They turned their attention back to the Hokage for his explanation while Asuma remained staring at the new arrival, trying to remember where he had met this man before and how this stranger had used a nickname he received while he was with the Guardian Monks. Once it hit him, the cigarette he had in his mouth fell to the ground.
"Master Wu?!" asked Asuma.
A/N: Don't forget to leave a review. Also, check out my other story, Naruto: A Different Beginning. Thanks!