Many months had passed for Naruto and Reks. Naruto checked in on his student every so often, but he always left within the next day saying he still had important business. Reks would have thought Naruto was ditching him if the man didn't reappear almost every month.

It astounded Reks how Naruto could show up without so much as a warning and then leave without a sound. He had improved by leaps and bounds in his own speed and stealth, but Naruto was simply on another level. There was nothing Reks could do to compare with Naruto's thousand years of shinobi training, so he didn't try. He knew he wouldn't be able to match up, so why waste time fighting for an unattainable dream? Nothing would come from beating Naruto anyway.

Despite knowing all of this, Reks still pushed himself as hard as he could. He wanted to gain power to protect Vaan and the others in Rabanastre. The Archadian Empire had fully moved into the country by now and had essentially taken over. It was only by the grace of Dalmasca's surrender after the death of King Raminas that the capital city still stood.

Naruto trusted Reks to learn everything he needed to know on his own. He had trusted Reks to survive in the Estersand without any help. He had trusted Reks to build his own ninja way.

He looked down at the weapon strapped to his belt. 'Well… maybe a little help.'

Flashback

After leaving the Giza Plains, Naruto had travelled across the land of Ivalice, setting up a spy network of sorts. Jiraiya's spy network during the days of the Hidden Villages had been legendary and Naruto knew that information was worth more than money. Setting up an information trade in Archadia and Rozarria would be invaluable for the future.

Rozarria had been easy enough to infiltrate. They were on guard against the threat of Archadian forces, but they were also accepting any Dalmascans that had fled after the fall of King Raminas. The Rozarrian border patrol was wary of the lowly merchant who claimed to have fled from an outpost in the Estersand after the Archadian conquest, but he was let through after a brief search of his belongings had uncovered nothing of suspicion.

Naruto had spent two months building up his information network in Rozarria before leaving under the guise of a trader heading for Rabanastre. He had stopped by to check up on Reks before trying his hand at infiltrating the Archadian Empire.

That proved to be a more difficult task, as the empire was fully militarized. He eventually made his way into the seedy underbelly of the capital city Archades. He found that information was already somewhat of its own currency but many in the city were also completely loyal so he had to be careful what intel he asked for.

After stopping by the Estersand to see Reks once more, Naruto made his way into Rabanastre. The Archadian occupation of the city made it even more difficult to enter secretly than Archades, but he wasn't here to set up more of his spy network. Naruto was here to find the royal treasure storage. There was a prize in those vaults that would make a wonderful gift for Reks once he learned to wield it.

And so Naruto found himself searching through the storage room. The Archadian forces had clearly been through already, as most of the room was in a state of disarray. Despite this he quickly located the weapon he was looking for. He knew the soldiers wouldn't have taken it; who would want a sword hilt without a blade?

Stowing away the hilt in a scroll, Naruto turned to leave when his eyes fell upon a statue with pale lavender eyes

"Hinata," he muttered.

He had heard that they Hyuuga were the last of the Leaf Village clans to die out before King Raithwall established his monarchy in Ivalice. Hinata's children had been infused with the Uzumaki's enhanced life force, giving the clan heads longer life spans and higher combat skills. These traits passed on to future generations, although the Hyuuga's signifying trait, the Byakugan, disappeared from the main branch shortly after Naruto's generation.

Naruto gazed at the statue, depicting a Hyuuga clanswoman. It looked vaguely like his deceased wife, but Naruto knew otherwise. Still, he could not break his gaze from the cold, lifeless eyes before him.

"Naruto, someone is coming!"

The voice of the Nine Tails broke Naruto from his thought and he quickly jumped to the ceiling, clinging to it with his chakra, to avoid detection.

Naruto watched silently as a hidden door opened to reveal a young boy with platinum hair. The boy stumbled over some trinkets on the floor before rummaging around the place, muttering under his breath.

Finally the boy triggered a switch, causing the head of the statue that had fixated Naruto to open, revealing a bright orange orb. With a mischievous grin the boy grabbed the orb and examined it.

"Quite a performance."

Naruto looked at the well-dressed man who had just appeared from another hidden entrance. 'Is everyone trying to get in here tonight?' he wondered.

"Who are you?" the boy asked the new arrival.

"I play the leading man, who else?" he replied. Naruto smirked. He liked this guy's style. "Fran, the magicite."

A viera appeared behind the young boy. "Now then, I'll take-" Her ears twitched at sensing another person in the room and she looked straight up. "Who are you?" The other two followed her gaze.

"How are you standing on the ceiling?" the boy asked.

"Oh, what a feeling, when we're dancing on the ceiling," Naruto replied in a sing-song voice. "You can call me the 'Yellow Flash.' As for how I'm standing up here, that's not important." Naruto quickly used a body flicker to reappear near the exit. "What is important are the guards headed this way." With a small wave, he disappeared without a sound.

Naruto made his way out of the city, dodging the resistance forces battling with the Archadian guards. He would have helped, but he couldn't fight the large airships overhead without causing them to crash into the city. Killing innocent people wasn't high on his list of favorite activities, so he made his exit peacefully.

He found Reks the next day and presented his gift.

"This is an old relic from my time, Reks," he explained as he unveiled an ornate sword hilt.

"A hilt?" Reks was confused. "What good is that without a blade?"

"You're a ninja now, Reks," Naruto chided. "Look underneath the underneath." He focused his chakra into the hilt and a yellow beam extended from it, about twice the length of the hilt. "This is the Sword of the Thunder God. It belonged to the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju." Reks examined the energy-imbued blade. "It's infused with lightning chakra, so I figured it would be a perfect fit for you. It's better than trying to match a standard kunai against a full-length sword anyway."

The blade dispersed and Naruto handed the sword over to Reks, who reenergized it immediately. "The best part is you can't break it," Naruto continued. "The lightning will cut through just about anything that isn't fortified by an insane amount of chakra or magic, and even if the blade does break you can just reenergize it again."

"This is great! Thanks, Naruto.!"

End Flashback

That had been just a few days ago. Reks had taken time to practice with his new weapon, but the small burnt spots on his arms showed he needed to be careful with how he handled the electrified blade.

Fortunately, energizing the blade took next to no effort. Naruto had been slightly confused by this, claiming that regulating the lightning chakra for the weapon should have taken more control than the rudimentary attacks that Reks had learned so far.

"I think I figured out a trick to that," Reks had said. "I thought about how you said you couldn't control your chakra well enough to use the normal Clone Jutsu but Shadow Clones are second nature to you. I wondered if that might be the same case with me, since I already had experience with magic." Naruto's eyes had lit up and he had agreed that Reks' conclusion could be very possible. "I just focused my chakra into the sword - probably more than I needed to - and it works."

He'd told Reks to try some of the tougher jutsu on the scroll rather than starting at the beginning. The starter jutsu usually took more control than power than the advanced jutsu, except in extreme cases such as the Rasengan.

So Reks set about his new training. He tried some of the tougher jutsu, but made no progress. Finally he settled on one particular technique that had caught his eye from the beginning. He had avoided the technique simply because he knew better than to try something like that from the start. But now not only did he have Naruto's permission, it was what he was supposed to do.

Reks read the description of the jutsu, written in a style very different from Naruto's. 'I wonder who wrote these scrolls. I think he said he left them with the toads. Maybe they're from his days back in the Leaf Village.' Despite that time being a thousand years ago, Reks didn't find that difficult to believe. He had certainly seen stranger things from Naruto that thousand year-old scrolls.

"So all I need for this jutsu is to focus a ton of lightning chakra in my hand, right?" Reks asked himself. "Sounds easy enough." He set the scroll down and moved a few paces away to try. After a few moments he could see the energy start to build up, but he was distracted when a loud noise came from an area not too far away.

"I think that's near that village on the river,' Reks realized. 'What could have happened?'

He quickly made his way towards the village to find all of the citizens standing outside looking worried. "What's going on?" he asked the first person he ran in to.

"There was a massive ruckus, almost like a cave in," the man explained. "It came from the Barheim Passage." He pointed to the outcropping in the cliff where Reks could seem dust billowing from a cave.

"RRRRRWWWWWAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!"

A massive roar echoed across the desert sands to where they were standing.

"That was no ordinary cave in," Reks said before dashing away to the cave entrance.

Reks heard the telltale sounds of a battle up ahead as he entered the passage. "I knew it!' Finally he came upon a large arena that was almost entirely filled up by a massive green and blue insect-like creature. What caught Reks' attention wasn't the incredibly-huge mimic; it was the four figures fighting against it down below.

"Vaan?" he muttered. What in Ivalice was his brother doing here? He didn't recognize the fancy-dressed man or the viera, and he couldn't get a good look at the fourth. "Not important right now; I've gotta help or they'll all be killed by this thing."

Thinking quickly, Reks applied his chakra and ran straight up the wall. He moved silently so as to not alert the large mimic to his presence. Finally reaching the ceiling, Reks took a moment to regain his sense of balance. "How does Naruto stand upside down so much like it's nothing?' Shaking his head clear, Reks formed the required hand seals and charged up his attack.

Down below, things were starting to look grim for Balthier and his companions. The Mimic Queen kept firing back any magic attacks they could use, and they just didn't have enough physical power to take down something that big. 'I could use a bigger gun- wait, is that birds chirping?'

"Chidori!"

A human-sized streak of blue electricity plummeted from the ceiling, cutting straight through the mimic and cleaving it in two from tip to tail. Reks hit the floor with a massive impact that shook the entire arena.

"Reks?"

The boy looked up wearily as the energy faded from his hand. Vaan was safe at least, but the whole passage would be coming down soon after that shockwave. Reks was spent, though. The warning that Chidori had on the scroll about it using up tons of chakra wasn't a joke. The last thing Reks saw before falling into sleep was his brother running towards him as stones started falling from above.

Naruto's ears perked up as a memory from a dispelled clone hit him. They lost sight of Reks.

Naruto took a moment to ponder that. While he was incredibly impressed that Reks had given his clones the slip (likely without even knowing) he was also worried. If his clones couldn't find the boy that meant he wasn't in the open desert anywhere.

Another clone memory hit him, relaying a message about the cave in that had happened near where Reks had been seen. Naruto quickly dispelled all the clones he had nearby and left for the Estersand. His Sage training could wait a bit.

As he neared the entrance to the Barheim Passage, he noticed several familiar figures standing around a body lying on the ground. 'Those three from the other night, but what happened to Reks?' He jumped and landed at the edge of the outcropping.

"Yo," he greeted them casually, despite the serious look on his face.

"You," Balthier said with a hint of surprise. "Our paths seem destined to cross, Mr. 'Yellow Flash.'"

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"We were fighting a monster inside, and doing a rather poor job of it," Balthier explained. "This lad here showed up, falling right from the ceiling covered in blue lightning like I've never seen before."

Naruto's eyebrows shot up at that. 'Chidori? Well I guess his theory was right.' "If that's the case, there's nothing wrong with him. He's just tired after using that move."

"And how do you know anything about it?" asked the young boy kneeling over Reks.

"I taught it to him," Naruto answered plainly. The young boy's eyes shot up to look at Naruto. "From the angry look you're giving me, and the way you're acting really protective of him, I'd guess you're Reks' brother, Vaan." The boy nodded. Naruto turned to face the others there. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced. My name is-"

"Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto turned towards a voice he recognized and saw someone that should have been dead.

"Basch."

Chapter 7 End

I'm not super happy with how this turned out, but I don't see a way of redoing it better. I've been planning this meeting (including the Chidori) for a while, but I never really planned out what would be said during the meeting… just that it would happen.

Reks receiving the Sword of the Thunder God wasn't planned from the start, but it seemed appropriate after I did a bit of research on it. Hope my explanations on chakra aren't putting people off. I know I'm taking some liberties there.

Like I said, we've finally gotten into the main story of FF12. Thanks to those who've stuck around from the start, and welcome to the new people! This story will probably move at a very strange pace since I don't have a lot of things planned out step by step, but I do think it'll be a good read!