AN: Another chapter, and the beginning of Naruto's immersion in the world of youkai. He will learn some valuable lessons soon, much like canon Naruto did when he came to some realisations (examples include Kakashi's team mates before the mission belief, and Haku's strength in bonds thing). The shikigami thing is my way of doing the massive clone onslaught without relying on kage bunshin (or whatever other bunshin takes your fancy). Using a different technique will lead Naruto to develop differently to how he did in canon, and as time goes on, the changes become greater and greater. Enjoy!

My forum link can be found on my profile, or you can use this: forum/Lupine-Horror-Behind-the-scenes-of-my-stories/139203/

Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord

Chapter 7 - Preparations

Hiruzen tried to keep a closer eye on Naruto after his talk with the boy, with the key word here being 'tried'. His crystal ball still refused to show him where the blonde was, and even though he remembered exactly where Naruto had led them, neither he nor his guards could ever get back to where the boy's camp was.

He still attended school though, and went to the library rather frequently. The Hokage kept a rather close eye on what sort of books Naruto was reading, and found that they were mostly craft books and fiction. There were occasionally times Naruto would take out something else, like one on myths, legends, and religions of the Elemental Nations, and another on the geography of the continent and the different countries.

Even to Hiruzen's eyes, it only looked like a young boy who was already capable of looking after himself and looking at things he might be able to turn his hand to and how to do so. He'd seen no effort from the boy to make any new friends though, or if he tried to do so, it was when the Hokage wasn't watching him.

He'd wait though, wait and hope that Naruto made a friend. Perhaps it would happen when he joined the Ninja Academy, or perhaps before. Maybe, as he was wandering around the village, Naruto might bump into a Nara, an Aburame, or even a Hyuuga, and their personalities might mesh and form an unbreakable friendship.

Not that such a thing was likely, situations like that were reserved for fiction.

That didn't mean he would lose hope though, Hiruzen was, if nothing else, optimistic. In the meantime though, he had a village to run, and that was a lot work. Most of the Hokage's day was spent approving or rejecting various ideas that were put forward by various groups that handled different parts of the village.

While it wasn't quite a council, it was sometimes referred to as such. There was a representative of the merchants syndicate, who ensured that all goods sold in Konoha were of good quality and reasonably priced. There was a representative of Konoha's various educational institutions. Also there was a spokesperson for the Military Police, and one for the agricultural association, as well as a handful of others.

It was they who received the initial applications, reports, complaints, and so on. They handled what they could, and what they couldn't was passed on to the Hokage. Still, even with them reducing the amount of paperwork that arrived on his desk every day, it was still a sizeable amount, and kept him busy for hours on end.

He often lamented that he didn't have as much free time as he did as a jounin. He saw little enough of his family as it was, and that was without his current arguments he was having with his son Asuma. He tried to retire once already, and his successor had died shortly afterwards, leaving him to become Hokage again.

The problem here was, there wasn't anyone really suited to becoming the Godaime Hokage that Hiruzen knew of. As much as Tsunade's grandfather and granduncle had both been Hokages, she herself wasn't suited to it. She was easily angered, and let her emotions rule her. Jiraiya was even less suited to it, the man being very disorganised, and aside from his lecherous reputation, he had trouble handling his responsibilities as well.

Kakashi, Gai, Ibiki… there was so many with plenty of potential, but they just weren't right for the position. Hiruzen privately despaired of ever passing the hat on before he died. The first, second, and fourth Hokages had all died defending their village, and while he would gladly give his own life for his village, the Sandaime would prefer a much more peaceful end himself.

Nevertheless, he'd hold onto his hat until he either died or found someone who could replace him.

xxxxx

Unseen by the Hokage, Naruto was actually learning something new from Hinoe. She had declared his use of heat to be 'passable', and his motion and light manipulation to be good enough for now. As she was leery of teaching him anything about sound, corrosive, or raw power effects, she instead started teaching him more about potions and youkai seals.

With potions, they had simply gone over which ones Naruto already knew, what ingredients could be substituted for others if they were unavailable, how that would affect the potion, and so on and so forth. That's not to say he didn't learn some new mixtures, because he did, but they focused on refining what he already knew before going ahead and learning something new.

It was actually the youkai seals that Naruto was rather interested in, more than anything else, because if you made a seal right, all you had to do was provide power to it, and it would do exactly what it was supposed to do, with no more input from the user!

Hinoe had taught him the basic motion, light, and heat formulas, as well as a number of individual symbols and the 'grammar' of youkai seals. With this knowledge, he was able to expand his repertoire of seals himself, or even create them on the fly! Hinoe did tell him not to use any of them before she'd looked them over though, she didn't want him blowing himself up or anything.

They were learning a seal right then actually, a new one Naruto had never used before today.

The seal itself was composed of symbols for 'creation', 'domination', and 'spirit'. He was, in fact, learning how to create a type of shikigami, with these ones being artificially created spirits that would obey his instructions. Well, that was the theory at least.

Naruto didn't think Benio would ever let him forget that the first time he tried to create a small group of shiki, he'd immediately lost control of three of them, which had proceeded to pick a fight with, and somehow lose to, a rather aggressive squirrel.

He could still hear her laughter echoing in his head.

Nevertheless, Naruto was quite proud of his shiki, even if they weren't particularly strong yet, creating them was the first actually combat capable technique Hinoe had taught him! Okay, so they were clumsy, weak, and stupid, but they would get better as Naruto got better at making them!

The shikigami took the form of large, black, blob-like people that looked really stretched out. They had white masks on where their faces should be, with two eye holes despite the shiki not actually possessing eyes themselves. Thankfully, the shiki actually had relatively human hands, and so could grip and hold things just fine.

This was especially useful as Hinoe had instructed Naruto to command his shiki to pick up thick and heavy branches to use as improvised clubs. What resulted was quite an intimidating sight, a dozen faceless, black creatures that stood around seven feet tall and held heavy improvised weapons. Most of them held their branches like clubs, but two of them had found relatively straight branches and held them like a staff.

"Now, Naruto, tell me anything you can notice about your shiki." Hinoe said to Naruto.

"Well, erm, they're actually doing what I told them to this time." He said. "They're all standing differently as well, I thought they'd all act exactly like each other instead of this. They're not moving either, just turning their heads whenever I move so they're always 'looking' right at me."

Hinoe smiled. "Good observations. Shikigami, at least correctly made ones, will do absolutely nothing unless you tell them to. The only exception is if you're attacked, in which case they'll attack your opponent and defend you. The 'differences' you're noticing are caused by small, random factors, and don't really make a difference.

"However, what you didn't mention is that some of them are having more difficulty than others just holding their clubs. That will clear up as you get better at making shikigami, but there are two… quick and dirty ways of improving them." She paused here, thinking of something, before deciding to ask Naruto if he could guess what those two things were.

"Well, there's three things that are used to make shiki, the paper I drew the symbols on, the ink I used, and the spiritual power I put into it." Naruto thought about it for a moment. "Two ways of improving them would be increasing the amount and density of reiryoku I use, right?"

"That's one way, yes." Hinoe admitted. "However, I was thinking of the material aspect of this technique. Using more reiryoku will make your shiki stronger, but it will also shorten their lifespan, unless you use something stronger than paper as a base. The ink is the other thing I was thinking of, or actually replacing it with your blood. While it won't make your shiki too much stronger like using more power does, it reinforces your binding on them, so you're less likely to lose control of them."

"If they work, why did you say they were 'quick and dirty'?" Naruto asked.

Hinoe huffed. "A properly skilled youkai can make much better shiki with the proper technique than an amateur who simply overloads the formula, and while using blood does make it easier to control them, few youkai are willing to bleed themselves whenever they want to make a new shiki."

"Are shiki really all that common? I mean, as far as I know, you're the only one in the forest that uses them, or really anything that resembles a structured technique." Naruto couldn't help but wonder.

"There honestly aren't many that do things like I do." Hinoe confided in him. "The weaker youkai simply don't have enough power to make use of such things, and you'll find that most stronger youkai rely on their own natural strength, speed, or inherent abilities, as you'll likely see when you go to Iron Country."

"I will?" Naruto asked.

"Well, there's some local youkai that have natural techniques, like Madara and his purifying light, but when you go to Iron Country, you're likely to run into at least one Yuki-Onna while there. They have a natural aptitude for snow and ice manipulation, and rely heavily on that." Hinoe told him. "They are very dangerous, so be careful if you do see one."

"I will." Naruto nodded. "It's starting to sound like Iron Country is especially dangerous with how many warnings everyone is giving me."

"That's because it is." Hinoe said. "The climate is quite harsh, and the youkai that make their home there tend to be quite a bit more aggressive than anywhere else in the Elemental Nations, though I don't know why. There's only a few places that are worse than there, and don't even ask me where those places are, I'm not particularly happy about you going to Iron Country as it is, but so long as you are well prepared, I will allow it."

"Is that why you taught me how to make shiki, so they could defend me?" Naruto asked, taking another look at his creations.

"It is." Hinoe said. "Before you go, I'm going to make sure you have plenty of pre-prepared shikigami on you. I'm also going to teach you how to combine light and heat to make a basic fire dart, and Riou will teach you how to infuse your reiryoku into your fists and feet to fight."

"Fire dart?" Naruto perked up in interest.

Hinoe raised a hand into the air, and a small flash of fire formed itself into a needle like shape about the length of her middle finger, which was promptly fired into the air.

"It's pretty weak, and won't do much more than sting most youkai, but it's something to base future things on." Hinoe told him. "It's most effective either against low class youkai, or cast as a cluster." Demonstrating the latter, she raised her hand again and cast the technique. This time, instead of a single 'dart', she launched roughly two dozen of them in a tight cone.

"That was awesome!" Naruto exclaimed, his eyes wide and a grin on his face.

"Yes, but it's still rather weak." Hinoe cautioned him. "It should do more damage to a human though, they're not spirits like we are, so I don't want you practising it on anyone. Even then, I don't want you seeking out a fight with this thing, it won't do you much good unless you're using it as a distraction or targeting a weak spot like the eyes or something."

"I'm not going to Iron Country to look for a fight." Naruto sighed.

"I know you're not." Hinoe ruffled his hair. "However, you're still going somewhere dangerous, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to do my best to make sure you come back in one piece."

"Okay." Naruto grumbled to himself for a moment, before turning back to his shikigami. "Now, to practise telling my minions what to do!"

"Minions?" Hinoe raised an eyebrow. "Why are you calling them that?"

"It's what Madara said underlings are called." Naruto replied. "Is he wrong?"

"Not… exactly." Hinoe laughed. "Minions just isn't a very polite thing to call them. That's fine for shiki, but if you ever have followers of your own, it's probably best not to call them that."

"Okay, I'll remember that." Naruto nodded his head, committing Hinoe's 'lesson' to memory.

"You do that." She smiled. "Now run along and practi-"

"Naruto! Naruto! Naruto!" A group of excited kappa calling his name came tumbling into the clearing carrying bags of something over their shoulders. "We heard you had shikigami collecting tree branches for weapons, and we have something to make them better!"

"Oh, and what would that be?" Hinoe asked, raising an eyebrow at the group.

One of the kappa took the sack of their shoulder and tipped some of the contents out. What was in the bag, it turned out, was a load of bent and broken kunai and shuriken.

"We've been collecting the stuff that's been abandoned in the human training grounds." One of the kappa told her. "There's not much good stuff, but we were putting together a pack of it that Naruto could practise with. We didn't know what to do with all of the broken stuff though, but now we have an idea."

Another kappa nodded their head rapidly. "Yeah, yeah! We thought that the clubs the shikigami have would be better if we took some vines or string and wrapped all of the broken ninja stars around them. One of the good ninja knives could even make one of the sticks into a spear!"

Hinoe smiled at the group of kappa. "That is a good idea, I suppose. I had been meaning to whittle down the branches Naruto's shiki had found, and then etch some seals into them to make them more effective, but adding sharp metal would make them more dangerous."

She then caught sight of Naruto's face, and saw how pale he looked at the sight of the metal. "However, as dangerous as it would be, it would also be very… messy. Instead of adding them to the clubs, why don't you help me carve and prepare them for the seals I will add instead, while Naruto practises making more shiki?"

"If you say so." One of the kappa shrugged. "But what are we going to do with all of this scrap metal?"

"Oh, I have an idea or two." Hinoe said. "Let's just set that aside for now though."

xxxxx

Once Naruto was away from Hinoe and the kappa, he managed to breath easier again. Having seen the broken shuriken and kunai, and imagining them wrapped around a club, he hadn't been able to get out of his head what sort of damage they'd have done.

He didn't know what it was, but the blunt force damage of a club, or the sharp cutting or piercing damage of sword didn't bother him anywhere near as much as imagining how a spiked or bladed club would mangle someone. Maybe it was just thinking about how flesh would be torn apart rather than cut, or bones broken in the case of blunt weapons, but he didn't think he'd have been able to look at the clubs if Hinoe had gone along with the kappas' idea.

He made an effort to drive that from his mind though, she had said no and right now he was supposed to be doing something else. Namely, he was to continue practising how to make shikigami as his were currently pathetic. Some of them had had trouble lifting a heavy branch, something the average dog could do.

Well, Hinoe had said putting more reiryoku into it would make them stronger, but they wouldn't last long if he did so. She also said it was easier to control them if he wrote the formula in his own blood. So, if he put those both together, he would get a stronger shiki that was fairly easy to control.

Picking up a piece of paper, which had been torn down into a piece roughly the size of his palm, Naruto used a clean knife to cut his left hand. He then dipped a calligraphy brush into his own blood and used his neatest hand-writing to draw the three required symbols on the paper, before adding the binding symbol that joined them together.

He channelled his spiritual power into it once he was done, and tossed it away as some indescribable black substance erupted from the paper, and began to form another shikigami, this one being closer to eight and half feet tall compared to the seven feet his others were.

The differences between this one and the others, aside from the extra height, were immediately obvious. Its movements were smoother, and it sketched a bow to Naruto, almost appearing to have some form of… respect for its creator. There seemed to be some sort of intelligence about it that the others lacked as well. So, Naruto decided to test them out.

He looked between his old and new shikigami and gave them their instructions. "Okay, a test… I've got an idea for one. Without leaving this clearing, you guys are going to fight, all twelve of the old against the one new guy. I'll be watching to see how you do, okay? Don't start until I say go."

With that, Naruto backed out of the clearing and climbed a solid looking tree. Now having a good vantage point to watch the coming fight from, Naruto counted down the start of the fight. "Five...Four...Three...Two...One...Start!"

Immediately as he said the last word, the initial dozen shikigami lumbered towards the newer one. However, its response wasn't to attack in turn. Instead, it dived towards the edge of the clearing behind it and to the left. When it stood up, it held in its hands a rather unwieldy stick of wood almost as long as it was tall and maybe six or seven inches thick.

Even the strengthened shiki was having some trouble swinging it. Apparently, overcharging it with reiryoku hadn't made it 'super strong' like he'd hoped – though maybe if he got better at making them, they'd be stronger then – but it was still about as strong as a somewhat muscled civilian.

Holding its improvised weapon with two hands, the newer shiki swung its weapon at the approaching older shikigami. It actually managed to get a rather solid connection on one of them, knocking it to the ground, but not destroying it. That happened when it lifted the branch up and slammed it down on the downed shiki.

As the other eleven older shiki stumbled towards their newer counterpart, Naruto watched as the 'dead' shiki seemed to dissolve, revealing the piece of paper it had been created from, which then rapidly dissolved as well. Damn, it seemed he couldn't reuse the talismans from 'dead' shiki. On the other hand though, it didn't matter if he lost them in fights, because enemy ninja couldn't copy what he'd done from the remains if there were none.

Naruto looked back at the fight to see that another two of the older shiki had been taken care of by the newer one. However, four of the older shikigami had gotten a grip on the branch the newer one had been using as a weapon, and it seemed those four were amongst the strongest of Naruto's original group, as they were successfully preventing their opponent from swinging its improvised club.

The remaining five older shiki were now in range of the newer one and began to tear apart whatever black substance they were made of. It was rather nauseating to see chunks of black 'flesh' – which looked like jelly now – being tossed about after being torn off something that was vaguely human shaped.

The newer shikigami was faltering now, being overwhelmed by numbers rather than skill or strength. It still managed to take down another four of its attackers before being 'killed' though. That left Naruto with five of the older shiki remaining, less than half the number at the start of the fight.

Naruto sighed. "Okay, so empowered shiki are definitely worth it, but they're no match for the average academy student unless I outnumbered them maybe ten to one or better." He mumbled to himself. "How then, aside from practising to make better shiki, do I improve them?"

Benio fluttered off his hair and sat on the branch beside him, shifting into her more human form. "The answer to that is obvious." She smirked. "If you're going to outnumber them anyway, make those numbers count for something, no? That newer shiki you made certainly knew how to think its way around a problem?"

"Huh?" Naruto confusedly tilted his head to the side.

Benio rolled her eyes. "What was the first thing it did at the start of the fight? It found a weapon, one with a range advantage. Imagine a small group of shiki, say twelve, with spears. Now have them stand in a formation, maybe six wide and two deep, or four wide and three deep. That sounds much more effective already doesn't it?"

"It does." Naruto agreed. "So you think I should look up infantry tactics then?"

"It couldn't hurt." Benio shrugged. "It might be better for you to experiment though. I mean, ninja don't really fight together, do they? They use their own skills to win a fight, rather than work as part of an 'army'."

"I guess so." Naruto admitted. "I've heard of ninja using 'combination techniques', mostly wind and fire to make a bigger fire, but the only weapon ninjas use is the sword, and most ninja don't even use that, relying on throwing weapons or hand to hand, aside from jutsu that is."

"Look at samurai for inspiration then." Benio shrugged. "Heck, use bandits as an example. They have to work together if they ever fight, and I'm sure there'll have been at least one group of bandits that had some sort of success fighting ninjas."

Naruto contemplated that idea for a moment, before looking back at his shikigami. "I wonder if Hinoe knows any seals that would make shields harder to break."

"So, did I have a good idea or what, brat?" Benio smirked at Naruto.

"You did." Naruto nodded. "Now I've got to think about how to make it work, and then get good enough with my shiki so they can actually fight properly with their weapons. A spear and shield is useless if my shiki are too clumsy to use them."

"Then get to work practising then." Benio nudged him. "You do realise that the shiki are made using your spiritual power, right? That's how they know who their master is, and it's common sense that if you are good at something, your shikigami should know what they are doing."

"Okay, I'll get to practising then." Naruto nodded his head, before slipping off the branch and started creating more shikigami, doing his best to make them as strong as he possibly could. He took extra care to draw the symbols as accurately as he could, and he also tried focusing on how he used his reiryoku to bring them to life, to see if he could improve them that way.

While he did this, Benio wandered off to tell Hinoe to make at least one short spear and shield for Naruto to practise with, and later more to arm his shiki with. They were sticking with clubs and staffs for now, they were simpler even than spears, but Hinoe did say she would look into it.

xxxxx

Two weeks before the break when Naruto intended to go to Iron Country, Naruto asked Hinoe where he could find Misuzu. If he wanted to get the youkai on his side, he had to set aside some time to do whatever test Misuzu would want him to do, and as he didn't know how long that would take, it was best to get it done before he was to head off to Iron Country.

It turned out that Misuzu wasn't too much deeper into the forest than Naruto usually ventured, and it didn't take him long to get there. He did notice a few youkai, one of which took the form of a frog, moving ahead of him, so it came as no surprise when he saw Misuzu that the youkai was expecting him.

What was surprising was just how massive Misuzu once, he was gigantic, much bigger than Madara! He was humanoid, with a human left hand and a hoof for a right hand. His face and ears were equine in shape, and he had a small – at least relatively small – pair of horns on his head, peeking out from under his long grey hair.

"It is about time you came to see me, human, I have been expecting you for some time now." Misuzu said.

"I didn't know that, I'd have come sooner if I'd known you were waiting." Naruto apologised.

"It is not a problem." Misuzu replied. "You had no knowledge of me until recently, and even then did not know I wished to meet you. You are here now, and that is what matters. Now speak, why have you come to me?"

"I intend to go to Iron Country soon, but I have been told that it is a dangerous place." Naruto told the youkai. "I have trained myself as much as I am able, but I remain weak. I had hoped to prove myself to you, and if I managed to do so, then I would ask that you watch over me during my time in Iron Country."

"You wish to prove yourself before asking a boon of me?" Misuzu said. "Commendable of you, to think of doing that before making demands of someone stronger than you are. As it so happens, there is something you can do to prove your worth to me, and if you should accomplish this task and survive, I will follow you to the north, and the Land of Iron."

"What task is it that you wish me to do?" The nervous six year old asked, being as polite as he could.

"There is a rogue group of youkai in the area." Misuzu told him. "They wander the continent, and devour any weak youkai they come across, most likely in an effort to become stronger. They attacked close by yesterday afternoon, and I was in the process of putting together a small team to take care of them. My 'test' is this; discover their whereabouts and eliminate them using only your own skills and abilities. Do this, and I will accept you as one of us."

"Is there any information you can give me to start with?" Naruto asked. "Do you know how many of them there are? How strong they are? How am I even supposed to identify them?"

Misuzu smiled, though even that was a scary sight with how large his mouth was. "One of the youkai here can show you where the attack happened, so you may search outwards from there. The youkai are weak, low class, and have only managed to kill others by ambushing them with greater numbers. We estimate that there are between ten and twenty youkai in the group. The 'leader' of the group is supposed to drag around a large wooden hammer."

"Thank you, I'll get right on that then." Naruto swallowed nervously.

This would be his first fight where there would be a definite degree of risk involved. He'd started sparring against his shikigami ever since he'd learned to make them, but neither he nor they were particularly skilled, and they were always stronger and faster than he was, what with him being six years old.

Still, he was as prepared as he could hope to be right now. He had a club that Hinoe had carved for him that would be an effective weapon against weaker youkai, and he had a small round shield as well. He had some pre-made shikigami in his pockets, wrapped up in packs of a dozen, ready to use. Each shikigami also had a club or staff each to fight with.

This was going to be nerve wracking, but it was also going to be doable. He was facing, at most, twenty rogue low level youkai, and he could spare a few packs of shikigami to fight them alongside himself, and while his shiki weren't particularly strong, they were better than when he'd first started making them.

"If you are ready, Eiko can show you where the last attack happened." Misuzu said, indicating a relatively human looking youkai who had pale green hair and sharp yellow eyes.

"Benio, you stay here." Naruto addressed the butterfly on his head. "I can do this, trust me. I'll see you later, okay?"

Benio transformed into her human form again and gave Naruto a concerned look. "Be careful, brat, otherwise Hinoe will kill me when I tell her what I'm letting you do."

"What will it take for you to stop calling me 'brat' all the time?" Naruto huffed.

Benio gave him an odd smirk. "Come back in piece and with an awesome story to tell and I'll think about it."

"See you later then, Benio." Naruto smiled at her, before turning around and leaving the clearing, following after Eiko.

He didn't see Benio's expression twist in concern once he looked away from her.