AN: Here's a bit of 'filler' between the first mini-arc and the second, which I still haven't decided upon. I have a few little ideas about how things are going to go, and already Naruto's fighting style is beginning to develop here. It's raw and untrained, but it's there. He might not have the raw strength to match anyone who's even at genin level, but he's a sneaky little kid, so he's probably going to trip one or two people up along the way. Oh, by the way, roughstar333 has collected together all of the omakes so far (only 3) in a 'story' called Spirit's Balance: Omake Edition for anyone who is interested.
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 12 – Reports and Letters
"Wha-?" Naruto asked in confusion. "Blame the kapp- what is all this?"
Opening one of the scrolls at random, Naruto began to read through it, but what he read just served to confuse him further. What was all this about pirate attacks, bandit raids, and hot weather affecting the rice plantations? It seemed to be a collection of little facts and rumours from the border of Rice Country to him.
Opening another scroll, he found something similar, just for a different part of the world, and the same for every other scroll he opened. Laying them on the floor, he put them down in a rough approximation of where in the Elemental Nations each 'report' had come from, and to his surprise, he found that they covered a good chunk of the continent.
"What is all of this?" He repeated himself.
Hinoe rolled her eyes. "You remember the time you asked the kappa about what was going on in Water Country? It was after Ran told you why she left and decided to move to the Valley of the End." When Naruto replied in the affirmative, she continued. "Well as it so happens, the kappa went at it with their usual enthusiasm, and now most of the kappa colonies around the continent have decided to send you their 'reports'."
"I guess that explains it." Naruto murmured. The reports were, even to Naruto's young eyes, rather amateurish. Facts and rumours were mixed up together with no sign of any organisation, and a lot of the information written on the scrolls seemed really irrelevant. "But the hand-writing on this one isn't like a kappa's." He pointed out, picking up one particular scroll, this one talking about Jiraiya of the Sannin, some rumours about a 'new' ninja village that was recruiting, and a few other titbits.
"I know." Hinoe replied, slightly amused. Trust Naruto to recognise the differences in handwriting when a regular human wouldn't even be able to read what a youkai wrote, it appearing to be nothing more than a scribble to them. "That report is from a hone-onna that works in a brothel."
"A bone woman?" Naruto asked, wanting clarification.
"Yeah, they drain the energy of men to sustain themselves." Hinoe explained. "A number of them have learned how to not completely drain someone and now live enjoyable lives of their own as dancers, bartenders, and prostitutes. I don't know how the kappa got them to send reports as well, but they did."
"What use is all of this to me? I mean, what can I do with it all?" Naruto asked.
"The question is 'what will you do with it?'" Hinoe retorted. "What you have there is the beginnings of a spy network, one that has the potential to be better than any other in the world. After all, who can hide something from someone they can't even see?"
"But still, there's nothing I can do with it." Naruto shrugged. "If I was a village leader or something, then I might have some use for it, but I'm not, and I don't really care to become Hokage, or any sort of kage at all for that matter."
"Don't be so quick to dismiss it." Hinoe cautioned him. "Information is power, and believe it or not, having something like that might make all of the difference sometime down the line. Just try reading them, maybe something will jump out at you that could be useful, or even something interesting."
Naruto sighed, but complied with her anyway. He reached out and grabbed one scroll at random, one of those from Lightning Country. Opening it, he found out it was about Kumo specifically, one of the five main hidden villages. The scroll was also a fair bit more organised than some of the others he'd looked through, maybe Kumo's more disciplined hierarchical nature had influenced some of the youkai who live in the area?
Anyway, the first part of the 'report' was more like a list than anything else. It was made up of a number of names, their position in the village, and any little facts that the kappa were aware of. For example, they'd noted down the Raikage, A, was a prideful man, and that there was little he would not do to ensure his own village's safety and superiority. They even made a special note of something referred to as the 'Hyuuga Affair' as well.
As well as that, the report went on to talk about the two Jinchuuriki of Kumo, Killer B and Yugito Nii as well. There were actual observations about the two of them in the report. One kappa had apparently spent several days following B around, and another had done the same with Yugito.
Naruto read through those two parts twice over, paying more attention to them than he did to pretty much everything else that the kappa had put in there. He worried at his lip as an idea started to wiggle itself into his head, an idea that would either prove to be incredibly brilliant, or incredibly stupid.
"Hinoe." Naruto hesitantly started. "How long would it take to learn how to make a bird shikigami?"
Raising an eyebrow in curiosity, she asked him to show her how far along he was with it so far.
Pulling out a scrap of paper and a pencil, Naruto quickly sketched out the required symbols before channelling his reiryoku into it. Tossing the paper as soon as it began to turn black, he took a step back to take a good look at what his most recent attempt turned out like.
Hinoe stepped forwards and looked at the black… 'creature' that took form from Naruto's attempt at making a shiki. It was roughly half the size of a grown man, and possessed some obviously avian features, yet it still wasn't anything like a true bird.
The arms looked about right. The individual digits had become narrow and long, with stretched black 'skin' covering the gaps between them like a bat's wings, but there were no feathers covering them at all. The different parts of the legs weren't the right proportions for a human, the lower leg being much longer than the thigh, while the foot and toes looked… well, nauseating was perhaps the politest way of putting that mess.
The body was angled horizontally, like a birds, rather than vertically, and the general shape was almost right. The neck and head needed work though, as even though the nose and mouth had fused into a strange beak made of flesh and bone, the eyes were still human, and the bone structure was all wrong as well.
"If we focus on getting it right and dedicate all of our lesson time to it, probably a few days, maybe a week." Hinoe told him. He had some of the general things about the form right, going over the anatomy of one and how it differed from a human would probably clear up the rest of the issues.
"Can we?" He asked.
Hinoe snorted. "Sure, there's nothing else we need to really focus on right now after all."
xxxxx
Yugito Nii, Jinchuuriki of the Nibi, the two-tailed cat, laid on her bed and cried. She may be twenty years old, but it didn't matter how old someone was, sometimes you just needed to curl up and ignore the world for a day. Right now, her life felt really unfair, and so she was blocking out as much of it as she could.
It was said in the Elemental Nations that Kumo was the only village to honour their Jinchuuriki, that they were seen as heroes. That, while not being an outright lie, was not quite the truth either. Kumo was a much more military-focused village than the others, like Konoha was an economically-focused one.
This meant that power equalled prestige, at least to a certain degree. The power a jinchuuriki could bring to bear with their tailed beast lead them to be viewed with a certain amount of respect and awe, but as with all things, humans hated and feared what they did not understand, and what they did not like.
Many of the ninja, and most of the civilians, kept a 'respectful' distance from her. It didn't help that she was far more serious in demeanour than Killer B, the other jinchuuriki in Kumo, who acted like a complete fool. That such an 'act' was actually his true personality aside, it endeared him to people more than her own attitude did.
At twenty years old, Yugito had never had a boyfriend, and neither did she have very many people she could call friends. She wasn't alone by any means, truly she wasn't, but she was socially awkward, and much more comfortable during a mission than drinking with others in a bar.
She did make attempts at going out and socialising. In fact, she had made just such an attempt just a few days ago, where she had gone out and tried to talk with the other jounin ninja in the village. There were bars where such people frequented, and she knew them, so it was no surprise when she went to one and found a number of said ninja already a few saucers of sake into drinking the night away.
The problem was that some of them, perhaps a little more drunk than they really should have been, made a few choice comments that really upset her. It seemed that having a cat biju sealed inside of her made her the butt of all jokes involving cats and 'pussies'.
Their words hadn't been intended to be hurtful, but they were said so casually that it really struck her deep, especially when some of the drunker patrons of the bar had added in some… rather crude jokes as well, those had been really uncalled for, and the socially awkward girl had left in embarrassment and slight anger, her head hung low.
A tapping at her window made Yugito groan, but if it was a message hawk, she knew she couldn't ignore it. Maybe it was a new mission for her, something she could focus on and forget all about her problems for at least a short while. When she looked though, she was surprised to see that it wasn't a message hawk tapping on the window.
Instead, it was a different bird, slightly smaller and more stream-lined than the usual messenger birds. Well, that was if it was a bird at all, because it didn't quite look like one. Oh, it had the shape of a bird, but… it kind of looked like oil made solid, as it was completely black and smooth-looking.
It did have a letter though, and she could see her own name written neatly on the envelope. Still, she was suspicious of it, and so she created a fire clone that took the letter in her place and opened it. When it didn't immediately explode or do anything else, the clone handed the letter over to her before dispelling itself. Yugito proceeded to read the letter.
Dear Yugito Nii,
I know this letter is probably going to be a little weird, especially coming from someone you may not have even heard of before, so I apologise if this comes across as being a bit creepy. Anyway, I have some friends who send me letters, and one of them mentioned you, saying you looked really sad about something, and that you could use a friend.
Ah, I should also say that, while I'm not from Kumo myself, I do know that you're a jinchuuriki. I don't really know what that means in Kumo, but in case people don't like it there, let me just say that I don't particularly care either way, so… um, I'm rambling here. Anyway, yeah, you are you and that's that, right?
I don't know how a random letter can help you cheer up, but if you feel better, that's great! Oh! Also, if you want to send a letter back, the shiki I sent will wait around for a reply. You don't have to send a letter if you don't want to, but you can if you want. Hinoe is always telling me I need to meet more people, maybe you can be one of them.
So, if you want to talk about things… I guess I should probably start this off and introduce myself. My name is Naruto Uzumaki and I live in Fire Country. I'm an orphan, so I don't have parents, but I do have people who care about me. I really like Hinoe and Akiko-sensei, Benio, Ran, and loads of other people! I enjoy camping, and I learned how to make traps and stuff from books, so I can catch squirrels and rabbits to cook over a fire. I really like roasted squirrel by the way, it's my favourite thing to eat. I like learning about new things and meeting new people. I don't really like judgemental people and I'm not massively fond of chicken either. If I could chose my own future, I would like to be an explorer and see the world, and I'd love to investigate ruins too.
That's pretty much all I can think of right now. If you want to ask me something, I'll tell you what I can, okay?
Yours sincerely, Naruto Uzumaki
That was… odd. Yugito didn't think she'd ever received a letter like that before. In fact, the only letters she'd ever received had been summons to the Raikage's office regarding missions or something, so this was completely new. The fact that this apparently came from Fire Country as well meant the letter had been sent quite some distance too.
She tried to think if anything like this was in the Shinobi rules of Kumo, but she kept drawing a blank. The letter was from Fire Country, and that meant it might be from Konoha, so should she report it as someone nosing around for information about her village?
Well, it wasn't like the letter was asking anything about the ninja of the village or anything. Heck, it wasn't even asking her about her own ninja life, it was just… a friendly introduction really, with an offer of becoming letter friends, or something like that, and there wasn't any harm in that now, was there?
Without her paying much attention, her hand was already wandering over to her bedside table to grab a fresh piece of paper and a pen. Hesitantly, she began to write out a reply to this 'Naruto' person. She recognised the surname, Uzumaki, and in her letter she asked whether he was a ninja or not, and if he had any connection to the Uzumaki clan.
Once she'd finished her letter, she folded it up, sealed it, and handed it back to the… 'shiki' bird thing that had brought it. It grabbed hold of the letter and proceeded to fly away out of her window, and it was like that she stayed for a while, watching the strange thing leave.
A knock on her door made her jump slightly. Turning around and heading to the front door, after making sure she looked presentable to whoever her visitor was, she opened the door to see Killer B, her fellow jinchuuriki, standing out front. In his hand, she noted, he held a letter, and she wondered if it was anything like the one she had received.
"Yo! How's it flowing, Yugito?" B rapped, badly, in greeting to his fellow biju host.
"Hello, B, do you want to come in, or is there something that requires our attention?" Yugito responded.
"No need to flail, just something about the mail!" He told her.
"The mail?" Yugito asked. "So you got a letter too?"
"Yeah, a strange bird brought some stranger words." B nodded.
"I got one too." Yugito told him. "Did you reply to it?"
"Sure did, he sounds like a friendly kid." B replied.
"A kid? His handwriting was pretty neat, and he writes well. What makes you think he's a kid?" Yugito frowned.
"His mom is called Kushina, Kumo once tried to kidnap her." B told her. "That was only a few years ago, the kid can't be more than seven or eight at most, yo!"
"So Naruto is a Konoha ninja then?" Yugito pressed for more information.
"I don't think so, I could be wrong though." B shrugged.
"Should we report this to the Raikage then?" Yugito asked.
"Not really, his letters didn't ask for anything military." B answered her. "If they ever do, we can just say 'screw you'."
"I suppose." Yugito agreed. "It might be nice to just talk to someone... well, exchange letters with someone really, without all of the heavy stuff of being a ninja."
"That sounds divine." B nodded. "He might even hold mister nine!"
"Mister nine?" Yugito had to think about that one. "Wait, are you saying he's a jinchuuriki like us?"
B shrugged. "Kushina was the last host number nine had, though my theory isn't ironclad."
Yugito frowned. "I suppose having a jinchuuriki for a parent doesn't necessarily make him one, maybe one of us could ask him in a letter? That's assuming he sends one back to us of course."
"I asked him in my letter, so we'll soon know for worse or better!" B told her, his rhyming even more atrocious than usual there.
Her mind already mulling over the possibilities, Yugito bid farewell to B when he said his own 'unique' goodbye, and proceeded to shut the door.
When she got back to her bedroom, she closed the window, and got back onto her bed. Well, the letter had certainly gotten her mind off of her difficulties with socialising, but it had made her more confused than anything. How would a tree hugger kid find out about her, and why would he send a letter like that?
It didn't make any sense, but then again, real life rarely did. Ask any civilian how a ninja walked up walls, and only maybe one in a hundred would be able to tell you how it worked, the others would just say it was 'ninja magic' or something. Even with there being artefacts that belonged to the Sage of Six Paths around, his 'treasured tools', most of the world still thought of him as a fairy tale, and believed the tools were made by someone else closer to the modern day.
Perhaps she'd get some answers to her questions when next this 'Naruto' sent her a letter, or failing that, maybe she'd actually ask them herself when she sent a reply back. Either way, she would wait and see what happens, and make her mind up later.
xxxxx
Naruto yawned as Hinoe explained to him just why you couldn't turn a Fire Dart into a Fire Javelin. It all eventually boiled down to the size and stability of the technique though, so it was fairly simple to understand. Basically, the larger you made something, the harder it was to have it not collapse in on itself.
On the other hand, because the javelin still only had two points of focus, one at each end, it was quite possible for Naruto to make the technique a reality. However, before that, he had to do some more control exercises, both for shape manipulation and nature transformation.
For shape manipulation practice, he had to stabilise a perfect sphere of reiryoku, slowly enlarging it while maintaining its integrity. A sphere, only having a single point of focus right in the centre, was the simplest 3D geometric shape used in techniques. However, it was also rather inefficient as well, all of the power being focused in the centre rather than the outer edge.
For nature transformation practice, he was forced to go back to basics in order to understand exactly what 'fire' was. In terms of youkai techniques, it was 'heat' and 'light' combined, just like the wood element to ninjas was the combination of earth and water. In addition to that, there was the fire triangle, which consisted of fuel, which was his reiryoku, heat, which was provided as part of the technique, and oxygen to act as an oxidiser.
Only when Hinoe judged him ready would he merge the two aspects together to form a 'Fire Javelin/Spear/Lance/Staff' or whatever he made from it. Until then, he had to work hard to make a fireball as big as his fist and keep it steady and stable despite how 'free-willed' fire actually was.
On top of all of that, however, Naruto was kind of tired. Despite how fast his new bird shiki flew, which was faster than both regular birds and running ninja, sending messages was still not an instantaneous thing, and because of the way he had created these particular shikigami, they hadn't stopped bothering him until he read the replies that the other Jinchuuriki had written to him.
Three were missing though. He hadn't sent messages to Water Country, especially as he knew about the ongoing civil war that was tearing the country apart. That cut out two of the three, what with the Mizukage being a jinchuuriki, as well as someone named Utakata.
The third missing one was supposed to be for a kid named Gaara in Suna, a red-haired boy who was the same age as Naruto. That didn't surprise him much though, the boy was apparently psychotic from what little he knew. There was only a very small handful of Kappa in Wind Country, and they all lived around a hidden oasis close to the 'hidden' village, so there was only so much they could 'report' to him.
The responses he'd gotten from his initial letters had been, somewhat surprisingly, quite friendly. Fuu, from Taki, was a few years older than him and she had similar hobbies as well, which was pretty cool, and they'd begun talking about what they liked about camping and how they hunted or trapped food.
From Earth Country, he had replies from Han and Roshi, the jinchuuriki of the gobi and the yonbi respectively. Roshi called him a fool for writing such letters, and that he shouldn't have bothered, but that didn't stop him from replying regardless. Han was friendlier, though he did also express his surprise at receiving such a letter, and said he would be happy to continue such correspondence.
The last two letters were from Kumo, and were perhaps the most reserved and cautious of the lot. Well, one of them was at least, Killer B seemed quite happy to write to him, thankfully without any attempts at rap, which the kappa report said was supposed to be quite bad.
Yugito's letter, on the other hand, seemed far more carefully written. It wasn't unfriendly, but it looked like she'd gone over it several times just to make sure she didn't reveal anything compromising about her village, which kind of made sense, Naruto supposed. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting more than one or two responses, if he got any at all, so having all but one of those he'd sent letters to actually respond favourably was pretty awesome.
He'd continue sending letters for now, but who knows what might happen in the future. Heck, given how easily he could slip away from the village, he might even go and visit some of them during a school break or two. He'd have to be careful though and plan it in advance.
For now, he was content with what he had. The Hokage had wanted him to make friends, human friends, and while he had probably meant for him to find such friendship with the villagers in his own village, he had never specifically said he couldn't make friends with those outside of the village.
If he knew though, the Hokage would probably worry. After all, he seemed to care for Naruto to some degree, and if he found out that he was forming more ties with 'foreigners' than he was with those of Konoha… well, it probably wouldn't be something to cheer about.
To Naruto, it wasn't much of a problem. As it was, he didn't really have anything resembling loyalty to Konoha as a village. He was fond of Akiko-sensei and the Hokage, but that was it, and being friends with two people wasn't the same as being loyal to an entire village.
The only reason he was even going to become a shinobi of Konoha was because of how much trouble it would be if he tried to leave. They believed he was the jinchuuriki of the kyuubi after all, and that was simply too much power to be left wandering by itself. On top of that, Naruto might actually have some sort of link to a clan! While the Uzumaki clan wasn't officially recognised in Konoha, it was a clan, and along with a handful of others, they had formed a ninja village of their own.
"Are you even listening to me right now, Naruto?" Hinoe asked, interrupting Naruto's thoughts.
"Erm… yeah!" Naruto replied, trying to remember what it was Hinoe had just been talking about. "You were going on about… um… ah! You were saying that it's easier to make a sphere of energy if you spin it, because the rotation pulls it together and makes it easier to maintain the right shape!"
"Correct." Hinoe granted him that one. "The same is also true for something with two points of focus as well, and the spinning does give it some extra penetrative ability. However, anything with more points of focus than that is harder to control and tends to 'leak' a little of its shape out."
"Regular shapes are also easier to do, because it's all the same and you don't have to focus on different bits of it." Naruto continued. "Some other shapes are also relatively easy to form because of their uniform nature, or because of the way they are constructed. Such shapes include prisms, like a cylinder, and cones."
"Well done, that is exactly right." Hinoe told him. "However, the only way to actually create these shapes and hold them is to practise them, and practise them often. Now, I've kept you long enough, I believe two of your newest friends want to get started with you."
"Takame and Masami?" Naruto asked, referring to the two tsukumogami. "I was going to wait to practise with them until they'd gotten to know everyone properly. I don't want them to feel like I'm using them or anything like that, so I can wait a while."
"That's sweet of you, Naruto, but also unnecessary." Hinoe smiled. "They are tsukumogami, and their purpose is to be used as such. Just like beast type youkai have the instincts of animals and tend to reflect their habits, so too do all youkai, and you are disrespecting those two more by ignoring them than you would by wielding them."
"I didn't mean to do that, I'll go say sorry right now." Naruto scrambled to his feet, bid farewell to Hinoe, and then hurried off to apologise to the two girls he had recruited from Iron Country. Tsurara had kind of come along herself, so he didn't count her as 'recruited', and he hadn't actually seen her since she'd arrived.
When he'd asked about that, Tsuyukami had told him that she was doing something and that she'd be back once she'd finished it. Just what this 'it' was, no one had said, though he had been told that Tsurara would likely show him once she had completed it.
Anyway, for now he had to find Takame and Masami. That wasn't too difficult, as the two of them had struck up something of a friendship, or at least the beginnings of one, with Madara of all youkai. The lazy inugami seemed quite happy to chat with the two of them on whatever subject took their fancy, which was usually either sweets on Masami's part – Iron Country did have some rather unique frozen treats – or fights they'd gotten into in the past for Takame's part.
It didn't take him long to arrive at Madara's usual hangout, and he was right in thinking that was where he would find the two weapon tsukumogami, who were currently lounging around and chatting with the large, white dog-like youkai. They looked up when he came near.
"I'm sorry." Naruto immediately said. "I didn't mean to insult you or anything, but I didn't want you to think I was just using you or something, so I thought I'd give you time to get to know everyone around here."
"Told you." Madara snorted, looking at Takame. "The kid's no normal human, but he's not a youkai either, and he doesn't quite think like one. Give him time and he might, but for now he's stuck partway between mortal and otherwise."
"Fair enough, Lord Naruto, we should have said something." Takame said. "Now, are you ready to learn how to fight with me?"
"I am." Naruto nodded.
"Good." Takame said with a grin. "Now, let's start with what I am and how I am used. As a weapon, I take the form of a pair of tekko-kagi, metal claws. They're both an offensive and a defensive weapon. When used defensively, they protect the hands, allowing someone to defend themselves from an opponent holding a weapon. You understand that?"
"You're like a pair of armoured gloves." Naruto explained it in his own words. "So… you're good to use with taijutsu?"
"I suppose you could say that." Takame shrugged. "However, the strikes aren't normal ones. Because of my shape, you swipe at an opponent rather than punch them. Seeing as you're a ninja, poisoning my claws might be a good idea, that way you can make the best use of me, because even a scratch becomes potentially fatal."
"Because you're a 'hand' weapon, does that mean you know how to fight like a human does?" Naruto asked. "I mean, can you teach me hand to hand fighting as well?"
"No, I can't." Takame shook her head. "I can tell you where to hit someone to do the most damage, but most of the strikes, parries, and blocks I can teach you rely on my weapon form protecting your hands. After all, trying to block a sword with a bare fist isn't exactly a good idea."
"Okay, I guess that makes sense." Naruto admitted.
"Glad to hear it." Takame replied, settling into a fighting stance and having her weapon form appear over her own hands. "Now, are you ready? Let's see how much you can pick up when you're fighting against someone like me. Afterwards, we'll see how good you are when using me."
Naruto's eyes shot open in surprise at Takame's 'teaching' style, before he cringed inwardly.
He just knew this was going to hurt.