sorry if this story appears to be about Rikou, I just have a lot of ideas that only fit with his personality, I'll try and switch the focus to Rikou and Naruto, along with Hinata of course. NEXT CHAPTER!

The Fox, The Raven, and The Cat Raise Hell

ch 12 - Zangetsu

"okay guys, just be patient, this won't take very long if you're quiet. now, first, I have to get something for my students." Rikou said to Naruto and Hinata as he prepared to apply the soul engravings. he cut his thumb with zansatsu and made a few seals. "summoning jutsu!" one puff of smoke later, a 4-foot tall raven with 4 wings appeared. Rikou handed it a large pouch. "go to that weapons shop near wave and give the note in that bag to the owner, and wait until he gives you two swords.bring them back to me as soon as possible. if I'm training my students be sure to find my mother and give them to her." the raven flew away and Rikou went back to the soul engravings.

"wait, studentsss? I thought you were only training sasuke." Naruto said/asked.

"I am training sasuke but I am also training someone that I've known since a year before graduating from the academy." Rikou said as he finished about 1/5 of the soul engraving on Naruto's sword. "another Uchiha. if you paid attention, you would notice that I only call Fugaku Uchiha and the Uchiha council thieves. most Uchiha are like Sasuke is now. questioning the wisdom of Fugaku and their council. mostly our fault, but still, they're on the right track." thus far, Rikou had finished 3/10 of Naruto's soul engraving.

"he must show good potential for you to train him." Hinata said, making Rikou chuckle slightly.

"She, does show good potential." Rikou said with a chuckle as he reached the halfway point on Naruto's seal.

"a girl? an Uchiha girl, bread to do nothing but multiply the number of Uchihas alive, showed enough potential for you to train her while you were still on that, 'all Uchihas must die' kick?" Naruto asked with a quirked brow as Rikou passed 3/4 of the way done with the engraving. Rikou gave nod and Naruto just looked at Hinata with a dumb-founded look.

"it's like our philosophy, born from a queen or an impoverished mother, belief can make you strong. she once told me something, she said, 'I have grown up being taught that if I ever want to be even a lowly genin, I must always fight like an Uchiha. I want to be strong enough to bring Fugaku Uchiha, Sharingan full in his eyes, to his knees, using pure skill. I live by the saying, strength is worthless, if you can't hit your opponent.' those were the words that she said to me when I met her. so you want to know how I met her?" Rikou asked as he finished Naruto's soul engraving. Naruto and Hinata nodded and Rikou continued. "I saved her from a group of male Uchiha jounin preparing to rape her. she was ready to become my slave, but all I asked was to know what she wanted to do with her life. she told me the earlier statement, and I decided to train her in speed and style, that can only be taught. it goes against human nature to fight this way, therefore, an Uchiha nobleman would never fight this way, much less the clan head. what you do, is you run around the opponent quickly, and you move in, and attack with palm strikes for the opening combo, this is in order to steer the opponent into thinking you are going to be fighting hit-and-run, but in actuality, you are going to be fighting with speed and momentum. after the opening attack, you wait for the opponent to come at you, while you wait in a loose stance. once they attack you, you use pure speed to vanish and reappear behind them, and you punch them in the muscles below the shoulder blades, before they can notice that you're gone. next you run around them so fast that they can't see you in a circle, which will create a vortex that will suck out all the oxygen within the circle, suffocting your opponent, transforming speed into a lethal weapon. after roughly ten seconds, your opponent should start to panic and attack you, but if you're going fast enough to create the vortex, you should be everywhere in the circle within the time-span of a single nanosecond. when they attack you, beat back with one punch, which given the momentum gained from your speed, will knock them back into a different edge of the circle, and you begin playing pinball. you can keep it up until they are knocked out, or dead, but once you form the vortex, their fate is yours to decide, because if you try to jump out, you must jump with a force at least 1,000 times stronger than you would need to jump to a building normally, in order to simply jump 1' into the air, here you go Hinata (he just finished her soul engraving), because you would need to exceed the gravitational force created from the vortex, which would be incredibly powerful. I plan on making this girl a taijutsu master, and if anyone else will come to me with the right beliefs, I shall train them to be just the same, a taijutsu master."

knock, knock, knock

"come on in!" Akane shouted from upstairs, the door opening up. an ANBU wearing a shark mask entered and went into the living room where Naruto, Hinata, and Rikou were talking.

"alright brats, I'm going to be the leader of the little kenjutsu squad that old man Sarutobi put together, so you'll be adressing me as Shark while on missions, but elsewhere," 'Shark' said, looking at the skeptical (Naruto), amused (Hinata), and bored (Rikou), expressions on the faces of the 3 teens, "you'll be callin' me Kisame." he said removing his mask revealing the ever-present toothy grin of said shark-man. all the expressions switched to excited (Naruto), Happy (Hinata), and less bored (Rikou).

"they made you ANBU? nice!" Naruto said as he picked up his sword and showed Kisame the engraving. "Rikou just finished putting it on, any guesses on what it'll be?"

"well, if I've gotten to know you over the past two days, either it will be a sword designed to keep the opponent guessing, or one designed to be good for defending your friends, because those are your most distinctive features, unpredictability, and a strong will to protect your friends." Kisame said as no one could disagree with his statement.

"what about mine Kisame, mine has one too." Hinata said showing Kisame. he looked her carefully in the eyes and came to a conclusion.

"I know exactly what this one will be, it is going to be an elegant blade that can easily cut through any non-soul engraved weapon, or substance for that matter, with its deadly efficiency hidden as something relatively harmless. after all, you can cut through any jutsu with jyuuken, and you appear to be a weakling, yet you coul kill a kage all on your own." Kisame said, Hinata smiling modestly. the sound of a raven's screech filled the house and Rikou let his earlier sent-off carrier raven in through the window.

"good job girl, when you get home tell steel I said to give you a break okay?" Rikou said taking the swords and change from the happily screeching raven which vanished a second later in a puff of smoke. Rikou began to put new soul engravings on the swords and soon he, Naruto, and Hinata were on their way to the Uchiha district to deliver the swords to their recipients.

"hey, Rikou, since your students weren't there to claim there swords when the engravings were added, won't the swords technically be owned by you?" Naruto asked, worried about going out for nothing.

"nope, you probably noticed that it took longer to apply the engravings than normal, well, that's because I added two. a soul engraving and a nullify engraving. the nullify engraving, as implied, nullifies all engravings on the sword until an X is carved over it. I will do so once they are in the hands of their intended owners." Rikou explained as they reached the gates leading into the Uchiha district. there weren't any guards, so they just headed on inside and headed towards the main compound. every single person that saw them stared at them hatefully. it messed with Hinata a little, but it was nothing that Rikou and Naruto weren't used to. if something like this freaked them out, the village would be gone in an hour or so. they continued on towards the main house and when they got there they found a large number of Uchihas blocking the doors, staring hatefully at the group. "stand aside weaklings, I am here to deliver one of my swords to a student of mine who lives here." Rikou said, the group glaring at him even more.

"you are not welcome here, you, who would give our great bloodline and give it to that scum hatake." the apparent leader of the group said spitefully. Naruto decided to step in for some long overdue stress removal, what with Rikou doing all the fighting.

"if I remember correctly, you took a mutation, and called it the best thing ever because it, 'couldn't be beaten'. well, Itachi had acquired the final and most powerful form of the sharingan, and you know what, a few six-year olds, with no sharingan, killed him without using so much as a single jutsu, while we exhausted every jutsu in Itachi's arsenal. you took the sharingan for granted, and if Rikou's mother hadn't transferred the power to Kakashi-sensei, my predecessor would've had me get rid of it, permanently." Naruto said, causing the Uchihas to all switch from glares to fear. they had forgotten that the being that changed the byakugan into the sharingan resided within the boy before them, as well as the common knowledge of the boy's attainment of 2/3 of said being's power. the group soon regained their composure however.

"except, now, you don't have an ace in the hole, you wish to be Hokage, and now all you can do is kill us, but that would hurt the village, and you love this village more than your life if you would work so hard at becoming Hokage. however, we can fight you down, and take your chakra out through a seal, you are not fully demon yet, therefore, you can be imprisoned in a necklace, and we can use that necklace to forge a sharingan that can copy bloodlines and fuse them together!" the leader said, charging Naruto, the group following. they would have continued moving forward had Rikou not appeared before them bearing zansatsu in a stance before they could move two feet forward.

"you will listen, and listen well, this sword of mine is known as Zansatsu, it was originally a zanbatou, but I added a soul engraving to it. I am one of the few living beings that can apply soul engravings, and I came here to give Sasuke and Rena Uchiha each a blade with a soul engraving." Rikou said, the looks on the Uchihas faces becoming arrogant.

"so you came here to give 2 loyal Uchihas swords as powerful and rare as the one you're holding?" the leader asked even more arrogantly than he looked.

"yes, but be warned, they may serve your clan, but here is the current order of things, they are loyal to me first, and you second, because unlike you, I don't honestly have a problem with removing their limbs over and over again in their dreams. that simple fear will keep them in line, the fear of me, an immortal torture artist, making sure that they never want to sleep again." Rikou said, returning zansatsu to his back. "and their is the fact that they are my students, and as loyal to the Hokage as I am. if I went to the hokage and told him that you got in th way of me teaching my students, what do you think he might do? I can guarantee that unless you're a jounin or ANBU agent, that I can personally demote or fire you. come on guys, they don't let us through, then Zansatsu can have a little battle time." this made the group back off and let them through, but the leader was fuming. as Naruto and the other 2 were about to enter, the leader stabbed naruto in the heart, which until his 14th birthday, would remain, mortal. Naruto screamed out in pain, the leader gaining a smug grin. Naruto was angry, but refused to kill the man in his final breaths.

'I'll die loyal to konoha, as the fourth did.' Naruto thought to himself, looking down to avoid whatever look might've been on Hinata's face. what he saw was out of the corner of his eye, gray grass. he looked up, and saw everything as it had been before he thought his 'last' thoughts. only it was gray and unmoving, no sound at all. until he heard footsteps. apart from the color of everything, he saw what Rikou had described just the other day. he turned and saw a man in his forties wearing a black jacket with a red interior that reached to his calves walking towards him. he was wearing yellow sunglasses and he had some facial hair but it wasn't quite a beard.

"you are loyal to your home, but it is not yet time for you to die." the man said as naruto found himself standing on the side of a blue building without his wounds, gravity seeming to hold him to the side of the building he stood upon. the man's cloak seemed to blow around in a non-existent wind. Naruto looked around and saw that there were white boxes everywhere. "you must find which box holds your sword, and if you find it, I will give you my name, and sustain your wound long enough for your predecessor to heal it."

"you know about Kurui?" Naruto asked, the man nodding.

"within one of these boxes, lies your dormant powers as a soul reaper. your friend's powers have manifested as the blade known as Zansatsu, in here, yours will manifest as the handle to your sword, hidden within one of these boxes, your sense of smell will do no good here, so you must rely on your own wisdom. only one of these boxes holds your powers, you must figure out which it is." the man said to Naruto, said blonde thinking of a way to discover which it is. then he remember what he said.

'only one holds my powers, so, if I focus on what I sense coming from them, then all I really have to do is find out which box feels different than the others.' Naruto thought to himself as he began to focus. he felt that they all held a different piece of his soul, a different emotion. he remembered what Kisame said, "those are your 2 most distinctive features, your unpredictability, and your strong will to protect your friends." he began to search for which box held the desire to protect his friends, as he was certain that this man was not a manifestation of unpredictability, he was a strong man ready to defend anyone he had to. he found that he felt two boxes with a desire to protect his friends.

"you are running out of time, as long as you are here, your wound will not heal, you must hurry if you wish to live." the man said, causing naruto to focus on one of the boxes. he felt the urge to kill the man that had stabbed him to keep him from harming his friends, but he then remembered what that man had said. "now, you would have to kill us, but the yould hurt the village, and you love this village more than your life". he would never kill the man when he could merely keep him away from his friends. so he opened the other box, and there he saw the handle to his sword. he took it out and showed it to the man before him. "very good, you have chosen correctly, and as such, I will tell you my name. I am known as Zangetsu (cutting moon), use me as you will, simply remember, that with Kurui and I, you are never alone."

Resume Time

"Naruto!" Rikou shouted as he noticed the wound the blonde had just suffered. Hinata looked and shrieked in horror. Rikou turned to the man that had stabbed him and used a technique that he had created from his youki and killing intent. "you bastard, you will feel true fear, KIKUGAN! (FEAR EYE!)" Rikou's normally silver eyes turned as yellow as Zansatsu's, only the black pupil in the center was surrounded by three swirls. each swirl was evenly spaced around the pupil, and went 1/2 the way towards the pupil, and 1/3 to the side, before swirling in the opposite direction towards the pupil, making a formation that looked like three fangs in a spiral overlapping each other. he looked the man straight in the eye and what the man saw next was Rikou charging at him, ripping his limbs off. the man thought it was genjutsu, until he felt the pain of it happening. he screamed in agony and pleaded for Rikou to stop, but his pleas went un-followed. what had really happened was that the high concentration of killing intent, molded with youki created a bloodline that creates pure fear, concentrates it in the eye, and any poor soul that looks into it falls into their worst fears, and stays their until Rikou breaks eye contact with the victim. "you shouldn't have been so arrogant, you poor pathetic bastard." Hinata was crying her heart out, but nearly had a heart attack when Naruto started talking.

"where is he?" Naruto asked as he looked up at Hinata. "oh my god, Hinata, are you alright? I'm sorry if I worried you, please, don't cry, I'm not going to die yet." Naruto said pulling the knife from his back. he looked at Rikou who was glaring into his would-be assailant's eyes. he then realized that Rikou's eyes were different and that the man was terrified. "Rikou, what's up with your eyes?"

"Naruto?" Rikou asked, breaking eye contact with the man, bringing him out of his nightmare. "heh, figures, I unveil my new bloodline in order to get revenge for your death and you manage to get around it, I should've guessed." Rikou said letting his eyes return to normal. the man stood up shaking and glared at Naruto, Hinata, and Rikou.

"y-y-you won't get away with this! you! U-Uzumaki! I challenge you to a kenjutsu match! winner gets your sword! loser commits suicide!" the man said, Rikou thinking Naruto should decline.

"deal." Naruto said, making Rikou look at him like he was stupid.

"Naruto, you do know that this guy is Ryoshi Uchiha, the cough former cough best swordsman in konoha?" Rikou asked.

"I don't care, I'll beat him with nothing but the sword on my back!" Naruto said with a smirk, as Ryoshi walked away.

"Naruto, I know that it's only human to be confident when you've survived a fatal wound but, it's not smart to rely on cheating death, that only ever works once. you only said that you would only use the sword on your back, but he didn't say that he wouldn't use ninjutsu, and he's too arrogant to let himself be beat just because you can live through three times as much blood loss as he can, you can't win alone." Rikou advised, causing Naruto to give his fox-like grin.

"no, I can't, but no one said that I'm fighting alone." Naruto said, making Rikou give him an inquisitive look.

"you mean you learned your-

"exactly, and he says, as long as I hold this blade, I will never fight alone."