Hello, everyone, here's the newest chapter of the "The demon and the ghost" story. Enjoy!
* Review response:
eclipseX, nobother, fanficreader71, doragonclaw, Sephiroth owns u all, Hanzo of the Salamander, Reishin Amara, The Souless Void, thank you, folks!
ChaosLord SilverLink310, good ol' Jiraya appears in this chapter, and - hopefully - in an original way. Kakashi, though, doesn't appear at all. He's too lazy... =)
aWhiteAnimeKid, yeah, custom fights forever!
Naginator, right now I'm planning to 'tell' Naruto and Sachiko that they are twins in the last chapter. But that may change.
Hakkyou no Yami, it will be original, but interesting? not sure.
Still Not Dead Yet, Elemental Dragon Swordman, I decided to ridicule Sakura a bit. God know, she needs to quit being fangirl. Or at very least to start training instead of fawning over Sasuke all the time.
* Jutsu list:
Shunshin - (D-rank) Body flicker - 'teleportation' jutsu.
Kawarimi - (E-rank) Change of body stance - substitutes user with nearby object or person.
Douka: ranji shigumi (Sachiko) & Ranji shigumi (Ino) - (C-rank) Assimilated: Wild lion's mane - Jutsu based on Jiraya's Ranji shigumo technique. Allows user to have control over his/her hair and used it to bind the target if it is close enough. This jutsu lacks the ability to crash the captured target Jiraya's version possesses, but still can pull and throw the target. Sachiko adds 'Assimilated' when using this jutsu to show that she wasn't original creator. Ino does not.
Doton: doryuusou - (C-rank) Earth style: earthen rising spears - Creates rock spears rising from the ground.
Chouju giga - (B-rank) Super beast imitation drawing - allows to animate ink drawings.
Jinton: nijuuryuu funkei no seme - (bloodline jutsu) Dust style: twin dragon decapitating strike - Two dust dragons simultaneously attack the target from two directions. Usually used when the target is in the air and has less chances of dodging.
Special thanks to "Army of lovers" band for providing me with oh so needed inspiration.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Naruto" in any shape or form.
"speaking"
'thinking'
"speaking of higher beings / Naruto while using yoki / jutsus / Iruka's 'demon head' speaking"
'thinking of higher beings'
chapter 10: One month
Seeing that his whole team passed the preliminaries, Iruka decided to give them a day off, before starting training them for the finals of the chuunin exam. Of course, this didn't mean that either of the three genins would not train by themselves... Naruto and Sachiko were walking towards 'their' training ground through the streets of Konoha, when Ino approached them.
"Hello. Um... Are you going to train? C-Can I come with you?" The platinum-blond kunoichi asked unusually shy for her. Seeing as Naruto and Sachiko didn't plan to work on anything really secret right now, they saw no reason to say 'no', especially if she'd join them.
"Yeah, sure, let's go, Ino-chan." The white-haired girl said, smiling lightly... Twenty minutes later the trio of genins arrived to the one of less used training ground behind the Hokage monument.
"O-OK..." Naruto said, not really sure how to proceed with their training with Ino joining them. "Light spar, Sachiko-chan? Nothing above C-rank." He asked. The whitehead nodded, while Ino stared at them in a bit of a shock: her father promised to teach her a B-rank clan technique – the first to be in her repertoire – for the finals; and these two were limiting themselves to C and lower ranks...
"That's a light spar?" The platinum-blond kunoichi shouted. The other two genins nodded.
"Um, yeah." Naruto said, smiling sheepishly. "We both have big... OK, huge, chakra reserves naturally, plus we trained everyday since before we were eight..." Ino blushed a bit, remembering that she was spending her days trying to impress Sasuke with her beauty at that time... "And most of our more destructive techniques are B-ranks or higher." He commented.
"So, are you joining, Ino-chan?" Sachiko asked. The girl shook her head.
"No... I think, I will just watch you two for now..." The Kyuubi jinchuuriki nodded.
"OK then, let's begin, Sachiko-chan." The blond shinobi said, before jumping backwards to put some distance between himself and his sparring partner. Ino prepared to watch them, or to be more precise, Sachiko. She wanted to see what a 'real' kunoichi could do. Sure, she could watch Kurenai or Anko or any female jounin, but chances that they would allow her to watch them were non-existent... Also, Yamanaka clan was a clan of ninja who specialized in support, usually interrogating, healing, genjutsu or traps, though, every other generation there was born someone with ability to command plants – not like Shodai-sama, who could grow forest with just one jutsu, no, more like controlling existing plants to some degree. Because of this, Ino envisioned ninja battles to mostly be the exchange of ninjutsu and genjutsu, but she was clever enough not to think that taijutsu was something she won't need...
The two members of the team five stood across from each other, waiting for some signal to start their spar. The wind blew, launching some fallen leaves into the air, and, the white-haired kunoichi charged towards Naruto, who immediately switched to defensive... Once Sachiko had him within her reach, the girl tried to kick his head with her leg, making him block – the mistake he did way too often, considering how much they sparred. Using her chakra, the white-haired girl turned his hand into a pivot for herself and spun around the axis going through her outstretched leg, aiming for the heel drop to his head. Seeing this, Naruto made a powerful burst of chakra, destroying her "hold" onto him, and tried to punch her midsection. Only for Sachiko to substitute herself with a nearby stone. As the stone was falling onto the ground, she reappeared in a crouching position next to him with another kawarimi. Wasting no time, she did a stand on her left hand and tried to hit her boyfriend's knees with her foot, while secretly doing a short sequence of one-handed handseals.
'Douka: ranji shigumi' With this technique, her mid-back long hair extended and wrapped around Naruto's ankles, before pulling back. This, combined with her kick, made the Kyuubi jinchuuriki lose his balance and start falling backwards. Canceling the jutsu, the whitehead rolled forward, trying to do a heel drop onto her sparring partner's upper body, but he escaped with kawarimi, actually using the very same stone Sachiko used moments before. As soon as he was back to standing solidly on his two feet, Naruto slammed his hands onto the ground.
"Doton: doryuusou!" a rock spear rose, as of trying to stab Sachiko who was still recovering from her last attempt to hit him – of course, he'd never hurt her for real, but... The white-haired kunoichi, once again using kawarimi, appeared next to him and started a roundhouse kick towards his midsection, which he tried to lean away from. But moment later Sachiko switched their position and, because of his momentum, Naruto got hit by the continuation of her kick. And without his 'stone skin' he was easily sent onto the ground. Before the whitehead could make use of her advantage, the blond jinchuuriki kawarimi'ed away from her. The moment he was at his new location, he threw several shuriken, which were either dodged or skillfully deflected by Sachiko's stilettos...
"Fuuton: daitoppa!" The white-haired kunoichi send a powerful gust of wind towards Naruto, who simply moved out of the jutsu's path.
"Quite a fight, impressive, isn't it?" A male voice suddenly said behind the platinum-blond girl.
"GAH!" Ino screamed in surprise, almost jumping out of her skin. Turning around, she saw large man with long spiky white hair, dressed in muddy-green pants and jacked with dark-red waistcoat over it. The man also had a red line going down from each of his eyes. This mas was Jiraya the sannin, casually sitting on a bull-sized orange with blue markings toad.
"I'll have to admit, they are more skilled than Tsunade and I were at their age..." The gama sennin made a small pause. "...And the girl – Sachiko, right? – is much better developed than Tsu-hime was... I wonder, how she is under those..." Suddenly a kunai was thrown towards the self-proclaimed super-pervert. The man, though, just casually knocked it away with his chakra-hardened finger nail.
"Blondie, don't you know who I am?" Jiraya shouted to Naruto, who was trying to glare at him while keeping up with Sachiko.
"I don't care. You are trying to hit on my girlfriend, old pervert!" The Kyuubi jinchuuriki shouted back.
"Protective much... Though, if I had such a girlfriend..." The toad sage muttered under his breath, as he continued watching the duo spar... Finally, about fifteen minutes later, the spar ended with Sachiko throwing her boyfriend onto the ground with a well-calculated moderately powerful wind jutsu and then placing a stiletto at his neck before he could recover. Jiraya clapped. "Impressive. Very impressive, indeed." Naruto and Sachiko looked at the sannin, surprised a bit. "You know what, I might be willing to teach you a thing or two." Two members of the team five looked at each other for a couple of seconds, before turning back to the toad sage.
"If Iruka-sensei approves and under the condition that you will at least try to do something to help Sai too." The white-haired sannin took a thinking pose, complete with his finger tapping his chin. Normally he would just tell them off for these conditions, but they were looking out for their teammate, which was really important, and he felt like he must do something for Naruto – after all, he had done nothing for his godson in the past thirteen years, besides providing info for Konoha to continue existing.
"Fine. But that Sai boy will have to impress me too at least a little." The duo nodded, but then Sachiko noticed how down Ino was looking.
"How about I show you that hair jutsu?" She asked. "Yours is a little too soft, but it should still work." The platinum-blond eagerly nodded. "Under the condition that you will not teach it to anyone else." Ino nodded again. "Well then, how about lunch?"
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Iruka was no fool to miss a chance of his genin being taught by one of the sannin, even for a little bit. He himself might pick a thing or two from one of the most powerful ninja of Konoha. So, on the third day since Naruto's and Sachiko's spar – they couldn't find Jiraya before – team five entered the training ground where the toad sage was waiting for them.
"First of all, as I said, Sai has to impress me, or I will not teach you. Any of you – you yourselves made the deal like this." The sannin announced. The pale boy just nodded while his teammates groaned at how the old man had caught them with his words. Iruka remained impassive, not knowing all the details about the situation. "All you have to do, is land one..." Jiraya said, showing his index finger to Sai – and everyone else. "...One hit on me. You have fifteen minutes." The boy nodded again and unrolled his scroll, preparing for the fight...
Of course, Jiraya was holding back in this fight. A lot. But still, for the first thirteen minutes none of the ink-user's attacks had even connected with him. But then, a well hidden ink snake managed to wrap itself around sannin's legs. Of course, it was destroyed a moment later, but the white-haired man counted this as one hit and declared that he 'was impressed' by Sai's performance.
"OK... As I'm the man of my word, I will teach you three one jutsu each." Genins nodded. "Let's start, Sai, what would you like to learn?" The pale boy though for a moment, before answering:
"As you have seen, Jiraya-sama, the main weakness of my jutsu is that the beasts revert back to ink after taking a single hit. I also know the basics of fuyunjutsu, and can create an explosive tag. Thus, I was thinking of combining my beasts with explosive tag, so that they will explode when destroyed or upon my command." Sai said.
"Good idea." the sannin commented. "But it is not easy to do that. I might be able to draw a basic scheme and the chart for the jutsu combination, but it will take a day or two and you will have have to do the rest." The ink-user nodded.
"Thank you, Jiraya-sama." The sannin nodded and than looked at Sachiko.
"Do you know anything about jinton jutsus, Jiraya-sama?" She asked. The white-haired self-proclaimed super-pervert nodded.
"While jinton is presumed to be a bloodline element, and I'm unable to use it, during the Third Great shinobi war I had ran into Tsuchikage and his troop, and was able to memorize a sequence for one of his jinton techniques before having to flee. That technique was nijuuryuu funkei no seme, the twin dragon decapitating strike." Seeing the light in the girl's eyes, Jiraya hastily continued. "I will show you the sequence when I know what Naruto wants." Sachiko sighed, but nodded. The Kyuubi jinchuuriki took it that it was his turn to speak.
"I don't want any jutsu. I want you to modify the seal,..." Before he had finished, Jiraya interrupted him.
"You want me to tamper the seal? Are you sure the Kyuubi isn't influencing you?" Naruto sent the sannin a glare.
"I would have explained, had you not interrupted me, Juraya-sama." The white-haired man had the decency to look abashed. "Anyway, I will answer you questions starting with the second one. No. Kyuubi isn't influencing me. So far I have seen it only as a shape-less mass yoki with no apparent intelligence or even true conscious. I believe that whatever Yondaime-sama did when sealing it away, it had taken Kyuubi's soul away from the yoki that made up beast's body." The blond explained.
"So, it looks like sensei was right in his theory about the bijuu: they are semi-conscious yoki that parasitize on other souls to anchor to this plane of existence and build their own conscious. Take away that soul and they will be reduced to what you described and will eventually fade away if they are no sealed. And since Yondaime's seal prevents the yoki from parasitizing on your mind and soul, the Kyuubi remains as just a mass of yoki." The sannin said. Naruto nodded and continued.
"What I want, is to have the seal reinforced, so that it takes less damage when I'm using yoki. I will openly admit that I hate it, as I'm not completely myself when using yoki, I'm more feral and much easier to influence. But yoki gives power which might be needed to save my team or the village one day. And when that day comes, I want the process of using yoki to be as safe for both me and those whom I am protecting, as possible." The blond jinchuuriki said. The sannin nodded to himself.
"Your request if by far the hardest, as the seal that hold the Kyuubi in you is one of the most complex seals in the history, but I will do what I can. But don't expect any results for at least a week. This would be the smallest amount of time I will need to think of a safe way to modify the seal." Naruto nodded.
"This is acceptable."
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Jiraya, despite being a pervert... super-pervert, truly was a man of his word, and he showed Sachiko the handseal sequence for the Tsuchikage's jutsu, while explaining what it looked like. That was all that he could do. A day later he dropped by during team's draining and gave Sai the scroll with his ideas on merging chouju giga with the explosive tag sealing array. And by the time Jiraya finished the plan for the modification of Naruto's seal – ten days later – the pale boy was doing some progress with his new jutsu. Sure, it still was far from being combat-ready, but...
That evening the white-haired sannin with the assistance of Sandaime Hokage himself applied the modifications to Naruto's seal. The process, though, was quite painful and taxing for the jinchuuriki and landed him for the whole two days into the hospital. During this time, his girlfriend pretty much refused to stay away from him, and only hospital rules prevented her form being next to him all the time...
Once the Kyuubi jinchuuriki was awake – and done with 'paying' Sachiko 'for making her worry' – Jiraya decided to stick around and help the blond to get at least a little better control over the Kyuubi's yoki. Thinking about yoki as just a more potent chakra, the toad sage had Naruto try adjusting all of his techniques to the new levels of power... But when the blond shinobi started performing his earth-style jutsus, everyone present – he himself, Sachiko, Jiraya and Iruka – were very surprised with the result. And decided to develop this new ability, while keeping it a secret. For now.
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On the last weekend before the finals, Sachiko had a friendly spar with Ino, mostly to see how well the platinum-blond 'developed' the jutsu the whitehead gave her pointer to. No, Sachiko didn't show how to do the douka: ranji shigumi technique, instead she gave Ino the theory behind how it works and left the girl to recreate the jutsu on her own, saying that the real ninja must be able to this. And as Ino was working towards being the real kunoichi, she accepted the 'challenge'... Naruto just tagged along with them as Jiraya gave him a day off from his training. The blond jinchuuriki had a suspicion that the white-haired pervert of the sannin was around the area too, spying on the fight in hopes of girls will rip each others' clothes...
"So, are you two ready?" Naruto asked, standing between two girls. His girlfriend was in her usual taijutsu stance, while her platinum-blond opponent was using a modification of the academy taijutsu stance. When they nodded, he wagged his hand. "Hajime!" And then he shunshin'ed to the edge of the clearing.
Sachiko didn't waste any time and charged towards her opponent in a zigzag pattern, before lashing out a fast strike towards Ino's midsection. The platinum-blond girl evaded the attack, even if barely, though it still was an accomplishment, despite Sachiko using barely thirty percent of her taijutsu skills... Not giving her opponent more than a moment to recover from her first strike, the white-haired kunoichi went for a roundhouse kick towards other girl's head and was – pleasantly – surprised when Ino switched their places with kawarimi, while trying to land a hit on her back. Sachiko dodged the punch quite easily by doing a stand on her hands and, using her momentum, tried to land a kick onto the platinum-blond girl. Ino tried to duck under the kick, but wasn't fast enough to dodge it completely.
"Ranji shigumi!" She said the moment white-haired girl's foot connected with her shoulder. Her long hair turned 'alive' and quickly wrapped around Sachiko's foot, pulling her along with Ino onto the ground. That was at least until the whitehead substituted herself with a rock.
"Nice trick. I see you made quite a progress on this technique, Ino-chan." Sachiko commented as she waited for her sparring partner to stand up. "Would have worked on pretty much any genin." The platinum-blond kunoichi beamed with pride for her accomplishment. "Now..." Sachiko moved faster than any time before in this spar, appearing in form of Ino less than two seconds later. "...Let's take this to the next level..." Ino gulped. Now she was sure she would lose. But she still decided to continue fighting, if only to see where her limit now was...
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Finally, the day of the finals of the chuunin exams came... Konoha was full with the guests who came to see finalists fight each other. A lot of them, of course, came to see the last Uchiha and the youngest son of the Kazekage, but many were also interested in seeing team five's or Hinata's fights...
Team five was escorted to the stadium by their sensei, mostly to help them with getting through the crowds. Even if they arrived fifteen minutes before the even would start, they were the last, save for the Uchiha, to enter the chamber where contestants had to wait for being called on to the arena. Exactly at noon, a senbon-chewing jounin with bandana on his head announced:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to see you here, at Konohagakure no Sato, today, at the finals of the chuunin exams. Now let's meet those who passed all the trials of this exam and are here to show you what they can! Meet the finalists of the chuunin exam!" The jounin – new proctor, most genin assumed – announced, and the eleven genin walked on to the arena, as the crowds cheered for them.
That's all, folks! Leave me a review!