Chapter 3 – Lesson 1: The Ritual

See disclaimer on prologue

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" " – human speech/writing

' ' – human thought

' ' – demon thought

" " – demon speech

After it had left Naruto in the library, Obscuro melted into the shadows and started to head for the village. In order for it to successfully teach the boy, it would need to acquire more resources. That meant acquiring a new book or two, some ingredients, clothes, food for a time of need, weapons and other assorted items. But what it was really searching for was information. What kind of information? The lists of ninja patrols to the house (for security reasons), any dirty secret lurking about (blackmail and the need to know) and what was the village's reaction to Naruto not appearing, more specifically, the higher echelon's reaction (again, security reasons).

Obscuro reached the village in a matter of seconds and began first liberating some stores of their merchandise. First off was the food store. Using its powers, it began plucking various foodstuffs and other ingredients that it would need for the boy's lessons from the back of the shelves in order not to arouse suspicion. After it had taken its full, Obscuro moved to a hardware store and a writing store to acquire more materials via the same method. For a human, this would've taken more than an hour, but due Obscuro's shadow powers the acquisition of the items took shorter time. Best of all, it didn't even need to pay or stand in line for the items. Foolish human concepts.

After it had acquired two sets of clothes and weapons, primarily kunais and other small arms, Obscuro decided to start digging for information. It then slithered off to three places: the Hokage's office, the supposed council chamber and the masked ninja's headquarters. Being around the village for a good number of years meant that it knew where practically every single important location and hideout was. When it arrived at said places, Obscuro retreated to a hidden corner and got to work.

While it couldn't actually be in multiple places at once, Obscuro could use the shadows of desired locations to stretch his consciousness and interact with them like it would if it was actually there. So, it used said power to extend its senses and influence over to the three locations. Since it perceived the world in a different manner than humans, it had no trouble interacting with those three places at once.

Obscuro stole the schedule for the masked ninjas' (ANBU they were called it seems) patrols, and it saw what times a group would come to watch over the area of the house, around 1 to 3 PM. It would have to work around that. It didn't notice anything of importance in the Hokage's office, as it was empty. The council chamber though, was a little more interesting.

There was a meeting in session, and it seemed as though Naruto was about to be mentioned. While right now the humans were discussing trivial matters, Obscuro concluded that based on the villagers' hatred for the boy – regarding him as unimportant or a bane to all existence - and the Hokage's sense of protectiveness towards him, mentioning the boy would be the last thing that would occur on this meeting. So, it listened in and waited.

There was a general nod and murmur of agreement over some matter – again, unimportant – and the Hokage made to dismiss the meeting before a bandaged human with a cane spoke up. "Hiruzen, is it true that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki is missing?" a hush fell over the chambers before a councilman spoke up "If he is, what of it? If the brat is gone, it can go die in a –" a glare from the Hokage shut him up. "That was uncalled for. As for your question Danzo, no, Naruto isn't missing. I know exactly where he is, and he will remain there. NO, I will not turn him over to you and ROOT. End. Of. Story." This was accompanied by a pulse of killing intent that made the other councilmembers shiver. Unseen to anyone but Obscuro, Danzo frowned and said "Fine, but where is he exactly?" The Hokage paused to think before replying "he is in a house in the village area". Before another councilman made a move to speak the Hokage butted in "it is isolated and away from the residential areas. He won't 'bother' you if that's what you're thinking". A narrowing of Danzo's uninjured eye told Obscuro that he still wasn't satisfied, but it lasted for only a millisecond. The Hokage turned to the councilmembers and said "no more. This meeting is adjourned". With those words the members stood, bowed, and started to leave.

With this, Obscuro withdrew its consciousness back to the dark alley. While to a normal human this meeting wouldn't have told much, it did tell one thing to Obscuro; this Danzo was going to try and find out where the house was, and he would probably succeed. Well, it looks like it would have to prepare some additional security.

Obscuro started to slither towards the house when he took notice of a building that it had passed by; the Ninja Academy. A place where young humans train to become ninjas. At the sight of this building, Obscuro paused and took some time to ask himself: should Naruto enter the academy? It was already going to teach him and judging from the rest of the village, the instructors might sabotage him or just hinder him. On the other hand, the Hokage might push for Naruto to enter when he is of age, and having him enter thre will lessen chances of intervention on the Hokage's behalf. No matter. They still had a year.

Obscuro continued his path towards the house, already having the first lesson prepared…

-Obscuro-

Naruto was sitting in one of the armchairs, reading a book on espionage tactics when he heard a gust of wind. Correctly assuming that this was his new teacher's mark, he looked up from the book and saw a variety of items lying on the desk in the front of the room, such as several pencils and pens, along with a ruler, a drawing compass and some paper. He then saw the shadow-demon's form entering through the window and picking up the chalk to write on the blackboard. "You have listened. Good. I trust you enjoyed the books?" Naruto looked down back at the book and smiled "Yeah, it was interesting. I'm in heaven here!" he exclaimed with an excited tone. A new message read "Good. I made sure to preserve all of the knowledge here and guard it, as you can see by the state of this room".

Naruto did notice before that this room was far cleaner than the rest of the house and nodded. "So, what are you going to teach me? Is it that shadow-portal-thing? Crazy awesome jutsus? How about –" he started asking with a hint of his childish attitude surfacing. He then felt another forehead flick and shot the floating chalk a glare. The chalk merely hovered in the air before writing "In case you may have forgotten, I said I would teach you my arts. Not the ninja arts" Naruto raised an eyebrow and asked "Why?" Obscuro replied "Should you encounter any enemies; the stronger ones will know how to deal with ninjas or know how to counter/predict their jutsus. By teaching you my arts, you will have a large advantage over any foes you might face". Naruto simply nodded in understanding.

Obscuro then wrote something which surprised the blonde "But know this; no matter what you may learn from me, you will never be able to truly use it like I do just as I will never be able to use it like you do. Why? I am a demon, and you are a human. Jinchuuriki you may be, you are still human. We are as different as night is from day". Naruto looked at it with a look of protest, but then he replied with a sigh "You do have a point. So, what will you teach me?" Obscuro simply wrote "First you eat. Then come back here". Naruto made a move to object, but a growling from his stomach interrupted that thought. Shooting a brief glare at his stomach, he got up from the chair and headed towards the dining room. There he found a bowl of hot pork stew with a plate of vegetables sitting on the table. Where it came from, he had suspicions.

After eating the (admittedly) delicious stew and vegetables, Naruto got up and walked to library. Upon arriving there, he saw several books floating around with several sheets of paper being taped to the board by shadowy tendrils. The desk-chair was now sitting in front of the board along with the small round desk that was near the armchair. The round desk had some blank pages and a pencil. The whole scene resembled a one-student classroom.

The chalk then rose and wrote "The Ritual". Underneath it wrote the question "what do you know about rituals, if anything?" Naruto scratched his head and replied with an uncertain tone "umm…in the fairy tales and stories, rituals were what the witch or bad guy used to make potions or perform curses. But I don't think that's the case here right?" The question was erased and the board now said "that is correct. A ritual is an ancient system which is used to perform feats not unlike jutsus. Unfortunately, due to the bad reputation it has gotten and the time required in making rituals made them fall out of use and left them to be forgotten. It does exist now, in the form of fuinjutsu (sealing techniques). The difference is that fuinjutsu techniques use chakra as a power source/trigger while rituals do not". The last sentence made Naruto ask "No chakra? Then what do they use?" The reply was "Very simple. Life-force."

That statement caused Naruto to tilt his head in confusion. "Life-force? What does that mean?" The response to that was "every living creature and plant possesses life-force. It is the energy which gives the spark of life to all beings, and acts as a bridge between the mortal world and the worlds beyond" Naruto still gave a confused look. The chalk wrote "Let us compare it to chakra shall we? Chakra is formed from the fusion of physical energy – the energy which the body exudes – and spiritual energy – the energy which the mind/consciousness exudes. When moulded together, they allow the person to use jutsus. In comparison, the life-force when used in a ritual is derived from your body's vitality and life energy. While physical, mental and chakra training will increase the life-force within a person, it is a separate energy from the rest. On top of that, the main difference between the two is that you are not just using your own life-force in a ritual; you are using the energy of the aether as a conduit for the ritual and on occasion, the life force of other creatures or plants. "

"Aether is the element which is present within the spiritual core of the world and the void between realms. Whenever life is present on a world, the collective life-force of the living beings and plants there seeps into the earth as they go through the cycle of life and death. As a result, the world forms a spiritual core which holds more life-force the longer time passes on said world. As life-force accumulates, aether from the dimensional void seeps in and transforms that life-force into more aether, allowing spiritual access to other planes."

"In order to get your life-force flowing in the correct fashion, an incantation will be needed. The incantation has to be in a language that you know well; the more ancient, the better. This is not necessary for every ritual though."

"At times, your own life-force won't be enough to fulfil the ritual. When a creature dies, some of its life force is left on the remains such as bones, blood or organs; the fresher the remains, the stronger the life-force. These are called stimuli. This is the reason why rituals have gotten a bad reputation, as living sacrifices are the best source of external life-force. Blood even more so, since it keeps the heart – and by extension the life force going; as such, it is an important catalyst for most rituals. Each life-force is different, like there are different tastes to each food."

"What bridges all of these together though, is the ritual circle. The circle is like a control pad; you can control the amount of life-force and aether needed to perform the ritual and what exactly will the ritual do. By inscribing various symbols and shapes in the circle, you can decide exactly how the life-force will flow and by extension, what will the ritual do. When all of the symbols, shapes and components of the circle are ready, by infusing your life-force into the circle, you 'pull' aether from the world's spiritual core into the circle and when the aether and life-force meet; they will trigger a reaction and if the circle was prepared correctly – the ritual will be performed. Here is a diagram to explain:"

{Aether = Circle = Life-force + stimuli + incantation} = Ritual

All this time Naruto was writing down notes on everything Obscuro was telling him. He was feeling happier than he ever was in his life; someone was not only treating him like a normal person, but was also teaching him about subjects that most people didn't know about. He felt like he was given the key to his own private playroom; and only he could enter!

He looked up to see what else Obscuro had written when a pressure settled over the room. Shadows started to shake even though nothing else did, and Obscuro's shadowy form crept up along the blackboard. It turned his glowing red eyes to the blond (even though it was like a shadow now – shadows have no eyes) and wrote "Remember this well: if a ritual is not prepared correctly, the results can be catastrophic. Not only will the ritual fail, but if will cause a backlash that can be anything from nothing happening to an explosion to draining your life-force to zero – meaning you die. If you think that a ritual cost can circumvented then remember the core of all rituals: No matter what happens, a price MUST be paid. Understand?" At this point the pressure intensified as though trying to emphasize the seriousness of that statement. Naruto gulped and let out a loud "YES!"

The pressure suddenly was gone as though it was never there.

Obscuro then retreated into the shadows and wrote "Excellent. I had a feeling you would understand." Naruto gave the board a deadpan glare and thought 'if he could grin, I think that is what he would be doing now.' The board now said "Any questions?" Naruto looked down and searched his notes until one topic came up. He asked the shadow-demon "When you spoke about the incantation, how ancient does the language have to be?"

At this Obscuro levitated a small notebook towards him and replied "Ancient enough for me to respect it. Your language fills the requirements, but I prefer that use Latin. This notebook will help us in our Latin lessons. It is even more ancient than your language and as such possesses more power." Naruto flipped open the notebook and saw scribbles of kanji and letters written beside what he assumed Latin words and phrases. Before he could look at it better though, he heard the chalk scribbling. The message said "While I will not teach you about them in-depth, ninjutsu will certainly help you. If you wish to know more, I have some scrolls here from which you can learn about chakra."

At the mention of ninjutsu, Naruto asked a nagging question "If you say that rituals are slower than jutsu, then how will that help me in combat? Ninjas are really fast" Obscuro wrote in reply "That is a good question and there is a solution, but that will come later. You have to learn the hard way before the easy way." Naruto pouted at that statement but said nothing. The shadow-demon then wrote "In addition to this, I will give you training in armed combat and taijutsu. You still need to have proficiency in those subjects. I will acquire more scrolls for this purpose. To summarize, I have come up with a schedule: We will have lessons on rituals two days a week, combat lessons two days a week, language lessons two days a week, and a day off at the end."

Naruto looked over the schedule and replied "This seems fine. So, now what?" Obscuro wrote "Now, time for a little lesson on the ritual circle."

On the board, a perfect circle appeared. "For practice, you will have to learn to draw a perfect circle by yourself with no deviations. Don't say anything; this is harder than it looks. For now, use this." A drawing compass levitated over to Naruto. He turned it around in his hand and nodded.

The shadow-demon wrote on the board "To begin, there are three parts to a circle: The ring, the shape matrix, and the symbol core."

"The ring is a written from of the incantation needed to activate the rituals. It is written around the circle's outline. At times, it can also act as a form of flow control for the aether. This is the only part of the circle which doesn't appear every time."

"The shape matrix is the most important part of the circle. It is the assortment of lines and shapes which are drawn inside the circle and help dictate the direction the aether and life-force will flow in order to complete the ritual."

"The symbol core is the command input for the circle. While the shape matrix will dictate how the aether and life-force will flow, what you put in the symbol core will decide the action wish to perform. It is composed of at least 3 small core circles, and based the number of these circles they have to be arranged in the appropriate geometric shape; meaning 3 circles will be arranged as a triangle, 4 as a square and so forth. The more complex the command, the more core circles will be needed. Let me take a very basic ritual as an example: The Ritual of Clairvoyance."

Inside the circle, an upside-down pentagram appeared with three circles drawn over three intersection points. "Now pay attention and write this down. The core circles have to be drawn over the lines of the shape matrix no matter what. The more line intersections they are drawn on the better. In this case, all of the core circles are drawn on intersection points; as such the ritual will be more powerful. You can start from any core circle, but then you must write the commands clockwise like so:"

In the top circle, an open eye was drawn with "sight" written above. In the bottom-right circle, the kanji for human was drawn (人) with "target" written next to it. In the bottom-left circle, a smaller circle with a dot in the center was drawn with "mind" written next to it. "This circle should be self-explanatory. Care to guess how it works?" Obscuro wrote.

Naruto looked at the circle, tilted his head and answered with a hesitant tone "umm…I don't know what the star means, but I'm guessing that the ritual first allows you to see, then you chose a target or person, then you have to think about the target...?" Obscuro wrote back "Correct. To inform you, the star here is called a pentagram and it represents the soul. It is used in rituals which affect a person specifically. In addition, you must have seen the person once in order for the ritual to work. Pictures and sketches don't count."

Naruto blinked and said in a dazed tone "O-Oh, Ok." He was still a bit confused even though he was trying to write everything down. He then saw another notebook floating towards him with a snake eating its own tail drawn on the cover. He looked up to the board and saw the message: "This notebook contains all of the runes you will use for rituals. Some of their meanings are in Latin, so it means you will have to work hard in order to decode them. Also I know several other runes which don't appear in that book. Again, work hard and I might teach you them."

Naruto looked at the book with a light of relief in his eyes and said in a tired tone "Thanks." He then took a look out the window and saw the sun setting down. He turned to the board only to see the chalk gone and a final message written: "Go and eat, then do whatever you want for a while then go to sleep. You must be fully aware if you wish to realize the full potential of a ritual."

Smiling, Naruto went to the dining room where he found some rice balls sitting on a plate. After eating them, he went back to library and started reading from the two notebooks. As he read them he thought 'This looks like a lot of hard work. But I don't want anyone to make me feel fear ever again. If it means learning all of this then fine. It's a good thing I like to read…'

Hi! I'm back with another chapter! Here we learn about what Naruto will be using in the future. To clarify, all of the symbols and shapes here have been researched by me and their definitions are real. If there are any questions, leave a comment.

Also, SINGLE PAIRING or HAREM?

I STILL NEED HELP WRITING COMBAT SCENES.

Sovereign2808 - Obscuro is actually a fusion of a take on the general 'unseen horror movie ghost' and tales about shadow people. But he is my my own OC.