The Pathless Sage
A/R: Really, don't know what to say. The number of reviews has somehow sky rocketed and I am scared. Yes I am.
Zaraki poll still up, go vote.
If you want to, you can give me suggestions for Jutsu. I have some things planned out for this little escapade, but nothing to over the top, I think. This is basically something to set up future events in the Chunin Exams.
On with the story!
It had been a long, long time since Naruto Uzumaki was scared for his own life. The last time it had happened, he was being electrocuted with enough electricity to power all of the Hyuga and Uchiha districts without a problem, and probably have some left over. This time, though, the situation was much more serious.
As soon as he had trailed his bloodied finger over the blood seal on the vault's door, it started sucking out his chakra at an alarming rate and didn't show any sign of stopping any time soon. Currently, he was hanging in a state somewhere between Chakra exhaustion and death.
It kept sucking on his Chakra, not slowing for a time yet. Then, suddenly, it stopped. It was no longer drawing any Chakra from him, but Naruto still couldn't retract his finger from the door. It was as if some unnatural force was keeping his arm attached to the door.
Then he felt it. All of his Chakra returning to him, but something was amiss. It didn't feel like his Chakra anymore. In fact, it didn't feel like Chakra at all. It was as if pure knowledge was being pumped into his veins, and it hurt.
Liquid fire was boiling through his veins, accompanied by knowledge. He knew why it was happening though. It was too much pain for his mind to take in one concentrated area, as that would cause his brain to explode. So it did the only thing it could do to ensure Naruto's survival, spread the pain over his entire body.
He held in his screams though, he was no stranger to pain. Even at this level of pain, he could handle it. He would take it, he wouldn't cry out. After all, he had promised himself that he wouldn't allow anyone the satisfaction of hearing him scream.
As it was there, it was gone. Naruto felt normal again. His Chakra was back, his veins felt as if the pain from a moment ago was a figment of imagination. All was normal again, but something didn't feel right.
He noticed it then, the amount of sheer knowledge in his head. Thousands of years worth of experiments, studying, Jutsu development, Sealing knowledge. It was as if all of that was just dumped into his head without any restraint. He could feel his mind reeling from such a thing, but it was relishing in the power.
He could remember how to do ancient Jutsu, long forgotten and abandoned. He remember sealing formulae that were long since considered taboo and far too difficult or dangerous to attempt. He remembered exactly how to draw them, exactly how to use them.
But the knowledge wasn't the only thing he received. He received the sorrow, the sufferings of his people long gone and lost. It seemed that all the experiences of the past shinobi of this village was now thrown into his head, with absolutely no consideration for what kind of information was being given to him.
The door stayed adamantly locked, it didn't open. The vault seemed lifeless now, though, and looked to be wearing away into sand. Slowly, but surely, the large building was disappearing.
"What was that about?" Kiba asked, confused. In fact, everyone was confused. They were expecting the door to open and give way to a hallway full of scrolls. What they got, however, was a Naruto that seemed to be barely holding in a scream.
"I forgot to tell you," Mifune said, with a somewhat sheepish smile on his face. He looked a bit uncomfortable, though it was hard to tell the emotions of the stoic swordsman. "The vault isn't full of scrolls. It dumps all of the information in the mind of the recipient-"
That was as far as Naruto heard, before he saw black and passed out. The mental strain from having so much knowledge dumped in his mind was too much for even him to take.
-TT-
Naruto awoke to a white ceiling, not much unlike a white ceiling he was used to seeing. Every time a village mob would beat him, he would end up here. In the hospital, lying in an uncomfortable old cot. But something didn't feel right. The bed wasn't scratchy or reeking of disinfectant, but soft and had a flowery aroma. The ceiling looked white, but almost like clouds rather than a wall.
It clicked into his mind then. He wasn't in a hospital, but he was sleeping on the floor somewhere. The ceiling wasn't a ceiling, but the cloud covered sky!
Naruto stood up hurriedly, expecting to see the horrible place people called a hospital, but was surprised to see that he was standing in a clearing of sorts. The grass covered ground was a vivid shade of yellow, the clouds covering the sky a spotless white. He could see the treeline of a forest in the distance, and a grey fortress built against a rocky mountain of a darker shade of grey, beyond the forest.
Naruto was confused, he was expecting to wake up in the distasteful place people called hospital, but he was surprised to find himself in an invigourating clearing rather than a drap room of white. He was thinking about where he could be, and not paying attention to his surroundings. He presumed he was alone.
"Boy, stop spacing out!" A voice called from behind him. He whirled around immediately, on guard due to his surprise. He was even more surprised to see a man of average height and build, wearing plain, non-descript, white clothes. He had an odd shade of hair that looked to be red and blue at the same time, and a blue left eye accompanied by a red right eye.
"Who are you? Where have you brought me?" Naruto said, hostility colouring his voice. He was starting to formulate a plan to escape if he so needed.
"Calm down, I am not your enemy," now that he was paying full attention, Naruto noticed the man had an odd voice too. It was as if two people were speaking at once, one gentle and calm voice, while the other was low and gravelly. It was as if the two parts of his voice were trying to personify Order and Chaos. "Besides, even I am not powerful enough to harm you here."
Naruto dropped his guard. Just a little, he still didn't trust the man fully. "I didn't ask whether you were hostile or not. I asked, who are you? And where are we?" Naruto was still being hostile, despite the fact that the man had told him he wasn't an enemy. Naruto didn't believe it for a second. Trusting people had almost cost him his life so many times that he had lost count.
"I understand why you don't trust me. After all, you almost lost your life many times by readily trusting people," Naruto looked startled at that. This man somehow knew intimate details of his life that even the Sandaime didn't know. "He's dangerous, whoever he is." Naruto thought. "I am the embodiment of your Rinnegan. You can call me ... Samsara. As for where we are, we are in your mind. Specifically, the portion in which I reside."
"There are more than one portion to my mindscape?" Naruto asked, all semblance of hostility forgotten at hearing that he was within his own mindscape. He knew that even an existence of Kurama's level couldn't hurt him here. He was the supreme power here, the omnipotent one.
"Hahaha, trust me, I am a lot more powerful than young Kurama," again, Naruto looked surprised. He had grown up thinking that the Kyubi was as strong as anything got within the mortal plane. "And yes, there are more than one parts to your mindscape. Four, to be exact. One is where I reside, one is the former prison of Kurama, one is where your soul resides and the last is where your sword's spirit, Ryujinjakka, lays dormant."
"There are things that are more powerful than Kurama? That's rather scary." Naruto had sat down on the lush floor by now, looking as if he was ready to have a long conversation.
"Yes, a few things in fact. The shinobi in the ancient times were sometimes strong enough to make the Bijuu look like children, which they were at the time. The Bijuu are all originated from the Jyubi, which was as strong as all the Bijuu put together and multiplied by ten." Samsara said, also taking a seat on the floor.
"That is a scary concept," Naruto said, looking every bit as scared as a person could. He knew first hand how powerful a single Bijuu was by themselves, so the power of all of them combined and then multiplied... it sent shivers down his spine. "So tell me, what am I doing here?"
"The mental overload from having so much knowledge dumped into your head was too much for you, so you retreated into your mindscape to deal with the ... pressure." Samsara crossed his legs and his arms, attempting to get into a more comfortable position.
"What kind of knowledge?" Naruto asked, rather curious about the content of things that was dumped into his head.
"Most of it is trivial things like accurate recounting of history and such. There are around 3000 Jutsu that you now have knowledge of, and can master if you want to, but most of them are completely useless," at this, Naruto's face fell considerably. He was looking forward to mastering so many Jutsu, but disappointed at hearing that most of them weren't good enough to be called battle worthy. "Well, but there are also really strong ones like Summoning: Impure World Resurrection and Summoning: Pure World Rebirth."
"They sound like the same, how are they different?" Naruto said, excited by the prospect of learning about more techniques. Though he was more mature than before, his thirst for new Jutsu was still the same.
"In essence, they are the same. They both bring back the dead," at this, Naruto looked disgusted. "But, where the Impure one brings back the dead via a living sacrifice, and uses the dead as a puppet, the Pure version brings back the dead and allows them to live normally, as if they never died. The Pure version needs the user to sacrifice some of their lifespan, though. A couple decades at the most, but the exact number wasn't confirmed."
"Who would research something so disgusting?" Naruto asked, though as an afterthought, he added: "Though the Pure Rebirth sounds like a really noble Jutsu to use."
"Orochimaru, for one," Naruto wrinkled his nose. He had a few run ins with the Sannin in his younger days. He never liked the man. "But the one that invented the first technique was actually the Nidaime Hokage."
"Tobirama Senju?" Samsara nodded. "Wow, never had him pegged for an insane scientist."
"The second one was an invention of the Yondaime Hokage's, who was looking for a way to counter the Nidaime's technique in case he ran across someone that was putting a poor soul through such torture." Samsara looked thoughtful for a second, scratching his chin and looking towards the sky. "Your father was a good man, really honest and almost obsessed with doing good deeds. But he was hellishly shrewd, though."
"Tell me, how do you know so much about the world when you are supposed to be the embodiment of my Rinnegan?"
"It was a ... side effect from your sudden increase in knowledge and intellect. Mine increased in the same proportions as yours, so I am pretty much all knowing at this point. Though I won't interfere in ways that would change the future too much, I am still going to help you out wherever I can." Samsara smiled down at him, a fatherly look present in his mismatched eyes. "I don't want you to die, after all."
"I see. What else do I know?"
"Some elemental Jutsu that are long forgotten. They are really powerful, but hard to control. You don't have any need for them at this moment in time." Samsara contemplated for a while more. "You might want to learn the 'Control of the Air Sphere' and 'Water Flowing Control of the Air Sphere'. Come to think of it, you don't have any offensive Jutsu, do you? You might want to learn 'Maelstrom Strike' and 'Lightning Style: Pale Lightning' while you're at it. Wind Style: Wind Blade' and 'Lightning Style: Lightning Blade' wouldn't hurt, but assassination techniques aren't necessary right now."
"I see. When can I leave and start practicing these Jutsu?" Naruto asked, excited by the prospect of learning new techniques. He really needed to expand his arsenal of offensive Jutsu, if not anything else.
"In a couple of hours. Me and Kurama are still repairing your mind and sorting out the information into an usable archive. Go to sleep here and you will wake up in the real world when your mind has recuperated fully."
-TT-
Naruto awoke to the sound of battle and the unconscious face of Mifune. He stood up quickly not knowing what was going on. Looking around, he saw all of the Gennin passed out on the floor and the Jounin barely holding up against what looked to be hordes of Kumo Jounin.
"What the hell is going on here?" Naruto screamed.
A/R: Apologies for the shorter chapter and the rushed ending, but I am not feeling that great.
I know there isn't a rant here this week, but next week, I promise there will be one, per popular request.
Please review. Even an anonymous review saying Good Job lifts me spirits!
Control of the Air Sphere and Water Flowing Control of the Air Sphere are Seikuken and Ryusui Seikuken, respectively, from the Manga/Anime History's Strongest Disciple: Kenichi. Pale Lightning is Byakurai from Bleach. Maelstrom strike is something I derived from Rasengan. Wind Blade is my version of Baki's Jutsu. Pure World Rebirth is my creation, and the other half of Edo Tensei. As for Lightning Blade, it's Kakashi's Jutsu. Or in my story, the ancient version of it.