I tried to make it longer this time, but tell me if it feels like I stuffed too much information into one chapter. Thanks :D
Natsu followed Igneel outside the den and into the morning sun. After spending quite a while in the musty cavern, the breeze felt amazing against his face. Natsu looked up at the bright sun, and couldn't help but feel a little saddened by how much it reminded him of his old life back in Suna. Oh well, I can't let that hold me down. I wonder how this "Fire Dragon Slayer" magic compares to Fire Release jutsu? It's a shame I don't know any fire jutsu, maybe it would've made this easier for me... Then again, I AM working with a completely different energy source I assume, because Igneel didn't seem to have any idea what chakra is. Natsu looked up, only to realize that he was lagging far behind Igneel. Shaking his head to clear himself of his daydreams, he caught back up, and decided to pester Igneel with questions.
"Hey Igneel."
"Yeah?" Igneel replied while continuing to walk forwards.
"What do mages use as an energy source?" Natsu asked.
"Mages harness the power of something called eternano. Eternano is in the air all around us, however mages cannot generate it by themselves. Each mage has something called a magic container inside of them, which is used to store eternano, to be used in magic. If a mage's magic container completely empties, they will be unable to use magic. However the magic container will eventually fill back up from the eternano in the air." Igneel explained.
"Wow!" Natsu exclaimed. "So you're saying that even if I use all my magic power, I won't die, I'll just get tired, and not be able to use magic for a while?" He asked.
"Yes, essentially that is what I'm saying. As you can probably already tell, this is already one major advantage eternano has over chakra. However, I'd say that chakra most likely has more power behind it than eternano." Igneel replied.
"Why is that, Igneel?" Natsu asked with a curious expression.
"Well," Igneel replied. "Eternano is purely spiritual energy, which is the reason that having none in your magic container will not result in physical harm to your body. However, when you were explaining chakra to me, you said that losing all the chakra in your body would result in death. I assume this is because chakra is most likely a combination of spiritual and physical energies, so when you lose all your chakra, it causes physical harm to your body.
Natsu marveled at the dragon's logical explanation. Never in a million years did he expect a dragon, something that is known for annihilating entire countries, to be able to explain something that most people had trouble understanding, even though they specifically had it explained to him by someone who actually knew what they were talking about. He managed to put that together all by himself. I didn't even tell him about what chakra was comprised of! Dragons are truly amazing... I'd go as far as to say tha-
"Natsu"
Natsu snapped out of his thoughts and looked up. "Yeah?" Natsu replied.
"We're here." Igneel said as he sat down.
Natsu had a look around. They were in a massive clearing with the trees directly around the clearing completely burned. Since the clearing was a near perfect circle, coupled with the burned trees, Natsu assumed that Igneel had cleared this out himself. In the clearing, there were several large boulders, but apart from those, the entire thing appeared to be completely flattened.
"Sweet! now where do I start?" Natsu exclaimed happily. Igneel smirked and looked at him.
"Before we even start, you're going to need some physical training."Natsu became comically depressed, and sighed, before looking at him.
"Why? I thought we were going to be training magic! not taijutsu..."
"What the hell is taijutsu?" Igneel replied, completely perplexed by the word.
"Oh yeah, I forgot to explain this. Well, for people in my world, there are several different fighting styles we practice. For example, ninjutsu would probably be the closest thing to what you call magic here. Genjutsu would most likely be called illusion, and taijutsu is what we call hand to hand combat." Natsu explained.
"Huh, sounds like you dumb humans just over complicate things to be honest." Igneel replied with a shrug. Natsu completely face faulted at this. And here I was thinking dragons were super wise, intelligent beings... "Natsu?" Igneel looked down at him. Natsu sprang back up and replied as if nothing happened. "Anyways, why do we need to be doing physical training?"
"It's for the type of magic you will be learning. It requires immense physical speed and strength to be used effectively." Igneel replied. "But why would it need strength and speed? I thought we were going to be learning stuff like breathing fire..." Natsu asked. "Actually, we won't be learning that for quite a while. However, some of the most basic spells are almost as powerful. These are the ones that require physical attributes. For example, the first spell you will learn is called "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist". This spell will ignite your hand with fire, and will make your strikes do massive damage, as well as burn the target."
Natsu was completely shocked by this. This is considered a basic spell? That sounds almost identical to Kakashi's "One Thousand Birds" technique, except with fire instead of lightning. Assuming it's just as powerful, I'd love to see what the advanced techniques are capable of... Then again, the way Igneel describes it, it sounds more like Tsunade's strength punches, focusing more on brute force, rather than precise damage.
"Alright, so then what should I do for my physical training?" Natsu asked. Igneel smirked at him and replied.
"First, we will be training your speed. Before we came here, I burned out another clearing identical to this one about ten kilometers north. Every day, before we start training, you will run there and back. This is the endurance part of your speed. Understand?"Natsu nodded his head firmly. "Good. The speed part, will be slightly more difficult." Natsu gulped. "To train your speed, you will be racing against one of my fire breath attacks. Each time you manage to beat the fire, I will increase the speed. On top of this, you will be wearing ankle weights, which will increase in weight every time you get used to it." Natsu grimaced, but still nodded affirmatively.
Igneel grinned. "Good, then let's get started! I'll explain the strength part once you've got the speed down." Igneel began walking away, before stopping and turning around again."Oh, I forgot to mention, we will also need to get your reflexes up to par. Can't have you running around at hyper speed, only to crash into trees every ten seconds." Natsu chuckled a bit, but agreed.
TWO GRUELING WEEKS LATER
Natsu had improved greatly in the past two weeks. Although about two days in, he realized that he would be wearing his gourd constantly, as well as his sword. So he started wearing them while training. His ankle weights now each weighed around 40 pounds, which when combined, was about the same as him. Also, he could now keep up with Igneel's 60% speed fireball, which was still very fast, mind you. They had also noticed something while training Natsu's reflexes. Every time Natsu's reflexes grew faster, his sand's reaction time grew with it. This fact proved to be very useful to Natsu, as he wanted to honor his father's memory as much as he could. To do this he trained his reflexes as much as he possibly could, getting to the point where his sand was even faster than Gaara's was. However, even with all he had achieved up to this point, Igneel still deemed him too slow to begin training, so he continued to train.
ANOTHER BRUTAL TWO WEEKS LATER
At this point, it was safe to say that Natsu was a speed demon. His weights combined were now 150% of his own weight, and his sand was now at least twice as fast as Gaara's. Igneel looked down at Natsu approvingly, and at the same time, Natsu looked up, beaming with pride. Igneel knew that Natsu was more than fast enough to learn the move before his speed training even began. But he wanted Natsu to be the strongest fire dragon slayer the world had ever seen.
"You're pretty fast now kid. I think it's time to start your strength training." Igneel said with a smirk.
Natsu sighed. "Well, let's get this over with..." He knew Igneel was about to put him through hell, just to get as strong as he thought acceptable.
THREE HORRIBLE WEEKS LATER
Natsu had increased his physical strength to an amazing extent over the past three weeks. He could put cracks in boulders, and could uproot smaller trees by just pushing them over. Igneel decided it was finally time to tell Natsu about his genius plan. He grinned and walked over to Natsu, who was lying on the ground panting in exhaustion.
"Hey Natsu."
Annoyed, Natsu looked up at Igneel. "What?"
"Your done with your strength training, but guess what?"
Natsu sighed. "What now, Igneel?"
"You were already strong and fast enough before the training even started!" Igneel said as he looked at Natsu with a happy-like grin on his face.
Natsu just sort of broke down in shock. Are. You. Fucking. Serious? "YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDIN ME IGNEEL!" Natsu yelled as he started crying waterfalls of anime tears.
"Nope." Igneel replied, completely straight faced.
"Then why the hell did I have to do it?" Natsu asked, still a bit peeved that he spent two months waiting to learn something that he could've learned right away.
Igneel sighed. "Here, let me explain it this way." Igneel said as he drew two vertical bars in the ground, as well as a 'x4' beside the bars. "Let's assume that these two bars were your strength and speed before the training. The 'x4' beside the bars represents how much your capabilities would be increased when using the Fire Dragon's Iron Fist. Follow me so far?" Natsu nodded. "Good. Let's pretend that the bars that represent your speed and strength two months ago are level three."Natsu nodded again, beginning to understand what the dragon was getting at. "So if you were at level three, when you used the Fire Dragon's Iron Fist, your strength and speed would go up to level twelve."Natsu had a look of realization on his face. Igneel drew the same diagram beside the original, except the bars were much taller. "These bars represent your current level of strength and speed, level seven. So when you use Fire Dragon's Iron Fist, your strength and speed would increase to level twenty eight."Natsu was shocked at how well Igneel was explaining this. He also could now see how much the training had helped him. Damn, dragon's are super smar- "By the way, all that stuff about levels is bullshit. I just made that up on the spot to make it sound as complicated as your world. But the concept is still the same." Igneel said as he shrugged. -nevermind. Natsu thought as he sweat dropped.
"Well, time to get started on actual spells!" Igneel exclaimed happily.
FOUR MONTHS OF ACTUAL LEARNING LATER
Natsu had now mastered five of the basic fire dragon slayer spells. Them being: Fire Dragon's Roar, Fire Dragon's Iron Fist, Fire Dragon's Claw, Fire Dragon's Wing Attack, and Fire Dragon's Grip Strike. He had also gotten his resistance to the point where fire attacks were completely ineffective against him, however he had yet to learn how to consume fire. Right now, however, Natsu is training on his own. Igneel had to go hunt for their food. Winter was approaching, so they needed to store excess amounts just to be safe.
Natsu was buzzing with excitement. The previous night, Natsu had come upon a seemingly ingenious idea. He was having a dream about a battle that his father had told him about. One during the chuunin exams, where he had fought Sasuke Uchiha. I was completely surrounded by my sand, I had used my opening of the third eye technique, when suddenly I heard the sound of chirping birds. I looked up at the wall, and saw my opponent running down the wall at breakneck speeds. His arm looked like it was coated in lightning. Coated in lightning... Natsu suddenly woke up with wide eyes and yelled. "THAT'S IT!"
This brings us to where Natsu is now. His eyes closed in concentration, with a bead of sweat running down his forehead. His arm was extended out on front of him, and he was in a low stance with his legs shoulder width apart. The chidori was able to cut through dad's sand, which means it must have had incredible piercing power. Sasuke must have focused all his lightning chakra to one point in his hand. Natsu's eyes were still closed, but he started focusing even harder. One point. All my power, to one point... Wait, what's that noise? It sounds like Igneel's roar, but that can't be him, he isn't going to be back for a few days... Natsu opened his eyes and gasped. There, where his hand used to be, were flames so bright that his entire hand and some of his wrist were completely invisible. And with the flames was the sound of one thousand dragons roaring as proudly as Igneel himself. Natsu grinned proudly. He had finally done it, recreated one of the most powerful techniques of his world, all by himself.
He quickly extinguished the flames, before taking his gourd out of the seal on his back. He let the sand flow out, and summoned the most dense walls of sand he had ever created. Backing away from the sand wall, he started focusing fire into his hand once more. After a few seconds, he heard the distinct sound of roaring dragons and intense light that could only come from his technique. He took off at his fastest possible speed, running straight at the sand he had constructed only a moment ago. As soon as he reached the wall, he thrust his fire encased arm straight at it. Time seemed to slow down as his hand gradually inched closer and closer to the sand. When he finally hit the sand, his hand felt like it was gliding through water. He looked down at the impact point in the wall and grinned. His hand had completely impaled the sand wall like it was nothing. I wonder what else this puppy can do... Natsu thought as he grinned. Natsu eyes suddenly snapped wide open as he realized something. I just created an original technique... THAT MEANS I GET TO NAME IT! Natsu grinned like a complete idiot. He sat down cross legged and thought hard for about 10 minutes trying to think of a good name. All of a sudden he opened his eyes and smiled sadly. In honor of Kakashi... He thought. Sen Ryu! One Thousand Dragons! Natsu abruptly stood up, and started to walk back to the den, exhausted after using all that magic power to learn the jutsu. Wait, wouldn't it be a spell? After all, it DOES use magic power instead of chakra... Natsu thought as he walked. I wonder if Kakashi would like it...
When Natsu finally reached the den it was already night. He took off his gourd, shirt, and sword and sealed them, before settling down to eat some berries he had picked on his way back. He sat at the back of the cavern where he usually slept alongside Igneel. He took the berries out of the seal on his arm and placed them on the floor.
FIVE MINUTES OF BORING EATING LATER
After finishing his meal, he grabbed his father's old coat and set it on the floor. He took out a brush and some ink, and put them next to the coat. He began putting the coat and various colours of ink next to each other. Trying to determine which colour would look best on it. Hmm... I think black would looked best on it. Plus then it would have the colour of dad AND mom's hair on it. Natsu thought, nodding affirmatively. He set the other colours aside, put the brush in the ink, and started to draw.
(A/N: If you don't know what Gaara's coat looks like, go to the wiki page for Gaara and check what he looks like during Part II)
ONE CREATIVE HOUR LATER
Natsu grinned proudly as he finished drawing. He lit a small fire on the ground in front of him, and held the coat up to the light. On the coat, was a beautiful, intricate drawing of a dragon. It's tail started from the left hip area, going straight up, and ending in it's head breathing fire just above his heart. He had decided to leave the waist-to-knee part blank. He thought it would look better that way. He put the coat back into the seal on his right shoulder, then put away his drawing materials. He leaned back against the wall and yawned. Drawing for an hour straight had really taken it out of the young boy. Not five minutes had passed before Natsu fell asleep.
THE NEXT MORNING
Natsu groggily opened his eyes, and got up. The warm sunlight was streaming through the cave's entrance, and the autumn air made the cave very cold. He yawned drowsily, and walked to the cave's entrance. He decided that today he was going to try and master the technique he had created; Sen Ryu. He unsealed the gourd from his left shoulder, and the Ebony Blade from the small of his back. He didn't need to put the gourd on, as he could un-seal it and re-seal it while wearing it. He was about to put the Ebony Blade in it's sheath when he began to get an idea. Couldn't I just use my chakra to stick the Ebony Blade to my back? This way, I don't have to carry a sheath around with me. My chakra reserves high enough that it wouldn't affect me at all either. With that idea in mind, he grinned, and stuck the sword to the ride side of his back, so that it wouldn't interfere with his gourd. With all things ready to go, he set off to his normal training spot.
TWO DAYS LATER
Natsu was currently walking back from his training. He had completely mastered his new jutsu, now being able to activate it almost instantly, and at a way lower magic cost. He had also decided to add something to it's name. Y'know, just to give it that extra flair. He now called it 'Ryupou: Sen Ryu' (Dragon Art: One Thousand Dragons). He had completely spaced out when he heard a loud roar, snapping him back to reality. He knew who it was before he even turned around. But he still turned around anyways. He saw Igneel riding towards the den, with loads of meat clutched in his claws. The strange thing though, is that there appeared to be 3 people sitting on his back. That's weird. I wonder if Igneel decided to train some other people too? THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! I would finally have people to play with! He started sprinting home, hoping to show Igneel his new technique, as well as meet the new people Igneel had brought back.
AT THE DEN
Natsu ran into the cave as soon as he got there, not even bothering to re-seal the Ebony Blade or his gourd. He ran straight up to Igneel and started talking so fast his mouth was a blur.
"IGNEEL! Guess what I did while you were gone?"
Igneel looked back at him with an eyebrow raised. "What?" he replied.
Natsu smirked at him. "I invented a new technique!"
Igneel was completely flabbergasted. I only taught him four moves... I leave him alone for three fucking days, and he makes a new technique? This kid is a genius! "Well, I would love for you to show me that move, but for now you have some people to talk to."
Natsu face palmed. Of course! How could he have forgotten the only other humans he had seen for almost six months. He walked straight up to Igneel and looked at him in the eyes.
"Well, where are they then?" Natsu asked.
Igneel stepped to the side to reveal three figures. The first one was wearing a long, high collared white robe, and had spiky, shoulder length pale red hair. There were six black magatama marking around the collar of his robe, and on his face there were... horns? Natsu was extremely weirded out by this guy.
The second one was wearing a black shirt, and pants that went just above his ankles. He had bandages covering his ankles and everything below that, except his shinobi sandles. He wore red plate armour, and had waist length, spiky black hair. This one seemed a little more normal than the first guy.
The last guy was the weirdest in Natsu's opinion. His body was almost completely covered in bandages. The only thing that wasn't covered were his eyes and nose, and his military green sweatpants that went just past his knees.
The three of them stepped forward and spoke one at a time.
"Greetings," the first one said. "My name is Hagoromo Otsutsuki."
"Hello there, Natsu. My name is Madara Uchiha." the second one explained.
"Hi, I am Mu" the third one said abruptly.
Natsu let that sink in for a second before he remembered a story his dad had once told him. Natsu looked at Hagoromo. Natsu, I am going to tell you a story about the most powerful being on this planet, the Sage of the Six Paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki. Natsu's jaw hit the floor and his eyes widened to dinner plates.
"YOU'RE THE SAGE OF THE SIX PATHS!" Natsu exclaimed.
Hagoromo smiled at him. "Indeed I am."
Natsu looked at Madara. Remember Naruto, Natsu? Well, he and I once fought a great war against a man named Madara Uchiha. Natsu looked accusingly at Madara. To which Madara raised an eyebrow.
"You're that evil guy dad had to fight against..." Natsu said.
Madara face palmed and sighed. "Yes, that is correct I suppose."
Natsu looked at Mu. ...?
"You're a mummy." Natsu said, completely straight faced.
Every person in the room, save Natsu, sweat dropped.