TWO WEEKS LATER
Two weeks had passed since Natsu shook the guild to it's core with his arrival. Over the weeks, Natsu spoke little to anyone, and spent hardly any time in the guild. Didn't stop Mirajane from challenging him though. And she lost. Over, and over, and over again, until eventually, Natsu would just knock her out with a genjutsu before she even got the last half of her sentence out. While he was in the guild, however, all he seemed to do was get a drink of water from the bar, head over to the request board, pick up five of the highest paying jobs, and complete them as fast as possible. He has never, not even once, taken along another member of the guild on a job with him, apart from the required one with Erza. All this seemed to do however, is incite more curiosity within the guild about his capabilities. The kick starter seemed to be when he knocked Mirajane out with simple eye contact though.
Natsu, on the other hand, has absolutely zero interest in the guild's members. He tries to distance himself from them as much as possible, much to the guild's shock. He's still under the mindset that all his family died, and has little reason to change his philosophy. He still wears the exact same clothes as when he first joined the guild, and still nobody has seen his rinnegan. Most assumed that he just hides a scar under it, but a few of the more intelligent members have a few inklings as to what it might be. His sharingan, on the other hand, has been seen a few times by various members. Mainly Mirajane, for obvious reasons. They constantly ask him for an explanation as to what it is, but all they ever get in response is silence.
Though as of late, Natsu has beginning to worry that his six paths powers have gotten a little rusty. After all, he hasn't trained it since he left Igneel's den. So that's what he decided to do today, in case he ever needed it for a fight. He seriously doubted it though. He heard from multiple sources that Fairy Tail is the strongest guild in Fiore, and since two of their strongest members couldn't even hold their own against basic genjutsu or his normal sand... Well, let's just say that using his six paths power would be like wearing an iron man suit against an ant.
IN A FOREST, A FEW MILES OUT FROM MAGNOLIA
Natsu walked out into the forest, finally determining that he was far enough away from civilization that nobody could find him. He couldn't help but remember his first day in Fiore when he heard the birds chirping happily, and the trees swaying in the wind. Finally, he stopped in front of a tree and unsealed his equipment. After his gourd was unsealed, along with his sword, he raised his arms. Particle Style: Atomic Dismantling Jutsu! With that, a huge, square portion of the forest was instantly disintegrated, and left him with an open field for training.
He took a deep breath of forest air and stepped forwards, pushing his headband up so that it didn't cover his rinnegan. Sighing contently to himself, he began to think. Damn, feels good to have some decent depth perception. How the hell does Kakashi fight seriously with one eye covered?!
Grumbling to himself, he extended his arms forward.
"First I gotta make sure that I can still use them properly." He muttered to himself.
DEMONIC STATUE CHAINS!
Chains with a purple aura rushed from his arms, swaying around wildly and destroying neaby trees. Many people thought that these could only be used on bijuu. How wrong they were. These chains are good for way more than just sealing bijuu. In fact, they're as strong, if not stronger than the Uzumaki bloodline chains.
Next, Natsu made a few hand signs and slammed his hand onto the ground.
Summoning Jutsu!
Six poofs of smoke appeared in a strait line in front of Natsu. Out of the smoke rose six distinct figures. Deidara, Kakuzu, Sasori, Kisame, Juzo, and Nagato, all still with their Akatsuki robes and rogue shinobi head bands.
I think it's time I assign these guys their paths, I may need to use them in the near future... but I don't want people seeing the rinnegan. So I suppose I'll have them wear masks. Now, for their paths... I suppose Deidara should use the animal path, since he needs the backup for his explosives. Kakuzu can have the human path, his extended reach should give easy access to people's souls. Kisame would work best with the naraka path. He's the most durable, apart from Kakuzu, so he can revive the others. Sasori's path should be the asura path, since the multiple limbs and weapons would compliment his puppet body perfectly. The preta path would be best on Juzo. He's a melee fighter, so having an impervious defense to long range attacks would be ideal. Lastly, Nagato can use the deva path. As far as I know, he doesn't have any other techniques, and the deva path is strongest while used by itself.
With his deciding finished, he sprouted a black chakra receiver and jammed it into Nagato's corpse, and clasped his hands together. After a few seconds of silence and concentration, Nagato's eyes snapped open to reveal the rinnegan. He stood up, summoned five chakra receivers, and stabbed them into the remaining bodies underneath their Akatsuki robes. Finally, all six of the former terrorists began to rise, now being animated by the chakra receivers. Natsu decided that Nagato would be their pseudo-leader, much like Yahiko once was.
About fifteen minutes of intense brainstorming later, Natsu had a good grasp on what he wanted his path's masks to look like. He started blazing through thousands of hand signs, infusing his some of Shukaku's chakra into his wood style.
Damn, he thought, this one jutsu alone is going to cost me half my chakra. And that's with my increased reserves from Shukaku and Asura's chakra. But It'll be damn well worth it. These masks are going to be nigh indestructible.
After about thirty seconds straight of hand signs, Natsu slammed his hands onto the ground. From where his hands touched the ground, six pure black trees sprouted from the ground, each coming up to about his waist in height. The young sapling each suddenly sprouted a perfect oval shaped mask. The masks had no features on them, except for the two eye holes that were slanted slightly at the outer ends. And like the trees themselves, they were also pitch black.
When the base masks were completed, Natsu sat down in the lotus position, and clasped his hands together in the infinity seal. The ground began to shake slightly around him, and cracks started appearing in six places around where he sat. Suddenly, six different gemstones shot out of the ground and landed safely beside him. Looking down at what he had brought forth, Natsu smiled. Beside him, there were six perfect circles of different gemstones; Sapphire, ruby, amethyst, emerald, moonstone, and diamond.
From the gemstones, he used chakra-enhanced sand to cut them each into two rings. Smiling contently to himself, he set each pair of rings over a different mask, and fused them togeter with chakra, giving the masks a simple, yet elegant appearance. He gathered up the masks, and walked over to where his six paths were standing perfectly still. He handed them each a mask. Sapphire for Kisame, ruby for Sasori, amethyst for Juzo, emerald for Deidara, moonstone for Kakuzu, and diamond for Nagato. Each of the six paths put their mask on.
Natsu inwardly patted himself on the back. The Akatsuki robes, combined with the masks, made quite the appearance if he said so himself. And he was quite proud of himself for the whole mask thing, Even if it did take up half his chakra.
He used Kamui again on the six paths to store them in his pocket dimension. He couldn't seal them into a scroll, because then he wouldn't be able to summon them. But since the rinnegan summoning can reach across dimensions, his kamui dimension was a perfectly solution.
TWO HOURS LATER
After training his sharingan and rinnegan techniques, he acknowledged that they were finally back up to the level they were when he finished training with Madara and Hagoromo, if not even more powerful. But next up on Natsu's list was particle style. And while he may not have gotten rusty with it, he had thought of a way to implement it into a near impenetrable defense. I mean, why not add one more impervious defense to his list?
Getting into his usual particle style stance, he focused his chakra into the shape of a circular wall in front of him. He began speeding through hand signs, before putting his hands into the particle style position. Particle Style: Atomic Dismantling: Barrier Jutsu! He called out.
A transparent, white barrier appeared in front of Natsu for about three seconds before disappearing. Natsu marveled at the potential of his new jutsu. It only remains in place for a short amount of time, but it's still incredibly useful. Even if you I used this back in the Elemental Nations, the amount of things that could get through this barrier you could count on one hand. Anyways, I can probably increase the amount of time the barrier is up through training, as well as reduce the required hand signs.
While he was on the topic of disintegration, he suddenly remembered something very important. Can the preta path even fully absorb magic attacks? I can't believe I've never tested something like this, I've been such a fool. He started forming the necessary hand signs for a summoning, and slammed his hands on the ground. Summoning Jutsu! Six Paths of Pain!
This time, however, he only summoned Juzo, since he was Natsu's preta path. Juzo stood there with his mask and robe looking as attemptive as an elite soldier. Natsu mentally ordered him to walk thirty meters in front of Natsu, and face him. Once Juzo had complied, Natsu got into a wide stance, and took a deep breath. He stacked both his balled up fists on top of each other and put them in front of his mouth. Fire Dragons's Roar! He screamed as he let his attack loose.
The beam of fire shot towards Juzo at breakneck speeds, but all Juzo did was put his hand out towards the fire. Just as planned. The fire hit Juzo's hand, but seemed to shrink down and down until eventually there was nothing left but an ember. Juzo was completely unharmed and looking fine. Success. Natsu thought.
He used kamui to send Juzo back to his pocket dimension, and smiled to himself on his success. Juzo would be quite the handful to mages who could only use magic attacks. The only people Natsu could think of who could fight Juzo would be Erza and Mirajane, since he had seen them both use physical attacks.
Natsu rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Hmm... he thought, what to do next... Ah! Suddenly breaking out of his thoughts, he stepped forwards and looked up. He targeted one of the rocks in front of him, and started forming hand signs. A bead of sweat ran down his face from pure concentration. After about a minute, a rain drop shaped piece of glass appeared in front of him, and shot forwards at the rock. As soon as it made contact, the rock crumbled into small fragments, and the glass looked completely unharmed. Natsu willed the glass to dissipate. Smiling to himself proudly, he set to work on mastering his new jutsu.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
Using the rest of his time for the new jutsu, Natsu completely mastered it through the use of shadow clones. He had five main jutsu derived from the style, which he now called Glass Style. These five jutsu were as follows. Glass Style: Soul Arrows, Glass Style: Soul Spear, Glass Style: Soul Stream, Glass Style: Glass Magic Weapon, and Glass Style: Dragon Breath. All of these jutsu could be performed by Natsu only using tora hand sign. Each of these techniques cost about as much chakra as a chidori, but since Natsu had the probably the most reserves on the planet, he could use them almost as much as he wanted.
He had also discovered another major thing during his training. Or rather, Shukaku did.
FLASHBACK
Glass Style: Souls Arrows!
Glass rain drops shot towards the targeted rock at insane speeds, but were inevitably going to miss. Natsu had been training all day with no breaks, and after using over ten thousand shadow clones, his aim was getting messy. The glass arrows were going slightly to the right of the rock, when all of a sudden they seemed to veer towards the rock, smashing into it, and subsequently destroying it.
Natsu blinked in shock. What the hell just happened? He thought. Why did my jutsu curve towards the target? Did I do that? Or is it some hidden property of the glass? He wondered.
"Uh... Natsu." He suddenly heard Shukaku speak.
"Yeah, what's up?"
"I think I know what happened. Make some glass as a mirror and look at your rinnegan."
Natsu did as Shukaku asked, and gasped in surprise. The normal nine tomoe that were in a triangle pattern had disappeared. What replaced them was a thick black ring around his pupil, covered by a cross, making it look like a sniper scope, except the cross went past the edges of the circle.
"What the hell is this, Shukaku?"
"I think you may have just awakened your rinnegan ability."
"What the hell is a rinnegan ability?! Six Paths Sensei never told me about something like this. Will it affect my rinnegan in any way?"
"HAHAHA. No, it won't affect your rinnegan, quite the opposite actually" Natsu raised an eyebrow.
"You see, each rinnegan has a specific ability unique to each rinnegan. Only the person wielding that specific rinnegan may use that ability. For example, Madara could use his rinnegan to project four incredibly powerful clones into the invisible plane of Limbo, and Sasuke could switch places with any object within his vision. To be honest, Sasuke's ability fucking sucks compared to Madara's."
Natsu snorted. "I agree. Now, since you're telling me this, I assume that I have a rinnegan ability?"
"Yeah, ya do. I think it may have to do with your jutsu curving to hit the target. It most likely is some kind of targeting ability. And since the rinnegan is one of the most powerful things in the universe, I can only assume that this will basically make you never be able to miss."
Natsu's eyes widened, then he raised an eyebrow. "Never having to aim again sounds nice, but then I'd have to reveal my rinnegan, and since I couldn't be bothered to do that, I'll just manually aim for now."
Shukaku was silent for a moment before bursting out. "OH! OH! You should name your ability! Even Madara named his! although the name 'Limbo' is pretty unoriginal to be honest, but at least it had a name! Sasuke was probably too ashamed of his shitty ass ability that he didn't name it. Hehe."
Natsu thought good and hard for a whole two minutes before coming up with a suitable name. "It's gonna be called 'Deadeye'."
"Sounds good kid, I like it."
END OF FLASHBACK
Natsu maintained his slow pace through the forest back towards Magnolia town. He could have teleported there using his Kamui, but right now he just wanted to relax. He took in a deep breath of fresh air and sighed contentedly. Leaning his head back against his hands, he started thinking about his two weeks at the guild.
If anything, these past two weeks could be described as 'interesting', I suppose. The people there seemed very unaccustomed to how I act. Heh, if they were in the Elemental Nations, they would probably die from a heart attack before any enemy got to em. This 'Gildarts Clive' guy sounds fairly interesting though. From what they've told me, his magic is pretty much an imperfected version of particle style. I suppose when I finally meet him I'll see what all the fuss is about.
A glowing light on his back snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked over his shoulder to see what it was, and saw that his sword was glowing a brilliant white. Taking it off, Natsu inspected it closely to see what was happening. All of a sudden, the whole blade started morphing, right in Natsu's hands. The light got so bright that it blinded Natsu for a few seconds, and when the light died down, Natsu looked down to see what had become of his sword.
Well. What used to be a sword. Now, it was completely different. Now, it was a double sided scythe. The handle in the middle was made of gnarled oak wood, about five feet in length. Both blades were made completely of metal, and extended out the back about two inches. They seemed to slightly glow blue, as if they were charged with magical energy.
Natsu gaped in shock. "Any idea what the hell just happened, Shukaku?"
"Nope, I'm about as confused as you are right now. But I gotta admit, it looks pretty sick, eh?"
Natsu smirked. "Yeah, it does... Definetly better than the blade form. And I think I have a theory as to why my sword changed into a dual-blade scythe."
"Oh? And what is this great theory?"
"Well, after all this training, my fighting style has more defensive moves than offensive. So maybe the sword changed because scythes are easier to defend with." Natsu hypothesized.
"Ok... I'll buy it. OH HEY! WHAT ARE YOU GOIN-"
"The Lifehunt Scythe. That's it's name now."
Shukaku smirked. "Well don't you just know me so damn well."
"I suppose I do..."
Natsu continued talking with Shukaku until they finally reached Magnolia town. When they got there though, it was as if they were at a whole new city. The whole place seemed a bit more cramped, as if somebody had pushed the buildings closer together. But that was minor in comparison to what was in the middle of town. There was a deep trench in the middle of town, leading straight from the edge of town to Fairy Tail's guild hall.
While he was walking through the streets, he began to hear people talking.
"Damn, this is such a bother. The last time was... I can't even remember now."
"It was like a month ago..."
"Oh... hehe... well, I guess it's not all bad. After all, Magnolia town is the only place in Fiore to do something this massive for one mage! The Gildarts Shift is truly a momentous event!"
The Gildarts Shift? Is this some sort of event the town puts on for Gildarts? Or is to protect themselves from him? After all, Makarov did say that Gildarts has a tendency to break anything he comes into contact with. I suppose I will find out once I get to the guild.
Natsu put slid his headband back over his rinnegan, but left his gourd and dual-blade scythe out. He had also remembered about the weights he was wearing all the way back from when Igneel trained him. He decided to keep them on though, it's not like he needed the extra speed or anything.
As he neared the guild hall, he heard faint shouts and sounds of a brawl going on inside. He looked up to the sky in exasperation and sighed. Why did I even join his guild... he thought. He pushed the doors wide open and stepped into the room with his common emotionless face. Scanning the room with his one visible eye, he caught sight of a large man, probably in his fourties. He had shoulder length dark orange hair, and a black cloak.
"And I was just finishin the job whe- Oh, hello there, who are you?" Gildarts suddenly addressed Natsu in the middle of his sentence.
Natsu looked at him. "My name is Natsu."
"Well, hello Natsu. What are you doing at Fairy Tail?" Gildarts asked with a smile.
Natsu nodded towards him. "I'm new, I joined a little over two-"
"FIGHT ME NATSU! AND NO TRICKS THIS TIME!" Screamed an enraged Mirajane as she stomped over to him.
Natsu activated his basic, three tomoe sharingan and stared at her. She promptly fell to the floor with a thud, unconscious before she even hit the ground. Lisanna and Elfman groaned. "Must you do that every time, Natsu?" Asked an annoyed Lisanna. "We have to carry her back home every single time and it's becoming annoying."
"She asked to fight me. I beat her." Natsu stated.
Lisanna huffed and dragged Mirajane over to the table she and Elfman were sitting at. Gildarts just stared at Natsu in shock. He just took out Mira with a glance. This is no ordinary kid. Gildarts thought in surprise.
"As I was saying." Natsu continued as if nothing had happened. "I joined the guild a little over two weeks ago. Nice to meet you."
Gildarts eyed Natsu in suspicion. This kid was what, eight? And he was speaking as if he's a member of the council!
"Uh... yeah. Nice to meet you too." Gildarts said. Natsu nodded and walked off towards the bar.
"Oi! Natsu! What's with the nasty lookin scythe?!" Gray shouted at him across the room.
Natsu looked kept walking towards the bar and didn't even look at him. "This is the Lifehunt Scythe. It is my new weapon of choice." Natsu said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which, apart from the name, was indeed pretty fucking obvious. Dumb dumb gray...
"Then what the hell did you do with that sword?!" Gray shouted. But Natsu ignored him, now at the bar.
Across the room, Gildarts shifted his vision over to Makarov.
"Quite a strange kid, eh master?"
Makarov sighed. "Tell me about it. You should have seen the guild after he beat Erza."
Gildarts didn't react. After seeing how he defeated Mira, he just assumed he could've beaten Erza just as easily.
"In fact, he beat her with his eyes closed."
Now it was reaction time. "What?! How?! From what I saw, he uses some sort of eye magic to make his opponent fall asleep!"
Makarov shook his head. "He's only ever done that to her actually. Ever since he beat her in a one on one, she challenges him every time she sees him. Usually he would just turn her down, but eventually she became so persistent that he resorted to just knocking her out."
Gildarts raised an eyebrow. "Still doesn't answer my question though."
"He defeated Erza using some sort of sand magic. It was very strange though. At the beginning of the match, Erza rushed him while he had his eyes closed. However, when the sword was about to hit him, sand shot out of his gourd and stopped the blade. It was as if the sand were doing it on his own. Later though, we found out that it actually does protect him on it's own."
"Care to explain what else he can do?" Gildarts asked with a raised eyebrow.
Makarov turned to the bar tender and ordered two more beers for both of them. "You'd better get comfy my friend, because I'm going to be talking for a while."
TWO HOURS LATER
"Wow. Just wow." Said a weary Gildarts.
"Yeah, he's pretty weird eh?"
"I agree. But I disagree with you about one thing."
Makarov raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what's that?"
"I'm going to go talk to him about his past."