Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. This is fanfiction, after all.
Forests, Land of Rice Fields – March 28, AK 22
Sasame carefully observed her twelve opponents and mentally cursed. Kabuto had taken care to send more than she could handle. In general, an average chuunin could handle two squads of average genin. An average jounin could handle two squads of average chuunin. An average elite could handle two squads of average jounin.
She knew she was a bit stronger than the average elite but judging from the foul sensation of the chakra of the twelve enemies in front of her, they were using the first level of Kabuto's Cursed Seals. That brought them up to near jounin levels and three full squads of jounin were probably more than she could handle. That still wasn't counting the fact that they could power up once more by entering the second level of their seals.
She was suddenly aware of Ranmaru behind her.
She and Naruto had drilled him to the point that he had a puncher's chance of taking out a couple jounin on his own. It was one of the reasons why his training had been incredibly harsh.
With his help, there was a chance that they might get out unharmed, but despite his technical skill, Ranmaru was still relatively inexperienced in actual battle. Asking him to take part in a large battle of the enemy with her was probably unrealistic at this point. She would have to send him off with one or two of the jounin. If they got lucky, they would be able to fight a delaying action for a couple of hours, which was when Naruto was supposed to come pick them up before he left for his honeymoon.
"What business do you have with me?" Sasame said in a calm voice, giving away none of the nervousness she was feeling. "If you're here for the bounty placed on me, I have to inform you that I have recently been bought and claimed. You're wasting your time if you're here to take me to the nearest slaver. I have the papers to prove it."
Given that they were from Oto, it was unlikely that they were simply after money. Most likely, they were after her because of her mastery in solid chakra manipulation. Her skill in it surpassed even her cousin Arashi's, which was one of the reasons why ninja villages had been hesitant in taking up retrieval requests from the slave company that had initially bought her.
Kabuto was probably interested in researching it. Actual money probably meant very little to the bastard.
It was still worth a shot, however.
"Irrelevant," the leader responded as he held up a sword.
Sasame shifted into a defensive stance once she realized that talking wasn't going to get her out of the situation.
"Take the two directly in front of you," she muttered to the boy behind her. "I'll take the other ten."
"Ten?" Ranmaru hissed back, "You can't handle ten on your own at once. I'll try to distract at least four or five. I won't be able to win in that kind of battle, but I can buy you a lot of time." Ranmaru growled. "I still can't believe Kabuto sent out three squads of ninjas with the Cursed Seals just to go after you."
"It's pointless to mull over that right now," Sasame shook her head lightly. "He's probably after one of my clan techniques. And it's better that you finish your opponents off quickly as possible instead of trying to stall; endurance is not your forte, especially since they're using the Cursed Seals. Take two for now and start picking off the rest of them one-by-one once you get back after you're finished. That's the best strategy here. With my techniques, I have a much better chance at fighting a delaying action. Master was supposed to meet us here in two hours. It's not realistic, but we'll need to try to last that long."
They instantly leapt into action.
She ducked under a sword swing before summoning solid chakra strings. She twisted to avoid a punch, then wrapped the strings around one of her enemies, and slung him into two others.
Her danger senses went off and she locked herself in a cage of chakra. She winced as she felt the vibrations from the technique. She turned to see one of her enemies holding up a trumpet.
It's a sound technique!
Sasame quickly ripped off a bit of the fabric from her kimono and placed it in her ears. Using the fabric as a medium—to conserve chakra, since it was easier to channel chakra through objects than through the air—she saturated the fabric with chakra to create fabric-chakra hybrid earplugs that would block all sounds.
It was still a waste of chakra, so the trumpet-wielding one would have to die first.
She dispelled the chakra cage around her with a wave of her hand and then flew threw hand signs.
"Fire Release—crap!"
Sasame had to roll out of the way a lightning technique landed where she had been standing just a second before.
She could most likely defeat ten of them in a row, but fighting ten at once—dealing with attacks from ten different directions—was a different story altogether, especially with the inability to hear. She was having some trouble picking up where her enemies were. She was a sensor, but sensing took concentration, something she couldn't afford doing when she had to dedicate mental real estate on attacking. She had to hand it to Kabuto; he chose his men well. If it hadn't been for Ranmaru drawing away two of the enemies away, she would have been done for already. She still hadn't been able to kill a single one.
The one advantage she had over her enemies, however, was that she was free to use area of effect ninjutsu since she had many more targets. Unless they wanted to hurt their own comrades, they were limited to mostly precision techniques. It was likely that they didn't care for the lives of their teammates, but they clearly knew that with every person who went down, Sasame's chances of coming out with a victory went up.
She felt a wave of chakra soaring towards her. It was probably sound in the air. She jumped behind a tree and saw the bark explode from the sound vibrations.
This wouldn't do at all.
Sasame needed to have more cover so she could pick them off one-by-one. There were plenty of trees around them, but she needed to take away even more space.
She started to prepare ninjutsu while moving, something relatively difficult to do. The human mind was horrible at multitasking; it was incredibly difficult to focus on locating enemies, dodging attacks, and casting ninjutsu all at the same time. But it was a skill that Naruto had taught to help her survive.
Sasame smiled. Even hundreds of miles away, Naruto was still protecting her.
"Earth Release: Gaia Pillars!"
All around them, large columns of mud and rock rose around them, destroying the nearby trees and separating all of them. Since Sasame was a sensor and knew where each one of them was, she was at an advantage. Unknown to her enemies was the fact that she had coated the pillars with her special solid chakra. The mud was only to serve as a distraction. The real threat was her solid chakra.
She flared her chakra.
She sighed with some relief as she heard a couple chakra signatures disappear. More would have been better, of course, but she would take everything she could get right now. What made it even better was that one of the now dead was the annoying one throwing those sound attacks at her.
Sasame had manipulated the chakra on the pillars to become transparent spears that attacked each of her enemies while they were trying to orient themselves and figure out how to navigate between the large pillars. Most of them had been caught off guard and hadn't expected the attack.
Eight more to go, she mentally counted before she felt eight identical surges of chakra. And my battle just got harder even with two of the enemies down.
Leaving her makeshift earplugs in as insurance in case any one else was able to use those annoying sound attacks, she dispelled the chakra coating the earth posts. The same trick wouldn't work twice.
She snuck in between the pillars heading towards the nearest enemy.
"Fire Release: Rings of Wrath," she whispered. Three small circlets appeared in her hand.
Her enemy noticed her and jumped back, avoiding all three of the expanding fire rings she threw at him. Fortunately for Sasame, and unfortunately for him, Sasame had already accounted for that and had created a sharp spear of solid chakra behind the man.
Seven more to go. She steeled herself.
Her eyes widened when the man roared with pain.
"That hurt, you bitch!" The man grabbed the chakra constructed and pulled it out before tossing it on the ground where it disappeared.
It was impossible; no person could survive having his or her hearts punctured. Did the transformations displace vital organs inside the body?
"Tch. Fire Release: Rings of Wrath!" This time, she threw ten fire rings.
"Too easy," the man taunted as he wove in and out of the net of rings. Sasame ignored him as she continued to manipulate the fire rings flying around him. He ducked under one and then jumped up through another one. "Aren't you supposed to be el—"
Unfortunately, the ring he was currently jumping threw closed in rapidly. Sasame shifted her hands to increase the power.
A huge pillar of fire went up into the air.
"Now seven more to go," she panted, as another enemy landed after seeing what might has well have been a beacon giving off her position.
Still, the earth pillars around them were huge and with threat of transparent spikes popping out—which the enemies didn't know was no longer there—they would be careful and slow. While they moved around cautiously, she would pick them off one-by-one.
Sasame's eyes widened when she saw several of the pillars hiding her from view crumbled. Impossible! They can't just crumble like that! Even lighting techniques would make them explode!
"What the—?" she whispered to no one.
"Surrender, none of your techniques will work on us now," the leader claimed in an arrogant and confident tone as he walked through a pillar near her.
Her eyes narrowed when she saw glowing yin-yang shaped seals on her transformed enemies' clothes. "I see. No wonder your chakra signatures disappeared and my techniques suddenly collapsed like that. Dispersion Seals," she groaned. "Just my luck. Dispersion Seals and Cursed Seals." Her solid chakra techniques wouldn't work anymore. She looked at the leader.
She quickly summoned the weapon she mastered just for a situation like this. It wasn't her preferred way of fighting—it felt strange to fight without chakra—but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Poof!
Sasame grimly took the metal longbow in her hands. She quickly took out an arrow and fired it straight into the unsuspecting leader's eye, killing him before he could react.
"Idiot, never keep your guard down," she lectured before body flickering away to dodge the incoming blows from his subordinates.
"Six more," she gasped out as she threw up a chakra wall to protect her from an explosive tag. She had already spent more than half her chakra.
Where was Ranmaru?
With the predictive ability of his eyes, he should have been able to handle those two by now. They were easily the weakest in the group.
She almost panicked as one of men jumped through the explosion and through her wall—it immediately dissolved as he touched it—and grabbed her bow. She managed to stab the man in the throat with an arrow, but she had to release her bow, as the now five remaining enemies charged at her.
She jumped away into the tree to put some more distance between her and her enemies and fell on one knee. It was exhausting constantly trying to dodge attacks from multiple fronts. The power boost from the Cursed Seals had been expected but Sasame hadn't accounted for them having Dispersion Seals. She frowned as she pondered on her next move. Sasame never favored using weapons to begin with and she wasn't a good enough taijutsu user to continually dodge attacks from five different directions indefinitely. It was already somewhat of miracle that she managed to kill five this quickly when all ten were initially attacking her at the same time.
She allowed herself a small smile. Never underestimate how much of an advantage being underestimated was.
The expression on her face quickly turned hard. But now with the Dispersion Seals in place, any advantage she might have had was gone. Since her enemies would no longer be expelling chakra, she would no longer be able to sense them. Any contact she made with them would lead to a large portion her chakra being dissipated. Any ninjutsu or genjutsu she launched would be ineffective.
Sasame looked at the small scrapes all over her body and grimaced.
She would have to begin taking calculated risks.
Closing her eyes and concentrating, she created a solid longbow using solely her chakra. It would be a strain on her reserves to keep up such a dense chakra construct for a long time, but there really was no other way she could fight a Dispersion Seal user. And it wasn't like she was going to be using her chakra for anything else either.
Forests, Land of Rice Fields – March 28, AK 22
Ranmaru blocked the swipe from his enemy's metal claw with his Star Staff.
He had attacked two ninjas immediately after the battle had begun and led them at far away. Each time they tried to turn back, he would launch various elemental attacks.
Eventually, they had decided to take care of him first before taking care of the main objective.
The Oto ninjas must have recognized him because they kept their distance. They clearly knew about his eyes. Ranmaru wasn't the best at taijutsu because of his relatively weak body, but he had incredibly good predictive powers and was able to end close-ranged fights almost before they even started.
After five minutes of flinging long-range ninjutsu, the idiot in front of him had gotten impatient and went in for the kill.
Ranmaru twisted his staff free and thrust it forward.
"Raikiri!"
The enemy managed to dodge and suffer only a graze before jumping back.
"Fire Release: Large Fireball!"
Ranmaru quickly pulled his staff free and swerved it towards the direction the attack was coming from. "Water Release: Aqua Wave!"
Large amounts of steam rose up in the air as the two attacks collided. He made a note to thank Naruto-sensei; without the Star Staff and its ability to launch attacks of all elements, he would have been dead long ago.
Ranmaru launched another Aqua Wave at the man standing in the tree.
Unfortunately, his enemy chose that time to activate the Dispersion Seal and waved off the attack. Ranmaru could tell that his enemy was unhappy with the situation.
The seals must have been a last resort situation to bring down Sasame-sempai. With the time limits on those seals, he's just wasting an invaluable weapon on what is small fry, Ranmaru theorized.
Ranmaru's eyes widened. That meant that the other ten were using Dispersion Seals as well.
Sasame-sempai was an above-average A-rank, but there was no way she could take on ten Cursed Sealed enemies using Dispersion Seals. The Cursed Seal already brought an average ninja up to near jounin levels. The Dispersion Seals brought up someone's "ranking" roughly one entire level. If these Oto ninjas were stacking Cursed Seals and Dispersion Seals, Sasame-sempai might as well be facing ten A-ranks.
Of course, there were ways to fight indirectly and take away the benefits gained from both seals, such as fighting from distance or through traps, but Sasame-sempai was more of a close to mid-range ninjutsu user. Worse, she wouldn't even be able to use her sensory skills to determine where her attackers were once they started using Dispersions Seals.
Ranmaru had to get back to her as soon as possible. He had to be her eyes; only his eye techniques were able to sense and detect people using Dispersion Seals.
Boom!
He saw two dozen earth pillars go up into the air in the distance. Good. The enemies were probably not using Dispersion Seals just yet if she was throwing around chakra intensive techniques like that.
He had to finish off his battles here as soon as possible.
Ranmaru noted that the ninja he had grazed with the Raikiri was now next to his partner in the tree. He rushed towards them, casting illusions all around them. Interestingly enough, as with his eye techniques, his illusions and genjutsu techniques were among the few chakra-based technique not affected by the Dispersion Seals. He had asked Naruto-sensei multiple times but never got a clear answer.
All Naruto-sensei had said was that he was a natural counter-type to anti-chakra practitioners. Unfortunately for his two enemies now using Dispersion Seals on top of the Cursed Seal level two, by throwing away their ability to use ninjutsu, they had thrown away their last advantage against him.
He replaced himself with a log near his one of his enemies as the two started punching and kicking at all the illusions. Ranmaru could tell that they were getting unnerved. His illusions weren't solid, but a small subtle genjutsu fooling their senses was enough to make them think that they were all solid clones. Ranmaru smirked as they tried to dispel his illusions as if they were D-rank genjutsu.
Ranmaru manipulated his illusions so that they would all appear to be throwing kunai. He himself body flickered directly in front of the first of his enemies and slammed a kunai into his head before jumping back from the projectiles his victim's partner threw. Ranmaru quickly replaced himself with another log to hide his tracks and had his illusions swarm the remaining ninja.
The man lost his balance trying to dodge all the illusory attacks and fell off the tree. Ranmaru quickly took the opportunity to jump and slam his Star Staff into him and knock the man out.
Without even wasting a moment, he swiped his lightning coated rod across the man's neck and decapitated him before heading back towards his sempai.
Hopefully, she would still be fighting by the time he got there.
Forests, Land of Rice Fields – March 28, AK 22
Sasame clutched at her injured shoulder as she faced the last three. She had managed to sneak up on them multiple times and had taken two of them out with her makeshift bow, but they had quickly caught onto her plan after the first one went down.
Three of them had waited for her to attack the next one and used that opportunity to swarm her.
She managed to kill the one she intended to before escaping, but suffered a grave injury to her arm, preventing her from using her weapon. Furthermore, they had managed to grab her several times and dispersed a great deal of the chakra in her body.
She breathed hard as she held up a kunai with her good hand and got ready to attack. They were stronger and faster, but she was still more agile and skilled. At the very least, she could fight a delaying action until Ranmaru got back.
Sasame breathed a sigh of relief as illusions sprung up around them.
About time, Ranmaru, she thought as the men started dodge illusory projectiles.
"You okay, Sempai?" Ranmaru said as he landed in front of her.
"Idiot!" she hissed. "They know that those are illusions attacking them. If see you here, they'll know that you're the real one."
Ranmaru smirked. "But I'm not the real one, Sempai. Look!"
Sasame gasped as one of the ninjas had his skull crushed by the earth-reinforced Star Staff as he charged towards what he thought was the "real" Ranmaru, ignoring all the illusory blows he was receiving. Unfortunately for him, one of the Ranmaru projections attacking him had been the real one.
She looked at her junior with awed eyes. Even she wasn't able to tell that the Ranmaru in front of her was an illusion. It was giving off a perfect chakra signal as well.
Ranmaru really had grown a lot. He was still a child at times, but no one could say that he was incompetent.
Her eyes narrowed when she saw the enemies' confusion about how a chakra technique was affecting them. "I still don't understand how your techniques are the only things that affect them."
"That's something I believe I can answer."
The illusions all disappeared instantly, leaving a shocked Ranmaru and Sasame along with two wary Oto ninjas.
"Lord Naruto," Sasame breathed out in relief, as she finally fainted from the exhaustion and blood loss.
Forests, Land of Rice Fields – March 28, AK 22
Naruto quickly formed a shadow clone to attend to Sasame as he walked towards the Oto ninjas. He smirked when he saw their wide eyes.
They knew they were royally screwed.
When Naruto got within about five meters of them with Kyuubi Mode now activated, they immediately turned and started running.
Naruto turned to Ranmaru, "Which one was the one who hurt Sasame?"
Ranmaru was still gaping. "I…I'm not sure, Naruto-sensei. I only just got here myself after taking two of them on somewhere else."
Naruto shook his head. "Foolish apprentice. You're gifted with such amazing eyes and you let Sasame take care of…let's see," Naruto looked around and counted the number of bodies before adding them to the two who had run away, "ten by herself?"
"Ah…" Naruto mentally laughed as Ranmaru backed up in fear of punishment, "I'm sorry! I won't let it happen again!"
Despite his words, Naruto was proud that his student had managed to take care of two on his own and had made it back in time without any injuries to finish off one more. He couldn't let Ranmaru get a big head though.
Naruto gave him a stern look before cracking up at the cowed look on his disciple's face. "Oh, stop being such a baby. I'm not going to hurt you."
The teen looked relieved at that before pointing in the direction of the two men running away. "Um…Naruto-sensei, what about them?"
Naruto shrugged. "Leave them." As far as Naruto was concerned, they were already dead. He turned to look at his clone still healing his new servant.
"Huh?" came the response.
He sighed before turning back to his student. "Okay. Fine. Watch. I give it about three seconds."
Three.
Two.
One.
BOOM!
"Wow…" Ranmaru gasped with his eyes activated. "What the heck happened? I saw purple and blue chakra mixing and then disappearing into an unstable mix of black and white."
"Safety precautions," Naruto explained. "You yourself reported that he was having the ninjas with Cursed Seals use the Dispersion Seals. As you can see," Naruto gestured to the smoke coming from a little beyond the trees, "The Dispersion Seals therefore had a fail-safe in case that happened."
"You could have made them blow up faster," Ranmaru pointed out.
Naruto frowned and nodded. "I did. They're set to blow up immediately. Kabuto must have been keeping information from you even though you're a part of his research department. He somehow managed to extend the time before the fail-safe goes off."
His student groaned. "I told you that you should have killed him. Now he's going to get more annoying."
"We'll worry about that later," Naruto waved off as he turned around.
They both walked to Sasame who was now awake and fully healed.
"What's with the look of shock, Sasame? You know I can shadow step to any place I marked. And this place," Naruto gestured at the now devastated area, "is one of our rendezvous points."
Sasame looked at him as if he were crazy. "But, you're supposed to be with Hanabi today! It's the morning after your wedding. You should technically be in bed with her right now! She's going to notice that you're—"
"Shadow clones," he said casually.
"But what about—"
"I sent a clone to my wedding. And during the wedding," Naruto interrupted, already knowing what she was going to ask, "Sai and I checked to see if the chakra barrier around Konoha can detect me teleporting when I shadow step in and out of the village while everyone was preoccupied with my wedding," Naruto explained. "We long theorized that it couldn't, especially after Sai used it to teleport to my compound in an emergency back in January. But we now have confirmation. I can move in and out of the village freely now and don't have to wait until I'm out on a mission to carry out my 'personal' tasks."
"Why didn't you send a clone to check with Sai? It would have been safer," his orange-haired friend inquired with a curious look on her face. "It wouldn't have been good if people found out you sent a clone to your wedding."
"The shadow step requires using spiritual energy and physical energy. Clones aren't able to use either."
Both of his associates looked confused. "Spiritual energy? Physical energy?"
"I'll explain later. It's one of the reasons why I came here actually."
"Oh and that reminds me," Ranmaru replied, "Why aren't you in disguise?! If one of those Oto ninjas got away, your identity could have been compromised!"
"I had no time to get changed," Naruto's eyes turned hard. "An unexpected event happened this morning, one that requires us to change our plans immediately."
"It's Sakura, isn't it?" Sasame asked worriedly.
Naruto grimaced and nodded. "She managed to weaken the seal far earlier than I anticipated."
"It's surprising for a girl who was incredibly insecure to have such mental strength. The seal you placed on her was a level-7 seal; it should have been more than enough to keep her comatose for at least a year," Sasame commented with a frown. "So what are we going to do?"
Naruto turned the sealing practitioner, who, not surprisingly, threw herself into fuinjutsu to try and come up with a way to remove the seal and restore the skin on her arm. Naruto had been teaching her whenever he had the time, but she wasn't all that skilled just yet. Still, in spite of her lack of experience, Sasame had come up with a way to dampen the chakra-emitting seal that alerted slavers. It didn't remove it completely, but it would allow her move around more freely. Naruto had often offered to remove the seal for her, but the girl had adamantly refused.
She claimed that it was out of pride, but Naruto knew that it was because she didn't want him to see the disfiguring slave mark on her arm.
"The seal is still intact," Naruto clarified. "She managed to crack it rather than break it completely. One of my clones felt the change yesterday while in Sage Mode while acting as a lookout for me and Sai."
"So she's conscious, but her memory's not intact?" Ranmaru asked.
"No, the seal doesn't work that way. She's not awake but she's improved from a coma-like state to a dreamlike state. It's only a matter of time before she gets all her memories back and wakes up. Once that happens, I'm going to have to bail. Ugh. How annoying. Just when I had plans on consolidating my power base in Konoha, this happens. And it happened at the most inopportune time as well. If this happened even a few weeks earlier, I would have just bailed and wouldn't have had to get married."
"Why not just bail now? Or last night?" Ranmaru asked. "Fell in love with your wife that quickly?" he teased.
Naruto rolled his eyes and launched a gust of wind at the silly boy, knocking him into a tree. "As if. I gave my word to be a loyal husband and I intend to keep it. If there's betrayal, it'll be from her end." Naruto paused. "And the construction in Wave Country hasn't been completed yet. They still need about six more months to complete the initial stages and about two years after that to finish everything else. We need to last in Konoha for at least six months."
"Shall I kill her?" Sasame offered. "As far as Konoha is concerned, I'm only a servant. It would be easy to move around within the village. You and Sakura are the only ones who know that I'm a ninja anyway."
Naruto thought about that for a minute. He wouldn't have any qualms with killing the girl he once loved—he's killed a fair amount of people over the years under Konoha's banner—but until he sorted out his feelings completely, he didn't want to kill the girl. Right now, he would be killing her in anger over her betrayal. That wasn't justice; it was revenge.
"No," Naruto finally replied. "That's not necessary. The risks of getting caught are greater than the risk of Sakura waking up. Just leave her be. If she wakes up, we'll just leave for Nami earlier than planned."
"The Hidden Village of Wave, hm?"
"Yup," Naruto nodded. "Our future home."
"Then what brings you here?" Sasame inquired. "I'm glad to see you much earlier than expected since you coming here early probably saved my life, but it's not like you had to tell us that Sakura woke up or that we're moving to Nami eventually. If you're staying in Konoha for now, I doubt that it changes our short-term plans. "
Naruto shook his head. "No, it does. Now that Sakura has shown signs of mental activity, they're going to do everything they can to read her memories with a mind-reader while keeping her 'revival' a secret from me and from the village. There are traps set inside of her mind, but I still need to buy all the time I can get. That's where you come in, Ranmaru."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Sasame was initially supposed to tell you to fake your death and leave Oto immediately. You were supposed to come with me on my honeymoon as one of my servants." Naruto smirked at the indignant look the boy got on his face. "But things have changed now. I need you to keep Konoha's attention away from Sakura while I'm gone."
"So…"
Naruto didn't answer the question and turned to the girl. "It works out that Kabuto sent those men after you, Sasame."
"How so?" the girl asked with a raised eyebrow. He smirked as he immediately entered into Kyuubi Mode, motioned through hand signs, and molded a huge amount of chakra. "Naruto! What the heck are you—?"
"Fire Release: Phoenix Flame Burst!"
Naruto flared his chakra all around him and ignited it. A phoenix of fire briefly rose from the ground before expanding into a pillar of a fire hundred meters wide.
The red flames roasted everything around them except for the three of them and the ground underneath them. The flames and smoke eventually cleared to reveal a ridiculous amount of ashes around them. Only the ground under them was still brown.
"What was that for?" Ranmaru asked with large eyes, as he surveyed the destruction. "You even burned the rocks into ashes!"
"I'm going to write Kabuto a little note telling him that I don't appreciate him attacking a very valuable spy I managed to plant inside of Naruto's own home," Naruto gestured to Sasame, "As far as Kabuto is concerned, Kokuten killed his men, not you two. Ranmaru, you also 'died' in today in this fire blast."
"Okay…" said the confused boy. "So this is my ticket out of Oto?"
Naruto nodded. "Ranmaru, you can briefly return to cast one of your special genjutsu techniques on those you worked with in Oto. Make them think that those twelve men carried you out with them to use your eyes to improve their chances of capturing Sasame. You work in the research department so none of them would have had the courage to stop the twelve jounin from taking you by force."
"I can do that, but what is it that you want me to do? You still haven't answered my question," the boy asked stubbornly.
"That means I want you to masquerade as Kokuten while I'm away on my honeymoon to scare the crap out of Konoha and the other villages," Naruto answered rather bluntly, indulging the boy.
"What?!" Naruto saw the panicked look in his student's eyes. "I'm glad I'm finally leaving Oto, but how am I going to pretend to be you, Naruto-sensei? I'm nowhere near as strong as you are; hell, I'm not even as strong as Sasame-sempai and I doubt she could pull something like this," Ranmaru pointed all around them, "off. If I get caught, it's all over. I won't be able to bulldoze my way through enemies like you can."
"He's right," Sasame agreed while also looking shocked at the sea of ashes. "We barely were scraping by against twelve B-class jounin. Ranmaru is strong, but this is too much for him, Lord Naruto."
"Stop calling me that, Sasame," Naruto said in an exasperated tone. Even after he repeatedly told her to treat him casually, the girl insisted on acting as if she were a real servant.
"That's not the point here, Naruto," she said, appeasing him for a moment. "You can get Ranmaru killed!"
Naruto shook his head, indicating that he disagreed, and turned to Ranmaru. "You're to meet up with Yuna in Wave Country and manage the situation there. Sai and I could only do so much when we were tied down with village responsibilities. Whenever you're free, however, I want you to act as a distraction."
"Naruto!"
"I refuse!"
"I'm not sending you off to your death, Ranmaru," Naruto said with a sigh. "I'm not crazy, you know. You might think that I'm hard on you, but I'm really just giving you tasks that are well within your abilities to carry out."
"I'm listening." Naruto laughed at the curious but suspicious look.
"I'm going to teach you a few things that will boost your power significantly."
"Not going to fall for that one," Ranmaru rolled his eyes. "Unless you have something to that will allow me to take on S-ranks by tomorrow, you can forget it. And don't try to sell this to me as a training exercise."
Naruto just stared at the boy. It wasn't like he didn't understand the boy. From his perspective, this task was incredibly dangerous. There was a large likelihood that Konoha would send out squads of jounins or even elite jounin to try and capture, or worse, kill, him. It would be like a game of poke-the-bear; that was suicide for even an elite jounin like Sasame. Only an S-rank could indefinitely survive.
Ranmaru, as he was, wouldn't last a week.
Naruto smirked. But Ranmaru was going to get a huge ability boost in a few minutes.
"I do."
"What?!" Ranmaru's jaws dropped open. "Is it training?" Naruto mentally groaned as Ranmaru paled. Somehow Naruto had unintentionally scarred the boy for life with what was supposed to be intense but good training. His student seemed to have developed a phobia for training with him now. "You're not going to tell me that you found some kind of special seal that would allow you to train an entire year in a day's worth of time, right?" The boy started backing up. "The regular training was already torturous enough; I don't want to die!"
"Stop being such a coward and listen," Naruto said with a bit of exasperation. "Every bit of training I had you do had a reason. No matter how you trained, it was going to be painful for you. Your eyes and body are unique, Ranmaru. They were actually the inspiration for my newest techniques like the Shadow Step Technique and the basis for the Dispersion Seal."
"That reminds me, Master," Sasame interjected. "Those seals of yours are troublesome to deal with. I wished that you had given us some kind of way to turn them off if we ran into Oto ninjas."
Naruto looked at her sheepishly. "I never considered that they'd be used against us. I'll give you something to combat people with those seals on. That's the entire point of this conversation right now."
"Huh? What do you mean? Weren't we talking about me?"
"We were," Naruto agreed. "Like I said, you're the source of the Dispersion Seal. Haven't you been asking me that it was strange that you're the only one who can use chakra-based techniques against someone with the seals?"
The boy blinked at that. "But I don't nullify chakra."
Naruto shook his head. "You are completely misunderstanding the purpose of the Dispersion Seal."
"What do you mean? Isn't it just supposed to nullify chakra?"
"You are too caught up on the idea of nullifying," Naruto scolded him lightly. "Think more broadly."
"Well, it's not like you ever told me the purpose of the Dispersion Seal. I'm flying blind here!" Ranmaru vented with a scowl. "You never tell me anything specific! For example, I found out that you attacked your ex-girlfriend because she betrayed you months after it happened."
"That was on a need-to-know basis. And during that time, you were also a spy. There's no way I was going to let sensitive information get that close to Kabuto," Naruto explained. "But that's no longer an issue. Listen, chakra is the product of the subconscious molding of physical energy, otherwise known as yang, and spiritual energy, otherwise known as yin. Spiritual energy is used to create things from imagination while physical energy is used to make give life and to make those thoughts permanent. Thus chakra has the quality of being able to do otherwise miraculous things while permanently affecting the world around us. Chakra is the underlying base for the entire world, thus everything, including the rocks, trees, air, has at least minute levels of chakra."
"I still don't follow. What are you getting at? What does yin-yang release have to do with my eyes?"
Naruto scowled at his student. "That's because you haven't heard everything. Shut up for a minute. Spiritual energy and physical energy are mixed almost instantly after they are produced in the body. While people can manipulate ratios of spiritual energy and physical energy in their chakra, there has never been a person who can make or use a pure form of one of the constituents. Except for one person. Someone with rather special eyes."
"You're saying that's me?" Ranmaru said incredulously. "But I don't even think about how to use my eyes. I draw chakra into—"
"No, you draw spiritual energy into your eyes. How else did you think you created free floating illusions without manipulating your victim's chakra? Your illusions are visible to even people wearing chakra-nullifying armor. Your illusions work even after coming in contact with a Dispersion Seal. Did you think all of that was just coincidence?"
"You're saying that Ranmaru expels spiritual energy from his eyes and shaping it into the form he desires outside of his body?"
Naruto nodded at his orange-haired friend and servant.
"I see…and unlike a true genjutsu, even if I can make my illusions interact with the real world by pouring in even more spiritual energy, without physical energy to sustain them, they never last long," Ranmaru frowned. "So are you going to train me on how to use physical energy to help me make my illusions permanent?"
Naruto shook his head. "Your body doesn't produce any physical energy. Your body only absorbs enough physical energy to survive from the food you eat. That's why your endurance is always best right after a meal, unlike most people who simply become too full and sedated to fight. The lack of physical energy was why you were so sickly as a child. "
He saw his student wincing at that. No doubt Ranmaru was thinking upon his memories of Raiga and burying people alive. Naruto felt that Ranmaru punished himself enough but his student still beat himself up every day for what Raiga did with his help.
Ranmaru shook his head to clear his mind and then smiled at a thought. "I see. So that's how the Curry of Life improved my vitality? It was full of physical energy!" Naruto scoffed at that. No matter what his student said, Naruto was never going to take the idea of a Curry of Life seriously.
"Stop calling it the Curry of Life. It just seems like one of those stupid things that you see in fillers of animes. I looked at the recipe and it didn't seem like anything special. I came up with a different theory. I think that your absolute belief in this Curry of Life, as you call it, created a permanent illusion for your body and forced it to live off of pure spiritual energy."
"You're saying that I used my spiritual energy to create an illusory body for myself that sustains me?"
"More or less."
"Don't you think that's crazier than the concept of a Curry of Life? You shouldn't be a heathen, Naruto-sensei. The Curry of Life is real."
Naruto growled. He did not miss the amused look on Ranmaru's face. At this point, his student was just being annoying on purpose to distract himself from his thoughts about Raiga.
"Who knows?" Naruto relented, just to get his student to shut up, "We'll never know for sure. In any case, your vitality didn't improve. It's why your chakra reserves are so low. You're relying on your exterior environment for the physical energy needed to create chakra. And it's also why your training was so excruciatingly painful. You were trying to get you to use a source of power that you just didn't have."
"I see," Ranmaru murmured. "So you created the Star Staff for me so I could use any chakra-based techniques. All the training before then was simply to get an understanding of how chakra worked."
Naruto smiled as Ranmaru touched the staff on his back and lowered his head in a sign of gratitude. The kid was irritating and clueless at times, but his heart was in the right place.
He nodded to confirm his student's statement. "Now, the Dispersion Seal only stops chakra. It does not stop spiritual energy, physical energy, or any other form of energy that is not made of chakra, so you are completely immune to the effects of that seal as long as you use your natural powers."
"So that's why you designed the seal," Sasame breathed out in realization. "It was a training tool to help you understand how Ranmaru's powers worked and for you to find a new source of power. I remember you telling me that you had reached the limits of extending your chakra capacity. I had no idea you were working on something like this."
"Right," Naruto said with a smile. "Now we have a power that only our group can use. I'll teach both of you how to use spiritual energy and physical energy."
"So how does this have to do with my training?"
Naruto ignored the slight shudder that went through the boy's body. Ranmaru was too much of a baby. The training Ranmaru went through had nothing on Gai's or Anko's training curriculums.
"Right now, you have been using yin to simply cast illusions. That's not all you can do. Watch." Naruto ordered as he created multiple projections made of pure spiritual energy. "You saw my original position. Try to hit me."
He smirked when he saw that his student didn't even hesitate to swing his Star Staff down. Ranmaru had even added lightning chakra for good measure. The fool. The idiot was only asking for punishment later on.
Naruto mentally laughed when Ranmaru fumed as the staff missed. It was way too much fun punking the kid.
"What was that?" Sasame asked curiously. "I couldn't even follow you because you weren't using chakra."
"How did you do that?" Ranmaru demanded, "I didn't even see you use any techniques at all! Let me try again with my eyes activated. They don't miss anything!"
"No need for that, since I'm going to explain what just happened," The illusions all disappeared, showing that Naruto had taken the place of one of the other illusions and causing the other two to gasp. "You can actually transport yourself to the location of where your illusion is. I guess you can call it a form of high speed travel."
"Wow," his student said with awe. "This technique has so many possibilities. Taijutsu was never my strength, but with this speeding up my movements, I might even be able to add taijutsu to my repertoire. Up to now, I was only able to use my illusions to trick my opponents into thinking I was in an area I was not. Now I can actually teleport!"
"Remember, this is a technique only you can do."
"But you just did it now!" Ranmaru pointed out.
Naruto nodded. "Partially correct. I can only do this right now because I have a modified Dispersion Seal on me right now," Naruto pulled his hand into a hand sign and let the seal on his forehead glow. "It's forcibly dissipating all of my physical energy. In short, I'm wasting half my energy. Moreover, I'm more of a natural yang user so this technique is extremely difficult and energy-intensive for me to use."
"So it's a technique that requires the user's body to be running on only spiritual energy?"
"Yes," Naruto replied in a serious tone, "Even the smallest bit of physical energy that mixes with that spiritual energy will disrupt the technique. It was extremely painful experimenting to come up with this technique for you. Consider it an early birthday present since I won't be able to make it to the one coming up in a few weeks," Naruto smiled gently as the boy looked down bashfully for a few seconds at that. "It's not quite as flashy as the Star Staff I gave you last year, but it should be even more useful than your staff. You should have no problems with this technique. I am able to use spiritual energy well enough to cast those illusions, which I named as ki feints, but only you'll be able to use them to their fullest potential."
"Anything else?" Ranmaru asked eagerly.
"One more, but before that I need to explain something."
Ranmaru groaned lightly. Ranmaru didn't dislike lectures, but Naruto could tell the boy was excited to test out his early birthday present. "Alright."
"Normally, spiritual energy has the quality of being compacted inside of your body while physical energy has the quality of being expelled from the body. You, however, naturally expel spiritual energy, which allows you to create illusions with ease."
"Yes, it's almost second nature for me," Ranmaru agreed, "but why is that important?"
"Do you know how difficult it is to expel spiritual energy from your body? Those ki feints took me a full year to execute without a flaw. Sasame won't ever be able to use ki feints since she's a pure yang type. Spiritual energy exists within the mind. Expelling it out of your body means that you are forcing your will on the exterior environment. That is incredibly difficult to do for even for someone who is able to use spiritual energy. Ranmaru, you are an aberration to the very concept of typical spiritual energy."
"I see." Naruto smacked himself on the forehead when he saw that Ranmaru actually didn't understand. The boy was book-smart, just like Sakura was, but he wasn't very good at linking information together.
"Try the opposite and see how easy it is. Try to absorb the spiritual energy in nature. Compress the energy that you normally send to your eyes to expel from your body, and instead, fill it throughout your entire body. And make sure to calm your spirit. The wilder your emotions, the more your spiritual energy sloshes around inside your body. For this technique, your spiritual energy has to be very still."
Naruto watched as his student meditated.
Sea of ashes that was once forests, Land of Rice Fields – March 28, AK 22
Ranmaru took a deep breath. He wasn't completely sure what spiritual energy was, but he sought out what felt like the energy he regularly felt inside his body.
He grabbed it from his surroundings around him and pulled it into his body. Just as Naruto-sensei had said, it was incredibly easy for him to do.
Suddenly…
The grooves on the rocks.
The insect on the trees.
The flowing of the river.
The vibrations of wind coming from the birds flapping their wings.
His Sensei shifting around almost imperceptibly.
Ranmaru snapped open his eyes. "I can sense it all!" Instantly, the feeling of omniscience disappeared as soon as he got excited.
"That's the spirit field."
"Spirit field?"
"It's a spiritual sphere around you in which you can sense everything. Movement, still objects, everything."
"So it's like a super sensing ability?"
"Sensors only sense chakra. This ability isn't for scouting. It's for fighting."
Ranmaru thought about that. Why would sensing be…Oh!
"Ah! I get it! It's for taijutsu battles. I'll be able to detect every little movement that my opponent makes and predict his next move."
"That's right. It's the ultimate taijutsu technique. But remember, the spirit field only activates when you are calm. The moment you get excited, you'll lose the field. So practice it over the next few days. To be honest, I'm shocked that you were able to create a spirit field in the first place. I guess it should have been expected since you're a natural genius at using spiritual energy."
"But I already have my amazing eyes. They can predict anything!"
"Yes, those damn eyes of yours," his sensei growled out. Ranmaru got a sheepish look on his face. He knew that his teacher wasn't a big fan of eye techniques because of his history with Sasuke Uchiha. "The Sharingan gives the user images based on a predictions made by looking at muscle movement and chakra flow. Your eyes are able to read spiritual energy flow within the body and more or less 'read' the intentions of your opponent. Both are incredibly predictive abilities, but the user still has to decide how to move. Activate your eyes. I'm going to attack you."
Naruto-sensei summoned five clones, which attacked Ranmaru from left, right, front, back, and from the top.
"Ow! You didn't have to hit me so hard!" Ranmaru rubbed his bruised stomach.
"Oh shut up," came the heartless response. "You're on par with B-ranks; you should be able to tolerate that much pain."
Ranmaru grit his teeth and shook his fist at his sensei. His frustration grew when he saw Sasame-sempai laugh at him. "You were asking for that one, Ranmaru."
"Ugh," he vented, "I get it. Even if I know what you're going to do, there's no point if I can't move think or move fast enough to dodge. You didn't have to hit me to prove that!"
His teacher ignored him. "Activate the spirit field."
This time, Naruto-sensei attacked even faster and without warning, but Ranmaru was somehow able to quickly shift his body into a position where he took the least amount of damage. Fortunately, the least amount of damage in the case was only being grazed by all the attacks.
"Wow! It's almost as if my body moved on its own…"
Naruto-sensei nodded with a smile. "Yes, it takes the 'thinking' aspect out of the question. Your body and mind gain instinctively knowledge on what is the best possible move for that situation. You'll still get hit if the opponent is fast enough and leaves no way out in their attacks, but even if you do get hit, your body will already have shifted into a position to have the least possible damage."
"Sound like Sage Mode and the Byakugan. 360 degree awareness."
"That's simplifying it. Both Sage Mode and the Byakugan are mostly attuned to chakra. Sage Mode goes one step further and sense danger. But the spirit field senses everything, including the placements inanimate objects and gives you the knowledge of what to do. You won't be debating with yourself whether you have to dodge left or right. You'll already know."
"I see. This really is an amazing taijutsu technique. But wait," Ranmaru frowned. "What if someone just launches a huge ninjutsu technique at me? Then the spirit field becomes useless, right?"
"Ranmaru," he heard Sasame's irritated sigh, "do you ever think before opening that mouth of yours? What is the other yin ability that Lord Naruto taught you today?"
Ranmaru's eyes widened. "The ki feints! I can just cast one with my eyes and switch!"
"Very good." Naruto-sensei said. "Since you won't have the Dispersion Seal on you, you'll be able to use both chakra and spiritual energy at the same time as long as you have your staff at hand. Your body will channel the spiritual energy and the Star Staff will channel the chakra. Just be sure to deactivate your Star Staff and saturated it with spiritual energy when you're moving between your yin constructs. You won't be able to use chakra techniques mid-teleportation, however. So no ki feints while you're using the Raikiri Current."
Ranmaru frowned when he remembered something. "I thought you were going to teach me something that would make me an S-rank overnight for a second. These two techniques are powerful, but I don't feel like I'm an S-rank from just that."
"If I recall your words, you wanted something that would allow you to take out S-ranks. With your unique techniques, you'll be able to get the drop on anyone even if you aren't a master yourself." Ranmaru groaned. "You'll get there someday. Just not now. One step at a time, Ranmaru. Even Sasame isn't an S-rank and she's been training for half-a-decade longer than you have."
"Yeah, but you were incredibly powerful at my age," he grumbled in disappointment that he would not become a master by the next day.
"Perhaps, but with this, you'll have mastered something even I can't regularly use even now. I can technically use this spiritual energy technique if you include my clever manipulation of the Dispersion Seal, but that costs me all my yang techniques and my ninjutsu. It's not a viable option for me."
"Well, I can't use physical energy, so we're even," Ranmaru grinned despite the letdown. He was rather pleased with his early birthday presents. And even just recognizing the concept of spiritual energy would open doors for new techniques. "Okay, so you want me to act as Kokuten over the next few weeks?"
"I want you to frighten not just Konoha, but every ninja village. Your new technique should allow you to travel incredibly fast. Just cast the illusions with your eyes and teleport your body to that location and just keep repeating the process. Since you have an exorbitant amount of spiritual energy, you'll rarely get tired from spamming that technique."
"Roger."
His sensei turned to Sasame-sempai and picked her up bridal style. Ranmaru had his eyes activated so he didn't miss the slight tensing on her muscles. He sighed. She should have just told Naruto-sensei that she liked him a long time ago. It would only get more painful for her now that he was married to another woman. "We'll have to get you changed before we leave. Ranmaru…"
He snapped his attention to his teacher. "Yes?"
"Good luck."
Ranmaru nodded. "Thanks a lot." He smirked and decided to throw a parting shot. He knew it wasn't the brightest idea, but there was just something satisfying about irritating his teacher. "You're not such a bastard after all, Sensei."
The next second, Ranmaru was eating ashes as he was crushed into the ground with a heavy pillar of air before Naruto-sensei shadow stepped away.
Secret Place, Kumo – March 28, AK 22
"Uzumaki will be out of the village for the next month. I believe he is scheduled to come back on the last day of April."
Darui looked dispassionately at the projection of the greedy man in front of him. While Kumo would definitely benefit from this man's schemes, Darui couldn't stand being anywhere near a kin traitor like the man in front of him. I suppose he's not really in front of me.
"Understood. We will be taking most of the month to train our squad. Our intelligence department has put together a map detailing the entire layout of Konoha. Once inside the village, we will be able to move around relatively unhindered. There is, however, the issue of sneaking in and out of the village and also avoiding detection while in the village."
Darui didn't understand why the Raikage even bothered trying to figure out where the rumored blind spot of the Byakugan was along with the range of the Byakugan. The members of the Hyuuga clan were powerful, but there were already known methods to defeat their style of fighting. Ninjas from Kumo generally favored close combat fighting, which heavily favored the Hyuuga, but it wasn't as if Cloud ninjas were completely helpless at range.
The Hyuuga frowned. "I will try to arrange for our soon-to-be Crown Princess to be outside of the village walls. Security is lax for now, but I assume within a month or two, the girl will officially be declared the Crown Princess. This has to be done before then."
"As we agreed. How will we know where the heiress will be, even if she is outside the village? Will you be giving us her estimated location?"
The Hyuuga tilted his head. "I have a plan to deal with that minor issue. She will be at an appointed place on that day and will be quite easy to locate. Just as insurance, I will have her attendants place a chakra emitting seal to be placed on her clothes. I will give you the chakra frequency so you will be able to follow her."
Darui looked at the man for any signs of deceit. This sounded almost too good to be true.
If there were a trap, it would be…
"I trust that you will give us something to inactivate the seal once we intercept her, correct? It wouldn't be in our best interest if we were to carry her back all the way to Kumo with a tag on her showing her location to the world."
Darui wouldn't put it past Konoha to plan something like that. They would bait Kumo with a prize too good to refuse and then use it as justification to start a war. Everyone would know that Kumo kidnapped the heiress, but there must be no absolute proof. A beacon seal that declared that the girl was in Kumo would be absolute proof.
The Hyuuga chuckled darkly. "If you get caught, then I get caught. I will ensure that you escape safely and without detection. Furthermore, a war is not in my best interest as well. I merely seek to become the ruler of the Hyuuga clan. I am not a warmongering fool. If you do not trust my words, then you can just rip off her clothes. She will become a whore before long. A few days of a head start on that path won't hurt anyone."
Darui would have rolled his eyes if he were so inclined. Giving village secrets to another village and betraying kinsmen and fellow villagers sounded very much like the actions of a "warmongering fool." Not that he would say that to the other Hyuuga. Darui didn't feel that it was his job to wake people up from their delusions, especially if those people were from another village. Moreover, Darui didn't like the Hyuuga's attitude, treating his kin like a common prostitute already.
"Very well. We will plan to carry out this operation on the twenty-seventh of the month. That gives us an entire month to practice our plan of attack while giving us sufficient time to escape from Konoha and be safely back in our village before Uzumaki returns. We trust that you have a contingency plan in place should the Hyuuga clan keep her inside the village."
"Indeed. I do. There is a way to get into the village without using the gates," the man said ambiguously. "If you are able to pass through the chakra barrier surrounding the village, then I can get you inside and provide a way for you to leave without being pursued.
"Details would be nice," Darui said in a dull tone that didn't show how he felt.
"It may not prove to be necessary. I rather not give you more information that necessary," the Hyuuga smirked. "We may be allies today, but we may very well be enemies in the future. I do not wish to hand you a weapon that can be used against me."
Darui was disappointed, but he nodded. Such was the way in the ninja world.
"As agreed, we will hand you 100 million ryo."
Darui ended the connection but he thought he could hear, "A decent price for a weak and pathetic heiress."
He merely shook his head. This world sure had some nasty people.
AN: It felt like a long time since I had an update...except it's only been a week and half. Guess 12-14 hour shifts 6 days a week make the days seem infinitely long. Can't wait until August already...I'll try to get one or two updates out in July, but no promises. But after that, it should be at a rapid pace again.
Anyway, we begin a new arc! Just so that you know, Naruto and Hanabi probably won't be a part of this mini-arc since they'll be on the first part of their honeymoon. I wanted to take a break from all the fluff. Sorry…And besides, I need to develop other characters a bit more and not just Hanabi.
And sorry for the long-winded explanation about spiritual energy, but it's a key part of this story. You'll probably get one later on for physical energy as well.