Chapter 5- Transcendent Bloodlines
Sasuke and Naruto both awoke to having water poured on them, courtesy of a basic water jutsu. The blond of the group naturally let a string of curses run through the air as he began to ring out his clothing while Sasuke gave a quick look to his teammate to see that the maelstrom had once again slept in with his goggles on.
Both boys looked towards the culprit, half expecting it to be Sakura, but to their surprise, a tired looking Kakashi stared at them with his single eye.
"Breakfast," he simply said before he walked back down to the dining room.
The two quickly got dressed and ran downstairs, only to be surprised again to see their pink-haired teammate absent.
"Where's Sakura?" asked Sasuke as he took his seat.
The copy-cat sighed as he sat down his empty cup of coffee and stared at them for minute, attempting to figure how he was going to word his answer. Tsunami, who had just entered into the room with the food, took on a worried look as she stood there waiting for him to talk. Naruto and Sasuke quickly noticed that she had bags under her eyes.
"I won't lie," began the wiry man. "She's sick with something we can't identify. Last night, Tsunami and I both watched her after she began to spit up blood. Sakura has a high grade fever and her eyes are bloodshot. There are a lot of other symptoms, but it would be those that are the more dominant ones."
"Then what are we going to do?" asked Naruto with a great deal of worry in his voice.
"Tazuna, when is the bridge going to be finished?" asked the masked man as he turned to the bridge builder.
The old man mulled it in his head for a couple seconds. "In about a week."
Kakashi nodded. "I'm sorry to say this, but we're going to have to cut this mission short. All of us we'll be heading back once we pack all of our things. Right now, Sakura needs medical attention as soon as possible."
"WHAT!?" shouted Inari from across the other end of the table, "but…"
"I'm sorry," said the scarecrow with a hint of finality, "but we have to leave. Naruto, Sasuke, start packing once you get done with breakfast."
Both of them nodded as they began to wolf down their food so they could get ready to go. Inari sat at the end of the table while looking downtrodden. His surrogate big brother was leaving much earlier than he thought he would.
Two hours later, Kakashi was seen piggybacking Sakura while Sasuke and Naruto were standing next to him with their backpacks in tow. He thought it was his imagination, but the scarecrow would've sworn the Uchiha was giving his sick teammate worried glances every several seconds.
"I guess this is good-bye," began Tazuna with sadness in his aged eyes. "You guys helped so much. I honestly don't know how to repay you, but for starters, I managed to get someone at the docks that'll give you a ride home."
"Much obliged," thanked Kakashi.
Naruto turned to a crying Inari, trying to figure out how to the get the boy to relax. The young kid had become something akin to a little brother during his time there.
"Sorry… for crying," said Inari in between sniffs.
"It's okay to cry you know," Naruto could feel himself on the verge of tears, but that was the last thing he wanted, speaking he only cry liquid silver nowadays. "But you're going to make me cry."
Sasuke on the other hand kept looking at Sakura with worry evident on his normally stoic face. His friend (if he could call her that) was breathing erratically, and her body was racked with shivers in between each breathe. Like his sensei said, her cheeks were tinged with a deep crimson, the tell-tale sign of a very nasty fever. They had to leave now.
"Can we please get going?" Sasuke suggested with an edge, hoping to hurry the show.
With the final good-byes from Tsunami, Tazuna, and Inari, Team Seven began their long trek home.
"I know what we should name the bridge!" shouted Inari as he saw their retreating backs, getting his family's attention. "We should call it the Great Naruto Bridge!"
The aged bridge builder mulled the name in his mind. He did want it to be named after him, but the blond ninja did bring back hope to his village. Tazuna guessed that it was fitting that it should be named after Naruto.
"Alright, why not?! Today, the bridge shall be known as the Great Naruto Bridge!"
"Once we get back onto land," explained Kakashi to his conscious students, "we'll move at full speed so that we can back to Konoha before nightfall. Right now, we can't afford to waste time; otherwise, we might lose Sakura."
Both of them nodded as they took in just how dire the situation was.
The two boys turned to look ahead of them, watching as their boat skimmed across the water at full speed. Their hair whipped about from the erratic winds caused by the speed they traveled across the water, and sometimes it splash and shower them in a cool spray. It was so much nicer than they remembered when they first entered the Wave Country.
Thankfully, because Gato was gone, they could now use a boat engine without much fear.
Sakura lay in the center of the boat with her head propped against her backpack that Kakashi had been carrying with him. Surprisingly, Sasuke sat by her side the entire trip.
Naruto would have commented on his teammate's unusual behavior around Sakura, but he didn't feel that now was the right time to aggravate anybody, lest he lose any body parts he wished to keep.
Team Seven caught sight of the dock leading back to solid land. The moment the boat touched it, Kakashi quickly picked up Sakura and her supplies and then the ninja rocketed out of the boat towards home. The man whom had been working the motor whistled as he saw the speeds they moved at.
The run back to Konoha was silent, mainly because Naruto and Sasuke were hard pressed to keep up with their masked teacher, even when the man was carrying someone. They basically had no time to argue.
It was almost nightfall and everyone was eager to see the gates of Konoha and to get Sakura to the hospital. Naruto couldn't wait to get his hands on his favorite meal and to see Iruka, but Sasuke had other plans. He needed to train; he wanted to keep ahead of Naruto in their personal arms race, and to not have a repeat of their first battle.
If they all weren't going full speed, everyone would have sighed in relief as the famous wooden gates of the Village Hidden in the Leaves came into view.
To say that gate duty was boring would be like saying that Jiraiya was just an average pervert. It was a huge understatement. Nobody liked the job. As a matter of fact, most shinobi went out of their way to avoid it.
To the guards at the front of the gates, the team of Konoha-nin heading their way was a godsend. Their boredom would end for a couple minutes at least.
"Open up," ordered Kakashi as he and his team stopped in front of the gates. "Right now we don't have time to spare. One of my team is direly sick and needs medical attention ASAP."
One of them nodded and quickly opened the gates, greeting everyone to the sight of their home. They were never so happy to have their eyes looking out on the village.
Before Sasuke and Naruto could be left to their own devices, their teacher cut their escape short: "Now, before you go off. I want you two to meet me by the usual spot tomorrow. And Naruto, you and I are going to have a private talk with Sandaime later as well."
The two members of Team Seven nodded their heads in confirmation.
Sasuke, though, couldn't help but wonder why his sensei and blond teammate needed to meet with the Hokage. Maybe because it had something to do with Naruto's Limit… That would make sense. After all, it wasn't everyday a Bloodline Limit manifested at random. It still aggravated him that he didn't have a clue what it was, but kept his annoyances behind his usual mask of indifference.
"Okay, see you later sensei! Make sure you tell us what's wrong with Sakura tomorrow!" shouted Naruto as he ran for his favorite ramen stand.
With that, the remaining two members of Team Seven, Kakashi and Sasuke, split their paths and went to do their own business: Kakashi to drop off Sakura at the hospital and to talk to Sarutobi; and for Sasuke, to train.
The blond knew the path to Ichiraku's like the back of his hand. He even knew how to get there through the nearby sewer system, having had to use the sewer lines once when some Chunin tailed him for a prank he pulled when he was younger. Good times! Sadly, he hadn't been home to pull any pranks lately, but he was back and going to...
He stopped mid thought and mid step as his Kyoukagan's sixth sense kicked in, a sign that someone nearby owned Bloodline Limit. Naruto swiveled his head as he searched for the person, taking a keen look at every person's face that passed by. He calmed down, knowing his sense worked better if her concentrated, and as if by magic he sensed that the person was in the general direction of his favorite ramen stand.
What luck! It was dinner and a new Bloodline Limit in one run!
Without a second thought, he ran towards the person, shoving people as he went and earning some choice words. But it didn't matter to him that he was being rude to people; there was a new Limit he needed to copy… or at least to ask the person for permission to. All he needed to do was find out who owned the Limit and what it did.
As he got to Ichiraku's, he finally caught sight of the source of the signature.
Had it not been for his goggles, his eyes would have launched out of their sockets.
The person was sitting at the counter and eating a bowl of ramen. Naruto could recognize that pineapple hair-style from a mile away. It was none other than Umino Iruka sitting down and enjoying his favorite meal.
The said man perked up and then turned around to meet his shocked student. "Hey Naruto! Welcome back."
Iruka's welcoming smile morphed into a confused look as he saw Naruto's gawking face –the water goggles were also a new addition to his surrogate brother's attire. Something Iruka didn't expect to ever happen come to pass: Naruto's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he then fell backwards.
Sarutobi sat behind his desk wide eyed while staring at the masked Hatake with as much shock as someone telling him that Make-Out Paradise had been canceled. His pipe was smoking as it balanced from his mouth, the smell of burned tobacco drifting faintly through the room. Sarutobi had to pull out his pipe halfway through Kakashi's story of the Kyoukagan to calm his nerves.
Naruto truly was the most unpredictable ninja in the world, having pulled something out of the left field and gained such a powerful Bloodline Limit. This allowed an unlimited amount of possibilities for the blond through the copying of Limits! Shinobi nations would go as far as war to claim such a prize!
"Kakashi, do you know what this means?" the aged man asked.
"I have a partial idea," answered the scarecrow.
"Yes, I imagine you do," continued the Sandaime. "This puts Naruto on a pedestal much higher than even Sasuke; so much so that we can't even tell the council about this. The Kyoukagan is just too valuable to let anyone know about it unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I know," agreed Kakashi. "Naruto's Bloodline Limit is so valuable that any nation would go to war just to claim it. I can see why you wouldn't want to tell the council, though. The moment any of them finds out, they might try to marry-off Naruto. Inoichi would probably be the first to make a run for it too…"
"I would agree," the elder said, "but the elders wouldn't be the only ones to pull such a stunt. Some of the friendlier nations might make an attempt at gaining the Kyoukagan by such means. Either way, I'm glad you've kept it secret, and I'm proud of Naruto for actually using his brain by wearing those goggles."
The copy-cat chuckled. "Yes, he's much smarter than even I originally assumed. He did use some good strategy during his fight against Sakura and Sasuke. As a matter of fact, he would've won had I not interfered, but I felt my students' lives were more important."
Sarutobi reclined in his seat once more as he let his mind wonder, thinking of what the Kyoukagan might entail. There was so much more to the Kyoukagan, but how did it come to come into being? It had to be related to Rin'negan in some way, but if that was the case…
"Kakashi," the said man turned his attention to the aged man as the Sandaime spoke in a tone that meant business. "The Kyoukagan isn't a Doujutsu."
"What? How's that possible?" asked the wiry man, his single eye widening a fraction from surprise.
The Hokage rocked back and forth in his seat for a couple seconds to gather his thoughts. "The Kyoukagan isn't just a Doujutsu, despite how it shows in Naruto's eyes. The Doujutsu is just a small part of the Limit as a whole. What we are dealing with here is a Transcendent Bloodline Limit, much like the legendary Six-Way Eyes, the Rin'negan."
"What do you mean?"
Kakashi heard of the Rin'negan, but only in passing. Supposedly, the founder of the ninja world used the Rin'negan, but other than that, Kakashi was lacking in knowledge of the capabilities of said Limit.
"From the details I've gathered about the Rin'negan," explained the Sandaime, "it wasn't limited to the eyes. The users also had access to all six forms of chakra, along with a whole arsenal of other abilities. Thus, it was something more than just a Doujutsu. Most Limits are usually classified as Anatomy Manipulation, Bi-Element, or as Doujutsu, but the Rin'negan and Kyoukagan are all three, making them Transcendent Bloodline Limits."
"If this is true," questioned the masked jounin, "then how does this make the Kyoukagan one these Limits?"
"Simple. Naruto's chakra is neutral, but changes into whatever form it needs," said Sarutobi while ticking off his fingers. "Then there is the body manipulation that occurs whenever he changes Limits. That's another. Finally, there is the Doujutsu which is the mark of the Kyoukagan as a whole and the necessary key used to copy the Limits themselves."
For a second, Kakashi stood stock still as he took in everything, but then reclined backwards into his chair while shaking his head with his visible eye closed.
This was becoming way too complicated for his tastes. He could thank Naruto for making his life a pain in the ass; the brat just had to develop a stupid (but valuable) Limit… Where was the simplicity in life!?
Nonetheless, Kakashi was able to glean from the Sandaime just how important Naruto's Limit was. If the Kyoukagan was as great as the Hokage was making it out to be, there was no doubt it was something worth fighting for.
"Amazing… the person that everyone hates the most happens to have the one thing that everyone would want the most," the silver haired man mused to himself. "It's more ironic than anything."
"It is, isn't it?" said the aged man with a smile that quickly became a face of business. "But now we have to protect Naruto from everyone that would try to steal his Limit. Until we can discuss this some more with Naruto you're dismissed, but do not so much as breath a word of this to anyone."
Kakashi nodded and left to see his pink-haired student, leaving the Sandaime in his thoughts.
He needed information on Minato and Kushina. Maybe he could find something about their bloodlines and, whether or not they had any genetic quirks. There was a problem, though: the files were destroyed to keep Naruto safe, putting the late Yondaime and his wife's name forever in secrecy, except unto people that knew them.
Sarutobi needed to find one of those friends and he doubted Hiashi would have a clue about Naruto being his godson. What he needed was someone who knew them well, someone that had been close to them and wouldn't breathe a single secret they had… someone like Jiraiya.
Besides, the white haired pervert had yet to meet his grandson in the first place anyways.
Pressing his finger against the intercom on his desk, Sarutobi gave his orders to his secretary: "You have three minutes to get me the best hunter-nin team out there."
"Yes sir!" she yelled back frantically.
At the hospital, a female nurse was exchanging disbelieving glances from a sheet paper to the pinkette sleeping silently.
"Is she alright?" said a voice from behind her.
She spun and almost accidentally hit the newcomer with her hand. The nurse looked to see that it was a Jounin that wore a mask and with a single eye visible for all to see. It didn't take long for her to identify him as the legendary Kakashi 'Copy-Cat' Hatake.
"Well?" he asked expectantly.
He was nervous from the way he saw the woman giving disbelieving glances towards his student. Kakashi just hoped it wasn't anything lethal.
The nurse shook her head to clear her mind, and then answering with a careful tone: "Well, we stabilized her, and she's going to be fine. Her symptoms were on par with an extreme allergic reaction, but…"
The dark haired nurse pursed her lips as she pondered how she was going to describe this… medical oddity. What she was seeing on this girl's blood samples was just so... strange. She read about many medical peculiarities, but nothing was on par to what the blood samples told her.
"But…?" pushed Kakashi with impatience.
"Um…" she tried her best to gather the words. "What makes this so unusual is what caused the reaction. We took some blood samples earlier, but… well… Just look."
She handed the paper she was holding to silver-haired jounin so he could glance at himself, but to him, it was nothing but random rows of letters and numbers –in the back of his mind, he felt kind of stupid because he couldn't read what he was saying. His confusion was quickly fixed as the nurse explained.
"The top row of numbers and letters," she began to explain, "is her original DNA sequence. Her original DNA sample marked her as a normal person; no bells, no whistles. But that second sequence below the first one… it marks her as having a Bloodline Limit."
Kakashi's single eye almost popped out of its socket. For a minute that seemed like an eternity, he digested what the bombshell shoved into his eardrums. How the hell did Sakura get her own Limit when her family has no recorded history of being shinobi?
"But this is what's weird," continued the lady while putting a hand to her chin. "That third sequence… it's foreign DNA we managed to isolate. That's what caused her allergic reactions… and I might not be jumping the fence by saying that may have given her the Bloodline Limit. This is unheard of in medical history; people's DNA just doesn't change out of the blue!"
The scarecrow stared at the paper in disbelief. This had to be bad joke, or at least a really weird dream he was having trouble waking up from.
If what the nurse said was true, Sakura would've needed to come into contact with someone's blood. The thing was that she didn't… He paused. It had only been since yesterday since her battle with Naruto. Kakashi remembered specifically watching as she cut Naruto on the hand… and then getting splashed in the eyes with stray drops of blood.
"What kind of Limit are we talking here?" he asked with a tone that made the nurse take a step back in slight fear.
She cleared her throat to distract herself for a second before she got back to the situation at hand. "I went over her and found nothing different with her eyes or anatomy; but her chakra... it's different. Her body is naturally producing two types of elemental chakra, which means we might have an elementally based Bloodline Limit on our hands."
Kakashi stared at the sleeping form of Sakura for a couple seconds, trying to decide what to do. This had to be because of Naruto's blood, but how was it possible? If it was because of his blond student's blood, he had to see Hokage-sama, and as soon as possible.
"Listen, and listen carefully," he ordered dangerously. "I'm going to go and grab Hokage-sama. You will not leave this room until I come back and if someone comes in you will not say anything about this. Got it?"
She nodded her head frantically, feeling some of the killer intent in the air. Hatake Kakashi meant business and until he could figure out what was going on, he was going classify this as something that was going to be kept secret.
He left in a blur, making his way to the Hokage and leaving the nurse to take a seat and wait. She could tell one thing: she was as confused as hell.
"Now make sure that when you find him, you tell him that we're opening a new bathhouse and were going to name it after him in his honor and that he should be here for the grand opening," suggested the Hokage. "If you don't tell him this, you'd have to knock him unconscious to bring him back, and that isn't something that'll work."
The males of the squad of hunter-nin just snickered while the lone female of the group was far from pleased and three seconds away from trying to castrate every man within a block's radius. Sarutobi would have given them another excuse, especially when he felt the female's killer intent leaking into the air, but unless there was a nude woman and a good deal of sake involved, Jiraiya wasn't going to come quietly.
It was about when he was ready to dismiss the group that Kakashi slammed the doors leading into the room wide open and looking as if he had ran at full speed without stopping.
"You are dismissed and do not come back unless you have him," he said to the group of masked ninja.
As soon as they left, Kakashi made his worries known. "Hokage-sama, you need to come with me."
"Is something wrong?"
"It may have something to do with the Kyoukagan; and if it does, then we are seriously going to have our hands full."
At the word Kyoukagan, Sarutobi quickly stood up and followed the masked-nin back to the hospital.
At the hospital, the nurse was starting to get bored, but quickly jumped up the moment the door opened to reveal the Sandaime himself.
"Would you mind telling me your name?" he asked.
"Um, it's Hikari sir," she answered meekly.
"Could you please hand me that blood sample sheet you showed Kakashi when he came here?" The said man walked in from behind while closing the door.
She nodded her head and quickly handed him the paper. Sarutobi's aged eyes scanned the paper before he looked up at her.
"What you've seen today will be considered an S-class secret from everyone," he said in a voice that meant business. "Treat Sakura here as if she was a normal patient and destroy all of her blood samples and any evidence that she has a Bloodline Limit for the moment."
"This is pretty serious, isn't it?" she asked in worry.
"You think?" answered the aged man sarcastically.
"I'll get to it!" Hikari squeaked while running out of the room as if the Shingami itself was chasing after her.
"As for you, Kakashi," said Sarutobi as he turned his attention to the masked man, "it seems that our original chat it going to have to continue back at my office."
It was starting to get past ten o'clock and Sasuke could be seen walking home from his team's favorite training area.
For one of the few times in his life, he felt as if there was someone that was egging him to get stronger. This certain someone also became his rival, and if he got lazy then his blond teammate would push ahead of him on the power scale. That would be unacceptable! He wasn't going to allow the dead last to get ahead him! Not in a million years!
Along the way, his mind began to travel to other things.
If you told him two days ago he would be worrying about Sakura, he would've punched the person's face in and told them to stop talking like a crazy person. But now, here he was, worrying about her.
He saw a different side to Sakura when he trained her the night before their battle with Naruto. She was more… Well, he couldn't describe it. Maybe if she was a little stronger and less of a fan-girl, he would've noticed her sooner. All she needed was a helping hand in the right direction.
His attention was snatched from his thoughts as he caught sight of a flower shop, the one belonging to the Yanamaka family.
Maybe he could be a nice and get her some flowers for her stay in the hospital.
Shrugging his shoulders, he walked into the shop, not remembering that a certain blonde was a resident of the place. The moment he walked in, he regretted it as he saw the said platinum blonde washing the counters.
She looked up and almost squealed in excitement the moment she caught sight of the ebony haired boy.
"What could I do for you, Sasuke-kun?" she said with hearts in her eyes.
Said boy took a step back before he cleared his throat. "I need flowers for someone."
"Oh, really?! Would they be for me?!" Sasuke took another step back.
"Uh… no. I need them delivered to the hospital," he simply told her.
She looked a little downtrodden, but kept going on her job. Besides, if her father found out that she scared a customer away, he'd fly off the handle and she'd be at the receiving end of the stick.
"Alright, what would you like?" she said in a conceded tone.
Sasuke sighed in relief knowing he wouldn't have the girl coming attached to him in any way, shape and form in the next couple minutes. Maybe it was a good idea to get to get to know Sakura a bit more; then maybe the fan-girls would stop chasing him.
"What kind of flower arrangement could I get with this?" With that, he showed her some of the money he had on his person at the current moment, earning a raised eyebrow from the girl.
"That would get you a pretty good size one. Who might this be for?" she asked with genuine curiosity tinting her voice.
"Just deliver it to this person."
He took a nearby card and jotted down the name of the person for her to deliver to and quickly exited the building. When the Uchiha had disappeared, she quickly picked up the card and almost dropped it in shock to see that it was Sakura.
Naruto slowly blinked his eyes open and sat up to see that he wasn't at his own home. Looking carefully, he could see that he was at Iruka's house and he was on the couch in the living room.
"About time you got up," said Iruka as he walked in. "More or less, I'm curious to know what caused you to black out on me."
Naruto raised a shaking hand and pointed his finger at him while staring in disbelief.
Finally, he shouted what was aggravating him: "YOU HAVE A BLOODLINE LIMIT!"
Iruka just blinked at his student for a couple seconds, looking at Naruto as if he grew two heads.
"What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Don't lie to me! I can sense it!" yelled the blond while continuing to point an accusing finger at his former teacher.
Iruka just sighed: "Naruto, I don't have a Bloodline Limit."
"I'm willing to bet ten bowls of ramen you do!"
The teacher just smiled and shook his head. "Okay, how about you try to prove it."
He shouldn't have said that as it egged Naruto to do just that. The blond quickly got up and was about to take off the goggles, at least until he remembered he was trying his absolute best to keep his eyes as secret as possible. Among the people of Konoha, though, Naruto felt as if he could trust his teacher.
"Um, you wouldn't mind keeping a secret would you?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"Of course," his teacher answered.
With a foxy smile on his face, he took off the goggles, showing Iruka his mirror-like pupils. The man felt his eyes widen and couldn't help but stare at the eyes with shock. His favorite student had a Doujutsu and one that he had never seen nor heard of.
"Naruto, is that a Bloodline Limit?" Iruka asked, completely dumbfounded.
The blond bane of Konoha bobbed his head up and down. His foxy grin only widened. If there was someone Naruto could trust, it was Iruka, and he was pretty sure the teacher wouldn't say anything.
"Yep! I call it Kyoukagan!" he said with excitement.
"Do you know what it does?"
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Well, I can copy other Limits by just looking at the person that has one. Oh, and I can sense people that have Limits, like you!"
He said the last part while pointing at his teacher once more. Iruka just blinked again, before he let an amused smile cross his face. It was then his turn to rub the back of his head.
"I didn't think anybody would find out," he said with a slight mixture of amusement and embarrassment.
"Ha! I knew it!" Naruto grinned in victory.
"Wait a minute," Iruka's smile was replaced by one of worry. "Naruto, did you say that you can copy other Bloodline Limits?"
"Yep! I already copied the Sharingan, Hyouton, and Byaku Chakra."
The teacher stared at his former student with disbelief. He never heard of such a Bloodline Limit, but he did have to agree with Kakashi on one thing: Naruto truly was the most unpredictable person on the face of the planet.
"So, why did you tell me you didn't have a Limit?" Iruka was cut from his musings to see that Naruto was wearing a very curious look.
He sighed as he got ready to explain. "Well, there are a lot of things you don't know about me that I've tried to keep secret. For starters, I do indeed have a Bloodline Limit, and second, I may be a Chunin in rank, but my abilities put me at a low S-class level."
Naruto's mouth dropped like a rock to the floor as soon as he heard his former teacher was a Kage-level ninja. But if that was true, then he could have kicked Mizuki's ass that night!
"You can't really be that strong! You could have beaten the living daylights out of Mizuki! So, why didn't you!?" he asked with a grimace, but was caught off guard as his teacher lightly chuckled.
"Well… I trusted you," his teacher explained. "I knew you wouldn't let Mizuki win that night, especially when you told me that you learned a move from the Forbidden Scroll. So, I acted like a normal Chunin that night just because I wanted to find out what it was."
Naruto stared at him for once in his life at a lost for words to yell at him for. His teacher thought a lot like Kakashi when in the middle of battle. To top that off, Iruka trusted him so much that he acted weaker than normal and put his life into his student's hands. He knew he could beat Mizuki that night.
"I…" Naruto started, still at a loss for words. Iruka trusted him that much?
"It's okay, not many people know this outside of Hokage-sama."
"Here's a question: if you're so good, then why do you teach?" the blond asked, scratching the side of his head in confusion.
Iruka only smiled again. "I just love to teach. Don't get me wrong; I've done a couple high level missions, but I like working at the academy. It's much more peaceful –although you and Konohamaru kind of ruin that peace and quiet. Now do you wish you paid more attention in class?"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Naruto, grimacing again.
"Now, why do you call it Kyoukagan?" his former teacher asked him.
With a smile much calmer than his others, Naruto felt the initiative to talk about his adventures in the country of Wave. Taking a seat, he explained the whole story, including the various encounters with Zabuza (much to Iruka's chagrin). The blond got emotional towards the parts involving Haku since he still felt that connection towards the boy, and he also told how the Hyouton user was the inspiration for the name of his Doujutsu.
"That's quite a story, Naruto," said Iruka with a smile, privately thanking Haku for his small role in his favorite student's life. "If it wasn't for you showing me your eyes, I would be hard pressed to believe everything."
"Yeah, well, I've been trying to keep it a secret," pouted Naruto; he wanted so much to show it off to everyone in the village, but he could see why Kakashi would want to keep it a secret. "Hey, do you think I could please copy your Limit."
Iruka looked at the grinning sun kissed boy and shook his head, making the smirk become an angry pout. To fit the picture, Naruto crossed his arms with his eye twitching in annoyance. If there were any girls nearby, they might have thought it was kind of cute, almost like a pissed-off teddy bear.
"Sorry, Naruto, but I doubt that the people nearby would feel grateful about experiencing a blackout," explained his teacher, causing Naruto to give his attention back to the older person. "Much like Haku, my parents were survivors of the blood cleansings that went on in Kiri. It was out of luck that my parents were visiting some old friends when it began. At the time, I was very young, maybe around two or three. So, because of that, I ended up living here in Konoha."
"You were just like Haku?" Naruto asked with genuine curiosity.
Iruka nodded his head before he continued. "I was."
"What does your Limit do?"
"Well," began the scarred teacher, "it's known as Hyakurai (One Thousand Thunderclaps). My Bloodline Limit allows me to control my bioelectricity and make it strong enough that I could get struck by lightning without any harmful side affects. This makes me a master of lightning jutsu to a degree that I could do some of the most powerful moves with a single hand seal. Also, I think much faster and have faster reflexes. Have you ever wondered why I caught all those erasers and buckets full of water?"
"That does explain it…" thought Naruto while putting a finger to his chin.
True to what Iruka said, pranks involving attempts to hit the man with something like erasers always ended in failure. Not to mention those couple of times that Naruto lost his temper and tried to throw blunted kunai to his teacher's head, only for the man to catch them with his fingertips without taking his face away from the blackboard.
"Also, I can sense bioelectricity, allowing me to track people down because of how each signature is unique from person to person," he continued to explain with a smile.
"That's why you always found me when I pulled a prank!" yelled Naruto while pointing his finger at his teacher accusingly, only to have the man laugh.
"Yeah, well, there were a couple of times that I let you escape, mainly because I didn't want to follow you into the sewers."
If it someone had an egg on them, they would have been able to cook it on top of Naruto's simmering head. His teacher could have tracked him every time, but only let him get away those few lucky times just because he got desperate enough to crawl in the sewers. The outrage of it all!
"Now as fancy as those abilities are, they're not the main ones," this immediately brought the blond out of his simmering attitude as he watched Iruka with his eyes glued to the man. "Allow me to demonstrate the most powerful ability of Hyakurai."
Iruka walked over to a nearby outlet and put his finger close to it, causing all of the lights inside the house to flicker on and off. When he walked back to Naruto, he did another demonstration by putting his fingers close together, caushing a small arc of electricity to dance in between them.
"As you can see, I control real lightning, not that fake chakra lightning you see many ninja use."
"What's the difference?" asked Naruto, still wide eyed from the demonstrations.
"There are a lot of them, but unfortunately, it's getting too late for me to explain, and you need to head to bed." The blond tried to protest, but Iruka cut him off before he could. "Come on; you still need to train anyways. Tomorrow when we are away from civilization, I'll let you copy it, mainly because we don't need the electrical grid to crash on us. It's happened to me before, and it was quite embarrassing when they finally traced it back to me."
"Fine," said the blond, crossing his arms and leaving for his apartment.
Iruka just shook his head as he closed the door.
Sarutobi sat there behind his desk stroking his beard in deep thought. Kakashi sat across from him, remaining quiet and waiting for what his commander had to say.
"For starters," the aged man finally began. "It seems we have another Limit on our hands. But its how Sakura got this Bloodline Limit that worries me."
"It must've had something to do with the Kyoukagan," said Kakashi, stating his theory. "You saw the blood test results, and if you remember correctly from my debriefing about our mission, Sakura managed to come into contact with Naruto's blood."
Sarutobi sat there quietly for a second, trying to think of how this was possible. He did have a thought, though, of why, and if so, then Naruto was in a lot more trouble than he was now, and that was saying something about his already valuable Kyoukagan.
"I think we have found the counterpart to the Rin'negan." Kakashi cocked his head as he listened. "What we are looking at here is one of the three great doujutsu, the one that created Bloodline Limits. Just as the Rin'negan brought about Ninjutsu, we're looking at the very source of every Bloodline Limit in existence."
"But that means we have to keep people away from Naruto's blood," thought the copy-cat out loud. "Otherwise, a good deal of Limits would appear out of nowhere. That's attention we don't need."
"We should also be thankful that Sakura didn't come into contact with something else," Sarutobi spoke with worry.
"What would that be?"
"If it was dangerous enough for her to have medical attention after just coming into contact with Naruto's blood," explained the aged man, "imagine what would have happened if she came into contact with it while he was using the Kyuubi's chakra."
Kakashi leaned back in his chair as he thought about it. The fox's chakra was dangerous, but if it came into contact with somebody through this blood-transfer thing, the person could easily die in a matter of minutes in a very agonizing death. In a way, it was a safeguard for Naruto's blood should anyone somehow come into contact with it. It seemed the fox didn't like to share this Limit with anyone else.
"So, what do we do?" the masked man asked.
Sarutobi once again began to stroke his beard. "For the moment, we keep our mouths shut. Amenity is important right now, and as long as nobody finds out we should be fine. You will make sure this Limit stays secret."
The Hatake nodded as he understood what the orders were. Right now, everything just needed to be kept quiet.
"Now, I do believe that it is near midnight, and you have yet to rest from you mission. Tomorrow, bring Naruto into my office so that we can talk to him, but we're going to keep this little bit of information about the Kyoukagan secret."
Kakashi nodded and quietly left to his home to get some rest before he had to meet up with his team.
Kill Joy no Jutsu (A.K.A. Author's Note): Okay, sorry this chapter came a little later than you all were expecting. Holidays are a busy time for me, especially when my birthday is coming up as well. If you don't know, I'm now allowing anonymous reviews for all of my stories, just don't abuse it.
Well for starters, Sakura is not getting Kyoukagan, and why the hell would you all think I would do that? She's got an elemental Limit, and it's not Mokuton or Hyouton. I also know that a good deal of you don't like her, but her attitude towards everyone will be changing, at least into someone that I could live with.
As for Iruka getting a role in this story… well, I felt bad not giving him a role in The Jinchuuriki Nine and it has been haunting me. So I have given him a role. I will further explain his Limit next chapter, but until then, just sit back and watch.
Now, there has been a serious push for people asking me to translate my jutsu. The reason why I don't do it is because it can be a serious hassle and make things much harder on me, especially when the translator I use isn't the best on the web. I end up having to some of the translating myself sometimes, and I'm here to say that I suck at Japanese.
And that's all I got for the moment.
Again, I won't explain Iruka's Limit until next chapter when Naruto begins to train with it.
