Naruto awoke to the new day in a comfortable bed, surrounded by warmth and his head nestled into a soft pillow. I was a new experience, compared to his old furniture that just wasn't all that good. Well, except for his leather chair, he probably slept in that chair more than he did his old bed, but this new bed made a convincing argument for his future sleep occupancy. Rousing for the new day, he yawned and looked around, the new room was still foreign to him, but it was quickly growing on him. Getting up, he went to his bathroom, where he took care of his morning hygiene. Looking in his bathroom mirror after he got clean, he took the time to really take all of this in. He was really here, the new power he felt was proof enough of that.
Looking at his hands, he focused on his chakra, it had the same feeling to pull and mold like chakra, but it was more powerful, intense, yet more flexible if he had to describe it. Like suddenly running on dry land after trying to run through water, between before and after awakening magic. It felt easier to direct it and control it, so he could only wonder what he could do with it, it was making him eager to start his training that much sooner. But then there was that thought, training, he had to meet up with Rikku for their own learning later today. Getting out of the bathroom, he went to the small kitchnette against the wall, opening the fridge and pulled out one of the pre-made meals he had made for his escape from konoha. There was only a few left so why not devour them? Shoveling down the meal with haste, he thought what today would hold, and truthfully he didn't have much, this was an entrely new world after all.
Naruto finished, and now there was nothing to do but to wait for rikku, so instead he started going over everything he brought with him. Familiarizing himself with the stuff he was gonna have to learn with rikku, he'd have to start from the very beginning, both because rikku needed it and he didn't get much of it himself thanks to the academy. It was roughly a half hour later when knocks were heard at his door. Sealing away his scrolls, he opened the door to find the smiling green eyed blonde waiting for him. Smiling back to her, he walked out and locked the door behind him.
"So, Naruto, ready for the big day?" She asked, though her eyes were staring at his face. "Why'd you draw on the whisker marks?" She asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"I'm more than ready!" He spoke confidently. But at her next question, he raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean drawn on? these are real whiskers." He told her.
"What!? Now way, cant be!" She went on, reaching and running a hand over his check, surprised to feel enlarged hairs flat against the skin back and the skin under it was black, giving credit to his claim. Naruto had tried to stop her, but he couldn't and now she was rubbing his whiskers, which started to relax him, and leaning into her hand, before a light sound could be heard from his chest. Realizing what was happening, he blushed and pushed her hand away before she could realize it.
"Quit that!" He huffed, but when he looked at her, he could see she was already aware of what just happened, evident by the grin she as sporting.
"You purred..." She teased, dragging out the word and poking his cheek. He grumbled but said nothing, not if h was gonna save himself the trouble. He just kept walking and ignored the playful prodding from rikku.
They got to another room, where there was other kids at and inside was a whole bunch of seats, and a few adults. "Alright class, we've got introduce a new student with us." one of the adults spoke, and motioned for naruto to come in, while rikku walked over to sit with the others in their seats. The room wasn't set up like the academy, with benches and desks, but instead they all had just chairs and lined up haphazard, where the adults stood in front and looked over the children. "This is Naruto, he washed up on Bikanel's shore yesterday and was found out on scavenge. He's a foreigner from a far off land, farther than any of us knows. Just like we talked about before, the world is bigger than we know, but with the ships we have so far and sin, we'll never know for sure what's beyond the lands we do know until sin is gone. Now naruto, I know you're not al bhed, but try to keep up. All of our lessons are in al bhed and spiran, so we learn both languages, but rikku will help you to catch up outside of class okay. Now take a seat and we'll begin today's lesson." The woman spoke, patting naruto's shoulder and directing him over to the others who had greeted him. He was swarmed at first, them wanting to now what the lands he came from were like. He was starting to feel anxious and overwhelmed until Rikku saved him, pulling him into the seat next to her.
The lessons he soon learned were entirely verbal, no written tests, so far, and they took a hands on approach. Naruto was liking these kind of lessons, these he could understand, and when he asked questions, they actually answered and helped him to understand. Rikku helped, explaing things he seemed confused on, and he came to understand that half the lesson was reviewing old material for his benefit so he wasn't totally lost. Once the lesson was over, they left, rikku once again pulling him along before the other kids could swarm him again. They rushed back to his room, where rikku vanished and then reappeared a few minutes later with some books on spiran and al bhed. It wasn't hard to see that naruto's spiran was rough at best and he was lucky the lesson was verbal, because when they started to read the books, naruto realized that their written languages were different, but saw that spiran was the same symbols he saw in that temple. So they had to start from scratch in the written language and fix his gaps in spiran. The same was true in reverse for rikku, as he showed her his academic learning materials, his writing and calligraphy, she had the same problem, unable to understand his written language, and she benefited from the same instruction he did.
Finally with today's lesson in language over, they got onto the good bits. "So, I'll read. 'Chakra is the combination of one's Physical and Mental energy within the body, obtained from physical conditioning and exercise, and from meditation, learning and experience, respectively. Chakra is the energy of life, with learning to control chakra one can perform feats beyond their normal capacity, enriching their body with chakra to increase the limit of their abilities, to perform jutsu or techniques and generally enhance the quality of life, as chakra can lengthen a person's health, longevity, youth, and overall capability. However a note of caution. As chakra is the energy of life, draining one's chakra reserves carries heavy penalties, from chakra exhaustion leaving the body weakened for days at a time until one's reserves replete themselves, or if drained till nothing, then death. always be wary of your supply of chakra, and stop before depleting your reserves to avoid injury or death.' phew." He droned on, but nce done, he considered the passage he just read.
Rikku listened avidly, taking in what he was saying from the book. What she heard surprised her a bit, so chakra was more than just an energy, but a combination of two defined sources inside the body, to create a powerful energy. But it's risk of overuse was somewhat frightening, she was confident. Then there was the fact that they both had magic now, so maybe that wouldn't be a much of a problem for them. "So this chakra stuff seems a little complicated, but it does sound powerful. SO what's the first step with it?" She asked, and he just sighed, but grabbed a notebook and ripped out some paper, tearing it into small squares, handing her one.
"Leaf sticking. Or in this case, paper sticking. Back when I was in the academy, this was one of the exercises we had to do to learn the first steps of controlling out chakra. We weren't allowed to do anything else with chakra until we could keep a leaf or paper stuck to our foreheads with chakra alone. Then we moved on to spinning the leaf, and finally, balancing it, where the leaf is floating off the skin of your forehead, and you're finished with the exercise when you can spin it with it balanced, levitating off your forehead. The teachers said this takes time, and you could only learn jutsu once they said you could spin a leaf for a full minute." He told her, taking a seat on the rug with his papers, sticking one to his forehead and channeling his chakra to his forehead to try an grip it, rikku doing the same.
That was what they did for the first hour, though there was some complaining, they stuck to it. Naruto used to stick a leaf, but with magic now it was harder again, so he had to retrain it, not that he could spin a leaf before anyway, so it wasn't like he was far from the basics anyway. Eventually they could get it to stick with chakra alone, and amazing both showing that they could make the leaf start twitching in a direction they tried to spin it in. Rikku stopped, tired, and naruto did as well. They went back to their language study, something that was vitally needed for future lessons.
Lessons continued like this for the next month, where eventually naruto and rikku had picked up each other's languages with some skill, and naruto had a firm grip on Al bhed now. In their classes, Naruto learned the history of spira, as little of it as there was to learn, since sin dominated the history, so there was only a few major events he needed to know. He was shocked to hear of sin from rikku, and how yevon dealt with sin...sending summoners to die, while yevon just sat back and encouraged their deaths. It made naruto's blood boil. They were basically being treated as disposable weapons! But he learned of them and many other things unique to spira, and while he taught Rikku chakra, she started him on magic, where they learned to channel their magic by will and intent, never once shouting the name of what they were doing. In fact that made sense, why warn the person what you're going to do before you hit them? The month long crash course on everything spiran and al bhed was a bit overwhelming, but it got the desired result, as naruto was now blending in seamlessly with the al bhed.
They could now balance a leaf an inch off their foreheads now, and even spin it for a full minute, as dictated by the last step of the training for this exercise, showing they were ready to start learning jutsu. Though they had worked on the other material present in the scrolls for naruto. The Taijutsu style, academy style, was easy to pick up, and rikku managed to get a hold of some similar training material the al bhed used to teach to fight, so rikku was able to share with Naruto as he was with her. Course all the training guides, tips and tricks that came from sarutobi and itachi helped immensely to streamline their training.
However before they could move on to jutsu, they had to complete the rest of the assigned learning material and test out, which wasn't that big a deal with Naruto and rikku's combined efforts on the tests and the scrolls comprehensive timed test. Pat that first month, it steadily went on like this for the pair of 7 year olds, until their first year passed by. Now 8, it marked the point where they'd start better learning to take apart, repair and build machina, learning with the group how to fight and magic, and to rikku and Naruto's infinite joy, training for diving and Blitzball. That alone had been an adventure in of itself.
"So, where the hell are we going and why? You wouldn't tell me about it before, not until we already left, so are you finally going to tell me?" An irritated 8 year old naruto asked. He now wore a more form fitting burnt orange shirt, gray pants with red suspenders, proper boots, his purple hood vest with the nine spoke golden wheel on the back, and goggles on his forehead to pull down, with a scarf around his neck to pull up over his face in case of sand. Over his hands were fingerless gloves and a vambrace on his left forearm. He didn't understand the vambrace, but rikku said it would be important later and to get comfortable with it now. Which speaking of rikku, she was taking every opportunity to scratch and stroke his whiskers, to annoy him and to hear him purr. She had gone through a similar outfit change, wearing a lighter orange shirt and red pants, boots, with a hooded jacket, gloves, a bracer of her own and goggles identical to what all the al bhed wore, slim fit, same as naruto's. Naruto and Rikku both were sitting in the back of a larger sand vehicle, heading away from home, naruto had his arms crossed, goggles down and scarf up to combat the wind blown sand.
"Okay, okay, sheesh, grouch much?" She asked, similarly garbed to naruto to protect from the sand.
"Well what do you expect, we just finished up the last round of training and was going to get started on our next course when you pulled me away, I barely got everything I needed sealed and packed, you gave me no warning. I was finally gonna get to do something cool!" He shouted, a bit miffed that his opportunity for awesome got snatched from him.
"Oh relax, we're gonna do something just as awesome and useful for our training too. We're heading to Home Port, where we're gonna start our blitzball training!" Rikku exclaimed excitedly. She waited a moment for naruto to realize what that meant...but he didn't catch on. And then she remembered why and she face palmed. "Right, sorry, forgot, foreigner." She mumbled. "Blitzball is the express sport of all of spira, well, our part of spira, no idea what you all got across the ocean. But blitzball is big, like everyone in spira knows about it, there are big tournaments, and everything. Plus, the training and conditioning for blitzball is said to be the best type of training for those who focus on physical combat. Something about breathing methods, training in water, and a bunch of stuff. Apparently a number of spira's best warriors have all been blitzers." She went on, leading it on with what she knew would hook naruto and then reel him in. She could see it in his face, he was imagining the fame and glory, then how it'd help in their training too, and just how strong it'd make them.
"Yes! This'll be awesome!" He shouted, pumping his fist up. "Um...how do you play blitzball anyway?" He asked, making rikku shake her head at the exciteable blond. She went over a brief overview of the rules, and how to play, simple enough for him to understand. All the other kids who were taking the blitzball training knew the rules, having played dry land blitz back at home, while naruto and her was busy training. So he'd have to pick it quick. "Oh, I get it. there were a few similar games like that back in konoha. But playing it under water while holding your breath the entire time? That sounds impossible."
"For some it is. It's an extreme sport because of the rigorous strain it puts on the body and how tough the training is. Hence why we start training now while we're young, so we can adjust and grow with the training. That's why we're heading to Home Port. the small town port entry on Bikanel where all our ships are moored at, it's right on the water so we can train. We'll be there for a good long time. That's why I had you pack the stuff I told you you'd need." She went on, smiling behind her scarf. She was looking forward to this herself. A good number of Al bhed spent a lot of time on the water, and it was where the fun, interesting stuff was too, instead of being stuck on the ship. And she did say blitzers tend to be strong warriors.
As they continued to talk they could see it in the distance finally, the tan of sand bleeding into blue that was the ocean, and right where the two meet, there was a town, not nearly as big as Home, it wasn't meant to be a town, just a training, supply and port area, It was designed to not be permanent. They pulled into a shaded port roof, where they got out and other mechanics on hand got to work on maintenance for the buggy. "Think fast!" Rikku shouted, naruto turned and caught something, with a resounding 'oof' before he looked down in his grip.
"What the, why's this damn thing so heavy?"He asked, looking down at the white and blue studded ball.
"That, Naruto, is a regulation standard blitzball as used by the officials of luca during all their events at Luca. The kind you've likely seen before was the dry land training ball. It's light and floats in water, this one doesn't float, and thanks to a little magic, it doesn't sink either. But it's heavy because it needs the momentum when it's thrown in the water. Now come on, we gotta put our stuff away and meet with the trainers." She called out, leaving the blue eyed blonde behind already. Who took off behind the green eyed blonde to keep up. Their quarters was less like quarters and more like barracks, a large room filled with bunk beds, each had a larger chest at the foot of which meant for both occupants of the bunk. Naruto and rikku were both lucky as they simply took out their own sealing scroll, naruto gave her one of hs blank ones, and just set it inside before leaving back out.
Once outside, they wre introduced to their trainers, a few well conditioned men and women. "These are the current reserve members of the Al Bhed Psyches, the teams keeps up a good umber of reserve and just rotate out every season so that they all stay in shape and get a chance to play. Plus it leaves qualified experienced members behind to train us, whether it's in season or not." Rikku explained to Naruto, who nodded in thought, it did make sense.
"Alright brats, time to get serious, all of you signed up for this so there's no whining or complaining about it later. For the next year, your're gonna be hear training, eating, living blitzball and diving. By the time we're done with your initial training, you'll be able to be competent divers the lot of ya, but those that can go forward, you'll become blitzers. If you can't make it, you get cut and sent back to Home with the next supply run. Any questions?" Several raised hands. "Good, now I'm gonna cut you loose to our resident psychopath to oversee your torture. See ya kiddies." He said with a barking laugh, causing many of the kids gathered to go pale. What the hell did they sign up for.
"Hello children, Welcome to training camp. Like my partner just spoke, I'll be overseeing this stretch of your training. Now can anyone tell me the most important part of diving?" She asked, looking around with a sweet tender smile, that caused many to relax. The guy was obviously pranking them just to see their reactions.
"Um, breath?" One asked, though unsure.
"Correct! You see while we're out diving in the ocean scavenging, we can use rebreathers, these little mouth devices that can extended the time one can spend in the water by filtering your breath back to you, so there's no wasted air. But these can only help so much and with fiends in the water, you need to move, so you can't carry heavy breathing equipment, which means you have to learn how to make the most of each breath and hold it for minutes at a time. A blitzer can hold their breath for 5 minutes minimum, while professionals are known for 6 to 7 minutes. If they use a rebreather, they can extend that time up to a half hour or more maybe before they have to resurface. That's why we have to work on our breathing first. Anyone want to guess how?" She asked.
"Well, I heard running was a great way to condition the body and work on breathing." Another one spoke, this was one of the older ones.
"That's right. We're gonna start with a nice light run, to help you all get in shape and work on breathing. However, we need a good motivator. Sooo, whoever is last when the run is over doesn't get dinner." There was a collective groan and sneering at each other from the kids as it instantly became everyone for themselves. "Oh, but did I mention that their can be no slacking either, I want full running, not jogging. That's why I'll be providing a second motivator." And with that, she reached over to a table, picked up a rifle and turned to the kids, with a tender sweet. "Start running." She cocked the gun.
Naruto and Rikku had been having a bad feeling about this to begin with, and now with that little delivery, they both bolted without second thought while the other kids were stammering and trying to see if she was really bluffing. "Oh my, seems those two already got the point. Maybe I should make my point too." She spoke, sliding a very long, very sharp bayonet onto the rifle before she started firing at the kids feet, making all of them pale as they took off after rikku and Naruto. The woman started running after them, firing at the ones who were falling to last place to 'motivate' them forward. Meanwhile, back at the port, the trainers were all putting down bets on who'd come in first, and who'd come in lat, and who'd actually get the point this time. It was one of their methods of entertainment at the port, so why not bet on it.
Naruto and rikku were keeping their position at the front of the pack, way too fearful to even look behind them. "Where the hell we even running to!" Rikku shouted, before a shot on her left hit the ground in front of her on her left. "Not that way!" She answered herswelf as she and naruto both turned to their right, the rest of the pack following them. Unknown to all of them, Rikku and Naruto were both wearing weights around their legs, just above the ankle. Naruto only had one full set of weights, so he took the heavier leg weights, while rikku took the lighter wrist weights for her legs. With chakra they had some measure of adjustment, but not much, but it was enough. They'd been training hard for the past year, but they didn't doubt the blitzball training would force them past where they'd been in their training before.
"Remember children, regulate your breathing otherwise you'll drop dead and if I catch you, I'll have to make my point on why you shouldn't let that happen." She called out sweetly, waving the bayonet end of the rival as if it were toy. This got a sudden burst of speed from all of them as they ran harder. This kept going for several hours, with small break here and there, just enough to catch their breath, not to rest, before she fired off more rounds to get them moving. By the time they returned to port, the kids all looked dead on their feet, Naruto and rikku were the best off, but even they were heavily panting, that was the benefit of chakra as naruto knew it, but even he was impressed, the chakra-magic combination was powerful. Even Rikku was only winded so much, while other girls her age looked ready to keel over. The woman smiled, clapping her hands together. "That's incredible children. I've never had a bunch that didn't need the point on their first day. you must be quite a group. I can see I'll have to step it up for you tomorrow." She spoke, her voice promising everything good and joyful, but her words promising pain and anguish. She really was psychotic, and she wasn't even breathing hard!
Most of the kids who still had a bit of color in them lost it at that, while Rikku and naruto looked at one another, grimacing at the news. As the kids started to file away back to their barracks, the woman stopped them both. "A moment you two." She spoke, and waited for the others to leave. "Right, nwo I can see this wasn't hard enough to get you winded. I hate to say it with all the effort you've given so far, but you really needed to be worse than this, this is a critical step. If you can't learn to control your breathing properly, it will cripple your training later. So I'm sorry to say, but we're gonna have to increase your workload." She spoke, her voice not as kind or sickly sweet anymore, but serious. Rikku and naruto paled and while she laughed, she sighed soon after. "I know it'll be tougher for you two since you seem to have a physical advantage, but it's for your future training. Now lift your pants legs and give me your wrists, we need to weigh you down." She spoke, only to see their glances, before they did. "Oh my...did all that with weights on anyway...oh we're definitely going to make blitzers out of you two." She smiled, this one though was different from the others, it was the smile of someone who found gold.
The next day started off like the first did, but now rikku and naruto were weighed down with extra weights on their legs and wrists, including a weighted vest, and some heavier clothes to force them to sweat more. While they were still leading the pack, the kids weren't far behind them anymore, and just like she said, they were now struggling for air. The weighted running was doing it's job, and slowly they were learning how to properly keep their breath in extreme physical activity. Weeks of this conditioning continued, exercises meant to work the body's muscles while keeping it lean, limber and flexible were also introduced, with a healthy amount of partner'd stretching and workouts, and most of all, breathing exercises to be done through out the day. They weren't even allowed to start learning how to hold their breath yet, until they could even breath right in the first place.
At the end of two months, the training shifted, and now they were doing ater exercises, in the shallows, using the water as resistance and using regulation blitzballs and other heavy items under water to get acquanted with the prospect of doing such things under water. They all had breathing gear on for the time being, but if they could keep their breath while working against water, then it'd help in their training for activity while holding their breath. Rikku and naruto were being pushed hard, very hard, thanks to their magic infused chakra enhancing them physically, they had more and more resistances or hindrances placed on them to make sure they benefited from each step of the training. Everything was done together and in pairs, to ensure team work and cooperation. After all, the training was for more than just blitzball, underwater scavengers had to be able to fight fiends too. This training would ensure they could watch out for each other in the water.
Once they were sure they could keep their breath, then it got easier physically, but harder on their lungs. They spent hours a day dunking, diving, surfacing and rising in the water, whilst their partner timed them. Sure regulating their breathing and finding the proper method to breath to keep their breathe helped, but now they had to adjust their bodies to holding that breath, and training can nly prepare you so much before you actually have to start doing it. Some of them just couldn't overcome that hurdle so soon, to actually hold their breath that long, and keep their calm. Others didn't have as much trouble, but some difficulty, and this was where Rikku and Naruto fell in at. They were in simple swimsuits, naruto a pair of orange shorts and goggles, rikku in a one piece with goggles herself. Rikku held naruto's watch as she timed him, while he stayed under, trying to stay as still as possible so he didn't use up his breath as quickly. So far Rikku and Naruto both were over the 3 minute mark, but they had encountered their trouble point and were having to work past it, like the others were working past theirs now. They'd switch off after every 10 tries to give the other time to regain their breath to try again, which for them turned out to be a half hour to 45 minutes each.
This was their training up to this point in a nutshell during the day. But at night, in their bunks with the curtains pulled back or out in the sands, they trained together in the materials naruto had, while their progress was slower now thanks to dive training, they managed to get some in. Learning how to cultivate their chakra throughout their body's better to increase their physical abilities when they needed it, among how to mold for jutsu and practicing all the known hand seals they had, including the hand seals for the forbidden jutsu or the uchiha jutsu naruto had. It helped with their dexterity and nimbleness of their hands, which when it came to dry land blitz training they had at mid day, translated to efficient, precise ball handling, and actually making use of the studs on the ball to generate curve in a thrown ball. They were able to make use of the conditioning methods the scrolls had to help them, but blitz training was taking care of a great deal of it. Plus their taijutsu training as coming along well, even with all the extra weight they were now wearing.
They couldn't practice their jutsu they did now while out in the sands, it'd draw too much attention, so they practiced their chakra control instead, using the leaf exercises with little pieces of metal now for extra weight and resistance, and on multiple points on the body, not just the forehead only. Naruto had wanted to rush on to wall climbing, but rikku told him if they could get better with this one first, it'd make wall climbing easier, besides, their wasn't any walls they could climb up like they needed without drawing attention. So their training also served a stealth function as well.
Several months from there, they had finally learned how to hold their breath for as long as they needed as a group. Rikku and naruto could both g for a little more than 5 minutes, but now came the hard part. Full immersion, full activity, while holding their breath. This one was a pain in the ass because they had ball launcher machina set up and they had to avoid them underwater while holding their breath, or learn to keep their breath when they got hit. That was 'fun' since it'd teach how to move fast underwater and all that stuff. Again it was partnered timed, but also score keeping and their trainers were taking bets again. Naruto and rikku really wanted to show them up. Then they had an idea, well, naruto had an idea and fell back onto his old pranking schemes. He never told anyone what or how he did it, but he got their female trainer to get everyone of their male trainers on her shit list and they paid dearly for something they didn't know, and then the kids were taking bets on who'd get the point first, and last, and those in between to follow in order. Lessons were learned, and not forgotten.
It took them a few more months, but they got it under control, and could maintain hard activity under the water for 5 minutes straight without pause. At that point, their training got serious again, and once again the two blondes were weighted down, and had to learn to play blitz like the real deal with the rest of the kids against their trainers. It was a painful experience at first, but rewarding. At the end of the year, they were fully capable, physically, of being blitzers, now they just needed to work on their blitz skills. Which they did indeed keep up with, but their training took a new course as they learned more about underwater fighting and how to survive in various aquatic situations that may or may not be fighting people and fiends. For this course they used simple weapons, since most find their own custom weapons once they get older. Naruto and Rikku benefited from this incredibly so, as they got to practice all their combat skills they currently knew, underwater, and use it as resistance for their taijutsu form training, with their weights.
Eventually they finished the full training course, signed off by their trainers, and were able to return to Home. But not before their female trainer, much to her psychotic behavior, pulled in her 'star pupils' of Rikku and Naruto in a death by breast suffocation hug, followed by a kiss to them both, leaving them dazed, confused, and stunned. They didn't come out of it until they had all their stuff and were already back in the buggy making their way back to home. "Did that just-"
"Yes it did." Rikku said, in a stone cold tone and expression.
"But she's a woman, and you're a-" He cut himself off, as he saw her glare at him.
"Not, another word." And then he closed his jaw to ensure he experienced no bodily harm. She did know where he slept after all, but when he turned, he could suppress the blush any longer since, months ago, he'd been given 'the talk' by one of the trainers when it was realized he was an orphan, so one of the guys had decided to ensure he had that knowledge and not to piss off women with ignorant comments. Ironically this happened not that long after his prank on the trainers, so likely it was fear induced preservation instinct for his fellow male. Whatever it was that prompted it, he know knew and was well aware of such things, so he could appreciate what he had experienced as most young boys would, and was making excellent use of his hood, scarf and goggles to hide all with the sand in the air, he had perfect reason to have them on, so he never got caught.
Once they were back at Home, they unpacked and decided to check their fully unhindered progress. The results were to say, astounding. They had never moved so fast before, and with their training in breathing, never lost a single breath to any action they took or attack they received, nor lost any speed. They got back into training serious as can be, now able to practice their jutsu more, until they were introduced to the next step of their training with the Al Bhed, sphere grids.
"Now naruto, this is why I told you back then to get used to wearing a bracer. I just got these from Pops, our sphere grids!" She excitedly jumped while shouting. "See these are what help us in spira learn all kinds of different skills and abilities without doing it the old fashioned way that takes years like what we've been doing. Here let me show you!" She pulled off her own bracer, and pulled out from a bag, another, but this one was slimmer and looked more...well, more, to naruto's untrained eye. She slapped on the new bracer, and thenon it's surface appeared many circular markings, and after a moment, naruto could feel her channeling chakra and the bracer glowed, before it settled. "See, this is just a standard sphere grid with basic abilities, but I'll be able to choose another in a coupe of years or find one. There's all kinds of sphere grids like these that you wear and using spheres, like the ones I show you before, allowing you to increase your abilities, learn spells, skills and other things. Here, you try."
She handed him a bracer as well, and he shrugged, and followed the same procedure as she did, when he looked back, he could see the grid was identical to hears, mainly a attribute based grid with only a few abilities standard to most grid types. "So what happens now. I mean we were doing fine training the way we were weren't we? Not that I don't like this, but I don't understand too much about this?" The whiskered blonde spoke, showing his confusion. Rikku sighed as she pulled on her old bracer over top the new one to protect the grid and naruto did the same.
"Well, it works based off experience, the more you do something that is relevant to the abilities or skills associated to the grid, the better you'll get with the grid, allowing you to add spheres to the grid and once you add the right sphere to the proper place, the knowledge of how to do that skill or ability will flow into your mind, while the attributes and such will just happen and you'll notice the increase once it's happened. It how summoners and guardians can get so strong over the course of just a year on their pilgramage, enough to fight the dangerous fiends of zanarkand and even Sin, because the pilgrimage is the toughest gauntlet they can face, and the tougher it is-"
"The more experience they get for advancing on their grids and the better spheres they find." Naruto finished for Rikku, who smiled now that he finally got it. "Man, I wished they had these for ninja, it'd make training a hell of a lot easier." He spoke, though saw rikku frowning.
"Well, pops told me that grids tend to be set in stone, you can't change them, but you can link grids together to learn skills from others that you don't have. However that requires a special unlocking sphere to allow the grid link to happen. the closest I've heard to their being a Ninja grid would be the thief grid, one of my cousins has one. However grid linking tends to be something very personal between those who link together. Like I said, summoners and guardians become very powerful, and linking their grids together is part of that reason. But not every skill can be learned like this. After all, their is no grid for summoners, that's a different skill they have to learn over time like what we were doing." She finished, explaining the sphere grid system to him.
"Hmm, well, sounds good, and this will help us until we get better grids to work right right?" He asked, and she nodded. "And this won't mess up our training or special skills we have so far, even if we do change or link grids?" this time a shake to show no worry. "Sweet. Well, should we link grids then? I mean hell, you've been training partner, and friend since I've been here, as annoying as you can be... quit it." he spoke as she reached out for his whiskers again at the annoying part, making her laugh and he scowled before he just grinned. "I wouldn't know anyone else better to link with." He said, a genuine smile that touched his eyes being given to her. Rikku always liked these smiles, she hardly ever saw one on him when they were out and about, it was always that half genuine, but intensely guarded smiles, ones that showed he was enjoying something, but he wasn't goin to be taken off guard by it. His old village made him extremely cautious and jaded, something that made her mad every time she thought abut it.
But she smiled and nodded, pulling out just such a sphere as they needed. "I thought you'd never ask. Arm out." And once he did as instructed, they opened their bracers, touched grids and set the sphere at the node closest to where they touched, and on each of the grids, more nodes appeared, showing an expanded grid and they were indeed linked, now, he could see a glow in one art of the new nodes that he guessed was Rikku. "And now we can check each others progress. Now, enough with the explaination, we got work to do. Pops said when we finished to get down to the garage, it was time for more lessons on machina mechanics." She spoke, and they both nodded as they made their way out.
Training continued from there on, their see of the grid system was slow since they couldn't fight fiends yet, but out on scavenges they were lucky to find a good number of spheres they could use for empty nodes, so while their progress was slow, they made the best use of it and their training. Their jutsu practice was coming along now, making headway in the academy three and the basic e-rank elemental ninjutsu, though Naruto had some dire trouble with the illusionary bunshin and henge,the kage bunshin from the forbidden notebook solved that one, and but the henge was still an issue. The advanced henge from the forbidden notebook had some application, but naruto had an ingenius idea and reworked both the simple henge, the advanced henge, and managed to create his own henge. And the first thing he transformed into was...a naked woman. Which immediately earned him an ass kicking courtesy of Rikku.
However when rikku scolded him on the henge, she noticed that the female henge form hadn't dispelled, and it was actually hurt as if she hit the real naruto. Pulling on the pigtail of the now female naruto, and resulting cry of pain, shocked Rikku. "Naruto, real quick, I want you to henge into somethig else, like a seagull." She ordered, and despite his pain, followed through, and like before, the gull was real as any other. "Naruto, this isn't an illusion. You're actually transforming into what you want. Quick go back to woman!" She ordered.
"But you'll just hit me again."
"Oh no I won't not shut up ad do it. There's something I want to check." She hollered impatiently. Naruto sighed and followed through with it, appearing as his pig tailed girl form earlier. But this time clothed. "Naruto...Naked. Now."
"No, you just want an excuse to hit me. I ain't giving it." He refused.
"Undress now. Last warning!" She gritted her teeth, this was important damnit.
"Make me!" He/she stuck their tongue out at her. Rikku got a tick mark on her forehead, before she speared the other blonde to the ground and started pulling open and off clothes. Though at that time the door opened to rikku's room.
"Hey rikku, I thought I told you to-" The voice stopped as the man, now seen to be cid, looked on at the scene, of his daughter straddling another blonde haired girl, her hands pulling at the clothes of the girl, already half naked, as they both stared wide eyes at cid. "I'll come back later then. If you see naruto, might not want to tell him about this. You'll break the kid's heart." He said as he retreated back into the hall, leaving both now furiously blushing girls there to fight off their embarrassment. Rikku though was not one to be deterred from any mission she's set for herself. So taking the chance while naruto wasn't resisting, stripped her of the rest of her clothes.
"Now just hold still and shut up while I make sure of something." She said, forcing the blonde to lay down, eyes on the ceiling. After some very uncomfortable probing that naruto had no idea how to feel about, staying silent for his own safety and fear of the girl who had him at her mercy right now, rikku sat up in her view, her expression of complete and utter shock. "You really and truly are a girl right now, no two ways about it...okay um...undo the henge then." She said, sighing as she palmed her face, eyes closed and she contemplated this new development. From what she knew of their studies, a shapeshift should be impossible, yet here it was in the flesh. Looking back at naruto though, her thoughts were derailed. She had told him to undo the henge, but she caught him as he finished returning to normal. Only know remembering that he hadn't henged his real clothes with his last time, so she had stripped the her he'd been before of his real clothes, nw he was in nothing but his birthday suit. She blushed so hard, her face turned a shade of red so red, it started going purple before she passed out.
Naruto for his credit, while embarrassed and ashamed, kept his cool, and once she was out, quicly got dressed. Calmer now, he wke her up, and then she promptly kicked him out of her room, too red faced to even look at him. He went to his room and decided this was where he'd spend the rest of the day. Afterwards though, they got back to training, though awkward at first, they worked through it, and naruto managed to teach Rikku his solid shapeshift henge. "That's actually a bit of a mouthful isn't it? Why not call it something else to show what it really is?" Rikku asked naruto, who thought it over.
"Hmm...why not, Kaihen. Means the same as Henge, but it's literal, not an illusion like what henge means." He suggested. They thought it over and nodded. that worked.
"So, a jutsu that can make you into a literal girl, could make me into a literal boy, or anything else we can think of." She said, pondering the ideas with that jutsu. It was a little costly on activation, but as she discovered, it didn't drain much more than a henge past that, and it didn't require the user to maintain the image of the transformation, since once you've changed, the change stays until you dispel it, so so long as you had chakra, it can stay active...
"Yeah, even weapons. Transformed a clone into a fuuma shuriken and threw him, he was somehow able to stay conscious and aware, even when thrown. Metal and sharp and everything." He said, catching her attention. That...was amazing.
"This is a veritable goldmine naruto. We could do...anything. Like with the Kage bunshin and Kaihen together, do you realize how much potential those two alone really is. I mean, I know I don't have your insane reserves, but I can still make a decent number of kage bunshin too. So really that's like, awesome." She said with a smile.
"Way ahead of ya. Remember the shit gippal pulled last week?" He asked.
"Yeah?" Rikku said, remembering the incident clearly. while the pain was gone she still held her cheek where he slapped her when he lost his temper. She used to like him, then they kinda just faded into friends, now they were distant. He got mad over something he wasn't being clear about and slapped her hard. Had she not had m-chakra, then that slap would have done some damage for sure with how much strength the older boy put into it. Naruto had come to her defense, but the adults stopped it before any further violence could ensue.
"Let's just say he's getting a surprise visit from that girl he was hanging with that's not going to end the way he wants." He said with a smirk, watching as her face morphed from confusion to an excited, nearly overjoyed grin.
"You didn't!"
"Technically I'm not there, so I didn't do anything." He said with a shit eating grin. "Among the other things that may or may not happen, everyone's going to know his new favorite color is fuchsia pink, everything. Including his hair." He laughed out. Rikku punched his arm before she rolled over giggling and laughing on the floor.
"Only you naruto, only you. I'm so glad we both like orange." She said once she calmed down.
"Well what can I say, I'm one of a kind. Though I'm willing to share on the love of all things orange. light have saved gippal some torment if he ever wore any." He said off handed like it was common knowledge. Indeed, Home was quite aware of the pranks the two blondes pulled, but over the years, it was getting harder and hard to tell if they actually did it or not since they could start making solid alibis, thanks to their jutsu.
After that, they got back to work on training and studying. They had to finish up on the last section for the day, tomorrow they would be out on scavenging duty, with a few others. Though gippals screams once he escaped his room and apparent lady friend were heard all around, and the humiliation was glorious. A few kaihen'd clones in place with spheres recorded everything and spread it around. Gippal would remember this for years to come.
Training continued like this, interesting things happened every so often, but as the next few years passed, they eventually ran out of things to learn from naruto's scrolls that they could learn themselves or at least without help from someone more advanced. They'd used combinations of chakra control exercises, reworked the 5 elemental ninjutsu they had to be more effective to them, mastered the academy style, plus the extra bits from Al bhed and itachi donations they had available, which helped greatly. However the Academy style was a starter style created by hiruzen, as listed in it's manual, to be a taijutsu style that is free form and focuses on the basics and foundational elements common to most taijutsu styles, that gave the style no true strength, but no true weaknesses either, and was meant to fit the ninja's needs, not trying to fit the ninja to the style, so they could use it to build off their strengths and cover their weaknesses, and later, be paired with a style more ideal to each ninja as they see fit. This allowed the academy style and their new style to evolve into something new and much more powerful than either alone, ideal for each ninja. Rikku and Naruto took this further with the Al Bhed hand to hand combatives they learned and the anbu techniques itachi included, but that was it. They realized their limit thus far and would have to wait until they could find something more.
Aside from ninja training, they had explored some of the options spira had to offer. Like learning skills used by blitzers, to incorporate from either to the other. Like they learned that they could apply water walking around the entire body while in the water to speed up and control their movements better, or skate on the surface. Several tackles, kicks, grapples and throws normally seen in blitz were also included into their taijutsu. Other things were harder to try and learn, like trying to combine spells and jutsu had become a headache for them, but it seemed possible since they could perform either technically, naruto had learned a small ice spell and rikku a fire spell. But they could combine the damn things with jutsu, and they couldn't access any higher level spells without a magic central grid or being link to someone with such a grid. While they had traveled with cid and other Al bhed on one of their ships, they had learned a few things about the summoning arts, like how they can water walk too, but the process is completely different to how they did it. Though they tried to learn the sending, as a just incase because home is in a desert surrounded by fiends, it just escaped them. Sneaking into a temple to look at their archives really hadn't helped them any. why were they in the archives of a yevon temple? Orders for cid to retrieve something that they weren't allowed to know what, only that it was in some kind of box and all. After several failed ventures into other areas they could improve in, and coming up bust, they focused on what they did have, and worked on refining what they could.
Their training was pretty much concluded for what they had at 12. Though Neither had their own custom weapon or new grid yet, they were still working on their old ones. they were finding that they were plenty strong already. Though they still had a long way to go. Now they found themselves on the ship again, this time sailing out on a scavenging mission. A lead on a machina they'd been desperate searching for had come up and so a diving team was needed. Naruto and Rikku had volunteered for it, since they didn't have much else to do, they hadn't found much anything new in the desert for a while, and there was only so many times you can take apart, rebuild and tune the same machina before you repeat the process all over again before you start pulling your hair out.
"So you think we'll find it this time?" Naruto asked as he leaned against the railing while he stared out at the ocean.
"Who's to say, but it gets us away for a while, Seriously I was getting clausterphobic in the garage." She said as she stretched.
Both had grown quite a bit in recent years.
Naruto wore his purple hooded sleeveless vest like always, it had grown with him, magic clothes he found were awesome like that, but he had yet to find what was so special about it aside from that and it could repair itself. A mesh short sleeve shirt under that with the vest open, a burnt orange sash around his waist with a free hanging length from the tie on the tide of his waist. Gray pants strapped to his legs with orange bands, black and red boots for contrast. He had a leather weapon pouch on each thigh, the inside lined with a storage seal he made to hold a lot of shuriken, kunai, and blank seal tags and two belt pouches on the back of his belt. He had bracers on both arms, one hiding and protecting his grid bracer, fingerless black gloves that slipped under the bracers. He kept his scarf and goggles he got from the day he first received them. Naruto's hair was shoulder length with one long braid coming down the right side, at rikku's insistence he had one braid that he'd never cut, thankfully a headband took care of sweeping back any loose strands out of his eyes. spiking his hair back a bit in the process.
Rikku wore a orange v-neck hooded shirt without sleeves, with a black mesh short sleeve shirt on under that. Around her waist tied by it's sleeves was what looked like a black and red mechanics jumpsuit, though she had a belt on under it to hold it up. On her thighs were weapon pouches like naruto's of the same design, with two belt pouches like him. She wore a pair of boots of black and orange color, and she wore bracers like naruto's as well, but absent any gloves. Around her neck was a scarf and her forehead a bandanna as a headband, yellow, with a pair of goggles over them. Her hair was in a few braids, already quite long, but simply kept.
The both of them carried a simple survival knife on their belts, made from the short sword itachi gave him and besaid aqua iron, enough material to make two single edged survival knifes they could use for just about everything, until they could find weapons they liked and would use for combat only, these sufficed as stand ins until then. They had a rippled water pattern on the steel, but unlike besaid iron, it didn't have a blue color or bubble/water appearance that moved when charged with magic. But still the knives helped a lot as good stand in weapons for the time being.
Both were well prepared for their roles, Naruto's limited fuinjutsu knowledge allowed him to make Dry-seals that kept anything in their pouches dry and safe when they had to dive, even when they were open, the pouches seals actively repelled water, but couldn't do it for clothes, adverse reaction with body sweat when they first tried it. Fuinjutsu was just an awesome art, imagine cid's surprise when Rikku and Naruto had applied a few seals they were able to do to machina to enhance their performance, fuel capacity and and overall enhance other functions. Part of the reason they'd been stuck in the garage for a while now was doing machina upgrades with fuinjutsu. They weren't great innovative things, just simple enhancements that kept them going longer with less maintenance, which while small did help out a lot in the Upkeep of Home.
The two just stayed leaning against the railing of the ship talking for a while as they waited to arrive at the site. "you know we could freak everyone here out if we get to the site before them by running there." Naruto said with a mischievous smirk. He got a light smack on the head from Rikku in response.
"No naruto, we're supposed to keep all that stuff a secret. Learn to enjoy the peace and quiet a bit every now and then. I know you got energy for days, trust me more than anyone else at Home, I would know." She said, before naruto's teasing grin cut that thought off.
"Oh really? And just how would you know I got energy for days hm? Trying to imply something?" He said with a shit eating grin that got him another smack, but a blush out of the other girl that he let out a light chuckle.
"Naruto, I will hurt you..." She said, and while it might be intimidating, the blush just made it adorable to the blue eyed boy.
"I know, but I'd rather it be you than anyone else." He spoke honestly, getting another blush from the girl, though this time he wasn't paying attention as he sighed. "So what can we do until we get there then?" He asked, looking around at...nothing.
Rikku got her composure back safely this time and breathed. "Could leave some clones here and kaihen into some gulls, go for a flight." She suggested, they hadn't flown for a while.
Naruto liked the sound of that, and was about to agree when he felt the ship lurch as the speed was cut an then reversed to slow them down. He sighed as he stood up straight. "Looks like it's time to work." He said, pulling down his goggles, rikku doing the same as they waited for the others to come out of the ship onto the platform so they could determine their next course of action.
Okay here's chapter 3. 3 chapters in about 2 days for the start of my first story, not bad, but I had 2 and a half chapters written already when I started posting them up. So this chapter was the big training chapter, to get it all out of the way with some interesting things happening here and there inbetween so it's not just an info dump. Not as descriptive as I mgith have liked about their skills, but I hope to flesh those out in the future chapters overtime. As for the surprises and what I just left conveinently vague, You'll have to see what those turn out to be.
The reason I didn't do much interesting early on for them was simply I had issues thinking of what young naruto and young rikku could actually do, and while there are plenty of things yes, I also didn't want to write ten chapters of just their early youth and not progress into the story. Though the next chapter or two will focus more in on them and discover more about the Al Bhed, how I think of them, as you've seen a few of my views of them in this chapter already, before we progress on with the story a bit.
I hope my usage of the Sphere grid (class and leveling system of FFX) was inventive and unique. One thing I noticed when playing the game and watching game movie on youtube of it recently is that all the characters that are combat based, have at least one forearm that is always covered, either by a sleeve, a bracer, gauntlet, something and the thought came to me to use that, since in X-2 their garment grids seem to be removable, worn on the body and small in nature, so I thought to apply it here as a bracer. And grid linking ties in with how characters can use each others grids. Adding my own spin on it and hopefully it turns out alright.
I won't have the next chapter up for a maybe a week, give or take life. But I hope this keeps everyone interested till then.
Till the next chapter, Ja Ne.