Captain Blues: Wow, twenty reviews in this first chapter…Thank you guys so much. So one of the things I noticed is that I don't want to rush Naruto's knowledge so we're going to build up to it so if the attacks don't seem like Ryu/Ken's, as Jake the Snake used to say "Trust me" because I know what I'm doing and I think you guys will enjoy what I am going to do.

Now, it's time to plant the first flag into this new world so enough talking and let's get to it. Enjoy!

Ansatsuken
Chapter One: Shadow in the Infinite Night

Naruto was puzzled.

He held the open scroll in his hand but it didn't detail anything.

All it had was a single passage

"In order to become a practitioner of the Ansatsuken, you must first draw out the power from within yourself…."

Naruto narrowed his eyes curiously.

Did they mean chakra?

No, that couldn't be. Otherwise, it would have just said chakra…

He scanned the scroll to see if there was a follow up to his odd statement until he found the passage.

"In order to use the Ansatsuken to its fullest extent. You must find and connect with the Mu no Ken - Power of Nothingness within you…."

The Power of Nothingness?

Naruto found the name bizarre but he continued to read on.

"The Power of Nothingness is a state of consciousness transcending ordinary perspective, born through spiritual and mental refinement.

It is the power to act without being attached to emotions and thought, free of fear, anger, pride, and ego, to draw upon the contents of one's heart intuitively without obstacle and hesitation, and to be aware of the world and to know one's place and meaning within its vastness, to flow with all of creation without the need of worry, desire, and doubt…."

"In order to find the connection to the Mu no Ken, you must achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state and find the opening within your soul. Only then will your training to mastering the Ansatsuken begin,"

Naruto finished and beneath the passage, he saw an image of a humanoid in the meditative lotus position.

Naruto grimaced.

He was taught in class that meditation was a helpful tool when working on chakra control and was taught how to perform this but Naruto knew himself well enough that sitting around was no good for him so he always faked it.

Meditating was such a waste of ti-

"I see a good heart in you Uzumaki Naruto," The man told him softly as he placed a hand on his head. "And that is a heart that I can trust with my most prized possession…." The old man offered one last smile.

It was that image that stopped Naruto's complaints immediately.

"No, I made an oath," Naruto told himself softly. "I swore that I would learn what the scroll held and that I would use the contents within to protect. And if meditating is going to help that then fuck it, I will do it."

With that determined feeling, Naruto nodded and mimicked the image's posture and form and shut his eyes. He had to clear his mind and enter an emotional and mental calming state.

'Breathe in….Breathe out….Slow and steady….Allow the world to melt away,' Naruto thought to himself repeatedly, his voice calm and soothing to his own ears. He didn't know when or how but soon, he slowly stopped the slow mantra and felt the world around him begin to fade away.

Naruto didn't know how long he had sat there in that spot but when he finally opened his eyes slowly, he found himself not in his room, but in a vast shallow lake bed that seemed to stretch out into the horizon.

As he looked ahead, he could see that there were mountains in the distance. Naruto looked up and saw that it was night and the sky was littered with visible stars with the Milky Way stretching across it.

It was beautiful.

Naruto sat there in the shallow water to just bask in the beautiful surrounding that he found himself in but it was then he the water beneath him began to glow an ethereal sky blue color. Particles of light began to slowly float from the water and into the air around him as he looked around in amazement.

He slowly reached forward and touched a particle with his index finger, where it then shattered into shimmering light that spread apart briefly before it flew into his fingertip. "What is this place?" Naruto asked himself.

Suddenly, the orbs stopped floating and remained in the air, which startled Naruto. The orbs began to fly to a spot above the lake bed where they coalesced into a singular medium sized sky blue orb that seemed to hum a gentle white light around it.

Naruto walked towards the orb and began to reach out towards it but he paused and reared his hand back. Was he to touch it? What if this was a test or a trick of some type? And yet, he didn't feel any sort malevolence from this odd orb. Strangely enough, he felt peace ebbing from it.

Naruto reached forwards towards the orb but the moment he did, he heard something from behind him. Naruto turned around as another orb appeared but this one was made from a dark inky substance.

Naruto felt a huge amount of e coming from it as the inky substance began to take on a humanoid shape. Once the shape was formed, Naruto watched as a body formed around it from the feet up but as it did, his eyes grew large as he recognized the shape as himself.

But when he looked into the blood red eyes of his doppelgänger, he saw a darkness in them that terrified him. "Surprised to see me?" The dark mirror questioned with a smirk of malice. "You shouldn't be, after all for I am a shadow... The true self..." the dark shade said as he spread his arms with his smirk widening to reveal his sharpened teeth.

"Why are you here?" Naruto asked firmly.

"Why? A pretty dumb question, don't you think?" his mirror asked. "You really are a sucker, aren't you? That scroll has so much power and yet you cling to an old man's words? And for what? Because he looked at you with kindness?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the disrespectful tone.

"Tch, if he knew that we held the Kyūbi, you wouldn't be doing this because he wouldn't have given us the time of day!" The echo exclaimed.

"That's not true," Naruto said strongly. "He saw the good in me. Much more than anyone else ever did…"

He laughed. "At least you aren't stupid enough to ignore what Konoha has done to us."

"Who could?" Naruto asked softly as he looked away from his dark mirror and to the orb itself and through the reflection, he saw sadness in his eyes. "I'm not stupid you know? While I am surprised at the fact that you are here, I'm not surprised at your existence nor am I not surprised at the hate that radiates off of you. Because you're right. You're a part of me…"

"You admit it freely…A nice change of pace from the depressed mess you usually are behind closed doors," The Dark echo said to him with an impressed air. "But that doesn't change the fact that we are trying to gain this power to protect these people. The ones that have ostracized and despised us for something we had no control over!"

Naruto remained quiet, allowing the twisted version of himself to speak.

"This power should be used for our vengeance! Revenge for our lost childhood! For our lost innocence! For all that we've suffered though! Don't you think we've earned that?! Don't you think we've earned the right to take what they took from us?!"

"No," Naruto told his darkened self as he turned back to him. "You only see the evil this village has but there is good in it. I know there is and it's that goodness that I will protect…."

Naruto paused to turn back to the orb. "Just because I have this hate, doesn't mean I will let it control or hinder me from doing what is right," and with those words, he grasped the orb, which caused a bright light to fill the area. Naruto finished as the light enveloped him.

But in that light, he heard a snarl filled with hate. "You are a fool…" His doppelgänger seethed out. "Do you will but the moment this village lets you down, I will be there and I will do what you are too coward to do."

Naruto opened his eyes and found himself back in bed, his body still in the lotus position and the scroll on the bed before him.

Naruto glanced at his hands then closed and opened the right one. He then looked at the mirror that hung from his bedroom door and glanced at himself.

While he didn't look different, he felt different…

How strange.

Had he done something wrong when he went to that strange plane? Should he try going there again?

Naruto then glanced at the scroll.

Maybe he had missed an important step or something.

He glanced through the scroll for any sort of clue or passage but then he noticed something. There were new words in glowing pale blue light.

Words that weren't there before.

Every punch, kick, throw and moves he had never seen was now printed in the scroll in vast detail where before, there was nothing but blank paper.

And not only that, there were variations to them from beginner to master and despite being book-dumb, Naruto could easily tell which variation was what and as much as Naruto wanted to throw himself into the deep end, he owed it to the kind old man to take this seriously.

"Ansatsuken – The Art the Assassination Fist," Naruto said successfully as he observed the images imprinted in the scroll that held each move of the Taijutsu.

Which meant to start from the very beginning.

And the beginning was the "Hatchling" style of the Ansatsuken.

Hyūga Hinata was an early bird like her mother before her.

She always found it nice to stretch out her limbs while her clan, and by extension, her village, slept. She had just turned the corner and was jogging past Team 7's training grounds when she heard the sounds of combat.

She ducked behind a tree and saw Uzumaki Naruto and a bunch of clones. They were all practicing Katas. But what confused her was that these katas were from a Taijutsu she had never seen before. She narrowed her eyes and watched as Naruto motioned for a clone to walk to him and they began to fight.

While Hinata had seen Naruto fight before, something was different. His moves, while still sloppy, looked to be vastly improved from the last time she saw him in a spar but there unlike before, there was a confidence behind his movements that weren't there before.

She watched as Naruto ducked under a roundhouse punch, grab the clone by the jacket and quickly fall down to his back and flip the clone over his head with an added push from his leg, which sent the clone overhead and down to the ground in front of him.

She saw that Naruto was a little proud of himself and it made her proud of him.

Naruto got back onto his feet as the clone followed suit and immediately aimed a somewhat-crisp kick to the clone's calf before he followed up with a kick to the mid-section before he suddenly rushed forward and pushed himself forward off the ground and shouted "Shoryuken!"

Hinata saw a flash of ethereal blue light flash around Naruto quickly as he delivered an body blow and then uppercut with both arms extended which carried both himself and the clone off the ground but his body spun a single full rotation, which caused the other fist to add onto the blow before he delivered an angled straight jab to the clone's face, which sent it to the ground.

Naruto landed on the ground as the clone dispersed into smoke. She saw that he was displeased by what occurred but like the determined person he was, he summoned another clone and continued.

Hinata had gone for a jog that morning but she soon found herself watching Naruto as he trained in this odd style, silently sending her support to her blond haired crush until she had to leave to prepare for training.

Captain Blues: And that is the end for this chapter. So the way I decided to do Naruto's training is 3 styles.

Ansatsuken: Hatchling – Will be Sean Matsuda's moveset from Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike. I figure that his style would fit best into Naruto learning the Ansatsuken style since Sean was a newbie.

Ansatsuken: Wyrmling – Will be Sakura Kasugano's moveset from…Street Fighter Alpha 2 to SFV. This style would be the perfect blend of still a newbie but getting into the groove of it.

Ansatsuken: Young – Will actually be a mixture of Ken Masters and Ryu's moveset from SF2 to SFV. How? Well, you're see *wink*

Ansatsuken: Adult - Will belong to Uzumaki Naruto and this one I am very excited about.

Ansatsuken: Elder – Will be a mixture of Gouken and Naruto which I am also excited about.

Keep in mind, I will have some fun extras and this is why I introduced both Mu No Ken and Dark Naruto as this will not only involve some Satsui no Hado shenanigans but it will be an eventual hurdle that Naruto will need to deal with throughout the story.

So that is the first chapter. The second chapter will be Naruto and Team Gai so until then, time to set sail!