Naruto moves up to the scrolls grabbing the next one from the top of the pile, sure these were ancient secret techniques but by Kami, if they weren't a bitch to use. two in and he has ended up on the floor activating both of them. Though he supposed the devil's unrelenting control was far more useful than he would have expected, the god's nine-star body seemed to be more defensive, and it needed specialized training if nothing else so it might not be useful for a while. Grabbing the scroll on the ghost's heavenly truth he gets to reading, which was getting much easier the more he did it; maybe old man Hokage had a point.
"The ghost's heavenly truth is an art based around the truth and the untruth in the world, for most people the truth is what's real e.g. the physical.
That is typically correct what's real is true, but most people assume 'what's physical is true then what's true must be physical' which is incorrect.
the ghost's heavenly truth focuses not on what's material and immaterial, but on what's true and what's false, for with enough power and technique even the immaterial lie becomes physical truth.
This art is above all else about removing lies from the world and or yourself, illusions created, and targeting you can be easily removed and illusions you create will eventually replace the original world.
Practicing this art is a true undertaking, it is divided into nine levels each one referred to as a necropolis, each necropolis holds 999 specters and one lord soul, each specter is made from one truth and one lie and each lord soul is a copy of your soul created to rule over the specters.
Although this might be the most time-consuming of the 5 Uzumaki arts it is also the least costly, this art requires no reagents no special runes or formations, just time and experience.
To form a specter you must take two aspects one of which is true and another that's a falsehood or lie, for example, the sky is blue which is true. and for the lie water will always be blue.
The truth and lie must have a through line of logic or comparison but must not contradict one another. For example, the sky is blue for the truth, and the sky is bright green for the lie would fail as one contradicts the other. And the sky is blue for truth and, water flows uphill would fail as there's no comparison to be made.
contain each of these thoughts in a shell of qi and push it into your upper dantian this will form your first necropolis which you must begin to fill with other two specters can share the same truth or the same lie once you have made a specter with truth or a lie no other specters can be made with those Truths or lies.
Naruto sits back pondering what he just Read In the scroll, deciding to try and form the first specter, he sits down as he slowly thinks about what truth and lie he should use first. There's a second of contemplation before he gets an idea "I am Uzumaki Naruto and everyone in Konoha loves Uzumaki Naruto" Naruto thinks to himself trapping those two thoughts in a thin shell of qi as he pushes them into his upper dantian, as they arrived they begin to merge deforming and swirling around to form something close to the outline of a person without arms or legs, a head that leads down to a torso that stretches and lengthens to a long tail. The left half of the specter is white, and the right half is black. The left repeats that he is Uzumaki Naruto and the right whispers that Konoha loves Uzumaki Naruto.
Naruto shivers and shakes as he can feel an alarming amount of something being drained from his body as a drop of heart-blood vanishes from inside his heart, Breathing becomes difficult and his mind becomes clouded as he can see what he thinks is a copy of Konoha emerge in his mind, in this copy of Konoha a single specter floats around calmly winding through the other wide desolate streets, the entire inner konoha is in greyscale except the Hokage tower.
Watching the specter float around for a few minutes he finally pulls his awareness back into his real body. Gingerly he stands up swaying and staggering to the sink, he takes a long drink while reaching for the expression of autumn, The world shifts from color to black and white A new sensation creeps over his body, he can feel his yin and yang energy flowing through his body like slow streams.
It's more like feeling how full a cup of water is through touch alone than the numbers he had expected, but even without the numbers he could feel he was very low on both at this second. The yin and yang energy in his body was alarmingly close to zero, but it was slowly beginning to replenish. turning off the expression of autumn he moves to climb into his bed for the first time in days he was going for a nap, he could probably just meditate this problem away but right now he just wanted to sleep and leave cultivating till tomorrow at least.
The sunlight peaking in through the blinds alerts Naruto to the fact it's morning and he rolls out of bed. Slowly rubbing his eyes he looks around the apartment and his attention focuses on the pile of scrolls, There are only 3 left for him to read, the immortal mind, the demon's mark, and the guide to foundation establishment. He's about to reach for the immortal mind before stopping himself, these arts typically wiped out the rest of his day and he needed to go to the academy, with a deep groan he ignores the scrolls and begins to walk to the academy.
Arriving early yet again he wonders if this was going to become a habit, though it wouldn't be too hard he didn't need to sleep and so long as he didn't get stuck in a breakthrough or tried to learn one of those secret arts he probably would arrive on time for almost everything. Taking his seat he prepares to watch his classmates again and as they start to file in he reaches for the expression of spring feeling everything shoot into hyper-focus Naruto is slowly getting used to the deluge of information that flows in. Information like The speed and amount of blood moving through his veins and the exact amount of heat bleeding from his skin is quickly shut away and not focused on the least, this helped but didn't entirely stop the issue of his mind getting overstimulated.
The little details that eluded him before now seem all the clearer, Gintama Yamanaka's blond hair is very slightly brown at the roots and his fingers have a light tint which probably proved the theory he was a bastard, the cloth wrapped around Koneai Hyuga's forehead was slightly loose and showed off the very edge of some ink or marker, She also had slight chakra burns and swelling at certain points along her arms and hands. Sakuta comes in and the bruises on his face and hands are all the more prevalent now, Naruto tries to think back to the orphanage and remember if someone might have caused these. He remembers one of the common visitors a man by the name of Kazuya. who came by and 'helped' train any of the orphans who enrolled in the academy, though he can't remember anyone who received training saying the mam helped at all, Mostly they just looked sad or flinched whenever he arrived. A small seed of anger settles in his stomach though he's not sure why.
Moving away from Sakuta he skims over civilian kids, little to nothing to note about them, no sign of training or abuse. The pressure begins to build behind his eyes, and he redoubles his focus "I'm never going to get better at this if I keep turning it off at the first sign of strain" he thinks to himself
"Clan kids before you turn it off" Inzunka and his puppy seemed to be covered in scratches,
The Hyuga had bruises and spot burns, The Yamanaka had dye in and given the way his hands looked he had to do it himself.
The Nara looked barely awake and had nothing else notable.
The Akimichi's hands were covered in dried blood and given the way he reached for some clearly homemade Jerky it was probably animal blood.
The Aburame...
Naruto's vision swims as his head pounds finally letting go of the expression of spring his nose leaks a thin stream of blood as he heaves quiet but heavy breaths. he wipes away the blood as the teacher comes and he tries to focus on anything but the pounding of his head while the world swims in and out of focus. Closing his eyes he tries to meditate, finding the balance was a bit rougher than normal but eventually he manages to slip into his meditative state the pounding of his head and pain behind his eyes slowly fades as he cycles his qi by the time the bell rings for lunch the pain is down to just a fraction of what it once was. There's another twitch of pain as he opens his eyes and the bright light makes the pressure spike before slowly fading, turning to face Sakuta he sees him eating his bento Naruto calmly waits for him to finish before standing up
"Hey want to go do some training?" Naruto asks sakuta
Saktua seems to pause for a second before nodding and they both make their way down to the training dummies. The sun was out today and although it was still a bit chilly the worst of the frost and cold had begun to fade, snow and winter didn't last for long in the land of fire, Most years that is; apparently, the winter after he was born was pretty bad for lots of people. Shaking off the somber thoughts putting the question of what made one winter just worse than others out of his mind he moves to take the basic kata he learnt yesterday from watching Sakuta.
Sakuta looks him over and looks around grabbing a discarded stick and pretending to look old and wise stroking an imaginary beard he taps Naruto's left foot back a few inches. Naruto grins while he looks up at Saktua who is stroking his chin with a cheeky smile of his own on his face, eyes glowing with mirth. moving his foot back to the correct position he begins to move through the kata Sakuta tapping his arms and legs to help correct him, how Sakuta knew what this was supposed to look like Naruto wouldn't ask, but learning and being taught was pretty fun and the grin Sakuta had on his face while correcting him told him he was also enjoying this. The bells rings yet again and Sakuta's grin fades back to his neutral expression.
"Same thing tomorrow," Naruto asks
"Yeah sure I can help you out tomorrow as well," Sakuta says with a nod.
Naruto gives a short sarcastic-looking bow to Sakuta "This humble student will ask once again for your guidance sensei" Naruto says cheekily. Sakuta lets out a small snort of a laugh as they make their way back into the classroom. Naruto tunes out the teachers as he gets into meditation once again only to be nudged Naruto turns to look at Sakuta with a raised eyebrow
"Why do you do that, like meditating but only when you're in the classroom?" Sakuta asks.
"It helps time pass and I don't care for these history lessons" he replies quickly to which Sakuta nods with a knowing look but continues to pay attention to the teacher while Naruto meditates till the end of the day. The bell rings dismissing the school, Naruto stops meditating and looks at Sakuta
"see you tomorrow" he states as he begins to make his way back to his apartment, a smile on his face about how he had a new friend.
walking into his apartment building his smile changed to a grimace at the new coat of paint on the entry to the seventh floor where his apartment was, slashes of red paint covered the wall and doors, "demon" was spelled out in red paint. A discarded metal pipe bent out of shape meant they probably tried to force their way in and failed. Naruto sighs, once again there would be no suspects to find and trail this down, even if he actually saw them 'he was mistaken' and 'These people couldn't have done it' he mentally quotes. As he goes into his apartment, double-checking and making sure all the scrolls are still there he paces around the apartment. Looking outdoors at the thin layer of snow the small pit of anger that fills his stomach whenever this happens refuses to settle at all.
With a grunt, he decides maybe punching some training dummies would calm him down. And he sets off for the ninja training fields, no point heading to the academy ones to get kicked out cause 'there was no supervision' or whatever their latest excuse was.
Making his way to the nearest training ground he finds it empty, a couple of logs in the middle to serve as training dummies. Naruto stands in the middle of the clearing and begins to practice the kata Sakuta taught him, but without him there to correct him and show him what the issue is it just feels uncomfortable and stiff.
Deciding he's probably not actually going to get anything productive done he just begins to punch the post. no form, or substance just punching right fist, left fist, right fist, left fist, over and over again nothing special, no long wind up, just punch after punch into the same spot, in his mind the wooden post shifts to one of the villagers who he had seen painting on his apartment before.
It comes as a surprise to Naruto when the sound of wood cracking interrupts the mindless hitting pulling his hand back in shock only now can he see he's torn all the skin on his knuckles leaving them a bloody mess. looking up to the post which was visibly dented with cracks and splits in the wood trailing from the massive dent. The grin slowly reappears on narutos' face as he stares down the cracked wood. Making sure he's in a stable stance he begins kicking the post, no longer alternating his left and right side but just repeatedly sinking kick after kick into the same spot, this time he pays attention he can feel when the aches in his shin start but that also means he gets to see when the dents start. Each kick hurts a little more than the last so he increases the strength of his kicks pushing through the pain as the dent in the log increases deeper and deeper the dent warps the wood, Naruto doesn't notice or care when it slowly shifts to night, nor when it begins to snow lightly all he's concerned about is kicking through this post.
One-quarter of the way through the log His shin aches, a sharp pain spreading all through the leg, while each kick begins to contain some qi the flow and technique slowly improving with each kick.
Halfway through there's a sickening Crack from his leg as the pain doubles but Naruto simply grins, the pain quickly dulling as the adrenaline kicks in again.
Three-quarters through the pain and all feeling from his leg is gone, but the top of the post shakes and wobbles greatly with each kick.
"Final stretch" he thinks to himself as just a sliver of the post remains with one final kick and a yell of exertion his leg splinters through the last of the wood and comes out the other side qi swirling around and through the leg.
Naruto falls over as the force of the kick knocks him off balance falling into the light dusting of snow he laughs to himself as the top of the post now separated from the bottom falls to the floor with a dull thud. The stars' marks all over his body split, 9 becomes 18 as Naruto pants his breath fogging up in the cold air as the first rays of the sun peak out over the horizon.
"I should probably get up and clean up before the academy he says looking down at the broken and mangled mess that is his leg, the fabric over his shin where he was kicking is all but gone, tattered scraps of fabric and ninja wire are all that remains, the flesh of his shin was mangled and torn covered in blood and filled with splinters. He can even see bits of the broken bone that was used to be his shin poking through the pulverized flesh.
"Better Fix that first huh," he says to himself a bit dazed as he begins to direct qi into the mangled lump of flesh that used to be his leg, he watches in amazement as a mix of his qi and some red almost bubbling energy flows directly into his leg. his Qi pinches and pulls the bone into the correct place as the red energy fixes and grows back muscle at a rate he can see within 2 hours the lump of pulverized meat that was his leg seemed mostly back to normal. sure it hurts a lot and the skin was bright pink like it had been sunburnt but it resembled a leg and that was what counted right.
Taking the bandages he tied his sleeves and pant legs down he moved to wrap them around his shin covering up the damage to the fabric and the bright pink skin.
That job is done Naruto awkwardly staggers to his feet and begins to lip his way toward the academy a smile plastered all over his face.