TITLE: COMPOUND

CHAPTER ONE

Gonda was a random village of the Leaf and was three miles from the nearest big town. The village hoped that it would turn into a big town, but once the rumours of a Shinobi base being constructed beneath it started, everyone assumed that it would forever remain a small village, unnoticeable on the map.

Although the villagers debated whether there was a base under the village or not, a compound was constructed several feet below. It wasn't anything big and only had 4-5 rooms, a pantry, a kitchen and a training ground. The training ground was quite big, a 40m by 60m semi-levelled field with boulders and rocks here and there.

"Have you ever read one of those manga for 14-year-olds boss?"

Naruto, in the middle of push-ups with a boulder attached to his back, decided to spring that question onto his teacher for idle talk. The training ground was lit with bulbs on the roof, which provided quite a training mood in Naruto's opinion.

"And this is why you are lagging nowadays? Reading comics at 18?"

Flipping a page, Kakashi decided he was going to be a dick, not just an average one, but a ginormous one to his protégé. There were multiple joys in the life of a ninja, but annoying people was just a pleasure.

"Comics are made in Sand, Leaf creates manga. But that's not the point! The point is why is anything older than 17 considered 'old'? Do they think that life ends at 20?" Naturally, anyone who just reached 18, would take offence to being called 'old'.

"Yes, yes, your general dislike for most of society's traditions is known by everyone around you. But imagine," using lightning and flame techniques to create theatrics was necessary, no matter what anybody told him, "An 18-year-old Uzumaki Naruto, who reads comics in his spare time, lags on his training, has absolutely dumpster fire control over four paths, is now whining about a literary medium aimed at 14-year-olds calling 18-year-olds older!"

"I was just trying to make conversation here! And they called anyone aged 18 old, not older. Third-degree boss!"

"18 is always bigger than 14. I mean, I expected you to know this, but see there are these things called numbers, and they go 1,2,3,4,5- "

"Oh, you're in one of those moods. What happened, got rejected like last time?"

"A ninja doesn't get rejected- "

"Sounds like no regard to consent from me."

"Stop twisting words, I meant that- "

"I mweant that I did not gwet rejwectwed, because I am so awesome and cool, and have so many jutsu that I definitely have and do not lie about, and have a giant penis, that I again do not lie about because I am so awesome and never lie despite being a serial liar and hair that looks like a granny's and- ack!" A random fish hitting him square in the face cut off the ongoing tirade. The boulder flew off and landed a few metres away as Naruto sat cross-legged while rubbing his face.

Kakashi, who was clearly in a mood, decided to antagonize his student, "Now then, since you have exceeded your little smart-ass tirade time, you can get to training! And by training, I mean rote memorising random stuff! How joyful!"

"Wow, is it your time of the month? I swear you are being extra petty on purpose. Where did you get the fish from though?" Snatching a scroll from midair that was thrown in his general direction, he continued, "Economic Systems of the hidden villages? C'mon boss! You kept this around just to torture me! This is unfair!"

Kakashi, however, was fully intent on ignoring any pleas being thrown at him. Naruto was pretty sure that this sadist was taking a lot of pleasure in his suffering. "My young protégé, you must realise that no knowledge is excess knowledge." Leaning conspiratorially over his student, Kakashi started, "What if, one day, you get stuck somewhere where you must save a princess's kingdom from financial doom? What will you do then, Naruto?"

Shouting, Naruto replied, "I don't wanna save random princesses! Who cares where her kingdom goes? Isn't the financial instability her fault?'

"Is it her fault? Yes. But, as everyone knows, saving princesses means getting lucky with them! Do you really want to give that up Naruto?"

"This is all made up! When will I ever save a princess? There's a bigger chance that I accidentally find a kingdom of ramen bowls!"

Kakashi sighed, acting as a Buddha who couldn't for the life of him depart wisdom onto his unruly student. "Fine then, since you don't get the importance of saving princesses, you can study that until you do! Maybe one day, you will see the light, till then you can keep reading that book," Kakashi pulled down his mask to reveal his evil smile, accentuated by an illusion to make it seem scarier, "Over and over and repeatedly until you get it. Hehe," the ominous chuckle sent a shiver down Naruto's spine.

Gulping down his nervousness, he decided to make one final plea before Kakashi decided to put his plans in motion, "I swear, that I won't be a smartass for a whole week boss. Please rescind your generosity."

"No no, how could you train in other fields when you have such a fascinating subject here! I heard the joy from the depths of your heart and acted on it immediately! Look at what we have here," randomly opening the book, Kakashi gestured to the first title that caught his eye, "You can now study about GDP of countries! Look at all these words, such a good time you have in front of you!"

"I can do both. They act like two legends cannot co-exist."

"You still get to indulge in this book for an hour extra. What do you think about being a smartass now, hmm?"

"I am sorry boss. It will happen again."

"You can be an insufferable brat sometimes. We start progress on the fourth realm after you are done reading." Kakashi decided to drop down on the floor with no signs of being uncomfortable, opening a book of his own. Since he was delegated to reading, and being sure that his teacher would quiz him randomly, Naruto decided it was in his best interests to gobble as much as he could.

Kakashi was a figure that filled him with many emotions. Rage, curiosity and annoyance were the ones at the top, but Kakashi also inspired a feeling of awe in him. Naruto knew that he was what they called gifted, as he was born with an innate affinity to all realms of the sixfold path, but so was his teacher. In fact, in all his 6 years of learning under Kakashi, he had never surpassed him in anything. Ever since he was 12, his schedule was packed. He rarely went outside the compound and spent most of his time either training or lazing inside. His contact with other people was minuscule, to say the least, and in all his six years of learning, Kakashi had never run out of things to teach.

Even now, Naruto was sure that his teacher knew this entire book and could answer any question he could put up from it. Kakashi for him was what the model Shinobi was supposed to be.

Kakashi, who had been observing Naruto in between his reading, knew what was going on in his mind. When he was young, he had the same thoughts about his teacher, and he remembered when he thought that he could never surpass Minato.

'Every student thinks that', a little Kakashi dressed as an angel cried out from his right shoulder, 'We did too! And look where we ended up!'

'We surpassed Minato-sensei in the end!' Another voice called out from his left. Another Kakashi, looking like a devil continued, 'Even though I don't wanna agree with him,' a brief headbutting match occurred between the two Kakashi's.

The two Kakashi's vanished when he pocketed his book and stood up, causing Naruto to look up in anticipation, 'Looking forward to the sixfold training, no doubt.'

'Chuckling to himself, at which Naruto raised his eyebrows, Kakashi lifted his leg and shot out a devastating kick to the sitting Naruto, blasting him 30 or so metres away into a boulder, and then through the boulder. "The Sixfold-Path training now begins!" he shouted in an all too cheery voice.

The six-fold path of Shinobi referred to the six realms a Shinobi could master. In history, those who mastered all of them were titled 'The Sage of Six Paths', and only a handful had ever held onto that title.

Every man had chakra running through the body, but the realms required specific frequencies of chakra. Each man was born with a fixed quantity of Chakra, called 'Vitality', and only those with high enough vitality could train in the Sixfold Path. The rate of generating extra Chakra which is used in techniques was dependent on the inherent vitality of a person, and by exerting the body and the mind, new chakra could be created in the stomach and used accordingly. To use something pertaining to a realm, specific frequency chakra must be created in the stomach. Depending on the body, a certain amount of all types of frequencies could be stored for immediate use.

The first of the six realms referred to Hand-to-hand combat. Swords, staffs, maces, hands, and everything related to martial arts were a part of this realm. Because the realm was the most widely used one, the frequency used was given its own name, Qi. Healing arts were a part of this.

The second realm was nature transformation and manipulation. Manipulating any of the five elements, combining them and so on was part of this one. The frequency used was not given any general name, as it combined the frequencies of the first and third realms.

The third realm dealt with illusions, their creation and their destruction. This realm was the smallest of all six but had the highest skill ceiling of the first three. The frequency used was Yin.

Everyone had a different affinity decided by birth regarding the six realms. Some could create the first two but failed to create the frequency necessary for the third realm. Samurai could get by knowing only Qi, but Shinobi had mandatory rules that the basic three frequencies must be produced by an aspirant. The last three realms ran on pure chakra but still needed affinity. The Elite of each nation had mastered all basic three realms, and the masters of all six realms were the leaders of the military alongside a handful of more people. The ones who had mastered the realms beyond measure were called the Sage of Six Paths.

As such, the fourth realm was nature itself. To take in chakra from nature and use it without succumbing to the lands was the fourth realm. Some deemed these as 'Sage Arts'.

The fifth realm was much more abstract and dealt with concepts. To embody a concept and to etch it onto one's body was the fifth realm. Concepts could be repeated, but only one concept could be embodied by a man. The concept to be embodied was based not on the desires of a man, but on his nature.

The Sixth realm was the final realm, was the one with the highest skill ceiling. The mixing of the realms was a realm in and of itself, and this was the sixth realm.

There is no definite order to mastering the realms, the sixth one can be used earlier to combine the smaller first three before learning any of the latter advanced three realms. While the fifth realm may be stronger than the third one, a master of the basic three could beat a master of the fifth realm. There was no hierarchy between the realms, and knowing a realm higher than one's opponent was not a sure indicator of victory.

Wheezing from the pain of the kick, Naruto shakily stood up. "Out of," cough, "Out of fucking nowhere!"

Kakashi smiled while pulling up his mask, "You should've been looking out for the intent ever since I stood up."

Naruto ran forward in a blur leaving craters in the ground and shot out his leg in a mid-air kick, which Kakashi easily ducked under. Grabbing him by the elbow, Kakashi threw him up in the air. Regaining his balance, Naruto sped through hand signs in mid-air, before shooting out a great gust of wind, which propelled him away.

'A modified Great Breakthrough,' Kakashi guessed, before shooting out a giant fireball without hand signs. The flame, strengthened by the wind, sped towards Naruto, who slammed his hands on the floor, "Mud Wall!"

Vapour covered the field, and Kakashi sped through the wall, breaking it into chunks and stabbed a short sword through Naruto. Naruto instead let the blade pass through him and grabbed the real Kakashi who burst from underneath him.

"Getting the hang of illusions?" Kakashi smiled, before bursting into lightning which paralysed Naruto, and another three Kakashi's burst from underneath and swung for his head. Naruto turned and caught a punch from another Kakashi who dropped from above and let the three Kakashi illusions punch through him.

"Gotcha!" Naruto shouted, before slamming Kakashi hard onto the ground, and continued with by mounting him and raining down punches. Kakashi thrust his waist up, throwing Naruto away and firing off another jutsu before he could recover.

Naruto heard a "Lightning Hound!" from Kakashi before he could recover and barely dodged a stream of homing lightning closing in on him. The lightning turned back and sped to him again. Naruto moved right at the last moment and the lightning crashed onto the ground with a crackle. It turned out to be a bad move as Kakashi had predicted it and Naruto's face met Kakashi's fist with a resounding thud and Kakashi quickly manoeuvred the blonde in an arm bar.

Naruto rolled towards Kakashi before he could complete the arm bar and bent his arm under him. Kakashi stood up and stomped hard on Naruto's back, driving him to the ground. Naruto rolled over and grabbed Kakashi's leg before he could pull it back and kicked his other leg making him lose balance. Kakashi fell and Naruto seized the moment to fire off another jutsu, "Lightning Palace!", which created torrents of lightning that coursed through a 5m circumference.

Kakashi showed his resilience and moved through the lightning, casting the signs for, "Mud Wave!" and created a giant moving wave from the Earth, which threw Naruto several metres away. Naruto stood up and seemingly split into three and charged Kakashi, who charged back. The two clones kicked him through the sides while the middle Naruto held out his hand and created a ball of rotating chakra, "Rasengan!"

Kakashi was hit in the middle and was quickly replaced by a log. He appeared a few metres back and fired off, "Flame Dragons!", which created 6 dragons eight times the size of Naruto, all of which homed in on him.

Naruto quickly created Qi and let it course through his body. "Niko: Raging Fire!" was a technique that allowed movements far beyond the normal limits of the user. Running through the flaming dragons while dodging Kakashi bursting from the ground, Naruto sped through the room, causing the dragons to crash into one other.

Naruto turned back just as Kakashi appeared behind him and shot out a "Niko: Iron breaker!". Guarding himself with "Niko: Indestructible", Naruto still felt air wheeze out of his lungs as he was thrown back twenty or so metres. Managing to stay on his feet despite being sent metres away, fifteen puffs of smoke signalled the creation of fifteen clones as all of them charged Kakashi.

"Niko: Weeping Willow!" allowed Kakashi to grab onto one of the clones and send it to another, before shouting "Flame Palace!", which created white flames all around him in a 5m radius. The flames and the smoke from the clones bursting allowed Naruto to sneak from behind. Kakashi didn't manage to turn in time and could barely use "Indestructible" to defend, as Naruto fired off "Senjutsu x Niko: Blazing Steel!" which hit Kakashi square in the back. The white-haired man was thrown off to the other side and hit the wall creating a crater.

Normally, giving up on such an opening was a bad idea, but something in Naruto told him that this was not the time. Against all his rationality, Naruto quickly started taking in as much Nature Chakra as he could, while tensing up his muscles to create 'Indestructible". He held a guard in front of him with his arms, while shielding his face.

"Fifth Realm," was all Naruto heard as he went spinning in the air. All his defences turned out for nought as a wave of something hit him square in the middle, his arms spasmed as they turned numb and fell to the side. "Avatar of Lightning," Kakashi whispered, as his bones, muscles and his entire being turned into electricity. Electricity crackled around him as he floated in the air, shining bright enough to illuminate the entire compound.

Looking down at Naruto, Kakashi landed near him as he powered down. The blonde was caught off guard and tried jumping back to create more distance between them.

"All right, that's enough," Kakashi called out.

"What? I can keep fighting, you-" Naruto shouted, before fainting in the middle of his boast. The spasms from before travelled all the way to his chest and head, and he lost consciousness before he knew it. He would've hit the ground face first had Kakashi not grabbed him, before hauling him on his shoulder and moving inside the compound.

"Sleep well?" Kakashi asked a just now awakened Naruto in his bed who rubbed his eyes and stretched like a cat. "You lost, again if I might add," Kakashi quipped playfully from his seat beside the blonde.

"The fifth realm is cheating!" Naruto exclaimed, before rolling up like a burrito in his blanket and sulking over his loss.

"We are Shinobi," Kakashi absent-mindedly reminded him while sipping on a cup of tea. "You have got the basics of the Fourth Realm down at least, so you weren't slacking after all."

Ignoring Naruto's shouts about how he wasn't and how he never believed him, Kakashi continued, "The first step of the fourth realm is to take in chakra from nature and to combine it with an action without breaking open your body."

"Yeah, I can do that. Besides that, I can also take in chakra from nature and integrate it with my own and store it, but the combining breaks down when I move and all the stored chakra releases back."

"Control problem is something to be expected. This is advanced stuff, after all. People spend better parts of their lives learning Sage Arts and fail. You are doing exceedingly well in that regard."

"Not good enough to beat you apparently though?" came a voice from the Naruto Burrito.

"I am running out of things to hit you with that won't hurt you too much," Kakashi admitted. "Training will get difficult here from now on, I will start integrating Sage Arts into my own strikes, and to at least survive you will need to complete the Second step of the Fourth Realm. The Third Step is easier compared to the Second."

"What happens in the Third step?" Naruto unrolled himself out of the burrito and looked at Kakashi questioningly.

"The Third step involves taking in chakra from nature as in the First step, but as the integration of chakras in the First step is iffy- "

"Output drops by a lot," Naruto finished. "By mastering the second step, integration is near 100 per cent, and thus output is vastly increased as long as one meditates to store nature chakra," he continued.

"That's about right, and thus in the third step, the first and second steps combine. Take in nature chakra and integrate it one hundred per cent, but do not store it and continuously take more, thereby removing the time limit imposed by the second step and output limitation by the first step."

"I'll need to master the second step first, though," Naruto whined while twisting and turning on his bed. "Man, when am I gonna beat you?"

"Soon, I hope. It's in your hands," Kakashi chirped. Naruto sulked even more at that, turning himself into a burrito once more.

Just as Naruto was in the process of turning himself into a burrito, Kakashi said, "Just to boost your mood up, I'll let you know that we have a mission- "

"A mission! After so long! Fuck yeah!" "Not that fast- "It's been so long I thought they forgot about us- " "NARUTO!" boomed Kakashi.

"Sorry," Naruto apologised sheepishly. Patience was not a virtue the blonde had learned yet, Kakashi thought, but then again, he still had much more to learn.

Kakashi stood up and shot the blonde an unimpressed glance, "We move out tomorrow morning, be ready by then. Rest for the day," seeing him about to defy his suggestion, he warned "I mean it. Rest. You will have plenty of stimulus tomorrow."

"Is it big? This mission? You are unnaturally serious." Kakashi being serious before missions was rare. Those were solo missions undertaken by Kakashi, so this was intriguing.

"Big? Not really," Kakashi interjected, "But my gut feeling is all sorts of messed up. When you become an experienced Shinobi, you will understand what it means to have a feel. When something is off, you will feel it in your body."

"Wow, this a first in a long time that you actually sound mature and smart."

"And this, I feel in my balls."

"Ruined it. You ruined it."

END CHAPTER ONE