* Let's go, also I have an idea on how to adapt to the Hotaru arc if I decide to add it in. Also keep in mind I will be adding the Bandit missions to his total of missions completed. Most of the time it took to write this chapter was my firsthand attempt at writing gore, I put an author's note at the beginning and end in case you get squeamish*
Last time
"Sensei what is nature transformation?" Shino asked curiously. "Well, it makes jutsu of different elements easier to use for example if one to reach a mastery of fire manipulation they could use some of the more complex jutsu with little more difficulty than one would a fireball" Asuma responded. "Well how do we find out our affinities?" Shikamaru asked. "Usually, you'd channel some chakra into some special paper, but I don't have any on me right now. Tell you what though I'll grab some before our next session" Asuma promised.
And now
The sun had yet to rise on Konoha to awaken team ten to start the training for the chunin exams. But before those upstarts could start training we see three figures standing just outside the forest next to a river. "How are the teams split?" Hiruzen asked "Well we have them split into two after looking at the map there are several camps up this stream, so we should be able to hit all but the S rank camps in the span of 24 hours, but in order to do that we needed the extra pair of hands and flippers." Dracula started pulling out the map given to him the other day with new markings on it dictating all the teams that would be going on what will later be referred to as The Bandit Armageddon for only the strongest of the bandits survive the end of today. "As you can see we have pre-set teams that will go to certain camps that are c and b rank then the A ranks will be hit by members of the council or certain individuals teamed up as per their request or as dictated to the council. Though there are a few camps that will only need one monster to actually capture all of the occupants" Dracula finished pointing at a select few camps. "Well, Naruto if you wou..." the third started
"Hold it. There are some stipulations that the council has put considering the strain this would put on young Naruto." The capped man interrupted "One, if you are to do one summon you will require the help of your two tenants. Two, you need to wear the forest crown as you summon the others. Three you will take the day off from training as you will be sending a clone with each of the groups to learn and understand the battle effects and to also function as a backup for some of the teams if needed." Drac stated the ground rules 'Well, will you be willing to do this' Naruto thought to his two tenants. "You got both of us supporting you, though I am curious about what the crown is supposed to accomplish?" Kurama responded. After parroting the support and question all four got an answer. "Well originally this crown would store nature energy that would be required to enter human sage mode. But with a few seals thanks to Baba Yaga, it can now regulate sage energy. We are only using it for this once as it is imperative you learn to do this on your own in case the crown fails. This time you have me to help in the off chance it messes up." The fanged one stated.
"Well, I guess it's time." Naruto started walking over to the riverbank to do the summon. With the crown on his head, he could feal more powerful as the nature chakra flowed into his chakra pool though it wasn't a full transformation given that all the sage markings were only at open simi circles instead of full circles. "Summoning Jutsu, Shadow Clone Jutsu" and with that Naruto stumbled forward onto one knee. The crown falling off his head. His normally large reserves were nearly depleted and that was with him taking three tails worth of chakra from Kurama and a tail and a half from Isobu. But the result was well worth it, the clearing around the river was filled with all the teams each with a clone. There were five hundred teams in total each commanding a predatory grin on their face. "Take him back please. Konunger and I shall return when everyone is done to see how he is recovering" Dracula said looking at Naruto in concern feeling how low his reserves are.
As the sun rises we find Naruto resting on the couch of the Hokage's office in a meditative position. He wasn't even at an eighth of his reserves yet. None of the clones had popped since the signal to launch the attacks was sunrise even though some wouldn't reach some of the farther out camps till after noon. Then the first clone popped…. (My first handed attempt at trying to be a little gory ahead you've been warned)
The first to get to their camp was the group of nine hell hounds. Seeing as they were given a b-rank camp they were undetectable till they had the fangs around the victims neck. The camp was a mess from the clones viewpoint positioned on a nearby tree the half a mile long clearing was strewn about with dismembered limbs, entrails, and the grass was soaked in blood. The nine hounds carefully dragged any of the survivors near the bonfire in the middle of camp. They then proceeded to take sticks from the fire and cauterize the open wounds on the few missing limbs. They then gathered up all the corpses and survivors and reverse summoned home.
The next three were in rapid succession with Medusa's siblings Stheno and Euryale going through and paralyzing everyone in their A-rank camp with a visual genjutsu that is just under the total power of said sister. The second camp was a team up of Basil and Apep who encircled the A-rank camp and slowly constricted the camp enjoying the petty attempts from the lowly bandits to try and pierce their scales even shrugging off fireballs launched by the ninja in the camp. The third camp of the small batch was terrifying as it was just Chigo against an A-rank camp. The camp was surrounded in webbing to trap any escape attempts. With the web set up Chigo started to walk into the camp, using his shapeshifting ability to make more legs and to elongate them, he walks through the camp spearing any and all bandits with pinpoint accuracy. As he pulls his leg back from spearing their stomach, as he pulled the legs out, parts of their guts following the leg, he also makes sure to morph a spinneret on the end of the leg to web up the wounds ensuring they don't die. Before reverse summoning he could still feel the main camp leader in his tent completely unaware. deciding to mess with him Chigo transforms himself into a beautiful and elegant woman. Keeping the voice of a man, he calls out to him saying they captured a woman traveling on the roadside. When the boss of the camp, a B-rank missing nin. Came out of the tent and saw the woman at first then looking around and noticing the state of his camp. Turning his attention back to the eloquent woman he was met with the sight of her mouth unhinged. Chigo finished gathering all of the cannon fodder blood still dripping on his fangs and the head of the missing nin dangling by a thin strand of skin out of the giant spiders mouth. And with that all of them reverse summoned their prey.
Naruto winced as 449 hundred clones popped all at once. These were the teams consisting of a zombie, vampire, gargoyle, and werewolf. They all cleaned through the b and c rank camps with ease. They were chosen as there were a lot of cannon fodder camps and these teams covered each other well with their skill set.
It was with a quick look opening his eyes that Naruto noticed him and the third were not the only ones visible in the room. Looking up and seeing Enma standing behind Hiruzen and Jiraiya of the Sanning with a small toad on his shoulder that were talking. "So, the tadpole is clearing out the interior of the boarder?" the elderly toad asked. "That is correct Fukasaku, all but the S-rank camps for now, though those will happen before the chunin exams as a way to project that we have everything under control." The wise hokage responded. "What is happening to the wealth that the camps have amassed?" The toad sage asked. "Thank you for reminding me. Summoning Jutsu" Naruto said, "Is it time for the cleanup mission already?" A bone thin blue skin tinged creature on two legs hunched over while it looked around the office at the other two humans and two summons looking at him. This was Capala or known by his mythology as the chupacabra. In the entire clan there are several fast beings, but he could proudly boast he was the fastest of them all. "Yes the closest camp has five goats left for you to gain that extra speed boost. Don't forget your scroll." Naruto said tossing a standard sized scroll to the starved creature, as soon as the scroll was tightly in his grip he was gone in a burst of pure speed. "That was Capala, he's the fastest land based creature in the clan that stayed by a wide margin. The plan was to send him in after the camps have been cleared of bandits for valuables in which Konaha will take a portion based on mission ranking and the rest will be distributed around the rest of the land of fire. This goes twofold. One it will help wrench control that the council has gained and allow for changes to be made to the current graduation system and other establishments around the village. Two it will help prevent more bandits from being created in the land of fire, as why steal if there is more wealth to go around and desperate times lessen." Naruto finished.
"I noticed you said in the border, what do you mean by that brat?" Jiraiya asked though he had a clever idea why in fact this might work out another way that the kid didn't see. "Well obviously if we start having wealthier common folk the bandits from outside the border will come flocking trying to steal it but with the sudden lack of bandit camps it will deter any smart bandits realizing that we took all of those bandit camps out in the span of a day. Though dumber bandits might slip by border patrol on pure luck they won't have an easy time establishing a camp given the wealth of normal civilians they would be able to hire our ninja to exterminate them. In fact, after the S-camps the land of fire should become a no man's land for bandits." Naruto said glancing at the clock and realizing he had about another half hour till the next and last set of camps were cleared. "I noticed you said that remained and land based when you mentioned Capala. What did you mean by that?" Enma asked. Naruto cracked his neck after summoning Capala he was only at about a half of his reserves. "Most of the contract split off when the main boss went to sleep. Saying they would only return when they have a summoner, and the boss was woken up. As for the fast bit I was told there are two beings of about equal speed to him, but ones primary method is air and the other sea. So, it's hard to really know which one is the actual fastest." Naruto said. "Who were the other two?" Fukasaku inquired curiously. "Their names are Batoi, fastest in the air and Turso, fastest in the seas" Naruto said as he returned to the couch. "I have about 15 minutes till the next clones pop any questions?" Naruto asked. "How are your reserves doing?" The aged leader asked. "Not too bad I'm about at half but my recovery rate should be faster as Isobu and Kurama have finished replenishing their chakra and now the seal focuses all the chakra it took to restore them to replenishing my reserves." Naruto responded. "I thought there was no seal?" The wizened hokage asked confused as to what the young blond meant. "There is no extra seal the only seal left is the one placed on me by the Shinigami itself. And even then, Baba Yaga takes a look at it every time I sleep in the summons realm that she's starting to learn the gods sealing technique." Jiraiya grinned at this "Ah seals the one branch the gods forgot to place a limit to." He whimsically said. Noticing the time and that more clones were going to start popping soon Naruto returned to the couch to resume meditating.
The next clone to pop followed Ness who went upstream to take on the bandit camps on the river that led from the sea. He took out a total of three camps by himself the clone tying and tagging a reverse summon on the bandits before following along. It wasn't till the last camp that Ness couldn't reach all of them from the water that he revealed a shocking ability. As he swam to the bank of the river his fins morphed into the legs of a sauropod and he walked on the land to finish off the last few bandits by biting them in half, the legs falling to the ground. "You can walk on land?" Naruto's clone asked as the last of the bandits were tied up and sent back Ness finished the legs of the remaining bandits before he answered "Yeah, I don't like to cause it uses a lot of energy and chakra but since we'll be dining on humans, and I had this small snack I should be fine. You should notice that some more clan members should gain new abilities now that they have the proper diet of human body parts." And with that Ness disappeared in a puff of smoke along with the clone. The next clone to disappear was the team following the siren sisters and Karl as they took on the other four camps along the river's edge. The sirens would start singing their song. The bandits now on the water's edge were child's play as Karl grabbed eight at a time and sent them back to the summon realm with a paralyzing seal placed on them preventing them from moving. It was at the fourth camp that they switched strategies. This time Karl released part of the size seal and grew to a five-story tall octopus, all the bandits focusing on trying to defeat the clearly summon of an octopus didn't see as the sirens snuck behind and slashed their throats their claws having a paralytic poison on them preventing them from screaming as they gargled on their final breaths.
The last forty camps were split into groups of ten between the remaining seven council members. Zevon and Narmer where the first group done with their ten camps. The duo used Zevon's speed to get to each camp quickly while also slicing the throats of bandits and Narmer used their bandages as tendrils wrapping around and sending the mummified bandits back to the summon realm. It was similar to Ness where at the last camp both council members revealed a new ability. Zevon grew in size to almost thirty feet tall, using his speed and size he swiftly went through and ate half the camp in less than a minute. The remaining bandits crowded round the center looking for their assailant. This is exactly what Narmer wanted, sitting down, and putting his hand into the ground as the dirt turned to sand around his hand. The clone noticed that the ground around the bandits feet slowly turned to sand. Suddenly with a swift strike like a cobra the bandits were wrapped like before though this time the bandages didn't detach like the last time instead they seemed to pulsate from the top of the cocoons down into the ground. This continued for several moments till the pulsing stopped and the bandages removed themselves revealing husks that fell to the ground with a bone snapping crunch. With a satisfied sigh both disappeared, and the clone popped.
Frank was the next one to finish his set of ten. He was fast, appearing at each of the camps the only reason he took longer than running by and throwing them to the center breaking their necks with the force and speed they were tossed into the center. At the last camp he showed a new ability as well. Almost all of his stitching came undone, the stitching shot out at fast speeds piercing each of the bandits the stitching started to go through and pull out organs of the now dead bandits. The stitching replaced and improved Franks existing organs with the scavenged ones. Once the stitching was done he gave a thumbs up to the clone before poofing out of existence the clone following suit. The Next duo to finish was Medusa and Sato, the two plowed through their camps relatively fast. If it weren't for the distance between the camps Naruto was sure they would have finished first. The combo they used on the first half of camps was Sato picking up a boulder with Medusa on top and tossing it into camp getting the attention of the entire camp. Then with her snakes looking everywhere Medusa petrified all the bandits using her snakes to make eye contact with all the bandits at once. They switched it up for the next four letting Sato use her new ability, this time Medusa would sneak into the camp and using one of her swords would slice the throat, then when half the camp was downed by her blade Sato, shrunken by a size change seal, called forth the skeletons slain by her companion watching as the meat organs and skin stayed on the ground as their skeleton rose out of their corpse. The gray brain matter leaking out as they charged the remaining bandits killing them before running into Sato being absorbed into her skeleton as her bones became a purer white with every skeleton that ran into her. The last camp was when Medusa showed her new ability turning into a snake the size of Manda, eating all of the campers before both of them disappeared.
The last clone popped, and this one was following Dracula and Konunger. The two make a frightening duo. Konunger commanded plants to move and ensnare the population of the first three camps allowing Dracula to speed through the crowd weaving in and out of the bandits as they fell asleep knocked out from lower blood circulation. The next three camps showed Dracula speeding through the camps hypnotizing them to comply and reverse summoning them back. The last batch of three was Konunger's time to shine, saying a mystic sounding chant wooden spikes shot out at key points in these camps. But the spikes continued to grow and grow until eventually, in the place of the spikes were large Fir trees like the ones you'd find in the land of Snow or Iron. Once the trees towered over the camp the pine needles started to come off and rain down on the camps, straight down, right on top and trough the unsuspecting members of the camp. The pine needles on further inspection were infused with nature energy and when they stabbed into the ground the sprouted flowers and long grass.
"It's done" Naruto said as he opened his eyes. "Aren't Dracula and Konunger supposed to return?" The wizened leader asked. "Yeah they told my clone following them that they will be here in 5 minutes or so, they wanted to stretch their legs." Naruto said as he stood popping his back and stretching his joints after spending about half the day in a meditative state. "How are you feeling Naruto?" the toad sage asked. "I've killed before if that's what your implying, I don't enjoy it, but I know it's a necessary evil, especially in the ninja world." The blond responded in a somber tone. "Okay Naruto" Dracula said as he entered the room shifting out of his bat form and dropping Konunger who had transformed into a rock to avoid attention and possible spies. "We are going to finalize your training schedule for this month and a half before the chunin exams. Then once Capala is back I want you to go back to your mom's cottage and rest. Normally you would come to the summon realm but not tonight." Dracula stated. "Ok?" Naruto asked. "This won't be our average dining experience tonight, most of the clan weakened by not feasting on one part or another of humans aren't going to be able to control themselves with the feast tonight." The vampire explained "Ah, I see." Naruto responded. "So, what are your training plans for him?" Hiruzen asked breaking the simi tense pause. "Right so, we are going to focus on trying to get you to master elemental transformation of water and wind. While also rounding out your jutsu repertoire we are also going to try and get one or two of your jutsu mastered. And lastly you will be training with Kira and Baba Yaga on your seals." Dracula answered. "What do you mean mastered?" Naruto asked. "The ability to do them without hand seals. Also Yaga and I will be feeling out your chakra during this to determine when you'll be ready for Sage training" Konunger replied. "May I make a request that I be there for his sage training? While I don't doubt your methods I've also the experience of training two humans in sage mode." Pa spoke up from the gama sannin's shoulder. "We'll send a messenger zombie when we get to that point. I can always appreciate another set of eyes when it comes to nature chakra" Konunger replied appreciative of the toads gesture. "We are hoping to get your shadow clones and either a wind or water jutsu mastered" Dracula stated, "It will depend on how fast you master your nature transformation." As Dracula finished his sentence Capala came through the door. Dropped off the scroll on the desk and vanished in a heartbeat. "Must still have some excess energy. Well, there is the scroll Naruto Reverse summon yourself 5 am sharp tomorrow to start training." And with that the two disappeared.
"Well, it looks like you have your work cut out for you, luckily your team is excused for missions for the next month and a half. Even though your summons did most of the fighting your teammates and you did go through a civil war, I suggest you also find a hobby to immerse yourself in to cope with our line of work." The wizened leader suggested. "Do you have any recommendations?" Naruto asked. "Well, I do painting, Jiraiya has writing, Asuma has Shogi and smoking. While I can't recommend one specific thing, I'd recommend an instrument, I remember reading about one of your old clan members who would use instruments to cast genjutsu since the large chakra reserves made it hard for all of your clansmen to cast genjutsu." The wrinkled leader said. "Thanks for the tip old man, how about I give you one in return, you can use shadow clones to get your paperwork done faster and have more free time. Mom's diary mentioned that dad did it all the time and he used seals to make a genjutsu to hide them." Naruto said before body flickering home. " So that's how that cheeky bastard did it." The hokage said making ten clones all getting to work to get ahead on all the backed up paperwork that the damn civilian council likes to drown him in.
Alrighty that's this chapter plan on finishing four stories this new year so buckle up its going to be an adventure. A couple of things to note. 1) I already have an instrument picked out but would love to hear your guesses. 2) I do Read DM's even though I haven't posted in a while. Again, if you make a version of this story or any of mine DM me I still read on here and would like to read your versions. 3) I'm thinking on if I want to skip the training month and a half and get straight to the Chunin exams or if I should do it. What do you think? Let me know with a review or DM. till next time!