Chapter 1337 - b

Chapter 69: Volume 2, Chapter 20: Lightning cutter, Xiān Shí & Fantasy.

Kakashi had wondered how he would stack up against a jōnin as renowned as the Demon of the Mist. Men like Momochi Zabuza did not earn names like that lightly. Reputations like his were forged over years of bloodshed, whispered about by those who had survived encounters with him and repeated by the silence of those who had not.

He had intended to drag out their initial engagement a little longer than was strictly necessary, just to experience that reputation for himself.

Then Zabuza had gone and cut Naruko in half right in front of him and ruined it for both of them.

"Kill me? Hah! You're too soft, Hatak—"

Zabuza's taunt began confidently enough, but the last syllable stretched out into a strange, sluggish drawl as lightning chakra began buzzing through Kakashi's nervous system.

Turning every single shred of chakra in your body into lightning chakra—even once—had very strange effects.

One of the downsides was that other elemental techniques became much harder afterward. If not for the instant translation from photographic memory to kinesthetic memory that the Sharingan provided, Kakashi suspected he might not have been able to use them at all anymore.

One of the upsides, however, was that when both your spiritual energy and your physical energy were turned into lightning—

You began to operate at lightning speed.

Admittedly, physical energy was far easier to convert than spiritual energy, so maintaining that balance required care. A great deal of care.

So carefully—very carefully—Kakashi took a single step forward.

The air cracked behind him.

The world blurred.

For a brief moment the forest became a smear of color and motion as the distance between him and Zabuza vanished in an instant.

Kakashi slid to a stop on the other side of the swordsman, his sandals grinding softly against the damp forest floor. Slowly, deliberately, he allowed the lightning state to fade, letting the gathered chakra dissipate.

Sound returned.

The quiet rustle of leaves. The distant trickle of water. The soft groan of wood as Zabuza's massive blade remained lodged in the tree trunk where it had been thrown.

Then Kakashi turned around.

And blinked in surprise.

"You dodged?" Kakashi drawled, genuine shock lacing his voice.

Zabuza had fallen from the handle of his sword and now writhed in the dirt beneath it. His remaining hand clutched desperately at the smoking stump where his right arm had once been.

"That's impressive," Kakashi admitted after a moment of observation. "I can barely keep track of myself when I'm moving that fast, and you still managed to dodge."

Lightning chakra began gathering in his right hand almost absentmindedly, the familiar technique forming itself through habit alone. The forest filled with the sharp, piercing chirp of a thousand birds.

Despite the lightning chakra wreaking havoc on his body right now and the excruciating pain of a missing arm, Zabuza still struggled to get to his feet. He couldn't do it, his nervous system too overloaded to listen to his commands but it showed a rare kind of tenacity.

"You're really something, Momochi-san," Kakashi said, offering the compliment sincerely as he regarded his fallen opponent as he scrambled in the dirt.

"You really would have been a good fight."

He tilted his head slightly.

"What a shame."

Kakashi stepped forward, prepared to finish the job.

But he was interrupted.

Two senbon needles suddenly shot out of the forest.

They struck Zabuza cleanly in the neck.

The Demon of the Mist immediately went still.

Completely still.

Even the faint rise and fall of his chest stopped.

Kakashi's eye shifted toward the direction the senbon had come from.

A Mist hunter-nin emerged from the trees moments later and knelt defensively beside the unmoving body of Zabuza. They were clad in long flowing clothes and had similarly lengthy hair.

"Jōnin-san," the hunter greeted.

The voice was soft and feminine, light enough that it reminded Kakashi faintly of wind chimes stirring in a gentle breeze.

"Hunter-san," Kakashi replied politely.

"The Hidden Mist would be very appreciative if Konoha would allow the retrieval of this missing-nin." they said, gesturing to the downed swordsman.

"Oh, would they now?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes. Zabuza Momochi is at the top of our wanted list, alive or dead. I will inform my superiors of Konoha's leniency in this matter."

"Hmmm," Kakashi hummed thoughtfully while massaging his chin.

"That is true," he admitted. "It would improve relations."

"Then we are in agreement. I will seal—"

"That is," Kakashi interrupted mildly, lightning once again gathering in his palm, "if you were a hunter-nin."

The masked ninja froze.

"I am a hunter-nin, Jōnin-san."

"Sadly," Kakashi said, sounding almost apologetic, "I don't believe you."

He moved.

The lightning-enhanced shunshin that followed must have looked like actual teleportation to anyone watching.

Sadly, it was not as fast as literal teleportation.

So when a three-pronged kunai suddenly buried itself in the dirt beside his target, Kakashi had just enough warning to yank his Raikiri back before it could cave in Naruko's skull.

"Kakashi-sensei, wait!"

Even pulling the technique back at the last moment wasn't enough to avoid all damage. Lightning chakra still licked across her skin, burning a small patch on her forehead.

Kakashi stared at her.

"Naruko…" he said slowly, his voice wrapping all the way around from terror, to incandescent rage, to bone-deep fatigue.

"What are you doing?" He asked as the last memories of his shadow clone arrived.

An explosive tag? Really?

"You can't kill them!" Naruko shouted, planting herself squarely between Kakashi and the hunter-nin.

The same man who had cut her in half moments ago lay behind her.

"And why," Kakashi asked, sounding tired enough to offer a measure of patience, "can't I?"

"Because she's a good person!"

Naruko pointed emphatically at the hunter-nin, who was still clutching Zabuza's 'corpse' while facing down certain death from Kakashi.

"And how," Kakashi asked very slowly, "do you know this?"

"I just do! I feel it in my gut, believe it!"

Naruko's jaw set stubbornly.

The expression was painfully familiar.

It summoned distant memories of forced dinners and being dragged through grocery markets by a crimson-haired hurricane who refused to take no for an answer.

Kakashi sighed quietly.

He looked from the blonde-haired jinchūriki to the trembling ninja she was so stubbornly protecting.

And realized that if he wanted to reach them—

He would have to go through Naruko first.

It was moments like these that made Kakashi wish she had taken a little more after Minato-sensei.

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There was something in the air, an atmosphere of import, a striking solemnity that denoted a certain inevitability, like this moment was always going to happen.

It felt a bit sudden, but this was exactly what I had been asking for, and I wasn't backing down at a bit of seriousness.

"Gogen-sama, please show me the secrets of senjutsu," I said, bowing to the aged baboon who watched with a smile that spoke of untold mysteries and boundless compassion.

Like the Buddha himself.

"You wish to learn the secrets of senjutsu?" he asked me, stepping forward and gently tapping my shoulders to raise me out of my bow, leaving me looking down at the monkey that I realized was little more than three feet tall.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well that is troublesome…" the old baboon began while staring at me with those golden eyes.

I was hit with a wave of worry; troublesome?

"…because…I have no idea how it's done!" he finished with a jovial chuckle, and I had to restrain myself from facepalming.

The other monkeys had no such compunctions, all moaning and groaning at the old man—or more accurately, old ape humor.

"…Jiji…" Fumiyo clutched at her head in embarrassment.

"Hehehe! Look at your face! You fell for it so easily too! Hah! Classic," the old monkey chuckled, complete with a slapped knee.

"Yes, very funny," I said, and that only seemed to set Gogen off even further, fully devolving into fits of laughter complete with clutching at his stomach and rolling on the floor.

The younger monkeys saw this and joined in on the laughter. It was so wholesome I couldn't help the small smile that twitched onto my face.

"All jokes aside though, there is a place where you can figure it out for yourself," the old baboon said after taking some time to calm down, some of the younger monkeys having migrated to their elder's lap during his laughing fit.

I perked up at that, my mouth opening to immediately request to go there.

"Word of warning though," Gogen said, interrupting me. "If you fail, you can never learn it the way it's done on this mountain again," he said, running his fingers through Harune's fur, making the little monkey squirm and giggle.

"You only get one chance," he said with what I thought was the first bit of actual solemnity.

Then he bent over and began motorboating one of the baby monkey's bellies.

I stopped and thought about that for a moment. A test with a single chance to pass, a test that barred the secrets of senjutsu on this mountain.

If this was my only avenue toward senjutsu I would have been more cautious, but I was already walking my own path. I was sure that eventually I would figure out Ki on my own. Whatever I could learn from the monkeys about senjutsu would be nice, but in the end they most likely didn't practice natural energy the same way I did.

So why wait to get some outside perspective?

"I would like to try," I said.

"You sure? You can come back anytime, you know?" Gogen said, beginning to extract himself from the gaggle of chimps, giving Tetsuoni—who had been pretending like he didn't want to join in—a pat on the belly that had the young gorilla suppressing a smile.

"I'm sure," I reiterated.

"Alright then, right this way," he said, walking away from the clearing and masterfully slipping between the fingers of all the little monkeys that tried to hold him down, as though he was made of air.

I shared a glance with Hinata, then followed.

The elderly baboon reached the edge of the clearing and we followed him as he stepped behind a tree, under a branch, through a couple of bushes—

—and then we were on the peak of the mountain.

—wait, what?

I stumbled a bit and almost fell off the sheer cliff, but Hinata caught me. She was just as shocked as I was at her sudden arrival at the top of the world and began to tip over as well.

Then knotted hands reached forward, grabbed both of us, and threw us backward.

We rolled over the rocky floor in a tangle of limbs that ended with me on top of Hinata, instinctively casting Mage Armor and using my body to shield her in case of any sudden attacks.

"Youngsters today, so jumpy."

The grumpy voice of Gomei pulled my gaze to the old chimpanzee who sat on a boulder and looked down at us while casually chewing on a bamboo shoot, his dark leathery skin contrasting with the bright blue of the sky.

I didn't respond. I scrambled to my feet and took in the surroundings.

It was like sitting on a single island rock in an ocean of cotton.

Clouds spread in every direction, reflecting the glory of the sun like miles of sky-silk. The sky felt like the bluest blue I had ever seen—a sort of impossible ultra-blue.

And the mountain itself?

It gleamed like a cut gem, covered in precious stones of every kind—from diamonds to rubies to emeralds—the entire spectrum of color represented in a beautiful tapestry of stone.

In the center of this rocky island was a stone bowl—more like a jewel bowl. It was too roughly cut to be considered a gem, and it was full of too many conflicting colors to be any stone in particular, but it gleamed like the finest diamond regardless.

"What is this?" I breathed in awe.

"This," the silent and solemn Goen spoke up while caressing his white beard, "is the peak of the mountain. A nexus between the heavens and the earth."

"How did we get here?" I asked Gogen, who had been watching us with an amused and mischievous smile, too curious to care about almost falling off the peak.

"Nowhere is ever farther than a hop, skip, and a flip away if you're nimble enough," he said with a wink.

There was so much packed into that statement that I just locked it all away in my head for later.

Don't get distracted.

"Okay." I took a deep breath and let it out. "Senjutsu," I said to them as I glanced at Hinata, who had already gotten to her feet and seemed to be staring at the stone bowl at the center of the mountain with her Byakugan going at full blast—bulging temples, glowing eyes and all.

"Yes, senjutsu. You want to learn it, yes?" Gomei asked, reaching into his greyed-out robes and pulling out a gourd, popping the cork and taking a few gulps.

"Hmm, that's good."

I ignored the blatant alcoholism and replied.

"Yes, I do," I said, making sure to put conviction into my words. This seemed a lot more serious than I had thought it was, but I wasn't backing down.

"You still do, huh? Hehe, you got some spine, brat. I'll give you that," Gomei said with a chuckle, rising from his spot while tapping his bony knees.

Then he disappeared.

I blinked to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me.

"In you go then."

I heard the chimpanzee's gruff voice from behind me, then felt hairy knuckles tickle my nape as aged hands closed around the back of my robe and sent me careening toward that large bowl.

I landed in it with the grace afforded by hours of training and looked up just in time to see Hinata's terrified face as she sprinted toward me—

—before the edges of the bowl flowed up like water and sealed me in total darkness.

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Haku was not sure mercy was a concept that existed outside his own mind.

His mother had shown it to him a long time ago, a time so distant in his memory and so buried beneath the sands of time that he sometimes questioned whether it had truly happened at all—or if it was merely a figment his mind had invented to soften the tragedy of existence. Since then, he had never encountered it again.

Despite this, he could not help but offer it to those who seemed to need it: to give a quick and merciful end to those who required it and to avoid bloodshed whenever he could. More often than not it backfired, either in Zabuza-sama's reprisal or in the inevitable betrayal that followed mercy on a battlefield. Yet he simply could not stop himself.

Perhaps it was simply another flaw.

He was a broken and useless tool, but Zabuza-sama, in his infinite wisdom, had still found use for him. The Demon of the Mist had never shown Haku mercy, but he had given him purpose—and that alone was more than Haku deserved. For that, Haku would gladly die.

He had intended to do so when he made the desperate gamble to deceive the Konoha jonin into letting them live. But this was Kakashi of the Sharingan, the man said to have mastered a thousand jutsu. Haku had no hope of deceiving such a shinobi.

Still, he tried anyway.

For Zabuza-sama.

He failed, and death came for him like lightning in a summer storm.

"Kakashi-sensei, wait!"

Until it did not.

There stood before them, arms stretched wide and shielding them from certain death, the girl that Zabuza-sama had almost killed. To Haku's absolute bewilderment, she was protecting them.

And when the death god that was her teacher asked her why—

"Because she's a good person. I can feel it!"

Haku couldn't believe his ears.

Him? Good?

The thought alone felt absurd. Haku knew what he was: a tool, a weapon sharpened for someone else's hand. Yet even as disbelief settled over him, something far stranger held his attention.

Mercy.

He was witnessing it in another person for the first time, and it was just as impossible—and just as beautiful—as he had always imagined it would be.

But would that mercy move a man like the son of the White Fang?

For a brief moment—in which the silver-haired jonin watched both Haku and his unconscious master over his pupil's shoulder, inspecting them like insects beneath a lens—Haku feared it would not. That this moment of impossible kindness would end as all things did on the battlefield.

With death.

Then the moment passed.

The jonin relaxed from his preparatory lunge into a more predatory slouch. Still more dangerous than anyone or anything Haku had ever witnessed, but no longer actively trying to kill them.

"Alright, alright. I guess we can interrogate these ones too."

Relief nearly made Haku collapse as the killing intent that had been pressing on him like an anvil finally lifted.

"Oi. You. Mask off."

Haku looked up to meet the lazy, yet strangely cheerful expression of their forestalled executioner. He did not mistake the words for anything but what they were—an order.

So he began unlacing the wrappings that tied the mask to his head.

"Huh?" was all the jonin said to Haku's overly feminine appearance.

Their blonde savior was much less restrained.

"Oh my god, you're super pretty! Isn't she super pretty, Kakashi-sensei?" the blonde exclaimed, suddenly within Haku's personal space and gesturing wildly at his face.

She was so close that Haku's training briefly urged him to take her hostage. Then he remembered the flash of lightning pretending to be a human being standing over them and ruthlessly suppressed that suicidal thought.

"I am a boy," he clarified.

"Yeah, I suspected as much," the jonin said with a nod before reaching into his pocket and beginning to read what Haku recognized as an erotic novel.

That, more than anything, relaxed him. It had been Haku's experience that it was the ninja without vice that one had to worry about—people who did not need distraction to dull the horror of shinobi life.

"Eeh?! No way! Even your chakra is all girly! Heck, it's girlier than mine!" their savior exclaimed.

"That's no surprise," came the smooth alto of a dark-haired boy approaching with their target and a pink-haired girl. "I'm sure most pebbles are more feminine than you."

"Hey! You tryin' to start something, Teme?!" the blonde shot back.

"Hn," the boy grunted, though his eyes never left Haku.

"Well, that's all well and good," Hatake-san said mildly, "but I assume we should do something soon to keep Momochi-san from dying, yes?"

"Medical assistance would be appreciated," Haku said.

"Well then, how about you slap these on your wrists and we can be on our way?" Kakashi said, offering chakra suppression seals.

Haku wore them without complaint, even as the strength flowed out of him when his chakra was sealed.

"Good, good," Kakashi said before bending down and lifting Zabuza as though the massive swordsman weighed nothing. "Well, Tazuna-san, lead the way."

"You're not killing that monster?" the bridge builder asked. Given the threat they posed to his life, Haku could hardly blame him.

Haku would kill him if he tried but he couldn't blame him.

"You didn't pay enough for me to kill shinobi for you, Tazuna-san," Kakashi replied with that spine-chilling cyclopean smile. "My job is to keep you safe—which I think is going pretty well, don't you?"

"Hai, Hatake-san," Tazuna said, bowing his head.

"Wonderful," Kakashi said with a clap.

"Lead on."

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They arrived at the old man's home just as the sun began to sink.

Tazuna's house sat at the edge of the village, the wooden walls were weathered by years of salt wind from the sea, their faded boards glowing warm amber under the evening sun. A narrow porch creaked softly in the breeze, and thin threads of chimney smoke drifted lazily into a sky painted gold and rose.

Nets, tools, and half-finished repairs lay scattered around the yard, quiet signs of a life spent building and mending. In the fading light, the humble house looked small against the vast ocean beyond—but stubbornly alive, like the land of Wave itself.

Even Haku, as unfamiliar as he was with the concept, knew instinctively that this was a home.

The door slid open.

"Tou-san?!"

A young woman stood there frozen in shock, her dark hair tied back hastily, flour still dusting her hands. She bore a striking resemblance to the old architect, but layered in a mature beauty.

For a moment she simply stared.

Then the relief broke through.

"Tou-san!"

She rushed forward, throwing her arms around the old man.

"Tsuna!" Tazuna laughed, tears gathering in his eyes.

A small boy peeked out from the door.

"Grandpa…?"

"Hey there, Inari," Tazuna said softly over his daughter's shoulder.

The boy hesitated.

Then he ran forward and clung to his grandfather's leg with desperate strength.

Haku watched the reunion in silence.

Something inside his chest tightened.

He had no memories like this.

No one had ever waited for him to come home.

He forced the thought away.

Tools should not be capable of envy.

"Hatake-san, this is my daughter Tsunami and my grandson Inari." Tazuna said to team seven.

"Nice to meet you." Hatake-san said, his tone surprisingly kind for a man Haku would consider Zabuza-sama's peer.

"N-nice to meet you too, shinobi-san." Tsunami-san said with a faint blush that earned Hatake-san a glare from Tazuna-san. It seemed fatherly protective instincts could overcome a fear of death.

Haku wouldn't know.

"Is he missing an arm?" Inari spoke up between his elder family members.

"Yep." Hatake-san answered with a smile.

"Did you do it?" Inari asked, and Tsunami-san looked like she would reach down and cover his mouth.

"Inari!" She exclaimed.

"That I did," Hatake-san cut in before she could do so.

"Does he work for Gato?" Inari asked.

"M-hm," Kakashi nodded.

"Good." the little boy said with understandable viciousness. Haku wondered if he would have become the same if Zabuza-sama hadn't found him. Doubtful, he lacked the true fire of a shinobi.

"...Inari." Tsunami said with a worried frown.

"Why don't we head inside?" Tazuna said, obviously switching topics.

"In a minute. I need to debrief my squad, you go ahead we'll be right behind you." Hatake-san said and Tazuna herded his family into the house.

"Are you sure this is wise, Sensei." the dark haired boy that Haku had learned was named Sasuke asked as soon as the client was out of earshot, gesturing at Zabuza thrown over his sensei's shoulder.

"Don't worry about it my cute little Genin. I don't know if you noticed but I'm pretty strong." Hatake-san said.

"Indeed you are." Sasuke hesitated then grimaced here like he was forcing the next words out of his mouth. "I am… impressed by your strength…. And grateful for your tutelage… and look forward to learning more from you."

Kakashi blinked in surprise then reached forward to ruffled his genin's hair, easily by passing his attempts to evade.

"Awwww! I think your great too, ~Sasuke-kun~"

"Sasuke-kun," the pink-haired girl—Sakura—breathed like a hungry beast and cosied up to Sasuke, who despite his outward gruffness didn't push her away.

"Wow, are you an imposter? No way you're the Teme." Naruko said.

"Tch." was all the young boy could get out seemingly too busy trying not to lash out at the girl clinging to him.

Despite the antagonism or maybe because of it, the atmosphere was warm and filled with camaraderie in a way that Haku couldn't have ever conceived of from shinobi.

Once again he found himself repressing envy.

"Well time to go in and rest for the night! Man, it's been a long day!" Naruko said, beginning to swagger up to the house. Only to be blocked off by Hatake-san's sudden appearance.

Haku blinked and glanced back to see another copy of Hatake-san still carrying Zabuza-sama. A clone technique then, but he couldn't tell which was which.

"No, no, no. You don't get to go in yet. Not you." Hatake-san said to an increasingly nervous Naruko.

"Kakashi-sensei?" she asked.

"Since you want to use jutsu you haven't mastered yet. Let me help you acclimate to it," Hatake-san said, pulling kunai from his pouch.

Naruko gulped.

"How are you going to do that?" she asked.

"You're going to run and I'm going to attack."

"And I'm supposed to dodge right?"

" Dodge, don't dodge, it's up to you really."

"Bu-but I'm supposed to dodge right?"

"You have a ten second head start."

"Kakashi-sensei?!"

"Ten…nine…eight…"

Naruko made a run for it.

The night was filled with the screams of an abused jinchūriki.

Even from inside the house, Haku could hear her.

The crash of wood.

The crackle of lightning.

The occasional distant thump of a body hitting the ground.

Zabuza groaned faintly beneath Haku's hands.

Haku continued working.

But for the first time since the battle began, a faint smile touched his lips.

Naruko had saved his life.

She had protected him.

She had shown him mercy.

And now she was being brutally hunted through the forest by her teacher.

Haku bowed his head slightly.

He was deeply grateful for her sacrifice.

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A/N: We get our first glimpse of the new Lightning god of Konoha!

Naruko is doing Naruko things! Kakashi is just tired!

Izuku stands on the summit and I just won't stop dropping easter eggs!

Haku is Terrified but he won't give up!

Will Kakashi decide to fry their captives?!

Will Naruko's special brand of bimbo heroism be stopping anytime soon?!

What will emerge from the cocoon of rainbow stone?!

Chapter 70: Volume 2, chapter 21: Sunshine, Teaching & Kings.

The first instinct when trapped in an enclosed space is to panic. To give in to the animal urge to break free.

But I was a highly trained combatant, so I spent only the first hour or two panicking.

After much hyperventilating and multiple panic attacks, I managed to gain some calm and allowed logic to prevail. I shut up the primitive part of my brain that freaked out in tight, lightless spaces and focused on coming up with a solution.

This was supposed to be a trial about senjutsu. Senjutsu that the elders could apparently not use—that no one could use. Whatever this test was, it was the singular path to learning the senjutsu practices of the apes.

By sitting on the peak of a mountain in a rainbow-colored stone.

The parallels to a certain sage were piling up very, very high now.

Still, those parallels provided useful information. How had he gotten out his own rainbow-colored rock?

By 'absorbing the bounty of heaven and earth,' which I'm guessing is just a fancy way of saying senjutsu.

Given my lack of physical durability, traditional senjutsu was always going to be a problem. The massive chakra reserves normally required, reserves that I did not have, were the reason I tried to master Ki in the first place.

Which meant if this trial was about traditional senjutsu, it might already be a wash.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I hunkered down in the surprisingly comfortable stone bowl and opened my senses to the natural world.

And felt nothing.

The panic came back with a vengeance, but I suppressed it and tried to examine what my senses were actually telling me. It took a few minutes, but eventually I began to pick up on faint traces of natural energy within the stone.

But my usually expansive senses could not leave the confines of said stone.

Even my senses were trapped.

Deep calming breaths, Izuku. Deep calming breaths.

Okay. Sensing natural energy the normal way was out. What else?

Triflingly little, that's what.

But among my dwindling options, one stood out.

Ki.

When I grasped my Ki it enhanced my senses even further. It was my last option before I began contemplating the use of explosive ordnance.

I fell into a meditative trance and worked my way from the discipline of breath all the way down to the discipline of pain. It would take more practice to access that enhanced perception without the pain genjutsu I had invented.

So suffer it was.

I cast the genjutsu.

My body seized with the agony of every nerve suddenly coming alive with pain, but as I had before I used it as a guiding light to find my Ki—the signature of my existence.

As soon as I grasped it my senses strengthened significantly.

My perception swelling up like a rising tide and pushing up against the stone barrier around me.

But it still didn't pierce through.

Okay. My last option hadn't worked, but there was no need to panic yet.

With the water and food I always carried in storage seals, it would be a long while before I died of thirst or starvation. Those same seals would also allow me to dispose of any… waste.

So I had time.

Even with that rationalization the sensation of being trapped nearly dragged me out of my trance, but I held onto it. Then I used those enhanced senses to begin inspecting the interior of the stone.

Every nook.

Every cranny.

It was smooth. Incredibly so. Smooth to the point that if I hadn't been unintentionally sticking to it with chakra I probably would have slipped.

That alone was strange.

But the longer I inspected the stone, the more unusual it became. Especially at the points where I touched it with bare skin. There was a faint tingle.

A subtle something.

But I couldn't quite identify it.

It took another hour before I realized what it was.

Nature energy.

The faint tingling was the subtle shifting of my own natural energy—my Ki—as it interacted with the stone. The awareness afforded to me by the discipline of pain letting me feel the way my Ki seemed to extend out of my body wherever I touched the stone directly.

I ran my fingers over the stone, feeling the way my very existence seemed to shift and jump with each shift.

I had assumed I wouldn't be able to interact with nature energy at all until I completed the Discipline of Motion.

But did that apply to nature energy that was already trying to interact with me?

Let's find out.

I reached out and exerted my Ki against the nature energy within the stone in much the same way I manipulated my chakra.

The energies met.

A connection snapped into place.

And suddenly I was staring out into the great blue sky again.

I was out?

No.

No, I wasn't.

There was no sound.

I could somehow see, but I heard nothing. And my sight was strange too. It was a full three hundred and sixty degrees. I could see every inch of the mountain.

I could see the three elders lounging and playing pai sho.

And I could see Hinata sitting in front of my towering form, watching me with obvious worry.

Ah.

I was the stone.

I tried to pull back, to return to my body, but it didn't work. Yet I couldn't find it in myself to panic.

Any fear or worry felt distant and unimportant.

Instead I was overcome with an overwhelming thirst.

I was so thirsty.

And there seemed to be water everywhere.

Wait.

What water?

…mmm.

I'll worry about that later.

So without a second thought I opened my mouth—that wasn't a mouth—and drank in the golden waterfall pouring down from the vast golden ocean in the sky.

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"That's it. That's all I've got, Kakashi-sensei." Naruko huffed in exhaustion and collapsed into the dirt.

The early morning forest seemed quiet, almost peaceful. This was the sixth time she had uttered those exact words tonight, and this time Kakashi was inclined to believe her.

Still.

One more, just to send home the message.

A blunt kunai came hurtling out of the trees at blinding speed, aimed somewhere soft and sensitive—meant to sting but not seriously injure. It cut through the air with a sharp whistle.

Naruko didn't need to look. She had learned over the course of this very long night what that sound meant: pain.

So she acted accordingly.

One moment she was there. The next she was gone.

She teleported to one of the many Flying Thunder God seals she had scattered across the forest during this chase. Of course, with his lightning-enhanced shunshin, as long as she remained within the forest Kakashi could reach her almost instantly, then the chase would restart as it had for the past six hours.

"So what have we learned?" He asked as he appeared behind his nearly unconscious student, lightning crackling faintly around him.

"Don't…use jutsu I…just figured out…in a fight," she panted, unable to get her legs under her. Her arms barely holding her up and trembling with exhaustion.

She had a lot of chakra, but the Flying Thunder God was a hungry jutsu, and she wasn't even in the same realm as Minato-sensei's efficiency.

Kakashi nodded and sat beside her, casting the Mystical Palm to speed up her recovery.

"Now," he said casually, "why shouldn't I go in there and put my hand through those two?"

He asked the question in his usual lackadaisical drawl, and it took Naruko a few seconds to process what he had said.

Once she did, she was on her feet.

She staggered in front of him with her arms spread, blocking the path toward Tazuna's house, injuries and exhaustion be damned.

"You can't!" she shouted, arms spread and knees trembling.

"Why not?" Kakashi asked.

He remained seated and relaxed.

Naruko blinked, then frowned as she realized the question had just been a tactic to get her talking.

She kept talking anyway.

"Haku's a good person," Naruko insisted.

"Not Zabuza?" Kakashi asked. He had noticed she had barely mentioned the Demon of the Mist in her pleas for mercy.

Naruko grimaced in confusion at the mention of the rogue swordsman.

"He's… complicated," she said slowly. "Like you."

"And how do you know that?" Kakashi asked.

Naruko worried her lip for a moment before extending her fist toward him.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow but bumped his fist against hers.

Immediately, a strange chakra interaction occurred. It felt almost like a genjutsu. Instinctively Kakashi tried to dispel it—but that only pushed more of his chakra into the connection.

Then he saw the world through Naruko's eyes.

He learned something new.

Naruko was a sensor.

Not in any way Kakashi found familiar. Not in the traditional sense of accurately sensing chakra signatures—though she seemed to be improving at that by the day.

What she excelled at was something stranger.

People.

Their nature. Their character. The way it reflected through their chakra.

Kakashi appeared as a lightning storm full of sadness.

That didn't surprise him.

Zabuza was a bloody, stagnant pond filled with regret.

Like most shinobi.

And Haku—

Haku was a surprise.

An icy mirror.

Clean and pure in a way Kakashi would never have imagined possible in a student of the Demon of the Mist.

Things were beginning to make sense now.

He pulled his fist back and took a moment to process what he had seen.

So this was the ninshu that the Gremlin had been going on about.

"He's a good person," Kakashi conceded.

"Told you so," Naruko said with a smug little grin.

It was cute.

But Kakashi would have to burst her bubble.

And this was a bubble he would not enjoy popping.

"That doesn't change the fact," he began, "that he is an enemy shinobi, Naruko. An enemy shinobi is an enemy shinobi. Somewhere out there, someday, you're going to face a good person who sincerely wants you dead because they believe it's the right thing to do."

He watched her carefully.

"What are you going to do then? Lay down and die?"

His own mind drifted briefly to the many noble men and women he had killed in war or on missions.

Did they all deserve to die? Most definitely not, but he wasn't going to let them kill him or stop him either.

Naruko, to her credit, actually thought about it.

But Kakashi knew her answer before she spoke.

"I'll convince them to stop," she said stubbornly.

Kakashi gave her a pitying look.

She didn't budge.

He sighed.

"I hope you succeed, Naruko," he said quietly. "I really do."

He reached up and ruffled her hair.

"Now one more question," he added. "Why did you attack Zabuza?"

The stubborn honesty on her face immediately turned into nervous avoidance.

"I wasn't thinking—"

"No, you weren't," Kakashi interrupted. "But you're smarter than that. So why?"

Naruko gritted her teeth.

Kakashi leaned back against a tree trunk, silently signaling they weren't leaving until this was sorted out.

The silence stretched.

Eventually she cracked.

"When I was at the capital, Izuku was almost taken and I couldn't save him!" Naruko blurted out.

She slumped afterward, as though the admission had drained the last of her strength.

Kakashi guided her down to sit beside him.

"That doesn't mean you throw yourself at enemies without thinking," he said gently.

Naruko scuffed her sandal against a tree root.

"Teme literally stared the first guys we met into submission," she muttered. "I just wanted to land a hit. I couldn't even do that."

Kakashi found himself momentarily stumped.

He was having a hard time relating, he had never really dealt with this kind of insecurity before. He had always been close to the best—if not the best—among his peers.

Envy was not something he had much experience with.

But silence wouldn't help here.

"Maybe not," Kakashi said carefully, "But you were fast enough to save Haku, weren't you?"

Stopping Hatake Kakashi was no small feat.

"Yeah… I guess I was," Naruko admitted.

A faint smile began to form, and Kakashi quietly suppressed a sigh of relief at successfully navigating that particular conversational minefield.

"Keep training and you'll be knocking bad guys out with a look too," he promised.

That was… probably a lie.

Kushina-neesan couldn't have cast a genjutsu to save her life, and Minato-sensei wasn't exactly known for it either.

Maybe Naruko was an anomaly.

But Kakashi wouldn't bet on it.

"Now go inside and get some sleep," Kakashi said.

He was completely blindsided by the hug she gave him before she got to her feet and wobbled toward Tazuna's house.

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei!" She called over her shoulder.

Kakashi watched her go with a faint sense of accomplishment.

He replayed the conversation in his head and came to one very clear conclusion.

Teaching was hard.

XXXXXXXXX

​

It tasted impossible, like the dust from which all stars are formed yet will inevitably return to, like the weeping of the heavens and the bones of the earth, like the space between atoms and the immeasurable power trapped within.

Like meaning in its purest form.

Like truth that could not be spoken lest it ceased to be truth.

In other words, absolutely delicious.

I guzzled it up until I felt fat and bloated, then I guzzled some more, and even more after that. Till I could barely tell up from down and down from up. Till left and right were generally the same direction and I had trouble remembering my own name.

In other words, I was absolutely hammered.

Was it any surprise that I didn't notice at first when the stone sloughed off me like old dead skin and my own dusty flesh felt the direct caress of the mountain breeze?

The only reason I even noticed any change at all was the loss of my mouth when the stone fell away and the sudden absence of that sweet, sweet nectar.

"I'm freeeeee!"

Huh? Who said that? And why were they slurring their words?

"Holy shit, he did it!" A chimpanzee I was sure I knew the name of said, hopping to his hind legs and pointing at me.

Me?

I looked down at my own body and stared at the tongue that I stuck out of the aperture in my face.

Oh, it was me! I was the one talking!

I forgot I had another mouth. This one for breathing and yapping instead of drinking sunshine. I can't drink sunshine anymore…

…I miss my old mouth.

But I was talking—that meant I wasn't a rock anymore! So that was an upside!

I blinked as I recognized the monkey that had just yelled.

Hey, isn't he the guy that turned me into a rock?

"You," I said, pointing at him. "Put up your fists." I told him, doing as I prescribed and falling into a fighting stance.

Being a rock may have been great, but I had not consented to rock transition.

And consent was important. I think.

"Oh, you wanna go, boy? Learn some mysteries and feel too big for your britches, eh?" The greying chimpanzee said with a wide and sharp grin.

Oh, it was on.

"Come and get some, you damn dirty ape!" I yelled and dove toward him, riding the waves of sunshine that I yearned to drink but could not. I could only swim through them like a thirsty fish.

Hmmm, fish.

"Ha!"

"Ha!"

Our clash was… alright, I guess. It barely moved the waves that surrounded me—I held onto them and remained planted—but it did create a lot of wind, though. The cotton-like layer of clouds surrounding the jeweled peak fluttered away for miles in every direction to reveal the forest below.

It was a nice view. Really pretty trees.

In the periphery of my three-sixty awareness that hadn't gone with my mouth, I saw a moon princess go flying and almost fall off the mountain. I almost disengaged to chase her, but the other old monkeys saved her.

Huh, maybe they were alright after all.

"Ho! You got some spirit, boy!" The chimpanzee exclaimed—Gomei! His name was Gomei! I remembered now. I was remembering a lot, actually.

Oof, my head hurts.

"I told you I… I… I'm f-free, baaaaby…" I stumbled and almost fell over but was caught by the moon princess.

She was soft and kind. I think I loved her. Did I?

Wait! This was Hinata. Of course I loved her!

"Hey, Hinata," I said, looking up into her big lavender eyes framed by beautiful midnight-blue hair. Really pretty hair.

"Oooh, pretty…" was all I could get out before a world of pain exploded behind my eyes and my world went dark.

XXXXXXXXX

​

I was thirsty again. Terribly thirsty.

My throat was parched, my lips cracked and dry. So when something touched them and liquid began to pour into my mouth, I latched onto it instinctively, suckling at it like a child at a teat.

"…Mmm… you're a thirsty boy."

I opened my eyes and looked up into the grinning face of Gomei.

It took a few sluggish seconds for my mind to catch up with what I was seeing. In that time I registered the taste of what I was drinking—sweet, but strangely pungent. It was warm, too.

Uncomfortably warm.

About body temperature—

"Pfft!"

I choked and rolled onto the ground, frantically wiping my mouth. I spun around ready to fight to the death, only to see Elder Gomei calmly holding a gourd, as though he had simply been pouring it into my mouth the entire time.

"What is that?" I demanded.

Relief flooded me when I realized my first assumption had been blessedly wrong.

"What?" Gomei said innocently. "It's just peach wine."

"It's warm."

The old chimpanzee shrugged and tucked the gourd back into his robes, offering no apology whatsoever for the suboptimal temperature of the alcohol.

"Jiji, stop giving alcohol to children," Fumiyo said.

I turned and saw her seated in the grass. We were back in the clearing again.

None of the younger chimps were present. I didn't know where they had gone, but my attention quickly locked onto something else.

Hinata stood beside Fumiyo.

The moment our eyes met she rushed forward and wrapped me in a tight embrace, her chakra spilling outward in a wave of relief so strong it almost made me dizzy.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You succeeded," Gomei said, answering in her stead.

Our attention shifted to him.

The old chimpanzee stood there with a satisfied grin—the first smile I had seen on his face—as though the whole thing had gone exactly as he expected.

"A copy of this manual is given to all members of the mountain who live long enough—or become powerful enough—to be considered elders," he continued.

From within his robes he withdrew a book and tossed it toward me.

I caught it reflexively.

It was an ancient-looking thing. The cover was made from thick brown leather, worn smooth and darkened by age and countless hands. The edges of the pages were yellowed and uneven, and the spine bore the faint creases of a book that had been opened thousands of times across centuries.

"It is only allowed to be viewed under one other circumstance," Gomei said.

He looked directly at me.

"Yours."

I opened the leather-bound book carefully.

The first blank page was filled with names. A long list of them, written in different inks and different hands, layered over generations. Many of them bore names beginning with the Go kanji.

I flipped the page.

The next sheet contained a foreword.

If you're reading this, then you're either one of my descendants—or, in the far less likely scenario, you somehow passed my test. Which would be very impressive, since I don't even know how I managed it myself! Ha!

Either way, congratulations. You're now a member of a very exclusive club.

Contained within this text is everything I managed to learn and invent over my very long, very eventful life.

Credit where it's due: a lot of it came from Master Subhutti. Some of it even came from Tripi. Don't tell anyone I wrote her name down here—she's shy.

Anyway, what's in here, in the wrong hands, could cause a great deal of trouble. But it would be hypocritical of me to tell you not to raise a little hell. Just be prepared for the repercussions. I can't say I truly regretted much of what I did, but a lot of them bit me in the ass.

If you're my descendant, you probably already know this without me saying it. But for the crazy bastard who figured this out themselves, listen to the words of an old monkey.

Never suppress yourself.

Sin if you must. Be the darkest demon imaginable, or a saint beyond reproach. But whatever you do, do not restrain yourself. The truth of who you are—and through that, the truth of existence and the answer to any question you could ever ask—lies down that road.

That's just the advice of an old monkey, at least.

I have to go now. Tripi wants to ascend, and I've kept her waiting long enough.

To my precious kiddies and my fellow practitioners,

—Sun Wukong

A simple stone monkey with far too many titles.

...…

...

…. whatever the hell had happened to me?

It was fucking worth it.

XXXXXXXXX

​

A/N: Izuku walks in the footsteps of ancients!

Kakashi does some old fashioned teaching!

The progenitor of the mountain has been revealed !

What changes will result from Izuku's trip into the rainbow stone?!

What other issues will Kakashi have to defuse amongst his precious genin?!

How far can his developing emotional intelligence go?!

What Mysteries are contained within the King's manual?!

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT NEXT TIME, ON FOR THE LOVE OF KUNGFU!

P.S. Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it please comment and like, if not please comment why. Again, thank you for reading! Have a nice whatever-time-it-is, wherever you are!

Chapter 71: Volume 2, Chapter 22: Grief, Returns & Early arrivals.

"So what's this Gato guy doing here anyway?" Naruko asked around a bowl of Udon Tsunami had put together for the exhausted Kunoichi after her very difficult night.

She had been so grateful for it too, what a sweet child. Strangely so, from what she had heard of shinobi.

They were seated around the dining table, eating a meal Tsunami had managed to put together despite how tired she was. She hadn't been able to get much sleep last night. She hadn't been able to sleep much at all since her father had gone to the mainland.

"He's a shipping magnate." Her father replied.

"A What-now?" Naruko asked.

"He has a lot of boats, pretty much all the boats. Nothing comes on or off the island without his say so." her father replied with the patience of a grandfather who was asked many basic questions on a regular basis.

"Ooooh, so he makes a lot of money?" Naruko said.

"All the money." Her father said with a certain bitterness.

A bitterness that every person in Wave felt. Her included.

"Then why is he being mean to you guys? If I had all the money I'd be pretty happy." Naruko asked.

"Because for men like that, it's not about money or happiness. It's about control. Control and power." the dark haired one spoke—Sasuke.

"What? But no one can control everything, that's just stupid!" Naruko said, having put down her bowl, fully invested in the conversation now.

"That does not stop some people from trying." Sasuke said with a certain darkness, it made Tsunami uncomfortable, seeing that kind of jaded pessimism in a young boy.

Even Inari wasn't that bad.

"Hmmm, well then I guess the sooner Gato is taken care of the sooner you can all be free," Naruko said, then nodded her head as if to reaffirm this to herself, then made to return to her meal only to be interrupted.

"We'll never be free." A young voice cut in.

"Inari!" Tsunami exclaimed.

"What's up with you?" Naruko asked, looking down on her son, who just like his father seemed incapable of fear of any sort.

"Gato has way too many guys on his side. You'll just die, like everyone else." Inari replied.

"Hey, we took him out didn't we?" Naruko gestured to the still unconscious yet much less pale Zabuza Momochi who was leaned up against the wall on the other side of the room. Tsunami would be lying if she said she didn't find his lack of limb somewhat… ghoulish.

It was the way the stomp was shaped, the jagged almost burnt texture of it. She had never seen an injury like it.

"That's just one guy, Gato has hundreds." Inari said.

"Well, we'll beat them too. We're team seven, believe it!" Naruko said, her smile bright and a fist clenched to her chest.

"I don't." Inari deadpanned, got to his feet and marched up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" her father called after him as he left.

"To watch the ocean from my window." Inari called over his shoulder and Tsunami felt her heart clench. She had carried him from the window seal to his bed enough times to know those words were code for weeping over a photo of Kaiza.

"Man, what's up with him?" Naruko asked, scrubbing her long locks in a fit of frustration.

"Inari has lost a lot." her father said in defense of Inari.

"I know that! The grief practically rolled off of him." Naruko said with some tears appearing in the corner of her eye, that she quickly wiped away. "It's rolling off this whole damn Island, but that's why you don't give up! Just because things are sad today doesn't mean they'll be sad tomorrow, and if you give up you'll never know." she said this with a searing passion that Tsunami had only ever heard once before.

"...Naruko…" The girl with pink hair—Sakura breathed as she stared at her teammate.

"Ha, you're something else, kid." Her father said with a smile.

Even Kakashi-san and Haku-san's silence seemed impressed.

One person wasn't impressed though.

"... Grief cannot be put down until the cause of that sorrow is judged," Sasuke began. "You say they should not falter but what have you lost Naruko? What do you know about the Paralysis of grief? No, what these people need is revenge, to see the source of their suffering defeated and destroyed."

"Ne, not everybody's a gloomy grudge holder, Teme," Naruko said.

"And most people are not naive idiots, Dobe," Sasuke replied.

"Oi! You wanna go?" Naruko exclaimed, rising from her seat.

"Watching you throw yourself onto a blade once is enough for now," Sasuke replied, remaining seated and relaxed.

"Why I oughta—!"

Both jolted in their seats as a brief arc of lighting shocked them both.

"Okay that's enough out of you two," Kakashi-san intervened, watching his Genin with two fingers extended in their direction.

"There's a mission to attend to." the silver-haired Jonin said, rising out of his chair. "Thank you for the hospitality Tsunami-san but it's about time we get to work."

"Oh, yeah! where are we headed first?" Naruko exclaimed, despite how exhausted she must have been.

"Me and Haku-chan are going to pay Gato a little visit, you guys are staying here," Kakashi-san said. Both Naruko and Sasuke seemed ready to protest but a quick buzz of electricity across his fingers was enough to shut them both up.

"Wait, you're leaving us?" Sakura asked,

"Someone has to guard our clients, as well as Zabuza-san. Don't get complacent though, he may look injured but he is still a Jonin. Do not let your guard down." Kakashi-san said, his tone more serious than Tsunami had heard from so far and his genin reacted accordingly, straightening in their seats.

"""Hai sensei,""" they replied in unison.

Kakashi-san nodded in satisfaction, then he turned to the strangely beautiful boy that had been quiet the whole time.

"C'mon Haku-chan, let's go depose a tyrant."

And then they were gone.

Vanished into thin air, Tsunami didn't even get a glimpse of their movement. It was at that moment that she really began to hope for their freedom.

Later in the evening after dinner there was a knock on the door, Tsunami wiped her hands and opened it to see two young boys.

One of them had bright orange hair, a square face and was dressed in what looked like a traveler's cloak over a hospital gown. He wore a pitiful expression, the kind of sadness that had no business on a young boy's face.

The other boy had long bluish white hair and dark purple eyes, he wore the same garments as the other boy with one major exception—

"Hello Lady," He said leaning to the side trying to get a glimpse into her house. "We'te looking for someone." he said with a serrated smile.

—The giant blade strapped to his back.

"Have you seen him? Tall guy cow camo and no eyebrows. You couldn't miss him"

Tsunami got the feeling that these young men were trouble.

XXXXXXXX

​

The Laboratory of one Izuku Hanama was not silent even in the absence of its master. Many devices cranked and churned and the subtle hum of machinery chugged along, accompanied by the faint hum of electricity for the various pieces of equipment the lab contained. It was not quiet but it had a certain peace.

That peace was interrupted by an abrupt cloud of smoke.

And just like that I was back.

More like kicked out, actually.

"I can't believe they kicked me out," I said, casually tossing my armful of gifts into one of the corners of the lab to be sifted through later.

"That is an uncharitable interpretation, Izuku-kun," Hinata said from my side, her arms burdened by the much more precious cargo of Fumiyo's fruit pie. She handled them like they were made of glass and gently set them aside on one of my counters. Watching them longingly all the while like she hadn't eaten as many as she could get her hands on before we left.

Hinata had a sweet tooth powerful enough to briefly overcome her shyness, it was adorable and I would have teased her about it but I was raising a grievance right now.

"How else am I supposed to interpret 'get out brat, we've got meetin's to convene'," I said in my best rendition of Gomei's voice.

"That you caused enough of a stir for the members of the mountain to gather and having you there could be disruptive." Hinata said with a faint smile.

That took some wind out of my sails.

"That makes a lot of sense," I admitted. "but-but—" I began

"They didn't let you borrow from the library," Hinata said

"They didn't let me borrow from the library!" I concurred, throwing my hands up in the air at the unmitigated cruelty.

"You can read all you want the next time you go," Hinata said, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"I guess," I mumbled.

Our conversation was interrupted by the faint ripple of chakra flowing over us. Hinata flinched when it hit and activated her Byakugan to peer at this signal directly. She straightened, not in fear but in a regal way, that made it clear she was about to dispense her duty.

"You have to go now, huh?" I asked Hinata and she looked back at me, her posture relaxing as she nodded.

"Thank you for coming with me, Hinata." I said.

"Thank you for taking me." she replied.

"I'm going to miss you." I said, reaching forward to pull her into a hug.

"I'll still be in the village, I'll most likely stop by before evening." she said, a blush climbing up her face looking up at me through long cobalt lashes, I found myself leaning forward.

"Still." I whispered as our lips met, she melted against me, limp and boneless.

She tasted like fruit pie.

We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity but was most certainly less than a minute. Still, it was the longest I had kissed her without her passing out.

Then the chakra flare went off again and both of us reluctantly pulled back. Hinata's strangely soft hands gave my cheek a feather light caress then she left to answer the call of her clan.

Then I was on my own. Himebuta was still at the mountain, apparently the big meeting involved him too. Given I was alone, I figured it was the best time to read what was burning a hole in my pocket.

The manual.

I went over to my theory-crafting corner and took a seat in a recliner I had brought here for the exact purpose of reading important documents. I don't think I had ever read anything more important in this chair.

I pulled out the book and opened it. Flipping past the initial note that I felt like I had read a dozen times by now. There was another forward after that, this one intended for elders, I skimmed over it and moved on to the meat of things.

Now, this section is for my fellow wanderers down the path, the rare few who can enter the stone egg and emerge without assistance. You might be wondering, 'what did the stone do? How does it work?'

You might be reading this book looking to me, the wise and powerful monkey king, The handsome, and peerless lord of Huaguo to explain to you the hidden mysteries of my trial.

My answer?

I haven't got a clue.

I was born from that egg, and I haven't seen anyone else emerge from it since. I have no idea if everything special about me came out of that egg or not. I don't know every single possible way the egg will change you, but I do know one certain way. Your yuan Qi is gonna balloon.

​

I paused here and went to the back of the book to open the glossary.

Yuan qi=Natural energy.

The primordial energy that underpinned reality, that the cosmos and all its contents emerged from. I read over the glossary and memorised all the words to prevent having to go back again, then translated them in real time as I read.

Your Natural energy would balloon, and as it was, your physical energy would grow in turn, and your spiritual energy would be fed by your physical. You will grow much more powerful but this isn't senjutsu the way the others do it. This is Senjutsu how master Subhutti taught it, by mastering your internal Natural energy and using it to move that of the world around you, instead of absorbing it and using it to temporarily strengthen your chakra.

The basic sutra for this is recorded here but given you passed my test you shouldn't have much trouble with it. Beyond that are the fun parts…

…My techniques.

​

As I settled down to read, losing myself in the tales and mysteries of The Monkey King.

XXXXXXXXX

​

Sasuke and his team were still seated at the dining table when Tsunami opened the door.

They all heard the boy outside. The questions he asked about someone who could only be Zabuza. They even caught a glimpse of his purple eyes as he leaned past Tsunami to peer into the house, trying to see who he was looking for.

But only Sasuke—whose Sharingan was active—reacted in time.

The giant blade cleaved through the doorway.

It tore through wood and splinters in a single brutal swing that would have cut Tsunami clean in half if Sasuke hadn't body-flickered into the path of the strike, a kunai already in his hand.

Steel met steel with a violent crack.

He caught the blade near the root, just above the hilt, yet the sheer force behind the swing still drove him half a step back and nearly knocked him off his feet.

"Holy shit—is that a Sharingan?!"

The boy looked about Sasuke's age and held the massive blade like it weighed nothing.

Sasuke's response was immediate.

The world twisted.

Genjutsu snapped over the boy's mind like a closing trap. In the same motion Sasuke pulled another blade from his pouch and drove it straight into the boy's neck.

Steel slid in cleanly.

The boy stumbled backward, coughing wetly.

Sasuke kicked him hard in the chest, sending him skidding away. He needed that distance—to deal with the second attacker.

The other boy dashed forward instantly, fist cocked.

Sasuke knocked the punch aside and fired off another genjutsu. A simple one. A brief paralysis illusion meant to lock the body in place.

It didn't work.

Instead the boy's already swarthy skin darkened, taking on an almost rocky brown tint.

Through the Sharingan, Sasuke saw something far worse.

The boy's chakra exploded.

It swelled nearly tenfold in both power and intensity, boiling outward like a furnace suddenly thrown open.

The boy swung another punch.

Sasuke wasn't sure he could get away in time.

Then Naruko was there.

One instant the attacker stood alone.

The next she was behind him, appearing out of nowhere—

—and in that same instant both of them vanished.

Gone.

Sasuke's heart pounded in his chest as his Sharingan swept across the battlefield, taking everything in, calculating, assessing.

He shoved Tsunami deeper into the house.

"Sakura! Protect the civilians!"

His pink-haired teammate nodded sharply, already moving to place herself between the door and the people behind her.

Sasuke was already outside.

He burst through the ruined doorway with more kunai in hand and a fistful of shuriken. The blades flashed through the air toward the unmoving body of his first assailant.

They struck.

But instead of blood—

Water splashed outward.

Clear liquid burst from the wounds, hanging in the air for a moment before flowing backward, streaming into the body that was supposed to be dead twice over.

The boy rose smoothly to his feet.

"Wow," he said, rolling his shoulders as if waking from a nap. The giant blade that Zabuza once wielded rested easily on his shoulder.

"You Uchiha are something else, huh?"

His grin widened, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

"I wonder how much an Uchiha head will get me at the Bingo Office."

Sasuke didn't reply with words.

He replied with fire.

XXXXXXXX

​

A/N: The team is introduced to the tragedy of Wave!

The philosophy of Indra and Asura is clear even now!

Gato is getting a visit from Kakashi and Haki!

Izuku returns to the village and starts to study the works of the sage that equaled heaven!

Hiruzen's decimation of Orochimaru's labs and hideouts had more consequences than we thought, now the team gets to meet two of them!

How will this mission resolve itself?!

What marvels will Izuku witness in this manual?!

Who are our two assailants?!

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT NEXT TIME, ON FOR THE LOVE OF KUNGFU!

P.S. Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it please comment and like, if not please comment why. Again, thank you for reading! Have a nice whatever-time-it-is, wherever you are!

Chapter 72: Volume 2, chapter 13: The Weasel's Disciple, The Orange flash & The nature of reality.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

Sasuke inhaled with all his might. His chest expanded, his spine bending to accommodate the motion as his hands snapped together before his chest in the Horse seal. Chakra gathered in his lungs, its nature transforming.

Then he whipped forward.

A bus-sized ball of fire erupted from his mouth.

The entire sequence happened so quickly that his opponent barely had time to widen his eyes before he was swallowed by the flames.

Sasuke watched the inferno his ninjutsu had created, refusing to lower his guard for even a moment.

Then, slowly, something emerged from the flames.

A blackened edge.

The steel pushed forward until half of the oversized blade his opponent wielded was visible.

Whoosh!

The sword swung sideways. The sheer force of the motion created a gale that scattered the fire in all directions, blowing the flames apart and revealing the steaming form of his opponent.

"Ouch," the boy muttered.

Mist rose from his body where there should have been smoke and charred flesh.

"That hurt."

Sasuke didn't respond.

He dashed forward, closing the distance with a kunai in each hand.

"Oh? We're getting up close and personal?" the white-haired boy asked, grinning widely.

Sasuke ignored him.

He slipped into the other boy's range, deliberately entering the dead zone of the massive weapon, and drove both kunai into his opponent's abdomen.

Water splashed outward.

"Tch."

Sasuke clicked his tongue and ducked beneath the sweeping counterattack. His Sharingan granted him a moment of prescience, letting him slip past the massive blade as it carved through the air.

He danced backward, evading the following flurry of swings while analyzing the problem.

An opponent who couldn't be burned.

Or cut.

"Every technique has a weakness. The key is finding it."

His brother's voice echoed in his mind.

Annoying as it was to have Itachi looming over his shoulder even now, the advice was sound.

So what was the weakness of someone who could turn into water?

Sasuke didn't know.

But a genjutsu would buy him time to figure it out.

His red pinwheel eyes searched for his opponent's face.

Each time they did, they were blocked by a curtain of white hair.

"Hah! I've got you figured out!" the white-haired boy said, a serrated grin peeking through the strands.

"You've gotta look me in the eye, don't you?"

Sasuke said nothing.

"Too bad I can just stare at your feet!"

The boy doubled down on his attacks, his strikes growing faster and more aggressive. Despite the reckless intensity, he never overextended or lost his balance.

Sasuke had to admit it.

Whoever this was, he was skilled with a sword.

But he had made one mistake.

He assumed Sasuke needed the Sharingan to cast genjutsu.

With his gaze fixed firmly on Sasuke's feet, he missed the hand signs being formed behind Sasuke's back.

Bird.

Horse.

Tiger.

"Paralysis Jutsu."

His opponent froze mid-swing.

The opening was perfect.

There was only one win condition Sasuke had managed to come up with.

In the elemental cycle his brother had drilled into him, water had one natural weakness.

Lightning.

Sasuke reached into his memory and called up a perfect image—one captured forever by his Sharingan.

His sensei standing over the defeated Demon of the Mist, lightning crackling in his hand.

Then Sasuke copied it.

It wasn't perfect.

The chakra density was nowhere near enough. The nature transformation was rough. His efficiency was terrible.

But it was enough.

His hand flashed forward, fast as a striking snake, tapping his opponent lightly.

"Aaagh!"

The boy screamed as lightning flooded through his strange water body, the chakra buzzing violently through him.

He collapsed to the ground.

By the time he tried to rise, Sasuke was already there, a kunai pressed to his throat.

The blade broke skin.

What emerged wasn't clear water.

It was red.

Crimson blood.

Checkmate.

"Surrender," Sasuke whispered, his spinning red eyes staring down at the boy.

"Or die."

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​

Naruko and the guy who had almost cleaned the Teme's clock appeared at one of the many FTG seals she had left in the forest over the night of torture Kakashi-sensei called training.

She didn't dawdle though. She was literally on top of the guy and if last night had taught her anything, it was to never stay still. Stay still too long and you get hit, and it was going to hurt.

That lesson proved itself when the orange-haired guy she was up against erupted into literal spikes the moment she teleported away from him.

"Wow, what kind of jutsu is that?!" Naruko exclaimed with wide eyes as the boy's shredded clothes floated in the wind while the spikes receded, revealing a transformed face.

His darkened skin was now an almost dirt brown. The whites of his eyes were an abyssal black and his irises were a serpentine gold. Chitinous, almost bug-like protrusions emerged from his face as ridges along his chin, forehead and cheeks.

He looked demonic.

"Jutsu?" he asked with a similarly transformed voice. "I don't need jutsu to rip you to shreds!" he roared as two massive protrusions emerged from his back.

Naruko tilted her head in confusion.

Then those protrusions belched out streams of high-pressure chakra that sent him flying at her.

He had rockets?!

Naruko rolled out of the way of his initial charge and seamlessly shunshined away. He chased just as quickly but got decked in the face for his troubles.

His hand shifted, flesh churning and hardening as an axe emerged that cut his attacker in half—dispelling her clone.

Her opponent could only blink through the smoke, wondering where she had gone.

"Rasengan!"

She was behind him.

The floor cratered and dirt went flying as he was driven into the ground, no doubt breaking a couple bones.

'Don't kill him.' the gruff voice of her passenger rang in her ears as she created some distance by teleporting to another seal in case he didn't stay down.

'What?' she asked, observing her enemy's unmoving form from the trees.

'I said don't kill him.' Kurama's gruff voice rang in her head again as the soil in the crater began to shift and her opponent started pulling himself out of the ground. Snaps and cracks rang out as his body put itself back together.

Oh, shit. He has that thing that Oba has. What did Izuku call it again? 'A healing factor'. Kind of like her.

Which meant he wouldn't stay down. Dammit.

'I wasn't gonna do that anyway! Why do you care?' Naruko replied as she began running through possibilities in her head of how to beat this guy without shredding him to dust with a rasengan.

'He's using senjutsu, that makes him useful in your mate's research.' Kurama replied.

Naruko made four clones and sent them off to devise a plan while she re-engaged.

'Mate? You mean Izuku?' she asked incredulously as she teleported behind her opponent again, intending to drive him into the floor, only to have to teleport away to avoid being cooked by his thrusters.

'Yes.' Kurama replied.

'Just use his name.' she grunted as she closed in again, this time with her wakizashi unsheathed, and began a rapid close combat exchange.

He may have been very quick in short bursts, but she clearly outclassed him in reflexes and close quarters combat. He left massive holes in his guard that she exploited to cut him all over and poke him full of holes.

'Be gentle! You could damage him!' Kurama whined in her head.

'Oh my god, will you shut up.' Naruko almost yelled out loud and immediately shut off her connection with the fox, but the distraction had done its job and her opponent took ruthless advantage.

Her breath left her and she felt something crack as a mallet-shaped hand slammed into her chest, blasting her across the clearing and filling her vision with stars.

She rolled over and let out a wet cough. She looked up just in time to see her jet-powered enemy closing the distance with a vicious grin on his face, about to pulp her head with his mallet arm.

Then a hand emerged from the ground and wrapped around his ankle, killing his stride and sending him into a faceplant.

He growled and tried to rise to his feet and kick the hand off, but another hand emerged and grabbed his other foot, then another and another until he was held to the floor by hands.

Then in a flash of yellow hair, one of her clones appeared on top of her restrained enemy and slapped a seal onto his back.

The ground around his torso compacted as he was driven even further into the dirt, forming another crater. This one he didn't rise out of.

The dispelling of her clones told her what had just happened.

What do you do to an opponent you can't kill?

You seal them.

The four clones she had sent off had multiplied to eight as they devised a seal based on the weight seals she had seen around the village and a couple of her ideas involving space-time fuinjutsu, specifically gravity seals.

Essentially you slap the seal on someone and unless they're Bushy-brow-sensei, they're going nowhere fast.

Naruko gave herself an internal high five as she got to her feet and stretched, cracking her ribcage with a wince as her healing put everything back in order.

"Man, that was a tough fight," she muttered to herself and went to inspect her downed foe.

What she found was disturbing.

Even bound to the floor as he was, barely able to breathe and sporting shattered bones—probably across his entire torso—he still scrambled at the ground like a wild animal. Mad and lost to hate.

It disconcerted Naruko.

She didn't like it.

So like most things she disliked—

She did something about it.

She used Ninshu on him.

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​

Jūgo hated himself.

He didn't want to hurt anyone, but when the rage took him it was like he became an animal. He tried to stay in control, but when the violence started he couldn't help himself.

It felt horrible, burning with that rage. It hurt—searing through his mind, robbing him of reason and turning him into a beast.

It was torture.

Then suddenly he felt a warm light reach into that haze of fury. A gentle hand parted the inferno of rage and reached down to pull him out.

The next moment he found himself standing on the surface of a crystal-clear lake. In the distance, a meadow bristled with a thousand flowers swaying softly in the breeze.

"Hey."

Jūgo whipped around, realizing he wasn't alone in this beautiful place.

What he saw stole his breath.

Long hair fell like a waterfall of golden tresses. Bright blue eyes shone with more kindness than Jūgo had ever thought existed in the world. And her smile—warm and effortless—held not a trace of fear or hesitation.

"All that anger must suck. Want some help?"

She was the most beautiful thing Jūgo had ever seen.

XXXXXXXXX

​

It turned out magical PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) had their uses.

The breathing technique recorded in the Manual had been taught to Sun Wukong by Master Subhuti, and it served two purposes: absorbing the natural energy of the world to empower one's chakra, and manipulating the natural energy already present within the body to fuel spells and techniques.

Why would anyone still bother with classical senjutsu if Ki existed, you might ask?

Well, that was a long and complicated story.

Translating the text from its original Chinese mysticism—which raised questions of its own—the Manual described the origins of chakra.

While the chakra network itself seemed to be the result of Hagoromo spreading Ninshu, which humanity then internalized and used to make chakra easier to form, chakra as a phenomenon had existed long before that. The spread of Ninshu merely standardized it. Over time, with the proliferation of alien genetics throughout the population, the ability to produce chakra became almost universal.

But chakra itself was not natural.

In fact, it was the result of several layers of deviation from the natural world.

The Manual defined natural energy as the metaphysical energy of the inanimate universe. There could be different flavors of it depending on the object or environment it originated from, but fundamentally it was the baseline—the neutral state of existence. The number zero.

Then life emerged from that inanimate world.

Something about the natural processes of living organisms interacting with the dead universe created the first true deviation from natural energy.

Life force.

What shinobi referred to as physical energy.

On Earth, the earliest examples would have been plants and single-celled organisms.

Eventually living beings developed sufficient cognition to produce rudimentary souls. When those souls interacted with the natural energy contained within the organism, they created another deviation.

Spiritual energy.

When spiritual energy mixed with physical energy, the result was chakra.

By the end of that long chain of transformations, chakra was so far removed from the natural universe that reintroducing natural energy into the system produced a catalytic reaction—one that resulted in an enormous increase in power.

You couldn't replicate that effect with Ki.

The natural energy inside the body was fundamentally bound to the physical form. Extracting it to create senjutsu would mean destroying the body itself. Though, theoretically, if someone could manage it, the resulting power would probably dwarf anything produced by absorbing ambient natural energy.

In short, magical PEDs had applications that couldn't simply be replaced.

There was good news, though.

My biggest obstacles to learning senjutsu had always been my limited chakra reserves and my weak physical body.

My trip into the egg had changed that.

I released a slow breath through my nose as I held the boulder I had dragged into the backyard above my head.

No chakra reinforcement.

Just raw physical strength.

The Manual had been right. My natural energy had skyrocketed, which meant my body could now produce far more life force. The result was obvious.

I was stronger.

The same applied to my spiritual energy. My chakra reserves had already doubled since returning from the mountain—and they still showed no sign of slowing down.

It wasn't all upside.

The drastic increase in my Ki made it far easier to perceive.

Too easy.

It buzzed constantly beneath my skin now, impossible to ignore. Where finding my Ki had once been like searching for a pebble in a heap of sand, now it sat beside a bus in a cramped room.

I couldn't not notice it.

There were advantages and disadvantages to that.

Picking up a pebble required almost no effort.

Lifting a bus, however?

That required strength.

In this case—spiritual strength. Focus.

Where the challenge before had been finding the pebble, now I needed the strength to lift the bus.

And right now, I didn't have it.

Sun Wukong had suffered from a similar problem. That was why the first few hundred years of his training under Master Subhuti had been spent studying philosophy and the Dao. His spirit had been too weak to properly interact with the immense Ki produced by emerging from the stone egg.

Which meant that, paradoxically, my Ki training had just become far more difficult.

At least when it came to wielding the whole of it.

But senjutsu?

Sage arts had always been barred to me by insufficient prerequisites.

That was no longer the case.

Without lowering the stone, I went perfectly still and reached out to my Ki—just the edge of it.

The equivalent of hugging one of the bus's tires.

It was enough to gain absolute mastery over my chakra.

With a puff of smoke, my staff appeared in my free hand. At my command it began drawing in the natural energy of the world, refining it and feeding it into my chakra network.

When the senjutsu chakra merged with my own, the sensation was strange.

My chakra swelled, as if electrified, filled with a power it had never possessed before.

At the same time it gained a strange cohesion—something that felt both more stable and less stable all at once.

Using the control granted to me by my Ki, I molded the enhanced chakra into a jutsu I had never successfully cast before.

Mage Hand.

I stepped out from beneath the boulder and moved back.

The stone remained floating in the air.

An invisible hand of chakra supported it—one only I could sense. The construct wasn't connected to me at all, yet it remained cohesive, receiving instructions through the natural energy permeating the space between us.

So that was the trick to long-distance techniques without chakra strings.

Senjutsu.

I should have realized that sooner.

I released the jutsu and let the stone crash to the ground.

Then I turned.

My observers had been watching for at least a minute.

"No fucking way," Jiraiya said.

I blinked at his unusual use of prophanity, for a smut author he almost never swore. What could have shocked him?

His eyes were locked on my face.

Confused, I unsealed a small mirror from the hoard of random supplies I carried and examined my reflection.

Golden pigmentation had appeared around my eyes. Two sharp triangular markings decorated my lower lip like fangs.

But the biggest change was my eyes.

They were gold.

The same shade as the elders of Huaguo.

The markings faded moments later as the senjutsu chakra dissipated from my system. My eyes returned to their usual crimson.

"How?" the voice sounded almost desperate.

I looked up.

Jiraiya had fallen to his knees.

Tears streamed down his face.

"A perfect sage?" he choked. "After one trip?"

The great Sage of Mt. Myoboku wept openly at the perceived injustice of it all.

My sensei and I left him to his grief.

"I see your trip was fruitful," my teacher said.

"It wasn't without losses," I replied. "But overall, I came out ahead."

"I came out ahead," Jiraiya repeated flatly. "Do you hear yourself? You're a Sage. At what—nine?"

"I'll be thirteen in a few months."

"Gah!"

Jiraiya clutched his chest as if physically wounded.

"What else did you learn on this trip?" my sensei asked.

"So much," I said. "Things you wouldn't believe."

"Speaking of things we don't want to believe," Jiraiya said, abruptly composed again.

"Orochimaru is still alive."

I froze.

Then nearly slapped myself.

"She's a lich," I breathed.

Of course she was.

A mad scientist obsessed with immortality who specialized in soul manipulation?

How the hell had I not seen it?

…No.

The answer was obvious.

Because I didn't want to see it.

My nights were hard enough without imagining that monster still roaming the world.

But reality had a way of correcting wishful thinking.

"Lich?" Jiraiya asked. "Another one of your made-up words?"

"It was just a theory," I said slowly. "That if someone could cut their soul into pieces and hide them in different places, it might create a form of immortality. I didn't think… I didn't think."

"Based on what she did to the young monk," Jiraiya said grimly, "and her willingness to alter her own body, we can assume she's both capable and willing."

"So what are we doing about it?" I asked, burying my self recrimination and focusing on the present.

Instead of answering, my sensei turned toward Jiraiya.

Only then did I fully notice the hat.

"Congratulations, Godaime-sama," I said, bowing.

"Not you too, brat," he groaned.

I smiled.

"I have to show my senpai proper respect, don't I?"

"Haha," Jiraiya said without humor.

Then he grew serious again.

"I'd normally say you stay out of it. This is shinobi business. No matter how close you are to Konoha, you're still outside the system."

He paused.

"But she's coming after you specifically. She broke into the capital trying to reach you. You're a target."

"...and the best bait you've got." I said.

Jiraiya nodded grimly.

"She's a danger to our home," I said quietly. "I'll do whatever I have to do to help stop her."

Jiraiya placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Now," he said, forcing a lighter tone, "what the hell happened on that mountain, kid?"

Both he and my sensei leaned in as I began recounting my journey to Flower-Fruit Mountain and the ancient secrets I had learned there.

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​

A/N: We get our first glimpse at the fruits of Itachi 'oneshot' Uchiha's tutelage!

We see the FTG return in the hands of Naruko Uzumaki and witness her power and skill!... only to be foiled by a Kurama who is currently fiending to learn the secrets of his father's power! Jugo witnesses the beauty and grandeur that is the soul of an Asura reincarnate! While Izuku begins to get the complete picture, just as the woman of his nightmares is confirmed to be still kicking and killing!

What will team seven do with their captured foes?!

Where is Kakashi in all this?!

What other mysteries awaits us in the Manual?!

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT NEXT TIME, ON FOR THE LOVE OF KUNGFU!

P.S. Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it please comment and like, if not please comment why. Again, thank you for reading! Have a nice whatever-time-it-is, wherever you are!