23Book 1: Heaven Shaking Events
"If qualities of heaven are your desire
Require wisdom to take your mind higher
If earthly qualities are what you lack
train you body and prepare to attack"
Chapter 1
Naruto's head was aching again. Just like the forest, it had begun with a slight tightness around his neck, in the back of his head. And just like then, it was slowly progressing, turning into a dull heaviness on his entire head.
The Third Hokage's office was bathed orange by the light of the setting sun. Naruto had been here hundreds of times, but he never got tired of the view from the large window to his right. The Hokage monument was the most beautiful at this time of the day, with their faces cast into sharp contrast by the dying day. He examined the Fourth's face at the very end, half his face covered in shadow.
"Minato was a genius, a ninja beyond anything the world had seen, or even imagined. Without him, the Leaf would not be standing today, and the demon in your gut would be running havoc across the Elemental Nations."
The demon whose actions had dictated Naruto's entire life. The demon whose chakra he'd used in Wave, when he'd thought that Sasuke had given his life for him. The demon whom Orochimaru had permanently sealed away from him, leaving him weak, stunted, useless.
His jacket lay on the floor behind him, blending into the colours blazing through the spiralling seal on his stomach was visible, but it was now bent out of shape, jagged edges pointing this way and that. Orochimaru had desecrated the Fourth's last, and greatest technique. He'd ruined Naruto's fledgling career, and for that, Naruto would have his revenge, he would hunt the snake down and tear him apart, limb by limb -
He winced, reaching up to discreetly rub the bridge of his nose. He'd never really had any ailment, of any sort, before. The sensation was unpleasant, to say the least.
The Third Hokage sighed. Naruto turned his attention back to him.
"He was a genius, yes," the old man repeated. The office was absolutely quiet, punctuated only by the sound of the Third's brush moving across paper. Even the ANBU who lurked in the shadows sometimes had been sent away, and the Third had performed some secret technique to give them utter, and absolute privacy. "But like all geniuses, he had a bad habit; the habit of reaching for the impossible. He was a master of space-time ninjutsu, of elemental transformation, of shape transformation, of the physical arts, of the sealing arts. But…in the matter of chakra nature and theory, it is always I who have had the edge." His voice had no arrogance, only the steady surety born of age, and a thousand battles.
The Hokage put his brush down on the table, and slid the paper he had been working on towards Naruto. "My child," he said. "Do you recognize this symbol?"
Naruto leaned forward to have a look, and realised that he did. The split circle, drawn in contrast like the Yondaime's face outside, was something that every ninja knew, even one like Naruto, who'd done his best to learn absolutely nothing in the Academy. "It's Yin and Yang, isn't it?" he asked. "The duality of chakra."
The Third couldn't quite hide the look of calculation that crossed his face for the barest of moments. "That's right, yes. For a student who didn't know what chakra was to answer my question…I wonder…"
Naruto scowled. Apparently Kakashi had been updating the Hokage on his training, or lack thereof. He'd have words with his errant teacher on the morrow.
The Hokage continued speaking. "But the thing is, little Naruto," he said, "Yin and Yang isn't just the nature of chakra. It is the way of the world, of every single thing in this vast universe of ours. From this paper, to the table it's lying on. From the leaves on the tree outside, to you and me, we are all part of this eternal balance. We are all made of Yin, the shape of the cosmos, and Yang, the energy that flows through it."
"And therein lies the problem. You see, within the Yin, lies the Yang, and within the Yang, the dark spot of the Yin." The old man channelled some chakra, putting his hands to the paper. The circle fell apart into two pieces, cut expertly along the curving line in the middle. The Hokage held the two pieces apart. "You see, without the other, neither Yin and Yang have any meaning. They complement each other, they are part of each other, to separate them breaks a fundamental law in the universe that is unbreakable. It cannot be done, not even by a master who could fold Space-Time."
The top of his head was throbbing. The sunlight seemed to recede behind the extending shadows, hiding behind the inexorable march of the coming night. "What does this mean for me?" Naruto asked.
"The night the Nine-Tailed Fox tried to attack Konoha, the Fourth Hokage sealed him inside you. He called upon the Death God, a primordial force only one clan had ever had dealings with, and sealed the Yang half of the Fox's chakra inside you, and took the Yin with him, into the Death God's belly."
Naruto looked at the portrait of the Fourth, hanging above the Third's head. Unlike the severe look of his stone head, he was painted with a soft smile, his blue eyes looking down on Naruto warmly. His headache spiked, making him flinch. For a second, it appeared Namikaze's face had changed. His eyes had turned evil and squinting, his face into a fearsome snarl, exposing sharp rows of far too many teeth for a human. Naruto took a sharp half-step back.
"Careful, little one," the Hokage said. Naruto realised that it had been him, who'd spiked his chakra without realising. "Careful."
Naruto felt some of the tension in his head release. The air seemed fresher around him, moving easily from his nose down to his throat, filling his lungs completely with each breath. His hands seemed unbearably heavy, suddenly, his legs tired and sore from the relentless week he'd gone through. They'd come here straight from the preliminaries.
He tried to put on a brave face. With a grin, he asked loudly like he always had, "What's that got to do with me, gramps?"
"Naruto." The Hokage's voice was grave.
Naruto stared back at him, not willing to give an inch. He was tired, sleepy, and even if he weren't willing to admit it, more than a little scared. He'd threatened one of his classmates into submission, even though he'd deserved it a little, really. None of his classmates had talked to him after that, not even after his brief moment of madness had passed, after his horrible pain had cleared, and he'd been his usual, cheerful self. And now it was happening again. He could feel the slow rise of that strange chakra through his system, tearing away at the strength of his convictions, at his fearlessness, of his vows to always be positive and give his best.
"What's happening to me?" he whispered.
The Third levelled a piercing gaze on him, but answered anyway. "The Fourth miscalculated. Yes, he managed to separate the two halves of the Fox's chakra, but it created a disbalance in the universe, an error that the universe had to rectify. Yin within Yang, Yang within Yin, and the two together, always."
Naruto scowled. He didn't have time for riddles.
"You see, the Eight Trigrams Seal was the pinnacle of the Sealing Arts. Minato locked the Nine Tails behind an unbreakable cage, but he also left holes behind, so that the Fox's chakra would leak out into your own. It grew your reserves, supplemented them, all pure Yang chakra. The chakra of light, of happiness, of warmth. You faced many hardships in your young life, you were often lonely, but you always bounced back. You were a happy child, loud, boisterous, mischievous. You were the embodiment of the Yang nature that was sealed into you."
"But the universe seeks balance, and most importantly, every door opens both ways. While the Demon Fox built your reserves to massive amounts, it was itself bereft of the Yin. And what the seal put out, it could also take in. To make up for his defect, the Fox took in your spiritual chakra, your Yin nature. Before you were ten, you had more chakra than most Jonin in the village, but it was almost all Yang, heavily disbalanced, leading to your poor chakra control. You were strong, faster than kids your age, you could heal from the fastest of injuries."
"You were also, however, producing massive amounts of Yin chakra, none of which stayed in your body. If your chakra was the level of a jonin's, you were making more Yin chakra than me, or any Kage in history, and it was all being stolen into the seal, to balance the Fox's own nature. To restore the balance," he said, putting the two halves of the paper back together.
Naruto, normally a slow learner by anyone's standards when it came to the theoretical, was able to understand where this was going. "And when the snake blocked the seal…"
"Yes," the Hokage answered, sighing. "When Orochimaru blocked the seal, he cut off the chakra flow from both ends. At thirteen, you have more Yang chakra in your body than most Kage, but you were producing enough Yin for five, to replenish the Demon Fox. With that road now blocked, your body has more Yin chakra than it can manage, which is why it's discharging it, which is why you've been rubbing at your head every two minutes ever since we came here."
"My chakra control?" Naruto asked, his heart sinking into his throat.
"I'm sorry, Naruto. Where your chakra was once heavily Yang natured, only controllable after over half a decade in the Academy, it is now leaning towards the reverse, far far worse than it had ever been in your life. Your jutsu, even the Shadow Clone, which takes more chakra potential than it does control, will be impossible to perform until you get the most basic of handles on it."
"But the finals -" It had taken Naruto years to even get enough control to perform the Transformation and the Substitution, let alone the Shadow Clone or Tree Walking. He'd neglected his books and spent day and night trying to stick leaves to his forehead, determined to learn the cool ninjutsu that every one of his peers could perform as easily as breathing. "Can't you open the seal again? I've got a good handle on my chakra the way it was before. The Fox can have all the weird Yin chakra, believe it!"
The Hokage turned away from him, unable to meet his eyes. Naruto's heart seemed to slide all the way down his throat and settle with a thunk in the pit of his stomach.
"I'm sorry, Naruto," the Hokage said. "The Five Element Seal was a technique of my own invasion, one I developed after another jinchuriki almost attacked the village and had to be put down by her own teammate. I taught it to my prized pupil, when he was still a Leaf ninja. It's designed to be unbreakable, to permanently subdue a vessel."
Gone. The fruit of years and years of labour, gone in an instant. His eyeballs felt like they were being squeezed out of his head from the force of his headache. "But I've got to fight Neji in a month - "
"Naruto, you will have to resign from the Chunin exams."
Naruto shut up immediately, unable to believe what the Hokage had just said. The old man took the opportunity to continue.
"Your chakra control is worse than even a fresh Academy student's, Naruto, and you have far more than any ninja could ever dream to have. You will have to relearn to master this balance of your chakra, to build up your Yang again in an effort to make it easy. It will take years and years of practice, time you do not have now, but I promise, you will be stronger than -"
"No," said Naruto. "You can't make me do this."
"Naruto -"
"I won't!" Naruto screamed. His chakra lashed out wildly, his body craving the welcome relief from the pain it gave him. The air in the room seemed to solidify and press down around him, stifling every inch of oxygen out. "I won't quit, I won't give up. I hurt and worked and bled for this, you can't make me do this!" The pressure in the room ramped up. "You are the Hokage, your technique did this to me, you can't leave me out to -"
"Genin Uzumaki!" the Hokage roared, flaring his own chakra, like a dragon raising its head. "Control yourself!"
Naruto shuddered and his chakra floundered, releasing the room from their battle of wills. Naruto came back to himself.
There was a long crack running through the floor of the Hokage's office, moving from desk to wall. Their eyes traced the jagged shape of it, before meeting over the table.
"This is exactly what I mean, Naruto," the Hokage said. "As you are now, you are a liability to the village, one with lots of potential, but a liability still. Such uncontrolled power is as likely to harm your friends as it is your enemy, and it almost did today."
"I wasn't actually going to harm Kiba!" he retorted. "I had it under control?"
"Did you?" asked the Hokage quietly. "I accept that this was the first time you were dealing with the chakra imbalance, but can you honestly say that if you hadn't discharged some of your chakra with the multiple attempts at your shadow clones, would you still be in control?"
Naruto had no answer to that. For a second, he knew, he had almost considered it. Considered putting the loudmouth who'd insulted him in his place, before he'd gotten a handle on himself.
His silence seemed to be enough for the Hokage.
"Listen, Naruto. It's been a long week, and I'm sure you're tired. Why don't you head home today and come back here tomorrow? We can talk more then. I promise," he said, at Naruto's mutinous look, "that we will discuss this. I have not misled you so far, have I? Like I said, I am still a master of chakra theory. We will work on this problem, I have some ideas already. I promise, Naruto," he repeated. "With my guidance and your will, given enough time, you will become stronger than any ninja in the village. I give this solemn oath. Even with your setbacks now, once balanced, your chakra potential can turn you into a warrior that most people can't dream of. But you must give me patience, and you must give me time."
Naruto wavered. For a second, he imagined himself, older, more talented, taught and shaped by the Third Hokage himself. Great, powerful, Konoha's strongest ninja. "And the chunin exam final?"
The Hokage didn't answer him directly. "A ninja endures, Naruto. You must show me that you are dedicated."
Whatever answer Naruto had to that was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Ah," said the Hokage. "It appears our time is up. Naruto, I will see you here tomorrow at noon. Before then, rest, and think about what I've told you. It is time to choose who you will be. But before then, rest, and enjoy all you have accomplished.
Naruto hung his head in reply. Enjoy all that he had accomplished? It was all ash and dust now. He was going to be the laughing stock of the village. The coward. The quitter. He slouched and walked away without a bow to his general.
He opened the door and was met by the largest person he'd ever seen. Dressed in red and green, the man had a shock of long white hair that framed dark eyes lined by crow's eyes, with red paint running down in a line from each. A large wart capped his nose and completed the picture. The man examined him with as much interest as Naruto did him.
"Ah, Jiraiya," said the Hokage. "Come in, we have a lot to discuss. Good night, little Naruto. I'll see you tomorrow."
"So this is Naruto Uzumaki," said the man who was named Jiraiya. "I guess we'll be discussing him as well, won't we?"
"Jiraiya." The Hokage pinched his nose. "Just get inside and shut the door behind you."
Naruto made no protest as the giant man ushered him out and shut the door behind him. Instead, he waited until the man's footsteps had moved away from the door, and stealthily climbed the cabinet on the wall adjoining the Hokage's office. The entire top floor of the tower had been cleared, on the Third's orders. Carefully moving the files that were stacked on top of it aside, he quietly put his ear to the small hole in the wall he'd exposed. A hole he'd put in there, many, many years ago.
"You were lying to him, my teacher," Jiraiya's voice rumbled, making him freeze. Teacher? "He's never going to manage to balance that chakra, not unless he gets a handle on it. Not as a ninja, anyway."
"So you were listening in, were you, my wayward student?" Jiraiya remained silent, making the Hokage click his tongue in frustration. "What would you have me do, Jiraiya? Yes, I'm not lying when I said I'm a master of chakra theory, Jiraiya, but this is an unprecedented case. It's also an opportunity. If handled correctly, Naruto could be the key to the future we imagined."
"You could just -"
"You're not listening to me, Jiraiya!" The Hokage cut in. "That has always been the problem with the three of you. You have never listened when you needed to. This is a golden opportunity that has fallen into our lap, one that I hadn't even thought of myself, but it could be a genius move if it worked out!"
"And if it doesn't? What if the far more likely event happens, and Naruto's already disbalanced chakra grows and grows until it consumes, and kills him? You've already seen what happened to the Kurama kid. Is that his only option? To train with a 10% chance of making it, or to spend the rest of his life sealed away from the world like the Fox inside him, or to die?"
"It's got a better chance than your own student's plan, Jiraiya, whatever the hell it was! A genius Minato may have been, but he put far too much on Naruto's shoulders and gave far too little for us, or him, to work with!"
"You've got to have faith -"
"I don't have the luxury of faith!" The Hokage thundered. "Despite all appearances, the Leaf lost its strongest ninja and its most versatile clan in less than a decade. We're weaker than we've ever been, the other villages are poking and prodding, and now Orochimaru has decided to show his hand. Naruto needs to get better than he already is, and this is the best shot we have at the moment!"
Naruto's pulse was thundering through his ears, so loudly that it almost drowned the words he was hearing. Riddles within riddles, secrets upon secrets, all centred around him. What was going on?
"You're asking the impossible of him."
"No. What the Fourth asked of him was impossible. I ask what is the improbable, what is the thinnest of chances, but it's a damn sight more possible than the hand he's been dealt. Ten percent? The Fourth's plan didn't have a single percentage of success in it. Naruto would be dead by 30, barring an absolute miracle!"
"The Fourth thought in ways none of us could imagine."
"And the Fourth isn't here, so it falls to me to play the hand I've been dealt, foolish student! Naruto Uzumaki has been the key since the Fox attacked, and it's time I pushed the opposition aside and took him in hand."
"And then what? You tell him that he cannot be a ninja for what, the next five years, at the very least? That he can't go on missions, that he has to stay away from his friends, that he has to spend every day pushing his body and mind to the limit for a plan that might fail, anyway? You'll tell him that he won't be able to use a single jutsu for the next two years, at this rate?"
"I will train the boy myself, eventually," The Hokage said. "Before then, yes, he has to make sacrifices, has to put a stopper on his dreams for the big picture. I will make sure he understands."
"And if he doesn't?"
"I am the Hokage, and he is my ninja."
Naruto's blood ran cold. His breath hitched.
"What about the other option?" Jiraiya said. Naruto leaned closer, desperate to hear. Anything was better than the future the Hokage was describing, to be left behind by Sasuke, to train under the old man's eye while his friends did better and better and he remained the useless dead last of the village.
The Hokage snorted, and his hopes died an early death. "What other option, Jiraiya? Didn't I just tell you the Leaf's condition? I may be a master in the theory of chakra, but the practice of Yin to this extent? It will be an experiment for me as much as for him, and I can only try and guide him with my experience."
"What about the Yuhi jonin? The Nara? The Yamanaka?"
The Hokage was silent for a moment before he answered. "Kurenai Yuhi jonin already failed with the Kurama child. I can't risk the village's biggest asset with her again. The Nara and Yamanaka have a leaning towards Yin chakra, yes, but their secret techniques are inherited, and they cannot compare to the scale of Naruto's issue. I will consult them, of course. More than anyone in the village, their expertise will come in handy."
"There is another…"
The Hokage outright laughed. "Him? Jiraiya, it is I who is older but it seems it is you who is falling to the ravages of age."
"Don't mock, my teacher. That man had the best Yin chakra manipulation the village had ever seen, and didn't he have the same troubles, on a much smaller scale?"
"That man was also driven out of the village years ago, Jiraiya. There was no way we could keep him here after everything that happened. The last I heard, he was hiding out in Western Fire Country, avoiding the ninja of the Leaf."
"I have always kept track of him, even after he left," answered Jiraiya. "He's currently hiding in the caves in Northern Fire Country, near the Valley of the End. If you give me a chance, Naruto can try and learn to use his Yin chakra and rein it, instead of the fool's gambit you're taking with him."
"No, Jiraiya," said the Hokage flatly. "It might make our path easier, but for all of his talent, he is still a loose cannon. I will not hear any more of this matter. Tell me about the condition of the village's barriers, instead."
Naruto had heard enough. Quietly slinking down to the ground, he replaced the files on the cabinet and then leapt out of the window. His thoughts were swirling as he made his way home, thinking about what he'd just heard.
His messy apartment felt emptier than ever. His thoughts spiralled like the lukewarm water swirling into his drain, a hot shower doing nothing for his mood. He popped open a case of premium instant ramen just for the occasion of his success in the exams so far, but the food tasted like ash in his mouth. His headache worsened. Naruto was sure not all of it was even from his new chakra problem, considering what he'd just eavesdropped on.
Despite the hot shower and the hot food, sleep eluded him. He spent an hour tossing and turning, his head pulsing, before he gave it up as a bad job and crept out of bed. Naruto opened the door of his balcony and slipped outside to take in the village. His apartment, though ramshackle and run down, had one of the best views in the entire city. The Hokage had once told him that he'd made it a point to ensure that view, so that he could get used to looking over the Leaf before he became the Hokage.
Naruto had laughed then, delighted that the old man had that sort of faith in him. Now, he was torn, torn between the image of the man he called his grandfather, and the stern Hokage whose plans he'd just overheard.
Lights dotted the Leaf village in the night, thousands of houses looking up at him with their golden window eyes. He'd tried to be his best for this village, he'd worked hard to be recognised as a ninja, and it was all ruined thanks to the Snake ninja.
Would it have mattered, though? What he'd told Kiba hadn't been a lie, after all. He'd been a genin for six months already, and the attitude of the villagers towards him hadn't really changed, at all. For all of his popularity in Wave Country, he was still a pariah in his own village. The cold looks, the cold shoulders, the cold contempt - none of it had stopped. And now it would be replaced by smug sneers and knowing smirk, once he would be forced to resign from the chunin exams. Their frowns would turn to laughs, and by the time he became the super-strong ninja that the Third promised he'd be, would it even matter?
He imagined himself 5 years later, finally taking the chunin exams again, with no guarantee of success. By then, Sasuke or that bastard Neji would already be Jonin, his other friends chunin. Sakura wouldn't even look his way, especially if he'd be forced to give up working as a ninja like the big man had hinted at. He'd be the lowest of the lows, the drop out.
His eyes were stinging. Naruto told himself it was the wind. Suddenly disgusted by the village, furious at his own misfortune, he decided the inside of his house was much better than the balcony. It had been a mistake to try and soothe himself this way.
Seized by a sudden impulse, he pulled out an old, beaten down map of the Elemental Nations the Academy had given him when he'd first entered. Over the years, it'd served as a curtain for his broken kitchen window, and finally as study material when he got desperate enough in his final year. Unrolling it gently, he looked for a long while at Fire country, at Wind around it, at Cloud and Stone to the North, to the small buffer countries between them. Outside, the Lead grew quieter and quieter as he pored, and pondered, over the map.
He fell asleep on it, on the living room floor.
When the sun reached the zenith on the day after, and the time for Naruto's meeting with the Hokage came, he wasn't in the village. His apartment was missing his pack, some of his clothes and his ramen, his weapons and the map he'd been studying the night before. Naruto himself was running through Fire Country, having snuck out of the village at dawn.
In a moment of insight, or foolishness, perhaps, he'd left his headband in the top drawer of his nightstand.
Authors Notes: Apologies for the exposition and dialogue heavy chapter. I don't want to tell my readers everything, but just bear in mind that these are all limited POV's. We all know that the Gogyo Fuin can be removed. Naruto doesn't know that (yet). Characters (Naruto) are being lied to, misled, and drawing their own conclusions from what they hear. Things will be revealed in time. I'm sure you can guess which Ninja Art he will train in next, and I'm honestly quite excited to explore it. Right now, he doesn't have access to the Kyuubi chakra, his shadow clones, or any of his ninjutsu. He's at his lowest. That will change, but I don't want a sudden jump to DBZ levels of power. There might or might not be some training hax, though. The pacing of the story will vary. There will be discussions and explorations of theory, dialogue and character work, interspersed with (what I hope will be) balls to the wall action. I hope that's to your taste!
Also, I've tried to keep cross language writing to the minimum. I'm using little Naruto in place of Naruto-kun, but I don't know if it works. The Rasengan and the Chidori will probably retain their names, but I don't want to make a cringey mishmash of two languages that's both a pain to read, and probably offensive to some people. Thoughts?
PS - just edited this to add something. Naruto will NOT be a missing nin in this story. He WILL return to Konoha. He's just at a point in his story where he needs to find some direction. Sorry if that's the story you wanted to read.