FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Tome of the Orange Sky (Naruto/MGLN)
- Thread starter CmptrWz
- Start date
- Crossover
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- Tags
- mgln naruto naruto uzumaki complete
She's quite definitely there while designing the course.
Meanwhile people all across the Elemental Nations are dying... of 'natural causes'.
"I'll do it manually"?
Ten points to anyone who gets the reference.
- Location
- Michigan
To be fair, Pein didn't have any knowledge on the Moons eye plan, his plan was to use the biju to power a reusable super nuke that would terrify people into temporary cycles of peace between people acquiring and using the weapon again. Also a fucking stupid plan but for entirely different reasons.
The Hokage Rock is a cliff overlooking the village.
...as far as I know, they never refer to it as a monument.
The non-idiot non-gift-bearer hidden minders keeping the idiots alive and preparing to report "delivery successful" back to Orochimaru.
The tome has very little in the way of spells. Unless you count jutsu it now knows about as spells. Then it has a pile.
It does have "in the tome world" time compression, but only Naruto can take advantage of that.
Pain, Obito, and even Madara have no clue what the eye of the moon plan actually is. Zetsu has been running a con game for a very long time.
So the Infinite Tsukuyomi isn't what Madara and Obito think it is? I'm guessing that'll be an interesting revelation to witness. The broadcast of the dub just returned to the present after a multi-episode long flashback to the Leaf-Sand joint-hosted Chunin Exams. I tell ya, these long flashback mini-arcs repeatedly interrupting the Fourth Great Shinobi War are very annoying.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
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Even with their flawed knowledge, why would they think permenantly trapping the world in a genjutsu which will have them oblivious to the world and unable to do anything other then sit/stand/lay where they are is a good idea?
MWKillKenny84
Lurking from the Trauma Switch.
- Location
- Vado Ligure
Because all three of them are shell-shocked trauma victims that had never the time nor the therapies to recover from their own traumas.
Read: they are some shade of crazy, critical thinking took too many hits to ask themselves "WTF am I thinking that this is a good idea?" to begin with.
Chapter 30 - Genin Training, Global Side Effects
"I'm sorry for misleading you," Hana said. "Directly in Naruto's case and indirectly through him for Hinata."
Naruto had gotten a few surprises over the past couple of days. Such as finding out that he was being paid for each person that used the seals for the medical chakra node improvements, including Tsunade and Shizune. Then there was Hana being given the bulk of his and Hinata's medic-nin paperwork to fill out for them as part of her official punishment for misleading him before she'd been tested personally by Tsunade. And now Hana had been summoned to apologize to him and Hinata.
"I should have explained that Naruto was exceeding what I could manage," the young woman continued. "If only when he hit his own limits and it was obvious that I'd no longer be causing him to artificially limit himself."
"Of course," Tsunade said. "As my testing of you shows that you couldn't manage what he can, you'll be working your way up to matching him, at least in areas where chakra itself isn't the limiting factor. Not everyone is a chakra monster like these two."
It was obvious that Hana wasn't aware of the new seal and what it could do, based on her whimpering at that. Or maybe she was and had heard of the training others were being put through already? Either way she was sent off.
"The look on her face," Tsunade said once they were sure Hana couldn't hear them. She chuckled, before sighing and looking at the two chunin. "Okay, that aside, I've had time to examine the beast-man formula and its effects, and it looks like it's permanent. Some tweaking causes it to stabilize a lot sooner without outside help, but the tails and the changes to the ears and senses are essentially permanent. The medic-nin came close to botching fixing eyes based on what an activated sharingan undid, but I've corrected that process too."
"So our two genin are stuck with animal features?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, because the process infected their chakra and settled into the very core of their beings, something I'd thought that the cursed seals had been responsible for originally. Just as I suspect that splitting off the bits of tailed beast bound to you two would kill you in the process, removing the animal traits is essentially impossible now as stripping the genetic information out has their chakra replace it. That said, there have been more volunteers for the 'improved' formula, even with the randomness of the results."
Hinata blinked at that. "More people want animal features?"
Tsunade snorted. "They're far, far more interested in the regenerative properties and willing to deal with animal features to get them. One of the first round of volunteers from just after the invasion lost both their eyes to a training accident in the field and two days later they had grown replacements without needing to see a medic-nin at all. They even retained the corrections the medic-nin had previously applied to the eyes to get their vision back to human capability. We also had two early Hyuga volunteers and the byakugan being activated corrects the eyes immediately as well. The only major downside is that anyone exposed to the formula can't be a transplant source."
"...can't be a transplant source? Shouldn't you mean destination?"
"Technically both because you regrow organs fast enough to make it a bad idea to try a transplant. Also, after the first two exposed Hyuga were tested and found to still be able to pass on the byakugan to their future children, your father greenlit anyone in your clan volunteering for the formula. I believe he plans on telling your clan about it in a large meeting in the next two days, emphasizing the combination of regrowing eyes and anyone implanting stolen ones likely dying a horrible death for the insult."
There was a moment of silence before Hinata groaned. "How long before Hanabi volunteers?"
Naruto snorted. "I just asked my clones and one of them says that the medic-nin are currently having trouble keeping her still long enough to finish her post-changes checkup."
"That wouldn't surprise me given how excited she seemed to be to get cat features," Tsunade replied. "I was also informed that the seal placed upon her is intact and still functions, but didn't observe her using it personally." She then looked at Hinata. "Your parents also went through the procedure, so that they can demonstrate that it's safe, with your father ending up with cat features and your mother becoming the first to get rabbit features."
For some reason that didn't surprise Naruto, and he idly wondered if Hinata would've gotten rabbit features had she not been bound to Matatabi's remains already. Some checking with his clones also showed that there were a couple of other clans with exposed members...but only Sasuke from the Uchiha that could be seen by any of them right now, despite the 'regrow eyes' sounding like an incredible boon. "So are the Uchiha avoiding this because of concerns about later stages of the sharingan?"
Tsunade blinked. "Yes, actually. I'm surprised they informed you."
"They didn't, but Itachi's misfiled medical records made mention of needing eye transplants to stabilize things. If transplants become a problem for those with the beast-man changes..."
"Ah. Yes, that is a logical deduction, though in theory they can receive transplants from those who haven't been exposed to the formula if done fast enough. It just wouldn't help if the only donors had also been exposed." Tsunade then pulled out two packets from a pile on her desk and handed them over. "Regardless, these are your approval to handle any...changes to your genin, seal or otherwise, now that we've confirmed that you can't make it any harder to cure them of their animal features. The Inuzuka have declined to allow any of their genin members to be exposed to the beast-man formula as well, so that shouldn't be an issue."
Naruto nodded as he took the packets. They'd need a week for adjustment, and his parents thought they had a version of the seal that would filter out sand control now.
Danzo scowled as he tried to come up with a way to recover from all the setbacks he'd encountered so far, and the ones he was sadly expecting to come up soon. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot he could see to do. It was looking more and more likely that the truth was closer to the village no longer having a weapon instead of it being hidden away cleverly, though what had been done with the remains was a mystery. They obviously hadn't been bound to a genin like the remains of the one-tail and two-tails had been.
The invasion had barely happened, relations with Kumo had improved significantly despite the other village losing the two-tails, somehow the training of elite jounin level genin had been hidden until they'd demonstrated that they were ready to be promoted to chunin, and who knew what else Hiruzen had been keeping hidden more effectively than expected. In fact, recent events brought up the question of whether anything that had been 'leaked' in the past decade actually had been leaked or if it was all a giant ruse.
Being unable to tell what was the truth and what was a lie coming out of Hiruzen was...disconcerting. Worse, it tainted decades of interaction with the man, and the timing of events in the past few years seemed to indicate that the reality of things was that Danzo's own machinations had been tolerated until suddenly they weren't. Which admittedly painted a picture that made the village's policies far, far more tolerable than they'd been on the surface. It was almost like the public plans had been used to deceive...spies...
It was a bit late to realize that there was a good chance that not only had Hiruzen known about Danzo's spies, but also that those spies were also generally questionably loyal due to interacting with others outside of the village. Ensuring that the spies were fed shit information would keep Danzo out of the loop, but the village's enemies more out of the loop. The subtlety required to pull such a thing off right under an ally's nose was incredible, and if Hiruzen had been pulling it off then it was a sure sign that he hadn't lost his touch.
At the same time, it was infuriating because it wouldn't have been hard to bring Danzo into the loop. Except that if Hiruzen was being that subtle then it was likely a much more significant test, to see how long it took Danzo to notice. The sudden shutting down of everything he was working on over the past few years was a near sure sign that he'd failed such a test. Root officially disbanded, the accounts he'd kept to keep Root running anyway confiscated, the Hyuga suddenly being used to find and seal unauthorized tunnels inside the village and under the walls.
An infuriatingly effective masterstroke that left Hiruzen with all the cards and Danzo looking like a fool. He'd lost his touch and had no clue how to proceed, and with all the setbacks he didn't even have enough clout to influence things like Hokage candidate selection anymore. The daimyo wasn't even that interested in talking to him these days now that a number of previously manufactured problems had been solved by a lack of funding.
Unlike with Tenten, they'd actually had to check with parents about applying the shapeshifting seal. In theory this would be a harrowing affair of dealing with clan heads. The reality was that Inoichi and Itachi had both pulled strings to get Ino and Sasuke onto the team specifically to have access to the shapeshifting seal and Tsume had absolutely no problem with Kiba gaining such a skill. Actually, Tsume was more annoyed that they didn't have a version that was safe for Akamaru.
It had taken two days to prepare for a week in the compound, Ino and Sasuke each holding onto the Tome for a bit in those two days without being told why. They were getting all the basic elemental node upgrades, but not some of the 'extras' like chakra chains or the couple of things they'd gotten from Karin unrelated to controlling medical chakra. Kiba had been training with his clan instead and would wait until after the shapeshifting seals had settled to get his improved net.
When they finally got to it, application of the seals didn't take long. More interesting was seeing what each of them shifted into before control kicked in properly. In this case, Ino seemed to bounce between generic female forms and dresses, Sasuke between looking like various versions of his brother and various girls that looked similar to Yoko, and Kiba between an Akamaru-like dog and a Tora-like cat. Akamaru thought the latter was insulting, which the rest of them found to be hilarious.
Getting Kiba's net taken care of had been reasonably simple after that, Sasuke had gone on a second 'date' with Yoko using shapeshifting to become female and dressing up to match just to see how the fangirls reacted, and then they'd packed up for several missions out of the village to help with training. Both elemental and the beginnings of proper infiltration work.
Sakura grumbled a bit after another intense day of training under Tsunade. Sure, the legendary Sannin was an amazing medic...but she was also a slave driver pushing all of them in the program to their limits. Plus it seemed like everyone else she could get her hands on, existing medic-nin or not.
And it was so not fair that Hinata and Naruto were, somehow, helping teach. Each sent a couple of clones to help out every day, though that was likely only while they were in the village, and they were incredibly good. On Tsunade's level, even, though not quite as knowledgeable about biology and medicine as the Sannin. They had other clones working on correcting that though.
Today Naruto's clone had even regrown a foot. An entire foot. In one session. Alone. Which was bullshit, both for the skill required and how much chakra it should've taken.
Of course, that wasn't all that was going on. Sasuke had been seen on a second date with the shrine maiden, but the pictures taken were...off. Sure, the kunoichi outfit wasn't new, but...well...
Sasuke didn't look like a guy dressed like a girl in the pictures, but like a girl dressed properly. And those who had gotten the pictures swore it wasn't a genjutsu. But he wasn't a she the next day when Sakura had seen him in the hospital for one last pre-leaving-the-village check-up, even getting to examine him with medical jutsu under Hinata's watchful eyes. Which made the entire thing far too confusing. And talking to Ino about it had merely gotten giggles...at least until Sakura had pointed out that Naruto was likely more interested in Hinata than anyone else right now.
"So," Naruto said as they settled into camp for the night. "You've all been working on some of the jutsu we'll be using for infiltration work, and Kiba has been kind enough to explain how to drastically improve your sense of smell with chakra. For now we'll be working on the basics of holding a disguise and fitting in, though how we do so will vary. Ensuring that your scent and chakra don't give you away to enemy shinobi will come over time, and I'm hoping that Hoshi can help teach Akamaru some of how to handle some of that because I don't think I can."
"We've been working on it," Hoshi replied, Akamaru yipping in agreement. "Though no shapeshifting for the pup."
"Combined with that will be elemental training," Hinata explained. "All five basic elements and the beginning of elemental combinations."
"Um," Ino said, frowning. "While I know you two can combine elements, due to your changes, that doesn't mean we can."
"You'll be fine," Naruto said, grinning. "You all held the magic book long enough, after all."
"...the magic book?"
"Yep. Should make it trivial to impersonate shinobi from other villages thanks to being able to use all the elemental natures."
"I want to call bullshit on that," Kiba said. "But before the chunin exams I'd have called bullshit on actual shapeshifting too. Or killing tailed beasts."
Hinata giggled. "Yes, that can be a bit of a shock. We don't expect you three to be anywhere near our level anytime soon, but with any luck we can have you able to use all five basic elements and be able to wander around civilians without drawing any attention to the fact that you aren't a civilian. Hopefully without enemy shinobi being able to tell as well, provided Akamaru doesn't give Kiba away."
"There's a new oasis?" Temari asked, confused. She wasn't sure why her brother cared about this to the point where he appeared to have a dozen stacks of paper about it, though she supposed it could be a distraction from all the political wrangling going on.
"Several," Kankuro replied. "The most recently reported is spreading from the old kingdom of Roran, overtaking desert at a decent pace from there. Nobody knows why, or why the other nine points around the desert and eight we know of in the Land of Earth have suddenly started blossoming with life, but I have a theory. One that I don't like."
"...do you think this is somehow an attack?"
"No, my problem is with the timing of several events."
"Timing?"
"The first new oasis was spotted as a relatively small one two days after the one-tail was taken from Gaara. A couple of jounin apparently did some calculations and determined that all of them likely started spreading within forty-eight hours of then, as though the one-tail being taken released something making the desert stay desert."
"What?"
Kankuro frowned...or perhaps scowled? "I think the one-tail was killing life in the desert, and possibly tied to similar problems in the Land of Earth. I don't know how, but the locations of the blossoming life we know of...well, they trivially form a pattern that looks like a very scaled up set of roots. I can even add in a couple of other events we've heard rumors of in the Land of Lightning and the unclaimed lands to the West."
"But...that sounds like..."
"I think the tailed beasts in general were tied to something that was killing off life, and the reborn Uzushiogakure killing off two of them was a good thing for everyone. How it spread so far away from Konohagakure is another matter entirely, but there are the legends of a giant tree...and if these are a root system then it might be related to it..."
Temari recalled some of those legends, but it didn't quite add up. "But why would killing off the tailed beasts do something to the roots of the tree?"
"I don't know, and I couldn't find anything in the village archives to explain it. Just ancient legends of the 'life-giving' giant tree that half the legends claim couldn't be approached safely."
"The necklace is a what?" Naruto asked, blinking.
"An external chakra net node," his mother repeated, manifesting a display that would've induced headaches in lesser shinobi to demonstrate. Their normal 'chakra net' image, plus the necklace reaching out to a collection of nodes in it. "Specifically, one that connects all of the nodes needed for the basic wood release with the yin and yang nodes so that it can function as an automatic advanced wood release node instead of requiring managing the various chakra flows manually. We've seen enough of the wood release Anbu's net to know that he's got a grafted-on basic node that he probably isn't managing the extra flows for, which is probably what Hashirama had before he made the necklace."
"Even in your pocket it had connected to your own chakra net because you had the nodes it connects to," his father added. "But seeing how it works means that we can make other variants...and upgrade your wood release a bit by internalizing the external node. Which is what we're doing now, and may want to do to Hinata later."
A simplified version of the chakra net manifested a moment later, a version without most of the interconnection points, and then a string of fifteen different-colored beads appeared next to it. Ten of them reached out to four nodes, each combination of two of the five elements represented and all of them connecting to the yin and yang nodes. The next was brownish-green and looked like it was essentially a duplicate of the wood release necklace, but when focused on a connection to the earth/water bead lit up as well. After that was a greenish bead connected to the yin, yang, and medical chakra nodes, then another one?
"Two medical chakra beads?" Naruto asked.
"One is the improved medical chakra control," his father explained. "The other is Karin's 'bite her to heal' bit...which you should really test to see if it works on you sometime."
"Oh."
"The white bead after that is her chakra sensing, and the dark red one is chakra chains. You'd probably have trouble figuring them out with them connecting to every node they can."
That...wasn't a bad point. "So you've come up with this, but haven't constructed it yet?"
"We need some more chakra," his mother admitted. "Preferably generating it with the connections each bead needs at that. One bead at a time for the first one, and then hopefully we can use the beads to make more."
Naruto blinked a couple of times. "How many do you plan on making?"
"At least three sets," Shukaku said. "And there's a good chance that every bead is going to be worth far more than Hashirama's little trinket."
"They'll provide a good excuse for how you have access to all the elemental combinations without revealing that you don't need something external," his father added. "We're also working on duplicating the other things that were bound to you and Hinata from the tailed beasts, but they're...a lot more complicated, and seem to include things that weren't made with chakra."
"Oh."
Kiba hadn't expected infiltration training to be so intense and varied. Different ages, social classes, a collection of different basic skills to be able to play different roles. All of it came together in complicated ways, and Naruto-sensei was insanely good at it all. Hinata-sensei was also good, but visibly took a few minutes to get into a new role properly. Not that they'd had much opportunity to do most of it in the past week, but examples kept being given to them, including Naruto-sensei acting like a couple dozen different civilians and members of every major hidden village.
Now, it wasn't that they had a lot of good examples of shinobi from other hidden villages to compare to, but at the same time that wasn't necessarily the point. No, the point was to be good enough to fool civilians into believing you were from those villages, not to fool the villages themselves, and as far as Kiba could tell the disguises were spot on from that point of view. Naruto-sensei had even used clones to stage a fight between an 'Iwa' shinobi and a 'Suna' kunoichi, the latter even using a battle fan, only revealing that the two were his clones after Hinata-sensei had held the team back and quizzed them on if they should intervene or not.
Incidentally, the answer to the latter was 'no, but possibly ambush the winner, because Suna had recently spat on their alliance.' Provided by Naruto-sensei, who had done an excellent job of pretending that the clones weren't clones.
...on the other hand, while all of this was awesome in various ways, it didn't help with one question.
"How and why did you learn to act like a toddler?" Sasuke asked Naruto-sensei, currently in the guise of an at best three year old girl.
"Observing actual toddlers is the how," Hinata-sensei answered, bouncing Naruto-sensei a little to make 'her' giggle. "As for the why, well, who would expect a lone mother and her child to be responsible for a major robbery or assasination?"
That...was technically a good point, but it still seemed insane.
Naruto found it interesting how each of the genin rationalized the infiltration training. Ino understood the need to blend in and that you needed to be proficient in various basic skills to do so. In fact, she had a leg up on the other two on that front because she had experience in various aspects of running a shop due to her family's flower shop, just without having equated the 'chores' she'd had to do over the years as being a form of training. She had needed the least persuasion to learn additional 'civilian' skills as a result...and the least need for doing so, having a decent collection already.
Kiba had needed to have things explained from the point of view of hunting to properly get things, but once that was accomplished he seemed to be okay. He obviously viewed everything as allowing you to get close to your 'prey' with them not suspecting things, most directly taking to masking himself and coming around to seeing the other tasks as being a way to bluff your target into allowing you into range to make the kill.
Sasuke...had readily accepted the lessons, striving to excel at anything thrown at him, but hadn't seemed to immediately internalize the reason they were needed at first. Hinata had finally gotten through to him by having him rate the threat level of each member of a group in a village. He'd rated them all fairly low, but relatively speaking had obviously focused on visible strength and coordination. The lowest threat of the group in question had been the lone teenage girl acting as arm candy for one of the guys.
Said teenage girl had been the actual Naruto, with every other member of the group having been a clone of Hinata's. The shock of that, and what it could mean for an infiltrator, had finally caused him to see the actual point of the training.
Neji grumbled as the tailor worked on figuring out how to best handle his new tail. Most of the clan was going through with the beast-man formula for the combination of regeneration and fuck-you to anyone trying to implant stolen eyes, a much more significant deterrent to dojutsu theft than the previous seal had ever been. Of course, the results were varied, though there were trends and the medic-nin were looking for signs of being able to identify what animal any given individual would get traits from.
In his case, he had small, straight ears sticking up from his head, a short but not 'stubby' tail, and apparently thicker skin around his neck. The combination apparently best fit a guanaco source for his changes, or so the research department claimed, but they didn't know much more about the creatures. Just that a traveling circus group with a few had come from a very long way away decades ago, which might be where the original genetic sample had been obtained.
Whatever the case, so far he also had less interest in eating meat, was more steady on uneven terrain, and without chakra enhancement could spit clear across a room. He was incredibly accurate with the spit too, and idly wondered what he could do with it if he put some chakra into it...
Ino had expected the infiltration training to focus on pretending to be different people, because why would they think otherwise? Instead, the first 'sneak in and steal something' mission that Naruto-sensei had grabbed had ended up being done as animals. Specifically dogs, presumably to not exclude Akamaru, and Hoshi even got into the act. She had found it easiest to play the role of a puppy with the same ears and tail that were now on her normal body, and even amusingly relaxing to pretend to be one, so after the mission Naruto-sensei had made her a collar that would auto-size itself so that she'd look more like a pet than a wild dog when shapeshifted.
Kiba had objected, as nin-dogs didn't wear collars for a number of reasons, but she wasn't trying to pretend to be a nin-dog. Pets, which she was likely to be pretending to be, tended to have collars. They'd stopped in a village that could even engrave the tag for her, and she'd kept the front simple, just reading Ino. But when asked about the back, because information on the owner normally went there, she'd decided to give Sakura's comments about not having a chance because Naruto-sensei was obviously going to eventually be with Hinata-sensei a middle finger and had them put Naruto-sensei's information down.
She'd likely never tell him that, or anyone else, but she'd not even considered that a pet's owner information would be needed before she'd been asked and it was the first thing that came to mind at the time. Of course, she also wasn't about to tell anyone that part either, especially since she'd been wearing the collar whenever not in a guise that called for not doing so and admitting that the 'owner' information existed and had been a spur of the moment decision would be too embarrassing. Sasuke had also voiced that it made sense to be used to wearing it given that she'd also taken to napping in puppy form, making it less likely that she'd forget and have people mistake her for a stray. He preferred an older wolf form himself, but wolves generally weren't pets so wearing a collar himself wasn't really an option. And Kiba just found the idea of 'relaxing' as an animal to be weird.
Naruto was mostly happy with how training was going for their genin, though elemental manipulation was going more slowly than expected. None of them had the chakra to manage even a single paperwork clone right now and that was holding them back from the more useful training methods. At the same time, they'd stopped whining about learning to do everything without hand seals after realizing that not needing hand seals meant being able to do jutsu while disguised as animals.
Spitting out a ball of fire into a bandit's face when you'd spent the past ten minutes pretending to be a normal puppy was far, far too amusing of a trick for them to not want to be able to pull it off. That it would also allow them to look like a civilian and fire off various techniques, from obvious flashy jutsu to minor illusions, without the 'tell-tale sign of a shinobi' being involved was a bonus by comparison.
All three seemed to be picking up at least a rudimentary personality swap as well, though he didn't think it was possible to get down properly until you could have clones running different tasks at the same time. Hinata had rapidly improved once she could spam paperwork clones, at least, but chakra-building was generally a tedious process. Ino and Sasuke were also quite different than he'd expected in their preferred animal forms, with Ino falling into a playful puppy persona and Sasuke a larger, generally defensive wolf.
Kiba, by comparison, likely thought that his experimentation with female forms had gone unnoticed. Naruto wasn't exactly in a position to complain either way, but it was obvious that Akamaru thought it was stupid.
As for the nin-dog, he was coming along nicely in several areas thanks to Hoshi, but 'summon fox' and 'nin-dog' used chakra differently enough to create stumbling blocks. But at least they were closer to each other than to how humans used chakra, and Akamaru was hoping to confuse the crap out of the other nin-dogs by being able to change his scent, negate all sound of his passing, keep himself from leaving markings on the ground as he moved, and manage things like the transparency jutsu.
The communication jutsu was another matter entirely, as ideally you really needed to have both ends able to handle it to use properly so Akamaru couldn't show that off to the other nin-dogs as readily. It did make for excellent pranks and mission coordination though, and they'd used it to excellent effect a couple days ago while tricking a caravan into taking the wrong route. Those merchants would likely arrive at their destination a couple of weeks late, ruining a couple of their contracts.
Such a shame that they'd spurned shinobi guards as being a waste of money after also trying to price-gouge in Konoha.
Sasuke had wanted to learn infiltration tricks after his brother had hinted that there were some that would make hiding his animal features 'trivial'. Taking out targets without them ever knowing you were there also appealed to him in other ways...but not being known as a strong shinobi because nobody knew about your accomplishments was a downside. But nobody said that infiltration had to be all you did, and on many missions nobody had to know how you managed to kill someone anyway.
Being on record as collecting the bounty was usually enough to start building a reputation...and it was possible that nobody knowing how you did it was better than being flashy.
What he hadn't expected was to end up being taught by a pair of sensei his age that had the ability to share complete shapeshifting and all elemental bloodline skills with others. It certainly made being infiltrators while having animal features a hell of a lot easier, and the idea of pretending to be a harmless pet or infant before springing a surprise combined-elemental killing blow to someone's face was appealing. Especially after being fooled himself multiple times by Naruto-sensei pretending to be a harmless anything only to pull a killing blow out of nowhere on a bandit.
...that they apparently needed training in not giving away their intentions to manage that themselves, and that said training was 'best handled in training ground forty-four'? Well, that was...concerning. But Naruto-sensei had managed to demonstrate getting animals to trust him, even flock to him, before killing a couple for dinner. A complete and total inversion of the normal result of killing intent that even Kiba respected, even if it did take some of the 'fun' out of the hunt. Hinata-sensei couldn't pull it off to the same degree though, only being able to control things so that her enemy couldn't pick up anything of what she actually intended to do. That alone was far too useful to ignore.
It didn't quite make the sting of the truth of Yoko easier to deal with, but it provided plenty of distractions from thinking about it. Not to mention that sleeping as a large wolf was quite relaxing. Ino preferring to be a little puppy was probably tied to their animal features, but Kiba was seriously missing out by not giving it a proper chance.
Naruto had gotten a few surprises over the past couple of days. Such as finding out that he was being paid for each person that used the seals for the medical chakra node improvements, including Tsunade and Shizune. Then there was Hana being given the bulk of his and Hinata's medic-nin paperwork to fill out for them as part of her official punishment for misleading him before she'd been tested personally by Tsunade. And now Hana had been summoned to apologize to him and Hinata.
"I should have explained that Naruto was exceeding what I could manage," the young woman continued. "If only when he hit his own limits and it was obvious that I'd no longer be causing him to artificially limit himself."
"Of course," Tsunade said. "As my testing of you shows that you couldn't manage what he can, you'll be working your way up to matching him, at least in areas where chakra itself isn't the limiting factor. Not everyone is a chakra monster like these two."
It was obvious that Hana wasn't aware of the new seal and what it could do, based on her whimpering at that. Or maybe she was and had heard of the training others were being put through already? Either way she was sent off.
"The look on her face," Tsunade said once they were sure Hana couldn't hear them. She chuckled, before sighing and looking at the two chunin. "Okay, that aside, I've had time to examine the beast-man formula and its effects, and it looks like it's permanent. Some tweaking causes it to stabilize a lot sooner without outside help, but the tails and the changes to the ears and senses are essentially permanent. The medic-nin came close to botching fixing eyes based on what an activated sharingan undid, but I've corrected that process too."
"So our two genin are stuck with animal features?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, because the process infected their chakra and settled into the very core of their beings, something I'd thought that the cursed seals had been responsible for originally. Just as I suspect that splitting off the bits of tailed beast bound to you two would kill you in the process, removing the animal traits is essentially impossible now as stripping the genetic information out has their chakra replace it. That said, there have been more volunteers for the 'improved' formula, even with the randomness of the results."
Hinata blinked at that. "More people want animal features?"
Tsunade snorted. "They're far, far more interested in the regenerative properties and willing to deal with animal features to get them. One of the first round of volunteers from just after the invasion lost both their eyes to a training accident in the field and two days later they had grown replacements without needing to see a medic-nin at all. They even retained the corrections the medic-nin had previously applied to the eyes to get their vision back to human capability. We also had two early Hyuga volunteers and the byakugan being activated corrects the eyes immediately as well. The only major downside is that anyone exposed to the formula can't be a transplant source."
"...can't be a transplant source? Shouldn't you mean destination?"
"Technically both because you regrow organs fast enough to make it a bad idea to try a transplant. Also, after the first two exposed Hyuga were tested and found to still be able to pass on the byakugan to their future children, your father greenlit anyone in your clan volunteering for the formula. I believe he plans on telling your clan about it in a large meeting in the next two days, emphasizing the combination of regrowing eyes and anyone implanting stolen ones likely dying a horrible death for the insult."
There was a moment of silence before Hinata groaned. "How long before Hanabi volunteers?"
Naruto snorted. "I just asked my clones and one of them says that the medic-nin are currently having trouble keeping her still long enough to finish her post-changes checkup."
"That wouldn't surprise me given how excited she seemed to be to get cat features," Tsunade replied. "I was also informed that the seal placed upon her is intact and still functions, but didn't observe her using it personally." She then looked at Hinata. "Your parents also went through the procedure, so that they can demonstrate that it's safe, with your father ending up with cat features and your mother becoming the first to get rabbit features."
For some reason that didn't surprise Naruto, and he idly wondered if Hinata would've gotten rabbit features had she not been bound to Matatabi's remains already. Some checking with his clones also showed that there were a couple of other clans with exposed members...but only Sasuke from the Uchiha that could be seen by any of them right now, despite the 'regrow eyes' sounding like an incredible boon. "So are the Uchiha avoiding this because of concerns about later stages of the sharingan?"
Tsunade blinked. "Yes, actually. I'm surprised they informed you."
"They didn't, but Itachi's misfiled medical records made mention of needing eye transplants to stabilize things. If transplants become a problem for those with the beast-man changes..."
"Ah. Yes, that is a logical deduction, though in theory they can receive transplants from those who haven't been exposed to the formula if done fast enough. It just wouldn't help if the only donors had also been exposed." Tsunade then pulled out two packets from a pile on her desk and handed them over. "Regardless, these are your approval to handle any...changes to your genin, seal or otherwise, now that we've confirmed that you can't make it any harder to cure them of their animal features. The Inuzuka have declined to allow any of their genin members to be exposed to the beast-man formula as well, so that shouldn't be an issue."
Naruto nodded as he took the packets. They'd need a week for adjustment, and his parents thought they had a version of the seal that would filter out sand control now.
Danzo scowled as he tried to come up with a way to recover from all the setbacks he'd encountered so far, and the ones he was sadly expecting to come up soon. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot he could see to do. It was looking more and more likely that the truth was closer to the village no longer having a weapon instead of it being hidden away cleverly, though what had been done with the remains was a mystery. They obviously hadn't been bound to a genin like the remains of the one-tail and two-tails had been.
The invasion had barely happened, relations with Kumo had improved significantly despite the other village losing the two-tails, somehow the training of elite jounin level genin had been hidden until they'd demonstrated that they were ready to be promoted to chunin, and who knew what else Hiruzen had been keeping hidden more effectively than expected. In fact, recent events brought up the question of whether anything that had been 'leaked' in the past decade actually had been leaked or if it was all a giant ruse.
Being unable to tell what was the truth and what was a lie coming out of Hiruzen was...disconcerting. Worse, it tainted decades of interaction with the man, and the timing of events in the past few years seemed to indicate that the reality of things was that Danzo's own machinations had been tolerated until suddenly they weren't. Which admittedly painted a picture that made the village's policies far, far more tolerable than they'd been on the surface. It was almost like the public plans had been used to deceive...spies...
It was a bit late to realize that there was a good chance that not only had Hiruzen known about Danzo's spies, but also that those spies were also generally questionably loyal due to interacting with others outside of the village. Ensuring that the spies were fed shit information would keep Danzo out of the loop, but the village's enemies more out of the loop. The subtlety required to pull such a thing off right under an ally's nose was incredible, and if Hiruzen had been pulling it off then it was a sure sign that he hadn't lost his touch.
At the same time, it was infuriating because it wouldn't have been hard to bring Danzo into the loop. Except that if Hiruzen was being that subtle then it was likely a much more significant test, to see how long it took Danzo to notice. The sudden shutting down of everything he was working on over the past few years was a near sure sign that he'd failed such a test. Root officially disbanded, the accounts he'd kept to keep Root running anyway confiscated, the Hyuga suddenly being used to find and seal unauthorized tunnels inside the village and under the walls.
An infuriatingly effective masterstroke that left Hiruzen with all the cards and Danzo looking like a fool. He'd lost his touch and had no clue how to proceed, and with all the setbacks he didn't even have enough clout to influence things like Hokage candidate selection anymore. The daimyo wasn't even that interested in talking to him these days now that a number of previously manufactured problems had been solved by a lack of funding.
Unlike with Tenten, they'd actually had to check with parents about applying the shapeshifting seal. In theory this would be a harrowing affair of dealing with clan heads. The reality was that Inoichi and Itachi had both pulled strings to get Ino and Sasuke onto the team specifically to have access to the shapeshifting seal and Tsume had absolutely no problem with Kiba gaining such a skill. Actually, Tsume was more annoyed that they didn't have a version that was safe for Akamaru.
It had taken two days to prepare for a week in the compound, Ino and Sasuke each holding onto the Tome for a bit in those two days without being told why. They were getting all the basic elemental node upgrades, but not some of the 'extras' like chakra chains or the couple of things they'd gotten from Karin unrelated to controlling medical chakra. Kiba had been training with his clan instead and would wait until after the shapeshifting seals had settled to get his improved net.
When they finally got to it, application of the seals didn't take long. More interesting was seeing what each of them shifted into before control kicked in properly. In this case, Ino seemed to bounce between generic female forms and dresses, Sasuke between looking like various versions of his brother and various girls that looked similar to Yoko, and Kiba between an Akamaru-like dog and a Tora-like cat. Akamaru thought the latter was insulting, which the rest of them found to be hilarious.
Getting Kiba's net taken care of had been reasonably simple after that, Sasuke had gone on a second 'date' with Yoko using shapeshifting to become female and dressing up to match just to see how the fangirls reacted, and then they'd packed up for several missions out of the village to help with training. Both elemental and the beginnings of proper infiltration work.
Sakura grumbled a bit after another intense day of training under Tsunade. Sure, the legendary Sannin was an amazing medic...but she was also a slave driver pushing all of them in the program to their limits. Plus it seemed like everyone else she could get her hands on, existing medic-nin or not.
And it was so not fair that Hinata and Naruto were, somehow, helping teach. Each sent a couple of clones to help out every day, though that was likely only while they were in the village, and they were incredibly good. On Tsunade's level, even, though not quite as knowledgeable about biology and medicine as the Sannin. They had other clones working on correcting that though.
Today Naruto's clone had even regrown a foot. An entire foot. In one session. Alone. Which was bullshit, both for the skill required and how much chakra it should've taken.
Of course, that wasn't all that was going on. Sasuke had been seen on a second date with the shrine maiden, but the pictures taken were...off. Sure, the kunoichi outfit wasn't new, but...well...
Sasuke didn't look like a guy dressed like a girl in the pictures, but like a girl dressed properly. And those who had gotten the pictures swore it wasn't a genjutsu. But he wasn't a she the next day when Sakura had seen him in the hospital for one last pre-leaving-the-village check-up, even getting to examine him with medical jutsu under Hinata's watchful eyes. Which made the entire thing far too confusing. And talking to Ino about it had merely gotten giggles...at least until Sakura had pointed out that Naruto was likely more interested in Hinata than anyone else right now.
"So," Naruto said as they settled into camp for the night. "You've all been working on some of the jutsu we'll be using for infiltration work, and Kiba has been kind enough to explain how to drastically improve your sense of smell with chakra. For now we'll be working on the basics of holding a disguise and fitting in, though how we do so will vary. Ensuring that your scent and chakra don't give you away to enemy shinobi will come over time, and I'm hoping that Hoshi can help teach Akamaru some of how to handle some of that because I don't think I can."
"We've been working on it," Hoshi replied, Akamaru yipping in agreement. "Though no shapeshifting for the pup."
"Combined with that will be elemental training," Hinata explained. "All five basic elements and the beginning of elemental combinations."
"Um," Ino said, frowning. "While I know you two can combine elements, due to your changes, that doesn't mean we can."
"You'll be fine," Naruto said, grinning. "You all held the magic book long enough, after all."
"...the magic book?"
"Yep. Should make it trivial to impersonate shinobi from other villages thanks to being able to use all the elemental natures."
"I want to call bullshit on that," Kiba said. "But before the chunin exams I'd have called bullshit on actual shapeshifting too. Or killing tailed beasts."
Hinata giggled. "Yes, that can be a bit of a shock. We don't expect you three to be anywhere near our level anytime soon, but with any luck we can have you able to use all five basic elements and be able to wander around civilians without drawing any attention to the fact that you aren't a civilian. Hopefully without enemy shinobi being able to tell as well, provided Akamaru doesn't give Kiba away."
"There's a new oasis?" Temari asked, confused. She wasn't sure why her brother cared about this to the point where he appeared to have a dozen stacks of paper about it, though she supposed it could be a distraction from all the political wrangling going on.
"Several," Kankuro replied. "The most recently reported is spreading from the old kingdom of Roran, overtaking desert at a decent pace from there. Nobody knows why, or why the other nine points around the desert and eight we know of in the Land of Earth have suddenly started blossoming with life, but I have a theory. One that I don't like."
"...do you think this is somehow an attack?"
"No, my problem is with the timing of several events."
"Timing?"
"The first new oasis was spotted as a relatively small one two days after the one-tail was taken from Gaara. A couple of jounin apparently did some calculations and determined that all of them likely started spreading within forty-eight hours of then, as though the one-tail being taken released something making the desert stay desert."
"What?"
Kankuro frowned...or perhaps scowled? "I think the one-tail was killing life in the desert, and possibly tied to similar problems in the Land of Earth. I don't know how, but the locations of the blossoming life we know of...well, they trivially form a pattern that looks like a very scaled up set of roots. I can even add in a couple of other events we've heard rumors of in the Land of Lightning and the unclaimed lands to the West."
"But...that sounds like..."
"I think the tailed beasts in general were tied to something that was killing off life, and the reborn Uzushiogakure killing off two of them was a good thing for everyone. How it spread so far away from Konohagakure is another matter entirely, but there are the legends of a giant tree...and if these are a root system then it might be related to it..."
Temari recalled some of those legends, but it didn't quite add up. "But why would killing off the tailed beasts do something to the roots of the tree?"
"I don't know, and I couldn't find anything in the village archives to explain it. Just ancient legends of the 'life-giving' giant tree that half the legends claim couldn't be approached safely."
"The necklace is a what?" Naruto asked, blinking.
"An external chakra net node," his mother repeated, manifesting a display that would've induced headaches in lesser shinobi to demonstrate. Their normal 'chakra net' image, plus the necklace reaching out to a collection of nodes in it. "Specifically, one that connects all of the nodes needed for the basic wood release with the yin and yang nodes so that it can function as an automatic advanced wood release node instead of requiring managing the various chakra flows manually. We've seen enough of the wood release Anbu's net to know that he's got a grafted-on basic node that he probably isn't managing the extra flows for, which is probably what Hashirama had before he made the necklace."
"Even in your pocket it had connected to your own chakra net because you had the nodes it connects to," his father added. "But seeing how it works means that we can make other variants...and upgrade your wood release a bit by internalizing the external node. Which is what we're doing now, and may want to do to Hinata later."
A simplified version of the chakra net manifested a moment later, a version without most of the interconnection points, and then a string of fifteen different-colored beads appeared next to it. Ten of them reached out to four nodes, each combination of two of the five elements represented and all of them connecting to the yin and yang nodes. The next was brownish-green and looked like it was essentially a duplicate of the wood release necklace, but when focused on a connection to the earth/water bead lit up as well. After that was a greenish bead connected to the yin, yang, and medical chakra nodes, then another one?
"Two medical chakra beads?" Naruto asked.
"One is the improved medical chakra control," his father explained. "The other is Karin's 'bite her to heal' bit...which you should really test to see if it works on you sometime."
"Oh."
"The white bead after that is her chakra sensing, and the dark red one is chakra chains. You'd probably have trouble figuring them out with them connecting to every node they can."
That...wasn't a bad point. "So you've come up with this, but haven't constructed it yet?"
"We need some more chakra," his mother admitted. "Preferably generating it with the connections each bead needs at that. One bead at a time for the first one, and then hopefully we can use the beads to make more."
Naruto blinked a couple of times. "How many do you plan on making?"
"At least three sets," Shukaku said. "And there's a good chance that every bead is going to be worth far more than Hashirama's little trinket."
"They'll provide a good excuse for how you have access to all the elemental combinations without revealing that you don't need something external," his father added. "We're also working on duplicating the other things that were bound to you and Hinata from the tailed beasts, but they're...a lot more complicated, and seem to include things that weren't made with chakra."
"Oh."
Kiba hadn't expected infiltration training to be so intense and varied. Different ages, social classes, a collection of different basic skills to be able to play different roles. All of it came together in complicated ways, and Naruto-sensei was insanely good at it all. Hinata-sensei was also good, but visibly took a few minutes to get into a new role properly. Not that they'd had much opportunity to do most of it in the past week, but examples kept being given to them, including Naruto-sensei acting like a couple dozen different civilians and members of every major hidden village.
Now, it wasn't that they had a lot of good examples of shinobi from other hidden villages to compare to, but at the same time that wasn't necessarily the point. No, the point was to be good enough to fool civilians into believing you were from those villages, not to fool the villages themselves, and as far as Kiba could tell the disguises were spot on from that point of view. Naruto-sensei had even used clones to stage a fight between an 'Iwa' shinobi and a 'Suna' kunoichi, the latter even using a battle fan, only revealing that the two were his clones after Hinata-sensei had held the team back and quizzed them on if they should intervene or not.
Incidentally, the answer to the latter was 'no, but possibly ambush the winner, because Suna had recently spat on their alliance.' Provided by Naruto-sensei, who had done an excellent job of pretending that the clones weren't clones.
...on the other hand, while all of this was awesome in various ways, it didn't help with one question.
"How and why did you learn to act like a toddler?" Sasuke asked Naruto-sensei, currently in the guise of an at best three year old girl.
"Observing actual toddlers is the how," Hinata-sensei answered, bouncing Naruto-sensei a little to make 'her' giggle. "As for the why, well, who would expect a lone mother and her child to be responsible for a major robbery or assasination?"
That...was technically a good point, but it still seemed insane.
Naruto found it interesting how each of the genin rationalized the infiltration training. Ino understood the need to blend in and that you needed to be proficient in various basic skills to do so. In fact, she had a leg up on the other two on that front because she had experience in various aspects of running a shop due to her family's flower shop, just without having equated the 'chores' she'd had to do over the years as being a form of training. She had needed the least persuasion to learn additional 'civilian' skills as a result...and the least need for doing so, having a decent collection already.
Kiba had needed to have things explained from the point of view of hunting to properly get things, but once that was accomplished he seemed to be okay. He obviously viewed everything as allowing you to get close to your 'prey' with them not suspecting things, most directly taking to masking himself and coming around to seeing the other tasks as being a way to bluff your target into allowing you into range to make the kill.
Sasuke...had readily accepted the lessons, striving to excel at anything thrown at him, but hadn't seemed to immediately internalize the reason they were needed at first. Hinata had finally gotten through to him by having him rate the threat level of each member of a group in a village. He'd rated them all fairly low, but relatively speaking had obviously focused on visible strength and coordination. The lowest threat of the group in question had been the lone teenage girl acting as arm candy for one of the guys.
Said teenage girl had been the actual Naruto, with every other member of the group having been a clone of Hinata's. The shock of that, and what it could mean for an infiltrator, had finally caused him to see the actual point of the training.
Neji grumbled as the tailor worked on figuring out how to best handle his new tail. Most of the clan was going through with the beast-man formula for the combination of regeneration and fuck-you to anyone trying to implant stolen eyes, a much more significant deterrent to dojutsu theft than the previous seal had ever been. Of course, the results were varied, though there were trends and the medic-nin were looking for signs of being able to identify what animal any given individual would get traits from.
In his case, he had small, straight ears sticking up from his head, a short but not 'stubby' tail, and apparently thicker skin around his neck. The combination apparently best fit a guanaco source for his changes, or so the research department claimed, but they didn't know much more about the creatures. Just that a traveling circus group with a few had come from a very long way away decades ago, which might be where the original genetic sample had been obtained.
Whatever the case, so far he also had less interest in eating meat, was more steady on uneven terrain, and without chakra enhancement could spit clear across a room. He was incredibly accurate with the spit too, and idly wondered what he could do with it if he put some chakra into it...
Ino had expected the infiltration training to focus on pretending to be different people, because why would they think otherwise? Instead, the first 'sneak in and steal something' mission that Naruto-sensei had grabbed had ended up being done as animals. Specifically dogs, presumably to not exclude Akamaru, and Hoshi even got into the act. She had found it easiest to play the role of a puppy with the same ears and tail that were now on her normal body, and even amusingly relaxing to pretend to be one, so after the mission Naruto-sensei had made her a collar that would auto-size itself so that she'd look more like a pet than a wild dog when shapeshifted.
Kiba had objected, as nin-dogs didn't wear collars for a number of reasons, but she wasn't trying to pretend to be a nin-dog. Pets, which she was likely to be pretending to be, tended to have collars. They'd stopped in a village that could even engrave the tag for her, and she'd kept the front simple, just reading Ino. But when asked about the back, because information on the owner normally went there, she'd decided to give Sakura's comments about not having a chance because Naruto-sensei was obviously going to eventually be with Hinata-sensei a middle finger and had them put Naruto-sensei's information down.
She'd likely never tell him that, or anyone else, but she'd not even considered that a pet's owner information would be needed before she'd been asked and it was the first thing that came to mind at the time. Of course, she also wasn't about to tell anyone that part either, especially since she'd been wearing the collar whenever not in a guise that called for not doing so and admitting that the 'owner' information existed and had been a spur of the moment decision would be too embarrassing. Sasuke had also voiced that it made sense to be used to wearing it given that she'd also taken to napping in puppy form, making it less likely that she'd forget and have people mistake her for a stray. He preferred an older wolf form himself, but wolves generally weren't pets so wearing a collar himself wasn't really an option. And Kiba just found the idea of 'relaxing' as an animal to be weird.
Naruto was mostly happy with how training was going for their genin, though elemental manipulation was going more slowly than expected. None of them had the chakra to manage even a single paperwork clone right now and that was holding them back from the more useful training methods. At the same time, they'd stopped whining about learning to do everything without hand seals after realizing that not needing hand seals meant being able to do jutsu while disguised as animals.
Spitting out a ball of fire into a bandit's face when you'd spent the past ten minutes pretending to be a normal puppy was far, far too amusing of a trick for them to not want to be able to pull it off. That it would also allow them to look like a civilian and fire off various techniques, from obvious flashy jutsu to minor illusions, without the 'tell-tale sign of a shinobi' being involved was a bonus by comparison.
All three seemed to be picking up at least a rudimentary personality swap as well, though he didn't think it was possible to get down properly until you could have clones running different tasks at the same time. Hinata had rapidly improved once she could spam paperwork clones, at least, but chakra-building was generally a tedious process. Ino and Sasuke were also quite different than he'd expected in their preferred animal forms, with Ino falling into a playful puppy persona and Sasuke a larger, generally defensive wolf.
Kiba, by comparison, likely thought that his experimentation with female forms had gone unnoticed. Naruto wasn't exactly in a position to complain either way, but it was obvious that Akamaru thought it was stupid.
As for the nin-dog, he was coming along nicely in several areas thanks to Hoshi, but 'summon fox' and 'nin-dog' used chakra differently enough to create stumbling blocks. But at least they were closer to each other than to how humans used chakra, and Akamaru was hoping to confuse the crap out of the other nin-dogs by being able to change his scent, negate all sound of his passing, keep himself from leaving markings on the ground as he moved, and manage things like the transparency jutsu.
The communication jutsu was another matter entirely, as ideally you really needed to have both ends able to handle it to use properly so Akamaru couldn't show that off to the other nin-dogs as readily. It did make for excellent pranks and mission coordination though, and they'd used it to excellent effect a couple days ago while tricking a caravan into taking the wrong route. Those merchants would likely arrive at their destination a couple of weeks late, ruining a couple of their contracts.
Such a shame that they'd spurned shinobi guards as being a waste of money after also trying to price-gouge in Konoha.
Sasuke had wanted to learn infiltration tricks after his brother had hinted that there were some that would make hiding his animal features 'trivial'. Taking out targets without them ever knowing you were there also appealed to him in other ways...but not being known as a strong shinobi because nobody knew about your accomplishments was a downside. But nobody said that infiltration had to be all you did, and on many missions nobody had to know how you managed to kill someone anyway.
Being on record as collecting the bounty was usually enough to start building a reputation...and it was possible that nobody knowing how you did it was better than being flashy.
What he hadn't expected was to end up being taught by a pair of sensei his age that had the ability to share complete shapeshifting and all elemental bloodline skills with others. It certainly made being infiltrators while having animal features a hell of a lot easier, and the idea of pretending to be a harmless pet or infant before springing a surprise combined-elemental killing blow to someone's face was appealing. Especially after being fooled himself multiple times by Naruto-sensei pretending to be a harmless anything only to pull a killing blow out of nowhere on a bandit.
...that they apparently needed training in not giving away their intentions to manage that themselves, and that said training was 'best handled in training ground forty-four'? Well, that was...concerning. But Naruto-sensei had managed to demonstrate getting animals to trust him, even flock to him, before killing a couple for dinner. A complete and total inversion of the normal result of killing intent that even Kiba respected, even if it did take some of the 'fun' out of the hunt. Hinata-sensei couldn't pull it off to the same degree though, only being able to control things so that her enemy couldn't pick up anything of what she actually intended to do. That alone was far too useful to ignore.
It didn't quite make the sting of the truth of Yoko easier to deal with, but it provided plenty of distractions from thinking about it. Not to mention that sleeping as a large wolf was quite relaxing. Ino preferring to be a little puppy was probably tied to their animal features, but Kiba was seriously missing out by not giving it a proper chance.
- Location
- Michigan
Don't worry Ino, Naruto and/or Hinata will find out anyway soon enough, and if it's Hinata she will likely tell Naruto as well.
- Location
- Outside of the Omniverse slowly breaking in
I mean you think that they don't know already? Remind me again what kind of eyes that both Hinata and Naruto both have?
ExaltedNekoKun
Exalted Glorious Feline Light Source!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/Lord/Fuzzball
And Hanabi now gets her cat ears and tail.
... all according to keikaku...
... all according to keikaku...
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I mean you think that they don't know already? Remind me again what kind of eyes that both Hinata and Naruto both have?
Bullshit eyes, that's what. Will Ino be letting her 'relaxation' form age over time though. The family pet being an eternal puppy would be a tad odd.
- Location
- Outside of the Omniverse slowly breaking in
It's probably really good stress relief and therapy mixed in one.
Gosh, if only there was some sort of Mystical Scroll that dealt with modifying Chakra and Chakra Nets…
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
- Location
- none of your business
Thanos? because that's all I'm thinking about
That got foiled the sheer instant a certain blonde picked up a book
Yeah probably, seen a bunch of fanart of her with bunny ears
More like bound to a book that's bound to a Genin, but Dumbzo ain't know about it and probably won't for a while if ever
Dude's the Professor for a reason numbnuts
So instead of Naruto throwing out Doom Lasers of Befriending, he gets to pull off Mokuton on Hashirama's level? should be fun
So.......these things? Guanaco - Wikipedia I don't get it, I mean, did you look up a Random Animal Generator for what Neji got?
Well then, looks like someone's gonna look up Suiton in the future
And that's why you don't try to dick around with Shinobi, this one Fanfic I read had Hiruzen get Kakashi to kill a building material supplier's dog and put its head in the crib of the supplier's baby (apparently they tend to play with the head a little) after the Invasion got borked
Should be fun if KonoHana becomes a thingAnd Hanabi now gets her cat ears and tail.
... all according to keikaku...
agreed
- Location
- Hot Springs
I have to second this query. I love well-done Harems, given how freaking BULLSHIT Naruto is here it would not surprise me.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
"Probably not" on the harem question. It's just Ino getting up to creepy stalker fangirl antics, nothing unusual.
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- Location
- United States
Considering what's going on in Konoha, I just have the image of someone looking at Konoha then to Orochimaru and just saying: "Look at what you've done"
Would probably be amusing when people notice the sudden rise of Konoha ninja, especially the Hyuuga, suddenly having animal features. Let alone what civilians and the outside Konoha people must think.
Plus Danzo's thoughts on what's going on.
Also the effects on the world are being noticed with Suna gaining more oasis. Also wonder if someone might've saw the Suna and Iwa ninja who were really clones and left to notify someone only to miss the truth?
Then there's Ino and the collar. Which is a thing and feels like someone will find out whats on the back and have questions. Let alone if it's someone like her father.
Would probably be amusing when people notice the sudden rise of Konoha ninja, especially the Hyuuga, suddenly having animal features. Let alone what civilians and the outside Konoha people must think.
Plus Danzo's thoughts on what's going on.
Also the effects on the world are being noticed with Suna gaining more oasis. Also wonder if someone might've saw the Suna and Iwa ninja who were really clones and left to notify someone only to miss the truth?
Then there's Ino and the collar. Which is a thing and feels like someone will find out whats on the back and have questions. Let alone if it's someone like her father.
Tangent
Crazy-Big Ideas!
- Location
- Pensylvania, United States
And I am now picturing the role of Neji being played by Kuzco...
and the role of Kuzco being played by Neji...
Character swap?
- Location
- Spain
It's starting to feel a bit like for want of an outfit