What the Future Holds
By: Tenstar12
Chapter 1
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Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
AN: For any people who can speak and/or read Japanese, please don't criticize my grammar. I used some Japanese for the Jutsu in this fic, the ones from the show are just like they should be but the original ones are all strictly literal translations I pieced together with an English to Japanese dictionary. I did not worry about grammar or any thing like that. I just used what sounded coolest to me at the time. I will have a translation section at the end of the chapter for those who cannot even begin to translate the Jutsu names. With that out of the way, please enjoy the fic.
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It was just about time. The sun was about ten minutes from touching down on the horizon, the fateful moment was drawing ever closer. He had been preparing for this moment all week. The boy was ready, the seals had been drawn, and the appropriate time for the transfer was approaching.
Zanbifushi Hito looked at the form in front of him. It was a young boy, about 12 years old, lying on a stone slab just above waist height, dressed only in a threadbare pair of shorts, his shirt having been stripped off for the purpose of the ritual. The boy's chest and arms were almost completely covered in a large and very complex seal that centered just above where his heart was. It had taken just over a month to find and obtain this boy. He was protected by his family as well as the other members of the small village Hito had come across in his travels. Once the boy was identified, well, it was a small matter for his subordinates to infiltrate and attempt to steal the boy, but as they were making there escape, one of his ninja had attracted the attention of a watch dog just outside the building and they were forced to leave the child in order to escape with their lives.
The next day when Hito had been informed of their failure they had been severely punished and their pain and drained chakra had helped to re-energize their master as he prepared the ritual that the child was required for. In the end it had taken another two failed attempts to kidnap the child before Hito finally decided to take care of the job himself.
The old ninja smiled as he remembered the look on the face of the villagers when the old man they had been helping suddenly pulled out a katana and started decapitating them left and right before the village's small garrison of ninja showed up to attempt to stop the old Shinobi, but to no avail. They too were quickly cut down or incinerated by his katana and Jutsu. He remembered walking up to the small house and backhanding the large dog that leapt at him, knocking it into the building's brick wall. When the dog hit, the door had burst open and the boy's father had charged out and attempted to stop him, but was quickly silenced himself.
He entered the house and found the mother, holding the child to her in a vain attempt to protect him from the older ninja. Hito had attempted to grab the woman and throw her out of the way when her eyes suddenly changed and she leapt up herself and attacked him. It only took a few seconds to defeat her, but she took more of his time than any other person in that pathetic village had. Once she fell to his power the ninja used a forced sleep Jutsu on the boy and flung him over his shoulder, carrying him out of the house and back down the path of gore left in his wake when he had entered the village.
After his expedition Hito had been forced to rest for several days before he could finish preparation for his ritual, but now he was nearly complete. He could almost feel his new body and youth. The old ninja laughed silently as he began forming a series of hand seals. He finished the seals with a burst of chakra and a cry of, "Kikou Saseru no Jutsu."
When the chakra dissipated a blue ball began to emerge from the older man's forehead. Once the ball fully appeared it pulsed slightly before drifting down and fusing into the boy's forehead. He was one step closer now. With a slight grimace of pain from his ever persistent arthritis, a curse upon his weak body, Hito began another series of different hand seals, this time finishing with a smaller burst of chakra and a finger placed to the young boy's temple as he said, "Kikou Mippei Suru no Jutsu, Kohyo Suru, 'Kai'"
Hito grinned as another key fell into place before suddenly collapsing to his knees, once again cursing his frail old body, and slowly struggling to a stool that was placed near the slab table for just this purpose. So it was now, so it had been every other time Hito had switched bodies. He always had plenty of chakra, but lacked the stamina to do everything in one go. Hito became lost in his thoughts of his past "lives." He was a ninja as old as the art itself; he was one of the original Shinobi masters. He even created many of the original versions of Jutsu that were widely used today by ninja everywhere.
But as his life dwindled and his fellow pioneers into the world of Jutsu died, either through age or assassins jealous and afraid of their power, Hito began searching for a way to keep himself alive. His research led him to create his ultimate technique. It switched his soul with that of another human, as long as said human had the proper seals on them. The only problem with his method of reincarnation was that he had to transfer a copy of his old memories over to the body first in order to be able to remember anything at all. His first experience with this had been nearly disastrous before he found his own notes and figured out what was going on. In order to solve this problem he had created his memory transfer and memory sealing Jutsu. This way, he could transfer his memories and keep them from overwhelming him when he entered his new body until he was ready and spoke the release word added into the Jutsu. He had heard that since his original creation of the Jutsu, another ninja of great skill had modified it fairly recently to remove some of its downsides, but it had never interested him much. He was very satisfied with his own method of immortality, but if he ever managed to track down this Orochimaru, he would have to be sure to see how he did it before he killed the fool.
With a groan, Hito began to rise so as to be ready to complete the ritual in time to catch the sunset that he had come to love with new eyes. He had always loved watching the sunset; the sun was the only thing that he saw as being more powerful than himself, and Hito was inclined to believe that even the tailed demon lords could not match his power when he was at his peak in each life. The sun, much like he saw himself, was eternal, always there, never failing to appear every morning and to take its magnificence from our sight every night. Some might say that Hito worshiped the sun; however this was not exactly true. He simply saw it as something worth respecting and as such felt that he should show his respect by admiring its beauty whenever possible, and so his timing for his rebirth ritual was set.
As Hito reached his feet and steadied himself against the stone in front of him, he admired his newest vessel. This boy was nothing special on the surface, just an ordinary boy raised in a small village in the middle of nowhere, but the old ninja master had discovered the truth behind his family, particularly his mother's line. In this boy's genes was the potential for a bloodline ability. This particular kekkei genkai was a Dojutsu with very strange properties, and the boy's family had once been something of a legend, especially since they had been rumored to have disappeared completely, but when they were still well known, they were some of the fiercest warriors that the world had ever seen. Hito had yet to discover what exactly this kekkei genkai did, but he was anxious to find out through personal experience.
Slowly, Hito began gathering chakra to begin the two hundred seal chain that would be necessary to safely switch his soul with that of the child before him, when one of his subordinates burst through the undergrowth in the clearing that he had set up in, "Zanbifushi-sama! We have an unknown ninja approaching our perimeter!" the man cried as he broke the serenity of the scene within the clearing.
"Well then catch him you fool!" Hito shouted at his minion, fuming at the disturbance, "Don't let him reach this clearing, kill him if you must!"
"Hai Zanbifushi-sama," said his nameless underling as he Shunshined out of the clearing to deliver his master's orders.
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Hatake Kakashi was bored. Oh so very bored. Why oh why hadn't he brought another issue from his Icha Icha collection, he had already read this one five times on this one mission alone. Oh well, there was no helping it now. He was on his way back to Konoha now and should end up arriving in another day or so, but it would be a very long day without a new, or at least not recently read, copy of Icha Icha Paradise, to keep him occupied. He had been suffering his lack of entertainment so much that he had even rushed to complete his mission, making all appointments in his diplomatic mission on time in hopes of being able to get home sooner. In the end, it was all for nothing however, as it still took several weeks to complete his examination of the small village he was sent to.
Now he was traveling through the trees to deliver his report back to the Hokage. He had really hoped for some kind of action or something on this last solo mission he would have for a long while. Once he got back he would have to prepare his training schedule for the Genin team that he had been assigned to by the council of Konoha. He was not exactly happy about his situation, but he didn't have any choice, seeing as he was the only one who could train the last of the Uchiha clan to use his Sharingan. Kakashi was quickly jerked out of his musings by a small burst of chakra.
"Well, that was odd," Kakashi thought out loud, "who could be all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, maybe I should check it out." He quickly changed his course and began heading toward the small chakra flare he had sensed, slowing and dropping to the ground as he neared the source.
It wasn't long before he heard a voice coming from the trees above him, "Halt trespasser," said a man of about medium build as he dropped into Kakashi's path, "you may not pass any farther."
"And may I ask why," Kakashi drawled immediately shifting into his uninterested voice.
"Your only option in this situation is to leave," said a second ninja, dropping down from the trees to flank Kakashi from the left.
"And if you fail to comply," said a third ninja as he dropped down to flank Kakashi's right side, "you will face the consequences." Then the three of them flared their KI as high as they could in an effort to intimidate the masked ninja.
Kakashi found himself in a very difficult situation. He was having so much trouble trying to keep from laughing at their pitiful display. He had felt higher KI coming from the Daimyo's wife's cat when it was on one of its wild attempts to escape the large woman's crushing embrace. Instead, the Jonin just shook his head and said, "I really think I should investigate any kind of disturbance this close to my village."
Kakashi saw that this caused the guards to tense, obviously expecting an attack and he began to analyze his targets. The first man was the obvious leader of the trio; he was dressed in a pair of black pants with several pockets going down the legs below a kunai holster on his hip. He had a dark green vest on over a black shirt and a katana sheathed across his back. The other two were dressed similarly, but without the katana, and from what Kakashi could sense they were all three below Chunin level, nowhere near a match for the Jonin.
Just as he finished his observations the leader of the sentries drew his sword and tried to cut Kakashi in half, only to get his sword stuck in a log as his target Kawarimied away into the surrounding woods. "Do you three really think you can stop me if I want to continue?" Kakashi's voice echoed from everywhere around the three, who stood back to back in order to try to cover all angles, a foolish mistake. They failed to see Kakashi drop down from above and knock them all out with a single spinning kick.
Kakashi landed, "There is definitely something big going on around here," he mused as he continued on his former path. He soon saw a clearing ahead of him and slowed down until he came to rest in a tree at the edge of the clearing. Before him was a small boy lying on a stone table with a figure who was steadily emanating an ever increasing flow of chakra.
Kakashi uncovered his Sharingan eye to try and figure out what was going on. This had to be one of the most complex Jutsu that he had ever seen. He started moving over to the left so he could get a view of some of the hand signs being used and gasped at what he saw. The signs were almost going too fast for him to detect. This ninja must have amazing power to be able to make signs this fast and still let off this amount of chakra at the same time.
Then, Kakashi saw a hand sign he recognized. It was one commonly used as a finishing point for many forbidden Jutsu, a seal that stood for "demon". Then the man finished the seals on one that Kakashi didn't recognize and began to speak the name of the Jutsu, "Kinjutsu – Tamashii Kirikaeru no Jutsu!"
It was a forbidden style of Jutsu! And this man was using it on the boy; Kakashi could not sit by any longer.
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Hito had felt when his minions had flared their KI and stretched out his own senses to detect the intruder. When he found them it was only to be greeted with a surge of chakra as the unknown ninja had performed the Kawarimi no Jutsu and quickly taken out the three sentries. Judging by the chakra levels, Hito estimated that this ninja was at least Jonin level. At his current age and level of chakra drain, the old ninja knew that he would not stand a chance, so he did the only thing he could do: begin the final transfer, and hope he got done in time.
The Jutsu itself required an immense amount of concentration not only for the hand seals, but also for the continuous and ever increasing amount of chakra that must be expelled in order to keep the energy field in the area constant, allowing for safe travel for his soul between the two bodies. Not only that, but the two hundred some seals required for the Jutsu must be performed in under one minute, which was very hard to do for even an expert ninja like Hito.
The old master stood at his place next to the boy and began focusing chakra to his hands. He would need a large amount of chakra to increase his hand speed and reflexes enough to manage this Jutsu, and so he pumped in as much as he could spare. Once he finished this first task, he began setting his chakra flow to release the necessary amount to form his protection field and then he made the first hand sign.
He always enjoyed this particular moment, the suspense, the power flowing through him with every sign he crafted as he molded the very forces of nature to do his bidding, and grant him renewed life, well sort of. He had reached the one hundred and twenty-fifth seal in about thirty seconds when he started to relax marginally, not enough for him to lose his focus on the job at hand, but enough that he could return to his full anticipation. It was too late for the intruder to stop the process now, it would be done in a matter of seconds, and then he could deal with the interloper at his leisure.
Then he reached the final seal and let out the last of his chakra in a final burst while calling out his Jutsu, "Kinjutsu – Tamashii Kirikaeru no Jutsu!" Then he felt the power take hold and begin to detach his soul from this body, severing the ties that had been established in his most recent vessel sixty-some years ago. Suddenly, he felt something was wrong, the field of protection had been disturbed and his hands hurt. Looking down he saw red, lots of red. Blood! There was blood rushing out of his hands around an object wedged through the center of his left hand, and continuing out the other side and into his right hand piercing his final hand sign. It was a kunai. Quickly Hito cut off the rest of the Jutsu and pulled as much of his chakra as he could out of the air and back into him. He needed to get this thing out of his hands and find the intruder, for there was no doubt in his mind that the Jonin was the one who had thrown the projectile.
He jerked his right hand off of the blade and used said hand to pull it out of his left before casting it to the ground in disgust, such a simple weakling's weapon. Hito had never much cared for kunai. He then used the remainder of the chakra focused in his hands to quick-heal himself before he lost too much blood. Once he finished his task he looked off to the left and extended his senses to search for the offending Shinobi.
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Kakashi was tense. He had thrown the kunai, not expecting it to work, but the instant it had passed into the aura of chakra around the older ninja, he sensed that he had somehow stopped it, that and the fact that the thrown dagger had pierced the old man's hands, which would definitely serve as a hindrance to his fighting and sealing efforts in the future. Then as Kakashi watched the man pulled the kunai out of his hands and healed them up with seemingly very little effort. And then, with a glare on his face to match that of Tsunade when you really pissed her off, the elder ninja turned and looked right at where Kakashi was sitting, hidden in the treetops.
"I know you are there, Jonin," the old man said, "you might as well come out now, before I have to flush you out." Seeing no real choice, Kakashi stepped out into the clearing that was now turning orange in the light of the setting sun.
"Who are you and what were you doing to that boy?" Kakashi demanded, scowling behind his mask with his Sharingan eye staring unerringly at the older ninja.
"I really don't think that you are one to be asking questions, seeing as you intruded on me and interrupted an extremely complex Jutsu that I will not be able to perform again for at least a month!" the old man ended his statement with an angry shout that startled birds in the trees into flight.
"I'm really sorry," Kakashi said, scratching the back of his head, "but you see, my conscience has this nasty habit of kicking in when I see young boys having forbidden Jutsu used on them. I really just don't know what came over me."
"Well, it doesn't matter now. I have learned in my long, long life that it is better not to dwell on what cannot be changed; however, I will have to ensure that your intrusion is not allowed to be repeated," The old man said, calm once again. Then he simply waved his arm out to his side and appeared to open up a tear in the air itself. When he drew his arm out of the "hole" he was holding a simple katana.
Kakashi sank down into a fighting crouch and drew another kunai from its holster, "Don't I even get the honor of knowing the name of my opponent before we fight?"
The old master laughed, "Very well then, you have the honor of facing off against one of the original ninja. I have been on this earth ever since the discovery of chakra and the uses it could be employed for. I am one of the first pioneers into the world of Ninjutsu and Genjutsu. I am Zanbifushi Hito!"
Kakashi's eyes narrowed. He had no idea who this man was, which made him an unknown, and therefore even more dangerous. He would have to be careful, even though this guy seemed to be more than a little crazy.
"Ah, I see you recognize my name." Hito smirked, misinterpreting Kakashi's look, "now then, seeing as I went along with your request, why don't you honor me with the same."
Kakashi readied himself for the fight to come, he would have to do some research when he returned to Konoha to see if this guy was telling the truth, or, like Kakashi expected, just blowing smoke, "I am Hatake Kakashi, also known as the Copy Ninja."
Hito's eyes grew slightly wider before returning to their normal size, "Well then it is really no surprise that my sentries did not manage to stop you, is it? To think, two of the most famous, or infamous, ninja in the world here in the same place, about to join in combat with each other, this will be fun!" As Hito spoke this last bit, he charged at Kakashi with his body held almost horizontally and his sword out to his side, preparing for a swipe at the copy ninja's side.
Using his Sharingan, Kakashi was able to dodge it but only barely, "this old guy is really fast," he thought as he dodged another slash, this time aimed at his head, "maybe he really is some kind of legendary ninja, it would certainly explain his speed and skill, but how could that be? Could he really be telling the truth?" After that he was left no time to think whatsoever.
Kakashi was forced to constantly remain on guard. The Jonin's seemingly elderly opponent was moving at an incredible pace, constantly slicing with his katana in the deadly dance that he was weaving. Left, right, down, left, jump, spin, land, Kawarimi, Kakashi barely had time to react to his opponent's attack, but managed to catch a quick breath as his opponent searched for him after chopping the log he replaced himself with in half.
Kakashi used his limited time to examine his opponent's style. He knew he had seen it somewhere before, but the question was, where. He remembered something about seeing another ninja from Konoha use his katana in a similar manner. Wait! That was it, Gekko Hayate, another Konoha Nin, used a katana when he fought and trained. Kakashi had seen him train before and Hayate used a similar Kenjutsu style to that which the old man was using. Maybe he could use that style to try to predict his opponent's moves, it might just give him the advantage he needed.
"Come on out, Kakashi of Konoha," Hito called when he could not immediately locate his target, "you cannot hide from me forever."
"And I have no intention to!" shouted Kakashi as he leapt from his hiding place and charged at Hito, carefully observing his stance in order to try to predict his movements.
"You fool," Hito smirked, "You should know by now that you cannot win this way."
After that, no more was said. The only sounds were those of grunts as attacks were thrown and the sliding grate of metal striking metal when the two ninja's weapons collided. The dance of death the two were performing had only gotten faster and even more risky now that Kakashi knew something about the fighting style being used against him. As it turned out, his opponent was only using a very minor variant of the basic Kenjutsu style Hayate used, which allowed Kakashi to predict his attacks and counter-attacks with a good amount of accuracy. He could take more risks now that he knew the methods that his opponent would use to counter his advances.
Slowly, as Kakashi began to score a few minor hits on the ninja elder, the battle began to turn in his favor. As the few small wounds began to take their toll, Hito began to panic. He began to make more wild swings with his sword, eventually swinging so hard he fell off balance, giving Kakashi the opening that he had been waiting for. He dashed forward and attempted to stab the old ninja into his neck, going for an instant kill, but Hito was able to block with his katana, but still received a small cut as the deflected attack grazed his cheek before he swung his sword in a wide arc.
Kakashi silently cursed as he missed his chance to finish the battle quickly and easily. He knew that he needed to get to the boy before it was too late. He may not know what the child's condition is, but that did not mean that he could take his sweet time. But he also needed to keep his wits about him, so as to not jump in too quickly. His last attack would have finished the battle in his favor, but when it failed, he almost lost his own life. But now was not the time for more thinking. He needed to keep extra thoughts out of his mind, and, in his experience, the best way to keep from thinking too much during battle was to press your advantage, so he once again readied his kunai and re-entered the fray, attempting to keep Hito off balance, which should help to end the battle quickly.
Hito was exasperated, he should be crushing this fool with ease, but he could not. Perhaps he simply did not have enough excess chakra after his failed soul transfer to force his aged body to fight at this pace for enough time to defeat his foe. After deciding on this conclusion, he deflected another of Kakashi's kunai swipes and leapt back, imbedding his sword in the ground when he landed.
"I must say," Hito said, trying not to reveal his weakness to his opponent, "I am really very impressed. Clearly the rumors about you were true, but your time ends now!" As these words were shouted the old man began to perform hand signs. Perhaps if he could end this quickly, he could have his other minions help him get to a safe place to recover and try his soul swap again when his strength returned. With these thoughts flowing through his head, he failed to see that Kakashi was copying his moves exactly.
Then with a triumphant cry Hito shouted, "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu," and opened his mouth, exhaling a large fireball, only to realize that Kakashi had used the same technique. The twin fireballs met each other between the two ninja and exploded violently sending debris everywhere. When the smoke cleared, Hito was making more seals, which Kakashi copied, much to the surprise of the elder man.
"How is he doing this?" Hito thought, confused as he finished his Jutsu and called, "Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu," only to have Kakashi copy it yet again. As the two finished, water rose from the ground behind both of them and formed into two serpentine dragons, which then charged at each other and met the same fate as the last Jutsu the two used, and sent a light spray over the entire clearing. Then Hito heard something that only increased his annoyance. A groan, the boy was waking up.
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Kai had no idea where he was. The last thing he could remember was… actually he couldn't remember much of anything. The only thing he knew was his name, Wareta Kai. He slowly sat up and the first thing that he noticed was that he was on a very uncomfortable bed. No, scratch that, he was on a large chunk of rock in the middle of a clearing lit by the light of a sunset. The next thing that he noticed was that he was wet, very wet. And he had no idea how he got that way. Not that he had any idea about anything, but that was beside the point.
Suddenly Kai heard a shout from behind him, "Guard, restrain the boy, don't let him get away!" Kai turned to see an older guy standing about three yards away from him with another guy across the clearing facing them both. The old guy was panting heavily as he stared at the other man. He was dressed in a long robe looking outfit that was grey in color and a belt with a sword imbedded into the ground at his feet. Why would anyone put a sword in the ground, it didn't make any sense.
From what Kai could tell about the other man, he was dressed in a dark colored outfit with a dark green flak jacket. He also seemed to have a mask on over his face and a headband with a metal plate in the middle. He must be a ninja, but from what village, Kai couldn't tell. But just the fact that he knew that the headband meant that he was from a ninja village, which showed Kai that he was just missing memories of his own past, not that he knew nothing at all. Somehow, Kai didn't find this discovery very comforting.
Suddenly, the back of Kai's neck started tingling; it felt like there was something behind him. He turned around just in time to see a person dressed in dark green clothing land behind him and attempt to grab him. He just managed to duck under the man's arms only to have his foot come up and strike the boy in the chin. Kai tasted blood as his jaw was slammed shut by the other man's foot.
"Fool," the man said, as Kai fell back holding his face, "you should have just given in, it would have been easier on you." The man then reached down to grab Kai again, only to see his eyes open again, "hmm, still conscious huh?" Well I will have to fix that," the man then proceeded to beat Kai as much as possible, attempting to knock him out quickly so he could go to the aid of his master.
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All the while, Kakashi and Hito were continuing their battle, always using the same Jutsu, while Hito just got more and more frustrated, then after another round of Jutsu, ending with Katon: Karyu Endanit finally got to him, "How is this happening, it is almost like he is…"
"…Reading my mind," Kakashi said at the same time as Hito causing the older ninja to stop, wide eyed.
"H-how did you do that?" Hito stuttered, "How did you know…"
"…Exactly what I was going to say," Kakashi copied again, only serving to send Hito further still into insanity.
Hito sensed that his guard had approached the boy, so he no longer had to dwell on that problem. But there was this extremely odd opponent. He seemed to be able to read his thoughts, which would prove to make any battle difficult, but when you add in the fact that Hito was severely drained after the failed ritual, Hito knew that he was in serious trouble. The only thing he could hope for now was for his guard to subdue the boy and come to his aid, and then there may be a chance that this mind-reading ninja could be overcome.
Then Hito felt a huge chakra surge behind him. He was caught off guard and instinctively turned to see what was going on. The surge had been way too powerful for his guard to have released it, at least not all at once. But the boy's chakra was untapped, so he could not have released it, could he? Just as Hito's eyes fell on the scene before him he felt another, smaller chakra surge behind him, in the direction of his opponent. How could he have been so stupid? As these thoughts and questions flew across his mind he felt darkness engulf him as Kakashi struck him on the back of the head, sending him into unconsciousness.
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Kai was in immense pain. He had brought his arms up to protect his face, but he was sure that they were broken by now, they just hurt that much. He had never felt this much pain in his whole life, or at least he didn't think he had. He still couldn't remember anything, not that he thought that extreme pain would help in the first place.
His entire world right now was the pain that he felt, which only increased every time the guard struck him. Kai's arms were bleeding very badly from various blows and cuts struck with the ninja's fist and kunai as the man attempted to weaken him enough to force the boy into unconsciousness. Kai was beginning to black out. It would not be long now before the man achieved his goal, and both Kai and his attacker knew it.
As Kai's vision began to dim and the blackness began to creep in from the outside of his vision, he saw a light. It was a fascinating thing. Just a simple white light, how curious that a light like that would just be there. Maybe he should reach for it. But wait; there was another light in the other direction. This one was a sort of light blue color. Well now, that is certainly different. Maybe he should reach for this one instead. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea, white lights at the end of a dark tunnel were bad, he didn't know why, but white lights were always bad. But blue lights, well those he wasn't sure about. Maybe he could be the first one to discover what blue lights at the end of black tunnels meant. Yeah, that might be fun. Sure, why not, let's reach for the blue light.
As Kai slowly drifted closer and closer, the strange light began to grow and take shape. He saw a figure standing with its head down and an arm over its shoulder grasping a sword hilt. As Kai stood/floated transfixed, watching and reaching still for the blue light that was morphing before his eyes into the figure standing in front of him, it raised its head up and looked Kai in the eyes. Kai gasped at the sight before him. The eyes were pure white except for a small, black three-pointed star revolving slowly around a central point where the pupil would have been with three dots, one between each prong of the star, orbiting around the same point as the star. As Kai looked into those eyes he felt something begin to stir within himself. Kai felt warmth grow within him, filling a place he never knew existed, but it was a feeling that he knew he would never be complete without now that he had experienced it once. As he sank into the blue-light figure and absorbed its power into his being he felt strong, he felt confident, he felt….extreme pain.
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Kakashi was feeling pretty good. He was winning his battle. Sure Hito probably thought that they were equally matched, but that was only because Kakashi did not want to hurt the boy by going too far overboard. He noticed the guard attacking him, but couldn't do anything about it. Sure his opponent was weakened, but that did not mean that he was defenseless. So he would simply have to finish this quickly so that he could save the poor child.
Just as he was about to make his move he felt a great power surge that was coming from where the boy and his attacker were. At first Kakashi paled thinking that this guard of Hito's was strong enough to take out Kakashi, but then he paled even more, this time in fear and worry, when he realized that this was the raw chakra of the boy, who was lying near death, being unleashed all at once, probably for the first time.
There are two main ways that people learn to access their chakra supplies. One is that they are simply born with access to it, either through an affinity to chakra within their family line, or else through a wild card dealt to them by Kami-sama which can bring a ninja out of a family that has spent the last seven generations as simple rice farmers. Then there are those who find their chakra when they are near death and use it to save themselves. The problem with finding your power this way is that usually it happens too late in life for the individual to be able to train it to do what they wish like a ninja needs to. Most of these people simply learn control so as to keep their unrestrained chakra from destroying everything around them.
As Kakashi watched in horror the boy began to glow with blue energy as the chakra output became strong enough to create a visible field. It was not until this point that the guard realized what was happening and tried to get away but to no avail. As he prepared to leap back a tendril of chakra whipped out and struck him across the knees, causing him to crumple to the ground in a whimpering slump. At this point all was lost for the guard, and both he and Kakashi knew it. During this time, Kakashi noticed, Hito had been slowly turning in surprise to see what was causing the outburst of chakra, and the Konoha Nin saw his opening.
With a small burst of chakra to get his momentum going Kakashi dashed forward with kunai in hand toward Hito's exposed back. Just as he reached the old man, his target started to turn back to defend himself, but was just a little too slow, as Kakashi struck him on the back of the head with the butt of his kunai, sending him down in an unconscious heap. Suddenly, with a final burst of chakra even larger than the ones before, the clearing was filled with blinding blue-white light and the boy began to scream in pain as his chakra canals were quickly flooded with raw power, causing them to burn in protest at the sudden influx of energy.
When the light dimmed and Kakashi removed his protective hand from his face he was met with a scene of destruction. The stone table that they boy had been lying on was still relatively intact, except for black burn marks all over the surface. The grass near the rock was completely disintegrated, as was any other object smaller or less dense than the large rock. This included the guard that had been pummeling the boy. He was nothing more than a pile of ash now, even his metal weapons had been reduced to nothing. It wasn't that the boy was particularly powerful, above average maybe, but not exceptionally powerful, it was just that all his chakra exploded out at once. The boy was lucky to still be in once piece. Kakashi shook his head sadly; he would have a very hard life now. Almost constant training in things he could never understand, and probably never even dreamed of having to understand. Oh well, there was no sense in seeing what Kami-sama decided as being unfair. It was done, and that was all that mattered.
With a small grunt Kakashi stood back up from his defensive crouch, stepped over the unconscious but still relatively unhurt body of Hito, and picked up the limp form of the boy from the top of the table where he had once again fallen unconscious. Kakashi flung the body over his shoulder and looked back at Hito once again, memorizing his facial features for his report when he got back to Konoha.
"Maybe this trip wasn't so boring after all," Kakashi said before pulling his hitai-ate down over his forehead and quickly moving away with a chakra powered jump that brought him quickly back to his original path toward the village of Konoha. Maybe, just maybe, the boy will be able to stay alive long enough for them to get back so the medics could save his life. Maybe….. he will be lucky……….
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AN: Well I hope you liked the first chapter. I have been planning this story for a while, and I am fairly satisfied with how the first chapter turned out.
Now, here is the Chapter 1 Jutsu List:
Kikou Saseru no Jutsu: Memory Transfer Technique
Kikou Mippei Suru no Jutsu, Kohyo Suru, 'Kai': Memory Sealing Technique, Release Word, 'Kai'
Kinjutsu: Tamashii Kirikaeru no Jutsu: Forbidden Technique: Soul Transfer Technique
Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu: Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique
Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu: Water Style: Water Dragon Blast Technique
Katon: Karyu Endan: Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Missile
Kawarimi no Jutsu: Body Replacement Technique
Thanks for reading my story, please review so I can see how I'm doing.