Chapter Text
Naruto sat on his bed, his knees pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around them, his chin rested on top of his knee while his saddened ocean-blue eyes gazed at the old scroll in front of him.
The D-Rank mission was supposed to be simple. That demon cat Tora had escaped the village and their mission was to find him. Kakashi ordered him, Sasuke, and Sakura to split up to search for the little bastard.
Naruto had admittedly half-assed his search by walking slowly with his hands in his pockets and somewhat shouting Tora's name.
But then, he found a cabin.
It was a simple, one-story log cabin but it had a hole in the roof.
He had figured Tora was there and so he walked to it and his surprise, Tora was there but he wasn't alone. Tori sat by the bedside of a weak, elderly gentleman, who lay on a futon with a serene smile on his face.
Naruto was shocked to see him and rushed into the cabin to try in any way to help. "It's okay Shinobi-san…There is nothing to help this…" The man had told him with the kindest voice, Naruto had ever heard.
Sure, the Sandaime could be nice to him but he was nice to everyone in the village. This man was nice directly to him. Naruto tried to convince the man to let him take him to his Sensei but the man refused.
"I've lived a long life…When you reach my age and the time has come, you don't run from it, You face it head-on…No need to prolong the inevitable."
At hearing the conviction and acceptance in his voice, Naruto stopped trying to convince him after that. "Well…If you're sure Oji-san," Naruto had told him. "I however will stay here. I don't know what I could do but leaving after knowing you're going to die feels wrong to me…"
The man opened his eyes and Naruto was rewarded by a gaze that warmed his soul. The older man's gray eyes reminded Naruto of a clouded sky. "You are a strange young man, wasting his time with this old soul but I do thank you," he had told Naruto.
"If you can…Are you able to tell me about yourself?" Naruto asked.
"I'm just a wandering soul in this world. Always had been…All of my life, I searched to find a powerful opponent to hone my skills to perfect my Taijutsu," The man had replied. "I did once…He was fast and he had blonde hair and blue eyes similar to your own…It was a glorious battle that left me beaten. After my defeat, I decided to continue traveling until I came upon his home village of Konoha."
"Why didn't you stay in my village?" Naruto questioned but the man chuckled at his response.
"I went there for the sole purpose of issuing a rematch to the man but I found that he had passed away. Sacrificed his life to protect that village. He was a good man and I decided to remain on the outskirts to protect this land from any thieves or any other ill-intention folk," The man answered.
Naruto smiled at this and glanced around. Other than the large, beaten-up sack that sat in the corner, It had looked so barren and lifeless that Naruto couldn't stop himself and asked "You lived here this entire time right? Why no pictures of your friends or family?"
"There is no need. All of the precious memories I hold are all in my heart," The man replied as he reached up and weakly tapped his chest. The man suddenly began to cough violently, which caused Naruto to look at him with concern.
The man then looked up and asked "That concern…Is that for me child?" He then let out a weak chuckle. "Your eyes. So filled with compassion for a man you've seen once. They remind of his…" The man then coughed again as Tora meowed.
The man reached out and gave Tora a pet as he told him "This little fella has been my companion for a few months. I rarely see him but when I do, I often give him a treat. There is fish over in that bucket. Do you mind child?"
Naruto had gotten the fist and placed it in front of Tora, who began to eat. "I can tell by your headband that you are a shinobi…Tell me, why did you become one?"
"I want people to acknowledge me," Naruto had told him sadly. "All my life I had been ignored and pushed aside for something outside of my control…"
The man smiled at him and replied softly "While that is a noble goal, you shouldn't use that as the sole reason."
Naruto was confused. His goal was noble but he shouldn't use that as the reason for him to become a shinobi. The man shut his eyes and his breathing had started to slow down slightly. "I may have spent my life as a wanderer honing my craft but I also used my skills to protect those weaker than myself."
The man had coughed again. "A-And while trying to carve your name into the hearts of others to have them see your worth is noble…The true noble path is to protect those less fortunate than yourself and those that you care for…"
Naruto saw that the man's breathing was getting shallow and the light in his eyes was dimming. "Oji-san?!" Naruto exclaimed in a panic.
The man didn't hesitate to smile. "It's almost time…Tell me, child, what is your name?" He softly asked.
"Uzumaki Naruto…" Naruto answered softly, his eyes welling up.
The man slowly pointed to a scroll at the corner of the lodge. "Inside that sack is my training Gi and a scroll. That scroll holds the Taijutsu style that my Master trained me in so long ago…It taught me not only how to fight but how to protect as well…I want you to have it…"
"I-I can't accept that…" Naruto told him somberly.
"I see a good heart in you Uzumaki Naruto," The man told him softly as he placed a hand on his head. "And that is the heart that I can trust with my most prized possession…." The old man offered one last smile as he murmured "So take it, young man…As a thank you for granting an old man the chance to speak to a pure-hearted soul on his final day…And use it to protect…those that truly…neee…d…i…t."
And it was then he took his last breath and departed from the land of the living.
Naruto remembered feeling as if someone had punched him in the chest when the man had stopped talking to him. With tears streaming down his face, Naruto summoned two clones and dug a grave for him beside his lodge.
He carried the old man and buried him before he placed two sticks and tied them together into a makeshift cross and stabbed it on the mound of dirt before he broke down and sobbed, all while Tora meowed sadly beside him.
Soon, Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura found him and Tora at the grave. Tora hadn't resisted when Sakura had grabbed him and Naruto didn't resist in telling Kakashi what had occurred.
Kakashi allowed him to take the beat-up sack with him as he returned to Konoha and after completing the mission, Naruto went home, took out the scroll, and sat on his bed, where he remained since.
Naruto couldn't beat the sadness that weighed in his chest at the man's passing but Naruto knew that once it passed.
He would learn what the scroll held and he would use it to protect.
And he would never go back on his word because that was his shinobi way.
But as he stared at the scroll, Naruto became puzzled.
He held the open scroll in his hand but it didn't detail anything.
All it had was a single passage
"To become a practitioner of the Ansatsuken, you must first draw out the power from within yourself…."
Curiously, Naruto narrowed his eyes.
Did they mean chakra?
No, that couldn't be. Otherwise, it would have just said chakra…
He scanned the scroll to see if there was a follow-up to his odd statement until he found the passage.
"To use the Ansatsuken to its fullest extent. You must find and connect with the Mu no Ken - Power of Nothingness within you…."
The Power of Nothingness?
Naruto found the name bizarre but he continued to read on.
"The Power of Nothingness is a state of consciousness transcending ordinary perspective, born through spiritual and mental refinement.
It is the power to act without being attached to emotions and thought, free of fear, anger, pride, and ego, to draw upon the contents of one's heart intuitively without obstacle and hesitation, and to be aware of the world and to know one's place and meaning within its vastness, to flow with all of creation without the need of worry, desire, and doubt…."
"To find the connection to the Mu no Ken, you must achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state and find the opening within your soul. Only then will your training to master the Ansatsuken begin,"
Naruto finished and beneath the passage, he saw an image of a humanoid in the meditative lotus position.
Naruto grimaced.
He was taught in class that meditation was a helpful tool when working on chakra control and was taught how to perform this but Naruto knew himself well enough that sitting around was no good for him so he always faked it.
Meditating was such a waste of ti-
"I see a good heart in you Uzumaki Naruto," The man told him softly as he placed a hand on his head. "And that is a heart that I can trust with my most prized possession…." The old man offered one last smile.
It was that image that stopped Naruto's complaints immediately.
"No, I made an oath," Naruto told himself softly. "I swore that I would learn what the scroll held and that I would use the contents within to protect. And if meditating is going to help that then fuck it, I will do it."
With that determined feeling, Naruto nodded and mimicked the image's posture and form and shut his eyes. He had to clear his mind and enter an emotional and mental calming state.
'Breathe in….Breathe out….Slow and steady….Allow the world to melt away,' Naruto thought to himself repeatedly, his voice calm and soothing to his ears. He didn't know when or how but soon, he slowly stopped the slow mantra and felt the world around him begin to fade away.
Naruto didn't know how long he had sat there in that spot but when he finally opened his eyes slowly, he found himself not in his room, but in a vast shallow lake bed that seemed to stretch out into the horizon.
As he looked ahead, he could see that there were mountains in the distance. Naruto looked up and saw that it was night and the sky was littered with visible stars with the Milky Way stretching across it.
It was beautiful.
Naruto sat there in the shallow water to just bask in the beautiful surroundings that he found himself in but it was then that the water beneath him began to glow an ethereal sky-blue color. Particles of light began to slowly float from the water and into the air around him as he looked around in amazement.
He slowly reached forward and touched a particle with his index finger, where it shattered into shimmering light that spread apart briefly before it flew into his fingertip. "What is this place?" Naruto asked himself.
Suddenly, the orbs stopped floating and remained in the air, which startled Naruto. The orbs began to fly to a spot above the lake bed where they coalesced into a singular medium-sized sky-blue orb that seemed to hum a gentle white light around it.
Naruto walked towards the orb and began to reach out towards it but he paused and reared his hand back. Was he to touch it? What if this was a test or a trick of some type? And yet, he didn't feel any sort of malevolence from this odd orb. Strangely enough, he felt peace ebbing from it.
Naruto reached forwards towards the orb but the moment he did, he heard something from behind him. Naruto turned around as another orb appeared but this one was made from a dark inky substance.
Naruto felt a huge amount of e coming from it as the inky substance began to take on a humanoid shape. Once the shape was formed, Naruto watched as a body formed around it from the feet up but as it did, his eyes grew large as he recognized the shape as himself.
But when he looked into the blood-red eyes of his doppelgänger, he saw a darkness in them that terrified him. "Surprised to see me?" The dark mirror questioned with a smirk of malice. "You shouldn't be, after all for I am a shadow... The true self..." the dark shade said as he spread his arms with his smirk widening to reveal his sharpened teeth.
"Why are you here?" Naruto firmly asked.
"Why? A pretty dumb question, don't you think?" his mirror asked. "You are a sucker, aren't you? That scroll has so much power and yet you cling to an old man's words? And for what? Because he looked at you with kindness?"
Naruto narrowed his eyes at the disrespectful tone.
"Tch, if he knew that we held the Kyūbi, you wouldn't be doing this because he wouldn't have given us the time of day!" The echo exclaimed.
"That's not true," Naruto said strongly. "He saw the good in me. Much more than anyone else ever did…"
The doppelgänger laughed and replied, "At least you aren't stupid enough to ignore what Konoha has done to us."
"Who could?" Naruto asked softly as he looked away from his dark mirror and to the orb itself and through the reflection, he saw sadness in his eyes. "I'm not stupid you know? While I am surprised at the fact that you are here, I'm not surprised at your existence nor am I not surprised at the hate that radiates off of you. Because you're right. You're a part of me…"
"You admit it freely…A nice change of pace from the depressed mess you usually are behind closed doors," The Dark Echo said to him with an impressed air. "But that doesn't change the fact that we are trying to gain this power to protect these people. The ones that have ostracized and despised us for something we had no control over!"
Naruto remained quiet, allowing the twisted version of himself to speak.
"This power should be used for our vengeance! Revenge for our lost childhood! For our lost innocence! For all that we've suffered though! Don't you think we've earned that?! Don't you think we've earned the right to take what they took from us?!" The doppelgänger raged.
"No," Naruto told his darkened self as he turned back to him. "You only see the evil this village has but there is good in it. I know there is and it's that goodness that I will protect…."
Naruto paused to turn back to the orb. "Just because I have this hate, doesn't mean I will let it control or hinder me from doing what is right," and with those words, he grasped the orb, which caused a bright light to fill the area. Naruto finished as the light enveloped him.
But in that light, he heard a snarl filled with hate. "You are a fool…" His doppelgänger seethed out. "Do you will but the moment this village lets you down, I will be there and I will do what you are too cowardly to do."
Naruto opened his eyes and found himself back in bed, his body still in the lotus position and the scroll on the bed before him.
Naruto glanced at his hands then closed and opened the right one. He then looked at the mirror that hung from his bedroom door and glanced at himself.
While he didn't look different, he felt different…
How strange.
Had he done something wrong when he went to that strange plane? Should he try going there again?
Naruto then glanced at the scroll.
Maybe he had missed an important step or something.
He glanced through the scroll for any sort of clue or passage but then he noticed something. There were new words in glowing pale blue light.
Words that weren't there before.
Every punch, kick, throw, and move he had never seen was now printed in the scroll in vast detail where before, there was nothing but blank paper.
Not only that, there were variations to them from beginner to master. Despite being book-dumb, Naruto could easily tell which variation was what, and as much as Naruto wanted to throw himself into the deep end, he owed it to the kind old man to take this seriously.
"Ansatsuken – The Art of the Assassination Fist," Naruto said successfully as he observed the images imprinted in the scroll that held each move of the Taijutsu.
Which meant to start from the very beginning.
And the beginning was the "Hatchling" style of the Ansatsuken.
Hyūga Hinata was an early bird like her mother before her.
She always found it nice to stretch out her limbs while her clan, and by extension, her village, slept. She had just turned the corner and was jogging past Team 7's training grounds when she heard the sounds of combat.
She ducked behind a tree and saw Uzumaki Naruto and a bunch of clones. They were all practicing Katas. But what confused her was that these katas were from a Taijutsu she had never seen before. She narrowed her eyes and watched as Naruto motioned for a clone to walk to him and they began to fight.
While Hinata had seen Naruto fight before, something was different. His moves, while still sloppy, looked to be vastly improved from the last time she saw him in a spar but unlike before, there was confidence behind his movements that wasn't there before.
She watched as Naruto ducked under a roundhouse punch, grabbed the clone by the jacket, quickly fell to his back, and flipped the clone over his head with an added push from his leg, which sent the clone overhead and down to the ground in front of him.
She saw that Naruto was a little proud of himself and it made her proud of him.
Naruto got back onto his feet as the clone followed suit and immediately aimed a somewhat crisp kick to the clone's calf before he followed up with a kick to the mid-section before he suddenly rushed forward and pushed himself forward off the ground and shouted "Shoryuken!"
Hinata saw a flash of ethereal blue light flash around Naruto quickly as he delivered a body blow and then an uppercut with both arms extended which carried both himself and the clone off the ground but his body spun a single full rotation, which caused the other fist to add onto the blow before he delivered an angled straight jab to the clone's face, which sent it to the ground.
Naruto landed on the ground as the clone dispersed into smoke. She saw that he was displeased by what occurred but like the determined person he was, he summoned another clone and continued.
Hinata had gone for a jog that morning but she soon found herself watching Naruto as he trained in this odd style, silently sending her support to her blond-haired crush until she had to leave to prepare for training.