Chapter 101: Chapter 101: Naruto 15
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" An orange haired man wearing a long plain black cloak asked the much taller man next to him as they walked along a road leading to the village of Ame. "I mean, maybe we should write a letter first, you know? It has been a while since I died."
Carl looked down at the man he had resurrected recently and shook his head when he saw the nervous look on his face and in his body language.
"Why? Afraid they're going to beat you to death for getting killed before them?" Carl laughed even more when Yahiko pouted up at him. He was in his dinosaur human body, so he towered over the normal sized man next to him.
"Yeah, probably…" Yahiko mumbled to himself, though Carl heard him just fine. "I mean, the way I…died, probably left a few…issues behind with Konan and Nagato."
"How did it happen, then?" Carl asked. While he had enjoyed the Naruto cartoon in his original life, he hadn't watched everything that was made. So he knew that Yahiko had died somehow to save Nagato and Konan, and that Nagato had somehow gotten the Rinnegan eyes. He then used his Rinnegan eyes to become Pain, the leader of Akatsuki with various bodies under his puppet control. But there were a lot of things he just didn't know how they happened. And of course this wasn't the canon world, so everything might be different here.
"Hanzo had us trapped. He had somehow grabbed Konan. She's…special to me. Actually, she's special to both me and Nagato. So I couldn't let Hanzo kill her. But what he did was even more cruel. Hanzo told Nagato to kill me or else he would kill Konan. I could immediately see that the choice would tear Nagato apart. If he had to actually make the decision between me or Konan, no matter what he chose, he would be broken afterwards. So I took the choice from him and impaled myself on his kunai."
Carl saw there were unshed tears in Yahiko's eyes and sighed a bit. That was a messed up situation.
"So that's why I said it was probably a better idea to send a letter or something first. Cause seeing me show up like this will be a huge shock to them." Yahiko scrubbed at his eyes, not wanting to let the tears fall.
"Yeah, I can see that. But there's no way that a letter could convince them. It would just sound like a trap to them." Carl countered.
"We have code words that I can include, so it's not that bad of an idea." Yahiko argued. "It's still not too late to send them a letter first!"
"Actually, it is too late." Carl stated as he looked around without seeming to. Byakugan 360 ftw!
"The large stranger is right. It's too late to depart, now that you've come this far." An average sized man in standard ninja gear was standing off to their right and slightly behind them.
Carl could sense three more chakra signatures encircling them. They were average jonin sized chakra signatures, so it wasn't something he was too worried about, though Yahiko gulped in nervousness. He was pretty sure Yahiko was more nervous about suddenly confronting his friends than he was about being encircled by ninjas from Ame, since the both of them were far stronger than the jonin class ninja surrounding them.
"We're here to meet with your leader." Carl turned his head and looked directly at the ninja who talked to them earlier. "Whatever he's calling himself now. Nagato or Pain or whatever. Why don't you escort us there?"
After Yahiko died, Nagato had broken quite a bit. He had been injured severely by Hanzo and was paralyzed. So he started really utilizing the Rinnegan eyes to their maximum potential.
The Rinnegan eyes are grey and have several black concentric circles covering the eyeball. They have several strong powers, being able to see chakra and its flow through the body, as well as seeing otherwise invisible barriers.
They give the user access to the Six Paths Technique. The first path, the Deva path, gives them control over attractive and repulsive techniques. The Asura path allows one to mechanically alter the human body. The Human path allows extracting souls from a body, and playing with those souls in many ways. The Animal path allows summoning various animals. The Preta path allows for the absorbing of chakra. Access to the King of Hell is through the Naraka path.
The King of Hell can capture someone and the user can ask a question. If they lie, their soul will be ripped from their body and swallowed. The King of Hell can also be used to store souls and bodies for later revival with the Human path.
Using the various abilities of his Rinnegan eyes, especially puppeting corpses through the Asura path, Nagato and Konan were able to kill Hanzo and become the rulers of Ame. Which is why Carl and Yahiko were on their way to Ame now, to meet his old friends.
"You're not worthy to meet with our leader. I think we should just kill you where you stand." The ninja that confronted them stated with a sneer.
Carl sighed and visibly rolled his eyes.
"Heaven help us, another arrogant idiot blocks the path." Carl muttered as he stared at the sky. He then turned his gaze back down to said idiot. "Listen, I'm going to do you a favor and not mention what you just said to Nagato or Konan. Because if they heard that you threatened to kill their friend, your life won't be worth spit. So just take us to them now before I lose my temper."
"Uh, Carl? Are you sure that's the right way to deal with this? I mean, you could have been more diplomatic, right? I mean, it's not like they know I'm alive again, so yelling at people about it is…" Yahiko asked while watching in fascination as the Ame ninja's face grew progressively redder as he felt his dignity was offended.
"Eh, the idiot never even asked us what business we had with his boss, or if we were diplomatic envoys, or any other number of questions to ascertain our status. He just jumped straight to wanting to murder us. He's a disgrace as a ninja, and he's liable to bring your friends more trouble than his pitiful skills will compensate for." Carl didn't feel like beating around the bush and continued to bluntly bash the ninja.
Right when it looked like the ninja was going to explode and charge them to fight to the death, he was startled when a projectile from the woods nearly hit him in the head before he caught it. Looking in his hand, he saw it was an official scroll from his leader's office.
Quickly unrolling it, the Ame ninja blanched at what he saw written down.
"Uh, honorable guests, come this way, please?" He changed his arrogant tone incredibly quickly as he deferentially guided them into Ame village.
Carl followed along as they walked through the village in the land of Storms. He liked what he saw of the village. Since it rained quite a lot in this country most of the buildings were made out of stone and there were channels everywhere to control the runoff water so it didn't flood. It looked quite efficient and beautiful.
It wasn't currently raining, but it had been all morning. So there was still plenty of moisture on all the surfaces in the village, dripping and following the carven stone pathway.
Eventually they arrived at a large building that looked to be built into the side of the mountain. After entering, Carl saw that the ceiling was at least thirty feet high. They were brought directly through large double doors that led into what looked like a throne room.
On the dais was a sickly looking redheaded man sitting on a throne with several black metal poles sticking out of his back. Next to him stood a woman with short blue hair, grey eyes, and a paper flower in her hair. She was dressed in a black cloak with red clouds that were outlined in white.
"Yahiko?" The woman, Konan, whispered as soon as she saw Carl's travel companion. Tears collected and fell from her eyes, but she didn't move closer.
"Hey there Konan. You're looking even foxier than you used to." Yahiko cheerfully said with a wink.
"Idiot perv! Why did you have to pick up those character traits from Jiraiya?!" Konan shouted with a blush, indicating that despite her words she actually appreciated the compliment, at least coming from him.
"Hey, Nagato. You look like shit!" Yahiko then exclaimed.
"Explain." Nagato stated with no emotions or inflection in his voice. "How is it you're alive? I can feel your soul, so I know you're alive and not a puppet. And yet, your body is still…"
"Yeah, that's all due to Carl, here." Yahiko stated while scratching the back of his head. "Basically he did a technique that summoned my soul back from the next life and put me into a clone of myself. A bit of medical magic, and I'm good as new. Gotta say, you got some nice digs here! We could totally turn it into a sweet jacuzi…have some hotties over…"
"So, what do you want now?" Nagato stated with narrowed eyes, his rage rising.
"Nagato!" Konan sternly rebuked him for being so standoffish with their friend.
"Eh, well. I guess I deserve some of that attitude for leaving you two how I did." Yahiko admitted while looking sad. "And…I'm not really looking to take over from you or anything. I just want to rejoin my friends. Especially now that I see how sexy Konan looks over there."
Konan blushed again while muttering something about hot orange haired pervs getting away with what she wouldn't let anyone else do.
"And what does this Carl expect in payment for bringing you back to us?" Nagato asked next. Konan didn't rebuke him, since she too wanted to know what Carl's angle was.
Carl smiled at the two suspicious ninja friends of Yahiko. He opened his mouth to say something, but then paused. He raised his finger in a "wait one moment" gesture.
Raising his right foot slowly, Carl paused while the three other ninja in the room looked confused. He pressed off with his left foot and propelled himself swiftly back and to the right. As he was coming down from his leap, his right foot smashed a particular place in the ground, Seal script exploding out from his foot.
Yahiko and Konan by now were in ready stances, cautious of an attack and ready to fight. Nagato had summoned the six puppets that he was controlling from where they had waited in the next room, including Yahiko's old body that was now a corpse. The six bodies stood in between Carl and the three friends.
"Ah ha! It has been a devil of a time tracking you down!" Carl exclaimed as he moved his right foot off of where he landed. He raised his right hand waist high over the area where his right foot had landed and grabbed what looked like air with his hand. Pulling his hand up, he raised up the thing he had captured.
A completely black figure that was vaguely humanoid shaped with round brown eyes that stared hatefully at Carl was yanked up from the floor. It was tangled up and caged by the seal script that Carl had sent into the ground with his stomp.
"Zetsu?" Nagato asked, confused about why it would be here. "What are you doing here spying on us?"
Carl kept the silencing aspects of his seal work intact. He had no desire to listen to whatever tempting words Zetsu would try to use to wriggle out of his predicament.
"This thing is actually what I was going to ask as payment for helping your friend. Or at least your help in capturing it." Carl casually stated.
"And just why do you want Zetsu?" Nagato asked while Konan and Yahiko looked quite interested in the answer.
"Well, to answer that I need to briefly go over some ancient history. It all started with Princess Kaguya Otsutsuki and a tree." While he was talking Carl set up a more permanent jail cell inside a gourd for the amorphous Zetsu creature and stuffed it into the gourd, putting a cork on it. Thankfully none of the three protested his actions.
"The tree was known as a God Tree, a massive tree that over millennium absorbed the blood spilled in the human's war. It's fruit grew larger and larger as more blood was spilled. After a long time, it bore a single fruit."
"In that time there was a princess named Kaguya Otsutsuki who came to our planet. She fell in love with the emperor of the country that housed the tree at the time. The country's name was the Land of Ancestors, and the man she marries was named Tenji."
"Kaguya became pregnant with twins. In those days there was a larger country that threatened war with Tenji's country. In order to prevent the outbreak of war, Tenji ordered that anyone who attacked anyone from the 'Land of That' would be put to death. The representatives from the 'Land of That' tried to harm Princess Kaguya, so she defended herself by killing them. As a result she was hunted by her own lover's men. They wanted to sacrifice her for peace."
"She grew disillusioned with humanity from the betrayal of her lover. She longed for peace where she could raise her children. So she defied the taboo of her clan to gain the power to control her fate and ate the fruit from the God Tree. She awakened a powerful dojutsu and became the first person to possess chakra. She used a powerful illusion, the Infinite Tsukuyomi on the humans of the country that betrayed her. She turned them into White Zetsu. Plant-like humanoids that I'm sure you've seen before, having dealt with Black Zetsu. The White Zetsu were like puppets under her control."
"She gave birth to her twin sons, Hagoromo and Hamura, and she gave them the ability to use chakra as well. She ruled the land with her great powers, often being cruel to the humans who betrayed her. Hagoromo and Hamura, after many years of trying to convince her to abandon her cruel ways, felt that the only way to allow humanity to live and regain its freedom once more was to seal up their mother, Kaguya. To seal her away so that humans could live."
"Before she was sealed, she manifested a portion of her will filled with the anger, hate, cruelty, and sense of betrayal. The will of Kaguya would work for many years, struggling to one day free his "mother". That will was named Black Zetsu. And the plan to capture all the Tailed beasts and combine them into one was a plan Zetsu had laid to free Kaguya from her prison and put all of humanity into an infinite illusion, never to be free again."
Carl finished his tale. He wasn't positive if everything he said was true in this world, but with the presence of Zetsu and seeing that Nagato was in his "I am the God Pain" phase, he was sure it was about 90% accurate.
Seeing the shocked faces on Konana and Nagato, Carl knew that they were quite shocked at the idea that they were simply pawns in a centuries long plan to free Kaguya from her prison.
"Well, so much for that plan." Nagato abandoned the plan that had been guiding the Akatsuki after they had freed Ame from Hanzo. "What are you going to do with Zetsu, then?" After they spent some time processing the information, Nagato once more asked questions about his plans and intentions.
"Before I get to that, let me ask you, Nagato. Do you want to be healed and be able to walk again?" Carl threw out there. Judging from the look on Nagato's face, the answer was obvious that he did. But he was wary of Carl's good will and what he would want in payment.
"Look, I'm not going to ask for payment or try to screw you over or anything." Carl rolled his eyes. "If it makes you feel better to pay me back you can let my Silver Flight Trade Consortium do business in your village. That will allow me to get richer and make more contacts around the land." Carl threw out something that he thought would make the cautious man feel better about the deal.
He didn't really care about getting richer by this point because he already had ungodly amounts of money and he had his ever expanding farms that constantly made more goods for him. So he really didn't need anything more. But if it made Nagato feel better if he thought he was giving Carl something he wanted, then so be it.
"Nagato, don't be an idiot. Accept the healing!" Konan hissed while angrily glaring at the crippled redhead. "I swear, if you don't, I'm going to give you one hundred papercuts every day until you do!"
"Fine!" Nagato almost shouted. "Fine. I'll accept your healing." He said in a more normal tone of voice.
Less than half an hour later, Carl had fixed the damage to his spine, pulled out all those chakra rods that let him connect with his puppets and healed that damage too.
"You'll have to slowly build back up your physical conditioning, but as of right now you're clear of damage and sickness." Carl announced to Nagato. He then turned to Yahiko and Konan, "Be sure he gets plenty of food and rest. And if you want to meet others from your Uzumaki clan, you can come visit New Uzushio whenever."
"Thank you so much, Carl." Yahiko thanked him when he was about to leave the three friends to catch up with each other.
"Yes, thank you." Konan had a sweet smile, now that her friend and lover(?) was back. Carl would later find out that the three of them, Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato were in a triad relationship. Without Yahiko, her and Nagato's relationship had fallen apart in the face of Nagato's obsessions and Konan's pain. Carl would learn later that the three were back together again and ruling Ame as a council.
"I will visit-" Nagato cut himself off at the look Konan was giving him. "We will visit your village some time soon. And you can send your trade consortium people here. We'll welcome them with open arms."
"Thanks guys. See you around." Carl left the village before teleporting away.
The capture of Zetsu and the subsequent final death of Madara Uchiha was almost anti-climatic.
There was a cave in between the Land of Wind and the Land of Storms where the previous God Tree had been where the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was located.
There had been some serious magical-chakra shenanigans going on way back when, because the Ten Tails beast had been the combined form of Kaguya and the God Tree. She had merged with it in an attempt to gain enough power to rip the chakra from her twin sons who were seeking to stop her.
To stop the Ten Tails rampage, Hagoromo had sealed the best inside him, becoming the first Jinchuriki. Then there was something about how the body of the ten tails was sealed up in the moon, but the Demonic Statue was a husk of the Ten Tails body that was summoned from the moon by Madara's Rinnegan eye.
Yeah, the whole thing was pretty confusing.
So back in the third ninja world war, Madara had been close to death when he found a young Uchiha near death on the battlefield. With Zetsu's help he had repaired the Uchiha's body with the plant based life form of White Zetsu and then taken over the young Uchiha's body and continued his life and plan.
Carl had picked up this information from scanning Black Zetsu's memories. So he used one of the White Zetsu that he had previously captured in the same ritual that he had used to end Orochimaru.
Fifteen minutes later, and all the White Zetsu of the world, including the part that was sustaining Madara's life, was sucked into the ritual circle, cleansed, and put into a Potentia battery.
Carl only briefly considered the idea of bringing Kaguya back and seeing if she was amenable to not being murderous and cruel, but quickly decided not to mess with it. He then used black Zetsu as the medium in the ritual to suck up all that was Kaguya into his ritual.
He saw that her spirit was being cleansed of all the taint of anger, hatred, and the pain of betrayal. Her spirit then passed on to next life.
"Hopefully you have a more peaceful afterlife or next life or whatever, Kaguya." Carl briefly said before he moved on.
He considered using the demonic statue thing as a medium for the ritual to suck up the nine tailed beasts and cleanse them, but Carl decide that he would talk to the tailed beasts themselves before he did that. He wasn't sure if this was a world where they were reasonable beings or if it was one where they were demonic beings of hate and rage and would never change.
Until he had an answer to that he wasn't going to end their existence. He would go into Naruko's mindscape at some point and talk to the Nine Tails and see if he or she or whatever had any redeeming qualities. Then he would make his decision.
Time passed by and it was the beginning of their last year at the academy. At the end of the year Carl and all his friends would all be 12, they would graduate and become genin, and get their jonin sensei.
The first day of class, like usual, the Hokage visited to give a short speech.
Ever since Naruko had been reunited with her parents, she had gained a new level of confidence and assertiveness in her life. It was one thing to have Carl and his family welcome her into their lives, and she still loved them for doing so.
But it was another matter to actually have her parents in her life that loved her, stuck up for her, and encouraged her to do her best on a daily basis. Having that in her life filled a void that had always been lacking.
Carl had actually debated about bringing Sasuke's mother back to have her take care of the emo boy. Sasuke's father Fugaku had been one of the driving forces behind their coup de'tat plans, so there was no way that Carl would bring him back except to rub his nose in the fact that he was an idiot. But before he made the decision to bring back Mikoto, Sasuke had been replaced by some random dude from another earth, so he decided not to bring back Mikoto for someone who wasn't her son.
Carl was standing with his family, Hiashi, Himari, Hinata, Hanabi, and their little sister Hayami who was only two years old now. Carl had been amused to see that Hiashi had another daughter. If it wasn't for his presence, poor Hiashi wouldn't ever have a son, apparently.
Hanabi was fidgeting quite a bit during the usual speech by Minato about the Will of Fire that guided Konoha. She would be starting her first year of the Academy in another year, and she was pretty impatient to get started. She couldn't believe she had to wait another year!
Next to their family stood Naruko with her mother and her one year old brother, Naruto.
It really amused Carl that they decided to name their boy Naruto. He would have expected them to name him something different, like Menma or something. The little boy Naruto had red hair like his mother, rather than the blonde of his father and sister. Naruko had been so excited when she found out she was going to be a big sister. It was funny to see her dote on her little brother.
Eventually the ceremony ended, and Carl joined his classmates in their class for the last year of Academy.
He was pretty impressed overall with the change of curriculum over the past two years. They were doing a lot more practical work to ensure that everyone was at the level they should be by the time they graduated, namely genin levels of physical and combat ability.
Aside from the three civilian born kids that had made friends with Carl early on, namely Nobodon, Junirio, and Yamiko, the rest of the civilians had dropped out or dropped back a year over the past two years. They did have one addition to the class last year, a boy who liked to paint named Saionji.
Saionji had a bit of trouble fitting in at first, not being able to pick up on social cues very well. Based on his looks and social problems and the fact that he liked to paint and could bring his paintings to life with his chakra, Carl assumed he was the boy that in the original work would have been known simply as Sai.
By this point in time Danzo had all his ROOT members recalled from whatever missions they had been doing around the land and had them report to reeducation training. Carl had created a sealing array done in permanent chakra metal for the Hokage to use to remove all the seal brands on the ROOT agent's tongues so they could actually talk about whatever they had been doing.
The Yamanaka clan had been busy over the past few years working on their mental health to try to reintegrate the former ROOT members back into the social fabric of Konoha, as well as the ninja forces. It really was criminal what Danzo had done with his forces, using them up like they were worthless tools.
And now that Danzo didn't have any purpose in recalling his ROOT forces, he just sat at home most of the time, or took some walks around, watching all the things he couldn't be a part of. He couldn't talk to anyone except for the most basic greetings and transactions like buying food and toiletries.
It must be driving Danzo crazy to no longer be a part of the power structure. Not being in charge, not having an intel feed into what was going on around the country. Not being able to make decisions for others and order them around. Carl grinned anytime he thought about how much the peaceful life was driving a war hawk like Danzo crazy.
"Kiba! It looks like you got your nin animal companion." Carl called out after sitting in his spot. "Introduce us!"
"This here is Akamaru!" Kiba grinned proudly as he pointed to the small white puppy that was sitting on his head. "We're gonna be the best team and the strongest pair of Inuzuka around!" Akamaru barked in agreement.
"Nice to meet you Akamaru, I'm Carl Hyuga." Carl called out just before all the girls in class started ooh-ing and aww-ing over how cute Akamaru was. Carl just chuckled and resolved to say a more in depth hi to the dog later.
The Inuzuka hounds were something special. They had great intelligence, could grow to the size of a small horse, and could manipulate chakra and do joint jutsu attacks with their Inuzuka partners.
During the first break while Carl was playing a card game with Kiba, Choji, Nobodon, and Shino, he watched through a window as Sasuke approached various friends of his while they were out on the field. But Sasuke had been so obnoxious all the past year that they just turned away without listening to what he had to say. It had become a normal part of the daily routine. Sasuke hits on the girls and they mock him or ignore him. His fan club had been whittled down to nothing, so even if he wanted to accept them, they weren't around anymore.
But this time, judging by his body language, Sasuke hadn't been hitting on the girls. Carl wasn't quite sure just what he was up to, but it didn't really matter. As long as he never tried to go overboard with his actions, Carl didn't care what kind of life the new transmigrated Sasuke lived.
Sasuke could even mature enough for some of his friends to take an interest in him, and Carl would remove the curses on him for their sake. He wasn't unreasonable. As long as Sasuke wasn't hitting on kids, Carl didn't care what he did.
And since he barely interacted with Sasuke, Carl was surprised to see the Uchiha standing in front of him on the next break.
"Can I talk to you, Carl Hyuga?" Sasuke asked.
Carl knew that part of why Sasuke avoided him was because his name couldn't be found anywhere in the canon storyline. The person who was now Sasuke was understandably worried about that fact. Carl had been there in class when Sasuke finally realized that Carl Hyuga existed. "Sasuke" also shortly found out that Minato had come back to life, which paralyzed him.
It really was amusing to Carl to watch Sasuke's panic attacks when he kept coming up against things that weren't like canon. It really made him wonder if Dewey just hadn't paid attention to the original Sasuke's memories very well, or if Sasuke had been that self involved and unaware of his own village. Either way Carl didn't invade Sasuke's mind just to find the answer.
"Sure." Carl answered Sasuke, curious as to what the boy wanted. He didn't move from his seat.
"Er…can we talk out in the hall?" Sasuke asked next when Carl hadn't bothered to get up from his seat in the classroom at Sasuke's question.
"Why not?" Carl got up and followed along behind Sasuke, wondering what the boy wanted now. When they were finally away from their fellow classmates, Sasuke seemed to be more at ease about talking to Carl. Carl didn't bother disabusing Sasuke of his notion that they were alone. If Sasuke couldn't detect the nine people that were using various means to overhear their conversation, then that wasn't his problem.
"Are you also a transmigrant?" Sasuke bluntly asked. "Did you come from Earth? Is that how you're doing so good and have everyone twisted around your fingers?"
'What an idiot.' Carl sighed internally at the stupidity of Dewey-Sasuke.
"First off, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Transmigrant? Earth? Never heard of them before." Carl's impatience with Sasuke could be easily heard in his voice. "And if you ever imply that I'm manipulating my friends again, I'll knock your block off. Now if that's all you've got to say, I've got better things to do." Carl turned to walk away but was interrupted by Sasuke's exclamation.
"No! Wait!" Sasuke almost shouted with a pleading tone in his voice. "I need your help. Please."
Carl looked back at Sasuke for a moment, judging his sincerity and desperation. He really seemed to be asking sincerely for help. Carl audibly sighed this time. He was a sucker, apparently.
"What is it you need help with?" Carl finally asked.
"I've barely been keeping up with the evaluations. I don't know if I can graduate at this rate. It would be so much easier if I had my Sharingan active. Can you help me? At least help me activate it?" Sasuke begged.
"Listen Uchiha." Carl started with a stern tone of voice. "I don't know why you think I know anything about how to help you with your Sharingan eyes. Those are clan secrets and I wouldn't dare pry into them. If I as the heir of the Hyuga were discovered to be digging into another clan's secrets, it would pretty much be an invitation for other Konoha clans to dig into my own clan's secrets. So I can't help you with your eyes."
Sasuke almost visibly deflated, feeling very depressed. Carl could imagine why that was. The brat had found himself in the Uchiha's body and thought that everything was going to be given to him on a platter, easy mode with the Sharingan. Except that he could never activate his eyes. And the reality versus expectation was crushing him.
Despite himself Carl felt a momentary bit of pity for the Uchiha. After his initial jubilation at finding himself in the Naruto world, and his constant attempts to flirt with the girls, he never crossed the line into stalker behavior or forcefully trying to do anything with anyone. So…maybe he wasn't as bad as Carl initially thought? Or he was crashing and needed a lifeline? And looked completely pitiful in the meantime…
Carl briefly considered the situation. The dude really was struggling and had no one to turn to in a land that was completely strange to him.
'Damn my sympathy acting up.' Carl angrily thought. 'It would be so much easier to just wash my hands of this guy. But he looks so much like a kicked puppy right now. And he hasn't actually done anything bad yet, only thunk about it. Ugh…I'm totally going to regret this.'
"Okay, look. You're struggling in class, right? I don't know what kind of schedule you keep, but you're obviously not spending your free time right if you're struggling so much. So, depending on what my friends say, you're provisionally invited again to our afternoon practice sessions." Carl forced himself to say. He hoped he wouldn't regret it, but knew that he would.
"What do you mean, invited again? You've never invited me?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.
"Uchiha, you've got to be brain dead to not remember our invites. We invited you every day for two weeks straight at the beginning of our first year at the academy. You essentially told us to piss off, that you were an Elite Uchiha and didn't need our help, so we never bothered you again." Carl rolled his eyes. Apparently Sasuke here never paid attention to the original Sasuke's memories.
"But that was before…Oh." Sasuke looked quite depressed as he realized how he had been screwed over by the former tenant of his body.
'Yeah, how do you feel about your hero Sasuke now, Dewey?' Carl laughed inside.
"Anyway. We meet after classes today at the Inuzuka's. Kiba's sister is going to cover some topics on tracking and then we're going to practice our skills some more. You're welcome to come and get some help with what you're struggling with." Carl offered. He could already feel his friend's disapproval at his invitation without asking them, but shrugged his shoulders at them, knowing they would see it.
"That sounds great!" Sasuke said, feeling like the world was already looking up.
"But listen, Uchiha, and pay attention." Carl interrupted Sasuke's celebration, even snapping his fingers in front of his face to get his attention. "I want you to be completely clear about this. These practice sessions and study time is very important for all of us; and not just for a grade so we'll pass class."
"We all know we'll be in the field in a year's time, and we might have to fight for our lives at any time. Even here in the village we might run into a traitor or a spy or infiltrator and have to survive by our own skills. So these practice sessions are important. If you dare take them lightly, or start flirting with anyone and distracting them from their practice time, you will be kicked out of the group immediately. No questions, no second chances. These are skills that could be the difference between life and death, got it?"
"Yeah. Got it." Sasuke swallowed against the lump in his throat. Despite living here in Konoha for nearly two years, he hadn't ever really thought about the career he was going into. It had always just sounded like a fun lark. Like an adventure he might play on his game console.
But now he'd been grounded enough that he realized that he was enjoying being alive again. And he wasn't sure if he was ready to go out and do dangerous things that might get him killed. Or tortured. Or worse.
It was a sobering thought that hadn't ever managed to pierce his thick skull before.
And Carl watched the realization come over Sasuke as he actually thought about his new life.
'Tsk. Of course! Basic decency inducing perk!' Carl thought with a mental slap to his head. 'I should have had this talk with the berk long ago to get him to straighten up. I was just having too much fun watching him flounder to think about it before.' Carl shook his head. 'Oh well. Next time I meet a transmigrant, I'll do that first thing off.'
The two of them walked back to class, with Carl giving his friends a hand signal that they would talk about it later. Iruka was already ordering them to get out to the practice field for taijutsu practice.
The trial run of having Sasuke join them for their afternoon practice went just fine. While he was pretty far behind everyone, Carl spent time teaching him since he had the least amount of need to advance out of everyone there. And more importantly he was taking his training seriously and not making moon eyes at the girls.
So while his friends were working hard to advance their skills, Carl spent time tutoring Sasuke and trying to catch him up to where he should be.
Sasuke seemed to take Carl's words of warning to heart and behaved himself, really sinking himself into his practice and not bothering anyone else. And now with the Uchiha in their group practice, they had the whole class joining them. Carl was sure that this class and the one before them with his cousin Neji would make history in this world, if they weren't leaving in six years. But that was more than enough time to make jonin rank and be accounted as up and coming legends.
By the point they got that far, it wouldn't matter if they were accounted as geniuses because then they could actually defend themselves. He still stood by his earlier thoughts before his memories fully returned. Being lauded as a genius early on in life before growing strong enough was a good way to attract their death from jealous enemies.
At the end of the training session, Sasuke was exhausted and bruised from blocking blows Carl and the others sent his way, since they had done some sparring.
"Okay Uchiha. You've done a decent job this afternoon, for the level you're at." Carl's faint praise put a smile on the boy's face. "Now, what is your morning before class workout like?"
The blank face on the Uchiha gave Carl the impression he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Why would I need to work out in the morning when we exercise in class?" Uchiha answered with a question.
Carl rubbed his brows in annoyance. Why was he helping this retarded transmigrant again?
"What kind of studying do you do in the evenings?" Carl asked.
"Uh. I do the homework."
"So you only do the homework? You don't do any other studying? You don't practice an instrument? You don't paint or practice calligraphy?" Carl just knew the answer would be no.
"Uh, no. I used to do painting and calligraphy, back when my clan was still around. But…I don't anymore." The hesitant answer let Carl know he was editing his answers to not let on that he wasn't the original Sasuke, which was fine.
But he'd spent nearly two years doing the bare minimum during the perfect time to focus on advancing his chakra pool and skills. Which was not fine.
"Listen, Uchiha. In case you forgot, chakra is made up of both physical and mental energy. That means if you want to keep growing your chakra pool, you have to exercise a lot and you have to study a lot. You can use art, music, and other such scholarly pursuits to bolster your studies to increase your mental energy. And you need to physically exercise at least an hour, preferably two hours, before class to get the best effect for your physical development."
Carl pulled out a scroll from his pouch and began writing a schedule for the helpless transmigrant Uchiha. Why did he care about this bastard again?
"Follow this schedule for your morning warmup and conditioning. When you're done with the after class sparring and skills practice, study these topics and practice your calligraphy. In the evening, after dinner, do your clan's dojutsu training or chakra control training for an hour or so before bed time." Carl laid out a basic plan.
"Why is there less study time, if mental energy is as important as the physical energy for chakra?" The Uchiha was at least trying to understand, that was good. "And where do I find my clan's dojutsu training?"
"Gah! Right now, during our time in the Academy, is the best time to get the fundamentals down and maximize your physical growth. The time spent learning the physical skills counts as part of the mental training, that's why there's less pure study time. And be sure to eat plenty. You'll burn it all off with the amount of exercising you'll do. As for learning about your dojutsu, I have no fucking clue. Look for the exercises on your own! Fuck, why are you asking me about this again?"
"Right. Er…I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot, Carl. But thanks for taking the time to help me out."
"Yes. Fine. Good luck, Uchiha." Carl sighed internally. Now he felt like a bit of a jerk for hating the kid for so long and mocking him instead of taking the time to correct his attitude and training.
'Well, maybe he had to go through the humiliating fire first before he was ready to become a decent person.' Carl internally shook his head. 'I'm still not going to become besties with him. But at least now he's on the path to not being a drain on Konoha's resources.'
"You're headed in the right direction now." Carl nodded acknowledgement of Sasuke's words. "But don't backslide. Keep in mind what's important. You need to get skilled enough to keep yourself alive. Don't even think about any relationship stuff until you're at least 16. At least. Otherwise, you'll send yourself straight into hell."
"Right. Thanks again." Sasuke nodded gratefully before heading off to his home.
"Are you sure he's worth the effort, Carl?" Kiba asked him while the rest of the group was nearby and either nodded or added their own words of concern about the Uchiha.
"No, I'm not." Carl shook his head. "I'm pretty sure he'll backslide and kill himself. But, he finally pulled his head out and came asking for help. He's not actively being a perv flirt, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And he's still one of our comrades, even if we don't really want to be seen around him. Hopefully now he won't kill a team while learning how much he's lacking."
"When you put it like that, I suppose we can give him the benefit of the doubt." Hinata added her own two cents.
"Yeah, as long as it's you boys that are going to be helping him. Us girls will keep our distance and let you do the work." Ino stated while flipping her hair.
Carl laughed out loud at her brassy words.
"Yeah, that's fine. I wouldn't want to subject you girls to him on the off chance he backslides anyway." Carl added.
"Bothersome."
"There are more than enough of us boys to help him train. Why? Because it is what we should do as comrades, both to help the Uchiha and to keep the perv flirt from the girls." Shino added in his normal way.
"It helps that the civilian council isn't sticking its nose into everything anymore." Nobodon added in. "Up until the fourth Hokage came back, they were pretty insistent that everyone had to bend over backwards to accommodate the Uchiha."
"Yeah, my dad runs a grocery and he had to give the Uchiha a 50% discount or else the civilian council would have fined him a lot of money." Yamiko was still angry that her father had to put up with that.
"Did he ever get reimbursed for that when the fourth came back?" Carl asked.
"No." Yamiko shook her head.
"Well, tell him to go talk to the Silver Flight Trading Consortium. Ask for Goram and tell him I sent your father. They'll work out how to get him paid from the civilian council for it if he brings his ledger or other proof." Carl added.
"Hell yeah! Thanks!" Yamiko said.
"Okay! Are we done with the serious stuff?" Naruko called out somewhat impatiently. She knew the stuff about Yamiko's dad was important, but she had no patience for the Uchiha. He really creeped her out. "Cause its snack time! Let's go!"
And the group of friends moved off to go find their after workout sweets and to spend some time just socializing. It would be quite a few months before any of them would even consider asking the Uchiha to join them in their socializing time, and only if he had been good.
It wasn't until a week before his class graduated from the academy that Big Blue called Carl to meet him at his nest.
Carl knew from nearly the beginning that he was being tested by the Wyvern clan for his patience and perseverance. And so he had spent over two years training with them and doing chores and small missions. So now he was anticipating the opportunity to finally be taught Senjutsu!
Landing lightly on Big Blue's ledge, he saw the large Wyvern sitting comfortably in his nest and watching him. Carl moved closer and sat down, waiting for the Boss Wyvern to speak about what caused him to call for Carl.
Carl was sensing a bit that this was the final test of patience, so he adjusted his mind to be ready to wait as long as necessary. He wouldn't actually get bored, so he was more than prepared to enjoy the waiting game.
One hour passed and the blue Wyvern simply sat there.
Two more hours passed without a word from either Carl or Big Blue. They kept staring in each other's eyes.
Three more hours passed and some doubts about the purpose and winning condition of this test had passed through Carl's mind. But he remained sure that he had deduced correctly so he didn't move or talk. He waited.
Twelve more hours passed and he was very glad for the physical conditioning he had, or else he would have wet his pants by this time.
Thirty more hours passed and Big Blue blinked. Carl blinked back. Silence reigned.
Forty eight more hours passed.
"You have done well, little one." Big Blue finally spoke with a smile.
"Thank you, Big Blue." Carl replied with a respectful nod and a return smile.
"I'm sure you're wondering why the test of patience." Big Blue stated more than asked. At his nod of affirmation, Big Blue began answering. "The Divine Dragon clan has received reports of you. From the first time that you summoned that blowhard Manda, they knew about you and your actions."
Carl pondered that a bit. It seemed that there was more means of communication among the summons that he was aware of. But for the Divine Dragons to be aware of his actions seemed a bit…odd. A bit directed, like someone wanted to point him out to them.
"The Divine Dragon boss, the Azure Dragon, knows about your incredibly fast learning skills. But just because you can learn fast doesn't mean you have the patience or endurance needed to be one of their summoners. So they wanted me to perform a small test. And you passed perfectly. So now I will teach you our Senjutsu skills, and once you master this you will go to the east and attend the Divine Dragons at their clan grounds. It is a great honor, and you must be on your best behavior."
"Thank you Big Blue." Carl replied after thinking a bit about what he had been told. Chances were that there would be another test when he arrived at the Divine Dragon clans. He would figure it out and pass that test when he got there.
"It has been a pleasure working with such an excellent summoner. Now, the secret to our Senjutsu is…"
Carl listened attentively as Big Blue explained the trick to learning their version of Senjutsu. One of the most important things for the Wyverns was endurance. They needed the endurance to stay in the air longer. The more extreme g-forces they could endure, the faster they could dive and the harder they could attack before pulling back up. So everything came to endurance, both physically enduring great forces, and having the endurance to exert themselves for long periods of time.
And that's what was mostly enhanced through their version of Senjutsu. Naturally endurance wasn't the only physical attribute that was enhanced. Strength, speed, flexibility, senses. Everything was enhanced, but endurance was the attribute that was enhanced the most.
His learning speed boosted by perks ensured that it was a short time before he finished mastering the Senjutsu of the Wyverns. His eyes turned a red color and became slits like the Wyvern's eyes and a band of black coloring streaked back from the corners of his eyes to his ears when he entered Sage mode.
When Carl finished demonstrating his mastery of the Sage mode, the Wyverns held a party and feast for him before he left. He had a good time partying with the group of winged beings that he had spent the past two plus years with.
In the morning he enabled his Tenseigan eyes and flew himself after Big Blue to the west to meet with the Divine Dragon clan where he would finally complete the scenario he had chosen.
Carl was surprised at the size of the summons realm. He and Big Blue had been flying for two days and still hadn't arrived yet.
In the meantime, his blood clone participated in the final genin test and graduated smoothly. The entire class passed, which wasn't a surprise since the fangirls and those like them who weren't serious about their ninja career had been dropped or moved to a younger class long ago.
Iruka waited only for five seconds for the class to quiet down before he employed his Big Head Jutsu. Carl enjoyed the frustrated and offended reaction he got from Iruka every time he called it the Big Head Jutsu within his teacher's hearing.
None of the class was particularly close to their teacher Iruka. Carl appreciated the professionalism that Iruka showed, but the lonely and neglected orphan that Naruto was in the original show was what allowed Iruka and him to bond. With the way that Carl's family had taken in Naruko, and then the return of her parents, there was no way that her academy teacher would be nearly the only adult that would pay attention to her.
"Congratulations on graduating. I'm proud of all of you. Now, listen up for your teams." Iruka pulled out a piece of paper. "Team's one through five come from another classroom, so we start with Team 6. Nobodon, Junirio, and Yamiko. Your sensei will be Jonin Sawamiko."
Iruka was kind enough to wait for their celebrations to finish.
"Team 7 will be Carl, Sasuke, and Saionji. Your sensei with be Jonin Kakashi Hatake."
Carl's clone groaned internally. He just had to take that drawback that ensured he would be on Kakashi's team 7 so his sensei would always be late. At least he didn't have the emo flight risk Uchiha. He had the transmigrant Uchiha, who had a rough start, but he was much better now.
Not that he was going to take off his curses until they were 18. Okay, maybe he'll take off the shrinking hex. That was kind of a low blow to another guy. But he wouldn't have done it if the bastard been acting normal instead of thinking with his little unit.
"Team 8 will be Yakumo, Kiba, and Shino. Your sensei will be Jonin Kurenai Yuhi."
'Hmm. Yakumo with Kurenai for the genjutsu?' Carl pondered.
"Team 9 is still in use, so team 10 will be Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji. Your sensei will be Jonin Asuma Sarutobi."
'Okay, that was the canon grouping that they are hoping will be as successful as their fathers.' Carl chuckled a bit at Ino's good natured complaining about her childhood friends.
"Team 11 will be Hinata, Naruko, and Sakura. Your sensei will be Jonin Anko Mitarashi."
'Well that's an interesting mix.' Carl thought. 'I can see Anko taking them and their medical heavy group through an interesting poisons course.'
"Now that you know who your jonin sensei will be, you have free time until after lunch. Be back here at 1:00 to meet your sensei. Dismissed!"
Carl's clone wondered why he didn't take advantage of his connection with ANBU to get out of the teams. Oh yeah, it was because Carl prime wanted the full experience of being on a genin team. He sighed in depression. He wanted it too, but being on Kakashi's team with Sasuke? It was so annoying. Saionji wasn't as bad, really, since Carl had gotten Danzo to discharge the young ROOT members before too much damage was done to their social skills.
Well, nothing for it. He would just have to bring something to do until Kakashi showed up.
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