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Pushing Through the Limit Chapter 44: Inner Darkness Outer Peace
🕑 Added 2024-09-06 05:16:04 +0000 UTCI sat, cross legged on a stone slab that was balanced precariously on one of the Genbu’s spikes. Samui stood on an adjacent spike, not looking very impressed with me. In my defense, I was bored and there wasn’t much to do on the Island.
I couldn’t practice using some of my more destructive Jutsu for fear of hurting Genbu. My physical training came to a halt as the weights were left at Bee’s hangout back in Kumo and while I could technically go and fetch them in less than a second, the Raikage likely wouldn’t appreciate me leaving on the first day.
So I decided to get a little bit of Senjutsu training in. Sitting still, as it turned out was a difficult thing to do, but I was getting the hang of it. The only problem that I had now was when something startl…
“Hey Naruto,” Kakashi whispered, standing nearly completely horizontal on the Genbu’s spike. “What’re you doing up here?”
I flinched and felt the slab I was sitting on begin to shift to the side. Grabbing the slab with one hand, I tilted myself to the side and placed my feet on the spike, coming to a dead stop.
“I was just…” I began, slowly. “Getting some training in.”
“Ah,” Kakashi hummed, reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a familiar orange book. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”
I glanced to the top of the spike, briefly considering continuing my training, before deciding against it. “Aren’t you supposed to be guarding Fu?”
“I am,” Kakashi nodded, unperturbed. “Although I might not be able to use Shadow Clones to the degree that you do, I do still use them. Anyway, she’s taking a nap now, so I don’t have to expend much energy to look after her.”
“So, why are you here?”
“Can’t a Sensei want to check in on one of his students?” Kakashi asked in mock outrage, a look which quickly faded under my pointed stare. Rubbing his neck, Kakashi’s eye crinkled as he smiled. “That really was the reason why I came here. I wanted to see how you’ve been doing after spending a month in Kumo.”
“It’s been fine,” I relented. “I’ve been getting a few odd looks from some of the civilians and Shinobi, but everything’s been going smoothly for the most part. Why don’t we talk on the ground,” I suggested, pointing to the tree tops below us.
“I would be alright with that.”
Nodding, I stepped off the spike and fell towards the ground. The air raced passed me as I began to pick up speed, soon, I pierced through the tree tops and continued on towards the ground where I landed without effort.
Once upon a time, a fall like that would have terrified me, but now it felt completely natural. More so, it felt a little slow. It wouldn’t have taken me all that much effort to run at twice the pace I’d been going when I fell.
Hearing the sound of leaves ruffle, I glanced up, just in time to spot Kakashi and then Samui drop in through the tree tops, landing in front of me. From the looks of it, Kakashi didn’t seem to mind my choice of descent. Samui on the other hand had the faintest look of displeasure on her face.
“So, do you want to catch up out here or back in our rooms,” I gestured towards Bee’s vacation home which was modeled after Gyuki. Personally, I didn’t see the appeal to having a vacation home like this, to me it looked like someone had decided to build a large pink set of testicles and then decided to slap the Gyuki's face on top of the door. Now if I was going to build a vacation home modeled after Kurama, I would…
“Finish that thought and you won’t like what happens,” Kurama growled. “There will be no vacation homes built to resemble me. I won’t suffer as Gyuki no doubt does whenever he sees that.”
‘…It was just a thought.’
“And it was a stupid one. You should be thanking me that I didn’t let you complete it.”
“Um, Naruto,” Kakashi said. “You doing alright there?”
“Yeah, fine,” I replied, not really paying attention to what he said. “I’ve just got to talk to the Kyuubi about something real quick.”
“Alright then,” Kakashi hummed.
‘Seeing as you’re against me having anything built in your likeness, I guess that means that I can’t go through with my one plan for after I become Hokage.’
“Plan?”
‘Oh, it wasn’t anything too big. I was just going to have the Hokage monument converted into a giant stone version of you. The faces would still be there, but they would be on one of your tails.’
Kurama when silent for several moments.
“If you could find someone skilled enough in capturing my image… then I would be alright with this sculpture you plan to build.”
‘Good to hear,’ I thought back. Bee might have a lot of pride in being a Jinchuriki, but I was going to bring that to a whole other level. “Alright, so how’s Konoha been during my absence?”
“As loud as ever,” Kakashi replied, his face buried in his book. “Fu seems to be filling your shoes nicely with her energy. She’s taken to flying around the village every day.”
I nodded. That did sound like Fu. I was happy for her. In Konoha, Fu had a place that treated her better all the while giving her more room to move around… and most importantly… it gave her the opportunity to make friends.
“And how’s she doing on team 7?”
“Pretty well,” Kakashi commented. “Everyone works together and they’re all taking their training seriously now… In fact, they might be working together a bit too well.”
“What do you…”
“They train… they train a lot,” Kakashi sighed. “Sasuke enjoys sparring with Fu as she’s able to match him blow for blow and Sakura heals Sasuke. Fu’s a Jinchuriki, so she rarely gets tired... You see where I’m going with this?”
“I think so,” I smirked. It seemed that Kakashi wasn’t getting that much time to relax anymore. “So, what you’re saying is… you feel left out because no one can match you.”
“What?! No!” Kakashi snapped his book shut.
“It’s alright,” I said, stepping towards him, barely suppressing a grin. “You won’t have to worry anymore. I’ll train with you every time that you’re here. You know that you don’t have to pull your punches with me… and when you’re in Konoha, you could always talk to Gai… You know what, maybe I should have a talk with Gai. I could let him know that his rival is feeling unchallenged and needs to spar with people on his level.”
Kakashi suddenly burst into a cloud of smoke, revealing that he had been a clone all along.
“You know, Samui. You were right, fucking with people is kind of fun.”
“It is,” Samui nodded slowly. “But some context would help.”
Right, well I suppose I could give her the super abridged version. “Kakashi’s lazy, his team is now incredibly active, he’s got a self proclaimed rival that loves to challenge him and I’ve just offered to train with him whenever he’s on this Island and if he’s going to be guarding Fu permanently, that’s around two full weeks per month.”
“And his rival will try and train with him during the weeks he’s not here,” Samui nodded, her lips quirking slightly. “Not bad.”
“Although, I’ll have to get in contact with Gai first,” I muttered. “Maybe I could give Tsu… my Hokage a letter to give to him.”
“You really think that would work?” Samui asked, arching her brow. “I’m not sure about Konoha Shinobi, but one’s from Kumo wouldn’t trust something like that.”
“There’s a big difference between most Shinobi and Maito Gai,” I deadpanned. “Trust me, you’ll know what I mean if you ever meet him.”
…PTL…
“Alright, so this is the first step of your training,” Yugito gestured towards a waterfall with a small mound of land peaking out of the center of a small pool of water. “You’ll begin by sitting over there, facing towards the waterfall, where you’ll need to close your eyes and focus. Any questions?”
“Not really,” I replied, jumping onto the small land mass.
There wasn’t much time left in the day for this and I doubted that we were going to continue this training through the night. Fu was still asleep, so that ultimately left me to go first which wasn’t an issue at all.
From the moment Kurama had told me that my inner darkness was the thing causing me issues with using his full Chakra, I’d been eager to come here and deal with it. I was finally here, ready and able to confront my darkness. Nothing was going to hold me back now.
Sitting down, I let the sound of the crashing water run over me, before closing my eyes and concentrating. I allowed myself a moment of excitement before refocusing my concentration. There weren’t going to be any more trick or cheap shots that were going to stop me now.
…PTL…
“So you’ve finally come, huh?”
Opening my eyes, I was greeted to the sight of my inner darkness walking out of the waterfall. He looked very much like a regular clone with the exception of his eyes which were filled with hatred, malice and pain.
“I would have greeted you earlier, but you kicked me in the balls,” I deadpanned. Standing up, I noticed how the world around me had a strange feeling to it. It was misty and blurred, there was even a distortion to my voice when I spoke. I had a ton of questions on how this place even worked, but that wasn’t relevant right now.
“Good times,” The dark version of me chuckled. “We both know how this is going to end, so come over here and let’s get it done.”
“I guess we’re speed running this then,” I hummed. Walking forward, I stopped in front of him and when he didn’t kick me between the legs again, I pulled him into a hug. It was… an odd feeling, hugging myself.
“Did you really think that it was going to be that easy?”
The hug tightened and winced when my ribs began to creak. Flicking a Kunai back towards the small island, I quickly teleported out of his grip.
“Damn, is that what it feels like when I hug someone with all my strength,” I muttered, taking a breath. “Remind me to be careful when I hug anyone other than Tsunade.”
My darkness growled. “EVEN NOW YOU’RE MAKING JOKES! CAN’T YOU TAKE ANYTHING SERIOUSLY?”
“I am taking this seriously,” I replied calmly. “If anything, you’re the one that isn’t. You’re attacking me and losing your temper over the smallest of things.”
“Small? You’ve been brushing me off, suppressing me and making jokes since you got here.”
“I just made one joke, lighten up.” I was beginning to feel that this wasn’t going to go as quickly as I originally thought it would. “And you’re the one that attacked me first. If anything, I showed great restraint by not responding in kind.”
“I meant here, un this world... in this body. From the moment that you got here, you’ve been shoving me to the side, doing your best to forget about me so you could do whatever it was that you wanted.”
Ah, that’s what he was angry about. “In my defense, I didn’t even realize that you were here. I’d completely forgotten about the whole inner darkness thing.”
“DON”T LIE! I’m the one person that will always be able to tell. You didn’t forget, you just thought that confronting me wasn’t necessary because you got Kurama on your side. I was just some unnecessary step to you,” The Darkness lamented, before grinning cruelly. “But I’ve made myself necessary by attacking you. I… I’m someone that exists. I’m necessary. I have purpose!”
I let out a sigh. He was right… I really fucked up. Back when I’d first woken up here and hadn’t been in contact with Kurama, I’d considered all the steps to becoming a perfect Jinchuriki and had been aware of his existence, but I’d forgotten about him when I began to train for the third stage of the Chunin Exams.
I had people… many people to draw support from. Kakashi, Jiraiya, Iruka, Sasuke, Sakura, Anko, Tsunade… I had all of them to help me along the way. They saved me from my loneliness, but him… my darkness, he had no one, not even me who by all accounts should have been there for him.
“I fucked up,” I admitted. “I didn’t realize that you were this conscious until after Bee and I destroyed the Demon Island, but I’m here now.”
“You’re here now,” He clapped. “Bravo, you’re only what… several months late. The only reason why you’re here is to get rid of me, don’t pretend otherwise.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I replied. “You’re the reason why I’m here. You made all of this happen, you made all of it necessary.”
“Because I wouldn’t let you get rid of me after you destroyed the Demon Island.”
“If I remember correctly, it’s not so much as me getting rid of you, but rather the two of us becoming one.”
“Great, ego death at the hands of a fake Naruto… You’ve already stolen my body and now you want to get rid of the last vestiges of the original.”
I tensed up momentarily, before relaxing. “Yeah, that’s not going to work on me. You’re not going to be able to trick me into thinking that you’re the remainder of the original Naruto.”
“You can’t prove otherwise. I am the original, you’re the fake that’s killed me and has taken over my life.”
“The more you try and convince me, the more I know that you’re not,” I chuckled. “Firstly, I’ve got all of the original Naruto’s memories, so I know how he used to act and let me tell you something, he would probably think that ego death is some kind of cool Jutsu… Secondly… You’re acting a lot like I would if I was in your position.”
If the positions had been swapped, I would be filled with hate and want nothing more than to make the person responsible hurt… Something that my darkness was currently trying. The original Naruto would never do that, he didn’t have the necessary mindset and spite to pull it off.
“Fine,” My darkness grunted. “I can’t trick you and I know you’re here to get rid of me, so, in the spirit of self preservation, I’m going to offer you a deal. If you leave me alone, I won’t mess with you anymore. You and Kurama can merge your Chakra’s together and you’ll no longer have to worry about backlash.”
“I’m going to have to go with no… Scott,” I smirked. It was rare that I was able to make references that I was sure the other person got. “All it would take is one moment of you interfering for me to end up dead. I’ve already risked a lot by using Kurama’s full Chakra twice. I’m not going to risk a third time without being completely sure.”
“You dying would kill me as well. I know that, if I cause a backlash again, it’ll end with you coming back here to get rid of me. You’re not going to get rid of me tonight, so just… think about my offer.”
…PTL…
Opening my eyes, I found myself sitting in front of the waterfall. Although it hadn’t felt like it, time had clearly passed while I’d been confronting my darker self. The sun had nearly finished setting and the forest was now much darker and foreboding.
‘Kurama.’
“I already know,” He replied. “Although I might not have been able to be there while you confronted your darkness, I was able to see what was happening by watching your memories as they formed.”
‘You think that you could give me a little advice then? I’m… not sure about what I should do.’
“That isn’t for me to say. This choice is solely yours to make. You can accept the deal and we can begin training or you can decline it and absorb your darker self,” Kurama mused. “I’ll accept your choice, regardless of what it is.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. While I was glad that Kurama would accept my choice in the matter, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted a bit of perspective on the matter.
“This matter ultimately concerns yourself and it’s on the deepest level. You need to look inward in order to figure out what you want if you’re going to make a decision on this.”
“Look inward, huh?” I hummed as I stood up.
“You’re finished,” Yugito noted.
“For the night,” I nodded. Turning around, I found the blonde duo waiting by the tree line. By the subtle look on Samui’s face, I would say that she was bored and I’d been sitting here for quite a while.
“I’ll lead the two of you back to your rooms for now. We’ll travel a little slower seeing as it’s getting quite dark.”
“Or,” I began, walking across the pool of water, stopping in front of them. “I we can skip all of that and I can take us back to Bee’s vacation home instantly.” I held my hands out to the blonde duo.
“Whatever gets me out of this mosquito infested jungle,” Samui replied, taking my hand.
Yugito looked at my hand warily before cautiously taking it.
One moment we were standing in the forest and the next we were all in my room. There was no warning, no shift of the air, only being somewhere else instantly. I’d long since grown used to the feeling, being able to use it in combat and Samui had become accustomed to my frequent use of the Hiraishin. Yugito on the other hand… She stumbled forward, accidentally kicking the end of my bed.
“Easy,” I said, helping stabilize her. “The first time always screws with your spatial awareness.”
Yugito steadied herself, quickly regaining her bearings. “That was not what I was expecting.”
“You’ll get used to it in time,” Samui shrugged.
Glancing towards Samui, Yugito nodded and began to leave, stopping by the door. “I’ll fetch the two of you along with the other two tomorrow.” With that said, Yugito left, softly closing the door behind her.
“I should also get going… unless you plan on doing more training outside,” Samui shot me a look that promised anger.
“No, I’ve got a few things to think about, so I’m going to get an early night.”
Satisfied with my answer, Samui left as well, leaving me to my thoughts.
Kicking my shoes off, I unzipped my jacket and placed it at the foot of my bed before lying down. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. There was a knock at my door.
“Come in,” I called out, staring up at the ceiling.
“Naruto,” Kakashi began, his voice cracking slightly.
Sitting up in alarm, I immediately calmed down. Kakashi didn’t look like he’d been in a fight, so everything was alright on that front, but he had the oddest look on his face and he was staring at me with an emotion I hadn’t seen him display before.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” Kakashi shook his head. “I’m just… so proud of you right now.”
Well that was nice, but I hadn’t really done anything for him to be proud about. In fact, this was the first time he’d seen me since our conversation earlier.
“Okay…” I replied. “And why are you proud of me?”
“There’s no need to play dumb,” Kakashi said. “I saw those two blondes walk out of your room. The second one’s emotions were hard to read, but she looked satisfied, while the first one wasn’t even able to walk properly. I hope you used protection. The world isn’t ready to have little Naruto’s running around in it.”
I slapped my palm to my face and let out a groan. “We didn’t have sex… we didn’t even do anything. I just used the Hiraishin to bring them both to my marker so we wouldn’t have to travel through the jungle at night.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” I deadpanned. “I was busy with my Jinchuriki training… you know, that one that Fu and I came here to complete.”
“Hmmm, I can’t say that I’m not disappointed,” Kakashi hummed. “But I suppose it’s for the best. All it would take is one slipup and you’ll become a father.” Kakashi shuddered at that thought. “Now might be the best time to teach you about your future best friend, an important little friend known as contraceptives.”
“Can’t you tell me about this some other time,” I groaned. “I’ve got a few things that I seriously need to consider.”
“Yes,” Kakashi nodded. “You’ve got a hot blonde as your body guard, another one as your current instructor and your other team back in Konoha is comprised of two women… You’re learning this at the earliest convenience and it just so happens that convenience is tonight.”
“Fine,” I sighed. The quicker I got this over and done with, the quicker I could figure out what I was going to choose when I next met my inner darkness. “Just don’t take too long explaining things, alright.”
“I’ll take as long as it takes for things to sink in, so pay attention and this won’t take too long.”
…PTL…
I awoke with a jolt as my door slammed open and something heavy landed on my bed. Reaching under my pillow, I snatched a Kunai and was halfway to stabbing the intruder when they suddenly made their identity know.
“NARUTO!” Fu cheered as she bounced on my bed giddily.
“Fu?!” I blinked, dropping the Kunai. Glancing out the window, I saw that the sun hadn’t even begun to rise. “What’re you doing here?”
“It’s morning and Kakashi-sensei sent me to check in on you,” Fu explained.
In other words, Fu woke up and bugged Kakashi who sent her to me so I could deal with her while he slept. Hearing a swishing sound, my instincts kicked in and I grabbed Fu and rolled over, pulling her down as several Shuriken flew over our heads, imbedding into the wall above my bed.
“Naruto, are you alri…” Samui began in a serious tone, before freezing.
In my haste to protect Fu, I’d gotten a little… tangled with her. My bed sheets were wrapped around us tightly and I was resting above Fu on my forearms, incredibly close to her. From an outsiders perspective, it must have looked incredibly compromising.
Kurama’s laughter echoed through my mind.
“What seems to be the pro…” Kakashi froze as well.
At the worst possible time, Fu began to shift, struggling against the blankets that were wrapped around us. “Why’s it so tight? This is uncomfortable.”
“If the two of you wanted privacy, you could have told us,” Samui sighed as she tiredly turned to leave.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I said quickly. Untangling myself from the bedding, I swiftly stood up. “See, I’m fully clothed as so is Fu! It only looked bad because I had to pull her down to keep her from getting stabbed by the Shuriken.”
Glancing over us, Samui nodded in understanding. “Are you planning on going out to train right now?”
“…No,” I replied.
“Then I’m going back to bed,” Samui announced, leaving for her room.
I let out a breath of relief. It seemed that Samui believed me. Kakashi on the other hand had that same look on his face as he did last night.
“Kakashi,” I said slowly.
“Yeah, I know. It really wasn’t what it looked like, even though it really looked like that,” Kakashi sighed. “I think I’ll take a page out of that Kumo Kunoichi’s book and head back to bed.”
Soon, it was just the two of us. Fu had taken to wrapping herself in a cocoon of my blankets while I stood there, staring blankly at my door that’d been left open.
“I don’t understand what was going on.”
“That might be for the best,” I replied. “Hey Fu, I would rather have it that you forget about what happened here, but if you ever tell others about this story, be sure to include the part that I was shielding you from Shuriken and that we were both fully clothed.”
Fu tilted her head to the side. “Why?”
“Just…” I took a slow breath. “How about this… If you don’t tell anyone about what happened here this morning, I’ll teach you a new Jutsu.”
Orange eyes peered out from the blanket cocoon. “What kind of Jutsu?”
Holding my hand out, a Rasengan quickly took form. “How about this? It’s a Jutsu created by the Yondaime Hokage and is able to cause some serious damage.”
Fu’s gleamed with visible excitement and bounced on her spot, before she settled down and went quiet for several moments.
“It… doesn’t look that impressive. Do you have anything else to,” Fu tilted her head to the side. “Sweeten the deal?”
I let the Rasengan fade. Sweeten the deal? Where did that come from?
“Chomei,” Kurama replied. “He’s likely coaching her on what to say so she can get the most out of this. Don’t play into his hand or he’ll have you teaching her everything you know.”
“Well if you don’t want to learn it, I suppose that’s fine,” I sighed, sitting down on my bed. “It’s a pity too, I just really wanted to teach you the Rasengan... It’s one of my more powerful techniques… In fact, it’s the one I used to overpower Kakuzu back in Taki.”
“No,” Fu said, flinging the blankets off of herself. “Please teach me! I was just joking! I want to learn the Rasengan!”
“But I thought that it wasn’t that impressive.”
“Just a joke, ahahaha,” Fu laughed awkwardly.
“Alright… I guess I’ll teach you the Rasengan then,” I replied calmly, doing my best to keep any amusement off my face. “If you weren’t interested, I was going to offer to teach you something else, like a Wind Style Jutsu or how to form Shadow Clones.”
“Ah…” Fu paused. “Can I change my answer?”
“Nope,” I smirked. “But while you’re here could you do me a favor and tell Chomei that we’re not so gullible.”
“Oh, hehe,” Fu rubbed the back of her head awkwardly at being caught. “He says he already knows and that he supposes the same tricks can’t be played twice on a fox.”
“Damn right.”
…PTL…
“So this is the place?” Fu asked as we came to a stop in front of the Waterfall of Truth.
“Yep,” I nodded.
“And I’m going first?” Fu asked nervously.
“Yep,” I nodded again.
“Can’t you go first and show me how it’s done?”
I sighed. During our talk this morning, I’d told her the basics of what we were going to do here… That she would be confronted with a dark version of herself that was made of all her negative emotions. She wasn’t exactly excited to begin this training, not that I could blame her. This training… it made a person confront everything they suppressed… Those things were suppressed for a reason.
“Fu… it’s going to be alright. We’ll all here for you now and we’ll be here for you after you’re done there,” I comforted her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Alright, yeah, I’ve got this,” Fu said, bouncing on the spot. “My dark self is going down… Are you sure you don’t want to go first?”
“I’m sure, Fu,” I chuckled. “I went last night, so you get to go first today.”
Fu deflated and accepted that nothing she could say would make me go first. At Yugito’s instructions, Fu made her way to the small island and sat down, facing the waterfall.
“Dark self?” Kakashi asked softly, not wanting to disturb Fu’s training.
“It’s as it sounds,” I replied. “When you sit in front of that waterfall and concentrate while closing your eyes, you’ll find yourself in a meeting place where you can meet and confront the collection of all your negative emotions, things that you can’t accept… your dark self.”
“That all sounds very interesting,” Kakashi hummed. “But how does confronting the dark version of yourself help with using a Biju’s Chakra?”
“When you’re using a Biju’s Chakra, it can be difficult to control yourself. The last thing that you want is all your negative emotions and thoughts flooding your mind while you’re channeling a power strong enough to topple mountains,” Yugito explained, her arms crossed while she watched Fu.
“I see,” Kakashi nodded. “So, in order to nullify that threat and use your Biju’s Chakra properly, you need to fight your darkness and win.”
Yugito let out a snort of laughter, but said nothing.
“Did I say something wrong?” Kakashi asked.
“No,” I replied. “What you said wasn’t wrong, but it also wasn’t right. A persons darkness is quite literally them. All your skills, your Chakra nature, your Kekkei Genkai, your tactical mind, everything that makes you the person you are is available to your darkness as well. You and your darkness are both completely evenly matched.”
“If you’re both completely evenly matched then how are you supposed to be able to defeat your darkness?” Kakashi asked, glancing at me, before focusing his gaze on Yugito. “Have you completed this training before?”
“I have,” Yugito nodded. “And no, I won’t tell you the answer. It wouldn’t help if I did.”
“Then perhaps you could give some advice,” Kakashi suggested.
“There’s not really much advice a person can give when it comes to this training,” I replied. “My guess is that each person that comes out of it will have different answers on how to accomplish this training, but in the end it all boils down to the same thing.”
“Does that mean that you’ve already succeeded?” Kakashi asked.
“No,” I shook my head. “No, I haven’t. But I do know how to do it.”
“If you think you know how, then you likely don’t otherwise you would have already accomplished it,” Yugito replied.
I let out a sigh. If only it could be that simple, but yes, after a night of thinking, I realized how to properly accept my darkness. The only issue was the deal that I was offered.
“I feel bad for him,” I said. “My darkness… He realized that I knew how to…” I shot a glance to Kakashi. “Complete this training and he asked me not to… destroy him.”
I did feel that it was necessary for everyone that sat in front of the Waterfall of Truth to come to their own conclusions. The struggle of fighting, understanding and accepting your darkness is what would make a person grow. I’d already skipped a step and paid for it when I’d ignored my darkness once before, I wasn’t going to be skipping another one.
That caught Yugito’s attention as she finally turned away from Fu and towards me. “The method.”
“Simple, yet its difficulty depends on the person that sits in front of that waterfall,” I replied. Holding my hands out in front of each other, I interlocked them, showing how they came together.
Yugito’s eyes lit up in understanding. “If you know what to do, then why haven’t you done it already?”
“As I said, I felt bad for my darkness. It’s something that I am completely responsible for and I’ve been neglecting it. If I want to grow as a person then I need to better understand myself.”
“I’m not sure that I’m following, but it seems that you’ve got this handled,” Kakashi hummed. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out his copy of Icha Icha and flipped it open. “Seeing as I don’t understand this, I’ll leave it in your hands.”
It was odd for Kakashi to show me this much trust, but I suppose he’d finally come around to accepting that I’d grown and was able to make difficult choices… that or he was just lazy and wanted to read his book… it was probably the second one.
Fu let out a loud gasp as she leaned over, taking in large breathes of air.
“I thought that this training wouldn’t be harmful,” Kakashi said, snapping his book shut.
“It’s not, but it can be mentally tiring,” I replied.
“N…Naruto,” Fu called out, her voice shaky.
“I’m right here,” I answered, stepping forward. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Fu nodded. She quickly rubbed her eyes with her forearm, drying the unshed tears. “I’m… I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine, anyone could see that. “Come,” I said, holding my hand out to help her up. “You can rest in the shade and I’ll quickly Hiraishin back to our rooms to go fetch you some food and water if you want.”
“No,” Fu shook her head. “I… I just want to sit in the shade with you for a while if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine too, Fu,” I replied. Confronting your inner darkness was never an easy thing to do. The harder your life is, the harder it can be for you to accept your darkness and Jinchuriki tended to have really tough lives.
Helping Fu up, I escorted her back to the shade where everyone was waiting. Whenever one of us needed a break, the other was supposed to step in and confront their darkness, but that plan was going to have to wait. Fu needed some comfort right now and there was no way in hell that I was going to just leave her on the sideline.
“Everything going alright?” Kakashi asked, looking over Fu in concern.
Fu hummed a yes while nodding slightly, but it did little to ease the worried look Kakashi was shooting her. She was lacking that bright spark of energy that she had the day before. Sitting down, she brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, staring outward. “I’m fine.”
Yeah, she clearly wasn’t fine. “Maybe we should hold off on this training for you,” I suggested. It might be too soon for Fu to be confronting her darkness. “We’ve still got time. You can try again in a year or two.”
“NO!” FU jerked her head up. “No, I can do it. You don’t have to worry about me, I’ve got this.”
“Fu,” I said softly. “What happened when you were confronting your darkness?”
“I…” Fu glanced to Kakashi, then Yugito, Samui and finally looked down. “We fought… and I didn’t win… That’s it.”
I let out a sigh. That’s clearly not what happened. “I know you three are supposed to be watching over the two of us, but do you think you could…” I trailed off.
Yugito left without further prompting while Kakashi and Samui remained behind.
“We aren’t really supposed to leave the two of you on your own,” Kakashi hummed. “But my sandal strap seems to have snapped, so I’ll just go and replace it.”
Trust Kakashi to come up with an excuse. I turned my gaze to Samui who held it for several moments before giving a small nod.
“I’ll be out of earshot,” Samui said. “Call me when you’re done.”
Nodding my thanks, I waited for them to leave, before sitting down in front of Fu.
“What happened?”
“I… nothing happened,” Fu replied.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but this is our only real chance to have a conversation in private. Samui takes her job guards me seriously, there are very few moments when she’s not around me and even during those, she’s still listening in to ensure nothing happens,” I explained. “So if you really don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but if you do, then now’s your chance.”
We sat in silence for several moments with nothing but the sound of the breeze blowing through the trees and the waterfall in the background.
“Am I… just a weapon?” Fu asked softly.
So that’s what this was about. Jinchuriki were deterrents to war and were often treated as weapons. Fu was worried that she’d be treated as some tool to use and dispose of later on.
“No.”
“Then what am I? Why does Konoha want me? What use am I to anyone? Am…”
“Am I necessary?” I finished her sentence, making Fu look up. “Is there a point to my life? Am I worthy of love? I’ve had these thoughts before, Fu and I’ve discovered the answers over the years.”
“Could you… tell me those answers then?”
I sighed and laid down, cushioning my head with my hands. “If you had to disappear tomorrow, I would feel like I’ve lost something from my life… and it’s not just me that would feel that way, Kakashi would too along with all of those whose lives you’ve touched,” I replied, looking up at the rustling leaves. “A person isn’t just a single thing, we’re all made up of lots of little things. You’re not just a weapon, you’re also Fu, a human, a Jinchuriki, a Shinobi and many other things all at the same time.”
“But I am still a weapon?”
“All Shinobi are,” I hummed. “But we’re not defined by that small aspect of our lives. We get to choose how we live our lives and how things affect us. People will always look at us differently because we’re Jinchuriki, but, with time and effort on both of our parts, I believe that people will stop looking at us as weapons used to kill and more like guardians that protect.”
“Guardians,” Fu whispered. “I think I like the sound of that.”
“It does have a nice ring to it,” I agreed, smiling.
“I think… that I want to go again,” Fu said.
“Take a break for now, we can begin again later when the others come back,” I replied. “There’s no need to rush this… Besides, it’s my turn next.”
“Awww, but I want to try now,” Fu whined. She didn’t seem quite back to her old self again, but it was an improvement on how she’d been earlier.
“Well you’re just going to have to wait,” I chuckled.
…PTL…
I soon found myself sitting in front of the waterfall, ready to face my darkness once more. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and began to focus.
“Well, well, well. It seems you’re back… have you finally made up your mind?”
Opening my eyes, I found my darkness standing directly in front of me. “I have,” I nodded, standing.
“What’s your answer then?”
“You’re technically me, shouldn’t you know that already?”
“Not this,” he shook his head. “I’ve seen that you’ve been agonizing over it, but I can’t see what you decided.”
“I’ve thought long and hard on your offer and I’ve decided to reject it.”
“I see,” He hummed, before exploding into motion.
Channeling Earth Style Chakra, his blows impacted my body, but ultimately didn’t do any damage.
“Don’t you think that you’re being overly selfish, you bastard!? All I was asking for was the chance to live and you could go back to your life with Kurama’s full power at your disposal. You could go on to save the world, live your life, fuck Tsunade, everything and I wouldn’t have bothered you at all.”
“I could leave you alone in here, but I’m not going to,” I nodded. “I came here with the desire to accept you and I’ll admit that it’s difficult.”
“I don’t give a fuck with how difficult this has been for you,” he spat. “You’re being selfish.”
“Of course I am, this is something that involves me and you’re a part of me. You’re suffering and you’re in pain. I’m not going to just abandon you to that.”
“So this is what? Some kind of mercy killing then?”
“Will you just shut the fuck up for ten seconds and let me talk,” I snapped. “You’re made up of all the pain and suffering that I couldn’t accept. When I first came in here, I thought it would be easy. All I needed to do was accept you after all, but I’ve found that it’s much more difficult than that. There are some things that I just can’t accept yet, so I’ve accepted that I can’t accept that.”
“What?” He muttered. “Did you just have a stroke or something? Look, I’m literally you and even I didn’t understand that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Here’s the short version. I’m going to be spending as much time as it takes to accept you, so you could make this easy and we can sit down and talk it out or you can make it hard and we can talk while fighting… either way, we’re going to be talking.”
“Well, when you put it that way. I guess we can…”
I ducked under a Rasengan that was racing towards my face.
“Let’s start with how everyone hated us when we were younger.”
Rolling to the side, I brought my arm up and blocked a heavy kick.
“This… is going to take a while,” I muttered as my darkness grinned. At least I was getting some training out of this, even if it was all mental.
Comments
SkulduggeryHaven
I agree that Hiruzen wasn’t the strongest Shinobi ever, don’t get me wrong, but he was by no means weak either. The main thing that severely weakened him was his old age. He wasn’t able to fight as well as he used to be and he didn’t have as much Chakra, but even then he was able to fight Orochimaru to a stand still and fend off Hashirama and Tobirama who, despite being heavily nerfed, were able to use some really powerful Jutsu. I don’t see Hiruzen winning a fight with the third Raikage, as you said, he was insanely powerful, being able to evenly match the Hachibi until they both collapsed from Chakra exhaustion and I just can't see Hiruzen outlasting that. Maybe if he figured out the weakness to the Sandaime's Lightning armor, he might be able to wound him. I do think that a fight between Hiruzen in his prime and the third Raikage would be an epic one though. Hiruzen was called the professor after all and would likely have more than a few tricks up his sleeve in order to level the playing field.
Hersh Jobanputra
The third Hokage is overhyped. Let's look at the Third generation. 3rd Raikage - Strongest Shield and Spear along with Black Lightning. He would stomp Hiruzen. Old Hiruzen with all the experience and battle intelligence still had to whip at minimum 10 to 15 hand signs. Plus for his fancy combination in Ninjutsu he needs to make a shadow on so he's splitting his chakra in half and he does not have huge reserves. He's got Kage reserves but no huge when compared to other Kages. the only thing he got going for him is his adamantine staff, but he would need to be fast enough to hit the Raikage with it. Which he is not. 3rd Tshuikage - Particle Style survived until Boruto became a shinobi. In the fourth ninja war, Gaara and ex-jinchuriki ran out of chakra before him. He was like 75 - 80 at that point. This man destroyed a whole meteoroid survived a meteoroid falling on him agter that. Fought the 2nd Tshukage which I believe is almost as strong as Tobirama. After that he fought Madara although he lost he was the main attack power it was only his particle style that was doing damage everything else failed. Plus he can fly. Yeah, Hiruzen is not beating him. 3rd Kazekage - I think Hiruzen can beat him. 3rd Mizukage - Irrelevent or maybe not since it's technically Madara So Hiruzen can only win against 2 of the 5 Kages. 1 if you count Madara. Not that impressive.
SkulduggeryHaven
Kakashi's definitely going to be stronger than he was in Canon. He's definitely going to be able to hold his own against some of the stronger characters in Shippuden and prove to be a major asset. I don't want to spoil too much, but in terms of strength he's going to be decently more powerful than the Third Hokage while not yet being as strong as Hiruzen was in his prime who is an entirely different monster.
Hersh Jobanputra
I hope Kakashi is way stronger than Canon by the start of Shippuden. I don't want the only difference between Pre-Shippuden and Shippuden Kakashi being him being slightly faster and slightly stronger and kind of sort of being able to use the Manekyo. That would just be disappointing. There's so many routes he could go. at this point, I am just ranting, but he should be stronger than the White Fang and the Third Hokage at this point. He was the youngest Jonin in the history of the village. He should be around 26 now and he became Jonin at 12. He has learned nothing new in that period of time. I hope he picks up Kenjutsu again. Maybe have him focus on Fuinjutsu. Improving his Chidori maybe getting Purple Lightning earlier. He knows the threat the village and Naruto is facing. But he still doesn't want to train. Just wants to be lazy at this point. He just needs to reality check. He keeps crying about the people he has lost, but is not trying to save the people he currently has, and when he loses them because of his incompetence, he'll cry about them too.
SkulduggeryHaven
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed this arc, it means a lot. I can't wait to get to some of the later arcs I've got planned.
James French
Honestly I really enjoy the route this took, it feels original and authentic 🤷🏻♂️
SkulduggeryHaven
Glad to hear your thoughts on this. I'll do my best to explain why I feel this is necessary. Absorbing his darkness isn't as easy as saying "I accept you." The darkness is made up of everything Naruto represses and can't accept. In canon, Naruto struggles to come to terms with how everyone hated him and how they now accept him. He struggled to face that originally, but finally came to terms with it when he made his signature. This Naruto has a bit more self awareness and awareness of the world around him. He's struggling not only with what's left over from the past Naruto, but also where his own actions have led him. He still gets to train on the Island, with Kakashi, Fu, Yugito and Bee, He's still getting something out of it. This arc is actually pretty much finished. The timeskip happens in the next chapter.
Zombie45
No. Just no. I've stated multiple times that this entire endeavor was unnecessary and frankly a waste of time, but I figured the inner darkness would be the original Naruto's inner darkness or his leftovers or something and this whole situation would be far more compelling, but this is such a colossal waste of time. Just absorb the darkness or let it remain, why attempt therapy?
