Strange Companions (crossover)

[LadyTevar]

Ok... I finally got around to reading this since it was a slow day at work, and now I'm kicking myself for not starting earlier.

Great job, ACnut Please keep 'em coming

[Academia Nut]

There was a short, awkward silence in the psychic ether before Cliodhna exploded, “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“I am dead bitch! You fucking killed me!” The voice from the armour cried out in response.

“I did! And you’re supposed to stay dead! And you killed me too! And you nearly killed our daughter in the process!” Cliodhna ranted.

There was a collective psychic pause before all previously uninformed parties cried out, “WHAT?”

There was a silence for a time before Cliodhna cried out, “Seriously Nemhnain! I thought you could count!”

“Like I know when you’re being monogamous and when you’re being a slut!” The man, who was evidently named Nemhnain, protested.

Growling, Cliodhna spat, “See? This is why I was taking Saimshelwe to the Harlequins instead of trusting her secret with you! You never knew how good you had it!”

“Yeah, and look where that got you,” Nemhnain replied sarcastically.

“Shut up both of you!” Yukiko cried out. “Can I get a rational explanation from you two?”

“Quiet girl, adults are talking,” Nemhnain replied dismissively.

Getting up, Yukiko peered down the hole that plunged into the depths of the earth and said, “Oh look at that, a great chasm down which a pair of soul stones might disappear for eternity, only each other for company.”

Silence reined until Nemhnain replied, “She is your daughter there.”

Cliodhna preened and said, “Blood won out even though she was raised by Mon-keigh.”

“Mon-keigh!” Nemhnain spat. “Why would she be raised by those beasts?”

“You shot me and I died, thus I was unable to raise her!” Cliodhna screeched.

Nemhnain digested this fact for a moment before he said, “Despite the pleasure it gave me to shoot you, I now regret it. For any of our kind, Craftworld or not, to be raised by filthy Mon-keigh… ugh…”

“Hey! They raised me well!” Yukiko said aloud indignantly.

“It’s worse than I thought!” Nemhnain cried out in horror.

“I know!” Cliodhna wailed.

“Can I get an explanation here?” Yukiko finally asked.

“Your whore of a mother was born on a Craftworld and followed their foolish paths for centuries before she eventually abandoned them and infiltrated the Druchii city of Commorragh, taking up the life of a Wych and killing her way to the top of her cult,” Nemhnain explained.

“That compacts several centuries worth of information a little tight, don’t you think? But yes, I was at one point Archite of the Torn Heart Wych Cult. Good times, good times. Your father here was the head bodyguard for my retinue of Incubi, or at least he was until he betrayed me by blabbing the fact that I was not going to hand our daughter over for torture and experimentation because she was a powerful psychic like her mother,” Cliodhna elaborated.

“It was more complicated than that! Her presence would have betrayed us all to She Who Thirsts!” Nemhnain countered.

“The rest of the Druchii were far more dangerous to me than Her, and I hid my talents. I sent her away not for fear of drawing daemons, but because the politics of Commorragh wouldn’t let me keep her and you decided to side with them over me, over us,” Cliodhna practically cried.

“You arrogant, selfish bitch! What, you thought I would give up millennia of duty to my brothers and sisters because you would spread your legs like a Mon-keigh in heat? Our ways have kept us safe since the Fall, kept us from the slow, meaningless death of the Craftworlds. I would not abandon that so easily!” Nemhnain roared.

“Safe? We have all lost our way, Craftworld, Exodite, Harlequin, and Druchii alike! Each is a fragment of a once glorious whole, and we slowly destroy ourselves with our incompleteness,” Cliodhna ranted.

“I sense an old argument here,” Yukiko commented sarcastically before she began to rummage about in the armour and pulled out a hidden soul stone. “By the way, why is this hidden?”

Nemhnain grumbled quietly for a time before he replied, “I would rather not discuss the traditions of the Incubi with an outsider…”

“Which is to say that you are embarrassed to admit that your order is closer to the Craftworld Eldar than you care to admit,” Cliodhna pointed out.

“Silence wych!” Nemhnain spat.

“I think this round goes to mother, if that is your best rebuttal,” Yukiko pointed out.

“The Path of Rhetoric has once again served me well,” Cliodhna preened.

“Okay, can we have a civil discourse on what exactly is going on now?” Yukiko asked.

“No,” Cliodhna and Nemhnain replied simultaneously.

Yukiko just blinked at that, looking at the two glowing gems in her hands before she shouted at them, “WHY?”

“We don’t do civility very well,” Nemhnain replied with a psychic shrug.

“There is a bit of that, but I was more thinking that neither one of us knows what exactly is going on,” Cliodhna added on.

“How do you know I don’t know what’s going on?” Nemhnain asked sarcastically.

“Because you’ve been asleep longer than I have without our daughter’s psychic abilities to power you,” Cliodhna pointed out.

“Rather certain of your assumptions, aren’t you?” Nemhnain countered bitterly.

“Superior skill and ability breeds certainty,” Cliodhna answered proudly.

Yukiko listened as the conversation continued in this vein for several more minutes before she asked, “It really is impossible for you two to have a civil conversation, isn’t it?”

Cliodhna considered this for a moment before she replied, “Not having bodies makes it harder to shove him down and ravish him once the argument gets going full tilt, so there is considerable extra frustration.”

Nemhnain sighed with pleasant memories while Yukiko’s face contorted with disgust at the waves of lust now radiating off the soul stones. Shaking her head, she stuck Nemhnain’s stone in her bag along with Cliodhna’s and said, “Alright, since getting a straight answer out of you two is apparently impossible, why am I here?”

“Everything within here is yours by right. In particular though, there are two items here that I was forced to abandon that should still be in working order and will be particularly useful to you. Look for a long object wrapped in thick cloth,” Cliodhna directed.

Looking about, with the help of Creiaer, Yukiko quickly found what was described and picked up the bundle. Almost as tall as she was when standing up, the bundle was quite heavy and the cloth was a dark charcoal grey fading towards green. Unwrapping it, she discovered within a strange, long object that was mostly a series of long cylinders connected together in curious ways.

“My rifle from my time as a ranger before I became a wych and fought more intimately with my enemies. This weapon comes easily to our kind, but mastery does not. Take it and hold it the way I know you know as if by instinct,” Cliodhna told her.

Saimshelwe remembered the basic patterns impressed upon her mind by her mother all those months ago when their minds mingled and hefted the long rifle up to her shoulder, letting it settle in. The motions were still strange, but she knew that they would become familiar with practice. She felt the weapon reach out to her, felt it draw strength from her.

“No crude construct of the Mon-keigh, the long rifle draws power from the world around it and from the mind of the wielder. Meant for those who might go years without the comforts of civilization, given enough time it will always have more shots to fire at your enemies. You must however learn how to make every shot count as in battle your ammunition will be very limited,” Cliodhna explained.

Saimshelwe nodded while her mind returned the gesture to the weapon, causing it to power up, the short cylinder on top softly humming with light as the scope activated, turning darkness into day within its sight. Saimshelwe used it to observe the rest of the chamber, finding many more bodies and strange, bladed machines.

“The cloak will also serve you well, for it bends and adapts to its surroundings, concealing the wearer,” Cliodhna added.

Picking up the cloth, Saimshelwe found that the grey part was the interior, while the exterior was a broken pattern of brown and grey that shifted in the darkness. Throwing it over her shoulders, she felt how it willingly draped over her. She smiled. These were the tools of the sort of assassin this world had never seen before.

“Good, now…” Cliodhna said something else, but Saimshelwe did not register the words communicated to her, for a wave of something washed over her, a profound sense of needing to be somewhere else. Scooping up Creiaer, she placed the scorpion within her hair and then dove for the tiny exit to the hidden cavern of dead Eldar.

“What are you doing?” Cliodhna demanded. “There is still much to do!”

“I must be somewhere else, mother, I just don’t know where yet,” Saimshelwe replied.

It was dark outside, night having long since settled, but Yukiko found her steps sure and confident, guided by something outside her self. Her parents remained quiet, content to observe where she was going with this. Just when the sensation that she needed to be elsewhere started to fade, Yukiko’s sharp eyes picked out two figures moving nearby.

Settling into some bushes, her mother’s cloak concealing her, Yukiko brought up the scope and watched as Naruto, carrying a ridiculously large scroll on his back, tackled Iruka, only for Iruka to transform into Mizuki and Naruto to transform into Iruka. A rather badly beaten up Iruka. Scanning the forest, she quickly found Naruto hiding behind a tree, listening in on the conversation and looking rather the worse for wear.

Half a day ago Yukiko had left Naruto looking rather glum at having failed again while almost everyone else in the class passed the genin exam. She had patted him on the shoulder and said that they would figure something out once she got back from some family business. What had happened since?

Returning to the scene between her teachers, she quickly surmised that Mizuki was the aggressor in this situation, and she got the feeling that despite her teachings, Naruto had been suckered once again. The giant scroll he had was probably important somehow, the only question was which teacher was the traitor. She scanned between them for a few moments before she settled on one. She had never fired this weapon before, but she could feel the basics of it, and her target currently wasn’t moving much.

“A+,” Yukiko whispered as her finger pulled the trigger.

A hundred metres away, just as Naruto had made up his mind to fight for Iruka his decision was made for him when Mizuki’s head spontaneously exploded in a shower of gore that left both Iruka and Naruto agape with horror and disgust. The decapitated Mizuki slumped to the ground as the pink mist settled about him, bits of skull and even a whole eyeball softly pattering to the ground.

Naruto threw up; a sound that immediately drew Iruka over to his student.

“Words of advice dear; the proper sequence is to align the shot, exhale slowly to prevent your breathing from fouling your aim, gently squeeze the trigger rather than pull and then make a pithy comment. Your shot was rather high,” Cliodhna explained.

Grinning sheepishly despite the fact that her mother couldn’t see, Yukiko shrugged before she emerged from the bushes and called out, “I hope I killed the right person!”

Spying his other misfit student in the distance, only her head all that visible, Iruka shouted out, “Yukiko?”

“Yes teacher!” Yukiko responded as she jogged over to meet him.

“What are you doing here… and what is that?” He asked, pointing at the rifle in her hands as she drew close.

“Uh… family heirloom, secret ninja tool,” Yukiko replied, only bending the truth slightly for the later part of her sentence.

“Aren’t you adopted?” Iruka asked.

Yukiko nodded but said, “I found it at my biological father’s gravesite.”

“I… see…” Iruka replied before turning back to Naruto, who looked like he was recovering some of his colour.

Yukiko also turned her attention to Naruto and she asked with some concern, “How did you get so beat up?”

“I was learning a new technique from the scroll Mizuki had me steal, and it took a lot out of me,” Naruto explained weakly while he avoided looking at the remains of the man in question. He looked at Yukiko and asked in turn, “Did you do that to Mizuki?”

“Yes, although I didn’t expect so much of a mess,” Yukiko answered, semi-truthfully. She had expected a mess; just not one with so much brain matter splattered everywhere.

“Thank you Yukiko, you saved us both back there,” Iruka told her proudly.

“I could have taken that idiot,” Naruto boasted.

Iruka was about to chastise Naruto for over-estimating his ability when Naruto went through a complex series of hand seals and shouted out, “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” With a massive burst of chakra smoke, there were suddenly hundreds of Narutos scattered about the forest, all grinning cheekily.

Iruka and Yukiko’s jaws dropped in stunned awe that he could actually pull off something like this. Several of the clones went up to them and started poking them rather solidly, demonstrating that they were more than just illusions.

Observing this second hand through their daughter, the two dead Eldar had their own commentary on the matter. Cliodhna said, “Well, I finally see what you see in that dim witted Mon-keigh.”

Nemhnain’s response was rather more vulgar.

[darthdavid]

this is looking epic...

[von Neufeld]

Excellent. Best chapter so far. I wonder how long it will take until Yukiko say something about adults behaving like children?

[LadyTevar]

I just have to wonder if Yukiko, Naruto and Sasuke are teamed together. The Genin teams all seemed to be One girl and Two boys.

[TheClueless]

I just have to wonder if Yukiko, Naruto and Sasuke are teamed together. The Genin teams all seemed to be One girl and Two boys.

Two male and one female genin does seem to be the standard format for new shinobi teams, at least in Konoha, your Ladyship. (Cloud, at least, seems to be willing to use different groupings.)

On the other hand, Yukiko has apparently just gotten herself an automatic graduation as the top genin of the class, due to the "kill an instructor" rule. So - if the same team assignment justifications are used here as in the source material - it would be Yukiko (#1 genin of the graduating class), Naruto (dead last of graduating class - unless Yukiko's influence caused him to study harder/smart/better), and someone who would be from the middle of the pack. (Sakura, for example, had horrible "practical" scores, but had the highest theory test scores.)

Leaving that aside, if you were the Third Hokage and/or an academy instructor, would you really want to put Sasuke and Yukiko on the same genin team? Leaving aside how Sasuke might react to being bumped down to the #2 slot of this year's graduating class of genin, he just got *owned* by Yukiko in Taijutsu - in front of the entire class taking the genin tests and the instructors - with the added humiliation of realizing that the class wallflower (Hinata) has successfully beaten Yukiko in a *real* fight.

Personally, I don't think it's likely that Yukiko (and, to a lesser extent, Naruto) will be placed on the same genin team as Sasuke.

What I'm wondering, even more than who else will be Yukiko's genin teammates, is who will be that genin team's Jounin instructor? Unless she does end up on the same team as Sasuke, I don't think Kakashi being her Jounin instructor; which is probably best for both Yukiko and (even more so) Kakashi. His tardiness, laziness and (IMO) lack of useful instruction - other to Sasuke - would both enrage Yukiko and give her far too much free time to act on it.

I guess I'll just have to wait for the next segment of this facinating story. Thank you for writing it Academia Nut!

[Academia Nut]

Sarutobi watched with quiet amusement as his jounin teachers wrangled about for their genin teams, especially with the recent revelation that two more unlikely graduates had been added to the roster, especially now that one of them had rocketed to the top of the class in a most unexpected way. So far Asuma had adamantly refused to break up the ‘proven combination’ of Ino-Shika-Cho, while Kakashi had to hang on to Sasuke as he was the only one who could teach the boy how to use his Sharingan properly.

The primary issue was that Yukiko did not get along with most of her fellow students, especially now that she had embarrassed Sasuke so badly, and for political reasons she couldn’t be placed on the same team as Hinata, so she couldn’t go with either of them. Similarly, because Naruto’s only real friend was Yukiko if he was placed on a team with either Sasuke or Hinata, a confrontation between Yukiko and either of those two would be inevitable.

The obvious solution was of course to stick Yukiko and Naruto on the same team, and it worked with their standard policy of pairing the top and bottom students in the class on the same team as despite his mastery of the forbidden Shadow Clone technique. The question then became who they could stick on as a third member of the team that wouldn’t trigger a fight. The only one who seemed to get along with the two at a level above the barest possible civility was Shino, which was where the current fight had come from.

Kurenai had wanted to build a specialist tracking and recon team with Shino, Hinata, and Kiba, but if Shino was teamed up with Naruto and Yukiko, that threw that whole set up out the window. Sarutobi had watched amused for a time before he spoke up and said, “Kurenai, if I may make a suggestion?”

Kurenai nodded respectfully and said, “Of course Hokage.”

“I know you have only heard the rumours surrounding the pair of Naruto and Yukiko and how they are inveterate troublemakers. The truth is they are, but it is subtler than that. The two of them have a knack for getting in and out of scenarios that should overwhelm most other students. Yukiko is a frightfully skilled planner and manipulator, while Naruto has the capacity to improvise that few other ninja of any age possess. If given the proper instruction, they could make a formidable infiltration and sabotage team,” Sarutobi explained. He then added on wryly, “And whatever that weapon she found is, it is the greatest assassination tool I have ever seen.”

“What have we figured out about that thing anyway?” Asuma asked curiously.

Sarutobi shrugged helplessly and said, “All we know is that it only works for Yukiko, and that it can kill from an incredible distance. That’s about it; we don’t even know what it’s made from otherwise as it doesn’t seem to be any metal, ceramic, or plastic that we know of. Given the proper advantage of surprise, even a Kage could be brought low with such a weapon as it strikes from such an extreme distance and without the use of chakra. I gave the weapon back to Yukiko and told her to keep its existence as much of a secret as possible. She, Iruka and I then impressed upon Naruto not to tell anyone about it.”

There was a collective low whistle amongst the assembled jounins. Such a weapon under the control of a citizen of Konoha was something worth keeping around and secret. They would just have to make sure that the only one capable of using such a weapon remained under their control. Kurenai considered this for a moment before she nodded and said, “If that is what you think is best Hokage.”

Sarutobi nodded and then added on, “Hopefully you and the Aburame boy should help even out their more rambunctious behaviour. Or at the very least focus it towards the mission.”

“What to do with Hinata and Kiba though?” Asuma brought up.

“Put them with Kakashi,” Kurenai suggested. This caused a pause before she added on, “Do you know how many genjutsu users forget to add smell into their illusions? With an Inuzaka, a Hyuuga, and an Uchiha all on the same team there will be few genjutsu that could get past them. Plus Kiba should help with the teamwork aspect you preach so much Kakashi.”

Kakashi considered this and nodded, and then the discussion moved on to the formation of the other teams and how to deal with having an odd person out. Eventually Asuma agreed to take on an additional member of the team as Kurenai would already have her hands full with a trio of oddballs on her first genin team and Kakashi was too lazy to want to take a fourth member while the other jounin present didn’t feel they had the seniority to take a fourth genin either.

Sarutobi leaned back with a smug look on his face. Sometimes all it took was a poke in the right direction. At least with Kurenai watching over them there shouldn’t be a repeat of that day’s incident between Naruto and his grandson. Kurenai wouldn’t stand for Harem no Jutsu in her presence.

Sarutobi considered that for a moment before he added ‘hopefully’ to that thought.

The next day and Yukiko was resting her head on her desk, her new forehead protector upon her head and with a nice new coat of grease to reduce the reflectivity. She was resting her head because her parents seemed to have transformed bickering into an art form, so her dreams had been haunted by their disembodied presences. They had then officially transformed into nightmares when the two of them took advantage of the situation to start making out inside her mind.

She had woken up screaming when the leather started to show up.

So she had left them behind for today, along with the long rifle as the Hokage had asked she hide its existence as much as possible and to keep any practice with it to concealed locations. She had been allowed to get back the camo-cloak though, as they had no idea how to replicate it and it would work best with her nonexistent chakra for concealment purposes.

She had however brought one surprise that no one else knew about yet, that being her mother’s sword. It had been a bit of a bitch to figure out how to carry it, but both of her parents had explained how to safely handle monoedged weapons. The sword was thus safely tucked away, hidden beneath her cloak. With Creiaer riding hidden in her hair, she had a variety of surprises up her sleeves.

“So what do you think the teams will be?” Naruto asked, sitting down next to Yukiko.

Looking around, Yukiko observed, “There appears to be a two to one sex ratio between boys and girls, so presuming we get paired together it seems likely that the other member of members of the team will be male.”

“Do you think they’ll put us on the same team?” Naruto asked, somewhat worriedly.

Yukiko looked up at him with tired eyes and asked, “Who else in the class is likely to not kill me in my sleep?”

“Shino?” Naruto suggested. He didn’t hang around much with the aloof Aburame boy, but he knew that Yukiko talked to him on occasion about bugs.

Yukiko considered this for a moment before she nodded and said, “He would make a good team mate, although I’ll have to crack down on Creiaer’s proselytism again.”

Naruto looked at her funny before she waved it off.

At about that time Iruka came into the class and told everyone to settle in while he listed off the teams. Then he listed off, “Team 8, Jounin teacher Kurenai Yuhi, consisting of Shino Aburame, Naruto Uzumaki, and Yukiko Kuromori.”

Yukiko grinned while Naruto shouted with triumph and Shino just quietly acknowledging the arrangement. Iruka called for calm and then began reading out the next listing. Once he had gone through the list of the teams he said, “Okay, you all have the rest of the morning off and will meet your new teachers this afternoon.”

Getting up with the mass migration of students, Yukiko and Naruto went over to where Shino was sitting calmly, observing the world through his ever-present dark glasses. He looked over the two and then said, “So we are to be team mates? We must endeavour to work together then.”

Yukiko nodded and said, “I’ll have to make sure Creiaer leaves your bugs alone.”

“Your arachnid companion’s presence is most welcome, so long as she keeps her theology arguments away from my clan’s hives,” Shino replied before he asked “Incidentally, how goes her efforts to find a suitable mate?”

Yukiko shrugged and said, “Apparently she found a mate, but she later devoured him before being sure if fertilization was successful, although she maintained it was in self-defence.”

Shino let an eyebrow rise above his glasses before he said, “She maintains it was self-defence? She is more than capable of subduing large rodents, how can she claim that any of the specimens provided to her were any sort of threat?”

Yukiko paused and consulted with Creiaer before she replied, “She never said she was very good at non-lethal techniques.”

Shino frowned beneath his high collar before he shook his head and said, “I fear I do not understand your companion very well.”

“You guys are weird when you talk about bugs,” Naruto pointed out.

“Would you prefer we speak of pranks?” Yukiko asked.

Naruto grinned and nodded while he said, “Yeah! I’m good at pranks!”

Shino’s frown returned and deepened and he said, “I do not believe our teacher will allow us sufficient leeway for that sort of thing.”

Yukiko grinned, but before she could speak, Naruto said, “Nah, we’ll still pull pranks, it’s just that they’ll be for Konoha rather than against it.”

Yukiko’s jaw dropped and she asked, “How…?”

Naruto’s cheeky grin broadened and he replied, “You told me, remember? About how a good prank is like practice for a mission.”

Yukiko frowned and she thought for a moment before she said, “That was years ago! You normally have the attention span of a gnat!”

Naruto’s smile faded into a bit of a pout and he replied, “Hey! I do not! I can pay attention when things are important!”

Yukiko considered this for a moment before she suggested, “So from now on I should couch everything in terms of pranks and ramen?”

Shino considered this for a moment before he said, “Clever.”

Naruto pouted for a moment before he said, “Well, if you want to motivate me…”

Yukiko laughed and said, “Well I see you’re slowly learning. Slowly.”

They continued like that for a time, the three of them just talking, each assuming their own sort of role in the conversation. Naruto provided the bulk of the motivation for the talks, while Yukiko steered the conversation and Shino made the occasional quip or observation. The boy, while quiet, had a keen mind and was unafraid to hit back if challenged.

They continued on like that for a time until Yukiko froze with a sudden creeping existential fear. Naruto and Shino looked at her oddly for a moment while Yukiko’s head and eyes darted about the classroom, seeking the source of her dread. She could feel a presence, a mind without a body in the room. The others couldn’t see it, but they could start to feel the effects of the mind’s passage as the room chilled.

Tentatively reaching out, Yukiko found a mind, lost, confused and frightened, seeking anything to cling to in its confusion. It started to gravitate towards Naruto and suddenly it clicked for Yukiko. Only the sudden numb sensation that simple fate mandated what happen next kept her from losing her cool.

With her mind, she reached out and shoved the other mind, sending it spinning away into the ether, hurling back across time and space to where it belonged. She knew the mind would return to where it was needed because it was her mind. Six months ago when she had first attempted to use her abilities, she had become lost until another mind had thrown her back towards her own body.

Now she knew the other half of the equation. The other mind had been her in the future.

Yukiko slumped down into a nearby chair. Naruto scratched himself uncomfortably and asked, “What was that?”

Yukiko replied, “I’m just going to sit here and stare off into empty space for a few minutes guys.”

She had become lost in the past and saved by her future self. Her past self would never have returned to her body without her future self propelling her away, but her future self would never have existed if her past self had not returned to her body. Paradox and implication compounded on each other as Yukiko’s mind tried to wrap itself around the insanity of the situation.

Eventually she just gave up, and broke down into psychotic laughter before she turned to her downright disturbed companions and said, “I’m sorry, I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. Every time I think I know how the universe works, it is revealed that I don’t.”

“Well don’t let it get too much to you, we have work to do,” a bored looking woman with bright red eyes and lips said from the doorway.

---

I am actually having difficulty formulating the proper level of maniacal laughter for this one, as this was mentioned back in the second chapter. I posted it, and no one saw it coming! *insert evil laughter here*

[EarthScorpion]

Fuck all causal loops. Seriously. So much hate.



Speaking as one bastard of an author to another... well played, sir, well played indeed.

[Vehrec]

Just because we see something comming doesn't mean we have to like it and post it. I've been willing you away from this course of action with all my might.

[LadyTevar]

Kakashi's little "teamwork" test is going to be interesting this time around. I think Kiba and Hinata will get it before Sasuke does.

[Academia Nut]

Before or after? That is the question. Kurenai mused to herself while considering the bottle of sake before her. The first day with her new genin team had been... enlightening, to say the least. It said a lot when the terse, bug-bloodline Aburame boy had the most normal psychological profile and skill set. Naruto was hyper-active, inattentive, sloppy and yet had more endurance than probably the rest of his class put together. And despite the warnings from the instructors, she had been caught by surprise by what a monster Yukiko was.

For all her skill at hiding it, there was something utterly inhuman and alien lurking behind those eyes and it came out in her skill set. While she had zero chakra control, the girl was actually rather sensitive to the use of chakra by others, and she seemed to have her own weird bloodline abilities that defied conventional consideration. Of course, such considerations were quickly forgotten when she went all out with her taijutsu and the appellation ‘monster’ truly shone. Unnaturally fast and agile for one with her training, she could easily hold her own against both her team-mates at once, and only Kurenai’s greater experience and strength let her keep ahead of the girl in a hand to hand fight. Even the adage “Old age and treachery will win over youth and skill every time” did not fully apply because the girl was already treacherous enough as it was, and only lacked in the breadth of her dirty tactics. And even then, she would occasionally pull out tricks that only a veteran of actual battle should know about.

As painful as it was to admit, Kurenai knew that her ability to train in taijutsu was far outstripped by the girl’s raw genius. Worse yet, while the girl had clearly been trying to teach to Naruto, the two of them had such radically different builds, balance, and approach to fighting that they might as well have been speaking different languages, so the boy needed a great deal of work.

Fortunately the truly bright ray of light in the whole situation was that none of her students was afraid of the concept of hard work. That ray of light however was pointing directly to a chasm of despair that had lead Kurenai to stare longingly at the bottle in front of her, conflicted about when the best time to consume it would be. She finally settled on after the conversation she truly did not want to have, but that her ethics as a teacher compelled her to do.

Leaving the sake behind in her apartment, she slipped out into the night, heading toward where she knew that her target would be. Half an hour she returned and took a large slug straight from the bottle. Those sorts of conversations were always trying, even if she would have to get used to more of them in the future.

The next morning, Yukiko waited quietly with the others at one of the training fields while going over her parents’ analysis of her new instructor. Cliodhna found her acceptable, for a Mon-keigh, while Nemhnain just muttered his disapproval of anything non-Eldar. Of course, Cliodhna apparently had once known a Shadowseer of vaguely similar character, so she begrudgingly gave a few extra points. It vaguely amused Yukiko to know that there were a group of elite Eldar more brightly dressed than Naruto, a fact that slightly scandalized both parents, although Cliodhna seemed to have more respect for the Harlequins while Nemhnain held more fear for their incredible combat ability.

A peculiar unease alerted Yukiko to the approach of their teacher, under cover of an illusion, and she got up to stretch while trying to get the irritation out of her system. While she could not break the illusion, the use of chakra and the subtle way it tried to infiltrate her mind to finish the effect tipped her off to the presence of the technique, although their teacher supplemented the illusion with actual stealth skills so Yukiko could not merely look for the blurry spot to find the woman.

Dropping the technique while leaping out of her hiding place to the surprise of Naruto, and possibly Shino too if one could read his expression, Kurenai nodded to Yukiko and said, “I see you noticed me coming.”

“I notice any attempted intrusion into my mind,” Yukiko replied while adding on mentally, “Because people are constantly doing it to me.”

“Hush daughter, this is not in the least bit intrusive,” Cliodhna admonished.

“No, but the two of you hijacking my subconscious while I sleep to use for your own depraved fantasies most certainly is,” Yukiko accused.

“None of that was depraved,” Nemhnain pointed out.

“Barely any blood would have been drawn had we physical bodies. That’s foreplay amongst Wych cults,” Cliodhna added on.

Mentally shaking her head in disgust, Yukiko tuned back into conversation occurring outside her head to pick up, “...which is why I have decided to make something of an alliance with another genin team to fill in the gaps we have in instructional ability for our respective students. They should be arriving in a few moments now.”

Yukiko turned her attention to the direction her superior was looking with an expression that straddled the line between apprehension and indigestion, and noticed a rapidly growing green blur appearing from the edge of the forest at the head of a cloud of dust. Coming to a screeching halt that dug furrows into earth was the most peculiar human Yukiko had ever seen. Badly dressed in green spandex, a flak jacket, and with an even worse bowl cut hair style...

A few seconds behind him was a smaller, younger version with a near identical outfit less the jacket and identical hairstyle if slightly less bushy eyebrows. The man turned to his miniature and gave a thumbs-up, his teeth flashing in the morning sunlight with a peculiar twinkle while he said, “Yosh! Good job Lee with that final sprint there.”

“Gai!”

“Lee!”

The exchange was somewhat fortuitously broken up by everyone looking around in confusion while Yukiko tried not to grit her teeth at the psychic assault of her mother screaming so loudly even humans could hear the anguish at the periphery of their awareness. Once she got that out, she then degenerated into random gibbering. Yukiko managed to pick out a few stray thoughts of an Eldar in green and yellow armour, his helmet off to reveal a bowl cut hairstyle and a sparkling toothed smile.

Something clicked in Nemhnain’s mind and he said, “By all that is holy, not him! By all the cruelties of the cosmos, there should not be another version of him running around, least of all one that is reproducing!”

“Allow me to introduce Maito Gai,” Kurenai said with considerable exasperation.

For his part, Gai turned to the assembled genin and gave them all a thumbs-up, asking, “So these are the students possessing the fires of youth that Kurenai told me of?”

Yukiko attempted not to wince while this statement set off a fresh round of wailing from the souls of her parents, while Naruto looked like he had been hit in the face by a brick and Shino put his ability to maintain a straight face in the face of the end of the world to excellent use.

“So yes, now that you are properly introduced, let me explain the training regime a bit more. Gai has agreed that considering the unique training needs of both of our teams, he will join with us for training every other day for taijutsu practice and I will provide training in genjutsu for his students in exchange. Also, I strongly recommend that you join in with Gai and Lee on their morning exercise regimens whenever possible,” Kurenai explained.

Yukiko noticed that the smaller version of Gai, apparently called Lee, was looking at her funny, almost enviously, and finally when she could not take it anymore she called him out and asked, “What are you staring at me for?”

“I had heard that the Uchiha heir was the one to which all others would be compared this generation, but then you beat him without chakra abilities or the genius of hard work,” Lee stated coldly.

“Ah, you must forgive Lee; he feels that his fires of youth are threatened by your own Miss Kuromori since you are in much the same boat as he what with your pre-eminence of taijutsu ability over chakra abilities. Would you be so good as to make the first spar of the day with my Lee?” Gai explained.

Yukiko looked at Kurenai, who nodded, and shrugged, the action showing her resignation while also slipping her cloak from her shoulders in a single smooth motion. She then tossed her sword to the side while stretching out her limbs in preparation. She and Lee walked off to a sparring field, stood a good ten paces apart, and then bowed to each other.

One moment Lee was in one location, and the next he was in front of Yukiko, a straight blow to the midsection barely redirected in time to avoid being crumpled up around his fist. Acting on pure instinct for a few moments, Yukiko deflected half a dozen attacks a second until she found her own centre and could open up her motions to the future. To her shock though, it was not enough. The boy was simply faster than her and even if she could predict his movements three steps ahead he took four for every one of hers. And unlike Sasuke, she had no idea how to goad him into making stupid mistakes because his pride was stung.

Lee grinned savagely as their dance of punches, kicks, sweeps, chops, and redirects took on an ever increasing tempo, the boy clearly in his element while Yukiko floundered in trying to wrap her head around an adolescent human could be so incredibly fast and getting faster. Not only that, but he did not seem to tire from the incredible feat he was putting on, only a barely perceptible sheen of sweat showing that he was even exerting himself. She had thought Naruto had near infinite reserves of stamina, but this was insane!

Then, as an impossible cherry atop the nonsensical frosting on the crazy cake that was this fight, Yukiko felt a ripple from the future tell her that she needed to block now. There was no way to dodge, no way to counter, and no way to interrupt, for Lee was just that damn fast. Pulling back, he put actual force into his blow this time.

Despite blocking, Yukiko felt like she had been hit by a stone battering ram and found that she was now moving backward from the sheer momentum transfer. As she skidded to a stop, she could feel her teeth rattling from the blow and was amazed she had not suffered shattered bones.

Before Lee could capitalize on this, Gai called out, “Lee, that is enough for today!”

Stopping, Lee looks over at his teacher for a moment before bowing to a still rattled Yukiko, who barely managed to compose herself before Gai barked out, “Lee! Go run a lap around Konoha to cool down and then double your weights.”

“Yosh! And if I cannot do that without stopping then I will do five hundred hand stand push-ups!” Lee said before he took off in a blur.

Moving up to Yukiko with a serious look on his face, Gai says, “I must apologize for my student, the fires of youth burn strong in him and sometimes he can let them go to his head. He can be very touchy over perceived threats to his mastery of taijutsu, and I will have to talk to him. You are not a threat to his genius of hard work.”

“I can see that,” Yukiko states bitterly.

Sensing the disappointment, Gai states, “You are not a threat! You are a resource! Not since I first met Lee have I seen one for whom the fires of youth burn so brightly. That you could keep up with my Lee at all is a testament to your skills. Such speed and grace! If I could have had both you and Lee to train from the beginning you two would have been the greatest geniuses of taijutsu the world had ever seen!”

There was a slight beat before Yukiko pictured herself in bright green spandex and joined in gibbering along with her parents at the horrible prospect, although commendably she managed to stay quiet and subsume her pained expression in with the actual physical pain she still experienced from the blow she had taken from Lee.

Seeing her student’s distress, Kurenai swooped in and said, “Be that as it may Gai, she has a variety of other skills that would be a shame to go undeveloped if she pursued a pure taijutsu training regimen.”

“Yosh! There is that I suppose, still a man can dream,” Gai replied with something of a resigned sigh before he perked up again and flashed Yukiko a twinkling smile. Turning away, he then addressed Naruto and Shino, “I will now need to see what the other students of the lovely Kurenai have to offer in their skills.”

While Naruto and Shino began to spar, Kurenai took Yukiko off to the side and said, “I know you have a reputation for seeking revenge on others, so let me make it clear that the only way I want you to get one over Lee is on the sparring field.”

Yukiko exhaled slowly and then nodded.

“Do not worry overmuch about showing your superiority directly. In a century or two the Mon-keigh will be dust while you will be just entering your prime,” Cliodhna reassures her daughter.

“Unless by some foul trick of the gods the followers of the Corpse Emperor find this world and induct the boy into their Adeptus Astartes,” Nemhnain points out pessimistically.

“Do not tempt the universe!” Cliodhna spits back in terrified fury.

Yukiko got the vague vision of hulking brutes in massive armour that moved far faster and with more fluidity than something that big and heavily armoured should be able to, armed with weaponry that made the rifle recovered from the cave look like a peashooter.

Returning her thoughts to the present, Yukiko watched as Naruto and Shino sparred, Gai watching with a serious expression on his face while the two boys went at it, Shino knocking down Naruto frequently but the blonde haired hellion just kept bouncing back up. Eventually Gai nodded and then wandered over to Kurenai, talking quietly with her.

By about the time Gai called a close to the spar, Lee had returned but now he definitely appeared to move slower than before. Gai had mentioned something about weights...

Yukiko sputtered and then exclaimed, “He had training weights on!”

Lee grinned and showed off the weights about his wrists and ankles beneath the wrappings. Yukiko boggled while Naruto wore an impressed look and Shino let an eyebrow rise above his glasses.

“Yes, a valuable training tool when under the supervision of your teacher to make sure you are using the right amount of weight. Once we have completed a few missions and you have some money available I can take you out to get fitted for your own, but for today we will just focus on basics,” Kurenai explained to her team. She then asked Yukiko, “Do you think you could up against Lee again?”

Yukiko thought about it for a moment before she nodded. Even with the addition of a handicap, Lee had so utterly dominated her before that her pride sang out for another go despite the fact that her body was still protesting the last round. Also, her mind was turning over ancient knowledge handed down by her mother.

Lee had increased the mass of his limbs while keeping the force he could apply the same, so the acceleration of his limbs was reduced proportionally. Gai had said to double the weight, so roughly Lee had half the acceleration as before. Over the same strike distance that meant that from a dead start his blows would have one over root two the final velocity, so he was roughly seventy percent as fast as before. With her precognitive abilities Yukiko had an advantage of about three movements but before Lee had a speed advantage of four. So reduced though she might just be able to keep up, but the while the kinetic energy delivered would be the same, Lee also now had about a forty percent increase in momentum. While that meant that it would slow him down in withdrawing his fists after a strike because he had to fight his own momentum, it also meant that he would hit harder.

This would be interesting. Yukiko grinned wickedly.

[SAMAS]

Yay! This story isn't dead!

[LadyTevar]

YES! It Lives!!

And OMG... Yukiko v/s Lee. She's going to have to improve in a hurry if she wants to keep up with him. Once he takes those weights off.... WOW

[Enigma]

Who is Lee?

[SAMAS]

Rock Lee, of course.

[Skyfox120]

Wait... if I'm reading this snippet right...

There is a ELDAR VERSION OF MAITO GAI RUNNING AROUND THE ELDAR WEBWAY????!!!!

[Academia Nut]

As per a trade with EarthScorpion, I update.

---

Yukiko groaned as she realized that she had another day to face. For the past two months every day had blurred into the next, getting up to train with her team in the morning before going off on a D-Rank mission in the afternoon. With the… enthusiasm… that Gai and Lee displayed on the times that they joined them that made the morning training sessions a particular joy to have to deal with. Then of course there was the near constant bickering and invasion of her mind by her parents, which tended to oscillate between the extremes of violent sexual foreplay on one end and in-depth philosophical discussion on the other. Yukiko actually preferred the former because it was easier to tune out.

For about an hour Yukiko merely existed, flowing from moment to moment on autonomic control, not paying attention to the particulars as she surrendered her body to the ebb and flow of time while she listened in on the psychic conversation between her parents about the safety of such a course of action on her part. According to their experiences, surrendering so much control was practically begging for something to come in and take over, but thus far nothing had tried to take the reins. Eventually the conversation moved into a strange philosophical discussion about how much self discipline was necessary for survival.

The casual unawareness of the passage of time was interrupted by the arrival of Gai and his students to the training grounds. All of Gai’s students. The casual killing intent radiating off of the Hyuuga genius was enough to rouse Yukiko out of the timelessness of ‘now’ and into the conscious world of all times. For a brief moment she considered letting some of the infinite contempt and killing intent an incubus and a wych could bring to bear leak out, but such a psychic assault might have unwanted consequences. The scent of human urine was so unattractive. Instead of such a course of action, Yukiko settled on her most unsettling smile.

Seeing the silent sparks fly between his pupil and Kurenai’s, Gai’s posture changed slightly, as if he was about to launch into a truly epic speech about the fires of youth and how the two of them should get along. Upon noticing this, both Yukiko and Neji immediately backed down, something Gai reciprocated. The man was terrifyingly devious once you got past the insane exterior.

Having taken notice of the little interplay, Kurenai decided that her best course of action was to take control of the gathering before either a fight broke out or Gai launched into a speech. Clearing her throat to gain everyone’s attention, she said, “Good morning to all of you, today is going to be a bit different from our usual schedule. The Hokage has an assignment he feels would be adequate for two genin teams to tackle as a pair of C-Rank missions. Since he had already seen the close association between our teams in training, he offered it to us first and we both felt that this would be valuable to all of your training.”

Gai smiled graciously in a manner that ran chills up and down Yukiko’s spine. Nothing that looked like Gai should hide depths of guile like that.

Continuing, slightly unnerved, Kurenai explained further, “Ah… yes, well we will be setting out tomorrow, so today will be light training on teamwork integration. While you all know how to work together within your teams, it is also important that you know how to work with other teams as well. While for the most part we all know each other, political reasons have kept both full teams from coming together before now. The Hokage has made it clear that any fighting between village ninja while on assignment will reflect badly not only on their own behaviour, but upon their family’s reputation as well. Am I making myself clear?”

Both Yukiko and Neji nodded dutifully. She would not lift a hand against the smug little bastard, not a hand at all. On the other hand, she had things without hands in her employ. Telepathically whispering to Creiaer, she asked, “Can you get a crusade of ants in his bedroll when we are out in the field?”

“If I can find a hive then their numbers will be without end,” the scorpion perched hidden in her hair answered enthusiastically.

Yukiko considered for a moment before she added on, “Can you do it without Shino finding out?”

Creiaer considered for a moment before answering honestly, “That will be somewhat trickier. A bribe to look the other way may be necessary.”

“I’ll get the sugar water,” Yukiko replied.

Outside the conversation, Gai piped up and said, “I know the fires of youth burn brightly in all our students, but you must not let your brilliance clash, for you are all geniuses in your own way.”

Dryly, Kurenai added on, “Considering the Hokage’s words, I take it as authorization to tie anyone who gets out of line to a chair and let Gai lecture them for five hours.”

Everyone but Lee snapped to attention at that threat, while Gai gave a thumbs up, a tooth twinkle, and an enthusiastic, “Yosh! I would truly stoke the fires of their youth then.”

Lee looked confused for a second before Gai just put a comforting hand on his shoulder and said, “If your passions should burn out of control, we would have to cool you off by keeping you from exercising for a day.” The miniature clone of the elder ninja immediately went ramrod straight at that threat.

Yukiko could see the look in Kurenai’s eyes that said that she was desperately craving something with more alcohol than water by volume. Telepathically she whispered to Creiaer, “Hold the insect plans for the moment.”

“Does that include Operation Infinite Termite?” The scorpion inquired.

“We’re still in the coalition building stage so it need not stop entirely,” Yukiko answered.

Raising a hand, Shino asked, “What, precisely is the nature of the mission we have been assigned?”

“A minor gang in another Fire Nation village is getting pretensions of becoming actual organized crime. It was been decided that an example will be made of them before they gain any actual power. To that end our mission is to disband them by any means necessary, and while force is likely necessary the Hokage would prefer if a degree of subtlety is used. This gang can bully about civilians, but even against genin they will prove little challenge, hence why this is only a set of C-Rank assignments. Since actual combat is likely, the Hokage decided to double up on the genin teams, just to be on the safe side,” Kurenai explained.

Yukiko frowned. That sounded like a job for a local militia or possibly even some samurai, not for ninja. She wanted to voice an opinion, but surprisingly Naruto beat her to the punch. He asked, “Sensei… I thought ninjas supposed to be sneakier than beating up some bullies?”

Smiling with a hint of pride, Kurenai nodded and said, “There are more ways to disband a gang than just beating up all the members and throwing them into jail. Can anyone think of any?”

“Assassinate the gang leader,” Yukiko suggested bluntly.

“A good option, and while some leaders are the glue that binds their groups together, often a lieutenant will step up to take their place or the underlings will go wild without anyone reining them in, so cutting off the head does not always work,” Kurenai replied.

Yukiko frowned, and considered these words. Around her the other genin from the two teams gave their own opinions as to how to take out a gang in a ninja way, all while Kurenai and Gai grinned with amusement and gave explanations for why the given methods might not be ideal.

Having stayed quiet for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Naruto finally asked, “Why is the gang there in the first place?”

Giving a bold thumbs-up, Gai said, “Yosh! Good answer Naruto! Street gangs often form when the fires of youth are smothered by fear, causing young men to band together for protection, eventually turning to crime to finance their defensive efforts and later when corruption seeps in to support their self-destructive habits. All of this requires the correct environment.”

“To translate, the Hokage does not just want the gang eliminated, he wants to know the reason why they are there in the first place discovered. Something is wrong, and it is our job to find out what. That means that we are not to barge in to the target zone and immediately start fighting everything in sight… well, my team is not to do that in any case since only Tenten is actually capable of blending into a crowd on Team Gai,” Kurenai elaborated. Neither Neji nor Lee looked like they had a rebuttal to that statement. Tenten just smirked.

Shino raised his hand again, and when acknowledged asked, “What is to be the role of Team Gai in this operation then?”

“Team Gai will serve primarily as a smokescreen to keep attention away from Team 8 while we poke around, and as backup for when things go inevitably wrong,” Kurenai said with a roll of her eyes.

“What makes you think things will go wrong?” Tenten asked.

Kurenai glanced at her team before saying, “Knowing my students, something will go either horribly wrong or horribly right.”

“Was that a vote of confidence on your part teacher?” Yukiko asked dryly.

Grinning with amusement, Kurenai answered, “If something isn’t going terribly wrong, you’re walking into an ambush. Take it as a point of pride for being so damn aware all the time.”

Yukiko smiled smugly at that.

[darthdavid]

I'd almost forgotten about this fic. Can't wait to see what happens on that mission...

[LadyTevar]

HURRAH! It LIVES!!!

And yes, I cannot wait to see what the team discovers behind the gang violence.

[The Vortex Empire]

That's weird, I had just thought of this story yesterday and wondered what happened to it.

So I imagine they'll uncover some big thing behind the gang violence and end up on some large mission?

[darthdavid]

So I imagine they'll uncover some big thing behind the gang violence and end up on some large mission?

Seems pretty likely. Also, major props to A.N. for avoiding 'cliche retread of wave mission #1000001'.

[Academia Nut]

So while looking through my Codex: Eldar I got a paper cut and BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, which is rather annoying, especially since SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE I'm pretty sure it was the Chaos Space Marines Codex I cut myself on.

Continuing with the economic arrangement, here's another update.

---

Yukiko had never thought in her wildest nightmares that she would ever encounter a situation where she was glad to have Gai’s presence, yet somehow she had discovered such a scenario, much to her horror. She had thought that the trip out to the mission with Neji would be irritating as he was sure to try and impress upon her the honour of the Hyuugas and other such nonsense. Instead, he had gone on and on about fate, destiny, and why everyone else was inferior to him because that was the order of the world. Yukiko would have found that worse than some sort of automated blackboard scratching machine in need of oil, but Cliodhna was practically frothing at the mouth in rage while Nemhnain was laughing at the absurdity of it all. The only one who could really make Neji shut up was Gai, but even then only for a little while. Fortunately after being suitably rebuked Neji tended to brood for a couple of hours, but that damn fate crap would always bubble up again.

Yukiko had a plan slowly stewing away inside her head to get him to forget about fate for the rest of his short, miserable existence, but she had to keep it on the back burner for the moment. This mission was giving her the creeps and she needed not only her entire attention but for all of her team mates to be at peak performance, even Neji. The serious expression on Gai’s face said that even he was treating this whole affair with a sober approach.

On the surface, the village of Kansenken was just one more casualty of the Third Great Shinobi War, a once prosperous settlement that had farmed and processed a variety of plants known for their toxic properties that had been driven to ruin when a strike team from Iwagakure had snuck in and destroyed the crops, cutting the supply of poison for the Land of Fire by nearly a quarter. Now most of the village lay abandoned as the majority of the population having found it easier to find work elsewhere than try to rebuild. There were dozens of buildings that lay in various states of decay as the plants from the swamps around the village moved in to reclaim what had once been theirs. All in all, it was the perfect breeding ground for gangs like the one they had come to stop.

Beneath all of that, there was something else entirely, something distinctly unsettling. The morning mist seemed to cling to the place, dampening even Naruto’s inexhaustible cheer. Yukiko had to feed Creiaer from her own supplies because the scorpion refused to hunt. Everyone moved more quietly, more carefully, instincts older than ninja training compelling them towards caution because the eyes of predators were all about. And, while she did not admit it, Yukiko could feel another mind out there, a presence like a rat scratching at the door of an adjoining room, something that neither of her parents could identify, although their dead state did make things a little harder for them.

Perched in a tree atop a hill on the outskirts of the town, her cloak draped over her shoulders but in a passive mode, Yukiko silently observed the distant comings and goings of the few people left in the settlement, memorizing patterns of movement and the like. The gang they had come to shut down were very clearly marked, walking around in pairs with red scarves tied around their arms or necks as identifying marks. The paranoia behind their tough looks was remarkable, and only added to the story that something was seriously off here.

Surprisingly, it was Shino who broke the silence. Crouching in a branch lower than her, his bugs having spread out to scout the region, he abruptly asked, “Yukiko, if I might, could I pose a question to you?”

While she never minded talking with her taciturn team mate, Yukiko had to pause in consideration simply because of the way he posed the question. Something was deeply troubling him, beyond the unnatural pall this place seemed to throw over everything. Working over the question for a time, she finally answered, “If you have a question, I would hear it if only because I probably have the same one.”

Nodding his head fractionally to acknowledge her confusion at the situation, he asked, “Does the timing of this scenario not seem strange to you? The village was economically ruined many years ago. Should organized crime not have arisen sooner than that?”

Yukiko nodded at that question, and said, “I had been thinking on that too, and while the simple answer is that they simply had not been a problem before, it is an answer I do not like. Tell me Shino, are your insects hunting?”

Yukiko could tell that he was frowning beneath his high collar, and he answered, “No, they have not. They are relying almost entirely on my chakra and tissue reserves rather than supplementing their nutrition intake with predatory behaviour.”

“Creiaer is the same. Something is wrong with this place, not just with the people but with the very environment,” Yukiko stated.

Shino was very quiet for a long time before he said quietly, “I do believe we need to speak with Kurenai and Gai immediately.” He then dropped out of the tree, Yukiko following behind, rather worried by his statement.

Landing lightly at the base of the tree, Yukiko followed Shino as he jogged over to the concealed tent where the rest of the teams were coordinating what information they had found. Looking up to find their sentries had arrived in early, both jounins waited expectantly for an explanation for why they were back.

Shino did not waste much time with preamble before he announced, “I have been able to place an anomalous behaviour that I had not directly realized before: a segment of the population are not behaving properly.”

There were a number of blank stares all around, including from Yukiko. Seeing he needed to elaborate a bit more, Shino added on, “Approximately one third of all people in the village observed thus far have been happy.”

More blinks from everyone else, followed by dawning horror on the faces of Yukiko, Kurenai, and Gai, which caused reflected unease amongst everyone else as they did not understand what had the experienced ninja and the two smartest genin so spooked. In the back of her mind, Yukiko could feel her parents cursing up a storm for not realizing it sooner.

“I did not realize it before because a contented state is what one would expect, but consider all of our reactions to this place. Everything feels off and we are all on edge about things we cannot place, yet now that I think about our observations, under such circumstances it is abnormal to behave like nothing is wrong,” Shino explained to those who had not already caught up with the line of thought.

Kurenai nodded in agreement and said, “This is… disturbing. The implications are of course that whatever is creating the negative environment here is also affecting many of the villagers.”

Whispering in the back of her mind, Cliodhna stated, “There are things more terrible than you can imagine; things that twist all in their grasp into sick perversions of what is natural and proper. Pray they have not come here.”

“Aside from you two,” Yukiko countered.

“There are far worse things than us child, far worse things,” Nemhnain replied, his tone sending a chill down Yukiko’s spine.

Reality intruded on her psychic conversation when Gai stated, “The gang is probably a reaction to whatever is causing this. We will need to examine how they interact with the abnormally behaving citizens.”

Naruto blinked for a second before he said, “The gang members avoid all of the happy people, but bully around everyone else, especially if they are alone. Their main base is a large complex that used to be a plantation factory and warehouse.”

Everyone stared at Naruto for a long time before Kurenai asked, “How do you know that?”

Grinning, Naruto said, “Whenever one of my shadow clones expires I get all of its memories. I didn’t know that at first, but a couple of times during evasion practice a few of them got far enough away for long enough that I noticed the difference when in memory. I had about fifty scattered about, transformed into various mundane items that no one would notice like sticks or stones or even a few coins that were picked up.”

“And you’ve been doing this how long?” Kurenai asked.

“Since we got here,” Naruto beamed.

“Okay, the first point is, tell me when you do something like this next time. That is because the second point is that the intelligence gathering opportunities of this are staggering…” Kurenai said, slightly dazed at the implications of what her student could do.

“Coins you say?” Yukiko asked.

Shino turned to her and said, “I am fairly certain that counterfeiting is not our mission objective…”

“No, but what better way to infiltrate a gang than to have a big sack of coins ready to be stolen or used as a bribe?” Yukiko pointed out.

“That… has potential…” Kurenai mused, the gears already grinding in her head.

Suddenly Lee’s own gears managed to churn out their own conclusion and he exclaimed, “Yosh! Naruto, imagine the training possibilities!”

“That is for another time Lee,” Gai admonished lightly, although Yukiko could see a twinkle in the abyss of the man’s eyes that told tales of thoughts to make elder gods tremble.

“We’re here not just for the gang, but the cause, so shouldn’t we find out more about the others and leave the gang for the end when we can mop them up?” Neji muttered, clearly wanting to get past the infiltration stage to the fighting, which was really all he was good for considering how obvious his eyes made him.

“Yes and no Neji. Anything that affects behaviour, especially en masse, strongly indicates the use of some incredibly rare, incredibly dangerous, and incredibly forbidden techniques. Since it has not consumed everyone yet, there is clearly some way to defend against it, and the gang likely knows more than we do. Whatever is going on, we need to know more lest we become victims,” Gai explained soberly, suggesting he had experience with this sort of thing. Honestly, the more Yukiko found out about Gai beneath the exterior of green spandex, the more she was unnerved by the thought of what could have made him the way he was.

“Then let’s just kidnap one of the freaks and find out straight from the source,” Neji proposed, and both jounins considered the merits.

Something clicked in Yukiko’s mind, and she blurted out, “No!”

Everyone looked at her funny, and she said, “The gangs avoid those people right? Yet they’re the only ones that go out alone, right Naruto?”

Naruto nodded an affirmative at that.

“So they must have some way of letting others know if something is happening, otherwise the gang would just get someone alone and kill them, right?” Yukiko suggested.

“That seems a little far fetched…” Kurenai pointed out.

“Naruto’s sample size is rather small to draw such conclusions,” Shino said.

“We can take them, they are all trash,” Neji replied.

“I agree with Yukiko and Shino,” Gai stated, causing everyone to look at him. “We need more information and doing anything to either faction without further observation is unwise at this time. So we continue doing what we are doing, watching.”

“What about the other people, those not in the gang or affected by whatever is changing people?” Naruto asked.

“They wouldn’t know much,” Neji stated, clearly not impressed by the sentiment to involve any more lower class individuals than was strictly necessary.

“We could seek out whoever brought the situation with the gang to our attention in the first place,” Shino pointed out.

“Who was that?” Yukiko asked the jounins.

“It was actually someone outside the village, reporting on the gang’s activities starting to spill out into neighbouring communities,” Kurenai stated.

“Do these guys look like they could do such a thing?” Yukiko asked.

“Frankly, no, which makes this whole thing even more suspicious,” Kurenai stated, shaking her head in confused frustration. This whole thing was getting a lot more complicated and a lot more dangerous the more they looked into it.

“So we have an unknown force putting most people on edge except for some people for unknown reasons, and a gang has formed for defensive purposes against said unknown force, with said gang drawing the attention of outside authorities, but not the unknown force, again for unknown reasons,” Yukiko summed up.

“Welcome to being a ninja,” Kurenai replied with only mild sarcasm.

[LionElJonson]

So, a Slaaneshi cult by the sounds of things. I wonder if the gang are Redemptionists; red is their color, and I wouldn't be surprised if some preacher wound up there as a result of the demon or something. I dunno; I just remember that awesome comic from Inferno, with the Redeemer. He's nutty enough he'd probably fit right in with the Naruto setting.

Then again, red is also the color of Khorne, so...

[LadyTevar]

I will simply state that once again Naruto's ShadowClone tech has far more possibilities than I had imagined. I never knew that they gave him their memories.

[SAMAS]

It was, the basis of his Wind Chakra training. Create an assload of clones, Have them all do the exercise(s), then discorporate them get a couple months worth of training experience done in a day.