The Academy classes were postponed for a week's time for repairs, because Kurama had destroyed the Academy, during which students were asked to brush up on their studies.
As an orphan, by no fault of mine apparently, I was asked to stay in the house with one of the Elders.
The stuck-up bastard had the audacity to ask me to stay in a corner without disturbing him.
"Gol Hah Dov!"
Now he slept on the sofa while I slept in a comfortable bed.
The Shout itself wouldn't last long if it were done by some normal Dragonborn.
I was the best among them.
Pesky things like willpower mattered to me as much as the life of a housefly matters to you.
I understood that the Hyuuga could see that I was stronger now, for some unknown reason. Their stupid eyes could see that my Chakra had changed from a light blue to a dark azure colour.
My ears could discern a few whispers about me absorbing some of the Kyuubi's malevolent chakra.
That was such a great idea! I would do it to spite these fools. Where does that boy live, now?
Maybe later. I have to finish studying this thesis on the tactics used by Hidden Cloud Village during the Second Great War. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Thankfully, my ability to drain knowledge straight from the minds of people made it surprisingly easy to "learn" things while ending the careers of many Cloud ninja. Those guys get such a comprehensive education on things like History, Geography. I learnt 17 lightning jutsu in the span of a day and mastered them as well. Divines, I love teleportation! Makes the work easier tenfold.
Onto the more important matters, I had to use a lot of magicka to change many peoples' memories and alter their psyche to suit my plans.
On the morning of 14th October, 4 Chuunin and a genin "defected" from the village. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem for Konoha, but since the days following the Kyuubi attack the forces were stretched thin and people defecting was not really beneficial to anyone. Especially if they were more than just genin.
This was to further increase the potential for profit, of course.
I had no intention of actually harming Konoha itself. I just wanted enemy forces to perceive weakness and prepare their armies.
I suspected that this would lead to the Fourth Shinobi war faster than in canon by atleast a few months if not years. This wouldn't be the only small changes to the timeline that will happen due to me. But, there was this tiny little problem known as Black Zetsu.
Of all the people that I actually was wary of (yes, wary, a Dragon is never afraid), the third son of the Mother of chakra was one of them. I had a hundred and seventy three plans to deal with him and Akatsuki. But I was not sure of any of them being actually viable.
So I had to up my game...
I went forward in time 13 years from now, which was the beginning of the story. Of course, it was a pity I couldn't take the body with me....There will be more left at that point.
13 Years Later....
*whoosh* Time-travel is such a jarring experience to someone overly sensitive to its flow.
Now is not the time to be thinking about the drawbacks of possesing an immortal soul.
Now all that is left is to create a body.
I infused Magicka and fuse it with the soil and fallen leaves and twigs and added the water that I condensed directly from the air in large quantities to provide hydration which resulted in the air becoming dry and hot.
Then I burned out imperfections and used my knowledge of the Shadow-Clone jutsu and Iryo-jutsu to replicate the Chakra pathway system with Magicka but made it wider and removed and rearranged the tenketsu to efficiently circulate chakra through the body.
This was based on the fact that when Hagoromo used the Chakra Transfer Technique to give Chakra to people, their bodies mutated on physical and spiritual level by the actions of Chakra tocreate the Chakra Pathway System. 361 tenketsus placed in different points of the body in specific regions to facilitate the circulation and usage of chakra. This was a hindrance for me as I could use Chakra through the body I inhabit only. Souls cannot use chakra, and my soul could use only Magicka in the amounts available through the power of my soul like some pathetic ghost. It would be a million times easier with a new body that had only 108 tenketsu and had no limits to the power it can exert. The first step was creating a better body. While Alteration did take up immense amounts of Magicka and required a lot of skill, perhaps on the level of the Arch-mage, it was far easier to let nature do the work. I mean Nature Chakra. All things in nature had the natural energy flow through them. Hence a body made from nature's components would be able to use Senjutsu freely without any limit.
After two years of intense study and research in a cave with Minato and Hashirama for hours on end, I had found that it was possible to use the ability of Nature Chakra to create more of itself. it was basically a Energy-to-Matter convertor without having to use Creation of all things technique.
As I opened the connection between Nature Energy, through magicka, and the Simulacrum of a human that was being infused with Nature Chakra and Magicka inside a forest, the body shone with the light of a dim lamp as it turned into a mass of mud and wooden sticks slowly turning into an adonis-level beauty. A masterpiece, if I say so myself. Creating new bodies was nothing new to me. In my forays into the arcane, I had derived shocking marvels that would make Shalidor and Vanus Galerion look like a novice in comparison to an Arch-mage.
I saw that the "body" was nearly reaching the point where it was no longer viable to continue the flow of Chakra through it. I stopped the flow of Nature Chakra and started altering the body with Ebonyflesh and transmuting the muscles and bones to literal steel and strengthened the organs to withstand the weight of the bones and flesh on top of them. I had an excellent idea. If this worked, which it would, then I could potentially use every bloodline ability ever. I did not alter the water into blood but kept them all as they were. Blood was particularly important in the body as it carried nutrients and oxygen to other organs. I did not require either. And since my cells were basically magicka-constructs, I could format the DNA of every cell in my body to be "x" or variable.
Every time I got my hands on any particular bloodline, I could integrate it into my blood and my body. I could also take only the good parts and leave the drawbacks.
I used Restoration to heal the pulverized organs. I had only kept those that were actually required. The digestive tract was relatively useless, and so was the respiratory tract. My mouth led into a canal of muscle leading to a personal plane of Oblivion whose opening was the size of a dog's paw and the Plane itself was an empty void about the size of an Olympic-sized pool andmy nasal passage led to another larger plane of Oblivion to store large amounts of air for releasing high-pressure winds and create cyclones and hurricanes with a single exhale. I could not have no mouth at all, can I? All that space can be used for a more glorious purpose of storing Chakra that I drew and stored into small planes of Oblivion like Tsunade. The storing, I mean.
All I had left was the Nervous, Reproductive and Circulatory System left in the body.
They were more rudimentary since there weren't many organs involved in the process of bodily functions. That would decrease the time and and blood required to keep them stable and working.
Efficient and cheap. Just the thing I need right now.
I need not lose part of my lifespan because, one- I had a nigh-infinite lifespan, two-I was not creating cells but replacing them with new cells that would be created. The old "cells", because they were actually magicka-constructs, would merely turn into particles of magicka (that weren't reusable according to the laws of magic.) and just disappear. This also happened passively and distorted all the viewing-powers of doujutsu and probably confuse the heck out of Medic-nin who would try to test my body.
I didn't have the Eight-gates limiting my strength, I did not have the same number of tenketsu as others and my internal organs were made of exotic materials that were probably harder than steel by a wide margin.....I would be confused in their position as well.
I was an alien who could bend reality by speaking loudly.
Funneling my soul into the body, I felt constrained, yet free. I felt STRONG!
This....this was the body a Dovahkiin deserved. I shall name it Dragonslayer Mk.1
No. That makes it sound as if it can slay Dragons (though it can).
How about....the Doombringer Mk.1?
Yes. That is a fine name for a fine body. I realized that I sounded a lot like Orochimaru.
Once I got used to my body and the flow of Chakra-Magicka Condensate through this new body and a minute spent flexing and posing and basically indulging in rightful narcissism, I teleported to Kusagakure and transformed myself into a young boy.
Unlike the Henge which could be detected by a skilled sensor-ninja, my transformations were virtually impossible to see through or even recognize. I was basically just rearranging my cells, after all.
I needed the Uzumaki bloodline to enter Konoha. This was the place where I could get it easily.
I tore small strips of my skin from my arm and caused it to bleed. I had to stop my body from automatically healing the arm as I ran to where I sensed Karin and her mother.
Their life forces were unique when compared to that of others and they stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Help! Please help me!" I was disgusted at the act I had to put up. A dragon does not seek help!
"What happened! Is your arm bleeding? How did that happen? Come over here!" It was Karin's mother. I required her blood.
The chuunin who was hidden and watching the scene could barely blink before he was paralyzed by yours truly.
The woman too had but a single second before she was paralyzed as well. I drew a bit of blood and absorbed it into my cells. The Bloodline was copied and pasted perfectly into my genetic structure.
Perfect. I altered their memories and teleported back to the Konoha borders, a small distance from the detection wards and altered my form once more to that of a twelve-year old boy with red hair and striking violet-grey eyes. Slightly muscular and conjured clothes that looked slightly worn and was dirty. It had holes in places and looked like something a poor beggar would wear.
As I used clairvoyance to find my way to the gates, I tripped the wards on purpose. I used smaller illusion spells to hide the weird nature of my internal body from any sensor-nin that might be on their way to apprehend me.
And there they were, not a few moments later. A few ninja wearing ANBU outfits and weilding kunai and other weapons flickered into place as they got ready to kill me.
When they saw me, who put another act of being afraid and surprised, they relaxed momentarily but still were on guard.
"Hello. Are you Konoha ninja?"
They only nodded before the person in the middle asked, "Yes. You are?"
"Ryu Uzumaki. I was told that I would find safety at Konoha. Can I....can I join the village, I can fight. I know some jutsu!"
That made the others even more wary and their grips on their weapons tensed as they got ready for a fight.
"You will have to speak to the Hokage about that. Do you have any identification? Where are you from? Where are your parents?"
He rapidly questioned me without a pause for an answer.
"..My parents....they..th-they died. The ninja killed them. I...I fled here. I don't have anything with me...I'm sorry."
I felt the slightest bit of sadness from the ANBU.
He nooded and took hold of me and said, "Hold on tight. This will be a bit nauseating"
We body flickered and appeared outside the Hokage Tower and the Academy.
I made a show of being slightly disoriented and held onto the ANBU who found it amusing.
I found THAT nauseating more than the Body-Flicker itself. Ugh!
We entered the tower and the ANBU quickly conversed with the receptionist on the front and asked me to stay in place. He left two ninja with me and the others entered the Hokage's office.
My powers allowed me to peep in on the conversation. Not hear them, which I must fix as soon as possible, but just watching them allowed me to see the Hokage and the ANBU conversing about me.
Then the Hokage's eyes widened momentarily and he said something I wasn't able to see with that stupid pipe in his mouth.
In the few minutes it took for them to converse I updated most of the muscle memory I had gained from the heads of many chunin and the skills and jutsus I learnt was being updated as well.
I increased the dexterity of my muscles without even moving a single finger. This was why I loved magic.
A few minutes later, one of the ANBU came outside and told me I was being summoned.
I stood up "nervously" and entered the Hokage's office, immediately sensing a few ANBU hiding in the corners. I made sure to look right at them with a confused face.
The Hokage might want to have another sensor-nin in Konoha. It might even get me some preferential treatment, besides the fact that I was an "Uzumaki" and all that.
"Hello, Ruy-kun. I am Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Hokage of Konoha. I am pleased to meet you" the old man smiled.
I bowed in "reverence".
"Greetings, Hokage-sama. The pleasure is all mine."
The Hokage's smile got a tiny bit wider and he beckoned me to sit on the chair.
"I heard of your situation. Can you tell me more about yourself?"
Fishing for information, eh? Two can play at that game.
"My name is Ryu Uzumaki. I'm from the Hidden Mist."
His eyes widened a small fraction and he hid it quickly.
"My parents were Momochi and Kazume. We lived in hiding from the ninja that wanted us dead. My parents trained me and we were supposed to escape to Konoha....my parents.....they died protecting me from the bad ninja who were after Bloodline-users. I was asked to go towards here.
They told me that Konoha would give me as-asy..."
"Asylum" the Hokage interrupted.
"Ryu-kun. Did you come all the way from Kirigakure?"
"No, Hokage-sama. We were found near Keishi when the ninja killed my parents and escaped. They thought I was dead and....and burned my parents' bodies....before my eyes."
I let out a few "tears" and sniffed.
"I will let you stay in Konoha. You must promise to serve Konoha to the best of your abilities. You will be joining the Academy tomorrow. You will be given an apartment and a monthly stripend of 300 Ryo to provide for yourself...Ryu-kun, I am sorry about your parents." He ended with a soft tone.
I widened my eyes and bowed quickly and spoke with a shaking voice, "Thank you, thank you very much Hokage-sama."
"Rise now, Ryu-kun. Konoha helps its own."
It better. The changes I have made in the "past" were planned specifically for my success....I will not lose any advantage I have. Not one important as having you fools fight the war that's coming.