Chapter Three: the mask;
*Yawn*"You could give me a break for just one night, you know! I wake up feeling tired from working too hard in my sleep! I'm taking today off, no more practice! Please!" Naruto woke up with protests.
It had only been three days since Kushina told him what the mask was for. Speaking of the mask, It was sitting there crooked on his wall, mocking him. Naruto would swear it somehow had a Cheshire grin, and he was the butt of whatever joke was oh so funny. Naruto always set it on the same nail exactly straight but he woke up three days in a row with it crooked. From now on, he would leave it on the table.
Naruto actually had the suspicion that his mother had been doing it but she already told him about the contract and he could feel it. She couldn't do anything with his body that he wouldn't want his body to do, and he definitely didn't want to wake up and see that mask moved again. She had explained that the contract was the only way to get him, his body really, to obey her when she needed to take control. She said it was an unbreakable promise and that even if he should change his mind about what he does and doesn't want to do, as soon as he doesn't want to do something, she can not make him do it.
Ultimately though, Naruto was just fed up with the stupid mask. It wasn't even that he didn't want the mask. The seal she was teaching him sounded really awesome. Of course, for his mother, the important thing about the mask had been that it would allow her to directly train him. Naruto was mostly looking forward to directly talking to his mother, but he would be lying if he said the seal's main use didn't interest him immensely.
'The studying! why do I need to know the meaning of all these words and phrases in the abstract! Why do I need to interpret what they mean together! Isn't fur just fur!? why does it have to be warmth, protection, camouflage, and a dozen other things? Fur is an animal's pride, reflects the state of its mind, fur is this, fur is that!'
Naruto felt like he was learning the most abstract and complicated language on the planet, an abstract language that somehow only tolerated correct answers. In a way, Kushina would agree with him. Sealing was the art of capturing a concept in its entirety and redefining its parameters. If you fail to capture that concept, your seal is meaningless. The concept doesn't even have to be physical, only sound.
Naruto felt like he was training to become a monk and that he was meant to spend the next 10 years trying to gain enlightenment by figuring out everything about a fox and what it does, why it does it, and what impact those things leave on the world. Kushina didn't think the comparison was fair though because she was giving him all the answers, and he would gain no enlightenment from it. This was not even an obscure application of Fuinjutsu. It was very basic, Ingenious, but basic.
Kushina thought her son might actually be dyslexic but his attention span was just far too short for this type of work. He was way too hyper. Naruto, in her eyes would always leap before looking. He hadn't actually paid too much attention to his fighting forms either. He was so excited to try them that he just went off and practiced and he'd hardly improved up until now.
One thing Naruto had improved in was motor control. 'The boy is a natural' Kushina was thinking the same thing again today as any other day her boy was bouncing off the walls. Perhaps It was because of his massive amounts of energy, but all his running around had improved his acrobatics to genin level. He wasn't tree or water walking but he could scale walls and jump rooftop to rooftop or tree to tree in a sort of leapfrog fashion, if they were really close together. Naruto could even turn on a dime at a full sprint. He wasn't perfect but he was certainly the best at his age at running and jumping.
Naruto was running to the river that trickled through a part of Konoha, near the outskirts and close to the Uchiha. There wasn't much foot traffic along the outskirts but there also weren't many fishermen in Konoha so it was easy to find a secluded spot to fish in peace. Kushina had told Naruto once to find the laziest part of the river and fish either right before where it picks up speed or right after where it loses it, but most importantly, where it was quiet.
Naruto didn't really pay much attention to all the tips for fishing, he could only really latch on to one thing at once so it wasn't until he reached the water that he realized he didn't have a pole. Looking around he found a stick and tied some string around it that he found tangled up on the beach. It had taken him probably an hour to untangle enough of it to cut and use but as soon as it was ready he tied a worm to the other end wrapped around a small twig.
Naruto would spend the next half an hour letting the same worm and twig drift down the same stream of water over and over again trapped in an eddy before a fish came up to bite. 'Finally!' Naruto thought, his patience already gone an hour ago. Twirling his stick, he reeled in his catch. The fish wouldn't have been big to an adult, but for Naruto the fish looked huge. Not willing to wait for anymore fish to come along and join the feast, Naruto set up a little wooden teepee campfire and realized he had no way to light it.
More than a little disappointed, Naruto made his way back home to prepare his catch whistling along the way. At least he tried to whistle. At the moment he was just blowing air out of his mouth. Nothing was going his way today! In frustration Naruto stopped and blew really hard with all his concentration.
"Mommy, what's that weird boy doing" - "Don't stare at weirdos honey, their weirdness will contaminate you"
No motivation left, Naruto shuffled his feet and continued his way home. One lucky thing did happen though, or at least Naruto thought it was lucky. When a cat crossed his path and looked far too interested in the fish he'd caught, Naruto did not have to defend the fish for long before a team of fresh genin came along and the feline went scampering away to lead them on a wild goose chase through the city.
Once home, Naruto dusted himself off and cleaned the fish before cooking it with a side of rice. This fish would be his food through tomorrow, and he didn't get to eat much meat so he would treasure it.
Finally, it was time to address the elephant in the room. Naruto would once again attempt to write the seal onto the mask. Despite how much he hated Fuinjutsu, Naruto gave it his very best effort before the lines faded again, signaling another failure. His mother told him that the only things he needed to work on was his lines and memorizing all the meanings of the runes in the seal. He was confident he could get the lines right sooner or later, it was the memorization that was the problem.
So, in the most stressful routine of Naruto's life, he had spent three weeks getting progressively more haggard to the point of actually lazing around all day by the end of it. Until, finally, The lines stuck to the mask, and even spread, turning the whole mask black before fading away to the original white and red pattern.
Naruto had been so occupied thinking about the manga he'd barely got to enjoy this week, already expecting to fail, that he forgot that his mom had told him that was the sign the seal had worked. It took the vague excitement that his mother was projecting to him for him to realize and do a double take. *Sigh*"hooooh"
It wasn't a sigh of of happiness, or even one of relief, it was a result only of the physical tension leaving his body. Mentally, he was still completely spent, and right there at the table Naruto fell into a 15-hour dreamless sleep, that left his mom unable to control his body to move it to the bed because of how vehemently Naruto didn't want to do anything until he'd rested. Even though he had fallen face first onto the mask, the seal didn't activate because it needed the user to visualize the change as they willfully put it on.
Technically, Naruto could have put it on someone else, but the willful intent and visualization was still necessary along with something else his mother said only he didn't need.
The early morning rays peaking through the cracks of Naruto's window woke him up and he was already regretting not moving to his bed first. "Itaii, Itaii! Wait, It's morning already?"
*Growl-Grumble*"I must have skipped dinner then.. Why can't I remember falling asleep? The MASK!" Naruto looked down and freaked out when he realized why his face hurt so much, he had faceplanted on the mask and slept there. Luckily the mask was fine, filled with a puddle of his own drool but fine. Taking the mask to the bathroom, Naruto realized he hadn't talked to his mother last night, He hadn't even dreamed at all. He decided it was a good thing, he felt good as new and well rested.
*Aah!*"What the hell! That surprised me." Naruto was headed to the sink when he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, half of his face was purple and swollen with a red line tracing a path from his jawline to his hairline, cutting through the corner if his eye, with half a nose imprint on the side of his nose and half an eye imprint on his other eye. "No wonder it hurts..."
The injury was actually worse, but with his mother circulating his chakra to mitigate the damage and his own natural healing factor, Naruto got out of the mess with nothing more than a swollen eye and puffy face.
"What the... Is mom doing that?" A nearly invisible red aura appeared around his face and started swirling, Naruto's injuries were disappearing at a noticeable rate. For a moment Naruto was left with the image of his mother kissing his cheek. 'There, all better...', He could have sworn those faint words were real, he felt that kiss and for a moment even thought he saw her, not the fox, but a blurry, translucent woman with red hair bending down and kissing him on the cheek.
*Sniffle-Sobs*"Mom... Thank you. It doesn't hurt anymore; Thank you.." Teary-eyed, Naruto felt something for a moment, a connection, and tried to force his love and gratitude through it like he was sure his mom had been doing for him. Love didn't come from nowhere, and he had felt loved at the most random of times when he shouldn't have felt it but needed to. Then the connection faded.
One long sniffle later, Naruto rinsed off his face before running the mask under the tap. Clean of the last smudges of dried drool, he dried it off with a towel and carried it to his bed. Taking a moment to calm himself down, he sat on the edge of his bed, Imagined himself turning into a fox, and slipped the mask over his face.
What happened next would be hard to describe, and if Naruto had to, he'd probably try to do it with twirling and whooshing sounds, if twirling could even have a sound. Kushina would tell you its like having an out of body experience. The way the mask is supposed to work is to trap an animal's soul in the mask, and then bind the soul to the body of the person that puts on the mask, making a body with two souls, while two souls have two bodies, transforming the wearer into the animal captured in the seal, making that second body.
The animal would normally have primary control of the animal body, but a battle of wills could wrestle that away from the animal, and the wearer could at any point decide to take off the mask, returning to their own self.
The Obake mask, didn't have to transform you into the animal who's soul was trapped. Depending on what animal you defined in the runes of the seal, you could make a mask that transforms you into any one animal you have a sufficient understanding to capture the concept of in a seal. Doing this, would make a mismatched body and soul, and make it an even battle ground between the two souls. The importance of the trapped soul is for the definition of the seal of two souls trapped in one body that is two.
This Obake mask was special, Naruto already had two souls in his body, so he never needed to trap a soul in the first place. When Naruto experienced his out of body state, he was finally in front of his mother, in her fox form. There on his bed, stood a fluffy and cute red fox. Then his soul collapsed in on the body and he was the fox, he just wasn't in control.
"Hi there Naruto.." Just after his vision disappeared to blackness, he heard his mother greet him before he appeared in a plain room that looked like it was underground somewhere. The walls were concrete, there was one bed, a shelf, and a wardrobe.
"Mom... Where is this?" - "This is a room I stayed in when I was pregnant with you Naruto..., But more specifically; THIS is my mindscape. I brought you here so we could talk face to face."
"Why, why are you still a fox? Are you ashamed of me?" Naruto tapered down to a whisper at the end, chin tucked to his chest, tears forming in his eyes, his hands balled up and punching into his thighs. He had thought he'd be able to see her, to meet her, not this. Naruto didn't understand, couldn't understand. He just wanted to see her.
"No Naruto, I'm not ashamed of you, I could never be ashamed of you.." - "Th-then why?"
"Naruto, your mom is a shinobi. More than that, the world thinks your mom is dead, and few people know that you are my son. But everyone that does know, knows that you shouldn't have any idea who your mom is. If I let you know who I was, who I am, that puts you in danger. If you get someone else to tell you about me, that's fine because the knowledge about me comes from somebody else, but If I tell you, people who would otherwise protect you and nurture you, will have no choice but to suspect you of espionage and treason."
"On top of that, If someone ever says anything about me and you in any way act as if I wasn't dead, even worse consequences would fall on your head as people would come for you trying to get to me. You can't hurt the dead Naruto, but the living..."
"Mom, I-" - "No Naruto, you don't have to be sorry. This is mommy's burden to bear. One day, when you're big and strong, you'll see me, you'll know who I and your father were. For now just know we love you."
"Is dad..." - "Your father died during the demon attack over a year and a half ago. He's watching over you, waiting for us in the pure lands."
*Sobs*"Enough of that already Naruto." Kushina told him as she licked the tears off his face and kissed his cheek. Holding him tightly in a hug until he calmed down, Kushina began humming to him, it was the same song she used to hum when she was a kid, the one her mother had hummed to her before she moved to Konoha, the one she hummed to Naruto when she was pregnant with him.
"I'm alright now mom, thank you" - "Hmm... Okay, and you're welcome. I prefer you happy anyway, you're ugly when you cry"
"HEY!" - "Hay is for horses. kibble please"
With a deadpan serious face and a paw held out, like she actually expected some kibble, Naruto was forced to laugh. It was so unexpected it actually hurt when he discovered he tried to laugh while out of breath. *Cough* "Itaii! Don't make me laugh, it hurts!"
"Ok, but now it's time for some training, you ready?" - "Yes, mom- uh, what are we doing again?"
"Chakra training, now listen up! First I'll show you how to circulate chakra. Focus and try to feel the movement..."
Mother and son together, spent the first half of the day like that, training. Sometimes Kushina would circulate his chakra, sometimes she would give control over to Naruto to watch over him while he practiced. While Kushina controlled his body she would take the opportunity to walk around and stretch before she started taking care of some chores around the house.
She didn't exactly hide what she was doing inside as she had no need to. Taking a feather duster in her mouth she began climbing the walls to reach and dust off places that hadn't been touched since that stupid genin had moved out. She even mopped the bathroom and collected all the trash. All that before ending the training by cooking Naruto food and having one last conversation before switching back.
"So, what did you think? was it easy?" - "No, I could barely do it at all by the end of it"
"That's because of the Uzumaki blood in you. The Uzumaki have a lot of chakra, and even for an Uzumaki, you have a lot of chakra. This chakra makes them strong and gives them a healing factor that allows them to recover from way worse injuries way faster than anybody else. Your healing factor is very very high."
"What does that all mean?" - "It means, Naruto, that you have so much chakra that it'll be even harder for you to control. Normally, it would be questionable whether you'd ever be able to control it, but I'm here and I'm going to limit the amount of chakra you have to control, and increase it little by little until you get used to controlling all of it."
"So... That wasn't all my chakra?" - "Not even a hundredth of it. For now, I've got one more challenge for you before I give you your body back."
"What is it?" - "Fight me, your chakra against mine, I'll even give you triple the amount to use, the same amount you've been using this whole time. If you fail, you don't get your body back until after I eat your dinner for you."
Naruto's eyes became saucers as a wave of violent chakra crashed into him. "H-hey, that's not Fair!" - "Never said it would be. I've got years of experience under my belt, now move that chakra and defend yourself!"
He was bad at it. Even with more chakra, the best he could do was slow her waves down, creating a whirlpool that spun him round and round. He got better with time of course but he had to sit back and watch her eat the lunch he was sure was for him with a mocking grin on her face. In a few hours Naruto had tried a dozen strategies always having his chakra replenished after failing to even defend himself let alone counterattack.
Naruto at first tried brute force, attacking her before she could attack him, but his wave was cut through easily and he was trounced before he could even put up a defense. Then Naruto thought it was a trick and decided to focus on using very little chakra to pierce through her chakra wave, but the result was as pathetic as it was reckless, and Naruto ended up barely defending himself as good as he had in the surprise attack.
Naruto did notice he had more control of his chakra though, so he tried matching the amount of chakra his mom had used, but she only smiled and used the rest of the chakra he wasn't using to punish him for his arrogance. From then on Naruto stuck to using all the chakra she allotted him, and if he focused too much on trying to use a specific portion of the chakra, she would rip the rest of it away from his grasp and turn the literal tide against him.
Like a game of tug of war, they both struggled for control back and forth, Kushina would show him weaknesses intentionally, and Naruto would learn slowly until eventually Naruto saw his mother put her hands up.
"Any more and you'll run too low on chakra. You fail, by the way, I expect you to conserve your chakra better next time. With that amount you used I could have fought for five days straight and used my jutsu too."
Naruto had been gushing chakra like a busted water pipe. But it was the most he could do not to immediately lose. "You can practice circulating your chakra again tonight by yourself before you sleep. Tomorrow, I expect you to conserve your chakra until dinner, and if you still don't win I'll eat your dinner too."
"Mo-om!" - "Don't worry, you'll still feel like you just ate and I'll even leave you with the memory of me eating it, but only one bite of how it tasted. Have fun at the park!"
In the moment of transforming back into Naruto, he felt a hug and kiss on his cheek from the side before he was alone again. She had been right, he wasn't hungry anymore. The sun was still high in the sky, which told him those hours in her mindscape hadn't really passed, It only felt like hours in there. "... It's going to be a while before I can eat all my own meals again, huh?"
-
Naruto spent his down time unwinding. He would play at the park with the kids, where he learned to hold himself back and have fun. He would go to the orphanage and read comic books to kids his age, and children's stories to toddlers. The matron of the orphanage would force him to cut his hair every week but she also always gave him a glass of orange juice every time he delivered the new comics.
The orphanage was funded not only by Konoha, but also from adult orphans who had become ninja or tradesmen and merchants of the leaf village. Naruto liked Ichiraku Teuchi. He didn't know if the ramen shop owner was an orphan himself, but he was always nice to everybody. He would come around once a month and make ramen for everybody at the orphanage, and even told Naruto he could come by sometimes when they're not busy and he'd make him a bowl.
Ichiraku's ramen was the best, so Naruto always made sure at least once a week to pay a visit. Some days, he'd run around looking for spare change people had dropped just to be able to pay for a bowl.
Like this, Naruto spent 5 months, training half of the day, free for most of the other half, with breaks and days off, and the Amount of chakra he was allowed to control had only doubled once. His mom had even allowed him to practice the leaf sticking exercise and showed him how hard it would be for him without her regulating the amount of chakra he could control by first letting him get it down with his current control when she severely restricted his chakra, before giving him access to 20% of his chakra and watching as his chakra shred the leaves to pieces and he failed over and over again.
"Hey, mom? when can I learn my first jutsu?" - "Tell you what Naruto, you already have enough chakra under sufficient control that you can perform basic jutsu. If you learn the weak body bind seal, I'll teach you the academy three ninjutsu."
"Does that mean I can skip the academy and become a-"-*Smack*-"NO, IT DOES NOT! You learn a hell of a lot more in the academy than just three measly jutsu and even IF they allowed you to graduate early, I would not allow it so don't even think about it mister!"
"Jeez mom, you didn't have to hit me" - "I'll do it again if you haven't learned your lesson yet, brat!"
Naruto hadn't only spent his time on chakra control practice or goofing off, his mom had also shown him how to sneak around and blend in to the crowd or create a basic camouflage. He actually learned how to walk silently without disturbing the things around him by imitating his mother as a fox, and by now he was already really good at fishing, foraging, and camping in general. His mother teased him on multiple occasions that the only skills he tried hard to learn was just so he could eat more.
Kushina had made him visit the library too. At the Konoha library, you could find all public jutsu and knowledge on ninja arts like Fuinjutsu, which wasn't much, Just stuff considered to be useless or harmless. Medical jutsu was the most open to the public, but the sealing formulae for basic explosive tags and sealing scrolls were also available... Only because those two seals were universal and used everywhere. An interesting branch of Fuinjutsu that was available was animal art Fuinjutsu, where you paint an animal on a canvas and it pops right off the page in black and white to fight for you.
This was all in preparation for teaching Naruto different jutsu. He couldn't learn jutsu out of nowhere after all. Kushina had no plans to reveal that Naruto's parents had left some of their yin chakra and knowledge in his seal yet. Instead, she would teach Naruto jutsu he'd seen other people use, until he's strong enough to reveal that his parents had left the knowledge to him and could openly practice stuff he shouldn't know.
Kushina would make sure Naruto made another mask before she taught him that seal though. She didn't know why, she just felt compelled to make him create an owl mask, the proper way this time. She was sure it wasn't for Naruto but by now she'd learned to trust these gut feelings. They helped her protect her son in the past, and she was sure the outcome would just get worse and worse the longer she waited. For now, she planned on having him pay a kid to get another mask for him. If he couldn't collect the change, then she'd have him steal it, or go steal it herself.