Chapter 48: YOUTH! & Servitude.
"Yosh!" Lee exclaimed running across what was becoming my training pond at the back of my house. His weights weighing him down and slowing his usually blurred gait to something more clumsy. The increased difficulty did little to reduce his enthusiasm though in fact it only increased it.
"Remarkable." Lu Ten said from his place seated beside me as we both watched my friend train his heart out. Though I have no doubt my latest teacher saw much more than I did.
I did see something new though, the teachings I had received on the Ajna chakra had enhanced my ability to sense emotions even further. Pushing my senses to see beyond the physical and even deeper into the spiritual.
Focusing my will and mental energies on my glabella, my chakra sense fell away to be replaced by something else and Lee became an incandescent green.
Lee was a spiritual bonfire.
His soul burned with searing green flames of passion and determination. It blazed with the ambition to reach greatness regardless of the cost to himself, his spirit echoed with desire and passion unrestrained and on its own; unsustainable. A shooting star on a bleak night. Brilliant and beautiful yet painfully temporary.
The flames of youth.
"Yes, Lee! Burn your youth!" Guy-sensei yelled his encouragement from the shore. His own spiritual fire was an almost perfect mirror of Lee's, blazing with youthful hope, burning with ambition. Yet unlike Lee his was lit in the timbers of a will so stolid as to burn just as fiercely for a thousand years yet not extinguish. He had found his youth and conquered it with temperance and now he sought to impart that on Lee.
I knew that Guy was not someone to be trifled with—no Jonin was—but it was not until I was able to glimpse the true nature of the green beast of Konoha that I truly began to understand the true depths of Konoha's foremost taijutsu master.
The more I learned of my seniors the greater the chasm that separated me from them seemed to grow.
"To find such brilliant souls amongst the adherents of the path of the asura… truly we live an age of wonders." Lu Ten said, shaking his head in awe and inspecting them with his much more developed Ajna chakra.
I tensed up at that name.
"Asura?" I asked. That name had been weighing on my mind since my second meeting with the nine-tailed fox. What it might mean, and what that had to do with Naruko.
"The followers of the eight fold path prioritise peace and the path of least harm." Lu Ten said as he turned to give me his attention, his tone lecturing.
"Humility, communion with nature, as well as benevolence to all, these are the basis of the eightfold path. The asura path can embody all those things but one." he said, pausing and giving me an imploring look.
I blinked at the unspoken question but my mind was already moving to answer. What of those qualities that he mentioned cannot exist as a tenet of the path of shinobi.
"Benevolence?" I guessed
Lu ten nodded with a smile.
"Indeed. The asura path is the path of the killer, the path of one who seeks enlightenment amongst devastation and blood soaked corpses. It holds no place for benevolence."
Well that was ominous, my experience with the chakras so far was stressful enough. Doing so while actively chasing death and carnage seemed like a death sentence to me.
Though something about that statement stood out as contradictory to me.
"Lee and Guy…they're not.. bloodthirsty." I said after some thought.
"I would think not, but they are shinobi are they not? Regardless of how kind the spirit or pure their intention, the way of the shinobi is the way of the asura—the way of destruction. Whether it is to plunder what is not yours or to destroy what opposes you. To be a shinobi is to embrace the asura."
The logic was sound but I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around someone as positive as Guy-sensei being considered an adherent of a path of death and destruction.
"We are not our intentions, young Izuku, nor are we our hopes and dreams, we are our actions and when all is said and done. What does a shinobi do?" Lu Ten asked, obviously having noticed my inner conflict.
Without having to consider it deeply the answer came easily.
… they killed.
Regardless of how kind Guy and Lee were, all this training wasn't so they could break boulders and spar with friends from dusk till dawn. No, it was to shatter bones and slay enemies all while declaring the fire of their youth. Regardless of how kind they were as they did it, their opponents would still tremble in terror.
A kind Asura was still an Asura.
I put those thoughts aside for later and focused on why I had asked about Asura in the first place.
"Is there a person named Asura?" I asked, feeling a strange curling in my abdomen in anticipation of his answer.
Lu Ten raised an eyebrow at this but that was his only reaction.
"There was. Once upon a time, in a time long past, the first follower of the path of the asura was also the name sake of the spirit that the path is named for. Asura, son and successor to the Rekudo Sennin." he said.
My face remained contemplative but internally I was floored.
The son of the sage of six paths—the sage who was said to have purple eyes. Kurama's father had purple eyes. Kurama called Naruko Asura after sensing her chakra through a ninshu bond…..
Why would Naruko's chakra remind him of Asura?
Was Naruko descended from the sage himself?
"Why would a disciple of the third be learning from a monk?" I was asked in a tone that managed to strike a perfect balance between, perfect politeness and mild antagonism.
The question did not come from who you would have expected. Neji sat on the grass with us, taking a break from his training and deciding to spend that break seated beside me. Which was a bit strange since I had gotten the distinct impression that he only tolerated me, like he tolerated everything else really.
Team 10 showing up at my house this morning after Naruko had headed off to school, had been a surprise but a welcome one. It had been some time since I had seen them and while I did not relish what I would experience when Guy-sensei got around to me, I would be lying if I said I didn't miss his rambunctious energy.
"Burn Lee! Burn!" Guy yelled in the background as Lee ran what had to be close to his hundredth lap, his exertion so great his complexion had gone from flushed to pale.
Lu Ten smiled at the question, happy to teach any and all who would listen.
"All knowledge has use Hyuga-san." he replied in my stead.
"What could a monk teach a shinobi?" he said, his tone dismissive but his face stoic, though his mouth twitched with what I assumed was the urge to sneer.
Sorcerers.
"Discipline? Kindness? Humility maybe?" the old monk replied with amusement, unbothered by the young shinobi's not-so-hidden scorn.
Neji seemed to be annoyed by the vagueness of his answer so he turned to me.
"What is he teaching you?" he almost demanded.
His chakra roiled with a desire to know, not actual curiosity but a desire to possess this knowledge. It was confusing but he had already sworn himself to secrecy with my sensei present, who also happened to be his commander and chief, so I didn't see the harm in responding.
"He's helping me with the chakras." I said not bothering to explain what the chakras are seeing as he was there when I explained them to my sensei.
"Truly?" he questioned, his brow furrowed.
"That is a surprise?" Lu Ten responded, his tone vaguely amused as he watched Neji closely and ran his hand through his beard.
"To assist him you would have to be familiar with this technique, a technique that was alluded to by Lord Third to be as powerful as the eight gates. Why choose a life of pacifism with access to such power?" Neji asked his chakra roiling with discontent, well more discontent than usual.
"To practice the eight fold path one must act to cause the least harm." Lu Ten said, like it was a matter of course.
"If you do no harm, eventually something will harm you." Neji said, his words pregnant with terrible experience.
"Nothing may harm you unless you allow it to." Lu Ten said with calm certainty, his tone empathetic and completely lacking dismissal.
"What?"
Neji did not take it that way.
"The human consciousness is the wellspring of all reality. The choice to be harmed belongs to you and you alone, young shinobi. Suffering is a choice." the old monk continued regardless.
Those words lit a fire in Neji's veins and sent fury burning in his arteries. For a brief moment Neji lost his mind, that was the only way I could describe it, he lost his mind with hate. For a brief moment he hated the grass beneath our feet, he hated the air that we breathed, he hated the clothes he wore, he hated me, he hated the water in the pond and finally he hated Lu Ten. He hated him with the fury of a thousand suns.
He glowed a furious red of rage in my spiritual sight.
Then with an act of will that either spoke of supreme self control or a wealth of experience with restraining such fury, he suppressed all that bile until all that was left was a much more mild yet simmering antipathy for anything and everything.
What the fuck was that? I watched the Hyuga who had simply decided to ignore us and go back to watching his teammates, my eyes brows high and my jaw ajar. I glanced at Lu Ten out of the corner of my eye who watched the young hyuga with placid acceptance.
"Young Izuku!" The bark of Guy's voice called my attention away from the dour hyuga beside me.
Lee wasn't on the water anymore, he was now in a corner of dry land doing pushups. Guy had taken his place in the centre of the pond with arms folded and his intense eyes focused on me.
"It is time… to burn your youth!" he said with arms stretched wide.
I sighed and got to my feet, to answer his unspoken request.
This was gonna hurt.
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"Wonderful display Izuku-kun!" Guy-sensei boomed down to my prone form, too exhausted to even squirm in pain from the symphony of my muscles throbbing in response to the tender agonies of guy sensei's training.
I could only reply in a low moan that he must have interpreted as enthusiastic thanks.
"You're welcome young Izuku." he smiled at me with that twinkle in his teeth that I was beginning to think was some weirdly positive version of killing intent.
Seemingly satisfied with our riveting discourse he whirled to another occupant of my backyard.
"Master Lu Ten! I would like to engage you in a most youthful discourse." he bellowed and offered a bow so crisp and fast I wondered why the sound barrier was still intact.
"I would be honoured, Guy-san." Lu Ten replied calm and placid, lumbering to his feet and slowly walking in the direction of the trees for the requested private conversation.
"What do you think they're talking about?" Tenten asked from her place on the floor next to me similarly destroyed though by a much more rigorous regimen than I.
"Something incredibly youthful probably." was my breathy reply, the ability to speak just returning to me, though mobility was still a ways off.
Tenten snorted at that.
"Well training is over." she said standing up and stretching her hands above her head with a jaw cracking yawn.
"Wanna hang out for a bit?" I asked her as I got my breathing under control.
She eyed me skeptically.
"What?" I asked, a bit bewildered by her sudden caution.
"Don't you have like three girlfriends?"
"I don't have any idea what that has to do with this." I replied, face perfectly straight.
"Hmm, sure. Doesn't matter in any way. I promised I would help my parents out at the shop." she said walking to a spot under a tree and picking up a bunk of scrolls.
"Later guys." she said to all present before hopping into the trees.
Jeez, a guy gets three girlfriends and all of a sudden he's Jiraiya come again.
"So you guys wanna hang out." I asked the remaining members of team 10 as I got to my feet.
"I would be honoured Izuku-san!" was Lee's instantaneous and bombastic reply.
"Neji?"
"Hn." he grunted in dismissal but still followed us into my house. Which was a surprise, I would have thought after Lu Ten words and his reaction to them he would want to be as far away from me as possible.
"You have a beautiful abode, Izuku-san." Lee said as he entered and I realised this was the first time I had anyone over that was around the same age as me and wasn't romantically involved with me.
In other words, the first gathering of the bros. Well one bro, Neji was up for debate but Lee was a homie and homies were always welcome at home. I suppressed an external cringe to my internal nonsense. Guy must have hit me pretty hard.
"Thanks Lee, but I can't take any credit for this. The house came furnished and any additions were made by Naruko, not me. The only place I have been moving things around is my lab."
"You possess a laboratory?" Neji asked that same strange desire to know. Completely impersonal yet oddly urgent.
"Yeah, fully stocked too."
"What could someone of our age do that requires such advanced equipment?"
"Wanna see?" I asked with a conspiratorial smirk.
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By virtue of having moved all my equipment and research from my old apartment into this lab, it was the only area of the house that I could say I had personally contributed significantly to its look and feel.
Diagrams of my different fuinjutsu projects, in complete arrays and seal concepts that I lacked the skill or knowledge to accomplish. One of the only windows had the addition of a plant tray on the external window seal for my Ki wood. I had managed to impregnate three more saplings with my chakra and attune it to nature in the time following my initial success, now that my chakra network was healed, I found myself drawn back to that particular project especially with a monk at hand to consult on my approach to nature energy in addition to a sage.
"You practice puppetry?" Neji asked, interrupting my silent inspection of my domain. He stood in front of what could be mistaken for a wooden coffin, inside was a manakin, vaguely humanoid in shape carved from wood and covered in engraved fuinjutsu.
"Not quite, this is actually a golem, not a puppet." I answered his question
"What is the difference?"
"One requires active control, the other can function with pre given instructions."
Project: No Strings was another crucial step on my path towards peak wizardry. Every self respecting wizard has a suite of magical servants to do their bidding. That is if they were not destitute, though in a way that made them more dangerous, there is nothing more perilous than a desperate wizard.
"Your ingenuity is truly something to marvel at Izuku-san. I am humbled by my continued association with you." Lee breathed in awe as he inspected my lab.
"Well you kick my butt all the time Lee, and you work harder than anyone I know. If anything I should be humbled by you." I said, still not the best at taking compliments.
"No! Not after all the assistance you have provided me Izuku-san, because of you I am now capable of using jutsu to stoke the fires of my youth even higher!" Lee reposted with increasing zeal.
"Well it's because of you that I met Guy sensei in the first place, so without you I might have never ignited my own youth to begin with."
That was clearly the wrong answer.
Lee leaned back as if slapped and clutched his chest like he was in great pain.
"Impossible! Someone as hip as you could never be without the flames of youth, I have to believe that even without me or Guy sensei you would have found your flame regardless!" Lee exclaimed his spirit flame burning higher with passion.
"Maybe. But I didn't find it. You showed it to me and that is something I can only ever be grateful for." I promised him with a hand on his shoulder to get across my sincerity.
"IZUKU!" he bellowed my name and enveloped me in a hug.
"... Lee." I replied, resisting the urge to massage my ears.
"IZUKU!" He said, placing me down and holding me at arms length.
"I give you this promise of a lifetime, my friend. You will always have my youth at your beck and call." he said his tone level and his eyes locked on mine.
I could tell he meant every word.
"And you will always have mine Lee."
I meant mine too.
"Are you quite finished?" Neji cut in his tone dry but with an undercurrent of annoyance.
"I believe we are." Lee replied, taking the question at face value.
I coughed awkwardly into my fist and continued the tour.
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"So." came the low sibilant hiss of the snake that occupied a corner of his room hidden by a fuinjutsu array he could not comprehend. Neji slid the door to his room shut before approaching.
Golden eyes peered at him out of its serpentine visage.
"What have we learned?" it asked, its face distorted by an eager smile.
Neji sat before it and without even an ounce of hesitation began to report to his mistress.
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A/N: we learn of Asura!
We also learn of his path!
Neji has truly lost his way!
Lee makes a promise of a lifetime!
What remains to unravel the mystery of Naruko Uzumaki?
What else will Neji do in service to his mistress?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME, ON FOR THE LOVE OF KUNGFU!
P.S. Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it please comment and like, if not please comment why. Again, thank you for reading! Have a nice whatever-time-it-is, wherever you are!