Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > Star Wars: Birth of the Ninja Nations
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Star Wars. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, and Star Wars belongs to George Lucas
Thoughts are in italics
Chapter 6
There was good news and bad news. Good news was that Naruto was full and not thirsty anymore. The bad news being that the diner he just visited was likely going to go out of business soon if it hasn’t done so already. You just can’t keep the customers when enormous quantities of food kept disappearing between the kitchen and the tables, as well as food vanishing from the kitchen when people’s backs were turned.
Naruto felt a little guilty about the diner, but as he told himself, it was necessary. He also would have felt a little guilty about Marcus, except from his work in the kitchens, he found out that Marcus was a jerk, and as a result probably, in some way, deserved it.
He ditched the restaurant uniform, as it appeared to have meant only to be worn in indoor controlled environments. He, however, did keep everything else that Marcus had, which was basically just his ID and few of the same type of card he found earlier. Naruto made sure to keep the ID, for you never knew when a valid ID for someone else’s identity might come in handy.
Now to find a library or something, so I can gather information, and so I can stop getting freaked out over everything I see in this weird ass place. Not that I am nervous or anything, it’s just that if I am surprised, my ninja training might cause me to hurt someone on reflex. So, got to find a library or something quickly… for their sake, and my mission of course.
So how should I do this? I guess I could ask somebody now. I do feel pretty strong right now. Not 100, but still pretty good. Alright, now to find someone to ask.
Naruto scanned the various crowds that traveled by on the dusty sand filled street. Trying as hard as he could to find a normal looking human. Not that he had a problem exactly with the unusual looking people around, he certainly wasn’t prejudiced against them or anything like that, (it would be hypocritical of him to do that considering his life), it’s just that with all the constant fighting, weirdness, chaos, and insanity that pretty much was his life for the last few years, Naruto needed right now for something in his life to be relatively normal. Also, he was just a tad nervous. By now, he had mostly gotten over his initial response to the various denizens of this place, but they still unnerved him a little, some a lot more than others, an example of the former would be a group of what looked like giant vicious humanoid boars with large axes.
Seeing a very large set human man walking down the opposite end of the street, Naruto rushed over to question the man and gather information.
Though mentally he winced, for he hated speaking Akuma no Boutoku, which was the language that the empire spoke when they invaded his home. He much preferred his first language of Tenkei. Unfortunately, as a result of the invasion, the ninjas were forced to learn Akuma no Boutoku.
After the empire declared its ultimatum of surrender or die, and later ultimately attacked. It soon became evident that while some of the imperial troops could understand the language the ninjas spoke, the ninjas could not understand them, which was a horrible disadvantage to have. So many individuals tried as hard as they could to learn the invader’s language with limited success.
It was around this time that somebody came up with the nickname of Akuma no Boutoku for the Imperial language, and it stuck. Akuma no Boutoku, roughly translated, meant the “Profanity of the Devil”, to contrast with this idea, people starting calling their original language Tenkei, or “Heaven’s Blessing”. The idea and reasoning behind it was to put the idea in people’s minds that this fight was a struggle between the forces of Light and Heaven versus the forces of Darkness and Hell. We were Light, and they were Darkness. And the darkness is always vanquished by the light, pity that was a lie. All would love if it was true, as if it was true; life would a lot simpler, more pleasant, and much longer. The truth was much more complicated and dire. In this case, it was the Darkness that consumes the Light, and extinguished the hopes and dreams of a nation. In any case, the Ninjas were having a lot of trouble learning Akuma no Boutoku. However, the problem became much easier to handle after a breakthrough by Inoichi Yamanaka.
The Yamanaka clan is a clan which specialized in and had special unique techniques for assaulting and affecting an opponent’s mind directly. They could take over minds, read your thoughts, and look at your memories. The head of the Yamanaka clan, Inoichi Yamanaka, discovered a way to rip a large amount of information directly out of a person’s mind. Unfortunately the technique wasn’t perfect, as generally the amount of power needed to enter a person’s mind with this technique, with enough to destroy it and turn the victim into a vegetable. The line between not enough power and too much power was extremely thin. It also moved constantly, as a person’s mental strength and natural mental defenses changed over time as a result of constant minute changes in a person’s thoughts, behavior, and/or actions, though a solution was eventually found. By itself the technique had limited usefulness, but in combination with more conventional interrogation techniques, the success rate of the technique rose sharply. Though the technique still had the tendency to obliterate the victim’s brain after a short amount of time.
Inoichi in combination with Ibiki Morino, (head of the ANBU Torture and Interrogation department, and a renowned specialist in that field), took many valuable pieces of information from the prisoners that were taken, including the language. Sadly, the success of their technique somehow got leaked to the imperials. And from then on, the stormtroopers were a lot quicker with suicide pills if it looked like they were going to be captured. That or Kamikaze attacks, where they would detonate grenades on their own body. Thankfully, the ninja were able to still capture stormtroopers once and a while, so the technique did not go completely to waste. It instead contributed to some of the greatest victories of Konohagakure.
Shaking thoughts out of his mind of events long past, Naruto came up to the man.
“Hey do you have a moment?” Naruto asked.
“Why?” the man replied.
“I have a few questions to ask you” Naruto answered.
“And why the hell should I answer your questions? That is not my job, and I got things I would much rather do that play tourism droid with some kid.” the man said.
“You want to help… out of the goodness of your heart.” Naruto replied.
The man answered, “Nice try kid. All the goodness in my heart was burned out by the suns of this god forsaken planet long ago, and by spending the last 15 hours trying to coax water out of its blasted atmosphere. All I want to do now is drink until I collapse like I was decked by a Wookie. And right now I am going to do just that unless you give me a very good reason not to.”
After he finished talking, he started to walk way. Naruto, desperately trying to find a solution to this problem, reached into one of his pockets, took out some of the cards that he had “found” earlier, and put them into the stranger’s hands. Naruto did not know if it was going to do anything, but it was worth a try.
If the situation was less serious, Naruto probably would have collapsed to the ground in laughter at the rate in which the man’s expression changed.
“I guess I do have a little goodness left in my heart, and I suddenly got a little time to hear your questions. However, for me to answer them will require a little more... uh... persuasion.”
Naruto gave more of the cards to the man.
“Well then, my name is Jeron Tavrus. Go ahead and ask your questions?”
Naruto replied, “Well, my first question is, what is the name of the city and planet we are on, and can you give me any information on it?”
Jeron answered, “You are in the glorious city of Anchorhead on the planet Tatooine. In terms of information, I have lived here for 40 standard years since I was about twice your age, I know a lot about it, so you might want to be more specific.”
Naruto asked, “Where is a bookstore or a library?”
Jeron stared, gawked, and suddenly erupted into laughter, “A bookstore, are you serious? Nobody reads books anymore except eccentric crackpots with way too much money. In terms of a library I think Anchorhead might have a small one several blocks north of here. Um… yeah, I am pretty sure we do. I think it opened 5 years ago around year 20.”
“So what direction is north?” Naruto asked.
Jeron replied, “Directly behind you kid. And… buy some decent clothes. Those robes look horrible on you; it is like you are wearing a tent.”
“Thanks for the help Jeron”.
“No problem. I should get moving, but if you were to hand over a few more credits, I could stay a bit and answer more questions.” Jeron remarked.
“No thanks, I’m good. I’ll see you later.”
“Ok, bye.”
Turning around, Naruto ran north. Careful not to run too fast, because the last thing he needed at that moment was to attract to much undue attention.
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He actually almost missed the library. It was sort of a ratty hole in the wall place. It sort of blended in with everything around it. The only reason Naruto could tell it was a library was that there was a small sign attached to the door. It said, “Anchorhead Public Library, open since year 20”.
Well this is the place. So Naruto walked over to the door of the library, pressed a panel next to the door to open it, (when he first tried to open the front door at the diner it took him forever to figure out that doors in this place did not have doorknobs but rather were opened by pressing a panel), and walked in.
After he walked in, Naruto turned around and flipped a switch next to the door, which would turn on a closed sign. Naruto could not afford to let anybody see what he was about to do.
Well, I have not been to a lot of libraries in my life, but even I know this one is not that impressive. It will have to do though. I wonder what Jeron meant by saying that no one reads books anymore, how can you have a library with no books? Yeah, whatever. Now to find a book. Now to just walk over to one of the shelves, and… what the hell!
Naruto picked up whatever it was on the shelf. He had absolutely no idea what it was, but it clearly was not a book.
It looked like a card, larger than the currency, (Naruto was guessing that was what it was), he handled earlier, and it also seemed to remind Naruto of a computer disk.
Assuming that is what it is, some kind of fancy computer disk, and the text or whatever is on it, how do I read it?
“Hello there, may I help you young sir?”
What someone’s behind me! Naruto you are an idiot. First rule of being a ninja, don’t let people sneak up on you. What if he was an assassin? That certainly would put a quick end to my revenge aspirations. Though it’s weird, why couldn't I sense him coming? Something in the environment must be screwing up my sensing abilities.
Quickly turning around, Naruto saw his potential assailant. It was the same species that the mugger in the alley was. So largely human in appearance except for head tentacles, odd colored skin, and a few small differences in bone and muscle structure. Unlike the mugger however who had blue skin, this one had green skin. Also, this one was a lot older. If Naruto had to guess, he would put his green skinned acquaintance at about middle-age or maybe slightly later.
“Who are you?
The man replied, “I am the librarian. I noticed you were getting a little agitated, is there anything I can help you with?”
Thinking about it, Naruto decided to tell the truth, a monitored, occasionally altered truth, but a truth just the same. “Actually, how do you read the data on these cards? I am not from this planet and the format of it unfamiliar to me.”
The tentacle man blinked in confusion and said, “Those are standard datacards, which can be read by any datapad. The formats of them are the same here as they are all over the galaxy. Where are you from?”
Naruto blanched (internally of course) and quickly remarked, “You misunderstood me, I meant I had lost my means to read what was on the card on my travels, and I was wondering if you knew a way for me to replace my lost equipment. Sorry, I must have misspoke. Nasty habit of mine, sometimes my mouth and brain seem to not to get along.”
Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it.
“I completely understand. I sometimes have that problem myself. I also sell datapads, so if you follow me, I’ll show you my stock. I unfortunately have only one kind, but it is of very good quality. It’s really expensive though, but I guess I could give a discount to a fellow orphan.”
“What, how?” Naruto gaped.
“You’re good at hiding it, but I can clearly see the pain in your eyes, the anguish you feel. You have faced some horrible hardship in your life, and considering the fact you are traveling alone at such a young age, I assume you are an orphan. So I am going to help you.”
“Um…thanks”, Naruto replied.
“No problem, I remember when I first lost my parents, and I was alone and living on the streets. How much would I have loved if someone gave me a break, so I am giving you a chance I never had. In fact take a datapad for free. Just slide the datacard in, and the text will automatically download to the datapad. You can find my datapad stock in the next room.”
He’s too nice; this is going to make it very hard to do what I need to do. But regardless of my personal feelings for him, I’ve got to be able to… you know screw it. I am finding a slightly altered way to accomplish my goals.
“Excuse me sir”
“Call me Lagre'ido” Lagre’ido interjected.
“Lagre’ido then, I need to do something very important, but I can’t let you see me doing it. This might sound like an unusual request, but do you consent to be knocked out?”
“Are you some sort of trouble?”
Naruto replied, “Sort of, look I promise you will suffer no long term damages, and I promise I will not damage your library or your stock in anyway. All I am going to do is use all your datapads in very unique way, which I can’t afford to let anyone witness. Please”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone what I see”
Naruto said, “I believe you; it’s just that it would be too dangerous and risky to both you and me. If you ever, even by accident, say anything to anyone, it could cause people a lot of problems.”
“I don’t know what kind of trouble you are caught up in, and honestly it would probably be safer for me not to know, but I was telling the truth when I told you I wanted to give you a break, to help you. So fine, you can knock me out, but please be gentle; I am getting along in years.”
“Thank you” Naruto told Lagre’ido. Lagre’ido nodded, and then Naruto reached over and as slightly as he could hit Lagre’ido in the back of the head, which knocked him out. Naruto was careful to catch him before he fell, and laid him softly on the ground next to a wall in the corner of the room. It hurt to see someone so caring and kind so unnaturally still, but Naruto pushed aside his pain for he had a job to do. For his task Naruto was going to need to use another jutsu, the Kage Bushin no Jutsu.
The Kage Bushin no Jutsu was a technique learned extremely early in Naruto’s genin career as a result of events surrounding a treasonous academy teacher who manipulated Naruto to steal military secrets, the secrets in this case consisting of a scroll of forbidden jutsu.
Long story short, Mizuki (the traitor) ended up in a cell being interrogated for the rest of his life, which was not that long. Naruto gained a much closer friendship with his other former teacher Iruka, and Naruto learned a very powerful technique that was in the scroll.
The Kage Bushin no Jutsu for the cost of a lot of Chakra will create solid clones of the user capable of using chakra techniques. The clones can think semi-independently, and were as strong, fast, smart, and as skilled as their creator. However, they were much less durable, as a good solid hit was almost always enough to destroy a clone. In addition, arguably the greatest aspect of the technique was that any memories, experiences, and knowledge that the clone accumulates during its existence were given to its creator when it was destroyed or willingly dispelled. So the user of the technique learned everything their clones learned. This aspect was extremely useful in studying, training, reconnaissance, and a bunch of other situations. However, besides the exorbitant chakra cost, this part of the technique also has another problem.
Naruto learned about the latter a half a year after the invasion began. He was assigned as a guard to a military research facility deep within Fire Country, which was the country that Konoha resided in. The facility was nestled and hidden within a large group and chain of semi-active volcanoes, which actually was what gave Fire Country its name. Numerous experiments and research was done at this facility, all very important. One of the studies was to create a biological weapon which only affected imperial troops. To do this they were determining if stormtroopers and residents of their world were any different on a genetic level. They had numerous corpses of the stormtrooper collected from the field. It was unknown if they actually found anything, because soon it would not matter much.
Despite the importance of the research being done, Naruto was not that concerned. According to the latest intelligence reports, the empire did not know anything about the facility and it was so remote and hidden that there was no way that they could accidently stumble across it. So Naruto decided to test out the full capacity of one of his favorite Jutsu. He learned about the technique’s learning capability a few months ago, and so far has been using ten clones at a time or so to accelerate his training. So since the facility was not in any danger of attack, Naruto decided to see exactly was the technique could do. He also wanted to do some intense training, and he thought that since ten clones helped his training so much, ten thousand clones would be even better.
Situating himself in one of the facilities attached training fields, Naruto created ten thousand clones, (which almost completely drained his chakra stores, even as large they were), and trained for 10 straight hours. Everything was fine until Naruto dispelled the clones, and experienced roughly eleven and a half years worth of memories in about half a second.
Needless to say, Naruto’s mind couldn’t handle the strain and it shut down. A month later, Naruto awoke from his coma just to be immediately yelled at by the Hokage. Apparently, when Naruto was out, the Empire attacked the outpost, (so much for those intelligence reports). While the imperial troops were eventually defeated, that victory did not come without a cost. All the scientists and researchers working at the facility were killed, all the data they had collected was destroyed, and about 40 of the ninja posted there were either killed, or severely and permanently crippled. This was a mighty blow against both Konohagakure and Naruto himself.
Naruto did not know if he could have actually have did anything, but he still should have been there. He will never know and forever regret that if he had been awake could he have changed anything? Would he have been able to save the researchers and scientists that fell during the attack? Would he have been able to save their research and data? Would have been able to prevent the deaths of his comrades in arms? Would his actions have prevented the future corpses of his allies and his village, for the research at the faculty could have come through, it could have ended the war early? The answer to these questions will forever be unknown, and that lack of an answer will haunt him to the end of his days. Something in Naruto died that day, and his dreams were haunted by the souls of the people he failed, and Naruto swore that we would never fail again.
After that, Naruto dove into his training, even more then he already had. Whenever possible he trained 13 hours per day or more. It was during one of these extreme training sessions that he met someone who would become a very good and close friend to him. That person was another training obsessed teen, a boy named Rock Lee.
Surprisingly enough, Lee was his given name. Apparently having inverted names was a peculiarity of the Rock clan before they were all destroyed by the demon fox attack. Almost by chance one of the beast’s tails landed in the middle of their clan compound, killing them all except for Lee. The Rock clan were not ninja, they were merchants, they were civilian, and they had no chance, though their fate compared to many were merciful, for the embrace of death came to them quickly. Lee, in comparison, was both luckier, and less fortunate than them.
Rock Lee at the time was one year old. And miraculously he survived both the impact of the tail, and the chakra wave that accompanied it. But he did not escape unscathed. The blast of demonic chakra shattered his developing chakra coils like glass. His body was also severely burned. If a passing ninja had not seen him in the wreckage, and rushed him to the hospital he would have died that day. It was a miracle he survived. However, the damage to his chakra coils could never be fixed. If he were to become a ninja, he would never be able to use chakra based jutsu. He would be unable to do any external or internal manipulation at all. The possibilities that chakra offered other people were forever lost to him. For him becoming a ninja would be nearly impossible, a fool’s quest. However, Lee wanted to be a ninja, to protect the people who were not capable of protecting themselves, to try to keep the fate of his family from happening to others, and Lee would not let his dream be denied. If the ways of chakra were closed to him, he would find new ways. He would train the only way he could. By training his taijutsu, or hand to hand physical combat. While he eventually did learn with difficulty a technique that sort of involved chakra, which allowed someone to go past their body’s natural physical limitations, the technique was very much more a mental one than a chakra one. Lee trained in Taijutsu, and it became his specialty and his passion.
But the point of the matter was that Naruto knew very well the price of misusing the Kage Bushin no Jutsu. So he knew he had to be careful.
“Kage Bushin no Jutsu”
A hundred Narutos appeared in the library, and they all simultaneously grabbed both a datapad and a datacard.
Let’s get to work.
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A few hours later, Naruto gasped in surprise at information found in the datapad he was holding. Not that the other information he had found was not surprising or extremely interesting, for in reality most of it was. Like how the weird looking people on the street were aliens, and were different species and races, and they were from different planets. Or like how the cards he used earlier with Jeron were called credits, and they were the accepted form of currency in most places of the galaxy. Tatooine usually used a different form of currency, but the reason Jeron accepted them was that the Imperial Finances Bureau have been pushing for credits to be the accepted currency everywhere for economic reasons, and they have had some success. The year dating system Jeron used was measuring the number of years since something called the Great ReSynchronization. However, what shocked Naruto this time was the fact that he might have another enemy. During the attack on the Konoha refugee spaceships by the space pirates, Naruto had noticed a distinctive symbol. Naruto did not remember exactly where he saw it, but he knew he did. It was a strange symbol. It looked like a black eye or a star. According to a small paragraph under a picture of that symbol in the datapad he held, which did not contain a lot of concrete information, it was a criminal organization by the name of Black Sun.
Thoughts are in italics
Chapter 6
There was good news and bad news. Good news was that Naruto was full and not thirsty anymore. The bad news being that the diner he just visited was likely going to go out of business soon if it hasn’t done so already. You just can’t keep the customers when enormous quantities of food kept disappearing between the kitchen and the tables, as well as food vanishing from the kitchen when people’s backs were turned.
Naruto felt a little guilty about the diner, but as he told himself, it was necessary. He also would have felt a little guilty about Marcus, except from his work in the kitchens, he found out that Marcus was a jerk, and as a result probably, in some way, deserved it.
He ditched the restaurant uniform, as it appeared to have meant only to be worn in indoor controlled environments. He, however, did keep everything else that Marcus had, which was basically just his ID and few of the same type of card he found earlier. Naruto made sure to keep the ID, for you never knew when a valid ID for someone else’s identity might come in handy.
Now to find a library or something, so I can gather information, and so I can stop getting freaked out over everything I see in this weird ass place. Not that I am nervous or anything, it’s just that if I am surprised, my ninja training might cause me to hurt someone on reflex. So, got to find a library or something quickly… for their sake, and my mission of course.
So how should I do this? I guess I could ask somebody now. I do feel pretty strong right now. Not 100, but still pretty good. Alright, now to find someone to ask.
Naruto scanned the various crowds that traveled by on the dusty sand filled street. Trying as hard as he could to find a normal looking human. Not that he had a problem exactly with the unusual looking people around, he certainly wasn’t prejudiced against them or anything like that, (it would be hypocritical of him to do that considering his life), it’s just that with all the constant fighting, weirdness, chaos, and insanity that pretty much was his life for the last few years, Naruto needed right now for something in his life to be relatively normal. Also, he was just a tad nervous. By now, he had mostly gotten over his initial response to the various denizens of this place, but they still unnerved him a little, some a lot more than others, an example of the former would be a group of what looked like giant vicious humanoid boars with large axes.
Seeing a very large set human man walking down the opposite end of the street, Naruto rushed over to question the man and gather information.
Though mentally he winced, for he hated speaking Akuma no Boutoku, which was the language that the empire spoke when they invaded his home. He much preferred his first language of Tenkei. Unfortunately, as a result of the invasion, the ninjas were forced to learn Akuma no Boutoku.
After the empire declared its ultimatum of surrender or die, and later ultimately attacked. It soon became evident that while some of the imperial troops could understand the language the ninjas spoke, the ninjas could not understand them, which was a horrible disadvantage to have. So many individuals tried as hard as they could to learn the invader’s language with limited success.
It was around this time that somebody came up with the nickname of Akuma no Boutoku for the Imperial language, and it stuck. Akuma no Boutoku, roughly translated, meant the “Profanity of the Devil”, to contrast with this idea, people starting calling their original language Tenkei, or “Heaven’s Blessing”. The idea and reasoning behind it was to put the idea in people’s minds that this fight was a struggle between the forces of Light and Heaven versus the forces of Darkness and Hell. We were Light, and they were Darkness. And the darkness is always vanquished by the light, pity that was a lie. All would love if it was true, as if it was true; life would a lot simpler, more pleasant, and much longer. The truth was much more complicated and dire. In this case, it was the Darkness that consumes the Light, and extinguished the hopes and dreams of a nation. In any case, the Ninjas were having a lot of trouble learning Akuma no Boutoku. However, the problem became much easier to handle after a breakthrough by Inoichi Yamanaka.
The Yamanaka clan is a clan which specialized in and had special unique techniques for assaulting and affecting an opponent’s mind directly. They could take over minds, read your thoughts, and look at your memories. The head of the Yamanaka clan, Inoichi Yamanaka, discovered a way to rip a large amount of information directly out of a person’s mind. Unfortunately the technique wasn’t perfect, as generally the amount of power needed to enter a person’s mind with this technique, with enough to destroy it and turn the victim into a vegetable. The line between not enough power and too much power was extremely thin. It also moved constantly, as a person’s mental strength and natural mental defenses changed over time as a result of constant minute changes in a person’s thoughts, behavior, and/or actions, though a solution was eventually found. By itself the technique had limited usefulness, but in combination with more conventional interrogation techniques, the success rate of the technique rose sharply. Though the technique still had the tendency to obliterate the victim’s brain after a short amount of time.
Inoichi in combination with Ibiki Morino, (head of the ANBU Torture and Interrogation department, and a renowned specialist in that field), took many valuable pieces of information from the prisoners that were taken, including the language. Sadly, the success of their technique somehow got leaked to the imperials. And from then on, the stormtroopers were a lot quicker with suicide pills if it looked like they were going to be captured. That or Kamikaze attacks, where they would detonate grenades on their own body. Thankfully, the ninja were able to still capture stormtroopers once and a while, so the technique did not go completely to waste. It instead contributed to some of the greatest victories of Konohagakure.
Shaking thoughts out of his mind of events long past, Naruto came up to the man.
“Hey do you have a moment?” Naruto asked.
“Why?” the man replied.
“I have a few questions to ask you” Naruto answered.
“And why the hell should I answer your questions? That is not my job, and I got things I would much rather do that play tourism droid with some kid.” the man said.
“You want to help… out of the goodness of your heart.” Naruto replied.
The man answered, “Nice try kid. All the goodness in my heart was burned out by the suns of this god forsaken planet long ago, and by spending the last 15 hours trying to coax water out of its blasted atmosphere. All I want to do now is drink until I collapse like I was decked by a Wookie. And right now I am going to do just that unless you give me a very good reason not to.”
After he finished talking, he started to walk way. Naruto, desperately trying to find a solution to this problem, reached into one of his pockets, took out some of the cards that he had “found” earlier, and put them into the stranger’s hands. Naruto did not know if it was going to do anything, but it was worth a try.
If the situation was less serious, Naruto probably would have collapsed to the ground in laughter at the rate in which the man’s expression changed.
“I guess I do have a little goodness left in my heart, and I suddenly got a little time to hear your questions. However, for me to answer them will require a little more... uh... persuasion.”
Naruto gave more of the cards to the man.
“Well then, my name is Jeron Tavrus. Go ahead and ask your questions?”
Naruto replied, “Well, my first question is, what is the name of the city and planet we are on, and can you give me any information on it?”
Jeron answered, “You are in the glorious city of Anchorhead on the planet Tatooine. In terms of information, I have lived here for 40 standard years since I was about twice your age, I know a lot about it, so you might want to be more specific.”
Naruto asked, “Where is a bookstore or a library?”
Jeron stared, gawked, and suddenly erupted into laughter, “A bookstore, are you serious? Nobody reads books anymore except eccentric crackpots with way too much money. In terms of a library I think Anchorhead might have a small one several blocks north of here. Um… yeah, I am pretty sure we do. I think it opened 5 years ago around year 20.”
“So what direction is north?” Naruto asked.
Jeron replied, “Directly behind you kid. And… buy some decent clothes. Those robes look horrible on you; it is like you are wearing a tent.”
“Thanks for the help Jeron”.
“No problem. I should get moving, but if you were to hand over a few more credits, I could stay a bit and answer more questions.” Jeron remarked.
“No thanks, I’m good. I’ll see you later.”
“Ok, bye.”
Turning around, Naruto ran north. Careful not to run too fast, because the last thing he needed at that moment was to attract to much undue attention.
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He actually almost missed the library. It was sort of a ratty hole in the wall place. It sort of blended in with everything around it. The only reason Naruto could tell it was a library was that there was a small sign attached to the door. It said, “Anchorhead Public Library, open since year 20”.
Well this is the place. So Naruto walked over to the door of the library, pressed a panel next to the door to open it, (when he first tried to open the front door at the diner it took him forever to figure out that doors in this place did not have doorknobs but rather were opened by pressing a panel), and walked in.
After he walked in, Naruto turned around and flipped a switch next to the door, which would turn on a closed sign. Naruto could not afford to let anybody see what he was about to do.
Well, I have not been to a lot of libraries in my life, but even I know this one is not that impressive. It will have to do though. I wonder what Jeron meant by saying that no one reads books anymore, how can you have a library with no books? Yeah, whatever. Now to find a book. Now to just walk over to one of the shelves, and… what the hell!
Naruto picked up whatever it was on the shelf. He had absolutely no idea what it was, but it clearly was not a book.
It looked like a card, larger than the currency, (Naruto was guessing that was what it was), he handled earlier, and it also seemed to remind Naruto of a computer disk.
Assuming that is what it is, some kind of fancy computer disk, and the text or whatever is on it, how do I read it?
“Hello there, may I help you young sir?”
What someone’s behind me! Naruto you are an idiot. First rule of being a ninja, don’t let people sneak up on you. What if he was an assassin? That certainly would put a quick end to my revenge aspirations. Though it’s weird, why couldn't I sense him coming? Something in the environment must be screwing up my sensing abilities.
Quickly turning around, Naruto saw his potential assailant. It was the same species that the mugger in the alley was. So largely human in appearance except for head tentacles, odd colored skin, and a few small differences in bone and muscle structure. Unlike the mugger however who had blue skin, this one had green skin. Also, this one was a lot older. If Naruto had to guess, he would put his green skinned acquaintance at about middle-age or maybe slightly later.
“Who are you?
The man replied, “I am the librarian. I noticed you were getting a little agitated, is there anything I can help you with?”
Thinking about it, Naruto decided to tell the truth, a monitored, occasionally altered truth, but a truth just the same. “Actually, how do you read the data on these cards? I am not from this planet and the format of it unfamiliar to me.”
The tentacle man blinked in confusion and said, “Those are standard datacards, which can be read by any datapad. The formats of them are the same here as they are all over the galaxy. Where are you from?”
Naruto blanched (internally of course) and quickly remarked, “You misunderstood me, I meant I had lost my means to read what was on the card on my travels, and I was wondering if you knew a way for me to replace my lost equipment. Sorry, I must have misspoke. Nasty habit of mine, sometimes my mouth and brain seem to not to get along.”
Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it.
“I completely understand. I sometimes have that problem myself. I also sell datapads, so if you follow me, I’ll show you my stock. I unfortunately have only one kind, but it is of very good quality. It’s really expensive though, but I guess I could give a discount to a fellow orphan.”
“What, how?” Naruto gaped.
“You’re good at hiding it, but I can clearly see the pain in your eyes, the anguish you feel. You have faced some horrible hardship in your life, and considering the fact you are traveling alone at such a young age, I assume you are an orphan. So I am going to help you.”
“Um…thanks”, Naruto replied.
“No problem, I remember when I first lost my parents, and I was alone and living on the streets. How much would I have loved if someone gave me a break, so I am giving you a chance I never had. In fact take a datapad for free. Just slide the datacard in, and the text will automatically download to the datapad. You can find my datapad stock in the next room.”
He’s too nice; this is going to make it very hard to do what I need to do. But regardless of my personal feelings for him, I’ve got to be able to… you know screw it. I am finding a slightly altered way to accomplish my goals.
“Excuse me sir”
“Call me Lagre'ido” Lagre’ido interjected.
“Lagre’ido then, I need to do something very important, but I can’t let you see me doing it. This might sound like an unusual request, but do you consent to be knocked out?”
“Are you some sort of trouble?”
Naruto replied, “Sort of, look I promise you will suffer no long term damages, and I promise I will not damage your library or your stock in anyway. All I am going to do is use all your datapads in very unique way, which I can’t afford to let anyone witness. Please”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone what I see”
Naruto said, “I believe you; it’s just that it would be too dangerous and risky to both you and me. If you ever, even by accident, say anything to anyone, it could cause people a lot of problems.”
“I don’t know what kind of trouble you are caught up in, and honestly it would probably be safer for me not to know, but I was telling the truth when I told you I wanted to give you a break, to help you. So fine, you can knock me out, but please be gentle; I am getting along in years.”
“Thank you” Naruto told Lagre’ido. Lagre’ido nodded, and then Naruto reached over and as slightly as he could hit Lagre’ido in the back of the head, which knocked him out. Naruto was careful to catch him before he fell, and laid him softly on the ground next to a wall in the corner of the room. It hurt to see someone so caring and kind so unnaturally still, but Naruto pushed aside his pain for he had a job to do. For his task Naruto was going to need to use another jutsu, the Kage Bushin no Jutsu.
The Kage Bushin no Jutsu was a technique learned extremely early in Naruto’s genin career as a result of events surrounding a treasonous academy teacher who manipulated Naruto to steal military secrets, the secrets in this case consisting of a scroll of forbidden jutsu.
Long story short, Mizuki (the traitor) ended up in a cell being interrogated for the rest of his life, which was not that long. Naruto gained a much closer friendship with his other former teacher Iruka, and Naruto learned a very powerful technique that was in the scroll.
The Kage Bushin no Jutsu for the cost of a lot of Chakra will create solid clones of the user capable of using chakra techniques. The clones can think semi-independently, and were as strong, fast, smart, and as skilled as their creator. However, they were much less durable, as a good solid hit was almost always enough to destroy a clone. In addition, arguably the greatest aspect of the technique was that any memories, experiences, and knowledge that the clone accumulates during its existence were given to its creator when it was destroyed or willingly dispelled. So the user of the technique learned everything their clones learned. This aspect was extremely useful in studying, training, reconnaissance, and a bunch of other situations. However, besides the exorbitant chakra cost, this part of the technique also has another problem.
Naruto learned about the latter a half a year after the invasion began. He was assigned as a guard to a military research facility deep within Fire Country, which was the country that Konoha resided in. The facility was nestled and hidden within a large group and chain of semi-active volcanoes, which actually was what gave Fire Country its name. Numerous experiments and research was done at this facility, all very important. One of the studies was to create a biological weapon which only affected imperial troops. To do this they were determining if stormtroopers and residents of their world were any different on a genetic level. They had numerous corpses of the stormtrooper collected from the field. It was unknown if they actually found anything, because soon it would not matter much.
Despite the importance of the research being done, Naruto was not that concerned. According to the latest intelligence reports, the empire did not know anything about the facility and it was so remote and hidden that there was no way that they could accidently stumble across it. So Naruto decided to test out the full capacity of one of his favorite Jutsu. He learned about the technique’s learning capability a few months ago, and so far has been using ten clones at a time or so to accelerate his training. So since the facility was not in any danger of attack, Naruto decided to see exactly was the technique could do. He also wanted to do some intense training, and he thought that since ten clones helped his training so much, ten thousand clones would be even better.
Situating himself in one of the facilities attached training fields, Naruto created ten thousand clones, (which almost completely drained his chakra stores, even as large they were), and trained for 10 straight hours. Everything was fine until Naruto dispelled the clones, and experienced roughly eleven and a half years worth of memories in about half a second.
Needless to say, Naruto’s mind couldn’t handle the strain and it shut down. A month later, Naruto awoke from his coma just to be immediately yelled at by the Hokage. Apparently, when Naruto was out, the Empire attacked the outpost, (so much for those intelligence reports). While the imperial troops were eventually defeated, that victory did not come without a cost. All the scientists and researchers working at the facility were killed, all the data they had collected was destroyed, and about 40 of the ninja posted there were either killed, or severely and permanently crippled. This was a mighty blow against both Konohagakure and Naruto himself.
Naruto did not know if he could have actually have did anything, but he still should have been there. He will never know and forever regret that if he had been awake could he have changed anything? Would he have been able to save the researchers and scientists that fell during the attack? Would he have been able to save their research and data? Would have been able to prevent the deaths of his comrades in arms? Would his actions have prevented the future corpses of his allies and his village, for the research at the faculty could have come through, it could have ended the war early? The answer to these questions will forever be unknown, and that lack of an answer will haunt him to the end of his days. Something in Naruto died that day, and his dreams were haunted by the souls of the people he failed, and Naruto swore that we would never fail again.
After that, Naruto dove into his training, even more then he already had. Whenever possible he trained 13 hours per day or more. It was during one of these extreme training sessions that he met someone who would become a very good and close friend to him. That person was another training obsessed teen, a boy named Rock Lee.
Surprisingly enough, Lee was his given name. Apparently having inverted names was a peculiarity of the Rock clan before they were all destroyed by the demon fox attack. Almost by chance one of the beast’s tails landed in the middle of their clan compound, killing them all except for Lee. The Rock clan were not ninja, they were merchants, they were civilian, and they had no chance, though their fate compared to many were merciful, for the embrace of death came to them quickly. Lee, in comparison, was both luckier, and less fortunate than them.
Rock Lee at the time was one year old. And miraculously he survived both the impact of the tail, and the chakra wave that accompanied it. But he did not escape unscathed. The blast of demonic chakra shattered his developing chakra coils like glass. His body was also severely burned. If a passing ninja had not seen him in the wreckage, and rushed him to the hospital he would have died that day. It was a miracle he survived. However, the damage to his chakra coils could never be fixed. If he were to become a ninja, he would never be able to use chakra based jutsu. He would be unable to do any external or internal manipulation at all. The possibilities that chakra offered other people were forever lost to him. For him becoming a ninja would be nearly impossible, a fool’s quest. However, Lee wanted to be a ninja, to protect the people who were not capable of protecting themselves, to try to keep the fate of his family from happening to others, and Lee would not let his dream be denied. If the ways of chakra were closed to him, he would find new ways. He would train the only way he could. By training his taijutsu, or hand to hand physical combat. While he eventually did learn with difficulty a technique that sort of involved chakra, which allowed someone to go past their body’s natural physical limitations, the technique was very much more a mental one than a chakra one. Lee trained in Taijutsu, and it became his specialty and his passion.
But the point of the matter was that Naruto knew very well the price of misusing the Kage Bushin no Jutsu. So he knew he had to be careful.
“Kage Bushin no Jutsu”
A hundred Narutos appeared in the library, and they all simultaneously grabbed both a datapad and a datacard.
Let’s get to work.
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A few hours later, Naruto gasped in surprise at information found in the datapad he was holding. Not that the other information he had found was not surprising or extremely interesting, for in reality most of it was. Like how the weird looking people on the street were aliens, and were different species and races, and they were from different planets. Or like how the cards he used earlier with Jeron were called credits, and they were the accepted form of currency in most places of the galaxy. Tatooine usually used a different form of currency, but the reason Jeron accepted them was that the Imperial Finances Bureau have been pushing for credits to be the accepted currency everywhere for economic reasons, and they have had some success. The year dating system Jeron used was measuring the number of years since something called the Great ReSynchronization. However, what shocked Naruto this time was the fact that he might have another enemy. During the attack on the Konoha refugee spaceships by the space pirates, Naruto had noticed a distinctive symbol. Naruto did not remember exactly where he saw it, but he knew he did. It was a strange symbol. It looked like a black eye or a star. According to a small paragraph under a picture of that symbol in the datapad he held, which did not contain a lot of concrete information, it was a criminal organization by the name of Black Sun.
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