Naruto stood silently at one of the nearby training grounds that Team 7 normally frequented. He had chosen this particular training area because there was a convenient stand of trees that would hide him from the rest of the training ground. It seemed like a good spot to stop and think.
Now, normally Naruto was not one to bother with stopping to think. Quite the opposite really. He tended to rely on his instincts and emotions in a fight. Thinking was reserved as a last resort. And for pranking of course!
Though thinking seemed a bit easier since this morning and the whole ‘get-turned-into-a-dragon-by-a-wish no jutsu’ thing.
In any case, Naruto was lost deep in thought as he pondered his actions over the last few hours.
Things had been going so well! Old man Hokage was behind him and hiding his new ‘kekkei genkai’, which was practically a giant prank on the village. He had gotten a chance to show off to Kakashi-Sensei and the Teme, and he as about to go meet the girl who supposedly might, sorta, kinda like him.
(Deep inside Naruto’s subconscious, there was a little chibi-Naruto jumping up and down shouting "Somebody likes me! Somebody likes me! Somebody likes me!" at the top of its lungs.)
But when he got to the training ground, he found those jerks beating up on Team 8. And they had Hinata and they were saying stuff about cutting out her eyes and breeding her and there was no way he’d let them do that to anyone let alone someone who might like him...!
And before he had even realized what he was doing, he was back to being a dragon, descending from the sky to burn and smash and... kill.
Naruto was pretty sure he should feel worse about killing those two ninjas. But... they were enemies. And from what they were saying, they totally deserved it. Plus it just felt... natural to roast and squash anyone who attacked him or threatened his hoard friends.
That red-eyed Jounin woman was probably right thought. Breathing fire on that one nin had probably been overkill. And Hinata’s sensei sure was smart! She’d figured out what he had wanted to say just from grunts and growls. And that whole search pattern thing was pretty clever too. He’d definitely have to remember that. Now if only he could remember her name. He was pretty sure Iruka had said it when he called out the teams. He was almost certain it started with a K.
Naruto shook his head to clear it. He had to focus! This required his full attention! His utmost efforts! This was important! This was about pranking the whole village!
The old man had already given him a cover for his new abilities. A newly awakened bloodline would explain away his new strength and toughness. But he hadn’t really planned to show off his dragon form just yet. The Hokage’s idea of explaining it away as a Summons was really clever. And when Naruto showed up with a Jounin on his back, the old man had enacted their plan. But Naruto wasn’t ready yet!
The old man had shown Naruto the summoning technique when they first hatched the plan. He had explained (in simple, general terms) how the whole thing worked: The contract, the hand seals, the fact that you could summon lots of different creatures of different strengths. He had even demonstrated for Naruto by summoning a few small monkeys, which was pretty damned cool! He really wished he could summon things for real, but the Hokage wouldn’t let him sign the monkey contract.
Anyway, having one (fake) summoning contract would be impressive enough. Especially a contract to summon DRAGONS!
The only problem was that Naruto DIDN’T actually have a summoning contract for Dragons. He WAS a dragon! Which meant that in order to fool everyone and keep his prank going, he was going to have to figure out a way to summon... himself!
A difficult task. But nothing was beyond the ability of Konoha’s number one most surprising ninja, and biggest prankster ever!
He already had one problem licked. The old man had said that he could summon different monkeys by focusing on who he wanted, and using different amounts of charka. The boss summons were the biggest, and needed loads of charka. Pretending to be a whole bunch of different summons would have been tricky, but Naruto had already discovered that he could change the size of his dragon form with ease.
Naruto instinctively understood that his TRUE form was that of a massive young-adult adamantine dragon. His current shape was simply the result of his innate polymorph abilities. He was intimately familiar with his human form (he’d been wearing it for twelve years after all!) so polymorphing into it was as easy and natural as breathing. But he had quickly discovered that it was almost as easy to alter the size of his dragon form, if not the shape.
As a matter of fact, that was how he had slipped away after he dropped Hinata’s sensei off with the old man. He’d flown away a bit and then shrunk down to the size of a large dog to escape notice as he flew to the training grounds and returned to human form. A giant adamantine dragon attracted a LOT of attention. And having Uzumaki Naruto walk out of an empty training field where a huge dragon had just landed and vanished would have quickly blown his cover, and ruined his chances of keeping his prank going!
So, with his shape shifting, or at least size-shifting skills, he was pretty confident he could fake having a whole bunch of different dragons to summon. Which just left him with the problem of actually faking the technique itself.
“Um. I could just have a clone do the technique, then pop up in the middle.” He thought aloud, going over the technique in his mind. “But you need to bite your finger and draw blood when you do the hand seals. Can’t do that with a clone. So I have to be the one doing the summoning.” He tapped his chin as he thought.
“Maybe I could ‘Summon’ a clone? I could use henge to hide it in the spot I’m going to do the summoning, then have it change into a dragon... But one hit and it would go poof. That’s no good.”
Naruto’s eyes became distant and unfocused as he thought as hard as he could. This was like a giant trick he was playing on, well, everyone! He just had to think of a clever, sneaky way to fool people. If he could sneak past ANBU and paint the entire Hokage Monument in one night, he could manage this!
“What if I make a shadow clone, and hide it with a henge where I’m going to do the summoning.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Then when I do the technique, I have the clone drop the henge... And make sure to make a big cloud of smoke doing it. Then I can use kawarimi on the clone, and polymorph back into a dragon. If I do everything fast enough, the smoke from the henge should hide everything!” Naruto grinned proudly to himself.
Of course, he’d be limited to ‘summoning’ a small dragon this way. There would only be a small puff of smoke from the henge to hide in. He’d have to think of a better way to fake summoning himself at full size. But if this worked, he could at least demonstrate his technique when people started asking him about it.
“All right! Now to give it a try! Kage Bushin No Jutsu!” Making a familiar hand seal, Naruto formed a single shadow clone. Already knowing what he wanted, the clone nodded at him and immediately henged itself into an innocuous looking rock.
“Here we go! Kuchiyose No Jutsu!” Biting his thumb, Naruto ran through the seals for summoning that the Hokage had shown him as fast as he could, but focused his mind and chakra on performing the replacement technique.
With a poof of smoke his clone released its henge just as Naruto slammed his hands into the ground, trying to get the timing just right for his kawarimi, and ready to polymorph back into a (small) dragon.
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(Posted Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:44)
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