Chapter 6

Naruto ate a delicious meal of fish and bitter greens as the night took over the sky. He'd been living in River Country for six months now…the life agreed with him.

He'd read a good portion of the scrolls he'd taken from the Hokage, but he had at least surveyed all of them. The ones of sealing techniques got the highest priority. The ones with big, fancy ninjutsu were at the bottom of the pile.

He'd definitely improved his skills. Several of the scrolls taught him to detect and dispel genjutsu, although he had little interest in crafting them. He'd learned a whole bunch of techniques, like poisoned notes and Shadow Clones (an excellent learning aid), that he could implement with his puppets. He'd even found technical scrolls on chakra strings, how to really get the most out of them. Even Naruto learned some valuable tips reading through them.

But, the biggest finds reassured Naruto he had made the right choice to leave Konoha, the bunch of lying bastards.

Naruto now knew who his parents were; he knew about the Council liquidating his dad's estate and putting the money in the general revenue; he knew about his demonic tenant; he knew that the Hokage had locked his father's personal technique journals away in his library and obviously never intended to give them to a child who hadn't even been trained as a ninja; he knew every dirty or evil act commissioned by Hidden Leaf since the Old Man had been in charge.

The wars Hidden Leaf started between its enemies; the potential civil wars it had ruthlessly disrupted; all the blood and bodies Hidden Leaf extracted from friends and foes.

Had he learned all this while he was still in Konoha, Naruto had no idea what he would have done. His family was gone; his life was ruined; he was relegated off to being little more than a street urchin, without education or the possibility of finding employment there; his passion to become a ninja ended because of an accident and a stupid law that the Hokage could change in a second.

Naruto cleaned up his plate and dishes in a small stream near to his camp. He dispelled the Shadow Clones he had been using to hold the chakra cables to the defensive puppets. They were running low on chakra; he created new ones to hold the chakra cables, each with between a thousand and three thousand individual chakra string, to power the defenses. Each string connected to a defensive perimeter or to a tiny puppet or to some other trick or trap Naruto had hidden in the forest.

He fully expected that Konoha was hunting for him. He fully expected to have to defend himself at some point.

But, not tonight.

He put all of his things away and went into the small cave he'd built from a medium-level earth technique on one of the Old Man's scrolls.

He created another Shadow Clone and had it connect up the last of the defenses. His nastiest micropuppets, these ones engraved with Exploding Seals or Fire Seals or daubed in some of his nastiest poisons, were this last line of protection.

Naruto fell asleep, happy with such a tasty dinner. His mind raced even as he was unconscious, trying to piece together how exactly he was going to create his ultimate technique, the Puppet Clone.

In his mind, the thing was able to use chakra like a Shadow Clone (but without dispelling from a single hit) and to be constituted by a chakra string enscribing a set of seal on any kind of material, whether stone, metal or glass. That central seal was what kept the Puppet Clone active, regulated the chakra pumping into it through the chakra string, and described its abilities. That central seal, and the metal or glass or stone it was inscribed upon, was what had to be destroyed for the Puppet Clone to dissipate. In theory. In his dreamland.

Naruto hadn't yet figured out the elements of the seal, let alone how to inscribe a seal using only a chakra string.

With this technique complete, Naruto would command a power greater than even what his father had. The Flying Thunder God allowed one person to flit from target to target to target faster than anyone could see. The Puppet Clone's ultimate purpose was to instantly raise an unexpected army and to slaughter all opponents without endangering Naruto. To dissipate before anyone had ever known they were there…or, in extremis, to remain on the field as long as needed. Again, in theory.

The idea was that Naruto could be miles away from the conflict, but still control the chakra cables.

His mind was filled with formulas and notes even while he dreamed. Success in this venture was years, if not decades, away.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

It was a simple tug. That was what awakened Naruto. A tug from the Shadow Clone guarding the entrance of his cave.

Someone or something was here.

He leapt from his pallet on the ground and quickly sealed himself inside his Taro puppet.

A shadow clone was dispelled on the perimeter. One of three dozen defenders…puppet controllers. In its final moments, the Shadow Clone realized what was happening. A large force, at least a dozen ninja, approached from the Suna side of the forest. Why were they here?

Naruto wove and cast out a more chakra cable from the palm of each hand. He used half the chakra strings in one cable to wrap around the body of one of the ninja approaching Naruto's camp. With just a wiggle of his little finger, the chakra strings broke the man's neck.

Another dispelled Shadow Clone told Naruto that the entire force had seen the attack with chakra strings…they wouldn't allow themselves to be captured that way again.

A hundred micropuppets had just launched when that Clone was destroyed. Good, Naruto thought, the poisons and explosions should be softening up any attackers.

The main problem with his defenses is that they were waited toward the Konoha side of the forest. Naruto now realized it was stupid to have done that…so many wasted opportunities. He used his chakra cables to try to pull the out-of-position puppets into the battle area.

He then dropped his half consumed chakra cables and formed new ones. With both cables, he lifted giant boulders from the river bed, as many as he could find that weighed more than thirty kilos, and dropped them on the ninja. It provided a distraction, hopefully.

Another Shadow Clone, no two dispelled. The enemy was down another three fighters. The micropuppets were devastating. Naruto took a moment to comprehend what was happening. There were at least three highly skilled ninja with the team.

The others were fodder.

The Shadow Clone that controlled the inner circle defenses – the one with access to the most lethal poisoned micropuppets – dispelled. The invading force was down to two…who were both wise to the puppets somehow. One was poisoned, but it would take time to drop him.

Naruto formed up a few thick chakra strings. He had a few experimental puppets in the cave. If this was his last stand, he wasn't going to hold anything in reserve.

A man burst into the cavern. Three puppets, including the incomplete sixth version of Taro, confronted him. That Suna ninja was powerful, wielding a pair of swords. Another man sped into the cavern. Naruto inside of Taro was on him immediately. This man used a sword composed of air-affinity chakra. It was a devastating technique.

Taro was taking major damage. The other Suna ninja had succumbed to his three attackers. In a moment of distraction, the wind user made a slash across Taro's midsection. It was powerful enough to shred the wood. A powerful kick to Taro's thigh had such force that it threw Naruto from the damaged puppet.

Thudding against the wall, Naruto lost his connection with the other puppets in the cave.

The Suna ninja looked confused for a moment and then blinked. "A kid? A fucking kid!"

The ninja looked around the cave for a second. "I led a team of twelve. I'm the only one standing. No one's that good at traps. Five of Suna's jounin are dead. Tell me who you are and how you did this."

Naruto was still clearing confusion from his mind. As much as he'd trained, he had never before been in a battle. He'd never killed anyone until today. He didn't know what was happening.

The Suna jounin didn't like the silence. He crossed to Naruto and kicked the boy. "Keep your hands visible. You start making a handseal and I'll behead you. Start talking now."

"I am no one."

The jounin snorted. "What village are you from? Who the hell taught you to do all this?"

"I once lived in the Leaf village…."

"Leaf? That bunch of wimps! They don't know the first thing about puppets or trap setting. You need to tell me a better lie. Where are all the other ninja in this camp?"

"I'm the only one here, I swear."

"In the past week we've registered five dozen different unique ninja techniques coming from here. Your people were stupid not to detect our border patrols. Where are the other ninja?"

Naruto just shook his head. He had used all the techniques himself, trying out quite a few of the ninjutsu scrolls in the Hokage's pilfered collection.

"Fine. I can just take your corpse back to Suna. Maybe the technicians can make your body give up your secrets. Anything they do will be more forthcoming…."

The Suna jounin brought out his wind blade, but he didn't get a chance to use it.

Naruto had taken the man's brief interrogation to work out a plan. He had one trick…up his leg. He'd tested the thing before, but never actually used it while he was attached to his false leg.

He kicked out his left leg. With a chakra string he always kept active, even with his jarring collision against the cave wall seconds earlier, Naruto detonated a powerful rocket right in the Suna jounin's face. It wasn't quite a bazooka, as he had dreamed of as a child, but it caused quite a bit of damage. His special prosthetic leg was ruined, of course, but Naruto was alive.

He sat up and just tried to calm his breathing. He had nearly died. Died! From an enemy he didn't even know he had.

What to do? What….

He needed to collect what remained of his puppets. He needed to search the Suna corpses. He needed to destroy this site and get out of River Country. He gave himself two hours. It wasn't much time.

Fifty Shadow Clones popped into existence. They ran out of the cave to salvage what they could. He'd spent years crafting all types of his micro-puppets. He wanted to salvage what he could.

Naruto crawled over to his mostly destroyed workbench and found a workable prosthesis to wear. He turned back and began searching the two dead men inside his cave.

One was called Baki, no family name. The other was called Kyu, also no family name. Perhaps it was a security thing.

The two had a few scrolls on them, all but one were encrypted.

He got more scrolls from the Shadow Clones who'd searched the other bodies. It wasn't much of a haul considering he'd lost nearly two thirds of his micropuppets. They'd helped to take down some of the best shinobi in Suna, but it was a hard loss. More than a year's work.

Naruto left explosive notes, stacks of them, in all the strategic areas of his former camp. He was gone from the scene of his near-death within fifty minutes.

As Naruto slipped back into Fire Country on his way northeast, the notes were triggered by a Shadow Clone. The camp would burn for hours thanks to the dry kindling Naruto had stacked around the formerly serene location.

Naruto mourned that camp. It was a beautiful place.

He headed through a long, zigzagging path toward Grass Country. He'd resume his research there. He was using an unfinished Taro puppet and a prosthetic leg he'd crafted and rejected a month earlier. He needed to get into a new base camp quickly. He felt awfully vulnerable out in the world right now.

His fingers twitched and directed the puppet almost without conscious thought. His mind was racing, though.

He'd had his ass handed to him. He'd thought he was invulnerable. Only a juvenile appreciation of bazookas had saved Naruto from an early death.

He'd never be the strongest ninja if he could be taken down so easily by a Suna jounin surrounded by a kilometer's worth of traps in every direction.

Naruto needed to get stronger. Fast.