LIFTING THE MONK WITH THE Sharingan by the throat, Arthur performed the Eye Mind Reading technique. His consciousness quickly entered the monk's psyche as he began drifting in a dark mindscape. Then a film-like scene unfolded before him.
In one of the scenes, he saw the monk training with a dark-skinned man. Why this caught Arthur's attention was because the man most resembled the shinobi from the Cloud Village. That's when Arthur understood something: this was likely an ancestor of the Cloud's ninjas.
He watched as the memory played out. The days started off as regular training sessions at first before they soon turned to intense sparring matches. Once the sparring commenced, the monk began performing Black Lightning.
'I see…' Arthur thought to himself.
Black Lightning was an element that, in the modern era, was extremely rare outside the Land of Lightning. The technique was so uncommon that only one user in that timeline possessed it: Darui. Yet here it was being wielded by an unknown monk.
Arthur knew that he needed to learn another nature element, hence why he ventured to the Cloud Village in the first place. His adventure there proved only a little rewarding. But now he had the opportunity to learn a more potent lightning technique, the infamous Black Lightning.
While most elemental techniques were learned through rigorous training, Black Lightning had no apparent origin. Not a single person on earth truly knew how it could be reproduced.
Arthur dove deeper into the monk's memories to explore what training took place. As he navigated the mental landscape, roughly an hour had passed. It might have only been ten minutes outside, ten minutes worth spending to finally understand what made Black Lightning tick.
This is what Arthur understood: Black Lightning was not a bloodline trait. Neither did it have anything to do with that famed tattoo both the third Raikage and Darui possessed.
To acquire Black Lightning, a shinobi would first have to focus on both nature and shape transformation in the lightning element. As simple as that sounded, they also needed high levels of chakra control, something Arthur then possessed.
Next, they needed to refine the electrical currents before it formed. Upon the user expelling their chakra, they have to make sure the voltage is amplified to over six hundred million while cooling its temperature to the negatives.
If the user does all the steps correctly in a fraction of a second, the results will turn the lightning chakra into a dark, intense energy known as Black Lightning.
This particular monk took weeks to get it right. His method of training was similar to how Naruto trained to use the Rasengan with a water balloon and an air balloon. The main difference was that the monk was training with a makeshift kite during a rainstorm.
Now Arthur knew how to do the same without needing to undergo such complicated training.
Before choosing to depart the monk's mind, Arthur's thoughts turned to the monk's origins. Just who was this monk, and what were his ties to this Fujin Suzuki Arthur kept hearing about?
Starting from the monk's childhood, there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary at first. That is, until Arthur learned this monk's surname, Suzuki. This family was apparently one out of the many families to branch out from none other than Indra Ōtsutsuki's bloodline.
Arthur focused further to seek clues about this family no one on earth had ever heard of. Come to discover that the family's current head was Fujin Suzuki.
The monk's memories showed Fujin as a formidable ninja with quite a disturbing personality. His origins trace back to being an abandoned orphan, where he started his journey before advancing to his distant family's dojo at a faraway shrine.
That's where he met this unknown monk, who was truly Fujin's cousin.
Throughout his training, Fujin made friends with fellow monks and grew up to learn chakra steel swordsmanship. The character would later abandon the teachings of both ninshu and ninjutsu altogether, opting for a more lucrative environment in his own newly constructed home outside of the shrine.
Things would later turn dark for him when his wife mysteriously died giving birth to his only daughter. The monks were unsure of how this happened despite their healing techniques. That led Fujin to consider ninshu useless when compared to ninjutsu. So he slew those monks and sought out forbidden techniques that could revive his deceased spouse.
The head of the Suzuki family at the time heard the news and demanded Fujin be killed. Yet this only angered Fujin, so the latter descended into an immorally ambiguous action by slaying the former head in cold blood.
With no one to challenge his might, he took the mantle as the new head and began forging alliances with any neighbouring lands or monks that favoured ninjutsu over ninshu.
Arthur found this character pathetic. Not because of Fujin's desire for power, but because of the morbid transition from innocence to power-hungry due to the emotional scars of his past.
As Arthur was about to prove more on things, such as the death of Fujin's wife, he suddenly found himself withdrawn from the mental landscape. When he looked at the monk he was still holding, his eyes were rolled back into his skull.
The monk was dead.
Arthur knew this would happen. The Mind Eye Reading technique was one he didn't favour using due to those effects. Whenever he used it and stayed too long in someone else's psyche, it would cause his target severe brain damage.
During the moment he probed Jirōbō's mind, he only stayed long enough to understand the basics of earth style and to extract a little piece of memory. And again, when he used it on Naruto, the latter was an Uzumaki and could withstand the mental invasion. As for Nadare Rōga, Arthur had only extracted techniques as opposed to looking at his entire mind.
The amount of time Arthur spent in this monk's mind was quite a while. That was why Arthur refrained from using the technique on his servants back in his timeline. Just trying it on someone like Fugaku or Ashina could result in their deaths as well.
Nonetheless, he got the loot he came here for. Now it was time to get rid of the evidence.
He first let go of the monk he was holding and then proceeded to pile the other two together. Then he held up one hand sign to perform a technique.
'Ice style: glacial dome…'
A crystallized dome made of frost surrounded the three bodies. Arthur needed only to touch the outside layer, causing an incredibly cold mist to cover them inside. It took roughly ten minutes for the entire dome to become non-transparent.
Removing his palm, he swiped at the dome, causing over a million shards of ice crystals to slowly float in the air. There was not a single organ, skeleton, or sign that a monk had been present here.
Arthur stood among the scattered ice shards and looked at his hand. His mind drifted back to when he was in the Cloud Village.
All those moments he had spent observing those academy students from his humble apartment were coming back to them. The way they exercised the lightning element with ease; it was simply too easy to comprehend now.
The chill in the air allowed him to concentrate on bringing his body temperature even lower. Then with a simple twitch, he expelled electricity from his fingertips. But it wasn't that cool blue everyone was used to seeing; it was onyx black.
Arthur had learned to produce Black Lightning.
✟
It was good that Arthur came to this time period before anyone else. There were so many things that the creators of this world left out.
While he had managed to acquire Black Lightning, that did not mean he was an expert at it. For instance, he mentally knew how to execute it, but he still needed to undergo a little training for it to be fit for combat.
To Arthur, it was like relearning how to ride a bike after years of not getting on one. The initial mount would feel unfamiliar at first, but the moment the wheels started rolling, he would remember exactly how it was done.
Now before he could train this newly acquired skill, his destination was still the Four-Tails. Ancestral monks and forgotten characters, which may or may not have existed in the canon, were the least of his problems. Not when the Tailed Beast posed a better prize.
A few hours later, Arthur arrived at the volcanic structure without much delay.
The sight of the volcano didn't surprise him. After all, this Tailed Beast's techniques revolved around magma, so it made sense that its home would be near or inside a volcanic area.
The heat radiating from the lava was intense, but Arthur was focused.
As he stepped closer to the molten river, he sensed a large chakra presence beneath the surface. It was unmistakably the Four-Tails. He didn't move further but instead took a position nearby to wait things out. Then, suddenly, a massive ape-like creature erupted from the lava, landing heavily on the rocky crag of the mountain.
The creature's eyes locked onto Arthur with a fierce, menacing glare. Its voice was deep and rough as it demanded, "Did I not tell mankind to stay away?! Who are you?!"
Arthur replied calmly, "You're quite hostile. Good… I'm in need of something from you."
The ape laughed, a deep rumbling sound that echoed around the volcanic cliffs.
"You're just a man," it said. "You don't belong here."
Strange. This beast was stated to detest man, but that was as a result of having been enslaved by them. Something like that shouldn't have happened this early.
Arthur stayed composed. There was no reason to panic. He had faced Tailed Beasts before, and this encounter was no different in that respect. He cracked his neck slowly and said, "Don't make this hard on yourself, Four-Tails."
The beast seemed to sense the challenge in the words. It let out a howl that shook the air, whipping Arthur's hair back with the force. Still, Arthur stood firm.
"I'll give you one last warning to leave!" it threatened.
But who was Arthur to feel pressured by a two-hundred-foot primate? It wasn't like this was his first time dealing with oversized monkeys.
"I came hoping to settle things peaceably," Arthur began, "yet it's clear that it'll take a lot to get through to a devil like you."
At that comment, the beast lunged forward and swung its massive fist down at him with brutal force. The impact echoed like thunder as the fist crashed into the rocky ground where Arthur had just been standing. But when the beast looked, he was nowhere to be seen.
"Over here," Arthur called from above. 'Ice style: a thousand needles of death…'
The beast turned just in time to face several sharp ice spears flying in from all directions. The spears struck clean as their edges bit into the beast's thick skin. While it might have seemed to do some damage, it was lacking in power due to the intense heat.
The Four-Tails shook off the attack, and its eyes now burned with rage. It beat its chest fiercely, then began forming a miniature Tailed Beast Bomb. The air around them grew heavy with energy as the sphere of chakra formed became the size of a three-story home.
'Ice style: white whale jutsu…'
Just as the bomb was released, Arthur clapped his hands together to cause a massive whale made of pure ice to appear. When the two techniques collided, the monumental collision sent a shockwave through the area.
Steam hissed and billowed from the meeting point of fire and ice as Arthur hovered in the air to observe the outcome. Had that been a fully sized Tailed Beast bomb, he most certainly would have had to enter his Sage Mode.
'How annoying…'