The training ground was a world that obeyed two kings: the Sage and the Monarch.
Hagoromo drew it with a staff-stroke—rings of light unfurling into a plain of ink-dark glass veined with soft gold. Ashborn shaded its edges—pillars of night rising like ribs, the air cool and steady, silence tuned to a drummer's perfect count. Above, constellations swam slowly, rearranging themselves when the Sage glanced up or the Monarch narrowed his eyes. It wasn't heaven or hell. It was a forge.
Naruto stood in the center, barefoot, hair a bright red-gold banner in the calm. He could feel both hearts now: the human beat, quick and stubborn, and the slow, sovereign thrum of the Black Heart, like a tide hitting a cliff. For once, they didn't fight each other. They kept time.
Minato appeared at his right, stance relaxed, the faintest smile tugging his mouth. "We start with breath."
Kushina snapped on a grin so sharp it could cut steel and clapped her hands. "And with work. Lots of it."
Kurama—still in that lithe, fox-cub form—padded a slow circle around Naruto, tails making lazy arcs. "Try not to fall on your face," he advised with ancient dignity.
They began.
Minato ran him through movement: weight on the balls of his feet, spine loose, gaze soft. "Speed isn't just fast. It's the ability to start and stop without wasting anything. Be a step that never finishes."
Naruto followed, copying the angle of the hips, the quiet of the shoulder, the way Minato's breath lived low and patient in his ribs. Every time Naruto overreached, Minato was simply elsewhere, gentle as wind, correcting with a tap and a word. It felt like trying to catch a shadow with bare hands—and then realizing you should be following the light that cast it.
Kushina took over with chakra control. She drew sealing formulae in glowing lines beneath her bare feet and walked them as if they were tightropes, posture elegant, grin dangerous. "Stability first," she said, "then shape. If your chakra is a river, I'm teaching you how to carve canals."
Naruto did as told. He formed a leaf on his palm and kept it from twitching. He walked the lines without smudging the glow. He fed chakra to a spinning top until it sang. He failed a hundred fast times and succeeded in one long way. Each time the Black Heart tried to swell his output, he reined it back with breath and will. It listened. Sometimes.
Hagoromo watched, inscrutable as the sky. When Naruto wobbled, the ground itself steadied. When he sagged, the air became richer. Occasionally, the Sage tapped his staff and a lesson bloomed, unspoken, and settled into Naruto's bones: Lower your center. Don't chase; invite. See the space between the moments.
Ashborn observed like a general watching a raw recruit learn the idea of a sword. He didn't smile. He did not correct. He waited, silence coiled like a patient hound, until he found the thing Naruto didn't know he was looking for.
They broke only when Kushina rapped Naruto's knuckles lightly. "Water, you little furnace."
Naruto gulped air and grinned, sweatless in this no-weather world but tired in all the right places. "Again?"
"In a moment," Minato said, eyes bright. "Feel the two beats."
Naruto closed his eyes. Human heart: tak-tak-tak. Black Heart: THRUM… THRUM… He breathed in on one, out on the other, until they braided. When he opened his eyes, the world had more edges, and fewer at the same time.
"Good," Hagoromo murmured.
A thought struck Naruto like a spark hitting kindling. He stared at his hands, then at the seals sketched under Kushina's feet, then at the air itself. "Mom," he said, voice speeding up the way it does before a prank or a miracle, "solid chakra constructs… we always make chains, barriers, seals—but what about shape?"
Kushina's grin widened. "Go on."
"What if I could, uh—" He flexed his fingers. "—make a hand? Not my hand. A chakra hand. Like… a third hand. Or ten."
Kurama snorted. "You finally catch up to your mouth."
Naruto planted his feet, pulled chakra to his palm, and pushed—not like a blast, not like a Rasengan—but like he was trying to pour water into the shape of fingers. The energy wanted to be a blob, a cone, a blade. He insisted. He thought of Kushina's chains—structure; of Minato's movement—precision; of Hagoromo's rings—pattern; of Ashborn's silence—discipline. He thought of holding a bowl without crushing it, of catching a kunai by the flat.
The air trembled. A translucent construct formed, messy and flickering: a hand of blue-white light, larger than his own, attached to a forearm that was more suggestion than limb. It jittered like a newborn deer.
Naruto laughed, startled and delighted. "It worked—it's working—!"
"Grip," Minato said quietly.
Naruto willed the fingers to flex. They obeyed, shaky but obedient. He picked up a training rod lying on the glass and held it. The rod didn't fall.
Kushina whooped and clapped. "That's my boy! Now—stabilize. Wrap a seal framework around it."
Naruto layered a simple matrix over the construct—the same control filters he used to keep water-balloons from bursting during Rasengan practice. The shimmering hand steadied, edges sharpening. He spun the rod. The hand copied perfectly.
Ashborn stepped closer, the night around his boots rippling like a pleased hound. "A shadow king," he said, tone cool but approving, "should build his own throne." He extended his hand. Darkness licked his fingers and then, impossibly, joined Naruto's construct, inking its joints, reinforcing its palm. The hand deepened from blue-white to a blue-violet edged in black. "Strength comes from marriage, not conquest."
Naruto reached with the extra hand and patted Kurama between the ears. The fox did not swat it away. "Acceptable," Kurama allowed, struggling not to purr.
It didn't stop at one hand. The idea bloomed. Naruto formed a second, then a third, smaller, finer. One to catch, one to block, one to throw. He wove them to his movements: human arm feints, chakra-hand counters, feet whisper-light the way Minato had taught. He fell, grimaced, stood up, tried a new angle. The Black Heart thrummed, eager to flood power through the constructs; Naruto breathed and throttled, refusing bloat, insisting on control.
Hagoromo tapped the glass. Memory-visions unfurled—a giant blue specter rising from an Uchiha's spine, a guardian with many arms and a face like wrath; Susanoo, terrible and sublime. Naruto watched, eyes huge.
"That's… armor," he whispered. "But also a person you wear. A friend that grows out of your anger."
"Out of will," Hagoromo corrected gently. "Uchiha often awaken it through emotion. It is not the only door."
Naruto looked at his trembling chakra hand, then at the towering spectral warrior in the vision. He imagined shrinking the titan down, making it wrap around his skin like a second body; then he imagined keeping it huge, a guardian that fought beside him while he dashed and struck.
"What if," he said slowly, "I made my own Susanoo? Not Sharingan-born. Not angry. A construct that scales: small like armor, big like a titan. Not blue—mine."
The Monarch's gaze sharpened. "Manifestation of Will," he namesaid, approving. "You give your resolve a body."
"Susanoo of Light and Shadow," Hagoromo added, amused, because sages like names that remember history.
"Name later," Kushina said. "Build now."
They did. Naruto wove four, six, eight chakra hands, aligning them to his joints—wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips—then asked them to be more than hands: bracers, greaves, pauldrons. He layered seals thin as silk to regulate output. He let Ashborn's darkness thread the seams like pitch sealing a ship. He moved. The armor moved with him—not heavy, not foreign—companionable.
He tried to scale it. Light erupted behind him, a ribcage of energy sprouting for a blink, a single arm forming full-sized and catching a phantom boulder Hagoromo dropped from the void's sky. The arm wavered, then held. Naruto's knees shook. He grinned anyway.
Minato's eyes shone. "Again."
Kurama prowled, tail-tips touching each new joint, offering instinctive corrections like a teacher who did not realize he was teaching. "Weight on the outside edge," he murmured. "Don't lock that knee. Let the tail—your flow—catch up before you lunge."
Naruto adjusted. The larger arm steadied. The smaller armor hugged closer. The construct-hands stopped jittering and began to listen.
They trained like that until time lost meaning and returned with new edges. Mist rose from the floor where sweat would have fallen in a real place. Naruto's breath turned smooth, a bellows he could set to any rhythm. The Black Heart's thrum synced to the cadence of his seals.
Finally, Hagoromo lifted his staff. The visions folded. The plain stilled. "Enough, for this moment."
Naruto let the constructs fade. They dissolved into motes and then into a comfortable hum along his skin, as if the idea of armor had decided to wait just under his pores until called. His hands trembled—not with fatigue, but with unused eagerness.
Kushina bumped his shoulder. "You invented a third hand and a half-born Susanoo before lunch. Not bad, brat."
Minato ruffled his hair. "You're learning to spend less for more."
Kurama flopped at Naruto's feet, tails a crescent. "Wake me when you can hold the titan for ten breaths."
Naruto laughed, breathless and happy in a way he hadn't known lives in training.
Ashborn regarded him, unreadable and satisfied. "You build quickly," he said. "Good. We will add purpose to structure." He looked to Hagoromo. "He needs craftsmen."
The Sage nodded, already knowing. He lifted his staff, and the universe leaned closer.
"Then we will invite the ones who etched the first doors and planted the first forests," Hagoromo said, voice a calm bell. "If you are to master fūinjutsu and creation, learn from those who defined them."
The void cooled, attentive. Far off, a mask's pale suggestion flickered like a moon behind cloud.
Minato's eyes widened. "The Shinigami."
Kushina's grin sharpened. "And if we're asking for teachers… I have names."
Naruto straightened, heartbeats in perfect braid. A thrill ran up his spine—not fear, not pressure. Anticipation. He glanced at his parents, at the fox, at the Sage, at the dark Monarch whose presence felt like a promise.
"Bring them," Naruto said. "I'm ready."
Hagoromo's staff rang once against the glass-dark floor. The sound rolled outward, through the training field, into places where gods rest and legends wait to be remembered.
The sound of the staff's strike rippled outward like a bell under water.The light dimmed, then brightened again, and the shape of the Shinigami unfolded from the void—taller than any man, robed in white that drank shadow instead of casting it. The mask's painted grin was calm, almost curious.
"I have been summoned twice in one age," the god said, voice quiet and without echo. "You ask for teachers. Name them."
Hagoromo inclined his head. "The First Seal Master, Ashina Uzumaki. And Hashirama Senju, who taught the world that chakra could give life instead of death."
The Shinigami lifted two hands. The void between its fingers opened like doors.Out stepped a man with hair the color of sunset and eyes bright with humor, a rosary of sealing beads around his wrist—Ashina Uzumaki.Beside him, smiling as if sunlight had followed him through the gate, stood Hashirama Senju.
"Ha!" Hashirama laughed, taking in the surreal training field. "So this is where you've been hiding the good students, Hagoromo-sama!"
Kushina half-bowed, half-grinned. "Grandpa Ashina, meet your great-grandson."
Ashina's eyes softened. "Uzumaki blood runs stubborn, I see." He turned to Naruto, studying him. "You already wear the chains of our clan's heart. Now we'll see if you can forge seals that hold ideas as easily as beasts."
Naruto bowed, awkward and earnest. "Please teach me."
Hashirama chuckled. "And I'll make sure you stretch between lessons. A stiff body can't channel a kind heart."
Kurama muttered, "And a loud teacher can't stay quiet," but his tails flicked, amused.
The Field of Clones
At Ashborn's gesture, the glass floor reflected Naruto's image a thousand times."Every reflection is a thought," the Monarch said. "Call them."
Naruto formed the hand sign without hesitation. Shadow clones exploded outward—ten, a hundred, then so many that even Hagoromo's calm eyes widened slightly. Each clone breathed, bowed, and sprinted toward a different master.
Because this was the void and not the mortal plane, no fatigue passed between them. The backlash of learning would return only as understanding.
"Smart," Hashirama whistled. "Train an army to train you."
Hagoromo nodded. "And let the field mirror the body so every lesson has weight." He pressed his staff to the ground. A pulse of light linked the mental domain to Naruto's living form beyond the dome. Muscles, nerves, chakra coils—all began to echo the rhythm of the clones' movements.
The Week of Seals
Ashina Uzumaki taught with precision. "A seal," he said, "is a promise written in chakra. Make it too loose and the world lies. Make it too tight and you lie to yourself."
He had Naruto sketch circles of energy, fold them into spirals, then collapse them into grains of light small enough to balance on a fingernail. Chains spun from those grains—gentle, flexible, able to hold without harm.
When Naruto mastered the weave, Ashina smiled. "Good. Now add mercy to strength. Every seal you make will carry your heart's tone."
The Week of Growth
Hashirama's lessons were different. He clapped his hands and trees erupted from the dark floor, glowing with gentle green light.
"Wood Release," he said. "Life is the ultimate construct. If you can shape it, you can heal it."
Naruto tried. His first sprout exploded into a puff of chakra. The second grew crooked. The third bloomed properly, tiny leaves fluttering in an impossible breeze.
"Perfect!" Hashirama beamed. "You felt it instead of forcing it."
Naruto grinned. "Guess plants like ramen-energy more than anger."
The Monarch's Correction
Ashborn walked among the clones like a silent shadow. When one of them overused chakra, the Monarch simply looked and the excess folded back into order. "Discipline," he murmured. "The shape of eternity is patience."
He showed Naruto how to mold a portion of his chakra into a single solid limb—the technique they had begun—but now refined until the fingers could pick up dust without scattering it.
"Every construct is a word," Ashborn said. "You are learning to speak in silence."
Fusion of Knowledge
Two weeks passed in the void; outside, only minutes crawled by. When Hagoromo finally raised his staff, the field of clones shimmered. One by one, they dissolved into streams of light that flowed into the original Naruto.
He straightened slowly, eyes closed, every motion measured. Sealing arrays, healing patterns, creation jutsu, shadow extraction—all slotted into place like pieces of a puzzle. The knowledge didn't crush him; it fit.
Kushina clapped her hands once, proud and tearful. "Look at you! All grown and glowing."
Minato smiled softly. "You even breathe like a Hokage now."
Kurama yawned. "Still short."
Naruto opened his eyes. For a heartbeat, rings and tomoe shimmered over the blue, then vanished again. His voice was calm. "I can feel every seal I've ever seen. They hum in my veins."
Hagoromo nodded. "Then the bridge is built. From here, training becomes creation."
Ashborn's cloak stirred. "Now you forge your own shadow. The world will not wait forever."
Naruto faced them all—parents, fox, Sage, Monarch, and the long-dead masters who had lent him their wisdom. "Thank you," he said, bowing deeply. "When I wake up, I'll use this power to protect everyone. That's a promise."
The Shinigami inclined its head, the closest thing it had to a smile."Then live, child of chakra and shadow. I will see you again only when the story demands it."
The god faded; Hashirama and Ashina followed, their light folding gently into the void.
Naruto stood alone at the center of the field.He closed his hands—one flesh, one chakra—and they moved as one.
Ashborn's voice drifted from the dark:"Good. Now you are ready to learn what a Monarch truly is."