:::Note from the author:::

::This story is for pokemon and Naruto fans. True Naruto fans will recognize the jutsus throughout and probably be able to guess who inspired my character, Zabu Mochi. I hope you enjoy:: 

Once, as I was flying out over the grassland, I saw a powerful demon-like warrior preying on two innocent victims; one a man with a sword who seemed very skilled with it, the other, a dog/fox type creature with yellow fur on it’s chest and back and blue and black fur on the rest of it’s body, though it’s fur was reddened from bloodshed. 

The warriors laugh sounded demonic. “Now, this is when you both die, then, I’ll feast on your blood.” The warrior swung his huge guillotine sword at them. I managed to block with my sword at the last minute. “Huh? So, you’re going to play the hero and try to stop me? Fine. All the more blood for me to feast on.”

“You’ve consumed your last drop of blood. This is where you die, Zabu.” Zabu charged at me, swinging his sword wildly. The man and dog/fox behind me were cowering as Zabu came at me. I kept a cool head even up to the point that he slashed me.

“I knew he was all talk. Now that he’s gone, where were we? Ah yes. I was about to end your pitiful lives.” Zabu approached the two slowly. Then, for apparently no reason, Zabu just fell down dead.

I was standing right behind him, pulling my sword out of his chest. “Well, I’d hoped the infamous Zabu Mochi would be more of a challenge.” The two still sat staring at me. “It’s probably a good idea if I treat your wounds. I always carry some strips of cloth with me just in case.”

As I was helping bandage the man’s wounds, he finally spoke. “How in the world did you survive that fight? We saw him cut you down.”

“That’s about half right. You saw him cut down a substitute that looked like me. It’s the substitution jutsu. It quickly puts like a log or something in my place to make it look like I was hit when I was perfectly safe.” I finished bandaging the man’s wounds. 

“Thank you very much for saving us. Please at least tell me your name.”

“My name is Kratos, but who are you to ask my name without giving your own?”

“My name is Lee. I’m a humble swordsman and this is my apprentice, Lucario.”

“Your apprentice? But she doesn’t even have a sword.”

“Well, we tell people who ask that she’s my apprentice, but in a way, I’m more like a big brother to her.”

“Regardless of what your relation is to her, we need to bandage her wounds.” “I tried to approach Lucario and she immediately ran behind Lee for protection. “Hmm? Is something wrong?”

“Lucario is morbidly afraid of humans, especially ones with swords.”

“Why is she like that?”
“One time, when she was younger, there was a human who pulled her into a back alley and demanded she give him money. She refused and the guy pulled out his sword and threatened to cut her down if she didn’t fork it over. Then he stabbed the sword through her hand as proof that he was serious. She still refused, and he swung the sword over top his head to slash her. I was walking by at the time, noticed the commotion, and managed to get to her in time to block his sword and take it from him. As I turned to leave, Lucario called out to me. ‘Thank you for saving me. What’s your name?’ I told her my name and asked her why she was out in the street all alone. She responded, ‘I have no family. They’re all gone now.’ I couldn’t just let a defenseless girl out there alone, so I invited her to stay with me. Since then, I’m the only human with a sword that she trusts.”

“I think I understand. That day, she got two scars: one on her hand from the wound, one on her heart that caused her to stop trusting humans.”

“Yes. That’s pretty much it. Now, with the exception of my sword, the mere sight of one scares her beyond belief.”

“That’s why she won’t let me close to her. In that case…” I pulled my sword out of its sheath and tossed it aside. “I’ll abandon this blade forever.”

“Can you even fight without your sword?” Lee asked me

“That’s not important. If the mere sight of my sword strikes fear in even one innocent heart, I would just as soon throw my sword away.” I tried to approach Lucario again to treat her wounds. Once again she retreated behind Lee.

“She doesn’t completely trust you yet. You see, for a long time now, we’ve had mobs of people after us determined to kill Lucario because they believed she’d bring a plague on them. It seems they even hired a demonic mercenary like Zabu Mochi. Seeing all those people after her has just made her even more afraid of humans. She thinks all humans, except me, want to kill her.”

I thought for a moment. Then I got an idea. “Lee, can I see your sword for a minute?” Lee handed me his sword. “The way I see it, in order to open and heal a wounded heart, one must suffer the same pain the wounded one has been through.” I thrust the sword through my hand. “Lucario, I swear upon the blood shed from my hand that, as long as I draw breath, no human will hurt you. I’d sacrifice myself before I’d let that happen.” I pulled the sword out of my hand and stuck it in the ground right in front of me.

“Lucario, he’s serious. Anyone who would send a sword through their hand and swear upon it is someone we can trust.”

I heard a voice in my head say, “Okay Lee. I’ll give him a chance.”
“Was that Lucario’s voice?” Lee nodded. “So she communicates through telepathy. Well Lucario. Will you trust me to cover your wounds?”

Lucario nodded and said, “As long as Lee is right beside me with his sword drawn.”

I laughed heartily at this. “All right, Lucario. Now I need you two to come over here so I can help you.” Lucario slowly started to walk towards me. As she was coming, I took the time to bandage my own hand. Then, I covered Lucario’s wounds with the remaining cloth I had.

She was apprehensive the whole time, but when I was finished, she looked at me and said, “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble at all. The way I see it, if you see someone suffering and don’t try to help, you deserve to be in their position.”

Lee said, “While I do thank you for your help, we have to keep moving. Those mobs of people will come after us again soon, and I don’t want to get you involved in all this. Let’s go Lucario. Good-bye, Kratos.”

As the two turned to walk away I called out to Lee. “Wait. The chances are very likely that they’ll send more assassins like Zabu, most likely even stronger ones. It might not be a bad idea if I accompany you.”

“As I said before, I don’t want to get you involved in this, though I do appreciate your offer,” Lee said.

“I became involved in this the moment I jumped in to save you. As the dwarven swordmaster who taught me always used to say, ‘Dwarven vow number 2: never abandon someone in need.’ I also swore to Lucario that I’d protect her with my life.”

Lee hesitated to answer, then said, “Okay. You can come with us as long as it’s okay with Lucario.” Lee looked at Lucario and she nodded. “All right. Welcome to the team, Kratos.” 

Just then, I heard something in a tree behind us. “Lucario, get down!” I dove forward to knock Lucario back. Two Kunai knives stuck in the ground right in front of her. “It seems we aren’t alone out here.”

“Lee, what are those things?” Lucario grabbed Lee’s hand

“Good question. Kratos, care to answer that for us?”

“They’re Kunai throwing knives, commonly used by ninjas. I would assume they were thrown by another ninja hired to take you down. Stay on guard.” We stood there in the field. For all of us, the air felt heavy as we waited for the next move. I whispered to Lucario and Lee, “Get in close behind me. I can defend us all easier that way.”

Just then, two shurikens ripped out of the tree right at us. I moved to block it. The weapons hit me, or so Lee and Lucario thought. Then from behind, I said, “I thought you’d recognize that from the fight against Zabu. It’s the substitution jutsu.” We stood close together in a defensive formation. “Lee, pick up that Kunai knife. I’m going to draw out our attacker, then you peg him with the knife.” Lee reached down to pick up the knife, just as another two Kunais were thrown towards us. “Lee, in that tree up there. Throw the Kunai up there now.” 

Lee threw the knife and our attacker jump out of the tree to reveal himself. I thought to myself, another Jonin like Zabu. They’re going all-out. I whispered, “Lee, I need you to draw his attention, but don’t try to fight him.”

“Okay.” The attacking ninja came charging at us. 

“Lee, go!” we broke our defensive formation as the Jonin stabbed my substitute with a Kunai. 

“Well, it seems your new ally didn’t prove very helpful at all, Lee.” The ninja laughed evilly. “Now, I’m going to enjoy killing you both slowly and painfully.” The ninja made three hand signs causing Senbon needles to float around him. He started firing them one at a time at Lee. “It’s over, Lee.” Then the Jonin stopped just before firing the rest of the Senbon. “W-what’s happening? I can’t move my body.”

From behind him I said, “It’s one of my favorite, though less used, jutsus; the Shadow Possession jutsu. You probably already know that you’re now being forced to imitate my movements.” The ninja growled under his breath. “Lee, take him down, now.” Lee slashed the ninja down with his sword.

“That was certainly an unexpected technique you used, Kratos, but I’m glad you did. You saved Lee.”

“Ah, it was nothing, Lucario. In fact, I could even teach you two about these jutsus I’m using and about these ninjas that have been attacking us.”

Lee stood up and remarked, “Would it even be possible for Lucario and me to use these techniques or jutsus as you call them?”

“It would take time, but anyone can learn them.” Lucario and Lee agreed to have me teach them the ways of the ninja. “Very good. It’s probably a good idea if we get out of danger first.”

Just then, a large mob of people could be seen emerging from the woods behind us. “Oh, no! They caught up to us,” Lucario said in fear.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stop them.”

“Wait, Kratos. Don’t kill them. They may be after me, but they haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Lucario, who ever said I was going to kill them? When I’m done, they’ll be unconscious for about 6 hours. That’s it.” As the crowd came running towards us, I made five hand signs. The crowd began to fall down asleep in their tracks.

“What was that?”

“That, Lucario, was a Genjutsu. I created illusions to make the crowd fall asleep. I won’t teach you guys any Genjutsu. It’s quite complicated. Now let’s get out of here. Both of you put a hand on my back.” They did as I said and we teleported away to a castle in a distant land.

“W-where are we?” Lucario asked.

“This is my castle, where I reign as king of Dragonia, the world of dragons.”

“Whoa. Are we even allowed to be here?” Lee asked, still surprised at the sight of the castle.

“Think about it. I brought you here. I’m the king, the one who calls the shots on this planet. Even if you weren’t allowed, I’m the one who decides. And you two are my special guests.”

Lee bowed down in front of me and Lucario followed him. Lee said, “My apologies, your majesty, for treating you like a commoner before.”

“It’s ok, Lee. I prefer to be treated as an equal by my friends.”

“Thank you, your honor.”

“Lee, stop that! Just call me Kratos. If I wanted you to call me a king, I’d have told you I was one before we came here.” Lee and Lucario stood up. “Now, after running from people for so long, you must be exhausted. I’ll show you to the bedrooms.”

I showed them around the castle, ending with the bedrooms. “If there’s anything you two need, I’ve told the palace servants that they are to listen to you as they would listen to me.” The two went in and sat down on the beds. “Goodnight.” 

I turned to leave when Lucario said, “Kratos, when do we begin training?”

“Not until your wounds have healed. It’s best to wait.” I turned and left for the night. I started talking to myself. “I must say, it’s nice to have some guests in the castle after so long. Still, I get the feeling that Lucario doesn’t trust me 100%. I’ll have to build up her trust somehow, but how? Ever since she got that scar on her hand, she’s been freaked out by humans.” I thought a while. “Wait. That’s it!”

The next morning when Lucario and Lee woke up, I was there to greet them. “Morning sleepyheads.” I laughed heartily at this. “Time for your first day of life as guests and friends to the king.” They both got out of bed and came over to me. “Lucario, I have a surprise for you. Hold out your scarred hand.” 

She was reluctant to at first. Lee said, “Go on Lucario. He won’t hurt you. She did just as I said with Lee’s encouragement. I was holding a cup of water in my hand. I moved my other hand over top of it and the water flowed through the air, following my hand movements. I moved the water over to Lucario’s hand. The water engulfed her hand. After about 5 seconds I said, “All right, Lucario. Take your hand out of the water and look at it.” She pulled her hand out and looked at it. The scar was gone!

“What did you do to my hand?”

Lee added, “And how did you make the water float?”

“To answer your question, Lee, it’s a trick I call water bending. The same way the moon pulls on the water on the Earth, creating high tides, I figured out how to produce the same effect, but in a way that I can control it. To answer your question, Lucario, while practicing my water bending, I accidentally splashed a little boy who had just fallen and scraped his knee. He stood up and said his knee didn’t hurt any more. I figured the water must have been what healed that. Over the next few months, I experimented with water bending to try to prove this. I found that, indeed, I was able to heal using the water. I kept building on this until I was able to even heal scars. I thought it would be a nice gift to you, Lucario, to have that scar healed after all this time.”

“Thank you so much, Kratos, but you didn’t need to do this.” Lucario said

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Remember Dwarven vow number 2? ‘Never abandon someone in need.’ Unfortunately, there’s a limit to how much I can heal. I probably would not be able to heal your other wounds completely.”

“That’s ok. We’ll wait.”

Time passed and their wounds healed. When they were healed enough to remove the bandages, the two joined me in training. “Okay. It’s probably best if I explain a little bit about ninjas that you didn’t know yet. You already knew that ninjas are master of stealth, but there is much more than that. For instance, throughout the world we met on, there are various ninja villages. Obviously this is where ninja are trained, but there are various ranks of ninja. There are Genin who are basically ninjas in training. Then, there are Chuunin, Genin who have proved themselves and been promoted. Chuunin are assigned more difficult missions and taught more advanced jutsus, which I will explain shortly. Above the Chuunin, we have Jonin, the elite ninjas. These elites are normally assigned squads of Genin to train. Jonin are very skilled ninja. Zabu, for instance, was a Jonin. Some Jonin have proven themselves even further and have been granted the title of Special Jonin. These ninja aren’t given additional training or techniques, but they are better known and most are skilled at keeping their true potential hidden until it’s required. Now jutsus that I mentioned earlier are, in a word, advanced ninja weapons. 

“By concentrating the life energy known as Chakra into their hands, then performing various hand signs, they are able to perform these powerful techniques. There are three main types of jutsu. First, there is Taijutsu. This is basically martial arts boosted by the power of Chakra. Second, there is Genjutsu, which I already explained. Third, we have Ninjutsu, the most common of the three. This is basically one’s ninja art. They can range from substitution and transformation to controlling your target’s body, spitting fire, summoning various creatures, and even making copies of yourself. 

“Along with these three main types of jutsu, there is a fourth category of forbidden jutsu, or Kinjutsu. These jutsus are forbidden because they normally come at a great cost to the user, sometimes even being the user’s life. These techniques are the most powerful, so the temptation to use them can be very strong. Now that my explanation is complete, I can teach you how to use Chakra yourselves.”

I showed the two how to control their Chakra. Lee seemed to pick up the concept right away, but Lucario was having a lot of trouble getting it down. She was so discouraged that she ran away from the training field back into the castle. I asked Lee, “What was that all about?”

Lee answered, “She was full of hope that she would be able to fight for herself and not always have someone defend her. She’s discouraged that she can’t do it.”

“Hmm. I don’t think it’s that she can’t do it. She’s just too afraid that she’ll fail. Maybe if we give her a situation where she has to overcome that fear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, I have a plan, and I’m going to need your help for it.”

Lee went to Lucario and found her in the meadow crying. “Lucario, it’s okay. No one gets something perfect on the first try.”

“You did. Why can’t I?” Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning shot through Lee’s body. “Lee! Lee!!!!!” Lucario screamed for her fallen friend

Lucario heard an evil laugh and looked over to see me floating in the air, though she didn’t recognize me because I had transformed into the Kaiser dragon. Its appearance is basically a golden version of me. “So, that’s the legendary Kratos’ new student? Pathetic. I’d hoped he would put up some sort of fight. Hmm? This is a pleasant surprise. I’d heard Kratos had a new student, but I didn’t hear of him having a pokemon as a student.”

Lucario was still over Lee’s body, crying. “Oh, Lee. You were such a great person. One of the only humans that I knew I could trust. Now, that guy killed you. I’ll never forgive him for that.” She was talking to herself, then she turned towards me and shouted, “I’ll never forgive you for killing my friend! I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands!” Her eyes had sort of a flame of rage in them. She jumped in the air and flew toward me, controlling the chakra in her feet to keep her airborne. I thought to myself, Incredible! I knew she had potential, but to have mastered the Eagle Wings jutsu already. 

“A wasted effort if you think I can be beaten that way.” She kept charging, then copies of her appeared. Are these clones or shadow clones? Regardless, this is impressive. The copies came after me and knocked me down. They were shadow clones. Then Lucario shot fire at me from her mouth. Phoenix Flower jutsu. She’s full of surprises. The fireballs hit me, even though it did little more than singe my clothes. The battle continued to rage on.

I knocked Lucario back and she stood there, out of breath. “Ha! You can’t defeat me. I’ll finish you off with my next attack, but first, humor me. I’ll give you one free attack.” She began to charge up electricity in her hand. Unbelievable! That’s the Lightning Blade! To have mastered that already...” She charged forward at me for the finishing blow. I caught her hand before she hit me. “And that, Lucario, is what you’re truly capable of.” She stopped, stunned that I said her name.

“You’re no ordinary ninja. Who are you anyway?”

“Aww. I’m disappointed, Lucario. You don’t even recognize your own good friend?” She looked at me with bewilderment. “Maybe this will help.” I transformed back to my normal form.

“Kratos?! But why did you kill Lee?”

“Lucario, Lee is perfectly fine.”

“Liar! I saw you kill him, you murderer!”

From behind her, Lucario heard a voice say, “Why don’t you look behind you?” She turned around to see Lee without a scratch on him.

“Lee? But how? I saw him attack you.”

I spoke up. “Not exactly, Lucario. Let me explain. Lee told me that you were afraid to try the jutsus; that you were worried you would fail. I knew you had the potential to perform nearly any jutsu. I figured the only way you could overcome that fear was to be placed in a position where you didn’t have a choice but to fight.”

Lee took it from here. “So Kratos and I came up with a plan to force you to fight. The Lee that you were with when Kratos showed up was actually a shadow clone. By making you think your friend had been killed, we caused you to fly into a rage and fight against this strange warrior. Without even trying, you held your own very well.”

I added, “Not to mention many of those jutsus you used were very high level jutsus that I hadn’t even showed you yet. Like I said, I knew you had the potential. You just needed the motivation. I had to help you bypass all those fears: fear of failing, fear of humans, fear of being rejected, fear of losing your only friends. You forgot all those fears when you thought Lee was dead. You did a great job. Now maybe if you give humans a chance back on your world, they’ll give you a chance.”

Lucario came over and took my hand. “Kratos, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done.