//------------------------------// // Montage // Story: Your Summon is Pink // by 5007 //------------------------------// Your Summon is Pink by 5007 Disclaimer: Don't insult the pink horse. Chapter Five: Montage 00000 "Now that we're done with lunch," Naruto began, "we need to find that Pervert Sage." "Who?" Figgaro asked as he flapped beside the group. "That's what Naruto calls the Toad Sage," explained Shining. "Jiraiya," growled Figgaro. "Why are you so angry with him?" Naruto asked. "His mistake in not having you sign a contract could have killed you," Shining said. "Or worse: you might have summoned a demon from Tartarus!" "That bad, huh?" "Do you know what happened the last time a demon got out of Tartarus?" Figgaro asked. "... no. I don't." "I don't suppose you would," admitted Shining. "It is an old legend." "Old enough to predate the creation of Equestria, some two-thousand years ago," the opliptera added. When Shining cleared his throat, Naruto knew that the stallion was going to tell the story. 0-0-0-0 Ages ago, the Titans had grown complacent and derelict in their duty and a demon was able to charge out of the Hellmouth. Tartarus gave birth that day to a bastard beast with ten tails. Before the Titans could stop it, it tore a hole in reality and forever linked the Summon Realm to the Human Realm. Days later, a human sage entered the Summon Realm and created a contract with the Titans. With their help, this Sage of the Six Paths defeated the Juubi and rent it asunder, casting the fragments to the winds. Their honor restored, the Titans returned to the gates of Tartarus and kept their vigil stronger than ever before. Confident that they had learned their lesson, the Sage extracted a promise from the Titans: "There will be one whom inherits my wisdom - heed his call." The human returned to his Realm. Many Summoned Beasts followed, offering contracts to humans who impressed them. And thus, both worlds were connected. 0-0-0-0 "Wow," Naruto said as they approached the hot-springs district. "That's quite the story. Though I think I may have heard of a 'Sage of Six Paths' somewhere before. Hmm..." "So," began Pinkie, "Why are we looking around here?" "This is where the Pervy Sage likes to hang out," Naruto replied automatically. "I don't understand why," Figgaro admitted. "All I see are females with little-to-no clothing. Is this a human thing?" "I think it has something to do with the fact that nearly every human we've seen so far wears clothes," the pink pony said. Naruto had to actually stop at that. "Does that mean that ponies don't normally wear clothing?" "Summons don't," Shining explained. "Wearing clothing is a sign of status, either as a warrior or a symbol of wealth. Sometimes, such as with ponies, rags are worn to show one's poverty." "Huh." "I would love it if people didn't wear clothing more often," a familiar voice said to Naruto. The group turned to see the Toad Sage lounging near the fence to one of the hot springs. One eye was lined up perfectly with a small knothole in the wood while the old man was furiously writing in a small notepad. Naruto could hear Figgaro asking Shining something about a wine bottle, but it was barely a whisper. Ignoring it, he carefully walked up to Jiraiya. "You wanted to see me today?" Naruto asked quietly. "Actually, I wanted to see you in a couple of hours," replied the Sage. He giggled. "Sorry squirt, but I'm not missing a minute of this." Pinkie's tail wrapped around Naruto's waist and pulled him away from Jiraiya. Before the ponies ducked around a corner with the young ninja in tow, Naruto noticed a small cylinder resting between the old man's legs. Jiraiya had barely noticed it when- shh-POMPF! It exploded into a brilliant purple paint covering nearly everything in sight. Cries of alarm erupted from several of the bathhouses as kunoichi and civilian women began stampeding into the buildings to clothe themselves. Much faster than the normal humans, the female ninja charged out of the bathhouses and began searching the area for the source of the paint bomb. Unfortunately for a shell-shocked Jiraiya, they found him instead, muttering something about ponies and destroyed research notes. Nonetheless, they saw that he was sitting near a now-exposed hole in the fence. They did the simple mathematics and beat the old man senseless. 00000 "I can't believe you did that, Pinks," said the flabbergasted blonde. "I can't believe you pulled it off!" crowed the opliptera. "I can't believe he didn't escape in time!" laughed the unicorn. "And I can't believe he wasn't willing to talk to you right then," growled the earth pony. "Is he some kind of sex-addict or something?" "Actually, yes," Naruto replied. At all of the ponies' questioning looks, he added, "It's why I call him 'Pervy Sage'." After a moment, Shining said, "I thought there was more to it than that, like you called him that ironically." "I'm not sure what that means," Naruto admitted. "But sometimes, what you see is exactly what it is." "No 'lies behind lies', eh?" Figgaro asked. "Sometimes. It is how I managed to pass the first part of the Chuunin Exams." It was true. Naruto managed to pass simply by bluffing his way through Ibiki's test. The proctors were trying to figure out what angle Naruto was playing at. They couldn't figure it out and so they were trying to find his secondary ruse, but the real answer was the simplest of all - he was boasting and bluffing his way to the end. Since it was so simple, the proctors ruled it out immediately. Only Morino Ibiki knew the truth and that was only after he had seen Naruto's blank paper. "Well," Shining began. "It has been fun, but I can put off my duties for only so long. I've got paperwork to fill out back at Canterlot." "'Sokay," said Naruto. With a bow, he disappeared with a puff of chakra smoke. Naruto turned to Figgaro. "Let's get back to my apartment. I've got something to tell you." 00000 The Guards stood, silent as corpses. If it wasn't for their labored breathing, Skrigh would have thought they were deceased. He slithered past the eleven Guards… Eleven? One was missing. No matter. Skrigh would be able to escape to the Human Realm as soon as he cleared the Second Threshold of the Hellmouth. He felt the light of the Sun on his scales as he cleared the First Threshold. It was refreshing and warm - unlike the fires of the Second Circle of Tartarus which were far too harsh for anything. Skrigh cracked his knuckles as he approached the Second Threshold; his freedom was guaranteed! BOOM! went the ground as a yellow mass crashed down in front of Skrigh. "So a naga was the first creature to attempt to leave Tartarus?" a feminine voice laughed. "This is going to be too easy." Skrigh hissed and spread his arms wide. "I will pass, worm!" "Worm? Is that the best you can do? Make a play off of 'wyrm'?" Cayenne roared with mirth. "SILENCE!" shouted the naga as he slammed his wrists together. A chilling mist rocketed forth from his palms and enveloped the dragon. "Even your fiery nature cannot survive a naga's magic!" As the mist cleared, revealing Cayenne covered with water droplets, she chuckled. "I am of the Scorched Sky," she declared. "Allow me to show you what that means!" A ball of plasma catapulted from her maw straight towards Skrigh. The naga dodged the sphere of death by a wide margin, but his right side blistered and cracked anyway, pouring boiling blood onto the burnt ground. The naga screeched in pain and rage as Cayenne surged forwards. She silenced him by grasping his throat with both foreclaws. She planted most of her bulk on the gigantic snake-half of the demon to keep him from breaking free. "Your magic is useless," she growled as he clawed at her arms, trying to freeze her blood. "We of the Scorched Sky have a special talent - slipscale." She punctuated her statement by digging her claws into his throat. As rivulets of gray blood ran down his neck, Skrigh coughed up a chuckle. "And now you're trapped," he said, covering his claws with ice. He slashed at Cayenne with the icicle blades. While they did pierce her scaly hide and draw blood, they quickly melted down. "W-what!?" "I told you: slipscale," she replied. "I can absorb chakra and convert it into my own." A white-hot beam of plasma ejected from the back of her throat, obliterating the naga's head and carving a gouge on the ground behind him. With the snake demon's body still thrashing in death-throes, Cayenne began tearing open the ribcage. Opposite the heart, she found a gemstone that she quickly ripped out of the torso. Gently cradling the gem in her mouth, she quickly turned the corpse around and crushed its lower spine. With one last twitch, what was left of Skrigh lay still. Cayenne gingerly placed the gem into her foreclaws to better examine it. She had heard that naga demons had soulstones, but she had never figured that it would be so pretty. While it would make a fine addition to her hoard, she knew of a better use for it. She dragged the corpse into the Hellmouth and used its blood to mark a set of seals on the floor just in front of the Gates of Tartarus. By the silent vigil of all twelve Titans, she pressed the soulstone into the center of the array. It stuck fast to the floor and partially phased into it. The soulstone began to glow, showing the face of its owner silently screaming in torment. Cayenne smiled. Even most of the higher demons would think twice before attempting to exit Tartarus now. She turned to observe the Titans, noting that the last of them had returned from their abduction into the Human Realm. Like the others, Cerberus now had large metal piercings running through his heads. All of the pairs of eyes of the dog Titan had changed to a set of grey spheres with concentric violet circles. Outside the cave, Cayenne stalked into a nearby grove of trees to rest in the shade and calm her furious mind. The Titans were held in reverence by dragonkind due to their prowess in battle, but whatever human that had been summoning the Titans had been performing abominable sins on them. The Titans were shells of their former selves, having none of the spirit nor intelligence that wyrms were impressed by. "If I ever meet this human," she muttered. "I don't care how powerful he is - I'm going to roast him alive and feed him his own flesh!" 00000 "Just like you," Naruto began. "I do have a dark secret - I'm a jinchuuriki." "A jin- ... for which one?" "The nine-tailed fox," said the blonde. Figgaro sat there for a long time, saying nothing. His eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed. He suddenly relaxed. "I must apologize for my assessment of you," he said. "A good number of your faults are due to circumstances outside of your control. I have heard of jinchuuriki before, but most of them are highly volatile living weapons, according to our information. The fact that you have resisted the temptation to give into the darker natures of sapient beings improves my opinion of you." 00000 They found Jiraiya, battered, bruised, and still caked in paint, waiting for them on the roof of Naruto's apartment building. "That was a dirty trick," Jiraiya said to Pinkie. "I approve of you ponies teaching him." The older man rolled his shoulders. "We're going to a training ground I have set aside. You're going to show me what your cloth technique can do." "We can do that here," Naruto replied. "It's not a flashy technique, but it's good. Just try to stab me." Jiraiya quickly whipped out a kunai and slammed the blade to the hilt into Naruto's stomach. The boy simply swayed a little; not even his feet moved. The old man then tried to stab the blonde in the face, expecting him to dodge. Naruto leaned back slightly, twisting his torso and neck so that the tip of the blade bounced off of the fabric of his hitai-ate. He immediately grabbed Jiraiya's sleeve at the elbow. Jiraiya was confused as to why it suddenly felt like his testicles were being squashed by his pants, but his shirt was suddenly constricting his movements. He gave a yelp of pain and surprise, and attempted to yell "WHAT!?" (but it came out a high-pitched squeak) as Naruto lifted him into the air by his sleeve, swung him in an overhead arc, and threw him off of the building. "And that's how you throw a toad off a roof," Naruto stated to Pinkie's giggling, prone form. Jiraiya instantly leapt back up to the roof. "How did you do that?" "My technique," Naruto responded. "Because I had direct contact with your clothing, and your clothes all have contact with each other, I was able to easily throw you off of the building. Honestly, you don't weigh as much as someone of your stature should." Monotonously, Jiraiya said: "I weigh about eighty-six kilograms." "Really?" Jiraiya pinched the bridge of his nose. Pinkie snorted. "You can lift now that you've trained with us." "Well, I was helping myself by using the fabric of my own clothing to lift my arm..." "You should focus on actually training your physical strength," Jiraiya groaned. "You're not always going to be able to have clothes on." Naruto gave a derisive snort. "Laugh it up, runt! But don't come crying to me if you get attacked while you're taking a shower!" "Then I'll stab them with the washcloth!" laughed the blonde. 00000 The next couple of weeks turned into a blur for Naruto. His knowledge was steadily increasing and his use of Tetsu Kireji Koura was improving rapidly. Rarity insisted he keep practicing it so he could keep his clothing at partial stiffness at all times to help deflect sneak-attacks, even when sleeping. His ability with Koutetsu Kireji Sori increased at the same rate, allowing him to cut through stronger materials - he could now cut into softer woods, such as red elm, with no trouble. Alder was easily cut through with the Steel Cloth Razor. But he had difficulty with the tougher woods, like cherry, red oak, and even bamboo. At the same time, Pinkie was impressed with how well he had adapted to her fighting style and suggested he go to Applejack for the remainder of their sessions. "Heh," AJ chuckled. "You need to increase yer muscle dens'ty." She had him remove his jacket and shirt so she could figure out what she needed to do to train him. "We can do that in a week?" asked the teen. "We can start," replied the earth pony. "Ah have it on good author'ty that yer leg muscles are plenty strong." "Pinkie?" "Yep. Now you gotta work on them arms and chest. Yer gonna wanna use palm bursts on the apple trees. But only on the ones that still have apples on 'em. No sense in beatin' up the empty trees." Naruto hit a tree with his legs planted in Pinkie's style. All he did was rustle the leaves. Frustrated, he tried again, a lot harder. The bark crunched slightly, but no apples fell. The teen was glad that the callouses on his palms were so strong from practicing with kunai. He tried again, as hard as he could. Two apples fell. He turned to see if Applejack noticed, but she was too busy bucking apples herself. With one leg, she kicked her tree and caused all of the apples to fall into waiting baskets. Naruto swallowed, and tried as hard as he could to knock the fruit from his tree. Another apple fell. He glared at the branches for a moment, before realizing that he had eyes on him. He turned to see that Applejack was about fifty meters away and not even facing him as she moved to her next tree. Turning the other way he came face-to-muzzle with a crimson pony he hadn't seen before. He stepped back to note the stallion's green eyes and off-orange mane. He was massive by pony terms, almost twice as big as any other pony Naruto had met, save the princesses, and they were still larger than he, but not by much. Naruto couldn't see behind the yoke the stallion wore on his neck, but he could see unshorn fetlocks on the pony's muscular legs. "Uh, hello," stammered the blonde. "Howdy," the stallion replied. His eyes flicked towards the tree Naruto was hitting. "Yer wastin' energy with yer strikes." "... okay." "Was that Pinkie's style yer usin'?" "Yes." "May Ah make a suggestion?" "Sure," Naruto wasn't sure about this stallion, but the crimson pony didn't seem all that threatening at the moment. The pony turned towards the tree, giving Naruto a good look at the cutie mark. A green apple half showing the interior of the fruit. He also had a docked tail, much like draft horses Naruto had seen in the human world. The stallion stood up on his hind legs, his back to the blonde, facing at a tangent to the tree itself. His right forehoof suddenly struck the tree with a crack like thunder. The tree shook slightly, but all of the apples fell. The stallion returned to all-fours and looked to Naruto. "Too much power and yer just gonna exhaust yerself. Ya need ta focus yer strike to a single point to deliver the entire force of the blow." "I thought I was?" Naruto said. "Ya were hittin' it with about three-thousand eight-hundred-thirty Newtons of force," the stallion insisted. "While that's enuff ta break red elm, it's not enuff ta convince the trees ta let go of the apples. Ya need ta approach seven-thousand seven-hundred Newtons ta shake them down." "Huh," the blonde replied, at a loss for anything else to say. Naruto suddenly heard Applejack huff behind him. "You confusin' our summoner with yer fancy mathematics, Big Mac?" "Nnope," replied the stallion. "Ahm just tellin' him that he's wastin' too much energy." AJ narrowed her eyes. "It sure sounded like you was tellin' him lotsa big numbers." "Numbers is how the world works, AJ," chuckled Big Mac. He turned to the shinobi teen. "Mah name's Big McIntosh. Ah handle the finances 'round here." "Oh shush!" snapped the cowpony. "Ah don't wanna hear it from you." Big Mac snorted. He then turned to Naruto. "Yer hyper-extendin'. When ya strike, ya wanna still have yer elbow bent, at least slightly." He used his forehooves to adjust Naruto's arm. "This means yer gonna need ta get closer ta yer target. Don't ferget ta use yer chakra ta root yerself ta the ground, or yer just gonna push yerself backwards." Naruto positioned himself next to the next tree, less than an arm's length away from it. "We strike with the centers of our hooves, Naruto," AJ called out. "But yer prolly gonna wanna strike with the heel of yer palm. Seems sturdier than the center of yer hand." "Eeyup," agreed Big Mac. Naruto struck the tree and was rewarded with the sound of at least twelve apples hitting the ground. Applejack whistled, drawing the blonde ninja's attention to her. "You got a long way to go, but you are doin' better." "Don't forget ta switch off on which arm ya use," added the stallion. "It's kinda pointless ta get strong on only one side." 00000 Naruto collapsed to his bed once he got home that night. His arms were burning from the intense workout the Apple siblings put him through. "I hope you're not falling asleep just yet," said a familiar voice. "Go away, Ero-sensei." "Make me." Naruto smiled as his sheets whipped towards Jiraiya and wrapped around him, only to frown as the old man dispelled in a puff of smoke. Shadow clone? thought the blonde. He was startled when Jiraiya began talking on his other side. "I thought you might still have that seal on," said the sage. "What, the one holding the fox?" "No, the Gogyou Fuuin that Orochimaru placed around that one." "WHAT!?" Naruto shouted as he looked at his navel, seeing a strange set of five symbols around the Kyuubi's prison. "Why haven't I seen this before!?" "Because you didn't have your shirt off the last time you channeled chakra when you were this tired." "I'm temped to hit you with my entire bed, you smug geezer." "If that's how you're going to be about it, I suppose I shouldn't remove it." "Do you want Pinkie to ruin your next ten trips to the hot springs?" Jiraiya raised his finger and opened his mouth before closing it again. Open. Close. Open. Close. He put his finger down. "Fine, you ungrateful brat." "Smelly pervert." "Look who's talking, Mister Covered-in-Sweat." "I bet you wish you were covered in sweat." Jiraiya choked on his own spit. "Dammit, kid!" "What? You think I'm going to find a book on verbal warfare in the Summon World and not read it?" 00000 End chapter five. Next Chapter: THE FINAL EXAMS!