"Well that worked quite well" Kurama commented as Naruko jumped from branch to branch, speeding through the forest with her beloved bow strapped to her back.
She was surprised when her mother had extended the offer to friendship. It seemed that she had realised that if she wanted to be any part of her life, she would need to start from the beginning, and it was something that she could respect, though it was unsurprising that Haruto was still clueless even after she had dropped so many hints.
Her chakra level was still low, but now at a level where she could use it to boost her speed ever so slightly.
Arriving at a small clearing a fair distance away from Tazuna's house, she sat down in the middle and closed her eyes as if in meditation. Reaching within her consciousness, she opened her eyes again to be greeted by an open field, very unlike where she was before. Only a few steps away stood a female figure with emerald green hair, looking at her with a small smile plastered on her face.
Her inner mindscape hadn't changed much since the soul merge and as such she didn't spend long looking. She delved deep into her mind again, this time going through her own memories, unlocking some locked away memories of Kurama's past at the same time.
Amongst those memories were some foreign to both her and Kurama.
At first, she was confused as to why there we a few memory shards of a certain green clad huntress and sword wielding King of Knights floating around within her mindscape, but over time she came to the conclusion that these memories weren't purposely left here as the majority of the memories were simply of the huntress walking around or of the King of Knights sitting on a throne, unimportant memories that certainly held no purpose. Kurama had concluded that they were simply accidental shards that were left behind as a result of the two invading her mind at a young age.
Though most of them were just random fragments, there were a few that stood out, which told of the kind of lives the two lived, and from what she saw both were just as tragic. She hoped that she could atleast change something like the King of Knights had said.
"It's time, the concentration of chakra is currently at its highest during the day." Kurama called, reminding her of their original objective.
Ever since viewing the memories, she had been attempting to replicate some of the attacks the two had shown in her memories, specifically the attack the huntress had used against the boar, [Phoebus Catastrophe] She had called it. It was definitely in a foreign tongue, yet she could still understand it, another mystery she would have to think about another time.
Her instincts told her that she could use the attack, yet nothing happened every single time she attempted to use it in the past years. Her bow would build up energy, vibrate slightly as if it would succeed, but the chakra buildup would disperse immediately before firing.
It was then that Kurama had told her that the energy type being used was similar, yet different to the chakra that she was used to. She had delved deep into Kurama's memories since then to uncover any information on the energy source being used, and only recently did her efforts bear fruit.
Most up and coming nin's would learn of the composition of chakra during the academy years, but even those were simply what scholars thought to be true, as very few could interact with the very foundations of chakra without suffering severe backlashes.
Therefore there were very few who knew anything about the truth of chakra's origin except the fact that it came from the God Tree, one of those few was Otsutsuki Hagoromo, otherwise known as the Ridudou Sennin, the Sage of Six Paths. The old sage seemed to have a habit of leaving his work laying around, and through Kurama's memories Naruko managed to gather enough information.
The original source of energy, Mana, which used to be present everywhere until the appearance of the God Tree. The God Tree had 'tainted' all Mana it came into contact with, turning it into Chakra, a similar yet different form of energy. The process of transformation was sped up as Otsutsuki Kaguya, mother of Hagoromo, consumed an apple from the God Tree, obtaining chakra for herself and all humans that came after her.
From what she could see through the memories, mana was far more versatile than chakra, despite being harder to manipulate.
It was clear that the God Tree had added his own taint into Mana to create Chakra. Following this logic, it meant that it was also possible to remove the taint, though very risky.
"The old man's famous [Creation of All Things] was based off something he called the [First True Mystery], or was it the [First True Magic]? Don't remember too clearly. Though apparently his technique paled in comparison to the 'True Magic' as he called it. His technique could only create non-living things, meaning that Souls and Energy such as Mana and Chakra were far out of his league." Kurama had told her when she asked if she knew anything about Mana. It was this that encouraged her to study the splitting of Chakra into its base form, Mana, a feat that only the Sage of Six Paths had managed to perform.
Despite this, she was born an Uzumaki, and Uzumaki's never gave up.
today would be her first attempt to perform the splitting of Chakra into Mana. She had already put up a seal around the clearing to make sure there wouldn't be any uninvited guests in case something went wrong.
"I'm ready, let's begin." She mentally called to Kurama as she let out a nervous sigh before tensing her muscles in anticipation.
Minutes passed as she simply sat there, hands extended as if in a prayer, and only after half an hour did a small flicker of chakra appear upon her palms, dancing around her hand. Sweat trickled down Naruko's head as she concentrated on keeping the chakra physically manifested.
"All negative components removed, go ahead."
Negative chakra was said to be the most volatile of the what people believed to form chakra itself, removing it would severely reduce the chances of the experiment exploding in her face. Hearing the confirmation, she nodded and closed her eyes.
Analyzing initial components
God Tree taint identified
Isolation of selected energy
This was the hard part. The taint itself was easy to detect once you knew what you were looking for, the first step of separation was to isolate the taint from the Mana itself. Such an action required identifying every single essence of the taint before moving it away from the Mana, and unless you were used to the action it would be nigh impossible.
Fortunately for her, she had been at it for several years, and the action had become second nature to her.
Isolation complete, commencing separation
separation complete, commencing deletion of taint
The final step, which required her to completely destroy all essence of the taint without losing control. The last time she had tried it, she had been knocked unconscious for a full night. At least this time she had a failsafe ready in case things didn't go as planned that wouldn't leave her vulnerable if she went out.
Only a second passed in the real world, but to her it seemed like days as she swiftly destroyed all traces of the God Tree's taint.
Though she didn't notice, she had almost stopped breathing at one point, focusing purely at the task at hand. Only after a minute did she open her eyes again as she gasped for breath. She swiftly looked back down at her hand, eyes widening as she saw blue, string-like particles floating around just above her palm. She could sense that it was definitely not chakra, meaning only one thing.
"I… Succeeded?" She said in a quiet voice between pants. Though tired on the outside, she was more excited than she had ever been, why wouldn't she be? She had just past a block in her progression that had been there ever since her training had started, with this she could finally progress on her training.
"Congra—WATCH OUT!" Kurama began before ending it with a panicked yell. Naruko didn't have a chance to register the words as she felt all the chakra in the nearby region being separated back into Mana, with her hand at its origin, almost like a chain reaction.
"A chain reaction!? Bu—AGH!" She began before crying out in pain. It felt as if her body was tearing itself apart from the inside. It only took her a moment to realise what was happening.
"The chain reaction is affecting me as well since I'm a chakra construct…" She concluded as she desperately tried to find a way out of the predicament, but it was too late as she collapsed screaming. Her last thoughts were that she was at least safe with the sound-blocking seals installed.
She awoke in a sea of darkness, never ending darkness similar to what she saw during her soul merge, yet she felt at peace.
"Where am I?" she thought as she tried to turn her head, but to her surprise she was locked in place and couldn't move an inch. She attempted to call out to Kurama, but found that communications were lost between them, at least for the time being.
"CONNECTION TO ROOT DETECTED."
…What?
She could hear something, but she couldn't understand at all.
Not the 'another language' type of can't understand, but she simply couldn't comprehend the nature or origin of the sounds at all. It was as if it wasn't meant to be understood in the first place, yet her instincts told her that it was definitely saying something coherent.
"CONNECTION TO ROOT DETECTED."
She tried to turn around to face the sound, yet to no avail.
"BODY OF FOREIGN ENTITY: CHAKRA CONSTRUCT."
She simply gave up and allowed herself to float in the never ending abyss, listening to the autonomous voice which she couldn't attribute to a human, the voice was completely out of the world, something humans weren't meant to comprehend.
"ENTITY STATUS: CRITICAL."
She listened…
"ALTERING BODY COMPOSITION TO ENSURE SURVIVAL."
And listened…
"ALTERATION COMPLETE, COMMENCING EJECTION."
Until her mind suddenly shut down.