Naruto Warrior of the Dead

[Zephyrus]

Just a little something I was pondering. Has Ectomancer!Naruto been done? Could be fun.

Anyways, let me know if you're intrigued. Finals are over, so I'll be spending some time writing this summer.

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The Sandaime Hokage considered the boy, Uzumaki Naruto, and wondered if there was something wrong.

The child, no more than 5 months old, had begun displaying some alarming behavior. The orphanage director reported that many times, he would find the infant staring at a fixed point in space. He would gurgle and laugh at the oddest times, and most often when no one was in the child’s direct line of sight.

The area surrounding the boy’s crib was almost always cool and it was whispered that the child’s few toys would move under their own power. The orphanage had moved the boy to the abandoned nursery on the second floor, to ensure the safety of the other children, they had said.

The Sandaime had grown harder in his old age, not softer as one might assume, especially in these last 5 months. Had good help not been so hard to find, he might have executed the director for that offense alone. He had yet to experience any of these phenomena, but even he could admit, as he gazed down into the crib, that something was horribly wrong. Naruto had only focused his attention on the old man once, when he first reached down and gently pinched Naruto’s cheeks in greeting, but then his gaze had wandered, never settling in one place for very long. He would gurgle happily ever so often, without once making eye contact with the Hokage.

Yes, something was very wrong indeed.

“Lord Hokage!” A whisper sounded furiously from the corner of the room.

Sarutobi glanced over his shoulder, sighing internally. The orphanage director was not a bad person by any means, but the man was prone to histrionics and was overly fond of melodrama. The mysterious circumstances surrounding Naruto no doubt made the man as happy as a clam.

“Can you not feel it, my lord?”

The Hokage patted the baby on the head one last time with a fond smile on his lips before turning to face the man.

“Feel what, Shirotake?”

The director gaped for a moment in disbelief. “My lord Hokage, the air around the boy is…freezing! Unnaturally so!”

“I feel no chill and NOR,” and here he raised his voice to forestall the protests of the director, “do I see any toys moving mysteriously.”

“But I tell you, I’ve seen it happen! Ask the night nurse, Suzuka! She’ll confirm what I’ve told you.”

It was unfortunate, but many people had confirmed seeing and feeling the strange atmosphere around the Uzumaki boy. The Hokage couldn’t help but feel that these incidents were being exaggerated due to bitterness surrounding the boy’s origin. He couldn’t very well kill every villager that took more subtle forms of revenge on the orphan, but damned if he couldn’t discourage it.

“Am I to understand,” the Hokage began pleasantly, “that my director and the majority of his staff are prone to hallucinations and hysterics?”

The Hokage reached into his robe and brought out his pipe. “Perhaps you and your staff would benefit from a visit to a few of Ibiki’s students.”

The color drained from the director’s face. “Lord Hokage, I—”

Sarutobi’s tone may have been pleasant, but his face was as hard as stone and his eyes were shards of ice. He shaped a small amount of chakra into fire on the tip of his index finger and used it to light his pipe. “Oh come now, Mr. Director. Not all of Ibiki’s students followed his path into the Interrogation Corps. I hear they’ve made great strides in developing methods to…combat mental illnesses.”

The Hokage inhaled deeply and then blew a cloud of smoke into the director’s face. “I can make the arrangements if you like, Shirotake.”

The Director bowed deeply at the waist. “That won’t be necessary, my lord! I’m sure we've all just been very tired and imagining things.”

The Sandaime hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” He swept past the man and paused at the doorway into the nursery. “Mr. Director, I expect your future reports to be more professional. You will move the boy BACK into the main nursery. And if any of your staff insist on continuing on this manner, you will fire them…or I will do it for you.”

There was no doubt in the Director’s mind that the honorable Hokage meant a very permanent kind of firing.

“Yes, my lord. It will be done.”

The Sandaime swept from the room, his robe fluttering behind him.

The orphanage director straightened from his bow. He muttered something under his breath and whirled to follow the Hokage, not even bothering to check on the boy before he left.

The room stilled a moment in time until a rich, deep voice chuckled into the silence.

“That Shirotake’s ass is so tight, I bet he could swallow coal and shit diamonds.”

A large outline of a man, faint in the sunlight that was streaming through the windows, materialized at the foot of the crib.

A feminine voice joined him, admonishing. “Language! I don’t want the child to pick up any of your nasty habits.” A ghostly, distinctly female hand reached down and grazed Naruto’s forehead in a loving gesture.

A third figure, also male but not quite as large as the other figure, chimed in on the other side of the crib, opposite the woman. “I agree. But perhaps we should not interfere with the boy’s upbringing too much. It will be many years before he can begin training this power of his.”

The larger shadow bent down and gently tickled the baby’s feet, eliciting a delighted laugh. “The dead haven’t seen an Ectomancer in 5 generations. We’re going to have a hard time keeping the more curious ones away.”

The woman’s voice was full of steel as she replied, “We will protect him, no matter what. This boy MUST survive to manhood.”

The two shadows echoed their agreement. With one last look at the boy before them, they drifted away on the sunbeams and sank into the dark shadows of the room.

Uzumaki Naruto, the son of the Yondaime Hokage, the Jinchuuriki of Konohagakure, and the first person born in several centuries with the blessing of the grave, yawned and slept like the dead.

 

[zeebee1]

I'm looking forward to more.

 

[Shirotsume]

Not sure what exactly an ectomagus (?) is or what it's from, but it's well written whatever it is.

 

[Glimmervoid]

Sounds interesting but a word of advice: don't make the necromancy just another superpower. Give it a unique character. It is the selling point of this fic. Make it evocative. Make it matter.

Maybe look up how the Greeks thought necromancy worked. Maybe Naruto has to do slightly disturbing rituals with blood and flesh and sacrifice. Maybe it involves crossing the river Sanzu and facing the dangers of the underworld. Definitely read up on the Kami Izanami and Izanagi and their there experiences with the Underworld/Yomi. Nico in the Percy Jackson books is another good source of inspiration. His powers have weight to them.

 

[sinewyk]

I'm looking forward to more.

Dafuq did I just read ? zeebee being only positive and no sarcasm ? But yeah, same opinion.

PS : Does the "ectomancer" thing comes from a particular fiction ? Or is it general stuff, talks/see ghost and that's it ?

 

[GaelicDragon]

I'm looking forward to more.

Dafuq did I just read ? zeebee being only positive and no sarcasm ? But yeah, same opinion.

PS : Does the "ectomancer" thing comes from a particular fiction ? Or is it general stuff, talks/see ghost and that's it ?

Ectomancer...the very short tale of Naruto dying horribly after crossing over the bridge on his teams training ground.

He really should have listen to Saturobi when he said...

Don't cross the streams.

 

[ankokudaishogun]

the ghosts seem too lively for being dead.

Have them being more... well, ghostly. Less prone to first contact, more reactive than active. And various degrees of obsessed with something(the reason they aren't in the Pure World). Also, even the more outspoken still being "weird" as they are out of synch with mortals and mortality and think somehow weird(tl;dr: no "here, use this handseals for a earth wall jutsu!" but diagonal suggestion)
Naruto being able to see and talk them all his life but, being Naruto, never realizing they are ghosts until some kind of event(then freaking out because he's still scared of ghosts and has realized some of few people treating him nice are, in fact, ghosts)

You can keep the part of people being weirded by toddler Naruto looking at things that aren't there(maybe just tone it down somehow), and later in life don't bothering much with most of them as they are obsessed weirdoes always speaking about their fixation.(add Iruka or some figure of authority thinking he's talking about "normal" traumatized shinobis and telling him he shouldn't bother them because they are heroes who gave even part or all their sanity for the village and he should be glad they aren't running around in green spandex shouting about YOUTH.)

Some ghosts being less obsessed with their earthly remorse and\or simply smarter than most for whatever reason(ie: being ghosts since A LOT, various kind of forbidden jutsu, bad luck and shit like that) might actually try to initiate communication with Naruto, once they realize he's an ectomancer.




Once you get the ball rolling though, you need to decide on What Can a Ghost Do? Have they some kind of limited territory they can haunt? Can they move through physical objects? Move items? How many? How heavy?

 

[Shirotsume]

It sounds like the ghost elements are being derived from either another fandom or are original, so there's not really a way for him to do the ghosts wrong- only do the ghosts in a way you don't personally like.

 

[zeebee1]

Based on their comments they preceded to village system by quite a bit. They must be the roaming type since Konoha was just a bunch of trees and grass when they died.

 

[Druid]

I must add my voice to others in that this is very interesting. I would love to see where it goes.