Prologue - Man In The Grass

PrologueThe Man in the Grass

(Warning: Just for your knowledge, this story is a crossover of MLP:FiM and Naruto Shippuden. Edited by StrayanPhoenix772 to a hopefully less cringe-worthy standard.)

(note, none of the stuff underneath pertains to the story, but instead gives you a better understanding of the story.)

Key:

Jutsu - Technique

Ninjutsu - the use of inner energy

Taijutsu - martial arts

Genjutsu - Mental attacks

Kuni - battle knife

          "Today is the day that my story begins!" shouted an ecstatic Otso.

He was a proud member of the village ‘Hidden in the Grass’, a quaint little place that was isolated from the world. No-one who lived there really knew what went on beyond their lands, and frankly no-one really cared. But if someone ever saw Otso for the first time, they would never forget him. He had stunning red hair, with a single streak of white running through it, which he always kept tied up in a short ponytail. His eyes were a brilliant green with flecks of yellow in them. The shirt on his back hung loose, left unbuttoned slightly to show off his well-toned abs.

Every day for the past seven years, he had been training to face his all-time hero, Naruto Uzumaki. In that time, he had mastered many of the various ninjutsu techniques, such as the shadow clone jutsu, substitution jutsu, the multi-shadow clone jutsu, along with several basic fire, wind, and earth jutsu. He had also decided to master the mineral jutsu, a combination of fire, earth, and wind that forms little crystals in rock. He also trained to become an expert of the martial art of taijutsu.

He always looked up to Naruto, even though he only saw him in person once. On that day, Naruto and his group had saved Otso's village from a gang of bandits. He watched in awe as Naruto attacked and defeated a man which used some kind of weird green-fire jutsu, and ever since then, he only had one goal: He wanted to fight that kid.

          Today, Otso was finally turning sixteen, and for his birthday, he wished to fulfill his long-lived dream. As he walked on the dirt path that led through the forest, he glanced about at the stunning scenery. The vividly beautiful trees, with their roots protruding from the ground, stood tall as the birds chirped within. The bright sky was a gentle light-blue that calmed all those who looked upon it. It was all quite a sight to see.

          He let his mind wander. As he looked back on his life, he remembered how miserable it all was. He was only little when his mother died, and he couldn’t even remember what she looked like or what kind of a person she was, apart from the stories that his father had told him. All he could remember off the top of his head was a song she sung to him.

          As he walked, he looked toward the sky and began to sing.

"Sweet little child, time for bed.

Drift little dreamer, lay down your head.

My arms around you, my warmth seep through.

My love will always, Be there for you.

Close your eyes know, I'll be here.

For you and for always, sweet little dear.

So my child, sleep on away.

Sleep, sleep, sleep."

         He wiped a stray tear from his eye as he softly whispered the last part.

          If there anything else he desired in life, aside from facing his hero, it would be to have his mother and father back in his life.

          He grimaced as the thoughts of his father roamed freely through his mind. The man had raised Otso by himself since he was three years old, and had taught him how to survive. He was a stubborn and introverted man that never really liked to socialise with other people. From what his father had told him, his mother on the other hand was quite a talkative, extroverted woman who had lived in the leaf village since she was born. Otso's father had only visited the village once, so that he could hire a team of ninja to prevent bandits from stealing his crops. That was when they met: she was one of the ninja he had hired. Otso didn't really care if it sounded cheesy, but that was what happened.

         When Otso was around seven years old, the bandits returned in an attempt to steal more crops again. Naturally, his father didn't take too kindly to that, and confronted them in the field. Otso watched on in horror as they killed the man with his own weapon. After that, his memory was all just a blur.

          Until Naruto came to the village, that is.

          Otso's thought process was cut short by a flock of birds noisily screeching in a tree took flight into the sky. Reflexively, he swung about and took a defensive stance as the sharp whistling sound of a kuni pierced the air. There was a loud thup as the projectile plunged into his right shoulder.

           Twilight was thoroughly absorbed in reading a book as somepony knocked on her door. She frowned in slight irritation at the interruption, not really too keen on having to leave the stunning tale of Starswirl's adventures in another dimension. The knocking continued on unabated, pecking away at Twilight's mind like an annoying itch. She put down her book with a sigh and shouted in the general direction of the downstairs floor, "Spike, could you get the door please?"

           "Sorry Twilight, I'm a little bit... woah-WOAH.. AHH!" Spike yelled in alarm as a stack of books toppled down onto him with a series of thuds, knocking him out.

Silly dragon, Twilight thought to herself as she trotted downstairs and opened the door herself. She was greeted by the familiar faces of Rainbow Dash and Applejack standing in front of her.

         "Hello girls." she nodded, “Can I help you?”

         "Hey Twilight, how’s it hangin?" exclaimed Rainbow enthusiastically.

         "Everything’s running smoothly at the moment, thank you. Here, you can come on in if you want," Twilight offered.

         "Actually Twi, we were wonderin' if ya'll could help us out?" asked Applejack.

        "Ok, what do you need?" she tilted her head.

        "Well, we need somepony to help us with a little rock-climbing,"

           "I don’t get it. What do you mean?"

         "We need you to be there in case anything bad happens." Rainbow explained briefly.

          "No, no. I mean, why are you going rock-climbing?"

          “Me an’ Rainbow here have decided to have another little contest, you see," Applejack grinned from ear to ear.

          "Oh, not another one," Twilight grimaced with a face-hoof, knowing full well that another Ironmare was in the future of these two ponies.

           "No sugarcube, it's nothin' like that one we had last year,” Applejack assured her, “This time, we’re going on a treasure hunt, looking for some sort of treasure on this here map."

             Applejack produced up an old rolled up piece of parchment from her saddlebag with her teeth. Twilight grabbed the map with her telekinesis and held it in front of them.

It was a detailed map of Equestria, with a dotted line leading to a mountain near the Everfree forest. At the top of the map was a text of neat and elegant writing, which read 'My last treasure'. Underneath the writing, by the cliff, was another text which read ‘westward winds’ with a big danger stamp above it. Near the bottom right of the paper, it read 'Decades-worth of my most cherished treasure is given to whomever finds it. Starswirl'.

             "Wow!" Twilight exclaimed as she spotted Starswirl's signature.

              "See Twi, we're on a race to find that there treasure, and we’re doin' it as a team," Applejack proclaimed, grabbing Rainbow around the neck in a friendly hug.

                "This map is amazing! Where did you find it?" asked Twilight, her eyes gleaming with interest.

        "I dunno, Winona dug it up," Applejack shrugged.

       "So, do you wanna come along?" Rainbow asked eagerly.

         Twilight took a moment to think about it. She did want to finish that book, but to find a legitimate treasure horde left by Starswirl the Bearded seemed much more interesting than simply reading about it. She made a determined nod and ran back inside, grabbing up a trip’s worth of supplies and leaving a note informing Spike that she left for when he woke up from his little tumble.

         With that, the three friends marched off on their little adventure with almost complete disregard for what the future potentially had in store.

          The three ponies arrived at the base of the mountain, where the treasure was supposed to be located near the top. The wind was really out in force today, whipping about with tremendous amounts of energy from the north side of the mountain, whipping the ponies’ hair about. It wasn't exactly rock-climbing per say. Rather, one could say it was more of a hike then a climb, but the wind made it hard to even stand, let alone walk.

          "How are we supposed to climb up this mountain?! I can't fly in this!" Rainbow’s exclamation was nearly lost amidst the howl of the roaring wind.

          "Hang on, I'll try to make a shield to protect us from the wind!" Twilight yelled as her horn lit up with energy, forming together the invisible threads of magic to perform the spell. We really picked a bad day to make a trip like this, she thought worriedly.

           "Think ya can handle it, Twi?" yelled Applejack in concern.

           "Sure I can! I just need to concentrate, that’s all!" Twilight returned as she completed the magical barrier around her and her friends.

           “There," She grinned triumphantly, "See? I told you I could do it."

            They began their climb up the side of the mountain as the barrier held firm against the wind. Storm clouds began to form over head, and threatened to pour themselves all over the mountain.

           "Who knew that a place like this was in the Everfree forest?" Rainbow asked aloud.

"Say Twi, where did you learn this spell?" asked Applejack.

"Oh, this? My BBBFF taught it to me a while back,” she shrugged dismissively, “I used it back when Discord was wreaking havoc. Don’t you remember it?"

"Ah, I remember now. So that’s what it was..." Applejack mused.

Otso's body was pierced by dozens of sharp kuni as they hit their mark, leaving numerous bleeding gashes. He exploded into a puff of smoke, leaving a log in the space where he stood. A figure that was hiding in the tree jumped out of its leafy embrace and landed on the ground.

"Fire style: Fireball jutsu," Otso muttered as he rapidly performed the proper hand signs and put one hand to his mouth. A fiery blaze erupted from the circle around his mouth and shot out towards the man beneath the tree. The ninja quickly dashed to move out of the way as the ball of fire missed and struck the tree instead, erupting in a large explosion.

The man stood in the middle of the dirt road and began to make hand signs. Before he could complete the jutsu, he noticed that his arms were suddenly grappled and held back by several exact replicas of Otso.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" Otso growled fiercely.

The man was dressed head to toe in robes which cleverly obscured his identity, leaving only the lower half of his face exposed. He had a well-built, imposing figure, indicating that this person was probably no pushover strength-wise, which had Otso on edge.

The man’s mouth curled up into a sadistic grin as he chuckled darkly, "You want to know who I am? ME?! YOU DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE LIFE YOU DESTROYED?!?!"

The laughter quickly disappeared from his voice, replaced with an anger that could burn potentially through the Earth’s crust.

"There have been lots of deaths by my hand, both literal and metaphorical, and you do not come to mind when I think of any of them," Otso replied, ignoring the hint of familiarity in the man’s voice, “Although it doesn’t exactly help that I can’t see your face, either”.

The clones started to struggle in their effort to hold him down.

Suddenly the man ripped the arms off of the clones in a surge of energy and tossed them into the air. They all burst into smoke the second he did, and the man then completed his jutsu by sending circular patterns across a large radius.

"MINERAL STYLE: CONCAVE DIAMOND!!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, completing his ultimate jutsu.

The sudden recognition hit Otso like a ton of bricks when he realized who this man was. He was Tokishi, master of the mineral and leader of the Sage bandits. He was Otso’s mentor, until the latter found out that they were planning to overthrow the leaf village. The last time Otso saw him, he was beaten and bloody all over, lying in his ‘throne room’, as he called it. Now Otso knew what he had to do. He had wanted to save his own ultimate jutsu for the battle with Naruto, but this called for extreme measures.

Tokishi's jutsu erupted into a blinding barrage of diamond crystals that blasted down like a shower of rain. That said, rain doesn’t purposely target people like heat-seeking missiles. As they fell from the sky, they shifted their angle of descent so that they would pierce Otso's heart.

They would have hit him, if it wasn't for the fact that the target activated his own ultimate jutsu.

"Earth style: Groundhog!" Otso exclaimed as he dove underground, leaving but a small patch of dirt where he stood, as the diamond spears harmlessly struck against the dirt. Otso took shelter in a tree and waited till he could build up enough chakra to perform the jutsu.

            "WHERE ARE YOU?" yelled Tokishi, searching desperately for his inevitable victim, as if expecting his opponent to actually reply.

Otso knew very well that the only way for Tokishi to use his jutsu was to have a line of sight with him at all times.

"If you won’t come out, I'LL FLATTEN THIS ENTIRE AREA!" He yelled to the heavens beginning his jutsu once again.

No time to gather enough chakra, Otso thought, Just hope this will be enough.

Otso jumped out of his perch, high in the air and descended toward Tokishi.

"There you are! DIAMOND RAIN!" Tokishi began his jutsu, sending the sky ablaze with the crystal fragments.

            "Mineral style: Sonic flash!" Otso yelled, aiming for the man below him. Otso's body jerked towards him like a lightning bolt, his arm extended with a crystal glow that looked and moved like fire.

As he fell, there was the sound of two sonic booms.

Wait a minute, Otso thought, My jutsu only makes one sonic boom.

Otso glanced across to his right, spotting a bolt of lightning blitzing towards Tokishi. It wasn't his jutsu; he couldn't do lightning style, and he knew that Tokishi couldn't either. Upon closer inspection, the lightning bolt was a brilliant shade of purple.

If it wasn’t either of us, then who performed that jutsu?!

"Twilight, are you sure we’re goin' the right way?" asked a concerned Applejack.

They had been hiking for quite some time now, and they were nearing the top of the mountain. The slope had gradually began to steepen, and it had been about two hours since they began their journey. Their destination was almost in sight.

The problem was, the higher up they got, the harder the wind blew, and the shield was barely holding up against the wind. Twilight was utterly exhausted from her efforts, both physically and magically, but with the finish line within reach, there was no turning back now, so she grit her teeth and dragged herself onward.

           "Yeah, *pant*, it’s just up ahead. *Pant*, we're almost there." Twilight replied, breathing heavily, her body screaming in protest for the oxygen it desperately craved.

           "Twilight, are you ok?"asked a concerned Rainbow Dash.

            "Yeah-yeah, I’m pant just a little short of breath here," Twilight dismissed her friend’s concern, “It’s nothing”.

            The three friends battled on up the side of the mountain, finally reaching the top. All of a sudden, the wind came to a complete stop as dark clouds obscured the sunlight. Twilight fell to the ground in an exhausted heap, prompting Applejack to help her back up.

"You just rest easy there, sugarcube. I've got ya”.

            "Thanks AJ," Twilight exhaled as she succumbed to her fatigue. The ridge was relatively flat for the most part, except for a steep hill with a small pit dug into it.

             "We found it!" Rainbow yelled ecstatically as she fluttered over to the small pit. Reaching in with her hoof she could feel some sort of box. She grabbed the thing by a handle and hauled it out, revealing a golden box with intricate designs of unicorns and pegasi. It was heavier than it looked, and it made a solid thud when she dropped it. With the restraint of a young foal who had just been offered a lifetime’s supply of ice-cream, she eagerly cranked opened the box. At first, her face was full of excitement, before it quickly turned into a look of confusion.

              "What’s in it, Rainbow?" Applejack asked as she half-carried Twilight across to the box. Silence answered her question as Rainbow inspected the box’s contents.

              "Aw, it’s just some dusty old books," Rainbow muttered, her voice betraying her disappointment with the finding.

Twilight immediately perked up upon the sound of the word ‘books’, and her curiosity quickly overwrote her lethargy. She briskly trotted the rest of the distance to where Rainbow was standing and glanced inside the box with great interest. Inside were five extremely old books, each bearing the symbol of a spell book.

Twilight shrieked with joy at the sight of them, "These are some of Starswirl the Bearded's lost books, they have been missing for thousands of years! Not even Celestia knows the magic in these books!"

She instantly picked up a book with her telekinesis and promptly went to town gorging on the knowledge within.

"Seriously? All this stupid box had was some old books?!" Rainbow frowned, disappointed by their findings. Applejack glanced between Twilight and the box, confirming Rainbow’s frustrations. The box was only big enough to hold the five books, let alone anything else of any value. It was golden inside as well as on the outside, suggesting that the box was made of solid gold, and probably worth far more than its own weight in bits.

             "Ah, don't worry Rainbow, it ain't all that bad,” she reassured them, “We had fun in the end, didn't we?"

             "No, all we did was walk the whole time, climb up a mountain against hurricane-force winds, and I couldn't fly the entire time!" Rainbow complained, "I... I.. I just thought it was going to be more like a Daring Do adventure..."

She sat down on her haunches with a sigh and rested her face in her hooves.

Applejack sat down beside her, "It's alright, Rainbow. It was an adventure. Maybe not like it was in them stories, but an adventure none-the-less."

Her attempt at comfort seemed to work, and a small smile etched itself across Rainbow’s face.

Something off in the distance caught her eye, prompting her to look up, speechless. Applejack followed her gaze, equally enthralled.

"Twilight! Come see this!"

Twilight glanced up from the book and traced their gaze to the distance, and her jaw dropped.

              The sight they all shared was that of pure beauty. Slap-bang in the middle of the flat expanse, basking in a broad ray of sunlight, was Ponyville in all of its bright, technicolor glory. They could spot Sweet Apple Acres, the Carousel Boutique, Sugarcube Corner, and even the Golden Oaks Library. It was all a breathtaking sight, especially with the sun in the sky behind Canterlot. It was distracting enough that they even nearly missed the loud thunderclap ring out from behind them.

               A blast of lightning blitzed through the air, startling the three ponies and making them turn their heads. Several seconds later, a second lightning bolt flashed across, b-lining straight towards them.

Twilight reacted almost instantly, reflexively shooting a bolt of magic towards the brilliant light to counter. The two bolts collided in mid-air with a tremendous explosion. The ponies gasped in shock as they were thrown about by the repercussive shock wave.

Twilight herself was thrown to the ground by the shock wave and was very nearly thrown off the mountain, had the edge been just a few inches closer. Applejack wasn't so lucky. She was blasted clean off her feet, and couldn’t find her grip in time to save herself from tumbling over the edge of the cliff. Rainbow meanwhile was quickly able to regain control over her spin, and immediately rushed off to save her friend from falling into the swirling twister below.

Unfortunately, she reached Applejack just that little bit too late, and both ponies found themselves at the mercy of the vortex. They were tossed around like rag dolls in a cold washing machine, and before long, they were carelessly flung away tumbling head-over-hooves into the abyss of the Everfree forest.

Twilight looked about, gingerly waiting for her ears to stop ringing. What she saw she could barely explain. There, in the air above her, was a swirling hole that seemed to tear through the very fabric of space and time. It seemed almost solid and transparent, while twirling about with serene grace.

In the few minutes she had to read one of Starswirl's books, he had tried to describe such an event when he passed to another world, and that such an occurrence would only lead to grave danger.

Quickly she took a stance and began concentrating. She knew from that book that Starswirl had encountered terrible things. Things that could harm all of Equestria. Summoning what little magical energy she had in reserve, she reached out and attempted to close the portal.

For a fleeting moment, it almost looked like she might succeed, before a flash of blinding yellow and white light erupted from the small portal, distracting her enough to lose her grip. The portal collapsed on itself in a cataclysmic explosion.

Twilight reflexively put up a shield barrier, but it was too little, too late. She was flung from the mountain by the force of the blast as the mountain was shaken to its core. The effects of the explosion could be felt even as far away as Canterlot.

"What the..." Celestia frowned and glanced about in concern, “What was that?”

            "It appears a mountain near the Everfree forest just blew up!" answered a nearby guard, watching the display from a window.

            Twilight braced herself for impact as she hurtled for the ground, slamming into the steep cliff-face with a hard thump. She found herself tumbling about in an uncontrollable roll, before coming to rest in a barely conscious heap at the bottom of a ridge. Every nerve cell in her body screamed bloody murder as her mind went into emergency shutdown.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two other ponies falling in opposite directions. As the darkness took over, only one thought was able to cross her mind.

That’s odd. I’m pretty sure I was the only one left on the mountain...