[Naruto] Shinigan

[alethiophile]

So I have a story. First posting here; hope people enjoy it. Attached below is Chapter 15; context is available at FF.net (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7115615/1/Shinigan) or the cruddy web page I put together in the fifteen minutes preceding this post (http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~tomdhunt/shinigan.html).

Comments welcome. I've previously just posted things without great input from others; this will be a new experience. The idea of the story is that Naruto has the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception from Tsukihime. The chapter below will probably look a little strange without the context.

Thanks, all.

Edit: New version without some boneheaded stupidity.

[Dracos]

Huuuum.

Familiar with both series.   But habit demands I read the fic as it stands before commenting on latest chapters.  Looks at a glance like you do meaty chapters, which is a good habit.   It might be  a bit until I can read over, but read over I shall.

[alethiophile]

For reference, the only Tsukihime element in the fic is the eyes, and they're pretty much explained in-fic. So no particular familiarity with Tsukihime is required.

Yeah, very little annoys me like tiny little chapters, especially when the writing is otherwise good.

[Jason_Miao]

Two questions:

Firstly, do you want feedback on previous chapters as well, or merely the chapter you've posted?

Secondly, I haven't read/watched Naruto, having found it boring - I'm still willing to read through and give feedback if think it might be useful.  Would you be interested in reading comments with that provenance, or would you rather not?

[Dracos]

<is a horrible negative talker and overthinks things to quite a degree.  Please don't take it personally, it's just how I go through things.  I hunger largely for the best and just am a picky reader.  Worse, I am reading this 16 chapters late~!>

At Chapter 1:

Just a quick glance over the first chapter, not that it's wrong, but the plot action behind the introduction of the eyes seems petty.  I see what you're going for, a couple of drunk ninjas harmed by the Kyuubi back during the disaster, older than a small boy, taking out their anger at him, but at the same time, it just comes off as petty.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's that it starts off right on it, rather than setting things up a bit first.  Maybe it's that the Hokage himself just happens to come right there to be Naruto's defender, instead of any lower ninja (or the Hokage's ANBU).  Mmm, maybe it's a lack of framing.  Starting directly with the disaster that causes the change is direct, but also makes it lack impact.  We barely know Uzumaki Naruto as a character in your story before he's picked up and pretty much smashed into the ground. 

Always sorta sad to see The Council plot element, but it happens.  Hope they aren't just a faceless mess of naruto haters.  See how it goes.

Naruto is a little too young to feel right recognizing/guessing Genjutsu.  He's placed in fic having just started at the Academy.   Minor quibble, they could've just covered in class  early on (Hey guys, types of ninja!), but I dunno, seemed a little weird.

Kunai are throwing knives.  Disposable ones by nature.  Might be something to consider for prop usage.  I get what's going on there, it's matching the usage of knives as used by both Shiki and SHIKI and shiki (and Shiki, goddamn too many of Shikis), but I dunno.  Mmm.  I gotta say a kodachi might be a better choice in setting for it.  Knives work in the other setting because they're not using disposable knives.  Shiki uses a carving knife or a switchblade, both of which are intended for reuse really.  Shiki(KnK) uses a long knife, one that is actually a pretty suitable weapon or a katana with her skill.  The knife is actually pretty appropriate for her build (She's slender/wiry and with the ability to cut anything, she doesn't need a long blade).  Well, anyhow, quibble.  It's setting appropriate anyhow as it is, just feels like the wrong prop.

While I understand upping Kurenai's genjutsu expertise, it has more effect if Genjutsu isn't pushed as such a simple thing.  Both Kurenai and the Sandaime should be able to tell he's not under a Genjutsu, if you're treating it as an actual area of Ninja expertise.  Team 8 is an example that handles this well, but not saying you need that level (different fic, you can have entirely different rules).  Basically what I'm saying is that Genjutsu comes across as something with: No indication its happening, Can be dispelled just in one way, and experts in it can only tell it's going on because someone tells them they're still under it.  This doesn't build stature for the genjutsu users in your fic because the experts feel like they are poking around in the dark.  Kind of a turn off on a personal note.  I like the feeling that competent characters are actually competent and not simply declared experts.  If it wasn't 15 chapters late, I'd suggest sinking a bit of time here.  Something as simple as "He's not under a genjutsu" being the reaction by either the Sandaime or Kurenai would be a wise choice there as illusion experts shouldn't be simply mislead on that.

Being that Doujutsu is actually something that Leaf has a lot of experience with, you'd think that kind of stuff would be a far earlier check.  The eyes of death in both Tsukihime and Kara no Kyoukai were actually fairly noticeable eye reactions, and it'd seem to fit naturally as an area to check into.  The Hokage comes to that conclusion early in the fic (Cool/Competent/Thumbs up), but then seems to do nothing with it, and continue on with the Genjutsu theory?  Weird.   I'd think eye seals or blocks, or even just putting a genjutsu of darkness on him would be an early step to check for.

Character description may be something to keep an eye on.  The Hokage is one of the few characters so far to get any description.  We get motives, titles, names, but even the main character goes entirely undescribed so far.  This is something that can very much strengthen the shared visualization that you're building for people of what's going on.  If I was to read this as a fan of Tsukhime curious about a naruto crossover, it'd be impenetrable and same if I was to read it with only light awareness of Naruto.  Basically, I always recommend a little bit of time for both setting and character whenever moving to a new location or introducing a new person into a scene.   It helps later on when you just use a name to refer to someone to help identify them quickly, and also gives you other ways people identify the character.   Naming OCs, even if only there for a short while, is also wise.  Yes, the doctor probably is a non-entity past halfway through chapter 1, but naming him makes him feel a person in the fic rather than a set-piece.

Thrice is a strange word for a kid below ten to be using.  Quibble really, but it felt weird.

Real early timeline for encountering and being aware of the demon fox.  If I read right, this is somewhere between 3 and 6 years prior to his canon learn date (Beginning of entering the academy, rather than almost a genin).  Not sure, but that's my guess from what I've read so far.  Kinda curious on the maturity level being how young he is.

The hokage seems rather insightful all of a sudden with his hypothesis for all that things were opaque to him earlier.   He just sort of leaps to 'being near death will cause it to happen again'.  Normally, not a blink thing, but the Hokage hasn't come across as anywhere near that aware of what was going on so far in the fic.

The 'go learn seals' seemed really out of the blue.  Especially with the sudden 'here's knowledge and resources unlocked!'.  I can guess you want him to be aware on seals but it just seems such a crude way to handle it.   He could be curious about it due to being told about the fox and the seal on his belly (reasonable).  He could be recommended for educating on that front (possible).  His eye power could be sealed away, and it recommended he study them.  Some other ideas left my mind.  But basically he's just told to go do something strange in context of the fic.

Hum.  Now I'm timeline confused.  Could be things are different in this universe.  It is an area that's ill defined in canon, specifically that Naruto spent some period of time failing the exam before passing it with the others (while they definitely didn't have that problem as the rest of the class is talented clan kids for the most part).    Oh well, chance to catch up with Hinata.

Anyhow, early impression: Lots of fanon flying around without being grounded in the fic being told and well, just a lot of weak points in the chapter that make it a bit uninviting.  Were I reading purely for entertainment, I'd probably doubt at this point that the fic would amount to much.  As I'm reading it to help give input, I'll at least be going another few chapters in and trying to get up to your newer stuff.  I think a lot of authors underestimate the importance of a strong beginning, especially with fics that they're sinking hundreds of thousands of words into.  It's your first fic I see, so the level at which I'm critiquing it is probably a good deal too high, but it's something worth picking up early: If you have a 100-200k fic and your opening is one of your weaker parts, then a lot of people will just give the fic a pass entirely.

For a relevant example, BlackDragon recently added a chapter to Yagami 1/2.  His main fic at the moment is a very entertaining piece called Big Human on Campus which is a very amusing romp, so I was well willing to take a look.  Problem?  I only vaguely knew the plot and starting in the middle was no good. So I went to the beginning, stuff that he'd written many many years ago, and found it almost unreadable. Because of this, even though I could see that current chapter reflected his current skill, it was inaccessible to read.  I would have to power through dozens of very poorly written chapters in order to not be totally lost when picking up the latest.

Some author's try to get around this with a 'what's gone before', to help allow readers to just jump in, but don't forget still that the first look most readers have of a fic is its summary (on their site or ff.net or elsewhere) and then it is the first chapter.  If both of these are weak, you've just lost a reader, no matter how much work you're putting into later chapters.

[Dracos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunai

Wiki disagrees with me on kunai.  Still, doesn't quite feel like the right prop.

[alethiophile]

@Jason: Feedback on already-up chapters is helpful inasmuch as it lets me know things to look out for, but I'm not going to be back-editing them. Feedback on the posted one is why I'm here.

@Drac: Wow. More than I would have expected. Thanks for the work. And as you may or may not have noted by the time you read this, Naruto in this fic is very little like any of the Shikis, in terms of either personality or actual powerset. MEoDP may be overwhelming in the Nasuverse, where someone like random-jumble-of-letters-that's-actually-pronounced-Nero would be quite willling to simply laugh at a knife; in Narutoverse it's generally accepted that a knife can actually kill even a strong shinobi, leaving aside some of the truly strange examples like Orochimaru, Hidan, Kakuzu or maybe Naruto depending on how you're playing his healing factor. Thus, being able to kill a strong opponent if you can stab them is less impressive.

[thepanda]

MEoDP may be overwhelming in the Nasuverse, where someone like random-jumble-of-letters-that's-actually-pronounced-Nero would be quite willling to simply laugh at a knife; in Narutoverse it's generally accepted that a knife can actually kill even a strong shinobi, leaving aside some of the truly strange examples like Orochimaru, Hidan, Kakuzu or maybe Naruto depending on how you're playing his healing factor. Thus, being able to kill a strong opponent if you can stab them is less impressive.

I'd argue the opposite. The three academy skills would turn all but Ryougi into uber broken characters. The reason the eyes are as effective as they are in canon is because each of the owners is already super-human.

[Jason_Miao]

I wouldn't expect you to edit past chapters off of anything I say.  But context and writing style feedback is sometimes helpful for crafting future chapters, so if you find the insights useful, here they are (and if you don't, feel free to ignore them).  Sections referring to the previous chapter are numbered according to the URL-designated enumeration on ff.net -- those are my thoughts as I was reading your story.  The newly posted chapter, I've looked through thrice since you've indicated that's your focus.

Finally, just to remind you, I haven't read the manga, so my perspective could be completely wrong on parts, so I'm generally reading this with the mindset of a story as a whole, not with a "fanfic" perspective.  i.e If Dracos and I disagree on how well a scene or character plays out, I'd probably weight Dracos's opinion a bit higher.


1
> A nurse came in with food. He opened his eyes, sitting up and trying to keep from looking at any one thing for long enough that he would see the illusions of destruction. She carried a tray with legs, which she extended and placed across his lap, harder than she needed to. A twinge shot through his ribs, and the nurse gave him a nasty look before stepping back. Naruto looked away, reminded of his apparent status in the village.

Not so much "apparent status" as fact, it would seem.

> As he looked out the window to avoid her eye, suddenly, deep gashes appeared across her arms, her chest, her face. She fell, blood pouring from the wounds, her arm already separate from her body...

> He gave a yell of horror and yanked his head around to look at her. She, of course, was still entirely intact, and glanced at him contemptuously before stepping out of the room.

Why didn't he see this with the Hokage?

> The LINES are DEATH. You SEE with MY EYES. How do you like it, WHELP? There was a heavy, gloating amusement in the words.

Emphasis on both words in "my eyes" and "whelp" seems out of place.

> "It was like, there was this big red aura, and I could see all red even though I still just saw the darkness from the jutsu, right? And then this voice talked to me, when I was going crazy and yelling 'what are the lines?', and it said something like 'the lines are death and you see with my eyes'. And it was just, you know, weird. So do you know anything about that?"

> The Hokage sighed further. He had hoped to postpone this revelation until far later, but the demon fox was already, apparently, messing with Naruto's head; it was only fair to tell him what was happening. "You see, Naruto, this is going to take some explanation."

"You see" in dialogue seems superflous.

Naruto sighed. "Well, isn't that great. There's a massively destructive omnicidal demon god fox sealed in me that occasionally drives me insane. Like I didn't have enough to deal with."

"omnicidal"...how old is Naruto right now?

2
> A man on the civilian side stood up. "I move that, on the authority of the council, Uzumaki Naruto be put to death for the security of Konohagakure."

Civilians get to vote people to death?  Konoha incorporates the worst parts of Sparta and Athens: Child soldiers and mob rule.

> "Well, I'm very sorry that Hyuuga Makoto-san is angry, and I'm sure the person who laid all those traps did a very bad thing." Naruto smiled at her.

*snerk*

Funny, but why do events of the past translate to more articulate speaking skills?

> Then Naruto noticed something. There, on the ground around Mizuki, was a loose grid of spidery lines. He looked around, beginning to panic. The lines. The horribly familiar lines. They were everywhere...they were coming back!

I rather respect that you didn't take the obvious path and go InstaKill lines = instant badass.  Blue did note to Shiki that seeing lines would make a human go crazy; pushing this aspect was good (had you made Naruto into DeathGod Naruto, I would not be looking forward to reading the rest of this story).

>AN, 1st paragraph
This is the sort of information you should try to work into the text of the story proper.  If it ends up being awkward, then keeping it in the notes is fine; it is usually better to have the reader understand developments as he is reading the story, rather than have lingering questions or have a sudden perception shift at the end.  But it is even worse to have an obvious -dump in the middle of a story (something you've succeeded in avoiding), so you'll want to exercise some judgement,

Also, one interesting difference with your version of the Eyes is that, unlike Shiki, Naruto can't just take off a pair of glasses and start insta-killing everything.  I wonder if this will factor into future scenes or not?

4
> "I'd like to fight you."

> Naruto nodded. "If you want. You wanna set rules?"

Heh.  So polite!

> She blushed, but did not break her stance to look away. "This is the Jyuuken stance...it's for the Hyuuga taijutsu style...it's against the rules for me to use it in the Academy, so people won't know too much about it, but I can use it now."

As opposed to in the field, when everyone would know about it anyway?

The Fox randomly capitalizing words is fairly irritating.

Sakura generally seems to be sidelined in this fic.

5
> "Fifty thousand ryo?"

Which should eventually solve any financial problems of his, once he returns to Konoha - I presume that's why this discussion exists.

6
Fox discussion is very much infodump.

> He was quite impressed with Sakura's progress; Naruto had advised her to surprise him by addressing him from upside-down on a branch, as Kakashi himself had stood earlier, and his momentary stunned pause had been most vindicating.

My unfamiliarity with the source causes me to ask: she's not wearing a skirt, is she?  Also, generally for this chapter, she seems to have a bit more of a personality.

7
> Kakashi inclined his head at them. "That is admirable. However, I believe that you may be creating a dynamic that excludes Sakura, and it is vital to ensure that every team member feels like part of the team."

Ah.

Fox: Google, if Google had information on chakra and was a jerk.

> Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I tried it when I was tree walking, and it kind of exploded the tree."

This happens enough in fanfic where it makes me wonder why there aren't more fics where Naruto kicks enemies to death.

8

> Naruto took a shaky breath. "All right...well, I guess...do you two know my birthday?"
> Sakura shook her head. "I don't think you ever told us."

An example of what I've meant re: Sakura.  This is her first line in about three pages of dialogue.  While she may not be one of your intended focus  characters, it feels like this team is Naruto and Sasuke, with Sakura only occasionally visiting.  I hadn't even realized she was in this scene until this line.

Wave arc, generally: It's Wave, and therefore overdone whatever you do.  I did like how you focused in training, learning, etc, and used the major events as an timing outline.  Long, but meaty and ultimately worthwhile.

That said, Drac hates that Wave with a passion, so be prepared for that when he reviews this.

9

> Naruto crossed his arms and gave the Hokage a self-righteous look. "Hey! I'm even asking for clear space to train it so I don't blow up the practice grounds! Why would you think I was irresponsible with that kind of thing? I never blew up anything with explosive tags!"

Wait.  So, he was cleared to learn how to make explosions before he was cleared to learn how to remotely trigger prank-traps?

Also, speaking of destruction, it's interesting that you wrote up Wave without using Shiki-powers.

> The girl shrugged. "Well, charging up just two or three of those seals takes all the chakra your average ninja has, and it'll take them overnight at least to recharge. So making up one of those, that has twenty or thirty seals...it's at least a week of tiring work for a ninja who knows the seals and has a decent chakra capacity, which probably means one of your better chuunin. And they have better things to do, usually. So it's not cheap." She glanced at the visible holsters at Naruto's hip. "How do you not know this? You've never bought scrolls before?"

You said in a note in an earlier chapter that 100 Ryo = $1.  Naruto's 50,000 Ryo for his set of scrolls is therefore worth $500.  If it takes a sealing master at least 1 week of being able to do anything else to make one scroll, he's making less than $500 a week, or less than $26K a year.  That's a hell of a way to make a living, especially for a skill that appears to require several years of study.

13
> Naruto nodded. "I figure it's about half of the total that actually gets through. I imagine that's why no one else appears to have ever come up with these; someone who isn't...you know...would have to put themselves in bed for a week to charge one to a useful level."

That's how long people take for storage seals, and people make those.

> And, predictably enough, meditations of power and Itachi turned into a flash back to that night.
"flashback" is one word.

Also, thank you for not actually writing a scene with a garish --->>>FLASHBACK<<<--- banner.

14

> At least one thing the snake-bastard gave me, all unintentional.

"You will now experience 72 hours of hanging around really uninspired people"

> Sasuke nodded. "So it would appear, from the parlous state of my legs. Is this likely to be serious?"

"parlous state" is not the sort of dialogue I associated with most 12-year olds.



New chapter

> Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I just get around it by charging them up with some insane
amount of chakra. Kind of figured that that's why no one else has ever done it,
since as far as I can tell even Kakashi wouldn't be able to charge one without
giving himself chakra exhaustion."

Would Naruto describe the amount as an "insane" amount?  Other people might, but this Naruto speaking, so it is Naruto's thoughts and perspective that are being expressed.  He'd previously mentioned that he'd whipped up a batch of these shortly before the exams for his team.

You do later mention whether Kakashi could make one, which is somewhat helpful.  But since you've already established how much chakara it takes to charge a storage scroll, you also consider describing the amount by comparison to the amount of chakara is put into the storage scroll.  That would give readers a better relative measure of its difficulty.  Or in other words, you've already put in the effort to elaborate on the power level needed to power the seals for a storage scroll; you should be able to reap some of the benefits of your earlier efforts now with a comparison to someone who (for whatever reason) seems to understand seals, and make a short, yet more descriptive comparison.

> The doctor nodded. "That's true. From what I can tell...if it does truly work by
simply dumping the chakra into the body, then not quite a tenth of what you
charged it with should get through, when all the inefficiencies are compounded."

Most fics I've read characterize writing seals as an obscure and difficult to learn art.  Why does new character doctor seem to know the particulars of it?  Jiraiya explained the difference between mechanical crafting and insight in seal crafters (which I find to be a distinction in a few real life fields, so that made sense to me).  The doctor appears to have insights placing him in the latter category - he is evidently not important enough for a name, or recognized enough to be recognized by his title (from the indications given, he is the doctor, not The Doctor), but he has a level of mastery in this separate field.  This just seems out of place.

Regarding names: You've named the two one-shot ninja that tried to kill Naruto in the prologue, but you haven't named the doctor whom you've reused?  Are those ninja minor but named Leaf ninja from the original work?

> The doctor looked at him. "Frightening, isn't it. Luckily she's young—her chakra
system is more malleable than most. The same damage done to an adult might well
have put them out of action permanently."

Maybe question mark after "Frightning, isn't it."  That's not necessarily true - the line works fine if pronounced as a statement and not a rhetorical question, but thought I'd raise it just in case.

> . "Feel lucky, kid! For the one who has consented to train you is none other than...." He glanced around, then deflated. "Drat, this corridor's too small. I can't do the proper introduction. Oh, well. Here goes."

Heh.

> Jiraiya was not fazed; nor, apparently, was he _wet_—Naruto didn't have the
slightest idea how he had managed that, since the ground around him was
spattered liberally with drops.

May want to remove "with drops", since if the ground is already splattered with the water, the water is no longer in drop form.

> In the time it took for her to finish her one bowl, Naruto had polished off some
eight, apparently the whole of his order, and was looking rather more energetic.

some eight?

> Naruto was unfazed, and his bloody power flared to match it. The two
genin—_forces of nature,_ her mind insisted,
_invulnerable/invincible/indomitable gods/demons/lords_—stared at each other,
the one in a snarling rage, the other flatly and calmly murderous.

Meanwhile, Teuchi and Ayame are still on the side happily cooking up ramen?

> (Attributrionless dialogue)

Nice.  Not sure what purpose writing it that way served (except to hide the nature of the technique other than for its usefulness in escape/dodge), but nicely done nonetheless.  I tend to try to write that way myself, since it forces more expression in dialogue.

> Jiraiya shook his head. "True, the _fuuka houin_ specifically is not that
useful. The point, though, is not that you'd use _fuuka houin_ specifically,
it's to train you to be able to write seals quickly at all.

"Specifically" repeated twice.

> Instead, he stood against the wall and waited, while the nurse entered the room and did
several generically medical things to Hinata that he did not have the
understanding to pinpoint.

Two points for consideration.  First, "generically medical" is about the worst description you could give.  Second, I've found that if one avoids using the words "got" or "thing" other than in dialogue where appropriate, the resultant writing is more expressive.  It is very rare that one cannot find a better term.

> What followed was a torrent of medic-speak that rapidly became incomprehensible
to Naruto. More informative was the general calm of both the participants; it
was clear that this was a routine thing.

An example here.  "It was clear that this procedure, although complicated, was mere routine."  Or "It was clear that was routine - Naruto was impatient but held himself in check, since any interruptions on his part would only delay Hinata's awakening."  Or "it was clear that this was all routine, and there were no unpleasant surprises in store." 
Each of those provide a different level of detail.  Note that none of those three examples actually describe the "generic medical procedures" but they do provide more material for the reader to envisage the scene, rather than "medical-type stuff happened."

> Hinata gasped slightly, and she glanced down for a moment, but when she spoke
her voice was composed. "I see. Naruto-kun...please, don't kill him."

> Naruto looked at her with sudden surprise. "You...? I wasn't going to say, not
today. Didn't want to..."

> Hinata shook her head. "I can guess...you want to protect. That Oto-nin...." She
trailed off. "But please. Don't kill him. Not...not on my behalf...."

> Naruto nodded, fists clenched. "All right. If you want...but, I'm sorry, I just
can't...he did that to you, tried to kill you..." His hands opened and closed
helplessly. "I don't know. I won't kill him...but I don't think I could go up
against him in the arena without trying to hurt him pretty badly."

> "Do not blame Neji-nii-san," said Hinata, sadly, her voice weak. "He
is...hurting, in pain. His father died when he was young, and he blames the main
family. Hizashi-oji...he was otou-sama's twin. When otou-sama killed a Kumo-nin
who tried to kidnap me...they demanded otou-sama's life and his body, and
Hizashi-oji was given in his place. I do not know why, I know otou-sama would
have been willing to die to preserve the Leaf...but Hizashi-oji died
instead. Neji-nii-san thinks that he was forced into it by the main branch."

...
...
...
...
...
...
..
.

This might be okay for Hinata, given that she was just in a coma (although I'd still recommend textual description and less reliance on punctuation mechanics), but you have Naruto with the same sort of dialogue.  The dialogue between the two as a whole, not merely what I posted, is like this.

Also, not that I have anything against any of the characters per se, but after the dramatic declarations during the prelims and the fight between Naruto and Kiba, I'd somewhat expected Naruto to follow through with his "kill" vow.

> Naruto frowned in sudden concentration and peered at the scrolls. "Oh? Oh, I
see...yeah, that looks kind of like...huh? But that doesn't...it doesn't _make_
anything!" Each scroll was covered in elements that, once Naruto saw them that
way, would tend to create new, different elements as chakra constructs around
them when they were powered. The problem being that none of the created elements
were at all familiar or, apparently, functional either. "And those circles in
the middle just make no sense at all!"

You mean textual/sealing elements, right?  If so, since 'element' in Naruto seems to generally refers to the air, water, earth, fire, electricity, you may want to find another descriptor.  If you actually did mean the five elements, then that paragraph does not parse well.

> Naruto gave the old man a startled look, but turned back to the
seal. "Hmm...good question. There's no easy way to make it into an explosive,
you'd have to basically just rewrite it. Some of the dimensional
bits...hmm. Yeah, there's a couple of different ways, but...what I'd do is just
swap out the whole primary dimensional receiving for a transmitting
element. Then, if you poke the chakra source right...yeah." He glanced back up
at Jiraiya. "You'd have a bunch of really pissed off snakes back wherever they
live, but I don't summon snakes, so I have a hard time caring."

Thought: So, essentially, Naruto is giving the snakes sacrifices?

> Jiraiya chuckled, but his demeanor was dead serious underneath. "Well, Naruto, I
didn't put those scrolls there. Only person who could have properly written an
assisted summon for snakes is a snake summoner. I only know of two snake
summoners in this area at the moment, and only one of them might have any sort
of reason for wanting a whole lot of minions to be able to summon a
near-boss-level snake right outside Konoha."

So, for an extended time period before the invasion actually occurs, Orochimaru left the paper that permits him to call up a super weapon exposed to wind and rain; and worse yet, in enemy territory?  That seems slightly farfetched.

It might be more reasonable to give it to a spy, but even then that doesn't seem right.  Wouldn't the easier and more straightforward action just be to give it to the ninja who are to summon the snake?

Perhaps you could change it so that the seal was painted on stone because assisted summoning seals have to be present for a week in the area to align their contained chakra with the ley lines (or whatever - as long as the reasoning fits into your seal mechanics, it doesn't matter), and have Jiraiya mention afterwords that he had noticed Sound infiltrators sneaking in; rather than catching them and stopping the act, he tracked them and noted all of the seal locations.   Thus, Naruto still gets his learn-by-pranking-the-enemy opportunity, but it seems more reasonable why he has such an opportunity meddle in the first place.

> "No, actually, merely most of them,

Somewhat awkward phrasing.

> universally dual elements with a strong secondary fire affinity. Which also
describes you, Sasuke, hence your remarkable ability with fire. But just for
fun, try this out."

How does Kakashi know this before the paper test?  Moreover, how does he know it before Sasuke knows it?

> "Got it."

> _There is no POSSIBLE way that Neji can beat this._

The underscore padding seems odd, since to my recollection, this is the first time you've articulated thought with it.  Why not have it as part of Naruto's exclamation?  "Got it.  There's no way Neji can beat this!"

General thoughts:
Again, not having read Naruto, and not planning on remedying that lack at any point soon, I don't know the the original ends and the fannon starts.  So I'm not really able to address specific points.  Drac (and others, who have followed Naruto) would be more suited for that role.   Speaking in broad terms then...

* You have some issues with dialogue, where character dialogue noticeably shifts to something not in character.   This happens frequently enough where it's worth noting as a general issue; I've noted the most egregious cases above.  Luckily, this is usually just a matter of asking someone who has read/watched Naruto for their opinion and some minor editing.

* I suspect you're may have your plot drive your character interactions a little too much.  I've already mentioned how you employ (or don't employ) Sakura; if this were an original work, I'd be asking why you created the character at all.  But my concern isn't just about Sakura - she's just the most evident example since she's the unusually-silent partner of team 7.  In the ramen shop scene, when Gaara crashes Naruto's dinner and they both start the I'm-more-scary-than-you fight, Teuchi and Ayame effectively aren't there as characters, even though you'd explicitly placed them in the store.  No gasps, no crashes from dropped bowls, no concern or attempts to shield Naruto on their part, and no evident concern from Naruto after the fight about exposing his most treasured people to demonic influence.  Effectively, they're not even really characters - merely props to set up a scene designed to drive the plot.  Maybe their close relationship is not true in your altered history, but it's not clear if that is so, or even why it should be so.

You do spend plenty of time on the characters you are developing.  It's not that the secondary characters also need this level of description, but they should have their own agendas, personas, and such - give them a little more depth than just backdrop for the story of Naruto and Sasuke, and your story will also feel like it has more depth.

* In contrast to the above, not emphasizing the usual Wave scenes worked, because Wave has been written so many times that no one really cares about it any longer.  Emphasizing the team's training during Wave is newish enough to pique some interest, and not dragging out the usual Wave events meant that I was less tempted to just skim entire sections.  The emotional cues from Wave are so familiar that they're generally ineffective; rather than repeat ineffective writing, you've used it as an outline and tried to create something new.  So, well done.

* You've taken the time to develop the characters.  Most writers don't.  I've given a fair bit of criticism out above, but this is a feature that is noteworthy.

* For a story that's predicated on "What if Naruto could see the lines of death," you're not really doing much with them.  In Tsukihime, even though Shiki isn't flashing his powers every 10 seconds, they are the cause of his clan's death, his adoption, his philosophy in life (due to meeting his sensei), his entanglement with the female lead, and how he contends with the supernatural.  So even though the powers aren't often used, but they help define his path in life.  This is written more of a Naruto-the-seal-master story.  That doesn't make it a bad story - it was still enjoyable, and can turn out as a solid story, but I thought this was worth pointing out, since I don't know how much you are personally invested with the concept of Shiki-Eyes-Naruto.

[alethiophile]

> She blushed, but did not break her stance to look away. "This is the Jyuuken stance...it's for the Hyuuga taijutsu style...it's against the rules for me to use it in the Academy, so people won't know too much about it, but I can use it now."

As opposed to in the field, when everyone would know about it anyway?

This is semi-intentional—it's a theme that the Hyuuga are paranoid bastards about their clan style and Byakugan even when it isn't actually all that helpful.

Wait.  So, he was cleared to learn how to make explosions before he was cleared to learn how to remotely trigger prank-traps?

Yes. The way I'm envisioning the fuinjutsu, explosive tags are very basic things, kind of like 'hello world' if hello world could explode, and they're also about half of what a normal ninja ever uses fuinjutsu for (the other half being storage scrolls). So a student of fuinjutsu is going to be exposed to them early. Chakra-triggered traps are harder and considered more dangerous, since they could conceivably actually take out a higher-level ninja if he wasn't paying attention.

You said in a note in an earlier chapter that 100 Ryo = $1.  Naruto's 50,000 Ryo for his set of scrolls is therefore worth $500.  If it takes a sealing master at least 1 week of being able to do anything else to make one scroll, he's making less than $500 a week, or less than $26K a year.  That's a hell of a way to make a living, especially for a skill that appears to require several years of study.

Hmm. That's true, isn't it. I wasn't really matching things up when I wrote this, just going for 'fairly expensive' on the scrolls and 'fairly difficult' to make them. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it now.

That's how long people take for storage seals, and people make those.

A bit of clarification: to make a storage scroll, a chuunin-level ninja would need to power twenty-five or so storage seals, which they can do at three or four per day and merely be tired enough to sleep well at nights. One of the refill seals would require Kakashi, a jounin and probably the normal active-duty ninja with the highest chakra level in Konoha (I'm guessing this because he uses the Sharingan so much, hence stress training), to actually make himself bedridden for a week. Which is a level of chakra exhaustion nigh unto death, and for the sake of a single combat boost that's basically duplicated by a soldier pill anyway. (A single refill tag is actually less effective than a single soldier pill, since the pills not only refill your chakra but give you a physical strength boost as well; the virtue of the tags is that you don't overdose after more than two.)

The reason I'm doing it that way is to justify Naruto basically inventing the refill tags. Many bad fanfics to the contrary, pre-teens with less than five years of study really don't make paradigm-shifting discoveries in any discipline; there has to be a good reason why no one else has come up with such a useful concept before.

"You will now experience 72 hours of hanging around really uninspired people"

...Not actually sure what you're getting at here.

Regarding names: You've named the two one-shot ninja that tried to kill Naruto in the prologue, but you haven't named the doctor whom you've reused?  Are those ninja minor but named Leaf ninja from the original work?

The doctor has a name; Naruto doesn't know it, and the doctor's scenes are all from his perspective. Does that jar?

The underscore padding seems odd, since to my recollection, this is the first time you've articulated thought with it.  Why not have it as part of Naruto's exclamation?  "Got it.  There's no way Neji can beat this!"

I'm writing in Markdown; underscore padding turns into italics for posting. And I thought about putting it in the line, but for some reason it just seemed wrong when I tried to write it.

Thanks much for the feedback. General points of discussion noted. I have a hard time thinking of the Naruto cast as twelve-year-olds, even though that's their canon age, because, you know, ninjas. I tend to think that would make them somewhat more mature than twelve-year-olds as we know them, but I'm not sure of the magnitude of that effect. In any event I have a hard time writing dialog that doesn't use fancy words; I can do it, but if I relax they tend to slip in.

* For a story that's predicated on "What if Naruto could see the lines of death," you're not really doing much with them.  In Tsukihime, even though Shiki isn't flashing his powers every 10 seconds, they are the cause of his clan's death, his adoption, his philosophy in life (due to meeting his sensei), his entanglement with the female lead, and how he contends with the supernatural.  So even though the powers aren't often used, but they help define his path in life.  This is written more of a Naruto-the-seal-master story.  That doesn't make it a bad story - it was still enjoyable, and can turn out as a solid story, but I thought this was worth pointing out, since I don't know how much you are personally invested with the concept of Shiki-Eyes-Naruto.

True. The point was never to write a story where Naruto fights like (any incarnation of) Shiki—that doesn't really work in the Narutoverse, for several reasons, the most notable in my mind being that whereas in Tsukihime the difficulty of killing someone is mostly in getting them to actually die, in Naruto the difficulty is more in landing an attack on them in the first place. Also, I really wasn't interested in writing yet another fic where Naruto gets a fancy new power, immediately uses it to the exclusion of everything else he's ever been taught, and it beats everything hands-down.

[Jason_Miao]

Wait.  So, he was cleared to learn how to make explosions before he was cleared to learn how to remotely trigger prank-traps?

Yes. The way I'm envisioning the fuinjutsu, explosive tags are very basic things, kind of like 'hello world' if hello world could explode,

I wish I could cause hello world to explode.  Programming classes would have been even more exciting.

So a student of fuinjutsu is going to be exposed to them early. Chakra-triggered traps are harder and considered more dangerous, since they could conceivably actually take out a higher-level ninja if he wasn't paying attention.

Heh.  Makes sense, in a twisted way.  You're not trying to protect the student.  You're trying to protect everyone else from the student. :)

Hmm. That's true, isn't it. I wasn't really matching things up when I wrote this, just going for 'fairly expensive' on the scrolls and 'fairly difficult' to make them. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it now.

Well, if you're not completely stringent about your "no editing" rule, slap on an extra 0 to the value of Naruto's storage scroll to the version on your website (I don't write on ff.net, so I'm unaware if they permit you to edit old chapters).  If you are pretty hardcore about it, well, this is the sort of nitpicky detail that few people notice anyway(and is the why I write at a slower-than-Zen pace, so not really caring about minor details like this can be a good trait), so it's not worth worrying about.

A bit of clarification: (etc)

Okay, and that makes sense.  I was unaware of Kakashi's general chakra levels compared to the Konoha ninja corps at large.

"You will now experience 72 hours of hanging around really uninspired people"

...Not actually sure what you're getting at here.

When I'd read this, I'd thought that Sasuke's eyes had advanced to their final form, given your description of how his eyes had changed.  And Lee is always written as being exuberant, so trapping him in a world with depressing people for 72 hours would be torture.  It was later made clear to me that his eyes had not developed to that stage, but as I'd said, I was jotting down notes and impressions as I was reading.

Regarding names: You've named the two one-shot ninja that tried to kill Naruto in the prologue, but you haven't named the doctor whom you've reused?  Are those ninja minor but named Leaf ninja from the original work?

The doctor has a name; Naruto doesn't know it, and the doctor's scenes are all from his perspective. Does that jar?

A bit.  Unless you someone is writing a "Who was that mysterious, masked stranger?" character, it is difficult to form a place a character in ones mind without a name. 

Thinking about this further, something else to consider is mentioning that Naruto had been introduced to the doctor by the Hokage at some point, but he'd forgotten the name, and that he'd waited so long that it would be awkward to ask the doctor what it was.  Most people have been in that situation, so could at least relate.  I've never tried writing that myself, I've never seen it done, and I'm not sure what objective literary purpose it would serve.  But it might help the situation where this recurring character is never personally addressed seem less odd.

In any event I have a hard time writing dialog that doesn't use fancy words; I can do it, but if I relax they tend to slip in.

I've had that problem.  I still have that problem.  In the past year, I've been trying to deal with it by thinking of characters' personalities for a few minutes before a dialogue heavy scene, then writing the dialogue as I imagine it occurring.  It can lead to some inspired writing.  Of course, it can also lead to weird tangents, so it's not even a perfect solution for me. 

Anyway, just asking someone to glance through the chapter and note the places where the speech pattern doesn't appear to fit the character is about the easiest draft review you can ask someone to do, so unless you start writing with characters from obscure series like Galaxy Fraulein Yuna or Idol Project, it's usually easy to find and correct.  And if your reviewers start commenting on other aspects of your story unasked, then that's a bonus.

[alethiophile]

Revisions happy. The doctor now has a name (or rather, the narration now addresses him by the name that's mentioned once in passing), Orochimaru is not inexplicably an idiot and Teuchi and Ayame exist. Thanks much for the latter; I had actually forgotten that they were in the scene, since I didn't originally set it at the ramen stand but just along a random street. New version is at the top.

I'll probably call this final and post it either tomorrow or Monday; I would leave it for longer, but this chapter's already taken me two months when I've been shooting for two a month.

[Dracos]

I'm commenting way late on where you are on the fic, but I continue to comment in present tense.  So take it how you will.

MEoDP may be overwhelming in the Nasuverse, where someone like random-jumble-of-letters-that's-actually-pronounced-Nero would be quite willling to simply laugh at a knife; in Narutoverse it's generally accepted that a knife can actually kill even a strong shinobi, leaving aside some of the truly strange examples like Orochimaru, Hidan, Kakuzu or maybe Naruto depending on how you're playing his healing factor. Thus, being able to kill a strong opponent if you can stab them is less impressive.

I'd argue the opposite. The three academy skills would turn all but Ryougi into uber broken characters. The reason the eyes are as effective as they are in canon is because each of the owners is already super-human.

I'd second the first line, but not the second.  I don't think either Ryougi or Shiki are particularly superhuman particularly beyond what is shown for young ninja in Naruto.  I suppose in your take it can be grittier, but in canon, there's hundreds of ninjas that can survive being stabbed repeatedly.  The last arc has swarms that can reshape the very earth.

Gonna respond here on two sides of things.

One is that Mystic Eyes of Death Perception is one of the major changes you're making in your fic.  It should be relevant.  Haven't read further yet, but just saying that adding a power that doesn't significantly change the flow is a pity.  It sounds like Seals are being used instead, but there are many fics that go that route, so in doing so you're diminishing the uniqueness of your own concept and making it blend more with other more generic ideas.

The other is that Mystic Eyes of Death Perception in both series is a truly terrifying power, even without touching things.  Shiki (Tsukihime) can end buildings, reshape terrain, undo seals and generally obliterate unkillable things.  Orochimaru and Pain both would find a lot of their baseline superpowers irrelevant in face of it.  "Hey I got six bodies."  "I hit one, and I'm probably tearing apart your doujutsu or your 'perfect rejection shield'".  Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai) can tear apart magic and concepts with it.  "Hey that's a nice seal you got there, *destroyed*", "Hey that's a nice a nice jutsu you're firing at me, slash apart".  There's some tremendous things that they do with that vision that has nothing to do with the fact that both are natural assassins with great fitness.

You can (and are) shaping the eyes to whatever you want, but it's useful to realize just what kind of ridiculous thing they are.  An assassin with a mostly human level of capability is on raised to be on par with legendary beings by it.  If this was a world which focused on guns or some such, I'd agree with you, but it'd still be a pretty relevant power with ninja.  Parrying a blade directed with them would be mean that your protection would get shattered.  Using a jutsu on someone with those means its it could get torn apart.  It's easily believable to take any stance with them from simply they allow the user to shatter bone and end lives with just a touch all the way to being able to pretty much counter any Ninjutsu or Genjutsu outright by cutting it apart and make taijutsu terrifying to consider.  Even deception masters like Sasori would find it irritating and dangerous, as just seeing the destruction of puppets would show through to where the living Sasori is among them.

I do understand that your goal isn't to the exclusion thereof, but it'd be a tremendous impact on any ninja learning it.  Much like really the Rinnegan tends to be, or Gaara's One Tail.

Anyhow, reading between the lines on the commentary, you're taking both a weaker view on the eye power and moving Ninjas in the Naruto universe to be a little further down the unhittable range.  Certainly there's room for that in canon.  Sasori's fight, some Sasuke fights, and a few others imply that there's very little real damage often taking place with layers of deception.  Characters are generally more mobile and afraid of getting hit.  I'd blink a bit, if only because the Eyes would make those occasional hits far more devastating and many fights do end with folks bashed all over the place, but it's not an unreasonable interpretation of canon and I'll take that in understanding with further reading.

[Muphrid]

Having nothing else to do, he paced, and fretted furiously.

Strictly speaking on grammar, there's no need for the comma after paced.

The doctor nodded in return, slowly, and sighed.

You could make this "nodded slowly in return and sighed"?  I think that might flow better.

"Well, she isn't in danger for her life, and she'll make a full recovery. Right now, though, she...isn't great. The broken leg wouldn't be such a big problem, except that it can't recover properly while her chakra system is so out of order. That's the strangest damage I've ever seen...it's kind of reminiscent of what happens when someone is working on a big, old seal and catches backlash, but I can't fathom how that would happen in a fight." He looked very tired.

I think the second ellipsis might be better served as a period or a dash.  The line at the end ("He looked very tired") seems to be in an unnatural place.  You can put it in with the paragraph before, establishing everything relevant about the doctor's looks before he gets to the important dialogue.

Naruto seemed to shrink, looking down miserably. "The tags..." he whispered,

Is it not appropriate to say directly that he shrinks, rather than merely seeming to?

The doctor smiled briefly. "Is that so? Well, I can oblige you tomorrow morning, Uzumaki-san. Until then...try to sleep properly tonight. You might find it difficult." He turned and left, this time not prevented. 

Perhaps, "this time unimpeded"?

It took half an hour after Naruto's arrival before the doctor showed up. Naruto missed his entry at the door, but rather ran into him in the same third-floor corridor as Hinata's room; he recognized Naruto immediately, and without prompting led him to the room and opened it.

Again, the comma after "immediately" isn't necessary.

The room was silent but for the subtle noise of Hinata's breath. Naruto sighed aloud, the sudden sound loud in the room, and shook his head.

"Man...." he muttered, looking at Hinata with a sigh. "Man, he really did a number on you, didn't he, Hinata-chan? That and the tags...." He sighed. "Those tags can be kind of nasty, I guess. Got to be careful with them. I don't know...." He trailed off. "I keep thinking I should have warned you, but I didn't know what would happen with three tags at once...it worked, though, I guess. It could have been worse." He shook his head again and fell silent.

Naruto sighs three times in this span.

The doctor nodded. "It's rather obscure, and not nearly so convenient. It's rather a lengthy ritual actually, and it involves a donor and a recipient directly; there's no storage. The method involves creating a notional link directly between their chakra systems using seals, so that chakra flows out of one person's coils and straight into the other's. And this is a complicated and a difficult thing, and it requires quite some degree of customization to the specific donor and recipient. All in all, it's more useful for research than for combat, either that or the occasional emergency medical treatment." He indicated the tag in his hand. "Yours, on the other hand, is simply dropping the chakra directly into the body of the user. No connection to the coils is made. The coils pick it up, of course, but that's simply though saturation. The end result is that maybe only a quarter to a third of the chakra that is successfully released enters the chakra system."

Note the times you've used directly in this paragraph.

Jiraiya was not fazed; nor, apparently, was he _wet_--Naruto didn't have the slightest idea how he had managed that, since the ground around him was spattered liberally with water. He raised an eyebrow at Naruto, turning to him as if nothing had happened.

You do this somewhat frequently--avoiding contractions when they might seem natural.  "wasn't fazed" for instance.

Finally it seemed that Jiraiya became impatient. A flurry of fireballs struck the clones at once, apparently from some three different locations, decimating them. A stray burst of memories alerted Naruto to where the scroll had landed, and his eyes widened in sudden anticipation--the clone that had dropped the scroll had been nearly finished with the seal. Only a few strokes remained.

Is "apparently" really necessary here?  I think the sentence might benefit from the directness gained if the word is removed.


Re: Naruto insisting Hinata is just a friend to Jiraiya.  While it didn't bother me at the time, I realized this was a back and forth that's probably been done many times before.  I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done to make it more unique or distinctive.

Himura paused briefly before he continued, his lips tight. "Do you remember using some tags to boost your chakra?"

At Hinata's nod, he went on. "There was too much chakra for your body. It tore up your coils. When we brought you in, we had to throttle your chakra flow down to three percent to keep it from doing more damage. You've been unconscious for a week."

I feel like having these paragraphs separate makes it possible someone could think these are different speakers.

Naruto nodded, relieved, but his face was still downcast. "That's good, but...you're still--I'm sorry, Hinata, but it...doesn't feel right, at all, if you're in here all hurt. I'm sorry. I feel like it's still my fault, or--" He shook his head, frustrated. "I should have done _something_ about it!"

Note the uses of still here.  Also, is Naruto slipping in how he addresses her, or is that why Hinata reacts the way she does in the next paragraph?

"All right. I won't kill him. Won't even hurt him too bad. I guess...I can see how that might make someone--yeah. Like that mark...." He shook his head. "All right. I'll beat him, but...wow."

I notice this sometimes in writing--the tendency to try to resolve big questions in dialogue without thought process.  It seems like a long way for Naruto to go, promising Hinata he won't do too much damage to Neji, and all we get is what he says.  Because of that, it feels a bit mechanical.  It happens.  If I could compare it to cooking, it feels like the pie came out of the oven with a snap of one's fingers, rather than letting it bake and smelling the aroma for a few minutes before having a slice.  I would let Naruto's feelings on this matter and his reasoning have a bit more focus.  Guilt over what his tags ended up doing to Hinata naturally plays a big part in it, and anger too over what Neji must've been subjected to, but let him fight those feelings for a moment with wanting to pay Neji back anyway.  Coming to such a decision is an internal battle, in my mind.  I think it should be more explicitly depicted.

That said, that all may just be my view of things.  I will not presume that it's the objectively best course.

"Ne, ero-sensei, why are we all the way out here?"

Seems like a good bit of Japanese has crept in all of the sudden--ne, gaki in the next paragraph.


Hopefully this can spur some thoughts.  I think it takes me some time to get acclimated to an author's style, so the first couple times giving criticism are still me getting over differences and trying to find more objective instead of subjective problems.  Hopefully that'll pass sooner rather than later, but until then, feel free to dismiss whatever seems too different from the way you do things.

[alethiophile]

Thanks much.

Re: stray commas, I leave them in for pacing purposes; the sentences are just as grammatical without them, but they just seem wrong to me in terms of how I notionally read them in my head. Similarly the lack of contractions–the posted example doesn't sound right to me if it's contracted. Perhaps it's that my narrative voice kind of wants to sound more formal, in contrast to Naruto's decidedly informal tone with whoever he's talking to.

Changes helpful. I do tend to slip into repeating the same descriptors if I don't catch it, and I'm also trying to wean myself off excessive ellipses. I'll look into the more substantial changes when I'm on a computer that doesn't suck.