The story is based on Soulblazer87's Leaf Style Maelstrom and Konoha's Maelstrom by Formulaic where I am rewriting/repurposing for my own uses with his permission. Whether or not I'll still have permission after I completely butcher a few chapters remains to be seen. I am going to try my best on this fanfic seeing that it is my first one. If you try to flame me guess who's getting ignored.
Chapter One- Taking initiative
Naruto sighed as he took off his orange jumpsuit jacket and dropped it haphazardly onto a chair, too tired and preoccupied to even think about cleaning it.
Too damn proud and happy to care either!
He had just become a shinobi! After three years of failure and ridicule, he had done it!
And all it took was sneaking into the Hokage Tower, stealing a scroll and learning an awesome jutsu from it!
That jutsu was the center of his thoughts. Kage Bunshin was amazing! He'd spent years unsuccessfully trying to make the Bunshin work, but a few hours with the Scroll of Seals had given him a skill that could defeat a Chuunin! Granted, the Chuunin in question was Mizuki, but the grey haired traitor had been able to take down Iruka-sensei, so did that mean Naruto was in some sense better than his academy teacher? Probably not, although mobbing him with clones might work in a straight up fight.
Putting aside the question of how he would match up against Iruka-sensei, the mere fact that a single technique could make him so much better was something that he couldn't stop thinking about. Kage Bunshin was way better than Bunshin in any way Naruto could think of. It was easier to use, it was solid... and that was all he could think of.
Shadow Clones weren't the only awesome things in his arsenal. It hadn't escaped Naruto's notice that he'd managed to defeat the Hokage with a basic henge. And Kawarimi was certainly useful as well, even if he hadn't used it against anyone more significant than Sasuke-teme.
The inescapable conclusion was that Ninjutsu was freaking awesome. On the surface this didn't seem like a momentous revelation. The Shodaime Hokage's Mokuton, the Nidaime's mastery of water jutsu, and the Yondaime's Hirashin were just the first examples of legendary jutsu to come to mind, and there were countless shinobi with reputations for showcasing exotic and amazing skills. But there were amazing things that he could learn.
Naruto wasn't suddenly going to develop Mokuton or find a mysterious old man in the woods who would somehow teach him mastery of Suiton Jutsu, so the realization that he could learn a useful skill like Kage Bunshin in a few hours was more world shaking than the newfound knowledge of the demon sealed in his gut... or wherever the hell it really was. If one technique was enough to beat Mizuki and graduate, why stop there? He could get better, there were skills out there that he could learn. He wasn't a failure. So jutsu are awesome. The problem was that he only knew Henge, Kawarimi, and Kage Bunshin. He wanted more. He needed more! If every jutsu he learned was even a quarter as awesome as Kage Bunshin he'd be Hokage in no time!
The first order of business was adding more jutsu to his repertoire. This wouldn't be easy; those that had shinobi in their families had people teaching them taijutsu and ninjutsu and all kinds of stuff, and those with civilian parents could arrange for tutoring or help their children in less direct ways.
Naruto had no one. He was all alone. So he had no one to teach him or show him or to even just be there when he needed some company. The closest he had to a family were the old man and Ichiraku Teuchi and Ayame, but the Saindaime has to run a village, and the Ichiraku's were civilians.He loved them with all his heart, but they weren't there for him like a real family would be. Not that he blamed them. They didn't have an obligation to nurture every adorable orphan in their life... well, maybe the Sandaime did, but that seemed like a complicated issue.
He needed more jutsu. He wanted to have a large family, with many children, and what kind of father would let their child grow up without as many cool techniques as possible? He wanted to leave a legendary legacy for the clan he had yet to build.
"Cool jutsu... I gotta get me some of those," he mumbled to himself.
Easier said than done though, given that he was the scapegoat of the entire village for stupid reasons he couldn't do anything about.
So where could he get some new jutsu? The old man was probably busy, he was the damn Hokage after all. And Iruka-sensei was injured.
Asking the Kyuubi no Kitsune seemed like a bad idea, and he didn't even know how to get in contact with the demon were he even inclined. And what could a mass of malevolent chakra in the form of a fox teach him anyway? Swing your tails and squish things, puny mortal! Oh, you don't have any tails? Sucks for you! And that was assuming the fox could even talk.
But there was no one else to ask. So what could he do?
He spent quite some time tossing and turning in his bed, trying to figure out where he should go from here. Just before exhaustion took him however, he remembered something from Iruka's lectures, one of the few he had ever bothered to listen to. "Every Hokage, in addition to having a mastery of basic shinobi techniques, created their own unique skills that set them apart from their fellows in ways that became legendary. "
So, since he was going to be a Hokage... he needed his own techniques!
That was about the first thought that came to his mind when he woke up. The first one that had nothing to with ramen, that is. But what to do?
What kind of super-awesome-cool technique could he make that no one else had ever made?
It would have to be original, cool and easy to use, strong as well but hard to copy or imitate...
So he did the one thing he thought he'd never have to do...
He went to the library.
Most people thought that Naruto was an idiot and completely inept. That was a mistaken perception. He was actually rather clever.
However, he lacked 'knowledge' and 'understanding', the two things that actually turn intellect and wisdom into an usable force. Which is why every time any teacher actually bothered to sit down with Naruto to teach him something, he seemed to pick it up at light speed. Too bad none of them had ever liked or cared enough to actually see who he was beyond their biased preconceptions. Except Iruka-sensei, but that was recent.
But Naruto knew he wasn't an idiot. He just didn't know about stuff. Mostly because nobody ever told him anything, they couldn't stand being neer him. Therefore, since he couldn't depend on anyone any more–he was a ninja now, legally an adult–he had to do it on his own.
And that meant studying, which meant having to go to the library.
Getting into the library was a difficult and time-consuming task on its own. First, he had to spend three hours going back and forth between the library and the Hokage's Tower filling out and filing obviously unnecessary paperwork that was solely enforced just to discourage him from getting anything done. He had to verify three times over that he was actually who he said he was, that he was a ninja, that he did have a place of residence in Konoha. From this he learned a valuable lesson.
Use a fucking henge.
Now to find books on jutsu theory, chakra manipulation theory, jutsu creation theory, jutsu analysis theory...
Well, any kind of 'theory' that had to do with chakra, techniques and jutsu.
The first book he found, 'Elemental Manipulation Theory', turned out to be a pile of crap. Judging by its wear and tear it was quite a well read book. Most of it was about fire jutsu, and it didn't really teach any theory. It was mostly along the lines of "'Type II Katon Projection' techniques that it explicitly said not to use this trick with, and a warning that using the tweak with jutsu not explicitly listed risked having it explode prematurely. In your lungs."
While that was one of the more ridiculous examples, everything else in the book appeared to run along the same lines. It was essentially a bunch of variations on specific jutsu with its 'theory' being a bunch of fancy but useless explanations about types and charging sequences and whatever else they wanted to print just to make it seem like this wasn't a mismatched list of jutsu.
Having wasted nearly an hour trying to make sense of that pile of crap, Naruto was even more discouraged by his next find. 'The Encyclopedia of Elemental Theory and Alteration Reactions for Ninjutsu, 30th edition' was a massive book that went way over his head. It seemed like it would be a great reference, once he actually could understand things like "pressure induced backflow of tenketsu T142-148 forcing water nature chakra from the low-pressure end of the system at a rate of 60S/(CU * CP). See appendix J3 for curvature conformity of the corresponding e-value to the current elemental ratings."
He guessed that he'd come back to that one in about seventy years.
At this point he wanted to scream, only to hold it in because that would get him kicked out of the library and he didn't want to quit.
Naruto refused to believe that he wasn't ready to create jutsu. There had to be a better, more simple approach than spending the next century or so trying to make heads or tails of the Encyclopedia, or just randomly flipping through seals hoping that he didn't spontaneously blow-up, although Kage Bunshins could help on that problem.
Academy students didn't really think about how common it was, but Kawarimi no Jutsu was an incredible technique, and it only took five seals! Henge was pretty awesome too, and that only took three. And Kage Bunshin only had one!
Granted, the shadow clone used a different hand seal and the middle boar of henge was actually a different variation that required twisting and interlocking fingers on the inside. Naruto was still pissed that he'd had to figure out that on his own. He ignored the thought that he probably hadn't been taught correctly when they went over that bit.
So these amazing jutsu requiring relatively few seals had to mean that he didn't need to know about tenketsu backwash or whatever the crap that was in order to at least start making jutsu. He'd come back to that stuff later, once he actually had some idea what to make of it. Much later.
The third book he found was nothing short of perfect for his needs. Well, he might have been biased considering the utter frustration caused by the first two, but it was a whole lot better.
The title 'Fundamentals of Ninjutsu: A Guide to Mastery, Alteration, and Creation' was kind of dry and boring, but Iruka-sensei used to say something about basics and knowing that kind of stuff being important, so Naruto thought it could be a good start. The stiff binding and dust on the cover meant the book wasn't that popular, so it seemed it probably wasn't very good.
It turned out that fundamentals were a lot cooler than he expected. Whoever this Hiruzem S. guy was, he really knew how to write a book! He was hooked from the introduction.
"What does it mean to master a jutsu? Many are satisfied when they can perform their skills 'perfectly' ten times out of ten, wasting virtually no chakra. Some are more stringent in their requirements, saying mastery is being able to use the skill under pressure without giving it undo attention. You can draw the bar higher and higher, even so much so that no one could possibly manage to master a single jutsu in their lifetime, but it is my belief that trying to nail down a technical definition for mastery is missing the point.
One can never master a jutsu. Mastery is a never ending journey.
Every time you perform a jutsu, you understand it a little bit more. You will never be able to execute a jutsu exactly the same way twice, but this is not a bad thing. After practicing hundreds of times, you start to gain an understanding that goes beyond the basics. 'If I hold this seal longer, fluctuate my chakra in this way, the jutsu will behave just a little differently.'
The more you understand your jutsu, the more versatile and useful they will be. Maybe your opponent is too fast for your Katon: Gokakyu (Fire Style: Great Fireball), but you know how to trade power for speed. What if you are sparring, and you don't want to hurt your partner? Are you forced to reduce your arsenal, or do you know how to take the bite out of your heavy hitters?
Doing a jutsu perfectly is nothing more than using it the best way you know how in the current context. The more you master ninjutsu, the more you can alter them to fit the situation.
Perhaps you are thinking 'oh, that sounds pretty simple, but it also sounds like a lot of work.' If you aren't, that's what you should be thinking, because that is the most important thing to remember about this approach to jutsu.
You will need to practice a lot. And then you will need to practice some more. And after that? More practice. And practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice.
I hope that hasn't scared you off, but that is something that needs to be understood right from the start. You may not be suited to this approach. Most ninja have a fairly concise repertoire of between ten and twenty jutsu, often focusing on only a third of that. This kind of generalist attitude may not work for you.
Although practicing your jutsu over and over again is something I'd recommend even if you don't intend to master ninjutsu, this will require you to commit a lot of time even to jutsu you will never end up using for any practical purpose."