Natural Sage.
In his attempt to become a ninja, Naruto took to observing others as they trained. What he found, is that every ninja can walk up walls. In his attempt to recreate the action, Naruto devised his own way of wall walking. Everything else just fell into place. ( Sage Naruto. Strong. Seals later. More clever than smart.)
"Hi. I don't own Naruto" - Speech
'That is called slavery, and is in fact frowned upon.' - Thought
On the first day of the second year of the academy, Naruto saw something that defied logic. A person walking up a wall. Or down a wall, in this case. Naturally curious, he strolled over to the obviously awesome ninja and asked how he did it.
"Hey you! Yeah, you! How did you do that!" Said ninja answered, without missing a beat, or looking up from his book. "Chakra." And walked away.
'Chakra? I can use that!' Naruto thought to himself. Excited about being able to be even more awesome in his own eyes, he ran off to do just that. Climb a tree with only chakra. Shouldn't be too hard.
Taking a running start to the neared tree, Naruto pumped as much chakra as he could to his feet, to stick the landing. And proceeded to blast himself a solid 5 yards away. And he did this again. 3 yards. And again. 4 yards. He repeated the exercise in futility until he was bruised and hungry, but got no further up the now splintered bark.
After a long day of frustration and duty, there is nothing that Sarutobi loved more, than to sit back with a filled his pipe as he gazed at the coming sunset from his office window. So when a bruised Naruto busted down his door, he had to suppress a sigh.
Taking one more merciful drag, The Professor tapped out his pipe and turned his attention to his charge. "Can I help you Naruto?" "You bet old man! I have a question? I saw this super cool ninja walk up a wall. I mean like strait up it, or down it really. He was all ' I'm so awesome, gravity changes for me! So i tried to do the same thing, but i just keep blasting the poor tree to death. How's am I supposed to do it?
Sarutobi's aged face grew stern. "While I'm glad that you are trying to better yourself, what you did was incredibly dangerous. Especially without supervision. Not to mention wall walking is a chakra control exercise that is too advanced for you right now. Most people start out with the leaf exercise." At that, Naruto groaned. "Not that boring thing. I can never get it right. Every time I try, the stupid leaf gets blasted away." "Well, have you tried to visualize your chakra like a suction cup?"
Seeing the confused look on his face, Sarutobi guessed not. "It is simple sounding, but it takes a while to get the hang of it. When I first tried it, it took me almost a month to master it completely. Here." reaching over to the window sill, Sarutobi grabbed a leaf that drifted into the room. "Put this on your forehead and concentrate on sticking it to yourself using only our chakra."
Scrunching up his face in concentration, Naruto did just that, and it held for about three seconds. "Did you see that old man? I did it!" Naruto shouted. Sarutobi smiled. "Now keep doing that till you can keep a leaf on your head for thirty minutes. Once you do that, It will become second nature to you. Then you can try the wall walking again, Okay?" "You got it! Thanks old man!" Naruto shouted with glee as he bolted out the door, hunting for more leafs.
Sarutobi leaned back in his chair and re-filled his pipe. 'Always something new with that boy, right Minato?'
-Break A few months later.
"No, no, no, no, no! Why can't I get this!?" Naruto sat in his house, glaring at the leaf on his palm. 'No matter how hard I try, I can't get it to stick for long.' In the three month period that he dedicated to mastering this exercise, his longest leaf stick time was just over ten minutes.
Deciding to do something a bit more productive, Naruto set about his quarterly house cleaning. Slipping the damned leaf into his pocket, he set about cleaning his home.
"Stupid.*scrub*Dumb.*scrub*Leaf.*scrub* Being difficult." Every other word was emphasized by his scrubbing of dishes. "Oh. You just need to be like a suction cup. *Scrub* It's easy. *rinse* I did it in a Freaking Month! *drain*. It's soo... so..." Naruto trailed off in his little tirade as he watched the water drain from his sink, creating a vortex that sucked the sponge down and in. 'Simple. That's it! That's what I'm supposed to do. It's so simple.'
Bolting back to his living room, he pulled out his leaf and stuck it to his head again. However, this time, he visualized a vortex, just like the one in his sink. And it worked. Mostly. While there was a massive difference in difficulty, like beginner for the suction cup and hard mode for the vortex, the time that Naruto managed to keep the leaf up jumped from his paltry ten minutes, to just under 17 minutes. Naruto exhausted himself by spent the rest of the night trying to reach that thirty minute mark for his mastery.
-break
*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP B-* Blinking sluggishly, he though to himself. ' Ugh. I feel like crap.' Naruto smacked his lips and grimiest as he got out of bed. ' And my mouth tastes like crap. 'After getting rid of the horrible taste in his mouth and making himself breakfast, Naruto finally looked at the clock. 'Meh. I'm already super late for school. No bother hurrying.'
Taking the trail that passed some of the smaller training areas, he noticed something that he never paid any attention to before. Almost every person that he passed could, and did, walk up trees. Some even fought on the side of trees, almost as if they were mocking him with how easy they could do it. It did, however, pacify him that some of the younger people were still trying the leaf exercise.
Wanting to show off a little bit, Naruto walked right up to the girl that he spied that was having a hard time with the leaf exercise. "Hey. I bet I could do better than you. Wan'a see?" Before said girl could respond, Naruto picked up his leaf and stuck it on his head. Seeing the irritation on her face, Naruto decided on rubbing it in. "See? It's not even that hard."
"YOSH! YOU INDEED ARE DOING WELL WITH YOUR EXERCISE!" Naruto jumped at the loud voice that suddenly appeared next to him, and dropped the leaf. "HOWEVER, THIS YOUTHFUL EXERCISE REQUIRES THAT THE LEAF NOT MOVE. YOUR YOUTHFULL FIRES WILL BLAZE EVEN MORE ONCE YOU GET IT RIGHT!" Shouted the green beast that appeared at his side. Then, in a calmer voice the man said, " I would also be glad if you didn't show such a un-youthful attitude to my student." "Eh... I'll work on it and I'm sorry? I got to go anyway, so see ya!" With that, Naruto poured on the speed to distance himself from the green man. "SUCH YOUTH!"
- Break
"NARUTO! YOUR LATE!" Iruka shouted as Naruto walked in the door. "I know. I woke up late and then had some green thing yell at me on my way here." Naruto remarked to Iruka. "I'll try not to do it again." "Alright then. But you have to stay in for lunch, to catch up on today's work." Naruto groaned as some of the class snickered at his misfortune.
A few minutes later, as everyone else went to lunch, Naruto asked Iruke, "Hey, you're a ninja. Could you show me how to do the leaf exercise again?" Seeing the question on Iruka's face, he continued. "I almost got it down, but this guy told me that the leaf wasn't supposed to move." Iruka smiled at that "Ah. I had the same problem at your age. You see it's about balance. Too much chakra, and the leaf moves. Too little and it wont stick. Sometimes, I add a bit of a back spin to keep it still. Most people forget that chakra always wants to spin just a bit. Usually in the same way your cow-lick is oriented. Do you understand?" " Ya. I think so." Naruto beamed at his teacher. "Thanks sensei. That really helped a lot." he smiled, backing out the door. "I'm glad it did. But you aren't getting out of class work, so sit back down." Naruto had enough shame to look just a bit guilty as he plopped back down. "Fine. What's next?"
-Break
After school, Naruto went straight back home to practice some more. 'Okay. Iruka said that I might need some back spin. I guess it's worth a shot.' Putting the leaf on his head for the umpteenth time, he started his vortex. After getting it good and stuck, he tried to visualize another vortex spinning the opposite direction. And it canceled each other out. It was like trying to look right and left at the same time. Growling, he tried again, but this time, visualized a smaller vortex in a bigger one. But that just shredded the leaf. After another hour of different ideas, Naruto all but gave up.
'What am I doing wrong? I put in the back spin. I'm trying as hard as I can.. Maybe... Maybe I need to try less?' After taking a few deep breaths, he tried again, with less chakra. Sitting back down, he put the leaf on his head and, instead of a fast spiral, visualized a calm spin, like a windmill in a gentle breeze. The pull was there, but it was a soothing pull, unlike his other, more violent attempts.
At the 26 minute mark, Naruto felt his toes start to go numb, but ignored it. At the 29 minute mark, he lost feeling in both his feet. 'My feet fell asleep. Great. Just a few more seconds, feet. I promise you can have your blood again. I just got to get this right. Almost. There. Done!' Opening his eyes, Naruto went to stretch out and get some feeling back where it was needed.
*thunk*
'What?' Looking down at his feet, Naruto gasped as he saw that they turned to stone! "AHHH! What the hell!' Naruto sat back down and started to rub his feet. As he did, he noticed that the stone was slowly fading away. ' Whoa. No wonder the old man said this was dangerous. I could have become a statue. I wonder why that happens?'
Sitting back down, Naruto tried again, but this time noticed the small trickle of chakra being sucked into his body from the leaf. Hardly noticeable, but it was there. It was different, but not in a bad way. It had a calm, clean, and almost 'green' feeling. Like the forest after it rains.
'I got to figure out how to filter that stuff out.' A sudden wave of drowsiness offer took him. 'That can wait for tomorrow.' And with that, Naruto went to bed.
Sarutobi just finished his last piece of business for the day, as ANBU agent BEAR appeared before his desk and bowed.
"My Lord. I have some news regarding the jailer's progress in the shinobi arts. The implications are staggering."
The God of Shinobi folded his fingers together, as he leaned forward.
"Proceed."
That's it for this chapter. Read and review.