The world was peaceful as the forest enjoyed a merry near quietness known only in nature. The birds dipped and dived through the sky, singing serenely, the animals scurried to and fro on their daily routines, a young fox boy roaring in annoyance as he scorched the ground during his search…
"No. That's the scent of a squirrel." Kyuubi said in a tired and annoyed voice. They had been going at this for almost an hour. Any common fox should have been able to find him right now, and Naruto was using, though diluted, the senses of him, greatest of all foxes, the earth shaker, the king of demons, the –
"Furball who is absorbed in himself. I can hear you, you know."
"Tree."
"Huh what?"
Naruto found out what Kyuubi meant as he dashed directly into a tree, falling onto his back as a bruise rapidly appeared and disappeared on his forehead.
"On one hand, congrats. You found the trail again. On the other hand you've got to keep a better hold on the outside world, even if I'm talking to you.
"That's really hard for me!"
"My mistake, I was under the impression you were smart enough to walk and think at the same time.
Naruto gave up the argument, as he was more focused on finding Jiraiya as fast as possible, because he could already feel the Demon Chakra cloak making his whole body go numb, not to mention the constant feeling of being slowly cooked alive.
"How the heck…" Naruto winced and stumbled "Is doing this with three tails supposed to help me?"
"Are you really that blind? It's to get your body more used to my Chakra being out."
"Well it BURNS like—"
"If you're going to be such a baby about it, just make an extra chakra shell. Make a shell of your chakra around yourself, and then draw on my own but push it out and gather it around that shell."
"That easy?!"
Naruto jumped to his feet and dropped the 3 tails state all at once, the immediate rush of exhaustion sending the blonde into a kneeling position where he drew heavy breaths, struggling to keep from passing out.
"That, my dear moron, was incredibly stupid. You don't just access that much of my Chakra and drop it all at once, you need to go tail by tail."
"Ok, ok... now.. that chakra shell!"
Naruto shifted his hands into the ram seal and began summoning as much chakra as he could. Blue chakra shimmered into existence around the boy as he kept his eyes closed in concentration. Dropping the ram seal but keeping focus, Naruto looked around at the shapeless mass of Chakra around him.
"..It's not a shell."
"When you summon my chakra, it makes ears and tails because I shape the shell into my image. I did the work of maintaining the shell, I was even able to attack independently of you with it against the Sharingan boy."
"I've gotta do it all myself?!"
"If you let me control you for a bit, I can teach you how, gain you muscle memory, etc."
"I'm not that stupid! I'll get it eventually, and then you'll just have to sit quiet while I control your chakra!"
"Chakra. You say it without reverence to the power mine holds. Do not be a fool boy, when you simply accessed the 10th level, the one tail cloak, you regenerated from a fatal wound in SECONDS. The fire jutsus the boy flung at you were batted away as nothing but annoyances; his prediction ability was made near USELESS. Mortal wounds were nothing. Justu were nothing. Water quaked at your touch. You accessed just A TENTH of the full range of my power and I made you almost a GOD."
"…."
"Do you understand now the GIFT fate has given you now?"
"Well, that all sounds pretty overwhelming but…you had all that power… and now you're stuck in my belly button."
"You know what? I'm done. Find Jiraiya yourself."
There was a flare of Chakra as the first tail of the Demon Chakra cloak came into existence. Naruto winced slightly.
"Wait, Kyuubi I haven't gotten the chakra cloak thing down yet!"
There was a complete silence in response to Naruto's outburst.
"Kyuubi?"
Nothing.
"Yeah yeah, I'll find Jiraiya…"
Naruto resumed his search for his perverted teacher, this time wholly alone.
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Jiraiya sat atop the limb of a tree, high enough to tower over the other trees in the forest, one leg dangling lazily in midair and his back against the trunk. He made a few adjustments to his bandages and watched as birds scattered from their homes and into the air above the trees as Naruto disturbed the trunks far down on the ground below.
"Wait…did I ever actually teach him tracking?"
Jiraiya contemplated this in silence, and then quickly dismissed the fact that he hadn't as unimportant.
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After twenty more minutes of searching, Naruto dropped to one knee and willed the red chakra to disappear. He attempted to continue his search but instead stumbled and fell hard into a tree trunk, disturbing the birds in the limbs above. He gasped for breath as beads of sweat rolled down the side of his head, making his hair almost damp.
"Ahh..huh..guh..Why the heck does his chakra make me so tired…and where the heck is Jiraiya!"
"While I would like to wait until you were on your knees in tears, begging for my help, this searching is getting us nowhere. I told you that you needed to get strong and smarter, FAST. Now do what I say. Draw on my chakra."
Naruto reluctantly did so, feeling slightly rejuvenated as he felt the red power running through his coils.
"MORE! You'll need the cloak for this!"
Naruto was silent, and Kyuubi felt no more of his power being called out.
"What are you waiting fo— "
"RAH!"
Blue chakra burst into existence around Naruto, immediately clashing with the red Chakra that was already out. Naruto reached out his hands and seemed to grab at both, and latching onto them, hugged them to his chest.
"What in the world are you…ah."
Naruto stood, letting out a large breath of air, as two tails of purple chakra swung behind him, and a complete haze of it surrounded him. Every few seconds the cloak would switch from a deep purple to a light purple, to an equal balance between the chakras.
"Oh nothing…" Naruto grinned with sharpened teeth "Just reminding you you're not the only one with chakra."
Kyuubi smirked, "Well then…you're familiar with the tree climbing exercise. If you push out too much chakra, you're blasted off the tree. Now…we need to see above all these trees. Get it?"
"Roger that, furball."
With a burst of chakra, Naruto took to the skies.
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"YAAAAHUHUHOAAAAYYYY!!"(1)
Never before, not even after defeating Neji, had Naruto felt more exhilaration than now as he rocketed upward into the sky, eyes tearing and his mouth threatening to split in half from his grin. The wind pulled at his clothes as he spun through the air. 'This is great' could not possibly describe it.
"Pay attention! Look around at the trees, see the pervert!"
Naruto turned his attention to the space around him and saw Jiraiya perched on a tree, his mouth held open in shock as he saw Naruto blast up from the tree tops.
"Crap." Jiraiya quickly shuffled to his feet and attempted to begin dashing through the trees.
"No you DON'T!"
Naruto reared his arm back then thrust it forward, a purple chakra claw leaping off it at an amazing speed, slamming into the tree bark Jiraiya had just jumped off of.
"Slingshot, boy, NOW!"
Naruto pulled himself onto the tree, spun around it and pushed off the bark in the direction of Jiraiya.
"Get a move on boy he's getting away!" Kyuubi was once again being caught up in the thrill of the chase. "Tear the forest apart if you need to!"
Kyuubi's own an excitement and Naruto high off his trip into the air mixed as Naruto pulled out more of his own and Kyuubi's chakra at the same time. Boy and Fox roared together as 4 dark purple tails swayed behind the blonde's body.
Jiraiya chanced a look behind him and saw the beast that was once called crashing through the trees hot on his tail. He paled until he matched his hair, and then flipped so he was above Naruto as he shot by.
"Screw it, Summoning Jutsu!"
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Naruto paled as the giant bottom of the 'Food Cart Destroyer' Frog slammed into him from above, sending him crashing into the ground, and slowly into it.
"Okay.. agh.. Naruto…" Jiraiya sat against a tree panting, holding one hand to his bloody chest. All that jumping had reopened a few of his wounds. "You caught me. Sorry to put you down like that but I saw 4 tails so I wasn't sure who was in…control…"
"…."
Jiraiya paused as the huge bulk of the Frog shifted slightly, then slowly moved upward.
"One step at a time."
"Yeah, I know."
Naruto walked achingly slowly, the frog held high above his head, as five tails of the darkest purple chakra swayed behind him. He took one step toward Jiraiya, then another. He was soon standing only two feet away from the pervert, the highly confused frog still held high above him. He grinned savagely.
"What's wrong perv, FOX got your tongue?"
"…No, but there's a snake on your foot."
"Huh?" Naruto looked down, but saw no snake around his foot. "Where's the snake?" Naruto returned his gaze to where the sage was sitting.
Jiraiya was gone.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
"ARE YOU REALLY THAT NAÏVE!"
Naruto's shouting sent him off balance and there was a small crunch as the frog fell atop Naruto once again.
"I'm not healing that."
"Shut up."
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(1) However you'd think to spell Goofy's laugh
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