I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any of the characters.


Training

Naruto readied himself as Itachi walked around him slowly. Naruto wasn't a fan of sparring with Itachi. He always lost. But it was beneficial. After all, sparring with someone with Sharingan was always challenging. And it was well worth it to finally be better than Sasuke.

Itachi sprinted at him from the right and Naruto spun toward him, ducking under a punch then flipping over a kick, kicking downward at Itachi. Itachi caught his foot and spun, hurling him. Naruto flipped, landing on the ground and his right hand, then sprinted forward again. Itachi blocked and dodged several strikes before Naruto drew a kunai, slashing at him. Itachi trapped Naruto's arm under his own then drew his own kunai, placing it to Naruto's throat. Naruto grinned suddenly as a second leapt up behind Itachi, spinning and kicking at him. Itachi crouched at the last second, allowing the kick to pass over him before slamming his captured Naruto into the second. Both exploded into smoke and Naruto burst out of the ground behind Itachi, punching at him. Itachi spun, sweeping the punch aside then grabbed naruto by the throat, slamming him into the ground and putting his kunai to his throat.

"Dead," Itachi said. "Impressive. You've gotten better."

"Yeah but I still can't fight you," Naruto complained.

"That's because I have the Sharingan and years more training than you," Itachi stated. "Now, I have some matters to attend to. You'll be training with Yugao and Tenzo for the rest of today."

Naruto nodded and Itachi left with the Body Flicker Technique. Naruto turned to Tenzo and Yugao who looked at each other before shrugging.

"We'll be working with Jutsu today," Tenzo decided. "First, we'll need to know your chakra nature. Here."

He held out a small square of paper and Naruto took it, cocking his head.

"Channel your chakra into that, and the paper's reaction will tell us your Chakra Nature," Tenzo explained.

Naruto nodded, beginning to channel his chakra into it. After a moment, it split in half before both pieces grew damp and fell forward.

"Wind and water," Tenzo said. "Alright. We can work with that."

"Hold on Tenzo," Yugao said. "It's good that we know his chakra nature, but maybe we should start with some simple sealing jutsus. They can be just as effective but they require less chakra."

"But I don't know of many sealing jutsus that are used to attack, do you?" Tenzo asked.

"No, but I know of several used for defense," Yugao said. "As well as storage seals for weapons."

"But if he has no offensive jutsus, he'll be a sitting duck hiding behind his seals until his opponent breaks them," Tenzo argued.

"Can I do both?" Naruto asked. "Tenzo can teach a clone offensive jutsus and Yugao can teach me sealing jutsus."

They looked at each other then shrugged and nodded. Naruto create a clone who followed Tenzo away from Yugao and Naruto. Naruto turned to Yugao who unrolled a scroll on the ground, displaying several different sealing jutsus, all low level but for various uses.

"Obviously I can't teach you anything super powerful at the moment because you're not strong enough, but I can teach you some basic seals, like small storage seals," Yugao said. "Keep in mind, the bigger the seal, the more chakra you need. Since we haven't got a whole lot of chakra at the moment, especially since you split it into a clone, we'll be taking it easy and keeping the seals simple. The first is just a storage seal."

She demonstrated it, forming several hand seals, moving slowly so that he could see which she used, then set her hand on the ground. A small empty circle of seals spread from her palm onto the ground. Then, she set a kunai on it and made the Ram hand seal. The weapon was covered in smoke and when the smoke cleared, the middle of the circle had the kanji for "full" in it. She made the ram hand seal again and smoke covered the seal before clearing to reveal the kunai and a once again empty seal.

"It can only hold one item at a time," Yugao said. "But the size of the seal itself can be varied to fit more on an object like a scroll. Now you try."

Naruto copied her hand seals and set his hand on the ground. Nothing. He tried again but still nothing.

"You're just copying my movements," Yugao said. "You have to use chakra too. Focus your chakra as you make the hand seals, then send a pulse into the ground when you put your hand down."

Naruto nodded and tried again. This time, as he sent out the pulse of chakra, the seal spread outward from his palm. He grinned and Yugao smiled, handing him the kunai. He set it in the circle and made the ram seal, channeling chakra into the seal, under her instruction. A cloud of smoke covered the weapon, then cleared and left the kunai's blade behind, the handle having been sealed without it. Naruto stared at the kunai blade then tried the Ram hand seal again. This time, the handle was on the ground, but the kunai blade was gone. Yugao picked up the handle and Naruto tried again. The blade reappeared and Yugao picked it up, inspecting the spot where it was separated.

"Well, that's a new one," Yugao blinked. "I've never seen that happen before."

Naruto sighed.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"Don't be," she smiled. "You're learning. Besides, kunai are free for ANBU. At any rate, here. keep trying."

She handed Naruto another kunai and he tried again with a similar result. She set three more on the ground beside her then made the Seal of Confrontation and her seal faded. She walked over to Tenzo and the clone just as the clone fired a stream of water about as strong as the flow from a sink faucet out of his mouth onto the ground in front of him.

"No luck here either huh?" Yugao asked.

"No," Tenzo said. "His chakra control isn't very good, though we're working on it."

"You aren't kidding," Yugao laughed showing him the kunai Naruto had broken. "This was done by a storage seal."

"For real?" Tenzo laughed. "Wow. That's almost impressive."

Yugao nodded just as Naruto cheered. She turned to look as he made the Ram hand seal, retrieving an intact kunai from the seal. She smiled.

"He's a pretty quick learner," Tenzo commented. "What's it been, three minutes and he's gotten the hang of that one?"

"Mhm," Yugao nodded. "It may not be a very high level jutsu but it's the first time anyone's taught him jutsu, aside from Itachi teaching him the Shadow Clone jutsu."

"He's going to be interesting to teach," Tenzo said. "Alright Naruto, try again. And this time, make sure you build up your chakra as much as you can."

Naruto formed several hand seals, inhaling. Then, he fired a slightly stronger stream of water out of his mouth.

"Did you tell him how to pressurize chakra?" Yugao asked.

"Good point," Tenzo said. "I actually didn't. If his control was a bit better he wouldn't need to though."

"Yes, but since he's as young as he is, shouldn't we be teaching him how to perform the jutsus the easy way before we teach him how to do it the hard way?" Yugao asked. "It's a weaker technique, sure, but it's a good place to start until he gets his chakra control up."

Tenzo nodded and Yugao walked back to Naruto as he resummoned the kunai for the millionth time.

"Good job," she smiled. "Ready for the next one?"

He nodded, smiling, and she grinned. Tenzo was right. He would be an interesting student.


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