Kk, new chapter of The New Demon. Shit's goin' down! Tsunade and Naruto's fight and the fight betwixt Sannin! Orochimaru had better watch his back, because Naruto is already much stronger than he had been! Naruto is getting too strong now though, too quickly for how I want this story to play out. So, Naruto's gonna get a beat down sometime in the next few chapters, showing that against an enemy who's ready for him and is prepared for his abilities, he can't really do shit yet. Like maybe... Itachi who wasn't seen last chapter for reasons to be explained. Or maybe Kimimaro.

Now, I did a bit of research- prompted by a particularly insightful reviewer- re-read some of the newer chapters and... Naruto is likely to be an epic winning BOSS once they start teaching him sage mode. Because he has a curse seal. Which is derivative from Jugo's clan's ability to take in natural energy to affect changes in their physiology. Yeah, that's right, Jugo's clan's ability to take in natural energy (that stuff you gather for sage mode?) to affect physiological mutation. So yeah, if I decide to give Naruto sage mode, he's gonna be boss at it cause the gathering thing is half-way done already just from that.

This is also the first chapter where Naruto's bloodline gets noticed, and explained. And it is not in any way related to his chakra element, which in and of itself is fairly unique.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter and I'll talk to you in the next A/N, coming soon (hopefully, and barring any setbacks) with the release of the next chapter of And the Universe Fell.

Kuta, out!

Disclaimer: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I do not own any copyrighted intellectual property used in this story or any other I'm currently writing or have written in the past. All rights go to the respective owners of the copyrighted material in question. I make no money from this or any other story I've ever written. Ever.


Chapter Four: In Which Discoveries are Made

Tsunade POV (Third Person Subjective Limited)

Tsunade was a proud woman, regardless of her current less-than-pride-worthy situation in regards to her financial situation, or her living situation in general. This, combined with a stubbornness to equal a bull, rendered her incapable of admitting to being wrong, about much of anything. So when some upstart little brat called her out on disrespect for her own ancestors (whom she had insulted in ways she had viciously killed others for doing) her bull-headed pride wouldn't allow her to admit that she was in the wrong. And she decided to take out her frustrations on the author of their existence, the aforementioned upstart.

Turning once she got into the road (which quickly thereafter cleared, the people occupying it realizing just who was gearing up for a fight) Tsunade graced the boy with a smirk and said. "Since I don't want to kill you, you being Jiraiya's latest charity case, I'll only use one finger." This being said while holding said finger in the air for him to examine, her right index finger. Naruto didn't look amused.

He looked at her in a way that seemed tell Tsunade "That is a really big mistake, and I'm gonna show you why." He moved then and had Tsunade not been a Kage-level ninja for the last decade or two, she'd have probably died in his first attack. His kick shattered the earth beneath his foot, in a manner not dissimilar to her own strength technique. She narrowed her eyes. The speed he'd displayed, and the way he moved combined was indicative of someone who was still fairly new to said speed, even though they were used to it. The strength worried her, had he redeveloped her technique?

Watching him move for a bit and keeping her chakra senses open calmed Tsunade significantly, but at the same time worried her even more. He wasn't using that much chakra to enhance his speed, let alone his strength... But then how was he getting so much force into his attacks? What had Jiraiya done to make him so powerful in so obviously short a time? She flicked him shortly after this, in the forehead to rattle his brain a bit and knock him out long enough for her to examine his musculature and determine what her idiot teammate had done to him.

She wasn't expecting him to roll with the hit, shake his head to clear it and come back for more.


Normal POV

Naruto had expected a bit more pain from one of Tsunade's hits. He'd read about her shattering boulders with a similar flick of her finger. So when he was able to roll with the hit and come out smelling roses (mostly) he figured she was taking it easier on him than he'd already thought she was. Underestimating him even worse. But he was getting a feel for her movements now, seeing the pattern by which she moved. If he and Venom teamed up to take her out it could work... Hell, even the level one curse seal would probably give this out of shape hag a fit. But this was his fight, he was determined to win it without help from outside sources as best he could, or lose it and lose some honor with it.

As he continued to swing at her though, he had to now dodge her own attacks which were harder to dodge than Jiraiya's by wrote of having splash damage as an added factor, and some of those bits of shrapnel were more like kunai or senbon than rocks. That said, most of his time in this fight was now devoted to dodging those than attacking in his own right. And she was still only using that one finger. If he couldn't at least get her to use her whole fist, or maybe the other hand, to block probably... Wait, he still had Kage Bunshin to use, right? And he'd reverted back to his pre-Venom bull-charge tactics... Was he really that worked up?

Jumping back a large distance, and staying there for a second, caused Tsunade to smirk again. "Admitting that you've lost, little boy?" She asked condescendingly.

"Oh, not at all, hag." He spat back venomously. "We're merely about to start actually using our head. We've been fighting, so far, like an academy student on his first day, no distractions to draw your eye, no Kawarimi no Jutsu, not even a single thrown kunai or elemental ninjutsu, just a straight up taijutsu match." Tsunade frowned at that, the entire time he'd been holding back? That couldn't be right, she could feel the rage behind the blows she dodged, he practically radiated killing intent. If he had been holding out on the fight then she was the Shichidaime Tsuchikage. Naruto chuckled at her frown before continuing. "All in an ill-thought up attempt to beat you where you thrive, combat wise. Taijutsu. Well, seeing as we obviously can't win that way, we thought it would be best to fight you like we prefer to. Strategically."

With that, Naruto made a few seal-less clones and sent them of to fight her while he watched. It was a whole-sale slaughter. The first clone hit, not knocking her out but giving her a hell of a migraine. After that she started up the mining imitation again, digging up more earth and rock per swing than most miner's did in three hours.

It was a total reversal. The shrapnel he couldn't even feel popped his clones like he did a rubber ball during his... Well, if he toned down the power and made enough clones to cover which of him was the real one, he could probably at least force her to use her other hand at least. Making the requisite clones and signaling to one of them via whistle to hang back, Naruto and his various clones started to charge up Rasengan, he had currently gotten the charge time down to a fraction of a second and once it was fully charged he could keep it as such with only one hand, before charging.


General POV:

Tsunade's eyes widened, the boy could actually use that technique? He hadn't mastered it yet, but it was nearly battle ready... Maybe she had been mistaken about his skill level? No, Jiraiya had probably baby-stepped him through the whole process. And he was still only charging his clones in. She'd just take them all out with shrapnel and pound his face in a bit more forcefully than she needed to do to knock him out.

Tapping the ground with her finger, she smirked as the clones almost all popped... Until she realised that the sound of the Rasengan had only lessened, not vanished entirely. Suddenly, there was a Naruto in her face, smirking victoriously as he thrust his left hand forward, keeping his dominant right hand, and the Rasengan in it, hidden behind his back in such a way as seem unintentional.

She diverted the deathball with a poke and, while briefly distracted by a split-second of watching it, nearly missed him bring his right hand forward for the follow up. Grabbing it in her left hand, she threw him to the left, watching the clone she'd been sure was the real one poof away, and taking an axe kick to the shoulder, glancingly, for her trouble.

And now he was smirking at her. "What's so amusing? You think that just because you landed one glancing blow that I wont even feel tomorrow, that this fight is decided?"

He just smirked even wider before pulling a passable imitation of herself. "'Since we don't want to kill you, we'll only use one finger,' right? You used the entire arm on the opposite side of your proclaimed finger. Even though we can't smash your face in, not without a huge distraction and pulling out all our aces at once, this is still our victory." He chuckled and let the smirk drop, it felt unnatural. "You're better than we were willing to give you credit for, but if fighting and healing are all you know how to do, than even Konohamaru would be a better Hokage, and he isn't even in the Academy yet. All you're thinking of is you. The Hokage has to think of the village first and foremost. None of the men who've ever bore the title would think of their sacrifice as a waste or regret even a minute of it. And that's a big part of the reason they were chosen as such."

He seemed to realize that he was ranting, and he chuckled a bit, sheepishly, and gave a small sigh. "But even so, you're probably the best chance we've got as a Hokage. Ero-sensei would make a good one, if we could ever get him to be serious, but there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening and the only other candidate I can even think of would be Kakashi-sensei, but he'd probably be just as lazy in that position as he usually is as my Jounin-sensei." And then he looked down at the ground for a bit before looking back to her, ready to finally to be done talking, especially since this was going to really hurt his pride. "So tell me, what can I do to make you come back with us?"

Tsunade was severely confused now. This kid was a veritable enigma! First he's some overconfident, albeit powerful, punk who has too much strength to be natural, then he's a strategic wiz with too much chakra to not be a bit of a threat in a fight given the aforementioned strength, then he's some philosopher, then he's a Nawaki clone (which hurt sooo much), and now he's prostrating himself like this and... And... 'And he has too much of a point for me not to at least give them a small chance.' She thought ruefully, with a sigh.

She gave it bit of though before answering him, briefly considering asking him to complete the Rasengan in a week. She discarded that thought quickly, as she had seen how close to mastering it he was. Then she hit upon a gem of an idea. "How far along are you in your elemental reconstitution training?" She asked, and had a mild amount of satisfaction over his confusion. "Oh? So, my teammate hasn't even trained you in that yet? I thought he would have since you were saying you had some elemental jutsu and those are his specialty, outside of espionage."

"What the? Elemental what now?" Was his not quite eloquent response. Turning to the Toad Sage of Myobokuzan, Naruto yelled. "Oi, Ero-sensei, what the hell is this reconstitution business?"

Tsunade was very amused by by the argument that seemed to be brewing there, before getting her head back in the game. "Wait, you mean you don't even know what it is?" She was honestly a little more than surprised by that, he'd seemed so confident in his boast of an elemental jutsu repertoire. Surely he would have at least known he could make his own and make them seal-less if he mastered it, right? Any Chunin..."What rank are you?"

Jiraiya went to make a shushing motion, which Tsunade took note of, but Naruto wasn't paying attention to him any more. "I'm a Genin, just graduated about... Eight? Yeah, about eight months ago. Would be a Chunin if that snake-fuck Orochimaru hadn't killed the Old Man and made it so no one can be promoted till the new Hokage is instated."

Tsunade instantly turned on Jiraiya, giving him a look full of promises of pain. "You taught a fresh Genin a technique like the Rasengan? What the hell were you thinking you-"


Hours later, after a full explanation- and on Jiraiya's part, a large amount of blunt force trauma- Tsunade looked to be in a much better mood. "Okay, so as I was saying, I'm gonna make a bet with you. Win it and I'm the Godaime. Lose and you'll have to watch me and Shizune walk away with every ryou you had on you when it is determined you'd lost. Deal?" She proposed, grinning. He gave her a nod, silent and serious. "You've got two weeks, and only two weeks, from right this second to master the first step of the elemental reconstitution training as I define it." She pulled out a strip of paper from... Somewhere, Naruto wasn't sure exactly where, and handed it to him. "Before you start though, you'll have to find out what your elemental affinity first. Channel your chakra into that and it'll do one of five things, ignite, become moist, crumble into dust. crinkle up into a ball or be cut as if by a blade."

Naruto nodded and did as instructed, with an interesting result by everyone who watched. It started of somewhat small, a tear near the center of the top half of the strip. But it didn't stop there, it built slowly, the first tear widening and more tears appearing until the strip was ripped to a dozen tiny pieces which then crumpled into even tinier balls which promptly took to moistening enough to leave wet spots on the ground, looking for all the world like a group of spit balls.

Tsunade looked at the spit balls that weren't spit balls that were the only indication of the slips former existence, then to Naruto, and then back down again. She sighed in exasperation. "Great," She thought, marginally put out by this turn of events. "He's one of those types that are as much of a bitch to train as they are to kill once they do get trained."

She turned to Jiraiya and said straight to his face. "You know, somehow, this is all your fault." She then turned back to Naruto."Okay so you have three elemental affinities; wind, lightning and water. Wind is your strongest, seeing as it manifested itself first, lightning is, contradictorily since it's weak to wind and thus not easy to learn for most who have wind as an affinity, your next strongest affinity. Water is your weakest. We'll focus on making your strong points even stronger and start with your wind affinity." She motioned for him to follow as she turned to walk away, which Naruto did.

She lead him and, by proxy, Jiraiya and Shizune, to a somewhat forested area somewhat near the town, and more importantly, their hotel.

"Right then, you brat, the first step in the wind branch of this training is to cut up a leaf in a way that is similar to how your piece of paper got cut to ribbons. Most ninja only go for cutting it in half, and then move on to adding power, which I define as the third step."

She then pointed him towards a tree. "Get cracking, brat. This step alone has been known to take four months on average, and a month at the least. If you want to get this done in two weeks, you've got to work like you've never worked before." She grinned, knowing that while it was theoretically possible for a human to get this step down that quickly, it would take a Nara's intellect, a Hyuuga's insight and Maito Guy's determination and stamina to do it. So far as Tsunade'd seen, he only had the latter and neither of the others.

Naruto grinned at her and made a hand seal that she had thought she wouldn't see. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." He intoned. She was utterly shocked when the smoke cleared from her vision and she saw an amount of Naruto's that had to be in excess of two-hundred, all making for this or that tree. And her chakra sense told her, now that she was bothering to actively pay attention to it for the purposes of finding out why he thought this was a good idea, that they all had about the chakra reserves of a fairly experienced Chunin.

"We'll get this done in your time limit, Tsunade-san, and when we do... Well we just hope you're one to honor a bet made amongst comrades." One of them told told her as he climbed up a tree to collect a leaf.

Tsunade realized at about that moment that she had likely made a large miscalculation about the amount of time he'd need for this. With what intellect he had and how much insight he would get from his clones as well, as the determination and stamina that he'd already shown her, it was likely that he'd actually be able to completely master the training within the time-frame she'd specified. Easily even, if he'd nearly mastered the Rasengan which was one of the most chakra control intensive jutsu in existence, in less than a month. This didn't require even half so much control, just knowing how you were supposed to manipulate the chakra.


It was the second day of his wind elemental training and Naruto- well one of the clones actually, not that such a fact really mattered when it came to Kage Bunshin as they were all essentially the same person- was trying to think of a way to even cut the leaf once in the first place, much like all the others. 'Well, how do blacksmiths make a cutting edge?' Was that particular clones first thought, before slowly remembering something he'd heard from Kanaro. 'They grind it, right? Two surfaces, mostly flat, grinding against each other. Only they have to worry about material strength and blade thickness. Man, talking to Kanaro-san when I'm bored sure can come up with some nice advantages when I'm training later.' And with that thought the clone began his work, the process having taken all of three minutes. With the somewhat vague idea of grinding the chakra flow coming from his hands against one another in mind, it still took that clone six and a half hours to figure out how to form a precision cut in the leaves rather than a chewed up mess that looked like someone had just taken a hack saw to it.

The clone then looked up gleefully at the others, presumably including the real Naruto, and called out to them. "Oi, guys, we got the secret to making the cuts, here, let us dispel, then we can all work on adding to the cuts!"


That clones breakthrough, inspired as it was, was still only a moderate jump in the process. They could form a cut now. They still had to work out the bugs of adding more cuts, a bit of spatial reconstruction as well as elemental reconstitution. They also needed to work on the speed at which they did so, to make it battle ready (i.e. making sure he was capable of using chakra flow to increase the combat ability of his kunai and shuriken and that he could use what elemental jutsu he had that were below B-rank seallessly) and master it as Tsunade had demanded and that took him the rest of his given two weeks, as did his full mastering of the Rasengan. Clones were damn useful for chakra control training like that.

And these two acts combined had given Naruto an idea, a terrible, awful idea. One that would have to wait, since his... Venom called it 'spider-sense' because it was the ability of man who had spider-like abilities and that was how the man had referred to it. Weird. Anyway, his spider-sense was telling him that something was about to crash into him. He back flipped over whatever it was and took a ready stance. Jiraiya, sprawled out on the floor, panting and sweating like Naruto had never seen him and looking like death after it had been warmed up four times and refrozen three times.

'What could have done this to him Venom? All our sparring sessions and he never looks even vaguely taxed, and all of a sudden he's coming through here looking like he just fought Sanshouo no Hanzo again, all by himself!' Naruto though to the symbiote, hoping that it had an explanation.

'Aside from exhaussstion or sssome sssort of dissseassse, neither of which ssseem likely, I would sssay poissson.' Came his reply, after a moment or so of thought. 'And the only perssson near to him who could ssslip him one, given hisss high ssskill level, would be Tsssunade.' The voice in Naruto's head continued.

Naruto, not really so surprised that the old lush would renege on their deal, went to help the man to his feet and ran to get him some water before he could say anything. Upon his return the old pervert was sitting on the ground again, looking just as exhausted as before. Giving Jiraiya the water he'd retrieved for him, Naruto was about to sit by his side and ask what had prompted Tsunade's betrayal when he heard a knock at the door.

"Go get that, would you brat? I would but I'm not in any condition to." Jiraiya said, and Naruto complied, mostly because what Jiraiya had said was true.

After going over to and opening the door, about to give a polite greeting to whomever was on the other side, Naruto came up short when Shizune pushed past him and rushed over to Jiraiya.

Naruto reacted immediately and without thought. Shizune, as the apprentice of the woman who had poisoned the old toad summoner, was obviously trying to go in for the kill now. He allowed Venom to encompass him in the suit that he'd spent the rough two months since the Sandaime's death training in his off time to get used to as he drew a kunai and flowed his wind natured chakra through it, a task made moderately difficult by the fact that the kunai wasn't made of chakra conductive metal and therefore was minutely resisting his efforts. He moved, almost too fast for Jiraiya to catch in his debilitated state, and had the kunai to her throat in an instant.

For Shizune's part, it actually was to fast to keep up with. One moment she had been rushing forward to tell Jiraiya that Tsunade had gone off to meet with Orochimaru, the next she had a kunai being held to her throat by a man in all black, heavy looking- vaguely ANBU-esque as well- armor and a skintight suit of some sort. And he had teeth like daggers and a tongue like a snake.

"Stay away from him, answer all our questions, and we may just let you live." Naruto said, injecting all the killing intent and malice he could into his voice, which sounded really... Evil as it was anyway.

Shizune trembled a bit, scared of the monstrous being who had her so clearly beaten from a physical standpoint, before Jiraiya interrupted.

"Naruto? What the hell? You've never done that before! And what's with the spider motif on your back?" He exclaimed, very much surprised and his priorities a little wacky in his slight delirium.

"Not now, Ero-sensei, we've got a possible traitor to Konoha to interrogate." Naruto rebutted, keeping a firm hand on his kunai and keeping the kunai itself on Shizune's neck, the wind chakra coating it only just nicking her neck.

Shizune gulped as she considered her situation, Naruto was clearly highly suspicious of her, which she could only see as reasonable. After all, the only people who he knew of in the area who could reduce Jiraiya to the state she could she him in were Tsunade and Orochimaru, and with Jiraiya having spent all last night drinking with Tsunade...

Shizune did a brief review of her options, as she saw them. The first being to try to reason with him, which had fifty-fifty odds of working, seeing as he might view it as her resisting his interrogations. The second was to actually resist and attempt to get away, an unlikely scenario to succeed in, given how fast he had shown he was. Or number three, surrender and answer all his questions, after which he might kill her anyway just to be certain.

This was the point, however, where Jiraiya intervened.

"Whoa, brat, let up on the 'hardened shinobi' shtick. She's in the clear, wasn't even in the same area as Tsunade and me all night, and Tsunade only slipped me whatever drug she slipped me about five minutes back." He said, seeming more annoyed then frightened.

Naruto frowned, unintentionally making his already decidedly terrifying visage even more dreadful, before having venom retract into a less noticeable form, a skintight body suit similar to that of the standard ANBU uniform. He removed the knife from Shizune's throat and moved back, allowing the medic to relax, and pocketed it.


Five minutes later, after having given Jiraiya some time to recover and Shizune the time to explain the situation with Tsunade and Orochimaru, Naruto Shizune and the aforementioned Toad Sennin were rushing to the meeting point. Upon their arrival however they were witness to Tsunade losing a taijutsu match to...

"Kabuto?" Naruto asked, a little confused but slowly coming to the realization that the man was a spy.

Kabuto himself seemed surprised and Orochimaru seemed downright stunned. Muttering to himself to quietly for Naruto to hear, the snake seemed to work himself into a frenzy before launching himself at Naruto. Thankfully for Naruto, who knew damn well that even a handicapped Sannin was too much for him currently based on just experience and raw power comparisons alone, Jiraiya intervened and took their fight to another area of the field.

Naruto sighed a bit in relief and turned to face Kabuto, seeing that he was still looking at Naruto and muttering to himself under his breath. "We hadn't pegged you for a traitor, but then We guess that's what you were trying to achieve in the first place." Naruto said to Kabuto before sighing and gave a halfhearted shrug. He then activated his curse seal at level one and allowed Venom to encapsulate his head once more in a psychotically grinning mask. "Whatever, let's do this, traitor. We've got better things to do with my time then pussyfoot around with a asshat like you."

Kabuto seemed a bit taken aback by the insults, and with the power Naruto was radiating, but shook it off and took up a taijutsu stance. Naruto grinned and launched himself at the traitorous iryo-nin, beginning a flurry of close quarters combat that Naruto found himself losing in.

"Kabuto's obviously highly skilled," Naruto thought to himself as he launched a snap kick at the Iryo-nin's exposed back as he was falling that, if it were to connect would likely break the man's spine near the neck, only for him to contort in mid air, lay a hand on Naruto's thigh and push off with a victorious smirk on his face. "I'll need to take this to the next level, Kyuubi's chakra, if I want to gain the speed I'm gonna need to finish him."

"Hossst." Came the sibilant hissing voice of Venom from the echoing depths of Naruto's mind. "The betrayer attempted to forccce a blade of chakra into you with hisss hand jussst now. It collasssped into free floating chakra and wasss absssorbed when it came into contact with the chakra coursssing through your body jussst below the ssskin."

Naruto frowned at that... If he could do that and in fact didn't even realize he was doing it... the Why did Neji's Jyuuken work in the Chuunin Exam Finals? Maybe fully bonding with Venom had activated some sort of kekkei genkai? He'd have to see if Tsunade or someone else could check and see for him.

But before that, Kabuto was closing in again, still with that stupid smirk on his face. Naruto shifted his center of balance and allowed the weight of his kick to spin him off to the left while bringing his torso parallel to the ground and hopping with his other foot. This act allowed him to corkscrew himself into the air above Kabuto as he over-committed to his attack.

As he came down Naruto prepared his strongest C-rank wind release ninjutsu- a Futon: Daitoppa no Jutsu that had within it a number of dangerous cutting blades- seallessly as he created a clone to use his only fire element technique- a very much underpowered (due to his wind element he now knew) Katon: Gokkakyu no Jutsu- in a combination jutsu.

As he released his techniques though, he saw Shizune trying to run up behind his target, something he hadn't been expecting. But clearly, Kabuto had at least been expecting Naruto to use some sort of ranged technique, because he dodged Naruto's combination technique leaving a surprised Shizune to take it's full brunt... were it not for Naruto using some of the Kyuubi's chakra to get there in time and take the shot for her.

For her part Shizune just looked at him in shock, utterly shocked that he had both the skill to perform such an attack, and the willingness to protect a veritable stranger such as her.

Kabuto, however, found Naruto's selflessness to be an amusing weakness and chuckle insultingly at him as he charged him from his blind spot.

This was part of Naruto's- admittedly hastily put together- plan, though. Naruto had his spider-sense, and the Kyuubi's chakra had protected him from the fire-storm he'd made. Naruto knew where Kabuto was, almost knew what he was going to do, and was nowhere near as damaged as Kabuto was expecting.

As Kabuto made a slash at Naruto's seemingly exposed back, Naruto bent backwards till his torso was parallel to the ground and grabbed Kabuto's attacking wrist and twisted it till it broke. He then flipped his legs up while tucking them in before uncoiling them with all his strength, nearly ripping Kabuto's arm from it's socket, before he let go and launched the traitor into a rock on the far side of the room.

Shizune, gasped, drawing Naruto's attention to her. Her eyes were wide and she was covering her mouth with her hand. Naruto followed her gaze and saw something that gave him a grim determination to do something incredibly stupid. Orochimaru was about to stab Tsunade through the chest with a sword that was protruding from his mouth.

Requesting the chakra of his demon again, Naruto was encapsulated in a glowing chakra shroud once more, and vanished in a blur of red as his second level curse seal activated and he moved to fast for even Jiraiya who was chasing after Orochimaru to see. Naruto didn't really think about what he was doing, just reacted on gut instinct and years of methodical indoctrination by Konoha, to protect the woman who was- in his mind at least- the leader of the village, it's pillar of insurmountable strength.

He attempted his latest jutsu, and through sheer instinct used it with his somewhat fledgling elemental reconstitution abilities. The combination of three very different, but also very potent chakra sources- his own, the Kyuubi's, and the strange chakra that he almost wouldn't feel were it not coursing through him- being molded into a sharp cutting wind might have been enough to block Orochimaru's blade. If Naruto hadn't gotten overconfident and actually paid attention to the fact that Orochimaru hadn't quite lost track of him. Naruto was stabbed through the lung for his trouble.

As he went through the process of blacking out, Naruto saw Tsunade stand up. He would have grinned at the determination he saw in her eyes, had he the energy to move.


When he woke again, Naruto was lying in a room he recognized as the one he and Jiraiya had paid for in their hotel, his chest ached a bit and he thanked both the Yondaime and Venom for his advanced healing. He had learned from the alien that he could direct the Kyuubi's chakra somewhat not long before they found Tsunade and had a feeling that he'd helped out Naruto with his lethal injury.

He sat up and gave a direct thank you to Venom, getting a feeling of gratitude back along their mental connection, something that Naruto had no idea was even possible. It was at this moment that Tsunade walked in, stopping and staring at Naruto for a moment before getting bumped into by Jiraiya who had been following her. She was frozen for a second as Jiraiya began to question her sudden stop before he too grew silent as he noticed Naruto, who was now getting out of the bed he'd been put in. A task made more arduous then it should have been since it seemed his blood had soaked into the bandages around his chest and gut which had then adhered to the bed.

Tsunade finally seemed to snap out of her daze and rushed over and began to run a what Naruto assumed was a diagnostic jutsu of some sort over him. She frowned for some reason, and began again only for the frown to deepen. "Dammit, it's still happening." She ground out before looking at him sharply. "You, tell me how you're doing this. Now."

Naruto frowned at her and tried to think of what she could mean. When he couldn't, Naruto replied. "We have no idea, what you mean, we're not doing anything, breathing aside."

"Then how the hell are you absorbing my medical chakra?" She bit out, startling Naruto at her vehemence. "When I tried to run a diagnostic on you after we'd run off Orochimaru I couldn't get a read on you because you were absorbing the technique's chakra! I thought maybe it was some sort of defense that the seal or your Bijuu gave you, or maybe some sort of thing that happened when you were unconscious, but you're still doing it and I can't check if you're healthy enough to move or not!"

Naruto was shocked... He could absorb chakra now? Hadn't Venom mentioned something like that in the fight against Kabuto? He hadn't felt his chakra increase, but that might just have been because medical jutsu used comparatively less chakra and reserves were so huge that he couldn't feel the relatively miniscule increase? He gave it some thought and then asked for a kunai.

"Why?" Was Tsunade's somewhat suspicious reply. "What do you need it for?"

"Well, I've gotten the wind reconstitution done, at the first level at least. I want to see if the absorption works on other types of chakra, or just medical chakra... It might be some sort of bloodline? I don't know how I'm doing it but that's one potential explanation." Tsunade seemed reluctant to do so, but Naruto's reason was fairly sound for an active combat shinobi.

Naruto took the kunai with a somber nod. This absorption ability could be an incredible if he could learn to deactivate it, or a terrible curse if he couldn't, preventing any Iryo-nin from healing him if his regeneration- for whatever reason- wasn't enough. He channeled his wind chakra down the length of the blade and extended it's range by about eighteen centimeters. He then slowly moved it down across his arm. It broke the skin, causing some bleeding, but when he could feel it was only a minor scratch. He sighed and handed the kunai back.

He laid back in the bed and thought about a way to try and turn off the absorption. He asked Venom. 'Well, hossst, it isss your energy yesss? You have been training to control it for yearsss. Try to limit or ssstop the flow of it beneattth your ssskin. It may work or... It may not, it isssn't like I'm an exxxpert on chakra.' Naruto gave a nod and yet more thanks, before returning his attention to his surroundings.

"I've got an idea." He stated confidently, interrupting some sort of argument between Tsunade and Jiraiya. "I was feeling out my chakra in more detail... There's currently a fair amount flowing just under my skin over my entire body." That stopped them, and they waited while Naruto tried to give words to the theory he'd just come up with and the solution Venom had provided. "I think it's density is... Breaking up chakra that is less dense than my own and carrying it away into my coils. But with medical chakra there's only a little for me to absorb. So little I didn't even notice when I absorbed Kabtuo's Chakra no Mesu or your diagnosis technique." They all nodded, a bit at a loss.

"But," Naruto continued. "If I can learn to stop the flow of chakra under the skin and force it all into my coils, I could- feasibly- stop the absorption in everywhere but my coils themselves, thus allowing an Iryo-nin to examine anywhere but there, right?" And they nodded. It was a well thought out hypothesis, and if it worked then he'd be mostly normal since damage to the coils was more or less impossible to heal even for Tsunade, and people who took that sort of damage usually died soon after anyway.

They left for Konoha the next day, and Naruto was looking forward to training his wind element further, after he got his absorption under control. But when he got back... Everything would change.

End~


Alright, chapter four is up. Things are moving along and I'm not gonna spoil exactly how Naruto's bloodline came about, but suffice it to say that the Namikaze genes interacted with the Uzumaki 'powerful chakra' to create it.

Cookies to those who guess what's gonna be the biggest change when they get to Konoha.

Kuta, out!