Chapter 4, this one was even more of a pain than the last. I'm hoping that doesn't become a trend.
The 'Naruto' Franchise, or any other works by Kishimoto, do not belong to me.
Naruto rubbed his temples under his hat. They—the brain cells—were dying by the multiples now.
When he had said to "Teach me something 'useful'.", there was clearly a difference between his and Jiraiya's definition of the word. A very large difference.
First off—he was eight. Not even out of the academy. No shinobi status whatsoever. He didn't even know any basic techniques other than the leaf sticking exercise, led alone any actual attacks.
And yet the man wanted to teach him this?
How many academy students know how to perform A-rank techniques? If one answered 'a minimal to negligible percentage', they would be correct.
Naruto just stared at the white haired sennin, unamused. "When I said 'useful' … I had something else in mind… How is this going to help me?"
Jiraiya's jaw dropped. How could this kid not see this as useful?!
The spiralling blue orb of energy suspending over the man's hand, that had previously been driven through a tree—in order to demonstrate effectiveness, in which it destroyed said tree—fizzled out in a dispersal of chakra.
"Kid; this is the Fourth Hokage's Rasengan! How could it not be useful?!"
Naruto gave the man a deadpan expression. "Oh I don't know? Possibly because I'm only 8? I'm not even a genin yet. Teach me something that will help me. Like—for example—those surface walking techniques; those are more my level, aren't they?"
Jiraiya frowned. He hadn't thought of that. That also meant that summoning was out of the question, didn't it? Damnit.
"Fine, kid… I'll start you on something simple." he picked up a recently fallen leaf off of the road, and handed it to the blonde child. Naruto raised a brow under his hat.
'A leaf?' What exactly was this supposed to help him with?
"I want you to split it—straight down the middle. If it shreds or explodes, try it again. If you can complete that, I'll teach you something 'useful'…" the man directed, grumbling the last part. That should keep him busy for a while. There was no way the kid could split it all the way through, but it did increase control. Maybe he would teach him something like the Kawarimi if he managed to get something close to a clean cut. That was pretty handy.
Naruto stared at the leaf in concentration. It was obviously some sort of chakra exercise. He was only decent with those, but this sounded easy enough. Cut the leaf.
It Immediately shred as soon as his chakra touched it. He blinked.
'Well. This might be a bit challenging…'
4 Hours Later
They were finally coming upon another village, the sun was steadily dropping out the sky; giving way for the moon, and Naruto had been trying to split the leaf for all of about 3 hours between breaks during the walk.
He liked a little challenge, but this was getting slightly ridiculous.
As of yet, every time he picked one up, he had only managed to get the leaf to cut in half. It was a small victory, but it always crumpled after that point, so he couldn't declare a success towards the lecherous toad sage just yet.
Although; he had run into a small problem—he had been stuck in a stalemate for the past 40 minutes. No progress was being made, unlike before.
But the hatted blonde wouldn't give up just yet—however; the toad sennin had other plans.
"Hey kid, we're—well I'm—going to meet a contact in order to help find Tsunade—are you all good?"
Naruto waved his hand dismissively, and dropped the last of his gathered leaf supply. "I'm fine, pervy-frog-san."
Jiraiya's eye twitched, annoyed. "Toads not frogs!"
"They're both amphibious…" Naruto quipped, staring the man down.
"Yeah, well dugongs are mammals, too! Do we look like dugongs?" the white haired sage retorted in a rhetorical question, lightly glaring back at the boy.
Many people on the streets were looking at the man strangely; probably wondering why he was bothering to argue—with a child that looked to be less than a ⅕th his age, and half his size—about frogs and toads.
Naruto shrugged, "Point taken, pervy-toad-san." then proceeded to adjust his hat. "So where will I be while you're off meeting this contact?"
"You will be waiting near, or in, the shop across the street. Buy something if you want, I don't care, but don't wander off or talk to any suspicious strangers." Jiraiya told him, pointing to what must have been the shop he was referring to.
On the other side of the road, a little further down, was—as Naruto had already guessed—a gentleman's club. Yeah… He was definitely going in there to perv-out.
He shrugged his shoulders again. Perverts would be perverts.
Naruto watched him walk to the entrance, turning back to glance at him—his eyes practically reading a warning out, to behave—then disappearing into the building. The blonde breathed a sigh, then made his way over to the lowly occupied shop.
"Please come again!" he heard and someone passed him in the entrance way. A brown haired heavy set man—who he guessed was the cashier—ignored him, and went back to the book he had been reading previously.
Naruto started looking at the wares, having nothing else to do. They were wide in variety as it was a multipurpose shop. Books, household supplies, cooking ingredients, and things of that nature lined the shelves. Since he didn't have any interest in the miscellaneous items, he went over to the bookshelves.
It had a decent selection, nothing as good as the shops in Konoha… but that was to be expected. Naruto picked out a random book in which the title appealed to him, a read a few pages.
It was named the 'The Story of Water Law', about a pirate-surgeon who could cut through anything with his scalpel sharp blade. Cool.
The genre was fiction, and one could tell it was such. For example, what was a Submarine? The author described it as an enclosed ship that could move down below the water. Interesting and creative.
He liked it, and it was rather cheaply priced.
Picking out one of the less worn books from the back, he walked up to the cashier. Knocking on the counter, he placed the book down.
The man looked up from his book, raising a brow, "Do you have the money for this, young man?"
It was a question he got a lot. He held up the toad wallet, and the man nodded. "100 Ryo please."
Naruto already had the money in hand, giving it to the man to let him count it. When he was given the ok, he took his book, and stepped out of the shop to go to the small food bar next door. He was hungry.
15 Minutes Before
Jiraiya—contrary to what might have been believed—was not in fact going in there to give into his manly urges. He was more adult than that—given the situation—and didn't want Naruto to be out there alone for too long. The boy—no matter how 'uneasy' he was—still happened to be the child he was granted the title of godfather to by one of his favorite pupils.
Sitting down in the back seat of the room he had purchased, he waited for his contact. He didn't have to wait long as only a few minute later a lightly curvaceous long haired brunette opened the door. She was dressed in a short light green skirt, and a revealing black tie-top. As she entered, she closed the door behind her, swaying her hips and coming over to sit on his lap.
"Hey handsome~ what do you need in this fine establishment today?"
Jiraiya smirked perversely for a moment, but shook the expression off. This was important, his duty to Sarutobi-sensei.
"I need to know where a certain… debt ridden blonde… happens to be. If you happen to know, miss Azumi?" he asked lowly, starting to massage the young woman's back.
She hummed—nothing about the blonde sennin's current location came to mind. The last she had heard from the traveling merchants in the network, the drunk gambler was somewhere in Tanzaku Gai, south of the small town they were in now—although, that was a few months ago.
The blonde slug summoner tended to move around a lot. It was possible she was still there, but very unlikely.
"The latest I have is that she was in Tanzaku, that was in late autumn… I don't know where she could be now, though…" she lowly groaned at the feeling of his hands. She wished the rest of her clients would do this more often. Working this job was a literal pain in the neck and back…
Jiraiya sighed at the lack of information, but that was to be expected. This pretty much set his next destination to search for her—hopefully she was still there. If not, maybe someone could have clues?
"That said, are you here for the usual company? Or are you on business?" Azumi turned and asked tilting her head in question. Jiraiya finished up his massage, and frowned.
"Unfortunately, the second… The Third requested me to find her. You did hear about the Uchiha Massacre, right?" the brunette nodded, how could she not? The news swept like wind through the Elemental Nations. Most of the other hidden villages were more than likely celebrating about the tragedy.
"Yeah, well, the old man has finally slipped under the pressure of the villagers demands to find and execute the killer… He wants me to find Tsunade to replace him." Jiraiya usually wasn't this loose lipped, even to some of his closest of informants. The only reason he was telling the young woman was because it wasn't exactly important; it would become public within the month, anyway, as he would likely renounce his position far before they even returned with the woman.
Azumi understood, and got up from the man's lap, turning around to give a respectful bow to him. "Well then, Mr. Jiraiya, I wish you luck~." she said her farewell, and with that, she exited the room.
Jiraiya got up after watching the young woman leave. He often wondered why she worked as these kinds of places at all; she was too young, and he knew for a fact that she was smarter than most girls her age. She could even have potential to be a kunoichi.
Though, he guessed that it was her decision to make.
He made his way out of the room, then the building; dropping a few bills in the tip jar on his way out.
Next Morning, 8:00 am
Naruto was really getting irritated with these leaves. He was making progress, but it was so small that it was barely noticeable.
He and Jiraiya had left the village a few hours ago, shortly after waking up, and he had been working on it since.
They had rented a hotel room so that Naruto wouldn't be left to the night, and then Jiraiya went to talk to a few more of his informants just in case they had heard anything more. They didn't.
So now they were heading south, to Tanzaku Gai. A large and very rich town with a long history of being somewhat of a gambling central.
He applied chakra to another leaf. It split only a half of the way, and then stopped. Again. "Hey, pervy-toad-sage; I think this might be a little bit advanced for me…" he dropped the leaf.
Jiraiya looked over at him, and saw the annoyed expression on the boy's face. It made him chuckle. He remembered when Minato did the exercise. It was almost the same for him, except he was much older… and actually knew how to mold chakra decently well.
"Of course it is. You think I would give you something easy? How far along have you come with it, anyway?"
Naruto sighed. "Halfway." to this, the toad sage nodded. A small nick; just like Minato—
"HALFWAY!?" Jiraiya shouted in shock and disbelief. No. That shouldn't have been possible, even Minato couldn't get it until he was around 14!
"Yeah; look…" Naruto took another leaf, and used his chakra to put a split in the leaf. The same as all the others. "See, barely halfway through…" the irritation was palpable.
Jiraiya could barely believe his eyes. This was an elemental chakra exercise; an 8 year old sure as hell shouldn't be able to do it!
The hatted blonde suddenly stopped walking. A revelation was had. Why the heck was the man shouting out like he was in shock—?
"Pervy-pedo; you sound surprised… Did you not expect me to be able to do it?" Naruto narrowed his eyes at the man, his violet-blue orbs locking onto the sennin's own.
"Well… Not really. Maybe just a small nick…" the man admitted, then screamed out when the blonde landed a kick straight up between the man's legs. The man keeled, then dropped to the floor holding his lower regions, and curling into the fetal position.
"Why the hell would you give me it then, asshole?!" Naruto hissed, even more irritated. "What; were you just going to stall me out on this until we could get back to the village?" he continued, glaring at the man who was gritting his teeth in pain on the dirt road.
"No… That was just something meant to keep you occupied until I could figure out what to teach you…" the man groaned, and Naruto's palm was introduced to his face.
'Seriously?'
The man was a sennin. The kind that society claimed knew hundreds of techniques. He wasn't even asking for him to teach him some crazy elaborate jutsu—in fact, he didn't want one! Just something 'useful'. Was that too much to ask?
The brain cells were basically committing suicide at this point.
Unknown Location
"Lady Tsunade!" a voice called out to the large crowd of people in the casino. A short black haired girl in her mid-late teens carrying a small pig passed multiple people playing and betting on card games, slot machines, and the like. She honestly hated this part of her master's life. It was so—self destructive. At least, to the blonde woman's anyway…
She never won, and it was terrible on their budget—which was low to begin with.
A blonde woman raised an arm, sake bottle in hand. By the count of chips… the sennin just went all in.
Shizune groaned, and Tonton made the about same noise.
Whooo-hoo. Please review with any criticism you may have. I strive to improve.