Unknown Land, Secret Senju-Uzumaki Room
Over two hours had passed since Naruto had arrived in the room. He had been completely absorbed in the task of reading the journal he found.
When he at last reached the end, he stared at the stone toad statue.
There was shock, sadness, and pride all mixed together. So much had been revealed in that journal that he could never have even begun to imagine. Such was the impossibility of his legacy: he had descended from the first ninja to walk the land, the Sage of Six Paths.
When he encountered the journal and the scroll, he had immediately gone to the scroll because finding a seal technique that would be helpful to Zabuza was a more pressing matter. But when he opened the scroll, he found that there were three simple storage seals which each held a scroll within. They were labeled as such: Legacy of the Sage of Six Paths, Uzumaki, and Techniques to defeat Madara.
He was interested first in the "Techniques to defeat Madara", but somehow, the Legacy of Sage of Six Paths drew him to it instead. There was this strange feeling that he should read that first, and so he did.
When he did so, the text seemed like a ridiculous myth. He skimmed it over quickly and found that it contained the story of the Ten-Tailed beast and how the Sage of Six Paths sealed it into the Moon, splitting its chakra into the nine tailed beasts of today. There was also this strange explanation of the Rinnegan which the Sage of Six Paths possessed, and the true nature of chakra, or so it claimed.
Everything in it seemed so far detached from contemporary ninja world that he couldn't really believe it, so he stopped reading it. He would give it more attention when he had the time. Instead, he began reading the journal; it could perhaps give him insight as to who left this behind and for what purpose.
But now, after emerging from his stupor at the end of the journal, he almost felt scared of this Madara Uchiha person the journal was talking about. Apparently, the writer of the journal—whose name Naruto never found on the journal—was an Uzumaki whom Madara approached. He had offered to give the author of the journal the legendary Rinnegan, if he would help Madara in his plans. He had accepted Eventually the author realized how evil Madara was and decided that he had to defeat him. But Madara appeared so powerful that not even acquiring the Rinnegan would help him to defeat the man. As a result, he abandoned Madara, and didn't attempt to acquire the Rinnegan because the one step involved could potentially cause war between the Leaf and the Whirling Tides.
The Uzumaki was too ashamed to tell anyone else of his relationship with Madara, because he had already done some unspeakable crimes and so resolved to become strong enough to defeat Madara. He came to the conclusion that the only way was to acquire a power that even Madara did not have access to, a power achieved through hard work and not only bloodlines and such. This was something called "Sage Arts", which was apparently a power fueled by "Sage Chakra", which consisted of normal Yin and Yang chakra mixed with Nature chakra. To the Uzumakis, Nature chakra was also known by another name, "Blood Yang". This piece of information was actually also in the other scroll Naruto read, Legacy of the Sage. Apparently, the key to the Sage Arts was learning to be "dead". Normally, all humans possess only normal Yin and Yang chakra, which is supposed to be the energy of life. However, there also exists a second type of chakra in nature, which the Uzumakis called "Blood Yin" and "Blood Yang". This is a chakra that cannot be accessed without first "dying", or becoming fully in sync with nature. The basis of the Sage Arts was learning to manipulate Blood Yang in the body freely. The interesting part of all this, was that the Uzumaki clan and the Senju clan apparently both had a natural connection to "Blood Yang". This was because this chakra could also be passed down through the generations, similar to a bloodline. However, what was passed down only circulated within the blood, and not the chakra circuit. This was because blood cells are dead when they mature, so they could carry such chakra, hence the name given to them. But in this state, the chakra cannot be used for Jutsu because all chakra requires both Yin and Yang natures, which the Senju and Uzumaki lacked because did not have access to Blood Yin. Over time, some of the characteristics of the chakra seeped through to the normal chakra system. Originally, the two sons of the Sage of Six Paths were each given Blood Yin and Blood Yang. The elder brother, who also received the eyes of the Sage, carried the Blood Yin, which was fueled by intense emotion and spirituality. Thus, the Uchiha clan ended up developing techniques capable of controlling other living things forcibly through strong will power, as well as their affinity to fire, which had a symbolic connection to rage and intense desire. On the other hand, the younger brother who received the chakra of the Sage went on to found the Senju clan. Since their chakra was already powerful, the vitality of Blood Yang eventually caused them to manifest very strongly any traits they already possessed, such as extreme affinities to a particular nature. When the Senju clan split with the Uzumaki clan, the Uzumaki clan had gained the basic characteristic of Blood Yang, which was vitality. They thus became known as the clan of longevity, living unnaturally long lifespans.
Through experimentation, it was found that Blood Yang could be harnessed and mixed with normal chakra to produce Sage chakra through a perfect emulation of death. It was necessary to be in a death-like state of complete non-movement and synchronization with nature when drawing the chakra into the system. Once in the system, this chakra could be controlled and mixed with normal chakra to produce Sage Chakra. If there is not enough control when mixing the chakra, however, the unrefined Blood Yang would begin to take over the normal chakra and force its characteristics on anything it touched. The result? Turning into a stone statue, because living things are not supposed to be able to contain Blood Yang. The Uzumaki's natural connection to Blood Yang did not help them. Only one person succeeded, and he gained such immense strength that he could lift mountain, gained jutsu capable of destroying a mountain, and gained a body so strong it couldn't be crushed by a mountain. Every other person that attempted it failed and became a statue. For this reason, all attempts to harness the energy were stopped, and it was deemed a forbidden jutsu never to be spoken of again. In desperation, this Uzumaki decided to try it to gain the power necessary to match Madara and his "Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan", which the Uzumaki wrote had probably come as a result of manipulating Blood Yin, somehow, but he did not know.
However much the Uzumaki needed it, he too failed and the toad statue in the room was proof of that.
How powerful could Madara be that only this kind of power could "match" him?
The thought was scary. And there was no guarantee that it would actually match him. According to the journal, Madara hadn't lost to Hashirama Senju as the legend goes, but instead manipulated the First Hokage into a fight in order to gain access to his powers, somehow. Naruto shuddered to think what such a person would be capable of doing to the world.
But then he realized that if Madara was supposed to be one of the founders of Konoha as the journal claimed, then he was certain to be dead by now. Thinking about this, he then remembered the reason he was interested in the "Techniques to defeat Madara" scroll: he needed to find sealing techniques and report to Zabuza.
Maybe I should check out the Uzumaki scroll first. Madara's a person anyway, so that scroll probably won't have what I'm looking for.
Opening the Uzumaki scroll this time, he realized that it had no techniques in it whatsoever. It was just a history of the clan, which he would have to peruse at some later time.
Damn, I guess that means I won't be learning any Uzumaki techniques…
As he sealed the Uzumaki scroll back in and unsealed the final scroll, he resisted the feeling of pall that crept up. Certainly, he had already discovered incredible things today. But if he couldn't find any useful sealing techniques, there was a good chance that Zabuza would refuse to teach him anything. Then again, according to the journal, Madara was once capable of summoning the Nine-Tails before he was defeated and Mito Uzumaki sealed it within herself. So, there was still hope.
Naruto read the list of techniques quickly. It was quite short, probably because there wasn't really any way to actually counter Madara. He was practically invincible.
The very last technique on the list caught his eye. It was meant as a countermeasure for when Madara reacquired and summoned the Nine-Tails. Called the "Four Symbols Seal", it was apparently most likely to be the same technique used by Mito Uzumaki to seal the Nine-Tails in herself, being a slight modification from an original Uzumaki seal with the same "even-nature". Naruto couldn't quite understand what that meant, but if the Hidden Mist continued to use the same seal provided to them by the Uzumaki long ago, then it could very well be the seal this one was based off of. Thus, a good understanding of this seal would provide Naruto with the first step toward finding the means of taking down the fourth Mizukage.
That would have to do for now. After all, there wasn't any other remotely helpful technique.
Thinking that he should finish examining the Legacy of the Sage and the Uzumaki scrolls, the Naruto-clone created a new clone with enough chakra to last for a few more hours and left it to its task. Then the first clone looked at the seal on the ground that looked very similar to the one he saw in the room he came from.
Uzushio, Sealed Room
"So, any luck?" said Zabuza while glaring any the Naruto-clone that returned.
"Yes. I think I know what your Mizukage's seal is. That means I should be able to find weaknesses and potentially prevent him from using the Three-Tails' chakra. I'll need to thoroughly study seals though, but this is pretty big."
"In other words…you don't have a technique that can stop him, right?"
"Hey, I just told you, this is a big step forward. I might not have a technique ready right now, but I'm sure I'll come up with something now that I know what seal the Fourth has on him, assuming your claim that the Hidden Mist still uses the same seal the Uzumaki gave them is correct. Have you actually seen it before? Can you tell me what it looked like?"
"I can only give a vague description. It was circular with four lines outside, or something like that," Zabuza responded.
"Perfect! I'm almost certain that it's the one I just learned about," the Naruto-clone replied happily.
"Tch, let's get going then. Is there anywhere you need to go to help you find the technique you need?" Zabuza asked while motioning towards the door.
"No. I'll have to learn more about seals by myself, or from my current jounin-sensei. The boss will take care of that. What does the rebellion's timeframe look like?" Naruto said as he pushed open the door.
"It will be over a year before the rebels have enough power to seriously consider attempting a full rebellion."
The group of three slowly walked towards the way they came to the room, to the island coast.
"Hey, you said before that you needed money to finance the rebel forces. With Gatou dead, why didn't you just take money from his bank account?" Naruto asked curiously. He knew that Gatou was extremely rich.
"If it were that easy, then how do you think Gatou managed to stay alive for so long? Ninja don't mess with the banking system, because it's critical to allow the ninja system to function in the first place. If you assassinate someone rich and take his money, then for a nukenin, your bounty will skyrocket to become probably the biggest in the bingo book because the daimyo will see you as a threat to his country's core military and economic power."
"Oh, I never thought of that. So that means our other goal besides training should be to acquire more money just like before, right? How should we do that?"
"Seeing as working for hire didn't work well, the only choice is bounty hunting."
Just as they reached the boat they arrived on, Naruto spoke out.
"Hold on, if we're going to go bounty hunting, that means we'll have to fight, which means I might get dispelled. You still haven't taught me any defensive jutsu yet, so why don't we train right here? There's plenty of water, and hunter-nin won't be able to find us here, right?"
Zabuza turned around and look at the Naruto-clone for a moment before saying, "Fine, I did agree to train you."
Konoha
Where will I find someone to teach me taijutsu? I can't ask too much of Kakashi, since I need to learn sealing from him.
Naruto walked aimlessly around Konoha while planning his future actions. After the C-rank turned A-rank mission, Team 7 was given a short day off. As such, Naruto was left with nothing to do, since Shikamaru would be on missions, and it would be difficult to train taijutsu by himself.
He took this time to simply think while walking around, letting his clones train his Stone Armor Jutsu and Water Walking combined with the Leaf Concentration exercise.
The trip with Zabuza to the Whirling Tides had proven far more valuable than he had ever imagined. Assuming the veracity of the stuff written in the Legacy of the Sage scroll, he could potentially become incredibly powerful, if he played his cards right. The one problem was that even if he could acquire the legendary "Rinnegan" by following the instructions on the scroll, there was no way to know how to use it. There hadn't been an explanation of what the doujutsu could actually do. Thus, he would have to relegate its acquisition to a low priority. Thus, his main priorities at the moment consisted of the following: becoming better at taijutsu to raise the effectiveness of his clones, figuring out a way to exploit the Four Symbols Seal for Zabuza after learning advanced sealing techniques, mastering the Stone Armor Jutsu, and lastly…getting ready for the Chuunin exams that would probably be in a month or so.
After that A-rank mission, Kakashi was very likely to nominate Team 7 for the exams. Naruto knew that there were often spectators during the exams, including Kage from foreign countries. This would be the best time to reveal his true personality and skills, as that would be necessary at some point if he wanted to be Hokage. And what better time than when all sorts of important figures would be watching? He would have to become a lot stronger, and also get some new clothes more fitting of his soon-to-be Hokage image. He would need a custom design that prominently featured the Uzumaki clan symbol and Konoha's motto of "The Will of Fire".
Just then, a perverted giggle drew Naruto out of his thoughts. He looked to his left to see a really long white-haired man with a huge scroll on his back peeping through a hole in the women's bathhouse.
This guy is even more daring than Kakashi-sensei! Peeping where anybody walking by could see him!
"Hey, what're you doing?" Naruto called out to him.
The man turned around and looked at the newcomer. His face had red markings and his forehead held a protector that displayed the character for Oil.
Oil? What village is that?
"Go away, brat. Can't you see I'm busy here?" The man proceeded to continue peeping and giggling.
"Hey, don't you ignore me! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the future Hokage of the Hidden Leaf!"
Naruto's eye twitched, as there was no indication that the man even heard Naruto.
"Alright, that's it, I won't let some foreign ninja peep on the women of the Hidden Leaf!" Naruto ran towards the man preparing to punch him.
Suddenly, just before Naruto reached him, there was a big puff of smoke and a giant toad appeared, with the man sitting on top of it. The toad's tongue reached out and grabbed Naruto before flinging him a few metres away.
"Man, keep quiet, kid… whacha gonna do if I get caught?"
Naruto got up and wiped the dirt off his mouth. "You…who are you and what's with that huge frog?"
"Alright, hold on! Thanks for asking! I'm Mt. Myoboku-gama's Holy Master Sage, also known as the Toad Sage, remember it!" The man declared while doing a bunch of awkward poses in sync with the toad.
"Toad Sage…? And what were you doing?"
"This is my work. I'm a writer, working on a new novel," came the response, just as the self-proclaimed Toad Sage jumped off the toad and started walking towards Naruto. He then pulled out a book from inside his clothes, and showed it to Naruto. The title was "Come Come Paradise".
Naruto's jaw dropped as he thought of the orange book Kakashi always read in public.
"Ahh! That is..!"
"Oh! You know about this?" The man asked with a wide grin. 'It's getting pretty famous,' he thought.
"Yeah, it's that nasty book!" Naruto exclaimed while pointing at said book. The man looked miffed. Naruto then continued, "Anyways, what do you mean by work? You were just peeping into the women's bath, you pervert!"
"You fool! I am not just a pervert! Peeping gives me inspiration to write better!"
"You liar! What a lame excuse! You're just a lame pervert!"
"No, it's not true! I'm not just a pervert! I am…" The man started.
"Yeah, then what are you?"
"…a SUPER PERVERT!"
Damn, this guy is totally crazy. How did he become a Sannin?
"Tch! I can't believe Jiraiya of the Sannin is really this kind of person," Naruto commented.
"Oh? You already knew who I was, then?"
"I realized who you were after you pulled out that perverted book."
"Alright, whaddaya want, kid?"
Huh...I didn't really need anyth–that's it!
"If you're one of the Sannin, you've gotta be really strong, right? Can you train me and teach me how to use seals?"
"Train you? Why should I?"
"That Come Come Paradise is so cool…"
"Liar, this book is only for adults. Compliments will get you nowhere with me."
"Then how about—" Naruto said before forming a hand sign. "Sexy Jutsu!"
"I like you!"
He's an idiot…
"Wow, just my type of girl! What's this jutsu huh?"
"Oh… I call it, Sexy Jutsu, but…" Naruto in his transformed state said.
"OOHH-What creativity! You're a genius!"
"Then…you'll help me with me training?" Naruto said cutely.
"Yes! But there's a condition!"
"Condition? …What?"
"In my presence… you must always be like that…"
"..!" Naruto transformed back. "No way! How am I supposed to train like that!"
"Well, that's the condition, kid. Don't you want training from the legendary Jiraiya?"
"Oh come on! You should be dying to train somebody with the same name as the main character of your book!"
"Huh?"
"You wrote that Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Ninja book, didn't you? The one whose main character's name is Naruto! Well, I'm Naruto too! You could be overseeing the real-life development of a character just like your main character!"
"You read that book?"
"Yeah! So come on! Just train me! Destiny is practically stripping in front of you!"
"Destiny, huh…" Jiraiya said with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Very well, then. You got yourself a new sensei, kid."
"That's righ-Wha- Really?"
"Don't look a gift toad in the mouth, kid. We'll begin immediately. Why don't you show me all your skills first?" Jiraiya motioned toward the toad behind him. "Here, hop on. We'll go somewhere suitable for training."
Naruto looked dumbfounded.
Wow. He's really going to train me.
"Yeah, alright!"
"Come at me with everything you've got," Jiraiya instructed.
In other words, I have to prove I'm worth being trained by a Sannin.
Naruto then dispelled all the clones currently training in the Hidden Leaf Village. They were currently in a small forest clearing, and Jiraiya had dispelled his giant toad.
He created five Shadow Clones. All of them, and the original, ran through the handseals required for the Stone Armor Jutsu. Then, they moved out and surrounded Jiraiya in a large circle, with the original staying outside.
Then the clones rushed towards Jiraiya. As the clones threw punches, Jiraiya grabbed one arm and swung the clone he held around to defeat all the clones.
"What, is this a brawl? You don't even have any taijutsu form."
Thus, the real Naruto rushed towards Jiraiya, preparing to use the basic Taijutsu taught in the Academy. Of course, naturally Jiraiya punched Naruto away after dodging a few hits.
It appeared that Naruto's Stone Armor was completely useless. It had practically no effects on either him or his clones thus far. As Naruto got up, he pulled out four shuriken and threw all of them at Jiraiya. Two embedded themselves in a tree behind Jiraiya after being dodged. One was knocked aside to the ground, and Jiraiya caught the last one.
"Is that all you got? Man, I'd be ashamed to teach somebody this weak," Jiraiya taunted while twirling the shuriken on his finger.
"Shut up, you haven't seen anything yet," came the response from Naruto. He then created four more clones and again surrounded Jiraiya.
"Again?"
Each clone then took out five shuriken and threw it at Jiraiya, who simply jumped up to avoid all of them. As he was falling down, the real Naruto threw in a smoke bomb, before rushing in, along with the five clones. As Jiraiya hadn't sensed any attacks, he simply waited in the smoke in a ready stance until it cleared. He wondered what the point of that was. When it did clear, it revealed five Narutos surrounding Jiraiya in a tight circle. One Naruto rushed forward with a kunai towards Jiraiya's back while two grabbed the Narutos beside them and flung them at Jiraiya, before jumping away from the circle. Then two clones of Jiraiya popped into existence beside him, and each Jiraiya defeated one approaching Naruto.
As soon as the three Naruto-clones were defeated and puffed into smoke, the two remaining Narutos, one positioned in front of Jiraiya and the other behind, each threw a kunai at Jiraiya.
"This is getting b-" Jiraiya was cut off when the two Narutos held the cross seal and the two kunai turned into two thousand. His eyes widened slightly before he formed several hand signs in quick succession. The Jiraiya clones puffed out of existence as they were hit by countless kunai, while the real Jiraiya…was covered from head to toe in a massive amount of spikey white hair. "Needle Jizo," he declared. "Not bad, to think you know two A-rank jutsu already, as a genin."
"I'm not done yet," Naruto's voice spoke from outside the clearing. Suddenly, several Naruto clones retransformed from being shuriken/kunai on the ground and yelled, "Detonate!" Thus, the clearing was engulfed in a explosion created from several exploding clones exploding at once.
Now that I'm using clones instead of the exploding tags I used with Kakashi, it should be too fast for him prepare a replacement jutsu in time. Still, even though I used a huge amount of chakra to produce that gigantic explosion with multiple clones, a Sannin should be able to survive somehow.
Naruto jumped out from a nearby tree and inspected his handiwork. There was now a crater a bit bigger than the original clearing. Jiraiya, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Then Jiraiya poofed into existence at the centre of the crater. His clothes were partially gone and revealed some skin that had minor burn marks on them. He had a huge grin on his face.
"Damn, I wasn't expecting you to have so much chakra left after using all those clones. And you almost got me there; a lesser ninja would surely have been killed. I can proudly say you will be a great apprentice," Jiraiya said while wiping the dirt off his now torn clothes and walking towards Naruto.
"If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage to get out of that explosion just now?"
"I reverse summoned myself into a toad's stomach. It's meant to take my opponent with me as an offensive jutsu, but it works for tight situations that like that one as well. I'll teach it to you eventually, after you get familiar with the toad summons."
"A reverse summoning? I've never heard of that befo—wait, did you just say what I think you said? About the toad summons?" Naruto was astonished, as the Toad Sage had just implied that he would let Naruto sign the Toad Summoning Contract.
"That's right kid. If you're going to be the apprentice of the fabulous Sage of Mt. Myoboku, you'll need to be able to summon toads, eventually. But not now. You still have to missions with your team every day, don't you? Learning to summon toads effectively will take a lot of time and chakra, which you don't have since you still need to take missions with your team every day."
"That's okay, I can just use my clones to train. I already use my clones for training every day while I'm on missions."
"That won't do, not for summoning. You need to use up some blood each time to perform a summoning, so you can't practice with your clones in large quantities. Speaking of which, how many clones can you make, and how long do they last for? You used an impressive number of clones in our little battle just now."
"Well…for training, if I want them to last for a few hours while doing basic chakra control exercises that I usually ask them to do, I can make about one hundred safely. But I recover chakra really fast, so after a few hours and a meal I should be back to about full again."
Jiraiya's eyes widened. "One hundred clones, all using chakra for training, and they last for a few hours? That's…unbelievable. When did you start this training? Your chakra control must be incredible by now."
"I started after I learned the technique, which was right when I graduated. At first, when I made a hundred clones to train with, they didn't last for even an hour, before I had to make them again. But yeah, my chakra control has become way better, so they can last for almost four hours. Now, I can really take advantage of my sleep time."
"They don't disappear when you go to sleep?" Jiraiya was surprised. The level of subconscious control required to maintain the jutsu even during sleep was something that only a veteran and frequent user of the technique should be capable of.
"Yeah. Are they supposed to?" Naruto wondered.
"No, not if you're highly skilled and maintain them subconsciously. This is the perfect training method for you! With the amount of chakra you have, you'll master new techniques in no time! That reminds me, have you ever felt another chakra? Besides the one you normally have?" Jiraiya inquired.
Naruto thought for a moment. He had never felt anything like that. Although, he had a good idea what Jiraiya was getting at.
"You're talking about the Nine-Tails' chakra, right? No, I've never felt it before, at all."
"Never?"
"Never."
'He'll have to learn to use it at some point…maybe when I teach him summoning…' Jiraiya thought to himself.
"Am I supposed to?"
"Hold on, lift up your shirt so I can see your belly."
"Umm…Okay."
There was nothing there, so Jiraiya asked him to build up chakra. Then the black markings appeared, revealing the seals that the Fourth used to seal the Nine-Tails.
'So this is the Nine-Tails seal method…two four elephant seals…a double seal…maybe the Eight Trigrams Seal method…it's set up so some sort of chakra slips out from between the elephant seals and combines with the kid's chakra. It's to protect this kid…right, the Fourth?' Jiraiya thought as he closely examined the seal on Naruto's abdomen.
So the seal shows up only when I use chakra, huh? No wonder I never noticed it before.
As Jiraiya got up again, he continued to think. 'So he's receiving chakra all the time, which explains his incredible chakra recovery rate and reserves. But the strength of the seal means that he won't feel it unless he learns to actively call on the Nine-Tails' chakra, or the chakra forcibly kicks in during times of danger so that the Nine-Tails can save itself.'
"One day, you might need to use that power, the power of the Nine-Tails. But for now, it seems that you've been strong enough to get by without it," Jiraiya declared.
"I won't use it at all if I can help it. Using such demonic and evil chakra…there'll be side effects, won't there?" Naruto shot back.
"Probably. But for now, you won't have to worry about it. Though, let me know if you ever feel it, or if anything weird happens with your seal. You're smart enough to tell when something's wrong." Jiraiya looked at the sky. It was going to be dark in an hour or so. "Alright, it's getting late. Let's meet near the bathhouses again in the morning every day, at 6. That gives us an hour before most teams start their missions, which will be enough for me to teach you something, even though it's a very short time, and you can practice with your clones until the next day."
"Hehe...don't worry about that. Kaka-sensei always shows up three hours late, at 10 o'clock, so we'll have nearly 4 hours. I'll send a clone every day to wait just in case though. And if I get another C-rank mission, I'll leave a message for you at the women's bathhouse."
"Alright, but before you go, let me teach you a new technique. I want to see how fast you can learn."
"Oh, sure!" Naruto replied enthusiastically. He was going to be taught a new technique by a Sannin. Although, it probably wouldn't be particularly powerful since he's still just testing him.
"First, tell me what techniques you already know."
Naruto thought for a moment, then responded, "Well, actually I basically showed you everything I knew in that battle, besides the standard Academy Jutsus, and Body Flicker. I actually don't know any techniques other than Shadow Clone, Shuriken Shadow Clone, and the Exploding Clone. And the Exploding clone isn't really a ninjutsu, it's basically just a normal Shadow Clone with explosive seals that I create from chakra during the Shadow Clone technique."
'He invented his own explosive clones with seals? That's pretty impressive, for a genin. Looks like I have another genius on my hands...' Jiraiya thought to himself. Then he noticed the peculiarity. "Wait, all you know is 3 A-rank Jutus? And all of them are based off of the Shadow Clone."
"The Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu I came up with myself, as well."
'So, he invented not one, but two techniques already, both A-rank. And to think he came up with the same Jutsu the Professor invented…' Jiraiya remarked in his mind.
Naruto continued, "I only really learned the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Kakashi-sensei hasn't taught me or my teammates any techniques." Then Naruto remembered his incomplete technique. "No, wait, he did teach me this one technique, the Stone Armor Jutsu, but it's still incomplete. I tried using it earlier against you, but it didn't do anything."
"Stone Armor…that's a Hidden Rock technique that uses chakra flow, if I remember correctly from the Third Ninja War. Do you have an Earth affinity?" Jiraiya asked curiously. He had been expecting Naruto to be a wind type like his father, or a water type like his mother.
"I'm not sure…but I don't think so. I couldn't feel earth chakra at all when I started, and I can barely feel it even now. I never tested myself for my affinity."
"…Then what the heck did Kakashi tell you to do? How are you supposed to learn a chakra-flow based elemental jutsu without the affinity for it?" Jiraiya's faced look thoroughly scandalized.
Naruto was taken aback by the outburst, responding, "Uh-um, he did say that a chakra-flow type Jutsu would be more difficult without the affinity, but he also said that it should be possible to learn these techniques regardless, and that practice with it would develop the affinity. He didn't teach me how to develop the affinity through training, because it would be better to develop my primary affinity first."
"…" Jiraiya's face twitched. 'And he's supposed to be a genius!' "Listen, kid, I don't know where Kakashi got that stupid idea from, but any chakra-flow type Jutsus will require the user to have the elemental affinity for it. Actually, he probably thought you didn't need the affinity because by the time he copied it, he probably already developed the Earth chakra affinity after copying countless other Earth Jutsus, unwittingly. Frankly, I'm surprised you can feel any Earth chakra at all." He paused for a moment, before continuing, "Let me explain to you how chakra and Jutsus are created. There are two steps to creating a Jutsu. These are Shape Transformation and Nature Transformation. Shape transformation involves directly molding the chakra and giving it shape, like this." He then proceeded to hold his right hand palm up, and chakra visibly swirled and condensed into a blue ball.
"Woah! The chakra is visible!"
"Yes, this is called the Rasengan, it's one of the Fourth Hokage's techniques. It's also the pinnacle of Shape Transformation, an A-rank jutsu whose power comes solely from Shape Transformation and nothing else. But most jutsu don't work that way. They usually also involve a degree of Nature Transformation. Here's where it gets a little tricky. The key behind Nature Transformation is that it uses your chakra to produce something different. When normal chakra is transformed into one of the 5 main elements, it takes on additional characteristics. For example, Earth chakra is hard. They have other characteristics too besides the obvious, but that's not really important for now. You'll understand as you master an affinity. These additional characteristics are critical when you're trying to produce an effect. I'll use an obvious example to show you what I mean, water chakra. Tell me, what do you remember about the Second Hokage's most famous abilities?"
Naruto thought back to the Academy's history lessons that he had memorized completely. "He was a master of the water element, capable of drawing immense amounts of water from the air, and even filling the lakes around Konoha with his Jutsu."
"That's right. Most water-users need to actually have water around them to be effective in battle. But the Second did not. As you said, he could simply produce enormous amounts of water from the air. This is the effect of an extremely high water affinity. In theory, it should be possible even for those without a water affinity to manipulate water by using normal chakra, if they practice long enough. But to produce water, you will either need a water affinity, or you'll have to practice with manipulating water with normal chakra for many years until you develop enough of an affinity to do it. This is the fundamental rule of Nature Transformation. You can manipulate existing elements with pure normal chakra, but you need elemental chakra to produce the element or to imbue it with certain characteristics. Don't bother wasting your chakra trying to learn the Stone Armor anymore," Jiraiya finished his long explanation.
"But! I really want to learn that Jutsu! It'll multiply my combat ability with my clones!" Naruto whined.
"Well if you want it that badly, I'll show you the Earth chakra training tomorrow. Don't get your hopes up though. Normally it takes years to master an affinity. Most ninja only ever master two in their lifetimes, some three. Anyways, I promised you a new technique! We don't have much time, but this one should be easy," Jiraiya then let out a perverted giggle, "and quite useful, I might add."
Uzushio Ruins
"You're finally getting the hang of it, brat. At this rate, you'll be able to use it in battle in a few months, the Silent Killing technique. In a few weeks, you should be good enough to stay out of harm's way at least, when I'm fighting a bounty."
"I won't even take that long. I haven't started using my special training method yet," the Naruto-clone responded while watching another blindfolded Naruto-clone dodge a simple punch from Zabuza, who was making no effort to be silent yet. He couldn't risk himself in the training, or else he might be dispelled on a failed attempt to dodge.
"Special training method?" Haku asked from beside him.
"It's a secret. All you need to know is that I'll improve a lot faster than you think, once I get my real self to use it."
That's right…although, I would have preferred a real defensive technique…tch, I guess I can't blame the Demon of the Mist for not needing to have defensive Jutsu.
Naruto lay in bed, slightly tired after doing some intensive physical exercise. He would have to buy weights at some point to raise the effectiveness of his physical training regimen.
As he stared up at the ceiling, he went through the events of the day in his mind, trying to see if there was anything interesting or useful that he missed before. Finding nothing, he closed his eyes. The image of the beautiful spinning ball of chakra in Jiraiya's palm came to him.
Chakra so powerful it's visible…the only other time I've seen something like that was—
His eyes flew open. The only other time he'd seen visible chakra, and in fact also held in the palm, was when Kakashi-sensei charged up his Lightning Cutter on the incomplete bridge in Wave.
That must be…the combination of Shape and Nature Transformation…incredible.
"Tomorrow, I'll have three teachers teaching me…or at least, supposed to be teaching me," Naruto close his eyes again while smirking. "I can't wait."
A/N: Hello, I'm back, after almost half a year without any activity. I would say that the "research" I said I would be doing last chapter took longer than expected, but that's a bit ridiculous. There were simply a variety of other matters I had to deal with and so this got sidelined.
On the other hand, this also gave me opportunity to thoroughly think about the story as a whole and work out many details. It's also quite fortunate that my plans for this story haven't become AU, as everything still fits with the current canon manga information.
Anyways, let me address some valid concerns that popped up in reviews.
The first was regarding Naruto's behavior. Well fortunately, those request to see a change in behavior will see it soon, and quite drastically when the chuunin exams start. This was planned from the beginning, since it would be quite unreasonable for Naruto to take off his "mask" without any particular reason. And traumatic events are no-go, because I simply fail to see how anything traumatic could happen to Naruto while presumably under the protection of the Third's elite ninjas.
Regarding the plot line, it's true that I'm sticking to the main story. Well, I don't believe in the butterfly effect. Well…not quite that dramatic, but at the very least, I simply don't see how events could've changed considering that Naruto played either a minor role or no role at all as the cause of the events that have happened thus far. They will change only when logic shows a clear cause and effect relationship (For example, in the manga, it was stated that Jiraiya only went back to Konoha because he felt like doing research, not because he was asked to, in light of Orochimaru's appearance. But I can reasonably anticipate that he would take action if his godson was the issue at hand).
I will correct the error with Rock Lee's chakra coils, so thank you for pointing that out, Rock's Razor.
Thanks to everyone for all their input. Every piece of criticism is valued, even if I defend my work against it sometimes.
