The next day Naruto met with her team to talk about training for the month before the Third Exam.
"First of all, Hinata-chan," said Kakashi, "your father has said he wishes to train you."
"Really?" Hinata asked, arching an eyebrow. "It's been quite a number of years since he's been interested in my training."
"I couldn't begin to be interested in the politics going on within the Hyuuga clan," Kakashi said. "If you want answers, you'll have to ask your father."
"So you think it was politics that made him distance himself from me?" Hinata asked.
"What part of 'couldn't begin to be interested' did you not understand, Hinata-chan?" Kakashi said with one of his eye smiles.
All three of the chuunin hopefuls rolled their eyes at their sensei's antics.
"Naruto-chan, Hokage-sama has found someone to teach you. You're to meet your sensei outside the Hot Springs this afternoon. An ANBU will point him out to you."
"The Hot Springs?" she asked doubtfully.
"I'm sure you will learn a lot," he said with another eye smile.
"Finally, Sasuke-kun," he continued. "You'll be staying with me. I apologize that you don't all get the experience of learning at my feet, but it wouldn't be fair to spread myself so thin."
"Somehow, I think Hinata-chan and I will survive, Sensei," Naruto said. "Make sure you teach Emo-chan more than how to be late."
That afternoon Naruto approached the Hot Springs dubiously. She stood near the front entrance. After a few minutes, a male ANBU in a bear mask appeared beside her.
"This way please, Uzumaki-san," he said.
He led her around to the back where she saw a tall, older man with spiky white hair standing on top of a toad. He was looking through a hole in the fence and giggling.
"Are you serious?" she asked the ANBU.
The ANBU nodded, shrugged, and then vanished in a swirl of leaves.
Naruto sighed and then marched up to the man and said, "Hey, Pervert! Don't you have something else you're supposed to be doing?"
"Kid," the pervert responded, "don't make so much noise. You trying to get me killed?"
"The Hokage said you were supposed to help me," Naruto said, irritated.
He took a look at her and said, "Come back in five years and then I can help you."
"Get down from there and talk to me or else I'll scream," she said, furious.
The man gave a longsuffering sigh and then turned to face her. "What do you want, Bunny-chan."
"My sensei said that the Hokage had arranged for you to prepare me for the Chuunin Exam Final," she snapped. "But I'm having second thoughts on whether that would be worth it."
"You're Uzumaki Naruto?" he said dubiously. "I guess you kind of look like her, but she's blonde and wears a hideous orange jumpsuit." He flicked her ear-shaped horns. "She certainly doesn't have those ear things or white eyes."
"You're about four months out of date, Pervert," she snapped. "I can't believe the Hokage wouldn't have told you what happened to me if you were going to train me."
"I was in a rush," he admitted with a shrug. "He gave me a report, but I didn't read it. I prefer to make my own judgments.
"I know one way to make sure of if you're Naruto. Lift up your shirt."
"What," she said flatly.
"Come on. Lift up your shirt."
"After what I just saw you do, do you really think I'm going to lift up my shirt for you?" she snarled.
"What do you take me for?" he said, affronted. "You're much too young for what you're implying. I want to see your seal. Lift up your shirt and channel some chakra."
"Fine," she said. "You better be an awesome sensei."
She lifted her shirt to expose her navel and then channeled some chakra. A whirlpool design with eight spokes coming out of it came into view.
"Believe me now?" she said.
He nodded absently. "What did happen to you?" he asked.
"Read the report. It'll have what you're supposed to know."
He glared at her.
"I don't even know your name," she said, glaring back. "The ANBU only pointed you out to me. I don't know what you're cleared for and what you're not cleared for."
"Ah," he said with a smile. "Then let me introduce myself." He started to do an odd shuffling dance. "From Mount Myouboku, the man that every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with, I am the Gallant Jiraiya, the Toad Sage!"
"Uh huh," she said flatly. "I might have been impressed before I actually met you."
"What?" he said. "I'm one of the Densetsu no Sannin, the sensei of the Yondaime Hokage, the Gama Sennin, and one of the most powerful shinobi currently alive."
"Wow," she said and then as he started to grin added, "The Yondaime must have been more talented than I thought to work past that handicap!"
"Listen, Brat," he said. "Do you want to learn from me or not?"
"Why would I want to learn from a perverted has-been who can't even read his mission briefing?" she asked.
"To be fair, you've changed dramatically since the last time I checked up on you—and I'm not talking about your looks."
"It's amazing what actually having positive attention will do for a kid," she said sarcastically. Then she had a sudden thought. "You know who I am. You knew my parents. That's the only reason you would check up on me."
"I am the village's foremost seal expert," he said blankly. "Checking up on the village jinchuuriki is one of my responsibilities."
"You were my father's sensei. . ." she started.
"Not here," he said firmly. He grabbed her arm and they disappeared in a Flicker. They reappeared in an empty training ground.
"You were my father's sensei," she repeated angrily once they stabilized their position. "Was he just a job for you? Was he just another thing to make you famous?"
He gently placed a finger over her mouth. "No, he was like my son. I was devastated when he died."
"Then why did I grow up alone and unloved, Grandpa?" she said sarcastically.
He sighed. "The Hokage asked me to keep my distance to avoid drawing attention to you. With your old coloring, if I took care of you, it would have been obvious whose daughter you were. I didn't agree with the decision, but I understood it. I didn't fight it too hard because the job I do for the village keeps me on the road a lot."
She looked at him doubtfully. "That deflects the blame nicely, but yet you couldn't be bothered to read what the Hokage's report on me."
"I told you, Kid. I wanted to get to know you in person, now that I was finally allowed to meet you."
She stared at him for a few moments. He seemed mostly sincere. "Fine. What are you going to teach me?"
He smiled broadly. He bit his thumb and slammed it into the ground while saying, "Summoning Technique!"
Characters and symbols spread out from where he had touched the ground and a large toad that came up to her chest appeared in a puff of smoke. The toad had a large scroll on his back.
"I can teach you to summon Toads!" he said proudly.
The Toads can be an effective ally, Stepmother, the Kyuubi said, but I would recommend holding off on signing the contract. The Summon clans only permit one contract among them. If you sign with the Toads, you will not be able to sign with another clan.
Is there another clan that would fit me better? she asked.
I don't know. Your father summoned Toads, but your mother summoned Falcons. I just think you should research which summon clan you want to ally with.
She thought for a minute. "I'm not dismissing the value of the Toads, but shouldn't I know more about Summons before I choose one?"
He laughed. "You make it sound like Summon contracts are common. They aren't. Most shinobi aren't given a chance to sign a contract."
"What about my mother's contract?" she asked. "Who has that?"
He blinked. "Sensei, the Hokage, has it, I think. He's holding it with your mother's other things until you're old enough for them. Come to think of it, I believe your mother had several Summon contracts salvaged from Uzushio, although she could only sign one of them."
Naruto smiled. "There you go. I should wait until I can make an educated decision. Do you know when the Hokage was going to give me my parents things?"
Jiraiya scratched his head. "I think he was planning on giving you some of them when you made chuunin."
"Will a Summon contract help me with the Chuunin Exam?" she asked.
"Not directly," he admitted. "That's one of the reasons why Sensei hasn't given you any of the Uzushio contracts yet. The Exam proctors are looking more for your own skill rather than power or connections. Plus, most summons are either not helpful for the Third Exam or are overkill."
"Okay, I'll wait on that then," she said. "I do have some ideas on what I'd like to learn."
"Just a moment, Naruto-chan," Jiraiya said. "While Summons won't help you directly for the Exam, I do think it's time for you to start mastering the Kyuubi's chakra. Sensei told me that you knew about it."
She shook her head. "I can already do that."
"How many tails?" he asked her.
"Tails?" she asked, confused. Then she thought of the way her hair acted. "Ten, I suppose."
"Ten?" he laughed. "It's the Kyuubi. Maybe you better show me."
She shrugged. "Okay."
Send me some chakra, please, she said to the Kyuubi.
She felt the Kyuubi's chakra bubble up within her. She purified it and sent it outward. Her hair grew and separated into ten "tails." She noticed that her Doujutsus both activated in the process.
Jiraiya's jaw dropped. He shut it and then said, "I don't know what that was, but it wasn't the Kyuubi, Naruto-chan. I've felt the Kyuubi's chakra before, and while what you're doing is impressive, it's not that."
"Of course," she said. "I'm purifying the chakra and making it mine. I couldn't use it if I didn't, right?"
He laughed. "Purifying it? Are you sure?"
She nodded and let go of the chakra. "You should have read the report. I'm sure this would make more sense."
He shook his head and laughed. "Most jinchuuriki can't purify their Bijuu's chakra. They use it as is. In fact, I've never heard of one that could. Your mother couldn't."
"Huh," she said. "I wonder if it's another of those transmigration things."
"Transmigration?" he asked.
She gave him a rundown on her kidnapping, how she had met the Kyuubi, and what he had said about Kaguya and her transmigration.
"I'd heard that you had been kidnapped," he said, "but you escaped before I could do anything about it." He paused and then said. "Were you using the Byakugan? And that third eye—I couldn't decide if it was the Sharingan or the Rinnegan."
"Yes on the Byakugan," she responded. "My other eye started as the Sharingan and still starts that way unless I use more chakra, but Hokage-jiichan thinks it might be a combination of the two now. He's been calling it the Rinne-Sharingan."
She told him about Orochimaru's attack and the results of it.
"Really? the Uchiha can do your fancy new eye, too?"
She nodded. "It has less tomoe in it and he can't use it for as long, but yes."
"Did Sensei tell you I knew a kid that had the Rinnegan?"
She nodded.
"So what do you think you need for the Third Exam?" he asked after a few moments.
"Speed and to a lesser extent strength. When I fought Orochimaru, I could anticipate what he was going to do through the Sharingan, but I couldn't keep up with him. I can make loads of Shadow Clones and I know a small number of Wind Techniques and I've started to learn some Fire ones. My taijutsu is decent, but not exceptional. More speed would help with that."
"Huh," Jiraiya said. "That's a pretty decent plan. I can help you with that some, but you won't become hugely faster in just one month."
"I realize that," she said, "but I think that will help me the most for the Exam and in the long run."
"Any other wants?" he asked.
"You said you were good with fuuinjutsu?" she said. "Since I found out that it was one of my parents' specialties, I've been interested in it. I've dedicated a few clones a day to improving my calligraphy so that I could eventually learn it."
He rubbed his chin. "Fuuinjutsu would definitely help you long term, but not so much for the Exam. I can get you started on the basics, but I don't recommend emphasizing it for the next month."
She nodded. "Other than that, I'm open to what you think would be helpful, Ero-sensei."
He scowled at her. "Just 'Sensei' is fine."
She grinned. "You didn't think I was going to let you off the hook for earlier, did you?"
Naruto discovered that Jiraiya was a decent teacher—when she could get him to focus. It helped that she had specific things she wanted out of him. However, once she got started on any exercises he gave her, he usually vanished. She thought of using Disguise to appear as an older, more developed version of herself to keep him attention, but decided that that kind of attention would not help her.
To help her with her speed and strength, he drew some Resistance Seals on arm and leg bands and a belt. To go with that, he gave her some exercises to do and instructions on when to turn them off and when to increase the resistance.
He gave her a basic fuuinjutsu primer and gave her some tips on making Storage Seals. She mainly had her clones reading the primer and practicing. The primer actually had very few practical seals in it—just a few very basic chakra detection seals and Storage Seals. She was disappointed that the primer did not have any Explosive Seals, as she could have used them in the Exams.
She also had her clones working on chakra control. By this time, she was using an Intro to Medical Ninjutsu book to get more challenging chakra control exercises. She was disappointed that the book did not contain any actual medical ninjutsu as that would have been interesting. She had found a waterfall and her clones were working on the splitting it to help with her Wind Manipulation. She had also started on the Fire Manipulation exercises that she had seen Hinata and Sasuke working on.
The Fireball (a single large fireball) and Phoenix Flower (a spread of smaller fireballs) Techniques were the only techniques that she had copied with her Sharingan, so she also had clones work on perfecting those. She had copied those from Sasuke, but that was okay since he had copied Great Breakthrough and Gale Palm from her. The Fire Release Techniques were not much harder than the Wind Release Techniques were when she first learned the Great Breakthrough. Wind Techniques were much easier now that she had spent the time working on Wind Manipulation. In addition to Great Breakthrough (a large wall of pushing wind) and Gale Palm (a small directed pushing wind useful for speeding up kunai or shuriken), she had learned the Wind Blade Technique (a launched blade of wind) from Asuma. She had also started to learn how to do Asuma's Flying Swallow Technique to add an extended blade of Wind to a weapon, but without a chakra-conductive weapon the size of the blade extension she could produce was very limited.
She remembered that Fire Techniques consumed Wind Techniques and asked Jiraiya about combining them. He told her that collaboration techniques with Wind and Fire were possible and gave her some tips for combining them, such not to use wide area effect techniques such as Great Breakthrough. To that end, she talked Asuma to teach her the Air Bullet Technique which she could combine with Phoenix Flower using a Shadow Clone. She practiced the collaboration under the Toad Sage's supervision.
Jiraiya gave her some clues on the capabilities of the Rinnegan. He told her stories about the orphans from Ame that he had briefly taught including the one that had the Rinnegan. The boy was young when he had taught him, so he had not uncovered all of its capabilities. Besides the gravity powers that Naruto had already discovered, Nagato had been able to summon a variety of animals without a contract, absorb people's memories (although the process was lethal), and to absorb chakra from techniques that were fired at him. He could also use all five nature releases easily.
A week before the Finals, Jiraiya taught her an Earth Release Technique called Swamp of the Underworld. It created a sticky, muddy mess that limited mobility by causing enemies to sink into it. Jiraiya thought it would complement her distance techniques.