Wow, look at that: an actual update when I said I would! We're getting close to the finals, too; only a couple more chapters.
Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Thirty-six:
"The Pervy Sage sucks," Naruto said by way of greeting.
I blinked at him. "O...kay. Why?"
Naruto made an expression dangerously close to a pout. "Finally, he started paying attention to me instead of doing 'research'," as with most things relating to Jiraiya, his face contorted oddly to show his distaste, "but then he just had me start doing chakra control exercises! For no reason! I don't get it."
"That sucks," I offered.
Naruto nodded.
He'd actually already managed a sealless Body Replacement Jutsu - and then managed it several more times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I still wished he was a little bit better at it, but he was good enough to use it against Neji, so.
Unless I could think of something else to teach him, we'd just continue practicing it. But I didn't think I could teach him anything else. Well, anything that he'd be able to learn and that he'd actually use in battle. There was no point in teaching him a fire ninjutsu, for example; he'd never use it.
But. Ninjutsu wasn't a bad idea. Specifically, the Great Breakthrough. If Naruto could learn it, he could use it to help keep Neji away from himself - although the hand seals would be a problem. Still, there weren't that many, and it could potentially help a lot in keeping distance. As it was, I didn't think Naruto knew any long-range offensive ninjutsu.
...I wasn't sure Naruto knew any offensive ninjutsu at all, actually...
Anyway.
"Hey, Naruto... Wanna learn a cool jutsu?" I asked.
Naruto perked up like a dog with a bone.
"A cool jutsu? What is it, what is it?" he said, practically bouncing in anticipation.
"It's a wind jutsu," I answered. There was no point in lying to him. "Powerful enough to throw people." ...Maybe. I mean, it could be. "It should help you keep Neji away."
Naruto looked awed. "That is so cool," he whispered, as though the sheer coolness of the jutsu had stolen his voice.
"It's the Wind Release: Great Breakthrough," I said, figuring that that was as good as agreement that he did, in fact, want to learn the jutsu. "Its hand seals are Tiger, Ox, Dog, Hare, Snake."
Naruto stared blankly.
I stared back for a moment. "I'll show you," I said.
Purposely going slow, I did the five hand seals. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough," I said, and clapped to finish the jutsu, putting a little more chakra into it than I needed to.
The result was one of the more impressive bursts of wind. Because I wanted Naruto to want to learn it, for which he would have to think it was cool.
I swear I could see Naruto's eyes sparkle. "So... cool," he managed. He jumped, holding his fists aloft in determination. "All right! I'll do it now!"
He started the hand seals, murmuring to himself as he went. "Tiger, Ox -"
A pause. "Uh."
Naruto blinked. "Tiger, Ox..."
"Dog," I reminded him
"Right, right!" Naruto said. "Tiger, Ox, Dog -"
"Hare," I said.
Naruto did the Hare seal.
"Snake."
He did the Snake seal.
Finished with the hand seals, Naruto brought his palms together dramatically. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" he shouted as he did.
...
Nothing happened.
"Ehh? Why didn't it work?" said Naruto.
I shrugged. "Maybe try again?" I suggested. "And don't forget the hand seals this time."
"Yeah, okay," Naruto said, starting the seals again.
Amazingly enough, he did every seal correctly and without forgetting them. Again, he clapped. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" he shouted again.
And again, nothing happened.
Naruto frowned at his hands - or maybe the ground - as though they were at fault.
"It's not working," he complained.
I can see that, I didn't say. The problem was that I didn't know why. It had worked for me (because I'd been copying Tsukiko), and I didn't actually know any of the theory behind the jutsu.
So, clearly, the Sharingan made one a bad teacher. Big surprise there.
I thought about it. The hand seals weren't the problem, but - oh.
Oh.
The clap at the end - that wasn't actually a hand seal. It didn't do anything except solidify what the user was already supposed to know they were doing. But Naruto didn't know because I hadn't known to tell him.
"Okay, I want you to try again," I said, frowning in thought. "But this time, as you do the clap at the end, try - um -" I had no idea how to word it, "-try throwing your chakra. Like, act like the clap creates a - shockwave of chakra." Or something. "Okay?"
I had the distinct feeling that I hadn't made any sense.
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows and looked like he was thinking. After a moment, his expression cleared and he nodded. "Okay, I think I got it," he said.
Once more, Naruto did the hand seals. I had to shudder away from him as I felt his chakra building and flaring around him. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" he shouted, bringing his palms together in a sharp clap.
Nothing.
I stifled a sigh. I shouldn't have expected it to work - learning a new jutsu that quickly was not easy without the Sharingan, and Naruto wasn't exactly a genius. But still. I'd really hoped that he would manage it already. Because I didn't know how to help - at all. I had no idea.
Naruto, possibly unsurprisingly, didn't look disheartened at all.
"I'll get it!" he declared to... absolutely nobody. The universe, maybe? "Just you watch!"
He looked full of enthusiasm and resolve. He was set on learning it, through perseverance if not genius. I settled in for several hours of watching him try and fail.
At least he had a lot of chakra, so he probably wouldn't run out.
"We're going to work on something different today," Mori-san said.
I blinked. "Um. Okay. Different how?"
Mori-san visibly went into 'teaching' mode. "First off, I am aware that, as far as the finals of the Chuunin exams are concerned, you do not need to be any better than you are at detecting genjutsu," she said. "However, as we are approaching the end of the month in which Tsukiko and I can teach you, I want to make sure you are as good at all aspects of my subject as I can."
I thought about that for a moment.
"Not that close to the end of the month," I said, but dropped it because we were kind of close. "But I have the Sharingan," I pointed out. "So it's not really hard for me to detect genjutsu."
"That is true," Mori-san allowed with a dip of her head. "But the Sharingan's ability to see genjutsu isn't the same as being able to detect genjutsu. What if you don't have the Sharingan active? Or what if the genjutsu is not a visual one? You wouldn't be able to tell that you were under a genjutsu."
I didn't think of that, I admitted to myself.
"That's fair. But there is still Kakashi-sensei - you don't have to teach me everything," I said.
Tsukiko snorted, but didn't say anything.
Mori-san looked faintly uncomfortable. "Yes, well... the thing is..." she trailed off, apparently trying to think of a diplomatic way to say whatever it was.
"She doesn't trust Kakashi," Tsukiko put in, looking considerably less guilty about it than Mori-san.
Coughing awkwardly, Mori-san said, "Well. Yes, that's why."
"Oh, okay. That makes sense," I said. It wasn't entirely unreasonable, either; Kakashi was pretty much a terrible teacher. I shrugged. "So what did you want to do?"
Mori-san stared at me for a moment, while Tsukiko just smirked.
"I'm going to cast a genjutsu on you," Mori-san explained. "And I want you to try to tell when."
"Uh, all right," I said. That didn't sound much like practice.
Mori-san obviously noticed my doubt. "It's harder than it seems when you don't have the Sharingan," she warned.
"I know," I replied, trying to sound like I did know.
(I didn't.)
Mori-san walked out of sight behind me with a, "Don't turn around." Presumably, she didn't want me to see her hand seals when she did the genjutsu.
We all stood there awkwardly. I shuffled my feet a little, uncomfortable and restless.
"Don't worry," Tsukiko told me with a grin, "you'll see the point of this whole thing soon. It won't seem so weird then."
I experienced a moment of doubt. What if I was already under a genjutsu and that was why 'Tsukiko' had suddenly decided to speak? But I couldn't feel anything genjutsu-like, and anyway surely if I was under a genjutsu I wouldn't think that I might be. I was pretty sure that the 'nothing is wrong' psychological effect was basic with most genjutsu.
"I know. It's just an interesting training method," I said to the Tsukiko I was mostly sure was real.
Tsukiko laughed. "Hey, the life of ninja is always interesting," she said.
"True," I agreed. It was definitely interesting.
Tsukiko gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, you're -"
Mori-san's chakra slid into my chakra system. I jumped, caught off guard by the disturbing, alien feeling of otherness. She'd used genjutsu on me before, but I'd always been expecting it, so I hadn't noticed how freaky it was.
"You just used a genjutsu on me," I said. That was the point of the exercise, right?
Tsukiko raised her eyebrows, surprised but more amused.
"How did you know?" Mori-san demanded, apparently upset that I was good at the thing she was trying to teach me.
I shrugged. "I felt your chakra. It's kind of creepy, the feeling of somebody else's chakra in my chakra system," I informed her.
Mori-san passed back into my line of sight. After exchanging a Look with Tsukiko, she crossed her arms and looked at me thoughtfully.
"I expected it to take longer before you could accurately identify the feeling of being put under a genjutsu," Mori-san said. She hummed once in thought. "You're a chakra sensor, aren't you?" It wasn't a question; she very much sounded like she already knew the answer.
"A chakra sensor?" I repeated. I could sense chakra, so... "Yeah, I guess."
Mori-san nodded in an almost satisfied way. "I thought so," she said.
"And by that she means she just realized," Tsukiko said.
Mori-san ignored her. "Chakra sensors are always especially skilled at detecting genjutsu," she continued. "Although, not usually that skilled." She gave me a suspicious look, then dropped her voice to mumble to herself, "To have noticed immediately like that..."
"Well, I think Yu-Yu here -" ("Don't call me that," Mori-san said automatically, distracted or not.) " - is a little preoccupied for the moment, so why don't you just, you know, get comfy?" Tsukiko said, patting me on the shoulder.
I stared at her. "Uh..." I didn't want to 'get comfy'; I wanted to train.
Tsukiko must have noticed. "Or you could do something else, I suppose: do the Academy kata, go for a jog, practice your ninjutsu..." she trailed off pointedly, though she didn't look at me.
I glanced at Mori-san, who was no longer mumbling to herself but was apparently deep in thought.
About what? I wondered. What could she possibly have to think about? The fact that I was a sensor?
"Oh, I know!" Tsukiko said abruptly. "Let's practice dodging! You're going to have to be able to in your fight in the finals, right? I can't really do taijutsu, but I can do ninjutsu. So, you know, don't get hit."
Wait, what?
Tsukiko brought her hands up to start a hand seal. "Oh, and don't activate your Sharingan," she added almost as an afterthought. "That's cheating."
Then she started doing the seals. "Fire Release: Fire Dragon Bullet!" she shouted, and the line of fire shot at me.
A little offended by the sudden attack, I jumped out of the way, landing on my shoulder and doing a roll to get back to my feet. Tsukiko didn't shout the name of her next jutsu. The chain of earth spikes in my direction caught me off guard. I backflipped out of the way, getting a close up view of the spikes as they narrowly missed my face.
Almost immediately after landing, I was forced to dive to the other side to avoid another Fire Dragon Bullet, only to run straight into a Great Breakthrough. I was sent flying backwards. As the blast got weaker, I was able to reorient myself. Using chakra, I clung to the ground and slid to a stop.
Mori-san's chakra?
Tsukiko was beside me in a flicker of Jounin-speed. A kunai was already in her hand, already swinging towards me. I sucked in a surprised breath, trying to leap away - I was too slow, she'd hit me -
I flared my chakra, forcing Mori-san's chakra out of my system and releasing the genjutsu.
Tsukiko disappeared.
I let out a breath, took a moment to review what had just happened, and turned to where Tsukiko and Mori-san were standing. "Rude," I said.
Mori-san looked a little upset. Tsukiko just grinned back.
"You're pretty good for a Genin," Tsukiko commented amiably.
"It is very impressive that you noticed my genjutsu," Mori-san said with a sigh. "Apparently, there's no need for me to teach you how to detect genjutsu. You're already very good at it."
I supposed that was true, but also, how did other people not notice the foreign chakra?
They also hadn't actually apologized or even explained. "It was still rude," I said stubbornly.
Mori-san inclined her head elegantly. "It was necessary to see if you could detect genjutsu while distracted, as one tends to be in battle," she explained.
"And you couldn't have told me?" I asked, then sighed. "Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't have worked if I was expecting it. Still."
Tsukiko shrugged. "On the bright side, you're not going to get caught in genjutsu easily," she said.
I gave her an unimpressed look.
She just grinned.
Honestly, I wasn't even sure what I was doing here. Naruto was practicing the Great Breakthrough, but I couldn't really help him. I'd already told him everything I knew, which, admittedly, wasn't a whole lot, and I'd shown it to him enough times that he didn't need to see it any more.
But I was here anyway. Because it was, like, an obligation, or something. I had to stay here and keep watch until he figured it out because I was the one who was supposed to be teaching him. And I couldn't even do anything else because I was technically supposed to be teaching, even though I wasn't.
Sigh.
I wasn't even sure what Naruto was doing, just that it involved a lot of grumbling and pacing. And, of course, trying and failing to do the jutsu.
Maybe he won't take too much longer, I thought hopefully, although it wasn't likely. This was only the second morning he'd been practicing, after all.
I was only half paying attention to what Naruto was doing. I vaguely knew that he was doing the hand seals again, but that wasn't anything new.
It was a good thing I was off to Naruto's side and he wasn't facing directly at me.
The huge gust of chakra-filled wind exploded across the clearing, dragging leaves along in its current and flattening the entire patch of grass from Naruto to the treeline. Even the trees swayed in the direction of the wind, their branches bending as far as they could. The gale was probably four times my vaguely Great Fireball-sized gusts of wind, and far more powerful.
Well. That just happened.
Naruto threw his arms in the air with a whoop. "I did it!" he cheered, turning to beam at me.
I let out a startled laugh. Yes, he did it. And it had only taken him a couple of mornings. That was pretty good.
"That was amazing, Naruto," I said honestly. It was amazing how fiercely he overpowered his jutsu - especially when he was frustrated that they weren't working. If the Great Breakthrough really was exponential on chakra cost, Naruto must have put a ton of chakra into it to get that result.
It was... actually pretty scary. I'd figured that the Great Breakthrough was pretty tame, but, well, if enough chakra was put into it... Naruto possibly didn't need to know a jutsu like the Great Breakthrough.
Honestly, I might have just created a monster.
The problem with attempting to figure out the Body Flicker on my own was that I didn't even know where to start. Tsukiko's "using chakra to coat your body and enhance your speed" was fine in theory, but it wasn't really very helpful in practice.
So I went to the library. Maybe I could find a scroll on it that would be more helpful. It took a while, because I wasn't exactly sure what the Body Flicker was classified as, so I didn't know where to look, but I did successfully find a scroll. Its name was "The Basics of the Body Flicker Jutsu", which wasn't the most hopeful of titles, although it did, at least, help me find it.
Rather than go through the trouble of taking it with me, I just read it there in the library.
It was useless.
"Through the usage of the Body Flicker Jutsu, a ninja can travel long distances at an untraceable speed. This can result in the appearance that the user has teleported. The Body Flicker Jutsu centers around the use of chakra to vitalize the body and move at high speeds for a short amount of time. The amount of chakra..."
Blah, blah, blah. That didn't help me.
The most helpful thing about it was the implication that it wasn't 'coating' your body in chakra, but something else. Which wasn't helpful, exactly, since it contradicted what Tsukiko had told me.
Since it obviously wasn't going to help me and that was the only thing about the Body Flicker in the library, I left to go to a training ground instead. Hopefully the fresh air would inspire me to figure it out. Or something.
Or nothing, I discovered once in the training ground. I still had absolutely no idea what to do.
I sighed, paced back and forth a couple of times, decided that that wasn't helping, and flopped onto my back. Not that lying on my back did help, but it was the melodramatic flop that was the important part. Melodrama out of the way, I tried to think about it.
"...[T]he use of chakra to vitalize the body..."
That was what the scroll had said. So... kind of like enhancing your muscles with chakra as all ninja did, except in the moment and temporarily rather than over time and permanently? That kind of made sense. I just wasn't entirely sure how to do that.
Reluctantly getting to my feet, I eased my chakra out of my chakra coils. Rather than out of my body as I usually would, I directed it to my muscles. As far as I could tell, nothing happened. I wiggled the chakra, which was just kind of there. Not doing anything. I tried moving my body around, doing a couple of halfhearted jumping jacks.
Nothing.
I stared down at myself, frustrated, and let the chakra flow back into my chakra system. The scroll had classified it as a D-Rank jutsu - it couldn't be hard.
But I couldn't figure it out.
Awkward silence.
I'd run out of things to teach Naruto, or even have him practice; he'd gotten really good at both the sealless Replacement Jutsu and the Great Breakthrough surprisingly quickly. Well, I could have him learn the Great Breakthrough seallessly, I supposed - but it was a C-Rank, as opposed to the D-Rank of the Replacement Jutsu, so it was probably harder. And we didn't have a whole lot of time left. It would probably be better to just work on improving things we could already do than to half-learn a new thing.
...Even if Naruto would be terrifying if he could do the Great Breakthrough seallessly.
"I could teach you Shadow Clones," Naruto offered suddenly.
Well, that was random.
I blinked at him. "Why?" I asked.
Naruto was the only one who ever really used Shadow Clones in battle, mostly because they apparently had a ridiculously high chakra cost. There wasn't much point to me learning them, then; I didn't have the chakra for it. Especially with all of the other ninjutsu I could instead use it for - I had no chakra to waste.
"Well, 'cause it's not fair for you to teach me and me to not teach you," Naruto explained.
I spent a moment trying to decipher the words he'd just said.
"And Shadow Clone is the only thing I know that you don't already," he said, looking a little frustrated. Scratching the back of his head and looking guilty, he continued under his breath, "Even though Kakashi-sensei told me not to teach anyone..."
It wasn't like learning the jutsu was so horrible. It didn't mean I had to actually use it, if the chakra cost did turn out super high. Hopefully nothing bad would happen while learning it, though... And for that reason, I decided not to just use the Sharingan to copy Naruto. I could usually control my own chakra output even when I was copying someone else, but I didn't want to risk it.
"It should be okay," I said. I smiled at him. "I'd love to learn it, if you're okay with teaching me."
Naruto grinned back, a beam of sunshine straight in my face (rude), and then launched into a surprisingly in-depth explanation of the workings of the Shadow Clone Jutsu. It made sense, I supposed, since he'd learned it from the Scroll of Seals, but somehow I hadn't expected him to know the technical explanation of it.
It was actually a little ironic: I was the 'smart' one, and yet I hadn't been able to tell him much about the Great Breakthrough, while Naruto was the 'stupid' one, and he could tell me very specific details about the Shadow Clone Jutsu.
Even with Naruto's surprisingly detailed knowledge of the Shadow Clone Jutsu - and without letting myself use the Sharingan - it took a couple of hours for me to manage it, frustratingly enough. It was a B-Rank, true, but still.
I looked at the shadow clone I'd just successfully made, a little excited. As always, there was the thrill of I did it!
But was it worth it? I wasn't sure if shadow clones could be any use to me. The clone raised her eyebrows at me and shrugged. Doing the jutsu had actually cost less chakra than I was expecting - a little more than a single Great Fireball, maybe. That was kind of weird, since I'd thought that creating a shadow clone halved your chakra. Wasn't it supposed to split it? But then, it kind of made more sense: even Naruto shouldn't have been able to halve his chakra that many times. It was still a lot per shadow clone, anyway; Naruto must have had insane amounts of chakra. Well, that was obvious.
A Great Fireball Jutsu's amount of chakra for one clone. The way Naruto used them, it wasn't worth it. Especially because they were so easy to dispel.
"You did it!" Naruto cheered.
I smiled. "I did. Now one more time to make sure it wasn't a fluke," I said.
Naruto rolled his eyes a little; he generally considered that unnecessary and thought I was silly for it. Which, well, I hadn't ever actually found out that it had been a fluke, but still.
I repeated exactly what I'd done the last time, and, sure enough, another Shadow Clone appeared. Woo.
That's a lot of chakra cost.
It felt like a waste to just dispel them after putting so much chakra into them, but I wasn't sure what else to do. I supposed I could experiment - see how long they could actually last, but it didn't really matter.
So I dispelled them - a thing that I apparently knew how to do. It was just instinctive, apparently. The two shadow clones disappeared in puffs of smoke.
And I got a rush of chakra back.
I took a pointless step back, startled. My chakra was all but back to full - I could hardly even tell that I'd used a jutsu at all.
"Eh? Something wrong, Reika?" Naruto asked, noticing the strange behavior.
"You get your chakra back when you dispel a shadow clone?" I asked in response.
Naruto looked blank. He flicked his eyes upwards thoughtfully. "Mm. I guess? I dunno. I've never really paid attention," he said.
I felt the urge to facepalm. Of course you didn't.
Clearly, it was up to me to experiment. I made another shadow clone as Naruto watched with vague interest. I noted the chakra cost and how much it had lowered the amount of chakra I had. Then I dispelled the shadow clone. As I'd thought, I gained back almost all of the chakra the Shadow Clone Jutsu had cost in the first place.
How does that make sense? I wondered, baffled.
"You definitely get the chakra back when your shadow clone is dispelled," I said for Naruto's benefit.
He didn't seem particularly interested in this information.
But it was interesting for me, at least. It removed, like, all of the risk involved with the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Nobody used it because it wasn't worth the chakra cost when a shadow clone could get dispelled so easily, but if you got the chakra back when the shadow clone was dispelled, then there was literally no reason not to. If your shadow clone just immediately got dispelled, then you could use the chakra for something else.
I wondered how it worked if the shadow clone used a jutsu. Naruto's clones had done jutsu, right? I couldn't think of any time in particular... But if they had proper chakra systems, which they did, then they could use chakra. I was pretty sure that Naruto's clones used chakra, at least - to water-walk if nothing else. Plus they helped with the creation of Rasengan - did that count as a jutsu...? Either way, even if clones couldn't do jutsu, they could obviously expend chakra. So was that why you got chakra back when you dispelled a shadow clone? Because involved in the automatic chakra cost of the jutsu was the chakra that the shadow clone got to use. And if it didn't use that chakra, then the chakra went back to the user.
So did that mean that a shadow clone could only do one Great Fireball's chakra worth of jutsu? That was kind of lame.
But still. It was really interesting.
[A/N] By the way, the line from the scroll about Body Flicker Reika found I basically stole from the Naruto wiki's page on Body Flicker. I rewrote some things, but it's still pretty close. So, like, credit and stuff?