Chapter 50, the last one before the final round of the chunin exams. I already told you that I'm gonna be covering Naruto finishing his training with the Rasengan, so we've got that up along with Mito completing up her training with her mother's seal jutsu and Hinata's training with the Eight Trigram Palm Rotation. That's a lot to cover in just one chapter, but I think I can pull it off just fine. Time to get this thing started. As always, thanks for reading and please review.
The finals of the chunin exams were now just three weeks away, and every training ground in the village had someone working hard to complete as much as they could before their big fight. One training ground in particular was filled exact copies of one particular knucklehead ninja. Naruto Namikaze, was hard at work trying to complete his father's jutsu.
Jiraiya watched as the army of Naruto's continued to work on the Rasengan, with little success. He was about to step in when he heard the sound of a balloon popping. All of the clones stopped and turned to the source of the sound, one very nervous looking clone, "Um...I dropped it on the ground and it started to roll, then it popped. Sorry."
One of the other clones walked up with and angry look on his face and smacked the other clone on the top of the head, causing him to dispel. The real Naruto started to grumble angrily until he stopped suddenly. He took his balloon out and started to work his chakra on it again. Sure enough, this time it popped.
Jiraiya jumped over, "Nice job, how'd you finally figure it out?"
Naruto gave him a foxy grin, "When I got the clones memories, I saw that when he dropped it and it started rolling the water was spinning in all different direction when it popped. I used my chakra to spin the water in bunch as many directions as I could manage, and it worked. guess that's why mine was smooth while yours was bumby."
Jiraiya was glad he'd figured it out, "Good job. Dispel all of your clones, they'll only make this next part harder."
Naruto did as he was told, again getting a little dizzy when he did, and looked up and his sensei, "Alright, so now that I can pop the balloon, what's next?"
Jiraiya pulled out a rubber ball, "Next you have to pop this, and let me tell you it's a hell of alot harder. You'll need all of the chakra you can get to pop this bad boy."
Naruto's stomach started to growl, "Okay, then let's go get some ramen. I'm gonna need my strength."
Jiraiya went pale. He'd only been paying for his ramen for a couple of days but Naruto had already almost made him cry. He thanked god he was rich, otherwise he didn't know how in the hell he'd be able to bounce back from this kid's appetite.
You could hear the sounds of impatient groaning ringing through the halls of the Senju mansion. Mito sat with her legs crossed on the floor trying focus on creating the seal like her mothers on her forehead.
It turned out to be much more complicated than she ever anticipated. You didn't just have to put some seal on your forehead, you actually had to link that seal with your entire chakra network. Turns out while you had hundreds of chakra coils, they all originated from the same location. The seal was designed to store up whatever new chakra was created that wasn't needed so that it could be released to heal the body without any hand seals.
Making sure all of the coils linked up in right way took a lot of concentration. If you messed up even once, you had to start all over again. This was Mito's fifth attempt at making the seal, and she was about 3/4 of the way there. It was easily the farthest Mito had gotten.
Sadly, she once again made a small error. Mito knew the instant she made it and screamed, " Are you freaking kidding me!?"
Tsunade laughed as she watched her daughter, "Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. Probably the next at the rate you've been growing."
Mito hoped she was rights. She grumbled to herself, "It'd better be."
Naruto had been spending the past two days trying to pop that damn rubber ball. Jiraiya said that it was gonna be harder to pop it than the ballon, but this was way beyond hard. He just kept pouring in more and more chakra into it but it just wouldn't pop.
Taking another deep breath and gathered every ounce of chakra he could manage and poured it all into the ball. The ball started to contort and twist, becoming bumby. It gave one final expand and then...POP!
Naruto fell to the ground and started panting. Jiraiya, who had been watching from a nearbye tree, came down and gave the boy some water.
He couldn't help but be impressed, "Nice job kid. You're finishing this thing even faster than I did."
Naruto took a big gulp of the water and kept panting, "So does this mean I'm ready for the last step?"
Jiraiya nodded, "Yup, but it's the hardest of the three."
Naruto sighed, "Can you carry me home? I think I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to start it and I don't think I can walk home right now."
Jiraiya picked him up, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."
Naruto had one last question, " Can you get me some ramen on the way home?"
Jiraiya was starting to understand how Tsunade felt when she made a big bet and lost. This kid was gonna put a dent in even his finances. Still, he had done a great job, "Yeah, I'll get you some ramen."
Hiashi watched as the clan members who agreed to help Hinata got there practice kunai ready. They were wooden and blunt, so they would hurt but not kill. Hinata had come close to completing the Eight Trigram Palm Rotation, and Neji had completed it only two days ago. With just a little more work, Hinata would have it down for sure.
Hiashi called to his daughter, "Remember to pour chakra out of every pour in your body and use your palms to channel it evenly into a dome to protect you."
Neji was watching as well and Hinata's little sister Hanabi yelled over, "You can do it Hinata!"
Hinata was happy to see so many people rooting for her. She motioned for them to begin and got ready to defend herself.
They threw all of the practice kunai at her and she started to spin around with her are stuck out. She was surround by a blue veil of chakra that made a dome around her.
Everyone held their breath as the practice kunai got close to the dome. They hit the dome and bounced off. Everyone in the Hyuuga training ground started to cheer. Hinata was smiling brightly. She'd done it!
Hanabi ran up and gave her a hug, "Awesome job Hinata."
Neji gave her a small bow, "Well done lady Hinata."
Hiashi simply gave her a nod and smile. He told her five simple words that made her heart nearly jump out if her chest, "I'm proud of you Hinata."
Hinata looked around her at all of the people who were cheering for her. This was one of the best days of her life.
Naruto didn't understand at all why he would need to do this, "You want me to make a Rasengan without popping the balloon? Can you actually do that?"
Jiraiya rolled his eyes, "Well yeah, it's the last step in mastering it. You've got the shape down and the power, now you need to learn how to control it. Once you can make a full Rasengan in the balloon without popping, then you can start trying to actually use it on things."
Naruto liked the sound of that. He braved the balloon and got to work.
Mito was being more careful than she has ever been in her life. She was just a few minutes from finishing the set up for the sealing jutsu. In just 3...2...1...
That's when Mito screamed, "I did it! I finally did it!"
Tsunade looked at her daughter with pride in her eyes. Mito was gonna be one hell of a med-nin, "Good. All you've gotta do now is wait for it to gain enough chakra for it to actually be of some use. We'll just practice with your taijutsu until then."
Mito wasn't really listening. She was too busy bouncing up and down in excitement.
Jiraiya walked to the training ground to find small circular indents on all of the trees around the area, "You weren't suppose to start trying it until I got back."
Naruto, who was standing next to a tree out of breath, called back, "I know, but you were taking freaking forever. Where did you go anyway?"
Jiraiya pulled food out of the bag he was carrying. It was mostly fruits and vegetables, "Tsunade and Rin have been on my back about you eating too much ramen lately. I wonder why that could be?"
Naruto smiled like he had no clue what was going, "Yeah, I wonder why."
Jiraiya tossed him an apple out if the bag, "Just get some healthy stuff in my system so they'll leave me alone."
Naruto caught the apple and took a big bite, "Fair enough."
Jiraiya took some food out for himself and asked Naruto, "How close have you come?"
Naruto pointed to the most recent mark he'd made, "I don't know how you'd gauge it, but that's the deepest I've gotten so far."
Jiraiya inspected the mark and said, "You're doing alright considering you just started. You've still got a long way to go though."
Naruto knew he was right but didn't like it, "That sucks. How long do you think it'll be?"
Jiraiya wasn't sure, "That depends on how hard you work."
Naruto scoffed, "In that case, I'll have this thing mastered by the end of the week."
Jiraiya thought that sounded a little to confident, "Mastering the Rasengan in just week? I'm not sure that's possible."
Naruto didn't seem nervous at all, "I'll have it mastered before the weeks out. That's a promise."
Jiraiya had to admit, if anyone could do it, it was Naruto, "We'll see kid, we'll see."
Sure enough, on the last day of the week, "One week! How the hell did you master it in one week? It took your father almost three years to make it and it took him ages to teach it to me!"
Naruto turned away from the tree he'd destroyed and tried to get his sensei's attention, "Um, sensei..."
Jiraiya just kept yelling to himself, "That shouldn't even be possible!"
Naruto decided to go home. Jiraiya would come back to the real world eventually...and then he would buy Naruto more ramen
Alright, next up the finals of the Chunin exams! That's gonna be a lot of writing to do, and I'm really excited for it. See you all then.
