AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.
Proofread by: Author
This chapter is really late, but still on the right day… Yay. Anyway, the reason is simply that I was invited to a small party I couldn't really refuse. Tired, and supposed to be studying, I still made the effort to bring you all this chapter as soon as possible, so please enjoy it. I think we just have one or two chapters left.
Chapter 125: Complete ocular, inviting voyage
The Hokage tower was located close to the center of the village. Reachable using any of the major roads within Konohagakure and therefore, the ideal location for gathering Human Natural energy. They had gotten Tsunade's permission after they explained what they had in mind, being told that they were allowed to sit at the top of the tower until nightfall.
The realization that shadow clones could be re-charged using chakra had been a big discovery. A shadow clone couldn't produce the necessary Physical and Mental energy, but it could make use of what it had from its creation, and if Sakura and Heikō could provide the Physical and Mental energy… Well, it suggested that their shadow clones could be charged to capacity, making them even more of an asset for combat. Provided a dispelled clone at capacity didn't kill them with a chakra overdose or something.
Unfortunately, while they had in fact managed to replicate their external chakra storage for Natural, Physical, and Mental energy, the efficiency was incredibly poor. Just like it had been when they first began doing so with chakra, not to mention that the technique was more advanced and tended to collapse after a certain threshold of energy was overstepped.
It was incredibly frustrating, but the only way to overcome the issue was by training. Considering the fact that the surrounding Natural energy was far more abundant than their reserves of Physical or Mental energy, it was an obvious choice for their practice. Slowly, they were attempting to control and compact Human Natural energy into a sphere located above them, but progress was slow, and it forced them to strain their focus and control over Natural energy as soon as they approached the limit in either size or density. So far, they couldn't form a sphere any bigger than a cherry, barely enough to turn even a regular frog to stone. Any more, and the chakra core anchoring the Natural energy would fail, or the chakra shell around the "container" would shatter, releasing all of the Natural energy back into their surroundings, along with the chakra, Mental energy, and Physical energy, all required to keep the technique together.
As it was, not even an hour after dinnertime, Sakura and Heikō found their concentration broken by Naruto finding and joining them on top of the Hokage tower.
"Sakura! Heikō!" Naruto exclaimed, resulting in the small sphere of Natural energy burst.
Sighing, Heikō, who had been in control of the body at the time sighed, and opened her eyes to see an excited Naruto running over to them. "Hello, Naruto. Is there something you need? We were in the middle of training." Heikō pointed out, frowning slightly to make her annoyance clear.
"Oh, sorry." Naruto apologized, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, before seemingly remembering what he was there, to begin with. "Oh, right! I came here as soon as I found you. Jiraiya is going to be training me, but he says we'll be leaving the village. I asked him if you'd be coming as well, and he said that it was up to you, but he is willing to let you come along, even if he isn't sure of why you'd want to, since he has no idea to teach you." Naruto explained, having started excited, before going back to sheepish.
Meanwhile, Sakura and Heikō were astonished, confused, and already weighing the pros against the cons of going with Naruto on a training trip. Of course, without any more information, there was no way they could, even if they wanted to. "Fūinjutsu, definitely Fūinjutsu," Heikō told Naruto, although her answer only seemed to confuse him. Yet before he could ask what she meant, Heikō continued. "How long would this training trip go on for, and where would we be going?" She added, as there was no way she'd get permission from their parents otherwise, even if they didn't really need it.
"Oh, um… Jiraiya isn't sure, but he thinks it might take anywhere from two to three years, and we'll be traveling the entire time." Naruto explains, making Heikō give him an unimpressed look.
"What about Sasuke or Kakashi? They wouldn't be able to act as a team during that time. This will destroy team seven." Sakura pointed out, which made Naruto adopt a sad expression.
"I asked about Sasuke, but Jiraiya Sensei said no to him coming along. He didn't really explain why. Either way, he's pretty dead set on taking me away from the village because of the Akatsuki. He wants me to disappear for a while so we can make sure they don't return in greater numbers right away. The Hokage has already agreed to it, so I kinda don't have a choice anyway." Naruto explained sadly, making Heikō frown, trying to figure out what Tsunade was thinking before Sakura pointed out it wasn't important and they could just ask Tsunade later.
"That sucks," Heikō told Naruto instead. "I guess that with you out of the village, they won't come here, but it's still not fair to you. When are you set to leave? We'll need to know how long we have to decide." Heikō inquired, knowing that they could just settle for learning from Fezā instead. Leaving either Naruto or Sasuke alone wasn't really a pleasant idea either way, but with their crush over Sasuke gone, it seemed more sensible to go with Naruto, preventing him from being alone with the pervert Sannin. Of course, on the opposite side of the spectrum, leaving Sasuke alone for so long wasn't a good idea either, considering their promise to improve and help each other as a team. "You sure we can't bully Jiraiya into bringing Sasuke along as well?" She asked, only to be met with a sad shake of the head.
"No, I did everything I could to get him to agree, but he said there's no way he's bringing an entire team with him. Two was the limit, and I had to be one of them, and he'd much rather the second one was you two. We're leaving the morning after tomorrow." Naruto explained, making Heikō sigh at the dilemma.
"Right, well, we'll think about it. We should speak with Sasuke and Kakashi about this as well." Heikō and Sakura said together, before Sakura took over their body, flipping the braid over to the right shoulder before standing up.
"We'll find you once we have an answer," Sakura told Naruto, before smiling and disappearing in using a body flicker technique, immediately hiding behind a corner to observe Naruto's reaction. Seeing him wide-eyed, and looking around, before attempting to dispel a genjutsu made her chuckle quietly to herself. They had figured out how the body flicker technique worked a while ago but had only actually dared to attempt it using a clone earlier that day. After their complete success, they now used it any moment they got the chance to. Thanks to their three-dimensional perception using their senses, it was easy to calculate the right amount of chakra for each jump using the technique. Although, it still took them a while to calculate it properly, so it wasn't really suitable for combat, yet.
Understandably, the Haruno twins' parents weren't all that enthusiastic with the idea of them leaving the village to train in an unknown location, for up to three years. A lot could happen in that time, and they already worried about them daily, due to their chosen career.
"Mom, dad. We'll be fine!" Sakura tried to assure them, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"We know, but we still worry. Sakura, Heikō, you'll be gone for years. We know that we can't keep you two here forever, but we'd like to prolong our time with you two for as long as we can." Mebuki told them, smiling at them sadly, before sighing and hanging her head. "Still, we won't stop you." She tells them, sounding defeated, and it almost broke their hearts to hear it.
With a sigh of his own, Kizashi got up from his seat and sat down again next to Mebuki, hugging her, before looking up at Sakura and Heikō, offering them a smile. "We support your decision fully, no matter what you choose. We know how much Naruto and your career means to you. We can't always have everything our way. Just don't forget to write." He told them, and Sakura nodded, feeling less guilty, smiling slightly, knowing they'd at least be able to keep in touch using letters.
"Thank you." She offered, only to see Mebuki's shoulder's slump, before she looked at them again, teary-eyed.
"Oh, my babies have grown up so much…" She said before she got up and walked around the table to hug them. Sakura returned the hug, and after a moment, switched places with Heikō, making sure they both got to experience it personally, before repeating it with Kizashi.
Sasuke frowned but nodded in understanding. "Yeah, you two have fun then. I'm going to be busy with my own training anyway. Kakashi has had a few ideas, and if it works, I'll be really busy for a while, and he wouldn't have much time for either of you anyway." Sasuke told them, surprising Naruto and the Haruno twins, who had decided to tell Sasuke about their trip together.
"Really? What is it?" Naruto inquired, curious.
Sasuke didn't say anything for a while, before nodding to himself and activated his Sharingan. For a moment, none of his teammates realized why, before they noticed he now had three tomoe in each eye.
"You've evolved your Sharingan!" Naruto exclaimed, cheerfully pointing at Sasuke, before Sakura slapped his hand down, reminding him that it was rude to point.
"Yeah, Kakashi helped me, and he thinks we can do something similar for the Mangekyo Sharingan," Sasuke informed them with an amused smirk, leaving his teammates wide-eyed.
"Wait, you mean, a way beyond what we've come up with so far? Damn, I had another one we were working with Tsunade on." Sakura revealed, turning the curious gazes of their teammates on her, looking for an explanation. "Ah, well, since emotions are what trigger the Sharingan, and a Genjutsu to provoke such emotions might be a bad idea, we came up with the idea to medically induce the emotions with either chemicals or hormones," Sakura explained, making Sasuke nod.
"Kakashi considered it as well, but after doing some research, he decided it is unlikely to work and not worth the risk. Adrenaline produced by the body is more effective than injected adrenaline. Giving someone the exact concentration, dose, and then balance it with all the other functions of the body is far too complicated and risky." Sasuke explained.
Sakura bowed her head in acknowledgment, it was true after all. She was a little surprised that Kakashi was the one to have already thought it through before Tsunade could do so. Although Tsunade had said it was a bad idea, she hadn't really taken it off the table yet, and she hadn't had the time to really go through it all with Sakura and Heikō due to her position, and the mysterious disappearance of Shizune that they had forgotten to inquire about.
"Well then, I guess that we won't see each other for a few years… Maybe we should do something together before that?" Sakura suggested. Naruto immediately agreed, nodding happily while Sasuke took a moment to think it over before nodding.
"Sure. Any ideas?" He asked, standing up from where he had been sitting on the ground at training ground four after a session of beating a log into submission. Naruto opened his mouth to offer a suggestion, only for Sasuke to immediately nail him with a Sharingan glare. "Anything but Ramen!" He exclaimed, making Sakura crack up at Naruto's disappointed expression. He looked like a kicked puppy.
Sasuke continued to glare at a pouting Naruto who tried to come up with some loophole or alternative that would convince Sasuke to allow them to eat Ramen together anyway. Sakura soon recovered, continuing to grin as Heikō still laughed in their mind. "How about a three-way spar?" She suggested, grinning at the pair of smirks she received in return.
AN: Well, I think my decision is clear, no? I just happened to get a bunch more ideas, and so this chapter is looking way different from what I had planned two days ago. Enjoy, as soon I will be writing the sequel. I suspect anyone reading this far into the story has enjoyed it so far and will continue to read the sequel. I actually intend to make my own art for the sequel, already have a great idea for what it will contain. Will require a lot of time though I suspect with what I have in mind.
