The Storm Awakens

One year later

Mt. Myoboku

"Come on, come on, almost there, you can do this Naruto just one step more…. come oonnnn…yes! Phew, that was a workout!" Naruto exclaimed as he completed his last lap.

"Well done Naruto boy! To think you have come so far in such a short time! All though, you do have your shadow clones to thank. Otherwise, I do not think your lessons in genjutsu and taijutsu would have progressed so well," Fukaksu replied with a small smile.

"You bet! And to think I actually managed to talk to the Kyuubi during my meditation sessions…that was certainly something. Hey gramps, tell me how much time I took to complete my 30 kilometres today.!"

"Let's see… last month you took 76 minutes and today…. 75 minutes and one second!"

"Tch. Still a second short."

"Well, well I leave you for a year and you show such pitiful growth. I don't know why I got my hopes up," replied a deep, chuckling voice from behind Naruto. And Naruto instead of replying, simply smirked, and snapped his fingers.

"You would think that your shadow clones would prove to be a – WAAHHH! TSUNADE! Wait, aren't you in – oh well played gaki. Well played," Jiraiya laughed and appeared in front of Naruto. "Well, I know your genjutsu is right on track from that particular demonstration. How are you gaki?"

"Stronger than before for sure. And I have gotten all the jutsus down though it's still a tad bit too powerful. But there is only so much chakra control can do. My taijutsu has seen the most growth. I don't rely on my shadow clones much in fights either. That's the short version of it. But enough of that. You promised me something a year ago. Time to hold up your end of the bargain."

"I thought you would never ask. Even I brushed off the rust off my body so I could give you a proper fight. You ready to get your ass kicked you fucker?"

"Says the wanker whose about to fall off this mountain in the next 30 minutes."

Naruto then looks at Fukaksu, "Reduced, or removal?"

"Removal," replied Fukaksu.

And Naruto promptly removed his weighted clothing, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts underneath them. His body had become very muscular while maintain a lean physique a lot and was even sporting visible six-pack abs. He had shot up 6 inches in height, and looked no longer a scrawny runt, as he was easily 5 feet now, an average height for someone at age 14. His hair which was earlier spiky and all over the place, had been cut to a shorter length and looked tamer.

(A/N: See the cover image for the story. That is Naruto's new look in this chapter. As for why I did not reveal this earlier, I shall explain that as well in this chapter.)

"Ready Ero-sennin?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup." Jiraiya replied as he got into his fighting stance.

"Then GO!" Fukaksu roared and started the spar.

Immediately, two kunais were whipped out and the duo charged towards each other. Or well, Jiraiya charged and Naruto and vanished only to appear on Jiraiya's left, and sliced across the back of his rendering it virtually unusable for the rest of the fight. Jiraiya retaliated with his hair only for Naruto to vanish from Jiraiya's sight.

'Damn good move. Kid's using his brain. He knows you need two hands to make hand-signs and that the left hand is majorly used for counterattacks and blocks. Fucking three birds with one stone huh? And fuck he cut it deep. Gotta wrap it up. Also, note to self. HE IS GOING DOWN!' Jiraiya thought as he too vanished from the battlefield at nearly the same speed as Naruto.

'Like I thought, he was holding back on everyone. That, or he can't keep up his full power due to his age. Either way, he is out for my blood now,' thought Naruto as he saw Jiraiya vanish.

"For all your speed, you haven't learnt how to hide your movements have you?" THWACK!

Naruto suddenly found himself flying through the air straight towards a boulder. He substituted himself with a log, only to be send sprawling to the ground again with a blow to his jaw. Jiraiya then suddenly used a single hand-sign and his hair reached out to bind Naruto.

Naruto still reeling from Jiriays's punch suddenly found his legs caught by some weird white hair. 'Oh no you don't!' and he promptly shredded his bindings by channelling wind chakra through his fingers and launching it at the white rope. But no sooner was he back on his foot that once more, the ground shook violently. 'Is he using jutsus? No, he can't he hasn't…oh god I am such an idiot of course you don't need to say the name to do it!' And Naruto promptly jumped upwards created five exploding clones and sent them flying in five different directions, hoping one of them would cause Jiraiya to move.

Jiraiya however had already moved right underneath Naruto, using his single-minded focus on flushing him out to sneak in a vicious uppercut as he launched himself towards Naruto, and he swiftly kicked Naruto straight into the ground. But when his foot impacted Naruto, Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke and another Naruto appeared right behind Jiraiya, and Jiraiya prepared for a punch or kick, or heck even a Rasengan, but all the clone did was explode right in front of him.

"SHIT!"

Jiraiya hastily covered himself with his hair, saving himself from the brunt of the explosion but not from being propelled downwards. He landed gracefully and spotted a Rasengan coming towards him from the left. And instead of merely sidestepping, he appeared behind Naruto to counterattack but suddenly that Naruto fazed out of existence and now a Rasengan was heading straight toward him. 'Genjutsu to set me up in position not bad.'

And Jiraiya this time ducked low and swept Naruto's legs off. Naruto who was clearly unprepared was caught off-guard and promptly fell. Jiraiya then used his hair to pin Naruto to the ground and slammed his foot heavily into Naruto's chest. "Ugghh!" And then Naruto's shoulders were promptly dislocated by Jiraiya's hairs. Jiraiya then drew his hair back and looked down at Naruto calculatingly.

'Damn, he really was good. Easily somewhere between A and B rank. That too without his now impressive jutsu arsenal. And the fuck, his chakra control is high enough to cast convincing genjutsus in the middle of battle. But he needs stealth training. I could easily see predict his movements. A sensor would have a very easy job to track Naruto because of his chakra, the least he could do is make sure his movements are invisible. Guess we can work on that and sage mode this year.'

And then to Jiraiya's utter astonishment, Naruto turned into smoke.

"FU-"

"Wind Style: Wind Scythe Jutsu!"

"Wind Style: Breakthrough!"

"Earth Style: Swamp of the Underworld!"

"Water Style: Water Cannon!"

"Wind Style: Gale Palm!"

And Jiraiya certainly couldn't make out the name of the jutsus over the five simultaneous voices. All he knew was stuck to the muddy ground, a torrent of water was coming to knock him over and three other long range justsus were out to get him, possibly wind.

"Earth Style: Hiding in Rock Technique!"

Immediately, Jiraiya surrounded himself with two rock domes and even covered himself with his hair as an added measure of protection. Once the domes had been destroyed, Jiraiya retracted his fair, and found Naruto standing a few metres away from him, smirking.

"What's the matter, old timer? Don't have anymore stamina left in ya? Oh, such ap pity. And here I was expecting that I was going to get my ass handed by the Jiraiya, the Sannin. Such a disappointment."

In response to his rant, Jiraiya merely raised two fingers. "Activate," Jiraiya commanded. And Naruto could no longer move. Not even blink. His whole body had gone rigid, and he was unable to move a muscle. He tried to say something but his mouth wouldn't move.

"I will admit, you were mighty impressive today. You are still a long way from reaching the level of an elite jonin like Kakashi or Guy, but as you are now, your strength and tactics combined are on par with a regular jonin. Kakashi would have a workout fighting you, but at no point will he have trouble. Frankly, I underestimated you. That was the only reason you caught me off-guar twice, at the start and towards the end.

Guess even I still have a few things to learn. Well, anyway good job Naruto. You were chunin level a year ago when I left you, and you showed more growth than I expected. You used your shadow clones much more efficiently, and didn't even shout out the name of the jutsus you used, well until the very end that is. Frankly, more people should do that. I get that it helps you focus your chakra, but damn people no need to tell your opponent what you are doing…

That said, I refrained from using too much ninjutsu today, and am glad you did too. I know your chakra reserves are who knows how large, but its god that you are preserving as much as you can. Excellent use of subtle genjutsu to get your opponent to play right into your hands.

Now onto where you failed. One, you know I am a seal-master. That means it is your priority to make sure I never touch you while fighting. If I can even scrape my finger on you, I can apply any seal I want and you won't even notice, which is why you are standing under the influence of a paralysis seal right now.

Two, you did not use your weapons much. A very bad decision. While weapons are easy to dodge at long range, if used correctly are even more dangerous than any S-rank ninjutsu. All it would take is one lucky kunai to the throat and that's it. Three, while it was wise of you to keep hiding and attacking me from a logical standpoint, it would have worked better if you had been fighting me head-on. That way, I would not have been prepared to look out for a sneak attack.

And finally, four, if you do want to hide and attack, make sure that your opponent can't figyre out where you are moving to. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of hiding. It was the main reason why many of your attacks were blocked by me.

And that's that. This fight is over kid. You have still got a long way to go. But you have started that long journey on a very high note. Now, release!"

As soon as Jiraiya released the seal Naruto fell too the ground as the adrenalin of the fight wore off. He panted as he caught his breath and finally stood up. "So, basically all the stuff I did wrong was because I was only thinking about ninjutsu and taijutsu wasn't it?"

"Correct. Those two do dominate a shinobi's career and life, but the others can make just as big an impact. Also, damn gaki, who cut your hair? You look much better in this hairstyle. Totally different person. Like a cool and strong teenager who I would have been jealous of as a kid."

"Oh this. This was Gamakichi's idea."

"Gamakichi? But you were not supposed to interact with the other toads."

"Uh…. well, you see the toads would come watch me train and then Gamakichi made the off-hand comment that my hair wasn't really fitting into the cool shinobi vibe. How he knows what a cool shinobi should look like I have no idea. But Ma heard that and for some reason decide to give me a haircut. Which ended up looking like this.

Now I am thinking that when you select me to go on your missions next year, this will be my new look and I can wear an ANBU like mask to hide my face. That way no one can recognize me from my wild blonde hair alone. And trust me, there are very few blondes in Konoha. But when we go back to Konoha, I will wear my old hairstyle only for a day. And then its back to the cooler one."

"All right two questions. What do you mean you will go on my missions next year? Also, why would you want to have your old hairstyle for a day?"

"Well, you did point out a lot of my faults. And on a solo mission, I can't afford to make such mistakes. So, I will go on the missions next year. As for the second one, its just to let everyone else adapt to my new strength."

"Fair enough. And might I add very mature. Right let's go back to Pa, have some food, if you can call those bugs that…. And then we will chalk out your next training phase."

"Sure. Let's go."

3 hours later

"All right," Fukaksu started. "What do you want Naruto to do next, Jiraiya boy?"

"I and Naruto will both learn sage mode. Well, in my case, I will finish it and master it. But that's the gist. I will stay here for a maximum of a month. After that I have to go back to my spy network. But rest assured that I will do it in this one month. Naruto, you will finish this if you can, within six months. Don't worry there is chakra training involved and Pa and Ma won't let you slack off on the other departments," Jiraiya replied.

"What about the next 6 months?" Naruto asked.

"That will be devoted to you learning to control at some of Kyuubi's chakra and working on the stuff I told you today. And as usual, chakra training and taijutsu and the works. Also, squeeze in some training for sage mode from time to time. It will help. That's the gist. You already know what the exact details of each thing I mentioned are. So, let's get to work straight from dawn tomorrow," Jiraiya said, and both Naruto and Fukaksu nodded and went off to sleep.

Author's note: I cannot apologise enough for the delay in posting this chapter. There are several vaild reasons for it though. First I lost my account password and god knows why I never received my reset password mail until my fourth day of trying. Then I rewrote this story three times. Then I had a week long back-to-back barrage of exams which ended today. And here we are. Again I apologise for the delay. I hope you liked the new chapter and as usual, review and let me know your thoughts!