I don't own Naruto
Chapter 7
"In order to get used to your new reality, you'll first need to accept that you've lost your right." Jiraiya said.
Naruto stood in front of him, his right arm now in a tight sling. The boy looked at Jiraiya oddly. "Um sensei, I have accepted it."
"Have you? Sure, on some conscious level you understand your current situation. But do you understand the implications. For example- ", Jiraiya stopped mid-sentence and threw a jab towards Naruto from the right. The jab was fairly slow, Naruto could easily track it with his eyes, but to his surprise it landed on his jaw anyway.
"Ow! What was that for? Did you use some trick? I blocked it."
"No, you didn't Naruto. I'm afraid you only thought you blocked it. You've developed your instincts to block using your right guard on the right side, but you don't have it now."
"Oh…"
"A sage is always aware of one's self and once's surroundings in the present. The loss of your right hand is still to be accepted fully by your mind. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can leave the past behind."
"I see…", Naruto replied looking down.
"I know. The idea of adapting to this injury makes it feel that much more permanent. But that too is a mirage. Just as the past is only a memory, the future is never as clear as the present."
Jiraiya gently placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder.
"We don't know if your arm will heal in time Naruto. Perhaps an old friend of mine, once I locate her, she could heal you. Or it might never work again at all. But… the hand will only handicap you if you let it."
"It handicapped me right now!", Naruto exclaimed indignantly.
"Only because your body was clinging to its memory of the past."
"I'm always going to have a weaker guard! How can I make up for one arm lost!"
Jiraiya took a long breath as he ordered his thoughts in his mind. He too was feeling emotional, but this was not the time.
"Do you know that you've reached the limits of your capabilities?"
"I… what?"
"Is this the fastest you can be. The strongest you can be. If you had that arm to guard you now, would it be able to block a right from me?"
"Um…"
"Is your mind as sharp as it can be, are your tactics as extensive. Can you use your chakra with perfect precision, and is have you learned all the ninjutsu there is to learn?"
"No…"
"Then how can you be certain that losing your right arm will be a weakness. Perhaps the limitation will help you learn to use your remaining limbs better. Perhaps you will learn some ninjutsu that could serve to fill the deficiency. The only thing you can know for sure is that you can't use it right now. And yes, it has set you back but only temporarily."
Naruto looked at Jiraiya more hopefully.
"What's more important to focus on is what this incident taught you. Under overwhelming threat, you chose to protect a friend. Against a more powerful foe, you were able to attack with surprise. When the moment came to take action, you were steady." Jiraiya knelt down so that he was eye to eye with Naruto and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Those are powerful traits Naruto."
"They are?!" Naruto asked optimistically.
Jiraiya gave a short laugh. "Yes Naruto. They are powerful and rare traits. But don't let your head swell just yet, you're still a weak kid with one arm. Luckily for you this sage will help you change that."
Under the weight of Jiraiya's determined expression Naruto gulped with anticipation and a little bit of fear.
-Page Break-
"What about ninjutsu?"
Jiraiya looked at Naruto who was still recovering from their sparring. It had been a couple weeks since the two had started working on remaking his guard and progress was slow but steady. Naruto had needed some time to get used to guarding his right side with his left hand, His guard had become more dynamic out of necessity. He also needed to move constantly so he was never exposing too much of his right to Jiraiya.
"What about it?" Jiraiya asked back.
"Well, I can't perform any right now", Naruto said.
"Sure, you can."
"How would I make the seals… you know", Naruto said gesturing at his slinged right arm.
"Naruto, what do seals do?"
Naruto at this point had gotten used to getting asked questions as responses to questions. And he knew that unless he came up with something himself, Jiraiya wasn't going to give him anything new. He mused over the man's question.
"They help a shinobi mold chakra."
"Correct. For any jutsu to work, first the chakra of the shinobi needs to be turned from life-force into an elemental form; your standard fire, water, earth, air and lightening. Then it needs to be shaped into a particular form depending on the jutsu, for example a fire jutsu can be both a stream or a fireball. Then there is a release, where the chakra is pushed out so that it can do the user's bidding."
Jiraiya looked at Naruto to ensure he was paying attention. He was.
"This is why the first seal of any jutsu of the same element is always the same. It's being used to generate the elemental chakra. Then we have different seals for transformation. But what exactly do seals do, such that they help with chakra molding?"
Jiraiya made the seal of fire, and then moved closer to Naruto so that he could see better.
"Do you notice how the fingers overlap specific parts of the other hand. The area overlapped is different for every hand sign. You see many years ago, in a time long past, humans figured out that their hands were convergence points for chakra nerves. As such applying even mild pressure on particular parts affected how a person's chakra flows. By changing your chakra flow and then generating chakra you can mold it. This is the basis of hand signs. A ninja uses the aid of his hands to manipulate their chakra flow through external means. This is why your sensei insists that hand-signs be properly, if the wrong nerve is blocked while manipulating chakra it could potentially have bad consequences."
"So how will I mold chakra then!" Naruto asked with frustration evident in his voice.
Jiraiya gave him a look.
Naruto rolled his eyes and took a long breath. Then he repeated calmly, "How will I mold my chakra?"
"Watch carefully."
Jiraiya ran quickly through the hand signs for the fireball jutsu. He performed it on a tree nearby. Then almost immediately he fired off another one. The second was a fair bit larger and seemed to move faster as well.
"How'd you do that?", Naruto exclaimed.
"While hand-signs are useful they are ultimately a handicap. A crutch. A shinobi should ideally use them until they learn to feel their internal chakra network, and once they learn to feel chakra and mold it, they should stop using the crutch. In practice however, most choose the easy way of never growing past basic hand signs."
Jiraiya formed the Rasengan and it danced on the palm of his hand. Naruto looked at it with fascination.
"A true shinobi will grow past the limitations of the hand-sign. This is the Rasengan, the famous weapon of the Fourth Hokage. It's a jutsu that no hand-signs can mimic. The fourth created this jutsu from scratch and he could only do it because he understood how chakra truly worked. He let go of the crutches. All great shinobi have let go of their crutch and created their own great jutsu, the kind that can't be replicated or stolen, only taught."
The Rasengan dissipated. Jiraiya raised his non-empty hand to point it at Naruto, "You are going to have a more difficult path Naruto. Since you can't use hand-signs you can't learn to grow accustomed to your chakra network in the conventional way. There is however, another option. The way people originally learned to use chakra. Learning to attune oneself with nature. That's right, I, the gallant toad sage will bestow upon you the unique art of sen-jutsu."
"Hell yeah!"
"Just be prepared to have next to no ninjutsu for a couple years."
"…wait what?"
-Page Break-
A couple months after the Kumo scuffle Hinata found herself training with her Father. The basics of the jyuuken which had never sat well with her before had grown more agreeable in recent times. The philosophy of the Gentle Fist was one of domination through immobilization. Despite its seemingly gentile nature the gentle fist was the ultimate show of aristocratic power, clean and precise motions that were designed to incapacitate and, depending on the situation, dispose of enemies. The weapon of a system that was strict and efficient in its hierarchy.
A younger Hinata had disliked the element of exerting one's own will on others. She used to hate the hierarchical nature of the clan, and the doctrine of Hyūga superiority over commoners never sat well with her. The gentle fist's propensity to deal damage to another's chakra system made her hesitant to use it to its full capacity. The great legend of the first Hyūga, a man whose fist was so gentle it could destroy chakra systems and seal people's chakra forever, only scared her. The kind girl only wanted to live and let live, not to impose too much on the world.
But the brutal way in which the bandits from Kumo had hurt Naruto showed her the naivety of her thought process. She might let live, but others would not. For all it's strict ways the Hyūga clan still practiced restrain and tradition. They were not barbaric and thus were a solution to the barbarianism that infested the world. Like the village of Kumo that had taken so much from her, and her family.
She hadn't tried talking to Naruto after their last encounter. She feared he would never look at her the same. Those bastards had taken her friend from her. But she would not let them take his life. If the world was chaotic then she would have to force order onto it to protect the one's she cared about. She despised her weakness more than ever now, the same weakness that had made her abandon Naruto when he needed him. She needed power and she had finally understood the value of the Jyuuken.
This vicious concoction of rage and self-disgust swirled in the mind of the young girl, who was far too young to have thoughts quite like this. And so, as she sparred with her father, her strikes grew more vicious fueled by her emotions. Yet her careful demeanor was not gone, her patience helped her wait for ideal moments to be deadly.
Hiashi watched his daughter spar against him and felt unsure of what to feel. Since the Kumo incident his daughter's propensity towards the Fist had increased tremendously. Even now her attacks were selective and aimed to kill, a perfect balance of restraint and power, for one so young. Simply speaking, Hinata had finally began to embody an ideal Hyūga.
Her demeanor had grown colder and more determined. She rarely showed any self-doubt. Even the generally foul mood she sometimes displayed was not unlike some young and ambitious Hyūga he had seen. In some ways she had started acting like the young Neji, who was a prodigy on another level.
But Hiashi was not happy. Hiashi had loved his wife, and even though Hinata had been a somewhat painful reminder of his wife's kindness, it now ached his heart far more to see that part of her personality seemingly vanish. And even before the incident with Kumo Hinata had already been growing more self-confident. Her friendship with the young Uzumaki had been good for his daughter. Her growth had been sustainable.
Now was a different matter. He saw in her a lust for power not dissimilar to his own when he was younger. He was sure her reasons were nobler than his, but unchained and unfocused ambition made for a fickle ally, it would abandon you when you would need it most.
He wouldn't stop training her though. As much as the incident seemed to have hurt his daughter it did give her a bit more aggression, which ultimately would help her survive later in life. He only hoped that once she had gained everything she could from this ambition, she would find something to restore her balance.
-Page Break-
"Jiraiya-san", Naruto said as the two sat up late at night in Naruto's apartment.
"Yes Naruto?"
"I saw Hinata the other day, when you'd sent me out on covert training."
"Hmm?"
"She looked different. Her eyes they were sharper."
"And Naruto-kun. Does it scare you that your friend has changed?"
"No…no. I mean… its just. She always looked so warm to me. Not then."
"Naruto my boy", Jiraiya said gently. "Just as circumstances change, so do people. Their behavior, their thoughts. But I can assure you, if you know she is good and kind, that will persist. It might be harder to find. But when you'll find it again, this way, you'll know its value."
"I always liked that about her. She was the only one who saw me. I want my friend back."
"I'm afraid that'll be a task for you alone. I can't help you. A boy becomes a man when he can finally speak openly to his girl."
"So you've told me. But how am I supposed to approach her now that I don't go to academy."
"The fun in life is riddles."
Naruto rolled his eyes and pulled the man's long grey hair.
"Talk sense Jiraiya-san."
"What's that kiddo, you wanna wrestle?"
"Wait no…"
For the next half hour Naruto's room was abound with the laughs of the godfather and his young protegee.
Chapter 7 End.