Hello everyone,
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"Sakura." I called out, before she could leave. I could sense the chakra in her legs leave as she stood up from her crouch. Gai and Lee had already taken off, which was good for me, because I wanted a private conversation.
"What is it?" She asked, with her eyebrows furrowed. She was still a bit miffed at the unfairness of the world.
"There are plenty of ways you can cheat in this life." I told her, getting straight to the point. "You can't use the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and I am forbidden from teaching it to anyone but you can even the playing field physically."
"How? I am not an Uzumaki…" Sakura asked as her face showed confusion.
"With your chakra control, medical ninjutsu would be perfect for you. Should you get skilled enough, you can do what my body does naturally. You could skip the soreness, and speed up the muscle growth to be faster than my own." I explained, trying to keep it as simple as I could.
The confusion morphed to understanding before a determined look took over her face.
"I'll look into it." Sakura said with a nod before summoning her chakra and jumping away.
That's my good deed for the year, hopefully.
Elation spread all throughout my body, and I couldn't help the smile that split across my face. Why was I so happy?
Well that part was simple. In my hands, yes hands because I had to use both at the moment, sat a swirling orb of blue chakra. It had taken me close to three weeks to get this far, but I finally accomplished the task.
The chakra slipped slightly, and I had to move my left hand before sending a burst of chakra to stabilize the destructive orb. I went back to focusing on the task at hand. I did my best to memorize how my chakra moved and how I had to encase the swirling bits of chakra with another layer to stabilize it.
I did that for the next 10 to 20 minutes, before I got brave and slowly started to remove my left hand from the Rasengan. I stopped outputting chakra from my left hand and it was an immediate reaction.
The chakra in my hand exploded, piercing into my hand, up my arm, and into my chest.
I shook my head and flinched as the memories of my clone's violent death assaulted me. That was the third one in the past few minutes. I continued to sit in my meditative pose at the training grounds, fifty feet away from where my clones were training with the Rasengan. Normally, I would be able to train with the technique myself, but because it was so destructive, I had to just sit and wait for my clones to dispel because of their failures.
I sifted through the memories, finding a common mistake that I was making on the opposite side of the sphere of my hand. There was a gap in my chakra that I needed to get better at closing. It wasn't something that I was doing every time, but a good fifty percent of the time if the amount of clones left was anything to go by.
'POP'
I flinched again as a clone dispelled, but with a different error than the others.
I summoned a Rasengan in my right hand, it was smaller than normal but the chakra swirled faster than a regular sized one. With a bit more chakra, it grew to a normal size where it stayed for a couple of moments at my will.
Then without warning, I shoved my hand into the tree in front of me while focusing on keeping the chakra moving and stabilized.
Have you ever heard how a chainsaw cuts through trees and tree limbs? That's what the rasengan was doing but at a much finer level than what a chainsaw could. It was a high pitched grinding noise that I would never be able to forget.
Soon, the resistance against my arm stopped, and I fell forward with my hand sticking out the other side of the tree. I let the chakra dissipate into the air on the other side before pulling my arm back through the hole I had just made. The tiniest presence that I had felt with my senses appeared on the other side of the training grounds.
At first I thought it was a bird, or one of my summons, but as I searched my senses I could feel that it was …deeper than my summons or animals.
"Kakashi?" I called out, as I felt the ozone within the small chakra. It felt just like him, only so much smaller. Like a piece of static, when he normally had a thunderstorm rolling through him.
"Now that is impressive." Kakashi said as he appeared right next to me. My senses were assaulted with his chakra without warning, just like normal. Although I wasn't scared this time because I felt him coming. It was nice to feel progression in real time.
Has he been training my chakra sense on purpose? Was that always the point of his little pranks? I thought as I was mind blown by the possibility. He was training me without me ever even realizing it?
"Which part?" I asked with a cocky smirk. Give me a break. I had just completed the Rasengan within a month, so I was allowed to brag a little bit.
"Don't get arrogant, Naruto." Kakashi berated. "But congratulations are in order. It took me much longer to get the Rasengan down than you did. I mean unless you add up all the time spent between you and your clones, but hey, still impressive."
I narrowed my eyes at him but I decided to ignore that last part. "Thanks, I dedicated all my free time to it. My chakra control has improved by so much from that alone."
Kakashi eye-smiled at me, as if he was a proud teacher. For some reason it pissed me off a bit, no idea why though. "Yes, shape manipulation is something that normally only comes with making your own jutsu. The Rasengan is one of the most difficult jutsu to pull off for that reason." Kakashi explained.
I already knew that, from the anime, but to actually go through the experience was invaluable and I knew what he meant.
"You're ready for the exams then?" Kakashi asked.
"I believe so, although I realized the other day that I do not know who I am facing. We left too early during the second phase." I told him as I looked back to the tree in front of me, examining the damage that I had caused.
"Hmmm? You mean you didn't realize you were facing Gaara of the Sand this entire time?" Kakashi asked while showing the most emotion on his face since I had met the guy.
Well shit.
"By the look on your face, I'll take that as a no." Kakashi said, a little more calmly. I still hadn't responded when he decided that the conversation was over.
"Well, good luck."
Why is it that I keep getting spied on while I train?
It was easy to decipher that the person spying on me wasn't of particular skill. Their reserves were barely bigger than my teammates, yet that meant little in this world. Lee was almost unnoticeable to my senses, as his chakra was severely underdeveloped. Yet I would think twice about fighting him for real. Sakura's reserves were growing, but they were still smaller than the person spying on me.
Either way, I knew it wasn't a Jonin, or even Chunin, so I decided to confront them. I stood up from where I was resting with my back against a tree, and turned to where they were hiding in a tree. I had just finished sparring a couple of my clones, and my limbs felt like lead. With the Gaara fight coming up, I was pushing myself to my physical limits everyday. An increase in weight, and running myself ragged had actually caused me to become sore for the first time in a month.
"I think you've seen enough." I called out, causing an interesting reaction from my many clones across the training field. All of them stood up, and turned to the intruder, in a very eerie and threatening manner.
I was not expecting Kiba to be the one to leap out of the trees and into the training ground. Looking back, I should have known that this was coming. I had been expecting another reprimand from Gai or someone else about how I handled the situation with him and Gaara.
Kiba did not look good. His signature furred hoodie did not cover his frame, instead it was a standard Genin attire of a blue tactical shirt and pants, with fishnet underneath it. They looked dirty and stained, as if he hadn't bathed or washed them in a while. His hair was matted down against his head as if he just crawled out of bed. Dark rings ran underneath his eyes, telling me that he hadn't been sleeping well either.
He was a mess, and I prepared myself for confrontation. He looked desperate, and that was a bad thing for a ninja to be.
"You killed Akamaru." Kiba accused as he balled his fists up beside his waist.
I shook my head at him. "No I didn't." I denied in a low tone.
His finger rose and he pointed it at me. "You made me angry, and because of that, Akamaru died!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.
"I tried to warn you about Gaara!" I replied, but did not yell back. "You didn't listen!"
"Shut up!" Kiba commanded and set his feet before running at me. "Just shut the fuck up!" He yelled again as he closed the distance between the two of us.
I held a hand up to my clones, signaling that I would handle the nearest issue, and slid into the famous position of the Strong Fist style. Kiba was like a wild beast. His eyes were lost to madness, he was snarling as he ran, and the fingernails on his hands looked more like claws.
He led with a swipe of his claws, right towards my eyes to which I dodged. Then a swipe to my throat, and my chest. I dodged both of these as well, but didn't attack. I didn't have it in me at the moment to hurt my classmate. I knew he was grieving, and I didn't want to hurt his pride any more. That feeling became even more pronounced as I smelled the alcohol that clung to his frame.
So he attacked like a rabid animal, and I dodged while wondering who gave such a young boy enough alcohol to get so trashed.
His strikes were fast for a Genin, and I had no doubt that Sakura would have fallen to his onslaught of claws. But I had known for a while that my taijutsu was well above a Genin, and my physicality was approaching something closer to a high Chunin at a rapid pace. His moves were telegraphed and slow, in my eyes.
But his stamina was something to be proud of. We continued our dance for a long time. He would attack, and I would dodge. The spars between Lee and myself lasted for a long time, and continued to get longer. But after almost thirty exchanges, Kiba was still attacking me. Luckily, I could see his chest begin to rise and fall heavier and heavier. His mouth began frothing, as if he was severely dehydrated and I knew it wouldn't last much longer.
Eventually, I was right. I dodged a swipe and jumped back to gain distance, Kiba didn't pursue.
"Fight…back…you…coward." Each word that Kiba spoke was followed by him taking huge gulps of air.
"No." I answered without even breathing hard. Even after a day of workouts, Kiba couldn't push me to sweat during a spar, not like Lee or Gai could.
How far have I come, to not even break a sweat against my former classmates?
Kiba coughed and spat at the ground in front of him. Then his body shuddered for a moment before he turned to me again. "Fight back!" He growled, with a pained look on his face.
I didn't answer him then. I felt nothing but pity for the boy in front of me, and I wasn't sure what to say to him. Snot began to fall out of his nose, and tears began to trail down his face.
Without warning, he sat down on the ground where he stood. "Why won't you just fucking fight me?" Kiba asked quietly as he laid his back on the ground. "Why won't you just kill me?"
I couldn't help but feel guilty about what I was seeing in front of me. There was a lump in my throat on behalf of my former classmate. I had grown up with Kiba. We played ninja on the playground together. We cut up in class at each other's jokes. We hadn't been best friends, but he was not someone that I would like to see hurt in the way he was.
So I just stood there, not knowing what to say as he kept mumbling at me to fight him in between his sobbs. After a minute or so, I couldn't understand his mumbling, and after another minute of crying hysterically, he stopped all together.
He's asleep. I realized as I towered over where he slept.
It took me only a couple of seconds to decide to carry him back to the Inuzuka compound. I moved forward to him, and kneeled beside him, intent on picking him up bridal style.
"I'll do it."
Just like Kakashi loved to do to me, a chakra presence appeared beside me and I nearly jumped out of my pants in surprise. I turned to see Kiba's mother standing behind me. She wore a hard look on her face, as she stared at her son on the ground. Despite being a Jonin, and clan head, it must have been hard for her to see her son like this.
I stood up and moved away from Kiba's sleeping body, without saying anything.
She kneeled as I did, and lifted him up as if it was the easiest thing in the world to her. It was weird to see the strength that we wielded in this world. It would have been a hard feat for a woman her size to carry a 13 year old boy the same size as her in my last life. Yet she did it effortlessly.
"Thank you for not hurting him." Tsume said, turning to me before she took off again.
"I feel awful about it." I told her truthfully as I looked at Kiba's haggard form. I knew it wasn't my fault, but it was obvious that I could have warned him about Gaara in a better fashion.
"Don't, nothing would have stopped him from facing Gaara." Tsume corrected me, cutting into my guilt immediately. "It's not how I raised him. If anyone is to blame, it's me." Tsume told me as she looked down at his sleeping face.
"He'll be fine, but it is a painful process to lose one's companion so young. We grow our companions with our own chakra you see. In a way, Akamaru was his son. I hope you'll forgive his reaction." Tsume explained without looking up from Kiba's face.
"There is nothing to forgive." I replied quickly, but couldn't think of anything to say after that. Tsume noticed this, and decided it was time to leave. But before she did, she left me with a compliment that pierced me deeper than any blade.
"You've grown a lot, Naruto. Your parents would be proud."
I was two blocks away when I felt the Sandaime in my apartment. Perhaps it was a courtesy that he was letting me know that he was waiting on me. With my past experiences with Kakashi and even Tsume, it was obvious that most advanced ninja could actively hide their chakra from me.
Subconsciously I channeled more chakra into my legs and crossed the distance with a particularly powerful jump. I landed on my balcony, and didn't even have to bother with the door, as Hiruzen was already there holding it open for me. He had his normal pipe in his mouth, and the smoke was curling up and into my apartment. Had he been anyone else, I would have berated him for smoking inside, but he opened the windows at the very least. That seemed to be more than I could expect from other Kage's.
"Hokage-sama." I greeted as I snapped to attention. The bags in my hands were forgotten at that moment.
"No need to be so formal Naruto-kun." He offered, which was as good as him telling me to relax and be myself. That's exactly what I did, and I moved through the door and into my apartment. He did not follow, instead he leaned against the door frame and stared at me.
"A change in wardrobe?" He asked as I began taking out the contents in the bags.
"Yes sir. I couldn't help but notice the fuinjutsu on Choji's armor during our fight. I've been spending the last month perfecting my own version. My order got finished today actually. Cost me a fortune." I answered truthfully as I continued to unpack everything. And it was a lot.
"I'm sure your previous missions, and bounties helped there." He commented as if he wasn't sorry for me in the slightest.
I smiled and shrugged. "Still hurt." I told him.
"Just like your father. He never liked to spend his money either." The Sarutobi said, making me pause what I was doing for a brief moment. I eventually just kept going like he didn't say anything. I still wasn't used to the fact that I could talk about them.
"Then I should have an inheritance sitting somewhere, hmm?" I joked with a grin.
"You must not remember that you attended the same classroom as clan heirs, when your scores barely qualified you. And the quality of supplies that were on par…" Hiruzen chuckled as he revealed the information.
Once again, I paused what I was doing as I pondered that. Was that a thing? Did the academy cater to the better paying clans and children of wealthy shinobi? I was always under the impression that the curriculum was universal… Had Tobirama designed different levels of shinobi instruction based on a tuition system?
If anything the Sandaime chuckled a bit harder. "The world is not fair, Naruto-kun. Surely you have learned that by now."
I nodded at that. "That's for sure." I told him and turned to him. "I haven't thanked you for the Monkey Summoning Contract. That was very generous."
"I did not give it to you. I simply pointed Enma in the right direction and you earned it. As I told you before, you remind me of myself." He waved it off as he took the pipe out of his mouth and stamped a thump in it to quell the small flame inside. He walked inside now that he was done smoking.
"Especially with the way you use shadow clones to combine jutsu. You know that was somewhat of a signature of mine." He commented.
I actually did not know that. The anime portrayed him as skilled enough to cast two jutsu at one time. The only time he had done such a thing was with the Reaper Death Seal. But it did not surprise me that he utilized the shadow clones like that. For someone with enough chakra, it was an easy leap of tactic to utilize them to your advantage in the realm of ninjutsu. I was continuously finding more and more ways to utilize them.
"I didn't actually." I muttered.
"Oh yes, I was the envy of many of my peers. Very few people can utilize Shadow Clones as we do. It requires a dense and vast chakra network. Something only found after generations of shinobi heritage." He explained, showing off his knowledge in casual conversation. I was reminded of another moniker of his: The Professor. Once again, he dropped another small little bomb on me.
"Being an Uzumaki, and the son of a Kage is sure to help I suppose." I agreed as I moved to my kitchen. I understood that I should give the Hokage my full attention, but dinner still needed to be prepared, and I was getting hungry. I quickly set up my cutting board and went to prepare the vegetables for the night.
"Indeed." He said as he took a seat on my couch and watched me start cooking.
We didn't say anything for a while and I got distracted. The sound of sizzling food and the smell of delicious food were the only things to pay attention to then. Once it became obvious that he would be staying for a while, I began to prepare two dinners. One for me and one for him.
I finished fairly quickly and turned around with two plates in my hands. I was instantly clued into what the man had been doing. Laid in front of him were all of my notes on Fuinjutsu. As in every single one. Even pages that had floated off of my desk and fell beneath my bed, unfinished or forgotten. Although the ones he had in his hands were my most recent and easiest to find as they were on the top desk in my room.
"It is interesting to see how a literal clone will design similar, yet vastly different arrays to accomplish the same thing. That was an exercise Mito was extremely fond of…" He said as a wistful look took over his face.
"I find it difficult to choose which one is the best." I replied as I brought him his food and laid it down after clearing a spot of my notes away.
He glanced at the food and then back to my notes. Just as I expected though, his stomach got the best of him and he carefully placed the notes down before reaching and grabbing his food.
An Anbu appeared on the other side of him and reached for the plate first, but he quickly slapped their hand away. "You watched him prepare the damned thing. I doubt he could sneak poison past the both of us." He commented with a glare. The Anbu wasted no time in disappearing again, thoroughly chastised.
I could have laughed, but I held it in. It was good to see the old man get annoyed every once in a while. Once again we fell into a silence. The only sounds were what little chewing the two of us let out of our mouths. He was significantly quieter than I was.
Soon enough we were done, and I was cleaning dishes while he studied the pages again.
"Define small elemental protection." He said in a half demanding, half questioning manner.
"Well, when I tested my normal Grand Fireball against my clone, it didn't dispel him, and there were no burn marks on his body. I suspect however, that the hotter and more advanced fire techniques would have overwhelmed the seal. Even still, if a third degree burn could be turned into a first one, that would be a boon." I answered, knowing exactly what he meant.
"And this right here, are you serious when you claim that chakra enhanced metal will be required to pierce through denser parts of the armor." He asked, although his tone told me that he already knew the answer to that.
"Yes. kunai and shuriken would not pierce through it with my tests, unless enhanced by wind or lightning chakra. Even then there are ways to counteract that. And I was throwing hard." I answered obediently.
He nodded at me. "Then you have replicated something that most advanced ninja pay a fortune for, Naruto. My own armor was gifted to me by the Shodai, no doubt crafted by Mito. He was a ridiculously generous man, you see. But what do you mean by counteract… As far as I know that is as good as it gets without actively channeling the chakra yourself."
I nodded. "I mean exactly that. If you could get skilled enough, you could combat a lightning enhanced blade, with a wind coated plate, etc." I answered, barely surprised that he could deduct that much from my fuinjutsu.
He stared at me for a moment. "And you'll have this ready by tomorrow?" He asked, knowing exactly what tomorrow was. I had been avoiding thinking about it, but tomorrow was the start of the final exams. I will be facing Gaara tomorrow to start the day off.
"Yes sir." I answered seriously. The tone of the conversation had just turned for a moment.
For the first time, I felt the living legend in front of me prime his chakra. His normally calm ocean suddenly became a tumultuous one, yet it was completely under his control. It was an impressive display and one I could tell he put on for me and my senses.
His hand reached out and slapped my wall.
To the naked eye, nothing happened. It was to my senses that the real effects could be felt. The small little blips of chakra networks beneath my floor disappeared, as did the other major chakra sources throughout the village. Not only that but the sound was also deadened for a moment. I could not hear the pitter patter of feet hitting rooftops. I could not hear the crickets singing either. I was cut off from everything but the inside of my room. He had sealed the room off, and I couldn't help the hairs on my neck standing up.
"Good, then you are ready for what I have to ask of you." The Sandaime said. For that was who he was in that moment. He was not a mentor, he was not a friendly old visitor, he was the Hokage right then.
I snapped to attention in my kitchen and left my dishes forgotten. "I am yours to command." I answered out of habit.
"You are hereby promoted to the rank of Chunin and granted all the rights that entail." He started, which nearly floored me right then and there. But he continued talking. "That also allows me to include you into some S-rank classified intel. Tomorrow there will be an invasion on our home. Our aggressors will be Sunagakura, and Otogakure. Your orders are in this scroll. It will disintegrate after 30 seconds of it being opened, do you understand what I am asking of you?" He asked.
I nodded, as I tried to process all of that information. Half of it I knew about, but I did not know that the village leader was aware of the invasion, nor was I aware that he would ask me to do something for him. A part of me knew what the scroll would say. I took it from his hands anyway.
As soon as it left his grip, the man disappeared from my room in a shunshin. I wasted no time in opening the scroll and reading its contents quickly. It was a hit scroll, and I had a target. There at the center of the page was a picture of a boy the same age as me. He had red hair, dark rings underneath his eyes, and a tattoo on his forehead that read 'Love'. There at the bottom of the page, were my orders.
Neutralize Gaara of the Sand, before he can release the One-Tailed beast.
A/N: Boom!
Well it's been a while everyone. As you can see from the announcement above, I am getting more involved in this schedule. Something that you have been asking for for quite a while.
Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter. A lot of things happened and I feel like there is a lot to talk about. Naruto has learned the Rasengan and gotten it down pat. That felt like an accomplishment to me. He spent a longer amount of time than the canon Naruto, but I don't feel bad about that. Canon Naruto was broken.
Kiba paid him a visit, and it's obvious that he is not dealing with Akamaru's death very well. Tsume showed up as well and left Naruto with a sad but meaningful message. This was my way of showing that the higher ups know about his heritage and also the fact that he is aware of the knowledge now.
And then the Sandaime… what can be said about this meeting… Well it was eventful, and a hard one. He complimented Naruto, and revealed that fuinjutsu enhanced armor isn't uncommon, just really expensive and hard to get a hold of. This was also my way of showing what Naruto's armor can do in the future when it is announced and described.
Naruto is a chunin! Before the exams even finish! What is up with that huh!? Well to be honest, Naruto is chunin level and that has been proven over and over again. He can keep up with and defeat Lee in spars. He has ninjutsu underneath his belt that he is steadily perfecting, and his fuinjutsu is improving. To be honest, he is at least a chunin, right?
And his first mission as a chunin will be eventful, that's for sure.
Let's talk about it in the reviews!