-The Apartment-

-Two Days Later-

After the emotional meeting with Iruka two days prior, Naruto had returned to his apartment to find out that the current plan that he and his clones had come up with would not work. As it turned out, there was an obvious flaw in only the clones doing the Fuinjutsu research, Naruto's ability to do calligraphy.

He'd spent years struggling with reading due to his dyslexia and what could have been deliberate sabotage. Without being able to read, how could he ever have picked up calligraphy as a skill? And it wasn't some run of the mill skills he needed in it; his calligraphy would have to be borderline flawless in order for any Fuinjutsu to work.

And so, he'd ended up having to work on the calligraphy himself. The clones could not, due to calligraphy being partially muscle memory in nature, something the clones would be unable to create.

Fortunately for the group, as far as they could tell, Naruto was quite talented when it came to calligraphy. Despite being a ninja, it came to him more naturally than using any Ninjutsu or Taijutsu, as if he were born to do it.

It felt good to Naruto, he'd always felt like a half-failure deep down. While he had gotten the Shadow Clone jutsu down in just a couple hours, he still couldn't use the normal cloning jutsu, despite his years of practice. His Shurikenjutsu was laughable, to be quite frank, and he'd never beaten Sasuke in a fight in all their years at the academy. So, to finally have something he was good at, something that came naturally to him, it invigorated him, motivated him like nothing else could. It was like a missing piece of himself had finally its place, completing him.

Still though, he wouldn't be distracted from the reality of the situation. The clones would soon die out, and there was nothing he could do to save them. In a way, his talent in calligraphy made it worse, if he'd just picked it up even just a week earlier, he would've been confident that he'd be good enough by now to complete the Fuinjutsu.

In all honesty, calligraphy was the only thing holding them back, and it ate away at Naruto. Once the clones had realized there was nothing, they could do to help him along, they'd instead switched focus, and compiled hundreds, if not thousands, of their ideas on how to create a working Fuinjutsu: Chakra Absorption.

Naruto looked up from he practice, he wanted to watch what was about to happen. The last clone had just written down his last idea and would soon pop himself. It wouldn't matter either way, whether he did it himself or not, because Naruto knew from the memories of the other clones who'd popped that he was surely about to run out of chakra.

And as if Naruto could see the future, the clone turned to him, saying, "See ya around Boss, I'm heading out first." Before he interrupted his flow of chakra, dispelling himself.

Already, Naruto could feel the memories of the clone entering his mind. The logic behind each of his ideas, all that he had learnt and knew, was being assimilated into Naruto's mind. Naruto took comfort in the fact that the clone had not lost hope, even until the end. Everything was riding on him alone now, and he would not fail those who'd he lost.

Throwing himself back into his practice, Naruto knew that he would soon be ready to start working on the Fuinjutsu. But just as he'd thought that, the calligraphy brush in his hands burst…

-Training Ground 37-

-The Next Day-

As soon as Kosuke had returned to the village, Naruto had gone to the man for help. Ever since the last clone had burst the day before, something had been wrong with Naruto's chakra. He could no longer control it.

Sure, before, what he did could hardly be considered control, but this was different, Naruto knew. It felt as if he were overflowing, and not just metaphorically. He was literally overflowing with chakra, it poured out of his body, and he knew that was the reason he could no longer hold things without them bursting.

To be honest, Naruto had thought nothing of the calligraphy brush breaking the day before, it could've been a bad quality one, or he could've used it too much over the course of his practice. The issue was that when he went to go get another from the box of them, he'd bought for the practice, the box had burst upon contact with his hands.

And it didn't just stop there, while it was slow, he realized that even his clothing was unraveling as it sat on him.

That's when he'd stopped, and first noticed that his chakra was uncontrollably pouring out into his surroundings. It had actually been better the day before, but just over night, the amount of chakra he was emitting had more than doubled.

He understood why it was happening, too. It was due to the changes he had made over the past week, and all the stuff that he had done. Chakra was a mix of physical and spiritual energies coming together.

While his physical energy had already been high, it had only been boosted through his training with Lee. And that training had then been compounded with his improved diet, resulting in an unforeseen boost, one he could not control.

That wasn't the worst of it though, in comparison to the him of a week ago, he had completely evolved in terms of knowledge. Mathematically, with all his clones, he'd done weeks' worth of intense study in just a couple days. And considering he wasn't all that knowledgeable prior, it resulted in an increase in knowledge that wasn't linear, it was exponential.

That exponential increase in knowledge naturally corresponded to a similar increase in spiritual energies, culminating in his chakra exploding upwards uncontrollably.

His clones hadn't noticed a thing due to their limited chakra to begin with, and he hadn't noticed his slow loss of control due to not using jutsu since he had made the clones. That last clone must have been the straw that broke the camels back, resulting in his current situation.

In any case, he was sure Kosuke should be able to help him. The man was a veteran, and nearly as experienced as the Third himself. Thus, Naruto had went to tell him of his problem, only to find himself not needing to say a word.

"You don't need to say a word, I can feel it. What did you do for your chakra to increase so much that you lost control? I've been gone only a couple days, and knowing you, it must've been something wild."

The man was accusatory in tone, and Naruto shied away, sheepishly saying, "I…and a couple of clones…may or may not have been studying in the libraries."

Kosuke instantly came to the same conclusion as Naruto, he'd learnt to much in too short of a time and did not keep up with his chakra control practice enough to balance it out.

"How many clones was it?"

Not expecting that question, Naruto confusedly answered, "25."

"25?"

"Yeah, 25 clones."

It was far worse than what Kosuke had thought, the boy hadn't reached out just a little too far, he had positively left the galaxy. Though, he couldn't blame the boy, he was rather unique, in that what had happened could only really have happened to him. For your average shinobi to lose control like Naruto had, they would have to completely stop practicing chakra control, and do nothing but train and study for at least a dozen years, and even then, it was unlikely that they'd be able to mimic his results.

That was just how little Naruto knew heading into what he'd done. It also spoke volumes of the potential hiding in his body, after all, that influx of spiritual energy had to be matched with physical energy to create chakra.

Still though, it was fortunate they had moved to a training ground instead of standing around and talking. Kosuke could see the boy's clothing dissolving before his very eyes. Fortunately, the shinobi mesh he had him wearing would probably not dissolve like the clothes were, but who knows, maybe if they didn't fix the situation soon, that too wouldn't be able to handle Naruto's outpouring of chakra.

"Putting aside your carelessness in doing so, the only way to fix what is happening to you is by either wiping your memory, which we probably shouldn't do. You do like having your memories, after all, right?"

Naruto quickly nodded his head; he already knew he would prefer the other option.

"In that case, it leaves us with the only other option, you have to work on your chakra control."

It was a travesty to hear, but Naruto would choose doing those boring exercises over losing his memory any day.

Kosuke continued, "Normally, I'd have you do either the leaf-sticking technique, or the more advanced rock-sticking, but I doubt either of those would be able to hold up against your chakra in your current state. Have you ever done the water-walking or tree-walking exercises before?"

Naruto had been ready to hear about the boring leaf-sticking technique, but what was that he had heard about walking on water? And on trees, too?

"No?! What do you mean water and tree-walking? Why didn't they teach us something like that in the academy?! They sound way better than those boring whatever-sticking techniques."

Kosuke could relate to what Naruto was saying, he, himself, had thought the same thing back in the earlier days of his shinobi training. Still, he did not think it was a good idea to encourage the boy's disdain for the basics.

"Boring or not, those 'whatever-sticking' techniques are a valuable basic skill to practice and hone yourself with. Not to mention, they are the foundation for what you seem more interested in, the water and tree-walking. Academy students simply do not have enough chakra to perform the water or tree-walking techniques, unlike yourself."

Naruto realized that he had never really considered the position of his classmates. He'd always had too much chakra to know what to do with, so someone lacking in chakra wasn't something he'd ever really thought about.

"Hmm, I guess that makes sense. But more importantly than who can do what, can ya tell me how to do it? How do I walk on trees? How do I walk on water?"

Naruto had grown more excited as he spoke, no matter what Kosuke said regarding the basics, that would not stop him from thinking walking up walls and on water was cool.

"Well, for someone who's practiced the leaf-sticking technique before its quite simple. You just apply your chakra in the same way, only you're sticking yourself to the tree or water instead."

Damn, all those times he had skipped practicing sticking leaves to himself was coming back to bite him in the ass. Still though, jokes aside, he had to get this down before he would be able to practice calligraphy again or got out for that matter.

"Now if I were you, I'd start with tree-walking, it's far easier than water-walking, and has less strict requirements for chakra control. Considering how much chakra you possess, you should be able to practice non-stop until you get it down, right?"

Naruto felt a chill rush down his spine as Kosuke's words and face took on a horrifying form. Surely, he couldn't be serious about the non-stop part?

-Night-

It was a grueling day, the practice had started in the morning, and by Naruto's estimates, it was nearing midnight. As it turns out, Kosuke had been serious about the non-stop part, and he was even sure that he would still be out there, practicing the technique even now, if not for having finally gotten it down.

Even then, technically speaking, it wasn't the tree-walking technique that he'd gotten down. It was more like a stone-walking technique. As it turned out, the pair had quickly realized that not even the solid wood of trees could withstand Naruto's chakra. Originally, the plan was for Naruto to kick and struggle until he lowered his chakra output enough to not shatter the wood upon contact. However, that quickly proved impossible as Naruto's control had been so far gone, that it was physically impossible for him to limit his chakra to that degree.

Fortunately, the training ground they were in contained a cliff side made up of rock, ones that would be tough enough to withstand Naruto at that.

From there, it had taken Naruto roughly eight hours to get the basics down, just enough to slowly walk up and down the cliff face. And if he lost focus for a second, he would be sent tumbling. But those mediocre results had been enough to, at the very least, stop Naruto's chakra from literally pouring from his body…until he summoned it at least.

At the end of the day, Naruto was thankful for Kosuke forcing him to stay and practice the entire day. With everything that had happened recently, he was a bit stressed out to be honest. It was nice to be able to throw himself into something that wasn't related to the survival of his clones.

Still though, he could not delay that side of things any more than just this one, necessary day.

And it wasn't for any emotional reason. No, it was purely out of pragmatism. The math-clone's pragmatism to be exact, his thoughts and will displaying a rather strong effect on Naruto. That will had been raging the entire day, after all, if he hadn't been interrupted, there was a good chance that he'd been done with the Fuinjutsu by now.

At the same time, there was a chance that he might not be able to create any clones with the state his chakra was in. That he'd have the same issues that he had with normal clones, and that they'd form all weird and half-dead.

Regardless, Naruto planned to revise his calligraphy one final time tonight, before he went to bed, and then he would attempt the Fuinjutsu in the morning, with a fresh, rested mind.

-The Apartment-

-The Next Day -

Naruto had woken up early, even following how late he had gone to bed. He'd been too excited at the prospect of finishing the Fuinjutsu and creating a fresh batch of clones to hang out with.

Still, all the practice he'd done for his calligraphy over the past couple days did not leave him, allowing for him to smoothly write despite his condition.

It had taken mere minutes to finish creating the first Fuinjutsu scroll based on one of the ideas the clones had come up with. Still though, Naruto had suppressed any agitation in his heart, he knew that there'd be little chance that it would work on the first attempt.

And he was right for thinking so, the first design had actually resulted in a scroll that would wildly absorb chakra from the surroundings, except the function to send the chakra to the user did not operate correctly, causing the scroll to rapidly overcharge itself, and explode.

Naruto had been expecting a result like that, however, and had quickly thrown the scroll some distance away. Watching the effects of the scroll be unleashed, Naruto noted the design down in his mind, while the scroll was not what he was looking for in the moment, it could potentially be used as an alternative to explosive tags.

He then went onto the next design, taking less time to write out the calligraphy than the previous scroll had. It had taken less time due to the design being essentially the same as the first, only with a small alteration to the chakra dispersal formula. The clone who'd designed it had designed the first scroll and had hoped the small change would result in a different outcome.

Naruto had no such expectations, throwing the scroll as soon as he had activated it. Which was a smart decision, considering the scroll detonated even faster than the first had.

Naruto knew it would be a long day of testing if the first two attempts were anything to go by. Even so, he threw himself into the work, his clones had trusted him with finishing their missions after all.

-Some Time Later-

An explosion sounded off from some distance in front of Naruto. Looking down at a sheet of paper he had lying next to him, he marked another tally.

"Design number six hundred and forty-seven. Failure."

To be honest, Naruto did not know how long it had been since he had begun the testing. Unlike the number of tests, he was not keeping track of the passing of time. It would've been simple to check, but all that was on his mind was the endless testing.

He was sure though, that he would soon succeed. Despite mindlessly creating the scrolls and testing them, he had been paying attention enough to note the changing designs. And they seemed to be edging closer and closer to working.

His brain was fried by this point, so he wasn't sure if the method he was employing was the most efficient, the math-clone would surely be raging about some inefficiency in his process, but he did not care.

To him, there was meaning in trying every single idea the clones had come up with. In a way, those scribbles, those ideas, were the last will and testament of the third generation of clones.

Even as he thought this, he was still testing scrolls. Not many, only another twenty or so had been finished in the two or so minutes he'd been thinking.

He couldn't really think at the moment, but he could swear he hadn't been making the scrolls that fast at the beginning.

It felt like his consciousness was fading away in the endless writing of Fuinjutsu, it wasn't the trance he or his clones had become familiar with during their study of the art, however. Instead, it felt more like he'd been possessed, turning into a Fuinjutsu-creating machine. One that would not stop until success had been achieved.

And before he knew it, he did lose conscious, albeit, only for a moment. That moment was also all it took for him to realize that he wasn't the one in control of his body, instead, the clones had wrestled control from him. It frightened Naruto, that his deceased clones could control him after there death. But he would never do that to himself, nor would his clones. There had to be a reason why this was happening.

Still, regardless of why it was happening, Naruto instinctively felt that he wouldn't be freed until "their" goal had been achieved. And he did not know anymore when that would happen. At least, he thought to himself, he could still think during the time his body was not under his control.

After all, he suddenly had a lot to think about.

"Design number one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven. Success."

It was a surreal, almost spiritual experience for Naruto. He'd been forced to watch his body carry out over a thousand more experiments after he'd lost control. And as soon as that word, 'success,' had been said, he'd suddenly regained full control over his body.

It felt like a burden had left him, like a weight that had been holding him down for the past several days had instantly disappeared. He felt light, but more importantly, he felt in control. Not just the control over his body had been restored, but the control he was barely keeping over his chakra had been strengthened. He felt…no, he was certain that he'd be able to perform the tree-walking exercise now.

But despite the obvious benefits to his ability to create Fuinjutsu, and the increased chakra control, Naruto never wanted to experience that total loss of control of his body again.

He could not be sure if he was right, but Naruto thought that instinct he had felt, that he would not be freed until his clones' goal had been met, was actually a warning. A warning that had somehow come from someone who was protecting Naruto. Still, he couldn't quite understand how he knew this, just that it was the case.

Regardless, with that 'warning' Naruto had pieced together another intricacy of using his clones. That if enough clones with strong emotions popped at once, their residual wills would coalesce in his mind, and eventually take control to complete their dying wish.

Of course, much like his instinct being a warning from someone, Naruto could not be certain about whether he was actually right about the clones or not.

Still, it would be better to be wary of the effects of a huge loss of clones in the future, as despite the experience, Naruto was unwilling to stop using the technique. After all, he'd finished the Fuinjutsu, meaning his clones finally had a chance at living life. Not to mention, all that effort spent making the scroll and learning the technique to begin with would be a waste if he was afraid of what the clones might bring him.

With his thoughts now organized, Naruto figured that it was time to say hello to the friends who'd been missing for the past several days.

Crossing his fingers, he confidently shouted, "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

Author's Note: Yeah, I don't know what this chapter is. Over the past couple days, I've been sick, and it's accumulated in this day, which has been the worst so far. To be honest, my mind is light and airy, and I'm finding it hard to focus, so I don't know whether this chapter is coherent or not.

When I'm feeling better, I'll give it a read through and might change some stuff, but overall, it should play out the same way.

Hope y'all enjoy my sick-minded nonsense. :D

PS: Pa-atreon is the same name as this account. Donate if ya want to.