Prove the Pervert Wrong
Chapter Four: Just an Idiot Savant With All the Luck in the World
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but I would love to meet the person gullible enough to believe that I do (to laugh at them, not to scam them).
"Speech"
/Thoughts/
"Jutsu!"
As Naruto sat alone in the middle of the training ground (or what remained of it), he came to a startling realization: he was completely out of ideas. Having improved the rasengan in every way that he could imagine, he had nothing of Yondaime's left to work with. He had tried reading some scrolls in the library about famous ninja, but most famous ninja had relied on kekkai genkai, unique weapons, or other specialties that he didn't have. Left with only one realistic option, Naruto turned to his own experiences, hoping to find a weakness to correct or a strength to develop.
Starting with his academy years, he tried to remember as many of his fights as possible. A few sparring matches had taken place in the academy, but nothing serious enough to reveal his strengths or weaknesses. The bell test showed that his speed and forethought needed to be improved, but not much else. His part in team seven's first fight with Zabuza was just the plan, and he didn't remember much of the second one.
His recollection of the fight with the grass-nin, team seven's first real fight in the forest of death, was also fuzzy. The rain-nin team was defeated with a kage bunshin trick, not much to work on in that department, and Kiba was basically defeated with a fart. When he came to his fight with Kiba, he was sure that he would find something to work on, but he was wrong. The only real problem he had had in the fight was that he wasn't as fast as Kiba, and Gai's weights were sure to fix that. Fighting Neji had also shown off his lack of speed, but not much else that could really help him.
Getting frustrated at all of the dead ends, Naruto turned to the fight with Gaara. He briefly considered working on the thousand years of pain technique, but decided that it wasn't really worth the effort. Even the fight with Kabuto revealed nothing of interest, which left him with only one major fight that he could remember: Sasuke. Naruto had been purposely avoiding thinking about the fight with Sasuke, mostly because of the things Sasuke had said during the fight, but he realized that he couldn't avoid it forever. Going over the fight in his mind, he quickly realized that it had been the single longest fight of his ninja career. He decided to break it into sections: both normal, Sasuke's bruise thing (no one had ever explained to him what the cursed seal was), Kyuubi's help, and both weird.
The fight while they were both normal had been, in a word, pitiful. Sasuke had completely dominated that part of the fight until its end, which was pretty much a tie. All that Naruto could remember from that part of the fight, however, was that Sasuke's strength and speed had increased drastically for no real reason. Moving on, he was proud that Sasuke had resorted to his trump card first. The chidori through his chest had hurt like hell, but at least Sasuke had felt threatened by his capabilities. Still, Naruto couldn't really think of anything of use except for a healing technique, which he really had no need for. Luckily, the Kyuubi chakra section was much more enlightening. While using Kyuubi's chakra, he had done things instinctively that had turned out to be very effective, and he knew exactly which one he needed the most. Before he could get to work, however, he heard a familiar voice.
"Yo."
"Kakashi-sensei? Why are you here?"
"I'm just here to tell you about some cool training I've lined up for you… if you're interested."
"Of course I'm interested! When do we start?" /Kakashi-sensei's finally gonna train me! I'll get stronger for sure!/ "Are you gonna teach me a new technique? Or some super taijutsu move! Oh I know, you're going to--"
"Naruto!" Naruto's rambling ceased instantly at the harsh tone. "I won't be the one training you, it'll be--"
"Again? Why won't you train me, Kakashi-sensei?"
"To be honest Naruto, I don't think my training would do you much good right now… I got you something even better, though. How would you like to train with Gai and Lee?" Kakashi's question was answered pretty clearly by the drool from Naruto's mouth, but the boy decided to respond verbally too.
"You got Super-brows to train me? Yatta! I'm gonna get so strong! When do I meet him?"
"Hmm…" Kakashi needed to calculate exactly how late he was. "I'd say about an hour ago, maybe two…"
"What! I'm late? Kuso!" He proceeded to team Gai's training area at a pace that Kakashi couldn't really describe. All he knew was that Naruto clearly couldn't handle Gai's weights yet, meaning that Gai would probably swap them out for lighter ones. Forcing his curiosity aside, he went back to his original task: finding a third member to take the chuunin exams with Naruto and Sakura.
"Ah Naruto, there you are. I expected you here five minutes ago."
"Five minutes? Kakashi-sensei said an hour!"
"I know Kakashi, and I didn't want you to be late, so I told him to get you here an hour earlier than I wanted you to be here!"
"Brilliant strategy, Gai-sensei!" Lee was about half way to his nice-guy pose when a question occurred to him. "But… why is Naruto-kun here?"
"Good question Lee!" Try as he might, Naruto couldn't figure out how they kept making their teeth do that weird sparkling thing. "Naruto will be joining us in our training for a while, as he is a shining example of the power of youth!"
"Do you guys talk like that… all the time?" Lee and Gai chose to ignore Naruto's question.
"This is great, Naruto-kun! I look forward to seeing you prove that dropouts can defeat geniuses with hard work!"
"Yoshi! Let's start training!"
"Not yet, Naruto." Gai could tell that Naruto was anxious to get going, something that he admired, but he knew that it would be pointless unless he first gauged Naruto's skill. "First I need to watch you spar with Lee so that I can see your taijutsu in action!"
"What! I have to fight fuzzy-brows already?" Not only was Naruto not confident with his ability to move properly in his leg-weights, he had finished his five hours of laps just two hours earlier.
"Relax Naruto, it isn't a full blown fight. The rules are simple: taijutsu only, do your best, and don't give up until I end the match! Ready?" Lee took his normal stance while Naruto shook his head furiously. "Begin!"
Lee, overestimating Naruto, ran at him full speed. Naruto saw Lee's movements clearly, but couldn't dodge with the weights on, so he blocked the roundhouse kick with his arm. Seeing an opening, Lee threw a punch at Naruto's torso, using the remaining momentum from the kick to add speed and power. Naruto tried to jump backward out of the way, but wasn't fast enough with his weights on. Lee's punch sent Naruto flying into a tree, then tumbling onto the ground, where he stayed for a few seconds before standing up. Never one to take the defensive, Naruto charged Lee and threw a punch at the boy's head. Lee merely caught Naruto's punch and redirected it towards the ground before chopping the newly exposed back of Naruto's neck. Naruto, of course, fell to the ground with a dull thud. What surprised Lee and (to a lesser extent) Gai was that Naruto got right back up, even though Lee's attack had been a perfect knockout shot.
"Naruto, I think those weights may be too much for you after all… Maybe you should try without--"
"No! I can do this, I have to!" With that, Naruto renewed his offensive. He threw a roundhouse at Lee, which Lee blocked, but then he spun around and followed up with a crescent kick from his other foot. Lee barely had time to register the sudden increase in Naruto's speed before the attack hit his arm right above the first. While blocking the attack was well within Lee's capabilities, the fact that it was unexpected and several times stronger than Lee expected it to be, along with the fact that the first attack had weakened his guard, caused his block to give way. Lee, having been kicked full-force in the face, found himself flying several feet through the air and landing in a heap on the ground.
Naruto, who had fallen after using both of his legs to attack, got up with a smirk. "Don't underestimate me, Fuzzy-brows!" Seeing Lee getting up as well, Naruto charged again. On the sidelines, Gai couldn't help but wonder how Naruto had suddenly gotten stronger in the middle of the fight, even if the change hadn't been terribly significant.
Dodging Naruto's punch, Lee went into a leg-sweep to find that Naruto had taken to the air and was about to come down with an axe kick. In one smooth motion, Lee brought his kick upward and into Naruto's back mid-flip, changing Naruto's position and orientation such that his kick missed Lee completely. It wasn't that Naruto got up that shocked the green-clad pair, it was that he got up almost immediately, didn't seem winded, and showed no signs of being injured in any way. Considering that Lee's kick had connected with Naruto's spine, it seemed unreasonable that he could be completely fine.
"You were right Naruto-kun: I've been underestimating you. I guess it's about time that I stop holding back!"
"Yoshi! I will--"
"That's enough Lee! Naruto! I think I know enough about your skills that we can get started!" Lee looked a little disappointed, but Naruto just looked confused, as though he had forgotten what they were actually doing. Finally, after thinking about it for several long moments, Naruto remembered why he had been fighting Lee.
"So you'll train me now? Where should we start? Are you gonna teach me how to open the hachimon! Oh! Are you gonna teach me--"
"Naruto! Listen when I--" Gai, who was used to having his students (Lee, at least) ignore him to the point where a punch in the face was necessary, was surprised to see that Naruto was staring at him completely silently, clearly waiting for whatever he had to say. "Yes, well… I'll start with your strengths. Along with a burning determination that can only be obtained in the springtime of life, you have great resilience! I've never seen anyone take attacks so well before! You also seem to have plenty of stamina, and your ability to come up with unpredictable tactics is amazing!" He struck his nice-guy pose, "I truly admire your spirit of youth!"
"What tactics are you talking about, Super-brows? All I did was fight…" Gai hadn't really been thinking about the sparring match when he had said it, but he was still able to think of one example.
"Well, for example, when you used your second leg to attack the same defensive point on Lee. Not only had the first attack weakened Lee's guard, but the second attack was so unexpected that he didn't think to block it anyway! Combine that with the fact that you maintained momentum from the original attack, meaning that the extra weight was already dealt with, and you're left with the brilliant maneuver which landed a blow on Lee, despite his vastly superior strength and speed!"
"That's a tactic? I just did it because it made sense…"
"That's what tactics are, Naruto…" /How can he not know that?/ "Anyway, on to your weak points!" Naruto's grin made a triumphant return at the thought of correcting all of his weaknesses. "Speed, strength, and form are your clear weaknesses." Understandably, that statement made Naruto sweat-drop. Gai had basically just said that Naruto's weakness, as far as taijutsu was concerned, was taijutsu. "I can understand that, training under Kakashi, your speed and strength aren't your strong points, but your form is your main weak point. Some of your moves almost look like you made them yourself!"
"I did…"
"You did what, Naruto?"
"I did make them myself. No one's ever taught me taijutsu…" Gai's mouth opened and closed several times, as though he had something to say but couldn't put it to words. Finally, Lee managed to ask just the question that his sensei was trying to ask.
"Didn't the academy instructors ever teach you taijutsu? That's one of the fundamentals that they're supposed to cover for every prospective genin…"
"One of them tried in my first year, but they gave up on me when I didn't do well…" Gai made a mental note to find out who all of Naruto's teachers had been in order to question them personally. Or, better yet, hand them over to Tsunade.
"Well, that won't matter Naruto! As long as you continue to live with youthful passion and work hard, you'll learn gyouken in no time! Actually, that's where we're going to start for today. Lee, you can get back to your normal training while I get Naruto set up."
"Yoshi!" Lee resumed his training, which consisted of punching a log repeatedly.
"Naruto, for now you need to practice the form of a proper punch, as that seems to be your weakest attack." Although Naruto didn't appreciate the criticism, he was happy to learn the correct way to put his weight into a punch, so that he didn't have to rotate his whole body with it. "Practice that for now, and come get me when you've finished 2,000 punches with each hand."
"2,000? That'll take forever!"
"It might take a long time, but it's the best way to grow stronger." Seeing Naruto's look of steely determination convinced him that his new student wouldn't let him down, so he went back to Lee. In the background, he could hear Naruto counting out loud, just like Lee always did.
Twenty minutes later, Gai heard some numbers that he didn't think could be right. "1,200… 1,201… 1,202… 1,203…" Of course, for Naruto to have reached that number so quickly would mean that Naruto hadn't slowed down at all, which would require not only an incredible amount of stamina, but arms immune to fatigue. He decided to blow it off as his imagination, until Naruto called for him about thirteen minutes later. "Oi! Super-brows-sensei! Now what?" Even Lee looked up in shock at how quickly Naruto had finished.
"Naruto, are you really done already?"
"Yeah…" /Why is that so surprising? I didn't speed up or anything…/
"Let me see your form to make sure you have it down." Naruto demonstrated two perfect punches, which Gai found somewhat unsettling. "Yoshi! Way to be youthful, Naruto! The next move that we need to work on is your roundhouse kick!" Gai demonstrated the proper technique before telling Naruto to practice it 1,500 times with each leg. "Not only will this perfect your form, it will also help you get used to your weights! This way you can work on all three weaknesses at once!" He went back to Lee, hearing the familiar monotonous counting in the background.
An hour later, he was glad to hear Naruto still at it, although he was surprised that, even with the weights, Naruto's pacing stayed even at about twelve kicks per minute. Suddenly, after about ten more minutes, the counting stopped for a moment, and Naruto mumbled something to himself before continuing at a faster pace. Two hours later, Naruto was reaching the end of his count. "1,498… 1,499… 1,500! Oi! Super-brows-sensei! What's next!"
Gai walked over to him, not entirely sure whether he believed that Naruto had done it. "Let's see your form." Naruto again demonstrated perfect gyouken form, leaving Gai to wonder what kind of idiot had actually given up on teaching him. "Yoshi! Now we need to work on your upper-body strength!"
"What's wrong with my upper-body strength?"
"Well, from the looks of it, I'd say you barely train your upper body at all. Your exercise this time will be," he paused for dramatic effect, spinning in place, "ten laps around Konoha… on your hands!" Naruto stared, open mouthed, at the utterly indescribable absurdity that was Gai's theatrical maneuver. Finally, after ten seconds, he forced himself to process what Gai had said.
"Oh… so the leg-weights will help my arms get stronger too? Yatta!" Not leaving time for a response, Naruto flipped onto his hands before (extremely) slowly making his way toward the village. Gai had actually expected him to collapse under the weight at first, and was very impressed.
/Let's sum up the situation… Tsunade-sama said that I need to get both of my students in the chuunin exam. I have found one opening after asking around for two days. Tsunade-sama made it clear that Naruto's participation is more important than Sakura's, but Sakura knows both of Asuma's genin better than Naruto does. If I don't find Naruto a team, he won't be able to become a chuunin for years, and he'll probably hate me for it… Kuso…/
Staring at the calendar on the wall nearest him, Kakashi had a sudden realization that changed everything. He quickly paid for his dango and rushed off to the training grounds where Lee, Gai, and Naruto were training. Naruto was making his way around the village on his hands again, but Gai was the important person of the moment. Walking into the clearing nonchalantly, he wanted to give the impression that everything was normal.
"Yo."
"Kakashi, you're late!"
"Yeah, sorry about that Gai, but I have the perfect challenge this time."
"Like I'm going to believe—you actually thought about the challenge? What is it?"
"The challenge this time is to be the first to find an opening for one of my genin to take the chuunin exam. Asuma's team doesn't count, and you can't sacrifice one of your students just to win. Do you accept?"
"What kind of challenge is that?"
"A shinobi needs to be able to gather information…" After thinking about it for a moment, Gai decided that Kakashi was right. He had been looking forward to a sparring match, but he could see the value in such a challenge.
"Yoshi! Lee, help Naruto with his training while I'm gone! If I cannot win this challenge, I'll have to do 50,000 pushups!" Kakashi couldn't help but think that, sometimes, it pays to be a genius.
Saturday came, the group made their way to the training field, and Naruto was… not there. Kiba found this particularly annoying, as he had no desire to meet with Naruto on a weekly basis anyway. "Ah great, were the hell is he now?"
"Naruto-kun isn't training? He seemed so adamant about convincing Gai-sensei to train him today, I thought that surely he would at least be training himself at Gai-sensei's refusal…"
"Why would Gai-sensei train Naruto?"
"Naruto-kun has been training with us for almost a week now, but Gai-sensei refused to train him today after hearing about what we do on Saturdays…"
"Gai-sensei's been training Naruto? I thought Naruto was a ninjutsu specialist…"
"He is, but he doesn't want to specialize in anything, so Gai-sensei is teaching him gyouken!"
"Wait, he's gonna be as fast as you now?"
"No Kiba-kun, he isn't nearly as fast as me, but he is getting significantly faster!"
"P-Perhaps N-Na-Naruto-kun is… at h-home?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to look, I suppose. That is, as long as forehead-girl doesn't scare him off." Ten minutes of bickering later, the group of ten was standing outside of Naruto's apartment, with Sakura knocking on the door. She was only half surprised when it fell off of its hinges, but they were all surprised by the state of his apartment. Open scrolls, ramen containers, dirty clothes, and used saucepans littered the floor, and the floor was arguably the cleanest thing in the room.
Neji, who had been polite enough not to use his byakugan in case Naruto had been in the shower or something, found the disorder to be somewhat frightening. "How can he live in this?"
"Well, at least we know how he was able to beat you in shougi, Shikamaru. If he can keep track of all of his stuff in here, his strategies are simple by comparison!" Everyone, including Ino, sweat-dropped at Ino's comment.
"Even Akamaru insists on cleaner quarters than this…"
"M-Maybe he… went ahead to I-Ichiraku's?"
"Yeah, Hinata's right, he probably forgot that it's Saturday and went to meet Mabui."
Five minutes later the group arrived at Ichiraku's to find every stool empty, something they had never seen before. Frustrated, they could only think of one other place that he would go: the library. Even though they had seen Naruto reading scrolls, and they knew that he had become friends with the head librarian, the idea of Naruto in the library was still very odd to them. Then again, so was the idea that Naruto had invented S-rank ninjutsu, not to mention that he had defeated Shikamaru at go and shougi.
As they entered the library, they immediately noticed Naruto sitting with Mabui, poring over an incredibly large number of the most basic chakra scrolls. He appeared to be studying from the ground up, which they found odd considering his extensive experience and recent successes. They all slowly realized that Naruto had told Mabui about the Saturday meetings, and that Mabui was a super-genius, which could mean only one thing: he was blowing them off. Ino, enraged at the idea that he would dare to ditch them to go to the library, opened her mouth to shout at him before coming to the sudden realization that they were in said library. While she stood with an angry look on her face and her mouth wide open, Lee failed to remember that fact.
"Naruto-kun! I admire your dedication, but even when living in the springtime of life it is alright to take time off to spend with your friends!" If it had been anyone else, it wouldn't have attracted nearly as many stares, but Lee had a way of being about ten times louder than anyone else. Oddly enough, even when every eye in the library was on him he didn't seem to realize where he was. Naruto looked at him like he had single-handedly brought on the end of the earth, but Mabui just smiled at him.
"Lee-kun!" Luckily, she wasn't nearly as loud as Lee. "Oh, you're all here! Good! Maybe you can help!"
"Mabui-chan, I don't think they're here to help…" Naruto's face lightened somewhat, but he still looked angry. "They probably want to try to teach me some time-wasting game or something…"
"They taught you games? Like what?"
"Those games weren't time-wasting, Naruto…" /So troublesome… Why can't he just lie down and watch the clouds like everyone else?/ "Go and shougi teach strategy, something--"
"You taught him to play shougi? I love shougi!" Naruto, finding himself unable to speak, stared at Mabui with his mouth open. "Naruto, we have to play some time!" His mouth was moving, but there was no sound coming out, so he gave up. Even if he had been able to speak, he wasn't sure that he had words to express how utterly horrifying he found the revelation that Mabui liked such a boring game.
"Mabui-san, why don't you come with us? I'm sure that there'll be plenty of time after whatever Asuma-sensei planned."
"Sakura-chan, can we please not do this today? I'm having a really hard time figuring something out, and we just found something--"
"Naruto, you can't just train all the time!" Ino, having finally composed herself, couldn't help but express her annoyance. While her annoyance was actually at his sudden growth in strength, not his training habits, she didn't think he needed to know that. "So how about it Mabui-san? We're just going to grab some lunch before heading over to Shikamaru's house."
"Hmm…" Mabui really didn't have to think about it, as she had been hoping they would ask her ever since Shikamaru had mentioned shougi. "I guess I could get one of other librarians to cover for me…" Naruto, who had been trying to think of a way to get out of going, brightened significantly at the thought that Mabui would be coming.
Ten minutes later, Mabui managed to convince another librarian to take over for the rest of the day (not that he could have said no to his boss), and they were off. When Naruto and Mabui turned to go to Ichiraku's, everyone else stopped. Ino was the first to speak up. "Naruto, we were actually going to go get something other than ramen this time. We're all sick of having ramen every week."
Naruto and Mabui looked as though someone had told them that the Kyuubi was attacking again. Their pure terror at the idea of anyone getting sick of ramen, of all things, was exactly what a normal person would have felt when placed in a room alone with Itachi. Not surprisingly, they spoke in perfect unison. "ARE YOU CRAZY? Ramen is the single greatest food that mankind has ever invented! You can't just get 'sick' of it!" The appropriate reaction was seen in the rest of the group: sweat-dropping.
One very long conversation later, ten genin, one chuunin, and a librarian were standing outside of a dango shop. Naruto and Mabui had, of course, lost the argument, but that didn't mean they had to like it. Naruto even tried to run away, but was quickly restrained by Lee, Neji, Chouji, Kiba, and Ino.
"Naruto, just get in the freaking shop! Eating something other than ramen won't kill you!" It was getting to the point where Naruto was being dragged into the shop by five people, and they were barely moving at all.
"It's not that…" The angry look on Naruto's face had been replaced by a strange look that none of them could place, and he seemed to be resisting more with each passing second. "The people who own this shop… don't exactly like me." He had completely forgotten about the argument, and was far more concerned with where he was.
Truth be told, the owners of that dango shop were among the most well-liked people in Konoha, but they were also among those who hated Naruto the most. In their minds, Naruto was solely responsible for every death that occurred during the Kyuubi's attack, including more than twenty members of their family. Once, when he was five, he made the mistake of going into their shop. Although he managed to escape alive, it was mostly because of the interference of several ANBU who happened to be eating there at the time.
Finally, with much difficulty, Naruto was dragged into the restaurant. It wasn't long before an angry scream was heard from the direction of the kitchen. "Die demon-boy!" Before anyone could figure out what was happening, an extremely angry old man ran from the kitchen aiming a knife at Naruto's head. With his reflexes, Naruto could have easily dodged or blocked it, but his friends beat him to it. Neji was using one hand to hold the man's arm and the other to close one of the tenketsu thereon, Lee was twisting the man's other arm behind his back, and Kiba had a kunai to the man's neck. Needless to say, the man was terrified.
"Why are you protecting him? That demon should just die!"
"Naruto, what the hell did you do to this guy?" Sakura, who wasn't sure who to be furious with, decided to ask the obvious question. Mabui looked like she was about to try to kill the old man, but her answer was relatively calm.
"Naruto didn't do anything to this person, except maybe save his life."
"Save my life? He killed almost all of my family! I would have been killed too if--"
"If Naruto hadn't taken the hit for you! He didn't kill your family! You should be on your hands and knees thanking him!" It was at this point that all of Naruto's friends realized the same thing: not only did they have no idea what was going on, but they couldn't think of any way that Mabui and the old man could be talking about the same event.
"Thanking him? What in the hell do I have to thank him for?"
"Mabui-chan, can we just go?" Naruto didn't look his usual determined self. In his place was a defeated-looking boy with a severe desire be anywhere other than that shop. Mabui was about to yell at him for allowing the old man to talk to him like that, but seeing his face changed her mind.
"Yeah, let's go." It took several moments for the rest of the group to follow them, the seeming randomness of the situation being too much for them to handle. Finally, when they arrived at Ichiraku's (no one made a big deal about it), Ino decided that she had to ask.
"Naruto, what was that all about?" He didn't respond in any way, which she took as her cue to drop it. If he had gotten riled up, or looked sadly up at her, or grinned, she would have started yelling, but he was making it obvious that he wasn't going to say anything no matter what she did. When five minutes of silent ramen eating had passed, she decided it was best to get everyone's mind on something else. "So… what technique are you working on?"
Suddenly the entire atmosphere brightened, and Naruto had a huge grin on his face. His mood changed so quickly that it was almost comical to those who knew him well. "It's gonna be really cool." With that said, he went back to devouring his ramen.
"Okay, but what will it do?"
He seriously considered telling her for a moment, but decided it would be better as a surprise. "It's a secret!" Seeing that Ino was getting nowhere, Sakura turned to Mabui.
"Mabui-san, did he tell you about it?"
"Nope!" She also continued to eat, much happier at the thought that Naruto hadn't let the man's hatred get to him. As the only person who hadn't face-faulted at her answer, Shino asked the question that he knew everyone else would want to ask.
"How were you helping him without knowing what he was doing?" As always, his voice was completely impassive, but Hinata and Kiba could tell that he was slightly curious. It wasn't so much the way he said things as the speed with which he said them, and he had spoken his question at a slower pace than his normal speech.
She smiled up at him, "to be honest, I probably wouldn't be of much use with his technique anyway… He just asks me whether certain things sound possible or not and how they would work, which doesn't really help me figure out what his techniques are. I can't wait to see it though!"
Mabui was very surprised to see that Asuma's plan for Naruto was an IQ test. It seemed a rather pointless thing to test a ninja for, in her opinion, but she was confident that he would do well. He had, after all, been learning everything she had to teach him extremely quickly. When Asuma finished calculating Naruto's score, every jaw (except for Naruto's and Mabui's) dropped in awe. How something like that could be possible, none of them had the faintest idea. Sakura found herself getting angry, although she wasn't sure what she was angry about.
"How the hell—Naruto, how can your IQ be eighty-five? That's near retardation!" He grinned up at her sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.
"I knew it!" Everyone turned to Asuma, who was standing up and pointing at Naruto. "I knew I couldn't have lost to you in shougi! So, how'd you guys cheat?" Shikamaru was far too shocked to rebut. He, a super genius, had lost to Naruto, of below-average intelligence, in two games of strategy. Repeatedly. On Naruto's first times playing the games. The shock that the others were experiencing was somewhat more appropriate: they couldn't figure out how he had invented kage-level techniques. Based on his performance against Shikamaru, they had assumed him some kind of closet genius, but that theory was left debunked. Unless…
"Asuma-sensei, did you cheat on Naruto's test?" Asuma, still pointing at Naruto and waiting for a response to his question, turned to Ino with a look of confusion.
"You… really believe I would do that?" Seeing that she wasn't about to back down, he let out a long sigh. "No Ino, I didn't cheat on his test." Ino was about to draw him into an argument when she was cut off by Mabui.
"Enough about the stupid test! Those things are worthless anyway… I want to play shougi with Naruto!"
"Worthless…? I was told you were a super genius, so you must have taken an IQ test at some point…"
"Bah!" She waved a dismissive hand, "all of those things are unreliable; I'm probably just average. When I took this test it only gave me a 120, and then that other one gave me a 210… If the variance is that much, I don't trust either one of them!"
"Your scores differed by ninety points?" While that fact provided significant comfort for Shikamaru, it gave Asuma a huge headache. "Aw, whatever… I'll go get the shougi board."
Ten minutes into the game, Naruto was beginning to enjoy himself. Unlike Shikamaru, Mabui made all of her movements quickly and provided him with a real challenge. Asuma was off to the side trying to figure out exactly how Shikamaru could be giving Naruto signals once every five seconds from behind, and Shikamaru was standing behind Naruto in the hope that he would better understand how Naruto's mind worked from that vantage point. After a thirty minute match, featuring a total of 720 moves, Naruto emerged victorious.
"Wow Mabui-chan, that was really fun! Thanks for not holding back too much, unlike Shikamaru…"
"Holding back…?" She looked up at Shikamaru, who just shook his head. "I wasn't holding back, you beat me fair and square!"
"Eh?" He tried to allow himself to believe her, but he couldn't. "There's no way that's true! You're so smart, I could never--"
"But it is true Naruto. Mabui and I weren't holding back on you." He looked up just in time to see Shikamaru mouth "troublesome" before turning to look at the others, hoping to catch one of them mid-laugh. Although he couldn't see any sign that they were lying, it didn't make any sense to him.
"I haven't lost in a game of shougi in over four years!" Mabui was positively beaming, which struck everyone as odd considering that she had just lost. "You're the first person I've seen make moves as quickly as I do, too… Wanna play again?"
"Yeah!"
After the second match, which Mabui won, the others started placing bets. Hinata quickly became the holder of everyone's money, as Naruto won seven of nine matches before the two of them decided to call it quits. Sakura decided to make one last effort to complete her mission, taking advantage of the fact that his guard was down.
"What did you say that jutsu was going to do Naruto?"
"It's going to--" He caught himself at the last minute. "It's gonna be really cool!" With a heavy sigh, Sakura gave up and watched Naruto leave to walk Mabui home.
"I've told you three times Gai: you can't give Neji's spot away for the challenge. It's against the rules."
"No Kakashi, I found a real opening this time!" Gai struck his most enthusiastic nice-guy pose, hoping to convey exactly how serious he was. It would have been lost on anyone else, but Kakashi knew him well enough to get the message. "This year's top rookie and one of his teammates are ready, but their sensei doesn't think the third member is chuunin level yet. When I told him that one of the 'rookie nine' would be willing to join his team…"
"Well, looks like you win." /Jackpot!/ "Now I just have to figure out who goes to which team…"
"Kakashi, you know that you have to put Sakura with the rookies. You can't afford to have Naruto fail because of their inexperience; Tsunade-sama would--"
"Did you say something?" Kakashi tried not to let his eye give away that he had been listening. Truthfully, he had been avoiding coming to that conclusion, but he knew that Gai was right. "Anyway, I should probably talk to their sensei. Who is it?"
"Aoshi."
"Touketsu Aoshi? They let him teach his own son?" It was no secret that Touketsu Kaen was the number one rookie of the year, or that his dad was the weakest of the village's jounin.
"Yeah. From what he told me, Kaen's style is completely different than his, though."
"Later." Just like that Kakashi was gone, leaving Gai to once again scream about 'hip' attitudes. It only took Kakashi about a minute to find Aoshi, and he was glad to see the man alone. "Aoshi, I need to talk to you."
"Ah, Kakashi, I was wondering when you'd show up. From the way Gai was talking, I expected that you would have been here an hour ago." He gave Kakashi a serious look, "I should have known better."
"Yes, well, an old--"
"Don't bother with your stories…" Aoshi let out an amused sigh, barely able to stop himself from chuckling. "Let's just get down to business. Are you giving me Naruto or Sakura?"
"…It depends. How strong are they?"
"Kaen and Shimaru? They're stronger than should be necessary to pass the exam, if that's what you're asking."
"It's not." Seeing Aoshi's confused look, he let out a sigh. "You probably haven't thought about this, but nearly all of the finalists from the last exam will be participating again. That includes almost all of the 'rookie nine,' along with Gai's team and Gaara's team from Suna."
"Oh, I get it. You don't want to know if they're chuunin level, you just want to know if they're going to be weak enough to drag your student down. I wouldn't worry about that, though, they're both pretty strong for their age…"
Although he could tell that Aoshi was confident in them, Kakashi had his doubts. "Sakura."
"Tsunade-sama's apprentice? I was actually hoping to get Naruto, after seeing him beat the Hyuuga last time, but I suppose she'll do." /Kaen will be a little disappointed…/
"Well, I'd better tell Asuma that Naruto will be joining his team. Later."
Saturday rolled around, and Naruto couldn't have been less happy with his progress. He wasn't any closer to figuring out even the basics of his technique, his progress in taijutsu and strength training had effectively halted (much to Gai's bewilderment), and he was having trouble concentrating on anything other than the previous Saturday's dango shop incident. Just as he was breaking through his concentration block and getting an idea, he was interrupted by Ino.
"'Chakra Molding: How Does It Work, Anyway?' Naruto, you're actually reading this?" Although he tried to ignore her, his idea was completely lost in the newfound mental haze.
"Maybe we should all start reading remedial scrolls so we can invent S-rank techniques too!" Akamaru gave a yip of agreement, which made Kiba's smirk grow. Hinata and Shino, the two who knew Kiba best, were the only ones who knew that he wasn't kidding.
"Wait, where's Mabui-san?" Tenten, who had been interested in prying information from Mabui, found it odd that she wouldn't be there. Naruto, who had been glaring at Kiba, got a serious look on his face.
"I don't know. She said she had to deal with something personal today…"
"Personal?" He nodded. "She wouldn't tell you anything more than that?"
"I didn't ask." Reacting quickly, hoping to get his spirits up, Sakura changed the subject.
"How's your technique coming along Naruto?"
"Technique?" Looking down, he noticed the scroll he had been reading, and realization hit him. "Oh, that's why I was here!" Everyone face-faulted, but he didn't notice. "I was just having trouble getting my chakra to--" He glared down at her so quickly that Ino flinched before getting up. "You messed me up!"
"What! What did I do?"
"You snuck up on me and made me forget my idea!"
"What idea?"
"I was thinking about starting by concentrating chakra in my—that's it!" Reading through the scroll quickly, he saw that his idea was possible, and he couldn't wait to try it out. He jumped up and ran towards the doors before Lee and Neji, still very confused, grabbed him. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Naruto, it's Saturday." Neji couldn't really say that he hated their Saturday activities, but he did find Naruto's attitude to be rather tiresome. It was getting worse than Lee's, and Naruto was becoming generally anti-social. Although he hadn't known Naruto before the chuunin exams, he highly doubted that Naruto had ever been the type to spend most of his time alone.
"Huh? Oh, right…" He looked around at everyone pleadingly, "can we not do this today? I need to go work on--"
"NO!" Seeing that Sakura and Ino were already ganging up on him, Naruto gave in with a heavy sigh.
"Kakashi, Gai, you know why you're here. Report." Seeing that they were both content to stand in awkward silence, she added "Gai, you first."
"Hai, Tsunade-sama. When Naruto started training with Lee and I, his progress was phenomenal! His passion was burning brightly, and--"
"Gai, I'm going to have to ask you not to talk like that. You take too long to say things when you rant about the 'spirit of youth' and whatever other crap."
"But Tsunade-sama!" She gave him a menacing glare, which he took as a threat before nodding. "As I was saying, Naruto did very well when he began training with us. Not only did he show good stamina, but his spirit--" he caught himself at the last minute, "er, he works hard too." /This is going to be harder than I thought…/ "Lately, though, he hasn't been doing very well. He's having trouble learning forms, his speed and strength are at a stand-still, and he tires more easily."
"Do you at least know why?"
"No." Deciding that he wasn't lying, she nodded. "I would say that his speed without his weights is about the average for a chuunin, and his strength is just short of jounin level." She nodded again.
"Now you, Kakashi."
"Hai, Tsunade-sama. I haven't seen him in action since you replaced me with Sakura, so my information probably isn't up to date, but--"
"Cut the crap Kakashi. I know you've been checking in on him, and I expect accurate information out of you." Seeing the same threatening glare she had given Gai, he decided it was best not to ask how she knew.
"Alright, alright, I'll tell you. In case you didn't already know, although I'm not sure how that would be possible, his chakra capacity is beyond kage level. Easily. It's probably considerably larger than yours, realistically. He knows three B-rank jutsu, two A-rank jutsu, and two S-rank jutsu, so I would place his ninjutsu at just below or barely at jounin level." Gai cast a glare in Kakashi's direction, remembering the pervert saying something along the lines of 'surpassed me in ninjutsu.' The glare was, of course, ignored. "As for genjutsu, I'm not sure that he knows any at all, and he's probably horrible at dealing with them…"
"He doesn't know any? How can that be?"
"I guess he never cared. It's not required in the academy, even if it is suggested, so he probably never thought it was worth his time. Considering what I've heard about his resistance, I would say he's barely better with genjutsu than the average civilian, to be honest."
"That could be a problem… We can't exactly count on Akatsuki not having a genjutsu specialist."
"Actually, Tsunade-sama, we already know of one: Uchiha Itachi." Her eyes widened in recognition of the name, but she made no comment. "Getting back to Naruto, I think he'll probably at least get to the finals again. His main weaknesses were speed and chakra control, and Gai's already been dealing with his speed."
"What about his chakra control? You didn't mention it…"
"Let's just say that I wouldn't recommend him as a medic-nin, and leave it at that."
"So… Basically, what you two are telling me is that he's currently a ninjutsu specialist with chuunin level taijutsu and near-jounin level ninjutsu?" After thinking for a moment, Gai nodded, but Kakashi shook his head.
"If you're going to sum him up so briefly, you should probably call his ninjutsu jounin level. My earlier assessment was probably wrong, considering that he mostly relies on his B-, A-, and S-rank techniques."
"What was the reason for your first ranking?"
"Well, even if he does know mostly higher level techniques, he doesn't know very many." He shrugged, "I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I'll call it jounin level for now."
"Okay, but that doesn't really change much. Even if his growth is impressive, he won't be a match for any Akatsuki members for some time. At least we can expect the chuunin exams to go smoothly…" She let out a heavy sigh, not entirely prepared to ask her next question. "You found him a team, right?"
"I'm putting him with Asuma's team, and Sakura will be with two rookies." A vein suddenly became visible in Tsunade's temple.
"You're putting my apprentice with rookies?"
"Unless you would rather she not compete, yes." Gai, seeing Tsunade's glare, couldn't help but feel jealous of Kakashi's ability to stay calm. Even though it wasn't directed at him, he was feeling chills all over his body at the thought of her rage. Oddly enough, Kakashi's calm appeared to be infectious.
"Was it really the only available spot? Tough year…"
"Come on Naruto, at least tell us what it's going to do!" Naruto just smiled at her, having a little too much fun at her expense. "We might even be able to help!"
"Let it go Ino, you're being too troublesome…"
"Shut up Shikamaru!" Naruto took a happy slurp of ramen, finishing off his twentieth bowl and drawing her attention back to him. "At least give us a hint!"
"A hint?" Thinking about it, he decided to do the most annoying thing possible: give a ridiculously vague hint that could mean almost anything. "It'll be loud." Everyone took a moment to process the hint before realizing just how vague it was. It didn't take a genius to realize that he had intended it that way, just to annoy them.
"What the hell kind of hint is that?" He just smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. Right as she was about to hit him over the back of the head, Shikamaru did something she had never thought him capable of: he took initiative.
"Leave him alone Ino, we've got a shougi game to get to." Several minutes later they were all gathered in Shikamaru's room again, something that most of them were getting rather tired of. Before the game could begin, however, Shikamaru had an important question to ask. "Okay Naruto, I have to know. How do you do it?"
Naruto gave him a blank stare. "How do I do what?"
"How do you make your moves so quickly?" Shikamaru was in one of those rare moods where he not only didn't feel like being lazy, he felt like specifically doing something, so he went for it. "I could understand losing to you, but not when you don't even think about what you're doing."
"I think about what I'm doing!"
"I know that, I'm asking how you do it so quickly."
"Oh… I don't know, I just… do." Everyone sweat-dropped at his comment, not sure whether he was hiding something or not.
"Walk me through it."
"Walk you through what?" A vein became visible on Shikamaru's temple, alerting Chouji and Ino that he actually cared about the response.
"Walk me through your thought process."
"Oh… Okay, I guess…" /Why does he care?/ "First I figure out what you're trying to do, and then I figure out the best way to counter you. After I figure out a way to catch you off guard, I set up my plan in the background, and I pull it off when you don't seem to be expecting it."
"You think all of that through on every turn? In the course of three seconds?"
"Yeah…" Slowly, everyone realized exactly how much thought was actually involved in that. It wasn't exactly an uncommon way of strategizing, but Naruto was claiming that, in the span of three seconds, he could: analyze all of Shikamaru's moves to discern his ultimate strategy, come up with an effective counter strategy, and begin deploying decoy tactics without disturbing said counter strategy. Not only that, but it would require him to make his strategy seem like the decoy, so that Shikamaru wouldn't perceive and counter it.
"Wait a minute, let me get this straight." Naruto gave him a suspicious look, not sure what Shikamaru could possibly be having difficulty with. "So not only are you a brilliant strategist, you also think several times more quickly than a normal person?"
"Eh?"
"Naruto, it would take a normal person several minutes just to analyze my strategy, then another minute or so to come up with a plan. Not to mention that your plans are always too complex for me to figure out, and most people wouldn't even think to put in decoy tactics…"
"You're kidding, right?" Shikamaru shook his head, which almost caused Naruto to face-fault. "But that doesn't make any sense! It's not hard or anything…" Suddenly, they all had a new respect for Naruto.
Five moves into the match, however, it was apparent that something was wrong. "Naruto?" There was no response. "Naruto… NARUTO!"
"Huh? Did you say something?"
/He's pulling a Kakashi?/ "It's your turn."
"Eh?" He looked around, not quite remembering where he was, until he saw the shougi board. "Oh, right… What was your move?" Shikamaru pointed to the pawn he had just dropped, and Naruto made his move in response. Throughout the rest of the game it was obvious that Naruto wasn't paying almost any attention, which made the trouble Shikamaru was having all the more frustrating. Finally, after ninety minutes and 175 moves, Shikamaru's strategy was almost complete. Somehow, against all odds, he had managed to slip by Naruto's defenses, and was two moves from making checkmate.
"Naruto, is something wrong?" Shikamaru glared at Sakura, a rare sight, but she was too focused on Naruto to notice. "You haven't been playing normally, and you keep getting weird looks on your face."
"It's just… it's nothing, Sakura-chan." Sakura, having forgotten about the incident at the dango shop after Tsunade had had the man arrested, took this the wrong way.
"Naruto, I already told you! We'll save Sasuke together!" Naruto, who had forgotten about saving Sasuke altogether, suddenly jumped up.
"Chikushou! I have to train!" He was, yet again, restrained by Neji and Lee, who again reminded him that it was Saturday. Grudgingly sitting down, he looked at the shougi board to find a rather odd sight: he was losing. Of course, he had a new strategy in mind, and he kicked it off by using a drop to halt Shikamaru's checkmate.
Ten minutes later, Shikamaru was again glaring at Sakura. He wasn't sure how what she had said to Naruto had made the boy suddenly better at shougi, but he knew it was her fault. With Naruto's focus returned, it was obvious who would win, and it wasn't Shikamaru. If anything, Naruto's randomness had become even more severe than usual, and his plan was leaving Shikamaru in a tight spot remarkably quickly. Twenty minutes after Sakura's comments, Naruto had a checkmate. Two games of go later, Shikamaru was ready to give up on ever beating Naruto at either game. "One of you play against him for once, I need a break."
"Are you crazy? We don't stand a chance against you, how are we supposed to beat Naruto?"
"I didn't tell you to beat him Ino, I told you to play him."
"I-I'll play." Everyone's gaze was immediately fixed on Hinata, who was in a corner of the room and almost completely hidden from view. "I mean… if no one else wants to."
"Hinata? You play go?" Seeing Naruto smiling at her, she nearly fainted, but still managed a nod. Honestly, she wasn't sure that she would be able to remain conscious, let alone concentrate, while he was that close to her, but she didn't want to let him down. Had she known how little he actually cared about the game, she probably wouldn't have bothered.
"H-hai." Although he didn't really want to play anymore, he knew it had taken a lot of courage for her to speak up, considering how quiet she usually was. He still felt like he owed her for her words before his fight with Neji, and that event had made her one of his precious people, so a game of go seemed like (and probably was) the least he could do.
"Sure, I'd love to play you, Hinata-chan!" When she realized that he had added "-chan" to her name, she got an extremely heavy blush on her face, opened her mouth as if to say something, and fainted. As she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that Naruto's face was disturbingly close to her own. "Hinata-chan, do you feel okay? You look like you have a fever…" Again, she fainted.
At this point the others felt it necessary to remove Naruto from her immediate vicinity, so he was replaced by Sakura. Hinata awoke and, assuring Naruto that she was okay, took her place by the go board. After the initial shock of being near Naruto wore off, she actually turned out to be quite good at the game, even if she was nowhere near his level. Even though she was disappointed that she wasn't as good at go as Mabui had been at shougi, she was happy for the chance to play against him.
No one was really surprised when Hinata lost, but it did surprise them that she asked to play again. She lost the second match as well, and there wasn't enough time for a third, but Naruto had to admit that he liked her more and more every time she found the guts to talk. He seriously thought she should have seen a doctor about that fever, though. Stopping at the door, Naruto turned to face her. "You know Hinata-chan, you should really speak up more. Things are more fun when you do!" With that he walked out, not even noticing that Hinata had, once again, frozen in place. Shikamaru, on the other hand, realized that he was going to have a lot of trouble removing her from his room.
Saturday rolled around once again, and once again ten teenagers found themselves headed to the library. When they finally arrived, Naruto once again lived up to his title as the number one ninja in surprising people: he wasn't there. Mabui, hearing their grumbling from her desk, waved them over cheerily. "Hi everyone! What brings you here?" Seeing the vein on Ino's forehead, she was surprised it hadn't burst. /She seriously needs to calm down…/
"Where is he now?"
"Naruto? He said he finished his jutsu, but he doesn't want to show me until he's sure it's ready. He's been out testing it for about an hour, so I'm sure he'll be back soon!"
"HE FINISHED IT?" Hearing nine voices screaming at once (Hinata's "scream" was about as loud as a normal person's "indoor voice") in a library stunned Mabui a little bit, but she let it slide because they were Naruto's friends. "Did he tell you what it does?"
"No… He said it should be really cool though!"
"Well, we should probably go check on him. Bye Mabui!" They all waved as they ran out of the library, and they were at the training area in under a minute. The first thing that they noticed was the unusually large number of branches that had fallen off of the trees in the area, and the second was what sounded like frustrated screaming. "I guess he didn't figure it out after all."
"Then he won't mind our intrusion! Come on Akamaru!" A consenting woof was barely heard over Naruto's newest scream. "Or… maybe he will." As they approached the clearing they could clearly see him standing in front of a few trees, screaming once every few seconds. Akamaru suddenly started shaking and saying something to Kiba right before one of Naruto's screams. "Are you sure Akamaru?" Akamaru gave an affirmative moan.
"What did he say Kiba?"
"He said that Naruto's screams reek of chakra, to the point that it's scaring him."
"But it's not doing anything…"
"That's why I asked if he was sure. There's no doubt about it though, Naruto is definitely pumping chakra into his screams for some reason." After watching him for a few minutes Ino got desperately bored, so she went to stop him. Right as she was about to tap him on the shoulder, things started looking up for him. They watched in awe as his scream created winds so strong that they uprooted a few trees that were near him. It wasn't nearly as powerful as the oodama dangan that they had witnessed, but considering that it was just a scream it was pretty damn impressive to them.
What he said next made them all, including Hinata, very nervous. "That should have been way more powerful… I guess I'll just have to try again!" Turning around to find another set of targets, he noticed Ino. "Oh, it's you." She would have responded, except that she still wasn't over what he had just said. From what she could tell, the technique was already far more powerful than Temari's kamaitachi had been, yet he had said it should be "way more powerful." Finally collecting her bearings, she was instantly filled with outrage.
"What do you mean 'oh, it's you?' I'm your friend damn it!" He just scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"I don't suppose you guys would mind letting me practice a little while longer?" Figuring that it wasn't even worth the effort to respond to that question anymore, they just grabbed him and headed to Ichiraku's. Or, they tried to head to Ichiraku's.
"Naruto, how much do you weigh? I know you eat a lot of ramen, but this is insane!" Lee had a different question entirely.
"Naruto-kun, did Gai-sensei start you on weights this heavy?" Seeing Naruto nod, his eyes went a little wide. "These weights are as heavy as mine, but you're getting used to them so quickly…"
"Wait, he's wearing weights as heavy as yours? The ones that made giant craters in the floor when you dropped them?"
"No." Ino sighed in relief. "The weights I wear now are a little heavier."
"Damn it Naruto, quit making us look bad!" /So he's gonna be as strong as Lee, a better strategist than Shikamaru, and the best ninjutsu specialist in the village? How are we supposed to compete with that/
"Fuzzy-brows, I'm not really used to the weights yet…" He resisted the urge to add "which is a good reason for me to keep training!" and run off, but only because he didn't think he could get away.
"I never said you were, Naruto-kun. It's just that it took me over a year to work my way up to this weight, and you were able to start at the same level…"
"I just needed to get stronger, so I forced myself to use the weights…" They all sweat-dropped, not wanting to believe that they had really heard him say that.
"Not this crap again! Even Akamaru knows you're hiding something when you talk like that!"
"Hey! Don't insult Akamaru, Ino!" An offended bark was aimed in her direction. "He's probably smarter than you!" Using the argument as a distraction, Naruto tried to sneak away, but Shino stopped him.
"If you two are done with your childish bickering, I believe we were going to lunch." Neji's patience was at its limit, considering that he was giving up the opportunity to go on long-term missions for these (seemingly pointless) meetings. "Also, I think Hinata-sama was interested in another game of go…"
Blushing and pushing her fingertips together, Hinata nodded. "Th-that is, if you w-want… Naruto-kun."
"Of course, Hinata-chan!" He was determined, one way or another, to get her confidence up, even if it meant enduring extremely boring board games. It was obvious that, if she talked more, she would make an excellent friend, and she would probably be happier too.
Naruto was starting to get severely frustrated. No matter how many times he tried the damned technique, he couldn't get it any more powerful. The worst part was cleaning up all of the fallen trees so that he could tell what portion of the damage was from his latest attempts, which always took an extremely long time, but the constant failure wasn't exactly a pro.
Luckily for the group slowly approaching him, he had been right: his technique was very loud. If any of the villagers had known what it was they would have complained to the Hokage, but they found the noises to be a little too frightening for investigation. As for the ninja, they were able to sleep through it easily, so they didn't care.
Just as they entered the clearing, which wasn't really a clearing anymore as Naruto had piled all of the trees and branches destroyed in his technique into the center of it, he finished his cleanup. Fortune smiled on them once again as he happened to face away from them, standing about twenty feet away on the pile of logs.
"Yoshi! I'm gonna do it this time!" Neji, more than a little bit curious, activated his byakugan to see how Naruto's technique worked. He seriously doubted that he would be able to copy it, but it couldn't hurt to check it out, right?
What he saw through his byakugan amazed him, even before Naruto used the technique. Under normal conditions, when he wasn't preparing an attack, Naruto's chakra looked relatively normal: slightly larger than average, but hardly impressive. The amount of chakra Naruto was forming for his technique was more than Neji had ever seen even Hiashi produce, and he was doing it casually! Some of the chakra was doing something in front of Naruto that Neji couldn't figure out, but most was concentrated to the base of his lungs.
Just as he was figuring out part of the trick to Naruto's technique, Naruto let out a brand new shout. Unlike his previous attempts, which had resulted in a very loud screaming sound, this shout seemed almost silent, but that was hardly the impressive part of it. Finally, after all of that practice, Naruto succeeded in his technique. All of the trees that he had carefully piled up were blown away, some of the ground underneath them was torn up, trees as far as thirty feet in front of him were knocked over, and even trees and bushes to his sides were being damaged. Still standing twenty feet behind him, everyone except Lee was having trouble standing up to the wind. Akamaru had actually been blown off of Kiba's head, and was lying on the ground an additional twenty feet back, unconscious.
After what seemed an eternity, but was actually about four seconds, Naruto's technique ended. They all stared, mouths agape, at the calm form of Naruto standing in the middle of the clear-again clearing, not even registering their luck in not being hit by any of the trees that had rolled in their direction. It was obvious to them that this technique completely negated all of their fighting styles, and made Temari's kamaitachi look like a cool breeze on a hot day. The only one of them who could have conceivably stood a chance against the attack was Lee, and that was just because of his speed and his weights (and even that seemed a long-shot).
Their awe quickly turned to horror, however, as they realized that he was planning to take the chuunin exams with them. Even in their state of open-mouthed horror, they all (including Hinata) shuddered at what he said: "I guess that'll work… for now." As he contemplated finding a new place to train, as he had effectively eradicated all of the targets in his current location, he noticed them standing at the edge of the field, mouths still open and eyes still wide. "Are you guys okay?"
Just as they were thinking about all of the ways he would probably think of to utilize the attack, they found themselves backing away in unison. Catching themselves at the last minute, they forced themselves to remember that he considered them his friends, and that he would never attack his friends without a good reason. Finally, Sakura came back to her senses.
"Naruto, what the hell was that?"
"What, my technique? I couldn't really think of a good name, so I just called it chikara no sakebi (shout of power)."
"I didn't mean the name! What the hell did you do?"
"He concentrated a large amount of chakra to the base of his lungs, then used it to force the air out before dispersing it." Everyone looked at Neji questioningly, which almost caused him to sweat-drop. "I have the byakugan, you know. I can see him molding chakra." Seeing the look on Naruto's face, he added, "don't worry Naruto, I don't have nearly enough chakra to copy that technique, and the byakugan isn't as good for copying techniques as the sharingan anyway."
"Oh. Okay then…"
"Wait a minute, why would you want to disperse the air? Wouldn't it be way more powerful as one cannonball blast?"
"I thought that at first, but Mabui-chan helped me figure out that it would end up about the same, except that I would waste more chakra and attack a smaller area."
"So you did tell her about your technique!"
"No, not yet. I can't wait to show it to her, though!"
"You might want to find a way to keep her on the ground first." Seeing that he didn't understand, Shikamaru let out a sigh. /This guy's a strategic genius?/ "We were standing behind you and you almost blew us away, so someone like Mabui doesn't stand a chance. Considering her figure, she probably weighs very little so--" he was suddenly cut off by the fists colliding with the back of his head.
"He's right though, Naruto, it really isn't safe for Mabui-san unless you find a way to keep her grounded."
"I'm sure Mabui-chan will think of something!"
"I thought you weren't going to tell her what it does."
"Oh yeah…" Everyone face-faulted. "Well, I'll figure it out during lunch, I guess. Oh wait… you guys will let me show her, right?"
"Naruto, you really need to learn to take a break once in a--"
"It's not that! I promised I'd show her when I finished it! I can't go back on my word!"
They all gave each other the "aw crap" look, knowing that they couldn't possibly keep him from keeping his word. "I guess, but only once!"
"Yatta! She's gonna be so excited!" He started to run to the library, but his speed with the weights on still wasn't up to par, and everyone was soon in front of him. As surprising as it was to him, he found that he didn't even care.
Strolling towards Ichiraku's, Kakashi thought hard about how to break the news to them. He knew that Naruto and Asuma's two genin weren't likely to get along very well, but the teams were officially set in stone and there was nothing he could do about it. At the very least, he was glad that he had actually managed to find them both teams, as he knew that they were both more than qualified to be chuunin. Making a flashy entrance as always, he gave the standard greeting: "Yo."
"Kakashi-sensei? Why are you here?"
"Actually, Naruto, I'm here to tell you about your team for the chuunin exams, if you're interested."
"You got me in the exams? Who's joining our team?"
"Er, about that… Sakura, Naruto, I had to split the two of you up to get you both in." Naruto looked crestfallen, and Sakura didn't look very happy either. The truth was that Sakura felt cheated, not getting to be with her own teammate after he had finally become so strong, but she could understand that it would be hard to find a single applicant to join them. "Sakura, you're with the top rookie and a teammate of his. Naruto, you're with Ino and Chouji."
"WHAT! You're putting me on a team with her? Why--"
"Naruto, that's enough. I can't change the teams now, and even if I could I wouldn't. Just trust me on this, okay?" Naruto gave him a powerful glare, but nodded all the same. Ino looked absolutely livid, but didn't say anything, and Hinata looked utterly depressed. "Oh, before I go, how's your training going?"
"I was just about to go show Mabui-chan my new technique!"
"You made another technique? Hmm… Mind if I come?"
"Sure, you can be Mabui-chan's anchor!" Mabui and Kakashi looked at him in the same way at the same time before asking the same question.
"Anchor?" They looked around at the others, who all nodded furiously.
Arriving at the training grounds, Kakashi and Mabui were amazed at how much damage had already been done to the area. Naruto then proceeded to hand Kakashi his leg-weights. "Put these on, and stay here." The pair looked at the teens again, all of whom again nodded furiously. Kakashi did as he was told and waited anxiously to see what the technique would do. "Oh, Kakashi-sensei, keep a good hold on Mabui-chan. If she gets hurt I'll never forgive you." After seeing Kakashi awkwardly holding Mabui in a sort of loose hug, Naruto turned around and walked about twenty feet in front of them, facing the patch of trees that the others had been hiding in previously.
Kiba instantly grabbed Akamaru and hugged the puppy to his chest, while the girls all tried to hide behind the guys and the guys tried to brace themselves with chakra. Mabui, who had very little experience with ninja techniques, took these precautions as a bad sign, and became very anxious. Just as she was realizing how anxious she was actually getting, Naruto unleashed his technique, which caused slightly more damage than it had the first time.
Suddenly Mabui found that she was very happy with Naruto's anchor idea, as she was blown back into Kakashi. Kakashi, acting as the anchor, was slightly less thrilled as her mass was suddenly forced into him, causing a surprising amount of pain. Even with the weights, they found themselves sliding back a few inches. When the attack ended, they were both left completely speechless.
"Pretty cool, eh Mabui-chan?" With that, her speechlessness ended.
"Yeah, that was awesome Naruto! Is that why you asked all those questions about dispersing an energy flow?" He nodded. "I can't wait to see you use it in the chuunin exam! This is so cool!"
"Naruto, what did you do?" Neji gave Kakashi the same explanation he had given everyone else, and Kakashi's eye widened. "You were able to do that twice in one day? That must require an insane amount of chakra, even for you!"
"Eh? No, it doesn't really use very much chakra…" Kakashi was about to question that assertion, when Neji cut him off.
"The amount of chakra I saw you use in that technique was a lot of chakra, Naruto. Easily four times as much as you used in the last exam, and far more than I've seen even in Hiashi-sama."
"The last chuunin exam? How much chakra did he use then?" /I knew I should have gotten Sasuke there in time to catch Naruto's match…/
"Enough to completely enshroud his body, increase his strength and speed, and enable him to defeat my hakkeshou kaiten head-on."
"He defeated kaiten with a head-on attack?" /Damn. I would have liked seeing that…/ "And you're saying that this technique uses four times as much chakra?"
"Yes, Kakashi-sensei." Somehow it just didn't seem right to Neji to refer to Kakashi without adding "-sensei" at the end. "Probably a little more than that, actually."
Before he would let himself get too worked up, Kakashi decided there was one more important question. "What jutsu did he use against the kaiten in his attack?"
"He charged me with a kunai."
"But that would require… four times… 'doesn't really use very much chakra…'"
"Neji, I don't think you were looking right… I was using way more chakra when I fought you, to the point where my body felt like it was burning."
"No Naruto, you definitely used more chakra on this. It was used more efficiently in the exam, but--"
"Wait just a minute. Are you trying to tell me that Naruto is wasting chakra?"
"Yes, Kakashi-sensei. He's using about twice as much chakra as should be necessary because of his poor control."
"Kakashi-sensei, how much chakra are we talking about? Tsunade-shishou said he's always had incredible reserves, so this shouldn't be a surprise, should it?"
"Sakura, I don't have enough chakra to charge a kaiten with a kunai, even one as weak as Neji's probably was." Neji got a rather indignant look, but it was ignored.
"What! He has more chakra than you?"
"Oh, we always knew that." He waved it off like it was the most obvious fact in the world, but it was news to everyone else. "The thing that I find impossible to believe is that using more than four times my maximum chakra output doesn't even tire him out. You must have seen wrong, Neji."
"I suppose it's… possible. The chakra did seem to come from nowhere, and he generated it very quickly…"
"NARUTO!" Everyone looked over to Ino, who had just caught Naruto trying to train. "Would you take a damned break!"
"But you guys aren't doing anything, and I don't want to just waste time, so I thought I'd practice it one more--"
"How am I supposed to be excited about having you on my team when you work yourself to death? You won't do me any good if you're too tired to fight!" The argument went on for several more minutes before Kakashi decided to break it up, and even then it was hard to get them to really deal with each other civilly. By the end of the day it was obvious that neither of them would ever be happy with the team arrangements, even if that wasn't what they were complaining about anymore. Luckily for him it wasn't his problem anymore, so he retreated into his book.
A/N: Neji is wrong, just so you know (I won't say by how much). I wouldn't have said anything, but I don't want a bunch of angry reviews… Also, I know that the Kyuubi chakra scream thing was just raw chakra, but Naruto doesn't know that. Considering that he barely remembers anything about it at all, I'd say he made a pretty damn good guess. It's still not really an original technique, but he's probably the only shinobi who can use anything remotely like it… Sorry about the lame name, by the way, but I can't imagine Naruto coming up with a really cool name for everything. There's a technique coming up with a name that I just couldn't resist (you'll see when we get there), but he had to have at least one with a crappy name.
Moving on, Kishimoto continues to screw with me. Seriously, he just had to specifically state that all ice techniques are kekkai genkai, even though one of my original characters was going to use ice jutsu… Now that I think about it though, I'm not sure what I thought Haku's kekkai genkai was… Luckily I came up with another thing for that character that I like even more, and the new revelation also helps explain another character! Oh, almost forgot, sorry to those of you who dislike original characters. It really can't be helped in this type of story, since we know nearly nothing about what happened during this time period. If there were canon characters to use, I would most likely use them.
Reviews more than doubled after the last chapter, which is pretty cool. I'm still hoping for more from this chapter though, so please review! Speaking of reviews, big thanks to Taal, who pointed out to me that you have to specifically enable anonymous reviews. I always thought it was standard to allow them, but I probably should have checked. They're enabled now, so feel free to leave unsigned reviews!
On a completely unrelated note, just so you know, I am clinically insane. You wanna know how I know? I not only signed up for eighteen credit hours for my first term of college, I managed to convince myself that it was a good idea at the time! As such, updates will probably become considerably less frequent when college starts… Sorry, but I really do need to get these classes out of the way early.
Also, before I forget, I realized recently that I've been misspelling "genin," "Neji," and "hiraishin…" I'm far too busy (lazy) to go back and change it, but I'll (hopefully) be spelling everything right from now on. While I'm talking about errors, sorry that the "official" chapter titles sometimes get cut off, but the actual titles will always be at the top of the chapters.