To Reap What You Sow I
The classroom had been reorganized to allow space for the genin-hopefuls to complete the examinations, but still, the teacher's desk was placed on a low podium on one side of the room, the blackboard was in its usual place on the wall, and the afternoon's sunlight warmed the environment as it entered through the windows.
As his name was called, the hopeful genin-to-be made his way into the classroom, smiling brightly as if he could hide his nervousness that was almost blossoming in full-blown panic behind a cock-sure attitude.
Because the whiskers on his face could only mark him as the greatest shinobi to ever live, and because he was brave, and cool, and powerful.
And once he was Hokage, nobody would doubt him.
Uzumaki Naruto was almost ten, and his life had never been easy. From the general implications of growing up as a pariah to the more subtle side effects of being forced to keep enduring, alone as he was, with only the remote guiding presence of the Old Man and the casual reassurance of the owner of a ramen stand, who, for all of his good heart, had a life and a family to look after, and thusly never became the family-figure that so easily could have won over the blonde student's heart.
He grew up as one of the many orphans in Konohagakure, and despite the spite of all the adults that didn't outright hate him, he had come to fear one thing without being aware of it, and instinctively found a way to fight that fear.
Because when he was insulted, and being thrown stuff at, and ran out of shops, adults recognized that he existed. And with his pranks, which grew in complexity every month, Naruto had turned what was born as an act of small revenge into a sort of religious tradition.
Because when people shouted after him, they now did it because of what he had done, and not because he simply dared to Exist. Because their hate now was renewed each week, and it burned, and it hurt. But it was still better than the quiet that came with being ignored.
Forced as he was to play on his own during his first years, for none of the adults wanted their charges to play with him, slowly, with him being none the wiser, he came to dread the moment in which the children returned home, and he was left to the quiet of an empty park, to the quiet of his own apartment, to the quiet of thoughts that could only remark how dark his apartment was when he walked back into it at the end of the day, how everything in his home would remain utterly still, as if it was only waiting for him to die and join the chairs and the table in their stillness.
So, Uzumaki Naruto fought as he could, and he held back the quiet by shouting so loudly that his thoughts were cast aside. He screamed and moved constantly because the mere notion of being still simply brought him back to being in his empty and lifeless apartment, where the only lights were lit when he looked for the switch, where food was prepared only by his hands, and where he did his best to even dream as brightly as he could so that the loneliness wouldn't kill him, turning him into just another piece of furniture, awaiting uncaringly for time to turn it into dust.
So he didn't hear his own traitorous thoughts that pushed him towards lashing out, towards turning those pranks into something just a bit meaner, just a tad more harmful. No, the Old Man was the Hokage, and how brightly the people smiled at him, never daring to interrupt him, and simply treating his presence as an honor: so Naruto would be Hokage too, that was the clear and obvious solution.
So, he had been placed into his own apartment because he was too awesome to remain at the orphanage as soon as he started attending the Academy, not because his presence could cause unsustainable trouble to the Matron and the other children, not because the parents-to-be didn't dare enter a place where he lived.
And since his very first day at the Academy he had tried, loudly and brashly as only those that understand the absolute lack of other humans in their life can, to show the world how cool and awesome he was, just like the Old Man, so that he would forever be safe from the quiet and the stillness.
And if the other students laughed at his dream, and made fun of him, and threw him in the dirt when it was time to spar, every time he was punched because he was annoying, and shouted at because he said the wrong answer, and laughed at because he scored the worst on the test, just like when he was chased by civilians covered in glorious orange paint, it was confirmed that he existed.
Naruto thought he had found a proper rival in the Uchiha-bastard, but he had just disappeared one day, returning months later without looking him any differently than he looked at the others, and then his eyes had become red and he had been bumped ahead in his classes.
Sometimes Naruto's classmates still spoke of him, but as one would speak of the rain that stopped them from enjoying a walk a few days before. There was no impact on their lives. Sasuke Uchiha was gone, and the whiskered Academy student was left without that part of his life that he thought he had figured out.
But the blonde student had noticed something: when Sasuke was mentioned, it was only to say how cool he was, and there was admiration in the voice of his classmates. Just like the admiration that the Hokage swam in without a care.
But even if his rivalry had been left behind, still and uncaring as any chair in Naruto's apartment, the blonde student had carried on, and he kept being awesome with his genius pranks and awesome entrances.
After a while, another wave of whispering let everybody know that the Uchiha-bastard was apparently promoted to ciunnin, whatever that thing was, and something had shifted again in the classroom.
Where before Naruto had trudged along with his peers, now there was something that just didn't feel right. Or at least, something that felt different.
It had taken a while to actually notice, but when he did, there could be no denying it: his classmates weren't his friends. Not like they were one with another.
Something had happened, and Naruto could see its effects in the way that Shikamaru supported the others, when before he spent all of his time sleeping. And as a consequence, the shouts that were thrown at Naruto when he was annoying and the loud laughter he was buried under when he said something dumb lost their bite.
And just like the mentions of the weather and of the Uchiha-bastard's career didn't have a true impact on the lives of his classmates... just like that, Naruto lost the impact that he had on his peers.
He was not needed, not necessary, and while not necessarily unwelcome, in his classroom Naruto assumed more and more the same role of any random piece of furniture in his hollow apartment.
And so the silence had closed in, and the quiet between his shouts and bright dreams had become a ta heavier. But it was a familiar problem, and the only solution for Naruto was to become Hokage that much faster, so fast that when he wasn't the one making all the ruckus, the scores of admirers would do so in his place.
At ten years old, Naruto Uzumaki strode in the classroom where the examinations were held, his heart thundering and his smile bright. And while he strode, his dreams of greatness were carrying him so far up that he couldn't even hope to recognize the sheer divide between his hopes and his actual skills.
He had spent a lot of time observing people, and the Henge came easily to him. If he stumbled a bit when he landed after the Kawarimi, well it still was acceptable.
Then it came to that stupid justu. The useless thing that wasn't cool at all, and that he was far too awesome to be able to perform.
And while he had practiced, he knew that he wasn't able to do it. But in front of the examinators, which looked at him with faces carefully blank, faces that he knew were hiding sneers and cold indifference, he knew that he couldn't fail.
Failure would have meant returning to a classroom that was slowly become more and more similar to his hollow apartment, a place that reacted to him like an echo, a place that was there, but that lacked that first spark of something he couldn't define, that thing that he had once found there.
When the time came, Naruto knew that he couldn't fail. He had to succeed, managing to perform the clone was the only thing between himself and the slowly, encroaching quiet. So he pushed, and searched, and dug, and scrunched up every ounce of energy he could muster, and finally, something gave, a searing hot chakra surging forth faster than it should have been possible.
The Bunshin No Jutsu, which had been falling apart for many reasons, but surely not because of a lack of chakra, completely unraveled, and the only thing left guiding the suddenly toxic chakra rushing from Naruto's gut was his ability to shape and direct the powerful energy without hand-seals.
An ability that didn't exist.
So, the room exploded.
Far from Konoha, in the south of the Land of Fire, under a sparse canopy, with the stars and the full moon joining their cool and distant light with the warmer one from the campfire, Jiraya studied with a tilted head the inhumanly precise streaks of ink that the brush in Sasuke's hand was producing.
Jiraya stirred the stew while he took in the serious disposition of his young charge. Since the fight against Asahi's group, which had later allowed Jiraya to considerably bolster his ability to spread disinformation, if only for a short while, the kid had marginally regressed, closing himself off more often as he had done during the first stretch of their travel together. He's returning boring... the S-class shinobi wanted to rip out his hair in exasperation.
It had taken months for Jiraya to coax the Uchiha out of his far-too-serious shell, and he wasn't looking forward to having to do that again. Besides, the kid has become much better at spotting my tricks, it will be an even greater hassle.
The S-rank shinobi briefly diverted his attention to the pot made of cast iron in which the stew was slowly cooking, only to return it to the black-haired prodigy when he stretched backward until the nape of his neck touched the ground. Giving that he had left his legs in a seiza position, the white-haired Sannin simply nodded appreciatively.
"You just nodded." Sasuke broke the silence that had lasted for the better part of the last hour.
This kid cannot be normal. The thought was hardly a novel one, and yet Jiraya found himself marveling once more at the sheer growth rate of the Uchiha Princess he had been saddled with.
Three weeks.
Three fucking weeks.
It had taken that long for the kid to pick up and discard several potential ways through which he could sense his surroundings. And now he casually reveals that he's been keeping up Fuinjutsu, the little shit.
It had taken the kid a week to stick with one potential technique, one that apparently only needed less than 13 days to be turned into something effective, if only at close range.
Not happy with that, the Uchiha had stopped playing with seals on his own, deciding instead of doing so directly under Jiraya's eyes, undoubtedly hoping to receive a casual observation that would lead to new and completely unreasonable developments. Manipulative little shit.
The white-haired Sannin grinned despite himself at the deviousness that the black-haired brat seemed unable to shed.
"I thought that you had abandoned Fuinjutsu experimentation."
"I clearly didn't." the Uchiha slipped his legs free from underneath his body and performed a sort of backward cartwheel, stopping his weight on his hands as he maniacally kept control over his breathing and chakra.
At least now his first reaction isn't to try and deny his attempts at manipulations. The thought turned the previous grin into an actual snort, which received a raised eyebrow from the Uchiha. "Don't be sassy," Jiraya playfully frowned, "did you manage to succeed?"
"On this?" Sasuke gestured with his chin at the unrolled scroll next to him, before letting out a sharp bout of laughter, "I'm nowhere close to accomplishing my objective."
The S-rank shinobi peered over the scroll, noticing a strange knot-like drawing made of twin, parallel lines that seemed to have neither a beginning nor an end: "What's this supposed to do?"
"Do?" the Uchiha let his whole weight rest on only his left hand while with the right he traced the pattern that he had undoubtedly memorized: "This does nothing, it is more an attempt to figure out a brick that I can later adapt for other things."
Jiraya frowned as the uncommon concept was introduced: "If seals could become modular, like you're attempting, there would be very little Art in Fuinjutsu. And what the hell should this be?"
"You told me that the Uzumaki were infamous for their spirals." the Uchiha had the audacity to grin from under his long, dark bangs of shaggy hair: "And you've seen that I'd rather waste months on simple Nature Change before attempting ninjutsu. What made you think that I wouldn't try to figure out the basis for my own Seals?"
The white-haired Sannin was suddenly reminded of the casual pride that the young prodigy displayed when he wasn't truly guarding his reactions.
"That's a Celtic Knot, by the way." Sasuke spoke before the Toad Summoner could reprimand him for his cheek: "I wanted a sort of triangular shape, because I'd be able to define and work with three elements for each Seal that I would end up planning, because triangles can easily build-up for something bigger, and because... it felt right, somehow. Three is a powerful number after all."
"What?" the white-haired shinobi turned his full attention to the black-haired prodigy, taking note of how softly he was speaking, as if he was unsure about what he was showing, even if he had gone out of his way to do so almost casually.
"But I needed something softer, to allow later manipulation." the Uchiha spoke over the flabbergasted Sannin: "And the forms still needed to be optimal to echo the shapes needed to make the chakra that I would pour in the seal actually do something, following the rules that you first showed me. I also thought of having three tomoe spin together in some way, I could make those shapes work, with enough effort at least, but... There isn't an actual end to things, you know? And who are we to say that there has ever been an actual beginning?"
Jiraya's eyes went off focus as he felt the flare of Katon chakra being quickly suppressed in the Uchiha's body, but the words he had just used, along with the dreamy tone, maybe something useful was going to come from showing the basis to the black-haired prodigy: "Oh? And have you actually managed something with this 'new shape' of yours?"
Sasuke switched the scroll he was rolling up with another now that he was done with his impromptu stretching session: "If you can spare a Kage Bunshin, we can try."
The eager grin on the black-haired prodigy was swiftly met by another on the S-ranked shinobi's face, who quickly brought his hands in a familiar cross-shaped seal.
The clone of Jiraya darted away from the area along with the one that Sasuke had swiftly created, now used to the strain.
And while the two chakra constructs started following the indications of the Uchiha's clone, far enough from the original duo that even a catastrophic failure wouldn't have damaged them, the two shinobi dedicated themselves to attacking with determination the pot of stew that was just ready to be tasted.
Jiraya ate quickly, not quite willing to hide his eagerness. What would the memories of his clone reveal? Would the kid even succeed in this experiment that he wanted to show him? Did the Uchiha realize how much had he changed to reach the point in which he was willing to show the Sannin something so personal as one of his very first pieces of Art? Did the Uchiha realize what someone like Jiraya could infer from simply seeing a custom-made seal, never mind one that couldn't be made with secrecy in mind?
The white-haired Sannin somewhat doubted it. And when the memories came, they didn't disappoint.
The two clones quickly moved across the stretch of forest, stopping once they were far away from the originals.
Under the faint light of the Full Moon and starry sky, Sasuke's clone unrolled a scroll that the original had left him: "You'll know by now that I never train only one skill when I can train two or three at the same time, yes?"
"I know that you're a prissy little shit, yes." Jiraya's clone deadpanned, receiving a half-hearted glare as an answer.
The smaller clone revealed the seal present in ink over the paper, and started to talk while the white-haired chakra construct stared, almost mesmerized.
"The weakness of genjutsu is that it can be thrown off because the target instinctively rejects foreign chakra." Sasuke's clone started explaining, "So I first started thinking about slapping a seal on someone to make his chakra flow through shapes that would cast the illusion in my stead."
"It has been tried before," Jiraya's copy shook his head slowly as he took in the weird 'celtic-knot' shape that had been drawn with a sequence of small characters in the scroll, "intent is a part of what makes Seals work, an unwilling subject cannot activate something on themselves unless they want it, and it would defy the purpose of being able to cast the illusion with the target's own chakra in the first place."
"Well, willing allies could decide to allow me to trap them in this hypothetical seal to hide certain information, even from themselves." the Uchiha's clone objected casually, earning himself a heavy glance from his mentor.
"Why does this sound like you want to trick the Yamanaka by casting genjutsu on yourself?"
"Does it truly surprise you that I don't want people in my head?"
"No, but not wishing for something and acting on a fear of something so remote are two very different things." Jiraya's copy shook his head, "You don't see me destroying male-only onsen because I'm terrified at the thought of the possible loss of pools of paradise in which..."
"Spare me." the black-haired chakra construct cut off the Sannin's Kage Bunshin before he could go on a tirade about the wonders and merits of female-onsens. A tirade that would undoubtedly end with Jiraya shouting his pride about being a 'Super-Pervert'. "You're powerful enough to do almost anything you want with no real consequences, I am not, and if I use justified fears..."
"Full-blown paranoia." Jiraya's clone corrected.
"Common sense." Sasuke's copy hissed, "This was born as an exercise, but I'm not all that willing about implanting fake memories in my own head, even if I placed a bright pink Oak Tree in all of them so that I can distinguish them from my actual experiences."
The white-haired chakra construct nodded with something akin to respect on his face: "An elegant solution."
"The next step, and something that I can actually test thanks to you, was to use a seal to share a particular feel." the Uchiha's Kage Bunshin elaborated, "But as I always do, I went all out: smells, sounds, images, sense of balance, thought process... I tried to fabricate a complete memory of sorts, and I hopefully managed to Seal the chakra recreating it in a Seal... If I managed it, you'd live the fake memory from my point of view."
Jiraya's copy let out a low whistle: "This is very impressive stuff, the mere idea of being able to give a visual report... if you succeed, you'd basically managed to reverse engineer a Yamanaka technique with only seals, and the applications for something like this are staggering. You think that you managed it with this... Celtic Knot of yours?"
Sasuke's clone smirked at the way in which the Sannin almost stumbled over the term 'Celtic', which admittedly meant nothing in the Elemental Nations: "The Celtic Knot is a form that I found myself doodling once while I tried meditating while keeping the brush in my hand, I'm not really sure about it, but I like it."
"When it comes to Seals, sensations like that are very important."
The Uchiha's Kage Bunshin shrugged: "I don't know if I actually succeeded, but if this clone will give back its memories to the original, then it makes sense that chakra can be used to give memories to someone else, and since very little chakra is needed to store the information, there is no risk for chakra poisoning."
"I won't believe that this particular development is anything but happenstance." Jiraya's clone narrowed his eyes at the copy of the black-haired prodigy, who had just tried to pass the blatantly casual side effect as something that he had thought of.
"I also wanted to see if I could recreate the Sharingan learning properties by sharing with you the thought process and first experiment that I used to develop what I'm using now." the smaller shinobi added casually before he returned his full attention to the Seal. "This is a very basic Celtic knot," Sasuke's clone started to explain as he pointed at the ink on the page: "This is arguably the most simple one I know, and I call it 'Triquetra'... the only thing left to do, is to see if this actually works."
"You mixed a shape that you 'felt' right, your knowledge of the Kage Bunshin, and the bullshit effects of perfect recall granted to you by your Sharingan." Jiraya summed up with an expression that was just shy of impressed, "If this isn't custom-made, I don't know what it is... very well... how would I go about activating it?"
But before the Uchiha's Kage Bunshin could answer, Jiraya was proved as a Seal Master when his clone simply dropped his thumb in the middle of the Triquetra and poured chakra steadily into the Celtic Knot.
Immediately, Sasuke's copy joined him, and under the mixed influx of the two different kinds of chakra, the Celtic Knot unraveled, and what was sealed in poured out, bringing both the Kage Bunshin into the well-crafted illusion of the black-haired prodigy.
Besides the garish pink oak that stood far in the background, the clearing was as common and as forgettable as any that we crossed since I left Konoha. The sky was a slate of gray clouds and there was no wind to make the leaves rustle, even if the typical white noise of a forest was still present.
Seated cross-legged in the center of the more or less meaningless clearing, I was aware of even the smallest detail surrounding me, but sowly, I let my awareness of the world fade, focusing on my own thoughts and the experiment that I was about to conduct.
It had taken me several days to completely recover from Asahi's last attack. It wasn't the cerebral commotion that I delivered to myself when I crashed against a wall without chakra to reinforce my body, it wasn't even the chakra exhaustion that I caused myself when I panicked and threw all the chakra I could consciously manipulate into a technique that I had only speculated about.
It hadn't been the numerous microscopical wounds that the hardened dirt had cut into my eyes, that I had needed to keep closed after applying a truly disgusting mixture that Jiraya had merrily provided. Even the feel of having my skin burned from my own chaotic emission of Raiton chakra, in the lightning explosion that had taken out both myself and my opponent, hadn't been the worst part of the past weeks.
The worst thing was, without a doubt, that I hadn't been able to use my eyes for almost two whole weeks, and that during that time I still had to blunder around after Jiraya, who casually led me from trail to open wilderness while taunting me at every stumble.
In hindsight, if the Sharingan was perfect at spotting ambushes of any kind, the Uchiha would have ruled over the Elemental Nations. I sighed, barely containing my irritation as I tried to focus on my current task.
The meaningless clearing where I was meditating blurred, even if the garish pink oak in the background remained the same and perfectly defined while the world seemed to melt into an alternative form.
I was now seated cross-legged next to a small campfire near a nameless river's handle, with Jiraya writing his porn on the other side of the flames while I was attempting to hone and actually understand the perception of the world that I had tried to achieve while traveling blind.
Experienced shinobi had something akin to a 'sixth sense', at least listening to Jiraya, that informed them when to suddenly avoid a blow that they weren't consciously aware of. Clearly, the degree of precision and reliability of this particular skill differed wildly from ninja to ninja, and generally, it was proportional to the amount of bullshit they had survived.
If it was their body reacting unconsciously to a group of clues that the person hadn't consciously noticed, I could do nothing but keep fighting, until I too developed that 'sixth sense'. However, I was very much aware that chakra was a constant part of shinobi life. And to think that magic bullshittery didn't have a part in this supersensory ability was stupid.
Obviously, during the two weeks that I spent forced to move blindly because of my wounded eyes, even if Jiraya had quickly reassured me that it wasn't a particularly worrying impediment, I decided to focus my attention on obtaining and then hopefully refining any sensing skill that I could get my hands on.
So, after days spent walking while Jiraya laughed at me if I stumbled or lost direction, forced as I was to trust my ears to not lose the white-haired bastard with a deceptively light step, I had started to somehow put together any clue that reached my senses, and obviously, I started to play with chakra.
Expelling chakra in a constant stream from my whole body quickly proved to be a possible way to accomplish my objective, but it ate chakra like crazy, and Jiraya informed me that it exposed me to being detected even by the most incompetent sensor. Another experiment had been to simply throw my chakra outside my own body, in the hope of hearing some kind of echo, only to be severely disappointed. Chakra wasn't vibration, it didn't bounce as sound would, it still ate chakra like crazy, and it actively attracted the attention of any shinobi in the area.
The point of my whole search for an effective sensing technique was to be able to use it almost unconsciously while remaining undetected.
And now, seating next to a campfire, I was repurposing my 'breathing technique' so that I wouldn't be completely helpless when my eyes weren't open, or when my bloodline was inactive.
Or attempting to in any case. I grimaced as I failed once more to notice the presence of the Sannin sitting on the other side of the fire. I opened my eyes of a fraction, my Sharingan coming alive for a split second as I confirmed that Jiraya was actually there, only to close them again, focusing on my last and thus far most promising experiment.
I would have liked nothing more than to be able to follow 'instinct', as the white-haired shinobi called it, to be able to be aware of my surroundings without the aid of my eyes. Sadly, even if I could move with precision in any area that I had memorized with my Sharingan, removing that would effectively cripple me.
And the absence of my preferred tool against Asahi had thrown me off my game so much that I had become completely useless. Not only that, but I had outright panicked, and even the trained reactions that should have taken over, keeping me alive long enough for me to regain my bearings, had utterly failed, and I threw everything I had left in a desperate Chidori Nagashi.
A technique that I hadn't perfected and that had hurt when it exploded out of my tenketsu.
"I never realized how much I relied on my eyes." I muttered, irritation coloring my tone as I started my self-devised exercise once more.
I heard a rustle of clothing that I had learned to associate with Jiraya rolling his shoulders: "You're not the first, you won't be the last. Frankly, I always thought that Bloodlines tend to limit a shinobi, they narrow your planning and execution of any given tactic. Your eyes are only a tool, like your hands or your storage scrolls."
I grunted in agreement, but I avoided engaging in a conversation that would have brought me far from my current purpose: there would be time later to pick the S-rank shinobi's brain.
At the end of the day, my theory stemmed from my knowledge of genjutsu, which was the only discipline I knew that acted on the principle of foreign chakra interacting one with another. Illusions crafted and implemented with the use of hand seals tended to be less useful than those that could be generated through the leveraging of a specific sound or image. Not only because in an illusion leveraging the input of the senses doesn't immediately put the opponent on guard, but because they can be manipulated much easier.
When I used my Sharingan to cast a visual genjutsu, once I overcame the inherent difficulty of managing my actual body and the imaginary space in which I thrust my opponent at the same time, I was free to manipulate the illusion any way I wished for. I simply needed to picture exactly what I wished for my opponent to see, and his brain, tied to my chakra as it was once my genjutsu landed in his pathways, would do the heavy lifting.
That I stuck to the erasing of simple details like the glint of a kunai or a depression in the ground that would cause my target to stumble was a personal preference and not a necessity.
When I used a bell to overlap neverending illusions one after another, back against Neji in the Chunin Exams in Suna, I hadn't bothered with subtlety or even particularly good quality. But most of those illusions used the hearing of my Hyuga friend to affect his perception of reality, forcing him to constantly fluctuate his chakra in order to keep seeing the blade in my hand, and to not miss his strikes against me.
Genjutsu is built by slipping your chakra in the pathways of your opponent. I thought as I breathed, using my awareness of my lungs' movement to center myself.
And I also knew that extremely minute quantities of chakra constantly leaked out of the tenketsu. While a shinobi could be trained to keep almost all of that chakra from leaking, in order to maintain his presence hidden, doing so during a fight was not only extremely difficult because of the mental strain, but it was impossible without a truly perfect form of chakra control.
Someone like Tsunade, fabled as she was for her perfect chakra control, should be able to use only the needed amount of chakra for any given jutsu, the perfect amount needed to reinforce her limbs, and she should be able to keep even the smallest amount of her energy from escaping her chakra pathways unless she wished it.
Bringing together those two concepts, I realized that when my mundane senses couldn't be relied on to pick up on the presence of a nearby opponent, I simply needed to 'invite' surrounding chakra in my own tenketsu with every breath.
Obviously, that would make me extremely vulnerable to any opponent's genjutsu. My temporary solution was to exhale, consciously moving my chakra and thusly avoid someone else's illusion from taking advantage of my method of close-range sensing.
And so, seated near a campfire after yet another day on the road, I inhaled, trying to let a sort of instinctual perception of myself inform me of anything that wasn't 'me'. When I didn't notice anything, I changed the nature of my chakra and exhaled, carefully and consciously aware of the Katon surging briefly in my body.
If I didn't feel anything while breathing in, maybe I could feel something while breathing out. After all, chakra could be absorbed, that was at the very basis of the concept of chakra pills and medical procedures that leveraged on restoring the patient's reserves so that his body would be better equipped to endure a given injury, poison, or illness.
So, I simply needed to take in what was available around me. Even once perfected, this theoretical skill wouldn't allow me to boost my reserves by 'absorbing' the chakra that other shinobi unconsciously let slip. It was a simple matter of compatibility: I wasn't the people that I was trying to perceive, and thusly our chakra wasn't the same.
Hosting it in my body would basically be the same as hosting poison in my chakra pathways.
Hence I used fire-natured chakra to cleanse my pathways with every breath. Being aware of an opponent sounds good, killing myself in the effort of feeling them isn't.
In theory, if there was someone not actively suppressing his presence in my immediate surroundings, the Fire Natured chakra should briefly 'hitch' when burning through the limited amount of foreign energy in my pathways. Working on the assumption that I actually can take in a minute amount of foreign chakra through my tenketsu simply through the act of breathing in.
The theory was somewhat sound and matched my findings, Jiraya hadn't even laughed too much at this last attempt of mine. Still, actually performing it was a fucking hassle.
Seated cross-legged next to our campfire, and filtering out what my mundane senses told me, I was focused entirely on my own chakra flow. I inhaled, air rushing into my lungs while the chakra flowing in my pathways marginally slowed down, almost but not quite losing pressure, and exhaled, my life-energy suddenly turned into Fire Natured and burning through my pathways to sear away foreign elements.
I inhaled, and exhaled.
I ignored the smell of the dinner that Jiraya had prepared, I ignored the light scratch of his pen on his book, I ignored the heat from the firepit, and I ignored my sense of proprioception.
With every breath I took in, I tried to identify and recapture that instinctive feeling of 'Jiraya' that I got to witness during our first meeting, that sixth sense that informed me of the Sannin's presence after I took out Asahi with my improvised Chidori Nagashi.
Shinobi instinctively react to the fluctuations of chakra in the air during a battle, the white-haired shinobi had explained to me when I first talked about my idea, you propose to become 'conscious' of that process... at least that breathing thing you do so obsessively might become useful for something.
I dismissed the memory, slowly losing myself in the cycle of inhaling while letting go of conscious control over my chakra, only to change it into Fire Natured and exhaling while making it rush through my pathways, eager to burn away any possible intruder.
It isn't something that will be useful over middle or long-range. The Toad Summoner had almost snorted dismissively, But right now you need something for your immediate surroundings.
Again, I abandoned the control over my chakra and inhaled, letting in the air slowly as I focused in a detached manner over the way my pathways reacted to the 'passive' part of my breathing cycle. I had spent months drilling myself to gain that infinitesimal advantage of having my breath in sync not only with my actions, but also with the movements of my chakra.
Very much like I made use of my Sharingan at any given opportunity, be it to piss during a dark night without stumbling over an obstacle or to memorize a written work.
There was too much that I needed to learn to become S-rank, and I couldn't see a way to reach that level. Not in any reasonable timeline. What a fucking joke.
Apparently, S-rank shinobi had all developed immunity from illusions, or at least were capable enough to break them apart while keeping up a deadly offensive. Among the other standard skills that all outrageously powerful shinobi possessed, there was some form of sensing, unique to each ninja.
After all, without the skill to not be caught in an ambush or the power or control necessary to break through an illusion, sooner or later famous shinobi would have died.
A chink in the armor was all it was needed to be killed, and as one grew in power and fame, so the number of situations he could find himself in would grow into always different threats.
Unbidden, the memory of having to clear the blood from the floorboards of the Uchiha Compound rose to the forefront of my mind. The water turning red a bit more each time I squeezed the rag I had been using, the smell of bleach searing in my nostrils, my eyes watering as I did what I could to push through the necessity of cleaning the leftovers of the massacre, my fingers occasionally scraping against the wooden floor, my nails chipping when I furiously kept cleaning, the loneliness... A home that was completely gone, a family I would never see again.
A form of immunity from illusions. Being able to spot hostiles in any situation. Great close quarter fighting ability. I listed in my mind, clenching on those thoughts like the lifeline they were. Those were the standard skills that one had to hone to perfection to truly be able to survive at the top.
Those were the first tools I needed to perfect to avoid another Massacre.
Those were the very basics that I needed before I ever attempted to seek revenge on Itachi. I was working on all three, my Bloodline would enable me to eventually become lethal in taijutsu, I could see through most illusions, and my sensing...
As I breathed in once again, discarding my thoughts and finally managing to let myself drift with the passive action of 'inhaling' the night air of the forest, I felt a tension of sorts, as if I was a taut string and a weight had been placed on me. It was faint, barely there, almost nonexistent.
Then I exhaled, and fire-natured chakra ran through my pathways, flaring briefly as it consumed something that was not-me.
I opened my eyes widely, Sharingan coming alive as I focused on the Sannin on the opposite side of the flames.
Just then, I had felt him. A muted comparison to the presence that blazed into existence during the last instants against Asahi, but a genuine feel nevertheless.
I had just felt Jiraya. It was faint, and I wasn't sure I hadn't simply imagined that.
But if I had to compare it to something, I would have said that it was like a boisterous torrent that I knew stemmed from an incredibly deep and vast reservoir.
Once the memories of our clones finished washing over us, I turned my attention to Jiraya, who was staring at me as if seeing me for the first time. The faint frown on his forehead was quickly hidden under a smooth, if not unkind, expression.
I was reasonably sure that my seal had worked, and that the last part of my memories should match his, since the whole purpose of the Seal was to share a set of memories and thoughts lived from my point of view.
I hope I haven't played my hand too heavily with the thoughts about Itachi. I hid a grimace while I focused on smoothing out my breathing, awareness of my immediate surroundings giving me something to think about that wasn't related to my risky play.
Even if I never even thought about applying those basics skills in actual combat, I had trained both my ability to craft complex illusions and my Fuinjutsu: the benefits were clear to see.
After all, everything that Jiraya had seen I had first needed to imagine, and then edit so that there weren't stray thoughts giving away my true transmigrated self. My thoughts about adapting the sensing technique that canon-Neji figured out during his fight against Kidomaru, after all, would have paraded my being aware of events that never truly happened, opening me up for a long series of uncomfortable questions.
Imagination aided by the Sharingan was more similar to an endless sequence of slightly different events, memories that I knew I had built simply because of certain impossible details that I made sure to include every time I had experimented with it, like the Pink Oak that I placed in the background. And details that I'll bring to my grave.
Inception had taught me a good lesson for layered genjutsu after all.
I didn't want to engineer a whole conversation in order to be taught how to Summon, but Jiraya's refusal had been, even if hidden beneath half explanations and jokes, adamant. And if the last fight against the bunch of no-names had taught me anything, it was that I wasn't where I needed to be. I had been in Sasuke's body for three years now, two and a half spent in Konoha, with six months under the Sannin's watch.
The only thing that my fight with Asahi had underlined was that I needed to up my game significantly. I didn't care for the missing-nin that I had to kill, even if I still felt somewhat annoyed by the necessity for violence that permeated my existence.
That wasn't to say that I wasn't growing, or that I wasted my time. It was remarkable that I hadn't gone insane from the sheer absurdity of my situation, never mind that I had adapted to the murder-y life typical of a shinobi. I had a wide base of skills that I could keep honing, from kenjutsu to the insane shurikenjutsu enabled by my bloodline. From my Elemental Manipulation to my budding Fuinjutsu skills.
The problem was that I was far away from being able to effortlessly steamroll the nameless people that were thrown in my way. Not that I wanted to randomly murder people, but if someone as secondary as that 'Asahi' had been enough to almost kill me, then there was something I was truly missing about my training regime.
And obtaining a personal Summon Contract, with a clan that didn't have its loyalty towards anyone but me, was the only thing that would come to mind. I was light-years from being able to tackle Itachi, which to me was a looming threat almost on par with Orochimaru. I didn't forget the fact that he had been casually planning of using his dead friend's Kotoamatsukami to mind-control canon-Sasuke into protecting the Leaf.
I didn't want to destroy Konoha, and living years as a cog in the machine wasn't something that I wished for. Powering up enough to be free and safe. Securing the future of the few friends that I made. Those were my only two actual objectives, and I had no concrete idea that would enable me to meet the deadline of Konoha's Chunin Exams.
Hence my almost obsessive search for a Summoning Contract.
"Breathing." Jiraya broke the silence that had blossomed between us while I had been recollecting myself, disbelief clear in his voice.
I grinned cheekily as an answer, knowing instinctively how much annoyed he was by my 'bullshit obsession' churning out such a useful tool: "My breathing now counts as a versatile jutsu on its own, doesn't it? Body-reinforcement and close-range sensing."
The white-haired shinobi's frown returned on his face for a moment, disappearing while he let out a huff of exasperated surprise: "You actually created a Seal!"
"I take it that you received the memories that I placed in the scroll correctly?" I asked seriously, "Using it only with Kage Bunshin isn't a foolproof method, after all, both my clone and I knew what to expect.
"You need to refine the process you use to craft the memory." Jiraya nodded thoughtfully as he returned serious, "Some unnecessary thoughts slipped here and there... but the mere fact that I was able to follow the reasoning behind your experiment is a success on its own. And I have to repeat myself, you're not normal kid. Who thinks: 'That's how genjutsu work' and says 'Oh, let's apply this to something completely different'?"
But he was smiling as he mocked me, and I knew that he was suitably impressed: "Chakra is bullshit, but while there are loopholes the underlying principles should work in any situation."
He snorted: "Yeah, I caught that you refer to chakra as 'magic bullshittery'."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
The large man hesitated, crossing his arms as he stretched his back a bit, rolling his shoulders while he looked for a way to poke fun at my perception of the world without sounding too witless.
After the silence between us stretched for half a minute, I gifted a large grin at my teacher, who narrowed his eyes in challenge, aware that I knew that he wasn't having success in finding something original to mock me with: "Keeping the Three Interconnected Shapes as a base, I'll eventually build other seals, and I have to tweak this one until I'll be able to turn it into a contact-based genjutsu that cannot be broken by the target as long as the seal is intact."
The S-rank shinobi hummed thoughtfully as he suspiciously narrowed his eyes at me: "You already have ideas?"
I nodded, deciding to be open about my ventures in the world of Seals: "Ideas? As many as the stars in the sky." I snorted openly, "Feasible ideas are much fewer, and I can count on a single hand actually doable projects. But for now, I was thinking about having two scrolls sharing the same storage space."
"So that you can put something in through Scroll A and take it out from Scroll B." Jiraya immediately understood what I was aiming at, "It cannot be done with the traditional Storage method, you'll need a third scroll to act as actual storage space, and other seals to act both as keys to pull out, and keys to open the storage in order to put something in."
The incredibly large shinobi hunched over the flames with enthusiasm easily readable over his features: "But you'd need a way to identify each object you put in, likely by marking it, and the keys would work only when in the same area of the Storage. It won't be able to be used to transport stuff instantly from one place to another across the Elemental Nations, but in a single building?" he smiled.
"I was thinking about confidential reports myself." I nodded with a faint smile of amusement at the childish glee that Funjutsu never failed to bring up in my strange teacher, "Blood and chakra to enable someone to open one of the keys..."
While Jiraya went on a quick tirade about the possibilities of this project of mine, which had a complexity growing with each issue that the white-haired shinobi was casually pointing out, I couldn't help but feel a slight grimace forming on my face. I had dreamed about being able to secure and transport stuff across the Elemental Nations, but while I kind of expected Jiraya to shot down that possibility from the height of his experience, I was more concerned with the fact that we were going off track.
"Is everything ok, squirt?" the Sannin's worried voice brought me out of my musings: the childish glee had left his features, leaving a light frown behind.
"I cannot convince you to teach me the necessary hand seals to obtain a Summon Contract." I spoke out loudly, giving up on my attempt to manipulate my relationship with the white-haired shinobi to that point.
It simply felt wrong to maneuver a man that could express such a genuine sentiment about Fuinjutsu. And for all of his idiotic attitude, I had been growing steadily under his weird tutelage, somehow, I felt that I owed him more than that. That doesn't mean that I'm going to quit.
A burst of laughter made me temporarily regret my decision: "You're about to resort to bribery then."
I pursed my lips, annoyed at the ease with which he was able to anticipate my moves: "And you knew that this moment was going to come."
"But of course!" he rose to his feet, his hands on his lips as he puffed his chest out: "Because I'm the Great Gallant..."
"...Old-Shinobi-fucker." I cut him off while I ducked a thrown geta sandal.
"Brat you need to review your arsenal, you're just becoming boring!" he threw the second sandal, that I dodged thanks to the Sharingan coming alive in my eyes.
I rose my hands in a surrendering motion and I threw in my best bait: "The size of Tsunade's chest!"
The punch that Jiraya was about to land on my face froze, his eyes narrowing immediately: "What?"
"The Sharingan allows me to measure perfectly everything, and I saw her Bingo Book." I explained quickly, aware that I wasn't yet able to dodge him, so I was somewhat pressed for time.
"Her chest isn't fully visible on the Bingo Book." he reflexively replied, abandoning his aggressive stance as he crossed his arms: "And what makes you think that I'm interested, or that I don't already know?"
"I may have seen a different picture among the belongings of the Uchiha." I used my usual excuse, noticing how his expression didn't change, "You might already know it, but you'd have a certainty once I told you the measurement that I made with the Bloodline that allowed my clan to go toe to toe against the Senju since the beginning of the Warring Clans Era. As, for why you'd be interested, if your reaction wasn't telling enough: she's gorgeous, so you should be very interested, unless what I've been saying about you and shinobi undercover is..."
I closed my mouth when the Sannin almost killed me with his suddenly hateful stare.
After a while, he spoke: "You seem to have finally realized that you can obtain more by being straightforward than with your usual manipulative bullshit." he took a step forward, his form towering over me as he kept going, "It is absurd how much simple honesty and open requests can buy you while as shinobi we deal so much with secrets."
I barely refrained from lashing out when he landed a heavy hand over my shoulder: "For that reason only, I'll accept this bargain. Think of it as positive reinforcement."
I felt a smile stretch on my face but he talked over me before I could express my thoughts.
"On the condition that you'll wait for my say-so before using those hand seals."
I nodded immediately, eager to be taught the technique that could open new avenues of training for me. Something that will set me apart from canon-Sasuke. I quietly admitted to myself, Something that will be completely Mine.
AN
I've decided on a direction for Naruto, thank everyone for sharing your opinions: I promise I'll keep focusing on the MC, since I don't want this fic to die of overplot. I'll dedicate up to half a chapter now and then on one of the secondary characters, but I'll keep pushing forward the storyline.
Keeping in mind that my writing fanfiction is an attempt to build some acceptable skills that I will one day implement for my own original works, I'm not willing to not do something only because it adds difficulty to the story.
The strange 'layered perspective' thing that I've tried to pull off:
I'm really unsure about this Fuinjutsu to share fabricated memories that I've pulled out of nowhere. I tried this 'story within a story' thing more to see if I could manage it without breaking the pacing than an actual plot-related need. Did it work?
We went from 3rd person with a focus on Jiraya to the memories of the clones: memories that start as 3rd person and then get overwritten by the effects of Sasuke's seal, which is in first person. Finally, we return to the actual Sasuke and Jiraya, but this time we have the MC's point of view.
(In any case, explaining fuinjutsu in layman's terms is more or less impossible with the lore that I've built up, so you'll have to make do by shit that somewhat makes sense).
The changes in perspective were something I did willingly, the real question is 'how much did they murder the flow of the story'?