Years Arc: training starts

Naruto adjusted his pack as he and Jiraiya headed out from the rest stop they had spent the night in. "Oi pervy sage, there's something I wanted to ask."

Jiraiya closed a small journal and slipped it into his pocket. "Oh, what do you need to ask?"

"You said my mom wasn't born in Konoha; where was she born?"

Jiraiya sighed and looked over an empty field. "Your mother and your clan, in general, were from the former Land of Whirlpools, a small country between the Land of Fire and the Land of Water. The ninja village Uzushiogakure was your mother's home before she moved to Konoha. The Uzumaki clan, along with several other powerful clans, lived there, and it was a powerful ally for Konoha. Sometime after your mother left the village, it was attacked by Iwa, Kumo, and Kiri, and now the whole area is a ghost town."

"Do-do you think we can go there? I want to see what it's like."

Jiraiya scratched his chin "we aren't headed in that direction right now, but we will have to eventually if everything goes to plan, so I suppose so. No one's ever been there since the village was wiped out, so we'll have to be careful, but sure thing, kid, we'll go check it out."

"I also wanna know about fuinjutsu. I saw Tenten-chan use it during the chunin exams, and again when we went to try and rescue Sasuke, she used it to disable traps."

Jiraiya laughed, "You're much like your father. When I started training him, he had such an interest in fuinjutsu. It also helped that Kushina was always hanging around him to help him learn some of her clan secrets."

Naruto smiled. He always loved it when people told him about his parents and what they were like. Naruto listened as Jiraiya started to go on about his parents and teaching them fuinjutsu.

Sakura stood nearby and watched as Tsunade performed the Mystic Palms Technique on a fish, and it quickly started flapping around on the table. "Study up and practice your control. Once you can get the hang of this, we'll move onto the next step."

Sakura nodded, "understood, Master." she looked over the basics of how to perform the technique and began attempting it with a fresh fish.

After a couple hours of trying, Tsunade had her pause and moved her onto another part of the training. "Hatake-san says he's trained your taijutsu a lot, and that you show some naturally high strength. You've also tried infusing chakra to enhance it, but you're suffering recoil from it."

Sakura nodded as she was led outside to a clearing behind the Hokage tower. "Yes, Master, I kinda did it by accident the first time, and I've been kinda busy, so I haven't been able to figure it out."

Tsunade nodded, "I struggled to find a way around it. Typically enhancing one's strength or speed with chakra works, but only to a point, then it starts to taper, and eventually, you will damage yourself and gain less and less from it."

"How did you find a way to negate it?"

"Building up muscle and bringing your base strength up is the first step. The next step will require you to master Mystic Palms and have a higher control than you do now. You'll need at least a ninety-five percent control of your chakra to enhance your muscles with mystic palms instead of normal chakra."

Tsunade turned and faced her now that they were in the middle of the clearing "for now, show me your skills taijutsu only for this fight."

Sakura gulped and processed the information. Shizune had done a test earlier and informed her that her control was at about eighty percent, and now she was going to fight the Hokage in a taijutsu sparring match. "Right away, Master." Sakura dropped into her stance and started the match.

Mebuki stuck her head out of the kitchen as her daughter came in and laid on the living room floor. She dried her hands and walked over to Sakura. "How was your day, dear?"

Sakura groaned as she attempted to stretch her arms, "My bones hurt."

Mebuki smiled. "It's going well then. Your father will be late coming back, so go ahead and eat dinner when it's done, alright."

"Ok. for now, I'm... just gonna lay here and groan." Mebuki patted her daughter's head and headed back into the kitchen to finish up dinner.

Sakura's days went by in an orderly fashion. She would get up and eat breakfast with her parents, then go to the Hokage tower and start her training. Most days, Shizune would watch over her and give her pointers, and Sakura would ask about poisons during downtime. By the end of the day, Tsunade would test her chakra control then drill her on taijutsu and strength training to build up her muscles and stamina.

It was hard work, and every day Sakura would come home and feel the ache and drain of physical activity and excessive chakra usage. After two weeks of this, Tsunade approved her proficiency with Healing Palms. Sakura packed her things once the day was done, and Tsunade spoke, "now that you've got Healing Palms down, we're going to focus on chakra control, and you are going to start trying to make this." she pointed to the diamond on her forehead.

Sakura blinked "wait is that a jutsu master?"

Tsunade sighed, "yes, it is; it's called the Byakugō. It's a seal made by storing a constant amount of chakra until the seal is complete. Once it is done, you will be able to release it, and it will grant you huge strength and healing buff. I want you to spend a week monitoring your chakra usage and then take a set amount of what's left and store it in the seal every day. You'll do this by focusing on a specific spot in my case, and in most users' cases, we store it in the forehead."

Sakura bowed, "I'll do my best, master. Thank you for everything today."

Naruto laid on the ground panting as Jiraiya sat nearby "you're getting better with your futon, but you need to work on making your Rasengan with one hand."

"Y-yeah, I'll work on it, pervy sage." he sat up and looked at his master, "so can you teach me some fuinjutsu now."

Jiraiya nodded and unfurled a scroll. "It's not really teaching. Fuinjutsu is something everyone comes to understand in their own way. I can show you the basics and help you understand the standard Konoha way of doing it, but a true master will eventually develop their own way to make seals and will be able to read other seals and understand them even if they're done in a different style than their own."

Naruto scratched his head "that sounds complicated."

"It's not that bad. You're a creative kid, so I'm sure you'll pick it up. Now come on I'll show you some of the basics."

The Oto shinobi screamed as he was thrown over the balcony. He had been trying to hit the Uchiha brat from a distance, but the kid was faster than he thought. Sasuke ran for another opponent as his Sharingan tracked the movements of the six remaining opponents. Orochimaru had locked him in the room with the simple instructions to win.

Orochimaru and Kabuto watched the monitor as Sasuke beat down the opponents sent against him. "His Sharingan has progressed nicely, Lord Orochimaru, and it looks like we'll need to find some more powerful opponents to fight him."

Orochimaru stared at the screen unblinking, "I have several in mind, but it will have to wait. I'm leaving to go to the prison. I need new material, so the main compound is in your care Kabuto."

Kabuto bowed, "of course, sir, I will make sure everything runs smoothly while you're away."

Sasuke knocked out the last of his opponents and heard the click of the doors unlocking. He left and was met by Kabuto, who smiled, "Excellent work Sasuke-san."

Sasuke scoffed, "they were weak. I need someone who can challenge me if I want to get stronger. Orochimaru promised me power but what I have isn't enough to beat Itachi."

Kabuto held his hands up, "we know. Lord Orochimaru will bring in some people who can challenge you and give you the strength we promised. He has gone to collect material and opponents who can challenge you in the meantime, please rest and continue your usual training."

Naruto scratched his face as he looked at the various forms of sealing in front of him. "Hm, that's an explosive seal, and that's a flash bomb, and uh, that's...storage."

Jiraiya shook his head "you got the explosive and flash bomb mixed up." he pointed to some kanji "that right there is the easiest way to tell. Explosives will have a kanji for yield somewhere on them. Flash bombs don't have that, they typically have a duration kanji instead."

"Hm, that's kanji? I thought that was part of the matrix thingy."

"No, it's not, but remember some fuinjutsu will try to make it look like that to trip you up. You have to look closely and make sure."

Naruto scratched his head and huffed before he started looking over the different fuinjutsu in front of him. Jiraiya smiled as Naruto went over the material. He wasn't picking it up as fast as Minato, but there was potential there.

Sakura reached over to pluck some leaves when Shizune caught her eye, and she hesitated. "Why are you stopping Sakura-chan?"

"Um, you're looking at me like I might be doing this wrong."

"Oh, are you not confident in your choice? You studied, didn't you? You should be able to neutralize the poison if you did the work you were assigned last week."

Sakura straightened. "I did do the work... I'm sure of it, but your look."

Shizune circled her "are you letting another shinobi get in your head? You'll let someone else dictate your actions during a crisis? Hesitation could lead to your patient dying. Are you going to really let someone else possibly an enemy make you doubt yourself while you're trying to save someone's life?"

Sakura gulped and plucked the leaves. "No ma'am, I won't let others dictate my actions."

"Good now, finish the antidote and test it."

Sakura finished her mixture and dripped some poison onto the test scroll, then dripping antidote on it. She held her breath and watched and smiled as the poison was neutralized. Sakura pumped her fist and grinned at Shizune. "I did it, Shizune-san!" She bowed. "Thank you for your teachings today, ma'am."

Shizune smiled. "Glad you've learned a lot today. Now the Tsunade-sama has a lot of meetings so you can have the rest of the day off to do whatever you wish."

Sakura bowed one more time and left after thanking Shizune. Once she was home, she was gearing up to study and train in her yard when her parents came home. "Ah, Sakura, dear, how was your day?" her mother said.

"It was good. I learned a lot about poisons." Sakura said as she hugged both her parents.

Her father laughed and hugged her, "I'll need to stay on my wonderful daughter's good side, or I might find something unpleasant in my dinner."

Sakura laughed, "I would never, dad come on."

She noticed her mother pulling out storage scrolls in the kitchen. "Are you guys packing?"

Her mother nodded, "Yes, we'll be heading out on another mission; it'll be a couple months long. We'll be escorting a bureaucrat around to affirm some trade deals in and out of the Land of Fire."

Sakura fought down the pit in her stomach and smiled, "don't get yourselves into too much trouble this time; it'd be embarrassing if your genin daughter had to save you twice."

Her father acted like he had been wounded "do you hear these harsh words of our daughter. I knew she would hold that over us. She's out of control. next thing you know, she'll be declaring herself the head of the family."

Sakura's mother looked at her husband, "Oh, and who is the Haruno family's current head?"

Sakura smiled as her father dug a hole for himself. "I'm gonna get changed, then do some exercises outside."

Once she was well into her exercises, Ino hopped the fence and waved "heya Sakura."

Sakura stopped her push up midway and looked at her, confused. "Ino, it's the middle of the day; why aren't you just coming through the front door?"

Ino shrugged and sat by the tree, "was passing by on my way home and saw you out here. Figured I'd drop in and see how you're doing. You've been pretty busy lately being Tsunade-sama's student and all."

Sakura stretched and took a drink from her canteen. "yeah, it's been tough, but I've learned a lot from her and Shizune-san. Though the past couple of days, Tsunade-sama has been in meetings, and Shizune-san only has time for a couple lessons. I wonder if something is happening." Sakura looked over at Ino. "Ino, are you listening?"

Ino blinked, and her face flushed a bit as she looked away "yeah, I'm listening. Asume-sensei has also been cutting out training short to go to meetings, so I guess something is going on."

Sakura dropped back down and continued her work out "yeah, also, my parents are going off on another long term mission."

"Did you tell them not to get in trouble again?"

Sakura smiled as she kept doing her push-ups. "I told them it would be embarrassing if I had to save them a second time."

Ino laughed as she got comfortable in her spot. Sakura glanced over, "You should join me."

Ino shrugged, "I'm relaxing before I have to go home and do clan training. My dad has cranked it up into double-time since I messed up..."

Sakura finished her rep and hopped to her feet. "You know he's just worried about you. Knowing your dad, he probably feels responsible."

"Yeah, I feel pretty bad about making him worry." Ino looked at her friend as she sat next to her.

"So why are you here and not at home working with him?"

Ino huffed and turned her head away. "Like I said, I'm just trying to relax a bit before I get to my training."

"Hm, so it's totally not because, like you also said earlier, you're feeling bad about messing up."

Ino pulled her knees to her chin "being a clan heir is stressful, and then messing up like this. It was dangerous, and if my dad wasn't in the village when it happened, there aren't many others who could have pulled me back as well as he did. I got lucky that the aftermath of getting caught in a mental trap was so minor. It could have been much worse. I could have come back a completely different person or not at all."

Sakura put a hand on her friend's shoulder, and Ino leaned into her friend. Ino sniffled and held back tears. "They think I don't know, but I've heard the clan elders and other members talking about it. They've lost faith in me as the future leader."

Sakura adjusted and put her arm around Ino. "It'll be ok. I know you'll get stronger and prove them wrong. I'll support you as much as I can. You're my best friend, and I know you'll do great things."

Ino sniffed and whipped her eyes as she smiled. "Thanks, Sakura."

"No problem. I'm always here to help."

They sat like that under the tree for a few minutes before Ino squirmed and grumbled, "ugh, you're all sweaty get off me."

Sakura grinned and wrapped her arms around Ino, pulling her into a hug "you don't want my affection and support? After I graciously stopped my workout to talk and help you?"

Ino tried to get away, but Sakura was quick and pulled her friend back to her. "I appreciate you; I do, but you're all sweaty and gross. I don't want to be all sweaty and gross right now!"

"Then, you gotta get yourself free." Sakura attempted to pin her, but Ino slipped free and tried to put some distance between them. She was surprised when Sakura closed the distance and was pulling Ino back into a grapple.

Ino yelped and twisted herself out of the hold before jumping back "you're gonna make this difficult, aren't you?"

"Nothing worth pursuing is easy!" Sakura cried before running at Ino.

Ino sighed, "yeah, you're right about that."

Sakura's mother watched her daughter for a moment before shaking her head and heading back to finish packing.

Naruto ran through the hand seals as he fell back. "Futon: Air Bullets!" He sucked in a deep breath and rapidly fired a dozen shots at Jiraiya who's hair moved and blocked the bullets.

Jiraiya crouched down and launched himself at Naruto, engaging in taijutsu. Naruto was struggling to block the kicks and punches that came at him. Whenever there was an opening to strike back, Naruto would have to abandon the punch or kick as Jiraiya's hair shot around his body to protect or strike out at Naruto.

"Gah! You and Sakura, with your moving hair, it's so frustrating." Naruto said as he fell back and made several clones to surround his master.

Jiraiya laughed as he dodged the clones and threw them into each other "If you grow your hair out, I'll teach you how to do it."

"Pft no way! That would look weird on me." Naruto formed a Rasengan and rushed in.

Jiraiya grinned and formed his own Rasengan and made sure to throttle the power, so he didn't blow Naruto away completely. The two jutsu collided, and Jiraiya was surprised by how strong Naruto's jutsu was before it was destroyed, and Naruto was sent flying. His clones caught him and righted himself before making more clones, and they started to circle Jiraiya.

Air bullets came from all sides, and Jiraiya started to dodge the shots as he prepared his counter attack.

The fight went on for a few more minutes before Naruto was put on his back and didn't get up. "Ugh, everything hurts."

Jiraiya sat nearby "you have improved, so at least you got that going for you, kid. Rest up, we'll go over fuinjutsu once you're rested."

Naruto waved his hand weakly "yeah yeah, will do Pervy Sage."

Sasuke laid down on the operation table as Orochimaru and Kabuto moved around preparing equipment. "Once the procedure is over, your curse mark will be more efficient, and your control should be improved."

"Just get the procedure over with," Sasuke said as Kabuto brought over an anesthetic.