Naruto stood in the middle of the training ground, opening the storage scroll his clone had just delivered a minute ago, in the guise of an old woman and then dispersed, having run out of chakra.
Naruto sat down on the grass to study the entire compilation of research notes, idly wondering if he should find some way to seal a table and chair in a scroll. It had now been eleven days since the Hokage had given the target of three weeks, and Naruto was happy to say, he could very well finish the project in time.
And as he studied the crudely drawn chakra diagrams, and his conclusions of what he thought seals did, it did look plausible. All Naruto had to do was to design an experiment based on his particular question and work methodically until he reached a conclusion.
And then apply that to his training. Just like he had done to the henge earlier, albeit subconsciously. Now that he was out of the village proper, he could contemplate on the weird result properly. It was unlike any other he had seen; unlike the one they had been taught in the academy.
There a couple of reasons that he could come up with for the success of his jutsu, albeit in a weird way. But then again, he never was one to follow in others' footsteps. Either, his increased chakra control – from the tree walking and water walking with stuck leaves – had enabled him to mould the right amount of chakra necessary.
Or, after having created so many clones and having them perform Sexy Jutsu, his chakra was at a lower level, enabling him to do it.
Either could be tested out easily. And so, he made another thirty shadow clones. 'All right, pair up. In each pair, one will do the henge and the other will scan his chakra.'
All clones saluted their boss – some grumbled about him being too bossy – and got to work. Unlike before when the training ground would be filled with shouts of henge and bursts of chakra, now having more sense and experience, each clone carefully moulded and then manifested its chakra, while the other paid close attention to how the chakra moved.
Naruto himself standing at the head of the group looked on with a keen eye, keeping his mind's eye on the clones' chakras.
'What the fuck!' Naruto exclaimed, disbelief colouring his voice. The moulding had been going perfectly, albeit slowly. But when it came time to execute it using the ram sign, a large amount of clones' chakra swirled at their feet, and around them in a circle, before exploding outwards.
What resulted was a fucked up henge. Each of clones had failed. Again.
That's not possible. He had done it perfectly earlier? Why wasn't it working now. This time, he took part in the experiment himself. The second time was the same but in the third time, it was certain that this henge was different than the sexy jutsu, although they used the same hand sign.
It didn't work the second time or the third time either. Sighing dejectedly, Naruto sat down on the grass, wondering how he was going to fix this. It was a tad hard given that he didn't know what the hell was wrong in the first place.
He turned back to his notes on the Henge. There was a mistake in there somewhere that he had overlooked. But what?
'Henge was a transformation jutsu, a unique one of its kind which allowed users to take the appearance of whatever they chose. It is most often used to disguise the user as another person, but one can also take the appearance of animals or objects.
Successful henge jutsu requires users to give attention to detail, and act as the assumed person.'
The notes went on for a quite longer, and were coupled wherever possible with chakra diagrams he had drawn, or had attempted to draw as much as could understand them. The truth was, even if he had the ability make solid clones and have them do the studying, only a month of being serious was not enough to make him smarter than his peers.
He knew that when he had started but Naruto didn't let that get him down.
'Hand signs for Henge: Dog, Boar, Ram.'
The last part was referenced and listed several resources, including the written scroll of notes Iruka used for his lectures. It had taken several hours of convincing on the blonde's part before Iruka was ready to relinquish his notes.
Honestly, that was only to discover where they were kept. If the Chunin had refused, then Naruto would have had no choice but to steal them. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.
But he was definitely capable of doing the henge, and without hand seals at that. It was just a matter of retracing his steps. The Ram seal was making his chakra expel in large quantities, and not only that but making it swirl for some reason before more or less exploding outwards.
So, he eliminated from his attempts altogether and tried the henge without it.
'Okay, focus Uzumaki. What did you sense?' he asked himself, recalling how he had disguised himself as a woman earlier in the crowd.
Somehow, for some reason, when he does his sexy jutsu, he expels chakra from all over his body, and surrounds himself in it.
Might as well give it a try. All of his clones focused on expelling chakra all around them, little by little, then focusing on changing its look to make him look different.
It took more than a few tries but finally, at the fifth try the group of clones finally got the hang of it.
Naruto watched with wide eyes, as each clone's appearance gradually changed from his whiskered face, to the pale, broody look of the teme, if melting one's face and another appearing from underneath.
Naruto grinned, laughing. Now that he knew what he needed to do it was only a matter of practising with it. In his excitement, he created another thirty clones and had them to do the 'Henge no jutsu' his unique way without hand signs.
In the end, it took him and his clones an hour and many botched attempts because of either lost concentration or control of chakra, but he had managed it. Well, at least that was one academy jutsu of his bucket list. It may have taken a precious hour, but at least this way Naruto discovered another chakra control exercise.
The Henge Jutsu required a ridiculously low amount of chakra to use and so he had to carefully maintain the output at that painfully dismal amount. But it served to give him more training in it, at least.
Next was his dreaded clone jutsu. A fucking useless jutsu if there ever was one. When would he ever use it in a fight? And what kind of moron would be fooled by one. It was full of holes.
For one, it was only an illusion that made a copy of him. And so, it was obvious to see through it in even the slightest bit of light passed through it, or the illusion wavered even for a second.
If the first didn't happen, then Naruto was sure nobody was actually foolish enough to believe that a copy of him would have no shadow on the ground. As a result, it annoyed him to no end.
Moulding his chakra, he created the tiger seal, and his chakra exploded outwards. A burst of smoke, and next to him, quite predictably, expectedly, and unsurprisingly was a lethargic and dehydrated looking, fucked up clone lying on the ground.
'I hate this jutsu!' Naruto yelled to no one in particular, feeling the need to do so. This fucking thing had caused him to repeat the bloody year three times in the academy. He hated the favouritism Jonins and even the Hokage showed.
Hell, Lee couldn't even use ninjutsu or genjutsu and had failed his genin exam as well. But he was passed because Guy intercepted on his behalf. Wasn't it obvious to the old man that Naruto had too much chakra and was essentially incapable of doing the simple techniques? Why hadn't he then done the same for him?
'Ughh. No use thinking about it.'
To Naruto, it was a great pain in the ass that there was just no way to quantify the amount of chakra used in a jutsu. How were they supposed to realise if they were putting in greater or lesser? But at least, in this particular case, the most probable reason it wasn't working for him was because he was pushing in too much chakra.
He stared at his clones who stared back dumbfoundedly, nobody knowing what to do now. They had run out of options. It was clear that the method shown in the books and taught in the academy will not work.
The problem was though, he had no idea how even to do that. He was not going to learn anything further as long as he was stuck on these pathetic useless jutsus and he couldn't afford to waste any more time on them.
But then, how should he go about to finding a new way of doing it? The only way he could think of, was to combine what he had learned about chakra theory and hand signs with what he wanted the jutsu to do, in an experiment he would have to design himself.
If chakra was energy that sustained life and enabled them to do ninjutsu and genjutsu, then it stood to reason that it could be quantified and measured the same way. He had no idea how to measure energy, but he had learnt in some science books that other energies such as heat or kinetic energy was measured in a unit called Joules or Kilo Joules.
'Why couldn't that be applied here?' he asked himself, completely unaware that he was being watched.
As much as he had gotten a hang of his sensory skills in the couple of weeks, he had realised it, he was still no match for someone who was a trained stealthy assassin, and experienced in keeping their presence hidden.
While Naruto wasn't the sharpest kunai in the pouch, he had read over some of the science experiments which led to developing theories and laws. The observer needed the aspect that was being observed, a dependent variable and another variable that you changed, independent variable.
In this case, that would mean that the result he needed, the variable being measured was the effectiveness of the jutsu. The independent variable was the amount of chakra used to execute the jutsu, whilst he could also change the hand signs he used.
The academy taught them that the clone jutsu used 'Ram, Snake, Tiger' but he remembered that Sakura ended her clones with Dog. So, it wasn't impossible to do it with different signs.
'Okay, dispel in groups of five', Naruto ordered his clones, in order to avoid a splitting headache. He had learnt from his mistake from the last time. Dispelling too many clones at once was too painful.
The experiment would have to be done in stages. Clearly, the hand seals taught to them in the academy weren't working for him, for whatever reason. That means he was going to have to find another set of seals to it.
The first stage he would need to keep the chakra constant. The easiest way for that was obviously Shadow Clones. He had no idea how much chakra he had in total, but the shadow clones jutsu inherently distributes it equally. Which takes care of the first problem.
Again, he created thirty clones, each with an equal amount of chakra distributed from the total, him. He couldn't be sure but it seemed like he had given each clone nearly 5 percent.
The next step would be to determine which seals to use using all of that five percent from each clone. From the previous experiment, it was obvious that Tiger would not work.
Naruto sat down on the ground, and like before in the library, and focused his senses entirely on the group of clones before, 'Okay, start moulding chakra… now.'
He didn't need to tell them the next step, and each clone attempted to execute the Tiger seal, with as much chakra as he uses to tree walk. That didn't work and he made a note of it in his notes.
'Next, dog with 5% more than before.'
That didn't work either. The clones then tried 'Tiger with 5% less than before' and then repeated the process until they each of them run out of chakra completely, which was being dissipated outside without even doing the jutsu. Why that was, he had no idea. But that wasn't the objective of this experiment so he refused to let himself be distracted.
Even if nothing worked, at least now Naruto knew when he made thirty clones, each of them could attempt to mould chakra and dissipate it into the environment a total of six times before they dispelled.
Naruto recreated the clones yet again, but had them repeat them repeat the entire process but this time with the 'Dog' seal. Quite expectedly, that didn't work either.
The entire experiment was repeated with each of the twelve hand signs they had learnt. Each attempt was noted down, including how much chakra he used, his calculations and observations. But the most important was how he sensed the chakra was moving inside the clones' bodies when the executed each seal.
If he didn't have the Sharingan or Byakugan to see the movement of chakra, this was the next best thing. And since each clone did the chakra moulding multiple times, he had plenty of observations to make.
In the third time creating his clones, he had the group redo the entire experiment but using 15% more and less chakra with each of the twelve seals in order.
'AHA!' a clone exclaimed excitedly, eliciting more shouts from other clones and a cacophony of questions.
Naruto's head whipped up to see an exact copy of the clone on the right. He knew he was seeing it with his own eyes, but he could hardly believe it was real.
'No way!' Naruto whispered, shocked, as he hurried beside the clone to inspect.
'No way! It's a clone!' Naruto shouted, seeing that the Bunshin made no impression on the grass and more importantly, his hand passed through it.
'IT WORKED, it worked! I can't believe!' Naruto jumped around, His face full of joy, he laughed like a maniac.
When his excitement died down, Naruto whirled to the Shadow Clone and questioned him thoroughly before dispelling it. Aha!
So, this shadow clone had used 20% less chakra then what he used for tree walking but used the entire seal sequence of 'Ram, Snake and Tiger.'
When that hadn't worked, he eliminated the Ram and repeated it. Eventually, he found that it worked with only the Snake seal, without Ram and Tiger.
Naruto quickly made note of this anomaly in his journal and ordered his clones to try it out.
He smirked, seeing with great satisfaction that each and every shadow clone had created an illusionary bunshin, which they had to maintain using careful control. Granted, he himself couldn't maintain it for long but that was because he had much larger reserves than he had allocated to each shadow clone.
But at least, now he was able to at least create a normal clone, as useless as it would be.
'TAKE THAT MIZUKI BASTARD!' Naruto yelled. 'I did it!'
The rest of the hour allocated to this useless jutsu was used in Naruto and his shadow clones practising and maintaining the careful control needed to execute this jutsu, not allowing himself to get overconfident.
The substitution had been a bane in his life, just after the clone jutsu because Naruto could never successfully replace himself with a log or whatever he was using. Many times, he ended up not in its place, but somewhere in between. But mostly, he just expelled chakra uselessly and nothing happened.
But given his now recent experience in moulding chakra carefully, it shouldn't be out of his reach. He was feeling slightly drowsy, purely because he had been making shadow clones for four hours now without a rest and doing the experiment along with them each time. All of that, he did with no food in his belly.
True, he hadn't had lunch and it was coming onto evening, but he refused to leave until he had successfully substituted himself at least half the times. Naruto didn't allow himself to rest more than half an hour as he designed a very similar experiment for the substitution jutsu.
This time however, he used what he had just learned from the clone jutsu. Not only had the previous two jutsu showed him that he had to mould chakra internally before he made the hand seals, but also during it, and maintain after he had executed the jutsu.
Additionally, he had to design an experiment which took into account the possibly of using the original hand seal sequence 'Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake' and then eliminating them one by one, depending on which seal worked and which didn't.
An inherent requirement of the technique was that he needed to prepare the object to substitute with beforehand. Just like Kakashi had prepared the logs in their bell test, and Zabuza used the white rabbit. Not only that, but the object needed to be of a similar weight to him. That however was debatable. There was no way the rabbit couldn't have weighed as much as the Demon of the Mist.
But he didn't have so many logs. His research had also showed him that the objects needed to have some of his chakra attached. Therefore, the gift of Tobirama, Shadow clones should suffice as objects. Since they were created from himself, they should be of a similar weight and already had his chakra within them.
With the methodology somewhat clear, he proceeded to create two groups of sixty shadow clones and separated them in pairs.
'The first group with follow protocol 1', he told them, having no need to explain what it was. They would each vary the amount of chakra they used, using the tree walking as baseline and then also vary the single seals they used.
'The second group will follow protocol two', he explained unnecessarily. This group will keep the amount of chakra they used the same, whilst starting from the original sequence and then eliminating one seal at a time.
Having done that, he created a shadow clone for himself and did followed the first protocol and then the second.
It was an hour later, and recreating both groups once more, that he got the first successful result with as much excitement as the clone jutsu elicited.
Naruto quickly dispelled the clone which had managed it and analysed its experience and had his remaining clones copy what he had just learned.
He quickly noted down the surprisingly similar conclusion. This jutsu required a maintained 5% less chakra than water walking. However, unlike the Clone Jutsu, where he eliminated the first and the last seal, this time the clone only used the first and the last seals, for reasons beyond his understanding right now.
Thus, after six hours of gruelling work and putting his hypothesises, and research into chakra theory, and hand seals into practise, Naruto fell to the ground in exhaustion, not noticing an impressed ANBU leaving to report his findings.
'I passed. I'm a Genin', Naruto whispered, his tired azure eyes shut, and a smile on his exhausted face, as he remembered the vendor with the pink and orange cabbages screaming in horror.
It was a few hours later, that the previously exhausted Naruto woke up to an empty training ground, the shadows of the night increasing and threatening to engulf everything gradually. The only sounds in the eerily silent ground was the chirping of crickets and the growling of his own stomach.
'Ugghhh', Naruto mumbled getting up from his prone position, his strained muscles groaning in protest. Even though he had only trained in the Academy Three, his body felt like he had been training A-rank Jutsus for the past few hours.
Or maybe it was that effects of the mornings' endurance training catching up to him. 'What the…?' Naruto shook his head in confusion, getting rid of the lingering sleep.
As he got up, something fell from his lap. Striking blue eyes widened in recognition, his heart quickened at the sight of the similar seal and the elegant creamed coloured scroll, tied off with the green bow like it was every birthday.
Naruto whipped his head around left and right, in order to see if anyone was there. Who could have dropped it here on his sleeping body?
'Idiot!' he slapped himself on the forehead, for forgetting his most useful ability. Concentrating his senses, he stretched out as far as he could, but there was no one in the training ground except for him.
Hurriedly, he snatched the scroll, but held in gingerly. He was most certainly not going to open it here. Once again checking if the coast was clear, he sealed the scroll within another training scroll which was sealed within another one containing his notes. He could never be too careful; he had learnt over his short life.
Naruto gathered his remaining scrolls, making sure they were all there and accounted for, and headed towards town, towards the Akimichi restaurant. Granted, he wanted ramen and the slurpy, noodly, deliciousness but he now knew more than ever, that his body couldn't grow properly just on ramen alone.
Naruto realised he probably smelled of sweat and grime but at this time, he couldn't care less. He just needed some food. And after ignoring the glares of some of the other customers in the BBQ place, he was guided by a waitress, to an isolated booth towards the back.
If noticed the reaction of some of the other patrons, she never said a word. 'Here's your menu, Naruto-san.'
The blond barely paid any attention to the elaborate four paged, laminated folder he was given as if it was a piece of art. His attention was on the familiar signatures he sensed two booths away. It was surprising he hadn't sensed them earlier when he came in.
And sure enough, sitting close by were the two he usually bunked academy classes with, along with Sakura's rival for Sasuke's number one fangirl, Ino Yamanaka, with their Jonin-sensei, Asuma, the old man's son. The sight elicited in him a pang of jealousy. Why couldn't his team be like theirs?
Every time either of his teammates to have ramen with him, Sasuke outright ignored him and Sakura punched him on the head, illustrating just how to gross eating with him would be for her social life. But he crushed that feeling as soon as it had come.
He was a different person now. He had already decided he was no longer going to pine for his teams' attention outside of missions. But had habits take longer than a month to be rid of.
Naruto wasn't as stupid as other's thought him to be. Well, not nearly as much. He had been present on a few occasions Asuma had come into the Third's office while he was humouring Naruto for something or other. The blonde had missed it at the time, but now it was quite clear to him that there was a lingering tension between father and son.
Perhaps it was just a conflict of opinions. But Naruto thought it was more than that. The Third gets that subtle yet also very clear look of disappointment whenever he is faced with his son. Naruto, as a result of his recent research on the Hokages, found out that Asuma wasn't the only son the Sandaime had. Now that he thought about it, it was fairly obvious. After all, Konohamaru must have been sired by someone.
That someone, Sasuke Sarutobi, had given up being a ninja and left the Hidden Leaf Village years ago. Not that that explained the tension between the Sandaime and his remaining son, however. The only thing that Naruto could come up with, without more information was a difference in philosophy.
The Sandaime, as he knew from various lectures, was an adamant adherent of the Will of Fire philosophy. Perhaps his son, wasn't.
It also seemed that the man had noticed Naruto looking their way and said something to his team. The blonde was saved from their surprised looks when the waitress returned to take his order.
'Umm', Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. He hadn't actually given it much thought. And it served to annoy the woman quite clearly. 'Just get me three large rib-eye steaks, a plate of vegetables and a plate of potatoes. With sauces.'
'Coming right up', the brunette took the menu back and returned to wherever she had come from. But it seemed that he wasn't to have any peace for his meal, and he was hounded by Team 10's genin almost as soon as the woman had left.
'Ohayo Naruto!' Chouji greeted him enthusiastically, sliding opposite him without even an invitation, his ever-present bag of chips in his hand. He was similarly greeted by Shikamaru and Ino, who had admittedly, not changed at all since he last saw her.
'Long time no see Naruto', Shikamaru added, quite unenthusiastically.
Naruto chuckled, same old Shikamaru, 'Yeh. Been busy with missions and all.'
'How come you're here, Naruto!' Ino had that look on her face, the look on unbridled curiosity at the prospect of learning some new juicy gossip and Naruto immediately. No way in hell was he going to share anything with this girl.
'Umm, I'm here to eat', Naruto misdirected, hoping she would get the hint. But no such luck.
'Duhh! I mean, you always eat ramen, why the change now?' Ino asked, her brows furrowed as she gazed at Naruto like was some particularly complex puzzle.
If Kurenai was the Ice Queen of Konoha, Ino Yamanaka was the Gossip Queen. And if he even said something remotely related nutrition, who knows what the villagers will be talking about tomorrow. Not to mention, it was most certainly bound to get back to Teuchi and Ayame. And it would no doubt hurt them.
Asuma was of yet silent, looking from the boy to his team. Why hadn't Naruto gone with Kakashi? He knew that the cyclops ninja had gone to Wave with his brats. Was this the punishment that he had heard about from his father? If so, it seemed that the boy was making full use of it, instead of sulking, like they had expected.
He saw the tell-tale signs of physical exhaustion in the way the boy had walked into the restaurant. That and the unmistakable bulge of weights under his jacket and trousers. He didn't know Kakashi had started his brats on endurance training already? Which meant that someone else had suggested it to a student that wasn't theirs. And the boy had taken it up without hesitation.
If he was just another ninja, he would have dismissed it as 'reading too much into it.' However, he wasn't just anyone. He was a Jonin. He might not be as exceptional as his father, or even his bastard older brother before he left Konoha, but he was still the heir of the Sarutobi Clan, son of the famed Professor, and a former Guardian Ninja and the only person to be given free choice of re-joining the elite ninjas that guard the Fire Daimyo, whenever he wanted.
As such he was sure, something was going on here. But he was too lazy to think too much into it. It was his friend's problem; he can deal with it himself.
Naruto however, was faced with a much more serious dilemma. Not only was the smartest genin he knew, present and would no doubt dedicate himself to solving Ino's puzzle if he acted the least bit differently, but Asuma would most certainly inform Kakashi, seeing as they were friends.
However much he hated to do it, he had no choice.
'I know what you mean, Ino-chan. Ramen is the food of the gods!' Naruto proclaimed loudly and was internally glad to see them wince at his pitch.
'Don't call me chan, baka-Naruto!' Ino screeched, and quite predictably a punch landed on the top of his head, 'But why are you here then?'
Naruto grumbled, rubbing the top of his head, 'Stupid old man told me to eat healthily at least once a week!'
'Huh? Which old man are you talking about, Naruto?' Ino asked, wondering if he had met some old Akimichi or something.
'Hokage-Jiji of course!' Naruto replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'Stupid old man said I need to eat vegetables as well if I'm gonna take his hat soon! Just wait till I prank him with my sexy jutsu next time I see him!'
He wasn't technically lying. The Sandaime had told him this, just not recently.
Ino gasped at his shocking lack of respect towards their leader, 'Show some respect, Naruto!'
Quite expectedly, no one said anything about Naruto's seemingly unreachable claim of becoming Hokage. They had all become used to it, having heard Naruto shout it out from the rooftops, quite literally sometimes, for years.
Asuma chuckled seeing the blonde's antics. So, this was the hyperactive knucklehead he had heard so much about from his nephew, 'You know, you shouldn't talk about him like that. No wonder Konohamaru has gotten much worse.'
Naruto adopted a look of utter confusion, as he narrowed his eyes at Jonin, as if examining him. 'Ehh? Konohamaru? How do you know the brat? Aha! You're his father?'
Asuma got a pained look and a flash of anger on his face before it quickly disappeared. He wasn't a Jonin for nothing, but Naruto had noticed. 'No, Naruto. I'm his uncle. And his pranking has gotten much worse lately.'
'Un hm… He's a good prankster, that's for sure', Naruto nodded vigorously, pulling the steaks towards himself, seeing as Chouji was starting to drool. It was quite disgusting, if was being honest.
'Idiot!' Ino screeched. 'You can't ruin the Hokage's grandson with your foolishness!'
Naruto glared at her, his mouth full of hot beef, knowing just by that statement that Konohamaru didn't like her, 'As if! That imbecile was already like that before he picked me as his rival!'
'Che. Troublesome idiot', muttered Shikamaru, shaking his head in exasperation. This was such a drag for him. Here he had been thinking that Naruto might have changed in the two months since he had last seen him. Seeing that he was Kakashi-no-Sharingan's genin after all.
But it seemed that there were some things that were bound to stay the same. Naruto was still the same unserious orange wearing, loudmouth who devours ramen like there's no tomorrow and yells about becoming Hokage.
It was another hour later than Naruto had exited the BBQ, grumbling to himself and clutching his frog wallet in depression. Never again would he eat anything whenever Chouji was around.
But at least he had saved himself from getting found out, having bickered with Ino all the time. Like Tobirama had said, deception was a shinobi's greatest strength. It didn't have to be in just in combat alone. Even so, he couldn't believe he had managed to fool Shikamaru and even a Jonin.
And that realisation chased away some of the frustration he felt at his mission request not having been answered to in the four, now five days it has been since filed.
Little did he know, he hadn't managed to completely fool Asuma. Nor had he noticed having been followed by a blank, white masked, auburn-haired ANBU from the training ground to restaurant. Not even when he had scanned for chakra signatures.
An ANBU who had seen the one delivering the scroll to his targert.