Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto just had fun putting him in a dress.
A/N: I know it feels like it's been a long time for this set and the last set of five so feel free to read back if you are drawing blanks at parts. I have made major decisions with this and am going to stick firm with it so some of you might actually be happy because there will be tons of Sakura bashing and tons of a pissed off Naruto.
Darkhuntressxir: Mostly it will have small changes until we get to the big fight and that will change around the end of the fight except the dialogue. Glad I have people who love my stories as it's my passion to write but also my joy to see your responses on what I put into my stories.
Cassie07: Yeah, we have mostly settled but now we have to go neurologist hunting, yet again. I have her primary looking for a new one closer instead of more than two hour drive away. Kind of get tired of driving all the time and the hubby has got one more laser surgery and we hope it improves everything. He still has to do the tests to find out if it is type 1 or 2 but his primary is going to treat it as type 1 since he had an issue when he was younger with his glucose levels. Otherwise, everything is great and I'm enjoying this so much that I actually had my first day being lazy and not writing. I normally have that with a midway point in each chapter and I only had one ever other chapter so far. I've been trying to keep up with everything so now I feel like I'm running ragged. Crap, forgetting my plants now and will grab them before I start writing anymore. Btw, Naruto will be young.
Silvermane1: Thanks.
Guest: Thanks and mostly I've noticed that they have issues anyway. What's the point in knocking the stories saying the same damn thing? It just shows you are pathetic. I'm glad I get these kinds of reviews; you all lift my spirits when I write.
Inuyash16451: I'm glad you love it; it has taken me years of writing to get my own style that draws people in. I can tell you one thing though, if you want to write don't do like most that pick it up and then when they get that first few stories that don't make it they throw it away. Writing is a wonderful thing and experiencing the ups and downs while you are learning your own style makes it worth the downs that will come. You are doing something I don't see most newbie's do, you are going back and checking your work. That, my dear, is one of things you will continue to have to do as you get more experienced and don't think it will stop. You will continue it on and feel how people love the stories and hope you won't get disheartened by bad reviews or comments on them. Mostly for me if I leave a comment on a story or review, I tend to give advice or just plain attack those that are calling them a crappy writer. The reason why I do it is because it takes learning to become a great writer and I love seeing people's first stories because those hold the innocence of the writer. My first story consisted of fantasy, unicorns and a set of twins named Liz and Jess. Yeah, my daughter is Jess but I loved writing it even though it was four chapters long.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bright light flowed through the windows and Naruto's sleep is disturbed by a hand smacking her in her sleep. She opens her blue eyes and looks over to see Jiraiya still sleeping and he tossed over to sling an arm which ended up smacking her. She sits up and looks down at her shaking hands, noticing that she has overdone it yet again in training. She gets up off of the mat and leaves their hotel room. A cat meows up at her and starts purring.
"Hey! Get down from there." One of the owners of the hotel tells the cat who ends up scampering off, looking mournfully at Naruto since the girl didn't get a chance to pet her.
"Eh eh, where's the toilet…?" She asks the man and he directs her to the ladies room. While inside of the room she looks down at her trembling hand and pouts. 'He said there is no need to bind the seal…'
"You know that he is just trying to get you to put your all into it. Pushing your boundaries isn't such a bad thing if you don't forget that you need a break every so often."Kyuubi tells her. She flushes the toilet and watches as the water swirls down it. It gave her an idea and she grins and runs off to try it. When she succeeds she grins.
"I did it! Got the water to spin!" She grins as she looks at the old man who has his back to her. "I can break this without thinking! It'll be so damn easy!" She brags.
"Well, I'll be back after I catch some sleep." Jiraiya tells her and he starts to walk off.
"How could you be in the mood for a nap now?" She wonders out loud while grinning down at the balloon. Jiraiya peeks at her from over his shoulder. The time passes on while Naruto trains and Jiraiya takes a nap, snoring away. Her frustration is getting the best of her and the balloon still hasn't busted. "Ahh! Why won't it break already?" She yells out at it. Her yelling woke Jiraiya who peeks at her through sleepy eyes.
"Oh…can you do it…?" Jiraiya asks goading her and scaring her at the same time. She chuckles shakily at the old man. "Ah, ah! Seems like I won't be getting a nap. And I was sleeping so soundly." She looks at him through irked eyes as he sits up straighter.
"Since you're awake, would you tell me how to break this?" She asks.
"I can't give you the full explanation until you break that." He tells her as he stands up. He looks at her and she has this depressed look on her face. "I understand…" He chuckles at her making her grin. "Normally you'd have to go through trial and error to find out for yourself…to master the know-how of Jutsu. I can only teach a little…Let's see you maintain the spin of the water."
"Y-yes!" She stutters out, filled with excitement. She puts all her concentration into making Chakra flow into the balloon and it starts to wiggle.
"Right and left…visualize it, which way is it revolving?" He asks.
"W…well…only to the left…" She says with uncertainty.
"You're coming along very well." He tells her and motions her to come closer. He pats the top of her head looking at her hair growth. "Heh, like I thought…"
"Wha…what is it…?" She asks as she looks up at him.
"Just as I thought, it's right rotation. Anyone can learn to train the rotation of the Chakra from within the unconscious. You should build up the essential energy to blend the Chakra. The rotations direction is either right or left. So, each person is different. For this lesson spin the water in the balloon in the opposite direction of your own rotation by using energy…The Chakra flow will be disrupted when it is not in harmony with the rotation. The thing is, you need to be familiar with your sixth sense." He explains to her.
"How'd you know already I was the right-type?" She asks.
"The back of the head! Your hairline shows it. A right swirl becomes the right rotation. Left swirl becomes left rotation." He tells her.
"Hooooo! So you're sayin' I have a right swirl!" She says as she strokes the top of her head.
"Yeah, so use the energy of the right rotation for the spin." Jiraiya says.
"Then right now it won't work without using that type of energy…" Naruto mutters.
"Bring out the Jutsu in you! Don't worry about learning the seal, just using Chakra is good. You don't have to memorize such a difficult seal." He tells her and pokes her on her chin.
"Alriiiiiiight! It will be easy if I use up all my energy for this Jutsu…by the third day I will perfectly master it!" She says.
"This Ninjutsu is one that the Fourth Hokage left behind. The Fourth perfected this Jutsu after 3 years…" Jiraiya tells her and her eyes widen when she realizes how strong her father is. "To appreciate the degree of difficulty of this Jutsu, he was six grades above the second… "A"-rank ultra-high grade level. In order to comprehend the Jutsu you need to be at 3rd grade level Jutsu. This "water balloon" is the first stage."
'My father…three years…' She thought as she looked own.
"Don't look down, your father isn't you. You are a better form of him." Kyuubi tells her.
"And to be able to clear the first stage like him. Explaining this advanced Jutsu to you would be worthless. You'll find out the rest for yourself." He smiles at her and turns around. "Well then! I'm going back to the inn." He starts walking. "What are you going to do?" He asks her.
'Appreciating A-rank degree of difficulty…the Ninjutsu my father left behind…' She thought as she looked down at the balloon and Jiraiya looked over his shoulder at her. "I'm not going back yet!"
"Well then…don't overexert yourself." He tells her.
Later that night Naruto is standing there looking down at her hand again. She thought back to that days training. "Shiiiiiit!" She screams out as she doesn't bust the balloon. 'Before the 3 days have passed, I need to know the secret. It stretches flat like rubber, but why won't it break!? What the hel…is different about Pervy Sage…' She wonders to herself as she pants out. Coming back to the present she looks down the hall and saw the cat again from this morning. It's meowing and playing with one of her balloons. "Ah! That's not your toy…" She stops and watches as the cat bats the balloon from side to side until it was careless and ends up sticking its claws out to suddenly pop. The cat hisses at it. Naruto's eyes widen. 'That's it…!'
"You could at least wake up! Hey! Pervy Sage!" The old man groans and still doesn't wake when Naruto grins evilly and takes out a balloon and concentrates on the first stage of the lesson and made it pop.
"Whaaa!?" Jiraiya groans out as water splashes all over his head.
"First stage-cleared!" She tells him while grinning down at him.
"Well, let me see it then." Jiraiya says while wiping his face.
"Alright, pay close attention!" Naruto says and holds the balloon differently than before.
'Her left hand?' Jiraiya observes sleepily, and Naruto takes a deep calming breath while closing her eyes. Her eyes quickly opened and she pushed a swirl of Chakra out from the palm of her right hand. She quickly started adding Chakra burst after burst into the balloon until it looked like it had something fighting to get out from the inside and then she steadied it with her right hand. The balloon burst.
"Alright! See!? See!?" She looked at Jiraiya and he was literally drooling in his sleep. "Aarrrgh! And he's sleeping!" She wakes him up by knocking him over. He looks up at her then grins sheepishly and sits up while rubbing his head.
"Haha, sorry, sorry…It's just I'm tired from gathering information every night." He chuckles at her.
'That's not what I found suspicious in the first place!' Naruto thought as she glared at the man.
'But…holding the water balloon in the left hand, and repeatedly bringing his right hand forward into it, thus making the water inside swirl and rotate…That's a rather unusual concept…She's an interesting girl.' He leaned his arm on his leg and looked at her. "But…how did you figure out the trick to this problem in such a short period of…"
"It was this guy!" Naruto says while cuddling with the cat. "His name's Shu." The cat meows while in her arms and purrs louder than hell. Jiraiya looks at her with confusion filling his eyes. "I saw this guy bouncing the water balloon with his front leg over and over again and made the realization. Because he hit it with his front leg many times…the water inside was moving in all sorts of directions…and then, a light went off in my head!"
"And how did it go off…?" Jiraiya asked.
"I remembered that when Pervy Sage first broke the water balloon the water balloon got all dented and deformed. Until now, I was only turning the water in one direction. I realized that the reason Pervy Sage's water balloon was getting so misshapen was because you were turning the water in all sorts of directions." Jiraiya smiled at her explanation and she continued. "So, I did some improvising of my own and it worked!"
'It looks like she's still a fair ways off from being able to make her Chakra spin wildly in one hand. She thought everything over, and came up with her own solution…' Jiraiya watched the girl giggling. "Well, I guess that means step 1 is complete."
"Yessssssss!" Naruto cheers and the cat drops to the floor on all fours. "Ouch…!" Naruto says and gingerly relaxed her right hand.
'The strain's starting to get to her circulatory system…but this is nothing compared to step 2.' Jiraiya thought as he watched the girl.
They decided to take training outside again and Naruto's full attention was on the old man. "And now, we'll begin step 2." Jiraiya says.
"Yay! Finally, some proper training!" Naruto cheers.
"Here." Jiraiya tosses her a rubber ball.
'A rubber ball?' She looked at the white ball in her hand. "Arrrghhh…another one of these tests?" She complains.
"Now you must break this ball!" He holds the ball up into his hand and he causes the ball to burst almost like it was a balloon. "It's at least 100 times harder than the water balloon." Naruto looks at him and starts doing like she did with the balloon but it barely had much of a ripple effect.
"Ehhh…cool!" Naruto looked at the ball. 'So powerful!'
"First step is to spin. 2nd step is to add power. If there is no water, it's hard to feel the Chakra moving, so it's hard to power it up or control it. Practice like this for a bit." Jiraiya said giving her tips.
'I wonder if the same skill is what I need this time…' She thought as she looked down at the ball.
"Alright then, I'm going to collect information." Jiraiya says as he turns away from the girl.
"Wait wait…didn't you say that today you were going to train with me?" She asked him as she looked back at the man.
"I said I'd teach you, but it's not that simple. Don't misunderstand, I said I'd teach you Jutsu but I never said it would be very simple. If you can't depend on yourself, then forget it. You are like a child, asking for help all the time. You have to become a real Ninja." Jiraiya tells her over his shoulder.
"Yeah you're right, but at least give me some kind of hint." Naruto says while smirking at the man.
"Money." Jiraiya said holding his hand out.
"You talk, but you're a dirty grownup! You aren't anything like a great Shinobi!" She shouts at him.
It's now night time, and Naruto is laid out flat on the ground looking up at the moon. "Uggh, it's no use, it won't break at all!" She turns her head to look at her right hand. 'It's infinitely more difficult than the water balloons…and my hands and arms…they hurt…' She thought of the ball and visualized it like it was the sun or moon. She continued on well on into the next day and around midday she plopped her butt onto the ground. "Damnit! I'm just doing the same thing day after day." She thought of what the Pervy Sage told her about this Jutsu and wondered why it was getting so hard for her to finish the 2nd step since she's had no issues with Jutsu's unless she was disguising herself.
"Hey, Naruto!" Jiraiya walked up to her and she looked over her shoulder.
"What do you want…" She asked him with a glare.
"Go down to the town and buy lunch for the two of us." He tells her.
"What!? Me!?" She growls out at him.
"Remember…you are learning Jutsu from me." He tells her as he crosses his arms and she starts pouting. So she ends up in town and walks through the crowd.
'He doesn't teach me anything…he only acts like a teacher in times like this.' She thought as she pays for their lunch.
"Hey dad! Buy me an ice cream!" A little kid asks his dad.
"Well, let's get this one then…the one that goes "snap"." The father tells him and he broke the two pieces apart and hands him one of the cold treats on a stick.
"Awwww, I can eat it all by myself." The boy whines.
"No you can't! Mom's made lunch and she's waiting for us to come home." Naruto continued watching the pair as they walked home. She looked depressed since she doesn't have parents and those two brought that fact straight up into her face.
"Hey, today…can you help me with my training…Just a bit?" Naruto quietly asked Jiraiya while handing him their lunch and rubbing the back of her neck.
"I don't have that kind of time…we won't eat here either. We'll eat while we're walking down to the town." He tells her and she lost the small smile she mustered up trying to ask him. Jiraiya looked at her as her face fell completely. "Unless you think on your own and find the key on your own, you'll never get it right no matter how long you take. I told you three weeks ago too; to stop acting like a baby…You're a Ninja!" Naruto looked down at the ground and realized that she won't ever have what those two had in town, so she shoved it all inside of her and looked at him with a huge grin.
"You don't have to tell me!" She says with a grin hiding her true feelings.
'Damnit…it doesn't break no matter how much I try…I'm just discharging Chakra…' She thought as she falls to her knees. She looks down at her hands. 'And every time I let my Chakra flow, a pain runs down my arms and hands and it feels like my nerves are being prodded. The more I increase the amount of Chakra, the worse the pain gets…' She reaches for the ball with a shaky hand. "I have to…kinda…somehow, go all out, like I'm going to make my Chakra explode or else I'll never be able to break it." She takes a deep breath and widens her eyes. "I know!" She grips her hands over the ball. 'The pain tells me the amount of Chakra that I'm releasing, so if I bring the level of my Chakra right up to the very threshold of my pain…' She started bringing more Chakra out and her pathways throb with pain. 'No, not yet…I have to charge it more…' She pushes with her all. 'Now!' The ball started rippling and a hole popped into the side of it, making the ball deflate.
"Well…looks like you've at least improved a little bit…" Jiraiya said while watching her.
"Ha! I only made a hole in the ball! It hasn't gone "pop" and broken yet!" She growls at him over her shoulder.
"Come on, don't be so stubborn. Here!" He says as he broke the popsicle into half handing her one half. Hope started filling her and he winks at her. "Once you've gotten this far, the rest is just a simple trick. Let's try it out a little…"
"What!? What!?" She looks at him with a huge smile.
"Give me your right hand." She holds it out to him palm up and he paints a swirl on it.
"Hm? What's this?" She asks.
"That should do for now…" Jiraiya says while smiling at the girl.
"What…what the heck is this?" She asks while looking at her palm. Jiraiya takes off his hand guards and shows her his palm that holds the same spiral mark on it.
"There…" He smirks.
"It's the same…but watta ya mean by "this is the hint"?" She asks.
"I'll start explaining it now…" He reaches inside of his shirt and takes out a small sheet of white paper. "Naruto, look at this piece of paper!"
"Okay, I saw, I looked…" She looks at him like he is crazy since the paper is blank.
"Alright! Ok, now look again!" He holds the paper up after drawing the swirl on it.
"So what?" She says still not getting it.
"Ha ha…it's not that complicated but…when I used the blank paper…you looked at it as a whole, right?" He asks her with the popsicle stick sticking out of his mouth.
"Hmm…I guess…" She says and scratches her chin.
"But how did you look at the paper with the dot? You stared at the center, right?" He asks.
"Yeah, yeah!" She grins at him. "Then? So what's the hint?!"
'This girl is slow after all…' Jiraiya blinks at the girl. "That's called concentration! The concentration!"
"Concentration?" She says out loud as she looks down at her palm.
"When the paper is blank your gaze is unstable as there is no clear target. However, if there is a dot…the target becomes clear and your eyes unconsciously follow it. This is called "concentration-of-one"…You come closer to a state where you can draw your maximum power because your mind is calm." He explains and she humms. "Anyways, you must concentrate! Aren't ya the type that got yelled at in Ninja school for lack of concentration?" When he asks her her eyes widen in realization. "However, when you made that hole in the ball…you must have focused a lot of Chakra into your palm to push your power to the limit."
"Yup! Yup! So…what about that anyways?" She asked.
'I'm tired of explaining things to this dumbass.' Jiraiya thought as he sighs. "Listen well, Naruto! From now on, whenever you wanna focus your Chakra on your right palm…make sure you concentrate your mind on the dot on your palm first!"
'To concentrate…' She thought while looking down on her hand. She grins and clenches her fist tightly. "Yes! Let's do it!"
"Okay then, I'll go collect more information!" Jiraiya says as he starts walking.
"What?!" She screeches out. "Don't you have any inspirational words for your student at least?!" She yells and throws the ball at him. He catches it in his teeth.
"Strike!" He spits the ball out. "Alright! That's enough baseball practice." He turns and holds his hand up to wave bye to her. "Ahahaha, laters!" He pauses to look at the girl who is now stomping her feet in aggravation. 'Naruto, this training must be done alone, you know…you can do it…You have the potential to become the 4th master…Good luck…'
Naruto falls face first into the dirt. "Damn…I've gotta concentrate more…" She looks down at her hand that shakes even more than earlier. Blowing her breath out she tries to relax her body. 'Concentrate…concentrate…concentrate…' She opens her eyes and looks at her hand again. 'To concentrate on a single point…' She continues focusing but the image that pops up into her head is of Jiraiya catching the ball in his mouth. She busts out laughing. "Hyahahahahah! How am I supposta concentrate if his…dumbass face can't vanish from my mind?!" Naruto's training seems to only get more complicated…
Naruto hits her knees on the ground as she collapses, panting and groaning. "It hurts…" She grounds out between gritted teeth as she falls further to the ground. 'This is the limit…It hurts too much, I have no Chakra left…'
"Then use mine, kit." The Kyuubi says as she has a hint of worry in her voice for the girl.
'Lemme rest a bit…' She almost passes out when she feels something land on her forehead. She reaches up and takes a leaf off of it; she holds it up so she can stare at it. It makes her go back to all that she has been through while in school. She thought of how Iruka Sensei got on her and her friends when they wouldn't concentrate in class. He used a leaf as an example. "This is the same thing…" She says as she looks at the swirl on her hand and quickly sat up. "Ah-h if only I'd listened to Iruka Sensei back then…I'm so dumb…" She glares at the palm of her hand. "But it's too late to regret it now." She says as she licks the thumb on her left hand and starts making another extension to the swirl, making it look like the leaf symbol. "Alright! I can do this!" She smiles and closes her eyes. 'Must concentrate…must concentrate…concentrate!' She furrows her brows. Picking up the ball she places her right palm down on the ball and invisions the flow of her Chakra with the leaf symbol as the focal point. 'Now!' She quickly starts putting Chakra into the ball and it explodes in her hands, making her fly back and slide across the ground. Jiraiya quickly kneels down to catch her. "Ahh…it's done…"
"Hmm, seems like you've mastered the 2nd stage." Jiraiya says and looks at the girls' right hand. 'Wow…to concentrate Chakra to the extent where it burnt her hand…this kid…is quite amazing…'
"Err…hahaha…Let's start the third stage quick…" Naruto tells him.
"Leave it for later…We're gonna meet Tsunade now. I'll explain the basics of the third stage on the way." He says while smiling down at the exhausted girl.
"Right, let's go!" Jiraiya shouts while pointing the way they are supposed to go.
"You're pretty energetic…yelling "let's go" like a kid." Naruto says with a smirk on her face.
"Huh…? That was insulting…" Jiraiya says looking at her.
"But, but, I'm still in the middle of training!" The girl complains. "There are 3 stages in the training, isn't there?" She asks while holding up three small fingers. "You've only completed two stages so it's still not finished!"
"Hm…you can do the third stage while we walk." Jiraiya says while rummaging through the pocket in his shirt.
"Oh! Really?" She asks while looking at him with wide eyes. Jiraiya takes out another balloon and blows it up. 'A balloon?'
"Here you go." He tosses the balloon to the girl.
"Huh?" She looks the balloon over. "Isn't this a normal balloon?"
"The first stage was "spinning", the second stage was "power", and then finally, this is the third stage!" He tells her holding another balloon up. Naruto continues to watch the balloon and saw no movement.
"Where's "this"?" She asks.
"Hm hm hm…you won't be able to see it when I'm holding the balloon…" He says as he holds his other hand up. "It's the same thing as what I have on my left hand. What is…inside the balloon?" He starts forming the Rasengan in his palm, making Naruto's eyes widen in shock. The ball of Chakra swirls and spins inside of the man's hand.
'Awesome. The Chakra is spinning rapidly…even so he is able to form it into a beautiful circle…' Naruto thought as she watches on.
"It's like a small typhoon!" He tells her.
"Is what is inside the balloon on your right hand…the same thing as what is in your left hand?" She asks.
"Yep!" He says.
'Wow…Although he's spinning an incredible amount of Chakra to that degree, he is not breaking the balloon…even though the spinning is far more powerful than the time I cut the rubber ball!' She observes.
"Okay? The main point of the third stage is, bring out 100% of what you have learnt so far…and…to maintain it. In short, you not only have to keep the spinning and the power at the greatest, you also have to make a layer inside the balloon and inside that is the compressed Chakra energy." He explains.
"I get it! So basically, do up to the second stage while maintaining the spinning power, at the same time, I cannot cut the balloon!" She says with excitement in her voice.
"Hmph! This is the best observation you've made so far." Jiraiya says with a grin on her face and she giggles.
"Um? But, is it necessary to do that purposely?" She asks.
"Hm. Basically…it's like this." He says as he walks over to a tree. "You've seen it! It's like the second stage of your training…" He pulls out a partial Rasengan and makes a spiral pattern on the tree.
"I see!" She shouts.
"Next, this is what it would be like when you've mastered the third stage!" A full Rasengan forms and he presses that into the tree, making a huge hole into it. "You have to be able to maintain this "small typhoon" in palm-size. You can't scatter your power. As the "spinning" gets faster, the "power" will be compressed and the destruction power will rise ultimately." He tells her as he still holds Rasengan in his palm. The girl looks at the hole in the tree, her smile slowly turns into a grin by the time she turns her gaze back to the balloon in her hand.
'Right! Let me do it!' She closes her eyes and concentrates. 'This is the feeling…now!' She quickly starts inserting her Chakra and holds it into the balloon. 'Maintain it in here…' With her trying to hold it all in her hands start shaking. 'Maintain…' She couldn't hold it anymore and the balloon pops inside her hands.
"You can't release it! You have to draw out 100% "spinning" and "power" and maintain that." Jiraiya tells her.
'It's a lie…! I'll have to be able to control the power completely…this…I get it now, this 3rd stage. It's at an entirely different level to the 2nd stage…' She looks hopeless.
"I said it before…the difficulty is A-ranked. It's an extremely high level Jutsu. Well, that's the end of the explanation! Do it while we walk." He tells the girl.
"Um, um shouldn't we stay here a little longer…" Naruto says, stalling.
"There's no need. Your body needed one day to recover. Also, there's no guarantee Tsunade will remain in that city." Jiraiya says as he starts walking.
"Huh?" She looks at him with confused eyes.
"It's convenient, showing up in front of Tsunade and talk about the old days without flowers blooming…Let's go!" He yells out to her.
"Okay…" Naruto says and pouts.