Disclaimer; This fanfiction uses existing ideas, characters and or worlds, but is an independent work of art. I own nothing, hence the reason for publishing my writings here instead of in real books where I could make some money.
It was barely morning the day after being dismissed by the Hokage from the central tower within the Forest of Death that Naruto was found standing in front of the reception desk at the hospital.
"WHAT THE HELL?"
And the staff was most uncooperative.
For nearly an hour that morning, Naruto had tried to locate his team leader, Kakashi, and after eliminating most places he suspected the pervert to be, deducted that he must be visiting Sasuke. Ranma thought this was an excellent conclusion.
The woman behind the desk flinched at his loud exclamation, and looked as though she expected him to literally bite her head off.
"Naruto, this is a hospital so be quiet," stated a familiar voice in a resigned sigh … in fact, it was the voice he wanted to hear.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly, ignoring the instruction he had just been given. "I have a request!"
"No need," the silver-haired Jounin interrupted. "I already know what you want to ask, and I've found someone to take care of your training."
"But I want you to-"
"I've got some business to take care of," Kakashi interrupted again. "I don't have time to look after you."
"You're gonna train Sasuke, aren't you," Naruto deadpanned. He was used to people avoiding interaction with him, but he thought that after being assigned to a team, that would change … and the mission to Wave country had been a good start. Why the sudden change?
"Don't say that," Kakashi placated, but Ranma commented that he wasn't really denying the accusation. "I've found you a teacher that is much more reliable than me."
"And who would that be?" Naruto asked, and then shuddered. "Not that crazy coat lady?"
"No," interrupted a stern male voice from behind him. "He's talking about me."
Naruto turned to face the man who interrupted a perfectly good discussion. "YOU! THE CLOSET PERVERT!"
The stiff man pushed his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, as he sniffed in insult.
"What can this guy possibly teach me?" Naruto continued, ignoring the rude gesture the man had hidden as an innocent action. "I've already defeated him once with my Harem No Juts-!"
Any further complaint was silenced as the man, Ebisu – Konohamaru's Special Jounin Instructor – wrapped his arm about Naruto's head, or more specifically his mouth.
"Harem No Jutsu?" Kakashi asked curiously.
"It's nothing, really!" Ebisu laughed nervously. To Naruto he whispered fiercely. "Just be quiet about that, and I'll treat you to anything you want later on!"
Both Naruto and Ranma intended on keeping the man to his promise … and as sure as they were standing there, Ebisu's wallet would hurt for weeks after they collected on this meal.
"I didn't know you two knew each other …" commented Kakashi thoughtfully.
"Ha ha, we go way back, right?" Ebisu laughed in a clearly exaggerated manner as he ruffled Naruto's hair.
Naruto didn't dignify the question with an answer, but instead returned to the topic at hand. "Why him? I don't really like him …"
"The same goes for me," returned Ebisu sternly, giving up the pretence of friendship. "I'm only here because of Kakashi-kun's request!"
"Hey, now," Kakashi butted in. "Let's not have any of that. Naruto … I have three students on my team, and of those three, you are the worst at basics skills. He will teach them to you … thoroughly."
Before Ranma awoke in his mind during the second part of the Chuunin Exams, Naruto would most likely have erupted into a fit of indignant fury where he would have demanded to know where he failed to stack up against Sasuke and Sakura. Now, he was already informed by what they had concluded was him from a previous life that he was lacking in several areas and would have to make up for it quickly if he intended on living longer than he did before.
While Ranma had said he would train Naruto, it would be suspicious if he suddenly appeared with knowledge no one could trace the source of … given what was sealed behind his navel, it was a high probability that people would leap to the conclusion that he was under the influence of the Kyuubi.
This would not be beneficial for their health.
Instead, they needed someone to train them, and claim they had been holding back if later asked about their astounding progress.
Though he had not asked for it, Naruto was still given a lecture about how he was not as efficient in his chakra control as the others. Where only a small bit of chakra was needed, he would spend all of the chakra he had mixed for the purpose, instead of letting what had been left over recycle back into his system, or save it for other attacks. This would of course result in quicker exhaustion, which would be extremely dangerous in a serious situation.
And the excess chakra also had a habit of destabilising the activation of a jutsu, which would explain why he had never been able to form a proper Bunshin, and why when he did, they looked ill.
"Well, then," Kakashi finished after having added that the only reason Naruto could outlast the others was his vast stamina. "I'll leave things in your hands, Ebisu-sensei."
Steam rose, danced in the air from wind that wafted inside through the openings along the roof, and from the relaxed movements of those inside.
The slow lapping sound of water striking rock, and the feminine snickers and chatters filled the air.
Bared limbs stretched, rubbed against each other to remove dirt and sweat, and revealing more to any who happened to be watching. The most anyone wore was a small towel across the lap as they scrubbed themselves clean.
Naruto nearly stopped to stare as he passed the small peephole in the wall into the women's side of the hot springs … one of the shapely women inside had bent over to pick up her bucket of bathing supplies, and bared it all to him for that instant he had looked in.
Such lovely curves … soft and delicate skin, and not a single hair out of place anywhere.
"Naruto-kun!" the stern voice of Ebisu erupted. Naruto had certainly collected on his promise to treat him to a meal … it was actually amazing how much food that kid could put away, and Ebisu realised he would have to cut back on a few luxuries for the next week to have his economy recover from this blow. "That is the women's bathing area, and I will not allow such shameless acts!"
"I didn't make the hole," Naruto protested vehemently with some help from Ranma in the area of wording. "And I certainly didn't pick this place, allowing me the opportunity to get a passing glance! And why are we here, anyway? Gonna take a bath before training?"
"Actually," Ebisu smirked and pushed his sunglasses up again. "This is where we will be training you."
"What can you possibly teach me here?" Naruto asked as he looked at the steaming waters before them. It was actually outside the hot spring building, and the scenery was almost idyllic, with a cliff rising at one corner of the wall, and a large bonzai-like tree perched on top. A wooden bridge arched over the heated spring at its narrowest, making it almost look as though it was a warm, slim river.
And to complement this, the steam rising from the heated waters shrouded it all in a thin veil of mist that made it all seem as though it was a dream.
"You will learn to walk," Ebisu smirked. "On water."
"What?"
"According to Kakashi-sensei, you've already learned to climb trees without using your hands," Ebisu continued. "This is a variation of that technique. However, unlike Tree Climbing, where you have to create the same continuous amount of chakra at the necessary place on a solid surface, with Water Walking, you need to channel only the appropriate amount of chakra into the water from you and your feet.
"It is meant as a training exercise to learn how to create a set amount of chakra … perhaps it is better if I show you …"
Ebisu moved his hands into the ram seal, and Naruto saw a light glow of blue along the man's feet. Ranma was paying special attention.
'This is something similar to what the old troll did once,' Ranma commented as he and Naruto watched Ebisu step onto the water. 'Though this seems on a completely different level than finding foothold on tiny objects already floating in the water … but still somewhat similar. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to examine the technique more when I was alive …'
By now, Ebisu was standing proudly in the middle of the spring. Ranma carefully studied not only the surface of the water, which seemed to interact with the man's feet as a shallow puddle would when stepped on, but his entire energy pathway and output.
Naruto's instinct was to immediately try and mimic his teacher, but Ranma stopped him from following through. 'Give me a few moments to figure out how to copy him before trying anything, okay?'
Grudgingly, Naruto plopped onto the ground, and glared at the water in what could be interpreted as an intense look of concentration – which was the only reason Ebisu didn't press the issue of making him try the technique.
Minutes passed by without more than a few twitches of Naruto's brow, before the boy stood up and formed the ram seal and chakra flared under his feet.
However, unlike what Ebisu expected, he did not attempt to jump in feet first, so to speak.
Naruto only touched one foot to the water, while the other was planted solidly on the ground.
The foot on the water did not have enough chakra under it, and passed through the surface, and Ebisu expected Naruto to fall in … but the boy only cringed and shook the extreme heat from his foot as he hastily pulled it out.
"Youch!" Naruto yelped and grabbed his red, sandal-clad foot and started blowing on it after discovering that shaking it didn't help.
"Do you see now why I chose this place as your training grounds?" Ebisu asked, shaking himself from his surprise at seeing a Genin using both Tree Climbing and Water Walking at the same time to avoid falling in when the Water Walking failed.
"Incentive," Naruto answered after a few moments of silence. "The hot water is to encourage me to keep from falling in, making me want to learn faster, producing results at a quicker rate than if we had tried this somewhere cool."
Ebisu was frankly surprised with the intelligent answer he had been given, and couldn't help but recall how much Konohamaru had changed after spending barely a day with this boy … perhaps he wasn't the dim-witted ninja he made himself out to be … ninja … a ninja's life is one of deception! Naruto had grasped this concept, and must have done so early in his life, if his academic record was anything to go by!
It almost made the Special Jounin Instructor fume in anger that he had not discovered this sooner. He had been fooled by a Genin! Naruto had fooled the entire village of Konoha, a village full of people used to dealing with and recognising deception, into thinking him only a loud and dim prankster who failed three exams before becoming a Genin!
Ebisu realised that the special circumstances that led to Naruto's admission into the ranks of official shinobi should have disproven this deception, but no one seemed the wiser!
Naruto must truly be a great ninja in the making!
While Ebisu was having his revelation about what he believed Naruto had done, Naruto was on his tenth try, slowly increasing the amount of chakra he used each time, as per Ranma's instructions … by now, the foot remained buoyant for two seconds before the weight of the leg pushed the foot through.
By the time he reached his fifteenth try, he managed to keep his weight on his foot without sinking in more than to his ankle, and Naruto started complaining to Ranma about this taking too long.
'It may be slower than you'd like, but would you rather try both feet and end up a boiled egg?' Ranma replied. 'Better to take it slow, and be sure of yourself than to rush into it and get hurt by overlooking something.'
Grumbling to himself about his bad luck of having a cautious second personality, Naruto made another attempt – but contrary to Ranma's recommendations, doubled the power they had used last time, and found solid purchase on the surface of the steaming water.
'You really are impatient, aren't you?' Ranma sighed. 'Might as well run with it and fine tune it later …'
Naruto stomped his foot on the water as hard as he could, but all that happened at the current level of chakra, was the splishing and splashing of water, much like a shallow puddle. It held fast, so Naruto removed his other foot from the ground and set it on the water.
"I did it!" the blonde declared after ten consecutive seconds without falling in.
-Splosh!-
Of course, the loss of concentration caused the chakra to cease flowing and removed what foothold the boy was standing on.
"HOT! HOT-HOT-HOT-HOT-HOT!"
As Naruto hurriedly scrabbled for the bank of the spring, Ebisu caught sight of an old man sitting in front of the hole in the wall to the women's section, giggling perversely.
"I don't know who you are," Ebisu declared to the man, momentarily forgetting the puzzle that was Naruto, who had climbed out of the water. "BUT I WILL NOT FORGIVE SUCH SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR!"
Rushing in, Ebisu was intent on teaching the old man a lesson in decency, after all, he had an image as a nice guy to uphold and letting a pervert get his jollies on the behalf of unknowing women near him would not be tolerated.
It came as a surprise to them all when the old man was enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke that disappeared soon after, revealing the man sitting on top of a toad easily as large as a rhino.
The amphibian opened its mouth and a thick tongue shot out and knocked the Special Jounin Instructor out.
"Be quiet, man," the old man scolded nonchalantly. "You don't want to get me caught, do you?"
Naruto seeing what had been done to his appointed sensei lost his temper before Ranma could cool it down.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" the blonde demanded loudly. "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
"Ho!" the old man with red tattooed lines running from his eyes down his cheeks laughed confidently, and struck a fighting stance on top of the frog. "I'm glad you asked! Mt Myobokugama's holy Master Sennin, also known as Toad Sennin! Remember it!"
The frog disappeared in a similar cloud of smoke it had arrived in, and the man landed nimbly on his feet, which were covered in geta.
"Oy! Ero-sennin!" Naruto corrected himself in a lower shout, having been calmed somewhat by the confusion the man's introduction had caused. "That guy was supposed to train me! Why did you do this?"
"Because he got in the way of my work," the Sennin replied plainly and reached into his inner pocket. "I'm a writer, and am working on my next book! This one!"
Thrust out for Naruto's view was a book of the same series Kakashi always retreated into when he should be watching them. The ones with the explicit warning not to leave it in reach of minors printed on the back.
"You knock out my sensei for that crap?" Naruto demanded incredulously. "And how does peeping on naked women become 'work', anyway? If I did it, I might get it off as a prank, but for someone your age, it's a crime! Now how are you going to compensate me for my lost training?"
"What? Water Walking?" the old man scoffed.
"No, I just finished learning that," Naruto countered. "If you're any kind of man, then step up and take responsibility for your actions and teach me something useful!"
"I won't teach you!" the man snapped. "I hate disrespectful brats, and I don't like men! And don't try flattery, I'm not dumb enough to fall for it!"
"Oh, yea?" Naruto challenged, and stomped into the doorway to the women's changing room, where he performed his most notorious and awesome original jutsu: Oiroke No Jutsu! With a changed appearance, based on what Ranma knew of being sexy as a woman.
The revised version of Oiroke No Jutsu was shorter than the original, and sported bright red hair in a dragontail. The chest was emphasised more, and instead of being concealed only by ethereal wisps of steam, now lacy silk stockings, panties and bra barely contained the well formed female body.
The heavenly vision smirked at the Sennin before quickly pulling a towel from the pile just inside the door and almost covered herself up.
"EEEEEEEEK! PERVERT!" the delicate, yet shrill shriek that emanated from Naruto was one that Ranma had perfected as a girl when he was still alive … after all, he had a lot of exposure to panicked women in bath houses, and could replicate it quite accurately.
Not three seconds had passed since Naruto's shriek before a veritable army of towel-clad women stormed out of the hot springs, buckets of bath-supplies in hand, and looking around for the pervert.
"There he is!" Naruto sobbed and pointed at the old man. "I was almost done changing when he stuck his head in, saying that a peephole wasn't enough!"
The Sennin, understanding what was going to happen next lifted his hands in defence, only to find them covered in female undergarments … realising he was about to get skinned alive, he fled as fast as his geta could carry him, followed by a horde of irate women.
Some of the elder women remained to console the "distraught" young woman, having been the apparent near-victim of a rape … and Naruto, not wanting to be found out, played the part for a short while more. Somehow, he was able to sneak off while the women who lingered were distracted by the return of the unsuccessful, angry women.
After having successfully escaped the scantily clad women at the hot springs, Naruto considered the weapon issue Ranma had brought up a couple of times during the preliminaries. The problem was that he had no idea where he could get good weapons for a reasonable price …
Maybe that Ten Ten girl would know … she seemed to have an abundance of weapons … and Fuzzybrows' sensei would know where to get weights to increase training results. But would they help him, given that he was to face their team mate in the first fight of the Third Task. Would they refuse to help him because of the Kyuubi?
'Better get it over with,' Ranma encouraged. 'If you find them and ask, you'll find out … if we can't buy new weapons, then we'll have to make some with what we can find. If we're gonna use weapons, then we had better have a wider variety than what we have now …'
"Okay," Naruto agreed. "Now, if I were a weapon-collecting kunoichi, where would I be …?"
Naruto was thrown out of nearly every weapons-smith and shop in Konoha, though thankfully not literally, before stumbling into the girl he was looking for.
He actually had to duck and weave for nearly a minute to avoid the swipes of various close-quarters weapons before Ten Ten realised he wasn't attacking her, or molesting her … the dangers of bumping into a well trained kunoichi.
While she was not entirely healed from her fight with that girl from Sand, Ten Ten was recovering nicely, thanks to light but plenty of injuries and the healing of the medic-nin … and she was surprisingly helpful in listing shops, smiths and traders where she got her hands on the more unusual weapons in her collection.
"It's not like you can win against Neji-san anyway," she explained. "So it won't hurt his chances if you get yourself a new weapon."
Though he didn't get warm and fuzzy feelings from the girl's motives, Naruto was grateful for her assistance, and left with a friendly goodbye in the form of a raspberry behind her back.
'They won't let us get any new weapons, you know,' Ranma commented as they neared the first shop on the list.
'I know … and if they let me, I either get low grade metal or inflated prices,' Naruto sighed.
'But would they let me get good weapons?' Ranma pondered. 'Unless the people running the shop have been trained as ninja, they shouldn't be able to see through a Henge, right?'
"Sometimes, I'm so brilliant it's scary," Naruto realised. Ignoring Ranma's undignified exclamation, the blonde ninja brought his hands together, and concentrated on the image he had of Ranma's male body wearing standard shinobi uniform with leaf insignia. "Henge!"
-Ding!-
Naruto cautiously entered the shop, and looked around to check if anyone gave him cold looks.
"Good afternoon, customer," a booming voice sounded throughout the shop. "How may I be of service?"
Apparently his disguise was good enough, Naruto decided with a grin.
-Thunk!-
"Ouch!"
Naruto rubbed his bruised skull where one of his newest weapons had just struck him.
Going against Ranma's advice out of excitement at getting brand new weapons, Naruto had started waving around with the seemingly least harmful of the three, and a nearly cracked skull was the result.
'I told you that learning the basics was necessary before moving on to the flashy stuff,' Ranma chided in a resigned tone.
"But that would take days!" Naruto complained.
'More along the lines of months to years …' Ranma corrected.
"I'M NOT THAT BAD AT LEARNING STUFF!"
The weapon in question was a nunchaku made of a composite metal that was supposed to be harder, stronger and lighter than the steel used to hold A Class Ninja convicts. Wrapped around the metal was a thin layer of rubber bandages, to reduce the wear on the hands. The core of the weapon was filled with lead, for more impact power … and to make up for the weight reduction in the main metal. It was Ranma's opinion that not all weapons needed a sharp edge, and the nunchaku was a very versatile weapon. This particular weapon had its own holster, which was strapped to Naruto's left thigh.
The second weapon Ranma had talked Naruto into buying, was a sai, made from the same material as the nunchaku, and only made pointy, not sharp … also a very versatile weapon according to Ranma. This one could fit unto the kunai pouch if he sacrificed three of the thrown knives.
The final weapon was one Naruto could not imagine the reasons for getting, since he already had his kunai, and they were disposable. A machete, made from regular steel, its blade about the length of Naruto's forearm, and its handle wrapped in regular bandages. Ranma said it was a handy weapon and tool, and held a certain intimidation factor that a kunai did not … apparently a large blade was scarier than a small one … The machete was not too large to carry around, and could in a pinch work as a small shield, given the width of the blade being about the same as the back of his hand. This was without a doubt a sharp weapon … the shopkeeper had proven as much by pulling a hair from his head and dropping it on the blade, cleaving it in two without more force than gravity gave the hair. As with the nunchaku, this weapon had its own holster, which was placed at Naruto's lower middle back so it could be concealed under his jacket.
'Prove me wrong, and I'll teach you one of my father's sealed techniques …' Ranma baited.
"YOU'RE ON!" bellowed Naruto excitedly.
Following Ranma's instructions to the letter, Naruto started going through a slow kata, then repeated it, and repeated it, again and again.
Time passed, seconds into minutes, minutes into hours and Naruto was still at it, though somewhere in the training, he had discarded his jacket as it was getting too wet.
"Isn't there some way to speed this up?" Naruto panted as the sun was starting to set, and he was covered in bruises where his nunchaku had slipped from his control a few times to start with.
'Only if there were more of us,' Ranma snorted before the comment sparked an idea in the two of them.
"More of us?" Naruto asked with a smirk.
In his office, Sandaime Hokage was taking a breather from the mountainous work pushed upon him daily, with additions because of the Chuunin Exams, and was looking in on how the training of Konoha's most surprising ninja was going.
Through his crystal ball, Sarutobi could see a veritable army of blondes going through several kata on the banks of the river that flowed through training ground seven, while the original was doing handstands on the water.
"Heh," the old ninja also known as "The Professor" chuckled as he looked on the awesome sight of dozens of Naruto training without that training being a dog pile on the original or the target. "It seems he has discovered the benefit and curse of the Kage Bunshin … though with the Kyuubi healing him, he probably can't even feel the curse …
"I look forward to your match, Naruto-kun."
For an entire week, Naruto managed to avoid the recovered Ebisu, and that week was devoted to training kata as well as Water Walking to improve on his chakra control. Ranma had commented that something had been messing with the control for the first few days after he had awoken, and it had been this that had made movement so difficult, but it had broken apart under the stress of his recovering ki, and Naruto's vast chakra supply. But Ranma still thought Naruto's control was bad, and made him practice Water Walking and various stretches and weight training – weights courtesy of Maito Gai were attached to the arms, legs and chest, each weighing between forty and ninety pounds for a grand total of two hundred and fifty pounds of weight he had to move in. The sensei of Lee was more than happy to lend Naruto Lee's unused weights, but they would have been too much to start off with, so he was given the older set instead of the current one … Lee was still recovering, but going along quickly and would be in fighting condition by the Finals even if he had no opponent.
Naruto went to sleep quite easily, and was still tired after the required six to eight hours of rest.
The memories of the scores of clones Naruto made each day had a habit of making Naruto tired, which was why after the first time, Ranma suggested waiting until he was in bed before dismissing them … the memories overlapped, and made it feel like he had practiced for over a week in a single day, but on the bright side, those memories forged new pathways into Naruto's reactions, or more commonly known as muscle memory.
The reason Naruto was so tired was not only because of his training with weights and chakra control, but also because his mind was on the verge of overload from the dozens of memories suddenly crammed into his head … sleep was a natural reaction to so many experiences over a short time, and would give the mind a few hours to sort out what was useful about the new information, and what could be fused together with nearly identical memories to get a more complete one, in other words, experience.
Any normal person attempting to use the Kage Bunshin in the same way would likely get a splitting headache after only a few clones being active for about an hour … Naruto had as many as fifty clones active all day, doing the kata Ranma instructed him in, divided among a few groups.
The stretches were for Naruto to become limber enough for some of the taijutsu moves Ranma had been famous for when he was still alive.
Ranma was a strict taskmaster, but still, staying in one place tends to make it simpler to find you for those looking, and that was the result.
One week after his self-started training regimen, Naruto was found apart from his clones by his appointed teacher.
"Naruto! Where have you been?" the bandana-wearing Special Jounin demanded. "Kakashi-san assigned me to be your instructor, and I do not allow my students to run away from their training!"
"But-"
"I won't hear it!" interrupted Ebisu. "Now show me that you've mastered Water Walking, and then we might move on to a basic elemental Jutsu of your choosing."
"But-"
"Get to work!"
Grumbling about stubborn teachers who won't listen, Naruto casually walked into the middle of the river, and sat down, glaring at the adult.
Seconds turned into minutes, and Ebisu started realising that his appointed student hadn't been lazing about like he had assumed he would.
After ten minutes of absolutely no error on Naruto's part, Ebisu admitted defeat, and called the boy back in.
"So, which basic elemental Jutsu would you like to learn?" he sighed. "There are some basic water, fire, wind and earth jutsu available to Genin that I can teach you, depending on which element you favour, of course …"
"Pfft! Basic Jutsu … what the boy needs to learn is to summon!" declared a voice Naruto had not wanted to hear since his first day of training.
"Jiraiya-san," greeted Ebisu tersely. "What are you doing here?"
"The old man called in a favour," shrugged the white-haired author of Kakashi's favourite book. "He asked me to teach him the Kuchiyose No Jutsu to better prepare him for the Finals of the Chuunin Exams. So, run along to let me teach this little upstart and be on my way. I've got lots of research to conduct and little time to do it in."
"There's no way Naruto is ready to start with Kuchiyose!" Ebisu objected. "He may have mastered Water Walking, but the control needed for Kuchiyose is beyond him at this time!"
"Excuse me?" Naruto tried to interject.
"If the kid can create hundreds of Kage Bunshin to beat up a Chuunin, then he's ready for the Kuchiyose!" countered Jiraiya.
"Fine," Ebisu surrendered, gritting his teeth. "But I will be supervising your teaching methods to make sure you don't corrupt more youth than you do with your 'books'!"
"Do I get a say in this?" Naruto asked.
"If you think you need to stay to watch, then feel free, you may learn something!" Jiraiya crowed. "I guarantee that within the month, this kid will be able to summon Gamabunta himself!"
"What's so special about frogs, anyway?" Naruto grumbled. "Can't you teach me to summon something better? Maybe a crocodile, or a wolf!"
"Toads are great summons!" argued Jiraiya, only catching on to Naruto speaking after having insulted his Summoning contract. "Much better than crocodiles, wolves, slugs or snakes!"
"So I do get a choice?" Naruto reasoned.
"It is customary to sign the same contract as the one who taught you," Ebisu added.
"Then why can't we get someone with a better contract to teach me?"
"Because!" argued Jiraiya hotly.
"Because what?"
"Just because!" finished Jiraiya. "I am one of the legendary Sennin, and I am taking you on as my apprentice until you start your Finals! And the student does what the master says! No questions asked!"
"Goodbye," Naruto snapped back and started walking towards the village.
"Where are you going?" demanded Jiraiya.
"I'm going to see 'Ji-san about getting a better contract to sign, because I'm not going to learn anything from an insane, perverted old man … I'd rather teach myself, like I did with the Kage Bunshin!"
"Wait!" Jiraiya pleaded desperately and managed to put himself between Naruto and the village. "I can't break my promise to Sarutobi-sensei! If you sign my contract and learn from me, I'll teach you the Yondaime's prize technique! Only I know it after he gave his life for the village! Not even the Sharingan can copy it!"
This perked Naruto and Ranma's interest. A Jutsu that could not be copied by the eyes of the Uchiha … that would be nice to fall back on if he ever got into a fight where his regular skills weren't enough … and all he would have to sacrifice was to sign a summoning contract for toads instead of some other animal. "Deal!"
Before Jiraiya could change his mind, Naruto had grabbed his hand and shook it, then returned to sit at the banks of the river, waiting for instruction while Ebisu smirked as he realised Jiraiya had fallen for a trap, either intentional or accidental, and would now be expected not only to teach Naruto the Kuchiyose No Jutsu, but also the infamous Jutsu the Yondaime invented and taught only his former sensei.
"Come on, old man, while the rest of us are still young!" Naruto called after Jiraiya had been standing still for nearly a minute, stunned at his own desperation.
The next morning, Naruto arrived early at the river, and created thirty clones, which he sent away to train kata for the three weapons he now had.
To pass the time, Ranma had Naruto do acrobatic exercises on the river, and if he saw a fish, he should try to grab it without getting his hands wet or falling through the surface.
This was how Jiraiya and Ebisu found the blonde boy: arms plunged into the water while the rest of him was on top, and a small pile of fish along the bank, one or two still flopping about trying to escape the oxygen-rich environment before they drowned.
"You guys want fish for breakfast?" Naruto asked lamely as he pulled his soaked arms back out of the water, clasping an especially fat fish between his hands.
"Stop playing around and get over here!" Jiraiya shouted.
Naruto smirked. The only thing Jiraiya had gotten out of him the day before was a signature in blood on the giant scroll he carried with him. The boy had managed to give the two adults the slip after that … it had after all been towards the end of the day, and Naruto had wanted to get some actual training in before bed.
The blonde boy did as told, but first he asked Ebisu to bring the back to his apartment and into the freezer so they'd keep. It was important to think of the future, and the money he saved on food by catching these fish could be put aside for a rainy day.
"Now, pay close attention, because I have no intention of showing you how to do this an unnecessary amount of times!" the white-haired old man declared.
Naruto, with Ranma paying attention to everything, watched as the white-haired Sennin bit his thumb, then went through the hand signs, and slammed his hand into the ground. From a puff of smoke came the same toad that had appeared to smack Ebisu around the first day of Naruto's training.
"Your turn, brat," Jiraiya announced, clearly annoyed that Ebisu was present, as it meant he wouldn't be able to sneak off to do some more "research" without some more annoying consequences.
Naruto sat on the ground, glaring at a pebble along the banks of the river, and supported his head on the heel of left his hand.
"What are you waiting for? Get to it-" Jiraiya started, but was interrupted by Ebisu slapping his hand over the man's mouth.
"Don't disturb him," the young man hissed. "This was how he started when I showed him Water Walking. Just give him a few moments to figure this out."
After nearly five minutes with no results, Jiraiya was ready to poke the boy with a stick to see if he was still awake.
It was at the precise moment the old man was looking for a stick that Naruto's eyes refocused on the here-and-now, and his hands went through the motions of bringing his right thumb to his mouth where he bit a hole on it, then formed the seals and slammed the flat of his hand into the ground with a cry of "Kuchiyose No Jutsu!"
A cloud of smoke erupted from the ground where Naruto was, and when it cleared, Naruto was looking down on a flailing tadpole.
"That's it?" Jiraiya asked incredulously and shoved Naruto out of the way to better examine the creature. "After all that fuss, this is all you managed to produce?"
The tadpole disappeared in a small puff of smoke.
"I'm working my way up!" Naruto objected.
"That's not how it's done!" objected Jiraiya. "You start by giving it all you've got, to summon Gamabunta, who has to accept you, and then you can start summoning smaller toads!"
"To each their own," Naruto huffed stubbornly and turned his back to the Sennin while crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm going to do it my way, you can do it yours."
"Why you little-"
"Jiraiya-san," Ebisu cut in. "We should let Naruto-kun learn at his own pace … he started the same way with Water Walking, I might add."
"There is a vast difference between Water Walking and Kuchiyose No Jutsu!" Jiraiya argued.
"Perhaps, but every journey starts with a single step," Ebisu countered.
"YOU LIL' PUNK! WHAT ARE YOU DOIN' ON MY HEAD?"
Naruto didn't care that he was being yelled at by a frog, he had finally summoned the boss! It had taken him a further two weeks of trying different outputs of chakra, cutting back the amount of clones he was training with to none, and removing his weights for a few days to catch up on the energy spent unnecessarily, but he had done it! Though, he wouldn't be able to replicate the feat very often … even as he was standing on Gamabunta's head, he was feeling tired, and this was his first attempt of the day.
"JIRAIYA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" continued the giant amphibian. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU CALL ME HERE?"
"Excuse me," Naruto called after having done a short celebratory jig. "I'm the one who summoned you here."
"VERY AMUSING, JIRAIYA!" Gamabunta growled loud enough that Naruto felt a pop in his ears. "PUTTING THIS BRAT ON MY HEAD AND TELLING HIM TO FOOL ME LIKE THAT!"
"I summoned you!" Naruto argued. "If you don't believe me, check the contract! Where is that thing, anyway? Oy, Ero-sennin! Where are you? I need that contract to show this old fart that I'm tellin' the truth!"
"OLD FART?" demanded Gamabunta, his pipe shaking in the fury of the insulted amphibian.
Naruto wanted badly to fall to his knees and apologise for his instinctual name-calling, but Ranma held him back. 'If we show fear at the slightest bit of intimidation, he'll never respect us!'
"Yeah!" Naruto called out instead. "I summoned you, and I can send you back! The only reason I even signed your stupid contract was because Jiraiya promised me to teach me the Yondaime's most prized Jutsu if I did! I don't need you!"
"I AUGHTA SNAP YOUR HEAD OFF!" Gamabunta snarled around his pipe. "BUT I WON'T. IF YOU APOLOGISE, I'LL MAKE YOU MY UNDERLING."
"Like Hell you will, I summoned you, that means I'm your master! Not the other way around!"
For the longest time, Naruto glared into the one eye he could see of Gamabunta's and the look was returned.
"LET'S MAKE A BET INSTEAD," Gamabunta finally said. "IF YOU CAN STAY ON MY HEAD FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, YOU WIN AND I'LL ACCEPT YOU AS A TOAD MASTER … BUT IF I WIN, YOU GIVE UP ON THIS SUMMONING BUSINESS ONCE AND FOR ALL. DO WE HAVE A DEAL?"
"Why is it that no one ever just gives me what I need?" Naruto yelled. "They always feel the need to beat about the bush or try to get out of a deal by making a bet! I'm sick of it! But if that is all it takes to get you to do as I say, then let's get it on! We have a deal!"
The words had barely left Naruto's mouth before he was suddenly pressed against the knobbly, slick skin of Gamabunta, air rushing about him in a deafening roar.
Before long, the pressure was replaced by a feeling of weightlessness, and it took a moment for him to realise that the toad had jumped, and was now at its zenith and would soon return to the ground.
It was only through the use of chakra that Naruto managed to stick to Gamabunta's skin and avoid being thrown off.
When the toad had returned to the ground, it began racing around, back and forth, into the lake at the top of the waterfall, and up into the air again.
Ranma was quite certain this would have been a most interesting sight to observers … like a rodeo of some bizarre sort, but to Naruto, and Ranma who was along for the ride, it was a nightmare of chakra control, equilibrium and strength in a delicate balance. If they overcompensated for one, the others would cause him to fall off.
As the sun set, Naruto could have sworn he had spent weeks clinging to the moist skin of the giant amphibian instead of just twelve hours.
He was wet with water and sweat.
His muscles were aching more than after a full day of wearing weights and doing exercises.
And he was physically tired from having spent so much chakra in one day.
But determined not to fail, Naruto managed to cling on until the last rays of the sun had disappeared behind the horizon.
'We did it,' Naruto and Ranma both thought happily before sleep claimed them and they fell off, saved only the harsh impact to the ground by the long tongue of Gamabunta, who caught them and gently deposited them on his head.
The first thought Naruto had when waking up, was 'Where am I?'
A natural question, given that when he had last been conscious, he had been on top of a mountainous toad, and when he awoke, he was in a soft bed.
"My fish!" the blonde boy realised and sat up like a shot. "Where are my fish! They'll go bad if I don't get them into the freezer soon!"
"How troublesome," sighed someone from next to the bed.
Naruto turned and saw Shikamaru reclining in a normal wooden chair.
The walls were white, and the air smelt like antiseptics … he was in the hospital!
"Shikamaru!" Naruto bellowed. "Why am I here? How did I get here? What happened to my fish?"
"Calm down, you're in a hospital, you know," Shikamaru reminded him lazily.
"But why am I here?"
"The nurse said something about finding you outside next to a giant set of prints in the ground after what felt like an earthquake … you apparently suffered chakra exhaustion. You've been asleep for almost an entire day"
"A DAY! MY TRAINING!"
Not wasting any time, Naruto leapt from the bed and found his things tucked into a cupboard under his bedside table, all of which he quickly donned in proper order before checking that everything was there, and leaping out the window, landing next to a frog's footprint larger than the foundation of a modern apartment complex.
"That boy has always been a few tiles short of a go board," Shikamaru sighed. "Better take this basket of fruits back home before they spoil … shame Choji couldn't have them … I guess that's how it is when you overeat on pork … how troublesome …"
Though he had yet to collect on Ebisu's promise of teaching him a basic elemental jutsu, or Jiraiya's promise to teach him the Yondaime's most precious technique, Naruto felt he didn't have time to do that at the moment.
The Fight was less than a week away, and he needed to work out the kinks on what he had learned so far to progress and improve!
For this purpose, the blonde shinobi found himself a free training field out of sight of the village so he wouldn't be disturbed.
"Tajyuu Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!" yelled Naruto, immediately finding himself surrounded by over a hundred clones. "You all know what we have to do! Ready your weapons! Attack!"
En masse, the scores of blondes rushed the original, each pulling out different weapons the original had on his person.
But while the clones possessed all the knowledge of Naruto, they did not have Ranma in their heads … that was the privilege and torture reserved for the original.
A barrage of shuriken was repelled with the machete, or avoided altogether.
Thrown kunai with ninja wire attached were avoided and the wires cut.
Switching weapon, Naruto parried a few machete with his nunchaku, and struck out at any limbs that came within striking distance.
Another barrage of shuriken was deflected by the now spinning weapon.
An outstretched hand holding a kunai was wrapped in the short chain of the nunchaku and the clone was thrown over Naruto's shoulder into another one, dispelling them both.
With his free hand, the sai was brought into play, and blocked an incoming machete long enough for the nunchaku to dispel the owner of the cloned weapon with a solid blow to the head.
The sai was knocked out of Naruto's hand by a clone nunchaku, and the original had to cradle the appendage for a moment while fighting by the use of his remaining arm and legs.
The dropped sai was stepped on by Naruto and stuck to the underside of his sandal by use of chakra, then brought up to slash at a clone that was sneaking up from behind, puncturing the clone's unguarded side.
This was the way the sparring went for nearly an hour, when Naruto had been reduced to a panting, sweating, bruised mess and no more clones to attack him.
Though not nearly as tired as he had been after a full day of sticking to the head of a giant toad, Naruto was exhausted, and let himself sink to the ground where he had been standing, nearly impaling himself on his sai, which had been dropped again at some point.
The machete lay a few feet away, having been violently yanked away in a similar way to how Naruto had disposed of a few clones.
The only one of his three new weapons that had not been torn away from Naruto at some point was the nunchaku.
"Not good enough," Naruto panted and concentrated on catching his breath. If he didn't have his weights on, this might not have been so difficult, but as Ranma had been so insistent on stopping by the apartment to get them on the way to this place, they were all firmly attached to his person, and adding more than his own body weight to his movements. "Can't I do this without the weights? I'm still strong without them!"
'If you mean stopping a snake with a head the size of a house, then that wasn't entirely our strength … if memory serves, the Kyuubi was pumping out some extra power because we didn't have control over our emotions. And we could do far worse than to build up our own strength instead of relying on power-ups from a demon because there may come a time when we won't have access to that power, and then we're helpless.'
"Fine," Naruto agreed. "But can't I have another few minutes, my arms hurt …"
'We're not injured, so what you're feeling is muscles tearing and re-knitting, which is a good thing, as it means we're on the right path! Now, get back to it before your heart rate drops to resting levels! We need to run at least two laps around the village before we start the one-on-one sparring session! We can rest tonight, no sooner!'
Though they couldn't see it from being so preoccupied, a shadow in the distance moved from behind a tree to follow them for a ways after having observed the entire sparring session.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry if I got the name of Ebisu wrong, but I couldn't find any information to contradict what I learned it to be, or even any information about his last name …
I am aware of the cliché of giving the Kage Bunshin the ability to feed information back to the creator is normally considered a Super Power … I hope I have satisfied several of my readers by reducing the ability to use it by Ebisu and Jiraiya's interruptions.
The weapons I chose for Naruto were suggested on The Fanfiction Forum, though I added the machete because I felt a long blade of some kind would round him off a little … the sai is more often than not intended for stabbing, though there are many that have been sharpened to act as blades instead of a tool for blocking or thrusting.
I am also fully aware of that I could have spread this training over several chapters instead of writing it all as one … I frankly didn't have the patience to wait that long, and would likely have changed my mind about the content a hundred times, which would have made the training even more inconsistent than it already was.