Kept you waiting, huh?

Well, the chapter is finally here. After your expectations have risen so high I could have no possible way of fulfilling them. Awesome!

Seriously though, I've decided not to use the Japanese names for all the jutsu. Sure, there are the ones everyone knows, but some I can't be bothered to look up. It also means I have to go to an online translator if I want to make up a jutsu, and I have to do that with Latin translators when I make up spells for Harry Potter fanfiction, and it's more irritating then you think.

By the way, this chapter is terrible. Really. I was writing some deep complex shit with Kakashi running off, because the real Kakashi was off training Sasuke- and he's a fake Kabuto in disguise. Worried he might be compromised, he tells Baki to go off Naruto in his sleep, which ended with Naruto killing him. With a slight political incident, Jiraiya took Naruto off, taught him Rasengan- but then I realised, that just felt too much. Too early into the fic to start that sort of stuff. And I'm probably pissing off some people who thought that might have sounded quite cool.

Chapter III- Tornado of Memories

"Good day, Naruto," said Kakashi, in a surprisingly cheerful manner, before he froze. "Wait, is this about that I'm uh, not training you for your fight against Neji?"

Naruto blinked. "Oh. I forgot about that- well, no, it's cool, I've got someone else teaching me."
"Oh? Who?" asked Kakashi, back to his usual self.

"Ero-sensei Jiraiya," said Naruto. "You know, toad guy, big hair, all his jutsu tend to involve toads or making his hair bigger, he's a massive pervert, writes those books you love-"

"I know who he is, Naruto. So, you're being trained by Jiraiya- intriguing."

"And you're training Sasuke- or at least I think you are."

"There's absolutely no way in hell he has a chance against Gaara at the moment," Kakashi replied.

Naruto nodded in agreement, a grin on his face. "Hey Kakashi-sensei- out of interest, who was your sensei?"

"You don't know?" asked Kakashi. "It was the Yondaime."

"Really? Bet that was awesome!"

"Not really," said Kakashi. "I think he was a terrible sensei."

Naruto twitched. "Wh-what?"

"Sure, he was at good at training you- but the man was boring as hell. His jokes were worse than Obito's, and not to mention that he had serious issues. Seriously, Naruto, people think I'm a bad sensei- but they never knew him."

"Oh really?" Naruto said through gritted teeth.

"Yep. Well, see you some other time." Kakashi walked away, leaving Naruto in an extremely bad mood.

Naruto stared at the retreating back of the silver-haired jounin. "Wanker." He finally said, before turning around, thrusting his hands into his pockets and walking off.

He still had time to kill. Looks like he'd have to just work on his chakra control.

He'd tried using quite a few of Minato's ninjutsu, but found very few had worked, and even then, they were still incomplete.

If anything, his chakra control had worsened after he gained his father's memories. He had a bad chakra control before- but then his head was packed with memories of having different chakra levels and different control.

He sighed. If he wasn't able to fix that problem, it was going to come back and stab him soon. A Chuunin Exam was filled with genin- but he sometimes had troubles reminding himself he was a genin again.

A genin with very bad chakra control. And all the more dangerous opponents in the Exam, Neji, Sasuke and Gaara- all had very good chakra control, or ways of compensating for it.

He sighed. Looks like he'd have to keep doing those tree climbing and water walking exercises.

"What I will teach you will blow your mind!" Jiraiya yelled, striking another one of his dramatic poses.

"Is it the Rasengan?" Naruto asked dully.

"No!" Jiraiya shouted cheerfully.

"What?" Naruto was actually surprised. If it wasn't the Rasengan, what the hell was it?

"Well, I was going to teach it to you," said Jiraiya. "It was what I wanted to yesterday, but last night, after um, meditating, I had a brainwave."

"You mean, while drunk-"

"Shut up Naruto," Jiraiya interrupted. "No, you see, I discovered, that what the hell was I teaching you? To be a scrounger? Scrounging off the techniques of old men and dead guys? Scrounger."

Naruto didn't know whether he should continue listening or punch Jiraiya square in his stupid face.

"Every decent student of mine had their own speciality!" Jiraiya said again, striking another pose. "You have to create your own style and techniques! Summoning Toads was more than enough for now! So, goodbye! Don't talk to me again till the exams finish!"

Naruto stood still for a few moments, his mouth hanging open. "You're drunk right now as well, aren't you?"

"Bye!" Jiraiya disappeared into thin air, leaving Naruto alone.

For several seconds, Naruto started strangling the air. "Grr-thatstupid-sonofa-argh-hell-effing-bastard-urgh-what the fuck?" He suddenly screamed out.

Great. Now he had no way of explaining to everyone if he used Rasengan- as if he could've used it though, with his chakra control still very bad. Simple jutsus he could still handle easily, but he couldn't do anything fairly advanced that required a delicate use of chakra.

'Do I have to spend an entire month just practising chakra control?' He wondered. 'No way, that'll be too boring. I need to carefully think about the weaknesses of my enemies- and maybe I should leave the village for a while."

A day later saw Naruto hiking up a hill. He knew Minato owned a cabin somewhere up here, and the man would occasionally go there as a break from the village, and occasionally when he was training solo. He'd once taken Kushina there for er, stuff- and Naruto was going to disinfect and renovate the entire place to try and forget that.

Of course, the place hadn't been lived in for about thirteen years, but to Naruto's knowledge, its water and electricity was connected to a nearby village, so that should work just fine. He'd just order some Shadow Clones to fix up the place.

'Finally,' he thought, 'some peace and quiet.'

He stepped into view of the house, his hands instantly forming the seal for the Shadow Clone Technique. Within moments, ten other Narutos popped into existence. He sent them in first, there was the chance someone else had started residing in the place.

One of the clones dispelled itself, thus informing Naruto about the status of the cabin. It was dusty, a few too many cobwebs, but liveable.

"Hey, you guys!" Naruto yelled at them. "Get a move on and start cleaning!"

The clones groaned and got to work. Naruto spent the time re-familiarising himself with the area. Sure, that odd clump of mushrooms had gone, a tree had fallen over and there were a few more birds around, but nothing had really changed.

An hour or so later, the clones dispelled themselves, finished.

Naruto entered the cabin, the place looking as good as new. This was it. His training ground, his private haven. Now, it was time for a cunning plan.

As Minato had said: "A large crisis requires a large plan. And a plan should be a very, very cunning plan, as cunning as a fox who used to be a Professor of Cunning at Konoha University but has moved on and is working for the entire Elemental Countries at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning."

Well, not all of Minato's quotes were that brilliant. But no one makes that much sense when they're hammered.

He was not going to be fighting a war or something, that'd just be ridiculous. Instead he'd just figure out a way of dealing with the real threats. Sasuke, Gaara and Neji.

Shikamaru would fall asleep or something in the middle of a battle or start just looking at the clouds. The other Sand ninja might be a threat, but he couldn't focus on them right now. Besides, he doubted Kankuro would take out Shino, and anyway, his plan for Shino was to just toast him with enough Fire Jutsu.

The fan girl? Wind jutsu from distance, and the thing would probably hurt quite a bit if he got hit with it while it was folded at close range. Actually, he might spend some time than he thought dealing with her. Naruto stopped for a moment; that last bit sounded oddly like a euphemism.

And Dosu of the Sound. Well, he was a cut above his teammates, but his power lay in close range for his sound attacks to have real effect.

He wondered briefly whether they should have done something about there being nine competitors. Was someone going to have to fight two rounds? It seemed a bit unfair. Well, maybe someone would just not show up or something. Who knows, maybe someone would actually die. No, that was just silly. What could possibly happen over this month?

Dosu checked his amplifier. He was going to find Gaara over this month. That sand wouldn't stop sound waves. He was going to put him out of commission. He was going to kill Sasuke.

He would not be treated by a pawn like anyone. His teammates were defeated, and they could've been killed earlier. Dosu had realised Orochimaru had been using them to determine Sasuke's worth. By God, he would not be treated like some disposable piece of shit.

He'd kill Gaara. And then he'd be free to fight Sasuke in the Exam. He wanted Orochimaru to see him kill the same guy who'd nearly killed Zaku, the same guy who Orochimaru had meant them to die against.

What could possibly go wrong?

There was a river about half an hour's walk from the cabin. For a ninja, that made it barely a five or ten minute run. Naruto made it there, and slowly began to balance on the shallow parts with slower current. He'd spend today training on the water; he needed to build up his control again.

He sat down on the water cross-legged. And he began to think.

Building up his chakra control was not going to be enough. He needed something else. Naruto was going to create a new technique. As useless as Jiraiya had been the other day, he'd realised the man had a point. He was not Minato.

Why should he use his techniques? The Rasengan and Hiraishin were powerful, shockingly so- but Jiraiya was right. Was he a scrounger, nicking his dad's techniques? Well, a part of him didn't care, but another part, a prideful part refused to be treated as the Second Yellow Flash, when he could be someone entirely new.

Of course, the knowledge of them was there, and he'd learn them in time, but they'd be there, an available backup in the case that death would be the other option. After all, he could at least explain away the Kyuubi's chakra, but not those techniques.

And although he had the knowledge, it'd still take a lot of time to actually master them. Screw it, he'd come up with his own techniques in the meantime. Well, creating a technique took up more effort than that, but still, he'd make a start.

He listened to the world around him, and began to think, looking for that little bit of inspiration.

Elemental manipulation. He'd- Minato'd ignored that for the Hiraishin, and had only meant to mix elemental affinity in the Rasengan.

Naruto wasn't going to limit himself to one elemental affinity. In time, the chakra of a being grows stronger and a person can have multiple affinities, or even balance them entirely. No need to waste time focusing on one.

He began to focus chakra into his hands. He sank a little into the water, but soon rose again. The chakra, he let it surge and grow, starting to amplify it. How to unleash it? Should he form a hand seal? He began to move his hands close together, but then no, his gut said, that feels wrong.

Maybe Naruto wasn't a genius like his dad, even with his memories, but he knew what felt right and wrong when dealing with chakra. His chakra had always been strong, and now looking back, thinking of all the techniques he'd failed to perform due to too much control- he could see his chakra speak to him, telling him to use his power for greater techniques, the way it was meant to be used.

His chakra wasn't powerful yet to become visible. Perhaps he should make his own counter to techniques like Rasengan and Chidori? No, that wasn't what this technique was for- but it was an extremely early stage. He was only focusing chakra into his hands without a clue with what to do with it.

Carefully, Naruto began to familiarise himself with it. Maybe he should just release it now and see if he could think of something-?

It was too soon, and it merely dispersed into the air.

Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. He needed to think- what was he trying to form? A bullet technique or shockwave might- well, a lot of bullet techniques tended to focus around fire. And shockwave techniques were obviously wind.

He thought of wind. Just about every wind technique was a slicing attack or shockwave. No. He'd make his own brand new technique, just like his father had done with the Rasengan and Hiraishin. How else did the wind destroy? What could be another powerful manifestation- a tornado. Not one of the miserable things created by fan-wielders, a real tornado.

How could he create an actual tornado?

Naruto doubted Minato knew either. He'd have to make a stop at that neighbouring village and see if they had a library or something. But- holy shit, he thought, as he found the information tucked away in his head. Minato did know. He'd wondered once about natural disasters or something and looked it up.

The explanation was pretty complex, but after several tries, Naruto managed to simplify it.

Intense heat causes moist air to rise. When it meets cold dry air, it explodes upwards. This may form a thunder cloud and a storm starts. Rapid movement of upwards air and then winds from different directions causes it to rotate.

Trying to replicate that using chakra would be hard as hell. Well, he could probably form the thunder clouds with a powerful enough fire jutsu, but he'd have to do something to keep a constant movement of upwards air, not to mention the winds.

No, this wasn't going to be easy, but the technique if created would be capable of destruction on such a scale, depending on how fast it rotated.

Once again, he began to meditate.

What if his chakra itself was pumping heat into the sky? He'd be the very heat source itself. Constantly doing so should provide thunder clouds. But what about the rotation? Was there a technique or so to provide wind from- no, Wind Techniques were sent at people, not back on the user.

Could he make the technique himself, or simply provide the rotation? Wait, provide the rotation, like one of those Hyuuga and their Kaiten? No, that was ridiculous. He wasn't capable of spinning to the incredible speeds required for a truly powerful tornado, and even then, that'd have its own drawbacks.

For a start, he'd be so dizzy after that he wouldn't be able to move anywhere. Secondly, that'd mean his tornado wouldn't be going anywhere, and would stay stationary until he stopped spinning and then just end.

What if his chakra provided the spinning, like if he was in a sort of bubble that rotated, but he himself remained stationary?

There was also the slight problem with the fact that at some point he'd also get whisked away by the tornado. Of course, he could then easily end the technique, but it'd then mean he was now falling through the air from probably very high up.

Time to go back to the old drawing board. Naruto cleared his head. All this concentration was getting him hungry.

With that, he forgot he was balancing on the water and promptly sank.

"Oh, hey," said Kakashi. "Wait, Jiraiya, what are you doing here? I thought Naruto was being trained by you for the Chuunin Exams."

"I told him to come up with his own techniques rather than copying others," Jiraiya said, with a pointed look at Kakashi.

"I created Chidori and Raikiri," Kakashi replied. "That's good enough for me. So what, you're not teaching him anything?"

"I taught him how to Summon Toads, and that's good enough for me," Jiraiya replied, continuing to look through the telescope across the village, right into the bathhouse. "Oh yeah. I mean, Kakashi, look at the size of those!"

"Huh?" Kakashi reached over for the telescope, only for Jiraiya to slap his hand away.

"I said look at the size of those, not take my only telescope and look at the size of those," said Jiraiya irritably.

Kakashi whipped out his binoculars. "Hey, you're right. Anyway, I'll be leaving soon. Got to train Sasuke for the Chuunin Exams."

"Sounds like fun."

"Yeah, so uh, about Naruto," said Kakashi. "You realise there's no way he could possibly come up with new jutsus in time for the Chuunin Exams, right?"

"Well," Jiraiya said, frowning. "There's a chance he'll do something right."

"Oh, come on, the only possible way for him to accomplish that is if he somehow became as smart as the Yondaime Hokage."

Jiraiya chuckled. "You're right, that would be ridiculous. Tell you what, I'll let him mess around for the rest of the week, and then I'll find him and help him out a bit, and maybe teach him a few jutsus that can help him out."

Kakashi laughed as well. "You know what? I suddenly think it'll be hilarious if somehow he manages to finish making a jutsu in that time. Why, it'd make you seem like quite the fool."

"Why are you talking like that all of a sudden?" Jiraiya said, frowning again. "It makes me feel as though I'm not aware of something. Besides, I thought we already said that Naruto could only possibly make his own jutsu if he was as smart as the Yondaime."

"Yes," said Kakashi, looking away from Jiraiya and then turning as though he was speaking to an invisible person. "Wink wink, nudge nudge."

"Seriously, what the hell are you doing?"

Naruto fiddled around on the drawing board. A little stickman with spiky hair stood in the middle.

"Alright, so first chakra must travel up, pumping heat into the sky," Naruto said, drawing some arrows going upwards and labelling them as Step One "which causes thunder clouds," he added, drawing the clouds above the arrows and labelling them Step Two.

"Finally, the chakra must start spinning," he said, drawing arrows circling the chakra travelling upwards, and labelling them Step Three. "Maybe the chakra providing the heat could also be spinning around the user," and he wrote that beside his diagram.

He then started writing on the other side of the diagram. "Dangers- constantly pumping out chakra could quickly cause chakra exhaustion. Such a technique is likely non-suitable for one-on-fights. Also, it probably isn't that safe to be standing in the centre of a tornado. Finally, there seems to be the whole thing of not really being able to control the tornado."

Naruto was staring at the board for several moments, chewing on the end of the pen as he did so.

"Nope. That wouldn't work."

And so began a long and arduous process as he thought of a new way to attempt this jutsu, then would spend several moments analysing and evaluating his new attempt, and then realise it wouldn't make it.

Such an unstable technique that required so much power- he just couldn't think of a way that he could get it to work.

He glanced out of the window, and was surprised to see the sun setting. "Huh. When did that happen?"

His first day had nearly gone by, but he wanted to be ready. He wanted to be ready for his first try with the technique tomorrow- and at this rate, he'd still need a while to figure out what he had to do.

Naruto sighed. Maybe he'd try tackling each problem individually and see where that got him.

Chakra exhaustion- he'd figured Kyuubi chakra earlier, but that wouldn't help with anything else. Keeping safe from the tornado- maybe he could create some sort of chakra bubble? But this was getting ridiculous, how much set up would this technique need? And as for controlling the tornado- what was he supposed to do, push it?

He laughed hollowly, before his breath caught. Why had he got into his head in the first place that he needed to be inside the tornado?

Naruto rushed back to the drawing board, tearing the paper off the board and writing on the one that he'd placed underneath it. Grinning like a fool, he finished his diagrams in a matter of moments, although they were considerably more illegible than the first one he'd done.

"And just insert a hand sign sequence there- hm, make sure to end that one with a Tiger- then leave this bit with no hand signs- and the control might need a few-"

If this had been another time, he might've marvelled at how smarter his father's memories had made him. Then he would've realised, no- they'd given him the theory that for years he'd been not paying attention to, and now, here the knowledge was in his head- and when he needed to, Naruto could think well enough how to sort out a problem.

And with these tools at his disposal, he'd make this technique.

Naruto worked late into the night.

AN:

In case someone out there didn't realise, Kakashi was just breaking the fourth wall.

I have to admit, I hated writing this chapter once I realised the original plan wasn't going to work. The only thing that kept it going was writing Naruto creating his new technique, which was surprisingly fun.