Caught in the Middle
Chapter 18
Rasengan and Chidori
Part 3
Hello all, I have returned! I've got some good news, and some even better news! The good news, it's summer break bitches! The even better news is just the other day I was looking through the story stats, and I was really proud and impressed with both myself and you guys. I think I'll share it with you. I currently, as of June 9th, 2009, have 23,800+ hits, 152 favorites, 147 alerts, 156 reviews, and I'm in the favorite author's list of 34 members! I haven't even been on this site for a full year yet; I didn't expect to get a really popular story going until at least after my first year, but apparently you guys really like this story.
Now, since it's summer break for me, I'm going to start trying to pump out chapters faster than my usual sluggish pace, and I'm going to start challenging myself by trying to do three stories at the same time instead of just two. I have a third story already planned out and a good portion pre-written, so I can just update and forget, leaving me time to work on this.
For those of you who care, (and I'm proud of this because absolutely no one has tried this before as far as I know), it's an Avatar: the Last Airbender/Devil May Cry crossover. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, I think I've hit a balance and can make this work, so just bear with me. I'll have it up later today if I have my way, so check it out!
"Dah, come on you son of a bitch, pop!" shouted Naruto.
It was the next day and Jiraiya had taken Naruto back out for another training session. It as noon and he had been outside for six hours, doing workout sets, learning and perfecting martial arts techniques, and working on magical control for the first four. The latest two hours he had spent trying to pop the balloon he had gotten from Jiraiya. It wasn't going well.
He growled as he pumped in more magic and tried to swirl the air inside the balloon, but no matter what he did, it just didn't want to work. He was barely doing anything that could be seen from the outside. However much he tried, he couldn't win.
"Having some trouble kid?"
Naruto turned around panting and saw Jiraiya walking down the path from the mountain. He had gone to the other side of the mountain to check on Kakashi and Karen's progress while he was trying to get the Rasengan.
"No epiphanies yet; I can't get this one," he replied.
"Well it was impressive enough that you managed to figure out the first step in the amount of time you did, I guess I can give you a little hint here."
Naruto perked up and looked over at the sage as he approached closer.
"Alright, give me your hand."
He had a confused look on his face.
"Just give it here."
Still confused, he agreed and held out his hand. Jiraiya grabbed it in one hand, and pulled out a permanent marker in the other. He bit the cap off and brought the tip down, drawing a small dot on his hand. Naruto brought his hand back up and looked at it, still not sure where he was going with this.
"So…what's this for exactly?"
Jiraiya sighed. "Let me guess, one of your problems during basic was that you had trouble concentrating right?"
"Uh...yeah, I guess. What's that got to do with anything though?"
Jiraiya put the marker in his mouth, holding it with his teeth, and reached into his robes, rummaging around for something. He pulled out a small piece of paper and showed it to him.
"Just look at this for a second," he instructed.
Naruto did as told. "Okay...how does staring at a blank piece of scrap paper relate to mastering the most difficult spell in existance?"
Jiraiya took the paper back and grabbed the marker, poking the center of the paper with it.
"Now take a look at it again."
Naruto sighed but looked again. "You know, I want to believe that there's some sort of hidden message here, but since I know it's you I'm talking to, I'm leaning towards the belief that you're just screwing with me."
"Aw, have some faith in me kid. Now, believe it or not there is a point to all this; see, when I showed the paper to you before, it was blank, and your eyes didn't focus on any one point because it all looked the same and nothing drew them to a focal point. When I put on that dot though, it contrasted against the white background, and your eyes were drawn to it, right?"
The blond nodded. "Yeah, that's about right."
"Well, that's what the mark on your hand is for, it gives your eyes, and by extension your brain, a point to focus on and increase your concentration. From now on, I want you to visualize that point on your hand when you try this step, and whenever you end up mastering the Rasengan. It'll make it easier for you to focus your magic."
Naruto nodded and looked down on his mark. "Alright, that actually makes sense, thanks."
"Well, give it a shot!" said Jiraiya expectantly.
The blond nodded again and took the balloon in both hands. He inhaled deeply and blew it out, pumping magic into his hands, and swirling the air within. He closed stared down at the balloon, imagining that it wasn't there and instead could see the mark in his hand clearly; he visualized the magic swirling in a whirlwind circling that one point. He was practically in a trance, mentally seeing all his magic flying in violently uniform spheres. His gaze was only broke when he heard a sudden his, and his hands felt the rubber flatten. He looked down, and saw a small ripped hole in the side of the ball, and smiled.
"Ah, see, told you it would work. First try with the mark and you already got it to leak. Now all you need is to do is work on your output to make it pop, but that I'm leaving up to you."
"Got it, I'll definitely get it now!"
His hope restored and his drive to learn the Rasengan stronger than ever, he returned to his training. Two hours passed after that, and Naruto kept trying over and over, but the results...
"Son of a BITCH!" shouted Naruto.
Naruto could indeed make the balloon pop, that was all he could do. He had gone through well over fifty balloons and every time he got the same result.
"Seriously, I'm getting a little fucking pissed off!"
"Naruto, could you keep it down. I can't nap if you're constantly screaming your head off," said Jiraiya, sitting the branches of a nearby tree.
The blond growled and took the next balloon in his hand. "Fuck it, I'm just gonna blow the shit outta this one!"
"You do that," said Jiraiya drearily, trying to get back to sleep.
Naruto pumped all the magic he could possibly muster and swirled it around the visualized mark on his palm. At this point, he didn't care if what he was doing knocked him into a coma, he was determined to utterly decimate this damn balloon. His hand flurried around the white sphere in a rapid storm of movement. He clenched his teeth and his eyes practically popped out of their sockets.
As his hands flew across the surface of the balloon, he was so engrossed with his concentration and visualization that he didn't even notice that the energy around the balloon was becoming visible. Jiraiya noticed though; he had cracked his eyes open to check on the kids progress when he saw a sudden glare and looked closer to see what was going on.
An aura of magical energy had formed around Naruto as he pushed more power into the small localized space and the build-up culminated in the one logical outcome that anyone who saw it could guess was coming; a huge-ass explosion. The dust suddenly kicked up twenty, maybe thirty feet into the air, and blew the blond clear into the river, making a loud splash. Jiraiya jumped down front the tree and ran over to him. After pulling him out of the water, he examined him for any injuries.
There was nothing serious, but he did notice that his hands were slightly burnt.
"Damn, what are you kid? Not everyday you can bunch magic energy so densely together it burns people's skin," he muttered to himself.
Jiraiya sighed, but picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. It was going to be a long walk back to the cavern.
Same time: Sapporo
Sasuke sat at the edge of the foot of his bed, rubbing his left shoulder with his right hand. Most of his injuries had mended themselves, but his lower torso was still a knot of aches and strain; he couldn't move too much lest he cause himself unnecessary pain. Over all the time he'd spent healing up, he'd been running through possible ways to get to Naruto without the sage getting involved. The truth was, he had no idea what Naruto was doing, or when -or even if- he was ever alone.
Still, the idea of Naruto getting even stronger, possibly even coming near his equal, was something he looked forward to. As long as there were no unwanted interruptions, it would be the second most satisfying battle he'd ever win.
Sasuke was stuck in his thoughts until he heard a knock on his rooms door. It couldn't be Zaku or the other two, they were all off trying to find Naruto and the fox bitches' location. He leaned over to the right a bit, ignoring the shot of aching pains that fired up his side, and grabbed his chokuto that was leaning against the side of his bed.
He crept over to the door, the sword tightly held in his grip. He quickly threw open the door of his room and prepared to thrust with his chokuto.
"Now, now Sasuke, you should be more careful with the toys I give you. You wouldn't want to hurt someone would you?"
Sasuke's eyes widened in surprise when he saw Orochimaru standing on the other side of the threshold of the doorway. What was he doing here, he never left his lair unless in was incredibly important, and apparently nothing was even incredibly important because he'd never seen him leave. He quickly took a hold on his composure and put back on his regular look of frustrated seriousness.
"What are you doing here Orochimaru?"
He chuckled and walked into his room. "Oh nothing, it's just a little birdie told me you were unable to prevent Naruto from reaching Jiraiya, and now he's learning under him, and at a frightening pace I'm told."
Sasuke didn't need a degree to know that the three little operatives were also feeding Orochimaru intelligence and leaving him out of the loop, in fact he expected it, but he never dreamed Orochimaru would ever leave his own base.
"Exactly how frightening of a pace?" he asked.
"Frightening enough that he's learning the Rasengan, and apparently making progress."
Sasuke looked at him, mentally he was curious. "What's the Rasengan?"
Orochimaru chuckled again. "The Rasengan is a what gave you the majority of the wounds. It's a wind based spell that involves high speed rotation of magical energy into a small sphere. It's a surprisingly complex technique; one even I am not completely sure how to execute properly."
Now Sasuke was definitely interested. Naruto as learning a spell even Orochimaru couldn't do, and not only that, but if that technique was what had really given him all these wounds, then he was right, it would be a satisfying battle.
"It doesn't matter," he said confidently, "I'll still be able to beat him, the only problem is the sage."
"That's exactly why I'm here Sasuke my boy. You see, with Jiraiya added to this situation, I've seen fit to intervene. I'll apprehend Naruto and the fox girl myself, you're no longer fit to handle this scenario."
Sasuke almost shouted out his objection out loud, but was able to hold onto his tongue at the last moment. Orochimaru noticed the almost outburst though.
"That's not a problem for you, is it Sasuke?" he asked, almost mockingly.
He wanted to scream yes, he wanted to run out right now and fight Naruto himself, even if that sage was still there. He didn't though, all he did was stay silent and nod.
Northern Japanese Mountains
Karen panted heavily; she almost had it. The last charge she'd made pretty much exploded in her face, but all the one's she done before weren't enough and just fizzled out. She was damn near almost out of magic; this would probably be her last one. She felt it in her gut though, this was it, she'd found the right charge.
She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly as she built up the last amounts of spare magic she had left. She could feel her hand start to tighten up and the heat was building. The she slowly eased it in little bits at a time until she was convinced it at least wasn't going to completely explode, then she forced it in at a faster pace. Then she finally heard it.
She heard the chirping sound that normally accompanied a Chidori technique. She popped her eyes open and looked down at it; it was so bright she had to squint her eyes, but it was there and it was finished.
She smiled and moved to the next step: moving.
All that extra work put into her leg and back strength really helped as she rocketed across the opening towards the training boulder. She closed in faster than she could have ever expected, and threw her hand forward. The lightning collided with the rock, and she could feel her punch slamming though it like she was punching a pillow.
As her fist burrowed deeper and deeper, she felt the lightning and her magic slowly dissipate until it was practically gone, and she jumped back and out of the plume of dust and debris. She landed on both her feet but quickly lost her balance and fell onto her back, exhausted.
After she panted out half her lungs, she lifted her head enough to catch a glimpse of the damage she'd done. It was barely half the size of the one Kakashi had done, but for her first successful attack, she was proud of herself. She laid her head back down on the grass and laughed.
She heard a pair of hands clapping nearby and looked to her left and saw Kakashi leaning against a tree, for once not reading.
"Congratulations, your first Chidori. Not bad for your first one to, yours is a bit bigger than my first one was."
She grinned widely. "I'll just keep getting better to. You better watch your back or I might just take your technique from you."
"Well, you're exhausted, so let's get you back to the cavern so you can rest a bit," he said, grasping her hand and helping her up.
"Yeah," she sighed, "sleep sounds good."
Back up in the cavern, Jiraiya had gotten Naruto back up the mountain, but it didn't take long for him to wake up again. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the blond was now constantly pestering Jiraiya for the third stage of Rasengan training. The old sage was getting more and more irritated by the unending whining, so he finally caved.
"Fine, fine, you want to learn the third stage so badly, here we go then," he sighed.
He reached over to the sack he kept in the cave with him and pulled out one of the thin balloons that Naruto had used in the first stage of training. Jiraiya blew into it, inflated it, and tossed it to Naruto, which he caught easily. The blond squeezed it a few times with a confused look on his face.
"Okay, what's with the balloons again?"
"This is the last stage, you need to apply what you've learned from the first two stages into this one. You need to use the rotation of the first stage, but also use the massive power of the second."
He still wasn't getting it. "Let me ask you this, if I already have the rotation and the power down, what's this last one for, it sounds like I've got everything I need."
"Weren't you listening the first day I told you about this technique, I explained what this was for then didn't I?"
"Explain it to me again anyway," he groaned.
The sage sighed again but supposed he wasn't going to get very far if he didn't at least have some idea what he was doing. "Alright then, this can best be explained visually."
He turned to a cavern wall and held up his right hand. "Now, with what you've learned of the Rasengan already, this is what you're capable of."
Jiraiya formed a swirling ball of blue magic in his hand and thrust it forward. The energy flew to every angle the second it hit the rock, and did nothing but crush a bit of the rock on a spiral shaped pattern.
"Now this is the fully mastered version after the third step of training."
Naruto watched even more closely as he formed another ball in his hand and pushed it into the rock. This time, instead of dispersing, it drilled into the rock and created a small tunnel in the wall. When Jiriaya pulled his hand back, there was a perfectly round indent in the rock. After observing it, then the balloon, then the rock again, Nauto snapped his fingers.
"Ah, I think I understand what you're trying to show me here! With just power and rotations, there's nothing holding my magic together when I use the Rasengan, so the object of this last step is to make it as fast and strong as I can without popping the balloon from the inside! I need to learn how to hold it together in a small compact space so it doesn't wildly fly everywhere!"
Jiraiya grinned and nodded. "Exactly right, you're getting the hang of this pretty quickly. Who knows, you might actually prove me wrong and learn this in a week after all."
"Just watch me."
He lifted the balloon and applied the rotations and then the power subsequently. The balloon instantly popped.
"Okay, it might take a little longer than I thought."
Alrighty then, chapter 18 is over and done with. Karen's at least learned the Chidori, and Naruto's on the last leg of the Rasengan training. The only problem is that Orochimaru's shown up...fuck. Anyway, the story will finally start heating up and heading into overdrive at the end of the next chapter, and all chapters following.
The training will be done for a good while if I have my way, and there'll be more violence, story development, characters, and yes, even romance. I'd go into another rant on how annoying some of you fluff-fans have been, but I don't want it to spoil my good mood. As stated above, this story's doing great, now give yourselves a pat on the back for being awesome.
Anyway, my new story that I mentioned above will be up some time either later today or early tomorrow (by early, I mean noon, cuz that's when I get up nowadays), so keep a look out for it.
Reviews if you please.
