~ One Week Later
"Alright...hit me!" said the silver haired boy, sweat dripping down his face as his purple eyes turned dark again. The blonde in an orange suit nodded, a bit apprehensively, before making the hand sign of the ram, and then shouting out to the world.
"Kage Bushin No Jutsu!" he cried, the words echoing around the training ground they were in. The empty field and trees were obscured by a lair of smoke an instant later, smoke the seemed to roil and turn like a living thing, before it finally started to fade with an errant breeze. As it blew away, forms became visible in the haze, dull expressions of people, that slowly but surely began to resolve, finally revealing a hundred versions of Naruto, all standing in a battle stance, ready to attack on command.
"Claws of the Tiger!" responded Heero, holding out his hands. The words seemed to trigger a change in him, his stance getting lower, more focused, while his hands seemed to shimmer with white light for a moment, before that light focused itself at his finger tips. The light then shot outward, soon forming ten, meter long blades, almost as tall as Heero himself. The tips of his pinkie blades actually brushed against the ground, slicing small cuts into the earth, that the boy barely noticed.
"Go," was Naruto's command to his various selves, before leaping away. Experience had taught him not to stand too close to this fight, a small patch on his sleeve showing him what could happen if he let those blades on his brother's hands touch him, so he was flying away, while every clone rushed forward, some drawing kunai, others with their fists or feet out in front, all charging in a wild dash to reach him first.
The lucky clone that did so, one with a kunai, found himself impaled on one of the blades, as Heero began to dance into the throng, his movements sure and swift as he cut through clones half a dozen at a time. Each hand was splayed out, fingers as far apart as he could, giving them impression of some skeletal bird flying with bone wings into the center of the sea of orange, that began to explode into clouds of smoke with staccato series of pops to provide the music for the encounter.
From his perch on a branch, Naruto looked down, and whistled, impressed. His clones were doing better this time, the experiences of them slowly filtering into his brain so he could remember how each one fell. Now threw anything, no projectile weapons, as they'd learned to avoid that. A clone, made with his gear, still had cloned gear. So if they hurled a kunai, and Heero cut it, the kunai, and the clone that threw it, would both pop, meaning that each one, instead, was trying to get close enough for the kill.
As the claws spun around Heero, it was obvious none were going to get that close. Hitting that one meter mark meant death. One of the clones even pulled out Naruto's secret weapon. It was old, and dented, with knicks all over the blade, but it was a real katana the blonde boy had found on the training grounds. He had thought, maybe, that a real blade, one not made of chakra, could at least halt the ones on his brother's fingers. Instead the sword was cloven into three separate pieces, each one falling to the earth as the clone that held it to guard himself, found it sliced clean through.
Naruto watched the dance for over five minutes, until, at last, the final clone fell, and Heero instantly withdrew his claws. He'd been learning to be careful with the things, especially after nearly taking off Naruto's arm with it that first time they'd had him against the clones. When the blades were gone, only then did Naruto jump from the branch, landing lightly on his feet, and then giving a good look around the field. Everywhere, one could see small scars on the ground, where claws had met earth, and the earth had yielded as easily as the air.
"Awesome. You've gotten a lot faster," said Naruto at last, and Heero, breathing heavily, and looking like he was about to fall over, nodded.
"The Claws are moving more easily," he admitted, not trying to summon them to show off. Where before his movements had been hampered by the things, making even a single hand swipe with them take a full second if not slower. He wasn't quite up to the point where they were weightless, but his progress was still surprising.
"Again?" offered Naruto with a rather wicked looking grin for a ten year old. Heero responded by picking up a handful of dirt and hurling it at him.
"Hey, hey, I was kidding!" he shouted, holding up his arms to guard his face, and then brushing it off, before following Heero over towards one of the trees, and then sitting down with him.
"So, do you think the others are going to improve as much as us, during the summer I mean?" asked Naruto, and Heero, after thinking about it, shook his head.
"No way. Hinata is a maybe, whatever her dad teaches her is going to be powerful, but even then, I think our kekkie genkais are stronger than the Hyuga's," he said, and Naruto nodded. They'd agreed, early on, that Naruto's overflowing chakra, and Heero's control of the same had to be in some way connected to their blood.
"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Just wait Sasuke, I'm so gonna kick your butt," said Naruto to himself, holding his fist in the air. The sight of it made Heero grin, then, a second later, he was sound asleep, his breath coming in even breathes, and his eye gently shut. Naruto, looking over at him, shrugged, and rose to his feet. He wouldn't have admitted it, but three hundred clones in an hour was approaching his limit too, so with another ram sign, he summoned only twenty, and had them start on a dozen different training exercises, five reading books, five on some taijutsu stances he'd seen in a few books, and then ten...
He stopped, his thoughts going back over what he'd just been thinking off, and then he got another rather evil smirk on his face as he ordered the remaining ten to start on some chakra control training, while he himself rushed off to the library, mindful of Kakashi and Kurenai's warning not to let more than of himself be seen in Konoha for now, at least until school started. About twenty minutes later, Naruto, hauling as many books as he'd been allowed to check out, came back into the training ground, and ordered every clone still left(Two had popped from the chakra exercises, and three more from the taijutsu being a bit too rough for them) to start reading.
An hour, and many failed experiments later, Heero was fast asleep. He dreamed not at all, his mind too exhausted to think of any flights of fancy, and so he just drifted in peaceful slumber. Then something happened. Everything around him grew hotter than fire. Blue flames leapt through his body, speeding along his veins, and nearly stopping his heart as his eyes shot open, a single view of Naruto in his vision before it popped into smoke, and he shot to his feet, a kunai in his hand somehow as he looked around, thinking he was under attack.
"Hey, hey, hold it!" shouted the blonde boy's voice in his ear, and it took a second before Heero recognized it, his weapon drawn back, about to hurl at the source of the noise, until it clicked in his brain, and he paused.
"What?" was all he could get out as he stood there, staring at Naruto, wondering what he'd done to him. Then he realized something. He was awake. Not just not asleep in some lethargic state like someone who'd used all their chakra, but actually awake. Pocketing the kunai, he did a test, using the inverted Tiger Seal to produce more white chakra, and then forcing it through his fingers, soon creating blades again. Staring at his hands, wondering how Naruto had caused this, he turned to his brother, withdrawing the claws as he moved towards him.
"What?" he repeated, and Naruto grinned in that way that said he was proud of himself, before one of the clones behind him held up a book. it had the red cross symbol of a healer on it, and a page had been dog eared so it opened to it instantly.
"I had an idea for learning jutsu from the books, you know, like Kakashi learn a million techniques or something. Well, turns out most of them are a long way out of my league in control, but some are easy, just pump a lot of chkra into a seal and go," he explained, the clone setting the book down in front of him.
"This one caught the eye of one of my clones, and after discussing it amongst myselves, we figured it would be useful, so the clones kept trying it until they got it to work," he said this while Heero read the page. Most of it, like Naruto had said, was way beyond the Academy trainee's level. He understood maybe one word in five, but the pictures were very detailed and one technique in particular seemed to be simple, this one being a technique to transfer chakra from one ninja to another.
"Um, is this safe?" asked Heero, looking down at the warning about the technique. Most of them were pretty long, but this one was simply about control, and how if you screwed it up, it would indeed give the other person your chakra, but it would do permanent damage to your coils, possibly rendering you unable to use chakra ever again.
"If I were using it, no way. But I don't use it, my clones do," he said, and pointed to a few clones who were still practicing it, going through the three hand signs, and then touching the ones next to them. Every clone that used the technique popped, just like the one had healed him, but just like he had, each clone receiving from the technique seemed even stronger.
"I even found out something cool. Hey, come here!" he shouted, and one of the clones that had been standing back from the group came forward. This one seemed to be a bit nervous, and Heero wondered why. He didn't have to wonder long of course, because as soon as this one came in range, Naruto pulled out a kunai, and stabbed the clone in the leg with it. The thing flinched, but otherwise didn't seem to be in any pain, Heero wondering how it could take the kunai through the leg, as he could see blood, and even a bit of bone sticking out of the wound. Of course, it took him another second to process that last fact.
"Your clone is bleeding," was all Heero said, and Naruto nodded.
"I know. When you overcharge a Kage Bushin to an extreme degree, like say, enough to make a hundred normal clones, they become as solid as I am," he said, and then with a flick of his wrist, he stabbed the clone in his heart, causing the thing to disperse with a bamf sound.
"Fatal damage is still fatal though, and they die just like I would. Can you image how much damage I can do with this?" he asked, and Heero's mind was already going through a few basic scenarios. Naruto, after one year in the Academy was already in the top fifty percent of taijutsu users. Add in that the clones could do everything jutsuwise that Naruto himself could, and if he could make even a few of these, he would literally be a one man army.
"So, ready for some more training?" asked Naruto, and Heero looked at him, with that evil looking grin, and then got one that mirrored it. Naruto was growing stronger every day, it wouldn't do to fall behind, so he whipped his hands out to his side, summoning those claws again, and then slashing them through a nearby tree, which fell to the side, before turning to find himself facing three hundred boys in orange suits, all of them grinning wickedly, before shouting and charging.
"Claws of the Tiger!" he returned, entering the dance of death with a whirl of glowing white blades.