Naruto: Reflection

Naruto slipped through the gates of the Hatake compound and hurried around the main building towards the wooded area behind it that concealed the practice fields. He was feeling distinctly unsettled and needed to sit down somewhere quiet to work through his yo-yoing emotions.

Jiraya offered to make me his apprentice and I turned him down. I was so angry I could't look at him a moment longer.

The blond Uzumaki dropped into a sitting position under a large tree and leaned his head back to rest against the bark, eyes closed. Deep breaths.

Naruto's refusal had not really had anything to do with the Toad Sage's deplorable personal habits or methods of earning money; Icha-Icha no longer sent the genin into a killing rage. In the five months since graduating puberty had kicked in with a vengeance and the blond was two inches taller, washing twice a day due to necessity rather than choice and suffering distinctly perverted thoughts. His tou-san had assured him all these things were completely normal, including the deep ache in his bones and the odd squeaky thing his voice did sometimes when he was stressed. More disturbing were the Kyuubi's comments on how his brain was shutting parts of itself down and replacing them. Naruto knew he wasn't stupid, but he wasn't brilliant either and he needed all of his brain in full working order. If a person's brain normally only worked part-time during puberty then the blond had been unreasonably judgemental regarding the various incredibly stupid things he had seen both civilian and shinobi teens getting up to; it also explained why well over a third of all ninja never made it to their twentieth birthday.

With all of this in mind Naruto had cautiously investigated his sensei's Icha-Icha collection –for research purposes only– and discovered that for all their ridiculous lack of realism they appealed greatly to his newly-emerged libido. The part of his mind that contained most of his geisha training on the other hand couldn't see the appeal. Naruto put this discontinuity down as one of the innumerable differences between men and women and left the books alone thereafter. Just because becoming a bit of a pervert was a normal part of growing up didn't mean he had to be blatantly offensive about it.

Naruto's primary reason for turning down the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study under Jiraya of the Densetsu no Sannin was said ninja's position as the blond's godfather. On discovering that he actually had a godfather the Uzumaki had initially been delighted, but that had soon faded and been replaced by hurt and anger on learning what godfathers were supposed to do. Jiraya had been ignoring him for the past thirteen years and Naruto just could not let that go. If the man apologised then he likely would, given a little time, but the Toad sage had not apologised. He hadn't so much as admitted to being Naruto's godfather yet, let alone apologised for leaving him to rot for his entire life.

Of course the blond understood that, as the only one of the Sandaime's students still working for the village, Jiraya had a great many responsibilities beyond the guardianship of his former apprentice's son. The man was the primary architect of Konohagakure's entire foreign intelligence network, for instance, and the main force behind the ongoing mission to track down and neutralise Orochimaru. That however did not mean Jiraya was excused leaving his godson high and dry; his writing ensured the man was loaded and he could easily have afforded to pay for a nanny and a private tutor for Naruto if he'd ever bothered to do so.

More pragmatically, as guardian of the village's jinchuuriki Jiraya should have made sure Naruto had the appropriate training from an early age in controlling both his own chakra and the energies of his tenant, not that he would ever have been able to do much with the latter considering his tou-san only sealed half the bijuu within him and the least useful half at that. Whichever way you considered the situation Jiraya had neglected his duties terribly where Naruto was concerned and the Sandaime had allowed it to continue when he could have intervened, which all sent Naruto's emotions rocketing all over the place willy-nilly. Adding to the already volatile situation Yoko's personal disdain for the Toad Sage, Naruto had decided that the less time he was in Jiraya's vicinity, the better it was for all concerned.

Thinking about it won't help, the blond chided himself firmly, crossing his legs the other way and resettling himself amongst the roots of the tree he was leaning against. Think of something else.

Sakura's doing well at the hospital, or at least that's what kaa-san says and she's usually right. Sakura hadn't said much at all to him recently other than to fret over how many people were still injured, how many more had died and how little she could do to help. Oh, and persuading me to lie down on the rug in my underwear so she can study my chakra system so she can compare and contrast to the standard diagram in her text book.

Naruto did not have a normal chakra system. True, it had the same basic shape as that of any born shinobi with a good number of ninja up their family tree and a comparable number of tenketsu –about half-a-dozen more than the standard human minimum of 361– but the coils were much longer and wider and the chakra within was slightly denser than the norm. Not as dense as his mother's chakra had been – Uzumaki Kushina had been able to create solid chakra constructs with little effort– but certainly throwing the curve.

The denser chakra was genetic; the size of his chakra network was not, being the direct result of the interaction with his body of the Hakke no Fuuin Shiki imprisoning the Kyuubi no Yoko within his View Gate. The seal forced the Gate slightly open in order to feed purified and diluted bijuu energy into his chakra network, which had the side effect of drastically increasing his recovery time and pressurising the chakra within his coils.

Naruto had studied the human chakra system as part of his geisha education – it was important for things like acupuncture– and had been forced to expand his knowledge and understanding once Hibana-nee determined that his own body was significantly outside the norm.

The basics of chakra were simple: the chakra network was the repository of immediately available chakra and the eight Gates regulated access to the body's reserves. Opening the Gates provided a massive instant boost but the rush was too much for the body to handle so it was just a short-lived and highly destructive short-cut that cut the person attempting it short of their full future potential. Normally the Gates dribbled chakra into a person's coils so long as the system was slightly depleted and normal chakra pressure eventually halted the flow once a person was back up to full strength. Naruto's View Gate however was stuck slightly open, forcing more chakra to flow into his coils than was normal. Being an Uzumaki, his body had been able to compensate by widening, lengthening and strengthening his coils until he had attained the necessary internal chakra pressure to counter the increased chakra volume leaving the gate.

This higher internal chakra pressure had also affected his tenketsu: they had all leaked almost constantly throughout his early life and in fact still did just a little unless he was consciously restraining them, which he had learnt to do in order to hide his chakra signature. As a result Naruto's control over his own tenketsu was on par with his peers in the Hyuuga clan, though his reserves were so vast that most people hadn't noticed. In order to demonstrate chakra control equal to a Hyuuga, Naruto's control over his tenketsu would have to be an order of magnitude greater due to his higher chakra pressure. The blond Uzumaki had learnt tenketsu control long before chakra control and had only recently realised just how unusual that was.

Of course, there really was no such thing as 'normal' chakra reserves; the scale was much more complex than that and more of a vague general trend than a series of definitive values.

A child first developed their chakra system in the womb: the fetus had its mother's chakra running through it, which was why kunoichi were removed from active duty when pregnant. At birth the baby's coils began to grow in response to their natal chakra pressure. As normal babies didn't do anything with their chakra other than live off it, their coils developed until the amount leaving their inner Gates was balanced against the amount being consumed through breathing and growing. This was considered the baseline chakra level and most civilians never rose above it. Non-ninja born into shinobi families had higher baseline chakra reserves due to genetics and pre-natal exposure but not by any significant amount. What made the difference was actively using chakra as the repeated draining and replenishing of the body's coils encouraged them to grow longer and more elastic, allowing a larger reserve to be contained within them.

There were occasionally people like Rock Lee –whose coils barely grew at all once initially formed– but for most ninja, the more they exercised their chakra system the greater its capacity became. Of course some people's systems were more elastic and grew faster, enabling a higher rate of improvement while others responded more slowly and had to slog and slave away for even a small increase in chakra reserves. Everyone was different.

Naruto gazed up at the sky peeking between the leaves above him, finally having calmed himself down again. Yes, Jiraya had abandoned him, but that didn't really matter anymore. Hibana-nee had raised him thanks to Ame-kaa-san taking an interest in his wellbeing and he was perfectly happy with how that had turned out. He was still happy now, in fact, and could forgive the Toad Sage for neglecting to see to his upbringing. However he saw no reason whatsoever to give Jiraya another opportunity at caring for him; Naruto was a ninja now and placing his career in the hands of someone who had already failed him would not be a wise decision.

Content with his conclusions Naruto headed back towards the main house. He could feel Kakashi-sensei had returned from his latest mission and the blond wanted to know when the chunnin promotions would be announced. That was, after all, something a good sensei would know and Kakashi was nothing if not an excellent teacher.

A/N: A little bit of Naruto's view on recent events and a whole lot on chakra and the body as it works in my version of the Narutoverse. Hopefully it even makes sense for people...

A/N2: since Naruto is no longer spending half his time as a girl, his body has managed to purge all that estrogen and get on with puberty. It is also making up for lost time, since he certainly has energy to burn. I trust that makes both his past and present actions clearer.