Disclaimer – Kishimoto owns Naruto and the characters therein.

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Memories Of Others

Chapter 35

A Genin's Training

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"This seems… almost boring." Hinata admitted as she and Naruto slowly walked along the top of the wall surrounding Konoha.

"Boring is good." Naruto countered, his eyes scanning the treetops as he used the quote that Kosuke had used on him months before. "It's when things get exciting that you know it's gone bad."

"I never really thought that walking the wall would be like this." Hinata commented. "I suppose that it's a fallback mission for those genin who aren't on a team or have non-shinobi jobs…"

Naruto nodded. "So, who is Kurenai training today?"

"Shino today, Kiba tomorrow." Hinata replied. "We're only doing one full team training day a week and one team mission, although both Kiba and Shino have asked me to spar with each once a week so that they can work out ways to beat the Jyuuken."

"They both seem quite confident." Naruto laughed, earning a confused look. "The way the matches are set up, they'll have to face each other first and then the winner is the one who'll have a chance to face Neji in the final match."

Hinata nodded in agreement. "So, once we've walked the wall, what then?"

"Jiraiya was saying something about teaching me to summon." Naruto stated while Hinata activated her byakugan to scan the nearby woods. "I'm afraid that the summon clan in question is known to only take one person per generation. Jiraiya, dad and now, hopefully, me."

"Can I attend?" Hinata asked hopefully. "I don't really have anything planned for the rest of the day…"

"Sure." Naruto shrugged, then he frowned. "Summoning takes a lot of chakra. Even if they accept you as a potential summoner, you might not be able to actually summon them for ages…"

"I know." Hinata said with a shrug of her own. "But some day I will go up against a shinobi who can use summons, so learning all I can about them beforehand is just common sense… what's that?"

Naruto paused as he looked out, his gaze coming to rest on the bird that had erupted from the tree canopy.

"Not certain." He said, palming a kunai, then reversing his grip on it so that he could use it to tap out a generic warning notification. "Is it within your visual range yet?"

"Not ye… wait! One shinobi, moving towards us at high speed… pursued by three more!"

Naruto summoned a horde of kage Bunshin which promptly flooded down the wall and into the woods.

"He's been hit!" Hinata gasped as Naruto tossed the kunai to a clone who took over relaying the message even as he summoned a second wave of clones. "They're closing in on him and… Yes! Your clones are there!"

A flash of light lanced up through the trees even as masked ANBU started appearing beside the two genin.

"They're retreating now that they've lost their target." Hinata reported. "Moving fast and… and they've got out of my range. Sorry."

"Don't be." One of the ANBU said as the others launched themselves into the woods. "Good work with the alert. What happened to the runner?"

"I sent him straight to the special cell in T&I with a clone to explain things to them." Naruto said, looking slightly embarrassed. "I… didn't recognize him, so…"

"Will we ever find out what this was all about?" Hinata asked and Naruto shook his head.

"Highly unlikely. You're an elite genin with a Jonin-Sensei, so you haven't really discovered just how much of what normal shinobi get caught up in is classified as need to know. If you don't need to know…" Naruto trailed off with a shrug and Hinata made a face, then she frowned in thought.

"Do you know what happened to that ninja who bowed out… what was his name… Kabuto?"

"Officially, no." Naruto sighed. "Unofficially, judging from the rumors I've overheard, he's vanished. Not ANBU vanished, but vanished vanished."

Hinata blinked. "He's just… vanished?"

"His Sensei doesn't know where he went." Naruto confirmed. "I don't know any more than that at the moment."

"Need to know, right?" Hinata sighed and Naruto nodded.

"Need to know."

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"Ah, the love-birds have arrived." Jiraiya smirked as Naruto and Hinata appeared in a flash of light. Naruto turned to face his sensei even as his clone moved into the house to begin making lunch.

"Jiraiya-sama." Hinata said politely as Jiraiya put his notebook away.

"Hyuuga-sama." Jiraiya returned. "Naruto sent a clone ahead to inform me that you would be here as an observer. Hey, brat! I heard you let in the other rookies on the secret of your burden. Sure that was wise?"

"Given what's already been revealed about me, it was only a matter of time." Naruto sighed. "Better to control it, rather than have them get part of the truth and a ton of lies."

"True." Jiraiya agreed. "At least you had a good reason. I assume you had backup, just in case things went wrong?"

"Hinata and the four Jonin-Senseis." Naruto supplied and Jiraiya smiled at him approvingly.

"Excellent. In most circumstances, you can never have too much backup."

"Most circumstances?" Hinata queried.

"Covert infiltration." Jiraiya replied. "The more backup you have, the more likely it is that someone'll slip up and blow the whole thing, or your backup will be discovered and things'll get fu-reaking difficult to escape from."

"Nice correction." Naruto smirked and Jiraiya gave him an amused glare.

"Be nice, brat, or I might decide to wait until you're a chunin for this."

"You wouldn't do that to my fiancee, would you, Jiraiya-sama?"

Naruto took a moment to admire how Hinata had managed to pull off the perfect Kawaii no Jutsu, widening her eyes, summoning just a hint of tears in the corners, while her posture had changed from competent kunoichi to totally cute and innocent moe.

"Argh! Dammit!" Jiraiya shouted, raising his hands to cover his eyes. "Stop her! She's too damned cute! I'll teach you anything, just stop her before she destroys my defenses!"

"Thank you, Jiraiya-sama." Hinata said, ending the technique.

Jiraiya peeped between his fingers, sighed in relief and then took his previous stance as if nothing had happened.

"So, summoning." Jiraiya said. "All summon tribes have different strengths and weaknesses. Some are stealthy, some are used mainly for transport, some are used in combat, but they all have the same thing in common, they all need the same summoning technique.
"But simply doing a Summon is a bad move as if you don't have a signed contract, you'll be reverse-summoned to the Summons Tribe that best matches your personality, and most of them don't actually like humans. Some of them live in places that would kill a person instantly, so unless you've signed a summons scroll, don't even think of trying it."

Both genin nodded at the sheer sincerity in Jiraiya's warning.

"And speaking of scrolls…" Jiraiya added, unslinging the giant scroll he was carrying across his back. "Here we go, the Toad Summoning Contract."

Naruto looked at the long scroll, then his eyes moved to the last two names exposed on it.

"Who's Arashi?"

"What?" Jiraiya stared at Naruto. "Arashi?"

"It's the name just there, Arashi."

Jiraiya looked at it, then he shook his head. "No, that says Minato."

"It looks like Arashi…" Hinata mused as she followed Naruto's gaze.

Jiraiya humphed as he pointed at the first empty space.

"Okay, Naruto, before we go any further, you need to sign there, in blood. Blood is very important for things like this, so… good."

Naruto plunged the kunai into the ground to clean it even as he used his right hand to sign his name.

"Good calligraphy." Hinata said approvingly as she used the Mystical Palm technique on Naruto's left hand, closing and healing the cut across the ball of his thumb.

"Excellent." Jiraiya smiled. "Now, these are the seals. Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram, blood and hand on ground"

Naruto slowly ran through the seals.

"How much chakra do I need? And how does it need to be released?"

"As much as you can." Jiraiya replied. "Half and half. Half through the seals, the rest when you've drawn blood and put your hand on the ground. I'd suggest biting your thumb for the blood."

Naruto nodded, then frowned. "As much chakra as possible, right?"

Jiraiya nodded, then blinked in confusion as Hinata quickly stepped back.

"Kaimon! Kyumon! Seimon!"

Jiraiya's eyes widened in shock as a chakra aura roared into life around Naruto and his skin turned red, then Naruto blurred through the five hand-seals, bit the tip of his thumb and slammed his hand down.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

A cloud of smoke briefly blotted Naruto from sight, then a new voice spoke.

"Jiraiya? We were just about to eat!"

"Oh, hush, I'm sure that he has a good reason for summoning us."

"Ma? Pa?" Jiraiya gaped as the cloud dissipated to reveal a pair of ancient toads looking up at him.

"Hmmm." The male toad mused. "Come to think of it, that didn't quite feel like Jiraiya summoning us."

"We've got a new summoner?" The female toad asked. "Well, it's about time. We were starting to think you'd never get over the death of your apprentice."

Hinata looked up from where she was supporting Naruto, who had half-collapsed against her, but was watching the two toads with fascination even as his skin slowly lost its reddish hue.

"You knew the Yondaime?"

"We were about to teach him the art of Toad Senjutsu, but he went up against the Kyuubi and died." Pa Toad said, turning to look at the two genin.

"Oh look, young love." Ma Toad gushed as she peered round Pa Toad and caught sight of the duo. "I remember when we used to cuddle like that… we don't cuddle like that much these days, To-chan… I miss the cuddles..."

The male toad sighed, then turned to face Jiraiya. "Hey, Jiraiya! Stop trying to catch flies and introduce us."

Jiraiya shook his head in an attempt to refocus. "Introductions. Right. Naruto, Hinata, let me introduce the Two Great Sage Toads, Fukasaku of Mount Myoboku and his wife Shima. Ma, Pa, may I introduce the new Toad Summoner Uzumaki Naruto, son of the Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, as well as his fiancee, Hyuuga Hinata."

"It is a great honor to meet you." Hinata bowed, managing to support Naruto at the same time.

"I haven't heard of any of the others getting summoned… first time?" Fukasaku asked and Naruto nodded.

"I used three gates to make sure I had enough chakra…"

Fukasaku moved closer to Naruto and squinted at him before nodding.

"Interesting. You have potential. Once you get old enough, you'll do well as a Sage."

"First of all, we need to get him confirmed as a summoner…" Jiraiya interjected and Fukasaku waved him off.

"Go perve at some bathing women or something and leave this to me."

"While he's doing that," Shima said as she hopped to where Hinata was watching Fukasaku leading Naruto to one side, "will you tell me about yourself? It's not often we get a summoner who has family and family is very important."

"I… I'm not quite family yet…" Hinata managed and Shima waved her hand dismissively.

"Nonsense, you're his fiancee and from how I saw you hugging him, you two are very much in love. I can smell your love for him, you know. We toads are good at things like that…"

Hinata looked at the elderly toad, then across to where Fukasaku was talking to Naruto in a low but intense voice.

"Don't worry. He's safe with To-chan."

"Ano… I'm Hyuuga Hinata, former heir to the Hyuuga Clan…" Hinata began.

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"So, how did it go?" Hiruzen asked without bothering to look up from his paperwork and Jiraiya chuckled from where he was sprawled on the windowsill.

"Kid not only managed it first time, he did something that caught me by surprise."

"He summoned Gamabunta?"

"That was the second time." Jiraiya smirked. "The first time, he summoned Ma and Pa."

For a long moment, the apparently innocuous comment didn't register, then the brush fell from Hiruzen's hand.

"What?!"

"Brat used three Gates to make sure he had enough chakra." Jiraiya laughed. "Overshot considerably and summoned Ma and Pa. Pa took it on himself to teach Naruto how to summon more efficiently, faster seals, slight adjustments to chakra flow, things like that, while Ma and Hinata were sat to one side swapping gossip about their respective clans. You almost had to have been there."

"It sounds like it." Hiruzen agreed, leaning back in his chair and pulling his pipe out. "So, are you going to teach him more tomorrow?"

"We did a test." Jiraiya shrugged. "Did you know that if you put a Hiraishin tag in the summons realm, you can use it to get there by yourself? We had Pa Toad take back a Kunai, then Naruto sent a clone through to test. He even got the memories back."

"Wait." Hiruzen said, his hands frozen in the middle of refilling his pipe. "You mean…?"

"Yep." Jiraiya replied. "He's going to head over there tomorrow to meet all of the Toads and get their permission to summon them."

"Amazing." Hiruzen breathed. "Amazing…"

"Ain't it just." Jiraiya agreed, then he frowned. "I'll need to tell him what sort of things to take, though… maybe tag along..."