This is my first story. Don't hate for no reason. Will take fair criticism though.

I do not own Naruto or anything related. That goes to Masashi Kishimoto


CHAPTER 23


It was a late afternoon, the day after the Preliminaries where we find Naruto walking down the street rolling his neck, trying to crack it. That morning Hinata had left to train for the Third Exam with Kurenai so he was left to his own devices, where he finished mastering level 9 Fuinjutsu. But all that time looking down at his desk and drawing seals left his neck and arms sore. Thus why he was walking down the street towards the Onsen. He was about to walk inside the door when suddenly he stopped and took a step back. Off to the side there was an old Man with long white hair peeping on the women's bath. He wore a green kabuki outfit with red lining. Not wanting to get caught he snuck over to the man and tapped on his shoulder.

"Not right now," The old man whispered, trying to wave off his annoyance as he continued to peep but also take notes. Once again Naruto tapped the old man's shoulder.

"Stop bothering me kid, I'm trying to do my research," the old man whispered once more, but this time a little louder.

"Research?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, for my book." Still looking though his peep hole he tossed Naruto a book then continued, "Besides I can't miss a chance to peep *cough* do research on the Ice Queens of Konoha. I mean think about it, Inuzuka Hana, Uzuki Yugao, Mitarashi Anko, and Yuhi Kurenai all in one place, they'd kill me as soon as they found out."

Naruto became much angrier as he heard the last name, but especially so after he read the title of the book. But then he smiled a devious grin, "Oh really?"

Quickly drawing out an invisibility seal Naruto shouted, "There's a pervert peeping on the women's onsen!" The old man spun on his heel angrily, realizing what the boy had done. But the last thing he saw before he was condemned to the Kurenai's anti-pervert jutsu and the torture by the rest, was a blond-haired blue-eyed genin with a maniacal grin slap a seal on himself then slowly fade away. The old man's final thoughts before his condemnation was, 'Naruto?'

-next afternoon-

Lying on his bed Naruto was munching on onigiri as he read through his Level 10 fuinjutsu book. Being the final level it reviewed everything learned in all the previous levels and how to improve them, but more importantly it taught one last thing, sealing biju. Naruto thought it was going to be as simple as a modified storage scroll but that idea quickly went out the window, because he quickly learned it is much more complex. He was reading the section on the 4 Trigrams sealing method when he heard a knock on his…window? Confused, he walked over to his window, opened it, and looked around.

Sitting on the wall was the white haired man from the onsen. But this time Naruto noticed a few new details, like how instead of a standard konoha hitai-ate he wore a horned one with the word Oil etched into it.

Naruto groaned, "You really went from peeping on women to peeping on boys? What are you doing here?"

"Hey!" The man shouted, "I like women, especially the curvy ones. Besides, don't you know who I am?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Unfortunately…yes. I know who you are, Jiraiya the pervert Sannin. I heard the women say it as they beat you up."

"Put some respect on my name! But I'm not a pervert!"

"Oh really?"

"I'm a super pervert!"

Sighing, Naruto shut the window and returned to his book. But before he could even begin there was more knocking on his window

Opening the window Naruto shouted, "What do you want Jiraiya?!?"

Puffing out his chest Jiraiya smiled, "Well you interest me. After I saw you use fuinjutsu yesterday I thought you might like being trained by Jiraiya of the Sannin."

There was a long pause before Naruto asked, "Are you serious?"

"Ummm yes?"

Naruto sighed, "A Sannin as a sensei can't be too bad. Come in ero-sensei."

"Oy! Don't call me that!"

"Whatever, what exactly can you teach me in fuinjutsu."

Jiraiya grinned, "Well I am a sealmaster, one of very few. You should count yourself lucky that I want to train."

"Yeah? I'm already on level 10 so I'm not that far off."

Jiraiya was shocked, "H-how?"

"Shadow clone training is a wonderful thing." Naruto sighs dreamily.

"Shadow clone training? What is that?"

"Well I produce about 100 shadow clones. Then have them practice different things. Anything from fuinjutsu, ninjutsu, chakra control, taijutsu katas, shuriken jutsu, really just anything that can be memorized. Then while they're doing that I do an intense physical workout. Once done I pop them all and receive all their memories, muscle memory included."

Jiraiya paused before asking, "That means you could complete weeks of training in just hours. Doesn't that give you a headache?"

Naruto groans, "A massive one, leaves me really hungry too. Sometimes Hinata-chan has to help me home. But it works."

"I-I guess but why would you need Level 10 fuinjutsu for the Chunin Exams? Isn't it all about Biju?"

"Well I'm fighting one for my first round, or at least it's Jinchuriki."

Jiraiya widened his eyes before he started muttering to himself. Naruto raised an eyebrow in confusion as Jiraiya started to pace the room as well. After a few minutes of the constant noise Naruto interrupted and asked, "What's wrong? I thought you were here to train me?"

"Yeah, I am. It's just now I understand how they were going to do it?"

"Who's going to do what?"

"S-class secret." Jiraiya immediately quieted.

Naruto became furious so he quickly drew out a seal, "Like hell it is. If it involves my match, then I need to know. Chinmoku Fuin!" (Silencing Seal)

"Look kid, you and I know that I can't spill S-class secrets."

"So was me being a jinchuriki but look how that went," Naruto retorted, "Besides isn't this my purpose anyway, to defeat the other jinchuriki?"

There was a long stare down, as Naruto's interrogating gaze bored into Jiraiya's secretive eyes.

"No. It's an S-class secret. You know I can't tell you."

Naruto rolls his eyes, "I can tell that Gaara seems to be instrumental to whatever you're talking about so maybe if you actually told me what's going on, I could plan accordingly. If this has to do with the security of Konoha then you know that anyone who can help, like me, should know the secret. You should know that."

"You're just a genin."

"And a jinchuriki. So that doesn't really matter."

There is a long silence and another staring contest before Jiraiya finally sighs and mumbles something. Getting rid of the thought with a slight shake of the head Jiraiya speaks up, "Fine. We believe Orochimaru will be invading Konoha with Suna as backup and that Gaara kid will be the spearhead."

Naruto thought about it for a second before asking, "So if during the Chunin Exams I made Gaara a non-issue then?"

"The invasion will still continue. Orochimaru just wants to see Konoha get wiped off the map and Suna's economy has been slowly declining due to clients going to Konoha so they want us gone too."

"Well if we can't prevent the invasion why don't we prepare for it."

"Because then the enemy will know we know and change their plans accordingly. Look kid, I know you want to help but why don't you leave this to the adults."

"Because I can help. The walls have barrier seals in them right? Why don't we update it? Or we can give some of our shinobi chakra storage seals so they have an extra supply of chakra."

Jiraiya sighs as he rubs the bridge of his nose, "Fine kid, how about this, you have 4 weeks before the Third Exam right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then we spend the first three weeks on training, to make sure you can actually defeat Gaara in as little time as possible. Then we spend that last week, in conjunction with Sarutobi-sensei, to help with Konoha's defenses."

"I guess that's ok."

Jiraiya grinned, "I know it is, I came up with it. So what do you know about this Gaara kid?"

"Well he's psychotic, only focusing on pleasing his 'mother', which I assume is the Ichibi, by killing people. But battlewise? He not much for taijutsu or genjutsu. His seal must be weak because he can telepathically control sand, especially the sand that comes from his gourd. That sand it a very hard defense to penetrate as it protects him from all attacks. But if can land one solid blow, I can use that to seal his biju."

Jiraiya thought about it for a second before grinning, "I know exactly what to teach you. Feel lucky because you're about to learn two jutsu created by Hokage."

"Cool, but how about we get to a training ground first? I don't want to destroy the house by accident."

Removing the silencing seal, Jiraiya grabs Naruto and leaps out the window shouting, "Well then let's go!"

-Next Day, Training Ground 31-

Jiraiya chuckled, "I didn't think you'd pick up the Gogyo Fuin (Five Elements Seal) so fast."

"I'm a level 9 seal master. This despite being a Biju containing Seal, was only level seven."

Jiraiya waved him off, "Yeah, yeah I know. But look now you can apply this seal ready in less than a few seconds of contact, now you just need to make that contact."

"Alright, so how will I break through his defenses?"

"With this." Jiraiya raised his arm to Naruto's eye level then faced his palm up, and suddenly a slightly glowing blue sphere appeared in his palm. "This is the Rasengan."

Naruto was in awe of the beautiful Jutsu, "Didn't the fourth hokage create that jutsu?"

"Yup! And he was my student so he taught it to me. Now I'm going to teach it to you."

Ending the jutsu Jiraiya removed a water balloon from his pocket, "And this is the first step." Pumping his chakra into the water balloon it began to deform, then stretch erratically until suddenly it popped.

"You have to do that with just your chakra." Jiraiya said as he tossed Naruto a water balloon.

Before attempting it, Naruto asked, "Can you show me the finished Rasengan again? I want to look at it more closely.

Jiraiya shrugs and makes another Rasengan, "I guess."

No one talked as Naruto looked at the Rasengan from all angles. After a minute of looking Naruto backed up and said, "I think I got it."

Holding the balloon in his hand he focused his chakra into it. For a few seconds nothing happened but then it pulsed, distorted and stretched erratically, then burst. Jiraiya stood there in utter shock as Naruto grinned proudly.

"H-how? It took me a week to learn that step," Jiraiya asked.

"Well when I looked into your Rasengan I saw all the chakra whirling around in a bunch of different directions. But then I saw that the rotating chakra wasn't organized, it was knocking into each other making it very chaotic. So I just did that with my chakra."

"I know how it works but that takes a decent amount of chakra control, especially spinning your chakra around in different directions."

"That just sounds like my average chakra control practice. You already know my reserves are humongous, especially because of Kur--the Kyubi, so I always had to take chakra control a step further. I would try leaf sticking exercises with boulders, water walking and kunai balancing at the same time. At one point my chakra control exercise was sticking boulders all over my body with the leaf sticking exercise, balancing a kunai on one hand, while balancing on the surface of the water with my other. It took me two weeks to actually do that and still my chakra control is only the equivalent of a genin's."

Jiraiya guffawed, "Yeah right, I don't even think Sarutobi-sensei could do that."

But when he looked back, Naruto was looking back with a straight face. The disbelieving smile slowly faded from Jiraiya's face as he asked, "You are joking…right?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Well…um…I didn't think you'd get it so fast, but before you move on to the next step you're going to try to reduce the time it takes for you to pop the balloon. You want it to pop almost instantly."

From his pocket he removed a scroll, unfurled it, then unsealed a large bag of water balloons. Handing them to Naruto, Jiraiya said, "Get to work."

To be Continued...


Sorry for the late post. I was suddenly bombarded with test to study for and this story fell to the back burner. I will post every one to two weeks. Thank you for reading.