AN: I totally didn't forget to upload yesterday.

"God Damn it Pervy Sage is this a joke? What's this balloon got to do with making a Rasengan anyway?" Naruto was frustrated, Jiraiya had shown him an incredibly powerful move, promised to teach it to him, but then just handed him this water balloon.

"I told you Naruto, the first step to making a Rasengan is to pop this water balloon with only your own chakra," came the lazy voice of the Hokage.

"But Pervy Sage, I already popped the balloon remember? I used my other hand to add the chakra but. . . it worked, didn't it?"

"And I said you did a good job didn't I? Using your free hand to apply more chakra was creative and I commend you for it. But, it's not a shortcut I can accept. Let me put it this way Naruto, when you added chakra with your other hand, what way were you doing it that finally popped the balloon?"

"I just added chakra in different spots, why's that important?" Naruto replied.

"Because by adding in different spots you let the water twist and turn in the balloon until it finally stretched the elastic enough to pop it. Why do you think that's important to make a Rasengan?"

Naruto stopped and pondered for a moment, thinking back to the moment Jiraiya had shown him the jutsu, "Because the Rasengan was all spinny? Is that what you wanted me to do?"

Jiraiya smirks at Naruto's choice of words, "Precisely Naruto, you're using your other hand as a crutch because of your poor chakra control,"

Naruto deadpans and looks back at his master in disappointment, "Oi c'mon Pervy sage, it's not my fault I got all this chakra, it's really hard to control y'know!"

"Precisely, all that chakra is exactly why this technique is suited to you. I know it's only been 2 hours, but I need to go now so I'll leave you with this: Instead of just trying it over and over without your second hand, practice using your second hand less and less each time you pop it."

Naruto smiles at Jiraiya, "That's pretty smart, maybe there's more in your brain than pervy thoughts,"

"I told you to lay off saying things like that," he replied defeatedly.

"Okay pervy-sage, make sure to actually get your work done instead of doodling your novels during meetings again,"

"You're not going to let that go, are you? Anyway, I'm going to go now," said the Hokage, as he walked away from the training grounds and back towards his office.

"Wait," Naruto said before Jiraiya was out of earshot.

"What is it," Jiraiya responded.

"I only have 1 water balloon,"

"Oh," he replied, rummaging in his shirt pocket he pulled out a small scroll, and tossed it to Naruto, "Just use this,"

Naruto looked at the scroll before holding it out and letting some chakra run through it. After a burst of smoke, a crate full of water balloons appeared on the grass, and Naruto just stared at it, deep in thought before he finally spoke to the void.

"Why does a legendary shinobi carry around a scroll filled with water balloons?"


Naruto awoke with a startle as a cup's worth of water assaulted his face. He felt himself sit up as his mind went through the confusion of waking up. What just happened? Had he finally popped the balloon? Did that Tsunade woman stop watching him? Was he drowning?

"Good morning Naruto," came the familiar voice of Kakashi.

Naruto rubbed his eyes as his memories came back to him, he had spent all night and managed to pop a few water balloons with less of his second hand, but he still wasn't even close to popping them with one.

"Don't you have an apartment?" said a voice from behind him.

"I was just training at night and fell asleep he-" Naruto began to say as he turned back around, but saw the broken balloon and kunai in his teammate's hand.

"Hey Sasuke, don't do that! I need those water balloons you can't just go wastin' em!"

"Damn, I knew you were lonely, but I didn't know it was this bad," Sasuke replied.

"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL YOU EMO LOSER," Naruto was now comically agitated at his friend and began to mouth off intensely while Sasuke held a small smirk.

Ino stood there watching them, while Sasuke had become more open recently (more so to Team 7 than to her) it was Naruto who he seemed the most comfortable with. Going out of his way to tease Naruto first, she couldn't quite understand the bond they shared and how it developed, and it only made her more curious about who Naruto really was.

"Hey Naruto," Ino began. Red in the face from yelling, Naruto instantly turns his head toward Ino, "What were you training with those water balloons?" she asks curiously.

Naruto looked at her, noticing for the first time she had what looked like small seals on her arms and legs. Difficult to tell from his vantage point, and not wanting to get caught staring, he discarded the observation and just answered her question.

Ino saw Naruto's face take on a happier expression, "Well it all started when Pervy Sage told me to come here," That was another thing, when and how did Naruto not only get one of the Sannin to train him, but also was so casual that he would only refer to him as a pervert, and manage to get away with it? With every new thing she learned about him she only got more confused. ". . . and then he showed me this super awesome jutsu called the Rasengan! So I need the water balloons to practice it,"

Kakashi, who happened to be just behind Naruto, raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. It was just enough that she could catch the expression, had he still been covering his left eye she would have totally missed it, but that movement made the gears in her mind start spinning yet again. See it wasn't just Naruto was weird, and Sasuke was weird around Naruto, Kakashi was weird with him too. Sometimes they would say the vaguest things to each other, and when Naruto's back was turned sometimes Kakashi would look at him with the strangest expression. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it seemed like it was guilt. Kakashi would also be ever so slightly more positive towards Naruto, when he would usually be apathetic to others, even if those others were Sasuke and Sakura.

Ino's frustration had been building up like this for months now, picking up on little things each time Naruto had decided to train with Team 7 again instead of with Asuma. Her friends would tell her she was overthinking, but she was a Yamanaka as she couldn't help herself from trying to get into people's heads. Choji would just get lost asking her if she was really sure she was seeing such micro-interactions. Shikamaru really pissed her off though, he was supposed to be the smart one, Ino knew he got what she was talking about, but all his lazy ass could do was tell her it didn't matter and it was a drag to think about. Silly Shikamaru, she knew that whatever he said, he was thinking about her words regardless, so why not just discuss it with her?

She was finally brought out of her thoughts by the sound of a balloon popping. Ino jumped a little at the sound. Her eyes darted around thankful to see that nobody had caught her little moment of fear. What sort of shinobi is so disconnected from her surroundings?

"Interesting way of popping the balloon Naruto," Kakashi remarked.

"Pervy-sage said that too, but it wasn't enough, he wants me to pop it without my other hand to help."

"Well it does require very precise chakra control," Kakashi replied.

"But is it really that important? Pervy-sage said the Fourth Hokage made it, and the only other person who could do it was himself. They're like super-masters, why is he bringing me to their standards?" Naruto said with a pout.

"Actually that's not true Naruto,"

"Huh?" Naruto replied back in confusion.

"As far as I know there are actually 3 people who can perform the Rasengan. The Fourth, The Fifth," Kakashi paused and raised his hand up before finishing his statement. "And me,"

A brilliant blue vortex of chakra formed into a sphere before the eyes of the young shinobi. Naruto's face was one of complete shock, Sasuke, Sakura, and Ino had their eyes glued to Kakashi's hand.

"Th-th-that's not fair. How are you doing that?" Naruto said as he began to cope with the sight in front of him, "See what I mean, the 3rd person was you and you're also a legendary-nin. Y-y-you probably spied on Pervy Sage and I yesterday and copied it with your sharingan."

"He's right," Ino said, "You're pretty much going to be the 6th Hokage anyway,"

Kakashi shuddered as he dropped his hand and the Rasengan dispersed, "Don't say dreadful things like that, please. And no, I actually didn't copy it at all, that's not even possible. I figured out how to do the Rasengan when I was right around your guys' age."

Naruto's jaw had somehow managed to drop even further than before.

"C'mon Naruto I promise I'm not just saying this to brag. If I could figure it out at your age you can do it too."

"You really think so?" Naruto asked.

"Mhm. You know, you're trying to control and add all the chakra with your first hand, and then just using your second when it starts to fall apart."

"How else would I do it?" Naruto asked.

"Try instead, adding little bits of chakra to the parts of the rotation you know will be the hardest, even if you can already complete that part of the rotation with your first hand. If you do that you'll be able to practice every stage of the rotation instead of just trying to build up the vortex from scratch, and overly relying on your free hand to finish the job."

Naruto stood and pondered Kakashi's words before walking over to the crate and taking one of the water balloons.

"So you mean like this?" he asked, and proceeded to start on the water balloon. Naruto added help from his free hand from the very beginning this time, but exerted less effort with it. Only applying enough to get through the most difficult part of the rotation. He continued with this, only applying precise amounts of pressure, and soon enough he had the water balloon moving incredibly wildly.

"Holy shit!" Naruto said excitedly.

"See, now you're holding with one hand a level of rotation in the balloon you previously could only reach with two hands, and were completely unable to maintain."

Naruto smiled brightly and raised his hand once more.

"Wait," said Kakashi.

"But, I'm about to pop it!" Naruto replied impatiently.

"Exactly, I know you've managed to use far less help from your left hand this time, but still I want you to try your absolute hardest to finish popping it without your left hand."

"If you say so," Naruto replied as he put all his focus back onto the water balloon. He grimaced as he physically felt his hand ache from trying to maintain the vortex. Naruto looked down at the balloon as if it were his enemy. For what seemed like ages he battled with his latex nemesis, and moments before he had given up, he won. The balloon not only popped, but the water contained inside of it splashed and hit everyone but Sakura.

Sakura began to laugh at the expense of everyone else, "That was so hilarious," she said in between snorts, "Sasuke you kept leaning your head in. . . ." Sakura continued laughing, ". . .and Ino you just kept walking towards him like it wasn't clearly about to explode,"

Ino tried to defend herself but she could only manage a couple of word-like sounds before Sakura began practically screeching once more, "There's literally yellow latex on your cheek!"

"Sakura," Ino finally replied with a venom in her voice that finally quieted Sakura down, "I recommend you don't let your guard down when we spare today,"

Sakura's face twisted into fear and Naruto turned towards Sasuke, "Oi, were they always like that?"

"No," Sasuke replied, "They've been rubbing off on each other, and sometimes it's annoying."

Kakashi deadpanned, as much as someone's face can deadpan when half of it is covered up, "Aren't you kids too young to be tired of the opposite sex already?"


Ino lay on the grass exhausted, Sakura had continued to be an absolute wench while sparing, and Kakashi hadn't allowed Ino to release any tension on her seals. She had spent six hours trying to hit the pink-haired demon, who would continually cast subtle genjutsu on her. Just as she was about to hit Sakura, woosh, Sakura was actually two inches to the right of where Ino's eyes had told her she was.

Finally getting up, Ino shifted her attention to Naruto. The boy had been going at it the entire time, only stopping when Kakashi had brought him (a little more than everyone else) food and basically forced him to stop.

"Hey Naruto, how long are you gonna stay here?" She asked.

Naruto glanced at her in confusion, "Hmm?" he replied.

"Well it's already dark out. . . ." Ino said.

Naruto looked around for the first time and realized they were alone, "Even Sasuke left? Guess I got too caught up and didn't notice, this balloon is going to kill me."

"C'mon you're being dramatic Naruto," she teased.

"I'm not! Here you try then Ino," Naruto said as he handed her the water balloon. Ino took it in her hand and focused on the chakra in her hands. The balloon began to stir a little and Ino's face lit up. However, it darkened when she discovered keeping the vortex going was almost impossible, and she couldn't get her chakra to continuously spin inside the balloon.

"Fine, fine, maybe it is sort of hard." She replied playfully. "Aren't you tired though, you already slept here last night didn't you?"

"Don't worry about it Ino, I'm going to pop it real soon, I can't just give up now when I'm so close!"

"I haven't heard any of them pop in like half an hour though," she replied.

"That's just cause I've been practicing with my left hand, my right one got tired, but the last one I popped, I did almost entirely with one hand," he said.

"No way, you've been doing this for like 10 hours now, I bet you can't even pop a tiny water balloon," she giggled.

"Can too, you'll just have to stay and see," Naruto said.

"Okay tell you what," Ino said handing him the balloon, "Pop this right now and I'll pay for your ramen tonight,"

Naruto's eyes lit up brighter than the sun, "Seriously?"

"Mmhm, but only two bowls, I'm not responsible for your gluttony." she joked.

"You have a deal Ms. Brain Bouncer," Naruto replied.

Ino laughed out loud at the nickname, "Please don't start calling me that. Now enough stalling let's see you pop this thing."

"Yeah, yeah, watch this," Naruto outstretched his hand so they could both clearly see the balloon. Ino smirked when nothing happened for the first few moments. Her smirk changed when the balloon finally started to stir. "See, the first part of the rotation is actually the last part I haven't done unassisted." True to Naruto's word, Ino noticed that after the slow initial stir the balloon started to twist and contort very quickly. After a few moments of it moving in very unballon-like shapes, it finally gave a violent pop, splashing water all over the both of them. "Alright! I did it! I did it!" Naruto cheered while Ino stared in disbelief.

She was finally brought out of her daze when she realized Naruto had stopped cheering and was looking at her sheepishly, "Sorry Ino, I didn't mean to make you wet again," Ino's mind raced for a moment. Huh? Why would he say something like that? Oh, he meant the balloon.

"Don't worry about it Naruto, I was just impressed, I didn't think it'd pop all of a sudden. That was actually pretty cool."

"Only one thing left to do now," he replied as he pulled a seal out of his pocket and began rapidly pressing it like a button, delivering some chakra, "Peeeerrvvyyy-saaaage c'moooon, I know you're not asleep yet. Not with that stack of paperwo-"

The seal exploded.

Okay maybe 'exploded' was a bit of an exaggeration, it was only small enough to burn Naruto's fingers, but it was enough to shut him up while he nursed his singed hand.

"Did you have to do that?" Ino asked in irritation.

"I didn't know it would explode like that!" he whined in response.

"Serves you right," came the deep, steady voice of the Hokage from behind them. Ino and Naruto both leapt back in surprise.

"Jiraiya, where did you come from!" Naruto exclaimed. Ino smirked as she noticed him use the Sannin's real name for once.

"Y'know you don't have to activate that seal over and over again. It worked the first time," Jiraiya said in annoyance.

"But did you have to blow my fingers up?" Naruto asked back.

"I didn't do anything Naruto, Kakashi designed the seals to release electricity and vibrate on the other end, You're the one that kept pushing chakra through and overloaded the seal. Why did you call me here anyway?"

Naruto's face lit up," Because I finally popped your silly little balloon with one hand Pervy-sage."

Jiraiya laughed out loud dismissively, "You don't expect me to believe that Naruto. You could barely make it budge yesterday afternoon. I'll believe it when you show me." Jiraiya retorted and turned around to walk away.

"Whaddya mean you don't believe it?! I seriously popped it! Ino was here, she saw it herself!" Naruto exclaimed.

"He really did pop it with one hand, Lord Hokage. He's probably too tired to do it now, but I saw it with my own eyes, sir." Ino defended.

"I still don't believe it. You're close with this woman, you think I'm going to believe your girlfriend's lies if I didn't believe yours?" he teased.

"We're not-" Ino tried.

"Pervy-sage you don't understand. Kakashi came with them and helped me!" Naruto proceeded to give a poor re-explanation of Kakashi's words of wisdom, it seemed to be sufficient for Jiraiya to understand.

"Hmm," Jiraiya replied while rubbing his chin, "That does sound like some good advice. If you really followed it. I suppose it's possible, let's discuss it over dinner."


The hearty laugh of the Hokage echoed through Ichiraku Ramen, "I can't tell you how much I've missed this Naruto, being Hokage really takes up all your time,"

"Well you've done a good job of keeping us busy too," Naruto replied.

"There's a lot to do, the village won't just repair itself. What are you complaining about anyway, you got paid extra for all the shadow clones you had running around here." Jiraiya replied.

"I do remember that day when twenty Narutos helped rebuild the shop next to my family's." Ino said.

"All those clones were really exhausting, I was too tired to have any fun!"

"We were free of Naruto pranks for 6 whole weeks! Konoha will never be in such a time of peace again." Ino joked.

"Say Naruto, you're being paid much more now, especially as a chunin, why don't you move out of that run-down place you're in? I could get you priority on a lot of nice places, especially closer to the shopping district."

"Hmm? Oh, that. No, that's okay, I was thinking to save money for now. My apartment suffered a bit of damage from the invasion, the landlord finally got off his ass and renovated the place, so it's not so bad."

"How responsible of you Naruto," Ino quipped.

"What makes you think I can't be responsible Ms. 'Oops I forgot we had an A-rank mission today and slept-in'?"

"That's the only time that ever happened." she said flustered.

"Twice in a row?" Naruto pressed.

"Like I said. . ." Ino replied, caught off guard by Naruto teasing her back for once.

Jiraiya leaned down and held his hand to cover his mouth from Ino's eyes and ears, "No seriously Naruto, I can get you a place right across from her shop. She'll be able to come over whenever you want." he said slyly.

"Stop being a pervert," Naruto replied curtly.

"Who's being a pervert?" Ino asked.

"The pervert, obviously," Naruto replied.

"You know we charge perverts extra right," came the voice of a young woman handing them their ramen.

"Ayame! That's the Hokage!" replied Ichiraku, but she completely ignored him as she high-fived Naruto.

"You're getting too confident dragging my name through the mud brat," Jiraiya said to Naruto, "I might have to assign you a mission far far away."

Before Naruto could respond, the heavy, drunk footsteps of a woman loudly stumbled their way onto the other end of the stand, "I'll have one miso ramen," she said before her head collapsed into her arms and she began to snore.

"She comes and goes as she pleases, I'll just become like her," Naruto replied, but Jiraiya didn't take his joke in jest and his face contorted into one of frustration.

"Tsunade," Jiraiya called out.

". . ."

"Tsunade," he said a little louder.

". . ."

"One hundred and-" but before he could finish she had pounced from her seat, and grabbed him by the throat, ready to punch.

"Don't you dare finish that," she threatened.

Jiraiya barely had enough time to signal his ANBU guard to not attack her, "Oh there you are, I thought you'd left already, maybe you're still curious about some things."

Naruto's mouth nearly opened to say something, but he stopped himself.

Her glare had a level of hatred that was extreme to give a former teammate, "Don't flatter yourself Jiraiya, I don't give a damn if he's like my brother, or like Dan, we both know how that turned out. He's your mess to clean up, I don't want to be involved in it."

"That's not what it looked like from my vantage point,"

Tsunade said nothing, let him go and turned back towards her seat. Before passing Ino and Naruto she stopped and spoke, "You're young, you want to be great shinobi. My advice: don't. It brings you nothing but pain and suffering. Even more if you try to fix it all, that's nothing but a fool's errand. Even if you survive it all, don't expect your dreams to be intact, let alone your bonds with each other."

Naruto again tried to say something, but Jiraiya's firm hand held his arm. Don't retaliate, was the silent message the Hokage's face communicated to him.

"I'll have that to-go," she said, dropping some money on the table.

"Of course Lady Tsunade."

The awkward air didn't fully dissipate, and the trio ate with few words being exchanged. Nearly finished with their meal, Ino took out her purse and paid for her and Naruto's bowls.

"Oi Naruto, don't make a lady pay for your meal, you should know better than that, am I going to have to teach you to be a gentleman?" Jiriaya said.

"It's okay Lord Hokage, don't dig into Naruto too much. I actually bet Naruto he couldn't pop the balloon."

"Hmm, a subtle way to reinforce the 'Naruto popped the balloon' lie, you two might make decent shinobi after all."

"Pervy-sage!"

"I'm just messing with you," he chuckled, "Speaking of which, now I'll give you what you need for the next step."

Naruto and Ino watched as he dug into his shirt and materialized a rubber ball.

"No way not this again!" Naruto pouted.

"Now that you can properly create spin, it's time to build up power. The next step is to pop this rubber ball."

Naruto took the ball from Jiraiya. After giving it a light squeeze he noted it was rather dense, and it would probably not bounce too high. Impulsively, he attempted to pop it. Even just a half hour after popping the water balloon, Naruto could feel how easy the chakra manipulation came to him. However, his victory was short lived as he realized the rubber ball continued to sit motionlessly in his hands. Even after flooding chakra to his hand he could not change the form of the ball in any way.

"Not so easy is it? With most jutsu, you mold chakra inside your body, and then release it all in some way. This jutsu is incredibly chakra-dense, combined with the fact that you mold the chakra outside of your body, well basically this step is going to force you to push far more chakra out of your body, far more quickly."

"I feel like my arm is going to fall off already."

"Don't worry then, it should only take a week to pop it,"

Naruto passed out on the ramen stand.