I do not own Naruto

The next day, Akimichi's BBQ

Team 7 was sitting at a restaurant table. The three genin had spent the whole morning drawing up seal matrixes for basic storage seals. Despite Naruto's eagerness to learn what was supposed to be his clan's specialty, he failed to grasp the logic behind the whole process. He was surprisingly good at drawing seals, to the point that he might be considered a natural genius, but the lack of understanding behind the concept held him back massively. Sakura and Sasuke had the exact opposite problem, understanding the theory (or at least, the simplified version that Risu-sensei taught them) but failing to properly translate it into practice. Despite their shortcomings, however, Risu was very satisfied with their progress, claiming that if the three could put their heads together they would be able to complete their first seal before the evening, as opposed to the end of the week like he initially expected.

Now, the three were sitting, fingers blackened with blood-tinged fuinjutsu ink that somehow ended up leaving black stripes on Naruto's face and hair.

"Hey guys! What are you doing here?" shouted Kiba, approaching team 7 while sniffing the air "and why do you smell like ink and blood?"

"Hey Kiba! Risu-sensei has been teaching us sealing all morning!"

"H-hello, Naruto-kun. H-hello Risu-san." stuttered Hinata

Shino nodded at Sasuke in acknowledgement

"Nice to meet you, team 7. I'm Yuhi Kurenai, the sensei of team 8"

"Glad you could make it, team 8. Have a seat."

"Naruto-san, you have ink on your hair."

"You should have seen what he looked like before we left sensei's house" pointed out Sasuke

"Hard to believe that the one with the best penmanship is also the one to spray ink everywhere" jabbed Sakura

"C'mon! I wasn't that bad!" protested Naruto

"There's ink on my ceiling, Naruto" calmly replied Risu-sensei

In response Naruto huffed, crossing his arms to the amusement of the others

"K-Kurenai-sensei, why are we eating w-with team 7? N-not that I mind, o-of course, I-I don't want a-anyone to t-think I meant any o-offense"

"Do not worry, Hinata-sama" interjected Risu, smiled at the girl "no offense taken"

"During yesterday's sensei meeting Risu-san pointed out that the academy left out a few important lessons that he has graciously agreed to teach you. Which means, this afternoon I'll be taking over team 7's training while Risu-san tries to fill in all the knowledge gaps.

"Are we doing sealing?" asked Kiba, clearly not looking forward to it

"If the time allows for it. Got a few history lessons to get to first, then I'll explain some fuinjutsu theory. You'll only play with ink if we have time left." replied Risu, sipping on his tea

Kiba frowned

"Kurenai-san, what are you teaching us?" asked Sakura

"I'll get you started on genjutsu. I'm sure you'll find it interesting" smiled Kurenai

"Naruto, I should warn you: you probably won't be able to cast genjutsu any time soon, if at all. You have too much chakra for it"

"Uh? How much chakra does he have?" asked Kiba, confused

"About five times more than everyone else at this table combined" replied Risu

"WHAT?!" shouted the boy "How is that even possible?!"

Risu shrugged, ignoring Kurenai's concerned glare "He's an Uzumaki. Stupidly massive chakra reserves are their clan trait."

"I was not aware of the fact Naruto-san was part of a clan" commented Shino, raising an eyebrow

"And that's exactly why you three need that crash course in history" commented Risu "But first, lunch"

Later, Team 8's training ground

"Ok, team 7, it's time to start training. What do you know about genjutsu?"

"Genjutsu use chakra to alter the target's perception, creating illusions by altering the chakra flow in their brain" recited Sakura

"Close. That explanation is only applicable to targeted genjutsu, it does not include all genjutsu. A handful of genjutsu, such as the Henge and the Bunshin, fall under the category of projected image genjutsu, which create a thin veil of chakra that, unlike targeted genjutsu, has the potential to affect multiple enemies at the same time. Yes, Naruto?"

"Sensei, what do you mean that the Henge is a genjutsu? I thought it was ninjutsu"

"Naruto, ninjutsu creates solid objects. When you henge into someone taller you don't actually become taller" explained Sakura

"Uh? But when I use it I change! When I use my Sexy no jutsu I have boobs!"

Sakura twitched in irritation, punching Naruto over the head "Baka! You shouldn't use that technique!"

"Sakura, please calm down. However, Naruto…" Kurenai smiled at the boy, in a smile far too sweet to be anything good. "... if I ever see you using that jutsu of yours I'll castrate you."

Naruto gulped, nodding nervously at the kunoichi

"The reason your Henge is physical is because you overcharge it. A normal Henge has a chakra veil too thin to be able to affect anything. However, if you overcharge the jutsu, which is a technique called Genjutsu Manifestation, the chakra veil becomes much thicker and has the potential to interact with the environment. The fact that you thought your Henge was completely physical tells me you have put almost 200 times more chakra than you had to."

Naruto scratched his head sheepishly. Sasuke frowned, deep in thought. So, overcharging a Henge can make the change physical?

"Kurenai-sensei, using Genjutsu Manifestation I could potentially use it to grow an extra arm?" asked Sasuke

"Theoretically yes. The problem is, chakra veils require constant concentration to be maintained and are very susceptible to disruption, regardless of how thick they are. Your third arm will be dispelled as soon as you take a hit of when an enemy's chakra comes in contact with it. It's possible to make use of it, but chances are that the third arm would simply dispel before it can land a punch, and even if by some miracle it does land a punch, it wouldn't do any damage. I wouldn't recommend it."

Sasuke frowned, but nodded

"Wait, so if I use it on a firecracker to turn it into an apple and toss it to someone, does it turn back into a firecracker as soon as they touch it?" asked Naruto, already planning his next prank

Kurenai blinked, not expecting such a comment from the blonde.

"Very good, Naruto. That is, in fact, the main combat application of chakra veils. You don't have to overcharge them, but Genjutsu Manifestation can certainly help you sell the illusion better. You just have to keep in mind that, despite how solid they might look, they are still incredibly fragile. It's best to act as if all chakra veils genjutsu are simply illusions."

The trio nodded in agreement

"Excellent. So, today I will teach you a chakra veil genjutsu. Even if Naruto has a tendency to vercharge his genjutsus, he should be able to perform this one without major issues. Watch carefully."

Kurenai flashed through hand seals

Shinkiro no jutsu

Kurenai disappeared into a swirl of pink leaves, before her voice echoed over the training ground

"This chakra veil envelops your body to hide you from sight. It only works if you are standing still and does not prevent you from being discovered by sound, smell or even by others simply bumping into you. If there is a chakra sensor nearby, this veil will appear to them as a beacon, to the point that it will be almost impossible for them not to notice your presence. Using even simple jutsus within two meters will cause the veil to shimmer and possibly dispel completely, depending on your ability to maintain concentration."

Kurenai reappeared. "Now, let me show you the hand signs"

Later, training ground 8

"Thank you for teaching my team, Kurenai-san." said Risu with a bow

"It was a pleasure. Thank you for taking care of my team"

"The pleasure was mine, Kurenai-san. While Kiba-kun has shown no talent whatsoever for fuinjutsu, Shino-kun and Hinata-sama have shown some interest in the subject. Perhaps I could prepare some reading material for them?"

"That would be most appreciated. I must say, Sakura has demonstrated great aptitude for genjutsu and Sasuke has shown interest, although he seems more focused on learning how to counter genjutsu than learning how to use them. I know it's not exactly your specialty, but I hope you'll be able to encourage them towards this path."

"I certainly will make sure they master what you taught them today. I'll do my best to guide them toward the best path, regardless of whether I travel on said path myself."

The two jonin exchanged greeting, before Kurenai left the training area

Risu stood there for a few seconds, before turning around, Byakugan activated

"You three know that I can see you, right?"

Team 7 appeared in the middle of the field

"Man, I thought for sure we could catch you off guard." pouted Naruto

"Tough luck. I might not be a sensor, but I spent years behind enemy lines. If you were able to trick me with a simple genjutsu, I would have died decades ago."

"On that note… sensei, how did you hide your eyes? They must have drawn lots of attention." asked Sasuke

"Contacts. I have an entire scroll filled with nothing but fake green eye contact lenses."

Sasuke nodded. It made sense. Could that be useful in combat? No, probably not.

"Anyway, congratulations on learning your new genjutsu, Sakura. Being able to master a new technique so quickly and with enough proficiency to hide your teammates as well as yourself is very impressive"

The kunoichi smiled and bowed "Thank you sensei"

"Well, the three of you are free to go. Tomorrow morning we'll continue our fuinjutsu lessons and in the afternoon we'll have another sensei exchange with team 10."

The following afternoon, Team 10 training ground

"Hello kids. I'm Sarutobi Asuma and your sensei asked me to teach you kenjutsu and Chakra Nagashi. I've been told each of you has a weapon, correct?"

Naruto smiled, pulling out the sealing scroll he completed that morning, unsealing everyone's weapons.

Asuma smiled while looking at how similar Naruto's daggers were to his own. "Well, it seems like I have an admirer among you youngsters. Glad to be such a role model" he pulled out his trench knives.

"Chakra Nagashi is, in theory, a rather simple technique. You infuse your chakra into an object and that's about it. Is that clear?"

Sasuke looked at Asuma with suspicion. That sounded far too simple, there had to be some sort of catch.

"Easy! I'll show you how it's done!" exclaimed Naruto, forcing his chakra into one of the daggers. After a couple of seconds, he looked at Asuma with a grin on his face.

"Well done. How about we test it out? Throw your dagger at that tree and let's see what happened."

Naruto threw the dagger, which immediately started to spin out of control and missed the tree completely

"As you can see, infusing an object with chakra is a lot more complex than shoving as much chakra as possible into it. The chakra must flow, following the design of the object to assist it in its intended purpose. A koto is meant to play music by plucking at the strings, so the chakra must flow into the strings and make them produce music that is both louder and clearer. Armor is meant to be tough and block strikes, so the chakra must form a barrier that blocks incoming attacks and a dagger is meant to cut, so the chakra must flow into the edge of the weapon to enhance its ability to cut. Now, I know you three don't know any chakra control exercise apart from the leaf sticking one that was taught at the academy, so I don't expect you to learn Chakra Nagashi anytime soon. For the rest of the day, I will teach one of you some kenjutsu kata. While I'm busy with one of you, I want the other two to try the Chakra Nagashi exercise. Before Risu-san gets back, I want to see how far the tree of you have come." He pointed at Naruto "Gaki, you're first. Let me show you how to handle those knives"

Later, team 10 training ground

"I have to say Sakura, I'm impressed." Said Asuma, looking at the kunoichi's yari "You must have near perfect chakra control to learn the basics of this technique so fast. It's a shame you have such small reserves."

"Thanks… sensei" Stammered out Sakura, barely standing on her feet

Sasuke huffed. Back at the academy he was the uncontested best student, but now… He had accepted the fact was better at fuinjutsu and had far more chakra than he had. As sensei had said when Naruto had completed the storage seal, the boy might not have inherited the Uzumaki's red hair, but he certainly inherited everything else the clan had to give. Now, he discovered that Sakura was a natural at genjutsu and had better chakra control than him. Had Mizuki sabotaged the pinkette as well? Or had he received special treatment? The idea made his blood boil. He worked hard to get his position. He had stayed behind practicing shurikenjutsu long after his classmates had gone home, when he finished his physical exercises he kept on going for as long as he could without falling from exhaustion. He poured sweat, blood and tears into his training, and for what? For a prick of a teacher to just hand him top marks regardless of his talent? To disregard all he had strived to be, for all his sacrifices to be blatantly ignored? He focused on his blade once again, pushing his chakra into it, flowing among the edges like Asuma-sensei told him to. To enhance the cut. That was the chakra needed to do, right? To cut. It was just another step toward his revenge. A simple…

"Impressive work, Sasuke."

Risu sensei's voice snapped him out of his concentration.

"I'm fairly sure the exercise didn't involve any nature manipulation, but you did manage to create a few sparks on the blade. Well done."

The Hyuuga smiled at him, and was quickly flanked by Asuma

"Indeed. Impressive work, Sasuke." He then turned to Risu. "How was my team?"

"You certainly have your work cut out for you. Shikamaru wasn't interested in anything as troublesome, his words, as fuinjutsu, while Ino didn't quite catch on to the basic principles. Chouji was very interested when I pointed out that hot food remains hot while sealed in a scroll, but I don't think the boy has the talent for this kind of work. They got the basics down tho, which is the most important thing. Apart from this little hatchling here creating his first sparks, how did my team do?"

"Pretty good. Sasuke was quick on the uptake on the katas that i showed him, while Naruto already has his own… let's say unique combat style"

"Let me guess: all out attack without a care about whether or not he gets hit?"

Asuma sighed "Yeah."

"Seems pretty typical of a wind user"

"Hey! What's that nonsense supposed to mean?"

"All wind users I've met have always had a natural tendency to charge in without a care in the world"

Asuma crossed his arms "That sounds made-up"

Risu shrugged "Believe what you want. Let's just agree to be glad that his shadow clones allow him this tactic to be effective. What about Sakura?"

"The yari suits her pretty well. She's not a natural fighter like the boys, but the reach advantage gives her a measure of security. What surprised me was how quickly she picked up Chakra Nagashi. She might not have that great of a reserve, but her control is pretty excellent. How's her genjutsu?"

"Just as good as her control from what I've seen. I plan to teach them some basic healing jutsu and see how well she picks it up, she certainly has potential as either a genjutsu specialist or an iryonin"

"Good for her. Now, if you don't mind, I have a date and I'd like to look presentable."

"Sure thing, Asuma-san. Say hello to Kurenai-san"

Asuma blushed, before disappearing into a leaf Shunshin

Risu called for the rest of team 7

"Tomorrow we will perform our first mission. While your fuinjutsu training is far from over, Naruto can now make sealing scrolls and for tomorrow's mission that will have to suffice. You can finish your own sealing scrolls in your free time or when we resume fuinjutsu training next week, because tomorrow I want to do something else. Today you have a free evening. Relax, get some rest and we'll meet tomorrow at 8 am in front of the Hokage tower."

And with that, Risu disappeared in a shunshin.

"Hey, Sakura-chan! Do you want to go on a date?" shouted Naruto

"No." said Sakura as she wobbled toward her house, too tired to even ask Sasuke whether he wanted to go out with her or not.

Naruto looked sad, before grabbing one of his daggers and resumed the Chakra Nagashi training. Sasuke smirked, putting his sword away and pulling out his fuinjutsu supply. His Chakra Nagashi, unlike Naruto's, was almost completed. He could finish his training once he had caught up with the blonde's fuinjutsu.

Note

Shinkiro no Jutsu is a genjutsu available to Kurenai in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3. While in the game it doesn't have the same limitations I gave it in the story, I feel like what is essentially invisibility would be a tad too strong if they were allowed to simply walk around with it. Don't worry, there will be another genjutsu that allows ninja to be invisible and still move, but it's going to be much stronger and will require a lot more time to master

The distinction between projected image genjutsu and targeted genjutsu is completely made up, but I feel like the way genjutsu is described in canon REALLY limits what genjutsu can do and is probably a big reason why genjutsu falls out of favor so fast in canon Shippuden

Genjutsu Manifestation is, once again, completely made up

All of the previous point are actually there to justify a pretty major deviation fron canon that seems rather common within the fandom: turning Henge into a genjutsu. Apart from just making sense, having a full transformation is STUPIDLY powerful, especially for something as simple as an academy-level jutsu. While this change removes Naruto's ability to Henge into an object, the addition of Genjutsu Manifestation opens up the potential of Naruto's CLONES to use a manifested Henge to do the same. If I end up giving Naruto this ability, he'll learn it during the three year timeskip before Shippuden, so be patient.

Naruto having insane amounts of chakra is nothing new. Now, Risu wan't being literal when he mentioned the number, mostly because there isn't an actual method of accurately measuring chakra, it's all assumptions and estimation which can be very subjective and should be taken with skepticism, especially if the assumption is made by someone with incomplete knowledge. If there was such a method of accurately, or even somewhat accurately, measuring chakra, we would have seen numbers at some point in canon. We would have seen literal chakra bars over an character's head, but we didn't

Answering PM/Reviews

Naruto's being team leader won't really have any grandiose effect except maybe Naruto having the last say in what they do. Naruto has some natural leadership qualities in canon anyway, him being team leader is mostly there to make those moments a bit more grounded.

Risu's backstory will be explored bit by bit as it becomes relevant, but he is an espionage specialist. No, he doesn't know how to use Juken and is not going to learn it. More information will come when they are relevant and soon you'll probably be able to puzzle together exactly why he is the way that he is

Regarding "A motivated Sensei", let's just say anything except that some IRL stuff made me hesitant to continue the story there and let's leave it at that. I'm not answering any more questions about it