Jiraiya arrived without any of the dramatics Kakashi knew he was capable of which Kakashi appreciated. For the time being he was assisting in training Naruto, but Naruto was not his student. Maybe it was in some slight way possessive or childish, but Naruto was under Kakashi's wing so Jiraiya had to accept his role as assistant for the time being. "Alright Naruto, I explained the issue with the seal Orochimaru placed on you and Jiraiya's willing to take a look at it. He's a talented ninja and is far closer to Orochimaru's age than either of us so the technique may be less foreign to him. Take your shirt off and let him take a look."
Jiraiya glanced for only a few seconds and said, "I guess you're pretty lucky I'm here, there's not many people who could remove this. My teammates and teacher are the only ones I personally know of who could," He placed his hands over the marks and focused for a moment.
Kakashi knew exactly which few people Jiraiya was referring to, the three Sannin and the Hokage could remove the seal, at least right now. If Kakashi devoted time to studying it eventually he believed he'd be able to help Naruto, but the jutsu wasn't anything he recognized offhand so he'd have to spend time developing a new jutsu. Kakashi made sure to keep his sharingan active as Jiraiya removed the seal, Kakashi planned to learn a bit from these lessons as well. He had no problem admitting the Sannin had many years of experience he could benefit from and getting a direct show could be useful.
Naruto stumbled and crashed to the grassy ground after receiving a direct chakra strike from Jiraiya, but immediately he indicated his flow of chakra felt much better. Having solved one problem Naruto was set on jumping to the next stage, actual training. "So what're we doing, Kakashi-sensei and what should I call you." Naruto looked very impressed by the man.
The look slightly faded when Jiraiya decided to play up his persona, "I'm glad you asked, I'm the Hermit of Mt. Mayuboku the wise and immortal spirit that's right it is I, The Toad Mountain Sage."
"Toad Sage?" Naruto asked loudly in Kakashi's direction sounding a bit skeptical of Jiraiya's performance.
"Yes, anyway we'll be practicing wind style which as you know I haven't mastered, Jiraiya here has so I'll let him take over. If you need me for anything I'll be nearby so just call out, if I feel the need to I'll jump in so don't be concerned I'll keep an eye on you," Kakashi said stepping back allowing Jiraiya to take the lead.
"So, what've you been doing to train in wind style?" Jiraiya asked already having been briefed somewhat by Kakashi.
"I've been cutting leaves every night and trying to meditate with the element while a shadow clone does my assigned reading," Naruto happily reported. Kakashi nodded in approval, using shadow clones was certainly useful for studying or gathering information, but actual technical training needed to be done in the physical body. Hand to hand combat with a shadow clone did speed up training in Kakashi's opinion because it could view in real time any mistakes you were making, but repeated chakra elemental training wasn't something that should be split into multiple pieces especially with someone like Naruto who could conceivably do it a hundred times.
Although having clones did aid Kakashi in learning and he certainly did have his own set of tricks there was no way to fast track certain things to the point where time could be entirely rewritten. So he taught Naruto what to do and in order to curb the boy's natural desire to clone himself dozens of times and start doing everything under the sun they ran a test together.
Kakashi wrote down words on fifty sheets of paper and had Naruto make an equal number of clones, the clones read the papers and when they were dispelled Naruto was hit with a rush of information and couldn't correctly remember everything. Kakashi used this as reasoning that his mind wasn't able to handle the influx of information that a large group of clones would provide if they were created at once. Kakashi instructed Naruto only to make enough clones to help with his assigned work, which should never be more than one or two per night, he should wait until he was older to end up like Kakashi with clones constantly spread across the village dealing with everything. Battle situations were obviously different, but Naruto of course knew that by now.
Nowadays Kakashi was thankful he could produce enough clones to watch each of his genin and thanks to bringing in other teachers he didn't needlessly exhaust him. Speaking of, he turned his attention back to Jiraiya who was nodding and telling Naruto about the step they were going to take beyond leaf cutting.
"Wind manipulation is the next step, I'll create a breeze with my chakra and I want you to guide it with your own to my clone," he turned and yelled towards the tree-line, "Kakashi you're free to join doing this with another person would actually be nice." Kakashi stepped out happy for the instruction and to help. He could guess what the idea was and as Jiraiya explained he realized he was right.
Naruto listened in rapture to this newest exercise this Toad Sage guy was going to send off a gust of wind to Kakashi, it was visible by the fact that it carried a few leaves, who would try to guide it a clone of Jiraiya which would pass it to Naruto and then it was his job to send it back original Jiraiya. This seemed like a bit of a jump from what he'd originally been doing with leaves, but if the wind was chakra infused then it would be much easier to manipulate and since it'd already be in motion he was just making sure it went in the right direction. Kakashi seemed confident and he had the same amount of experience as Naruto, plus this was his weakest element so that made Naruto feel a bit better even if he knew Kakashi had far more experience using chakra in general.
A quick set of seals and suddenly he could see Kakashi's hair being blown by a breeze, he watched as Kakashi moved as if he was doing a kata and fluidly guiding the wind directly to Jiriaya's clone who barely flinched before passing it along. As it arrived Naruto immediately knew he was doing something wrong because he felt his chakra collide with something and he couldn't quite mesh with it he just smashed it forward.
Essentially sending it flying at Kakashi, thankfully the older ninja seemed to recognize something going on and was able to rotate his body as the blast of wind reached him and sent it back on course to Jiraiya's clone who allowed it to pass and fade off.
"So, Naruto what went wrong?" Jiraiya asked clearly aiming to go for the root of the problem before attempting to try again.
"When I tried to guide the wind I just slammed it," Naruto tried not to complain, "I couldn't grab onto it."
"You aren't necessarily trying to grab onto it, it's already in motion provide the wind chakra and just keep it moving. Don't hold or press on anything, chakra infused wind is much heavier and more solid than normal air so you can't push it. You saw Kakashi moved his body, essentially guiding his chakra try doing the same for now," Jiraiya offered his explanation.
Naruto nodded before watching as the exercise began again, this time as the wind approached he was a bit more ready. He tried to feel for it and just move along allowing it to pass with him directing it, he failed, but it seemed better than his first attempt.
They continued to repeat the process altering how the speed, the size of the circle, adding more clones of Jiraiya and Kakashi simply trying to let Naruto get a feel for moving the wind.
Eventually it seemed either Jiraiya was content or gave up and decided that they were done with that, "Alright we're going to try something else now, create a few shadow clones and line them up behind you."
Naruto followed the order after a quick nod from Kakashi and suddenly four shadow clones were standing behind Naruto. "Do your best to summon wind with the first clone and reinforce it with the second, third, fourth, and finally you will build that up before releasing it."
They continued doing similar exercises for the next few days interspersed with speed training and taijutsu focused on dodging. On the way home after a few days of training he ran into Sakura buying some flowers. "Hi Sakura, who are the flowers for?"
"I'm visiting Hinata, I tried visiting a few days ago and she was sleeping so I'm going to drop by again, you should come," Sakura suggested. Naruto simply cocked his head slightly confused, I don't really know her that well.
"You basically declared, you were going to defeat her cousin on her behalf. That's a lot weirder than two friends visiting a former classmate," Sakura pointed out.
"Huh," Naruto considered her point.
"I'm going either way, do you want to tag along or not?" Sakura started walking and Naruto easily fell in step with her answering the question without really needing to speak.
Sakura decided Naruto really should visit Hinata considering his declaration at the last battle, it may not have literally been a true decision to fight on her behalf, but he should still speak to her. Considering the obvious crush she had, Sakura was sure the girl would appreciate it though it may go right over Naruto's head. He'd seemed to have gotten more focused, and may not be as dumb as people assume, but she knew certain things just didn't register to him. A girls crush would be one of those things he didn't notice or at least didn't understand.
She led him right up to the room where she knew Hinata was staying and saw her sensei leaving. She greeted them as the two genin approached, "Hello Sakura," she said with a warm smile, "and Naruto," she sounded much more surprised at Naruto's attendance, but thankfully there was no negativity in her tone. "Hinata's awake and feeling good, I'm sure she'll be happy to see you both," she gestured for the two to enter the still open door.
The shades weren't drawn around her bed so only a few steps in let her see Sakura who immediately greeted her, "Hi, Hinata I brought some more flowers I wanted to check on you."
"You're so sweet Sakura," Hinata smiled taking the purple bouquet from her arms, "I'm feeling much better, the doctors said I can probably leave in the next few days, but I'll have to keep coming back for check ups twice a week for about a month and I can't use my chakra or do much exercise. Still I'm happy that I came out of it healthy and I'll be okay in the long run.
Sakura was of course happy for her, but it did remind her of her pain for Lee who she knew was having a hard time and didn't want her seeing him, at least for a little while, now that he may have lifetime issues.
Of course Naruto followed her in a moment later before she could begin a real conversation and Hinata froze up and started to go pink when he greeted her, "Hey Hinata, what's up? It's good you're feeling better."
Hinata just nodded and her pink coloring started to turn red, which Naruto misread. Sakura would find out later he thought Hinata picked up a disease of some sort.
Naruto watched Hinata freeze up and start changing colors and he got the feeling that maybe she wasn't feeling that much better. "Um, I hope you enjoyed the flowers that we brought Sakura picked them out for you. Good luck on getting out of here." He retreated because he needed to train and he didn't need to catch any sort of sickness. He gave her a wave a goodbye and she stared at her hands as she squeaked out a goodbye.
Sakura decided to remain behind a bit longer and he could have sworn he heard the beginnings of a laugh in her voice, though he wrote it off immediately.
He decided to do some research at the library and go work out for a bit before ending his day. Depending on how long training went on it allowed him time to study and work out or train independently which he took advantage of.
The librarian initially wasn't a fan of him, based on his reputation as a troublemaker and the whole stolen scroll event, but she warmed up to him as Naruto kept coming back. So he felt comfortable coming in and greeting her before wandering off to find the books for his purpose: Genjutsu blocking. Sakura was developing her genjutsu skills and he Kakashi said the Sharingan had genjutsu capabilities even if that wasn't what Sasuke was currently focusing on.
He had some thoughts to explore, but they were still just thoughts for the time being not battle applicable. He flipped through a book on visual genjutsu seeing if there was a way to block it aside from literally preventing eye contact. He may not fight anyone else with the Sharingan, but he was sure there were other ocular genjutsu if he could find a stop gap protection or a full shield with Kakashi's help that'd be ideal.
"Naruto I'll teach you two final wind jutsu, then according to Kakashi you'll have finished your training with me. I'll still be around the village and I have an offer I'd like to make after Kakashi finishes his training regimen." Naruto listened with interest the Toad Sage was a good teacher and Kakashi seemed to respect him though Naruto could sense some tension between the two. He'd certainly like to at least hear the offer after training was done.
He made sure to glance at Kakashi who nodded and answered, "Sure, Toad Sage, I'll hear you out." Following that he asked "What jutsu are you teaching me anyway?"
"A defensive jutsu, the Four Point Wind Shield and an offensive technique that utilizes the defensive jutsu, the Wind Strike Jutsu. You'll be creating four clones who create a cyclone to shield you and you'll be able to launch blasts of high speed wind from the cyclone at your opponent. It's simple and effective, no taijutsu or weapons will be able to reach you so Neji will be stuck outside and you can launch blasts of wind."
Naruto was at a point where he didn't require anyone else to form wind for him so with four clones all doing the same thing he could get a cyclone moving pretty quickly with a bit of chakra.
Half of their training was with cyclones so this wasn't a huge a development nor where the wind strikes where he was essentially doing chakra enhanced punches and kicks focusing on wind chakra. It carried the wind and caused damage wherever it went, Naruto was able to pick it up all in less than a week of frenzied training.
All of this meant he had about two weeks left after his time with the time Toad Sage, now he needed to see if there was anything Kakashi had for him to do.
Kakashi popped in front of him and answered his mental question, "We will be having one other helper who you actually already know. Though she won't be doing any actual fighting. She's just here for the rest of the day to provide some information for you so make sure to give her your thanks at the end of training."
Naruto was surprised when he saw Hinata walking towards them alongside what he assumed was a clone of Kakashi, he had no way of knowing who had the real Kakashi at any given time. "Hinata can't use chakraa or really fight, but she can walk you through her clan's fighting style which is what we'll be doing for a little while."
The clone disappeared and the Kakashi that had been with Naruto the whole time spoke up, "Hinata if you're feeling tired or unwell at any point just let me know and we can put it this all on pause. You're doing us a favor we don't want to put your health at risk."
"I'm feeling good today, Kakashi-sensei and light exercise is actually a suggestion as long as I don't push myself," Hinata answered not looking directly at Naruto.
"Perfect," Kakashi replied, "Can you just go through some of the basic katas of your clan in slow motion to give Naruto an idea of the fighting style to expect as well as explain a bit about the Byakugan and Gentle Fist. If there's anything you can't say due to your clan that's fine it's just a basic idea so Naruto knows what he's going into. He watched the battle between you and Neji already, but having a bit more of an explanation could be helpful and seeing its application up close as well."
Naruto listened as Hinata explained chakra pathway system even more specifically the 381 tenketsu along it, and the Byakugan's ability to see them, unfortunately she was unable to show him an example. She did however show him an example of how the Hyuuga strike those tenketsu which he recognized from the fight.
"Alright Hinata, thanks for all your help make sure you get some rest," Kakashi stepped in and Naruto noticed the girl despite doing very little seemed quite tired out. "When Naruto wins, he'll make sure to dedicate it to you right?" He asked Naruto.
"Sure, thing" Naruto answered flashing a thumbs up at Hinata who quickly looked down and was nodded before being led away by a clone, "You know Hinata, I always thought you were a little odd, but thanks for all the help I definitely like you now."
Kakashi made a weird coughing sound before choking out, "What a charmer."
"Alright, Naruto will finish practicing and I'll buy you some food so you can eat and rest before making the walk home because you seem tired out," the clone led Hinata off.
Naruto turned back to the main Kakashi, "I'll come at you with some of those techniques, I can see chakra with my Sharingan, but its nothing like the Byakugan. However, I do know where the chakra system is in general so I'll just target that with no chakra in my strikes and you fight against me."
They spent the rest of the day training before Kakashi called it quits and said, "I know Jiraiya, the Toad Sage, said he had an offer for you. I felt you needed to learn wind style and when I heard you met with Hinata and later learned she was well enough to go home a few days ago I decided to include her in your training. Other than that I promised to leave your training choices up to you, if you want to accept whatever the Toad Sage offers that's up to you, or you can come to me and I promised to teach you whatever you wanted until the month ends. My only requirement is if you accept an offer from him or anyone else, you need to let me know and you need to keep up with your fitness regimen.
"I promise, sensei," Naruto promised immediately. Then he turned and set off to find the Toad sage and the clone disappeared.
Regardless of Naruto's response Kakashi had already spoken to Jiraiya and knew exactly what he was going to offer they had discussed it. Jiraiya wanted to discuss summoning with Naruto which Kakashi supported, though he'd personally suggest it later after the exams. However he didn't know if Jiraiya would be around if they were to wait. The man had a record of not putting down roots for long and they could only really confirm Orochimaru would stay until the end of the exams which meant they could only confirm Jiraiya would be in the village as long.
As long as Naruto was able to sign the contract and be accepted by the toads then Kakashi could help him with any difficulties with the summoning process in the future so even if they didn't perfect things it came down to Naruto's will to take the contract. Personally, it was the same contract his father had so it would be the one Kakashi would recommend because above all else Kakashi was sentimental.
Kakashi couldn't allow him into the Hatake summoning contract unless he was legitimately adopted into the clan, the summons would reject him on principle and Kakashi didn't want him to write away his family for the sake of fitting into a clan. Kakashi's own dogs would only serve him personally so he couldn't even bypass that and just have them sign a contract with Naruto anyway. Even if he wanted to have Naruto sign a contract with his hounds it didn't make sense, his fighting style would be the least compatible in the long run of his genin.
He was unsurprised to soon hear from Naruto about an offer to teach summoning which Kakashi didn't stop. This would be, if nothing else a way to improve his chakea control. Jiraiya also wanted to use it as a way to teach Naruto to utilize the nine-tails chakra, which was not something Kakashi was a huge fan of, he wanted to keep the nine-tails bound tight. However, if Jiraiya thought he could handle it then Kakashi wouldn't stop him because the nine-tails was a burden that Naruto would deal with his entire life, if there were ways to make it simpler then Kakashi didn't want to stop that.
He decided he'd discuss summoning as an option for the other two after the exams were over, he could prettily easily find a ninja with the type of summons that might suit them. He'd been on more than enough missions for people to owe him favors especially among the anbu, though he'd just introduce them as a well meaning ninja if he ever wanted them to help out.
Naruto had been excited to learn the summoning jutsu until he actually started doing it and found it was pretty awful. Naruto and his team, Kakashi included were the only ones who knew about his secondary chakra apparently Kakashi discussed it with him when they spoke about removing the seal because the two were related. So the Toad Sage was trying to force him to use that chakra which meant before they started training he needed to exhaust his normal chakra as much as possible.
Generally by dividing into as many clones as possible and having them each waste some chakra when they all disappeared the real Naruto left over had barely any chakra to work with. So all he could create were tadpoles and not quite frogs, which didn't seem to impress the Sage who spent half the time watching girls. He seemed sure if Naruto could crack the code and get to the secondary "red" chakra that'd be the answer, but that didn't seem to be coming.
It had been five days, he counted every singe one, and there was very little happening. "Do you have another step?" He asked annoyed. "Nothing is happening, I'm still just stuck in place here."
"And whose fault is that?" The Sage shot back, "It's been five days and you've only summoned a tadpole."
"I've summoned more than a tadpole," Naruto said a touch defensively, "besides there has to be something else we can try."
"Alright," The Toad Sage said, "Do you have your affairs in order? Is there anything you need to do?"
"I just need to train," Naruto responded not quite understanding what he was getting at.
"Perfect," Jiraiya said with a smile that made Naruto think he walked into something and when he was smashed in the stomach he realized he definitely did. He came back to himself near the edge of a cliff which he was promptly tossed off. He thought he was going to die for a moment where he seemed to hang in the air before he hear a familiar voice call out a jutsu and he found himself safely sitting on a stone and shot out of the cliff.
He'd probably have a little bruise, but he'd certainly be no worse for the wear thanks to Kakashi who came out looking slightly manic. Naruto couldn't hear their words, but he saw Kakashi's arm light up with lighting and though he made no move he did point directly at the Toad Sage who a bit more conversation left.
Kakashi's lightning blade faded away, but Naruto could see him gripping his head as he seemed to talk to himself he caught him say something that sounded like his name -to so he answered, "Thanks for saving me Kakashi-sensei."
Kakashi calmed down unnaturally quickly, "Sure anything for one of my cute genin, now I think I'll take over teaching you summoning for a little while now that the conract is set up. If the two of us can make some progress he can introduce you to some of the frogs, but you two don't seem to be moving too quickly in the summoning process and I think its because he's too focused on your chakra rather than just the summoning. We've already worked on standard chakra control so if we practice while you aren't exhausted of chakra I think we'll be able to make headway and then he'll be able to make the next step."
"Were you watching us the whole time?" Naruto asked because Kakashi had a very clear grasp on what was happening with his training without needing to ask and he was ready to jump in to save him immediately.
"So go get something to eat, do your physical work out and then rest to build your chakra back up for tomorrow," he tossed Naruto a bit of money to get the food. "Our training starts then, alright?" Kakashi asked.
"Alright," Naruto nodded in affirmation. "Um, Kakashi-sensei are you alright?" he asked having see him extremely upset not long before and then flipping a switch.
"Of course," Kakashi answered in his easy going manner turning and walking off before waving over his shoulder.
As Kakashi stood in front of Rin's grave he knew he was an absolute mess. He just threatened to kill a second Sannin, this one wasn't even a traitor, and he nearly had a breakdown seeing his student get thrown over a cliff. He hated that Naruto saw him in that state, but he didn't think Naruto heard him accidentally call him Obito. Kakashi knew he was constantly seeing his old teammates in his new genin and it was probably sick in some way.
Still he cared about them as the people they were and seeing Naruto being put in danger enraged him regardless of the trauma he had. He knew ninja constantly were put in danger and did dangerous training, but he wanted Jiraiya to take a few days off and the fact that they were making no progress was a pretty good excuse. Naruto, who was just thrown off a cliff, wasn't complaining about the change.
So the next day he met with Naruto and instead of exhausting his chakra and trying to draw out the Kyuubi's chakra, they were just going to focus on summoning. "So can you show me roughly how much chakra you were using when you were summoning tadpoles and armless frogs?"
Naruto drew the chakra and summoned a tadpole he looked like he was about to say something, but Kakashi held up a hand to pause him. He uncovered his Sharingan which could help him with this next section.
"Alright, focus all that chakra in one hand," he waited while the chakra pooled in Naruto's right hand, "now I want you to summon an equal amount of chakra to your left hand and use the jutsu. What appeared this time was a tiny, but fully formed frog from there the plan was to repeat the steps track how much chakra it took to bring out the previous summon, Naruto by feeling and Kakashi by using his Sharingan, and then doubling it by having Naruto focus it entirely in one hand and then reproducing it in the other.
Whenever his control broke he moved to the previous summoning step which just worked for training, the three genin were all pretty good at remembering how much chakra a jutsu took to create once they were able to achieve it so this was simply climbing steps to see where the intelligent frogs came in or the powerful ones at least. As he was saying that a frog popped out that was able to speak. "Who're you guys?" he asked.
"I summoned you," Naruto answered, "that Toad Sage said he'd help me out, but my teacher had to help me." Obviously the frog had no idea what Naruto was speaking about because he just looked confused, or as confused as a frog could look.
Kakashi attempted to shed light on the situation, "Jiraiya helped Naruto here sign a contract with the frogs at Mount Myoboku. He was working to summon a frog and summoned you. I'm his sensei, Kakashi. Jiraiya isn't with us right now so I'm sorry, but hopefully there will be no issues with you and Naruto working together going forward."
"Hmm, well I think you'll have more trouble dealing with my father. I'm Gamakichi, my father is the chief, I'll see you around Naruto, next time bring snacks," Gamakichi said before dissappearing in a puff.
"Do you want to go back to Jiraiya for some more summoning training for the rest of the time before exams? I've done what I can until you've been introduced to more toads unless you rather train?" Kakashi left it open for Naruto to choose.
"I think I'll just pick some things to train until exam time, I have the basics of summoning down and it doesn't seem like its going hard to finish the training later," Naruto replied with a shrug.
"It's your choice, but don't assume its simple to learn summoning because you've started to get it. However I do agree that might not be the best focus for your exam," Kakashi turned to his student and asked, "so what is your choice, what do you want to learn for the time being?"
Naruto just smiled and said, "I have some ideas."
A/N
So this is the final training chapter and now we can finally get into the exams. Obviously since Ebisu wasn't around Jiraiya was involved from the start with Kakashi's oversight and summoning was only a partial focus (in the anime/manga that was the main focus of jiraiya's training to force Naruto to learn to control the nine-tails chakra) this time it was first focused on Wind style.
I let him and Hinata form the beginnings of a friendship because I wanted there to be some basis for them actually knowing each other in case I decide to follow down that romantic route and if not its simply another layer to the story and something I wanted to include anyway about him being trained by the person who Neji beat.
I also wanted to have Kakashi kind of freak out a bit when he saw Jiraiya attempting to force Naruto to activate his nine-tails chakra, because he's still traumatized.
Anyway I hope you all enjoyed it.