chapter 28 enjoy
Orochimaru, one of the three legendary sannins, sits in one of his many hideouts mulling over the realization his sensei is daring him to attack the village.
He couldn't stop the grin from taking over his face, his right-hand man kabuto was another story.
"Are you sure we should proceed, lord Orochimaru?"
"Are you questioning me, kabuto?"
"No sir it's just since the third Hokage knows we're here, he'll make sure to prepare for a battle!"
"Of course he is, and it will make our victory all the sweeter. Don't you have a meeting to attend, too!"
"My apology for doubting you, lord Orochimaru. I will be back swiftly." And he was off.
"When this is all over, not only will Sasuke be mine but also Z and his magnet release!" He let out a small chuckle.
A lone anbu agent lands on one of the many rooftops of the village, scanning the area before moving on to his following location.
"Hiruzen sure is driving home the point he is not afraid of us," Kabuto said, sitting across from Baki. As they watched the anbu agent leave the area.
"Is the sound village sure they want to go through with the invasion!"
"You're not having second thoughts, are we?"
"suna has no intention of backing out if the sound follows through on their end."
"Good."
"However, we are concerned the Raikage might be there with his son taking part in the exams."
"According to my sources, he is a very busy man. So he won't be able to attend them."
"That's a relief. Many of the sand are sure lord Kazekage can handle the third Hokage, but the raikage even he would think twice before fighting him."
"Lord Orochimaru is pleased the raikage will not be attending. It will make securing him that much sweeter."
"You can't be serious! I can understand Orochimaru wants Sasuke but Z as well!"
"It's not every day a boy of his age has mastery of magnet release."
Baki struggled to find the words to continue as he looked around the room to distract himself.
"Your goal is the leaf village destruction. Securing Sasuke, Z, and anyone else of interest is solely under the responsibility of the sound ninja." Baki let out a sigh of relief.
"Good, but to be clear, we are backing up the sound. If you fail in your mission, we will have no choice but to back off. This is the will of the kazekage."
"Understandable. Here is the plan for you to carry out. But what about our guest, want me to handle him?"
"No, I will as a gesture of faith from the sun!" Kabuto got out of Baki's way.
As soon as he gets outside, he looks at the presence he detected.
He was expecting a Konoha jonin, chunin, or anbu
But instead, he's greeted by what he assumes is a white spider about the side of his hand.
"What in the world is this thing!" The white creature suddenly jumped away from him, wanting to get some distance.
"Oh no, you don't!" With jonin's level speed, he cut off the creature, intending to stop.
Just as he is about to stop this creature, he jumps above him, blowing itself up, leaving zero trace of itself.
"Crap!" the only thing that comes to Baki's mind
In another part of the village, Naruto and his squad, especially Deidara, can only smirk, knowing the uniquely modified art has proved its worth to their arsenal.
They shift their attention to Hiruzen, wanting his input on this development.
"Well, it's nice to see our effort to conceal the Raikage attendance was not in vain."
"Besides having a squad of anbu in close proximity to the kumo genin squad for the remainder of the exam, I'm not sure what else we can do, sir." This time it's tenzo to speak.
"This will have to do for now regarding Z and his squad. More importantly, what the sand ninja said, it gives us a unique position in the coming battle." The look in his eyes told everyone he was thinking about the correct course of action.
"Kistune, do you have anything to add after aiding the suna ninja with their problem genin?"
"Well, it's clear shukaku wants to fight Kurama. Without shukaku backing them up, victory will be difficult for them without an ace up their sleeve compared to our three."
"This will have to do for now. You are all dismissed, but watch your backs at all times." With those words, all anbu present headed off.
Far outside the village in an arid landscape, one of the last of the uchihas his back against rock, needing to catch his breath.
His sensei stands beside him, reading his little orange book, waiting for his student to recover.
He glances at his student, seeing his head down and what looks like anger in his eyes.
He let out a sigh, knowing what was on his mind. He was going over the display Lee did in his fight against gaara.
Add onto the fact Naruto, who by all accounts was the worst student in his class at the time, is a member of Konoha anbu forces.
"Frustrated are we, Sasuke?" He said, not taking his eyes off his little orange book.
Sasuke flinched from his sensei's words. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, calming him a bit.
It's evident to Kakashi Sasuke's mind is muddled and confused about his life goal.
He wants to kill Itachi for murdering their clan but needs power, power he doesn't have.
Kakashi deduced early on that Sasuke could do anything to get power and fast.
But then he saw The strength Naruto and Lee displayed before him. Those two are the antithesis of the natural-born talent Sasuke has.
He just hopes he doesn't give in to the power the curse mark can give him.
Sasuke minds over the curse mark on his body and what Naruto said about relying on it as a weakness.
Seeing the power displayed by Lee during the preliminaries, his previous expression is replaced with resolve.
Sasuke stands before his sensei, doing some stretches to prepare himself.
Kakashi closed his book "Let's Begin."
Before any of them, two weeks of the one-month grace period had come and gone.
In one of the many training fields, Naruto blocks another kick with his arm.
His opponent is his cousin Karin, a friendly spare wanting to see her skill in taijutsu.
Speaking of her taijutsu, he has his work cut out for him. Fortunately, he's in no rush.
They continue sparing for another half hour before stopping. It was clear to Naruto Karin had reached her limit.
"You've reached your limit for the day Karin," this gets a nod from his cousin.
"Time to work on my lighting Nature," he sits down in the lotus position. His fingers interlock as his thumbs are pressed together, forming a small gap between his hands.
Sparks of electricity started forming in the space between his hands. Electricity starts to surround his body.
The one massive bolt of lightning lashed out from him, hitting the ground before moving carving a deep gash in the earth. More bolts formed following the first bolt example.
Karin is in awe seeing the display of power from her cousin. Naruto's head rose, he got to his feet, and all the lightning chakra he built up retreated to his hands.
With a lighting-infused fist, he slashes at some nearby boulders cutting them in half. He got two slashes from each hand before stopping.
"Woah, what jutsu is that?" His cousin asked.
"Not a jutsu,"
"Then what is it?"
"I'm trying to find a way to use my lightning nature without the speed requirement." This gets a look of confusion from the girl. Naruto performs a chidori in his right hand.
"Chakra is normally invisible to the naked eye. For it to be visible," he forms Rasengan in his left hand. "It needs to be used in powerful jutsu. For the Rasengan, it is because of the density that Chidori is a different form. Speaking of Chidori, it requires a high level of speed to perform it." This gets a nod from Karin as he undoes the two high-level Jutsu's
"But I saw you use kunai and shuriken made from your lightning nature?"
"That's because I was standing still when I cast those jutsu. The closest I came was using my nature without speed in my thunder punch only because it uses less chakra than needed to be visible."
"I think I get it now. Can't you ask the kumo ninjas for advice to get around the speed requirement?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Karin can only sweat drops at her cousin's words. "Besides, I doubt they will divulge their secrets to foreign villages, let alone me!" Karin nods at this.
It was then they noticed the sun touching the horizon. They decided to get ichiraku to reward themselves after a long day of training.
The following day Naruto is greeted by pakun, "What does Kakashi senpai need?"
"Kakashi is teaching Sasuke the Chidori. He needs you to help with his speed."
"Fine" he gets his off-duty gear on, grabbing onto Pakun before disappearing in a poof of smoke. When the smoke cleared, they were in the arid landscape far outside the village.
Naruto's eyes land as Kakashi rests against a large rocking outcropping, and Sasuke sits down. There is no doubt Sasuke is resting.
"You need me kakashi senpai?" He said, getting jonin's attention.
"Sauke needs some help with his taijutsu."
"Why would you need me for that?"
"He needs a stand-in. You're about the same size as Rock Lee."
Naruto groans at the memories of learning taijutsu under Gai, and unfortunately for him, he still knows how to do dancing leaf shadow along with the primary lotus.
The time he uses the first gate if he needs to increase his speed.
The last time that happened, he cracked the tree branch he used as a springboard.
After a few minutes of resting, Sasuke got into stance with Sharingan flaring to life
Doing as gai burned into his skull Naruto demonstrates Lee's taijutsu.
They spend the next few hours helping Sasuke master advanced Taijutsu.
They stopped to take another break for Sasuke since he'd never experienced this level of training before.
Sasuke looks toward Naruto and is dumbfounded by his lack of exhaustion.
"Any progress on your lightning Nature Naruto?" Kekashi asked.
"It's hard to maintain my current without increasing my speed."
"Mind showing what you have so far?"
"Ok," he sat down a few meters away from them, going into the lotus position.
Like what he showed his cousin, lightning started to arc from his body, carving away the stone ground around them.
Then all the arcing lightning retreated to his hands and slashed at the rocky terrain, effortlessly cutting away at it before.
Kakashi had a look of indifference at the Naruto display, and Sasuke was wide-eyed.
The two high-ranking ninjas smirked at the look of resolve on Sasuke's face.
"So, any progress on your end, Kakashi senpai?"
Sasuke can only watch as the two trade words when it comes to lightning nature and the challenges they have experienced.
Naruto got into a taijutsu stance once more. Sasuke likewise flared his Sharingan.
Naruto helped train Sasuke for three whole days before Kakashi said he could finish the rest of Sasuke's training himself.
Naruto left him one of his flying Raijin tags, knowing his bad habit of being late.
Once again, Naruto is taking some time to do some solo training. He sits in an empty training field, going into the lotus position. He sitting perfectly still, so much so native birds are within arms reach of him.
Unlike his previous times, he not going to his mindscape, well, not the usual place. He searches deep within himself to the core of his chakra.
Instead of his usual mindscape, he's on an island surrounded by an ocean of chakra. He has to thank his yin-yang training for allowing him to find the source of his chakra.
recalling his earlier conversation with kakashi, he walks to the edge of the island, taking a deep breath.
He puts his hand out, and the ocean of chakra reacts to his will with lightning arcing to his hand once a substantial amount is collected in his hand, forming a perfect sphere.
He holds the ball of lightning with both hands. Taking a deep breath, he lets the lighting strike and course through his body.
At first, he struggles to keep himself still, but with each breath, his body relaxes, getting more and more used to the feeling of his lightning nature.
Eventually, the sphere of lighting disappeared, and he gathered another one repeating the process over and over again.
His mind goes over kakashi words over and over again.
Specifically, the part where his body still needs to get in tune with his lightning nature as Kumo Ninja does.
He did this exercise for over an hour before coming back to reality.
He immediately started building up lightning chakra all over his body before channeling it to his right hand.
Sure enough, chidroi formed in his hand, but something was different about it.
It wasn't its trademark white and blue color. Instead, it was a slight hue of purple.
He shifted his gaze to a nearby boulder. He went on the attack but didn't stop there. He attacked again, shattering boulder after boulder before dragging it along the ground.
To his amazement, the tunnel vision effect of Chidori wasn't nearly as bad as before.
As he gazed at the new lightning color, he remembered Darui uses black lightning. his ability to analyze jutsu kicked in.
that it for this fic
after talking with a friend I decided to throw out word count goals for the chapter
this would alow me spend each chapter on given topic like one moth training period before the third exam
as always make sure to fav follow and leave a chapter review