Hinata of the White Lotus

Naruto vs Sasuke

Naruto and Sasuke hit the street a short distance away from where Amaterasu had been summoned.

"Get off me, you loser!" Sasuke's elbow hit Naruto in the gut, temporarily knocking the wind out of him. His grip loosened just enough for Sasuke to stumble back to his feet. He could still get back to where Itachi was, his big brother was finally within his grasp. And he had the power of the Rinnegan- the power to kill him once and for all.

He was going to get his revenge.

Sasuke went to sprint forward, nearly falling flat on his face again as Naruto's wooden right arm clamped down around his ankle.

"I thought I already told you to knock it off!" Naruto stood up, elongating his wooden arm as he twisted and pulled. The wooden arm snapped back, pulling Sasuke's ankle with it.

The young Uchiha was ripped off his feet and together with the momentum of the swing, sent flying over the tops of the buildings. He flew at least two blocks before finally managing to regain control of his limbs, flipping over and directing himself towards the nearest rooftop. He landed with a bounce and a skip, sliding to a stop just shy of the edge. However, Itachi was no longer in sight.

"You calmed down, yet?" Naruto landed in a crouch on the opposite side of the same rooftop. The black sun hung behind him now, the only landmark Sasuke could use to pinpoint his brother's approximate location. "We don't have time for this, Sasuke. We need to go help fight whatever that lady is. I don't get what's going on, but for now, forget about your brother!"

"…Forget?" Sasuke asked, his gaze snapping back to Naruto. "You want me to forget about the person that killed my clan- my mother and father right in front of me? The one who tortured me with genjutsu for days, after telling me to hate him! You're saying I should just forget all that!?" He roared in anger.

"Of course not!" Naruto rebutted, "But you gotta set it aside for the moment. We got bigger fish to fry. Whatever is going on with your brother, you can talk to him about it afterwards." In truth, Naruto had no idea why Itachi was even here. But he had seen Hinata protect him, so he knew that he must have been an ally. That was all the information he needed to have for the moment.

"Talk?" Sasuke uttered the word as if it only just occurred to him. "I'm not going to talk to him, I'm going to kill him." It almost felt like he was explaining things to a child, and he seriously wondered how Naruto thought there was any way this ended with them talking.

"I'm not going to let you do that." Naruto proclaimed. "I don't know what's going on between you two or how he's alive… but I saw the expression you made when you thought he had died. You were torn up about it… you regretted his death. You think I'm gonna let you make the same mistake now that he's miraculously alive?"

"I regretted not being the one to kill him!" Sasuke shouted, his patience wearing thin. "And what the hell would you know about any of this? You never had a family. You can't possibly know about my pain!" At his words, a look of hurt shock flashed across Naruto's face.

"…I might not have had a family growing up." He admitted, balling his hands into fists and staring at the ground. "But I think of you like a brother, Sasuke." When he lifted his head back up, the resolve once again showed in his eyes. "Not because you have Indra's chakra and I have Asura's or any kinda spiritual bullcrap like that. You and I ran up trees together. We fought together, we nearly died for each other, none of that had anything to do with destiny. I choose that, and I know you did too. I know the pain of having to fight your brother, because I'm feeling that exact same pain right now. But if it's the only way to keep you from hurting yourself even more, then I'll beat the sense right into you!"

"Naruto…" Sasuke temporarily forgot his anger. It wasn't like he was completely oblivious to what his teammate was talking about. He had thought about it, if only briefly- That he wanted to talk to Itachi. It wasn't anything about forgiveness, but he at least wanted to understand why he had done it.

There had been a time when they were all so happy. It just didn't make sense when you thought about it, that Itachi had secretly been resenting them all that time. Deep down, Sasuke knew this and had always believed there was something more going on. If nothing else, he just wanted to know Itachi's true feelings on the matter.

If it had just been that, then Naruto's feelings might have won him over.

However, the power of Kotoamatsukami compelled him to seek his revenge. Danzo may have died, but that final curse he left behind was still there. As Sasuke felt himself begin to turn away from his revenge, a headache split his skull. He let out a groan, gripping his head as he tried to fight it.

"Sasuke!?" Naruto ran up to his friend, the earlier anger and disappointment turning into concern. After all, he didn't desire this fight- not like this, anyway. There would be a proper time and place for their fight, but it wasn't under these circumstances.

"Don't touch me!" Sasuke knocked the hand away that Naruto had reached forward. As he glared up at his friend, the genjutsu had taken back hold of him. "I'm going to kill Itachi… and if you get in my way. I'll kill you too." He declared.

"…That so?" Naruto's normally light blue eyes became like hardened steel to reflect his resolve. "Then I guess I'll have to knock that sense into you, after all." He may not have wanted the fight right now, but he wouldn't back down from it either.

The two teammates turned enemies glared at one another, the distance between them so short, their fists could reach without the need for a single step.

Naruto predictably swung first, his fist coming in for a right hook. Too bad for him, but his intentions were all too plainly obvious. It wasn't only Sasuke's left eye that got an upgrade, his right eye was now a three-tomoe Sharingan instead of the two-tomoe which Naruto had gotten accustomed to. This allowed Sasuke to read even the most minute muscle twitches and thus predict Naruto's moves before he even made them.

He caught Naruto's fist. It was a complete reversal of the other day, when Naruto had shown him up in front of the Hokage tower. Back then, Sasuke hadn't been prepared for Naruto's explosive growth. Now it was his turn.

Naruto didn't even see Sasuke's first coming, the metal of his left arm clocking him in the cheek, breaking his bone and shattering several teeth. He spun like a top, twirling several meters backwards until he finally toppled over.

"Oi, Naruto! The hell are you doing?" Kurama chastised him inside his own mind. Already he was leaking chakra through to heal Naruto's cheekbone and teeth. The amount of chakra that could slip past the seal was still limited, but it had increased dramatically since the last mission. "He's got the Rinnegan, you know! You're not going to be able to go toe-to-toe with him without using your own powers."

"Shut up, I know that already." Naruto spat onto the ground, blood and teeth hitting the tile rooftop with loud clacks. Then he grinned, rising back up and turning to face his teammate. "Now we're even, y'know." He said.

"The hell are you talking about?" Sasuke snarled, more confused than he was angry. Was Naruto also talking about that moment in front of the Hokage Tower? "You think giving me a free hit is gonna somehow make everything alright between us!? Take this seriously if you're gonna do it!"

"I was planning on it," Naruto wiped the blood from his lip, chakra beginning to swell as he prepared his jutsu. He learned from his fight against Kimimaro not to hold back against his opponents. It just wouldn't have felt right for him to do so until the score was settled. Now he had nothing to regret. Forming his favorite seal, he called out, "Moku Bunshin no Jutsu!" And created a dozen wood clones. The clones sprinted right for Sasuke, only the original staying behind.

"Predictable as ever," Sasuke flexed his middle finger, opening up the panels in his forearm and revealing a plethora of missiles. How the previously fired missiles replenished, he had no idea, but he could feel the arm as it loaded in the next round. With a flex of his index finger, the missles fired. They intercepted the clones before they even made it halfway, the resulting explosions shrouding them in fire and smoke.

He didn't have the luxury of being surprised as all but two of the clones burst out of the smoke, completely unharmed. That was because he saw it with his Sharingan as their chakra changed, two of the clones transforming into wooden barriers that protected the others. These weren't the shadow clones he was used to dealing with, but were much more versatile. He had to change his strategy quickly.

The clones didn't give him time to do that, swarming him a second later. It was fine, however, for he could still read their muscle movements. The first clone was coming in with another right hook. The next one with an ax kick from above. Two of them ran around the sides, attempting to flank him. The rest were still too far back, but he would just take them as they came.

What he didn't know was that Naruto had already fought someone with a similar ability before. While the way they did it was different, Hinata's Nichiren Byakugan essentially allowed her to read an opponent's intentions in the same way Sasuke read muscle tension. So he wasn't about to fall for the same trick twice.

"U-" The first clone swung and Sasuke raised his hand to catch his fist. Only to have something happen which he couldn't predict, the wood arm of the clone bending in a way impossible for a human made of flesh and bone. The fist slammed into his cheek, stumbling him backwards.

"Zu-" The ax kick was much the same, the wooden leg extending far beyond the normal reach of Naruto's short legs and slamming into the top of his cranium. His head bounced, giving him whiplash and making it impossible to read the movements of the rest of the clones.

"Ma-" The two clones coming from the side didn't even need to adjust their physical properties, as Sasuke was too disoriented to stop the combo now. They uppercut him with enough force to send him skywards.

"Ki!" The next clone kicked off their shoulders and performed a half-flip, his foot to the gut propelling Sasuke even higher.

"Naruto Rendan! The remaining clones were already waiting for him in the air, closing in from all sides. If all these clones hit him at once, he was done for. He knew and understood that, but he had no idea what to do about it. Holding out his left arm, he willed for some kind of power to knock all the clones away.

The Rinnegan answered, the name of a new jutsu being whispered into his subconscious.

"Shinra Tensei!" He called, unleashing a pulse of gravitational energy. The clones halted in midair, simply suspended as if floating. They only had enough time to look confused before the full effects of the jutsu kicked in. They flew straight downwards, as if their individual gravity had been quadrupled. Slamming into the roof of the building didn't dispel them like normal shadow clones, their durability much higher than that. So he put even more chakra into his technique.

Until it wasn't just Naruto and his clones, but the entire building that was affected. There was the sound of cracking and rumbling, that being the only warning before the building collapsed in on itself. A plume of dust rose up to replace the demolished building, completely enveloping Sasuke as he began to fall. He landed on top of the uneven rubble that used to be the building.

In truth, he didn't even know what kind of building they had just been fighting on. Was it someone's place of business, or had it been an apartment building where people lived? There was no way to know now, and he didn't even care. The important thing was that there hadn't been anyone inside when his jutsu went off. Sasuke only wanted to kill Itachi- and anyone that got in his way. There was no desire to harm any others.

From within the dust, he saw the flicker of several chakras. "You're damn persistent, Naruto…" Sasuke growled, not knowing how he and his clones kept getting back up, even after having their very gravity used as a weapon against them.

A clone lunged at him, arm extending in a straight line. Sasuke ducked, dodging as the clone flew over him. Another clone popped up a second later and he bent backwards, once again skirting the attack by the skin of his teeth. The barrage was relentless, Sasuke twirling and stumbling his way around each attack, unable to counter before the clone would disappear back into the smoke.

"Screw this!" Sasuke cursed under his breath, flexing his pinky and causing his arm to open up at the elbow. A beam of blue energy filled the cannon and the next clone that jumped at him got a taste of the energy beam point blank, blowing a hole straight through it. He then spun around and fired again, blowing the next clone's head clean off. Even a wood clone couldn't keep going after that, it turned out.

He thought that after blasting two of them, the clones would learn their lesson and change tactics. They didn't. Every single one of them jumped at him from within the dust and every single one of them got blown apart into wood chunks by his elbow cannon.

Finally, the last clone fell just as the dust was beginning to settle. The corpses of the wood clones laid all around him. Although it would be wrong to call them corpses. They were more like discarded piles of logs now than anything that once resembled a human.

"Mokuton: Deep Forest Emergence!" Those same hunks of wood once again flared to life with chakra, causing them to sprout like seeds and form full trees. Now he understood why Naruto hadn't changed strategies. It was because this had been his aim from the beginning, and Sasuke had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

There was nowhere for him to run, the roots of the new trees, picking him up and binding him as they grew. He was hoisted off the ground, the numerous trunks pressing in so tightly he thought his lungs might burst. Mercifully they stopped growing just short of that, but it was impossible for him to so much as even twist a finger, the only part of his body exposed being his face.

"Ready to give up?" Naruto asked, walking forward to look up at him. He didn't say it, but they both knew the truth. If he had wanted it, Sasuke would be dead right now. He was only alive because Naruto had stopped the jutsu from squeezing his innards out. "I've gotta go help everyone else, so it would really be helpful for me if you just put all that stupid revenge business behind ya right about now." He held up his arm as if inviting Sasuke over to his side.

"Naruto…" Sasuke tried to wiggle his way free, but it was no good. Even his toes couldn't budge so much as an inch. "Where the hell did you learn to do all this?" He didn't understand. It wasn't like Naruto's technique was even particularly powerful, as he couldn't even do any Wood Release Jutsu without the help of his clones. So then how was he fighting so effectively despite that?

"I learned it by failing." Naruto responded, his face bitter. He remembered all the times he messed up in the last mission. How he wasn't able to do anything against Itachi or Kisame, reduced to the simple role of support. How he underestimated Kimimaro and had to be taken pity on. The loss of his arm. And in the end he had to be bailed out by Kurama and Asura.

"Failing… you say?" Sasuke grit his teeth, pushing his face forward to glare down at Naruto. "It must be nice to be a loser like you. To be allowed to fail again, and again, being given so many chances that you don't even realize how lucky you are! I'm not allowed to fail! If I fail, I'll die!" He yelled.

"Why?" Naruto asked, his voice full of genuine confusion. "Nobody is trying to kill you right now, Sasuke! Your brother isn't even an enemy anymore! The only one trying to kill anyone is you, why the hell can't you see that!?" He pleaded with him one last time to see reason.

"I have to kill him!" Sasuke roared, unable to give an answer more coherent than that. For he was no longer acting on reason. The idea that he would die if he didn't fight was simply a trick of Kotoamatsukami. It convinced him the only way he could survive was by fighting… and killing Itachi.

Chakra built in his left hand until it became as loud as a thousand chirping birds. Even deep inside the wall of tree trunks, the sound of his jutsu could be heard. Then he activated his Rinnegan, swapping places with a piece of debris just behind Naruto.

"Ah shit-" Naruto couldn't react quickly enough, jumping to the side as Sasuke's Chidori stabbed at him from behind. His right arm flew off, the lightning blade striking his wooden appendage.

"Bansho Tenin!" Sasuke pulled Naruto back in before he could skip too far away and regrow his arm. As the blond flew towards him, Sasuke ducked low, his foot connecting with Naruto's chin and sending him skywards in the same way that had been done to him earlier. "Shishi Rendan!" And in the span of a second, he delivered a devastating combo of blows, breaking Naruto's body and sending him crashing back onto the rubble that had been their battleground.

He landed a second later, collapsing to his knees and gasping for breath. His Rinnegan started to bleed out of the corner, the exertion of new abilities beginning to take its toll on both the eye and his body. Fortunately, things with Naruto should now be solved. There was no way he could get back up after that. Which meant that Sasuke could finally kill his brother.

At least, that was where his head should have been at it. There was nothing left in his way, so why did he feel such regret? No- he knew why. It was because Naruto had bested him earlier in the fight, catching him with that forest emergence technique. This hadn't been a clean win… and if he couldn't even beat Naruto, how was he supposed to fight Itachi?

There was a crack. Something in the Kotoamatsukami curse was beginning to break. Perhaps because Danzo hadn't been an Uchiha, or perhaps because the Rinnegan allowed Sasuke a natural resistance, no one could say. However, it wasn't enough. Just a little more, and maybe, but even as Sasuke felt himself start to give up on his revenge again, the genjutsu forced him to seek it.

He stood up. Turning his back on Naruto, he gazed at the black sun. It was getting smaller now, but it was still there. And just underneath it was Itachi. His long, long quest for revenge was nearly at an end. He took his first step forward on the last leg of his journey.

An explosion of malevolent chakra shoved him forward, causing him to trip over the rubble and fall. "What now-?" He cursed, turning back towards his persistent teammate. Even with his wooden arm ripped off and body broken, he still wouldn't give up?

Red chakra swirled around the blond like a maelstrom, the sinister energy briefly taking the shape of a fox's face. The mirage disappeared a second later, the chakra settling around Naruto like a blanket. It lifted him up, his eyes now a blood red, whiskers more pronounced, and with teeth like fangs.

"Sasuke!" He roared bitterly. The wooden arm regrew in an instant, stretching out and grabbing Sasuke by the throat. The red chakra clinging to his hand was hot to the touch, burning his skin and causing him to gasp out a choked breath. The arm pulled back in, once again tossing the Uchiha a great distance- this time right into the side of another building, his body leaving a crater in the wall.

Naruto stalked forward, back hunched over, giving him the appearance more of a beast than a man. With every step he took, his fist grew in size. It swelled like a balloon, becoming even larger than Naruto himself. Two times larger, finally it quit growing at three times the size of its owner.

"…You seriously don't know when to quit," Sasuke grit his teeth, pulling himself free from the wall and landing shakily to his feet. "Naruto!" He balled his left arm into a fist and held it sideways. Nothing apparent happened right away.

The sound of several things whizzing through the air could be heard a moment later, a kunai flying to Sasuke and sticking to his arm. It was then joined by another kunai. Then two more. Then half a dozen. In a matter of moments, his arm was completely enveloped by kunai, being drawn to his arm like a magnet. The number of kunai took the shape of his hand, only larger. Two times as large as he was, finally stopping at the same size as Naruto's wooden fist.

The two of them leapt forward. Naruto swung his massive wooden fist. And Sasuke, his magnetic fist covered in thousands of kunai.

They clashed, the explosive blow drowning out the sounds of their individual roars.

It was as if time stood still, the two of them hung suspended in midair, each one trying to overpower the other. Finally, there was a creak. Then a small shift. A moment later, Sasuke's hand made of kunai fell apart, the individual weapons not able to hold their shape against the power of Naruto's fist.

Naruto had won!

Or so he thought.

Sasuke smirked, activating the power of Amenotejikara. He and Naruto swapped places a second later, sending Naruto's fist crashing into the building he had leapt from. The building collapsed around his arm, trapping him in place.

"Shinra Tensei!" Sasuke spun around and pushed at the thousand kunai that had been used to form his hand. The kunai were blasted by the gravity wave… every single one of them aimed at the trapped blond.

"Ah, damn." Naruto didn't know what else to say. He had been outplayed just now, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was about to die, he would actually have been kinda impressed by the cunning of Sasuke's plan.

Too bad this was it.

He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Naruto!" His eyes snapped back open and he found that he was inside his seal, Kurama glaring down at him from the other side of his cage. "It's not like you to just give up, you bastard! What about your ninja way?" The fox berated him.

"You don't think I don't know that!" Naruto yelled back, swinging his arms and stomping around on top of the water. "But what the hell am I supposed to do in this situation!? There's like a million kunai and I don't have any way to stop them. I can't use wood style without any clones, y'know!" And he definitely didn't have time to make anymore with his arm stuck.

"And why in the hell do you think you need to use wood style?" Kurama asked, pointing one of his clawed fingers out of the gate. "You don't have any talent for it in the first place. That's why you've been getting your ass handed to you in every single fight since your chakra merged with Asura's."

"What do you mean I don't got any talent for it?!" Naruto pouted, folding his arms in front of himself and turning away from the fox. "If you just brought me in here to insult me in my last moments, then just let me die with some dignity, you big jerk!"

"That's not what I'm saying, you idiot!" Kurama growled back. "Listen, I knew Asura when he was a kid. He was born with Wood Style. And the same could most likely be said of the First Hokage, Hashirama. It was who they were born as. You, however, didn't acquire it until that girl forced the connection in that half-assed manner."

"Wait, so you're saying my affinity isn't even for wood style to begin with?" Naruto asked, scratching his head as he turned around and began to take Kurama's words a little more seriously. "But then… What is it? And isn't it a little late for you to tell me this now of all times?"

"Knowing your father, it's most definitely the wind affinity." Kurama said, ignoring the last question altogether.

"Wind?" Naruto asked, making a sour face. "Sure, that would help me to blow away all the kunai, but I don't know any wind jutsu. And I doubt you got the time to teach me one in the couple seconds before I die."

"No, you're not getting it." Kurama sighed, bending low in his cage so they could see eye to eye. "I'm saying that your affinity was originally wind. However, when your chakra merged with Asura's, you also gained the affinities of earth and water. Those two together form the Kekkei Genkai that makes Wood Style: Mokuton."

"That means I got three affinities though, don't it?" Naruto asked, finally beginning to understand where Kurama was going with all this. "But wait… if a Kekkei Genkai is made up of two affinities, then what the hell does three get me?"

"A Kekkei Tota." Kurama answered. "You see, you've only been able to form wood style techniques from wood clones, because you haven't actually been using the wood style at all. You've been forcing it by using your Kekkei Tota this whole time to simulate wood style."

"…Then what is my true chakra affinity?" Naruto looked down at his hands, self-doubt but also… hope coursing through his veins.

"Seed Style: Shuton." Kurama wrote the character into the water, before it quickly disappeared into ripples. "It's a Kekkei Tota with nearly limitless possibilities. You've been using it to cultivate seeds that turn into wood clones so far, but it can be used for so much more. Not just destructive power on the same scale as Dust Style, but even healing, and you could grow seeds that could shape this entire world."

"But I don't know how to do all that." Naruto understood that the ability was inside him, but he had never actually used it for any of those things. He needed someone to teach him… but more importantly than that, he needed more than the few seconds he had.

"You do know how to do it." Kurama encouraged him, sounding strangely wise and uncharacteristically kind. "You've been using the Mokuton all this time and you don't even have the talent for it… think about what you could do if you used the jutsu you were actually meant to be using."

"Yeah…" Naruto slowly started nodding. "You're right, I can do it." He lifted his head, beaming up at the fox. "Thanks, Kurama! You're not so bad, y'know!"

"Don't thank me you idiot!" Kurama yelled, turning away so abruptly that his tails smacked his cage. "I'm only encouraging you because it would be a problem for me if you died! Remember, if you die, so do I! And I'm not going down with you, alright?!"

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say." Naruto chuckled as he closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself for what he knew now that he had to do. When he opened his eyes, he was in the real world.

Time resumed. The kunai were nearly on him.

He knew he couldn't rip his whole enlarged fist free, so instead he pulled out only a small hunk of it. That hunk quickly took the shape of his normal-sized hand. In a split second, he formed three seals. How he knew these were the correct seals, he had no idea. They just felt right.

Exactly like Kurama said.

Naruto held out his right arm and channeled his chakra into the jutsu. Not just earth and water chakra like he had been subconsciously doing, but earth, water, and wind all together.

"Shuton: Kinokogumo no Jutsu!" A beam of pure yellow energy fired from his arm, completely enveloping the kunai. And then exploded violently. The entire village shook with the force of the blast, a mushroom cloud forming in the place the thousand kunai had just been. As the cloud disappeared, not even a single remnant of them were left.

Naruto and Sasuke both stood in shocked silence, neither one of them able to find the words to describe what had just happened. Finally, the Uchiha lowered his gaze, looking away from the disappearing mushroom cloud and at Naruto instead.

"Over and over again… you just keep getting stronger and stronger. Why in the hell don't you just give up and let me do the one thing I have to do!? Just let me kill my brother, damn it!" Sasuke pushed his chakra beyond the limit, creating a third Chidori. He then used Amenotejikara and appeared right in front of him, raising his arm to strike him down for good.

"I can't do that," Naruto didn't yell back, instead responding calmly over the sound of the thousand chirping birds. "Cause I'm also your brother." He formed another seal. "Shuton: Hotaru no Jutsu!" Small yellow lights floated off his arm, like fireflies leaving a tree. Their light expanded, but not in an explosion, just a blinding flash of light that cut off Sasuke's ability to react with the Sharingan.

Sasuke swung. And hit nothing but empty air. Naruto's counter was an uppercut that hit his jaw, sending him sprawled out on his back. He attempted to get back up, but couldn't. Using the Chidori three times in a single evening, on top of using all his new Rinnegan abilities left him completely drained.

However, the same could be said for Naruto. His limbs felt tired, simply using two seed style techniques having taken all his energy. So he stumbled over to Sasuke, before taking a seat right there on top of the rubble.

"I really was supposed to help out over there, y'know… but I don't know if I got anything left in the tank." He mumbled, looking longingly over at the black sun and wondering what was happening there now. They had gotten pretty far from it over the course of their fight.

"Even now, you keep talking about wanting to help others." Sasuke stared up at the night sky instead, looking at the stars that had come out. "Why would you go so far for my brother? You don't even know him… and didn't he try to capture you?" He just couldn't understand.

"It's not like I'm doing it for Itachi's sake or anything." Naruto said with a shrug. "I may not have a real family or anything, but you're my brother… which kinda makes Itachi my brother too. And I don't want to lose any single person in my family." He said it just like that. As if it was all so simple.

"Heh," It was enough to make Sasuke laugh. "Damn… I just can't win against you. You're a pain in the ass, just like a real little brother." He felt the curse of Kotoamatsukami break apart. And now he knew why that was.

It wasn't because Danzo's control over the Sharingan had been weak or that he had natural resistance with his Rinnegan. No, it was because he hadn't truly wanted the curse to break before now. Deep down, he still wanted to kill his brother all this time.

However, Naruto was right. When he heard about Itachi's death, he had been sad. Not because he lost his chance at revenge, but because he would never get the chance to talk to him again. He realized that now.

It just took a little bit of sense getting knocked into him by his other brother for him to figure that out.

Chapter End

AN: The Shuton（種遁）is literally just "Seed" Style/Release, and is the combination of wind, water, and earth. I decided to make it seed for two reasons. One, I thought seeds felt kinda small and primordial in the same way the only other known Kekkei Tota is, the Dust Release. Two, I thought of it kinda like how birds carry seeds far distances, and introduce plants/trees to areas they weren't originally indigenous to.

Then the two techniques Naruto used so far are Kinokogumo（茸雲）no Jutsu, The Mushroom Cloud Jutsu- and Hotaru（蛍）no Jutsu, The Firefly Jutsu. Neither of those are seed related in the English sense of the word, but in the same way the Dust Release is an Atomic theming, I was kinda going for a light/growth theming for the Seed Release.