A/N: TA-DAAAAAA~! A little later than expected, but I got three whole hours of sleep last night so today's been wack. Also, my roommate and I bought ingredients for stir fry, but forgot to check the recipe we'd used before so we failed to get ALL the ingredients, so I didn't have chicken broth. And the best substitution for chicken broth is either water or white wine according to google. I did not want to use water, as I felt it would hurt the flavor.
I did not have white wine. BUT LOOK! WHITE WINE VINEGAR CAN BE USED TO REPLACE WHITE WINE!
…white wine vinegar does NOT go in stir fry.
My stir fry tastes like vegetable-flavored vinegar.
Never use a substitution of a substation, substitution-ception is a mistake and should not have been done.
In regards to the chapter tho, we are once again back to my 'magic is harder to control than chakra since it's less weighted', with a touch of 'Sakura's natural chakra control is part Sakura herself, and part that I headcanon that chakra control to be something the chakra itself can just be, by itself'. Like, it's not just how much you're born with, it's also that you can just be born with a chakra nature easier to control.
So Natsu has fairly good chakra control between these two things, especially now that he's got someone in his head who can explain stuff~
Now onto the chapter! Hope y'all enjoy! Thanks for reading!
"So, is water-walkin' like that whole tree-climbing thing Kakashi taught us before?" Natsu asks curiously as he kicks at the surface of the small pond Jiraiya found for them.
The man laughs as he bounds past Natsu, walking from solid ground to the water's surface so seamlessly that it has Natsu squinting and checking again to make sure the water isn't an illusion.
"It's similar enough in theory," Jiraiya starts, arms crossed as he stands in the center of the pond, "but the thing you've got to remember is that trees are solid. They don't move. Water does. Your chakra will react differently to it. Now!" He leans forward with a wide grin. "Let's make this interesting. If the three of you can manage to knock me into the water… I'll teach you an elemental technique of your choice! So get started!"
There's a string of splashes as all three of them try to get to the old man. Naruto doesn't even make it past the shallows, pushing himself up to kneel just one step into the water.
Sasuke hisses like a dunked cat, the closest to Jiraiya and still so far away, as he hastily tries to scrub water out of red-lit eyes with one hand while the other sways back and forth, trying to keep him afloat.
Natsu scowls where he stands in knee-deep water. He hadn't quite fallen over, managing to land on his feet when his chakra lost purchase, but-
He already knows this is gonna be trouble.
He hadn't quite thought it through before, but having his magic back makes it way harder to grab Sakura-chan's chakra! If he's focusing, he can do it just fine, but he can't fight if he's gotta constantly focus on everything!
Carefully, he grabs at Sakura-chan's chakra as he lifts his leg and steps up, like the water surface is a stairwell.
The moment he shifts his weight to actually bring his other leg level he tilts forward, flailing wildly before face-planting into the pond.
He's pretty sure Naruto laughs at him, though everything's muffled with the water over his head.
He finds his footing, pushing himself up, as Sakura-chan offers quiet suggestions.
"It's not really like I'm mixing up our energies, Sakura-chan," Natsu mumbles as he carefully tries to step up onto the water again, "mine just shifts around a lot more than yours, Sakura-chan's chakra is really steady…"
"A natural earth-type," Jiraiya offers, and Natsu yelps, windmilling his arms to try and keep from falling backwards.
He fails again, landing in the water with a splash, and scowls up at the man from where he's sitting. "Huh?" he asks, more confused at Jiraiya's appearance than what he said.
"It's actually pretty neat - I noticed it when I was examining you and Sasuke over there- You're a fire-type, through and through, but Sakura-chan's natural element is earth. Earth is known as the stable element, so it's not too surprising it feels that way to you."
"Uh-huh. And how's that help me?" Natsu asks as he stands up, Sakura an attentive presence in the back of his mind, hanging off Jiraiya's every word.
"Well, why don't you try to figure it out for yourself first? It's your chakra." The man walks away with a grin and a wave, heading over to Sasuke with bounding steps.
Sort of, Natsu thinks, as Sakura-chan starts puzzling out Jiraiya's tip.
"Hmm… I don't know much about elemental natures - I know there's five, Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, and Water, and that there are some kekkei genkai like that ice-user you met, and the Shodaime Hokage, who was a wood-user. I think there was something about some special training methods for each element? But I don't think that'll help us…" Sakura-chan trails off with the air of someone trying to think things through, but Natsu's a bit confused.
"But I thought your chakra was steadier just cause of that physical chakra stuff, it grounds it more in the body so it's not all pure spirit-stuff, right? That's why you guys can do things like walk on trees an' water, cause you use that physical chakra t'interact with those physical things better than my spiritual chakra can."
"Well, yes, but element probably has something to do with it too! Even for your people, earth elements probably affect things physically more than your fire, right? Like, you can choose who your fire hurts, but that's cause your fire is entirely spiritual, which means it's entirely bound to your will - but earth is earth, and it's not just gonna become intangible cause you don't wanna hit someone. Right?"
Natsu opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Not every fire-mage Natsu knows can control what their fire burns, so he always assumed it was a Dragon Slayer thing, but… Natsu never even knew about physical energy outside of that general belief that mages were always physically weak-
"But if physical chakra affects physical things… and I was able to change parts of my body… did I just use both energies separately, when most people back home combined them a little?"
It doesn't really make sense, but Natsu doesn't really understand theory stuff too well, so maybe he's just not smart enough to know what he was doing back then.
Sakura-chan makes a considering noise. "I can't really say… since your body got left behind somewhere, your physical chakra is probably with it, but I don't even know if it's possible to fully separate physical and spiritual chakras. Maybe that's why you had to train from such a young age? But maybe, if you actually are used to using physical chakra a little, it might be easier to do this if you focus on that feeling? Then you'd ignore your spiritual chakra, and reach for my physical chakra. Would that help?"
"Huh! Maybe! I'll give it a shot, thanks Sakura-chan!"
Natsu brings his fists together, focusing. He knows what it feels like, to have scales creep over his skin, creep under his skin, allowing him to take blows that should crush his organs to paste without a mark.
He knows what it feels like to have his organs themselves change, taking on the aspects of a dragon, allowing him to use techniques too dangerous for a fragile human body.
It wasn't a structured magic, like his fire spells. No circles that could be studied, no runes to learn - the true secret of Dragon Slayer magic.
The hard part isn't focusing on the feel of that magic.
The hard part is not using it on Sakura-chan.
"Hmm, I don't think it's working." Sakura-chan muses, and Natsu wonders how aware she is of the movement of her chakra. "I think you tried to combine my physical chakra with your spiritual chakra. That won't work though, because I don't think my chakra can be separated like that… Why don't you try explaining it to me? Then I can help more, hopefully!"
So Natsu tries, haltingly explaining how his Dragon Slayer magic's supposed to work. He's never had to put it in words before, but luckily Sakura-chan's smart, so he thinks she gets the gist of it.
Jiraiya glances oddly at him, but Natsu's pretty sure the man can't hear, so it's probably just cause Natsu's standing there doing nothing while Naruto and Sasuke splash around.
"...ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU CAN TURN INTO A DRAGON?!" Sakura-chan shrieks, half-way through Natsu's explanation, and he instinctively covers his ears, to poor effect.
"What- no! I mean, probably not? Igneel never said anything about that, so I don't think so? We just make our bodies like dragons so we can use their power, but we don't actually transform… probably. There actually might have been something, I think he was tryin' to tell me about the dangers of the magic? But I didn't listen, if y'don't know what the dangers are they can't affect you-"
"THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS!" Sakura-chan shrieks, hyperventilating.
"Sakura-chan?" Natsu tilts his head, concerned.
"Y-you- I don't- how-" Sakura-chan takes an audibly deep breath, then snarls something about how it 'doesn't feel the same as an avatar' quietly. She takes another anyway, before speaking again. "Maybe- well- clearly even that sort of magic has a mental component. You aren't a dragon, so you're essentially tricking some of your body parts into becoming dragonic, so… spiritual chakra's used due to that mental influence on your organs? Maybe? I GUESS?"
Natsu gets the impression of Sakura throwing her arms up in frustration.
"So… what's that mean?" he asks, and he swears she grumbles something about him being stupid but he just wants to figure out how to walk on water.
Forget elemental jutsu, if he pulls this off he'll have an excuse to never get on a boat again and he's not about to let anything stop him from that!
Sakura-chan grumbles indistinctly for another moment before answering. "I'm not entirely certain. Your magic's really energetic, so it'll probably keep butting my chakra out of the way… we could maybe lock the door again and just warn Sakuni to unlock it later-"
"Absolutely not!" Natsu rejects, shaking his head and crossing his arms in an 'X'. "Next idea!"
"Uh, well… you'll probably just have to practice. I… guess maybe if you thought exclusively… I mean, not like THAT, but like… if you… KYAA I CAN'T SAY IT!"
"Whaa? Sakura-chan, don't be ridiculous, if you've got an idea just say it. I'm not gonna make fun of you or anything?"
"If- well- DON'T TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY BAKA! But if you focused on me, then m-maybe my chakra would-" Sakura-chan stops speaking, awkwardly abrupt, but Natsu thinks he knows what she's trying to say.
"Huh, that's pretty smart. Sakura-chan's chakra is a piece of Sakura-chan so that might make it easier to use…"
"D-don't say it like THAT, shannaro! It sounds too weird!"
"Right, right, sorry!" Natsu laughs, glancing down into the water.
It's still harder than it sounds, trying to focus on Sakura-chan enough to keep his magic from interfering with his grasp on her chakra, but still being able to actually pay attention to walking on the water.
The actual water-walking itself is weirdly easy, Sakura-chan's chakra maybe a little slow to move but Jiraiya made it sound way more complicated than it actually was, and it's really less that he has to move the chakra around constantly and more that the chakra just has to be… flexible enough to move on its own as the water flows around it, without being so loose that it just flows away with the water.
It only takes a couple tries to find the right consistency for the chakra, but actually holding it- sometimes it's his own magic, interfering with his concentration, but sometimes it's everything else. Now that he's not talking to Sakura-chan, it's harder to ignore the way everyone keeps glancing at him, the nervous looks on Naruto's face and the considering one on Jiraiya's. Sasuke focuses mostly on his feet, clearly more interested in trying to copy Natsu's chakra, but-
Really Natsu just keeps wondering why Naruto looks so nervous.
Hesitantly, he makes his way over, half-wondering if he could just… light something on fire while walking on the water?
And then he falls in again, losing his grip on Sakura-chan's chakra, and he groans.
This is gonna take so much practice… he grumbles mentally, pulling himself back onto the water's surface. He sits there for a moment, scowling at the water, and falls in again with a yelp when Naruto swims over and asks with a wide grin, "Are you channelling chakra through your butt?"
Sakura-chan shouts angrily in the back of his mind, practically shoving an impulse to hit the blond at him, which Natsu brushes aside.
"He's just curious Sakura-chan~!"
"Boys!" she scoffs, and Natsu's left with the faint impression of her spinning around and refusing to look at anything.
He turns back to Naruto with a blink.
"I mean you can expel chakra from anywhere? I think? I don't actually know but Jiraiya was kneeling earlier, when he was talkin' to Sasuke, so if you can kneel why can't you sit? But it's a good thing you're here, cause I was gonna ask why you looked so nervous!"
Naruto opens and closes his mouth a couple times, glancing anywhere but at Natsu while he tries to keep his head above water.
"I… last time Natsu-kun tried to help me I hurt you, so… but you're still so good at it and-" Naruto sinks into the water until just his eyes are above, blinking owlishly.
"Oh." Natsu remembers that explosion of chakra, the poor reaction Naruto - or more likely the Kyuubi, now that he knows about it - had with his own chakra. "Well, uh… maybe if Sakura-chan doesn't mind helping, she's good with words. We could probably explain it for you, I think…"
"Really?!" Naruto propels himself upward, swimming forward and tackling Natsu into a hug, "Thanks! Whaddu we need to do, Sakura-chan?!" he basically yells into Natsu's face, like Sakura-chan wouldn't be able to hear him otherwise, and Natsu pushes him away with a groan.
"Not so louuuuuud she can hear just fine!" he complains, ears ringing, and Naruto lets go with a nervous laugh, hand raising to rub at the back of his neck before he starts to sink and has to hastily flail his way back up.
Sakura-chan feels all… tense and prickly, which is confusing because she's just as loud as Naruto, so Natsu doesn't know why him yelling would upset her, but she starts lecturing the moment he's got his feet on the water again, not even giving him time to ask what happened.
She keeps being prickly even as she lectures, right up until Sasuke hobbles closer, and-
Natsu really doesn't understand girls.
Pinky the lady's got a brain on her, Jiraiya muses as he listens to Natsu parroting back words. Every now and then he stops, tilting his head slightly before saying something else, often clearly a response to a question, but then he's back to narrating and-
Jiraiya will admit, Sakura's smart. He's pretty sure she's a little too smart actually, at least for Naruto - the kid started looking lost half-way through the explanation, poking the water with a confused expression.
Sasuke's slowly running kata, and Natsu offers a very confused and awkward, "Good job Sasuke-kun?" before immediately trying to spin around to face Naruto, only to fall into the water with a splash.
Jiraiya snorts, then pulls out a notebook.
Kiddos aren't tired-out enough yet for a serious conversation, and Natsu's predicament could be great material, if everyone was just a... little more mature… hmm...
Naruto's trying, he is, but for some reason he's still not good enough. Natsu's a natural, and Sasuke picked it up so fast, and he's pretty sure that even if it were Sakura-chan instead of Natsu, she'd be a natural too, but for some reason he just can't get it.
It shouldn't be harder than tree-climbing, it uses more chakra, and Naruto got the hang of that so water-walking should be easy now but it's NOT!
He can tell Natsu wants to offer to help like he did before, but Naruto can tell Kyuubi's chakra is still so active, and he doesn't want to hurt Natsu again, and Natsu doesn't ask which is good but he still doesn't want to be the one holding his team back-!
"Wait, what did you say?" Naruto asks, freezing in shock before he hastily starts kicking his legs again to keep from sinking.
Natsu blinks. "Uh, about how my chakra keeps gettin' in the way while I'm trying to use Sakura-chan's chakra for this? I was just complainin' really, Sakura-chan's still trying to think of a better way to explain this for you-"
"No no no, I…" Naruto trails off. It still feels… wrong, somehow, to talk about it like this, he knows Natsu doesn't care, but he still hesitates while he finds the courage to finish. "Is it… maybe cause the Kyuubi's chakra is messing with my control…?"
Natsu blinks, tilting his head. "Yeah, that could be it. It's the Kyuubi that heals you, right? And Sakura-chan said you should have died before, so maybe he had to use way more power than normal… I guess it could still be messing with you. Whaddya' think Sakura-chan?"
Naruto's breath stutters in his lungs. He'd forgotten until just now, but…
Sakura-chan was never told about the Kyuubi, right? She hadn't started being able to see things until after that, and no one really mentioned it before-
Natsu and Sasuke don't care! And Sakura-chan's the best, she won't either! She won't, 'ttebayo!
He misses whatever Natsu says next, trying to convince himself, but-
"I dunno, ask your stupid 'kage, I'm not the one who stuffed a whole demon in an innocent kid just cause I wanted more power. Seriously, who does that?"
Jiraiya's gaze feels like a solid weight at Natsu's words, and Naruto sinks into the water. He never had a chance to find out what Jiraiya thinks of him, doesn't know how he'll react when it's in the open like this-
But it's still so- so nice, to hear Natsu say that, like maybe it wasn't okay and everyone else should know it's not okay too, like it's okay if Naruto didn't want this burden and didn't ask to be their sacrifice from the demon's rampage and-
He thinks, now that he knows the truth, that it's nice to know there's even one person who would say it was wrong to do it to his mom too.
Because Naruto has a mom- had a mom, and she loved him, he doesn't think the Kyuubi was lying about that he seemed so angry when he mentioned her stopping him from killing Naruto, from… from killing his future jinchuuriki before anyone could make him that, and his mom stopped the Kyuubi, because- because she-
Everything still hurts. He didn't- when he first saw the Kyuubi he thought it would just threaten him, or promise him power if he let it out, he didn't think that-
He wonders why Jiji couldn't have told him about his mom, couldn't have told him they shared this, wonders why Natsu's the first person to look at him and say 'this is wrong!' instead of 'this is your fault'-
Jiraiya doesn't say anything. And Natsu starts to speak again, with that same voice he used before, while he was repeating what Sakura-chan said, and he sounds so much like Sakura-chan-
Natsu's voice always sounds like hers of course, but when he's copying her he even mimics her speech patterns and so then he sounds exactly like her, and it's almost like it's Sakura-chan who's talking to him and-
Naruto's still really confused about this, and he wishes he could have met Natsu without Sakura-chan having to go away, but he tries to pay attention, and a few minutes of splashes and attempts later, he finds himself standing on the surface of the water like it's no different from the ground.
Natsu beams up at him, swaying his arms idly through the water to stay afloat, and Naruto grins back, jumping in the air and pumping his fist.
"I did it! D'ya see, d'ya see? I got it! You're the best Sakura-chan!"
Jiraiya interrupts his celebration with a firm clap that sends him splashing back into the water.
"Alright! Now that you all've got the basics down, think you're good enough to take me?" Jiraiya grins sharply, continuing with a mocking lilt, "Or are you gonna call it done for the night?"
"As if we'd ever!" Naruto yells, scrambling to try and stand on the water again. Natsu offers him a hand, eyes bright as he grins.
Naruto barely gets both feet on the water before Sasuke leaps forward and tries to sweep Jiraiya's legs out from under him.
Naruto groans. "Oi, teme, wait up!" He tries to run but stumbles as he loses his focus - Natsu catches his arm, and Naruto bites off a quick "thanks!" before leaping forward again.
And then it's the three of them together, dancing around Jiraiya as they try to knock him in.
Natsu's the first to get knocked back into the water, and he comes up spluttering, but Naruto and Sasuke aren't far behind. Jiraiya evades them all easily, laughing uproariously every time they get dunked, and Naruto knows getting annoyed makes it harder to control his chakra but Jiraiya won't. Stop. Laughing!
"Aaaah! We can totally do this!" he can't help but shout as he scrambles back onto the water's surface, before he catches sight of Natsu back-floating with a grumpy expression.
"Eh? Natsu? Don't tell me you're giving up!"
Natsu groans. "Sakura-chan's chakra stores are so smaaaaaall…" he mutters, glaring at the sky. "An' since I don't have that physical chakra stuff, I can't use mine for this…"
Jiraiya chuckles. "Well, I suppose you weren't awful… I suppose I can give you another chance tomorrow. Now, why don't you go get dried off? It's about time we had a chat, I think."
He skips off the pond and quickly makes a fire, as Naruto glances at Sasuke.
"What're we chatting about?" he whispers loudly, and Sasuke shrugs with a "hn" as he walks carefully back to shore, Natsu swimming behind him.
Somehow Naruto gets a bad feeling, and he can't help but shiver as he follows after his team.