I hope you all enjoyed the last one and the first chapter of 2025. Hopefully this year is a bit better cus the later half of 2024 was not kind to me. We did get peak like Space Marine 2 and Wukong tho, so silver lining.
As I said before this part of the chunin exams is a bit rough for me to write, I don't wanna completely skip the month but also it's hard to write it out without making the pacing weird and making it boring.
I also want to just clarify something about Satsuki, the medication she takes is for her ptsd, it's essential an emotional suppressant and while that, at times, allows her to function and live with herself, it suppress everything, not just the bad stuff, feeling hollow like that isn't something she enjoys, it also has the side effect of weakening and disrupting the spiritual part of one's chakra, a big reason why she hates taking it, it makes her literally weaker. (next to her silly idea that needing medication makes her weaker as an individual.) Hope that cleared anything up.
Also a big thank you for 300 kudos on ao3 and 400 favs on fanfiction.
But I'll give it my best.
Leaf village general hospital, shinobi ward
"Guy-sensei!" Lee said happily, perking up seeing his mentor and idol awake.
"Hey Lee. How are you feeling?" Guy asked, knowing the answer probably wasn't great.
"I'm…I'm hanging in there. Guy-sensei." Lee said, thinking about his answer, in truth he thought he'd be way more upset over what Naruto told him in the moment, maybe it hadn't set in yet, but also it could be because he was beyond hyped to see Naruto and Neji fight, and while he was very worried for the kunoichi, he also wanted to see Satsuki fight Gaara, as did Naruto.
"Lee, I want you to know, your fight…it was magnificent, you proved you are a splendid ninja to everyone in that room, anybody who did learn wasn't worth teaching anyway." Guy said, a sad yet proud smile on this face, Lee's determination and will had amazed Guy ever since he met him but he'd never thought Lee would push himself as much as he did, it was magnificent in a morbid way, especially since the aftereffects of pushing his adolescent body so far would likely effect Lee for the rest of his life.
"Yeah, you're one of the best ninja I've ever seen, Lee!" Sakura affirmed happily.
"Definitely, hell, even Satsuki thought you were amazing, I mean Satsuki of all people." Naruto said, which got a chuckle out of the three genin.
Satsuki was a girl of few words, and fewer niceties, so if she said you were a 'splendid ninja' as they had both put it, you better believe you were. Naruto found himself smiling as he thought about his rival, he hoped she was doing alright.
With Satsuki and Kakashi
Satsuki was not doing alright!
She could barely move with these weights and every movement was exhausting, worse still Kakashi wasn't pulling any punches, emulating Guy's fighting style for her Sharingan to copy perfectly as he had seen it countless times, he could probably copy it without his still not uncovered eye. While Sharingan was needed to be active to use copied moves and jutsu if you didn't know them well Kakashi had taught her that if you kept using it it eventually turned into muscle memory, no active Sharingan needed. While she did appreciate the Sharingan lesson the fact that even with her eyes active he didn't feel the need to use his did hurt her Uchiha pride a bit.
"OK, water break then we'll start up again, you're making good progress, nice job." Kakashi said casually, tossing her a canteen which Satsuki gulped down eagerly.
"Fuck that's the stuff~." She thought as she hydrated herself, the water sweet as honey to her exhausted body.
"Hey, so you said this jutsu was your own. How do you go about making your own jutsu?" Satsuki asked, interested, as she would likely develop her own jutsu some day, a real special and deadly one. One she could use to butcher Itachi and anyone else that got in her way.
"Odd question. Lots of trial and error mostly, you'll end up trying to make five different ideas work and only finding one really works. In truth I cut out a lot of work with the lighting blade as it's based on a jutsu my sensei used and is adapted from it. He and I could never get nature manipulation to work so I veered off and adapted some concepts into a new jutsu." Kakashi explained, remembering fondly as he and Minato-sensei pondered many post mission ours into getting the nature manipulation to work, even Obito and Rin giving ideas often, eventually they deemed it just too difficult, that jutsu already had so much going on, the nature manipulation was just too much.
"Do you think I can master it in time?" She asked, she hadn't made much progress with the lighting in a bottle, she was worried, she was worried about fighting Gaara without a jutsu powerful enough to pierce right through the sand shield and armor. She was worried about being crippled like Lee and she was being honest she loathed the idea of letting Naruto down, not giving him the fight he so desperately wanted to give her in return.
"Are you ready to get back to it?" Kakashi asked before he raised his arm to block a wordless kick from Satsuki.
"Yeah." She spoke cooly, a fire lit within in.
Seems Naruto was quite the little arsonist today, and one of the fires he'd lit he wasn't even present for.
Back with said arsonist
"Ah Naruto I should probably give you a heads up about Neji, we've fought so many times I know his gentle fist quite well." Lee said to Naruto, some extra information about Neji's jutsu would certainly be a boon to him.
"Well I know he does those weird finger attacks to block my chakra. Is there anything else about it?" Naruto questioned, more then happy for some additional info about his opponent.
"Yes, the ability to block one's chakra points is very dangerous, if you're careful he can completely shut down jutsu or even your ability to move chakra throughout your body. But there's two special things he has, I know mostly about the first one, while the second is something I heard from Tenten. The first in an incredible combo technique, a rapid flurry of blows aimed at the major sixty-four chakra points, if she lands that on you that's it, not only is massive damage done to your body but all major chakra points are blocked, it's game over for any ninja." Lee said, he'd only been on the receiving end of the jutsu once when it was incomplete, Lee had only taken thirty-two blows, but even that put him out of commission, if Neji had perfected the move, and since he had a month to do so he most likely would or already had, Naruto would need to be incredibly careful.
"The next is some kind of defensive technique that much I know, but apparently it's very strong, so getting through it will not be easy if I know Neji." Lee informed again.
"Great so he's got this super awesome offensive combo jutsu and a strong defensive jutsu, does he have any weaknesses or something like that?" Naruto asked, this was not looking good for him.
"Well to my knowledge Neji only has kunai and shuriken and other ninja tools for long range engagements, his entire shinobi skills are the Hyuga's arts, which are almost entirely taijutsu or taijutsu based." Lee answered.
"An excellent breakdown of Neji's skill Lee I have no notes." Guy said, his trademark positivity showing through, giving Lee a thumbs up and a shining smile which seemed to lift Lee's spirits.
"But I have any long range jutsu." Naruto said slumping down, man Satsuki was lucky, being able to breathe fire and everything.
"Worry not young Naruto I suggest you battle Neji head on, let your youth burn so brightly it outshines even his gentle fist!" Guy said, giving another smile and a thumbs up to Naruto who just deadpanned, yeah maybe that wasn't the best idea, maybe pervy sage would have an idea?
"Listen, I've got to get back to training. But I'll come by again and we'll talk more, alright Lee." Naruto said to him, while pervy sage may be off…doing whatever creepy shit he did in his own time Naruto still wanted to maximize his time by training for the evening, it mostly consisted of just physical training but it was important.
"Okay Naruto, thank you. Never give up, you'll need to give everything you have and then some to beat Neji…more both our sakes." Lee said, giving Naruto a nod.
"I couldn't agree more Lee. In fact, here Naruto, take these." Guy said, taking a storage scroll out of one of his jonin jackets, many pockets and with a poof of smoke two weights identical to Lee's appeared.
"These are an old pair of Lee's before the weight became too insignificant for proper training, I hope they can be useful." Guy said as he handed them over.
"Wow thanks bushier bro-! Shit! The lighter pair?! These are still so heavy!" Naruto said, shocked by the weight, it looked like Guy wasn't strained at all when passing them over with a single hand?! Just how strong was he?!
"yeah, thanks." Naruto grunted out, walking out of the room with his heavy payload, dammit, that storage scroll he got from Satsuki was in his room, Naruto really wished he had it on him right now, but he supposed carrying the heavy weights back was probably a good workout.
After a treck, back to his home Naruto carefully set the weights down, trying to avoid breaking his floor.
After a quick meal he placed the weights on his lower legs as Lee had done and tried moving around, every step was a challenge, but that's what Naruto wanted, a steep hill to climb and at the top, the power and skills he craved. With that, Naruto left his house and decided to do a lap around the village. He barely finished the lap, but he made it back to his bed and collapsed, utterly exhausted, yet also satisfied.
Another week later, 13 days until the third round
"Nice kid, nice!" Gamaruken spoke from the sidelines with Jiraiya as he was attacked by four members of Gamaruken's stoneskin clan, each attacking Naruto in hand to hand.
Three days ago when Gamaruken enlisted four of his clan's brightest hand to hand aspirants Naruto was knocked around a lot, but now? Kid was good, had an instinct, one that cannot be taught. So now Naruto used his smaller size to his advantage, jumping around the larger toads, they had to be careful, lest they hit or fall into each other.
Then of course, there was the things Naruto was working on, his head was all foggy from the end of his fight with Kiba, probably from the blows he took. But he did remember using he chakra for two blows, two big blows where he let his chakra explode out when the hit landed, he didn't really under how he knew how to do it but it was awesome, and maybe that explosive blow could let him bust through this defense Lee said Neji had, so with Gamaruken's permission and even him asking to rough up some of his talented but green clan members Naruto was refining that blow. Naruto saw and opening and he took it, his fist literally covered in blue energy from the chakra.
"Toad ninja art:rock solid!" One of the toads attempted. Naruto had become quite familiar with this jutsu, they channeled chakra into their naturally hard skin to make it even tougher for a moment, enough to even shatter blades and withstand blasts from explosive tags.
However, these were greenhorn whose abilities weren't quite there yet and Naruto new jutsu was a blow fueled by immense chakra being built up and released on impact, so the force of said blow was based on how much chakra someone had to give and well, Naruto had a LOT of chakra.
So Naruto's blow broke right through the skin that was meant to be solid as a rock and sent the toad flying, Gamaruken catching the poor toad before he went flying into the tree line.
"S-sorry Lord Gamaruken." He muttered out weakly, the arm he hardened to block Naruto's blow definitely broken, nothing a few hours in the sacred springs of Mount Myoboku couldn't fix however.
"Eh getting the crap beat out of you builds character, how do you think the kid got so good?" Gamaruken said laughing at the end as he set the younger toad down.
The other two toads were perhaps the most dangerous as they were twins, and very accustomed to fighting together, meaning Naruto could exploit them a lot less without their third wheel.
But well, if it was a battle of numbers. Naruto had you beat, all day, every day.
"Shadow Clone jutsu." Naruto said, creating four clones for a total of five Naruto, two each blocking chopping strikes from the two toads.
As the clones held them in place the original gave an chakra expelling kick to one toad and as he landed jumped again into another one of the second toad, the explosive force knocking them back.
The two pairs of clones high five and dispelled, Naruto saw his own moves through their eyes, damn, he looked pretty cool actually, he wished Satsuki were here to see it.
"Well well well. Seems you got some skills after all kiddo. Good job you three, you lost, but this one, heh, he's special that's for sure." Gamaruken said as saw the sad look on the faces of his fellow toads.
In truth the only reason they lost so badly is because Naruto had lost badly days prior, Gamaruken had seen that Naruto had immense talent in adapting on the fly and learning a battles flow quickly, the kid may be a bit dense at times but he was a true idiot savant when it came to battle. It was only thanks to learning so much from his previous losses that he performed so well now.
"Alright nice job kiddo. Thanks for everything Gamaruken, just for the foreseeable future I want Naruto to work on something other then combat, he should be good enough by not now to let that Hyuga ragdoll him." Jiraiya said to the warrior toad.
"No problem, the Mrs has been telling me I'm spending too much time here and not enough time with the clan and more importantly, her hahahaha. I'll be seeing you kiddo, don't forget, you ever need mine or any of my clans aid you have it, even these three brats, they need the experience." Gamaruken spoke, waving to the two humans, the three younger toads bowing, mainly to Jiraiya but also to the new summoner who had won their respect in combat.
"See ya Gamaruken, thanks for everything the past few days." Naruto said happily, smile on his face.
"Right, what's next pervy sage?!" Naruto instantly asked, turning to the large white haired man.
"*sigh* after all that still raring to go huh? Fine, the next step is to take the Summoning jutsu to the limit. Sure you can now summon battle capable toads to aid you, but I'm talking about some serious business, I'm talking a toad the size of a building, a large building." Jiraiya spoke, at first Naruto's gaze seemed unsure, I mean he could summon Gamaruken pretty well but at hearing that there were toads of that size he eyes widened and excitement sparkled in them.
"Listen because this may help, as part of the summoning jutsu is intent, the toad you are trying to summon is Gamabunta, current toad 'boss' or 'chief toad' meaning he leads all the clans of Mount Myoboku, the titan clan always has since the toads first formed a society. Only the highly respected sages, like myself, are above him." Jiraiya explained to Naruto.
"Highly respected? They have met you haven't they?" Naruto said in confusion 'respected sage' and Jiraiya didn't go together in Naruto's mind, not one bit.
"Are you gonna keep up with the snide remarks because I know a spa which some hotties frequent, maybe you don't want training from one of the most accomplished leaf ninja ever?" Jiraiya said, joking of course, he wouldn't bail on the kid, besides, he already had shadow clones at that spar, getting all those sightlines and angles.
"Fffffffffffine." Naruto muttered out, while he'd never respect the pervy sage being a pervy sage, the fact that he was apparently one of the best left ninja ever made him want to learn more. He remembered something Iruka-sensei said, "Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young." while he'd always thought it was a weird saying as how amazing could old man third and pervy sage be? But if he thought about it a lot of ninja only live to be about Kakashi-sensei's age or younger, ninja who have lived beyond that, must be something special at least.
"Now try your best, biggest toad you can." Jiraiya instructed.
Naruto nodded and began to weave signs.
With Satsuki
"You're slow!" Kakashi yelled as he swept her legs and placed his legs across her chest and held onto her arm as he trapped her in a hold.
"D-dammit." She muttered as she tried to break free of the hold but lacked the strength to do so. Of course she was slow! She had these stupid weights on and not only did it slow her down immensely but every movement was so taxing.
"I-I y-yield." She managed to mutter out, instantly Kakashi released her and Satsuki was allowed to lay there and catch her breath. She had never been pushed this hard in her life, in a way she kind of enjoyed it, this was exactly what she wanted to keep pushing herself, yet in these moments of complete exhaustion she longed for the Uchiha district baths and a nice long rest, she should maybe take a day before the final stage of the exams, properly relax her body, Kakashi seemed to want to only break it more and more day after day.
"Weights are rough on you huh? Well that's to be expected, I know it may not seem like it but you're doing a really good job. After you get used to this weight you should be able to move at the necessary speed." Kakashi reassured, that made her feel a bit better, that there wasn't another heavier set of weights after this pair, this was the third one and she didn't know if she could remain sane if Kakashi presented a fourth set to her with that little eye smile of his.
Her work on lighting nature was going well too. She was able to keep the mini storm in a bottle contained now and was able to control any spikes of power and bring it down so it didn't shatter. The only issue was pumping enough power in, Kakashi had said she was close to the nessisary power.
Satsuki felt proud of how far she had advanced in such a short amount of time, she remembered it took two months trying to do fire nature and she was entirely focused on that. Sharingan was the obvious culprit, while she had to work at this very hard watching Kakashi with her eyes active had saved her weeks, she had come to learn that while Sharingan could copy jutsu and chakra manipulation it was like muscle memory, when she used it it was on automatic she lacked complex control over the jutsu. Kakashi had told her this wasn't too bad with very basic jutsu as they often lacked more complex application with more complex jutsu the Sharingan was just a helping hand, it gave her a headstart on mastery of the jutsu but she still needed to do most of the legwork.
"Rest for fifteen then I think we take a leap of faith. You're gonna try and perform the chidori." Kakashi said to her, Satsuki assumed she was close but not ready, ready. She wondered if she could even pull it off.
Fifteen minutes later, in which Satsuki rested and hydrated her tied body, Kakashi waved her over and weaved through some hand signs and two long walls of rock burst from the ground, a small distance between the two.
'Your goal is to perform the chidori and pierce through the first wall and the second with the piercing blast of the impact. It won't be easy, and most likely many of the days we have left, this is an intensive jutsu, especially for one so young so don't worry if you struggle. I put myself in a two week coma developing this jutsu." Kakashi explained, thinking back to when he hadn't given thought to how taxing on his chakra this jutsu would be, Minato-sensei had not been happy.
"Just focus, take your time to build up enough chakra, we can work on speed later." Kakashi instructed, Satsuki nodded and carefully weaved a few seals and clutched her left hand, in deep concentration as she amassed lighting style chakra slowly but carefully, sparks beginning to form, growing louder and more frequent as the power continued to build.
But the exhaustion of the day and her inexperience with the task began to catch up with the young kunoichi.
"I'll give you a worthy fight. I promise." Naruto's words sounded in her mind, that stupid smile he gave her as he ran off to get back to his training, it was so stupid that's what made her feel better.
"You loser." Satsuki thought as chakra surged within her and she thrust her arm forward, it was covered in lightning, and created an odd chirping sound.
2 days later, back with Naruto, 11 days until the chunin exams.
Naruto panted in the large clearing. He'd never really suffered f4om chakra exhaustion before, pretty much the only time was the tree walking and that's because he kept going for hours on end. This was harder, it was like climbing a mountain except each step up it was immensely taxing.
The issue wasn't with Naruto summoning toads oh no he had that down at this point, the problem is the toads weren't enough, I mean they were big toads, really big, as big as a small to medium size house in fact, but none of them were this 'Gamabunta' the pervy sage wanted to summon, he'd called one sizeable 'lake gut' toad ten times now, they were known for their two distinct sacks inside their body, one firing highly flammable toad oil that many toads had, only theirs was larger, and the other highly pressurized water that could cut through solid rock.
"Man I'm just not getting it. Sorry Gamamizu." Naruto said out of breath, apologizing to the large toad he'd called many times now.
"Awww that's alright Mr Naruto, I don't normally get called out, nice to see someone other then the mountain for once." The jolly toad spoke, he was primarily ocean blue with lime green spots covering his body, he had quite a large build with some fat, he spoke on a slow, but happy tone and seemed to not be getting sick of Naruto sending him back and forth with his summoning, he even said Naruto could call him put at any time if he needed oil or water blasted at something or someone.
"I have the chakra, I just know it. I just can't grab enough of it." Naruto said to himself. Even after all the strides he made in chakra control he still struggled with it, but this wasn't an issue with controlling chakra well or using jutsu efficiently, the issue was he couldn't control enough, no matter how much chakra he tried to muster it was never enough for the summoning and worst still after the failure with all the chakra he could control, he still had more to give.
"Sadly there's no shortcut or training I can give you to help with that. It's just practice, it's difficult, grabbing enough chakra to summon Gamabunta, even I can't do it without effort or drawbacks and we've been fighting together for years." Jiraiya said to Naruto, he was worried the kid couldn't do it, someone he ages controlling so much chakra, much less having it was unheard of, if Naruto was a few years older he probably could, as he body, chakra and chakra network had not fully developed yet.
Of course there was one thing he could do, but it had risk…a lot of risk. And if Naruto wasn't ready, wasn't steadfast, it could consume him.
But then again he'd seen some of what Naruto was made of and the kid was beyond headstrong, and from what Sarutobi-sensei had told him, when the going got tough, Naruto had more to give and was tougher still.
"Leap of faith then." Jiraiya thought as he snapped his notebook shut.
"Hey Naruto, dispel Gamamizu and come over here, I got an idea." Jiraiya said, waving Naruto over. Naruto quickly said goodbye to the large jolly toad who gave a friendly goodbye and wished him luck before Naruto released the summoning and the toad disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Now while you may struggle with the amount of chakra you can use there's something else we could…try, it's risky however, but if you can do this it will be useful beyond just using costly jutsu." Jiraiya explained, well there was one other, very specific way, crisis, when a shinobi often found themselves or those close to them in crisis they were capable of amazing things, that could allow Naruto to summon Gamabunta maybe, but it wasn't reliable, this other method, was slight more so…slightly being the optimal word.
"What, some kind of new way to use my chakra?" Naruto asked him, curious.
"No, instead we'll get something more potent then regular chakra, something that can fuel way bigger jutsu but still be the same amount of chakra for you to control. You know what I'm talking about right, the other chakra you have." Jiraiya explained with a serious look on his face.
"what?! No way pervy sage! That's crazy I can't even remember when I've been using it, a black out, or red out I guess. It's dangerous…I hurt people." Naruto said, against the whole idea, with what the pervy sage knew, he had to talking about the red, the nine tails chakra. The raw unstoppable power that had burst forth three times now. He'd killed two people while using that chakra. Naruto was terrified, beyond terrified even, of letting it out again, of hurting someone precious to him.
"That's why this is important, you've let your emotions get the better of you, consume you, you aren't controlling that chakra, the chakra, and by extension the nine tails are controlling you, my hope is we fix that. Because if you can control this power Naruto, there are few things in this world that can stop you. The power of a tailed beast is just that great." Jiraiya explained his intentions, he knew about the 'red outs' as Naruto called them, he knew Minato's seal work more then anyone, he'd taught the kid how to do his first storage seal after all, and he knew that thing was strong, but the problem was Naruto, a tailed beast literally was chakra, a giant mass of it even life, form and impossibly potent, that means a tailed beasts chakra was an extension of itself, it carried its will, and even with a seal as strong as Naruto's small bits could be coaxed out, drawn to Naruto's darker and more unstable emotions, and even though it was small slivers, when dealing with a tailed beast, especially the nine tails, the strongest of them all, a little went a long way. Naruto just needed to learn to coax it out calmly, and remain in control.
"If we do this. I can't be near anyone else, and you need to ready to stop me pervy sage. That's the only way this is ever happening." Naruto said, dead serious, his tone and look leaving no room for argument in his conditions, not that Jiraiya would have denied them anyway.
"Done, I'll do you one better, I'll set up barrier jutsu around the area, and I know just the place, trust me kid, you won't be hurting anyone, plus, I got these." Jiraiya said, taking out some small square tag with the Kanji for 'seal' on them.
"Tailed beast chakra seal, one of the seals created by the wife of the first Hokage to help subdue jinchuuriki. I slap this on ya and all that tailed beast chakra goes by by." Jiraiya said proudly showing off the seals. He'd thought long and hard about how training Naruto in this would go, he'd taken ever precaution, no way was Naruto going on any kind of rampage on his watch.
"Come with me." Jiraiya said, setting off on a walk away from the village, more into the forest.
"So, aside from training to be the next Hokage and show up some Hyuga wonder kid. What do you get up to Naruto?" Jiraiya asked him boy, sure he'd had reports and hearing secondhand from Sarutobi-sensei what the kid was all about but it wasn't comparable to talking to the kid himself.
"Not much else I guess. That's my life goal, becoming Hokage, getting everyone to acknowledge me, besides, besides, most places and people who aren't ninja, don't really like having me around." Naruto answered honestly, scratching the back of his head, he was a bit embarrassed to admit he didn't really have any hobbies beyond training, sure there was spending time with the few friends he did have, but what was his best friend's favorite activity? Training! Not to say he didn't enjoy doing it with her immensely. There were few things he didn't seem to enjoy more with Satsuki around, except D-rank missions…wait no, those were more tolerable when he could talk to her during the monotonous grunt work.
"Hahahaha. Man you sound a bit like Minato. He could never get his head out of a jutsu scroll or out of a training ground to save his life, only when he was older did he learn to step back a bit." Jiraiya spoke, the more he saw and spoke with Naruto the more he reminded him of Minato, Kushina too, like a perfect fusion of the both of them.
"Really? Like the fourth Hokage?! You said you taught him right? What was he like, I mean I hear all the stories and stuff, like how he was a hero of the third shinobi war and obviously how he sacrificed himself to stop the nine tails stuff like that but I mean the real stuff." Naruto asked him.
"I mean yeah most of that stuff is true, there's a bit of an inconsistency with one story, about how he defeated a thousand enemy stone shinobi in one battle. In fact it was a super elite squad of fifty shinobi and that setback caused a thousand man push to retreat. Because that elite squad was meant to open a path for those one-thousand past our other defenses. But Minato…he was always the first to put himself on the line, always taking the risk, putting himself in harm's way so others didn't, part of this was because he was such a gifted shinobi and had a great teacher so he was much more skilled and less likely to be hurt, but I believe he still would have done all those things without his talents, Minato loved people, and loved his village, he was everything a Hokage should be. If you look up to him at all or aspire to be like him, then you'll probably make a fine Hokage." Jiraiya told Naruto who listened closely and what the man had said.
"Do you know…why he chose me?" Naruto said softly, asking another question he wanted answered too. He'd looked up to the fourth Hokage, and all other Hokage since he could remember and also…he blamed the man, why him? Why was he made Jinchuuriki? Maybe the pervy sage actually knew?
"I…don't really have a good answer to that. As you may know a Jinchuuriki has to be an infant, the chakra of a tailed beast would overwhelm and almost anyone, only someone with incredibly strong chakra could survive being made one as an adult. From what I know, your parents passed away shortly after you were born, I'm sorry but I can't give a definite answer but maybe…maybe Minato had faith in who you would become, and what you would do with the power of a jinchuuriki. He was always an optimist." Jiraiya said, omitting quite a few details, of course he knew why, there were a number of reasons. Kushina's Uzumaki heritage and being the Jinchuuriki throughout her pregnancy made Naruto the perfect Jinchuuriki, few people were more suited to being one due to this. There was also another reason, and while he didn't know for sure, he knew Minato enough to geuss. He had faith in his son, faith that he'd overcome the challenges of being Jinchuuriki and emerge so much greater then before.
Jiraiya honestly wished he could tell Naruto who his parents were, but it wasn't the right time. Minato left a great many things behind, most of which are sealed with blood sealing formula, cutting edge stuff, so fresh blood of Minato or someone of his bloodline was needed, that was Naruto and only Naruto. Quite a few people, an old war hawk who Jiraiya couldn't stand most of all, would carve a warpath to get that blood if they knew it could undo Minato's seals. Not just that but Minato had some grudges, with the stone village and more personally with the current Raikage, the diplomatic tensions it could cause weren't something anyone wanted to put on the boy.
"Faith in me huh…hard to imagine someone that awesome ninja had faith in me as a newborn." Naruto said sheepishly. Quite embarrassed that the fourth believed in him so blindly apparently.
After some more walking, Naruto and Jiraiya came to a large clearing in the forest. The unique thing was the ground, it looked like patchwork, discolored dirt and grass around the place.
"Here we are, nothing much you can wreck here that hasn't already been wrecked. This is where my old teammate Tsunade and I used to go. She perfected a technique to emulate one used by the first Hokage with much less chakra usage and I fixed it, helped me practice my earth style." Jiraiya said.
Jiraiya did a very familiar cross seal as four clones of him appeared that started to walk to the four corners of the clearing.
"So kiddo? Are you ready?" Jiraiya asked, cracking his knuckles and neck.
"...yeah!" Said, hesitating slightly, before a look of determination came across his face. Finding power within himself to tackle this.
"You're one of one's I want to fight the most."
.
.
.
"You know… I've always wanted to fight you Hashirama. You probably dance pretty good." But those memories were not his…or were they? Either way, they faded like breath on a mirror.
Next one done. Hope you're all ok and enjoyed this one. I promise the next chapter will probably be the last one before the final stage of the chunin exams.
Just wanna clarify something about something I've referenced quite a bit in this chapter.
The explosive strength Naruto uses is different from normal chakra enhancement, normal chakra enhancement is almost free in terms of chakra, you just send it to a part of you body and it gets stronger, or sticks.
The jutsu that Naruto has 'remembered' is forcing a significant amount of chakra out of one's body, wasting the chakra yes, but it being an immensely powerful blow, normally this would not be viable for the average shinobi but Naruto and Hashirama Senju has chakra to spare and then some.
Tsunade replicates this without massive chakra costs with perfect control over her chakra, it's like a chemical reaction creating massive energy, but it's significantly more difficult to do.
Thank you all for reading.