(AN: I love Sasuke's Amenotejikara (The switching ability), but I feel like he never used it to its full potential. Anyway, hope you all enjoy this chapter as we start to get more into Naruto's training.)
"The Gentle Fist is a fast hitting style. It has effective stopping power and is generally one of my go to's when subduing. I learned the style from scrolls at the age of eleven and continued it study for two years before finally using it during the war to disable several of my targets when bringing in informants or when bloodshed wasn't necessary. It is the style utilized by the Hyuga clan of Konoha. The parts you are learning currently were taken during the Warring Clan Era, which means they don't fall under the Clan Protection Acts."
Naruto huffed as he pulled his hands from his knees and began to repeat the beginning sequence once more.
"You cannot utilize the style to its full potential at the moment. Once your chakra control is up to snuff; after you learn water walking, you'll be able to drop people with your fingertips. For the time being, you'll learn the three sequences in the notes, and you'll learn them well."
His arms burned as he stabbed at the target with his fingers for the sixty-seventh time that day. The sun was swimming along the horizon at this point, but still, Nanashi pushed him on towards seventy-five.
"One hundred was my go to when I was learning a new style, two hundred was the standard for anything else. The Gentle Fist was til I dropped alongside the Interceptor and the Strong Fist. You'll learn, you'll get better, you'll rise to the top."
He'd do five sets of each sequence before repeating the three.
"Can't… I just… learn the whole thing?" Learning bits and pieces of a style was hard. He constantly had to stop moving on a dime and switch to a new part.
"Do you have six years to learn the basics? You're copying just fine at the moment. In five years, you can learn the rest, but for the time being, just copy what's in the scroll. As you learn the other pieces of this set, you'll get the hang of it."
"Why not learn just one style at a time?"
"Call it a hunch. I think you'll get it down faster."
Down, up, strike. He followed the steps to completion, and finally, just as starlights began to flicker in the sky, he hit his target of seventy-five, and collapsed.
"This… is… torture."
"You'll be fine. Now get up, Sasuke's just finished his water walking for the day."
"How… do… you know?"
"My clone popped. Hurry or you'll miss dinner."
On the weekends, Naruto had taken to training all day with the two Uchihas, eating breakfast at home, bringing his lunch with him, and finally finishing the day eating dinner with Sasuke and Nanashi. Sometimes Sasuke cooked, but most of the time Nanashi ordered takeout as her cooking was considered a crime against humanity.
"Lord Fourth once told me it was edible. Biggest compliment I ever received." She had told the boys the first night. Naruto hadn't left the bathroom all night, and Iruka didn't believe him and made him run laps around the school with weights on.
"Hey!" Naruto suddenly shouted with a mouth full of food as Nanashi scrapped her vegetables onto a distracted Sasuke's plate. "You said earlier today that you always trained til you dropped growing up!"
That got Sasuke's attention.
"It's bad for your health, and can lead to problems later on in your life. While it's bad for me and Sasuke, however, it's a little worse for you, Naruto."
"Eh?"
Sasuke asked, "Shouldn't he be better off thanks to his healing factor?"
"That's the issue. Naruto's muscles are healing faster than they can stretch. Sure, it cuts down on his exhaustion, but he's not getting the optimal increases. Which means he has to work til exhaustion. If he doesn't. He only gets minimal returns."
Naruto couldn't help but think of his grueling exercises and shivered. "So I'm going to have to keep up these exercises?"
"No."
"Thank Kami!"
"You'll have to keep doing more and more as your body gets used to it. You'll probably end up doing two hundred or more katas a day."
"Booo!"
"Sasuke, on the other hand, you'll need to actually watch yourself. Training to exhaustion will only be detrimental to you. You'll be more easily fatigued, you'll be weaker, and your endurance will drop like a fly in winter."
"Don't you always talk about how you trained yourself to exhaustion?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke deadpanned at her, simply saying, "I specifically remember you telling me off the last two months for doing that, and yet you admit of doing it yourself."
"Well, I have my reasons."
"Sounds suspicious." Naruto whispered to Sasuke.
"If you must know," she said while rolling her eyes, "Yes, I always trained myself to the point of exhaustion. While I absorbed taijutsu styles like a sponge, I hadn't realized how dangerous it was to work myself to death. That is until one day. You see, I started looking into anatomy, mostly on my joints and muscles, to see just how far I could push myself while learning different styles. One that comes to mind is the Asura style. It involves being able to dislocate your limbs and pop your joints for better maneuverability."
"Cool." Naruto muttered while Sasuke scrunched up his nose.
"Quite. Anyhow, that's when I learned muscles needed to heal before you could get the optimum progress. So I learned how to cheat."
"Teach me, oh master!" The blond hit the ground in worship, causing the two Uchiha to snort.
"You don't need this method, brat. You're already cheating more than me."
"Boooo!"
With a grin, Nanashi continued her explanation. "I learned Medical Ninjutsu. I'd train myself to exhaustion, then heal my muscles and repeated until I was either out of chakra or couldn't lift a finger anymore. Took me a few months to get to that point, but it at least helped to boost my chakra control as the exercises are much harder than simple water walking. It worked, though. As I've said before, I hit Jonin at fourteen by this way."
"So because of Naruto regeneration…" An angry shadow fell over Sasuke's face.
"Oh please, teme, you've already got a leg up on me. This just evens the playing field."
"He's not wrong." She ruffled the boys' hair. "No offense to Naruto, but you've got talent on your side, Sasuke. Just look at how fast you're running through your chakra control exercises."
With tight fists, Sasuke looked up at his cousin, fire burning in his eyes, "But still. Can you… teach me medical ninjutsu?"
"It's a long, hard, and boring journey."
"I can handle it."
"Plus, while I'm not a prodigy in it, I did have a small bit of talent for medical ninjutsu. You, on the other hand, I can already tell, will be most likely an elemental ninjutsu specialist. There's a little overlap there, but not by much."
"If I can at least learn the basics—"
"Once you master the next few chakra control exercises, I might consider teaching you it."
"There's more!" Naruto shouted indignantly. He had only just started tree walking the other day.
"Oh yeah," she grinned. "Yeah, there's plenty more. Next stop is going to be waterfall walking. It's going to be fun. But for you, Naruto, you're going to need even more."
"What! That's not fair!"
"Consider it a complication forced onto you by your own strength."
"Wha?"
"You're such a dobe."
"Now, now," Nanashi interrupted the two before an argument could break out. "You, Naruto, have a frankly massive chakra reserve. One I'm sure will continue to grow as you get older."
"Really?"
"While Sasuke does have talent, there's another reason he's so good at control exercises compared to you."
The younger Uchiha looked at her with a miffed expression.
"Sasuke, you definitely have reserves higher than your official level. As an Academy Student, you have Genin level reserves that frankly will continue tot expand exponentially as you complete more and more exercises. By the time you graduate, you'll probably compare to your average chunin. Naruto, on the other hand, you're practically an ocean."
"Really!"
He was such an excitable boy. "Yes. There's probably only three or four shinobi in this village with more chakra than you. When I first met you, I would have said you were probably mid-jonin levels, but now… give it a year and you'll have more than the old man."
"More than… jiji?" Naruto, for once, was silent as the information processed through his mind.
"It's why chakra control is so hard for you. You'll continue to grow as well, which means you will never be able to stop your chakra control exercises. Even a month off would scatter your training."
"Aw man…"
"But how is that possible?"
Nanashi was fibbing, of course, ever so slightly, but she needed to. Technically Naruto was only at mid-jonin reserves, but every once in a while, when he dropped from exhaustion, she could taste that power waft off of him, and suddenly he'd be bouncing off the walls again. So while he might not be able to pull it on command, that ocean was still inside of him. "I'd put it down to your regeneration ability. Most likely, anytime you hurt yourself, your body would heal it as fast as it could. Which expends chakra, which widens and stretches your reserves. So ever since you were a baby, you've been exercising your coils. Now that you've actually started training to your full potential…" she trailed off.
"I've been getting more and more awesome!"
"Sure, we'll go with that."
A sour look passed over her younger cousin's face, and she sighed at his fragile ego, "You, on the other hand, Sasuke, have something Naruto will never have."
"And what's that?" He said bitterly.
"You're an Uchiha. Which means you'll always have a one up on the brat. With his chakra control the way it is, I doubt he'll ever succeed in genjutsu, which means he's easy pickings once you unlock our bloodline."
"Oi!"
"But… it's not guaranteed." Sasuke glared down at the ground.
"Huh?" Naruto asked in confusion. "What's not guaranteed?"
"The Sharingan…" Sasuke muttered. "Only about a third of Uchiha are able to unlock it."
"That doesn't mean you won't."
"You don't even have one, Nanashi."
She smiled down at the boy sadly. "I… I'm sure you'll gain one, Sasuke." Honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if the boy didn't have it already and was simply suppressing it. If the massacre didn't unlock it, then… "You've got this, Sasuke."
Naruto rolled his still sore shoulders as he walked into the classroom a few days later, shooting Iruka-sensei a half hearted grin as he did so. Last night, he had told Nanashi he was going to push to 85 sets in an attempt to impress her. At 78 he planned on calling it quits for the night, but she beat it into him, that promises should be kept. "I always keep my promises… but that wasn't a promise…" He just wanted to skip class and go back to bed.
"Dobe."
"Teme."
He fell into the seat beside Sasuke with a groan.
"I told you to just stick with 75 for a while longer."
"No one asked you."
"Are you ready for the exam?"
"Ready as ever!" This was it. Naruto was going to graduate this time. As if he would stay in school for two more years. "Gotta make Nan-chan proud!"
"At least she let you sign up for it."
Sasuke had sulked for two weeks now, and the two had actually ended up in a massive argument, until Nanashi smacked sense into the both of them.
"I can't control Naruto. If he wants to take the graduation exam early, I can't stop him. Do I think it's a horrible idea? Yes? Do I think he'll regret it? Yes. But that's his choice. I'm sure, pass or fail, he'll be alright. You, Sasuke, have two more years to be a child. You're already better than most graduating Genin, and more than a few who've been in the corps for a year now. But you'll grow at the same speed whether you're part of a team or learning under me. Though I'd like to say I'm certainly the better choice between your run of the mil Jonin."
"Do you even know how to use the Clone jutsu properly?"
"Of course I do!" He had his good and bad days. But for now, Naruto was confident he could pass with it. Especially if he tried to make a prank out of it, and summon a couple dozen. "It's easier when I make a lot at one time, anyway."
"Then good luck." Naruto nodded at his one friend in the room, and waited for the Chunin in charge that year to come collect him and the other students.
It… It was a hard wait, but eventually he stood from his seat and followed two others out of the room.
He could do this.
"I—"
"Don't speak, Naruto."
"I'm sorry." Tears were in his eyes as his teacher kneeled over him, holding him close as he choked out his words.
"You've got nothing to apologize for."
"But I let… let you down." He sobbed. Sasuke stood nearby, wincing at the sounds and glaring at the ground, though his fists were tight with anger.
"You could never let me down, brat. Unless you got addicted to Jiraiya-sama's books like two others I know. But other than that, you tried your best, and that's wat matters in the end."
"I—I must have just—just been nervous." He sniffled. The entire test, he could barely mold his chakra. His physical skills had increased so much, even getting into the top three of the throwing exam and the top eight of the sparring matches. The knowledge test was a complete wash, of course, and yet the worst…
"It's alright, Naruto."
He barely completed the henge, and his body switch was sketchy at best. His clones looked dead on arrival, though, and no matter how much he tried to get his mind straight, he couldn't do anything right.
"Please… Nan-chan." He begged the woman.
"Naruto—" She tried to warn him.
"Don't give up on me."
"Give up on you?" She mumbled.
"Don—Don't stop your training, please. I know you didn't want me taking the exam, but—"
"Shut up, brat." She pulled him close into a hug, silencing his voice as he continued to cry. "A stop in the road doesn't mean the journey's end. It just means you need to keep going, further into the beyond."
"Nan-chan…"
"I'll be here too, Naruto. Next time we could even try together." Sasuke spoke up.
Naruto missed the look Nanashi sent the boy, but slowly, he let his tears ebb away.
That night, as Nanashi tucked the boy into the guest bed, she paused and slowly pulled off what looked like a sticker on the back of his neck. It was small, but as she held it up to the light, she noted the small swirling pattern of seals decorated on it. The edges were browned and burned, obviously being over saturated. If left on, the paper would probably simply burn out overnight, getting rid of the evidence. It would be impossible to figure out who placed it on the boy, or why, especially with her current position in the village… yet still she pocketed the paper. "Don't worry, brat. Next year you'll make it, I promise that."