chap. 19 - If this way doesn't work, the other way will

A week after Grandma became Godaime, Jiraya, with a cooler head, and after talking a lot with Naruto and Grandma, apologized to me for attacking me without a valid justification.

I also apologized for dumping problems that were not mine on his shoulders, since I did not know all the facts of his absence from the village.

With this we can say that we are okay. We are not friends but we have a gentleman's agreement, since both he and I don't want to affect Naruto and Grandma.

Another problem was Uncle Yamato and Sister Shizune asking Grandma if they could date. Which caused another real problem, as both Naruto and I are very jealous of Shizune.

Grandma warned him that she would only allow it if Naruto and I were okay with it, which was not easy for either him or Naruto and me.

Both Naruto and I wanted Shizune to be happy, so after some good threats that even yielded Grandma's name and mokuton being born where they shouldn't have been, they started dating.

Changing the subject, me, Shino and Shikamaru became chunnins, Narutosaiu went on an early trip with Jiraya and after that I started practicing even more fuinjutsu.

Since I can no longer teleport like the Racoon clan, I decided to follow in the footsteps of Grandpa Tobirama and Uncle Minato, developing my own style of Flying Thunder God.

Since I already understand how the markings work, I want to unite that with the body flicker, so it would be a second way of the same technique as the Racoon clan.

Almost a month of studying and trying and I have good news.

I have two ways to use it, with the body flicker and space time, I was able to do what I couldn't, teleport like Minato did, this doesn't hurt my body and still leaves me strong. The second is that I created a kunai marked with the Flying Thunder God, which allows me to do the same thing, as Minato. I can throw and appear in her area.

Problem one solved. Now for problem two.

I can feel the natural energy, I don't even need to meditate for a long time to feel it, the problem is to accumulate enough and balance it in the right way. It took a while, but I did it. Just 6 months was enough.

Now I can enter Sage mode, what I need now is something to store all the sage chakra, and I already know how to do this.

Orochimaru uses the cursed seal to store and transfer the wisdom chakra to the user, not to mention that the same seal leaves the body always recharging elemental energy.

If I put this information together with my fuinjutsu, I think I can find a form of seal that allows me to accumulate wisdom chakra and another to gather and store elemental energy.

So in short, I need three seals on my body. One stores chakra, the other elemental energy and the third Sabio chakra.

I ask Grandma to teach me the hundred strength technique. I swear, they really need to find someone to improve these names. They are too big and too weird too.

Another month of testing and learning, I modify the seal, and make four versions.

The fourth version stores not only chakra, but also lets in a lint of elemental energy, which can help Grandma's seal not burn up her vitality when she uses it.

After everything is ready, I modify the seal design to make it look cool, and it turns out to be a big tree with three sections. The root is my chakra, the leaves and fruits are natural energy, and the trunk is the junction of the two, where the wisdom chakra is stored.

I focused too much on my training and missed some things that happened.

Before Naruto traveled with Jiraya, Sasuke left the village, wanting to join Orochimaru in his quest for power. 'I know, nothing has changed apparently.

The team was created to go and get him, in which I refused to go.

Everyone looked at me as if I had abandoned Sasuke until I asked, "Do we reach him and then? Do we tie him up and force him to stay here against his will? Do we always leave an anbu by his side so he doesn't run away again? I understand that you want to go after him, go, don't waste time, but be prepared for whatever happens.

They come back injured, and Naruto faints. I stay with him in the hospital until he gets better, and seeing that I was there, he gets more excited.

"If I was stronger, I would have made him stay Nox." he is clenching his fists tightly.

"Impossible Naruto." he looks at me like I am an idiot. "If you were stronger, and beat him, it would only prove that he is really weak, which would make him even more desperate for power." I walk over to him, put my hand on his shoulder.

"If you really want to help him, you have to get stronger, so that when he thinks he's strong, he'll be surprised and come back to us, so we can all get strong together."

'I don't know how the soft-spoken jutsu works, honestly.' I think that and Isobu laughs at the weak attempt at Talk no Jutsu.

Time skips a bit

It's been 7 months since Naruto left the village to train, I've been doing small missions with other teams and sometimes 'alone'.

Grandma has now increased the rank and importance of medical ninjas, so it's kind of mandatory now to have one on the team.

Good things that have happened with this. The significant increase of medical ninjas brought a significant improvement in the quality of life for civilians, which generated more healthy people, which generated more labor force, which helped the economy, which helped the village grow, and so the wheel went round and round.

Now I am in the middle of a mission, escorting some medical ninja who will open health centers in the smaller villages and give the beginning of training to some who have the ability, sending them later to Konoha to finish their training.

My job is simple, I leave them in the city and the village police force takes care of them. At the same time I take reports that should be delivered to the village and make an inspection to see if there is no bribery or any other scheme corrupting the village.

When my work here in village X is finished, I go back to Konoha, give the mission report and see if I can take a few days to train.