Chapter 21

It was now the second week of training and the last day of personal training for that week. This meant that Naruto was still trying to keep Jiraiya off of the sealing position for three minutes. By now he had impressively reached one minute and forty-five seconds. But each second further was harder and harder to obtain, it seemed like half a second better was a major accomplishment when he would get it.

He'd scratch and claw as best he could, use as many clones as he could muster, throw the best attacks he had at Jiraiya to keep him away, but it would always inevitably end up with Jiraiya triumphantly breaching the sealing area.

The process was maddening.

And Jiraiya said that when he actually used the real seal it would require more chakra than he could give if he were to make so many clones at once. Naruto had an easy way to solve that problem though; he would simply make one clone and make it activate the seal, then if he needed to he had the rest of his own chakra to use to split amongst his clones that he would use to actively fight and protect the single seal clone that had half of the original Naruto's initial chakra supply. It would be a simple case of splitting his chakra in half and then spamming his own remainder to fight.

Right now though, the two were taking a break so that Naruto could learn the process needed to make the seal in the first place. In their usual field that had become their meeting place for training and whatnot, Naruto sat across from Jiraiya studying all of the patterns and arrays written a scroll, the same scroll that marked the circle he was trying to protect during their actual physical training, "Make sure you know how to write this array perfectly." Jiraiya said, "Depending on how wide you want the range of this jutsu to reach, you're going to need more than one scroll."

"So this jutsu doesn't have a set range?" Naruto asked as he attempted to commit the seal to memory while making his own master copy to use to prepare his own scrolls, "Cool."

"Not as cool as you'd think." Jiraiya said, looking over Naruto's work. His handwriting was very good. He was expecting mistakes, but not here. He could thank Naruto's routine abuse of the Kage Bunshin training method for that. Naruto could probably forge perfect signatures if he had to sometime down the line. Something to think about at a later point.

"It's not cool?" Naruto said with a puzzled look on his face.

Jiraiya then launched into an explanation, "Okay, in order for this to work you need at least three scroll. If you have three scrolls then that will take up a 50 yard circumference and a ton of chakra for a normal person… but we both know you're not exactly normal, which is good for you in this case. You could probably use more than 12 scrolls and have enough chakra to keep going, but chakra probably isn't going to be a concern after you finish that jutsu."

Naruto tilted his head curiously, "Why? I thought chakra was important. Don't we die without chakra?"

"Chakra isn't important after you activate this jutsu for a very good reason." Jiraiya said with a stern look on his face, "Once you activate this seal then no one can use any chakra within the range of your seal, at all." At that time, Jiraiya set up three scrolls in a circular pattern much like the position Naruto was meant to guard in their physical training, "One hand-seal for each of the five chakra natures. Remember them…" He said as he went through the five seals, "Tora, Mi, Inu, Saru, Ushi." Naruto went through the hand-seals slowly along with Jiraiya, trying to remember the pattern just as Jiraiya called out the name of the jutsu, "Chakura Mukou Fuuin (Chakra Disabling Seal)!"

Naruto cringed at Jiraiya, not expecting him to just activate the jutsu. A massive array spread out from the ground where the three scrolls were placed, the distance and range that Jiraiya claimed that it would, and in a flash appeared on both Naruto and Jiraiya's bodies before disappearing.

After it had done so, Naruto didn't feel any different, "That's it?"

A nod from Jiraiya was his answer, "That's it." His lips quirked upwards in amusement, "What? Did you expect an explosion or something?"

"Kinda." Naruto replied lamely, looking at his hands and around at the entire area, "Did it work?"

"You tell me." Jiraiya said, sitting down on the ground with his cheek in one hand as he waited for Naruto to try something, "Go ahead and make your dumbass clones so I can get back to kicking your ass again."

Now Naruto was very defensive of his signature jutsu. His clones were most certainly not dumb, "Fine! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" He said, his hands up in the necessary hand-seal for the jutsu to take form. Nothing happened however, causing Naruto to blink blankly, "Wow… really?"

Jiraiya chuckled at Naruto's reaction, "Yep. Until you choose to undo the technique it lasts for as long as you're conscious, or for as long an opponent is in range, and whoever you're fighting won't be able to leave the battlefield." A frown then came over his face, "It does the same thing to you though. It evens the playing field. The only thing someone can use after this is normal weaponry and taijutsu, but if you find it reasonable to use this move then your opponent probably outclasses you when using chakra."

'No chakra at all…' Naruto couldn't help but consider that more of a hindrance than a help. Maybe he was looking at it wrong, "Anything caught in the range of the seal when I activate it can't use chakra until I release it… me included."

"Another reason why I'm making you fight me so hard." Jiraiya said, "You're not going to face off against any genin like me. Ever. You already have fantastic fighting skills without any chakra. This is teaching you how to keep a stronger opponent at bay. If you can hold me off for three minutes then who knows how long you can hold off a lesser opponent that's still stronger than you."

The way Jiraiya described him, Naruto found it hard to believe he was really any good. Jiraiya repeatedly wore him out, as he had yet to land a single blow on Jiraiya whatsoever. On the other hand though, it was hard to believe that anyone could say something like that about their own strength and not make it seem like empty boasting, "Are you really that strong Ero-sensei?"

"Absolutely." Jiraiya said as he made a half-tiger seal, "Fuuin kai (Seal Release)." Once again, the sealing array appeared over the entire area before disappearing into the air, "Now I want to see you get to work on making the rest of the scrolls to use the jutsu so you can give it a try once or twice. Then we'll try to get you back to outlasting the time limit." Naruto let out a grumble at having to get back to work on something like that, "Well bitching about it won't make anything happen any faster so chop-chop brat."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Team 10 Training Ground – Four Weeks Until Chunin Exams Final Round)

"How the hell are we supposed to use that?" Ino asked Naruto abruptly. Now was the brainstorming portion of their team meetings, finding out what the others had to add to the team equation and hashing out ways to use it. At the moment, the trio of genin were sitting under their usual tree to keep out of the sun as Asuma supervised from right nearby, and Ino was none too pleased with Naruto's current progress with Jiraiya, "Your sensei for the month sucks if that's what he's got up his sleeve for you Goldie-kun."

Blunt as always it seems.

"Hey… it's not like I'm just wasting my time here." Naruto defended weakly before getting some more conviction in his voice, "And I'll totally find a way to make this seal work for me when I master it Ino, dattebayo." Like hell he'd take all of that time to learn the seal and not have a way to make the effort needed to activate it work out heavily in his advantage. All the beatings from Jiraiya he had been taking in an effort to keep the seal safe before its activation were also paying dividends. It was better than fighting clones, and trying to get Shikamaru into gear to fight him directly never really ended very well.

Shikamaru on the other hand was thinking to himself about what Naruto had just told them, 'If Naruto can control the entire amount of chakra in a given area like that then he controls the battlefield. But without chakra at all Ino and I aren't much. Still, he's right. There's a way to use that jutsu in a situation like the exams… and if he doesn't figure it out then I'll do it myself.'

Ino let out a groan of exasperation, "We can't lose to Forehead-girl, even if Sasuke-kun is on her team! If she beats us I'll never hear the end of it!" She held up both of her hands as if they were both scales, "Sasuke-kun is probably off learning some amazing jutsu that only a genius could pull off, and Chouji's probably getting one-on-one time with his dad to learn things from his clan… and on the other hand we've got the bum who hasn't told us anything about learning anything new and we've got Goldie-kun and his miracle ability to turn off everyone's chakra including ours. But oh, wait! It takes three minutes for him to even load that up!"

From the more irritable than usual reaction that Ino gave it was clear that she was feeling the stress of it all, and it had only been a week into the training period. She was projecting her own lack of progress with whatever she was trying to learn over this course of time onto them. Naruto had actually learned the seal that they were talking about and had prepared a dozen or so scrolls, but Jiraiya insisted that they continue the physical training for the multiple beneficial reasons of doing so.

"Alright, enough." Shikamaru said, getting both Naruto and Ino's attention to focus on him, "Yesterday we worked the kinks out of our usual formations. Now we need to figure out what we know about some of the people we're going to fight. So let's start with who we're going to fight first. Those Iwa kids."

"We don't know anything about them." Ino said with a shrug. What could they do about that but head into battle and hope for the best?

"Fine…" Shikamaru muttered. He knew that they had nothing on the Iwa genin team as well, but then again all they had on them was the basic knowledge of what two of the members of the team might be able to do due to their clans, "So let's skip right to the next team in case we advance. How about those Kumo genin?"

Naruto raised a hand as if he were in school and spoke up, "Um, they use those swords. The girl with the red hair and the boy on the team both have the same kind of sword. They both have katana, and the girl Samui carries a tanto. They might all be close-range specialist kinds of fighters."

Shikamaru nodded and asked another question more important, "If it came down to you against them one-on-one could you beat them with your machete?"

"It depends on how good they are." Naruto answered. He knew how to use his machete in a way that was effective for himself, but he was no bladed weapon specialist by any stretch of the imagination. He still knew that as he was, if he were to fight someone like Zabuza or Asuma then no amount of clones wielding deadly close-range weaponry in the world would be enough. Now he didn't think any one of the Kumo genin would be that good, but they would definitely be better with those swords than he was with his machete.

"We can talk about that later." Shikamaru said with finality on that particular topic, "Now for the other half of that fight, what do we know about that other team they're fighting? The one from Konoha with the Hyuuga, the guy in green, and the girl with buns in her hair."

"Tenten's team?" Naruto spoke up again and squinted hard in thought, "Well Tenten uses tons of weapons to fight. She's really good at throwing pretty much anything, and I'm sure she can fight up close with a weapon too. The guy in green, Rock Lee, he's… fast. He's the fastest guy our age I've ever seen." Naruto didn't think he'd see anyone that fast anytime soon, and then he fought Haku, "But he's not just fast, he's strong too." Naruto could still remember the kick to the face he took. Quite a rude awakening to becoming a genin.

"As strong as you?" Ino queried to her fellow blonde. Naruto could effortlessly throw her or Shikamaru around like rag dolls. His taijutsu required him to be stronger than his opponents to be used to full effectiveness.

Naruto gave her a sheepish smile, "Let's put it this way Ino-chan; it's not whether he's stronger than me, it's whether I'm stronger than him."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, not really believing that, "There's a genin, and we're not even talking about Chouji here, that's stronger than you? Troublesome… I'm not even going to get into the first thing you said about the guy either." Dealing with a wickedly fast person that was physically stronger than Naruto wasn't exactly very reassuring of their chances when going up against them, "And the last guy is a Hyuuga that we're damn sure not going to let you in close to fight against Naruto."

"Why?"

At this point Asuma cut in, taking his spot as overall supervisor to the three, "Because against a Hyuuga, Naruto's style would be useless." He walked over and grabbed Naruto by the wrist, "Your style requires you to stick to an opponent with your chakra. The Hyuuga's style of taijutsu forces chakra out from their hands and other parts of their body too, just in a different way from yours. They can disrupt your grip. Then they can close off your chakra flow altogether so that you can't even get the chakra through to your hands to grab and stick to them in the first place." He then let out a deep sigh, "And from there if they hit you, their taijutsu can rupture organs. There's no real defense against it. You can't build up your organs or your tenketsu, and with the use of their kekkei genkai Byakugan they can see it all."

A deep frown crossed Naruto's face, "So going in close against Neji or Hinata might get me slaughtered…" He could see maybe Neji pulling it off. Jerks like that usually had the skill to back up their arrogance or else it would have been beaten out of them a long time ago, but Hinata on the other hand… he just couldn't see her shutting down his organs in a fight. But if Asuma said so then it meant that it could always happen, and these matches that were forthcoming didn't really have any rules.

Who knew what any of them would be capable of if push really came to shove?

"Now we need an anti-Hyuuga strategy?" Shikamaru said before sighing and rubbing his temple, "I am never taking another chunin exam again if we fail this one. Ever." He needed to start writing this crap down at home to help keep up with everything that they needed to do.

Asuma had been watching them since day one of team training. He had only been watching as they worked team drills like a well-oiled machine. He only added small comments from time to time when he saw a necessity to do so, and prompted them to make slight adjustments but they seemed to have a deep grasp on what they were doing. It had only been five months, not even half a year since they had even become genin.

He was proud. He was unashamed to say that he was excited to see what they could do next, 'You guys are going to do just fine come finals time.' Asuma thought to himself, 'I just know it. I wonder if I can up my wager with the others?'

XxX

(One Day Later – Shiho's House)

Deciding to make use of his day off, Naruto went over to the house of someone he hadn't seen since before leaving to take the chunin exams since it was her day off as well. He hadn't told Shiho about how he had done upon entering the exams due to everything that had been thrust upon him immediately after returning home. Needless to say, when he finally made the time to go and see her about it she was rather ecstatic.

"I'm so proud of you Uzumaki-kun." Shiho said happily as she set down a tray of tea on the table she and Naruto had been sitting at, "You're one step away from getting promoted, congratulations!" There was no ill will towards him being promoted before her because she wasn't a ninja in the active force. Besides, she quite liked her job.

It was nice to have someone so enthusiastic for him though, Naruto had to say. Having people be happy for something you did was a fantastic feeling, "Thanks a lot Shiho-chan." Naruto said as he took a sip of the tea to be gracious. He wasn't particularly one for tea but hey, it was free, "I've got to really pull one over during the final tournament though or I'm not going to get anything out of the exams."

He had already told her who he was more than likely going to face off against in the competition. Her advice was rather simple for each of the clan kids from Konoha. Against an Inuzuka (Kiba) if he could separate the ninja from the dog and beat them separately that would be far easier than taking them on at once. Against an Akimichi (Chouji) speed would be his greatest weapon, and attacking from off angles would eventually topple the large shinobi. With Naruto's fighting style he would have been advised to stay far away from an Aburame (Shino) or else his chakra would be sucked by the bugs… albeit at a ridiculously lessened pace than any other ninja, but it would still happen if he were to be swarmed so any attempt to get close would have to be very tentative. A Hyuuga would be a vaunting challenge in close, but thriving in near-quarters was still very possible… just not very advisable because even if he won in the end, the latent danger of the attempt was not really worth the risk.

And her advice for fighting an Uchiha that had time to get used to their Sharingan (Sasuke)… well, Naruto was not going to be able to move fast enough that he would catch Sasuke off guard with anything he did, and Sasuke was just as fast as him, so he couldn't rely on his body not being able to keep up with his eyes. Shiho's best advice was just to avoid making eye contact and cut a grinding pace in battle to wear him down, something that Naruto was rather certain he could do.

Shiho pressed her hands together in thought before grabbing her cup and taking a sip of her own tea, "Well, you have the raw talent, you apparently have the pedigree even if you didn't know it until recently… and you have Shikamaru-kun if you don't know how to approach a fight." Thinking of the lazy yet very intelligent Shikamaru got her flustered for a moment before she regained her composure, "So what's your big issue Uzumaki-kun? Normally you're all, 'Dattebayo, I'm gonna kick everyone's ass!'" She said in a manner of mimicking Naruto before letting out a giggle, "Or something like that. Come on, tell me what's wrong."

Well Shiho wasn't a competitor in the exam, nor was she a teammate whose morale he felt the need to keep up by keeping his uneasy feeling from her knowledge. But she was a trusted friend, and she was right, who would she tell that it would get back to anyone that it mattered to? He had listed this grievance to Shikamaru, but he had enough on his plate to worry about this as well. Even though this meant nothing to her, he wanted to talk to someone about it, even if it was just him being paranoid.

"Okay…" Naruto said reluctantly, still weighing the benefits to the cons of telling her anything of this sort, "In the exams, there's this guy. Gaara's his name, and he's the freakiest guy I've ever met in my entire life. Just being around the guy made me feel like he wanted me to die." And he did, but that much he didn't need to tell her, "And I'm never going to get close to the guy in a fight either…" He wouldn't be so shaken if he knew that he had a chance at hitting Gaara, but if dozens of clones couldn't get him to flinch then he had to sit down and brainstorm.

Hearing Naruto flat out say that someone intimidated him was a new thing, but Shiho would help him anyway she could, even if all she could do in the end was lend emotional support, "What kind of jutsu does he use?"

"Sand." Naruto's blunt and to the point answer left her with a confused look on the bespectacled blonde girl's face, forcing Naruto to elaborate, "Gaara uses sand from this gourd he keeps on his back to smash into stuff like waves on a beach, or he grabs people up and just crushes or suffocates them to death." Shiho cringed at the explanation, "And it makes some kind of shield around him that I can't get past to get to him directly."

Shiho adjusted her glasses on her face and raised an eyebrow curiously, "So this person controls sand?"

Naruto could hear the skepticism in her voice as to why that would be such a big deal and wracked his own brain trying to think of a way to explain why this was so threatening, "Okay, when I say sand I'm talking enough sand to cover the floor in each room in your house, up to the top of our toes… and whenever anything gets close to him, no matter what it is, the sand comes up to block for him. The sand can take an explosion from six explosive tags going off at the same time. And he can send the sand out at you from anywhere he can see you." He then thought about Gaara's sand defense, "I swear, a few times he didn't even know my clones were creeping up on him and they still got stopped by Gaara's sand."

"That's a lot of sand… and to be able to use it like that?" Shiho could now see it in her mind's eye. At first she thought it was just like sand being blown all about like in the wind, but now she could see waves and waves of sand pounding all about. And suddenly the idea of being caught in sand like that didn't seem like such a minor thing.

Naruto nodded before speaking up, "I have one move that might work, but I've never used it in an actual fight before." The jutsu he had come up with by accident before the exams began. He could do it again, he had already done it and made sure that it wasn't a one-time thing, but he'd actually have to touch the sand. He'd have to put his hands on the sand and pull away, and his experience from clones told him that he wouldn't have much of a chance at that.

Hearing that Naruto might have something to use, Shiho looked at him with an inquisitive look, "Why haven't you tried it in a fight before?" She sure wasn't going to spar with him to test it out. She wasn't a fighter at all.

"Because if I hit someone with it I'd probably kill them." Naruto stated plainly, "It's not something I can really use on friends, and I can't just keep knocking down trees since I already know how to do it… I like nature." At least a dozen poor trees fell victim to his technique when he was first trying to discover whether or not it could be used as an actual attack.

Taking on a look of pondering, Shiho let out a grunt of focus, "Well… I'm not sure what to tell you here Uzumaki-kun." She said earnestly, "This guy with the sand… it's beyond me. And you don't think you can punch through it or get around it?" She got a shake of the head from Naruto in response, "I'll try to come up with some way to help you, but I don't necessarily know what I'll be able to find in the end."

Naruto abruptly stood up and grabbed her hands to comfort her, "Hey don't worry about it so much." It was his problem, not hers. All she had been doing since day one had been helping him, and what had he done for her? Not a single thing. Having her worry her little head over something that might have been inconsequential just because he was a little paranoid wasn't fair at all, "I'll just keep training. If I'm strong enough then it won't really matter in the end, right? I'm going to have some tricks of my own when the time comes."

The confident grin he gave her to assuage any concerns over the matter she may have had didn't really do much once she really began thinking about Gaara's abilities if they were really as Naruto had reported them to be. It was like Gaara was his antithesis on the battlefield. Hopefully he was right and it wouldn't be an issue.

XxX

Standing in a clearing surrounded by around 20 straw dummies, Tenten suddenly drew two handfuls of shuriken and quickly threw all of them at the dummies in front of her and in her peripheral vision before swiftly drawing more and doing the same to the remaining dummies behind her.

She repeated this process nonstop until she was stopped by the voice of her sensei, "Tenten what are you doing? Is this what you're intending to train on today?" Gai asked. He didn't really have a problem with it, he just wanted to know.

Tenten stopped working and turned to Gai, "Hey, where's Lee?" She asked upon noticing that the Gai-lookalike was not following along behind the jounin.

Gai gave her a smile that gleamed in the sunlight, "Lee is doing a few pushups to stay warm for the next bit of training he's about to receive. I came to get you because personal training time was over. I need you to help the boys learn how to deal with opponents wielding swords."

"Oh." Tenten said before sighing and wiping her brow with a small smile on her face, "Well let's go then."

"That's the spirit Tenten!" Gai exclaimed, "Never be satisfied with your current set of skills, always strive to improve! I still would like to know what you were doing though. You won't be facing that many opponents at once during the exams. At the most it would be three."

Letting out a sheepishly laugh, Tenten fell into step with Gai as they walked to the location that Lee and Neji were left at, "I can already fight against any weapons user we'd see in the tournament, but in the next round we might be fighting someone that can make solid clones… lots of them, more than the dummies that I set up. And I don't think he'll be easy to beat a second time. He's the only one I know about so he's the only one I can prepare for."

Gai nodded before frowning, "Err, who exactly would you all be facing once you advance out of the first round?" He asked, the ordering of the brackets having slipped his mind.

"Well it would either be a team from Iwagakure or one of Konoha's rookie teams. The one with the Nara, the Yamanaka girl and Uzumaki Naruto." Tenten explained to Gai, "You know Naruto, you met him for a few seconds when we were heading to the exams in the first place."

Of course Gai knew who Naruto was even without Tenten's prompted explanation. Everyone of any sort of decent rank in Konoha's forces knew who Naruto was, "Yes, the youthful young man that is Asuma's student. He can make that many solid clones?" Well it made sense seeing as how he had the Kyuubi within him. He had to be a chakra juggernaut.

"He could when we first met, the day after he graduated." And that was months ago in Tenten's calendar count. If he was in the final round now then there was no doubt that he had greatly improved, either that or he had two ringers as teammates, but she was betting on the former, "If I mess up and let his clones get anywhere near me then I won't be able to do anything. He'll beat me to a pulp."

"How wonderful!" Gai said, picking Tenten up in a proud hug, "My young female student can even point out her own flaws and limitations in combat! And now we have information on possible opponents to share with Neji and Lee! Preparation is victory! Come Tenten, let's train!"

"I don't have a choice Gai-sensei!" Tenten yelled at him as the man took off in a sprint to find Lee and Neji once again, "Put me down!"

XxX

Sasuke was currently rethinking everyone's stance on him as a genius as he took on a Kage Bunshin of his sensei Hatake Kakashi. From his experience in his fight against Naruto, one hit would dispel the clone. At first he was put off and rather insulted when Kakashi told him to fight his clone and once he managed to defeat it they would move onto something different. To spite the man for underestimating him, Sasuke planned on blowing through the clone and walking right up to Kakashi with a 'what's next' attitude.

Then he actually started fighting the clone… the clone with half of Kakashi's chakra… the clone that wasn't even using Sharingan.

It had been a week of training and he hadn't hit Kakashi's clone yet. He was getting closer, but he still hadn't hit the clone. Why Kakashi was making him do this when he was actually working hands-on with Sakura the man wouldn't say, but it was thoroughly pissing the young Uchiha off.

"You're getting faster Sasuke." The dodging Kakashi-clone said as it avoided Sasuke's furious taijutsu assault, "It's pretty impressive."

"I'll call it impressive when I turn you into smoke!" Sasuke growled out, not taking the clone's patronizing compliments at face value, 'I've got to be faster. This clone is one step ahead of me all the time and it isn't even using Kakashi's Sharingan.' He said as his own Sharingan was locked intently on Kakashi's Kage Bunshin, trying to take advantage of being able to see its steps in advance.

Meanwhile, during Sasuke's prolonged engagement against Kakashi's doppelganger, the original was working with Sakura, "Sasuke is preoccupied and Chouji's father is taking him for the month so that he can gain better control over his clan techniques. That means that for right now you have me all to yourself." He said, giving her what was perceived to be a smile behind his mask, "Lucky you."

Sakura returned the man's smile and looked over at Sasuke struggling with Kakashi's clone. Noticing how Sasuke was doing far better than he had been doing at first made her think about her own growth or lack thereof. She hadn't added to her skill set since she finished learning how to water walk in Nami no Kuni, "But what are you going to teach me Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi's face turned serious as he started to explain, "I remember you getting tree walking down on your first try and then learning how to walk on water in less than a day. Your chakra control is impeccable so I believe it's high time I teach you a way to use it. Welcome to an introduction into genjutsu."

Hearing that Kakashi was going to teach her something about genjutsu got Sakura's eyes to widen as she raptly paid attention to everything he would possibly say on the subject.

"It's admittedly not my forte…" Kakashi admitted sheepishly, "But I know more than enough about it to get you started on the right track." He held out his hand and gestured for Sakura to grab a hold of it, which she did, "Genjutsu basically works by extending your chakra flow through your enemy's cerebral nervous system to control the chakra in their mind. This is how the illusion is cast. So go ahead and try to channel your chakra into me for practice. It's easy this way just to give you an example of sorts."

Sakura nodded and gathered chakra to her hands that were grabbing onto Kakashi's and used the connection between them to place her own chakra into his body. She felt her flow of active chakra end at her hands so she knew that she wasn't just circulating chakra, she was expelling it.

"Good." Kakashi complimented as he could feel the foreign chakra enter his system, "But when you begin using genjutsu it's most effective when you use the optimum amount of chakra necessary. Enough chakra to initiate your jutsu, yet not so much that your opponent can feel something wrong. The amount you're using now could tip anyone off that you were trying to influence them somehow. You'll work on that though. It will take practice." He said confidently, getting a firm nod from Sakura in agreement. So she was fired up to learn about this? That was very good indeed.

"Is there anything else I need to know about using genjutsu?" She asked. It couldn't be just that simple or they would have learned more about it in the Academy.

"There's quite a bit more to learn actually." Kakashi confirmed, "The better you get further down the line the easier a genjutsu will be to cast, but you're a relative novice so to help you along you will want to try to use some kind of medium to initiate the more effective techniques. Something visual, or something that affects another sense of some sort to distract your enemy to direct even a small portion of their attention for a moment. Long enough for you to begin your jutsu." He was struggling to come up with some way to explain what he was talking about.

Fortunately, Sakura was more than sharp enough to connect the dots and come up with her own example for Kakashi's lecture, "You mean like a flash of light or a specific sound. Something like that?"

Kakashi once again gave the girl a smile, his single visible eye crinkling in a cheerful manner, "Exactly like that. I think you'll be a natural at this if you put your mind to it. It's a devastating focus of the ninja arts to specialize in."

Sakura beamed at the praise before asking another question, "Before we really get started is there anything else about genjutsu that you think I should know?"

Kakashi punched the palm of his hand as if he had neglected to mention something, "Oh yes. Genjutsu is specifically effective on people that naturally have larger than normal amounts of chakra. If it's someone that develops a massive amount of chakra over time it won't count since it will have slowly been grown into. It has to be someone that has always had copious amounts of chakra. So much chakra that they never get used to using tiny amounts of chakra and have to work extra hard for control. This makes it so that the miniscule amount of chakra that most genjutsu techniques take to activate aren't felt by those with the large chakra reserves. It's like a drop of water in a filled bucket."

Sakura nodded as she absorbed the information. However she put two and two together about something one would have at first deemed completely irrelevant as her mind raced a mile a minute, "Wait, that sounds really familiar. So you're pretty much saying that people that are suckers for genjutsu techniques are people like-."

XxX

Naruto let out a yawn before choking slightly, prior to letting out a sneeze as he sat on the couch in his living room. Being that now was his downtime he was not wearing his goggles over his forehead or his headband in a bandanna style around his neck, nor was he wearing his dark blue arm warmers or his orange windbreaker top, foregoing it just for the dark blue shirt that was usually underneath. Sitting next to him, laying across the longer portion of the sofa was Ino, eyes shut and seemingly a heartbeat away from napping.

"Bless you Goldie-kun." Ino said without missing a beat, eyes still closed.

Naruto on the other hand rolled his eyes at his blonde teammate and nudged her legs with his elbow, "Why are you over here? It's my day off and I was going to take a nap." Right after he got through getting himself some more sealing strips and making himself some more explosive tags, but he could have gotten some clones to do the second thing.

"Ooh, a nap sounds like a great idea." Ino said brightly, poking at Naruto with her bare foot with a smile on her face, "But I came over here because it's my day off too, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit behind a counter all day selling flowers. I'm tired." She said, finishing with a pout.

"So you'd rather stay over here and bother me for a few hours?" Naruto replied cheekily. He didn't really mind the company at all to be quite honest. It was better than hanging out alone for the rest of the day after his earlier visit with Shiho, "What makes you think I'm not tired too?"

Ino smirked at him before answering his query, "Because you're never tired love." She commented, batting her eyelashes sweetly, "That should really come in handy a few years from now for more than just your ninjutsu."

Having hung around Jiraiya for much of the last two weeks, not even bothering to mention the time he had done so beforehand, Naruto of course knew what was being implied and then some. But by now he had conditioned himself to take a certain amount of teasing to keep from being driven insane by his secondary sensei and his rather attractive teammate. Jiraiya's book was also full of rather blue language and comments on the female form… even though that had nothing to do with fuuinjutsu whatsoever.

Naruto let out a sigh and sank back into the cushion of the couch, "You know if Sasuke-teme ever hears you say this stuff then he might not think you like him as much as you say you do Ino-chan." In response, Ino stretched out her legs, placing them on Naruto's lap. This forced a sigh out of Naruto because Ino was being far too affectionate, which meant only one thing as far as he was concerned, "What do you want from me?" He asked.

Ino feigned a hurt look, "Why I'm hurt! Goldie-kun, what makes you think that I want something?" She then started laughing as Naruto started to tickle her feet. She couldn't pull them away either because of the Nebaiken-style grip he had on her, "Okay! Okay! I'll talk!"

Naruto then ceased in his tickling assault on Ino to hear what she had to say, "I'm listening." He ignored the rather hard punch Ino gave him in the arm once the tickling stopped.

Taking a moment to regain her composure, Ino explained what she required, "I want you to teach me how to make Kage Bunshin."

Naruto's answer was direct and precise, "No."

"Come on!" Ino cried indignantly, "Why not? I've never said it before, but it's such a cool jutsu. One of me is fantastic, I could only imagine what having two real me's around would be like! Or what about twelve? Twelve Inos Naruto! That's eleven more of me to love!" Ino's argument broke down into uncontrollable laughter when Naruto devilishly started tickling her again to get her to be quiet.

"It's a kinjutsu." Naruto defended with a frown as he tickled Ino's feet, "Part of the agreement of me learning that jutsu to graduate was that I promised Hokage-jiji that I wouldn't just teach anyone that jutsu because it's dangerous. My sensor jutsu is starting to evolve again. When I'm close to people I can feel their chakra compared to mine. You don't have enough for it."

After telling her that, Naruto stopped tickling Ino and let go of her, letting her catch her breath, "How would you know I don't have enough chakra for it?"

Naruto gave her a deadpan look, "You don't even have enough chakra for one clone. One would exhaust you. And if you messed up the way you're going to when you practice with the jutsu then you're going to make more than one by mistake until you get control over it, and more than two Kage Bunshin might kill you Ino-chan. You and Shikamaru can't do it."

Naruto had seen that Shikamaru and Ino's specialized clan ninjutsu didn't take nearly as much chakra as his own Kage Bunshin did, maybe because their bodies were conditioned for the techniques through lineage. Still, that meant that they didn't use as much chakra as he did regularly, and they didn't have nearly as much. Both of them combined against Naruto chakra-wise wasn't even a contest and everyone on Team 10 knew it and accepted this as fact.

Ino crossed her arms and grumbled, "Well what in the nine levels of hell gave you so much damn chakra to use? That just can't be natural you know?"

A large grin that belied Naruto's actual thoughts came over his face once Ino said that, "Yeah Ino-chan, I know. It's just the way I am, heh." He said with a sheepish laugh, and it was true. It was the way he was without any choice of his own and it often led to malice heaped upon him as a child and now he knew why, but honestly how could one spite him for it? All the while he was thinking something different from what he said, 'If it's just the way I am then why am I being such a coward about telling you and Shikamaru about it?'

Fuck it. The reasoning hadn't come up yet, and most of the things he had due to the Kyuubi had already been more or less explained away by his own teammates as possible traits of a clan, more specifically his clan. Procrastination was that top trait of the next generation and he was damn sure going to procrastinate on telling Ino and Shikamaru about his demonic little secret for as long as humanly possible. If he didn't need to know until three weeks ago then they didn't need to know about it now.

Ino got the conversation off of that track and back onto herself immediately anyway, pulling Naruto's thoughts from something that hadn't really been addressed since he and Jiraiya spoke last about it, "Oh well… I'm not going to sit here and beg for a jutsu when I'm already learning one myself." She let out a small laugh, "I was just trying to sidetrack myself from finishing up what I need to do to learn my jutsu… it's really hard." She whined, waving her legs aimlessly in Naruto's lap.

Being snapped back to normal by Ino's immature outburst, Naruto laughed, "You'll get it Ino-chan, you still have plenty of time."

Ino crossed her arms over her chest and gave Naruto a brilliant smile, "Why are you so confident all the time? Even back when you sucked at everything… no offense." Naruto waved it off, "But even back then you were always thumping your chest and proclaiming that you were the man."

"Doubt fucks with everything." Naruto said, making a muscle and grabbing his bicep with his other hand in a showy manner, "Take a foundation, no matter how strong, sprinkle generously with doubt, and watch it crumble." He pointed to himself, "Me? I'm unfuckwithable. Not this exam, not bad weather, not even the many men that wish bad intentions on me can stop me. I rise up, not like a phoenix, but like the zombie corpse of the Yondaime Hokage." He kissed his own fist and pointed up at the sky before gesturing around the room, "These seals are for you, dattebayo!"

Ino just stared at him for a moment before leaning forward and grabbing one of Naruto's whisker-marked cheeks, "That was actually fairly articulate. Someone's got a better vocabulary these days." She teased, "No child left behind. Reading is fundamental."

Naruto gave her a deadpan look as she continued to stretch his cheek out, "You're very, very cute Ino-chan… but you're going to be missing a few fingers if you don't let go in a few seconds."

XxX

(The Next Day – Field Near Waterfall – Three Weeks Until Chunin Exams Final Round)

The usual occurrence of Naruto squaring off against Jiraiya in pitched combat came and went for hours and Naruto managed to get his time up to two minutes and seventeen seconds, an impressive jump from the last marked time. The day of rest really did him some good after all.

"Someone's full of piss and vinegar today." Jiraiya remarked good-naturedly as the two stopped for lunch, heading back into town through the forest, "What's got you all fired up? Care to share gaki?"

Naruto simply shrugged his shoulders, "Well, everyone's working so hard to get better in time for the finals. I don't want to slack off and have us fail out because of me." He looked up at the taller man in a rather determined manner, "It's like, this is my chance to prove that I really am a good ninja. I can't just get shot down now after all of that mouthing off I've been doing since the Academy. And it doesn't matter that I made it this far in the first place, because this is the part that everyone's going to see and hear about."

Jiraiya just peered down at the boy momentarily as they kept walking back to town, "Okay first of all you need to take all of that weight of the world… and take it off of your shoulders. It's not that big of a deal." He poked the top of Naruto's head, "Get this through your skull so that maybe you can calm it down a bit. It's your first chunin exam. If you fail it's not the end of the world unless you get killed."

Dying was most certainly the end of the world so to speak… at least for Naruto.

"So if it looks like you're about to, you know, get killed…" Jiraiya said lazily, "I'd advise you to quit. Because while quitting might not get you promoted, you sure as hell won't be promoted if your lifeblood makes a fine sheen coating the floor of the arena. Do you hear what I'm saying kid?"

Naruto shook his head, "There's always a way to win Ero-sensei. If I quit then during the exams then I'll quit when the chips are down in a mission. No surrender. Whatever happens in the tournament happens. I'm not giving up unless Ino-chan or Shikamaru are in danger. I've got something to prove." To hell with Gaara, to hell with anyone he had to fight. It was time to prove he was just as good as he had been saying he was for years. Thinking about the worst case scenario ripped a low growl from his throat.

Hearing that got Jiraiya to sigh before he stopped Naruto and looked around. Once it was clear that there was no one on the forest path along with them he spoke up, "Alright I know it's been a long time coming since we even talked about this, but it's sort of like the elephant in the room kid. You said you've accessed the Kyuubi's chakra before, but you don't know how to consciously do it?"

Naruto shook his head with a frown on his face, "It just happened when I was upset in Nami no Kuni. I didn't even know that was what I did until you told me about the Kyuubi a few weeks ago."

'That's dangerous.' Jiraiya thought to himself, 'So he subconsciously taps into the demon chakra when he's angry or hopelessly desperate.' And he didn't know how to do it on his own either. There was no doubt that his control in such a state was shoddy at best. So all they had to go on was that in times of desperation Naruto could tap into the Kyuubi's chakra. Well it was his responsibility to help Naruto gain some semblance of control, and now was as good a time as any to begin. Naruto could use the seal that had been taught to him and holding him off for over two minutes was nothing to turn one's nose at.

The thing was, there was no recorded evidence of how to actually utilize the Kyuubi's chakra, but Minato wouldn't have made it an option for Naruto to do were it not intended for him to do so. So now that his structural teaching was out of the way he had three weeks to find a way to get Naruto to learn how to use the Kyuubi's chakra.

That would be easy enough… right?

Jutsu List

Chakura Mukou Fuuin (Chakra Disabling Seal). B-rank fuuinjutsu, ninjutsu, supplementary. When activated, this jutsu will seal the chakra of anyone or anything caught within its range inside of their body, user included. 3 prepared scrolls are the minimum medium needed to use the jutsu, multiples of three are needed to extend the range which would be at a minimum a 50 yard circumference as long as the user can pay the hefty chakra toll to activate the seal in the first place. This seal is capable of changing the scope of a battle field given a user with enough chakra to far-reach across the entire area, but of course it is a double-edged sword as it does not distinguish friend from foe or even spares the user.

In the older times where war was rampant this jutsu was originally created and prominently used on the battlefield. It was used to trigger stalemates between two opposing forces, allowing one side to retreat more safely with the other side more hesitant to pursue sans chakra. It was also used as a trap by one single ninja to initiate an ambush from his allies nearby to slaughter the helpless forces caught in the sealing range. This inadvertently led to the popularity of trained sensor ninja to prevent such ambushes from taking place in battle.

Hey You're Not a Genius. Who Cares? Read This and You Won't Suck at Fuuinjutsu (by Jiraiya)

Level up

To realize where you stack up to those that also practice fuuinjutsu there lies a ranking system that is used for one to discover this. Now this ranking system isn't widespread enough that you can get yourself free drinks at the bar or get yourself laid by telling people how high you rank in this system (Unfortunately fuuinjutsu isn't really deemed the sexiest of specialties), but it looks good on a resume even if you aren't that high.

Level 1-3: You know enough about fuuinjutsu to make the easy stuff like explosive tags in your spare time to practice your array making. However, in larger techniques the only reason that you would be around would be to play the part of glorified chakra battery. You know next to nothing, so this is the time where you would shut your lips, open your ears and eyes, and learn how to work with more complicated things.

Level 4-6: You are now adept enough at fuuinjutsu to begin your own personal study in earnest. You know enough to keep from blowing yourself up or making dud explosive notes and sealing scrolls. At this point you have a few techniques but they are usually cumbersome and rather unwieldy for combat. You can design seal tags for more advanced and powerful sealing techniques.

Level 7-9: You are skilled at many different techniques that range from larger ritualistic methods to even the smaller scale techniques that have more of a working place in active battles. At this point others will look to you for advice and other things when it comes to fuuinjutsu. The only thing keeping your from complete mastery of your art is the fact that you have not innovated your own jutsu involving seals yet. Depending on your skill, to venture past this point you must invent at least one fuuinjutsu to achieve master level.

Level 10 and beyond: This is true master level. Any number past level ten that you reach is just ceremonial, indicating that you have given something back to the art of fuuinjutsu by way of creating more and more practical techniques to increase the scope of sealing. You may now officially flaunt your rank in an attempt to woo the ladies, because anyone past level 10 is dangerous enough to fight a battle with nothing more than their seals and physical abilities and can win against most normal level ninja.

Uzushiogakure instituted this system a long time ago, and it is used today in Konoha despite the lack of real sealing specialists in the village. A nifty little thing we have in Konoha is that you can have your sealing level recorded for posterity… you can even get your ninja identification updated with your level of sealing expertise on it, so those of you with large egos may want to get a piece of that.