Chapter 12

If there's one thing Naruto knew, it was that the Hokage had people watching him.

Most of the time it was for his own protection.

This time it was for both his protection and to keep an eye on any odd developments he might demonstrate after the 'incident' as Tsunade and Dan had taken to calling it.

One thing he couldn't afford was Jiji getting suspicious of him, it would cause him to waste too much time and would make things all sorts of complicated, too complicated.

So, obviously, he needed a place to get away from the prying eyes for a bit. Somewhere he could give his Anbu guards, wherever they were, the proverbial slip for a few minutes.

And this place was none other than his own bathroom.

It was the one place that none of his guards followed him, not only was it in the middle of the apartment so no one could really get in without walking through the walls and giving away their infiltration through the chakra spike such a technique would require, but there was the more obvious issue of privacy.

In a village full of people that could turn invisible, teleport, see through walls and find a million and one other ways to spy on you without being seen, it was almost an unwritten rule even without the hangups of basic human decency...

One Ero-sennin hadn't applied to the onsens in his own little version of the rulebook but, to digress.

He was now in his bathroom, doing something he was probably better at by this point, than breathing and walking at the same time.

Seals.

He was rapidly discovering that no matter how much he pushed himself there's only so much a four year old body is capable of. At the very best, he would barely be able to take on a seasoned gennin at this point. He was just too small, he didn't have enough power behind his limbs to throw a kunai or shuriken at blinding speed, or punch someone unconscious. A full on adult civilian could take his blows with relative ease and his Chakra reserves were nowhere near where they were when he graduated the first time so even his ninjutsu arsenal was limited.

He was good enough to pass the academy, that was for damn sure, but not much beyond that.

But...if there was one thing he could still do, it was seals.

And seals were more useful than people gave them credit for.

He wasn't gonna do a lot, that would draw way too much attention. He wouldn't even do something that would be visible for a while.

He was gonna start to condition his body for nature chakra.

Nature chakra was a potent, powerful force no matter who wielded it. It wasn't on par with the power he'd wielded when he and Kurama were of one mind...nothing ever would be...but it was a weapon he still had available to him. One that when mastered, was damn near unstoppable.

The problem with nature chakra of course, was its inherent risk.

You turned to stone.

As a rule, you needed massive reserves of human chakra to even attempt the technique, which was why it was so little known. Few ninja ever managed to have that much chakra, and those that did had other weapons in their arsenal that made this, little known hermit technique seem like a waste, especially given the amount of control needed, something that people of such reserves, didn't necessarily have in the first place.

When one first started training with nature chakra, that was the most dangerous part. Nature was everywhere, all around the person. So the moment one opened themselves up to that power, it was like opening a pair of massive floodgates and the whitewash is what normally took people completely by surprise and turned them to stone.

The key was, learning how to open those floodgates 'just enough' so as to allow the bodies own natural human chakra to "water it down" just right. Too thick and you're half an animal, too thin and its not having any effect.

There was no way he was gonna risk turning to a stone statue in the middle of his bathroom before he could even start getting ready for Tobi. He didn't have the chakra, he didn't have that stick to whack himself on the head, he didn't have anything.

All he had was a little seal that would act as a sieve. One that would slowly... trickle little droplets of that chakra into his system every day.

There was no guarantee it would have any long term effects, but at this stage, until time could bring about its natural changes he would hold out hope that this thing would give him a bit of an edge when it was time to learn to do it properly.

He'd traveled through time on more farfetched hopes...

He finished with a bit of a flourish, blowing lightly on the ink that now decorated his shin to dry it. Few people would look there.

It was only a few seconds before he felt that familiar, welcome friend coursing through his veins again.

Lowering the leg of his pants back down, he flushed the toilet to finish the theatrics show before stepping out into the hallway ready to get some sleep.

He was gonna meet his last teacher tomorrow.

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