"Shisui taught me the Body Flicker Technique. I'm not proficient with it yet, and I still need to get familiar with the Sharingan." Sasuke touched the corners of his eyes, unable to stop smiling. When he got back and told his brother, he would definitely praise him, right?
Sakura stammered, unable to answer. She did not know what she wanted to train either; she had only come because she heard she could cultivate alongside Sasuke.
Naruto did not find it strange. She was a twelve-year-old girl with little sense of crisis. Her family did not push its children to grow stronger like the great clans did. Her greatest dream was to take the Uchiha surname, and she had not seriously considered how she would become stronger in the future.
Even if they left her alone, once the Chunin Exams arrived and she realized she was holding the team back, she would naturally know what to do. But Naruto intended to give her a hand. They were teammates, after all, and she might even become his sister-in-law someday.
"If you don't have any particular goal, start by practicing Chakra control. Have you learned tree climbing and water walking?"
Sakura was a good student, and when she did not understand something, she asked, "What does tree climbing have to do with Chakra control? And what is water walking?"
"Then how about this? I'll teach you tree climbing first. Once you've learned it, Sasuke can teach you water walking."
"Mm!" Sakura was brimming with enthusiasm. She had to perform well and make Sasuke see her in a new light.
Sasuke had no objections. Naruto and he had learned tree climbing and water walking before graduation, so teaching their teammate would not be a problem.
"The tree climbing I'm talking about isn't climbing in the usual sense. You gather Chakra in the soles of your feet and use it to stick your body to the tree."
As Naruto spoke, he walked straight up the trunk vertically. Finally, he hung upside down from a branch as a demonstration, earning a stunned look from Sakura.
Sakura then began trying to climb the tree. Thirty seconds later, she walked ten meters up a large tree as if on level ground and said with a smile, "This feels easier than I imagined!"
Sasuke was shocked. This teammate he had always considered dead weight was actually this talented at Chakra control. It had taken him several days of practice to learn it.
"Amazing!" Naruto gave her a thumbs-up. As expected of you, Sakura Bro.
"I'll leave the rest to you, Sasuke!" Naruto waved and left.
"Okay." Sasuke answered casually. He would not go back on something he had agreed to do.
Sakura was deeply moved. Naruto truly was Konoha's best teammate. She would not hold the whole calling-him-bro thing against him anymore. As long as he could create opportunities for her, he could call her whatever he wanted.
Naruto ignored the young couple's interaction and went off to practice the Rasengan. Naturally, he would use Shadow Clones to train. Since he could not make too many at once, he would test the waters first—start with two. Anyone over eighteen, not... ahem, make two Clones first.
Naruto took out a scroll and opened it. A single character meaning "ball" was written on it, surrounded by densely packed formulas. Naruto formed a hand seal and pressed it onto the scroll.
"Release!"
More than a dozen rubber balls and water-filled balloons appeared out of thin air. These were props he had prepared in advance.
Naruto picked up a water balloon and gently squeezed it, then beckoned to his Clones. "You all get it, right?"
"Got it!" *2
The Clones were delighted. Practicing the Rasengan was far more fun than fighting Kakashi. Each took a water balloon, placed it in a palm, and began controlling the water inside to spin.
Naruto's original body took one as well. The beginning went smoothly. The spinning water caused the balloon to change shape, slowly flattening it. Next, he needed to make Chakra rotate in different directions at the same time...
Then he could not do it. Naruto found that he could make Chakra spin sideways, vertically, or diagonally, but how was he supposed to make it spin in different directions at once? Make his left and right hands fight each other?
The Original Work had provided a shortcut: use the other hand for assistance and burst the water balloon. But Naruto did not want to use that method. The Rasengan was supposed to be a quick, instant-cast little technique. How could he turn it into some ultimate move that required a Shadow Clone's assistance and had an absurdly long windup? If he was learning it, he would learn the one-handed version.
Naruto had already planned it out. When he encountered enemies in the future, he would first use Water Style for offense and kite them around, pretending to be a fragile mage who was poor at Taijutsu and close combat. Then, once the enemy had gone through countless hardships to finally get close, he would slap a Rasengan right into their face and ask whether they were surprised.
It was just that the difficulty was a little unbearable. Naruto looked at the Clones' progress, and it seemed they were not doing much better than he was. An hour later, Naruto dismissed them amid their unwilling stares.
Naruto felt a slight swelling in his head as a heap of memories—and... all sorts of messy thoughts—poured in. Rubbing his temples, he thought, Could you Clones be a little more reliable? You were training. What were you thinking about? One of you was thinking about flushing a toilet and a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, while the other was even more ridiculous—what Rutherford planetary model and Bohr atomic model? What do those have to do with the Rasengan?
Come to think of it, they really did have something to do with it. A planetary model... Naruto imagined a Solar System. The balloon in his hand deformed as the water spun, and then he remembered that Halley's Comet's orbital plane formed an angle with those of the other planets in the Solar System. A raised ring appeared on the water balloon. That was the feeling!
Naruto stopped, then made two more Clones and continued practicing. Following that train of thought, he added one comet, then another comet, then another...
Half an hour later, with a pop, one clone jumped up happily and shouted, "I did it!"
The other clone looked at him resentfully. Then his eyes shifted, and he pulled out a Kunai and stabbed him to death. Coldly, he said, "You know too much!"
Naruto's eyelids twitched as he watched, but he said nothing.
Once the memories and experience returned, Naruto's original body and the remaining clone suddenly understood. One after another, they burst their Water Balloons. But before Naruto could celebrate, the clone happily rammed his head into a tree and shouted, "Today, I vow with Your Majesty to rid the world of all evil demons!"
The clone vanished. Naruto froze for a moment. What Zhong Kui act were you putting on?! Zhong Kui smashed his head in because he was overcome with indignation, okay? What was with being so happy about it? And that line was something he shouted after becoming a ghost, okay? My head hurts. Oh, the clones' memories all came from me, so this is my fault? My head hurts even more.
After Sasuke taught Sakura water walking, they came over just in time to see Naruto's clone ram itself to death. Sakura glanced at Naruto, who was rubbing his temples, and quietly asked Sasuke, "What's wrong with him?"
"He's happy, maybe." Sasuke was not sure.
Sakura: ???
Sasuke also found it strange. Based on his years of knowing Naruto, Naruto's clone had indeed been expressing happiness just now. But why would someone smash himself to death because he was happy?
This guy's thought process was getting more and more abnormal. Sasuke shook his head. Only after seeing Naruto pick up a rubber ball and resume training, with no signs of wanting to die, did he head to the clearing to practice the Body Flicker Technique.
Sakura stayed behind to observe Naruto for a while. Seeing nothing unusual, she happily went to review what she had gained from training today and, incidentally, watch Sasuke. Probably incidentally.
Naruto held the rubber ball and tried the method from before for a while. It was too hard to burst. If the first stage of water balloon training was about practicing rotation and maintaining it, then the second stage of rubber ball training was about practicing power.
He trained all afternoon until the Meridians in his hands ached, yet he made only a little progress. The three friends said their goodbyes and headed home separately.
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