I'll Teach You

Kakashi, leaning on a crutch, strolled up the trunk of a tree. Since the trunk stood perpendicular to the ground, his body was now parallel to it. He seemed to have overcome gravity as he walked step by step toward the canopy.

"No way!" Sakura found it unbelievable.

"The trick is to control the chakra beneath your feet. You can even do this." Kakashi leaned on his crutch like a patient, yet he continued performing all sorts of difficult movements, even walking onto a branch while upside down.

"Look!" Kakashi now resembled a bat hanging from a branch, his feet firmly stuck to it. Maintaining a feet-up, head-down posture, he said, "The three of you can give it a try. Let's see who can reach the highest."

"Since this is your first time training in this, you obviously can't be as relaxed as I am. I'll allow you to take a running start. Let's see how high you can charge."

"Ah—" Naruto gave a low shout and was the first to accept the challenge. After a running start, he leaped onto the trunk and pushed off hard with both feet. He only managed three steps before falling.

This stirred Sasuke's competitive spirit. After a running start, he leaped onto the trunk and successfully took fifteen steps up the tree before ultimately falling. Sasuke executed a graceful flip and landed safely, without a single strand of hair out of place.

"Ah—" Sakura cried out, "Sasuke, that flip just now was so cool!"

Naruto and Sasuke turned toward the sound and saw Sakura already sitting atop the tree. She was perched more than fifty meters above the ground, waving proudly at Naruto and Sasuke.

"Oh." Kakashi praised, "Sakura has an astonishing talent for chakra control."

"You two," Kakashi said contemptuously, "one of you says he wants to become Hokage, while the other is an Uchiha descendant. Yet both of you are behind a girl now."

Naruto wore a helpless expression. Kakashi-sensei, that kind of provocation won't work on me...

Sasuke looked unconvinced, his gaze resolute. His expression seemed to say that he would surpass Sakura, surpass everyone, and become the best.

"Then I'll head back and rest first. Keep at it." Kakashi had somehow come down from the tree without Naruto noticing, startling him. He clearly looked like a patient, yet he could still appear and disappear like a ghost.

Naruto sighed inwardly. As expected of Kakashi. Even looking like a sickly cat, he's still not someone I can underestimate.

Not long into the training, Sakura found it boring. This exercise was simply too easy for her, with almost no difficulty at all, so she left as well.

Panting heavily, Sasuke secretly glanced at Naruto and found that Naruto had made almost no progress. He could still only manage three steps on the trunk.

Sasuke looked up at the tree he was using for training. He had already managed forty-two steps up the trunk, far ahead of Naruto.

"Heh." Sasuke sneered inwardly. Naruto may surpass me in combat instincts, but when it comes to chakra control, he's far inferior to me.

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Naruto suddenly used the Shadow Clone Technique, creating a row of ten Narutos, nine of whom were shadow clones.

"Ah—" "Ah—" "Ah—"

The ten Narutos each found a different tree, and every one of them trained frantically. As Naruto ran up the trunk, he kept shouting, "Aah, aah, aah—"

Sasuke's eyes widened as he stared at the scene before him in disbelief. Did someone really need to summon clones while training? It was utterly unimaginable.

After training for a while, Naruto released the Shadow Clone Technique and was immediately overwhelmed by a wave of fatigue. Unable to hold on, he collapsed onto the ground.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto got back up and charged at the towering tree once more. He leaped onto the trunk, and his feet moved over it as though it were level ground. This time, he managed twenty-six steps.

"What?!" Sasuke was so shocked that he forgot he was training too.

Naruto felt that it was not enough and continued forming hand seals. "Shadow Clone Technique!"

This time, Naruto summoned nineteen shadow clones. Including the original, there were twenty Narutos present. The twenty Narutos each found a tree to train on, and another scene of feverish training began.

Under Sasuke's dumbfounded gaze, all twenty Narutos, clones included, trained with all their might. When Naruto released the Shadow Clone Technique, he collapsed straight to the ground. The fatigue was so crushing that his eyelids nearly closed.

Under Sasuke's watchful gaze, Naruto stubbornly stood up again and charged once more, successfully taking forty-one steps up the trunk.

Sasuke felt the pressure mounting. He truly had not expected Naruto to possess such an ability, one that could accelerate his training progress through shadow clones.

Sasuke finally understood Naruto's intentions. The clones created by the Shadow Clone Technique had physical bodies and seemed able to train alongside him. Once the technique was released, the experience the clones gained through training returned to the original body.

Sasuke swallowed. He felt that he desperately needed the Shadow Clone Technique. If he could learn it, he could multiply his training results, improve his strength sooner, and kill that man with his own hands.

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Naruto used the Shadow Clone Technique again, this time creating twenty-nine shadow clones at once.

"Naruto!" Sasuke suddenly called Naruto's name. He first glanced at Naruto, then awkwardly turned his head away, looking as though he wanted to say something but could not bring himself to.

"Sasuke? Did you call me?" Naruto asked in confusion. "What is it?"

"Um..." Sasuke stammered. "Can you teach... teach me..."

"Sasuke, this really doesn't sound like you." Naruto said with a grin. "Since when did you become so hesitant?"

Sasuke felt his blood boil. Forcing down his anger, he shouted, "Can you teach me the Shadow Clone Technique?!"

"..." Naruto froze and remained silent for a long time.

"Forget it if you don't want to." Sasuke turned away, intending to continue training alone.

"Ha ha ha ha—" Naruto burst into laughter, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face.

Sasuke was furious. Naruto is going too far. He earned Kakashi-sensei's approval and he's strong in battle too. Fine if he doesn't want to teach me, but why does he have to laugh at me? Damn Naruto.

"Sasuke." Naruto stopped him and said with a serious expression, "I'll teach you."

Sasuke froze, wondering if he had heard wrong...

"Sasuke, come over here." Naruto said, "The Shadow Clone Technique may be a forbidden technique of Konoha, but it's actually not difficult. I can teach you all of it, but how many clones you can create depends greatly on your own constitution. I'm somewhat special—I can create dozens, even hundreds, of shadow clones."

At that moment, Sasuke closed his eyes, a smile appearing at the corner of his lips.

Naruto isn't that hard to get along with after all...