Fifth Battle, the Land of Whirlpools, a Meeting Across Eras! "Bonus chapter for Liangbing of the Great Banyan Tree"

Jiraiya had brought Naruto to visit the Ruins of the Land of Whirlpools half a month earlier. Their training journey had lasted almost seven months, and it was now the bitter winter of Konoha Year 61.

Kakashi's encounter at the Uzumaki Clan's Mask Hall seven months earlier had given Jiraiya a new understanding of Sasuke's strength.

Seeing that Naruto's determination to bring Sasuke back remained unshaken, Jiraiya had been forced to abandon his previous life's idea of using this trip to make up for Naruto's childhood. Instead, he put him through hellish training, day and night.

As a result, Naruto's strength had grown far more rapidly than before!

In just three months, he had learned the Big Ball Rasengan, which had once taken him three years to master. By now, he had already begun training to apply a change in chakra nature to the Rasengan!

Worried that training a new technique with the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique would cause the Nine-Tails chakra to run out of control, Tsunade had summoned Tenzo ahead of schedule upon learning of it. After giving him the name Yamato, she dispatched him to Jiraiya's side to help Naruto train his new technique!

Wooden stakes studded with iron spikes stood across the training ground. Yamato held his right wrist with his left hand, the character for "Seat" on his palm facing forward!

He had held this position for a long time, and his stamina was inevitably beginning to give out.

He had thought this would be an easy assignment, but seeing it firsthand had proved him utterly wrong.

"That's it!!"

"I think I've figured it out!!"

"Damn it, I failed again!!"

"Keep at it!!"

"One more time, believe it!!"

Young Naruto and his thousand-plus shadow clones trained bare-armed amid the ice and snow. Their fiery enthusiasm