Konoha --- Mount Myōboku Annex Training Space
Day four.
Morning.
Jiraiya had secured a small sanctioned space at the edge of Konoha's forest that Fukasaku had endorsed for preliminary Sage Mode work.
Not Mount Myōboku itself.
But the natural energy levels were higher here than in the city.
Enough to start.
He'd explained this to Naruto on the walk over.
Naruto had listened carefully.
This was already notable.
"Natural energy," Naruto said. "It's different from chakra."
"It's what chakra comes from," Jiraiya said. "Or one of the sources. Everything alive has it. The trick is absorbing it without letting it absorb you."
"What happens if it absorbs you?"
"You turn into a stone statue."
Naruto stopped walking.
Jiraiya kept walking.
"Wait---" Naruto caught up. "You're serious."
"Very."
"I could turn into a statue."
"If you absorb too much natural energy without balancing it. Yes."
Naruto looked at his hands.
"...That's not mentioned in the Sage Imprint description," he said.
"The description said it accelerates access. It doesn't say anything about the process being comfortable." Jiraiya glanced at him. "Nothing about Sage Mode is comfortable. That's part of it."
Naruto thought about this.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"I mean---statues are bad. I'd like to not be a statue. But if that's the risk, that's the risk." He shrugged. "You figured it out without becoming a statue."
"I became a partial statue several times before I figured it out."
"...How partial?"
"Once it was just my left foot. Another time the whole left side." Jiraiya looked at the path ahead. "Fukasaku has techniques to reverse it if you catch it early enough."
"Is Fukasaku here?"
"He'll check in."
"When."
"Periodically."
"'Periodically' is doing a lot of work in that sentence."
"He's a busy toad. Stop complaining."
They arrived.
The training space was at the edge of an old-growth stand.
Trees that had been there longer than Konoha.
The natural energy was palpable even to Naruto, who didn't have the sensitivity for it yet --- he could feel something different about the air, though he couldn't have said what exactly.
Jiraiya explained the first stage.
"Stillness," he said. "You have to be still enough that the natural energy can perceive you. It doesn't flow into movement. It pools in quiet."
Naruto looked at him.
"Stillness," he said.
"Yes."
"...For how long."
"As long as it takes."
Naruto considered this.
"I can be still," he said.
"You believe that."
"I can! I sit on my roof. I sit at the counter. I---"
"Being still in a comfortable place you chose is different from being still in a training context where something is supposed to happen." Jiraiya crossed his arms. "This kind of still is active. You're not just not-moving. You're opening yourself to something." He paused. "It requires a specific quality of attention."
"What quality?"
"The kind that doesn't reach for things. It waits."
Naruto looked at him.
"I'm not great at waiting."
"I know. That's why we're starting here."
Naruto sat down.
Cross-legged.
Back straight.
Eyes closed.
He tried to be still.
The first attempt lasted forty seconds before he opened his eyes.
"Is it working?" he asked.
"No," Jiraiya said.
He closed his eyes.
The second attempt lasted a minute and twelve seconds.
"Anything?"
"No."
Third attempt: two minutes.
"Nothing?"
"You're reaching," Jiraiya said. "Stop reaching."
"How do I stop---"
"Stop looking for it. Just be here."
"I'm trying---"
"Trying is reaching."
Naruto opened his eyes and stared at him.
"That's not helpful."
"It's true though."
"TRUE AND UNHELPFUL---"
"Close your eyes."
He closed his eyes.
Six failures later.
The seventh was two minutes and forty seconds of what felt, to Jiraiya, like it was almost working.
The natural energy had stirred slightly around Naruto.
Like water deciding whether to flow toward something.
Then Naruto twitched.
And it receded.
He opened his eyes.
"I felt something," he said.
"Yes. You disturbed it."
"How? I barely moved."
"Your chakra moved. Even if your body doesn't, your internal state does. Natural energy can read that."
Naruto frowned.
"So I have to be still outside AND inside."
"Yes."
"At the same time."
"That's generally how simultaneity works."
"JIRAIYA-SENSEI---"
"Close your eyes, Naruto."
He closed his eyes.
The eighth attempt.
Jiraiya watched.
Natural energy was perceptible to him the way water was perceptible --- not visible, but present, with texture and motion.
He could feel it moving around the space.
Around Naruto.
Toward him, slightly, and then---
Naruto sneezed.
The natural energy dispersed.
"..."
"I COULDN'T HELP IT---"
"I know."
"The pollen---there's something in the air---"
"I know. Try again."
"This is impossible."
"It's not impossible. I learned it."
"You have more patience than me!"
"You have more chakra than me. It balances out."
Naruto stared at him.
"How does that balance out."
"The more natural energy you can eventually absorb, the more powerful the Sage Mode. Your chakra reserves mean your ceiling is higher. But you have to get there first." Jiraiya uncrossed his arms. "The reason the prerequisite exists is because the body needs to learn a new relationship with itself before it can receive something that large."
Naruto looked at his hands.
"A new relationship with itself," he said.
"Yes."
"That sounds very---"
"I know how it sounds. It's still true."
He looked at the trees.
At the old-growth stand that had been here longer than everything.
He thought about what Tobirama had said.
Your father never achieved the secondary rotation.
But Naruto had, in a day.
He thought about the Resonance Token and what it had taken to feel the Nine-Tails' side of it.
He thought about the one-hour visit and sitting three feet from Minato and the specific quality of not-reaching that had let the conversation be what it was instead of what he might have desperately wanted it to be.
He'd been still then.
Not perfectly still.
Not quiet in the technical sense.
But --- he'd been present without demanding anything from the moment.
He closed his eyes.
He thought about that.
He stopped looking for the natural energy.
Stopped tracking it.
Just --- existed in the space.
The way he'd existed on the arena floor.
Present.
Not reaching.
The ninth attempt lasted seven minutes.
Jiraiya felt the natural energy moving before Naruto noticed it.
Steady.
Slow.
Like it was cautiously checking something it wasn't sure about.
It moved toward Naruto.
Made contact.
Receded slightly.
Came back.
Naruto's breathing had slowed.
His face had lost the focused set it usually had during training and gone somewhere quieter.
The natural energy stayed.
Not flowing in.
Not yet.
Just --- present at the edge.
Investigating.
Then---
Something in Naruto's attention moved.
He'd noticed it.
The natural energy scattered.
He opened his eyes.
"It was there," he said.
"Yes."
"I felt it. And then---"
"You noticed it and grabbed for it."
"I didn't grab---"
"Your attention grabbed for it. Same thing."
Naruto looked at the ground.
"It's like if you try to catch water in your hands and you close your hands too fast," he said slowly.
"...That's a good way to put it."
"So you have to---let it come to you."
"Yes."
"Without letting it know you're waiting."
Jiraiya looked at him.
"Approximately," he said. "Though the natural energy doesn't have awareness in the way we do. It's not being coy. It's more that it only pools in receptive surfaces. Your attention being too active creates the equivalent of turbulence."
Naruto thought about this.
"Okay." He looked at the trees. "Jiraiya-sensei."
"Mm."
"My dad. How did he learn stillness? He couldn't be still either, right? You said that."
Jiraiya was quiet for a moment.
"Your father was faster than almost anyone alive," he said. "Speed was his entire identity. The Flying Thunder God suited him because it let him never stop moving." He looked at the old-growth trees. "When I first tried to teach him Sage Mode --- just the basics, before we knew it wasn't compatible with his style --- he had exactly the same problem you're having."
"What did he do?"
"He stood in one spot," Jiraiya said, "and counted every person who walked past him."
Naruto blinked.
"...He what."
"He called it the census." Jiraiya's mouth curved slightly at the corners. "He'd pick a busy street corner, stand there, and count. Every person. Every time someone went by. He'd note them --- hair color, what they were carrying, whether they looked tired." He paused. "He said the counting gave him something to do with his attention while the rest of him could be still. Like --- the attention was busy with something small and harmless, so it wasn't grabbing at anything big."
Naruto stared at him.
"The census," he said.
"Yes."
"The Fourth Hokage, the Yellow Flash, the fastest ninja in history---"
"Stood on a street corner counting pedestrians to practice stillness. Yes."
"That's---"
"A very weird technique," Jiraiya said. "I know. He knew. He was embarrassed about it." A pause. "It worked."
Naruto looked at the trees.
At the old-growth stand.
At the edge where the training space met the forest.
He looked at the birds in the branches.
There were eleven of them.
He could see nine from this angle.
He started counting.
He counted the birds.
Their positions.
Which ones moved and which ones stayed.
Which ones were watching him and which ones were watching each other.
He counted without thinking about counting.
Just --- keeping track.
His attention was on the birds.
The rest of him---
The natural energy stirred.
He kept counting.
It moved closer.
He noted that two of the birds had shifted branches since he started.
The one on the far left was looking directly at him with the specific unimpressed attention of a bird who has seen many training sessions and found all of them unremarkable.
The natural energy reached the edge of him.
He was still counting.
It came in.
Just --- a thread of it.
A single thread.
Thin as silk.
Warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
Naruto kept counting.
The bird on the far left ruffled its feathers.
The thread of natural energy held.
He opened his eyes six minutes later.
Not because he'd lost it.
Because he'd decided to stop.
To see what happened when he decided.
Jiraiya was watching him with an expression that hadn't changed much but had --- shifted slightly.
The way things shift when something you were expecting actually happens.
"You did it," Jiraiya said.
"A thread," Naruto said. "It was barely anything."
"A thread is how it starts."
"How long before it's more than a thread?"
"Days. Weeks. With the Imprint, maybe faster." Jiraiya paused. "But the thread is the foundation. Everything else builds from there."
Naruto looked at his hands.
He could still feel where the natural energy had been.
The memory of it.
Warm.
Different from chakra.
Something older.
"The census," he said.
"Yes."
"He was embarrassed about it."
"Very."
"I'm not embarrassed."
"I know," Jiraiya said. "That tracks."
Naruto almost asked why.
Decided he didn't need to.
He thought about his father standing on a street corner counting people while working on something enormous.
The specific genius of using something small to hold your attention while the big thing happened at the edge of it.
He thought about the ramen shop.
About Bai Yan eating chestnuts while stopping time with one finger.
The big thing happened at the edge of the small thing.
"Again," he said.
He closed his eyes.
Found the birds.
Started counting.
Group Chat:
[Jiraiya @Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: He used the census.]
A pause.
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: You told him about the census.]
[Jiraiya: He asked how you learned stillness.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...I asked you never to tell anyone about the census.]
[Jiraiya: I know.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: The census was embarrassing.]
[Jiraiya: I know. It worked for him.]
A longer pause.
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...It worked?]
[Jiraiya: First attempt after I told him. Single thread. Six minutes.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: I took eleven attempts to get a thread.]
[Jiraiya: I know.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...Okay.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: That's okay.]
[Jiraiya: Yes.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...He's going to be something else, isn't he.]
[Jiraiya: He already is.]
In the Reaper's Belly, Minato read that.
He looked at the training space through the Pure Land's ambient awareness.
At Naruto sitting cross-legged in the old-growth stand counting birds with his eyes closed.
He thought about a street corner in Konoha twenty years ago.
A young man counting people to learn to be still.
His son counting birds.
He's going to be something else.
He already was.
Kushina squeezed his arm.
"Don't cry," she said.
"I'm not crying."
"You have the face."
"What face."
"The 'I'm very proud and also overwhelmed by how proud I am' face."
Minato pressed his lips together.
"...Minato."
"Mm."
"Cry a little."
He laughed.
Quiet.
The real kind.
"...Yeah," he said. "Okay."
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