Groaning, Kakashi woke, both eyes opening, his headband lying next to him on what appeared to be a makeshift bed made of large leaves.
Getting up from the bed, Kakashi put the leaf blanket back onto the bed and spread his observation out, walking out of the room and into Gamamaru's room.
"How do you feel?"
Gamamaru asked, his eyes having been closed and having not heard Kakashi, but having sensed him.
"I don't feel anything different about me."
Kakashi replied honestly, a bit confused about whether he should have felt something.
"That's good."
Gamamaru opened his eyes slightly and looked at Kakashi.
"Pour chakra into your eyes, just enough for the regular Sharingan for now."
Kakashi obliged, pouring chakra into his eyes, feeling and seeing the change in his vision.
Gamamaru moved his right hand from his armrest and patted it.
"Come, let me check you."
Kakashi leaped up to the large armrest and let Gamamaru's large, glowing green hand rest above his head.
"Ok, everything seems to be fine, now try the next stage, but if I say deactivate your eyes, then please do so."
Kakashi nodded in seriousness, trusting the Old Sage to know better than anyone when something is wrong. Guiding more chakra to his eyes, Kakashi felt his vision sharpen.
"Hmmm, they look different. They have a different pattern now."
Kakashi blinked in shock, having the mangekyo gave him an understanding of his abilities, and he could feel that they hadn't changed.
"But I know the abilities haven't changed."
Kakashi murmured, feeling the power of Kamui in his left and Kotoamatsukami in his right.
"This was a possibility. The Sharingan is often a reflection of the heart; perhaps yours was set on the abilities these eyes already provide. The abilities of the Mangekyo Sharingan reflect the user's heart and life. Some who wish destruction often gain abilities related to that; the same can be said for the desire to protect and many other complicated desires. The more focused the desire, the stronger the ocular jutsu. Those eyes of yours may seem like they haven't changed, but that is highly unlikely. They may share the same name, but your eyes have this new pattern for a reason. I'll leave you to figure it out, and I ask you not to attempt any of them while at Mount Myoboku. That space warping power could have unforeseen consequences if, as I believe, it's even more powerful than before."
"I promise not to try any of that here."
Kakashi replied seriously, not wanting to risk the integrity of the Mount Myoboku barriers.
Gamamaru held Kakashi's gaze for a few moments before nodding and relaxing slightly, seeing that Kakashi took everything he said seriously.
"Now that's over, perhaps it's best I start your sage training. From what I can see, you can already perceive the flow of natural energy, and you more than qualify for it with the chakra reserves. For now, I'm going to have you pull in that energy and try to balance it out with your chakra. If you go too far, I'll be sure to push the natural energy from you."
"Do you mind if I try to do something first? I've had experience with Natural energy before, and I've learned that it can help me develop another ability of mine in a rather efficient way."
Kakashi asked, thinking about pushing his conqueror's haki to break through the wall he felt himself approaching in his training.
Gamamaru hummed in thought.
"I will allow it, but if I believe you can't handle it, I'll stop it right away."
Kakashi nodded and sat down.
"Can you shield yourself?"
Gamamaru's brows raised in interest.
"Depends on what you want me to defend against."
In his reply, he granted permission to either demonstrate or explain.
Kakashi let his haki flare a bit, giving Gamamaru a feeling of it.
Gamamaru's eyes shot open fully, no longer just squinted like always.
"You're full of surprises, young man. Fine, but do your best to keep that power of yours from breaking my chair."
Kakashi bowed briefly before sitting down on the armchair and closing his eyes, letting them fade back to his normal black orbs as he slowly but surely reached out to the natural energy that had been calling for him.
Unlike what he expected, the natural energy didn't flood into his system aggressively, but he felt like he was letting in a welcoming presence that belonged there.
'What is going on? This wasn't how natural energy reacted to me last time.'
Kakashi suddenly remembered the recent rewards he got, specifically the Nature's blessing.
'So, will I not be able to improve my conqueror's haki?'
Kakashi was a bit disappointed that he couldn't train his haki like that, but he wasn't going to complain. The rewards he got were more than worth the effort in getting them, and he was happy with the familiarity that he felt with natural energy. It wasn't as easy as breathing, but to say that it was as easy as forming hand seals wouldn't be an exaggeration.
"Why have you stopped? You were about to achieve it."
Kakashi couldn't help but feel that this was all a bit anticlimactic. Kakashi had expected the training of senjutsu to be one of, if not the hardest things he'd have ever attempted, but here he was, already about to achieve it.
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. It surprised me as well. I never had the pleasure of training Hashirama in Senjutsu, but based on what I heard about him long ago, I'd say you're close to his learning speed with Senjutsu. The natural energy seems to agree with you more than any I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing, even your sensei, Minato. A shame that he died, had he gotten it through his skull that senjutsu was, in fact, his strong suit."
Gamamaru grumbled, upset that Minato died despite having the ability to use perfected sage mode.
"Sensei once said it didn't really match his fighting style and often takes too long to gather the energy in active combat."
"Bahh! Excuses! That brat could go into sage mode nearly instantly. If his comrades couldn't hold out for at most four seconds, then perhaps he should have surrounded himself with smarter, stronger, and more skilled comrades."
Although Gamamaru's words sounded harsh, he was truly upset at the loss of Minato, having known he wasn't the child of prophecy, but having liked the sunny lad quite a bit.
"Yeah, sensei was quite obsessed with speed."
Kakashi took no offense to his words, hearing and understanding where he was coming from. If someone he allowed to be trained or personally trained didn't use an ability to save himself, then Kakashi would be upset as well.
"Enough about him, it's depressing."
Gamamaru huffed slightly before reverting to his laid-back, aloof demeanor and watching Kakashi once more close his eyes and gather the energy.
Gamamaru felt the senjutsu gather around Kakashi as if he were a focal point in nature. A child who was favored by nature and blessed to be the nexus that connected it.
It didn't take long, perhaps 3 seconds, before Kakashi opened his eyes and revealed his slitted toad-like eyes and orange marks around his eyes.
Gamamaru nodded with a slight smirk.
"Good, you'll keep working on it until you can gather the energy in an instant, and once you get that down, you'll work on projecting the energy out in taijutsu. Not frog kumite, but the same use of the energy merged into your own style."
Gamamaru hummed as he thought about the pressure he felt earlier.
"Perhaps you can still train that ability of yours. You wanted to clash them, correct? To force this ability of yours to get stronger."
"Yeah, but that whole plan kind of got dumed on its head."
Gamamaru's eyes shone.
"Don't be so hasty, there's still another here training sage mode, isn't there?"
Gamamaru nodded when he saw Kakashi immediately understand what he meant.
"Run along. This could also help Jiraiya and Fukasaku out. Jiraiya will eventually be able to balance the two energies, and Fukasaku won't tire himself out having to smack him so often with a stick."
Kakashi quickly bowed to show his thanks before bolting as politely as kicking up a trail of dust could allow.
- Chapter End -
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I thought long and hard about Kakashi's senjutsu training, but I couldn't just make him struggle when he already had the majority of it figured out with Nature's blessing. It would have been more ridiculous to string it out for a week or two, but I did leave some room for him to improve. A bit anticlimactic, I know.