Naruto Uzumaki's POV
Time: A week after the bell test.
Location: Naruto's Bedroom
Naruto Uzumaki was happy. He was really-really happy. He had somehow managed to pass the exams for becoming a genin and was now finally a step closer to becoming Hokage. All those years spent practicing to throw kunai, to fight against a wooden dummy, learning the basic taijutsu the best he could, had all paid off in helping him become a ninja.
But if he was honest with himself, he wasn't happy because he became genin. He was happy because he had finally found teammates that took him seriously. Well... kind of took him seriously.
He didn't know why but whenever he mentioned his dreams to adults around him, they would look at him with a patronising smile and nod along with his proclamations.
As if he didn't notice that they didn't believe him. That the smile was as fake as the smiles the patrons at his orphanage gave him. A fake smile to hide their true feelings.
Yet, when he proclaimed the same to his teammates, they hadn't looked at him as if he was dreaming about an impossibility. Hinata had softly smiled and cheered for him. Sasuke on the other hand, had looked him up and down, contemplating, neither confirming nor denying his thoughts. Stupid Sasuke probably thought he could do it but didn't want to admit it!
They respected him. He had found friends willing to treat him with the respect he wanted, and that is what made him most happy.
Even the clothes he was currently wearing were a gift from Hinata. She had decided a few days ago that his orange jacket looked atrocious. He vehemently disagreed with that opinion but when she ended up threatening to rip his clothes up in a spar if he refused to buy new clothes, he ended up acquiescing.
These new clothes were a lot darker than his previous ones, with hints of orange in them. Hinata said it looked much more ninja like than his previous outfit.
Just as he got ready to leave, he heard a knock at his door. He rushed to open the door. Outside standing was an old man with the Hokage's Hat on his head.
"Old man! You came to visit? Come inside." Naruto asked and shuffled aside to let the Hokage enter.
"Ah Naruto, thank you." He walked inside at a steady pace.
"So why are you here today, old man? I told you I would mail you how to perform the harem jutsu didn't I? You didn't need to come to my home to get it." Naruto grinned.
Hiruzen started coughing.
"No- no that won't be necessary Naruto. While that jutsu is truly wonderful, it isn't why I am here today." The old man sat down on the sofa he had bought recently with the money from the D-rank missions.
"I just came to visit to ask about your life you know? It's been a while since I have made the time to do that, so I thought today was as good a day as any."
"Hmm? My life? It's been going fantastic! Sasuke is still a bit of a loser but the bastard has recently gotten less smug. Hinata has also changed a lot in the last few weeks. She used to be really sweet before, I mean not like she is not sweet now but she has gotten a lot tougher and willing to scruff others up a bit. Our sensei though is kind of weird, did you know, he keeps reading po-por- ugh! He keeps reading dirty books in front of us! Isn't that illegal or something?"
"It's good to know you are getting along with your teammates. Trust me when I say they are the ones whom you will never forget in your entire shinobi career. Our teammates- they shape who we are as a person, and I cannot imagine who I would have ended up becoming if not for their involvement, for all the good and bad that came out of it."
He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"Naruto, all shinobi are somewhat eccentric and the higher up you go on the ladder the weirder they get. Sometimes you just have to learn to deal with their nonsense. It's their own way of coping with the stresses of our job. Kakashi especially has had to deal with a lot in his life, letting him have his fun is the least I could do in exchange for all he has given up for this village."
"Hmm. Other than that, I guess I am just really happy ya know? Hinata cooks' food for me sometimes. Never really thought anyone would do that for me personally. I mean when I was small, I used to have dreams of my mother cooking me meals. Whenever a dream like that would happen, I would try to look at her face but it would end just before I could and I would wake up in sweat." Naruto muttered.
He had finally become a genin. In the shinobi world that was practically the same as being an adult, after all genin put their life on risk for the village didn't they? Will he tell me about my parents if I ask him? He refused the last time I asked but maybe now that I am an adult he might say something. His hands clenched, partly out of frustration, partly out of fear of the Hokage's answer.
"Who were my parents, Old man? You know it don't you?"
Hiruzen face was hidden by the top of his hat. Naruto couldn't look at his eyes.
"Haven't we had this conversation in the past Naruto? There is no point in dwelling on those who are dead. Talking about them will not bring them back to life. It will only serve to make you sad."
Naruto's hands clenched. He was spouting the same stuff he said last time. What does it matter if they are dead? Like hell it doesn't matter. They were his parents damnit and the only person who knows refuses to tell him. His shoulders sagged.
"What utter crap, old man. I am an adult now! I have finally become a genin! If now isn't the time to tell me then when will it be? What if you end up dying before telling me huh? No one else in the village knows about it, at least to my knowledge and you refuse to tell me. Will I have to die never knowing who my parents were? What they liked? What they hated? What values they held dear?"
Hiruzen lifted his hat and sat it on the table in front of him, refusing to look at Naruto. He sat there just looking at the hat, hands in a hold in front of him. He finally spoke with a sigh a few minutes later.
"In a few months' time, the chunin exams will take place. They are type of promotion exam that we conduct in peace times to promote genin to chunin. If you pass and end up becoming a chunin, I will tell you truthfully who they were, and why they meant so much to me and this village at large. But until you show me that you will be able to protect yourself from enemy nin, I can't or rather won't tell you.
"Everything I have done in my life has been to protect the people of this village, Naruto. And you are a child of this village who I have sworn to protect. It's the least I can do to repay your father for the debt this village owes him. I have to make sure you do not die from knowing the knowledge and the only way to do that is to test you."
"You aren't lying to me are you, old man? You will tell me? No crap about philosophy?"
"Yes." Hiruzen said wearily and held his hand over the hat. "I swear on the hat of my predecessors, the symbol of my power over this village, that I 'The Third Hokage' will unequivocally tell Naruto Uzumaki of his lineage, the day he becomes a chunin."
"Yes!" Naruto pumped his fists. He pointed his finger at Hiruzen. "You can't go back on your word now Hokage! Or else I will totally spread the knowledge of the sexy jutsu to all enemy nin and tell them of your weakness!"
"Yes, yes, if I fail to keep my promise you have my permission to do so." Hiruzen softly chuckled and stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me. This conversation ended up being much heavier than I thought it would be and I have to get to my work, otherwise my assistants will yell at me. You should also go for your training Naruto; your friends may have gotten worried."
"Yeah, yeah sure! Just don't forget your promise!"
The old man walked out of the apartment. Leaving Naruto all alone.
After locking the door, he too left. He quickly moved out of his apartment building and started to parkour his way to the Training Ground 7. It had become their usual training spot before Kakashi arrived to take them on some mission or teach them bits and pieces about being a ninja.
As he was approaching the grounds, he saw Hinata and Sasuke deep in conversation. Most of the time they conversed about something completely boring but sometimes they would have something he was interested in as well, so he decided to listen in.
They noticed him approaching, nodded towards him and continued to talk and gesture to the diagram Hinata had made on the dirt with a stick.
"For example, see how Fire has two basic hand seals related to it, one of them flows aggressively and the other flows slowly but with a lot more flexibility. When I am trying to create a jutsu involving my three elements together, if it is focused on a fast-paced attack I have to use Tiger, but if I want more control over where the attack lands, I need to include Boar. Sometimes you need to include both control and speed, but it destabilizes the chakra and you need to have a baseline level of chakra control to use it which changes depending on the amount of chakra you are pushing through."
And they were discussing boring stuff again! He wants to do real ninja stuff, like saving a princess or something. Not spend time discussing the intricacies of stupid jutsu creation.
"But what about people who don't have the fire element but still use these hand seals in there jutsu?" Sasuke asked.
"From what I understand, Hand seals do work better for the specific element with which they were patterned after. But it's the pattern itself which matters more, and the movement caused by that pattern occurs regardless of elemental chakra. It might suit fire jutsus more but many other jutsu use these hand seals too for their attributes.
"For example, take your Fireball Jutsu. It's performed with Snake → Ram → Monkey → Boar → Horse → Tiger, right? Which is basically using a lot of different hand seals with different natural elements in its creation. But if you look at it through its attributes it looks different, Still → Sudden → Receptive → Flexible → Moving → Aggressive. Now think about what these patterns actually are doing to your chakra, the first two help you gather a lot of chakra, the next two help make it into a ball of chakra, while the last two force it to shoot forward. Does it make sense?"
"Huh, yes, yes it does. But what about Jutsus that have more esoteric effects that do not just depend on the pattern of chakra?"
"Those ones either have a specific hand seal attached to them, like clone technique has its own hand seal, or they are dependent on chakra shaping or nature manipulation. It's hard to categorise those as they are all usually used in niche or specific situations and a lot of them depend on more than just a hand seal. They are esoteric for a reason."
Man, this was getting too technical for him. He had to find a way to distract them.
"Hey, Hey! Hinata! It's been so long since we have fought, haven't we? Why don't we do it before Kakashi Sensei comes around, I'd love to see how much better you have gotten up-close, yeah?" Naruto asked.
Hinata turned to look at him.
"Oh! I want to see how I would do against an army of genin. Sensei looked so cool when he was fighting against all of your clones at once! Let's do it. Sasuke we will discuss later, yes?"
Sasuke sighed.
"Sure, some of the stuff you told me about was still going over my head so I will spend some time trying to internalize it."
"Yes!" Naruto pumped his fists.
"Let's go!" Hinata replied with excitement.
They stood ten feet apart and made the seal-of-confrontation.
By now he knew well that Hinata could dodge any attack he threw at her so he needed to get more creative. The only option that came straight to his mind was to dogpile her.
"Multi-Shadow Clone technique!" He shouted and created around a hundred clones.
They all moved to attack her at the same time. There were two ways he could win. One was to tire her out, because Hinata's stamina truly was atrocious at keeping up with her speed of dodging. But this way of winning wouldn't really help him improve as a shinobi. Too easy and he would not get better at anything other than outlasting his opponent.
He had something trickier in his mind. He hoped it would work as it had taken him a lot of time to get used to it.
But first he needed to get Hinata to relax and get focussed into dealing with his clones. The fight continued, Hinata would flow from one clone to another disabling them, he kept her busy with a few shuriken between each attack he would make just to get her used to it.
It wasn't hard to see the moment when she was truly focused on the fight, her eyes would narrow and her face would gain a subtle smile on it.
He continued to watch as she dismantled his clones at a fast pace and finally the moment, he had waited for, had arrived.
He stood behind his clones, their chakra acting as a camouflage to hide his own. He silently performed the transformation technique along with a few other clones who also transformed.
Another group of clones came and picked up the object he had transformed into. They positioned themselves in roughly a circle from all sides centred on Hinata. All of them threw the shuriken at the same time.
And just as he expected Hinata started dodging within moments of his attack reaching her.
See, there was something he had noticed about Hinata. She loves taking the least amount of movement possible to dodge, maybe to save energy or maybe just because it looked cool? Anyways she always dodged like she was a character in a movie which meant there was a moment when the Kunai his clones threw would be incredibly close to Hinata, inches away from her skin.
Hinata was also dealing with 5 clones at any given moment. Her attention was diverted and already frayed.
So, as soon as she dodged the kunai clones, he and his clones transformed back from their Kunai form and decided to grab onto her tightly!
"Got'cha! Hah! You can't dodge if I am holding onto you!"
She tried to get him off her back but by now more of the clones had started holding her down as well until most of them were keeping her hands and legs in a tight hold.
Naruto laughed.
"Hinata, surrender! I have you surrounded and completely under my mercy!"
Hinata tried to struggle more but soon enough gave up and sighed.
"Aw shucks. I guess you win Naruto."
"Naruto wins due to incapacitation!" Sasuke called out. He had an eyebrow raised to the top of his forehead.
He could just imagine Sasuke thinking something stupid about him. He really felt like punching the idiot's forehead. But just for today he was too happy to bother doing that.
Hinata got up slowly while gasping for breath.
"Your chakra is so freaking distracting! I couldn't keep track of you at all when you used the transformation jutsu."
Naruto laughed.
"You should work on that then! Wasn't my plan totally awesome?!"
"Yes, yes it was. You know what as you won against me, I will tell you secret about your jutsu. Oh, but you have to tell me how your jutsu works too! Like the hand signs and chakra shaping for it to work." Hinata gestured for him to come closer.
"Oh? Why'd you want to know that? Old man told me that anyone else who'd try to perform my jutsu would keel over dead, Hinata!"
Hinata scratched her ears.
"Ah well you know how I am trying to create jutsus for my Light-Release right? I just thought if I knew how your jutsu worked, I could probably try to create a Light-Clone Technique from the basis of your Shadow-Clone Technique, yes? At least it sounds like something that should be possible, shouldn't it?"
"Oh, as long as you don't use it yourself its fine Hinata! Old man wouldn't want you to die! Neither would I!"
He proceeded to tell her the method that he used to create his shadow clone technique. Surprisingly from what he had found out from the old man the most secretive part of the process was how to divide the chakra pool infinitely as humans have a physical limit to how many times they can divide it, something about a fail-safe to prevent death? He had kind of stopped listening at that point.
"Okay! Thanks for telling me. It will help me so much when I get to making a clone technique. Anyways here's the secret I was talking about. Basically, you know how you have got abysmal chakra control? You can probably use your jutsu to fix it! Just make like two hundred clones and set them down to work on the leaf concentration exercise and tree walking and stuff.
"You can ask Kakashi sensei for some chakra control exercises too. The Hyuga also have their own way of training chakra control but its specific to our physique and others can't use it. So, chop chop! Get to it! By the end of the month, I want to see you have the best chakra control of the three of us!"
***
Hinata Hyuga's POV
Time: Timespan of four weeks.
Location: Konoha
After that day Hinata began her grueling training to become as elite a genin in as short a time frame as she could.
Every day she would wake up at five in the morning, she would do stamina training until it was breakfast time. Just to be extra, she would spin the chakra around her tenketsu points as a chakra control exercise, trying to get the spin to be as thin as possible. She would also add water bodies like ponds and rivers to her course just so she had to practice water walking while she did her running.
After breakfast she would meet up with her teammates and their sensei to complete missions, until it was lunch time.
After lunch, she would practice taijutsu with her instructors and sometimes spar with Neji, all the while trying to emit chakra in a steady quantity from all her tenketsu, until sunset after which she would study jutsu creation theory that she surreptitiously stole all of Kakashi's jutsu creation notes, that he had brought for Hinata to take a look at, from front of his eyes.
Every third day of the routine she would assign to trying out a new jutsu she had thought up in front of Kakashi to make sure nothing would go wrong. Unsurprisingly, most of them exploded violently but Kakashi was there to save her! So, everything was fine! After a while ninja who got spooked by the flashes of light that were escaping from ground seven even stopped visiting, so all was well as it should have been.
By the end of the fourth week, her improvements had become really noticeable. Her stamina was high enough that her body no longer threatened to faint her on using her iron body for a long time.
She was regularly sparring Neji on equal grounds without him thrashing her completely with his taijutsu. Naruto could no longer wait for her to tire out to win as she was just miles better at conserving her energy than before. They had reached a sort of soft lock as neither could defeat the other as she had trained herself to not get distracted by his enormous chakra reserves.
After all the effort spent working on jutsu creation she had managed to create 4 D-rank jutsus. All of them of low utility but they spoke of her hard work. She didn't care what anyone else would say, they were her babies!
The first ones she succeeded at creating was named Light-Release: Guiding Wisp (Koton: Michibiki Hitodama) and the hand seals for its creation were Snake → Horse → Bird which roughly translated to Still → Moving → Tranquil.
It basically allowed her to create a wisp of floating light that would follow her around and let her see in the dark.
Kind of useless for a Byakugan user but man did it feel good when I managed to create it!
The second one she named Light-Release: Blinding Flash Technique (Koton: Senkō no Jutsu). The hands seals were Tiger → Ox which translated to Agressive → Overwhelming
It was basically a flash bomb without requiring an actual flash bomb. Useful for distracting people in a fight.
The third one was named Light-Release: Fleeting Shield Technique (Koton: Setsunate no Jutsu) and it didn't have any hand seals. It was something that worked entirely off of her chakra shaping.
It created a type of hard light shield which she had designed to take a single hit and dissolve. It would stay attached to the front of her until it got hit. Obviously, it wasn't that strong. A single punch from Naruto was enough to destroy it but it did stop Naruto for a split second which is way more than she thought it would do.
And best of all it was something that would grow stronger as she got stronger, the more chakra she inserted into it, the stronger it would be. Even if you leave that, the fact that this jutsu was totally just chakra shaping meant that she could produce it from any of her tenketsu to act as a shield due to her physique.
The fourth and the Jutsu with the most Utility that she had created was Light Release: Refraction Cloak (Koton: Kassetsu Mantō) which had the hand seals as Boar → Dragon → Dog → Monkey →Rat which translated to Flexible → Flowing → Clinging → Receptive →Impermanent.
It coated her hands in light chakra which refracted light at slight angles, which meant the enemy nin wouldn't be able to guess where her actual hands position was in relation to them, like how when you push your hands through water it seems as if the hand is closer than it should be, or it looks magnified or squished. Similarly, this allows her to basically make the enemy misjudge when and where her attacks would actually land, which for a taijutsu specialist is so freaking useful, best of all it sticks around for as long as she is supplying it chakra which for something which was a really long time as it was not that chakra intensive.
All of this work took a lot of her brain power. Most of them required her to think of new ways to manipulate her chakra to work properly as Hand seals weren't enough. Except for Guiding Wisp as it was a pretty simple concept.
She tried really hard to work on her Light Clone Technique too! But Kakashi sensei forbid her from trying it out until he was sure she had enough chakra to use it which sucked so much!
But leaving that disappointment aside, she had managed to win a ticket from creating Jutsu as well.
[ For creating a D-rank Jutsu for the first time, you have been given One Bronze Tiered Ticket! ]
Please roll it.
Endless Revolving Cycle technique
This technique focuses entirely on madra regeneration, to the exclusion of all else. You won't be more powerful than anyone else, but you can effectively use sacred arts all day long. You do have to use elixirs to strengthen your madra channels in order to withstand the strain of constant use.
The Sight
There's something more to you, something that puts you beyond ordinary people. You can see things others can't, look past the curtain on this world. You have a ludicrously high resistance to any and all illusions, mind control and visual tricks, being able to pierce them without even trying at most times, and seeing the truth of things. You can also 'see' magic and magical things, and always know when you're being influenced even if you can't break it.
Efficient Control
Using a skill is quite simple, all you have to do is simply implant them within yourself and use them as much as your mana allows, but usually a lot of mana is wasted if you don't have proper control, now you obtained a great advantage, you can use your mana very efficiently, it won't lower the cost of mana, but you are only using enough to fulfil their purpose, with no mana being wasted due to lack of control.
This felt like her first truly difficult choice. She immediately discarded The Sight though, as it gave her the ability to see beyond the mundane, which her Byakugan already allowed her to do, and it also allowed her to find out if she was in a genjutsu which for her would be only useful if it allowed her to escape inescapable Genjutsus like the one that Itachi possesses which it doesn't.
Efficient control was basically the dream come true for her. It would allow her to use all her jutsus without wasting any chakra. But the key word there was Efficiency. It wouldn't make her better at chakra control, only make sure she used only as much as she needed to. It wouldn't be like how the Six Eyes basically allowed Gojo to spam his infinity. And what she lacked most right now was chakra.
And the Endless Revolving Cycle technique would basically solve that issue. From what she remembered cycling techniques helped increase the amount of Madra each person possessed by cycling it in different ways and increase the control they had over it and improve their ability to sense Madra. They also had the ability to eventually make your soul strong enough to withstand holding a spirit in your soul? She wasn't sure on it that much.
This specific one not only focused on improving Madra Regeneration it also allowed the user to keep doing it while fighting. Essentially making it impossible to ever not be able to use their abilities. The downside was that it damaged the Madra channels of a person. But maybe she would be able to fix that we her Light Natured Chakra? She wasn't really sure but it gave her an avenue to work on it.
She ended up selecting Endless Revolving Cycle technique
[ Error: Madra isn't a supported a source of power in this dimension. Adapting Endless Revolving Cycle technique to the Naruto Universe
Error Resolved!
Endless Revolving Cycle technique (Fudan Meguri no Hō)
An Innate Method only usable by the bearer of the Celestial Gambler.
Chakra is formed when physical energy and spiritual energy are combined together. But you have discovered something unique about their properties. Rather than combining them instantly, if you grind the two energies against each other they produce Chakra at a faster pace as well as increase your chakra capacity over time. This is called the Endless Revolving Cycle Technique.
It offers the following benefits that only the user can reap: -
The spiralling motion of the chakra coil condenses one's chakra, increase receptivity to spiritual forces, speeds up chakra recovery, and increases control over one's chakra. The greatest benefit of this technique is the gaining of a spiritual sense that allows an artist to sense chakra and the chakra of others. This sense can greatly increase with practice, skill and technique. Eventually, the suction force of one's spiralling chakra coils will be strong enough to contain a Spirit. But nothing is without fault, this technique slowly damages the Chakra Coils, which can only be healed by a healer or by using Light Natured Jutsu that the user may be able to create. It also causes moderate amount of pain to use ]
This sounded like something that would really help her over time have a large capacity for chakra as well as help her with her chakra control. But she dreaded the pain this would cause her. She remembered in the story that it really hurt the protagonist to use this. She needed to figure out a way to heal herself asap with her powers. She won't use it before she has something to help with it.
And she wasn't going do it for the first time without someone to supervise her condition either.
It would be any day now that Naruto would complain about the D-rank missions and she needed to be ready. Zabuza was a tough opponent and she hadn't fought a jonin in a real fight ever.
She was scared. She didn't want to go. She wanted to tell them about the lie that the bridge builder would speak. She wanted to not have to worry about her life or those of her friends.
Yet death beckons her forward. If she isn't there who will save Haku? That boy doesn't deserve the future that awaits him. And wasn't she the one to proclaim to Neji that she will break her fate?
Hinata clenched her fist. And looked towards the Konoha Mountain.
Here I come fate. Let's see whether you truly hold this world in your fists.