𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐆𝐀 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍

Finding Tsunade, Pt. 1

Last time:

"This festival will be going on for a while," Jiraiya informed them, "So we'll hang around here until it's over and then start your training here, too. Hanara can gather information while I'm teaching you as well."

"I've got some stuff I've been meaning to try out but I'll mainly help you scout out some info," she nodded.

Naruto took out a fat frog-shaped wallet from his bag, "All right!"

The two of them started to walk into the crowds of people to enjoy the festival.

Now:

"Stop right there!"Jiraiya commanded, "I'm taking your wallet, Naruto. And yours, Hanara."

"Wh- What do you think you're doing!" Naruto protested as Jiraiya took his wallet.

Jiraiya took out some money and gave it to him, "Here, you have this much to spend."

"Only 300 ryo?" Naruto whined.

"I don't want to hear it! Honouring the three shinobi prohibitions is the duty of any upstanding ninja!" Jiraiya scolded.

'I swear he's gonna use up all the money Naruto has.'

"What're you talking about? What prohibitions?" Naruto asked confusedly.

"You're kidding!" Jiraiya said in disbelief, "You don't know? Money, women, and alcohol are the three things that any decent shinobi swears off of! They're the trio that ruin many shinobi's careers!"

"Yeah, well none of those apply to me. I know what to do with my money, I don't like anyone, and I'm underage," Naruto replied.

"I've been doing all the taxes since I was 6, I don't like girls, and as he said, I'm underage. Besides, I'm helping you, I don't owe you a thing," Hanara agreed.

"You little fools!" Jiraiya yelled, "Don't take money lightly! Once you start spending, you'll never stop! The lady we're trying to find ruined herself because of it!"

"Pretty big talk coming from someone who's so addicted to the ladies," Hanara snorted, "Like I said, ever since my brother went to the Academy I've been managing the house. You don't see me in a bad state, do you? I can budget and do my taxes just fine. Besides, since I wasn't prepared for this I'm going to need to buy some essentials. You're not going to go into the store and buy me the more feminine hygiene products, are you?"

Jiraiya paled.

"I didn't think so," she smirked, walking towards the festival "Hold on to Naruto's money if you want, but you're not touching a bit of mine."

Hanara walked around the festival, looking for stalls that sold clothes. She wasn't particularly hungry because she had brought snacks with her to eat on the road. The food stalls smelt nice but as she told Jiraiya, she was good at budgeting. A festival wasn't going to sell hygiene products so clothes were all she was going to get.

Once she got about 3 full sets of clothing, Hanara left the festival and wandered around town, looking for a convenience or grocery store to buy some shampoo and other essentials. As she passed by a bar, she heard Naruto's loud voice yelling. Hanara turned to see what was bothering him and saw Jiraiya using a blue ball made of chakra and smashing it against a man, forcing the man to break a water balloon stall and smash into the ground.

'Isn't that the Fourth Hokage's famous jutsu? Rasengan? A bit overkill for a civilian, but okay. You do you, Jiraiya.'

Jiraiya spoke to him and the stall owner, got a few water balloons and regular balloons and walked away, saying he was going to start Naruto's training.

'That was a bit odd, but okay then. I'll just follow them.'

Jiraiya and Naruto stopped in the middle of a clearing in the woods.

"All right!" Naruto cheered, "It's time to get down to business!"

"I'll just... go over there and do my thing..." Hanara said, pointing to the edge of the clearing awkwardly.

"Sure. This jutsu will probably be easy for you to help Naruto with but don't. He needs to do it alone," Jiraiya told her.

"Ooookay," she nodded.

Hanara walked to the edge of the clearing, leaned against a tree, and sighed, 'What should I work on? I have that Wind Style version of Rotation, Hidden Mist Jutsu, Raging Waves, some Wind Style stuff that could help my kunai, Great Breakthrough, or some combination attacks with Pho that we could try. Hmm... I've got 3 Water Style jutsus, let's even out the score. Shredding rotative ball thing it is. It's basically a blender right now so maybe I should extend the 'blades'? Since I can see if I have my Byakugan on, I could use the 'blades' to pierce my attacker and the rest of it to defend myself. Let's get to it!'

An hour later, Hanara felt her chakra reserves were about halfway gone. The only progress she had made was extending the blades slightly. Adding Wind-Natured chakra to the Rotation was hard work. 'I think that's it for now. I'll just fly around on my fan and look for Tsunade. She'll probably be near a casino or a bar.'

Nodding to herself, Hanara got out a fan, made it large enough to sit on and made it hover.

As she was climbing on it, Naruto turned around and asked, "Hey! Where are you going, Hanara?"

"I was here to help Jiraiya look for Lady Tsunade and my chakra reserves are almost halfway gone so I was going to go and scout. You can stay here and work on popping that balloon," she replied.

"Oh," Naruto sighed, "I'm not getting this at all! Can't you give me a hint? Please!"

"I can't," she shook her head, "Jiraiya said that this is something you have to do alone."

"Fine! I can do this alone, believe it!" Naruto cheered.

"I do, so get to it," Hanara smiled as she made the fan go higher.

The next four days went by the same way. Hanara would train with Naruto for a bit and then scout around for Tsunade before resting up so that she didn't exhaust her chakra. On the fourth day, Jiraiya taught Naruto the second step to Rasengan and they got into a row and Hanara was stuck with an irritated/sad Naruto for the next 2 weeks. From what Hanara could see, Naruto was upset that Jiraiya wasn't helping him much. Something about 'he needs to learn this himself or there's no point'.

At the end of the second week, Naruto finally managed to make a hole in his rubber ball and Hanara managed to control one thin blade of Wind-Natured chakra while doing Rotation. All she needed to do was make her blade less like a senbon and more like a kunai. She was going to try and control three blades at the very least before she called her jutsu complete. Hanara had also thought of a name for it: Eight Trigrams, Rotative Blades.

That day, Naruto and Jiraiya finally made up and Naruto was learning how to make a rubber ball explode while Hanara had started changing the size of her blade.

Five days after that, Naruto succeeded in making a rubber ball explode and Hanara succeeded in making one perfect blade. She had also caught a glimpse of Tsunade in a nearby town, so Jiraiya had them pack up to go there.

Hopefully, Lady Tsunade would slip up and they could go home. Hanara was starting to miss her teammates.