Naruto Fanfic - Prisoner of Nightmare

Chapter Thirty-Eight[XXXVIII]: Red Proof - I

   Uzukaze Naruto sat neatly in the crook of an old oak tree, the warm summer wind gently ruffling his hair and the green leaves above him. Sasuke was below him, leaning against the trunk with his arms crossed and eyes closed while Sakura was beside Naruto on another branch, legs swinging as she read some book about iryō ninjutsu.

   It had been just yesterday that their five-week period to learn ninjutsu had came to end and they had all managed to complete their tasks, though Sakura had a bit of a harder time because of her smaller chakra reserves and lack of prior experience in learning ninjutsu, she did it. Sasuke had some difficulty as well because of his lack of excellent chakra control, something that both Sakura and Naruto helped him with.

   Naruto had a relatively easy time considering everything, but he still couldn't perform the d-rank fūton jutsu, Fūton: Kami Oroshi¹⁵¹, without putting an excess of chakra into the attack. However, that mattered little because of the nature of the jutsu, since the strength of the wind vortex was determined by the amount of chakra put into the jutsu. 

   He never had to learn low-ranking jutsu before, other than the five suiton jutsu he had listed to Kakashi and about eight others, but those had been c-rank ( aside from Suijū Kokyū ), he hadn't had a single other d-rank jutsu in his arsenal. Which, he knows, sounds insane, but his chakra reserves had simply been too large and his chakra control too poor to learn them. 

   The single and only reason he's able to perform e-rank or d-rank jutsu is due to a quite complex seal called the regulation seal, which basically regulated the amount of chakra he could expel at one time when activated. Still, even such a complex seal as that was unable to completely regulate his chakra, thus making it very difficult, but ultimately possible, to learn low-ranking jutsu like Kawarimi and Henge.

   Focusing back onto the present, Naruto's gaze flickered to the nine approaching chakra signatures he recognized as teams Eight and Ten, along with Kakashi who used a Shunshin to appear beside Sasuke. While Kakashi hadn't told them explicitly why they were to meet at Daigo Enshūjō instead of their normal training ground, Naruto was well aware of why because his Chi Bunshin had transferred his memories to Naruto three days ago.

   He hummed quietly to signal Sakura before jumping down, landing softly and without sound beside Sasuke. Sakura soon standing beside Naruto, her book sealed away. "Ne, Inu-sensei," Naruto began, gaze still firmly fixed on the not yet seen figures of the other teams, "why is Team Eight and Team Ten heading this way?"

   That made Sasuke and Sakura look up at Kakashi, who simply gave them his famous eye-smile. "Well, my kawaii little genin, it seems that the other sensei are concerned about my methods, so I invited them over for a joint exercise so you three could prove that you're in good health, both physically and mentally."

   Sakura squinted up at Kakashi, not buying a word he said. After a few seconds of silence, Sakura stated more than asked, "You invited them over so we could prove we're better, didn't you, Kakashi-sensei."

   Kakashi shrugged, looking to where the teams' vague figures were. "Maybe, maybe not, who knows?"

   Naruto snorted while Sakura rolled her eyes, Sasuke just smirked. "Either way, we'll crush them."

   "Don't underestimate then, Sasuke, Kenko-nī told me that he goes to train them once a month and that they're making some good progress," Naruto cut in. And it was the truth, they were getting stronger, though not at the very rapid pace Sasuke and Sakura were under Kakashi's constant training, but they were growing. Nara's kekkai ninjutsu, for example, could become an issue for his teammates since they didn't have much practice against it.