3 Power of the wind
"Alright, now that they've left, the rest of you are going to fight me. Help me get a good grasp on our taijutsu," the original said, dropping low into a fighting stance.
.....
After finishing his intense taijutsu training against his clones, Naruto sat down under the shade of a large tree. Tearing open the takeout container, the rich smell of ramen filled the air—warm broth, thick pork slices, and noodles glistening under the afternoon sunlight. He ate in comfortable silence for a while, slurping the noodles and occasionally sighing in pure contentment.
By the time he finished, he was leaning back against the tree with a full belly.
"Man... no wonder the original Naruto loved ramen so much. I'm officially addicted to this now," Naruto muttered to himself.
He stared up at the sky, watching the white clouds drift slowly with the wind.
But while his eyes were on the sky, his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. He had just dispelled the combat clones and received their memories, and to be completely honest, he was deeply disappointed with his current skills. His hand-to-hand combat was incredibly sloppy and lacking. While his chakra control had improved enough to fight efficiently on water, he still couldn't form the Rasengan with just one hand.
That was a massive problem. He couldn't even perform his only powerful A-rank technique by himself; he still desperately needed a clone's help just to form the shape.
He felt like he was at a dead end. Mastering the one-handed Rasengan was at the absolute top of his priority list right now. But he also needed more—more power, more jutsu. Relying solely on shadow clones and a basic Rasengan wouldn't cut it in the future.
He needed to start his Wind Chakra Nature training ASAP. Adding wind chakra to the Rasengan and his ninja tools was the only way to give himself a real advantage. From watching the show, he knew that in the ninja world, death was just one wrong step away on any given mission. Plus, he already had the Akatsuki—a group of S-rank psychopaths—hunting him down. Plot armor might have saved the original Naruto, but he wasn't going to put his second chance at life in the hands of destiny or luck.
He had been given this life, and he was going to make it count no matter what.
With that thought, he stood up, dusted off his orange pants, and picked up a single leaf that had fallen to the ground.
Now… how did Naruto learn his chakra nature again? he thought. He closed his eyes, mentally replaying the scenes from the manga: Yamato's demonstration, the chakra paper test, and finally, the leaf-splitting exercise. After a minute of focused thought, he nodded to himself.
"Got it. Step one is to split the leaf perfectly in half."
He crossed his fingers and called upon his chakra, creating a massive squad of shadow clones. This time, the number was even higher than before.
"Alright, listen up!" he called out. "Each of you knows the drill. Grab a leaf from the trees. Our goal is to split it perfectly in half using only our chakra, and we need to get it down by the end of the day. Got it?"
All the clones nodded eagerly in unison. "Got it!"
They scattered around the clearing. Each clone grabbed a leaf, placed it between their palms, and shut their eyes in deep concentration.
Seeing this, Naruto smirked, held up his own leaf, and began channeling his chakra.
......…
By evening, Naruto and his clones had made some solid progress. They were successfully cutting the leaves about halfway through, though none had managed a complete, clean split yet.
Dispelling the massive army of clones gave Naruto a splitting headache from the mental backlash, but the pain was an acceptable price to pay for the sheer amount of progress he had made in a single afternoon.
He was confident that if he used the shadow clones to grind the exercise again tomorrow, he would completely master the first step of wind manipulation. But that was a task for tomorrow. Right now, he needed to get some sleep.
With that thought, he headed back to the inn where he and his master were staying, but not before stopping to grab a hearty dinner of chicken curry and rice.
When Naruto finally reached the inn, he decided to check on Jiraiya's room first to see if the old man was actually doing any recon.
"Ero-Sennin, are you—" he began, pushing the door open.
His words froze mid-sentence. Jiraiya was sprawled out on the bed, snoring softly, with one arm draped casually around a sleeping woman.
Naruto's eye twitched violently.
"…Unbelievable," he muttered, closing the door with a heavy, resigned sigh. "Freaking perv."
Shaking his head at the legendary Sannin's antics, he walked down the hall to his own room to finally get some well-earned rest.
TO BE CONTINUE
Give me the power stones.