章 20: A Curse
Naruto - After Three Months
Another horde of clones rushed towards him like an endless sea. The blonde activated his Sharingan. As the horde rushed towards him, he did a hand sign.
"Fire Style: Dragon Breath,"
A Huge flame shaped like a dragon appeared from his mouth, the size shadowing the whole horde of thousands of clones, his wings spread wide, darkening the entire forest, the heat burning the trees and grass to a crisp.
The dragon flew towards the clones, the clones prepared and used a giant water wall to protect themselves, but the crimson red dragon pierced right through the water wall like a knife through butter. The collision caused a massive explosion of heat, flames and steam.
Naruto activated his first Susanoo stage, and the wind-wave caused the trees to be ripped from their Root, even Naruto had trouble standing still.
The cage Susanoo covered him from the explosion. The steam spread for hundreds of meters; soon the mist spread away, the view cleared in front of him, showing him the land had turned dark, smoke coming from several places around the burned grass, the ground itself had turned red on several places, a glowing red, Naruto understood his flames were so hot that turned the stone to melted rock, the trees were aflame everywhere, Naruto felt sweat rolling down his cheek, despite the Susanoo cage, he could still feel the heat around him, almost suffocating him.
Naruto started hand signs again, finishing it.
"Water Style: Wave Spark"
Water with high pressure came out his mouth, aiming towards the sky; the water reached a hundred meters before it fell down like a calming rain.
Naruto cancelled his Susanoo and felt the rain wet his skin, his clothes got wet, but Naruto didn't mind, he saw the fire going away, smoke spread around, it didn't take long, and the fire and smoke disappeared, lava had turned to the black ground.
Naruto did more hand signs to regrow the trees that were burned.
"Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence,"
Trees after trees regrow from the ground, every tree and grass regrow around, making the forest look just as before he started training.
Doing a single hand sign, he made the seal Barrier around the area disappear. The barrier worked that no damage would be caused outside; the barrier worked to alarm him if anyone was getting close to his location, to disguise what he was doing, from outside one would just see an empty forest. The final thing, it hides the Chakra from coming out; this seal would hide even Kurama's chakra from being detected from outside.
Returning to his home, he started preparing food for himself and perhaps a certain Snake lady.
It had been three months now, Naruto had trained with her several times, and even took her to eat ramen with him in Ichiraku Ramen.
One time Kakashi-sensei joined them, late as always, and his reason was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
"I'm sorry while coming here. I remembered that I had forgotten to drop the water on the toilet,"
Both Anko and Naruto had said nothing for several minutes, looking at him as if he was an alien.
When Anko returned from her first report, she found Naruto eating some fish for dinner. He quickly took out some more fish and prepared them so she could have dinner as well. Anko didn't need to be told twice, and she gratefully accepted the meal. Over the meal, she told him about her day and about everything that happened. But then she gave him the book on sealing and told him the message the Hokage had given her.
"Yondaime wrote this book? Really?" Naruto stammered after a full minute of silence.
Anko had been curious who Naruto's hero was, and now she knew it wasn't surprising. After all, the Yondaime was said to be one of the greatest shinobi ever lived. She quickly nodded and smiled when he pressed the book to his chest as if it was the greatest treasure in the world.
To him, it probably was. Since she had travelled quite some distance today, she wished him goodnight and told him that he had the morning off from training so they could discuss the training schedule for the next month. Naruto wished her goodnight and thanked her again for everything she had done for him. He spent some time reading in Yondaime book and went to sleep soon after reading the first chapter.
When he awoke the following day, he woke up and left to search for Anko. He found her sitting in the clearing furiously scribbling some notes down on a piece of paper. He quietly sat next to her to not disturb her while working.
Anko was trying to figure out how to maximise the amount of training Naruto could do this month. Not an easy task at 7 am in the morning. She wrote something down, but soon after that, she would find something new and then she would have to start over again. It was driving her nuts. Suddenly she smelled breakfast, and her stomach told her it was time to stop writing and start eating. She looked over at Naruto and saw him smiling while holding a plate for her.
"Naruto has changed so much this past month. He's really something else." She told herself.
They ate their breakfast in silence like they did every morning. It took Naruto 2 days to figure out that Anko liked to spend the early morning in silence, at least until after breakfast. He came to enjoy a silent breakfast soon after that. It was a time where he could think about the day that was to come.
"Alright, gaki, we have to figure out your new training schedule. I've been going over some things, but I can't seem to find a healthy balance. Help me out here, will you? Now I think that you could spend one hour every day practising chakra control, then we have some sparring matches until lunch. After lunch, we could spend some time working on speed and strength training. Or we could work on your ninjutsu training? What do you think?" Anko said, trying to get Naruto to help.
"What about this? In the morning, I make a few dozen clones like always and tell them to practice chakra control and taijutsu; while the clones do that, you and I work on sparring, speed and strength exercises. After lunch, we could either work on ninjutsu or theoretical stuff. We could alternate the afternoon program each day. Sounds good?" Naruto said.
Anko thought about it and agreed that this was a good idea. So they quickly agreed that they would follow Naruto's schedule for the next month. They decided to start in the afternoon with theoretical lessons since she still felt a little tired from the day before. Naruto told her that was fine, and since they had the morning off, he took out his book on sealing and started reading while Anko went back to bed.
The following day Naruto did his morning exercises, but when he was about to make a few dozen clones, Anko told him that she had a new exercise in mind.
Some days before, she got the idea about how medical shinobi had to have excellent chakra control. They were able to make chakra scalpels with their chakra.
A chakra scalpel was made by focusing an amount of chakra to the tip of the finger and manipulating it in such a way that it would become as sharp as a knife. The more she thought about it, the more sure she became that it would be an excellent exercise for Naruto. She quickly explained what she had in mind, and Naruto made his clones and told them to get started. While the clones were busy, the two of them started on having a light spar before working on speed and strength training.
Several days later, one of his clones had a small success in creating what seemed to be an incomplete chakra scalpel. The clone had succeeded in sharpening the chakra into a somewhat sharp knife.
After that small success, he quickly managed to recreate what the clone had done, and he was on his way to making a fully completed chakra scalpel. His other training started good as well; he was becoming more and more adept at using both Taekwondo and Aikido and gave Anko a run for her money when they had sparring matches.
Despite Anko knowing Naruto was holding back against her, she wondered why. She knew many Shinobi who didn't like to show their full power since, according to them, a Shinobi should always hide his full potential unless they have no other choice.
The ninjutsu training was lots of fun as well; Anko had taught him several Katon jutsus and three variations on the Kage Bunshin No Jutsu. He remembered those lessons well.
Flashback
"Alright, gaki, I've got three variations of Kage Bunshin No Jutsu for you to learn. They're named 'Shuriken Kage Bunshin No Jutsu', 'Kunai Kage Bunshin No Jutsu' and 'Bakuretsu Kage Bunshin No Jutsu'. The first two make not clones of yourself but off your kunai or shuriken. I'm sure you can see the advantage of that. The third one makes clones just like the normal Kage Bunshin No Jutsu, but it allows you to let the clone explode, taking your enemy with them." Anko explained.
When he wanted to make some clones to help him in mastering the jutsu, Anko stopped him.
"No Naruto, no clones in the beginning. I want you to learn them first on your own. After you're able to do them well enough, you can master them by using Kage Bunshin No Jutsu. I don't want you to rely on that jutsu all the time." Anko ordered Naruto.
Naruto didn't get why he couldn't use the Kage Bunshin No Jutsu to learn the new jutsu. But if he was honest with himself, he realised he depended too much on the Kage Bunshin No Jutsu, so he nodded and started learning the Kunai Kage Bunshin No Jutsu.
In the end, it took him about two days per jutsu to be able to do them good enough before Anko allowed him to use the Kage Bunshin No Jutsu to finish mastering them. But he felt outstanding about himself for not using Kage Bunshin No Jutsu to learn them. He decided to always learn a new jutsu on his own, and only when he was able to do it well enough would he finish mastering it with Kage Bunshin No Jutsu.
End flashback
Halfway through the month, Naruto had a breakthrough in his experiments with seals. He had been trying to create his own storage scroll, but it proved to be more complicated than it looked. The necessary seals that had to be placed on the scroll were much more complex than he anticipated, but he didn't give up. Naruto didn't know the words 'giving up and kept trying, with Anko encouraging him every step of the way.
His success came when he tried for a hundred times to create a storage scroll. By not paying attention for a small moment, he applied two necessary seals in what he thought was the wrong order. The result was a fully working storage scroll that he created on his own. It was the first time he had succeeded in creating a working scroll, so understandably he was very proud and couldn't stop smiling for two days after.
The next part in the book he received from Yondaime was creating a sort of gravity seal that would allow him to put it on his chest.
This seal would make his body twice as heavy as he normally was. The advantage of this seal was that unlike normal weights, which were rarely used anymore, according to Anko, this seal would affect every muscle in his body.
This would result in much more completed training. Naruto was immediately interested, and it didn't help that Yondaime had written in the margin that he personally used this seal when he was young. Anko said that she wouldn't allow him to put it on his body until she was absolutely sure he could do it without risking anything. She would also talk about it with Sandaime Hokage, and only if he said that the seal was safe, she would allow him to apply it on his body.
Now two days before Anko had to report on Naruto's progress, he called her aside. He had finished a little side project of his. He had been trying to design his own weapon for some time now, and he had decided to start small and make some throwing knives.
While kunai were very useful, and many shinobi used them as a throwing weapon, the fact remained that kunai were not designed for this purpose. Kunai were designed to use as a stabbing and cutting weapon. After trying several times, he got them just right.
Anko, surprised at Naruto's actions seeing he was kind of nervous about something, went over to him and asked if something was wrong. Naruto, who was sweating bullets, assured her everything was fine and told her he had made something for her. After saying that, he held out a small package and told her to open it. When she opened it, Anko couldn't believe her eyes. Inside were three beautifully shaped knives. She sat down and took one of the knives in her hand to take a closer look at it.
The knife was about 8 inches long, handle included; they were long in shape and double-edged. The handle was just long enough to fit right in her hand, allowing her to hold it very comfortably. The knife looked incredibly sharp and very easy to use.
Naruto, who had been watching her examine the knife, couldn't help but worry that she didn't like it. He really hoped she liked them; it was his way to say thank you for everything she had done for him over the past three months.
"Naruto, I don't know what to say. These are incredible. How did you manage to make such fantastic weapons? I didn't even see you practice forging them." Anko said while looking back and forth between the knives and Naruto.
"Well, I knew that kunai aren't really meant to be throwing weapons, so I wanted to make my own. So I designed them myself and started making them from the scrap metal I got from a shop. When I knew I could make them perfectly, I forged them out of that high-quality metal as a present for you. Do you like them? It's ok if you don't, I understand." Naruto said shyly.
"Like them? Naruto, I love them. Thank you so much for this wonderful present. I will treasure them for the rest of my life. I can't believe you did that for me." Anko truthfully said with a tear in each eye.
Naruto felt a huge weight drop off his shoulders when she told him that she loved her present.
"It was nothing, Anko, and I'm delighted that you love them,"
They had spent the rest of the day throwing the knives for practice, and Anko had to say that they were without a doubt much more comfortable and easier to throw than kunai.
She was amazed at Naruto ability to forge such a flawless weapon. She was sure that Sandaime Hokage would say the same thing. Naruto got a little flushed when she told him that.
The night before she had to leave for her report, she asked Naruto if he needed anything from the library. Naruto, who still finished his book on sealing and still had to start on the books for jutsu making, told her he was fine for now.
Naruto, of course, knew Anko reported to the old Hokage. Therefore he acted as if he still hadn't learned these things yet.
"Good morning Hokage-sama, I'm here for my monthly report." She said, saluting the Hokage since she was in a playful mood.
The Hokage smiled and wished her a good morning as well. Telling her to sit down, he waited for her to start her report. But before she started, she opened her backpack and gave him a small package.
"It's a present from Naruto. To thank you for everything you have done for him." Anko said, smiling.
Sarutobi carefully opened the package, not knowing what it could be. He slowly took one of the three knives in his hand and studied very closely. He could see that they were made with precision and great care.
He thought they were beautiful, almost a work of art not meant to be used in battle. He looked at Anko, asking her to explain. When he heard that Naruto had forged these throwing knives for him, he could help but feel happy and honoured. She also told him that he had made a set for her as well.
"That boy, how does he manage to surprise me time and time again?" Sandaime wondered out loud.
Like last time Anko gave a detailed overview of Naruto's progress. How he had succeeded in making his own storage scroll, how he had mastered the chakra scalpel exercise and the jutsu's he had learned. She also told him about the gravity seal that Naruto wanted to try. She asked him about the dangers of such a seal. Sandaime quickly reassured her that it was perfectly safe to use if Yondaime had used the seal.
"He completed the chakra scalpel exercise? That's amazing for someone with his amount of chakra. He must have worked very hard to achieve such a feat. How is his taijutsu going?" asked Sarutobi.
Anko explained that Naruto practised to complete the chakra scalpel exercise for day to no end, but once again, when he made his first small breakthrough, it didn't take long to finish it.
Thanks to his speed and strength training, she also told him that his taijutsu was getting very hard to beat. Also, the fact that his stamina was greater than hers, so I couldn't underestimate him anymore. He was getting strong very fast, in her opinion.
She also told him that while he hadn't started making his own jutsu's yet, she believed it was only a matter of time.
"Anko, how strong do you think Naruto is now, and how strong do you think he will be after... let's say one year. Please give an honest reply. This is important.." Sarutobi said in a very serious voice.
Anko, who hadn't expected such a question, kept silent for a full minute, thinking how she would make an honest assessment of Naruto's strength and level.
After thinking about it, she told the Sandaime Hokage that she believed Naruto to be between Low Chunin and Medium Chunin as of this moment. She gave him this level because although Naruto got very good at taijutsu and chakra control, he still had a number of skills he had to improve or acquire.
She predicted that by the end of the year, Naruto would at least be between mid-level and high-level Chunin. Of course, she was a bit biased, being his sensei, but she believed that it would be Naruto if anyone could achieve this.
Sarutobi nodded, satisfied with Anko's honest reply.
"I will leave now, Hokage-Sama," Anko spoke, the Hokage permitted her, and she left the office. Still, at the back of her mind, she couldn't help but wonder if she should have brought it up that Naruto holds back all the time; she knew he held back because of the strength behind his fists, mostly his strength is that of a Low-Chunin, but Anko had noticed several times Naruto had perhaps kind of slipped and used up to High-Chunin, and his speed was incredible sometimes.
Naruto, for his part, had finished his necessary training for the day around noon, so he had the rest of the afternoon to read up on seals.
He had an idea in the back of his head that he wanted to try out. He had skipped through the book last night and had found something called 'a blood seal' that he immediately liked.
A seal that would offer protection to his scrolls so only he could open them seemed a very nice option. If he wanted to start his own clan weapons and jutsu's, he would need a way to protect those secrets, so blood seal protection sounded very useful.
After several tries, he succeeds in placing the seal on one of his storage scrolls. Happy about his success, he applied the seal to all the storage scrolls he had made until now. Seeing that he still had lots of time before Anko would be back, he flipped through the book, looking for something useful.
Just when he was about to give up on finding something that he could do since many of the seals were still out of his reach, a small note caught his eye.
It was something that Yondaime had scribbled down between two chapters, the seal he described was a seal that would allow you to channel chakra into a weapon. The seal would place the weapon in a casing made of chakra.
The casing would take the form and shape of the weapon and have a very sharp edge, making the weapon even sharper and stronger. Naruto thought it was like a chakra scalpel but on a weapon. He could see the use of such a thing.
One effect of the chakra scalpel was that it cut like a hot knife through butter. Having such an edge on a weapon would significantly damage his enemies.
He took out one of his throwing knives and engraved the seal into the blade. This took some time because he didn't want to make a mistake and ruin his knife.
After about half an hour of very carefully engraving the seal, he finally finished it. He wondered what kind of damage his improved knife would do. Deciding that there's no time like the present, he went to the tree they had used for target practice. He struggled a bit to put the right amount of chakra into the seal.
When he saw a blue glow appear around the knife, just like the book said, he threw it at the target with all the strength he could muster.
Keeping his eyes on the weapon, he saw the Kunai piercing the trees and not stopping up to the tenth tree.
He went over to the target tree and saw that the knife just went through it like it wasn't there. He collected his knife and saw that the chakra casing had disappeared; he reasoned that the casing probably disappeared when the knife went through the first tree. After that, it was just a normal throwing knife.
Anko arrived soon, finding Naruto collecting knives.
"Hey Naruto, everything alright? What has gotten you in such a good mood?" Anko asked, a little concerned.
"Anko sensei, watch this." That was all that Naruto said. He went over to the tree with Anko following him.
He channelled some chakra into the knife and threw it towards the tree. When Anko saw the knife going through the tree, she dropped the scroll she had been holding. Looking shocked and hardly believing what she had just seen, she managed to ask Naruto how the hell he did that. So Naruto started explaining about applying the blood seal to his storage scroll and finding the seal for the weapon in the book. He told her that he had tried it on one knife, and when he saw the results, he promptly started to engrave the seal into his other knives.
'He did that in just one day? Damn, the gaki is getting better and better with seals. What else will he come up with? Oh man, I can't wait to see all those jerks at the civil council when they see how talented Naruto really is. That's going to be a sight to behold.' Anko thought with a smile.
"Hey Gaki, how about we go to the Ichiraku Ramen to celebrate?" She asked, pointing to the direction behind her.
Naruto nodded in agreement and followed her behind. Soon they were making their way there, walking through the streets. It was dusk, and there were people everywhere.
Naruto couldn't help but feel the glares towards... Anko. Since the first week, Naruto had noticed that his lady friend wasn't very popular with the citizens of the Konoha. Still, unlike him, who mainly was disliked by the Civilian side, Anko was actually disliked by the Shinobi side.
The blonde wondered why, if she had done something that had angered them. Anko seemed to not care about what they said about her.
She had gotten used to them, but it was mostly the Chunin and some Genins that called her like this, the Jonin side mostly didn't care, and Kurenai and Yugao were her best friends.
They were almost at the Ichiraku Ramen when someone marched towards them. From his clothes, Anko and Naruto could tell this one was a Chunin.
"Look at this, a Snake Bitch and Demon Fox, the..." everything seemed to have stopped. Anko didn't understand what happened and didn't have time.
One moment the Chunin was standing so close to them that she could smell the alcohol coming out of his mouth, but the following moment, a crash happened to a store near them.
Anko was confused. She turned to see the very same Shinobi lying on rubble, his head bleeding from several different places around his head, but what shocked Anko was Naruto standing close to him glaring at him with Ice Blue eyes. Anko was almost reminded of the eyes of her monster former sensei, the way he looked at someone he hated or desired; she almost felt frightened from his eyes, despite his eyes being aimed at the Chunin and not at her.
Anko felt her throat dry, almost frozen; she couldn't comprehend how fast had Naruto moved; she had seen nothing; she knew he always held back whenever he fought her, but this was just ridiculous.
Naruto stood over the Shinobi, who had his head down, the blonde looked down on him, the Shinobi slowly raised his head, his eyes from confusion to anger and hatred.
"Just wha..." he was stopped when he felt Naruto grabbing his throat; he couldn't talk and couldn't breathe, grabbing his hand, he tried to free himself but couldn't move the demon's hands from his throat not even an inch...
"Listen here, worm, next time you talk like that, Your head bleeding will be the last thing you will Worry About," Naruto promised, leaning closer, his ice eyes piercing his soul like a knife.
The Shinobi felt frozen from his gaze, from the sheer strength of his. The Shinobi could only nod; Naruto released his grip and walked towards Anko, completely ignoring the number of people gathered to see what was happening.
"We can leave if you want", Naruto suggested, but Anko almost couldn't hear him; he looked at the Shinobi who stood up, holding his head with his hand, trying to stop the blood.
Anko glanced at Naruto before she nodded; this was not the best night to go to Ichiraku.
Soon Anko reached her home, and Naruto had walked her to it; she turned to the blonde who looked unfazed by what had just happened.
"I appreciate you standing up for me, Naruto, but you shouldn't have done that, now people..." she was stopped when Naruto spoke.
"Why do people hate you? I mean, people have hated me since I could remember myself, but why you? Is it because you're training me?" Naruto asked, playing the ignorant, knowing that wasn't the case.
Kakashi trained the blonde, and no one hated him, but that wasn't the case for Anko.
The snake woman avoided his eye contact, instinctively touched the place where her cursed mark was; she hadn't mentioned the curse mark or Orochimaru to her little student; she didn't want him to feel pity for her.
But now, she knew if she just acted as if nothing was wrong, Naruto might think she didn't trust him, sighing. She turned her eyes at him.
"Have you heard of Orochimaru, The Sannin Snake?"
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