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Pushing Through the Limit Chapter 7: A seal of dreams
🕑 Added 2024-02-27 05:32:49 +0000 UTCMy eye twitched as I stood across from Minato, still standing on the other side of the seal, waiting for him to calm down and stop laughing.
“Sorry, sorry, hah,” Minato breathed. “It’s just… you were such an easy target and then when you hid behind the Kyuubi, it made such a funny picture.”
“I thought Kushina was the prankster,” I muttered, not that I knew that much about Kushina, she still lived an entire life that wasn’t really mentioned.
“Spend enough time around someone and they’ll start rubbing off on you,” Minato replied. “But that’s not why you brought me here. You want to undo the seal.”
“I mean, yeah. If you could just-“
“I will unlock the seal,” Minato interrupted, “but first, we need to have a talk.”
Ah crap, here it comes. He’s going to be angry that I’m possessing his son and now he’s going to tear me a new one and blame me for Naruto’s –
“You put entirely too much stress on yourself.”
“Huh?”
“I said that you’re too stressed. Ever since you woke up as you are now, you’ve been worrying about one thing after another. Meeting Jiraiya, the Sandaime, the chunin exams, the coming invasion, the akatsuki, you’ve been stressing over all of them.”
“But… that’s natural. The future is a disaster and I’m the only one who knows about it, I can’t just not be stressed about it.”
“Naruto,” Minato sighed. “You’ve got more memories of your life as a civilian than a Shinobi. Shinobi don’t get stressed or tense up, we get ready for what’s to come.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” I argued. “I’ve been training my body and my jutsu as best I can. I have plans on how to deal with the akatsuki, the invasion, Obito.”
“And you’ve been agonizing over every choice you make. You’ve even been dreading meeting Kushina and I. You feel like you have to prove to us that you’re not wasting your life by saving the world, but all you would need to do is live a happy life.”
“But… how? I’m not your son, how would you be alright with me?”
“You are my son, Naruto,” Minato said gently. “But you’re also someone else’s. You’re overcomplicating this in your head. You don’t need to feel like you’ve stolen something important from me, rather, I feel like you’ve added something more.”
Feeling something wet trail down my face, I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve.
“Now, about your plan to unlock the cage,” Minato said, walking through the cage. “It’s not a bad plan, I’ve seen that the two of you are working together on this, but you’ve both overlooked something.”
“And what would that be, Yondaime?” Kurama growled.
“Madara, he attempts to summon you after being resurrected. If the cage is open and you two are caught off guard, he might be able to pull it off,” Minato explained. “But it shouldn’t be an issue, I can break his hold with a contract seal.”
“Very well.”
“Contract seal,” I repeated, trying to remember where I heard that word before. “That’s the thing that you used to stop Obito from controlling Kurama?”
“Yes,” Minato said, lifting his arm to show the various seals forming on it. “It also stopped him from being able to summon the Kyuubi.” Pressing the seal into Kurama, Minato turned around. “Alright, let’s get this cage open.”
“Alright, so…” I trailed off, lifting my shirt up to show the seal. “You just have to turn it, right?”
“Pretty much,” Minato grinned, opening the seal with no hesitation.
The lock made a rapid snapping sound and then the gate slowly started opening.
“That’s it?” I asked, staring at the now open gates. I knew unlocking the seal wasn’t going to be some huge thing, but it just happened so anticlimactically.
“That’s it,” Minato affirmed.
Turning around, I caught sight of Minato as he was slowly becoming transparent.
“Crap, you’re fading. Let me give you some chakr-“
“No,” Minato shook his head. “That won’t work. This isn’t a matter of running out of chakra. My soul is in the shinigami’s stomach and the seal was the only thing holding me here. Now that it’s unlocked, there’s nothing tethering me here.”
“Then Kurama and I can get out of the cage and we can close it again,” I argued. Now that I had talked to Minato, I didn’t want him to fade. I didn’t exactly think of him as a dad, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel like he was family.
“That won’t work either,” Minato replied, ruffling my hair. “It’s alright, Naruto. We both know that this isn’t the end. I’ve seen your plans and ideas for the future and I have faith that you will succeed, especially with him on your side,” He gestured towards Kurama.
“D-damnit,” I cursed, feeling a few stray tears stream down my face.
“Kyuubi,” Minato announced loudly. “I know we haven’t seen eye to eye and I don’t have the right to call you by your name, much less ask you a favor, but please… look after Naruto for me.”
“I will,” Kurama replied. “Without my help, the world is likely to end, so it’s not like I have much of a choice.”
Minato let out a chuckle. “He’s quite the tsundere, isn’t he,” he muttered, gesturing towards Kurama.
“Hehe, yeah,” I chuckled watery.
“Before I leave, I want you to engrave these words in your heart,” Minato began, almost completely faded. “Shinobi are those who endure.” And then the seal was silent.
Drying my face, I took several long, slow breaths to calm myself. Death isn’t the end, especially in this world, but, as much as I wanted to go straight to the Uzumaki mask temple and unseal Minato, I knew I couldn’t. Orochimaru planned on summoning the past Hokage during the invasion and if he had Minato on his side, he would surely destroy Konoha.
Looking to Kurama, I saw he was just sitting there, watching, giving me time to mourn. “Let’s get out of this cage.”
“Yeah.”
Leaving the cage, I let out a relieved sigh. Regardless of all the emotional turmoil I had been through, I felt lighter.
“Kurama, thank you... for pushing me to do this,” I said, looking up to the giant fox. “In a weird way, all this was just what I needed.”
“You go from terrified to self loathing, to happy and then sad and yet you thank me,” Kurama began. Stretching fully for the first time in more than 13 years, he let out a content sigh. “Humans are strange… or perhaps that’s just you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I chuckled. “But now that it’s over and I know that Minato and Kushina don’t hate me… It’s like I had something weighing me down that I didn’t even know about and now suddenly it’s been removed.”
I paused for a moment. The way I felt right now... I wouldn’t be able to put it in words.
“You know what, I’m not really explaining it that well, here,” I held my fist up to Kurama.
“You want to see inside my heart again when last time it almost overwhelmed you?”
“Well yeah,” I shrugged. “I think I’m a little more stable now and I’ve got an idea on how you’re currently feeling.”
“Very well,” Kurama said, bringing his fist to mine, linking our chakra’s.
I let out a yawn as I sat up in my broken bed, idly noting that the weight technique that Jiraiya had used on me seemed to have come undone. A lot had happened last night and it was extremely stressful, but ultimately worth it. I felt emotionally lighter and my chakra, which before felt like a stream now felt like a river.
“That would be the effect of having the seal opened. Your chakra is no longer being diverted to keeping me in the cage.”
I jumped at that. I had forgotten that Naruto could talk with Kurama once the seal was opened. And speaking of, ‘We didn’t get Minato to hide the fact that the seal was unlocked.’
“No we didn’t. You will have to tell Jiraiya something when he inevitably finds out.”
‘Yeah,’ I nodded, pushing myself out of bed. ‘But hopefully that will be at a later date, when I have time to think of something.’
Grabbing some breakfast and a quick shower, I left for the training field. I was honestly excited to see what I could do now.
“What the hell,” I muttered to myself as I arrived at the training ground. Jiraiya was already here, which wasn’t that unusual, he sometimes arrived early, but the two newcomers… Sakura and Hinata, I wasn’t exactly expecting them to be here right now.
“Naruto, you’re late,” Sakura admonished me.
“U-um, not by much. I’ve only been here for a minute,” Hinata said.
“I’m late?” I asked, turning towards Jiraiya.
“Don’t look at me kid, I didn’t invite them here,” Jiraiya shot back.
“No, I suppose you didn’t. I was the one that did that,” I muttered. I did invite Hinata to train with me, but I don’t really recall inviting Sakura, it seems she’s just latched on to the little bit of training that I was offering her.
“So what are we doing today?” Sakura asked, looking at me expectantly.
“Gehehe, it looks like you’re the sensei here,” Jiraiya said, walking forward. “But this can work, you’ve grown a bit too used to fighting me, so pitting you against these two will help you.”
“Wait, so we’re going to fight Naruto?” Sakura asked while Hinata watched nervously.
“Yep,” Jiraiya replied.
I suppose that could work, but first. “Could you reapply that weight technique, I might be a bit too fast for them and it came undone during the night.”
“You went to sleep with the added weight technique on,” Jiraiya deadpanned. Walking up to me, he placed his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. “No, the technique is still active. You’ve just adjusted to it.”
Feeling my body become lighter, I marveled at how easy it was to move. “I’m definitely too fast for Sakura and Hinata now.”
“No you’re not. I could still keep up with you when we were in the forest of death,” Sakura argued.
Kicking off the ground, I stopped just in front of Sakura and Hinata, my hands on their shoulders, causing them to jump. I wasn’t as fast as an unweighted Lee, but I was still much faster than Sakura and Hinata. “Trust me, if we’re going to fight for more than ten seconds, I’m going to need to be weighed down.”
“Alright, that's enough showing off in front of your girlfriends. Make your clones first and then I’ll reapply the earth style jutsu.”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Sakura snapped.
“G-g-girlfriend,” Hinata stuttered, her face turning beet red.
I could only shake my head at Jiraiya successfully getting Sakura and Hinata riled up.
“Naruto, don’t hold back on the number of your clones. You can use my chakra while training.”
‘I mean… if you’re offering.’ Bringing my hands together, I let loose and stopped holding back with my chakra, forming several hundred clones all at one. I felt a moment of weakness before Kurama’s chakra flooded my body, revitalizing me.
“S-so many,” Hinata stuttered.
“That… That’s a lot more clones than last time,” Sakura noted, “And you’re using your kekkei genkai thingy.”
“Yep,” I replied, smirking. “It’s about time I stop holding back and start using every advantage I have. Jiraiya-sensei, you mind reapplying the weight technique, but heavier this time.”
“Yeah, come over here brat,” Jiraiya motioned me over, shooting me an odd look. “I wasn’t expecting you to be starting out with ‘that chakra…’ You seem different today, what changed?”
“I had a good night’s sleep,” I grinned. “But seriously… Something good did happen, I’ll tell you after the chunin exams.” ‘After we get a new Hokage.’
“Fine, keep your secrets,” Jiraiya chuckled, his hands flashing through seals. “Doton: Kajūgan no Jutsu.”
“Hmmm,” I hummed as I felt the weight settle on me. “That’s not enough.” As it stood, if I accessed Kurama’s chakra before I began my training, I would have been faster and stronger than Lee without his weights, but now, with my training, I was faster than that.
With Kurama’s chakra strengthening my body, even with the added weight, I was far faster than I my base form.
“I’m not that good at this Jutsu,” Jiraiya sighed, flashing through hand signs again.
“Almost there,” I said, beginning to feel some strain from the added weight.
“Damnit brat,” Jiraiya cursed as he once again went through the hand signs.
Feeling some real strain, I nodded. “That should be enough.” Taking a step towards Sakura and Hinata, a new problem presented itself. With all the added weight, my feet were sinking into the ground. “Crap,” I muttered.
“You might want to channel chakra to your feet like when you did the water walking exercise.”
‘Right, thanks.’ Taking Kurama’s advice, I took a step and found myself no longer sinking. “So, we going to start this match or what?”
“May as well,” Jiraiya sighed. “Pinkie, Hyuga, form up. You two are fighting Naruto together.”
“A-at the same time? Isn’t that a little too much?” Hinata asked meekly.
“As he is now… probably not,” Jiraiya replied. “Now get ready.”
“Ah, before we start,” I interrupted. “Yesterday I finished the first step for wind, water and fire. Could you get my clones started on the next step?”
“The first step for three elements… already?” Jiraiya asked. “Geez kid, you’re really something else. I’ll get them started on the next step soon. Just have them practice what they’ve already learned for now.”
Shrugging, I watched the remaining clones go to their task, the majority had already started training the two elements that I hadn’t mastered yet.
“This is a Taijutsu only match, but since we have a Hyuga here, she can use her gentle fist and Byakugan,” Jiraiya said, setting the rules for our fight. “Now, Pinkie, Hyuga girl, here’s some advice. I’ve weighed Naruto down with an earth release jutsu, so he won’t be as fast, but there will be a significant amount of weight behind his hits, so you should probably dodge.”
“Stop calling me Pinkie, my name’s Sakura,” Sakura snapped.
“I don’t care. Now, begin.”
“Huh, I thought he would give me advice too,” I muttered under my breath, ignoring Kurama’s snickering.
Blocking Sakura’s kick, I had to dodge Hinata’s half hearted Juken jab. “Wait, stop. This isn’t going to work.”
“What? You can’t fight both of us at once?” Sakura smirked.
“That’s not it,” I shook my head. “Hinata, you have to stop holding back. You should have hit me there.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hinata apologized timidly. “I-I just, don’t want to hurt you.”
“Let me show you something,” I said. Slipping a kunai from my holster, I stabbed myself in my hand.
“NARUTO, what the hell?!” Sakura screamed.
“Look,” I said as I pulled the Kunai from my hand, showing how the wound was steaming as it swiftly sealed itself.
“It... it’s already healed,” Hinata murmured, her eyes wide with shock.
“What?” Sakura muttered.
“Yep,” I chuckled. “As I am right now, there’s nothing you can do that will hurt me. I am quite literally the perfect punching bag.” That wasn’t entirely true though, there was plenty that would hurt me, only, I would heal from it. “So, please don’t hold back. Hit me with everything you’ve got.”
“O-okay,” Hinata nodded.
“Right, so, are we ready to start again?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hinata replied with a little more confidence.
“I want to know more about your kekkei genkai, but sure. I’ll ask you afterwards,” Sakura said.
“Then let’s continue.”
Ducking under Hinata’s palm strike, I was pleased to see that she was taking this seriously and that her Byakugan was activated. I didn’t have much time to think as I had to block a kick from Sakura.
“Crap,” I muttered. Straining to jump back and get some distance from Sakura and Hinata as they followed me. With all the weight currently on me, I was just a little bit faster than them, not really enough to make a difference.
Lashing out with a punch, Hinata dodged and I winced when she poked me a few times in the arm, the pain hadn’t come from her closing the tenketsu, but rather when Kurama’s chakra forced them open. If things kept going on as they were, I wasn’t going to be winning this spar.
Blocking one of Sakura’s punches, I saw it… the thing that would lead me to winning this spar. Neither Sakura nor Hinata were used to fighting together, especially while fighting a single opponent.
Seeing another palm strike heading towards me, Instead of dodging, I let it hit my chest. Grabbing Hinata’s arm, I tugged her into the way of Sakura’s punch, using her as a human shield.
“What-“ Sakura began, but was cut off as my foot hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
“Alright, that’s enough for now,” Jiraiya cut in, ending the spar.
“Thank fuck,” I muttered, joining Hinata and Sakura on the floor, panting lightly. Even with Kurama’s chakra flowing through my body, it wasn’t easy fighting two people while heavily weighed down.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable kid. You’re going to be going again once pinkie here catches her breath.”
“Sure,” I breathed. “Sakura, Hinata, you two alright?”
“Yes, Sakura’s hit just caught me off guard,” Hinata replied.
“I-I will be, just give me a minute,” Sakura said, struggling to get a breath in. “You hit really hard, Naruto.”
“Sorry about that,” I apologized, feeling a little bad about Sakura’s current condition. “I can’t really control my strength when I have this much weight on me.”
“It’s okay. I should have dodged, but I was distracted.”
Laying on my back, I felt myself sink into the earth a little. A memory flashed through my head of a clone getting a little bit further with earth nature transformation and I smiled. I finally felt like I was making true progress with my training.
“How do you do it?” Sakura asked.
“What?” I sat up.
“How do you push yourself so hard? How do you get so strong so fast?” Sakura asked again.
“How do I push myself so hard?” I repeated. “I suppose it has to do with having things I want to protect. When fighting Zabuza and Haku, or when we were in the forest of death, I was shown that I’m still far too weak and I need to get stronger if I want to be able to protect anything, my friends, my village and myself.”
I yawned as I sat up off the ground. A week had passed since Minato had opened the seal and there was only one week left until the final stage of the chunin exams.
Ever since the Jiraiya increased the weight of my body, I had been sleeping in the training ground, mainly because my apartment wouldn’t be able to withstand my weight and I opted to not have the weight removed with the exception of when I sparred Jiraiya.
I really improved in the last week. With the increase of clones, I was able to master the elemental training much faster, each time I mastered one element, I relocated my clones to the next element.
Being exposed to Kurama’s chakra on a daily basis didn’t just help me heal and grow stronger, but also made me more tolerant to it. In a funny way, I was almost looking forward to the invasion, I was confident that I was capable of beating anyone under Jonin rank without using Kurama’s chakra.
“Morning sensei,” I greeted Jiraiya, swallowing a food pill. “What’re we doing today, the usual?”
“Morn- gah. Another food pill for breakfast,” Jiraiya commented.
“Well I can’t exactly go and make myself something in my apartment,” I replied. “Plus it’s not like they’re bad for you… in fact, they’re actually pretty healthy.” And that was the truth. Soldier pills on the other hand were the ones you had to look out for. They strained your body to produce more chakra and were generally used when you really needed more chakra.
“That’s not the point. They’re bland and boring. You should eat something that tastes good. Hell, I don’t even care if it’s unhealthy at this point.”
“I suppose I could go for a bowl or two of Ichiraku ramen for lunch… but I haven’t been able to do any missions this month, so you’ll have to pay.”
“Sure, I’ll take you,” Jiraiya almost cheered for his small victory.
“So about training, should I make some clones?” I asked, bringing my hands together.
“No,” Jiraiya shook his head. “Today we’re doing something a little different. I’m going to teach you something that should always be of some help, regardless of what situation you find yourself in.” Flashing through several hand signs, Jiraiya slammed his palm into the ground, creating a cloud of smoke.
I didn’t need to have to see through the smoke to know what Jiraiya had done, or more specifically summoned.
“Initially, I wanted you to learn this Jutsu first, but when you mentioned that you wanted to learn elemental transformation and that you had a shortcut that would be able to cut down the time learning that, I was intrigued,” Jiraiya began. Grabbing the large scroll the summoned toad was holding, he unfurled It, revealing several names, including Jiraiya’s own alongside Minato’s. “And then seeing the rate you were learning at, I decided to put it off until after you were done.”
You’ve really done something that I’ve never seen before and more than that… in your unfaltering determination, you’ve shown yourself to be a truly gutsy Shinobi.”
“I-I’m not sure what to say,” I said, moving to stand next to him.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Jiraiya replied, before gesturing towards the scroll. “This is the summoning contract for the toads of mount Myoboku. Sign your name in it with blood and put an imprint of your blood covered finger prints and you too will be able to summon them.”
“Alright,” I nodded. Following Jiraiya’s instructions, I inscribed my name and finger prints, feeling excited as I did it. The toads varied abilities and even sage mode was now within my grasp.
“Now watch closely, these are the hand signs that the summoning jutsu uses,” Jiraiya said, slowly cycling through hand signs. “You will need some blood to do this. Now, watch again!” Biting his thumb, Jiraiya sped through the summoning jutsu hand signs and brought his hand to the ground. “Kuchiyose no jutsu.”
Jiraiya disappeared in a cloud of smoke, only to reappear standing on top of a large toad. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Okay.” Slowly cycling through the hand signs, I began to mold my chakra. The summoning jutsu, if I remember correctly, needs a large amount of chakra to pull off. Using half of my reserves, I slammed my hand into the ground. “Kuchiyose no jutsu.”
A small cloud of smoke appeared and I let out a disappointed sigh. It seemed I had done something wrong, because I’m pretty sure that was more than enough chakra to summon Gamabunta.
“No, you didn’t get it wrong. Look at who you summoned.”
An elderly toad wearing a cloak was looking around. “Jiraiya-chan. Why’d you summon me, I was just about to sit down and have some of Ma’s cooking.”
“PA?” Jiraiya yelled, jumping down. “You summoned Pa?!”
“Um, whoops. Was I not supposed to do that?” I chuckled awkwardly.
“Eh, so it was this kid that summoned me?” Pa asked, turning towards me. “Lad, what’s your name?”
“Uzumaki Naruto,” I answered.
“Uzumaki Naruto, eh? You can call me Pa,” He replied. “Now, I take it that you’re our new summoner?”
“Yeah. I signed the scroll a few minutes ago.”
“And you’re already capable of summoning me,” Pa croaked. “That’s no small feat. Why, it took Jiraiya-chan four years before he was capable of that.”
“Oh, I just have a lot of chakra,” I replied, feeling a little awkward. I hadn’t been expecting to be talking with Pa so soon. “I’m the Kyuubi’s Jinchuriki after all.”
“That would explain you having enough chakra to summon me,” Pa nodded. “But don’t sell yourself short, there is still a skill requirement that is also necessary.”
“Ah, thanks,” I murmured.
“Now, what did you summon me for?”
“About that… it was kind of an accident. Jiraiya had me sign the scroll and you were the first toad I summoned,” I explained.
“The kid’s been training for the chunin exams and he just finished elemental transformation, so I had him sign the scroll,” Jiraiya chipped in, looking like a kid talking to his father.
“Ho, elemental transformation and so young too,” Pa chortled. “Tell me, which element have you learned to use.”
“Um… all of them. I used shadow clones to learn the elements for me while I trained my body,” I explained, rubbing the back of my head awkwardly.
“All of them,” Pa gaped, before exploding into laughter. “Jiraiya… Jiraiya, you got yourself another genius here.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself a genius,” I said. “More like too stubborn to quit.”
“I suppose that can be true too, but it’s more than likely a mixture of the two.” Pa wiped away a tear. “Now let me get a good look of you.” Hopping around me, he nodded satisfied. “Good… Your body’s in good shape, you hold yourself at the ready and you’ve got a lot of chakra. Tell me, Naruto-chan, how long do you have until you have to compete in the chunin exams?”
“It should be just over a week until the final rounds,” I replied.
“Good. That should give us some time,” Pa nodded. “Now, how would you like some extra help with your training?”
Comments
SkulduggeryHaven
Thanks dude. I completely missed that part. It must have accidentally gotten deleted. I've just corrected it
Zai
Bit confused about why Sakurac screamed I'm not his girlfriend. I think something is missing in the line before.
