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Pushing Through the Limit Chapter 5: The Basics
🕑 Added 2024-02-25 17:54:04 +0000 UTCI yawned as I sat up in my bed. It was the first day of the month break and more importantly, it was my first day of training. I would have started yesterday, but the preliminaries and helping Karin defect to Konoha had taken up most of my day.
Looking around, I let out a groan, Naruto’s room… my room was a mess. It wasn’t that dirty, but it was definitely messy with clothing thrown all over the room. Creating several shadow clones to organize the room, I walked into the kitchen and my eye immediately started twitching.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled. The sink was filled with unwashed dishes. I take it back, Naruto wasn’t just messy. Deciding to ignore the dishes for now, I opened the fridge and began looking for something to make breakfast.
“Nope, this won’t do at all.” Although the fridge was stocked, there were very few things that hadn’t gone bad, scratch that, everything Naruto bought had gone bad while he… I was in the forest of death. “Screw it,” I grunted, creating several more clones. “You guys clean this place up, I’m going to get a shower and go out to get some breakfast.”
“Why do we have to clean up and you get to have breakfast?” One of the clones shot back.
“Because I’m going to be doing a lot of physical training today,” I replied, before sighing. “I can’t believe I’m arguing with myself. Just… clean this place up, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”
After grabbing a quick bowl of ramen, I found myself at my first stop of the day, the academy. Why was I here? Because I was crap at the basics. Although my Ninjutsu was passable, what with shadow clones, transformation and the replacement, by Taijustu was crap and my abilities with Genjutsu were even worse.
No, I needed to start from the ground up and although that might seem impossible to do within a single month, I had two massive advantages. Shadow clones and my own huge chakra reserves, I was able to easily make 100 shadow clones and I had 30 days to train.
In theory I should be able to get just over 8 years of training done if I trained for 24 hours every day, which was impossible. In reality, with my stamina, I would likely be able to get 2 years of training experience this month, which was still great.
Stopping in front of a classroom, I took a breath and opened the door.
“Ye- Naruto?” Iruka asked in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“Yo, Iruka sensei,” I greeted, walking in.
“Naruto-Nichan,” a young voice called out from the back of the classroom.
“Huh, Konohamaru,” I mumbled. That’s right, Iruka’s teaching Konohamaru’s class now. “I wanted to ask you if you could help me with the chunin exams,” I said, getting back on track.
“I would love to, Naruto, but I’m in the middle of a class right now. Why don’t you ask your sensei?”
“I’m not really sure where he is right now,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head awkwardly. And not only that, Kakashi was going to hide and teach Sasuke during this month. “Plus, the thing I need to focus on right now is the basics. You know, stuff that I ignored while I was in the academy. If I could get some scrolls on things, like Taijutsu, Genjutsu… my weak points while I was in the academy. That would be enough.”
“I don’t know… there was a lot that you weren’t very good at while at the academy and I’ve heard you only have a month to train.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I waved Iruka off, “I’ll have more than enough time.”
I grunted as I pushed my body up, this was harder than I thought it would be. I forgot to factor in just what chakra is, a combination of physical and spiritual energy, meaning the more clones I make, the more tired I’ll be.
“Just… Just another hundred,” I grunted, lowering my body to the ground. Compared to the likes of Lee, this was nothing and comparing Lee to Gaara… I need to be much stronger.
Training ground 7 was filled with Orange, all around me were clones, all in different groups with different scrolls Iruka had given me. One group was learning things Naruto ignored in the academy, like how to fill out a mission scroll, another was studying hand signs and three other groups had three separate clones observing them while they were practicing throwing Kunai, shuriken and finally a single clone was practicing the tree walking exercise.
I likely made too many for the first day, but seeing as I wasn’t going to be doing anything too chakra intense, like learning a new technique, I figured that it was alright.
Finishing my final set of pushups I dropped to the ground, I struggled to catch my breath. Today was the easy day. I still need to find where Lee got his leg weights and–
“This is new,” Kakashi’s said, appearing right next to me. “You’re using the mental feedback from your shadow clones to train faster, but what are you having them learn?”
“Good to see you too sensei,” I panted, forcing myself onto my feet. “I went to the academy and asked Iruka-sensei to give me scrolls on things I was bad at in the academy.”
“Covering your basics,” Kakashi nodded. “But don’t you think you’re pushing yourself a little too hard?”
“Not really,” I shook my head. “I mean, both Gaara and Neji are in these exams.”
“And your first opponent is Ino and after that, either that Temari girl or Shino. By the time you will have to fight either Neji or Gaara, they’ll be tired from having to fight several other strong opponents.”
Kakashi wasn’t wrong. Gaara and Neji will have to fight each other before they get to my round… well, that would be if the invasion doesn’t happen, but I haven’t changed enough things to stop that.
The lineup wasn’t too bad, but it had been altered severely. The first round was between Temari and Shino, after that was me and Ino, Neji and Gaara, Sasuke and Dosu and finally Shikamaru and Kankuro.
“I want to be as strong and as prepared as I possibly can be for the final round,” I replied.
“I’m not telling you to stop training, Naruto. Just take it a little easier is all,” Kakashi hummed, rubbing my hair.
“But I’ve only begun to fan my flames of youth,” I said, failing to keep a straight face at the horrified look on Kakashi’s. “By the way, how’s Lee?”
“He’ll live, but he’s in for a long recovery,” Kakashi coughed into his fist, recomposing himself. “If he took any more damage, it’s likely that he would have been crippled.”
“That’s good…that he’s alright, I mean,” I corrected myself. “So what brought you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your training for this month. I’m going to be taking Sasuke with me for the month and I someone else to teach you in my place.”
“To keep Sasuke safe from Orochimaru,” I nodded, already knowing Kakashi’s reasoning. “But what about me, won’t he want to try and mess with my seal again?”
“That’s unlikely,” Kakashi shook his head. “Orochimaru’s main target seems to be Sasuke. So long as you’re not near him, you won’t have to worry about having Orochimaru altering your seal.”
I suppose that makes sense. From my memory, the next time Naruto truly comes in contact with Orochimaru again is when he went with Jiraiya to retrieve Tsunade… I just hope I haven’t altered things enough to draw Orochimaru’s eye towards me, at least not yet.
“So who’s this guy that’s going to be helping me train this month?” I asked, already knowing it would be Ebisu.
“That would be me,” A man announced, walking out of the bushes.
I immediately choked on my spit. This wasn’t right, Kakashi was supposed to bring Ebisu, not Jiraiya.
“Naruto, this is Jiraiya and he’s going to be helping you train for the month,” Kakashi said simply.
“Among other things,” Jiraiya added.
That didn’t sound good. “Like?” I asked.
“Like preventing Orochimaru from trying to release the Kyuubi, like making sure your seal hasn’t been damaged,” Jiraiya shot back.
This is happening out of order. What did I do to alter… Right, I brought attention to Orochimaru messing with my seal… and I’m acting differently. Seeing as it’s likely that Orochimaru was still in town, the Sandaime probably asked Jiraiya to look after me this month.
This accelerated things a little. Originally, If I didn’t encounter Jiraiya while learning the water walking exercise from Ebisu, I was going to be frequenting hot springs.
“Alright,” I nodded. “So what am I going to be learning from you?”
“You’re just going to accept it like that?” Jiraiya asked. “Boring brat.”
“Screw you. I’ve been training all day and I’m tired,” I shot back.
“Training? Really? All I see is a bunch of lazy clones sitting around.”
What the hell was Jiraiya’s problem? It’s like he was trying to piss me off.
“Yes, training. They’re reading up on stuff I’m crap at.”
“Then why aren’t there more clones?” Jiraiya snapped. “I refuse to believe that you’re not crap at more things than this.”
That shouldn’t have pissed me off, but being as tired as I was… “You son of a bitch,” I flung myself at Jiraiya in an attempt to punch him and immediately collapsed.
“You can tell the third,” Jiraiya began, “that there is no more influence from the Kyuubi than normal. That even while exhausted and enraged, Naruto is still stable.”
My eyes were scrunched up as I breathed heavily. I felt a little embarrassed, I shouldn’t have lost my temper so quick. “You… were… testing… me?” I asked in between breaths.
“Yes. Your change in personality added with Orochimaru messing with the seal that holds the Kyuubi is… problematic to say the least. We needed to be sure that the Kyuubi wasn’t influencing you,” Jiraiya explained.
I let out a tired laugh at that. They got that backwards. They should be worried that I was influencing Kurama.
“So… What… Now?”
“Now you dispel your clones and tomorrow we begin your real training,” Jiraiya replied.
I suppose I could end my training now. The clones had already finished studying the scrolls and were just going over all the important parts. “You… heard… him,” I yelled to my clones. “Ten… at… a… time.”
With the first group of clones dispelled, I immediately felt some of my energy come back, but with the added mental exhaustion. I stopped panting at the second group, but felt my mental exhaustion increase by more than double. Something was wrong here. With the third group dispelling, the world blurred and all became black.
I was an idiot. As it turned out, dispelling all my clones at once was the right way to do it if I didn’t want to be knocked out by mental exhaustion. Whenever a clone is dispelled, it’s memories and experience is transferred to both me and other clones along with whatever exhaustion it has accumulated.
Dispelling clones in groups rather than all at once means that everything they had learnt was increased exponentially, but that also included exhaustion.
On the light side, I now knew everything that Naruto deemed boring in the academy. In truth, Naruto was kind of right. Almost none of the scrolls Iruka had given me were combat focused, a lot of it was theoretical knowledge, history, maps, types of edible plants, protocol for missions and what to do if the mission goes wrong.
None of it was particularly useful right now, but it should be helpful in the future.
“Oi, kid. You ready for today?” Jiraiya asked as I arrived in training ground 7’s clearing.
“Sure, let’s do this,” I yawned.
“Not going to knock yourself out again?”
“That only happened because I was so tired yesterday,” I explained, feeling a little embarrassed that I had to be carried home.
“That wasn’t a no,” Jiraiya smirked. “I think we should start the day off with a spar, get the blood flowing before we start your training.”
A spar against Jiraiya?! I already knew that there was no way I was going to win this, but I couldn’t help but feel excited.
“Are there any rules? Taijutsu only?”
Jiraiya shook his head. “You’re going to be fighting in the final round of the chunin exams where you’ll be allowed to use any technique.”
That helped. I’m still not going to win, but this fight shouldn’t be as one sided now.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” I replied, standing across from him.
“Begin!”
Bringing my hands together, I immediately abandoned the shadow clone jutsu in favor of blocking a punch that sent me sliding backwards.
“Shit,” I cursed, feeling pain radiate in my arms.
“In the field, your opponents not going to just and around and let out use your jutsu,” Jiraiya lectured.
“Right,” I muttered. Up until this point, I had been fighting chunin hopefuls, in other words, genin. This fight was different.
Ducking under another punch, I jumped backwards. I needed to create some space if I wanted to get of a jutsu.
“Is that all you can do? Evade?” Jiraiya taunted as he easily followed my movement.
Grabbing a handful of shuriken, I threw them at him, before jumping back and forming several clones in mid air.
“Better,” Jiraiya muttered, swatting the shuriken out of his way. “But that’s not enough clones to stop me.”
I could finally begin my counter attack. Rushing forward with several clones, I winced as I blocked a punch meant for one of my clones.
“Oh, you’re attacking now?”
“Yep,” I grinned as the clones that didn’t rush with me were beginning to throw kunai at Jiraiya.
“It’s still not going to be enough to beat me,” Jiraiya shot back. Moving faster than before, he immediately popped a clone and even used some as a shield to stop the kunai.
Sticking myself to the ground with chakra, I grunted as I tanked a blow, grabbing hold of Jiraiya’s arm to keep him from going anywhere.
“Hoho, you’re keeping me from moving too much so your clones will have an easier time hitting me with their kunai.”
Straining myself to hold him, I shook my head. “Nope. They’re out of kunai.”
“Then what-“
As one, the kunai and shuriken that the clones had thrown that was at our feet exploded in smoke as several clones revealed themselves, jumping towards Jiraiya.
All of a sudden the worlds blurred and I found myself on my back staring up at the sky.
“Hah, not bad. You actually caught me off guard there,” Jiraiya said, dusting his hands.
“What,” I mumbled, pushing myself up. Looking around the clearing, my eyes widened. All my clones had been destroyed and I was several meters away from Jiraiya.
That was insane. Jiraiya moved so fast that neither I nor my clones saw anything. He had effortlessly moved faster than Lee with the gates open.
“Was that your full speed?” I asked, still struggling to wrap my head around what just happened.
“What would you do if I said it wasn’t?”
“I… I have a long way to go,” I muttered, my eyes wide. A shiver made its way up my spine as I suddenly realized just how weak I was. That wasn’t Jiraiya’s full speed and he still had sage mode which would have made him even faster and stronger. Not only that, he originally loses to Pain, who in turn would lose to Madara.
“Can… will you make me as strong as that?”
“You’re not going to be able to get this strong in just one month.”
“Then… can we keep training even after the chunin exams are over?” I asked. Logically, I knew that Jiraiya had to train me, what with the Akatsuki being a thing, but even still, I felt that I had to ask.
Jiraiya hummed at that. “And what would you use that strength for?”
“To protect myself, to protect my friends, to protect this village,” I listed off.
“All good reasons,” Jiraiya nodded. “But listing your reasons for wanting strength is easy, the hard part is seeing it through.”
“I won’t give up,” I replied, feeling determination burning through my veins.
“That’s not what I heard about you in the preliminaries,” Jiraiya shook his head. “You convinced that Hyuga girl to forfeit her round.”
Was… was that really coming back around to bite me in the ass. “Because the only thing she would have gained from that fight was wounds and pain. Not everyone has a giant nine tailed fox in their gut to fix them up after they’re hurt.”
“There will be some fights where you won’t be able to back down or retreat,” Jiraiya said, staring directly into my glaring eyes.
“I know that already,” I snapped. “My team encountered Zabuza. My sensei fought him, while Sasuke and I fought his apprentice. We couldn’t back down and there were points where it seemed that we were going to die. Hinata’s fight on the other hand was one where she should back down… There was nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
Jiraiya kept staring into my eyes, before smiling. “Alright.”
“Alright?” I asked.
“Yeah kid, alright. I’ll keep training you until you’re as strong as me. You have a good sense of which fights are worth fighting and you know when to back down. Only a fool would put everything on the line in every fight and as it turns out, you’re no fool.”
I honestly don’t know whether to be excited or annoyed. On one hand, I’m going to be trained by Jiraiya, so I should have access to the toads and sage mode, but on the other hand, Jiraiya was proving to be really irritating and he seemed to find joy in pissing me off and challenging me.
“Alright,” I parroted. “So what do we do next?”
“Next… we’re going to train you up to an acceptable level for the chunin exams. As it stands, your Ninjutsu is limited and your Taijutsu is just a step above total crap.”
I let out a pained sigh at that. I already knew that I wasn’t that strong. The only reason my team was able to get through the forest so easily was due to the sheer luck of finding Karin. I beat Kiba by overwhelming him while he was underestimating me. I’ve only been getting by based on my knowledge of the future, but I can’t rely solely on that.
With my limited influence, things have begun happening differently. Sooner or later, something is going to happen that I’ll have no knowledge of. If I’m going to survive the ripples I’ve already made, I’ll need to be both stronger and smarter.
Bringing my fingers into the shadow clone hand sign, I was surprised when Jiraiya tugged my arm, stopping me.
“Hold it,” Jiraiya began.
“What now?” I asked. Shadow clones were my best bet at leveling and even exceeding the playing field.
“You’re going to use shadow clones to train. I’ll admit, it’s a clever way to learn things faster, but last time you knocked yourself out and needed your sensei to carry you home.”
“I’m not going to knock myself out again,” I replied. “That last time was… an accident. I underestimated the amount of exhaustion recoil. This time I should be fine.”
“Fine,” Jiraiya sighed, letting go of my arm. “If you knock yourself out again, don’t expect to wake up in bed. I’m not going to carry you home like Kakashi.”
“I’m not going to knock myself out again,” I said, forming a single shadow clone who in turn created four more. This was, I should be left with half of my chakra. “Alright, go practice that water walking exercise.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Hold on,” Jiraiya began as my clones left for the river. “Are you telling me that you’re this far in the chunin exams and you don’t even know the water walking exercise?”
“Pretty much,” I shrugged. “I’ve only been a genin for… three months?! Kakashi-sensei hasn’t really taught us much besides teamwork and the tree walking exercise. We’ve mostly been doing missions.”
Thinking back on it, Kakashi didn’t really seem that interested in teaching us anything. He only seemed interested in keeping us alive on missions which was great, but it was also kind of short sighted. If he wanted to keep us safe, it would have been better if he helped make us stronger as well.
“Of course he did,” Jiraiya sighed, rubbing his face.
“When I think about it, it seems like he might have wanted us to go out and learn things on our own,” I hummed. “Was he supposed to teach us more?”
“Not necessarily. Jonin sensei are to teach the basics and make sure that their genin don’t die. You’ve only been a genin for three months, so it’s not that big of a deal that you don’t know all of the basics.” Jiraiya explained. “The issue here is that you’re in these exams, not your lack of training.”
“What about all the other genin from my class?”
“There are other genin from your class in this exam?”
“Yeah, everyone from my old class that became a genin was put in these exams,” I replied. Really, I had my own theory on why everyone was entered, but I wanted to see what Jiraiya thought.
“Idiots,” Jiraiya muttered under his breath.
Ah, so my theory held true. The Jonin in charge of the various teams were just having a dick measuring competition. It made sense, what with Kurenai being angry with me for convincing Hinata to forfeit.
“So what are we going to do today?” I asked, changing the topic.
“Seeing as you have your clones working on chakra control, we’ll be fixing your Taijutsu,” Jiraiya replied.
“Ah… oh, that reminds me. There was a guy in the chunin exams who wore extremely heavy ankle weights to train. Do you know where I could get them?”
“Hoho, you want to use weights to train,” Jiraiya hummed. “Don’t. You first need to learn how to fight properly without weights. Once you do that, then you can think about getting weights.”
“But what about only using them when I’m exercising?” I asked. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel any aches or pains from the training I did yesterday, body weights would go a long way in my physical training.
“That could work,” Jiraiya nodded, “but when you take the weights off, you wouldn’t be accustomed to fighting at your new speed. If you really want to go down this path, you’ll need to not only train your body, but your perception and mind too. That or get a sharingan,” Jiraiya joked.
I would if I could, but sharingan were few and far between. I could probably get one if I worked under Danzo, but there was no way in hell I was going to become that mans underling.
“How do I train those… my perception and mind?”
“There’s not really a true method. You’re just going to have to get used to moving at rapid speeds.”
Damn, I guess I’m just going to have to have my clones train with that too.
“Anything else you want to ask before we start working on your Taijutsu?”
Was there anything else I wanted to ask Jiraiya? Yes… too much in fact. “There is a guy I’m eventually going to have to fight, he uses sand… and there’s a biju sealed in him. I’ll need to learn some… elemental jutsu to deal with him, specifically water style to weaken his sand.”
“Ho, and you’re going to fight him?”
“Well… no. If anything, Sasuke’s going to have to fight him first. I’m not exactly sure who’ll win that round, so I have to be ready for anything.”
“Ready for anything? And what about your other matches?”
“I’m up against Ino and then either Shino or Temari. Ino can possess people, but I don’t think that’ll work on me, what with the Kyuubi, other than that, she’s not very fast or strong.”
“A good assessment,” Jiraiya nodded, “and what about your second match?”
“That’s where I’ll need to learn some elemental jutsu,” I explained. “Temari uses wind and I’ve read that it’s weak to fire which would also be useful against Shino’s Kikachu.”
“So you want to learn fire and water style techniques during this month?”
“I want to learn as many of the elements as I can, all if possible,” I said. With shadow clones it should technically be possible too.
“You don’t do things in half measure, do you?” Jiraiya hummed as he eyed me. “Alright kid, we’ll try training you your way, but as I said, I’m not going to carry you home if you knock yourself out.”
I let out a relieved sigh. Now all I needed to do was train like hell.
“No problem,” I grinned. I now had more than a fighting chance with the coming invasion.
“But we’re also going to be working on a few other things as well.”
That piqued my interest. Thinking back, the only thing Jiraiya taught Naruto was the summoning jutsu which would be extremely useful and… meeting Kurama. “Hit me with everything you’ve got,” I replied, a fire burned in my chest.
