Nindō 0019: Enhancements
"Seventh-sama," Sarada, who was helping Naruto with his paperwork, said, "is it healthy for me to be constantly using your chakra as a crutch for the use of my Sharingan?"
"Didn't I already tell you that I have more than enough chakra to fuel your needs?" Naruto said. "Sasuke should've told you that as well by now."
"Dad did tell me," Sarada said, "but he also said that I should talk to you about whether it's healthy for my personal growth. Using your chakra for my use when my own chakra is stagnant."
"Do you really think that I would let your growth be stunted, Sarada?" Naruto asked with a light smile, looking at Sarada from the side of his eye.
She blushed, "I-I … Of course not … but it's just …" She stuttered out stressfully, feeling embarrassed enough that she felt as if her face was burning. A gentle hand rested on the top of her head, running his fingers through her hair, dispersing all of those feelings and calming her down completely.
"Your growth isn't going to be stunted because of my chakra," Naruto said running his fingers through her hair, "it's instead going to be stimulated. Tell me, how long are you able to keep your eyes activated before you are completely drained?"
"I check every week, on Sundays," Sarada said, "and last I checked it was two minutes and forty-five seconds of merely keeping my eyes activated without focusing them anywhere."
"You check it every week?"
"Yes," She said, "It's a concrete monitor for my chakra consumption and capacity. It improves by a bit every week and depending on the training I do, I can see some concrete change in my chakra quantity."
"So you must've checked a few days ago, right?" Naruto asked, "Test it again, I'll pull back my chakra from you."
As she nodded, she stopped feeling the comfortable feeling of being connected to Naruto's chakra, making her feel a sense of loss. Shaking it off, she focused, feeling a drain on her own chakra reserves as the Sharintan's activation kept pulling a lot of her chakra.
"During this test, do you use your eyes for something or merely wait for your chakra to be exhausted without doing anything?" Naruto asked her.
"I make it a point not to do anything. I can passively notice a very large number of things already, so I don't try to make use of my eyes actively, merely keeping the Sharingan activated."
"Let's keep up that metric for this current test. But from now on, I want you to change your metric for testing the duration," Naruto said. "You have to actually use your Sharingan for the duration of the test. Even if you're doing something mundane, like examining a bird flapping its wings to fly. In a real battle, your stress is going to be at a high level, making you fully focus your eyes, even making you stress them to keep track of everything around you and your teammates. At that time, this metric is going to fail you."
"I understand, sens — Seventh-sama," Sarada nodded. "I'll do that test tomorrow, I'm going to be left weakened after this."
"We'll see about that," Naruto said, keeping track of the time that Sarada had kept her Sharingan activated.
Soon enough, her brows furrowed when she realized that she was already close to the amount of time that could usually keep them activated yet she wasn't feeling like she'd lost half of her chakra. Her expression got more and more surprised as she realized that she had not only passed her old time — which was merely from five days ago — but was still very much energized. In the past, an increment of one or two seconds was all she could expect on a normal week, but this kind of increase was unprecedented.
"I'm done …" Sarada said, fatigued as she slumped in her chair, naturally leaning toward Naruto as her head brushed against his shoulder.
"Did you keep track of the time?" Naruto asked, bringing both hands to her forehead and giving her a gentle massage.
"It should be close to five minutes," She looked over at the clock, feeling the most comforting feeling she'd ever felt in her life.
"It was more than that, actually," He told her, "Five minutes and thirty-two seconds, exactly. See what I mean by not stunting your growth? What kind of teacher would I be if I didn't think about the ramifications of having you use my chakra to fuel your abilities?"
"H-how? I don't understand. By all logic, I should've been exactly where I was before. I wasn't even using my chakra … wha— how?" She wasn't sure what she could make out of the situation. Having more than doubled her chakra capacity, the girl was feeling overwhelmed. If it was gradual progress it would've been different, but it happened within the span of five days — if it was because of Naruto, it happened within two days, it was merely the third day since he told her that she could become his disciple. During this time span, she'd skipped months' worth of progress and effort to increase her chakra quantity.
"Your 'how' is simple," Naruto said. "I have very precise control over my own chakra and it wasn't difficult for me to fuel your chakra itself such that it stayed in constant use. Instead of using my chakra to fuel your ability, I was merely refilling your own chakra so that your abilities ran on your chakra from the start, I merely made sure that it didn't run out. That was what stimulated your growth so much. The presence of my chakra almost overwhelmed your body when it initially made its way into your body, but now, it's much easier for you to be able to accommodate my chakra."
Sarada recalled the event from two days past and formed her own conclusions about the situation, 'So that was why I had such a reaction … But still, it was so embarrassing. I'm never living that down.' She was embarrassed inwardly and did her best to hide it. "I understand, Seventh-sama," She said. "I'm sorry for not believing in you."
"No need to apologize," Naruto said. "You were sincere when you asked that question to me. As long as you are sincere with me, I will reciprocate it. Just don't be a brat like Boruto and we're good."
Sarada coughed at Naruto's words, "I've recovered by now, Seventh-sama. I should continue," She said, reactivating her Sharingan. Naruto had already started sharing his chakra with her the moment he comforted her after she almost fainted from chakra exhaustion.
"Has Sasuke talked to you about anything else beyond that chakra thing?" Naruto asked.
"Not much," Sarada said, explicit sadness in her voice, "he's usually just brooding and deep in his thoughts. He told me about Boruto asking to become his disciple, he gave the condition that he has to learn the Rasengan first. He responds when I talk to him, but it's not a very long response. He's probably thinking about when he'll be off to the next mission."
"That moron," Naruto said. "I told him something and he does the opposite."
"You told him something, Seventh-sama?" Sarada's ears perked up. "Can you tell me what you told him?"
"It's better that you hear it from him," Naruto said. "Me telling you won't have the same effect. Changing the subject, you should focus some extra training time for chakra control," Naruto told her before she could push him for information. "Now that your capacity has increased by so much, it will become difficult for you to execute Sakura's techniques since they all depend on very fine chakra control. Be it healing, body enhancement, or the other ones, they all require fine control over your chakra."
"You're right," Sarada nodded. She didn't push for information about Sasuke, feeling that Naruto wouldn't tell her even if she pestered him, "Can you teach me the Rasengan, Seventh-sama?" She decided to get something more.
Naruto raised a brow at her, "Does it even fit your combat style?" He asked, "I don't have a problem with it, but if you can't fit it into your combat style, then it's better to learn some other jutsu that can help you express your strengths correctly."
"I'm good at taijutsu. I can use Mom's technique of focusing my chakra on my fist just before it hits to cause much greater damage. I think a close-combat jutsu like the Rasengan would be useful for me," Sarada spoke after a few seconds of thought.
Naruto smiled amusedly, seeing through her thoughtful facade, "If you want to impress Sasuke, then pester him to teach you the Uchiha style of taijutsu, or some of the other unique jutsu in their repertoire, even Shurikenjutsu — you're good at it, but there are still many techniques that the Uchiha clan had that you haven't learned yet." He told her. "Learning how to perform the Rasengan isn't the way to impress your father. He asked that from Boruto because he's my son and it would suit his fighting style. If anything, Sasuke will be confused if you end up learning the Rasengan."
"Was it that obvious?" Sarada sighed with a defeated smile.
"You're very smart, Sarada," Naruto praised. "That's exactly what gave it away. You're smart enough to understand that the Rasengan is a single-hit close-range explosion attack. Do you know of another single-hit close-range attack?"
Sarada blushed, "My mom's enhancement technique …"
"Exactly. You have no real use in learning the Rasengan since it won't bring you any tangible benefit," Naruto said.
"He won't teach me," Sarada pouted. "You said I should ask him to teach me Uchiha-style taijutsu. I've asked him to teach me things before, but he always refused, giving me one reason or another. He doesn't want to teach me."
Naruto's expression took a wry turn for a bit before normalizing, "How about you try one more time? Really push him to agree. Think of it as a test from me, okay? As long as you push him to teach you, even if he refuses, I won't blame you. One more try?"
Sarada hesitantly nodded, "I guess there's no harm in trying," She said, mumbling under her breath. "I'd love to be able to spend time with him."
***
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