Chapter 5: Chakra

–Hokage office–

Behind the desk, an old man is sitting with a smoking pipe in his hand.

Blowing a smoke out of his mouth, he said "First of all, congratulations to you two. You've made it to your first year in the academy without any problem. Especially you, Naruto. I heard you've been doing well except for small mischiefs."

"Hehehe. It's not big of a deal."

"As for you, Sasuke. I'm impressed you manage to control your eagerness in training your chakra control despite already having the basic knowledge. Although, it might have stunted your growth a little bit knowing your talent. I apologise for that." The Hokage said apologetically.

"Not at all, Hokage-sama. Rather, I am thankful because I was able to focus more on what I'm really good at." Sasuke said as he bowed his head.

"Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the real reason I called you two here. As promised, I will be teaching you both personally."

Hearing this, Naruto couldn't stop his excitement and jumped at the Hokage with a hug. "Finally, we will be learning some real ninja stuff. Yahoo!"

"Alright, alright. Calm down Naruto."

The Hokage put Naruto down and continued. "As I was saying, I will not always be around you. I still have a lot of work as a Hokage after all. But do not worry, I will guide you from time to time. That's all, we will begin tomorrow at 5 am."

"Understood." The two kids said in unison.

…

//The next day//

At one of the training grounds in konoha, 3 individuals could be seen standing. One is an old man and the two are small kids.

"In the past year, the academy only taught you basic hand-to-hand combat and ninja theories. Then, let me ask you this question. What makes ninjas special?"

'What makes a ninja special? Hmm…' Naruto contemplated the question.

While he was thinking, Sasuke already had an answer. "The ability to utilize chakra."

"That is correct. There's no exception to this fact. Every ninja must know how to use chakra and manifest it into techniques. An example of this is taijutsu. You might think that it doesn't need chakra to perform. To some degree that is true, but it's only on the fundamental level. If you want to survive in this world with just taijutsu, you need to learn how to encase your body with chakra or other techniques that can boost your raw physical prowess; otherwise, you are nothing more than a civilian who learned how to punch and kick."

"Mm, mm." Naruto nodded as the Hokage explained. He had no idea what the chakra even is but if something like that exists, it makes sense that there are a lot of civilians who are not ninja.

"So, for today's training. I will teach you how to sense the chakra in your body and manifest it outside. Enter a lotus position."

Hearing this, Sasuke and Naruto complied and did as they were told.

Seeing this, the Hokage continued. "Now, focus on your stomach. That is where most of your chakra resides. Chakra is an energy that is moving continuously, it goes around your body. Once you've managed to feel it, the rest will be easy."

Sasuke can already sense his own chakra as he's been familiarizing himself with it for the past year through meditation. He even incorporated it with hand seals a year ago so such a stunt is easy for him.

On the other hand, it didn't take long for Naruto to sense his chakra.

"Haha. I can feel it, old man!" Naruto said excitedly as he opened his eyes.

'It's only been 5 minutes and he has already done it. Considering his chakra reserve which is already 2 times that of a genin, it's no wonder. As for Sasuke, it looks like he already familiarized himself with his chakra. It will be easier to teach him jutsus then.' The Hokage noted.

"Alright, if you can already sense it, try to guide it to either of your palms."

The two did as they were told.

Sweat ran down on Naruto's face as he forced his chakra to move. No matter what he did, his chakra is not budging.

"Urgh" He growled as veins on his left arm became visible.

"Can you check mine, Hokage-sama? I feel like I have successfully guided it to my palm." Sasuke said.

"Hmm. You certainly did. Good job. Can you explain how you did it?" The Hokage asked.

Sasuke nodded and explained "I simply took a small amount from my reserve and guided it to the right chakra pathway connected to my palm. After that, I let the chakra flow do its job."

"It looks like you managed to retain the information you learned from the library. Alright, Naruto. Try to do what Sasuke just said. Also, don't force to move your entire reserve. Just take a small portion, that will be easier. Here, I will help you."

"R-right."

The Hokage walked to Naruto and touched Naruto's palm with his index finger. Then, he releases a small pulse of chakra from his finger into Naruto's palm.

Naruto felt the foreign energy going into his chakra pathway. That certainly helped him a lot as he followed the path the energy took.

"Yess! I can feel it in my palm."

"This is the only time I will do that. You need to explore the rest of your chakra pathways on your own to improve your awareness. It's not good to always have foreign chakra inside of you or there will be a high chance of chakra poisoning."

Naruto nodded.

'Speaking of foreign chakra. I believe Minato purposely loosened the seal a little so that young Naruto can adapt to the nine-tails chakra slowly. The healing factor of the tailed-beast chakra nagates chakra poisoning so I don't have to worry about that. It's just that 96% of Naruto's chakra is used to empower the seal and suppress the nine-tails; otherwise he would have had more chakra than me.' The Hokage thought as he imagined the potential of the kid once he mastered the jutsu Minato talked about.

'Is it tailed-beast chakra mode or something? It's only possible with the use of the long lost eight trigram sealing style of the Uzumaki…'

"So what's next?" Naruto's question cut the Hokage's train of thought.

"Take this." The Hokage threw a paper on each of them.

"That is chakra paper. It is made from a special type of tree. If you infuse chakra into it, it will react according to your elemental affinity. It will turn to ashes for fire, it will split in half for wind, it will wrinkle for lightning, it will become damp for water, and it will crumble away for earth. Try doing so."

Though it sounds pretty simple, even Sasuke is having a hard time. Guiding chakra into parts of your body is different from releasing it outside.

"Looks like it will be your first assignment. Here, take this." The Hokage said and gave them a scroll.

Sasuke picked the scroll and uncurled it. There is an outline of a human body drawn with lines and dots in it.

"Although you already have a basic knowledge about chakra pathways, locating a chakra point is different. The only exit for chakra outside the body is those points.

As you can see, there are 361 chakra points in the human body and their location differs as each individual has a different physique and body composition. As you grow, those points will move as well. This scroll will give you an estimation on where you can find your chakra points.

I won't be able to help you with this one as they are so small that even I can't sense them. The only way to locate those points without special means is to search and feel them using your own chakra. That's all for today, report to me once you've completed this." The Hokage said as he disappeared with [body flicker].

"Urgh, this is harder than our training." Naruto complained.

((Sasuke PoV))

I agree with Naruto. Doing something without seeing immediate results will really challenge your patience and discipline.

But, there's something I am curious about. Why did I almost exhaust my chakra before just by moving a small amount of chakra onto my hands and doing hand signs without knowing any of the chakra points? Doesn't that mean that I successfully expelled those chakra out of my body?

The only answer I could think of is that each hand sign induces certain chakra points to open and close. Different combinations of these hand signs will have different effects and manifestations. Obviously, doing it manually is very difficult unless you have byakugan or mangekyo to guide you. Props to Indra for inventing such cheat codes. With it, it is easier to perform jutsus.

I already have an idea what the Hokage is trying to do. By infusing chakra into the paper without doing hand signs, it will also improve our chakra control. Although I doubt opening one chakra point will give us big improvement, it will still be a progress nonetheless.

'Anyway, the process of locating one will be difficult.'