Naruto : Catastrophe : Chapter 34

"Well whatever it requires, I'll make sure it gets done," I say determinedly. "I'm never letting that happen to her again."

The old man smiles. "That's good to hear, Naruto." He takes a few more puffs of his pipe, and raises an eyebrow at me. "So, setting that aside for the moment, where's your progress with that scroll I gave you?"

...

I pause, thrown by the sudden change in discussion. "Nowhere," I finally say, scowling. "That was a real dick move giving me a technique I need to know shape transformation to learn, old man, even if it's a family jutsu."

"Ah, but when you do learn how to do it you'll have achieved two skills for the price of one," he says sagely.

"You just wanted to watch me suffer on that stupid crystal ball of yours," I say accusingly.

"I get to teach you something worthwhile and watch you squirm," he agrees. "Two satisfactions for the price of one."

"Sometimes I hate you, old man." He smirks and puffs at his pipe some more. "Anyway, are we good? I'd like to go check up on Sakura, seeing as she's half naked and unconscious on her floor right now. Oh, and I'm supposed to check back in with Kakashi at some point too."

"Your teammate has been taken to an emergency care room to have her general well being as well as her seal inspected, and I'm afraid she won't be allowed visitors at all tonight," The old man says. Fair enough, I guess. We did just use an unknown blood seal on her, after all. "You're more than welcome to visit her tomorrow morning, however."

Oh, don't worry about that, old man. I have questions that need answering.

"But yes," he continues. "I'd say you've sufficiently explained yourself. Go on."

"Great." I get up from my seat, head for the door, and stop just short of it. I turn around. "Hey, uh, can you maybe explained what happened to Kakashi instead of me?"

The old man looks at me curiously. "Why?"

"Because if you tell him not to kick my ass for using an unauthorized blood seal, he'll probably listen." He chuckles and nods. "Thanks."

I roofhop my way back to training ground seven, a little bit bouncier and a little bit happier. For the first time since I woke up from my mini coma I'm actually looking forward to going back to work. Sakura isn't descending into madness anymore, I'm cleared for physical training, and Kakashi is going to give my Taijutsu style a makeover-

Alright, I'm not too thrilled about that one just yet, but I could be wrong.

I pass by the hospital, and my smile slips. Not everything is alright- not yet. But maybe when Sakura gets out of emergency care...

Struck by a sudden thought, I veer off my course and double back towards the apartment district where Sakura lives, alighting upon her building quickly and scaling my way back up to the balcony leading into her I step into her room I find the sealing circle has been completely erased and my sealing brush is gone.

And there's no sign of the scroll outlining the seal.

"Oh come on," I growl. I turn to leave, my plan thwarted. Then I remember.

Wind moans through the room, rustling the scroll containing Sakura's outline of the seal and sending it rolling towards the sealing circle. I twist awkwardly and kick it out of the way.

I spin around, surveying the room. It hasn't been that long since Hawk manhandled me to the old man's office, so whoever came through here couldn't have found every little thing in the room. It might still be here somewhere.

I start rooting through the room, checking under and behind furniture, rifling through piles of books and scrolls that have obviously already been checked by the team that erased the circle. Finally I stop in front of a closet door, slightly ajar, and swing it open. The closet is empty save for a pile of clothes, and after an uncomfortable moment of consideration I start sifting through my teammate's underwear.

My hand, jammed up in the corner of the closet, meets paper. "Found you," I say triumphantly, and gently pull the unravelled scroll out from the pile, being careful not to rip it. I'm halfway through rolling it up when a strained female voice cries out somewhere below me.

"I don't care what the Hokage said, you can't just keep her holed up in intensive care without my consent! You haven't even told me what happened to her!" That must be Sakura's mother. That must be Sakura's mother talking to one of the Anbu that just went through this place. A single floor below, while I'm rifling through her daughter's panties. Hum.

I quickly roll the scroll the rest of the way up and shove it in my pants pocket, making for the balcony. I hesitate just before I jump off, glancing back at the door leading out of Sakura's room, then shake my head and leap.

...

I arrive at training ground seven a few minutes later where Kakashi is reading his orange book again, throwing my chakra at my back and somersaulting half a dozen times out of the trees before landing grandly on my feet. I procure my bill of health with a grin and shove it in his face.

"Aren't we excited," Kakashi says, taking the slip of paper.

I shrug. "Glad to put this restricted training crap behind me."

"Took you awhile in there," he observes, crumpling the paper up and tossing it over his shoulder.

I think about telling him about Sakura right then, remembering the concern he'd shown towards her yesterday. "I-" Ah, it's not worth the beating. He can wait. "I got lost." A half lie. Thankfully he accepts it.

"Well then, it looks like I'm clear to torture you again," he says, visible eye crinkling. "Let's start with the basics."

Tried and true instincts honed through years of dealing with Sasuke's bunshin tactics scream at me to dodge and I comply, diving forward into a roll and stabbing at the Kakashi crouched on a log with a kunai plucked from my weapons pouch. It passes through his chest, and the bunshin fades away. I stare incredulously at the empty air, then quickly spin away as my instincts scream again, just in time for the other Kakashi to slam his foot into the log, shattering it.

"Ma, I liked that log," he says sadly.

"How in the hell were you talking to me if that was a bunshin?" I demand. "They can't make any noise."

"Body Replacement," he says. I realize the trick just before he's enveloped in a cloud of chakra smoke, but my dodge isn't quite quick enough, and his next kick slams into my head, sending me tumbling.

"First things first," he says above me. I roll to my feet, eyeing him warily. "How did you protect yourself from that? I put enough force into that to knock a civilian out easily."

"Pressure burst of chakra," I reply, waiting for the inevitable suckerpunch. He nods in understanding.

"I thought as much. I didn't see your hands, though- where were you channeling your chakra from?"

I cock my head. "... The back of me?" I gesture vaguely at the back of my head and shoulders.

He stares at me unreadably. "Interesting." Without another word he darts forward faster than I can track, procuring a kunai and gripping it backwards. I hastily juke out of the way, just avoiding the dull end of it slamming into my temple. He spins, his free hand lashing out, and I throw an arm up to block. The blow immediately numbs my arm, and I try to jump back and put some space between us, but his leg lashes out and nails me in the stomach, sending me skidding back.

"You didn't have time to think about my attack that time," he says while I gasp for breath. "But you still managed to take the edge off of it. That pressure burst is an instinct."

"Well yeah," I cough. "If I had to think about blocking two different ways I'd never be able to keep up in a fight."

He doesn't have anything to say to that, just surges forward again. A similar exchange occurs, but this time when I block a roundhouse kick aimed at my midsection I follow it up with a blast of wind at his leg that spins him around, leaving his side open. I lunge, fist screaming with wind chakra, and punch him in the ribs. The blow knocks him back, though he makes it look graceful, and I grin.

"Gotcha."

"You preface your attacks with pressure bursts as well," Kakashi says matter-of-factly, and my spirits fall ever so slightly. He meant for me to hit him. "I figured that as well. Is that instinctual too?" I nod. He hums thoughtfully, then points up at the treetops. "Follow me."

He jumps up amidst the branches and I follow after him. We treehop for a while, running to and fro in random directions. After about a minute Kakashi starts mixing things up, doing pivots and flips and all sorts of weird crap, and I do the same.

He wants to see how good I am, who am I not to show off a little bit? We're circling back to the clearing when the jounin suddenly plants his feet vertically on the trunk of a tree and pushes off, rocketing back at me with a fist drawn back.

"Dodge!"

I yelp, deliberately missing the next branch I'd been aiming for and dropping. I reach out and grab onto a lower-hanging branch on my way down and swing up and away, alighting on another branch and taking off for the clearing like a bat out of hell. When I make it back, though, I find Kakashi is already there, arms crossed over his chest.

"You can use your wind chakra to reliably augment your jumps and still remain cognisant enough of your surroundings to change things up or react to attacks," he says, tone neutral. I'm not sure if it's praise or not.

"Uh, yeah."

"I have a question for you, Naruto," he says suddenly. I blink.

"Shoot."

"Why do you only attack with pressure bursts?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I asked. Why don't you mix in other methods of attacking?"

I straighten up out of my Taijutsu stance, reasonably sure he won't attack me in the middle of answering his question, and think about it. "I guess it's because I don't need to," I eventually say.

"How do you figure?" Kakashi asks, watching me intently.

"Because I just don't," I say uncomfortably. "I started doing it because I couldn't get through Taijutsu practise at the Academy without hurting my hands or my feet. It solved the problem, and I like my fighting style, so I let it be."

"And your other applications for wind chakra? Why haven't you expanded on those?" he asks. I stare at him in confusion.

"I don't understand."

"Why aren't you experimenting with your wind chaka?" he elaborates. "Why is it that you seem to be using the bare minimum of your chakra needed to get by?"

"That's not true," I protest. "Practically my entire Taijutsu style involves wind chakra."

"But it's basic," he stresses. "You use it to make your attacks as strong as someone with regular chakra augmentations. You use it to dull or deflect blows that a person with regular chakra augmentations could take. You use it to perform aerial feats the a person with regular chakra augmentations could do. If you took away the wind chakra and added in regular chakra, nothing would be different. Why is that?"

"I don't know, okay?" I snap. "I use it when I need to, and it works. What's the point of this?"

"The point is that that isn't going to work for you anymore," he says. "You've been adapting your chakra when you have no other option, but as you saw when you fought that nukenin, that isn't enough. Some of your adaptations are frankly incredible, but they still won't let you fight the same way a normal shinobi would."

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