Hello. You reviewers and readers are awesome, let me just say. So, I will answer a few questions right now. First of all, eventually, Naruto will be ANBU level and above (I'll let you wonder about when that will be – hahaha), but he won't instantly get there; his power will be earned, not given. Second, this being my first Naruto fanfiction, I'm afraid I have absolutely no clue about writing any sort of romance. Thus, for the time being, I will not have any pairings, unless of course, the story happens to mold itself that way – who knows? Finally, I am happy to say that there is a huge amount of untapped potential in raw chakra usage and of course in Naruto. When I said that he would reach his full potential, I meant it. Believe it! Hahahahahahaha.
Absolute Control
Chapter 2
Umino Iruka was having a pleasant walk through town when he suddenly heard a shout.
"Iruka-sensei! I did it!"
The academy instructor turned to greet his exuberant student to see nothing but a shimmer. Startled, he actually yelped when Naruto tapped him on the shoulder from behind him.
"Naruto! How did you do that?"
"I learned it when I was training my chakra control! Wasn't I fast?" Naruto grinned widely.
Iruka was quite surprised; Naruto was using chakra to speed up his movements. But Iruka was still a bit concerned about his young student.
"That's wonderful Naruto, but weren't you supposed to be working on tree climbing?"
"What are you talking about Iruka-sensei? That climbing stuff was pretty easy!"
To prove it, Naruto deftly ran up the side of a tall building and ran back down, much to the disgust of many a villager, who, of course, thought that the "demon child" was getting too powerful.
Iruka's jaw dropped. He didn't think he could be more surprised. The tree climbing exercise took Iruka a whole week to master. He was so speechless that he didn't even register the questions that Naruto was asking.
He only snapped out of it when Naruto knocked on his head.
"Hello? Anybody home?"
Spluttering, Iruka stammered,
"Y-yes, Naruto, y-you were asking me something?"
"Oh yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, "I was just asking if there's any more things you can do with chakra!"
"Wow. The fact that Naruto mastered tree climbing and movement enhancement hasn't even phased his desire to learn more," Iruka thought.
"Well, Naruto, there is a whole lot out there about chakra control that ninja haven't explored. But I do know of a few things that you can do with chakra. For example, an extension of the tree climbing exercise is water walking, which is quite similar, but a lot more control is needed. I've also heard about ninja of the sand that use chakra strings to control objects, and, even a person - if that person is willing. Plus, some jounin of our village can mold chakra for their weapons."
"Cool! Thanks so much Iruka-sensei!"
"No problem, Naruto," Iruka smiled, "Just remember that chakra is all around us, and that everything is essentially made of chakra. There is no limit to what you can do, Naruto."
"Thanks! I'm going to go train now. See you at school, Iruka-sensei!"
"Bye, Naruto."
While Naruto hurried off, Iruka got the sense that there really was no limit to what his student could do.
Naruto was currently jogging and thinking about what he would do next. The city of Konoha was truly beautiful and the architecture was simply amazing. But there was one feature of Konoha that he never enjoyed: The people. They would always stare at him, like some sort of monster. They would always act so nice to everyone else, but the minute they saw him, he would be glared at with such hate. What had he done to deserve this? Seeing yet another villager look upon him with contempt, he sped up. He would earn their respect, one way or another.
As Naruto ran along the riverside, he remembered Iruka-sensei talking about some kind of water walking. He grinned.
Following the bank of the river, he found himself deep within the forest, hidden from view.
No need for them to see what he was up to.
Naruto fell into the cold, cold river for the third time in a row before he decided to think things out.
"Iruka-sensei said it was an extension of the tree climbing... What is that supposed to mean?"
Though the 8-year old Naruto wasn't too sure what the word "extension" meant, he was pretty sure it didn't mean the exact same, so he thought about what was happening on the scale of actual chakra.
"Hmm... In tree climbing, my chakra was a magnet to make me stick to the tree. I guess if I try to stick to the water, I'll just fall through."
A light went off in his head as he had a realization: There are two sides to a magnet.
"Of course!"
Naruto molded his chakra and gingerly placed one foot lightly upon the surface of the rushing water. This time however, he made his chakra act like the force that pushed apart north sides of two magnets.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he put more and more weight on his leg, until he stood, one leg on land, and one leg on water. Smiling, he realized that water walking and tree climbing were simply opposite processes. One required you to stick to a surface, one required you to repel from another.
Over the next hour, Naruto perfected his water walking to such a high degree, that it took little conscious effort to perform acrobatics on the water, not to mention walking or standing still.
Naruto frowned. Tree climbing and water walking were great, and they could probably be used at certain times, but neither was an actual offensive move. Besides, his enhanced movements and attacks wouldn't get him very far. He needed some actual skills to become an awesome ninja.
"What did Iruka-sensei say about chakra attacks?"
"...some jounin of our village can mold chakra for their weapons..."
"That's right! Chakra can probably be used as a weapon somehow!"
Of course, what Iruka actually meant was that some jounin, such as Sarutobi Asuma, could push chakra through their weapons to increase their range and sharpness, but Naruto couldn't have known that.
In fact, if he had, Naruto would never have developed one of his soon-to-be signature moves.
"How can chakra be used as a weapon?"
As Naruto thought, he remembered another thing that Iruka-sensei said.
"Sensei said that you could make strings out of chakra! If I could make string out of chakra, I could probably make a kunai or a sword out of chakra too!"
Naruto pushed some chakra out of his hands and tried to mold his chakra into a shape, but much to his dismay, the chakra kept dissipating when he expelled it.
"ARGH!!"
By this time, Naruto had realized that before trying a new concept, he should think what was happening.
"Hmm... If I just push out my chakra like in the exercises, it'll just disappear. That's why I had to keep pushing out chakra to do stuff on the river."
Naruto paused in his thoughts as he watched a family of monkeys swing by in the canopy above. One of the monkeys paused mid-swing to throw a twig at Naruto.
It hit him smack on his forehead.
"Ouch! Hey you stupid monkey, watch what you're doing!"
Naruto grumbled angrily as the monkey laughed and sped off with its family.
"That's right! Run away! It doesn't matter – I know where you live!"
Naruto grabbed the twig irritably and was about to throw it back when he stopped abruptly.
"Wait a second..."
Naruto stared at the twig in his hand intently.
"Maybe... it's the difference between holding something and throwing something."
Naruto sat down cross-legged and starting thinking again.
In the Hokage's tower, the Sandaime smiled as he watched Naruto puzzle over his ideas from his crystal ball.
"Good luck, Naruto."
Naruto decided to put his newest idea into action.
"Alright, here goes nothing!"
He gathered his chakra into his hand, but instead of just pushing it out, he pictured his chakra being attracted to his hand, and then forcing the chakra to assume a shape. He molded more chakra and forced even more. And more. And more.
"GRAAHHHH!"
And then it happened.
He gathered so much chakra that in a burst of energy, the chakra became visible and the shape that he was forming glowed an ethereal blue for just a moment.
Naruto gaped, wide-eyed, as the fast-fading manifestation of a chakra sword materialized in his hand. Realizing that the sword was fading, he pumped more chakra into the weapon, until it stabilized.
The sword was no longer visible, but Naruto had the strangest sense that it was still there.
Experimentally, he slashed the invisible chakra sword across the grass near his feet, and his eyes widened comically as he saw the grass being cut. Deciding to test it out further, he slashed at a tree, and to his surprise, he felt a huge amount of resistance.
"Why can't I cut through this tree?"
Suddenly, his sensei's words came through to him.
"everything...is made of chakra..."
On some scale, Naruto realized that to cut through something, a force stronger than the resistance must be applied. Just the same, to cut through a certain amount of chakra, more chakra must be applied.
"Here we go!"
Naruto pushed more chakra into his sword until the sword was crackling with bluish chakra. Letting out a cry, he swung the weapon across the trunk of the tree.
At first, he thought he failed, but then a hairline cut appeared around the tree. The clean slice went through the tree's base, and as a result, the heavy oak let out a groan and tipped, toppling towards Naruto and the earth below.
Naruto, unfortunately, panicked and forgot that he could use his chakra speed. Blindly, he threw his hands in front of him and waited for the inevitable.
Unconsciously, he pushed out an enormous amount of chakra.
Suddenly, a large screen of chakra erupted in front of Naruto, as the chakra he reflexively produced materialized. As Naruto opened his eyes, he gaped dumbfounded as his chakra stopped the path of the falling tree in its tracks. Regaining his bearings, he quickly leapt out of the way. Something felt different to Naruto. He started gaining a sixth sense feeling about chakra. He could feel the disruption that his shield made in the natural ambiance of the area. He could feel the chakra in his shield gradually dissipate. He knew that unless he pumped more chakra directly into it, it would disintegrate and disappear.
As the earth shook momentarily due to the tree reclaiming its natural path, Naruto expanded his chakra sense more. He could feel the area around him. He could sense ninja training far off; he could sense the faint chakra in the plants around him as their miniscule amount of chakra needed for life dully emanated; he could sense the teenager hidden in the foliage, observing his every move.
Wait, hidden teenager observing his every move?
Naruto used his chakra speed to zoom towards the spectator, but whoever it was fled upon being noticed. Already Naruto saw that his observer was speeding away on the horizon. The only identifying traits he saw were a glint of eyeglasses and a grey ponytail. Though Naruto wondered who that was, he still jumped with joy as he realized that he had created two very awesome and unique ninja abilities.
"YES!"
Naruto quickly decided to go back into the forest to perfect his skills further, his mind sufficiently drawn away from the odd observer.
Sandaime chuckled. Who would have thought? Uzumaki Naruto, the youngest ever to develop his chakra sense, the ability to sense amount and location of chakra. Truly, Naruto would be a genius if people gave him a chance. However, he was troubled by the observer that was monitoring Naruto's abilities. His eyes narrowed as his crystal ball tracked the genin that was watching Naruto. It could be a simple matter of a genin unwittingly stumbling upon Naruto, or it could be something more sinister. Perhaps he would have to assign a trusted ANBU guard temporarily to the young Kyuubi container until he felt any watchers had been scared off. The third Hokage contemplated over the nature of this encounter and vowed to keep a close eye on the viewer.
"Just who are you...Yakushi Kabuto...?"
Although Yakushi Kabuto strolled seemingly calmly along a path near the outskirts of Konoha, inwardly he was calculating possibilities of one certain Uzumaki Naruto.
"Orochimaru-sama must be informed."
Well, well, well. So it seems that many people are taking an interest in our protagonist. Our young hero has developed quite a few skills now: Tree climbing, water walking, chakra sword, chakra shield, and chakra sensing. Let me tell you... This...is just the beginning!