Naruto Uchiha: the Last Sage of the Six Paths by JH17

Chapter 11: A C-Rank Mission?

- TIME SKIP: 2 MONTHS LATER -

Naruto had finally started to get his taijutsu style to be exactly the way he had hoped it would be. Training sessions with Might Gai, despite how long and difficult they were, helped him immensely. Now he had both speed and strength without having to rely on chakra to augment his speed and strength. Gai gave him increasing weights for him to wear in order to constantly improve his speed and strength. With all the people he could learn from, he almost never stopped training, unless his body gave out. It was brutally difficult at times, but Naruto would never budge from his training regimen. He'd learned quite a lot of things during the past two months. Since the team had begun doing missions, which were D-Rank jokes, he was sending clones to do his part. In the meantime, the real Naruto was training his taijutsu with Gai. He also sent clones to continue learning about the Hiraishin, which he'd made a frustratingly small amount of progress on. He'd figured out that the jutsu required great skill in fuinjutsu(Sealing Jutsu) and was capable of creating a sort of pocket dimension in which the user would travel to in order to teleport to a target location.

So, he turned to fuinjutsu in order to figure it out. He had more shadow clones studying fuinjutsu than any other subject due to his frustration with the legendary jutsu. He even turned to blackmailing the old Hokage to give him the Nidaime's notes on the Hiraishin so he would have two sources to learn from. Naruto hated that he was struggling so much with the Hiraishin. It irked him to no end, leading to multiple training grounds being destroyed in frustration. Naruto understood that he would not be able to learn every jutsu as quickly as the last, but it still gnawed at him that he hadn't even figured out the basis of the jutsu yet. Nonetheless, he refused to stop training his body, mind, and arsenal.

Naruto opened his eyes, letting his two tailed chakra cloak fade out. He already knew who had arrived at his estate, shunshin-ing to the front yard to meet with his sensei. "Ah, Naruto, training as usual?" Naruto simply shrugged in reply, before starting to walk with him. "Naruto, the Hokage has requested a meeting with Team 7, think you can beat me there?" Kakashi teased, hoping to force out some of Naruto's past emotions of joy, amusement, playful-ness. Over the past couple of months, Kakashi had noticed the only time that he ever had anything close to any of these emotions was in battle. Naruto seemed to revel in the intensity of training, or any fight for that matter. Naruto seemed to find a sort of thrill in fighting, which made Kakashi fear Naruto's reaction to real battles. He worried that Naruto would become similar to the greatest villain Konoha had ever seen: Uchiha Madara. He had never known it, but Madara reveled in battle. Naruto seemed to be getting more and more similar to Madara. They both reveled in battle, had an immensely powerful hate, and a relative control over the Kyuubi's power. The more that Naruto trained and worked towards becoming stronger, the more he itched to fight someone strong. Kakashi hoped that this desire would cease to exist once Naruto had seen the horrors of real battle, of real fighting, of real life-and-death situations.

"Kakashi...when are we going to have a real mission? I tired of those tedious D-Ranks within the first rank. My strength is wasted on those menial tasks." "Naruto, what have I said before? It's-" "Our strength, not mine. Yeah, yeah, I know." Kakashi inwardly smiled at the fact that Naruto had at the very least remembered his words. Although, it would be some time before Naruto genuinely felt that way. Kakashi knew, and understood, why Naruto thought that way though. He understood that Naruto was completely alone for almost all of his life. The only time he wasn't alone, besides when Team 7 was formed, was when he was first starting to make friends before the Uchiha Massacre. "Kakashi, this meeting had better be about a real mission. Otherwise, I'm just sending a clone for the 'mission'." Kakashi simply nodded and glanced over at Naruto. Kakashi had thought that Naruto hadn't really picked up on the very minute hint, but he had. Naruto's minute change in facial expression around the cheeks and lips was enough to give it away to Kakashi. "So he is observant, but he doesn't seem to say anything about it" Kakashi thought to himself. Within a moment, Kakashi was leaping towards the Hokage tower with Naruto in tow. Within a few minutes they had arrived, with both of them coming through one window.