Time Travel? What The Fuck?

Chapter 18: Tails of a Bijuu

The chunin exams were coming up. That was a fact. They were just over a month away, starting at the beginning of July and ending mid August, and it was the end of May now. May 26th to be exact. Two weeks since the disastrous attempt at summoning his kekkei genkai. Two weeks since he'd discovered where his mom's grave lay, and two weeks of non stop reading in the vain hope of finding something about his clan that could help him understand his gift and heratege better.

And so far, nothing.

It was starting to get very annoying.

"Ugh, this is useless," he moaned, dropping his head onto the table. Across from him, Sakura made a face of disdain at his antics.

"Naruto," she sighed. "We haven't even gone through all the books yet."

"Yeah, but we almost have," he noted, glaring at the swindling pile. They'd gone through two thirds of the books in the past two weeks, slowed down thanks to their sensei's rigorous training. But still, it was enough to lose hope of ever finding anything of value.

It was one of their rare days off that they were sat around doing all this reading. Kakashi-sensei only allowed them one rest day for every six, so as to recuperate and take care of any other business they might need, like shopping and laundry. Or in their case, studying. And right now they were all cooped up in Sasuke's apartment, huddled around his kitchen table with all the remaining books spread around them. Leftover dishes from lunch were also scattered around the table, chopsticks resting haphazardly in bowls of unfinished yakisoba*. Overall, it was quiet a messy scene, and one they were quickly growing familiar with.

"Well you can't give up hope yet," Sakura said assuredly, focusing back on her book. "You never have before."

That was true, Naruto admitted grudgingly. But then again, that usually only applies to jutsu someone could actually tell him about. Like the rasengan or shadow clones. Not something that might as well be extinct. Except for that girl Karin, as Sasuke had informed them earlier. But she hadn't discovered it yet either, so it didn't really count.

"Hey Sasuke," Naruto asked, a sudden thought having come to him.

"Hn?" The Uchiha asked, still absorbed in his own readings. Naruto took that as confirmation for him to go on.

"How do you access your sharingan? Is there like a trick to it?" His reason for asking being that maybe kekkei genkai are alike in their usage, and that knowing how Sasuke used his would Naruto know how his own worked.

"It's not a 'trick'," the boy sighed. "It's more like... like flexing your finger. Something you can just do."

"Yeah but," Naruto tried. "I don't know how to flex my finger in this scenario, y'know." Then, "How'd you do it the first time?"

Sasuke shrugged, setting his book down. "Same as yours. It just happened. Then after that, I just knew how it worked, so it was easy. But I was raised around, taught how it worked before I even developed it. It's different for you. You've never really experienced it before."

Sighing, Naruto folded his arms on the table and dejectedly rested his chin on them. "I s'pose you're right," he mumbled. Next to him, Sakura was looking at him with pitying green eyes, a slight frown painting her lips.

"Are you sure there's no one you can ask? Not even the Kyūbi?"

Naruto perked up at that, confusion flitting across his face.

"You mean Kurama?" He asked.

"Yeah," Sakura nodded. "You said he lived in your mother practically her whole life. Surely he at least knew about her kekkei genkai, if not experienced it."