Naruto: Tango with Death

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I was held back at home for some time by my friends, but in the end I still left for the Fukuro Temple.

There, the Owl Sage was already waiting for me, near the Sage of Six Path's statue. And so without any further ado, I started my training.

When I had come out of the statue for the first time, I had calculated that time passed ten times faster in the statue, since it took me one day to analyse thirteen thousand combinations, which normally would have taken me around ten days.

And so this month of training would be the equivalent of around ten months, if I was constantly training.

And what followed was pretty much that. The statue was wonderful as it not only accelerated my perception of time, it also supplied me with countless Yin Chakra, enough to allow me to not sleep. As for my body, meditation was similar to sleep in terms of bodily functions, so I effectively went for an entire month without sleeping. Quite proud of myself I must say, wish I had that in my past life.

It took me slightly more than a week for me to finish the second part of my training, discovering the effects of all 129960 combinations.

The more combinations didn't work, the better it was for me too, as it meant that they would never appear in any chain of Tenketsu. In the long run, one combination of two that didn't' work would save me hours of work, and there was more than one combination that didn't work.

I also discovered the first few jutsus with this method, as the most simple jutsus had chakra go through two Tenketsu before releasing the effect.

For example, the Academy Three, that is the Body Replacement Jutsu, the Clone Jutsu, and the Transformation Jutsu. There were also a few others I never heard about, so I'm not sure whether anyone discovered them before.

Finishing the second round of my training also allowed my Yin Chakra to not only stabilize, but surpass my Yang Chakra, which was my initial state.

However, just like an abundance of Yang Chakra over Yin Chakra was bad, the opposite was true as well. The might of my chakra would diminish, and I would have harder times learning anything involving my body.

Before, I managed to make everything hold because my meditation technique allowed me to train both my Yin and Yang Chakra at around the same speed, but with the speed at which my Yin Chakra was augmenting with the Six Path Sage Statue, relying on normal training would no longer do it.

The Owl Sage, whom had been teaching me the Stealth Technique, proposed I stop using the statue, but I couldn't let go of it. I had saved more than two months of time thanks to it, and that number would only go up the more I used it.

So I decided to go with the option the Owl Sage was the least content about, and what provoked my condition in the first place, the Sacred Water Pool.

This was rather dangerous as I only needed to make one mistake and go too far once, and my Yang Chakra would overpower my Yin Chakra so much that my Tenketsu would get crushed and crumpled, turning me into a cripple like Lee. My Yin Chakra wouldn't disappear, nor would my Yang Chakra, but I would become unable to use Chakra at all.

Thankfully, the Owl Sage agreed to remain by my side every time I trained in the Sacred Water Pool, drastically reducing the risks.

And so thanks to it, I managed to always keep my Yin and Yang Chakra balanced. Of course they weren't permanently balanced, as the Owl Sage had said it was nearly impossible to do, but it was very close to it.

At first I was tempted to leave a slightly bigger margin, since having more Yin Chakra allowed me to have a much better control and having more Yang Chakra made my body sharper, I realized that keeping the balance was wiser.

Not only was I reducing the possibility of slipping and crippling myself, I also learned those were nothing but shortcuts. My control over my chakra wasn't only thanks to my stronger Yin Chakra, it was because of the hours of sweat and training I put into it. Same went for my body.

Besides, during this month of training, even during the times I slipped up in the Sacred Water and got saved by the Owl Sage, meaning my Yang Chakra was overwhelming my Yin Chakra, I found my control over my chakra to still be getting better.

As I discovered a long time ago, experience with chakra earned me control, and since I was spending the majority of my day meddling with minuscule streams of chakra through my Tenketsu, my chakra control had been increasing rapidly.

Lastly, I also trained Stealth for this month with the Owl Sage, and I am rather proud to say that I had managed to reach the peak of the first stage, meaning the coat of feathers had become almost useless for me.

As a reminder, the first stage of the Stealth technique was to perfectly control my body movements so to make the less sound possible.

Actually, it was only the first stage for me, as Owls had the inborn advantage of being silent, so this meant that having mastered the first stage put me to the level of an untrained owl.

Next would be to use my chakra to manipulate the air around me to completely silence myself, not leaving a single sound when I moved.

However, my current progress was nothing to scoff at. While I would still make some sound, it was nothing a normal human could possibly hear. No Genin or Chunin could ever hope to hear me move, and even a Jonin could get caught unprepared.

To sum things up, this month of training had quite the effects for me. I mastered the first stage of Stealth, and rose both my Yin and Yang Chakra several times over, which had for effect to also increase my total chakra.

By making an estimation, I would now be able to steamroll the Chunins I met from Suna in terms of pure physical might, and my strengthened mind would allow me to learn technique to match them in both Taijutsu and Ninjutsu in no time. In other words, this month was quite productive for me.

However, all things had to end, and honestly I was starting to miss doing missions, although I had to admit I did need a break.

Of course, I'm never admitting it to anyone, but I didn't realize how impacted I had been by that mission, and I would have ended with a burnout if I had insisted on continuing my missions.

Now though, I had finished my training, and I couldn't wait to go on a mission to see the results of my training.

The Owl Sage watched me leave with a kind but worried smile as I disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and I directly headed for the Hokage's Tower. Unfortunately, he wasn't there, so I decided to go to the Uchiha Compound, to torment a couple of my friends.