NOVEL WEB Chapter 9: Water is Evillllll, but ANBU are moreso.
Waking up with a yawn she would blink a few times trying to understand what she was seeing, before twitching slightly. 'When I asked if they could conversate with me, I didn't expect them to just full-on chill out in my apartment.' It had been two days since her conversation with Gramps, and if Naruko wasn't a people person she would have already started to train Rasengan just to shove it up people's asses. Who knew that ANBU didn't know boundaries?
Rolling her eyes she'd stand up only to pause, looking over the squad of ANBU again, this time fully developing an eye twitch. "You all got assigned to this shift because I said I was going to begin waterwalking didn't you?"
One of the two purple-haired swordswomen who she completely couldn't tell apart nodded. "Yes. Captain Fox and Captain Bird were quite insistent on it. Hokage-Sama agreed quite fervently as well." The twitch above Naruko's eye increased in fervor.
"I see. Did they also suggest you build walls around the pond I was going to be using?" The silence said everything. "Right, well after my shower I suppose we can go to wherever they 'suggested' I train." Rolling her eyes she'd pull out a set of clothes, and instead of underwear a one-piece swimsuit. Because she was fucking 8, even she wasn't crazy enough to go with a two-piece. If any spy or potential future rogue ninja caught an 8-year-old water-walking with a big ass seal on their stomach it would be a disaster. Besides, someone would probably shove her back into her apartment if she tried anyway.
Getting no response besides some body movement, head nods and one slurp of what was probably coffee she headed off to the bathroom to do her morning exercises and cleansing routines in peace. 'It's a good thing I have a bigger apartment than most would think. Also damn old man. Damn Kakashi. Damn, whoever Captain Bird is. Sending a full female ANBU team because I'm gonna be practicing water walking, tch. Nepotism much? Whoever the ANBU Commander is must be ripping his hair out.'
After her exercises in her bathroom, purely so that she could be alone while doing them because they looked embarrassing, while in the shower she'd slowly stretch out her Mind's Eye of Kagura. 'Three of the Anbu are in that middle area between Chunin and Jonin for chakra. Their public identities are likely Special Jonin. One of them does meet the bare minimum to be a Jonin.' Stretching out even further, she slowly widened her senses. Not to push her limits of distance, but to push her mind on how much she could sense at once. Here in the apartment building was particularly the worst. 'Chunin. Mhm, that's a chunin too. That has the refinement of a Jonin, but the amount of a Chunin. Oh, that's definitely a Jonin. Mhm, quite a few Jonin or Special Jonin actually. Oh, my! That's definitely a Ninjutsu Specialist. If I didn't know any better I'd think my apartment building was ANBU HQ.' She paused for a moment.
'No, I refuse to believe that. Not even mom in wartime got that kind of treatment.' Going beyond her building, she'd finally end up stretching a couple of blocks, before inevitably having to shut off Mind's Eye of Kagura as a headache began to form. 'Alright, a little bit of improvement every day. One day I'll be able to spread across all of Konoha, and then beyond.'
Thirty minutes after having entered, she would step out of the bathroom dressed purely so that she could strip down when she starts horrifically failing at becoming Jesus. "Alright, where are we going?" The Elephant-masked purple-haired ANBU instead of the Catlike-mask ANBU held out her hand in a silent demand.
"I hope you know by the time I'm done with all of you, you'll be able to have full-on conversations that aren't mission-related." In response, a Coyote mask ANBU, this one with black hair let out a very unladylike snort.
"Unlikely Uzumaki."
With that, and what was probably a sealless shunshin 'Or whatever other bajillion movement/teleportation Jutsu's exist.' she found herself next to a pond in the middle of an abandoned training ground. "Thanks for that."
Opening up her mind's eye for a brief second because she couldn't see any of the ANBU, she passively noted down where they located themselves before she formed the signature cross. POP!
A moment later she had four Shadow Clones heading towards trees. Two of them picked up leaves, one picked up pebbles, and the final one acted like a koala bear as she hugged the tree.
Looking around now that was done, she found that the pond was incredibly still, which would make at least the first steps of Water Walking relatively easier. "We'll probably have to move to a river tomorrow or the day after."
Not even a second passed before one of them responded from within the forest that surrounded the pond, "Whenever you're ready the pool will be terraformed into a river." 'Aah right. Jonin and ANBU are actually fucking insane whenever they aren't made to be Kunai throwers.' Considering throughout pretty much the entire run Jonin where able to face off against the Akatsuki at least temporarily even in one-on-one, she sometimes forgot they y'know, were actually horrific abominations that shouldn't be called humans considering they could tear entire towns apart by themselves with utter ease. 'Well, that's somewhat terrifying in hindsight.'
Shrugging it off and the fact that apparently the Five Major Villages each had over 10,000 shinobi and yet she knew there weren't even a thousand in the village - which again - freaking horrifying, she stripped out of her outer clothes and then stepped up to the pond. 'Let's see here.' Taking a moment to close her eyes and activate the Mind's Eye of Kagura, she would very slowly hover one foot over the water, before slowly stepping down. 'No, not like that. Urgh, not like that, me stepping on it is causing rivers so it has to...'
Trying to control her chakra properly for a few minutes she finally shook her head. 'I can't use Mind's Eye of Kagura yet while doing this. It takes up too much of my concentration.'
Opening her eyes finally, she looked up into the sky. 'Mhm, it's been ten minutes.' With that in mind, she'd pop one of her clones, before resummoning it. 'Every ten minutes pop a clone and resummon it, after the cycle is done every clone thereafter will have 40 minutes of memories. That's a lot of math that I don't want to do, but needless to say, that will significantly speed up my mastery over tree-walking. Besides the three that are using the Leaf Sticking Exercise will keep changing out into different materials.'
Was she going overboard with her attempts to master the Tree-Walking exercise? Yes. Was she doing this because she had very limited 'canon' Chakra Control exercises to work off of? Yes. 'Albeit I probably could get more, but might as well. Besides even Gramps wanted me to master Water-Walking and the Leaf Exercise at the same time.'
Focusing back in on the matter at hand she'd once again placed her foot over the water, and watched as ripples once more formed. 'Alright let's try again.' Occasionally she'd have to dip her foot in and out of the water, just so that the ripples would form again. After all the Water Walking exercise wasn't based on walking on 'still water' that was in the end just very slightly more difficult Tree Walking, no water walking was about harmonizing your chakra with the movement and rippling of the water so stay on the surface.
A few hours passed, and inevitably she got that itch again. Whether it was just because she wanted to be social, wanted to troll a little bit, or was getting bored of watching her foot heal of wrinkles in realtime, she started thinking aloud. "There's a lot of Chakra Control exercises I can imagine y'know. Besides the combinations that are obvious - like Tree Walking and the Leaf Exercise and Water Walking with the Leaf Concentration Exercise. I imagine Suna has Sand Walking, and somewhere like Yukigakure has snow and ice walking. But even here, we can do Waterfall walking combined with the Leaf Concentration Exercise. I imagine that's known already, is that Chunin or Jonin-level chakra control?"
The black-haired ANBU in a Coyote Mask appeared sitting on a tree branch with a soft rustle of the wind. "For Medical and Genjutsu Chunin it's expected of them to learn, same with anyone focused on Assassination, Sabotage, or Scouting. For Taijutsu and Ninjutsu Combat Specialists, most of them don't learn it until they're trying to become a Jonin." Raising an eyebrow in a tiny bit of surprise, Naruko in the end took in stride. After all, Jonin where supposed to have mastered two elements, and the second step for Wind training WAS to split a waterfall.
"That makes sense. Mhm, I suppose the speed of the waterfall affects it quite a lot as well. Considering the restrictions of finding much more, I imagine something like walking up a waterfall using Kunai and Senbon would be slightly higher, and then from there you'd move onto something like with pure chakra sorting pebbles and sand? After that, I imagine the only other chakra control exercises are actually the elemental training."
There was a very droll slow clap from the Coyote-masked ANBU. "Spot on. You only missed using pure chakra to stop thrown weapons, and then combining that with all the aforementioned chakra control exercises, as well as doing those exercises while wearing weights. There's also the fact that mastering Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, or Iryojutsu also gives you better control if you're learning more efficient, more potent, or wildly different versions from what you've already learned."
That was a far more detailed explanation than she was expecting. Wasn't she the one meant to be putting the ANBU off-balance?!? 'I'll have to step it up then. No one beats me at my own game, even if she's only just trying to teach me probably! Also, she was totally being sarcastic! Who says good job and then lists out a whole bunch of things you missed?'
Nodding along Naruko would follow up, "So I suppose in that case most Chakra Control exercises beyond your typical Jonin level are based around your Ninjutsu or Genjutsu. In that case, I suppose Taijutsu Specialists learn something like air-stepping?"
"Aah, you've discovered the third step of wind training. How wonderful, aren't you just the young prodigy?" In response, Naruko stumbled completely taken aback.
"There's a third step?"
"Of course, first step Chunin, second step Jonin, third step Kage or S-class. Of course, the vast majority of them just don't learn the third step and instead learn S-class Ninjutsu. In fact, intelligence states that of the current Gokage only Hokage-sama and the Tsuchikage have learned the third step." 'Didn't the Tsuchikage fly via Earth Release? Was that a lie in canon? Is it a change in this Universe? Or did he perhaps combine them? Or maybe he only mastered the Third-Step of Earth release, and with his second step of Wind Release imitated it?'
With a weary look, she'd step off the pond. "This has been... surprisingly helpful." Coyote shrugged in response, not saying anything out loud. 'Anddd there it is. Wait! No, I've been beaten! They sent a fellow mischief-maker to fight back!'
Lips twitching, she finally turned back to the pond after a moment. 'I'll let you win this time.' Opening up her Mind's Eye of Kagura intending to see if she could finally use it, she barely managed to stop her body from stilling. Originally the Coyote-masked ANBU had been resting in chakra reserves around where she had figured out where the average Ninjutsu-Specialist Jonin's were. After all, Naruko had been in close contact at this point with around 16 different ANBU. A fair amount of Jonin, and some Chunin while wandering the streets of Konoha and in her apartment building. From what she could sense originally the Coyote-mask had about five times the chakra of a Chunin she had spotted bragging about just being promoted. She was on the lower side of average if anything. Then she flickered away. For a brief, barely there moment, it instantly surged so swiftly it would have been impossible to sense it if Naruko didn't literally see it. 'Holy fuck, who is that?' That. That was not a Canon character. That was definitely not a fucking canon character.
Taking a half step onto the pond, she'd continue to act as if she was okay while internally freaking out. 'Those reserves are fucking insane. That's, 'Yeah technically both Kurenai and Jiraiya are Jonins' level of bullshit. Why does an ANBU have more Chakra than Choza? Choza is meant to be the strongest Leaf Shinobi outside of Gramps, Danzo, and the Sannin right now!'
Releasing a clone before resummoning it, she'd put her foot in and out of the pool to get the ripples going again. 'If it is a canon character, it has to be either an Edo Tensei, or a Henge so good I can't even sense it draining her chakra.' To put it in perspective, from what she sensed of Kakashi when he acted - he had around thirteen-fourteen times the chakra reserves of that fresh Chunin, assuming he had done no training or missions that day. In that case, it was probably closer to 18-20 times. This woman in that brief moment had about 50 times that fresh Chunin, and that was only what was briefly revealed. 'Old man... Who the fuck do you have guarding me now?'
Whoever it was - they were a secret weapon of the Leaf, only sent to guard her after she showed a certain amount of potential. 'Enough, I won't be able to figure it out now. Whoever it is, I'll learn one day. I just need to focus on training, and not bashing my head against the wall.'
A few more hours passed, before the final ANBU, a woman with brown hair and some kind of mouse mask, appeared with a package in hand. "What Hokage-sama promised you in your conversation."
Naruko's eyes widened a little bit. 'Already?' Stepping out of the pond with her legs dripping with water, she'd pad over the grass and take the offered package. 'You work fast Gramps.'
Opening it up, she'd gaze upon the majesty that was inside - a set of leg weights fitted for her specifically.
To understand why she decided to start weight training already, it all went back to that hour-long conversation with gramps...