Naruto: The New Sealmaster

Aoshi was wrong. It was now a week later and he still sat there with his leaf in between his hands. A little progress had been made, he managed to create a small breeze in between his hands but apart from that there was nothing.

The other parts of his life had gone better. He had managed to get access to some rudimentary chakra seals. One of which had been used to seal a bijuu once, but it wasn't very successful. He had also finalised the gravity seals to improve his training. Guy had specifically bought some from abroad for Rock Lee but Aoshi couldn't afford that. He made his own out of prayer beads. For each bead you activated, the weight and resistance multiplied. He wasn't sure his body would ever be able to handle the higher levels but he made the same ones for Tenten and he couldn't remember the last time she was that happy.

He remembered how tight her hug was afterwards but Aoshi didn't really understand it. It was just something to aid her in becoming strong. Time well spent for sure but he didn't think she would thank him so profusely, he even got a kiss on the cheek for it. Aoshi remembered it very fondly and blushed a little at the thought. Perhaps he should make time for Tenten so they could hang out more...but he couldn't. He had to improve so that he could take the place as head of his clan from his father. He had to become strong enough so Konoha couldn't possibly refuse him the rank of Chunin.

Other than that, he had also met Naruto a couple more times just walking around. The kid was excitable but rather dense. How he hadn't figured out that Hinata had a crush on him..only god knows.

It was with those thoughts he sat down on the grass once more. He remembered the feeling of the breeze he created, how it felt coming from within himself. He remembered the control exercise of focusing the chakra into a finer blade. He also remembered the fact that he had to protect his other hand so he didn't just send a cutting windblade through his own hand.

He sat there focusing for many minutes before he made his first attempt. A failure. Aoshi sighed but got back to it.

Fifteen attempts later he felt the palm of his left hand sting and he swiftly took his hands away from each other. His hand was bleeding and the pain was quite noticeable. By noticeable, Aoshi meant that he was jumping and shouting swear words that would make Kurenai put him into a particularly nasty genjutsu if she heard it.

He wrapped his hand up and sorely wished he had learnt how to heal simple wounds as he had planned. In his pain and agony he had almost forgotten about the leaf but when he finally looked down on it he saw it was almost completely red. Dripping with a red liquid he knew belonged to himself but also...it was split in half.

He had done it! Sure, he failed to protect himself, which arguably could be the most important part of it, but at least he completed what Kakashi told him to do. It wasn't good enough to proudly present though. Aoshi wouldn't show Kakashi until he had it down completely. Until he could do it ten times out of ten without injury.

Nothing else was good enough.

***

Aoshi spent the next three days perfecting it. He had to hide his injuries from Kurenai for two of those days but it became very difficult when he fainted from blood-loss and was brought into the hospital.

From a positive point of view, he fainted after he actually managed to do it ten times in a row. From a negative point of view, Kurenai didn't trust him to keep track of his own health anymore.

Kurenai had just been in to yell at him for worrying her before she started crying and forced him to promise her not to do it again. He made that promise to her, just because he managed to finish his goal.

As soon as Kurenai left, someone knocked on the door. "May I come in?" It was Kakashi's head that popped in through the door. At Aoshi's nod, he entered with a large sigh.

"I didn't expect you to work until you almost bled out. Do you have any self-preservation at all?" Aoshi simply glared at him with conviction. "You know what this means to me. Don't patronise me, I did what you asked of me."

Kakashi looked gravely at Aoshi and used a stern voice he hadn't heard the usually rather aloof man use. "And did you take a second to think about what you mean to others?"

It took Aoshi aback. He hadn't expected the forever lone-wolf Kakashi to tell him to consider others' opinions of him. "What do you think Tenten would think if I told her that you're here? Hinata? What about Akiho perhaps? Heck, even Guy cares enough about you to strap you to a wooden pole until you see the wrongs in your actions."

Aoshi looked down at his lap where he rolled his thumbs, trying to awkwardly avoid Kakashi's disappointed look. Aoshi knew what he was talking about. He was rather glad none of those people had been told. It was bad enough that he brought his auntie to tears again. He didn't want to hurt those dear to him, but he had to get stronger or he'd lose everything.

He gritted his teeth and spoke quietly. "But what am I supposed to do? I don't have the talent to just casually learn techniques. I don't have the physique to become a beast like Guy-sensei. I don't have the smarts to change my body like Orochimaru once did. How am I meant to become strong if I don't give it my absolute everything? How am I meant to go beyond my limits if I don't push them as hard as I possibly can!?"

For every word he spoke, he was a little louder. By the end he was childishly yelling at Kakashi but he didn't care. Kakashi just looked at him, waiting for him to finish. And when he had finished, he was rather out of breath. He just sat there panting, looking up at his sensei who calmly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You must never give up, that's for sure. But there's more to becoming a good ninja than just training, or talent, or natural born body, or ingenuity...or perhaps one should call it mad ingenuity in Orochimaru's case. You need something to fight for, Aoshi. And it can not be yourself or some vague idea of what your ancestors might have wanted. If you only fight for yourself you'll never reach the top, at least without doing incredibly despicable things which I know for a fact you're not capable of. You have to find your way." Kakashi looked down and Aoshi could see true emotions behind those eyes. Intense grief and sorrow. Eventually he went on. "I lost mine and haven't progressed in almost a decade, that's how much of a difference it can make."

Kakashi went towards the door, he only added a couple of words before disappearing. "Consider what you have, Aoshi. What couldn't you live without?"

And then he was gone, Aoshi was left with his thoughts. He had never seen Kakashi open up like that and from what he had heard about Kakashi, it was not something he did on a regular basis. Those words and their meaning would stay at the back of Aoshi's head for a while longer. "Just until I make Chunin. Then I'll figure everything out.." That's what he told himself at least.

The next few days he didn't hear anything from Kakashi concerning his continued training so he filled that time with medical training instead. A simple version on the mystical palm could come in handy just to shut clear cuts. Had he known how to do that, he wouldn't have gotten into trouble.

After five days of practising on fish he made a small cut in, he got it down to the most basic of levels. This was all he was after and as soon as he relaxed, Kakashi showed up. "It seems you can't relax until your current goal is fulfilled. I hope you realise what this is doing to you before it is too late."

Aoshi nodded at Kakashi. "I will. But I must get this under control so that I can move on." Kakashi sighed but led the way away from their current point. Aoshi followed.

He was led over to a very small waterfall, and looked questioningly up at Kakashi. "Your task will be to separate the waterfall with just your chakra but first I have to show you something you missed."

Kakashi took out a leaf. "Close your eyes. Put your hands about five centimetres apart so that I can place the leaf there." Aoshi nodded and did as told.

"Slice it in half." Aoshi did as he was told but when it was sliced, he felt two heavy pieces fall into the hand below. He opened his eyes to see a piece of steel sliced cleanly through its centre.

"Do you see what I mean? I asked you to slice a leaf but you used a blade and speed with enough power to slice through metal cleanly. You must be able to control this perfectly due to who you are. You can't be wasteful like this, but also. What if you're going to try and make a small cut to open a friend's jacket but you end up slicing them in two? You will need to do both of these exercises. When you're done, you may try to create your jutsus. But only make one or two. You will need quality, not quantity. I will teach you one technique, but that's it. I get my own team in two weeks after all, so you can not expect me to be available."

Aoshi nodded and gratefully responded. "Thank you Kakashi, for everything. Good luck with your team, I hope they get your challenge."

With that, he was left to his training.

***

Two weeks went by before he managed to split the waterfall using wind chakra.

"Finally!" He happily proclaimed as he fell to the ground in exhaustion. His body was aching, both from Guy's morning training with extra weights, but also from standing under a waterfall for hours. His chakra reserves were close to empty, he had learned from his mistakes and wouldn't let himself faint from exhaustion anymore.

Suddenly, a chakra scroll flew out from the waterfall and hit Aoshi's face. While rubbing his nose, he saw that it had unfurled a little and it was clearly an instructional scroll for Wind release: Breakthrough. He let out a small chuckle and Kakashi's ingenuity and opened it up fully to inspect it.

The technique was simple enough and didn't require much control or focus at all. It was just a simple matter of creating a large gust of air and blowing it out from your mouth. Aoshi would practise a weak version of this and then use it as his way of getting rid of a lot of chakra quickly so he didn't end up in that frozen state again if he absorbed too large amounts.

He was finished for the day though, and thought he deserved a short break of a couple of hours. So he walked home. Slowly and peacefully he walked home to his aunt and was looking forward to telling her that he finally mastered nature transformation to a decent degree. He had a long way to go though, and he knew that, but Kakashi didn't know any more steps and he was able to start making his own techniques and training from here.

When he walked in through the door, he was met by not only Kurenai but also Hinata and two interesting looking boys. One wore a long coat and covered most of his face. If he had to guess this was an Aburame. The other looked wild, wore a bit of fur and had a puppy running around next to him. Aoshi assumed this was an Inuzuka. He closed the door after him and got all of their attention. "Auntie, I'm home!"

He walked over to his aunt and gave her a light hug. "Is this your team, auntie?" The woman kissed him on top of his head. "Yeah, that's them." he let go of the hug and looked them over once more as she introduced them. "First we have Aburame Shino." She gestured for the guy with the coat who silently nodded in Aoshi's direction. "Then there's Inuzuka Kiba and his dog Akamaru." The guy huffed and the dog barked happily. "Finally, you know Hinata already."

He walked over and hugged the purple haired little princess. "Of course I do, Hina-hime." With a small blush, she hugged him back. "How is everything, Ao-kun?"

He let her go and scratched the back of his head. "I'm making progress, that's all I can say really. I'll show you once I actually manage something, okay?" She responded with a small smile.

When Aoshi looked over towards the boys again he saw a flabbergasted Kiba stare at him. "Hinata..hugged someone? What is going on?" At that, Aoshi placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. "This little princess and I have spent a lot of time together Dog-boy. How abou-"

But then he was interrupted by none else than Hinata herself. "Ao-kun. Go wash up and we can talk later. You stink.." After hearing that, he pulled her in closer to rub his chest against her. "Oh yeah..?" But after a while he let her go and went to take a shower.

"Will dinner be ready when I'm back?" And Kurenai just proudly nodded. She wasn't proud over that bit in particular but she was proud of what Aoshi had accomplished with Hinata. Not only had she told him he had to go take a shower, she interrupted him to do so. Hinata still wasn't very good with strangers but what Aoshi had done with her was clearly paying off. She was taking some space, and Kurenai was all for it.

A while later, Aoshi came back after his shower and sat down next to Hinata and Kurenai. "Oh yeah, I forgot to introduce myself. Rokushō Aoshi, at your service." At that moment, the food was done and they all dug in.

"Rokushō-san, you graduated last year, correct?" Aoshi nodded. "Call me Aoshi. But yeah, I graduated last year. The rest of my team didn't though."

At that bit of gossip they all looked shocked at Kurenai who chuckled. "Aoshi was a special case. I couldn't just choose one of you, that was just something I said to make you tense up."

The team relaxed at those news and shared a smile between them. After that, they went on to talk about Aoshi's first year as a genin. Funnily enough, he 'forgot' to mention all of the D-ranks he had to do in the beginning. He left that surprise for them to find out on their own.

After a long meal with plenty of stories, some enhanced and some with 'skipped' contents so Kurenai wouldn't get mad, Aoshi decided to go up and read his new scroll again. Perhaps he missed something last time.