Naruto : Venom

I saw a lot of Jiraya, Tsunade and Shizune over the next few days. True to her word, Shizune didn't tell anyone about our heart to heart conversation. Tsunade never approached me to talk about the Jiongu or Orochimaru, but she did do something... unexpected.

Knock Knock

Who is at my door this time? Don't these people have lives of their own? "Who is it and what do you want with me?"

"Squirt, I need a few hours of your time." That's Tsunade. Maybe she wants to ask about the Jiongu after all. She is the world's best medic nin I don't doubt she wants to dissect me and figure out how I work.

"Door is open." I call out to her and she walks in.

"I need a favor." She says in a serious tone. "Can you help me?"

"Depends on the favor. What do you need done?" If it has anything to do with Orochimaru I'm shutting this down.

"Naruto needs a break. I want you to distract him for a couple hours."

I never expected that. Hold on a moment, something is wrong here. "This is so you can win your bet isn't is?"

"What? No!" She had the audacity to look offended. "He's pushing himself too far. He's training to the point that he passes out from exhaustion. He needs a break, and it couldn't hurt to spend time with someone his own age."

Hmm... I suppose we never have sparred or even traded some jutsu back like we said we would in the Final Tournament. Shizune did say I needed to hang out with friends more. It couldn't hurt.

"Fine. I'll do it." Her face lights up at my words. "Not for you though, for Naruto. This may sound hypocritical, but training nonstop is a terrible idea."

"I knew you'd see reason!" She picks me up by the scruff of my neck and throws me over her shoulder.

"Put me down! I can walk!" Not okay! What is it with people picking me up? I'm not a puppy!

"Oh be quiet."

...

"There he is." Tsunade is poking her head through some bushes. How embarrassing. This is supposed to be the next Hokage.

"So put me down so I can go over there."

"Squirt you need to distract him for a few hours. How do you plan on doing that?" She hasn't put me down yet. How infuriating.

"Hell if I know!" I start to squirm around to get out of her grip. It fails miserably. I have half a mind to let the Jiongu out to free me. "I've got an idea or two. I could spar him or maybe trade a jutsu with him. We talked about doing that before, I know a trick or two that he thought was cool and wanted me to teach him it."

"Good enough for me." She strikes a very bad pose, it's one I know. It's a baseball pitcher's pose, she's going to throw me.

"Tsunade no! I am a shinobi! You don't throw shino- I HATE YOU OLD LADY!"

THUD

"Alvarcus?" Perfect, I rolled to a stop right next to Naruto. At least she has good aim.

"Hey Naruto. How's things?" I haul myself up to my feet.

"You alright?" He asks with a tinge of concern.

"Yes." I dust myself off.

"But you-"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I'm going to selectively forget how I got here. You know what, I walked here. That's what I'm going to go with.

Naruto rolls his eyes. "Whatever. You're pretty strange. Anyways, did you need something? You've never come out here while I'm working on this jutsu before."

"Yeah, I'm bored. Figured we could spar or something, we haven't at all this whole trip. What do you say, you up for it?"

"I don't have the time. I need to get this jutsu down to win that bet." He dismisses me.

Not good. I need him to at least do something besides the Rasengan for a bit, he's working himself down to the bone. That and I don't know what Tsunade would do if I fail. "Well... what about the jutsu trade we talked about earlier? You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

"Dude." He turns away from practicing to look at me with an scandalized glare. "Just because I know what you mean does not make that sentence okay."

"Yeah, but it got your attention didn't it?" I cheekily grin a him. "So how about it? Pick one of my jutsu or tricks or something you find cool and I'll try to show you how to do it."

"Lemme think for a moment." He takes up a thinking pose. He's adorable right now, like a puppy trying to be scary. "Those monsters you use, they were really cool! Teach me how to use those! They're way more durable than shadow clones."

"Oh." I'm surprised he wants to learn that. I thought for sure he's pick flying. "Uh... that's part of the Jiongu. I can't teach that. I mean I probably could teach it if someone has the Jiongu, but to get it you have to go through a lot of pain. A lot. And no, I won't be giving it to you so don't ask."

"I don't want it thanks. How about that giant sphere defense? That was really cool too! Minus that part where you... you know lost your head."

"Thanks for reminding me about that." I sarcastically retort. "You could pull off a more basic version of it, it depends on how many natural affinities you have."

"I'm a wind element and I can use fire." He sheepishly rubs the back of his head. "But fire and I don't really get along that well. The jutsu I use never turns out right."

"We can work with that!" I assure him. "It won't be anywhere as cool as mine though."

"Awesome!" I have his full attention now. "So how does it work?"

"Basically I make a really long chakra string and loop it around my body." To demonstrate I overcharge a string with chakra to bring it into the visible spectrum and loop it several times around me.

"Then I make an elemental change, in your case it would be to wind since you have to have a natural affinity for that to work with chakra strings." I channel wind chakra into my string, I now have a ridiculously long windblade wrapped around me.

"Lastly, I twist and twirl it around me at high speeds." I spin the string around me, slowly at first but I gradually up the speed.

"Once you can do this add more strings in." I add another, then another until I am using all ten. "Tada, that's how my sphere defense works."

"I don't get it." What could he possibly not get! I walked through each step and even demonstrated for him! "Yours was a range of colors when you used it against Kisame but now it's just white."

Okay, so he does get it. That's good, I thought he might be a knuckle head after all. "Yeah, I'm only using wind chakra right now to show you what yours would look like. If I'm doing it, it would look like this." I flip some of the elements. All but fire is being used.

Dammit I need to get a fire heart. How can I be a pyromaniac without a fire element?

"You said that it was chakra strings that you use?" Naruto asks.

"Yep!" Gotta love the strings, they're the best.

"That moves out too then. I can't make a chakra string I have too much chakra. My control will never be good enough."

"Oh come on!" I let my defense fade. "Couldn't you have said that before I went on that long winded explanation?"

"Sorry? I'll pick something else. How about flying?" His eyes shine in glee. "Oh I've always wanted to fly."

"That makes one of us. I've always hated being high in the air without a secure point of contact to keep me safe. Even then I still freak out sometimes."

"Like when we were on Gamabunta?"

"Yes. That." I harshly spit out. "Never do that to me again."

He shrugs. "I'll try not to. Anyways, if you're so scared of heights why do you know how to fly then?"

"It's not really flying. I use chakra strings to pull me around."

"Talk about a let down." Naruto mumbles to himself. "That's out too. No chakra strings for me."

"Pick something else then." Surely there's something I know that he can learn.

"How'd you make those tentacle eye thingies?"

"With chakra strings and a genjutsu. That's out too."

"Dude. What do you not use chakra strings for?" He grumbles. "How about your floating kunai trick?"

"Chakra strings."

"Come on! What is it with you and chakra strings! Don't you know any wind jutsu?"

"Yeah, most of them are low level and the only high level one I know I haven't really mastered yet so I doubt I'd teach it right."

"What's your strongest low level one then? I might as well get something out of this."

"Wind bullet. I know the other four element's versions and after some trial and error I figured out how to do that one too." I wanted to go to Asuma for some help but he was always busy with the aftermath of the invasion. All the jonin were.

"That's just perfect. I know that already." Naruto is getting grouchy. I can't really blame him. "You have the weirdest skill displacement ever. All of you cool stuff is either based on chakra strings, the Jiongu, very high level elemental jutsu, or a genjutsu. I can't learn most of that stuff!"

"Sorry? I think?" Why am I apologizing for that? "I just focused on what I was good at."

"Whatever. Anything you want to learn from me? Someone might as well get something out of this."

"You know, not really." This got awkward quick. "My monsters are better than shadow clones, I'm set on wind jutsu once I master the one I'm working on, and I know I can't use the red chakra. Not to mention how pissed Jiraya would be if you tried to teach me the Rasengan."

"Yeah he'd be livid." Naruto grins for a moment. He's picturing it. "This was a waste of time."

"Yeah it was. Our skills don't really line up at all do they?" Perfect. At best I managed to get him a break for fifteen minutes. Well that's better than nothing. "I'll let you get back to the Rasengan."

"Hey Alvarcus, thanks for trying to distract me for a bit." Dammit he figured that out. "I did need a break. It was a good idea."

"You're welcome." Can't say I didn't try.

"Even if it was Tsunade's idea." He cheekily smirks at me. "How was it being thrown over here?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, I walked over here." That bastard knew the whole damn time. "Exactly like how I'm going to walk out of here. Bye Naruto, see you around."

"Bye Alvarcus!"

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