NOVEL NEXT Chapter 11: Water, and the scrolls.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh intermingled with the sound of metal hitting metal as two shadow clones fought against each other on a tree while the other two fought against each other on the water resounded in the training ground.
Naruko herself was meditating on the water, one leaf resting on each hand. Hours passed like this, with her occasionally replacing the clones after every hour, or whenever they accidentally dispelled themselves. Only occasionally at the start of the day did she dip below the water, and by afternoon she had already gotten used to the sudden surge of memories randomly while meditating and using the leaf concentration exercise on water.
While she was taking a break a voice spoke up, "Shadow Clones truly are bullshit." The voice was neutral in tone, yet feminine in pitch. Looking up she spotted once again the Coyote masked ANBU.
"Not as stupid as you think." Naruko didn't expound on her thoughts, albeit she did have them. 'For Naruto, it worked out because he only used it in a relatively short burst. If he had maintained using hundreds of Shadow Clones like that, his head would have exploded at some point, or he would have gone brain-dead - no amount of K-chan chakra would have helped. Even now every day I go to sleep with a headache. I suspect by the time I graduate I'll have at most moved up to using 12 at a time for long-term training.'
But she didn't say that out loud, there was no need to explain such things. Albeit, she suspected at least the Old Man understood that, after all his Student was Tsunade, and one of his senseis was Hashirama herself. "But I suppose you should be jealous, it's not often someone is as majestic as myself." That sentence was, of course, accented with a hair flip over her shoulder.
"Aah, then I suppose someone as majestic as yourself wouldn't want Hokage-sama's gift?" The woman dangled the two very tightly woven scrolls in her hand.
Instantly Naruko's eyes sharpened, "Of course I would, after all the Old Man is just as majestic as me." Like the greedy goblin that she was, she reached out and swiped them - albeit the ANBU didn't try to keep them.
"Right, right. Well, enjoy, in truth I'm quite jealous!" With that said she seemed to merge into the ground before disappearing. 'Is she a Senju? The chakra reserves would fit. But at the same time, she could be a Shinobi that survived Orochimaru's experimentation.' She didn't quite understand who exactly the woman was, even after having to spend three days with her. 'Whatever, one day more, one step closer to figuring her out.'
Mentally shaking it off Naruko would inspect the scrolls, only for her heart to stop. The first scroll was ornate and beautiful, yet what struck out most was seemingly the most simple part of it, the beautiful yet ordinary red swirl. The second scroll was completely ordinary, seemingly made of ordinary paper, tied by ordinary twine. Yet, there was a single word on it that could quite literally start wars over it, Namikaze. 'Old man... What the fuck kind of gift is this?!?'
What crazy old bastard gifts someone a Uzumaki Scroll, and then a scroll personally penned by one of, if not the most lethal Shinobi to ever exist? 'Old man, warn a girl first! Don't expect this to work as a betrothal gift for your grandson you old codger!'
Yet, no matter what she thought, a smile made its way across her face as tears welled in her eyes. 'Let's see what is inside the Uzumaki Scroll first. It's guaranteed to be more sane than whatever Dad wrote. Also more understandable, god forbid he actually put his own jutsu in this, half the scroll will just be their names.'
Opening up the Uzumaki scroll, it unfurled, only to show a few words on it, each letter of the words made up of even tinier letters. 'Some kind of seal?' Reading each of the words it was quite obvious what they were. 'Fuinjutsu. Water Style. Kenjutsu.' 'No matter what you said about the old man, he definitely has no fear. He consistently teaches his Jinchuriki how to unseal themselves.'
Reaching out her hand to the Fuinjutsu word, a surge of chakra would leap out of her fingertips and connect with the words. Instantly the scroll changed, and words began to appear. Clearly the first page of something kind of tome. 'This is an online textbook that's gonna have inbuilt homework, isn't it?' Her chakra surging once more she 'backed out' and tried out the Kenjutsu section, only to have a relatively more normal experience. The scroll was instead filled with different styles that she could select to learn more about, including just a style called 'The Basics - Learn First'.
Overall, it was what she should have expected from an Uzumaki scroll, and honestly wasn't all that insane all things considered. They sealed words and ink for this, Minato had certainly had far crazier sealing acts in the Anime and Manga. 'Which is what is worrying. My dad isn't really... sane.'
Rolling back up the Uzumaki scroll and tying it shut, with trepidation she slowly unfurled the Namikaze one. 'What the fuck Dad.' It was obviously in the style of the Uzumaki allowing you to select what you wanted to view. But, 'Super Spiral Big Boom training method, Yellow Zoom, Flashbolt Crack, Hummingbird Eats the Air, Burning the Heavens with Hands, and Super Special Secret Punch.' Were blatantly and clearly not okay to be in a scroll! 'The first one is obviously the Rasengan. The last one is... Taijutsu? The fifth one is fire style. The second and fourth are... yeah, I have no idea. Flashbolt Crack is probably lightning style?'
Inputting chakra into 'Yellow Zoom' and praying it wasn't Hirashin, she was pleasantly surprised when it was all about Shunshin and follow-up Jutsu's that fell under 'Teleportation/Movement' each one getting progressively more advanced but also sped up your body even more efficiently with the same amount of chakra. Of course, the problem came when it clearly got to the point where her dear old dad was inventing the Jutsu. 'Just, no. Like everyone else, I'm calling them all Shunshin or Teleportation. Even I'm not this bad dad!'
With a bit less trepidation she selected 'Hummingbird Eats the Air' only to immediately feel pain. 'Noooo, they're all wind-style he made himself. At least he didn't name the first step of wind-style weird.' Indeed, it was only the first step of the wind style in this scroll. 'Either it's incomplete, or he made a series of them. Actually, now that I think about it, the best teleportation jutsu he put in there is classified as B-rank. So this is a scroll meant for Chunin's and below?'
Going through the rest of the sections she found that was the case. Burning the Heavens with Hands was all about Fire Style. Super Special Secret Punch was all about Taijutsu and Physical Training. Particularly about the reasons WHY he fought in certain ways in hand-to-hand combat. It also had a fair bit of Kunai techniques. Flashbolt Crack was indeed Lightning Style. Overall, it wasn't so horrible.
Which is why she was staring at the section she had revealed after putting chakra into 'Super Spiral Big Boom'.
It was fucking horrifying. He named every step of the Rasengan. Not even just that, he also named 3 extra steps. One for enlarging it, then compressing it and then enlarging it again. The worst part, at least in the other parts of the scrolls either her Dad or more than likely her Mom containing some of the insanity. But here? That wasn't the case.
It was six steps of pure torture. His explanations and descriptions of them made sense - if you were insane, which she was. But seriously, how did anyone let him teach a Genin team? 'It must be that his insanity only comes out when writing. Either that or the troll genes come from him and not the Uzumaki.' Honestly, she'd bet on both of them. Who says, 'swirly dirly all the way around. Twirl your chakra and furl the ground.' As a part of your formal instructions?!?
Closing up the scroll and tying it tight, like an ordinary adult-child combination she ignored the water leaking from her eyes, the butterflies in her stomach, and the tightness in her heart, shoved the scrolls into her pack, and began training again.
If the two clones that were fighting on the tree switched to the first training method in a long series of them for Shunshin, it was just a coincidence, really. She promised.