Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Naruto kept his attention on his training, acting as though Jiraiya’s entrance hadn’t interested him in the slightest. Inwardly, though, he could barely stop laughing.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Jiraiya as his teacher. The man was a shinobi with the strength of a Kage, and there was plenty Naruto could learn from him.

The Rasengan, for one. Naruto already knew how to train for it, but he couldn’t openly start practicing without raising questions. Everyone around him would wonder where he’d learned about it.

With Jiraiya teaching him, that problem would disappear. And the Rasengan was only the beginning. There was senjutsu, the Wild Lion’s Mane Technique, and all the other ninjutsu Jiraiya had mastered.

Besides, if Naruto wanted to kill Gaara, he would need the Summoning Jutsu to call forth the toads’ boss, Gamabunta.

His attitude now had nothing to do with being too embarrassed to admit he wanted a teacher. He simply had a few grievances he wasn’t ready to forget.

Even when he’d watched the anime in his previous life, he’d never understood why people like Jiraiya and Kakashi hadn’t visited Naruto or looked after him.

As far as he was concerned, Jiraiya had probably come looking for him now because of the Great Toad Sage’s supposed prophecy.

Seeing Jiraiya struggle to get his attention eased some of that resentment. When the man called to him again, Naruto finally turned, feigning surprise.

“Huh? Did you say something, Grandpa?”

“Grandpa?!” Jiraiya pointed at him, his irritation rising. “Listen, you little brat! Kakashi asked me to spend this month training you. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have come looking for you!”

“Kakashi-sensei asked you?” Naruto’s expression fell. “I thought he didn’t care about me anymore.”

Jiraiya’s brow twitched at the hurt in his voice.

He had already looked into everything Naruto had done since graduating from the Academy. It wasn’t difficult to understand what the boy was feeling. He was upset, and he had good reason to be.

Jiraiya felt a pang of guilt himself.

Twelve years ago, when his student Minato—the Fourth Hokage—had died, Jiraiya had returned to the village for the funeral. He had seen Naruto once, while the boy was still an infant, then left again in a hurry.

Twelve years had passed since that brief visit.

Only now had he learned what Naruto’s life had been like during those years. He’d argued fiercely with the Third Hokage about it just yesterday.

The regret was real. So was the guilt.

Naruto knew Jiraiya wasn’t as calculating as the Third Hokage. He had devoted his life to a dream, following the prophecy that old toad had given him.

That didn’t excuse his neglect, but Naruto still respected his determination. Anyone who spent a lifetime pursuing a dream deserved some measure of admiration.

Still, he had no intention of begging Jiraiya to care about him.

The original Naruto had lived a miserable life, while the few people who might have been considered his family had done little to help him.

If they hadn’t cared enough to look after him, Naruto saw no reason to feel indebted to them now. Jiraiya had been his father’s teacher, but that alone didn’t give the two of them a bond of their own.

From this point on, if Jiraiya chose to teach him, Naruto would be grateful. He would remember that kindness and repay it as a student should.

He simply wouldn’t invent an obligation where none existed, or convince himself that an old connection meant more than it did.

…

Although Naruto had begun training with Jiraiya, Might Guy still gave him a complete training plan for the coming month.

Naruto also sent fifty shadow clones to train in taijutsu with Guy every day.

The next morning, Jiraiya brought him to a river to assess how far his training had progressed.

Unlike the original Naruto, he possessed the Uzumaki clan’s Sage Body, a god-level bloodline. He also wasn’t burdened by Orochimaru’s Five Elements Seal.

He could suppress the Nine-Tails’ chakra without difficulty, and his own chakra reserves were enormous.

Jiraiya was astonished. He couldn’t help wondering whether this was another sign that Naruto was the Child of Prophecy.

To test his chakra control, Jiraiya told him to walk on the water. He hadn’t expected Naruto to have already mastered it on his own, and the discovery pleased him even more.

He decided to teach Naruto the Summoning Jutsu and have him sign Mount Myōboku’s toad contract, just as the Great Toad Sage had wished.

Surely the Child of Prophecy was meant to have a connection with Mount Myōboku.

A thousand years ago, even the Sage of Six Paths had sought out Gamamaru, the Great Toad Sage, to learn senjutsu.

“Naruto.” Jiraiya’s expression grew serious. “Can you feel another kind of chakra inside your body?”

Naruto tensed slightly. He knew exactly what Jiraiya was asking about: the Nine-Tails’ chakra.

He pretended to search his memory, taking a while before answering.

“I’ve felt it before. It was red, and it felt really sinister. It even took the shape of a fox.”

He was referring to what had happened after the bell test. When he’d asked Kakashi to train him individually and been turned down, his anger and hurt had briefly caused that chakra to surge out.

His Uzumaki Sage Body had suppressed it, and he’d forced himself to stay in control.

“Then try drawing out that red chakra now,” Jiraiya said.

Naruto understood. Jiraiya was teaching him one of the first steps in training a jinchūriki: drawing upon the tailed beast’s chakra.

In the few months since he’d arrived in this world, the system had helped him grow so quickly that he’d barely considered using the Nine-Tails’ power.

There was another reason, too. His own plans were taking him down a much darker path than the original Naruto’s. He couldn’t expect to win over the Nine-Tails through kindness the way Naruto had in the anime.

For now, he didn’t need to.

He had the Mangekyō Sharingan.

If the Nine-Tails refused to listen, he would beat it into submission.

Naruto made a show of concentrating, trying to draw out the red chakra. A long while passed, but nothing happened.

“You’ve got enough chakra of your own to surprise even me,” Jiraiya said. “But that other chakra inside you is an enormous source of power. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

“It could become a powerful weapon that only you can use. What good is having all that strength if you never learn how to draw on it?”

He reached over and pinched Naruto’s cheek before continuing.

“You don’t have to train exactly the same way everyone else does. We all have things we’re good at and things we struggle with. You need to find a way of fighting that suits you.”

“With your reserves, you can afford to use far more chakra in training than most shinobi. Make use of it! You’ll be able to practice more jutsu and try more techniques than other people can.”

Naruto agreed with him.

He’d already used that advantage in battle, creating dozens of shadow clones and having them unleash ninjutsu together to overwhelm his opponents. Sasuke had experienced that firsthand.

“So what jutsu are you going to teach me?” Naruto asked, putting on a curious expression.

Jiraiya grinned.

“The Summoning Jutsu! With my toad summons, you’ll have some powerful allies on your side!”

He bit his right thumb, smeared the blood across his left palm, and formed the hand seals. Then he slapped his left hand against the ground.

“Summoning Jutsu!”

Poof!

A large toad appeared beneath Jiraiya’s feet. It opened its mouth and extended its tongue, which was wrapped around a huge green scroll.

“This is the contract scroll for the toads,” Jiraiya explained. “It’s been passed down for generations.”

Following his instructions, Naruto unrolled the scroll and wrote his name in his own blood. Beneath it, he pressed down all five fingertips, leaving their prints.

To summon a toad, he would need to gather his chakra, form the required hand seals, and press the hand he’d used to sign the contract against the ground where he wanted the summon to appear.

The sequence was Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram.

Naruto formed the seals and brought his palm down.

“Summoning Jutsu!”

Black summoning markings spread across the ground in a circle around his hand.

Poof!

Naruto lifted his palm.

A tiny tadpole lay on the ground, wriggling its tail.

Damn it! How did I manage to make the same stupid mistake as the original Naruto?!

Naruto shouted inwardly.