Chapter 74: Borrowed Suns and Shared Shadows
The break ended not with a bell, nor a shout—
—but with the sound of seals awakening.
A low hum rippled through the Ironwood Facility as golden script flared along the pillars. The air itself seemed to tighten, as though the building were drawing a breath before plunging underwater.
Tsunade stood at the center once more.
"Enhancement phase," she announced.
All eyes turned to Naruto.
He stepped forward without ceremony.
No cloak flaring. No grand display.
Just quiet inevitability.
"Line up," he said simply.
One by one, they approached him.
Storm went first. She was the strongest candidate and power of a Kage already.
She met his eyes directly, refusing hesitation.
"Ready?" Naruto asked.
Her jaw lifted slightly. "Yes."
He placed two fingers lightly against her shoulder.
There was no explosion.
No thunder.
Just—
Warmth.
A golden current flowed into her like sunlight poured into a vessel. It was not violent. It was not invasive. It simply filled the spaces within her that had once felt finite.
Her breath caught.
For one dizzying second, she felt as though the sky itself had widened.
Then it stabilized.
Naruto stepped back.
"Everyone is at minimum Kage level now," he said calmly. "And those who were already close… are beyond it. So, Don't waste it."
She swallowed. As she felt her power double.
"I won't."
Kurotsuchi came next.
Her expression dared him to treat her gently.
He didn't.
The chakra entered her like molten iron being reforged.
She staggered—but did not fall.
Akainu accepted the infusion with silent intensity.
Jugo trembled slightly as the golden energy collided with his already unstable reserves.
Sakura closed her eyes and absorbed it methodically.
Lee burst into tears of joy halfway through his enhancement.
"THE POWER OF YOUTH HAS EVOLVED!"
Kiba flexed immediately.
"Okay, I definitely feel that."
Shikamaru sighed. "Troublesome."
One by one, they were elevated.
Not permanently.
Not safely.
Temporarily.
A borrowed summit.
When the final infusion was complete, Naruto exhaled slowly.
"Armor," Kakashi instructed lazily.
The reinforced suits were brought forward again.
Seals ignited.
Weights engaged.
And this time—
The difference was immediate.
The numbers soared.
Ten thousand tonnes.
Twenty.
Thirty and more according to their level of enhancement.
Even more in controlled increments.
But despite the immense power now coiled inside them—
The weight dragged them down.
All of them.
Storm attempted to move—
Her leg shifted as though through syrup.
Kurotsuchi gritted her teeth as her foot struck the floor with a dull, earthbound thud.
Lee's first attempted dash looked less like youth and more like an elderly jog.
Suigetsu blinked in disbelief.
"Why am I slow?"
"Because," Shikamaru muttered, "you're under thirty thousand tonnes."
They were powerful.
But trapped.
All reduced to human-level speed.
Tsunade folded her arms.
"Now," she said.
The trainers stepped forward.
Gai rolled his shoulders dramatically.
Kakashi drew a kunai lazily.
Hiashi's Byakugan flared white.
Mifune's blade whispered free from its sheath.
Logan cracked his neck.
Peter flexed the mechanical spider limbs extending from his back, chakra humming faintly along their edges.
"This," Tsunade declared, "is physical conditioning."
The first strike came from Gai.
He vanished.
Or rather—
He moved faster than their weighted bodies could track.
Lee attempted to block—
And was sent skidding across the reinforced floor, armor shrieking faintly against the seals.
"AGAIN!" Lee shouted from the ground.
Storm raised wind instinctively—
The weight crushed the movement before it formed.
Kakashi appeared beside her in a blur and tapped her shoulder.
She collapsed to one knee.
"Predict before you move," he advised calmly.
Kurotsuchi swung a lava-enhanced fist—
Mifune stepped inside the arc and gently tapped her ribs with the flat of his blade.
She folded.
Logan entered the fray next.
Unlike Gai's speed or Kakashi's precision—
Logan was relentless.
He moved like a predator who had all the time in the world.
He intercepted Kiba with a simple pivot and shoulder throw.
"Center your balance," he muttered.
Peter darted between them with infuriating agility.
Even at reduced output, his spider-sense made him untouchable.
Suigetsu lunged—
Peter stepped aside lightly.
"You're telegraphing that swing," he said almost apologetically.
The trainees fought back.
Hard.
But under the weight—
They were human.
And the trainers were not.
Bones cracked.
Healers moved swiftly.
Sweat soaked the reinforced floor.
Time dissolved into impact.
This was not elegance.
This was grinding.
Tsunade watched with sharp approval.
"This is where growth begins," she murmured.
When the rhythm stabilized and the chaos became structured brutality—
Naruto stepped back.
A clone shimmered into place beside the wall.
He said nothing to the others.
He did not need to.
With a flicker of space—
He vanished.
Naruto stepped into a world of sand and alien sky.
Kaguya's dimension.
The air here tasted wrong—dry and ancient.
He had chosen this place deliberately.
He was too strong to train on Earth without tearing something apart.
He stepped deeper into the desert expanse.
Rogue waited, arms folded loosely.
Susan stood nearby, composed as ever.
Ben cracked his knuckles, sand shifting around his boots.
"You're late," Rogue said lightly.
"I had mountains to assign," Naruto replied.
Rogue's expression softened slightly.
"Storm?" she asked.
Naruto nodded once.
"Ino tried."
"And?"
"There's a seal."
Susan's eyes narrowed faintly.
"Kumo wouldn't send her unprotected," she murmured.
"Ino isn't strong enough yet to break it casually," Naruto confirmed.
Rogue exhaled slowly.
"It's never easy."
Naruto met her gaze.
"Are you ready?"
The air shifted.
This was different.
Rogue nodded.
"I've been testing control."
She flexed her gloved fingers.
"If I'm sparring you properly, I need something from you."
Naruto hesitated.
"You're sure?"
She smiled faintly.
"You've got the Rinnegan. If anything goes wrong, you can stop it and remove your hand."
She stepped closer.
"And your memories are better than the scum I've absorbed before."
Naruto's expression darkened slightly.
-----------------------------
Opposite him, Rogue removed her glove.
There was no audience but the shifting dunes, Susan's quiet vigilance, and Ben's restless anticipation. And yet the moment felt ceremonial — as though something delicate and dangerous were about to be placed between them.
"You're sure?" Naruto asked.
He did not pull his hand away.
Rogue gave him a sideways look that was half challenge, half reassurance.
"We've been at this a week, sugar," she said softly. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be standing this close."
That was true.
A week ago, her touch had lasted one minute.
Sixty unstable, chaotic seconds before Naruto's Rinnegan had forced her power to recoil like a startled animal.
Now—
He could hold it back for fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of contact.
Fifteen minutes of balance.
But it had not been one-sided progress.
Rogue had changed too.
Sakura's medical precision had mapped the erratic surges in her nervous system. Ino had walked her mind like a careful gardener, separating foreign instincts into compartments, labeling them, reinforcing boundaries.
And Naruto—
Naruto had stood as anchor.
When he blocked her absorption, Ino could enter her psyche safely. When Sakura needed stability, he provided it.
Rogue had not been alone this time.
And that made all the difference.
"You ready?" she asked quietly.
Naruto nodded.
Inside his mindscape, Kurama stirred.
I will hold the heavier fragments, the fox rumbled.
Naruto felt the vast presence shift, wrapping chakra around memories like a curtain drawn across a window.
Pain.
Regret.
Blood.
Those would not pass.
He extended his hand.
Rogue took it.
The contact was immediate.
There was no explosion.
But there was light.
Golden chakra surged outward, wrapping around Rogue's arm like liquid fire. The air itself trembled as her body accepted the energy.
She gasped.
It was like Miss Marvel again.
That first, terrifying rush of cosmic power flooding her veins.
But this—
This was deeper.
Broader.
It felt less like a star and more like—
A world.
She felt wind.
Water.
Gravity bending slightly in acknowledgment.
She felt the faint echo of something ancient — something that had once stood before gods and refused to kneel.
Her knees buckled.
Naruto tightened his grip.
"Stay with it," he said firmly.
Susan's eyes glowed faintly as a protective barrier shimmered into place around them.
Ben leaned forward.
"You good?"
Rogue laughed breathlessly.
"Ask me in a minute."
The golden aura intensified.
Unlike before, there were no chaotic flashes of stolen memories.
No invading childhoods.
No fractured identities clawing for space.
Naruto's mind was locked.
Disciplined.
Held.
Kurama's presence was immovable.
She absorbed power—
But not his past.
Within five minutes, the clone Naruto had prepared shimmered beside them.
It carried ten percent of his chakra.
A measured offering.
Rogue released his hand and seized the clone instead.
The absorption was faster this time.
Cleaner.
She felt chakra pathways.
Elemental affinity.
The subtle, mathematical logic behind molding nature energy.
How to shape wind.
How to compress fire.
The clone dissolved into light.
When she opened her eyes—
They were glowing.
Not white.
Not gold.
Something deeper.
Controlled.
She lifted her hand experimentally.
A sphere of condensed chakra formed instinctively.
Not explosive.
Stable.
"Okay," she whispered.
"That's new."
Naruto smiled faintly.
"How do you feel?"
She flexed her fingers.
"Like I could level a country."
Ben whistled low.
"Only a country?"
She shot him a look.
"Don't tempt me."
But she was grinning.
Because for the first time—
She wasn't afraid.
Back in her world, power had always come with terror. Loss of control. Loss of self.
Here—
It felt like growth.
She looked at Naruto more carefully now.
He wasn't straining.
He wasn't threatened.
He was watching her like a teammate, not a ticking bomb.
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "where I'm from… vaporizing planets is kind of a Tuesday."
Naruto scratched his cheek sheepishly.
"Yeah, I heard."
"But here," she continued gently, "that's… a lot."
He shrugged.
"I don't think about it like that."
"I know."
That was the part that mattered.
He didn't revel in it.
Didn't posture.
Didn't loom.
He felt—
Young.
But not immature.
Kind.
But not naive.
Selfless to a fault.
Like Peter.
Except—
Quieter.
He carried sadness the way Cyclops carried responsibility.
Like Storm carried duty.
Natural leadership rested on him without effort.
And beneath it—
There was weight.
She had felt it during their earlier sessions.
Cracks in the landscape of his mind.
Fractures he pretended weren't there.
He loved deeply.
Too deeply.
And that made her want to help.
"All right," she said, stepping back into stance.
"Base power only."
Naruto nodded.
Sand shifted beneath their feet.
He moved first.
Not in a blur of divine speed.
But human.
Measured.
Rogue intercepted his strike smoothly.
Their fists collided—
The shockwave carved a trench across the desert floor.
Ben's eyes widened.
"Okay," he muttered, "that's new."
This was different from testing durability against Ben's juubi-enhanced forms.
Different from striking Susan's unbreakable barriers.
Those had been stress tests.
This—
Was combat.
Fluid.
Responsive.
Alive.
Naruto felt it immediately.
Rogue launched a chakra-infused kick.
Naruto caught it, but she twisted midair, palm slamming into his shoulder and sending him skidding across sand.
He laughed.
-------------------------------
Naruto stood upon the pale sands, wind curling lazily around him as though greeting an old friend. In the past week, wind had ceased to be an element he commanded.
It had become breath.
It moved when he exhaled.
It sharpened when he focused.
Light, too, had surrendered its secrets.
He no longer merely hurled beams of brightness like weapons thrown in anger.
He shaped them.
Compressed them.
Drew them from the sky itself.
And weight—
Weight was no longer something he bore.
It was something he assigned.
A touch.
A thought.
Gravity answered.
His Gentle Fist had grown sharper as well. Precise. Devastating. Not merely striking muscle and bone, but pressure points, chakra flows, structural weaknesses in stance and motion.
He no longer required clones to dominate close combat.
He had become—
Efficient.
Across from him stood Rogue and Ben.
Susan hovered behind them, calm as ever, a faint shimmer already coiled beneath her skin.
"This is three versus one," Ben said, cracking his knuckles. "Just so we're clear."
Naruto smiled lightly. "I noticed."
Rogue rolled her shoulders, golden aura faint around her. "No jutsu to start."
"Close combat," Naruto agreed.
Susan's voice was serene. "I will intervene if necessary."
"Meaning when you panic," Ben muttered.
She gave him a look.
Naruto shifted his stance.
The wind died.
Then—
He moved.
Not lightning.
Not flash.
Just—
Gone.
Rogue reacted instantly.
Her reflexes, sharpened by borrowed power and psychic foresight, intercepted his first strike. Their fists collided, shockwaves cracking the sand beneath them.
Ben came in from Naruto's blind side at speeds beyond lightning, his body reinforced by juubi-enhanced chakra.
Naruto pivoted.
A palm strike.
A redirection.
Ben's momentum turned against him, and he skidded a hundred meters before recovering mid-flip.
Rogue swept low.
Naruto shifted weight beneath her foot.
The sand became heavy.
She faltered—
Naruto's Gentle Fist tapped her ribs twice, precisely.
Chakra pathways shuddered.
She leapt back, eyes narrowing.
Ben roared lightly and charged again.
Naruto met him head-on this time.
They exchanged a flurry of blows—
Each strike cracking the air like artillery.
Ben was powerful.
Durable.
But Naruto's technique was cleaner.
He slipped inside Ben's guard and struck three times in the space of a breath.
Ben staggered.
Naruto exhaled softly.
Dominating.
Controlled.
Rogue felt it.
They both did.
Naruto wasn't straining.
He wasn't even fully committing.
She wiped a thin line of blood from her lip and smiled.
"All right," she said. "No more polite."
Her aura flared.
Light bent around her frame.
She vanished—
Not at lightning speed.
At light speed.
Naruto's eyes sharpened.
They collided midair in a burst of gold and white.
Fists blurred.
Kicks shattered dunes.
Their exchanges became streaks across the sky, ricocheting between invisible points in space.
Ben joined, pushing himself harder.
Lightning cracked behind him as he broke past previous limits, juubi chakra surging.
Naruto shifted seamlessly between them.
Wind spiraled around his strikes.
He twisted gravity mid-step, light bending around his body to create afterimages.
Rogue unleashed a beam of condensed light from her palm—
Naruto split it with a slicing arc of compressed wind.
The two forces carved a canyon into the horizon.
Susan raised her hand.
A barrier flashed.
The shockwave stopped dead.
The desert trembled but did not shatter.
Ben slammed into Naruto from above.
Naruto caught him mid-fall and altered his weight.
Ben became heavier—
Far heavier—
The impact cratered the sand like a meteor strike.
Rogue descended like a comet, fist blazing with psychic reinforcement and Bobby's ice spiraling around it.
Naruto blocked—
Frost exploded across his forearm.
He twisted, redirecting the force into the sky.
A pillar of frozen wind pierced the clouds.
"Again!" Rogue shouted.
They moved.
Light-speed collisions became rhythm.
Naruto had the upper hand.
Always.
His mastery of wind allowed him to slip through gaps in their offense.
His control of weight let him disrupt balance with a touch.
His Gentle Fist closed distances before they finished thinking.
But—
Susan was there.
Every time Naruto landed something decisive—
A barrier shimmered.
Absorbed.
Redirected.
Neutralized.
He struck with a concentrated light beam from above—
Susan's barrier caught it, fracturing into geometric shards of energy before reforming.
He shifted gravity beneath Rogue's feet—
Susan reinforced her body with layered fields, stabilizing her.
Naruto's eyes gleamed.
This was what he needed.
Not destruction.
Not testing endurance.
Adaptation.
He began to move differently.
Less direct.
More deceptive.
Wind no longer sliced—
It whispered.
He created microbursts beneath Ben's steps.
Light flickered not as attack, but as distraction.
Rogue adjusted.
Her psychic sense expanded, predicting Naruto's feints.
She froze the air around him—
Naruto amplified its weight, turning her own ice into crushing density.
Ben tore through both with brute force.
The spar escalated.
The sky darkened from energy displacement alone.
At one point, Rogue and Naruto collided midair with such force that the atmosphere ignited.
Susan expanded her barrier across half the horizon.
Without her—
The planet would not have survived.
Even this dimension strained.
Naruto inhaled deeply.
Wind gathered.
Light bent.
Gravity shifted.
For a moment—
Everything aligned.
He struck.
Not full force.
Never full force.
But enough.
Rogue and Ben were driven backward in tandem, carving twin trenches across the desert floor.
They rose again.
Breathing hard.
Smiling.
Naruto landed softly before them.
He was breathing heavier now too.
Sweat traced his temple.
Balanced.
Upper hand—
But not absolute.
And that was the point.
Rogue brushed sand from her jacket.
"You're getting better," she said.
Naruto grinned faintly. "You too."
-----------------------
For one hour, they fought like mortals.
Then Naruto decided to stop pretending.
The desert had already been carved into jagged canyons. The sky shimmered with lingering fractures where light had been bent too sharply. Susan's barrier dome hovered at the edge of the battlefield like a silent moon—watching, calculating.
Naruto rolled his shoulders once.
"Ready for escalation?" he asked lightly.
Rogue narrowed her eyes. "You're about to do something annoying, aren't you?"
Ben snorted. "He's about to multiply."
Naruto grinned.
Five seals flared around him.
With soft thunderclaps of displaced air—
Five identical Narutos appeared.
No wasted motion.
No dramatic speeches.
They simply stepped outward in a loose circle.
The desert, which had barely survived one of him, now faced six.
Rogue exhaled slowly. "Oh, come on."
Ben groaned. "I hate when he does this."
Susan's gaze sharpened.
"Formation," she said calmly.
The clones moved first.
Two engaged Ben immediately—one low, one high—wind slicing invisibly at his balance. A third launched skyward, forming a sphere of condensed chakra that pulsed with terrifying familiarity.
Rogue shot upward in response, light bursting from her palms. She collided midair with one clone, their impact splitting clouds.
Below, Ben roared and slammed both fists into the ground.
Earth surged upward in jagged pillars, stone twisting around his arms as he reinforced his close-combat style with sheer geological fury.
"You like gravity?" he shouted. "Try some tectonics!"
Naruto—original—tilted his head slightly.
With a flick of his wrist—
Ben's newly risen stone pillars grew heavier.
Then heavier still.
The earth groaned under its own weight.
Ben staggered.
"Not fair!" he barked.
"Training rarely is," Naruto replied calmly.
Above them, the third clone completed the sphere.
A Bijuu Bomb.
Compact.
Dense.
Controlled.
It shrieked forward.
Susan raised her hand.
Her barrier expanded in a shimmering arc, swallowing the bomb whole.
For one blinding second—
It looked like a second sun had been born inside a crystal shell.
Then—
Nothing.
The barrier remained unmarked.
Susan exhaled slowly.
"Continue," she said.
Naruto's eyes flickered with quiet interest.
Still no scratch.
Good to know.
Rogue reappeared behind one clone at light speed, fist blazing with elemental fury—wind, ice, psychic force layered together.
She shattered it.
The clone dissolved into golden particles.
But before she could press advantage—
Another Naruto intercepted her, Gentle Fist striking at precise chakra points.
She blocked two.
The third grazed.
Her aura flickered.
"Still cheating," she muttered.
On the ground, Ben attempted his own gravity manipulation—imitating what he had endured for days.
The sand beneath two clones grew heavy.
They sank slightly—
Then adjusted effortlessly.
"Better," Naruto said approvingly. "But your distribution's uneven."
Ben scowled. "I am not taking tips mid-fight!"
Two clones launched twin Rasenshuriken skyward—
Not at Susan.
At the atmosphere.
They detonated into massive spirals of wind that forced Rogue downward.
Susan reacted instantly, barrier shaping itself into angled shields that redirected the destructive currents away from the dimension's fragile horizon.
The sky flashed white.
Without Susan—
The desert would not exist anymore.
Naruto did not use more than five clones.
He didn't need to.
Six coordinated minds sharing perception—
There were no blind spots.
No surprise angles.
No flanking.
Rogue darted in at light speed—
Only to find two Narutos already anticipating her vector.
Ben charged—
Three clones redirected him mid-rush.
Susan began to move forward now.
Not defensively.
Offensively.
Her barrier extended from her body like a crystalline blade, slicing through space itself.
One clone attempted to evade—
The barrier cut cleanly through his torso.
Instead of blood—
Light.
The body dissolved into energy and reformed ten meters away.
Rogue blinked.
"That's new."
Naruto shrugged faintly from across the battlefield.
"Fusion perks."
He moved again—
This time with full escalation.
Two clones gathered twin Bijuu Lasers, beams of concentrated chakra screaming into existence.
They fired simultaneously.
Susan's barrier thickened.
The beams struck—
The desert went white.
Shockwaves rolled outward in apocalyptic rings.
The barrier held.
Not a fracture.
Not a tremor.
Naruto lowered his hands slowly.
Still not enough.
Susan's voice was calm but edged now.
"You will not break it that way."
"I know," Naruto replied.
This had never been about breaking it.
It was about learning its limits.
Susan shifted strategy.
If she could not be overwhelmed—
She would trap.
Her barrier flared outward suddenly in a dome, expanding faster than sound.
Teleportation collapsed.
Space itself resisted.
Naruto felt it instantly.
Even Truth-Seeking Orbs would not function properly inside that field.
If caught—
Game over.
But catching him required precision.
And with clones—
Precision was nearly impossible.
One Naruto engaged Rogue.
Another clashed with Ben.
A third launched aerial bombardment.
The original shifted between them fluidly.
Every time Susan committed to trapping one—
Another intercepted.
Rogue grit her teeth.
"We need to isolate him!"
Ben roared, smashing a clone into a canyon wall.
"Which one?!"
That was the problem.
They all moved the same.
Thought the same.
Reacted the same.
Susan intensified her barrier blades, carving through clones deliberately to reduce numbers.
Each dissolution cost Naruto chakra—
But not dangerously so.
Hours passed.
Energy flared and dimmed.
Mountains of sand were lifted and crushed repeatedly.
Rogue's light dimmed slightly.
Ben's breathing grew heavier.
Susan—
Still unbreakable—
But her movements were less crisp now.
Naruto saw it.
The third hour approached.
He didn't rush.
Didn't press recklessly.
He maintained rhythm.
Pressure.
Rotation.
Clone dissolution. Recreation. Controlled expenditure.
Susan's barrier flickered—just once.
Ben noticed.
"Now!"
They converged together.
Rogue blasted from above, Ben from below, Susan collapsing her barrier inward to trap the originals.
Naruto smiled faintly.
All five clones shifted weight simultaneously—
The ground beneath them grew impossibly heavy.
Ben faltered.
Rogue's angle shifted by inches—
Enough.
Naruto slipped free of the converging trap.
Susan's barrier closed on empty space.
She exhaled sharply.
And for the first time—
Her aura wavered.
Not broken.
But taxed.
Naruto landed lightly a short distance away.
Breathing steady.
Sweat at his brow.
Six became one as the remaining clones dissolved.
Silence returned slowly to the desert.
Susan lowered her barrier fully.
Ben collapsed onto his back, staring at the warped sky.
Rogue stood with hands on hips, laughing breathlessly.
"You are the most frustrating training partner I've ever had."
Naruto scratched his cheek sheepishly.
"You said escalate."
Susan looked at him thoughtfully.
"You cannot break my shield," she said plainly.
"Not yet," Naruto replied without ego.
She nodded once.
"And I cannot trap you consistently."
He tilted his head. "Not yet."
They stood there, breathing in the aftermath of devastation that would have ended any ordinary world.
But this was not about destruction.
It was about limits.
About stamina.
About adaptation.
Susan flexed her fingers slightly.
"I will extend my endurance," she said calmly. "Battles like this will not end in an hour."
Naruto smiled faintly.
"And I'll find a way around the shield."
Ben groaned from the sand. "Can we find a way to eat first?"
Rogue laughed.
---------------------------
By the time Naruto and his rather singed-looking companions returned from Kaguya's thoroughly abused desert dimension, the sun had dipped low over Konoha and the great Mokuton Training Facility glowed warmly under lantern light.
The candidates of the Ideal Shinobi Program had survived.
Barely.
Four hours of pure physical conditioning had reduced even the proudest among them to something between heroic and horizontal.
Tsunade, merciful for once, had dismissed them early.
"Twelve hours begins tomorrow," she had said crisply. "Today was orientation."
Orientation.
Lee had nearly wept with joy.
Shikamaru had nearly wept with despair.
Steam curled through the stone bathhouses carved into the rear wing of the facility. Medicinal herbs floated in the water—green, gold, and faintly luminescent thanks to Naruto's recent planetary restoration project.
"The world's fully healed," Naruto had reported earlier that afternoon, somewhat sheepishly. It had taken him a week to do it, but he had finally finished the task.
Now that same energy infused the water.
It soaked into bruised muscles.
Mended strained tendons.
Soothed battered pride.
Shikamaru floated like a leaf in the pool, eyes half-lidded.
"I hate this program," he muttered.
Choji, submerged up to his chin, sighed contentedly. "You say that now."
"I mean it," Shikamaru replied. "Four hours. Four."
"Tomorrow is twelve," Kiba reminded him brightly.
Shikamaru glared.
In the women's baths, Ino was dramatically slumped against the edge of the pool.
"This is a betrayal," she declared. "I signed up for elite shinobi growth. Not manual labor."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "It was always going to be physical."
"Yes, but not that physical," Ino groaned.
Hinata, sitting quietly nearby, smiled faintly. "You did well."
"I nearly collapsed under thirty thousand tonnes!"
"Which is impressive," Sakura corrected calmly. "You were barely at 5 thousand last year."
Ino blinked.
"…Oh."
She straightened slightly.
"Well. That's different."
Tenten flexed her fingers experimentally. "Give me a month," she said excitedly. "With this strength? My weapon output will triple."
Kurotsuchi, sitting across from her, watched silently.
Storm stood quietly beneath the cascading water, letting it run over her shoulders like rain.
Her muscles ached.
She welcomed it.
After baths came something far more intimidating.
The feast.
The Akimichi clan had prepared a banquet that stretched the length of the main hall. Tables groaned beneath towers of rice, roasted meats glazed in shimmering sauces, steaming broths, vegetables so vibrant they looked enchanted, and desserts that radiated faint chakra signatures.
Choji stood at the head of the table like a priest about to perform sacred rites.
"Before we begin," he said solemnly, "you must learn to eat properly."
Shikamaru's eye twitched. "There's a wrong way?"
"Yes," Choji replied gravely.
Choji stepped forward and demonstrated the Akimichi absorption technique—precise chakra flow that optimized nutrient intake, minimized waste, and converted calories into raw cellular reinforcement.
"Food," he said, voice deep and dignified, "is not indulgence. It is fuel."
Ben, seated near Naruto, blinked slowly. "This might be the most practical training I've seen all week."
Rogue leaned toward Susan. "I suddenly respect these people on a spiritual level."
Susan nodded thoughtfully. "Their metabolic engineering is impressive."
Naruto clapped his hands once. "All right! Eat."
It began politely.
It did not remain polite.
Lee ate with tears streaming down his face.
"THE POWER OF YOUTH TASTES DELICIOUS!"
Kiba inhaled three bowls in under a minute.
"I can feel it! I can feel the gains!"
Shino consumed his portion with quiet efficiency, insects occasionally peeking from his collar as if judging everyone else.
Ino tried to maintain elegance.
Failed.
"Pass the—no, not that—yes that one—oh forget it!"
Sakura ate steadily, controlled, deliberate.
Hinata ate slowly but continuously, her quiet determination evident.
Kurotsuchi stared at her plate like it might attack.
Akainu ate in disciplined silence.
Storm adapted quickly to the absorption technique, eyes calculating even as she chewed.
Suigetsu complained loudly about seasoning.
Karin told him to shut up.
Jugo simply ate.
Naruto, Susan, Ben, and Rogue joined them easily.
Naruto had been enhancing livestock and crops daily—quietly, consistently—so that this very moment would not break them.
Without that intervention, twelve-hour physical conditioning under Kage-level enhancement would shatter human biology.
With it—
Growth was possible.
Ben finished a mountain of food and leaned back.
"Okay. That's real power."
Peter beamed from across the table. "Right? This is like Avengers-level catering."
Logan, chewing contentedly, grunted. "Not bad."
"You beat up half the elites today," Rogue reminded him.
Logan shrugged. "They're strong. Makes it fun."
Shikamaru groaned again. "I hate that you enjoyed it."
"I did," Logan replied without apology.
Peter leaned toward Lee.
"You took that kick well."
Lee beamed. "Your mechanical limbs are most fascinating! We should spar!"
Peter's eyes widened slightly. "Let's schedule that."
At the far end of the hall, Tsunade observed quietly.
The teachers had also been enhanced—but their weighted armor allowed movement up to Mach One.
They had not been reduced to human pace.
It would not do for instructors to be as helpless as their students.
Kakashi flipped lazily through a small orange book.
"This is going surprisingly well."
"It's day one," Tsunade replied.
Gai was mid-speech about flames of passion to Shira.
Mifune ate neatly and said little.
When the final trays were cleared and even Choji admitted defeat—
The hall grew quieter.
The trainees were exhausted.
But not broken.
Tsunade stood.
"Dorm assignments are posted," she said. "You may rest, study, or train further."
A collective groan rippled through the hall at the word "train."
Shikamaru raised a hand weakly. "Is sleeping an acceptable specialization?"
"No," Tsunade replied.
Peter clapped Naruto on the back. "You built this place like Hogwarts but with more explosions."
Naruto laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Storm paused near him before leaving.
"You enhanced the farms as well," she said quietly.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah. Couldn't let everyone starve."
She studied him briefly.
"Practical," she said.
Then she walked away.
Kurotsuchi glanced back at him too.
Just for a moment.