By day three of "special training," Naruto had decided Ebisu was a bigger enemy than Neji, Gaara, and that stupid spinning board combined.
"Focus, Naruto-kun," Ebisu said, pushing his glasses up with the same two fingers every time, like they were a jutsu sign. "Water-walking requires subtle control. You can't simply brute-force your chakra into submission—"
Naruto hit the surface of the practice pond, sank halfway in, then slipped, yelped, and went under in a splash.
Cold water shoved up his nose. He came up sputtering, hair plastered to his forehead. His orange jacket clung heavy and soggy.
"I am focusing!" Naruto shouted, wading toward the bank. "I've been focusing since sunrise! My focus is cold and pruney!"
Ebisu made a little exasperated noise. "Your chakra output is fluctuating wildly. You're treating the surface like a wall rather than a membrane—"
"Then maybe explain it like a normal human being!" Naruto snapped. "Not like a… a walking textbook with a stick up his butt!"
A muscle in Ebisu's temple twitched.
"This is why the Hokage asked me to refine your basics," he said primly. "Left to Kakashi, you'd continue relying on brute reserves and reckless improvisation."
"What's wrong with improvisation?" Naruto muttered, but more to himself.
Ebisu sighed. "We'll take a short break," he said. "You can wring out your clothes."
Naruto dragged himself onto the grass. The afternoon sun made the water on his skin feel cold instead of warm. His whole body was tired in that annoying, half-ache way that said he'd worked but hadn't done anything.
Neji's smug face flashed in his head.
"You're destined to lose."
Naruto dug his fingers into the fabric of his pants, nails biting through the damp cloth.
No. He wasn't going to lose to some stuck-up eye jerk who poked Hinata into the floor and talked about destiny like it was a law of nature.
But instead of cool new moves or secret forbidden techniques, he was stuck with this guy.
"Alright," Ebisu said briskly, clapping his hands once. "We'll continue at a different venue. Follow me, Naruto-kun."
Naruto groaned. "If 'different venue' is just another pond—"
"It's a more… private location," Ebisu said. "Conducive to disciplined training."
That sounded suspicious.
Still, Naruto hauled himself up and trailed after him. His sandals squelched softly. His jacket left a damp smear on the path whenever it brushed his sides.
They wound through side streets, up toward the higher district where the nicer bathhouses clustered. Steam drifted in lazy curls from behind wooden walls. The air smelled of soap and mineral water instead of fish.
"…sensei?" Naruto said slowly. "Why are we going near the hot springs?"
"Because this facility has an excellent rooftop," Ebisu replied, as if that explained everything. "Once we secure permission from the owner, we'll use it to continue your—"
He broke off abruptly, frowning.
They'd reached a low wall. Painted characters on a signboard declared in big friendly brushstrokes: Leaf Leaf Relaxation Springs – Men's Side → / Women's Side ←
Naruto started to relax a little despite himself. A hot soak actually sounded—
Then he noticed Ebisu looking not at the building, but past it.
Specifically, toward the wooden slats that separated the men's and women's sides, just high enough that a very determined, very tall person might—
Naruto narrowed his eyes.
"Hey," he said. "What are you looking at, closet-perv?"
Ebisu went scarlet. "I beg your pardon?!" he sputtered, dragging his gaze away from the fence like it had burned him. "I was simply surveying the—"
There was a soft, breathy giggle from the other side of the wall. Water splashed. Someone murmured about the steam being perfect today.
Ebisu's glasses fogged a little.
Naruto's suspicion ratcheted up to eleven.
"Wow," Naruto said loudly. "It sure would be embarrassing if someone got caught being a super perv right here, huh?"
"We are training, Naruto-kun," Ebisu hissed. "I will not be associated with—"
A different sound floated over the fence then. Not a woman's voice. A man's.
Low, delighted chuckling.
Naruto blinked. That wasn't Ebisu. It had layers. Like the laugh was echoing off some huge empty place inside his chest.
"What the…?" He edged a little closer to the wall, craned his neck, and peeked.
There, perched on a little wooden platform like a very disreputable crane, was an old guy.
White hair down his back, spiky and wild. Red lines down his face. Forehead protector with the kanji for "oil." A notebook in one hand, pencil scratching furiously. He leaned over a gap in the slats, peeping at the women's side with the focus of a starving man at a buffet.
Steam curls framed him like he belonged in some painting titled "Deeply Unholy Researcher at Work."
Naruto's jaw dropped.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU OLD PERVERT?!" he bellowed.
The man jolted. All three of them moved at once.
Ebisu lunged forward, horrified. "Naruto-kun! Lower your—"
The old guy twisted around on his platform, eyes going wide. "Who the—"
Naruto didn't think. He just did the one jutsu he knew would get everyone's attention.
"Sexy Jutsu!"
Smoke exploded around him. Hot, familiar, stupid. When it cleared, a gorgeous naked blonde bombshell-version of himself stood there in a puff of hearts, batting her eyelashes.
Ebisu went rigid. His nose geysered blood. He tumbled backward in a dead faint.
The old man on the platform also froze.
For a second, Naruto worried he'd killed them both.
Then the old guy's face contorted. He clutched at his chest like he was having a religious experience.
"Oohhhh," the man groaned, tumbling off the platform. He hit the ground behind the wall with a thud that rattled the boards. "What… what a technique…"
Women screamed on the other side of the fence. Water sloshed. Someone yelled for staff.
Naruto dropped the transformation, panting a little. Smoke faded. He looked down at Ebisu's sprawled form.
"Heh," he said, half-proud despite himself. "Never gets old."
Then he remembered the old guy.
Naruto rushed around the side path, cutting between the men's and women's entrances. A staff member was already sticking their head out, shouting something about refunds and refunds not covering peeping tom incidents.
Behind the building, the white-haired man lay on his back, staring up at the sky. He was grinning.
Grinning, after absolutely getting nuked by Perfection.
"Hey!" Naruto stomped up to him. "What's wrong with you?! You're, like, forty! Fifty! You shouldn't be creeping on ladies taking a bath!"
The guy propped himself up on his elbows, expression going offended. "I'll have you know," he said, voice gravelly and self-satisfied, "that I am not creeping. I am conducting research."
Naruto stared. "Research?"
"For my next masterpiece," the man said. He reached into his robe with grand drama and pulled out… a tiny, glossy book.
On the cover, an artfully drawn woman in a towel winked suggestively.
Naruto's brain blue-screened.
The old man slapped the book against his chest. "Icha Icha Paradise," he declared. "Written by the great Jiraiya. Maybe you've heard of it?"
Naruto's hands balled into fists. "Yeah, I've heard of it!" he yelled. "Kakashi-sensei reads that trash all the time!"
Jiraiya puffed up like a frog. "Trash?" he echoed, scandalized. "I'll have you know it's a critically acclaimed adult romance series with deep emotional—"
He trailed off, squinting.
"Wait a second," he said. "Did you say Kakashi?"
Naruto opened his mouth to launch into a rant about lonely weird jōnin and their terrible taste in books—
"Naruto?"
The voice sliced in from the alley like a kunai. Sharp, annoyed, equal parts familiar and "you are in so much trouble."
Naruto winced before he even turned.
Sylvie stood at the end of the lane, arms laden with a woven basket full of groceries. A bag of rice, some vegetables, rolls of bandage and sealed medicinals peeked out from under a cloth cover. She wore her usual too-big top and shorts, pink hair a frizzed halo from humidity.
Her glasses slid a fraction down her nose when she took in the scene: Naruto standing behind the women's bathhouse, Ebisu unconscious, a stranger in a bathhouse robe on the ground, and the very obvious gap in the fence slats.
Slowly, very slowly, she looked back at Naruto.
"You," she said, voice flattening. "Explain."
"It's not what it looks like!" Naruto yelped instantly. "I was just— he was— Ebisu fainted because of—"
Jiraiya turned his head toward her, still lounged on the ground like he owned the place. He gave her a lazy once-over, smile turning amused.
"Well now," he said. "Who's this? Your little girlfriend?"
Naruto turned red so fast it felt like a jutsu. "SHE IS NOT—"
Sylvie's eyes snapped to Jiraiya, then rolled up to the gap in the fence again.
Her expression went from confused to murderous.
"I am not his girlfriend," she said, stalking forward. The groceries thumped against her hip. "And I am certainly not going to be associated with whatever— whatever grossness this is."
Naruto flailed. "I'm not peeping! He is! He was up on the wall like a— like a perv crane!"
Jiraiya put a hand to his chest, deeply wounded. "Perv crane? Hurtful."
Sylvie ignored him. Her gaze sharpened, unfocusing just slightly.
Naruto had seen that look enough times to know what it meant: her weird chakra sense kicking in. It always made him a bit self-conscious, like she was seeing him without his skin.
Her brows knit.
"Ugh," she said. "There is just— it's like someone took a bottle of cheap cologne and dumped it into the air."
She pointed straight at Naruto.
"Your chakra is leaking all over the place," she snapped. "Bright orange perv chakra, just splashing everywhere, like a traffic cone dipped in sleaze. Do you have any idea how annoying that is to feel from a block away?!"
Naruto choked. "WHAT?! How is my chakra pervy?! I was yelling at him! He's the one who was spying!"
Jiraiya studied him, then her, eyes crinkling a little.
"Kid with the glasses has a point," he said mildly. "Your aura's flaring like crazy. All hot and messy."
"I'm ANGRY!" Naruto shouted. "Because you're gross and now she thinks I'm gross and I wasn't even—"
Sylvie jabbed a finger at him, cheeks flushed under her freckles. "You're both gross," she said. "Different flavors, same color."
Her gaze flicked to Jiraiya again. "His is worse, though," she added grudgingly. "Ugh. Deep blue, like oil. With these weird… pink streaks. It's like if perversion was a paint color."
Jiraiya stared at her.
For a second, something in his eyes shifted. The lazy grin slipped, just slightly.
"The way you talk about chakra…" he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "Sounds a little like the Sage…"
Naruto barely heard it over his own outrage.
"Sylvie, c'mon!" he protested. "I didn't even want to be here! Ebisu-sensei dragged me to train and then he started being a weirdo and then this old fossil was already being a perv and I just did my Sexy Jutsu to knock him out, that's all!"
Sylvie pinched the bridge of her nose, basket creaking on her arm.
"You did your illegal peek-no-jutsu next to the women's baths," she said. "In public. While leaking chakra like a broken pipe. There are children in this village, Naruto."
"I am a child!"
"Exactly!"
She huffed, shifting the basket. One of the bandage rolls threatened to spill out; she caught it with a quick, practiced motion.
"Whatever," she said. "If the Hokage asks, I was at the market and saw nothing. Because if I admit I saw anything, I'm going to have to explain this, and I refuse."
She shot Jiraiya a final, scorching glare. "Put your research away, old man. If I catch you near the hospital wards looking like this, I'm setting off a flash tag under your feet."
Naruto opened his mouth to argue some more, but she was already turning away, muttering under her breath about "orange disasters" and "paint-thinner aura" and "men."
He watched her go, stomach twisting.
He hated that she'd looked disappointed. Hated it more than Neji's smirk. More than anything.
"She's got a sharp tongue, that one," Jiraiya said thoughtfully, watching her pink hair vanish around the corner. "Interesting way of talking about chakra, too…"
Naruto rounded on him.
"This is all your fault!" he yelled. "If you weren't being a creep, she wouldn't have thought—"
"Calm down, kid." Jiraiya got to his feet in one smooth motion that made something in Naruto's shinobi instincts sit up and pay attention. The old guy had balance. He dusted off his robe. "You really want everyone thinking you're the perv here? Or do you want to shift that blame where it belongs?"
Naruto scowled. "It already belongs to you."
"True," Jiraiya said cheerfully. "But I'm a legendary Sannin. I can handle it."
Naruto blinked. "Legendary… what?"
"Sannin," Jiraiya repeated, planting his fists on his hips. "One of the three great shinobi of Konoha. Student of the Third Hokage himself. Also known as the Toad Sage. The Gallant Jiraiya."
Naruto stared. The words landed slowly, like stones thrown into a pond.
"You're… serious," he said.
Jiraiya grinned. "Usually not. But about this? Absolutely."
Naruto's heart did a weird flip.
A Sannin. Right here. Just… hanging out behind a bathhouse, being a degenerate.
He thought about the bracket board. About Neji's calm insult of a smile. About Sasuke getting Kakashi, Sylvie getting the Third and that old sealing medic, Lee getting Gai and a death-sentence surgery plan.
And him, stuck with Ebisu.
"So if you're such a big deal," Naruto said slowly, "why are you wasting your time peeping instead of doing something cool? Like training— I don't know— SOMEONE WHO HAS TO FIGHT A SUPER JERK HYŪGA IN A MONTH?"
Jiraiya scratched his cheek. "Training is hard work," he said. "Peeping is… a hobby."
Naruto lunged forward, grabbing the front of his robe. "Train me," he said. "Old man— Jiraiya— whatever. Train me instead of Ebisu."
Jiraiya raised a brow. "You don't even know me," he pointed out. "I could be a terrible teacher."
"You can't be worse," Naruto shot back immediately. "At least you'd probably teach me something that isn't 'how to stand on water slowly while wanting to die.'"
He hesitated, then shoved the words out before he could choke on them.
"I need to get stronger," he said. "Fast. I have to beat Neji. And Gaara. And… everyone. I promised."
Jiraiya's gaze sharpened.
"Because of that girl, huh?" he said mildly. "Hinata, was it? The one your Hyūga friend nearly killed."
Naruto's grip tightened. "Because of me," he said. "Because I couldn't do anything. I'm tired of not being able to do anything."
For a moment, the old man didn't say anything.
Then he pried Naruto's fingers off his robe with gentle, unshakeable strength.
"Relax, kid," Jiraiya said. "If you pull like that, you're just going to rip the seams. You know how much this robe cost?"
Naruto glared up at him, breathing hard.
Jiraiya sighed theatrically.
"Alright, alright," he said. "You want training? Fine. I'll take over."
Naruto blinked. "Wait. Seriously?"
Jiraiya stuck his pinky in one ear, wiggled it, looked deeply bored. "But I'm not doing this out of charity. I want something in return."
Naruto's stomach dropped. "I don't… have money," he admitted. "Unless you count ramen coupons."
Jiraiya snorted. "Keep your pocket lint. I want… cooperation."
He tapped Naruto's chest, right over where the seal slept.
"In exchange for teaching you some real techniques—starting with summoning—I want you to work with me on drawing out… that other chakra of yours. Safely."
Naruto's heart stuttered.
"You… know about that," he said.
"Kyuubi sitting in your gut isn't exactly subtle," Jiraiya replied. "Half the village can feel it when you lose your temper. I'm saying: we make a deal. I help you use it without it using you. You get stronger. I get a front-row seat to a very interesting seal."
Naruto thought about the last time that other chakra had leaked. The way it had felt like being shoved back from the inside, something else putting its hands on the controls. The way Sylvie had stared at him afterward, eyes wide and a little scared, like she was looking at a bonfire in a wooden house.
He swallowed.
"So you're not just trying to… get it out," he said carefully.
"Trust me, kid," Jiraiya said. "You don't want anyone trying a full extraction on that thing. You'd pop like an overripe tomato."
Naruto winced.
"We manage it," Jiraiya continued, tone for once serious. "We make you strong enough to stand in that arena and not die. You get to keep your promise to little miss Hyūga, to your pink-haired friend, to yourself."
He let the words sit.
Naruto's fists clenched again, but this time it wasn't anger. It was that hot knot under his ribs that was probably determination or desperation or both.
"Okay," he said. "Deal. But you have to swear you'll actually train me. Not just peep and tell me to do pushups or whatever."
"Fine, fine." Jiraiya waved a hand. "We'll start tomorrow morning. Training ground three. Bring all the chakra you've got."
He started to walk away, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
"Oh, and kid?" he said. "Maybe… tone down the Sexy Jutsu around the hospital girl. She looks like she might actually have a concussion this time."
Naruto flushed. "She said that word first! I just copied it!"
"Mm-hm," Jiraiya hummed, obviously unconvinced. "Gross orange perv chakra, huh? Never heard it described that way before."
He chuckled to himself, heading toward the main street, humming some dumb tune.
Naruto watched him go, still not entirely sure if he'd just made the best deal of his life or signed up for something horrifying.
He glanced toward the corner Sylvie had turned, chewing his lip.
"Just you wait," he muttered under his breath. "I'll show you. I'm not a perv. I'm gonna be the strongest damn Hokage this village ever sees. Then you'll have to admit my chakra looks cool."
He kicked lightly at Ebisu's still-unconscious form.
"Sorry, sensei," he added belatedly. "Guess you're… on break."
From somewhere down the street, a woman shouted about refunds again. Someone else yelled about "that insane boy with the smoke jutsu."
Naruto shoved his hands into his pockets and squared his shoulders.
Summoning. Kyuubi. The Pervy Sage.
Whatever. He'd deal with all of it.
He had a month to turn into someone Neji couldn't talk down to, someone Gaara couldn't crush, someone Sylvie could look at and not see a disaster in orange.
One month.
That was plenty of time.
…probably.