Naruto left Konoha two days later.
He was not carrying anything besides a small sealing scrolled tucked in his pocket. One of the perks of being a budding seal master.
Jiraiya arrived punctually. The master and student stood before Konoha's gates.
The village behind them was still recovering.
Scaffolding covered damaged buildings. Shinobi moved supplies through streets that had been cleared of rubble only days earlier, and several sections of the outer wall remained under active repair.
Naruto looked back.
Leaving felt strange.
Especially now.
The old man was gone.
Sasuke was—
Complicated.
And somewhere out there was a woman Naruto had never met who everyone apparently expected him and Jiraiya to drag back and convince to become Hokage.
PING!
The familiar quest appeared.
A-RANK MISSION QUEST: Konoha's Future
Objective: Convince Tsunade Senju to return to the village with Jiraiya and yourself.
Rewards:
+3 To All Stats Except Luck
+1 Luck
+2 Medium Skill Experience Packs
+9 Free Lottery Rolls
+120 System Points
Hidden Objectives Available!
Naruto read it once.
Then dismissed it.
Jiraiya had already started walking.
"Hey!"
Naruto hurried after him.
"You could wait!"
"I did."
"For like three seconds!"
"Should've walked faster."
Naruto caught up.
"So where is she?"
Jiraiya kept walking.
"Not sure."
Naruto stopped.
Jiraiya continued another several steps before noticing.
He looked back.
Naruto stared at him.
"What?"
"You don't know where she is?"
"I have an idea."
"That's different!"
"Not really."
"We're on an A-rank mission!"
"We're not technically on a mission."
"My magic floating rectangle disagrees."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Naruto caught up again.
"So what's the plan?"
"Travel through the towns she's been known to frequent. Ask around. Follow reports."
"That's your plan?"
"Yes."
"Find one woman somewhere in the Land of Fire."
"Essentially."
Naruto stared at him.
Jiraiya grinned.
"Trust me kid, once you learn to operate like I do, things begin to become real easy."
By midday, Konoha had disappeared behind them.
Naruto had traveled before.
Wave.
The Chūnin Exams had brought foreigners into Konoha.
Missions had taken him through forests and smaller settlements.
This felt different.
There wasn't a bridge builder beside him.
No Team Seven.
No Kakashi.
Just Naruto, Jiraiya, an open road—
And no idea how long they'd be gone.
Naturally, Naruto lasted approximately four hours before he got bored.
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
Twenty minutes.
"How about now?"
"No."
Another twenty.
"Now?"
"Naruto."
"Just checking."
Jiraiya's eye twitched.
Ten minutes later—
"Now?"
"GO TRAIN."
Naruto blinked.
"We're walking."
"Then find something you can do while walking!"
Naruto considered that.
Actually—
He did have something.
Naruto opened his Inventory.
The Earth Release scroll sat exactly where the System had placed it after his spar with Sasuke.
He selected it.
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall Scroll
Learn?
YES / NO
Naruto selected yes.
The scroll disappeared.
Knowledge entered his mind.
Not mastery.
The basic structure.
Earth chakra.
Conversion.
Connection to existing terrain.
Raising and reinforcing material.
Naruto flexed his fingers.
PING!
Technique Learned!
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall
LVL 1 (0/10)
Naruto nodded.
Finally.
An Earth technique.
"Hey, Pervy Sage."
"No."
"I didn't ask anything."
"You were going to."
"I learned an Earth jutsu."
Jiraiya glanced over.
That got his attention.
"Since when do you know Earth Release?"
"Recently."
"Recently when?"
"Recently recently."
"That's not a measurement of time."
Naruto stepped off the road.
"Watch."
He formed the seals.
Focused on the ground.
Earth chakra felt heavier than Wind.
Wind wanted movement.
Sharpness.
Release.
Water wanted flow.
Earth wanted something else.
Stability.
Naruto pushed chakra downward.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
The road trembled.
GRRRRNNNK.
A slab of earth rose.
Naruto grinned.
It reached approximately waist height.
Then leaned slightly to the left.
Naruto's grin weakened.
The wall collapsed.
Jiraiya stared at the pile of dirt.
Naruto stared too.
"...Defensive speed bump."
Jiraiya snorted.
"Terrifying."
"Shut up."
They continued traveling.
Naruto practiced whenever they stopped.
The first few walls were terrible.
Too thin.
Too short.
One came out sideways.
Naruto still wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed that.
Another rose perfectly—
Then immediately split down the center.
By evening, he could consistently raise something that could reasonably be described as a wall without committing fraud.
PING!
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall
LVL 1 (0/10) → LVL 2 (4/20)
Naruto dismissed it.
Then made another.
The next morning, Jiraiya woke to grinding stone.
His eyes opened.
Naruto stood twenty feet from camp.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
GRRRRNNNK.
A wall rose.
Chest height.
Thick.
Relatively straight.
Naruto inspected it.
Then walked around the side.
"Hmm."
Jiraiya sat up.
"How long have you been doing that?"
"Like an hour."
"Why?"
Naruto looked at him like the answer was obvious.
"Because it sucked yesterday."
"Most people don't solve that by doing the same jutsu forty times before breakfast."
"Skill issue."
Jiraiya stared at him.
Naruto slapped the wall.
It cracked.
Naruto stared at the crack.
"...Still a skill issue."
By midday—
Naruto understood the technique better.
He could feel where his chakra entered the soil.
How deeply it spread.
How much earth he was trying to move.
How reinforcement differed from simply lifting dirt.
PING!
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall
LVL 2 (4/20) → LVL 3 (7/30)
Naruto dismissed the window.
Formed the seals again.
Stopped.
His hands remained together.
Why was he doing this?
Not training.
That part made sense.
Something else bothered him.
Naruto opened his Inventory.
His eyes moved through the contents.
Then stopped.
Skill Evolution Stone ×2
Naruto stared.
"...Oh."
Jiraiya glanced backward.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Naruto looked between the stone and his new technique.
He'd spent the last day figuring out how Earth-Style Wall worked.
It was useful.
Really useful.
Especially because most of Naruto's strongest techniques were offensive.
But—
It was still a wall.
Raise earth.
Block thing.
Naruto looked at the road.
Then the hillside beside it.
Then the ground beneath Jiraiya.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
Jiraiya immediately became suspicious.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No reason."
"Naruto."
Naruto selected the stone.
Skill Evolution Stone
Select Technique
Naruto scrolled.
Stopped.
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall
Eligible for Evolution
WARNING
Evolution will permanently alter technique progression.
Proceed?
YES / NO
Naruto selected—
YES.
The stone shattered.
PING!
SKILL EVOLUTION INITIATED
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall
Analyzing User affinity...
Analyzing technique mastery...
Analyzing combat tendencies...
Analyzing elemental versatility...
Evolution AvailableEarth Release: Earthen Dominion
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall LVL 3 (7/30) → Earth Release: Earthen Dominion LVL 1 (0/10)
Naruto's eyebrows rose.
Earth Release: Earthen Dominion
Rank: B
An evolved Earth Release technique expanding upon the defensive principles of Earth-Style Wall.
Primary Application — Reinforced Earth Wall
Creates significantly stronger and denser defensive earthworks.
Wall height, thickness, shape and angle may be adjusted during formation.
Multiple connected wall segments may be created with sufficient chakra and mastery.
Secondary Application — Terrain Manipulation
Allows the User to reshape connected earth within a moderate radius.
Terrain may be raised, lowered, tilted, fractured, compressed or displaced at moderate speed.
Large-scale alterations require proportionally greater chakra.
Precision, manipulation speed, affected area and structural strength increase with technique mastery.
Limitations
Cannot freely manipulate earth disconnected from usable terrain.
Terrain alteration is substantially slower than dedicated high-speed offensive Earth Release techniques.
Complex structures require greater concentration and mastery.
Naruto read it twice.
That—
Was much better.
He looked down.
Jiraiya noticed.
"Naruto."
Naruto placed one hand against the road.
Chakra sank into the earth.
"Naruto."
The ground beneath Jiraiya rose.
Not violently.
Just quickly enough to be deeply inconvenient.
"What the—"
A section of road lifted several feet beneath him, tilting like one side of a giant stone ramp.
Jiraiya's sleeping bag slid.
Jiraiya slid with it.
Naruto watched.
Jiraiya disappeared over the edge.
THUMP.
Silence.
Naruto looked at the raised earth.
Then at his hand.
"...Holy shit."
Jiraiya's head slowly appeared above the ridge.
"Naruto."
Naruto immediately pointed.
"Okay, before you get mad, look at what I just did."
"I am extremely aware of what you just did."
"I moved the ground!"
"You moved me!"
"The ground moved you."
"PUT IT BACK!"
Naruto focused.
The raised section slowly descended.
Mostly.
One side remained about six inches too high.
Jiraiya stared at it.
Naruto scratched his cheek.
"Level one."
For the rest of the afternoon, Naruto experimented.
He raised walls.
Not the crude slabs from before.
Actual barriers.
One curved.
Another angled forward to deflect attacks rather than simply absorb them.
A third formed in three connected sections around an imaginary target.
Then Naruto stopped making walls entirely.
A shallow depression formed beneath his feet.
He reversed it.
The earth rose.
He pushed chakra forward.
A strip of ground lifted into a rough incline.
Another attempt carved a shallow trench.
Another created a low ridge.
None happened instantly.
That was the limitation.
Cyclone could rip across a battlefield.
Tidal Wave could flood one.
Earthen Dominion changed the battlefield itself—
But needed time.
A second.
Sometimes two.
More for larger alterations.
In a real fight, that mattered.
Naruto looked at the road.
Then remembered Sasuke charging with Chidori.
The Rail Pierce trench.
His eyes narrowed.
He could've done the same thing without Rail Pierce.
Not as fast.
Not yet.
But eventually—
Maybe.
Jiraiya watched from beneath a tree.
That was the strange part about Naruto.
He still trained like an idiot.
Too much chakra.
Too much enthusiasm.
Too little patience.
But every now and then—
Something clicked.
And the idiot disappeared.
Naruto raised another wall.
This one wasn't directly in front of him.
It erupted at an angle twenty feet away, connecting to a natural embankment and closing the space between two trees.
Jiraiya's expression shifted.
Naruto wasn't practicing the jutsu anymore.
He was practicing where the terrain should be.
That distinction mattered.
A lot.
"Hey, brat."
Naruto looked over.
"What?"
"Do that again."
Naruto blinked.
"The wall?"
"The angle."
Naruto grinned.
"Thought it was stupid."
"I didn't say it was stupid."
"You called it a defensive speed bump."
"The first one was a defensive speed bump."
"Still counts."
"Do the damn technique."
Naruto formed the seals.
By sunset, they reached the first town on Jiraiya's route.
Naruto looked dusty.
Jiraiya looked tired.
Neither condition had much to do with walking.
Jiraiya stopped outside an inn.
"We'll stay here."
Naruto looked around.
Busy streets.
Restaurants.
Travelers.
Merchants.
And—
Jiraiya's eyes had already found a group of women entering a nearby bar.
Naruto watched his head turn.
Slowly.
"Pervy Sage."
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"Research."
"You were going to say research."
Jiraiya straightened.
"Exactly."
"We're looking for the next Hokage."
"And finding Tsunade requires information."
"From their boobs?"
"Information can come from many sources."
Naruto stared at him.
Jiraiya stared back.
Naruto sighed.
Konoha was doomed.
As Naruto settled down for the night, a root ninja settled into a dingy motel nearby. Reports on the Jinchuriki's sudden uptake of earth ninjutsu coalesced within the spy's mind. There was no telling how his master would react. Thinking about such things was not his job.
He was meant to report from the shadows.
Name: Naruto Uzumaki
Village: Konohagakure
Rank: Chunin
Stats
Strength: 136
Agility: 159
Endurance: 156 (+40%)
Intelligence: 148
Charisma: 102
Luck: 15
System Points: 525
Earth Release: Earthen Dominion: LVL 2 (5/20)