It took the Hokage three days to finish his investigation on the ambushers but failed to find any hints as to who sent them. I was less than thrilled at that news but there was nothing I could do about it. During these three days of down time I had gone to see my sensei so that she could hopefully help me unseal the egg I got from the market but even she said that it would take awhile since it was an unknown seal and she needed to study and replicate it’s effects before she was confident on lifting it from the egg.-
Tampering willy nilly with a seal was a good way to ruin everything so I just left it with her and went about my own business. Naruto somehow found out that I was in the village and tracked me down at Ichiraku while skipping class that I had to knock some sense into his head for doing. Iruka sensei looked amused when I dragged him into the classroom to drop off but didn’t say anything. Other than that though I hung around with the yellow haired brat for most of the next few days and even showed him a few of my new abilities.-
“Ah man , I can’t even get a stinking clone jutsu to work even after all that chakra control practice!” he complained and I had him show me what he meant.
As far as I could tell his control had greatly improved since I last saw him but moments before he’d complete the jutsu his chakra would riot unnaturally.
“Let me try something.” I said and placed my hand over his stomach before closing my eyes and sending my chakra into his body.
At first everything felt just fine but when my chakra got close to his reservoir I got attacked by SOMETHING there and received severe backlash. My whole chakra flow was disrupted and I had a massive migraine hit me but I for the briefest moment felt an extraordinary amount of anger from whatever attacked me.
“Are you alright!?” Naruto asked horrified as he tried to help me up since I had fallen from the sudden pain of the attack.
“Yeah I’ll be alright but me and your gramps are gonna need a long talk about whatever the hell that is. You don’t suck at jutsu but rather something is inside your chakra reservoir messing you up for some reason and I want to know why.” I said frankly pissed at the discovery.
It was crystal clear that whatever that was was not just some part of Naruto but something else entirely and my instincts told me the old man knew precisely what. Naruto himself tried to stand up for the old man saying that he must have a good reason for hiding it if he had and I didn’t argue about that as it made logical sense.-
What wasn’t okay was that the old man had allowed Naruto to think that he was some sort of talentless hack this entire time. Frankly speaking it was a miracle Naruto hadn’t turned into a bitter hate filled person with the way the village treated him till now in addition to his struggles to improve himself as a shinobi compared to all their classmates. Yet the old man hadn’t made any attempt at all to tell Naruto that it wasn’t his fault and just left him to his own thoughts instead. Look I get that the man was too busy to personally see to Narutos wellbeing but the man had to known what something like this could do to a kids mind.-
Unfortunately the old man wasn’t receiving visitors and I was turned away at the door to the building. I was halfway tempted to just walk up the side to his window but unlike when I was an academy student this would get me in serious trouble this time. There was a reason for the way things worked in the village and I had to respect the rules or get punished for it. One of those rules was that you couldn’t just go bursting into the Hokages office unless it was an emergency and this didn’t count.-
Whatever was up with Naruto had clearly been there for a long time and wasn’t a threat to his immediate health and thus not an emergency. I had even vented my frustration at the matter to my sensei and she gave me a weird look before telling me that it was probably best if I let it go. She wouldn’t say why though which made me even more frustrated and determined to ask the old man what was what when I saw him next.-
Another thing that was worth mentioning was that Jiraiya was usually around in some regard where my sensei was concerned. I black listed him from my list of people to try and help though as he broke the bro code and ratted me out to my sensei who tried to extort me in exchange. That didn’t go great for her though as I made a wager instead for my entire fortune that she took and promptly lost setting us back to square one on that front. The Hokage ended up summoning us again on after this three day period for two reasons, to tell us he couldn’t find anything on the attackers and to discuss my new forbidden technique.-
“I don’t mind explaining what it does and even the few things I have learned to watch out for when using it but I refuse to hand over technique itself. Speaking of explanations what the hell is inside Naruto?” I asked bluntly.
“Oi! I told you to leave that alone!” Tsunade said sternly.
“And I would if whatever the hell it is wasn’t actively trying to sabotage him.” I shot back firmly.
“How did you come to learn of this matter and what do you mean by it actively sabotaging Naruto?” the old man asked with a frown.
“I had noticed that Naruto had trouble with his chakra control a while back but just thought it was just crap skill until a few days ago when I sent in a probe to try and figure out where the issue was coming from only to get attacked by whatever that thing is. I know it’s not Naruto because whatever it was was absolutely full of anger and he was very much not. When I mean sabotaging I mean his control of his chakra is good even by my standards yet the moment he tries to use a jutsu that thing riots making him fail.” I explained heatedly.
“I can see why you are upset and in this case your anger is justified to a degree. I honestly didn’t know that that thing was causing him such problems but I can assure you that i will rectify this issue by the end of the day. Now I’m afraid that I must insist on you leaving a record of the technique behind as it is far too important to risk losing should you die.” the old man said seriously.