"Dammit!" Naruto shouted in frustration, realizing this was countless times he'd been hit by Fukasaku's staff that day.
It had nearly been a week since his training began—learning to harmonize with natural energy. To prevent him from turning into a frog statue if his balance failed, Fukasaku would strike Naruto with his stick to "knock the natural chakra from him."
Naturally, Naruto was eager to master this technique as soon as possible—he was already tired of being beaten up by an old frog with a stick... though he didn't dare say it out loud; he'd probably just earn a few extra smacks.
"One more time, Naruto," Jiraiya said while observing nearby. Naruto resumed the meditative posture. "You'll keep doing this until you fully grasp it. Once you can naturally balance natural chakra within your body, we'll move on to the next step."
Naruto nodded understanding and immediately returned to his practice, closing his eyes and slipping back into meditation.
"He's learning this faster than I expected. And he didn't even use Shadow Clones. Well, considering how used to meditating he is, all those years of synchronizing with the Nine-Tails must have given him a lot of experience… I wonder what happened between them back then. Back in Kumogakure, he was angrier at the Nine-Tails than I'd ever seen him before." Fukasaku thought to himself.
Staff in hand, the old frog stood ready to stop Naruto from transforming into stone.
Even so, Naruto's ability to adapt to the training surprised everyone present.
When he noticed several minutes had passed without Naruto being struck once by the staff, he couldn't help but remark:
"And he did this without using oil too—so fast..." A smile spread across the old frog's face. "I think it's time I showed you what you can achieve with Sage Art."
He pointed toward a massive stone frog statue directly beneath Naruto. The statue was five times the size of an average human. "I want you to lift this up."
Naruto quickly rose to his feet. Without hesitation, he accepted the seemingly impossible task, hoisting the heavy statue overhead with ease.
"Whoa..." He stared at his own hands in amazement. "This feels amazing. Is this really what I'm capable of when using Sage Art?"
"That's right." Fukasaku still had a smile on his face as he watched Naruto hold the statue high with ease. "But there's something important you need to understand—how natural chakra enters your body..."
Just then, Naruto realized what Fukasaku meant as he had to drop the statue and leap aside to avoid being crushed beneath it.
"What just happened?" Naruto asked, confused, as Jiraiya chuckled and offered him a hand to help him up. "What went wrong? I thought I'd gotten the hang of it."
Wiping the grin from his face, Jiraiya started explaining:
"The problem is, whenever you move or do anything, you consume the sage chakra inside you. When Master Fukasaku asked you to lift that statue, you only had a few seconds. As soon as you move, you break your connection to nature, which makes it impossible to absorb more natural energy mid-battle. You must complete the absorption while completely still."
Naruto frowned, staring at the stone statue he'd just lifted.
"Well...I have to stay still to activate Sage Mode, right? So how am I supposed to use it?"
After feeling his entire being enhanced by natural chakra, he was eager to test out Sage Mode. He wondered just how powerful he would be compared to Tsunade while using it.
Fukasaku calmed Naruto:
"Now, now, Naruto, we've got ways to make this work. Jiraiya wouldn't have let you learn a jutsu without real combat value."
That alone was enough to calm Naruto, who was still buzzing from lifting the statue earlier.
"Now, I want you to make sure you can truly do this and not just get lucky. I want you to absorb natural chakra again."
Naruto sat on the ground meditating for several minutes until he finally recaptured that same feeling he had when lifting the statue.
He stood up again and gave Jiraiya and Fukasaku a smirk:
"How's this? Good enough now?"
Both Jiraiya and Fukasaku looked puzzled as they stared at Naruto. Jiraiya pointed at him, voicing their shared confusion:
"Naruto, why is your Sage Mode only appearing in one eye?"
"What?" Naruto asked, unaware that one of his eyes had transformed into the vertical slit-pupil while the other—the one originally scarred—remained unchanged.
Naruto pointed at the eye that hadn't changed, and both Jiraiya and Fukasaku nodded, explaining that it was the untransformed eye—the Sharingan he had concealed with contact lenses.
"Hmm...shouldn't both eyes change?"
Both Fukasaku and Jiraiya nodded, then asked:
"What happened? You've already mastered the basic process, and natural chakra is flowing through you. So how come..."
Jiraiya gave Naruto a serious look. He was definitely hiding something—and now Jiraiya was determined to find out what.
"Naruto, what's going on with your eyes? Every truly living part of you should be affected by Sage Mode. Both of your eyes should show signs of Sage Transformation."
Naruto sighed. What lie could he possibly tell? Lying to the person who taught you secret techniques and the elder of your summoning beast was absolutely off-limits.
Well, if he wants to know, fine. I'll tell him. No one else will hear about this anyway.
"Okay, the truth is—I lost my right eye while searching for that blade in Kirigakure's territory."
He saw the skeptical looks appear on their faces since he didn't seem to fight like someone missing an eye, so he explained: "This isn't my real eye." He infused chakra into the contact lens to deactivate it, revealing his real eye beneath. "Now it is."
At the sight of the activated Sharingan, Jiraiya and Fukasaku gasped, making Naruto feel uneasy.
"Naruto, how did your eye become like this? And what exactly were you saying it should look like?"
Naruto gave him a confused look.
"It should be the Sharingan. Can't you see that? You've seen the Sharingan before, right? I implanted a Sharingan into my empty eye socket."
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to examine Naruto's eye more closely.
"The Sharingan?"
"Doesn't look like one either, brat."
"You're saying it's not a Sharingan?" Naruto asked cautiously. The thought that his Sharingan might not actually be a Sharingan unsettled him. "Then what does it look like? I know what it looked like when C helped implant the Sharingan, and I remember how it looked after my fights with Itachi and Sasuke. What's going on? I can't even check it myself!"
<><><><><><><><>
Thank you for reading! Your support will keep me updating!
~ Every 50 Powerstones = **4 Bonus Chapters** this weekend!
<><><><><><><><>
~ 100+ Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon!
~ More *Free* Chapters and Books Available on Patreon!
patreon.com/Tansnovel
<><><><><><><><>