Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

A winning effort begins with preparation. ~Joe Gibbs

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It was at the dinner table that Dad announced a change in plans. He did it in his usual laid back manner that belied the seriousness of the situation.

"After dinner, we're going to start training," Dad said. "I didn't want to start teaching you this until you made Chunin but given the circumstances… it might be for the best."

Given that he'd spent most of our lives telling us that learning the Clan techniques was a delicate process best done in carefully calculated stages… it was a bit of a surprise. Mum looked pleased with the announcement, but I was never quite sure she understood why Dad was so set on the stages. Intellectually, she knew, but she didn't use Shadow Jutsu and that made a difference.

Circumstances…? Does he mean Orochimaru?

If Orochimaru had targeted my team once, he might do it again. I suppose I could see that as something that would change his mind. Maybe.

"Teaching us what, exactly?" Shikamaru asked, looking like he was having the same thoughts as me.

"You'll just have to wait and see," Dad deflected.

Shikamaru slumped back into his chair. "Troublesome," he muttered.

"Good," Mum said firmly. "I'll work with you in the morning and your father has you at night. That gives you the afternoon to train with your sensei." Her look clearly said Shikamaru would spend that time training and not cloud watching.

I smirked at him. "I hope you're planning, Shikamaru. Shadow Possession isn't going to do much against a thousand bugs."

He glared at me balefully. Shino was a pretty horrific opponent for him to face. Not only did free moving bugs negate the effectiveness of Shadow Possession, Shino was pretty clever himself.

I'd spent the afternoon writing up more profiles of the competitors for the Finals. I'd copied Temari's profile out from memory, intending on plotting it out further when I'd decided I might as well draw up some for her brothers… and then Neji and Shino as well. That way I could just hand the whole thing out to everyone and not feel bad about helping some more than others. They weren't complete, and I'd have to look up Jyuuken and find out more specifics about what Shino could do but I already knew enough to know that Shikamaru was at a disadvantage.

"There's a way around every obstacle," Dad said mildly. I wasn't sure if he was chiding me or reassuring Shikamaru. Probably both for the effort of one response. That was the Nara way.

The days were long so there was still plenty of sunlight after dinner. We traipsed out into the forest and were directed to gather firewood. Shikamaru and I exchanged looks and shrugged; presumably there was a method to this madness.

Dad led us to a small clearing in a hollow and we set up a fire on top of what looked like the remains of a hundred other fires. There was ash and charcoal and a circular dead space amongst the grass.

"Wish I brought marshmallows," I said wistfully, looking at the dancing flames. It built slowly, first consuming the tinder then the twigs before catching the larger pieces alight. Shikamaru slumped backwards, lying down and staring up at the sky.

Dad didn't say anything. Sometimes, clan training was like being given the pieces of a puzzle and having to put them together yourself. I wondered what pieces he was handing us now?

The dancing flame caused the shadows to waver, overlap and change. But none of that was really new.

When the fire was burning well, nearly roaring, Dad threw something in the flames that made the smoke spew out thick and heavy, hanging around the ground instead of rising into the sky.

Shika and I both looked dubiously at the smoke.

"I hope there's not going to be any singing and dancing involved," Shikamaru sighed. "That'd be such a drag."

"Idiots. It's not that kind of smoke," Dad drawled, though there was a smirk on his face.

"So what's it for, then?" Shikamaru asked. "It's not like you'd drag us out here for nothing."

"Look at your shadows and you tell me," he said cryptically, leaning back against a tree trunk and stretching his long legs out. It seemed like he was preparing to be here a while.

We looked. And looked. It wasn't until I was stretching my arm out, wiggling my fingers in the smoke and watching my shadow do the same that I saw it.

"Fog shadow," I murmured, naming the phenomena. "Shadows are three dimensional; they occupy all the space behind an object that blocks the light. Usually, we only see two dimensions, when they hit the ground… but the smoke is heavy enough that it shows up."

It was like watching dust motes dance in a sun beam. Sort of. The opposite, really.

"That's exactly right," Dad drawled. "So far, you've only been using your shadows to connect to the shadow of someone else and Possess them. But the higher level clan techniques use shadows manifested as something solid."

He demonstrated, creating a thin tendril with the Shadow Stitching Jutsu and sending it punching through the trunk of a tree. Splinters went flying.

"I see," Shikamaru said thoughtfully. "So instead of pushing our chakra into the shadow on the ground, it has to go into all of it…."

I could see an immediate problem. "But the increase in chakra drain would be proportional to the increase in volume… it'd be too much." Even the Shadow Possession Jutsu wasn't chakra light. "Even if you only did it by surface area, it'd still…"

"And now you see where our family's unique affinity with shadows comes into play." He leant backwards against tree again. "Shadows are considered the negative double of the body, the alter ego of the soul… associated with the unconscious mind. So, it might be said that we have a spiritual affinity."

There were numerous, slight differences between mental and spiritual energy. Both combined, formed half of chakra but 'originated' from different sources. Mental energy came from learning and experiences, while spiritual energy was your 'willpower', or personality. Once, I might have scoffed at the notion of 'spiritual' anything, but I of all people could hardly deny that souls existed. How else could I be here?

"Oh, I see," I said, realisation dawning. "That's how we can force people to mimic us with the Shadow Possession Jutsu. Because there's such a large mental component to it… we're not physically forcing them to move like a puppet jutsu would, we're using a sympathetic connection to convince their chakra that we're the same thing, and then when one moves so does the other…"

Sneaky. Insidious.

"But how does that help us here?" Shikamaru drawled. "It's not like you can change your spiritual energy, right?" he asked, uneasily. That's what we'd been taught. Because chakra and the energies that compromised them were a catch-22 situation; if something affected your body then it would affect your physical energy… and if it affected your physical energy it would affect the body. The same was true with the soul, and really, did you want to mess with that?

"Change?" Dad echoed. "No, not exactly. You don't need to change. You already are what you need to be. You just need to … synchronise properly."

I wasn't exactly sure I understood. Or that I liked where this was going.

"The Shadow Possession is the first Jutsu you learn for a reason. It's a gateway jutsu to the more complex clan techniques. However, it's very chakra inefficient. You can hold it for a minute, tops. But in order to make it more effective, you need to become more in tune with your affinity to shadow. Which is what leads us on to the next level techniques. Understand?"

I nodded, a little reluctantly.

"Hiden," Shikamaru murmured. "Secret techniques. No wonder…"

"Yes," Dad said simply. "And most of the upper level jutsus are Forbidden Techniques." Not 'forbidden' in the common sense - as in 'don't touch' - but in the sense of ninja rankings. More 'caution, extreme danger; use at your own risk'. "Which is why you will not even attempt this training without proper supervision."

We gave our word easily. Neither of us were particularly willing to run the risk of causing ourselves damage by messing around with our own energy unsupervised.

There wasn't any neat tricks or special procedure to doing it, which was good, because having to fight a manifestation of your inner self or something would have been far too cliché for me to handle. It was basically a kind of meditation exercise - activate our shadows, isolate the way the chakra felt where/when it was strongest, and attempt to increase that feeling. Simple in theory but with many problems in execution. Like, how exactly do you tell where it's strongest? How do you measure and replicate that? Was I the ratio of energies in the chakra? Presumably the affinities, since that was what we were talking about…

I was pretty sure I achieved nothing by the time Dad called a halt. "That's enough," he drawled. "You wont learn this quickly. Certainly not by the Chunin Exams."

Shikamaru groaned. "Troublesome."

"There's no point in rushing ahead and losing sight of where you're going," he said philosophically. "That doesn't do anyone any good."

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The next morning, Mum made good on her promise to train us. She'd been doing so on and off ever since I came back from the Land of Waves, but Shika's inclusion in the Finals seemed to have driven her to step it up a notch.

The fact that Shikamaru didn't moan about it - much - let me know he was really kind of worried about his up coming fight.

After training I slipped off to drop into the hospital to visit Hinata - and to check that Sasuke was still here. He was, but not allowed visitors and the receptionist was fairly certain he was going to be released this afternoon. Good, he and Sensei hadn't left yet.

Hinata looked far too surprised that someone was visiting her and I made a mental note to stop by more often.

"Er, hi, Hinata," I said. Her room was pretty bland, but I spied a familiar set of flowers in pride of place on her bedside table. "How are you doing?"

"Ah! Shikako," she said, blinking at me. "I - I'm fine."

Given that she looked pretty awful and was in one of the more heavily monitored sections of the hospital 'fine' was probably an overstatement.

"That's good to hear," I said, not pushing the issue. "We were all really worried about you after the prelims."

Her fingers twisted together and she ducked her head. "Yes. Kiba and Shino have already been to visit me. And Naruto…" A light blush dusted across her cheeks. "Is it true? Is he facing Neji-nii-san in the Finals?"

I nodded. "Yeah. The first match of the day. After what Neji did to you, Naruto isn't going to let him get away unscathed. Or at all. Neji might be good, but Naruto is… surprising." I quirked a smile at her.

She smiled back tentatively. "He is very strong," she acknowledged.

"You've got good eyes, Hinata. I think… you were the first person to ever see that." Even for me it had been difficult to see what Naruto could be, and I had known what he would turn into. But Hinata had seen what he was.

She flushed, though whether at the compliment or the topic, I wasn't sure. "I'm not… I'm not very strong…"

I squeezed her hand. "Yeah you are, Hinata. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We got our asses kicked too, remember? But we got back up and kept fighting, and so did you. For now, you just need to heal so that when the next fight comes along, you can show them how much you've grown."

She looked at me, expression indecipherable, the nodded. "Y-yeah. That's right. I have changed…"

I smiled. "Exactly. So, anyway. Uh, I know it's pretty boring in here so I brought you a few of my books… I don't know if you'll like them but…" I shrugged awkwardly. "You can borrow them for now."

There was a few fiction books and an encyclopaedia on the medical uses of plants. It wasn't exactly exciting reading, but I knew Hinata made her own medical salve, so she might have liked it.

"Umm, I can bring others if you've already read these… just let me know."

"Thank you," Hinata said quietly. "I haven't. Read these, I mean. It's not considered… appropriate material…" 'for a Hyuuga' went unsaid.

I blinked. "Seriously?" I double checked the books in my hands. Nope, young adult adventure books. Nothing inappropriate here. "Wow. They're not exactly high class literature but they're not that bad. Let me know if you like them, I've practically got a whole bookshelf full in my room."

I stacked the books on the table and waved goodbye. It had been a short visit, but I had a boy to meet about some ramen.

Naruto was already at Ichiraku when I ducked under the banner.

"Hey, Shikako!" He greeted, boundlessly cheerful. "You'll never guess what happened yesterday!"

"What happened?" I echoed, ordering a miso ramen. "Weren't you supposed to be training with Ebisu-sensei?"

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "I was!" he defended at my sharp look. "We went and talked to Hinata and everything. Then he said he needed to 'judge my skill level' or whatever, so we went to one of the training grounds to spar. He's actually pretty good," he added grudgingly.

"Kicked your ass, did he?" I said knowingly.

"No! Well, maybe a little bit. But it's not like he used any jutsus or anything, so he's still lame." He scowled. "And he said my chakra control was really bad and my taijutsu was sloppy. He was going to teach me Water Walking, but I already know that!" He looked pleased at having exceeded expectations.

"Chakra control, huh?" I mused. "Did you get that seal removed?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Kakashi-sensei took me to the Old Man after the prelims. He knew what it was, right away. No problem!" He grinned.

"Well, he is the Hokage," I said. "So what'd you do instead?"

"Uh, well. He asked me if I'd ever fought while Water Walking." He twirled ramen around his chopsticks, almost pensively. "I said no, so we went to this hot springs place to practice. The hot water kept busting up my clones whenever they fell in." He grimaced. "It was really hot. And it's really hard to keep your balance when someone is trying to knock you around like that."

"I know," I said soothingly. Not that I'd ever fought on water, either. Though I'd probably do better than Naruto who tended to learn something once and then call it done. He was getting better at that, but I doubted he had done much Water Walking since Wave Country.

"Yeah, so we were fighting and then there was this old guy peeping on the ladies bath." He froze and cast a nervous look at me. "And then the closet pervert - Ebisu, I mean - tried to tell him off but he just got knocked out. Then the old guy said he was, like, some kind of toad sage or something… so I figured, he must be a ninja, right?"

Toad sage? That sounds like…

"Yeah, so I left some clones to keep training and watch out for Ebisu and then I went to convince the pervy sage to train me. I figured, he had to know at least one decent technique." He scowled again, waving his arms about. "He didn't want to but I got him in the end. Heh. Another one falls to the Sexy Jutsu."

Definitely sounds like…

"So you're training with both of them?" I asked, amused. It was actually a really good idea.

"Yeah," Naruto said, sounding slightly less than enthused. He looked… troubled. "It's weird… maybe you can help me…"

"Shoot," I agreed easily, wondering what was up.

"Well, it's like this, see," he said. "The pervy sage… he keeps talking about how I have a lot of chakra, right? So he said I should learn how to… err… learn how to increase the amount of chakra I can use."

Or learn how to draw on Kyuubi's chakra, right?

"Mmm, I guess," I said.

"But the closet pervert - Ebisu-sensei, I mean - he says that I should increase my chakra control so I don't waste so much chakra doing techniques. But when I tell him that I have a lot of chakra, he says it doesn't matter and that I'm still weaker…" he trailed off quietly.

"So which one is right?" I guessed at his dilemma. On the surface, they seemed like two contradictory approaches. "Well, it's like this. You have a lot of chakra, right? But because your control isn't so good, you waste a heap of it instead of being able to use it in Jutsu. So effectively, you really only have half the amount of chakra you seem to have." He nodded, showing that he was following. "Now if you increased the total amount of chakra you have, then that half would increase too. But if you increased your control, you'd be using maybe three quarters or even all of it instead. So by both approaches, you'd still end up with more chakra to use."

"And if I did both, I'd end up with twice as much!" He grinned, making an intuitive leap ahead. That was Naruto. You couldn't be sure he understood and then he went and surprised you.

I blinked. "Yeah, that's right. Increasing your chakra control has other benefits too; for starters it makes using Jutsu easier."

"It does?" Naruto practically shouted. "Why didn't anyone tell me that?"

I nearly sweat dropped. "It's in the name. Chakra control - the ability to guide and direct… oh, never mind. You never noticed how Sasuke and I spent less time gathering our chakra when we're using Jutsu?"

"Well, yeah." Naruto shifted uncomfortably. "But… I just thought… so that's what it is, huh? Chakra control."

Just thought we were better than you. I could read the unfinished sentence easily enough. For all his bravado, Naruto was surprisingly aware that he wasn't, really, all that good. He just never really admitted it and hated it when other people brought it up.

"Well," I said, picking up the napkin that was next to my bowl. "This is a chakra control exercise." I emitted chakra gently to float it about five centimetres off my palm. It came easily, without even thinking about it. Behind the counter, Ayame gasped. I guess civilians didn't really get to see chakra being used a lot. "Iruka-sensei showed us how to do this with leaves, remember?"

"Uh, not really. I think I skipped that day," Naruto admitted, squinting at it.

I rolled my eyes. "Right. It's like Tree Climbing. You constantly emit chakra, only instead of trying to stick to something, you use it to push it away and hold it steady. If you use too much, it'll just be thrown away."

"Like being pushed off the tree," Naruto said.

"Right. You should probably ask Ebisu-sensei for more control techniques. I bet he knows heaps of them," I suggested. No doubt Ebisu would be incredibly surprised at the request.

Naruto's napkin fluttered through the air, landing solidly in his ramen bowl. "Ah no! Not in the ramen!"

I giggled. "So what have you been learning?"

"Well, the closet pervert has been working on my taijutsu. I don't know why, since he said that I wouldn't want to get in close to Neji." He looked at me expectantly.

"Eh, your clones use the same taijutsu you do," I said, taking a stab at the reasoning. "So if your taijutsu is better, their taijutsu is better and they'll be more effective. If you get in close Neji can shut your chakra down like he did to Hinata and you wont be able to use any techniques at all. But your clones will disperse with a hit anyway, so…"

"So it doesn't matter if he shuts their chakra down," Naruto finished. "Hinata was saying stuff about that. How they, like, shoot chakra out of their hands and it messes you up really badly inside. You can't even see it until they hit you. And then, like, their eyes can see through everything so you can't even hide. Creepy."

"They can also use it defensively," I said. "To deflect things. I bet Neji practices with Tenten a lot, so he's probably pretty good at that too."

"Well I'm going to be better!" Naruto proclaimed. "The pervy sage is teaching me this really cool technique."

"Really?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Summoning Jutsu! It's like this contract thing and then you can summon toads!" Naruto said.

I hid a smile. "I've heard of them. Orochimaru summoned snakes, remember? You said you got eaten by one of them."

"Wait, that was a summon? That thing was huge! Sheesh, no wonder the pervy sage says it takes a lot of chakra. I can't even summon anything good yet! I keep getting tadpoles."

"Maybe more chakra control will help?" I suggested. "Hey, do you think that I could meet your 'pervy sage'?"

He blinked at me. "Sure, but why would you want to do that? The old guy is an awful letch."

"I just wanted to ask him a few questions, that's all," I said. "Maybe tomorrow? That way I can bring all my seal workbooks…"

How much I'd be able to get out of him would be another story all together. Worst came to, Naruto would probably pester him into answering at least one question.

"Sure, we were out by training ground 31 today, so… we'll probably be there tomorrow too." He shrugged.

"Sweet. Thanks." That would give me a chance to get over the huge roadblock I'd run into on my sealing. Hopefully. Superstitiously, I crossed my fingers. "Are you still working on your Hidden in the Mist Jutsu?" I asked. "It wont help you much against Neji, since he'd be able to see through it, but it might help against some of the others…"

Like Gaara. Wet sand was heavier than dry. Probably more difficult to control, too. Of course, he'd have to have a decent water supply to use…

He pursed his lips. "You're right. Once I beat Neji, I'll have to fight Sasuke. The mist is good against him. Maybe if I get some clones to work on it while I'm with …"

"It'd be a good idea," I acknowledged. "Your Shadow Clones are really handy, you know?"

He grinned, hand going behind his head. "Yup. It's the most awesome technique ever!"

After lunch I waved goodbye to him and headed off to the library for research. There'd be nothing there directly on the Hyuuga and Aburame - I'd have better luck in our clan archives - but I'd already discovered that historical records could be a treasure trove of information. Added to that, Kikai might not have been listed anywhere, but they were beetles and I could extrapolate from general information.

For example, like most insects, Kikai had waterproof exoskeletons. However, insects didn't have lungs. They breathed through a tracheal system, that opened into the atmosphere through a series of holes all over their bodies called spiracles. If these spiracles were covered in water, an insect would drown just as surely as a mammal.

Kikai were also susceptible to poisons and insecticides, though if a hive contained even a single beetle with a resistant mutation then a skilled Aburame could quickly breed a resistant strain. Evolution on a reduced time frame.

Smoke could sometimes affect the ability of the hive to communicate with each other by masking pheromones, which was why beekeepers used smoke. That had limited effectiveness here though, because, the Aburame controlled their hive via chakra. Or something.

"Taking up entomology?" Kakashi-sensei asked, lifting the cover of a book with a single finger. Handbook; Coleoptera.

I jerked, pen scratching across my notepaper. I hadn't even noticed him arrive. "Kakashi-sensei!"

His eye crinkled in good humour. "Yare, yare; inside voice. This is a library, you know."

"No, really?" I asked dryly. "I hadn't noticed."

"And you say I never teach you anything," Sensei said, looking mighty pleased with himself.

I groaned. "Sensei…"

He chuckled and pulled out a very battered looking map. "This is where we're going." I was slightly surprised that he had actually come to tell me, but glad for it.

I eyed the spot he was pointing at. The map was very basic, but I was sure that on my more detailed map that location had altitude lines. "There's a plateau there, right? And a cave system…" My fingers touched the spot, then 'walked' back to Konoha, measuring the distance. "It's about two hours out…"

Easily able to be covered in a day, there and back. I'd worried that it would be further out.

"I'd tell you not to visit…" Kakashi-sensei drawled. "If I thought you'd listen. Instead, I'll tell you to keep the trips down to every three days."

I was glad he didn't forbid it. I didn't like going against rulings and I especially didn't want to find out how far I could push Kakashi-sensei before he started retaliating. I had a feeling you only went that far once.

"When are you leaving?" I asked.

"Mmm, I'm supposed to pick Sasuke up from the hospital at two," he replied.

I glanced at the clock reflexively. "It's half past four."

"Why so it is." He smiled.

Yeah, Sasuke was going to try and kill him within a week.