Location: Eldorado National Forest Date: July 27 2010
I woke up the next morning in a much better mood. Paige had decided to stay separated overnight, and I had no issues with that. Three years of sharing the same body was more than enough for me. Still, I needed to figure out what actually happened. It might be a way for me to make my own body someday.
"Good morning, Paige," I greeted her as soon as I was out of the tent.
"Minato, why couldn't I sleep?" Paige asked instead of greeting me.
"Because your body is a chakra construct; there's nothing that needs to rest," I replied honestly.
"Sorry, I thought you understood that." I gave her an apologetic smile and asked:
"Did you spend all night sitting here?" We had set up a separate tent for her, to give her some normalcy and privacy.
"Yeah, I tried to fall asleep at first, but then I was just thinking over everything. How long are you planning to stay here? Any idea where we will go next?" she asked rapidly, her voice rushed.
"Give me like ten minutes, and we'll talk over breakfast?"
"Sure," she shrugged.
After a quick morning routine, I was eating what they call an American breakfast — eggs, bacon, and bread with jam — and thinking about what I needed to start working on. Obviously, training was the priority.
"So, I think, I need at least a month or two for my training. It depends on how it goes. Are you good with that?" I answered her morning question.
"Well, it's not like I can do anything else. Even if I could go somewhere, I'd probably be caught again," she replied somewhat unhappily.
"How about basic training?" I said between bites and sips of orange juice. I really liked it.
"I'm sure I could do push-ups upside down," she replied dryly.
I smiled at that but still pressed on:
"You can learn Henge and other jutsu just fine. It's basic academy level, and I have an idea or two that will help us speed up your training."
Considering that we might switch places again, I preferred her to be able to hide at least and run away at best.
"Okay, I would like that," she finally agreed.
⚡
In the next few days, we fell into a routine. I engaged in intense training, pushing this body's limits more and more. Without Iryō ninjutsu, it would have been impossible to catch up on the missing years of training, but I managed to do just that.
The only missing part was the absence of any Kekkei Genkai. But there was nothing I could possibly do about that. I'm not sure even Orochimaru would be able to do anything. Then again, he might. You never know what that guy was up to.
I also had at least one clone working on chakra control. It was a paramount part of all my skills, and I needed it back at my old level as fast as possible. Without it, I couldn't move forward with Senjutsu and Rasengan.
The only significant change in the first few days was that Paige asked to merge back at night. She got tired of sleepless nights and asked if I was okay with that.
Well, it is her body, and I didn't feel like I had the right to forbid that.
"Good night, Minato," I felt her consciousness curling at the back of my mind.
"Good night, Paige."
What a weird life I live.
⚡
My wish to eat a boar came true the next day. One of my clones found and hunted it down while collecting wood. It was really helpful because I ate it all in less than two days. Constant training and healing were burning calories like a furnace.
When I started eating the boar, groaning and moaning in delight, Paige couldn't resist trying it. However, she quickly found that the experience was quite different for her. She got really upset, so to calm her down, I proposed to merge back to share the meal. After that day, she started joining me at least once a day, especially if there was something tasty.
While it was good that I had prepared well for the trip and had a lot of different food stored, I had to redo the storage seals once already. They were not holding well, and I needed replacements.
But that problem was more widespread. Any seals I had needed a base to be applied to, and the materials I currently had were not a long-term solution. I had to dedicate one clone solely to this issue. He ran around trying different materials and ways to apply a storage seal to extend its lifespan. No significant progress so far, but I noticed one trend — the more natural the material, the longer it holds.
It would be good to find something to hold chakra-embedded seals for longer or find ink and paper replacements to make cheap Kibaku Fuda. I usually had a set of different one-time-use fuinjutsu on me, and I would really like to restore that arsenal.
Paige's training was progressing well. She quickly learned chakra basics, like tree and water walking. It helped a lot that I showed her exactly how I do it in her body. After that, she picked it up quickly.
Henge and Kawarimi were easy too, but Shunshin gave her trouble. She just didn't have the proper reflexes to maintain it. That was one of the biggest roadblocks at this moment.
I expected her to back out after she mastered Henge, but something must have happened, and she was sticking to the training so far.
⚡
One morning, I woke up with cramping pain in my lower abdomen. Paige immediately asked to be cloned out and, after that, threw tampons and pads at me.
"Good luck with that!" She said and ran out of the tent laughing.
For the next three days, she purposefully stayed in the clone body, constantly commenting on how wonderful she felt that day.
It was a horrible experience. I would prefer to go toe-to-toe with a Bijuu rather than experience it again.
The training clone paid her back mercilessly for that: running her out of chakra and forcing her to return to the body.
Well, Kushina was doing brutal elemental training on those days, and it was as good an excuse as any to start my elemental training. Anyway, I didn't feel like running around, but throwing fireballs? Easy!
In the beginning, I had issues, of course. I had to use both hands to make seals, but I quickly progressed to one-hand seals, and my chakra control was getting to the level where I would be able to skip some hand seals altogether.
Still, it was too early for Rasengan. I felt like in this mood, I would level at least half the mountain.
⚡
"Who is Kushina," Paige asked one evening as we were in the tent, preparing to sleep. She had already merged back and curled up at the back of my mind, while I was getting the inflated mattress ready for the night.
I paused for a moment. I had enough time to process my old life while staying inside the Shinigami; there was nothing else to do except accept the consequences of my actions.
When I ended up here, I rarely thought about it as well. There was no point in dwelling on it; it's not like I can get any of that back. The silver lining in all past experiences was that I had a chance to talk to Naruto and even went into battle alongside him. I was really proud of him. What more could a father ask for? Well, maybe a grandchild or two, but that boat had already sailed.
"I assume you saw her in my memories?" I asked tentatively.
"Yes, a fierce redhead with hair that moves when she gets mad, right?"
"That's her," I said with a sad smile. I still miss her, oh Kami.
"You miss her. Sorry, forget I asked." Women and their ability to guess what you think.
"That's alright. Well, she was my wife. We had known each other since our Academy years and were on the same team after graduation."
That night, I spent hours recounting our adventures and exploits until I felt Paige drift off to sleep. I stayed awake for a while after that, feeling nostalgic and sad. Still, I had a good life, albeit a bit short, and I couldn't help but smile a little when thinking about it.
⚡
By the second week, I felt ready to try Senjutsu. My main concern was not only whether there was any natural chakra but also how it might affect Paige. To be on the safe side, I asked her to merge and not to touch the chakra while I was testing it. Additionally, I didn't do it directly; I used a clone to work on it.
It took the clone half an hour of meditation to finally see some results. In the end, when he used all the collected natural chakra and poofed out, I had enough data to think about it.
As I discovered, natural chakra exists here, but it has, well, a different frequency, the best way I could describe it. It took a significant amount of focus to access it. It reminded me of the beginning of my Senjutsu practice on Mount Myōboku.
At least, it gave me hope that I might be able to enter Sage Mode after some careful and long training.
I also needed to invest time to see if there were different potencies of natural chakra in other places. Maybe I could find a place like Mount Myōboku, that would be beneficial.
Since then, one of my clones has been constantly practising Senjutsu, returning memories and experiences every four hours. It was slow-going, but going.
The last piece of the Senjutsu puzzle was Naruto's idea of transferring the collected Senjutsu chakra to the primary body. Naruto used a clone to collect it and then he dispersed the clone to transfer the chakra to the main body.
He had the benefit of using the reverse summoning jutsu, which is not available to me. It was the first thing I tried after completing the Senjutsu test. Unfortunately, I was not able to summon even a small frog — I believe my contract died with my body or something else was at play.
I might need to find a different approach in fuinjutsu, but that would take some time to come up with the idea of storing Senjutsu chakra or, at least, a clone with it.
⚡
"Heya Boss!" I heard from the three lines of the training ground.
"Why do you look like Orochimaru-sama?" I asked my clone when I turned around. If I hadn't felt it was my clone, he would have fooled me for sure.
"For science!" the dumb one screamed, punching his fist in the air. I had to pinch my nose. I suspected for a long time that Tobirama-sama made the Shadow Clone jutsu with this quirk to prank everyone.
"Fine, fine! Check it out!" He threw at me what looked like a wooden tablet. It was a storage seal and a very stable one, I didn't feel any chakra leaking from it, compared to all previous examples.
"Have fun, boss! I am out of chakra, anyway," said "Orochimaru" and poofed out.
Huh, the clone had a smart idea. I would even applaud him if he weren't me in some sense. So, I need to use Senjutsu with a mix of water chakra one to nine on the wood and let it infuse the wood until it becomes chakra-rich. Smart. Now I need to try it out with other seals, but from the look of it, it should be fine.
⚡
I reviewed and tested all my other jutsu knowledge and eventually got back to Rasengan. It took some time, but I already knew and had experienced all the pitfalls in making it work. Before long, my first Rasengan in this world splashed against the lake's surface.
That's good.
By the end of the third week, I had made significant progress with all my jutsu and body. It was as flexible as I could make it, and my muscles were able to handle abuse for some time. It still lacked any Kekkei Genkai, and I had to cheat with Iryō ninjutsu constantly, but it was way better than before. There wasn't much else I could do with this baseline genetics.
"Kaaa Booom!" I immediately turned in that direction. It sounded like an explosion tag, but why was it so strong?
Just then, a clone that was working on fuinjutsu teleported to me and said:
"I think we should relocate, Boss."
I gave him an unimpressed look and raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.
"That was a test of the Kibaku Fuda," he supplied unnecessarily.
"I guessed that," I said, leaking a bit of Sakki at him.
"Boss, I mean it. I made the smallest one," he showed a small gap between his fingers to emphasize the point.
"Senjutsu?" I asked with curiosity. He just gave me a nod.
Interesting.
I made a note to create a proper testing ground for future fuinjutsu experiments to avoid repeating this situation.
⚡
The packing was fast. With the help of clones and new sealing tablets, we were ready to leave in ten minutes.
All in all, it was time to leave anyway — we were short on food, and most of my training was, let's say, sufficient for now.
I have a place in mind where we can go and settle for a bit. I'm sure Paige would be happy to get back to civilization.
⚡