"The point is that that isn't going to work for you anymore," he says. "You've been adapting your chakra when you have no other option, but as you saw when you fought that nukenin, that isn't enough.
Some of your adaptations are frankly incredible, but they still won't let you fight the same way a normal shinobi would."
...
His words slam into me like a handful of dull kunai, battering me one by one. "What would you do?" I grit between my teeth.
"I would use the gift that I've been given!" he says exasperatedly.
"This isn't a gift," I say incredulously. "Do you know how difficult it was just to get to where I am now? It took me months just to figure out how to treehop while everyone else moved on after the couple weeks. Hell, Sasuke got it on the first day! And you're saying what I've got still isn't good enough. How is that a gift?"
"It isn't good enough because you've stopped using it," he says. "It took you months to learn how to treehop, but just think of how you do it compared to a normal shinobi.
They augment their limbs and jump normally. You have to keep up a constant stream of wind to carry you over, and you have to constantly adjust it, all while remaining as aware as someone who was jumping normally. And after all that you managed to perfect your control over it to such a degree that you can perform maneuvers that I've seen some chunin struggle to perform.
"Think about what you could do with that kind of control over wind, Naruto. Think about all the things you could do with it that your teammates couldn't do with their chakra. Think, Naruto."
I stare down at my hands, and send a small burst of chakra through them up at my face, ruffling my hair. "What kinds of things?" I finally ask.
"I wouldn't know- wind isn't my element," Kakashi says. "But I can tell you a few things that I can do with lightning that you can't do with regular chakra. I can paralyze my enemies, or pierce through their defenses. I can enemy technology. I can provide light in a dark environment." He leans back against a log. "You've been thinking about this the wrong way for five years. You've been thinking of it as a curse. You've been trying to become strong in spite of it, instead of because of it."
He... He can't be right, can he? He doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. He's the pinnacle of what a shinobi should be- unreadable, untouchable, and unbelievably strong. He can't possibly understand what it's like to have to approach every single obstacle at a different angle than his peers. He doesn't understand that I've had to come up with every solution myself while he's had them handed down to him by generations of shinobi. He can't.
And yet...
I clench my fists. Since when has that ever stopped me? Since when has something never being done before ever kept me from something? Who says I have to work twice as hard just to do the same thing everyone else does, but worse? Hell, my entire term in the Academy was something that had never been done before. And not only did I do it, I did it better than my classmates. Who says I couldn't do the same for my defect? Who says it has to be a defect? I can make it more. I can make it better.
I can make it my greatest strength if I have to.
"I never thought of it like that," I breath, looking up at Kakashi in amazement. Maybe I'll have to make another revisement while I'm at it- maybe the jounin isn't such a jerk after all.
He tilts his head. "That's what I just said."
Prick.
"Okay, so I need to start using my chakra more," I grumble, mood thoroughly tarnished. The excitement is still bubbling in my gut, though. The promise of new paths to walk, new skills to discover. "What should I start working on first?"
Without another word Kakashi explodes forward off the log, a kunai held reverse in both hands, a maniacal grin curling beneath his mask. "Dodge!"
...
I trudge into the main entry room of the hospital early the next morning, rubbing at my arm and muttering darkly under my breath. It isn't often that I get hurt badly enough that it doesn't heal up with a night's sleep, but I'm still sporting a few bruises from the hellish regime Kakashi put me through yesterday. I finger the small jar of ointment I picked up on the way over here, resolving to rub myself head to toe with it after I'm done here.
"Hey, can I get the room number for Haruno Sakura?" I ask the lady at the front desk, a blonde-haired girl with a much perkier expression than the one from yesterday. She chirps the floor and room Sakura is being kept in, and I'm off.
On my way up I pass through the hallway where the critical patients are being kept, and slow to a stop in front of Tenten's door. My hand hovers over the door handle for a long, unsure breath. Then I turn it and crack the door open gently. I peek inside.
And I see Lee sitting in a chair next to her bed, grasping one of her hands in his own. He's hunched over, and I can see his shoulders shaking ever so slightly. I watch him, and the pale arm he's clinging to, transfixed. Then a muffled sob drifts through the air, and I silently shut the door.
I arrive at Sakura's room on the fifth floor where they keep the stable patients in need of monitoring, and quietly peek in there. Sakura is the only one in the room, propped up against a couple pillows and facing away from me, staring out the window at the far side of the room. I nudge the door open and slink in, but she hears me anyway, turning sharply.
"Oh, Naruto," she says in surprise. "What are you doing here so early?"
"I didn't sleep well," I say sheepishly, shutting the door and leaning back against it. "Couldn't find a good spot to sleep on after Kakashi was done with me." She smiles at that, and I can't begin to explain how good it feels to see her do it. "What about you?"
She shrugs, scratching at her arm. "I had a lot on my mind."
"Me too, actually." Now that I don't have to worry about my disturbed teammate losing her mind anymore, I'd started to turn back to the issues I'd been neglecting since I woke up. Issues like learning the Heavenly Chains, and figuring out what the seal on my stomach is for, and Kazu. Especially Kazu. "Have they just had you laying in bed the whole time?" She doesn't respond. "Sakura?"
"Oh, ah, no," she says. "They asked me a few questions when I first woke up, mostly about the seal and my mindset. Mostly making sure I wasn't already insane, I think."
"Yeah, about that." Beautiful segue, Uzumaki. "I kind of let it hang yesterday at your apartment, but I still want some answers." She sighs, turning back to look at the window, and the sun rising on the other side of it.
"I don't have much to say," she says nervously.
"Don't even try," I warn. "After all that crap with the seal, you owe me."
"No, I don't mean it like that," she says hastily, looking back at me earnestly. "It's just that the whole point of the seal-" She shakes her head. "Okay, I'll start at the beginning. Do you know what happened on our mission?"
"Sasuke told me," I say, nodding.
"Good. I'd rather not have to go through that in detail again." She scratches a little harder at her arm, then abruptly bunches her hands up in the sheer white fabric of her blanket. "I guess he told you it was a genjutsu?"
"Yup. I told him that you said it wasn't though, so we figured it had to be some nasty jutsu."
"I'm still not entirely sure what it was," she says. "But I know that what that nukenin showed me wasn't the product of any sort of jutsu."
I process that. "I'm sorry, what?"
"It wasn't a genjutsu or a ninjutsu because there's no such thing as a jutsu that drives the creator insane." She shudders. "What he showed me wasn't anything he created, Naruto. It was a memory."
The same instincts that had guided me through Kakashi's training session yesterday scream at me that what my teammate just said doesn't make any sense, that it can't make any sense. I move away from the door and fall into a seat by her bedside, staring at her intensely.
"What was the memory of?"
"I can't remember," she says immediately.
"Sakura, I swear to god-"
"I'm serious," she insists. "That was the whole point of the seal. I needed to lock it away. It was... doing things to me."
"This is ridiculous, Sakura," I say heatedly. "Why would that nukenin even want to give you his memory? He had you subdued, if he wanted to drive you insane or whatever all he had to do was use a normal jutsu."
"I don't think he wanted me to have it," she says, clenching her eyes shut. "He wanted to get rid of it."
There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first...
"He gave Tenten the memory first," I say in realization, and all of a sudden it begins to make sense. "But he was just making copies. When giving it to Tenten didn't get rid of it for him, he tried it on you. But Sasuke stopped him before he could give you the whole thing." That's why she lasted longer than Tenten.
She doesn't say anything, just nods. I lean forward. "And that seal got rid of everything?"
She hesitates a beat. "Yes."
My expression hardens. "Don't leave me in the dark, Sakura." She looks down at her hands.
"It was supposed to all be sealed away," she says in a small voice. "But I can still remember..."
"Yeah?" I say encouragingly.
She exhales slowly, shakily. "Tails."
"... Tails." I repeat flatly. She nods meekly. "Do- Can you remember how many there were? What they looked like, maybe?" Whether or not they were the size of the Hokage Tower and connected to a force of nature?
She winces. "I'm sorry."
"You're sure you can't remember anything else?" I press. "Even the smallest-"
"Naruto," she cuts me off, her voice strained. She reaches up and presses against her temples. "Stop, please." I practically jump out of my seat in my alarm, hesitantly placing a hand on her shoulder.
"What's the matter? What happened?" I ask quickly. She shakes her head, pressing until her hands start to shake. After a solid minute of me hovering over her while she abuses her temples her arms drop back to the blanket and she looks up at me apologetically.
"Sorry. It's just that asking those questions- the seal was beginning to break down. It's meant to keep the memory walled off, but if I try hard enough it won't be able to stop me from remembering." She shakes her head. "Can we just not talk about it anymore?"
I stare at her incredulously. "You can't be serious. You want to drop it?"
"It won't do us any good now. I'm fine now. It's done. Please, Naruto," she implores me. She looks at me with wide, pleading, near panicked grass green eyes. I look away uncomfortably, wondering if I should open the window to get rid of the sudden heat in the room.
"If it's really hurting you," I say reluctantly. "Sure. We'll drop it."
"Thank you," she says, smiling gratefully.
"Yeah, no problem." After that not much of importance happens. We talk about what she missed with training, my woes with shape transformation, and some other easy topics. Eventually I leave for training ground seven with a promise to visit her again before she's released.
I walk out of her room and down the hall, the scroll containing the outline to her seal bouncing rhythmically in my pocket.
...
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