Chapter 20: Borrowing a Flame
Naruto glanced at the darkening sky. Sunday. Kakashi's day off. The coast was clear.
As for other prying eyes? A faint, predatory grin touched his lips. Do they really think a sensor of my level, even trapped in a child's body, is just for show?
"Alright then…" he murmured to the empty forest.
A familiar, adrenaline-pumping rhythm seemed to echo in his mind—a battle anthem only he could hear. He brought his hands together, fingers lacing into the familiar seal for the jutsu he'd schemed so hard to acquire.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Chakra surged, split, and solidified. In three puffs of smoke, three perfect copies of Uzumaki Naruto stood around him in the clearing. There were no greetings, no nods. Their shared consciousness made words redundant.
The original Naruto merely cracked his neck and gestured with two fingers—come on.
One of the shadow clones rolled its (his?) eyes. "Oh, provoking yourself? How pathetically boring." The complaint was barely out before all three clones moved.
Two vanished into the treeline. The third shot forward, a feint.
A fraction of a second later, Naruto's enhanced senses screamed a warning. He didn't look. He simply took a casual step to the left. Two kunai, trailing faint wisps of blue chakra, shrieked past the space where his head had been. They buried themselves in the earth ten meters behind him.
BOOM! BOOM!
Twin explosions of dirt and rock erupted, leaving craters a meter wide, cracks radiating like spiderwebs.
"Tch. You think kunai can kill people at this level?" Naruto scoffed, even as he was already spinning on his heel. His fist met the charging fist of the shadow clone that had closed in behind him during the distraction.
CRACK-THUD!
The impact wasn't a clean punch; it was a small, localized shockwave. Dust billowed from their feet. Naruto felt the force—substantial, jarring. But it was only a fraction, maybe a quarter, of his own raw power. The shadow clone, for all its perfect replication of form and skill, couldn't mimic the Saiyan-enhanced density of his muscles and bones.
They disengaged, then clashed again. And again. Punches became blurs, kicks whistled through the air. The two other clones rejoined the fray. Soon, the clearing was filled with the brutal, percussive symphony of flesh meeting flesh, bone meeting bone—a rapid-fire, close-quarters brawl of one against three.
"Too slow! Too weak! Two more aren't enough! Give me more!" Naruto taunted, a wild exhilaration lighting his eyes even as a clone's kick slammed into his ribs.
He formed the seal again mid-dodge. Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof!
Five more clones erupted into existence. Seven in total now. They swarmed him, a coordinated hive of violence.
A straight punch aimed at his solar plexus. A sweeping kick for his legs. Another, sneakier, going for a… ahem… less honorable target.
"Hey! Is there a flaw in the technique's personality setting?!" Naruto barked, twisting his body into an impossible contortion to avoid the low blow. "You fight dirty against yourself?!"
He stopped trying to block every strike. Instead, he planted his feet, tightened his core, and let them come. Fists thudded against his back, his shoulders, his abs. Legs slammed into his thighs.
This was it. This was the feeling he craved. The sting of impact. The burn of exertion pushed to its limit. The Saiyan blood in his veins didn't just hum now; it sang, a primal roar of approval at the sustained combat.
He returned the favor, his own strikes precise and devastating, popping clones in clouds of smoke only for him to immediately create more, maintaining the seven-on-one pressure cooker.
Three minutes.
That's all it took.
The last clone dissolved into smoke after Naruto caught its fist and crushed it in his grip. He stood alone in the center of the churned-up, cratered clearing, breathing heavily but evenly. Dust coated his clothes and hair. A faint, disappointed frown creased his brow.
That's it? The thought was absurd, but true. The clones, for all their perfect technique and shared knowledge, lacked his foundational physical power. They were elite Jounin level, maybe, in terms of skill and chakra-enhanced strikes. But they couldn't replicate the terrifying, bedrock strength of his body, the source of most of his 80+ combat power. Splitting his chakra further wouldn't help; it wasn't the chakra doing the heavy lifting.
He was stuck. The shadow clone training, his brilliant solution, had hit a ceiling almost immediately. The clones couldn't provide the level of resistance he needed to trigger a significant Zenkai boost or push his limits further.
He sat down on a broken stump, thinking. The forest was quiet again, save for his own breathing and the settling dust.
After a long moment, his eyes snapped open. A slow, cunning smile spread across his face.
Ara… of course.
He stood up, brushing dirt from his pants. "Go find the landlord and borrow some fire. Then the clones will have the fuel they need."
But first… he had a couple of visits to make. Plans he'd been sitting on for a while were finally ripe.
He closed his eyes, not to rest, but to turn his formidable perception inward. He focused past his own chakra networks, past the rhythms of his body, diving deeper, toward the dark, heavy presence slumbering at his core. His chakra control, refined over two years of relentless practice, allowed him to pinpoint the "location" of the seal with pinpoint accuracy.
Drip…
He opened his eyes to the familiar, oppressive dampness of the sewer-like seal space. The stagnant water, the dripping pipes, the colossal iron gate at the end of the corridor. It had been two years. He'd missed this… atmosphere.
"Hey there, Foxy! Miss me?" Naruto called out, his cheerful voice echoing in the cavernous gloom. "I need a favor. Lend me some of your chakra, will you?"
From behind the bars, two slitted crimson eyes glowed into existence, followed by the low rumble of a voice that vibrated in the stone. "Tch. Brat. I can feel the rot festering in your heart. The hatred. You want to burn this village to ash, don't you?" A terrifying, toothy grin split the darkness.
Naruto didn't deny it. He met the Kyuubi's gaze squarely. "Not with your power alone. I need your chakra to train. To make myself strong enough to tear Konoha down with my own two hands."
"Oh?" The beast's interest was piqued. This was a new angle. Most humans who sought its power wanted to use it directly, to become a vessel for destruction. This one wanted it as… fertilizer? "Why waste time training? A single Bijuudama would save you the trouble."
Seeing the fox's hesitation, Naruto switched tactics instantly. He flopped down onto the (strangely dry) surface of the water and began to roll back and forth, waving his arms and legs. "I don't care! You have to give it to me! Don't ask what for, just do it! Come on, Foxy, be a pal!"
The Kyuubi stared, a single, immense bead of cartoonish sweat appearing on its brow. This human whelp… he was tolerable before. Now he's… insufferable.
"Enough!" the fox boomed, the sound shaking the water. "I will not lend you a flicker unless you remove this seal." A single claw, as long as Naruto was tall, pointed at the paper talisman on the gate. "Remove it, and you die. Now get out. You're disturbing my nap."
Naruto stopped rolling. He got to his feet, his expression turning thoughtful, then decisive. Instead of leaving, he walked right up to the massive bars, stopping just short of them. He looked down at his own stomach, then back at the Kyuubi with that infuriatingly sunny smile.
"Okay," he said simply.
He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, exposing his lower abdomen. The spiral seal of the Eight Trigrams was clearly visible on his skin. Then, without a hint of fear or hesitation, his small hands reached out and grasped the edges of the seal itself, his fingers digging into the complex chakra pattern as if to physically peel it away.
The Kyuubi's eyes shot wide open. It lurched forward, chains rattling. "FOOL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" The beast's roar was genuine, laced with shock, not malice. "Do you have a death wish? Do you comprehend what you're attempting?!"
Naruto kept smiling, his hands still pressed against the seal. "Of course I do. I'm getting you to lend me chakra."
"Then… then just remove it!" the Kyuubi hissed, trying to regain its manipulative footing. "Peel it off! I promise, I'll lend you all the chakra you could ever want!" The lie was sweet, dripping with promised power.
Naruto just shook his head, his smile never wavering. His fingers didn't pull. They just… held on. It was a bluff. A spectacular, insane bluff played against a creature of pure hatred and ancient power. He was betting everything on a simple premise: that after two years of silence, and this bizarre display, the Kyuubi was more confused, more curious, about this strange, hate-filled, sunbeam of a boy than it was committed to immediately breaking free and rampaging.
The standoff in the silent, dripping chamber was absolute. The fate of the village, and the future of a boy who trained by fighting himself, hung on the reaction of a bored, imprisoned demon fox who just wanted to go back to sleep.
(End of Chapter)
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