The New Nine Tails

The Uzumaki

"Speaking"

'Thinking'

"Kyuubi Speaking to Hiroto"

Text From Book

~

Only a few days from the Finals, Hiroto had kicked his training into high gear as he sparred with Ebisu every other day. Despite Ebisu's closet-pervertedness and uselessness, he had been a better trainer than Kakashi and helped Hiroto refine his wild fighting style. Hiroto's style was still wild and unpredictable, like an animal, but now it was more controlled and fluid. His style attacked the body's vital parts and allowed Hiroto to move freely from one attack to the next in a constant barrage of offensive attacks. It was a style meant to kill.

Ebisu also helped him develop a technique for his fighting style that incorporated his fire style, creating his own unique taijutsu fighting art.

However, Ebisu still had other responsibilities, so Hiroto was left alone for most of his training. Having mastered the two fire jutsu and one earth jutsu from before, Hiroto worked tirelessly to strengthen his body. In between breaks, he'd work on shortening the seals for said jutsu and did so with the Flame Bullet, Fireball, Phoenix Flower, and Burning Ash Jutsu.

He'd shortened the Flame Bullet from ten seals to six, the Fireball from six to three, the Phoenix Flower from six to four, and the Burning Ash from four to two. Unfortunately, he couldn't shorten the hand seals for the Mud Wall, but he got better at the jutsu. Now, it only took the same amount of chakra to make a massive wall as his Fireball Jutsu did initially.

When he wasn't working hard to shorten the hand seals, he was working on the second level of fire chakra training, having already mastered the first.

The second level required him to boil water in a wooden bowl with just his chakra. Seeing as wood is a natural insulator for heat, the task was difficult, to say the least. If he wasn't careful, Hiroto could set the bowl on fire. This exercise would help him increase the heat of his fire jutsu.

When he wasn't doing that, he was working on increasing his chakra along with his chakra control.

Hiroto's training would have given Lee and Guy a run for their money and left him on the doorstep of chakra exhaustion multiple times. But he never crossed that threshold; he got close but never succumbed to it. To anyone else, this would have seemed like self-torture. But to Hiroto... this was training.

~

Hiroto could be found bare-chested in the middle of the clearing, sweat dripping down his face, doing pushups... while carrying a two-ton boulder on his back.

"Nine Hundred Ninety... Eight," Hiroto grunted after doing another pushup before slowly lowering back down as his arms shook.

"Nine Hundred Ninety... Nine," he grunted once more as he went back down.

"One... Thousand!" he shouted, having completed his last pushup before jumping up off the ground from his pushup position and throwing the boulder off his back as it crashed loudly to the ground.

Hiroto breathed a sigh of relief, "Man, that was a good workout. I may be wrong, but it feels like it's getting easier each time," he said to himself as he looked down at his hands, clenching and opening them a few times.

Looking down at his body, Hiroto saw it had become incredibly lean and cut, with well-defined and slightly bigger muscles. His was a body that many adults would kill for, with a flat stomach and six-pack abs leading to his v-line waist. However, the numerous scars on his body attracted most of the attention away from his muscles. Over the past month, his hair had also grown out, and he now had two spikey bangs framing his face and stopping just above his chin. His hair was spikey and reminiscent of the Fourth Hokage's, but it laid down a little better off his headband and came down to his ears.