Sage

Ch.3

Finally he pushed the chakra to his eyes and hand at the same time, simultaneously bringing one arm up so his palm faced outwards in one smooth motion.

"Shinra Tensei!" Sora and Chiriku could only watch on amazed as the training dummy was summarily obliterated by the veritable wall of gravitational forces slamming into it. It soared across the field, flying out of sight over the roof of the next building over, raining stuffing and bits of hay down as it went. Unfortunately that wasn't the only thing that went flying.

"Wooaaah!" Almost as fast as the training dummy was blasted away, Naruto was sent flying back in the opposite direction. However he came to a much quicker stop, embedded in a wall a few feet away. "Urrrgghhh!" Like a marionette with its strings cut he flopped to the ground, leaving a surprisingly accurate imprint of his body in the wooden wall. A few seconds of silence passed before Sora burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, even Chiriku had to stifle a few chuckles before walking over and helping his student up from the ground.

"I'm impressed Naruto, you finally managed to direct the force of the technique, although you might need to work on counteracting that force on yourself." Naruto just nodded limply, his eyes looking slightly distant as he gazed up at the three sets of his sempai looking down at him. Soon after Sora came over and gave Naruto a shoulder to lean on, but not before he finished his laughing fit. Even so, while he found his friend's misfortune as funny as any good friend would, he had to be impressed by the sheer power behind the attack; he certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it.

"Alright Chiriku-sempai, I'll help Naruto to his room. We were going to have another spar but I don't think he's in that condition right now." Chiriku just nodded once before turning and retiring to his own quarters, even as the evening bell began to toll around the temple. Sora hefted Naruto up so that his arm was slung around his friend's shoulders and began walking in the direction of the living quarters.

"You're always doing this you know." His only response from the blonde was a groan and a small chuckle which made the monk-in-training smile. "You're always trying to do the impossible." Again he didn't get much of a response from his injured friend. "Even so, you'll go ahead and try it over and over again until you get it right won't you." He looked down and found Naruto grinning weakly up at him, a knowing glint in his squinted eyes.

"And then you'll try and one-up me." Sora chuckled at that but didn't deny Naruto's statement.

"What can I say? You're a bad influence on me. And stop doing that, you look like Master Chukaku when you narrow your eyes." Naruto just nodded wearily before allowing his head to droop again. By now they had reached Naruto's room and with a bit of manoeuvring on Sora's part he managed to slide open the fusuma and lie Naruto down on his futon. "Get some rest and we'll see tomorrow how the score turns out." He looked around when he got no reply but saw that Naruto was already asleep. Sora just chuckled as he slipped out of the room quietly; his friend was a real idiot sometimes.

"Sora, this is Naruto, he'll be staying at the temple with us for the foreseeable future and I want you to show him around the temple." Blonde hair peeked out nervously from behind Chukaku's robes catching the young trainee monk's attention.

"Umm Ohayo, I'm Naruto." The blue-haired youth just stared at the boy for a few moments before tentatively holding out his own hand as they shook. It was an obviously awkward scene, neither child having had good experiences with people their own age, or in Sora's case, no experience period.

"Good, I know you two will become the best of friends, now I have some paperwork to do so run along." With that the elderly monk turned on a heel and calmly trotted away from the scene.