Devil Ninja

Arising Problems

Naruto hadn't been able to sleep last night. Perhaps it was due to the reminder that even in this new world there were still people who didn't care about others, people who had no trouble spreading hatred to the world in order to satiate their own desires. Or maybe it was just because he had been feeling restless. Whatever the case was, Naruto had been incapable of getting even a wink of sleep, thus he decided to do something more productive with his time.

Noises most often associated with mass destruction resounded throughout the wooded area surrounding the now completely abandoned Church. Minor explosions rang out all around as a number of trees were felled. The air was kicked up by violent torrents of wind, causing strong updrafts that sent gravel and large rocks into the sky before they were shattered by a powerful fist as they descended once gravity had taken hold of them. In the center of this destruction was Uzumaki Naruto.

After realizing that sleep was out of his reach, Naruto had decided to get some training in. Most of what he worked on was basic stuff and things he already knew: chakra control, elemental composition, enhancing the body with chakra. Things most ninja of his former village learn at some point or another and don't require them to have massive reserves.

Another thing Naruto wanted to work on was Tsunade's super strength technique. He remembered Sakura giving an explanation on how it worked at one point in time. Naruto hadn't really understood what she had tried telling him at the time, but he managed to at least get the gist of it.

To use the Chakra Enhanced Strength Technique, the user had to focus chakra into their hands and feet using extremely precise chakra control and release it with pinpoint precision and perfect timing. This greatly enhanced the user's strength to a degree that very few could ever hope to match without some kind of supplementary jutsu like the Lightning Armor of the Yondaime Raikage.

According to Sakura, the training to learn this technique was intense. She had told him that once she'd learned the principles of the technique and gotten the basics down, Tsunade had come at her with full strength and she had been forced to become capable of using it while under pressure. The result had been that Sakura was capable of literally causing five meter wide craters to form on the ground with little effort.

It was brute strength maximized to the extreme.

Naruto did not have Tsunade to help him here. Nor was he as smart as Sakura. All he had was determination, guts, and his own ingenuity.

It would have to be enough.

Glaring at his newest opponent, another tree, Naruto set himself in a horse stance, legs spread wide, knees bent, and fists tucked into his sides. He closed his eyes and began to circulate his chakra, feeling it flow through his coils, a mere trickle compared to the unfathomable ocean it had once been. Grabbing onto the flow, he then directed it all towards his left hand, which was soon coated in an ethereal blue flame that pulsed and flickered in time with his heartbeat.

Blue eyes snapped open.

"HYA!"

With a loud shout Naruto's fist struck the tree, creating a resounding "BOOM!" that echoed within the forested area like thunder striking the earth.

"YEOWCH!"

Naruto's scream of pain went unmasked even by the rumble of the tree as it was felled, striking the ground with a loud crash while several hundred splinters flew off the wood where his fist had struck like a pantheon of angry gods.

Swearing like a sailor that had just gotten shit-faced after having the worst day of his life, the blond Uzumaki waved his now red and swollen hand about frantically, as if doing that would actually make it feel better.