Jiraiya had been correct about one thing.
Rescuing princesses brought out all of the best Naruto had to offer. Ok, showing off in front of them had caused him to advance faster, too. But despite all that had been done to him, he still possessed a deep rooted drive to be a hero, and when it really came down to it, the awesome ninja *always* rescued princesses!
For himself, the boy was carefree and forgiving. To those extra-planular beings who'd seen him cut loose against demons and S-rank foes with even less than the two months of effective training he'd had now, the result of a Scary Old Woman Who May Have Beaten His Teacher To Death now looking angry (or rather, annoyed, but he couldn't tell the difference as mere annoyance had often led to violence in his past) hovering over the line of his four princesses (and their little dog, too!) was entirely predictable.
Kid cut loose with everything he had.
Shizune was not much of a student of the Great Ninja Battles, but she knew enough to recognize when she'd just gotten marked as 'Enemy' by someone, especially a little kid who'd never learned to hide his emotions.
Normally she'd dismiss a little six year old's resentment of her tripping him in order to keep him in camp. As it was, she barely managed a Substitution technique in time before the camp outright exploded.
In other timelines, when the kid's one good technique was a clone, he'd spammed them for all they were worth. Here, he did much the same, only this time it wasn't virtually harmless copies of a boy who'd never been taught how to fight properly. It was, in the Toad Sage's own words 'very powerful and destructive', such that they'd needed to move around a lot and visit areas where Naruto could cut loose without worrying about the area being destroyed.
Tsunade's eyes had widened when she'd seen the boy's Barrier flicker into place over the line of little girls (and their little dog, too!), and that was all the warning she got.
She was one of the Sannin. It was all the warning she'd needed. But suddenly she found herself on the receiving end of 'dodge practice' as the kid spammed a dozen of balls of destruction her way, smashing apart trees and setting alight to that part of the forest as the kid lost control and slipped from the three-element combo Force back down to Plasma on occassion.
It did not improve her situation, as the blonde medic quickly observed that unlike the white light of the kid's Barrier, the balls of destructive Force were barely visible, and would penetrate several trees and still had enough energy to bury themselves a couple yards deep in the earth, while on the other hand, the very bright glowing balls of plasma were happy to blow up on their first contact with anything, and by contrast to their very brightness made the already barely visible balls of Force that much harder to see.
The combination of a spray of deep-penetrating projectiles, along with wide area explosive ones was, quite unintentionally she was sure, proving rather tough to beat.
Then again, she wasn't one of the Sannin for nothing. Tsunade Body Flickered in to tap the kid on the head to knock him out, only to discover why the kid was already a legend in the Konoha Anbu community, the people who had to chase him down after a prank, when she knocked a wood clone out instead of the actual kid.
'Did that boy just spontaneously invent a technique just to annoy me?' Her eyebrow twitched.
Tsunade had been right about one thing, too. She hadn't made the best first impression.
Naruto had never been taught a number of things kids his age were expected to know. To list them would do nobody any good, but one of the most critical of those omissions was he truly didn't have any idea who the Sannin were, or the respect he was supposed to hold for him.
Jiraiya had just been this neat guy who'd taught him those two months. Tsunade?
The scary old woman who could've killed the boy's only real teacher.
And we all know how he reacts to threats against his precious people.
While those four princesses Jiraiya had teamed him with had respected her, Naruto had been content to go along with whatever. Even threatening and throwing stuff at him in that context was fine. But the moment she'd threatened *them* (especially when they'd been defending HIM), the gloves came off.
Tsunade had no idea just how lucky she was that the clone she'd knocked out was made of wood, as it had been all Naruto could do to pull off one of the Academy techniques Jiraiya had shown him on the side. Knowing from experience being chased by Anbu that you can't just sit still or the older ninja will take you, Naruto had reached for and barely pulled off an acceptible clone technique, but it wasn't the Academy standard illusion. With all of the elemental energy he'd been pulling, Tsunade was lucky she hadn't knocked one made out of Plasma on the head.
The explosion that surely would have resulted wouldn't have improved her temper any.
Naruto did not really have any great measure of accuracy or precision. He just had some of the most destructive elemental affinities ever to make an appearance in the Elemental Nations, and enough chakra to hose them about to the point where both accuracy and precision were moot. Tsunade was in danger no matter where she could go. With the whole local section of forest exploding or being consumed by gouts of plasma, no Substitutions or clones did her any good. She couldn't retreat to a safe range like Shizune or Kurenai had and still shut the kid down, and unless she could get to him to stop him spamming attacks, it looked like the Land of Fire could soon live up to its name!
On the other hand she was getting very upset with having to continually heal all of the burns she was picking up from all of those Plasma bursts coming on so thick they couldn't entirely be dodged. And the one of those barely-visibly-in-the-first-place Force shots that had actually clipped her had spun the Slug Princess about like she'd taken one of her own blows!
No, suddenly it was *very* obvious why Jiraiya couldn't have trained this kid in town! Tsunade could only wonder what those girls could be capable of if the boy was managing THIS!
Kid was pretty good for his age, but he was far from perfect. And he'd had to keep moving just to prevent her from following the streams of attacks to their source. He couldn't see her, but then he didn't need to. He was just going with 'spray and pray', only needing to keep enough wide-area Plasma attacks going on so she couldn't approach him.
Tsunade waited patiently behind the Barrier kid was keeping up over his girls. Predictably, after nearly a minute of him not seeing her making attempts to capture him, kid showed up and dropped the Barrier to rescue them.
Then all Tsunade had to do was tap the boy on his head.
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(Posted Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:49)
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