3 CHAPTER 3 : Hiruzen's doubts
Shikamaru.
After the day ended, Shikamaru said goodbye to Choji before heading home to the Nara compound. The lessons were particularly boring and with Naruto giving him company in sleeping in the class nobody disturbed him.
He wanted to go home and continue the rest.
As he entered his home, he was greeted by his mother Nara Yoshino.
"About time you came. I made dinner early and your father wants to speak with you"
'Troublesome…..there goes my plan of resting'
Shikamaru made a beeline towards his father's study room. He stood outside and knocked on the door.
"Come in"
Inside Shikamaru's father Nara Shikaku, sitting beside the shogi board playing against himself. As soon as he saw his son he arranged the pieces back to the starting position.
"Playing against yourself again father"
"What to do Shika, you are the only worthy opponent I can play against"
'Bullshit, you just want to see my face when I am defeated' His father doesn't even put any effort while playing against him. Even though he thought that he sat down and moved the piece on the board.
While playing Shikamaru was thinking about naruto. Today naruto was back to his old behaviour. Came late to class, slept the whole morning session, pestered sakura on a date, or picked up a fight with Sasuke. Well except for the reading part. He still was flipping pages of books.
"So, how is Sasuke?" his father asked him.
"He is….broody. Never engaged in any conversation for the whole day. Scowls at everyone. Disregards anything that is not useful for him in a fight. His focus was taijutsu class today" Silence followed.
"What do you know about Naruto, dad?" after a few moves Shikamaru asked his father.
"What about him?"
"Well for one you can say why people treat him differently?"
"You don't have clearance to know that" Shikaku knew that would be enough for his son to figure out an answer. So he said no more.
'Ohhh….' That was not enough for Shikamaru to formulate his own assumptions.
'Naruto being able to call the Hokage as Jiji, able to own a house even though he is an orphan and me not having clearance to know about naruto. Naruto is some kind of asset. But?' he needed to think more about it.
"Did something happen with Naruto today?"
"Nothing serious. I just wanted to know about his treatment from the instructors and the villagers. That's all"
Soon they returned to the previous conversation about Sasuke.
.......
Naruto was sitting in his house with his eyes closed as nano was doing experiments with chakra.
At last, he came to know how to spell the word correctly. Till last week he was calling it 'caktra'.
'So embarrassing' Naruto thought to himself.
As for the experiments, he just needs to push/move chakra inside his body from the lake like when doing transformation technique, then nano will try out different methods to utilize the chakra. It could do so only inside his body. As Nano couldn't make any changes to the chakra outside of naruto's body.
[Operation I: Applying raw CHAKRA to ears….
Analyzing
Changes observed….Optimizing
Trial: 1 - Optimizing CHAKRA to match your ears….
Repulsion noticed....Rectifying the damage...Cells restored.
Trial: 2
Failure....Rectifying the damage...Cells restored
.
.
Trial: 8
Experiment Successful
Skill Named: Enhanced Hearing]
[Operation II: Applying raw Chakra to Nose
.
.
Experiment Success
Skill Named: Enhanced Smell]
Naruto found one clear truth, applying raw chakra to your body parts is dangerous.
Thank god Nano was able to cut Naruto's sense to feel or else he would be thrashing and screaming his lungs out.
After many experiments, nano was able to manipulate the chakra in his nose and ear region to make two unique sensing techniques called the enhanced hearing and enhanced smell.
Naruto had already used enhanced hearing with the help of nanites, without using chakra. But that was far cry from what he was doing now, using chakra.
Naruto can now hear with amazing clarity and distance and even frequencies outside of his normal range. With the help of chakra and nano, Naruto picked up every single sound and decipher differing sounds and conversations within 100m range.
And nano had mentioned, with enough practice, he will be able to pick up even long distances like the whole village. But Naruto doubted that. What he was doing already defied many things.
Nano had to change chakra into a different…..frequency and quantity for both organs. It can even pick up different radio signals that were used for communication.
All the changes in the chakra had to occur before the chakra left the tenketsu point. Nano couldn't regulate or control the chakra after it left the tenketsu point.
Naruto may take a long time to adapt the enhanced hearing, but nano can utilize it to full effect. Like lie detection, ultra hearing to hear heartbeats, soundtracking, even echolocation…..enhanced hearing by itself may work as a sensor. But to achieve that naruto needs some training.
As Naruto's mind and brain capacity grow faster than average shinobi due to the presence of Kyuubi, his improvement would even surprise Nano.
And with enhanced smelling heightened naruto's sense of smell compared to before. Even before enhancing, his sense of smell was above the average person's. But now he can even smell the pheromones released by humans and animals. Even the pheromones smell released by his body. He couldn't differentiate the smells without the help of nano.
Nano decided to note down different kinds of smells for future purposes. It may be useful in tracking and picking up different kinds of scents.
These experiments happened for the whole night till morning. To keep Naruto from sleep, nano dropped the hormone levels that are necessary for the sleep in Naruto's body to keep him awake. Since naruto had asked nano to make him sleep during his classes nano obliged. Even if Naruto is asleep Nano can listen to the lectures and record important details.
…....
Two weeks later.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage was drumming his fingers on the table as he read the report placed in front of him. Monthly report. The report was about the mission details submitted by the ANBU guarding naruto. Every month he would read this particular report without missing it.
The ANBU noticed the change in naruto's behaviour as soon as they saw him using the transformation technique to enter the academy library.
The ANBU knew Naruto could perform the Jutsu. As it was the only Jutsu that was taught to the academy kids in the first three years, many kids couldn't perform the Jutsu properly. And for Naruto to accomplish that, the higher-ups knew about it already.
As for the library.....
HIruzen of course knew about naruto's predicament about not being able to enter the library, as naruto complained to him so much time and by going through ANBU reports monthly. He had assured naruto that he will look into it many times but never did so. He did not want an intelligent Jinchuriki. He wanted a blind loyal pet that would do whatever he asked.
And also he has some….care for naruto. That was why he posted ANBU guards, who oversee when people go overboard with their antics with naruto.
After one week naruto's routine has gone back to normal. There were still some changes in his regular behavior, but overall it was the same.
'This behavior change only appeared after the Uchiha massacre. Would this be Itachi's doing?' he asked to himself. Then denied the possibility.
'Itachi is….no….was completely loyal to the village. Even if Itachi thought of it as injustice for the Jinchuriki, he would let it happen for the good of the village'
'Maybe it was Danzo?' Hiruzen gritted his teeth. He did not condemn his long-time friend. He knows at some aspects of life Danzo's way of dealing with a problem is necessary. But jinchuriki is not one of those.
"Boar, rabbit, rat" Three ANBU came out from the shadows in the corners of the room. Excess ANBU were kept on standby mode in the Hokage room. Only two are permanently posted as his security, who follow the Hokage anywhere he goes.
"I am increasing guarding detail for Naruto Uzumaki. I want to know what books he read? who he speaks to? Where he goes regularly? If he has a daily schedule I want that too. Change the guards to veteran ninja. I want a daily report"
"HAI" and the three ninjas blended into the shadows.
'How come naruto was able to sneak past the chunin guards in the library without getting caught and even repeatedly too?'
It may be a false alarm. With how hyper naruto is, that is most probably the reason. As most books, the boy read were about Konoha history and previous Hokage's. Whatever he will know the answer soon.
Plus he needs to visit the boy to show his grandfatherly attitude. He also needs to increase his crystal ball viewing time for naruto rather than bathhouses.
'he…he…he…'
But he never did use his crystal ball to view naruto. He trusted in his ninja to find the source of the disturbance.
…....
(Flashback)
On the other hand, nano had noticed his tail during the first week after the nanites infusion. And it knew the masked ninja was Hokage's bodyguards and only Hokage can order them. So it had made measures to keep naruto's improvement under wraps. Nano made sure naruto's behaviour is back to normal as soon as the training began.
From that day onwards naruto trained his chakra control and enhanced hearing to increase the range. Soon Nano was able to come up with a technique called echolocation. Nano made short bursts of sounds at a different frequency that cannot be heard by human ears from time to time to locate the distant or invisible objects.
It may have been difficult for humans or animals to do this, but nano can receive the sound determine the surrounding at a faster rate.
(AN: If a bunch of sound shinobi could use scribbling sound of the paper to cheat in chunin exams then this is also very much possible for naruto with the help of nano)
Nano was able to make a black and white 3D holographic image, and a map that works as GPS on the corner of naruto's eyes (mini-map), which shows his surroundings. With him as the centre a semi-circle dome that showed anything in his range. He also can choose to change the map from 3D view to 2D view based on his preference.
Some ninja dogs or veteran ninja may be able to pick up the ultrasonic sound, but since the frequency changes from time to time, they would dismiss it and filter it as an unwanted noise. Naruto still needs to polish this technique sooner and faster.
It was through this mini-map, naruto found his….minders or tails (after the first week), who follow him wherever he goes. By now naruto developed some maturity to not directly go asking questions. And it appeared they never took any effort to hide themselves.
Naruto also wanted to see what they will be doing following him around. He also asked nano to record their smell and physical characteristics for future purposes.
