Haruto trained hard to master the Poison Extraction Jutsu once again, it took him quite a few tries to get out all of the poison from the body of the fish, but he was still nowhere near as quick as Kakashi when doing it.
Naruto meanwhile was still stuck learning the preparation stages of the poison pill. He'd grasped the basics of which ingredients he needed, which was a monumental task in and of itself given each ingredient had its own conditions for being harvested, but he was currently stuck on how he had to prepare each ingredient for grinding.
"What do you think about it, Kakashi-san?" Haruto asked Kakashi with a plain frown on his face.
"Hmm… alright…" Kakashi nodded. "It'll be too difficult for you to expect any major improvements in a rather short amount of time… we can move onto practical applications of this jutsu."
"What practical applications?" Haruto asked, pondering if what they were doing was not already a practical application.
"You'll be dissolving poison and containing it within a certain region in the human body for maximum effect of pain." Kakashi stated plainly. Naruto, who was eavesdropping to learn more about the cool ninjutsu that Haruto was learning, shivered involuntarily.
"Is that… necessary?" Naruto asked with some fear but Kakashi didn't even spare the time to acknowledge his question.
"From now on, you'll use the poison extraction technique to limit the spread of the poison in the fish while keeping all the poison restricted to its face. We'll reduce the area bit by bit until it'll be restricted plainly to the brain of the fish. That's when you'll have attained a decent proficiency in the Poison Extraction Jutsu."
"Just decent?" Haruto questioned in confusion.
"A professional like Tsunade-sama can keep the poison limited to just the skin if she wanted." Kakashi explained calmly, creating surprise in both Naruto and Haruto. Haruto was even more surprised since he'd felt exactly how thin the skin of the fish was when he was using the Poison Extraction Jutsu.
At that point since the sun was about to set, Kakashi decided to disband the training for the day. He was about to leave but before he did he left behind a few quick words for Haruto.
"I heard you're starting a new research project in the R&D department. Make sure your work does not distract you from your training."
"Yes, Kakashi-san. It'll be taken care of."
With that Kakashi left.
Naruto instantly jumped up to his feet and waddled towards Haruto with excitement. "So! Are we going to learn the Fireball Jutsu today!?"
Haruto shook his head gently, "No… what we are going to be doing instead is learning an exercise that helps us become proficient in Chakra control."
Naruto had question marks practically showing up on his head but Haruto continued explaining uninterrupted. "As you would've noticed by now, chakra control is a hard to master skill for a beginner like you. This is an issue many ninjas before and after us will face, and thankfully they've done something about it. They've invented an exercise that we can use to master chakra control so that it obeys us better and allows us to perform our Jutsus quicker and in some cases without any hand signs."
"Without hand signs!?" Naruto gulped at the prospect. He'd seen several shinobi trying to form hand signs before performing jutsus before, including Haruto while he was training the Poison Extraction Jutsu. And he'd tried to copy them on his own, but because of his own clumsy little stubby fingers he often failed to form even the most basic of the twelve standard handsigns that he'd recognised.
"Yes, without hand signs. But that's only for very skilled practitioners, not for us to bother with yet."
"Tell me!? What's the exercise like!? How do I do it!?"
"For you there is the basic leaf concentration exercise. You stick a leaf to a tenketsu in your body, pass some chakra in the tenketsu until the leaf sticks to your body and control it to be there while you perform a basic chakra circulation."
"That simple?" Naruto asked with slight mistrust.
But Haruto simply nodded, "It's that simple. But it's difficult and requires a lot of trial and error to find the right chakra amount in your tenketsu which will help you stick the leaf to your body. And each tenketsu has a different amount so you'll have to train all the tenketsu you want to release your jutsu out of to know what is the amount that makes them tick."
Naruto's eyes shone like bright lights. He was excited to have a go at the exercise and he quickly picked up a leaf and stuck it to his stomach.
Haruto observed Naruto excitedly pick up more leaves and stick them to his stomach as the previous ones were torn apart and exploded because he used a little too much chakra to try to stick the leaf, but when things didn't progress anywhere in another half an hour, even Naruto's jovial self slowly started to get frustrated and angry.
"This is stupid!! Why doesn't it just stick!!!! Just stick goddamn it!! You are part of my body!! Act like I want you to!!!! Or get lost!!!"
Naruto's anger didn't help of course, making his chakra control sloppier by the minute and causing him to accidentally add more chakra than he wanted, which shredded more leaves, but Haruto simply quietly observed, offering no help since this was an internal process for Naruto.
Of course, Haruto didn't just stay standing there either. He quietly slipped away to a nearby tree trunk and began practicing tree walking.
Only-
"HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Why did you fall on your ass like that!!?? That was so funny!!! Are you trying to make me laugh to make me feel better!!?? That was a riot!! You're funny Haruto-kun."
Haruto frowned at Naruto's words since he felt slightly ashamed about it, but then sighed internally and vowed to laugh just like Naruto was laughing at him when he practiced tree walking instead.
Haruto didn't offer any explanation and continued his strange behaviour while Naruto having calmed down from his previous impulsive impotent rage began practicing the leaf concentration exercise in earnest.
***
Danzo smiled while looking at Haruto from the crystal ball in the Hokage office.
"Good… this way the Jinchuriki will be closely bonded with you…"
With those words Danzo covered up the crystal ball on his desk and spoke to the ANBU hiding in the walls. "Make sure that the people that were recruited for Haruto Hayashi's project in the R&D department do not sabotage his research in any way."
"Yes Hokage-sama." One ANBU appeared in front of him, kneeling on one knee, before disappearing into the wind in a swirl of leaves.
"...now… what do I do with the Uchiha?"
A plan was brewing up in Danzo's mind. He didn't know how effective it would be, but if the Uchiha were going to get the Daimyo's support they'd only get more and more stronger politically.
The right time to cut them down was now. And if he achieved in doing so he was sure his sensei, Tobirama, would praise him from pure land.
***
You can now read 10 advanced chapters on my patreon for just $3!!! Thank you for your support everyone! pa treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au