The Team was gathered in training ground 14. Jiraiya was finally making good on his promise to train them. They were all more than a little curious about what he had planned. The man appeared in a kabuki dance and they were all amazed. Before his ego could even inflate a little Naruko spoke. "I think that takes the cake for the weirdest thing I've ever seen." It was definitely amazing, just not like he thought.
"No Naru-chan, it's not weird, just profoundly dumb."
"Am I the only one who thinks it's cool?" The other two look at Sasuke weirdly. "What kabuki is a great art form."
"Sure, but that's," she points to the white haired man, "not cool, and isn't good kabuki."
"Not gonna lie Sasuke I never thought you of all people would like kabuki."
"My parents used to take me to shows when I was little." It was one of the few untainted memories of them he had left. The rest were ruined by the massacre.
"That's actually really sweet. Maybe we should go as a team sometime." Hinata was sure her girlfriend wouldn't mind.
"I'd like that."
Jiraiya turns to Kurenai and asks, "Do they treat you with this disrespect?"
"You have no idea." She can't count the number of times the two girls have blatantly talked about her body. Or how often the three of them collectively ignore her. Well at least they always listen when running drills and on missions.
"Alright brats, I'm gonna be teaching all of you Fuinjutsu."
"But that's Naruko's specialty, well one of them." The Uchiha had no problem with his friends specialty, but he wanted to learn more in his own.
"Sure, it's mine too. But all of my teammates learned it anyways. And it's good practice to at least be familiar with the art. Every previous Hokage has had some measure of proficiency in it."
"So are you just going to be teaching us how to make storage scrolls?" Jiraiya scoffs at the boy.
"No, contrary to popular belief there is no clear cut best starting point for Fuinjutsu. Most start with storage seals because they are easy and incredibly useful. They also have minimal backlash if you do something catastrophically wrong." The worse that would happen with a failed storage scroll is the item sealed inside being ruined, relatively harmless. Jiraiya, seeing no more questions, says, "Instead I'm going to be teaching each of you a different specialty. I'll be testing your affinities to see what suits you."
"But we all already know our chakra nature." It was Hinata who protested this time.
Jiraiya shakes his head. "It's a different kind of affinity. Most people have little natural ability to tell what a seal does. But they all have some natural ability to tell what certain types of seals do better than others. Like chakra they can have multiple affinities. So I'm going to present multiple seals to you and I want you to describe what they do for me. Naruko yours will be more complex since you already have an understanding of seals." The genin nod in understanding. It sort of made sense, though only barely. Well Naruko understood it better, as rare as that was. She remembered when she picked apart the resistance seal. The matrix had seemingly unraveled in her mind and she understood it. This was probably what Jiraiya was talking about.
"So who's going first?" Hinata questions.
"Since you were industrious enough to ask you can. There are five major categories of Fuinjutsu that all others technically fall under. They are in no particular order barrier seals, curse seals, space-time seals, elemental seals, and chakra seals. Sasuke and Naruko I'm going to have to ask you two to leave for a few minutes while we let the little Hyuuga take a crack at the seals. I'll send a clone to get you when we're done." The two genin nod and head off into the forest surrounding the training ground, might as well spar. Seeing them leave he pulls out five low level seals. One of each type he listed earlier. "Bare in mind you might have next to no affinity for seals in which case you likely won't be able to at all tell the effects. Now then, go ahead and take a crack at them." He lays them out onto the ground in a pentagon.
Hinata takes a look at each of them. She couldn't tell what most of them meant. She could read the Kanji but the other symbols made little sense to her. But looking at on of them, she notices something. Yes for sure. She points to it and says, "This is a curse seal." Jiraiya nods and pulls it away. If she had other affinities it would help to get this one out of sight. She spends another minute looking them over before looking at another. Her gut was telling her it was an elemental seal. She told the man as much. He nods once more and then pulls it away. She spends a few more minutes but is unable to decipher any more (not that she was actually deciphering them).
He pulls the remaining seals away and speaks as he does so. "Alright, looks like you have an affinity for curse seals and elemental seals. The former isn't really surprising, most Hyuuga with any talent in Fuinjutsu tend to have an affinity for them." Although the Hyuuga didn't actually create their caged bird seal. That was made by the Uzumaki clan and then changed by the Hyuuga.
"Aren't curse seals bad?"
"Not necessarily. A curse seal is any kind of seal that places some kind of negative affect onto a person. A resistance seal is a mix of a barrier seal and a curse seal." He says while pointing to her glove.
"So what kind of seals are storage seals?"
"They're actually a form of Space-Time seals. They store the items in a pocket dimension." That actually made a lot of sense.
"And what about Naruko's seal?"
"That is a work of art. It's a mix of an extremely advanced barrier seal, what can probably be described as the pinnacle of curse seals, and an incredibly powerful space-time seal. Oh and a chakra seal. To give a point of reference for how much of a masterpiece her seal is most seals only use one category, and the fourths signature jutsu was a mix of three. Each new category added to a seal makes it exponentially more difficult to make function properly, and to a lesser degree so do extra seals of the same category layered on top of one another." Of course it had to be that way, the more complex it is the harder it is to decipher as well. "I'll get into teaching you more once we know the others affinities." With that he makes a shadow clone that goes to fetch the next genin.
About three minutes later Sasuke arrives. He's scowling something fierce. Hinata had to stifle a laugh as she spots the bruise on his cheek, seems Naru-chan wasn't holding back. "Sasuke why not just heal the bruise?"
"It wasn't a bruise. She broke my jaw." Ah, well that explains the scowl. "I would have kept healing it but then Jiraiya appeared and wouldn't leave me alone until I stopped and came here."
"Right, well, it's time to test you. You're not trained in seals like the Hyuuga heiress so I'll be giving you simple ones." He repeats the process pulling out the same five seals as before. "It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyways. Hinata don't speak until he's done." The girl nods and he places them down.
Sasuke looks down at the seals. He almost instantly points to one and says, "This is a barrier seal." Jiraiya nods. He finds scrutinizing the others much more difficult and after several minutes of silence he sighs and shakes his head. "I can't tell anything about the others."
"Well you don't seem to have an affinity for the other seals, but you have a very high affinity for barrier seals."
"What did Hinata have?"
"She had a moderate affinity for both curse seals and elemental seals."
"So is it only worth learning barrier seals?"
"If you aren't planning on specializing in seals then yes. I'm a Fuinjutsu specialist and am highly proficient in all five categories, though I can only claim mastery of elemental seals and chakra seals. But my teammates only ever bothered to learn their affinities." The Uchiha nods and the Sannin makes a clone to go get Naruko.
She arrives much faster than the Uchiha only taking a few seconds. Jiraiya seeing her arrive pulls out five scrolls. Unlike the single sheets of paper the other two got. "Once again, the two who have already tested should keep quiet." This time it wasn't so they could tell what's what, but rather so they don't distract her.
Naruko chooses to just grab one of the scrolls and unrolls it. Like with the resistance seal so many months ago the matrix just seems to unravel in her mind. "This is a hybrid seal, it mixes both a space-time seal and a barrier seal. I think it's a prison seal right?" These were used to store people, as any seal that would store a living creature requires a barrier seal to keep it contained. Jiraiya nods and she moves on. The same process happens for the next scroll. "This is a double elemental seal, it looks like it absorbs fire chakra and then the second elemental seal redirects the chakra and fires it back, converting the users chakra to fire in the process to add to the strength." Once more the man nods. The other two genin were gaping increasingly wider. Naruko ignores them and moves on. "This is a curse seal, it's actually three different curse seals layered on top of each other. Along with a single chakra seal." Kurenai had to stifle a gasp as she looks at what's drawn on the scroll, that's Anko's seal! "It has a lot to it so I'll explain more later." Jiraiya had thought there was a chance of this happening. It seems the girl had an affinity for all of the categories, but she was an Uzumaki so that was to be expected. Though even Kushina was never this good at instantly deciphering seals.
"You don't have to continue, you've already proven your affinity for all five categories."
"Is it not alright if I look and see what the other two do anyways?" She wanted to take a look at the seals, it was interesting to her.
"I'll show you more later, for now I, and Kurenai too, would like to hear your analysis of that curse seal."
"Are you not able to fully decipher it?" She wouldn't have thought he would give her something he himself hadn't figured out.
"No. Curse seals have always been my weakest category and I've only been able to figure out how the first two curse seals work."
"Oh well, then as you probably already know the first layer is about how it digs into the users chakra network. It makes it so the user can't just stop channeling chakra through it to make it stop. That's how most curse seals work." The caged bird seal was the same, they're meant to be irremovable by the victim. "The second curse seal has an addictive property to it that makes it so when the user uses the seal they become dependent on it. It also warps the mind of the user." Jiraiya nods, he knew that much. "The third and final curse seal attaches the chakra of someone else to the seal and seems to embed their chakra into the persons network. Though this seal is empty as it's only on a scroll." Jiraiya knew who's chakra it belonged to, but would it not run out? He voices this concern. "No it won't, that's what the chakra seal does. It channels the energy nature emits into the seal and converts into something else along with the casters chakra."
Kurenai speaks up. "What energy are you talking about?"
"I knew I was forgetting something. You know how my hair stands up sometimes and I randomly have red eyeliner? That's what happens when I channel this energy. I always forget to bring it up. Oops." Hinata rolls her eyes, they've been a team for months and her girlfriend only now brought this up.
Jiraiya speaks up. "Can you channel this energy for me?"
"Sure." She does so and almost immediately activates her nature transformation.
"That's what I thought. Kid, you're in Sage Mode."
"Sage Mode?"
"It's what happens when you channel nature chakra. It seems you're a perfect sage too."
"How am I a perfect sage?"
"There are no deformities, and you seem to need no aid."
"How do you know about this?"
"I'm a sage as well." Though he's not a perfect sage.
"Huh, well that explains a lot." She didn't really care about the terminology but at least she finally knew what it was. "So can anyone channel it?"
"Yeah but for most people they are at risk of turning to stone if they do. And generally it helps if they have summoning contract, though it's not necessary." Oh, well that's a little frightening. "So back to the matter at hand do you think you can potentially undue the seal?" The Uzumaki shakes her head.
"No, I'm good at recreating seals and deciphering them, but I'm not good at making my own seals and counter seals yet." Jiraiya nods in understanding. Simply knowing the full extent is enough for now. He had finally made some progress. "Right, well, as you all might be able to tell by now Naruko here has a high affinity with all five major categories of sealing. Not surprising given her heritage. Both of her parents were seal masters and her mother had the same level of affinities."
"You know you only seem to be this astute when it comes to seals. Why can't the same happen for your common sense?"
"Whatever Sasuke just cause I'm not afraid to talk about how Hina-chan stares at my ass doesn't mean I don't have common sense."
"You're right, that doesn't mean you lack common sense. You lack common sense because you can't understand sarcasm or normal social gestures." Naruko pouts at that. Sure she might not get it but it didn't really matter. "Also, you are terrible at detecting lies."
"Yeah but that's part of what makes her adorable." The Hyuuga heiress loved the naivete of her girlfriend, it was a part of her charm. She had come up behind her girlfriend and was rubbing her face against the smaller girls cheek.
"I think you two just flirt in front of me to annoy me at this point."
"That's part of it. But it also just because I love flirting with her." Jiraiya was giggling madly at this point. This was great material. "Jiraiya-san if I read anything resembling Naru-chan, then I will castrate you." They already knew she read his books. Jiraiya rolls his eyes, he'd do it anyways. She was still just a genin.
"Right, well, I'm aware of your schedule with Kurenai. So during her one on ones with one of you I'll be teaching one of the others the seals they have an affinity for. Then you'll rotate. I won't be teaching you on weekends, I am a busy man. But I don't mind taking time out of my weekdays to help." He had already agreed on this schedule with Kurenai so not as to interfere with her teams schedules. "I'll only be focusing on you all for the next three weeks, then I'm going to be too busy attending to other matters in the village." That was when the Chunin Exams would start and he'd be busy during that time.