NA – Chapter 179: The Secret Library

Disclaimer:

Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 179: The Secret Library

"It's a bit smaller than I imagined." Naruto glanced around the room.

He had entered through a secret passage above the Hokage's office and now stood in a small circular chamber. The room held several scrolls secured in locked shelves, each one covered in complex seals meant for their protection.

At the center of the room was a decently sized circular desk made of some type of dark wood with two comfortable-looking chairs next to it.

"Of course it is," Shizune replied, moving toward a specific shelf. "This is the restricted section, under the Hokage's strict supervision. It contains mostly jutsus deemed forbidden for one reason or another so they are only available to those personally approved by the current leader of the village. There are also some extremely important documents detailing Konoha's hidden history and some of its best-kept secrets, but I suppose you're not interested in those."

She was the only one accompanying him today, and Naruto hadn't seen Tsunade anywhere, which made him a bit curious but not enough to ask.

"I'm not interested in secret documents, no. What I'm looking for is…"

"This?" Shizune unlocked a shelf and retrieved a small scroll. Unlike most of the others, this one appeared relatively new and in pristine shape.

Naruto took the scroll, unfurled it, and skimmed its contents.

"I shouldn't be surprised. There really are no secrets in this village."

The scroll was exactly what he was looking for...the second part of the Flying Thunder God jutsu, left behind by his father. That explained its pristine condition. Minato had died less than twenty years ago, and Naruto was likely the first person to touch this scroll since it had been stored here.

Although he had only spoken with Jiraya about learning this jutsu.

Shizune chuckled softly. "Well, you know... It is a ninja village. And since you've been studying fuuinjutsu with Lord Jiraiya, it wasn't hard to guess you'd be interested in that particular jutsu. This was one of your father's signature techniques after all."

"Yeah, I'm still getting used to that." Back in his old sect, people minded their own business. Konoha was entirely different. Everyone seemed to be interested in what everyone else was doing.

Naruto's eyes began scanning the scroll. Symbols covered the parchment. Some were familiar while others were entirely new. Lines of text detailed the process in meticulous detail, accompanied by increasingly complex formations.

He wasn't trying to understand the jutsu yet, just to memorize it...to engrave its contents into his mind so it would never be forgotten.

Shizune noticed a change in Naruto's aura as he read, but she couldn't pinpoint what it was. It felt like he was circulating a large amount of chakra. "What… what are you doing?"

She had expected him to sit down and carefully study the scroll in peace. A desk with a comfortable chair had been provided for that purpose.

She'd even cleared her schedule for the entire day, assuming this would take hours.

To her shock, after only a minute of standing and reading, Naruto rolled the scroll back up and handed it to her.

"N-Naruto?" Shizune stammered, utterly confused. "Was it too difficult?"

She could only assume that Naruto had realized his current level of fuuinjutsu mastery wasn't enough to comprehend the jutsu yet. That would have been understandable.

The Flying Thunder God was originally created by the Second Hokage, and apart from Minato Namikaze, no one had been able to fully master it since.

Shizune felt a small sense of relief at the thought that there might be something Naruto couldn't learn. From the moment she had met him, his unnatural talent had been unsettling.

Naruto's rate of progress seemed to rival even legendary prodigies like Uchiha Itachi and Hatake Kakashi, and that made her uneasy.

As Shizune reached for reassuring words, Naruto's next statement froze her in place.

"It does look difficult but not overly so. The reason I'm returning this is because I don't need it anymore. I've already engraved the contents into my mind and soul. I won't forget a single detail."

Naruto turned away, leaving Shizune standing there, clutching the scroll.

"You… did what?"

"Am I allowed to study anything else here?" Naruto asked casually while ignoring her question as he didn't want to elaborate on his memorization method.

He also hadn't been told whether he was limited to one scroll or could read multiple ones. There was another jutsu he was interested in...another forbidden technique his father had mentioned on 'that day'. It would be good if he could find it today as that would save him time later on.

"You want to read other scrolls? I mean…" Shizune was still recovering from her shock. "It's not really against the rules…"

Tsunade hasn't said anything specific about this. Mostly because like her, she had assumed that Naruto would spend the entire day on this one scroll and perhaps return in the future for further study.

Learning multiple forbidden S-rank jutsus in a single day seemed utterly insane.

Naruto nodded. "If it's not against the rules, that's good. I might read a few more. Perhaps ten or twenty."

"T-Twenty?!" Shizune stuttered. Did Naruto think this was a supermarket and he was casually picking out cabbages? This was one of the most sacred places in the entire village, where the most dangerous knowledge has been painstakingly preserved since Konoha's very own founding.

Ignoring Shizune's outburst, Naruto scanned the room again.

One scroll, in particular, caught his eye. It was much larger than the others and looked ancient, exuding an almost magnetic aura.

"What can you tell me about that one?"

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