"Okay, we're all ready to start now Naruto, are you ready?" Chiriku turned to face his latest student; the two had been properly introduced shortly after Naruto and Chukaku's talk in the library. Naruto had thanked him for saving him and quickly the two developed a teacher-student type relationship. It was refreshing for the warrior monk to have a new inquisitive mind to ask him questions.
"Ready for what sempai?" The bald monk merely smiled as he walked back over, sitting down in front of Naruto in a cross-legged position.
"After your..." Chiriku frowned as he tried to think of the best way to say this to a child "...incident in Konoha." He winced as he caught the sudden tension in Naruto's posture but continued anyway. He thought it would be better for Naruto to confront his past instead of trying to ignore it. "You said you awoke in a crater. Master Chukaku believes this may be one of the inherent powers of your Rinnegan. We want to find out exactly what triggers this so we can replicate and in time with training and meditation, control it." Naruto seemed less sure but nonetheless nodded, if hesitantly.
"Alright, now I'm going to have to ask you to remember that night. Remember just what you saw, how it felt, everything." Naruto blinked in surprise before looking down, his hair overshadowing his eyes momentarily. That was the problem, he couldn't forget; he remembered every detail of that night like it was forever burned into his memory; that, and everything after it. The feel of Ayame's blood on his hands, the intense fear and self loathing as he stared up at those spinning red eyes, the coppery tang in the air and the echoes of Ayame's scream still ringing through the room.
Chiriku became alarmed as he felt an enormous amount of Chakra build up inside Naruto. It was far more than a boy of his age should have been able to mould, heck it was big for a Chuunin level ninja. He backed away from the boy when he noticed tears begin to stream down his face, the pressure building up inside him growing stronger as the chakra was diverted to his eyes in one massive burst. Words that weren't his own suddenly appeared in Naruto's mind, it felt like saying them was the most natural thing in the world, instinctual almost.
"SHINRA TENSEI!"
Just like that the room exploded.
When the smoke finally began to die down and Naruto stopped coughing he once again found himself in a large crater, this time slightly shallower thanks to the seals suppressing a great deal of the damage. Even so the effects of whatever he did were immense; cracks had appeared in the slabs all around the crater, in some cases snaking out to the walls. Now that he could actually observe the after-effects he could see it wasn't a perfectly circular crater, most of the damage was in front of him making it more egg shaped. He blinked suddenly as he realised something was wrong.
"Chiriku-sempai?" Naruto glanced around, not spotting the bald monk anywhere, at least until the rest of the dust in the room settled. "CHIRIKU-SEMPAI!" The blonde dashed to his feet, rushing over to Chiriku's still form propped up against a wall. His robes were tattered and in places torn while it looked like he himself had been thrown against a very hard rock, repeatedly. Naruto just stood there in front of him, his eyes wide and watering.
He collapsed bonelessly to his knees his fingers clutching the fabric of the older monk's robes tightly as his body was wracked by intense sobs. Suddenly he felt the body beneath him move as Chiriku took in a shuddering breath. The trained mink looked up into the mop of blonde hair trying to bury itself into his chest before chuckling lightly, only to wince in pain as his chest burned.
"Well the first thing we need to do is work on meditation. Can't have you doing this to every training ground we have ne?" The small blonde looked up, tears in his eyes and staining his whiskered cheeks before he wrapped his tiny arms around Chiriku as far as he could. The monk winced at the pressure but just resigned himself to rubbing comforting circles on the boy's back as he looked around the training field.
The damage was immense, even with the suppressing seals that he knew for a fact could withstand an A-ranked fire Jutsu without so much as a scorch mark. Yet here this seven year old body had managed to put a crater in it about a foot deep with just a simple burst of chakra; at least that was what it had seemed like. It was certainly no wind Jutsu; Chiriku had felt his share of those sparring against Asuma. He had never seen anything quite like it before and that said a lot in his opinion.
'Such power for one so young, master Chukaku was right about you Naruto, you will grow up to be strong.' The bald monk smiled at the thought even as another streak of pain flared in his chest 'And I'll be there to guide you along the way for as long as I can.'
Chukaku looked up from his meditation as he heard a knocking on his fusuma, soon after Naruto meekly shuffled into the room, his hair hanging over his eyes as he managed to find something incredibly interesting about his feet.
"Yes Naruto-kun, what can I do for you?" The boy looked up for a moment, catching the older man's gaze for a split second before looking away. In that moment Chukaku saw fear, regret, a whole multitude of emotions running across those rippled purple eyes.
"I-I don't think I can do it." Chukaku stood up at this, walking over to the now trembling boy.
"Do what Naruto?" He placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder only for the boy to pull away, wrenching himself out of the firm grip.
"Everything! This training! Learning to control this power!" He looked up now and it was painfully obvious the boy had been crying; his eyes were reddened and there were still streaks running down his cheeks from the tears he had shed. "Please Master Chukaku, I don't want to hurt people anymore." Chukaku sighed at that, kneeling down on his old knees so he could look at Naruto from his level.
"Naruto, you wanted to be a Shinobi didn't you?" The blonde looked up at that, blinking in confusion despite the new tears already welling up in his eyes. "Did you know that as a Shinobi you would have been asked to kill people?" Chukaku almost flinched as he saw the horrified look on the boy's face, he hated to see such innocence lost but he knew Naruto would only torment himself further if he didn't do something now.
"No ninja is without blood on their hands, not even the Hokage." Chukaku shook his head at that "Especially not the Hokage." Naruto had stopped shaking now, looking at the elderly monk with a look caught between his sorrow and slight interest. "But do you know what separates most Shinobi from common thieves and murderers?" Naruto blinked once, somehow unable to tear his gaze away from Chukaku's as he slowly shook his head.