The Art of the Toad Sage: Chapter One

[Digital ♥]

Introduction:

Before Mai`s so called death, Yuuto had to act quickly in order to obtain a little bit of her blood and forge a signature in order to bind her to the toad summoning contract in which saved her life. One of Yuuto`s companion toads preformed a reverse summon to transport her to transport her to Mobokuzan where the toads dwelled deep within the mountain oasis. It was like a lush rainforest filled with tons of green vegetation and other giant plants. There was plenty of sun to warm the cold blooded creatures in, many of them were perched on top of the giant leaves that acted as canopies high above the forest floor.

And upon her arrival Yuuto finally made his choice and decided to teach the Uchiha the way of the toad sage, starting with the basics of summoning toads in the first place. But for now she had to rest up after that whole ordeal, it was a nasty battle and they would have to prepare Mai for the worst or at least do their best to.

When the young Uchiha woke up from a good solid day of rest she found her leg wrapped in some oddly sturdy leaves and other strange materials, covering the wound inflicted from the pipe. It was hard to get up and move around at first, but after several failed attempts at trying to stand Yuuto decided to help her out and picked her up, placing her flat on her feet. Mai wobbled for a moment, her leg still throbbing. She looked over herself, she had some incredibly baggy clothing on since her clothes were charred in the fire. The only human currently at Myobokuzan Mountain was Yuuto she had to wear some of his clothing until the toads could make some for her.

"Hey hey Kiddo! Glad to see your up, I was starting to get worried. Come come, Master Shima made breakfast for us."

Her eyes buzzed around the room for awhile, trying to figure out where they where. Yuuto raised an eyebrow, wondering if she was looking for something but quickly came to the conclusion that she had to have been wondering where they were. He`d just let Shima and Fukasaku explain since they knew much more than he could ever imagine. Yuuto`s long black cape flowed behind as did the ends of headband.

They were in some kind of house, and that was for sure. When they finally came to a door Yuuto knocked before he opened up the door. Shima had just finished setting the little table in the center of the kitchen like room. Mai`s mouth watered at the wonderful smell that wafted through her nostrils. Yuuto headed in after the Uchiha did and seated himself on one of the little green pillows.

"An Uchiha on Myobokuzan? Ya`ll must have lost yer mind boy! Naruto wouldnt `ve liked this one bit I tell ya! Fukasaku!"

Mai pretty much ignored the little toad up until the point when she mentioned Naruto, obviously Yuuto must not have told Shima anything about her yet.. perhaps Yuuto didnt know either? But he had been at the exams, so he must have seen the kyuubi`s little display. Shima`s call was not answered after a minute or two of slience, so she decided to try again.

"FUKASAKU!!!!"

The elder toad hobbled in slowly waving an angry fist at his partner and plopped himself on one of the pillows near Yuuto.

"Quit yer yakin`! I heard ya the first time Ma! What`d ya want?"

Shima dropped the bowl on the table in front of him, the hot liquid splashed up in his face and he sat there in a very displeased manner. She gently set the bowl down before Yuuto, but was reluctant to give Mai any.

"I dont think ya`ll like it, but if yer gunna stay here with us, ya gotta eat like us. Understand?"

Mai`s eyes hadnt seen the still squirming bugs swimming in the liquid, so she shook her head rapidly. So when Shima set the bowl down she didnt even think twice, she grabbed the chopsticks and dug in. When she put a large larva in her mouth, and felt it squish and squirm Mai paused very suddenly. Yuuto laughed as he ate a couple of the crawling larva, he had felt the same way when he first came to Myobokuzan with Naruto in his youth.

It was incredibly hard to swallow, but she somehow managed to get it down. Mai gulped, her face practically turned green and she didnt even attempt to hide her disgust. Shima didnt seem to mind, since she expected it.

"So, yer obviously gunna train the Uchiha in the toad arts? Does `er father know?" Fukasaku asked curiously, after he asked his questions his long tongue wrapped around a large winged moth creature and pulled it into his mouth. Yuuto nodded his head several times, Mai glanced up at the toads. Then it came to her, how could they talk? She had seen a talking snake before when she was much much younger, but that seemed like a dream.

"If you dont mind of course Master Fukasaku." Shima sat down with her own bowl and began to eat while listening to the two converse. Fukasaku attempted to speak, but his words were mangled in his mouth because he was still eating. A piece of the moth landed in Mai`s bowl. Her face turned pale as she picked it out with her chopsticks, but in the end she decided to eat it as well. How bad could it be?

"Bah! Of course not boy... but I still dont understand why ye picked an Uchiha, of all of the genin you picked your master`s enemy?"

"Naruto hand selected her to be his heir."

"Did he now? Hmm... interesting... well you two better start training, teach `er the shadow clone first. It`ll be the most helpful, ye know why Yuuto." And with that the two elder toads finished their meals and left them. Yuuto waited for Mai to finish before he took her out by the fountains. The giant stone toads towered over them, and in the middle was by far the largest. It`s mouth was open and toad oil poured out into the large pool bellow.

"Do not, I repeat, DO NOT touch or drink the toad oil. It`ll turn you into a toad, and there is no way to reverse it. But theres no time for fun and games right now... we have to start with the multi shadow clone technique. Master Fukasaku mentioned that it would be of the most help because your shadow clones gain any knowledge and experience for you, and when it disappears you`ll have the same knowledge and experience making learning techniques much much faster." Yuuto explained, Mai sat down on the steps of the pool and listened carefully to his instructions. She had heard of the shadow clone technique before.

[Pikachu]

That was great. Too bad you didn't work on any techniques in it XD. Still, I'll allow you access to the Genin section of the Toad Summoning Line. They don't seem too happy about working for a Uchiha, so going any higher than that would be a bit risky.

[Digital ♥]

Yeah I know xD I just wanted to get a bit of an introduction across. Might copy and paste the very first part of Yuuto`s little speech dealio for the Shadow Clone in the next post. I dont think their angry, just surprised. Even more so when they found out that she was the new container of the fox XP

[Digital ♥]

Art of the Shadow Clone:

"Do not, I repeat, DO NOT touch or drink the toad oil. It`ll turn you into a toad, and there is no way to reverse it. But theres no time for fun and games right now... we have to start with the multi shadow clone technique. Master Fukasaku mentioned that it would be of the most help because your shadow clones gain any knowledge and experience for you, and when it disappears you`ll have the same knowledge and experience making learning techniques much much faster." Yuuto explained, Mai sat down on the steps of the pool and listened carefully to his instructions. She had heard of the shadow clone technique before, but had only seen it preformed once or twice. Mai nodded her head since she was in no mood to speak, just to listen.

"It is almost the exact same as making a normal clone, but you must evenly disperse your chakra into each clone you create. Chakra control is KEY to doing this correctly, I dont expect you to get it on the first try so do your best and give it a shot. Make the Tiger hand seal with your left hand and right, then adjust your right hand to form a cross like this." Yuuto continued on as he showed her how to preform the hand seal. A second copy of Yuuto appear along side of him, one pointed to the left and the other to the right, "If you use your sharingan, dont do it by the way it`ll waste chakra, you`d see that both myself and the clone have the same amount of chakra. For a normal shinobi, we`d only be able to make one or two clones, but you have a near endless pit of chakra. All you have to do is control it, which you should be able to do already, and do as I explained early, got it?" The older shinobi seated himself by the fountain and leaned back on one hand, acting a bit disinterested in what she was doing. He figured that if Mai wanted his attention she`d work much harder than average, which was what he was trying to do. Hopefully they could move onto the next technique before nightfall.

Mai got to her feet, then placed her hands on her hips and stretched her back. She gave Yuuto the thumbs up. Before she began to even attempt the jutsu she took a deep breath, held it in for a moment then let it out slowly. The kunoichi recalled the correct position of the hand seals, then preformed them. Mai crossed her two tiger hand seals and closed her eyes. Yuuto glanced up when he heard the puff of smoke form next to her, perhaps she would be able to learn the technique much more quickly that he did in his youth. But when the cloud revealed a shriveled mess of a clone he let out a disappointed sigh and continued to do nothing.

She wouldnt allow herself to lose faith just yet, after all Yuuto had told her that it might take her awhile to totally master the A ranked technique. With a grin on her face she tried the jutsu out again, still nothing more than the shriveled up mess she had before. Mai tried it one last time before she decided to take a quick break and figure out what she was doing incorrectly.

"I think i`ll get it this time..." Mai muttered to herself as she preformed the hand seals for a third time. Her eyes flickered up to a disinterested Yuuto in hopes that he would urge her to continue, but instead he had opened up his scroll and was thumbing through its contents. "Shadow clone jutsu!"

[Pikachu]

((I approve of 15 Points/65 Points. So at least your clones won't be shriveled mess XD))

[Digital ♥]

(Next one will be longer I pwomissss XP )

"Keep at it, your getting there pretty fast. Much more than I could say for myself actually, I couldnt get anything until my tenth or so try. So far so good." Yuuto encouraged her with a fun filled voice, he didnt seem as serious and attentive as before. It seemed as if the whole ignoring thing was actually working, which quite frankly always seemed to have backfired before. Then again Mai wasnt just any ordinary person, she was quite special in his eyes. Yuuto knew that one day, perhaps even one day soon that the young Uchiha would surpass him, and maybe even Naruto for that matter. Who knew? The possibilities were pretty much endless with a kid with so much raw potential like her.

Mai kept working at it for a good twenty minutes, and each time resulted in a slightly better clone than the one before it, but none of them were even close to being complete. It was starting to become enraging for her, and Yuuto could see the anger right on her face. The whiskers on her face had become a little more feral looking, but nothing too bad. The old ninja wasnt worried about an appearance from the kyuubi any time soon. That would probably come later with much more complicated techniques.

"Say, you know Chidori dont you?" He asked curiously, with a large blond eyebrow raised. Yuuto set the scroll down by his side and had found a quill like pen in one of his many hidden pockets. Mai stopped as soon as her pathetic looking clone stood beside her. At least they were standing on their own for a moment or two before they melted into mush and disappeared in a puff of some.

"Yeah... why?"

[Pikachu]

((Eh, 10 Points. So thats 25/65))

[Digital ♥]

While Mai continued to try and make one clone after another, each one slightly better than the first, Yuuto dug through a pouch and found a small piece of paper. He handled it very carefully, and his skin never actually touched the paper, he used part of his sleeve to hold onto it. He flagged Mai over with his free hand.

"Lets take five minutes, I want to figure something out first." Yuuto told her, holding the little piece of paper out to her. Mai took it and the paper quickly caught on fire and turned into ash. She dropped the little pile of burning ashes then looked at Yuuto like he was crazy.

"Fire, just like I thought. Good good, now I know what we`ll have to accomplish in the future." He muttered quietly to himself, Mai strained to hear what he was saying. But he shooed her away and it was time for her to get back to training.

Mai slinked away from her new sensei and got right back to work. She formed the hand seal, double check it to make sure she had it pretty much perfect. Her fingers formed a cross when they were together, just like Yuuto had shown her. Then Mai grinned, a couple beads of sweat began to roll down the sides of her face. This was a lot of work, and a lot of chakra too. Hopefully this was worth it, what ever it was.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" A large puff of smoke filled her vision once again as she waited to see her latest clone. But it was hardly better than the last one she had made. Disappointed by its still messy and distorted form she let it disappear as she repeated the process again and again.

Yuuto had drifted off to sleep after about two more solid hours of this training, but he woke up when he saw Mai sprawled out on her back panting heavily. Mai still felt like she was at the very first step, but it wasnt her specialty to make shadow clones so it was a lot harder to learn than a normal fire or lightning technique.

"Still awake kiddo? Its nearly lunch time, hungry at all?" Yuuto stood up and stretched, then made his wave over to his tired student. The jounin stood over her and blocked out the sun. Mai stared up at the giant leaves.

"N-Nnnooo... go on without me. I havent finished perfecting it just yet. And I wont eat until I do." replied the genin as she sat up. Mai brushed the hair out of her face and blinked her eyes really hard once, now she didnt see black dots everywhere after staring at the clouds near the sun for so long.

"Fine fine, suit yourself. The toads wont make anything else until dinner time, so you wont be able to eat anything until then. Not that your missing out on much anyways.... Larva and bugs arent exactly .. the most wonderful dishes of all time." And with that Yuuto headed off leaving Mai to continue her training.

Once he was out of sight Mai shot back up onto her feet. Now she was determined to finish the technique before he got back and criticized her about how slow she was going. The Uchiha took her fighting stance, then placed her fingers together in a cross shape. She shouted Shadow Clone jutsu and a puff of smoke appeared along side of her. This time it surprisingly looked a little bit like her. Or.. at least you could tell whom it was meant to be. But the clone soon melted away.

Based off how long and how far she had become, she figured that she was a little less than half way finished... around thirty eight precent or so. Her father (Sasuke *) would have said it was good enough for the day, maybe thats why she had been so soft all of these years. Maybe thats why she wasnt nearly as strong as she could be. Even though it didnt seem like Yuuto was pushing her very hard, in her mind he was. Yuuto was kind of like a legend, the student of the Hokage so he was one of the best of the best. Mai knew that she had to live up to everyones expectations, and then some, in order to become the next hokage. To surpass all of the ninja that came before her... it was a far off dream for anyone. Naruto had said he`d be the best of the best and he was. And now it was her turn to shine.

About an hour or so later Yuuto returned and wanted to see what her clone looked like. Mai preformed the hand seals and showed him. Yuuto didnt seem all that impressed, even though a couple of hours to come this far was quite the accomplishment.

"You`ve still got a long way to go, keep at it and you should have it by nightfall."

(* Since we changed it )

[Pikachu]

((40/65))

[Digital ♥]

And each time she made a clone from that point forward it looked a lot better than from what she had originally started out with, which was rather encouraging for her. Now she created each of her failure clones with a big determined grin on her face, Yuuto`s words still ringing through her head. Before nightfall, it was a lot to ask a genin especially when learning such a high level technique. But why did Yuuto insist on her learning this technique, Mai wasnt quite sure if he had explained why.

Yuuto had already seated himself by the toad oil fountain and began to relax. Sure it was a little disheartening but she had to keep at it if she wanted to be finished my nightfall. Mai knew she could do it, but she was getting a little hungry and wanted to get things moving much much quicker. But that tired and exhausted feeling never left her, even she had begun to think that she needed some kind of break. Yuuto gave her that get back to work look and she did.

Mai preformed the hand sign once again. This time she decided not to shout out the name of the jutsu but the cloud of smoke appeared anyways and revealed a nearly complete clone. It had to be over sixty precent done now, it now bared the same resemblance as her but they didnt last much longer than a second or two.

"Good good, keep it up. They look exactly like you, now all you have to do is even out the chakra, so its fifty precent chakra in the clone and the other fifty in yourself. It throws off enemies, as well as makes them last longer. Right now you probably have ten or fifteen precent chakra in your clone. Your good at chakra control arent you? Prove it." Yuuto said in an encouraging tone.

The Uchiha kept right at it. But for awhile she couldnt really figure out how to even out her chakra. But she kept playing around with the clones, and after making around twenty since Yuuto last spoke she was finally starting to get somewhere.

But it still seemed to drag on forever and ever. Yuuto snored loudly as the sun began to set, it was still in the winter time so the sun set sooner than normal. Shima and Fukasaku had come to check up on the progress, still unsure on if Mai should have been there or not. But seeing she hadnt done anything bad they offered her dinner and she refused until she was finished. Shima left the bowl of steaming larva next to Yuuto with a pair of chopsticks.

Yuuto started to roll very slowly towards the toad oil, but Mai kept expecting him to wake up and move away. But the closer and closer he got to the oil, the more he began to snore. At one moment Yuuto`s hand nearly fell in, Mai remembering what he had said early quickly rushed to his side and grabbed his hand but got some oil on her own hand. Mai began to feel really funny as her arm was covered in bumps and her fingers began to web together. Yuuto woke up and saw what had happened and whacked her upside the head. Forgetting that she was turning into a toad she shot up and began to yell at him.

"DONT HIT ME!!!! I DONT CARE WHO YOU ARE!!!"

"Do you want to turn into a toad?" Yuuto asked casually.

"Not especially. Good point...." Mai muttered as she headed back to her spot, she made another clone.

Yuuto seated himself properly and crossed his legs.

"In that moment when you were a toad did you feel anything... strange at all?"

Mai scratched her head, her clone shrugged and disappeared before her eyes.

"I felt kind of funny, kind of like I was dying or something. Sort of a light feeling, ya know? Why?"

"Thats natural energy, some animals like toads can tap into the natural energy and become incredibly strong, so strong they could pick up that giant stone toad right there." Mai`s eyes followed Yuuto`s finger as he pointed at the huge towering toad of stone looming above their heads. She could hardly see the top of the toad from that angle.

"Its not important now though, just remember the feeling."

The sun had finally set by the time she made another large series of clones. Clone after clone she came closer and closer until she thought that she had finally gotten it.

[Pikachu]

((55/65))

[Digital ♥]

But it just wasnt enough to finish. The moon was starting to illuminate the area where she had been all day long training and training, and that was bad news for her. If she broke her word... well then she`d second guess herself after that. Yuuto had fallen back asleep again, this time away from the fountain. The bowl of larva and bug soup was pretty cold now and looked even more disturbing than it did to being with. Sweat still rolled down her face as she made clone after clone, then looked to Yuuto to see if he would wake up.

If she made more than one clone at once maybe then she could get more done. This time she made three clones of herself rather than just one, two of them disappeared but the original one stuck around longer than normal. Mai grinned. That part of the shadow clone training was over, now onto making them do things other than just standing around.

Later when the stars began to appear above their heads Yuuto let out a loud yawn as he got up and stretched. The older man rubbed his eyes and saw Mai, or at least he thoughts that who it was, fighting with herself. The two were practicing Taijutsu for the most part, and when ever the real Mai got in a hard hit then the clone would blow up in smoke. She created another clone and they took off again in a fierce battle. The clone sent a punch right at her face, Mai had her guard down and took a hit right to the nose. Yuuto cringed and watched the clone disappear. Blood began to trickle out of her nose.

"I think we`re almost there Master Yuuto." Mai hacked, clearing her throat. Yuuto flagged her over and looked at her face. He grabbed her chin and tilted her head to the left then to the right to make sure she wasnt beaten up too badly.

"Close your eyes real quick." The Uchiha gave him a funny look and wanted to know what he was up to. Yuuto placed two fingers on her eye lids and forced them shut. Then he looked at her broken nose and snapped it back into place. Mai`s eyes shot open, she staggered backwards. That was the first time he even heard anything remotely close to a shriek from his young student. The jounin chuckled softly and sat back down.

"Get back to work, your you`ve still got a little bit left to do. They`re still a little bit iffy with the chakra distribution, but your close."

[Pikachu]

((Yay, Shadow Clone Jutsu is Yours. Yay.))

[Digital ♥]

It didnt take much longer than that for her to prefect the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Mai was incredibly tired though, so it wasnt a surprise that not long after she finished she quickly ate her soup and headed off to sleep for the night. Yuuto had another technique in mind for her to learn the next day. The Toad Summoning jutsu was one that took him a long time to learn, about a week or so. But he had a feeling that Mai would be able to get this one down pretty easily too.

The next day, before the sun even rose up above the horizon, Yuuto was pounding on Mai`s bedroom door. He heard her grumble something and slowly shuffle out of bed.

"Shima finished making some clothes for you, hopefully you like them. But quickly get dressed and ready to go, we`ve got much more to do." Yuuto told her as he started to back away from the door and turn, he paused though and looked back at the door, "Meet me by the cliffside. I`ll be waiting."

Mai got up from her bed and looked over her new clothes, they were pretty much the same as before. Even though she was hoping for a clothing change she happily put them on, just glad she didnt have to wear overly huge and baggy clothes from Yuuto. Once she was finished she sped out of her room and into the kitchen. Shima had found a loaf of bread and left it out on the table for her. Mai practically drooled at the sight of real food and ate several large chunks of it, then placed the last bits in a napkin and shoved them into her pockets.

Several long minutes later Yuuto stood next to the cliffs, tapping his foot on the ground, waiting for her. Slung across his back was a large scroll. Mai had walked most of the way, but when she saw the cranky expression on her sensei she quickly hurried her pace.

"Its about time. Time for the next part of your training, the art of Toad summoning. First off I need you to..." Yuuto grabbed the scroll off his back and knelt down on the ground. He rolled out the scroll on the ground and there were several signatures upon the scroll, many of which belonged to very very famous people. The Uchiha marveled at the names, imaging the moments in which the fourth hokage and Naruto stood before this scroll and signed their names in some red ink. Yuuto reached up, grabbed her hand, and pricked her finger with a kunai.

"Gotta sign it if you want to summon the toads." He stood back up and stretched out his back, then watched Mai kneel down next to the scroll and scribble her name next to his. Her handwriting was very neat compared to his own and Naruto`s. She giggled a little as she stood up and held her finger so it would stop bleeding.

"The hand signs are as follows, Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram, then slam your palm of your hand onto the ground. Try it."

Mai carefully studied the handsigns then preformed each one. Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram, then she slammed her hand on the ground. A small puff of smoke appeared around her hand . When the smoke cleared there was a tiny little toad egg. Mai`s eye twitched as she looked to Yuuto.

"ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!" Mai`s voice squeaked. Yuuto laughed, not even he had summoned a toad egg. The Uchiha groaned loudly as she yanked on her hair, how frustrating.

[Pikachu]

((Uhm, what are you trying to get here? Already said you could access Genin Level summonings. I'm not going to let you get much further then that...))