The gorge Jiraiya had chosen for the final test was a deep scar on the body of the Land of Fire. Sheer cliffs plunged downward, lost in the mist, and at the bottom, invisible from above, a turbulent river roared, bristling with sharp peaks of rock.
Naruto stood on the edge of the precipice.
He was wet with sweat and angry.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Poof.
Instead of a battle toad, a yellow, plump toad the size of Naruto himself appeared on the rock. It blinked stupidly and asked for a cookie.
It was progress compared to previous toads, but in a fight, such a toad was useless.
"Damn!" Naruto kicked a stone. "I'm doing everything like you said! I'm pouring in chakra! I'm not holding it back!"
Jiraiya sat on a boulder, swinging his leg. He wasn't laughing. He was observing.
"You are pouring it in, correct," the Sannin nodded. "But, as I already said, you are choking it."
He jumped off the rock and walked up to his student.
"Your habit of Qi, of this 'perfect control' of yours, has become your enemy. You subconsciously constrict the channel at the exit. You're afraid that if you open the floodgate fully, the pressure will damage your chakra channels. And you are right. Your body isn't ready yet to pass an ocean through itself without consequences."
Naruto looked at his hands.
Jiraiya was right. Months of meditation had taught him to condense energy, making it sharp and thin. Now his body subconsciously refused to work in "open floodgate" mode. It was a conditioned reflex.
"And how do I fix this?" the Jinchūriki asked. "I can't just 'forget' my training."
"Consciously—you can't," Jiraiya admitted. "Your mind is too disciplined. You control every breath. That is good for combat, but bad for growth."
The Sannin stepped closer. His shadow covered the blonde.
"To let the ocean through, you don't need to strengthen the banks. You need to create a whirlpool. A center of gravity that will spin the flow and direct it, keeping it from tearing you apart. It's time to take the next step."
Naruto sensed something wrong. His sensory perception pricked him with a warning.
"Old Man, what are you..."
Jiraiya placed a hand on his chest. There was no amusement in his eyes. Only the hardness of a teacher who knows the lesson must be learned at any cost.
"Sorry, Minato. But your son needs a push."
A sharp shove.
Naruto flew backward. The ground disappeared from under his feet.
He fell into the abyss.
***
Wind whistled in his ears, felt even against his eardrums.
The walls of the gorge rushed upward in blurred stripes. The bottom approached with frightening speed.
"Damn... DAMN!" Naruto screamed, trying to grab onto the air.
He was falling. The gathered speed was becoming too high. Even with Body Tempering, death was a matter of a couple of dozen seconds.
Think! Think!
He tried to summon chakra. The habitual reflex—compress, condense. But that wasn't enough! To survive, he needed an avalanche of energy.
Fox!
He dove into his subconscious.
In the dark hall, the Kyūbi stood, pressing his snout against the bars. He was grinning.
Falling, puppy? Want power again? Take it. Give me control, and I'll save your hide.
Red chakra surged through the seal. Hot. Heavy. Dense.
In reality, Naruto's body began to be covered in a red cloak.
But with power came pressure. His mind began to drown. This energy was too massive for his system.
No! If I just let it all through, I'll be torn apart!
He needed control. But not the fine control he was used to. He needed a core.
Center of gravity... Jiraiya's words surfaced.
Naruto closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the fall.
Instead of trying to manipulate the Red Chakra directly, he turned to his White Qi.
He gathered all his life energy, all the cultivation accumulated over the years. And compressed it.
Into a single point. In the center of his Dantian.
Compress! Denser! Even denser!
He was trying to create a singularity. A point of ultimate density.
The white energy condensed and coiled into a tiny but incredibly heavy bead. Not a real Golden Core—he wasn't ready yet. This was a Pseudo-Core. A prototype.
And as soon as the Core formed, it began to act like a magnet.
The red, heavy chakra of the Fox, previously raging in his chakra channels, suddenly rushed toward this center. It didn't mix with the Qi. It spun around the white point like an atmosphere around a planet.
The rebellious chakra gained an axis of rotation. Pressure turned into centrifugal force.
The Uzumaki threw his eyes open. They had turned red, but the pupils remained sharp and focused. He maintained his composure.
The familiar, formless cloak that bubbled and burned the skin changed slightly. The Fox's chakra, usually chaotic and wild, now obeyed a new gravity. It hugged his body in a dense layer, following the invisible magnetic lines of the rotating Core. It was no longer just a demon aura; it had become structured.
He felt power within him capable of leveling a mountain, but his hands didn't shake. Energy no longer pressed against the channel walls—it flowed in a spiral, organized by the Core's gravity.
He formed the seals.
Now he didn't need to dose the power. The Core regulated the output itself, turning a wild explosion into a gigantic directed beam.
"SUMMONING JUTSU!"
He slammed his palm against the air in front of him.
BOOOOM!
An explosion of smoke filled the gorge from edge to edge.
Jiraiya, standing on top of the cliff, felt the jolt. The ground shook.
From the cloud of dust, blocking out the abyss, a giant shadow rose.
Red. Massive. With a pipe in his mouth and a scar on his face.
Gamabunta. The Toad Boss.
He dug his paws into the sheer walls of the gorge, hanging over the abyss. His claws crumbled the stone.
On top of the giant toad's head stood Naruto.
Remnants of red chakra still swirled around him, but they were quickly drawn inward, obeying the invisible pressure of the point in his stomach. He was breathing heavily, legs trembling, but he stood upright.
"What the hell?!" Gamabunta roared, taking the giant smoking pipe out of his mouth. His voice was like a rockfall. "I was sleeping! Who dared to summon me to such a hole?! Jiraiya, are these your jokes?!"
The toad rolled a huge yellow eye upward, to the top of his head.
"And what is that flea?"
Naruto stepped forward, to the very edge of the toad's head.
The fear of crashing from the fall was gone. Only the intoxicating feeling of absolute power over his own energy remained. The Pseudo-Core in his stomach pulsed, warm and heavy. It hadn't gone anywhere. Now it was a part of him.
"I am not a flea," Naruto shouted. "I am Naruto Uzumaki! The one who summoned you! And the one who just put you to work!"
Gamabunta frowned. He wanted to shake off the insolent brat with a sharp jerk of his head.
But he felt it.
Weight.
The kid didn't weigh like a normal human; his presence pressed down on the toad's crown as if a rock stood there. A density of spirit even he could feel. And that taste of chakra...
The toad sniffed.
The power of the Nine-Tails... But not wild. Tamed. And something else. Pure. Dense. Like the Sages, but different.
"Uzumaki..." Gamabunta drawled. "Minato's son?"
"Yes!"
The Toad Boss grunted. He tucked the pipe into his belt and with a powerful leap flew out of the gorge, landing on the plateau next to a stunned Jiraiya.
The ground shook again.
"You're brazen, kid," Gamabunta rumbled. "But you have a strong backbone. I feel your core. It's solid. Not many can keep their balance standing on me."
The toad released a cloud of smoke.
"Alright. I accept your summon. From this day on, we are allies. But don't think I'll be a nanny."
"I don't need a nanny," Naruto smirked, jumping off the toad and collapsing from exhaustion due to the breakthrough. "I need a partner."
Jiraiya looked at the student who had come to an agreement with the chief summon.
The Sannin smiled.
He did it. Not with the Fox's power. But with his own strange power. He created a structure capable of withstanding the weight of a Bijū. Minato... your son really exceeded expectations.
"Hey, Gamabunta!" Jiraiya shouted. "Don't crush him. We still have things to do."
"We'll see," the toad grumbled, disappearing in a cloud.
Naruto lay looking at the sky.
He was alive. And he had broken through.
Inside him, in the center of his stomach, a point still pulsed warmly.
The Pseudo-Core. Finally, he had found the key.