Quote:Yes, much. Answering it would probably have come up eventually, but as I'm not sure yet how or where, I'll answer directly.
Does that make any more sense?
Neshan's position re: Naruto's power training is that a demon-carrier's own, natural chakra naturally grows to match in strength to that portion of their demon's chakra which leaks out through the seal. The way Naruto's particular seal differs from, say, Gaara's, is that for Gaara, the leakage is proportional to Shukaku's strength - for Naruto, it's proportional to his -own-. That is, the stronger Naruto is at a given moment, the more of Kyuubi's chakra can leak - and the greater the growth it provokes in his own potential. Very much the same sort of feedback loop that Sakura's going through physically.
In the seal's current form, Kyuubi cannot influence or communicate with his host. Neshan believes that, given Naruto's personal chakra levels and regeneration abilities, altering that in any way would be an utterly foolish and unneccessary risk - especially since he's fairly sure that one of the -other- aspects of the Kyuubi-seal is that it's inheritable.
On the other hand, he's taught Naruto a number of different jutsu that the kid never learned in canon - Ryuuka no Jutsu, to name one we've seen before, or Raiame no Jutsu and Kamedate no Jutsu for a couple we haven't.
Whisker-breath isn't the poster child for brute force and massive ignorance anymore, but that doesn't mean the force isn't still there.
Quote:A bit of both - we had known that Shino's older brother had been on the same Genin team as Neshan - N. mentioned it in his conversation with Anko in Ch. 1 - but this is the first place we really learn who the third member was and what happened to Aburame-no-niisan.
Oh! Also, in reference back to the chapter itself: did I miss something in Chapter 1, or did that "Shino and Kabuto" scene come out of nowhere? I don't remember any mention of what they're referring to, what Shino refers to as "what had happened"; is it just my memory being bad, or had this thread not been developed previously?
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."