Reading Time: 98 Minutes

Title: Whispers of Scales and Waves
Author: Strailo
Fandom: Naruto
Genre: Drama, Family, First Time, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Slash
Relationship(s): Kabuto/Naruto, Sasuke/Sakura, Kakashi/Iruka/Orochimaru, Sasuke/Naruto
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Underage, Violence-Graphic. Explicit sex, canon typical violence, manipulation, abuse of power, lying, cheating/infidelity, minor character bashing, redemption, brainwashing, discussions – multiple wives for clan revival, snakes as caretakers, political maneuvering, vying for control over a person, discussion – surrogacy
Beta: CutsyCat
Word Count: 143.274
Summary: It started with a summons from some called a traitor sent to care for a young child who was hated by the village at large. It grew into a village revived and a village brought to it’s knees because of the hubris of men in power. And a relationship that helped to shape lives.
Artist: Mizu Sage

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16

Giving Nissa a long stroke once he was at the warehouse, Naruto let the long snake down before moving to the study area. He was glad that Iruka had worked so hard to set up safe places for him to study and write to his penpal when Hiruzen started to get a bit pushy about some things. He was about to remind the man, again, that a person didn’t fuck around with the Uzumaki. Or anyone who was raised in Uzushio, even if they had been raised in another village.

Iruka’s parents had made sure that he had been raised with all of the knowledge and skills of a citizen from Uzu despite having grown up in Konoha. He knew the laws that controlled them inside and out along with the treaties and knowledge on how Naruto should have been raised.

And since Hiruzen had failed when it came to that treaty, and Naruto knew it, Naruto wasn’t going to let the man fuck with his education any more.

Pulling out some new paper, Naruto started to write about how his talk with Mizuki had gone, adding to the letter he had started earlier. He told him that they knew about the seal and jutsu combination that Orochimaru was looking for, and said that the one in the scroll was missing three parts since the seal couldn’t be written all together until it was ready to be used.

He promised that the three seals that he drew on the bottom of his letter were the three parts that he would need along with the copy of the seal to help clear his mind of outside influences.

He drew those seals very carefully, copying each layer in exact detail onto a new scroll for his penpal. Once they had been drawn, he drew fresh seals out to hold the scrolls onto the bottom of the letter, waiting for them to dry out before putting the copied scrolls into them. With his work done, Naruto pulled another scroll over to him to read over the various warnings that came with using the seal and jutsu.

It included the warning of blinding migraines that Orochimaru would have to deal with for around four days after use, unable to use anything to kill the pain.

Naruto groaned and pulled the letter back to him to write out all of the warnings so that his penpal had all of the information that he needed to use the seals and jutsu mixes. He carefully worked his way through the scroll, writing out each step with corresponding warning, telling the other man that he had to work on preparing properly for the drawbacks.

He looked at the last letter from Orochimaru, where he had been told by the man that he had been working to clear out his mind.

That it had taken him since Naruto had been very young to really figure out what was going on with him and that it had been a Uchiha that had done it, which meant that he had to find a way to look for the best ways to clean his mind.

Considering that they both knew that the Sharingan was well known by the village to be able to plant long term genjutsu’s in a persons mind, if not just to fuck around with them all together, any Uchiha worth their salt would have learned everything about how their eyes worked.

And how to spot signs of mental manipulation in a person.

Naruto sighed and finished his letter off, rolling it up and handing it to Nissa with a smile. “To our mutual friend, if you would. I’ll wait here while you go and travel,” he promised. Nissa hissed in agreement, swallowing the letter and disappearing through the hole connected to the summoning lands. He smiled and looked at the diaries and journals that Iruka had somehow gotten his hands on.

He had a feeling that Iruka’s parents had been some of the chosen protectors along with Orochimaru before his birth. Most likely when they were still living in Uzu. The letters from his parents though, seals hiding their names, talked about their lives in long letters to him. They talked about how they had decided to call him Naruto and how much they already loved him and couldn’t wait to see him.

His father talked about the jutsus and the seals that he had learned and created during his life. The man was absolutely brilliant and had broken things down in easy to understand steps for one who would take their time from the notes that he had left behind.

Not that they were easily accessed since Iruka had held them and apparently Hiruzen hadn’t known about that fact. And the fact that he was still holding things back from his parents still rather pissed off Naruto.

To know that the man couldn’t let go of things just told him that there was a lot more going on then what Naruto knew.

Deciding to just forget about the old man who was slowly becoming nothing more then a petty figure head of a village run amok with ego and vice, Naruto decided to continue working his way through the treaty between Uzu and Konoha.

He wanted to make sure that should he decide to leave the village completely, he knew exactly what the treaty stated about him being able to leave and take any clans with him. He already had a list of families who had once upon a time been a part of Uzu before they had come to Konoha as part of the treaties. The clans had split into two parts and when Uzu had fallen, more of the families had run to Konoha.

He had a feeling that he was going to have to leave the village in the end and he wanted to make sure that Hiruzen couldn’t stop him for whatever reason, even as the holder of Kurama. He wouldn’t put it past the asshole to try to stop him as it was.

Naruto paused in his tidying before sighing. “Seriously? For a fifteen year old, I’m very much on the cynical side,” he told his stuffed dolphin that Iruka had gotten him for his last birthday. “This really does not bode well for my future in this village,” he decided as he returned to reading through the treaty.

Kurama’s language skills were starting to rub off on him apparently.

He slowed down on his skimming as he came to the part about those who were chosen to be jinchurikin’s from the Uzumaki clan. This included that they could not be stopped from leaving the village if Uzu needed them if they were of the main family, and felt the call to rebuild their home.

He smirked, reading over all of the rules and regulations that came with raising a young jinchurikin, listing off everything that Hiruzen hadn’t done. And knew that it would be his key to getting out of Konoha if he felt that call.

Or just felt the need to get out of there all together.

He admitted that he had felt the call once, when he had been young and stupid, long before he had started to write to Orochimaru and had Nissa in his life. Long before Iruka had stepped up and started to teach him things.

But since he hadn’t known what it was, the calling had promised him that it would come back when the time was right.

Nissa knew about the call because he had been the one to tell him what that was after he had learned of his heritage. He was just biding his time, preparing in secret, waiting to find out just what he needed to do to get free of Hiruzen if it came down to it.

He had already placed the protective seal on him that all Jinchurikin’s were to have, stopping anyone from trying to use a loyalty seal on him. They couldn’t put one on him before the age of sixteen anyways so the moment that he had had enough experience with his seals, he had made sure that he had the protective seal on him. Just in case they decided to break another rule.

Taking a slow breath as he finished with his notes for the day, Nissa coming out of the travel tunnel, Naruto smiled at him and tapped his papers with a chuckle. “He really, seriously screwed the pooch with me,” he told him as he picked up Nissa. He had gotten pretty big over the last few years and would most likely grow a few feet more, about the length of the large snakes that grew in the swampy areas of lower Tea Country, but was still the summoned version of the King Snake. “Ready to go home?” he asked. He got a happy tongue flicker as he curled around Naruto’s shoulders.

They kept to the hidden paths back to the apartments and checked in on the manager of the building, getting the weekly notes on who had applied for apartments and who had paid their rent when. Along with any requests for things to be done. He signed off on a few things for the maintenance crew to work on while he signed off to request a specialist for one of the work jobs, signing under his pseudonym. Most nins who had investments outside of their job all had pseudonyms.

With that done, he headed up to his own penthouse.

Life was starting to turn around pretty well for him and he was kind of looking forward to what would come in the future. He had a feeling things were really going to change very soon and wondered if it would be good or bad.

17

Orochimaru stepped into the hidden room a few days after he had been there last and smiled at the letter that was already waiting for him, sitting down to read over it.

He was unsurprised that Mizuki had been caught and taken in to be interrogated. He hadn’t been too sure if the man would be able to do what he wanted, but it seemed as if he had really fucked up and used a henge of Naruto to try to do the job. The good thing that had come out of that whole mess was that Naruto had figured out what he wanted after he had spoken to Mizuki and had known that the seal in the scroll was incomplete.

And Naruto had given him all of the parts to the entire thing, labeling each part and writing out how to prepare and use it.

Orochimaru hummed at the big bold warning that he wasn’t able to use any kind of pain killers outside of certain teas to deal with the ensuing migraine as the jutsu worked its way through his head.

It wouldn’t be rearranging his mind, but it would be slowly stripping out the false from the truth and that tended to hurt if one wasn’t prepared for it.

He unsealed the scrolls, placing them to the side along with the instructions on how to do the full process before he turned to the rest of the letter. Naruto probably hadn’t realized it, but he had let slip quite a bit more about Hiruzen and how he had fucked up then what he probably intended to.

From what the Snake Sanin could remember, there were a lot of parts to the treaty that the old man had ignored or had not just looked into when it had come to Naruto. Especially since he should have gone to someone who could have raised him properly. Like the Nara or the Akimichi.

Shaking his head, Orochimaru gathered his papers and pen, starting to write out his response. He made sure that he also responded to the previous letters first.

He told him that he was going to send his own charge to meet with him so that he had a human companion that he could trust, specifically someone who knew about their penpal relationship and the truth of who Orochimaru was. He had a feeling that outside of Iruka, Naruto didn’t have many people he could talk about certain things.

His letter written, he handed it to Kin, the gold snake hissing at him in goodbye before leaving through the special hole in the wall.

He turned back to his paper again and wrote out an informative letter to Kabuto, asking him to meet up with Naruto. At the very least, he could teach him a few things that he might not otherwise learn because of the limitations that Hiruzen most likely put on his jounin sensei. He knew very well and from personal experience that the man would try to stop him from learning just because in his mind, an informed Uzumaki was a dangerous Uzumaki.

Unfortunately for Hiruzen, Naruto was already informed and would stay informed no matter what he tried. Between Orochimaru, Iruka, and hopefully soon, Kabuto, Naruto was going to be taught all that he could learn and figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Nissa had even told Orochimaru that Naruto had heard the call from Uzu but hadn’t known what it had meant so was just waiting to see if he got it again.

To be truthful, Orochimaru rather hoped that Uzu called out to him again. He wanted to see the land rebuilt and filled with people again. He wanted to see Naruto happy and healthy and thriving. He wanted to be able to feel that hum of the powerful chakra of the land and people once more.

He had felt it only once before it had been destroyed. He had been visiting just long enough to drop off a few things during the war, a mission of good will between their villages, but had never had the chance to go back afterwards.

He had felt that call to return home to a lesser degree himself, but had never listened to it. He couldn’t due to the mental manipulation and hypnosis that he was still dealing with. He would never allow Uzu to be hurt by his hand if he could resist.

Sending off the letter to Kabuto with another of his summons, this one named Kirn, he stood and left the room with the scrolls that held the seal that he had to build up in phases.

The first one he could place that night while his mind was clear. The next one would have to be done the moment that his mind was clear enough for him to think while the third part would follow right before his mind became clouded again.

He checked the time and headed to the chosen room to put the first seal down, laying out the plans for his his second one in pencil before he left and locked the room.

He went back three days later to ink the second seal down, watching as the new ink connected easily to the old ink with a glow. It was another three days before he went back and put the rest of the seal down. He stripped out of his clothes, having prepared for that day. Kimimaru already knew what to do while he was resting from this so Orochimaru set the jutsu off the moment his mind clouded over.

He clamped his jaw shut around his scream as raw power settled into his skin and mind, tearing away the veil of hypnosis from every inch of his body before it settled in his head. As the chakra left, leaving behind enough to finish the job, he collapsed to his knees. The silver hair Kaguya rushed in and caught him before he could faceplant.

“I need my bed, Kimimaru. And then you must go to your treatment. I will be fine with the others watching me,” Orochimaru rasped, his eyes closed.

Kimimaru frowned but knew that his master was looking out for him, having discovered just what was happening to his body. He was undergoing treatments where his blood was run through a machine that then carefully cleaned it, finding the odd cells that had created his health issues. He had less of the odd cells, but still he needed to go in once a month and be careful with how often he worked on his chakra exercises.

“Very well, Master Orochimaru,” he agreed, helping Orochimaru into his bed and handing him a cup of water to drink slowly before he made sure that it would stay cool while he was gone.

Tayuya nodded to Kimimaru as she took up her spot just outside of Orochimaru’s bedroom door in the study area of his suites.

Kimimaru left, heading for the medical wing of their home.

She pulled out the book that she had been told to bring along with snacks and drinks, firmly ignoring the questions that were spinning around in her head. She tried not to wonder about what had happened to change their master and teacher so much.

Just last week the man had changed the marks that they all wore. They found themselves less angry, more level headed. They felt more themselves then they had all those years ago.

Orochimaru had also been shifting some things around, actually turning Oto into a legitimate village and working on clearing his name with the fire Daiymo. He was trying very hard to turn things to a better future, making sure the village would be treated fairly .

She idly wondered if all of this had something to do with his little penpal that he had been writing to for a few years, and had gathered all sorts of things for the clans of Uzu. While she herself didn’t have a full history of her family, she did have a Uzumaki grandfather, giving her the red hair that she had started to keep hidden from the rest of the world.

She had learned in the last few years that while she didn’t have the dense chakra of the main part of the Uzumaki family, she did have a lot of it and she could use some of the specialized jutsus that she knew had come from another Uzu clan.

It was a clan that was long hidden in all of the records, even the Uzushio information records. They were the hidden assassins and rare at that.

She shook her head and returned to her book.

18

Kabuto settled back onto a tree branch, watching the way Naruto worked his way through his slow and careful katas. He could tell that they came from the Uzumaki clan from what little research he had, and the blond was concentrating on what he was doing.

He had been surprised when Orochimaru had sent him a letter requesting for him to contact the other male, to get to know him and hopefully to help him work out a few things. He had found Naruto doing his exercises and had decided that he just wanted to observe for the moment.

Currently, Naruto was wearing just a pair of loose pants, a mesh shirt, his sandals, and wraps around his hands and fingers to protect them. His over-shirt that Kabuto had seen him wear to training days was laying in a pile with various weapon pouches. Kabuto figured that Naruto was working on his skills without weapons at hand.

They all knew that there would be the occasional mission that a nin had to get free without weapons at hand and chakra low or suppressed.

Kabuto shifted on his perch and watched as Naruto finished his training, stretching out his limbs slowly and working on loosening up tight muscles and joints. Naruto stood straight, walking over to his pile of things, and pulling out a water bottle to drink from, before he grabbed a towel. He started to wipe off the sweat.

“You wanna tell me why you’re watching me do my training?” Naruto finally asked.

He chuckled as he dropped out of the tree, tucking his hands into his pockets, smiling at him in greeting. “No, no, I was just wondering how the training was going,” he drawled, tilting his head. Naruto hummed and wiped off his face, letting the towel come to rest around his neck. He drank the rest of his water as he stared at the other male.

“That must make you the one my penpal told me would be coming around,” Naruto said. Kabuto nodded his head. “Uzumaki Naruto,” he introduced.

“Yakushi Kabuto,” Kabuto greeted, shaking Naruto’s hand with a smile. The blond hummed.

“Don’t smile if you don’t mean it, please. It comes across as creepy,” Naruto requested. The smile on Kabuto’s face turned slighter, more of an up-tick of his lips more then anything. “Do you want to head to my home to talk in privacy? I have sealing wards up that would make any seal master weep in joy and pain as they tried to figure out my signature mix,” he said.

Kabuto chuckled, waving a hand. “Please. I would like to speak with you about many things to be truthful,” he said. He watched as Naruto replaced the various weapon pouches and then pulled on his top, hiding most of the pouches with it as it settled over his waist.

They headed down the side paths through the forest to Naruto’s new building, which was close to the main forest. Kabuto had seen the building as it had been renovated and gotten approved to move into the one of the higher up apartments. A two bedroom with a very nice kitchen and bathroom.

He found he was paying less rent then his last place, even taking into consideration his utility payments. He actually had stuff done in a timely manner and got information when they had to call in someone to do the work for them.

Kabuto’s mind then turned towards the blond that he was walking next to. He had learned a few things about the younger man from Orochimaru. Naruto was quite the smart, capable young man but he had been held back quite a bit by the idiots around them that only saw the demon that was sealed within

Hiruzen was truly an idiot who had broken so many parts of the treaty between Uzu and Kohona that it had long since gone past funny. Kabuto had the feeling that the moment that Uzu reached out to Naruto again, the younger of them would leave Konoha in the dust and take everything connected to Uzu with him. Including some clans.

Which in turn would leave Konohagakure in dire straits because of the fact that a lot of the mission contracts they had came from the fact they were connected to Uzu and their connections. Without any Uzu citizens in the village that were willingly staying there, they would loose all of those contracts and would have to rebuild everything from the bottom up.

From what Orochimaru had told him, Hiruzen had tried to get that part of the contract out of it whenever they came up for renewal, but had never been successful. The people who did sign for them remembered just why they had that in their contracts.

That and the Daiymo remembered quite well that some of his blood family came from the fallen village and would never turn his back on the Uzumaki clan. Nor any other family that had resided on Uzu’s islands.

Hiruzen was still rather pissed with having been censured the way he had been when the few Uzumaki’s who had made it to the village had been turned away from the gates. Now they were scattered and remembered that day, refusing to be found at all.

Even after all of those years, they were still mad. A Uzumaki knew how to hold an unwavering grudge when they weren’t apologized to correctly.

Hiruzen had really and truly dropped the ball with Naruto though. Kabuto stared at him as he unlocked his door and pushed it open, waiting for Kabuto to step in before entering and closing the door behind them.

Kabuto had decided when he had learned about Naruto that he would most likely follow after him if he left the village. He was going to file his official blood-work and genetics testing with the medical council, claiming his rights as an Okami. He had a feeling that things would change even more once he had done that.

Naruto pulled off his shoes and put them on the shoe rack by his door before sliding on his house slippers and doing a sweep as Kabuto dealt with his own shoes.

Kabuto placed his shoes on the rack before taking the slippers from a basket labeled guest and slid them on, watching as Naruto came to a stop at a certain wall and funneling some chakra into something that he couldn’t make out from his spot. A seal appeared under his hand and several little puff’s of smoke went up all over the room.

Kabuto blinked a few times as the smoke puffs dissipated before turning to Naruto for explanation.

“Someone stupid keeps putting up listening devices in my apartments since they aren’t able to use listening seals since I tend to break them easily. No matter what they do. Usually they’re destroyed by the protective seals that I’ve been putting down though so that’s nice,” Naruto admitted as he found each of the fried bugs. “They haven’t figured out that everything in my home has some kind of tiny seal that protects it from any kind of chakra surge that spreads through the house to destroy anything that shouldn’t be here,” he explained.

“I see,” Kabuto mused, watching the way Naruto opened a bowl with a lid and dropped the newly fried bugs in on top of several others, replacing the lid.

“Let me make us some tea so you can have that while I take a quick shower and change. I don’t want to have this conversation while I’m smelling as ripe as I do,” Naruto admitted.

Kabuto shared a true smile at him for that.

“How about this. You show me where you keep your tea, kettle, pot and cups, and I will make the tea for us so that by the time you are done with your shower, the tea will be ready,” Kabuto suggested. Naruto raised an eyebrow. “I have an odd feeling that I will be around quite often to just discuss your training and what you wish to learn. I’m thinking that your sensei is going to be hamstrung by the Hokage and his council of idiots to be truthful.”

Naruto blew out a slow breath before he chuckled. “Yeah. I suppose that you might be right. Alright, the tea is found here,” he said, showing Kabuto where he kept his tea supplies before he headed for his bedroom and bathroom.

Kabuto hummed and smirked, his mind turning to the thought of a wet and naked Naruto before he snorted at himself. He really should find someone to play with if his mind turned to someone he had just met.

He put the kettle full of water onto the stove and started to get it hot for the tea.

To him, the village in large had really fucked up big time. Especially when Naruto decided to stop playing and decided to actually show who he was. Kabuto bet that he would do that during or after the Chunin Exams that were coming up in six months.

He was just glad that he wouldn’t have to worry about taking them again anymore. He had decided to become a Chunin to be able to watch over things and focus more on his own medical training as a medical Chunin.

19

Kakashi ducked down through the open window and set his feet down on the floor, closing the window behind him with one hand.

“You’re looking kind of busy,” he drawled, Iruka looking over his reading glasses that he seemed to be wearing whenever it came to a lot of work.

“I’m am kind of busy with all of my work. I’m trying to figure out teams and just who should go with who. Since I do have mostly free reign, I’ve already put the three future medical nins on the same team with Genma. He’ll work well with them and be able to get a medical nin in to help them learn all about the medical portion,” Iruka said, waving a pack of paper. “Two girls. One boy. They’re all well rounded and do plan on staying well rounded but they do want to specialize in field medicine and being able to create new styles of field medicine to.”

“They sound like good kids with good future plans,” Kakashi drawled as he sat down on Iruka’s couch and settled back with a frown on his lips. “What are you doing with the rest of the teams?” he asked.

“I have orders that I need to make three teams that the Hokage has specified. Teams Seven, Eight and Ten. Your team, Kurenai’s team and Asuma’s team. If I had my way to be blunt, Hinata-chan should be with Kiba-kun and Uchiha. Choji-kun, Shikamaru-kun and Sakura-chan would be a team while Naruto should be with Ino-chan and Shino-kun. They all would make very good rounded teams that didn’t lean in one way or another and allow for self-esteem to grow.”

“Let me guess, they want the next round of Ino-Shi-Cho with the three heirs,” Kakashi drawled. Iruka nodded. “At least they’ve trained together before outside of the academy. So not too worried with them.”

“Yep. They also want a very heavy track team. Thus why Hinata-chan, Kiba-kun and Shino-kun are another team and will be under Kurenai,” Iruka said. “Kurenai actually personally requested Hinata to be placed on her team. The others were chosen for tracking purposes.”

“They’ll be good, but I have a feeling that Kiba will end up overpowering them in terms of personality if Kurenai doesn’t pull him back. Hinata, while shy, is quiet compared to him. Even Shino is quiet but intense in certain situations,” Kakashi said. He shifted and let his legs stretch out in front of him as Iruka put the files together for that team.

“Precisely. Which is why I wanted to put Hinata with Kiba-kun and Uchiha. Kiba-kun can be quite protective of Hinata in a way that doesn’t insult her after she showed him that she can protect herself if pushed. She just prefers to not argue with people if she doesn’t have to. And Kiba would end up, hopefully, pushing Uchiha into thinking of his team, forcing him into working as a team without pissing him off to the point of attacking. Kiba knows how to work with a team after all,” Iruka sighed as he finished the last bit of paperwork and shook his head.

Kakashi groaned. “I’m going to end up stuck with him, aren’t I?” he asked. Iruka gave him a long look that told him exactly what he was thinking. “Damn it. I was hoping to skip over having to deal with his damn ego,” he muttered. His sometimes lover and friend snorted. “So, tell me, what is my team looking like?” he asked.

Iruka opened that file. “Uchiha Sasuke. The last of the officially Loyal Uchiha to the village. Egotistical but fairly good at hiding this fact. Good at what he does know, but he hates having to hone his skills instead of learning new ones. So you’re going to want to sit on him for at least a week and just force them to work on their skills until they’ve perfected them,” Iruka said as he looked over the files. “Genius, like most Uchihas. But we know that the moment that he gains his Sharingan, you would end up being the one to train him in how to use it. And when not to use it. He’s well known to desire learning things that aren’t his to learn because they’re clan styles. Some excuse that by saying he needs to learn all that he can so he can go after Itachi.”

“So to summarize: he’s selfish, egotistical and doesn’t want to put in the proper work to get to a proper point. Got it,” Kakashi grunted, his mind working hard.

“Yep. Now, Uzumaki Naruto. Last known member of the Uzumaki and Namikaze clans in Konoha as of right this minute. He’s taken his place as head of his family and thus he does have his own duties to attend to, despite me being his current regent. He’ll warn you if he’s not able to attend training or missions for whatever reason,” Iruka promised. Kakashi nodded. “He’s very smart but he does learn when it’s hands on. If you can connect why you are teaching him into future teachings, he will learn them. Begrudgingly, yes, but he will learn them. He knows the kage bushin along with others. Use the fact that he knows them to your advantage.”

“Street smart, not so much book smart. Good to know. Maybe slightly people smart, confirmed once I get him practiced on that,” Kakashi summarized, Iruka nodding as he put the Team Seven file fully together for the other man. “Alright. Hit me. Last one. Haruno.”

“One word: Fangirl. She’s very spoiled to a point also. She has pinpoint chakra control so good that she would make a wonderful medic nin if she chose to focus on that. She can make a wonderful kunoichi but I warn you, you might need to beat some sense into her. She needs a good hard dose of reality either way,” Iruka sighed. “So does Uchiha. I can tell you that Naruto-kun already had reality shoved down his throat long before he started the academy, what with the way the village treats him compared to others. Mind you, he does not trust Hiruzen, so do not push him to trust him.”

Kakashi snorted and shook his head. “Nah. I barely trust the man myself, so I wouldn’t be doing that to him anyways, Iruka-kun. That and I know better then to try to make an Uzumaki do anything when they’ve set their minds to it,” he drawled, waving one hand as he huffed. “What else should I worry about with them?”

“You’ll have to watch out for the Uchiha getting pissed and or jealous over Naruto and shunning Sakura. He’s not one for teamwork at the best of times. That is one weak point with him, team work.” Iruka shook his head and put the file down so that Kakashi could grab it when he left. Which would most likely be the next morning. “He will see how Naruto is getting all sorts of attention from various people who were kind enough to donate their time in getting him caught up to the rest of his classmates, and feel pissed because of it. Jealous at the very least.”

“So what you’re telling me is that I have a hot mess of a team coming my way. And knowing the council, they’re going to want me to focus on the Uchiha, correct? Even to the detriment of my other two students,” Kakashi sneered.

“Bingo. I expect them to pull you in to the council rooms early tomorrow to try and push you into paying all the attention to Uchiha and Uchiha alone. To use Sakura and Naruto as a way to keep him loyal and to stunt them to keep his ego stroked if needed,” Iruka told him as he stood up and stretched with a groan. He packed everything into his backpack that he used to haul his academy work home, tucking it away with a smile. “For now, I’m after a hot bath and some good food. What about you?”

“I can make some good food while you go take a hot bath. Maybe something simple and delicious since we’re going to have a very long day tomorrow by the sounds of it,” Kakashi offered.

“That would be perfect. I was able to go shopping Sunday so we’re good on the options,” Iruka said. “I had taken out some fish to make homemade ramen broth to freeze, but I nearly forgot about it and haven’t had the time to do it. I figured I’d grill it up and make some vegetables to go with it instead. If you do something more than that, I won’t say no,” he mused, bending over Kakashi and pulling his mask down so he could peck his lips. Smoothing the mask back into place, he winked as he stood, heading into his bedroom.

Kakashi whistled lowly to himself, a smug grin pulling at his lips. He was going to get lucky and he couldn’t wait for it.

20

Iruka placed his final notes on the teams onto the podium and sighed, knowing that he was being pushed into putting some of them on certain teams. If he had had his way like he should have, the clan children would have been mixed around. Like he told Kakashi the night before, he would have put Sakura with Shikamaru and Choji, Hinata with Kiba and Sasuke, and Naruto with Ino and Shino. They would have made well balanced teams and given them all a good boost to their natural atttitudes.

It would have kept Sasuke away from his fangirls, the young man growing into quite the handsome man. While Itachi had taken after their mother, more pretty then handsome in his younger years, Sasuke had already shown that he would follow after his father in appearance.

He really wasn’t looking forward to putting Team Seven together, no matter how much he was hoping they would work out in the long run. He had told Kakashi to be firm with them and not allow the council to dictate how he ran his team. As it is, Sakura and Sasuke would keep things somewhat civil lest Naruto do what he had done last time.

They were still wary about him going off with them again.

“Alright, everyone! I just wanted to say congratulations on becoming genin. The last four days of testing that you have done here was to determine if you got the hint of what we are looking for in our nins here in Konoha, and I can happily say that you have all passed with flying colors,” Iruka said, smiling brightly at the teens.

He took in the fact that Naruto had changed out his look once more, going for a more androgynous look in the Uzumaki style. His top had gone from hip length battle kimono top to one that went down to his mid-thigh with slits up the side for ease of movement. His pants were still the tighter style that he had enjoyed since he had started to explore fashion.

Iruka was pleased that it was still colored like the sunset patterns with little fish swimming along the hem. Naruto also had a more feminine style obi and bow, but it looked good without being overly feminizing. Iruka also knew that it held several tiny scrolls that held sealed trap supplies in the bow and the obi itself hid a long length of rope that he could use. The cloth of the obi could also be torn apart for bandages.

He shook himself out his thoughts and looked over his now graduated students, taking them in. “Today you are going to find out who your teammates and your jounin sensei is until you become a chunin. And in some cases, well beyond that time, but by that time they’ll be your jounin mentor. You have all shown excellent skills as future shinobi and kunoichi. For now though, these will be your teams,” he said, going over the list and ticking off teams and their teammates. He made sure each team knew who their sensei would be.

He found himself unsurprised when Sakura fist pumped at the fact that she was with Sasuke before sending a bored looking Naruto a sneer. Naruto just shrugged as Choji carefully wove his hair into three braids before twisting them together. Choji on the other hand just hid his snicker at the scowl that came from Sakura at the lack of reaction before he tied off the mass of hair, patting Naruto’s shoulder. Shikamaru groaned from where he had sprawled out in two chairs, head in Naruto’s lap.

It made Iruka glad that Naruto had made friends with the two males and their female teammate. Especially when long fingers were buried into thick black hair without Choji even looking the least bit worried at the soft sound of delight as long nails scratched at Shikamaru’s head.

By the time Iruka was done handing out all of the teams, Naruto was pouting and leaning back into the warmth of Choji, sighing softly. “Kakashi-sensei is the one who is perpetually late right?” he asked. Shikamaru finally sat up and stretched.

“Yeah, that he is,” Shikamaru said. Choji hummed, running his fingers through his fiance’s hair and pulling it up into his usual ponytail for him. “This is going to suck. At least we know how Ino works and how to work with her,” he said. Ino snorted as she came over to them.

“Which is probably why they stuck us in the same team. Now, Naruto, who was that hot guy that I saw you training with the last few days?” she asked. She leant on the desk, smirking. Naruto rolled his eyes, ignoring his new teammates for the moment, Sasuke’s eyes flicking back to them as he read a book.

“His name is Kabuto and he’s a highly trained medic nin. He’s going to be taking the chunin exams next time and pass because his focus on medical training is able to be paused for the moment,” Naruto said. “His team is actually a new kind of team that they’re testing since their first sensei royally fucked them over. One of the old medics remembered how medical teams worked before some things went down in the last war and he wanted to see if it could be restarted,” he explained. “He’s been helping with my weapon techniques and as a new sparring partner.”

“He’s pretty good looking too. Delicious eye candy. Medic nin team?” Ino asked, smiling at her fellow blond. Naruto nodded, smiling. “How did you two meet?”

“We have a mutual friend who suggested that we meet since said friend isn’t in the village right now. I think he was worried about me when he heard that I had graduated and what team I was likely to get stuck with,” Naruto said. He shrugged one shoulder before he stood to stretch out his body. Ino took a look at his new sandals and pouted at the fact that he had been able to add half an inch to his heels, while she was still stuck with flats. He gave her a wicked smirk.

“You added to your sandals without me, you jerk,” she hissed. Naruto chuckled softly.

“You’re still working on your balance, but you’ll be able to add more to yours,” Naruto told her. “You know Mink-sama only lets you add heels to your sandals as long as you can show you can keep your balance,” he cooed, patting her on the head before he danced out of the way of her swipe.

“Fine. No need to be a dick. You wanna go get lunch from that one stand that we all like?” Ino asked, moving on past it as she stood straight.

“You know what? That sounds delicious. I want their onigiri and some of those pork skewers that they make,” Naruto said. The four left the classroom, as most of the older students did during lunch. They were soon out of the academy grounds and taking to the roofs to arrive at the stall that had been set up by some new merchants.

They knew that it was on the likely side that the family would move on in a few months after the Chunin exams, but they were going to enjoy the food and service. The family had made it well known that they didn’t care about someone’s reputation as long as their money was good.

They did good business because they served good, filling street food. Even the Akimichi’s liked to swing by on occasion.

At the stall, Choji ordered two of their biggest meat stuffed buns, a cup of iced golden tea and some of their caramel creme daifuku. Naruto did order his onigri, going for a tuna mix filling, a cup of white tea with strawberries that floated in it, and a slice of castella with some strawberry glaze freshly poured over it. Ino went with okonomiyaki with octopus bits, an iced royal tea, and kohi zeri with caramel drizzle on top. Shikamaru went with takoyaki without the toppings, korokke instead of a dessert, and some iced strawberry white tea.

With their food in hand, they headed back to the academy to eat and settled at the back table in the classroom with their food. They ate and talked about what they had been doing during their time off during their lunch.

Ino had spent some time with her father, honing her skills more with the mental jutsu’s of her family. Choji and Shikamaru had been spending more time together since they had officially become engaged, their families happy that they had a worked together and decided to marry after all.

Naruto talked about how he had hung out with Iruka, practiced his seal from his family notes and had started to hang out with Kabuto. By the time that the end of lunch came around, most of the sensei’s had come around to pick up their teams and taken off with them. Naruto was soon left behind with Sakura and Sasuke, sipping at his white tea, pulling off the plastic so that he could eat the strawberries as they waited.

He sighed, looked to the clock, and tossed his cup just in time for a silver haired man with his hitai-ateover one eye and wearing a mask to open the door. “Man, now I owe Choji thirty ryo. You really couldn’t wait two more minutes?” Naruto asked as he pouted at their sensei. Kakashi just chuckled softly.

21

“Well then,” Kakashi drawled, looking over the group of teens, lingering on Naruto before he moved on. “We all know about training grounds seven yes?” he asked, the three nodding their heads. “Good. Meet there in ten minutes.” With that, he popped away in a puff of smoke, Naruto rolling his eyes.

“Yep. Okay. Let’s get going,” Naruto sighed. He stared at his companions, frowning slightly to himself when they looked back at him in return. “Look, one thing that I do know about our new sensei is that while he may be perpetually late to things, he does not like being made to wait when he sets out a time limit.” With that warning, he turned on his heel and left the room, heading down the hall and the stairs. It didn’t take long before he heard two more sets of footsteps quickly following after him as he pushed the front door opened.

He turned left as he called up a clone, already heading off to the nearest corner store to pick up snacks and drinks. He had a feeling that Kakashi would do a baseline test on all of them so it was better if they had the things on hand. And even if Kakashi-sensei didn’t bother to test them that day, he would be able to keep them for future rounds of training with his new teammates.

It didn’t take long to get to the specified training field, finding Kakashi standing there with a stop watch in hand. His eye smile was just enough to show that he was rather pleased by the fact that they had arrived within the time limit as he stopped the watch. “Well done, you three. Take a seat please,” he instructed, nodding to the three tree stumps that would allow them to sit during the coming conversation.

Naruto sat down on one of them, Sasuke sitting next to him while Sakura sat on Sasuke’s other side. Naruto’s clone dropped down as soon as they sat down from the trees with a bag of various snacks and drinks before he popped in a cloud of smoke after handing over Naruto’s wallet. He put the bag down next to him and waited for Kakashi to do something.

“Well now. Since we’re all here, how about we get to know each other? Names, what we like, what we don’t like, what we hope to gain from our new team that sort of thing,” Kakashi drawled as he perched on his own stump.

Sakura tilted her head, shifting. “Why don’t you go first, sensei?” she asked.

Kakashi hummed, pleased with that. “My name is Hatake Kakashi and I am the last of the Hatake clan. My likes are far from teen friendly I hate to say it, but also for not those who I have just met. I do enjoy reading though. My dislikes are those who have ego’s and those who do not work with their teammates. I am going to be blunt with you. You were placed with me for one reason and one reason only.” He smirked under his mask. “Under my hitai-ateis a Sharingain. When I was your age, I lost my Uchiha teammate and my own eye. He sacrificed his eye to me. One of the names in the Bingo book for me is Sharingan Kakashi. The council wants me to train our resident Uchiha here in the use of his Sharingan when it activates.” He paused. “If it activates.”

“So, like usual, they’re sticking their noses into nin business when they really should have no business doing so?” Naruto asked as he pulled out a nail file and carefully shaped one nail. “I’m not that surprised to be truthful. Tell us, Kakashi-sensei, will Sakura and I be pushed to the side while you suck Uchiha’s dick, or will we actually be trained?” he asked.

Kakashi paused and stared at Naruto, who returned the look with a searching one of his own. It reminded Kakashi of Kushina and Mito so much with the way it seemed to strip away the bullshit, the young Uzumaki obviously knowing just how to tell lies. He hummed.

He had thought that Naruto would test him when he had gotten the files for his new students.

“That is what they want me to do. But, despite what they huff, puff and threaten to do, I will train you as I see fit,” Kakashi drawled as he sat down instead of perching. He rested his elbows on his knees. “As long as you are my team, I will be the one in command of you three and how things are done. So, I’m going to suggest that you all work hard at learning what I am going to teach you.”

“Right. Then I suppose I should go next them. I’m Uzumaki Naruto and I am the last of the Uzumaki head line. Meaning that once I turn of age, as far as the law is concerned, I will be taking up the headship of my clan. Yes, I am trained in what it means to be a head. Even if it is a scattered clan. I’ll have to make some kind of decision on what I’m doing with it in the next year or so,” Naruto stated. “And should you have to report anything to the old man, remind him that he’s not allowed to touch me, my clan or my headship due to the treaty that is still ongoing.”

“What do you mean by that, Naruto? Are you trying to lie to our sensei?” Sakura asked. Kakashi shook his head.

“He’s not lying about any of it. Uzushiokagure, where the Uzumaki clan came from originally, has a long standing treaty that dictates how anyone from any clan that came from Uzu is treated. Since Naruto comes from the head line of the Uzumaki family, he will have a say in what is and is not allowed in his clan once he takes headship,” Kakashi explained. “Just like any other head of a clan that lives in the village can do. Continue on with your intro please,” he requested.

Naruto smiled and moved to a new nail. “I don’t like those who have an ego and let it become their entire personality. That and those who think that they can control me just because of my name and status, nor those who have tried to destroy my little rooftop garden.

“I suggest that you let it be known that now that I own that building for good and that if I find anyone destroying the gardens, they’re going to be dealt with. By seals. They really won’t like being trussed up and tossed off a roof into the dumpster. I like reading, learning new things, Nissa, my few close friends, and gardening when I can. My dreams are to rebuild my clan in the best possible way for them while also figuring out a good way to bring us all together finally.”

Sasuke just gave him a long look before blowing out a breath. “I’m Uchiha Sasuke. I enjoy reading and training. I hate those who wish to use or hurt others and my dream is to restore my clan, reclaiming our honor and destroy the one who killed my family,” he said. Kakashi hummed and nodded.

He knew quite well that there was more to the Uchiha massacre then what had been placed in public records. He’d had been the one to train Itachi personally when in ANBU after all, and he knew the man wouldn’t have killed every single Uchiha, even when ordered to. He would have left the Civilian Uchiha and the children alive if he had been told to wipe out those who were in on the plans of a coup.

Sakura sat up straight, drawing Kakashi from his thoughts, and smoothed down the skirt of her red dress. “I’m Haruno Sakura. I like learning about medical techniques, which is a new hobby, reading in general, and…well…” She blushed softly as she looked at Sasuke from the side of her eye. “Anyways, I don’t like loud idiots, and those who want to stop me from attaining my dream future.”

“Ah, you must mean your future as a stalker?” Naruto drawled, crossing his legs. “We all know very well that you’re just here now because of Uchiha. Have been since the day that it became known that Sasuke was now the last loyal Uchiha in the village,” he said. “And I’m not a loud idiot despite what you think of me. You just think that because of your own preconceived notion that was fed to you by the village at large. Kakashi-sensei, I’m giving this warning here and now. I will not be friendly with my so-called teammates. I will be a professional. There is a difference. It means I will work with them but that we are not friends.”

Kakashi snorted, nodding his head. “Understood. Moving on, I know from your files that if Iruka-san had had his way, you would have ended up in a different team.”

“Can I guess what the Hokage wants from this team?” Naruto asked, Kakashi waving a hand. “He wants a power team. A heavy hitter team like the Sanin’s. The thing is, I’m not going to be a front liner. Not any more. Not with the way that I’ve been training lately. I’m a budding seals master. A front liner with a shit tone of jutsu and weapons knowledge like he may want? Nope,” he sighed, shaking his head. “What are we doing today?” he asked, moving on.

“We’re doing baseline tests. I have your reports but I will need to see your skills personally,” Kakashi said. He had already decided that on just what he was going to do with his new team.

He was going to train them to the best of his abilities and if in the long run, he was able to get back to his own status as an S-Rank nin? Then that was his business. After all, despite what people thought they knew, the Hatake’s had always had close ties to Uzushigo and had a small settlement on the edge of their land. They had traveled those borders as guards before they had joined the newly built Konoha.

His loyalty, like those before him, would always be and stay with the Uzumaki and Namikaze clans.

22

Naruto slowly stretched his body out as he watched Sakura work her way through her own stretches. Kakashi had put them through a hell of a testing session, doing everything from chakra exercises to the jutsus’ that they knew how to do without many issues.

From what he could tell, Sasuke had some good stamina going and a good sized chakra, but well his control was mid-line. At least from what Naruto knew a fresh genin could do.

For Sakura, as he thought she had, she was mid-line beyond a few things and except for her chakra control. She had pin-point perfect control over her chakra, which meant that she was perfect to learn the medical side of things. Which she was looking into anyways. Her stamina, chakra stores and endurance all kind of lacked in a lot of ways.

As for himself? He figured he was doing pretty good for a new genin with an impressive amount of chakra. He could use it a lot better then what others thought, especially since he hadn’t been trained properly until he had become Iruka’s student. With the Uzumaki exercises, as he had told Kakashi when the man had talked to him one on one, they worked better for him then the normal ones that they usually had their students do.

Kakashi sat down as Naruto finished bent back into an arch before walking his legs back so that he could roll onto his stomach, stretching everything at once before he let his legs go and pushing up. Sasuke visibly shook himself out of the trance that he had been in while Sakura smacked her own face with one hand.

“Now that you’ve all done your tests, let’s go over the results,” Kakashi said, tapping his notepad on the palm of one hand. “You did well for being fresh genin, but I can tell where you all slacked. Let’s go over yours first, Sakura. While your chakra control is perfect, your chakra stores are small. Yes, you want to go into medical and having perfect control is needed, but so are chakra stores bigger then a teaspoon. You should be able to do several jutsus without running out of chakra after two or three by now. We’ll work on expanding your stores.”

Sakura pouted but nodded. She had been warned in her graduation packet that Kakashi wouldn’t allow her to just coast by on her book knowledge and doing the bare minimum while under his tutelage. She had been pushed far more in their later years of the academy, but she had still done only the bare minimum to get high scores.

“Yes, Kakashi-sensei,” she said as she took the notes that he had written for her.

“You will also need to adjust your diet to compensate for the calories and energy that our training will be burning. I’ll have your plan drawn up for you tomorrow and we’ll adjust as needed. The same goes for all of you,” Kakashi stated. The three nodded. “Your hand to hand is good enough for your age and training. We’ll work on honing your skills while also work on learning new skills. Now, Sasuke, your chakra is good. And you were quite obviously trained in the Uchiha Fire Style along with the Academy style. I know the Uchiha Fire style fairly well so I’ll be able to help you on that.”

“Yes, Sensei,” Sasuke said, nodding his head as he shifted. He could feel the ‘But’ coming from a mile away.

“But your chakra control could be better. From now on, what I want you to do is every morning before, and every evening after training, unless I tell you, you will do ten minutes of some kind of chakra exercise. Tree walking. Water walking. Floating leaves. Ten minutes every morning and evening. Your skills will grow while we train and expand the amount of chakra that you will have. Remember you three, the more you use it, the more you have. It’s like a muscle.”

Sasuke nodded and sat back with his own notes. He was waiting for Kakashi to do Naruto’s assessment at the end. He had a good feeling that the man would destroy Naruto, who was sipping at his water and eating an electrolyte jelly as he waited for his turn.

“Naruto, from what I can see, your exercises are doing you good. I’m glad that you were upfront about the fact that you’ve only just started the Uzumaki exercises in the last three years. Factoring that in, you’re chakra control is good. You’re not wasting chakra now, and you’re able to use smaller ranked jutsu easier without over loading them. Keep working on that,” Kakashi said, pleased that at least one of his students was already working on his weak points. Naruto nodded.

“Yeah, I had to learn how things work for me. I have to do certain exercises in the morning and evening so that I can focus along with everything else. If I have too much chakra in my system, or I don’t use enough of it during the day, I can’t focus much less sleep. I’ve started to learn how to make seals that I can use to leech some of my chakra off when I’m not working it off,” Naruto told him. He had known that he was doing well since his tutors had told him that he had been.

“Then keep doing that. Your stores are good as it is, you just need to work on keeping your personal control. This will end up being a lifelong thing with the way your clan works if I remember right?” Kakashi asked. Naruto nodded. “Good. Your hand to hand is a mix bag that can probably be smoothed out into something more cohesive with some work. It makes you a dangerous opponent, but you need to work out the kinks first. I don’t know enough about the Uzumaki fighting style personally to help you but you have your scrolls right? I’m fairly sure Gai can help continue to translate them. I’ll see when he has time for you again.”

“Yes, sensei,” Naruto chirped. Happy with the feedback.

“To move on, your teamwork is good. But Sakura, you need to stop worrying about others so much. Focus on yourself. Keep in mind where your teammates are but do not focus completely on them,” Kakashi told her. “Sasuke, remember, you are in a three man team and teamwork is a thing. You know this and I know you can damn well work with a team. Keep that in mind from now on.

“Naruto, work on not focusing fully on the opponent. But you’re doing good in keeping your teammates in mind. You respond well to changes too. I’m going to guess the reason that you three can work together is because of the practice teams? Tell me, why am I still having to correct things like you two paying too much attention to your teammates or not wanting to work with them? The hyper focus I kind of figured would happen, but not that.”

Sakura blushed as she played with her dress. “Any time we had teams, my teammates tended to not like me much. So they just told me what to do and ignored me pretty much. I don’t really know why.”

Kakashi hummed, eyeing them. “Naruto, since you seem to have all the good gossip, why didn’t they like her?”

“From what I saw? She always spent the first two minutes with a new team whining that she wasn’t on Uchiha’s team. And even when they tried to include her in on things, she did the bare minimum. Or lectured them,” Naruto said. Sakura looked insulted and he shrugged, offering her an electrolyte jelly. She took it with a pinched look. “You tend to hear things when people think that you’re too stupid to comprehend what they’re saying. Or have friends who can play sleeping nin.”

“I…see,” Sakura said slowly as she opened the pack of jelly and removed one of the squares. She accepted the offered water and nibbled on the square.

“And Sasuke?” Kakashi prompted.

“We call it ‘stick-up-his-ass-itis’,” Naruto stated. He tossed a packet of jelly at Sasuke along with a water bottle. “It took me getting really pissed off on them about them not doing their part of the practice runs to get them to do their part of team exercises,” he stated. Sasuke scowled but opened the water and jelly, knowing he needed both. “They worked with me after that, which is part of the reason why the old man wanted to get me on this team. Instead of like Hinata and Kiba or Hinata and Shino. Hell even Ino would have been a better match for me. We would have made a killer infiltration team as we proved when were put together.”

“You really seem to dislike the Hokage,” Sakura said, frowning. Naruto shrugged and gave her a bored look.

“He really fucked around with me. Until he stops fucking around and up so badly, I give him the bare minimum of respect that I need to, and go about my day,” Naruto stated. He flipped a hand at her. “Now, can we finish this off?” he asked, taking his notes and reading over them.

“I will have a more in-depth training plan for all of you, both individual and team training plans. You will be here on time, each day, at ten in the morning. I will expect you to have stretched out and done a light jog to start the day. Sakura, do the chakra exercises that you know for ten minutes every morning. We’re going to wear out your chakra pool daily to make it grow,” Kakashi stated. “Sasuke, do the chakra control that I gave you. Naruto, keep doing what you’re doing,” he continued, standing up and stretching. “For now, I have a dolphin to ask some questions.”

“Don’t forget the chocolate powder. He was low last time I checked,” Naruto suggested, winking at Kakashi as he wandered off, drinking more of his water.

Kakashi chuckled at the last two genin before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Sakura headed home in a daze, mind whirling, Sasuke stalking down the roads with a snarl.

23

Arriving at his apartment, the smell of tea and miso soup greeting him as he walked in through the door, Naruto sighed and felt himself relax. He put his shoes up and slid on his slippers, finding Kabuto lounging on his couch, reading a few medical books. Ino peeked around him as she followed after, raising an eyebrow at finding the man sitting there.

“I’m glad that I went with the thought of making more food and tea then I had originally planned,” Kabuto greeted as he put his book to the side. Ino pulled off her own shoes and took the slippers offered to her.

Naruto snorted, shaking his head. “Ino wanted to borrow that book about sealing scrolls. She’s tired of having to spend so much on a scroll that breaks down so fast,” he stated.

“I mean really? Over two thousand ryo per fucking scroll? And those are the basic scrolls at that! And what are they good for? Four, maybe five uses if I’m careful? Yeah. Nope. I’m making my own. Fuck that. Naruto has been kind enough to teach me how to recycle the papers that I do have though. And how to tell if the paper is still good to recycle or not,” Ino told him. She walked over and bowed. “Yamanaka Ino. You must be his new friend.”

Kabuto stood with a smile, knowing about the friendship Naruto had formed with her and her team during their younger years. “Yakushi Kabuto. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said, bowing in return. “I made some black tea for the afternoon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“She’s the reason why I drink black tea now days,” Naruto admitted as he padded into his study area. He found the book that he wanted, Nissa hissing his greeting and going to curl around Ino’s feet. Ino smiled at the snake and reached down, running her nails down his back scales and getting a pleased sound as some of the stuck shed came loose under her careful scratches.

“Hey there, Nissa. Are you liking those snake safe plants to chill out in?” she asked.

“I am indeed,” Nissa said. Kabuto raised an eyebrow at Naruto as he came out. Naruto just pointed to the part of the living room that was covered in plants, branches and hideyholes that he had built for Nissa to explore to his snakey hearts content.

“While he’s a lot like the King Snakes around, his family are more like tree climbing snakes that you’ll find in the wetter areas,” Naruto said. “I learned that he liked to climb when I trained outside. And when I started to get to know Ino, I asked her about what plants would be good around regular and summoned snakes. Her and her dad helped me to set it up when I was finally able to move in here.”

“Nissa also sometimes comes to the Yamanaka compound and the greenhouses so that he can hunt the mice that occasionally gets into the buildings,” Ino told him. She took a seat and accepted the cup that Kabuto handed her, along with the honey powder.

“Sorry about not having any sugar. The store is being a bitch again,” Naruto explained as he sat. Ino waved a hand and put some of the powder into her cup.

“Yeah, not a problem. Just hand over the book and I can start working on it since I can’t really leave with it right now. That’ll distract me enough to let you two to do whatever you want. I’m figuring that you two want to talk, right?” Ino asked, holding out her hand. Naruto snorted and put it into her hands before he looked to Kabuto.

“Go and shower, Naruto. I noticed on the way home that your team was being put through the ringer today. Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes,” he promised.

Naruto nodded and went to take his shower that he desperately wanted, leaving Ino and Kabuto to talk while she drank her tea. Once he was done, he dried off and left his hair down after he had gotten most of the water out of it. He walked into his bathroom and dressed in something cozy for the night.

A loose pair of pants and a washed soft shirt worked well enough for him.

He came out into the living room and found that Ino was already deep into the book and practicing the seals with a brush pen that she had started to carry with her for such reasons. Kabuto was adding some tofu to the miso soup while he checked on the grilled fish that he had started to cook while Naruto was showering.

“How far along did you get?” Naruto asked. Ino smirked as she looked up from the book.

“I’ll have to practice the hand movements for this one a bit more, but those calligraphy classes that daddy sent me to when I showed interest in seals are coming in handy,” she told him. “Thanks for letting me use your books.”

“You can probably find your own books at that one bookstore over by the blacksmith,” Kabuto told her. “They’ll have updated books but they also have used older books that you can’t find any more,” he continued as he laid them out on the table. “Or need to have printed on demand. Most of the books are second hand there. But they do have cheap copies of things that would help you. That particular edition if I’m right goes for a pretty penny since the printers do not have permission to print it since it’s from the Uzumaki estate.”

“And they won’t get that permission as long as they keep telling me that the money won’t be going into my family account but will only go to the village,” Naruto stated as he sat. “I’ll see if I can’t find another copy in the family vaults for you to borrow. And I’ll have to make sure there is a seal that is tied to you and only you,” he warned as he helped Kabuto lay out dinner.

Once they were all sitting down at the table, Naruto having told Ino that since she was there, they might as well feed her. The moved on to other subjects. “So, how was your eval?” Ino asked as she placed a piece of the fish onto her own plate.

Naruto groaned, filling the rice bowls and handing them out. “It went fine, I suppose. We’re about where I thought we were with our skills. Kakashi-sensei though has said that he is going to actually train us unlike what the council wanted. I’m just going to wait to see if he’s going to stick to it or if he’s just saying that he’s going to do it,” he said. He sipped at his miso. “Sasuke is going to be a complete dick about everything though. Just watch.”

“Oh, you mean like he always is?” Ino asked as she smirked at her best friend. She got a groan from the male. “I swear, what did I ever see in him?” she asked as she sighed, pouting at the two of them over her miso soup.

Kabuto snorted. “My guess? Hormones. You were a young girl, he was suddenly the darling of the village, and you were both fed that he would need a wife to help repopulate his clan by every woman who wasn’t raised in a strictly nin family. Never mind the fact that those in other clans would never marry into his because of the conflicting dojutsus that you all have. I think only your family, the Nara family and the Akimichi family are able to mingle your blood,” he drawled. “You were primed by the village to be a willing baby factory for him.”

“And Sakura is still very much a willing baby factory despite the fact that the idiot is either so sexually repressed that he wouldn’t know what to do with his dick on a good day, he’s asexual, or he’s more into guys then girls,” Naruto stated. He waved his chopsticks a bit before eating a bit of fish. “Or he just doesn’t have the mental time to check out women. And of course, he’s on this big crusade to go after his brother who I really don’t think was the only guy there.”

“What do you mean by that?” Ino asked, leaning forward. “We were all told that Itachi had snapped and went after his family right?”

“Think about it. One guy against a whole shit tone of trained nins and partially trained civilians? No matter how good he is still very much human. There is no way that he was not detected while he was killing them all. And I know for a fact that he liked kids. Made it his business not to hurt them even on a battle field. I heard things about how much he protected kids and I saw him a few times indulging the children of his clan when they found him to bug him about things. He even gave them money out of his own pockets so that they could get treats from the candy shop. Escorted them and his brother to festivals whenever they were happening in the village,” Naruto said.

Ino frowned down at her miso, thinking. “This is something big, isn’t it?” she asked. Kabuto nodded. “I know how to keep secrets, I really do, but if daddy asks me, I’m going to tell him that you’re not real sure about the official statement. I can’t keep that hidden from him. He’d know.”

Kabuto nodded, appreciating the warning. “Do not worry, Ino-san. We know that if you are asked by your father and clan head, you won’t lie to him. We just ask that you don’t spread things around. I believe you can tell Shikamaru-san and Choji-san too if they want to know,” he said. Ino nodded.

“Yeah. Just think, this’ll be good practice for my dream of being the head of the Intelligence department,” she snorted. Naruto laughed softly and shook his head, the three returning to their meal.

24

Naruto dropped to lay on his couch, staring at the key that had been delivered by an ANBU along with a scroll.

It was looking as if Hiruzen was intent on trying to get back into his good graces. It did amuse Naruto something fierce since he doubted that Kakashi had made his official report about his team yet. That particular meeting was scheduled to happen the next day, thus why they were going to be meeting later in the morning.

“Do you think that he’s trying to suck up to me?” Naruto asked his friend, the other male snorting as he sat next to his friend’s head.

“I have a feeling that he’s trying very hard to do so but it might just be too late,” Kabuto said. Naruto shifted so that he could rest his head in Kabuto’s lap as he frowned at the key.

The man just sighed but allowed him to rest, running his fingers through soft blond hair. Naruto had warned him when they had first become friends that he was very much touch starved, having only had Iruka for a long time. And Ino, Shikamaru and Choji for the last couple of years. He rather liked being able to touch Naruto though.

His hair was soft and silky under his fingers as he worked them through the long locks.

Naruto hummed, pressing his head up into the hand. “Yeah. The letter said that it’s the key to my family estate. That is, it’s the estate of my parents. Due to me now being a genin, he had to fulfill the will. They stated that I was to be given the house and land either when I turned sixteen or become a genin, whatever happened first.”

“I wonder if that is why he had the graduation years pushed so that everyone had to be over fifteen,” Kabuto mused.

He shook his head. “Nah. Iruka finally got it through their heads that the longer that a nin has to train their base skills and expand those skills, the easier they can learn what their jounin sensei teaches them without having to waste time honing those base skills. He proved that with the two classes before us. I think all but two teams, one team from each year, was passed and four of the teams are now on the jounin track. And the others, except Team Gai, are chunin. Gai-sensei wanted to work with his team to be a bit more specialized so he’s been working with them on that.”

“So better training means less loss in the field and more teams to fill the ranks,” Kabuto mused. Naruto nodded his head. “And more bodies who are able to do things that need to be done and can pull money into the village.”

“Yep. We’re able to send out better trained teams for more since the academy students are doing most D-Ranks as practice. If the war that has been hinted at does ever happen, then we’ll have a good military to go to war with,” Naruto mused. “Do you think that I should go to the house?” he asked.

“I think that it’s your parents house. The entire estate is most likely under a blood seal and no one else would be able to get through them. The key is just a formality,” Kabuto stated. “Let’s do it though, yes.”

“Yeah. That sounds like a fun time,” Naruto chuckled as he pushed himself up and off of the couch. He picked up Nissa from his branch when the summoned snake hissed at him and walked to the entry, putting his slippers away, replacing them with his shoes. Kabuto joined him and they locked up behind them, Naruto leading the way to the part of the village that was higher in class and mostly family estates. They walked to the edge where a vine covered gate lead onto a forested estate. “You know, I always wondered what was behind these gates,” he said, starting to remove the vines with a long kunai.

“Same here,” Kabuto hummed, helping him. Once the vines were removed, there was a large pile on the other side of the wall and the middle of the gate was sealed shut with a large circle. At the top of the circle was the Kamikaze and Uzumaki family seals mixed together: a swirl with lightening dancing around it. Smaller family seals ran around the edge, Naruto pointing to one.

“Look. Your original family. The Harunos. The Hatakes. The Inuzuka’s are more inside of that circle because they were allies and not citizens per say. The Kurama’s were the same, but look. Their family seal is broken and useless. It means that the treaty between the families was broken by someone on their end. Who?” he asked, stroking a snake based seal.

Nissa hissed. “That is mother’s summoner’s family. It means that the treaties are still strong between your family and his,” he said softly. Naruto nodded. “I know that if you place your blood on your family seals, you will be allowed in without issue,” he explained. “I remember that my mother told me about such emblems. You also can add a circle of personal seals to only allow certain people in, but you had to get into the house to get the metals for that.”

Naruto made a considering noise and put the used kunai away, pulling out a fresh one, using it to slice his finger so that he could smear it over the seal. He waved Kabuto on as he sucked his thumb, getting the man to do the same and smearing his blood over the emblem for his birth family. Both seals glowed before the gate split open and allowed them into the estate.

Walking down the path once Kabuto had healed his cut, the gate closed with a soft clink behind them. Naruto snickered at the soft curse that had come from the ANBU that had been following them, shaking his head. “You would think that they would know how blood seals are not just going to drop just because someone with the right blood has opened the gates,” he drawled.

Kabuto snorted softly and shook his head. “You would think so yes, but then again, they haven’t been known to think,” he drawled. “Come on. Let us head up to the house and you can check things over. See how the house is currently and find out what it has.”

“Knowing what I do about my parents, everything important was probably stashed into a room that has so many seals around it that it’ll still be standing even if the rest of the house is destroyed.” Naruto shrugged. The walk up to the house was a fairly fast one for the two. It didn’t look very large but it was well built. By the looks of it, it had been built to withstand the weather and time without much maintenance for upkeep.

The porch wrapped around the front, around one side and to the back, screened in to protect it from the bugs of spring and summer. There was a swing that was rocking gently back and forth in the slight breeze as they opened the screen door, stepping onto the porch. It needed a good sweeping and cleaning but it was the swing that he was interested in.

He walked up to and smoothed his hand over the arm, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I bet you that they sat out here, planning their lives out and later changing those plans when I was in mom,” Naruto breathed out, full of sorrow about what could have been. What should have been if not for someone who had attacked them, setting Kurama onto the village after attacking his parents. “So much has been lost because of someone’s need to control and destroy.”

Kabuto came to stand behind him, resting his hands on Naruto’s shoulders and just waiting for him to mourn before speaking. “Come on. Let’s check the inside. I think I saw another seal on the door,” he said softly. Naruto nodded and walked up to the door with Kabuto, another seal indeed there. He nicked his finger with a kunai again, smearing the blood on the seal before cleaning his thumb and kunai up with a scrap of cloth.

Using the key that he had been given, he unlocked it and they stepped inside, gazing around with wide eyes. Naruto found a candle next to the door as Kabuto tried the electricity, finding that they would need to get it turned on.

“It looks as if they had prepared for the worse but hoping for the best,” Naurto said softly as he found the thick candle in a holder by the door. He lit it and picked it up, starting to walk deeper into the home after he removed his shoes. “Let’s look around,” he suggested. Kabuto took his own shoes off.

They walked further down and found a table next to a door way with an oil lamp. They checked the oil, finding that it was still good, and lit it, the silver haired man carrying it while Naruto continued to carry the candle as they walked around the house.

By the time they had gone through everything, it had long gotten dark outside and Naruto was intent on coming back during the day so that they could do a proper walk around the house. Maybe he would be able to bring Ino with him since he already knew that Kabuto would definitely be coming back with him.

They put the candle and lantern back into their places for next time and slipped on their shoes before locking up the house after them. They walked down the path and pulled the gate open, slipping out only to find Hiruzen and two ANBU standing there.

Waiting for them to come out.

25

Kabuto raised an eyebrow at the group and turned to Naruto, who just shrugged. “It’ll be fine. I know that you do have some studying to do yet,” Naruto said, Kabuto nodding his head.

“Very well. If you have need of me…” Kabuto trailed off as Nissa slid off of Naruto’s shoulders, leaving them with a hiss. He had never really liked Hiruzen and for good reason.

“I’ll visit on my way home,” Naruto promised. Kabuto nodded and left, Naruto turning to Hiruzen. The old man watched as Kabuto left, looking thoughtful.

“That is some interesting company that you are keeping now days,” Hiruzen drawled. Naruto snorted.

“Not really. He’s teaching me some things about field medicine just so I’m not caught unawares,” Naruto said. “Things like properly bandanging a wound, looking for infections, that sort of thing. Plants that I can use to keep a wound clean if I don’t have anything on hand. The normal things,” he said. “How can I help you?”

Hiruzen stared at him thoughtfully before smiling. “I wished to see how you are doing. It has been quite a while since we last spoke,” he said.

“I think that the last time we spoke, before I was being accused of stealing something that I didn’t, Iruka had told you off about how I was being treated as a Uzumaki. And you tried to stop him from making sure I knew what I needed to know as a Uzumaki,” Naruto mused. His voice was mild as milk but he could see that the two ANBU had stiffened in surprise. Most likely they hadn’t known just who he was, but could put the connections together. “After that, you’ve been ignoring me.”

“I do regret trying to do that,” Hiruzen started. Naruto shook his head. “I do…”

“If you did, you wouldn’t have broken so many parts of the treaty that Uzushio has with Konoha when it came to me and you know it,” Naruto stated, crossing his arms with a bored look. “I bet if you weren’t already being heavily watched that you wouldn’t have even given me the key to my parents estate. Much less allowed me to learn who said parents were. Never mind the fact that anyone with two brain cells could figure it out between my chakra and my looks.”

Hiruzen took a slow deep breath. “Yes, I suppose that I would have done that,” he admitted. He could feel the judgement that was coming from the young man who stood before him. He knew that he had broken so many rules and regulations when it came to jinchuriki’s, especially a Uzumaki jinchuriki.

They had been laid out for the simple fact that Uzumaki’s had always been the strongest holders of a biju, along with being smart and not putting up with shit from others, thus protecting themselves and the biju.

“Is there anything that you need? I need to get home nad finish up my day. I have to be up at a somewhat decent hour tomorrow after all,” Naruto said. Hiruzen gave him a long searching look before he shook his head.

“No, there is nothing else. Have a good night,” Hiruzen replied. He watched as Naruto left them, strolling along the roads instead of taking to the rooftops.

Hiruzen noticed that Naruto had changed so much while he had been ignoring him, trying to punish him in some misled way. It had been quite a bit easier to keep control over Kushina, the girl so thankful for having a safe place to stay after Uzu had fallen and then later becoming close to Minato. Who, for a genius, was an idiot in some ways.

Her relationship had kept her docile, at least as much as any Uzumak could be docile. He hadn’t had to worry about the treaty, just follow the rules while nudging her to do what he wanted her to do.

But with Naruto? It seemed as if he should have taken him in to best mold him into being a good boy for the village. But he had found it so easy to manipulate Naruto when he hadn’t known a damn thing.

But then, sometime when he wasn’t looking, Naruto had changed.

And Iruka had finally remembered just what it meant to be a Umino from Uzu and one of the teaching families that had helped to teach generations of Uzumakis.

The fact that he had gotten tired of not doing anything meant that there was a high chance that if Naruto finally left, Iruka would follow him. Quite a few of the clans would also leave with him if they so wanted to. The treaties that held them to the village meant that they could leave without being hurt for it.

It was something that worried him heavily and he could only hope that Naruto never heard the call to Uzushio. He knew that Tsunade had heard it a few times herself, but she had never followed the call since they had been in the middle of a war. He didn’t know if she had heard the call again, but then again, she didn’t really visit the village or talk to anyone in the village since she had left to wander after losing her brother and fiance.

Turning around once Naruto was out of sight, Hiruzen started to walk back to the tower, thinking of maybe sending a letter to Jiraiya to see if he could come back. Maybe if he worded things right in his letter, he would get Jiriaya to get Naruto back onto the track that Hiruzen wanted him on instead of the path that he was on.

It would be very bad if he left the village after all.

He just hoped that Kakashi would teach his team as a proper front line team. They would need that power of a jinchurikin after all should war break out again. It was unfortunately extremely likely. There were hints of it echoing deep in the rumors that were coming from Jiraiya’s reports and his own spies that he had talking to him. There were rumors about a new group that was rising, looking for the jinchurikin for some odd reason.

Hiruzen didn’t really like it, and he wasn’t about to tell Naruto about them, not wanting to make him do something that would end up hurting Konoha in the long run. He wanted Naruto to stay in the village. To be a powerful fighter for them. They would need all of the help that they could get, and really, Naruto was a strong fighter.

He just needed to make sure that Kakashi was going to teach his team as a proper front line team. He really couldn’t stop Kakashi from doing what he wanted with him, but he was kind of hoping that the young man was still feeling enough guilt to be manipulated into doing what he wanted done.

But he wasn’t very hopeful. Mostly because it seemed as if the young man had seemed to be thinking hard about a lot of things.

Arriving at the tower, Hiruzen headed for his office, the two ANBU leaving and allowing his new guards to take over his protection. He sat at his desk and pulled out some paper, writing to Jiraiya, asking him to come to the village for a face to face meeting.

That the information that he had to speak with him about couldn’t be said over a letter, even encoded or passed back and forth between the two of them via summons.

With his letter written and sealed, he sent it off with a small summoned monkey, telling him to take it directly to Jiraiya. And that he was to tell him that he was to send his response via a toad, so the summons didn’t have to wait around. Just to make sure Jiraiya got the letter and to get him to read it right away.

As soon as the monkey had left, Hiruzen stood and left his office, wanting to get home to his daughter and grandson. Konohamaru had started to give him thoughtful looks, and did so when he arrived at home, greeting him. His daughter smiled at him but it looked strained. He knew that things were getting stressful and annoying for his daughter after she had been forcibly retired from active duty due to an injury, staying at home instead when not working the desks, and teaching her son.

Who still didn’t have a father. Not truly. His daughter, like most kunoichi, had found a lover who was outside of the village that she would often visit. Mostly after a tough mission. One such visit had ended up with her pregnant and learning that she had a stalker when her lover was killed after the man had found out about him.

The man’s family was still a part of Konohamaru’s life, but it was still hard on his daughter in not being an active kunoichi. He could only hope that Jiraiya would be able to bring Naruto to heel when he came to visit so that he could introduce him to his daughter.

Jiraiya was Naruto’s godfather and a good man who liked to make women feel good. Jiraiya also controlled part of Naruto’s estate as far as he knew, even with Iruka taking it over supposedly.

Hiruzen sat down and paused as a cold shiver skittered down his back, making him frown.

26

Kakashi sat back as he watched the way Naruto was stretching his muscles out along side Sasuke and Sakura. He had arrived just in time to see them finish up their warm ups for the day so he was pleased with them.

“Well done! You’re all here and ready for the day,” he greeted as he perched on his own stump. The three sat on their own stumps, sipping water that they had been smart enough to bring with them. It seemed as they had learned something after their assesment. “Now, Sakura-chan. The plan will be staying the same with you. You will be heading in tomorrow morning for your full physical, so I have the baseline for what is going on with you medically,” he told her. He handed her the appointment card. “You will be getting them every couple of months as long as you are training under me. If your parents try to stop me from doing what I wish, I will have to remove you from their care.”

Sakura winced, nodding in agreement. Her mother had sat her down that morning as long as Kakashi did a good job with her, she wasn’t going to stop him from treating her as he wished. She sighed, noting that she would have to be there at nine in the morning and her instructions were to have a light breakfast with her but she was to fast to have blood work done. She scowled at that but still tucked it away. “Yes, sensei.”

“Good girl. Now, you two also have your own physicals. Naruto, your physical will be with a trusted ANBU medic that I know who won’t fuck you over and is happening on Thursday. I’ll be escorting you personally so I need you up and ready for the day by eight. No exercise if you can before hand though. Part of your physical will be running while you’re attached to some machines,” Kakashi warned him. Naruto nodded. “Good boy. Sasuke, your appointment has been set up for the day after tomorrow. Again, have food on you so you can eat after your blood work. They’ll feed you lunch. The same with you, Sakura. Just a light breakfast mind. Don’t want to get sick,” he said. He shifted.

“When will we get the results?” Sakura asked as she played with her dress.

“I’ll have that information by Monday. For the rest of the week, we’re going to follow a pretty basic schedule. You will arrive early to do your pre-workout stretches and some prep work. After that, we’ll work on some team exercises, and then hand to hand skills. We’ll also work on your chakra exercises that have been chosen to either help you with control or expansion,” Kakashi drawled, pulling out a notepad, reading over it with a thoughtful look. “After a light lunch around one, we’ll do some of the offered D-Ranks that I will have picked up early that morning. If you work together, we should be done with them by four and we can do some sparring before we finish off for the day around six. When I let you go for the day, I expect you to do the work that I assign you. Working on your control or expanding your chakra, stretching out your body. Resting. Preparing for the next day. Reading sometimes. That sort of thing.”

“Why so much work?” Sasuke asked as he frowned heavily at him. “You would think that you would have us not work so hard.”

“I’m going to be pushing you to your limits, Sasuke. I need to know what you can do and then I need you to push past that line. But do not make a mistake in assuming I’m not serious about things. If I tell you to rest, I expect you to rest. If I tell you to do a specific exercise for a specific amount of time, I expect you to do it.” Kakashi looked over the group with his eye. “Now, let’s go ahead and start with our katas. I suggest that you do your personal katas for me. Sakura, I doubt that you have any that are your own, so I’m going to have a clone start teaching you how to do the Hangetsu style. I think that it’ll be a good style for you to start off with. Sasuke, I want you to work on your Uchiha style. We’ll be doing some elemental testing sometime next week so you might want to look up the variations that your family had.”

“Why do we need to do the elemental testing?” Sakura asked. Naruto held up a hand. Kakashi nodded his head.

“It’s because he wants to see what our best element will be when it comes to jutsus. You know the ying and yang to our chakra right?” Naruto asked her, Sakura nodding.

“Yes. Chakra is supposed to be in perfect balance. Ying and Yang. Without one half of it, the other can not fully exist properly,” Sakura said, looking at her teammate.

“Right. Well, jutsus come in elements and depending on what our chakra affiliation is will mean what jutsus will come easiest and what jutsus we will need to work on most. Take the Uchihas. They’re mostly fire types,” Naruto said, pointing to Sasuke. “So they usually find things like Great Fireball easier to learn then say Water clones. Some of them, from what I know, had like lightening based chakra instead of fire, and they would find the lightening jutsus easier to learn then fire. My own mother was very good with water but that was because she came from Uzushigo and most Uzumaki’s had water affinities. My father though had wind. Me? Who knows. It’s going to be a toss up along with a few other factors,” he said.

“Precisely. My own chakra nature comes from the fact that we were always lightening users as Hatake. We have a few wind users but I have always found that it was easier to create, manipulate and use lightning jutsus,” Kakashi told them. “I find it harder to use Earth based jutsus since Earth is a grounding force compared to lightning. But if I can mix in water jutsus, I can create a conductivity,” he said. “But that will be something that I start working with you on after your appointments and exams. For now, we’re going to start out with some easy things.” He called up two kage bushins and sent them off with Sasuke and Sakura to start working with them.

He himself joined Naruto as the young male worked through the first set of Uzumaki based katas that were built to help the user to build their own styles that was built on their elemental nature.

He could remember Kushina’s own devastating fighting style that had mixed in water, wind and lightning, the lightning and wind she had learned from her mother before she had come to Konoha. She had refined it over the years to the point that she could destroy a battle field just as easily as Minato could.

Kakashi had promised imself that if Naruto had enough affinity for Wind and Water that he would teach him what he knew of Kushina’s style himself. He wondered if he had anything tucked away from her, hidden from the Hokage and anyone who would have tried to steal anything that was Uzumaki and Namikaze based.

He helped Naruto to smooth a few things out, getting him to find his own style and figure out how he moved naturally. “Very good,” he praised after he watched Naruto go through it a few more times, much more comfortable with the movements. Naruto stared at him with some surprise before shyly, sweetly, smiling at him in a way that made Kakashi ache at the reminder of Minato when he was talking to him. “Naruto, do you want to have dinner tonight? I think there are some things that we need to talk about,” he said quietly.

Naruto eyed him for a moment, thinking, before he nodded. “As long as I get the option of putting up some privacy seals at your place if we do it,” he said. Kakashi chuckled and ruffled blond hair, getting a pout as Naruto patted down the three braids that his hair had been plated into.

“I can agree to that. Okay, do it from the start one more time and then we’ll move onto something else,” Kakashi decided. Naruto beamed, nodded and moved to go through the kata again. After he had done so, Kakashi nodded with a smile. “Very good.”

His other two students joined them once more after that and his clones popped, allowing him to take a moment to filter the new memories of the clones to settle into his memories.

“Alright. It looks as if the three of you did very well today so far. We’re not going to do some skill practice, then some light sparring, lunch, then we have two different D-Rank missions to do tonight. We have been asked to do some shopping for a Kunoichi who can’t do it herself and the academy students can’t do these just yet. Mostly because we’re getting her weapons and only genin and above can pick them up. Then we’re going after Tora the Cat,” he stated.

He watched as Naruto twitched. The blond already knew just who the cat was and was not looking forward to what was to come.

27

After their training and missions for the day had been done, Naruto and Kakashi headed to Kakashi’s house where the older man allowed him to set up the privacy seals while he started dinner. They had decided to have mostly finger foods along side some noddle dishes and a couple of meat heavy dishes.

Nissa had joined them on the way to the shop where they had picked up some stuff, and was currently curled up next to Kakashi’s heater, hissing happily under the heated air. Kakashi just gave him an amused look.

Naruto just shook his head, waiting for Kakashi to take his own seat across from him at the table, dinner having been laid out on the table. They snapped their chapsticks apart, said their thanks, and started to eat, Naruto not looking to be polite to the man. “I asked you to come talk with me so I can give you some information that I’m fairly sure that you will need to fill in some gaps. I know that Hiruzen did give you the key to your parents estate but didn’t tell you anything else beyond that,” Kakashi said after a moment. Blue eyes flew up to stare at him.

Naruto swallowed his food and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s right. What…What do you want to tell me?” he asked. Kakashi smiled softly at him before he lost the smile.

“There is a lot that I need to tell you and I need you to just listen to me before you make your judgment on me,” Kakashi requested. “I know that, at the least, you’re a lot like your father in wanting the facts first.”

“Alright,” Naruto said. He agreed once more and put his rice down.

Kakashi took a deep breath and started to talk. He told Naruto about how he had become one of Minato’s three students even after he had become a chunin. He had been in a team with Uchiha Obito and Norhara Rin, all of them handpicked by Minato himself.

He talked about his days spent with Team Seven that eventually became Team Minato. He spoke of how they trained and what missions they had taken. He told him how first Obito had died, giving him his eye when he had lost his own. Then how Rin had been kidnapped by Kirigakure and how they had put the Three Tailed Biju into her. How they had used a purposefully faulty seal in an attempt to destroy Konoha in a suicide bombing situation and how he had killed her at her plea.

He had fulfilled that request and dispersed the power that her body had worked so hard to contain long enough to get to that point. He knew he had given her peace but their deaths haunted him.

Naruto took some time to clean things up and make them tea as Kakashi continued to speak, telling him about the war that was ongoing. How it had felt being on the front lines with his sensei, seeing so many not come home alive. And how he had gotten to know the woman who had become a sister.

“What happened after the war?” Naruto asked as he poured fresh tea into their cups, the leftovers put away.

Kakashi snorted. “I dove headfirst into the ANBU but I was also forbidden from seeing you after your parents died. I was one of your main babysitters, but only on the patrol routes. I wasn’t allowed to be inside with you. Itachi did the majority of your care when I was patrolling. When I dared to push for more, to be more involved with your life, Hiruzen took me off of the patrols and stuck me on glorified babysitting duties in the capital for two months. He promised me that it would be for longer if I wasn’t careful so I learned to stay away with him watching me so closely. Watched out for you where I could. Left things when I felt like I could get away with it.”

“Wait. Were you the one who always made sure I had fresh fruits and veggies before I was able to start finding my own from the forest and growing some of them?” Naruto asked him. He lent forward, eyes wide. Kakashi chuckled.

“Yes, I was. I figured that you’d be a lot like your mother in what kind of fruits and vegetables you would like but I always made sure that you had some that you could try along with the ideas on how to use them,” Kakashi admitted. He frowned. “You know how I told you that he wants me to train the three of you as front line fighting team, right?” he asked. Naruto nodded. “I am not going to do that. I don’t think it would work for the skills you all have. If I somehow start to train you like that, pull me aside, smack me in the head. It’s likely someone put a genjutsu compulsion on me and if they did, I will ruin their lives. Or if they’re impersonating me they’ll change fast. One of the laws is that they can’t do that in the village to a clan head, even if said clan is only one person at the time.”

“I’ll remember that in the future,” Naruto promised. Kakashi smirked at him. “What exactly do you plan to teach us?” he asked.

“I’m planning on creating a team that will fill many roles. But I’m not going to tell you my hopes for the team yet. I need to see how you three end up handling your first kills and death in general,” Kakashi replied.

Nissa lifted his head as he made a decision. “You want to make a hidden assassination team out of them, don’t you?” he asked as he slithered over to them, allowing Kakashi to scoop him up and place him on a small pillow.

Kakashi hummed, having figured that Nissa was a summoned snake, just not sure on who had summoned him. “I’m hoping yes. I don’t doubt that once she gets past some of her issues, Sakura will be a good healer and information gatherer. Sasuke will make a good infiltrator and you, Naruto, will make a good saboteur and infiltrator on the acting end. What Hiruzen is pushing me to do is what the other Team Sevens have been. A medic, a heavy hitter and an assassin. For my own team, I was the assassin while Obito was our heavy hitter and Rin our medic. The Sanin was a team Seven with Orochimaru being their assassin, Jiraiya the heavy hitter and Tsunade-san their medic.”

“So he wants us to try to follow a pattern that has…failed. Every time it was pushed on them,” Naruto said. Kakashi nodded, waiting for Naruto to finish putting things together. “He’s thinking of having Sasuke as our assassin. Since he’s never got any therapy to work on how his clan was murdered off, he wouldn’t be hard pressed to be a cold blooded killer. But his loyalty issues would make him dangerous for this role.

“Sakura with her precise control of her chakra would be a good healer and easily used to fill in some of the healer ranks that we desperately need to fill in. But with her, her obsession with Sasuke would probably distract her and if he left, she’d follow after him if she had half the chance.

“And of course, with my amount of chakra, I would be the heavy hitter. Never mind the fact that despite the amount of power that we have, Uzumaki’s are for the most part, seal masters. We fight with stealth, seals and traps. We don’t fight head on despite what others think. From what I have read, even mom used a mix of seal work and her bloodline gifts to fight instead of face to face if she could,” Naruto ticked off.

“Exactly,” Kakashi purred. He sat back with a smirk on his lips. “You got it right. What I’m going to do with your team is make sure you’re the best team, able to work with anyone and individually. I’m going to make sure that you three can get the job done but are still willing to ask questions. Will want to gather your own information even if it takes longer for the mission to finish. You will take everything that you are told with a grain of salt and learn to figure out what is truth, half-truth and lies in the coming future,” he stated. “I want you to learn all that you can and prove to yourself, and not just the village, that you are more then your parents. More then just the holder of the Kyuubi. I want you to be the best you that you can be. If all three of you are able to do it, then you will most likely be able to break the Team Seven curse.”

Naruto hummed and stood up, moving to pull his left overs out. He didn’t care that it was cold, he wanted to eat while he thought. He fed some of his hard boiled eggs to Nissa, getting a happy hiss. They cleaned up after that and Naruto asked a question that had come to him.

“If I decided that this village wasn’t worth my time or energy any more, would you go with me?” The hum and small smile was enough of an answer to Naruto as he turned to wash their dishes.

28

Kabuto watched from the couch in Naruto’s office as his friend wrote out his plans for the next two years. He could see that it was written in a code, but he couldn’t guess as to what kind of code. “So your team?” he finally asked when Naruto sat back, thinking.

Naruto groaned, shaking his head. “I’m having to deal with Haruno and Uchiha. How do you think that this is going?” he asked, giving Kabuto a long look. “Though, as it turns out, Kakashi-sensei isn’t so bad. He’s not allowing Sarutobi to demand things for his team. Instead of the front line team that the old man wants, he’s working on specializing us. Assassination, spy work. Some healing. I know that I can heal via seals, and once I’m able to get all of the Uzumaki seal scrolls back, I can work on that more. But he’s starting to have us all take one hour classes on Monday and Friday each week before training for basic medical things.”

Kabuto lifted himself up and off the couch, walking over to sit in a chair. “I could help you to learn the book theory that you will need to know for those classes,” he offered. “I have models and the such that are built like a real body so that you can learn visually. We both know that you are not one to learn just by books. I will get you a basic set too for an early birthday present,” he continued. Nissa curled up on his lap, having moved from the desk, hissing happily when she was stroked.

Naruto blinked a few times before he blushed. “No one has ever given me a gift for my birthday. Not on my birthday or during the Yule Holidays at least,” he said at the curious look that Kabuto sent him. He looked at his notes again, fiddling with the pen. “It’s not like I haven’t gotten gifts before, don’t get me wrong. Gama-chan and my hat are both gifts, but never my birthday or for a holiday. With my penpal though, that’s kind of understandable, but no one else wanted to celebrate my birthday.”

“I know that sensei sent you a few gifts over the last couple of years, but he’s never had a clear mental state at the right time,” Kabuto mused. Naruto nodded as he pointed to the locked shelving unit.

“He sent me quite a bit actually. The scrolls within mostly. A few battle kimono’s that he thought that I would like and I love. Just can’t wear them officially yet. He also told me that the ones that he had sent me were based off of what my clan used to wear,” Naruto said. “But he is my penpal, a tutor more so. Someone who was willing to talk with me. Nissa likes to spend all day with me and tells me about her family.”

Kabuto made a considering sound. He checked the calendar. It was the first week of June. He knew that Naruto’s birthday was October Tenth, which gave him something like four months to plan things. The next Chunin exams would be closer to the end of the month so he had more then enough time to plan for something.

“I take it you spend your birthday somewhere safe?” he asked after thinking for a second. “I know that there are people who try to ransack your place or get real pissed about seeing you in the village on your birthday.”

“Yep,” Naruto chirped. “Originally I would just hang out deeper into the forest, where the foxes tend to hide, since I didn’t want to keep breaking into the place that I had found. But then I started writing to my penpal and he learned about what I do, so he got me a key to the main house on the same piece of land. Gave me a seal that would allow me to unlock it so that I could get in but no one else could. I can go in and out as I please. I tend to start stocking the house up during the summer months. Wood and canned things, mostly. I’ll take anything fresh out a couple of days before and use the cold cellar or the insulated floor cold holder. Make sure that I lay down ice. There’s no electricity but there’s a nice wood stove, a fireplace and a safe space to hang out for a few days.”

Kabuto smiled at him. “I know of the place. You use the main house during that time. I also have access to the house myself for various reasons. It’s sensei’s land and only a few are allowed on the land to take care of it. Me and Anko-san are it officially. While he is not here, we make sure that the house isn’t falling apart and take care of his plants.”

“I had wondered who took care of the lands and the plants,” Naruto wondered. He shifted. “So, books? How many are we talking about?”

“It’s a full set of ten and they will hold all of the answers you will need outside of some very specialized medical questions,” Kabuto stated, willing to change the subject for the moment. “They’re made for those who are wanting to start a medical career but want to have a good chunk of the information first before continuing on. Or those who are wanting to have a solid base knowledge in medicine. I even use them when I need to double check something.”

“I have found it easier to remember things nowadays but having the set is probably a good thing.”

“The fact that you remember things is probably because of the way you’ve rearranged your mentalscape,” Kabuto mused. “Every nin has a mentalscape after all. It’s just different to the nin since each nin is different. I know that most of the desk chunins consider their mind spaces like filing cabinets that move away each time someone unwanted tries to access the information in their minds. At least in the base. There is a reason why the Yamanaka mind walkers always describe taking paths into one’s mind. Yours will probably be quite a bit different though due to who you are and what you carry.”

Naruto nodded. “I’ve been doing some exploration with meditation lately. Iruka-sensei is willing to watch over me so I can check out things deeper in my mentalscape. It started out kind of like a sewer when I first dropped into it and talked with Kurama, but I have been able to fix it over the last few years,” he admitted. “And he’s really not bad. He’s not real happy with how things are in the outside world though,” he sighed. “He’s a grumpy bastard but he’s pleased that I don’t want to use his power at all. I have enough of my own and should we land in a place that I have to use it then I can use it and we do know I can control it as long as it’s freely given.”

“Really now?” Kabuto asked, eyes wide as he stared at the other male. “I didn’t know that.”

“No one knows about how this happened. Not fully. From what I know and what I learned, some dickwad took all of the information about being a holder and squirreled it away. Since I can get into the hut now with the Uzumaki masks, I can get into the rooms under it too and someone, somehow got all of the scrolls that we had on the biju. Which is fucked up. The only reason why I know some of it is because they didn’t find all of them. I’m going to have to hunt down the others though.” Naruto tilted his head. “Or I’ll just finish learning the recall seal and recall everything that is a part of my clans or my families original village,” he stated. Kabuto cocked a curious brow. “I have no doubt what so ever that Sarutobi used his control over my so called godfather to get shit from my parents home before it had gone into lockdown. Or even used Kakashi as my father’s student to get shit without him knowing what he was grabbing. Either way, I’m not playing around with heirlooms.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Kabuto asked.

Naruto smiled. It was a sharp smile full of teeth that promised blood drawn. “Oh, right now he’s being tested. He’s forgetting in his desperate hope that he can control me that now as a genin, I have every right to be given everything that is mine. He has exactly one month before I take this up with the daiymo and force his hand. By then, I’ll have learned to recall everything connected with my family blood. If he fails, it’s just one more nail in the coffin,” he said, his voice becoming soft. He looked out of his window. Frowned.

“You would like to stay here, don’t you?” Kabuto asked.

“I would love to stay here,” Naruto sighed. “But I can’t find myself willing to stay in a village that hates me for something that isn’t my fault. That doesn’t care about the fact that I just hold the Kyuubi and am not the Kyuubi. That treats me like shit on the daily. I can’t. I can’t do it. So I’ll wait. I’ll plan. And I’ll make connections. It hurts though. Knowing that one day I might one day end up being pushed to leave the village that my parents desperately loved.”

Kabuto winced, placing Nissa on his pillow and pulled Naruto to stand, drawing him over to sit down on the couch, just pressing their shoulders together as Naruto returned to his plans. Both for staying within the village and for leaving the village.

Whatever happened in the future.

29

Kakashi stared at his team with narrowed eyes. Naruto was fixing his nose with a grunt and a glare at Sakura, who did look sorry about having cracked it.

“Fucking hell,” Kakashi groaned finally, rubbing at his face with a sigh. “Okay, Sakura, you were not supposed to attack your teammate. You were to work with Naruto. Not Sasuke. Sasuke was the enemy in this round. Not Naruto. The very fact that you screamed at him that you wouldn’t date him, hit him and then ran away told me that you were not paying any kind of attention to what I told you to do. I’m about to put you into a class to relearn why it’s important to pay attention to briefings,” he said. He barely kept the anger out of his voice and off his face. “As it is, Naruto took the both of you out with a trap. With a cracked nose. That was pathetic.”

“I was just fucking asking her if she had any thoughts about how to go about capturing our target,” Naruto huffed, pressing at his nose with delicate fingers. Kabuto landed in the field, eyeing him as he carried bento boxes in his hands. The silver haired male frowned, walking over to him and kneeling down next to the sitting Naruto and gently prodded at his nose.

“She’s rather lucky that she didn’t try to slam the bone upwards. She would have found herself in quite a bit of trouble for that,” Kabuto stated.

“Yeah, she likes to punch forward or down, not upwards. Lucky for all of us,” Naruto sighed as Kabuto gently massaged chakra into the slow to heal break. He had always had issues healing breaks in his nose since the nose had to be set properly. He sent her a glare. “We did fail the team work part of the exercise because of her too. I’m not happy. Not only that but she fucking attacked me without provocation. I’m about to file a complaint against her. Force her into some anger management classes.”

Sakura balked, knowing the classes that Naruto was talking about. The classes were where they had to learn how to control and focus their anger in the proper ways. A seal was placed on their wrists during the duration of their classes and would act as a warning whenever they were letting their anger get the best of them.

It would be a small shock as a warning. A bigger one would be applied if the person attacked another in any way that wasn’t approved. Just enough to stop them. In some cases, it would knock them out.

She had seen how it worked if a person set the seal off at the top scale. She knew that if you set the seal off at the top scale, it was likely the person who had it would end up losing their license.

And would be on a very short list to get the shit jobs if they did happen to endwind up in another war. Her mother had ended up on that list and had had to work very hard to get off of it. As it was, it had only been in the last two years and a lot of intensive therapy for her anger issues before hers had been removed.

The fact that Naruto had threatened to file a complain that would have her placed into one of those classes with a seal meant that she was on a very thin edge with him. She paled at that realization and sank into herself.

He was right. She had attacked him without thinking about why he was talking to her during a practice spar and hadn’t even paid any attention to the briefing from Kakashi. Naruto and Sasuke had seemingly, but she had been too involved with her own thoughts.

“Go to lunch, Naruto. Sasuke. Come back in an hour for some more basic training,” Kakashi stated, staring Sakura down and getting a wide eyed look from her. “I’m going to speak with Sakura here. Again.”

“Yes, sensei,” Naruto and Sasuke replied, heading in two different directions. Kabuto bowed slightly to Kakashi and followed after Naruto.

Kakashi sighed as he stared at Sakura, who had taken to playing with the hem of her dress. “You will be going to kunoichi classes starting tomorrow. You are fifteen, about to fucking turn sixteen, Sakura. You should have your issues with your teammates under control by now! I’m very disapponted in you. From now on, you will get up at five for a six AM kunoichi class with Kurenai-san. For today, you’re heading home. No training. No learning. What I want from you is to sit and think about why I’m putting you in these classes and why I’m so pissed off with you. Do remember that the council can’t control me and the Hokage knows that I won’t listen to him. So tell your damn aunt to knock it off. You are under my command and I refuse to allow you to die on the field just because you’re not getting it through your head that you are to act like a professional on the job. I don’t care if you don’t like one of your teammates. You are to act like a proper kunoichi.”

Sakura winced, nodding as she stared at her hands. “Yes, sensei.”

“I do want you to do one thing while you’re going home. Stop by the bookstore, use some of the money that you have for your missions and pick up these two books,” Kakashi instructed her as he pulled out a pad of paper. He wrote down two titles and handed the paper over. “Use your genin license to get a discount on it. But I want you to read those. Doesn’t have to be all tonight but I want you to read them and think about what happened here today. We’ve already been a damn team for two fucking months and you’re not paying any attention when you are thinking about things that interest you.”

“Yes, sensei,” Sakura replied, tucking the paper away and standing up. She bowed to him before she waited to be dismissed.

“Get going. Remember, the only reading you should do are those two books and nothing else. No training either outside of stretching. I suggest that you also take the time to meal prep for the next few days. Work on your budget. We’re going to start doing missions outside of the village soon. And if I have to, I’m dropping you into the middle of the woods, forcing you to work with each other,” he warned. Sakura bowed once more before quickly left.

Kakashi sighed, rubbing at his face before he went to find Kurenai. He found her watching her team talk their way through a mock mission on a board with various levels, characters and information sheets spread out around them. He had done a few of these exercises with his team, Naruto always taking into account his teammates, while Sasuke was still mildly weak on that part and Sakura still focused heavily on Sasuke. He was going to break that habit very soon he hoped.

“Kurenai-san, you mind if I steal you away for a short moment?” he asked, dropping to the ground next to her. Kurenai bowed to him in respect before she stood straight, red eyes holding curiosity as they moved a bit away from her team.

“Yes, Kakashi-san?”

“You have room in your early morning kunoichi classes every morning except Sunday’s right?” he asked, Kurenai nodding. “At six AM.”

“Yes. As you said, every day except Sunday for about two hours a day. I provide the books but they have to bring their own notebooks and the such. I do provide a list of books that they can use to supplement the classes,” Kurenai said. She shifted on her feet. “Why?”

“I need to add Haruno Sakura to your classes please. And I would like to have a weekly update about how she’s doing in her classes if you don’t mind,” he requested. Kurenai blinked a few times at him, Hinata walking to stand next to them with their work answers.

“Is she still visibly obsessed with Uchiha?” Hinata asked, having caught the last of their conversation. Kakashi smiled and patted her head, amazed at how much she had grown up. She was still wearing a loose jacket and capris, but they worked for her fighting style that flowed instead of standing strong when it came to fighting. He knew that she had tighter clothes underneath just in case though.

“Yes, she is. She has been ignoring the briefings of what we’re doing during our spar days. So I need her to go through some more classes to hopefully drive it into her head what a Kunoichi is. I know that Kurenai-san here will be the best to teach her since she’d be closer in age to Haruno and get her to think. I hope.”

Hinata stared at him for a long moment before she snorted. “Good luck with her, Kurenai-sensei,” she drawled, handing the first exercise over and going back to do the other two with her teammates.

Kakashi gave Kurenai a pained look, the genjutsu mistress groaning softly and smacking at her face with one hand. She wasn’t looking forward to teaching Sakura and getting her to think for once. But she would still do it.

“Green tea and dango after my classes from my favorite cafe every couple of days,” she stated. Kakashi smirked and saluted before he headed back to the training field to meet up with the other two on his team.

30

Sitting on a log with a quiet groan after leaving Training grounds 7, Naruto gently pressed at his nose, wincing. “I really can’t stand her. I swear that she has lost her ever loving mind,” he grunted. Kabuto pushed his hand away from his face.

“Let it settle into place, Naruto. You know better,” he said. Naruto pouted at him before he sighed, slumping. “Have you been writing to our mutual friend?” he asked.

“Yes. I have been keeping him up to date about what is going on here. He told me that he’s on part three of his project and will be done by the time that the Chunin Exams roll around,” Naruto told him. “He wants to come visit with me sometime soon. Talk face to face with me finally.”

“His letters to me told me that he wants to make sure that you are truly okay in person . He is worried about you having to deal with Uchiha and Haruno so much. And so often,” Kabuto stated. He tapped his fingers on one arm before shaking his head. “Though I do understand why he’s worried with the way that they act. I’ve seen that the Uchiha has gotten better in how he treats both of you but he is…still standoffish to be polite about it,” he mused.

Naruto huffed, opening his bento. He snapped the chopsticks and rubbed them together. “Yeah true. But as you said, he has gotten better. He’s finding out that working with your team gets better results in the end then just going off on your own. Something that Sakura has proven she hasn’t quite mastered yet.” He paused in lifting a slice of hardboiled egg up to his mouth, frowning as he watched a butterfly. “I don’t think that she will get it. At least not with this particular team. And not in the way we need her to get it if we want to work as a team.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me truly. She has done fine in her medical units when she’s not working with us. She has learned that there are some Uchiha family bastards that don’t want to deal with that side of their bloodline on top of that. From what I’ve learned in the breakroom, she’s been flirting with them,” Kabuto said. “Not sure for what reason though.”

Naruto sighed. “I can guess. She probably thinks that she could convince them to approach Sasuke to gain the Uchiha name and become legitamate. So she doesn’t have to share Sasuke with so many other women. From what I do know though, Sasuke has already talked with them and they don’t want to join under the Uchiha name. They’ve made their lives without it and are at peace with being bastard children. They did promise that if they somehow activate the Sharingan, they will hyphenate their name but they don’t want to be known as purely Uchihas. There’s just too much baggage that comes with the name and clan,” he said. Kabuto raised an eyebrow. “I had a couple of them as my doctors when I was younger. Some of the few who didn’t care about my fuzzy little issue. They would come by my place once a week to make sure I had gotten my shots, was still good and was healing whenever I got hurt. My main one moved into one of the other buildings that was reopened after renovations.”

“Ah, I think I know who you’re talking about. He’s always been a good man and a good doctor. He knows how to use chakra like the best of us but he’s only ever used it for medical purposes since he’s mostly a well trained nin attending doctor.” Kabuto ate a bite of food and stretched his legs out with a grunt. “He was a part of the first medical classes that Tsunade-sama had set up before she left the village. Mostly so that those civilian’s who don’t have quite enough chakra to be a nin to train their chakra for the use of healing and medical jutsu’s. They take a more refined approach with pinpoint accuracy compared to the fighting jutsus that most nins throw around.”

“Speaking of medical, I’ve gone through that one exercise book for healing seals finally. I’ve got most of them memorized. A few more rounds of doing them a few dozen times with the clones and I should be good to move on in a month or so,” Naruto told him. Kabuto smiled softly at his friend.

He had been very surprised when Naruto had first shown such an interest in the seals that were used for healing. He would never have the pinpoint accuracy that was required by medical nins. But with his deep well of power, he could power several different seals without an issue. A good chunk of them did put the person into a kind of stasis while stopping targeted things from moving.

Things like poisons, venoms and drugs of various kinds.

Naruto told him that he wanted to create seals that could hopefully be pre-charged before a mission so that whoever carried them so that they could help keep someone alive while they were brought home for treatment. For that end goal, he had been working on studying healing based seals that the village used while he also compared them to the various scrolls that he had found from his family.

The letter that had come with the letters had stated that they had been entrusted to a friend of his mother’s, who had been his Uzumaki parent, and he had wanted to return them now that he was a genin and therefore of age. Naruto had found even more of them and Kakashi had gone back to his clans home to find the ones that Minato and Kushina had stored there. That along with everything in the Uzumaki warehouse and the house that Naruto could get into, he had every single scroll in the village at his hand.

“Has Kakashi-san agreed to your request to return to Uzushio to see if you can’t rescue the scrolls locked in the library there?” Kabuto asked.

“He has. He wants us to do a C-Rank mission while we’re at it. So we’re looking into that happening fairly soon. He’s not telling Hiruzen about my plans, just that I want to visit my families homeland and pay my respects to those who died. Maybe do some training outside of the village and away from the council. He might even try to spin it so that the council won’t make this hard by throwing a fit and that they’re thinking we’re going to work on awakening Sasuke’s Sharingan while on the C-Rank and in the village,” Naruto hummed.

Kabuto’s eyes looked down, seeing that Naruto was stepping on a privacy seal that he had slipped onto the ground. He knew that Naruto was being followed around by the rather pissed off Hokage, but neither of them really cared. The man didn’t have much choice on what Naruto did with most of his time. By law, Naruto was considered a grown adult and should have been told everything about his family the very day that he got his hiate-ate. Hiruzen had been chewed out once it was found out that he had waited for so long after Naruto had become a genin to say anything, much less given his family things that he held.

He clicked his tongue. “What is the plan for that then?” Kabuto asked.

“The Sharingan or the mission? If Sasuke does gain his sharingan, he’s going to find that it will be impossible to copy my moves. I have an appointment with an old ANBU partner of Kakashi’s to tattoo a seal onto my skin to stop the Sharingan from being able to copy anything I do. I found it in my mother’s journals about keeping our skills secret and in the family. The original Uzumaki’s created it when the Uchiha’s started to use their gift to steal whatever they wanted from others. It’ll stop him from copying my moves, jutsus and seals no matter how much he wants it,” Naruto said, smirking. “I’ll need to do it before we do our C-rank though. Just in case. I don’t trust him not to activate it and steal during the mission,” he sighed. He shook his head. “As for the mission?”

He ate a bite of food as he frowned, thinking.

“We heard from Iruka-san that there’s an escort mission that is coming up through that seems kind of odd but they can’t do a whole lot about it. Not without insulting the client. So they’re going to send a medic of our choosing with us. I’m thinking of asking Kakashi-san if he’ll ask for you. At least I know that you’ll have my back during the mission.”

Kabuto tilted his head, reaching out to squeeze Naruto’s arm with a smile on his face. “I would enjoy being able to join you and your team on the mission. Just request for me and I’ll be able to do it,” he promised.

Naruto beamed and nodded, the two continuing to eat lunch as he ground the tag under his foot until it was completely destroyed. Useless and nothing but ragged bits of paper. After they finished their lunchs, Kabuto escorted Naruto back to the training field where Kakashi told them that Sakura was taking the day to think about some things and that she would be there the next day.

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, shrugged and went about training.

They first sparred, with each other and then against Kakashi in a two against one fight. Naruto found that he enjoyed the afternoon quite a bit, finding that Sasuke had somehow become more relaxed without Sakura around and that he wasn’t half bad looking.

As he walked home, Naruto smacked his face, grunting and telling himself that he couldn’t crush on his teammate.

He was still an asshole.

 

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