Split
AN: This is a very different Naruto story than you are used to. I have taken liberties with this story and added many facets of the Naruto world that were either not in existence before or not explained to my satisfaction. With that said I think any Canon-cultists have left XD. Enjoy my first foray into the world of writing naruto-fic.
For those without brain cells...
Kyuubi speak.
'Kyuubi Think'
"people speak"
'people Think'
.oOo.
Umino Iruka was having a good day. He had met some chuunin buddies and chatted before he had to go teach and now he had lunch-break plans. Then his would-be girlfriend had agreed to a date next saturday. It was a good day to be Umino Iruka.
Of course like usual Uzumaki Naruto showed up and shattered his peace of mind. Only today he wasn't doing it by breaking the sound barrier, which Iruka often had to remind him was there for a reason, this time however Naruto had done it by simply existing. Normally that would be impossible, except he wasn't wearing orange. Kiba had once joked that an orange-less Naruto was one of the hundred signs of the apocalypse. Instead of his one-of-a-kind, one-of-a-kind because no-one in their right mind would wear one, orange jumpsuit Naruto was wearing a pure black T-shirt tucked into black cargo pants with a belt holding those up.. If he had a vest and a forehead protector most people would mistake him for a chuunin or jounin. Naruto spoke up.
"Something wrong Iruka-sensei?"
'Dear god' Iruka yelled in his mind 'He's being quiet! Thats another of the hundred signs.' What he said caught up with Iruka and he freaked out internally again. 'Holy hell he's being perceptive! We're all going to die!' After a few minutes of mental relaxation exercises Iruka flagged Naruto down and managed to speak up.
"You okay there Naruto? You seem very different..." He trailed off.
"What, surprised because I'm not hurting peoples ears and wearing kill-me-please orange?"
Iruka was shocked by Naruto's bluntness but spoke up. "Quite frankly, yes."
Naruto seemed to lighten up a bit, "I was rather stupid before..."
Iruka was surprised, the look on Naruto's face was one of reminiscence as if he had changed over the course of many years. He prepared to call Naruto on it. "Any reason for the lack of stupid?" Was Iruka's carefully crafted response.
"Just thought I'd show off a bit for the Genin exams." He smiled. "Don't want to fail three times. Sort of an unlucky number."
Iruka stiffened. He'd forgotten about those for a while. He excused himself from Naruto and wandered off to consult with Mizuki, his instructional partner, as Mizuki liked to call himself, or in layman's terms assistant.
.oOo.
(Naruto POV)
With Iruka gone Naruto was left to pick a seat. Apparently Iruka was actually enforcing the no girls by Sasuke rule that had gone into effect when 8 girls started a fight over the seats next to him. So now it was either of the seats by the self-proclaimed 'avenger' or the floor. Naruto was about to gladly seat himself on the floor when the 'avenger' spoke up. "Sit by me" Sasuke was apparently keeping his reputation for brevity.
"I'm happy with the floor actually." He responded coldly.
Surprised by their crushes desire and Naruto's surprising new look and intelligence, but still looking to curry favor with Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino spoke up at the same time from one seat away from the 'avenger' on either side. "Listen to Sasuke-kun!"
Naruto knew that annoying both girls AND the broody Uchiha would not be a good combo so he just sat himself to the left of the boy by Ino. He did not want to be accused of anything to do with his former-crush Sakura. Immediately the Uchiha went in for the kill. "Explain." he said jabbing at the clothes with his thumb.
Just as Naruto was about to flip off the Uchiha and give him a few anatomically impossible and socially unacceptable suggestions Iruka interrupted from the front of the amphitheater styled classroom. "Okay kids!" He replied overly cheerfully. "It's time for you to fail the genin test and get out of this stink hole we call a school!" Iruka was obviously fond of his place of employment. "We're going to call you up randomly and test your knowledge on the academy three, than we have a written, a weapon proficiency test and finally an all out spar."
Iruka stepped back and allowed Mizuki to call the first name. "Uchiha Sasuke come on down!" Mizuki was acting in a manner he obviously thought was cool but made him look like a game-show host.
As soon as the Uchiha was safely out of the room Naruto enacted the plan he had been trying to somehow make work for the last three years.
The boy got out of his seat slid over to the edge of the room. He then went up the steps and back three rows. He ended up just in front of Nara Shikamaru and set down a Shogi board. He grinned a grin he hadn't ever gotten to grin before and spoke up "Care for a game Nara-san?"
Never one to turn down Shogi or cloud watching the Nara quickly chose black and set up his pieces. Naruto accepted white and made the first move. As soon as he had set down the board he had retrieved from his bag a few people had gravitated around them to watch. By now there were about six people around them.
Eight people had taken the test and over fifteen minutes had gone by. The Nara had used his thinking pose once and Naruto hadn't stopped grinning that slightly creepy grin.
He was just about to take the Nara's Bishop when his name was called. "Nara Shikamaru!" a voice yelled from the testing room. Naruto finally stopped his grin to frown slightly at the interruption and wish the Nara luck. A few minutes later the Nara returned with an uncharacteristic smile on his face and sat down. Naruto immediately took the Bishop he had been waiting to take and started grinning again.
A further sixteen people had since went and thirty-five more minutes had gone by. There were only two people left waiting to go. Naruto and a faceless extra that nobody cares about. The genius Nara had used his thinking pose an unheard of eight times and Naruto was still grinning. Finally the faceless girl was called, finished her test and came back out. Naruto heard his name being called, made a move, and declared "Check."
The Nara glared at his back for the entire walk to the front and re-entered his pose.
Naruto entered the room and Iruka began to explain the test. "It's an extremely simple test to see if you've picked up the basic ninja techniques we've taught this year. You must produce at least three bunshin, an unwavering henge, and kawarimi with this potted plant here. In fact I'm extremely impressed you managed to fail this twice. It takes a seriously legendary retard to do that." It was obvious Iruka was fishing for a reaction so Naruto made sure to give him a megawatt grin and thank him.
Iruka looked disappointed with the lack of reaction and asked Naruto to just make the damn Bunshin.
Naruto's face gained a look of concentration and there was a noticeable but not visible swirl of chakra in the air. The two teachers looked unimpressed and Iruka stepped forward "Gonna give us some bunshin Naruto?" he asked.
His grin was firmly in place as he pointed to an area behind Iruka. The two examiners faces respectively rose and fell as they beheld the astonishing sight of fifty illusions in military formation saluting behind the examiners desk. Iruka managed to compose himself first. "Okay, well... You've created three or more clones," Naruto and Mizuki both snorted a little at this. "Congratulations! Now we'll move on to the henge technique." Iruka finished.
Naruto's grin increased to dangerous levels of brightness and a audible ping escaped his teeth as he cycled through the images of Iruka, the five kages, Mizuki, the entire class, and the fat old lady who sold him bad weapons without a sound, puff of smoke, or hand seal. This time the examiners were ready for something like that and Iruka managed to compose himself in seconds. "Well you've got that down." More snorts. "On to the kawarimi!"
Now the teachers turned examiners had smirks on their faces. Who could you impress with a kawarimi anyway? How could you possibly improve it? As always the words impossible, possibly and such didn't apply around Naruto as he threw a water balloon into the air. Iruka prepared to berate him for useless theatrics when he felt an immense chakra infuse him. Suddenly he was under the balloon and Naruto held the examiners clipboard.
Seconds later the balloon impacted Iruka's head and Naruto spoke up "If it's any consolation I apologize and thank you for the perfect scores." Apparently it wasn't any consolation and Iruka just angrily pointed at the door silently asking him to leave and glaring at his back as they walked out.
Iruka explained that the next test was the written one and made everyone return to their seats and in his own words "Shut the hell up because in the ninja world talking is cheating!"
He handed out the tests and the sounds of furious writing filled the room. Naruto finished twice as fast as anyone else except maybe Sakura and moved into position in front of Nara's desk. "I know you're done and just sleeping to cover your intelligence" He whispered. Speaking at three times the volume he said "If our teachers didn't suck so much you'd practically be a genius!" Naruto let the well deserved eraser hit him in the back of the head.
"You shut up and be glad you're being allowed to play shogi!" Iruka yelled. Reminded of the delicious shogi being held in front of him the Nara's head snapped back up and he began to play.
twenty-five minutes later the least intelligent kid in the class, faceless student extra #18 finished his test. At almost the exact same moment Naruto moved his rook and declared quite loudly but still below his usual decibel level "Checkmate!"
The genius Nara had known it was coming for well over 11 moves but still let his head fall and impact the desk. "Well fuck," Just about everyone was surprised the boy mustered up the energy to talk "that's troublesome." He finished. Everyone face faulted. Apparently their lazy classmate hadn't changed a bit.
Iruka noticed everyone hadn't touched a pencil is a few minutes and led everyone out side for the second to last test. He had them going three at a time on the fifteen human-shaped targets behind the school. Each target had three vital marks on them that you were supposed to hit. Each student was given ten kunai, five shuriken and five targets. They were then instructed to try to hit the vital points or at least get as close as possible to them.
Naruto had trooped out with Shikamaru and led him over to the best tree where they proceeded to begin anew. It took each student about 5 minutes to go and so around 42 minutes later after a new record fifteen poses the Nara declared checkmate with a megawatt grin on his face. Well it's a Nara who can't spare the face muscle energy so it's more like a slight upturning of the lips. Naruto just grinned and stood and walked to receive his weapons.
Standing twenty yards away from the targets Naruto jumped into the air, backflipped and flung six weapons. He repeated the process, front-flip on the second and no flip on the third, two more times with only three weapons leaving his hands on the last jump. He looked over at his targets. 14 'deaths' and one 'mortal wound' not bad for a days wound if you asked him. He laughed at his own horrible pun and retrieved and returned the fifteen weapons.
.oOo.
With the weapons testing over Iruka led the class to the sparring fields and began explaining rules. "Okay guys, this is serious, no weapons, no clan techniques if you have them. Just the academy three and your style of taijutsu. The point of the exercise is to land a blow on the examiner. Mizuki and I will be alternating so we can analyze the fights from two points of view. This one's alphabetical so wait your turn. Okay Aburame Shino! You're first!"
The fights varied in length based on skill and intelligence. With the clan heirs it was more like adapting to the no-clan-stuff rules. The fight length average was probably around 10 minutes. Clan heirs and talented people could do it in five and Sasuke held the record at two minutes thirty-four seconds. It helped him that he was already around mid genin level whereas most here barely deserved the title. With such a long waiting period the two managed to get in two more games in with each winning one.
They were about to start another when the Nara's name was called. Naruto wished him luck again and the Nara was back in six minutes three seconds. Naruto mumbled, "With the Nara style of counters to work in that jutsu of your family's and your great tactics you should have beaten the Uchiha." Shikamaru just laughed and said "With the troublesome performance your giving today you WILL beat the class 'avenger'."
They both laughed again and Naruto got black that time. Finally after another couple thinking poses Naruto was called up. Shikamaru was in a good mood because of his genius escape from Naruto's triple layered trap and bade him good luck and a quick victory.
Naruto stepped up to plate so to speak and Mizuki called for the fight to begin. Immediately with no sound or poof or any hand seals or anything at all really fifty clones appeared in a double layered circle around the academy teacher. Those who hadn't seen him do that in the testing room, namely everyone who wasn't Hyuuga Hinata the Byakugan wielder was shocked at the display of mastery over the jutsu when before he couldn't even produce one.
Immediately after creation the circle began to spin with all the Narutos running clockwise in perfect sync slowly moving toward Iruka. As they got closer to Iruka the circle was forced to shrink and widen until it was five Narutos wide. Once the circle was that wide each Naruto in the front circle jumped forward to kick or punch Iruka. Since he didn't know which was corporeal he was forced to dodge or block each attack. He looked incredible foolish blocking an intangible punch. Finally he detected a chakra reinforced kick among the rest of them and caught that one his grasp ignoring all the others which he now knew to be incorporeal. Lifting the ankle he was holding he spun in a complete circle three times until he'd gained sufficient momentum to fling the Naruto at a tree.
As he was smirking over his genius victory he felt himself being infused with chakra, "Oh-" He reappeared five feet from the tree at twenty miles per hour, "shit!" He managed to get out before he hit the tree back first and slid onto the ground. Once he had his wits about him he looked to Mizuki. He had his hands up with two fingers extended and the other eight curled back. Once he was sure Iruka had seen he shifted so that seven fingers were up and three were curled. "Good job Naruto! Twenty-seven seconds! You almost beat Itachi's old record! Except he just ran forward and punched three times... Kicked twice then socked the examiner in the stomach... Took twenty-five seconds but he looked damn cool doing it! He started so early he was actually in the class right behind me."
No one was paying attention though, which was good because the Uchiha would have gone insane at the mention of the name Itachi. Naruto just smiled and thanked him before settling himself back in front of the Nara boy. Fifteen rapid moves later Naruto pumped his fist in the air and yelled "Checkmate bitch!" It had been a particularly hard game...
The last fight had just finished and by the academy standards nobody had failed. There was a big deal about giving out headbands and for some reason Mizuki was looking dejected before finally perking up. The last headband had just been given out and Naruto was about to head home when Mizuki flagged him down. He made the universal 'come here and follow me' gesture and jumped onto the roof with two quick leaps. Naruto did the same but requiring three jumps instead of two. As soon as they had both landed Mizuki spoke up.
"You must have been hiding your true strength this whole time to have done so well on the tests but even though your score was an averaged 99.5%. You aren't the dead last but if you had done this good all year you'd be top rookie. Right now on a guess I'd put you as maybe twenty-second in a class of twenty-seven. That's not good at all. I know your skills though and the teachers have a special extra credit assignment they can give to boost a kids performance when they know they are capable of it. I want to give it to you Naruto."
The smile on his face and 'extra credit assignment' were so fake Naruto wanted to laugh and leave. Except Mizuki had gained his attention. Even if it was fake he was sure he could get something out of it. He became more sure of this every second of Mizuki's explanation.
"Okay Naruto. This is a search and retrieval mission. If it were given to an enemy ninja it would likely be an A or even S rank Mission. You are to steal the Forbidden Scroll from the Hokage tower and learn one of the powerful jutsu inside. If you can do that before the 'ANBU' catch up to you we'll bump you up to the top of the class."
The words Forbidden and jutsu had his heart pounding. He jumped up when Mizuki left and immediately hightailed it home to wait for dark.
.oOo.
A few hours later it had gotten dark out and he had donned a Hatake like face mask and hair covering. He crept silently through the tower and grabbed the Scroll from the hilariously basic security. He silently crept back out ant to the clearing Mizuki had informed him of.
He sat himself onto a fallen log and unfurled the scroll until he could see the first couple of techniques. The first was Kage Bunshin and it alone had his eyes widening to the point of saucers!
Kage Bunshin - A-rank - Shadow Clone - Creates physical bodied clones and creates mental growth by relaying memories back to the user when the clone is dispelled for whatever reason. Each clone, for fighting purposes, has 75% of the users skill strength and speed and can be dispelled by any bruising forced blow. It is estimated at 100 CC's of chakra varying with the ninja's level of control per clone.
This was so useful! He could use this to train all sorts of purely mental things! A glance down at the second technique left him rewording that statement.
Kage Bunshin - S-rank - Shadow Clone - Creates physical bodied clones - Variation - By infusing greater chakra into each clone the clones gain the unique and not understood property of relaying muscle growth back to the user as if the user had himself performed everything that the clones did between creation and dispersion. The limit is five clones because any more does irreversible damage to the muscles and death. Estimated at 10,000 CC's of chakra.
Do not attempt until you are a VERY high level Jounin.
That's helpful! Naruto immediately began training in the first kage bunshin. On his first try he managed five perfect bunshin. Deciding to test their mental relaying skills he was about to direct them to try to create more when before he could say anything they all did it themselves.
He was curious about that until he realized they were him and therefore had the same ideas at the same time and knew what he was thinking. They each had a better grasp after trying once and each managed ten clones. He dispelled them all and almost staggered when he received all the info at once. He was suddenly very glad he had only managed five clones any more and the information overload might've killed him! He was surprised it didn't warn against that or something. Now that he had the memories of performing the jutsu 5 times he tried it again. This time more than fifty popped into existence and he though suddenly 'The training benefits alone are amazing!'
He had each clone perform the jutsu and they could only do 10 before they were almost out of chakra. He had them dispel in groups of three and found that to be a tolerable mental overload threshold. With the mental feeling of having done the kage bunshin fifty-six times he felt ready to attempt to get rid of the training wheel type hand seals and try it with only the cross hand seal. It worked like a charm and again in front of him were fifty clones. Again he had them create ten clones each then dispel in groups of three. Having created 1100 clones he was really feeling the loss of about 110,000 CC's of chakra. That was almost 1/3 of his reserves! He decided to create 5 of the physical relaying clones and had them run around the clearing and then dispel. He now felt as if he had run around the clearing 5 times. Perfect.
Since the concept of physical relay clones and mental relay was about the same he had no trouble performing it and getting 5 clones. He felt he had a grasp of both and moved back to the scroll to see if there were any more gems among the bunch. He found,
Kunai Kage Bunshin no jutsu - A-rank - Creates physical copies of weapons as they fly through the air. The same concept can apply to any other item(s) the user may have. such as scrolls or explosive notes.
'That's perfect too! Now I can make a copy of this scroll and take it home...' He did so sealing the new scroll into a sealing scroll he'd bought to carry the Forbidden Scroll in. The same concept applied to the kunai kage bunshin skill as the kage bunshin and he had no trouble with it.
Then Iruka showed up...
.oOo.
AN: Dun Dun Dun! Cliffhanger! Not really since we know what's gonna happen but it's still pretty cool! Not really? Fine...
If anyone's curious about CC's of chakra or 'training wheel hand seals' those are some of the things that make this not your usual fanfic XD. Here is my explanation on CC's that I keep in my notes.
CC - Abbreviation for Chakra Capacity - Is the unit of measurement for finding Chakra Capacity. It is the equivalent of the amount of chakra present in a rabbit. It was developed by the sage of the six paths when he first gained the ability to sense chakra. The rabbit was the first animal he saw after that and that is where CC came from. A basic human has roughly 10 CC's of chakra. That number gradually increases during shinobi education through chakra control exercises and using basic jutsu until a graduating genin has around 100 CC's of chakra. An average chuunin is expected to be able to beat 10 average genin and therefore is expected to have around 1,000 CC's of chakra. A jounin is supposed to be able to take the same number of chuunin or 100 genin and therefore has about 10,000 CC's of chakra. A kage similarly is expected to have around 100,000 CC's of chakra.