An: In the cannon Naruto, Naruto himself had a split personality that amounted to nothing. Well, everyone kind of did, but in this fic, it is the reason and answer to his stupidity. Any psychological treatment methods in this fanfic have been pulled out of my ass and I hope none of you take them seriously.

Also, I do not own Naruto, etc.

Experienced T&I members from Konoha are well aware of how many ways the human mind has to defend itself from unpleasant experiences. They are also familiar with split personalities that sometimes emerge after a certain limit was exceeded.

Since the Uchiha massacre, special psyhological evaluations were being performed randomly on all active ninja. It is a preventive measure that has already reduced the number of missing nins from konoha by almost half. After Naruto managed to fatally injure the traitor Mizuki, more than a few people were interrested in his state of mind. As soon as Kakashi reported that he passed his team(making Naruto an active ninja), Iroh Yamanaka was assigned to evaluate Konoha's resident Jinchuuriki.

Iroh was an older Yamanaka, just several years younger than the third Hokage. He was balding with a crown of gray hair left, and a large stomach that he got in his old age and forced retirement. His artificial right leg was what forced him into retirement from active shinobi duty. This did not mean that he was usless, no, he endeavoured to do everything he could in order to leave more time to the able bodied ninja. Being a Yamanaka, this included not only teaching the mind arts, but preforming them outside the field.

The old patriot was wary of entering the mind of a jinchuuriki. No Yamanaka in recorded history has attempted to do such a thing. Sarutobi Hiruzen had assure him that the seal stood firm, and that he would not come in contact with the Kyuubi inside the child.

He and the Hokage waited for the boy to come to his evaluations in one of the T&I buildings in Konoha. The boy was brought in by Umino Iruka, the scarred chunnin that Naruto trusted. 'A much better idea than having me bring him in with the boy facing a traitor recently, wouldn't want him nervous and uncooperative for this'. After an unnecesarry amount of nonsene, and several annoying exclamations of "Believe it" they finally convinced him to shut up and relax so that Iroh could get to work.

Once he had acess to Naruto's mind, Iroh immediatelly noticed he was not in an average head. Normal mindscapes have a representation of the mind in the form of a giant brain and some fuzzy surroundings. Even mindscapes with defences against interrogative techniques have only barriers, traps and possible self destruction mechanisms in addition to the usual. Naruto has a simplistic sewer depicting his mind. No brain in sight in it. Some would say that explains the kid's rumored idiocy, but Iroh was too wary of the Kyuubi to joke around.

The sewer consisted of a single hallway in front of him, and a obvious exit behind him. The water that reached to his ankles was a transparent liquid that had no noticable smell temperature or density. Also water walking was not possible on it. It probably represented something, but as it was not a threat, it was not a priority to him either. There was a pair of pipes running allong the upper left of the hallway and he could see clearly despite no obvious source of light. That part at least was common in mindscapes. Standing there was useless, so he started going deeper into Naruto's mind.

After just a little while, the hallway started branching into rooms of various size. Iroh took a careful step into these rooms, only to find that they were The replacement for scrolls sticking out of the central brain in most mindscapes. The rooms contained various memories and experiences and Iroh ignored most of them after just a glance. Despite ignoring most of them, he couldn't forget them so easily and he started feeling sorry for the boy. There weren't too many horrible memories(most of them being just unpleasant), but there was an obivous absence of good ones to offset the mind numbing suffering so many unpleasant experiences caused. Iroh's patriotism took a heavy blow that day.

As he progressed, he could tell that the water-like liquid he was wading through was starting to get a current. It was flowing against him. He later found the source in a room that was warded off with a paper wall that was riddled with holes. The water was shooting through those holes and filling the hallway, flowing away in both directions from the barrier. The paper was not ripped in any place, instead the holes were deliberately added in it. It took no genius to figure out what was on the other side, so he decided not to touch this.

Much later,Iroh had arrived at the end of the hallway looking at a barricaded doorway. To an experienced Yamanaka like himself, the barricades were simple to remove, and he entered the last room in Naruto's mind. Unlike the others before it, this one was large and unlit, mostly covered in shadows. In the center of the room stood another Naruto tied to the floor with chains in a kneeling position. He appeared to look just like the normal Naruto, but his eyes were pupilless red surrounded by black instead of white.

There was hatred in those eyes, hatred and fury that Naruto obviously locked away from the world. Iroh immediately fled his mind to report this to the Hokage.

Next morning in the Hokage's office...

"Hokage-sama, as you can see in my report, Naruto is not well." Iroh said "This problem has nothing to do with Mizuki's betrayal or death. It started sometime during his early childhood. Naruto has for years now been repressing memories to such a degree that he has created a split personality disorder. It has luckily not shown itself yet or people would have assumed it was work of the fox, but that is no guarantee it will remain repressed. Nor is such a course of action healthy."

Sarutobi Hiruzen grew visibly more depressed as Iroh expleined the degree of abandonment, isolation, beatings and a number of other incidents that gave birth to 'Dark Naruto'. According to Iroh the reason Naruto managed to learn the Kage Bunshin (shadow clone) was because both sides of him agreed on it, and cooperated. This implied that Naruto's development was stunted not only through active sabotague that Iroh discovered while going through Naruto's memories ('I will have their hides for this' Sarutobi thought), but also due to Naruto being at war with himself.

"To conclude Hokage-sama" Iroh said "A split personality in a shinobi is a well documented liability that can surface unpredictably. Add the Bijuu(tailed beast) into this and nothing good can come of it." ~inhale~ "He must be treated"

Sarutobi rubbed his weary eyes "What do you think will happen to him Iroh-san?"

"He will become whole, and it will be possible for him to begin healing... As to his personality... it will most likley change a great deal."

"How long will the treatment take?"

Iroh leaned back, staring at the celling and rubbing his chin in thought "Well, I'd estimate that if he cooperates, and this is something you should convince him to do, it can be done in under two weeks. However, if he resists, it take over a year."

"Very well Iroh-san, I will talk to Naruto later today. Am I correct in assuming that you will be the one to merge the personalities?"

"I am qualified for the job Hokage-sama, and it's not like I have something better to do with my time."

"Very well, I shall send for you later then. Thank you Iroh-san."

Iroh left behind a pensive Sarutobi wondering how to best break the news to Naruto.

Naruto was scared and excited at the same time. The old man had told him he would have to go through this therapy thingy to take even D rank missions. Teme (bastard) Sasuke was angry at him for slowing him down as Kakashi-sensei refused to take on anything team related without the whole team there for it. Team seven was on hold because of this, and Sakura-chan naturally took teme's side in this.

He was scared because the old man said this would change him a bit, but also that not going through with it could end up killing him or someone he worked with. The exciting part was that he would be able to learn cool new jutsu(techniques) faster. Or something along those lines. The old man's explanation was too long to listen to.

He walked into the same room his examination was held at. It had several new books and scrolls, but other than that nothing changed. Fat, old Yamanaka Iroh was even in the same place and position.

"Good day Naruto-kun. To begin this therapy you will need to meditate deeply. Therefore we will be practicing meditation to start. If you manage to go deeply enough into yourself, you will appear in your mindscape. For now, I want to teach you to travel to and from your mindscape back here freely. Do not do anything there as it is not without danger. You can leave the same way you enter. Understood?"

"Uh... could you go over it one more time?" Naruto asked scratching his head.

It took several hours for Naruto to stop fidgeting enough to enter the dank sewers of his mind, and by the time he got out Iroh called it a day. Tomorow Naruto's questions, that multiplied as he slept on it, were answered. "Why is my mind a sewer?" was answered with "I'm not so sure it's a sewer, but I assume that it is as dark as it is due to the difficult life you've had so far. Also the simplicity of the place reflects upon your straightforward personality." That particular disingenuous assertion was greatly disturbing to Naruto and he proceeded to argue about it for a while. "What about the water?" was answered with "I believe it is the representation of your excess uncontrolled chakra. As to why I believe that, well... I've seen it's source in where I assume your prisoner remains locked away. Stay the hell away from there. That bit has nothing to do with what we are trying to accomplish."

After three days of meditation training Iroh deemed Naruto advanced enough to continue the therapy.

"Naruto-san, now I would like you to go to your mindscape, and walk toward it's end. Ignore the side rooms for now and follow the main path to where I saw the other you. If you can, try to talk to him, understand why he exists and will he cooperate? Oh, and if it seems like you are going to get into a fight, leave immediately."

Naruto followed Iroh's instructions and started exploring his mind for the first time. It took a lot of self control on his part to ignore the side rooms of his mind. He was burning with curiosity and promised himself to poke his head in them later. When he finally came to the corridor's end, the room beyond it had his full attention. It was much more roomy than the corridor, but because it was so dark, he couldn't tell how big it was, nor what it had inside.

Out of the shadows walked another Naruto with red eyes and black pupils being the only visible difference. He yelled at light Naruto. He shouted at him how he was saddled with the worst memories and experiences that light Naruto was repressing and ignoring. He yelled at him because he was imprisoned here, he yelled at him because he wanted out for his revenge. Being that that was what light Naruto came here to do (get him out of there that is) he said ok, and began to merge being sure that he could help his darker part recover and "see the light". When they started merging, Naruto fell into a coma like unconsciousness.

***Two days later in the Hokage's office***

Sarutobi could already see big changes in the boy. He was quiet now and he no longer smiled as much, his smiles had turned mostly into smirks. Naruto was still a bundle of energy, but now that energy was mostly shown by him being being jumpy and nervous around people, seeming to distrust almost everyone. He was also able to focus much better, shrugging off what would have easily distracted him just several days ago.

"Well, Naruto" Sarutobi began "Iroh told me that the treatment was a success, and that there are no nasty surprises left over. How do you feel now?" The boy looked at him before getting a lost in thought kind of expression, actually thinking about his answer for once.

"I guess that I'm doing fine jiji, but everything is so strange to me now."

Sarutobi took his time lighting his pipe to give himself time to think as he usually did (it was why he started smoking really, damn politics) before exhaling smoke and refocusing on Naruto.

"Different how Naruto?"

"Well...chakra for example." Naruto resolutely nodded as if agreeing with himself before continuing "Why does it do the things it does? Crossing my fingers, molding and expelling it to make a copy of me seems really weird when you think about it. I just never stopped to think about it. All of it was just 'cool' to me."

Sarutobi smiled a bit and said "That jutsu is considered high ranked for a reason Naruto. The fact is that you had to master sealless bunshin chakra flow to use the kage bunshin, and I believe this was easier because of your earlier efforts at learning the standard bunshin to pass the genin exams, add the final hand symbol and expel a much larger amount of chakra through it than you would for the standard bunshin to where you wish your clones to appear. I could go more into the theoretical aspect of how the handsign used is a merging of two handsigns used to split and copy simultaneously, or I could tell you about the spiritual and physical aspects of chakra used in this jutsu... but I believe that you would need most of the information available in scrolls and books in the library about the basics of such things before what I have to say about it would make any kind of sense to you."

Naruto took a minute to let that all sink in before saying "Ok, I should probably raid the library..."

"Please don't raid the library Naruto-kun." Sarutobi quickly interjected slightly pale at the thought. "Also, you will find the information in the shinobi archives, not the public library."

"...but let me just ask a few more questions."

"Of course. Ask away."

"Why are hand-seals called 'seals' in the first place?"

"Because of their origin Naruto-kun. You see, before hand-seals existed as they do today, people could only control their chakra directly. That made it very specific in use, meaning one person could use chakra for five to ten things maximum. Average chakra users that is. Then one day someone experimenting with the use of chakra managed to infuse his writing with it. Since he needed to seal his chakra into the writings for it to do anything, this method was named seals. He did manage to do some interesting things with it before blowing himself up, so the practice was continued after him by his relatives, albeit more carefully.

This was the birth of fuinjutsu. Eventually someone else managed to create a representation of a simple written seal with his hands and mould chakra into them, thereby making the first hand-seal. This of course started a new revolution in chakra usage when people figured out how to string hand seals one after the other, but that is a story unto itself. One you can find in the public library. Anyway I hope I cleared up your confusion with this."

He stopped talking to inhale the smoke from his pipe before it could extinguish itself and looked out the window into the distance before continuing.

"Basically Naruto, There are three ways of controlling chakra. Direct manipulation where you feel the chakra and manipulate it with your will, written seals that are somewhat of a unstable, dangerous and precise science, and hand-seals that are somewhere in between the other two. All are useful tools, but the greatest is the ability to combine them."

"Combining them?"

"Yes, to combine them, one must master at least one of the ways to use chakra. Iryojutsu (medical techniques) is a good example of this. It emphasizes direct manipulation in combination with handseals to create a new form of chakra that directly manipulates some part of the human body, like bones, blood and blood vessels, skin, organs and so on. The fourth was infamous for his ability to combine fuuinjutsu with either of the other two forms of chakra control with devastating precision and speed. Another example would be summoning jutsu and there are others too, but I see that I am loosing your concentration."

"Ha,ha ... sorry jiji" Naruto said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head "It's a lot to take in"

Sarutobi smiled "It's not a problem Naruto, I get long winded sometimes when teaching."

"So, is Kakashi-sensei going to teach me this?"

"Heavens, no! He may have been called a genius, but even he only mastered hand-seals, and does not have the necessary knowledge or skill to combine it with the other two. For reasons that are private to him, he has lost most of his motivation to improve his skills some years ago... Kakashi may help you on your way, but it is up to you to master something or not. Not to mention the many non chakra tools that shinobi use. Kakashi will help you get used to shinobi service in the village, and offer you guidance, but a great deal of training is optional to the shinobi senseis. And if I know Kakashi at all, that means he will offer you general guidance, and let you figure out the rest on your own."

"Got it jiji, I guess that I am supposed to learn all of this extra stuff from the shinobi archives, right?"

"Yes, now that you are a genin, a portion of the archives is open to you."

The two talked late into the night and Sarutobi concluded their conversation saying "Now that you are better, I will tell Kakashi to reactivate team 7. You should expect him to visit tommorow."

*** The next day ***

Naruto was begrudginly allowed into the archives after being threatened with castration if he so much as considers pulling a prank there. The librarian was a middle aged man that lost an arm in combat and did not want to retire yet, so he was still pretty handy with a knife. Naruto took the threat seriously, after all, he didn't even think about pulling a prank yet, and he did not want to be banned from here yet.

The archives building had four floors and possibly some in the basement. In Naruto's admittedly limited knowledge it was the only archives building. Also the genin part of the building was limited to the bottom floor, and even then only half of it. That half was twice the size of Naruto's apartment, but it still annoyed him that most of the archives were off limit to him. When he asked the stab-happy librarian about it, he was told with a palpable glee and a face splitting grin that:

"The available information is known everywhere so if some genin were to be captured and interrogated ... no biggie." He decided not to talk to the man anymore after that. Avoiding the man behind his counter that bordered both the main entrance and the doorway to the chunin section, he started exploring the place.

The square room was filled with bookcase rows and a couple of desks and chairs. The many rows of books and scrolls did not give him an idea where to start, so he walked around looking at the different sections.

There was a general history section that looked boring and useless, followed by a slightly less useless small area on known clans in and out of Konoha, then a section on weapons and weapon using styles, some chakra control and a few basic jutsu, the various tools that shinobi use, a large section on fundamental medical jutsu theory, first aid and supplies(where the only person visiting the archives other than him was reading something), basic tactics section, spying and infiltration skills, a obviously untouched code of conduct and laws section, respective taijutsu and genjutsu sections, and a single shelf about fuuinjutsu.

Naruto decided then and there that he was going to get everything he could out of the archives. He was the most familiar with jutsu, so he started reading a book called 'comprehensive handseals' and started reading. He also made and sent a clone to find something useful from the taijutsu section to help him.

The book he was reading had only the basic three, and some camping justu used as examples. The rest of the material was going on about what different handseals do, what some combinations caused, how to calculate the chakra cost of a jutsu based on its hand-seals, etc. It was a useful thing to know, but it would take too long to learn for it to be useful to him now. Then the clone brought a taijutsu scroll, dispelled and completely blew his thoughts off track.

He could remember looking for that scroll, choosing between some taijutsu styles was a guessing game to him, and this scroll promised to be able to help with that. But the fact he could remember it meant...it meant his clones could read and learn in his place. With a wide grin spreading, he made a couple of more clones. One to read the taijutsu scroll, and one to browse the rest of the archives. He himself went to ask the guy if he could borrow the comprehensive handseals book. The book would be a useful guide to experimenting with creating or changing jutsu, just not around stab happy librarians.

"No, no borrowing." the sneering cripple said " You may have not noticed yet, what with you being...simple... but there are no copies of books or scrolls here. You are allowed to order your own copy if you want, but that will cost you around 500 ryo(AN:the economics in 'Naruto' are completely ridiculous, so I will not bother to be overly accurate with them), and you're not allowed to give, lend or sell it to anyone under genin rank."

"Ok, nevermind then" Naruto said. For four of those he could pay rent for a month and have a little bit left over. It would take all his money him to get more than a few books/scrolls from here ... but, getting scrolls of his own and a brush and ink would be under 100 ryo easily. He was planning on learning fuuinjutsu anyway so these could be calligraphy practice. If the librarian did not catch him that is. He would later come in here henge'd as someone else, Choji maybe. He could ask the price of a copy of something to make sure the stabby cripple is not overcharging him.

He put the book back and went to the market to get some fuuinjutsu scrolls. A simple henge was enough to ensure the shopkeepers did not harass him like usual. 'Why didn't I think of this earlier?', and he brought it back to the archives only to be turned away.

"You didn't think you're the first wiseass we had to deal with here did you?" the embodiment of all that is annoying that works at the archives told him. While sneering of course.

He was fuming on his way back to his apartment when he saw Hatake Kakashi leaning next to his door, reading smut. He didn't look up from his book, but he acknowledged his presence by saying "Nice to see you're doing better Naruto. The hokage said to restart team 7, so we're doing just that tomorrow at training grounds 7 in 7. Don't you just love it when these things overlap nicely?" before poofing away into smoke.

Naruto blinked at that, shrugged and moved on. He stashed his new fuuinjutsu supplies, set his morning alarm and made a clone go to the archives to tell the other to clones to release and look for fuuinjutsu instructions that would teach him to make storage seals. With those on the inside of his clothes he could hide his scrolls and brushes. Maybe.

When the clone got to the archives, the other two dispelled themselves and Naruto got their memories. One memory gave him some tips on how to train his taijustsu, but the memory of the other was the real jackpot. Clone #2 had seen a book in the spying skills section about memorizing the contents of various scrolls and maps perfectly. It was the ideal solution to his book/scroll copying problem. It would have been perfect in general if not for the many limitations to the technique. He would have a clone learn it and use it to copy the useful stuff in his apartment, or maybe somewhere else if he could find a secret base of sorts.

The secret base would be better, so he could send some henge'd clones running around Konoha looking for someplace like that. But most likely there would not be a ready made place for him to go to. Luckily, he was used to breaking into places stealthily for his pranks, and the clones could only help.

With that plan ready to be put into action, he went to a unused training ground and made a bunch of clones to help him train in some of the stuff he remembered seeing in the taijutsu scroll. Every now and then, one of the clones would wander off in search of a possible hideout.

Nightfall marked the end of his training for the day. He trudged up to his apartment sweaty and winded but content with the results of the day. The scout clones did not find anything useful, but they were more focused on not being noticed than doing everything possible. There was no need to rush, and ruin possible hideouts by drawing too much attention to them. The clone from the archives dispelled shortly after closing time. Apparently he decided to change his mission once he got the memories about the memorization skill. Clever clone. With that he started learning the skill. All in all a good day. His 'Choji' clone remembered the price being the same, although he was not threatened. Typical. Maybe he should learn about the other genin in Konoha to use them for asking questions.

The fact that his clones got memory from other clones is something he would have to experiment with, but not today. He had quite a big enough headache today.

*** The next day ***

Walking to training ground 7 he saw Sasuke and Sakura already there. Sasuke decided to vent his 'righteous' frustrations on him for 'holding him back' by threatening him not to do it again with vague consequences(or maybe I just didn't listen?). He was also taunting him saying 'dobe' this and 'dobe' that punctuated with the occasional sneer. Sakura made her valuable contribution by unconditionally agreeing with everything he said and looking sternly at Naruto.

If he was honest with himself, yesterday's training and consecutive headaches, no matter how light, made him still sleepy so he listened to them with half an ear and feeling what he suspected was the 'Shikamaru default'. Arguing with them would be worthless as they are not the most open minded of people, so he went with an 'Ok' response before finding a spot in the shade under a tree to sleep some more.

It took Kakashi only two hours to arrive and begin their chores/missions. One weeding mission and one with heavy lifting ended their jobs for the day with a 350 ryo per person salary. As Sakura lived with her family and Sasuke had a massive inheritance, he suspected the pay was only motivating him to not complain about their job/chores. Their grumbling was light but would probably increase in time.

After lunch Kakashi had them doing a team exercise that involved going through an obstacle course blindfolded (how does that even help teamwork?) that they failed magnificently. Because the man had authority over him, and he seemed to have some sort of fixation on teamwork, Naruto decided it would be less of a headache to do as he says unless he is being ridiculous. Because of that, he left early while Kakashi had the other two stay behind for some likely inspirational speech that would make them see things his way. That or punishment by annoyance.

Naruto used the rest of the day to experiment with clones, and visit old man Sarutobi. Apparently the risks and weaknesses of using the shadow clones were lost on the retarded version of him. His experiments showed him that having clones while others pop divides headaches evenly among his clones as well as the chakra and memories. Other than that he did not get any new insights into the technique. Sarutobi told him why it was considered forbidden.

Besides the large chakra drain and possible brain damage from information overload, there existed two main countermeasures against those who use shadow clones in combat. They were both related towards the return of the jutsu. The first inserted potentially poisonous or corrosive chakra into the clone that would on dispelling return it to the original. That would both give away his position and harm or kill the original (because nobody other than Naruto used such numbers, the return chakra would not be spread out amongst any other clones). The other method was to cause sensory overload with genjutsu on the clone that could stun any other clones and the original.

It seemed to Naruto that both of these techniques could be reduced by a shitload of clones, but Sarutobi still urged him to err on the side of caution. As the old saying goes, civilians can be paranoid, ninja can only be prepared.