Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, not even one of the many blond kids.
.oOo.
Hurry up you goddamned brat, the demon fox's rumbling voice reverberated through Naruto's skull, surprising him.
Ever since he'd gained control of his body and the other had been... Disposed of as far as he could tell, he'd been free from the kyūbi's voice. He'd almost begun to hope that the fox simply couldn't communicate with the personality controlling the body. He'd certainly never noticed any sign that the other knew the kyūbi was there.
Walk faster, runt. I've wasted a lot on you, so get your ass down to the academy and get that stupid bandana you humans are so obsessed with, his voice grating and nearly unbearable in Naruto's mind. He almost stumbled as he made his way through the streets of Konoha to the academy, walking faster unconsciously as if trying to escape the overbearing presence beating down on his mind.
Though a few more rumbling comments disrupted his thoughts, he was able to make it to the academy without too much trouble. He easily integrated into the large crowd that was making its way past the school's main doors and to the area behind. Apparently ninja graduation was a bigger deal than Naruto had realized, as some of the students seemed to have brought along entire extended families. There were well over two hundred people milling around behind the large building. Bah, you're like ants. Swarming over each other like this. And what is this, a celebration of an accomplishment that every single person who attempted achieved? How honorable.
Naruto couldn't help but snicker. The comment had been physically painful for him to hear inside his mind, but for a malevolent chakra beast, the fox could be almost amusing. Are you really LAUGHING right now?! Just because I can't hear your thoughts anymore doesn't mean I can't tell when you're patronizing me! I'll turn your entire being to ash you insolent whelp!
Naruto slackened his face and strode into the crowd. He couldn't show the fox any reaction, or the bastard would just keep filling his head with painful noise. If he didn't ever respond the beast might stop blathering his angry, meaningless words. He was almost like a crotchety old grandfather who felt the need to complain because his life had left his control.
Luckily for him Iruka chose that moment to begin the ceremony. "Graduating genin, proud parents, family members, and teachers. We are gathered here today to celebrate the graduation of these proud students from mere academy pupils to full fledged shinobi!" Iruka intoned, solemnly at first, but with great warmth by the last words.
As he spoke Naruto and the other graduates had been funneled to the front. "Now, children of the leaf, step forward and claim your Hitai-ates! Aburame Shino!" Iruka nearly shouted, somehow managing to still appear completely dignified.
Shino stepped forward, took the headband, and donned it in an imperious manner to the applause of all assembled. Brief part complete he faded back into the crowd of excited now-genin. All in all he'd taken under a minute.
The whole ceremony only ended up taking about fifteen minutes with Naruto called to collect his own headband toward the end.
While the ceremony was short, those gathered showed no predilection toward leaving. The families and students simply gathered into small groups and began to converse. All signs pointed to their being there for quite some time. Naruto began to feel quite awkward standing alone amongst these obviously connected people. He'd never been one to feel sorry for himself, but he recognized that he had no one to share this moment with who didn't have other, grander duties to attend to.
Having only been realized as an actual human being less than twenty four hours prior, Naruto felt understandably separate even from those who had shown the other kindness like the teacher Iruka and the Hokage Sarutobi.
He snorted internally. For one who claimed not to spend time feeling sorry for himself he sure had been standing alone in a large crowd introspecting like it was going out of style.
He turned to leave but before he'd even left the courtyard another had fallen into step beside him. Mizuki, the other academy teacher. "Hey there Naruto. We were really impressed by your results on the exam, you know. Some of the best in the class. Makes one wonder why you were the bottom of the class for three straight years..." the man said.
Naruto didn't flinch at what sounded strangely like an accusation. While he'd prefer no one ever understand the reason he was not the other, it wasn't exactly the first thought anyone would reach. Or the second. Or even the last. It was simply inconceivable.
Flinching in front of this man would not be acceptable anyway. In fact, Naruto gave the man a small smile only through sheer force of will. This man was a significant reason why he wasn't stronger than he was. He'd taught the other the forms which he based his brawler taijutsu on. He'd even instilled in him the belief that aggression was the shortcut to victory in any fight. Beliefs didn't affect him now, but his complete lack of muscle memory did. The only reason he knew the proper forms at all was because he'd watched, out of the eyes of the other, talented students of the academy style. Mostly clan kids who came from clans that didn't bother creating their own taijutsu style like the Yamanakas.
In the past he had watched the other fight with his butchered style and carefully planned how he would have handled the fight, using the proper forms. His analysis had culminated with his efforts against Iruka the day before. He was rather proud of the spar he'd managed to put together despite very little practice in said proper forms.
"Naruto?"
Naruto was jerked from his reverie by the sound of his own name. He realized that Mizuki had put that question to him practically a full minute ago, and they'd walked a block while he'd been lost in thought. "Mmm, yeah," he answered noncommittally.
Mizuki gained an almost strained look on his face. Like this encounter was planned, and was not going according to plan. "Er, your intentions are your business of course, but as your teacher I just thought I ought to be looking out for you. You have a lot of time to make a name for yourself, but it's very helpful to graduate closer to the top of your class. It affects the makings of the teams you see," he said smiling helpfully.
He was obviously lying. Iruka had made a comment months before about team formation. He'd said that teams were usually put together with the hopes that they would develop together to serve a particular purpose. A tracking/reconnaissance team, a hunter/capture team, etc. More importantly though, he'd made it a point to mention that one of the teams in every graduating class was the top rookie, the dead last, and the person with the most exemplary theory scores.
Well, maybe it wasn't actually that obvious. That was a single piece of knowledge that Mizuki had probably known and forgotten years ago. Naruto knew it though, and he knew that graduating at the very bottom would actually be quite to his advantage, earning him two very talented teammates. Though in practice he knew that meant Sasuke Uchiha and Haruno Sakura. One was talented but came with a lot of baggage, while the other was intelligent but, at the moment, supremely weak as a fighter. She'd been one of the few the other had managed to beat in spars, as she wasn't able to handle his superior speed despite his unpolished technique.
"Naruto, are you listening?"
Again Naruto's thoughts were disrupted by the silver haired man walking beside him. He cursed internally. He had to stop analyzing everything the man was saying and focus on making the proper replies to keep the man talking. Even if he was a despicable human being who had cost him strength as a ninja, he might be offering something useful. "Oh, sorry, Mizuki-sensei. I was just lost in thought. I'm just so glad to finally have become a ninja. I guess all my hard work and dedication just paid off all at once," he said brightly, giving the man a megawatt smile.
Mizuki gave him an odd look. "Er, yeah, like I was saying. It really is in your best interest to graduate at a higher position within your class. Even your exemplary results on the final leave you at the bottom of the rankings. Not exactly impressive. I can help you though. We have a special extra credit assignment for students like you. It's a secret practical that evaluates your stealth, mission-readiness, and ability to learn. If you do well on it I can bump up your class rank! Wouldn't you rather be rookie of the year than your friend Sasuke?"
Naruto snickered internally at the man's look. It had been priceless, and just being able to disconcert the man gave him a sort of vindictive pleasure. His words though... They were worth considering. There was absolutely no way what he was discussing was legitimate. Things simply didn't work that way. No one special assignment could allow him to usurp the Uchiha's position. It was the exact sort of ridiculous thing that the other would have accepted without question. In other words, Mizuki thought he was still an idiot with a grudge against the natural shinobi who kept outclassing him. Perfect. He pasted a foxy grin on his face before replying, "Would that really be possible, Mizuki-sensei?! That bastard never deserved his place anyway! Er, forget I said that word, but he was always thinking he was better than all of us... What do I have to do to put him in his place?"
Mizuki's returned smile was just a shade too satisfied for his intentions to be good. That suited Naruto just fine though. He had no doubt he could come out of whatever this was smelling like roses. "Well you see Naruto, there's a certain scroll that the third keeps in his personal rooms in the Hokage tower..."
.oOo.
"Naruto? My boy, what are you doing in here so late? Don't you have to report to the academy for team assignments in the morning?" the third asked curiously, addressing the blond who had walked into his rooms unannounced.
Naruto grinned back at the man, made a single hand sign, and was instantly replaced by a beautiful and thoroughly naked woman. The other's stupid jutsu would actually work very well here, knowing how the man who'd shown the other kindness felt about attractive women.
Somewhat predictably, the old man took one look at the sexy figure bent over suggestively in front of him and weakly passed out. Naruto helped himself to the large scroll behind the man and stealthily exited the tower.
Being careful not to give away his presence, Naruto made his way as quickly as possible towards a section of woods that contained the location at which Mizuki had told him they should meet. It was extremely important that Naruto not get caught with the scroll now as he was nearly positive what he was doing was treasonous. He knew that the only way he was getting out of it in one piece was if he was able to land the blame squarely on Mizuki's shoulders by playing the naive academy student card. That would be rather hard to do if he was caught with the forbidden scroll in the middle of a Konoha street.
Thankfully the tower was very close to the edge of the forest, and Naruto was afforded cover very quickly. With the Hokage likely unconscious for the next hour or so Naruto knew no one would be pursuing him now.
The risk was absolutely worth it though. Non-basic jutsu were hard to come by in the ninja world, almost always having to be learned from an associated clan or made up on one's own. This scroll, though, supposedly contained some of Konaha's most powerful techniques. The fact that he, a genin, had heard of it likely meant it was just a decoy to distract traitors and idiotic enemies that contained some merely moderately powerful techniques, but Naruto didn't care. All he had was the Academy Three. Any additional technique was sure to be priceless.
Plus, Mizuki was likely a traitor and an idiotic enemy of Konoha, so really Naruto was doing his village a favor by committing this treason. He smirked. He loved that sort of reasoning.
A small, run down looking shack came into his view, and he broke off his thoughts to drop out of the trees and into the clearing it occupied. This was the place Mizuki had described to him. Carefully he removed the large scroll that he had slung over his back in the Hokage's rooms. He unfurled it the first few feet and began scanning techniques.
To his great disappointment he discovered that all of the techniques were simply names and the description of the hand seals required to perform them. Worse yet, a large number of the 'techniques' were simply complex, esoteric seal designs, with sealing being a discipline he was nearly completely unfamiliar with as it wasn't taught almost at all within the academy.
He cursed internally and began scanning the list of techniques for those with the fewest hand seals. It was a clumsy way to organize, but he knew his limitations. Most of the techniques in this scroll likely worked on principles he hadn't even been exposed to so he needed to find something simple that had been deemed forbidden for some other reason. He was also aware of his strengths and he knew he had way more chakra than any ninja, genin or otherwise, ought to have. His best option at the moment was to try and divine a technique that wasn't terribly difficult but used a ton of chakra.
His eyes quickly found the only technique in the scroll with less than five hand seals. His eyes widened as he read the name of the jutsu. The shadow clone technique. That sounded very, very promising. Clone techniques were covered to some degree at the academy during the instruction in the basic bunshin. If this was a solid clone technique, as he suspected, it could be revolutionary to his effectiveness as a ninja.
He grinned involuntarily at the scroll. Just too perfect. He suddenly frowned, as something dawned on him. There were no instructions. Intellectually he'd known that from the beginning but now that he was about to attempt the jutsu he was keenly aware of how difficult it was to go into a technique blind. Usually there was some sort of trick to molding the chakra outside of the seals used or there was an important reason why a certain amount of chakra was necessary and things could become dangerous if you didn't know what you were doing.
He gave an internal shrug of the shoulders. Got to risk big to win big! He'd always had a keen understanding of ninjutsu. The other would try and try to get a technique and Naruto would always be so sure of what was wrong. It was almost painful to watch the other's failure over and over again. As it was, that's how he'd been able to figure out the bunshin jutsu. The other had been throwing chakra at it wildly and getting one horrible clone. He hadn't understood what it was about the technique that controlled the number of copies generated. Once he was in control Naruto had understood and used the bare minimum of chakra he could channel to create nearly fifty clones.
The scene in the classroom in mind he quickly formed the three hand seals and the clone seal shown in the scroll and channeled roughly that amount of chakra before releasing the technique. A poof of smoke appeared in front of him and he peered into it expectantly.
The clearing smoke revealed another Naruto, though he looked markedly less than well. He was kneeling on the ground with a look of twisted pain on his face. He reached toward Naruto pathetically before collapsing onto the ground in front of him.
The real Naruto stared at his failing counterpart in shock for a moment before the clone suddenly exploded back into smoke much more violently than he'd arrived. A minor concussive wave followed his disappearance knocking Naruto sprawling onto his back.
Naruto stared aghast into the fading smoke from his position on the ground. His head was suddenly filled with the memory of extreme pain and a sudden, disturbing end. While the memories he had apparently gained from the lost clone were extremely interesting in their origin, his mind was entirely hung up on their horrifying content.
What had he done to that technique that it exploded like that? He must have overloaded it with chakra. He frowned internally as he stood. That had been the smallest amount of chakra he could channel. Fortunately for him the other techniques he knew were incapable of overloading and he was able to use them despite his awful chakra control. Kawarimi used the amount that was needed to make the switch, based on mass of target and distance, and any more was harmlessly wasted, expelled into the air. Henge was the same way, the transformation would take a certain amount of chakra, based on size changes and the like, and any additional chakra channeled was simply diffused.
Unfortunately for him, this technique didn't seem to work that way. He grit his teeth hard and formed the seals again. This time as he channeled his chakra he put all his willpower into reducing the amount until he felt he was channeling about enough to make only forty regular bunshin and only then released it.
Again a puff of smoke appeared and disappeared to reveal a clone. Again he was kneeling and suffering horribly. If possible he looked even worse for wear than the last one, nearly translucent around the edges.
Expecting another explosion, Naruto sprinted away from the clone intending to observe from a greater distance. He was not disappointed, as he heard the clone blow as he was running and stumbled hard. At that distance the concussive wave felt like a mere stiff breeze, but the assault of painful memories was just as raw as the first time. He sighed heavily and returned to his original spot. He stared miserably into the scroll and tried to divine why the technique refused to work.
His eyes lit up in inspiration. Maybe his problem with the shadow clone technique was the same as the other's problem with the regular clone technique, the bunshin? He shook his head disappointedly, now sure he was right. How could he have misunderstood a problem he'd already experienced? Stupid, stupid.
Still shaking his head at his own stupidity he formed the seals again, concentrating on the work the chakra was doing. Intuitively he was able to sense what to change in order to get a different number of clones. He molded the chakra and released it, intending to create five clones.
He was greeted with a larger burst of smoke and his hopes rose. They were shortly dashed by what he saw within. Five barely discernible clones, so insubstantial they could hardly be seen, were laid out on the ground, seeming to be fighting to stay alive. As one they all gave up on that impossible goal and dispersed violently, much more quickly than the last two clones had. Naruto, completely unable to reduce his distance from them, was again flung onto his back.
When he rose his breathing was ragged as if he'd run all the way there from Kumo and his eyes were slightly glazed. Newly present in his memory were five sets of traumatic demises. Traumatic and extremely painful demises. After a few moments to collect himself he was able to fully rise to his feet.
Once there he cursed his stupidity. He'd seen the complete incorporeality of the five clones he'd created and all at once he'd understood his mistake. The clones were solid bodied clones, as he'd hoped, and he hadn't been giving them enough chakra to even form properly. The backlashes were from the half-formed bodies of his clones exploding in his face when they couldn't become stable.
He grit his teeth harder than he had last time. That last set had hurt! He channeled five times as much chakra as he had the first time and tried the technique again, concentrating on forming a single clone. With another poof of smoke he was looking at himself. The two Naruto's exchanged grins. The original was about to ask the clone how it felt to be a clone when he suddenly struck himself across the head with the back of his fist. He then rubbed his head gingerly and gave the original a thumbs up.
It then dawned on him that the clone had been checking his own durability. He wondered why he hadn't come up with that on his own. With a sharp sense of realization he suddenly found it very strange that an exact copy of him had come up with it independently of the original. Furthering the experiment but also eager to gain this particular clone's memories as he had the rest, Naruto walked up to his duplicate and punched him, much harder, in the stomach.
The double bent over about halfway before the trauma dispelled him. Naruto grimaced as he recalled being punched in the stomach by himself. Spooky. More importantly he recalled the fleeting feeling of fragility the clone had felt that led him to think of testing his own durability. Huh. So apparently just being a clone set his identical copy's mind in another direction. That was interesting.
Naruto sat heavily next to the scroll just trying to take in everything he had learned about the technique. Just as it was the skill seemed immensely useful. Even if the vast majority of his allies would dispel from a hard punch a five on one battle was far more than five times difficult than a one on one battle. There were simply a number of advantages that numbers bestowed on the side with the numerical advantage. And there were still so many nuances of the technique that remained untested. He'd tried varying amounts of chakra with wildly different results. Things on the low end didn't seem worth repeating but that minor concussive wave could actually be very useful in battle, now he thought about it.
He glanced around the clearing, somewhat surprised that Mizuki hadn't made an appearance yet. He'd expected the likely traitorous nin to show up before now. He wouldn't complain though. Each minute Mizuki wasn't there was a minute Naruto could use to experiment with the shadow clone technique. It was also a minute that the third could use to recover and send ninjas after him, allowing him to throw Mizuki under the bus, hopefully without Naruto having to fight him.
He grimaced internally. He was just now realizing that he'd taken a pretty huge risk agreeing to meet someone he thought was a traitorous ninja in a secluded clearing after knocking out the man capable of sending him reinforcements for who knew how long. Too late to worry about that now. He put the thought behind him and began to focus again on making clones. He wanted to discover the instability threshold for the replications.
A number of successful clones and violent backlashes later Naruto had found the exact minimum amount of chakra that would form a clone that didn't explode. Satisfied with another successful experiment Naruto began practicing the technique on the scale that would actually help him in battle.
He formed the seals and focused approximately five times the minimum amount for each clone plus a little extra for safety and released it, forming five healthy clones. He smiled at them happily. Unfortunately for him one of them gained a very uncomfortable look and began to stagger around. It was clearly becoming unstable. Fortunately it was close enough to the threshold that it was able to stagger away from the other clones before bursting, saving them from the small shock wave.
Naruto frowned and glanced at his hands, still in the clone seal. He really didn't see what had gone wrong that time. He'd molded the chakra just as he thought he should to create five clones, and it had pretty much worked. He could only theorize that with his lack of practice with the technique he was not able to equitably distribute the input chakra to his creations. He sighed. Well, he had the chakra to spare, may as well just overload the jutsu every time to be safe. At least until he had a chance to practice more. Mizuki could show up any time after all.
For the next hour Naruto worked tirelessly on gaining a mastery over summoning differing sized groups of clones. While he'd had success calling particular numbers at first, he found that as he increased the number he tried to summon the numbers would slip around. While reaching out for twenty five clones he would occasionally create twenty seven or twenty three. He could only assume that that too would get better with practice.
He'd also found, after dismissing a group of ten clones all at once, that receiving too many memories at once was extremely discombobulating and would start to give him a headache. He thereafter limited himself to dispersing five at a time.
After dismissing a group of fifty clones section by section Naruto sank to the ground in slight exhaustion. Even for a chakra freak like him, the huge numbers of clones he'd been making to practice the jutsu were getting to him. He could see why the jutsu wasn't normally taught. A normal genin with the traditional amount of chakra probably couldn't form a single shadow clone, they'd just get shock waves and chakra exhaustion. He'd found that the minimum amount of chakra that kept the clones stable was about what it took to form a hundred and twenty bunshin, much more than he'd ever seen any of his classmates create in one sitting.
"Uzumaki Naruto, just what the HELL do you think you're doing?!" Iruka yelled as he dropped into the clearing behind him.
"Iruka-sensei?!" the startled blond boy cried, turning abruptly to stare at the other's best teacher.
.oOo.
AN: I pretty much have planned stopping points for all the chapters I have thought out so far so I apologize for any variation in length. This one is a bit shorter than the first chapter, but it IS a lot longer than I thought it would be. Naruto's experimentation ended up taking a ton of words to communicate effectively. What Naruto has discovered so far is not, of course, the full abilities of the shadow clones, but he did figure out a lot. He is intended to be very intelligent, so not too crazy. See if you can guess which I think is the most crucial feature he missed this experimentation session. If you can tell me in a review I'll give you something good.
The many details surrounding the complex relationship between this Naruto, the 'other', and the kyūbi will come out in time, don't fret overmuch about it.
This one was a little early, sorry couldn't help myself! Next one will be in another two weeks but actually on Wednesday this time so more like sixteen days.
