Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
Chapter 2: The Kitten and the Graduation Exam
The red light district, easily the seediest area of the village, was known to almost every resident of Konoha, either due to personal experiences or simply by word of mouth. The only people that lived there were those unfortunate enough to be unable to afford to live elsewhere. Prostitution, drug-dealing and theft were just some of the ways that the residents earned their livings. Generally, the rest of the villagers, both shinobi and civilian alike, avoided the area, only venturing in if they lost their way or were seeking certain services that couldn't be found elsewhere.
At the moment, the streets were considerably emptier than would be expected for eleven o'clock on a Saturday evening, owing mainly to the recent rumours about strange dogs running around at night that always seemed to end with one or more people going missing. Normally, this would prompt the village's ANBU to investigate but, since the people in question tended to be drunks, dealers, thugs or just general lowlifes, nobody seemed to care enough to properly look into it. This meant that only the brave, ignorant or desperate were willing to go out after dark.
Aisha Shisaku was one such individual, willing to work the streets because she couldn't afford not to. This was the reason that the nineteen-year-old could currently be found hanging around a street corner shivering slightly, as her current attire did little to shield from the coldness of the evening, whilst keeping her eyes open for any potential customers. Occasionally, someone would walk past, blatantly ogling her as they did so, but they didn't approach her. That was nothing new; Aisha knew that she was an attractive young woman. Her well-developed body, complete with firm ass, long legs and a more than generous set of breasts, coupled with her luxurious dark brown hair that reached just past her shoulder blades and her innocent-looking face were what made her one of the more popular girls that worked the area and her current attire simply emphasized that attractiveness. She was wearing a short skirt that showed off her slender legs and a low-cut tank top that stopped just below her breasts, revealing both her toned stomach and a sizeable amount of cleavage.
Sighing to herself in annoyance due to not having had a customer for well over an hour, Aisha was about to try her luck elsewhere when she noticed a young man, probably only a few years older than herself, staring at her from across the street. For some reason, that stare made Aisha feel uncomfortable. It was different from the usual stares of barely contained lust and instead reminded her of the way a predator looks at its prey as it decides if they were worth pursuing. However, almost as quickly as she noticed it, the staring stopped, leaving her half-convinced that she had imagined it, and the stranger made his way across the road towards her, allowing her to get a better look at him, not that it accomplished much. He was easily the most nondescript man she had ever seen, short brown hair and matching eyes with slight stubble decorating his lower face. He was slightly taller than she was, about average for a man his age, and wore simple clothing; shirt, trousers, shoes and a jacket, all dark brown or black. As he stood opposite her, he paused slightly as if he was unsure of what to say and Aisha couldn't help the small smile that graced her face. It would seem that this was the first time he had decided to pay for the company of a woman and if she played her cards right she could end up with a new regular.
"See something you like?" Aisha asked with a friendly smile as she noticed the man's eyes roam her body.
"Definitely," he replied, and once again she couldn't help the feeling that he was judging her worth as prey before she shook it off. She needed money and this man was willing to pay her for her services seeing as he was the one who had approached her.
"Good. So what are you looking for? Blowjob? Quick shag? A whole night?" she enquired, already working out how much she would ask for each.
"Why don't we sort out the details on the way?" the stranger suggested, indicating the direction that she had first seen him. "But I think most of the night would suffice."
This caused Aisha to raise an eyebrow in surprise as she followed him across the road. A whole night? That was rare; most would just take a quick shag in a nearby alley. It had been a while since anyone wanted to spend a night with her.
"Most of the night, huh? That ain't going to be cheap, you know," she informed her newest client as they turned a corner. As her mind wandered, trying to come up with ways to please this man enough for him to come back wanting more, Aisha stopped paying attention to where he was leading her and, as a result, blindly followed him into a dark dead-end alley. She was brought out of her thoughts, however, by a sharp pain in the side of her neck and a sudden feeling of tiredness. The last thing she saw before everything went black was her customer-turned-attacker being engulfed in a cloud of smoke.
As she started to come to, the first thing Aisha noticed was that her entire body felt unusually heavy, so much so that she could barely move her arm when she tried to lift it. The next thing she noticed after trying to come up with a reason for her current inability to move was the sensation of cold metal pressing against the entire back half of her body, which in turn alerted her to the fact that she seemed to be naked as the sensation was uniform and didn't seem to be diminished by clothing anywhere.
Finally, the memories of her recent attack came back to her and Aisha began to panic. Was she the next in the recent string of disappearances? It was rather obvious that she had been kidnapped but she didn't know why. She didn't have anyone who would be willing to pay a ransom for her. Hell, most wouldn't even care that she had gone. Everyone else that had gone missing had never been seen again and that scared her. What was going to happen to her? Was she going to be killed? Tortured? Sold into slavery?
Just as she was about to start hyperventilating, the sound of a heavy door opening and closing drew Aisha's attention to her right. Struggling to turn her head, she saw someone she instantly recognised. How could she not? The whole village knew that individual, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox bound in a human form by the Fourth Hokage after it attacked the village twelve years ago. Just the sight of the creature, even if it currently looked like a young teen, filled Aisha with more terror than waking up naked after being abducted by a stranger ever could. This was a being that had destroyed a fair part of the village and killed a good number of their shinobi and the way it looked at her with cold and emotionless eyes made it even worse. However, despite the terror, a part of her couldn't help but wonder about the small sleeping cat in its arms.
"You're awake," the blond beast muttered to itself, a small amount of surprise in its tone. "Must not have used enough sedative. I'll have to remember that in the future. Oh well, might as well get started." As it made its way towards her, the demon fished out a hand-held voice recorder, set it down on a nearby table and, after hitting the record button, told it the current date.
"The test subjects are a female human in late teens or early twenties and a female housecat, estimated to be between one and four years of age. Both subjects seem to be in good health with no discernible abnormalities or deformities." The demon continued, obviously talking to the voice recorder and not its captive.
At the mention of 'test subjects', Aisha had tried to question her captor, hoping for some elaboration that would ease her growing fears, but she barely had the energy to grunt, let alone hold a conversation. Even if she could get some elaboration, she didn't think it would reassure her. It was blindly obvious that she had been kidnapped to be used in some kind of twisted experiment, especially since the room she was in looked like a textbook example of a mad scientist's laboratory what with the countless different bottles, jars, books and strange equipment filling all of the shelves. The fact that her abductor was the village demon, which didn't appear any worse than a minor annoyance in public, just made it worse. As she noticed the monster finish talking, she watched as it set the still-sleeping cat on her stomach, ran through a few shinobi hand signs and placed its hands on either side of the animal, one on her breasts and the other dangerously close to her crotch. Aisha watched in morbid fascination as gelatinous blue liquid spread from these two points of contact, slowly covering both her and the cat on top of her, and her last thought before being completely engulfed was that she really shouldn't have gone out that evening.
As the viscous blue slime that accompanied the usage of the chimera-making technique spread out, Naruto completely ignored the expression of pure terror present on the young woman's face, having long since reached the conclusion that if the villagers' treatment of him was considered acceptable then his treatment of the villagers should be treated the same way, not that it was actually known to anyone else. He didn't even think his test subjects felt any real pain when their bodies were being broken down so he actually considered his experiments slightly more humane.
He also never used a child or pregnant woman as a test subject since it just didn't sit right with him to do so, although in the latter case it was more because of the unborn child than the actual woman, and instead stuck with random grownups that nobody would really miss such as vagrants, prostitutes and drug dealers. Children only did bad things to him, like picking on him or simply ignoring him, because they had been told to do so by their parents and as such they couldn't be held accountable for their actions because they simply didn't know any better. Adults, on the other hand, should know full well that their actions to him, a child, should not be accepted by anyone, much less encouraged like he had seen a few times, and that was why he didn't feel any remorse for kidnapping them and effectively ending their lives.
After using the Chimera Technique so much over the last three years, the blond didn't have to focus as much on every little detail anymore, something that was helped by his accrued knowledge of biological functions and the large amount of planning he always did, as a decent amount of the work involved had slowly become a subconscious process, both reducing the overall amount of time the process took and freeing up his concentration so that he could try and ensure that this experiment survived. If it did, then he would have his first successful chimera involving a human, as all of the others either died or were composed entirely of animals, which would not only be a sign of progress but would also mean that he wouldn't have to try and get more test subjects with his graduation only a week away.
After only about ten minutes had passed, Naruto felt the familiar sensation of the merger being completed and retracted the jellylike mass with practised ease. As the gunk receded, he watched as his newest creation was slowly revealed, his mind already going over countless possibilities about what he could have overlooked if it was dead. It turned out that his thoughts were in vain as the revealed figure seemed to be perfectly healthy, albeit unconscious as was the norm. He ran a quick but thorough diagnostic with a simple medical ninjutsu he had picked up and found that, unlike all of his previous attempts at making a chimera out of a human, this one did not seem to have any little flaws that would ultimately prove fatal such as not making the lungs capable of performing efficient gas exchanges or an accidentally split spine.
Happy that his experiment was a success, the blond took the time to actually look over his newest chimera. The being, which was undoubtedly female due to that being the sex of both constituent animals, retained the same humanoid form of the woman he had used. In fact, the only real differences in appearance between the woman before and the chimera now was the pair of cat ears nestled amongst her hair on the top of her head in place of the human ones that were previously on the sides, the slightly altered lower legs reminiscent of a feline that would allow her to walk on the toes and balls of her feet like a cat and the long catlike tail. There was also a layer of dark brown fur, matching the colour of the now almost waist-length hair, covering the forearms, hands, lower legs, feet and tail. Finally, there was a very large tuft of identically-coloured fur situated on the chest that extended out in a vaguely triangular shape with the points near the armpits and navel that Naruto absently noted completely hid the catgirl's large breasts from view. A quick check revealed that the palms of the hands and soles of the feet were hairless, the latter instead having pads like all felines. All of this information was dictated to his voice recorder along with the observation that the face also seemed more feline though he couldn't quite say what made it appear that way. All in all, the newly-created cat-woman could easily pass as a normal person with very little modesty and an unusual passion for cosplaying.
After checking that his newest creation was still unconscious, Naruto quickly started strapping her down to the table with numerous thick leather straps, making absolutely sure that she wouldn't be able to free herself. This was done because there was no way to properly determine how sentient the woman was until she came to and, if she retained all of her human sense, then leaving her unrestrained could prove disastrous as she could possibly escape which would be incredibly problematic for him. With any luck, the catgirl would have the same instinctual desire to obey that all of his other creations did, since apparently a side-effect of the Chimera Technique caused anything made with it to have an ingrained sense of deference to the person who had performed the technique, though this subservience tended to manifest itself a little differently depending on the animals involved, and some of Hiruko's notes made a passing mention of the possibility that a chimera with enough sentience could well be able to resist if not outright ignore that impulse.
Whilst he waited for his newest chimera to regain consciousness, the twelve-year-old seated himself on a stool behind the other table where his journal was waiting. He then occupied himself by transcribing his dictated notes into the book, making sure that everything was as detailed as he could make it since the information could prove useful later on. Even as he wrote everything out, Naruto's mind couldn't help but wander a little, trying to come up with something he could actually use the catgirl for if she proved subservient enough. Pretty much all of the other creatures he had created, despite being practise subjects for the Chimera Technique, still had some use afterwards, though it was usually only in the event of combat and he was still working on some way to actually get them to where he wanted them since having them follow him around just so that they would be there in the event that they were needed was very impractical.
The blond was planning on using his creations in a similar manner to summons, something he had thought could be useful after he had seen an ANBU operative summon a pack of small dogs, but he had yet to figure out how exactly summoning worked so he wasn't having much success. He knew that shinobi had to sign contracts with the animals that they wanted to summon but there was obviously no contract in existence for the chimeras that he created. There were a few notes on summoning dotted around in a few books Hiruko had left behind, but the older shinobi had apparently given up on the idea in favour of accomplishing bloodline assimilation so the information wasn't all that helpful. He was planning on searching the shinobi library after he graduated, and as such actually had permission to be there and by extension a believable excuse should he be caught, to see if there was any information there that he could use to help make a contract, although he doubted that the information would be available to Genin if it was even present at all. All the blond had managed to do with the notes was come up with a pair of incredibly complicated seal arrays that linked together two spaces and had used this to create a reverse summoning scroll that sent anything placed on it to one of the rooms in his home upon activation, that specific room having been heavily reinforced and outfitted with an externally activated gassing system capable of flooding the entire room with a powerful sedative in a matter of minutes. Naruto was actually quite happy that he had managed to do even that since it meant that he didn't have to walk through the village dragging around unconscious animals.
Just as he finished writing out all of his notes, a quiet noise drew his attention to the other table where the feline woman was starting to regain consciousness. Almost immediately, the catgirl realised that she couldn't move and frantically struggled against her bonds, only to get even more worked up when they didn't give. Not wanting his creation to hurt herself, Naruto slammed his journal shut loudly enough to gain her attention and she seemed to relax a little as soon as her amber cat-like eyes landed on him. Taking the slackening of her body as a good sign, the blond slid off of his stool and made his way over, noting both that the catgirl's eyes never left him and that she seemed to get slightly happier as he got closer.
Encouraged by this, he moved a hand closer to her head, keeping away from her mouth and ready to pull it back at a moment's notice in case she tried to bite him, and couldn't help the small smile that appeared when she nuzzled against his palm. When the girl started purring in response to being stroked behind her ear and even started mewing when he stopped, Naruto concluded that the addition of the cat had a bigger effect than he had expected. This result, however, was far from unwelcome as it seemed that the girl's mentality was more or less that of a common housecat and, as such, meant that she probably wouldn't be capable of resisting the instinctual obedience instilled in her. Hell, if the adoration in her eyes whenever she looked at him was any indication, she would probably happily follow any order she could, regardless of what it was, if she thought it would make him happy.
After another half an hour of examining her mental state, during which time it was discovered that the catgirl was incapable of human speech but apparently retained the ability to understand it, Naruto was as confident as he could be that his creation wouldn't be a problem as long as he laid down some ground rules to ensure that she didn't try to follow him when he went outside. Reaching that conclusion, he slowly undid all of the straps holding her to the table, keeping an eye out in case she did in fact decide to attack, and helped her to her feet, where she immediately threw her arms around him and rubbed her cheek against the top of his head in a very cat-like manner, the difference in height sandwiching his face firmly between her large fur-covered breasts.
Once he had managed to extract himself from the surprisingly strong hold and get his breath back, Naruto spent a further thirty minutes observing her behaviour and then took close to another ten explaining the basic rules to the brunette, going over them multiple times to be sure that she understood them completely. Although since he was going to spend the following day going over everything with her in detail, the only rule she really needed to be aware of right then was to not wander around the underground complex by herself as she could end up hurting herself or getting on the wrong side of another of his creations.
With that covered, Naruto decided to turn in for the night as it was approaching four o'clock in the morning. He entered his bedroom and, after slipping his shoes off, climbed into bed, still not bothering to actually change into some kind of sleepwear. He was only mildly surprised when the feline young woman stretched out on top of his duvet, her arms wrapping themselves around him, and awkwardly pulled it out from under her before draping it over her body, not bothering to send her away since he was certain that she would just come back once he was asleep and unable to repeat the order. As the girl rested her head against his chest and entwined her legs with his own, Naruto couldn't help but admit to himself that this was most definitely not what he had expected when he had started planning out his evening.
Still, the contact wasn't completely unwelcome and the thought that someone cared enough about him to hold him in such a manner, even if that care was a result of the Chimera Technique and not entirely natural, made him happier than he could remember being in years. As he unconsciously slid his arms around the woman's torso, the tired blond decided that he should really come up with a name for her since she was far more intelligent than his other creations and, despite how little time had passed since her making, he was starting to like her.
The following morning, or later that same morning to be more precise, Naruto groggily woke up only to find that he couldn't move at all. The twelve-year-old started panicking slightly, wondering among other things how someone had managed to find him since he slept underground, only to calm down when he caught sight of dark brown fur under his head as the memories of the previous evening came back. Taking stock of everything, he immediately noticed that, instead of the catgirl resting against him like the previous evening, he was now more or less on top of her with his head resting against her chest, which he just attributed to her rolling over and taking him with her. The reason he couldn't move was because the feline woman's arms were wrapped tightly around his torso and her legs were tangled up with his. His body was so intertwined with hers that escape by normal means proved to be impossible for him and she slept through all of his attempts at waking her up, leaving him with the Substitution Technique as his only possible way out. After a couple of false starts, each of which resulted in the girl's hug becoming even tighter to the extent that he actually thought she might end up crushing him to death, the young Uzumaki finally succeeded in replacing himself with the nearby bag containing all of his clothes that needed washing.
Just as he was recovering from the death cuddle, the sleeping perpetrator seemed to sense the change as her eyes slowly opened and looked at the bag in her arms in confusion, before yawning. She frantically looked around the room and only calmed down when she caught sight of her creator, leaping off of the bed and all the way across the room at him in a flying tackle. It was only because the wall was more or less right behind him that Naruto wasn't sent tumbling to the ground from the impact and was instead only a little dazed by the force of the hugging woman. As he mentally went over everything he was planning for the day, he immediately added 'teach catgirl not to tackle him in a flying hug' to the top of the list since he had a strong feeling that it would be a daily occurrence if he didn't.
After having a shower, during which time he watched with amusement as the feline girl seemed torn between joining him to stay close and keeping her distance to avoid the water, and dressing in a clean copy of his normal outfit of simple boots, plain black trousers and a dark navy T-shirt, Naruto led his creation to the storeroom so that he could get something to eat. As they walked, the blond spared several glances at his companion, who kept reaching out with an arm to grab him only to hesitate at the last minute and pull back when she remembered that her master hadn't seemed entirely happy with her earlier actions, as he tried to come up with some kind of name for her. Sadly, the twelve-year-old was not the most imaginative person when it came to naming things so his options were rather limited. In the end, he ended up settling with the name 'Koneko' since it reflected both her cat nature and her somewhat juvenile mentality. By the time the pair arrived at the storeroom, the newly dubbed Koneko was starting to understand that the word was her name as she was responding to it every few tries; the blond reckoned that within a few days reacting to the name would be almost second nature for her.
The storeroom itself contained far more than it had three years ago when he was just starting out. Instead of just a small fridge and a few shelves, it now contained a much bigger refrigerator as well as a large chest freezer that had been an absolute pain to get down there. There was also half a dozen more shelves, a compact stove for heating things and a couple of tables, both for eating at and preparing food on, with a single chair tucked underneath one of them, the sight of which caused the blond to make a mental note to get more seats as soon as possible. One of the tables currently had a large slab of some kind of meat defrosting on a tray on it and Naruto had to swat Koneko's hand away when he saw her reaching for it, since it wasn't thawing for her and it probably wasn't the sort of thing she should be eating anyway. Instead, he took a tin of tuna from one of the shelves and dumped the contents into a dish, sliding it across the table to the now drooling catgirl. Without so much as a cautionary sniff, the brunette devoured the fish and licked the bowl clean before turning her attention back to her creator in the hopes of getting more.
If he wasn't already used to his chimeras having a particularly large appetite, he probably would have been surprised and a little impressed at how quickly Koneko had downed an entire tin of fish. Not having any more tuna available, since all of his other creations preferred different food and he himself didn't eat it much either, Naruto quickly reassured the girl that she would be able to eat more of it, but she would have to wait for him to go out and get some. That seemed to appease her, since she had hugged him once he reiterated again that he would get some more tuna within the next day or two, and after his own simple breakfast, he led the brunette around the rest of the base, and the other one, to familiarise her with everything whilst explaining the various rules that he expected her to follow.
After determining that Koneko was capable of comprehending and carrying out simple and moderately complex tasks, though she did struggle a bit with the very complicated ones, Naruto decided to try training her up to serve as a sort of assistant for him. Whilst she obviously wouldn't be performing any experiments or delicate tasks, she could hopefully look after his other creations as well as the lair as a whole, especially since he would eventually have to go out of the village for days at a time on missions once he graduated from the academy on Friday and thus he would be unavailable to feed the creatures that dwelled in the other part of the complex on those occasions. With that decision in mind, the blond spent the rest of the day teaching Koneko everything he thought she would need to know about looking after the various residents. He even took her round on a tour to meet them all so that she could identify them, though a couple had seemed particularly interested in eating the catgirl instead of being fed by her but a few stern words from him soon put an end to that, since none of them would even consider disobeying a direct order from him just for quick snack.
Apart from that little incident, the only real problem that had occurred was that Naruto needed to teach Koneko how to tell the time and read again as her mind was more or less a blank slate after being subjected to the Chimera Technique and her being able to comprehend written instructions would probably be very useful further down the line. It had taken most of the day to cover the absolute basics of reading, the lessons being made much harder by her inability to speak, but he felt she was making decent progress all things considered, which wasn't all that surprising since she had retained a good portion of her former human intellect.
By the time evening had rolled around, the blond felt confident that the catgirl could become at least somewhat competent at reading within the week and would be up to snuff after about a month of lessons and practice. He had also supervised her first attempt at feeding the other creatures and that had gone fairly smoothly as well, the only significant incident to occur was when one of them had snapped at her when she got too close but she had displayed impressive reflexes by jumping backwards out of the way to the other side of the room. That event had also revealed that the brunette had retractable claws in each finger and toe and possessed the same grace as a cat when she landed on all fours after her impromptu leap ready to fight back if needed. These revelations were the reason that Naruto had coaxed Koneko back onto the table so that he could carry out an incredibly thorough examination of her in case there was anything else that he had missed. Other than discovering that she was a little ticklish in places, he hadn't found anything that he wasn't already aware of and so the mentally exhausted boy decided to go to bed despite it being only a quarter to one in the morning, quickly followed by the still-smiling brunette who was absolutely euphoric at receiving so much praise from her master over the course of the day.
The next day started in much the same way as the previous one had, with Naruto waking up in Koneko's vicelike embrace, but instead of replacing himself with something to escape, he instead tried to wake the sleeping brunette by gently tickling her side. Whilst that idea did succeed in rousing her, it also caused her to unintentionally extend her claws and scratch his back. The narrow cuts healed themselves in a matter of minutes but it took close to half an hour, and a good ear scratching, for him to convince the worried girl that he didn't blame her and that he was certainly not mad with her. After that, he prepared a quick breakfast for both him and Koneko and then fed all of the other chimeras with her help. With all of that done, the blond quickly pulled on his coat, a loose-fitting grey one with a hood large enough to shadow his entire face that he had started wearing a couple of years ago when he realised that using the Chimera Technique could alter his appearance, as well as a simple scarf-like face mask that could be pulled up to loosely cover his lower face and a pair of sturdy gloves before making his way to the exit nearest to the academy.
A few minutes were spent reassuring the simple-minded catgirl that he was not abandoning her and would return later that day with more tuna for her, something that she was quickly growing very fond of if the small dribble of drool was any indication. He also made sure that she understood that she was not to go outside under any circumstances and that she remembered the various safety rules he had drilled into her the previous day so that she would not accidentally hurt herself if her curiosity got the better of her. Once all of that was done, Naruto slipped up through the hatch, sealing it behind him, and quickly made his to the academy whilst taking care not to be seen since him being in that part of the village so early would be considered unusual as his apartment was in completely the other direction to the exit he was using.
Naruto arrived at the academy with only moments to spare, he actually passed both of the teachers in corridor on his way, and had only just reached his seat when the two Chunin entered. Not much had changed during the last three years at the academy, or at least not much that he actually cared about. Sure, the students had all gotten older and the Inuzuka boy had acquired a puppy at some point but ultimately everyone was still more or less the same. This was proved barely a minute after Iruka finished taking attendance as the Yamanaka girl and the pink-haired civilian barged into the room arguing about who got there first and thus who could sit next to the still power-hungry Uchiha, regardless of the fact that he was sitting alone at the end of a three-person desk. This still occurred practically every day, to the extent that neither of them were ever marked as absent until the other showed up or ten minutes passed, except for the rare days when one of them had the idea of getting there early and waiting for Sasuke, though they always reverted back to their stupid race the day after as they didn't want to keep get up so early.
Once the two fangirls were properly scolded and seated, Iruka began explaining what they would be doing for the rest of the week before the graduation exam on Friday. Since all of the information had already been covered, the next four days were essentially going to be a large recap to make sure that everyone remembered everything, as well as practice ninjutsu, taijutsu and weapons accuracy in case anyone was having any last minute problems that needed fixing. It went without saying that Naruto soon found himself extremely bored as all of his research for the Chimera Technique had led to him developing very good memory and recollection skills and, as such, he could recall most of the information that they had been taught, regardless of how useless he thought most of it would be out in the field. Seriously, what was the point of teaching them about the history of the village or the reigns of the different Hokages? Sure, it could be interesting but he seriously doubted he would ever need to know exactly how long ago Konoha was founded or how many years the Second Hokage was in charge before he sacrificed himself so that his students could escape a squad of Kumo ninja.
By the time the class was dismissed for lunch, the blond was on the verge of falling asleep from boredom and it was only his wandering mind that kept him awake as it thought out various possibilities for future chimeras as well as what else he needed to do before he used the technique to improve himself. Successfully creating Koneko was all well and good, but she didn't possess the same sentience as a human, though she was surprisingly aware, and since she was the only attempt at a human chimera that had survived, he couldn't be sure that it wasn't a fluke until he did a few more experiments. There was also the fact that creating something with a fully functional chakra system was immensely difficult and the closest he had come so far was making something that was capable of releasing surges of the energy throughout its entire body at will. This meant that until he did some tests with people with active chakra networks, which pretty much limited him to shinobi or academy dropouts, he would avoid doing anything with his own body in case he accidentally damaged his chakra network, something that would be nigh impossible to fix and require a very good explanation as well. The only reason any of his creations had actually survived was because a fully developed chakra system wasn't actually necessary for something to live; they just needed to have actual chakra in their bodies as well as the capacity to produce it so that they wouldn't run out and die.
The lessons after lunch were actually less mind-numbing than those from the morning but that was only because they involved practical activities that were actually relevant for a shinobi. Even though he was ultimately planning on using his various creations to fight, he still didn't like the idea of others doing all of the work for him and, as such, paid attention to the hands-on lessons and made sure to set aside some time for practise. Despite how much of his time was spent researching or experimenting with the Chimera Technique, Naruto was still able to develop a more than passing level of proficiency in all three areas of taijutsu, ninjutsu and weapon accuracy, though he knew that there were still several students in the class that were better than he was, even if he hadn't deliberately performed worse than he could.
Eventually, the lessons ended for the day and Naruto immediately began the walk back home, not being delayed by having any friends that he needed to say goodbye to. He had to double back slightly when he remembered that he had promised to pick up some tuna for Koneko after he had walked past the shops, but other than that he got back without any problems occurring. His feet had barely touched the floor of what could be considered his living room, namely the one that had all of the tanks and books he had encountered when he had first stumbled across the place, when the brunette catgirl appeared in front of him and wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug, clearly very happy that he was back.
It seemed that she had not coped all that well with his absence as it took a good deal of coaxing to get her to release him and even then she made sure that he was always within arm's reach at all times; hopefully she would reach the point that she wouldn't mind his absence too much before he started going out of the village on overnight missions. The rest of the evening consisted of Naruto carrying on Koneko's reading lessons as well as getting her used to the various tasks that he was planning on having her do whenever he was unavailable, though there had been a few breaks where he thought about different chimera ideas as well as the possibility of using some kind of seal array to maintain some semblance of control if he ever created a useful but difficult to manage chimera whilst the brunette sat in his lap snuggling up against him.
Naruto was immensely happy by the time Friday eventually came, even if he didn't outwardly show it. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday had all turned out to be practically identical to Monday; in that he had woken up wrapped in Koneko's arms, spent several minutes trying to get free, endured an incredibly boring morning followed by a slightly less boring afternoon, and then carried on the catgirl's various lessons and training in the evening. All that had really happened over the last three days was that the blond was getting a better understanding of how not to wake the catgirl, though he hadn't yet found a way to get her up that didn't involve ninjutsu or some form of minor injury. Speaking of the feline woman, she was progressing quite well with her reading, now able to competently follow simple written instructions without much difficulty, and he had started teaching her what little she would need to know about food preparation, which was generally just how to use knives safely without cutting herself since he wasn't going to get her to make his food and his various chimeras really weren't picky about what they ate as long as it was meat.
Currently, young Uzumaki was sat in his usual seat at the back of the classroom in the academy waiting for the teachers to arrive so that he could take the graduation exam. Whilst he didn't have any real attachment to the village, he was still going to be a shinobi for it even though the main reason he had enrolled at the academy in the first place was in the hopes of getting some training so that he could defend himself. If he became a shinobi then he would eventually be able to go on missions out of the village and, with any luck, he would encounter some interesting Kekkei Genkai that he could possibly assimilate.
Unfortunately, he couldn't just up and leave the village by himself as the last time he had tried that, when he was six or seven, he had quickly been brought back by a small group of ANBU and then scolded by the Hokage who had told him that it was dangerous beyond the safety of the village's walls, especially for someone as young as him. Whilst he had accepted that back then, he had since started wondering why a squad of ANBU, the village's elite forces, had been sent out to retrieve a young runaway child. Surely, it wasn't normal for the highly skilled shinobi to be sent out for such a simple reason and so there had to have been something particularly important about him to warrant such actions, though he had absolutely no idea what that could be. Still, he had since been able to go out for brief trips using some of his home's secret exits and had made several visits to nearby towns for a couple of hours before returning so that his absence was not noticed.
Eventually, Iruka and Mizuki arrived and, after the usual head-enlarging genjutsu to shut everyone up, the details of the graduation exam were explained. The first part would be a two hour written test to see how much of the information given over the years had actually sunk in. After that, there would be a small break before heading outside for the taijutsu portion which would test their proficiency with the basic style taught at the academy by having each student having a quick spar against one of the teachers. Apparently, they used to pair the students up for this bit but it was found to be easier to determine each student's skill if they were all going against opponents of the exact same level, which would be the teachers who were obviously going to holding at the level of an average Genin back to gauge the students' abilities. Once the taijutsu part was complete, there would be a larger break for lunch and then everyone would return outside to the firing range to test their accuracy. The final part was a ninjutsu exam which would primarily be a test of the student's chakra control, something that wouldn't be a problem for Naruto as he was already capable of walking on water after sneaking into the library one night for more chakra control exercises, as the techniques themselves were simple enough. Once this last bit was done, the teachers would add up the student's scores across all four segments, as well as their grades from the last few years, and then either pass the student and give them a Konoha forehead protector or fail them with the option to try again the following year.
The questions on the test weren't all that difficult, though some people seemed to be having some problems and Naruto immediately labelled them as stupid idiots that he doubted would be able to pass the overall exam if they were struggling with basic information recall. Despite the test being fairly straight-forward, it still took Naruto almost all of the allotted time to complete it, though that was mainly due to him still being rather tired after he had had to stay up much longer than he would of liked to deal with a problem with one of his chimeras, and even then he found it so monotonous that he didn't really put much effort into it aside from making sure he had a passing grade.
Once the written test was finally done, the class was given a short ten minute break before the taijutsu aspect of the exam. Most students took this time to either go to the toilet or chat with their friends about the various questions from the test that they had trouble with, whereas Naruto simply spent the time waking up properly. After the break was over, and he was considerably more alert than he was when he had shambled into the classroom at the beginning of the day, the entire class was led outside for the first of what the blond considered to be the worthwhile tests.
The test was effectively nothing more than a brief taijutsu-only spar, meaning no ninjutsu, genjutsu or weapons but chakra enhancement was permitted, against one of the teachers whilst the other watched and graded the student on their performance. The maximum duration of each spar was five minutes but if either participant was thrown out of the ring or somehow incapacitated then it would be considered over at that point. Obviously, throwing their opponent out of the ring or incapacitating them would result in a higher grade for the student and the inverse, being forced out of the arena or incapacitated, would mean a lower score but it was the overall performance that was graded so even if the student wasn't able to pull off such a decisive win they would still get a good score if they showed sufficient skill.
Since the students were tested in alphabetical order based on surname, Naruto knew that he was going to be the penultimate student to fight since only Ino Yamanaka's name followed his on the register. With that, the blond simply sat down in the shadow of one of the trees that surrounded the field and resigned himself to watching the others fight. If nothing else, he might be able to get some kind of insight on what sort of moves the teachers favoured, which could help him when his turn eventually came around.
As they worked their way through the various students, Naruto absently noted that all of the shinobi children were doing far better than their civilian-born counterparts, even the cripplingly shy Hyuga girl held out longer than most of them, and a few of them even managed to knock their opponent out of the ring. He figured this was due to the students having extra training from their clan members to help them, or clan library in Sasuke's case since there were currently no other Uchiha in the village. He also noticed that the teachers were switching roles after every four or five bouts, with the fighter taking over the observations and the spectator entering the ring. This irregular arrangement meant that Naruto couldn't calculate which of the two Chunin he was actually going to fight until three quarters of the class had already been tested, when it appeared that he was going to be facing Iruka as, when he had switched roles with Mizuki, there were two more students after the current one before him, so he would be the scarred Chunin's fourth opponent.
This was something that the blond was happy with since, even though the scarred man wasn't necessarily kind to him, he at least treated all of the students equally, unlike Mizuki who he could tell really didn't like him and, if his suspicions were true, the man had even sabotaged some of his work so he would get a lower grade than he deserved. Unfortunately for him, Sasuke Uchiha, who had been Iruka's third opponent, had managed to get a very lucky strike in on the Chunin's arm that meant that he would not be an ideal condition to carry out the last two spars without some, admittedly minor, medical attention and, since they were getting a little pressed for time, Mizuki would have to take over for Naruto's and Ino's tests whilst he observed. The white-haired man had looked quite happy when Iruka had announced that he would have to step in to replace him, though he quickly hid the somewhat sadistic smirk before anyone could notice it.
Standing across the ring from Mizuki, Naruto calmly adopted the basic opening stance of the academy's simple taijutsu style and, instead of rushing in like most of the others had before him, instead opted to wait for his opponent to come to him. After just a few seconds, Mizuki realised that the blond wasn't going to make the first move and charged at the teen at speeds slightly faster than had been used against the other students with a fist aimed at his head. Naruto dodged the incoming attack by rolling to the side and tried to sweep the man's legs out from under him with one of his own reinforced limbs. The experienced ninja easily avoided the low blow and countered by kicking the teen before he had a chance to get up. The strike landed but most of the force was absorbed by the blond's chakra-filled forearms that he had placed in the way and all it really did was send him rolling across the ring, giving him just enough space to jump to his feet and block the fist than would have otherwise buried itself in his stomach.
This back and forth continued for the next three minutes, with Naruto failing to land a proper blow and Mizuki's strikes either getting narrowly dodged or blocked. At this point, the blond was starting to get a little fed up of how the teacher wasn't holding himself back as much as he had for the others, though it wasn't by too much so it was a little difficult to notice. Since it was becoming obvious to him that he wouldn't be able to actually land a punch or kick, he instead decided to be a little sneaky and, after being sent to the ground again to avoid an arm, scooped up a small amount of soil in his gloved hand. As he climbed to his feet, the teen threw earth at the teacher's face, who was too surprised by the dirty tactic to react quickly enough to avoid it.
With the man temporarily blinded, Naruto sent a quick punch at his solar plexus, easily determining its exact location without much thought, before he could get the soil out of his eyes. This winded him enough to allow the teen to follow up with a knee to the groin, something that had every male watching instinctively covering their own crotches, and then a palm strike to the forehead. This last hit, coupled with the others and his still impaired eyesight, caused Mizuki to stumble backwards as he tried to keep his balance, his feet just crossing the edge of the arena and causing Iruka to call the match in Naruto's favour just as the white-haired man cleared his eyes. As he walked out of the ring, the teen did his best to ignore both the glare of pure hatred from his defeated opponent and the looks of pure surprise from the rest of his class, though he did hear a couple of people shouting that his stunt with the soil should count as cheating so he should be disqualified for it.
"Whilst it was definitely a dirty tactic, the rules of the match only forbade the use of ninjutsu, genjutsu and weapons," Iruka called out, effectively putting a stop to the complaints. "In a fight against a superior opponent, sometimes your only chances of victory lie in the more underhanded methods, as Naruto just demonstrated. Still, I have to admit that I'm surprised since this is the best performance you've ever demonstrated," he continued, with the last comment being directed at Naruto, who had by now returned to his seat under the tree.
The blond in question just shrugged his shoulders in a noncommittal fashion as he didn't want to mention that he deliberately downplayed his abilities in class. Before anyone else could say anything, Iruka called the Yamanaka girl up for her turn and the final spar of the day began. The fight wasn't all that impressive since, despite being more skilled than the majority of kunoichi hopefuls in the class, she just didn't lacked the physical strength to do any real damage and instead spent the entire duration dodging every strike sent her way until one of them succeeded in knocking her out of the ring. With the taijutsu portion of the exam finally complete, the students were dismissed for an hour with the instruction to not be late for the weapons accuracy test as it could count against them.
Naruto took advantage of this break to return to his home, where he was again immediately hugged by a delighted Koneko, who was slowly getting used to him being out for long periods of time but still missed him immensely and made up for his absences by never leaving him whilst he was present. After sliding a plate of sushi across the table to the hungry catgirl, who then proceeded to devour it in mere minutes, he ate his own lunch and started wondering why Mizuki had gone harder on him than the others. Sure, he knew the man didn't like him for some reason, probably the same one as the rest of the villagers, but that didn't explain why he'd take the risk of effectively sabotaging his test, since he would surely get into trouble for that if he had been caught. By the time he had to leave to get back to the academy, Naruto still couldn't come up with anything that seemed likely and simply opted to keep an eye on the man to see if he would try anything else.
He was the last one to make it back to the academy, arriving exactly as the hour-long break ended. After being admonished by Iruka for cutting it so close, the blond retook his seat under the same tree as the teacher explained how the weapons accuracy part of the exam was going to be handled. It was simple enough, each of them would get ten kunai and ten shuriken and have two human-shaped targets to throw them at with the intention of one being used for the kunai and the other for shuriken. The targets themselves had several areas marked on them which denoted areas that would cause death or serious incapacitation if struck with a blade, the areas considered as kill zones were marked in red and the incapacitation areas were indicated with yellow. The students would earn three points for each weapon that landed in a red zone, two for each in a yellow zone and one for any that missed both zones but still hit the target, meaning that there was a total of thirty points available for the kunai and thirty for the shuriken.
Since there were two teachers present and neither of them was required to act as a practice dummy, the students would be tested in pairs, with Iruka grading one and Mizuki the other, and it was again done in alphabetical order. Much like the taijutsu test, the clan-raised children did better than the civilian-born students, the former usually scored a minimum of around forty-five between the two different weapons whilst the latter usually did noticeably worse, with one girl getting a pitiful score of eleven after missing all of the red and yellow sections and even missing the actual target in more than a few cases. Eventually, after a random civilian boy and Sasuke Uchiha finished their throwing, the second getting the best result so far of fifty-three with every kunai and shuriken hitting one of the coloured sections, it was the turn of Naruto and the Yamanaka.
Much to his hidden displeasure, Naruto was stuck with Mizuki whilst Iruka watched over Ino's attempts and he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in confusion under his hood when he saw the equipment he was supposed to use. Half of the kunai were off-balance, with the handle being heavier than it should be, and several of both them and the shuriken had slightly blunted edges, which he found out after taking a glove off, with the excuse that his hand was getting a little too warm, and running a finger along one. Even though he knew that he should complain about the quality of the weapons, the blond was admittedly curious about what the Chunin was attempting to do and so he kept it to himself and acted like he hadn't noticed. After adjusting for the deficiencies of the weapons, he threw them at the targets one after another and earned himself a passable score of thirty-two. He could have done better but decided to play it safe since it was becoming blindingly obvious to him that Mizuki wanted him to fail for some reason, his suspicions being confirmed when he glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye and saw the frown.
With that done, he returned to his spot under the tree just as Iruka called for everyone to head inside for the ninjutsu exam, even though it could easily have been done outside. After everyone was back in the classroom, the students were called out into the room next door, one by one, and either returned with proud smiles and a Konoha headband or expressions of disappointment, with one girl actually being on the verge of tears. Eventually, Naruto's turn came and he walked into the testing room where Iruka and Mizuki were both sat behind a desk with several forehead protectors lined up in front of them.
"Alright, Naruto. First, we want you to perform the Substitution Technique to avoid this blunted kunai," Iruka explained, holding up the item in question. "Then you have to transform into myself, Mizuki and then the Third Hokage and finally produce at least three clones. Is that clear?"
"Completely," Naruto responded. Barely a moment later, Iruka threw the kunai at him only to hit the chair that the blond had replaced himself with. The two teachers noted something down on their clipboards as he returned to his original position. He then took on the three forms he had been told too, with both Chunin grading him on how detailed he was and penalising any discrepancies. Finally, he ran through the hand signs for the Clone Technique, which he had eventually managed to make a compromise with after ridiculous amounts of painstakingly repetitive practise; said compromise being that whilst he could produce clones, he could only do so in large quantities. As the clouds of smoke that accompanied the usage of the technique appeared, Naruto felt a small wave of chakra wash over him and, when the smoke cleared, he was surrounded by four flawless clones and half a dozen pathetic duplicates that would never be able to pass as him.
"Unfortunately, Naruto, whilst those four clones are perfect replicas, we will have to knock some points off for the others. You'll still get a decent mark but it would have been higher if you'd only made those," Iruka explained, indicating the quartet of faultless doppelgangers. After looking over everything on his clipboard and making a few more notes, the scarred Chunin returned his attention to the blond. "Congratulations, Naruto Uzumaki. You have passed the Academy Graduation Exam, here's your headband. Please return to the classroom as there will be an announcement after we've done Ino's test," the man said with a polite smile, passing the boy a forehead protector.
Naruto took the offered item, again noting Mizuki's quickly hidden scowl, and went back into the classroom, sidestepping the nervous Ino who was waiting by the door. Around five minutes later, the girl returned with her own headband fastened around her waist and followed by the two teachers.
"Congratulations to everyone that's passed the exam and for those that didn't quite make it, there's always next year. Everyone's final scores have been posted on the board outside the classroom so feel free to have a look since I'd rather not be mobbed by students wanting to know exactly how well they did," Iruka began, the momentary shudder than ran down the man's back suggesting that that had actually happened at some point. "You all get the next week off so make the most of it as you probably won't get all that much free time once you start active duty. Team assignments will be a week on Monday at nine o'clock, don't be late. You are all dismissed." The words had barely left his mouth when he had to jump out of the way to avoid the stampede of students who were all eager to see how well they had done compared to their friends.
Naruto himself left at a far more sedate pace, completely bypassing the bustling crowd as they pushed each other out of the way to get to the board first, and looked over someone's shoulder at the list. Seeing that he was one of the last students listed, and thus had one of the lowest overall grades out of everyone that passed, Naruto smiled to himself as he made his way out of the building, his mind already coming up with a few things he could do to occupy himself for the next couple of weeks. Just as he reached the main gates, the blond was brought out of his thoughts by some placing their hand on his shoulder to get his attention. Turning his head, he saw the smiling face of Mizuki who seemed quite happy that he had caught up with him before he could disappear.
"Sorry if I made you jump, Naruto, but I'm here to offer you a chance to improve your overall ranking. Every year, if the teachers think that there's a student who didn't do as well as they believed that they were capable of, they'd give that student the option of taking a fake mission as a form of extra credit that would increase their grade if they were successful," the white-haired man said. "In this case, despite getting one of the lowest grades in the class, I believe that, with the proper opportunity, you could easily rise to the upper half, even though Iruka doesn't seem to think so. So, how about it?"
"What sort of mission would it be?" Naruto replied, doing his best to sound interested even though he seriously doubted such a thing existed and even if it did, he was quite happy with being ranked so low. Still, he wanted to know why the man had tried so many times to get him to fail, so he might as well play along.
"Unfortunately, in keeping with standard practice, we can't reveal the details unless the student agrees to take it in case they decline and we offer it to someone else," Mizuki explained, looking apologetic.
"Sure, why not? My grades aren't going to drop if I fail, right?"
"No, your current grades are safe but they could go up depending on how well you do. The mission is to sneak in to the Hokage's personal library without getting caught and take the Forbidden Scroll of Seals, although for the purposes of this test, it will obviously be replaced with a decoy. Once you get the scroll, I want you to meet me here at eight o'clock this evening," the white-haired Chunin elaborated as he handed Naruto a scrap of paper with some directions written on it that led somewhere into the forest surrounding the village. "As an added bonus, there are a few techniques written in the decoy and if you can successfully learn one of them, your grade will increase even more and you might even be able to get to the top of the class. Anyway, that's it for the mission briefing, good luck and don't forget to avoid detection."
As Mizuki disappeared in a cloud of smoke indicative of the Body Flicker Technique, Naruto found his interest peaked by this latest development. Mizuki wanted the Forbidden Scroll of Seals and he wanted Naruto to do it instead of trying to steal it himself. It was quite a clever idea since, if he was successful, then the Chunin would have the scroll just like he wanted and if he failed, Mizuki could easily deny all involvement in the plan and leave him with all of the blame. Unfortunately for him, Naruto wasn't naive enough to believe that the extra credit mission actually existed. Still, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to get a look at something that sounded so interesting and he could always let some of his pets have fun with the would-be traitor.
A/N: This chapter ended up being considerably larger than I was expecting (I was aiming for somewhere in the six to eight thousand word region) but the only other place that seemed appropriate for ending it would have resulted in the chapter being more or less devoted to Koneko's introduction, which I didn't want despite her being needed to avoid some minor issues. (The main one was the question of who would feed Naruto's various chimeras whilst he was out of missions, but she also serves as living proof of successful human testing of the Chimera Technique, which I feel Naruto would want before he even contemplates using it on himself.) Regarding chapter length, please don't expect future chapters to be quite as long as this one, though I'm going to try and ensure that they are at least around six or seven thousand words.
Also, before anyone gets any ideas, though some of you probably already have, the relationship between Naruto and Koneko is strictly a mix of Master/Servant and Owner/Pet, there is nothing else between them. The reason Koneko acts the way she does around him is because the instinctual subservience that was ingrained into her as a side-effect of the Chimera Technique manifested itself in the form of extreme adoration, meaning that her world now effectively revolves around Naruto and his continued happiness, which is why she sticks to him like glue when he's around and gets sad when he goes out.
Naruto himself isn't all that bothered that her overly affectionate displays because a) he knows that she will never to anything to intentionally hurt him, b) he knows that if he told her to stop she would get unhappy and c) despite that fact that he will probably never willingly admit it, he enjoys the contact and the feeling that someone cares about him (even though he is completely aware that said care is unnatural) because he never had anything like that whilst growing up. It also helps that all of his research into the human body has more or less desensitised him to the potential appeals of the female form.
Finally, I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up since, unlike last time where I already had a solid six or seven thousand words written for this chapter when I posted the first one, I only have around fifteen hundred words of chapter 3 done so far. The next chapter should be more entertaining than this one as it will cover the Forbidden Scroll Incident, the week between it and team assignments, the team assignments themselves and maybe even the Genin test as well, though the last one is somewhat dependent on how long the rest of it ends up being.