Author's note: Halo Reach is out so please forgive a hardcore fan. This chapter mainly fills in and sets up some of the background, nothing really important happens here. Up next: the tests!

An old man sat in a large office. Large, but tasteful: dark woods and earth colors dominated. Smoke curled from a pipe in the elderly man's hand as he read through psychological reports on his next batch of young shinobi. He paused at the rather thick file on one candidate in particular: a blonde who was smiling up out of his photograph. This old man was the Hokage: the leader of the shinobi forces for the entirety of the Land of Fire.

Now, normally the Hokage liked to think of himself as a particularly intelligent shinobi. He had a mastery of most ninjutsu, a talent for taijutsu, a small love affair with genjutsu, and a rudimentary understanding of fuinjutsu. He could set traps, manipulate bureaucracies, turn invisible; he had even learned how the Hatake family ate while wearing facemasks, as closly guarded a secret as there ever was.

So why did he feel that figuring out one soon-to-be fourteen year old was going to be next to impossible?

The hyperactive barely literate blonde had transformed into… well, Hiruzen couldn't quite place his finger on it. Naruto had acted like his old self around the aged Hokage, but the old man couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. So he had set an ANBU tail on the boy about a year ago . The mission report was… odd.

Mission Objective: Prevent serious harm to and Observe one Uzumaki Naruto

Mission Operative: Codename Itachi

Mission Timeframe: One Hour

Upon exiting the Hokage Tower the subject Uzumaki Naruto quickly entered the general throng outside. The Boy evaded sight for approximately fifteen minutes before visual observation was possible again. During said time, chakra signature tracking techniques were used to track the subject. Note: absolutely no visuals were attainable at this time. The civilians seemed unaware of his presence.

Once visual confirmation was reestablished Uzumaki was wearing a different outfit. Summary: Orange jumpsuit absent, white hood and cargo pants with combat boots. Twenty minutes later he used what appeared to be an incredibly advanced Henge to purchase several foodstuffs at a local shop (see attached details form). Note: this Henge seems to block the chakra signature of user and was unable to be copied by Sharingan due to a lack of use of handseals.

Ten minutes to home of subject; he deposited the food in cabinets, refrigerator, etc. Ten minutes to discontinued Training Ground 18 where subject was quoted as saying:

"Give the Old Man my regards, Itachi-san."

Target then disappeared. A cursory examination of the scene revealed few traces of his passage. Report End.

Yes, it seemed that Naruto still retained his abilities to evade and detect ANBU, but what was worrisome was this new attitude of flying under the radar. This had needed further investigation.

And so he had sent in the teacher, Iruka Umino of the ANBU, last year who had returned a vast field of nothing. Excellent test scores, and quiet in class. If Naruto hadn't told the "Chunin" a month ago that he would talk to the Hokage if he had been asked, the Old Man would have assumed there was nothing to find.

As it was he needed to get down to work. Again. The paperwork was sentient, he was almost sure of it! That, and the Civilian Council was trying to pass some law to provide personal bodyguards. Again.

Time enough to talk to Naruto next week.

The object of our esteemed Hokage's discomfort over these two years was merrily eating his way through a broiled rabbit and some wild carrots he had gathered the previous night. In the carrots' case, he had purchased them from a kindly old woman on the way back from his afternoon training, after hearing her proclaim that her goods were so fresh that they might as welll still be in the ground. In the rabbit's case it had stopped living roughly five seconds after he spied it eating.

As he chewed, he thought back. How absurd it seemed that merely two years ago he would have been downing ramen, of all things, like the elixir of life! Though, now that he thought about it, ramen had never made him feel like his stomach was about to violently expel itself from his mouth. He quickly inspected his hastily-acquired vegetation and realized that it was not orange or anything close to a carrot's color, but rather pale. Almost like, like…

He watched as the Master At Arms pulverized the dry root. The man reduced it a fine powder which was then placed in a fine silk bag. A small amount of water was added and a pale liquid filtered out and into a bucket waiting below, nearly full from previous treatments.

"This," said the Master, "is one of the secrets of our order. I will slowly heat this mixture until the water is driven off. Then we will have one of our most powerful weapons, little Altair, hemlock powder."

"Oh damn."

Naruto waited for the worst. And waited. Then he thanked the gods that he hadn't eaten enough to kill himself inadvertently, and swore to never buy from that witch again.

He was doubly grateful that he seemed to be feeling better quickly because his graduation test was today. That was the whole reason for this impromptu feast.

Naruto smirked. He knew that he could pass the test. Konoha's standards for genin had fallen so low in times of peace that a person who couldn't use chakra could pass! The exam would be a snap; a quick demonstration of taijutsu, a little target practice, some written questions, and then the academy ninjutsu.

He would be out in no time.