Twenty minutes later with Arasuta-san's help, Naruto had the whole scroll of seals memorized. He was slowly going back over the jutsu (this time starting from the easy end) with Arasuta-san helping with the kanji. Even if Naruto couldn't read most of them, he'd still seen them at some point or another, so Arasuta-san was making it so that Naruto could understand them too. Watching the characters change from squiggly squares into words, sentences, instructions was awesome. Naruto still didn't understand all of the instructions, but he figured as long as he got enough to make it work he could ask Iruka about the rest of the stuff later. Iruka might not like him much, but he always answered Naruto's questions. And from what Naruto could tell, he'd always been honest about it too. Arasuta was making a list of all the stuff people had told him which didn't seem to be true or make sense. It was a really long list. He'd also made Naruto promise to re-read all the academy textbooks as soon as he got a chance.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!" a great deal of smoke appeared, but no clones. So Naruto tried again, and again, and again. He'd lost track of how many times he'd tried, and was starting to get exhausted.

"Naruto, how many are you trying to do?" Arasuta asked suddenly.

"I dunno, a bunch?"

"Well, you're using an awful lot of energy, and none of it is going where you want."

"I just have to keep trying! Uzumaki Naruto is no quitter dattebayo!"

"Stupidity is repeating the same action and expecting different results" Naruto felt a pang at that. Was his new friend calling him stupid? "So try something different."

"Different?" Naruto squatted down to consider this. He was forming the seals, and pushing his chakra through them. Maybe he should just push it out without the seals? He nodded sharply. "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu" there was a larger puff of smoke and the clearing filled with Naruto. Unfortunately, they were all in pieces. There were hands sticking out of the ground, legs sticking out of the trees. "Eeeww" said Naruto. He took a step backwards and tripped as one of the hands grabbed his leg. There was an eyeball on a bush near the end of his nose. It blinked at him. "Okay, so kind of creepy, and maybe useful for spying, but still not right dammit." He poked the eyeball. It vanished in a puff of smoke and he clapped a hand over his eye as he felt the sudden impression of poking himself in the eye. "Dammit, stupid memory thing."

"You're getting closer." Naruto huffed and considered what to do different. Maybe lumps of chakra instead of a wave?

In the end it turned out that the way to get things to work was not to try – he just had to figure out how many Naruto he wanted and do the seals, the jutsu took care of the rest. It really pissed him off when he thought of all the time he'd spent trying to get the old version of bunshin working. The other parts of it, kage shuriken and so on, down at the bottom were just as easy. If someone had just told him how to do things this way he could've passed the exam with no problem. As a result, he was kind of pissed off when Iruka-sensei jumped into the clearing.

"FOUND YOU!" he yelled, pointing at Naruto.

"I ALREADY FINISHED" yelled Naruto back. Nobody beat him at being loud.

"Finished what" asked Iruka sensei

"A jutsu off the scroll, of course. Like Mizuki-sensei said. Now I can pass." Iruka-sensei was staring at him, mouth open. Didn't he think Naruto was any good? That hurt a bit.

"You…wait, what did Mizuki-sensei tell you?" demanded Iruka-sensei.

"Naruto, I think something is wrong" whispered Arasuta-san in his head. "Perhaps this Mizuki fellow just wanted you to steal the scroll so you'd get in trouble?" Naruto's heart sunk at that. He knew the old guy liked him, but if this really wasn't part of the test…you could get executed for that sort of thing. And there were enough people on the council who hated him – the old man couldn't protect him from that sort of screw-up and it's not like they'd listen to him about Mizuki-sensei. Naruto was surprised out of his worries when Iruka-sensei pushed him over. Which didn't make any sense either, cause if Iruka sensei wanted him dead he'd just do it, and why were there kunai sticking out of him…

"Naruto, run" said Arasuta-san in his head. Iruka-sensei was talking with Mizuki-sensei, who was up a tree, in an angry tone of voice. Had Mizuki-sensei thrown kunai at Iruka-sensei? Why? They liked each other. They were talking about betrayal and power and the scroll, and Iruka-sensei was telling him to run. But the scroll was laid out there, open for anyone and if things were wrong then it was Naruto's responsibility to protect it. People died for secrets like that, killed for them too. Naruto had been the one to borrow the scroll so he had to be the one to give it back to the old man. He nodded firmly to himself and tuned back into the conversation just in time to notice a tingly feeling and both teachers staring at him.

"…what? Ah, sorry, I wasn't paying attention" Iruka-sensei looked relieved to hear that, but boy did Mizuki-sensei look pissed.

"You miserable little brat" he roared and charged forwards pulling a big-ass shuriken out from his jacket. Then Iruka-sensei threw Naruto at Mizuki. Then somehow Naruto was across the clearing, and Iruka-sensei and Mizuki were duking it out. was that kawarimi? That felt totally different from how I thought it would. Naruto quickly moved over to stand between the scroll and the fight, not particularly sure that he trusted either of those two. He changed his mind and started to roll up the scroll, kicking the rocks away and taking at least one unfortunate caterpillar with it.

"At least make a duplicate and have it protect you" yelled the hat. He sounded kind of freaked out, and was wrapped around Naruto's head tight enough to make the goggles dig in. Naruto supposed it would be pretty freaky to be in a fight without any hands. Still it was a good suggestion, and he made a bunch of clones. After a moment's thought, half of them went running back towards the village to get the old man, and the others helped him roll up the scroll. He had to duck a few times, and a couple clones 'poofed' but he'd just grabbed the scroll and turned to run when Iruka-sensei bowled him over for the second time that day.

He was leaning over Naruto and in pretty rough shape. He was bleeding, and worse, he was crying. Naruto noticed with a sense of shock that he had Mizuki's giant shuriken sticking out of his back. Naruto wondered if he was going to see Iruka-sensei die.

"Naruto, I'm sorry" said Iruka-sensei. "I'm sorry for ignoring your pain, and not treating you the way a true sensei should. I'm sorry for not protecting you better." He screamed as Mizuki roughly pulled the shuriken out of his back and kicked him aside.

Naruto swallowed quietly and wrapped his hands as far as he could get them around the giant scroll. His eyes were stuck on the giant shuriken as Iruka's blood dripped off the point. Mizuki-sensei was saying something but Naruto was ignoring him. Inside his head Arasuta-san said very quietly "Naruto, you have to do something right now" and Naruto felt a surge of anger. He was angry at Mizuki-sensei and at Iruka-sensei and at the whole damn village for treating him like crap and he just wanted Mizuki-sensei to go away. His hands ran through the summoning jutsu and he reached. And he heard Arasuta-san's voice say 'oh bugger' and then he was gone, and there was something big and furry in front of him and he threw the scroll to a group of clones and there was another group carrying Iruka-sensei and they were running away from the screaming which was very loud right before it cut off.

Naruto had managed to run them even deeper into the forest, and Arasuta had evidently gone back to wherever he came from. As a result there was no one else around when Iruka-sensei woke up. Naruto wasn't quite sure he trusted the guy 100 percent, so the clones with the scroll were a little ways off, and hiding. He wouldn't close his eyes when Iruka-sensei asked, but the guy just smiled sadly and gave him a headband anyway.

"I can't promise that you'll be accepted as a genin today, Naruto, but that headband is my promise to you that I won't turn my back on you again. I'll train you until you get a headband of your own or quit, my word as a ninja."

"Seriously?" That was about a zillion times more help then he'd ever gotten from anyone before.

"Seriously. You and I are a lot alike. I apologize for not seeing that before."

"You already said sorry, so it's okay"

"Ah, I wasn't sure if you were paying attention to that." Naruto huffed at the stupid joke, as Iruka-sensei started to bandage himself up. Zone out for a tiny bit and everybody made fun of you…

AN: Of all the ways to handle Mizuki's great 'you're a demon' speech, I think ignoring it is the funniest. Which is made even more hilarious by the fact that Naruto already knew.