Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

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Chapter Three - Troublesome People, Troublesome Training

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Namikaze Minato held in high regard his ability to stand firm and strong in the face of any adversity where other men would have given up and fallen. He could not – would not – allow for any mere Orange to frighten him into submission. Where many better Shinobi would have cowered beneath sheets and under beds, Namikaze Minato – powerful, intelligent, though admittedly not fearless – reached bravely into the closet and emerged with handfuls of Orange, only briefly concerned for the state of his sanity as brave men were often wont to be.

And then Minato found himself in a most uncanny predicament. The fact that Orange (and yes, Minato insisted on treating all colours with equal respect where naming was concerned) wasn't a colour he bore significant amounts of hatred for didn't change the fact that he wanted It incinerated, and without matches or the ability to execute a well-controlled katon jutsu, Minato couldn't burn the Orange the way he truly wanted to. In the end, he settled on shoving all Orange jumpsuits and Orange trousers into a black garbage bag, leaving the Orange shirts behind because Naruto without Orange would certainly look incredibly suspicious. And it wasn't like he couldn't wear something more inconspicuous over the Orange, anyway.

With that done, Minato set about sorting and washing all of Naruto's remaining clothes (save for the dark blue shirt with the plant growth that he planned to dispose of), throwing aside the ripped ones that he couldn't mend (which turned out to be a majority of the pile) and keeping those that he could. Judging from the amount of dust and dirt on each and every one of the outfits, it was obvious that Naruto hadn't bothered to clean or care for anything that wasn't orange. Minato made a mental note to purchase a new wardrobe, and underlined that note three times in red.

Having swept the floor and dusted every corner and discovered (tripped over, really, and what had possessed Naruto to believe that a loose floorboard served as a good hidey-hole?) Naruto's secret stash of money, Minato finally rose, satisfied, off the floor where he'd been scrubbing between the cracks. The evening sun shone through the window, and its golden orange glow only served to highlight the pleasing sheen of the floor, the overall cleanliness of everything else… Minato nodded, patting himself on the back for a job well done, and headed off to the kitchen to get himself a well-deserved and long overdue drink.

Ah, the kitchen.

He'd forgotten about it.

Minato picked his way carefully through the sea of empty ramen cups, wincing as he felt the stickiness of the floor beneath his feet. Genetics, Minato decided again, having found it to be a suitable scapegoat, though even Kushina had never been this messy when she was alive. It appeared, Minato thought grimly, as he eyed the grimy cups inside the sink, that while Naruto had inherited all of Minato's colouring, he had inherited none of Minato's personality – which was decidedly unfortunate, because one of Minato's biggest pet peeves was dirt. Dirt, rotten tomatoes and stupid villagers who couldn't tell the difference between a giant demon fox and a young boy – the last made him feel especially peevish.

Having done the dishes and had his water, Minato stooped to begin the arduous task of cleaning up the ramen cups. It was fairly meditative work – pick a cup, throw a cup, clean the floor, kill a bug – Minato found himself trying to plan for the future. Madara was still lurking somewhere out there, and Naruto's body, he could tell, was woefully trained: slow, short, and unhealthy – no thanks to the lack of healthy food in his diet (Minato had no doubt that the villagers were probably at fault somehow). He would need to find some way to train without drawing attention to himself; his ANBU guards (distantly, Minato knew they existed, even though he couldn't actually sense them) were probably already mildly suspicious of his current behaviour, though whatever out-of-character things he did he supposed he could blame on The Incident.

Minato sighed and ran a dirty hand through his hair, flopping down onto the floor in sudden weariness. He had to remember that he was currently eleven and not twenty-four. He wasn't a Hokage – he wasn't even a Genin. There were things he could do and things he couldn't do and trying to do everything would just wear him down and break him, however unfortunate it was. And it was with this thought in mind that Minato fell fast asleep, sprawled on his back and in the middle of a half-cleaned kitchen, his young body finally succumbing to exhaustion.

0o0o0o0o

ANBU Dog-II watched in vague surprise – having long since learned the importance of hiding emotions – as Uzumaki Naruto, upon entering his apartment, immediately charged into a cleaning spree like a man possessed. And he hadn't just cleared the trash, he'd cleared the orange! In Dog-II's opinion (he wasn't ROOT, of course he was allowed to have an opinion), that ranked pretty high on the List of Strange, and the fact that it was even on the list, seeing as Dog-II's entire life revolved around strange, made it Very Strange indeed.

Dog-II watched with the near obsessiveness he had been instructed to use as Uzumaki Naruto took to the floor with a cleaning rag and a lot of soap, and continued watching as the boy scrubbed it to a gleaming perfection. He didn't know how he was supposed to report this to the Sandaime; had Naruto's coma somehow turned him into a neat freak? Was that even medically possible? Dog-II rubbed his mask approximately where his forehead was. He could almost imagine how the conversation with the Sandaime would go:

'Uzumaki Naruto has thrown out his orange clothes, sir.'

'What?'

Dog-II frowned. That was pretty much the extent of his imagination, actually. The Sandaime was about as unpredictable as the weather in the Land of Waves during summer, which, bad analogy aside, meant that he was pretty damn unpredictable. Somehow constant too, though. Constantly unpredictable? Unpredictably constant? Dog-II was starting to get a headache.

He was almost glad when he spotted the gravity-defying silver hair of ANBU Dog in the distance, come to relieve him of his shift. The Uzumaki boy, he noted, had moved suddenly from a vertical position to a very horizontal position, having passed out from the exhaustion of the day. ANBU Dog-II chuckled and leapt lightly into the apartment through the window, gathering the Uzumaki boy up in his arms (he was horribly light for his age) and laying him gently on the sofa. Smiling a little behind his mask, Dog-II gave the boy a parting pat on the head before leaping out of the window and, after ensuring that ANBU Dog had started his shift, made his way to the Hokage tower to give the Sandaime his report.

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Minato woke bright and early in the morning to find that he had been relocated to the couch and mentally thanked the ANBU on duty the night before. Sleeping on the floor had never been pleasant; Minato much preferred trees, for several reasons: a) they were above ground, and enemies, shinobi or no, tended to scout the ground before they scouted the trees (a fatal mistake, especially when dealing with one as quick as the Yellow Flash), b) trees were nice. Minato liked trees.

Stretching his arms above his head, Minato slid off the couch and shuffled to the bathroom to begin his morning routine, and once there, stared sleepily at his reflection in the mirror, having not quite woken up completely yet.

Messy blond hair, wide blue eyes, and three whisker-like scars on each cheek – Naruto looked almost exactly like Minato had at that age, though with Kushina's eye shape and nose and an overall softer look to his face.

Minato reached up and traced the whisker-like marks on Naruto's – his – face, feeling guilt well up in his chest again. If not for Kyuubi – if Minato hadn't sealed it into his own son – he shook his head and ran his hand through the familiar golden locks. He couldn't think like that, not anymore. He was Naruto now, and he had a job to make it right for his son.

Sighing, Minato gave his teeth a thorough brush and showered, having had not done so the day before, making sure to scrub all traces of dirt and grime out from his scalp. Despite being fairly used to dirt, Minato enjoyed feeling clean when he could. Baths had been difficult to come by during the Third Great Shinobi War as most of them had been kept too busy to wash and shower – Minato now knew the importance of appreciating the chance to bathe. The clothes he'd washed the day before were mostly dry now; Minato picked out an Orange shirt (he couldn't yet eliminate the Orange from his wardrobe – only so much could be passed off as a result of The Incident) and a pair of plain black shinobi trousers, which he taped down at the shins.

Minato carefully scrutinised himself in the closet's built in mirror. Orange, check. And that was all he needed to check, really. Laughing softly to himself, Minato grabbed his sandals, his Academy-issued weapons pouch and the only good apple left before leaping out of the window.

Naruto's pantry was pretty much empty – Minato would need to go grocery shopping soon – but for now, it was time to train!

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Minato kept largely to the rooftops on his way to the training grounds in an attempt to avoid the villagers. He hadn't wanted to initially, having thought that integrating himself with the villagers would give them a chance to warm up to him, but they'd thrown rotten tomatoes and sake bottles at him despite the kind smiles he'd given everyone, and he'd left for the roofs once a gang of thugs joined the flying produce and bottles.

Upon arriving at Training Ground One (the only training ground open to Academy students), Minato immediately made his way to a target post near a copse of trees, determined to assess and correct Naruto's throwing technique where necessary. And, as he threw the first few kunai at the target post, he realised that yes, correction was necessary. While Naruto's throwing technique wasn't horrible, it wasn't anywhere near good, and Minato's style was built around speed and accuracy. He fully intended to use the Hiraishin in future, and to do so he would need to be more than extremely proficient at throwing kunai. One misaimed Hiraishin kunai could result in a silt throat, impalement, and/or death.

Minato threw his kunai and shuriken over and over into the target, fixing Naruto's throwing technique. He was momentarily tempted by the thought of using Kage Bunshin to aid in his training, fully confident that with Naruto's chakra capacity, forming armies of Kage Bunshin wouldn't be a problem, but such suspicious behaviour would definitely tip off any watching ANBU that Naruto wasn't quite Naruto.

Minato sighed, and threw and threw and threw and threw.

Eventually, when Minato had finally adjusted Naruto's throwing to a satisfactory level (though it would no doubt regress tomorrow. That was what practice was for, after all), Minato moved on to Taijutsu.

He settled into the basic academy stance. Naruto could do that, which was good. The next stance wasn't so good. Minato found his body instinctively settling into the wrong positions, which was unbalanced and very, very wrong. Someone at the Academy had probably been teaching Naruto wrongly. Minato scowled. Bloody, stupid, ignorant…

He deliberately forced his arms and legs into the proper positions, and sighed when the next stance proved to be similarly erroneous.

How very troublesome…

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Sarutobi Hiruzen felt his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. 'Naruto's playing truant from the Academy, you say?'

'Affirmative,' ANBU Dog said, nodding. 'He left his house at around six this morning and headed off towards the Academy training grounds, where he then proceeded to practice his throwing. At eight in the morning, he was still practicing his throwing, and gave no indication that he was aware that he was going to be late for school.' The ANBU paused, clearing his throat. It had been a long night. He'd spent most of the time camped out in the tree outside Naruto's apartment, occasionally leaping down to intercept the odd civilian there to create trouble.

'At nine o'clock,' Dog continued, 'Naruto was still practicing, and did not seem like he was going to stop any time soon. Cat came to take his shift and I left.'

Sarutobi rested his hands on his chin. This was troubling. Just last night ANBU Dog-II had reported that Naruto had gotten rid of all his orange jumpsuits, and now playing truant from the Academy to train? He was beginning to think that Naruto was more affected by The Incident than he let on. Sarutobi sighed and rubbed his fingers into his temples. He was getting too old for this. Naruto had probably realised from the severe beating he had gotten a few days ago that dressing in bright, attention-seeking colours was a really, really bad idea, and that he would need to train more to learn how to properly protect himself from any future attacks.

Still, skipping the Academy just to do so…

He and Naruto were going to have a nice long talk about the importance of going to school.

'Thank you,' Sarutobi said. 'Dismissed.'

0o0o0o0o

Naruto sucked at Taijutsu.

Minato just couldn't work with the street brawling style that Naruto seemed to like to use. While it wasn't ineffective in battle, it just wasn't Minato. The jerky unpredictable-ness of the style, if it could be called that, was the anti-thesis to Minato's own smooth and flowing movements. Probably genetics, Minato thought again, mildly amazed by the similarities between Naruto and Kushina. Kushina had preferred the same street brawl style Naruto used too, and while it hadn't prevented her from becoming a brilliant kunoichi, Minato just couldn't agree with it.

He wasn't Naruto now, he was Minato in Naruto's body, and he would perfect the Academy's Taijutsu kata!

He had improved slightly since he had started over four hours ago, though he still did slip into Naruto's old stances from time to time, and he was unbelievably slow. Still, Minato thought, wiping a sleeve across his sweaty forehead, it was progress.

Stretching, he glanced up at the sky, noting the position of the sun. Lunch and a break, he decided, and then he would go back to training.

Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he leapt away.

0o0o0o0o

Minato really wasn't in the mood for ramen.

To his knowledge, however, Naruto hadn't ever eaten anything else, and as troublesome and unhealthy as it was, Minato would need to have at least a bowl of ramen a day to keep up appearances, at least until he became a Genin, where he could then use the lack of time as an excuse.

'Are you alright, Naruto-kun?'

Minato glanced up at the girl through his bangs. Ayame, he knew, had been one of the few people who had treated Naruto well, for which he was eternally thankful. 'I'm fine, Ayame-chan,' he answered, grinning brightly. 'Just a little tired from training, is all.'

'Training, Naruto?'

Minato jerked up in surprise, having not sensed, or heard anyone nearby. He winced. He really needed to do something to improve on Naruto's sensing abilities.

The Sandaime sat down beside him and ordered himself a bowl of ramen.

'Training is good, Naruto-kun, admirable,' he said, as Ayame placed the bowl in front of him. He split his chopsticks, twiddled with his chopsticks, sipped at the broth, and had a few mouthfuls, while Minato sat in tense anticipation, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

'But,' the Sandaime continued, 'that doesn't mean that it gives you the permission to skip school.'

Minato's eyes widened slightly. Ah, school! He'd completely forgotten about it. He just hadn't been to school for such a long time…

'An awesome ninja like me doesn't need to go to school!' he cried, slipping into Naruto-speak.

The Sandaime jabbed at Minato with the dry end of his chopsticks. 'Currently, Naruto-kun,' he said dangerously, 'you're right at the bottom of your class!'

'Eh,' Minato said, hanging his head in appropriate shame.

The Sandaime sighed, and returned to his ramen. 'I have no doubt that you'll becoming an amazing ninja, but to do that, you'll need to attend the Academy to learn the basics.'

'Yes, Old Man,' Minato said dully, the cogs in his brain whirling. Attending the Academy would take up seven precious hours of his day, which threw a big wrench into his plans to train. Perhaps he could work on his hand seal speed during classes or something? That could work. Hand seal speed was often overlooked by shinobi, but the longer the hand seal sequence, the faster you needed to be, lest your opponent get the chance to strike first. Speed in the shinobi world was extremely important, as seconds made a difference to life and death. It was one of the reasons why Minato loved speed so much, and the reason why he'd been so dangerous in the Third War. To him, Naruto's lack of speed was extremely irritating.

Minato drained his broth and set the bowl down quickly. 'I'll go to the Academy now, Old Man,' he announced, and left, waving goodbye as he did so.

Sarutobi waved back. Naruto did seem a little more subdued than usual, but it was probably nothing to worry about.

Sarutobi finished his ramen and began making his way back to the office. Ah, paperwork. Brilliant.

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Minato reached the Academy just in time for the lessons after lunch, which turned out to be Ninjutsu practice and target practice. As he stood in line waiting for his turn at weapons throwing, he ran through the twelve standard hand seals, incredibly disappointed with how slow and clumsy his fingers were. He would get faster with practice, he knew, and wished once again that he could make Kage Bunshin.

'Sasuke-kun!'

Minato looked up at the voice, his fingers still twisting into seals. A dark haired boy stood in front of the target board, lips lifted in an arrogant smirk as he held the kunai loosely between his fingers.

He flung them three at a time at the target board, scowling as only ten out of twelve of the kunai hit the centre. 'Hn,' Minato heard him grumble. Frankly, Minato wasn't very impressed by the boy's blatant display of talent. Sure, so maybe he was very talented, but throwing three kunai in one shot when he couldn't manage it properly? That was just showing off. He eyes caught sight of the Uchiha crest on the back of the boy's shirt and he sighed. An Uchiha, he should have known. The family were known to suffer from a severe superiority complex and the inability to form words longer than the standard monosyllabic grunt. He had dreaded working with the Uchiha when he had been Hokage; they hadn't respected him much because of his age. Still… Minato glanced around suspiciously, noting the lack of any other Uchiha around. Why weren't there more Uchiha? Surely this Sasuke wasn't the only one in the Academy.

'So cool, Sasuke-kun!' This time, the voices belonged to a group of excited kunoichi-to-be. Minato winced. Fangirls. He'd never had them when he'd been an Academy student, thank goodness, despite being Rookie of the Year. According to Kushina, he'd lacked the dark and brooding personality most fangirls were attracted to.

'Uzumaki Naruto!'

Minato's head snapped up, and he stepped forward. The dark-haired Chuunin teacher (whose name was either Satoshi or Tsuyoshi) gave him a tight and unfriendly smile, and gestured at the target board. 'You know the drill, Uzumaki.'

Minato did.

The practice in the morning had yielded good results, unsurprisingly, and Minato stared in quiet satisfaction as each and every one of the kunai thudded into the centre of the target. Aim was good, speed was horrible. Again, practice.

The class was silent, he noted, and the Uchiha was glaring a hole into the back of his head. How annoying.

'You must have cheated!' someone suddenly shrieked. 'No way you could have done better than Sasuke-kun!' Someone turned out to be a pink-haired girl with the voice of a banshee. Minato gave her the evil eye, unsure of how Naruto would have reacted in this situation, and the girl flinched back, surprised.

'You're right, Sakura-chan,' Either-Satoshi-Or-Tsuyoshi-Sensei said, frowning down at Minato. 'You must have cheated somehow, Uzumaki.'

Minato flushed. How on earth did one cheat in target practice? With strings? Genjutsu? Ninjutsu? It just wasn't possible!

'I didn't cheat,' he protested, as Either-Satoshi-Or-Tsuyoshi-Sensei grabbed him roughly by the arm and began dragging away from the class. 'I didn't, honestly. I just practice a lot!'

'Right,' Either-Satoshi-Or-Tsuyoshi-Sensei scoffed. 'As if I'd believe a de – boy like you.' He pulled Minato all the way to the back of the building, and shoved him into a corner there. 'Stay put,' he instructed, 'and reflect on your actions and the consequences of cheating. And if you're not here by the end of the day, there'll be hell to pay.'

Minato scowled at his back and sat himself down on the ground, letting his fingers twist into the twelve seals again. He might as well use the time constructively. School would end in another two hours anyway, and if Either-Satoshi-Or-Tsuyoshi-Sensei wasn't back by then, he would dismiss himself from school.

'Bastard,' he grumbled under his breath, and lost himself in the repetitive movements of his fingers.

0o0o0o0o

When the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, Minato waited for a good half-an-hour for Either-Satoshi-Or-Tsuyoshi-Sensei to come back. Sure enough, he didn't, and Minato huffed to himself as he left the school anyway. Training grounds it was! He had a good few hours to go before sunset.

Upon arriving at the training grounds, however, he quickly apprehended that he was not alone and, to his annoyance, that the attending party was none other than Uchiha Sasuke, standing at the edge of the small lake near the target post Minato had used earlier and firing multiple Gōkakyū no Jutsu over the water. Minato scoffed and ignored him.

Minato ran through the hand seals another fifty more times, before moving on to the next part of training: Ninjutsu.

He tried henge first. Simple enough. He would need to be proficient in it to go grocery shopping. Naruto's henge had an annoying tendency to slip, and, Minato realised, as he raised his hand to rub at his cheeks, was not nearly good enough to cover up the whisker marks.

Kawarimi came next. Naruto could replace himself with logs around his size, but nothing smaller. Minato would have to work on that too.

Finally, bunshin.

Well, shit.

Minato stared in horror at the half-dead clones lying around him. One was frothing at the mouth, another came in a shade of off white, and the last had only half a body. His chakra control was shit! The clones poofed away as Minato, swearing under his breath, headed off to the library. He needed to practice advanced chakra control and he needed a reason for knowing it, lest he draw unnecessary suspicion to himself.

Troublesome, he thought, and somewhere in the distance, Nara Shikamaru sneezed.

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A/N: A nice long chapter! Nearly four thousand words, people! The longest chapter yet! I'm actually quite proud of myself. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this one too. Updates will come at least once a week form now on, I think. Review, guys! I love reviews!

Reply to Guest: Thanks for the review! Minato-Naruto, unfortunately, will still be the 'dead-last' :( I think the Academy probably takes the entire year into account when giving the final grade, and since Naruto's been dead-last for so long, two months just isn't enough to give him a good final grade. So even if Minato aces the graduation exam, his final grade will be pulled down by the results from the rest of the year, and he'll end up dead-last anyway. But yes, he'll be kicking Sasuke's butt in a spar sometime soon, so look forward to that :P I'm glad you've been enjoying the story!