Hi, here I am with the next update. I'm really pleased with the feedback I got for this story and with how many people read this story. Now we are going to start with the 'official' start of Naruto's career. Happy reading.
Genin Teams
Four hours after the test the Hokage and the nine jonins that would take a team this year, even Kakashi had come on time after the Hokage had threatened his Icha Icha books.
"Good, now that we are all here, we will go over the teams that will be announced to the new genin next Monday." The Hokage then proceeded to read the teams to the jonin.
"I would like for Genma to take team one, Aoba, you get team two, Inoichi, you get team three, Choma, you have team four. Isuna, team five, Makiko, you have team six. Now, Kakashi gets team seven, Kurenai, you have team eight and Asuma gets team ten." The Hokage informed them.
They nodded.
"If you have any questions about your team, ask Iruka Umino, he taught the class over the last two years. All except Kakashi are dismissed." The Hokage said.
The jonin left the office after bowing.
"What did you want to talk about with me, Hokage Sama?" Kakashi asked.
"You have the most important team of the whole year this time, Kakashi. I know that the council will force you to pass the team for Sasuke Uchiha, but I don't want you to play favourites. This is a matter of village security." The Hokage said while activating the privacy seals in the room. "ANBU, please wait outside while I brief Kakashi." He ordered.
The four hidden ANBU left the room.
"This seems to be really important, Hokage Sama." Kakashi analysed.
"It is. Do you know who Naruto Uzumaki really is?" The Hokage asked.
"Yes, he is Naruto Namikaze, Minato sensei's son." Kakashi answered nodding, his eye looking dead serious now.
"Correct. I suspected you knew. Two days ago I found out that Naruto knows about his parents and the fox. He is no genin; he should have normally already been jonin by now. But with the sabotage and hatred the civilian council shows him, he hid it. I had Asuma test Naruto today in a disguise. The boy is a prodigy. He is jonin level in ninjutsu, fuinjutsu, weapons and taijutsu. We don't really know his level in genjutsu as he is immune to lower level ones because he is a sensor and has his body covered in a chakra layer that blocks invading chakra. A medic informed me that that sometimes happens with self-taught sensors. Obviously Tsunade found out about that phenomenon. He knows basics of poisons and is really smart.
"The problem is that thanks to the idiots on the council Naruto has next to no real connection with the village. He sees me as trustworthy and likes me, but I think the only other ones that could be said about are the Ichirakus. Nobody else in the entire village. Naruto confessed that he would have run away long ago if he had had a chance. Now I know I am old. If I die and Naruto doesn't get new bonds, he will run. I give him a year at most to be able to not be caught by the ANBU anymore if they were sent to get him back. He won't let the council screw him anymore. And Naruto has inherited both his parents' talent. He is the heir of the Uzumaki, Namikaze and Senju clans. And he is more talented than even Itachi was. I don't have to tell you that we can't let him go somewhere else. I want you to train your team properly Kakashi. No being late more than half an hour. Naruto hates his team-mates, but will accept them until he can take the chunin exams in six months. So the only person he would willingly connect to, if he is treated properly, are you, his jonin sensei.
"Naruto is important for the future of the village. If he leaves, the most probable destination he could go to is Kumo. They treat their jinchuriki properly now. I don't have to tell you that it would be a catastrophe for Konoha if Kumo got Naruto in their ranks. He knows both Rasengan and the Flying Thundergod jutsu of his father. He is probably a fuinjutsu master and his ninjutsu is impressive. He has a wind affinity with a secondary water affinity and a developed lightning affinity from him developing a chakra converter seal that turned his wind chakra in lighting chakra and then training lightning jutsus. Both his normal affinities are trained. I don't know how he managed to hide his training; he was only willing to tell me he found a secret place where he lives now and trains. He also found scrolls and other things there.
"You have the next six months to get Naruto a new bond to the village. If you can, more than that. Make sure nobody screws him over on missions in the village and get the other two ready for C-rank missions ASAP. Sasuke shouldn't be a problem. The boy wants to get stronger and you should be able to break him out of his superiority ideas. I think the bigger problem will be Sakura. The girl didn't get good marks on her physical exams. The reason she became top kunoichi is that the written test was a big part of the exams and that she has perfect chakra control due to her small reserves. If you have to, break her, but team seven has to get strong soon." The Hokage impressed the importance on Kakashi.
Kakashi was really surprised. He hadn't known that Naruto was that strong, but he could understand that he had a strong dislike for the villagers. He had saved him more than once from mobs when Naruto was younger.
"I understand Hokage Sama. I will think of something to teach Naruto to keep him interested. I can also tell him more about his parents if he wants to. Do you know if he can use Kyubi's chakra?" Kakashi asked.
"No, he can't. But he can suppress it really well so far. He thinks that if he is strong enough on his own he doesn't have to rely on the dangerous chakra of the fox. He knows that he can't trust the fox. He had met it after he found out that he was the jinchuriki for Kyubi, but other than trying to get Naruto to let him out he didn't try anything so far. And Naruto is too smart to not know that if he lets the fox out, he will lose himself." The Hokage explained.
"Good. Because I wouldn't know how to teach him that. I will make sure Naruto will start to be better connected with some of his peers. I think I could get at least Asuma to arrange team sparring sessions if his team passes, which I think they will. I haven't seen any version of an Ino-Shika-Cho team that failed the genin exams. Perhaps Kurenai would also do it. Her team looks like they could pass too." Kakashi said.
"I trust you, Kakashi. We have six months until Naruto makes chunin. By the way, get back to your old level in ANBU and if possible surpass it. At the moment you are my only real option as a successor. The only others would be Jiraiya and Tsunade and I can't imagine that Tsunade would come back to the village and I fear what Jiraiya would do as Hokage. And if neither of you take the hat it will probably go to Danzo."
"I understand, Hokage Sama." Kakashi said.
"Good, you are dismissed, Kakashi." The Hokage said.
Kakashi left the office.
The day of the team placements was there and Naruto for the first time wore his new outfit. He had long black pants that were taped with dark red bandages. He wore a dark red mesh-shirt under a dark grey shirt with three quarter sleeves and a hood. He wore a dark red belt with two pouches on his back. On both of his thighs were pouches for shuriken and senbon that were strapped over black bandages. Over the shirt he wore a dark red vest with pockets specially made to store scrolls and small containers for different things. Naruto kept his poisons there. He had dark red gloves with metal plates on the back, in which he had sealed his tanto and his bo staff. The hood of his shirt hung over his vest on his back. He would only put it on for missions where his bright hair would be a hindrance.
He looked in the mirror and was happy with how he looked now. He finally looked like a real shinobi. He turned off the lights of his home and walked up the stairs. He made sure that he was alone in the alley and then left through the hidden entrance. Once the wall was back in position, he jumped up on the roof and went to the academy. He reached the classroom and took a seat in the back. Only two others were there. Hinata Hyuga and Shino Aburame. Shino gave him a short nod and Hinata turned red again when he smiled at her. Naruto didn't really understand why she always turned red, but as she was never mean like the other students, he liked her.
Shino just shook his head, seeing the display of Naruto and Hinata. Naruto was really dense sometimes. He knew Naruto wasn't as bad and stupid as he supposedly was. His allies had told him that Naruto had excellent chakra control and intentionally messed up things. He had observed Naruto after finding out that and came to the conclusion that Naruto wanted to stay at the bottom of the class for some reason. He didn't know his reason, but he respected Naruto's privacy.
Hinata was really hard pressed to not faint when Naruto walked into the class. She had been really happy when he had passed his exams. Many had thought he would fail them. Now he wore some new clothes and he looked really good in them. He obviously had hidden his muscular body under the old, bulky, orange jumpsuit. His new clothes sat tighter on his upper body and didn't leave much to imagination. How could a twelve year old boy look that good? Now the other students began filling the room. Some were surprised to see Naruto in a new outfit, but most of them ignored him. Though some girls gave him appreciative looks.
Then the daily stampede occurred. Sakura and Ino raced each other to the classroom to decide who would be allowed to sit next to Sasuke. Stupid really. They were kunoichi now, they should act like it.
Once they had entered the room they fought who had won. Naruto had enough. He had watched that embarrassment of kunoichis too long. He quickly threw a senbon at each of them and hit both their thighs. They looked shocked, then they had problems moving.
"What the?" Ino asked, then she couldn't move her lips anymore.
"Finally they are quiet." Naruto mumbled.
Only Shino and Hinata had noticed that he had thrown the senbons at Ino and Sakura and were impressed with his accuracy and the obviously paralysing agent on the senbons. When Iruka came into the class, Ino and Sakura were still paralysed. Naruto mentally counted down for the poison he used to lose its effect. It should only hold for thirty more seconds. It was only meant to paralyse for five minutes. More than enough time in a one on one fight to take out your opponent.
"What happened here?" Iruka asked.
"Well, Ino and Sakura fought who would sit next to Sasuke, then they were hit with a senbon each and were paralysed." A girl informed Iruka.
"Who did this?" Iruka asked.
Naruto raised his hand.
"Don't worry, the effect only lasts for five minutes, Iruka sensei. They should be back to normal in three, two, one, now." Naruto said.
True to Naruto's words Ino and Sakura stumbled when their muscles reacted again.
"In two minutes they are back to normal." Naruto said disinterestedly.
"Why did you do that, Naruto?" Iruka asked sternly.
"They were too loud and an embarrassment for every kunoichi that takes her profession serious. I just wanted to show them what can happen if they don't keep an eye on their environment. They didn't even think to pull out the senbons as soon as they hit them. That would have shortened the time the poison worked." Naruto said without remorse.
The whole class looked shocked. Naruto had never behaved like this. He had always been a goofball. Not this serious. The most surprised was Iruka who started to have doubts about their assessment of Naruto's skills. Over the years he had lost his hatred for Naruto. He had understood that Naruto wasn't the fox and never treated him worse than his other students. He even admired how the boy persevered despite the hatred of the villagers.
"Nonetheless, it's wrong to attack your comrades." Iruka said.
"That wasn't an attack; that was a rescue mission for the ears of those that have sensitive hearing and easily get headaches. If I would have wanted to attack them, they would be dead now." Naruto countered. "I would just have had to use a deadly poison instead of a paralysing one or aimed at a vital point. With their reaction times they would be dead before help would have arrived."
Iruka couldn't say anything against that. Naruto was right. He could have easily killed them. He wondered why the boy had changed so dramatically.
"Well, sit down, Ino and Sakura, we will start with the team placements." Iruka said.
Grumbling the two girls took seats, ironically on both sides of Sasuke.
Iruka gave his class a speech how proud he was of them for graduating and how the real life of ninjas now waited for them. He told them to do their best and then proceeded to read out the teams.
"…, team seven, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno,…" with that Sakura's head crashed onto the table and Ino mocked her "…and Sasuke Uchiha." Sakura cheered.
"Take that Ino Pig. True love conquers all." She shouted loudly only to be hit with a senbon again. This time in her shoulder. She turned around to shout at Naruto only to be paralysed again.
"Don't worry, that will take five minutes to wear off again. You can continue Iruka sensei." Naruto said, shaking his head at Sakura's idiocy. He had told her to first take out the senbon.
Iruka just shook his head and wondered about the display of accuracy from Naruto. That point was where normally a vein was. Did he know anatomy that well? He hadn't shown anything like that before.
"Team eight, Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame." Iruka said and the three looked at each other. "Team nine is still active, so team ten are Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi and Ino Yamanaka."
"What? Why do I get the lazy ass and the one who only eats when forehead girl gets to be on Sasuke's team?" She ranted, only to be hit with another senbon into her hip.
She grabbed the senbon and pulled it out and turned angrily to Naruto. But she couldn't even start her rant because she was paralysed.
"Better. Three minutes, at least she remembered to take out the senbon quickly." Naruto commented.
"Naruto, please refrain from paralysing your comrades." Iruka admonished him.
"Why should I? And I only use the term comrades very loosely with most of the class." Naruto said. "You don't honestly expect me to treat them any different than they did me all those years? If you did, forget it! I have had it with the shit!" Naruto stated.
Iruka was worried. Naruto clearly bore a strong dislike for most of the class. It was understandable, but why did he show it now? Was the fox taking over?
"Hah, what could a dead last like you do to us?" The son of a shop owner that always kicked Naruto out asked.
Naruto answered by vanishing from his seat and holding a kunai to the boy's throat.
"Don't underestimate me. You know nothing about me. I dare you to live one day of my life. You will want to kill yourself. You are not even close to strong enough to get through." Naruto said in a low voice.
"Naruto, that's enough." Iruka shouted.
"He asked for it." Naruto answered and vanished again to return to his seat.
In his seat Sasuke was seething. How could the dead last have those abilities? Only he, an Uchiha should have them. He was the Rookie of the Year. Normally Sakura would have yelled at Naruto to stop trying to be cool, but she couldn't, the poison still worked. Then Ino's paralysis stopped. She first wanted to yell at him, but thought better of it and sat down. Twice having been hit with senbons and being paralysed was enough. And Naruto would obviously do it again if he felt they were too loud.
Half an hour after the other teams had been taken by their jonin senseis team seven still sat in the classroom. Sasuke was busy glaring at Naruto, Sakura was mooning over Sasuke and Naruto was drawing in a notebook. He was working on a new seal and everything was better than having to deal with his so called team-mates. Then the door opened and a silver haired man with gravity defying hair came in. Naruto looked up. He recognized the man. He was the jonin he had copied the shadow clone jutsu from. He was Kakashi Hatake, one of the best jonin in the village. His dad's old student. It seemed like the Hokage had kept his word and given him a sensei who wouldn't hate him for the fox. Kakashi had to know about sealing and perhaps he even knew that he was the Yondaime's son.
"Hm, my first impression, you are boring. Meet me at the roof in five minutes." He said and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Sasuke and Sakura stood up and walked out of the room. Naruto waited a moment and then followed. If there were traps on the way, the two idiots would trigger them. He would stay alert. It was always better to be on guard and over the years it had become second nature to him. He heard cursing in front of him. Obviously Kakashi's lateness had had a reason. True to his suspicions, Sakura was trapped in a sling of ninja wire around her feet and dangling from the ceiling. Sasuke was pinned to the wall with two shuriken through his sleeves.
"You really should listen better. I told you to always be on guard. There were only a few reasons our sensei would be late and preparing a small test with traps was one of them." He said. He threw a kunai at the wire that held Sakura in the air and made her fall to the ground. "Get the bastard freed and follow me." He said and walked on.
On the way he lazily disabled two more traps. Then they reached the door to the roof. Naruto carefully checked for more traps on the door and found none. He opened it a little bit, only for Sakura shoving him out of the way being impatient. She shouted they would be late. Naruto threw himself down when he felt projectiles coming at them. Sasuke, who had seen that there would be traps to expect, followed Naruto's example. Both avoided being hit.
Naruto rolled out of the line of fire and was ready to defend himself in case of an attack. He saw that Sakura was pierced by five senbons and whining. Sasuke behind him was also ready for another attack.
"Well, my second impression is, we need to work on your speed in disabling or avoiding traps. You are late. You needed six and a half minutes to get here. But I have to acknowledge that you at least got here as a team. Even if the girl shouldn't have got that impatient. Better being late than dead. If I was an enemy I could have killed you easily. Which leads us to my next question, what was your first mistake?" Kakashi asked, looking sternly at them.
"Taking the route you expected us to take. We could have avoided this by using another route. The best way would have been if we had used chakra to stick to the wall and climbed up here. But as two of us don't know this exercise and we are supposed to be a team we had to take the only other route." Naruto said.
"Correct. That exercise will be one of the first things you will learn during your time as genin. That is if you manage to become genin." Kakashi said eye smiling.
"What do you mean, if we manage to become genin? We graduated, so we are genin!" Sakura said.
"No, not yet, but I will tell you about that later. Sit down." Kakashi instructed them.
He pointed at three benches in front of him. The three sat down with Naruto checking the underside of his bench for traps but not finding any. Kakashi nodded appreciatively at Naruto's action.
"For now I want you to give me a short introduction of yourselves. Name, age, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams. Pinky you start." Kakashi ordered.
Sakura looked confused.
"How should we do that, sensei? Couldn't you start to give an example?" She asked.
"What does Shinobi rule number three say? Blacky." Kakashi said, ignoring Sakura's question.
"A ninja has to always follow a direct order of his superior." Sasuke answered.
"Correct." Kakashi answered.
Sasuke was impressed with this jonin. He clearly knew what he did and had a no nonsense attitude. Perhaps this would work out well. He would see how strong he was.
"So, Pinky, I gave you a direct order and I expect you to follow my orders or you should just quit being a ninja."
Sakura nodded intimidated by Kakashi.
"Yes, sensei. My name is Sakura Haruno. I am twelve years old. The thing I like, more the person I like is …." She looked at Sasuke and blushed "… my hobby is…" she again looked at Sasuke and blushed harder and giggled "…my dream is…" she looked at Sasuke and squealed.
"Your dislike?" Kakashi asked annoyed. He just had to get a fangirl.
"Ino Pig and Naruto!" She shouted.
"We will have to work on your attitude. Shinobi rule number twenty five, Blondie?"
"A ninja never shows his emotions." Naruto recited calmly.
"Correct." Kakashi said.
Sasuke was surprised. He didn't think Naruto had paid attention in class. And then his new skills. Why was Naruto so different than before? He would find it out.
Sakura huffed. She had the right to show her love to Sasuke.
"Okay, next is Blacky." Kakashi said.
Sasuke obviously disliked the nickname but kept quiet.
"Sasuke Uchiha, twelve years old. I like nothing in particular and have many things I dislike. My hobby is training. I don't have a dream, more of an ambition, I will resurrect the Uchiha clan and I will kill a certain somebody." He stated.
Sakura had hearts in her eyes, thinking Sasuke was so cool. Naruto rolled his eyes. The emo had no reason to be all egoistical and full of hate. He was treated like a pampered prince in the village. Kakashi had expected something like that.
"Okay, next Blondie." Kakashi continued.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I am twelve years old. I like the old man and Ichiraku's. I dislike most of the villagers, especially those that can't distinguish a scroll and a kunai. My hobby is training and gardening. My dream is to become the strongest ninja ever and show this village just how much they screwed up." Naruto said.
'He really is different from what his file said, but Hokage Sama warned me. If we don't get him out of the darkness, he could become a problem for the village. Not that I can blame him.' Kakashi thought.
"Okay, my name is Kakashi Hatake, I'm twenty six years old. My likes and dislikes are none of your concern for now. I have many hobbies and my dream, I never really thought about it." He told them.
'The only thing we found out was his name and his age.' Sasuke and Sakura thought.
'I know that voice from somewhere.' Naruto thought, trying to place the voice of his sensei.
"Now that introductions are over, I will come to the part that you aren't genin yet. There is a rule in the village that all genin have to be confirmed by their respective jonin senseis. Each sensei gives his team a test. And from the twenty seven genin that passed the graduation exams in your year only nine will be accepted as genin. That means this test has a probability of failure of sixty-seven per cent." Kakashi pointed out.
"What? But what was the meaning of the exams then?" Sakura protested. There was no way in hell she would give up being on the same team as Sasuke.
"That was to weed out the hopeless cases. The only one that has a say if you become genin or not am I." Kakashi said giving an imposing figure with his arms stemmed at his sides and looking down at them.
Naruto's memory finally connected the voice and the pose.
'Dog?' He questioned mentally.
Dog had been an ANBU that had often protected him when he was younger. Naruto really hoped his sensei was his old ANBU guard. He had really liked dog, especially as the man had often given him some sweets to help him over the shock after attacks. Kakashi handed them a piece of paper with information.
"The test will be tomorrow morning at seven at training ground three. Bring all your equipment. Oh, and you better don't eat breakfast or you will just throw up." Kakashi informed them.
Then Kakashi disappeared in a cloud of smoke again. Sasuke stood up and walked away, Sakura closely behind him to try and get a date with him. Naruto wondered how long it would take for her to be killed on a mission like that. He decided preparation was necessary and used the body flicker to get to training ground three. He spent three hours inspecting the training ground to be prepared for the next day. He didn't know if his so called team-mates would remember the lesson about knowing the terrain before a fight, but he did know that they wouldn't listen if he told them about it.
Naruto then went into the woods to a river where he knew tasty fish could be caught. He caught three fishes for his dinner, went to his field to get some fresh vegetables and then went to prepare his food. A small campfire and an hour of cooking later, he had grilled fish and roasted vegetables. He ate and then extinguished the fire. On his way home he took to the roofs to avoid the glares from the villagers. He also didn't want to be found by messengers of the council. They would surely bitch about his behaviour in class. Well, let them bitch. He was a ninja under the command of the Hokage; they had no power over him.
Kakashi had observed Naruto after the meeting was over. He was positively surprised that he went to the training ground where the test would be to get an idea which environment he would have to work with. After that he caught himself some fish and disappeared somewhere else. Kakashi let him go. It wouldn't be good if Naruto thought he followed him. He needed to gain Naruto's trust to help him. From his estimation the team meeting had gone well enough. Naruto was good and knew how to act as a ninja. Sasuke needed to get over his complexes. The best way to get there would be to practically isolate him from the village until the chunin exams. So he would have to carefully choose the D-Rank missions his team did. No missions inside the village where the villagers could show their bias against Naruto and towards Sasuke.
But at least Sasuke had the necessary skill to be a ninja. Attitudes could be corrected over time. Getting skills that should have been taught in the academy to an appropriate level was harder. Sakura would have to go through hell. She didn't consider her surroundings, she was loud, had a superiority complex towards Naruto and was a fangirl. Really bad combination. He would see her skills in a battle situation tomorrow. But he didn't expect much.
So that's it for today. See you in two weeks.