The Thousand Ninja: Chapter Four: Many Beginnings


The Growing Ninja

For the Sake of a C-Rank


~ Forenote ~

Please give thanks and tribute to Anarane Sindanari! For beta ready my story. Thanks to her efforts, author error has decreased by the majority!


Iruka was now a Jonin! His son, his sensei, and even the team they both shared, were all there to celebrate.

Naruto had been thrilled! Given that he hadn't even mentioned it to his son, the reaction the thirteen-year-old had was hilarious! Iruka hadn't see the "Happy Dance" since Naruto managed to beat Lee in a pure taijutsu match with all the limiters on him and nothing on the blue spandexed child.

His teammates were also enthusiastic. Sasuke-kun had actually bought him a gift already. Although it was Sakura-chan who had discovered he was up for promotion. They both managed to keep it from Naruto.

So they went out to eat, and celebrate.

Even Kakashi-sensei had come to congratulate him. The copy ninja's first student had finally made Jonin. He was actually proud of the Academy instructor. Or as he would be in a week, the Academy Head.

It had only been two months since they became Genin. According to Iruka, that was how long it had taken him to prepare for the exam. He still had another month before the Hokage would have forced him to go. During that next month he was still going to be training, but now he would be training against other Jonin to refine his already leveled skills.

The night went on long after dark. Sasuke and Sakura got to hear some of the stories about what Kakashi did to Iruka as a Genin. The first time he had ambushed the kid had actually been in his own home. Iruka had managed to wreck his house before Kakashi revealed his identity.

Naruto's eyebrow twitched as he recognized some of the damage he'd grownup with, when the laughing masked Jonin told them when he had done…

That whole no-jutsu-in-the-house rule was not going to fly after this!

The night ended with the five of them splitting in two. Kakashi took Sakura back to her house, while the other three simply headed to Iruka's. It wasn't the first time Sasuke had slept over… but he hadn't done so since they became Genin.

Naruto still had a night light for him in his things, and as soon as it was plugged in, they settled for the night.

0o0o0

Morning came too soon as they usually do after a night of partying. At least Naruto's dad hadn't let them drink. The two Jonin however… Naruto and Sasuke climbed out of bed and were showered, dressed and out of the house before Iruka-sensei had even been able to open his eyes.

Reaching the training ground, they saw that were not the first ones there. As usual Sakura sat in her shaded spot under the most open tree in the training ground. A small book in her hand, as she ate her breakfast. She didn't even look up from the pages to greet them. The effortless word "Morning" was all she would distract from her reading.

Unlike Sasuke and Naruto, Iruka wasn't in charge of her. She had drank plenty. "For training" as she put it. From what the boys could see her medical jutsu to metabolize the alcohol had worked. Once she had that down she would be able to drink any civilian under the table.

Their training in the mornings evolved over the last couple months as they developed.

Sakura's medical training had gotten to a fine point.

Iryojutsu as Sakura described it, was simply access and control over the bodies actions. They couldn't regrow limbs or even skin. It wasn't a fix everything solution. And like all medics, she still insisted that allowing things to heal on their own when possible was best.

In fact, Iryojutsu barely did anything.

The vast majority of life threatening injuries are only so bad because they can't reach them without making more damage or because the body reacts to the injury in a way the makes it worse. These two issues were the main challenges that medical ninjutsu resolved.

Say you have a rip in your heart, your heart will seize and you have a heart attack or it just stops. They can't see it or get to it, so you die.

The medical chakra scan would detect it, and their invasive jutsu could keep the blood flowing, prevent the signals that say panic from reaching the rest of your body, and pull the rip closed then allowing it to heal on its own, sometimes augmented by increasing cellular division with chakra to make more cells until the rip is closed. But that rip is still going to be there. And it's still going to be very weak, so no cardio stress for the next month.

Iryojutsu starts the healing process and prevents things like swelling and infection and going into shock. It allows shinobi to clot blood and seal veins, and move cells as they need without surgery. A bruise is just blood shown through your skin from burst capillaries, and they are simply tiny tube that the blood flows through, move the cells to seal the breach in the tube and that stops the blood leak.

The more advanced medics can easily repair damaged cells with specific jutsu. But it requires S-ranked or bloodline jutsu to actually regrow or regenerate. It can glue pieces of bone back in place or move them around as needed but it can't make the bone regrow or knit together. That has to happen on its own.

Currently, Sakura was almost advanced enough to begin learning the higher ranked jutsu. Her medical work had reached all the way to heart surgery. She was by far the best the village had seen in half a century.

Outside of her medical training, Sakura had been attempting to discover how the legendary medic Sanin had augmented her strength. She had made a few good strides towards discovering it, but so far no luck.

Her taijutsu was fully augmented by chakra before they even graduated. Figuring out how to water walk only increased that.

Her collection of venoms, poisons, and herbs were enough to make nearly any chemical tool the village knew of. Her garden was the stuff that even the Yamanaka envied. Not that Ino didn't play a massive part in its upkeep. Almost everything that Sakura did was shared with the blond. The only thing they didn't share were Ino's clan jutsu and Sakura's attempts to replicate the Senju's strength.

Since becoming Genin though, the pinkette had identified her elemental affinities. Equal parts of water and earth. After Iruka had been promoted she began to focus on those.

That last month of training gave her many jutsu she could use with both of them. One gathered water, or created it from her chakra, and she was also able to filter water that was already available. She could even perform the water bullet with great success.

She could make a wall of earth hard enough that even if Naruto kicked it with chakra behind his foot, it remained. Her earth submersion jutsu was passable and her Mudslide jutsu could carry poisons that would be released into the air when Sasuke's Fireball jutsu hit it.

Her most valuable skill though, was combining them and a mouth full of medical solutions to create her false skin cast.

It sealed any injury and basically healed it over time. It could have any number of layers and the outermost layer could even be hardened to the point that it could fully replace crutches.

Sasuke had fully mastered the chakra augmentation of his other senses. His chakra enhanced speed was at least chunin level. And his kenjutsu had reached the point that Kakashi-sensei had introduced him to the girlfriend of a buddy of his with a bad cough, none other than Team Three's sensei's girlfriend, also known as the cat faced anbu. Yugao Uzuki. After only two weeks working under her, the Uchiha was actually giddy about his upcoming spar with Shuzu. The girl would hand his ass to him, but it was still going to be an epic fight.

His lightning style had almost been finished. He now only needed to go through the accumulated jutsu of his clan members, and find some jutsu to learn.

Naruto on the other hand was still mastering his lightning affinity. His first attempt to create the spark between two kunai was unique… the blades had actually curved towards each other to connect rather than the static making the jump from one to another.

Sasuke told him the static frequency was too low. Meaning his conversion rate wasn't high enough.

By adding a little extra chakra to it he could create the conversion at a brute force level but his goal was to increase his skill in the conversion process, making the process require less chakra.

Static was created in two separate ways, the first was shape manipulation, in which you move your chakra in a way that gathers the ambient static around you, the next was advanced chakra conversion in which you convert your chakra into static.

Normally if you use the shape that gathers on even the smallest amount of converted chakra it would increase the result exponentially.

So the Kunai leap method was meant to prevent any shape manipulation from occurring.

The way the Uchiha told him to manipulate it was to feel his chakra splitting into two polarities. The further the polarity the higher the frequency.

If Naruto forced enough chakra into it he could raise the polarity through quantity of chakra, but if he increased the conversion rate instead then he would be pulling the converted polarities of the chakra he was using farther apart.

At the same time his training in chakra control had reached a road block. He could now circle large stones around both ankles and wrists while doing a handstand on his fingertips on the water and holding a shuriken to his forehead, he had even attached a massive boulder to his feet and began raising and lowering his legs for the exercise. But now he needed another challenge. How could he make it harder?

His dad had nothing to offer. He had been far more encumbered as academy head than as a single classroom teacher, and yet he still always made time to work with Naruto at least once every other day.

But at the same time, Team Seven's lunch was being eaten out far more than ever.

0o0o0

They had meet with almost all of the other teams since the promotion. Each managed to swing by to congratulate Naruto's dad. And not just the one's they knew either. Almost all the shinobi from the last three years.

They even got to know Team Mebuki better.

The self-appointed leader of the group was Wanaki Ren. His morally righteous attitude struck well with Sakura's overbearing mother. He was exceptional at hand to hand, and used various hand to hand type jutsu. He had even been able to help Sasuke improve his static skin jutsu.

While Ren was great at hand to hand, he had nothing on Lee in the speed department. And Naruto suspected that he had tried his hand at Roku's skill and failed. Hard.

Usi Jin was their main combat fighter. She used kenjutsu and ninjutsu both to great effect. Her dark blue hair was kept up in two tails on either side of her head. Instead of a shirt or mail, or even a bra… her bust was held in by a wrapping of combat bandages. Her tailed skirt was covered by a deep blue cloak tied around her waist.

She was a lethal killer. She had already made six kills in mission. And two outside missions. Her weapon of choice were the kusarigama. A short double sided scythe with a chain at the end of the shaft that linked to a weighted spike. She was the midrange.

Their long range fighter was Dokai kushiki, Shibiki & Kibiki's older brother. He was an information specialist. He was also a diagnosed and publicly known sociopath. None of the standard truth techniques would work on him. The only thing that ever seemed to keep him in line were his twin siblings. Even as a sociopath he was greatly protective of them. Even the best of the villages psycho analysts couldn't figure out why.

His specialty was a combination of poison, genjutsu and ranged senbon use. He was a fully capable medic, but nowhere near as skilled as Sakura.

Like all the Senior Class students, the three of them lacked the innate talent or drive that made a shinobi. Some like the clan kids were naturally gifted, others such as Team Three, spent most of their childhood working and forcing themselves to new heights. These were the ones with the drive of a shinobi. They spent almost all day every day training themselves to get stronger.

And while many of the Senior Class students were only failed for one member of their team or another, the teams were subtly formed based on the Genin's innate attributes.

Team One was a perfect example. Tenmai was a violent and rageful girl. The two boys on her team were sneaky and vindictive. None of them could work together. Meanwhile Team Two had been formed by the twins and the dweeb. All of them were intelligent and fast on the uptake.

The squad was formed from a seal master, a sensor, an escape artist, and an infiltration espionage specialist. They were a perfect team. One to get them in, one to keep a lookout, one to get them out, and one to cover their asses with sealed traps or unlock and dismantle any traps the met.

So if one of the team members were lacking, then they were probably put with others who had been lacking.

The Senior Class fixed that.

As the two teams conversed Kushiki gave Team Seven an update that brightened all of their moods.

They already had a page in the standard bingo listing for Iwa and kumo… And Sasuke was already listed in Mizu as well!

He was dubbed the Uchiha Scion, younger brother of the Raven Blade. Sakura was listed as the top ranks medic to have been created since Tsunade, even surpassing the Senju's early skills. And Naruto was The Dozen Genin. An army of rainbow colored Genin sighted doing missions around their village. Reports from their spies were unable to tell the hostile villages whether or not it was actually only one Genin, or if there was truly a dozen of them.

0o0o0

When The Squad visited they noticed a major change in the team's demeanor. Something had happened. The Inuzuka Matriarch was no longer hostile towards Mikoto. Instead the girl walked beside her proudly. The elder kunoichi's jaw held a new scarring wound. A slash starting from one side of the woman's chin and cutting diagonally upwards towards that same ear, stopping just above it.

Nikota filled them in when he dropped off Sasuke's special order. It turned out that Mikoto had had enough. The next time Tsume had tried to claw her, or smack her, or any of that, she had turned around and cut the woman's face.

That didn't bode well. Tsume had beaten her until she passed out for it. But the next day she did the exact same thing. She had even managed to cut the exact same place.

Tsume had been furious. This time she didn't knock the girl out. Instead she made it slow. And when Mikoto kept fighting back even after the Inuzuka had broken her arm, a respect had been earned.

Nikota didn't know what they spoke about that night, but their sensei hadn't bothered even dressing the cut afterwards and Mikoto was left out of the team training until her arm had been healed.

Shortly after, Kiba and Mikoto had hooked up again. Mikoto's explanation was that she had only dumped him because his mother was going to be her sensei, but since she didn't care what they were doing, there was no reason not to keep doing it.

Chibizu on the other hand, had been training like there was no tomorrow. His sensory abilities had been made unparalleled since their discovery. The only problem they had now was his lack of physical skill. Not that he didn't train, but he was simply too small. His body couldn't build any muscle mass and he didn't have the required chakra capacity to truly augment his movements.

He did however have a unique relationship with the ninken. He could understand their barks as well as any inuzuka. And he often needed their assistance to move at the pace required of their team's mission. Kuromaru was all too eager to help… Nikota secretly communicated to Naruto that there was something going on with the kid and their sensei. Something about the boy's dad.

Finally, there was Kiyoshi. Her mother had actually began doing a little better. Not much yet, but they thought that if she kept progressing as well as she had then she'd be able to recover enough to go home.

Inquiring minds finally allowed Sakura to pull up her mother's file to find out what exactly had happened… It wasn't good.

0o0o0

Team two was one of the few that didn't pay respects to Iruka-sensei. In fact, the only time Team Seven saw them was a brief run in before the team went on their first C-rank mission.

The twins were almost as sociopathic as their older brother, but it was just an act. They tried to be cool and simply ignore Team Seven, but their sensei and Kensei didn't share their calm.

The open glare Akame-sensei sent at Naruto spoke volumes to the three Genin.

Kensei tried his best to match the glare, but not knowing exactly what Naruto had done to earn it, lacked the real intent behind it.

0o0o0

It was about three weeks after his dad had been promoted that Kakashi attacked them again. This time they fared a little better.

The Jonin had been cool all day as they completed their mission in record time. He gave them some team training and they worked themselves to the bone for it. It was just as they began to head out to do their own things that the ground exploded beneath them.

The Earth Spike thrust followed all three of them as the separated to divide the targets.

Sasuke's Lighting cast sent a spread of white spears into the ground around them.

At each point his lightning struck a jet of water blasted out, soaking the area. If Sasuke used his lightning now it would be at the risk of his teammates.

Naruto was quite liberal with his wind reaver. He sliced all the spikes near him to the nub and sent a deep trench through the ground towards their center.

Kakashi finally burst out of the pit just in time to cartwheel out of the way of a well-aimed earth spike, thrown at the might of the pinkette.

The Uchiha moved in for hand to hand while Naruto's clones submersed for the Arc of the Bonfire.

Clearly outmatched, the Uchiha had to play dirty. His coated his skin in lightning and allowed his sensei to connect a hit. The resulting zap sent the man's arm back in a violent spasm. At the same time Sasuke used the momentum of the hit and his own leap to propel him out of the blast area.

The resounding concussion wave carried him ever further. Both he and Sakura submerged under the earth while Kakashi dodges the swimming clones. When the masked shinobi leapt up into the air Sakura managed to send a poison pellet at him.

It was the perfect pranking weapon in Naruto's opinion. A pellet almost the same as a smoke pellet, but with an assortment of pollens and aerosolized herbs such as Ivy and Oak and Itchberry. Basically it was the medical, and chemical equivalent of a super itch powder pellet. It caught their sensei full on. Since it wasn't a normal poison pellet his natural reaction only had limited success.

It didn't do much, but it was enough to take his edge down.

The three of them advanced in their offensive. Naruto's clones swapped with his teammates any time the Jonin got close, Sakura continued to use poison after poison on him and she even tried to use a genjutsu that would create a ringing in one's ear blocking out all sound. At the same time Sasuke fought hand to hand and used a few small fire jutsu, when Sakura's genjutsu was cast he cast one of his own that would double the opponents vision that was reinforced by Naruto's shadow clones taking the forms of his teammates.

When Kakashi tried his blinding jutsu Sasuke was able to safeguard his eyes using a particular set of goggles he had received from Nikota just for this.

The seal master had begged for help making them from his crush with the panda buns, and had asked Roku to provide her boyfriend for testing… Tokuma wasn't too happy about that. The entire creation of these goggles took weeks and almost eight different specializers.

The flash of blinding light was met with the phoenix flower jutsu, which when hit by a water spear revealed a giant shuriken coated in lightning and wind.

Naruto had infused it with all the elemental chakra he had for both elements and thrown it in the moment of blindness, Sasuke's fire jutsu formed over it hid the fact that it was infused with the other elements.

Their sensei was cut in half by the blade after two more attempts to knock it out of the air failed. The clone burst into smoke as the original stepped out. "I think it's time for a better mission."

0o0o0

They had been Genin for almost three months when they finally received their first real mission. An A-rank.

Naruto's abuse of his shadow clone jutsu permitted them to finish massive jobs in minutes.

Need your fence painted? Sasuke carried the bucket around as a single clone for each board had their own cloned brush to dip into the single paint bucket… Sakura would go over it to ensure that nothing was missed. It only took the time it would take to paint a single board.

Need dogs walked? He had enough clones to walk them all at the same time and pick up their droppings as well. He even added extra clones to the mammoth bull dog.

At the rate they were going it only took about ten minutes for them to retrieve the mission and return with it signed off.

This time however, they entered the mission hall with excitement. Their Jonin had finally requested a higher ranked mission. None of them knew what mission it was, but Kakashi-sensei had them pack for an extended trip.

Entering the mission office, they saw that their sensei was already there waiting on them. And so was Iwana Akame.

"Ah, you've arrived." The Hokage greeted them with a nod of his head.

Team two's sensei continued his debriefing. It seemed that his team had met with the demon brothers shortly after leaving the village. The duo had attacked and then fled. No injuries or casualties.

A quick questioning of the client had revealed that he was being targeted by a power hungry tyrant. And the man could easily hire better shinobi. However, the likelihood of the shinobi selected pointed towards Zabuza, the demon of the bloody mist being hired next.

Once finished he stepped aside and allowed the Hokage to address the masked Jonin.

"I understand that yesterday, when Team Two returned, you requested to continue their mission?"

The Silver haired Jonin shrugged. "It's only one real threat and the other two won't be a problem. The bounty on Momochi should more than cover the cost of the mission, I would request an assassination for this anyway so we might as well bring the old man home while we're at it."

"You can't," Akame interjected. Turning to the Hokage he pleaded, "just because he has the Uchiha and that… that thing! They are still only gen—"

"Akame!" The Hokage's sharp voice was soft, yet it seemed to bring a hushed silence to the entire room. It felt as if the temperature had dropped along with the noise level.

Shifting his eyes back to the copycat the Hokage broke the silence. "Are they ready?"

"For the demon brothers? Absolutely!" Their sensei confirmed. "For Momochi? Well... it wouldn't be much of a test if it were certain."

The Hokage didn't even appear to consider it. He nodded his head the moment Kakashi finished his own pondering words. "Very well. You leave as soon as you can collect the client from his lodging."

0o0o0

The lab was dark, its dim lighting from old wax candles, and a small oil lamp that was there specifically for proximity light needed during the operation. As he adjusted his glasses, the medic was reminded once more that his life was on the line here.

The Kaguya clan survivor held a blade to his throat. It appeared to have been made from the teen's own Ulna.

"My my, I can't wait to see exactly how that talent works…" He appeared unaffected by the threat, but he actually was very interested in how the boy had simply pulled a bone out of his forearm and turned it into a dagger.

"If he dies, so do you." The pale teen replied.

Chuckling the medic placed his palm over the body once more. Laying before him was the one who had saved his mother. The one who had stepped in before they had killed each other. The man had originally wanted her… But she wouldn't help him. Her loyalties to the village were too strong.

She didn't even believe the evidence the man had shown them.

And now, he was doing the job that the man had wanted his mother for. In exchange, they would be kept safe, and possibly he would be given his revenge on the one who set them against each other.

"I'm not worried. He's merely taking a little longer to subdue his new host than I thought he would. My adjustments to his jutsu were successful, it should have finished its process by now."

"It did." Came the rasping voice of the host body.

"Orochimaru-sama?"

"Put that away Kimimaro, Kabuto's corrections worked. This body is no longer able to reject me." The teen complied with his master's instruction and slipped the blade back into his forearm… Neat.

"So tell me Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto turned his attention away from the bone user, "will your body retain the bloodline even after you move on or will you lose it?"

The Sanin raised himself to a sitting position as he replied. "I will retain it, as long as this body does not reject me again." His grimace was clearly visible even through the bandages. "I regret the last two years I spent searching for a way to resolve the issue on my own."

"Master, please be cautious. Now that you possess this body, he will come after you again!"

Without even looking at his servant the Snake patted the Kaguya on the head. "I am aware. After my failure to capture him, it was quite fortunate we were able to get to this body before he killed the man. And with my new abilities, I should be able to match him."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Kabuto Interjected. "You may have the bloodline, but you don't have the instinct. Beyond that, his abilities were vastly greater than his clansmen already. Merely having his bloodline will not bring you up to his level on its own. At the very least you should test it…"

The Sanin's nodded in agreement. "His brother is still alive, and we know exactly where to find him… It fits perfectly into my plans for the leaf."


~ Note ~

Keep in mind that the Kyuubi attack happened differently, There were many more shinobi active and patrolling the village, and it was ripped out of Kushina inside the village and not summoned there like in canon, which means it appeared in a different location and the fourth beat it in the village. (Not cutting it in half or fighting Obito)

That means it fought different people and some who died are alive while some who lived are not. That makes a major opening for OC's And I plan on developing many of them in the story…


I know this chapter is a little smaller than the rest, however this fiction has been the weakest link out of all of my fictions. Chances are the chapters are going to stay short.

The reason Kakashi accepted, or rather. Requested the mission is because he felt his team was ready for it. All three of them were able to water walk at the beginning of the three months since, and now all three of them can use two elements each: Fire & Lightning, Wind & Lightning and Earth & Water. Sakura has been proven a genius Medic, Sasuke has come a long way from his last standing, and Naruto was ready for it since he became a Genin!

Wave arc should only be two or three chapters… at best.

Yes, Orochimaru now has the Sharingan. Remember in the previous chapter how Naruto knew about three other Uchiha? Well why take one sheltered by the leaf village when there is one on the run outside it already?


Most items in all my Naruto fan-fictions will be based off of T8: Retroversion's timeline. Many of these details will be universal across them all.

Meaning any mission or OC, or other major details will be included, based on their background and trigger events.

{This will not include Kurenai's conspiracy or Hinata's abuse}


While T8: Retroversion will be my main Fic, Five others are on my list to work on at the moment: LATE Naruto: Life After the Ends; Uzumaki: A Lone Fox; The Thousand Ninja; Village Hidden in Plain Sight; and Wisdom of Chance. Descriptions on profile.