Disclaimer: The set of things which I do not own, along with an accordian, dress shoes and any particularly valuable novelty coins, also includes Naruto.
Shinigan
Chapter 3
Naruto burst into the mission room at the Hokage Tower, pushing close behind Kakashi. The old man sat there, in the middle of the table, Iruka-sensei beside him, both flanked by a few people Naruto didn't know. Sasuke-teme and Sakura followed behind him, with somewhat more dignity, but both were still visibly excited about their first mission.
They lined up in a rank facing the table, Kakashi at one end. "Hokage-sama, Team Seven ready for duty."
The Hokage smiled slightly and picked up a sheet of paper from the tabletop in front of him. It was all Naruto could do to avoid loudly proclaiming his enthusiasm and anticipation. In pursuit of some remnant of dignity, he confined his excited ranting to his own thoughts. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! What do we get to do today? Will we get to fight someone? Wow!
He almost missed the Hokage's reading off the sheet. "Available missions for Team Seven. Moving of heavy objects in warehouses of Tsukuda Kouta. General services, including garden chores, babysitting, and grocery shopping, provided to the Shizuka family. Retrieval of the cat 'Tora' belonging to the wife of the Fire Daimyo. Is there a preference?"
Naruto's face fell, and his fidgety demeanor shifted instantly to a crestfallen one. He opened his mouth to protest, but Sasuke, standing beside him, poked him in the ribs and preempted it. Sasuke's expression had also shifted, though less dramatically, from the almost-grin he had previously worn to his usual annoyed flat affect. Kakashi, the Hokage, Iruka, and the only other person at the mission table wearing a hitai-ite were all watching the three genin with identical expressions of dark amusement.
Kakashi selected one of the mission slips from the table. "The cat, I believe. That should prove a challenge."
The three dismayed genin turned and followed him out of the room.
XxXxX
Team Seven walked back into the mission room, Naruto carrying a disgruntled and beribboned cat. All three of the genin had scratch marks on their arms and faces; Kakashi, of course, was untouched.
"Team Seven, reporting mission complete," said Kakashi, stowing the little orange book behind his back.
A woman who could only be described as precisely the sort of person who would attach ribbons to a perfectly healthy cat, then repeatedly hire ninjas to recover it when it ran away, was standing by the mission table. She rushed forward and grabbed the cat from Naruto.
"Oh, my sweet little Tora! Mommy was so worried about you! How could you worry Mommy so?" she said in an indescribably annoying, squeaky voice, hugging the cat tightly against her chest. The cat made a resigned meowling noise, fighting weakly for room to breathe. The genin, as if by previous accord, looked pointedly away.
After several more such pointless eruptions, the woman paid the clerk who sat next to the Hokage at the table and walked out with her cruelly imprisoned cat. The genin looked at Kakashi, who rubbed the back of his head and grinned.
"Uh, it's up to the jounin-sensei what we do in terms of missions...so, do any of you want to do another mission today?"
The three genin were unanimous in their immediate negative responses.
"All right, then. You're off on your own recognizance today. Meet again here tomorrow for missions." He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, apparently taking 'on your own recognizance' seriously. Sasuke stared at the place where he had been for a moment, then shrugged and walked out. Naruto and Sakura followed.
Sakura peeled off to destinations of her own once they left the building. Naruto was about to do the same, but Sasuke beckoned him along with him. Naruto, not actually having anything else to do, followed.
Sasuke was silent until they reached one of the training grounds, one nearer in than the large one where they had had their bell test, but still only little frequented. Then he turned to face Naruto.
Both of them began speaking at once, then broke off; Naruto gestured for Sasuke to speak first.
"When you told Kakashi about how last time you fought all out you didn't like what happened, what were you talking about?"
Naruto sighed, glancing around. "Wow, it couldn't be a nice simple question..." he said. Then looked up at the sky. "I'm not sure how much of it I can actually tell you, some of it might be village secrets. Leaving out anything specific, I was attacked by a traitor to the village. He had reason to believe from his previous experience that I was a worthless fighter. He came at me with intent to kill; I did the shadow clone jutsu and hit him with about a hundred exploding tags. Same as I did against Kakashi, except this guy didn't kawarimi out of it, he just got...really, really badly mangled. It was kind of ugly."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "A traitor? What was he ranked?"
"Chuunin rank. He underestimated me. I probably couldn't have gotten him that badly if he'd been cautious from the start. I got lucky."
Sasuke nodded.
Naruto waited a moment before asking his own question. "So, when you said when you introduced yourself—that you were going to kill a certain person. And it was in connection with your clan. Did you mean who I thought you meant?"
Sasuke's face went bleak. "I meant my older brother, yes. I see you've heard of him?"
Naruto nodded in return. "Yeah. He's..." He paused for a long second. "That's some ambition you've got there, teme."
"It is." Sasuke's voice was flat, and he regarded the ground for a time. Then he looked up, his face losing the bleakness it had attained.
"I'd like to fight you."
Naruto nodded. "If you want. You wanna set rules?"
Sasuke grinned. "I thought at first we'd leave ninjutsu out of it. So no, um, pulling armies out of your back pocket, and I won't be shooting any fireballs at you."
Naruto assumed a ready stance. "You're probably going to win this one, then. You were always better than me at taijutsu."
Sasuke dropped into his own stance. "Let's see."
XxXxX
Naruto walked back along the path from the training ground, exhilarated. Sasuke was good! Their early taijutsu matches had gone all his way, and while if he was allowed clones he could usually pull him down by force of numbers, it wasn't really a fair match; neither of them could use their potentially-deadly techniques, fireballs or explosive tags.
The training ground Sasuke had chosen was quite a ways out from the village. Sasuke had gone off after their match to do something insufficiently specified, but whatever it was took him away from the village proper. That left Naruto walking back along the line of training fields on his own, the sun setting behind him, bathing the scene in a ruddy light and casting long shadows ahead of everything he saw.
He saw a figure on the road ahead of him, moving more slowly than he, and as he approached he saw that it was familiar. He broke into a run.
"Hey, Hinata-chan!" he said, coming up beside her and slowing down to her pace.
She looked at him and smiled, blushing slightly, though it was difficult to see with her face in shadow. "Hello, Naruto-kun."
"So, Hinata-chan, are you doing missions now? What's your team like? Who's your sensei?" The questions came quickly, Naruto almost cutting himself off in his haste.
She almost giggled at his distractible enthusiasm. "We started missions yesterday. My team seems pleasant enough. Our sensei is someone named Kurenai. She's a genjutsu specialist."
Naruto grinned. "Cool! Hey, Hinata-chan, I was wondering if you'd like to get together tomorrow or something and work out a bit? Because I need to get faster at taijutsu, and you're the fastest person I've ever fought, and..." He paused, for some reason reluctant to finish: because it's fun to spend time with you. Instead, he just cut himself off. "So yeah!"
Hinata ducked her head and blushed brighter. "I-I guess I could do that..."
Naruto grinned. "Thanks! How are your missions going?"
Hinata smiled. "Well enough, I suppose...it's just little jobs, like moving things around or doing chores for people. Not difficult..."
Naruto made a mock pout. "Yeah, we had to catch this cat...who's kind of nasty, and we have to avoid hurting it at all, so it just scratched the heck out of us." He glanced down at his arm, where there had been a moderately nasty claw wound, but it was gone. "Huh. Anyway, we did this teamwork exercise with Kakashi yesterday, so didn't do a mission then. And I just fought Sasuke. He's, like, really good, even better than I thought seeing him in the Academy. He kind of beat me up." A look of concern crossed Hinata's face, and she opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it. Naruto did not notice. "That's...one reason why I wanted to spar with you, because you're the only person I've ever seen who's faster than he is." Naruto grinned at her.
Hinata ducked down, hunching her shoulders. "I...I h-hope I can help you, N-Naruto-kun..." she said. Naruto looked at her, hearing her sudden hesitation.
"Oh, it'll help a lot, Hinata-chan! I could never hit you in the Academy, so I figure if I get fast enough to actually land a punch on you I'll be able to beat Sasuke-teme easy."
Hinata gave him a tremulous smile. "I hope so..."
He grinned. "It'll be great!" He looked up, noticing the sudden change in the light; the sun had set. "Oh, drat...I've got to go, Hinata-chan. I wanted to meet someone, and they might leave soon. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
Hinata nodded. "Goodbye, Naruto-kun..."
Naruto grinned and ran ahead.
XxXxX
The Hokage was filling out another sheet in the reams of paperwork that the office of Hokage required when the door opened. He looked up and saw Naruto walking into the room. Putting down his pencil, he smiled as the boy sat down. "Hello, Naruto. What is it?"
Naruto grinned at him. "Ne, Ojiisan, I was wondering something. Could you teach me that darkness trick that you used on me when I was going crazy about the lines?"
The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "I could. Is there a reason you want to learn it?"
"Well..." Naruto paused. "I was using the shadow clones a lot when Kakashi tested us yesterday, used up a bunch of chakra, and started seeing the lines again. And this time I used up more, so I didn't stop seeing them before stuff started falling apart on me." He shivered, but continued. "If that's going to happen every time I use a lot of chakra...I can try to start dealing with the side effects on their own, but I'd like to be able to turn off my eyes if I need to."
The Hokage nodded. "Very well, then. I can teach you that. You should be able to learn it pretty quickly; I'll find a time when I can teach you, perhaps later this week."
Naruto grinned brightly. "Thanks, ojiisan!"
The Hokage smiled back at him. "It's no problem, Naruto. Oh, and there's another thing I was going to tell you, which I might as well tell you now. Now that you're a genin, I'm giving you authorization to look at the level three sealing manuals."
Naruto, already grinning, grinned wider, so much that the Hokage might have been afraid his head would split open. "Hey! Cool! I've been wanting those! Thanks a lot, ojiisan!"
The Hokage held up one finger. "Ah, but one condition. The level three books have some instructions for, among other things, trap seals that can activate automatically when they sense a chakra signature nearby. You've caused enough havoc by jury-rigging hand-triggered seals. Before I let you look at the level three books, I want your promise that you won't use seals for any more pranks. That includes clever little traps for your sensei. All right?"
Naruto pouted. "Ojiisaaaan...that makes it no fun!"
The Hokage suppressed a smile. "Fun or no fun, that's the condition. There are laws against attacking people, Naruto, and using fuinjutsu in a trap looks a whole lot more like an attack than a harmless prank. I know you don't mean it that way, but it's something that the council can say, and they don't like you already. Which means that I have to deal with a bunch of idiots loudly clamoring for your head. So no more seal traps. Got it?"
Naruto hung his head. "Got it. Thanks for the level three authorization, anyway, ojiisan."
The Hokage nodded. "You're welcome. And your promise?"
Naruto rolled his eyes. "I promise not to use fuinjutsu in any pranks or traps laid for people who are not enemies to Konoha. All right?"
"Perfectly. Thank you, Naruto." The Hokage smiled at him.
Naruto grinned himself and walked out of the office.
XxXxX
Naruto found Hinata at one of the training grounds the next day, right after their mandatory D-rank grunt work. He came up behind her and greeted her rather loudly, eliciting a jump and a squeak.
"Oh! Hello, Naruto-kun! I d-didn't see you, I'm sorry..."
"It's no problem, Hinata-chan. I was, uh, kind of trying to surprise you."
"I...I shouldn't have been surprised..." she mumbled as they walked over to the sparring ground. Naruto did not seem to hear her. Instead, they took up positions across from each other on one set of starting lines, and both bowed. Naruto took what seemed to be the usual Academy position, while Hinata, for the first time in sparring with him, stood in the Juuken stance, activating her eyes as she did so. Naruto looked at her quizzically for a moment.
"Hinata-chan, what's that stance? I've never seen it before."
She blushed, but did not break her stance to look away. "This is the Jyuuken stance...it's for the Hyuuga taijutsu style...it's against the rules for me to use it in the Academy, so people won't know too much about it, but I can use it now."
Naruto grinned. "Hey, cool, Jyuuken! Let's see!" Without further discussion, he launched into one of the standard Academy attack flows, aiming a straight punch at her face while prepared to follow up quickly after a block. Hinata, from her lower stance, brought one hand around in what looked like an oddly reversed standard block. However, her palm hitting his wrist, she pushed a small spike of chakra into it as she slapped it aside. Naruto quickly took a step back, shaking his hand.
"Wow! That's neat! I guess," he said, moving his hand around and individually flexing his fingers, "that that's a weak version of the chakra," he waved his hands around vaguely, "thing? Cause I read in the Archive that Jyuuken strikes should more or less paralyze what they hit, and that was only a little bit worse than hitting my elbow wrong."
Hinata nodded, returning to her ready stance. "Yes...if I push too much chakra, it can do permanent damage...so when we spar it's just minor strikes. I-is that...a problem?"
"No! No problem! I like having the use of my limbs." Naruto shot her a grin. Then he attacked again, this time feinting into a kick. She blocked, spiking his calf this time. He pulled back, massaging his leg, then advanced again. This time, instead of feinting, or drawing back from the painful spikes, he swung twice, then simply jumped at her, leading with one shoulder. She was bowled off her feet, and they both ended up on the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Naruto began to laugh. He took a moment to disentangle himself, then rolled off of her, pushing himself up—a little harder with the blows he had taken to the arms in setting up his tackle. "Well, that's one way to get through that defense of yours."
Hinata had been blushing vigorously throughout, but here she giggled slightly and met his eyes. "Ano...it would not be good to do that in a fight...if someone was trying to kill you they could have hit you in the back there..."
Naruto grinned. "Figures. Ah, well, I'll figure something out."
They sparred for some hours. By the end of it, Hinata was tired and pouring sweat. Naruto breathed heavily for a few moments after each exchange—longer if she happened to have hit his lungs that time—but recovered quickly; when they finished, he was red-faced but seemed no less energetic than when they began.
She stood back from the line, seeing the sun set. "Ano...I have to go, I'm sorry..." she said, looking down.
He grinned. "No problem! You're really good, you know! That Jyuuken is great! You could beat Sasuke-teme easy!"
She smiled at him as she left, but she did not say what she was thinking: that with the Jyuuken, what he had described was no real achievement, and for a Hyuuga, she was weak.
XxXxX
So it went. Team Seven routinely did D-rank missions in the morning; some were boring and routine, such as, apparently every other day, finding the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat. Others were more interesting. One day, they were called to clear a field of the tall, scrubby weeds that had grown on it. Sasuke had immediately sought permission from Kakashi to use fireballs on it, and on gaining it had taken great pleasure in scouring the entire area clean. That was one of their quicker missions.
Several days after the Hokage had taught him the Kokuangyo no Jutsu, the darkness genjutsu that Naruto could use to turn off his eyes if he needed to, he sat in a training area, ready to try something.
First, he created a mob of shadow clones. This time, instead of using them in concert to attack another, he simply had them all fight to the, well, dispersion, joining in fully himself. After some minutes of bright orange cacophony, the field was empty again, and Naruto was panting and bruised. Then, allowing himself no more than thirty seconds rest time, he did it again. Then again.
It took five iterations of this before he was feeling as exhausted as he had after Kakashi's bell test, and that surprised him. I only made three mobs of that size when I fought Kakashi, and I was just about falling down. Am I getting stronger? Thin lines had manifested faintly on the surfaces of things after the fourth try, but after the fifth they were again dark and omnipresent, ominous in their potential. Naruto shivered slightly on seeing them, but suppressed the reaction and sat under a tree. He closed his eyes and shouted in his mind. Hey! Idiot fox! You want to tell me some things?
And a voice sounded in his mind, greater than his own, darkly amused. Your wish is my command, whelp. And he felt his consciousness slipping away, and he fell over and slept.
XxXxX
He woke in a dimly lit hallway, water on the ground. He was lying face down, but the water was only a fraction of an inch deep; it did not reach his mouth or nose, merely making him rather wet. As he stood, he looked around. A hole in the ceiling emitted oddly yellow light. There were cross-passages every few feet, and the ceiling was covered in pipes whose purpose was not clear.
A loud rumbling noise came from one direction, and a breath of air washed over him, smelling...not quite foul, but fetid and odd. Where the hell am I? I was just trying to speak to the fox, and I wind up here? He looked around again. He had no idea where he was or where he should go, but the direction of that odd wind seemed as good as any—that at least implied that there was something at the end.
He set off, down the main hallway, three passages down, and then turned. This side passage went on straight for only some tens of feet, then ended. It left him in a huge, high-ceilinged room whose floor was still covered in water. A huge gate, stretching across most of one wall and all the way from the floor to the ceiling, stood before him. Its two sides were, oddly enough, joined only by a piece of paper with the word 'seal' written on it—as it would be used for certain types of prison seal that were only discussed in the abstract in any sources he had read.
He approached the gate, it being the most interesting thing he had seen here so far. As he walked toward it, he felt another rush of air over him—stronger, this time, and stronger smelling. It accompanied a repetition of the earlier rumbling—but, this time, he could hear it better, and identified it as something very large, breathing.
He froze, only then putting the pieces together, just as a huge pair of eyes appeared behind the gate over a wide, toothy grin. As he watched, the whole of it became shrouded in red fire, which burned heatlessly as it spoke.
"Hello, whelp. You wanted to see me?" The words were laced with poisonous laughter.
Naruto looked at it, frozen, and tried desperately to collect himself. "You're the fox."
There was a sound of laughter, this time, but its humor was dark. "Astute of you to have noticed."
Naruto drew himself up, his annoyance warring with his fear. "Hey! I have some questions for you!"
"Ask and you shall receive, WHELP."
Naruto stuttered, suddenly off balance, then spoke again. "What's with all these lines?"
"Have I not already given you this answer? The lines are DEATH. If you cut a thing along its lines, it will be cut. If you stab a thing in its points, it will be destroyed."
"All right, but why am I seeing them?"
"You see with my eyes, WHELP. As I am trapped here, my power affects you."
Naruto frowned. "All right...wait, points? What are those?"
The fox laughed again. "You do not see them? Simply wait, WHELP."
Naruto shook his head, confused, then tried again. "Why does it drive me crazy after a while?"
"You think a human can see with a demon's eyes and suffer no ill effects? Be glad that you can use it for the little time you can, WHELP!" This time there was a long, dark laugh, sounding more truly amused at this than at anything before.
The fox's laugh was frightening. Naruto stood up straight and attempted to shrug the effect off, but his voice was less brash. "That's great, now where am I and how do I get out?"
The fox laughed again. "Oh, I will send you away, WHELP. But hear this. You will require POWER or else you will DIE. My presence within you thrusts you onto a GREATER STAGE. Merely always know, that without me you would be HELPLESS!"
And again consciousness slipped away, and again he slept.
XxXxX
Sakura debated with herself whether to proceed. She had decided to approach Kakashi after their mission that day, but now she was less sure of herself. For one thing, he had simply gone to an empty training ground after their mission and sat, reading a book with a bright orange cover. While this was convenient for her, it was most certainly not part of his daily routine. Had he anticipated her request that day? If so, it was...accommodating of him to act so obligingly, but a little bit creepy that he could read her so well.
She eventually realized that to avoid it would be futile; he had to be aware of her presence, simply standing lamely in the street near the training ground. If she left, he would simply know that she didn't have the courage to approach him, and how pathetic was that?
Sasuke-kun. Need to get stronger. Just think about that. With that, she stepped onto the training ground and walked toward him. He looked up at her when she approached and stowed the book behind his back.
(How was he storing all that? Whenever he got anything out, he just pulled it from behind him, as if someone was obligingly hiding in his kunai pouch and handing him things. Weird.)
"Kakashi-sensei?"
"Yes, Sakura?"
"Uh...sensei, I was wondering...what can you show me to make me stronger?"
"Well, that depends. What are you good at? If I recall correctly your scores...weak taijutsu, moderate chakra capacity, good chakra control. Is that right?"
She nodded hesitantly.
"Well, if you're good at chakra control, the things that immediately present themselves are genjutsu and medical training. Medic training usually waits until you're a chuunin, but genjutsu...I can show you some genjutsu. Also, if you increase your capacity some, you can do some interesting things with standard jutsu. That'll just be training."
She nodded again, somewhat more confidently. "Genjutsu, then?"
He stood up. "Let's begin."
XxXxX
Naruto stood across from Sasuke at the training ground, a now-familiar position. His afternoons after missions were basically evenly split between sparring with Sasuke and sparring with Hinata; the latter had made him significantly faster, requiring that he fully dodge blows due to the impossibility of conventionally blocking a juuken strike, while the former had, well, increased his tolerance for sarcasm.
This was the third fight of the day. The first two had been plain taijutsu, and as usual, Sasuke had won both, though that was getting to take longer and longer. Now, Naruto grinned, because he was able now to use shadow clones.
He formed a crossed hand seal and focused his chakra, this time eschewing the voiced repetition of the technique. A dozen clones formed around him, including him in the mob. They all charged in unison with a yell.
Sasuke held his ground. He was used to this, by now. The first clone reached him, and he dispelled it with a single punch. The second, likewise, though this one got in a blow to his shoulder first. The third one was Naruto himself. He took a punch to the face, which hurt, and Sasuke turned away, thinking he was a clone who would dispel. This proved a mistake. Naruto jumped on him from behind, grabbing him in a full nelson like he had Kakashi during the bell test. Sasuke, unfortunately, was not so adept with his kawarimi as Kakashi was, and Naruto's grip prevented him from using hand seals. Sasuke took three blows to the face before he could dispel the attacking clone with a kick. Then he jumped up and backwards, landing hard on his back—or rather, on Naruto. Naruto yelped, his grip broken, and Sasuke scrambled up to deal with the rest of the clones. They were charging as Sasuke finished his hand seals; they were all but one caught in his fireball, a weakened version that would dispel clones but not severely injure Naruto himself.
The remaining clone, who had been a few steps behind the others, charged through the smoke of their demise and jumped at Sasuke, yelling. Sasuke, who had paused for a moment to breathe after the chakra-intensive fireball technique, caught the first kick and threw an uncharacteristically sloppy counterpunch. The clone ducked under it and slammed a fist into the Uchiha's stomach.
Sasuke folded around the blow, but retained the presence of mind to slam a vicious headbutt into the clone's own head, dispelling it. He straightened up slowly, one arm across his solar plexus, and saw Naruto, now standing, jump up. He looked up, tracking Naruto's motion, and caught the first downward kick on his other, upraised arm. Naruto, moving as if in slow motion, pulled his legs up as the support of Sasuke's arm failed, and, as he fell, brought one knee up into the other genin's face.
He pulled the blow at the last moment, but there was still a startling crack. Naruto landed and jumped backwards, but Sasuke held up one hand in token of surrender as he pressed the other to his nose. As he removed it, Naruto saw his nose bent to one side, a trickle of blood running down.
He winced. "That looks nasty. You all right, teme?"
Sasuke nodded, not speaking. He took one deep breath (through his mouth, Naruto saw) and moved his nose slowly back straight. To his credit, he remained silent throughout, though he clenched his teeth.
He took a moment before speaking again, his voice oddly nasal. "Nicely done, dobe."
Naruto grinned. "You gonna have that looked at?"
Sasuke nodded. "I guess so. Can't really fight like this, anyway."
They walked off the field side by side, Naruto feeling a little bit smug about duplicating on the perpetually arrogant Uchiha the same sorts of wounds that he had taken in their taijutsu-only matches.
XxXxX
Team Seven was, for a change of pace, looking for the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat. Again. Naruto had started using large numbers of clones to search for the dratted beast, but a clone couldn't reliably catch the thing—it was vicious enough in its scratching that it could dispel a clone, and the attempt at capture would only stir it up. It was more useful to have them all search, then any that saw it dispel to send the information back to him.
(Naruto still couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed that he received his shadow clones' memories until it was pointed out to him by the Uchiha. Even when he was beating him in a fight, Sasuke still managed to make him feel stupid.)
He received a burst of memory, and sorted through it. There was the cat, and the clone had been...there. Closer than usual to the tower; perhaps the cat wanted to sample the leavings from village market stalls, rather than the available small wildlife in the wooded areas. He signaled his team, and they moved quickly in the direction of the cat.
"This is simply riveting," said Sasuke, his nose only now free of the tape it had born for the past week, as they closed in on the feline. Naruto nodded in annoyed agreement. After a quick interlude involving some loud hissing, painful scratches and a face full of fur, the two continued their conversation on the way back to the tower with a cat now wrapped in a sack. "I wonder if the C-rank missions are less pointless?"
Naruto sighed. "I figure we can at least ask for one. It's been, what, a month? Thirty of these things is more than enough for me."
Sasuke looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Tomorrow, then?"
Naruto nodded as Sakura caught up to them. "Tomorrow."
A/N: Yay! This was basically meant to be just a little bit of flavoring between introductions and the Waves arc, but there's some important stuff. Points for guessing the two most important things mentioned in this chapter to future events. (It's not like they're uncommon nails in fanfiction or anything.)
In case it's not sufficiently foreshadowed, I will state it outright: Next chapter is the Wave arc. Fun and joy.
A note on the Kyuubi: I don't mind benevolent!Kyuubi stories at all, but I'm trying to be at least minorly canon-compliant here, and benevolent!Kyuubi tends to turn into overpowered!Naruto really really fast. (Not that Naruto isn't already sufficiently overpowered here, but it's less obvious than many cases.) The general tone I'm trying to set for the Kyuubi is, basically, amused; he's trapped in this kid, and without the kid's willing consent he can't get out, and if the kid dies so does he. He's going to help Naruto out if it's life or death, but he's also really amused by the idea of tormenting him.
On update rates: I'm unlikely to be able to keep up this multiple-chapters-per-week rate for very long. For at least the duration of the summer I'm going to try to get at least one chapter out per week, and more if it's going quickly; after that, I don't know how much free time I'll have.
