"Huh?" said Heero almost three hours later when he slowly opened his eyes. His first thought, upon waking, was that he felt like he'd been hit with a truck. Every muscle in his arms felt sore and over used, while his head felt like it was going to explode. Slowly, groggily, he rose from his position, and looked around, having to blink the blurriness from his eyes.
"Heh, awake finally I see," said a comforting voice, and Heero turned to find his oneesan in the room with him, sipping on a cup of tea, while he laid down on one of the bedrolls in the sitting room of his home. Startled, he instantly tried to hop to his feet, only to find himself swaying, and then, in the blink of an eye, Kurenai was standing beside him, her arm on his shoulder to steady him.
"Woah, woah there. You've just had quite the experience, so let's take it a little more slowly," she chided, holding him up, and then lightly letting him set back down at the table in front of him, before she took her spot opposite, staring at him.
"Do you remember what happened?" she asked, and Heero, looking back in his memory, was taken aback a moment, before slowly nodding.
"I finally accessed my kekkei genkai," he said simply, and then held out his arm. He felt the white chakra within him, just a little, held back from before. It took him only a second of focus to create inch long claws for his left hand, which he slashed out with, cutting through an apple in the center of the table, which fell into pieces, one of which he offered to Kurenai, who took the piece of fruit.
"Indeed. You have access to a set of skills that no one else in the village does. Great Power, Greater Responsibility," she said the last in a dull monotone, the oath of the ANBU, the protectors of the village.
"I accept what comes with my blood, and hope to live up to the legacy of my father," said the boy simply, sounding far older than his ten years should allow. Kurenai just smiled at him.
"Now, I do have some things I want you to promise me before I leave today," she said this in that serious tone of voice that told Heero if he didn't listen, he would regret it, and so he stared at her intently, memorizing what she said.
"You mustn't try to use the Speed of the Phoenix, or the Roar of the Dragon until you are at least out of the Academy, and even then, only if I or Itachi say you can," she began, and Heero nodded. He may not have understood everything in the journal of his father, but even he knew that some of his clan died using those techniques, the drain on their chakra too much to handle for some.
"Good, and as an added precaution, I want you to hold off on practicing with the Armor of the Tortoise until you can maintain your Claws for at least ten minutes, at one meter long," she added this for her own peace of mind, and Heero nodded at that too, staring at his fingers, but wisely not trying to summon his claws for the moment.
"Beyond that, I want you to know I'm proud of you. You've taken your first steps towards being a great ninja, a ninja who will surpass your father, and hopefully grow the Yuy Clan to be one of Konoha's great families," she told them this, and it got a smile from the boy, who was about to start questioning other things, when a series of loud footsteps from outside attracted their attention.
Normally, one couldn't hear someone in Heero and Naruto's home without them being right at the door, but this time it sounded like the entire Konoha Corps was coming to their doorstep, causing Heero and Kurenai to hop up, and then rush to the front of the house, Kurenai swearing a little under her breath.
When they reached the front, they saw something that nearly floored Heero. It was Naruto and Kakashi. Or rather, it was three Kakashi's leading about a hundred Naruto's up to the door, the Naruto's marching in perfect lock step, until the one in the lead held up his hand, causing them to stop, in almost perfect formation, making it look like Naruto was about to invade his own home.
"Kakashi!" shouted the kunoichi as she leapt towards him, anger dripping from her voice, along with killer intent.
"I told you to teach him Kage Bushin, not try to kill him!" she came to a stop just in front of him, her fingers going to a kunai that she kept in her pouch.
"You wound me, my Red Eyed Mistress of the Mind," said the one eyed ninja, his hands going over his heart like it was in pain, only to be startled when one of his clones puffed out, Kurenai's kunai sailing through where it had been, without anyone present having seen her move.
"Explain yourself," she demanded, and you could visibly see Kakashi sweating.
"Well, in truth, I did try to get him to limit how much chakra he puts into the technique at first. After a few false starts, including some rather horrid looking monsters, Naruto picked up on the technique itself. Except he had to make at least three clones, no matter how little chakra he tried to use, and so, we ended up with these extras," explained the man all in one breath, and then backed up a little as Kurenai turned to face her blonde little brother.
She looked over the group. Her eyes weren't Sharingan, but she was not the foremost master on genjutsu in the village for nothing. She could feel chakra in the air when jutsu or other techniques were used, and she could manipulate that energy, pushing it back against it's user's mind to make them her puppets. All the clones though, just as a Kage Bushin should, felt normal to her. If Naruto switched placed with any of them, she wouldn't have been able to tell, and she supposed, after sighing to herself, that that was the purpose of the technique.
"If that's true then, I'll forgive it, for now," she told him this while walking over to retrieve her kunai, slipping the sharp weapon back into it's pouch, and then walking over towards the lead Naruto.
"I'm very proud of you, Naruto. This technique is difficult. It normally takes weeks of trial and error to get it right. To see you succeeded in a single day is incredible. Your brother and you are well on your way to achieving your dreams," she told him this while hugging him, Naruto going red for a minute at the compliments, only to hear what she'd said and turn to his brother.
"You mean you can do those tricks from your dad's book now?" he asked eagerly, and Heero nodded, drawing his left hand up, and then holding out his fingers while he made five more inch long claws.
"Cool! Are they really as sharp as the book said?" he asked again, and Heero smirked in a rather evil looking fashion.
"Let's find out, line up some of those clones," he instructed, and Naruto, a bit too swiftly for their taste, had the clones line up.
"Claws of the Tiger!" cried out the silver haired boy as he leapt forward. His strides were still a little slower than his usual, but he slammed into the clones hard enough that his claws buried in the chest of the first, second, his momentum finally dying around the tenth, as each clone in turn popped into chakra smoke.
"Oh, oh wow, that would hurt," said Naruto as he received the memories of each clone in turn, feeling those blades easily slip through the chakra made skin, bursting each one like a bubble.
"Yeah, but it makes me so slow. I'm gonna have to retrain every taijutsu stance over the summer to make use of them at all," he admitted, letting the claws vanish back into his fingers, the one and still only a bit under one hundred boys going back into their house, the clones adding comments to the conversation for Naruto as they did so, soon leaving Kurenai and Kakashi outside.
"How many tries did it actually take him to get the Kage Bushin?" asked the kunoichi as soon as the boys were out of earshot.
"Over four hundred, but each failure only made him work that much harder until he could do that," admitted Kakashi, the number making Kurenai's eyes bulge for a moment, before she regained her composure. She knew Naruto's prisoner would give him great stores of chakra, effectively unlimited if she'd understood Sarutobi's words right, but still. To use the Kage Bushin more than twice in a day could kill a jonin, one of the reasons the technique tended to take at least a month to learn.
"How many can he make at once?" she asked him, curiosity getting the better of her, and Kakashi just shook his head.
"I honestly was too afraid to ask him to do it. I didn't even bother explaining the technique's limits either. Too few can do what he does to have really pushed it to that sort of limit, so I merely explained the memory sharing ability, and left it at that," he explained, and for a moment, just a moment, she wanted to admonish him for that lax bit of oversight, then she looked back into the home of her 'little brothers'.
The clones, the clones were partying with the boys. Not acting like they were extensions of Naruto's will, or simply copies given basic instructions. They were independent entities, each with their own will. Some were fighting over snacks, others were just kind of sitting there, obviously thinking about things. Naruto had created actual copies of himself, his true essence, and if he could do that, who's to say what the limit of the technique was for him.
"Aren't you going on a mission tomorrow?" asked Kakashi, changing the subject abruptly enough that Kurenai had to switch mental tracks to answer.
"Yes, I have requested that Sarutobi allow me to be a jonin instructor for a squad in two years time. In order to earn that privilege, I need to prove myself, so he's giving me a few extended missions," she explained, and Kakashi nodded.
"Heh, sounds like you already know at least some of those you're going to want on your genin team," he told her, and Kurenai didn't deny it. She wouldn't have if she could, after all, everyone in the tower knew she cared for the two boys, even if she refused to be a true mother for them. Though more often than not, the village discouraged such connections between a jonin sensei and their team, these two were exceptions to a lot of rules, so why not one more?
"I won't ask that you visit them, since I know you have your own duties, but if you could, would you come back here some days, and make sure they're alright?" she asked him, and Kakashi seemed a bit surprised at the blunt request. He then got a rather thoughtful look in that one eye of his, before nodding.
"Of course. After all, there's a future Hokage living in this house, and it would be in the best interest of Konoha to make sure he survives to lead us into a glorious golden age," said the man, smiling beneath that mask of his. He then went off with a few pleasantries, and Kurenai went inside, finding both boy's celebrating their good fortune with their training, and she promised them both she would be there when the graduated from the Academy.