Starting Over
Chapter 8
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my ideas

-- Wave Country, the next day --

As a precautionary measure, the told Haku that they would be tying her up again for the meeting with Kakashi. When they tied her back up, they made sure to tie both wrist together and each figure together to prevent seals. They went back to Tazuna's house and there did the same thing to Zabuza. A few hours later, Kakashi woke up to see he was in a bed in some worn down room. After opening his eye he saw his team plus Zabuza and Haku tied up. Not sure what was going on, he looked over to Naruto, who had a nervous expression on his face.

"Maa, what is going on Naruto?" Kakashi asked trying to move into a sitting position.

"Well, Kakashi-sensei, I made a deal with Zabuza, and now we need your OK to go through with the deal." replied Naruto hoping against hope that Kakashi still trusted him after this.

"What kind of deal?"

"Kakashi, Zabuza was hired by Gatou, you know that much. I can assume that that you can figure out the kind of man Gatou is. He would kill the two of them before paying them. They are tired of life on the run. I have asked if they would be willing to help us, if the can be part of the Hidden Leaf Village."

"Hmmm, I don't know. Are you sure about this Naruto?"

"I have given my word and they have given theirs. We have kept them tied up until you say one way or the other. I believe them. That is what my gut is telling me."

"Hai, hai, I guess then we will see what Momochi Zabuza's word is worth then."

"Thank you Kakashi-sensei." said Naruto as he started removing Haku's bindings. "Haku, Kakashi is suffering from chakra depletion. Can you help both of them to get back to peak health?"

"It would be right and show that we will up hold our end of the deal." Haku said as she started going over both Kakashi's and Zabuza's injuries and making a list of things she will need.

"Naruto, while I am out, it is going to be up to you to train both Sasuke and Hinata. Start with the simple exercises and then work to the advanced." said Kakashi after Haku had finished her inspection.

"Hai sensei, I will also send a bushin to watch Tazuna today since that is still our mission. Come on guys, we have a long way to go." Naruto left with Sasuke and Hinata following him. After breakfast, Naruto sent a Kage Bushin with Tazuna to the bridge and the three teammates were ready for their training. Getting the duffle bag and his back pack, they made their way deep into the woods. Once there, Naruto pulled out two kunai and threw them at both Sasuke and Hinata.

"We are going to do an intermediate chakra control exercise to prepare for the two stage training for the special techniques. The two of you can do this one of two ways. What we are going to be doing is tree climbing, but not with your hand, we are going to do it like this." Naruto made a quick ram seal and then started to slowly walk up the tree without his hands and was walking perpendicular to the ground. Hinata and Sasuke were stunned. When Naruto had gotten to the top, he ran down the tree like he was running along the ground. "This exercise is about controlling the chakra on your feet. You need to have a fixed amount of chakra on your feet to do this exercise. Too much and the tree breaks, too little and you don't stick. You can choose to walk up like I did, or run up. Running up will get you to the top faster, but walking up will help you gather the control element faster. The choose is yours, when you have finished this exercise, then I will go over what the new techniques I have are."

Sasuke and Hinata both took their kunai and got a running start, Sasuke made it seven feet off the ground before he put too much chakra in and cracked the tree, Hinata made it almost to the very top before she lost control and fell down, the height was enough that she could have hurt herself, but she also used the kunai on the tree to slow her fall and right herself.

"Not bad for a first run try. Keep it up." Naruto said in encouragement, Sasuke looked at what Hinata did and cursed himself for not being as good. Even though he knew Hinata was a friend, he still had his own ambition to get back at the snake. He needed to do this and get it right if he was going to progress any further. Sasuke squared off and tried again, this time he didn't get quite as high and he was starting to get frustrated.

Hinata on the other hand, decided that she would try walking up this time. She slowly walked up to the tree and then put her foot on the tree. She found the balance of chakra she needed and then she started walking up on her own, slowly she made her way all the way to the top. When she got to the top she was very exhausted. She ran the rest of the way back down the tree just like Naruto did. When she made it back down, she fell into a heap and was panting heavily.

Sasuke watched after he fell of his second time completely stunned that Hinata had just done the exact same thing Naruto had done, and the exact same way. When he saw her fall down into a heap, he went over to her and helped her sit up.

"How did you do that?" he asked taking something out of his pocket.

"Well, I don't have as much chakra as you and Naruto do so it is easier to control. Also , it is easier to find the right amount and keep it if you walk up the tree and concentrate. Try it out for yourself, and see if you don't do better." she said. Sasuke handed her the small pill he took out of his pocket.

"This is a soldier pill, it will help replenish the chakra you lost. Take it and then we can do this together, how does that sound?" Hinata took the pill and swallowed it. After a few seconds, she felt her chakra being replenished back to full and a little bit more. Together they got up and went to a tree. Both form the ram seal and started gathering chakra to their feet. Both of them started walking up the tree together slowly, Sasuke was still having a difficult time but the slower pace allowed him to focus more. He lost his focus when he was about three quarters of the way up and dropped, Hinata dropped with him to help keep his focus and concentration. After all of the confidence boosting both Naruto and Sasuke had done for her, it was high time she turned around and started helping them where she could.

Sasuke and Hinata made even faster progress than Naruto expected, and had finished the climbing exercise right before lunch. They took a lunch break to visit with Kakashi so that Naruto could tell him how things were progressing. After lunch the three came back to the clearing and Naruto set up a fire. After the fire was going good, he asked them to join him around the fire.

"What I am getting ready to do MUST stay between us. I am not sure how the two of you are going to react to this, but I don't have a choice. Hokage-sama said I could teach you the special techniques, if you were told of how the techniques where learned in the first place. First, we need to start with a history lesson. What do you remember about the tragedy 12 years ago?" asked Naruto as he started to stare into the fire.

"The only tragedy I know about was the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacking the village. The Yondaime Hokage gave his life to kill the Kyuubi." replied Hinata. She was beginning to not like where this was going.

Naruto knew how he had to alter things so that he wouldn't tell them about the future. "Well, you are mostly right, yes the Kyuubi did attack Konoha and yes the Yondaime did die and defeat the Kyuubi, only you can't kill a demon. No matter how power the Yondaime was, he couldn't outright kill Kyuubi. He had to do the next best thing. With the help of a man named Inverse Hikaru, he sealed Kyuubi away were it would not be able to harm another person. The Sandaime Hokage made a law forbidding the telling of anyone not present at the time about the sealing, because they sealed the Kyuubi into a baby boy. The by was to be seen as a hero, but everyone only saw the demon in the boys place."

Hinata couldn't stifle a gasp. She had figured it out. After watching Naruto for so long before they became real friends, he was the one. That is why everyone seemed to hate him. All of the adults hated Naruto and now she knew why.

"What does this have to do with anything Naruto?"

"Sasuke, haven't you ever noticed all the looks that the adults give Naruto?" Hinata asked coming out of her shock.

"Yeah, I figure it was for all the pranks he did when he was younger" (A/N: He still had to keep some things the same, I just didn't write about them earlier since the pranks didn't have any bearing on the story set up.)

"Not ever those pranks could make them look at Naruto the way they do. The only reason Naruto would even know about any of this is because the Kyuubi must have been sealed into him." said Hinata while moving a little closer to Naruto. She wanted to hold him and tell him his feelings, but she was not sure how he would take it. She resigned herself to be there for him if he wanted comforting. Sasuke on the other hand just shrugged his shoulders.

"So what if Naruto has a demon sealed in him. Naruto is Naruto, a good friend and shinobi. If he has a demon sealed inside of him, then that just makes him a stronger man for carrying a demon around and stopping the demon from attacking everyone. He has shown me that it is not what you see but what a person does that makes them a person. Naruto, no matter what happens, you will always be my friend. For all the help you have given me, there is no way I could ever turn my back on you."

"Sasuke is right Naruto, you had no choice in the matter, the fact that you live with this and don't let it get you down is what makes you so strong in my eyes." said Hinata looking at Naruto and trying to convey every single one of her emotions through the look without blushing.

Naruto looked up at his two teammates with a broad grin, his eye shining with unshed tears. He wouldn't be needed the tears after all. They accepted him for him. He had never been happier in all of his life. "Thanks, I was not really sure how you two would take things. I was worried that you two might react like the adults and not want to be near me."

Hinata decided that she needed to do this. She got up and walked over to Naruto and gave him a small hug, Naruto unsure of what to do slowly returned the hug. Sasuke got up and put his hand on Naruto's shoulder in a sign of friendship. After letting Naruto go, Hinata moved back to her place across the fire from Naruto, hoping the fire would block her blush. Sasuke sat back down so the three were seated around the fire in a perfect triangle.

"So what are you going to show us?" asked Sasuke.

Naruto put both hands in front of himself and concentrated for a minute. A small blue ball of chakra appeared in between his hands. "This is chakra, that much you know. But what is chakra?"

Hinata fielded this question. "Chakra is the mixing of energies from the physical and spiritual. You mix the energies together with the use of handseals."

"Correct. Very well answered Hinata-chan. Now the techniques I am going to teach the two of you only require half of chakra each." At Sasuke and Hinata's puzzled look, Naruto concentrated even harder and then slowly moved his two hands apart. The blue ball slowly broke into two different balls, one yellow and the other white. "This," holding up the yellow ball, "is chi, it is the physical aspect of chakra. While this," lower the hand with the yellow ball and raising his hand with the white ball, "is mana, the spiritual energies. Chi is used mainly for powering the body, and is a lot more potent for body upgrades than chakra. Mana is used for spells, be they sorcery, white, or shamanic in nature. It takes time and meditation to tell the difference between the two energies. The first step to learning the techniques is to have a good degree of control over your chakra so that you may begin splitting it into the two forms. Now we are going to meditate and when you think you can split the two forms from each other, then I will begin teaching you the basics of both forms. This is going to make things more difficult for you in another way. If you begin to split the chakra to its two forms, then you are going to have to keep both at the same level. I had problems around the time of the academy test because of the imbalance in my chakra. I don't want either of you to go through that so we are going to build on both skills at the same time."

Sasuke and Hinata spent the better part of two days in meditation. It was a lot harder to pull the two parts of chakra than they realized. After the second day of meditation, both of them were finally able to pull the chakra into its two parts.

"Great job both of you. It took me two weeks of constant meditation to get to the point where you two are now. Then again, I really didn't have someone guiding me through the steps like am for you." Naruto smiled and then suddenly grabbed his head as if in major pain.

Sasuke got to his feet and ran over to Naruto, "Hey man, you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I just got reminded about something else that I am going to have to show you. You already know about Kyuubi, well I managed to talk to him and learn form him thanks to someone else."

"Huh?" both asked while cocking their heads to the side and looking at Naruto.

"Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" Naruto said while forming the seal, two Kage Bushins formed but these were different than Naruto's normal bushins. Hinata was the first to see the difference. One had red eyes and the other had jade green eyes.

"Sasuke, Hinata-chan, there are two people I would like for you to meet."

"Speak for yourself and that idiot savant next to you, I am not a person." said the one with red eyes. Hinata could suddenly feel a very powerful chakra coming form him and started to back away, Sasuke moved over to help protect Hinata from whoever they were.

"Sasuke, Hinata-chan, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but this is Kyuubi," pointing to the clone with red eyes, "and this is Inverse Hikaru. Hikaru ended up getting himself sealed in me as an additional barrier against Kyuubi taking me over. He is the one who tried teaching me about chi and mana, but he couldn't do everything so I had a harder time learning it then you will."

"Good to finally get back out of your head. You need to start letting at least me out once in a while, you know I like to stretch my legs." Hikaru said while stretching out the body he was in.

"Sorry, but if I let you out I have to let Kyuubi out and you know we would have a hard time with that in Konoha." replied Naruto. "Now are you going to help me train these two or not?"

"Sure, sure, but right now it is time for your game with Kyuubi. He has been needing another partner for our games and it is about time to switch to Go so have fun." Hikaru said with a smile.

"Great, come on Kyuu, I have the Go board in the bag, lets start the game." Naruto and Kyuubi set up the board with Naruto being white and Kyuubi being black.

"Same stakes as usual?" asked Kyuubi.

"Not a problem with me." replied Naruto.

Hikaru walked over to the two startled genin and ushered them over to the fire. Once he set them down, he took out a package of Chestnuts. Opening the package he threw them in the fire. Hinata was unsure about what Hikaru was doing so she decided to start a conversation with him to lighten things up a little.

"Inverse-san, what are the stakes that Naruto-kun and Kyuubi-san were talking about?" she asked.

"Well, when playing Go, the winning gets to design and do a number of minor pranks based on the margin they won by on top of getting to do one major prank of choice." Hikaru responded watching the chestnuts for the proper time to pluck them from the fire.

"So if Kyuubi won by twenty stones. . ."

"Kyuubi would get to play one major prank and twenty smaller pranks on anyone person or persons he wants to. Naruto has a hard time winning at Go since he looks for the small wins and not the end game. The strategy games we play help sharpen the mind as well as increase concentration and help with the building process of mana gathering. Now, I am about to show you the training method of the first chi technique and then show you what it can do." as he finished saying that, both Hinata and Sasuke watched him. Two seconds later the chestnuts cracked open and Hikaru's hands blurred. When they came into focus again, he had every single chestnut in his hands.

Sasuke's mouth dropped, and Hinata stood there stunned. There was no possible way a bushin could have done that. A Kage Bushin would have dispersed into smoke if it takes any damage. That in itself means that Hikaru moved faster than the flame and heat to get the chestnuts out of the fire.

"This is a simple speed technique. In the end you will have gathered your chi into your arms and hands and used them to speed them up to a very great degree. Sasuke, you have already awakened the Sharingan haven't you?" he asked moving to a tree.

"Yeah, Naruto helped me with that a little while ago." he replied.

"Good, I am going to punch that tree other there and while you have the Sharingan active, I want you to count how many times I hit the tree. Hinata, I want you to use this stop watch and how long I hold the technique, and then the both of you will see the power of this technique."

Hikaru moved over to the tree and prepared himself. "Ready, GO!" Hinata started the stop watch as Hikaru started the technique. Sasuke, even with the Sharingan had a hard time keeping up with the speed of the technique, and he was only counting. After three seconds he stopped the technique and Hinata stopped the stop watch.

"Three seconds flat, not that long of a technique is it?" The Hinata looked at the place where Hikaru punched the tree, there was a five inch depression the size of a melon in the tree where he was punching.

"So how many punches did you count Sasuke?" Hikaru asked.

"I lost count somewhere near a thousand." Sasuke said open mouthed. That kind of speed was just impossible. When Hinata heard what Sasuke said, she had to pick her mouth up off the ground. There was no way someone could throw over a thousand punches in under three seconds.

"As you can see this is a very impressive speed technique. The best part of this technique is that the advanced versions of this technique can be used on any part of the body, watch, and remember, this is with one leg."

Hikaru got into a crane stance and then preceded to kick at the same speed as he punched the tree a moment ago. After three seconds, he had completely kicked through the entire tree. Both of them, sat down heavily. If this technique could be used with every single part of his body, then a person could literally be as fast as a god an take out several jounin level ninjas in a matter of moments.

Hikaru dropped to the ground and started panting. "The only draw back to this technique is that the advanced form use a LOT of chi. If it wasn't for the fact that a bushin can still be around if it has a least some mana left, I would have already been sent back inside Naruto. You will need a lot of physical training to get to the point of having enough chi to use the technique effectively with anything other than your arms I'm afraid. For now, we will start on the basic training. There is two ways to do the training, and we will be training in both fashions. The first is to try and grab chestnuts from the fire without getting burned. The other is to try and grab fish out of a tank of water without getting your hands wet. Since the technique can be quite painful with the fire, we will alternate the training methods each day switching between the two. Today is fire and tomorrow will be the fish. Once you get the technique, then we will focus on some of the other aspects of using this training to further your ninjutsu training. I expect you both to have this technique in two weeks. After that, I will start training you on mana manipulation and spells, whether you have this technique down or not."

The next two weeks were a literal hell for the two genin. Naruto spent most of his time either playing Go with Kyuubi or doing some form of physical training. Haku had taken up the responsibility of guarding Tazuna while he worked on the bridge. Zabuza and Kakashi were making a lot of headway in recovering and Kakashi actually came by to witness the genin training on the last day of the two weeks. On the last day of training, both Sasuke and Hinata had the technique down, barely. Hinata's healing creams came in very handy for the two since with the cream and the day of doing the tank training instead of the fire training, their hands weren't burned in the slightest. Hikaru on the end of the last day showed them how to very the amount of chi they put in the technique so they could use it longer or shorter, and even showed them how to use the technique to perform a 56 handseal technique in a second with the chi technique. He told them that the chi techniques didn't have true names since they could be altered to use differently as they were needed. The base name of this chi technique was Denkousekka (Lightning speed).

All three genin were given the weekend off while Kakashi, and Zabuza stood guard over Tazuna. They decided they would find a small restaurant to eat at. They took Haku with them. All four kids spent the small meal in light conversation. Hinata found a comrade in medicine while Sasuke found an equal in raw speed. With his additional training in the chi techniques, he had little doubt he would be able to take down Haku if it came to a fight. Unfortunately for Sasuke, he still didn't know about all of the tricks that Haku still had up her sleeves.

On the following Monday, Hinata, Sasuke and Naruto went back to the clearing that had become their temporary training grounds. As they sat around the fire pit, Naruto set up the wood for the fire and then told them to watch.

Holding out his right hand he said, "Fireball!" A small ball of fire collected into his hand and then he threw it into the fire pit which ignited the wood and started the fire. "That is a medium level spell, at low power. Spells use mana and incantations. It is possible to do spells without either an incantation or but it would not be as powerful. Just like chakra uses handseals for a focus, mana powered spells use incantations. As you improve on spells, you will get to the point where you can just say the name of the spell and it be as powerful as when you first learned the spell. Now if you do say the incantation after that point, the spell will be even more powerful. Watch."

Naruto turned to the practice dummy set up for them to practice the chi technique they learned. He positioned himself and cupped his hands in front of him preparing for the spell. "Source of all power, Light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hands. Fireball!" The fireball that Naruto released into the training dummy was easily as big as Sasuke's Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Grand Fireball Technique), and did more damage to the target. The only thing was ashes.

"Learning spells is a lot like learning techniques, you have to learn and memorize the incantation for the spells and then practice them until you can increase the effects to the point where you can do each spell with just its name. After you master a spell you will learn a new spell. The only way to get better with each spell is to practice them. Now I will give you a piece of advice, you won't get physically tired since these are spiritual techniques, but the lower on mana you get the more mentally exhausted and depressed you will get. If you feel yourself starting to lose concentration, don't try and finish, take a break, rest and then when you can focus properly again, then you can try some more. I am going to leave you in the hands of Hikaru while Kyuubi wants to teach me a few more things that only I can learn since he is in me. I will check up on you every so often, to see how you guys are doing. Kage Bushin no Jutsu."

Naruto left them to train while he went off with Kyuubi to start learning some of his Demonic Techniques. On the way to his new training area, Naruto went by the bridge to talk to Kakashi. After telling him what was going on, he left with Kyuubi again. Walking around town, since he wanted to practice on the other side of the city from the others, he ran into Inari. He had meet Inari at Tazuna's daughter Tsunami's house. He had heard form Kakashi about the problems the kid was going through. Naruto followed Inari to a bridge and then set himself down right next to him. Inari looked over at Naruto and then got an angry expression on his face.

"What are you doing here?" ask asked with venom in his voice.

"I thought I might talk to you for a little bit if you don't mind." Naruto replied.

"Why, Gatou is just going to kill you and then destroy grandpa's bridge and then kill him as a sign to everyone else that doesn't like the way he does things." Inari yelled.

"So you are on Gatou's side then?"

"I hate him, but there is nothing anyone can do, he will just hire people to kill everyone and then there is nothing that can be done."

"If that is what you really believe, then go ahead and have your own pity party. I am really sure your father would want that for you. I wouldn't know since I haven't had any family ever. I never knew a father or a mother, you were lucky enough to have both. I learned a long time ago that nothing will happen if you do nothing yourself. It has to start with you and then you can change others. I know Gatou will go down by the time we leave, but if you don't learn to take a stand, then another one will come along and it will start all over again."

"You don't know what you are talking about! I hate you and hope you die! You have never had anything, so how can you know what it feels like to lode something!"

"I have friends now, and I would die to protect them since I know what it is like to have nothing. If I had to give my life so they could live and be happy, I would do it in a heartbeat. I know your father felt the same way, he wouldn't want you to be like this."

"Shut up, you know nothing, leave me alone!" Inari ran off leaving a sad Naruto.

"I hope I got threw to him. Come on, Kyuu, let's go."

The genin spent the next two weeks training almost till they couldn't move. Sasuke and Hinata learned a lot during this time and by the time the month of training was up, the bridge was all but complete. Naruto knew that anytime this week, Gatou would attack. He knew they would be better off since they had Zabuza and Haku working with them this time. Gatou only had a bunch of worthless samurai wanna-bes and himself. They would be ready and then everything would be good.

End Chapter

Author Notes:

I ended up splitting the wave mission into three parts since I decided to go ahead and put more about their training into the story. Next chapter is going to take several days since it is longer than this one and has about six fight scenes in it. I got this done faster than I thought, so I will except votes till Monday evening (8/15/05). I can already see how things are going to turn out unless I get a lot of votes suddenly to turn things around. I have the rough drafts for after the chunnin exams finished so I can spend more time editing and reviewing and posting current works. I have also talked to another author about some ideas in some of his fics, I personally recommend this author. He posts to as well as The author is BigAznDaddy on Mediaminer and BigAznDaddy99 on Standings (remember there are other votes that are not in the public reviews.)

Sakura 7 (Don't vote, never going happen)
Ino 2 (Don't vote, never going to happen)
Tenten 11 (Doubtful of getting enough votes)
Hinata 33
Temari 32
Haku 17 (Multi appearance only)
Multi 33

Hope you enjoy and I will see you next time.
Ja ne

Dark Knight: The LightHawk