"Eat this rock."

"… What?"

"I want you," I pointed at my clone, "To. Eat. This. Rock." I finished, jabbing at the rock I picked up somewhere in the training ground for emphasis.

"Why would you want me to eat a rock?"

"To test out what happens to the stuff that we eat after we dispel, remember? That is, because I'm bored since the Konoha Library doesn't open to Genin until noon on the weekends." The Old Man refused to let me get a look at the Forbidden Scroll, though he did give me a note granting permission for me to borrow two books from the Jonin section of the Library after writing down some notes about what he could recall about the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and giving them to me. (The notes ended up being more than two hundred pages long, so I decided to check out the books, What to do if you Think Your Best Friend is a Kage Bunshin of an Enemy Shinobi and An Introductory Guide to Sealing, first. I have no idea why the first is even in the Jonin section, given it's title, but the Old Man assured me that I'd want to read the latter after I've finished the first, so whatever.)

She crossed her arms and deadpanned at me for a bit before starting, "Let me rephrase that, why do you want me to eat a rock? Get one of boss's clones to do it after boss comes back."

"You're here, boss isn't, don't be such a baby and eat the rock already." I am moderately curious as to what would happen, since I already knew from prior experience that whatever food I eat apparently gets digested or something, since they disappear with me when I dispel myself. A rock, being not 'digestible' would give me information on whether the food's being 'digested' or whether the food's being 'something'ed.

"Why don't you eat it and then dispel yourself? You'd see what happens anyway right?"

"I don't want to eat a rock! That's why I'm making you do it!"

"I'm you! If you don't want to eat a rock, neither will any of your clones!" With that, she dispelled herself before I can shove the rock down her throat. Eh, guess I'll have to con one of boss's clones into eating a rock after he comes back. Shrugging, I threw the rock at one of the wooden posts in Training Ground Three and decided to go through the academy katas a few times before heading towards the library at a slow walk.

"Hey Shikamaru, still hiding from clan training?" I asked as I walked towards the information desk, nodding at Shikamaru, who was staring lazily at the clouds through one of the libraries many windows, as I did so.

"… Don't be troublesome, woman. Neither mom nor Ino found this place yet, and I'd like to keep it that way." He said lazily, not even bothering to look in my direction, since it's probably 'too troublesome' to do so.

I shrugged, "whatever." Turning my attention towards the desk, I noted that Shiho was staring slightly at Shikamaru, though she did manage to notice me as I came closer. "Hi Shiho, how's the job?"

"You know, the usual," she replied with a bored expression, "did you enjoy The Art of War that you checked out last time? I didn't see you return it." I returned it just after I checked it out, actually, though not before creating a Shadow Clone of it first. I think someone else manages the return bin though, so that's probably why she didn't see me do so.

"It was an interesting read, short enough that I can actually summon a copy of it at will" I punctuated this statement by making a Kage Bunshin of the book, usually I need to be in direct contact with something complicated (or a clone thereof) to make a clone of it, but since books and ID cards etc. are mostly just their looks, I can create a clone of them as long as I remember what's on or in them, "though I can sum up the majority of what's said with 'don't be an idiot.' I personally preferred what's his name, Asimov's (odd name) Foundation 'trilogy' better. They're a bit too long for me to summon though." Wonder why it's called a 'trilogy' when there are seven books in the series.

"Glad to know you read them after I recommended them," Shiho pushed up her swirly glasses slightly, "what do you need today?"

I gave my barely comprehensible permission slip to Shiho, (I think the Old Man writes in deliberately bad handwriting to have a minor revenge on the people who force all the paperwork on him, the notes on the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, all two hundred pages of it, were perfectly legible,) "can you give me the keys to the Jonin section? I need to go find those two books." Shiho nodded and gave the keys to me, pointing me towards the Jonin section as she did so, (I already knew where it is though, boss didn't exactly leave the Jonin section, or any other restricted section, untouched just because they were locked when he painted the whole library orange,) before turning back to look at Shikamaru.

Hmm, let's see… apparently both these books were written by Jiraiya, apparently the Sannin was rather prolific, and not just in terms of those perverted books of his. (I walk by an entire bookshelf of the blasphemies towards orange every time I pass by the 'J' section of the public portion of the library, is Konoha trying to turn all its ninjas into perverts? They're all the same damn book too! Apparently Hatake just has a collector's edition of Icha Icha Paradise rather than another book in the same series as I thought.) 'H'… 'I'… there we go, 'J,' oh god dammit, there's another damn shelf of the abominations toward orange here, at least it makes where Jiraiya's books are really obvious though.

'Thanks' to the orange beacon, I found the two books I came for in short order, turns out their full titles were: What to do if you Think Your Best Friend is a Kage Bunshin of an Enemy Shinobi: or Why you Should Take up Sealing Instead of Reading Spy Novels, You're Clearly Insane Enough For It (isn't that a mouthful) and An Introductory Guide to Sealing: or How to Not End Life as we Know it While Making a Basic Storage Seal. Hmm, I wonder if the titles mean he has a sense of humor or if I actually might explode the planet by spilling some ink on my storage seals. Shrugging, I made my way back to the information desk.

"Hey Shiho," I started, tossing her the keys simultaneously, "check these books out for me please." I put them on the table as I finished the sentence.

"Here you go," she said, after scanning and stamping the books, "please return them sometime within the next hundred years." Konoha has a very lax library policy, which might explain why the more 'popular' works tend to have entire shelves devoted to them.

"Thanks," I responded absently while walking towards one of the tables in the library. I set the books down on the table before sitting in one of the chairs. Hmm, I suppose I should read the notes on the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu while I'm here. Good thing the Old Man specifically marked the first five pages as being about the same as what's written in the Forbidden Scroll, or else I would've been stuck here all day. (I think he wrote the rest of the two hundred-ish pages just to get away from the paper work, though I don't quite see how writing notes is so different from just signing his name on everything.)

Let's see here… basic description of the Jutsu, description of the one hand seal required for the technique, long and overly detailed explanation of how to properly separate and recombine the Yin and Yang sides of chakra for the technique, nothing boss hasn't seen before. Ah, there we go, the warning section, wonder why they didn't put this section first?

"Warning: Use of this technique without the necessary amount of chakra tends to cause death through chakra exhaustion almost instantly. Furthermore, because any memories gained by the individual Kage Bunshin returns to the user along with any unspent chakra when the Kage Bunshin dissipates, it's strongly recommended that the user refrain from creating enough clones such that the total amount of memories returning at once exceeds seventy-two hours, as any amount more than that will likely cause unconsciousness, mental trauma, or even death.

Errata: While receiving less than seventy-two hours of memories at once will not immediately be cause of concern aside from increase necessity of sleep, if the user receives an exceeding amount of memories, even if slightly spaced out, the user will likely be put into a coma as the brain tries to organize the memories by shutting down the rest of the body in order to have more processing power available. If the user lacks the necessary skill to continue the technique after unconsciousness, the resulting rush of memories from Kage Bunshin forced to disperse upon unconsciousness will likely cause significant mental trauma or death."

Well… this is bad, while I'm hoping the damn fuzz-ball will be able to heal boss up from the damage caused by my memories if and when I dispel without a clone available, (I think I have around a full three months of memories, counting the time I've been around and the various clone memories I've received,) dispelling myself without a clone to 'catch' me is not a viable option to help boss out when I'm too far away, the additional influx of chakra wouldn't help if boss was a bit too unconscious to use it. Ugh, why the hell wasn't the warning at the front of the technique description in the forbidden scroll!? In fact, why didn't the Old Man say anything about the dangers of mental trauma from the rush of memories? Although… I guess he might've just been waiting for boss to ask for it? He did give me the notes and the permission slip for the two books after all; maybe something in one of the books will help?

With a small sigh, I turned to the seemingly more relevant of the two books, since it actually has Kage Bunshin in the title. Hopefully this isn't going to be just more bad news. Let's see… commons signs that indicate someone is a Kage Bunshin, useless, recommendation to see a psychiatrist, yeah… no, how to not to make your best friend no longer your best friend when you punch him in the face to find out if he's a Kage Bunshin or not… the hell? Ah! Here we go, how to counter the information gathering capabilities of Kage Bunshin.

"If you're still here, and managed to avoid the temptation of punching your best friend for one of the most retarded reasons ever, there's an easy method of countering a Kage Bunshin available at many shinobi supply stores. The Kage Bunshin 'disruption' or 'extinguisher' seal is sold in most shinobi supply stores upon request, seeing how the less common seals aren't purchased enough to have their own display shelves.

Basically, you just get a seal from the store, hopefully by buying it rather than just stealing it, but whatever, and then you slap it on your suspected Kage Bunshin, giving it a small chakra infusion to activate it like a blast note. If whoever you slapped the seal on was a Kage Bunshin, it would have its chakra spread evenly throughout the surrounding area, ending the technique with the user none the wiser. If not… congratulations, you just blew a thousand ryo for a completely retarded reason. (The seal is one use only, just like a blast note, if you activated it without a valid target it just turns back into blank sealing paper. For more on the 'extinguisher' seals feel free to consult any introductory sealing guide, the seal is basic enough that it's mentioned in pretty much all of them.)"

Well… if I ever want to commit suicide without boss going into a coma I guess I know how to do it now. Might as well see what the other book says about the seal though. Let's see… 'Table of Contents': introduction, storage seals, blast seals, 'extinguisher' seals, there we go. Hmm… there's a chapter on the Uzumaki clan in here? Odd place to find out about boss's family history, but I guess it's worth a read. After flipping quickly to page eighty-seven, I started reading about the Uzumaki clan:

"The Uzumaki, the ruling clan of the former Uzushiogakure no Sato, or Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides, deserves a special mention as the foremost masters of the sealing arts. While their sealing style is called 'rough' by themselves and others, none can deny that the Uzumaki mastery of the sealing arts was legendary. Their mastery of Fuinjutsu is so renowned, in fact, that Iwa and Suna formed a temporary alliance in order to eliminate the threat of the 'minor' hidden village. Sadly, despite the long distances the alliance had to cross and the defenses of Uzu the ambush succeeded in destroying the hidden village before Konoha, who was their ally ever since the founding of our village, could react. We did, however, manage to intercept the armies as they returned to their home villages, eradicating them utterly and kick starting the Second Shinobi World War. Naturally, because yours truly participated in the war, Konoha managed to stomp the faces of both Iwa and Suna into the ground, nevermind that we were fighting two of the 'great' hidden villages at once.

History lesson aside, I heartily recommend any aspiring seal master to visit the ruins of Uzushiogakure just off the coast of the Fire Country, in the Land of Whirlpools, when they get the chance. While the village has been in ruins ever since the destruction, most of the seal work remains as legible as the day they were painted. (That is to say, you need to either have an Uzumaki present to translate or else drunk out of your mind in order to read them.)"

After that, the rest of the chapter quickly devolved into lessons on how to get Uzumaki women to fall madly in love with you, with the tips supposedly coming from 'real life' experience. I wonder why boss never had any lessons on his clan in the academy though; you'd think an alliance Konoha held since the founding of the village would at least be mentioned in some of our history classes.

Putting the thought aside for later, I stood up to ask Shiho for a map of the Elemental Countries. Let's see, Land of Whirlpools… huh, isn't that just a few kilometers north of the Land of Waves? Looks like I won't be waiting for boss to come back after all. Since I'll have to meet with Kurenai tomorrow, that's probably the earliest I can head out to join boss. (Hopefully I can spin this field trip to the Old Man as a C-rank mission as well.) With that thought in mind, I returned the book on Kage Bunshin to Shiho and made my way to Ichiraku's.

"Hey Hikari-chan!" was Ayame's cheery greeting as I sat down, "I think this is the first time I've seen you here without Naruto-kun, where is he, by the way?"

"Boss is on a bodyguard mission outside the village right now, I don't know when he'll be back though, since he's supposed to be guarding a bridge builder until a bridge is finished." I replied, "Please give me the usual."

"Sure! One large miso, coming right up!" With that, she turned to yell the order to Teuchi before being swamped by a sudden rush of customers.

"So… a bodyguarding mission," She started after as she handed me my ramen, "do you think anything exciting is going to happen?"

"Well…" I began, "I know that boss had a run in with a Jonin level missing-nin, he's probably fine though. I mean, boss has three people, all lauded as 'genius' at one point or another, with him, surely one of them would have the brains to call for backup if something went awry after Hatake beat the enemy-nin, right?" Ayame looked like she wanted to say something, but was cut off by Teuchi yelling at her to serve the other customers, so I shrugged and started eating my ramen.

"Busy day." I commented after Ayame returned from giving the other customers their ramen.

"Yeah, it's like you and Naruto-kun are good-luck charms or something, whenever you're here the stall gets a lot more orders, and not just because Naruto-kun eats as much as ten people."

"So… I think you were going to ask something earlier?"

"Hmm? Oh! Yeah, you said 'one of them' would have the brains to call for backup, does that mean you don't expect Naruto-kun to contact you if he's in trouble?"

I shrugged, "It's not that he won't tell me, it's that boss… tends to forget details. Boss can plan for what to do when the ANBU on guard duty reaches up to adjust her mask during a prank or infiltration, but forget all about the Chunin manning the desk in plain sight." It's not as bad as it sounds though, usually he catches this kind of glaring error early on during planning, although the rare mistakes that do get through into the final plans tend to be hilarious.

Huh, looks like I finished my ramen without noticing, I don't know whether to be glad that the ramen here is so delicious and that I can enjoy it, or horrified that it's apparently so good that even as a clone I need to eat it. (Eh, it's ramen; ramen can never be a bad thing, that has to be a line in the good book of ramen somewhere.) After thanking Ayame and Teuchi for the meal, I paid for my meal and headed for boss's apartment.

Good, the place isn't on fire, always one of the first things you should check before entering the room. After a completely necessary five minute inspection of the door, after which I determined that no, the apartment isn't on fire, I opened the door, shoved the book on sealing into boss's equipment locker, (after making a clone copy of it, which I kept in my equipment pouch, first,) and left the apartment for the Konoha Intelligence Division building, closing the door after me.

All right… let's do this. With that, I jumped through the genjutsu of a glass window, (people were entering so often by jumping through closed windows that they're just maintaining a genjutsu of a window for that express purpose now,) "All right people! It's going to be Level Three tonight." I said to the 'startled' ANBU. (They're mostly used to this by now, many Konoha shinobi use the Intelligence division as a stealth training exercise, Level One is when you just go in by stealth without telling them, Level Two is when you write them a note at most twenty-four hours before you infiltrate, letting them know you're coming but not when, Level Three… is when you announce your presence like this and try to grab the information you came for, while all the guards know that you're in the building and are trying to grab something, Level Four is almost exactly like that, except you also tell them what your target is. Since the guards get training in catching infiltrators and the shinobi trying to get in get stealth training, the Old Man just looks the other way after incidents like these.)

To their credit, all the present ANBU guards realized immediately that I was a distraction while one of my clones tried to sneak by and immediately turned to chase her. Unfortunately for them, all the guards next to this window went to chase her, leaving me free to run down the corridor. Hmm, I have around thirty seconds before the alarm is sounded through the entire building, better make my way to center quickly. (The room where the mission records, my target tonight, is also in the center of the building, except that it's two stories down in the basement.)

Hmm, footsteps coming from the right path of the four way intersection in front of me, sneaking would take too long, so I guess I'll just split the target. After summoning up two clones, my clones and I ran towards the intersection where we each took a different path. …Dammit, the patrol knows the Kage Bunshin too, and she's chasing after me while laughing like a maniac now. Hmm, let's see, I can't just stab her with a summoned kunai since it might be the real one, (though the one chasing me doesn't seem to have any issues with that, if the shuriken and kunai being thrown at me between mad crackles is any indication,) judging by her speed I probably can't shake her either… at least, not conventionally. Eh, she'll probably think I was just clone anyway, after summoning up a clone to the floor directly below me, I dispelled the clones on this floor before dispelling myself to take the place of the clone in the level below.

Good, 'I' was already moving to the stairway opposite the direction she was chasing me in, I shouldn't have to worry about her anymore as long as I keep moving. Hmm, guards are coming up the stairs, better hide myself. Using a patterned cloth I summoned, I performed the Cloak of Invisibility Technique to blend myself in with the wall. After the guards rushed past me to get to the main floor I dispelled the cloth and walked normally down the stairs. Alright, now I just need to get to the records room.

After nodding politely to the paper shuffling Chunin managing the records room, (pretty much everyone who works in Intelligence knows me by now, and since the Chunin's job is to organize the records rather than catch intruders they don't even bother making a fuss that I'm not supposed to be here anymore,) I made my way to the section containing the Genin mission records. Let's see, O… P… Q… R… there we go, Rekka Hikari, now… S… T… U… Uzumaki Naruto. I used the Chunin's radio to send the all clear to the guards, ANBU and otherwise, (since I've made it into the records room, it means that a Kage Bunshin would've been able to retrieve any information I wanted, so this was a failure for the guards.) Carrying the cloned files with me as I made my way out the building, I nodded an acknowledgement at the dark-purple haired Kunoichi who chased me earlier before walking out the main doors. (It was tempting to use a window, but I figure whoever built the doors would be sad if none of the shinobi in the village ever used it.)

Having quickly made my way back to the apartment, I spread out the contents of the folder onto boss's table. Hmm, it says here I did sixty D-ranks, that can't be right, I only remember doing forty at the most, the C-rank I did with Team Eight is on there though. Glancing at boss's mission records, I noted that it says he also did sixty D-ranks and a C-rank, considering that I know for a fact that the mission to the Land of Waves is boss's first C-rank, I'm guessing the Old Man merged the mission records of boss and I, makes sense, I suppose. Hmm, wow, the background information the Old Man made up is really thorough, says here I came to Konoha about an year ago, and became a Genin after passing the Genin Examinations easily and going through a full psyche evaluation by the T&I department. My lack of a team is explained away by the fact that the academy graduates happened to split evenly into groups of three this year and last year. Hmm, I wonder if this means I'm going to be called up whenever a team needs a missing slot filled for a mission?

And boss's records is just full of completely inaccurate information, some of it is obviously made up so that the lack of any information doesn't tip off any halfway competent spy, though his academy records are actually accurate, apparently Iruka-sensei spent a lot of time making a recommended training regimen to address some of boss's more glaring deficiencies… which I know for a fact Hatake ignored outright, considering the first thing it mentioned is that boss needs immediate help in chakra control, and it's been almost two months without anything except basic physical training and teamwork exercises from Hatake. I wonder if these recommended training schedules are for boss only or if Iruka-sensei took the time to write one out for all the graduates in his class? I'll have to check the records of the rest Teams Seven, Eight, and Ten I guess. (I'd visit Iruka-sensei myself, but it'd feel odd trying to interact with him without the familiarity he shares with boss.)

Shelving my plans for a repeat infiltration of the Intelligence Department for later, I gathered up the scattered papers and put them back into their folders before making my way to boss's bed. After meditating for about a quarter of an hour I sighed and got out the book on sealing for something to read. Looks like it's going to be another lonely night.