Chapter 8


With the umpteenth puff of smoke, the last Shadow clone disappeared from the wooded area, leaving only the original Naruto under the afternoon sun. The blond genin was breathing quickly and wiping the sweat off his brow, while wondering if he had ever felt this tired before. This all-against-one thingy was one hell of a training.

Fighting against fifty Kage Bunshin had turned out to be much more difficult than he had first thought. He discovered that as soon as the clones had started attacking, one second after he had given the order. In an instant, Naruto had found himself overwhelmed by the sheer number of Bunshin and not really understanding much except that he was being manhandled badly. He had immediately cried out for them to stop after that and, nursing a bleeding lip, he commented that maybe going with a lower number or a softer approach was in order. They had selected the latter eventually, but the blond had still been brought to his limits by the fast pace. The only thing keeping him from being beat to death had probably been the clones' duration - the fact they only lasted until you hit them was a huge drawback in his opinion.

Outside of battle, though, there really was no limit to the technique. It was the most useful and practical jutsu he had ever heard of, much less known of. The Kyuubi had been helpful on this matter too, often pointing out new ways he could use Shadow clones to improve his skills or even his everyday life. During missions, the Kage Bunshin turned out to be life-savers.

Or better, bore-savers.

When Kakashi-sensei told him they would start their ninja duties, Naruto didn't think he was talking about those. Picking up groceries, weeding gardens, repairing fences… the blond hadn't expected any of those duties to be part of his life, especially not after becoming a shinobi. But now he would have to get used to them, because no matter how much he protested, as a genin – and a freshly appointed one at that – he could only be assigned these boring-kill-me-now D-Rank missions, and that was it, according to both Kakashi, Iruka and the Hokage.

Still, if he knew himself a little, he was going to explode sooner or later. There was no way he could endure this kind of things for long, and he told Kakashi so after a particularly terrible mission. At those words, the man had only smiled in his eerie and creepy way and assured him things would get worse.

That sentence had left Naruto baffled. What was worse than unclogging the stinking toilet of a decrepit old man? Surely, nothing…

But the doubt had been instilled in his mind anyway, just like pretty much every time his silver-haired sensei opened his mouth. The man was, simply put, a walking enigma. It seemed like everything he said could be interpreted in more than one way, and the most obscure one was usually the right one. It was irritating for Naruto who never was one to think deeply into others' words or actions, but it was also… awe-inspiring seeing just how far Kakashi could push himself and most of all his genin towards a secret and hidden teaching.

The Kyuubi had been helpful in these instances as well, just like Sakura and, incredibly enough, Sasuke. The three genin of the team had, in fact, started cooperating in more than just missions, and unmasking their sensei's words was one of them. They often questioned each other about what Kakashi could have meant by saying or doing something, or whenever one of them thought they had unraveled one of his mysteries, they told the others about it.

It had started almost by chance when Sakura first approached her two teammates the second day of duties, voicing her suspicions about Kakashi's previous order. In the next days, those situations recurred more often and it practically became a habit for them to share their thoughts about their sensei's hidden meanings.

Naruto honestly thought that they were starting to overdo it. Seeing underneath the underneath was one thing – seeing a secret teaching behind every single action or word was another. Surely Kakashi couldn't plan his every move in advance just to make sure everything his students learnt was born from an effort on their parts… right?

And yet, he had to wonder. The man seemed to look at them in a different way when they acted on their suspicions, almost as if he was pleased or sometimes surprised. Unfortunately, straight, non-enigmatic comments proving their doubts right were very, very rare, unlike during the bell test. Once become his genin, they apparently had to sweat – and profusely – to gain just about anything, from praises to explanations, which were now kept to a minimum.

But Naruto was used to that, and to worse. The Academy had seen to that.

He didn't care, anyway. He knew he was getting better and that was enough for him. His spars with the Kage Bunshin were improving his taijutsu and his two Materia were both impressive ninjutsu. And he would get more of them.

Naruto frowned as his mind drifted to the girl who still had his Ice Materia. More than a week had passed since he first met Tenten in her secret forge under the commercial district, and, as agreed, he had gone back to meet her to get his brand new holster. Unfortunately, the secret passage had been closed and blocked and no one inside had answered to his knocking or whispering. Naruto had gathered that the girl wasn't around and settled for leaving a clone to keep an eye on the alley until she got back.

But she didn't.

Two days had passed now, and there had still been no sign of Tenten. The Kyuubi was already starting to get angry and snappy about it, insinuating that he had been tricked and suggesting he went after the girl to get back his Materia by any means. Naruto didn't listen to him. He wasn't so easy to distrust people despite his admittedly… unlucky past in that regard, and just reasoned that Tenten had been distracted or kept busy by something else. She was a ninja herself, after all… maybe she had been called for a long-term mission or something. The reasons could be many others.

He wasn't going to panic just yet.

'Naïve' the Kyuubi had called him, amidst a lot of other more endearing epithets, but again, Naruto didn't care.

Wiping the frown off his face, the blond stood up from his seated position, his breath finally calm and steady after his tiring workout. He stretched his back with a contented sigh and started recovering the weapons scattered all around. That was something else he could buy from Tenten if the holster didn't result too expensive for his Gama-chan. His current kunai and shuriken were so worn they almost didn't stick to tree-trunks when he threw them. Oh, well… they were cheap ones to begin with…

He was simply looking around to check if he had missed something when he felt it – a weak, feeble pull to the north.

Another Materia.

He stayed still for the first few seconds, puzzled as to why he had sensed it so suddenly. It wasn't like he had moved much further from the clearing he had previously used as a battleground… just a few feet… maybe he had simply been too distracted to notice, he thought, but that too seemed very strange. The fact that the presence of the Materia had appeared suddenly and not gradually was-

"What the hell?" he let out incredulously.

The Materia… it was gone! As suddenly as it had appeared, its presence had simply vanished from his senses as if it had never been there. What the hell did it mean?

'Hey Fox,' he started hesitantly. 'Did you feel it?'

'Ah, so YOU finally felt it, didn't you?' was the Kyuubi's reply.

'Well, I… I think so.' Naruto frowned, puzzled. 'Did it just disappear? Just like that?'

'Yeah. It's been doing that all week, popping up for a minute or so before going back to wherever it was.'

The blond made a noncommittal sound at that. 'So this is why you insisted I trained around here, in the outskirts near the northern gate,' he said after a moment of insight. 'You wanted me near enough to sense it.'

'Yeah, and it took you only a week to do it,' the Demon replied sarcastically.

Naruto ignored his tone, opting for an annoyed one instead. 'Why didn't you just tell me?'

'For the same reason why I didn't tell you about the Materia at the Hokage tower and won't tell you about any other I sense in the future,' the bijuu said seriously. 'It's something you have to do on your own. You can't rely on me for that.'

Naruto blinked his eyes quizzically. 'Why not? It's not like you're going anywhere.'

The Kyuubi growled dangerously. 'Thanks for reminding me. Indeed, I won't leave your side anytime soon. But we can't say the same in regards to your Kage Bunshin, can we?'

'That's right!' Naruto shouted inside his head, finally comprehending. 'My clones don't get your annoying comments every time, every day because you don't get cloned!'

The Demon decided to ignore the 'annoying' part. 'Exactly. So if you ever sent a Kage Bunshin around and he stumbled upon a Materia, he wouldn't even notice, not being proficient in sensing it.'

'Okay, I get it.' The young genin nodded seriously. 'I guess it's important then. I could even train myself about it,' he mused out loud.'Maybe sending clones around the Village with their own cloned Materia and then trying to find them. Something like hide-and-seek.'

'Good idea. Widening your perceiving range should be really useful. But let's save it for later.' The bijuu's deep voice sounded eager. 'Now that you finally noticed it, it's time to find this elusive Materia of ours.'

'Yeah, but it disappeared,' Naruto pointed out unhelpfully. 'I can't feel it now.'

'Neither can I,' the Kyuubi admitted. 'Let's just start by taking a look around the general area where we sensed it. We might get lucky.'

They did get lucky, although more than half an hour later. Naruto was checking a large group of bushes in what he considered the Materia's general direction when it suddenly appeared again on his senses. His head snapped up to the north and a second later he was already sprinting at the top of his speed.

He stopped feeling its presence way before arriving to the northern gate, which stared imposingly down at him with its closed doors, but he noticed a small group of his Kage Bunshin gathered nearby. There were six of them, but right as he stepped up to their little huddle, one of them burst out in a cloud of smoke and passed his memories down to him.

The original Naruto blinked owlishly before speaking up, startling the other clones who had yet to notice he was behind them.

"I'm right here."

"Whoa, boss!" a Bunshin said in surprise, turning around and bringing a hand up to his chest. "Are you trying to dispel us by heart-attack?"

Naruto grinned. "Maybe. So, what's up?"

Another clone shook his head. "You should know. We just forced suicide on one of us to inform you." He raised his arm to point to his left anyway. "I got here first. The Materia's right over there."

The original blond scrunched his eyes a little, staring hard at the outer wall of Konoha and at the evident stone stuck high on it. "Isn't it… uhm… blue?"

The Kage Bunshin exchanged some uneasy looks. "We think so, yeah…" one said uncertainly.

"Strange," Naruto commented as he continued to look up at the clearly blue spot on the otherwise grey wall.

"We thought you could have asked the Kyuubi about it," another clone offered.

Naruto nodded at the suggestion but hadn't even started speaking mentally to his tenant that the Fox immediately piped in.

'I'm not deaf,' he commented idly. 'Don't need to repeat yourself. Sorta.' There was a somewhat awkward pause before the bijuu resumed. 'Anyway, I don't really know why the Materia is blue instead of green, but I can guess. It probably has something to do with its powers.'

Naruto immediately started reporting what was being said in the silent conversation, leaving out the useless parts, of course. 'What do you mean?' he then asked the Kyuubi.

'I mean it will probably have a different use than the two… or better the one, we already have.'

Naruto ignored the barb at what the Demon considered his naiveté regarding Tenten. He was getting good at that kind of things thanks to all the practice his annoying tenant forced on him.

"How different?" one of the clones wanted to know after being told the bijuu's reply.

'I don't know yet. Maybe it's its effect, or even its inner workings,' the Kyuubi said. 'We won't know until we try.'

"Maybe it has something to do with why it suddenly appears and disappears from our senses," the original Naruto reasoned pensively, but his own clones shook their heads.

"Wrong, boss," one said, nodding towards the gates. "I was already here when it happened. Just when the doors closed after letting in a caravan of merchants, I couldn't feel the Materia anymore."

"Really?"

"Yeah," another Bunshin agreed. "The Materia can only be sensed when the gate is open. And it can't be a coincidence. Or at least, we don't think so."

"Hmmm…" Naruto murmured noncommittally before shrugging. "Anyway… who cares? Let's just get our hands on it."

Silence followed the declaration as everyone present just looked up at the Materia stuck high on the wall. Really, really high.

"Well," the original blond said hesitantly. "Let's give it a try at least…"

The next ten minutes were spent in various attempts, some more ridiculous than others, to actually get to the Materia. More than a hundred of Shadow clones' lives ended in those ten minutes. When a pyramid of Kage Bunshin fell down dispelling everyone, Naruto shook his head in annoyance. He had tried everything he could think of with embarrassing results, only useful to give the watching Kyuubi some good laughs.

"What can we do?" he whispered in frustration and could only jump in fright when an unexpected voice answered him from behind.

"The real question is another one."

Turning around, the startled genin just stared with wide eyes at the man leaning against a tree-trunk. He had brown hair and sharp eyes, and though he was facing Naruto almost completely, the orange-clad boy could see that what he at first thought was a bandanna, in reality was a Leaf head-protector. The ninja, a jounin from the look of things, leaned forward a little, the senbon in his mouth switching from one corner to the other.

"What exactly are you trying to do?"

Naruto's eyes shifted around with uneasiness. "Uhm... nothing?" he half-asked and the other rolled his eyes.

"Please," the shinobi said in a bored tone. "At least your first attempts were somewhat subtle. I can't say the same about that circus number just now. We could see and hear the ruckus all the way from the gate."

"They weren't so loud..." the blond protested weakly, earning a look of disbelief from the brown-haired ninja.

"Are you kidding me?" he retorted. "My ears are still ringing for all the yells and the puffing sounds!"

The orange-clad genin frowned slightly before conceding the point. "Okay, okay... maybe they were a little noisy. But I would like to hear you during the fall of a human pyramid, Senbon-guy!" he commented pointedly.

The newcomer seemed to think it over before actually answering. "I don't think I would ever take part to a human-pyramid, but I get your point. Still... you never answered my question," he continued, growing away from the tree and taking a step in the genin's direction. "What were you trying to do?"

Naruto looked down at his feet in an annoyed fashion. "I was trying to reach the top of the wall."

"You weren't trying to escape the Village," the man stated with certainty and Naruto grumbled something under his breath. "What was that?"

"I said," the boy repeated in a louder voice, "that would have been far easier."

The jounin nodded his head. "Considering how many clones you used, you could have climbed to and over the top easily enough. Instead, you were trying to create a somewhat stable position somewhere beneath it, am I right?" When the genin just nodded, the man narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

Naruto raised his chin defiantly and glared slightly at the shinobi. "There's something mine stuck on the wall. And I want it."

The jounin just raised an eyebrow both at the boy's words and at his display of defiance. His senbon rolled to the other corner of his mouth.

"That's impossible," he said eventually, after staring the genin down. "An ANBU team checks it regularly. It actually did that just a couple of minutes before you started throwing Shadow clones all over the place. Whatever you lost, it's not stuck on the wall."

Naruto scowled. "ANBU can't see it," he said hotly before amending hesitantly, "... from... down here."

The man snorted lightly. "There's no down here, boy. They check the wall thoroughly while on it."

Now the orange-clad ninja was confused. "While on it? What do you mean?" he asked, and the jounin looked at him skeptically.

"When I saw you earlier, I thought you just couldn't do the tree-climbing exercise. But I see you don't even know about it." He rolled his eyes, while going over to a nearby trunk and climbing it up to show what he was talking about to the now stunned genin. "Really... what does the Academy teach these days?"

Naruto was ecstatic and wide-eyed. "Wow! How do you do that?" he asked breathlessly, witnessing as the man walked up and down the tree as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

The brown-haired ninja finally jumped down to the ground to face him. "With chakra," he said simply before shooting a look in the gate's direction. He moved the senbon in his mouth left and right before speaking up again. "I better go back to the post now. They pay me to guard it, after all. But I can teach you if you come with me."

"Really?" the blond asked at once, his blue eyes even wider. "Would you do that?"

"Why not?" The man shrugged before grumbling under his breath. "It's not like I'm overburdened by work anyway."

He turned around and walked calmly out of the woods. Naruto followed him excitedly, almost skipping around like a happy puppy. When they arrived to the gate, another shinobi looked at them with a curious expression on his face as he stood at the side of the big doors, now closed.

"Hello," the man greeted Naruto weakly before coughing once. He was really, really pale, or maybe, the dark bags under his sunken eyes just gave that impression. He smiled feebly at the boy before giving his attention back to his fellow guard. "So... what was he up to, Genma-san?"

The brown-haired ninja, or Genma, Naruto guessed, shrugged his shoulders. "He says there's something he wants stuck on the wall. I took pity of him and his pathetic attempts at reaching it and decided to teach him the tree-climbing exercise."

The other man chuckled lightly while the genin sputtered indignantly. "Very nice of you."

"But I'm hopeless with kids," Genma continued, "so you're going to lend me a hand, Hayate."

Said Hayate coughed twice before turning to the blond genin. "I guess it's very nice of me too, then. I'm Gekkou Hayate, pleased to meet you."

The orange-clad ninja didn't let this chance pass. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage of Konoha," he shouted while pointing at himself with his right thumb and grinning. "Believe it."

Genma didn't quite roll his eyes, but his skeptic expression earned him a light scowl from the boy.

"I'll believe it when I see it," he commented idly.

"You'll see that soon, Senbon-guy!"

The man sighed while Hayate just raised his eyebrows. He coughed once.

"Senbon-guy?"

"I think he has a thing for lame nicknames," the brown-haired shinobi explained, this time rolling his eyes alright. "I'm surprised he still didn't call you Sicko-san or something."

The sick-looking ninja coughed again as if to make a point while Naruto nodded thoughtfully.

"That's a good one," he said.

"Now," Genma resumed, making it clear he wanted the topic to change. "Let's start the lesson. First thing first: why do you want to learn the tree-climbing exercise?"

"In order to walk up that wall and get what's mine?" the blond genin said as if it was obvious.

"Wrong, there's nothing stuck there, I already told you," the brown-haired jounin corrected, ignoring Naruto's scowl. "And even if there was something, that would only be the short-term benefit of tree-climbing. If you consider long-term gains, instead, the exercise offers you invaluable help. Traveling, for example, makes mastering the exercise pretty much a necessity for a shinobi. You will rarely travel at ground level when on a mission outside Konoha. You will instead stick to the branches of the trees or even on rooftops when in other towns." Genma made sure the genin was following before continuing. "Then there's your stamina. By using the chakra needed to practice the exercise, your reserves will slowly but steadily increase. Now, judging by how many clones you were spamming before, I guess you have lots already, but it's never enough, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" Naruto cheered. "I'll be even more awesome!"

The brown-haired ninja ignored the boy's interruption before resuming. "But ultimately, you want to learn it for chakra control."

"Chakra control?"

"Yes," Hayate piped in with a small smile. "There's a reason why it is an exercise."

"Exactly," Genma agreed. "Practicing tree-climbing is one of the most effective basic training methods to get better in controlling your chakra."

"Why?" the young genin asked curiously.

"Because it consists in gathering the exact amount of energy to one's feet, which are said to be the less sensitive body parts when it comes to chakra." The sick-looking man smiled down at him. "That means it may be difficult. Are you up to it?"

The blond looked affronted. "You bet I am!"

"Then stop wasting time," the brown-haired shinobi said, clapping his hands once. "Get to it."

With a fierce look on his face, Uzumaki Naruto ran towards the wall and jumped on it… only to fall back down on his head a short second later.

"Uhm, Genma," Hayate commented while Naruto grabbed his nape in pain. "Maybe you should have made him try a seal to better call up the chakra?"

The ninja looked at the boy rolling wildly on the ground dispassionately.

"Right."


Two nights later, Uzumaki Naruto woke up to a deep voice echoing inside his head.

'There's someone in the room.'

The blond blinked his eyes twice before almost jumping away from the bed when the words finally sank in. He then looked around in alarm and easily spotted the clone standing warily a few feet from him.

"Calm down, Boss," the Kage Bunshin said soothingly, shifting his eyes to the kunai in Naruto's hands. The genin hadn't even noticed he had pulled it out.

"Wha-" He tried to say but had to stop in order to swallow the lump in his throat. Damn, he felt groggy alright. It wasn't very nice to wake up like that. He glanced at the window and saw it was still completely dark outside. "What time is it? What's happening?"

"Well," the Shadow clone started hesitantly, "it's probably three in the morning. Maybe later. We tried to wake you up by dispelling one… well, two of us, but apparently their memories weren't enough."

Naruto nodded vaguely and yawned tiredly. "What happened?" he asked in a barely comprehensible growl as he lazily stretched his spine, putting the kunai away.

"Uhm… aren't those memories coming to you?"

The blond stopped suddenly, almost freezing in his awkward position before lowering his arms again.

"No," he said perplexed. "That's strange."

"Maybe that doesn't work when you're asleep," the clone suggested quietly. "Another Bunshin should have dispelled himself just about now. I actually thought you had woken up that suddenly for that reason, but I guess it was probably my fault…" He frowned harshly. "Was I really that noisy?"

"No, uhm, well, I don't think so," the original Naruto said hesitantly. "It was the Kyuubi who woke me up. He told me someone was in the room."

'Speaking of which, how did you know?'

The Demon snorted before answering. 'I heard him. He actually was that noisy.'

'But how did you hear him?' The young genin insisted, while raising a hand up to stall the clone in front of him from speaking.

'Remember our conversation with the Hokage? The one about my awareness of the outside world while being inside of you? I said I can see what you see and hear what you hear, if you recall.' The bijuu snorted again before resuming. 'Of course, all I see is blackness when your eyes are closed – I would have known the intruder was your clone if that hadn't been the case and I wouldn't have warned you at that point – but I can always listen to our surroundings, even when you sleep. It's not like you close your ears or anything.'

Naruto nodded his head at the explanation but still looked curious. 'What about when you sleep?'

There was a long pause before the reply. 'I never slept once since I was imprisoned in here.'

'Oh… why not?'

'I don't know, I just can't,' the Kyuubi said in a somewhat subdued tone. 'It's one of the things I miss the most.'

The blond didn't really know what to say to that, so he just lowered his arm and focused on the Kage Bunshin patiently waiting for the silent conversation to finish.

"So?" Said Bunshin asked interestedly.

Naruto shrugged. "He says he heard you."

"Okay," the other said with the tone of someone who had expected more. He shrugged his shoulders as well before grinning excitedly. "Anyway, we got it down!"

"What?"

"We got it down!" the Bunshin repeated animatedly. "The tree-climbing exercise! We got it down!"

Naruto was about to say something but then closed his mouth as his brow furrowed. "Why are you talking normally, then? This is something you should shout and cheer about. The whole neighborhood should wake up with a start for your yells."

The clone tilted his head to the side, looking as if he hadn't even thought about that. A second later, he let out a loud whoop of joy. "Hell yeah! We got it down!"

"Yeah!" the original blond shouted back, now fully awake and grinning. He pumped a fist in the air and then high-fived his own copy. "Now, that's better! Nice!"

The Kage Bunshin chuckled a little. "Yeah, we thought you would have liked to know it immediately. Maybe even tried to take the Materia right away."

Naruto nodded after a moment of consideration. "Let me get changed first, though," he said, discarding his pajama bottoms at once.

He finished dressing five minutes later and immediately jumped after his departing clone. They ran through the desert streets of the Village and the dark woods preceding the northern gate, safely keeping to the shadows of the night out of habit. When they eventually got to the gate, another dozen or so Narutos were running up and down the outer wall of Konoha under the mildly amused gaze of the two doors' guards standing nearby.

"Boss!" one of the clones shouted as soon as he saw him. "We did it!"

The orange clad ninja finally stopped in front of them. "I can see that."

"It's amazing!" another clone cheered jumping down with a slight grimace. "A little tiring after a while, though."

Naruto grinned excitedly at that. "I really can't wait to try it! Come on, guys, pop out of my way. I need your memories."

There was a moment of confused silence.

"Didn't you get three sets already?" one particularly puzzled Kage Bunshin eventually asked, but Naruto shook his head.

"Nope. I was asleep when those clones dispelled and have no recollection of your night whatsoever."

"Oh," was everyone's disappointed reply. Before disappearing with white puffs of smoke, though, all the Bunshin turned to the two ninja nearby with happy smiles. They thanked them profusely and honestly one by one, even though some weren't exactly coming off as very polite, all with the "Sicko-san!" and "Senbon-guy!" they were yelling.

Naruto grinned widely as the newly acquired information streamed inside his head.

"Bunch of brats…" he heard Genma murmuring under his breath.

"Did they behave?" the blond genin asked him innocently.

"Pretty much like you would have, I suspect," was the dry/plain/ answer. "You got their memories this time around, right?"

"Yep. I don't know why it didn't happen while I was sleeping."

"Maybe you simply treated those memories like dreams," Hayate suggested reasonably, "and forgot about them when you woke up."

"It's possible," Genma admitted. "I don't know all that much about the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

"Bah! Who cares? I didn't come here in the middle of the night to talk about that!" Naruto said eagerly, turning to the outer wall of Konoha.

"Give it a try, then."

Tree, or better wall-climbing turned out to be even easier than what his clones' memories suggested. The young blond ran up and down the smooth, vertical surface without any problem for several minutes, applying the necessary chakra as if he had done that his whole life. He even experimented with some long jumps or slides of sorts by altering the amount of energy used, and found out he had a good grasp of those as well. It was fun, and when he jumped down back to the ground and in front of the two gates' guards, he couldn't help but grin happily in their direction.

"You're pretty good, Naruto," Hayate commented with a cough.

"Yeah," Genma agreed. "It's surprising. From the first few tries yesterday, I thought it would have taken you a week, maybe two, to really learn the exercise. But I guess that using several Kage Bunshin to train cut down that time significantly."

"Yeah, I'm awesome!" the young genin said cheerily, pumping a fist in the air. "Now I can finally take the Materia."

"The what?"

"The thing I was talking about," Naruto explained. "You know, the one stuck on the wall."

"And what would that be exactly?" Genma asked with his brow furrowed.

"You'll see," was the mysterious answer.

And with that, the blond ninja dashed up the wall and to the right. The two shinobi left on the ground exchanged a dubious look before the brown-haired one let out a weary sigh.

"I'll go after him."

Genma easily caught up with Naruto after a few seconds, agilely flanking him to where the boy was headed. They came to a stop a few feet from the top of the wall, more or less across the thick bushes from where the genin had tried his pyramid of Kage Bunshin the day before.

"Here it is!" the blond said excitedly, staring down at the portion of wall in front of his feet.

Genma actually crouched down to take a closer look.

"What are you talking about?"

Naruto glanced at him before rolling his eyes. "Right. You can't see it."

"I can't see what?"

"The Materia!" the boy said, pulling a kunai out of his holster and using it to point at some sort of circular crack on the otherwise smooth wall. "It's a… let's say a sphere, stuck right here."

Genma peered at it even more attentively, and he had to admit that the part the boy was currently poking with his kunai did look slightly different than the rest. It was a lighter shade of grey and seemed less… raw compared to the porous quality of the surface around it. Could it be that… could it be that Naruto was right about it?

The thought completely flew away from his head when the boy started chiseling at the wall a second later.

"Fuck!" the man cursed, stopping Naruto's arm at once. A small piece of rock tumbled down to the far-away ground. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Let go!" the blond protested, trying to free his arm. "I'm taking it! That's what I'm doing! Let go!"

"No way! You're coming with me!"

A few seconds later, the pair was back to the ground again, standing in front of Hayate. Genma finally freed Naruto from his grasp and scowled at him. The genin scowled back, sputtering indignantly in the meantime.

Hayate's cough interrupted the glowering contest for a moment. "Uhm… what happened?"

"He tried to kill himself and my ninja career with a kunai," Genma said dryly, the senbon in his mouth rolling from one corner to the other repeatedly.

"What? I didn't!"

"Yes, you did. Do you know how dangerous the wall is?" The brown-haired ninja rounded on the angry genin. "There are seals carved on the other side that could literally blast most summon to pieces, and you just tried to dig down till them to find out what they do to a human body! Not to talk about what that could have done to the wards they enable, which are the main protection of the Village!"

The Kyuubi piped in with his deep voice at that. 'That would explain the Materia's strange trick of appearing and disappearing from our senses,' he reasoned. 'The seals of the wall must hide its presence somehow, at least when the doors are closed. It has probably something to do with Master Takegawa's theorem about chakra circuits.'

Naruto frowned both at the Kyuubi and at Genma. "I don't know anything about all that, but I wasn't going to dig so deep, just a few inches. The wall looks as thick as hell to me, anyway."

"It is," Hayate confirmed, trying to calm the spirits down a little now that he had a fairly good understanding of what had happened. He sent an almost pleading look in his fellow jounin's direction before resuming. "But it's also quite dangerous. You must be extremely cautious when dealing with it."

"I was only trying to take what's mine!" the young blond whined, slightly mollified by the soft tone of the sick-looking shinobi. He turned belligerent again, though, as soon as his eyes shifted back to Genma. "And I will take that, be sure of it!"

"And we will try to help you as much as we can," Hayate replied soothingly. "But it would be easier if you actually told us what that is."

Silence followed the request as Naruto mulled it over for some seconds. Then he reached inside his pocket and pulled his Materia out.

"This."

Genma blinked at it, his senbon stopping. The sphere in the boy's hand certainly looked similar in color and material to the portion of wall he had pointed at a few minutes before.

Hayate coughed.

"A rock?"

"It's not a rock," the young genin disagreed with annoyance.

"Then what is it?" he asked curiously.

Naruto opened his mouth to answer and then snapped it close.

"How old are you?" he asked Genma suspiciously a second later. "Sicko-san is obviously old enough, but I'm not sure about you…"

"Old enough for what?" the brown-haired ninja asked confusedly. He pointed at Hayate. "And he's younger than me, anyway."

"Really?" the blond made a double-take before scratching the back of his head. "Well, how old are you, then?"

A somewhat uneasy cough followed before Hayate's answer. "Uhm… Twenty-three."

Silence descended on the group as the young genin scrunched up his face in concentration. He held up his fingers and wriggled them a little in the usual motions of someone making a count. Then he nodded.

"All right! You're definitely old enough to know the law, then. You're like… three years older than Iruka, even!" He smiled conspiratorially and leaned a little towards the two. "Listen up, okay?"


An hour later, Naruto was holding his sparkling new Materia in tight fingers, marveling at its bright blue color. Genma and Hayate were both looking at him interestedly, together with the ANBU who had checked on him when he had carved the sphere out of the wall of Konoha. He was apparently the seal-expert of the team on patrol-duty that day, and after taking a look at the stonework, he had deemed it acceptable for Naruto to chisel around it… under his supervision, of course.

The young genin let out an excited breath before raising his arm. He pointed it in the general direction of a lonely bush nearby and called up chakra. Ten long seconds passed with no visible effect whatsoever. Not even the usual circle of green light appeared around him.

"Okay…" Genma commented eventually. "A bit less impressive than the bolt of lightning falling from the sky, but-"

"Shut-up, Senbon-guy!" Naruto shouted in irritation, finally lowering his arm and turning toward them. "I'm trying to focus!"

"It was instantaneous the other time, though," the brown-haired ninja continued with a smirk. He liked to ruffle the brat's feathers just that tiny bit. "Maybe this is just a rock. Nothing else."

"It's not! It's blue and you can't see that. That means this is a Materia!"

"Maybe it needs more chakra," Hayate suggested calmly.

"I already tried to use ten times the amount I use for the other one," the blond informed them frustrated.

The sick-looking shinobi seemed to think it over for a second. "Then it's possible that it just works differently. The fact it's blue, unlike the two you already have, could entail that."

The ANBU took a step forward, looking very formal as he spoke. "If I may?" he asked quietly, deep voice coming muffled from behind his hawk mask. "In ANBU, blue means support. When a member of the team has a stripe of such colour on the shoulder, it means support is his primary task or even specialization." He paused for a moment before resuming. "Although green indicates advanced medic abilities, and not offensive power as it would seem for your… stones."

"Still, you could be right," Genma said thoughtfully.

"Support, huh?" Naruto asked doubtfully, looking down at the sphere in his hand.

"Maybe. You could try to use it together with the other one," the brown-haired ninja suggested. "It's possible it's meant to enhance other Materia's powers or something."

The blond genin looked ecstatic at that. He quickly fished inside his pocket and pulled out the other – identical, to the three jounin's eyes – stone. He raised both his arms above his head and green light immediately rose in a circle around him. When the lightning struck the ground, it left the usual scorched mark on the dry soil.

"It looked pretty much the same to me," Naruto said disappointed.

"You could try different things as well," Genma ventured, smirking again. "I don't know… like rubbing them together quickly or saying magic words all the while."

That earned him a light glare from the blond. He looked pensive after a moment, though.

"What if…" he said quietly, turning around again and stretching his hands forward. Then he… paired the two Materia, making them touch one another, and instantly, he was aware of something new, something he hadn't even thought about before, and that he now knew was perfectly possible.

He could attack multiple targets.

That was it, he thought excitedly. That was the enhancement the blue Materia provided. He tried to pull it away from the green one, and it was like the ability of hitting different spots disappeared from his own mind. He smiled brightly at that, turning towards the other ninja as if to share that moment of understanding, but the three were still looking at him expectantly.

His grin turning wolfish, Naruto once again paired the Materia together and called up chakra. Immediately, green light rose from the ground around him and thunder rumbled ahead, this time much more prolonged than usual. The shower of lightning that followed left him positively open-mouthed. He counted six bolts, but could have missed one considering how close and quick they had stuck the ground. Looking down at the scorched marks once the ruckus had passed, he confirmed their number.

Six. Six bolts of lightning had fallen from the sky.

"Holy shit," Genma commented in an impressed tone.

Naruto smiled. 'Holy shit' seemed really appropriate, he thought as he peered down at the blue sphere in his hand.

He was already in love with this All Materia.


Author's notes – Just going to answer some of the main points and critics of you reviewers.

First, Naruto's dumbness. All I have to say about it is "it's canon".

Really, it's as simple as that. When I write a fanfiction, I try to stay faithful to the original work as much as I can. This means that unless an event of my creation products changes, there aren't any changes. Now, the point of divergence in my story for what concerns Naruto is the moment he sees the Lightning Materia on the Hokage Monument and the moment in which the Kyuubi starts speaking to him.

Until then, "Via Osmosis" Naruto is Canon Naruto. That means dumb, among other things. I didn't make him any dumber than he really is, on the contrary, to the other characters of the story (Team 7 especially), he appears smarter because of some of the Kyuubi's suggestions.

And he will grow. As a character, he will grow in this aspect as well. He already had some important moments of insight, just like in canon. They will get more frequent.

As for the Kyuubi, the same concept applies to him. Of course, the Demon's point of divergence is another one, as in to say the moment he conceived his plan. That happens twelve years before "Via Osmosis" really begins, and twelve years are enough time to change his character a little or a lot.

Don't fret about it. You don't even know what happened to him in those twelve years. You don't even know what his plan really is. Just keep reading, or stop, if you really can't stand the way I write him.

That's all, I think. Bye.

Uncle Stojil