Well, here it is. Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up. I've been a little busy in real life and finishing up my other story (will begin the sequel to that one very soon) and I also kind of hit a small block while writing this, although that has resolved itself.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Posted: 3/3/13

Chapter 10: Safe

Naruto heard a light knock on his door as his mother entered. "Naruto-kun, time to get up. You don't want to be late for school" called out Kushina.

"Uhg…" groaned Naruto as he rolled around groggily in his bed before promptly falling back asleep. He was exhausted as the previous night had been a busy one for him.

Flashback (3 nights ago)

"So based on everything that I've found, it looks like the Uchiha incident isn't going to occur" thought Naruto. For nearly the past year, he had been sending out transformed clones to try and gather information on the Uchiha clan. A few days ago, he made one last attempt to gather information by sending a clone to infiltrate the Uchiha compound directly and enter the secret meeting room beneath the clan hall. He found nothing. No information that hinted towards the Uchiha's coup de eta. As of now, he was pretty confident that by stopping the Kyuubi attack, he had stopped the Uchiha massacre. There was nothing more that he could do now that wouldn't blow the biggest secret that he ever had…that he was a time-traveler.

All he could do now was pray that the Uchiha weren't foolish enough to try and revolt against the village. It only helped that his mother and Mikoto were good friends and that his dad and the leader of the Uchiha got along well, seeing as they were on a squad together with Hyuga Hizashi in the previous war. As far as he was convinced, the Uchiha Massacre only happened in the previous timeline.

"So nothing. Hmm…now what do I do?" thought Naruto. Now that the Uchiha problem was taken care of, or at least the best he could do, he was now at a loss of what he should do. Of course there was a lot that he needed to do, but nothing major was going to happen for at least 4-5 years.

At that time in the previous timeline was when everything began to go downhill. That was when he took the chunin exams for the first time and Orochimaru reared his ugly face. Orochimaru drove Sasuke from the village and Akatsuki began to make its move.

"So let's see. I shouldn't have to worry about Orochimaru until the first chunin exams, which is about four years away, and Akatsuki won't start coming after me for about 5 years. But then again, will I have to worry about Akatsuki? I mean I don't have that overgrown Furball sealed in my gut…" thought Naruto. It was at that time though, that he realized something he wished he didn't. "…Mom…"

That's right, Kushina was the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi this time around, not him. But that didn't put him at ease one bit. If anything, that made Naruto worry more. Akatsuki would actually be coming after his mother. "No! I can't let them get her! I finally got my parents back and there's no way in hell I'm going to lose them again!" thought Naruto. But what could he do? He didn't know how to stop Akatsuki at this point. In fact, it was still years before most people even heard the name Akatsuki. He knew what he needed to do. "I must get stronger. That way, I can put an end to Akatsuki when they finally do show up and keep them from taking Mom away from me!"

With that, Naruto made a shadow clone to cover for him just in case something arose in the house while he left to go stake out a training ground where he knew he wouldn't be bothered. Already, he knew where he was going. It was the one place in Konoha where he could work on higher-level skills without anyone bothering him…Training Ground 44, the Forest of Death.

It took about 30 minutes for him to sneak through Konoha and arrive there. He snuck through an opening in one of the fences and proceeded a little into the training ground, being extra cautious not to set off some sort of trap or anger a dangerous animal. Finally, Naruto came to a clearing which was maybe half a kilometer in, far enough in to cover the training yet to come, but close enough to the edge to be safe.

"So what can I do? I've got the Henge. That was probably the first thing I was able to do, and it's not that lame genjutsu version either. Hell, I can't believe that the Henge was actually a genjutsu to begin with. The look on Ebisu-sensei's face was priceless and Sasuke seemed happy after his dad found out he could use the high-level Henge" thought Naruto. "I can do the Kawarmi, even though I decided not to show that one off in school. I don't want to look like I'm too far ahead of everyone. I still can't do a normal Bunshin no Jutsu to save my life though. It sounds like I got a lot of chakra just from coming back in time, about as much as I used to have when I graduated I guess, and I'll probably need Bachan's level of control to even be able to do those, but it doesn't matter since my Kagebunshin no Jutsu works perfectly fine. I can do tree climbing and water walking. So what came after that?"

Naruto thought for a little, trying to remember everything he did in the previous timeline. "So after that, I met Ero-Sennin and learned how to summon. That's probably out for now seeing as I haven't signed the Toad Contract. Then I left with Ero-Sennin to track down Baa-chan and he taught me the Rasengan. Hmm…yeah, the Rasengan's definitely next them. The next major training I did was when I left with Ero-Sennin on the three year training trip, which now that I think of it, I really didn't get too much accomplished. Sure I developed the Odama Rasengan, but that was really about it. When I got back, then I learned about wind manipulation from Kakashi-sensei and developed the Futon: Rasengan and Rasenshuriken. Hmm…oh it'd be so cool if I could still do those. The Futon: Rasengan is definitely doable, but I'll need Sage-mode to use the Rasenshuriken in combat, and I'm not even going to attempt that until I get the Toad Scroll. I don't want to be turning into a stone frog statue anytime soon. And I can't just go asking for someone to supervise me, because that would draw too much attention" Naruto deliberated for a bit longer before coming up with a decision. "Okay, Rasengan for now and then I'll work on wind manipulation. Once I do that, I can make the Futon: Rasengan and work on the Rasenshuriken so that I can use it the moment I get the Toad Contract and can start asking Sennin Ji-chan-sensei (Fukasaku) to watch me work on Sage-mode."

With that, Naruto set out to begin training on the Rasengan. After a few hours, he wasn't getting anywhere. The Rasengan kept exploding in his hands whenever he tried to stabilize it. As he made his way back home for the night, he was thinking on how to do the Rasengan. From the looks of things, his control wasn't quite there yet. He figured he would just have to start from the beginning, starting with the water balloon. Hopefully his dad wouldn't notice the missing water balloons or rubber balls from the house.

After two nights, Naruto had managed to perform a successful Rasengan with the aid of a shadow clone; however, he wasn't going to stop there this time. He realized that if he truly wanted to master that jutsu, he would have to be able to do it with one hand and so he started over from the very beginning, using only one hand.

*End Flashback*

"Well, at least I was able to get through step two with only one hand" thought Naruto as he drifted back to sleep. "I'll get that jutsu down tonight with only one hand, -ttebayo!"

"NAMIKAZE NARUTO! GET YOUR SORRY ASS DOWN HERE BEFORE YOU'RE LATE FOR THE ACADEMY OR SO HELP ME…!"

After hearing the yelling from his mother, Naruto was down and ready to go in a speed that would have rivaled that of Minato's Hiraishin. "Shikamaru's right, mothers are troublesome" thought Naruto, shivering in fear at his mother, who's hair was now resembling 9 tails.

"Don't worry Honey, I'll just flash Naruto to school. It's no big deal" said Minato.

"No big deal?!" replied Kushina. "Are you trying to encourage him to become lazy?"

Minato gulped as Kushina reached for one of the kitchen knives. "GET OVER HERE NAMIKAZE AND SCRUB EVERY SEAL OFF OF THIS HOUSE BEFORE I CASTRATE YOUR LAZY ASS!" Before things could get any uglier in the house that morning, Naruto had left. For probably the first time in both of his lives, he was glad to be going to school.

"Ohayo, Iruka-sensei!" said Naruto, greeting Iruka. Ebisu hadn't come in and Naruto was pretty sure he wouldn't be in all day.

"Good morning class. I'm sorry to say that Ebisu-sensei won't be coming into class today as he has to deal with a few pipes in his apartment complex that are leaking paint" said Iruka, not quite believe what he was actually saying either. Had anyone looked towards Naruto, they would have noticed the big grin plastered on the blonde's face. "Anyways class, for today we'll begin discussing the Second Shinobi War and many of the tactics used that ultimately led to our victory. After lunch will be physical exercises and weapons practice."

Iruka began going over his lecture as Naruto tried to listen in. Besides what Iruka was lecturing on, he was also thinking on how he would get the Rasengan down later tonight, other potential pranks, and hoping his dad wouldn't get caught by his mother.

Lunch time came, and as usual, Naruto and Sasuke found themselves assaulted by a mob of fan-girls all wanting to eat lunch with them. Thankfully, there was a rather tall tree in the school courtyard that didn't have any low-hanging branches (not that the fan-girls didn't have the upper body strength to climb trees anyways) and Naruto and Sasuke both knew the tree-climbing technique. The two were enjoying their lunch atop the higher branches of the trees as the fan-girls just sat at the base like a pack of rabid dogs (no offence to Akamaru) who had just chased a squirrel up the tree.

After lunch was physical exercises followed by shuriken practice. The exercises were beginning to get a little more intense and it was becoming obvious that the fan-girl's dieting were beginning to take a toll on their physical performance.

"Okay class, who wants to demonstrate their shuriken skills" asked Iruka.

"Me!"

"I'll do it!"

"Umm…Shino, you're up" called out Iruka.

"That would be unwise, sensei" said Shino as a few bugs began to emerge from under his coat, creeping out a few of the people around. "Because you see, the Aburame…"

"Uhg, never mind. Just go Sasuke" said Iruka, placing the palm of his hand on his forehead.

"Yay! Sasuke-kun!" squealed some of the girls.

"Pft. Why is it always Sasuke-kun this, Sasuke-kun that?" scoffed Hibachi.

"Why does this seem familiar?" thought Naruto, looking over at Hibachi. Sasuke just 'hn-ed' and walked up to the line where he grabbed eight shuriken in both hands. After pausing for a moment, he threw all of them so that they landed smack-dab in a straight line along the center of the post.

"Sasuke-kun's so cool!" squealed some more fan-girls.

"Bah! What's so great about Suckske?" said Hibachi. "I'll show you!" (1)

He grabbed a few shuriken and lined up at the line, throwing them. None of them hit their mark and one was even imbedded in a tree, mere inches away from a shaking Iruka's head. "Weird, I'm almost positive I've seen this before" thought Naruto.

"Heh, sorry about that. Let me go again, I'll show you just how great I can be!" proclaimed Hibachi.

"Back in line, Hibachi" growled Iruka. "Now I want the rest of you to pair off and practice. I'll be around to check your progress."

"Sasuke-kun!"

"Naruto-kun!"

The mob of fan-girls began to swarm their respective deity, but thankfully Iruka was able to put a stop to it. "Honestly, this really is starting to get frustrating. Everyday these girls…it's just…uhg!" thought Iruka. "Sasuke, Naruto, just got together for today."

"So who shall we do today?" asked Sasuke.

"I don't know…hmm. I've got it!" said Naruto whispering something in Sasuke's ear.

"We're going to need a bigger post to do that on" said Sasuke.

"I know, the fence should serve just nicely" said Naruto. "Besides, it might be an improvement after what Hibachi did to it."

After a few minutes Iruka began making his rounds. "Not bad Chouji…Almost had it Kiba…Shikamaru, wake up will ya?"

"Troublesome…" yawned Shikamaru.

He then came to Naruto and Sasuke to find an empty post. "Okay, what are you two up to today?"

"Just ten more minutes, we're almost done Iruka-sensei" said Naruto. Iruka sighed and moved on.

"Hibachi, stop playing around, you're going to take someone's eye out" said Iruka to Hibachi, who was playing with a kunai, that is until he lost control of it.

"Ow! My eye!" screamed another kid. Iruka sighed.

"Hibachi, that's enough for one day" he said before taking Hibachi's poor victim to the infirmary. About 10 minutes later, Iruka returned to see Naruto and Sasuke putting the finishing touches on their masterpiece.

On the fence behind the training post was a chibi Minato lying on the ground, defeated and beaten with crossed-out eyes and a lump on his head and a chibi Kushina with a victorious look on her face, her fingers making a 'V' in one hand and the other hand holding a rolling pin. Naruto put the final finishing touches on the portrait with the Hiraishin kunai his dad gave him, landing it square on the collapsed Minato's ass.

"You know Naruto, Hokage-sama's the most powerful ninja in the village. I doubt he could be defeated by a rolling pin" said Iruka.

"Clearly you don't know my mother" replied Naruto. Iruka just sighed again and tried to hold back a slight laugh as he pulled out a camera to take a picture of today's 'shuriken painting'. So far, he had ones of Jiriaya, Kakashi, himself, Tsunade, Gamabunta, and a pig (Iruka didn't know Tonton yet).

"Come on…just a little…"

"Boom!"

Naruto was thrown back as the Rasengan destabilized in his hand. "Damnit! Come on, one more time!"

He held out his hand and began forming the Rasengan again. "Okay…now just focus" said Naruto as the blue sphere began to form and condense and the chakra began to spin faster. "Hold it…just a little more…almost..." He began to concentrate even harder to keep the Rasengan stable as he began to compress the chakra one last time. The point came and went where Naruto was expecting to be thrown back. When he opened his eyes, the Rasengan was stable and sitting in his hands.

Naruto grinned as he eyed a nearby tree and ran towards it. "Rasengan!" shouted Naruto as he slammed the Rasengan into the tree, tearing through the truck of the once mighty tree. He just barely moved out of the way in time to avoid the tree from falling on top of him. Naruto then fell back, exhausted, but satisfied.

"Heh, now I've got the Rasengan back. I think that'll be it for tonight. I'm tired" said Naruto before wearily making his way back to his house. Now that he had the Rasengan down, wind manipulation was next on his agenda, but that would wait until the next day and he was pretty sure he could do some of that training at home as a leaf was a lot less conspicuous than a Rasengan.

It was the night, three weeks after he completed the Rasengan. Tonight was the fateful night. It was the night where Itachi would supposedly murder his clan. Naruto was pretty sure that he was in the clear, but he wanted to be absolutely sure. He made his way out of his house, leaving a clone to cover for him in his bed, as he dashed towards the Uchiha compound. Despite finding nothing on the massacre, he couldn't be absolutely certain and had to make sure that nothing bad happened.

Upon arriving at the compound, Naruto took up a position in one of the nearby trees, suppressing his chakra as best he could, and waited. The compound was quiet, with the only movement being the routine patrol that walked through the streets. There were no signs of an impending coup, no signs of a massacre, no blood…nothing.

As time passed, Naruto saw the one person he really wanted to keep an eye on, Itachi, walk up to the door of his house. Itachi was just returning from a mission and Naruto tensed up.

"Itachi, welcome back" said a feminine voice that was most likely his mother. "How was the mission?"

Naruto watched through a window as Itachi began to remove his ANBU gear, but froze when he saw Itachi looking directly towards him.

"Shit, I think he's spotted me" thought Naruto.

"Itachi? Is everything okay?" asked Mikoto.

Itachi took another look out the window towards Naruto before turning back to his mother. "Yes mother, everything's fine." Itachi closed the window to ensure that any observers couldn't watch. Naruto let out a slight sigh, but kept his guard up as this was Itachi he was dealing with.

By the time dawn came, Naruto realized that he was in the clear. No one had been killed that night, at least not on the Uchiha compound…the T&I Department was another story, knowing how Ibiki was. Before activity could pick up as the day began, Naruto left, hoping to get back to his house before…

"NAMIKAZE NARUTO! GET YOUR LAZY ASS OUT OF BED THIS INSTANCE!"

…before that.

For the rest of the week, Naruto had clones keep tabs on the Uchiha compound, making sure that nothing out of the ordinary happened. To Naruto's satisfaction, nothing did happen. He saw no signs of an impending coup or massacre and by the end of the week, he was sure that he was in the clear and the assignment of shadow clones to watch over the compound ended.

Naruto had made his way back to the Forest of Death to continue with his training. He had made good progress with wind chakra, although he hit a little snag when he realized that he didn't have a waterfall to cut. As a result, after he finished with the leaf, Naruto began to work his way up through sticks of various sizes.

The shadow clone training method was simply amazing for training and Naruto also found out that he had much better chakra control this time around, due the fact that he didn't have to focus most of his control on keeping the Kyuubi's chakra at bay, although it wasn't anywhere near perfect. He still had massive chakra reserves as a result from bringing his yin chakra back with him through time. At first when he came back, he notices that there were some weird chakra fluctuations within him, partially due to his body rapidly adjusting to the sudden influx of chakra and also due to the fact that a majority of the chakra was yin-based. While his parents didn't notice, the first few months of his life had fluctuations of pain as the yin and yang chakra within him tried to balance one another out (2).

Despite the rough start, his chakra had stabilized and he had a lot of it by this point in time, something he was grateful for. Of course, he also realized that he had a bloodline, one that he originally thought was the Kyuubi's doing. While training his wind element, Naruto immediately began thinking…the reason he couldn't use the normal Rasenshuriken in the original timeline was because it tore up his arm, but if his bloodline was perfect healing, then did that mean his arm would fully recover each and every time? He would have to ask his mom to explain to him how exactly the bloodline worked and if it was in fact possible for him to use the Rasenshurikien without any permanent drawback.

A few more days passed as normal. Naruto was coming home from the Academy, after he and Sasuke escaped the mob of horny fan-girls. Sadly, his mom was out on a mission, although she would be getting home later, and his dad had a late meeting with the council, something about the civilian council being unhappy about the standards at the Academy being raised. Naruto really didn't see what the big deal was. Ever since the shinobi side of the village took back control of the academy, all they had done was eliminate some of the less important subjects, restructure the history taught in the class so that it focused on ninja history and strategies used in war, something Shikamaru was actually awake for, made the physical conditioning more strenuous, required the students to learn a few extra jutsu besides the Academy 3, and a lot of other stuff that would have better prepared them for their future as a genin.

On his way up to his room to drop his stuff off, Naruto noticed that his dad's study door was open slightly and sadly…curiosity had gotten the better of him.

"You know, I came in here once or twice to see what sort of cool jutsu dad had, but I never really had time to look" he thought as he went over to one of the bookshelves and grabbed a book titled 'Fundamentals of Fuinjutsu'. "Fuinjutsu? That's right! My dad's a seal master, so is mom, and so is Ero-Sennin. Dad's told me a little about seals, but I've never really known what exactly they are all about?"

Naruto immediately began reading through the large book. While it would have sounded very boring and textbook-like to most people, Naruto was immediately drawn to the subject. He had never realized that fuinjutsu was this interesting.

"Man, if they had taught this kind of stuff at the academy, I wouldn't skip class so often…" said Naruto to himself. He was glad no one was in the room, or so he thought.

"What's this about skipping class?" Naruto immediately stiffened and turned around to see his dad looking down at him. Apparently, he was so into the fuinjutsu book that he lost track of time and Minato's office was where Minato would normally Hiraishin to when he came home.

"Umm… hey dad, how was that meeting?" asked Naruto.

"It was good. You know, there are a lot of changes being made to the Academy curriculum that you shouldn't SKIP" retorted Minato. Naruto just grinned innocently. "Furthermore, what are you doing in my study? Didn't I tell you not to go in here without myself or your mother?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Naruto, I don't mind if you eventually learn the stuff in here as I plan to teach it all to you someday as a father, but there are a lot of jutsus in here that could get you killed if you don't know what to do" said Minato. "Now, what did you get into this time?" He took the book from Naruto's hands and immediately realized it was one of the first books Jiraiya-sensei gave him when he was teaching him fuinjutsu.

"Well, I guess this one isn't that bad" said Minato, handing the book back to Naruto. "I suppose it is time I start teaching him. After all, both myself and Kushi are seal-masters."

"Hey dad, how come they don't teach this stuff in the academy?" asked Naruto.

"Hmm…well, fuinjutsu is an incredibly difficult and complex, yet powerful art that only few ever master" said Minato. He had given Naruto a brief introduction to seals before, but he never really started teaching his son. "Your mother and I being two of the very few seal masters in this world."

"Really?! Hey dad, think you could show me how to make a few seals?" asked Naruto. This was immediately turning from something he should have gotten in trouble for, to him getting something that would only make him stronger.

"I don't see why not. Your mother and I were going to start teaching you at some point, so we might as well start now" said Minato.

"Okay class, before we begin, I've got a few announcements to make" said Iruka. It was maybe a month since the supposed 'Uchiha Massacre', although no Uchiha's had been killed in at least 4, and that was because of a freak accident on a mission (Naruto had somehow managed to get into the mission records…again).

"First, I will be taking over as your full time teacher. It appears as if Ebisu-senpai has been offered a full-time private tutoring position and he has accepted" said Iruka. Most of the class cheered. While they really didn't hate Ebisu-sensei, they found that he could be rather boisterous and annoying at times. Besides, they all liked Iruka-sensei much better.

"Poor Konohamaru" thought Naruto. If it was anything like last time, Ebisu was probably hired to begin teaching Konohamaru, who should be turning 6 pretty soon and begin his training. Naruto on the other hand, was maybe 4 months from turning 9. "Speaking of which, I should go find him some time, I kind of miss hanging out with him."

Still, Naruto was slightly disappointed that Ebisu would no longer be teaching. I mean, who was he supposed to prank now? His question was answered the moment a white-haired chunin walked through the door. "Oh this is going to be fun. That bastard of a traitor has no idea what's coming…"

Sasuke looked over to see THAT look on Naruto's face and he was already pitying the foolwho was on Naruto's hit-list of pranks. "Anyways class, I would like to introduce Mizuki, who will be acting as my assistant and assisting me with weapons and jutsu" announced Iruka as Mizuki quickly introduced himself. "Lastly, we will be having a late exercise tomorrow evening to help teach you some survival skills. While these exercises last overnight for some of the older students, you will only be here until around 11 or 12 at night. After which, you will have the following day off to reflect on what you were taught. We will be holding these exercises all day Friday, so come to class prepared on that day."

The training exercise really was nothing too difficult or special. It was merely a series of instructions on camping and surviving in the outdoors, something that would be necessary for extended missions. Tonight was just instruction and the real outdoor survival exercises would begin in a few months, once the instructors felt the students knew what was necessary.

They were let out around 11 or 12 at night and Naruto and Sasuke proceeded to make their way towards the Uchiha compound, which was on the way to Naruto's house. It was a rather calm night, no clouds and the stars were brightly shining in the night sky. The entire village had practically shut down for the night with the exception of a few necessary buildings. It was quiet…almost too quiet.

Naruto and Sasuke were discussing some of the things that they went over in class when they approached the Uchiha compound and a blood-filled scream ripped through the air, followed by another.

"I guess that's enough for one night. Naruto should be home any minute now" said Kushina, quietly to herself. She had set down a book that she had been reading, waiting for her son to return home from the academy's late-night exercises. Minato was also busy tonight with a lot of work (not the type shadow clones could so sadly). He was busy tonight finishing up the initial draft of the treaty that would be approved by the Konoha Council and then sent to Sunagakure to further strengthen the relationships between the two nations.

"Where is he? He should be home by now!" said a slightly frustrated Kushina as she made her way out of the house to see if Naruto was coming down the street. As she reached the road, three ANBU appeared in front of her.

"Uzumaki Kushina, you are to come with us immediately" said one of the ANBU.

Author Notes

1. For those of you who don't remember from the Konoha History arc directly after the Pein arc, Hibachi was one of the students in Naruto's class who picked on the poor blonde. He was also the one who sent Naruto out into the back hills (I don't exactly remember the name) to find a corpse, only for Naruto to be ambushed by a trio of Taki ninja. For the purposes of this story, he is basically the new class dead-last and is extremely jealous of Naruto and Sasuke getting all the attention.

2. The yin and yang chakras I'm referring to are not yin-release and yang-release. All chakra is originally divided into yin (spiritual) and yang (physical). There is also a constant changing of chakra going from yin to yang and yang to yin in order to balance the two parts out.

So that's that. Things are beginning to fall into motion.

Naruto has the Rasengan now and has begun trying to regain his Rasenshuriken. If you're asking why it only took him a few days, it was because of a few things. 1) he already knew how to do the Rasengan, so it was just a matter of getting a feel for his chakra and 2) shadow clones. While he may not be using as many clones as possible, he's still training using quite a few.

In terms of Naruto's reserves at this point, I would say that they are about as big as they were at the start of the anime (graduation). Also, in terms of age, Naruto is a few months from turning 9 and Sasuke is almost 9 as his birthday is about 3 months before Naruto's.

I know I haven't been talking too much about the rest of the Rookie 9 or Konoha 12, but they will be looked at further here in about 2-3 chapters.

And yes, Kushina is probably the only person in the Five Nations right now who could beat Minato.

Anyways, till next time.

Please review/comment.