Naruto woke up in his bed. He wasn't the original Naruto, of course. The original Naruto was still underground with Toto, still training his body and making more chakra-creating clones. The Naruto waking up in his bed was the Naruto assigned to do what the original should be doing instead of training-from-hell. You know, see Hinata, do missions, make sure his own training clones were doing their jobs and checking up on the others. At this thought, Naruto checked his memory reports and was extremely pleased to see that his friends had managed to get the best of the older generation to teach them one on one. He hadn't been all too sure about Tsunade, or that Sunny would inherit his luck just by being a clone of his, but it'd worked out perfectly. Naruto giggled a little at the sight of Tsunade gritting her teeth at Sunny learning the basics of her prized technique overnight. Apparently, Sunny herself wouldn't be using it in battle unless she absolutely had to. She thought it was "too crude", as she put in her report. Not that that meant it went to waste, however. The 9 of them shared everything they and their clones learned every night. Naruto scoffed to himself as he sat up. ANBU in a month and a half? More like in three weeks.

Clones of Naruto's were already greeting Hinata, checking out available missions in secret, and performing various other morning activities. Last night had gone much like the night before it, with one of Naruto going out with Ino, another spending time with Hinata in his room (she physically fell asleep at his place this time, as he couldn't make her leave. He'd had to bodily carry her to her room without being spotted by guards. Tricky business.), Luna and Sasuke discussing what it was like to be in a team, and Rai and Tenten discussing ninjutsu and various aspects of her new living conditions. Naruto had only just noticed that Rai and Tenten were becoming unusually close, and that Ino/Hinata might eventually become a problem. He hadn't thought of the former since he thought of Tenten completely like a friend, and he hadn't thought of the latter since he couldn't imagine a universe where Ino actually crushed on him and not Sasuke. He liked Ino, but he loved Hinata. It was just that simple.

Shaking his head out of his "silly girl troubles", he got up and started sifting through what everyone had been working on and ideas that had come up. The original had made 212 chakra-creating clones the afternoon before. 200 of those were split evenly between the countries that had to be monitored and eventually taken over. Nine of them were for each of Naruto's "selves", and three of them were doubles for the three that had to study abroad. The 200 weren't making any serious number of clones or doing any mass studying yet, but the other twelve were. Able to make about 2000 each, and all of them training on varied and wide-spread things, it made for a lot to go through.

A lot to go through. Naruto was part happy, and part sad that he would probably be spending his time doing this until after lunch. Luckily, the twelve making clones knew what to label "important" and "unimportant" in the reports, it didn't take as long as it could've, but still. It was a huge amount.

When he was done, he could condense it and send it to the original Naruto, who would still be working on muscle training and making more clones. This, as predicted, took him until after lunch while his team did a mission for hours that his clones could've done in minutes. Naruto frowned. He would really have to talk to the Hokage about that.

Done with his reviewing, he headed to the training area that was supposed to be the meeting place for "Group Training", as the Hokage had dubbed it. He knew for a fact that the idea had been implemented immediately, as he'd left a clone to observe how the Jonin and Special Jonin took it. Everyone loved the idea, and were incredibly surprised when the Hokage mentioned Naruto had thought of it, except for Anko. Then again, she avoided anything that didn't involve dango, booze, sex, or someone bleeding. Naruto chuckled. This was going to be tons of fun.

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Naruto was smiling as he sat in the middle of the training ground they were scheduled to be at, thirty minutes early. He was smiling because he got to see the Jonin interact without being prompted to by the Hokage. Even with the most reliable spy network in existence, it was something he didn't get to see often. Then again, Yugao testing his knowledge to see if he was all ANBU cracked him up to be wasn't something he got to experience often, but he did experience it fifteen minutes later. The ANBU who'd both been monitoring Naruto for most of his life and the past three days had been appalled at his progress and actions, and now Uzuki Yugao knew why.

Questioning Naruto on a variety of topics now were Uzuki Yugao and Yuhi Kurenai. Watching and commenting every now and then were Mitarashi Anko and Sarutobi Asuma. Off to the side were Maito Gai and "his eternal rival", Hatake Kakashi. They were bickering, or maybe it was more Gai making passionate declarations about what he would do if he wasn't the best teacher out of all of them and Kakashi pointedly ignoring him with his nose in an orange book.

Naruto was feeling incredibly proud of himself. Not because he was answering Yugao's questions with ease while adding obscure facts and useful details on account of the massive amount of books his clones have read. No, he was proud of himself because he could see he had chosen his teachers wisely. In this group of six adept ninja, all of the bases were covered. Gai was a Taijutsu specialist, Kakashi and Asuma to Ninjutsu, Kurenai to Genjutsu, Yugao to Kenjutsu, and Anko to poisons and infiltration. The way it was set up, each Genin would get to learn in groups from one of the specialists about their specialty, and they could choose to continue learning from that group or move one to another. This way, Genin could cover their weaknesses and enhance their strengths much better than they could on their own.

The Genin teams and Naruto's "friends" appeared together on time. They all looked thoroughly excited, except for Sasuke, Neji, Shikamaru, Shino, and Uzumi, who never looked excited, ever. One could tell they were, though.

As Gai explained in tones of eagerness what they were all doing there, the Genin started deciding in advance what they wanted to learn about. The explanation was brief, as the Jonin of the 12 had already explained what was happening in detail to their Genin, and of course the other four already knew. Tenten was omitted from the day's learning because she would be holding her own group for weapons half the time. Naruto simply introduced Rai, Luna, Uzumi, and Jack as his close friends. Shino and Shikamaru were the only ones who picked up on the fact that they all had different goggles and dressed similarly. It didn't mean anything in and of itself, but when it came to Naruto...

"Yosh!" Gai and Lee seemed to say simultaneously. Gai continued. "Now, pick your group, and the lessons of youthfulness shall begin!"

The Genin, save for Naruto, all looked at each other before beginning to shuffle off in their own directions.

Rai went straight for Kakashi, Chouji and Hinata to Asuma, Kiba, Neji and Jack to Gai, Sakura and Uzumi to Kurenai, Sasuke and Luna to Yugao, Ino and Lee to Anko, and Shino with Shikamaru to Tenten. And so, the training began.

Naruto looked at them all with a proud look on his face as they began paying attention to their teachers. He occupied himself with analyzing the kids' choices. He knew Rai had a special interest in lightning techniques, and Kakashi was lightning chakra natured. The two that went to Asuma probably wanted low level jutsu in conjunction with their styles. The two that went to Gai were obvious, except for Jack. When Naruto had asked him earlier why he wanted to train with Gai, Jack had said he wanted to create his own taijutsu for a surprise he and Makima were cooking up. The two that went with Kurenai were also obvious. Sakura not simply following Sasuke did mean she was starting to take being a ninja more seriously, after all. Or maybe she had just given up after seeing Luna with him so much. Sasuke was also obvious, and Luna had also admitted she wanted to create her own kenjutsu style. It'd be what she called a "perfect kenjutsu", if there was such a thing. Ino was interested in poisons after some prodding from Naruto himself, and Lee had been encouraged to learn the silent killing technique from the same source. He didn't need to talk to Shino or Shikamaru to know that they were looking for weapons that augmented their styles as well.

Kakashi turned away from the "leaning way too quickly to be normal" Rai to look at Naruto for a second, who was aside from the group watching the others. Fifteen minutes with the kid and Kakashi was certain that either Rai was a genius with lightning jutsu, or he'd already developed the affinity. Little did Kakashi know Rai had spent every one of his clones the previous afternoon and night learning how to manipulate lightning chakra completely. It'd been hard, lightning not being his natural affinity, but Rai had gotten clever and made subtle changes and transformations to his body to bend it from wind to lightning. It'd taken a while, but he got it down.

Kakashi left Rai to his own devices to talk to Naruto. "Hey, Naruto… this was your idea, why aren't you training?"

As soon as Kakashi got a meter within Naruto's radius, he felt it. The air was thick with chakra that was swelling and breathing, like killing intent, but without the negative emotions, feeling more like neutral observation. Kakashi noticed Naruto was glowing blue slightly.

Naruto smiled at him. "So you can see it, huh? I am training, Sensei. I read some things about chakra pulses and radars, and wondered if I could try it myself."

Kakashi had difficulty feeling comfortable around all that leaking chakra. "If you're trying to do that, you're doing it wrong..."

Naruto just laughed, pulling back his chakra slightly after noticing his discomfort. "Nah, they were both really easy techniques. I can make a pulse that could disrupt the genjutsu in the entire city, and a radar that goes just as wide almost undetected. They're interesting, but there's no control. No elegance. What if you had enough chakra to maintain a thin layer of it a mile radius?"

Kakashi's eye widened. "You'd need Kage-level reserves..."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Do you really still think I'm your average Genin? Open your eyes, Sensei. I'll be able to take you on in a fight in three weeks. Anyway, if I could maintain that layer of chakra, I could sense anyone and anything perfectly for that radius. I could even use long range techniques..." Naruto's eyes widened as he realized something.

Kakashi stared at him. "What?"

Naruto was mumbling. It was like he was going over reams of information a chapter a second. His mouth gaped open wide, and he got a giddy look on his face. "Kakashi-Sensei… do you know how the replacement technique works?"

"No… I can't say I do. It's always been a bit of a dismissed mystery, ever since the first ninja of the world taught it to us many years ago… I know it's a low level space-time ninjutsu… but that's about it."

Naruto's mind was racing. "There have been experimental studies. Replacement doesn't just physically switch you with something or someone else. It decomposes your body into chakra and then switches it with what you want to switch with, also decomposing it into chakra, and recomposing it where you were. Basically, it's teleportation, but unlike the body flicker, there's no interval, no space used in between. You can't stop someone from using replacement, because there's no physical path, and it's instant."

"Right." Kakashi said slowly, appalled that someone would study the technique so thoroughly. He didn't know of Sunny's inability to let mysteries stay mysteries. "That's why it's such a good technique. But it's difficult to use on anything but inanimate objects, because they have the least amount of chakra..."

"Wrong." said Naruto boldly. "The easiest thing to perform Kawarimi no Jutsu with is..." he made a shadow clone next to him for effect. "...yourself. Because your chakra signatures are identical, it's almost as if there's no switch at all. It barely takes any chakra."

"But the clone itself takes chakra. And the clone can only be where it itself goes."

Naruto smiled. "Wrong again, Kakashi-Sensei." He was on a roll. A big one. "Did you know you can create a shadow clone wherever you can sufficiently focus the chakra? People didn't run tests, but I did when I noticed clones appearing from far away from me whenever I made a lot of them. If you can focus your chakra ten, or even a hundred meters away instead of next to you, you get this." He dispelled his first clone and made two more, one appearing some distance from them, and another appearing far away on the horizon, waving so Kakashi could see him.

Kakashi almost stammered. "That's...that's amazing Naruto..."

Naruto grinned, but put his hand up. "I'm not done yet, Sensei. Now, there are still a couple inherent problems with this. One is the chakra use that a shadow clone takes. To me, it's negligible, but it's still a lot relative to normal techniques. Two is the focus it takes to make one. Even if I were to replace with a newly made clone, it would take me a second total, and a second is fatal in combat."

Kakashi blinked as he heard one of the ANBU rules of combat recited by a mere Genin. "So...?"

Naruto smiled widely, even mischievously. "So? I don't need to use that much chakra. I just need enough hanging around to switch with, and as people have proven with logs, that isn't a lot. Manifesting that much pure chakra outside of myself does take Kage-level reserves, and doing it on a fine point takes wicked control, but lucky for me, I have one and earned the other. I can throw my lingering chakra wherever I want, whenever I want. Do you know what that means?"

Kakashi stared at the boy blankly as he caught up to what Naruto was saying. Naruto's face screwed up in concentration for less than a second, and he vanished, only leaving behind orange-tinted chakra.

Kakashi gasped audibly. "Naruto!" He yelled loudly, catching everyone's attention. The training ninja went silent. Nobody knew what had happened, but a few seconds later, Naruto reappeared on the ground behind Kakashi, laughing his ass off. Kakashi picked the boy up from under his shoulders and shook him almost violently. "Where did you go?! What did you do?" he asked, scared.

"The fourth Hokage didn't put his chakra signature on his seals to protect them." He barely gasped out between his laughs. "Those were his chakra signatures. He figured out how to create his signature through seals and then used replacement to put chakra through them and teleport as his chakra went in his place. That's how he used the Flying Thunder God jutsu. He bypasses the chakra required to switch with by making it on paper!" Naruto was shaking with laughter. Everyone, even his "friends", stared at him. "The most dangerous and revered jutsu of the ninja world is the extension of an E RANKED JUTSU!"

The entire scene felt more and more surreal as he kept on laughing for a good minute. Kakashi put him down, sighing. The Genin started laughing a little with him, although no one but his clones knew what had just happened. Kakashi grabbed the bridge of his nose. When the Hokage heard about this...

"I went to a random point high in the air." Naruto said, answering Kakashi's question. "I teleported, and it hardly took me any chakra. I could do this thousands of times across long distances, and it wouldn't cost me a hundred shadow clones. I believe I've just created the greatest jutsu ever, and guess what? There's more where that came from."

This time, he teleported behind Hinata, tickling her on a spot he knew was sensitive before jumping again to poke Ino's cheek and teleporting away before she even knew he'd touched her. He did this to everyone, teasing them and poking them in places he shouldn't while daring them to catch him, although they knew they couldn't. Oh, they tried, but there was no warning when chakra suddenly solidified into his solid form and then dissolved into chakra again. Soon, the entire training ground was in fits, and Naruto left a shadow clone to do his work and keep them occupied while he watched next to a stunned but otherwise unbothered Kakashi.

Naruto looked at Kakashi after watching his clone fool around for a few minutes. "Remember what I said about three weeks? Scratch that. I meant three weeks without using this technique. Now, I'm going to jump over to the Hokage to ask for a freaking promotion." He vanished, leaving behind his now trademark orange tinge.

Kakashi was about to admonish him for skipping out on training when he realized the clone he'd left was giving now advice to the rest of the Genin. Kakashi smiled. 'Bring peace to the ninja world, huh...it sure doesn't seem that far off now...' He thought to himself idly, and then went back to teaching Rai everything he knew about lightning techniques.