Author's Notes: Ugh, been putting this one off for a while, but I'm back now! Hopefully my (kind of) absence is made up for this slightly longer chapter.

Wow! I can't believe that my story's already been up for a month! Thanks for all your generous reviews, you really rock!

A few people have been requesting for me to change 'Naruto' to 'Minato'. Unfortunately I won't be doing that – and yes, there are actually a few reasons for that, one of them being that 'Minato' still exists in Naruto's mind.

And there can't be two Minatos, right?


"Looks like Kami's against you herself, Naruto," Minato smirked, eliciting a wordless snarl from the younger blonde. "Rasengan not working, hmmm?"

Naruto scowled at him. Minato really had an annoying aspect to his personality. He kicked some water across to the older version of himself. "And what's the reason for that?" Naruto asked, trying not to let his irritation show. He wanted to be able to perform Rasengan, damn it!

Minato stared at him. "Divine intervention," he said finally.

Naruto scowled, and Minato shrugged, raising his hands. "Actually I never figured out why it took so long to make it work. Probably from disuse, or maybe because this body can't handle the Kage Bunshin as well as your original body."

"That doesn't work," Naruto replied. "It only takes one clone to start the Rasengan, and I can create twenty at a time."

"That would have something to do with being a demon host," Minato said thoughtfully, tapping his chin with a finger and supporting his elbow with another hand. "Although some shinobi have the chakra reserves to call upon twenty or so Kage Bunshin, none of them have the capacity to create a clone that is truly independent in thought."

"I make clones almost every day," Naruto answered back acerbically. "They finish all of our D-rank missions, in case you haven't noticed."

Minato slowly shook his head, an irritating smile on his lips. "That wasn't what I meant," he said. "You create the clones, and the clones finish your missions. However, do your clones actually think for themselves?"

A slight shake of the head. A negative.

"The density of demonic chakra affects your own chakra in a way that no one can identify," Minato told him. "It influences your own jutsu. Now with Kyuubi in mind...what do you think it is?"

Naruto was confused. "A fox?" he asked, bemused.

Minato nodded, looking every bit the passionate scientist. "Exactly," he said. "And what are foxes renowned for? Trickery, deception and strength of mind and will."

It was slowly dawning on Naruto. "And with the influence on Kage Bunshin..." he trailed off.

"Yes," Minato replied. "Your Kage Bunshin are modified, leaving you with something better – a shadow clone with the mind of the user."

"So take away the demonic chakra..." Naruto started.

"...and your Kage Bunshins' smarts are gone." Minato finished, crossing his arms. "Hence, you've got a clone with only a vague instruction in mind, and a volatile amount of chakra in your hand. Big boom."

Naruto groaned. "Damn it," he complained. "Now I'll have to learn how to do the Rasengan one handed."

Minato smirked and folded his arms. "And now you see why I took three years to master this thing."


It was with a scowl that Naruto joined his team on his way to the Hokage Tower to receive another mission. Although stewing over the fact that a long three years were ahead of him, a wave from Katsuo and a smile from Kasumi was all that was needed to bring Naruto back from his annoyance.

"Good morning, Team Jiraiya!" Jiraiya exclaimed with enthusiasm. Kasumi looked torn between risking antagonising the Hokage and hitting her sensei and staying still and silent. Being the impetuous and hot-tempered girl she was, she naturally chose the former.

Naruto slapped a hand over his mouth to avoid bursting out in laughter at the scene presented in front of him: a wide eyed Sarutobi seemingly forgetting his pipe and watching Kasumi while Jiraiya nursed a growing bump on his head. There was a noise from Kasumi that sounded suspiciously like "pervert".

"Does she do that to every pervert she sees?" The Third Hokage asked in a stage whisper to nobody in particular.

"Yes," Jiraiya moaned back. Sarutobi gulped, but quickly straightened up. "Ah, the perfect D-rank for a lovely day like this," he said hurriedly. "I'm sure you three will have fun weeding Kiku-san's garden again."

Katsuo rubbed his hands together. "Excellent," he said happily. "Minato can set his clones on her garden and we can fit in some training together!"

Jiraiya nodded. "Perfect time work on some teamwork," he agreed, a grin lighting up his eyes. "It certainly will be useful if I enter you three in the Chunin Exams."


"Are you actually going to enter us, Jiraiya-sensei?" Katsuo asked, tilting his head to one side as the four arrived at a training ground not too far from the garden they were supposed to be weeding. "Or is that just part of some grand plan to work us to death so you can fit in some 'research'?"

Jiraiya looked offended that he had even been asked that question. "Of course not!" he exclaimed. "But there are only two weeks left now, and none of you have given any real reason for me to let you participate."

The three genin looked at each other and smirked in unison. Kasumi was their voice. "We'll work on our solo training for the first half hour," she announced, but then pinned Jiraiya with an evil smile. "But then, we're going to have a spar, the three of us on you, the 'legendary' Toad Sannin."

The identical looks from Kasumi, Katsuo and Naruto were enough to send shivers down Jiraiya's spine. "A-Alright," he stuttered out, waving his arms in a placating manner in front of him. "I'll er...go ahead and get warmed up."

Naruto watched Jiraiya leave before turning back to his own devices. He raised his right arm in front of him, palm up, and was about to initiate the Rasengan when a voice brought him back to reality.

"Oh, Minato, before I go, I'll leave you with these water balloons," Jiraiya's voice sounded next to him. Naruto jerked up out of reflex and looked at Jiraiya with wide eyes. "Don't have a clue as to why you'd want them though," he continued, but smiled and left a bag of water balloons standing next to Naruto.

Naruto's mind was spinning. Who could have asked Jiraiya to give him the balloons? He hadn't told anyone about the process of Rasengan, not even the Sandaime Hokage, to whom he had just given the basics of his time.

Who else knew about his secret? The very thought was chilling. Was Naruto about to change the course of time?

The water balloons continued to stare up at him innocently, and Naruto snapped out of his contemplation in order to fill them all up with water from a nearby stream located in the training ground his team was in.

Naruto held the brightly coloured balloon in his hand, ignoring the raised-eyebrow looks from his teammates and started swirling the water to the left, forehead creasing in concentration.

Even one direction was hard to maintain. Naruto had to keep a thread of focus for every single different direction he wanted the water to rotate, and he was struggling to keep the one rotation going already. In what seemed like hours, but was in reality only a few minutes, Naruto kept the one rotation moving. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

Finally, he stopped, exhausted. The nagging pull of the chakra Naruto had expended on the shadow clones plus the extreme chakra control he had to manipulate for the Rasengan had left him worn out. He burst the balloon with a tight squeeze of his hand, and let the cold water splash all over his face before dropping the balloon back into the bag.

"Don't tell me – that's part of your new jutsu, too?" Kasumi asked dryly, looking at the water balloons and then back at Naruto. "And you look exhausted. In about ten minutes, we're going to spar with Jiraiya-sensei. Have you forgotten that already, Minato?"

Naruto grunted in response, brushing his dripping bangs out of his eyes. "Just give me a moment," he mumbled, collapsing onto the grass beneath a tree. A Kage Bunshin dispelled itself from its job at Kiku's garden, informing Naruto that his clones had finished their job. They slowly dispelled one by one, making sure not to overload Naruto's brain and filling him with chakra as they dispersed.

A few minutes later, Naruto sat up again. He had caught his breath again and was now quietly meditating on the shady ground, cooling himself down in preparation for the fight ahead.

Jiraiya appeared right on time with a Shunshin, although he didn't take any of his genin by surprise. "Hey," was all he said in greeting. Katsuo lurched to his feet and cracked his knuckles while Kasumi redid her hair into a tight bun, none of it escaping to hinder her field of vision. Naruto stood up and flashed a smile at Jiraiya, who smiled back nervously in response. Obviously he had still not quite gotten over his fear of Kasumi.

"Okay, here are the rules," Jiraiya announced. "As soon as the clock hits twelve noon, we stop. That means you have an hour to try and win. I win if I incapacitate or knock unconscious all three of you. You win if you incapacitate or knock me unconscious. Revival of unconscious teammates and releasing out of action teammates is allowed. Everything is allowed except for fatal attacks. Everyone got it? Got any questions?"

Kasumi smiled. "When do we start?" she asked. Jiraiya jumped back, his arm already reaching for a kunai.

"Now."

Jiraiya made a hand seal and simply...disappeared.

Naruto's eyes widened and he barely had time to shout out a warning before the white haired Sannin was in front of Katsuo, arm cocking back for a punch. Jiraiya certainly wasn't pulling his shots this time.

Katsuo reacted instinctively, jumping backwards with a chakra enhanced leap, but a little too late. Jiraiya's punch clipped him, sending the brown haired boy reeling.

Kasumi turned to Naruto and nodded slightly to him. Naruto inclined his head, signalling her that he understood. He ran over to Kasumi so they were standing side by side and began a sealing sequence.

"Katon: Karyū Endan!" A nearly white hot flame came blasting from Naruto's mouth, in a straight line towards Jiraiya. The Sannin merely dodged out of the way, not expending the chakra to directly counteract the jutsu.

Five shuriken came spinning out of the flames extremely fast, glowing red hot from the fire attack that Naruto had just used. Jiraiya's eyes widened in surprise, but he simply deflected them all with a kunai.

Katsuo, who had recovered from Jiraiya's punch, drew six glittering senbon from his holster, three in each hand. Jiraiya's head immediately swivelled towards him, although he still kept a wary eye on Kasumi and Naruto.

Katsuo flung the senbon at Jiraiya, who prepared to deflect the projectiles again, but at that moment both Kasumi and Naruto acted.

"Senbon Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

"Senbon Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Six senbon suddenly became sixty. Jiraiya lifted his kunai, but he looked around at the approaching senbon in apprehension. He did not have any way to differentiate between the real senbon and the fake, and his three students had already disappeared from view, probably hoping to catch him when he was busy getting rid of the flying needles. Jiraiya scowled. It looked like he had to use a ninjutsu already.

"Doton: Doryūheki." Jiraiya spat the mud from his mouth hurriedly, hoping it would solidify in time. The earth wall hardened just in time, and the Sannin could hear the multiple senbon lodging themselves into the wall. Jiraiya had no doubt that if he had stayed still, all of the needles would have hit.

Naruto had been counting on Jiraiya to create the strongest possible wall – and therefore, blocking out most sound from the other side. Unbeknownst to Team Jiraiya's sensei, the three genin had not actually run away from their starting location. Katsuo had merely cast a genjutsu over Jiraiya. In addition to the flying senbon covering quite a bit of his vision, the illusion had been easy to pull off.

Now Naruto prepared a jutsu that he had learnt from a scroll taken from Konoha Library a while ago. He thanked his foresight in listening to Jiraiya in one of his lectures about nature manipulation.

"Raiton: Jibashi!" A wave of electricity shot from Naruto's hands, easily tearing into Jiraiya's shield of solidified mud. Behind the wall, Jiraiya showed exactly why he deserved the title of Sannin by jumping away with moments to spare, and at the same time launching a water jutsu in the general direction of the three genin. Naruto immediately stopped the flow of lightning, knowing that as soon as the juts hit them, he would be fried as the jutsu backfired.

The three scattered, not willing to get wet and disorientated. Jiraiya used this time to breathe out fireballs at them, still suspended in the air. Kasumi easily dodged them, having ample time to determine their trajectory.

However, she didn't expect one of the fireballs to have kunai and shuriken flying in its shadow, and a shallow slice appeared on her upper arm, making the kunoichi cry out in surprise.

"Minato! Katsuo! There are kunai in some of them!" she called to her teammates, taking careful note of each fireball that rained down on her.

Jiraiya landed gracefully, landing in a low crouch and ready to meet any attacks. Naruto smirked. All four of them looked slightly worse for the wear – the genin having singe marks on their clothes as well as Kasumi's slightly bleeding arm while Jiraiya was looking only a little fatigued, although with his clothes slightly blackened from contact with Naruto's lightning jutsu.

He grinned at them. "Only forty minutes left," he beamed, cracking his knuckles and slowly straightened up. Katsuo stiffened, expecting another lightning fast attack, but Jiraiya only walked forwards slowly.

Impatient, it was Kasumi who broke the tense atmosphere first, flinging shuriken without abandon at Jiraiya, who made a single snake seal.

"Hari Jizō." The Sannin's white hair suddenly lengthened and wrapped around his body, hardening and forming spikes. The rain of shuriken all but bounced off the harder than steel hair.

Without warning, the hair shrunk back to its normal shape, and Jiraiya was once again open to the world. Quickly moving again, he took a leap and landed directly behind Kasumi. Before she had a chance to react, Jiraiya's hand snaked out and hit a pressure point at the base of her neck. Kasumi collapsed wordlessly.

"Kasumi!" the shout came from both male genin, who turned around in unison to stare at Jiraiya with murderous intent. Jiraiya gulped a bit. Katsuo ran over to Kasumi in an attempt to wake her up, but it was a futile attempt as he heard a distinctive whistle in the air as several kunai raced towards him. Eyes widening, Katsuo prepared to deflect them although he knew it was too late already.

Salvation came in the form of Naruto, who stepped in front of his two teammates and easily dispatched the metal projectiles.

Katsuo focused his chakra and went into a specialised taijutsu stance, his hands glowing green with medical chakra. Clearly, he wasn't fooling around at all. Naruto fell into step with him, arms raised in a poised position.

"Bunshin no Jutsu." Lots of Jiraiyas flickered to life, and Katsuo's eyes darted around, confidence suddenly wavering. However, Naruto had learned the trick to clones in his previous time, and knew how to differentiate between clone and original.

"Stay back," he whispered to Katsuo, who looked like he wanted to rebel. However, one look at Naruto's eyes showed him that Naruto knew what he was doing, and he let him move forwards, albeit reluctantly. Katsuo wanted to rip into Jiraiya as well for hurting Kasumi, after all.

Naruto's eyes carefully tracked all ten of the clones, keeping an eye out for the insubstantial clones' distinctive traits – not kicking up any dirt, and especially noting the distinguishing lack of grass crunching beneath their feet.

He grinned inwardly to himself as he found the real Jiraiya – the only one changing the landscape around him – but he launched himself at a fake anyway. As soon as he was surrounded by the Bunshin, Naruto made a few shadow clones and switched himself with one of them, landing outside the ring of Jiraiya's clones. He used a Doton jutsu, melting into the earth, and suppressed his chakra as well as he could before re-emerging again behind Jiraiya.

His trick didn't work. Jiraiya sensed him as soon as he appeared from below the ground – what was it that alerted the white haired Sannin to his presence? – and used a grappling move to throw Naruto to the ground a few metres away from here, almost next to Katsuo again. There was a poof of smoke, and two Kage Bunshin launched themselves at both Naruto and Katsuo, pressing the tip of a kunai into their backs.

Jiraiya smirked from his position a few metres away from them. "Looks like I win, boys," he crowed, grinning like a maniac. Katsuo looked mildly annoyed that the spar was over, but Naruto lifted his head from the ground, wincing at the uncomfortable sensation of a kunai held to his back.

"Not so fast," he replied, and motioned for Jiraiya to look behind him. As soon as he did so, Naruto replaced himself with a nearby log without any seals, and kicked the shadow clone pinning him down. It dispelled in a cloud of smoke.

Then he turned back to Jiraiya, who was looking rather disgruntled with a Kage Bunshin tapping his neck idly with the flat side of a kunai.

"When did you make it?" Jiraiya asked finally, motioning towards the clone behind him. Naruto smirked right back at him, rather pleased that he had outwitted the Sannin. "After you had me surrounded with Bunshin, I used the Kage Bunshin technique and replaced myself with one. The other one remained hidden while the first kept your attention with your own clones."

Katsuo was looking at him with something akin to wonder on his face, but it was quickly replaced by a grin. "Well, it looks like we won then, Jiraiya-sensei," he told Jiraiya. "You're incapacitated, and Minato's free."

Jiraiya shook his head with mock sadness. "Katsuo-kun, I don't believe you have observed closely yet," he said, smiling. He used a free hand to point behind the two boys, who looked.

A wide awake Kasumi was glaring at another Jiraiya clone, who held a kunai to her neck.

"In a real life situation, you three would all be dead," Jiraiya told them. "Which means I win, of course."

Kasumi scowled. "You twisted the rules around, you pervert!" she yelled back brazenly. "Just 'cause you know you lost, doesn't mean you have to be a sore loser about it!"

Jiraiya wiped a tear from his eye and dispelled all of his shadow clones at the same time as Naruto.

"Kasumi's right, you know," Katsuo informed him, rubbing his arms a bit. "You are a sore loser."

"Aaah," Jiraiya lamented, "everyone's against me!"

"You're buying lunch, sensei," Kasumi said cheerfully as she slung an arm around her teammates' shoulders. "You said so before, at least."

Jiraiya looked confused. "I did?" he asked blankly, his mind coming up with nothing. "No I didn't!"

"Did so!" the retort came from all three genin, and they looked at each other, surprised. Jiraiya sniffed and looked at his wallet. "My poor money," he groaned, looking woeful. Naruto snorted.

"Like hell," he answered right back. "You make enough money as it is writing all those dirty novels." Naruto distinctly remembered looking at Jiraiya's cheque book and later complaining to him about all his money.

Kasumi looked appalled. "That's...that's just...!" she trailed off, looking murderously at Jiraiya. "Is that true?!"

Jiraiya rubbed the back of his neck nervously and laughed. "Er...how about we get to that lunch, huh?" he hurriedly interjected. A tidal wave of relief broke over Jiraiya as Kasumi didn't bother to pick up her rant again.


"Now, I'm sure all of you understand why I have summoned you today," Sarutobi said, pipe firmly wedged in between his teeth. The assorted jounin all nodded in return to the Hokage's statement.

"The Chunin Exams are in two weeks time," the Sandaime answered himself. "All of you here today are a jounin sensei to a genin cell. I would like to ask you all if you would wish to enter your students."

A grey haired jounin with gravity defying hair in spikes stepped up. "I, Hatake Sakumo, nominate my genin team for the Chunin Exams."

The chunin instructor Takuma, who was sitting next to the Sandaime Hokage with a clipboard, jotted something down quickly and gave a nod to Sarutobi. "Next," he called. Out of the corner of his eye, Sarutobi noticed Jiraiya joining the line of jounin signing up their genin for the exams.

"I, Jiraiya of the Sannin would like to nominate my genin team for the Chunin Exams," he declared in a loud voice. There were several mutters from all around him.

"...rookies! How could..."

"...irresponsible, I just..."

"...they're just...!"

Takuma watched Jiraiya speculatively.

"Jiraiya," Sarutobi began, taking out his pipe. "I hope you understand the consequences of nominating your students. No matter how talented, they are, after all, just rookies, green ninja to the field. As you can see, none of your fellow rookie instructors have nominated their teams."

Jiraiya snorted. "With all due respect, Sarutobi-sensei, I think I would know if my team was ready for the exams or not. I've trained these kids well, sensei. They're as well prepared as they can get."

Sarutobi hesitated, and then glanced at Takuma. "Very well," he replied. "Next."

Mutters once again broke out in the room, but Sarutobi forcefully silenced them.

"Enough!" he said, casting his glance around the room. The jounin instructors looked slightly abashed at their show of immaturity. Honestly! They were gossiping like old women.

"How many countries are participating in this Chunin Exam?" a jounin asked from the middle of the crowd. Once again, Sarutobi glanced at Takuma, who sighed and stood up, clasping his hands behind his back.

"This year, there are many competitors. Competing are two teams from Ame, one team from Kusa, one team from Suna, three teams from Iwa, two teams from Kumo and none from Kiri."

Disbelieving murmurs ran around the room. "So many?" someone called out. Sarutobi nodded.

"That is true," he replied. "I believe we can expect a great deal of visitors from these countries, and quite a few Kage for our final tournament. You understand what this means, of course."

"Tightened security – a heck of a lot more tightened though," another person muttered. The Hokage nodded approvingly at him.

"If that is all...?" he asked. No one else stepped forward to nominate their team.

"Dismissed then," he ordered. "May your teams do well."

Outside the Hokage Tower, Jiraiya frowned. There were representatives from nearly all of the major shinobi countries, which would undoubtedly make tensions run high between the countries. After all, were the chunin exams not an alternative for war?

Added to that, what he had noticed about Iwa recently...this definitely bore looking into. Jiraiya would have to have a serious talk with his team soon.


Author's Notes: Yay, lots of action in this chapter, and lots of lovely little jutsu to decipher. Note: I did make up both senbon jutsu. I thought, 'what the heck, if you can make shadow clones of a shuriken, you can do it with other stuff like kunai and senbon.'

About Sakumo as a pre-emptive answer: Why not? His team will be soon revealed anyway.

Comments, reviews, constructive criticism, suggestions and corrections (wow the list just gets longer and longer) are appreciated and helpful. Hopefully you all liked my explanation about Rasengan – but don't worry, more will be explained...later.

What I really like doing is continually making use of the Bunshin technique. I mean, the clone is one of the three VITAL academy techniques – the others being transformation and substitution. What you don't see in the series is anyone (apart from Sakura, who really doesn't know anything else) using the Bunshin again after graduating. How annoying! Sometimes the simplest things can affect the outcome of a battle after all...

Oops, didn't mean to go on a tirade there. /rant end.

-Dream Keys

Kami – God

Rasengan – Spiralling Sphere

Kage Bunshin – Shadow Clone

Shunshin – Body Flicker

Katon: Karyū Endan: Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Missile

Senbon Kage Bunshin no Jutsu: Senbon Shadow Clone Technique

Senbon Bunshin no Jutsu: Senbon Clone Technique

Doton: Doryūheki: Earth Release: Earth Style Wall

Raiton: Jibashi: Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder

Hari Jizō: Needle Jizo

Bunshin no Jutsu: Clone Technique

Kage: Shadow (in this case, the leader of a Hidden Village)